(^272) ANARCHIA
For political theorists, the Republic of Poland-Lithuania provided an inex-
haustible fund of curiosities. Its increasingly ineffective practices gave
Absolutists ample material for demonstrating the superiority of their argu-
ments; whilst its libertarian ideals gained the admiration of republicans and
constitutionalists. Taking the period as a whole, it found as many admirers as
detractors. Nor should it be supposed that within Poland—Lithuania the
Anarchy was suffered in silence. Political debate was an essential attribute of the
'Golden Freedom'. Pamphleteers were as common as privateers. Even before
the Union of Lublin, a long-running intellectual debate had been started as to
how the Polish system could be changed and improved.^23
The first and most distinguished of Polish critics was Andrzej Frycz
Modrzewski (1503-72), known throughout Europe as 'Modrevicius'. Born into a
family of impoverished nobility, he rose in the service of Archbishop Laski, and
found his way by merit into the royal secretariat of Zygmunt-August. His domin-
ant theme of social justice ran contrary to the tendency of the age, and assured
him an audience both at home and abroad. He fearlessly condemned the oppres-
sion of the peasants, the exclusion of the bourgeoisie, the ignorance of the clergy,
the luxury of the nobility. He was not in any sense a democrat, but demanded only
that each estate should contribute to the general good according to its means. 'We
are all as passengers in one boat,' he said, 'when one of us is sick, the others can-
not stay healthy.' His first serious publication, De Poena Homicidi (On the
Punishment for Murder, 1543), attacked the blatant injustices of the Head-Money
system. His major work, De Emendanda Republica (On the Improvement of the
Republic), was composed in the 1550s and published in the first complete edition
of five volumes in Basle in 1554. In it he made a whole series of far-reaching pro-
posals—for equality before the law; for a Codex of written law; for the exemp-
tion of peasants from direct taxation; for a national church and a scholarly clergy;
and for a system of state-sponsored education. In constitutional affairs, he praised
the Polish practice where elected kings ruled by consent. 'It is a much better
arrangement', he wrote, 'than that where kings impose taxes and initiate wars of
their own will, which may easily lead to hideous tyranny.' In religious affairs, he
advocated freedom of conscience, but stressed the role of instruction, scholarship,
and learning in support of Christian beliefs. In international affairs, he con-
demned the prevalence of war and the acceptance of territorial aggrandizement.
On each of these scores, he attracted the detailed attention of Bodin, of Beza, and
of Grotius. Modrzewski's criticisms were of the most detailed, empirical kind,
however, and in no sense revolutionary. Even his ideas on education, which
seemed so strange to his contemporaries, were advanced in support of the exist-
ing order. It was most unfair, therefore, that he should have been attacked in the
Sejm for seeking 'not to emend but to destroy.' But he knew how to reply. In 1557
he reminded the Polish nobility that their arrogance and inflexibility would lead
to catastrophe. 'No state was ever conquered before being weakened by internal
friction;' he warned, 'beware that by your obstinacy you do not hasten your own
perdition and that of the Commonwealth.'^24
c. jardin
(C. Jardin)
#1