The polish revolution and the catholic church, 1788-1792: a political history

Richard Butterwick draws on diplomatic and political correspondence, speeches, pamphlets, sermons, pastoral letters, proclamations, records of local assemblies, and other sources to explore a volatile relationship between altar, throne, and nobility in Poland at the end of Europe's Ancien Rgime. The Polish Revolution cast off the Russian hegemony that had kept the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth impotent for most of the eighteenth century. Before being overthrownby the armies of Catherine the Great, the Four Years' Parliament of 1788-92 passed wide-ranging reforms, culminating in Europe's first written constitutionon 3 May 1791.In some respects its policies towards the Catholic Church of both rites (Latin and Ruthenian) were more radical than those of Joseph II, and comparable to some of those adopted in the early stages of the French Revolution. Policies included taxation of the Catholic clergy at more than double the rate of the lay nobility, the confiscation of episcopal estates, the equalization of dioceses, and controversial concessions to Orthodoxy. But the monastic clergy escapedalmost unscathed. A method ofexplaining political decisions in a republican polity is developed in order to show how and why the Commonwealth went to the verge of schism with Rome in 1789-90, before drawing back. Pope Pius VI could then bless the 'mild revolution' of 3 May 1791, which Poland's clergy and monarch presented to thenobility as a miracle of Divine Providence. The stresses would be eclipsed bydechristianization in France, the dismemberment of the Commonwealth, and subsequent incarnations of unity between the Catholic Church and the Polish nation.Probing both 'high politics' and political culture', Richard Butterwick drawson diplomatic and political correspondence, speeches, pamphlets, sermons, pastoral letters, proclamations, records of local assemblies, and other sources to explore a volatile relationship between altar, throne, and nobility at the end of Europe's Ancien Rgime. INDICE: Preface Introduction Part I: Plunder The Commonwealth and the Catholic Church in 1788 The Republican Revolution The First Wave of EcclesiasticalPolemics (to the summer of 1789) Tax or Offering? The Secularization of the Bishopric of Cracow Part II: Compromise Pamphleteers, Journalists, and the Church: Summer 1789 - Spring 1791 On the Brink of Schism A Limited Ecclesiastical Reform Une Renaissance de Barbarie? The Autumn of 1790 Part III: Providence The Law on Royal Towns and the Constitution of 3 May 1791 Propagating and Sacralizing the Providential Revolution Antichrist comes from France Caesar's Moral Realm Ecclesiastical Reform - for the Orthodox Conclusion Select Bibliography Glossary Index

• ISBN: 978-0-19-925033-2
• Editorial: Oxford University
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Páginas: 400
• Fecha Publicación: 01/12/2011
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés