Future of Belarus - Poland and EU or Russia?

[Domen]

but since you think this is what I am arguing it obviously relates to use of different terminology.

a 'town'/'township', in the general sense recognized by medievalists, is basically a farmstead and dependent houses.

In modern Poland we have just one word for urban centres - miasto - instead of two (town / city).

And "miasteczko" (hypocorism / diminutive of "miasto") is sometimes used to describe a small "miasto" in Polish.

IIRC, my old English teacher told me, that in English language "town" is a miasto without a cathedral church, while "city" with a cathedral church.

I was always simply using "town" when talking about small and medium size miasta (plural of miasto) and "city" about large ones.

But you have "enlightened" me as to the real meaning of "town", so since this moment I am going to use only the term "city" as translation of "miasto".

As I said, sometimes in Polish we say "miasteczko", but this would rather translate as "small city", rather than "town", if you are correct.

================================================

BTW - This is only shows, how annoying can a language barrier be.

a 'town'/'township', in the general sense recognized by medievalists

Polish medievalists do not work with English language - they work with Polish / Latin / German / Ruthenian languages mainly.

Villages and townships can grow into decent-sized early modern settlements that you could call 'small towns' or 'large villages', but its the royally patronised boroughs and episcopal centres that are home to the most specialized craftsmen

Now you are talking about the ORIGINS of urban centres, not about TYPES of urban centres.

Typology of urban centres used in 15th century Poland, was NOT related to the origins of those centres.

Anyway - most of large and medium size cities in Poland evolved from boroughs, so they should be home to specialized craftsmen.

However, in Early Medieval Poland we also had such things like "osady służebne" ("profession / service / ancillary / vocational settlements") - each such settlement, was inhabited by people of a particular, specialized profession (for example horse breeders in one settlement, blacksmiths in another one, etc.).

But that was in Early Medieval Poland - in the 15th century "osady służebne" were already gone and largely non-existant.

"Osady służebne" emerged perhaps already during the 9th century or during the 10th century.

There were many kinds of such settlements, and their names are derived from professions of servants / craftsmen living there:

Jadowniki - inhabited by producers of poison for arrows
Grotniki - by producents of arrowheads and spearpoints for spears / javelins
Strzelce - by producents of bows
Szczytniki - by producents of shields
Kowale, Kowala, Kowary, Kowalno - by blacksmiths producing metal weapons, tools, elements of armour
Szłomniki - by producers of helmets
Tokary - by artisans processing metal and wood items
Cieśle - by artisans producing / processing wood items
Rudniki - by people extracting ores
Zduny - by people building / handling metallurgical furnaces
Kobylniki, Kobylnica, Kobyłka, Kobylany - by horse breeders
Konary, Koniary, Koniaków - by horse keepers / horse trainers
Koperniki - by people extracting, processing or trading copper
Sokolniki ("villa falconarium" in Latin) - by people breeding and training falcons
Jastrzębniki - by people breeding and training hawks
Garbary, Garbarze - by people who could produce leather armour
Korabniki, Korabie - by producers of boats and larger ships
Kołodzieje - by producers of wagons and wheels
Sanniki - by producers of sledges
Łękno - by producers of saddle pommels
Szewce - by shoemakers
Żerniki, Żerdniki, Żyrdniki - by producers of tents for the army
Lazy, Łazy, Łazęgi - by people obliged to carry out military reconnaissance tasks of their area during wartime, while during peacetime they were busy with burning out and grubbing up forests

Etc., etc., etc.

There were at least 50 types of osady (singular: osada) służebne and there were at least 600 (and probably much more) of such settlements in total.

As for craftsmen and servants living osady służebne, several legal categories of people lived there (perhaps basing on importance of a particular osada):

- liberi (free professionals)
- personally free servants
- litowie (half-free freedmen)
- slaves

================================================

Osady służebne were dispersed throughout entire country, but largest concentrations were near important strongholds.

For example there was a large group of such settlements near the important stronghold of Ostrów Lednicki.

