Chapter IV: Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman (9)

"The effects of the Black Death had not yet subsided, and the
graves of millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when a
strange delusion arose in Germany. … It was a convulsion which
in the most extraordinary manner infuriated the human frame,
and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than
two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared. It
was called the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account
of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and
which gave to those affected, whilst performing their wild
dance, and screaming and foaming with fury, all the appearance
of persons possessed. It did not remain confined to particular
localities, but was propagated by the sight of the sufferers,
like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the
neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already
prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinions of the
times. So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women
were seen at Aix-la–Chapelle who had come out of Germany, and
who, united by one common delusion, exhibited to the public
both in the streets and in the churches the following strange
spectacle. They formed circles hand in hand, and appearing to
have lost all control over their senses, continued dancing,
regardless of the by-standers, for hours together in wild
delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state
of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and
groaned as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed
in cloths, bound tightly round their waists, upon which they
again recovered, and remained free from complaint until the
next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on
account of the tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings,
but the by-standers frequently relieved patients in a less
artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts
affected.
{2542}
While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to
external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by
visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they
shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they
felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which
obliged them to leap so high. … Where the disease was
completely developed, the attack commenced with epileptic
convulsions. Those affected fell to the ground senseless,
panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth,
and suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange
contortions. Yet the malady doubtless made its appearance very
variously, and was modified by temporary or local
circumstances. … It was but a few months ere this demoniacal
disease had spread from Aix-Ia-Chapelle, where it appeared in
July, over the neighbouring Netherlands. In Liege, Utrecht,
Tongres, and many other towns of Belgium, the dancers appeared
with garlands in their hair, and their waists girt with
cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm was over,
receive immediate relief on the attack of the tympany. This
bandage was, by the insertion of a stick, easily twisted
tight: many, however, obtained more relief from kicks and
blows, which they found numbers of persons ready to
administer. … A few months after this dancing malady had made
its appearance at Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne,
where the number of those possessed amounted to more than five
hundred, and about the same time at Metz, the streets of which
place are said to have been filled with eleven hundred
dancers. Peasants left their ploughs, mechanics their
workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild
revels, and this rich commercial city became the scene of the
most ruinous disorder. … The dancing mania of the year 1374
was, in fact, no new disease, but a phenomenon well known in
the middle ages, of which many wondrous stories were
traditionally current among the people."

_J. F. C. Hecker,
Epidemics of the Middle Ages: The Dancing Mania,
chapter 1._

PLAGUE: A. D. 1485-1593.
The Sweating Sickness in England.
Plague, Small-pox and Grippe in Europe.

"For centuries no infection had visited England, which in
fearful rapidity and malignancy could be compared with the
'sudor Anglicus,' as it was at first called, from the notion
that its attacks were confined to Englishmen. People sitting
at dinner, in the full enjoyment of health and spirits, were
seized with it and died before the next morning. An open
window, accidental contact in the streets, children playing
before the door, a beggar knocking at the rich man's gate,
might disseminate the infection, and a whole family would be
decimated in a few hours without hope or remedy. Houses and
villages were deserted. … Dr. Caius, a physician who had
studied the disease under its various aspects, gives the
following account of its appearance: 'In the year of our Lord
God 1485, shortly after the 7th day of August, at which time
King Henry VII. arrived at Milford in Wales out of France, and
in the first year of his reign, there chanced a disease among
the people lasting the rest of that month and all September,
which for the sudden sharpness and unwont cruelness passed the
pestilence. For this commonly giveth in four, often seven,
sometime nine, sometime eleven and sometime fourteen days,
respite to whom it vexeth. But that immediately killed some in
opening their windows, some in playing with children in their
street doors, some in one hour, many in two, it destroyed. …
This disease, because it most did stand in sweating from the
beginning until the ending, was called here The Sweating
Sickness; and because it first began in England, it was named
in other countries The English Sweat.' From the same authority
we learn that it appeared in 1506, again in 1517 from July to
the middle of December, then in 1528. It commenced with a
fever, followed by strong internal struggles of nature,
causing sweat. … It was attended with sharp pains in the back,
shoulders and extremities, and then attacked the liver. … It
never entered Scotland. In Calais, Antwerp and Brabant it
generally singled out English residents and visitors. … In
consequence of the peculiarity of the disease in thus singling
out Englishmen, and those of a richer diet and more sanguine
temperament, various speculations were set afloat as to its
origin and its best mode of cure. Erasmus attributed it to bad
houses and bad ventilation, to the clay floors, the unchanged
and festering rushes with which the rooms were strewn, and the
putrid offal, bones and filth which reeked and rotted together
in the unswept and unwashed dining halls and chambers."

_J. S. Brewer,
Reign of Henry VIII.,
volume 1, chapter 8._

See, also, SWEATING SICKNESS.

"In the middle of the 16th century the English sweating
sickness disappeared from the list of epidemic diseases. On
the other hand, the plague, during the whole 16th century,
prevailed more generally, and in places more fatally, than
ever before. … In 1500-1507 it raged in Germany, Italy, and
Holland, in 1528 in Upper Italy, 1534 in Southern France,
1562-1568 pretty generally throughout Europe. … The disease
prevailed again in 1591. It is characteristic of the
improvement in the art of observation of this century that the
plague was declared contagious and portable, and accordingly
measures of isolation and disinfection were put in force
against it, though without proving in any degree effectual.
With a view to disinfection, horn, gunpowder, arsenic with
sulphur or straw moistened with wine, etc., were burned in the
streets. … Small-pox (first observed or described in Germany
in 1493) and measles, whose specific nature was still unknown
to the physicians of the West, likewise appeared in the 16th
century. … The Grippe (influenza), for the first time
recognizable with certainty as such, showed itself in the year
1510, and spread over all Europe. A second epidemic, beginning
in 1557, was less widely extended. On the other hand, in 1580
and 1593 it became again pandemic, while in 1591 Germany alone
was visited."

