Goślicki, Wawrzyniec G. (ca. 1530–1607)

Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki (ca. 1530–1607)—also known by his Latin name, Laurentius Grimaldius Goslicius—was born to a distinguished, but poor, noble family near the village of Goślice, Poland. While nearly forgotten today, Goślicki was once known across Europe for his accomplishments as a philosopher, bishop, statesman, and as the author of The Accomplished Senator (1568; published as De Optimo Senatore).

Goślicki was not a modern libertarian or classical liberal. Nevertheless, he is an important figure in the history of liberty. 

His arguments for constitutional government, the rule of law, and religious liberty played a significant role in the development of English liberal thought. The Accomplished Senator was frequently excerpted in Leveller tracts during the English Civil War¹ and influenced Shakespeare’s Hamlet.² Some have argued that Goślicki’s ideas, through Robert Bellarmine, influenced Algernon Sidney and Thomas Jefferson.³

Goślicki also had a distinguished political career, in which he often defended liberal views at great personal cost. He argued in his writings and parliamentary addresses for liberty and tolerance in a time when absolutism and religious strife were growing across Europe. While his historical influence remains contested, Goślicki should be seen as an important “proto-libertarian”—a progenitor of (classical) liberal ideas rather than a liberal himself.

Many details of Goślicki’s life remain uncertain. No one is exactly sure about his birthdate—scholars have suggested dates as early as 1520 and as late as 1537.⁴

We do know Goślicki’s family—the Grzymała—were old and distinguished szlachta (petty nobles), but of modest means, like many in the region around Goślice. The Grzymała struggled financially and could not afford to send the ambitious young Wawrzyniec to university. In the complex social system of sixteenth-​century Poland-​Lithuania, they were “middle-​class” nobility—somewhere between the great “magnate” families, like the Radziwiłł or Ostrogski, and the innumerable “farmer-​nobles” of Mazovia, who tilled their own fields. 

Fortunately, Goślicki attracted the attention of Piotr Myszkowski, the Bishop of Kraków, who saw in him the potential to be a great churchman.⁵ Myszkowski became Goślicki’s patron, and in 1556, Goślicki entered the Royal University in Kraków at the unusually late age of thirty.⁶ He enrolled in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Philosophy, where he came under the influence of renowned humanist, theologian, and classicist Jakub Górski, who set him on the study of Cicero, Aristotle, and Plato.⁷ Five years later, he also began theological studies, a prerequisite for the ecclesiastical career he was to pursue.

Goślicki must have done well at Kraków, because—likely on the recommendation of Jakub Górski—he continued his studies at the University of Padua and (from 1567) the University of Bologna, two of the most eminent universities in Europe. They are the same universities Goślicki’s compatriot Copernicus attended a generation before. 

Goślicki attained a master’s and then a doctoral degree in canon and civil law under noted humanist Carlo Sigonio.⁸ Goślicki supplemented his study of law with philosophy, theology, and Greek. Presenting a practical streak that became a hallmark of his philosophy, he also spent time travelling around Italy with other Polish students, attending the Papal Court in Rome, and learning about Italian life, customs, and language.

Both the Universities of Padua and Bologna were renowned across Europe for their law programs in the sixteenth century. Graduates would often be granted government positions just for having studied there. Goślicki’s doctorate in civil and canon law, extensive foreign experience, and publication in excellent Latin made him a choice candidate for these positions, and in 1569, he was recruited by the Polish Royal Chancellery and diplomatic service.

This was the beginning of a prominent political career. Goślicki, conscientious, well-​spoken, and trustworthy, moved through the ranks quickly. He represented the Polish crown in negotiations with its vassal city Gdańsk in 1570 and in dynastic disputes in Hungary and Brunswick in 1571.⁹ During the royal election following King Sigismund Augustus’s death in 1572, the Sejm (the Polish parliament) selected him for the delicate task of telling Maximilian von Habsburg he had lost the election—and as the story goes, Goślicki’s quick thinking ended up saving Maximilian’s life from a disgruntled courtier.¹⁰ By 1574, Goślicki was prominent enough that he was appointed a royal secretary by King Stefan Batory,¹¹ despite Goślicki initially opposing Batory’s election.

