Oxford Prize Essays 
 
 5145 
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 The Jesuits in Poland 
 
 A.F. POLLARD 
 
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 The Lothian Essay 1892 
 
yforb prise i0sa\>s 
 
 THE JESUITS IN POLAND 
 
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
yforfc prise Essays 
 
 THE 
 
 JESUITS IN POLAND 
 
 THE LOTHIAN ESSAY, 1892 
 
 BY 
 
 A. F. POLLARD, B.A. 
 
 JESUS COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 AND 51 BROAD STREET 
 
 LONDON: METHUEN AND CO., BURY ST., W.C. 
 1892 
 
HENRY MORSE STEPHENS 
 
NOTE. 
 
 MY best thanks are due to Mr. W. R. Morfill, M.A., 
 Reader in Russian and other Slavonic Languages in the 
 University of Oxford, for advice as to the spelling of 
 Polish names. When a name is familiar in a German 
 or Latin form, e.g. Lemberg or Ladislas, that form has 
 been generally adhered to ; but, in the case of less-known 
 names, an attempt has been made to give a more accurate 
 representation of the Polish spelling. 
 
 509169 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 INTRODUCTORY . i 
 
 CHAPTER I. POLAND AND LITHUANIA BEFORE THE 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 Growth of Poland Internal Disorganisation Development of 
 Lithuania Union of Lublin Religious History of Poland 
 Rudiments of a National Church Antecedents of the Re- 
 formation The Greek Church in Lithuania .... 3 
 
 CHAPTER II. THE REFORMATION IN POLAND. 
 
 The Lutherans Bohemian Brethren and Helvetian Church The 
 Socinians Effect on Legislation John a Lasco Efforts of 
 the Catholics Stanislas Hosen Union of Sandomir State 
 of the Reformation at the Introduction of the Jesuits . .11 
 
 CHAPTER III. BEGINNINGS OF THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 Foundation of the Society First Jesuits in Poland Canisius 
 Kostka Colleges at Braunsberg, Pultusk, Wilna and Posen 
 Altitude of Sigismund II Proceedings of the Protestants . 19 
 
 CHAPTER IV. PROGRESS OF THE SOCIETY UNDER 
 STEPHEN BATORY. 
 
 Election of Henry of Anjou and Batory His conversion Favour 
 towards the Jesuits Growth of the Society in Poland, 
 Lithuania, Livonia 25 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 Character of Sigismund His Jesuit advisers Skarga Conversion 
 of the Nobles Rapid extension of the Society Persecution 
 The Opposition . . . 31 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THE JESUITS AND THEIR CRITICS 
 IN POLAND. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Various charges brought against the Society Defence by a Noble 
 
 Consilium de recuperando regno Poloniae Johannes Argentus 42 
 
 CHAPTER VII. THE JESUITS AND EDUCATION IN POLAND. 
 
 Importance of their Schools Methods of the Jesuits Quarrel 
 with the University of Cracow Manifesto of the University 
 Effects 51 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE JESUITS AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 Need of toleration Attempts at Conversion Union of Brzesc' 
 Opposition of the Greek Church Effect on the orthodox 
 peasant Revolt 59 
 
 CHAPTER IX. THE JESUITS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 Internal disorganisation Lack of authority Senate the centre of 
 reaction Use made of the Starosties Opposition of the Lesser 
 Nobles 67 
 
 CHAPTER X. INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY UPON FOREIGN 
 RELATIONS OF POLAND. 
 
 Peculiar position of Poland Ivan IV The False Demetrius sup- 
 ported by the Jesuits Attempt on Sweden Subservience to 
 Austria . 75 
 
 CHAPTER XI. SUPREMACY OF THE SOCIETY IN POLAND. 
 
 Change in the Society Ladislas Casimir the Jesuit King 
 Troubles in Poland Sobieski Case of Lyszczinski Foreign 
 Affairs 83 
 
 CHAPTER XII. DECLINE AND FALL. 
 
 Extent of the Society in Poland Case of Unruh and the Massacre 
 of Thorn Degeneration The Saxon Dynasty Suppression 
 of the Society Refuge in Russia, and Polish Generals , . 91 
 
 CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . .96 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 POLAND has been the scene of a struggle waged for more 
 than a thousand years between the influences of the East 
 and those of the West a struggle which has profoundly 
 affected its religious no less than its political history. 
 Apparently it was a contest between the European and 
 the Asiatic ; here the Tatars found the limits of their em- 
 pire, and here was the bulwark of Europe against the Turk. 
 But underneath this conflict there lay the growing divergence 
 between the Slav of the East, disciplined by the Varangian, 
 corrupted by the Byzantine, rendered servile and barbarous 
 yet stimulated by the Tatar and the Slav of the West, 
 made warlike by the never-ending struggle with the German, 
 but unregulated by external domination or internal coercion. 
 As the danger from the Tatar passed away, the conflict 
 between the two branches of the Slavs assumed larger pro- 
 portions and a more bitter character. It was a contest 
 which united with the bitterness of political rivalry the gall 
 of religious hatred. To the enmity between the Slav of the 
 East and the Slav of the West was added the enmity between 
 the Church of the Patriarch and the Church of the Pope. 
 And when after the fall of Constantinople, Holy Moscow 
 stood in its place and became the metropolis not merely of 
 a nation but of a Church, the subjection of the Western 
 Slavs became to the Muscovite a part not merely of his 
 patriotism but of his religion. 
 
2 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 The tide had not yet turned ; Poland, starting from the 
 West, was adding to itself province after province that had 
 once been ruled by Russians. It seemed that the hege- 
 mony of the Slavs was destined to rest with those of the 
 West, not those of the East, and the Church of Rome to 
 absorb that of Constantinople. The Reformation created 
 a diversion in favour of the latter, and the religious duel in 
 Poland became triangular, in which the latest comer seemed 
 likely to be victorious. The introduction of the Jesuits again 
 changed the aspect of affairs ; the Reformation in Poland was 
 reduced to impotence, and Rome with its new ally turned 
 again towards the schismatic Church. The struggle now lay 
 between a power which derived its strength from a religious 
 as well as a political sentiment of unity, and a power which 
 depended on the one hand upon the undisciplined valour of 
 some thousands of nobles, on the other hand upon an order 
 marvellously adapted to the work of missionary propaganda. 
 Poland became the most devotedly Catholic country in 
 Europe, but its political independence was weakened and 
 finally swept away. The success of the Catholic reaction 
 and the intolerant aspect it assumed, acted like a powerful 
 acid in splitting up Poland into its component parts ; at the 
 same time the growth of a powerful Slav state in the East, 
 and its assumption of the Panslavonic hegemony, exerted a 
 magnetic attraction upon those elements of the Polish state 
 whose bonds of cohesion had already been relaxed by the 
 Catholic reaction. In Poland the Society of Jesus won its 
 greatest success ; in Poland its success was fraught with the 
 greatest risks to the welfare of the country. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 POLAND AND LITHUANIA BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 
 
 THE early history of Poland is wrapped in a darkness only 
 illuminated by the fitful and misleading light of occasional 
 legends about personages like Lech, after whom Early history 
 the country was called Lechia ; Cracus, who f Poland, 
 founded Cracow ; Popiel, who with his wife was devoured 
 by rats ; or Piast, who, miraculously called to the throne, 
 founded the native dynasty called by that name \ During 
 this legendary period anarchy rules supreme, till some 
 leader delivers the country from external and internal ene- 
 mies, and founds a dynasty which in its turn succumbs to 
 anarchy, and is replaced by a new line of monarchs ; anjd 
 so on in an ever-recurring series till the reign of Mieczyslaw I 
 opens an epoch of stabler rule and more reliable history. 
 From the reign of his successor, Boleslas I, the real founder 
 of Poland, dates the commencement of its growth from a 
 petty duchy into the most powerful state in the East of 
 Europe. This extension was carried on at the expense of 
 Russia, whose internal struggles frequently led to Polish 
 intervention ; Casimir I and Boleslas II conquered Vol- 
 hynia; in 1340 Red Russia was acquired, while Bohemia, 
 Silesia, Pomerania, and even the Empire felt the power of 
 the new kingdom. This growth was, however, internal dis- 
 crippled by the practice of dividing the country organisation, 
 among the various sons of the monarchs as appanages ; 
 
 1 Connor, 'Letters on Poland.' Dunham's ' Hist, of Poland.' 
 B 2 
 
4 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 their struggles left Poland at the mercy of the Tatars and 
 Teutonic knights, while the nobles began to regard the 
 monarchy as purely elective. The nascent but premature 
 union of the country was too weak to resist these disin- 
 tegrating tendencies, and the * dzielnica' or appanages became 
 easily separate, and developed each peculiar institutions of 
 its own \ Under Ladislas Lokotiek a fresh union was 
 brought about, not by gradual growth but all at once, and 
 Casimir the Great succeeded in some measure in restricting 
 the independence of these ' voivodies.' But scarcely had 
 this been accomplished when the Piast dynasty came to an 
 end, and Poland again found itself under the sway of an 
 oligarchy of nobles. When at last the royal power in the 
 person of Casimir IV broke the yoke of ecclesiastical and 
 secular oligarchy, which relying on the local independence 
 had held in check the power of the new dynasty, and sum- 
 moned the lesser nobles to share in power, these latter 
 acquired their privileges as local assemblies of each voivodie, 
 which thereby gained fresh strength and began to discuss 
 the laws of the kingdom ; so that when the general Diet 
 was created, it was merely a union of delegates from each 
 voivodie, without being in any way a concentration of local 
 powers. The Diet possessed the shadow of sovereignty, the 
 substance remained with the dietines, and to them Casimir 
 himself appealed when he found the Diet refractory. 
 
 Both Diet and dietines were composed exclusively of 
 nobles or 'gentlemen'; there were practically only two 
 
 State of classes of Poles, the nobles and peasants ; 
 
 Society. there was no intermediate link. The towns 
 inhabited by German and Jew colonists were like * oases ' 
 in the desert, completely autonomous, living under Magde- 
 burg or Culm 2 law, sharing in no way in the life of the 
 
 1 Nicolas Kareiev, 'Revue Historique,' 1891, pp. 241-288. 
 
 2 The constitutions of these two cities served as models for the towns 
 in Poland, in much the same way as London did for the towns in 
 England. 
 
POLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 5 
 
 country, and but nominally under the control of the king. 
 Nevertheless, towards the close of the fifteenth century a 
 process of ' polonisation ' had begun in the towns ; but it 
 was too late ; there was no strong monarchy to weld them 
 into the national system. The nobles were in possession 
 of the substance of power, and they used it exclusively in 
 the interests of their own order to crush the growing privi- 
 leges of the towns, to restrict the higher offices in the Church 
 to nobles, and to render their authority more than ever 
 absolute over their * subjects.' The nobles and the consti- 
 tution became identical ; for their sake only did Poland 
 exist. 
 
 The history of Lithuania presents a somewhat similar 
 development. Originally the Poles and the Russians 
 belonged to the same race ; it was their de- 
 velopment that turned them into different and 
 hostile nationalities. 'The Slav moulded by the Liakhi, 
 converted to the Church of Rome and subject to the influ- 
 ences of the West, became the Pole ; the Slav moulded by 
 the Variagi, converted to the Greek Church and subject to 
 Byzantine influences, became the Russian V The border- 
 land between these two nationalities took its name from 
 the Turanian races against which the Slavs had early to 
 contend the Semigals, Ingrians, Esthonians, Livonians, 
 and Lithuanians. Most of the territory afterwards called 
 Lithuania was united with Russia under the Varangian 
 princes St. Vladimir and laroslav the Great, whose empire 
 centred round the glory of Kiev. But here, as in Poland, 
 premature union gave way to anarchy, due to the practice of 
 dividing the land among the sons of its monarchs, and the 
 confusion of ideas about hereditary right 2 . During this 
 period Russia, or Ruthenia, split up into a number of small 
 
 1 Rambaud, ' History of Russia.' 
 
 2 Joachim Lelewel, ' Histoire de la Lithuania et de la Ruthenie 
 jusqu'a 1569.' 
 
6 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 states ; while in the North democratic elements became 
 prominent in a group of great cities like Novgorod, Pskov, 
 and Viatka, resembling the republics of Italy or the Hansa 
 towns of North Germany 1 , and the monarchical elements 
 gathered towards the East round Vladimir and Moscow, 
 a colony established by Dolgorouki, the aristocratic ele- 
 ments gravitated towards Poland in the West. Then for 
 two centuries Russia lay crushed under the heel of the 
 Tatar, till the Grand Dukes of Moscow, relying on their 
 support, then emancipating themselves from this control, 
 made themselves gradually masters of most of Russia that 
 had not been absorbed in Poland or the Lithuanian Empire, 
 and claimed as the representatives of St. Vladimir the hege- 
 mony of the Slavonic race; Meanwhile Mindvog and Ge- 
 dimin were extending the sway of Lithuania over the south- 
 west as far as Kiev, when in 1380 Jagiello became king of 
 Union with Poland. Lithuania retained its separate exist- 
 Poland. ence as a Grand Duchy, but its provinces 
 gradually became Polish ; the peasants sank into a position 
 no better than those in Poland 2 ; the nobles assumed the 
 manners and language of the Polish aristocracy, and from 
 1564 to 1566 acquired all their privileges; two chambers 
 were created on the Polish model, and Sigismund renounced 
 his hereditary claim to the Grand Duchy, so that it became 
 elective like Poland, and the way was paved for the union 
 of the two states into a homogeneous whole at Lublin in 
 1569. ' This complete state plays the same part in Russian 
 history as the Burgundy of Philip the Good and Charles 
 the Bold in that of France. Made up in a great degree of 
 Russian as well as Polish and Lithuanian elements, it was 
 many times on the point of annihilating Russia in the same 
 way as Burgundy, composed of French, Batavian, and 
 
 1 Novgorod was a member of this league. 
 
 2 Lelewel ; this historian is very bitter against the Russians, whom he 
 maintains to be nothing but Tatars. 
 
POLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 7 
 
 German provinces, had been on the point of annihilating 
 the French nation 1 .' 
 
 The religious history of the two branches of the Slavs 
 was not the least of the causes which engendered the 
 national antipathy between them. Christianity Religious 
 is said to have been introduced into Poland by history. 
 Mieczyslaw 1 2 , under the influence of his wife Dombrowka, 
 daughter of the King of Hungary, to whom also is attributed 
 the founding of seven sees, with the archbishoprics of Gnesen 
 and Cracow. There are, however, traces of it in Poland as 
 early as the seventh century, when Poland formed part of 
 the great Slavonic State which was converted by Cyril and 
 Methodius 3 , who are credited with the invention of the 
 Slavonic alphabet and translation of the Bible *. From its 
 origin, the Polish Church hung somewhat independence 
 loosely upon Rome. The Pontiffs were com- f Rome, 
 pelled to sanction many variations in it derived from the 
 Eastern Church, by the fear that any attempt to enforce a 
 more uniform system would lead to its complete transfer- 
 ence to the Church of Constantinople. An additional 
 element of disturbance consisted of the policy of the 
 German missionaries, who held most of the livings in 
 Poland and occupied all the religious houses, which they 
 utilised as a basis for political propaganda. After the com- 
 plete separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, the 
 Popes made a determined effort to render the Polish Church 
 once for all dependent, and Methodius was declared a 
 heretic ; this attempt, though strenuously supported by the 
 German ecclesiastics, met with little success, and the Church 
 long retained some of the characteristics of an independent 
 National Church. This independence is conspicuously 
 illustrated by the career of Stanislas Szczepanowski 5 , whose 
 
 1 Rambaud. 
 
 3 Andreas Wengerscius, 'Slav. Reformata,' Amst. 1679. 
 3 Krasinski. 4 Wengerscius. 
 
 6 Wengerscius, p. n ; Krasinski, ' Ref. in Poland.' 
 
8 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 struggle with Boleslas II is closely parallel with that between 
 Beket and Henry II. His death was probably due to a 
 judicial decree, and the king was certainly supported by a 
 considerable party, although a combination of the clerical 
 and aristocratic factions drove him into exile. The triumph 
 of the Church did not produce any great change in the 
 relations between the temporal and spiritual powers, and 
 Ladislas Spindleshanks was able to restrict the independ- 
 ence of the clergy, and defying Rome, to decide the question 
 of tithes in favour of the temporal power. Services were 
 performed mostly in the national tongue ; priests were 
 married up to a very late date ; and the kings maintained 
 their claim to nominate bishops. There was, however, 
 little dispute about doctrine : the sects which appeared in 
 Poland, such as the Waldenses, Flagellants, and Fraticelli, 
 were of foreign origin, and gained little ground in Poland ; 
 but feeling against Rome, kept alive by hostility to its 
 German emissaries, was further embittered by the encroach- 
 Influence of nients of the Teutonic knights. Thus, when 
 Huss. i n the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the 
 idea of a Universal Church began to give way before the 
 movement for National Churches, seen alike in the career of 
 Wiclif and the liberties of the Gallican Church, it was but 
 natural that the preaching of Huss should find an echo in 
 Poland 1 . In 1341 John Pirnensis had preached that the 
 Pope was Anti-Christ, and had made some followers, who 
 were afterwards absorbed in the Hussites. Polish youths 
 were in the habit of going to Prague to be educated, and it 
 was Hieronymus, one of Huss' fellow-workers, who organized 
 the University of Cracow. In 1420 the Bohemians offered 
 the crown to Jagiello on certain conditions, but that 
 monarch was already burdened with a war against the 
 Teutonic knights, and was unwilling to become involved 
 in another with the Emperor, while he saw that the dissen- 
 1 Wengerscius, pp. 23-25, 114, 115. 
 
POLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION 1 . g 
 
 sions between the Taborites l and Calixtines would render 
 his crown in Bohemia very insecure. In 1427 there was a 
 conference between Roman Catholics and Hussites at 
 Cracow, but it led to no accommodation, and the latter 
 began a revolutionary movement in Poland which soon 
 ended in failure. The suppression of the Hussites did not, 
 however, crush out all religious independence, and in 1459 
 John Ostrorog submitted to the Diet an important project 
 of reform, in which he renounced the supremacy of the 
 Pope, maintained that the clergy should bear public burdens 
 equally with other citizens, and protested against annates, 
 appeals to Rome, and indulgences. In 1500 the nobility 
 of Great Poland, assembled at Posen demanded the con- 
 cession of the communion in both kinds, to the laity as 
 well as the clergy 2 . Some elements of religious inde- 
 pendence were thus maintained up to the very eve of the 
 Reformation, and contributed not a little to the ready 
 acceptance with which its doctrines met in Poland. 
 
 While the Slavs of the West gave a dubious adhesion to 
 the Church of Rome, those of the East submitted definitely 
 
 to the Greek Church. They had constantly 
 
 Religious 
 been brought into contact with Greek Chris- history of 
 
 tianity by the expeditions under Varangian the Gl ' eek 
 
 Church, 
 princes against the Eastern Empire, but that 
 
 religion, despite the conversions of Olga and Askold, does 
 not seem to have made much progress in Russia till 
 Vladimir, the Russian Clovis, after instituting a search for 
 the best religion, chose that of Byzantium. The choice of 
 a Church which put forth no pretensions to governing the 
 State saved Russia from struggles between the secular, a 
 national power, and the spiritual, a foreign power ; but it 
 excluded Russia from Western Europe, and separated it 
 
 1 Wengerscius, pp. 181, 182. 
 
 2 Ibid. p. 73. Krasinski's 'Ref. in Poland' is mainly based on 
 Wengerscius. 
 
10 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 from the religion of the rest of the Slavs, inflamed its 
 rivalry with Poland, and deprived it of much influence over 
 the neighbouring Slavs. The metropolitan of the Russian 
 Church was established at Kiev, ' the city of four hundred 
 churches,' whose splendour, according to Adam of Bremen, 
 rivalled that of Constantinople : the church of Novgorod, 
 with its archbishop, was practically independent. After the 
 destruction of Kiev by Bogoliubski, and afterwards by the 
 Tatars, the metropolitans transferred their seat to Vladimir, 
 and then to Moscow, whence they extended their spirtiual 
 sway side by side with the secular power of the Grand 
 Union of Dukes. In 1438, at the Council of Florence, 
 J 438. a union of the Greek and Latin Churches was 
 brought about by the metropolitan Isidor, who was made 
 a cardinal ; but on his return his compromise was rejected 
 with indignation, and he was deposed and thrown into 
 prison. In Lithuania paganism survived till the personal 
 union with Poland in 1380, when the Greek Church became 
 predominant. It was scarcely natural that this Church 
 should remain under the jurisdiction of a metropolitan re- 
 siding in the capital of its great rival, and in 1415 Vitold 
 caused the election of an archbishop of Kiev, independent 
 of the metropolitan at Moscow : the Church of Halich, 
 united with Poland in 1340, recognised him as its metro- 
 politan, and a complete separation took place from the 
 Church of Russia. Until 1453 both were dependent upon 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople, but after that the Church 
 of Russia became absolutely independent. Thus at the 
 time of the Reformation there existed in Lithuania, the 
 Roman Catholics, the Uniates or members of the Greek 
 Church who recognised the union of 1438, those members 
 forming the great majority who regarded the metropolitan 
 of Kiev as the head of their Church under the Patriarch, 
 and finally, considerable numbers of the peasantry who still 
 clung to paganism. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE REFORMATION IN POLAND \ 
 
 THE history of the Reformation in Poland was largely 
 affected by the peculiar character of the country; the 
 Lutheran confession was naturally the one ac- The R e f or _ 
 cepted by the towns which were chiefly com- mation in 
 posed of German inhabitants ; but the national 
 enmity between Slavs and Germans retarded its acceptance 
 by the Polish inhabitants, and it was the Helvetian Church 
 which spread most widely among them. The Bohemian 
 Brethren 2 grew to considerable importance ; but what 
 principally characterised the Reformation in Poland was 
 the influence to which the Anti-Trinitarian sect, called after 
 the two Socini, attained. Lutheranism appeared in Poland 
 very soon, and in 1518 a monk, Thomas Knade of Dantzic, 
 
 married, and began to preach against Rome : T 
 
 Lutheranism. 
 
 many of the inhabitants became Protestants. In 
 1523 Sigismund I ordered the town council to maintain the 
 existing religion, while the archbishop of Gnesen went there 
 to stop the progress of heresy. His failure was followed 
 in 1525 by an attack upon the town council, which the 
 citizens replaced by one consisting exclusively of Protestants. 
 Sigismund temporised till he had made peace with Albert 
 
 1 The chief authorities are Krasinski's two books and Wengerscius. 
 D'Aubigne also gives an account of the Reformation in Poland. There 
 is a short description in ' Respublica sive status Regni Poloniae,' Lugd. 
 1627, but it is not of much value. The monumental work of Thuanus 
 is of course the basis of most modern books on the subject. 
 
