Polish Golden Age

During its Golden Age, the Commonwealth became one of the largest kingdoms of Europe and at its peak stretched from modern-day Estonia in the north to Moldavia in the south and from Moscow in the east to Brandenburg in the west.

It prospered from its enormous grain, wood, salt, and cloth trade with Western Europe via the Baltic Sea ports of Gdańsk, Elbląg, Riga, Memel, and Königsberg.

[7] It had a unique system of government, known as Golden Liberty, in which all the nobility (szlachta), regardless of economic status, were considered equal and enjoyed extensive legal rights and privileges.

The Reformation resulted in the establishment of a number of gymnasiums, academically oriented secondary schools, some of international renown, as the Protestant denominations wanted to attract supporters by offering high quality education.

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, published by Copernicus in Nuremberg in 1543, shook up the traditional value system extended into understanding of the physical universe, dispensing with the Christianity-adopted Ptolemaic anthropocentric model and setting free the expansion of scientific inquiry.

Copernicus wrote Latin poetry, developed an economic theory, functioned as a cleric-administrator, a political activist in Prussian sejmiks, and he led the defense of Olsztyn against the forces of Albrecht Hohenzollern.

Maciej Miechowita, a rector at the Kraków Academy, published in 1517 Tractatus de duabus Sarmatiis, a treatise on the geography of the East, an area in which Polish investigators provided first-hand expertise for the rest of Europe.

Bishop Wawrzyniec Goślicki (Goslicius), who wrote and published in 1568 a study entitled De optimo senatore (The Counsellor in the 1598 English translation), was another popular and influential in the West political thinker.

At that time the Polish language, common to all educated groups, matured and penetrated all areas of public life, including municipal institutions, the legal code, the Church and other official uses, coexisting for a while with Latin.

Among Kochanowski's best known works are bucolic Frascas (trifles), epic poetry, religious lyrics, drama-tragedy The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys, and the most highly regarded Threnodies or laments, written after the death of his young daughter.

The poet Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński, an intellectually refined master of small forms, bridges the late Renaissance and early Baroque artistic periods.

Sigismund I kept from 1543 a permanent choir at Wawel Castle, while the Reformation brought large scale group Polish language church singing during the services.

Polish magnates, Silesian Piast princes in Brzeg, and even Kraków merchants (by the mid 16th century their class had gained economic strength nationwide) built or rebuilt their residences to make them resemble the Wawel Castle.

Kraków's Sukiennice and Poznań City Hall are among numerous buildings rebuilt in the Renaissance manner, but Gothic construction continued alongside for a number of decades.

In 1515, during a congress in Vienna, a dynastic succession arrangement was agreed to between Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and the Jagiellon brothers, Vladislas II of Bohemia and Hungary and Sigismund I of Poland and Lithuania.

It was supposed to end the Emperor's support for Poland's enemies, the Teutonic and Russian states, but after the election of Charles V, Maximilian's successor in 1519, the relations with Sigismund had worsened.

With the Union of Lublin, a unified Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was created in 1569, stretching from the Baltic Sea and the Carpathian mountains to present-day Belarus and western and central Ukraine (which earlier had been Kievan Rus' principalities).

Moreover, the nobility's uppermost stratum was about to assume the dominant role in the Commonwealth, as magnate factions were acquiring the ability to manipulate and control the rest of szlachta to their clique's private advantage.

This trend, facilitated further by the liberal settlement and land acquisition consequences of the union, became apparent around the time of the 1572 death of Sigismund Augustus, the last monarch of the Jagiellonian dynasty.

Among the peoples represented were Poles (about 50% or less of the total population), Lithuanians, Latvians, Ruthenians (corresponding to today's Belarusians and Ukrainians), Germans, Estonians, Jews, Armenians, Tatars and Czechs, among others, for example smaller West European groups.

The Sejm could veto the king on important matters, including legislation (the adoption of new laws), foreign affairs, declaration of war, and taxation (changes of existing taxes or the levying of new ones).

The foundation of the Commonwealth's political system, the "Golden Liberty" (Polish: Złota Wolność, a term used from 1573 on), included: In the 16th century the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became increasingly interested in extending its territorial rule to Livonia, especially to gain control of Baltic seaports, such as Riga, and for other economic benefits.

Gotthard Kettler, the new Grand Master, met in Vilnius (Vilna, Wilno) with Sigismund Augustus in 1561 and declared Livonia a vassal state under the Polish King.

The agreement of November 28 called for secularization of the Brothers of the Sword Order and incorporation of the newly established Duchy of Livonia into the Rzeczpospolita ("Republic") as an autonomous entity.

Charles at first looked ready to negotiate but in fact he was playing for time, trying to confirm his power at another Riksdag (in Arboga), recruiting peasants for his army, and isolating Sigismund's followers.

The aims of the various factions changed frequently as well as the scale of their goals, which ranged from minor border adjustments to imposing the Polish Kings or the Polish-backed impostors' claims to the Russian throne and even the creation of a new state by forming a union between the commonwealth and Russia.

In the first stage, certain commonwealth szlachta (nobility), encouraged by some Russian boyars (Russian aristocracy), but without the official consent of the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, attempted to exploit Russia's weakness and intervene in its civil war by supporting the impostors for the tsardom, False Dmitriy I and later False Dmitriy II, against the crowned tsars, Boris Godunov and Vasili Shuiski.

In response to this alliance, the Polish king Sigismund III decided to intervene officially and to declare war upon Russia, aiming to weaken Sweden's ally and to gain territorial concessions.

Hetman of the Crown Stanisław Żółkiewski held a triumphal entry by the Kraków suburb of the Royal Palace, leading with him the prisoners: the Russian tsar Wasyl IV Szujski, his brothers: Dimitri Szujski with his wife - Grand Duchess Ekaterina Grigoryevna, daughter Grigory Malyuta Skuratov and Ivan Shuysky Mikhail Shein, and Filaret, the non-canonical Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

After early commonwealth victories (Battle of Klushino), which culminated in Polish forces entering Moscow in 1610, Sigismund's son, Prince Władysław of Poland, was briefly elected tsar.