Metadata: Zhitomir Castle Court
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv
- Holding institution (official language):
- Центральний державний історичний архів України, м. Київ
- Postal address:
- 03110, м. Київ-110, вул. Солом'янська, 24
- Phone number:
- 380 (044) 275-30-02
- Web address:
- cdiak.archives.gov.ua
- Email:
- mail.cdiak@arch.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 11
- Title:
- Zhitomir Castle Court
- Title (official language):
- Житомирский гродский суд
- Creator/accumulator:
- Zhitomir Castle Court
- Date(s):
- 1582/1796
- Language:
- Ukrainian
- Latin
- Polish
- Russian
- Extent:
- 202 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
The description below is based on a single catalogue entry that describes in general terms a group of institutionally related fonds, which are listed individually in the Yerusha database. The description covers material from the castle courts of Kiev Wojewodship, Zhitomir, Ovruch, Kremenets, Lutsk, Vladimir, Kamenets, Letichev, Vinnitsa and Bratslav. Information known to refer to the Zhitomir Castle Court fond in particular is mentioned in the final paragraphs
***
The fond contains mainly official document registers (and a small number of individual files) of this castle administration, written in Old Ukrainian (with Latin elements), Latin, Polish (with Latin elements) and Russian. The documents consist of records of judicial rulings: decrees, documents of an economic nature, claims and counterclaims, and complaints filed by the local gentry, princes, townspeople, and clergy regarding thefts, robberies, defamations, and breaches of agreements and contracts; attestations of bailiffs [woźni] and вижей (court officers) regarding delivery of subpoenas, the examination of victims and incident locations, and debtors’ failure to appear; records of governmental acts, various inventories (including those of land [liustratsii]) and descriptions of starostwa and other land holdings, cities, castles, etc. Materials pertaining to Jews come in the form of scattered document records and may be provisionally divided into several subject groups:
1. Documents on the property status of Jews and on their economic and professional activities, e.g., Jews’ «оповеданья», «сознанья» and formal complaints [protestacje], bailiffs’ сознанья and attestations [reliatsii], records of decrees of castle courts and of the Main Lublin Tribunal, and other documents on owners’ various breaches of the conditions of Jews’ rental of towns, estates, inns, taverns, breweries, fishing ponds, and mills, as well as of the conditions of Jews’ tax-farming; on the pre-term voiding of leases and nonpayment of taxes; on lawsuits regarding the infringement of subjects’ rights by landowners, and counter-complaints filed by the latter (whose infringements include the assertion of judicial jurisdiction over these subjects), excessive obligations and exactions, nonpayment of rent, the incurring of damages via unlawful fishing, and the unlawful collection of taxes; counter-complaints by Jews and Christians, and files on same, regarding various breaches of contract, including of contracts for the export of ore, potash, and grain to Europe through Gdansk, and for the building of boats for this export; on breaches of conditions for the pawning of items and valuables with Jews; on nonpayment of debts, and nonpayment for goods and for medical treatment, and on inferior medical treatment; records of rental agreements and contracts; of inventories of rented properties and properties pledged as collateral; of amicable resolutions of property disputes; etc.
2. Documents on claims and counter-claims between Jews and area non-Jews, as well as between Jews themselves, and on cases of robbery, theft, homicide, and defamation; on conflicts of a broader societal significance; complaints of local authorities against Jewish tax-collectors for failure to pay necessary amounts toward the maintenance of roads and bridges.
3. Records of royal charters, privileges [przywileje], and decrees [uniwersały] granting various rights, liberties, and privileges to the Jews of Crown Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (in particular, the right to receive items as pawned collateral); declaring groundless the accusations of Jews in the ritual murder of Christian children; granting rights and liberties to Jews of particular cities and towns; establishing procedures by which Jews should pay taxes and excises, and by which individual Jewish tax collectors and their employees should collect state taxes.
4. Complaints and formal protestations [protestacje] on behalf of particular representatives of the gentry disputing the legality of certain rights enjoyed and activities engaged in by Jews, e.g., the right to own estates and land and to employ Christians; registers and rate tables of the transportation tax [podwodne], “hearth” [podymne], capitation, and other state taxes and excises; quittances and receipts of tax-collectors’ delivery of same to the treasury; land inventories, descriptions, and censuses of starostwa, with information on the Jewish population (1565-1789).
5. Mid-seventeenth-century documents, including bailiffs’ attestations, and claims and formal complaints [protestacje] of officials, representatives of townsmen’s and Jewish communities, and gentry landowners regarding violence and devastation wrought by Cossacks and rebels, as well as by Polish government military detachments, Tatar hordes, and “wayward” [svoevol’nye] gentry detachments; and on the consequent destruction of cities, towns, estates, and segments of the population, including Jews, and on the impossibility, because of this, of collecting taxes. There are, moreover, judicial oaths [juramenty] of Christian and Jewish townspeople on the number of “hearths” [dymy, the household unit by which the podymne tax was assessed] remaining in population centres after these devastations; quittances and receipts for Jewish communities’ payment of taxes toward maintenance of the army and toward local militia levies; documents on the judicial prosecution of Jewish communities of numerous cities and towns for failure to pay such taxes; a record of a decree [uniwersał] of King Jan Kasimir guaranteeing the security of the Jews of the Volhynia wojewodship, who had previously been falsely accused of having aided Swedish forces; claims by Jews regarding the loss of property left behind due to military operations and raids; documents mentioning theft and violence perpetrated on Jews by haidamaks and by detachments of court militias and “wayward” nobles; etc.
***
Particular to the Zhitomir Castle Court are complaints on behalf of the Jewish community of the city of Vil’sk regarding harassment on the part of the local starosta (attacks, thefts, rapes, and defamations of community elders); and rulings in religion-based disputes, e.g., complaints regarding the forced baptism of a five-year-old Jewish girl in the city of Vil’sk.
- Access points: persons/families:
- King Jan Kazimierz
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