 2 Wengerscius. 
 
12 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 of Brandenburg, and then, acting probably more from 
 political than religious motives, succeeded in suppressing it. 
 The reaction spread to Elbing, Thorn, and Braunsberg. 
 Masovia 1 took strong measures against the Reformation, 
 and it never spread much in that province. Students were 
 forbidden to frequent foreign universities, but this, like so 
 many other ordinances, remained a dead letter; for in 1549 
 there was a riot at Cracow, and the students being dis- 
 satisfied with the authorities of the University, went abroad 
 in great numbers to Goldberg and Konisberg, whence they 
 returned imbued with Protestant doctrines. In 1534 the 
 Reformation made a fresh start, and a Lutheran Church 
 was opened on the estates of Gorka in Great Poland, which 
 had been much affected by Hussite doctrines : soon it 
 spread again into Polish Prussia, despite the efforts of 
 Hosen, bishop of Ermeland, and into Livonia, which sub- 
 mitted to Poland in 1561, and where the German popula- 
 tion had followed the conquests of the Teutonic knights 
 and Order of the Sword. 
 
 The strength of the Bohemian Church lay among the 
 
 nobles, who began to join this Church 2 soon after the 
 
 Bohemian arrival of the Brethren in 1548, when they 
 
 Church. were received by Andreas Gorka, Castellan of 
 Posen. A church was built by subscription at Cracow ; 
 aided by national sympathies they gained many adherents 
 among the nobles of Great Poland, and in 1555 they 
 established a union with the Helvetian Church of Poland 
 at the Synod of Kozminek. The latter Church predominated 
 in Lithuania and southern Poland, most of the principal 
 families belonging to it. Despite these successes, the cause 
 of the Reformation was seriously hampered by bitter dis- 
 sensions between the Lutherans and other Protestants, who 
 appeared to hate each other more than they hated Rome. 
 
 1 'Respublica sive status Reg. Pol.' p. 115. 
 
 2 Wengerscius, pp. 81-90. 
 
THE REFORMATION IN POLAND. 13 
 
 These quarrels induced many influential families which 
 were inclined to accept the new doctrines, to return to the 
 Roman Church merely for the sake of peace and security. 
 
 Another cause of hindrance was the spread of r 
 
 bociniamsm. 
 Anti-Trinitarian doctrines which alarmed many, 
 
 and frightened them back into the orthodox Church. Before 
 the death of Sigismund I, a society had been formed at 
 Cracow which entered into bold discussions on theological 
 matters. Most of its members subsequently returned to 
 the Roman Church, but it was here that Pastoris, by 
 attacking the doctrine of the Trinity, laid the foundations 
 of that sect which was subsequently called after Lelio 
 and Faustus Socinus. Stancari and Lismanini became the 
 pioneers of this sect. In 1551 Lelio Socinus visited Poland, 
 and Gonesius publicly proclaimed Socinian doctrines at a 
 synod held in 1556 under the patronage of John Riszka. 
 The Protestants on Calvin's advice made efforts to suppress 
 them, and in 1564 all ministers from abroad denying the 
 mystery of the Trinity were ordered to leave the country. 
 This produced little effect. Blandrata and Pauli 1 de- 
 veloped these doctrines, and at the synod of Wengrow in 
 1565 their Church received a definite organisation. One 
 of their most eminent members, Budny, made an accurate 
 translation of the Bible, and Smalcius composed a Socinian 
 catechism called the 'Catechesis Ecclesiarum in regno 
 Poloniae,' which was condemned by the English Parliament 
 as ' blasphemous, erroneous, and scandalous.' Their rules 
 of morality were very strict, but they maintained the doc- 
 trine of passive obedience, and condemned the resistance 
 of the Dutch and Huguenots. A school was established 
 at Rakow 2 , which became famous, and produced many 
 scholars and authors ; their congregations, however, re- 
 mained small, and were composed chiefly of wealthy land- 
 owners. 
 
 1 Wengerscius, p. 85. 3 Ibid. p. 90. 
 
14 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 The influence of the Reformation soon made itself felt 
 
 in national policy and legislation. Whether from lack of 
 
 Influence on conviction or lack of power Sigismund Augustus 
 
 the Diet, pursued a dubious course ; but the Diet began 
 to evince a considerable hostility towards the Church of 
 Rome. In 1550 it was decided that no one but the king 
 had the right of judging citizens or of condemning them to 
 any penalty whatever. In 1552 the clergy were allowed to 
 retain the right to judge heresy, but without any power of 
 inflicting civil or criminal penalties on the condemned ; 
 and a proposition was brought forward to deprive the 
 bishops of their seats in the senate, but it was not carried. 
 The Diet made considerable demands l on the Council of 
 Trent ; these included (i) that Mass should be performed 
 in the national language, (2) Communion in both kinds, 
 (3) marriage of priests, (4) abolition of annates, (5) con- 
 vocation of a national council. The idea of creating a 
 National Church in Poland somewhat similar to that of 
 England, met with considerable acceptance at this time ; 
 and the hope of accomplishing this object without violently 
 breaking with Roman Catholic doctrine prevented many 
 from openly joining the Protestants. The Roman Catholics, 
 conscious of their weakness, were not opposed to the idea 
 of a national council, and on the other hand it was ap- 
 proved of by John a Lasco 2 , the most celebrated of Polish 
 reformers. 
 
 John of Lask was born in 1499 ; his education had been 
 entirely entrusted to his uncle the archbishop of Gnesen, 
 
 who had taken him to the Lateran Council 
 John a Lasco. 
 
 and left him to study at Bologna and Rome, 
 
 intending that he should succeed to his high position in the 
 Church. With this aim he made him dean of Cracow. 
 
 1 Wengerscius, p. 78 ; also Krasinski, Religious Hist.' and ' Ref. in 
 Poland.' 
 
 2 Herman Dalton, 'John a Lasco.' This book unfortunately only 
 deals with Laski's early life till his return from England. 
 
THE REFORMATION IN POLAND. 15 
 
 John, however, on his travels met Erasmus, with whom he 
 lived at Basle, and other eminent Humanists. At Paris he 
 became acquainted with Marguerite of Valois, and on his 
 return to Basle fell in with Zwingli, Rhenanus, and Auerbach. 
 Deep study of their works gradually unsettled his faith in 
 the Roman Church, but his open secession was retarded by 
 respect for his uncle, and the hope that the Church would 
 reform itself from within. After some hesitation he made 
 up his mind to definitely embrace the Reformation, and 
 left Poland for Louvain, whence he was compelled to flee 
 before the rigorous measures of Charles V. He found 
 refuge in Emden, where the Frieslanders had accepted the 
 Reformation, but refused to submit to the emissaries of 
 Luther. Here, after much trouble with the monks, Ana- 
 baptists, and Lutherans, he succeeded in organising the 
 Frisian Church. The Countess Anne, though a Protestant, 
 did not feel strong enough to support him after the pro- 
 mulgation of the Interim, and Laski accepted an invitation 
 to England, where with Cranmer and Peter Martyr he 
 joined in the work of establishing Protestant doctrines. 
 After a second visit to Emden he returned to England, 
 whence he was driven by the Catholic reaction under Mary. 
 He arrived in Poland in 1556, and was entrusted with the 
 superintendence of the Reformed Churches in Little Poland. 
 He also had an active share in the famous Bible of 
 Radziwill ', and published several works, which were, how- 
 ever, destroyed by the Jesuits. 
 
 However much the Roman Catholics in Poland might 
 approve of the idea of a national council, it was in the 
 last degree distasteful to the authorities at jrff orts O f 
 Rome, and the efforts of Lippomani who visited the Roman 
 Poland in 1558, of the legate Commendoni, Catholics - 
 
 1 This famous Bible was published at Brze6c in 1563. There is a 
 copy in the Bodleian, but it is extremely rare, two copies only being in 
 existence. The sons of Radziwill all turned Catholics, and signalised 
 their conversion by burning all their father's heretical books. 
 
1 6 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 and the Jesuit Canisius, provincial of Upper Germany, 
 were all directed towards reanimating those who were still 
 faithful to Rome. They succeeded in finally winning back 
 Orzechowski, who had embraced the reformed doctrines, 
 not so much from love of truth as because they suited his 
 violent temper a , and had repeatedly changed sides, always 
 signalising each tergiversation by fresh abuse of his former 
 associates. But the soul of the Catholic cause was Stanislas 
 Hosen, cardinal and bishop of Ermeland. In this latter 
 capacity he had vainly tried to stop the spread of Lutheran 
 doctrines in Polish Prussia. Born in 1504 at 
 Cracow, Hosen 2 was educated at Padua, where 
 he became the friend of Cardinal Pole, and at Bologna, 
 whence he returned to Poland, and was made successively 
 bishop of Cracow and of Ermeland. Bayle calls him the 
 greatest man Poland ever produced ; but though a man of 
 stainless character and great culture, he was actuated by 
 the bitterest animosity against the Protestants, and is credited 
 with the opinions that faith should not be kept with heretics, 
 that it was necessary to confute them not by argument but 
 by the authority of the magistrate, and that it was better to 
 abandon the realm to the Muscovites than to them. In 
 1561 he was made President of the Council of Trent, and 
 was distinguished by his uncompromising advocacy of the 
 most extravagant claims of Rome. He became grand 
 penitentiary of the Church, and died at Rome in 1579, 
 having spent his last years there. It was owing to his zeal 
 and activity that the Church of Rome in Poland was not 
 utterly overwhelmed. At the provincial synod of Piotrkow 3 
 in 1551, he. was invited to draw up a confession of faith, 
 which was to serve as a test of orthodoxy ; and this con- 
 
 1 Krasinski. Wengerscius, pp. 80, 210. 
 
 2 'Stan. Hosii Vita,' Stanislas Rescio auctore, Romae, 1587. 
 
 3 Preface to the 'Opera Stan. Hosii/ Antwerp, 1571. This edition 
 is very incomplete, and does not contain his important letters on the 
 state of heresy and summoning the Jesuits. 
 
THE REFORM A TION IN POLAND. 1 7 
 
 fession subsequently received the official approval of the 
 Church of Rome. It was here resolved to extirpate heresy 
 by all possible means ' ; but this only provoked the reso- 
 lutions of the Diet of 1552. In 1556 the papal envoy 
 Lippomani induced the synod of Lowicz to pass many 
 resolutions against heresy, but the attempt to re-establish 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction in such matters failed ; a similar 
 attempt in a case of sacrilege ended in the burning of a 
 woman and some Jews, who were condemned on the absurd 
 charge of selling the host. The influence of Canisius in- 
 duced the Diet of Piotrkow to maintain its allegiance to 
 Rome, and Sigismund to refuse all modification of episcopal 
 rights, while Commendoni prevented the summoning of a 
 national council, and fanned the dissensions between the 
 various Protestant Churches. In spite of all this the Refor- 
 mation was gaining ground in Poland. Skarga declared 
 that two thousand Roman Catholic churches had been con- 
 verted to Protestant uses ; while the clergy and the court were 
 mutually accusing each other of cowardice and negligence 
 with regard to the heretics, a project, of which Union of 
 John a Lasco had not lived to see the con- Sandomir. 
 summation, the union of the Protestant Churches, was at 
 length completed at Sandomir in 1570. Thus Lutherans 
 and Calvinists could face the Roman Catholics with a united 
 front, and even the Socinians, who had been excluded from 
 the ' consensus Sandomiriensis,' were rapidly on the increase, 
 till it was said 
 
 ' Tota jacet Babylon ; destruxit tecta Lutherus, 
 Calvinus muros, sed fundamenta Socinus.' 
 
 The Church of Rome in Poland was indeed shaken from 
 roof to foundation; its stoutest adherents had lost heart. 
 Poland was slowly but surely following in the state of the 
 wake of the other northern countries of Europe Reformation. 
 of England, Denmark, North Germany, Holland, Sweden 
 1 Wengerscius, pp. 207 sq. ? 222 sq. 
 C 
 
1 8 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 and Norway and breaking away from the yoke of Rome. 
 The critical moment had come ; the balance hung trembling ; 
 the Reformation had already begun to preponderate when 
 Stanislas Hosen, the greatest of Poland's prelates, to whom 
 Rome already owed so much, cast into the scale of Catholi- 
 cism that * sword whose hilt was at Rome, whose point was 
 everywhere ' the Society of J'esus. It was a step the full 
 effects of which were not seen till almost every vestige of 
 the Reformation had been washed out by the wave of reaction, 
 and Catholicism was established in Poland as it had never 
 been established before. The introduction of the Jesuits 
 was not merely an episode in the history of Catholicism in 
 Poland; it was not merely the recovery by Rome of a 
 country that was falling away from its influence ; there was 
 Catholicism in Poland before the introduction of the Jesuits, 
 and there was Catholicism after, but they were not the same 
 thing. Whatever be the merits of the Protestant and Catholic 
 Churches as religious ideals, Protestantism has at least been 
 invaluable as an intellectual stimulus, and no country was ever 
 in more urgent need of an intellectual stimulus than Poland; 
 the want of this stimulus working with other causes produced 
 an effect that can be paralleled not even in Portugal, and the 
 history of Poland from the last quarter of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, political, intellectual, social, religious, may be summed 
 up in this one word reaction. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 BEGINNINGS' OF THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 WHILE the movement for reform which the Renascence 
 called forth, took in Germany the form of separation from 
 Rome and abolition of some of its fundamental institutions, 
 such as the monastic orders, in Italy it confined itself to a 
 reformation within the pale of the Church, and a regenera- 
 tion of the monastic system which had been so potent a 
 support to the Church of Rome. This movement was seen 
 in the foundation of new orders like the Capuchins, Bar- 
 nabites, and Theatins, which, emancipating themselves from 
 many of the regulations that had hampered the older 
 monastic orders, devoted themselves more especially to 
 active work, to preaching, confessing, attending the sick and 
 converting heretics. Aiming like the Protestant movement 
 at reform, they sought it by diametrically opposite means, 
 by renovating not abolishing the old order, by reaction not 
 by revolution. Of this movement the master-type was the 
 Society of Jesus. 
 
 This new order owed its foundation to a Spanish soldier 
 of fortune, Don Ifiigo Lopez de Recalde, who, cut off from 
 a soldier's career by a wound received before The Society 
 Pampeluna, devoted himself to religion. His of Jesus, 
 visions at Mount Montserrat, in the cave at Manresa, in 
 the cell of St. Barbara, illustrate the enthusiastic and 
 mystical, as the ' Spiritual Exercises ' and ' Constitutions ' do 
 the practical side of his mind. He set to work to complete 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 his neglected education, and at Paris won over Faber, Xavier, 
 Salmeron, Lainez, and Bobadilla, who all took the vow of 
 chastity and swore to spend their lives at Jerusalem, devoted 
 in absolute poverty to the care of the Christians or conver- 
 sion of the Saracens ; if this were impossible they were to 
 offer themselves unconditionally to the service of the Pope. 
 The Turks prevented their original intention, and after many 
 difficulties at Rome, the Pope sanctioned conditionally in 
 1540 and unreservedly in 1543 the establishment of the 
 Society of Jesus, and Loyola was elected first general. Its 
 ostensible object was the conversion of the heathen, but while 
 Xavier went to the East and the Jesuits spread into every 
 quarter of the globe, the centre of their activity was in 
 Europe, where they devoted themselves to the re-establish- 
 ment of the tottering Papacy. Not only did they reject the 
 monastic habit, but they disregarded the common devotional 
 exercises, and set three main objects before them preaching, 
 confessing, and education of the young. 
 
 The Society spread rapidly in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 
 more slowly in France, the Netherlands, and Germany, where 
 First Jesuits its success seemed for some time doubtful, 
 in Poland. Here there were two Provinces, and it was 
 Peter Canisius, Provincial of Upper Germany, who first of 
 the Jesuits penetrated into Poland. Rumours had reached 
 the Pope of a Diet to be held at Piotrkow in 1558, where 
 religion was to be the chief subject of discussion. Justly 
 alarmed at the imminent prospect of the secession of Poland, 
 he sent Mentuatus as legate to the Diet, accompanied by 
 Canisius 1 . The Jesuit lost no opportunities of preaching 
 and furthering the interests of Rome by all possible means 2 ; 
 he pointed out the evils of the mutual accusations which 
 the clergy and court brought against each other ; the king, 
 who constantly refused to persecute 3 , was encouraged to 
 
 1 Sacchinus, ' Hist. Soc. Jesu,' ii. 52. 2 Ibid. ii. 121. 
 
 3 Sacchinus, ii. 121, 122 ; Cretineau-Joly, i 459. The latter historian 
 
BEGINNINGS OF THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 21 
 
 refuse any modification of episcopal rights, and the Diet was 
 induced to prohibit all innovation. * The visit of Canisius 
 did not lead at once to any further steps on the part of the 
 Jesuits, but Polish youths began to visit their school at 
 Vienna, and among them Stanislas Kostka \ 
 who led a saintly life, and was canonised after 
 his death. He became acquainted with Canisius, and on his 
 departure from Vienna proceeded to Rome, where he met 
 Warszewski, afterwards high in the favour of Sigismund III, 
 and Aloysius Gonzaga; here he died in 1568 at the age of 
 eighteen. The Poles paid great veneration to his name : he 
 was claimed as the Patron of Poland, and legends grew up 
 that his appearance at Chocim gave the victory to the Poles, 
 and rescued Przemysl from the Cossacks 2 . It was in I564 3 
 that Hosen wrote to Lainez asking for some members of the 
 Society. The General dispatched some from Rome and 
 others from Lower Germany, with Christopher Strombelius 
 as leader. Their journey was beset with hardships ; they 
 could enter neither city nor village because of the plague, 
 and slept in the open air. 
 
 On their arrival Hosen located them in a vacant monastery 
 which had once belonged to the Franciscans at Braunsberg, 
 near Frauenberg 4 , where he had his episcopal Introduction 
 seat, and they received material help from the of the 
 canons 5 . Their arrival was also welcomed by J esults - 
 Commendoni, the papal legate, who attached one of them, 
 
 of the Socie'y is valueless as far as Poland is concerned : the early part 
 is merely a translation of Sacchinus ; he sometimes quotes Ranke with 
 approval, but it is from the garbled French edition which was justly 
 branded by Macaulay. 
 
 1 ' St. Stan. Kostka Vita.' Sacchinus. 
 
 2 'Life of St. Kostka' (Library of Religious Thought"). 
 
 3 Sacchinus. Ranke has a statement (vol. ii. p. 56, Mrs. Austin's 
 tiansl.) that the first members arrived in 1570. This must refer to the 
 college at Wilna, but it is not quite clear. 
 
 4 ' Sive Warmiam ubi sedem episcopus et collegium canonicorum 
 habet.' Sacchinus. 
 
 5 ' Annuae Litterae Soc. Jesu,' 1586, 1587. 
 
22 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 Balthazar Hostovinus \ to himself, and took him on his visita- 
 tions to aid in the foundation of colleges. Andreas Nos- 
 kowski ' 2 , bishop of Pultusk, was induced to found a college 
 in that city. In 1566 Canisius made a second visit to 
 Poland, and induced Valerian, bishop of Wilna 3 , who was 
 well stricken in years, to signalise his last days by the esta- 
 blishment of a Jesuit college 4 . In 1567 an attempt was 
 made to introduce the Society into Elbing, but without 
 success. The settlement at Braunsberg was more pros- 
 perous, and in 1569 it was converted into a regular college. 
 A fourth college was founded at Posen, 1571, by its bishop, 
 Adam Konarski 5 , who persuaded the authorities of the city 
 to give them one of its principal churches with two hospitals 
 and a school, while he endowed them with an estate and 
 made them a present of his library fi . Sigismund viewed 
 these proceedings with indifference if not with approbation. 
 He had been dissuaded from his project of divorcing his 
 wife, Barbara Radziwill, which the Protestants advocated, by 
 Maggio, who had succeeded Canisius as Provincial of Upper 
 Germany. The Jesuits 7 produced a favourable impression 
 on him, and at his death in 1572 he bequeathed the Royal 
 Library to the Society 8 . Uchanski, who had been one of 
 those who freely discussed theological subjects at Cracow 
 University, now became one of the foremost patrons of the 
 order, and his example was followed by many of the bishops, 
 who relied more on the zeal of the new order than on the 
 efforts of the local clergy. 
 
