Why Wasn't Poland Incorporated Into the Holy Roman Empire??

[city17citizen]

Anyway, I only would like to point out that according to Western historians, even in the most industrialized countries in the world (like England, etc.) it was an agriculture, which out-weighted all other sources of the wealth of nations, well into the second half of 19th c. In other words, an agriculture was responsible for over 50% of GDP of the most industrialized countries almost until 20th c.
So, if you like to compare wealth of nations and states in 16-18th c., you should compare agricultural production of countries. An agricultural production per capita is much better indicator of wealth than anything else.

Right, since structure of Polish economy on a large scale involved production, consumption and distribution of grain. However, playing down importance of expanding township its a bad idea since technological progress came from there, and not from rural communities, which allowed usage of more advanced capital goods, including farming equipment.
Also to some degree, in 17th century, Poland substituted slower technological progress with bigger exploitation of peasantry in order to remain in the market.

It is entirely false. The military and financial effort of Poland out-weighted anything you can see till 1648. Not only taxes were much higher than earlier (in 5 years [1649-1654] of the Cossacks' uprising, Poland collected more money from taxes than in the decade 1620-1630 of bloody wars vs Ottomans, Swedes, Cossacks and Tartars), but also Poland mobilized much more numerous armies. And not only in the year of the battle of Beresteczko (1651), but also before and after this year. Civil war in Poland involved much more troops than English Civil War.
So it is really hard to claim that there was 'almost complete lack of reaction against military threat'. Not only in this war, but also later.

Not entirely - I already mentioned that lame reaction at best, happened until more energetic warfare led by Jeremy Wisnowiecki curbed growing rebellion. I also mentioned earlier that Beresteczko was considerable military effort - I would even say huge by the 17th century land battle standards.(even though Poland failed to capitalize on it and to regain control over its south-eastern frontier which fell to Russia). Anyway, it is also mix of political, social and economic weakness in 1655, that allowed Swedish forces to march through much of the territory of Poland encountering no significant resistance. And once again, as I mentioned places like Jasna Gora still successfully resisted and contributed to formation of larger military opposition.

I cant find any sufficient sources fully describing levels of taxation and monetary policy so I cant tell. I can only say that increase of taxation doesn't always mean economic expansion. Ofc, especially during war, it will increase government spending in a short run causing GDP to jump up. That happened in the 5th century in a remaining territories of Western Roman Empire and resulted in farther economic ruin forcing emperor to remove huge part of taxation in the end, in order to prevent catastrophe. That ofc doesn't have to apply to Poland.

[Domen123]

But it seems that destructions caused by wars had major and primary negative influence on that economic decline.

An increasingly Anti-urban and Anti-peasant policy / legislation of Polish magnate-dominated Parliament and an increasing anarchy in political live (which started after magnates gained influence on power and started to bribe noble deputies in the Parliament to vote as they wanted) were of secondary importance.

This is my opinion at least. And the truth is probably somewhere in-between.

Thanks too, I also had nice time discussing with you about this.

I do not mean urbanization stopped altogether, but it was developing at slower pace while in many parts of Western Europe it accelerated on the larger scale.

Yeah, but Polish towns suffered enormous losses during the wars of 1650s - 1720s. And during numerous subsequent epidemics.

For example if I remember correctly, population of the quite large town of Kalisz (?) dropped to just +/- 20 (twenty!) people during 1655 - 1656.

[Domen123]

BTW - in terms of percentage population losses of Poland during the wars of 1648 - 1667 and 1700 - 1721 were bigger than during WW2.

And this statistics include victims of the Holocaust during WW2 as well.

[Domen123]

One more thing - I agree with you that wars started by Zygmunt III Waza were senseless. This was the consequence of electing a foreigner (with foreign ambitions) to the Polish throne. Zygmunt used Poland and Polish army as a "tool" to achieve his goals / ambitions and regain power in his homeland - Sweden.

[Domen123]

This data can tell us something about the Medieval equivalent of modern "GDP per capita" in 15th century Poland:

It also shows that definitely there was upper class / urban elite in Polish (province of Greater Poland in this case) towns of that period:

It also shows that live of peasants in 15th century Poland wasn't that bad and there were also rich peasants:

[intel]

Not to mention long and sustaining effort in campaigns against Russia that followed end of the Deluge.

