Before 1772, Poland joined to Lithuania with 730 000 square kilometres and approximately twelve million inhabitants represented one of the largest states in Europe. This period, however, was a time of a severe, many-sided crisis which resulted in the partition of the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian state between 1772 and 1779 by three neighbouring dynamic and developing states, Russia, Prussia and Austria. To engage in the long and difficult discussion of the causes of Poland's fall lies beyond the scope of this essay, but it is important to stress that the history of this great state cannot be viewed exclusively through the prism of this catastrophe. It must be linked to changes that took place gradually within Poland after a series of disastrous epidemics, invasions and wars during the early eighteenth century. Within the framework of the comparative study of Catholic societies in eighteenth-century Europe, this essay attempts to define the nature of Polish society and within it the place of the church. The discussion will be limited to the period before the first partition of 1772–3, since during the last quarter of the century important changes occurred which affected religion in Poland, but which are not relevant here.

In comparison with western Europe during the eighteenth century, Poland was more heavily agricultural and less urbanized. The urban population comprised only a small proportion of the total, most of which lived in hundreds of small villages and worked the land.