Metadata: The Archive of the Order of Saint Augustine, Krakow
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 29/501
- Title:
- The Archive of the Order of Saint Augustine, Krakow
- Title (official language):
- Archiwum Augustianów w Krakowie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Augustinian Friars
- Date(s):
- 1299/1947
- Language:
- Latin
- Polish
- German
- Extent:
- 15.12 linear metres (703 units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The files (deeds, acts) that make up this collection were produced by the Augustinian Monastery in Krakow, other monasteries or convents within the Polish Province of the Augustinian Order and the superior ecclesial authorities. This is a rare example of ecclesiastical archives available at a national (State) archive institution.
Most of the documents in this fond refers to the internal affairs of the Roman Catholic Church. Jewish-related elements mostly occur in Section 10 (X) – Property and economy-related records (Aug 535–686, 698–703). The Order invested the received donations in institutions and realties, as so-called wyderkafs (German Wiederkauf = ‘repurchase’). This included investments in kahals or bequeaths to synagogues, whilst some real properties owned by the Order were leased out to Jews.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century, kahals and synagogues were apparently unable to pay off the principal or the overdue interest (cf. Aug 137, Aug 530), which caused the Order diminished investments with the Jews. Notes on Jews in the Order’s books-of-account compiled in Kazimierz are dispersed, for the most part. Jewish items can also be found in the monastery’s chronicles, copiaries (descriptive registers) of documents (1496–1912; Aug 232–251), and in correspondence with the secular authorities (Aug 261–264). It is not quite probable that any considerable quantity of such Jewish items could be found in the materials related to the affairs of the Church (Aug 1–Aug 91, 167–231, 252–475). Our recent query has generally shown that the adjacency of the Jewish community in Kazimierz has been rather faintly reflected in the monastery’s archives.
Jewish elements have been found to appear in larger quantity in Aug 137 and Aug 530 (endeavours to regain the capital investments, between the 2nd half of the eighteenth century and the 1st half of the nineteenth).
The following books, registers or manuscripts contain numerous Jewish-related items:
Aug 93 [Rents from Krakow Jews for the monasteries in Olkusz and Rawa-Mazowiecka]; Aug 116 [Income and expenditures of the Monastery of Olkusz, 1755–88]; Aug 154 [Monastery of Załoźce {now Zaliztsi in Ukraine}, investments]; Aug 544 [Monastery of Krakow, rents and income, 1681–1759]; Aug 545 [Monastery in Krakow: rents, 1700–61]; Aug 552 [Arrears related to Jewish debts, 1649–1714]; Aug 553 [Monastery in Krakow: pecuniary income from Krakow Jews, 1664–96]; Aug 555 [Monastery in Krakow: commissions and rents, 1802–43, record]; Aug 556 [Interest rate on the principal, related to St. Catherine’s Church, 1839–89]. Individual Jewish-related items have been found in: Aug 22 (Urbanowicz’s Chronicle, ca. 1689–1786; the chronicle by Fr. Ranotowicz of the Augustinian Order, being more valuable, presently forms part of the Jagiellonian Library collection); Aug 92 [Monastery inventories, 1842]; Aug 115 [Monastery of Olkusz, accounts, 1548–1606]; Aug 569 [Monastery of Krakow, income from outside Krakow, 1653, 1763–1827]; Aug 583 [St. Catherine’s Church, list of assets/properties and incomes]; Aug 606 [Monastery of Krakow, accounts, 1655–6]; Aug 607 [Monastery of Krakow, accounts, 1658–1662]. As for the manuscripts left over from twenty wound-up monasteries or convents, Jewish items are found in Aug 115 – Olkusz; Aug 154 – synagogues in Tarnopol, Podkamieniec, Zbaraż [now Zbarazh in Ukraine], Oleksińce [Oleksintsi, Ukraine]. It has not been clearly resolved whether Jewish elements could also be found in Section 9 (IX) – The minster church of St. Catherine, relative to the church’s redevelopment in 1801–1948 (Aug 486–543). No Jewish items were found in Aug 21, 94, 103, 140 or 546.
- Archival history:
- The history of the collection is not very well known. Documents of importance were copied in the seventeenth century, so they would be protected against destruction. The archival materials of the Order’s Province have been kept at Krakow since 1547. The archive was tended by depositary brethren and later by an archivist. Attempts, mostly failed, were made in the nineteenth century to remove the archives of the churches, being dissolved at the time, to Kazimierz. In the course of the nineteenth/twentieth century, a number of documents were lost or taken over by private owners or various other collections. After the Order was abolished, the archives were decaying in the deserted monastery; hence, protection and removal to the State Archives began in 1952.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The convent of the Catholic Order of Saint Augustine, which is Poland’s earliest and largest, was founded by King Casimir III the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) in what was the town of Kazimierz (today, district of Krakow) in 1343. The Polish Province of the Order, encompassing a dozen-or-so convents/monasteries, was established in 1547. A total of twenty-one Augustinian convents, including a nunnery (in Krakow), were established before the mid-eighteenth century. The Krakow monastery was destroyed in the late 18th/early 19th century as military troops were quartered on its premises, and eventually lost its income. The authorities of the countries that invaded and partitioned Poland-Lithuania in the late eighteenth century dissolved the convents and monasteries: the Austrians did it between 1783 and 1840; the Prussians and the Russians, in 1864. Two convents survived in the Free City of Krakow (existed 1815–46), and were eventually dissolved by the Church authorities in 1950.
- Subject terms:
- Christianity
- Financial matters
- Jewish-Christian relations
- Real estate
- System of arrangement:
- This collection is thematically and chronologically arranged. It is composed of the Records of the Province of the Augustinians in Poland (Aug 1–166) and the Records of the Monastery of Kazimierz (Aug 167–703). The former contains documents of the Polish Province and, moreover, archives taken over from dissolved convents (Aug 92–166). The latter collection is arranged by subject and chronology: the first part comprises parchment documents; the second, documents relating to the Church organisation and religious life (2–9 [II–IX]); part three covers property and economy-related documents (10 [X]).
- Finding aids:
-
Inventory available online.
See also:
Wacław Kolak, Katalog archiwum OO. Augustianów w Krakowie 1299–1950. Dokumenty pergaminowe opracowała: Krystyna Jelonek-Litewka, Kraków 1996; Grzegorz Uth, Szkic historyczno-biograficzny zakonu augustiańskiego w Polsce, Kraków 1930.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Janusz S. Dąbrowski; Kraków; 2015
