Timeline
How many documents survive from each year, set against the events of the period. Click a year to read what it holds.
Trąbczyn in the Middle Ages
1173 to 1444. Trąbczyn and its neighbours in the medieval charters of Greater Poland: the Cistercian abbey of Ląd, which came to hold Wrąbczynek, Kopojno, Zagórów and the tithe of Trąbczyn, and the knights and heirs who held Trąbczyn itself.
Wrąbczynek is given to the Cistercians of Ląd
Duke Mieszko gives "parvum Vronchin", little Wrąbczynek, to the Cistercian abbey of Ląd on the Warta, which he had founded, with its salt, lakes, fishing and hunting, free of all Polish dues.
1173-08-31 · charter of Duke Mieszko, Gniezno, 31 August 1173 (Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski I, no. 20)
The tithes of Trąbczyn and its neighbours go to Ląd
Archbishop Fulko of Gniezno gives the abbey of Ląd the tithes of the chapels of St Peter and St Andrew, from Zagórów, Skokum, Kopojno, Trąbczyn, Szetlew, Łukom and Wrąbczyn, "whether the villages are divided or moved or called by another name". The year, 1240, is the document's, marked by its editors as doubtful.
1240-09-30 · charter of Archbishop Fulko, dated 30 September 1240 (Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski I, no. 222)
Duke Bolesław gives Trąbczyn to Count Mikołaj
The village of Trąbczyn, "Trupcino", had been the duke's to give: first to Count Janko son of Szymon, then to a priest Mikołaj, both dead without heirs. Now Duke Bolesław gives it to Count Mikołaj, his treasurer at Ląd, and his heirs, free of the ducal dues.
1276-03-27 · charter of Duke Bolesław, Dłusk, 27 March 1276 (Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski I, no. 460)
The heirs of Trąbczyn lose their suit
At Pyzdry the land judge of Gniezno and Kalisz adjudges Stropiszyn and Pępocin to the church of Gniezno against the brothers Jan and Przedpełk, heirs of Trąbczyn, and against Andrzej of Trąbczyn and all his kin, and puts them to perpetual silence.
1346-11-13 · two judgments of the land judge, Pyzdry, 13 November 1346 (Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski II, nos 1252, 1253)
Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, 9 · Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, 10
The tithe of Trąbczyn is adjudged to Ląd
In the abbey of Ląd the Archbishop of Gniezno decides between the abbot and Jan, parish priest of Trąbczyn: the sheaf tithe of the fields of Trąbczyn belongs to the abbey.
1399-10-13 · judgment of Archbishop Dobrogost, Ląd, 13 October 1399 (Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski III, no. 2014)
Zagórów becomes a town
King Władysław allows the abbey of Ląd to found a town at its village of Zagórów under the law of Magdeburg, with a weekly market on Wednesdays.
1407-11-19 · privilege of King Władysław, Niepołomice, 19 November 1407 (Kodeks Dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski V, no. 117)
The Trąbczyn and Łukom boundary dispute
1589 to 1794. Trąbczyn under its Polish owners, the Trąmpczyński and then the Prusimski family, and their two centuries of quarrel with Łukom next door. It ends when Antoni Prusimski flees after the failed Kościuszko Uprising.
The heir of Trąbczyn sues his neighbour at Łukom over a flooded wood
Albertus Trąmpczyński Otha, of Trąbczyn, charges Thomas Łukomski before the land court at Konin with building a pond at Łukom that flooded woodland and meadow of Trąbczyn, Nowa Wieś and Osiny. The court orders an inspection of the place. It is the earliest document of the quarrel between the two estates, which later owners carried on for two hundred years.
1589-06-12 · land court of Konin, entry of 1589
Boundary marks cut in the Łukom wood
Jerzy Chełmski, now owner of Łukom, charges the Trąmpczyński brothers of Trąbczyn with sending their subjects into his wood to cut about eighty boundary marks into trees, so as to take a large part of his ground, and with felling about a hundred building trees. They do not appear, and the land court at Konin condemns them by default. From here on the quarrel is about where the boundary runs.
1644 · land court of Konin, two judgments by default of 1644
The Chełmskis sue Krzysztof Prusimski; a commissioner is sent to the ground
The Prusimski family now holds Trąbczyn. Franciszek and Józef Chełmski of Łukom charge Krzysztof Prusimski, his son Antoni and their men with burning shingles and a hut on their ground, seizing four oxen in an armed raid and carting off hay. The land court at Konin sends a sworn commissioner onto the disputed ground to examine old witnesses on oath about who owns it.
1728-01-26 · land court of Konin, decree of 1728
Paweł Prusimski is dead; his widow has Trąbczyn inspected
Katarzyna Prusimska, born Rozdrażewska, widow of Paweł Prusimski and holder of his estates for her life, has the manor farm, the villages and the woods of Trąbczyn inspected and described. Two noblemen state that the better pines and oaks have been felled. Paweł was the uncle of Antoni Prusimski, who had the estate by 1767; the papers he left stayed with the widow's heirs, and Antoni says in 1778 that he has sued for them and not yet received them.
1754-07-09 · castle court of Konin, inspection entered 12 July 1754
Paweł Prusimski's funeral at Trąbczyn
The Warsaw newspaper Kuryer Polski reports from Kalisz the funeral held at Trąbczyn for Paweł Prusimski, the King's chamberlain. The abbot of Ląd, invited to sing the High Mass, is kept away by frost on the Warta; his nephew Antoni Prusimski gives the funeral oration; and his widow Katarzyna has exequies said the same day at Pyzdry, Konin and Kaźmierz, as the parish church is too small.
