Pagina 720 di 788

(Thus Gerwazy was a servant, though not quite a menial, of the

Pantler.) The great land owners (or magnates), by gathering

around them hordes of gentle-born, landless dependents, were able

to support private armies, and to exercise a preponderating

influence on the affairs of the country. Hence the Constitution

of May 3, 1791, excluded szlachta not holding land from the right

to vote.-In English works on Poland the words szlachta and

szlachcic have usually been rendered as nobility and noble; in

the present volume the terms gentry and gentleman are used,

which, though far from satisfactory, are at all events somewhat

less misleading.