Oe 1 Bü 9454

A file of correspondence kept in the Hohenlohe-Zentralarchiv Neuenstein. It consists chiefly of letters written between 1798 and 1816 by Peter Friedrich von Triebenfeld, a Prussian Councillor of War and Forests, to Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen (1746-1818), a Prussian general, whose estates in South Prussia he managed. The file holds 318 documents on 870 pages. About 240 are letters of Triebenfeld; the remainder are letters of other persons, drafts by Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, and enclosures.

Historical background

Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen owned estates and ironworks in Upper Silesia, among them Sławięcice and Koszęcin, and held the governorship of Wrocław. In 1796 and 1797 the Prussian crown granted him estates in South Prussia, the province formed from Prussia’s share of the partitions of Poland: Trąbczyn, Kamionna and Kolno, confiscated from the Starost Prusimski; and Zagórów, Pszczew and other estates formerly owned by the church. He did not live on them and was heavily in debt throughout the period of the correspondence.

Triebenfeld acted for him from 1798 and held his general power of attorney from 1805. He owned estates of his own, Świniary and Konotop in Silesia and later Blizanów near Kalisz, and stood surety for several of the debts he negotiated.

Three events outside the correspondence shape it. In October 1806 Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen commanded part of the Prussian army defeated at Jena and afterwards surrendered at Prenzlau; he held no further command. In 1807 Prussia ceded South Prussia by the Peace of Tilsit, and the estates came under the Duchy of Warsaw, where a commission transferred Trąbczyn and Kamionna to the daughter of Prusimski. In 1814 and 1815 the Congress of Vienna divided the Duchy between Russia and Prussia; the district of Trąbczyn and Zagórów fell to Russia.

Correspondents

Triebenfeld writes from Wrocław, Berlin, Kalisz, the estates, his own properties and, during the congress, Vienna [242]. Other writers include Hahn, secretary to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen [155, 176]; Amelang, his legal agent in Berlin [138, 144]; Michaelis and Eysenhardt, agents in Berlin in 1798 [78, 82]; the cabinet councillor Beyme and the royal adjutant Zastrow [91, 94]; the sub-prefect Brzechffa [72d]; and, at Vienna, Wilhelm von Humboldt and the State Chancellor Hardenberg [250, 252]. Nine letters are by Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen himself, to the King, to ministers and to Triebenfeld [86, 87, 88, 50, 223, 230, 73, 238, 1].

Contents

Proposed exchange for Krotoszyn, 1798 to 1800

The earliest letters concern a proposal that Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen exchange his South Prussian estates for the crown estates of Krotoszyn and Polajewo. Triebenfeld and the agents Michaelis and Eysenhardt report from Berlin on the progress of the proposal through the cabinet and the ministry of Voss [77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84]. The King refused the exchange in December 1798 on the report of Voss, who calculated a yearly loss to the state of 17400 Rthl [85]. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen contested the calculation in letters to the King, to Köckritz and to Voss, and asked for an impartial valuation [86, 87, 88]. The King ordered a further inquiry [91, 94]. Triebenfeld continued to report favourable prospects in 1799, and a further petition was drafted in 1800; the file records no decision [96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 106].

Debts and creditors, 1800 to 1804

The letters of these years deal with bills of exchange and the claims of creditors. Triebenfeld had signed a bill of 11000 Rthl for Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and was threatened with arrest for it [112, 113]. He reports on a settlement with Countess Schlabrendorff, who agreed to wait until 1 January 1805 for 50000 Rthl [118b, 118c, 120], and on debts arising from estates sold to a Prince George [108, 127]. In December 1803 he advises on an offer by Walichnowski to acquire the Trąbczyn estates [116].

Sale and division of the estates, 1804 to 1806

From 1804 the correspondence is concerned with selling the estates or dividing them among settlers. Triebenfeld negotiated at Frankfurt an der Oder and Berlin the sale of Kamionna and Kolno to Leixner, and reports the dispute with Broniewski, who held those estates in pledge [130, 131, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141]. He reports on the sale of the lordship of Pszczew to its inhabitants and on the claims of the intermediary Bornstädt [140, 142].

