53/6/0/-/45

One entry of two pages in a book of decrees of the land court at Konin for the years 1750 to 1765, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). It is a decree in a suit over potash between the widow Katarzyna Prusimska and Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski, given at the court’s sitting of 1763. It is in Latin and is one document.

Historical background

A land court heard the civil suits of the nobility of its district. Its clerk entered each decree in a book, under the heading of the sitting at which it was given and numbered in order. This entry is no. 17 of its sitting.

Trąbczyn belonged to the Prusimski family and the neighbouring estate of Łukomia to the Chełmski family. The two families were at law for decades over the boundary between the estates. In the 1760s that suit was before the Crown Tribunal, the court of appeal of the Polish nobility; it was ended by the commission of 1775, whose decree is 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145. Potash, the ash of burnt wood, was made in the forests and sent to Gdańsk for export. It belonged to the owner of the wood it was made from, which is why a dispute over potash turned on the boundary.

The volume belongs to the archive’s fonds “Księgi sądu ziemskiego w Koninie”, the books of the land court at Konin. According to the archive’s description of the fonds, the land court at Konin was a court of the nobility. The starost or his deputy, as the king’s lieutenant, had the leading part in it, with the judge, the sub-judge, the voivode, the chamberlain and the standard-bearer. The court travelled round the palatinate and held its sittings in the district; the terms at which it sat were called “roczki”. It was competent in every suit in which a nobleman was the defendant, except those assigned to other courts, such as the dietine courts or the royal court, and except uncontested business. In 1792 its competence passed to a new land court, the “sąd ziemiański”. The fonds holds resignations, inscriptions, reports, judgments, papers brought in for entry, registers of causes, citations, extracts and inquiries.

Contents

The parties. Katarzyna Prusimska, born Rozdrażewska, a widow, appears with Joseph Puchalski through Albert Żurawski; Stanisław Ścibor Chełmski appears with one Czajkowski through Ignatius Byszewski. Each side is at once plaintiff and summoned, each having sued the other [1].

The inquiry. The court finds that the claims cannot be decided without sworn testimony. It orders each side to bring in its witnesses while the sitting lasts, and assigns the court’s summoner to speak the words of the oath to them. The witnesses are examined and the testimony is read out in court [1].

What the testimony showed. In 1761 Prusimska sent potash-burners off with potash; when it had been made is not established. Chełmski, on his way to Poznań, came upon them near the town of Pyzdry as they were making for Gdańsk. He had the potash sequestered and put into an inn at Pyzdry, and laid an arrest on it with the notary of the customs house. Afterwards the burners, helped by two noblemen, Wawrowski and Gotartowski, took the potash away over the notary’s objection and brought it to Gdańsk [1].

The decree. The court does not decide the claim. The suit over the boundary between Trąbczyn and Łukom is pending before the Crown Tribunal between the same parties, and only the fixing of that boundary will show on whose ground the potash was made. The court therefore suspends the matter until the boundary is decided, and orders the testimony to be handed to the parties from its chancery in a closed roll [1].

Form and language

The entry begins halfway down leaf 653 verso and fills leaf 654 recto. The upper half of the first page is the end of the entry before it, on another matter, and is not transcribed. The Latin is heavily abbreviated; the transcription fills the abbreviations out. Words the clerk struck out are not given.

The entry has no date of its own. The heading of the sitting stands on leaf 638, which the editor transcribed but which is not among the scans: “Actum in Judiciis Terrestribus Palatinatus Calissiensis Districtualibus Feria Secunda post Festum Sanctissimae et Individuae Trinitatis proxima Anno Domini Millesimo Septingentesimo Sexagesimo Tertio in Conin in propria Cadentia Celebratis”. That is: done in the district land court of the province of Kalisz, held at Konin in its own term, on the Monday after Trinity Sunday 1763, which was 30 May. The year of the document is taken from this heading.

Related holdings

The decree of the commission that fixed the boundary between Trąbczyn and Łukomia in 1775: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145.

Scans

The archive supplied one image, which shows two facing pages of the bound volume. It was cut at the fold into two pages. Both are kept whole, although the entry begins only halfway down the first.

Transcription

The editor transcribed the entry and supplied it by paragraph, not line by line, with the clerk’s abbreviations filled out. The editor also transcribed the heading of the court’s sitting from leaf 638. That leaf is not among the images, so the heading is quoted in the description of this holding and is not a page of the edition.

Check against the scan

An AI model (Claude) read the whole entry word for word against the scan and corrected thirteen readings. Several were settled by the entry before it on the same page, which uses the same formulas written out a little more fully. Two words that had been left unread were read: the court’s summoner, and what he was assigned to do. In three places the scan does not decide and the editor’s reading stands. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

The entry is one document. It has no date of its own. Its year is taken from the heading of the sitting it belongs to, which opened on 30 May 1763; the day of this decree within the sitting is not known.

Translation

The English is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in six places where the Latin had been corrected. The largest is the middle of the decree: the earlier reading had the court adding a roll to the record and going on to a fourth session, where the scan has it assigning its summoner to speak the oath to the witnesses and going on to the reading of their testimony; and it is Prusimska who sent the potash-burners off. Two of the editor’s seven notes are kept. The other five commented on readings that the scan does not have. An automatic check compared the terms of the two texts.

Summary

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