228 MIASTOPoland-Lithuania where the burgher estate could hold its own against the
encroachments of the nobility.
Urban society contained several distinct groups and strata. By tradition mem-
bership of the mieszczanstwo or Burgher Estate was confined to Christian
tax-payers enjoying full civil rights, and represented anything between one-third
and two-thirds of a city's inhabitants. It was clearly divided between the patryc-
jat or 'oligarchy' on the one hand, and the citizens at large-the commoners who
formed the Pospolstwo, or Communitas - on the other hand. In the sixteenth
century, contemporary commentators often talked of the Three Orders - the
'Senatorial Order' of city Councillors; the 'Second Order' of magistrates; and
the 'Third Order' of commoners. The great patrician families of the First and
Second Order in the old royal capital of Cracow frequently traced their fortunes
to ancestors who had migrated from Germany, Hungary, or Italy. Their control
of the public offices and commercial enterprises of the cities matched that of the
magnates in the Republic as a whole, whilst their loans and services to the royal
court gave them political influence independent of the nobility. The Turzons,
Boners, and the Montelupi of Jagiellonian Cracow had their later counterparts
in the Blanks and Teppers of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Warsaw.^3
The pospolstwo in contrast, was drawn from members of the craft guilds and
the merchant confraternities. They saw themselves as the guardians of munici-
pal democracy, which in their view was threatened no less by the arrogance of
the patricians than by the unregulated activities of unlicensed craftsmen and
artisans. Beyond the burgher estate were the so-called plebs, and the Jews. In
some cities the plebs formed an absolute majority of the population. They were
made up from the poor, who were disenfranchised by their inability to pay their
taxes, and from all those migrants, fugitives, and casual workers whose lack of
a permanent residence disqualified them from citizenship. The Jews formed a
separate estate of their own, whose own threefold division into patricians, tax-
payers, and plebeians closely mirrored that of their Gentile neighbours.
Of Poland's private cities, Zamosc, founded in 1580 byJanZamoyski was, of
course, the obvious showpiece. But it was just one of many. In their way,
Tarnow founded by Hetman Jan Tarnowski, or Lewartow founded in 1543 by
the Firleys, were equally splendid. Among the smaller foundations were
Poniatow (1520) and Siennica (1526) in Mazovia, founded by the Poniatowski
and Siennicki respectively; Krasiczyn and Baranow in Malopolska; Zolkiew
and Stanislawow in Ruthenia; and Czartorysk and Klewan in Volhynia.
The guilds or Cechy made their impact on every sector of urban life.
Originally formed to protect the economic interests of particular specialist pro-
fessions such as the Goldsmiths and the Armourers, they gradually established
monopoly control over every craft and trade, and their activities spread into the
religious, recreational, educational, military, and eventually the political sphere.
In Cracow, the twenty-four guilds of the fifteenth century eventually rose to
sixty; in Thorn, in 1650 there were seventy; in Lwow, according to the Lustracja
of 1661, thirty-eight.* Each guild had its own statute, with its own rules and