Metadata: Confederacy Court
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 29/24
- Title:
- Confederacy Court
- Title (official language):
- Sąd konfederacyjny
- Creator/accumulator:
- Court of the Confederacy of Targowica for the Voivodeship of Krakow
- Date(s):
- 1792/1793
- Date note:
- Documents date from 10.09.1792 to 30.09.1793
- Language:
- Polish
- Extent:
- 0.5 linear metres (10 volumes)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The type of notes found in the records of the Confederacy Court were determined by the scope of competencies of the Court and the series (section) of the books/registers.
One recommended section of books/registers, decrees and resolutions, including a record (protocollon) and a fair (clean) copy (inducta) was kept, in Polish only. A few other records were introduced, such as the record of empowerments/plenipotentiary powers, or receipts; copies of its items were included in testimonies, subpoenas, complaints, and oblates entries of legal acts in court registers. Five registers (regests) of cases were moreover kept.
Archival research shows that Jewish-related elements include various types of documents. Civil cases prevail, as is the case with the entire collection. Apart from writs filed by/against Jewish residents and communes, testimonies (e.g. by a local peasant) against Jews, the extant plenipotentiary powers contain Hebrew (less frequently, Polish) signatures autographed by Jews (29/24/0/1/2, 29/24/0/1/3, pp. 251–60, 881–6). Numerous Jewish-related items include demands to repay a debt, interest rate, the amount contracted; there are criminal cases too, one of them concerning a Jew having been beaten to death (20/24/0/4/9; 29/24/0/2/4).
As regards the notes related to violation of one’s holdings, there appears a claim for regaining of a brewery, making up for losses/damages at several thousand zlotys, or a suit regarding stolen alcohols, cereals, battery of the plaintiff (a Jew) whose wife had been vilified; finally, one related to assault and robbery of a house. While the Jewish items usually appear in dispersion, they in some cases form entire files or sections of a register (29/24/0/1/1, pp. 23–24, 23–26, 26–30, 30–32, 32–34, 41–44, 45–46).
Among the Jewish items is a dispute between the elders and the administrators of the synagogue in Kazimierz. The Court suspended the anathema, punished the revolting party for violating the obedience and ordered that the parties to reciprocally reconcile, with no option to appeal against the ruling (29/24/0/2/4, pp. 6, 6–7, 7–8, 8–9).
No Jewish-related elements have been found in 29/24/0/3/5 (former Terr. Crac. Nova 60).
- Archival history:
- The books/registers forming the fond were kept at Krakow’s Confederacy Court; once the latter was closed down, they were stored in the archive along with the land records. After Krakow was seized by Austria, the fond was moved (around 1799) probably to the former Jesuit college in Grodzka St.. In 1810, the Duchy of Warsaw’s Government mandated the archive to the Manager of Mortgages. In 1877, the archive was taken over from the Austro-Hungarian Government by the authorities of Austrian-Polish Galicia; the resource eventually returned to Poland in 1918. Once arranged in an order, the collection was included in the land records; a catalogue itemising its contents was published in 1909. It returned to the Wawel in 1949.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Confederacy courts were established by the Confederacy of Targowica on 14th May 1792; the rules of conduct were determined by the Confederacy’s ‘universal’ proclamation (uniwersal) of 19th June 1792. The Krakow-based court functioned between 10th September 1792 and 30th September 1793, the date it was abolished by a uniwersal of the Confederacy of Grodno of 17th September 1793. This collegial court, composed of a marshal and confederacy counsellors (konsyliarzs) appointed by the dietine, passed verdicts based on a majority of vote, with a minimum of three judges attending, on a daily basis. The Court’s competencies were restricted to cases involving security and safety of the state and inhabitants, as a broad concept.
- Subject terms:
- Crime
- Financial matters
- Jewish community
- Legal records
- System of arrangement:
-
The fond is composed of several series (sections) of books or registers (former reg. no.: Terrestria Cracoviensia Nova):
Testimonies of petitions, complaints, oblates: 1792–3, 29/24/0/1/1– 29/24/0/1/3;
Empowerments/plenipotentiary powers, testimonies, receipts: 1792–3 Terr. Crac. Nova 63 29/24/0/;
Decrees and resolutions: 1792–3, Terr. Crac. Nova 62 29/24/0/2/4;
Accessions to the Confederacy of Targowica, 1792, Terr. Crac. Nova 60, 29/24/0/3/5;
Registers of cases, 1792–3, Terr. Crac. Nova 13 29/24/0/4–29/24/0/10.
- Access, restrictions:
- If a copy (microfilm, scan, photocopy) of a document exists, this is what will be made available. Access to the originals requires the consent of the Director.
- Finding aids:
-
Inventory available online.
Also see:
Katalog Krajowego Archiwum Aktów Grodzkich i Ziemskich w Krakowie. Wydał Dr. Stanisław Kutrzeba, Kraków 1909, s. 31–52, 157–187.
NB: The collection has recently been re-numbered.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Janusz S. Dąbrowski; Kraków; 2015