Here is a documentary video (in Polish) about this stronghold:

http://vod.tvp.pl/dokumenty/historia/wyspa-wladcow/wideo/wyspa-wladcow/8610807

Around 00:32:10 of the video, starts the part about the weapon production centre, discovered in the suburbs of the stronghold.

Weapons produced in that production centre, were produced with use locally extracted deposits of morass ore:

Vast majority of axes and spears found in the Lednica Lake, were produced in the nearest vincinity of the stronghold.

Remains of numerous forges / metallurgical furnaces were found near the eastern bridge (one of two bridges leading to the Ostrów Lednicki island and its stronghold). Also local deposits of morass ore were used for production of iron, steel was also produced from local half-products. Steel produced from local iron was hard, but rather fragile, which is why local axes had heads made of iron with steel inserts hammered into iron.

Locally produced iron and steel, was then used by local blacksmithing workshops to produce tools and weapons.

Some of axes and spears discovered near Ostrów Lednicki:

Those forges and metallurgical furnaces, were found exactly in osady służebne located near the stronghold of Ostrów Lednicki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrów_Lednicki

 

[Pangur Bán]

Understand you now. It's better to understand each other than end up wasting time over misunderstandings and commitment to pseudo-technicalities. The best and most unambiguous word for our purposes, favored most among geographers and archaeologists, is the word 'settlement'. This can be anything from a house to a modern megalopolis, but when used with the appropriate adjectives has no limitations and is scientifically rooted in physical appearance rather than what rights it has, its size, or how a bureaucrat taxes it.

 

[Domen]

BTW - regarding Cracow.

During the 15th century almost 30% of citizens of Cracow used various dialects of German language as their native language.

First German-speaking settlers started to settle in Cracow not before the second half of the 13th century or first half of the 14th century.

However, Cracow was a large urban centre (several thousand citizens), trade centre, craft centre and economic centre already long before that.

Here is a video showing a reconstruction of Cracow during the 10th to 11th centuries (there are English subtitles available for the first part of the video):


Link to video.

Except that the translation for "pokłady rudy darniowej" in this video is "stratums of bog iron", while it should rather be "stratums of morass ore".

Part 2 (some part also has English translation provided):


Link to video.

And here something about the Wawel Hill 1000 years ago (part of Cracow where the royal residence was located):

"Wawel 1000 lat temu" ("Wawel 1000 years ago"):


Link to video.

During the 15th century almost 30% of citizens of Cracow used various dialects of German language as their native language.

This large German-speaking community, however, underwent Polonization during the 16th century and then it was Polish-speaking.

There was also a Jewish community in this area since the 14th century - it lived not in "Cracow proper", but in Casimir, which had separate city walls from Cracow, despite being located very near to "Cracow proper". And those Jews were only some percent of population of Casimir, not entire population.

The city of Casimir (Kazimierz) was founded by king Kazimierz (Casimir) III Wielki (the Great) - who ruled between 1333 and 1370.

Jews lived only in one district (few streets) of Kazimierz, other districts / streets of Kazimierz being inhabited mostly by ethnic Poles.

Here you can see Kraków (on the right) and Kazimierz - with its separate city walls (on the left) - this picture is from year 1493:

Apart from Kraków (Cracovia) and Kazimierz (Casmirus) also another nearby "urban organism" - Kleparz (Clepardia) can be seen:

 

[Tahuti]

POLAND can into historical things.

 

[Domen]

The large city is a 18th/19th/20th century phenomenon. The rise of such cities is why German ceased to be the dominant public language in many EE urban centres, outnumbered by the influx of Slavic monolinguals.

Communities of German-speaking immigrants in all cities within the Crown of Poland except Gdańsk (Danzig) and maybe also Toruń (Thorn) were Polonized already during the 16th century:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stLdXx4HqCI#t=02m24s

However, in case of Thorn number of Polish-speakers started to increase already in the late 14th century, when this city was still within political borders of the Teutonic Order's State in Prussia.

