Death of the Magnate: Life Expectancy of the Magnatery in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Versus the Demography of the Western European Elites in the Early Modern Age* Śmierć magnata. Oczekiwana długość życia magnaterii w Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów a demografia elit

The aim of the article is to present life expectancy calculations for magnates, the elite of the nobility (but not an exact equivalent of European aristocracy) from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th–18th centuries (life tables for women and men). The paper also contains a comparison with the results previously obtained for Western European aristocracy. The author tried to verify if there were Abstrakt Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie obliczeń oczekiwanej długości życia magnaterii – elity stanu szlacheckiego Rzeczypospolitej Obojga Narodów w XVI–XVIII wieku (skonstruowano tablice trwania życia dla kobiet i mężczyzn na podstawie bazy danych uwzględniającej informacje genealogiczne odnośnie do 8 rodów koronnych i 9 litewskich). Zamieszczono w nim też porównanie uzyskanych S T U D I A I M A T E R I A Ł Y


Introduction
systematic studies on life expectancy in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th-18th centuries, have, so far, been concentrated on lower estates, especially peasants. 3 This was determined, foremost, by the availability of the statistical material -mainly in the form of parish registers and census-like sources. 4 In terms of the social elite of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the matter was barely broached, although some research was done during the interwar period. According to Tadeusz Furtak, in the 16th century, average age at death was 59, in the 17th century 58.9, and in the 18th century 61.8, 5 but his studies were carried out for the nobility and magnatery together, were based on heraldic material of different substantive value and covered a small number of cases. Such an approach means that these calculations are wholly inadequate for any comparison with the aristocratic elites of European countries. The same comments can apply to Egon Vielrose's research. He calculated the average life expectancy to be 50. In the 16th century it was 18.1 years (102 observations), in the 17th century, 19.4 years (but only on the basis of 70 observations), and in the 18th century, 19.6 years (210 observations). As the author himself noted, these numbers are, however, too high for the entire nobility. 6 An interesting polemic, well known in Polish historiography, on the biological condition of the Polish-Lithuanian magnatery from the 16th-18th centuries, emerged at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. It began with an article by Zbigniew Kuchowicz, who referred to the degeneration of the particular magnate houses by the end of the 18th century. 7 In response to this article, Emanuel Rostworowski calculated the average age of death for adults at the time of death based on the 2014); Richard A. Easterlin, "The Worldwide Standard of Living since 1800," Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 1 (2000): 7-26. 3 Regarding other social groups or other centuries, it is necessary to mention E. Piasecki's and M. Kędelski's works: Edmund Piasecki, "Próba sporządzenia okresowych tablic życia na podstawie ksiąg ruchu naturalnego w XVIII-XX w.," Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 16 (1985): 139-151; Piasecki, Ludność parafii bejskiej (woj. kieleckie) w świetle ksiąg metrykalnych z XVIII-XX w. Studium demograficzne, Wrocław-Warszawa: PWN, 1990), 281-304; Mieczysław Kędelski, "Piramida wieku i tablice trwania życia ludności Śląska w 1864 roku," Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 20 (1997): 49-71; Kędelski, "Ewolucja umieralności i trwania życia ludności miasta Poznania w wiekach XIX i XX," Studia Demograficzne 83 (1986): 3-26; Kędelski, "Umieralność i trwanie życia w Wielkopolsce w latach 1816-1875," Przeszłość Demograficzna Polski 16 (1985) lifespan of secular and clergy senators in the 16th-18th centuries. 8 In the first half of the 16th century this came to 52 years, while in the 18th century the average age was approaching 58 years! The author of the article used these results as evidence of the good state of health of Polish magnates. However, from the point of view of demographic analysis, calculating the average age at death does not tell us much about the standard of living or the level of health of the population. Unfortunately, neither Kuchowicz nor Rostworowski calculated life expectancy at the moment of birth (e0 -very difficult to obtain, as we write below), nor life expectancy at, e.g., the ages of 20 or 50.
The age of adults at the time of death was also discussed in works on other, non-demographic issues 9 and articles of a demographic nature, but not directly related to life expectancy. 10 However, research into life expectancy began to be carried out on the Western European aristocracy some decades ago. The topic emerged as an object of research interest for several acclaimed historical demographers such as Sigismund Peller,11

Aims of the Article, Terminology, Sources and Methods
As I was aware of the existence of a serious research gap in Polish historiography (but also in Lithuanian, Belarussian or Ukrainian), in 2015, 2016 and 2019 17 , I calculated the life expectancy of magnates (e18, e20, e50). In this article, I have taken my research further by preparing "life tables" (from e20). I also compared the results of my research with the results obtained for the Western European aristocracy.
