I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3705

A file of the Prussian central administration for South Prussia, kept in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. It concerns the estate of Oleśnica, which Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746-1818) had let in hereditary lease. The file contains one document, a petition to the King dated 18 September 1805, on seventeen openings.

Historical background

Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen held the lordships of Trąbczyn and Zagórów in South Prussia, the province formed from Prussia’s share of the partitions of Poland, by a royal grant of 1796. They were managed by his general agent, Peter Friedrich von Triebenfeld, who let parts of them in hereditary lease. Under such a lease the lessee paid a sum on entry and a fixed annual rent, and held the land heritably.

Contents

The petition is written in the name of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and signed by Triebenfeld as his general agent [1]. It asks the King to order the government at Kalisz to place Oleśnica under sequestration, that is, under administration by the court [1]. According to the petition, the estate had been let to Giese, Bagans and Gietzinger for 20,000 Rthl entry money. The lessees paid 10,000 Rthl, taken from their sub-lessees, and since then had paid neither rent nor taxes and had sold parts of the estate, while the Chamber had not confirmed the contract [1]. The government at Kalisz had refused sequestration in resolutions of 13 and 20 August. The petition disputes both from the Prussian general code, asks that the files be called in, and offers security [1].

Form and language

A fair copy in German. The letters A to H in its margin refer to enclosures, which are not in the file. The file contains no reply to the petition.

Related holdings

Letters of Triebenfeld to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen from the same years: Oe 1 Bü 9454. Contracts of sale and hereditary lease for the South Prussian estates: Oe 1 Bü 14526. The Chamber’s consent of 1806, which allowed Oleśnica to be let in hereditary lease: 53/968/0/-/801. The mortgage certificate for Zagórów of March 1805, which records a caveat for the three lessees of Oleśnica: I. HA Rep. 162, Nr. 295.

Scans

The archive photographed the file as eighteen images: a title page and seventeen openings of two facing pages. The openings were not cut, because the transcription treats each opening as one piece. A page of the edition is therefore one opening.

Transcription

The German text was transcribed by an AI system and supplied by the editor, one file for each scan.

Corrections

An AI model (Claude) proposed corrections to the transcription. A word was changed only where an independent witness supported the change, such as the same word spelled out elsewhere in the petition or a fixed formula. Each change is logged with its reason. One of them is the closing formula, which was restored from the form Triebenfeld uses in his other letters; the English was edited to match. Words that remain doubtful were left as transcribed.

Summary and translation

The model read the document whole and wrote a German summary. A second, separate run of the model checked the summary against the text. It removed the lessees’ first names, which are known from another holding and not from this petition. The English summary is a translation of the checked German one. The model also translated the document. Three corrections it proposed during translation rested on sense alone and were not applied.