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Polish Golden Age

Period of Polish history

  • 19 min read
  • 6 chapters

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Through Warsaw

In the 16th century the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth grew to 1 million km2, with a population of 11 million. It prospered from its enormous grain, wood, salt, and cloth trade with Western Europe via the Baltic Sea ports of Danzig (Gdańsk), Elbing (Elbląg), Riga, Memel (Klaipėda), and Königsberg (Kaliningrad). The Commonwealth's major cities also included Poznań, Kraków, Warsaw, Lwów (Lviv), Wilno (Vilnius), Thorn (Toruń), and, for a time, Kiev and Smolensk. The Commonwealth army was able to defend the realm from foreign invasion, and also participated in aggressive campaigns against Poland's neighbors. As voluntary Polonization followed in unified territories, the Polish language became the lingua franca of the Commonwealth.

During its Golden Age, the Commonwealth was regarded as one of the most powerful states in Europe. It had a unique system of government, known as Golden Liberty, in which all the nobility (szlachta), regardless of economic status, were considered equal and enjoyed extensive legal rights and privileges. One of the system's features was the liberum veto, used for the first time in 1669. The nobility, comprising szlachta and its magnates, made up 8–10% of the Commonwealth's population.

Culture of Polish Renaissance

Literacy, education and patronage of intellectual endeavors

The Polish printing industry began in Kraków in 1473, and by the early 17th century there were about 20 printing houses within the Commonwealth: eight in Kraków, the rest mostly in Danzig, Thorn and Zamość. The Academy of Kraków possessed well-stocked libraries; smaller collections were increasingly common at noble courts, schools, and in townspeople's households. Illiteracy levels were falling, as by the end of the 16th century almost every parish ran a school.

The Lubrański Academy, an institution of higher learning, was established in Poznań in 1519. The Reformation resulted in the establishment of a number of gymnasiums, academically oriented secondary schools, some of international renown, as the Protestant denominations wanted to attract supporters by offering high quality education. The Catholic reaction was the creation of Jesuit colleges of comparable quality. The Kraków University in turn responded with humanist program gymnasiums of its own.

The university itself experienced a period of prominence at the turn of the 15th/16th century, when especially the mathematics, astronomy and geography faculties attracted numerous students from abroad. Latin, Greek, Hebrew and their literatures were likewise popular. By the mid 16th century the institution entered a crisis stage, and by the early 17th century regressed into Counter-reformational conformism. The Jesuits took advantage of the infighting and established in 1579 a university college in Vilnius, but their efforts aimed at taking over the Academy of Kraków were unsuccessful. Under the circumstances many elected to pursue their studies abroad.

Sigismund I the Old, who built the presently existing Wawel Renaissance castle, and his son Sigismund II Augustus, supported intellectual and artistic activities and surrounded themselves with the creative elite. Their patronage example was followed by ecclesiastic and lay feudal lords, and by patricians in major towns.

Science

Polish science reached its culmination in the first half of the 16th century as the Aristotelian point of view was criticized and more rational explanations were sought. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, published by Nicolaus Copernicus in Nuremberg in 1543, shook up the traditional value system extended into understanding of the physical universe, dispensing with the Ptolemaic anthropocentric model and setting free the expansion of scientific inquiry. Generally the prominent scientists of the period resided in many different regions of the country, and increasingly, the majority were of urban, rather than noble origin.

Copernicus made many contributions to science and the arts. His scientific creativity was inspired at the University of Kraków, he later studied at Italian universities. Copernicus wrote Latin poetry, developed an economic theory, functioned as a cleric-administrator, a political activist in Prussian sejmiks, and he led the defense of Allenstein (Olsztyn) against the forces of Albrecht Hohenzollern. As an astronomer, he worked on his scientific theory for many years at Frauenburg (Frombork), where he died.

Josephus Struthius became famous as a physician and medical researcher. Bernard Wapowski was a pioneer of Polish cartography. Maciej Miechowita, a rector at the Kraków Academy, published in 1517 Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis, a treatise on the geography of the East, an area in which Polish investigators provided first-hand expertise for the rest of Europe.

Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski was one of the greatest theorists of political thought in Renaissance Europe. His most famous work, On the Improvement of the Commonwealth, was published in Kraków in 1551. Modrzewski criticized the feudal societal relations and proposed broad realistic reforms. He postulated that all social classes should be subjected to the law to the same degree, and wanted to moderate the existing inequities. Modrzewski, an influential and often translated author, was a passionate proponent of peaceful resolution of international conflicts. Bishop Wawrzyniec Goślicki (Goslicius), who wrote and published in 1568 a study entitled De optimo senatore (The Counsellor in the 1598 English translation), was another popular and influential in the West political thinker.

