Hi everyone,
I'm working on a small project for an historical pen and paper RPG. The set is the Polish-Lithuanian COmmonwealth before 1648 and the cossack rebelion. So far the setting date I chose is 1644.
I just ordered "God's Playground" from Norman Davies but I'm looking for other good and serious sources about this particular nation at that time, on subjects is wide as possible (Culture, Military tactics, Religion, Economy,...).
The goal is to have a good and historically acute description of the life in the Commonwealth in 1644 (or the years around it) with the answers to such questions as for example:
_ Were the nobility in the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania more conservative or less tolerant than its Polish counterpart?
_Was there an important Romani community in the country?
_What were the main trade route (land routes, or rivers) ?
_ Were the word "Ukraine" and "Belarus" existing at that time ?
_ Could Jews serve in the military ?
_ Were Copernicus ideas more accepted in his home country than in the rest of Europe?
...
And many other questions of that type !
Since I don't speak a single word of Polish (or Lithuanian), I'm loooking for sources in English or in French.
Thanks in advance!
Have you looked at Adam Zamoyski? He's done a lot of work on early Poland as well. The Heart of Europe is a book Davies wrote after God's Playground with kind of a weird format, it goes backwards in time, but the chapters on the Common-wealth may help you out. Same author as GP, but may still offer some new insights.
First of all God's Playground is an excellent book and I am sure it will be of great help. On the Lithuanian Nobility it depends what you mean by conservative. The main difference between the Poles and the Lithuanians was a religious one. The Lithuanians tended to be universally orthodox as opposed to the Catholic Poles. There was certainly a great deal of resentment born from the lopsided Union as the Lithuanian nobility felt underrepresented and irrelevant despite the original line being Lithuanian.
Moving on to the Romani though they appeared on Polish lands nearly a hundred and fifty years before your starting date their numbers did not grow very significantly until the ninteenth century.
The main Polish trade routes of the time were of course those between Krakow and Gdansk moving north to Novogrod as well as from Prague to Krakow to Lwow and eventually to Kiew where it turned south toward the silk road. The Wisła (Vistula) was a critical trading river running from Gdansk to Krakow. The other river worth mentioning would be the Oder but during the period it was in the Holy Roman Empire and would have seen little use by Polish Merchants.
Ukraina and Bialorus were indeed in use at the time (The second meaning "White Russia"). However they were relative regions as opposed to clearly being marked on a map.
On Jews they could serve in the military as during the early years of the commonwealth up to the time when you are referring to it was a very tolerant state. Judaism mixed with Orthodoxy and Catholocism without issue for over a hundred years.
Nicolaus Copernicus was less demonized in his home country of Warmia than in the rest of Europe. Warmia was a vassal of the Polish state and all I can tell you is that the Polish state was during this period much more progressive than the rest of Europe.
Hi there. I have never played a pen and paper RPG. Is that sort of like D&D? I am asking with some interest in that I am a recently credentialed teacher and am interested in including simulations in class. Can you point me to some available resources?