According to a book (published in German language) "Die ethnische Struktur der Einwohner und der soziale Status der Bevölkerung polnischer Abstammung in Thorn vom Ende des 14. bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts" by K. Mikulski, Polish-speaking people already during the 1450s comprised around 40% of inhabitants of Toruń (including 23% of inhabitants living within the city walls and 50% of inhabitants outside of city walls):

"(...) Urban society of the Teutonic State had a mixed ethnic structure. Apart from inhabitants of German ethnicity (...) cities were inhabited also by ethnic Slavic (Polish and Pomerelian) as well as ethnic Prussian populations. In the first half of the 15th century, due to decreasing influx of new settlers from German states, in cities located close to the Polish border percentage of Slavic population started to gradually increase. In Thorn at the turns of the 14th and the 15th centuries ethnic Poles were ca. 20% of inhabitants of the suburbs and ca. 6,5% of inhabitants of the area within city walls. (...) Since the 1430s in both cities [Thorn and Kulm] the size of ethnic Polish population was visibly increasing, as well as its financial status. In the 1450s ethnic Poles were ca. 23% of citizens of Thorn living within the city walls and ca. 50% of inhabitants of suburbs. (...)"

And similar numbers for Polish-speakers in Kulm (Chełmno) - a city which also belonged to the Teutonic Order - were 10% (within walls) plus 30% (outside walls) at the turns of the 14th and the 15th centuries, while respectively 27% (within walls) and 52% (outside walls) during the 1450s.

========================================

Even Konigsberg was not a clearly German-speaking city during the Middle Ages.

Löbenicht (New City Konigsberg) had the following ethnic structure in the 2nd half of the 15th century:

ethnic Germans - 42%
ethnic Prussians - 40% (Baltic Prussian-speakers)
ethnic Lithuanians and Tatars - 9%
ethnic Scandinavians - 2%
ethnic Livonians (Livs and Latvians), Poles and Czechs - 7%

This is according to the book "Państwo Zakonu Krzyżackiego w Prusach. Władza i Społeczeństwo" ("The State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. The Authorities and the Society"), pages 447 - 448, chapter 4.3. "Mieszczaństwo" ("Burghers"), subchapter 4.3.3. "Struktura Etniczna" ("Ethnic Structure").

As their sources of these figures for New City Konigsberg, authors of "Państwo Zakonu..." cite:

- D. Heckmann - "Zuwanderung und Integrationsprobleme in Konigsberg..."
- K. Militzer - "Probleme der Migration und Integration im Preussenland..."
- H. Boockmann - "Zur ethnischen Struktur der Bevolkerung deutscher Ostseestadte"

So these figures (only 42% of ethnic Germans in Löbenicht) are from German authors.

=======================================

Regarding the issue of Medieval Germans being supposedly a group with "compact and common", "German" identity, while Medieval Poles being supposedly a group with many "divided", "regional" identities - you already admitted that this is not exactly true, but let's cite an example to confirm my point.

Erazm Ciołek aka Witelo (1230 - 1314) - who had local ethnic Polish mother from Silesia and ethnic German immigrant father - described himself as:

"Turingorum et Polonorum filius" - which translates from Latin to English "son of Thuringians and Poles".

Also French and Italian people of that time called him "Vitello Thuringopolonis" - which translates "Witelo the Thuringo-Pole".

If the point of view of Pangur about Medieval identities was true, Witelo would have rather been called "son of Germans and Silesians".

Quite the contrary, he was called "son of Thuringians and Poles" - despite having a "Silesian-speaking" mother and a "German-speaking" father.

=================================

BTW - such bilingual Polish-German people, of ethnically mixed German and Polish parents, are actually very common in history. And contrary to what you may think, this worked in both directions - not only many Poles were becoming Germanized, but also many Germans were becoming Polonized.

Largest communities of bilingual Polish-German people were of course always in border areas, ethnically mixed areas.

==================================

The largest city of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 17th century and perhaps the only one with more than 50,000 inhabitants during that century (ca. 64,000 inhabitants in years 1626 - 1630) was Danzig (during the 18th century Warsaw surpassed Danzig in size, surpassing the population level of 100,000 while Danzig declined during the 18th century and had smaller population than during the previous century).