_J. H. Baas,
Outlines of the History of Medicine,
pages 438-439._

ALSO IN:
_J. F. Hecker,
Epidemics of the Middle Ages._

PLAGUE: A. D. 1665.
In London.

See LONDON: A. D. 1665.

{2543}

PLAGUE: 18th Century.
The more serious epidemics.

"The bubo–plague, 'the disease of barbarism' and especially of
declining nations, in the 18th century still often reached the
north of Europe, though it maintained its chief focus and
head-quarters in the south-west [south-east?]. Thus from 1703
forward, as the result of the Russo-Swedish war, it spread
from Turkey to Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Prussia, so that in
1709, the coldest year of the 18th century, more than 300,000
human beings died in East Prussia in spite of the intense
cold, and in Dantzic alone more than 30,000. Obliquing to the
west, the plague reached Styria and Bohemia, and was carried
by a ship to Regensburg in 1714, but by means of strict
quarantine regulations was prevented from spreading to the
rest of Germany. A hurricane swept the disease, as it were,
out of all Europe. Yet six years later it appeared anew with
devastating force in southern France" and was recurrent at
intervals, in different parts of the continent, throughout the
century. "Epidemics of typhus fever … showed themselves at the
beginning of the century in small numbers, but disappeared
before the plague. … The first description of typhoid
fever—under the designation of 'Schleimfieber' (morbus
mucosus)—appeared in the 18th century. … Malaria in the last
century still gave rise to great epidemics. Of course all the
conditions of life favored its prevalence. … La Grippe
(influenza) appeared as a pandemic throughout almost all
Europe in the years 1709, 1729, 1732, 1742, and 1788; in
almost all America in 1732, 1737, 1751, 1772, 1781, and 1798;
throughout the eastern hemisphere in 1781, and in the entire
western hemisphere in 1761 and 1789; throughout Europe and
America in 1767. It prevailed as an epidemic in France in the
years 1737, 1775, and 1779; in England in 1758 and 1775, and
in Germany in 1800. … Diphtheria, which in the 17th century
had showed itself almost exclusively in Spain and Italy, was
observed during the 18th in all parts of the world. …
Small-pox had attained general diffusion. … Scarlet fever,
first observed in the 17th century, had already gained wide
diffusion. … Yellow fever, first recognized in the 16th
century, and mentioned occasionally in the 17th, appeared with
great frequency in the 18th century, but was mostly confined,
as at a later period, to America."

_J. H. Baas,
Outlines of the History of Medicine,
pages 727-730._

PLAGUE: 19th Century.
The visitations of Asiatic Cholera.

Cholera "has its origin in Asia, where its ravages are as
great as those of yellow fever in America. It is endemic or
permanent in the Ganges delta, whence it generally spreads
every year over India. It was not known in Europe until the
beginning of the century; but since that time we have had six
successive visitations. … In 1817 there was a violent outbreak
of cholera at Jessore, India. Thence it spread to the Malay
Islands, and to Bourbon (1819); to China and Persia (1821); to
Russia in Europe, and especially to St. Petersburg and Moscow
(1830). In the following year it overran Poland, Germany, and
England [thence in 1832 to Ireland and America], and first
appeared in Paris on January 6, 1832. … In 1849, the cholera
pursued the same route. Coming overland from India through
Russia, it appeared in Paris on March 17, and lasted until
October. In 1853, cholera, again coming by this route, was
less fatal in Paris, although it lasted for a longer time—from
November, 1853, to December, 1854. The three last epidemics,
1865, 1873, and 1884, … came by the Mediterranean Sea."

_E. L. Trouessart,
Microbes, Ferments and Moulds,
chapter 5, section 8._

A seventh visitation of cholera in Europe occurred in 1892.
Its route on this occasion was from the Punjab, through
Afghanistan and Persia into Russia and across the
Mediterranean to Southern France. Late in the summer the
epidemic appeared in various parts of Austria and Germany and
was frightfully virulent in the city of Hamburg. In England it
was confined by excellent regulations to narrow limits.
Crossing the Atlantic late in August, it was arrested at the
harbor of New York, by half-barbarous but effectual measures
of quarantine, and gained no footing in America.

_Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1892._

ALSO IN:
_C. Macnamara,
History of Asiatic Cholera._

_A. Stillé,
Cholera,
pages 15-31._

----------PLAGUE: End--------

PLAID. PLACITUM.

See PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.

PLAIN OR MARAIS, The Party of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

PLAINS OF ABRAHAM.

See ABRAHAM, PLAINS OF.

PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1886.

PLANTAGENETS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1154-1189;
and ANJOU; CREATION OF THE COUNTY.

PLASSEY, Battle of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1757.

----------PLATÆA: Start--------

PLATÆA.

Platæa, one of the cities of the Bœotian federation in ancient
Greece, under the headship of Thebes, was ill–used by the
latter and claimed and received the protection of Athens. This
provoked the deep-seated and enduring enmity of Thebes and
Bœotia in general towards Athens, while the alliance of the
Athenians and Platæans was lasting and faithful.

_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 31._

PLATÆA: B. C. 490.
Help to Athens at Marathon.

See GREECE: B. C. 490.

PLATÆA: B. C. 479.
Decisive overthrow of the Persians.

See GREECE: B. C. 479.

PLATÆA: B. C. 431.
Surprise of.

