Tartar Conveyors - vectores et aurigae - in the Polish-Lithuanian State, the 16th - the First Half of the 17th Century

ENAs a rule, research dealing with the history of the Lithuanian and Polish Tartars examined assimilation, acculturation, tolerance, determination of the degree of distinctness (ethnic, linguistic, religious), military issues and, in particular, the noble status or legal rank of all the Moslems in the Christian state. Rarely was interest focused on the so-called simple Tartars and Tartar inhabitants of villages devoid of gentry privileges, who can be generally described as plebeians. Nonetheless, Christian plebeians enjoyed different rights. The distinct rights of the Muslim Tartars and Christians and the discrepancies between rights in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown were rendered additionally complicated by the emergence of social estates throughout the whole state. Those problems are worthy of closer studies. It is necessary to investigate more thoroughly the economic foundations and professions of the plebeian Tartars, who comprised a separate group within a multi-ethnic community. This task is associated with a certain general problem, concerning the history of Tartars in Lithuania and Poland. The centurieslong presence and co-existence of the Tartars with other nationalities in the Polish-Lithuanian state was not tantamount to the decadence and disappearance of culture, but to its transformation and adaptation. Only the tongue of the arrivals, usually Kipchak or Bashkir, faded away since the Tartar settlers constituted a multi-ethnic community of diverse origin. Within a definite legal framework, both in Poland and in Lithuania, the group of the assorted Moslem incomers formed a new community, distinct in those countries.