1754-12-05 · Kuryer Polski 1754, nr 75 (25 December), report from Kalisz of 5 December
A case that cannot be judged until the boundary is fixed
Stanisław Chełmski had seized potash that the widow Prusimska's burners were taking to Gdańsk. The land court at Konin hears the witnesses and then suspends its judgment: the boundary between Trąbczyn and Łukom is still before the Crown Tribunal, and only the boundary will show on whose ground the potash was made.
1763 · land court of Konin, decree of 1763
Antoni Prusimski, heir of Trąbczyn: his Olęder settlers are flooded
Antoni Prusimski of Kolno appears as heir of Trąbczyn. His court messenger reports that an embankment newly raised by the people of Łukom, on their lord's order, has backed up the water and flooded the Olęder settlers in the Trąbczyn woods, with their fields and meadows. A second report follows in August.
1767-04-22 · castle court of Konin, two reports of 1767
Chełmski is put in possession of the Lusnia wood and its settlers
Stanisław Chełmski has won before the Crown Tribunal: three decrees of 1766 to 1768 and a condemnation of Antoni Prusimski in 1770. A commissioner hands over to him the pine wood called Lusnia as belonging to Łukom from of old, with the Olęder settlement lately founded in it: a tavern and twelve settlers, who are ordered to obey him. These are the settlers whom the Tribunal gave back to Prusimski in 1782, all but one.
1771-11-04 · castle court of Kalisz, delivery of possession entered 9 November 1771
A broken dam and shots at the Lusnia tavern
Six weeks after the delivery, Chełmski's court messenger lays weapons before the office at Konin and reports what he saw: the embankment at the Łukom pond dug through and the water let out with the fish, loopholes cut in the walls of the Lusnia tavern and its windows shot out. He says more than thirty Trąbczyn subjects did it in Prusimski's presence. Chełmski protests again in 1773 that Prusimski's steward and servants rode upon the tavern and the settlers.
1771-12-20 · castle court of Konin, reports and a protest of 1771 to 1773
53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.115, 5 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.115, 6 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.115, 9 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.115, 10
A commission of the parliament sits on the boundary and ends in two decrees
A commission appointed by the Polish parliament to end the dispute meets in the forest between Trąbczyn and Łukomia. It splits. The commissioners under Ludwik Dąmbski, voivode of Brześć Kujawski, find Antoni Prusimski's boundary line the better, have mounds raised along it and sentence Stanisław Chełmski to the tower and to damages. The commissioners Chełmski had brought give a decree of their own for his line. Each side protests against the other's decree, and nothing is settled.
1775-09-13 · decree of the boundary commission (court book of Konin, 1776); register of the castle court of Konin
53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.145, 1 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.116, 3 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.116, 7 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 4
Prusimski is ordered to enter his boundary decree at Konin
Prusimski had entered the decree given for him at Brześć Kujawski, in another province. Chełmski shows by three searches that it is not in the records of its own province. The land court at Konin orders Prusimski to bring it to the castle records there within four weeks, on pain of outlawry. That is the likely reason the decree survives in the Konin book.
1777-10-20 · land court of Konin, decree of the sitting that opened on 20 October 1777
53/6/0/-/46, 1 · 53/15/0/-/Kalisz Gr.424, 1 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.116, 12
A second front: the debt Chełmski bought from the merchant Tracholz
Chełmski had taken over in 1768 a merchant's claim against Antoni Prusimski's late uncle Paweł, from a sale of Trąbczyn timber, and sues Antoni on it. In October 1777 the land court fixes a hearing on the ground of Trąbczyn. In March and April 1778 Prusimski protests and has Chełmski and the judges cited before the Crown Tribunal: the papers he needs are with the heirs of his uncle's widow, and it was the merchant who owed the uncle. The suit is still running in 1786.
1778-03-30 · land court and castle court of Konin, 1777 to 1786
53/6/0/-/46, 2 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 1 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 3 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 7 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.117, 8 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.120, 2
The Crown Tribunal decides between the two decrees
A law of 1776 had sent causes left with two contradictory commission decrees to the Crown Tribunal. Its decree of 23 January 1782 fixes the corner of Trąbczyn, Łukom and Drzewce and the end point at Biskupice as the commissioners on Prusimski's side had them, and draws a straight line between the two on the map. The Olęder settlers Chełmski had taken are to go back to Prusimski, all but one, Martin Hunt; that is done on 6 March.
1782-01-23 · the Tribunal's decree, as recited in the boundary decree of 1782 (court book of Konin)
The first attempt to mark the line breaks down
Two boundary chamberlains come to the ground, one engaged by each side. The surveyor draws the Tribunal's line, and Hunt's holding turns out not to lie on Chełmski's side of it. The chamberlains disagree about what to do. Chełmski in person pushes away the man with the surveyor's chain and kicks the chain off the line; the chamberlain engaged by Prusimski, Jakub Górski, stops and asks the War Department for soldiers.
