53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.425

One document of three pages in a book of the castle court of Kalisz for 1776, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). It is an adjournment made on 28 September 1776 by five commissioners in the boundary cause between Prusimski and Chełmski. It is in Polish, with a Latin record of entry.

Historical background

The Polish parliament appointed a commission in 1774 to end the boundary dispute between Trąbczyn and Łukomia. It opened on the ground on 13 September 1775. In its first days the commissioners fell out over who should keep the record, and the court divided. The part that sat under the president, Ludwik Dąmbski, walked the boundary, ruled for Prusimski, and put the rest of its business off to 21 May 1776; its decree was entered in the court records at Brześć Kujawski on 23 September 1776 with six signatures: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145.

The five commissioners who sign this adjournment are not among those six. One of them, Tomasz Radoński, is the boundary surveyor to whom the other part of the divided court had given the pen in 1775. Five days after the decree was entered at Brześć Kujawski, they treat the cause as still open before them and adjourn it.

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 adjournment. The commissioners appointed by the Estates of the Commonwealth to judge the cause between Prusimski, Starost of Niszczewice, heir of Trąbczyn, and Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski, heir of Łukomia, declare that they cannot bring it to an end by a final judgment at the term now falling due. The ordinary parliament is sitting at Warsaw and the Crown Tribunal at Piotrków, and some of them have business at the one and some at the other. The term in question had itself come from the adjournment made in the decree of 13 September of the year before. They put the meeting off to the first Monday after Epiphany 1777 and keep for the parties the final term for appearing before the commission on the ground of Łukomia. The act is done at their residences on 28 September 1776 [1].

The signatures. Five commissioners sign, each with his seal in red wax: Stefan Leszczyc Zielonacki, deputy judge of the Kalisz land court; Maciej Leszczyc Mierzewski; Tomasz Radoński, boundary surveyor of Kalisz; Stanisław Jabłkowski; and Stanisław Otto-Trąmpczyński [1].

The entry. On Monday 30 September 1776 Antoni Czyżewski 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 497 is the original, a smaller sheet than the book, written on both sides, signed and sealed; leaf 498 has the office’s Latin record. The Polish is in the spelling of the writer. One word at the end of a line runs into the fold of the book and its ending is supplied in square brackets. The back of the sheet has a docket, and the next leaf a register note, which are not transcribed.

Related holdings

The decree of the commission: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145. A search of the Kalisz records for that decree two months later: 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.424.

Scans

The folder has three photographs of the book, each showing two facing pages. Two were cut at the fold, and three of their four pages belong to the document. The third photograph has nothing that is transcribed and is not used. The photographs are 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 document and supplied it by paragraph.

Check against the scans

An AI model (Claude) read against the scans the closing line and the five signatures and the whole of the Latin record, and corrected six readings. The body of the adjournment, about 170 words of clear Polish, was not compared. Two corrections matter: two commissioners bear the arms-name Leszczyc, where the first reading had expanded it to Leszczyński; and the act is dated “at our residences”, where the first reading took the word for an unread place name. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

The original and the record of its entry are one document, dated 28 September 1776, the day of the act; it was brought to Kalisz on 30 September.

Translation

The English is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in five places where the text had been corrected.

Summary

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