Szlachta

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A Polish nobleman (Szlachcic) in Sarmatian dress , 17th century

The Szlachta [ʂlaxta] , listen to ? / i (from the old German slahta "gender" or Polish Szlachcic and z lachciców "from the Lachites ") is the Polish name for the entirety of the Polish nobility. This included the powerful magnates (the Polish high nobility ) as well as the - very widespread - small country and city nobility. Audio file / audio sample

term

Often the Szlachta in everyday language is reduced to the Polish landed nobility or small nobility, which is not the case. The Szlachta took an exceptional position in Europe because, depending on the region, it comprised 8-15% of the population and dominated politics, society and the economy in the Kingdom of Poland so much that the kingdom was transformed into an aristocratic republic . At the height of a deadly for the body politic Adelsomnipotenz they subsumed in Sarmatentum all of the rights that had fallen to her through the centuries, the term " Golden freedom " and made it the core concept of Polish constitutional history . The fact that every sixth Pole was a petty aristocrat towards the end of the 18th century has a lasting impact on the consciousness of the modern Polish nation, as has the self-critical question of whether it might not have been precisely this dominance of the nobility - the aristocratic republic's constitution and inability to reform, which is determined by class egoism which led to its demise between 1772 and 1795.

The Szlachta played an exceptionally large role in Polish society well into the 20th century and shaped Polish culture deeply through its presence, behavior and mentality . All noble privileges were abolished in 1945 by the reintroduction of the March constitution of 1921 .

Organization of the nobility

Polish nobles in their traditional costume (17th century)

The organization of the nobility was democratic. Nominally, all nobles in the "Royal Republic" were equal and thus equal to each other. All were citizens with equal rights, had the right to always carry arms and had sole voting and election rights for the Sejm (the aristocratic parliament ). Their possessions were unrestricted property of themselves. The aristocratic class was uniformly and legally clearly defined, this was based on the descent from a noble family.

In principle, there was an equality of the nobility in terms of economic, legal and political privileges. Nevertheless, there were two classes: the small nobility and the magnates (high nobility). There were no titles, but they addressed each other differently. When a representative from the lower nobility met a higher-ranking nobleman, he greeted him with "Revered Lord", who replied "Lord". If two from the same shift met, they greeted each other with "brother".

The Sejm was held in the open air for the election of Stanislaus II August Poniatowski as a king in 1764

In 1182 the members of the Sejm passed the first rules to counteract the absolutist tendencies of the monarchs. Until the 15th century, meetings and deliberations were held irregularly and only convened on important occasions. The Sejm has existed in its institutionalized form today since 1493. Since then, regular meetings have been held every two years for six weeks, with special meetings being possible for important occasions. The Sejm's area of ​​competence included the election of the king ( elective monarchy ) and tax policy. The higher chamber (Senate) consisted of the highest dignitaries and bishops, the lower (Sejm) of members of parliament who were sent by the parliaments of individual provinces ( Sejmiks ). Only representatives of the landed aristocracy (the Szlachta), who made up up to 15 percent of the population and who, regardless of their material status, held all civil rights in today's sense, had passive and active voting rights.

Because of the right to vote of all petty nobles, the magnates always had to endeavor to obtain sufficient support for their interests policy. They sometimes achieved this through payments, which is why elections for kings were often bought at enormous expense, sometimes through coercion that they exerted on the economically dependent "peasant nobility" and their unpaid military followers.

coat of arms

Around 1200 the nobility began to use coats of arms . In contrast to the rest of Europe, however, there were no family coats of arms , but about 160 to 170 coats of arms communities (pln. Rody herbowe ), so that the same coats of arms were used by several families. Most of the heraldic communities remained in existence until 1815.

Nobility title

In order to belong to the nobility, one had to prove the noble birth since 1347, and since 1412 also the authorization to use a coat of arms.