Goślicki moved up the ecclesial ladder as quickly as he did the political. In 1586 or 1587, he was appointed the Bishop of Kamieniec Podolski and thereby became a senator.¹² This was followed by a rapid series of promotions to the Bishoprics of Chełm (1590), Przemysł (1591), and, eventually, Poznań (1601).

It was in his first year in the senate that Goślicki made perhaps his greatest political contribution to the cause of liberty. He was the only bishop, ecclesiastic, or churchman to confirm and constitutionalize the Warsaw Confederation, a guarantee to freedom of conscience for all Polish nobles (nearly fifteen percent of the Polish population).¹³ Goślicki incurred the wrath of the pope, who sent letters to Goślicki expressing his displeasure (and, some say, excommunicated him),¹⁴ which likely cost him the prestigious bishoprics of Płock and Kraków, despite his obvious suitability for the positions.¹⁵

Regardless of the cost, Goślicki upheld his principles. He incurred royal and Papal wrath again for speaking out against Polish involvement in the Muscovite Civil War and Polish participation in the Anti-​Turkish league.¹⁶ As Goślicki scholar Teresa Bałuk-​Ulewiczowa writes, “In his political opinions and undertakings he often championed socially important causes in the face of strong opposition or sided with minority views.” ¹⁷ 

This conflict did not prevent Goślicki from becoming the Royal Chancellor for Transylvania, a leading man of the Sejm, and—by some accounts—the “third man” in Poland behind King Stefan Batory and renowned magnate Jan Zamoyski.¹⁸ A sixteenth-​century chronicler remarked that Goślicki’s deeds were so illustrious that he “may be recommended more by his own merits than by … pen.… You shall be reading more about his merits in history.”¹⁹ 

When Goślicki died of old age on the thirty-​first of October 1607, he was interred in Poznań Cathedral, where a magnificent tombstone carrying his likeness stands to this day.

While Goślicki was visiting Rome in 1567, he published a book that cemented his place in the history of liberty: The Accomplished Senator. Goślicki wanted to write a guide for senators, just like Machiavelli had written a guide for princes. Some of this, like Machiavelli, is practical advice, such as Goślicki’s discussion of “manly exercises.” The majority of The Accomplished Senator, however, is a discourse on good government.

Goślicki’s conception of good government is surprisingly libertarian, especially for a sixteenth-​century bishop. More than a century before Locke, he advocated for a constitutionally limited government that respects individual rights and the rule of law. These ideas challenged the absolute monarchy seen throughout Europe.

Goślicki’s argument begins with the individual: man is made in the image of God, “who breathed into him a Divine Mind and Understanding”²⁰ and a “high and extensive dignity.”²¹ Happiness consists in the perfection of this divine nature through the exercise of virtue.²² The role of government is to “fix and secure” the conditions for individuals to pursue this happiness²³ through “all imaginable regard” to “authority, law, and liberty.”²⁴ This involves providing for the general safety, promoting commerce, and administering justice, among other things.²⁵

Goślicki believed a constitution was necessary to ensure the state remained just. Constitutionalizing the rule of law, the division of powers, and individual rights²⁶ were essential to a regime where people could pursue virtuous happiness. Goślicki also argued for a powerful senate, in part because he considered it simply more effective at governing than the other branches of government. A senate comprised of the most virtuous and the most talented, he reasoned, would be better equipped at governing than either an individual king or the uneducated, inexperienced people. Senators could complement one another’s strengths and weaknesses,²⁷ and they would have more knowledge and wisdom together than even the most excellent king.²⁸ Nonetheless, Goślicki felt sure that without a king as an executive, a senate would be impotent, as setting too many people to a task confuses it.²⁹

