List of szlachta

The szlachta (Polish: szlachta, [ˈʂlaxta]) was a privileged social class in the Kingdom of Poland. The term szlachta was also used for the Lithuanian nobility after the union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Poland as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Union of Lublin, 1569) and for the increasingly Polonized nobilities of territories controlled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Ducal Prussia and the Ruthenian lands.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a semi-confederated, semi-federated monarchic republic from 1569 until 1795, comprising the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The head of state was an elected monarch. The Commonwealth's dominant social class was the nobility. This article chiefly lists the nobility's magnate segment (the wealthier nobility), as they were the most prominent, famous, and notable. These families would receive non-hereditary 'central' and Land dignities and titles under the Commonwealth law that forbade (with minor exceptions) any hereditary legal distinctions within the peerage. They would later be 'approximated' to honorary hereditary titles in the Partition period with little real-power privileges but would still be venerated among the Polish upper class and the rest of the society as 'senatorial', 'palatinal', 'castellanial' or "dignitarial' families.

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