Metadata: The records of the Grand Procuratorate of Krakow (Acta Magnae Procurationis in Arce Cracoviensis)
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 29/28
- Title:
- The records of the Grand Procuratorate of Krakow (Acta Magnae Procurationis in Arce Cracoviensis)
- Title (official language):
- Księgi wielkorządów krakowskich (Acta Magnae Procurationis in Arce Cracoviensis)
- Creator/accumulator:
- Grand Procuratorate of Krakow
- Date(s):
- 1461/1794
- Date note:
- Documents date from 1461–1461, 1471–1471 and 1547–1794.
- Language:
- Latin
- Polish
- Extent:
- 6.7 linear metres (134 units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
This collection is comprised of the records of the Grand Procuratorate of Krakow, which was the administration of royal estates within the governorate of Krakow from the 14th to the 18th century, assigned for the maintenance of the king and his household, Wawel Castle. The type of notes corresponds with the registers into which decreta and acta were separated in around 1620; the record (protocollon) was in use from 1665 and 1683 for records and decrees respectively. The period 1738-83 saw the resumption of a single series, being fair copy (inducta). Separate records were set up in 1777 for inscriptions, acts and deeds (various transactions), testimonies of petitions, oblates (entries of legal acts in court registers) (1783), manifestations (1788), debt liquidations (1788) and plenipotentiary powers (1789).
Some of the collection’s notes are economic cases, along with cases related to leasehold of the Grand Procuratorate’s income, such as leasing or renting of breweries, inns and ponds, trading in fish and timber, leasing of transport across the Vistula river and collection of customs and toll duties. The other basic section included appeals made to the Grand Procuratorate’s court, including in criminal cases, such as attempted murder. Leaseholders (innkeepers and publicans) were frequently accused of receiving stolen goods. Appellations proposed by Jews referred to a variety of cases, including accusations of theft and manslaughter.
Leasing out of propination-related income (income based on the exclusive privilege to produce and sell alcohol; publican’s income) to Jews caused protests by guilds including innkeepers’ guilds. For their part, Jewish lessees of inns, breweries and distilleries brought lawsuits against those transporting alcoholic beverages into Krakow, Kazimierz, Kleparz and Słomniki. In turn, they were accused by their competitors of failure to pay taxes, fraud or battery.
The cases considered by the court rarely concerned returns of debt, for Jewish residents tended to refer such cases to the mayor’s and aldermen’s court (sąd wójtowsko-ławniczy).
The collection contains Jewish-related elements that are hard to format into simple legal cases, one example being removal from the governor’s jurisdiction and submission to the Grand Procurator’s jurisdiction of the case of the royal goldsmith, a Jew who later became the head of the Lithuanian mint, or the Grand Procurator’s intervention with the authorities of Krakow claiming that the municipal authorities diminish the financial demands, as confirmed by a decree, due to a tough situation of the Kazimierz-based community (1776). A suit from 1782 concerns a person who had caused a collapse of the wall surrounding the town of Kazimierz by demolishing a property adjacent to the town’s Jewish district. Kazimierz also brought a suit against the local kahal for banning the purchase of bread by Jews from Christian bakers.
While Jewish-related elements are mostly dispersed, certain series relate to a single case (for example, a case of alleged unlawful imprisonment: IT 92, pp. 711, 723-6, 741-2, 743-4, 803-4, 805-6).
Jewish items may probably be found in most of the collection’s units. They are confirmed in IT 74, IT 90, IT 91, IT 92, IT 94, IT 95, IT 1141, Teut. 64, Teut. 80, Teut. 81, Teut. 82, Teut. 83, Teut. 109, Teut. 110, Teut. 111, Teut. 116.
The Grand Procuratorate records and files are stored at the Central Archives of Historical Records (AGAD) in Warsaw, as well as at the Czartoryski Library and the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow.
- Archival history:
- From the sixteenth century the registers were kept at Wawel Castle, specifically in its Grand Procuratorate apartment. The castle was damaged in 1772 by Russian troops; the Grand Procuratorators subsequently resided outside the castle, where they may have taken some archival materials with them – it is known that as of 1791 the collection was stored in several places, with many registers having perished. In the nineteenth century the registers were kept at the land and mortgage office in Krakow; they were transferred to an archive in 1879 and subsequently arranged in order, an exercise completed by 1909. In 1949, they were moved from 52 Grodzka Street back to the archive at Wawel Castle.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
From the early 14th to the 18th century, Grand Procurators (governors) of Krakow were royal officials who managed the Procuratorate’s properties or estates. They were tasked with ensuring the highest income possible and with the care of the royal castle in Krakow as well as the Grand Procuratorate’s properties. They exercised jurisdiction over the population living in these properties until June 1793. In the 18th century the properties included seven towns and 23 villages.
The grand procurators exercised the jurisdiction of the castle complex as well as of the jurydykas of Smoleńsk (Smoleńsk wielkorządowy), Podzamcze and Łobzów (a jurydyka being a settlement outside (or less commonly an enclave within) a royal city which was independent from the municipal laws and rulers but instead remained under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastic or secular lord who chartered, founded and owned it). They also accepted appeals from Grand-Procuratorate villages and towns, as confirmed by a constitution of 1768 with respect to Kazimierz and Stradom, Kleparz, Proszowice, Słomniki, Koszyce and Olkusz (from 1786), all being localities with Jewish dwellers.
One of the Grand Procurator’s deputies was the podrzędczy, the other one being the Grand Procuratorate’s judge; the latter grew in importance in the second half of the eighteenth century. Lower-ranking officials were the steward (klucznik) and the records scribe (pisarz aktowy). The office was abolished in 1795-6 following the Third Partition of Poland-Lithuania.
- System of arrangement:
-
The extant registers are divided into two main series:
* The registers of the courts of the Grand Procuratorate of Krakow, 1549–1794 (Teut. 61–138, Varia 65, IT 46, 48–50, 61–73, 76–97).
* Economic records of the Grand Procuratorate of Krakow, 1461–1787 (IT 43–45, 47, 51–60, 74–75).
NB the numbering of this series is expected to change in the near future.
- 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.
An inventory and index in Polish are available in the reading room at the archive.
NB the numbering of this series is expected to change in the near future.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Janusz S. Dąbrowski; Kraków; 2015