For Trąbczyn and Zagórów he proposed division into settlers’ holdings. He sent the surveyor Cabanis to recruit settlers among Bohemian Protestant colonists in Silesia, and negotiated with Mennonites from West Prussia who offered to buy both lordships entire [119, 120, 126, 146, 147, 151]. The letters describe contracts with existing tenants and new settlers, the prices asked for a Hufe, and disputes with leaseholders [128, 149, 168, 172]. A list of September 1805 records new colonies of 21407 Morgen and 578 households [177].

Throughout these years Triebenfeld criticises the earlier administration of Johann Wilhelm Glenck, in particular the leases of Swięcia and Oleśnica, on which he calculates a loss of 95340 Rthl [148]. He reports obstruction by Glenck and by the lessees of Oleśnica [147, 168, 191, 192].

The division required the consent of the crown. Minister Voss suspended it in 1805; a commission of the chamber then confirmed Triebenfeld’s figures, and in May 1806 he reports that the King had approved both the division and the Pszczew contract [166, 179]. The net yearly revenue was fixed at 40260 Rthl, against debts of 698000 Rthl [179]. To meet the creditors he negotiated loans in Berlin, among them a loan from the fund for military invalids arranged through General Köckritz [157, 158, 159, 187, 188]. A draft petition asks the King for 698000 Rthl in treasury notes to clear all debts [179a]. Several letters of Hahn report on the health and movements of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, and on his succession to the principality of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein in 1805 [165, 167, 176, 171].

War and the loss of Trąbczyn, 1806 to 1809

In October 1806 Triebenfeld writes that he has learned that Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen survived the defeat of the army [26]. A year later the judicial officer Hawich reports that the Trąbczyn estates had been taken over by order of the governing commission and handed to the representative of Frau von Dąbska, born Prusimska [28]. Triebenfeld confirms the loss of Trąbczyn and Kamionna and proposes to seek help through the Russian Emperor [27].

In 1808 and 1809 the letters are dominated by the consequences of the invalid fund’s loan. Triebenfeld reports that French gendarmes held him under arrest until interest on the loan was paid, and that a creditor, van der Lahr, sued him for money borrowed to pay it [30, 35, 42, 43, 45]. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen petitioned the King on his behalf [50]. The debt was partly settled in iron from the Silesian works, and many letters concern its delivery [44, 54, 56, 57, 59]. Triebenfeld’s own estates were placed under sequestration [59, 60, 61]. In March 1809 he issued thirteen powers of attorney for proceedings in the Duchy of Warsaw, among them the recovery of Trąbczyn; this letter is present in two copies [48, 302]. In May 1809 he was at Königsberg, where he presented a matter of inheritance to the Queen and reports on the standing of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen at court [52, 53, 57].

Zagórów under the Duchy of Warsaw, 1809 to 1812

The lordship of Zagórów remained to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen but lay in a foreign state, under sequestration for unpaid interest and taxes [42, 215, 72f]. Triebenfeld reports continually on the three men who administered it locally, Honrichs, Hawich and Hecker, whom he accuses in turn of withholding money and appropriating land [63, 66, 67, 68, 193, 194, 198, 215]. The settlers and lessees paid little. In January 1811 he reports 43 lawsuits pending, among them suits against the lessees of Oleśnica, the peasants of Wrąbczyn and the lessee Niedźwiecki [212, 213]. The suit against the peasants of Wrąbczyn was won in 1812 [72a].

The suit for the recovery of Trąbczyn was opened before the justice of the peace at Konin in 1810 and referred to the tribunal at Kalisz, and from there to higher authority [68, 194, 207, 210, 212]. Triebenfeld repeatedly expected a favourable result [198, 211, 72a]. The sub-prefect Brzechffa reported from Warsaw in March 1812 that the matter stood well; his letter is present in German and in Polish [72d, 72e].