However, Danzig could maintain its high population level only thanks to immigration, because the natural growth ratio (the sheer difference between deaths and births within the city boundaries) was negative. This table shows the natural growth ratio in Danzig during the 17th century:

Scan from the book "Demografia Rzeczypospolitej Przedrozbiorowej" by Cezary Kukło:



This data shows, that during the entire period 1601 - 1800 as many as 98,400 more people died in Danzig, than were born in Danzig.

And population of the city was ca. 55,000 in year 1600 and slightly over 41,000 in year 1800.

This means, that at least 84,400 immigrants from outside of the city came to Danzig during those 200 years (average of 422 annually).

As for religious composition of the population of Danzig:

1) First half of the 17th century:

Lutherans - 86,1%
Calvinists - 7,5%
Roman Catholics - 6,4%

2) By the end of the 18th century:

Lutherans - 76,5%
Roman Catholics - 21,2%
Calvinists - 2,3%

Source for this is:

J. Baszanowski, "Statistics of religious denominations and the ethnic problems in Gdańsk in XVII–XVIII centuries" (text in English).

=============================================

As for the city of Lviv (Lwów) - in year 1785 it had over 33,000 inhabitants. And the religious composition was:

Roman Catholics - 51,2%
Jews (Judaism believers) - 32,4%
Eastern Catholics - 13,5%
Armenian Christians - 0,7%
other religions - 2,2%

If there were any Lutherans in Lwów, they are included among those 2,2% of "other religions".

 

[Domen]

Pangur, in my understanding of the term at least, "middle class" is a concept based on income levels.

Here is the data on incomes of population of territory administered by the Poznań Consistory in years 1471 - 1478:

Income data is provided in Medieval units of account called grzywny (marks):

=====================================

up to 30 grzywny - ca. 74% of peasants, ca. 54% of burghers, ca. 12% of nobility

31 to 60 grzywny - ca. 19% of peasants, ca. 14% of burghers, ca. 18% of nobility

61 to 150 grzywny - ca. 7% of peasants, ca. 21% of burghers, ca. 26% of nobility

151 to 600 grzywny - ca. 0% of peasants, ca. 10% of burghers, ca. 26% of nobility

601 to 1500 grzywny - ca. 0% of peasants, ca. 1% of burghers, ca. 11% of nobility

1501 to 6000 grzywny - ca. 0% of peasants, ca. 0% of burghers, ca. 7% of nobility

=====================================

As "middle class" here, can be considered people with income between 31 and 150 grzywny.

So middle class in that area in years 1471 - 1478 included 44% of all nobles, 35% of all burghers and 26% of all peasants.

 

[Traitorfish]

That isn't what "middle class" means, or has ever meant.

 

[Domen]

Well, according to Karl Marx there is no "middle class" at all, just bourgeoisie and proletariat...

 

[Traitorfish]

In 16th century Poland?

 

[Domen]

Did you know, that GDP per capita in Belarus in 1989 / 1990 was higher than in Poland of that time?:

http://eastbook.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Koszty-zaniechania-reform-Bialorus-1991-2011.pdf

Also Human Development Index of Belarus was higher (38th in the world in 1990, compared to 48th place of Poland).

Today the proportions are reversed - both HDI and GDP per capita in Poland are much higher than in Belarus.

This shows, what preserving communism did to Belarus.

 

[Lord Baal]

In 16th century Poland?

Karl Marx was a noted expert on the demographics of 16th century Poland.

