A Step Away from Eternity. Dwellers of Volhynian Towns in the Light of Testaments, Late 16th through the 17th century / За крок до Вічності. Мешканці міст Волині у світлі тестаментів кінця ХVІ – ХVІІ століть, 2021
The book is composed of the introduction, five chapters, conclusions and extensive appendices: 1)... more The book is composed of the introduction, five chapters, conclusions and extensive appendices: 1) a table with the list of testators specifying their social and marital status, religious affiliation, the date and location when the testament was compiled, and its language; 2) 170 source texts, with the majority in Polish and 17 in Old Ukrainian. My research is based on archival materials previously unknown in scholarly literature from the archives in Kyiv, Lviv, Kraków, Kórnik and Minsk. Other appendices include an index of names and locations, a dictionary of obsolete words, objects and terms, a bibliography, and a list of abbreviations and illustrations. Testamenty mieszkańców miast Wołynia od końca XVI do początku XVIII wieku. Katalog (Last Wills of Volhynia Townsmen from the End of the Sixteenth to the Early Eighteenth Century. A Catalogue, Warsaw, 2017), prepared under the aegis of the international project for the publication of catalogues of last wills of townsmen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, provided impetus for the present monograph. The ethnically and socially diverse urban society of the Volhynian Voivodeship in the latter third of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century was the focus of my attention. Volhynian towns are analyzed primarily as the space of close interactions between various social groups: townsmen, szlachta, clergy and subordinate groups. The monograph addresses various facets from the lives of persons interconnected by their coexistence in Volhynian towns through the framework of one type of sources, namely, last wills. Chapter 1, “Historiography, sources and methods of research,” presents the main trends and directions of funerary studies in historiography outside Ukraine, highlights Ukrainian historiography of the issue, outlines the corpus of sources, specifies the scholarly methods and includes certain methodological notes. The interest in last wills of burghers has a long and strong tradition in European historiography. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, this field of studies quickly became a site of lively dialogue between scholars from various fields in humanities. Historical sources from Ukraine are barely represented among diverse European sources though. Chapter 2, “Drawing Up a Will: The Law and the Practice,” outlines the legal framework for drawing up a will and the quotidian practices surrounding this act. It compiles information about municipal scribes and analyzes the structure (formula) of last wills. Municipal officials served as witnesses when the testator dictated his last will. They also made sure that the scribe transcribed the information correctly, authenticated the testament with their signatures or stamps, and registered it in official records. The corpus of sources analyzed here includes several documents written by testators themselves, which indicates that literacy was on the rise in early modern Volhynian towns. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of testators was illiterate and confirmed their last will with a cross in lieu of a signature; they required the professional assistance of officials from the municipal office to draw up a will. We should also take into account that the majority of townsmen did not leave a will. Chapter 3, “Testators and Their Relatives,” focuses on the testators and their relationships with their spouses, children and distant inheritors, addressing the issue of guardianship and the relationship between guardians and children in their custody. Last wills of Volhynian townsmen allow to make certain demographic estimates, establishing family size, the number of children, the number of marriages, child mortality, etc. The most crucial reason to draw up a will was to bequeath the inheritance in a way that would prevent future conflicts between the inheritors. In order to take care of their children and grandchildren, townsmen allocated their movable effects and real estate, dispensed advice and warned them of dangers. Other close relatives, friends, servants and retainers, who received gifts as a sign of gratitude, were also often mentioned. Other reasons to draw up a will included the desire to help one’s spouse, donate to charity or the church. Chapter 4, “Religion and Church in Testators’ Lives,” addresses the Volhynian townsmen’s beliefs about death, funerary and remembrance practices, burial sites, mentions of religious and devotional matters. Last wills are an important source for scholars of religious culture of Volhynian townsmen, who were no strangers to the proverbial memento mori and the art of ars bene moriendi. Remembering these tenets, testators endeavored to take leave of their mortal lives as was believed proper. To ensure salvation, they bequeathed certain, sometimes quite substantial sums of money or parts of their property to churches, monasteries, hospitals or charity work; they tried to ensure that their inheritors followed their orders regarding funerary ceremonies, organized remembrance prayer services and burial services. A proper burial following the church canons was an important step to ensure salvation. Chapter 5 focuses on the testators’ material world, their real estate and movable property (cattle, clothes, kitchenware, jewelry, books, weaponry, everyday items and household implements). The issue of credit and debt obligations is also addressed. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The analysis of movable property of burgher elites speaks of their desire to imitate the attractive lifestyle of the local szlachta. Last wills and property inventories contain information about the culture of daily life among various groups of town residents, their standards of living, priorities and cultural preferences. The conclusions reflect on the local particularity of the sources. Comparative analysis with last wills from the Crown of Poland demonstrates that their structures were similar, but local sources adhere to slightly more archaic formula. The indicators of this include: a longer preamble in certain texts, detailed descriptions of property, including descriptions of features of certain objects, and especially the emotional rhetoric and dialogues between the testator and his or her inheritors. The publication is intended for scholars, professors and readers with an interest in the social history of early modern Volhynian towns.
SUMMARY
Nataliia Bilous. Testamentary practices in the urban society in Volhynia, late 16th – 17t... more SUMMARY Nataliia Bilous. Testamentary practices in the urban society in Volhynia, late 16th – 17th cent: legal, sociocultural and property aspects. Dissertation for the Doctor of Historical Sciences degree, discipline 07.00.01 – History of Ukraine. – Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 2022. The dissertation focuses on legal, sociocultural and property aspects of testamentary practices of Volhynian urban dwellers based on wills and other sources from the late 16th – 17th cent. Early modern testaments – documents that contain instructions regarding the funeral, salvation of the soul, division of inheritance, debt repayment and more – are valuable and multifaceted sources for exploring various aspects of the functioning of society. Aside from social and economic data, they shine the light on genealogy, demographics, religious beliefs and the history of the quotidian that can be of interest to scholars of cultural anthropology, legal history, prosopography, diplomatics and paleography. The territorial scope of my research is defined by the historical borders of the Volhynian Voivodeship, consisting of Lutsk, Volodymyr and Kremenets powiats. The dissertation addresses a rich corpus of documents from several archives in Ukraine, Poland and partly Belarus; the majority of these documents have not been studied previously. I also engage with published sources, funerary genres in early Ukrainian writing from the 17th cent., the works of historians of sacred art, archeologists and ethnographers. The dissertation introduces a range of previously unexplored topics into Ukrainian historiography, contextualizing and significantly expanding other lines of research, which underscores the relevance of my project. Analysis of testaments allows us to reconstruct in detail the various circumstances under which these documents came to be compiled, and offers a rare glimpse of the religious beliefs and values of urban dwellers, their funerary and commemorative practices, as well as charitable work. As multifaceted historic sources, testaments reveal a number of crucial issues: they allow to delineate familial ties in urban society, shed light on the emotional component in familial relations, as well as on inheritance and custodianship issues linked to them; they help to reconstruct the material environment of urban dwellers, establish their professional life, social status and legal relations. This marks a significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian historiography, particularly in historical and cultural anthropology, as well as to the new social history with its thematic diversity. Until now, Ukrainian historiography did not have comprehensive studies of these aspects of the functioning of early modern urban society. The dissertation analyzes legal and quotidian practices pertaining to drawing up wills in Volhynian urban society. I have established that these documents went into legal effect after being inscribed in court records, city court records or clerical court records. Testaments were interspersed with other types of records; separate records along the lines of Libri testamentorum were not kept. Town officials served as witnesses when testators made their last will. They made sure that the scribes noted down the instructions with accuracy, attested with their signatures or seals that the will went into legal effect, and copied them to the records. Last wills of Volhynian towns residents provide materials for certain demographic calculations, in some cases allowing to establish the number of family members, children and marriages, child mortality, etc. These sources reflect the broad panorama of familial relations with all their problems and emotions. Testaments document complicated configurations for dividing up the inheritance among heirs, and conflicts that could arise in the process. That said, the majority of testaments reveal the ideal image of family life. They were usually drawn up to minimize the risk of conflicts, and, as a rule, did fulfill that function. The dissertation also addresses certain religious beliefs and perceptions of death among Volhynian town dwellers. I demonstrate that testaments are important sources for studying the religious culture of Volhynian town dwellers, for whom the slogan of memento mori and the science of ars bene moriendi were an ineluctable part of daily life. Remembering these precepts, testators attempted to bid farewell to their mortal life as one should. They left certain sums of money, often quite considerable, or some of their property to Orthodox or Catholic churches, monasteries, hospitals and charitable causes to ensure their salvation. Urban dwellers wanted their inheritors to fulfill their instructions regarding funerary ceremonies and memorial services. The dissertation provides a comprehensive description of testators’ material environment. Testaments of Volhynian town dwellers shed light on the quantity and variety of their property, allowing for approximate evaluations of testators’ economic status and activities. The analysis of personal property of urban elites demonstrates that they tried to emulate the attractive lifestyle of local aristocracy. Clothing can be seen as a sign of social status, and the clothes of urban dwellers followed the aristocratic fashion. This detail demonstrates that aristocratic culture had a strong influence on the values and lifestyle in towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Ukrainian territory. Testaments and descriptions of property contain detailed information about the quotidian culture of various groups of urban dwellers, their living standards and priorities, and in some cases even their sources of income and expenditures that reveal cultural preferences.
The Union of Lublin in contemporary Ukrainian
historiography and didactics
In Ukrainian histo... more The Union of Lublin in contemporary Ukrainian
historiography and didactics
In Ukrainian historiography, treatment of the signifi cance and aft ermath of the Union of Lublin depended on ideological priorities of the time. In the 19th and 20th century historians were united by a sustained anti-Polish attitude. As early as in the 19th century, the scholars built an image of Poland as the main “stranger” in Ukra inian history. Th is negative image survived throughout the 20th century and passed into the 21st century. The purpose of the article is to examine various historiographic problems and stereotypes related to the Union of Lublin in the last 25 years and evolution, i.e. transformation, of the views of Ukrainian historians and textbook authors regarding this landmark event. Soviet historiography borrowed the negative assessment of the Union of Lublin and its consequences for Ukraine from the “national” concept of Mykhailo Hrushevsky and, going further, added new stereotypes to it. In the mid 1990s we observe a departure from the model introduced by Hrushevsky and the Soviet model of writing about history. As a result of the new political realities, some emphases in historiography have shift ed, the evaluations of events have changed slightly, and historians have outlined new, neutral evaluations of the union. Over the past ten years, a number of modern works by Ukrainian researchers have emerged, appreciating the common heritage of Poland and Ukraine, especially from the histo ry of parliamentarianism, ideology, identity and culture, the history of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the Cossacks, which have their roots in the Union of Lublin, when the Ukrainian lands became part of the former Commonwealth. In 2019, in connection with the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin, interest in this event among the Ukrainian public has increased. A scholarly conference was held with the
support of the Polish Institute in Kiev. Unfortunately, new views of historians have not aff ected the content of most textbooks for secondary and tertiary schools. Th ey still describe the Union of Lublin along the lines of the “best” Soviet models. In recent years, state policy in Ukraine has been aimed primarily at overcoming myths about the 20th century. Th erefore, much attention is paid to the content of the recent history books, while the events of the 16th–17th century remain in its “shadow”. Although ideological formulas and stereotypes of national and Soviet historiography have been partly incorporated into contemporary textbooks, some positive changes in the assessment of the conse quences of the Union of Lublin are already visible. Th e topic of the Union of Lublin is well suited for developing critical thinking among pupils and students. It allows them to form their own assessment, based on facts, sources and the latest research by historians.
Katalog zawiera blisko 200 regestów testamentow odnalezionych w wyniku kwerendy w archiwach Ukra... more Katalog zawiera blisko 200 regestów testamentow odnalezionych w wyniku kwerendy w archiwach Ukrainy, Polski i Białorusi. Są to dyspozycje ostatniej woli mieszkańców miast Wołynia, a także przedstawicieli innych stanów oraz przybyszów z innych regionów.
The present collection contains a body of 117 texts of privileges granted to the City of Kiev fro... more The present collection contains a body of 117 texts of privileges granted to the City of Kiev from between the end of 15th century, specifically, 1494 – the moment the earliest known privilege was granted by Grand Lithuanian Duke Alexander, and 1652 – the date the last charters were given to the city by Polish King John II Casimir. The Kiev municipality archive was destroyed by the fires that affected the town in 1651, 1718 and 1811. The fragmentary condition of extant sources, which are moreover dispersed in several archival resources of three countries, have made the search for the documents complex, to a considerable extent. The source material used as the basis for this edition comes from: the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, Kiev; the Manuscripts Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – the Library; the Russian State Archives of Historical Records, City of Moscow; the Central Archives of Historical Records, Warsaw. The source text section is preceded by an Introduction discussing the historiographic and source criticism-related issues of relevance. The introductory section is composed of two chapters, of which the first describes the problems in question and the related historiographic aspects. The second discusses the types of sources comprised in this edition. The first subchapter characterises the chartularies of the privileges/charters of the City of Kiev from around 1720 and the late 18th c. The second subchapter classifies the privileges, the most important among them being the Magdeburg Rights and their confirmations. Beside these, we encounter other Municipality-related documents, such as – in particular – exemptions from obligations and customs duties and economic rights or entitlements for the Municipality members, incl.: liquor production and selling; granting municipal real properties and the right to use the same; a calendar of fairs – held twice or, later on, thrice a year, and of weekly trade fairs; right to pursue free trade in the Grand-Duchy-of-Lithuania territory. The privileges included those releasing the burghers from the duty of maintaining foreign envoys, sending messengers, providing requisitioned carriages and stations. Among the essential deeds were privileges regarding the functioning of city authorities, or those for the voyt-ship of Kiev. The third subchapter discusses the editorial rules applied in preparation of sources for publication. The sources have been published in their respective original languages – i.e. Old-Ruthenian (Old-East-Slavic), Latin, and Polish. The Annex attached provides a list of acronyms/abbreviations, alphabetical geographic and name indexes, illustrations.