The first act in the Peloponnesian War (B. C. 431) was the
surprising of the city of Platæa, the one ally of Athens in
Bœotia, by a small force from her near neighbor and deadly
enemy, Thebes. The Thebans were admitted by treachery at night
and thought themselves in possession of the town. But the
Platæans rallied before daybreak and turned the tables upon
the foe. Not one of the Thebans escaped.

See GREECE: B. C. 432-431.

PLATÆA: B. C. 429-427.
Siege, capture, and destruction by the Peloponnesians.

See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

PLATÆA: B. C. 335.
Restoration by Alexander.

See GREECE: B. C. 336-335.

----------PLATÆA: End--------

PLATE RIVER, Discovery of the.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1515-1557.

PLATE RIVER, Provinces of the.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1806-1820.

PLATO, and the Schools of Athens.

See ACADEMY;
also EDUCATION, ANCIENT: GREEK.

PLATTSBURG, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (SEPTEMBER).

PLAUTIO-PAPIRIAN LAW, The.

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

PLEASANT HILL, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

----------PLEBEIANS: Start--------

{2544}

PLEBEIANS, OR PLEBS, Roman.

"We are now prepared to understand the origin of a distinct
body of people which grew up alongside of the patricians of
the Roman state during the latter part of the regal period and
after its close. These were the plebeians (plebs, 'the crowd,'
cf. 'pleo,' to fill) who dwelt in the Roman territory both
within and without the walls of the city. They did not belong
to the old clans which formed the three original tribes, nor
did they have any real or pretended kinship with them, nor,
for that matter, with one another, except within the ordinary
limits of nature. They were, at the outset, simply an
ill–assorted mass of residents, entirely outside of the
orderly arrangement which we have described. There were three
sources of this multitude:

I. When the city grew strong enough, it began to extend its
boundaries, and first at the expense of the cantons nearest
it, between the Tiber and the Anio. When Rome conquered a
canton, she destroyed the walls of its citadel. Its
inhabitants were sometimes permitted to occupy their villages
as before, and sometimes were removed to Rome. In either
case, Rome was henceforth to be their place of meeting and
refuge, and they themselves, instead of being reduced to the
condition of slaves, were attached to the state as
non-citizens.

II. The relation of guest-friendship so called, in ancient
times, could be entered into between individuals with their
families and descendants, and also between individuals and a
state, or between two states. Provision for such
guest–friendship was undoubtedly made in the treaties which
bound together Rome on the one side and the various
independent cities of its neighborhood on the other. … The
commercial advantages of Rome's situation attracted to it, in
the course of time, a great many men from the Latin cities in
the vicinity, who remained permanently settled there without
acquiring Roman citizenship.

III. A third constituent element of the 'plebs' was formed by
the clients ('the listeners,' 'cluere') [see CLIENTES]. … In
the beginning of the long struggle between the patricians and
plebeians, the clients are represented as having sided with
the former. … Afterward, when the lapse of time had weakened
their sense of dependence on their patrons, they became, as a
body, identified with the plebeians."

_A. Tighe,
Development of the Roman Constitution,
chapter 3._

Originally having no political rights, the Roman plebeians
were forced to content themselves with the privilege they
enjoyed of engaging in trade at Rome and acquiring property of
their own. But as in time they grew to outnumber the
patricians, while they rivalled the latter in wealth, they
struggled with success for a share in the government and for
other rights of citizenship. In the end, political power
passed over to them entirely, and the Roman constitution
became almost purely democratic, before it perished in anarchy
and revolution, giving way to imperialism.

_H. G. Liddell,
History of Rome,
chapters 7, 8, 10, 35._

ALSO IN:
_B. G. Niebuhr,
Lectures on History of Rome,
book 4, chapter 2._

PLEBEIANS:
Secessions of the Plebs.

See SECESSIONS OF THE ROMAN PLEBS.

----------PLEBEIANS: End--------

PLEBISCITA.

Resolutions passed by the Roman plebeians in their Comitia
Tributa, or Assembly of the Tribes, were called "plebiscita."

See ROME: B. C. 472-471.

In modern France the term "plebiscite" has been applied to a
general vote of the people, taken upon some single question,
like that of the establishment of the Second Empire.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1851-1852;
also, REFERENDUM.

PLESWITZ, Armistice of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (MAY-AUGUST).

PLEVNA, Siege and capture of.

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

PLOW PATENT, The.

See MAINE: A. D. 1629-1631; and 1643-1677.

PLOWDEN'S COUNTY PALATINE.

See NEW ALBION.

PLUVIÔSE, The month.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER)
THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.

PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts: A. D. 1605.
Visited by Champlain, and the harbor named Port St. Louis.

See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.

PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts: A. D. 1620.
Landing of the Pilgrims.
Founding of the Colony.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620, and after.

PLYMOUTH, North Carolina: A. D. 1864.
Capture and recapture.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1864 (APRIL-MAY: NORTH CAROLINA),
and (OCTOBER: NORTH CAROLINA).

----------PLYMOUTH COMPANY: Start--------

PLYMOUTH COMPANY:
Formation.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607;
and MAINE: A. D. 1607-1608.

PLYMOUTH COMPANY: A. D. 1615.
Unsuccessful undertakings with Captain John Smith.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1614-1615.

PLYMOUTH COMPANY: A. D. 1620.
Merged in the Council for New England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.

----------PLYMOUTH COMPANY: End--------

PLYMOUTH ROCK.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.

PNYX, The.

"The place of meeting [of the general assemblies of the people
in ancient Athens] in earlier times is stated to have been in
the market; in the historical period the people met there only
to vote on proposals of ostracism, at other times assembling
in the so-called Pnyx. As regards the position of this latter,
a point which quite recently has become a matter of
considerable dispute, the indications given by the ancient
authorities appear to settle this much at any rate with
certainty, that it was in the neighbourhood of the market, and
that of the streets running out of the market one led only
into the Pnyx."

