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1

Probate inventories in Sandomierz municipal registers from the 17th century

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Justyniarska-Chojak K.
Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
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2004
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vol. 52
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issue 1
37-50
EN
There are 16 Sandomierz municipal registers from the 17th century surviving until today, now kept in the State Archive and the Cathedral Archive in Sandomierz. Probate inventories and documents concerning inheritance distribution were entered into the registers between 1616 and 1694. In the first half of the 17th c. 11 inventories were recorded; four further entries come from the time of the Swedish invasion (1656-1660), and only two inventories were registered after 1660. One entry is not dated. Most inventories list the property of Sandomierz burghers, two concern noblemen, and one - a peasant, Mateusz Gasior from the nearby village of Wysiadlów. The examined inventories list first of all immovable property, such as houses and stalls, gardens and orchards, granges, maltings and breweries. Such items are found in 10 catalogues, undoubtedly those describing the belongings of the richest burghers. Six inventories mention the amount of money obtained from the sale of the late person's movable or immovable property. Sometimes the testators left some additional sums to be divided between the relatives; such legacies, usually ranging from 100 to 300 zloties, are mentioned in 11 inventories. Five documents register the testators' debts, sometimes exceeding the value of the inheritance. Only four inventories mention legacies left to Sandomierz churches. Only two signal the testators' concern for servants, who were to be paid outstanding wages, or rewarded with small cash or some clothing. The inventories contain long catalogues of movables. Nine of them start with descriptions of jewellery and silverware (silver spoons, belts, mugs, cups and jars). Other common categories are: popular tin tableware (e.g. bowls, platters, plates, jugs, flasks, wine jars, saltcellars), tin kitchenware (e.g. pots, kettles, mortars, basins, candlesticks) and copper and iron utensils. Only one inventory mentions three china jugs from Danzig. After jewellery and metalware, the inventories usually register garments, bedclothes and linen. The most popular articles of clothing were colourful skirts and caftans (three per inventory on the average) and overcoats, such as delia and zupan. The category of underwear is usually represented by merely several shirts or aprons; only four catalogues include more than 10 items of underwear. Bedclothes and linen figure in 11 inventories; an average set comprised three pillows at the most, one quilt, several sheets, three pillowcases and two quiltcases. Only one inventory mentions bedclothes meant specifically for servant. Six inventories list furniture: trunks of various size, cupboards, benches and tables, painted green or white. Four enumerate tapestries and carpets used for interior decoration. Several record books, paintings and weapons. Only four documents bring information on funeral preparations and expenses. Half of the inventories were written down as a result of bitter conflicts between the inheritors, arising most often between testators' spouses and grown-up children. Sometimes municipal officials were accused of mishandling the inventory-taking procedure, especially of appropriating some of the property. The file of inventories from Sandomierz has two important flaws: the number of documents is small and the entries are very untidy: they often lack an exact date, a valuation of the inheritance or an orderly specification of the late person's belongings.
2

The possessions of burgher families in Kielce at the end of the 18th c. - a study based on the Municipal Council register.

100%
Glówka J.
Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
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2004
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vol. 52
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issue 1
85-92
EN
The article discusses some aspects of everyday life in Kielce at the end of the 18th century, with special reference to the material status of burgher households. The source basis was the Municipal Council register from the years 1789-1791, containing a record of the activity of the town's self-government and guilds, testaments, family feuds and criminal cases. At the end of the 18th c. the house of an average Kielce burgher was a one- or rarely two-storey structure with a hall, pantry, kitchen and several chambers arranged in two or three lines along the main axis of the building. The furniture and fittings were usually rather plain. The analysis of the source indicates that the inhabitants of Kielce, who mainly made a living from farming, were not an affluent community, which was reflected in the range and amount of furniture, garments, linen, vessels, tools and decorations found in their households. The material position of Kielce burghers stemmed from the condition and function of their town. For several centuries Kielce had not been an administrative centre, but only a seat of the bishop's court. As a result, at the end of the 18th c. it was a typical provincial town, whose inhabitants combined work in crafts or commerce with farming.
3

Property inventories as a source to studying the situation of women in the small towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