Ukrainian Historical Journal / Український історичний журнал, 2024
ELISEI PLETENETSKYI: MAJOR MILESTONES IN HIS LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
(on the 400th anniversary of th... more ELISEI PLETENETSKYI: MAJOR MILESTONES IN HIS LIFE AND ACTIVITIES (on the 400th anniversary of the death of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra)
The aim is to highlight the little-known facts of the biography and the main milestones of the life and work of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Elisei Pletenetsky, his role in the development of Ukrainian culture, science and enlightenment in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, thereby honouring the memory of the great Lavra enlightener. The author uses various research methods in line with the ‘New Social History’, as well as comparative historical, problematic chronological, microhistorical, and everyday history. The scientific novelty lies in the coverage of little-known facts of the archimandrite's biography and activities, which allow us to speak more specifically about the origin of Elisei Pletenetsky, and new archival finds that correct or expand the known information. Conclusions: The figure of the archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, Elisei Pletenetsky, is one of the most prominent figures in the Ukrainian cultural space of the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but has not yet received a separate thorough study. Pletenetsky's undoubted merits include the foundation of the Institute of Preaching, the Lavra intellectual circle, the first school that laid the foundation for the Kyiv-Mohyla College, the establishment of the Lavra printing and papermaking house in Radomyshl, participation in the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, the regulation and improvement of monastic life, and charitable activities. Keywords: Archimandrite Elisei Pletenetsky, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, printing house, book printing, enlightenment, brotherhood, land ownership, Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Zapysky Naukovoho Tovarystva imeni Tarasa Shevchenka, 2010
The article focuses on the epistolary heritage of Tomasz Zamoyski, the son of the Chancellor and ... more The article focuses on the epistolary heritage of Tomasz Zamoyski, the son of the Chancellor and Grand Hetman of the Crown Hetman Jan Zamoyski. The article presents 16 letters of Kyiv burghers to the voivode Tomasz Zamoyski and his letters to the burghers in the period 1619-1628.
WSCHODNI ROCZNIK HUMANISTYCZNY TOM XXI (2024), No1, 2024
Annotation: This article analyses a set of hitherto unknown archival documents from the history ... more Annotation: This article analyses a set of hitherto unknown archival documents from the history of the land ownership of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery (Lavra) during the reign of Archimandrite Innocent Gizel (1656–1683). Preserved in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, a collection of documents from Lutsk grodzki books (f. 25) tells the story of legal disputes between the Pechersk archimandrite and the Kyiv nobility of the Sushchansky-Proskury (exulants) over the Grodek and Obary estates in Volyn (now these are villages in the Rivne region of the Rivne district) in 1664–1672. The archimandrite and the monks made every effort to preserve their residence in Volyn, even when the chances were almost lost. They used every method of struggle available to them, employing the best lawyers in the courts and sometimes even resorting to blackmail and intimidation. There were also frequent disputes over landed estates with the priors of other Kyiv convents, with the nobility whose lands bordered the Lavra’s estates, and with the Cossacks, who tried to take over its lands and monopolise the production of alcoholic drinks, a regular source of income at the time. However, due to the political situation, especially as a result of the Andrušov truce of 1667, the influence and economic power of the Pechersk monastery in right-bank Ukraine gradually declined. He soon lost his estates in the territories remaining in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but instead received new ones, in greater numbers, in exchange for loyalty to the Moscow Tsar, as indicated by the documents analysed from the Russian Archive of Former Acts in Moscow (f. 124). In the 18th century, he became the largest church owner in the Ukrainian territories and a new era of economic power began for him. Keywords: archimandrite Innocent Gizel, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, nobility, Volyn province, Kyiv metropolis
Pieczątki osobiste mieszczan kijowskich i wołyńskich z XVI–pierwszej połowy XVII w. Materiały do katalogu, 2023
Personal stamps of Kiev and Volhynian burghers from the sixteenth and first half of the seventeen... more Personal stamps of Kiev and Volhynian burghers from the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century. Catalogue materials. The aim of this article is an attempt to present and systematise according to family marks a certain part of the personal stamps or gmerks of representatives of the urban elite of Kyiv and some Volyn cities (33 persons in total) from the early modern period. The stamps in question demonstrate the variety of use of family marks. This material is quantitatively modest, very fragmentary, interesting for comparison, and enriches our knowledge of the early modern urban society of Kyiv and Volhynia. Keywords: sfragistics, personal stamps, signets, family marks, townspeople, Kyiv, Volhynia, 16th century, first half of 17th century.
Lutsk Municipal Authorities from the Second Half of the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century: Interna... more Lutsk Municipal Authorities from the Second Half of the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century: Internal Conflicts Caused by Abuses of Power
From the end of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, Lutsk several times wit nessed protests against the authority of the hereditary mayors and the city council. Th e main causes of the confl icts lay in the internal situation of the city and the functioning of its munici pality, the dependence on the power of the hereditary mayor. One of the most important sources of discontent among the townspeople was the problem of abuse of power by the city’s mayor and municipal offi cials. An acute means of pressure on the townspeople was the city council’s right to repartition the funds they had to pay into the town treasury. Sometimes these sums were treated by the municipal authorities as private funds of their members and used according to their needs. Th e unequal dis tribution of tax burdens between diff erent groups of burghers was common and, as such, activated social movements in other towns and cities as well. In Lutsk, there were numerous disagreements over access to municipal authorities and abuse of the judiciary. Occasionally, there were confl icts between the mayor and the municipal community, the mayor and the council with the commoners. Th e abuses of both city councils and the hereditary mayor provoked opposition from the urban population. However, the municipal commune did not manage to buy out the offi ce of the mayor and establish the representation of the so-called third order (i.e. the representatives of commoners in the municipal authorities), as was the case, for exam ple, in Lviv and other major crown cities.
Testaments of Volhynian citizens of early modern times:
heuristic capabilities of sources and res... more Testaments of Volhynian citizens of early modern times: heuristic capabilities of sources and research tools
Abstract. The purpose of the study: to outline new approaches in the study of testamentary issues and heuristic possibilities of acts of the last will of the inhabitants of the cities of the Volhynian Voivodeship in early modern times. The article considers various methods of research of testamentary problems in the line of “New social history”: historical, cultural and social anthropology, comparative-historical, micro-historical, everyday history. Scientific novelty: for the first time in Ukrainian historiography the methodological tools of research of testamentary problems are outlined and potential possibilities of these sources are opened. Conclusions: as the latest developments of historians show, wills as multifaceted sources are suitable for research not only a number of basic problems of social and economic history, but also much broader topics. In the arsenal of researchers of testamentary problems is a variety of methodological tools, represented by different areas of the “New Social History”. Due to its interdisciplinarity, this topic quickly became a place of active dialogue between representatives of various fields of humanities in European historiography, but Ukrainian material in this diversity is practically not represented. The article outlines the prospects for further research, shows that Ukrainian testamentology has great prospects and a wide field of research.
The World of Things and Objects of Volhynian Dwellers in the 17th Century
The purpose of the ar... more The World of Things and Objects of Volhynian Dwellers in the 17th Century
The purpose of the article is to highlight individual property aspects related to the inheritance of mo vable things in residents of the Volhynian Voivodeship. The source base of the research served testaments of dwellers, which fitted to the Volhynian town and castle books in the 17th century. In Ukrainian histori ography, still no special comprehensive studies revealed the mentioned aspects. Scientific approaches are 4 based on the use of methods of «new social history», the history of everyday life, and microhistory. The study emphasizes attention to the material dimension of the everyday life of ordinary inhabitants of Volhyn, their attitude to movable things and individual objects. The scientific novelty of the study is in the coverage of the material world of the testators in the light of the last wills of the 17th century. Conclusions. The lists of property in the last wills of the townsmen began with the most important things for the testator; there was a certain hierarchy or gradation. The most valuable, considered products from noble metals – gold and silver, expensive jewelry, then – from tin and copper, and completed this list of clothing and other things. Sometimes testators gave things that did not constitute a special value in material terms, but had to remind the heirs of the former host. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The average burgers often mention the wardrobe objects, describing the fabric from which they were made, color, separate parts of clothing, species of fur, used in sewing or as a decoration. The outfit of penetration to the Volhynian towns of Western influences, and at the same time, the existence of stable oriental borrowing. Here combined fashionable novelties with a deep archaic that created a diverse mix. As to bedding, dishes and other household items (jewelry, books, weaponry, and home inventory) are mentioned sporadically. Tes tators from Volhynian towns are generally practical and pragmatic, saving, such that they care about their property. Things to them had utilitarian significance, and jewelry was perceived as «mobile artifacts» that could be sold or stated if necessary. Despite the specifics of such a source as a testament, the analysis of its material part is an important source for the study of the material culture of the early-modern urban society. Key words: testament, legacy, movable things, town dwellers, towns, Volhynia, 17th century
Abstract: The texts discussed in the present article have not been studied by historians so far, ... more Abstract: The texts discussed in the present article have not been studied by historians so far, although testaments from Kiev, like testaments from the territory of the Crown of Poland, offer wide research opportunities. They can be used to study legal and economic issues, ...
Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariat... more Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariats and development of burghers’ literacy in particular. The goal of the article is to research some aspects of these problems by the means of testaments; specifically, to highlight the role of city secretaries in the process of writing down citizens’ testaments and facts that testify about development of urban literacy in cities of Volynia of the 17th century.The municipal registry record analysis implies that executing posthumous inventories, settlement deeds, and especially testaments influenced the development of pragmatic urban literacy. Among the analyzed group of testators, several people wrote down their testaments by themselves. Then city clerks had no option but to accept prepared documents post factum for saving records in town council registers, which in some extent is evidence of the literacy culture development in the Volynian cities in the early modern times. However, the pr...
Establishment of Testaments in Towns of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th Century: Legal Groun... more Establishment of Testaments in Towns of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th Century: Legal Grounds and Practices
The objective of the article is to analyze the legal grounds and practices of establishment of testaments in the town society of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th century. The methodology of the research consists in using the methods of comparative-historical and system analysis, social anthropology in studying the legislation (in particular the law of adversity), the universal practices of laying down the testament in the towns of the Volynian Voivodeship of the 17th century. Scientific novelty. The article outlined the legal grounds for making testamentary documents and the recourse to the norms according to the Second Lithuanian Statute and the collections of Municipal Law by Bartolomeus Groicki, which were widely used in the court practice of Ukrainian cities of the early modern period. The article describes the process and the order of executing of testaments in all practices in Volynian towns during the 17th century. It was informed that the standard was the execution of testament in the house of a dying person (in the presence of municipal officers and witnesses), or in the city hall before the city court. Conclusions. In the cities, governed by Magdeburg law, B.Groicki (1534–1605) in their books of a legislative nature specified the order of residence, execution of rights and establishing of testaments. The norms of the Second Lithuanian Statute applied to inhabitants of non-privileged cities and representatives of different classes, who stayed behind the municipal jurisdiction. The local chancellery played a major role in the formation of the testament as an important private legal act, which was obligatory for execution after the death of the testator. Unhappy with the last will of the testator, they could take the order to court, but in practice, it was used by a small part of the citizens of the cities. The analysis of legal sources and their comparison with the practice of making testamentary documents gives grounds to conclude that the townspeople in most cases took the law and adhered to the provisions of the testamentary documents. Rarely were the cases when they did these acts by themselves. Most of the testators were unwritten and required the assistance of the city clerk’s office to draw up the act. After their deaths, these documents had to be recorded in the municipal registers, but as the analysis of the act documentation shows, this occurred sporadically. The reasons for this could be the unwillingness of the residents to pay for the related clerical expenses or the absence of the need to do so. In general, despite the widespread practice of making testamentary documents in the cities of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, these documents did not become a mass production of documents in Volynian towns; most of the orders of the last will were made without any further written fixation. Keywords: testaments, legacy, Magdeburg law, law of legacy, Second Lithuanian Statute, town chancellery, town society, Volynian Voivodeship.
The article deals with two privileges of the Polish king Stefan Batory for the Polissya town of L... more The article deals with two privileges of the Polish king Stefan Batory for the Polissya town of Loyew (now the district centre of the Gomel region, the Republic of Belarus). In the 16th century, it was a part of the Liubech starostvo of the Kyiv voivodship. The town is known first of all due to military battles that took place in the neighbourhood. One occurred on July 31, 1649, and the other - during the Second World War, while the pages of its history during the Lithuanian-Polish era, such as the granting of self-government under the Magdeburg law, are still little known.Stefan Batory privileges for Loyew can be considered exciting and rare archival finds, and they have not yet been published and introduced into scientific circulation. The first - the Magdeburg Law was granted on August 3, 1576, the second - on the Loyew Vogtship for Fedora Volka appeared as an addition to the first one in six years (November 25, 1582). Unlike most of the privileges of the time, inscribed in the b...
