THE TRANSYLVANIAN VICTOR 321Danzig was the first to be disciplined. Having defied the recommendations of
the Commission of 1570 which had regulated relations between the Republic
and its chief city, it had thrown its weight behind the Habsburg candidate. In
September 1576, it was placed under ban by Bathory, who announced a com-
mercial blockade and the transfer of all Polish trade to Elbing. When resistance
continued and the Abbey of Oliwa was burned by rioters, Danzig was attacked
by force. On 17 April 1577 at Lubieszow (Liebischau), the royal army of Jan
Zborowski killed nearly twice their own number when challenged by the
Danzigers under Johann Winkelbruch von Koln. But it was unable to storm the
city, or to take the Lantern Fortress which guarded the port. At the Treaty of
Malborg, Bathory withdrew the terms of the Commission in exchange for a
hefty subsidy, and agreed to further negotiations. A new convention was finally
agreed in 1585.^4
Bathory turned next to judicial reform. Seeing that the business of the higher
courts of royal justice had been suspended for half a decade, he abandoned the
monarch's prerogative to hear appeals in civil and criminal cases. Instead, he
directed Zamoyski, now raised to the Crown Chancellorship, to devise a sys-
tem whereby judicial affairs could be directly controlled by the nobility. The
institution of the Crown Tribunal in 1578 and of a similar Lithuanian Tribunal
in 1581, removed any possible fears of impending royal tyranny, and ensured
the co-operation of the Sejm and the nobility for the king's more pressing inter-
ests.^5
The royal army was also transformed. In 1578, the Sejm was persuaded to
approve the formation of the piechota wybraniecka or 'selected infantry'. They
were drawn from the peasants of the Crown estates, in the ratio of one man for
every twenty holdings. Each soldier was to be clothed and supported by the
nineteen neighbouring families who did not serve. They were armed with mus-
kets. At the same time, the old jazda kopijnicza or 'mounted spearmen' was
gradually replaced by the winged Husaria, one of the legendary formations of
European battlefields over the next century.^6
After the army, it was the turn of the Dnieper Cossacks. Settled on the outer
fringes of organized government, they had defied all previous attempts to con-
trol them. They lived in Tartar style from loot and pillage. In years when they
refrained from devastating Poland or Lithuania, they were devastating the
Republic's neighbours. Yet in 1578, they approached Bathory with a proposi-
tion of service and obedience, and it was accepted with alacrity. A named regis-
ter of Cossack volunteers was established, who, in return for taking the oath of
allegiance, were to receive an annual fee equal to that of the Hussars. They were
to serve under their own Ataman who was to take his orders from the royal
starosta at Czerkask. It was no secret that they were expected to direct their tal-
ents against Muscovy. Cossacks who persisted with adventures of their own
invention received no mercy. In 1584, Bathory did not wait for senatorial
approval before executing, in the presence of the Sultan's ambassador, thirty
Zaporozhians who had crossed into the Turkish lands without permission.^7