_G. F. Schömann,
Antiquities of Greece: The State,
part 3, chapter 3._

"The Pnyx was an artificial platform on the north-eastern side
of one of the rocky heights which encircled Athens on the
west, and along the crest of which is still traced the ancient
enclosure of the Asty. In shape this platform differed only
from a circular sector of about 155 degrees, inasmuch as the
radii forming the angle were about 200 feet in length, while
the distance from the angle to the middle of the curve was
about 240 feet. On this latter side, or towards the Agora, the
platform was bounded by a wall of support, which is about
sixteen feet high in the middle or highest part, and is
composed of large blocks, of various sizes, and for the most
part quadrangular. In the opposite direction the platform was
bounded by a vertical excavation in the rock, which, in the
parts best preserved, is from twelve to fifteen feet high.
{2545}
The foot of this wall inclines towards the angle of the
sector, thereby showing that originally the entire platform
sloped towards this point as a centre, such being obviously
the construction most adapted to an assembly which stood or
sat to hear an orator placed in the angle. At this angle rose
the celebrated [bema], or pulpit, often called the rock. … It
was a quadrangular projection of the rock, eleven feet broad,
rising from a graduated basis. The summit is broken; its
present height is about twenty feet. On the right and left of
the orator there was an access to the summit of the bema by a
flight of steps, and from behind by two or three steps from an
inclosure, in which are several chambers cut in the rock,
which served doubtless for purposes connected with that of the
Pnyx itself. … The area of the platform was capable of
containing between seven and eight thousand persons, allowing
a square yard to each."

_W. M. Leake,
Topography of Athens,
appendix 11._

ALSO IN:
_G. F. Schömann,
The Assemblies of the Athenians,
pages 48-51._

See, also, AGORA.

POCKET BOROUGHS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830.

PODESTAS.

"About the end of the 12th century a new and singular species
of magistracy was introduced into the Lombard cities. During
the tyranny of Frederic I. [Frederick Barbarossa] he had
appointed officers of his own, called podestas, instead of the
elective consuls. It is remarkable that this memorial of
despotic power should not have excited insuperable alarm and
disgust in the free republics. But, on the contrary, they
almost universally, after the peace of Constance, revived an
office which had been abrogated when they first rose in
rebellion against Frederic. From experience, as we must
presume, of the partiality which their domestic factions
carried into the administration of justice, it became a
general practice to elect, by the name of podesta, a citizen
of some neighbouring state as their general, their criminal
judge, and preserver of the peace. … The podesta was sometimes
chosen in a general assembly, sometimes by a select number of
citizens. His office was annual, though prolonged in peculiar
emergencies. He was invariably a man of noble family, even in
those cities which excluded their own nobility from any share
in the government. He received a fixed salary, and was
compelled to remain in the city after the expiration of his
office for the purpose of answering such charges as might be
adduced against his conduct. He could neither marry a native
of the city, nor have any relation resident within the
district, nor even, so great was their jealousy, eat or drink
in the house of any citizen. The authority of these foreign
magistrates was not by any means alike in all cities. In some
he seems to have superseded the consuls, and commanded the
armies in war. In others, as Milan and Florence, his authority
was merely judicial."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN:
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 69._

PODIEBRAD, George, King of Bohemia, A. D. 1458-1471.

POINT PLEASANT, Battle of.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

POISSY, The Colloquy at.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563.

POITIERS:
Original names.

Limonum, a town of the Gauls, acquired later the name of
Pictavi, which has become in modern times Poitiers.

POITIERS:A. D. 1569.
Siege by the Huguenots.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

POITIERS, Battle of.

A battle was fought September 19, 1356, near the city of
Poitiers, in France, by the English, under the "Black Prince,"
the famous son of Edward III., with the French commanded
personally by their king, John II. The advantage in numbers
was on the side of the French, but the position of the English
was in their favor, inasmuch as it gave little opportunity to
the cavalry of the French, which was their strongest arm. The
English archers won the day, as in so many other battles of
that age. The French were sorely beaten and their king was
taken prisoner.

_Froissart,
Chronicles,
(translated by Johnes),
book 1, chapters 157-166._

See FRANCE: A. D. 1337-1360.

POITIERS, Edict of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1577-1578.

POITOU:
Origin of the name.

See PICTONES.

POITOU:
The rise of the Counts.

See TOULOUSE: 10-11th CENTURIES.

POITOU:
The Counts become Dukes of Aquitaine or Guienne.

See AQUITAINE: A. D. 884-1151.

POKANOKETS, WAMPANOAGS, The.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636;
AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY;
NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675, 1675, 1676-1678.

POLA, Naval battle of (1379).

See VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379.

----------POLAND: Start--------

POLAND.
The Name.

"The word Pole is not older than the tenth century, and seems
to have been originally applied, not so much to the people as
to the region they inhabited; 'polska' in the Slavonic tongue
signifying a level field or plain."

_S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
introduction._

POLAND:
The ancestors of the race.

See LYGIANS.

POLAND:
Beginnings of national existence.