A Step Away from Eternity. Dwellers of Volhynian Towns in the Light of Testaments, Late 16th through the 17th century / За крок до Вічності. Мешканці міст Волині у світлі тестаментів кінця ХVІ – ХVІІ століть, 2021
The book is composed of the introduction, five chapters, conclusions and extensive appendices: 1)... more The book is composed of the introduction, five chapters, conclusions and extensive appendices: 1) a table with the list of testators specifying their social and marital status, religious affiliation, the date and location when the testament was compiled, and its language; 2) 170 source texts, with the majority in Polish and 17 in Old Ukrainian. My research is based on archival materials previously unknown in scholarly literature from the archives in Kyiv, Lviv, Kraków, Kórnik and Minsk. Other appendices include an index of names and locations, a dictionary of obsolete words, objects and terms, a bibliography, and a list of abbreviations and illustrations. Testamenty mieszkańców miast Wołynia od końca XVI do początku XVIII wieku. Katalog (Last Wills of Volhynia Townsmen from the End of the Sixteenth to the Early Eighteenth Century. A Catalogue, Warsaw, 2017), prepared under the aegis of the international project for the publication of catalogues of last wills of townsmen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, provided impetus for the present monograph. The ethnically and socially diverse urban society of the Volhynian Voivodeship in the latter third of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century was the focus of my attention. Volhynian towns are analyzed primarily as the space of close interactions between various social groups: townsmen, szlachta, clergy and subordinate groups. The monograph addresses various facets from the lives of persons interconnected by their coexistence in Volhynian towns through the framework of one type of sources, namely, last wills. Chapter 1, “Historiography, sources and methods of research,” presents the main trends and directions of funerary studies in historiography outside Ukraine, highlights Ukrainian historiography of the issue, outlines the corpus of sources, specifies the scholarly methods and includes certain methodological notes. The interest in last wills of burghers has a long and strong tradition in European historiography. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, this field of studies quickly became a site of lively dialogue between scholars from various fields in humanities. Historical sources from Ukraine are barely represented among diverse European sources though. Chapter 2, “Drawing Up a Will: The Law and the Practice,” outlines the legal framework for drawing up a will and the quotidian practices surrounding this act. It compiles information about municipal scribes and analyzes the structure (formula) of last wills. Municipal officials served as witnesses when the testator dictated his last will. They also made sure that the scribe transcribed the information correctly, authenticated the testament with their signatures or stamps, and registered it in official records. The corpus of sources analyzed here includes several documents written by testators themselves, which indicates that literacy was on the rise in early modern Volhynian towns. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of testators was illiterate and confirmed their last will with a cross in lieu of a signature; they required the professional assistance of officials from the municipal office to draw up a will. We should also take into account that the majority of townsmen did not leave a will. Chapter 3, “Testators and Their Relatives,” focuses on the testators and their relationships with their spouses, children and distant inheritors, addressing the issue of guardianship and the relationship between guardians and children in their custody. Last wills of Volhynian townsmen allow to make certain demographic estimates, establishing family size, the number of children, the number of marriages, child mortality, etc. The most crucial reason to draw up a will was to bequeath the inheritance in a way that would prevent future conflicts between the inheritors. In order to take care of their children and grandchildren, townsmen allocated their movable effects and real estate, dispensed advice and warned them of dangers. Other close relatives, friends, servants and retainers, who received gifts as a sign of gratitude, were also often mentioned. Other reasons to draw up a will included the desire to help one’s spouse, donate to charity or the church. Chapter 4, “Religion and Church in Testators’ Lives,” addresses the Volhynian townsmen’s beliefs about death, funerary and remembrance practices, burial sites, mentions of religious and devotional matters. Last wills are an important source for scholars of religious culture of Volhynian townsmen, who were no strangers to the proverbial memento mori and the art of ars bene moriendi. Remembering these tenets, testators endeavored to take leave of their mortal lives as was believed proper. To ensure salvation, they bequeathed certain, sometimes quite substantial sums of money or parts of their property to churches, monasteries, hospitals or charity work; they tried to ensure that their inheritors followed their orders regarding funerary ceremonies, organized remembrance prayer services and burial services. A proper burial following the church canons was an important step to ensure salvation. Chapter 5 focuses on the testators’ material world, their real estate and movable property (cattle, clothes, kitchenware, jewelry, books, weaponry, everyday items and household implements). The issue of credit and debt obligations is also addressed. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The analysis of movable property of burgher elites speaks of their desire to imitate the attractive lifestyle of the local szlachta. Last wills and property inventories contain information about the culture of daily life among various groups of town residents, their standards of living, priorities and cultural preferences. The conclusions reflect on the local particularity of the sources. Comparative analysis with last wills from the Crown of Poland demonstrates that their structures were similar, but local sources adhere to slightly more archaic formula. The indicators of this include: a longer preamble in certain texts, detailed descriptions of property, including descriptions of features of certain objects, and especially the emotional rhetoric and dialogues between the testator and his or her inheritors. The publication is intended for scholars, professors and readers with an interest in the social history of early modern Volhynian towns.
SUMMARY
Nataliia Bilous. Testamentary practices in the urban society in Volhynia, late 16th – 17t... more SUMMARY Nataliia Bilous. Testamentary practices in the urban society in Volhynia, late 16th – 17th cent: legal, sociocultural and property aspects. Dissertation for the Doctor of Historical Sciences degree, discipline 07.00.01 – History of Ukraine. – Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 2022. The dissertation focuses on legal, sociocultural and property aspects of testamentary practices of Volhynian urban dwellers based on wills and other sources from the late 16th – 17th cent. Early modern testaments – documents that contain instructions regarding the funeral, salvation of the soul, division of inheritance, debt repayment and more – are valuable and multifaceted sources for exploring various aspects of the functioning of society. Aside from social and economic data, they shine the light on genealogy, demographics, religious beliefs and the history of the quotidian that can be of interest to scholars of cultural anthropology, legal history, prosopography, diplomatics and paleography. The territorial scope of my research is defined by the historical borders of the Volhynian Voivodeship, consisting of Lutsk, Volodymyr and Kremenets powiats. The dissertation addresses a rich corpus of documents from several archives in Ukraine, Poland and partly Belarus; the majority of these documents have not been studied previously. I also engage with published sources, funerary genres in early Ukrainian writing from the 17th cent., the works of historians of sacred art, archeologists and ethnographers. The dissertation introduces a range of previously unexplored topics into Ukrainian historiography, contextualizing and significantly expanding other lines of research, which underscores the relevance of my project. Analysis of testaments allows us to reconstruct in detail the various circumstances under which these documents came to be compiled, and offers a rare glimpse of the religious beliefs and values of urban dwellers, their funerary and commemorative practices, as well as charitable work. As multifaceted historic sources, testaments reveal a number of crucial issues: they allow to delineate familial ties in urban society, shed light on the emotional component in familial relations, as well as on inheritance and custodianship issues linked to them; they help to reconstruct the material environment of urban dwellers, establish their professional life, social status and legal relations. This marks a significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian historiography, particularly in historical and cultural anthropology, as well as to the new social history with its thematic diversity. Until now, Ukrainian historiography did not have comprehensive studies of these aspects of the functioning of early modern urban society. The dissertation analyzes legal and quotidian practices pertaining to drawing up wills in Volhynian urban society. I have established that these documents went into legal effect after being inscribed in court records, city court records or clerical court records. Testaments were interspersed with other types of records; separate records along the lines of Libri testamentorum were not kept. Town officials served as witnesses when testators made their last will. They made sure that the scribes noted down the instructions with accuracy, attested with their signatures or seals that the will went into legal effect, and copied them to the records. Last wills of Volhynian towns residents provide materials for certain demographic calculations, in some cases allowing to establish the number of family members, children and marriages, child mortality, etc. These sources reflect the broad panorama of familial relations with all their problems and emotions. Testaments document complicated configurations for dividing up the inheritance among heirs, and conflicts that could arise in the process. That said, the majority of testaments reveal the ideal image of family life. They were usually drawn up to minimize the risk of conflicts, and, as a rule, did fulfill that function. The dissertation also addresses certain religious beliefs and perceptions of death among Volhynian town dwellers. I demonstrate that testaments are important sources for studying the religious culture of Volhynian town dwellers, for whom the slogan of memento mori and the science of ars bene moriendi were an ineluctable part of daily life. Remembering these precepts, testators attempted to bid farewell to their mortal life as one should. They left certain sums of money, often quite considerable, or some of their property to Orthodox or Catholic churches, monasteries, hospitals and charitable causes to ensure their salvation. Urban dwellers wanted their inheritors to fulfill their instructions regarding funerary ceremonies and memorial services. The dissertation provides a comprehensive description of testators’ material environment. Testaments of Volhynian town dwellers shed light on the quantity and variety of their property, allowing for approximate evaluations of testators’ economic status and activities. The analysis of personal property of urban elites demonstrates that they tried to emulate the attractive lifestyle of local aristocracy. Clothing can be seen as a sign of social status, and the clothes of urban dwellers followed the aristocratic fashion. This detail demonstrates that aristocratic culture had a strong influence on the values and lifestyle in towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Ukrainian territory. Testaments and descriptions of property contain detailed information about the quotidian culture of various groups of urban dwellers, their living standards and priorities, and in some cases even their sources of income and expenditures that reveal cultural preferences.
The Union of Lublin in contemporary Ukrainian
historiography and didactics
In Ukrainian histo... more The Union of Lublin in contemporary Ukrainian
historiography and didactics
In Ukrainian historiography, treatment of the signifi cance and aft ermath of the Union of Lublin depended on ideological priorities of the time. In the 19th and 20th century historians were united by a sustained anti-Polish attitude. As early as in the 19th century, the scholars built an image of Poland as the main “stranger” in Ukra inian history. Th is negative image survived throughout the 20th century and passed into the 21st century. The purpose of the article is to examine various historiographic problems and stereotypes related to the Union of Lublin in the last 25 years and evolution, i.e. transformation, of the views of Ukrainian historians and textbook authors regarding this landmark event. Soviet historiography borrowed the negative assessment of the Union of Lublin and its consequences for Ukraine from the “national” concept of Mykhailo Hrushevsky and, going further, added new stereotypes to it. In the mid 1990s we observe a departure from the model introduced by Hrushevsky and the Soviet model of writing about history. As a result of the new political realities, some emphases in historiography have shift ed, the evaluations of events have changed slightly, and historians have outlined new, neutral evaluations of the union. Over the past ten years, a number of modern works by Ukrainian researchers have emerged, appreciating the common heritage of Poland and Ukraine, especially from the histo ry of parliamentarianism, ideology, identity and culture, the history of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the Cossacks, which have their roots in the Union of Lublin, when the Ukrainian lands became part of the former Commonwealth. In 2019, in connection with the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin, interest in this event among the Ukrainian public has increased. A scholarly conference was held with the
support of the Polish Institute in Kiev. Unfortunately, new views of historians have not aff ected the content of most textbooks for secondary and tertiary schools. Th ey still describe the Union of Lublin along the lines of the “best” Soviet models. In recent years, state policy in Ukraine has been aimed primarily at overcoming myths about the 20th century. Th erefore, much attention is paid to the content of the recent history books, while the events of the 16th–17th century remain in its “shadow”. Although ideological formulas and stereotypes of national and Soviet historiography have been partly incorporated into contemporary textbooks, some positive changes in the assessment of the conse quences of the Union of Lublin are already visible. Th e topic of the Union of Lublin is well suited for developing critical thinking among pupils and students. It allows them to form their own assessment, based on facts, sources and the latest research by historians.
Katalog zawiera blisko 200 regestów testamentow odnalezionych w wyniku kwerendy w archiwach Ukra... more Katalog zawiera blisko 200 regestów testamentow odnalezionych w wyniku kwerendy w archiwach Ukrainy, Polski i Białorusi. Są to dyspozycje ostatniej woli mieszkańców miast Wołynia, a także przedstawicieli innych stanów oraz przybyszów z innych regionów.
The present collection contains a body of 117 texts of privileges granted to the City of Kiev fro... more The present collection contains a body of 117 texts of privileges granted to the City of Kiev from between the end of 15th century, specifically, 1494 – the moment the earliest known privilege was granted by Grand Lithuanian Duke Alexander, and 1652 – the date the last charters were given to the city by Polish King John II Casimir. The Kiev municipality archive was destroyed by the fires that affected the town in 1651, 1718 and 1811. The fragmentary condition of extant sources, which are moreover dispersed in several archival resources of three countries, have made the search for the documents complex, to a considerable extent. The source material used as the basis for this edition comes from: the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, Kiev; the Manuscripts Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – the Library; the Russian State Archives of Historical Records, City of Moscow; the Central Archives of Historical Records, Warsaw. The source text section is preceded by an Introduction discussing the historiographic and source criticism-related issues of relevance. The introductory section is composed of two chapters, of which the first describes the problems in question and the related historiographic aspects. The second discusses the types of sources comprised in this edition. The first subchapter characterises the chartularies of the privileges/charters of the City of Kiev from around 1720 and the late 18th c. The second subchapter classifies the privileges, the most important among them being the Magdeburg Rights and their confirmations. Beside these, we encounter other Municipality-related documents, such as – in particular – exemptions from obligations and customs duties and economic rights or entitlements for the Municipality members, incl.: liquor production and selling; granting municipal real properties and the right to use the same; a calendar of fairs – held twice or, later on, thrice a year, and of weekly trade fairs; right to pursue free trade in the Grand-Duchy-of-Lithuania territory. The privileges included those releasing the burghers from the duty of maintaining foreign envoys, sending messengers, providing requisitioned carriages and stations. Among the essential deeds were privileges regarding the functioning of city authorities, or those for the voyt-ship of Kiev. The third subchapter discusses the editorial rules applied in preparation of sources for publication. The sources have been published in their respective original languages – i.e. Old-Ruthenian (Old-East-Slavic), Latin, and Polish. The Annex attached provides a list of acronyms/abbreviations, alphabetical geographic and name indexes, illustrations.
Ukrainian Historical Journal / Український історичний журнал, 2024
ELISEI PLETENETSKYI: MAJOR MILESTONES IN HIS LIFE AND ACTIVITIES
(on the 400th anniversary of th... more ELISEI PLETENETSKYI: MAJOR MILESTONES IN HIS LIFE AND ACTIVITIES (on the 400th anniversary of the death of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra)
The aim is to highlight the little-known facts of the biography and the main milestones of the life and work of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Elisei Pletenetsky, his role in the development of Ukrainian culture, science and enlightenment in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, thereby honouring the memory of the great Lavra enlightener. The author uses various research methods in line with the ‘New Social History’, as well as comparative historical, problematic chronological, microhistorical, and everyday history. The scientific novelty lies in the coverage of little-known facts of the archimandrite's biography and activities, which allow us to speak more specifically about the origin of Elisei Pletenetsky, and new archival finds that correct or expand the known information. Conclusions: The figure of the archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, Elisei Pletenetsky, is one of the most prominent figures in the Ukrainian cultural space of the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but has not yet received a separate thorough study. Pletenetsky's undoubted merits include the foundation of the Institute of Preaching, the Lavra intellectual circle, the first school that laid the foundation for the Kyiv-Mohyla College, the establishment of the Lavra printing and papermaking house in Radomyshl, participation in the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, the regulation and improvement of monastic life, and charitable activities. Keywords: Archimandrite Elisei Pletenetsky, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, printing house, book printing, enlightenment, brotherhood, land ownership, Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Zapysky Naukovoho Tovarystva imeni Tarasa Shevchenka, 2010
The article focuses on the epistolary heritage of Tomasz Zamoyski, the son of the Chancellor and ... more The article focuses on the epistolary heritage of Tomasz Zamoyski, the son of the Chancellor and Grand Hetman of the Crown Hetman Jan Zamoyski. The article presents 16 letters of Kyiv burghers to the voivode Tomasz Zamoyski and his letters to the burghers in the period 1619-1628.
