53/6/0/-/47

One entry on three pages of a book of decrees of the land court at Konin for the years 1781 to 1791, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu). It is a decree of the sitting of autumn 1783 on an assault by men of Antoni Prusimski’s household on a settler of Stanisław Chełmski’s. It is in Latin and is one document.

Historical background

The boundary between Prusimski’s Trąbczyn and Chełmski’s Łukom had been marked on the ground in December 1782, after the Crown Tribunal’s judgment: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153. This decree shows the two neighbours at law again within a year, now over a beating. The Olęder settlers were free tenant farmers whom both estates had planted in the woods along the old boundary; who they belonged to had been part of the boundary dispute.

The decree opens with an older matter. In 1780 Chełmski had obtained a condemnation against Prusimski at a sitting on the ground at Grab, in the suit on a debt he had bought from the merchant Tracholz: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118. An “arrest” in these suits is an order, laid by a citation on a lord, to keep named subjects of his ready to be produced in court. A party under such a condemnation had to show that he was entitled to be heard at all before he could answer a new suit.

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

Standing. Chełmski, plaintiff, through Józef Stablewski, raises the condemnation of 1780 against Prusimski, who is cited. Prusimski does not show his right to be heard and submits to the court’s discretion. The court lays a money penalty on him, payable at once on pain of banishment, and admits him to the cause [1].

The inquiry. Because the cause concerns acts of violence, the court orders both parties to examine witnesses on oath, with written questions exchanged beforehand. Both swear that their witnesses are not suborned, and both hand in their records [1].

What the court finds. Men serving Prusimski’s household came from Trąbczyn, off their road, to the deserted settlement of Smoleniec, which belongs to Chełmski’s Łukom. They asked the Olęder settler Jan Kłonica whose village it was. He answered that these settlers belonged to Chełmski. Prusimski’s under-coachman called him a liar and struck him with a whip, the coachman beat him with a pine stick until it broke, and the under-coachman shouted that he should be killed. Kłonica fled into an alder grove. The men went to his house, took a servant from it by force and beat him, on the way to the tavern of Tomice as well; the servant came home the next day. A witness complained that day to Prusimski himself, who passed along the same road and promised to settle the matter at home [1].

The decree. The acts were done on Chełmski’s ground. The inquiry does not show whether Prusimski knew of them or ordered them, and only the coachman Józef and the under-coachman Walenty are accused; neither is at Trąbczyn any longer. Prusimski says he cannot produce them and offers an oath. The court orders him to swear within six weeks before the castle office at Konin that the arrest Chełmski had obtained did not reach them, and that he has no means of producing them, on pain of banishment. The records of the inquiry stay in the chancery [1].

Form and language

The entry is no. 26 of its sitting. It fills leaf 239 verso and leaf 240; for want of room the clerk wrote its end on an earlier leaf, 236 verso, under entry no. 22, and marked both places. The first page is in a hurried hand that abbreviates heavily; from the findings on, a second and clearer hand writes. The images are frames of a black and white microfilm.

The entry has no date of its own. The heading of the sitting, which the editor transcribed from a page that is not among the images, reads: “Actum in Judiciis Terrestribus Palatinatus Calissiensis Districualibus Feria Secunda post Festum Sanctae Haedvigis Viduae Electae videlicet Die vigesima mensis Octobris Anno Domini Millesimo Septingentesimo Octuagesimo Tertia in Conin Celebratis”. The entry stands twenty-six leaves after that heading.

Related holdings

The boundary as marked in 1782: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153. The suit on the Tracholz debt and the sitting at Grab: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118. An earlier decree of the same court, of 1777: 53/6/0/-/46.

Scans

The folder has three frames of a microfilm of this book, each showing two facing pages. Two carry the entry. They were cut at the fold, and three of their four halves are shown, in the order in which the entry is read. The third frame has a later entry between other parties, which is not part of the edition.

Transcription

The editor transcribed the entry and the heading of its sitting and supplied them by paragraph, with the Latin written out.

Check against the scans

An AI model (Claude) read the whole entry against the microfilm and corrected 18 readings. On the first page a line had been skipped, between two occurrences of the words “et quoniam”: the court finds Prusimski bound to show his right to be heard, and he does not show it. What Chełmski raises against him is a “condemnation” at Grab, not a sitting on the ground. The witnesses are examined on written questions “exchanged between the parties”; the word that had been left unread after that is “the accused”, whose production the court puts off. The servant who came home is “the aforesaid” servant, not one who had been released. Prusimski is to swear “from now and from this act” within six weeks. The clerk’s two directions that join the parts of the entry were added. Each change is logged with its reason.

Division and dating

The entry is one document. It has no date of its own; it is dated to the year from the heading of its sitting, 20 October 1783, which stands twenty-six leaves earlier on a page that is not among the images, and the document says so.

Translation

The English is the editor’s own translation and was not made again. It was changed in eleven places where the text had been corrected. The editor’s translator’s notes, which discussed readings now settled, are left out.

Summary

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