 

[Domen]

Slavic languages also survived deeply inside Germany (at the Elbe river) for long time after conquest and Christianization - in some places until the end of the 19th century (not including Sorbians, whose language is still in use until modern times - Sorbians are the only peoples of those westernmost Slavs, who survived Germanization until nowadays). All of this, despite physical extermination (genocide) of some tribes - like Stodorans and Wagrians. But most of tribes were not exterminated by crusaders, just conquered. Some good articles about Polabian Slavs (in Polish + google translations) - see the links below:

http://www.historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=68470&st=0

http://translate.google.com/transla....historycy.org/index.php?showtopic=68470&st=0

The same articles written by are also available here online:

http://koszalin7.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=134&Itemid=258

http://translate.google.com/transla...t&view=category&layout=blog&id=134&Itemid=258

Veleti and Obotrites:

http://koszalin7.pl/st/pom/pomorze_103.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pl&tl=en&u=http://koszalin7.pl/st/pom/pomorze_103.html

Rani:

http://koszalin7.pl/st/pom/pomorze_104.html

http://translate.google.com/transla...spomnienie-o-sowianach-poabskich-ranowie.html

Drevani:

http://koszalin7.pl/st/pom/pomorze_101.html

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pl&tl=en&u=http://koszalin7.pl/st/pom/pomorze_101.html

And here article by another author about language of Drevani:

http://www.prolusatia.pl/index.php?...w-krakowie&catid=2:wszelkie-artykuy&Itemid=14

http://translate.google.com/transla...w-krakowie&catid=2:wszelkie-artykuy&Itemid=14

==========================

This provided translations:

http://free-website-translation.com/?pl

 

[Domen]

Regarding Medieval / Renaissance identifications of "Polish" and "German" languages:

Marcin Kromer, 1565:

"(...) In villages and cities in seaside counties, Lunenburgian and Brandenburgian ones, until today many Slavons live and they use the same Polish language as we do, but with admixture of German speech. (...)"

Jan Długosz, 2nd half of the 15th century:

"(...) as well as Polish, that is Slavic, lands located between rivers Albis [Elbe] and Habela [Havel] (...) In the end Niklot, a Slavic duke, with two sons Przybysław and Warcisław, was defeated by Henry the Lion, a Saxon duke. However, in villages and settlements until today live Slavic farmers, who speak no other language but Polish, even though spoiled and considerably altered by mixture and community both with neighbouring and other languages, as well as a scintillating amount of dialects. (...) Saxons, Westphalians, Dutch people, Frisians and other nations speaking German language. (...)"

Nicolaus Marschalk Thurius, 1521:

"(...) Inhabitants of Jabelhaide according to both language and culture until today remain Sarmatians. (...)"

==========================================

As you can see 15th - 16th century people considered languages of Polabian and Pomeranian Slavs as dialects of Polish language.

But they also considered for example Dutch and Frisian languages as German (Jan Długosz at least).

 

[Pangur Bán]

Yes indeed. Poles and Germans have widened the perceived differences between themselves by the former pretending they have less Germanic heritage than they do, and by the Germans pretending they have less Slavic heritage than they do.

BTW Domen, do you have the Latin text of that Długosz passage? I want to see what word is being translated as 'Dutch'.

 

[Domen]

BTW Domen, do you have the Latin text of that Długosz passage?

I was using Polish text (translation from Latin by Karol Mecherzyński) when translating it to English and there the word used was "Holendrzy" (i.e. inhabitants of Holland). I have the original Latin text now (it is available for free online in the link provided below), but so far I did not find this passage:

http://rcin.org.pl/dlibra/docmetadata?id=1480&from=publication

 

[Pangur Bán]

OK, so he's talking about Hollanders rather than 'Dutch'. Thanks.

 

[Domen]

Yes, "Hollanders" would indeed be a better translations, sorry for this.

Poles and Germans have widened the perceived differences between themselves by the former pretending they have less Germanic heritage than they do, and by the Germans pretending they have less Slavic heritage than they do.

This is a very good conclusion. Both groups also forget, that apart from hostile periods, there were periods when they lived in peace. For example according to "Chronica Poloniae Maioris", a source from the early 1200s: "Germans, knowing neighbouring Slavic states, often consort with Slavs and in the world there are no any other so friendly and kind towards each other nations as Slavs and Germans". On the other hand, there were also periods when both groups were hostile and relations were tense (for example the 1300s, during which period opinions about Germans found in Czech and Polish written sources of that time describe them as power-hungry, ravenous, fraudulent, deceitful, disobedient as subjects, cruel as lords, etc. and irredeemable from these faults).