"The Poles were a nation whose name does not occur in history
before the middle of the tenth century; and we owe to
Christianity the first intimations that we have regarding this
people. Mieczislaus [or Miceslaus] I., the first duke or
prince of the Poles of whom we possess any authentic accounts,
embraced Christianity (966) at the solicitation of his spouse,
Dambrowka, sister of Boleslaus II., duke of Bohemia. Shortly
after, the first bishopric in Poland, that of Posen, was
founded by Otho the Great. Christianity did not, however, tame
the ferocious habits of the Poles, who remained for a long
time without the least progress in mental cultivation. Their
government, as wretched as that of Bohemia, subjected the
great body of the nation to the most debasing servitude.
{2546}
The ancient sovereigns of Poland were hereditary. They ruled
most despotically, and with a rod of iron; and, although they
acknowledged themselves vassals and tributaries of the German
emperors, they repeatedly broke out into open rebellion,
asserted their absolute independence, and waged a successful
war against their masters. Boleslaus, son of Mieczislaus I.,
took advantage of the troubles which rose in Germany on the
death of Otho III., to possess himself of the Marches of
Lusatia and Budissin, or Bautzen, which the Emperor Henry II.
afterwards granted him as fiefs. This same prince, in despite
of the Germans, on the death of Henry II. (1025), assumed the
royal dignity. Mieczislaus II., son of Boleslaus, after having
cruelly ravaged the country situate between the Oder, the
Elbe, and the Saal, was compelled to abdicate the throne, and
also to restore those provinces which his father had wrested
from the Empire. The male descendants of Mieczislaus I.
reigned in Poland until the death of Casimir the Great (1370).
This dynasty of kings is known by the name of the Piasts, or
Piasses, so called from one Piast, alleged to have been its
founder."

_W. Koch,
History of Revolutions in Europe,
chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
chapters 1-2._

POLAND: A. D. 1096.
The refuge of the Jews.

See JEWS: 11-17th CENTURIES.

POLAND: A. D. 1240-1241.
Mongol invasion.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.

POLAND: 13-14th Centuries.
Growing power and increasing dominion.
Encroachments on Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.
The union with Lithuania and the reign of the Jagellon dynasty.
Conquest of Prussia and its grant to Grandmaster Albert.

Casimir III., or Casimir the Great, the last Polish king of
the Piast line, ascended the throne in 1333. "Polish
historians celebrate the good deeds of this king for the
internal prosperity of Poland—his introduction of a legal
code, his just administration, his encouragement of learning,
and his munificence in founding churches, schools, and
hospitals. The great external question of his reign was that
of the relations of Poland to the two contiguous powers of
Lithuania and the Teutonic Knights of Prussia and the Baltic
provinces. On the one hand, Poland, as a Christian country,
had stronger ties of connexion with the Teutonic Knights than
with Lithuania. On the other hand, ties of race and tradition
connected Poland with Lithuania; and the ambitious policy of
the Teutonic Knights, who aimed at the extension of their rule
at the expense of Poland and Lithuania, and also jealously
shut out both countries from the Baltic coast, and so from the
advantages of commerce, tended to increase the sympathy
between the Poles and the Lithuanians. A happy solution was at
length given to this question. Casimir, dying in 1370, left no
issue but a daughter, named Hedvige; and the Crown of Poland
passed to his nephew Louis of Anjou, at that time also King of
Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

Louis, occupied with the affairs of Hungary, neglected those
of Poland, and left it exposed to the attacks of the
Lithuanians. He became excessively unpopular among the Poles;
and, after his death in 1384, they proclaimed Hedvige Queen of
Poland. In 1386, a marriage was arranged between this princess
and Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania—Jagellon agreeing to be
baptized, and to establish Christianity among his hitherto
heathen subjects. Thus Poland and Lithuania were united; and a
new dynasty of Polish kings was founded, called the dynasty of
the Jagellons. The rule of this dynasty, under seven
successive kings (1386-1572) constitutes the flourishing epoch
of Polish history, to which at the present day the Poles look
fondly back when they would exalt the glory and greatness of
their country. … The effect of the union of Poland and
Lithuania was at once felt in Europe. The first Jagellon, who
on his baptism took the name of Uladislav II., and whom one
fancies as still a sort of rough half-heathen by the side of
the beautiful Polish Hedvige, spent his whole reign
(1386-1434) in consolidating the union and turning it to
account. He defended Lithuania against the Tartar hordes then
moving westward before the impulse of the conquering
Tamerlane. But his chief activity was against the Teutonic
Knights. … He engaged in a series of wars against the knights,
which ended in a great victory gained over them at Tannenburg
in 1410. By this victory the power of the knights was broken
for the time, and their territories placed at the mercy of the
Poles. During the reign of Uladislav III., the second of the
Jagellons (1434-1444), the knights remained submissive, and
that monarch was able to turn his arms, in conjunction with
the Hungarians, against a more formidable enemy—the Turks—then
beginning their invasions of Europe. Uladislav III. having
been slain in battle against the Turks at Varna, the Teutonic
Knights availed themselves of the confusion which followed, to
try to recover their power. By this time, however, their
Prussian subjects were tired of their rule; Dantzic, Elbing,
Thorn, and other towns, as well as the landed proprietors and
the clergy of various districts, formed a league against them;
and, on the accession of Casimir IV., the third of the
Jagellons, to the Polish throne (1447), all Western Prussia
revolted from the knights and placed itself under his
protection. A terrific war ensued, which was brought to a
close in 1466 by the peace of Thorn. By this notable treaty,
the independent sovereignty of the Teutonic order in the
countries they had held for two centuries was extinguished—the
whole of Western Prussia, with the city of Marienburg, and
other districts, being annexed to the Polish crown, with
guarantees for the preservation of their own forms of
administration; and the knights being allowed to retain
certain districts of Eastern Prussia, only as vassals of
Poland. Thus Poland was once more in possession of that
necessity of its existence as a great European state—a
seaboard on the Baltic. Exulting in an acquisition for which
they had so long struggled, the Poles are said to have danced
with joy as they looked on the blue waves and could call them
their own. Casimir IV., the hero of this important passage in
Polish history, died in 1492; and, though during the reigns of
his successors—John Albertus (1492-1501), and Alexander
(1501-1506)—the Polish territories suffered some diminution in
the direction of Russia, the fruits of the treaty of Thorn
were enjoyed in peace. In the reign of the sixth of the
Jagellonidæ, however—Sigismund I. (1506-1547)—the Teutonic
Knights made an attempt to throw off their allegiance to
Poland.
{2547}
The attempt was made in singular circumstances, and led to a
singular conclusion. The grand-master of the Teutonic order at
this time was Albert of Brandenburg …, a descendant [in the
Anspach branch] of that astute Hohenzollern family which in
1411 had possessed itself of the Marquisate of Brandenburg.
Albert, carrying out a scheme entertained by the preceding
grand-master, refused homage for the Prussian territories of
his order to the Polish king Sigismund, and even prepared to
win back what the order had lost by the treaty of Thorn.
Sigismund, who was uncle to Albert, defeated his schemes, and
proved the superiority of the Polish armies over the forces of
the once great but now effete order. Albert found it his best
policy to submit, and this he did in no ordinary fashion. The
Reformation was then in the first flush of its progress over
the Continent, and the Teutonic Order of Knights, long a
practical anachronism in Europe, was losing even the slight
support it still had in surrounding public opinion, as the new
doctrines changed men's ideas. What was more, the grand-master
himself imbibed Protestant opinions and was a disciple of
Luther and Melancthon. He resolved to bring down the fabric of
the order about his ears and construct for himself a secular
principality out of its ruins. Many of the knights shared or
were gained over to his views; so he married a princess, and
they took themselves wives—all becoming Protestants together,
with the exception of a few tough old knights who transferred
their chapter to Mergentheim in Würtemberg, where it remained,
a curious relic, till the time of Napoleon. The secularization
was formally completed at Cracow in April, 1525. There, in a
square before the royal palace, on a throne emblazoned with
the arms of Poland and Lithuania—a white eagle for the one,
and a mounted knight for the other—the Polish king Sigismund
received … the banner of the order, the knights standing by
and agreeing to the surrender. In return, Sigismund embraced
the late grand-master as Duke of Prussia, granting to him and
the knights the former possessions of the order, as secular
vassals of the Polish crown. The remainder of Sigismund's
reign was worthy of this beginning; and at no time was Poland
more flourishing than when his son, Sigismund II., the seventh
of the Jagellonidæ, succeeded him on the throne. During the
wise reign of this prince (1547-1572), whose tolerant policy
in the matter of the great religious controversy then
agitating Europe is not his least title to credit, Poland lost
nothing of her prosperity or her greatness; and one of its
last transactions was the consummation of the union between
the two nations of Poland and Lithuania by their formal
incorporation into one kingdom at the Diet of Lublin (July 1,
1569). But, alas for Poland, this seventh of the Jagellonidæ
was also the last, and, on his death in 1572, Poland entered
on that career of misery and decline, with the reminiscences
of which her name is now associated."

