53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.424

One entry on two pages of a book of the castle court of Kalisz for 1776, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). It is the office’s certificate, of 23 November 1776, that the boundary decree given for Prusimski had not been brought in at Kalisz. It is in Latin and is one document.

Historical background

The decree of the commission that fixed the boundary between Trąbczyn and Łukomia was entered in the court records at Brześć Kujawski on 23 September 1776 and from there in the book of the castle court of Konin: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145. A judgment gained its public standing from such an entry, and a party who meant to contest one had reason to establish where it had been entered and where not. A castle office would search its books on request and certify what it found.

The man who asks here, Antoni Leszczyc Mierzewski, bears the same name and arms as Maciej Leszczyc Mierzewski, one of the five commissioners who, two months earlier, had adjourned the cause as still open: 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.425.

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 question. On Saturday 23 November 1776 Antoni Leszczyc Mierzewski came before the castle office at Kalisz and asked whether the boundary decree between the estates of the villages of Łukom, Trąbczyn and others had been brought in to its records for entry: the decree given by the commissioners whom the Estates of the Commonwealth had appointed on the part of Antoni Prusimski of Kolno, Starost of Niszczewice, heir of Trąbczyn [1].

The search and the answer. The office went to its books of reports, in which papers brought in are received, and looked through them from the sitting of Thursday 17 October 1776 to that day. It answered that no boundary decree between those estates, given by the commissioners appointed on Prusimski’s part and brought onto the ground of the estates, stood in its records, and it certified this. Mierzewski signed the entry [1].

Form and language

The date line of the sitting stands halfway down leaf 322 verso and the entry in the middle of leaf 323; both pages are full of other entries, which are not transcribed. The Latin is abbreviated and the transcription writes it out.

Related holdings

The decree that was looked for: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145. The adjournment of 28 September 1776: 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.425.

Scans

The folder has one photograph of the book, showing two facing pages. It was cut at the fold into two pages. Both are shown whole, though the entry and its date line are a small part of them. The photograph is from Skanoteka, the scanning project of the Polish genealogical society (skanoteka.genealodzy.pl), and carry its watermark across the middle of the image.

Transcription

The editor transcribed the date line and the entry and supplied them by paragraph, with the Latin written out.

Check against the scan

An AI model (Claude) read the entry and its date line against the scan and corrected four readings. Two change the sense. The petitioner “asked whether” the decree had been brought in; the first reading had him ask for the decree. And the commissioners are “Illustrious and Right Honourable”, in the same words as a few lines before; the first reading had made them cup-bearers. The petitioner’s signature under the entry was added. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

The entry is one document, with the date line of its sitting as its first page: 23 November 1776.

Translation

The English is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in four places where the text had been corrected. The editor’s gloss on whose behalf the petitioner asked is kept in square brackets.

Summary

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