https://doi.org/10.31648/ep.12149
Feasts, festivities, and leisure were an important part of social life in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 17th century. Naturally, peasants, municipal residents, the nobility, the royal court, and the aristocracy maintained their own distinct customs and forms of celebration. Foreigners visiting Poland observed these events with considerable interest and recorded their impressions in diaries and memoirs. They noted that festivities and leisure activities took on varied forms, ranging from sleep to rowdy celebrations and lavish feasts, and from the quiet of domestic life to hunting sprees and gallops. Diplomats and politicians also reported on inns and rest stops along the major routes. Peregrinators described different forms of rest, ranging from physical relaxation, such as sleep, to the metaphysical repose of the eyes and the mind. Many memoirs contain descriptions of resting places in the vicinity of royal and aristocratic residences, mostly gardens. The article examines foreign accounts of these customs and places, seeking to determine whether there was a common perception of the described phenomena, and whether foreign observers’ descriptions and views of Polish customs differed, and if so, in what respects. Additionally, it examines how the observed events were described.
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