History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume 1 of 3. From the Beginning until the Death of Alexander I (1825). Dubnow Simon

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33

Jan Dlugosz, called in Latin Johannes Longinus [author of Historia Polonica. He died in 1480].

34

The recently published records of the court proceedings in the Cracow pogrom of 1407 show that its principal instigators were German artisans and merchants who resided in that city.

35

See p. 47 and p. 49.

36

[Written in Polish Szlachta, probably derived from the old German slahta, in modern German Geschlecht, meaning tribe, caste. The Polish Shlakhta was in complete control of the Diet, or sejm (pronounced saym), from which the other estates, the peasants and burghers, were excluded almost entirely. In the course of time, the Shlakhta succeeded also in wresting the power from the king, who became a mere figurehead.]

37

[In Polish, Warta, a town in the province of Kalish. These conventions of the nobility assumed, in the fifteenth century, the character of a national parliament for the whole of Poland.]

38

[Lithuania was administered by starostas as Poland was by voyevodas (see p. 46, n. 1). The starostas – literally "elders" – were originally nobles holding an estate of the crown, which was given to them by the king for special services rendered to him. In the course of time they became, both in Lithuania and in Poland proper, governors of whole regions, taking over many of the functions of the voyevodas. The relationship between the two officers underwent many changes. On the effect of this change upon the jurisdiction of the Jews compare Bloch, Die General-Privilegien der polnischen Judenschaft, p. 35.]

39

[A semi-ecclesiastic, semi-military organization of German knights, which originated in Palestine during the Crusades, and was afterwards transferred to Europe to propagate Christianity on the eastern confines of Germany. The Order developed into a powerful state, which became a great menace to Poland.]

40

[In Polish Nieszawa, the meeting-place of the Diet of that year.]

41

More exactly Kazimierz, the Polish form for Casimir (the Great), after whom the town was named.

42

According to approximate computations, the number of Jews in Poland during that period (between 1501 and 1648) grew from 50,000 to 500,000.

43

"Wine" is used here, as it is in the original, to designate alcoholic drinks in general.

44

"Propination," in Polish, propinacja (pronounced propinatzya), from Latin and Greek propino, "to drink one's health," signifies in Polish law the right of distilling and selling spirituous liquors. This right was granted to the noble landowners by King John Albrecht in 1496, and became one of their most important sources of revenue. After the partition of Poland this right was confirmed for the former Polish territories by the Russian Government. The right of propination, exercised mostly by Jews on behalf of the nobles, proved a decisive factor in the economic and partly in the social life of Russo-Polish Jewry.

45

See p. 65.

46

[Popular Polish form of the Jewish name Joseph.]

47

See p. 64, n. 1.

48

[I. e. Brest of Kuyavia, a former Polish province on the left bank of the Vistula. It is to be distinguished from the well-known Brest-Litovsk, Brest of Lithuania.]

49

The parliamentary order of Poland was somewhat complicated. Each region or voyevodstvo (see above, p. 46, n. 1), of which there were about sixty in Poland, had its own local assembly, or sejmik (pronounced saymik), i. e. little Diet, or Dietine. Deputies o£ these Dietines met at the respective sejms (pronounced saym), or Diets, of one of the three large provinces of Poland: Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia. The national sejm, representing the whole of Poland, came into being towards the end of the fifteenth century. Beginning with 1573 it met regularly every two years for six weeks in Warsaw or in Grodno. Before the convocation of this national all-Polish Parliament, all local Dietines assembled on one and the same day to give instructions to the deputies elected to it.

50

[Gnesen as seat of the Primate; Cracow as capital.]

51

[Warsaw was originally the capital of the independent Principality of Mazovia. After the incorporation of Mazovia into the Polish Empire, in 1526, Warsaw emerged from its obscurity and in the latter part of the sixteenth century became the capital of united Poland and Lithuania, taking the place of Cracow and Vilna.]

52

According to another version, they forged the contents of the royal warrant.

53

[With the gradual weakening of the royal power, which, after the extinction of the Yaghello dynasty, in 1572, was transformed into an elective office, the favorite designation for the Polish Empire came to be Rzecz (pronounced Zhech) Pospolita, a literal rendering of the Latin Res Publica. The term comprises Poland as well as Lithuania, which, in 1569, had been united in one Empire.]

54

They are referred to in his edicts as calumniae.

55

[The Arian heresy, as modified and preached by Faustus Socinus (1539-1604), an Italian who settled in Poland, became a powerful factor in the Polish intellectual life of that period. Because of its liberal tendency, this doctrine appealed in particular to the educated classes, and its adherents, called Socinians, were largely recruited from the ranks of the Shlakhta. Under Sigismund III. a strong reaction set in, culminating in the law passed by the Diet of 1658, according to which all "Arians" were to leave the country within two years.]

56

[Arendar, also arendator, from medieval Latin arrendare, "to rent," signifies in Polish and Russian a lessee, originally of a farm, subsequently of the tavern and, as is seen in the text, other sources of revenue on the estate. These arendars being mostly Jews, the name, abbreviated in Yiddish to randar, came practically to mean "village Jew."]

57

[Literally, lord: the lord of the manor, noble landowner.]

58

There is reason to believe that he is the hero of the legendary story according to which an influential Polish Jew by the name of Saul Wahl, a favorite of Prince Radziwill, was, during an interregnum, proclaimed Polish king by the Shlakhta, and reigned for one night.

59

[See pp. 29 et seq. Kiev was captured by the Lithuanians in 1320, and remained, through the union of Lithuania and Poland, a part of the Polish Empire until 1654, when, together with the province of Little Russia, it was ceded to Muscovy.]

60

See p. 55.

61

[Stephen Batory instituted two supreme courts for the realm: one for the Crown, i. e. for Poland proper, and another for Lithuania. The former held its sessions in Lublin for Little Poland and in Piotrkov for Great Poland (see p. 164).]

62

A second edition of the book appeared in 1636.

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