Age of Enlightenment in Poland?

Well there have been hundreds of German popes, but only a single Polish one, so I can see who that could be. If my memory serves me right didn't the papacy authorize a few crusades against slavic people?

Hundreds of German popes????

Hundreds??? How many hundreds of 'German popes' have their been?

Aha! You forget that for every several anti-popes there were other anti-popes in one anothers eyes.

You boys never thought of this I imagine.

Not even close. There have been 8 german popes.

And how many hundreds of German anti-popes were there?

Given the number of anti-popes (I can tell you that without googling it), that number of hundreds will test your ability with fractions.

And how on earth does the number of hundreds of German anti-popes relate to the Age of Enlightenment, especially given that the era of anti-popes predates that by a long time?

/\ 8 officially recognized by today's papacy.....

What about all of the anti-popes and sedevacantist popes??

Come on!

Germans have been the Swiss guard of the Holy Roman Catholic church for 1000 years!

I think you guys forget the the englightenment didnt happen overnight. Even when Voltaire was penning Candide there were still witch burnings in Europe.

I don't think anyone forgets anything here except perhaps yourself who forgot that there weren't 'hundreds of German Popes' and that the last antipope was in the Fifteenth Century, long before the Enlightenment started by any definition of the Enlightenment.

When was the last sedevacantist pope? Oh yeah, they still are here.....

Even if we use the "8" number of official German popes, its 800% more than Polish and over 1000 years older.

Its proof that Germans used the Catholic Church to conquer Poland, but Poland clings to the Roman Papacy while Germany has moved on to more civilized things.

They don't count - they are a handful of nutters and none are German. A couple of Canadians though and a Spanish guy. But congratulations on using Google - the source of inspiration for all trolls.


Well, I've never heard 8 referred to as "the '8' number" but there's also a first time for everything. A bit different from 'hundreds' though, isn't it.

And how does the number of popes a country has produces possibly relate to the Age of Enlightenment?

Jon, you really need to follow the conversation. I'm responding to the swedish troll's comment that the Germans are such mean people, and that if that is the case, then why Polish could kiss the ring of the roman curia, who has heaped untold amount of violence on Slavs by using Germans.

Whether or not you consider someone to be a 'true' pope is totally irrelevent to the point I am making, but continue with this if you like.

Re popes, it's most difficult to say who was of what nationality ;) since borders were not the same as now. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes

That is true, also considering the fact that Northern Italy is of Germanic blood, its hard for me to imagine that it could be anything less than 100 Germanic popes, but still this is a digression.

Exactly. The concept of nation states means very little historically. The same for 'blood'. As far as the Enlightenment (and your 'thousands of German Popes') is concerned, Poland wasn't passed by; the cities were as advanced as anywhere else and the countryside every bit as traditional.

Poland was very advanced at one point, and from what I understand, in 1919, the former German and Austrian parts of Poland were very developed indeed.

Indeed; let's not forget that Poland was the second country in the world to get a written constitution (after the US and before France), that it was one of the most "democratic" countries on the planet where kings were "elected" and not "de droit divin" (OK not elected by everyone but by the "nobility", which unlike in other European countries represented a sizeable chunk of the Polish population). In fact, one could even argue that one of the causes of the disappearance of the Polish state from the European map for a couple of centuries was precisely that Poland was "too" democratic given the slavic character of its inhabitants and the difficulty to reach compromises and agree on a few priorities.

Actually the fourth, after San Marino, England and the U.S. The San Marino and American constitutions are still active, those of England and Poland were sadly short-lived, ended by the restoration of monarchy and the partitions respectively.

All except San Marino were products of the Enlightenment. About the First Republic in Poland, there were good and bad points. In many ways it was too little too late. As Adam Zamoyski wrote, if only the magnaty had listened to King Stanisław August, Poland would have emerged from the Napoleonic wars in a similar state to Belgium, rather than being missing from the map for a century.

As far as I am aware, Britain does not have a proper "codified" written constitution (ie one that would start with article 1 and finish with article xx). It is rather the combination of acts of parliaments, judgments etc.. which together "acts" as a constitution. Or are you thinking of something else?

And "cultures" and "traditions" which were taken up as law.

Yes, something else. The First and Second Constitutions of England. The first one was written in 1653 by the then government and was superseded by the second several years later. That was overturned by an unfortunate regime change (the restoration of the monarchy) in 1660. Sadly short lived, but so was the Polish Constitution of the Third of May.

This isn't off-topic, since the constitution was drafted by John Lambert (with General Monk) both as far as I know connected to the Royal Society, very much an Enlightenment body, and one of them considered by some scholars to be a Freemason, as were some of the supporters of the Polish and French constitutions.

Incidentally, the Royal Society, incorporated in the year the Constitution of England was superceded was formed on the basis of earlier groups around Gresham's College, the French Academie Montmor and certain other more discreet groups all of which have either a direct or indirect connection to movements and thought in Poland.