 The immediate result of this success was to stimulate the 
 
 1 Sacchinus, viii. 115. 
 
 2 Johannes Argentus, ' Liber ad Sig. de Rebus Soc. Jesu in Regno Pol.' 
 Ingolstadt, 1616. 
 
 8 Ibid., also Ranke and Guettee, 'Hist. Soc. Jesu.' * Ranke. 
 
 5 Argentus. 6 Krasinski. 
 
 7 Guettee, one of the historians of the Society, asserts that Alphonse 
 de Carillo became confessor to Sigismund II ; but this is only another 
 instance of the inaccuracy of historians in regard to Poland. The 
 Sigismund to whom Carillo was confessor was Prince of Transylvania, 
 Stephen Batory's son. 8 Argentus, p. 224. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 23 
 
 Protestants to fresh measures of defence against Rome. At 
 the election Diet of Warsaw in 1573, a resolu- Measures 
 tion 1 was carried to the effect that no one of the 
 should be injured or persecuted on account of Protestants - 
 his religion. From that time the kings of Poland took an 
 oath to maintain this resolution. In 1579 the payment of 
 tithes to the clergy was entirely suspended, and the papal 
 nuncio asserts that by this act alone twelve hundred parish 
 priests were left wholly destitute. At the same time a 
 supreme court of judicature composed of laity and clergy 
 was established, which decided all cases ecclesiastical as well 
 as temporal. There can be little doubt that if the Protestants 
 had acted at all unanimously they would have been irre- 
 sistible, and by electing a king of their own belief could have 
 permanently established the Reformation in Poland. But 
 this unanimity was the one thing lacking ; while their chief 
 opponent was the Society of Jesus an instrument wielded 
 with unerring skill and precision, obeying one will and 
 actuated by one impulse the Protestants turned their arms 
 against one another in the face of the enemy. Before the 
 Union of Sandomir the Lutherans had declared that it was 
 better to join the Jesuits than the Bohemians, and that 
 union was never much more than a hollow mockery. Not 
 only were the various sects independent and hostile, but the 
 Churches of the various provinces of each sect had no com- 
 mon organisation ; while their opponents were a regular 
 trained army, they depended upon the isolated endeavours 
 of individuals or irregular bands. Though they probably at 
 this time outnumbered the Roman Catholics, they were 
 unable to place a chief of their own upon the throne. Their 
 
 1 It is said by Krasinski that this resolution was proposed by the 
 bishop of Cujavia. Karnkowski, as a measure of self-defence : the Diet 
 readily accepted it but Commendoni subsequently induced them all to 
 protest, except Francis Krasinski, bishop of Cracow. The dignities and 
 privileges of the Roman Catholic bishops were guaranteed, but the 
 obligation of chuich patrons to bestow benefices exclusively on Catholics 
 was abolished. ' Rel. Hist, of Slavs,' pp. 176, 77. 
 
24 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 leader was John Firley ; but he was a Helvetian, and rather 
 than further his election the Lutherans, who were led by 
 Zebrzdowski, declared for the Roman Catholic candidate, 
 the Archduke Ernest. Commendoni had already begun to 
 intrigue for his succession before the death of Sigismund, 
 but the emperor refused the Legate's request for men and 
 Election money to overawe the Diet, and the mistakes of 
 of a king, ^g Austrian envoys made this scheme fail. 
 The election ultimately ended in favour of Henry of Anjou, 
 who seems originally to have been put forward by Coligny 
 and the Huguenots, who meditated a grand Protestant 
 League against Rome and Austria. St. Bartholomew almost 
 ruined his chances, and it was only after he had repeatedly 
 sworn to observe the rights of the Protestants that Firley 
 placed the crown upon his head. Hosen had protested 
 against this oath, representing the decree of January, 1573, as 
 treason to God, while Solikowski advised Henry to swear all 
 that was required of him, because he would have ample 
 opportunity to restore Catholicism after his election. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE SOCIETY UNDER STEPHEN BATORY. 
 
 A FEW months after his accession to the throne of Poland, 
 Henry of Anjou precipitately fled, to secure the French 
 crown which devolved upon him after the death of his 
 brother Charles IX. The Diet waited a year for his return, 
 and then elected Stephen Batory, Prince of Conversion of 
 Transylvania and a Protestant, on condition of Batory. 
 his marrying Anna, the last of the Jagiellonian line. The 
 Roman Catholics were however equal to the occasion, and 
 Solikowski, the only one of their faith who accompanied the 
 delegates to announce his election, succeeded, in spite of 
 their vigilance, in gaining a private interview with Batory, in 
 which he managed to persuade that prince that the only 
 chance he had of maintaining himself on the throne was to 
 embrace Catholicism. This was indeed the most prudent 
 course he could pursue, for though the Protestants in Poland 
 outnumbered the Roman Catholics, yet the latter were by 
 far the strongest sect in Poland and afforded the firmest 
 basis of support ; moreover, he would have the external 
 support of the Pope, if not of Austria, while Anna would 
 never be brought to marry a Protestant. Further, he had 
 never been very hostile to Rome, and before his conversion 
 had summoned the Jesuits into Transylvania \ This was 
 an important point gained by the Romanists, for though 
 Batory declined to follow the advice of Bolognetto * to 
 1 Sacchinus. 2 Ranke, ' Hist, of the Popes.' 
 
26 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 restrict his favours to zealous Catholics, and though he 
 bestowed churches on the Protestants and checked persecu- 
 tion, it was during his reign and through the liberality of him 
 and his wife, that the Society of Jesus took firm root in 
 His favours to Poland. He became a great patron of the 
 the Jesuits. j esu its, who called him ' pater et patronus 
 noster V He summoned Stanislas Socolovius 2 , a prominent 
 member of the order in Poland and author of several contro- 
 versial works, to his court, and employed him on business of 
 every description 3 ; he called him his ' eye,' and took him as 
 a companion to his camp at Marienberg 4 , Grodno, &c., 
 while the Jesuit made the best use of his opportunities by 
 preaching and converting heretics, schismatics, Jews, and 
 Tatars 5 . To Batory's liberality, which ' they can never 
 sufficiently praise V the Jesuits owed their establishments at 
 Riga, Dorpat, and Polock 7 , the University at Wilna, besides 
 residences at Waradin, Alba Julia 8 , and Claudiopolis 9 , 
 where a University was established. Their colleges were 
 exempted from all imposts, and Batory, lest the State should 
 suffer, made up the amount from his own purse. He pro- 
 fessed his unique affection for the Society because of its 
 services to the Church of God, and declared its encourage- 
 ment 'to be the only means of promoting the cause of 
 Catholicism, and restoring to health minds that had been 
 corrupted with heresy ] .' His wife was no less zealous in 
 the cause, and the colleges of Pultusk and Lublin experi- 
 
 1 ' Annuae Litterae,' 1586, 87. 2 Thuanus, pars iii, 494 D. 
 
 3 'Annuae Litte'iae,' 1585. 
 
 4 It is uncertain whether this is the town in Polish Prussia or in 
 Livonia ; most of Batory's wars were against Muscovy, but at one time 
 he established a camp in Polish Prussia, to guard against Swedish in- 
 vasion. 5 'Ann Litt.' 1585. 6 Ibid.; also Argentus, p. 224. 
 
 7 The Jesuits are not very consistent about the spelling of this name, 
 but a remark of Piasecius, ' Chronica gestorum in Eur.' p. 6, shows that 
 this college was at Polock in Lithuania, not Plock in Masovia. 
 
 8 "Weissemberg. 
 
 9 Klausenburg ; both these were of course in Transylvania, a part of 
 the Jesuit Province. 10 Argentus, chap. v. 
 
PROGRESS OF THE SOCIETY UNDER B A TORY 27 
 
 enced her generosity T ; the example of the king and queen 
 was followed by the nobles, many of whom were beginning 
 to return to the Catholic Church. Chodkiewicz, Hetman of 
 Lithuania, who had been converted by Stanislas Warszewicz 2 
 described the Society as ' labouring in every corner of the 
 globe to instruct youth, extirpate heresy, and correct evil 
 habits,' and, convinced that * its success would be beneficial 
 to the Republic y founded a college at Kroze in the palati- 
 nate of Wilna for the education of the sons of nobles. A 
 gentleman of the king's bedchamber gave them a chapel at 
 Wilna 4 , and the Society acquired the chief families in the 
 land as its patrons. 
 
 It was under such favourable auspices as these that 
 the Jesuits commenced their arduous task in Po- Spread of the 
 land ; so great was their success, that at the end Society. 
 of Batory's reign the members of the Society numbered over 
 three hundred and sixty, possessing twelve colleges, besides 
 residences and missions 5 . From Braunsberg, Pultusk, 
 Wilna, and Posen, the four centres which the Society 
 possessed at the commencement of the reign, it spread into 
 
 almost every corner of Poland and Lithuania. 
 
 r ** i* . <n t- L. j i u t Polish Prussia. 
 
 In Polish Prussia, which was deeply imbued 
 
 with Lutheranism, their progress was naturally slow, and 
 Braunsberg long remained their only establishment in that 
 province. An attempt had been made to introduce the 
 Jesuits into Elbing, but the population had shown such a 
 marked hostility that it was reluctantly abandoned. It was 
 not until 1586 that the Society obtained a foothold in 
 
 1 ' Annuae Litterae,' 1585. 2 Argentus, chap. v. 
 
 3 Ibid. * Jbid. 
 
 5 ' Annuae Litterae,' 1585. The only Annual Letters in the Bodleian 
 are for the years 1585-87 and 1600 ; this is unfortunate, for though the 
 Letters are the most uninviting reading possible, and full of the absurdest 
 fables, they are useful for statistics as to numbers and details about the 
 founders of various colleges. The account of Argentus is useful ; he 
 was visitor of the Province for some years. These figures include 
 Transvlvania. 
 
28 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 another Prussian town by the Mission to Dantzic *. Masovia 
 
 had never been much affected by the Reforma- 
 Masovia. 
 
 tion ; there was consequently less need for the 
 
 Jesuits, and no fresh college was established besides that of 
 Pultusk till the middle of Sigismund Ill's reign, when the 
 bishop of Camenz founded one at Lomza on the Narew\ 
 
 In Great Poland two colleges were started, one 
 Great Poland. 
 
 by Konarski at Posen, in the reign of Sigismund 
 
 II, the other at Kalisz by Karnkowski, archbishop of Gnesen, 
 in 15841 At Posen the Society seems to have been very 
 successful, in spite of the plague which thinned its numbers ; 
 many townspeople and several nobles had been won over, 
 and a hundred and thirty conversions were made, including 
 
 thirty German Protestants, in one year 4 . In 
 Little Poland. -...- ~ ,,- i ,- -, -, TIT 
 
 Little Poland a college was founded at Lublin, 
 
 which received considerable aid from the queen and Senate 
 of Poland, and the Society was very active at Cracow, where 
 there were two establishments, one for ' professed ' members, 
 who could only live on alms, and another for novices. A 
 noble lady had granted them two rich estates, and a church 
 had been built for their use. Here they held four separate 
 services on Sundays, when their preaching made many 
 converts. Nothing came amiss to their zeal ; they formed 
 associations to look after the sick; they supplied help to 
 those whom disease or shame prevented from seeking it ; 
 they paid the debts of many, and relieved families reduced 
 
 to the utmost misery. In Red Russia a college 
 Red Russia. , . . . n T , , . . 
 
 was established at laroslav and a mission at 
 
 Lemberg 5 , which, besides being the seat of a Roman Catho- 
 lic archbishop, was also that of a Russian and Armenian 
 bishop 6 . Here they were supported by the Castellan, and 
 though there were only three members, they made excursions 
 
 1 Gedanum is the pseudo-classical name used by the Jesuits. 
 
 2 Argentus. 3 ' Ann. Litt.' 4 Ibid. 
 
 5 Lwow in Polish, Leopolis in pseudo-classical Latin. 
 
 6 ' Ann. Litt.' ; also Connor, ' Letters.' 
 
PROGRESS OF THE SOCIETY UNDER A TORY. 29 
 
 to thirteen or fourteen villages in the neighbourhood, where 
 the clergy were roused to greater activity, and many conver- 
 sions were made : they also sent missions into further Russia, 
 but these had little success. The introduction of the Jesuits 
 into Wilna by bishop Valerian had given the Society its 
 
 first foothold in Lithuania ; soon after Stephen's 
 
 r j j u Lithuania. 
 
 accession a second college was founded by 
 Christopher Radziwill at Njeswicz on the Niemen, where the 
 Jesuits attempted to remedy the deplorable system of early 
 marriages. A third was established at Polock by the king, 
 where they inaugurated a vigorous campaign against the 
 Ruthenians, and induced many to forsake their 'popes.' 
 From these colleges they made it a regular habit to visit 
 villages in the neighbourhood on Sundays ; by this means 
 they got at thousands who had never professed any religion 
 before, except the relics of a primitive nature-worship. From 
 Wilna they made frequent excursions into Samogitia, where 
 the peasants were in a state of absolute ignorance. A fresh 
 field of activity was opened up to them by Batory's conquest 
 of Livonia and Esthonia ; he summoned the 
 Jesuits to educate and convert his new subjects, 
 and powerfully aided them by the establishment of colleges 
 at Riga and Dorpat, whence they had dreams of establishing 
 a connection across Muscovy with the newly-formed missions 
 of their brethren in India '. Here there was no lack of 
 material to work upon, for the German population which 
 had followed the trade enterprises of the Hanseatic League, 
 and the conquests of the Teutonic Knights and Order of the 
 Sword, was completely given over to Lutheranism. At Dor- 
 pat, Batory presented them with a church which had been 
 intended by Ivan for the King of Denmark, and they were 
 aided by Cardinal Radziwill and the Poles who accompanied 
 Batory. Among Germans, Poles, Muscovites, and Estho- 
 nians they laboured with untiring zeal. The Lutherans had 
 1 ' Anauae Litterae.' 
 
30 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 declared it was impossible to learn the language of the last 
 without the aid of magic ; the Jesuits set themselves to the 
 task, and started a school to teach the language of the Letts, 
 Russians, Swedes, and Lithuanians, besides Latin, German, 
 and Polish *. Among the natives they met with considerable 
 success ; traces of serpent-worship still survived, and it was 
 customary to pray to the thunder and certain trees if there 
 was a drought 2 . The Jesuits often won their way into the 
 confidence of the rustics by their knowledge of medicine, 
 which they utilised to effect many cures. At Riga 3 they 
 met with the bitterest opposition from the Lutherans, and 
 the weapons which were so often afterwards employed 
 against the Protestants were here turned against them ; their 
 services were disturbed by unruly mobs ; more than once 
 they were ejected from the city and their establishments 
 pillaged. The town authorities were no less hostile than the 
 populace, but by degrees the Jesuits won over the council ; 
 this did not mend matters much, for instead of being able 
 to protect the Jesuits, the council itself was subjected to 
 great annoyance. On the death of Batory it was resolved 
 to expel the Jesuits, giving them the choice between peace- 
 able departure and forcible ejection. The Society chose 
 the former. In spite of this reverse, the Jesuits had made 
 enormous strides during this reign ; hitherto they had mainly 
 confined themselves to the legitimate means of missionary 
 propaganda ; Batory had been able to check attempts at 
 persecution. But in the next reign, secure of protection by 
 those in authority whatever might happen, the Society began 
 to exhibit more unlovely traits, and, like all sects which con- 
 trol political power, to use against its adversaries the methods 
 not of persuasion but of persecution and proscription. 
 
 1 ' Annuae Litterae.' 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. ; also Argentus. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 THE election of Sigismund III to the throne proved to be 
 the greatest blow it was possible to inflict upon Protestanism 
 
 in Poland. Brought up by his mother, Catherine . 
 
 Sigismund III. 
 
 Jagiellon, in the strictest Roman Catholic doc- 
 trines, he made the promotion of the interests of Rome 
 the guiding motive of all his actions. This zeal for Rome 
 outweighed all considerations of prudence or policy ; through 
 it * he lost two hereditary thrones, and brought innumerable 
 calamities on the country which election had handed over 
 to him V * In order to make sure of heaven,' said the Em- 
 peror Ferdinand, * he Ras renounced earth.' The Protestants 
 called him the * king of the Jesuits,' and Sigismund gloried 
 in the appellation. This feeble imitation of Philip II of 
 Spain possessed all the bigotry and zeal of his model without 
 his abilities or strength of character. In all that he did 
 he was ruled by the Jesuits ; he bestowed honours only on 
 those whom they favoured, and preferred their advice to 
 that of his wisest counsellors. ' By private interviews,' wrote 
 a Roman Catholic historian who was also bishop of Prze- 
 mysl, 'which they could always command, the Jesuits so 
 bound the king by their solicitations, that he did everything 
 according to their counsel, and the hopes and cares of 
 courtiers had no weight except by their favour. They 
 moreover suggested what the king should determine in 
 public affairs with the greater peril to the state, because 
 1 Salvandy, ' Histoire de Pologne avant et sous Jean Sobieski.' 
 
32 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 persons were selected for the king's intimacy (especially his 
 confessor and chaplain) from masters of religious novices, 
 who were completely inexperienced in the position and 
 affairs of Poland. This was alone the cause of errors not 
 only in domestic but foreign policy, such as the king's 
 relations with Muscovy, Sweden, and Livonia : yet it was 
 considered almost sacrilege for anyone to blame their words 
 or deeds, and no one who did not magnify them had easy 
 access to office V Chief among these advisers of the king 
 was Peter Skarga 2 , one of the most eminent of 
 Polish Jesuits. Born in Masovia in 1536, he 
 was educated at the University of Cracow, where he distin- 
 guished himself by winning the ' prima Laurea.' He then 
 proceeded to Rome, where he entered the society in 1568. 
 He began his preaching at Pultusk, and visited the colleges 
 which Stephen had founded at Riga, Dorpat and Polock ; 
 his eloquence was very successful, and even now his sermons 
 are thought highly of in Poland 3 . On the accession of 
 Sigismund he became royal chaplain : he founded a con- 
 fraternity of St. Lazarus at Warsaw, 'and many other esta- 
 blishments elsewhere. The union with the Greek Church 
 now occupied his attention, and he used his position at 
 the court 4 to convert many of those about the king. He 
 subsequently resigned this position 5 , and died September 
 
 27, 1612, aged seventy-six years. His influence 
 The Nobles. ' f 
 
 confirmed Sigismund in his resolution to grant 
 
 no honours to any but zealous Roman Catholics, and this 
 soon began to thin the ranks of the Protestant nobles : 
 these converts often made up for lack of conviction by 
 ostentatious zeal for their newly-adopted faith. Christopher 
 Radziwill. who had been converted by Skarga, induced his 
 younger brothers, George, afterwards cardinal and bishop 
 
 1 Paulus Piasecius, ' Chronica Gestorum in Europa,' p. 299. 
 
 2 ' Vita P. Skarga,' Cracow, 1661. b Morfill, 'Russia.' 
 4 'Vita P. Skarga,' p. 25. 5 Ibid. p. 29. 
 
THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 33 
 
 of Wilna and Cracow, Albert and Stanislas to abandon the 
 Helvetian Church ; they signalised their conversion by a 
 holocaust of the heretical works their father had been 
 active in disseminating. Their example was followed by 
 other nobles, and as they had complete control over religion 
 on their estates, they frequently ejected all Protestants who 
 had settled there, and filled their places with Roman Catho- x 
 lies. This process was accelerated by the fact that the 
 Jesuits had got the education of the country entirely into 
 their hands, and great numbers of the nobles who were 
 now entering upon manhood had been educated in their 
 schools. With the aid of the nobles and government, the 
 Jesuits prosecuted their labours with unabated vigour and 
 increased success. By the year 1600 the numbers of the 
 Society had reached four hundred and sixty-six, and there 
 were establishments at seventeen different places, besides 
 the mission to the king's court and the staff of the Pro- 
 vincial, which were fixed in no one spot. In 1586 a 
 mission had been started at Dantzic, which, in p r0 g res s of the 
 spite of great opposition, was converted into Society, 
 a permanent college and made considerable progress, 
 especially through its missions in the neighbourhood. 
 Braunsberg had meanwhile become a centre of Jesuit 
 education ; two schools had been established there, called 
 respectively the Pontifical and Warmiensian seminaries. 
 One of these was for the support of converted nobles who 
 were too poor to spend much on their own education, but 
 might .be of great use to the Church ] ; they not only ap- 
 plied themselves to study, but also to more practical mani- 
 festations of their zeal, and on their return to their estates 
 turned out Protestant ministers and persuaded the people 
 to embrace Catholicism. The other seminary was chiefly 
 employed in educating youths from Sweden and Denmark -, 
 who on their return took with them the seeds of the Roman 
 
 1 'Ann. Litt.' 1586, 1587. 2 'Ann. Litt.' 1600. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 Catholic religion. Both these schools were aided by the 
 canons of Warmia, who had welcomed the Society on its 
 first appearance in Poland. These establishments in Polish 
 Prussia were the occasion of continual disturbances. The 
 college at Dantzic was a constant bone of contention be- 
 tween the Jesuits and the town authorities *. The latter 
 maintained that this building, which had formerly belonged 
 to the Franciscans, was under their patronage, and that the 
 Jesuits had illegally gained possession of it 2 . The Society, 
 on the other hand, declared that this monastery was deserted 
 and half ruined when they entered it 3 ; further, that they had 
 been established there by the king and bishop of Ladislav, 
 in contempt of whose authority the inhabitants had driven 
 them out. They were re-instated by the bishop, who was 
 also chancellor of the kingdom, but the townspeople again 
 drove them out and placed a guard over the building. 
 They had not recovered their foothold there by Sobieski's 
 reign 4 , but a mission was in existence at Dantzic when the 
 Society was suppressed 5 . A no less bitter struggle was 
 waged at Thorn, where the bishop of Culm had established 
 the third Jesuit college in Polish Prussia. Riots broke 
 out, of which each side accused the other of being the 
 cause. Here also the Jesuits were expelled, but they re- 
 gained their position, and were destined in after years to 
 cover themselves and the city with evil fame by an act of 
 horrible persecution. In Masovia the history of the Society 
 is much less eventful. A college had been founded at 
 Pultusk in the reign of Sigismund Augustus ; to this was 
 added a college at Lomza on the Narew, and residences at 
 Warsaw, Rawa 6 , and Krosna 7 . The Jesuits occupied them- 
 
 1 Thuanus, part v, p. 1224. 2 Cf. also Wengerscius. 
 
 3 Argentus, chap. ix. * Salvandy, ' Hist, de Pologne.' 
 
 5 Guettee, vol. iii. Table at the end showing the numbers and 
 establishments of the Jesuits. 
 
 6 On a tributary of the Bzura, S.W. of Warsaw, in the voivodie of 
 Rawa : later in Great Poland. 7 Argent us, chap. viii. 
 
THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 35 
 
 selves with appeasing matrimonial quarrels, and teaching 
 their pupils to perform tragedies before assemblies of nobles, 
 which was found to be an excellent means of extracting 
 voluntary gifts. A residence was established at Plock by 
 its bishop \ but none of these met with much opposition, 
 and they were conspicuous neither through persecution of, 
 nor by the Protestants. In Great Poland the school at 
 Kalisz was in a flourishing condition ; in 1600 it contained 
 five hundred pupils, with specially appointed professors to 
 deal with Mathematics, Philosophy, Conscience-cases and 
 Controversies 2 ; here, as elsewhere, they induced many boys 
 to attend the school without the knowledge of their parents. 
 At Posen the Society was employed in refuting the numerous 
 writings which had appeared against them. Their history 
 at Lublin and Cracow in Little Poland, at Lemberg and 
 laroslav in Red Russia was very similar, and was marked 
 by no very striking incidents, till at Cracow there broke 
 out the famous quarrel between the Society and the Uni- 
 versity 3 . The union 4 with the Greek Church gave a 
 powerful impulse to their labours in Lithuania. At Wilna, 
 the school which in 1587 had seventy pupils, in 1600 
 counted over eight hundred, chiefly from the sons of 
 the Lithuanian nobility, and was successfully competing 
 with the Zwinglian establishment there. A mission was 
 formed to Olita 5 and several places in Samogitia ; they had 
 missions in forty-seven places in the neighbourhood, and 
 according to their own account made more than seventeen 
 hundred conversions in one year ; ' but,' complains Argentus, 
 ' the people had a sad habit of frequenting the drink-shops 
 on Sundays.' At Polock their number was increased by 
 the flight of many from Livonia when the war with Sweden 
 
 1 Argentns, p. 225. 2 'Ann. Litt.' 1600. 
 
 3 See Chapter VII, The Jesuits and Education. 
 
 4 See Chapter VIII, The Jesuits and the Greek Church. 
 
 5 On the Niemen, S.W. of Wilna. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 broke out. A college had been founded at Orza l in White 
 Russia, but the proximity to Muscovy rendered the site 
 dangerous. There was a moveable residence at Smolensk 
 because of the wars, and the Society did good work among 
 the soldiers. They penetrated into the Ukraine, and 
 Stanislas Zolkiewski endeavoured to found a college at 
 Kiev, but the country was ' plena schismate, infecta haeresi, 
 polluta Judaismo V an d Roman Catholics were few and far 
 between. In Livonia there was a repetition of the scenes 
 enacted in Polish Prussia ; a residence was formed at 
 Wenden 3 , and in the country the Jesuits had it much their 
 own way, but in Riga and Dorpat even the powerful 
 patronage which they enjoyed was unable to save them 
 from persecution. Their expulsion from Riga on the death 
 of Batory led to endless litigation ; in 1590 the disturbances 
 were temporarily allayed by a Royal commission, and the 
 Jesuits were recalled 4 ; but this was by no means the end 
 of their troubles ; the attempt to introduce the Gregorian 
 Calendar caused fresh tumults, and there was continual 
 friction 5 until Livonia passed under the sway of Sweden. 
 Their position was not improved by the war which broke 
 out with that power : most of them fled from Dorpat, but 
 the irritation caused by their proselytism and the policy 
 Sigismund had adopted, undoubtedly facilitated the transfer 
 of these provinces to the king of Sweden. 
 
 The preponderance which the Jesuits had now acquired 
 by their own efforts, the confidence of the king, and the 
 favour of the nobles, enabled them to have recourse to open 
 
 persecution, which had been strongly con- 
 Persecution. \ 
 
 demned by the laws of the kingdom again 
 
 and again 6 . It is not easy to apportion the blame of these 
 
 1 On the Dnieper, halfway between Mohilew and Smolensk. 
 
 2 Argentus, p. 29. 3 Venda in Latin, between Riga and Dorpat. 
 4 Piasecius, pp. 52, 82. 5 Argentus, chap. ix. 
 6 'Jura et Libertates Dissidentium in Religione in Regno Poloniae.' 
 
 1708. This little book gives a summary of these various enactments, 
 
THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 37 
 
 proceedings with any degree of precision, and Protestant 
 writers have been only too ready to attribute to the Society 
 every occurrence which might bear the appearance of perse- 
 cution ; nevertheless, to charge the Jesuits with gross per- 
 secution is not to accuse them of worse acts than were 
 perpetrated in every country of Europe at that time. It 
 is, however, by no means necessary to believe that the 
 Jesuits directly instigated all the outrages that have been 
 attributed to them. 'The people of Riga/ complained 
 Argentus, * hated Catholicism, and could not restrain them- 
 selves when they saw its rites performed.' This was no 
 doubt true ; but the same might be said of Roman Catholic 
 populations, and their hatred of the Protestants was not 
 likely to be appeased by the fervid harangues in the streets 
 which were among the favourite weapons of the Society. 
 Hence it frequently happened that after one of these heated 
 addresses, the mob signalised its zeal by making an im- 
 mediate onslaught upon Protestant churches. It may 
 sometimes have happened that these street preachers di- 
 rectly instigated these outrages 1 , but more frequently the 
 mob acted on its own impulse. Ascension Day 2 was the 
 occasion of most of these outrages ; the Jesuits always 
 celebrated that day with great pomp and ceremony. They 
 organised huge processions, in which their pupils played a 
 prominent part; images were carried out, and pictorial 
 representations of scenes in ecclesiastical history or myth- 
 ology ; pictures of the martyrdoms the Jesuits had endured ; 
 illustrations of the life of Loyola and his reception into 
 heaven. All these, united with special services and glowing 
 harangues from the street orators, combined to rouse the 
 
 oaths, &c., securing liberty to all religions in Poland. ' Dissidentes ' of 
 course originally included Catholics: it was a mistake probably made 
 on purpose, to limit it to non-Romanists. 
 
 1 Wengerscius gives an instance, p. 223. 'In 1605 at Posen a Jesuit 
 said, "The Magistrates will not, the Senate will not ; do you therefore, 
 whoever you are in the crowd, reduce to smoke and ashes all the haunts 
 of the heretics."' * Ranke. 
 
38 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 feeling of the mob to a fever heat, which after the ceremony 
 found vent in a general attack upon the heretics. Their 
 pupils naturally found in this a congenial occupation. At 
 Cracow 1 the Reformed Church was attacked by them in 
 1574 and 1575, and again on Ascension Day 1587 and 
 1590. On the latter occasion many houses were burnt. 
 The Protestants 2 sent delegates to the king, demanding that 
 a place should be given them to worship in, and that a 
 Diet should be summoned at which religious peace should 
 be confirmed. Sigismund heard them with anger, and 
 bitterly upbraided them for holding an assembly by their 
 own authority, contrary to the laws of the kingdom. After 
 this, the Protestants were compelled to take refuge in the 
 neighbourhood ; thither the students made frequent ex- 
 peditions on Ascension Day, for the purpose of attacking 
 and pillaging their churches. Sometimes they went out 
 armed 3 ; in 1611, they came into contact with the civil 
 militia, and several were shot; on this occasion the riot 
 lasted three days. Similar violence occurred in 1631 when 
 Zamoyski pressed for a judicial investigation, but the in- 
 fluence of the Roman Catholic clergy prevented all enquiry. 
 At Vilna an attempt at persecution was made, but Batory sent 
 orders from Pskov that it should cease. Frequently funerals 
 were attacked by the students, who dispersed the mourners, 
 broke open the coffins, and treated the dead bodies in a dis- 
 Jesuit graceful manner 4 . Physical force was not, 
 methods, however, the only method resorted to by the 
 Jesuits : they exhausted all the arts of sarcasm and ridicule 
 to bring Protestant ministers into contempt. No sooner was 
 a synod convened than letters appeared from the devil to 
 the delegates ; whenever a minister died, letters were pub- 
 lished addressed from hell, and purporting to be written 
 
 1 Wengerscius, pp. 232-236. 2 Thuanus, part v, 135, 136. 
 
 3 Wengerscius, p. 234. 
 
 * Wengerscius gives a long catalogue of outrages all over Poland, 
 which it would be wearisome to recapitulate. 
 
THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 39 
 
 by him to the principal members of his congregation ; in 
 these writings the Jesuits adapted themselves to their public, 
 and their coarse wit was often very effective. Trained from 
 their youth in dialectic and controversy, they were generally 
 more than a match for their adversaries in the arts of public 
 disputation ; accordingly, they were always challenging the 
 Protestants to such trials of skill and knowledge which 
 usually redounded to their own advantage. At last the 
 Protestants grew more cautious, and avoided these encoun- 
 ters with their skilful and not over scrupulous opponents 1 . 
 These measures were directed chiefly against ministers ; 
 laymen they sought rather to convert than to persecute, 
 and often used gentler means. They insinuated themselves 
 into their confidence by their suave manners, their readiness 
 to help in difficulties, often by their medical skill and the 
 care they bestowed on the education of the children. They 
 were in the habit of making marriages between Roman 
 Catholic ladies and Protestants, because, even if the hus- 
 bands were not converted, the children were generally 
 educated in the creed of their mothers. No method, in 
 short, was left untried which could bring back Protestants 
 to the Church of Rome. 
 
 This success, and the means by which it was secured, did 
 not contribute towards the internal peace of Poland : the 
 Protestants were still numerous enough to form The opposi- 
 a powerful opposition, and they were joined by tion - 
 a large number of Catholics who viewed with disgust the 
 sway the Jesuits exercised over the king's mind, and the 
 effect which their counsels produced upon the external and 
 internal policy of the government. This party was led by 
 Zamoyski, ' who possessed great influence, as one who had 
 never swerved from the religion of his ancestors, and to 
 whom Sigismund owed his throne. He was chancellor of 
 the kingdom and, holding aloof from all factions, had 
 1 Cf. ' t)e Lublinensi Disputatione,' 1624, Aug. 9, 10. 
 
40 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 always guarded the liberties of the realm with the greatest 
 faithfulness and consistency 1 ' ; but his influence with the 
 king waned as that of the Jesuits waxed ; it was, however, 
 sufficient to prevent the open outbreak of hostilities during 
 his lifetime. On his death Nicolas Zebrzdowski aimed at 
 succeeding to his position and influence as leader o'f the 
 opposition. In 1607 dissensions came to a head, and the 
 opposition formed a Rokosz, a sort of armed confederation 
 permitted by the constitution. They determined to elect 
 a new king 2 unless Sigismund listened to their demands : 
 they complained of the influence of the Jesuits, and of the 
 violation of the rights and liberties of the Dissidents. ' The 
 Complaints of Jesuits,' they said, ' were guided by foreign ad- 
 
 the Rokosz. v ice ; they had disregarded municipal rights at 
 Dantzic and Thorn ; they were eager to create civil dis- 
 turbances ; they made alliances and marriages with the 
 house of Austria to secure their own power ; they relied on 
 the Spanish Inquisition, and trusted more to human counsels 
 than Divine Providence. These were the results of the 
 Council of Trent, from which, as from Pandora's box, all 
 manner of evils had spread over Europe : not that the 
 decrees of that council were in themselves bad, but the 
 method of their execution was, and this the Society claimed 
 as its special function. So cunningly do they labour that 
 their diligence and activity had become truly formidable to 
 the Polish nobility, and all who adhere to their ancestral 
 laws, and cleave to their primitive liberty. Hence arose 
 the disturbances in the kingdom. The Society incited 
 Batory to nefarious projects against his own people ; it 
 was the cause of conspiracies in every country in Europe, 
 and it was to be feared that such would be the case in 
 Poland. Zamoyski had done well to exclude them from 
 the University he had founded, because he did not consider 
 them fit to educate youths in the discipline of the country V 
 
 1 Thuanus, part v, 1223. 2 Ibid. 1224. 3 Ibid. 1299 et seq. 
 
THE KING OF THE JESUITS. 41 
 
 The Rokosz was not, however, agreed with respect to the 
 Jesuits, and there were bitter altercations on the subject ; 
 finally it was decided that they should not be expelled 
 from Poland, but be confined to the schools, that they 
 might be free to devote themselves to education : one only 
 was to be allowed at the king's court. In July, 1607, a 
 battle was fought at Guzow, where Sigismund was victorious, 
 and though Zebrzdowski kept the field for some time, he 
 was powerless, and an amnesty was proclaimed. Piasecius l 
 maintains that the object of the Rokosz was not principally 
 against the decrees of the Council of Trent or the Jesuits, 
 but to expel certain intimates of the king who introduced 
 a foreign regime and punish the violation of certain laws. 
 However this may be, its defeat gave the Catholic reaction 
 a free hand, and henceforth to the death of Sigismund it 
 pursued its course without let or hindrance ; henceforth 
 the Protestants are a small and persecuted minority ; they 
 cease to be a considerable element in national life; the 
 policy of the country is entirely in the hands of the Jesuits : 
 in other words, Poland ceases to have a national policy 
 at all. 
 
 1 'Chronica Gestorum,' p. 247. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE JESUITS AND THEIR CRITICS IN POLAND. 
 
 THERE has probably never been an institution that has 
 suffered more from extravagant praise and violent abuse 
 than the Society of Jesus ; and unfortunately this fate has 
 pursued it to the present day : its apologists see no evil and 
 its enemies see no health in it whatever. If an impartial 
 attitude is rare now, the fact that men in the thick of the 
 fight between Catholicism and Protestantism failed to appre- 
 ciate their opponents and lavished upon them unstinted 
 abuse, does not cause much surprise or call for loud denun- 
 ciation. The Society by its constitution lent itself to 
 extremes of praise and abuse; it consisted mainly of two 
 very distinct classes of members, the ' professed,' who lived 
 on alms and devoted themselves exclusively to spiritual 
 labours, and the coadjutors, who stood lower in the hierarchy 
 of the Order and managed its temporal affairs : these latter 
 could acquire fixed revenues, and could mingle in secular 
 matters of every description. It was their skill in temporal 
 concerns which gave the enemies of the Society their prin- 
 cipal weapons of attack, while the zeal and devotion of the 
 ' professed ' furnished its apologists with their strongest 
 weapons of defence. 
 
 The success of the Jesuits in Poland was the signal for 
 the outburst of a multitude of attacks which contain almost 
 every charge that has been brought against the Society. 
 There is one exception ; those assertions of personal im- 
 
THE JESUITS AND THEIR CRITICS IN POLAND. 43 
 
 morality which bulk so big in more recent denunciations of 
 the Society are conspicuous by tneir absence. It is with 
 different subjects that the Polish pamphleteers mainly deal. 
 Many of these charges are similar to those brought against 
 the Society in other countries, but some are peculiar to 
 Poland. The Jesuits, declared a Catholic nuncio to the 
 Diet in 1590*, made themselves arbiters of the election 
 of the king, that they might afterwards employ the 
 supreme authority for their own gratification ; it was they 
 who excited troubles at Riga, in Livonia, Lithuania, and 
 Volhynia. At Cracow on the one hand they had made 
 themselves masters of churches, turning out the priests who 
 were in possession, without regard to age or infirmities ; on 
 the other hand it was at their instigation that the church 
 granted by the king and Diet to the Lutherans had been set 
 on fire. At Polock, in Lithuania, they robbed priests of 
 their livings ; in several parts of Little Russia they had 
 seized on the most fertile lands and despoiled the richest 
 citizens. They carried off from the houses of the nobles 
 whatever was best and most precious. Their colleges were 
 palaces and fortified citadels, as at Posen and Lublin, from 
 which they seemed to threaten the neighbouring towns with 
 war. Zamoyski had said that it was necessary to beware of 
 admitting them to state affairs, while the bishop of Cracow 
 thought the Society was trained to overthrow the doctrines 
 of the Roman Catholic Church, excite seditions, oppress 
 honest citizens, and vitiate good habits; their system of 
 education was bad; obscure men were advanced to high 
 positions, and their mediation had procured the peace with 
 Muscovy. 
 
 1 Cretineau-Joly declares that this was really a pamphlet by a 
 Lutheran, and not a speech by a nuncio at all. This may be true ; but 
 the Society employed similar tactics, and published apologies purporting 
 to be speeches of noble senators to the Diet. This seems to have been 
 a favourite method of literary warfare ; the defence of the Society was 
 appropriately put in the mouth of a senator, as the Senate had become 
 under Sigismund the centre of the Catholic reaction. 
 
44 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 These charges elicited more than one answer 1 on behalf 
 of the Society. A noble replied to the nuncio, and denied 
 Nobilis ^ e g enumeness f the opinions he had quoted 
 Poloni against the Society. It never interfered in 
 l10 ' secular affairs except by the express command 
 of the Pope, which it could not disobey. The Jesuits had 
 stopped the spread of heresy in Poland, and had they arrived 
 fifty years sooner, the country would have been saved count- 
 less troubles. Their system of education was approved of by 
 the king and nobles of Poland, and was admirably adapted 
 for its purpose. It was true that the Jesuits had negotiated 
 the peace with Muscvoy, but no one found fault with it. 
 They did indeed possess some country places which they 
 looked after with great care, but there was no luxury of any 
 description ; their fortified places were to secure them 
 against the incursions of the Scythians. Stephen Batory 
 did not raise the siege of Pskov because of tumults aroused 
 by the Jesuits, but because negotiations for peace had been 
 commenced. Most of these charges were derived from the 
 benches of Dutch or English ships at Dantzic, Elbing, or 
 Konigsberg. Similarly false were the charges that the 
 Jesuits favoured the Spanish monarchy, and put their devo- 
 tion to it before their patriotism. Karnkowski, archbishop 
 of Gnesen, Macieiowski, bishop of Luck, Christopher Radzi- 
 will, all showed their appreciation of the Society by founding 
 colleges for its benefit. Nothing could be more false than 
 that the Society was enormously rich ; all the liberality of 
 the nobles only afforded its members a bare sustenance. 
 As to their influence on the king's election, the Jesuits were 
 present at Warsaw on private business, and took no part in 
 politics ; it was the duty of Poles to extend to the Jesuits 
 
 1 Stan. Roscius, ' Spongia qua absterguntur maledicta equitis Poloni 
 contra Soc. Jes.' Also ' Nobilis Poloni pro Soc. Jesu clericis oratio 
 prima.' Ingolstadt, 1590. The copy in the Bodleian is attributed to a 
 ' Johannes Lans,' on what grounds is not stated, nor who Lans was. It 
 probably emanated from a Jesuit, and was not a speech at all. 
 
THE JESUITS AND THEIR CRITICS IN POLAND. 45 
 
 that liberty and protection which they gave to all religions, 
 and to refuse to credit charges, maliciously and falsely 
 brought against them. 
 
 These speeches or pamphlets are merely instances among 
 a multitude, most of which have been lost, but there is 
 an enquiry into the effects of the proceedings of the 
 Society of Jesus in Poland, which, published towards the 
 end of Sigismund's reign, is marked by considerable 
 
 insight and great moderation 1 . The trouble 
 
 Consilium de 
 in Poland, according to this author, was the recuperanda 
 
 same as elsewhere ; all the disturbances of the P? c f 
 
 Poloniae. 
 last forty years had arisen from the decrees of 
 
 the Council of Trent, or rather, from the method of their 
 execution. The Tridentine reformation was opposed not 
 only by religious feeling, but by various national privileges, 
 liberties, laws, and customs. That the clergy of Poland were 
 as zealous as any to carry out these decrees was shown by 
 the synod of Piotrkow, * quam seu Filiam Poloniae Medea ilia 
 Tridentina peperit'; and these decrees were a sign of what 
 was coming. The kings of Poland joined the union of 
 Catholic sovereigns, and made an especial alliance with 
 Austria ; hence arose internal dissensions in which the king 
 was involved. But the Council of Trent and the alliance 
 with Austria were in themselves no bad thing ; it was the 
 method of executing the Tridentine decrees that did the 
 mischief, and for this the Jesuits were responsible. The 
 form of the Society was monarchical ; absolute obedience was 
 required ; the Jesuits recognised no superior but members 
 of their own order, and these were generally Spaniards or 
 Italians : they were ' ab utriusque Fori ordinaria jurisdic- 
 
 1 ' Consilium de recuperanda et in posterum stabilienda pace regni 
 Foloniae,' Mercure Jesuite, 1626. It was written about 1612 in Polish, 
 and is based upon the demands of the Rokosz of 1607. It was after- 
 wards translated into Latin, and appeared in the 'Mercure Jesuite.' 
 Another translation, with additions, was made into Latin in 1632, and 
 dedicated to Oxenstiern. Both these latter editions are in the Bodleian. 
 1 he work is anonymous. 
 
46 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 tione exempli,' and thus free from all legal control; only 
 adherents of Spain were elected to offices, and in subordinate 
 grades the people were promoted and not the nobles, because 
 their patriotism would be a hindrance to them. They 
 educated their converts to be little more than Spaniards or 
 Italians ; and in France, for instance, they all sided with 
 the League. The Society was like a sword whose blade 
 was buried in Poland, while its hilt was wielded by the 
 hands of the Holy See and Spaniards,' who could make 
 it obey their least nod; and it was intended to dominate 
 Europe, so that there should be never again any opportunity 
 of revolt from Rome. The obstacles to this project in 
 Poland were liberty and the laws by which it was main- 
 tained. Hence all the privileges of the Jesuits were granted 
 to enable them to overcome these obstacles. First they 
 establish themselves at court as confessor to the king or 
 queen, or at least tutor to the heir ; or they attach themselves 
 to the most powerful persons in the kingdom. They took 
 care that their adversaries' complaints should either be 
 neglected or evaded. They build a number of churches, 
 schools, &c., in the chief towns, and see that their houses are 
 on the wall, in order to have access night and day, as is the 
 case at Cracow, Wilna, and Posen. They used the arts of 
 the demagogue and the confessional, and by these means 
 gained the strength of faction and favour of the curators who 
 presided over the Public Treasury, which gave them com- 
 mand of both private and public property. They did not 
 care for petty rewards, but secured many entire inheritances 
 as legacies. In Poland nothing was heard of their justifica- 
 tion of tyrannicide, because Sigismund was devoted to them ; 
 but if he changed his mind, how long would he be secure ? 
 Only so long as the Jesuits pleased. They were continually 
 setting the laws at naught when they stood in the way ; their 
 conversion of heretics was due to gold and silver arguments, 
 plentifully supplied from Rome ; their system of education 
 
THE JESUITS AND THEIR CRITICS IN POLAND. 47 
 
 was ruinous ; many eminent Poles complained that they 
 had to correct the faults of their Jesuit training by travelling. 
 The only thing to be done was to expel them from Poland ; 
 it was no good trying to bind them by laws : they obeyed 
 none, not even their own, for instance the decree of the 
 General Congregation of 1593 that 'Jesuits should abstain 
 from temporal affairs.' 
 
