Metadata: Records of the castle court of Nowy-Sącz (Acta Castrensia Sandecensia)
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- National Archives in Krakow
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie
- Postal address:
- ul. Sienna 16, 30–960 Kraków
- Phone number:
- (+48 12) 422 40 94; (+48 12) 4212790; (+48 12) 421 68 81
- Web address:
- http://ank.gov.pl/
- Email:
- sekretariat@ank.gov.pl
- Reference number:
- PL 29/7
- Title:
- Records of the castle court of Nowy-Sącz (Acta Castrensia Sandecensia)
- Title (official language):
- Księgi grodzkie sądeckie (Acta Castrensia Sandecensia)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Court of Nowy-Sącz
- Date(s):
- 1516/1784
- Language:
- Latin
- Polish
- Extent:
- 54.2 linear metres (451 units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The jurisdiction of the castle court for nobility of Nowy-Sącz extended to the counties of Nowy-Sącz, south-east of Krakow, forming part of the Krakow Voivodeship (Province) and thereafter, from 1772 on, under the Austrian rule (within what was then Galicia).
The type of notes found in court’s registers depends on the series. Almost no criminal case registers are extant.
Two books were kept in parallel since around 1574: the record (protocollon) and the final draft/clean copy (inducta). The earliest surviving records date back to the 17th century. The records feature signatures of the parties; Jews normally signed in Hebrew. Fascicles became common in the Austrian period.
After 1574, a reports and inscriptions section and a decree section were set up. As was common with castle courts, inscriptions and reports were eventually separated, as were the court’s and the office’s decrees. This system functioned until 1771/1781, whereas the court’s decrees ceased being written down by 1673, once the court discontinued its operations (attended by the starost). The decrees comprise contentious/litigious issues, particularly with respect to debts and contracts.
Inscriptions (records) primarily comprise perpetual disposals of property, including investments in Jewish communities (or some other liabilities); however, such notes are rather scarce.
In the reports, notes related to Jews are much more frequent than those in the inscriptions; the former include: privileges/charters granted to the communities or individual Jews, safe-conducts, so-called universal proclamations (universals), suits filed by or against Jewish communities. Much more numerous are private petitions brought against, or by, individual Jews; decrees (verdicts, decisions) in cases against Jewish communities and (much more frequent) in private cases involving Jewish residents; enforcements of verdicts/decisions; seizures of objects or immovable property; intromissions (introducing the prospective owner into his proprietorship); forensic examinations (usually of wounds)/post-mortems of the injured; manifestations related to communities’ affairs; manifestations/protestations regarding individual persons [Jews are numerously represented in this category]; empowerments/powers-of-attorney, presentations (of persons/objects to the office), oaths, and testimonies. The most frequent notes related to Jewish residents include agreements, contracts, [cor]roborations (confirming a legal transaction or the factual circumstances), receipts related to communities and (much more often) private persons. Some untypical notes can also be found, such as a testimony of a gang of robbers who claimed responsibility for the murder and robbery of a travelling Jewish merchant (Castr. Sand. 124, p. 919).
The Jewish communities in the district of Nowy-Sącz and in the adjacent districts emerged later than those in the area of Krakow. In the city of Nowy-Sącz itself the Jewish population remained small for a long time and hence the notes in the local court registers primarily refer to Jewish residents of Dukla, Żmigród and thereabouts until around the 1670s.
Jewish-related records exist in the following books (Castrensia Sandecensia = CS): Inscriptiones (inducta): 52, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64; Inscriptiones (protocollon): 82, 83, 84, 85, 86; Relationes (inducta): 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143; Relationes (protocollon): 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197; Relationes (copiae): 404, 405, 406, 407; Plenipotentiae: 309; Manifestationes: 228, 229; Decreta officii (inducta): 280, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287.
No Jewish items have been found in CS 65, 66, 67 or 68. CS 52 and CS 124 offer few or none.
The castle court registers of Nowy-Sącz contain an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 notes with references to Jews.
- Archival history:
- The extant registers of Nowy-Sącz begin in 1516. In the 16th century they were kept at the chancellery of the royal castle in Nowy-Sącz; an archive was gradually formed, which in 1768 suffered from a fire that affected the castle. After castle court courts were liquidated in 1784, their records were removed by the Austrian authorities to Lwów. Stored at the Bernardine Archive in Lwów, the files were bound, paginated and supplied with indices. 1877 saw the Galician authorities take over the archives from the Austrian central government. Following the relevant resolution of the Land Diet (1896), the collection was transported in 1897 to the Archive in Krakow, where it was re-ordered and catalogued. Finally, in 1949, it was removed to Section 1 [Oddział I] at the Castle of Wawel.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Being the earliest castle court in Lesser Poland (Małopolska), the court of Nowy-Sącz initially enjoyed a broader scope of competencies, which since the sixteenth century was narrowed down to a standard array (as in peer courts), which included public security (attack on house, arson, assault in public road), safety of courts and enforcement of verdicts, cases involving noblemen holding no landed property, filed by the court by the will of the parties to the dispute. The adjudication was exercised by the starost, the Bench being complemented by a judge and a scribe. From the 16th century onwards, the court was presided by the starost (the structure declined around 1673); since 1574 minor cases were handled by the office run by the podstarości (subprefect); entries were accepted on a daily basis (perpetual entries since 1598). Under the Austrian rule, from 1778 onwards the podstarości, the judge and the scribe took joint decisions. In 1780, the court lost the right to make perpetual entries and was finally liquidated in 1784.
- Access points: locations:
- Małopolska
- Subject terms:
- Crime
- Jewish community
- Legal records
- Privileges
- Real estate
- System of arrangement:
- The castle court records of Nowy-Sącz are aranged into sections corresponding with the respective archival sections: Inscriptiones (records), 1516–1780 (Castr. Sandec. 1–105); Relationes (reports/accounts), 1550–1784 (Castr. Sandec.106–236, 239–241, 243–244, 309–321, 332–334, 336–434); Decreta iudicii (decrees of the court), 1552–1673 (Castr. Sandec. 238, 242, 245–249, 252, 254, 257, 261, 263, 265, 269, 272, 275, 280); Decreta officii (decrees of the office), 1574–1784 (Castr. Sandec. 250–251, 253, 255–256, 258–260, 262, 264, 266–268, 270–271, 273–274, 276–308, 331, 431, 431a, 432, 435–451); Regestra causarum (registers [regests] of cases), 1676–1783 (Castr. Sandec. 322–330, 335).
- Finding aids:
-
Inventory available online.
See also:
Katalog Krajowego Archiwum Aktów Grodzkich i Ziemskich w Krakowie. Wydał Dr. Stanisław Kutrzeba, Kraków 1909, s. 1909, s. 31–52, 157–187.
Materiały źródłowe do dziejów Żydów w księgach grodzkich dawnego województwa krakowskiego z lat 1674-1696, opracował Adam Kaźmierczyk, Tom I, Lata 1674-1683, Kraków 1995.
Materiały źródłowe do dziejów Żydów w księgach grodzkich dawnego województwa krakowskiego z lat 1674-1696, opracował i wstępem opatrzył Adam Kaźmierczyk,Tom II, Lata 1683-1696, Kraków 2012.
The reading room also holds indexes to names, places and subjects.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Janusz S. Dąbrowski; Kraków; 2015
