Metadata: Jurydyka of Wygoda
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- The National Archives in Krakow
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie
- Postal address:
- Oddział III, 30-960 Kraków, ul. Sienna 16
- Phone number:
- +48 (12) 422 40 94
- Web address:
- http://ank.gov.pl/
- Email:
- sekretariat@ank.gov.pl
- Reference number:
- 29/46/0
- Title:
- Jurydyka of Wygoda
- Title (official language):
- Jurydyka Wygoda
- Creator/accumulator:
- Authorities of Krakow’s Jurydyka of Wygoda
- Date(s):
- 1740/1793
- Date note:
- 1740-1749; 1759-1764; 1789-1793; 1736-1790
- Language:
- Polish
- Latin
- Extent:
- 0.07 linear metres (4 units)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
This fonds covers the Jurydyka of Wygoda in (mainly the second half of) the 18th century. Jewish-related material can mainly be found in records from the 1740s to 1760s.
The records of the Jurydyka of Wygoda include excerpts from vogt and aldermen’s registers; revisions of houses; letters concerning matters of property and assets, submitted to the vogt and aldermen’s court, the court of the royal governor of Krakow, the municipal [grodzki] court of Krakow; letters to the municipality [magistrat] of Krakow; certifications for residents of Wygoda; ‘ordination’ [ordinance/regulations] for the jurydyka issued by its proprietors in 1759; chancellery fees. The only vogt and aldermen’s register is from 1740-9. It contains non-chronological entries on litigious and non-litigious cases, including intromissions, last wills and testaments, cessions and transfers.
The following files include Jewish-related material: 29/46/0/-/2 (Jur X-2) – the 1759 ‘ordination’ recommended that the “Jews dwelling in this ground have no meetings or religious devotions in public whatsoever”. 29/46/0/-/4 (Jur X-4) – cases related to Jewish liens (suits filed against Jews for failing to return pawned objects), letters of Jews to the vogt and aldermen’s office, civil cases re. payments to Jews for meat sold, lawsuits against Jews regarding fires, mandate establishing a fully empowered judge and administrator for the Jurydyka of Wygoda (Jews being instructed to obey him), suits from Jewish publicans from the adjacent ground which was ruled by a royal governor against residents of Wygoda for debts related to trading in alcohol, forensic examinations of battered Jews from Wygoda, cases re. trading in mead and vodka and procedural evictions re. trading in oxen by Jews.
- Archival history:
- One vogt and aldermen’s register and miscellaneous records form the fairly modest record heritage of the jurydyka. Standing out among these preserved records are the 1759 ordynacja for Wygoda and the breakdown of chancellery fees for litigation and official actions. The records were reviewed and their pages numbered by the office of the Circuit [cyrkuł] 3 of Garbary in 1792. The records of Jurydyka of Wygoda were moved to the City Hall of Krakow in March 1794. During the Free City of Krakow period, i.e. 1815-46, the records were kept at the Krakow City Hall and afterwards at the Mortgage Registry Office (affiliated to the Court of Appeals), and were transferred in 1890 to the Archives of Historical Records of the City of Krakow. The records from the first half of the 18th century and the vogt and aldermen’s registers compiled during the reign of King Stanislaus II Augustus have not survived.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Jurydyka [i.e. privately-owned tract of land within the city] of Wygoda (also called Margrabszczyzna or Margrabstwo) was a ‘noble’ jurydyka situated on the right bank of the river Rudawa, within the area named Półwsie Zwierzynieckie. Presently, it is an area within Krakow, forming part of District VII – Zwierzyniec, between the Rudawa and Zygmunta Krasińskiego Ave. Wygoda bordered on other jurydykas – Smoleńsk Wielkorządowy [lit., ‘Royal Governor’s Smolensk’] in the south and Smoleńsk Duchowny [‘Clerical Smolensk’] in the west. There were fourteen houses as of 1789, inhabited by petty market traders, servants, impoverished nobles, and Jewish people.
In general, a jurydyka was an area situated beside or within a royal city; in some cases, a jurydyka was a sort of inner enclave not subject to the city’s authorities, whose residents were exempt from the duty to pay the municipal taxes. Otherwise, jurydykas were self-government bodies or particular territories enjoying their own jurisdiction or administration.
In 1687, Franciszek Cezary, a Krakow book trader, sold the tract of land in question to Michał Szwarzenberg-Czerny, Castellan of Oświęcim. In 1703, Augustus II ‘the Strong’ excluded Wygoda from the jurisdiction of the Krakow royal governor [wielkorządca], and recognised it officially as a ‘noble’ jurydyka. The magnate family Szwarcenberg-Czerny established a vogt and aldermen’s office there; in 1740-8, the body was composed of the vogt and his deputy [podwójci], two aldermen, a scribe and a ‘general office messenger [woźny generalny]. Appeals could be made from verdicts of the vogt and aldermen’s court to the jurydyka’s owners or to either of the two plenipotentiaries. 1791 saw the abolishment of the jurydyka at the Four Years’ Sejm; in 1800 it was merged with Krakow by decree of the Austrian authorities.
- System of arrangement:
-
The fonds is arranged as follows:
29/46/0/-/1 – [Vogt and aldermen’s register] 1740-49
29/46/0/-/2 – Incipiunt acta officii advocatialis et scabinalis fundi Wygoda ad Cracoviam, stante notariatu Joannis Onuphri Rafałowicz 6 June 1759 - 17 February 1764
29/46/0/-/3 – Records of the jurydyka named Wygoda 1 August 1789 - 27 November 1793
29/46/0/-/4 – [Miscellaneous records] 1736-90
- Access, restrictions:
- If copies (microfilms, scans, photocopies) are available, these will be provided to the researcher. Access to original documents requires the Director’s consent.
- Finding aids:
-
Inwentarz Akt Jurydyk Krakowskich 1412–1809, ed. by Wacław Kolak, Warszawa 1968
S. Ślusarczyk, ‘Ordynacja krakowskiej jurydyki Wygoda z 6 czerwca 1759 r.’, Krakowskie Studia z Historii Państwa i Prawa, vol. 2 (2008), pp. 121–135.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Przemysław Zarubin, Kraków, 2017