 It was probably in answer to this attack that Argentus, 
 who was visitor of the two provinces of Johannes 
 Poland and Lithuania, wrote his book l on Argentus. 
 the state of the Society in Poland. It is the most im- 
 portant work on the subject, and is at once a description 
 of the progress of the Society and a defence against its 
 enemies. His object, he says, is to give an account of his 
 visitation in Poland as he had done elsewhere, that the king 
 may know the real state of the Society, that he might protect 
 it with his royal authority, and that calumnies may be 
 refuted ; the Society had been introduced by the wishes not 
 only of the king but of the kingdom, and had been of great 
 advantage to its best interests. Their enemies, however, 
 not only abused them, but called into question the king's 
 actions, and maintained the Jesuits to be dangerous to 
 Poland. When first he came into the country and 
 heard on every side accusations against the Society, he 
 thought there must be some ground for them, but after 
 diligent searching found none. The Society had two 
 classes of enemies the heretics, and Catholics who knew 
 nothing about it ; and there were two classes of accusa- 
 tions brought against the Society in Poland one common 
 to all countries, the other peculiar to Poland. The chief of 
 
 1 Johannes Argentus, ' Ad Sigismundum III Liber de statu Soc. Jesu 
 in prov. Pol. et Lith.' This work first appeared in Poland at Cracow in 
 the shape of a letter dated Feb. 14, 1615 : it was then expanded into 
 this ' Liber,' published at Ingolstadt in 1616 ; both are in the Bodleian. 
 From the title it is evident that the success of the Society in Poland had 
 necessitated its division into two provinces. 
 
48 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 them are that the Society mixes in politics f that it presses its 
 counsels upon the king in secular matters ; it canvasses for 
 the promotion of its partisans to dignities ; it seeks favours 
 and accepts rewards; it scatters evil doctrines, overflows 
 with riches, and is greedy for other people's goods ; it infringes 
 the privileges of the nobles, excites tumults, disturbs the 
 peace in many towns, and abets the dissolution of the 
 country. The first charge Argentus meets with a charac- 
 teristic ' distinguo ' ; there are two kinds of politics, firstly, 
 that concerned with the very foundations of a State, which 
 are justice, prudence, and religion ; secondly, that which 
 concerns public administration. The Society did indeed 
 inculcate the first three, but no Jesuit ever mingled in the 
 second : it was forbidden by a decree of the General Con- 
 gregation. But the Jesuits did exhort kings and princes to do 
 rightly, to have God ever before their eyes, to observe 
 justice and prudence, to be the champions of the oppressed, 
 guardians of minors and protectors of widows ; and whose 
 business was it to direct the king's conscience if not a 
 theologian's ? No member of the Society ever advised the 
 king on purely political matters. Two years before, at the 
 Diet of Warsaw, Sigismund was asked whether it were true 
 that the Jesuits gave him counsel, and if so, he was requested 
 for the future not to listen to them, and thus crown his acts 
 of kindness to the Society. The king replied ' that it was 
 false to say that the Society interfered in politics or can- 
 vassed for the promotion of this or that individual ; if they 
 did, it would avail nothing, for he had his own methods and 
 reasons of promotion ; those rumours arose only from sus- 
 picions and false conjectures, and were of no weight.' As 
 to this latter accusation, the defence of Argentus is the 
 ' reductio ad absurdum ' of refinement ; the Jesuits, he says, 
 never concerned themselves about preferments; but they 
 sometimes addressed a humble question as to whether the 
 person to be promoted was worthy of preferment, or ven- 
 
THE JESUITS AND THEIR CRITICS IN POLAND. 49 
 
 tured to remind the king of good service done, in order that 
 no one might be deprived of due reward from lack of access 
 to the king ; but these favours they only conceded to 
 importunity, and if their partisans were promoted, it was 
 through their own merits, not the intervention of the 
 Society. Far from its being dangerous to States, the removal 
 of the Society was always followed, as in Portugal and 
 Transylvania, by national calamities ; it was they who gave 
 godly counsels to princes, and were, so to speak, their 
 guardian angels. No less erroneous was the idea that the 
 Jesuits were rich 1 ; there were in Poland abbeys and 
 monasteries whose revenues equalled that of a whole Jesuit 
 province ; there was not a college which, deducting neces- 
 sary expenses, could maintain sixty people, allowing sixty 
 florins a year to each. These colleges were burdened with 
 debt, and for that reason frequently could not be completed. 
 In all Poland they have scarcely a house fit to live in, and 
 their college at Posen, which was the chief one in Poland, 
 was so badly off for buildings that of its sixty members more 
 than half live in huts more suited for mice than men; at 
 Wilna, where their college was burnt down, they had 
 nothing to shelter them from the snows. Complaints had 
 been made in the local assemblies, as in the Diet, that they 
 excited disturbances and were ruining the kingdom. These 
 tumults were not, however, to be laid at their door; at 
 Dantzic it was the populace who set at naught the king's 
 authority ; at Thorn, it was again the citizens who attacked 
 the Jesuits, not the Jesuits the citizens. At Riga, the 
 Jesuits made an attempt to come to an agreement about 
 their church, but the town authorities kept procrastinating, 
 and no conclusion was arrived at. It was prejudice that 
 caused so many libels against the Society, and led some 
 nobles to complain of the infringement of their liberties 
 and ' praejudicium omne judicium tollit.' The Jesuits did 
 
 1 Krasinski says they could reckon 100,000 of yearly income. 
 E 
 
50 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 excellent work by their missions ; in Livonia they were the 
 only Christian ministers in many places; the country was 
 vast and there was no one to take care of souls ; in White 
 Russia there were many Catholics of great age who had 
 never taken the communion, because their lords did not 
 consider it a food for peasants. 
 
 This was indeed the strong point in the defence of the 
 Society ; it paid more heed to the peasant than did the 
 Protestants, and its missions were unrivalled. But to attain 
 to an end which the Jesuits considered good, they were not 
 scrupulous as to means, believing that the former justified 
 the latter ; in spite of denials, it is fairly certain that the 
 Society did take an active part in politics ; it was admitted 
 that they could do so by the command of the Pope, and 
 this interference in politics was almost wholly mischievous. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE JESUITS AND EDUCATION IN POLAND. 
 
 OF the three main objects which Loyola set before the 
 Society of Jesus, preaching, confessing, and education, the 
 last was the most important. Preaching and importance 
 the confessional were already among the fa- of Education, 
 vourite weapons of the Roman Catholic Church, but the 
 Jesuits were to make of education an instrument more 
 potent than any other in the conversion of heretic and 
 schismatic. It was this educational object that rendered 
 necessary the establishment of the spiritual coadjutors who, 
 unlike the professed members, could live in fixed residences, 
 acquire revenues, and were not bound by the obligation to 
 devote themselves to continual travelling in the service of 
 the Pope ; they could establish themselves in any place, 
 become residents, gain influence, and put themselves at the 
 head of instruction *. This was one of the most important 
 institutions of the Society, and contributed more than any 
 other to its success. In Poland the main object was the 
 education of young nobles. Wherever they went, their first 
 and greatest anxiety was to get hold of the education of the 
 young, because this secured their ultimate if not immediate 
 success ; but in Poland there was an additional reason for 
 zeal in getting into their hands the instruction of young 
 nobles. Here every pupil was a potential petty despot; 
 the nobility had absolute control over religion on their 
 
 1 Ranke, vol. i. 149, 150. 
 E 2 
 
52 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 estates, and the prevailing faith was not necessarily that of 
 the government but that of the majority of nobles ; every 
 pupil secured by the Jesuits meant at some time or other 
 an estate with all its inhabitants brought over to Rome. 
 Hence, no sooner was the Society established in Poland than 
 schools for the nobility began to rise in every quarter. 
 Jesuit At Pultusk there was a school which con- 
 Schools, tained four hundred pupils all noble 1 . At 
 Wilna, in 1600, the Jesuits had eight hundred scholars 2 , 
 chiefly sons of the Lithuanian nobility, many of whom were 
 heretics ; in the school at Kalisz 3 there were five hundred 
 pupils. At Posen they were welcomed by a heretic noble, 
 who told them that there had been a Lutheran school there 
 for twenty-six years which had done no good in the town 4 . 
 Seminaries had also been established at Braunsberg, Dorpat, 
 and Polock 5 , and many other places for the same object. 
 The education the Jesuits gave was gratuitous ; but they 
 received large gifts from nobles, especially on occasions 
 when their pupils gave public performances of tragedies and 
 recitations before assemblies of the nobility 6 ; and these 
 gifts gave their enemies occasion to say that while they 
 reaped all the credit of gratuitous education, the presents 
 they received brought them more than any tariff of fees 
 could have done. This liberality brought them many 
 partisans even among Protestants and members of the 
 Greek Church, who were induced to send their children to 
 the Jesuit schools by the fact that many had completed 
 their studies there without abandoning their creed. The 
 Society not only received them, but endeavoured to attract 
 Protestant children by all means in its power ; at several 
 places they were induced to attend without the knowledge 
 of their parents. The Jesuits treated them with great 
 courtesy and kindness, and kept them as long as possible 
 
 1 ' Annuae Litterae ' ; also Ranke. 2 ' Ann. Litt.' 3 Ibid. 
 
 * Ibid. 5 Ibid. e Ibid, passim. 
 
THE JESUITS AND EDUCATION IN POLAND. 53 
 
 under their control ; wherever they came across a boy of 
 promise they endeavoured to secure him for the Society. 
 At Wilna a young noble in a riot proclaimed himself a 
 Protestant and ready to die for his religion ; the Jesuits 
 preserved him from harm, treated him kindly, and finally 
 succeeded in converting him, so that he became one of 
 their most distinguished members. In this way the Society 
 soon outstripped all the other schools in the country, and 
 began to aim at getting the Universities into its hands. 
 This was the cause of considerable friction with 
 
 Quarrel 
 
 the University authorities, especially at Cracow, with the 
 where open fights took place more than once Unlversitles - 
 between Jesuit scholars and members of the University. 
 These physical contests led to a literary warfare, in which 
 the Society and the University charged each other with 
 being the cause of disturbances ; students from the latter, 
 maintained the Society, attacked the college and did great 
 violence, tearing down the theses of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
 and committing other outrages ! . These charges were 
 answered by a manifesto on behalf of the University of 
 Cracow, which summarises the accusations made against 
 the Jesuit methods of education, and it at least is not open 
 to the imputation of having been written by Lutherans and 
 ascribed to Catholics. The professions of charity towards 
 the University, maintains the author, are a mockery, for 
 charity is departed since the Jesuits came. They have 
 filled the land with their schools, and, not satisfied with 
 this, they libel a college which does not belong to them 2 . 
 Because Cracow was the chief town in Poland, they thought 
 it necessary that it should become the centre of Jesuit edu- 
 cation. The Academy had refused to participate in the 
 ceremonies of the canonisation of St. Ignatius, because it 
 
 1 ' Manifestatio contra Univ. Crac.' 1622. Mercure Jesuite, 1626-1630. 
 Geneva. 
 
 2 ' Responsio ad libellum Jesuitae.' Mercure Jesuite : also a separate 
 edition. 
 
54 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 was a snare of the Jesuits. They aimed at getting all the 
 education of the country in their power, and had already de- 
 clared that they had possession of the University of Cracow, 
 and their insolence warned its members to beware of their 
 endeavours. Cracow had produced greater men than all the 
 Jesuit colleges put together : such were Hosen, Cromer the 
 historian, Orzechowski, and others ; it had given the Society 
 its Skargas, Herbestos, and Laternas, men whom the present 
 degenerate schools of the Jesuits could never produce. It 
 had a clean record for more than two hundred years, while 
 the Jesuits had already produced a disastrous effect upon the 
 University of Paris. There was all the difference in the world 
 between the nature of the Society of Jesus and that of the 
 University : ' Academiae omnia aperta, Candida, simplicia : 
 illis clausa, cauta, tecta.' The Jesuits sought the courts of 
 princes, students sought solitude ; fire and water would 
 agree better than the Society and the University. The 
 Jesuits had persecuted the heretics, and when they were 
 lacking, turned to the Academy ; if a man looked askance 
 at a Jesuit they wished to excommunicate him ; if he pro- 
 tested against the Fathers he was declared to have violated 
 ecclesiastical liberties. They spread false reports over 
 Poland, and taught women in their apartments, the mob 
 in the gutters, and boys at school, that no one could be 
 saved unless he favoured the Jesuits. They made Loyola 
 the equal of the Apostles, and deprived Christ of his glory, 
 with the same zeal as they robbed the University of its 
 rights. They sought hcnours of all kinds and riches from 
 the king. They had ruined all true learning in Poland, 
 * desiere literae, desiit eruditio'; their learning was only fit 
 for women and boys, ' species virtutis pro re est, fucus pro 
 veritate ' ; they taught their pupils miserable tragedies, 
 declamations and rhymes, and exhibited weak plays on the 
 stage. They had robbed parents of their children and the 
 University of its sons, and made them such that no one 
 
THE JESUITS AND EDUCATION IN POLAND. 55 
 
 regretted their loss ; men who would have become great 
 senators had they remained at the University, were enticed 
 away and turned into mediocre Jesuits. They had ruined 
 the school at Posen, and caused riots at Lublin and Wilna, 
 the least of which they exaggerated to excite odium against 
 their enemies. They were supple courtiers, and by the 
 favour they curried with the great and their denunciations 
 in every church and school they possessed in the land, 
 sought to ruin the University of Cracow. 
 
 On this occasion, however, the Jesuits met with a rebuff, 
 for at the Diet of Warsaw 1 , on March 4, 1626, T> C ree 
 the question was raised and considerable hos- against the 
 tility evinced towards the Society by the nuncios. J es 
 One declared that there were already more Jesuit colleges 
 than he liked ; the Palatine of Cracow said there was one 
 Palatine, one Academy, one Rector, and about the Jesuit 
 school he wished to know nothing ; another deputy expressed 
 his opinion that as a devout Roman Catholic he considered 
 these commotions had nothing to do with the Pope, who 
 did not wish to interfere ; it was the interest of the Re- 
 public to calm tumults, secure peace to the royal city, shut 
 up the Jesuit school, and support the University. Another 
 declared that the Jesuit schools should be shut up not only 
 at Cracow but throughout the whole of Poland. Finally, it 
 was decreed that the Jesuits should shut up their school at 
 Cracow, and cease from molesting the University. The 
 Society immediately sent delegates to ask the Pope to 
 absolve them from obedience to this decree, as it would be 
 their certain ruin. All the states of the realm 2nd nuncios 
 of the provinces protested that their privileges were being 
 invaded, and that an attempt was being made to ruin the 
 University of Cracow by means of a Jesuit school. In 
 i627 2 the University wrote to that of Louvain that they 
 
 1 ' Mercure Jesuite,' 1626, 1630. Geneva. 
 
 2 Ibid. 1 630. Geneva. 
 
56 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 were in the same danger ; for seven years the Jesuits had 
 been attacking the University of Cracow ; they had recourse 
 to force and the arts of the courtier when deceit did not 
 succeed ; they persuaded the king that the University was 
 the greatest enemy of the Society and even of His Majesty 
 himself; everywhere the same representations were made. 
 The Society had two things in its favour, the goodwill of 
 Sigismund and of Rome. More than once they had deluged 
 the city with innocent blood, and soon all true learning would 
 be abolished and all knowledge lost. This was but an 
 episode in the struggle which went on all over Europe 
 between the Jesuits and the Universities ; but the resist- 
 ance of Cracow came too late ; it had looked on heedless 
 while the Society crushed all other elements of opposition, 
 and now it had to stand alone, with the natural result that 
 the Jesuits were in the end successful, and education in 
 Poland passed entirely into their hands until the revival in 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 It is a commonly received opinion that the devotion of 
 the Society to education was a partial set-off against its mis- 
 Effects on chievous influence on politics and morals ; there 
 Education in is considerable authority to support this view. 
 Poland. Bacon declared that ' in that which regards the 
 education of youth it would be more sample to say " consult 
 the schools of the Jesuits, for there can be nothing better 
 than is practised there,'" and Leibnitz expressed a some- 
 what similar opinion. There can indeed be no doubt that 
 the Jesuits were by far the most effective educationalists 
 during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; their 
 methods were more organised, and they paid more heed 
 to education than any other body of men ; but it may be 
 questioned whether its merits counterbalanced its defects. 
 It was if anything too rigidly systematic, and tended to 
 reduce or to raise all men to the same level ; this was of 
 course the chief aim of the Society, and its methods gave 
 
THE JESUITS AND EDUCATION IN POLAND. 57 
 
 a marked and uniform impress to all who fell under its 
 influence. If this was calculated to benefit men of ordinary 
 abilities, it exerted a very depressing influence upon men 
 of talent and genius. Hence it followed that of all the able 
 men who entered the Society very few became great men 
 of letters 1 . This was conspicuously the case in Poland ; it 
 did indeed produce two men of note, Sarbiewski, born in 
 I 595) who is considered the best of modern Latin poets, 
 and was employed by Urban VIII to correct hymns for a 
 new breviary, subsequently becoming professor at Wilna, 
 and Smiglecki, who wrote on logic; but this is a poor 
 record, considering the Society had complete control of 
 education in Poland for more than a century and a half. 
 By the end of Sigismund's reign literature had declined as 
 rapidly as it had risen during the reign of Sigismund 
 Augustus. It was the education of the Jesuits which 
 made Latin the prevalent language among the Polish 
 nobles 2 , and a real national literature is next to impossible 
 when the habitual language of the educated part of the 
 population is a foreign one. This use of Latin introduced 
 a barbarous admixture of words, and created a no less 
 barbarous style called the Macaronic. Polemical divinity 
 occupied the attention of the pupils of the Jesuits, and 
 instead of acquiring useful knowledge they wasted their 
 time in dialectic subtleties and quibbles, while the flattery 
 lavished on their benefactors and abuse bestowed on their 
 enemies, rendered their style bombastic in the last degree. 
 The classical productions of the sixteenth century were not 
 reprinted for more than a century, during which period 
 there was no national literature. This system of education 
 failed to produce any enlightened statesmen, and it failed 
 
 1 Mariana on the defects in the government of the Society of Jesus. 
 There is both a French and Spanish version in the ' Mercure Jesuite,' 
 1630. 
 
 2 Connor, 'Letters on Poland.' He also illustrates the ignorance of 
 the Poles on medicine, philosophy, &c. 
 
58 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 to overcome the invincible ignorance and blind prejudices 
 of the ruling caste. It was a period marked by no efforts 
 at reform ; on the contrary, sound notions of law and right 
 became obscured, and gave way to absurd ideas of privilege, 
 by which liberty degenerated into licence, while the peasants 
 sank into a state of predial servitude. The virtue and 
 science to which, according to Cretineau-Joly J , the Jesuits 
 trained these Frenchmen of the North, are at the same 
 time a striking illustration and condemnation of the merits 
 of the system of education pursued by the Jesuits. 
 
 1 Cretineau-Joly, vol. iv. p. 132. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE JESUITS AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 DURING the long anarchy which preceded the fall of 
 Poland, it became a common saying that ' Poland main- 
 tained itself on its disorder.' It may be said Need of 
 with greater truth that Poland during the golden toleration, 
 age of Sigismund Augustus and Batory maintained itself 
 by its toleration. Consisting mainly as it did of the adhe- 
 rents of two antagonistic Churches, toleration was for Poland 
 a ' sine qua non' of its existence. For the partisans of one 
 to have recourse to persecution and proscription against 
 the adherents of the other, was to introduce an element 
 which could not fail to act as a powerful solvent upon 
 a state like Poland. This is precisely what happened. 
 All idea of toleration was swept away by the wave of 
 Catholic reaction : when missionary propaganda failed to 
 convert and temporal rewards to seduce the members of 
 the Greek Church, their treatment by the dominant sect 
 became such that they viewed not merely with indifference 
 but with glad acquiescence their subjection to a foreign 
 power. Persecution overcame the cohesion which bound 
 them to Poland, and set free the centrifugal forces which 
 were always its weakness, and now became a potent cause 
 of its ruin. 
 
 The union of the Greek and Latin Churches had always 
 been one of the cherished aims of successive Popes, but it 
 
60 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 was an object that had never yet been accomplished. The 
 union which Isidor had negotiated at the Council of 
 Florence had never been more than a phantom, and its 
 adherents even in Lithuania were inconsiderable. The 
 outbreak of the Reformation and its rapid spread turned 
 for a while the attention of Rome elsewhere, and absorbed 
 all its energies ; but the success of the Jesuits, especially in 
 Poland, again brought the union within the range of prac- 
 tical politics. Several attempts had meanwhile been made 
 to effect an understanding between the Greek and Protestant 
 Churches, but they had all proved futile ] . In their deal- 
 ings with the Greek Church, the Jesuits made the union 
 of 1439 their basis of operations. They carried on their 
 Methods of work in a slightly different manner from that 
 the Jesuits, which they employed with the Protestants. 
 The same influences were brought to bear upon the nobles, 
 the hope of temporal rewards and the education of their 
 children. Possevino had founded in Lithuania a special 
 seminary for Muscovites and several others, and these 
 schools furnished valiant champions for the union 2 . But 
 the Greek bishops were treated very differently from the 
 Protestant ministers. At first the Jesuits did not attempt 
 to convert, but merely to win them over to their view re- 
 garding the union, which was their immediate object ; they 
 thought that union would lead to unity, and unity to uni- 
 formity. The arts of seduction were employed instead of 
 those of persecution. They were promised seats in the 
 Senate beside the Roman Catholic bishops ; their liturgy 
 and special usages were to be preserved for them, on con- 
 dition of their submission to the Holy See; and these 
 prospects, united with the idea of freedom from disturbance, 
 sufficed to win over several bishops and nobles. 
 