[Domen123]

This is based on statistics from three regions (Greater Poland - 57,900 km2; Lesser Poland - 55,900 km2 and Mazovia - 31,800 km2):

Time frame is from 1340 (when population of these provinces was 1,3 million) to 1780 (population ca. 3,93 million and in 1790 - 4,1 million):

Number of towns increased from 111 in 1333 (and probably ca. 136 in 1340) to 707 in 1800 (and probably ca. 697 in 1780):

Note the huge drop of urban population during the 2nd Northern War (1655 - 1660) and 3rd Northern War (1700 - 1721) - at the same time the total drop of population of these provinces was much smaller (from 3,9 million in 1650 to 2,9 in 1660 and from 3,3 in 1700 to 2,9 in 1720), so towns suffered more than countryside:

Greater Poland suffered most during those periods:

[Domen123]

But township was expanding faster and faster (until 1650) - see my graph posted above.

And also here (however they give wrong data concerning year 1500 - other sources say level of urbanization then was 17% not 15%):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogra...281569-1795.29

In 1580 level of urbanization in Greater Poland was 25,2% (with total population ca. 1,2 million and population density ca. 21 / sq km) in Lesser Poland ca. 26,3% (population ca. 1,25 million and density ca. 22 / sq km) and in Mazovia 14,1% (with population 0,7 million and density 22 / sq km).

By comparison in entire France before the revolution of 1789 urbanization level was 16% (but population density was very high).

So of these three provinces of Poland listed above the least urbanized was Mazovia.

But even in Mazovia number of towns with over 2,000 people increased from 2 around year 1340 to 11 by the end of 15th and 15 by the end of 16th century.

By the end of 15th century there were 88 tows in Mazovia (11 of them had ca. 2,000 or more people and 77 had +/- 400 people each).

There were no huge towns in Poland because overall population and population density was relatively small, not because of poor urbanization level.

Overall number of towns (in Greater & Lesser Poland and Mazovia) per each 1,000 sq km increased from ca. 1 in 1340 to ca. 4,5 in 1650.

The wars of 1648 - 1667 and 1700 - 1720 affected most painfully very small towns (those with several hundreds people each).

As the result many of these smallest towns "pauperized" and turned into agricultural settlements - craft and trade died down.

Larger towns survived, even though suffering heavy losses. Poznan in 1600 had 20,000 population. In 1660 - 14,000. In 1720 - 5,000.

Many of the large towns did not manage to reach the pre-1650 level of population until the very last partition in 1795.

However, playing down importance of expanding township its a bad idea since technological progress came from there, and not from rural communities

Urbanization was not possible without strong and prosperous countryside.

Urbanization always resulted - among other reasons - from technological progress in agriculture.

Countryside is the main market for products produced in towns. If countryside is poor, towns can't develop.

For countries which had oversea colonies, colonies were large markets for manufacturing goods and luxurious goods produced by towns of the European part (and inversely - European part was a large market for raw materials produced in colonies).

Poland didn't have oversea colonies.

When feudal burdens of Polish peasants increased, they impoverished (they also impoverished as the result of general devastation of the countryside caused by wars - large part of nobility also impoverished due to this) and demand for products produced by towns in the countryside decreased.

As the result development capabilities of towns shrank (especially that wars and epidemics did not bypass towns either).

Also to some degree, in 17th century, Poland substituted slower technological progress

All technological innovations in Europe were quickly spreading over entire Europe (within several up to a few dozen years) in 17th / 18th centuries.

If something was invented in England - for example - up to 10 (+/-) years later it was in Poland.

with bigger exploitation of peasantry in order to remain in the market.

And also because nobles suffered huge financial losses during the wars (of 1648 - 1667 mainly) so they wanted to compensate at the expense of peasants.

[Domen123]

In Middle Ages Poland was a strong country, and HRE was surrounded by disloyal vassals (Italy) and plain enemies.

