Note 25 — Chapter II · THE JEWISH COLONIES IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA

[They were organized in mercantile guilds and trade-unions and formed the estate of burghers, called in Polish mieszczanie—pronounced myeshchanye—and in Latin oppidani, "town-dwellers," thus standing midway between the nobility, or Shlakhta (see p. 58, n. 1), and the serfs, or khlops.]