WSCHODNI ROCZNIK HUMANISTYCZNY TOM XXI (2024), No1, 2024
Annotation: This article analyses a set of hitherto unknown archival documents from the history ... more Annotation: This article analyses a set of hitherto unknown archival documents from the history of the land ownership of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery (Lavra) during the reign of Archimandrite Innocent Gizel (1656–1683). Preserved in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, a collection of documents from Lutsk grodzki books (f. 25) tells the story of legal disputes between the Pechersk archimandrite and the Kyiv nobility of the Sushchansky-Proskury (exulants) over the Grodek and Obary estates in Volyn (now these are villages in the Rivne region of the Rivne district) in 1664–1672. The archimandrite and the monks made every effort to preserve their residence in Volyn, even when the chances were almost lost. They used every method of struggle available to them, employing the best lawyers in the courts and sometimes even resorting to blackmail and intimidation. There were also frequent disputes over landed estates with the priors of other Kyiv convents, with the nobility whose lands bordered the Lavra’s estates, and with the Cossacks, who tried to take over its lands and monopolise the production of alcoholic drinks, a regular source of income at the time. However, due to the political situation, especially as a result of the Andrušov truce of 1667, the influence and economic power of the Pechersk monastery in right-bank Ukraine gradually declined. He soon lost his estates in the territories remaining in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but instead received new ones, in greater numbers, in exchange for loyalty to the Moscow Tsar, as indicated by the documents analysed from the Russian Archive of Former Acts in Moscow (f. 124). In the 18th century, he became the largest church owner in the Ukrainian territories and a new era of economic power began for him. Keywords: archimandrite Innocent Gizel, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, nobility, Volyn province, Kyiv metropolis
Pieczątki osobiste mieszczan kijowskich i wołyńskich z XVI–pierwszej połowy XVII w. Materiały do katalogu, 2023
Personal stamps of Kiev and Volhynian burghers from the sixteenth and first half of the seventeen... more Personal stamps of Kiev and Volhynian burghers from the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth century. Catalogue materials. The aim of this article is an attempt to present and systematise according to family marks a certain part of the personal stamps or gmerks of representatives of the urban elite of Kyiv and some Volyn cities (33 persons in total) from the early modern period. The stamps in question demonstrate the variety of use of family marks. This material is quantitatively modest, very fragmentary, interesting for comparison, and enriches our knowledge of the early modern urban society of Kyiv and Volhynia. Keywords: sfragistics, personal stamps, signets, family marks, townspeople, Kyiv, Volhynia, 16th century, first half of 17th century.
Lutsk Municipal Authorities from the Second Half of the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century: Interna... more Lutsk Municipal Authorities from the Second Half of the Sixteenth to Seventeenth Century: Internal Conflicts Caused by Abuses of Power
From the end of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, Lutsk several times wit nessed protests against the authority of the hereditary mayors and the city council. Th e main causes of the confl icts lay in the internal situation of the city and the functioning of its munici pality, the dependence on the power of the hereditary mayor. One of the most important sources of discontent among the townspeople was the problem of abuse of power by the city’s mayor and municipal offi cials. An acute means of pressure on the townspeople was the city council’s right to repartition the funds they had to pay into the town treasury. Sometimes these sums were treated by the municipal authorities as private funds of their members and used according to their needs. Th e unequal dis tribution of tax burdens between diff erent groups of burghers was common and, as such, activated social movements in other towns and cities as well. In Lutsk, there were numerous disagreements over access to municipal authorities and abuse of the judiciary. Occasionally, there were confl icts between the mayor and the municipal community, the mayor and the council with the commoners. Th e abuses of both city councils and the hereditary mayor provoked opposition from the urban population. However, the municipal commune did not manage to buy out the offi ce of the mayor and establish the representation of the so-called third order (i.e. the representatives of commoners in the municipal authorities), as was the case, for exam ple, in Lviv and other major crown cities.
Testaments of Volhynian citizens of early modern times:
heuristic capabilities of sources and res... more Testaments of Volhynian citizens of early modern times: heuristic capabilities of sources and research tools
Abstract. The purpose of the study: to outline new approaches in the study of testamentary issues and heuristic possibilities of acts of the last will of the inhabitants of the cities of the Volhynian Voivodeship in early modern times. The article considers various methods of research of testamentary problems in the line of “New social history”: historical, cultural and social anthropology, comparative-historical, micro-historical, everyday history. Scientific novelty: for the first time in Ukrainian historiography the methodological tools of research of testamentary problems are outlined and potential possibilities of these sources are opened. Conclusions: as the latest developments of historians show, wills as multifaceted sources are suitable for research not only a number of basic problems of social and economic history, but also much broader topics. In the arsenal of researchers of testamentary problems is a variety of methodological tools, represented by different areas of the “New Social History”. Due to its interdisciplinarity, this topic quickly became a place of active dialogue between representatives of various fields of humanities in European historiography, but Ukrainian material in this diversity is practically not represented. The article outlines the prospects for further research, shows that Ukrainian testamentology has great prospects and a wide field of research.
The World of Things and Objects of Volhynian Dwellers in the 17th Century
The purpose of the ar... more The World of Things and Objects of Volhynian Dwellers in the 17th Century
The purpose of the article is to highlight individual property aspects related to the inheritance of mo vable things in residents of the Volhynian Voivodeship. The source base of the research served testaments of dwellers, which fitted to the Volhynian town and castle books in the 17th century. In Ukrainian histori ography, still no special comprehensive studies revealed the mentioned aspects. Scientific approaches are 4 based on the use of methods of «new social history», the history of everyday life, and microhistory. The study emphasizes attention to the material dimension of the everyday life of ordinary inhabitants of Volhyn, their attitude to movable things and individual objects. The scientific novelty of the study is in the coverage of the material world of the testators in the light of the last wills of the 17th century. Conclusions. The lists of property in the last wills of the townsmen began with the most important things for the testator; there was a certain hierarchy or gradation. The most valuable, considered products from noble metals – gold and silver, expensive jewelry, then – from tin and copper, and completed this list of clothing and other things. Sometimes testators gave things that did not constitute a special value in material terms, but had to remind the heirs of the former host. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The average burgers often mention the wardrobe objects, describing the fabric from which they were made, color, separate parts of clothing, species of fur, used in sewing or as a decoration. The outfit of penetration to the Volhynian towns of Western influences, and at the same time, the existence of stable oriental borrowing. Here combined fashionable novelties with a deep archaic that created a diverse mix. As to bedding, dishes and other household items (jewelry, books, weaponry, and home inventory) are mentioned sporadically. Tes tators from Volhynian towns are generally practical and pragmatic, saving, such that they care about their property. Things to them had utilitarian significance, and jewelry was perceived as «mobile artifacts» that could be sold or stated if necessary. Despite the specifics of such a source as a testament, the analysis of its material part is an important source for the study of the material culture of the early-modern urban society. Key words: testament, legacy, movable things, town dwellers, towns, Volhynia, 17th century
Abstract: The texts discussed in the present article have not been studied by historians so far, ... more Abstract: The texts discussed in the present article have not been studied by historians so far, although testaments from Kiev, like testaments from the territory of the Crown of Poland, offer wide research opportunities. They can be used to study legal and economic issues, ...
Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariat... more Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariats and development of burghers’ literacy in particular. The goal of the article is to research some aspects of these problems by the means of testaments; specifically, to highlight the role of city secretaries in the process of writing down citizens’ testaments and facts that testify about development of urban literacy in cities of Volynia of the 17th century.The municipal registry record analysis implies that executing posthumous inventories, settlement deeds, and especially testaments influenced the development of pragmatic urban literacy. Among the analyzed group of testators, several people wrote down their testaments by themselves. Then city clerks had no option but to accept prepared documents post factum for saving records in town council registers, which in some extent is evidence of the literacy culture development in the Volynian cities in the early modern times. However, the pr...
Establishment of Testaments in Towns of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th Century: Legal Groun... more Establishment of Testaments in Towns of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th Century: Legal Grounds and Practices
The objective of the article is to analyze the legal grounds and practices of establishment of testaments in the town society of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th century. The methodology of the research consists in using the methods of comparative-historical and system analysis, social anthropology in studying the legislation (in particular the law of adversity), the universal practices of laying down the testament in the towns of the Volynian Voivodeship of the 17th century. Scientific novelty. The article outlined the legal grounds for making testamentary documents and the recourse to the norms according to the Second Lithuanian Statute and the collections of Municipal Law by Bartolomeus Groicki, which were widely used in the court practice of Ukrainian cities of the early modern period. The article describes the process and the order of executing of testaments in all practices in Volynian towns during the 17th century. It was informed that the standard was the execution of testament in the house of a dying person (in the presence of municipal officers and witnesses), or in the city hall before the city court. Conclusions. In the cities, governed by Magdeburg law, B.Groicki (1534–1605) in their books of a legislative nature specified the order of residence, execution of rights and establishing of testaments. The norms of the Second Lithuanian Statute applied to inhabitants of non-privileged cities and representatives of different classes, who stayed behind the municipal jurisdiction. The local chancellery played a major role in the formation of the testament as an important private legal act, which was obligatory for execution after the death of the testator. Unhappy with the last will of the testator, they could take the order to court, but in practice, it was used by a small part of the citizens of the cities. The analysis of legal sources and their comparison with the practice of making testamentary documents gives grounds to conclude that the townspeople in most cases took the law and adhered to the provisions of the testamentary documents. Rarely were the cases when they did these acts by themselves. Most of the testators were unwritten and required the assistance of the city clerk’s office to draw up the act. After their deaths, these documents had to be recorded in the municipal registers, but as the analysis of the act documentation shows, this occurred sporadically. The reasons for this could be the unwillingness of the residents to pay for the related clerical expenses or the absence of the need to do so. In general, despite the widespread practice of making testamentary documents in the cities of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, these documents did not become a mass production of documents in Volynian towns; most of the orders of the last will were made without any further written fixation. Keywords: testaments, legacy, Magdeburg law, law of legacy, Second Lithuanian Statute, town chancellery, town society, Volynian Voivodeship.
The article deals with two privileges of the Polish king Stefan Batory for the Polissya town of L... more The article deals with two privileges of the Polish king Stefan Batory for the Polissya town of Loyew (now the district centre of the Gomel region, the Republic of Belarus). In the 16th century, it was a part of the Liubech starostvo of the Kyiv voivodship. The town is known first of all due to military battles that took place in the neighbourhood. One occurred on July 31, 1649, and the other - during the Second World War, while the pages of its history during the Lithuanian-Polish era, such as the granting of self-government under the Magdeburg law, are still little known.Stefan Batory privileges for Loyew can be considered exciting and rare archival finds, and they have not yet been published and introduced into scientific circulation. The first - the Magdeburg Law was granted on August 3, 1576, the second - on the Loyew Vogtship for Fedora Volka appeared as an addition to the first one in six years (November 25, 1582). Unlike most of the privileges of the time, inscribed in the b...
Testament as a Source of Researching Urban Literacy
in the Volynia Region of the 17th Cent.
Ukr... more Testament as a Source of Researching Urban Literacy in the Volynia Region of the 17th Cent.
Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariats and development of burghers’ literacy in particular. The goal of the following article is to research some aspects of these problems by the means of testaments; specifically to highlight the role of city secretaries in the process of writing down citizens’ testaments and facts that testify about development of urban literacy in cities of Volynia of the 17th century. The municipal registry record analysis implies that executing posthumous inventories, settlement deeds, and especially testaments influenced the development of pragmatic urban literacy. Among the analyzed group of testators several people wrote down their testaments by themselves. Then city clerks had no option but to accept prepared documents post factum for saving records in town council registers, which in some extent is evidence of the literacy culture development in the Volynian cities in the early modern times. However, the predominant majority of testators were illiterate and in order to approve their act of last will, they signed it with a criss-cross ("X"); conclusion of the act required specialized assistance of municipal clerks. In those times normally testaments were written down in the house of a dying person in the presence of municipal officers who provided the document according to an appropriate form and legal validity, and eye-witnesses, or it could be written down at the city hall before the court. City secretaries had a significant role in this procedure, but their level of proficiency was not always appropriate. As in the majority of Central-East European cities of that time, Volynian cities substantive amount of acts of last will were given by verbal directions and were not recorded in municipal registers. This fact explains such a small amount of saved documents in comparison with Western European cities. They were not set aside into a separate register series as in bigger crown cities, but acts were recorded into the current municipal registers in response to citizens’ demand.
Український історіографічний збірник. Київ: Інститут історії України НАНУ, вип. 30, с. 213-243, 2019
Natalia Bilous
Candidate of Historical Sciences,
senior research worker, Institute of History ... more Natalia Bilous Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior research worker, Institute of History of Ukraine NASU (Ukraine, Kyiv), bilousnat@ukr.net ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6036-3204
FUNERARY CULTURE OF THE EARLY MODERN UKRAINIAN SOCIETY: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE TOPIC
The article offers an interdisciplinary overview of the historiography of the funerary culture of the early modern Ukrainian society, as well as the main directions and trends in the research on the issue in contemporary European historiography, including Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Polish, where it has gained popularity over the last couple of decades. Particular attention is paid to the interdisciplinary nature of research, drawing in researchers from various fields, including literary scholars, ethnographers, historians of art and literature, linguists, theologians, archaeologists, anthropologists, archeobotanists, and microbiologists. The researches adopt systems analysis and methods of comparative studies. Popular in European historiography, this issue has attracted comparatively less interest from Ukrainan historians. Sporadic studies of pompa funebris deal primarily with representatives of the ruling elites (magnates or Cossack officers of the Hetmanate era), szlachta, and the clergy, which does not exhaust the topic. Studies and publications of testaments and last wills are increasingly popular in foreign historiography; nevertheless, Ukrainian historiography features relatively few works that analyze the spiritual life, material culture, social and familial ties and the quotidian life of urban residents based on these sources. To that end, the conclusion of the present article features a list of topics that could yield significant discoveries, including urban residents’ funerary rites, signs of piety and charitable work, beliefs about the sacred, perceptions of sacred rituals, eschatological anxieties, and material as well as religious culture of the early modern Ukrainian society. Key words: funerary culture, testaments, Early Modern Ukrainian society, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Hetmanate, 16th – 18th century.
