Michał Nowakowski

Financing diplomatic missions was a long-standing issue in Polish-Lithuanian diplomacy due to the persistent shortage of funds in the royal treasury. Diplomats often faced insufficient financial support that did not meet the demands of their missions. Consequently, they had to rely on promises of reimbursement upon their return, which presented significant difficulties for their efforts. To address this issue, authorities attempted to send wealthy magnates on foreign missions, as they were better equipped to fund a substantial portion of the expenses themselves. Nevertheless, even such individuals sometimes struggled to cover the costs of diplomatic missions.

A notable exception was the diplomatic service under King Stephen Báthory (r. 1576–86), who diligently ensured that the ambassadors’ funds were paid on time, even if adhering to strict limits set by himself. His successors, however, including Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587–1632), failed to maintain the same level of discipline.

Interestingly, withholding remuneration was occasionally used as a means to motivate diplomats. For example, envoys seeking to recover the so-called ‘Neapolitan sums’ owed to Queen Bona Sforza (r. 1518–57) had to pay for their own upkeep using the funds they personally negotiated. The lack of payment thus served as a (quite strong) incentive to expedite the process of recovering the owed sums.

What is worth mentioning, of the four Polish diplomats whose manuals are analyzed within our project, only in the case of Krzysztof Warszewicki’s (1543–1603) mission do we not know of any major financial problems. Tadeusz Morski (1754–1825) had to ask King Stanisław August Poniatowski (r. 1764–95) to provide him with money to return to the country. Long negotiations that Ławryn Piaseczyński (ca. 1550–1606) conducted with the Tatar khan were broken down by the lack of funds for the so-called ‘small gifts’. But the worst was the case of Stanisław Miński (ca. 1561–1607), who spent on his mission to Rome such a large amount of money from his personal funds that upon his return he got into severe financial troubles, which necessitated the sale of his ancestral Mińsk.

For further information on the subject, see:

Dyplomaci w dawnych czasach. Relacje staropolskie z XVI–XVIII stulecia, edited by Adam Przyboś and Roman Żelewski, Warsaw 1959.

Michał E. Nowakowski, Ambasador na rozdrożu. Świat wartości w poradnikach dyplomatycznych Pierwszej Rzeczypospolitej oraz ich europejski kontekst [Ambassador at the Crossroads. The World of Values in the Diplomatic Manuals of Poland-Lithuania and their European Context], Lublin 2023 [in print].

Image source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fiorino_d%27oro.jpg

Among the authors of early modern diplomatic manuals, Stanisław Miński (c.1561–1607) undoubtedly made the greatest political career. Almost two decades younger than Krzysztof Warszewicki (1543–1603), just like him, he came from the old Masovian nobility. We can only guess that Miński was educated at the Pułtusk Jesuit college. Perhaps it was there that he had the opportunity to attract the attention of the bishop of Płock, Piotr Dunin Wolski (1531–90). 

Unlike Krzysztof Warszewicki (1543–1603), Ławryn Piaseczyński (c.1550–1606), author of Powinności poselskie (Ambassador’s duties, c.1603), was and still is an almost unknown figure. He was born circa 1550 in Ruthenia, on the territory of today’s Ukraine. As a child he resided at the court of the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and then took up a position in the Lithuanian chancellery. In 1569, he was, however, brought to the chancellery of the Polish Crown by Franciszek Krasiński (1525–77). There, Piaseczyński was responsible for keeping the Ruthenian register (Metryka ruska). Thus, he was required to have the knowledge of not only the Ruthenian language, but also the Second Lithuanian Statute of 1566.

In the history of early modern diplomacy Krzysztof Warszewicki (1543–1603) went down as the author of the most popular and, at the same time, the most extensive diplomacy manual in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: De legato legationeque (first published in 1595 in Cracow).