1782-05-27 · castle court of Konin, protests of June 1782; the boundary decree of 1782
53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 17 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 19 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153, 1
The boundary of Trąbczyn and Łukom is marked: forty-one mounds
On 17 October 1782 the Tribunal rules that its line cannot be changed, quashes the acts of both chamberlains and sentences Górski to a week in the tower for trying to correct it. The boundary chamberlain of Gniezno, Franciszek Ksawery Jasiński, then carries it out: forty-one mounds are thrown up along the line and thirty-one stakes driven into the marsh, the older mounds of both sides are levelled, and Martin Hunt is delivered to Prusimski. The boundary dispute of two centuries is decided.
1782-11-28-1782-12-03 · decree of the boundary chamberlain of Gniezno (court book of Konin, 1782)
53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153, 1 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.153, 2 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 28 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 29
The line is drawn, the quarrel goes on
On the day the chamberlain's court opened, Chełmski's people felled 221 pines on Trąbczyn's side of the new line; Prusimski's steward protests. In 1783 Chełmski has Prusimski and his steward cited before the castle court of Kalisz for seizing oxen, carts and axes in the wood, and Prusimski cites him in turn. In the autumn the land court finds that men of Prusimski's household beat one of Chełmski's settlers and puts Prusimski to an oath. The boundary is fixed; the neighbours are not reconciled.
1783-03-10 · castle court and land court of Konin, 1782 and 1783
53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 26 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.118, 27 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.119, 1 · 53/17/0/-/Konin Gr.119, 4 · 53/6/0/-/47, 1
The last entry: a cart stopped in the Trąbczyn wood
Prusimski's forest keeper stops a peasant of Łomowo, one of Chełmski's villages, carting a felled building tree out of the pine wood of Trąbczyn; his cart, two oxen, a cow and a mare are shown to the office at Konin and given back. It is the last entry of the court books in the edition. Six years later the estates were confiscated.
1788-06-09 · castle court of Konin, entry of 9 June 1788
The visitation of the parish of Trąbczyn: 760 souls
The record of the visitation of the Konin deanery describes the parish of Trąbczyn under Antoni Prusimski, its heir and patron: the priest Józef Zurkowski, instituted on Prusimski's presentation in 1785; the church of St Martin, consecrated in 1546, built in part by the Trąmpczyński family and enlarged by Katarzyna Prusimska; and 760 souls in the villages of the parish, the dissidents among them living almost all in the Olęder settlements.
1791 · the visitation of the Konin deanery, 1790 and 1791 (Diocesan Archive in Włocławek)
The Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen years
1794 to 1807. Prussia confiscates the estates of the fugitive Prusimski, and the King gives them to Friedrich Ludwig, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, who holds them until the Duchy of Warsaw takes them away.
The Kościuszko uprising; the Prusimski estates are confiscated
Antoni Prusimski, Starost and owner of Trąbczyn, Kamionna and Kolno, joins the uprising against the partitioning powers. Prussia afterwards confiscates his property. These are the estates Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen will be given two years later.
1794 · mortgage certificate for Kolno (deeds of grant, 12)
Third Partition of Poland; Peace of Basel
In April Prussia makes a separate peace with France at Basel and leaves the war against the French Republic. In October the three partitioning powers divide what remains of Poland, and Prussia annexes the territory it calls South Prussia. In the two years that follow Friedrich Ludwig is granted estates there, Zagórów, Trąbczyn, Kamionna and others, which become the subject of most of this correspondence.
1795 · general history; the charters of 1796 and 1797
The King grants the Prusimski estates
On the proposal of Karl Georg von Hoym, the minister responsible for Silesia and South Prussia, made on 14 July, and a cabinet order of 23 July, Friedrich Wilhelm II grants Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen Kamionna and Kolno, Trąbczyn with its villages, and Brzyce. Six officers receive other confiscated estates by charters of the same day. Hoym puts Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's yearly income from them at 4,000 Thaler.
1796-08-09 · the ministry's file on the charters; the charter in three copies; Hoym's letter
I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3570, 1 · Oe 1 Bü 14525, 1 · Oe 1 Bü 14525, 39
Prusimski at Venice
Count Cattaneo, the Prussian resident at Venice, reports that Antoni Prusimski, whose estates Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen now holds, has come to him ill and broken by the death of his wife, and that he has given him a certificate that he cannot travel. In January 1797 the department of foreign affairs passes the report to the ministers Hoym and Schroetter and to the Grand Chancellor. By his daughter's later account he wanted the certificate to excuse himself to the Prussian authorities, who had summoned him to justify his leaving the country.
1796-12-14 · an extract of the resident's dispatch and the department's letters, in a file of the central administration for South Prussia
I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 1414, 2 · I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 1414, 1 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366, 2
A second grant: Zagórów, Pszczew and the church villages
The Prusimski estates prove heavily indebted, so the King grants sixteen villages formerly owned by the church, among them Pszczew, Zagórów, Kopojno and Drzewce. A declaration of 1 December 1797 adds their outlying parts.
1797-06-19 · the charters of 19 June and 1 December 1797 (deeds of grant, 5 and 6)
The King orders the estates handed over in earnest
The estates had been handed over on paper only: people who had lent money on them and held them as security, and tenants with leases, were still in possession and kept the income. A royal order to the War and Domains Chambers at Poznań and Piotrków, the provincial administrations, finds that this handover was a formality. The holders' claims are to be examined and Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's agents put in actual possession.
1797-10-20 · royal order (deeds of grant, 40)
Friedrich Wilhelm III accedes to the Prussian throne
Friedrich Wilhelm III succeeds his father. He is the King to whom Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen petitions again and again in these letters, usually through the King's adjutant-general, von Köckritz.