 1 Wengerscius, p. 479. Thuanus. Letters between them were dis- 
 covered by the Roman Catholics. 
 
 * ' Vicissitudes de 1'Eglise Cath. en Pologne,' with preface by Monta- 
 lembert ; also ' Vie du Fere Possevin.' Paris, 1712. 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 6 1 
 
 At this time the two chief prelates of this Church were 
 Onesiphorus, metropolitan of Kiev, and Cyril Terlecki, 
 bishop of Luck \ both of whom were married. The Patriarch 
 Jeremiah on his return from Moscow deposed Onesiphorus, 
 and consecrated in his stead Michael Ragoza 2 , who was 
 presented to him by the Lithuanian nobles. Terlecki suc- 
 ceeded in concealing his marriage and maintaining himself 
 in his bishopric. Ragoza seems to have been an honest 
 but weak and vacillating man, peculiarly liable to be in- 
 fluenced by the arguments which the Jesuits, and especially 
 Skarga, brought to bear on him. He was further unsettled 
 by the appointment of Terlecki as Exarch, which diminished 
 his own authority. The bishop of Luck was not more 
 satisfied with his position : on the one hand he was engaged 
 in a quarrel with Ostrogski, the pillar of Greek orthodoxy ; 
 on the other he was subject to persecution from the bailiff 
 of Luck, who had been converted to Romanism ; at the 
 same time he dreaded the exposure of the deception he had 
 employed with the Patriarch in order to escape deposition 3 
 at a council which the latter had summoned. Under these 
 circumstances he and several other bishops determined to 
 take a step which would at least secure them The Union 
 the peaceful possession of their sees, and de- of Krze sc- 
 clare for the union. They laid their project before Ragoza, 
 but the metropolitan with characteristic indecision kept up 
 negotiations with both parties ; an attack by Ostrogski 
 drove him into the arms of Terlecki, who with Potiei his 
 zealous abettor in the enterprise proceeded to Rome, where 
 
 1 Lutsk, or Luceoria in Latin. 
 
 2 Krasinski says he was a pupil of the Jesuits, who entered the Greek 
 Church, and was rapidly promoted by their influence, in order that he 
 might bring about the union ; he quotes a long letter to him from the 
 Jesuits of Wilna, but this only proves what is admitted, that Ragoza 
 kept up negotiations with both parties. The above account follows 
 Rambaud, Karamsin, vol. x. 380, and Mouravieff, 'Hist, of the 
 Russian Church,' p. 138 sqq. ; these say Ragoza was presented for 
 election by the Lithuanian nobility ; Krasinski that Sigismund uncon- 
 stitutionally appointed him. 3 Mouravieff. 
 
62 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 they were received with great pomp by Clement VIII. The 
 O osition of un ^ on was not however accomplished without 
 the Greek great opposition. ' The success of the Jesuits 
 Church. had stimulated the adherents of the Greek 
 Church to strenuous measures of self-defence. Religious 
 confraternities were formed which took an energetic part 
 in the struggle with the Jesuits; they had their elected 
 chiefs, their common treasury, and they began to found 
 schools, to establish printing-presses, and to disseminate 
 polemical and pious works. They entered into friendly Dela- 
 tions and formed ties with the Patriarchs of the East ; they 
 used the power of a democracy in opposition to the 
 bishops appointed by the king, keeping a strict watch upon 
 and reprimanding them, and denouncing to orthodox Chris- 
 tendom the carelessness of their manners and religion. The 
 most celebrated of these confraternities were those of 
 Lemberg in Galicia, of Wilna in Lithuania, and Luck in 
 Volhynia. The one at Kiev founded there the great eccle- 
 siastical academy of Little Russia 1 .' Prince Ostrogski headed 
 this opposition to the union. Rival synods were held at 
 Brzesc at different times ; the orthodox excommunicated 
 the uniates, while the uniates replied by anathematising 
 the orthodox. From this time a bitter struggle began be- 
 tween the two parties : the Eastern Church opposed schools 
 of its own to the schools of the Jesuits, propaganda to pro- 
 paganda; it preached and it printed. The uniate Rucki 
 was replaced even at Kiev by Peter Mohila, who had been 
 an old soldier, and knew how to repress by force contempt 
 of his authority. In 1633 he made into a college like 
 those of the Jesuits the school which had been founded 
 by the confraternity at Kiev, instituted professors of Greek, 
 Latin, and Philosophy, and made it the intellectual centre 
 of Western Russia. The consecration of Mohila as metro- 
 politan by Jeremiah completed the separate organisation of 
 1 Rambaud. 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 63 
 
 the two branches of the Greek Church in Poland. The 
 rights and privileges of the Eastern branch were solemnly 
 confirmed by the Diets of 1607 and 1608 ; the king was 
 bound not to grant any dignities or offices in the Russian 
 provinces of the Church, except to inhabitants professing 
 its tenets ; its possessions were declared inviolable, and a 
 tribunal composed of the adherents of both Churches was 
 appointed to repress acts of hostility between the respective 
 religions. These decrees were, however, openly set at de- 
 fiance ; the king himself connived at contempt of his own 
 and the Diet's authority when that offence was committed 
 by the Jesuits and their partisans, and was often powerless 
 to punish similar disregard on the part of their opponents. 
 At Mohilew the clergy who acknowledged the union were 
 expelled, and the names of the Pope and King in the Liturgy 
 were replaced by those of the Patriarch and Sultan of 
 Turkey. At Vitebsk the bishop Koncewicz was murdered 
 in the streets on July 12, 1623. These outrages were 
 equalled by those committed by Roman Catholic mobs, 
 whose zeal was stimulated by the daily preaching of the 
 Jesuits. They were powerfully aided by Rucki, who had 
 been converted and became uniate metropolitan of Kiev, 
 and Koncewicz, whose persecutions provoked a riot in 
 which he lost his life. The extravagances of the latter 
 prelate called forth a letter from Prince Leo Sapicha, who 
 had been converted from Protestantism. His benefactions 
 to the Society of Jesus are celebrated by Argentus and 
 others, so that his testimony is not vitiated by undue par- 
 tiality for the heretics and schismatics. He condemns the 
 bishop's violence and disobedience to the laws Effects of 
 of Poland, and charges him with despoiling the the Union, 
 heretics, cutting off their heads, shutting up churches, 
 abusing the authority of the king, and then appealing to 
 the secular arm when his proceedings caused tumults. 
 This union,' he wrote, ' has created great mischief . . . You 
 
64 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 have alienated the hitherto loyal Cossacks, you have brought 
 danger on the country and perhaps destruction on the 
 Catholics. The union has produced not joy but only dis- 
 cord, quarrels, and disturbances : it would have been better 
 had it never taken place ... It has already deprived us of 
 Starodub, Severia, and many other towns and fortresses. 
 Let us beware that this union do not cause your and our 
 destruction V The union of Brzes'c was indeed a disin- 
 tegrating force in Lithuania ; the approximation of the 
 Lithuanian nobles to the aristocracy of Poland in character 
 and institutions which preceded and accompanied the union 
 of Lublin, like the thin edge of the wedge, began to separate 
 them in feeling from the mass of the population ; and this 
 wedge was driven in further by the union of Brzesc, their 
 desertion of the orthodox Church, and the persecution which 
 followed in the wake of the Jesuits. Hitherto the Greek 
 Church had furnished Poland with some of its 'most valiant 
 defenders 2 , not only against the Turk but against the 
 Muscovite. 'When your Majesty,' said a nuncio at the 
 Diet of Warsaw in 1620, 'makes war upon the Turk, from 
 whom do you obtain the greater part of your troops ? From 
 the Russian nation which holds the orthodox faith, from 
 that nation which, if it does not receive relief from its 
 sufferings and an answer to its prayers, can no longer con- 
 tinue to make itself a rampart for your kingdom. How 
 can you beg it to sacrifice all to secure for the country the 
 blessings of peace, when in its homes there is no peace? 
 Everyone sees clearly the persecutions that the old Russian 
 nation suffers for its religion ; in large towns our churches 
 are sealed up and the church domains are pillaged ; from 
 the monasteries the monks have departed, and cattle in their 
 stead are quartered within them. . . For twenty years in each 
 dietine, in each Diet we have asked for our rights and 
 
 1 Krasinski, <Ref. in Poland,' ii. 192, 193. 
 
 2 Lelewel, ' Hist, de la Lithuanie.' 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE GREEK CHURCH. 65 
 
 liberties with bitter tears, and for twenty years we have not 
 been able to obtain them V In addition to persecution 
 by the Roman Catholic missionary, the serfs were subject 
 to the scourge of the Jew, whom the noble made steward 
 of his lands, and to whom he had given the right of life and 
 death over his subjects. Robbed by the Jew, persecuted 
 by the Jesuit, and enslaved by the noble, the peasants 
 flocked in crowds to the Cossacks of the Ukraine. 
 
 These Cossacks had received a regular organisation under 
 Stephen Batory, but the proselytising zeal of the Jesuits 
 
 and the encroachments of the nobles did not r, 
 
 Kevoit 
 
 leave them long in peace, and zealous in the of the 
 cause of the Greek Church, they began to look Cossacks - 
 to the Tsar of Moscow as an ally if not as a sovereign. 
 They found a leader in Bogdan Chmielnicki, who had been 
 able to obtain no redress for the wrongs inflicted upon him 
 by one of the nobles. The government had, indeed, wished 
 to come to terms with the Cossacks, but was unable to 
 restrain the nobles and the Jesuits. Ladislas himself was 
 powerless to help them, and advised Bogdan to seek redress 
 by his sword. His influence deferred the outbreak till after 
 his death ; but during the reign of Casimir the Poles were 
 again and again defeated, the population of the Ukraine 
 flamed out in fierce revolt, while the orthodox clergy 
 preached a crusade against Jews and uniates. The war 
 dragged' on with varied success but unvaried horror. The 
 Cossacks, unable to maintain themselves against Poland, 
 sought the protection and suzerainty of the Tsar Alexis, and 
 in 1667, by the treaty of Andruszowo, Russia gained pos- 
 session of Smolensk and Kiev on the right bank of the 
 Dnieper, and all the Little Russian left bank. ' Thus,' 
 says Karamsin, ' Clement VIII, Sigismund, and Possevino, 
 working with zeal on behalf of the Western Church, con- 
 
 1 Rambaud, ' Hist, of Russia/ vol. i. 366. 
 F 
 
66 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 tributed involuntarily to the aggrandisement of Russia 1 .' 
 The revolt of the Cossacks was the first indication of that 
 dissolution of Poland which was the result of the Catholic 
 reaction and policy of the Jesuits ; it is the first indication 
 that the growth of Poland towards the East has ceased, 
 and the growth of Russia towards the West has begun. 
 Muscovite autocracy was distasteful to the Cossacks, but it 
 was better than oppression by noble and persecution by 
 priest, which was their lot under the sway of Poland. 
 
 1 Karamsin, vol. x. 387 (French translation). 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE JESUITS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 IT has been remarked by one l of the historians of the 
 Jesuits, that it is only under a strong government, whether 
 a monarchy or republic, that the Society of Jesus is seen 
 to perfection ; for then, free from disturbance on the part 
 of their enemies, the Jesuits devote themselves exclusively 
 to apostolic labours. In other words, the Society prefers to 
 be supported by a strong government if possible. This is 
 natural, but it is none the less true that the Jesuits won their 
 most striking success in a country which was ' an elective 
 kingdom governed by anarchy,' where there was scope for 
 other than purely apostolic labours. They arrived in 
 Poland at a crisis not only of its religious but of its consti- 
 tutional history. The line of the Jagiellons was on the eve 
 of extinction, and the monarchy was about to lose the little 
 power it possessed. The attempt which Casimir state of the 
 IV had made to free the royal authority from Constitution, 
 oligarchic tutelage by summoning the lesser nobles to a 
 share in political power, was fraught with disastrous conse- 
 quences 2 . The extinction of the Jagiellonian line and 
 decrease of monarchical power, which had relied on the 
 dietines as a counterbalance to the Diet, was not followed 
 by the increase in power of the latter over the former. One 
 
 1 Cretineau-Joly. 3 Kareiev, ' R^vae Historique,' 1891. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 class only was represented in these bodies, and this enabled 
 the nobles to employ the authority of the State as the instru- 
 ment of their caste interests, to the exclusion of those of all 
 other classes, and prejudice of those of the country. A 
 single class had monopolised all political power, but it did 
 not know how to organise itself 1 . Instead of strengthening 
 the Diet in 1573, the nobles hastened to divide its power 
 equally among all the gentlemen of the land. It was 
 deprived of the right of interfering in the relations between 
 nobles and peasants ; the former were granted supreme con- 
 trol over their subjects ; they could establish what religion 
 they pleased upon their estates, and each became a petty 
 despot, independent and absolute ; at the same time the 
 principle, ' neminem captivabimus nisi jure victum,' the 
 boasted palladium of Polish liberty, practically secured them 
 from judicial prosecution 2 . The dietines had no power 
 over individual nobles, and the Diet had none over the 
 dietines. It assumed the form of an international congress 
 of ambassadors, delegated by countries entirely autono- 
 mous 3 . The dietines began to give their nuncios ' mandats 
 imperatifs ' to oppose all measures distasteful to the consti- 
 tuencies, and the development of the ' liberum veto ' 4 
 enabled each dietine to stop all national business until its 
 claims had been satisfied, and when several nuncios refused 
 to assent to the transaction of any business till the claims of 
 the constituency of each had been settled, the deadlock 
 became complete, and the Diet frequently separated without 
 Having come to a single resolution. The Diet apparently 
 sovereign was practically impotent. ' Nothing rules it,' 
 wrote Rousseau a century later, 'but nothing obeys it.' 
 Laws innumerable were passed securing religious liberty to 
 all creeds ; occasionally they were obeyed ; generally they 
 
 Kareiev, 'Revue Historique,' 1891. 2 Connor, 'Letters on Poland.' 
 3 Kareiev, 'Revue Historique,' 1891. * Ibid. 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 69 
 
 were disregarded. Catholic mobs pillaged Protestant 
 churches ; Protestant mobs drove the Jesuits from their 
 cities and rifled their colleges. Sometimes these outrages 
 were punished ; more frequently they were not. Under a 
 system like this ordinary methods were inadequate ; but the 
 Jesuits were equal to the task ; with their habitual insight 
 they perceived the salient points of the situation, and skil- 
 fully adapted their means to the end. The _,, __. 
 
 The King, 
 first requisite was to get control over the king. 
 
 The intrigues of Commendoni \ and the success with which 
 he played upon the mutual jealousies of the Protestants, 
 prevented the election of one of their number as king after 
 the death of Sigismund Augustus. The effect of Batory's 
 election was at once neutralised by the promptness with 
 which he was converted to Catholicism. But their efforts 
 were not attended with complete success till the election of 
 Sigismund III ' i . To secure a king who gloried in the appel- 
 lation of King of the Jesuits was not to win the battle; 
 Poland was not to be converted merely by the conversion 
 of the government, as was the case in some countries ; but 
 it was to secure the principal coign of vantage on the field 
 of battle. Of the powers which were still left to the king, 
 the distribution of the starosties, the * panis bene meren- 
 tium,' was the most important. It had been repeatedly 
 urged on Batory that he should bestow places in the Senate 
 exclusively on Roman Catholics 3 , but that king, either from 
 disinclination or consciousness of lack of power to carry out 
 so extreme a policy, had consistently refused. Sigismund 
 III had no such scruples, and control over these honours 
 became a most powerful weapon in the hands of the Jesuits. 
 
 The Senate became the centre of reaction, and 
 
 The Senate, 
 through it Sigismund sought to govern. The 
 
 bishops, who were appointed by the king, were always chosen 
 
 from among the most zealous partisans of the Jesuits. The 
 
 1 K asinski. 3 Ranke. 3 Ibid. ii. 255, 256. 
 
70 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 same principle was followed with regard to secular prefer- 
 ment ; Protestants were rigidly excluded, and the greater a 
 noble's zeal on behalf of the Jesuits, the greater his chance 
 of temporal rewards. Many families rose to power in this 
 way through their munificence towards the Society of Jesus. 
 Such were the Kostkas, Dzialinskis, and Konopats 1 , and these 
 exercised a powerful influence upon others. It was chiefly 
 by skilful use of the royal power that the Jesuits sought to 
 secure the nobles, and through them the religion of Poland ; 
 but the struggle had to be fought out not merely at the 
 Court and in the Diet, but in every voivodie of the kingdom, 
 and here the early hold which they had acquired over edu- 
 cation served them in good stead, for most of the nobles now 
 entering upon manhood had been educated in their schools, 
 and were devoted to their interests ; and thus they were 
 strong enough to maintain themselves in spite of the con- 
 stant complaints which were being brought against them in 
 the dietines no less than in the Diet 2 . The struggle in the 
 
 towns was of longer duration : here they had 
 The Towns. r , . 
 
 none of the advantages which they possessed 
 
 in the country. The most influential people were not 
 nobles who had been educated in their schools ; and, living 
 under separate institutions, and being in large part German, 
 the principal inhabitants were not so open to the mercenary 
 arguments which Sigismund found very effective with the 
 nobles ; nevertheless ' in the royal towns,' says a Papal in- 
 struction, ' the inhabitants were compelled to change their 
 religion, though not by open violence V Besides the royal 
 power and the Senate there was a third institution which 
 became a powerful support to the order the judicial tri- 
 bunals. It was comparatively easy for the 
 Jesuits after the accession of Sigismund to 
 procure the election for they were elective of zealous 
 
 1 Ranke, ii. 259. 2 Argentus. ' De Rebus Soc. Jesu,' chap. ix. 
 
 3 Ranke, ii. 276. 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 71 
 
 Roman Catholics to fill these tribunals, and this was an 
 important gain because of the continual litigation which was 
 going on between the Protestants and Roman Catholics. 
 The churches were the chief subjects of dispute 1 ; the 
 Catholics claimed as their own all the churches that had 
 once belonged to the Roman Church, and this claim 
 the Protestants naturally resisted, and case after case was 
 brought before the courts. As might have been expected 
 from their composition, the verdict was generally in favour 
 of the Catholics, and by degrees the Protestants were 
 deprived of most of their churches in the country, and were 
 frequently driven to worship in private rooms. Another 
 frequent subject of litigation was the mixed marriages ; it 
 had been the policy of the Jesuits to bring these about as 
 often as possible 2 , in order that Protestant husbands might 
 be converted by Catholic wives, or at least that their children 
 might be brought up as Catholics ; but now that they felt 
 stronger, they induced the courts to refuse to recognise these 
 as valid s , unless they had been performed in the presence 
 of a priest and several witnesses. Many Protestants were 
 thus almost compelled to conform to the Catholic religion 
 to save their children from the disabilities of illegitimacy. 
 Others were forced into conformity by finding that Church 
 patronage in the hands of Protestants was subject to legal 
 dispute. Thus by all the means in its power the govern- 
 ment favoured the Catholic reaction. ' A Protestant prince,' 
 it was said at Rome, * a prince who would have distributed 
 high and honourable places among both parties equally, 
 would have filled the whole country with heresy ; for in an 
 age so selfish as this, private interests are too strong for 
 religious attachments ; but since the king had displayed 
 so much constancy, the nobles had learned to obey his 
 will V 
 
 A strong party was thus formed through the king and 
 
 1 Ranke, ii. 276. 2 Krasinski. 3 Ranke, ii. 276. 4 Ibid. 
 
72 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 Senate, of which the Jesuits were the moving spirits ; in 
 Party of Re- religion it was devoted to the Catholic reaction ; 
 action. j n politics it supported the king and government 
 against the encroachments of the lesser gentry l . If this 
 latter object had been pursued with a view to national 
 interests and by lawful means, no policy would have been 
 more beneficial to Poland ; for a strong government, even 
 had it been Roman Catholic, would have done much to 
 avert the ruin of Poland, of which the turbulence of the 
 lesser nobility was one of the principal causes; but the 
 power of the monarchy was utilised solely in the interests of 
 Rome and the Jesuits, with the result that while the influence 
 of the latter steadily increased, the authority of the monarch 
 as steadily declined, and a party which might have done 
 good service in the organisation of Poland was employed 
 merely for the advantage of the Jesuits. 
 
 This party, as it was twofold in character, met with a two- 
 The Opposi- fold opposition, political and religious. It was 
 tlon - said that whenever the king bestowed an honour, 
 it made one ungrateful noble and a hundred discontented. 
 These latter naturally joined with the nuncios, who formed 
 a standing opposition to the Senate and government. It 
 was at this time led by Zamoyski, who had made himself the 
 idol of the lesser nobility by carrying the resolution in 1573, 
 that not merely the Diet but every Polish gentleman should 
 share in the election of their kings ; and to this party the 
 Protestants joined themselves. The proceedings of the 
 
 1 Compare Skarga's address to the king at the Diet of Warsaw, 1606. 
 ' Eheu Rex, quorsum jam nobis res tua intempestiva conniventia reci- 
 derunt? Reges olim Poloniae de rebus ad Rempublicam spectantibus 
 cum solis senatoribus deliberabant, nunciorum istorum terrestrium, quos 
 vocant, nullae in hisce rebus, partes erant ut qui non ita duclum intro- 
 ducti sunt. Nunc vero tua et quorundam majorum tuorum socordia res 
 eo, proh dolor, deducta est ut quam primum ferculus aliquis domicellus 
 qui se pro nuncio terrestri gerit, votum suum proponit, omnes ei protinus 
 assurgere conantur. Tuum erat hujusmodi perversas consuetudines quae 
 contra antiques mores inoleverunt cohibere.' Mercure Jesuite, ' Con- 
 silium de recuperanda pace regni Poloniae.' 
 
THE JESUITS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 73 
 
 Rokosz of 1607 illustrate alike its aims and its twofold com- 
 position ; they are not agreed on the subject of the Jesuits : 
 the Catholics complain of the encroachments of the Society 
 on their prerogatives ', but their Catholicism prevents them 
 from supporting the project of the Protestants, that they 
 should be expelled from the country - ; and this diversity 
 probably contributed no little to the success of the king. 
 The bishops were also a subject of common hatred to the 
 Protestants because of their spiritual, to the Catholics 
 because of their temporal power ; and another frequent com- 
 plaint was 3 that through the Jesuits ' strangers and men of 
 obscure birth entered upon the goods of the country.' The 
 defeat of this party did not have the effect that might have 
 been expected ; the Protestants indeed were reduced to impo- 
 tence, and declined more rapidly after the battle of Guzow, 
 even than they had done before ; persecution was given a free 
 hand, and the influence of the Jesuits was more than ever 
 firmly established. But this victory on the part of the king 
 produced no political or constitutional effects whatever ; the 
 lesser nobility became more decisively Catholic, but their 
 power and independence was as great as ever ; the monarchy 
 possessed no more influence than it had done before, and 
 the disintegrating tendencies in Poland pursued their course 
 unchecked. Sigismund was incapable of utilising the vie 
 tory he had gained for the benefit of the monarchy, but the 
 Jesuits were quite skilful enough to employ to the full the 
 advantages which it secured to them and to the Roman 
 Catholic Church : it was probably in part due to them 
 that the king did not reap the political fruits of his 
 victory. 
 
 They were quite alive to the possibility of a king who was 
 hostile to them succeeding to the throne ; and in the hands 
 
 1 Cf. also the speeches on the Cracow question at the Diet of 
 Warsaw, March 4, 1626. a Thuanus, v. 1300. 
 
 3 Argentus, and ' Oratio Equitis Poloni contra Soc. Jesu,' ante chap. vi. 
 
74 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 of such a king a strong monarchical power would not be 
 desirable, and they took care that no such power should be 
 created. The accession of Ladislas and his attempts to 
 reduce the influence of the Society fully justified these 
 precautions. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIETY UPON FOREIGN RELATIONS 
 OF POLAND. 
 
 IT has always been one of the disadvantages of Roman 
 Catholic countries, that their foreign policy has been liable 
 to interference from a power which looks not so much to 
 the particular interests of each nation as to the general 
 interests of a would-be universal Church. This was 
 especially the case during the contest between the Roman 
 Catholic Church and the Reformation, when the energies 
 of the former were solely directed to the extirpation of the 
 latter. The chosen instruments in this work were the 
 Jesuits, whose primary raison d'etre was unquestioning 
 obedience to the Papal will. From the time when they 
 gained firm hold of the government of Poland, that country 
 ceased to be much more than the northern agent of Rome 
 and the house of Austria. It was used as a basis of opera- 
 tions against states like Sweden and Russia, and naturally 
 reaped the fruits of its influence in those countries, when 
 they in their turn became powerful enough to avenge upon 
 Poland the miseries it had inflicted upon them. 
 
 Poland was in a unique position : it was the only State 
 in the north of Europe which owned the supremacy of the 
 Roman Pontiff. Its main object should, there- Relations with 
 fore, have been to strengthen its internal re- Russia, 
 sources in the face of its enemies, and refrain from needless 
 intervention in the affairs of its heretic and schismatic 
 
76 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 neighbours. Its actual course was to lend itself to the 
 designs of Rome upon Sweden and Russia, while its in- 
 ternal affairs went rapidly from bad to worse. Its most 
 important dealings were with the rival Slav power in the 
 East, which Ivan the Third and Ivan the Terrible had freed 
 from the Tatar yoke, and raised on the ruins of Viatka 
 and Novgorod to the position of a European power. In a 
 war which had broken out about Livonia, Batory was 
 carrying all before him, when Ivan determined to invite 
 the Pope to mediate peace, holding out hopes of his con- 
 version to the Church of Rome. Gregory XIII acceded 
 with alacrity to the proposal, and despatched the most 
 accomplished diplomatist the Society of Jesus then possessed 
 
 to the court of Moscow. Antonio Possevino l 
 Possevmo. 
 
 was born at Mantua in 1534, became secretary 
 
 to Gonzaga, and after considerable success in various secular 
 missions, resolved to enter the Society of Jesus. He was 
 first employed to bring about an accommodation with the 
 revolted heretics of Valais and Piedmont. For the next 
 few years his activity was confined to various affairs in 
 France, but in 1577 he was sent to effect the conversion 
 of John King of Sweden ; on the failure of this attempt 
 he proceeded to Poland, where he became one of the most 
 active and zealous promoters of the Catholic reaction. 
 He founded colleges at Wilna 2 and Dorpat, and a seminary 
 at Braunsberg, which was attached to the college there. 
 At the command of Gregory he set out at once for Moscow, 
 where he was received with great pomp by the Tsar, who, 
 however, was more than a match for the supple Jesuit. 
 In the firm persuasion that Ivan would establish Roman 
 Catholicism in Russia, Possevino undertook to obtain from 
 Batory very favourable terms of peace. The king of Poland 
 
 1 'Vie du Pere Possevin.' Paris, 1712. 
 
 2 Ibid., and ' Vicissitudes de 1'Eglise Catholique en Pologne,' with 
 preface by Montalembert. 
 
INFLUENCE UPON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 77 
 
 was engaged on the siege of Pskov, and was very anxious 
 to capture the place. * Nevertheless V m tne words of one 
 of the historians of the Society, * he gave up great advantages 
 out of love for the Church,' and Pskov remained in the 
 hands of Ivan : though Poland secured Polock and Livonia, 
 the peace was an inestimable advantage to Muscovy. 
 Possevino now returned to Moscow, to complete the con- 
 version of the Tsar and procure the establishment of the 
 Jesuits in the country. But his proselytising zeal met with 
 no more success than Rohita 2 and the English merchants 
 had done in their endeavours to win over Ivan to Protestant- 
 ism. The Tsar had strong religious or irreligious opinions 
 of his own, and declined to exchange them for either 
 Catholic or Protestant dogmas, and now that he had ob- 
 tained the peace he wanted, there was no longer any reason 
 for concealing the fact. The second of these objects was 
 not more prosperous : ' the demand/ said Ivan, ' was useless, 
 because the Jesuits would never succeed in converting 
 Russia, and besides, it would require twenty Jesuits to 
 deceive one Russian, so all their trouble would be lost 3 .' 
 The Tsar does not seem to have formed a very favourable 
 opinion of the Jesuit, and after his departure called him 
 a wolf 4 . Possevino now returned to Poland, where he 
 furthered the interests of the Society by his influence at 
 the court, advocated the union with the Greek Church, 
 and occupied himself with the affairs of the King of Poland, 
 'by the order of the Holy See' his biographer is careful 
 to explain 5 . The attempt upon the Eastern Church in 
 Russia by means of diplomacy having failed, the Jesuits 
 turned with better success their attention to that in Poland ; 
 but they had by no means abandoned the idea of converting 
 Russia, and the appearance of the false Demetrius gave 
 
 1 Cretineau-Joly, vol. ii. p. 346. 2 Morfill, ' History of Russia.' 
 
 3 Leonard Chodzko, quoted by Lelewel, ' Hist, de la Lithuanie.' 
 * Karamsin, ix. v. 5 ' Vie du Peie Possevin.' 
 
78 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 them a golden opportunity. The whole story of the origin 
 D t f trris extraordinary adventurer is wrapped in 
 mystery 1 ; but whatever it may have been, 
 the Jesuits supported him with all the means at their 
 disposal. It was to a Jesuit that he first revealed his 
 supposed identity : he undertook to make the union of 
 the two Churches and promotion of religion his chief care 
 if he were placed upon the throne of the Tsars. The 
 matter was at first concealed, but the Pope was advised 
 to further by his own resources and influence with the 
 King and magnates of Poland, an enterprise which con- 
 cerned the interests of religion and aggrandisement of the 
 Holy See. This was sedulously done by the Jesuits ; they 
 introduced the suppliant to George Mniszek, Palatine of 
 Sandomir, who gave him his daughter Marina in marriage. 
 He was next brought into the presence of Sigismund, to 
 whom he related the story of his imprisonment and escape. 
 An army was collected by the aid of the Jesuits. Boris sent 
 an embassy to Poland to expose the pretender, but could not 
 prevail over the influence of the Pope and the Jesuits, two of 
 whom accompanied the Polish army to Moscow. The advan- 
 tages of his success would indeed have been enormous 
 both for Poland and for Rome. The former would have a 
 friend and ally, instead of a dangerous enemy, and the Pope 
 would have a devoted son, instead of an obstinate schismatic. 
 This probably explains the ready credulity of Sigismund 
 and the Jesuits 2 . Demetrius abjured his Greek religion 
 
 1 According to Rambaud, Otrepieff was a Greek monk who had early 
 predicted his elevation to the throne : if this is correct it is impossible 
 that the Jesuits should have hatched the whole plot. But it is equally 
 evident that they espoused his cause with zeal from the account of 
 Thuanus, who seems inclined to believe that Demetrius was genuine. 
 Part v. 519, 1199, 1203, 1219, I 2 20, &c. Cf. Morfill, who thinks the ' 
 Jesuits took advantage of the opportunity, as also does Karamsin. 
 Ranke likewise, ii. 272. Margeret. however, who was in Russia at the 
 time, denies this; and Father Pierling in his ' Rome et Demetrius' has 
 recently attempted to absolve the Society and the Pope from complicity 
 in this scheme. a Karamsin. 
 
INFLUENCE UPON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 79 
 
 at a Jesuit house in Cracow, and Clement VIII hastened 
 to assure him that he was ready to* use in his favour all the 
 spiritual power which heaven had granted to the vicar of 
 St. Peter 1 . After his coronation at Moscow, the Jesuits 
 congratulated Demetrius on his success, and were granted 
 a habitation not far from the citadel 2 . They were, however, 
 soon expelled, and a proclamation was issued declaring 
 that Demetrius was really a monk named Otrepieff, and 
 exposing letters from him to the Pope, and his promises 
 to the Jesuits 3 . If these latter had given the pretender 
 great assistance, their undue haste to establish Romanism in 
 Moscow was one of the principal causes of his speedy down- 
 fall. ' The conduct of the Jesuits with regard to Demetrius,' 
 wrote a Roman Catholic Bishop 4 to Possevino, l had been 
 most unfortunate. If he were the true Demetrius, it was 
 not prudent to expose him to ruin by their perfervid 
 counsels before he was well seated on the throne, and to 
 involve so many of the flower of Polish nobility in his fall ; 
 if he were false 5 , their action had been most nefarious in 
 thinking that a good cause had need of a glaring and 
 detestable fraud.' Then followed a period which the 
 Russians justly call the Time of Troubles. A second 
 Demetrius imitated the first : he was supported by a large 
 number of Poles, though they knew he was false 6 . Again 
 and again the Poles took advantage of the weakness of 
 Russia and meditated its partition ; Ladislas 7 was crowned 
 king at Moscow, but the eagerness of Sigismund to acquire 
 Russia for himself caused his son's failure. Their conduct 
 was long remembered by the Russians. It deepened the 
 bitterness of the rivalry between the two Slavonic nations 
 
 1 Karamsin, vol. x. 2 Thuanus, part v. 1203. 
 
 3 Thuanus, partv. 1219, 1220. 
 
 4 Stanislas Przowski, quoted by Thuanus, part v, 1264 A. B. 
 
 5 Piasecius is more reticent on this question, but Mouraiveff, ' Hist, of 
 Russian Church,' naturally agrees with Karamsin. 
 
 6 Piasecius, p. 253. 7 Continuation of Thuanus, p. 235. 
 
8o THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 and the hatred of Russia for Rome ; this feeling is illustrated 
 by the Journal of Macarius 1 , Patriarch of Antioch, who 
 visited Russia at this time. To the Russians Poland became 
 the chief representative of the Latin Church 2 ; Papal su- 
 premacy was in the national mind identified with Polish 
 conquest. 
 
 Russia was not the only country with which Poland was 
 embroiled by its proselytising zeal on behalf of Rome. An 
 
 Attempt on attempt had been made by the Jesuits to bring 
 Sweden. b ac k Sweden to the orthodox fold during the 
 reign of John, Sigismund's father. But Possevino's influence 
 could not prevail upon that monarch to re-establish Romanism 
 in face of the determined opposition of the nation ; and 
 the hopes of Rome were deferred, till in 1592 Sigismund, 
 who had been educated by his mother Catherine in Roman 
 Catholic tenets in order to secure the throne of Poland, 
 became by the death of his father king of Sweden. He 
 was bound by his coronation oath not to injure the Church 
 of the country, but these promises soon gave way before 
 his consuming zeal on behalf of Rome. The influence of 
 the Catholics began to increase ; but they were in a very 
 small minority, and the Protestants found a leader in the 
 king's uncle Charles, and during Sigismund's absence in 
 Poland Protestantism was re-established. Sigismund now 
 appealed to arms, but was completely defeated at Stangebro 
 in 1598. 
 
 In these disastrous enterprises Poland was acting chiefly 
 
 as the cat's-paw of the house of Austria. Its dependence 
 
 Subservience upon that power was a circumstance which 
 
 to Austria. wr iters, Catholic as well as Protestant, contem- 
 porary and modern, with one voice deplore. * Poland,' 
 says an author 3 already quoted, ' had joined the league of 
 
 1 Some of it is quoted by Stanley, c Eastern Chnrch,' p. 328. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
 3 ' Consilinm de recuperanda pace regni Polpniae,' Mercure Jesuite, 
 1626. 
 
INFLUENCE UPON FOREIGN RELATIONS. 8 1 
 
 Princes, and especially Austria, to execute the decrees of 
 the Council of Trent, and this was the cause of all her 
 woes.' * The alliance with Austria,' echoes Salvandy 1 , 'was 
 the cause of innumerable evils, and introduced into Poland 
 the repressive spirit of Vienna.' * Ill-starred,' wrote Stanislas 
 Przowski 2 , ' were the counsels given by the Jesuits to the 
 king from the beginning ; through them it was that he 
 visited, at great risk of his life, his hereditary kingdom, 
 abandoned, and finally lost it. Nor was his second 3 
 marriage negotiated by the Jesuits more fortunate, after the 
 celebration of which, the kingdom, before quiet, was dis- 
 turbed with unwonted commotions.' 'The Jesuits,' said 
 the manifesto 4 of the Rokosz in 1606, 'caused alliances 
 and marriages to be contracted with the House of Austria, 
 by means of which they had all Poland in their power.' 
 In 1597 Mendoza was sent to cement the peace between 
 the two countries, and a Jesuit named Thomas Sallius 
 accompanied him ; they had another object, viz. to persuade 
 Sigismund to give up the use of the title ' Defender of the 
 Faith,' which he still employed in addressing the Queen of 
 England, and to counteract the wiles which that country 
 was accused of spreading all over Poland 5 . Some time 
 before the English had proposed a treaty of commerce with 
 Poland, which promised to be very advantageous, especially 
 to Dantzic, but the Roman Catholic Nuncio prevented its 
 conclusion, chiefly because the English required the most 
 distinct promise that they should be allowed to trade in 
 peace without molestation on account of their religion 6 . 
 The Jesuits also persuaded Sigismund to make war on the 
 Turks, contrary to the advice of Zamoyski 7 ; and this use 
 of Poland as the cat's-paw of Rome, in its relations with 
 
 ' Hist, de Pologne avant et sous Jean Sobieski. 
 
 2 Thuanus, v. 1264. 
 
 3 I. e. with another Austrian princess of the line of Gratz. 
 
 * Thuanus, v. 1299. 5 Ibid. 730 E. 
 
 6 Ranke, li. 256. 7 Thuanus, v. 731. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 Turkey, became a fruitful source of disaster and loss to the 
 kingdom. The same baleful influence induced Sigismund 
 to aid Austria against the Bohemians during the Thirty 
 Years War, a policy as opposed to racial feeling as it was 
 to national interests, because it was a Slav power aiding 
 a German ruler to crush a Slav nationality. It was no 
 strange thing that, guided in a path like this by influences 
 so baleful, Poland sank rapidly in fifty years from a position 
 in which it was a danger to its neighbours, to a state in 
 which it was possible for these same neighbours to overrun 
 it almost without opposition. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SUPREMACY OF THE SOCIETY IN POLAND. 
 
 IT has been the usual practice to write of the Society of 
 Jesus in one of two ways : its apologists are apt to maintain 
 that the zeal, purity, and devotion which cha- change in 
 racterised it in its earliest days, remained un- the Society. 
 corrupted and unalloyed all through its history, till it was 
 suppressed by Clement XIV. On the other hand, those 
 to whom Jesuitism is a * consecrated falsity ' and ' light of 
 hell V persist in crediting the founders of the Society with 
 all the vileness and worldliness into which its members 
 sank in the eighteenth century. Neither is a very scientific 
 method of historical criticism ; if it is an accepted maxim 
 that nothing which is wholly a lie ever leads and attracts 
 the best minds of any generation, it is also true that * the 
 old order changes,' that as the beauty and strength of physi- 
 cal life do not escape dissolution, so the purest and best of 
 religious forms and ideals tend towards corruption and decay. 
 This is what happened in the Society of Jesus. Whatever 
 be the judgment pronounced upon the effects which Jesuit 
 methods and ideas produced in Poland and elsewhere, it 
 is idle to deny the disinterested motives of the founders 
 and pioneers of the Society. But by the middle of the 
 seventeenth century innovations had crept in which im- 
 paired the original purity of the Order 2 . More than half 
 a century before, Mariana had exposed these tendencies to 
 
 1 Carlyle, ' Latter Day Pamphlets.' 2 Ranke, vol. iii. pp. 89, 90. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE JESUITS IN POLAXD. 
 
 evil, he complained that houses of probation had been 
 founded not under the control of colleges, where life was 
 too easy, and the novices ran into debt and neglected their 
 services; their professions of charity and humility were 
 empty words. The coadjutors were usurping the privileges 
 of the professed ; the Society was undertaking to manage 
 farms and other temporal concerns ; other sources of evil 
 were the system of secret information and the excessive 
 power of the General \ The greatest change was, however, 
 that the original distinction between the ' professed' and 
 the coadjutors was obliterated ; the former, who were really 
 bound to live on alms and devote themselves exclusively to 
 spiritual work, began to acquire fixed revenues and temporal 
 power. Hence the missionary enterprise and apostolic 
 poverty of the Jesuits gave way to a desire for temporal 
 authority ; their activity became more conspicuous in poli- 
 tical intrigues and commercial speculations than in the 
 salvation of souls or conversion of heretics, for which ends 
 they began to rely more on the secular power than on their 
 own efforts. This degeneration was no less conspicuous in 
 Poland than elsewhere. As early as 1600 the increasing 
 number of the coadjutors is apparent from the statistics in 
 the Annual Letters of the Society, and the ease with which 
 the Society gained possession of the secular power led 
 quickly to its application in the work of converting heretics 
 and schismatics. Its eagerness to acquire wealth is illus- 
 trated by the proceedings at the Diet of Grodno in 1679, 
 concerning the possessions of the Society at laroslav, where 
 its members were accused of continual usurpations of the 
 property of their neighbours. * It is with great grief,' wrote 
 Sobieski, who was a great patron of the Society, to its 
 General, ' that I see you, by your eagerness to extend your 
 
 1 Mariana on the Defects of the Government of the Society, ' Mercure 
 Jesuite,' 1626. 1630. He was leading the attack on Acquaviva, and 
 would probably exaggerate these defects. 
 
SUPREMACY OF THE SOCIETY IN POLAND. 85 
 
 property beyond all limits and all rights, do violence to the 
 regard for the Society, with which its great services towards 
 the Church of God have inspired me. I do not wish to 
 have your brothers of laroslav judged before the Diet. I 
 should fear to envenom still more the hatred, already too 
 great, which the estates of the realm bear towards you. 
 My interest and affection make it my duty to engage your 
 devotion to attempt to remedy growing evils, and to keep off 
 from the Jesuits of Poland the contagion of ambitious and 
 avaricious passions which are only too manifest elsewhere. 
 Distrust this too frequent change of rectors in your colleges ; 
 from fear of losing caste with the Order, and of not leaving 
 monuments of their tenure of office, they struggle to enrich 
 their establishment by all possible means ; this is their only 
 care and anxiety V 
 
 The accession of Ladislas brought a little relief to the 
 
 Protestants after the long reign of Sigismund : 
 
 Ladislas. 
 
 the new king was averse to persecution, and 
 refused to tolerate the Jesuits at his court. He did what he 
 could to ameliorate the condition of the adherents of the 
 Eastern Church, and his personal influence deferred for a 
 few years the revolt of the Cossacks. But the royal power 
 had by this time lost all substance, and the kings were in 
 much the same position of the typical ' roi faineant ' of the 
 later Merovings. Ladislas wished to marry the daughter of 
 Frederick, Elector Palatine, but the opposition of the Jesuits 
 to a Protestant alliance was too strong, and he had to relin- 
 quish the idea. He was equally unable to save the Dissi- 
 dents, as the Protestants were now erroneously called, from 
 persecution, and was often forced to promulgate decrees 
 exclusively in the interests of the Roman Catholics. At 
 the election Diet of 1632, it was decreed that the Protestants 
 should have free use of the churches they already possessed, 
 but should not build in new places, though they might 
 
 1 Salvandy. 
 
86 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 enjoy private worship where they liked 1 . In 1640 a decree 
 of the Diet at Warsaw deprived the Protestants of Wilna of 
 all their establishments in that city, and prohibited all 
 exercise of their worship 2 . Radziwill complained that it 
 was no longer merely the dregs of the people or unruly 
 students, but the secular arm and nobles of the highest rank, 
 who were employed against the Protestants 3 . At Lublin a 
 mob attacked a Protestant funeral, and the Protestants killed 
 two in self-defence ; the king gave Mukowski, the chief 
 Protestant in the city, a royal letter by which he was 
 sheltered from any judicial prosecution 4 ; nevertheless 
 the supreme tribunal cited him to appear, and condemned 
 him to death in defiance of the royal authority. In 1637 
 at Cracow 5 the bishop directed each householder to declare 
 how many heretics he had in his dwelling, and this was 
 made the pretext of frequent invasions of their houses by 
 Jesuits on Ascension Day, while their activity in attacking 
 Protestant churches was undiminished. Nevertheless, the 
 king and his chancellor, Ossolinski, made an attempt to 
 bring about an understanding between the various churches 
 of Poland. For this purpose a ' colloquium charitativum ' 
 was convened at Thorn in August, 1645 ; from this the 
 Socinians were excluded. From the first disagreements 
 arose, and the colloquium soon broke up without any result 6 . 
 In 1648, at an evil moment for Poland, Ladislas died, and 
 
 was succeeded by his brother John Casimir. 
 
