53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.115

Ten entries on nine pages of a register of the castle court of Konin for the years 1768 to 1774, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). They follow the quarrel between Antoni Prusimski of Trąbczyn and Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski of Łukomia from the citations of 1768 to the fighting over the Lusnia wood in 1771 to 1773. They are in Latin, two of them with a passage in Polish, and are ten documents.

Historical background

The Lusnia wood lay on the ground that Trąbczyn and Łukom both claimed, and Prusimski had settled Olęder farmers in it, with an inn. In November 1771 Chełmski, on the strength of judgments by default, had himself put into possession of the wood and its twelve settlers: 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.414. Prusimski did not accept it. For more than a year each side used force on the ground and then sent a court messenger to see the damage and report it at Konin. The commission of 1775 heard sworn witnesses on these same events, found that Chełmski had raided the inn with armed men, and gave the wood to Prusimski: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145. The reports here are one-sided by their nature: each says what one party asked a messenger to see.

The volume belongs to the archive’s fonds “Księgi sądu i urzędu grodzkiego w Koninie”, the books of the castle court and castle office of Konin. This book is a rough register: each day the office sat has a line beginning “Actum in Conin”, and under it short entries, each headed with the name of the party and the kind of entry. Many are one-line notes that a paper has been brought in and lies among the papers produced.

Contents

Citations, 1768. A note of January 1768 records Stanisław Chełmski’s citation of Antoni Prusimski and of the successors of the late Katarzyna Prusimska before the land court [1]. On 17 May 1768 two notes record citations before the Crown Tribunal at Bydgoszcz for the fixing of the boundary: Prusimski’s against the Chełmskis, the Żychliński heirs, Ignacy Gałecki, Starost of Bydgoszcz, and the abbot and convent of Ląd; and Chełmski’s against the abbot and convent of Ląd, Prusimski and Gałecki [2]. A note of the same month records that Prusimski brought in an extract from the castle court at Bydgoszcz with his approbation of a term for quashing a condemnation [3].

The delivery of Lusnia, December 1771. On 2 December 1771 the delivery of possession of the Lusnia wood with the Olęder settlers was brought in for Chełmski [4].

The first clash, December 1771. On 20 December Chełmski’s messenger, Nicolaus Krzepczyński of Myszaków, laid weapons before the office: five sabres, four spears, three long guns and a gun mounted with brass, loaded. Chełmski, he said, had taken them on the Monday before in the Lusnia wood, when Prusimski broke in by force and armed men besieged the innkeeper’s house [5]. The same day he reported what he had seen there with two noblemen: the embankment at the pond-ground dug through, its weir hacked to pieces and the water let out with the fish, twenty fresh-cut clubs left lying; and in the inn eight loopholes cut in the walls and three windows shot out. He laid the breaking of the embankment to more than thirty subjects of Trąbczyn, in Prusimski’s presence, and the shooting to Prusimski’s men at his order [6].

The inn stripped, November 1772. On 1 December 1772 another messenger, Joannes Bikierski of Węgierce, reported for Chełmski that on the Saturday before three windows and four doors had been taken out of the inn at night by Prusimski’s steward Lipiński and others, at Prusimski’s order, and carried off to Trąbczyn with a table and a barrel of beer [7].

Prusimski’s count of felled trees, February 1773. On 26 February 1773 the Trąbczyn messenger Bartłomiej Szepczyński reported for Prusimski: fifty-one stumps of building pine in the wood beyond Lusnia, carted off by Chełmski’s subjects, and thirty-two alder stumps on the meadows called Kąty, cut by men of the neighbouring estate of Podbiele [8].

The inn wrecked, January 1773. In March 1773 Chełmski entered a protest over his own signature: Prusimski, knowing that the settlers of Lusnia were adjudged to Chełmski, had let his steward Lipiński and his chamber servant Marzęcki ride upon the inn and the settlers [9]. Bikierski reported the damage: stove, three windows and four doors, newly put in by Chełmski, hacked out, the chimney ruined, the vessels smashed, in the night of 29 January [10].

Form and language

Each entry is a few lines among many others on its page; the pages are shown whole and the other entries are not transcribed. The Latin is heavily abbreviated and the transcription writes it out. Two of the notes of 1768 are transcribed only as far as they could be read, and “…” marks what is left out. Chełmski’s signature stands under his protest, and twice more at the foot of the page with the entries of 20 December 1771. Three entries stand under a sitting whose dated heading is on a page that was not photographed; they are dated to the month from the headings before and after them.

Related holdings

The delivery of possession of 1771: 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.414. The reports of 1767 on the embankment: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.114. The decree of 1775, which judged these events: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145.

Scans

The folder has sixteen images of this book, each showing two facing pages: eleven from the archive and five photographs. Nine carry an entry that is transcribed. Each of those was cut at the fold, and the half with the entry is shown. Seven images, and a subfolder of pages the editor set aside as not the right ones, are not used. The five 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 entries that concern Trąbczyn and Łukom and supplied them by paragraph, with the Latin written out. Two of the notes of 1768 were given only by their headings.

Check against the scans

An AI model (Claude) read against the scans every heading and date line, three of the longer entries whole and the second half of three more, and the notes of 1768, and corrected 24 readings. Those that change the sense: the weapons were presented “by special commission” of Chełmski; the wood is “built upon by the settlers”; the breaking of the embankment is laid to “the subjects of Trąbczyn”; the stripped inn’s fittings were carried off by a band “fitted out for a tumult”; “men”, not one man, of Podbiele cut the alders; and in the protest Chełmski is “heir” of Łukom and the possession was adjudged “to him, the protester”. The two notes given by their headings were read on the scans as far as that could be done with confidence. Chełmski’s signature under his protest was added. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

Each entry is a document; two notes of one sitting on one page are one document. Six documents are dated by the line “Actum in Conin” above them on their own page. Three stand under a sitting whose heading is on a page that is not among the images; they are dated to the month, from the dated headings before and after them in the book, and each says so.

Translation

The English of seven documents is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in nine places where the text had been corrected or where it had taken the Latin word for a hut to mean goods. The three early notes had no English; Claude translated them in the editor’s terms.

Summaries

The summaries were written in German from the Latin and Polish and translated into English. Each of their 31 statements was then checked against its document. All held.