From the Middle Ages until 1569 there were no hereditary titles of nobility in Poland . The titles of the chief officials, Comes ( Count ), and the members of the Royal Council, Baro ( Baron ), were not hereditary. Attempts to make the titles (office and designation) hereditary in families were thwarted by King Władysław I. Ellenlang (1260-1333) and the Sejm .

In 1496 the aristocracy was banned from all occupations except agriculture and arms service. Some of the state estates were parceled out and, in order to secure the social position of the nobility, assigned to poorer and landless nobles. This is how the aristocratic villages came into being, especially in central and eastern Poland . It is not uncommon for 20 to 30 noble families to live in a village. These villages with their traditions still exist today, for example in the Siedlce or Suwałki area , but also in the Mazovia region . Other aristocratic villages were owned by Tatar families , whose ancestors fought on Poland's side in the many wars in Eastern Europe against Russia or the Golden Horde and were ennobled for it. The Tartars kept their Muslim traditions and you can still see villages with small mosques in the Suwałki area.

Many members of the nobility only owned a small piece of land around 1700, as the farms became smaller and smaller through inheritance divisions . It was joked that the lots were so small that the dog's tail was already on the neighbor's land. Many country nobility did not even have that, but lived with their horse, armor and saber on the farm of a magnate.

As a result of this development, significant differences arose within the “single nobility”. There was a class of very rich magnates , which was considerably strengthened after the union with Lithuania , a wealthy middle class and the great majority of the small nobility, the nobiles pauperes , from which the court nobility of the magnates came.

Political significance of the nobility

As early as the 15th century, the minor nobility achieved greater political importance. In several statutes, in particular in the statute of Nieszawa , it was stated that the king had to consult the Szlachta before important decisions such as changes to the law and army conscription. In 1505 at the Reichstag in Radom these rights were documented. In the 16th century many nobles first secretly and from 1548 publicly accepted the Protestant faith. An important reason was the overwhelming feudal power of the Catholic Church , which most disliked. In 1555 at the Diet of Piotrkow, ecclesiastical jurisdiction over non-Catholics was abolished. Of the MPs, 70 were Catholics (55 lay and 15 bishops), 58 were Protestants and 2 were Orthodox.

In the Polish royal elections, the lower nobility were wooed by the candidates or their supporters with money and alcohol. Every single nobleman, even one who was completely impoverished, could use his veto to overthrow any motion in the Sejm . In the course of this development in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish state was robbed of its political capacity to act.

In addition, the aristocracy provided the aristocracy , whose military value was reduced to a domestic political pressure with the introduction of standing armies . If something displeased the nobility, they formed a - for a limited time - confederation , which often led to civil war-like unrest. In many cases the (petty) nobility was divided and vacillated between the positions of the magnate families and their party formations. In some cases, however, he was able to put the elected King of Poland or a magnate party in their place. Examples of this are the uprising of the Tarnogród Confederation from 1715 to 1716 against the Wettin King August II ("the Strong") during the Saxon period , which was only ended by energetic Russian "mediation" in the so-called Mute Sejm of 1717 and the disempowerment of the The Sapieha magnate family in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1700.

Surname of the Szlachta

Dedication of the Architectura Practica by Johann Christoph von Naumann (1736) to Alexander Joseph Sulkowski , "Reichsgraf, Jägermeister of Lithuania and Starost von Sockolnick" - Count in the Reich , incumbent in Poland

With the consolidation of a completely separate birth status, the Szlachta took on their own family names from their possessions for the first time in the course of the 15th century, in Wielkopolska even in the 14th century. As an outward sign of its noble origin, coats of arms or coat of arms names were retained and since then the narrower family name has been added to distinguish it from the other branches of the coat of arms.

