Challenging Nobility and Protestants in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

Jan Chądzyński (c.1602–1660) and the Jesuit Political and Social Thought

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This book examines how Jesuit political, social, and polemical ideas functioned in seventeenth-century Poland–Lithuania through the case of Jan Chądzyński (c.1602–1660). It reconstructs his biography, establishes his dispersed and often misattributed writings, and analyzes his political and social treatises and anti-Protestant satires. Drawing on Jesuit archival records and textual analysis, the study situates Chądzyński’s views on royal authority, noble liberty, social injustice, and Protestantism within the political debates of the Commonwealth and the wider framework of early modern Jesuit thought in Europe, while showing how local controversies in Vilnius shaped the form and aims of his writing.
Copyright Year:
2026
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-76363-0
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08 May 2026
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-76359-3
Publication:
04 Jun 2026
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Michał E. Nowakowski, Ph.D., is an assistant researcher in the Department of Early Modern Polish Literature at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. His research focuses on Catholic–Protestant polemical literature, Jesuit political and social thought, and early modern diplomatic theory.
The author’s Polish-language dissertation on which this book builds was awarded Best Doctoral Dissertation on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Defended in 2024 or 2025 by the Center for Early Modern Studies at the University of Opole, Poland.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Who Was Jan Chądzyński and What Did He Write?
 1 Biography
 2 The Scope of Chądzyński’s Literary Legacy in Light of His Biography

2 Chądzyński’s Political Thought and the Jesuits’ Alleged Political Reorientation after the Zebrzydowski Rokosz
 1 Starting Point
 2 The State and iustitia legalis
 3 The Common Good
 4 Political Structure: Preliminary Assumptions
 5 Political Structure: Standard Jesuit Arguments
 6 Political Structure: Chądzyński’s Position and the Historical Context
 7 The King: Role, Prerogatives, Duties
 8 Iustitia distributiva and vindicativa
 9 Law in the Political System
 10 Corrupted System, Corrupted Citizens
 11 Virtue
 12 So What?

3 Chądzyński’s Social Thought: on the Rights of Peasants and Slaves
 1 Ius
 2 Dominium
 3 Contractus
 4 Iustitia commutativa
 5 Iniustitia and restitutio
 6 Defense of the Peasants: Their Status
 7 Defense of the Peasants: Abuses
 8 Not Only Peasants
 9 Chądzyński: Defender of Justice?
 10 Slaves
 11 Assembling the Puzzle

4 Chądzyński’s Satires and the Vilnius Polemic against Protestants
 1 Preliminary Assumptions and State of the Art
 2 Origins of Polemical Theology at the Vilnius Academy
 3 Vilnius Jesuits against Wolan
 4 Andrzej Jurgiewicz: a Product of the Vilnius Counter-Reformation
 5 Retreat from Theology and the First Vilnius Satires
 6 Crisis and Revival of Polemical Theology in Vilnius
 7 The Final Phase of the Vilnius Polemic
 8 Strategies of Demonization
 9 Protestant Religiosity in the Mirror of Satire
 10 Ancient and Catholic Lutherans
 11 Quarreling Protestants
 12 Ridiculous Martyrdom
 13 Promiscuous Saxon Ladies
 14 Innocent Tumults and Just Punishment
 15 Reassessing Vilnius Polemics and Chądzyński’s Role

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Specialists and graduate students in early modern history, religious history, and political thought; scholars of Jesuit studies, confessional polemics, manuscript culture, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; academic libraries with European and global history collections.
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