A second group of letters concerns plans to dispose of Zagórów in order to satisfy the two largest creditors on Koszęcin, Weigel and Stössel. Triebenfeld proposed exchanges with the estates of a von Knobelsdorff and of the Counts Wartensleben, and a direct transfer to Stössel and Weigel [203, 201, 205, 218, 220, 221, 222]. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen for his part pursued an exchange with General Schimmelpfennig [223, 224, 228, 230]. Brzechffa offered to take Zagórów on a six-year lease, and Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen set conditions [227, 73, 229]. None of these plans is recorded as concluded. A settlement of 1811 with the authorities of the Duchy spread the debts owed to Prussian public funds over a long term [214, 216]. In May 1812 Triebenfeld reports heavy requisitions of grain, the billeting of troops and renewed sequestration [72f, 232].

Papers of 1811 record the suit of the invalid fund against Triebenfeld and the attachment of a legacy left to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen by Princess Sacken [74a, 74c, 74d].

The year 1813

Five letters survive. Triebenfeld reports from Kalisz, and then from Nysa and Neustadt during the armistice of June 1813, on the army, on Gneisenau and Zastrow, and on a plan to supply the army from Poland [237, 239, 240, 241]. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen sends him a letter for the Russian Emperor [238].

Congress of Vienna, 1814 to 1815

From October 1814 to May 1815 Triebenfeld was at Vienna, and about sixty letters date from these months [242, 290]. Two matters occupy them.

The first concerns the Silesian estates. Under a settlement of 1811 the entailed estates of Sławięcice and Lasowice were administered for the creditors by Cosmar, a medical councillor and executor of Princess Sacken [245]. The largest debt, owed to the heirs of the Duke of Courland, had been guaranteed by the King [289]. Triebenfeld petitioned Hardenberg for an advance of 112000 Rthl, for which the heirs were said to be willing to settle, for the removal of Cosmar and for a new administration of the estates [245, 269a, 1a]. The letters follow the petition through the chancery of Hardenberg, the inquiry ordered at the court at Brzeg, and the delays Triebenfeld attributes to the councillor Stägemann [256, 259, 260, 269, 275, 276]. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen urged the same request in his own letter [1]. In May 1815 Cosmar was ordered to deposit the revenues and render accounts; the advance is not recorded as paid [290, 292]. A letter of December 1815 reports that Cosmar had been found against at first instance and had appealed [296].

The second matter is the claim to Trąbczyn and Kamionna. Hardenberg answered in November 1814 that it would be settled with the general arrangement for the Duchy of Warsaw [252, 253]. As it became clear that the district would fall to Russia, Triebenfeld reported that the estates could not be recovered [266, 270, 284]. He then submitted a calculation of the loss and asked for compensation, proposing the crown estate of Sokolnik [285, 286, 6, 290]. The ministry’s side of this claim is preserved in a separate holding.

The Vienna letters also report the negotiations of the congress on Poland and Saxony, the affairs of the mediatised house of Hohenlohe in Württemberg, and the return of Napoleon in March 1815 [242, 244, 247, 271, 277, 4, 286]. Nearly all of them ask for money for Triebenfeld’s expenses [243, 254, 13, 12]. A letter of his daughter Charlotte asks Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen for her father’s address [7].

Last letters, 1815 to 1816

The last letters are written from Poznań and Blizanów between November 1815 and January 1816. Triebenfeld reports his illness and the death of a daughter, the request of the inhabitants of Pszczew to cancel their contract, his dealings with Zerboni di Sposetti at Poznań, and his expectation of compensation for Trąbczyn [295, 297, 298, 299, 5]. The latest letter is dated 31 January 1816 [301].

Register of creditors

One document is not a letter: an extract from the record of claims against Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, listing 142 claims [303].

Form and language

The documents are in German, except one letter in French and one in Polish. The file keeps the archive’s numbering, which is not chronological: numbers 1 to 74 hold letters of 1806 to 1815 in no order, and numbers 75 to 301 run from 1798. Several numbers hold a letter with its enclosures, which the edition records as separate documents under the same number with a letter added. Four numbers are absent from the file. Three documents are present in two copies. The register of creditors is shown as a table.