A rough three-way division can be identified:

  • Family name, formed from a characteristic nickname (for example kot (cat), żaba (frog), kiełbasa (sausage) or kostka ( little bones)
  • Family names, derived from the first name of a famous ancestor with the final syllable -icz (for example Adamowicz, Krzysztofowicz and Narbuttowicz . The same group also includes those family names with the shortened form, e.g. Moniuszko (instead of Moniuszkowicz), Radziwiłł (instead of Radziwiłłowicz))
  • Family names, formed after the place of origin or the family property with the adjective final syllable -ski or -cki [t͡ski] (for example Lubowski, Lubocki and Narożnicki .)

The last-mentioned family name group is the most widespread in Poland and caused the most frequent misunderstandings in non-Polish judicature and literature on the subject of Polish noble names. It was not created until after 1500. As a rule, the family names in -ski or -cki are derived from the name of the place where the family had their property. The name of the coat of arms was linked to the respective name of the property by the Latin de or the Polish z (in German from ), based on the western tradition of names relating to the headquarters . So called z. B. Jan of the coat of arms Jastrzębiec Jan de Byki or Jan z Byków (genitive). His environment also characterized him by the place name transformed into an adjective as Pan Bykowski (in German "Herr Bykow er ") and finally quite simply as Bykowski - a name that passed on to the descendants, provided that the ancestor from which the name was based remained settled and not assumed new names after other newly taken over places (e.g. Marcin ze Siecina first Marcin Sieciński (Martin [the] Sieciner) and after marrying into the Krasiczyn estate then Marcin Krasicki ).

However, this rule experienced some considerable variations:

  • The aristocratic village (Polish: zaścianki , okolice ) Several small aristocratic families who were not related by blood and who derived their descent from different heraldic families often settled here. They all named themselves after the same place, which resulted in unrelated noble families of the same name that differed only in their coat of arms. So they all had the same name of origin on different coats of arms. That was the case in Mazovia , the colonization area of Masuria , Podlachia , Lukow , Samogitia and Central Lithuania .
  • Place names with terms from rural fauna and flora (such as "horses", Polish konie -> Konarski; "cattle", Polish byki -> Bykowski). As owners of these scattered villages of the same name, members of different heraldic families came into question. For example, a Bykowski of the Jastrzębiec coat of arms somewhere in Poland-Lithuania corresponded to a Bykowski of the Dołęga coat of arms. They all happened to have identical names of origin, but were not related to each other due to their different coats of arms.
  • The same coat of arms names for different adjectival family names. This is due to the fact that, as a result of the principle of inheritance, brothers often had different possessions and therefore called themselves differently. The Tarnowski, Jarosławski and Rzeszowski families , for example, can be traced back to three brothers ( descending from the Leliwa family) who took their names from the inherited estates Tarnów , Jarosław and Rzeszów . In this way, individual heraldic tribes branched out into numerous lines with different family names. The Lubicz coat of arms z. E.g. there are 284 families and the Jastrzębiec coat of arms is shared by 500 families.
  • Family names of noble families, which were also borne by the rural and middle-class population. Although the majority of peasant and civil names have no equivalent in noble names of the same name, the explanation for this lies in the fact that the servants were obviously characterized by their surroundings with the same adjective designation of origin as their rulership. B. the servants of the Bykower Bykowski . After the partitions of Poland , in 49 cases, senatorial families could refer to bourgeois or rural namesakes.

In this respect, family names in Polish are not aristocratic names because they say nothing about the class belonging to their bearers. Based on the family name, it cannot be said whether you are dealing with a bourgeois, rural or noble family. That is why the addition of the coat of arms or gender name to the family name must be seen as the only reference in the name to a noble descent.

Ennobled neophytes in the Szlachta

According to Chapter 12, Article 7, Clause 12 of III. According to the Lithuanian statute of 1588 , neophytes (newly baptized Jews, Karaites , Tatars) and their descendants were to be included in the Szlachta and thus effectively ennobled . However, this regulation initially remained meaningless because hardly anyone went to baptism for this reason alone.

