Travel in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, despite the poor condition of roads and bridges, was frequent. Foreigners, clergy, burghers, and peasants traveled, but most often it was representatives of the nobility who embarked on journeys. They traveled to visit relatives and acquaintances, attend court trials, as well as to attend local assemblies and events. Particularly grand were the processions of the magnates, often consisting of dozens of wagons and hundreds of horses. Due to the quality of land routes, river transport of goods and people played a significant role in mass transportation. Poles also traveled across Europe for educational, sightseeing, or diplomatic purposes. However, from the mid-17th century, xenophobia and ignorance among Polish travelers began to emerge, with them often considering visited countries inferior to the Commonwealth and their inhabitants as "commoners".
Land routes and bridges The state of roads in the Commonwealth was very poor, as both Poles and foreigners observed. Most of the tracks were unpaved and heavily worn. In autumn and during spring thaws, they turned into muddy peatland, in summer they were usually dusty, and in winter, drifts and blizzards in many places made transportation almost impossible. Another problem was the lack of bridges or their poor condition. It became proverbial: A Polish bridge, a German post, an Italian mass, all of this is folly, known in various versions throughout Europe as pons polonicus or eine polnische Brücke. Additional fees were required for crossing the most important bridges. In return, the owners of the crossings were obliged to maintain them in good condition. However, no one cared for most of the bridges, and rivers often had to be forded. Where the river was wider and deeper, ferry services operated or wide, flat-bottomed river vessels were used.
The Great Lithuanian Route connected the capital of Warsaw, with Vilnius, and a regular mail service was initiated during the reign of Augustus II.
Inns
For overnight stays, people stopped at the homes of friends and relatives, in monasteries, or in numerous roadside inns. However, the quality of the latter left much to be desired. Typically, they were dirty, infested with vermin, and poorly equipped. The situation prevailing in them was described by Jan Jakub Kausch, a Silesian doctor traveling through Lesser Poland in the 18th century:
Inns – as well as taverns in cities – had a bad reputation as favorite places for all sorts of "inn people": criminals, wanderers, and prostitutes. Only higher-class establishments had separate rooms for better guests. It was only at the end of the 17th century that hotels began to emerge. The first to deserve such a name was the Warsaw Marywil, built in the nineties of that century.
The inn was a fairly large wooden building, consisting of a spacious chamber with a vestibule and an alcove, as well as an adjoining shed, which served as a stable, carriage house, and lodging for travelers who, due to the noise and stuffiness or lack of space, could not sleep in the chamber.
Inns also had their own names, often mysterious. Such inns as Break, Shift, Favor, Wait, Outcry, or Robbers' Den were widely known. There were also those named after places, like Rome (a stopping place for pilgrims), Paris, or Warsaw. Some of these names were later adopted by settlements, suburbs, or districts of cities: Comfort, Loss, or New World.
Water transportation
Due to the poor condition of the roads, timber rafting played an important role in mass transportation. Rivers such as the Vistula, San, Bug, Narew, Neman, Warta, Pina, Dnieper, and Dvina, as well as the Royal Canal, were the main communication arteries of the Commonwealth. Gdańsk was the main destination port, while Elbląg, Liepāja, Riga, and Reval played smaller roles. The navigation season lasted from March to November. Lumber and forest products were mainly transported, along with grain, organized by magnates, nobility, clergy, burghers, and even wealthy Pomeranian peasants. Out of 246 legal proceedings regarding abuses in grain sales in Gdańsk in the 16th and 17th centuries, servants transporting grain accounted for 209 cases (~85%), while only 37 cases (15%) involved noble owners as carriers.
The middle and lower nobility usually organized river transport with the help of apprentices and serfs, avoiding the expense of hiring expensive, organized guild professional raftsmen (who charged a fee of 6% or more of the value of the goods transported), and contenting themselves with employing only one skilled journeyman, who was responsible for guiding several boats with peasant raftsmen to their destination. The nobility had an advantage over the burghers, who had to rely on professional raftsmen and were also not exempt from customs duties.
Goods were transported by various river vessels, from large oar-sail punts and "dubas" to simple raft ships, barges and rafts. Their operation required a team of specialists. The most important among them was the shipping manager (szyper), who supervised the retmen, helmsmen, and the basic crew of raftsmen (oryle).
Punts were also used for passenger transport. Entire noble estates sometimes traveled in this way. When King Sigismund III Vasa set out for Sweden in 1594, he traveled from Warsaw to Gdańsk by the Vistula to board a seafaring vessel there, at the Wisłoujście Fortress. It is also worth mentioning the use of water transport for other purposes: for example, in the 16th century, the tomb of the last Masovian dukes, Stanisław and Janusz, was transported from Kraków to Warsaw along the Vistula.