Соціум. Альманах соціальної історії, вип. 15-16, с. 128-142, 2020
Natalia Bilous
Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior research worker
Institute of History of... more Natalia Bilous Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior research worker Institute of History of Ukraine NASU (Ukraine, Kyiv, bilousnat@ukr.net) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6416-0623
CONFLICTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE FAMILIES OF VOLHYNIAN TOWN DWELLERS IN LIGHT OF 17TH CENTURY TESTAMENTS
The goal of our study was to show the variability of conflicts and conflict resolution in the families of Volhynian town dwellers in the 17th century. The article covers the following problems: conflicts around inheritance and distribution of estate, disinheritance, corrections to acts of last will, conflicts between parents (guardians) and their children, conflicts regarding the non-payment of testators’ debts. The study is based on the analysis of testaments and property inventories, primarily from the towns of Olyka, Dubno, Rivne and Kovel. Unfortunately, the fragmentary state of the source base prevents the expansion of the study’s geographic scope, because other Volhynian urban centers (Lutsk, Kremenets, Volodymyr, Mylianovychi, Ratne, Vyzhva, Ostrih and others) have very few remaining testaments, and those don’t contain mentions of conflicts within the families. Testaments and posthumous property inventories focus primarily on material property and contain valuable information that sheds light on various facets of the quotidian life of early modern citizens. They are a perfect source for exploring the issue of relations between a widow (widower) and the deceased’s children from previous marriages. Testaments and inventories were an important element of the inheritance process, and were often written to establish guardianship over minors. Volhynian testaments seldom describe conflicts in the family, demonstrating the model image of family life in the vast majority of cases. These documents were compiled not only to document the real state of the testator’s property, but also to lower the risk of conflicts in the family. It seems that in most cases testators, when facing death, were inclined to seek a compromise and reconcile their heirs, rather than encourage confrontations. Key words: testaments, property inventories, inheritance, family, conflicts, guardianship, municipal court, town dwellers, towns, Volhynia, the 17th century
Studies of female Patronage in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Ed. by B. Popiołek, U. Kicinska, A.Penkała-Jastrzębska, A. Slaby. Krakow, 2019, p. 37-58., 2019
Problems of clients and patronage of Tomasz Zamoyski (1594–1638) in the Kyiv palatinate
have not ... more Problems of clients and patronage of Tomasz Zamoyski (1594–1638) in the Kyiv palatinate have not been considered in historiography to this day. The political career of the son of the famous Chancellor Jan Zamoyski began in the Ukrainian territories: on March 11, 1619, he was appointed to the ranking of the Palatine of Kyiv. At just 23 years old, a young 78 R. Szczygieł, Przedmowa in Życie i dzieło Tomasza Zamoyskiego…, p. XVIII–XXX. 58 | Natalia Biłous magnate won a chair in the Senate and became an important person in the Kyiv region that was the east south part of the Polish Commonwealth. This post was connected with the starosta’s dignity. Tomasz Zamoyski received the clientele from Stanisław Żółkiewski, previous Palatine of Kyiv, whom he continued to supplement by the recruitment of new people during his tenure. The specificity of the borderland and political pragmatics required maintaining good contacts with the local elite in their own interest. Tomasz Zamoyski managed to establish such contacts with the local nobles, the city elite, Cossack leaders, clerics of various confessions. He was a competent patron not only for the local nobility, but also for municipal officials who regularly provided him with due payments, gifts, as well as letters with information about the most important events in the province. It is worth noting that similar relations were an exceptional and rare phenomenon in those times in this region. While holding the post of the Crown Deputy Chancellor in 1629–1635, Tomasz Zamoyski did not forget about his clients and friends from the Kyiv palatinate. They were still asking him for protection and help in lawsuits, family and personal matters. Informal networks of interpersonal relations were mostly maintained by correspondence. The letters addressed to Tomasz Zamoyski used the rhetoric of “friendship” and “availability,” readiness to provide services. They also demonstrate the emotional nature of informal relationships between the patron and his protégés. The analyzed sources show that Tomasz Zamoyski was an opponent of extreme solutions in religious policy and conflicts. He managed to keep the balance between the various political forces in the region and build a successful client system.
The article is devoted to the research of the unknown pages of the history of Trypillia (a villa... more The article is devoted to the research of the unknown pages of the history of Trypillia (a village of Obukhiv district of Kyiv region) during the Lithuanian-Polish period, in particular, the act of granting of the Magdeburg law and the urban status for the town by King Stephan Bathory in 1580, based on the sources from Cracow and Kyiv archives. It was discovered the original chartered right of the Magdeburg city-law for Trypillia. This is an interesting and rare artifact. The document originates from the Archive of Sangushko family. The archive of these princes is located in the State Archive of Poland in Cracow (Wawel department); the text of the manuscript is published at the end of the article. The initiators that granted the Magdeburg law for Trypillia were its owners: the members of the old local boyar family of Didovych-Trypilsky, the sons of Vasyl’: Fedir the Elder, Zhdan, Hapon and Fedir Jr. It also tells about some members of this family and the difficulties with the acquisition and the sale of their estates in Kyiv region and Ovruch district, inter-neighborhood and family conflicts in the XVIIth – the first half of the XVIIth century. For the purpose of further elaboration on this topic, previously unknown archives from Krakow and Kyiv have been incorporated. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systemicity, science, interdisciplinary. The following general-historical methods have been used: historical-genetic, terminological analysis, comparative, typological. The authors adhere to the civilizational approach and principles of cultural and intellectual history. The author came to the conclusion that during the investigated period there were significant changes in the history of Trypillia: thanks to the active work of its owners, from a small village, it became a town with the Magdeburg Law, a castle and a parish. In the middle of the XVIIth century, the Didovichy-Trypilsky family has increased substantially, which led to the dispersal of the lands in its’ ownership among the numerous heirs who, in search of profits, pursued an active land policy (leasing out separate estates, keeping the other owners away from the village, seeking to expand their lands though invasion of their neighbors, etc.), often using illegal means, which made the family increasingly unpopular among its peers. They remained inactive, however, when it came to the local political scene and were usually not elected into the voivodeship governments, with the exception of Fedir Vasylovych (the Senior), who was elected ambassador to the Sejm in 1572 and became a deputy to the Lublin Tribunal in 1592. All members of the family remained faithful to Orthodoxy. Certain circumstances forced them to sell their estates in the Kyiv region and to settle down in the Ovruch region, where they laid strong roots. During the Cossack Revolution of the middle of the XVIIth century, the town of Ovruch became a Cossack stronghold. It permanently lost its’ status of the city with the Magdeburg Law. And in the postwar years, the Trypillia Castle gradually collapsed, turning into ruins.
Україна в Центрально-Східній Європі/Ukraine in Central Eastern Europe, 2018
TO THE HISTORY OF NOBLE SELF-GOVERNANCE IN THE KYIV PALATINATE: THE ZHYTOMYR DIETINE OF 1640
Thi... more TO THE HISTORY OF NOBLE SELF-GOVERNANCE IN THE KYIV PALATINATE: THE ZHYTOMYR DIETINE OF 1640
This article deals with detailed analysis of the Zhytomyr dietine of 1640: instruction to deputies and petition from the Kyiv palatinate on the Warsaw Diet of 1640 and decision of the Zhytomyr relational dietine, which took place after Diet. Content of these materials reflects a wide range of political, social and economic problems that local nobility want to resolve. Documents published in Appendix show demands of local nobility, enable to reconstruct the number of events, illustrate their positions and opinions on important local and state problems. The Zhytomyr dietine successfully fulfills its self-government functions. In its activity, as in other regions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, tax problems played the main role and dominated in resolutions and instructions. The Kyiv nobility gives positive answers to king’s demands concerning state problems, as pay of taxes. The main part of analyzed documents deals with agreeing of local problems, that disturb nobility of the Kyiv palatinate: debts to the state treasury, reconstruction and defense the Kyiv castle, release from army placements in regional cities (Kyiv and Zhytomyr), release of Kyiv merchants from payment of duties on Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s territory, regulation of army placements in winter time, provision of foods for military units, awarding honored soldiers etc. Analyze of dietine documentation make possible to fix two levels of state-territorial identity of Kyiv nobility: 1) belonging to political nation of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; 2) belonging to their own region (palatinate). Thus, local identity has clear nature, characterized by all typical values of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Key words: history of parliamentarism, Diet, the Zhytomyr dietine, nobility, taxes, the Kyiv palatinate, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the 17th century.
Rezension: Faszination Stadt: die Urbanisierung Europas im Mittelalter und das Magdeburger Recht.... more Rezension: Faszination Stadt: die Urbanisierung Europas im Mittelalter und das Magdeburger Recht. Katalog. Hrg. von G. Köster, Ch. Link. Dresden, 2019. - 808 S. In: UKRAINIAN HISTORICAL JOURNAL, nr 1, 2020
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Books by Natalia Bilous
Testamenty mieszkańców miast Wołynia od końca XVI do początku XVIII wieku. Katalog (Last Wills of Volhynia Townsmen from the End of the Sixteenth to the Early Eighteenth Century. A Catalogue, Warsaw, 2017), prepared under the aegis of the international project for the publication of catalogues of last wills of townsmen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, provided impetus for the present monograph. The ethnically and socially diverse urban society of the Volhynian Voivodeship in the latter third of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century was the focus of my attention. Volhynian towns are analyzed primarily as the space of close interactions between various social groups: townsmen, szlachta, clergy and subordinate groups. The monograph addresses various facets from the lives of persons interconnected by their coexistence in Volhynian towns through the framework of one type of sources, namely, last wills.
Chapter 1, “Historiography, sources and methods of research,” presents the main trends and directions of funerary studies in historiography outside Ukraine, highlights Ukrainian historiography of the issue, outlines the corpus of sources, specifies the scholarly methods and includes certain methodological notes. The interest in last wills of burghers has a long and strong tradition in European historiography. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, this field of studies quickly became a site of lively dialogue between scholars from various fields in humanities. Historical sources from Ukraine are barely represented among diverse European sources though.
Chapter 2, “Drawing Up a Will: The Law and the Practice,” outlines the legal framework for drawing up a will and the quotidian practices surrounding this act. It compiles information about municipal scribes and analyzes the structure (formula) of last wills. Municipal officials served as witnesses when the testator dictated his last will. They also made sure that the scribe transcribed the information correctly, authenticated the testament with their signatures or stamps, and registered it in official records. The corpus of sources analyzed here includes several documents written by testators themselves, which indicates that literacy was on the rise in early modern Volhynian towns. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of testators was illiterate and confirmed their last will with a cross in lieu of a signature; they required the professional assistance of officials from the municipal office to draw up a will. We should also take into account that the majority of townsmen did not leave a will.
Chapter 3, “Testators and Their Relatives,” focuses on the testators and their relationships with their spouses, children and distant inheritors, addressing the issue of guardianship and the relationship between guardians and children in their custody. Last wills of Volhynian townsmen allow to make certain demographic estimates, establishing family size, the number of children, the number of marriages, child mortality, etc. The most crucial reason to draw up a will was to bequeath the inheritance in a way that would prevent future conflicts between the inheritors. In order to take care of their children and grandchildren, townsmen allocated their movable effects and real estate, dispensed advice and warned them of dangers. Other close relatives, friends, servants and retainers, who received gifts as a sign of gratitude, were also often mentioned. Other reasons to draw up a will included the desire to help one’s spouse, donate to charity or the church.
Chapter 4, “Religion and Church in Testators’ Lives,” addresses the Volhynian townsmen’s beliefs about death, funerary and remembrance practices, burial sites, mentions of religious and devotional matters. Last wills are an important source for scholars of religious culture of Volhynian townsmen, who were no strangers to the proverbial memento mori and the art of ars bene moriendi. Remembering these tenets, testators endeavored to take leave of their mortal lives as was believed proper. To ensure salvation, they bequeathed certain, sometimes quite substantial sums of money or parts of their property to churches, monasteries, hospitals or charity work; they tried to ensure that their inheritors followed their orders regarding funerary ceremonies, organized remembrance prayer services and burial services. A proper burial following the church canons was an important step to ensure salvation.
Chapter 5 focuses on the testators’ material world, their real estate and movable property (cattle, clothes, kitchenware, jewelry, books, weaponry, everyday items and household implements). The issue of credit and debt obligations is also addressed. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The analysis of movable property of burgher elites speaks of their desire to imitate the attractive lifestyle of the local szlachta. Last wills and property inventories contain information about the culture of daily life among various groups of town residents, their standards of living, priorities and cultural preferences.
The conclusions reflect on the local particularity of the sources. Comparative analysis with last wills from the Crown of Poland demonstrates that their structures were similar, but local sources adhere to slightly more archaic formula. The indicators of this include: a longer preamble in certain texts, detailed descriptions of property, including descriptions of features of certain objects, and especially the emotional rhetoric and dialogues between the testator and his or her inheritors.
The publication is intended for scholars, professors and readers with an interest in the social history of early modern Volhynian towns.
Nataliia Bilous. Testamentary practices in the urban society in Volhynia, late 16th – 17th cent: legal, sociocultural and property aspects.
Dissertation for the Doctor of Historical Sciences degree, discipline 07.00.01 – History of Ukraine. – Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 2022.
The dissertation focuses on legal, sociocultural and property aspects of testamentary practices of Volhynian urban dwellers based on wills and other sources from the late 16th – 17th cent. Early modern testaments – documents that contain instructions regarding the funeral, salvation of the soul, division of inheritance, debt repayment and more – are valuable and multifaceted sources for exploring various aspects of the functioning of society. Aside from social and economic data, they shine the light on genealogy, demographics, religious beliefs and the history of the quotidian that can be of interest to scholars of cultural anthropology, legal history, prosopography, diplomatics and paleography.
The territorial scope of my research is defined by the historical borders of the Volhynian Voivodeship, consisting of Lutsk, Volodymyr and Kremenets powiats. The dissertation addresses a rich corpus of documents from several archives in Ukraine, Poland and partly Belarus; the majority of these documents have not been studied previously. I also engage with published sources, funerary genres in early Ukrainian writing from the 17th cent., the works of historians of sacred art, archeologists and ethnographers.
The dissertation introduces a range of previously unexplored topics into Ukrainian historiography, contextualizing and significantly expanding other lines of research, which underscores the relevance of my project. Analysis of testaments allows us to reconstruct in detail the various circumstances under which these documents came to be compiled, and offers a rare glimpse of the religious beliefs and values of urban dwellers, their funerary and commemorative practices, as well as charitable work. As multifaceted historic sources, testaments reveal a number of crucial issues: they allow to delineate familial ties in urban society, shed light on the emotional component in familial relations, as well as on inheritance and custodianship issues linked to them; they help to reconstruct the material environment of urban dwellers, establish their professional life, social status and legal relations. This marks a significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian historiography, particularly in historical and cultural anthropology, as well as to the new social history with its thematic diversity. Until now, Ukrainian historiography did not have comprehensive studies of these aspects of the functioning of early modern urban society.
