The history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1648–1764) covers a period in the history of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from the time their joint state became the theater of wars and invasions fought on a great scale in the middle of the 17th century, to the time just before the election of Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its partitioning.
From the 17th century, the nobles' democracy, experienced devastating wars and fell into internal disorder and then anarchy, and as a result declined. The once powerful Commonwealth had become vulnerable to internal warfare and foreign intervention. In 1648 the Cossack Khmelnytsky Uprising engulfed the south and east of the vast Polish–Lithuanian state, and was soon followed by a Swedish invasion, which raged through core Polish lands. Warfare with the Cossacks and Russia left Ukraine divided; the eastern part, lost by the Commonwealth, became a dependency of the Tsardom of Russia. John III Sobieski, who fought protracted wars against the Ottoman Empire, revived the Commonwealth's military might once more. In one decisive engagement he helped in 1683 to deliver Vienna from a Turkish onslaught.
Further disintegration followed nevertheless. The Commonwealth, subjected to almost constant warfare until 1720, suffered devastating population losses and massive damage to its economy and social structure. The economic regression had not been fully compensated for the duration of the Commonwealth's existence. The government became ineffective because of large scale internal conflicts (e.g. Lubomirski's Rokosz against John II Casimir and rebellious confederations), corrupted legislative processes (such as the infamous use of the liberum veto) and manipulation by foreign interests. The nobility class fell under the control of a handful of powerful families with established territorial domains, the urban population and infrastructure fell into ruin, together with most peasant farms.
The reigns of two kings of the Saxon Wettin dynasty, Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III, brought the Commonwealth more political damage and little meaningful reform. The Great Northern War, a period seen by the contemporaries as a passing eclipse, may have been the decisive blow that critically weakened the Polish-Lithuanian state. The Kingdom of Prussia became a strong regional power and took Silesia from the Habsburg monarchy. The Commonwealth-Saxony personal union, however, gave rise to the emergence of the reform movement in the Commonwealth, and the beginnings of the Polish Enlightenment culture.
Economic and social decline
War destruction, economic breakdown, social disintegration
The economic breakdown in the Commonwealth in the second half of the 17th century has often been seen as a result of the destruction of the country caused by wars. There were also other depressing factors present that affected at that time large portions of Europe, to which the manorial, serfdom-based economy of the Commonwealth had tried to adjust. The particular solutions adopted resulted eventually in deterioration of the effectiveness of agricultural practices, lower productivity and pauperization of the rural population. But the degree to which the economic regression in the Commonwealth had progressed had no parallels in the economies of the neighboring countries, some of which practiced the same type of rural economy. While the war destruction that took place during the events of 1655–60 was particularly devastating, the Commonwealth was subjected to constant warfare from 1648 to 1720.
Unlike the previously fought wars, which had affected mostly the peripheries of the huge state, from the mid-17th century onward central Poland was being ravaged by warfare as well. The two Northern Wars turned out particularly destructive. Several massive foreign armies traversed the Commonwealth in the course of the Second Northern War. The protracted role of the country as a battlefield, the quartering of troops and armies, combined with the policy of exacting contributions and pillage during the Great Northern War, greatly deteriorated the economy of the country which had not yet recovered from the damage incurred two generations earlier. Internal warfare and looting by unpaid Commonwealth troops added to the damage.
The destruction and depletion of resources applied to all segments of the society, affecting rural villages, cities and towns, of which many had practically lost their urban character. Industry and manufacturing suffered as well as the funds flowing into the state treasury. The war losses and epidemic disease outbreaks (especially during 1659–63)Piotr Pieśniarczyk, Historia Polski w pigułce (History of Poland in a Pill), p. 157. Agencja Benkowski, Białystok 1998, . reduced the population by a third to 6–7 million. As the peasants, the townspeople and ordinary szlachta each lost their economic base, the magnate class had become the only social group capable of significant economic and political activity, which led to their more total domination of what was left of the Commonwealth politics.
The war and economic pressures intensified the already present fragmentation processes and class conflicts between the social classes and within each of them. Xenophobia and intolerance became prevalent, different social and territorial groups stressed their separate statuses and traditions. The nation building efforts of Renaissance era reformers was undone.