Triebenfeld wrote in haste and often when ill. Thirteen letters are transcribed imperfectly and are marked as such; uncertain readings are marked in the text. Many letters are undated or dated only by day and month, and the date given is then the editor’s, with its basis stated on the page of the document.

Related holdings

The grants of the estates: Oe 1 Bü 14525 and I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3570. The contracts of sale and lease to which the letters of 1804 to 1806 refer: Oe 1 Bü 14526 and 53/71/0/-/57. A petition of 1805 concerning the lessees of Oleśnica: I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3705. The ministry’s file on the claim for Trąbczyn, 1814 to 1820: III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765. The entail of 1805: Oe 1 U 199. The Chamber’s consent of January 1806 to the division of Zagórów and Trąbczyn, and a lease of forest at Drzewce: 53/968/0/-/801. Copies of Triebenfeld’s bond to the Invalids’ Fund of 28 January 1805 and of the mortgage certificate for Zagórów: I. HA Rep. 162, Nr. 295.

Scans

The archive supplied 549 images, each showing one or two sides of a letter. They were cropped to single pages, and a folded sheet photographed open was cut at the fold. The edition has 870 pages. Each page was matched to its place in the transcription, and the matches were checked by hand.

Transcription

The text was transcribed from German cursive handwriting by an AI system. The present transcription is a second machine reading, made in September 2026, in which the editor corrected names and layout by hand. Its typical errors are a single misread letter and, more seriously, a real word substituted for the right one without any mark of doubt. The editor later transcribed seventeen passages written sideways in the margins, which the machine had missed; these are shown on their page under a label.

Division into documents and dating

The documents keep the archive’s numbers. Where one number holds a letter with enclosures, each enclosure is a document of its own under the same number with a letter added. Four numbers are missing from the file and are shown as missing. Senders, recipients and places were taken from signatures, salutations and datelines; where a letter gives none, they were settled from its content, and the reason is recorded. Dates not written on a letter were supplied by the editor or inferred from neighbouring letters, and the page of each document states which.

Corrections

An AI model (Claude) proposed corrections to the transcription in several passes. The rule, set with the editor, was that a word is changed only where an independent witness supports the change and the new word is close in its letters to the old one. Accepted witnesses were a second copy of the same letter, the same word written correctly elsewhere in the letter, a word or name attested many times in the file, and fixed formulas of address and closing. Names, figures, abbreviations and passages in French, Polish or Latin were not changed on the model’s judgement. A word that is plainly wrong but has no such witness was left as transcribed and listed.

The editor checked samples of each batch against the scans. In five spot checks, between 18 of 19 and 24 of 24 sampled changes were confirmed. Each miss led to a stricter rule: for example, a broken word is no longer completed from a common phrase. Recurring misreadings were corrected throughout once the editor had ruled on them. The editor also read many doubtful names, abbreviations and line endings on the scans.

Personal names and titles were brought to one spelling in the text on the editor’s ruling. Place names stand in the German form the letters use; the lists and the English translation give the Polish name. Abbreviated titles and initials are filled out in square brackets where the context settles them.

A trial in which the model read two letters afresh from the scans was judged less accurate than the existing transcription and was not continued. Thirteen letters remain largely uncorrected and are marked as rough.

Reading and summaries

The model read each letter whole, with the letters before and after it in date order, and recorded what is said and which words it doubts. This reading produced 250 further proposed corrections, of which 180 were applied. German summaries were written from the German text, each statement tied to lines of the letter. A second, separate run of the model then checked every statement against the letter and was allowed only to cut or weaken; it changed 132 summaries. The English summaries are translations of the checked German ones.

Translation

The model translated each letter with its reading notes in front of it. An automatic check confirms that every figure, every name and every mark of doubt in the German has survived into the English, and that two pairs of words the transcription often confuses are flagged wherever they occur. The register of creditors is translated as a table. A translation can only be as good as the transcription under it.

Open points

About 260 doubtful readings remain marked in the text, most of them names and figures. A small number of abbreviations and names could not be read by the editor on the scans and stand as transcribed.