Metadata: Duchy of Ziębice
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 82/11
- Title:
- Duchy of Ziębice
- Title (official language):
- Księstwo ziębickie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Administrative authority of the Duchy of Ziębice
- Date(s):
- 1468/1882
- Language:
- German
- Latin
- Extent:
- 8 linear metres (280 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 Ziębice. There are two types of material: documents and files (dossiers).
I. Documents; 1480–92.
II. Files/dossiers:
1. The Duke and his attitude to his subordinate duchies: correspondence and letters of individual dukes, lien and division of the duchy, homage/tributes, financial matters, frontier matters, mining, minting, postal service, customs, domains, debts, urbaria lists detailing the landowner’s properties and his bondservants’ obligations], tributary affairs, grace, the castle of Ziębice; 1492–1808.
2. Estates: privileges/charters, local dietines (sejmiks) of the principality, memorials, disputable cases, Jewish affairs; 1569–1742.
3. Duchy management: office of Starost, officials, records/minutes registers, mortgage registers, signature registers, inventories and estimates of property, archive; 1560–1822.
4. Legal and judicial system: land (country’s) law, minutes/records, manorial court, varia – civil and criminal; 1570–1753.
5. Police: pharmacies, children’s illnesses, conflicts/disputes, market prices, censorship; 1549–1740.
6. Finances/treasury: taxes, accounting; 1556–1740.
7. Military affairs: chivalric service, civilian archers’ (marksmen’s) fraternities, Thirty Years’ War; 1565–1743.
8. Agrarian culture and economic statistics: lists of villages and estates (properties), lists of members of Duchy’s estates, cornfield records, urbaria, 1566–1727.
9. Annex: assessors’ register for Henryków [Heinrichau], property dossiers; 1468–19th century.
Jewish-related items are scarce, but appear in the following units (inter alia):
Ref. no. 42: ‘Breslauer Kriegs- und Domänenkrammer betr. die im 3. Schlesischen Kriege sich verdächtig gemachten Personen zu Münsterberg’, 1758–64.
Ref. no. 175: ‘Hypothekenbuch der Ritter- und Kammergüter’, 18th–19th century.
- 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:
-
Bolko II, grandson of the Legnica duke Boleslaus II ‘the Horned’ (Bolesław II Rogatka), was the first Duke of Ziębice. In 1336, he paid tributary homage to John of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, receiving in return the Land of Kłodzko as a life estate. After John (Jan), the last Piast ruler of Ziębice, died a violent death in 1428, the duchy became property of the Bohemian Crown, with the current king of Bohemia officially ruling it.
In the time of the regency of John of Poděbrady, in 1443, the duchy was transferred to Duke William (Wilhelm) of Opava and, subsequently, to his brother Ernest. After the two died, King George of Poděbrady conferred the duchy to his own sons. After the last of the Poděbrad House died heirless in 1548, Ziębice was passed under the control of the Piasts of Legnica. Soon afterwards, Emperor Ferdinand I Habsburg passed the domain over to Isabella Jagiellon, Queen of Hungary, as a temporary residence. After his return to Transylvania, Ziębice was ruled by various persons. As a Silesian administrative unit, the Duchy encompassed the districts of Ziębice and Ząbkowice-Śląskie (as of 1736). After Silesia was seized by Prussia, the Duchy remained an estates administration unit.
- Access points: locations:
- Henryków
- Ząbkowice-Śląskie
- Ziębice
- Subject terms:
- Military
- Real estate
- 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
