Metadata: Duchy of Nysa
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:
- PL 82/6
- Title:
- Duchy of Nysa
- Title (official language):
- Księstwo nyskie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Administrative authority of the Duchy of Nysa
- Date(s):
- 1360/1866
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 12.1 linear metres (724 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 Nysa. They are divided into the following two groups:
I. Documents, arrangement chronologically: 1435–1503.
II. Files/dossiers:
1. The Duke and his relationship with the duchy. Fiefdom/feoff and tributary affairs, Bishop’s court affairs, public functions, financial affairs, mining industry, minting, postal/mailing and customs-related affairs, brewing industry, properties and domains, officials and clerks, forestry, industries, ennoblements: 1548–1846.
2. Estates (social stratification). Convocation of estate representatives, public functions, complaints, lists of properties of the chivalric estate, cities, rural subjects, Jews, Gypsies: 1549–1832.
3. Management of the duchy. Appointment of officials of various tiers, competence disputes between the Duchy’s government and the land starost, archive, chancellery, deposits, minutes (records) of the District Starosty of Nysa, missiva, patents, rescripts, accounting (bookkeeping) regulations: 1472–1824.
4. Legal and judicial system. Nobility’s law, court jurisdiction issues, statutes, offices, legitimate background lists, powers-of-attorney, criminal cases, clashes/conflicts, duels, murders, witchcraft, parasitism: 1553–1848.
5. Police. Rules and regulations; land, sanitary, fire, industrial, marketplace and road (traffic) police; censorship: 1550–1810.
6. Finances/treasury. Activities of individual pension offices, taxes, excise duties, loans, debts: 1577–1789.
7. Military affairs. Recruitment, confiscations, march-pasts, excesses, reviews, the defence system; Thirty Years’ War; supplies, lodging, knightly service; the fortress of Nysa; civilian archers’ (marksmen’s) fraternity : 1561–1778.
8. Agrarian culture and economic statistics. Lists of estates/properties, urbaria [lists detailing the landowner’s properties and his serfs’/bondservants’ obligations], development of vacant farmsteads, sheepfolds, field damages, lists of corn fields, crafts, paper industry: 1550–1748.
9. Morality and education-related affairs. Printing industry, nature, libraries, arts: 1515–1757.
10. Church-related affairs. Ecclesiastical offices, instructions for the clergy, property-related affairs (cases), church festivals, matrimonial affairs, church inspections, Protestants, the Bishop’s court, schools, hospitals, foundations, scholarships, the Collegiate Church of Nysa: 1415–1810.
11. Annex: copiaries [collections of duplicates of bestowal/privileging deeds], land registers, assessors’ register: 1360–1778.
The scarce Jewish-related items appear in the following units, inter alia:
Ref. no. 213: ‘Acta miscellanea enthaltend Judensachen, auch die Abschaffung der Juden’, 1591–1687, p. 88.
Ref. no. 214: ‘Acta die bestrittene Jurisdications der Magistrats zu Neisse über die Juden in der Friedrichstadt’, vol. 1. 1805/1806, s. 232.
Ref. no. 215: ‘Acta die bestrittene Jurisdications der Magistrats zu Neisse über die Juden in der Friedrichstadt’, vol. 2. 1806/1809, p. 293.
Ref. no. 393: ‘Beutelschneider Jacob Jackowsky, Jude von Wien, dessen Knecht, Juden von Krakau, und Paul Skozillus bei Klobutz in Polen und die mit ihnen angestellten Verhöre’, 1654, p. 16.
- Archival history:
- The materials contained in the collection were produced and collected by the Duchy administration. Before World War 2, the resource formed part of the Staatsarchiv Breslau; during the war, for the sake of protecting them, the files were dispersed and kept in various localities; some were destroyed, including, probably, a portion of Jewish-related items. 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:
- In the twelfth century, the Nysa-and-Otmuchów Land formed part of the territory ruled by Silesian Duke Boleslaus I the Tall (Bolesław Wysoki). With the division of the Duchy of Silesia in 1248–9, the Nysa-and-Otmuchów Land was made part of the Duchy of Wroclaw, a political unit assigned for Duke Henry III the White (Henryk Biały), who was Duke Henry II the Pious’ (Henryk Pobożny’s) younger son. In 1290, Duke Henry IV Probus conferred upon the Duke of Wroclaw full ducal rights to the Land of Nysa-and-Otmuchów. In the late thirteenth/early fourteenth century, the Land gained the status of a duchy with Nysa as the capital town. Referred to as a ‘dead hand’ duchy, the unit retained its possessions throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, expanding its territory in 1343 through acquisition of Grodków from the dukes of Brzeg. From 1342 on, the Duchy was a fiefdom of the Bohemian Crown. The duchy sustained its character and territorial reach throughout the Habsburg rule in Silesia. After the Silesian Wars, in 1742, most of its area became part of Prussia; only the southern portion, with the summer bishops’ residence at the Jawornik [German, Johannesberg; Czech, Javorník] castle remained within the Habsburg domain. The duchy came to its end as Prussia was secularised in 1810. 1818 saw the inclusion of a considerable portion of the former Episcopal duchy – the counties (poviats) of Nysa and Grodków – in the Regierungsbezirk Oppeln; thereby, most of the duchy’s area was separated from Lower Silesia and administratively merged with the Prussian Upper Silesia. The Austrian part was secularised in 1850, with landed estates retained by the bishops of Wroclaw (Breslau). Bishop Heinrich Förster, who was expelled from Prussia in 1875, after Pope Pius IX’s encyclical criticising the ‘Kulturkampf’ was published, is reported to have sought refuge there.
- Subject terms:
- Crime
- Expulsion
- Legal matters
- Privileges
- 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
