Przemoc między szlachtą w Polsce w XVII w. – zjawisko masowe?

Violence and the Gentry in Poland during the Seventeenth Century – a Mass-scale Phenomenon?The article intends to resolve the question whether mass-scale violence involving the gentry, previously established in the region of Sieradz, existed at the time also in other parts of the Crown. Pertinent research encompassed court records from Łęczyca, Wieluń, Ostrzeszów, Poznań, Brześć Kujawski, Cracow, and Lublin. The gathered material pertains to three chronological cross-sections: ca. 1610, 1650–1660, and ca. 1690. The data concern a total of 2 703 bodily injuries and murders; the identified perpetrators of 66% of the aggressive crimes were members of the gentry (and 75% of the separately listed murders), 34% – peasants and occasional burghers, while in 447 cases (17%) the felons remained unknown. The annual average number of cases of bodily injuries and murders (listed jointly) was the highest in material from Łęczyca, i.e. 367 cases, followed by Cracow – 138 and Lublin – 114 (table 1); in the earlier examined court records from Sieradz the average totalled 250. Among the assailants the gentry comprised the largest percentage in the counties of: Poznań, Łęczyca, Brześć Kujawski, Lublin, Wieluń and Cracow; in the region of Sieradz this percentage amounted to 56. The most frequent perpetrators of acts of violence were representatives of the petty gentry, as evidenced by, i.a. the cognomens encountered almost exclusively among the felons (more generally, among families distinguished for an exceptionally high level of aggression, in particular in the counties of Lublin and Łęczyca). Certain representatives of those families were accused of incurring bodily injury and murder several times a year. A conspicuous tendency towards a declining frequency of bodily injury appeared at the end of the seventeenth century (table 2), concurrent with observations concerning the region of Sieradz. Predominant causes of violence included conflicts between neighbours, particularly frequent among the petty gentry living in close proximity, and often assumed the form of years-long sequences of animosity and bloody aggression. Just as universal was domestic violence, often among closest relatives, caused by financial claims, especially those associated with attempts at regaining dowries from widows as well as the divisions of property among heirs. The amassed material proves that the image of violence in among seventeenth-century gentry, known already from the land of Sieradz, was fully confirmed in the majority of the examined terrains, especially with a population including a large group of the petty gentry