_Poland: her History and Prospects
(Westminster Review, January, 1855)._

ALSO IN:
_H. Tuttle,
History of Prussia, to Frederick the Great,
chapter 4._

_S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
book 1, chapter 3._

POLAND: A. D. 1439.
Election of Ladislaus III. to the throne of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442.

POLAND: A. D. 1471-1479.
War with Matthias of Hungary.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.

POLAND: A. D. 1505-1588.
Enslavement of the peasantry.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: POLAND.

POLAND: A. D. 1573.
Election of Henry of Valois to the throne.
The Pacta Conventa.

On the election of Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, to the
Polish throne (see FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576), he was required
to subscribe to a series of articles, known as the Pacta
Conventa (and sometimes called the Articles of Henry), which
were intended to be the basis of all future covenants between
the Poles and their elective sovereigns. The chief articles of
the Pacta Conventa were the following:

"1. That the king should not in the remotest degree attempt to
influence the senate in the choice of a successor; but should
leave inviolable to the Polish nobles the right of electing
one at his decease.

2. That he should not assume the title of 'master' and 'heir'
of the monarchy, as borne by all preceding kings.

3. That he should observe the treaty of peace made with the
dissidents.

4. That he should not declare war, or dispatch the nobles on
any expedition, without the previous sanction of the diet.

5. That he should not impose taxes or contributions of any
description.

6. That he should not have any authority to appoint
ambassadors to foreign courts.

7. That in case of different opinions prevailing among the
senators, he should espouse such only as were in accordance
with the laws, and clearly advantageous to the nation.

8. That he should be furnished with a permanent council, the
members of which (16 in number; viz. 4 bishops, 4 palatines,
and 8 castellans) should be changed every half year, and
should be selected by the ordinary diets.

9. That a general diet should be convoked every two years, or
oftener, if required.

10. That the duration of each diet should not exceed six
weeks.

11. That no dignities or benefices should be conferred on
other than natives.

12. That the king should neither marry nor divorce a wife
without the permission of the diet.

The violation of any one of these articles, even in spirit,
was to be considered by the Poles as absolving them from their
oaths of allegiance, and as empowering them to elect another
ruler."

_S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
book 2, chapter 1._

POLAND: A. D. 1574-1590.
Disgraceful abandonment of the throne by Henry of Valois.
Election of Stephen Batory.
His successful wars with Russia, and his death.
Election of Sigismund III., of Sweden.