A special situation arose in 1764 in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . After Pastor Józef Stefan Turczynowicz, with the help of his Mariawitki Order, founded in 1737, developed a generous missionary activity throughout the Grand Duchy and achieved greater success for the first time in the field of Jewish conversion, it became apparent that only Jewish girls and women could be converted with Caritas alone. In order to attract male Jews to baptism, Turczynewicz, together with influential Polish nobles, obtained a decree from King Stanislaus II August Poniatowski , according to which the distinguished neophytes among his baptized persons were raised to the nobility. If the Jew was regarded by Polish society as an inferior being, the Church should now prove that through nawrócenie (Polish, conversion) the barriers to social inequality were lifted and the Jews were socially accepted by the higher Polish classes (civil servants and nobility ) are assimilated. A total of 52 distinguished neophytes of Turczynewicz's "children" who, with the exception of a few (such as Theodor Dessau, who comes from Germany), all came from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and today, according to church registers in Jeśke-Choiński's book Neofici Polscy (The Neophytes of Poland), p. 21-24 are listed, were ennobled by King Stanisław II August Poniatowski between 1764 and 1765 in the Szlachta. They mostly held high offices (e.g. lieutenant colonel in the Polish Crown Army ) and formed the basis of an influential group within the Polish aristocracy in the 19th century that played a leading role in society, such as the Dobrowolski, Dziokowski, and Jeleński families and Szymański .

While Turczynewicz developed a wide range of activities in the Grand Duchy with the Mariawitki Order, in 1759 a Jewish movement itself had given the impetus for a strong baptismal movement, Frankism . It is true that the founder, Jakob Joseph Frank, was initially far from leading the Jews to baptism, but as a result of overly complicated circumstances he was gradually led to take this step. Just as Shabbtai Zvi threw himself into the lap of Islam more as a result of external circumstances , so did the Frankists, who today still take their names from Kwieciński ( baptism in April, Polish kwiecień ), Majewski (baptism in May), Krzyżanowski, Krysiński ( derived from "cross") or Wołowski (translation from Hebrew). The Polish historian Aleksander Kraushar suspects that among the distinguished neophytes ennobled in 1764 and 1765 were some Frankists. Jeśke-Choiński thinks this is impossible.

In 1764 there was heated controversy at the Szlachta over the "neophyte question". Old fears of existence awoke. The Polish petty nobles worried about the rights of the nobility. The problems were discussed in the small sejms of the provinces before the convocation sejm met in Warsaw in May 1764. In this debate, racism triumphed, as the Szlachta intended to introduce different rights between native nobles and baptized Jews. Those who wanted to live in the cities should not be given a noble title, but should be viewed as normal city citizens. The Konvokationssejm therefore decided to give the neophytes and their descendants the choice of either joining the bourgeoisie (in order to enjoy the same privileges as the city nobility) or settling down as farmers who pay tribute to the landlord . Baptized Jews who held state offices “for lack of knowledge of their parentage” should be relieved of this. Noble families of Jewish origin were appalled by the new laws. They tried to win the Sejm delegates for their rights for the Coronation Sejm, which also met in 1764. Presumably, church representatives or noble godfathers of the neophytes also stood up for their protégés, and the coronation sejm finally withdrew some of the resolutions. According to the Lithuanian Statute, those residing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and those baptized before 1764 should not be affected by the restrictions.

The Szlachta after the partitions of Poland

With the partitions of Poland there was a great change in the situation of the Szlachta. The dividing powers demanded the proof of nobility again. Many impoverished petty nobility could not prove their origin and thus lost their nobility. The petty nobility was disempowered, but retained its traditions and formed the backbone of the subsequent Polish national uprisings.