Titles of books about Polish-German relations are also funny to compare (in examples below, both titles exaggerate, but in opposite directions):

"Polska - Niemcy, dziesięć wieków zmagania" - in English: "Poland - Germany, ten centuries of struggle", by Zygmunt Wojciechowski

"Święte Rzymskie Cesarstwo (962-1806) i dawna Polska (966-1795). Osiem wieków dobrego sąsiedztwa" - in English: "Holy Roman Empire (962-1806) and bygone Poland (966-1795). Eight centuries of good neighbourhood", by Marta Knoch

The reality was somewhere between "constant struggle" and "constant good relations" - as in case of most neighbouring countries in history perhaps.

Norman Davies in his books is underlining good Polish-German relations and large impact that Germany had on development of Medieval Poland. Davies is well-known as a historian with pro-Polish sentiment (and often pro-Polish biased when describing Polish history), but he also is very pro-German.

 

[Domen]

Among groups of German settlers who became Polonized were for example Taubdeutsche aka Walddeutsche (in Polish Głuchoniemcy or Pogórzanie), who were being settled by Polish kings since the 14th century in Carpathian Uplands, over vast areas of southern Poland, including also ethnically mixed Polish-Ruthenian (Ukrainian) areas in the region of Red Ruthenia and in south-eastern part of Lesser Poland region. Most of them were German peasants. There were perhaps several dozen thousand of those German newcomers (according to Oskar Kolberg), dispersed in numerous rural hamlets in those areas:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plik:GermanHamletsSince15th.jpg

Most of them came from Saxony. They settled there during the 14th to 15th centuries, and became Polonized during the 14th to 16th centuries, with some isolated villages remaining German-speaking even until the 18th century (in the meantime of course further ethnographic groups of Germans came to that regions).

Paradoxically, those German settlers, who later became Polonized, increased the percentage of ethnic Poles in ethnically mixed Polish-Ruthenian (Ukrainian) borderland regions. As President of Ukraine in period 1917 - 1918, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, wrote:

"as the result ethnic German groups undoubtedly contributed to the strengthening of Polish ethnos in these lands."

Polonized Głuchoniemcy became known as Polish Uplanders in Galicia.

According to Polish 16th century historian and soldier Marcin Bielski (1495 - 1575), some of them were settled there already by king Bolesław I:

"(...) Bolesław settled German captives there, so they would defend the borders from directions of Hungary and Rus; but because those people were fat and non-brave, they were turned into farmers and cow breeders, because they are good in producing cheese, especially in Carpathian Uplands and in Scepusium. Some of them are also good in weaving, which is why there is plentiful of textiles in Carpathian Uplands. (...)"

In 1582 chronicler Maciej Stryjkowski wrote about Germans settled there by king Casimir III in the 14th century:

"(...) Germans settled in Carpathian Uplands - in year 1355, Casimir the king noticing that Uplands of the land of Ruthenia are devastated and abandoned due to numerous Lithuanian and Tatar invasions, settled people of German nation in those lands, who until today live in some villages near Przeworsk, Przemyśl, Sanok and Jarosław, and as I saw with my own eyes, they are good farmers. (...)"

And Szymon Starowolski in 1632 wrote:

"(...) this entire area is inhabited by descendants of the German tribe, captured during some war by Casimir the Great, king of Poland, or brought here from Saxony together with their children and wifes as far as to these lands. (...)"

========================================

Those Taubdeutsche aka Walddeutsche (later Polish-speaking Pogórzanie) settled among Polish and Ruthenian ethnographic groups such as Dolinianie (of mixed Polish-Ruthenian descent), Lachy Sądeckie and Lasowiacy aka Lesiocy who spoke gwara lasowska of Lesser Polish dialect until the early 20th century:

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lachy_Sądeckie

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasowiacy

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolinianie

http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogórzanie

Poles and Germans have widened the perceived differences between themselves by the former pretending they have less Germanic heritage than they do, and by the Germans pretending they have less Slavic heritage than they do.

