History of the Jews in Russia and Poland (Vol. 1-3). Dubnow Simon

and from the Orient in general, who were afterwards merged with the western element.

21 The word signifies "the powder merchant"—five hundred years before the invention of powder!

22 [The most important of these were: Great Poland, in the northwest, with the leading cities of Posen and Kalish; Little Poland, in the southwest, with Cracow and Lublin; and Red Russia, in the south, on which see p. 53, n. 2. In 1319 Great Poland and Little Poland were united by Vladislav Lokietek (see p. 50), who assumed the royal title. His son Casimir the Great annexed Red Russia. Thenceforward Great Poland, Little Poland, and Red Russia formed part of the Polish Kingdom, with Cracow as capital, though they were administered as separate Provinces. On the Principality of Mazovia, see p. 85, n. 1.]

23 Some coins bear the inscription משקא קרל פולסקי, "Meshko (= Mechislav) Król Polski," "Meshko, king of Poland," or ברכה משקא, "Benediction [on] Meshko." Other coins give the names of the Jewish minters, such as Abraham, son of Isaac Nagid, Joseph Kalish, etc.

24 [Das Magdeburger Recht, a collection of laws based on the famous Sachsenspiegel, which was composed early in the thirteenth century in Saxony. Owing to the fame of the court of aldermen (Schöppenstuhl) at Magdeburg, the Magdeburg Law was adopted in many parts of Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, and particularly of Poland. One of its main provisions was the administrative and judicial independence of the municipalities.]

25 [They were organized in mercantile guilds and trade-unions and formed the estate of burghers, called in Polish mieszczanie—pronounced myeshchanye—and in Latin oppidani, "town-dwellers," thus standing midway between the nobility, or Shlakhta (see p. 58, n. 1), and the serfs, or khlops.]

26 [The word, spelled in Polish wojewoda, signifies, like the corresponding German Herzog, military commander. The voyevoda was originally the leader of the army in war and the representative of the king in times of peace. After the unification of Poland, in 1319, the voyevodas became the administrators of the various Polish provinces (or voyevodstvos) on behalf of the king. Later on their duties were encroached upon by the starostas (see below, p. 60, n. 1). With the growth of the influence of the nobility, which resented the authority of the royal officials, their functions were limited to the calling of the militia in the case of war and the exercise of jurisdiction over the Jews of their province. They were members of the Royal Council, and as such wielded considerable influence. Their Latin title was palatinus.]

27 [Judex Judaeorum. He was a Christian official, generally of noble rank. See p. 52.]

28 [In Polish, Wladyslaw. The name is also found in the forms Wladislaus and Ladislaus.]

29 [I.e. "Span-long," so called because of his diminutive stature.]

30 A privilege denied to them by the canons of the Church.

31 [Lvov, written in Polish Lwów, is used by the Poles and Russians; Lemberg is used by the Germans.]

32 [Before Casimir the Great Red Russia formed an independent Principality (see p. 42, n. 1). The identity of Red Russia with Galicia has been assumed in the text for the sake of convenience. In reality Red Russia corresponds to present-day Eastern Galicia, in which the predominating population is Little Russian or Ruthenian, while Western Galicia, with Cracow, formed part of Little Poland. In addition Red Russia included a part of the present Russian Government of Podolia.]

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.

CHAPTER III

       THE AUTONOMOUS CENTER IN POLAND AT ITS ZENITH (1501–1648)

       Table of Contents

      1. Social and Economic Conditions

In the same age in which the Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal were wending their steps towards the Turkish East, bands of Jewish emigrants, fleeing from the stuffy ghettos of Germany and Austria, could be seen wandering towards the Slavonian East, towards Poland and Lithuania, where, during the period of the Reformation, a large autonomous Diaspora center sprang into life. The transmigration of Jewish centers, which is so prominent a feature of the sixteenth century, found its expression in two parallel