300 villages and covering an area of from 50 to 70 square miles.[306]
Excepting the royal lands, the largest estates, whether in Great or in
Little Poland, were those of the bishops or monastic institutions. They
completely overshadowed the estates of the Polish nobility. Two-thirds
of the landed estates of the nobility of Great Poland consisted of
one village each. Even the magnates of Great Poland had comparatively
small possessions. Large estates were exceptional in Great Poland, and
they were either royal or ecclesiastical.[307] In Mazovia the only
large land owners were the king and the clergy. There was absolutely no
magnate in the entire duchy equal in wealth to the bishop of Płock. In
fact, outside of the clergy, there were no magnates in Mazovia.[308]
Nor was there a magnate in Little Poland equal as a landlord to the
bishop of Cracow. The wealthiest of them, Prince Constantine Ostrogski,
could boast of only 80 villages, an estate one-fourth the size of that
of the bishop of Cracow. The next wealthiest aristocratic family,
the Jordans, were lords of only 33 villages, the Zborowskis, 30, the
Komorowskis, 29, the Szafraniec family, 22, and the rest had 10 to 20
villages each. To equal the landed property of the bishop of Cracow,
it would have been necessary to combine the estates of ten wealthiest
and foremost aristocratic families of Little Poland, whose combined
properties numbered 292 villages, about the number of those of the
bishop.[309] Viewed in the light of their landed property, the Polish
bishops were not only ecclesiastical, but also secular princes. In
fact, a number of them bore princely titles. The archbishop of Gniezno
and primate of Poland was prince of Łowicz; the bishop of Warmia was at
the same time prince of Warmia; the bishop of Cracow was prince of the
Principality of Siewiersk; the bishop of Płock was prince of Pułtusk;
and the prebendary of Płock was prince of Wieluń.[310]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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