1797-11 · general history
The correspondence opens
Triebenfeld is in Berlin, working to exchange Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's South Prussian estates for the Prussian crown domains of Krotoszyn and Polajewo in order to clear his debts.
1798-04-01 · letter 75
The exchange for Krotoszyn and Polajewo is refused
In Berlin Triebenfeld works on the King's cabinet councillor Beyme, the finance minister Struensee, the minister Hoym and the adjutant-general Köckritz to have the estates exchanged for two crown domains. Minister von Voss reports that the state would lose 17,400 Rthl a year by the exchange, on a valuation made without anyone inspecting the land, and the King refuses. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen is still petitioning against the refusal in 1800.
1798-10-1800 · letters 77, 85, 87, 101
Oe 1 Bü 9454, 77 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 85 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 87 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 101
Szetlewek sold
Glenck sells the demesne farm of Szetlewek near Trąbczyn, 1,000 Morgen, to the miller Samuel Lucke for 12,333 Rthl and 500 a year in ground rent. Of the price, 8,333 Rthl go to Ignatz von Radzinski, who had lent money on the farm and held it as security until he was repaid, and is to vacate it once paid.
1798-10-01 · contract 25 of the deeds
The courts press Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen to prove his title
From December 1798 the provincial courts at Kalisz and Poznań (in Prussia called "governments") set deadlines for entering Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen as owner in the mortgage books, the land registers, and threaten proceedings if he does not. For Trąbczyn they demand the judgment that confiscated Prusimski's property, which had been given at Toruń; the request for a copy of it is refused at Poznań.
1798-12-28-1803 · orders and replies (deeds of grant, 42, 30, 31, 43)
Oe 1 Bü 14525, 42 · Oe 1 Bü 14525, 30 · Oe 1 Bü 14525, 31 · Oe 1 Bü 14525, 43
Separation from Marianne
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's marriage to Marianne, née Countess von Hoym, breaks down. The agreement settling their affairs (the "Transact") is not concluded until 1804.
1799-1804 · Seidel 2018, ch. 7.1
Prusimski's daughter sues for the Brzyce estates
Michalina Prusimska, daughter of the former owner and still a minor, was suing Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen before the Government at Poznań for the Brzyce estates, which she claimed as her mother's property. On her complaint the King called in the files in June 1800 and ordered the case hurried. In November Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen asked for other judges; the order giving the case to Warsaw reached Poznań after it had given judgment on 9 December 1800. In January 1802 she petitioned the King to hasten the appeal.
1800-06-18-1802 · the King's orders of June and July 1800, the Prince's petition, the Government's report, her petition of 1802
I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3709, 2 · I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3709, 4 · I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3709, 5 · I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3709, 12 · I. HA GR, Rep. 7 C, Nr. 3709, 15
Settlers sought: Hussites and Mennonites
Moravian Brethren from Bohemia, whom the letters call Hussites, come to look at the estates' land, offered at 300 Rthl a Hufe (a farm holding of about 30 Morgen), and go home to fetch their fellow believers. In November Mennonites from West Prussia offer to buy Zagórów and Trąbczyn entire and divide them among themselves.
1804-04-02 · letters 120, 126, 146
Triebenfeld's wife is buried
Triebenfeld sends a draft reply for approval and asks that someone else make the fair copies, since his wife is being buried that day and he has gone with the children to his brother-in-law's.
1804-04-24 · letter 124
Pszczew is made over to its inhabitants
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen makes over the whole lordship of Pszczew, in hereditary lease and sale, to the townspeople and six villages, for 180,000 Rthl and a yearly ground rent of 1,000 Rthl; 137,000 Rthl of the price is paid by the buyers taking over debts mortgaged on the lordship. In 1805 the King refuses to allow it, because the nobility's estates in the province would be diminished if lords could sell their land to their peasants, and because of the forest. A royal approval follows in 1806.
1804-07-28 · the contract in two copies, and the refusal (deeds, 18, 19, 24)
Kamionna and Kolno sold
The first large sale of estate land to pay debts. Kamionna and Kolno go to George Conrad Leixner, an official of the bank at Frankfurt an der Oder, for 142,000 Rthl, by a contract of August 1804 and a second of January 1805. Leixner means to divide the land and sell it in parcels.
1804-08-30-1805-01 · letters 135, 136; contracts 5 and 4 of the deeds
Oe 1 Bü 14526, 5 · Oe 1 Bü 14526, 4 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 135 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 136
The Invalids' Fund lends on the estates
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's debts grow faster than the estates' rents. Countess Schlabrendorff, one of his creditors, will not wait past the new year for the 50,000 Rthl he owes her. Through Köckritz the Invalids' Fund, the Prussian military pension fund, promises a loan of 150,000 Rthl, the first 50,000 against a mortgage on the estates, with Triebenfeld signing personally for the debt. He signs the bond at Berlin on 28 January and pledges a fifth of the 250,000 Rthl that Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen owes him on Zagórów; in March the pledge is entered in the mortgage book at Kalisz.
