page_title: Szlachta
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Szlachta / History / Origins / Poland
caption_attribution_description: Polski: "Chłop w dybach", Biernat z Lublina w: "Żywot Ezopa Fryga", Kraków 1578
context_page_description: The szlachta was a legally privileged noble class in the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Grand Duchy and its neighbouring Kingdom became a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
  The origins of the szlachta are obscure and are the subject of several theories. Traditionally, its members were landowners, often in the form of "manorial estates" or so-called folwarks. The nobility won substantial and increasing political and legal privileges for itself throughout its entire history until the decline and end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century. Apart from providing officers for the army, among its chief civic obligations were electing the monarch, plus filling advisory and honorary roles at court, e.g., Stolnik - "Master of the King's Pantry," or their assistant, Podstoli, and in the state government, e.g. Podskarbi, "Minister to the Treasury". They served as elected representatives in the Sejm and in local Sejmiki assemblies, appointing officials and overseeing judicial and financial governance, including tax-raising, at the provincial level.
context_section_description: The origins of the szlachta, while ancient, have always been considered obscure. As a result, its members often referred to it as odwieczna (perennial). Two popular historical theories about its origins have been put forward by its members and early historians and chroniclers. The first theory involved a presumed descent from the ancient Iranian tribe known as Sarmatians, who in the 2nd century AD, occupied lands in Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The second theory involved a presumed szlachta descent from Japheth, one of Noah's sons. By contrast, the peasantry were said to be the offspring of another son of Noah, Ham — and hence subject to bondage under the Curse of Ham. The Jews were considered the offspring of Shem. Other fanciful theories included its foundation by Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, or regional leaders who had not mixed their bloodlines with those of 'slaves, prisoners, or aliens'.
  Another theory describes its derivation from a non-Slavic warrior class, forming a distinct element known as the Lechici/Lekhi (Lechitów) within the ancient Polonic tribal groupings (Indo-European caste systems). Similar to Nazi racist ideology, which dictated the Polish elite were largely Nordic (the szlachta Boreyko coat of arms heralds a swastika), this hypothesis states this upper class was not of Slavonic extraction and was of a different origin than the Slavonic peasants (kmiecie; Latin: cmethones) over which they ruled.
  In old Poland, there were two nations - nobles and peasants. The Szlachta were differentiated from the rural population. In harshly stratified and elitist Polish society, the nobleman's sense of distinction led to practices that in later periods would be characterized as racism. Wacław Potocki, herbu Śreniawa (1621 - 1696), proclaimed peasants "by nature" are "chained to the land and plow," that even an educated peasant would always remain a peasant, because "it is impossible to transform a dog into a lynx." The Szlachta were noble in the Aryan (see Alans) sense -- "noble" in contrast to the people over whom they ruled after coming into contact with them.
  The szlachta traced their descent from Lech/Lekh, who allegedly founded the Polish kingdom in about the fifth century. Lechia was the name of Poland in antiquity, and the szlachta's own name for themselves was Lechici/Lekhi. An exact counterpart of Szlachta society was the Meerassee (wiktionary:mirasdar) system of tenure of southern India—an aristocracy of equality—settled as conquerors among a separate race. The Polish state paralleled the Roman Empire in that full rights of citizenship were limited to the szlachta. Rome devoted its attention nearly exclusively to agriculture as did old Poland. The szlachta ideal also paralleled that of a Greek polis—a body of citizens, a small merchant class, and a multitude of laborers. The szlachta had the exclusive right to enter the clergy until the time of the three partitions of Poland, and the szlachta and clergy believed they were genetically superior to peasants. The szlachta regarded peasants as a lower species. Quoting Bishop of Poznań, Wawrzyniec Goślicki, herbu Grzymała (between 1530 and 1540 - 1607):
  "The kingdome of Polonia doth also consist of the said three sortes, that is, the king, nobility and people. But it is to be noted, that this word people includeth only knights and gentlemen. ... The gentlemen of Polonia doe represent the popular state, for in them consisteth a great part of the government, and they are as a Seminarie from whence Councellors and Kinges are taken."
  The szlachta were a caste, a military caste, as in Hindu society. In the year 1244, Bolesław, Duke of Masovia, identified members of the knights' clan as members of a genealogia:
  "I received my good servitors [Raciborz and Albert] from the land of [Great] Poland, and from the clan [genealogia] called Jelito, with my well-disposed knowledge [i.e., consent and encouragement] and the cry [vocitatio], [that is], the godło, [by the name of] Nagody, and I established them in the said land of mine, Masovia, [on the military tenu
caption: A Polish peasant in stocks in a 16th-century Polish woodcut
exif: {}