Just to mention, that paternal grandfather of current Chancellor of Germany - Angela Merkel - was a Polish soldier during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1919 - 1920, while grandfather of current Polish Prime Minister - Donald Tusk - served in the Wehrmacht (328. Grenadier-Ersatz-und Ausbilldungsbatallion) in WW2.

Merkel's grandfather - Ludwik Kazmierczak - was a Pole from Poznań, while grandfather of Donald Tusk had citizenship of Free City Danzig.

Merkel's grandfather served in Polish army in France during WW1 (army of general Haller) and later in Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Bolshevik wars.

Ethnic boundaries are really fluent.

===========================================

Regarding cities and burghers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Here a wood engraving from 1655 titled "Lament różnego stanu ludzi nad umarłym creditem" ("Lament by people of various professions / classes over the deceased credit") - we can see people of various professions / classes depicted here, from upper left to upper right we have:

Żyd (Jew), Cyrulik (Barber surgeon), Malarz (Painter), Rzeźnik (Butcher), Krawiec (Tailor), Aptekarz (Apothecary)

And from lower left to lower right we have:

Przekupka (Stallholder), Szewc (Shoemaker), Złotnik (Goldsmith), Kupiec (Merchant), Ormianin (Armenian), Muzyk (Musician), Szynkarka (Bar-keeper)

Finally, we have the dead Credit lying on the deathbad.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lamentation_over_the_dead_credit.jpg



http://www2.filg.uj.edu.pl/~wwalecki/collegium.php?seria=42&pozycja=73&wersja=pl



A black-and-white version here (from the book "History of cities and burghers in Poland"):

 

[Domen]

One more thing regarding our previous discussion about Polish cities in the 16th century.

During the 16th century in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (excluding Lithuania, Livonia and fiefdoms) there were around 1287 cities - of them 155 were over 2,000 inhabitants (including 7 over 10,000), 567 were between 2,000 and over 600 inhabitants, 565 were up to 600 inhabitants.

In the map below I marked only the number of cities of first two groups (over 2,000 and 2,000 - 600).

I did not mark 565 very small cities up to 600 inhabitants, because they were of very little economic importance as urban settlements.

Number of cities with over 2,000 + number of cities with between 2,000 and over 600 by region (for example in Ukraine 38 + 33):

http://postimg.org/image/gxt5ezuep/full/



And here without Ukraine, to make the map smaller and numbers better visible:

http://postimg.org/image/4bzqfbz3v/full/



Voivodeship of Pomerelia - which was part of Royal Prussia region - had the largest city of Poland - Danzig (Gdańsk).

But apart from Gdańsk, there was no other city larger than 2,000 inhabitants in that voivodeship, and only 14 cities with over 600 up to 2,000.

By comparison, Voivodeships of Poznań and Kalisz in Greater Poland had in total 17 cities with over 2,000 people and 119 with 2,000 - over 600.

Many of those 119 cities were much closer to 2,000 inhabitants than to 600, and cities in Greater Poland had well-developed artisanry.

This lesson shows that not only size of cities matters, because there were regions with many of small but prosperous cities.

On the other hand, Danzig was a huge "vacuum cleaner" which was stealing resources / trade opportunities of entire neighbouring region and hampering development of other cities in that region. What is better - 1 huge "vacuum cleaner" city or over 100 small but also prosperous cities?

The problem is, that cities in Greater Poland were devastated by the Swedish invasion in 1655 and during the following years.

For small cities, it was very difficult to recover from such enormous devastation - and only a few of them succeeded.

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Data on the number of cities of each size in each region is from the book "Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce" by Bogucka & Samsonowicz.

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It also should be mentioned, that level of urbanization in 16th century Poland was quite high, compared to neighbouring states.

Level of urbanization in Poland in the 16th century was much higher than in Hungary and comparable to that in Bohemia.