1805-01-26 · letters 118b, 158; the Zagórów mortgage register (deeds of grant, 21); copies of the bond and of the mortgage certificate in the state treasury's file
Oe 1 Bü 9454, 118b · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 158 · Oe 1 Bü 14525, 21 · I. HA Rep. 162, Nr. 295, 1 · I. HA Rep. 162, Nr. 295, 3
Triebenfeld receives the general power of attorney
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen gives Triebenfeld full power to act for him in everything concerning Zagórów, Witów and Trąbczyn. Every contract Triebenfeld signs from now on rests on this power of attorney, and a certified copy of it is filed with each.
1805-02-19 · certified copies filed with the leases
270 Hufen let to settlers
Triebenfeld signs a preliminary agreement letting 270 Hufen at Trąbczyn, Łazy, Osiny, Neudorff and Przybysław in hereditary lease to settlers named in it, at 300 Rthl a Hufe on entry and 15 Rthl a Hufe a year in rent. Through the following spring the estates' court at Mariantów records one lease after another on the same terms.
1805-04-06 · contract 15 of the deeds; a court file of one such lease, 31 March 1806
Petition to take Oleśnica into court administration
Oleśnica had been let in February 1804 to three townsmen, who were to pay 20,000 Rthl on taking it up. They paid half, then neither rent nor taxes, and sold off parts of the estate. Triebenfeld asks for the estate to be taken out of their hands and run by an administrator appointed by the court; the government at Kalisz refuses, and he petitions the King in Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's name.
1805-09-18 · the petition, in the ministry's file
The King confirms Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's family entail
In his will of 7 October 1805 Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen ties his houses in Wrocław, his Silesian estates and ironworks and the South Prussian lordships, Trąbczyn and Zagórów among them, to his family: they are to pass whole from one heir to the next in a fixed order and may not be sold or divided. If the male line ends, the South Prussian estates go to his daughter Auguste. The King confirms the arrangement.
1805-12-19 · the royal charter
House arrest at Öhringen
After his surrender at Prenzlau, Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen is held as a French prisoner of war in his own residence at Öhringen.
1806-1808 · Seidel 2018, Zeittafel
The King consents to the parcelling of Zagórów and Trąbczyn
In the King's name the War and Domains Chamber at Kalisz, the provincial administration, allows Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen to divide the demesne farms of both lordships into holdings, to let Oleśnica and Szetlewek in hereditary lease, and to turn the labour services of all his subjects into a fixed money rent. He keeps back part of Trąbczyn, the land at Mariantów and a part of the forest. No peasant holding may lapse, and the subjects are to be compensated for their rights of pasture and wood.
1806-01-28 · two copies of the consent: one among the deeds, one made about 1930
A hundred Hufen of the Drzewce forest let to eighteen settlers
The estates' court at Mariantów engrosses a contract by which Triebenfeld lets 100 Hufen of the forest of Drzewce, in the lordship of Zagórów, to eighteen named settlers in hereditary lease. The land is still to be cleared, so they pay nothing on entry and no rent until Christmas 1808; after that 30 Rthl a Hufe a year, 3,000 Rthl in all, half of which they may redeem. Eleven of the eighteen sign with three crosses.
1806-03-21 · a copy of the contract made about 1930, in the State Archive in Poznań
One lease followed into court: Christoph Erbet
The estates' court, sitting at Mariantów, records that Triebenfeld has let one Hufe of the Trąbczyn forest in hereditary lease to Christoph Erbet of the Trąbczyn Hauland, the settlement of colonists on cleared forest land, for 100 Rthl on entry and 30 a year, the first three years free. In 1811 the estate official Hawich sends the record to the peace court at Konin and asks it to make Erbet pay the costs of drawing up his contract, 9 Thaler 18 groschen, by distraint.
1806-03-31 · the court record, in the State Archive in Poznań
A plan to clear the debts with a royal loan
Triebenfeld draws up a petition to the King. On a survey certified by the chamber at Kalisz, Trąbczyn and Zagórów now yield 40,260 Rthl a year, and sixteen new villages with five hundred families have been settled on them. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's debts come to 698,000 Rthl. He asks the King to lend him that sum in treasury notes, secured as the only mortgage on the two lordships and paid off from their revenue, so that he is free of all his other creditors.
1806-04-25 · letter 179a
Jena and Auerstädt
The Prussian and Saxon armies are destroyed. Friedrich Ludwig commands the left wing and, after the Duke of Brunswick's death, is briefly commander-in-chief.
1806-10-14 · Seidel 2018, Zeittafel
Capitulation at Prenzlau
Friedrich Ludwig surrenders with his army corps and resigns all military offices. Triebenfeld's letter of the same day says that malicious rumours are already making the surrender look a million times worse than it was.
1806-10-28 · Seidel 2018, Zeittafel; letter 26
The Miączyńska restitution
From 1807. The estates go back to Prusimski's daughter. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's claim to them, and the claims of his creditors, are argued for another twenty-five years.
Peace of Tilsit; the Duchy of Warsaw
South Prussia becomes the Duchy of Warsaw under the King of Saxony. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's estates now lie in a foreign state.
1807-07 · general history
The Governing Commission returns the estates to Prusimski's daughter
Michalina Dąbska, born Prusimska, is at Dresden, where the provisional Polish government is meeting Napoleon. She petitions the commission and the Emperor for her father's confiscated estates and points to Napoleon's decree of 5 June, which gave Józef Wybicki his estates back. On 21 July the commission extends that decree to her: the estates are to return to their true owners. The resolution names no estate and says nothing of the debts Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen has secured on them.
