'THE OLD SERVANT' IN THE RESEARCH ON MAGNATE CLIENTELISM IN LITHUANIA IN THE 17TH C. ('Stary sluga' jako przedmiot badan nad klientelizmem magnackim na Litwie w XVII wieku)

• Authors: Augustyniak Urszula
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The aim of the article is to confront the literary topos of 'the old servant' (in both the magnate's worthy old friend and the worn-out pauper variants) with the social practice of the Grand Duchy of Lithaunia. The sources were drawn from the Radziwill Archives in the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw. The main topics addressed are: 1. the status and number of old servants in the clientele system and in the structure of the magnate court; 2. the relationship between servants and patrons in the courts of old magnates; 3. the postulated and real extent of patrons' support of old servants and their families. The article explores the legal status of 'servants', who in accordance with the 3rd Lithuanian Statute were treated as a separate social group, less privileged than local gentry in terms of property and judicature, but also as part of the patron's 'family', i.e. clientele. Then it clarifies terminological problems following from the fact that the term stary ('old') or starszy ('older/senior') sluga ('servant') (sludzy starsi 'senior servants') appears in sources in several meanings: it denotes elderly people, it functions as a conventional expression in correspondence between people of equal rank or it refers to servants of higher position as opposed to the so-called 'youths' (czeladz) in lists of household servants. Further, it presents the group of 'senior servants' in the court of the Radziwill family of Birze, especially at the time of Krzysztof II Radziwill, hetman and voivode. It is concluded that although generally 'old servants' enjoyed high status and as a group played an important role in recruiting new court members and clients by co-opting, in raising the patron's children, managing his estates and the public activity of his political faction, the individual position and status of the old servant dependent primarily on his personal relationship with the magnate. The status of old servants and their relations with the patron were verified in every phase of their lives, especially when they aged and ceased to be at the patron's disposal in all situations. The Radziwill clientele included both types of old servants: a small group of 'the master's friends' - eminent writers and politicians (Salomon Rysinski, Piotr Kochlewski, Daniel Naborowski, Krzysztof Arciszewski, Samuel Przypkowski) and a large number of lower rank servants and administrators, who were often deprived of their pay when they aged and whose widows were expelled from manors which they leased from the patron. More general conclusions on the situation of old servants in the Radziwill clientele in the 17th c. will be possible if detailed research of the courts of Janusz and Boguslaw Radziwill, undertaken in the 1980s and then abandoned, is resumed.

Keywords

EN

AGING; HISTORY OF POLAND; MAGNATE CLIENTELISM; OLD AGE; POLISH LITHUANIAN COMMONWEALTH - 16TH CENTURY

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
• Year: 2010
• Volume: 58
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 71-85
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Augustyniak Urszula

• Prof. dr hab. Urszula Augustyniak, Instytut Historyczny Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, ul. Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

11PLAAAA098012