At this point, it should be noted that the magnatery was not an exact equivalent to the European aristocracy. 18 Most of its members did not use aristocratic titles. The "Magnatery" consisted of lords who had entered the political elite by the ruler's decision, descendants of ancient genuine knyazes of various origins (in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania) and magnates who did use aristocratic titles but had obtained them from foreign monarchs. Thus, people who had been politically promoted from the middle nobility quite frequently became members of this group. They received high offices and land grants. Therefore, they did not have to be born into this group, as was usual for aristocrats, 19 at least at the beginning of their lives, e.g., their biological condition could have been different, referring to the condition of the middle nobility. 20 The magnatery was an informal social group which, nonetheless, had the most important impact on the home and foreign policies of the state, and this social group was, formally, part of a numerous nobility (6-7% of society) -politically, magnates had the same rights and privileges as common nobles, but it was mainly their representatives that held the highest positions in the state and were members of the Senate (the higher chamber of the parliament of the Polish-Lithua nian Commonwealth). Their lifestyle was also different from that of nobles. In accordance with the informal name of the group (derived from Latin "magnus"), they were also the economically best-off part of society. Therefore, I have to analyze this group separately from the nobility.
The calculation of the life expectancy parameter values was made on the basis of genealogical facts, such as the birth and death dates of the members of families such as (in the Polish Kingdom): the Leszczyńskis, Opalińskis, Ossolińskis, Ostrogskis/Zasławskis, Lubomirskis, Branickis, Sieniawskis, Zborowskis and (in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania): the Radziwiłłs, Chodkiewiczes, Paces, Ogińskis, Kiszkas, Pociejs, Hlebowiczes, Tyszkiewiczes, Sapiehases (the number of cases: over 365 adult men and 173 adult women; extreme dates of birth for the cohort are, in the case of men: 1457-1800 and women: 1499-1796). The information was scattered over many publications and archival sources. They were acquired foremost from genealogical works and published materials referring to particular families, biographies of particular people, and also biographies published in the Polski słownik biograficzny (Polish Biographical Dictionary), monographs of families, articles dedicated to these families and their members, as well as already-published sources, such as wills, letters and memoirs. Certain data were complemented or corrected as a result of archive query. 21 Unfortunately, it was not possible to collect the relevant data on all the family members. 22 Due to incomplete data regarding children born and those who never reached adulthood, as well as the low number of documented cases of a magnate's birth and death date, it was difficult to calculate the life expectancy at the moment of birth. We have well-documented data for very few families. The example of the Radziwiłłs shows how important they are. In the case of this family, almost half the offspring did not reach adulthood (Table 1).  22 Such difficulties refer not only to Polish and Lithuanian works, but also those from Western Europe. S. Peller, dealing with the demography of European reigning families, also indicated incompleteness in the data; for instance, in the 16th century, in the genealogical tables of the family of Isenburg, the information on the age at the moment of marriage of 6% men and 29% women is missing: Sigismund Peller, "Mortality, Past and Future," 405.
It was impossible to examine the e0 parameter, but we managed to calculate the life expectancy, in order to facilitate comparisons with Western European elites, at the ages of 20 and 50. Life tables were also constructed starting from the age of 20 (Tables 2 and 3). On account of the relatively small number of cases, the entire group was adopted as the cohort constituting the basis for constructing the life tables.  As we can see, over the 16th-18th centuries, men's life expectancy at the age of 20 was almost 33 years, while at the age of 50 it was 14.5. On average, women who reached their 20s lived a further 31 years, and on reaching the age of 50 they still had 19 years to go.
It might be expected that the life expectancy of women would also be higher at the age of 20, but it should be noted that high maternal mortality had a significant  impact on the value of this parameter (the value of men's life expectancy increases where they reach 30 years of age) and the calculations were made on a much smaller number of cases (poor data recording for women in sources) (Figures 1  and 2). I also decided to find out if there were differences in life expectancy between men and women from different parts of the Commonwealth (Figure 3). These differences turned out to be minor. The slight differences that may be observed between the life expectancy of magnates from the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania may result from the small amount of data collected. Therefore, I decided to calculate 95% confidence intervals from my sample (Tables 4 and 5). 23  The differences are not statistically significant. Magnates living both in the Kingdom of Poland and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania led a similar lifestyle, under very similar economic and environmental conditions. In addition, they were related to each other as a result of marriage between representatives of both states in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
However, we can see bigger differences in relation to the Western European elites. Studies conducted by S. Peller, T.H. Hollingsworth and L. Henry and C. Levy referred to various cohorts and time periods, but the longer life expectancy for both men and women is clearly discernible, especially in the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries (Tables 6 and 7.).