The former petty nobles helped each other and also worked with those who had retained their titles. So it happened that the dividing powers had to give in to the pressure of the allied aristocracy and most of the aristocrats had to reassign the nobility. The petty aristocrats, whose nobility had not been revoked, were mostly also accepted into the nobility of the respective occupying power, i.e. the Prussian, Russian or Austrian nobility , and were given the nobility title “von” there; in so far as it was a matter of wealthy or deserving families, they sometimes received an increase in rank with a title of nobility such as Freiherr ; the magnates were also raised to counts or princes - if they had not already done so . So was z. B. 1854 from the Pan Taczanowski ("Herr von Taczanów") a "Graf von Taczanow ski ", which, however, represents a completely wrong use of the Polish family names related to property. As mentioned, the adjective endings -ski, -cki, -icz already mean “von”. In the literal sense of the word, the new count should actually have been called “Count of Taczanów”.

The petty nobility, who had originally been deprived of their nobility, were later denied admission to the nobility of the occupiers. By contrast, the nobility retained all the privileges and got confirmed his title of prince, the middle nobility got the desired title of count and permission entails to start. In Galicia and Lodomeria , a special register of nobility was created and many new ennoblings were carried out with the title "Knight of ..." which is common in Austria for the post office .

In Prussia in 1772 Frederick the Great guaranteed the Polish nobility his status and property after the First Partition of Poland. His successors carried out many increases in rank (especially the count was awarded, initially for all descendants of a family, after 1871 mostly only for the respective owner of a Fideikommiss , while the other descendants remained simple "lords of ..." to - as in the Old Prussian territories too - to prevent an inflation of the landless titleholders, as has been rampant in Austria for a long time). In Russia there was a special register only for Congress Poles , the rest of the Polish nobility was incorporated into the Russian nobility.

The defeats of the great uprisings against the Russian Empire of 1830 ( November uprising ) and 1863 ( January uprising ) resulted in a significant deterioration in the situation of some of the magnates involved and of the middle nobility. The flight of Princess Isabella Czartoryska to the Austrian-ruled Galicia became known. Goods were confiscated and the owners were often deported to Siberia for decades . After returning, they had to take up civil or even manual professions ( see: Adam Asnyk ). Gradually this expropriated class of middle and small nobility became the backbone of the Polish intelligentsia , in which patriotic traditions lived on.

The Szlachta after 1918

In the newly founded Poland of 1918, all nobility privileges were abolished by the 1921 constitution and the use of titles was prohibited. The noble landlords retained a position of power that should not be underestimated through their possession of around 40% of the arable land. The new constitution of 1935 repealed the abolition of 1921, but without expressly re-establishing the nobility. From 1936 on, the resurgence of the use of titles (also in official documents) based on the German model was tacitly tolerated. "Graf Bogdan von Hutten-Czapski" became " Bogdan Graf von Hutten-Czapski ".

In 1945 the nobility privileges were finally abolished by the reintroduction of the 1921 constitution and the estates were parceled out. Until around 1947, the nobility were allowed to own their mansions and castles (which they had to share with many tenants assigned by the Housing Office) and residual goods (up to 100 ha in Greater Poland, 50 ha in the rest of the country). Without an economic backbone, however, the large buildings could hardly be preserved. After the return to the market economy in 1990, the expropriations of arable land and mansions - unlike in the Czech Republic - were not reversed.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The descendants of the Polish aristocracy today

After 1990 aristocratic associations and brotherhoods of the coat of arms families emerged again, which occasionally tried to use their former titles again - but not in official papers. Many of the former small nobles add the designation of the coat of arms (a Polish peculiarity) to their family name, e.g. B. " Rogala -Krasicki" to distinguish themselves from non-aristocratic Krasickis.

The total number of former Polish noble families still in existence today (2004) is around 23,000–25,000 families (including small nobility only partially). Their origins reflect the past of the once huge country. There are mainly ethnic Poles, but also Armenians, Germans, English, French, Dutch, Italians, Jews, Cossacks, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Scots, Tatars (until today Muslims), Ukrainians and Czechs.

