Szlachta

The Polish nobility ( "szlachta") were in effect perhaps Europe's first politically effective national middle class. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Franciszek Jerzy Kulczycki (1640-1694) (his name often rendered in German as Kolschitzky) was a member of Polish szlachta of Ukrainian origin and of orthodox faith, merchant, spy, diplomat and soldier. ❋ De Brantigny........................ (2008)

He was able to make use of a rift between the great nobles (magnates) and the gentry (szlachta). ❋ Unknown (2001)

Boleslav completed the organization of the state, in which the great landlords (nobiles, or magnates) and gentry (milites, knights, or szlachta) had become well-defined social classes, the peasantry having steadily lost ground in the periods of confusion. ❋ Unknown (2001)

As for the Polish Counter-Reformation, although the militant Vasa monarchy and the Jesuits would not have been adverse to using the coercive power of the state, neither the traditions of the szlachta nor those of the Roman Catholic episcopacy, hostile in principle to forced conversion because of its earlier experience with the Teutonic Knights, would allow this. ❋ Kasparek, Jozef (1984)

Nonetheless, after a generation or two, the movement withered away leaving few traces behind it (except for the German Lutheran cities of the north); and this occurred, not because the movement was persecuted out of existence, but because its principal sponsors, the independent-minded szlachta, abandoned it for a revived, populistic Catholicism as a result of the crisis of national survival produced by the mid-seventeenth-century Swedish invasion, the "Deluge." ❋ Kasparek, Jozef (1984)

The _szlachta_, who formed about a tenth of the population of the country, were legally all of equal rank (p. 100); as a matter of fact, differences of property created great social and even (in practice) political distinctions between them. ❋ Adam Mickiewicz (1826)

Hence the Constitution of May 3, 1791, excluded _szlachta_ not holding land from the right to vote. — ❋ Adam Mickiewicz (1826)

The country population was divided into the _szlachta_, or freemen, who fought the battles of the country and in whom was vested the entire political power, and the _chlopi_, or peasants, who were serfs, and cultivated the estates of the _szlachta_. ❋ Adam Mickiewicz (1826)

Constitution introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility (szlachta) and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. ❋ Unknown (2010)

The Constitution introduced political equality between townspeople and nobility (szlachta) and placed the peasants under the protection of the government, thus mitigating the worst abuses of serfdom. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Often, the [szlachta] leased churches to Jews, who were charging money for entering the church, and then part of the money received was taken by the szlachta. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The szlachta aimed at catholicizing the Ukrainian and Belarusian populations and breaking off their ties with the Russian people. ❋ Unknown (2009)

(See 1447) (See 1612) (See 1650) The history of Poland in this period was marked by a constant growth of power by the lesser nobility, so that Poland became transformed into a republic of the gentry (szlachta) (Rzeczpospolita) with an elected king as the titular head. ❋ Unknown (2001)

Nor was the blow against the Polish Brethren very harsh when it came: they were expelled for treason more than for heresy, since they had in fact collaborated with the Swedes more obdurately during the Deluge than the average of the szlachta; they were given three years to turn their belongings into movable form; and the related though more moderate Czech Brethren of Commenius were soon allowed to return — a treatment anodyne in comparison to the vast number of expulsions and deprivations of property carried out almost contemporaneously by Louis XIV against the Huguenots or by Cromwell against Irish papists. ❋ Kasparek, Jozef (1984)

_szlachta_ and _szlachcic_ have usually been rendered as _nobility_ and ❋ Adam Mickiewicz (1826)