I. HA Rep. 162, Nr. 295

The cover and eleven pages from a file of the Prussian state treasury (I. HA Rep. 162, Verwaltung des Staatsschatzes) in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. The cover names the file’s subject: the capital of 50,000 Reichsthaler of the War Councillor von Triebenfeld that was registered on the Zagórów estates, formerly of the Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and by then of the landowner Ignatz von Trzciński. It gives the file’s span as 1820 to the middle of March 1827. The eleven pages stand at the head of the file and are copies of the papers of 1805 that created the debt: three documents, in German. Nothing from the years 1820 to 1827 is among the pages photographed.

Historical background

Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746-1818), a Prussian general, owned the lordship of Zagórów in South Prussia, the part of Poland that Prussia had taken in 1793. His agent there was the War and Forest Councillor Peter Friedrich von Triebenfeld. The Prince’s debts grew faster than the rents of the estates. In June 1804 he gave Triebenfeld a bond for 250,000 Reichsthaler and had it registered on the Zagórów estates; Triebenfeld could pledge parts of it to lenders. In January 1805 the Invalids’ Fund, the pension fund of the Prussian army, which the third department of the Supreme War College administered, lent 50,000 Reichsthaler on this security. The letters of Triebenfeld show how the loan was arranged and that he was later pursued for its interest, since he had signed for it himself (Oe 1 Bü 9454).

Contents

The bond, 28 January 1805. At Berlin, Triebenfeld acknowledges that the third department of the Supreme War College has granted him a loan of 50,000 Thaler Courant out of the General Invalids’ Fund, paid out to him in bonds of the Seehandlung, the Prussian state bank. He promises to repay it after six months’ notice, which either side may give, and until then to pay 5 per cent interest in half-yearly instalments at Berlin. As security he pledges his whole property and, specially, the bond the Prince had given him at Wrocław on 1 June 1804 for 250,000 Thaler, registered on the Prince’s South Prussian estates: the town of Zagórów, Drzewce, Kopojno, Świątniki, Skokum, Oleśnica, Wrąbczyn and Grądzyń. In case of non-payment he cedes 50,000 Thaler of that bond to the fund, with priority over the 200,000 that remain his. The same day he acknowledges the deed before the first Kurmark justice office at Berlin [1].

The second acknowledgement, 27 February to 13 March 1805. The South Prussian Government at Kalisz, the provincial court, certifies in the King’s name on 5 March 1805 that Triebenfeld appeared before its commissary, the Government Councillor Stosch, on 27 February 1805 and once more acknowledged the deed of 28 January for 50,000 Thaler; the Government Councillor von Lichnowski vouched for his identity. A note of the mortgage registrar Beda of 13 March 1805 follows: the 50,000 Thaler, at 5 per cent, have been entered for the Invalids’ Fund in the mortgage book of the Konin district upon Zagórów, Drzewce and Kopojno [2].

The mortgage certificate, 13 March 1805. The Government at Kalisz certifies to the Invalids’ Fund what stands registered on the town of Zagórów (certificate No. 1179). The Prince holds it by the grant of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of 19 June 1797, and his title was registered by a decree of 31 July 1801. The perpetual charges are a yearly due of 88 Reichsthaler 5 Groschen 9 Pfennig to the treasury of the Chamber at Kalisz, entered in December 1802; a caveat of the Treasury of January 1803 for timber and firewood from the estate’s forests, after the confiscation of the church’s estates; and a caveat of December 1804 for Johann Giese, Johann Bagans and Friedrich Gietzinger, whose hereditary lease of Oleśnica of 22 February 1804 gave them wood, four days’ digging of pine stumps and a sheep pasture of not less than 330 Morgen in the Zagórów forests. The debts are a caveat of 24 January 1804 for the Provincial Elder von Lichnowski at Brzeg, for a claim of 32,300 Reichsthaler already registered on Trąbczyn; the 250,000 Reichsthaler for Triebenfeld under the bond of 1 June 1804; and the 50,000 of them pledged to the Invalids’ Fund under the deed of 28 January 1805, with priority over the remainder. The copy ends with the first line of a further certificate [3].

Form and language

German, in the register of the Prussian courts, with the Latin of the mortgage registry. All three pieces are copies in one clerk’s hand, made for the treasury’s file: every signature is preceded by “gez.” (signed), and the seals are given as “L. S.” Notes in the margin record the stamped paper of the originals, and the courts’ fees are copied beside the signatures. The pages carry no leaf numbers.

Related holdings

The mortgage register extract for Zagórów, which records the same 250,000 Reichsthaler and the parts of it ceded to other creditors, and the grant of 1797: Oe 1 Bü 14525. Triebenfeld’s letters on the Invalids’ Fund loan and its consequences for him: Oe 1 Bü 9454. The petition of 1805 about the three lessees of Oleśnica named in the certificate: I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3705. The later claims of Lichnowski and other creditors against the estates: III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366.

Photographs and page images

The editor photographed the cover and eleven pages at the archive in 2023. Each page was photographed twice, once over its top half and once over its bottom half, so that the two photographs overlap and the same lines of writing stand in both. For the edition the two photographs of each page were joined into one image of the whole page. The join runs through the gap between two lines of writing: above it the image is the top photograph, below it the bottom photograph, fitted to the top one. No line is doubled or left out. On four pages the join touches the tail of a letter in a few places. Each image is cut at the fold, so the page opposite is not shown.

Transcription

The editor transcribed the text from the page images, line by line, one file for each page. A word broken at the end of a line is marked and shown joined in the reading text.

Division into documents

Each of the three instruments is one document: the bond with its acknowledgement at Berlin; the Kalisz court’s certificate of the second acknowledgement, with the registrar’s note of the entry in the mortgage book that stands under it; and the mortgage certificate. The second and third begin partway down a page. The first line of a further certificate, with which the last page ends, is left at the end of the third document.

Corrections

An AI model (Claude) compared the whole transcription with the page images and corrected it where the image is plain. 34 passages were changed, each logged with its reason. Most are the sign for the Reichsthaler, marks for words broken at a line end, and single letters. Four change the sense. In the list of the mortgaged estates in the bond the last name was read as Trąbczyn; the page has Grądzyn, as the same list in the mortgage certificate confirms, and Trąbczyn was not among the estates this bond was registered on. “Verhandlungs-Obligationen” is “Seehandlungs-Obligationen”, bonds of the Prussian state bank. “Kommer Kreise” is “Koniner Kreise”, the Konin district. “Ernst” is “Frist”, the term of notice. In the last line “und deren” and the stamp note beside it were added from the image. Place names stand as the editor wrote them, in their usual form, where the clerk spells them otherwise. Five doubtful readings were then put to the editor against the page images: four stand as transcribed, and one figure in a fee note was changed.

Summaries

The summaries were written in German from a reading of each document against its page images, and translated into English. Each statement in them was then checked against its document, under the same rules as the separate check that the summaries of other holdings received: a summary may say only what the document says. Of 27 statements one said more than the text and was weakened.

Translation

The documents were translated into English in a working session under the same rules as the other holdings: every figure, name and mark of doubt carried across, names in the edition’s settled forms where it has settled them and otherwise as the page spells them, and passages that do not read left visibly doubtful rather than smoothed. The Latin of the registry is kept, except the two terms for a general and a special mortgage, which are given in English. The abbreviated heads of the courts’ fee notes are left as they stand. The same automatic check as elsewhere then confirmed that every figure survives into the English.

Still to do

A stamp note in the margin of the fifth page is not transcribed.