Scottish Merchants in Poland 1550-1750

Abstract

Poland, for the purposes of this study is taken to be metropolitan Poland, that is the areas of the kingdom with Polish speaking people. In the west this area was bordered by the Mark of Brandenburg; in the south-west and south by Habsburg lands; in the south-east by the Ottoman Empire and in the east by Lithuania which did not become united to Poland until the Union Of Lublin in 1596. This study also generally excludes Danzig which, although under the Polish king, was a free city largely inhabited by Germanic peoples. Although this study is concerned with the period circa 1550-1750 it must not be presumed that there were no Scots in Poland before this. The Scots had had trading relations with Poland at least two centuries prior to this and it may reasonably be assumed, although there is no surviving documentary evidence to support this assumption, that once these relations were established Scots, in the form of factors and merchants, went to Poland to advance the trade.2