The dissertation analyzes legal and quotidian practices pertaining to drawing up wills in Volhynian urban society. I have established that these documents went into legal effect after being inscribed in court records, city court records or clerical court records. Testaments were interspersed with other types of records; separate records along the lines of Libri testamentorum were not kept. Town officials served as witnesses when testators made their last will. They made sure that the scribes noted down the instructions with accuracy, attested with their signatures or seals that the will went into legal effect, and copied them to the records.
Last wills of Volhynian towns residents provide materials for certain demographic calculations, in some cases allowing to establish the number of family members, children and marriages, child mortality, etc. These sources reflect the broad panorama of familial relations with all their problems and emotions. Testaments document complicated configurations for dividing up the inheritance among heirs, and conflicts that could arise in the process. That said, the majority of testaments reveal the ideal image of family life. They were usually drawn up to minimize the risk of conflicts, and, as a rule, did fulfill that function.
The dissertation also addresses certain religious beliefs and perceptions of death among Volhynian town dwellers. I demonstrate that testaments are important sources for studying the religious culture of Volhynian town dwellers, for whom the slogan of memento mori and the science of ars bene moriendi were an ineluctable part of daily life. Remembering these precepts, testators attempted to bid farewell to their mortal life as one should. They left certain sums of money, often quite considerable, or some of their property to Orthodox or Catholic churches, monasteries, hospitals and charitable causes to ensure their salvation. Urban dwellers wanted their inheritors to fulfill their instructions regarding funerary ceremonies and memorial services.
The dissertation provides a comprehensive description of testators’ material environment. Testaments of Volhynian town dwellers shed light on the quantity and variety of their property, allowing for approximate evaluations of testators’ economic status and activities. The analysis of personal property of urban elites demonstrates that they tried to emulate the attractive lifestyle of local aristocracy. Clothing can be seen as a sign of social status, and the clothes of urban dwellers followed the aristocratic fashion. This detail demonstrates that aristocratic culture had a strong influence on the values and lifestyle in towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Ukrainian territory. Testaments and descriptions of property contain detailed information about the quotidian culture of various groups of urban dwellers, their living standards and priorities, and in some cases even their sources of income and expenditures that reveal cultural preferences.
historiography and didactics
In Ukrainian historiography, treatment of the signifi cance and aft ermath of the Union of Lublin depended on ideological priorities of the time. In the 19th and 20th century historians were united by a sustained anti-Polish attitude. As early as in the 19th century, the scholars built an image of Poland as the main “stranger” in Ukra inian history. Th is negative image survived throughout the 20th century and passed into the 21st century. The purpose of the article is to examine various historiographic problems and stereotypes related to the Union of Lublin in the last 25 years and evolution, i.e. transformation, of the views of Ukrainian historians and textbook authors regarding this landmark event. Soviet historiography borrowed the negative assessment of the Union of Lublin and its consequences for Ukraine from the “national” concept of Mykhailo Hrushevsky and, going further, added new stereotypes to it. In the mid 1990s we observe a departure from the model introduced by Hrushevsky and the Soviet model of writing about history. As a result of the new political realities, some emphases in historiography have shift ed, the evaluations of events have changed slightly, and historians have outlined new, neutral evaluations of the union. Over the past ten years, a number of modern works by Ukrainian researchers have emerged, appreciating the common heritage of Poland and Ukraine, especially from the histo ry of parliamentarianism, ideology, identity and culture, the history of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the Cossacks, which have their roots in the Union of Lublin, when the Ukrainian lands became part of the former Commonwealth. In 2019, in connection with the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin, interest in this event among the Ukrainian public has increased. A scholarly conference was held with the
support of the Polish Institute in Kiev. Unfortunately, new views of historians have not aff ected the content of most textbooks for secondary and tertiary schools. Th ey still describe the Union of Lublin along the lines of the “best” Soviet models. In recent years, state policy in Ukraine has been aimed primarily at overcoming myths about the 20th century. Th erefore, much attention is paid to the content of the recent history books, while the events of the 16th–17th century remain in its “shadow”. Although ideological formulas and stereotypes of national and Soviet historiography have been partly incorporated into contemporary textbooks, some positive changes in the assessment of the conse quences of the Union of Lublin are already visible. Th e topic of the Union of Lublin is well suited for developing critical thinking among pupils and students. It allows them to form their own assessment, based on facts, sources and the latest research by historians.
The Kiev municipality archive was destroyed by the fires that affected the town in 1651, 1718 and 1811. The fragmentary condition of extant sources, which are moreover dispersed in several archival resources of three countries, have made the search for the documents complex, to a considerable extent. The source material used as the basis for this edition comes from: the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, Kiev; the Manuscripts Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – the Library; the Russian State Archives of Historical Records, City of Moscow; the Central Archives of Historical Records, Warsaw.
The source text section is preceded by an Introduction discussing the historiographic and source criticism-related issues of relevance. The introductory section is composed of two chapters, of which the first describes the problems in question and the related historiographic aspects. The second discusses the types of sources comprised in this edition. The first subchapter characterises the chartularies of the privileges/charters of the City of Kiev from around 1720 and the late 18th c. The second subchapter classifies the privileges, the most important among them being the Magdeburg Rights and their confirmations. Beside these, we encounter other Municipality-related documents, such as – in particular – exemptions from obligations and customs duties and economic rights or entitlements for the Municipality members, incl.: liquor production and selling; granting municipal real properties and the right to use the same; a calendar of fairs – held twice or, later on, thrice a year, and of weekly trade fairs; right to pursue free trade in the Grand-Duchy-of-Lithuania territory. The privileges included those releasing the burghers from the duty of maintaining foreign envoys, sending messengers, providing requisitioned carriages and stations. Among the essential deeds were privileges regarding the functioning of city authorities, or those for the voyt-ship of Kiev. The third subchapter discusses the editorial rules applied in preparation of sources for publication. The sources have been published in their respective original languages – i.e. Old-Ruthenian (Old-East-Slavic), Latin, and Polish.
The Annex attached provides a list of acronyms/abbreviations, alphabetical geographic and name indexes, illustrations.
Papers by Natalia Bilous
(on the 400th anniversary of the death of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra)
The aim is to highlight the little-known facts of the biography and the main milestones of the life and work of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Elisei Pletenetsky, his role in the development of Ukrainian culture, science and enlightenment in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, thereby honouring the memory of the great Lavra enlightener. The author uses various research methods in line with the ‘New Social History’, as well as comparative historical, problematic chronological, microhistorical, and everyday history. The scientific novelty lies in the coverage of little-known facts of the archimandrite's biography and activities, which allow us to speak more specifically about the origin of Elisei Pletenetsky, and new archival finds that correct or expand the known information. Conclusions: The figure of the archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, Elisei Pletenetsky, is one of the most prominent figures in the Ukrainian cultural space of the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but has not yet received a separate thorough study. Pletenetsky's undoubted merits include the foundation of the Institute of Preaching, the Lavra intellectual circle, the first school that laid the foundation for the Kyiv-Mohyla College, the establishment of the Lavra printing and papermaking house in Radomyshl, participation in the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, the regulation and improvement of monastic life, and charitable activities.
Keywords: Archimandrite Elisei Pletenetsky, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, printing house, book printing, enlightenment, brotherhood, land ownership, Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
of legal disputes between the Pechersk archimandrite and the Kyiv nobility of the Sushchansky-Proskury (exulants) over the Grodek and Obary estates in Volyn (now these are villages in the Rivne region of the Rivne district) in 1664–1672. The archimandrite and the monks made every effort to preserve their residence in Volyn, even when the chances were almost
lost. They used every method of struggle available to them, employing the best lawyers in the courts and sometimes even resorting to blackmail and intimidation. There were also frequent disputes over landed estates with the priors of other Kyiv convents, with the nobility whose lands bordered the Lavra’s estates, and with the Cossacks, who tried to take over its lands
and monopolise the production of alcoholic drinks, a regular source of income at the time. However, due to the political situation, especially as a result of the Andrušov truce of 1667, the influence and economic power of the Pechersk monastery in right-bank Ukraine gradually declined. He soon lost his estates in the territories remaining in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but instead received new ones, in greater numbers, in exchange for loyalty to the Moscow Tsar, as indicated by the documents analysed from the Russian Archive of Former Acts in Moscow (f. 124). In the 18th century, he became the largest church owner in the Ukrainian territories and a new era of economic power began for him.
Keywords: archimandrite Innocent Gizel, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, nobility, Volyn province, Kyiv metropolis
The aim of this article is an attempt to present and systematise according to family marks a certain part of the personal stamps or gmerks of representatives of the urban elite of Kyiv and some Volyn cities (33 persons in total) from the early modern period. The stamps in question demonstrate the variety of use of family marks. This material is quantitatively modest, very fragmentary, interesting for comparison, and enriches our knowledge of the early modern urban society of Kyiv and Volhynia. Keywords: sfragistics, personal stamps, signets, family marks, townspeople, Kyiv, Volhynia, 16th century, first half of 17th century.
From the end of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, Lutsk several times wit nessed protests against the authority of the hereditary mayors and the city council. Th e main causes of the confl icts lay in the internal situation of the city and the functioning of its munici pality, the dependence on the power of the hereditary mayor. One of the most important sources of discontent among the townspeople was the problem of abuse of power by the city’s mayor and municipal offi cials. An acute means of pressure on the townspeople was the city council’s right to repartition the funds they had to pay into the town treasury. Sometimes these sums were treated by the municipal authorities as private funds of their members and used according to their needs. Th e unequal dis tribution of tax burdens between diff erent groups of burghers was common and, as such, activated social movements in other towns and cities as well. In Lutsk, there were numerous disagreements over access to municipal authorities and abuse of the judiciary. Occasionally, there were confl icts between the mayor and the municipal community, the mayor and the council with the commoners. Th e abuses of both city councils and the hereditary mayor provoked opposition from the urban population. However, the municipal commune did not manage to buy out the offi ce of the mayor and establish the representation of the so-called third order (i.e. the representatives of commoners in the municipal authorities), as was the case, for exam ple, in Lviv and other major crown cities.
heuristic capabilities of sources and research tools
Abstract. The purpose of the study: to outline new approaches in the study of testamentary issues and heuristic possibilities of acts of the last will of the inhabitants of the cities of the Volhynian Voivodeship in early modern times. The article considers various methods of research of testamentary problems in the line of “New social history”: historical, cultural and social anthropology, comparative-historical, micro-historical, everyday history. Scientific novelty: for the first time in Ukrainian historiography the methodological tools of research of testamentary problems are outlined and potential possibilities of these sources are opened. Conclusions: as the latest developments of historians show, wills as multifaceted sources are suitable for research not only a number of basic problems of social and economic history, but also much broader topics. In the arsenal of researchers of testamentary problems is a variety of methodological tools, represented by different areas of the “New Social History”. Due to its interdisciplinarity, this topic quickly became a place of active dialogue between representatives of various fields of humanities in European historiography, but Ukrainian material in this diversity is practically not represented. The article outlines the prospects for further research, shows that Ukrainian testamentology has great prospects and a wide field of research.
The purpose of the article is to highlight individual property aspects related to the inheritance of mo vable things in residents of the Volhynian Voivodeship. The source base of the research served testaments of dwellers, which fitted to the Volhynian town and castle books in the 17th century. In Ukrainian histori ography, still no special comprehensive studies revealed the mentioned aspects. Scientific approaches are 4 based on the use of methods of «new social history», the history of everyday life, and microhistory. The study emphasizes attention to the material dimension of the everyday life of ordinary inhabitants of Volhyn, their attitude to movable things and individual objects. The scientific novelty of the study is in the coverage of the material world of the testators in the light of the last wills of the 17th century. Conclusions. The lists of property in the last wills of the townsmen began with the most important things for the testator; there was a certain hierarchy or gradation. The most valuable, considered products from noble metals – gold and silver, expensive jewelry, then – from tin and copper, and completed this list of clothing and other things. Sometimes testators gave things that did not constitute a special value in material terms, but had to remind the heirs of the former host. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The average burgers often mention the wardrobe objects, describing the fabric from which they were made, color, separate parts of clothing, species of fur, used in sewing or as a decoration. The outfit of penetration to the Volhynian towns of Western influences, and at the same time, the existence of stable oriental borrowing. Here combined fashionable novelties with a deep archaic that created a diverse mix. As to bedding, dishes and other household items (jewelry, books, weaponry, and home inventory) are mentioned sporadically. Tes tators from Volhynian towns are generally practical and pragmatic, saving, such that they care about their property. Things to them had utilitarian significance, and jewelry was perceived as «mobile artifacts» that could be sold or stated if necessary. Despite the specifics of such a source as a testament, the analysis of its material part is an important source for the study of the material culture of the early-modern urban society. Key words: testament, legacy, movable things, town dwellers, towns, Volhynia, 17th century
The objective of the article is to analyze the legal grounds and practices of establishment of testaments in the town society of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th century. The methodology of the research consists in using the methods of comparative-historical and system analysis, social anthropology in studying the legislation (in particular the law of adversity), the universal practices of laying down the testament in the towns of the Volynian Voivodeship of the 17th century. Scientific novelty. The article outlined the legal grounds for making testamentary documents and the recourse to the norms according to the Second Lithuanian Statute and the collections of Municipal Law by Bartolomeus Groicki, which were widely used in the court practice of Ukrainian cities of the early modern period. The article describes the process and the order of executing of testaments in all practices in Volynian towns during the 17th century. It was informed that the standard was the execution of testament in the house of a dying person (in the presence of municipal officers and witnesses), or in the city hall before the city court. Conclusions. In the cities, governed by Magdeburg law, B.Groicki (1534–1605) in their books of a legislative nature specified the order of residence, execution of rights and establishing of testaments. The norms of the Second Lithuanian Statute applied to inhabitants of non-privileged cities and representatives of different classes, who stayed behind the municipal jurisdiction. The local chancellery played a major role in the formation of the testament as an important private legal act, which was obligatory for execution after the death of the testator. Unhappy with the last will of the testator, they could take the order to court, but in practice, it was used by a small part of the citizens of the cities. The analysis of legal sources and their comparison with the practice of making testamentary documents gives grounds to conclude that the townspeople in most cases took the law and adhered to the provisions of the testamentary documents. Rarely were the cases when they did these acts by themselves. Most of the testators were unwritten and required the assistance of the city clerk’s office to draw up the act. After their deaths, these documents had to be recorded in the municipal registers, but as the analysis of the act documentation shows, this occurred sporadically. The reasons for this could be the unwillingness of the residents to pay for the related clerical expenses or the absence of the need to do so. In general, despite the widespread practice of making testamentary documents in the cities of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, these documents did not become a mass production of documents in Volynian towns; most of the orders of the last will were made without any further written fixation.