 During his reign 7 Poland was overrun by 
 Swedes, Turks and Russians, and only disagreement among 
 its enemies prevented the anticipation of its dismemberment 
 
 1 Wengerscius, p. 247. 2 Ibid. p. 257. 3 Ibid. p. 259. 
 
 4 Krasinski, ' Reformation in Poland,' ii. 234. 
 
 5 Wengerscius, p. 235. 6 Ibid. p. 99. 
 
 7 Cretineau-Joly, that veracious and impartial historian of the Society, 
 gives the following account of his reign : ' He silenced the factions 
 which divided the kingdom, and when he judged that his mission was 
 completed, he abdicated in 1668. His reign was one of peace and 
 public education! ' Cretineau-Joly, vol. iv. p. 132. 
 
SUPREMACY OF THE SOCIETY IN POLAND. 87 
 
 by more than a century. Casimir was a Jesuit, and had 
 been made a cardinal by Innocent X, but this dignity he 
 resigned, and the Pope absolved him from his vows 1 . His 
 election met with considerable opposition from the bishop 
 of Kiev and others, including of course the Protestants, who 
 objected on the score of his being a monk. The Jesuits 
 regarded him less as a king than as a faithful brother of 
 their Order 2 , and under his sway regained that supremacy 
 which had been somewhat impaired by the rule of Ladislas: 
 their influence was, however, only signalised by increased 
 persecution and renewed disasters. Casimir gave himself 
 over to the influence of Jesuits and mistresses 3 . His 
 persecution brought about the revolt of the Cossacks, and 
 his intrigue with the wife of his chancellor was the occasion 
 of the war with Sweden. The expulsion of the Swedes was 
 followed by a fresh onslaught on the Protestants, who were 
 accused of abetting their cause. The Socinians, who had 
 already been deprived of their celebrated school at Rakow, 
 were in 1658 expelled by the Diet at the instigation of 
 a Jesuit name Karwat 4 , merely for theological reasons, and 
 in spite of their attempt at the colloquium at Roznow 
 to show that there was little difference in doctrine between 
 them and the Roman Catholic Church. The condition 
 of the country is forcibly illustrated by a pamphlet pub- 
 lished anonymously in i665 5 , which, speaking in the name 
 of Poland, professes its zeal for the establishment of one 
 religion not only in Poland, but all over the world. Poland, 
 it continues, detests heresies and schisms of all kinds, but 
 after once having admitted divers religions and confirmed 
 them by the laws, oaths, and long-established custom of the 
 realm, it would have wished that liberty once granted on 
 public faith should have been preserved inviolate for one 
 
 1 Connor. 2 Salvandy. 3 Ibid. * Krasinski. 
 
 5 ' Moriens Polonia suos et exteros alloquitur,' 1665, October. This 
 is a curious little brochure of about eight pages ; a copy is in the 
 Bodleian. It is anonymous, and the place of publication is not given. 
 
88 THE JESUITS IA r POLAND. 
 
 and all. Of all the evils that encompassed the country, the 
 revolt of the Cossacks was the worst, and who could doubt 
 that the Cossacks were irritated against Poland by the 
 wrongs done to the Greek religion ? It could not look for 
 help from God, whose name it had taken in vain as often as 
 it had been invoked in guaranteeing peace and liberty to all. 
 It was imperative to restore to the Cossacks and the Dissi- 
 dents the rights and privileges they had enjoyed before, to 
 keep peace and faith with them, and by their help make war 
 on external enemies. 
 
 During the short and inglorious reign of Michael, Poland 
 was a prey to civil war; the Jesuits supported the Paz faction 
 in order to maintain their influence over the country 1 . The 
 ruin of Poland was postponed for a century by the victories 
 
 , . . . of Sobieski, but his policy was not very en- 
 Sobieski * * 
 
 lightened at home or abroad, i hough averse 
 to persecution, he was unable to repress the excessive zeal 
 of the Jesuits, or enforce the laws which still verbally main- 
 tained religious liberty. On April 2, 1682, a mob led on by 
 the Jesuits attacked and pillaged a church which the Pro- 
 testants had built in the neighbourhood, after their expulsion 
 from Wilna 2 . The case of Casimir Lyszczinski 3 painfully 
 illustrates the religious temper of Catholicism in Poland, at 
 a time when the Jesuits were at the height of their power. 
 Lyszczinski had written on the margin of a work, in which 
 the author's arguments in favour of the existence of God 
 were unintelligible, the ironical comment ' ergo non est 
 Deus.' This circumstance was discovered and denounced 
 by one of his debtors ; two bishops, Witwicki and Zaluski, 
 took up the matter with great zeal, and the Diet of 1689 
 condemned Lyszczinski to have his tongue torn out, be 
 beheaded, and then burnt. This barbarous sentence was 
 
 1 Salvanrly. 2 Krasinski. 
 
 3 Krasiiiski has taken his account a'raost word for word from 
 Salvandy. 
 
SUPREMACY OF THE SOCIETY IN POLAND. 89 
 
 executed in spite of the efforts of the king, who declared 
 that the Spanish Inquisition had done nothing worse, and 
 the Pope himself expressed his abhorrence of the deed. 
 
 The only parts where Protestants survived were Polish 
 Prussia, Courland and some of the towns, such as Posen, 
 c. The Jesuits had been expelled from Dantzic 1 , but 
 succeeded in re-establishing a mission there during the 
 early part of the eighteenth century. In Mittau 2 , they 
 pretended to have bought a living, but the Calvinist popula- 
 tion was strong enough to pillage their college and render 
 their existence precarious. Elsewhere the progress of the 
 Society had been marvellously rapid. At the beginning of 
 the century it had establishments at seventeen different 
 places 9 ; before the end this number had been multiplied 
 fourfold. In 1600 there were four hundred and sixty-six 
 Jesuits in Poland ; at the end of Sobieski's reign there were 
 more than seventeen hundred. It is this proportion of Jesuits 
 to the population, far greater than that in any other country 
 of Europe, which makes it justifiable to attribute to their 
 influence the political, social, and religious condition of 
 Poland at this time. Their influence still inclined Poland 
 towards the Austrian alliance 4 ; one of the signs of de- 
 generation in the Society was the prominence of its mem- 
 bers at the courts of kings. The example of Lachaise 
 in France and Peters in England was imitated by Vota, who 
 succeeded Przebowski as confessor to John Sobieski. He 
 was sent to open negotiations with Russia about the union 
 of the Greek and Latin Churches, which were no more 
 successful than those of Possevino had been. He then 
 became a sort of prime 5 minister to Sobieski, and determined 
 him to reject the alliance of France and join the League of 
 Augsburg. Poland was the prey of the rival factions of 
 
 1 Salvandy. 2 Connor, 'Letters on Poland.' 
 
 3 ' Annuae Litterae,' 1600. 
 
 * Salvandy ; also Guettee and Cretineau-Joly. 
 
 6 Cretineau-Joly, iv. 133. 
 

 90 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 France and Austria ; both powers maintained parties in the 
 Diet, and the latter, by the influence of the bishops and 
 Jesuits, induced Poland to declare war upon the Turks, 
 under the guise of religion. While it lost the sympathy of 
 France, which might have saved it from partition in the next 
 century, Poland reaped no advantage from the alliance with 
 Austria ; the victories of Sobieski and deliverance of Vienna 
 brought it nothing but barren glory, and the country for 
 which it made these sacrifices was none the less glad to 
 share in its plunder in 1772 and 1795. 
 
 The social influence of the Jesuits must be judged not 
 so much by what was done as by what was not done. In 
 the fifteenth century the Poles had been perhaps the most 
 educated and cultured nation in Europe ; it was indeed a 
 culture which only reached the comparatively small class 
 of gentlemen who lived on the labour of their serfs, but 
 even these by the seventeenth century were sinking as fast 
 into ignorance as the other countries of Europe were rising 
 out of it. The predominance of the Jesuits seemed to have 
 taken all originality and all growth out of the Poles ; there 
 was no such thing as progress ; all was stagnation or re- 
 action. There was less and less opposition to the Society 
 in Poland, and its history becomes less and less eventful ; 
 it had become supreme in Poland as it never became 
 supreme in any other country in Europe. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DECLINE AND FALL. 
 
 THE eighteenth century was a period of decline and fall 
 alike for Poland and the Society of Jesus. The victories 
 of Sobieski made observers l think that in spite of its 
 anarchy Poland would yet last a long while ; but its vigour 
 was more apparent than real ; the Poles could still fight, 
 but they could do nothing else. The force of the govern- 
 ment had become so attenuated that Poland presented the 
 appearance of a heterogeneous conglomeration of autono- 
 mous States somewhat resembling the Empire without the 
 larger powers, like Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, &c. ; the 
 system of 'mandats impe'ratifs,' combined with the 'liberum 
 veto,' reduced the Diet to absolute impotence. The Saxon 
 dynasty did nothing towards reform, and was content to 
 reign by the grace of Russia. The transient success of 
 Stanislas Leszczinski and his patron, Charles XII, roused 
 the hopes of the Protestants, but Pultava restored the 
 Saxon dynasty and domination of Russia. This country 
 now began to make the acquisition of Poland its chief aim, 
 and used the Saxon kings as its instruments. The Treaty 
 of Warsaw, negotiated by Szaniawsky 2 in 1716, illustrated 
 the double character of its policy ; Poland was disarmed by 
 the reduction of its army, and at the same time the pro- 
 hibition of the worship of the Dissidents in all churches 
 except those built before the decrees of 1632, secured the 
 
 1 E.g. Connor, 'Letters oh Poland.' 2 Krasinski. 
 
92 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 maintenance of a discontented party, ever ready to look 
 abroad for help. So great was the ascendancy of Russia, 
 that Poles who wished for preferment flocked to the court 
 of St. Petersburg to obtain it through Russian mediation. 
 The Jesuits in the meantime, in spite of the growing 
 corruption of the Society, were still increasing their influ- 
 
 Extent of the ence anc ^ num b ers in Poland. At the time of 
 Society in the suppression of the Society there were in 
 an ' the two provinces of Poland and Lithuania two 
 thousand and ninety-seven members of the Society, and the 
 Society possessed establishments at more than a hundred 
 and fifty different places 1 . Their regime was marked by 
 no increase of toleration. The Treaty of Warsaw placed the 
 Dissidents in a worse legal position than they had been 
 before; in 1718 a Protestant nuncio, Piotrowski, was pre- 
 vented from taking his seat in the Diet, though there was 
 no law to exclude him, and two instances of persecution 
 occurred about this time, which showed that Poland had 
 become the most intolerant country in Europe. In 1715 
 Case of Sigismund Unruh was condemned to have his 
 Unruh. tongue torn out, his right hand cut off, and 
 burnt, for writing a sentence which was interpreted as 
 blasphemy. His flight prevented the execution of this 
 sentence, which the Pope proclaimed null and void on the 
 Massacre ground of technical informality. The second 
 of Thorn. case caused a great sensation in Europe, and 
 had no small effect in producing the indifference, or rather 
 acclamation, with which liberal Europe received the parti- 
 tion of Poland half a century later. This was the famous 
 massacre of Thorn. In July, 1 7 24, a fight took place between 
 some Jesuits and a number of Protestant boys. The 
 authorities seized one of the Jesuits, who in their turn 
 
 1 Guettee, vol. iii, table at the end. These numbers are for the 
 Jesuit provinces of Poland and Lithuania, which included Transylvania 
 and such places as Constantinople, &c. The number in Poland would be 
 about 1900, and their establishments between 120 and 130. 
 
DECLINE AND FALL. 93 
 
 captured a Protestant boy, whom they refused to deliver up. 
 This caused great excitement, and a crowd liberated the 
 boy, without, however, committing any excesses ; but they 
 were shot at, and then seized the furniture of the college 
 and burnt it. The Jesuits now began to agitate, and de- 
 manded that the city, with its Protestant establishments, 
 should be handed over to the Romanists. They took every 
 means to rouse the bigotry of the country, with such success 
 that the constituencies commanded their representatives to 
 avenge the offended majesty of God. A commission of 
 ecclesiastics and laymen was appointed by the king to in- 
 vestigate the matter ; this enquiry was managed by the 
 Jesuits, and only witnesses presented by them were heard. 
 More than sixty persons were imprisoned, and the affair 
 was brought before the Assessional Court, which was the 
 supreme tribunal of appeal for the towns. It consisted of the 
 first judicial officers of the State, but they were swamped 
 by the addition of forty new members, chosen under the 
 influence of the Jesuits. The decree pronounced con- 
 demned Roesner, president of the town council, to be 
 beheaded, and his property confiscated, although his alleged 
 crime was only a failure to do his duty in repressing the 
 riot ; the vice-president and twelve burghers, accused of 
 having incited the riot, were condemned to the same penalty, 
 whilst several individuals were condemned to fines, im- 
 prisonment, and corporal punishment. It was also ordered 
 that half the city council and militia, with all its officers, 
 should consist of Roman Catholics ; the college of the 
 Protestants was to be given them, as well as the church 
 of St. Mary. The Protestants could only have schools 
 outside the walls, and print with the approbation of the 
 Roman Catholic bishop. The Diet confirmed this decree ; 
 but before it could be executed it was necessary for the 
 Jesuits to confirm by oath the facts presented in the in- 
 dictment, which it was imagined their sacred calling would 
 
94 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 prevent them from doing. They, however, managed to 
 overcome their scruples, and Roesner, with eleven others, 
 was executed. This sentence called forth protestations 
 from several European powers, but these only brought 
 odium upon the Protestants, who were regarded as the 
 enemies of their country, and in 1732 a law was passed 
 prohibiting them from holding any public office. These 
 Decline of years were among the darkest in Polish history, 
 Poland. for after the accession of Poniatowski, in 1764, 
 a national revival was attempted, under the leadership of 
 the Czartoryskis ; how far it was a genuine renascence has 
 been and still is a matter of dispute J ; but at least it was 
 an advance upon the state of darkness and ignorance which 
 had prevailed since the time of Sigismund III. It was 
 heralded by an educational reform begun by the Pierists or 
 Patres Pii, of whom Konarski was the chief leader, which 
 aimed at counteracting the effects of the Jesuit system upon 
 education and literature ; its importance was however soon 
 dwarfed by the struggle which had to be waged for national 
 existence. Catherine made a dexterous use of the Dissi- 
 dents 2 as a pretext for interference in Polish affairs ; she 
 was careful, however, to prevent any measures conducive to 
 national unity in Poland. Her aim was to get virtual 
 possession of the whole of Poland under guise of a pro- 
 tectorate, but the diplomacy of Frederick the Great com- 
 pelled her to share the booty and consent to a scheme of 
 partition. The share of the Jesuits in these proceedings 
 was small ; it has indeed been asserted that they overcame 
 the scruples of Maria Theresa about accepting a share of 
 the country 3 , but this has been met by a declaration that 
 they sent embassies to Vienna on purpose to prevent its 
 execution 4 . In fact they had quite enough to do in their 
 
 1 Kareiev, 'Revue Historique,' 1891. 
 
 2 Ruhliere, ' Histoire de 1' Anarchic de Pologne,' vols. i, ii. 
 
 8 Lelewel. * ' Vicissitudes de 1'Eglise Catholique en Pologne.' 
 
DECLINE AND FALL. 95 
 
 attempts to avoid their own impending ruin. The bankruptcy 
 of La Valette and consequent revelations had shaken the 
 Society to its foundations. It was the object f a \\ O f the 
 of unceasing attacks from the liberal move- Jesuits, 
 ment which, inaugurated in France by Voltaire and the 
 Encyclopaedists, was spreading to every country in Europe, 
 and it was an object of suspicion to the enlightened 
 rulers of that age of paternal despots. The transference of 
 Paraguay from Spain to Portugal was the occasion of their 
 fall ; the Fathers who had there established a model theo- 
 cratic government resisted, and Pombal replied by expelling 
 the Order from Portugal. Charles III and d'Aranda fol- 
 lowed suit in Spain, Tanucci in Naples, Choiseul in France, 
 and in 1773 Clement XIV, by his famous bull ' Dominus 
 ac Redemptor,' suppressed the Society. The Jesuits, far 
 frdm submitting, took refuge with Frederick and Catherine ; 
 they elected several Poles in succession as generals, and 
 still directed Polish education 1 , while forged Briefs 2 ap- 
 peared sanctioning their existence ; but these questions and 
 the subsequent history of the Society lie beyond the limits 8 
 of this Essay. 
 
 1 ' Vicissitudes de 1'Eglise Catholique en Pologne.' 
 
 2 These Briefs were contradicted by other genuine ones : for the 
 Jesuit view of the question, see ' The Month,' Nov. 1874. 
 
 3 Viz. 1 786, the death of Frederick the Great. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE dramatic -nfpmtTeia in the history of Poland has been 
 so striking, and the estimates of the influence of the Jesuits 
 upon it so various, that a sketch of the history of the Society 
 in Poland, on however modest a plan, could have no pre- 
 tensions to completeness without some attempt to gauge 
 their accuracy. Roughly speaking, there may be said to have 
 been three main causes for the fall of Poland, its incurable 
 anarchy, the indifference felt by the peasantiy for the fate 
 of a country which secured to the vast majority of its in- 
 habitants no privileges but a great amount of hardship, and 
 a similar indifference on the part of the Dissidents. The 
 chronological accident by which the House of Jagiellon 
 came to an end about the same time as the Jesuits were 
 introduced into Poland, has given the enemies of the latter 
 an excellent opportunity for attributing to the Society of 
 Jesus the evils which were really due to the extinction of 
 the reigning line, and consequent advance towards anarchy 
 in the already disorganised constitution. This process is 
 signalised by the decrees of the Diet of 1573 : the Jesuits 
 were introduced as early as 1564, but the most hostile critic 
 of the Order will fail to see any connection between the two 
 events. It is not denied that the measures adopted by 
 Sigismund III at the instigation of the Jesuits, to secure the 
 success of the Catholic reaction, provoked the Protestants to 
 oppose to the Senate and government the individual rights 
 of each Polish noble, and to seek to extend those privileges 
 at the expense of the executive and central power, and thus 
 
CONCLUSION. 97 
 
 indirectly paved the way for an increase cf anarchy. That 
 was an accidental result of their position ; and it is not at 
 all certain that, had any one of the Protestant sects gained 
 possession of the royal power, its conduct would not have 
 been very much the same, and have ended in very similar 
 results ; in that, case it might have been the Jesuits who 
 would have sought to extend the individual privileges of the 
 nobles, and used them as a basis of attack upon the king 
 and senate ; and in Poland as in France might have been 
 heard justifications of tyrannicide instead of the praises of 
 obedience. As it was, it may fairly be questioned whether 
 the blame lies at the door of those who used the central 
 power for their own purposes, and not at that of those who 
 likewise for their own ends utilised the elements of anarchy 
 to oppose it. In reality the Jesuits were but slightly and 
 indirectly to blame for the first of the causes of Poland's 
 ruin ; whether from the circumstance that it had never been 
 subject to foreign regimentation, which seems to have played 
 so large a part in the moulding of other European states, or 
 not, its history has been marked by a constant tendency 
 towards anarchy, which its development did not provide it 
 with elements stable enough to resist. At any rate the 
 causes existed long before the introduction of the Jesuits, 
 and would have continued to operate in much the same way 
 had the Society never been founded. It is much the same 
 with the second cause, namely, the miserable position of the 
 peasantry. To say this, however, is not to absolve the 
 Jesuits from all complicity in these causes of Poland's ruin. 
 It must be granted that the Society sought 'the greater 
 glory of God ' without much regard for the national interests 
 of Poland ; but naturally the extension of the kingdom of 
 God would have seemed to them a consummation more 
 devoutly to be wished for than the preservation of the 
 independence of Poland. There is no reason, however, to 
 imagine that they ever felt called upon to make a choice 
 
 H 
 
98 THE JESUITS IN POLAND. 
 
 between the two alternatives, or that the suspicion ever 
 entered their minds that the policy of the Roman Catholic 
 reaction was not the best for Poland's temporal as for its 
 spiritual welfare. Their complicity was due rather to sins 
 of omission than sins of commission ; that, with the in- 
 fluence it possessed in Poland, literature languished, educa- 
 tion was paralysed, reform burked, and Poland remained as 
 ever ' for the noble a paradise, for the peasant a hell,' is no 
 light testimony, not to what the Society did to ruin Poland, 
 but to what it failed to do to save it. Still more serious 
 ,was its share in producing the indifference of the Dissidents 
 to the fate of their country ; this was directly due to the dark 
 and intolerant form of Catholicism which animated the 
 reaction in Poland, and of that reaction the Jesuits were 
 the pioneers and master-types. 
 
 Persecution is not perhaps a very wise policy under any 
 circumstances ; nevertheless, most countries have at one 
 time or another pursued it without perilling their national 
 existence. But when a State consists of a number of 
 autonomous atoms loosely bound together and ever ready 
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