196 SZLACHTA
where some family inventories listed diamonds and pearls by the bucketful and
silver plate by the hundredweight, but where the majority of people lived close
to the breadline. Indeed, it was perpetuated not so much by the handful of mag-
nates, but in particular by the mass of petty nobility who in defence of their sta-
tus, were prepared to suffer every exploitation and humiliation. It had many
redeeming qualities; but cannot be dissociated entirely from the growth of rigid
political conservatism, from economic stagnation, from the misery of the other
estates, nor from the consumptive weakness of the noble Republic as a whole.
Over the nine generations or so which lived through the span of the United
Republic, social structures did not remain static. Although no major transform-
ation comparable to that in the nineteenth century occurred, the balance
between the various estates and between their component parts shifted consid-
erably. No accurate statistics are available; but the main trends are clear
enough. (See Diagram H (b), p. 157.) The decline of the Burgher Estate, both in
absolute numbers and in relative proportions, was complemented by the paral-
lel advance of the Jews. By 1791, the urban population was showing a definite
increase in the Jewish element. As might be expected, the clergy's numbers
remained small and stable; but both the peasants and the nobility showed
significant increases. The society of Poland-Lithuania was more ruralized than
two centuries before. Within the peasantry, the proportion of serfs, and particu-
larly of noble-owned serfs, had been growing steadily, just as within the Noble
Estate the number of landless nobles had long since outstripped the dwindling
ranks of the possessionati. All these features point to a marked degree of social
pauperization. Against this background, the merits of a social system managed
by a supposedly egalitarian and democratic Nobility were bound to be called
into question.
What cannot be questioned, however, is the durability of traditional Polish
society. Whereas many characteristic features of the old Republic were
destroyed, or were transformed out of all recognition, its social structures and
traditions remained essentially intact over several centuries, thereby proving
remarkably resistant to political and economic change. In this, they often con-
trived to transcend the Partitions, and provide one of the few strands of relative
permanence and continuity in modern Polish history.