https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7921-9421
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ABSTRACT
Lithuanian land courts in the years 1565–1763 consisted of three-person teams of judge, podsędek (deputy judge), and court clerk. These offices were held for life. At election sejmiks, nobles nominated candidates for each office, and the king appointed one of them. From 1566, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania contrasted with the lands of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, because an exception allowed the nobility to independently promote a previous podsędek or clerk to a judge. This phenomenon resulted in the professionalization of the land courts’ staff, whereby junior members of the team learned the procedure and provisions of the law from the more experienced judge. In addition, the political culture of the nobility improved, since they took unanimous decisions in the name of the local community’s good.
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Notes
1. Natsyyanal’ny histarychny arkhiv Byelarusi (National Historical Archives of Belarus, Minsk, hereafter – NHAB), f. 1708, vop. 1, spr. 27, ark. 185; Lappo (1897), 283. This matter requires further detailed research.
2. NHAB, f. 1708, vop. 1, spr. 30, ark. 585.
3. I collected data about 100 nominations in Royal Prussia and 365 from the Polish Crown (excluding Mazowsze and the voivodeship of Braslaw) using the following sources: Gmiterek and Szczygieł (1992); Janas and Kłaczewski (2002); Cynarski and Falniowska-Gradowska (1990); Mikulski (1990); Mikulski and Stanek (1990); Kłaczewski and Urban (1991); Opaliński and Żerek-Kleszcz (1993); Dubas-Urwanowicz et al. (1994); Janas et al. (1998); Przyboś (1987); Chłapowski and Falniowska-Gradowska (1993); Bieniaszewski (1987); Wolski (2007). I would like to thank Janusz Danieluk for his assistance in preparing the database.
4. For more about attempts at undermining the election due to not being a resident of the district see: Wolff (1895), 226, 478.
5. Convocation sejms were the first conventions of the nobility called by the primate (who acted as interrex during the interregnum) after the king’s death. It was at the convocation sejm that the time and venue of the election were fixed, and the functioning of state structures was organized in the interregnum (Opaliński 1985).
6. The 1588 sejm constitution (statute) gave voivodes or castellans a period of six weeks in which to summon an electoral assembly (Grodziski 2008, 65).
7. In practice, such an election was possible even in the period of interregnum, an example of which is the election of Judge Jakub Kemesz, former deputy judge, in the district of Upytė in 1574 (Lulewicz 2006, 126).
8. Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych (Central Archives of Historical Records, Warsaw, hereafter – AGAD), Metryka Koronna 189, 45–46.
9. Polska Akademia Nauk, Biblioteka Kórnicka (Kórnik Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences), 1402, 34, 76.
10. I have ignored here the specificity of the Smolensk and Starodub court because of the short period of their territorial affiliation with the Commonwealth (later on, it was largely a titular office).
11. In two cases, another land judge became a land judge. On 30 April 1588, Mikołajewicz Jan Wizgird (Wizgierd) was nominated as Vilnius land judge. He had previously held the same office in the Upytė lands. Another case refers to the nomination of Jan Gabriel Grotowski (17 December 1649), who had nominally held the office of Wenden (Cēsis) land judge (since 1638). He had practical experience having been a Trakai (Troki) castle judge since 1637 (Rachuba 2004, 172; Mikulski and Rachuba 1994, 105).
12. The practice of the voivodeships of Volhynia, Kyiv, and Bratslav has yet to be examined. Nominally, the Second Lithuanian Statute was in force there, hence the special rules of electing judges were also applicable. Unfortunately, a list of the officials of the Bratslav voivodeship has still to be prepared and while the extant documentation is limited it is therefore difficult to identify a statistically representative group. It was included into the general group of Crown voivodeships. The Czernihów (Chernihiv) voivodeship and Livonia were excluded from the studies because of their short territorial affiliation with the Commonwealth. Thus, mostly they were only titular offices.
13. Krzysztof Mikulski (2017, 255–82) has observed that the crisis of land judiciary, especially in the eighteenth century, had a much greater impact on Małopolska (Lesser Poland) and was relatively milder on Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) and Royal Prussia.
14. AGAD, Archiwum Radziwiłłów, XI, 51, 354.
15. NHAB, f. 1708, vop. 1, spr. 16, ark. 448–455.
16. This lack did not mean ceasing the activity related to the entering or preparing excerpts from lands registers by court clerks. They were the so-called roczki leżenia ksiąg (literal translation: years of lying books) and were dedicated to the needs of a non-contentious judiciary (Moniuszko 2013, 105–11). Darius Vilimas’s studies (2005, 21) demonstrate that the situation was similar in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which is evidenced by the excerpts issued outside of the court session. As a rule, lands registers were available three days before the court session commenced. (Lappo 1897, 279).
17. Therefore, I treat the land judge Hrehory Iwanowicz Massalski of Braslaw (d. 7 January 1599) as holding his office in 1599. He was followed by Hrehorowicz Hrehory Mirrski, who became judge only on 11 February 1600 (the date of the election). Yet, in the list of the sensitivity of one year, there is no time gap (Rachuba 2004, 577).
18. The ratio of the elected deputy judges to court clerks was 4:1, which demonstrates that automatism in the elections was not the case.
19. Jewłaszewski, (1860), 64–71; NHAB, f. 1708, vop. 1, spr. 16, ark. 448–455.
20. It should be considered why the rule of Jan II Kazimierz was so good for the functioning of the institution of land courts. Mariusz Sawicki’s studies emphasize that the king did not have his own political base in the Commonwealth and relied on the stable magnate structures in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the Radziwiłł family of Nieśwież and the Sapieha family. If the Sapiehas dominated considerably in senator nominations, the Radziwiłłs gained a dominating influence among the dignitaries. This concept seems attractive, but the breakup of the court party in 1654 did not affect the subsequent nomination policy. This issue requires further study (Sawicki 2010).
21. The magnates and nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were not enthusiastic about the candidacy of Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki and they even proposed their counter-candidate, Janusz Radziwiłł. Among the first Lithuanians who supported the new king were the Pac family, which resulted in their growing position in Lithuania. Interestingly enough, despite the very high temperature of political dispute, it had no effect on the land courts (Ziober 2019, 185; Sawicki 2016).
22. Thanks to the resources made available by Andrej Radaman, MA, data from the district of Słonim could be added as well.
23. The key to an in-depth assessment is the possibility of comparing. Thus, the studies on the political culture in the Polotsk voivodeship justify our high rating. However, compared with other voivodeships, it is at a lower level (Bortnik 2016).
24. Urszula Augustyniak (2001, 113, 116–17) has analyzed the ‘clients’ of Krzysztof Radziwiłł in the first half of the seventeenth century and determined that they included ca. 400 people. Among those who enjoyed the most privileged positions were people holding leases to the Radziwiłłs’ real estate. This was a group of fifty persons, which included both senators and land officials.
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Karol Łopatecki
Karol Łopatecki is associate professor at the Faculty of History and International Relations, University of Białystok. His fields of interest include history of law and history of military organization, with a particular emphasis on the theory of state capacity and the military revolution. He also conducts research on cartography, as well as regional history of Podlasie and the Branicki family. He is a member of the Commission for Lithuanian Studies and the Military History Group of the Committee of Historical Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences.