244 MIASTO
decreased in proportion to the plebs, the poor, and the Jews. The urban popu-
lation sank to a mere 15 per cent of the whole. The great cities assumed the air
of small towns; whilst the minor cities were reverting to the state of overgrown,
country villages, not to say of ghost towns. By the mid-eighteenth century, in the
words of a contemporary description, 'Every street was an open field, every
square a desert.' This phenomenon of urban decline was not unknown else-
where in Central and Eastern Europe at this time; but its manifestations in
Poland-Lithuania were unusually severe.
The causes of decline as proposed by historians are many and various. War
devastation was obviously important as a precipitating factor, but cannot in
itself explain the cities' failure to revive in times of peace. Dwindling trade, too,
was bound to affect urban prosperity, but does not explain, why many cities
failed to keep their share of such commerce that survived. The growth of
mercantilist states on the Republic's borders conceivably provided added com-
petition. The fact that not only Breslau but also Riga after 1621 and Konigsberg
after 1657 lay beyond foreign customs barriers may have adversely affected the
Republic's commercial prospects. Financial historians have stressed the devalu-
ation of the Republic's currency with the associated boost to inflation. The last
royal mint in Poland-Lithuania closed in 1688. Social historians have variously
pointed both to the exclusiveness of the Jews and to the complacency of
the nobility as causes of the distress of the burgher estate. Certainly the
noble—Jewish alliance represented an important challenge to the burghers' for-
mer supremacy in commercial matters. But none of these points approaches the
heart of the problem. Surely, in analysing urban decline, the historian should
look less for external scapegoats and more for signs of internal weakness. Here,
one is immediately struck by the centrifugal forces within the political life of the
cities. There were conflicts between the patricate and the commoners, and
between the citizens and the plebs; there were conflicts of a religious and
national character between Catholics, Protestants, Uniates, or Orthodox as
between Poles, Germans, Ruthenes, and Lithuanians; and there was the funda-
mental division between the Christian burghers and the Jewish estate. The
Guilds were greatly fragmented into official, unofficial, and national sectors. In
the political sphere, the cities were defenceless. In their era of prosperity, they
had failed to gain adequate representation in the Sejm - the observers from
Cracow, Wilno, and Royal Prussia in no way compensating for the absence of a
commercial 'Tiers Etat' in the government of the state. Accordingly, in times of
adversity, they could neither protect themselves from the nobility, nor seek
redress from the King, nor reform themselves. They gradually fell victim to var-
ious forms of exploitation and oppression. The waving of an ancient charter did
not deter an imperious magnate from subverting the processes of municipal
democracy to his own advantage. The possession of a diploma of citizenship did
not save the indigent craftsman from the corvee. In the eighteenth century, there
were instances where even the mayors of small private towns were driven
into serfdom. Only the few great royal cities could resist, and then only in an