Goślicki saw the senate as a “middle body” between the rulers and the ruled.³⁰ He believed this made it well-​situated to check both tyranny and mob rule. As such, Goślicki ascribed to senators the right to elect the king—and, Goślicki daringly implies, impeach and remove him³¹—as well as the general policing power. Senators are also the main guardians of the rule of law: Goślicki proposed that a king should be unable to wage war or peace without “the advice and consent” of the senate, nor “break in upon the laws they set for him.”³² These and other ideas led historian of legal thought Wenceslaus Wagner to dub The Accomplished Senator “modern constitutional law in the 16th century.”³³

Goślicki was among the first to argue for a right to revolution in the European canon of political thought,³⁴ stating in language reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence that “sometimes a people, justly provoked and irritated, by the Tyranny and Usurpations of their Kings, take upon themselves the undoubted Right of vindicating their own liberties.”³⁵ Queen Elizabeth, apparently, found it so dangerous she had The Accomplished Senator banned soon after it was republished—though later scholars challenge this.³⁶

Goślicki was not a classical liberal. In line with the typical opinions of his time, he believed that the government needed to actively safeguard public morality, that most people needed an enlightened few to run their lives, and that nobles and peasants should not be equal before the law.

Nevertheless, he is an important and underread ancestor of the classical liberal tradition. While “influence” in intellectual history is complex to prove, Goślicki deserves more credit than he has received for influencing the history of thought.

Goślicki is one of many “grandfathers” of classical liberalism—a sort of “proto-​libertarian.” His work and career inspired future generations. The Levellers excerpted and championed The Accomplished Senator so frequently that one scholar argued “[Goślicki’s] work played a similar role in the English Civil War as Rousseau’s played in the French Revolution.”³⁷

Tytus Filipowicz argues that The Accomplished Senator influenced Robert Bellarmine to challenge the divine right of kings and traced a line of influence through Algernon Sidney to Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence.³⁸

Interestingly, a century of Shakespeare scholarship has determined Goślicki’s work is the progenitor of the character Polonius (“Polish” in Latin) in Hamlet and may have influenced other references to Poland in the text.³⁹ Some researchers in English cultural and religious history have also mentioned Goślicki as an influence on English manners and religious thought during the time.⁴⁰

Goślicki is a reminder that liberty is more than just a Western European construct, that there was “liberty before liberalism,” and that liberty and faith do not have to be in conflict.

