Almost every judicial act is associated with lower or higher fees paid by a petitioner in whose interest the act is taken. The existing legal system or the applicable normative basis of law are irrelevant. The situation was no different in the early modern Europe. This article provides an analysis of the fixed and variable fees levied in the smaller cities of Royal Prussia. The problem of charges in the inheritance proceedings, during which the estate of the deceased testator had been resolved, passing over to the heirs entitled to inheritance, is presented based on the examples from Kościerzyna, Nowe, Chojnice, Sztum. Presentation focuses on the amount of individual fees, as well as the method of their calculation and collection. It is based on the preserved normative acts and examples from the eighteenth’s century town records. This makes it possible to incorporate both formal and practical side of legal charges, which in relation to the small towns of Prussia, were never widely discussed.

Almost every judicial act is associated with lower or higher fees paid by a petitioner in whose interest the act is taken. The existing legal system or the applicable normative basis of law are irrelevant. The situation was no different in the early modern Europe. This article provides an analysis of the fixed and variable fees levied in the smaller cities of Royal Prussia. The problem of charges in the inheritance proceedings, during which the estate of the deceased testator had been resolved, passing over to the heirs entitled to inheritance, is presented based on the examples from Kościerzyna, Nowe, Chojnice, Sztum. Presentation focuses on the amount of individual fees, as well as the method of their calculation and collection. It is based on the preserved normative acts and examples from the eighteenth’s century town records. This makes it possible to incorporate both formal and practical side of legal charges, which in relation to the small towns of Prussia, were never widely discussed.