53/64/0/-/Kalisz Tab.21

Thirteen pages of a tax register of 1789, kept in the State Archive in Poznań (Archiwum Państwowe w Poznaniu) in its collection of tax tables and surveys. The archive calls the volume “Podymne z woj. kaliskiego”, the hearth tax of the Kalisz voivodeship. The pages are leaf 1, leaves 7 to 9 and leaves 18 to 20, and they are one document, a table.

Historical background

The hearth tax (podymne) was a tax of the Polish Commonwealth laid on houses, counted by their chimneys, and paid in instalments. The archive’s collection holds what is left of the tax tables of the old voivodeships of Greater Poland; such tables listed what was taxed and were the basis on which the tax was collected. In 1789 Trąbczyn belonged to Antoni Prusimski, Starost of Niszczewice, and its neighbour Łukom to the Chełmski family: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153.

A table of the villages around Konin made for the Prussian administration about eight years later counts the houses and inhabitants of many of the same places: 1/169/0/1/1745.

Two colonies of Olęders, settlers who held their land by contract with the owner, had been founded on the Trąbczyn estate. Their names changed over time: first Trąbczyńskie Stare Olędry and Trąbczyńskie Nowe Olędry, the old and the new Olęder colony of Trąbczyn, and later Łazińskie Stare Olędry and Łazińskie Nowe Olędry; the sources write them in several forms. Łazy, which the register enters beside them, is a separate village of the estate.

Contents

The printed title on leaf 1 calls the volume the register of the hearth tax collected and of the orders to pay (delaty) issued out of that tax to the Crown army, for the instalment due at St John’s 1789 [1]. Each line has the number of a receipt, the name of a town, a village, a demesne farm or a part of a village, and a sum in złoty and groszy. The sum stands under one of two headings: “collected”, or “delata”, where the money was paid on an order straight to the army [1].

The receipts are numbered district by district. Leaf 1 opens the Pyzdry district with entries 1 to 29. Leaves 7 and 8 have its last entries, 379 to 448, and then the Kalisz district from its heading to entry 107, which ends leaf 9. Leaves 18 to 20 have entries 58 to 238 of a third district. Its heading is not on these pages; the places, among them Tuliszkow, Władysławow, Rychwał and Rzgow, are those of the Konin district [1].

Trąbczyn is entry 178 of that district, written “Trąpczyn”, with 80 złoty collected. The lines that follow it belong to the same estate: the subjects of the parish priest at Trąbczyn, 20 złoty; Łazy, 12 złoty 15 groszy; Osiny, 17 złoty 15 groszy; Nowa Wieś, 12 złoty 15 groszy; and “Olendry Trąbczynskie”, the Olęder settlers of Trąbczyn, 35 złoty. Łukom is entry 106, with 97 złoty 15 groszy among the orders to pay, and “Olędry Lusnie”, the Olęder settlement in the Lusnia wood, entry 109 with 35 złoty. Szetlewo is entered in four parts under the names of their owners, and Szetlewek as entry 172 with 55 złoty [1].

The pages have no totals. The sums show the rate of the tax all the same: in the Pyzdry and Kalisz districts every village’s sum is a multiple of 3 złoty 15 groszy, and on leaves 18 to 20 a multiple of 2 złoty 15 groszy; only towns, and two other lines, depart from it.

Form and language

Each page is a printed form with four ruled columns, filled in by one hand in Polish. A village that belonged to several owners is entered once for each part, under the owner’s name (“z Części Zakrzewskiego”, from Zakrzewski’s part). A light pen stroke runs down the edge of the columns on every page, and on leaf 20 verso a cross is drawn beside four entries; they look like the marks of someone checking the register. The cover has a label, “Podymne z Wojewodz: Kalisk: Raty Sto Jańsk: 1789”.

Related holdings

The Prussian table of villages of about 1797: 1/169/0/1/1745. The boundary between Trąbczyn and Łukom as marked in 1782, and the Lusnia wood: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153, 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.414.

Scans

The editor supplied fourteen images: the cover and thirteen pages, each a single page. One image was named for the back of leaf 17; the receipt numbers show that it is the back of leaf 9, and it is placed there.

Transcription

There was no earlier transcription. An AI model (Claude) read the register from the scans, line by line, each page in enlarged strips and every unclear name again at a larger size. The editor then checked that reading against the scans, line by line, on a sheet that shows each line of the table beside a picture of the same part of the page; 69 names were corrected, and no figure changed. The register is given as a table: one row for each line of the page, in the page’s own columns. The printed title and the heading of the form are given once, above the first page.

Names are spelt as on the page, with the marks the clerk set on the letters and no others; a word he shortened keeps his colon. 13 names that could not be read with certainty are marked “[?]”.

Checking the figures

The pages have no totals, so the figures cannot be added up. The tax itself gives a check: a village paid a fixed sum for each hearth, so its sum is a multiple of that rate. In the Pyzdry and Kalisz districts every village’s sum is a multiple of 3 złoty 15 groszy, and on leaves 18 to 20 a multiple of 2 złoty 15 groszy. Twelve lines do not fit: ten are towns, and the other two were looked at again and stand as read. The editor confirmed all twelve figures against the scans.

Division and dating

The thirteen pages are one document. It is dated by its printed title, the instalment due at St John’s 1789. The third district, on leaves 18 to 20, is called the Konin district here because of its places; its heading is on none of the pages.

Summary and translation

The summary was written in German from the table and translated into English; each of its 14 statements was then checked against the table, and all held. The English version of the table translates the title, the heading and the common words (village, small town, demesne farm, mill, part of) and leaves the names as the clerk wrote them, except that Trąbczyn and Nowawies take the spelling this edition uses everywhere.