Today 16 of the former Polish princely families are still alive. Among the descendants of Rurik ( Czetwertyński , Drucki-Lubecki , Massalski , Ogiński , Puzyna ), the Gediminas ( Czartoryski , Sanguszko , Woroniecki ) altlitauischer dynastic families ( Giedroyc , Radziwiłł , Sapieha ), of princes and Austrian prince ( Lubomirski , Poniatowski , Sułkowski ), Russian prince ( Światopełk-Mirski ) and Prussian prince ( Radolin ). 1 gender ( Wielopolski ) had a papal margrave title, 104 genders were imperial or Austrian counts, 41 genders were Prussian or German counts, 17 genders were papal counts, 9 genders were Russian counts, 4 genders were Saxon counts and 2 were Italian counts. 19 genders were Austrian barons, 13 were Napoleonic barons, 3 were Polish barons, 1 were Russian barons and 1 were barons of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 35 families once held the Napoleonic title Chevalier de l'Empire.

See also

literature

  • Zbigniew Belina-Prażmowski: Herby uszlachconych neofitów w Inflantach Polskich , Herold 1931, No. 2
  • Jan Stanisław Bystroń: Nazwiska polskie (Polish surnames) , Warszawa 1993, ISBN 83-05-12636-6
  • Jan Stanisław Bystroń: Nazwiska szlacheckie (family name of the Szlachta) , Kraków 1926
  • Włodzimierz Dworzaczek : Genealogia , Warszawa 1959
  • Tadeusz Gajl : Herbarz polski . Od średniowiecza do XX wieku. Ponad 4,500 herbów szlacheckich i 37,000 nazwisk, L & L Gdańsk, 2007
  • Lorenz Hein: Italian Protestants and their influence on the Reformation in Poland during the two decades before the Sandomir Consensus 1570 , Brill, Leiden 1974, ISBN 978-90-04-03893-6 , p. 10 ff.
  • Adam Heymowski: Herbarz Inflant Polskich z roku 1778 , arr . and with comments, Buenos Aires / Paris, 1964
  • Christian Bruno von Klobuczyński: The Polish Aristocracy and Aristocratic Culture up to the Partitions of Poland in 1772 . Student thesis (33 pages), GRIN-Verlag, 2000 ISBN 978-3-638-65133-2
  • Szymon Konarski: Armorial de la noblesse polonaise titrée , Paris 1958
  • Szymon Konarski: O heraldyce i "heraldycznym" snobizmie (On heraldry and "heraldic" snobbery), Paris 1967
  • Stanisław Kutrzeba: Historia ustroju Polski-Korona (Constitutional History of Poland), Warszawa 1949
  • Antoni Maczak : The state as a company. Nobility and officials in Poland and Europe in the early modern period (= writings of the Historical College . Lectures . Vol. 10), Munich 1989 ( digitized ).
  • Karol Maleczyński: Urzędnicy grodzcy i ziemscy lwowscy w latach 1352–1783 , Lwów 1938 ( full text )
  • Peter Mikliss: German and Polish nobility in comparison. Aristocracy and nobility names in the German and Polish constitutional development as well as the legal problems of Polish nobility names according to German law. (= Historical research; 19). Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-428-04938-1
  • Franciszek Piekosiński: On the Origins of the Polish Noble Dynasties (Polish), 1888 ( full text )
  • Maria Rhode: A kingdom without a king . The Lesser Poland nobility in seven Interregna (= sources and studies; 5). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-447-03912-4 ( full text )
  • Hans Roos: The nobility of the Polish republic in pre-revolutionary Europe , in: Vierhaus, R., ed., The nobility before the revolution , Göttingen 1971
  • Hans Roos: Estates and parliamentary constitution in Poland (1505–1772) , in : Estates in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, ed. by D. Gerhard, Göttingen 1972, p. 310 ff.
  • Emilian von Źernicki-Szeliga : The Polish nobility and the noble families from other countries joining the same , vol. I, Hamburg 1900
  • Emilian von Źernicki-Szeliga: History of the Polish Nobility , Hamburg 1905
  • Marius Zmuda: Identity and Demarcation . The Polish “Szlachta” looking for her place in Europe. 1648-1668. (= Digital Eastern European Library: History series; Volume 10). Master's thesis, University of Münster 2003 ( full text )
  • Studies on the Nobility in Medieval Poland , ed. by Eduard Mühle, 496 p., Harrassowitz-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2012, ISBN 978-3-447-06589-4 ( preface to the book )
  • Collection of the Polish nobles in Galicia and Bukowina (Polish), Lwów 1857 ( full text )