The worthless French prince, Henry of Valois, whom the Poles
had chosen to be their king, and whom they crowned at Cracow,
on the 21st of February, 1574, "soon sighed for the banks of
the Seine: amidst the ferocious people whose authority he was
constrained to recognize, and who despised him for his
imbecility, he had no hope of enjoyment. To escape their
factions, their mutinies, their studied insults, he shut
himself up within his palace, and, with the few countrymen
whom he had been permitted to retain near his person, he
abandoned himself to idleness and dissipation. … By the death
of his brother [Charles IX. king of France], who died on the
30th of May, 1574, he was become heir to the crown of the
Valois. His first object was to conceal the letters which
announced that event, and to flee before the Poles could have
any suspicion of his intention. The intelligence, however,
transpired through another channel.
{2548}
His senators advised him to convoke a diet, and, in conformity
with the laws, to solicit permission of a short absence while
he settled the affairs of his new heritage. Such permission
would willingly have been granted him, more willingly still
had he proposed an eternal separation; but he feared the
ambition of his brother the duke of Alençon, who secretly
aspired to the throne; and he resolved to depart without it.
He concealed his extraordinary purpose with great art," and
achieved a most contemptible success in carrying it
out,—stealing away from his kingdom like a thief, on the night
of the 18th of June. "Some letters found on a table in his
apartment attempted to account for his precipitate departure
by the urgency of the troubles in his hereditary kingdom; yet
he did not reach Lyons till the following year. In a diet
assembled at Warsaw, it was resolved that if the king did not
return by the 12th of May, 1575, the throne should be declared
vacant. Deputies were sent to acquaint him with the decree. …
After the expiration of the term, the interregnum was
proclaimed in the diet of Stenzyca, and a day appointed for a
new election. After the deposition of Henry [now become Henry
III. of France], no less than five foreign and two native
princes were proposed as candidates for the crown. The latter,
however, refused to divide the suffrages of the republic,
wisely preferring the privilege of electing kings to the
honour of being elected themselves. The primate, many of the
bishops, and several palatines, declared in favour of an
Austrian prince; but the greater portion of the diet
(assembled on the plains opposite to Warsaw) were for the
princess Anne, sister of Sigismund Augustus, whose hand they
resolved to confer on Stephen Batory, duke of Transylvania.
Accordingly, Stephen was proclaimed king by Zamoyski, starost
of Beltz, whose name was soon to prove famous in the annals of
Poland. On the other hand, Uchanski the primate nominated the
emperor Maximilian, who was proclaimed by the marshal of the
crown: this party, however, being too feeble to contend with
the great body of the equestrian order, despatched messengers
to hasten the arrival of the emperor; but Zamoyski acted with
still greater celerity. While his rival was busied about
certain conditions, which the party of the primate forced on
Maximilian, Batory arrived in Poland, married the princess,
subscribed to every thing required from him, and was solemnly
crowned. A civil war appeared inevitable, but the death of
Maximilian happily averted the disaster. … But though Poland
and Lithuania thus acknowledged the new king, Prussia, which
had espoused the interests of the Austrian, was less
tractable. The country, however, was speedily reduced to
submission, with the exception of Dantzic, which not only
refused to own him, but insisted on its recognition by the
diet as a free and independent republic. … Had the Dantzickers
sought no other glory than that of defending their city, had
they resolutely kept within their entrenchments, they might
have beheld the power of their king shattered against the
bulwarks below them; but the principles which moved them
pushed them on to temerity. … Their rashness cost them dear;
the loss of 8,000 men compelled them again to seek the shelter
of their walls, and annihilated their hope of ultimate
success. Fortunately they had to deal with a monarch of
extraordinary moderation. … Their submission [1577] disarmed
his resentment, and left him at liberty to march against other
enemies. During this struggle of Stephen with his rebellious
subjects, the Muscovites had laid waste Livonia. To punish
their audacity, and wrest from their grasp the conquests they
had made during the reign of his immediate predecessors, was
now his object. … Success every where accompanied him.
Polotsk, Sakol, Turowla, and many other places, submitted to
his arms. The investiture of the duchy (Polotsk, which the
Muscovites had reduced in the time of Sigismund I.) he
conferred on Gottard duke of Courland. On the approach of
winter he returned, to obtain more liberal supplies for the
ensuing campaign. Nothing can more strongly exhibit the
different characters of the Poles and Lithuanians than the
reception he met from each. At Wilna his splendid successes
procured him the most enthusiastic welcome; at Warsaw they
caused him to be received with sullen discontent. The Polish
nobles were less alive to the glory of their country than to
the preservation of their monstrous privileges, which, they
apprehended, might be endangered under so vigilant and able a
ruler. With the aid, however, of Zamoyski and some other
leading barons, he again wrung a few supplies from that most
jealous of bodies, a diet. … Stephen now directed his course
towards the province of Novogorod: neither the innumerable
marshes, nor the vast forests of these steppes, which had been
untrodden by soldier's foot since the days of Witold, could
stop his progress; he triumphed over every obstacle, and, with
amazing rapidity, reduced the chief fortified towns between
Livonia and that ancient mistress of the North. But his troops
were thinned by fatigue, and even victory; reinforcements were
peremptorily necessary; and though in an enfeebled state of
health, he again returned to collect them. … The succeeding
campaign promised to be equally glorious, when the tsar, by
adroitly insinuating his inclination to unite the Greek with
the Latin church, prevailed on the pope to interpose for
peace. To the wishes of the papal see the king was ever ready
to pay the utmost deference. The conditions were advantageous
to the republic. If she surrendered her recent conquests—which
she could not possibly have retained—she obtained an
acknowledgment of her rights of sovereignty over Livonia; and
Polotsk, with several surrounding fortresses, was annexed to
Lithuania." Stephen Batory died in 1586, having vainly advised
the diet to make the crown hereditary, and avert the ruin of
the nation. The interregnum which ensued afforded opportunity
for a fierce private war between the factions of the
Zborowskis and the Zamoyskis. Then followed a disputed
election of king, one party proclaiming the archduke
Maximilian of Austria, the other Sigismund, prince royal of
Sweden—a scion of the Jagellonic family—and both sides
resorting to arms. Maximilian was defeated and taken prisoner,
and only regained his freedom by relinquishing his claims to
the Polish crown.