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Glowacka A.
Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
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2004
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vol. 52
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issue 1
25-35
EN
The article is based on property inventories from the archives of the following towns: Bnin, Bork, Dolsko, Gostyn, Kleczew, Pobiedziska, Poniec, Radziejów, Sulmierzyce and Wolsztyn (Great Poland) and Wojnicz (Little Poland). The analysis concerned 52 inventories of property belonging to burgher women (including 9 inventories of property owned jointly by married couples). The source basis includes also: two trousseau inventories, one dowry inventory, three 'gerada', two noblewomen inventories and one inventory of items received as pay for service. The inventories analysed focus on the property itself and do not contain much information about the owners, apart from the name, the marital status and sometimes the husband's surname. They are a source of data on women's work, financial situation, and participation in the economic development of the town. Burgher women often ran shops, licensed inns or bakeries. Many burgher women (especially widows) dealt in pawnbroking or ground lease. Poorer ones became servants. The inventories list both movable and immovable belongings, allowing us to reconstruct the material situation of their owners and to conclude a women often had her own property, which usually consisted of the dowry and some possessions inherited from her parents or a late husband. Items listed in the inventories can be divided into the following categories: bedclothes, linen, textiles and yarn, garments, tableware and kitchenware, cash, foodstuffs, livestock, tools, jewellery and immovable property. Although the inventories in question do not give us a full and objective picture of the situation of a woman dwelling in a small town of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, they undoubtedly show her in the perspective of her material position. The picture will obviously have to be broadened and developed by studying varied kinds of source materials.
4

The inventory of the Ciecierski family estate from 1854

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Tomaszewski N.
Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
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2004
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vol. 52
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issue 1
98-112
EN
The document entitled 'A description of the condition of the grange buildings in Czartajewo on the 24th (12th ) of June 1854' was compiled in order to make an inventory and estimate the value of the estate inherited by Stefan Ciecierski (1821-1888) from his father Dominik (1782-1828) and older brother Justyn (1805-1829). During Stefan's minority the estate had been supervised by his mother Konstancja nee Grzybowska (1788-1857) , and two guardians: Onufry Pienkowski, an official of the Drohiczyn district, and Józef Lyszczynski, a former magistrate of the Main Court of the Bialystok Department. On the 12th of October 1853 Stefan Ciecierski married Maria Jadwiga Rzewuska and took over the estate, starting his thirty-five-year-long personal management of the family inheritance. Thus, we can suppose that the document in question was meant as an inventory and valuation of Ciecierski's property at the time when, as a mature and stabilised man, he replaced his mother as the manager of the estate. The document describes the granges in Czartajewo, Baciki, Moszczona, Piszczatka and Slowiczyn (the seat of the forestry inspectorate), and the ranger lodges in Dobitki, Moszczona, Baciki and Weremiejki. All those places are located in the vicinity of Siemiatycze, and the Slowiczyn grange is now within the administrative boundaries of this town. The document consists of two parts. The first one, entitled 'A description of the condition of the grange buildings in Czartajewo on the 24th (12th ) of June 1854' has been written on 10 sheets measuring 37 x 22.5 cm. It is supplemented with two additional sheets, measuring 34 x 21.5 cm, containing 'A description of ranger lodges'. The second part, showing a different handwriting, bears some crossings and corrections, but it is signed and sealed, so it was probably treated as the final version. Both parts are fastened with cord, whose ends are sealed to the paper with red wax. The seals are very well preserved. The discussed inventory is known to very few researchers, as is the whole archive of the Augustynowicz-Ciecierski family, comprising almost 1000 manuscripts and occasional prints from the 17th-19th c., which has been kept for thirty years now in the Museum of Agriculture in Ciechanowiec. The document is a valuable source of data concerning one of the richest and most influential families in Podlasie in the 19th century.
5

The general inventories of the Warsaw Royal Castle in the 18th-19th c. The circumstances of compiling and the evolution of form.

100%
Wisniewski K.
Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
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2004
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vol. 52
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issue 1
15-23
EN
In the period discussed in the article, the 18-19th century, the inventories of the Warsaw Royal Castle changed considerably. For a long time inventories were compiled for legal purposes: in connection with changes in the ownership or management of the Castle. These inventories did not list all the movables in the Castle, but only those considered most valuable. They recorded the state of affairs at a given moment and did not allow any supervision of movables within a longer period. The necessity of stricter property control finally led to changes in the form and content of Royal Castle inventories. Since the first decade of the 19th c. the inventories were compiled with the help of the architectonic plan of the Castle. On the basis of the plan rooms were given fixed numbers, which was to facilitate control over the movement of furniture and other accessories within the building. The next step was assigning inventory numbers to particular objects; this procedure was first applied in the inventory from 1837. But it was the year 1866 that saw a radical reform. It consisted in abandoning the 'topographic' type of inventory, which listed all the object located in each subsequent room, and adopting a functional classification of movables, based on materials of which they were made and purposes for which they were intended. Another innovation was the introduction of extended tabulation, allowing for the efficient control of the movement of the catalogued items in longer periods. Simultaneously, the range of objects included in the inventories was extending. From 1808 the records started to mention various previously omitted household utensils, e.g. glasses, bells, spittoons or chamber pots. The assortment increased systematically, to cover all the tiniest gadgets found in the Castle in the second half of the 19th c. The evolution of the inventories, conditioned by changes in the administration of the Castle, which were in turn connected with the current political situation, finally produced a modern format of inventory, suitable for efficient property management.
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