1807-07-21 · the Governing Commission's papers from Dresden, 1 to 4, and its register, 2
1/174/0/2/73, 2 · 1/174/0/2/73, 3 · 1/174/0/2/73, 1 · 1/174/0/2/73, 4 · 1/174/0/1/6, 2
Trąbczyn is handed to Prusimski's daughter
On the order of the governing commission of the new Duchy, a judge of the appeal court takes the Trąbczyn estates from Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's officials and gives them to the agent of Michalina Dąbska, born Prusimska. No court has ruled. Kamionna is taken in the same way. Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen never gets them back.
1807-10-05 · letters 28 and 27; the later petitions in the foreign ministry's file
Oe 1 Bü 9454, 28 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 27 · III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 4
The estates' court still issues papers
Zagórów was not taken in 1807, and its court went on working in Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's name. Three months after Trąbczyn was seized, the court, now signing as the patrimonial court of Zagórów under Hawich, issues official copies of two contracts made at Trąbczyn in July 1806: the sale of a Hufe at Osiny to the farmer Blazy Kukulski, and the hereditary lease of a Hufe and a half of cleared forest to Gottlieb Sarre of the Pyzdry Hauland. The copies are made out at Alexandrien and at Pyzdry.
1808-01-28 · contracts 6 and 7 of the deeds
Triebenfeld arrested by French gendarmes
As Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's general agent, and because he had signed for the Invalids' Fund loan himself, Triebenfeld is held under arrest in Berlin for its arrears of interest in March 1808, and again in January 1809. In February 1809 he leaves Berlin to escape another judgment, and in May he is robbed on the road of a trunk worth 800 Rthl.
1808-03-14-1809 · letters 30, 42, 45, 57
Oe 1 Bü 9454, 30 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 42 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 45 · Oe 1 Bü 9454, 57
The instructions from Konotop
From Konotop, Triebenfeld sends the estate official Hawich powers of attorney to act for Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen in the Duchy of Warsaw: above all, to sue to recover Trąbczyn from Michalina Dąbska (Prusimska), to have the court administration put on the remaining estates lifted, and to collect the arrears.
1809-03-07 · letters 48 and 302
Thirty-one lawsuits
Writing from a peasant's hut at Świątniki after a serious illness, Triebenfeld reports that nobody on the estates is paying Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen what they owe him. The German colonists, who hold their farms in hereditary lease, pay none of their yearly rent, relying on new edicts that give colonists six free years; the tenants of Oleśnica, Kopojno and Drzewce pay no lease money. Thirty-one lawsuits are pending to make them pay. Meanwhile about 8,657 Reichsthaler in taxes, 7,500 Reichsthaler of interest to the Invalids' Fund and further interest and costs fall due, and he doubts he will take in enough to cover them. The tribunal at Kalisz has declared that it has no authority to set aside the commission's order of 1807.
1811-01-01 · letter 212; the petition of March 1815
Rent remission and eviction proposed
The colonists on the Zagórów estates, who hold their farms in hereditary lease, cannot pay their yearly rent (the "interest" of their contracts). Triebenfeld proposes remitting a third of it for the year as an act of princely grace, so that they pay sixteen groschen in every Reichsthaler; otherwise, he writes, the people out of obstinacy will give nothing at all. In the same weeks he puts the opposite course to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen: if he means to keep the estates, most of the colonists are to be removed by court judgments and their land turned back into demesne farms worked for the estate.
1811-07 · letters 215, 216
Proceedings before the Prussian Kammergericht
The Invalids' Fund asks the Kammergericht, the high court at Berlin, to make Triebenfeld repay its loan of 50,000 Rthl, for which he had signed personally. The loan was secured by Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's mortgage bond for 250,000 Rthl on Zagórów, and 9,375 Rthl of interest has been unpaid since 1807. On 1 August 1811 the court orders the 80,000 Rthl that Princess von Sacken, the mother of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's wife, had left him in her will to be held back for the Fund, and summons Triebenfeld to answer.
1811-07-30 · letters 74a and 74d
How Trąbczyn came to be handed over in 1807
Colonel von Sanitz, another of the officers granted estates in 1796, who is trying to recover his own, learns from the Saxon court how the handover of 1807 came about: Michalina Dąbska (Prusimska) had petitioned Napoleon for the estates' return, he merely passed her petition on to the Polish governing commission, and the commission ordered them given back to her. There was no order from Napoleon himself. Sanitz sends word so that Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen can make use of it.
1811-08-15 · letter 217
Napoleon's Russian campaign
The Grande Armée marches east through the very districts where the estates lie.
1812 · general history
The Wars of Liberation
Prussia turns against France. In June Triebenfeld writes to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen from Nysa, which gout had kept him from reaching sooner: on the way he had spent a night in the open in pouring rain, sheltering behind some stones.
1813 · letter 239
Hardenberg holds back Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's letter to the Tsar
In Paris Triebenfeld hands the State Chancellor a letter from Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen to the Russian Emperor about Trąbczyn and Kamionna. Hardenberg keeps it: nothing can be asked until the fate of the Duchy of Warsaw is settled. The foreign ministry's file on the claim begins here.
1814-05-14 · the foreign ministry's file, 3 and 1
III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 3 · III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 1
The Congress of Vienna opens
Triebenfeld is sent to Vienna to petition for the return of the estates. He arrives in October 1814 and stays into 1815, without money and begging Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen for enough to live on, and reports what he hears of the negotiations among the powers.
1814-09 · letters 242, 243 onward
Humboldt takes up the case
Wilhelm von Humboldt acknowledges Triebenfeld's memorial and asks for copies of everything. In December Hardenberg is reported to have promised to take the case up actively, calling Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen the worst-treated of men.
1814-11-05 · letters 250, 262
Where the new frontier will run
The Congress has to decide where the new frontier between Prussia and the Kingdom of Poland under the Russian Emperor will run. Russia presses for a line along the river Prosna that would place Trąbczyn and Blizanów on its side, beyond the reach of any Prussian court. In February 1815 Triebenfeld reports the matter settled against Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen: the district of Konin, where the estates lie, goes to the Kingdom of Poland.
1815-01-1815-02-13 · letters 266, 271
Napoleon returns from Elba
The Congress's business is interrupted while the powers turn to the war against Napoleon, and Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's case waits with it.
1815-03 · letters 4, 286
The petition of March 1815
Triebenfeld sets out the whole case for Hardenberg: the grants of 1796 and 1797, the seizure of 1807 by a commission without any court's judgment, and the tribunal's refusal to act. He asks for the return of the Trąbczyn estates with nine years' revenue, 36,500 Rthl.
1815-03-02 · the foreign ministry's file, 4
Triebenfeld's daughter Charlotte writes
Charlotte von Triebenfeld writes to Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen from Wrocław for the third time, unanswered, asking for her father's address: she does not know where he is.
1815-03-20 · letter 7
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen asks for Sokolnik instead
Trąbczyn will lie under Russian rule, and Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen counts it lost. He writes to Baron vom Stein, the Tsar's adviser, in April and to Hardenberg in May, puts his loss at more than 261,000 Rthl, and asks them to intercede with the Tsar for the small crown estate of Sokolnik near Bolesławiec, worth 8,000 to 10,000 Rthl a year in rent, as compensation.
1815-05-12 · Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's two letters in the foreign ministry's file, 6 and 8
III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 6 · III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 8
Final Act of the Congress of Vienna
The new frontier runs by Słupca, the Warta and the Prosna, as Triebenfeld reported in February. The estates around Trąbczyn and Zagórów fall to the Kingdom of Poland under the Russian Emperor.
1815-06-09 · general history; letter 271
Zerboni reports against the claim
Asked by Hardenberg for an opinion, Joseph Zerboni di Sposetti, the Chief President at Poznań, rejects the figures put forward for Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, says he let Trąbczyn run down and loaded it with debt, and advises that Prussia can do no more than ask Russia to decide.
1815-11-02 · the report, in the foreign ministry's file, 14
Triebenfeld's daughter dies
Triebenfeld's daughter dies four days after giving birth. In the same weeks he hears that Barbe has died, the court councillor in Hardenberg's chancery who had advised him in Vienna, put his petitions forward and lent him money. Triebenfeld himself falls dangerously ill with gout at Pszczew and has to be taken to Poznań for treatment.
1815-12 · letter 297
Triebenfeld's last letter; he is dead by April
The correspondence ends with a letter from Blizanów. A note written on 13 April 1816 in the margin of Zerboni's report calls him the late von Triebenfeld. No document here records his death itself.
1816-01-31 · letter 301; the margin of Zerboni's report
Prussia raises the claim at St Petersburg, without pressing it
On Zerboni's advice the foreign ministry instructs its envoy, General von Schöler, to bring Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's wish to the Tsar's notice in general terms only, since compensation would be a favour and not a right.
1816-04-20 · the foreign ministry's file, 15 and 17
III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 15 · III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 17
A creditor asks to be paid from any compensation
The widow von Brehmer asks Hardenberg for the 5,000 Rthl her brother lent Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen in 1803 on Szetlewek, of which neither capital nor interest has been paid. A note on her petition holds that anything Russia grants should go to the creditors registered on the estates.
1816-04-26 · the foreign ministry's file, 19
Russia refuses
Schöler reports from St Petersburg that the Russian ministry has answered his notes with a refusal. The ministry sends Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen a copy in December, with its regrets.
1816-11-23 · the foreign ministry's file, 25 and 26
III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 25 · III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 26
Friedrich Ludwig dies at Sławięcice
He dies at Sławięcice in Upper Silesia, two years after the last letter in this collection. His heirs take up the claim.
1818-02-15 · Seidel 2018, ch. 20.1
Prusimski's daughter asks Prussia to pay the debts
Michalina Miączyńska, the daughter of the former owner Prusimski, has held the Trąbczyn estates again since 1807, but the mortgages Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen raised on them are still registered: 156,000 Reichsthaler by her count. Through the Russian envoy in Berlin she asks Prussia, which confiscated the estates and gave them away, to pay these debts off. The Prussian foreign ministry refuses on 11 May 1819.
1819-01-20 · the foreign ministry's file on Miączyńska's claim, 1 to 3
III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366, 1 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366, 2 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12366, 3
The heirs' claim is refused
After Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen's death his heirs have Duke Eugen of Württemberg recommend their claim to the Russian government. The Russian envoy in Berlin answers that the matter was decided in 1816 and the Tsar cannot act on the recommendation. The Prussian ministry takes no further step.
