Lubomirski Family - Residences

Residences

The most ancient mentions of Lubomierz – hometown – were recorded in the year 1398. The family estates, starting from Gdów and Szczyrzyca the family possessed yet in the 13th century, has spread significantly. In the 17th and 18th centuries they covered, among others, Lubomierz, Nowy Wiśnicz, Bochnia, Wieliczka, Łańcut, Baranów Sandomierski, Puławy, Rzeszów, Równe, Tarnów, Jarosław, Przeworsk, Janowiec upon the Vistula. To this day the castle in Nowy Wiśnicz has been the property of the Family Association of the Princes Lubomirski. A lot of estates were located in the territory of the biggest Polish cities: Warsaw (e.g. Mokotów, Ujazdów, Czerniaków), Kraków (Wola Justowska, Kamienica Pod Baranami), Rzeszów (castle), Sandomierz, and Lvov. Maintaining residences in Drezno, Vienna, and Paris enhanced prestige. The members of the family were referred to as “the owners of the bank of the Dnieper River” because many of their estates were located in what is now Ukraine and Slovakia. The Lubomirski family enjoyed political, military and economic influence, which was mainly concentrated in the provinces of Kraków, Sandomierz, Stanisławów, and Ruthenia, to cover the whole area of the Commonwealth of the Two Nations later. They kept this state of ownership until the collapse of the Polish state, when they were deprived of many estates as a result of penalties for pro-independence activities.

The Lubomirski family invested in properties buying large estate complexes. They consciously strived to gather them in one, extensive whole. Territorial expansion began in the ancestral territory located south of Kraków and was directed toward the east. The common estates reached the largest size at the time of Stanisław (d. 1649). It was the third largest fortune in the Republic of Poland, only smaller than the entail of Ostróg and the estates of the Radziwiłł family. They purchased properties and leased rich royal estates, such as the Starosties of Spisz, Sandomierz and Sącz. Incomes from the leased land from the king were comparable to those from private estates.

They introduced a lot of facilities and new solutions in their estates. Their arable farms were geared to industrial production, sugar factories, distilleries, and factories were built. They introduced equal rights for subjects, allowing Jews to buy properties in private towns, build houses; they vested judicial powers in them. They founded schools and hospitals for the peasant population, which they maintained with private incomes. In their estates they often hired people from the lowest class, caring about their education, offering a place of residence, clothing and, of course, the salary usually paid at that time twice a year. For faithful service they were given considerable estates in perpetual or inheritable possession.