T.H. Hollingsworth calculated the value of e15 and e50 to compare the results with S. Peller's calculations referring to members of ruling families in Europe. 24 If, for the people who were born in the period 1480-1679 (both women and men), the rate was more favorable for the continental ruling houses, for the cohorts 1680-1779 and 1780-1879 the reverse was true, in the case of life expectancy at the ages of both 15 and 50. In the first case, in the years 1680-1779 a duke's fifteen-year-old son lived on average 37.8 years, while in European families a year less. For dukes born in the years 1780-1879, life expectancy was 45 years, whereas for members of ruling houses in Europe it was 43.7. On the other hand, British ducal sons born in the period 1680-1779 who turned 50, still lived for, on average, 19.3 years, whereas in the continent they lived almost three years shorter. Within the following hundred years, the life expectancy of fifty-year-old members of the British elites was already another 20.5 years, while that of the representatives of European ruling families at the same age was nearly two years shorter. 25 The results of the 2010 studies on the life expectancy of members of the British royal families in the early modern period demonstrated that the life expectancy of men born in the 16th century was only 18.5, while it grew for those who were born in the period 1550-1649 to 34.8, and remained at that level for those born over the next hundred years (1650-1749), at 34.4 years. People born in the 18th century lived, on average, up to 47.6 years. 26 Thus, we may conclude that the results are not basically different from the data obtained by T.H. Hollingsworth for British ducal families for the last two decades of the 17th century and the first quarter of the 18th century (e0: c. 33), as well as showing the lengthening tendency for the cohort of the 18th century (e0 in the case of people born in the years 1730-79: c. 45 years). In France in the years 1640-1739, the further life expectancy of dukes and peers who turned 20 was 34.5 years. 27 In the case of women's life expectancy at 15, in British ducal families, daughters born in the years 1680-1779 lived for 41.6 years, while daughters and wives in ruling families in Europe only half as long. In the subsequent period, British fifteen-year-olds still reached nearly 50 (49.6) and the representatives of the continental Europe 45.6. Fifty-year-olds in British families in the cohort 1680-1779 on average died after 21.5 years, while women in the continent after nearly 18 years. Over the next century the former still lived for 24 years (24.2) whereas the latter for 21. 28 The studies of P.A. David, S.R. Johansson and A. Pozzi in 2010 on female members of British royal families showed that women born in the 16th century, at the moment of birth, lived on average 31 years, and those in the cohort 1550-1649, on average 27, whereas those born in the 17th century only lived to be 23. Rate e0 grew for the women who were born in the years 1650-1749, again to 31 years, and up to over 51 for the cohort 1700-99. 29 On the other hand, the life expectancy of French dukes and peers' daughters who turned 20 was, in the case of those born in the period 1640-1739, 33.6 years. 30 In the light of these data, the average lifespan of magnate daughters and wives was lower than in European female aristocrats. This may be explained by the inclusion of a lower number of women than men in the studies. Besides, for both men and women from the PLC, the standard of medical care seemed worse than in Western Europe (even though they had better access to services of physicians than other groups of the population). The magnates themselves complained about the questionable skills of doctors (e.g., Bogusław Radziwiłł or Krzysztof Opaliński). 31 Incorrect diagnoses and inappropriate therapies sometimes caused a worsening of the disease and even the patient's death. Even if the knowledge and experience of doctors were considered satisfactory, it should be recalled that in the case of a standard visit, the doctor made a diagnosis based on observation of the patient, interview (often by letter!) and, possibly, an examination of the patient's discharges, and hardly any physical contact (except for taking the pulse). 32 Similar remarks can be made for the medicines, which often made the patient's condition worse. However, it is difficult to find studies that would allow a clear comparison of the state of medical care in Western Europe and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but studies/research on human capital (which could also reflect health awareness and medical knowledge) indicate that in Eastern Europe, the social level of this resource among the elite was even worse. 33 Furthermore, the results obtained for women could have been influenced by, for example, relatively high perinatal mortality. It was not until the second half of the 18th century that the idea of taking care of women during pregnancy and the puerperium (e.g., assisting a male doctor in childbirth or the use of forceps) first began to spread to England, then to Austria, then to other countries in Western Europe. 34 Judith Lewis's studies on perinatal mortality among British female aristocrats over the 16th-19th centuries indicate that, in that period, only approximately 4.8% of women died in, or as a result of, childbirth. 35 The highest percentage of deaths in childbirth was noted, however, for female aristocrats born in the years 1750-74 (9.2%). For the remaining cohorts, by the end of the 18 th century, the percentage of deaths related to childbirth vacillated from 7.6% (1600-24) to 1.4 (1675-99), and on average hovered around 6%. 