_S. A. Dunham,
History of Poland,
book 2, chapter 1._

{2549}

POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652.
Anarchy organized by the Nobles.
The extraordinary Constitution imposed by them on the country.
The Liberum Veto and its effects.

"On the death of the last Jagellon, 1573, at a time when
Bohemia and Hungary were deprived of the power of electing
their kings, when Sweden renounced this right in favour of its
monarchs, Poland renewed its privilege in its most
comprehensive form. At a time when European monarchs gradually
deprived the great feudal barons of all share in the
administration of the law, … the Polish nobles destroyed the
last vestiges of the royal prerogative. … In the year 1578 the
kings lost the right of bestowing the patent of nobility,
which was made over to the diet. The kings had no share in the
legislation, as the laws were made in every interregnum. As
soon as the throne became vacant by the death of a king, and
before the diet appointed a successor, the nobles of the
provinces assembled to examine into the administration of the
late king and his senate. Any law that was not approved of
could be repealed and new arrangements proposed, which became
law if the votes of the diet were unanimous. This unanimity
was most easily obtained when a law threatened the individual
or when the royal prerogative was to be decreased. … The king
had no share in the administration, and even the most urgent
circumstances did not justify his acting without the
co-operation of the senate [which consisted of 17 archbishops
and bishops, 33 palatines or woiwodes—'war-leaders'—who were
governors of provinces or palatinates, and 85 castellans, who
were originally commanders in the royal cities and fortresses,
but who had become, like the woiwodes, quite independent of
the king]. The senate deprived the king of the power of making
peace or war. … If there was a hostile invasion, war became a
matter of course, but it was carried on, on their own account,
by the palatines most nearly concerned, and often without the
assistance of the king. … Bribery, intrigue and party spirit
were the only means of influence that could be employed by a
king, who was excluded from the administration, who was
without domains, without private property or settled revenue,
who was surrounded by officers he could not depose and by
judges who could be deposed, and who was, in short, without
real power of any sort. The senate itself was deprived of its
power, and the representatives of the nobles seized upon the
highest authority. … They alone held the public offices and
the highest ecclesiastical benefices. They filled the seats of
the judges exclusively, and enjoyed perfect immunity from
taxes, duties, &c. … Another great evil from which the
republic suffered was the abuse of the liberum veto, which,
dangerous as it was in itself, had become law in 1652." This
gave the power of veto to every single voice in the assemblies
of the nobles, or in the meetings of the deputies who
represented them. Nothing could be adopted without entire
unanimity; and yet deputies to the diet were allowed no
discretion. "They received definite instructions as to the
demands they were to bring forward and the concessions they
were to make. … One step only was wanting before unanimity of
votes became an impossibility, and anarchy was completely
organized. This step was taken when individual palatines
enjoined their deputies to oppose every discussion at the
diet, till their own proposals had been heard and acceded to.
Before long, several deputies received the same instructions,
and thus the diet was in fact dissolved before it was opened.
Other deputies refused to consent to any proposals, if those
of their own province were not accepted; so that the veto of
one deputy in a single transaction could bring about the
dissolution of the entire diet, and the exercise of the royal
authority was thus suspended for two years [since the diet
could only be held every other year, to last no longer than a
fortnight, and to sit during daylight, only]. … No law could
be passed, nothing could be resolved upon. The army received
no pay. Provinces were desolated by enemies, and none came to
their aid. Justice was delayed, the coinage was debased; in
short, Poland ceased for the next two years to exist as a
state. Every time that a rupture occurred in the diet it was
looked on as a national calamity. The curse of posterity was
invoked on that deputy who had occasioned it, and on his
family. In order to save themselves from popular fury, these
deputies were accustomed to hand in their protest in writing,
and then to wander about, unknown and without rest, cursed by
the nation."

_Count Moltke,
Poland: an Historical Sketch,
chapter 3._

"It was not till 1652 … that this principle of equality, or
the free consent of every individual Pole of the privileged
class to every act done in the name of the nation, reached its
last logical excess. In that year, the king John Casimir
having embroiled himself with Sweden, a deputy in the Diet was
bold enough to use the right which by theory belonged to him,
and by his single veto, not only arrest the preparations for a
war with Sweden, but also quash all the proceedings of the
Diet. Such was the first case of the exercise of that liberum
veto of which we hear so much in subsequent Polish history,
and which is certainly the greatest curiosity, in the shape of
a political institution, with which the records of any nation
present us. From that time every Pole walked over the earth a
conscious incarnation of a power such as no mortal man out of
Poland possessed—that of putting a spoke into the whole
legislative machinery of his country, and bringing it to a
dead lock by his own single obstinacy; and, though the
exercise of the power was a different thing from its
possession, yet every now and then a man was found with nerve
enough to put it in practice. … There were, of course, various
remedies for this among an inventive people. One, and the most
obvious and most frequent, was to knock the vetoist down and
throttle him; another, in cases where he had a party at his
back, was to bring soldiers round the Diet and coerce it into
unanimity. There was also the device of what were called
confederations; that is, associations of the nobles
independent of the Diet, adopting decrees with the sanction of
the king, and imposing them by force on the country. These
confederations acquired a kind of legal existence in the
intervals between the Diets."

_Poland: her History and Prospects
(Westminster Review, January, 1855)._

POLAND: A. D. 1586-1629.
Election of Sigismund of Sweden to the throne.
His succession to the Swedish crown and his deposition.
His claims and the consequent war.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES(SWEDEN): A. D. 1523-1604;
and 1611-1629.

{2550}

POLAND: A. D. 1590-1648.
Reigns of Sigismund III. and Ladislaus IV.
Wars with the Muscovites, the Turks and the Swedes.
Domestic discord in the kingdom.