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SUMMARY
The oldest history of the Potocki family from the Middle Ages until the
early 17
th
century, their background and ways of building the family wealth
which led them to join the elite of the First Polish Republic have not yet
been properly examined by historians. As if by contrast, the history of the
family since the mid-17
th
century until the present is much better known and
numerous publications are available. It is no wonder that the early period
has always aroused particular interest. It was then that the power of the
family was born, whose influence on the tendencies of the development of
the state and the nation in the centuries to come was enormous. In the first
genealogical and heraldic publications from the time of the First Republic
the medieval forefathers of the Potocki family were already represented, but
the research conducted then was entirely subjective and unreflective. Every
single heir of Potok who was mentioned by the few early sources from the
13
th
and the 14
th
century was then incorporated into the family tree of the
Pilawit-Potocki, regardless of which of the numerous villages by the same
name he had come from. Moreover, a number of mythical ancestors were
made up, starting from Knight Żyrosław, who allegedly was to receive the
Pilawa coat of arms for his bravery in the battles against pagan Prussians
at the time of Kazimierz II the Just and Bolesław IV the Curly-haired in
the 12
th
century. The legend was created or promoted by the first Polish
genealogist Bartosz Paprocki, active in the latter half of the 16
th
century. The
genealogists and heraldists that followed took over the legend, frequently
expanding it and adding new details. This mythical, fairy tale tendency in
the literature on the Potockis has surprisingly survived until the present
day. Nonetheless, as early as the late 18
th
century a parallel critical tendency
in historical studies of the family was established, which could perhaps be
called proto-scholarly, initiated by Katarzyna Kossakowska née Potocka
and continued by Stanisław Kossakowski, Leon Bożawola Romanowski and
Adam Boniecki. Unfortunately, the lack of adequate research methods at the
time made it impossible to reconstruct the Potocki family tree, in spite of
the availability of nearly complete sources; the family-commissioned archive
searches concerned only the individuals by the name of Potocki, the heirs
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SUMMARY
of Potok village in the powiat (county) of Książ in the Kraków province.
There was no awareness of the wide-spread changeability of names and
coats of arms even in families of higher social standing and little sense of
the significance of genealogy.
In contrast, the thorough research of the medieval history of the Potok
heirs and the Pilawa family has brought surprising results. The reconstruction
of the settlement structure of the Pilaws has shown the peripheral location
of Potok, compared with the main family seats around Boleścice and
Moskorzow. What is more, the property of the few Pilaws in Potok was
mixed with that of knights of various other coats of arms, which makes it
even plausible to conjecture that the Pilaws were an immigrant group, in
contrast to the Różyc, the Jastrzębiec or the Kolamsz families.
The turn of the 15
th
century brought considerable property
transformations in Potok which on the one hand consisted in the
concentration of the land in the hands of more active individuals and on
the other – consequently – in leaving the village by those who had sold
their property. The arrival of immigrants to the village of Potok can also
be observed who by way of marriage, inheritance or purchase entered into
possession of the local assets. It is in this way, by way of inheritance, that
members of the Pampicki (Pempicki) family of the Róża coat of arms from
Pępice in the powiat of Chęciny (Sandomierz Voivoideship) appeared in
Potok the second half of the 15
th
century. In the second generation, they
abandoned their hereto surname and adopted a new one, referring to the
estate they had acquired in Potok. It is this family that most probably yielded
Jakub Potocki, later the Chamberlain of Halicz, the forebear of all the extant
Potockis of the Pilawa coast of arms.
It has been common knowledge for a long time that it was this Jakub
Potocki who having sold his part of the estate in Potok moved to Red
Ruthenia, to the Halicz land, where he gave rise to the magnate family of the
Potockis. The circumstances of his arrival in the south-eastern borderland
of the Republic, however, were coloured with heroic motives. It was claimed
that he had received an estate in Ruthenia from the king in return for the
faithful and courageous service at the royal court as a guardian and mentor
of Prince Zygmunt August of the Jagiellonian dynasty. The fact of the
matter is that Jakub had come from a poor family background and joined
the equestrian formation known as Current Defense, established to shield
south-eastern borderlands of the Republic against Tartar and Wallachian
incursions. By coincidence he served under the orders of as many as four
Pilaws: Great Crown Hetman Mikołaj Kamieniecki, Field Hetmans Jan
Tworowski and Marcin Kamieniecki, and Captain Wawrzyniec Budzowski.
