Cz2271, Kuryer Polski 1754, nr 75

One report from an issue of the newspaper Kuryer Polski, number 75 of 1754, dated 25 December, from the copy in the Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN Biblioteka Kórnicka, shelfmark Cz2271), published in the Wielkopolska Digital Library. It is the first holding of the edition that is printed and not from an archive.

Historical background

The Kuryer Polski was a newspaper printed in Warsaw. Each issue gathers short reports sent in from towns of the Commonwealth and from abroad, each headed with the place and the date it was written, “Z Kalisza die 5. Decemb:”, from Kalisz, 5 December.

Paweł Prusimski, the King’s chamberlain, held Trąbczyn before his nephew Antoni, the later Starost of Niszczewice. An inspection of the estate made for his widow Katarzyna in July 1754 already calls him not long dead: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.136. Antoni Prusimski calls him his paternal uncle in a protest of 1778: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117.

Contents

The report, sent from Kalisz on 5 December 1754, describes the funeral held at Trąbczyn, “five miles from Kalisz”, on the hereditary estate of the Prusimski family, for the late Paweł Prusimski, Chamberlain of His Royal Majesty. Many related houses came, and the Cistercians of the convent of Ląd. Their abbot, Głowiecki, had been invited to sing the High Mass, but an unexpected frost kept him from crossing the Warta. The sermon was preached by the prefect of the schools of the Jesuit college at Kalisz, and the funeral oration after the procession was given by Antoni Prusimski, the dead man’s own nephew. At the order of the widow, Katarzyna Prusimska, born Rozdrażewska, exequies with vigils and many Masses were held the same day in the monasteries nearby, at Pyzdry, Konin and Kaźmierz, because the parish church of Trąbczyn had not room enough [1].

The newspaper writes the family “Prusiński” and the convent “Łędzki”; the edition gives them as Prusimski and Ląd. Kaźmierz is probably Kazimierz Biskupi, near Konin.

Form and language

Printed Polish of 1754 in roman type, with italic for the dateline and for Latin words, the long s (ſ) and accented á. The report fills the lower half of the left-hand column and three lines of the right; the rest of the page carries other news, which is not transcribed.

Related holdings

The inspection of Trąbczyn for Katarzyna Prusimska in 1754: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.136. The visitation of the parish of Trąbczyn in 1791, which says that she enlarged its church: 85. The convent of Ląd as owner of Drzewce, a neighbour of Trąbczyn, in the boundary decree of 1775: 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145.

Image

The editor supplied the issue’s three images from the Wielkopolska Digital Library, each an opening of two pages, and a crop of the left-hand page of the second, which carries the report. That page is the one page of the edition.

Transcription

There was no earlier transcription. An AI model (Claude) read the report from the image, enlarged several times, line by line as it is printed; only this report is transcribed, from its dateline “Z Kalißa die 5. Decemb:” to its end three lines into the next column. The text keeps the printer’s letters: the long s (ſ), the ligature ß in “Kalißa”, æ in “Sæcularis”, and accented á. A word broken at the end of a printed line is marked ¬ and is joined in the reading text. Italic is not marked. One word is mostly lost to faint printing; it is given as “[Cleri?]”, the usual Latin of the phrase “Cleri Sæcularis”, the secular clergy, read with doubt.

Dating

The report is dated by its own dateline, 5 December 1754, and placed at Kalisz, where it was written. The issue that printed it is dated 25 December 1754.

Summary and translation

The summary was written in German from the Polish and translated into English; each of its 11 statements was then checked against the text, and nothing in it rests on the word read with doubt. The English translation was made in the same session. It gives the family as Prusimski, the edition’s form, where the newspaper prints “Prusiński”, and the convent as Ląd, where it prints “Łędzki” (the editor’s identification).