It is interesting to note also Sigismund III’s confirmation of the Confederation of Warsaw: “Confoederationem inter dissidentes de religione, non solum juramento, uti a Serenissimis, Henrico, et Stephano, Regibus Poloniae et Praedecessoribus suis factum est, conservabit; verum etiam processum et exequutionem utrique parti servientem, contra violatores ejus oblatam, sub juramento observabit: et ut ab Ordinibus Regni quamprimum instituatur, sedulo curabit” (Vol. leg., vol. ii, fol. 1099). The significance of this confirmation becomes still more striking when one recalls the strongly reactionary character of this ruler. [260] Reformation in Poland, vol. i, No. 2, p. 129. [261] Ibid., p. 134. [262] Ibid., p. 123. [263] Ibid., p. 136. [264] Krasiński, vol. ii, pp. 135-136. [265] Łukaszewicz, A History of Calvinistic Churches in Little Poland (Dzieje kościołów wyznania helweckiego w Małej Polsce), Posen, 1853, p. 308. [266] See above, p. 33. CHAPTER III THE WEALTH OF THE POLISH CHURCH IN THE XVITH CENTURY: ITS EFFECT ON THE NOBILITY One of the most potent causes of the spread of the Reformation in Poland in the sixteenth century was the enormous wealth of the Polish church. Owing to the liberality of princes, kings, magnates, and pious devotees, the church became a great economic power. Its large landed estates and great financial resources were both exasperating and enviable. It was one of the largest landowners in the country. Its financial resources were greater than those of the crown. It happened not infrequently that the king had to come to the powerful church dignitaries to ask them for financial contributions to the state treasury for purposes of government and defense. By the side of the baronial estates and princely incomes of some of the Polish bishops the wealth of even the most powerful magnates faded into insignificance. In Great Poland, out of a total of 33,000 “łanów kmiecych,”[267] or hides of land under peasant cultivation, the church was in possession of 3,430 łanów or of 10.33 per cent.[268] In some districts and palatinates the estates of the church were more concentrated than in others. In the Palatinates of Poznań and Kalisz, for instance, they formed only 6 per cent. of the total land area under peasant cultivation, while in the Palatinate of Inowrocław they rose to 12 per cent., in the Palatinate of Brześć to 16 per cent., and in the Palatinate of Łęczyce to 22 per cent.[269]