It was Tworowski, most probably his relative on the maternal side, to whom
Potocki owed his career and social advancement. He took good care of
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SUMMARY
young Jakub, donating to him the village of Sokołów, which later became the
main seat of the Potockis in Ruthenia and consistently supporting him in
his public office career. Jakub could have also owed to him the receiving of
his first Crown estate in Ruthenia, that of the Wojnisz village, which indeed
was the reward for the courage he had displayed in the battle of Obertyn
fought against the Moldovans in 1531. The first marriage of Jakub Potocki
stemmed also from his Current Defense contacts – he married Katarzyna
Jemielnicka, daughter of the veteran soldier Mikołaj Susoł Jemielnicki.
It is most likely that the cooperation with Tworowski resulted in Potocki
adopting the new Pilawa coat of arms to replace his native Róża. This must
have happened in the first three decades of the 16
th
century, before the year
1535, to which the first Pilawa seal stamp of Jakub Potocki’s can be traced
back. This is indeed the oldest extant seal of the Potockis.
Jakub Potocki owed a considerable growth in his wealth not only to
the support of a powerful relative, but first of all to his own abilities. In his
business activities one can recognize a clear focus and great consistency,
which indicate a mature man of clear agenda and an understanding of the
laws of economy. Like many representatives of the contemporary families
who had an ambition to rise in social hierarchy, he actively participated in
the capital turnover, offering loans at interest or pawn broking real estates. He
realized the benefits which stemmed from the chartering of towns as centres
of both local barter trade and a broader international trade network as well as
estate administration centres. The awareness of the permanence and relative
certainty of trade benefits, which were thus of high value at the turbulent
borderlands, lay at the bottom of Potocki’s consistent attempts to acquire
Crown estates situated at the principal trade routes of Kamieniec Podolski
and Śniatyn, which linked Turkey, Greece, Moldavia and Wallachia with
Poland. The Potockis owed to Jakub the enhanced sense of family solidarity,
which was the factor indispensable for their ambitious social, economic
and political plans. He also appreciated the enormous value of appropriate
cultural and intellectual training for a young man, which determined his
future life. And even though he did not send any of his sons to university,
he made sure that at least one, the eldest son Mikołaj, was brought up in the
royal court, thus opening the doors of career for him. Jakub Potocki was also
most probably the first family member who, having broken away from the
Catholic Church, adopted Protestantism in its Calvinist variety. All these
details allow one to consider him as representative of the “new gentry”, well
known to historians, whose activities proved so beneficial for the Poland of
the Renaissance period.
In the hitherto literature, the significance of Jakub Potocki’s second
marriage with Druzjana Monasterska-Jazłowiecka was much overrated,
however, as the source of further growth of the family’s wealth and public
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SUMMARY
standing. In the light of available records, the marriage did not bring Jakub
or his descendants any benefits or profits or even enhanced prestige. The
only son by this marriage did inherit the vast Gródek estate in Podolia from
his paternal uncle Michał Jazłowiecki, but this was the result of breaking the
initial agreements rather than abiding by them.
By the end of his life, faced by the new family situation changed with
the second marriage, Jakub Potocki displayed great foresight once more.
Predicting imminent conflicts between the future widow and her stepsons,
he made all the arrangements to ensure that the eldest son had taken over
all the Crown estates while he was still alive, thus securing the family against
the loss of the source of the largest income.
A most interesting although highly risky period in the family history was
the time after Jakub’s death, when the fate of the property he had accumulated
and thus the future of the family was clearly at stake. The stepmother of the
young Potockis staked out claims against them which were supported by
her father Mikołaj Jazłowiecki, Castellan of Kamieniec Podolski, and his
brother Jerzy, the future Great Crown Hetman. Also the lesser neighbours
of the family considered this a convenient moment to deplete the Potocki
estates. What was necessary then was harmony in the family, the speed and
consistency of actions and most importantly the wise leadership.
