Rafał Kubicki

The subject of this edition are sources regarding the hospital of St. Elisabeth in the Old City of Gdańsk in the years 1429–1454 deposited in archives in Gdańsk and Berlin. They present various aspects of the institution’s operations in the first half of the 15th century. Alongside issues pertaining to the confirmation of its land estate border (no. 1), individual bestowals on its behalf conducted by assorted donors (no. 2, 5, 7, 8, 12) and the management of the hospital’s inventory (no. 4), it also contains documents confirming agreements of lifetime residencies in the hospital (no. 9, 10, 11). We also have here accounts created in reference to the foundation of vicarage in the hospital chapel (no. 3) and the matters of personnel working in the service of the hospital (no. 6). All of them show the complexity of issues the persons connected with the institution handled, most of all in the case of the hospitaler, and alongside him the commander of Gdańsk, who somewhat held a supervising function on behalf of the Teutonic Order. They also confirm the important role of women in terms of nurturing care provided by the hospital, including primarily the head of the female personnel, here referred to as the mother or the mother of the poor. On the other hand, they are also a testimony to the social significance of the institution in the city, presenting the circle of people closely connected to her at the time.

Taxes accompany people from the origins of the first socially and economically developed civilizations. They also are inseparably linked to cargo trade and transport, which was mainly held by water or by land. Since the earliest times, the goods were moved by people, and together with the growing trade in goods, new forms of taxation began to appear. The proposed article will briefly describe the history of taxation in maritime transport of goods, both in Poland and worldwide, and will discuss specifics of contemporary maritime taxes in our country. It will address, inter alia, issues such as specificity of the tonnage tax, income tax on individuals and legal entities, goods and services tax and property tax. The most important legal solutions applied in taxation of goods, services and port infrastructure will be described in the following parts of the article. The article also identifies opportunities and proposals for amendments to some legislative solutions applicable to maritime transport of goods.

Scientific conference: “The fate and significance of the heritage of monasteries dissolved in former Royal Prussia. On the 180th anniversary of the dissolution of the last monasteries in Gdańsk”. (Gdańsk, 22  October 2015)

The subject of this study is the agreement between the Franciscans and the City of Braniewo from April 28, 1301, regarding the changing of the location of the monastery which was hitherto known only from the study by Eugen Brachvogel. Leonhard Lemmens’s register of sources on the history of the old Saxon province of the Franciscans and the Warmian Diplomatic Codex both fail to mention it. Today, the contents of the document are known from the copy drawn up at the end of the 16th century and currently stored in the Etats‑Ministerium collection in the Prussian Privy State Archives in Berlin‑Dahlem (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz).
The document provides important information helpful in reconstructing the dispute between the city and the Franciscans as well as in identifying the subsequent locations of the monastery. The Franciscans came to Braniewo due to the activities of the Warmian bishop Henry I Fleming in 1296. Several years later, a conflict arose  etween the monastery and the city. On April 14 in Elbląg and April 20, 1301, in Braniewo, negotiations were held to resolve the matter. According to the agreement, the Franciscans gave up a parcel in the city and in return received another one, located north from the city, near the river Pasłęka. It was decided, moreover, that the city would build a gate and a bridge above the moat which would connect the monastery with the city.
The dispute between the city and the Franciscans also became the source of the legend about the allegedly illegal destruction of the monastery in the city by the citizens or the Teutonic Order. The 1301 agreement turned out to be short‑lived and only the third location of the monastery proved to be the final one. On February 20, 1330, it was confirmed that the Franciscan monastery was moved back to the city. This decision was made due to the danger it would pose if its edifices were seized by enemy forces attempting to storm the city

The purpose of the school system organized by the Dominicans in the thirteenth century was to provide their congregation with a supply of preachers to further the mission expressed in the popular motto of the order: contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere. In the period when the first friaries were being organized, human resources for the order were the numerous friars recruited from university circles. This manner of acquiring educated friars would not, however, be a permanent solution especially in peripheral regions where there were not yet any universities. Hence, the order had to take upon itself the task of creating new personnel. This was the situation mostly in Northern and Central Europe, as well as in the Teutonic Order’s Baltic jurisdiction in Prussia, where Dominican friaries operated that belonged to the Polish province of the order. This paper presents the system of Dominican schools functioning mainly in the fifteenth and the early sixteenth century within the Prussian contrata, a lower auxiliary unit in the order’s administration, encompassing the Teutonic Prussia regions. In addition to the running of schools, the foreign studies of Dominican friars from this region will also be discussed.

At the beginning of 13th century, the main purpose of Dominican and Franciscan mendicant orders rise was to take religious care of people living in the suburbs of fast growing cities in Western Europe. Preachers worked not only in cities, but also in a given monastery’s collection county, their terminus. In the article, the author has tried to describe the situation in the State of Teutonic Knights in Prussia, searching for answers to questions about the role and scale of mendicants’ engagement in the ministry in rural areas in the Middle Ages, especially in the ministry among the indigenous people in Prussia. There were a few phases of mendicant orders participation in the ministry in Prussia. First, they were engaged in missionary activity among the local Prussians (Dominicans, Gdańsk). When towns were located, the first Dominican and Franciscan monasteries were founded as well (Chełmno, Toruń). In 14th century, the third mendicant order, Augustinians hermits, built their monasteries in Prussia. At the end of 14th century, Carmelites, and in the 2nd half of 15th century, Franciscans of very strict rule, Observants, appeared. Apart from working in towns, all mendicants toured around their collection county. Undoubtedly, their activity included preaching, hearing confessions, and other ministry tasks. Church fairs which gathered people from rural areas were very important for the ministry too. The mendicants’ activity was not, however, to replace the activity of rural parishes parsons.