1820-01-31 · the foreign ministry's file, 27 and 29
III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 27 · III. HA MdA, III Nr. 12765, 29
Prussia protests for a creditor of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen
The merchant Weigel of Wrocław holds a mortgage of 30,000 Reichsthaler that Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen raised on Trąbczyn. The civil tribunal at Kalisz ordered it struck out in 1819, on the ground that the return of the estates to Miączyńska cancelled the debts of the years between, and the high tribunal at Warsaw confirmed this in 1826. The Prussian envoy at St Petersburg asks the Russian foreign minister to have the judgment annulled. The file holds no answer.
1827-02-10 · the foreign ministry's file on Miączyńska's claim, 5
A Polish court strikes out two more mortgages on Trąbczyn
At the suit of Miączyńska the civil tribunal at Kalisz orders the mortgages of the Lichnowski brothers and of the widow of Franciszek Grotowski struck out of the register of Trąbczyn and Szetlewek. Both were debts of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen. The court holds that he possessed the estates only while the confiscation stood, and that his debts fell with his title.
1827-07-30 · the foreign ministry's file on Miączyńska's claim, 6
The Polish government questions its courts' judgment against Weigel
Baron Mohrenheim, who directs Grand Duke Constantine's diplomatic chancellery at Warsaw, tells the Prussian consul general Schmidt that the Administrative Council has recognised that the competence of the courts which struck out Weigel's mortgage is open to question, because the case can be resolved only by diplomatic means. The Council has authorised the finance commission to declare a conflict of jurisdiction. An undated note from him says the council agreed unanimously that payment must be made.
1830-02-20 · the second volume of the foreign ministry's file on Miączyńska's claim, 2 and 4
III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 2 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 4
The Polish finance minister disputes the sum Weigel asks
Weigel asks the Kingdom of Poland for 63,100 thalers: the 30,000 he lent Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen on Trąbczyn, with interest and costs. The minister of finance, Prince Lubecki, finds the sum excessive and has the estates valued, to compensate the loss really suffered. Weigel answers from Wrocław that by the mortgage certificate and the court valuation of 1803 his loan was fully covered. On 27 November Lubecki replies that land was overvalued in 1803 and that he will wait for the new valuation.
1830-09-22 · the second volume of the foreign ministry's file on Miączyńska's claim, 6 to 8
III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 6 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 7 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 8
Trąbczyn is to be valued again after the rising
After the Polish rising of 1830 and 1831 the Prussian consul general takes up Weigel's claim again. The head of the finance commission at Warsaw reports that a commissioner of the state domains, Drake, was charged on 29 February with valuing the Trąbczyn estates. A week earlier the president of the provisional government, Engel, wrote that the president of the Bank of Poland, Lubowidzki, had been charged with settling the claim. The scans end here and do not show whether Weigel was paid.
1832-03-20 · the second volume of the foreign ministry's file on Miączyńska's claim, 9 to 11
III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 9 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 10 · III. HA MdA, III. Nr. 12367, 11
The estate under Włodzimierz Miączyński
Michalina Miączyńska dies in 1851, and her son, Count Włodzimierz Miączyński, holds the estate until his death in 1879. In 1859 and 1860 he and its colonists go to law over their rights in his forest.
The owner of Trąbczyn goes to court against the colonists over the forest
Count Włodzimierz Miączyński, who now holds Trąbczyn, has been sued by the colonists of his estate. He counterclaims before the Civil Tribunal at Kalisz and has 97 of them summoned, from the Staro-Łazińska and Nowo-Łazińska colonies. He asks the court to hold that the contract Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen made with fourteen colonists on 18 May 1805 does not bind him, because the return of the estate in 1807 cancelled what Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen had undertaken, and to allow pasture and the gathering of wood in his forest only to seven, or at most fourteen, holdings. The paper is his summons; what the court decided is not in the edition.
1860-10-19 · the printed summons served on Karolina Fridenberg
The liquidation: the peasants' land and the servitudes
After the reform of 1864 the colonists of Łazińsk are given their land in 1868; their rights in the manor forest are fixed in 1884 and exchanged for land in 1892.
The colonists of Łazińsk are given their land
Under the Russian reform of 1864 the land the peasants farmed became their own, and each village was given a liquidation table. The Central Commission for Peasant Affairs confirms that of the Łazińsk colony: 91 farmsteads, the school, the cemetery, the common land and the roads, 1,691 Morgen 219 rods in all, and a liquidation capital of 10,055 roubles 70 kopecks for the former owner. Its copy of 1869 leaves the settlers the right to graze their cattle in the forest "Studzianka" and gather fallen wood there twice a week, and no other servitudes. Albert Breyer copied the table in the 1930s from a copy dated at Słupca on 29 June 1868.
1868-02-08 · the liquidation table of the Łazińsk colony and its copy of 1869; Breyer's copies
39/98/0/-/6603, 1 · 39/98/0/-/6603, 2 · 53/968/0/-/716, 4 · 53/968/0/-/716, 5
The colonists give up their rights in the forest for land
By a voluntary transaction of 14 June 1892, confirmed in April 1894, the colonists of Łazińsk give up once and for all their pasture and wood-gathering in the forest "Studzianka" to the owner of Trąbczyn, Countess Maria Wielopolska. In return they receive 393 Morgen 154 rods of manor land: 4 Morgen to most farmsteads, 6 to seven of them. The governorate board for peasant affairs enters the transaction in the liquidation table.
1894-10-12 · the certified copy of the inscription in the liquidation table
The twentieth century
The manor has been parcelled out, and its former land holds German settlements of the commune of Trąbczyn. In 1935 and 1936 Albert Breyer writes down what their people remember.