Janusz Łosowski

A great problem for judges taking part in the sittings of the Crown Tribunal in Lublin was lack of premises for them and their servants. It resulted from the fact that many houses and rooms were rented in advance by the nobles who arrived in Lublin to seek justice in the Tribunal. That is why, for the time of the sittings of the Crown Tribunal, the Lublin burgrave had to reserve for judges proper lodgings in houses owned by burghers and gentry in the town and houses on the outskirts for their servants and horses. The list of lodgings from 1748, which is the subject of this publication, is a valuable document on the solicitude of the then administrative authorities that the Tribunal could function without any obstacles. It is the first, and as far, the only document of this kind available to the researchers. It was published on the basis of the entry in the Lublin castle-starost book.

In the academic literature so far there was no synthetic study presenting evolutionary processes in the field of custody of municipal records, therefore this article aims to fill this gap. It shows the process of gradual delegation of responsibilities concerning safekeeping of town records to various officials, which finally led to establishing the position of an archivist in one of the municipal offices (in Chełm). This ended the process of separation of the archive from the municipal office. This was an important fact in the history of both Polish judicial institutions of the Old Polish period and archives as such. In other municipal offices, a formal separation of archives did not occur, probably due to the imminent collapse of Polish state. This article describes in detail the phases of passing the archival competences to various office clerks, using the information contained in previous publications and sources not covered so far.

Formally, the records of the land courts (sądy ziemskie), castle courts (sądy grodzkie) and chamberlain courts (sądy podkomorskie) were in the custody of the chancellery and court officials. However, it often happened that it was beyond their capabilities to ensure safety and proper storage conditions for court registers and records, and that is why it was necessary to make the nobility at large interested in improving this situation. The problems connected with storing and protecting the records of these courts were often the subject of debates of the dietines (sejmiki). The paper ex­amines the resolutions on the matter by the dietines of Greater Poland, Cracow, Chełm, the General Dietine of the Ruthenian Voivodeship, and the Land Dietines (sejmiki ziemskie) of Lviv, Przemyśl, Sanok and Halicz. It can be said that the nobility were vividly interested in the protection of court records, which contained legal evidence necessary for the owners of landed estates and real prop­erty. They also saw to it that the missing records were restored. The dietines often took care of archives and provided vast sums of money for archive facilities, and sometimes even supported initiatives aimed at buying separate buildings for archival and office purposes. This may show the great documentation culture of the Polish nobility and their high legal consciousness. Boyce, M. (1968), The Letter of Tansar, (Serie Orientale Roma XXXVIII), Roma.

Kazimierz Konarski (1886–1972) was a preeminent Polish archivist in the interwar period and in afterwar years, with rich archival and academic legacy. In 1965, his memoirs were published, providing a valuable source of knowledge to researchers of Polish intelligentsia. However, from these memoirs one chapter was removed, depicting the future archivist’s service in the 5th Infantry Regiment of the Polish Legions in 1917. Communist censors prohibited its publication, as stated by Konarski’s handwritten annotation on the typescript of the chapter gifted to his colleague, Piotr Bańkowski. The excised part of the memoirs was found by the author of this article in Konarski’s legacy, preserved in Warsaw archive of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The part of the memoirs which pertains to the archivist’s-to-be time in the Legions are an interesting historical source. It contains a number of valuable details regarding Konarski’s service in the regiment named above. After the losses suffered in July 1916 in the famous battle of Kostiukhnivka, the unit was sent to Ostrów Mazowiecka near Warsaw to regroup and replenish the ranks. At the beginning of his service, Konarski had problems with getting accepted by his colleagues, as he was several years older than them, was better educated and had more life experience. However, he was not haughty and tried his best to serve as a private, which earned him respect of the legionnaires. In the removed chapter, the author vividly described the commanding officers, who subsequently became military leaders and politicians, including Felicjan Sławoj-Składkowski, Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski, Stefan Grot-Rowecki, Tytus Filipowicz and others. There is also a lot of valuable information about daily life of the soldiers in the regiment.