Metadata: Duchy of Brzeg
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of Wroclaw
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Państwowe we Wrocławiu
- Postal address:
- ul. Pomorska 2, 50-215 Wrocław
- Phone number:
- (+48 71) 328 81 01; (+48 71) 328 83 95
- Web address:
- http://www.ap.wroc.pl/
- Email:
- sekretariat@ap.wroc.pl
- Reference number:
- PL82/1/0
- Title:
- Duchy of Brzeg
- Title (official language):
- Księstwo brzeskie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Administrative authority of the Duchy of Brzeg
- Date(s):
- 1358/1890
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 8 linear metres (486 folders)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection consists of materials amassed by the administration of the Duchy of Brzeg (later known as Brieg) – as categorised into:
1. Domain/estate and income of the Duchy’s executive team, feudatory affairs, ducal domains and regalia, mining issues, regulation of the frontiers, organisation of the office of burgrave, administration and economy of ducal estates, forestry affairs, urbarium [list detailing the landowner’s properties and his bondservants’ obligations];1604–1865.
2. Estates (social classes) of the duchy, minutes of a convention of land (country) dietines, obligations of the subjects and complaints submitted by them; 1625–1809.
3. Management of the Duchy, records of the district offices (starosties); 1743–8.
4. Legal and judicial system, rules, fees, criminal items; 1742–1835.
5. Police affairs, inspections, personal issues; 1763–1814.
6. Treasury/fiscal matters, taxes, income from estates in the District of Strehlen (Strzelin); 1721–1848.
7. Military affairs, chivalric service, reviews, recruitment/conscription, Thirty Years’ War, fortifications, supplies, march-pasts; 1510–1740.
8. Agrarian culture and economic statistics, list and estimated data regarding the nobility and the peasantry, register of corn fields, cadastre, losses, dearness, agricultural statistics, guild affairs, grapevine cultivation, wickerwork, the judiciary, cattle breeding, trade/commerce, industry; 1536–1890.
9. Educational and moral/customs affairs, culture and arts, scholarships, witchcraft, printing industry; 1543–1819.
10. Church and ecclesiastical affairs: statistics, Evangelical Church, consistory, ecclesiastical customs and morals, matrimonies, complaints, renegades, closedown of churches, religious oppression, youth education, war tax, church fees, Catholic Church, cloisters/monasteries, charity foundations; 15th century–1861.
11. Annex: landbuch, accounts; 1358–1600.
The Jewish-related elements are scarce:
Ref. no. 50: ‘Gerichtsprotokolle des kgl Amtes Kreutzburg’; 1743–8; therein (inter alia):
A complaint submitted by Joachim Marcus, a Jew of Kreuzburg (Kluczbork) (formerly in the service of a Krakow Jew Marcus) versus Jacob Selich Sowitz, a Jewish distiller and leaseholder based near Kreuzburg.
Ref. no. 166: ‘Anfertigung und Einsendung der topographisch-statistischen Tabellen in Betreff des Amtes Prieborn [Przeworno] und der dazu gehörigen Dörfer’;1811–61; therein (inter alia):
Statistical tables quoting the residents’ religion; mentioning Christian-Ludwig Nathan, a Jew holding no civil rights.
Ref. no. 222: ‘Acta miscellanea von Wollsachen besonders was den verbotenen Wollhandel der Juden und die Einsendung gewisser Spezifikationen von Wollvorrat betr.’; 1733–9.
- Archival history:
- The materials in this collection were generated and amassed by the administration of the Duchy of Brzeg (Brieg). Stored as part of the Staatsarchiv Breslau prior to World War 2, the files were dispersed during the war and kept in various localities for the sake of protection; a portion of them were destroyed then. Jewish items might have been affected as well. After World War 2, the files were included in the State Archive of Wroclaw, the legal successor of the former German-owned archive.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Duchy of Brzeg was formed in 1311, with Boleslaus (Bolesław) III as its ruler. In 1329 the duchy became subordinate to the Bohemian Crown as a fiefdom. Almost since the beginning, the history of the duchy intertwined with that of the Duchy of Legnica (Liegnitz), with unions, divisions and reunifications occurring one after the other. The last such merger took place in 1663. After the death of the last Silesian Piast ruler George IV William (Georg Wilhelm I. von Liegnitz, Brieg und Wohlau) in 1675, the duchy was partitioned into three separate duchies: of Brieg, Liegnitz and Wohlau (Wołów), each of which acted as hereditary duchies and administrative units. In 1736, the Duchy of Brieg encompassed the circuits or precincts of: Brieg, Ohlau (Oława), Strehlen (Strzelin), Nimptsch (Niemcza), Kreuzburg (Kluczbork), Pitschen (Byczyna) and Namslau (Namysłów). After the seizure of Silesia by Prussia, the Duchy of Brieg remained merely an estate administration unit.
- Access points: locations:
- Brzeg
- Access points: persons/families:
- Marcus, Joachim
- Nathan, Christian-Ludwig
- Sowitz, Jacob Selich
- Subject terms:
- Legal matters
- Statistics
- Trade and commerce
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of books/registers and unbound items, manuscript and printed.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is available in the reading room of the State Archive of Wroclaw.
- Finding aids:
- A register is available at the archives.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Anna Grużlewska, Leszek Ziątkowski; University of Wroclaw; 2015