Historian Marcin Kromer wrote De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum (On the origin and deeds of Poles) in 1555 and in 1577 Polonia, a treatise highly regarded in Europe. Marcin Bielski's Chronicle of the Whole World, a universal history, was written ca. 1550. The chronicle of Maciej Stryjkowski (1582) covered the history of Eastern Europe.

Literature

Modern Polish literature begins in the 16th century. At that time the Polish language, common to all educated groups, matured and penetrated all areas of public life, including municipal institutions, the legal code, the Church and other official uses, coexisting for a while with Latin. Klemens Janicki, one of the Renaissance Latin language poets, a laureate of a papal distinction, was of peasant origin. Another plebeian author, Biernat of Lublin, wrote his own version of Aesop's fables in Polish, permeated with his socially radical views.

A Literary Polish language breakthrough came under the influence of the Reformation with the writings of Mikołaj Rej. In his Brief Discourse, a satire published in 1543, he defends a serf from a priest and a noble, but in his later works he often celebrates the joys of the peaceful but privileged life of a country gentleman. Rej, whose legacy is his unbashful promotion of the Polish language, left a great variety of literary pieces. Łukasz Górnicki, an author and translator, perfected the Polish prose of the period. His contemporary and friend Jan Kochanowski became one of the greatest Polish poets of all time.

Kochanowski was born in 1530 into a prosperous noble family. In his youth he studied at the universities of Kraków, Königsberg and Padua and traveled extensively in Europe. He worked for a time as a royal secretary, and then settled in the village of Czarnolas, a part of his family inheritance. Kochanowski's multifaceted creative output is remarkable for both the depth of thoughts and feelings that he shares with the reader, and for its beauty and classic perfection of form. Among Kochanowski's best known works are bucolic Frascas (trifles), epic poetry, religious lyrics, drama-tragedy The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, and the most highly regarded Threnodies or laments, written after the death of his young daughter. The poet Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, an intellectually refined master of small forms, bridges the late Renaissance and early Baroque artistic periods.

Music

Following the European and Italian in particular musical trends, the Renaissance music was developing in Poland, centered around the royal court patronage and branching from there. Sigismund I kept from 1543 a permanent choir at Wawel Castle, while the Reformation brought large scale group Polish language church singing during the services. Jan of Lublin wrote a comprehensive tablature for the organ and other keyboard instruments. Among the composers, who often permeated their music with national and folk elements, were Wacław of Szamotuły, Mikołaj Gomółka, who wrote music to Kochanowski translated psalms, and Mikołaj Zieleński, who enriched the Polish music by adopting the Venetian School polyphonic style.

Architecture, sculpture and painting

Architecture, sculpture and painting developed also under Italian influence from the beginning of the 16th century. A number of professionals from Tuscany arrived and worked as royal artists in Kraków. Francesco Fiorentino had started work on the tomb of John I Albert in 1502, and then together with Bartolommeo Berrecci and Benedykt from Sandomierz rebuilt the royal castle between 1507 and 1536. Berrecci also built Sigismund's Chapel at Wawel Cathedral. Polish magnates, Silesian Piast princes in Brzeg, and even Kraków merchants (by the mid 16th century their class had gained economic strength nationwide) built or rebuilt their residences to make them resemble the Wawel Castle. Kraków's Sukiennice and Poznań City Hall are among numerous buildings rebuilt in the Renaissance manner, but Gothic construction continued alongside for a number of decades.

Between 1580 and 1600 Jan Zamoyski commissioned the Venetian architect Bernardo Morando to build the city of Zamość. The town and its fortifications were designed to consistently implement the Renaissance and Mannerism aesthetic paradigms. Tombstone sculpture, often inside churches, is richly represented on graves of clergy and lay dignitaries and other wealthy individuals. Jan Maria Padovano and Jan Michałowicz of Urzędów count among the prominent artists.

The painted illuminations in the Balthasar Behem Codex are of exceptional quality, and draw their inspiration largely from Gothic art. Stanisław Samostrzelnik, a monk in the Cistercian monastery in Mogiła near Kraków, painted miniatures and polychromed wall frescos.

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