Endnotes

1. Wieńcyzsław J. Wagner, Arthur P. Coleman, and Charles S. Haight, “Laurentius Grimaldus Goslicius and His Age––Modern Constitutional Law Ideas in the XVI Century,” The Polish Review 3, no. 1/2 (1958): 37–57, https://​www​.jstor​.org/​s​t​a​b​l​e​/​2​5​7​76165
2. Teresa Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator and His Cultural Impact over the Centuries: Shakespearean Reflections (Kraków: UJ & PAU, 2009).
3. H. E. Tytus Filipowicz, Herbert Kraus, and Emilio Codesido Bello, “The Accomplished Senator,” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting (1921–1969) 26 (1932): 234–49, https://​www​.jstor​.org/​s​t​a​b​l​e​/​2​5​6​56847
4. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 11–13, for a discussion of Goslicki’s birthdate.
5. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 14.
6. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 13.
7. Stanisław Hadyna, “Biskup kamieniecki Wawzyniec Goślicki––życie i działalność,” Rocznik Historyczny Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego 35 (2019): 197.
8. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 13.
9. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 14.
10. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 13.
11. Wagner, Coleman, and Haight, “Laurentius Grimaldus Goslicius,” 49.
12. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 13.
13. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 14.
14. Marian Hillar, “The Polish Socinians: Contributions to Freedom of Conscience and the American Constitution,” Dialogue and Universalism XIX, no. 3–5 (2009): 45–79, 12.
15. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 14.
16. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 14.
17. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 14.
18. Joseph Teslar, “Le Chancelier Jan Zamoyski et Son Oeuvre,” Études Slaves et Est-​Européennes / Slavic and East-​European Studies 2, no. 3 (1957): 161–76, https://​www​.jstor​.org/​s​t​a​b​l​e​/​4​1​0​55627
19. Paprocki, 1858, 617, quoted in Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 13.
20. Laurence Grimald Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator (1568; repr., American Institute of Polish Culture, 2016), 5.
21. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 5.
22. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 22–46.
23. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 13 (among many).
24. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 33.
25. Goślicki also advocates the decidedly less libertarian goals of promoting general morality, banning excessive luxury, and other things.
26. (viz. habeas corpus, voting rights, and freedom of speech)
27. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 37–38.
28. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 36–36.
29. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 36.
30. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 22–46 (generally).
31. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 32–33.
32. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 52.
33. Wagner, Coleman, and Haight, “Laurentius Grimaldus Goslicius,” 37–57.
34. The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Wawrzyniec Goślicki,” in Encyclopedia Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2024), https://​www​.bri​tan​ni​ca​.com/​b​i​o​g​r​a​p​h​y​/​W​a​w​r​z​y​n​i​e​c​-​G​o​s​licki
35. Gozliski, The Accomplished Senator, 32–33.
36. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 140–56.
37. Filipowicz, Kraus, and Bello, “The Accomplished Senator,” 234–49.
38. Filipowicz, Kraus, and Bello, “The Accomplished Senator,” 234–49.
39. Ulewiczowa, Goslicius’ Ideal Senator, 22.
40. Krystyna Kujawinska-​Courtney, “Shakespeare in Poland: Selected Issues,” in Shakespeare Around the Globe: A Collection of Essays, ed. John Golder (Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, 2004).

Bibliography

Bałuk-​Ulewiczowa, Teresa. Goslicius’ Ideal Senator and His Cultural Impact over the Centuries: Shakespearean Reflections. Edited by Lucyna Nowak. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński; UJ & PAU, 2009.

Filipowicz, H. E. “The Accomplished Senator.” Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting (1921–1969) 26, no. April 28–30, 1932 (1932): 234–49. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​2​5​6​56847.

Gozliski, Laurence Grimald. The Accomplished Senator. Kindle edition. Originally published 1568; reprint, American Institute of Polish Culture, 2016.

Hadyna, Stanisław. “Biskup Kamieniecki Wawrzyniec Goślicki – Życie I Działalność.” Rocznik Historyczny Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego 35, no. 2019 (2019). https://​mhprl​.pl/​r​o​c​z​n​i​k​-​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​c​z​n​y​-​m​h​p​r​l​-​d​o​-​p​o​b​r​ania/.

Hillar, Marian. “The Polish Socinians: Contribution to Freedom of Conscience and the American Constitution.” Dialogue and Universalism XIX, no. 3–5 (2009): 45–79.

Kujawinska-​Courtney, Krystyna. “Shakespeare in Poland: Selected Issues.” In Shakespeare Around the Globe: A Collection of Essays, edited by John Golder. Victoria, BC: University of Victoria, 2004.

Teslar, Joseph. “Le Chancelier Jan Zamoyski et Son Oeuvre.” Études Slaves et Est-​Européennes / Slavic and East European Studies 2, no. 3 (1957): 161–76. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​2​3​0​7​/​4​1​0​55627.

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Wawrzyniec Goślicki.” In Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2024. https://​www​.bri​tan​ni​ca​.com/​b​i​o​g​r​a​p​h​y​/​W​a​w​r​z​y​n​i​e​c​-​G​o​s​licki.

Wagner, Wieńczysław J., Arthur P. Coleman, and Charles S. Haight. “Laurentius Grimaldus Goslicius and His Age — Modern Constitutional Law Ideas in the XVI Century.” The Polish Review 3, no. 1/2 (1958). http://​www​.jstor​.org/​s​t​a​b​l​e​/​2​5​7​76165.