THE NOBLEMAN'S PARADISE 179
As Matthias ruled over the Dobrzynskis, so his house standing between the tavern and
the church dominated the village. To all appearances it was inhabited by mere rabble. At
the entrance the gateposts stood without gates, and the garden was neither fenced nor
planted. Birches had grown up in the vegetable beds. Yet this old farmhouse seemed the
'Capitol' of the village, for it was handsomer and more spacious than the other cottages,
and on the right side, where the living room was placed, it was built of brick. Nearby
were a storehouse, a granary, barn, cow shed, and stable, all close together, as is usually
the case among the gentry. The whole was uncommonly old and decayed; the house-
roofs shone as if made of green tin, because of the moss and grass, which grew as luxu-
riantly as on a prairie. The thatch of the barns drooped like hanging gardens, and was
filled with plants, with nettles and the crimson crocus, with yellow mullen and the bright-
coloured tassels of mercury. In them were the nests of various birds. In the lofts were
dovecotes; swallows' nests in the windows. White rabbits hopped about on the thresh-
old, and burrowed in the untrodden turf.
But of old it had been fortified! Everywhere there was plenty of evidence of great and
ftequent attacks. Near the gateway in the grass there still lay an iron cannon ball, a relic
of the Swedish invasion, as large as a child's head. In the yard, among the weeds and the
wormwood, rose the old stumps of some dozen crosses, on unconsecrated ground, a sign
that men lay here who had perished by sudden and unexpected death. When one looked
closely at the storehouse, or at the granary, and cottage, one could see that the walls were
riddled with holes from top to bottom, as with a swarm of black insects. In the centre of
each hole sat a bullet, like a bumble-bee in its earthy burrow. Over the doors could be
seen the coat of arms of the Dobrzynskis; but shelves of cheeses veiled the bearings, and
swallows had walled them in thickly with their nests.
The interior of the house, and of the stable and carriage-shed was as full of accou-
trements as any old armoury. Under the roof hung four immense helmets, the ornaments
of martial brows. Nowadays the birds of Venus, the doves, cooed and fed their young in
them. In the stable, a great cuirass was stretched over the manger; a corslet of chain mail
served as a chute through which the boy fed clover to the colts below. In the kitchen, a
godless cook had spoiled the temper of several swords by sticking them in the oven instead
of spits. She dusted her handmill with a Turkish horsetail, captured at Vienna...^21
A specific example of the petty nobility's distress is to be found in the
unhappy history of Sielun in Mazovia, a district to the north of the Vistula,
which was dominated by the estates of the Vicar of Plock. These estates, clus-
tered in five keys round the castle of Sieluri, provided one of the richest ecclesi-
astical livings in Poland and were invariably assigned as a sinecure to a rich,
powerful, and absentee cleric. They entirely overshadowed the 2.9 villages of
zascianki, which were scattered among them. After 1526, however, when
Mazovia was fully integrated into the Republic, the nobility of Sielun sought to
change the legal conditions on which their land was held, and to resist all fur-
ther payment of rents and dues. The Vicar, defied by more than 700 families,
stood to lose a substantial part of his income. The incumbent of the 1550s, the
Revd. Michal Wolski, the future Bishop of Kujawy, was not prepared to con-
cede. His armed gangs toured the villages, raiding houses, burning charters, and
arresting anyone who looked to be heading for court. He used his ecclesiastical
jurisdiction to prosecute resisters on trumped-up charges, and to hound them