Several quotations from the era about Poland's reputation at that time:

Arabian-Jewish traveler from Muslim Spain - Ibrahim-Ibn-Jacob - wrote about the early state of Gniezno (Civitas Schinesghe) - at the beginning of years 60s of 10th century, during his travel to Central and Eastern Europe:

"And when it comes to the state of Msko (…) this rich state abounds in food, meat, honey and cultivating soil. Some part of taxes, trading payments and custom duties which he collects, goes for soldier’s pay of his men. Those payments collected by him constitutes trading weights [so coins or monetary units of silver/gold ore]. Each month all of them receive certain number of them. He has got 3,000 of Loricati, divided into units, and a hundred of them equals 10 hundred of any other men. He gives them clothes, horses, weapons, armours and everything they need"

Matilda, Swabian princess, "Ordo Romanus" - some of her words to the Polish prince Mieszko I:

"You can worship the God with dignity in your own language and in Latin, and when it wasn't enough for you, you also added Greek."

Thietmar, German chronicler - about Bolesław I Chrobry, son of Mieszko, during the Gniezno Convention in 1000:

"It is hard to believe and to describe, with how great magnificence was Boleslaw entertaining the Emperor and leading him through his lands to the city of Gniezno. (...) After arranging all of those matters the Emperor received from Boleslaw splendid gifts and among them, which pleased him the most, three hundred armoured knights. When the Emperor was leaving, Boleslaw escorted him with the elite retinue as far as to the city of Magdeburg."

It must be underlined that Thietmar was generally unfriendly towards the Poles (because of early German - Polish wars of 1002 - 1018).

Chronicler Gallus Anonymus (he lived 100 years after the death of Chrobry) also wrote about this convention:

"At the gates of the desired city [Gniezno] Boleslaw prepared peculiar wonders; at first various units of knighthood, then he posted the notables, like choirs, along the spacious plain, and individual, separately standing units were distinguishing themselves with different colours of costumes. And it wasn't cheap medley of slapdash decorations but the most expensive things which can be found anywhere in the entire world."

Chronicler Gallus Anonymus wrote about Boleslaw I Chrobry himself:

“Greater and more numerous are deeds of Boleslav than we can even describe or tell in simple words. What a mathematic master would be able to count the exact number of his iron ranks, not even saying about citing descriptions of all of his triumphs and victories – so many of them were! Because only from Poznan had Boleslav 1300 of Loricati and 4000 of Clipeati, from Gniezno 1500 of Loricati and 5000 of Clipeati, from Wloclavek 800 of Loricati and 2000 of Clipeati, from Giecz 300 of Loricati and 2000 of Clipeati”

* Loricati - "Armoured" - heavy cavalry from prince's Drużyna.
* Clipeati - "Shieldmen" - either foot soldiers (infantry equipped with shields) or light cavalry from Drużyna.

================================

Something from further years:

Daniel Defoe (1659 - 1731) wrote:

"Who only knows Latin can go across the whole Poland from one side to the other one just like he was at his own home, just like he was born there. So great happiness! I wish a traveler in England could travel without knowing any other language than Latin!"

Erasmus of Rotterdam wrote about Polish king Zygmunt Stary (1467 - 1548, king of Poland since 1506) that he:

"Unquestionably occupies the first place among the monarchs of this century."

Kasper de Tende during the last years of 17th century wrote about Polish nobility:

"Polish nobility is by nature very kind and hospitable. When foreigners travel across their country, they invite them to rest and drink at their homes and they entertain them the best as they can. I knew such Poles, who were entertaining complete strangers from France, Italy or Germany inside their houses, feeding them."

The same Kasper de Tende also wrote:

"Polish nobility thinks, that it is in their interest not to carry out any wars against anyone and always leave in peace with all neighbours. They consider that Poland will be able to retain all of its territories thanks to such behaviour."

==============================

18th century - in the first Prussian dictionary there was the following proverb:

"Polen ist der Bauern Hölle, der Bürger Fegefeuer, der Fremden Goldgrube, der Edelleute Himmel, und der Juden Paradies"

"Poland is a hell for peasants, a purgatory for townsmen, a gold mine for foreigners, a heaven for nobles and a paradise for Jews."

[Radosław Sikora]

However, playing down importance of expanding township its a bad idea since technological progress came from there, and not from rural communities, which allowed usage of more advanced capital goods, including farming equipment.
Also to some degree, in 17th century, Poland substituted slower technological progress with bigger exploitation of peasantry in order to remain in the market.

I think you overestimate the importance of grain export for Polish economy and overestimate the importance of technological progress in agricultural production in that period.

