INTRODUCTORY NOTES

The Act of Union, 1569, between Polish and Lithuanian repre­sentatives in Lublin brought about significant politico-legal changes in relations between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The Polish-Lithuanian Union of Lublin could be regarded as the demarcation between the two epochs, although a gradual trans­formation of the social and political system in feudal Lithuania had begun in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The elimi­nation of the feudal land tenure of princes (Imiazhata) and barons (paniata), their removal from the Council of Nobility (Pany-Rxida, Council of Lords), the gradual unification of this upper layer of the ruling social group with its lower layer — boiaτy and slugi — into a uniform and, in principle, equal in rights hereditary class (social estate) of nobility, shliakhta (szlachta — in Polish), was accompanied by the consolidation of other social groups into the hereditary classes of townspeople (burghers) and peasants. In this period the peasants lost their right to own their lands and were enserfed by the owners of manorial estates, who acquired the right to make use of peasants’ work on these estates.

' Ukraine now entered the period in which the hereditary classes (social estates) became consolidated. This period is distinguished by a unified government and the elimination of the numerous older feudal groups. In the countries of central and western Europe at that time the population was divided into large hereditary classes (estates), the social layers distinct from the other groups by their special rights and privileges or by their special class by birth from parents who themselves were members of this hereditary group. It was possible, in some cases, to move from one hereditary class to another.

The new upper class of postfeudal Europe which now included all the former upper groups of society (lords, barons, as well as knights and chief princely retainers) became consolidated into the broad social group of nobility (noble estate). These noblemen were the owners of great land estates. Unstable fief-type feudal land tenure was more and more replaced by the firm ownership of ma­norial estates. The old feudal requirement of military or other service for the monarch in return for the tenure of land was preserved through the larger part of the postfeudal period. At that time the new landowner also became the master of the peasants who resided on his estate. They had to work for him as his serfs (as in the French corvee system).

The enserfed peasants who lost their right to move from one place to another and to change their masters also became in effect the hereditary social class of serfs, the lowest group of the postfeudal society.

The hereditary class of the townspeople (burghers) was in an intermediate position.

The political and governmental system in most European countries of this time was distinguished by representative assemblies (the Parliament, Etats generaux, Reichstag, Zemskii Sobor, and others). In this period these organs represented not the entire po­pulation but only some of its upper hereditary groups.

In the further stages of this era some European states passed through the phase of absolutism or enlightened absolutism when the parliamentary assemblies of the upper classes were abolished or suspended. This stage (its sharpest and most distinct form was in France of the seventeenth to the eighteenth century) revealed incipient conflict between the monarchy and certain social groups but, at first, it did not exist in all European countries and, secondly, it did not change essentially the estate-based social relations. The Polish state of this period, for instance, did not pass through the stage of absolutism.