Keywords: testaments, legacy, Magdeburg law, law of legacy, Second Lithuanian Statute, town chancellery, town society, Volynian Voivodeship.
Testamenty mieszkańców miast Wołynia od końca XVI do początku XVIII wieku. Katalog (Last Wills of Volhynia Townsmen from the End of the Sixteenth to the Early Eighteenth Century. A Catalogue, Warsaw, 2017), prepared under the aegis of the international project for the publication of catalogues of last wills of townsmen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, provided impetus for the present monograph. The ethnically and socially diverse urban society of the Volhynian Voivodeship in the latter third of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century was the focus of my attention. Volhynian towns are analyzed primarily as the space of close interactions between various social groups: townsmen, szlachta, clergy and subordinate groups. The monograph addresses various facets from the lives of persons interconnected by their coexistence in Volhynian towns through the framework of one type of sources, namely, last wills.
Chapter 1, “Historiography, sources and methods of research,” presents the main trends and directions of funerary studies in historiography outside Ukraine, highlights Ukrainian historiography of the issue, outlines the corpus of sources, specifies the scholarly methods and includes certain methodological notes. The interest in last wills of burghers has a long and strong tradition in European historiography. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, this field of studies quickly became a site of lively dialogue between scholars from various fields in humanities. Historical sources from Ukraine are barely represented among diverse European sources though.
Chapter 2, “Drawing Up a Will: The Law and the Practice,” outlines the legal framework for drawing up a will and the quotidian practices surrounding this act. It compiles information about municipal scribes and analyzes the structure (formula) of last wills. Municipal officials served as witnesses when the testator dictated his last will. They also made sure that the scribe transcribed the information correctly, authenticated the testament with their signatures or stamps, and registered it in official records. The corpus of sources analyzed here includes several documents written by testators themselves, which indicates that literacy was on the rise in early modern Volhynian towns. Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of testators was illiterate and confirmed their last will with a cross in lieu of a signature; they required the professional assistance of officials from the municipal office to draw up a will. We should also take into account that the majority of townsmen did not leave a will.
Chapter 3, “Testators and Their Relatives,” focuses on the testators and their relationships with their spouses, children and distant inheritors, addressing the issue of guardianship and the relationship between guardians and children in their custody. Last wills of Volhynian townsmen allow to make certain demographic estimates, establishing family size, the number of children, the number of marriages, child mortality, etc. The most crucial reason to draw up a will was to bequeath the inheritance in a way that would prevent future conflicts between the inheritors. In order to take care of their children and grandchildren, townsmen allocated their movable effects and real estate, dispensed advice and warned them of dangers. Other close relatives, friends, servants and retainers, who received gifts as a sign of gratitude, were also often mentioned. Other reasons to draw up a will included the desire to help one’s spouse, donate to charity or the church.
Chapter 4, “Religion and Church in Testators’ Lives,” addresses the Volhynian townsmen’s beliefs about death, funerary and remembrance practices, burial sites, mentions of religious and devotional matters. Last wills are an important source for scholars of religious culture of Volhynian townsmen, who were no strangers to the proverbial memento mori and the art of ars bene moriendi. Remembering these tenets, testators endeavored to take leave of their mortal lives as was believed proper. To ensure salvation, they bequeathed certain, sometimes quite substantial sums of money or parts of their property to churches, monasteries, hospitals or charity work; they tried to ensure that their inheritors followed their orders regarding funerary ceremonies, organized remembrance prayer services and burial services. A proper burial following the church canons was an important step to ensure salvation.
Chapter 5 focuses on the testators’ material world, their real estate and movable property (cattle, clothes, kitchenware, jewelry, books, weaponry, everyday items and household implements). The issue of credit and debt obligations is also addressed. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The analysis of movable property of burgher elites speaks of their desire to imitate the attractive lifestyle of the local szlachta. Last wills and property inventories contain information about the culture of daily life among various groups of town residents, their standards of living, priorities and cultural preferences.
The conclusions reflect on the local particularity of the sources. Comparative analysis with last wills from the Crown of Poland demonstrates that their structures were similar, but local sources adhere to slightly more archaic formula. The indicators of this include: a longer preamble in certain texts, detailed descriptions of property, including descriptions of features of certain objects, and especially the emotional rhetoric and dialogues between the testator and his or her inheritors.
The publication is intended for scholars, professors and readers with an interest in the social history of early modern Volhynian towns.
Nataliia Bilous. Testamentary practices in the urban society in Volhynia, late 16th – 17th cent: legal, sociocultural and property aspects.
Dissertation for the Doctor of Historical Sciences degree, discipline 07.00.01 – History of Ukraine. – Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, 2022.
The dissertation focuses on legal, sociocultural and property aspects of testamentary practices of Volhynian urban dwellers based on wills and other sources from the late 16th – 17th cent. Early modern testaments – documents that contain instructions regarding the funeral, salvation of the soul, division of inheritance, debt repayment and more – are valuable and multifaceted sources for exploring various aspects of the functioning of society. Aside from social and economic data, they shine the light on genealogy, demographics, religious beliefs and the history of the quotidian that can be of interest to scholars of cultural anthropology, legal history, prosopography, diplomatics and paleography.
The territorial scope of my research is defined by the historical borders of the Volhynian Voivodeship, consisting of Lutsk, Volodymyr and Kremenets powiats. The dissertation addresses a rich corpus of documents from several archives in Ukraine, Poland and partly Belarus; the majority of these documents have not been studied previously. I also engage with published sources, funerary genres in early Ukrainian writing from the 17th cent., the works of historians of sacred art, archeologists and ethnographers.
The dissertation introduces a range of previously unexplored topics into Ukrainian historiography, contextualizing and significantly expanding other lines of research, which underscores the relevance of my project. Analysis of testaments allows us to reconstruct in detail the various circumstances under which these documents came to be compiled, and offers a rare glimpse of the religious beliefs and values of urban dwellers, their funerary and commemorative practices, as well as charitable work. As multifaceted historic sources, testaments reveal a number of crucial issues: they allow to delineate familial ties in urban society, shed light on the emotional component in familial relations, as well as on inheritance and custodianship issues linked to them; they help to reconstruct the material environment of urban dwellers, establish their professional life, social status and legal relations. This marks a significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian historiography, particularly in historical and cultural anthropology, as well as to the new social history with its thematic diversity. Until now, Ukrainian historiography did not have comprehensive studies of these aspects of the functioning of early modern urban society.
The dissertation analyzes legal and quotidian practices pertaining to drawing up wills in Volhynian urban society. I have established that these documents went into legal effect after being inscribed in court records, city court records or clerical court records. Testaments were interspersed with other types of records; separate records along the lines of Libri testamentorum were not kept. Town officials served as witnesses when testators made their last will. They made sure that the scribes noted down the instructions with accuracy, attested with their signatures or seals that the will went into legal effect, and copied them to the records.
Last wills of Volhynian towns residents provide materials for certain demographic calculations, in some cases allowing to establish the number of family members, children and marriages, child mortality, etc. These sources reflect the broad panorama of familial relations with all their problems and emotions. Testaments document complicated configurations for dividing up the inheritance among heirs, and conflicts that could arise in the process. That said, the majority of testaments reveal the ideal image of family life. They were usually drawn up to minimize the risk of conflicts, and, as a rule, did fulfill that function.
The dissertation also addresses certain religious beliefs and perceptions of death among Volhynian town dwellers. I demonstrate that testaments are important sources for studying the religious culture of Volhynian town dwellers, for whom the slogan of memento mori and the science of ars bene moriendi were an ineluctable part of daily life. Remembering these precepts, testators attempted to bid farewell to their mortal life as one should. They left certain sums of money, often quite considerable, or some of their property to Orthodox or Catholic churches, monasteries, hospitals and charitable causes to ensure their salvation. Urban dwellers wanted their inheritors to fulfill their instructions regarding funerary ceremonies and memorial services.
The dissertation provides a comprehensive description of testators’ material environment. Testaments of Volhynian town dwellers shed light on the quantity and variety of their property, allowing for approximate evaluations of testators’ economic status and activities. The analysis of personal property of urban elites demonstrates that they tried to emulate the attractive lifestyle of local aristocracy. Clothing can be seen as a sign of social status, and the clothes of urban dwellers followed the aristocratic fashion. This detail demonstrates that aristocratic culture had a strong influence on the values and lifestyle in towns of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, including Ukrainian territory. Testaments and descriptions of property contain detailed information about the quotidian culture of various groups of urban dwellers, their living standards and priorities, and in some cases even their sources of income and expenditures that reveal cultural preferences.
historiography and didactics
In Ukrainian historiography, treatment of the signifi cance and aft ermath of the Union of Lublin depended on ideological priorities of the time. In the 19th and 20th century historians were united by a sustained anti-Polish attitude. As early as in the 19th century, the scholars built an image of Poland as the main “stranger” in Ukra inian history. Th is negative image survived throughout the 20th century and passed into the 21st century. The purpose of the article is to examine various historiographic problems and stereotypes related to the Union of Lublin in the last 25 years and evolution, i.e. transformation, of the views of Ukrainian historians and textbook authors regarding this landmark event. Soviet historiography borrowed the negative assessment of the Union of Lublin and its consequences for Ukraine from the “national” concept of Mykhailo Hrushevsky and, going further, added new stereotypes to it. In the mid 1990s we observe a departure from the model introduced by Hrushevsky and the Soviet model of writing about history. As a result of the new political realities, some emphases in historiography have shift ed, the evaluations of events have changed slightly, and historians have outlined new, neutral evaluations of the union. Over the past ten years, a number of modern works by Ukrainian researchers have emerged, appreciating the common heritage of Poland and Ukraine, especially from the histo ry of parliamentarianism, ideology, identity and culture, the history of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the Cossacks, which have their roots in the Union of Lublin, when the Ukrainian lands became part of the former Commonwealth. In 2019, in connection with the 450th anniversary of the Union of Lublin, interest in this event among the Ukrainian public has increased. A scholarly conference was held with the
support of the Polish Institute in Kiev. Unfortunately, new views of historians have not aff ected the content of most textbooks for secondary and tertiary schools. Th ey still describe the Union of Lublin along the lines of the “best” Soviet models. In recent years, state policy in Ukraine has been aimed primarily at overcoming myths about the 20th century. Th erefore, much attention is paid to the content of the recent history books, while the events of the 16th–17th century remain in its “shadow”. Although ideological formulas and stereotypes of national and Soviet historiography have been partly incorporated into contemporary textbooks, some positive changes in the assessment of the conse quences of the Union of Lublin are already visible. Th e topic of the Union of Lublin is well suited for developing critical thinking among pupils and students. It allows them to form their own assessment, based on facts, sources and the latest research by historians.
The Kiev municipality archive was destroyed by the fires that affected the town in 1651, 1718 and 1811. The fragmentary condition of extant sources, which are moreover dispersed in several archival resources of three countries, have made the search for the documents complex, to a considerable extent. The source material used as the basis for this edition comes from: the Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, Kiev; the Manuscripts Institute, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – the Library; the Russian State Archives of Historical Records, City of Moscow; the Central Archives of Historical Records, Warsaw.
The source text section is preceded by an Introduction discussing the historiographic and source criticism-related issues of relevance. The introductory section is composed of two chapters, of which the first describes the problems in question and the related historiographic aspects. The second discusses the types of sources comprised in this edition. The first subchapter characterises the chartularies of the privileges/charters of the City of Kiev from around 1720 and the late 18th c. The second subchapter classifies the privileges, the most important among them being the Magdeburg Rights and their confirmations. Beside these, we encounter other Municipality-related documents, such as – in particular – exemptions from obligations and customs duties and economic rights or entitlements for the Municipality members, incl.: liquor production and selling; granting municipal real properties and the right to use the same; a calendar of fairs – held twice or, later on, thrice a year, and of weekly trade fairs; right to pursue free trade in the Grand-Duchy-of-Lithuania territory. The privileges included those releasing the burghers from the duty of maintaining foreign envoys, sending messengers, providing requisitioned carriages and stations. Among the essential deeds were privileges regarding the functioning of city authorities, or those for the voyt-ship of Kiev. The third subchapter discusses the editorial rules applied in preparation of sources for publication. The sources have been published in their respective original languages – i.e. Old-Ruthenian (Old-East-Slavic), Latin, and Polish.
The Annex attached provides a list of acronyms/abbreviations, alphabetical geographic and name indexes, illustrations.
(on the 400th anniversary of the death of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra)
The aim is to highlight the little-known facts of the biography and the main milestones of the life and work of the Archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Elisei Pletenetsky, his role in the development of Ukrainian culture, science and enlightenment in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, thereby honouring the memory of the great Lavra enlightener. The author uses various research methods in line with the ‘New Social History’, as well as comparative historical, problematic chronological, microhistorical, and everyday history. The scientific novelty lies in the coverage of little-known facts of the archimandrite's biography and activities, which allow us to speak more specifically about the origin of Elisei Pletenetsky, and new archival finds that correct or expand the known information. Conclusions: The figure of the archimandrite of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, Elisei Pletenetsky, is one of the most prominent figures in the Ukrainian cultural space of the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but has not yet received a separate thorough study. Pletenetsky's undoubted merits include the foundation of the Institute of Preaching, the Lavra intellectual circle, the first school that laid the foundation for the Kyiv-Mohyla College, the establishment of the Lavra printing and papermaking house in Radomyshl, participation in the restoration of the Orthodox hierarchy in 1620, the regulation and improvement of monastic life, and charitable activities.