Web links

Commons : Szlachta  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rhode, G .: Small History of Poland, Darmstadt 1865, p. 36
  2. ↑ Klobuczynski, BC as in. The Polish nobility and the aristocratic culture to the partition of Poland in 1772, GRIN Verlag 2000, p 6
  3. ↑ Cf. Zajączkowski, Andrzej: Hauptelemente der Arelkultur in Polen, p. 48ff.
  4. ↑ Kaczmarczyk-Lesnodorski, p. 230
  5. ^ J. Maciszewski, Szlachta polska i jej państwo [The Polish aristocracy and its state], Warsaw 1986, pp. 14-16
  6. ^ E. Mühle, Studies on the Nobility in Medieval Poland , p. 1
  7. ↑ Konstytucja marcowa , Article 96. Online on Wikisource
  8. ↑ Lorenz Hein: Italian Protestants and their influence on the Reformation in Poland during the two decades before the Sandomir Consensus 1570 , Brill, Leiden 1974, ISBN 978-90-04-03893-6 , p. 10 ff.
  9. ^ Kutrzeba, Verfassungsgeschichte, p. 159; Rhode, p. 98; Konarski, Heraldik, p. 15
  10. ↑ Dworzaczek, p. 17 ff.
  11. ↑ cf. Konarski, Heraldik, p. 15ff.
  12. ↑ Konarski, Heraldik , p. 16; Kutrzeba, Verfassungsgeschichte , p. 159
  13. ^ Kutrzeba, Verfassungsgeschichte , p. 159; Dworzaczek, p. 33
  14. ↑ Konarski, Heraldik, p. 16; Zernicki , Geschichte , p. 21
  15. ↑ cf. the abundance of references in Roos, Ständewesen, p. 333 ff.
  16. ↑ Zernicki : History , p 21
  17. ^ Kutrzeba, Verfassungsgeschichte, p. 159
  18. ↑ Zernicki : History , p 22; Konarski, Heraldik, p. 16
  19. ↑ cf. in addition Bystron, family name of the Szlachta
  20. ↑ Konarski, Heraldik, p. 23
  21. ↑ cf. the information in Konarski, Armorial
  22. ↑ Dworzaczek, p. 18; Konarski, Heraldik , p. 18ff.
  23. ↑ III. Lithuanian Regulations 1588, Chapter 12, Article 7, typesetting 12 (original text in Ruthenian ): А естли бы который жидъ або жидовка до веры християнское приступили , тогды кождая такая особа и потомъство ихъ за шляхтича почитаны быти мають . (And if the Jews convert to the Christian faith, then each of these persons and their descendants have the honored existence with the Szlachta)
  24. ↑ Volumina legum , Vol. VII, p.185
  25. ↑ Akta kanclerska , ks. 42.45, 46
  26. ↑ Kraushar, Frank i Frankiści , S.
  27. ↑ Jeśke-Choiński, Frank i Frankiści , p. 24
  28. ↑ Collection of the Polish Sejm resolutions in the 15th – 17th centuries Jh., Petersburg 1860, Volume VI (on the neophytes in the years 1764–68), p. 39, p. 400 and 401, Dubnow, Weltgeschichte, Volume 7, p. 210
  29. ↑ Andrzej Ciechanowski, A footnote to the history of the integration of Converts into the ranks of the szlachta in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The Jews in Poland , ed. by Chimen Abramsky , Oxford 1986, pp. 64-70