Memoriał z 11 VIII 1820 r. o stanie zagospodarowania majątków poklasztornych przez Deputację Spraw Zniesionych Instytutów Duchownych

• Authors: Małgorzata Kośka

Title variants

EN

Memorial of 11 August 1820 on the management and development of post-dissolution monastic estates by the Deputation for the Affairs of Dissolved Religious Institutes

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

On 30 March 1819, the Governmental Commission of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment of the Kingdom of Poland, planning out the dissolution of some of the monasteries in the Kingdom of Poland, requested Governor (namiestnik) Józef Zajączek that a deputation be set up which would devise a project of temporary –and, subsequently, permanent– management and administration of the funds of suppressed institutes, and be responsible for a special fund which would collect the revenue from former monastery estates. On 3 April 1819, in a session of the Administrative Council of the Kingdom of Poland, the Governor established the Deputation for the Affairs of Dissolved Religious Institutes. It was headed –ex officio– by minister of denominations Stanisław Kostka Potocki, and consisted of the primate of the Kingdom of Poland, and four members of the Governmental Commission of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment. In accordance with the Governor’s decision, the first task of the Deputation was to frame a project of temporary administration of the funds of suppressed monasteries and benefices, and –subsequently– develop projects concerning: means of support for nuns and monks from dissolved houses, the management of their buildings, the situation of peasants in former monastery estates, and the ultimate distribution of assets acquired in the process of dissolution. The Deputation was supposed to appoint a candidate –for the Governor to approve– for the general commissioner, whose scope of responsibilities included: visiting estates (field inspections), making sure they were being managed in a proper way, settling accounts with tenants, as well as adjudicating disputes and addressing complaints on the premises. As early as 11 May 1819 minister Potocki informed the Governor that the Deputation had devised the plan for temporary administration of the property of suppressed monasteries, and that work on projects for regional (voivodship) commissions, as well as for commissioners appointed to take over the funds of dissolved monasteries and to secure the revenues, was in progress. The Administrative Council, during the session on 15 June 1819, examined a draft bill concerning the legal status of the estate of suppressed monasteries. On 26 June 1819 the Governor, in turn, issued a resolution in which he ensured that the estates, funds, and property of dissolved religious congregations were to be treated equally with state property. In May 1821, minister of denominations Stanisław Grabowski put forward a proposal to the Governor to disband the Deputation, arguing that the dissolution process –in the religious terms– had come to an end, and since the papal legate was a member of the Governmental Commission of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment, the affairs regarding the administration of post-monastic estates could be dealt with by the Commission itself. The Governor’s resolution from 29 May 1821 disbanded the Deputation for the Affairs of Dissolved Religious Institutes. To supplement this resolution, on 19 June 1821 minister Grabowski established a separate department in the Governmental Commission of Religious Affairs and Public Enlightenment to manage the funds of suppressed monasteries. The department remained active until 21 April 1831, when following a decree of the insurrectionary National Government, confirmed after the collapse of the November Uprising by Fyodor Engel’s Provisional Government in November 1831, all the forests, estates and funds acquired after the 1819 dissolution were handed over to the Governmental Commission of Revenues and Treasury of the Kingdom of Poland as the sole administrator. The main objective of the memorial was to demonstrate that the methods of post-dissolution estate management employed by the Deputation were cheaper and more effective than the ones used by the Governmental Commission of Revenues and Treasury, and consequently to convince the authorities to adopt them with regard to all state property. The memorial, describing the methods of post-monastic estate valuation and tenancy, is kept in the Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw in fond The Potocki Public Archive, no. 155, pp. 1120-1144.

Keywords

PL

Deputacja Spraw Zniesionych Instytutów Duchownych; kasata; Królestwo Polskie; Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych; źródło; edycja; memoriał

EN

Deputation for the Affairs of Dissolved Religious Institutes; dissolution; monastery; Kingdom of Poland; Central Archives of Historical; Records; source; edition; memorial

• Journal: Hereditas Monasteriorium
• Year: 2013
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 291-310

Contributors

author

Małgorzata Kośka

• Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych w Warszawie