132 ANTEMURALERepressive measures, such as the expulsion of the Arians in 1658, were under-
taken for political rather than for religious reasons. Poland had its share of
Catholic bigots; but the matter was far removed from what Carlyle imagined
when he talked of 'savage and sanguinary outbreaks of a type of Jesuit fanati-
cism as has no fellow'. Carlyle, the British Protestant, had not apparently heard
of the Oxford Martyrs, of whom in Poland-Lithuania there was no equiva-
lent.^11 (See Map 10.)
The influence of the Jesuits, though important, must be seen in relation to the
parallel expansion of other contemplative, teaching, and mendicant Orders. In
the two centuries from their introduction in 1564 to their suspension in 1773, the
Jesuits never controlled more than seventy out of the Republic's 1,200 monastic
and religious houses. Even in the educational sphere, they never enjoyed any-
thing which resembled a monopoly. A total of 47 Jesuit colleges was comple-
mented from 1642 by the growing network of the schools of the Piarists
(Pietists), who specialized in the education of the sons of indigent nobility. In
this light, the opinion of Walerian Krasinski that 'the Jesuits and their wretched
tool, Sigismund HI, were the cause and origin of the ruin of the country', looks
somewhat unjustified.^12 The Benedictines, whose earliest Polish foundations
dated from the early eleventh century, the Cistercians, whose first house at
Jedrzejow was founded in 1140, and the Carthusians, all continued to work and
to pray. The Dominicans (Black Friars), to whom the Vatican entrusted its
inquisitorial powers, had maintained an unbroken presence since 1222. The
Bonifraters, imported from Spain in 1608, were active in the realm of medical
and mental care; the Missionary Fathers of St. Vincent de Paul (Lazarists)
arrived shortly afterwards from France, with the original view of converting the
Armenians of Lwow; the Marianite Sisters organized a network of convents in
the eastern palatinates for the purpose of converting Jewish girls, and of finding
them noble husbands. The various branches of the Franciscan Order could be
encountered throughout Poland—Lithuania. The Bernardine Friars (Obser-
vantists) were specially popular with the nobility, who endowed them with over
eighty foundations; the Reformists reached Poland in 1622; the Franciscan
Minoresses (Poor Clares) rivalled the Carmelites among the leading female
orders; the Capuchins were specially favoured by Jan Sobieski. Taken together,
these various Orders far outnumbered the Jesuits, and counterbalanced any
exclusive claims which they might have entertained. In the eighteenth century,
when the level of learning and missionary zeal declined, the relative status and
reputation of the Jesuits declined also.
Polish Catholicism was marked not so much by its external militancy, as by its
extreme inward piety. Traditionally indisposed to forcible conversion, and
unsupported by the civil power, the Church could not apply the same ferocious
methods as in Spain, Italy, or in neighbouring Bohemia. Rather, it reasserted its
position by cultivating all manner of mystic, ascetic, and devotional practices.
The seventeenth century saw a revival of interest in reliquaries. Pilgrimages came
back into fashion. Complex Calvaries, whose chapels, avenues, and stairways