Serfdom in Poland

A peasant in stocks in a 16th-century Polish woodcut

The origins of serfdom in Poland are traced to the early days of the Kingdom of Poland in the 12th century.

Serfdom became the dominant form of relationship between peasants and nobility in the 17th century, and was a major feature of the economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The first step towards abolishing it was enacted in the Constitution of May 3, 1791, and really eliminated by the Połaniec Manifesto. But the reform was nullified by partition of Poland. Later in the 19th century it was gradually abolished on Polish territories as it had become ineffective due to the beginning of the industrial revolution.

10th to 14th centuries

In the early days of the Kingdom of Poland in the 10th and 11th centuries, under the Piast Dynasty, the social class of peasantry was among the several classes to develop. The peasants were free, had the right to leave the land, ownership of the land, and to justice, in exchange for certain obligations towards their feudal lords.^[1]

In time, more peasants became dependent on those feudal lords. This occurred in various ways including the king granting lands together with inhabitants to a lord, debt bondage, and peasants subjecting themselves to a local lord in exchange for protection. There were numerous groups of peasantry who had varying levels of rights, and their status changed over time, gradually degrading from a yeoman-like status to full serfdom. Conversely, the least privileged class of the bondsmen, the niewolni or outright slaves (formed primarily from prisoners-of-war), gradually disappeared over the same period. Around the late 12th century, peasantry could be divided into the free peasants (wolni or liberi), with the right to leave and relocate; and bonded subjects (poddani or obnoxii), without the right to leave. All peasants who held land from a feudal lord had to perform services or deliver goods to their lord.^[2] In time, and with the development of currency, most of those services evolved into payment of monetary rent, which became the dominant form of service around the 14th and 15th centuries.^[3]

15th to 18th centuries

Around 14th and 15th centuries, the right to leave the land became increasingly restricted, and peasants became tied to the land.^[3] Proper serfdom evolved in Poland together with the development of noble (szlachta) manorial estates known as folwarks,^[4] and with the export-driven grain trade (so-called Polish or Baltic grain trade) economy.^[5] Corwin notes that year 1496 (Statutes of Piotrków) marks the proper beginning of the serfdom era in Poland, ^[6] and similarly Magosci points to a series of related legislation around the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.^[7]

It was tied with the decrease in monetary rent, replaced by physical labor, demands for which increased over time.^[4] Whereas in the early days of serfdom in Poland, the peasant might have been required to farm less than three weeks in a year for his lord, in the 16th century, a weekly service of 1–2 days become common, and in the 18th century, almost all of a peasant's time could have been requested by the lord, in extreme cases requiring a peasant to labor eight days a week (which in practice meant that the male head of the family worked full-time for the lord, leaving his wife and children working on the peasant's family land, and even then they had to help him occasionally).^[5] Simultaneously, peasantry rights (to own land, to leave it, or to have independent, royal justice) were reduced.^[4] 1521 marked the end of the peasant right to complain to the royal court.^[5] By the mid-16th century no peasant could leave the land without explicit permission of the lord. The situation of individuals who did not own land also worsened (migrant peasant workers), as several laws attempted to force them to become peasants (serfs). They were also forced to partake in various monopolies of their local lords (such as to buy drinks only in the tavern owned by the lord, or use only the lord's owned mills). Due to increased population, and impact of certain laws, individual peasant estates became steadily smaller. This resulted, particularly from the second half of the 16th century, in increased impoverishment of the peasantry, banditry and the occasional peasant uprising.^[4] This phenomenon was also witnessed in several other Central and Eastern European countries, and was known as the "second serfdom" or "neo-serfdom".^[5][8]

Reversal of those trends begun in the 18th century, as part of various reforms aiming the revitalize the ailing governance and economy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Some serfs became emancipated by their owners, who replaced the physical labor rent with monetary one.^[9] It became illegal for a lord to murder a serf, and the peasants regained some right to land ownership.^[9] Those reforms reached culmination with the Constitution of May 3, 1791, which declared that the government would protect the peasantry, and encourage the use of contracts between peasants and their lords.^[10]

Abolition

Abolition of serfdom in Poland occurred over a period of time. At the end of 18th century a great reform of the Polish state was carried out. Especially, the Constitution of May 3, 1791 took the peasant class under protection of state - the first step towards elimination serfdom (the Constitution was later overthrown by Russia). Full abolishment was enacted by the Proclamation of Połaniec but it was also short-lived as the Poland nighbours invaded and parted the country. In the 19th century, various reforms were taking place at different paces in the Austrian partition, Prussian partition and the Russian partition with the advend of industrial revolution. Serfdom was abolished in Prussia in 1807, in Austria in 1848, in Russia in 1861, and in Congress Kingdom of Poland, in 1864.^[11]

See also

• Agriculture in Poland
• Baltic grain trade
• Domar serfdom model
• Economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
• Proclamation of Połaniec

References

Further reading

• A. Kamiński, "Neo-Serfdom in Poland-Lithuania," Slavic Review 34:2 (1975): 253~268 JSTOR
• Piotr Gorecki, "Viator to Ascriptititus: Rural Economy, Lordship, and the Origins of Serfdom in Medieval Poland.", Slavic Review, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring, 1983), pp. 14–35 JSTOR
• Robert Millward (1982). An economic analysis of the organisation of serfdom in eastern Europe. University of Salford. Retrieved 3 April 2012. 

External links

• Clothing of Polish peasants throughout history