Jagiellon rule had provided greenhouse conditions for the growth of parliamentary institutions. At the death of Kazimierz the Great in 1370, Poland had been in advance of most European countries in this respect, but only 150 years later it had surpassed even England. The power of the crown was so hamstrung by a series of checks and balances that it could never be used arbitrarily. The Sejm had taken over all legislative functions. The degree of representation, with some 7 per cent of the population having a vote, would not be bettered until the British Reform Act of 1832. Yet the basis of Polish democracy was flawed at the outset, as the running had been made exclusively by the noble estate, the szlachta, and this was as restricted in its interests as it was varied in its make-up.
One cannot substitute the terms ‘nobility’ or ‘gentry’ for szlachta because it had little in common with those classes in other European countries either in origin, composition or outlook. Its origins remain obscure. Polish coats of arms are utterly unlike those of other European nobles, and lend weight to the theory that the szlachta was of Sarmatian origin. They were also held in common by groups of families, which suggests clan-based origins. The attitude of the szlachta begs analogies with the Rajputs of India or the Samurai of Japan. Like both of these, and unlike any other gentry in Europe, the szlachta was not limited by nor did it depend for its status on either wealth, or land, or royal writ. It was defined by its function, that of a warrior caste, and characterised by mutual solidarity and contempt for others.
‘The Polish gentry,’ writes the contemporary historian Długosz, ‘are eager for glory, keen on the spoils of war, contemptuous of danger and death, inconstant in their promises, hard on their subjects and people of the lower orders, careless in speech, used to living beyond their means, faithful to their monarch, devoted to farming and cattle-breeding, courteous to foreigners and guests, lavish in hospitality, in which they exceed other nations.’ But the outlook of the szlachta was changing, largely under the influence of economic factors.
The Vistula and its tributaries provided a natural conduit for all Poland’s overseas trade, effortlessly concentrating the country’s agricultural produce at the port of Gdańsk. This was also the point of entry for imports, of herrings from Scandinavia, salt from western France, and cloth from Holland, Flanders and England. The Teutonic Order had used its position straddling the lower Vistula to promote its own exports at the expense of Polish trade and to impose heavy duties on inbound goods. Its defeat and removal from the area in 1466 altered the situation radically. Trade with England through Gdańsk quadrupled, and by the end of the century the number of ships calling there had risen to eight hundred a year, most of them bound for Bruges.
Increased demand for grain as populations grew in western Europe raised prices, while the rapid expansion of seaborne trade pushed up those of timber and other forest produce by some 4,000 per cent. Polish landowners responded by intensifying production. Meadows were drained, scrub woods cut back, and acreages under cultivation increased, but while there was no lack of land available, there was a shortage of people to work it.
Most szlachta estates were worked by peasant tenants who paid part of their rent in labour. The size of their holdings and the rent varied enormously around the country, but as a general illustration one can take an example from 1400: the annual rent for a unit of seventeen hectares (forty-two acres) was fifteen
The dramatic fall in the value of the coinage in the early 1400s halved the real value of money-rent received from tenants, while the productivity of a day’s work did not fluctuate. And money was useless to the landlord in view of the shortage of casual labour in the countryside, exacerbated by the drift of the poorest peasants to the towns. It therefore made sense for the landlords to transform
money-rent into purely labour-rent: they needed cheap labour they could depend on in order to develop what was turning into a cash-crop agricultural economy, and they used their political muscle to ensure they got it.