Some facts:

1. Polish export of grain is really good indicator of economical condition of only 1 Polish province - Mazovia (which was one of the poorest Polish province), since Mazovia was the only one province with a such good communication with Gdańsk and Baltic sea. The most fertile provinces of Poland (like Podole) didn't have such good communication with Vistula, Gdańsk and Baltic, therefore their participation in the grain export was insignificant. So, any estimation of condition of Polish economy, shouldn't focus only on a grain export.

2. Technological progress wasn't big enough to replace more important factor - natural fertility of a soil. And here we have really huge differences between countries and between provinces of particular countries. For example, the average crops from Dutch soils were 7,5 grains (from 1 sowed grain) in 16th c. (data for central Poland in that time - 5,1; for Spain - 3,5; for Russia 2,9; for German countries - 4,4; for Denmark - 2,7; for France and England - 5,5)
BTW, Netherlands was the most advanced European country in terms of agricultural culture. Still, the highest in Europe agricultural culture wasn't enough to compensate relatively low fertility of Dutch soils. Soils in Ruthenian Voivodeship (it was Polish province) were good enough to reap almost 20 grains (from 1 sowed grain) in the second half of 17th c., means after all these devastating wars Poland waged in the period of 1648-1667, which caused a ruin of Polish economy and which decreased agricultural culture in Poland. To comparison, because of these wars, the productivity of Mazovian soils decreased from about 5,6 grains / 1 sowed grain before these wars, to only about 3,1 grains / 1 sowed grain in the second half of 17th c.

3. Because we are interested in agricultural production per capita, apart from productivity and the level of agricultural culture, we have to take into consideration density of population of countries.
In other words, even a country or a province with relatively low agricultural culture and relatively poor soils could enjoy a high agricultural production per capita, if it was sparsely populated.
And here you have the answer why Mazovia, with worse than Netherlands productivity of soils (5,1 to 7,5 in the second half of 16th c.), with lower than Netherlands agricultural culture, was able to export grain. Density of population of Netherlands in the second half of 16th c. was about 45 men per 1 km2, while density of population of Mazovia was only 20 men per 1 km2 in 1580. Netherlands imported Polish grain, because its own agricultural production wasn't big enough to feed its population (and because it was profitable to reexport it to England and elsewhere ).
The worst situation in Europe was in these countries which were relatively high populated and which had relatively low productivity of soils. Check the list of famines to see which countries were often in trouble in that period. You can find Poland only once at this list. And the famine was caused not by technological backwardness of Poland, but by devastating wars in that period. To comparison look at England, France or countries of HRE. Somebody might think that they were the worst developed European countries.

Ok, I've finished. I'm sorry, I really have no free time to comment everything I'd like

[Exarch]

all of that rich grain producing areas would've aided the HRE well;
tis a pity the Emperor never authorized the marcher lords to take it

[intel]

They tried and failed many times. Why would this be a pity, Exarch?

[Exarch]

They tried and failed many times. Why would this be a pity, Exarch?

simply my attachment and obsession with the holy roman empire, and strategic enlightenment from realising (in m2;tw) how important the vistula river is as a boundary/obstacle against invaders

[city17citizen]

To Radoslaw Sikora and Domen123:

I appreciate your knowledge about Commonwealth, and thanks to you guys I'm again in search for some decent work on Commonwealth. What do you recommend is the best work to read??, or which ones are the best books to read about Commonwealth available in North America?

[Radosław Sikora]

To Radoslaw Sikora and Domen123:

I appreciate your knowledge about Commonwealth, and thanks to you guys I'm again in search for some decent work on Commonwealth. What do you recommend is the best work to read??, or which ones are the best books to read about Commonwealth available in North America?

Usually I recommend 2 books:
1. Robert I. Frost "The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558 - 1721"
2. Norman Davies "God's Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795"

There are however some mistakes. Still, they are the best books about Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in English language.

Now, I'm waiting for upcoming book.
Belarussian, Lithuanian, Polish and Ukrainian historians (that is historians from the territory of former PLC) write together, in English language, a book about history of Lithuania and Poland. The first volume will include the period from Jagiellon times to the third partition of Poland. It should be published in this year.

If you are interested in data on Polish-Lithuanian finances, check this site. However you should remember some specific of PLC. It was the best described by French secretary of Polish Queen:
"de sorle que nous ferions plus ici avec un million pour la défensive, qu'on ne saurait faire en France avec vingt."

