Polish Heraldry - History

History

Unlike the case of Western Europe, in Poland, the szlachta did not emerge exclusively from the feudal class of knights under Chivalry, but stemmed in great part from an earlier Slavic class of Free Warriors or Mercenaries. These warriors were often hired by rulers to form guard units (Polish Drużyna) and were eventually paid in land. There is, however, a lot of written evidence from the Middle Ages which demonstrates how some elements of the Polish nobility did emerge from the ranks of the knightly class under the terms of chivalric law (ius militare).

Only a small number of szlachta families or clans (Polish: Rody) can be traced all the way back to the traditional clan system. Most szlachta, since at least the 12th century, were not related and their unions were mostly voluntary and based on followership and brotherhood rather than kinship.

However, in regards to consanguinity, the matter is far from settled, and the question matters because of historiographical concern to discover the origins of the privileged status by membership in the knights' clan. In the year 1244, Bolesław, Duke of Masovia, identified members of the knights' clan as members of a genealogia:

"I received my good servitors from the land of Poland, and from the clan called Jelito, with my well-disposed knowledge and the cry, the godło, Nagody, and I established them in the said land of mine, Masovia, ."

The documentation regarding Raciborz and Albert's tenure is the earliest surviving of the use of the clan name and cry defining the honorable status of Polish knights. The names of knightly genealogiae only came to be associated with heraldic devices later in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period. The Polish clan name and cry ritualized the ius militare, i.e., the power to command an army; and they had been used some time before 1244 to define knightly status. (Górecki 1992, pp. 183–185).

According to Polish historian Tadeusz Manteuffel, the clans (ród) consisted of people related by blood and descending from a common ancestor, giving the ród/clan a highly developed sense of solidarity. (See gens.) The starosta (or starszyna) had judicial and military power over the ród/clan, although this power was often exercised with an assembly of elders. Strongholds called gród were built where a unifying religious cult was powerful, where trials were conducted, and where clans gathered in the face of danger. The opole was the territory occupied by a single tribe. (Manteuffel 1982, p. 44).

Since Poland emerged almost at once as a relatively unified duchy in the 10th century, it was the prince or, later, the King who was considered the patron of all the clans. He granted privileges and land to clan members rather than to clans as such and was allowed, in theory to assign new knights to the clans of his choice. In practice, however, such a means of entering an existing noble clan would require a formal adoption from the bloodline members of a clan. In any event, this route to clan membership was later forbidden. As a result, a stable system of strong and wealthy groups of relatives never developed in Poland, as in Scotland. The Polish clans, perhaps, were much more like the Norse clans, with the result that they were much more unstable than their western counterparts. Historic evidence, however, shows clans even fighting wars one against the other like the famous domestic war between the Nalecz and the Grzymala in Greater Poland of the late 14th century.

Heraldic symbols began to be used in Poland in the 13th century. The generic Polish term for a coat of arms, herb, dates from the early 15th century, originating as a translation of the Czech erb, which in turn came from the German Erbe - heritage.

Under the Union of Horodło (1413), the noble families of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were adopted en masse into the various Polish noble clans and began to use Polish coats of arms.