182 SZLACHTApeasants. A noseless, legless, or armless peasant was thought to be worth one-
tenth of a nobleman who had met with similar misfortune. In 1547, a royal edict
of Zygmunt-August increased the differentials. A noble life was valued at 60 zl.,
a commoner at 30, a soldier at 15, and a peasant at 10. On the face of it, the
nobleman was now worth six peasants. But a rule which divided compensation
for a peasant in the ratio of 6 for the widow, to 4 for the victim's lord, provokes
further considerations. If a nobleman cared to murder one of his own peasants
- and assuming that his own court would bother to make an award - he only
stood to pay the difference between what he owed the widow, and what he
could claim for himself. At 2 zl. net, this works out at thirty times less than the
60 zl. involved if the roles of murderer and victim were reversed. In 1588, the
fines were inflated still further, and prison sentences introduced. For the murder
of a nobleman, the offender was to remain 58 weeks in a closed dungeon, and to
pay a fine of 240 groats. If the offence was committed by use of a firearm, he was
to undergo 116 weeks' arrest, and pay 480 groats. Legs, arms, eyes, and noses
were priced at 120 groats each; blood wounds at 80, fingers at 30, and teeth at
20. By now, no mention is made of peasant victims. Presumably no one thought
of taking such trifles to court.^25
Murder, in effect, was considered somewhat less serious than other types of
offence. Noblemen, who always carried a sword, were expected to fend for
themselves. Murder was considered a fair risk. But rape and false pretences were
not. In 1448, a Mazovian statute provided the death sentence for the rape of a
noblewoman by a commoner, and a fine of 60 groats for the rape of a com-
moner. (By this score, one raped noblewoman was worth two dead noblemen at
the old rate; and the hymen of a peasant girl was ten times more valuable than
the life of her father.) A person who maliciously initiated a fraudulent nagana
was punished in Poland with decapitation, in Lithuania by flogging. A corpse,
falsely masquerading as the remains of a murder victim, was liable to earn its
presenter the same sentence as the murderer.^26
The Polish belief in nobility caused widespread comment abroad. Daniel
Defoe, writing in London in 1728, cited Venice and Poland as being 'the two
particular countries where the notions of nobility in blood are at this time car-
ried to the highest and most ridiculous extreme':
In Poland this vanity of birth is carry'd up to such a monstrous extravagance that the
name of gentleman and the title of a Starost, a Palatine, or a Castollan gives the man a
superiority over all the vassals or common people, infinitely greater than that of King or
Emperor, reigning over them with more absolute Power, and making them more miser-
able than the subjects either of the Grand Seignior or the Cham of Tartary, insomuch
that they trample on the poorer people as dogs and frequently murder them: and when
they do are accountable to nobody...
For take the nobility and gentry of POLAND ... as they appear in history; in the first
place, they are the most haughty, imperious, insulting people in the world. A very valu-
able historian of our times sayes they are proud, insolent, obstinate, passionate, furious.
These are indeed the born gentlemen...