Metadata: Scroll Collection
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių biblioteka
- Postal address:
- Žygimantų g. 1, Vilnius 01102
- Phone number:
- +370 5 262 9537
- Web address:
- http://www.mab.lt/
- Email:
- aptarnavimas@mab.lt
- Reference number:
- F1
- Title:
- Scroll Collection
- Title (official language):
- Pergamentų rinkinys (Коллекция пергаментов)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Vilnius Public Library Manuscript Department
- Date(s):
- 1187/1868
- Language:
- Belarusian
- Latin
- Russian
- Polish
- Italian
- French
- Swedish
- German
- Extent:
- 628 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
This collection contains scrolls of privileges and diplomas granted by Austrian and Russian emperors, English and Polish kings, Lithuanian dukes and other rulers. It also contains papal bulls and indulgences; letters from members of the inquisition college issued to religious figures, feudal lords, the nobility, churches, and municipalities; correspondence regarding artisan and medical-surgical workshops, associations and peasants on issues related to recognition, extension, reduction or deprivation of the right to own land and other material goods. The collection contains documents concerning delimitation of state borders, town privileges in Vilnius, Kaunas, Gardinas, Trakai, Kėdainiai and others; and church affairs in Poznan, Karmėlava, Giedraičiai, Stakliškiai, Josvainiai, Veliuona, Pasvalys and others. Some scrolls present the conditions of trade, commerce, education and agriculture in Lithuania.
Two scrolls are of specific importance to Jewish history: a scroll numbered F1-30, from Grodno, issued in 1496 by Alexander I Jagiellon, the grand duke of Lithuania and king of Poland in which he confirmed ownership rights to mills located next to the Muchavec River on the lands of Fiodor Janushevic. Previously this mill was controlled by Brest Jews. In scroll F1-47 from Grodno in 1507 Sigismund I the Old confirmed the newly granted rights of Trakai Jews: permission to trade without customs, to have their own ruling functionary, to keep a public weighing room, cloth cutting facilities, a sauna, exemption from guarding at the castle, exemption from harvesting the land of the duke, etc.
- Archival history:
- The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences was established in 1912 by the famous lawyer, public figure and bibliophile Tadeusz Stanisław Wróblewski. This collection of scrolls from 1897-1905 was collated by Vilnius Public Library Manuscript Department employees. It was received in 1946 from the USSR National Lenin’s Library in Moscow with other fonds that had been transferred from Vilnius to Russia in 1915.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In 1388 Grand Duke Vytautas granted Jews a charter according to which they formed a class of freemen subject in all criminal cases directly to the jurisdiction of the grand duke and his official representatives and in petty suits to the jurisdiction of local officials on an equal footing with the lesser nobles and other free citizens. As a result, the community prospered. In 1495, the Jews were expelled by Alexander I Jagiellon and only allowed to return in 1905. Their charter and privileges were re-confirmed by Sigismund I the Old.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Alexander I Jagiellon
- Sigismund I
- Subject terms:
- Legal status of Jews
- Nobility
- Privileges
- Trade and commerce
- Finding aids:
- A list of files and inventory lists is available on the website of the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Julija Levin