Jakub’s eldest son Mikołaj, in whom the father rightly saw his successor
and to whom the Potockis may actually owe their later elite status, fulfilled
these duties perfectly. Not only did he retain all the father’s estates, but due
to his prudent property decisions compatible with those still set out by his
father he considerably expanded and consolidated the family wealth. Like
his father, he founded towns, bought the attractively located Crown estates,
carried out the settlement campaigns, and became considerably involved in
the ox trade, the major export commodity of Ruthenia and Podolia. He also
lay the ground for the chartering of the town of Potok, which in time started
to be called Złoty Potok (Golden Potok – the name referring to the original
family seat in Lesser Poland), as well as for the erection of the castle, which
was the reflection of the status the family had acquired. Remembering his
own education and its advantages he sent two of his eldest sons to study
in Leipzig, the younger of whom, Andrzej, ended up in the court of King
Zygmunt August. Also the younger sons, probably in agreement with the
father’s will, served at the royal court, though only after their father’s death.
Mikołaj’s ambitious plans were put into effect thanks to the considerable
income he had amassed from his long-lasting military service and from the
Crown estates, particularly the profitable Starosties, first of Chmielnik and
then Kamieniec Podolski.
The lives of Jakub’s remaining sons were different. The second son,
Jan, died young fighting the Muscovites, while two other sons, Andrzej
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SUMMARY
and Stanisław, started their own families. Andrzej, who was a faithful
collaborator and wartime companion of Mikołaj’s, did not marry until the
end of his life, however, and had only one daughter. Once her hand was
given away in marriage, the Potockis lost the estates which had once been
brought in dowry by Katarzyna Potocka née Jemielnicka, the first wife of
Jakub Potocki.
Stanisław, on the other hand, the youngest son of Jakub’s, the only son
born from his second marriage with Druzjana Jazłowiecka, gave rise to the
family line which lasted three generations until that of his grandchildren.
He probably suffered from some physical or psychological affliction and
never held any offices nor displayed much economic activity. The passivity
and lack of economic sense can be observed also in his sons. The vast estates
which he held in his hands had become his as a result of a shady transaction
which he made persuaded by his maternal uncle Michał Jazłowiecki. As
a fictitious buyer of the rights of Katarzyna Świerczowa, the childless wife
of Jazłowiecki, Stanisław never concluded his part of the deal and never
returned the estates to the Jazłowieckis. Many decades of feuds between the
descendants of Świerczs and Jazłowieckis are an interesting addendum to
the history of law and customs of the First Polish Republic.
Before we move on to the presentation of the history of the third
generation of the family, we must still focus on the person of Mikołaj Potocki
and emphasize one very significant feature of his economic activities. This
was the principle of the entailed estate, which was upheld for a long time.
The principle once considered anachronistic, has currently been reassessed
from the point of view of research on the knightly and noble families. The
entailment enabled the retaining of the hitherto economic potential of the
estate without extra expenditure on livestock and infrastructure, which
would have been necessary if new economic entities had come into being
as a result of divisions. Potocki brothers did not divide their estate until
decades after their father’s death.
After Mikołaj’s death, his sons followed suit. This was the moment of the
second (and last) crisis in the early history of the family. The demise shook
the material foundations of the family’s well-being. The neighbours rushed
to claim the estates he had left behind, attempting to rob and destroy them.
In a way this was their revenge for decades of difficult coexistence with
Mikołaj, who had not refrained from using force to ensure his rights. The
family narrowly avoided permanently losing the Crown estates which had
been obtained and developed with such great care. And again the harmony
and mutual support by family members allowed the estates to remain
undiminished. The long-lasting brotherly entailment again contributed to
effective management and limiting indispensable expenditures. What was
an interesting feature of internal family relations in the mid-16
th
century
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