Your servant. Salary of officials and court services at magnate courts in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Abstract

The magnate court, as one of the basic structures of public life of the nobility in the eighteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, had a strong influence on its surroundings through the transfer of cultural behavior, moral attitudes and political ideas. The owners of large private courts, active and politically engaged magnates, created a strong client environment around them, influencing the attitudes of the nobility of a given province and their attitude to the superior authorities, engaging them in their ventures, providing employment at the court and in extensive latifundia. Service at the court was honorable and profitable, but also difficult and full of sacrifices, depending on the position and personal character of the patrons and their attitude to the people under them. Court officials, latifundial officials and employed servants were expected to be faithful, obedient, highly efficient and enterprising, hence resignation from service at court was a common occurrence.