Maritime navigation was much less popular. Apart from the coastal fishermen and sailors, few ventured out to sea. Even the main port city, Gdańsk, did not have a significant fleet and mostly relied on the services of foreign shipowners: in the second half of the 15th and early 16th centuries, the cost of shipping goods by sea usually exceeded half of their value. The ships themselves were also costly; the average age of their service did not exceed 2–4 years, and numerous port and customs fees, taxes, and sailor wages required significant investments, which only the wealthiest of Gdańsk merchants could afford.
Poles were reluctant to venture out to sea, feeling more confident and secure on land:
A nobleman, or even a Gdańsk patrician, preferred to learn from books about distant sea voyages, rather than from firsthand experience. Johannes Dantiscus, a native of Gdańsk, after a journey from England to the Iberian Peninsula in 1522, declared that he would not undertake it again "even for the price of the kingdom of the world".
Forms of land transport
Approximate travel speed (km/h) and distance traveled per day Means of transportSpeed in kilometers per hourDaily distanceOn foot3–4By carriage4–6On horseback7–9By stagecoach15–18In a cavalcade of magnates The poorest travelers moved on foot, while others rode on horseback or used various wheeled vehicles, sometimes pulled by oxen. For less affluent people, the so-called kolasa was a common means of transportation, which was a simple cart with seating places. Wealthy individuals, on the other hand, used different modes of transport. It was customary for a nobleman to travel on horseback, unless age or health prevented them from doing so. In the 16th century, among the upper classes, a cradle suspended from leather straps became popular (kolebka). Covered wagons called coaches or kotcze also enjoyed considerable popularity. From the 17th century, the magnates used luxurious, richly decorated carriages. In the 18th century, light vehicles designed for short trips and walks came into use: vis-à-vis, phaetons, carioles, and . In the second half of the 18th century, stagecoaches appeared on the main roads, significantly reducing travel time between cities. The speed of travel varied, as shown in the table above.
Polish horses
In the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the horse played a very important role in almost every aspect of citizens' lives, especially among the nobility. It was needed as a means of transportation, served in war, and was also a companion for leisure activities and hunting. Horse breeding, highly valued abroad as well, was conducted on a large scale. These horses, whose breed disappeared at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, were characterized by: height (150–160 cm), "Arabian" head, high withers, rounded croup, and dry limbs with distinct tendons. The Polish horse was slower than the Arabian, but more robust, resilient to hardships, poorer food, and weather changes. Foreigners appreciated it for its endurance, soft gait, strength, and the fact that it did not need shoeing, as its hooves were very hard.
The large estate stables often numbered even several thousand mounts and enjoyed considerable esteem both in Poland and abroad. Breeding was conducted, among others, by the Sanguszko family in Slavuta, the Buczacki family in Buchach, the Sobieski family in Zhovkva, and the Chodkiewicz family in the Lyakhavichy estates in Black Ruthenia. Even moderately affluent nobles often owned several dozen horses. War horses came precisely from noble stables, so the breeding had to be of a high standard. A member of the Grocholski family wrote about these animals:
Horses were used for transportation, but primarily for military purposes. In the Commonwealth, almost no infantry exercises were practiced, as summarized by Łukasz Górnicki's words: We don't play with saws like they do in France. Polish horses, due to their strength and endurance, were primarily used as cavalry mounts. Other breeds served as draught animals, ranging from peasant-bred konik and Hucul ponies to cold-blooded horses, imported by wealthy nobility and magnates from abroad, which became a common practice only in the 19th century.
Noble travel caravan
The size, grandeur, and number of attendants in a caravan reflected the wealth and status of the traveler. A representative of the middle nobility usually traveled at the head of a caravan consisting of four to six wagons. The first carriage was designated for the lord (unless he traveled on horseback). Following were the lady's carriage and the kitchen wagon. The procession was concluded by the "treasure wagons", containing wardrobe, bedding, and travel service. Several loose horses and a group of servants accompanied the caravan. The servants tended to the needs of the estate and also played a defensive role, providing the necessary strength, for example, to pull wagons out of mud or push them through fords.
Magnates' procession Magnates traveled much more splendidly, aiming to display their social status. Their caravans often consisted of several dozen wagons: treasure wagons, kitchen wagons, wine cellars, carriages for ladies, cradles for courtiers, and so on. Each wagon was drawn by six or even eight horses, although three or four would have sufficed. Hundreds of servants also accompanied the procession. Most of them did not serve any function but their mere presence indicated the wealth of the master. To display extravagance, white horses had their manes painted red, and the vehicles were richly gilded. They were upholstered with costly fabrics, and adorned with carpets and sculptures. Mikołaj Rej already described those various and strangely aromatic cradles with hanging carpets, with high headboards, with scarlet pompons, and gilded ornaments.