53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.120

Two entries on three pages of the register of the castle court of Konin for 1785 and 1786, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). One records the injuries of a Trąbczyn subject beaten on the road; the other is a late step in Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski’s suit against Antoni Prusimski on the Tracholz debt. They are in Latin and are two documents.

Historical background

Chełmski had bought from the merchant Jan Tracholz a claim that went back to a contract of 1744 for oak timber with Paweł Prusimski, Antoni’s uncle, and had pursued it since 1777 through the land court, sittings on the ground and the Crown Tribunal: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118. Prusimski had always answered that the papers were not in his hands. The second entry here shows the suit still alive nine years on, and Chełmski now saying that the contract itself had stayed with Prusimski.

A person who had been beaten could come to the castle office and have his injuries seen and written down; the entry served as proof in a later suit. Such an entry is headed “obduxit”.

Contents

The beating of Andrzej Kinos. On 14 March 1785 Andrzej Kinos of Trąbczyn showed the office a bloodshot and swollen right eye, a bloodshot left eye, a swollen face and a swollen right shoulder, and stated that Marcin Sarzyński had beaten him with fists and a stick the Saturday before, barring his way on the public road at Obory as he went to Pleszew [1].

Chełmski’s citation of October 1786. A court messenger reported that he had served on Prusimski a citation before the Crown Tribunal, dated at Piotrków on 2 October 1786. Chełmski asks that Prusimski be bound under oath to produce the contract made with Tracholz for the sale of an oak wood, which had stayed with him; that he be punished for having had the cause sent from the court of the sitting on the ground to the full land court and on to the Tribunal; and that the land court’s decrees fixing the sitting on the ground be carried out [2].

Form and language

Each entry stands among others on its page; the pages are shown whole and the other entries are not transcribed. Near the head of the second entry the clerk began another text and struck six lines through; they are not transcribed. The second entry has no dated heading on the photographed pages and is dated from the citation it reports.

Related holdings

The suit on the Tracholz debt: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 53/6/0/-/47. The register before this one: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.119.

Scans

The folder has two photographs of this book, each showing two facing pages. Each was cut at the fold; three of the four halves carry a transcribed entry and are shown whole. 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 two entries and supplied them by paragraph, with the Latin written out. Six lines that the clerk struck out are not transcribed.

Check against the scans

An AI model (Claude) read both entries whole against the scans and corrected 16 readings. Those that change the sense: Kinos “showed the bruises written below”; the wood sold to Tracholz is an “oak” wood, where a letter had been left unread and the English had pine; what Prusimski is to produce is a “document”; and four words that had been passed over near the end are restored. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

Each entry is a document. The first is dated by the line “Actum in Conin” above it. The second has no heading on the photographed pages; the citation it reports is of 2 October 1786 and was served “on the second day of the month” of the entry, so the entry is of November or December 1786, and the document says so.

Translation

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

Summaries

The summaries were written in German from the Latin and translated into English. Each of their 7 statements was then checked against its document. All held.