In early 16th century Bohemia largest cities were:

Prague - ca. 30 thousand inhabitants
Brno - ca. 8 thousand
Cheb - ca. 5 thousand
Kutna Hora - ca. 5 thousand
Ceske Budejowice; Hradec Kralove; Chrudim - ca. 3 to 4 thousand each

In early 16th century Hungary largest cities were:

Buda - ca. 8 thousand inhabitants
Pozsony (Bratislava); Sopron; Kassa (Kosice); Kolozsvar (Cluj); Besztercebanya (Banska Bystrice), Selmecbanya (Banska Stiavnica) - ca. 4 to 5 thousand each
Pest, Szeged, Szekesfehervar, Nagyszombat (Trnava), Eperjes (Presov), Bartfa (Bardejov), Locse (Levoca), Brasso (Brasov), Nagyszeben (Sibiu), Golnicbanya (Gelnica), Kormocbanya (Kremnica) - ca. 3 thousand each

There were only 30 - 35 cities in Hungary at that time (Buda with 8,000 population was the largest of them), comprising 3% of population of the country. Apart from that, there were around 800 "oppida", something intermediary between village and city, with 500 - 1000 inhabitants each.

By comparison in 16th century Poland* - as you already know from the map posted above - there were 7 cities with over 10,000 inhabitants and 148 cities with over 2,000 - 10,000 inhabitants. In addition to this, there were 567 cities with 600 - 2,000 inhabitants (still bigger than Hungarian oppida).

In Hungary there was no city with more than 10,000 inhabitants, the largest city there was Buda with 8,000 inhabitants.

In Bohemia (which was however much smaller than Poland) there was 1 city with more than 10,000 inhabitants, Prague.

*This includes only the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, not the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

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Data on urbanization of 16th century Hungary and 16th century Bohemia is also from the same book by Bogucka & Samsonowicz.

 

[Domen]

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Edit:

In early 16th century Bohemia largest cities were:

Prague - ca. 30 thousand inhabitants

Actually it reached ca. 50 thousand during the 2nd half of the century.

Then before the Thirty Years War population of Prague reached the level of ca. 60 - 70 thousand.

As the result of the 30 Years War, population of Prague declined to 30 thousand and reached 40 thousand again in the 1700s.

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The richest families of 16th - 17th century merchants from Kazimierz Dolny city were: Przybyłowie-Ulanowscy, Celejowie, Górscy, Czarnoci.

Renaissance houses of Przybyłowie-Ulanowscy - built by Mikołaj and Krzysztof from this family - in Kazimierz Dolny:



The richest 17th century merchant in the Royal Prussian city of Toruń (Thorn) was Samuel Edwards, who was ethnic Scottish:

http://www.archivesportaleurope.net/web/guest/ead-display/-/ead/fp/PL-69/fa/PL-69-1072/0

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Poland found it very difficult to recover from its misfortunes of the 17th century.

One of reasons could be great loss in life and property, especially among inhabitants of cities.

For example in Oświęcim number of artisans in year 1640 was 300 and in year 1660 - 6, decrease by 98%.

In Płock out of several hundred artisans, survived only 8 - 6 bakers and 2 shoemakers.

Also infrastructure was destroyed. In 1660 not even a single sawmill nor fulling mill survived in entire region of Mazovia.

Even in Danzig - which was not captured by enemy forces - number of artisans decreased by 1/3 during the war.

In Toruń number of active artisan workshops in 1686 was 77% of pre-war level, but in 1660 probably even less.

In Cracow number of active artisan workshops decreased by 50% - to 1/2 of pre-war level in 1660.

In 9 largest cities of Kalisz Voivodeship - by 63,2% (to 36,8% of pre-war level).

In the city of Gniezno in Greater Poland, number of artisan workshops decreased by 86,8% from pre-war 265 to just 35 in 1657.

But Mazovia (including Warsaw) suffered more than any other region of ethnic Polish lands.

In year 1660 there were only 8 cities with over 10 surviving artisans each in entire region of Mazovia.

Among those 8 was Mława, which before the war - in 1616 - had as many as 284 artisans.

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Lithuania - an important center of metal artisanry (21,6% of all artisans in Lithuania were metalworkers) suffered even more.