(source: Lettres de Pierre Des Noyers, secretaire de la reine de Pologne Marie-Louise de Gonzague, pour servir a l’histoire de Pologne et de Suede de 1655 a 1659. p. 49) BTW, if you know French, I recommend you this book very much. You can download it from google books - here.

If you are interested in Polish military history, I'd like to recommend you my site. Check the section 'Materiały'. There are articles in English.

[Domen123]

And also:

a) Robert I. Frost, "After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655-1660" (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robert-I.-Fr..._athr_dp_pel_1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Deluge...644307-5319161

b) Józef A. Gierowski, "The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the XVIIIth century", Kraków 1996

c) Janusz Tazbir, "Poland as a bulwark of Christian Europe: Myths and reality", 1987, ISBN 978-83-223-2254-3

d) J. Tazbir, "A state without stakes. Polish religious toleration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries", 1973, Kościuszko Foundation, New York

One customer's review from Amazon.com:

"If you are one of those who thinks that fervent religious belief inevitably leads to persecution of those outside the faith, this book is for you. Tazbir shows how, in contradistinction to the bloody wars of religion all over Europe in the wake of the Reformation, members of various faiths lived in mutual tolerance in Poland. This eventually made Poland haven to 4/5th of the world's Jews."

e) "The false Dmitri. A Russian Romance and Tragedy. Described by British eye-witnesses, 1604 - 1612" (Reprints of Contemporary Reports such as "A Bloudie Tragedie", printed 1607, etc.), Edited, With a Preface, by Sonia E. How (autor of "A Thousand Years of Russian History"), Illustrated by Contemporary Portraits, New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers, Digitized for Microsoft Corporation by the Internet Archive in 2008. From University in Toronto. May be used for non-commercial, personal, research or education purposes, or any fair use. ///// Available to download for example here (falsedmitrirussi00howeuoft.pdf):

http://chomikuj.pl/Kadrinazi/*c5*b9r...,377798048.pdf

f) Radoslaw's website when it comes to military history. For example I recommend his article about the battle of Klushino that was fought in 1610 (R. Sikora, "Battle of Kłuszyn (Klushino) 1610", Lębork 2010):

http://www.radoslawsikora.republika....ly/Kluszyn.pdf

==========================================

And from a bit earlier period (not entire book but only its fragments from the very last chapter though; the book itself is in Polish):

g) From: A. Nadolski and others, "Uzbrojenie w Polsce średniowiecznej 1350 - 1450", PAN, IHKM, Lódź 1990; summary for English readers: "Arms and Armour in Mediaeval Poland (1350 - 1450). Summary" (17 pages):

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[Ahlerich]

If you are one of those who thinks that fervent religious belief inevitably leads to persecution of those outside the faith, this book is for you. Tazbir shows how, in contradistinction to the bloody wars of religion all over Europe in the wake of the Reformation, members of various faiths lived in mutual tolerance in Poland. This eventually made Poland haven to 4/5th of the world's Jews."

isnt that a given as the protestand vs catholic wars in the 30 years war was a war about gaining wealth and influence in the provinces of the hre?
religion was just used as a fine reason to attack and gain loot.
i doubt the lion of the north game to pillage germany to protect german protestants (which have also been looted by him) or vice versa the emperor and his aggressions against protestant parts of the empire. of course everybody liked to say they do it for god/religion to give the simple bloodwork a pretty coating.

[Domen123]

The entire Reformation thing (I mean the fact that dukes accepted it as official relligion in their states) was about gaining wealth (at the expense of the Church).

[Londinium]

The entire Reformation thing (I mean the fact that dukes accepted it as official relligion in their states) was about gaining wealth (at the expense of the Church).

That and the fact that some genuinely were inspired by the Protestant ideas. In England it was certainly a money grab at the start (it changed over time) but in Germany and Scandanavia it was a bit more nuanced.

[Domen123]

a) Robert I. Frost, "After the Deluge: Poland-Lithuania and the Second Northern War, 1655-1660" (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Deluge-Poland-Lithuania-1655-1660-Cambridge/dp/0521544025/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2/278-0644307-5319161

You can read large fragments of this book in this link.