THE NOBLEMAN'S PARADISE 185mutual respect and submission. Children greeted their parents kneeling - sons
on one knee, daughters on both.
Equality was practised between the sexes. Noblewomen enjoyed the same
rights of property and inheritance as noblemen, and did not feel dependent. The
herod-baba or 'wild woman' has a long record in both history and literature.
The principle of equality may have required that all formal titles be banned.
From the practical point of view, however, the ban was frequently circum-
vented. From the start, all the noblemen who signed the Union of Lublin with a
handle to their name were permitted to keep it. This let in all the 'Princes of the
Blood' from Lithuania, and a whole host of families who had accepted titles
from abroad. Although the Kings were not permitted to grant titles to Polish
subjects, they could do so to foreigners. Zygmunt-August conferred lands and
titles in Livonia in this way. Stefan Batory continued to make grants in
Transylvania, and the Polish Vasas issued putative titles to Scandinavian lands.
Augustus II rewarded dozens of his natural sons with earldoms in Poland, whilst
Stanislaw-August dispensed Polish baronies to his Russian mentors.
In addition to such genuine titles, and a host of more doubtful ones, there
were subtler means of underlining one's status. The magnates drew special pres-
tige from the offices of state. To be called 'Wojewoda', 'Kasztelan', or 'Starosta'
- or to bask in the kudos of 'Marshal of the Crown' or 'Grand Hetman of
Lithuania' - was no less substantial than to be a prince or a count. There also
appeared an informal hierarchy of attributes, used mainly in correspondence.
Everyone knew that nobilis or szlachetny meant 'noble-but-without-
significance'. It was used in disparagement of the landless and office-less.
Generosus was more complimentary, and. referred to office-holders.
Magnificus or even illustrissimus, once reserved for royal persons, was applied
to magnates whose favours were seriously solicited.
The Nobility's horror of orders of chivalry was more feigned than real. In
1634, Wladyslaw IV's project for launching the 'Order of the Immaculate
Conception' with seventy belted knights, was intended as a step towards a per-
manent Catholic monarchist party. It was opposed by the Sejm and had to be
dropped. But the introduction in 1705 by August II of the 'Order of the White
Eagle' raised no opposition whatever. By the middle of the century, the Saxon
ministers were selling membership at 10,000 zl. a head. In 1765, Stanislaw-
August introduced the new 'Order of Saint Stanislaw' and used it to reward
some hundreds of his supporters. By the 1790s his chamberlain was selling tick-
ets for this at 95 ducats each. In effect, the only respectable Order in the
Republic's history was the 'Virtuti Militari' of 1792.. It was used to honour men
who had distinguished themselves in the Russian War of 1791-2, and was pre-
dictably suppressed by command of Catherine the Great.
The Nobility's last great obsession was for the land. The pursuit of the 'natural
life' was indeed common to all the landowning classes of Europe; but in Poland it
formed a specially intense and sentimental trait. In the Republic, the distances
were greater than in Western Europe, and the localities still more isolated. Feeling