Metadata: Duchy of Oleśnica
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 82/7
- Title:
- Duchy of Oleśnica
- Title (official language):
- Księstwo oleśnickie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Administrative authority of the Duchy of Oleśnica
- Date(s):
- 1320/1875
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 18.5 linear metres (1244 folders)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection consists of materials gathered by the administration of the Duchy of Oleśnica. They are divided into two groups:
I. Documents, in chronological arrangement, fifteenth century.
II. Files/dossiers:
1. Correspondence of the ducal house on the Duchy’s general affairs and family matters: letters and reports on the ruling dukes and their families, travels, regulations, privileges/charters, frontier affairs, hunting, fisheries, metallurgy, mining industry, monetary matters, postal/mailing issues, customs, ducal domains and regalia, feuds/fiefdoms, grace issues: 1324–1839.
2. Estates (social stratification): estate conventions, cities, subjects, Jews, Gypsies: 1562–1849.
3. Management. Regulations and statutes, officials/clerks, Braunschweig house affairs, registratura [collection of current and archival files/dossiers], chancellery, official registers, archive: 1534–1856.
4. Legal and political-system affairs, the judiciary: country law, ducal and landed judicature, organisation of courts, civil cases, criminal cases: 1487–1842.
5. Police: security, sanitary, marketplace, industrial, construction, forestry, servants, ‘vice squads’: 1551–1770.
6. Finances/treasury: taxes, rents, excise duties, debts, claims: 1571–1797.
7. Military affairs: reviews, defence issues, supplies, Thirty Years’ War, lodgings, conscription, march-pasts, war taxes: 1575–1788.
8. Agriculture, crafts, industry, trade/commerce: medical doctors, lists (censuses) of villages and folwarks [manorial farms], fief estates/properties, elemental disasters, fire-protection issues, registers of mines and mills, urbaria [lists detailing the landowner’s properties and his serfs’/bondservants’ obligations], industry: 1546–1862.
9. Ecclesiastical matters: lists of subjects of the Trzebnica/Trebnitz monastery: 1594.
10. Annex: a copiary [collection of duplicates of bestowal/privileging deeds], proprietorship and trial/proceeding affairs: 1320–1769.
Jewish-related material is scarce but can be found in the following units:
Ref. no. 844: ‘Münzsachen’, Bd. 10, 1732–42.
Ref. no. 994: ‘Varia betr. Juden’, 16th century, card no. 9; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9a.
Ref. no. 995: ‘Oberamtsbefehl an die verw. Herzogin Elisabeth Maria zur Eintreibung der Judensteuer in F. Oels und Herrschafts Medzibor’, 1672, c. 5; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9c.
Ref. no. 996: ‘Supplik des Juden Aaron Salomon in Elbing’, 1704, c. 3; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9e.
Ref. no. 997: ‘Herzogl. Braunschweig und Oelschen Kammer in Oels betr. die Juden und die diesfäligen Rechte in F. Oels’, 1753–1812, c. 157; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9g. This unit comprises printed and tabular matter on Jews residing in Silesia.
Ref. no. 998: ‘Die von den Juden zu entrichtenden Schutzgelder im F. Oels’, vol. 1, 1749–82, c. 134; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9i.
Ref. no. 999: ‘Die von den Juden zu entrichtenden Schutzgelder im F. Oels’, vol. 2, 1783–95, c. 160; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9i.
Ref. no. 1000: ‘Judentoleranz’, 1804, c. 5; former file no.: Rep 33 d.II 9l.
Ref. no. 1031: ‘Verzeichnis der an die kgl. Kriegs- und Domänenkammer, das Oberamt und Oberkonsistorium zu Breslau … der Rescripte und Verordnungen in Justiz und Verwaltungssachen’, 1761–5.
- Archival history:
- The materials in this 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:
- As an autonomous unit, the Duchy of Oleśnica emerged in 1313, resulting from the division of the Duchy of Głogów among the sons of Duke Henry III. Boleslaus (Bolesław) was then made Duke of Oleśnica. This status continued into 1321, the year Boleslaus’s brother Conrad I assumed power after the former died an heirless death. In 1329, Conrad paid homage to John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia. Ever since, the dominion of the Piasts and their successors belonged to the Bohemian Crown as a fiefdom. After the death of Conrad X the White (Konrad Biały), the last Piast-house duke of the Oleśnica lineage (1493), Ladislaus II Jagiellon of Bohemia transferred the duchy, by way of exchange, to the sons of George of Poděbrady. The duke of Württemberg and the duke Braunschweig were the subsequent rulers of the Oleśnica Duchy. As an administrative unit, the Duchy of Oleśnica encompassed, as of 1736, the districts of: Oleśnica, Trzebnica, Bierutów, Milicz and Żmigród. After Silesia was seized by Prussia in 1740–1, the Duchy ceased to exist as a state administrative unit, preserving its prerogatives in administering the social estate-related matters. Apart from Oleśnica, the capital town, the Duchy included Milicz, Bierutów, Syców, and Kąty-Wrocławskie.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Salomon, Aaron
- Subject terms:
- Legal matters
- Minting
- Taxation
- Taxation--Tolerance tax
- 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