Further stratification among nobility
The predominant 16th century agricultural production organization, the Szlachta's folwark gave way by the middle of the 17th century to the magnate-owned latifundia, huge networks of landed estates. Latifundia were present throughout the Polish–Lithuanian federation, but developed most extensively in the eastern reaches of the Crown, having expanded in that direction before the Union of Lublin. War destruction affected the diversified magnate possessions to a lesser degree than single estates of middle szlachta, which increasingly turned szlachta into dependent clients of their "elder brothers". Parts of a latifundium were typically leased or run by hired szlachta or urban, often Jewish, hierarchy of administrators, with each layer exploiting the serf laborers. The various aspects of commercial life in the territories, including agriculture, trade, mining, and manufacturing, had previously been controlled by szlachta in a legally protected way. Now, in the more decentralized and anarchistic feudal state, the magnate class was in a position to establish in its state-like domains absolute rule, based not on laws but on practical advantages they enjoyed. The regional authority and power that the magnates attained was exerted by a variety of means, including private military forces.
The increased dominance of the magnates negatively affected the class integrity of the so far crucially important middle szlachta stratum. The fragmentation of szlachta deepened the decentralizing tendencies in the large state. The magnates established networks of szlachta supporters and national loyalty was being replaced with loyalty based on regional ties, as for the nobility the weak state institutions provided neither attractive career opportunities, nor sufficient protection.
The magnate control over the lesser or petty szlachta (szlachta zaściankowa), a group whose members possessed little or no property and were poorly educated, has long been recognized. The lesser szlachta was useful, as it provided crowds of armed men able to influence various public events, such as sejmiks or elections, according to directions given. Most commonly the basic "clientele" of the magnates constituted the lowest ranked nobles, czynszownicy (renters), free but landless and poor, whose status in reality resembled that of the peasants: they were completely dependent on a wealthy patron. The brukowcy (pavement people) had no property and engaged in a variety of trades. Domestic szlachta functioned as servants in magnate family households. Szlachta zaściankowa proper, or zagrodowa (homestead people) was the very numerous propertied petty nobility; among the lower ranks they alone enjoyed something of a, at least symbolic, privileged noble status.
Of fundamentally greater importance was the role of the middle nobility, propertied and better qualified people, able to pursue careers within magnate courts, or assume public offices obtained with the help of their magnate benefactors. The noblemen in question, through the magnates they served, experienced also material gains, such as profitable land leases, and legal protection in times of common and often reckless and disruptive litigation.
The magnates themselves or magnate clans formed groupings, or factions, with common regional or other interests. In the 17th century, the factions were usually confined to a region, such as the Lithuanian cliques of the Pac or Sapieha families. In the 18th century, the Czartoryskis and the Potockis established Commonwealth-wide magnate factions of great importance.
The subordination to magnate interests took place not without some resistance, but the various szlachta movements lacked coordination and in the first half of the 18th century the middle nobility ceased being an independent force in national politics.
The lack of legal distinction among various ranks of the nobility gave many noblemen a false sense of equality and opportunity. The majority of the nobility of the Lithuanian, Ruthenian, or German origin, had become Polonized and Catholic. Some minority Protestant nobility remained active in Royal Prussia and Greater Poland. After the triumph of the Counter-Reformation, the Jesuits and other Catholic educators lost incentives to provide competitive high-quality education. The backward mentality and close-mindedness of the szlachta masses has become proverbial, and as the nation experienced its greatest decline, the typically uniform szlachta indulged in the sarmatism ideology of a chosen nation and contempt for everything foreign. Nonconformity was not tolerated, corruption was at its highest, while public morale at the lowest.
Among the more worldly of the magnates, influenced by foreign elements in the Commonwealth's royal courts and West European currents, admiration of foreign (often French and German) ways and fashions was becoming increasingly common. The magnates built splendid palaces of brick and stone in the main cities and on their rural estates; the wooden manors and feasting social life style of the szlachta attempted to imitate the surroundings and lives of the rich, famous and powerful.
Agricultural regression and peasantry
The deep agricultural crisis lasted from the 1650s through the 1720s. Under the plight of constant warfare and adverse economic conditions the peasants were being increasingly burdened with excessive obligations. Their communities suffered population losses and many villages disappeared altogether. The serf labor force was displaced and their plots taken over under estate consolidation schemes (to further increase the already dominant folwark portion of the rural economy), or manorial duties were replaced by feudal rent arrangements if that seemed more profitable to landlords. Those and many other measures amounting to extreme exploitation and imposition of hardship had not resulted in increased production, but rather made the crisis more acute by ruining the peasant farming operation. Not all the regions suffered equally, as northern Poland's (Gdańsk Pomerania and Greater Poland) agriculture maintained moderate profitability, while southern Poland (Lesser Poland) experienced the greatest rural decline, and correspondingly the greatest decrease in the percentage of farms under peasant family hereditary holding.