Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/105

 West, and her struggles against it represent the chief moments of Poland's mediaeval history.

It is a great historical truth that nations trying to cope with their enemies submit to the strongest influences of the most dangerous neighbours whom they are obliged to fight. And so mediaeval Poland, after adopting the Roman faith introduced there from Bohemia, develops pre-eminently under the influence of German civilisation and German institutions.

When she appears in European history, Poland represents a primitive kingdom under the despotic rule of the Piast dynasty. She is a country of forests and marshes, with large oases of denser agricultural population scattered among the forests. The population consists of free husbandmen and slaves. Above them there is a class of warriors, very strong numerically, from which the ruler chooses his officials. There is no trace of feudalism in the country, the only important people in it being the king's officials who gradually accumulate wealth and give origin to a series of great families, rich and therefore powerful, which, however, remain legally on an equal footing with the mass of poor warriors. This military class was subdivided into clans, the members of each clan being bound together by strong ties of solidarity. Each clan had its name and crest. The Polish nobility, which sprang from this military class and which derived its family names from its landed properties (in the fifteenth century), had no family crests, of which there was only a limited number. Each of these bore a name which had been the old word of call of the clan. In many instances, one crest belonged to more than a hundred