53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.414

One document of three pages in a book of the castle court of Kalisz for 1771, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). It is the delivery of possession by which the Lusnia wood and the Olęder settlers living in it were handed to Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski of Łukomia in November 1771. It is in Latin, with the act of delivery itself in Polish.

Historical background

Lusnia was a wood on the disputed ground between Trąbczyn and Łukom. Antoni Prusimski, heir of Trąbczyn and Starost of Niszczewice, treated it as his and had settled Olęder farmers in it. Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski of Łukomia claimed it as his from of old. Through the 1760s Chełmski obtained judgments against Prusimski, several of them by default, before a court sitting on the ground and before the Crown Tribunal. A party that had won in this way was put into possession by an officer who went to the place, read out the judgments and handed the property over before witnesses. That act is a delivery of possession (traditio).

Four years later the tables were turned. The commission that fixed the boundary in 1775 found Lusnia to be Trąbczyn’s, set this delivery of possession aside as unlawful, and ordered Chełmski to repay the rents he had taken from the twelve settlers and the profits of the inn: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145.

The volume belongs to the archive’s fonds “Księgi sądu i urzędu grodzkiego w Kaliszu”, the books of the castle court and castle office of Kalisz. According to the archive’s description of the fonds, the castle court took shape at the end of the fourteenth century. For the nobility it first heard criminal cases under the four “castle articles”: arson, an attack on a nobleman’s house, robbery on the public road, and rape. In time its competence changed and came to include the other criminal cases, and suits over land and over sums of money, and it took over appeals from the town courts. Beside the court grew the castle office, where the court books were kept. The office was open every day for the entry of uncontested business, and its books had public credit. The fonds holds resignations, inscriptions, reports, judgments, papers brought in for entry, registers of causes, loose papers, oaths, citations, judgments under Magdeburg law and powers of attorney.

Contents

The occasion. The act was done on the Monday after All Saints 1771, in the wood called Lusnia and at the house standing there. Present were the noblemen Cajetan Grabski and Antoni and Konstanty Fulwarski, father and son, Józef Jaroszewski, the steward of Trąbczyn, and the court messenger Joannes Bykierski of Węgierce, who proclaimed the act [1].

The judgments recited. The officer acts at the request of Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski, heir of Łukomia, as the party that has won at law. He recites the judgments: a first condemnation given on the disputed ground in 1761 and entered at Konin; a decree of the Crown Tribunal of 1766, given at Bydgoszcz, between Chełmski and Antoni Prusimski, Starost of Niszczewice, ordering first of all that Łukom and Trąbczyn be divided by a boundary; a mandate of 1767 from the Tribunal at Poznań; a second Tribunal decree of 1768; and a third condemnation of 1770, entered at Kalisz, against Prusimski for contravening the decree [1].

The delivery. The act itself is in Polish. There is handed over to Chełmski the pine forest and wood called Lusnia, as belonging to Łukomia from of old, with the Olęder settlement founded in it not long before, which the settlers now call Olędry. First a house built for the sale of drink, with a new stable and no keeper; then the settlers, twelve of them, by name: Michał Kinos, Henryk Bedka, Jan and Krystyan Tulka, Bogusław Zelmer (written Celmer), Samuel Frinderberg, Bogusław Effthman, Krzysztofowa Kulawa (a widow or wife), Maciej Klinczpor, Brudzewski, Antoni Pisarz and Wawrzyniec Welner. No one contested the delivery. An inventory was drawn up, Chełmski was left in peaceful possession, and the settlers were ordered to obey him. The officer signs: Wawrzyniec Wstowski, sworn general commissioner of the provinces of Poznań and Kalisz [1].

The entry. On the Saturday before Saint Martin 1771 Antoni Serlatkowski brought the act to the castle office at Kalisz to be entered, and the original was sewn into the book [1].

Form and language

Leaf 402 is the original itself, a smaller sheet than the book, written on both sides and signed; leaf 403 has the office’s record at the top. The other half of the first scan belongs to another document. The Latin is written out from its abbreviations; the Polish stands in the clerk’s spelling. A reference number that the editor had put after one settler’s name is not part of the text and is taken out.

Related holdings

The reports of 1767 on the embankment that flooded these settlers: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.114. The decree of 1775 that set this delivery aside: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145.

Scans

The archive supplied two images, each showing two facing pages. Both were cut at the fold. Three of the four pages belong to the document; the fourth carries another text and is not shown.

Transcription

The editor transcribed the document and supplied it by paragraph, with the abbreviations of the Latin written out.

Check against the scans

An AI model (Claude) read against the scans the opening, the whole of the delivery in Polish with the settlers’ names and the closing, and the record of entry, and corrected six readings. The middle of the recital of the Tribunal’s decrees, about 200 words, was not compared. One correction changes the sense: the delivery was completed “no one contesting it”, where the first reading had it formally challenged. A reference number of the editor’s that stood after one name was taken out. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

The original and the record of its entry are one document, dated 4 November 1771, the day of the delivery; it was brought to Kalisz on 9 November.

Translation

The English is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in three places where the text had been corrected. The editor’s notes are kept as translator’s notes; four that commented on readings since corrected are left out.

Summary

The summary was written in German from the Latin and Polish and translated into English. Each of its eight statements was then checked against the document. All held.