36 In the Radziwiłł family, of the 85 wives (16 th -18 th centuries), only 60 had children. Of these 60 wives, as many as 7 (about 12%) died due to perinatal complications; thus, it was, in any case, higher than the rate for British aristocrats.  The consequences of dying at a relatively young age were varied: social, psychological, economic or demographic, and we have to remember that at the time of the father's death, his offspring were often still underage. In order to determine the consequences of a magnate's death, it is important to consider the average age of marriage and to calculate the average length of marriage -on average, the magnate entered into marriage at the age of 27 or 28, and on average his marriage lasted about 16 years, which was too short for children, especially sons, to reach adulthood in all magnate relationships. It was very important, especially in the case of sons (a man in a magnate family often decided to marry after his father's death, whether following or disregarding his earlier suggestions as to the choice of wife). The early death of the father often meant that the care of the father's children was left in the hands of his relatives, especially if the widow remarried. In such cases, mothers used to lose custody of their children and thus their emotional bond with them was broken. Hence, one of the consequences of a magnate's death was that his widow had to choose between remarriage and keeping custody of her children and their property. The latter choice meant no further children for many young women. On the other hand, the death of one of the spouses would often result in the remarriage of the other (then, the problem of subsequent marriages and stepfamilies occurred).
It is very important to note that the death of a childless magnate led to the extinction of the family or one of its lines, which resulted in the transference of property to other families or lines. Therefore, the necessity to plan a family policy in such way that the family could be continued was indispensable.

Conclusion
In conclusion, it should be noted that the life expectancy of magnates in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their families was lower than that of the aristocracy in Western European countries.
The average lifespan of magnate females was lower than for European female aristocrats, although the result could have been influenced by high perinatal mortality and may have resulted from a smaller research sample. Magnates had better living conditions (access to high quality food, better housing conditions and higher chances of avoiding contagious diseases), than any other social group, did not usually die in battles (although they were army commanders), but suffered from diseases resulting from prosperity and high social and political position,

Summary
The main purpose of the text was to obtain the life expectancy of the magnatery in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and compare it with the results from the Western European elites in the early modern age. Calculation of the life expectancy parameter values was made on the basis of genealogical facts, such as dates of birth and death of the members of 17 families (365 adult men and 173 adult women). Life tables were constructed starting from the age of 20. On account of the relatively small number of cases, the entire group was adopted as the cohort constituting the basis for constructing the life tables (extreme dates of birth for the cohort are in the case of men: 1457-1800 and women: 1499-1796). Because there were slight differences that may be observed between the life expectancy of magnates from the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, I decided to calculate 95% confidence intervals from my sample. Then I compared the value for the life expectancy of the magnatery with the value for the same parameter of the Western European aristocracy.
My database was constructed using information from genealogical works and published materials referring to particular families, biographies of particular people, and also biographies published in the Polish Biographic Dictionary, monographs of families, articles dedicated to these families and their members, as well as already-published sources, such as wills, letters and memoirs. Certain data were complemented or corrected as a result of an archive query.
Male life expectancy at the age of 20 was almost 33 years, and at the age of 50, 14.5. On average, women who reached their 20s carried on living for a further 31 years, and after reaching the age of 50, still had 19 years to go. Differences in life expectancy between men and women from different parts of the country turned out to be minor. The results of calculating 95% confidence intervals from my sample are not statistically significant. However, we can see bigger differences in relation to the Western European elites. Studies conducted by Western European historical demographers showed longer life expectancy for both men and women, especially in the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The lower life expectancy of the magnatery might have been the result of worse medical care, and in a broader sense, a lower level of human capital.
The very small differences in life expectancy between men and women from different parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth may have resulted from the small amount of data collected and, on the other hand, of a similar lifestyle and economic and environmental conditions. In addition, they were related to each other as a result of marriage between representatives of both states of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.