Kontrakt ośmiu wsi na oczyszczanie rzeki Mątawy z 1605 r. Przyczynek do badań nad wpływem osadnictwa olęderskiego na przemiany krajobrazu naturalnego w okolicach Grudziądza

• Authors: Targowski Michał

Title variants

DE

Auftrag von acht Dörfern zur Reinigung des Flusses Montau/Mątawa im Jahre1605. Beitrag zur Erforschung des Einflusses der älteren holländischen Siedlung auf die Umgestaltung der Naturlandschaft in der Nähe von Graudenz

EN

The contract of eight villages for cleaninig of the Mątawa River in 1605. A contribution to the research on the influence of the Olęder colonization on the transformation of the natural landscape in the vicinity of Grudziadz

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, migrants from the Netherlands and German countries began to settle in the Grudziądz Basin, which gave rise to the development of the so-called Olęder settlement. In 1605, representatives of eight villages inhabited by new settlers (Mątawy, Dragacz, Grupa, Wielki Lubień, Mały Lubień, Wielkie Zajączkowo, Małe Zajączkowo and Osiek) concluded a contract concerning the organization of joint works on cleaning the Mątawa riverbed – a left tributary of the Vistula, which caused frequent and prolonged floods. The contract of 1605 provided for the establishment of six „water administrators” or reeves, responsible for initiating and carrying out works consisting in removing the plants lying at the bottom of the river and regulating the width of the riverbed. Those officials were remunerated for their activities and at the same time they were subject to the supervision of a twelve-person college selected by the villages bound by a contract. In this way, a self-governing union of the above-mentioned Olęder settlements was established, which survived until the second half of the 18th century. The analysis of maps and written sources indicates that the result of this association may have been the disappearance of lakes existing in the course of the Mątawa as early as on brink of the 17th century. In the 17th–18th century, the Olęder settlers also carried out other activities related to drainage and flood protection of inhabited areas, such as the construction of a system of ditches and drainage canals, piling up embankments along the Mątawa and the construction of soil drying facilities. However, these projects were not carried out within the framework of the association set up in 1605. The list of persons who took part in the determination of the terms of the contract includes 21 names. Their analysis confirms that among the first Olęder settlers in the Grudziadz area there were migrants from the Netherlands and German countries, including, among others, Mennonites. An annex to the article publishes the full content of the contract from 1605 on the basis of a copy of its confirmation from 1638.

• Publisher: Muzeum w Grudziądzu
• Journal: Rocznik Grudziądzki
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 28
• Pages: 243-254

Dates

published

2020

Contributors

author

Targowski Michał

• Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu, Wydział Nauk Historycznych