53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.119

Eight entries on eight pages of the register of the castle court of Konin for 1783 and 1784, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). They are from the first two years after the boundary between Trąbczyn and Łukomia was marked on the ground, and show the two owners at law again at once. They are in Latin and are eight documents.

Historical background

In December 1782 a boundary officer raised forty-one mounds along the line the Crown Tribunal had drawn between Antoni Prusimski’s Trąbczyn and Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski’s Łukom: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153. Days later Prusimski’s steward protested that Chełmski’s people had cut 221 pines on the Trąbczyn side of it: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118. The entries here begin three months after that. Both sides now sued in the castle court of Kalisz, the court of the Starost General of Greater Poland, which heard charges of violence.

Most of the entries are court messengers’ reports: the messenger came to the office and declared on which day and where he had left a citation, and the clerk wrote its text, or only its parties, into the register.

Contents

Chełmski’s citations, March 1783. By a citation of 10 March 1783 Chełmski and his steward Ignacy Jaroszewski charged Prusimski’s steward Leon Maszewski with breaking into the pine wood that the Tribunal’s line had left, with one Olęder settler, to Łukom, and with taking oxen, carts and axes from Chełmski’s people; named men of Trąbczyn and Nowa Wieś were put under arrest by it, and Prusimski was to be punished too if he had given the order [1]. A second citation of the same day charged Prusimski with an inroad “with men and dogs” into Łomowo, an estate belonging to Łukom [2].

Searches and counter-citations. On 18 March 1783 Chełmski’s messenger asked the office whether two citations of Prusimski’s against his master had been reported; the office found one report, of 29 November 1782, and certified that there was no other [3]. The same day Prusimski’s messenger reported a citation for Prusimski, Maszewski and Franciszek Liberacki against Chełmski [4]. On 22 May he reported another, by which Prusimski asked to be relieved of a penalty of fourteen marks and of a process entered against him in the register of penalties [5]. A further citation of Chełmski’s against Prusimski was reported in May [6].

Prusimski’s protest, October 1783. Cited before the land court to produce certain men and to answer for an act of violence, Prusimski protested that, if those men did it, it was done without his knowledge or order; that he could produce only two of the men named, Gregory and Thomas; and that the arrest had not reached the others. He signed [7]. The land court’s decree in that cause, on the beating of an Olęder settler at Smoleniec, cites this protest: 53/6/0/-/47.

A search in 1784. On 15 September 1784 Maszewski, now styled commissioner of the Trąbczyn estates, asked whether the report of a citation of Chełmski’s before the Crown Tribunal, brought to Trąbczyn a week earlier, had been declared; the office certified that it had not [8].

Form and language

Each entry stands among others on its page; the pages are shown whole and the other entries are not transcribed. The Latin is formulaic and heavily abbreviated. Four entries have no dated heading of a sitting above them: one is dated from the heading higher on its page, three to the month from the citation they report, the headings before and after, or the land court’s decree; each says so. Seven further photographs show entries that are not transcribed.

Related holdings

The boundary as marked in 1782: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153. The register before this one: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118. The land court’s decree of autumn 1783: 53/6/0/-/47.

Scans

The folder has fourteen photographs of this book, each showing two facing pages. Seven carry an entry that is transcribed; each of those was cut at the fold, and eight halves are shown whole. Seven photographs show entries that the editor did not transcribe and are 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 eight entries and supplied them by paragraph, with the Latin written out.

Check against the scans

An AI model (Claude) read every entry against the scans, word for word, and corrected 56 readings: 48 in a first pass, which left one entry and the first half of another unread, and 8 when those were read at the editor’s word.

Those that change the sense: in the search of September 1784 a line had been passed over, and the office certifies that the report of citation does “not exist”; in Chełmski’s second citation a phrase was restored, that Łomowo “belongs to the plaintiff’s principal estate of Łukom”; the acts are charged as done at “your” order, Prusimski’s, not his steward’s; the citation asks that “the production of the men be ordered and an inquiry held”, where two words had been left unread; in his protest Prusimski offers “to clear himself”, not to make amends; and in the report of May 1783 a line had been passed over, which says that the citation was left at the farm at Nowa Wieś. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

Each entry is a document. Three are dated by the line “Actum in Conin” directly above them and one by the heading higher on its page. Four have no dated heading on a photographed page: two are dated to March 1783 from the citation they report and the next heading, one to May 1783 from the heading three leaves before it, and Prusimski’s protest to October 1783 from the land court’s decree that cites it. Each says so.

Translation

The English is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in fourteen places where the text had been corrected, and “Captain” for “Capitaneus” was made “Starost” throughout at the editor’s word, as in their other translations.

Summaries

The summaries were written in German from the Latin and translated into English. Each of their 27 statements was then checked against its document. All held.