Keywords: Archimandrite Elisei Pletenetsky, Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, printing house, book printing, enlightenment, brotherhood, land ownership, Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
of legal disputes between the Pechersk archimandrite and the Kyiv nobility of the Sushchansky-Proskury (exulants) over the Grodek and Obary estates in Volyn (now these are villages in the Rivne region of the Rivne district) in 1664–1672. The archimandrite and the monks made every effort to preserve their residence in Volyn, even when the chances were almost
lost. They used every method of struggle available to them, employing the best lawyers in the courts and sometimes even resorting to blackmail and intimidation. There were also frequent disputes over landed estates with the priors of other Kyiv convents, with the nobility whose lands bordered the Lavra’s estates, and with the Cossacks, who tried to take over its lands
and monopolise the production of alcoholic drinks, a regular source of income at the time. However, due to the political situation, especially as a result of the Andrušov truce of 1667, the influence and economic power of the Pechersk monastery in right-bank Ukraine gradually declined. He soon lost his estates in the territories remaining in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but instead received new ones, in greater numbers, in exchange for loyalty to the Moscow Tsar, as indicated by the documents analysed from the Russian Archive of Former Acts in Moscow (f. 124). In the 18th century, he became the largest church owner in the Ukrainian territories and a new era of economic power began for him.
Keywords: archimandrite Innocent Gizel, Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, nobility, Volyn province, Kyiv metropolis
The aim of this article is an attempt to present and systematise according to family marks a certain part of the personal stamps or gmerks of representatives of the urban elite of Kyiv and some Volyn cities (33 persons in total) from the early modern period. The stamps in question demonstrate the variety of use of family marks. This material is quantitatively modest, very fragmentary, interesting for comparison, and enriches our knowledge of the early modern urban society of Kyiv and Volhynia. Keywords: sfragistics, personal stamps, signets, family marks, townspeople, Kyiv, Volhynia, 16th century, first half of 17th century.
From the end of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, Lutsk several times wit nessed protests against the authority of the hereditary mayors and the city council. Th e main causes of the confl icts lay in the internal situation of the city and the functioning of its munici pality, the dependence on the power of the hereditary mayor. One of the most important sources of discontent among the townspeople was the problem of abuse of power by the city’s mayor and municipal offi cials. An acute means of pressure on the townspeople was the city council’s right to repartition the funds they had to pay into the town treasury. Sometimes these sums were treated by the municipal authorities as private funds of their members and used according to their needs. Th e unequal dis tribution of tax burdens between diff erent groups of burghers was common and, as such, activated social movements in other towns and cities as well. In Lutsk, there were numerous disagreements over access to municipal authorities and abuse of the judiciary. Occasionally, there were confl icts between the mayor and the municipal community, the mayor and the council with the commoners. Th e abuses of both city councils and the hereditary mayor provoked opposition from the urban population. However, the municipal commune did not manage to buy out the offi ce of the mayor and establish the representation of the so-called third order (i.e. the representatives of commoners in the municipal authorities), as was the case, for exam ple, in Lviv and other major crown cities.
heuristic capabilities of sources and research tools
Abstract. The purpose of the study: to outline new approaches in the study of testamentary issues and heuristic possibilities of acts of the last will of the inhabitants of the cities of the Volhynian Voivodeship in early modern times. The article considers various methods of research of testamentary problems in the line of “New social history”: historical, cultural and social anthropology, comparative-historical, micro-historical, everyday history. Scientific novelty: for the first time in Ukrainian historiography the methodological tools of research of testamentary problems are outlined and potential possibilities of these sources are opened. Conclusions: as the latest developments of historians show, wills as multifaceted sources are suitable for research not only a number of basic problems of social and economic history, but also much broader topics. In the arsenal of researchers of testamentary problems is a variety of methodological tools, represented by different areas of the “New Social History”. Due to its interdisciplinarity, this topic quickly became a place of active dialogue between representatives of various fields of humanities in European historiography, but Ukrainian material in this diversity is practically not represented. The article outlines the prospects for further research, shows that Ukrainian testamentology has great prospects and a wide field of research.
The purpose of the article is to highlight individual property aspects related to the inheritance of mo vable things in residents of the Volhynian Voivodeship. The source base of the research served testaments of dwellers, which fitted to the Volhynian town and castle books in the 17th century. In Ukrainian histori ography, still no special comprehensive studies revealed the mentioned aspects. Scientific approaches are 4 based on the use of methods of «new social history», the history of everyday life, and microhistory. The study emphasizes attention to the material dimension of the everyday life of ordinary inhabitants of Volhyn, their attitude to movable things and individual objects. The scientific novelty of the study is in the coverage of the material world of the testators in the light of the last wills of the 17th century. Conclusions. The lists of property in the last wills of the townsmen began with the most important things for the testator; there was a certain hierarchy or gradation. The most valuable, considered products from noble metals – gold and silver, expensive jewelry, then – from tin and copper, and completed this list of clothing and other things. Sometimes testators gave things that did not constitute a special value in material terms, but had to remind the heirs of the former host. Given the agrarian nature of the majority of Volhynian towns at the time, land and real estate were the most valuable assets and most secure investments for the townsmen. The average burgers often mention the wardrobe objects, describing the fabric from which they were made, color, separate parts of clothing, species of fur, used in sewing or as a decoration. The outfit of penetration to the Volhynian towns of Western influences, and at the same time, the existence of stable oriental borrowing. Here combined fashionable novelties with a deep archaic that created a diverse mix. As to bedding, dishes and other household items (jewelry, books, weaponry, and home inventory) are mentioned sporadically. Tes tators from Volhynian towns are generally practical and pragmatic, saving, such that they care about their property. Things to them had utilitarian significance, and jewelry was perceived as «mobile artifacts» that could be sold or stated if necessary. Despite the specifics of such a source as a testament, the analysis of its material part is an important source for the study of the material culture of the early-modern urban society. Key words: testament, legacy, movable things, town dwellers, towns, Volhynia, 17th century
The objective of the article is to analyze the legal grounds and practices of establishment of testaments in the town society of the Volynian Voivodeship in the 17th century. The methodology of the research consists in using the methods of comparative-historical and system analysis, social anthropology in studying the legislation (in particular the law of adversity), the universal practices of laying down the testament in the towns of the Volynian Voivodeship of the 17th century. Scientific novelty. The article outlined the legal grounds for making testamentary documents and the recourse to the norms according to the Second Lithuanian Statute and the collections of Municipal Law by Bartolomeus Groicki, which were widely used in the court practice of Ukrainian cities of the early modern period. The article describes the process and the order of executing of testaments in all practices in Volynian towns during the 17th century. It was informed that the standard was the execution of testament in the house of a dying person (in the presence of municipal officers and witnesses), or in the city hall before the city court. Conclusions. In the cities, governed by Magdeburg law, B.Groicki (1534–1605) in their books of a legislative nature specified the order of residence, execution of rights and establishing of testaments. The norms of the Second Lithuanian Statute applied to inhabitants of non-privileged cities and representatives of different classes, who stayed behind the municipal jurisdiction. The local chancellery played a major role in the formation of the testament as an important private legal act, which was obligatory for execution after the death of the testator. Unhappy with the last will of the testator, they could take the order to court, but in practice, it was used by a small part of the citizens of the cities. The analysis of legal sources and their comparison with the practice of making testamentary documents gives grounds to conclude that the townspeople in most cases took the law and adhered to the provisions of the testamentary documents. Rarely were the cases when they did these acts by themselves. Most of the testators were unwritten and required the assistance of the city clerk’s office to draw up the act. After their deaths, these documents had to be recorded in the municipal registers, but as the analysis of the act documentation shows, this occurred sporadically. The reasons for this could be the unwillingness of the residents to pay for the related clerical expenses or the absence of the need to do so. In general, despite the widespread practice of making testamentary documents in the cities of the PolishLithuanian Commonwealth, these documents did not become a mass production of documents in Volynian towns; most of the orders of the last will were made without any further written fixation.
Keywords: testaments, legacy, Magdeburg law, law of legacy, Second Lithuanian Statute, town chancellery, town society, Volynian Voivodeship.
in the Volynia Region of the 17th Cent.
Ukrainian historiography has not properly determined the problems of Volynian cities’ secretariats and development of burghers’ literacy in particular. The goal of the following article is to research some aspects of these problems by the means of testaments; specifically to highlight the role of city secretaries in the process of writing down citizens’ testaments and facts that testify about development of urban literacy in cities of Volynia of the 17th century.
The municipal registry record analysis implies that executing posthumous inventories, settlement deeds, and especially testaments influenced the development of pragmatic urban literacy. Among the analyzed group of testators several people wrote down their testaments by themselves. Then city clerks had no option but to accept prepared documents post factum for saving records in town council registers, which in some extent is evidence of the literacy culture development in the Volynian cities in the early modern times. However, the predominant majority of testators were illiterate and in order to approve their act of last will, they signed it with a criss-cross ("X"); conclusion of the act required specialized assistance of municipal clerks.
In those times normally testaments were written down in the house of a dying person in the presence of municipal officers who provided the document according to an appropriate form and legal validity, and eye-witnesses, or it could be written down at the city hall before the court. City secretaries had a significant role in this procedure, but their level of proficiency was not always appropriate.
As in the majority of Central-East European cities of that time, Volynian cities substantive amount of acts of last will were given by verbal directions and were not recorded in municipal registers. This fact explains such a small amount of saved documents in comparison with Western European cities. They were not set aside into a separate register series as in bigger crown cities, but acts were recorded into the current municipal registers in response to citizens’ demand.
Candidate of Historical Sciences,
senior research worker, Institute of History of Ukraine NASU
(Ukraine, Kyiv), bilousnat@ukr.net
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6036-3204
FUNERARY CULTURE OF THE EARLY MODERN UKRAINIAN
SOCIETY: THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE TOPIC
The article offers an interdisciplinary overview of the historiography of the funerary culture of the early modern Ukrainian society, as well as the main directions and trends in the research on the issue in contemporary European historiography, including Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Polish, where it has gained popularity over the last couple of decades. Particular attention is paid to the interdisciplinary nature of research, drawing in researchers from various fields, including literary scholars, ethnographers, historians of art and literature, linguists, theologians, archaeologists, anthropologists, archeobotanists, and microbiologists. The researches adopt systems analysis and methods of comparative studies.
Popular in European historiography, this issue has attracted comparatively less interest from Ukrainan historians. Sporadic studies of pompa funebris deal primarily with representatives of the ruling elites (magnates or Cossack officers of the Hetmanate era), szlachta, and the clergy, which does not exhaust the topic. Studies and publications of testaments and last wills are increasingly popular in foreign historiography; nevertheless, Ukrainian historiography features relatively few works that analyze the spiritual life, material culture, social and familial ties and the quotidian life of urban residents based on these sources. To that end, the conclusion of the present article features a list of topics that could yield significant discoveries, including urban residents’ funerary rites, signs of piety and charitable work, beliefs about the sacred, perceptions of sacred rituals, eschatological anxieties, and material as well as religious culture of the early modern Ukrainian society. Key words: funerary culture, testaments, Early Modern Ukrainian society, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Hetmanate, 16th – 18th century.
Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior research worker
Institute of History of Ukraine NASU
(Ukraine, Kyiv, bilousnat@ukr.net)
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6416-0623
CONFLICTS AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION
IN THE FAMILIES OF VOLHYNIAN TOWN DWELLERS
IN LIGHT OF 17TH CENTURY TESTAMENTS
The goal of our study was to show the variability of conflicts and conflict resolution in the families of Volhynian town dwellers in the 17th century. The article covers the following problems: conflicts around inheritance and distribution of estate, disinheritance, corrections to acts of last will, conflicts between parents (guardians) and their children, conflicts regarding the non-payment of testators’ debts. The study is based on the analysis of testaments and property inventories, primarily from the towns of Olyka, Dubno, Rivne and Kovel. Unfortunately, the fragmentary state of the source base prevents the expansion of the study’s geographic scope, because other Volhynian urban centers (Lutsk, Kremenets, Volodymyr, Mylianovychi, Ratne, Vyzhva, Ostrih and others) have very few remaining testaments, and those don’t contain mentions of conflicts within the families.
Testaments and posthumous property inventories focus primarily on material property and contain valuable information that sheds light on various facets of the quotidian life of early modern citizens. They are a perfect source for exploring the issue of relations between a widow (widower) and the deceased’s children from previous marriages. Testaments and inventories were an important element of the inheritance process, and were often written to establish guardianship over minors. Volhynian testaments seldom describe conflicts in the family, demonstrating the model image of family life in the vast majority of cases. These documents were compiled not only to document the real state of the testator’s property, but also to lower the risk of conflicts in the family. It seems that in most cases testators, when facing death, were inclined to seek a compromise and reconcile their heirs, rather than encourage confrontations.
Key words: testaments, property inventories, inheritance, family, conflicts, guardianship, municipal court, town dwellers, towns, Volhynia, the 17th century
have not been considered in historiography to this day. The political career of the son
of the famous Chancellor Jan Zamoyski began in the Ukrainian territories: on March 11,
1619, he was appointed to the ranking of the Palatine of Kyiv. At just 23 years old, a young
78 R. Szczygieł, Przedmowa in Życie i dzieło Tomasza Zamoyskiego…, p. XVIII–XXX.
58 | Natalia Biłous
magnate won a chair in the Senate and became an important person in the Kyiv region that
was the east south part of the Polish Commonwealth. This post was connected with the
starosta’s dignity. Tomasz Zamoyski received the clientele from Stanisław Żółkiewski,
previous Palatine of Kyiv, whom he continued to supplement by the recruitment of new
people during his tenure.
The specificity of the borderland and political pragmatics required maintaining good contacts
with the local elite in their own interest. Tomasz Zamoyski managed to establish such contacts
with the local nobles, the city elite, Cossack leaders, clerics of various confessions. He
was a competent patron not only for the local nobility, but also for municipal officials who
regularly provided him with due payments, gifts, as well as letters with information about
the most important events in the province. It is worth noting that similar relations were
an exceptional and rare phenomenon in those times in this region.
While holding the post of the Crown Deputy Chancellor in 1629–1635, Tomasz Zamoyski
did not forget about his clients and friends from the Kyiv palatinate. They were still asking
him for protection and help in lawsuits, family and personal matters. Informal networks of
interpersonal relations were mostly maintained by correspondence. The letters addressed to
Tomasz Zamoyski used the rhetoric of “friendship” and “availability,” readiness to provide
services. They also demonstrate the emotional nature of informal relationships between
the patron and his protégés.
The analyzed sources show that Tomasz Zamoyski was an opponent of extreme solutions
in religious policy and conflicts. He managed to keep the balance between the various
political forces in the region and build a successful client system.
The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, systemicity, science, interdisciplinary. The following general-historical methods have been used: historical-genetic, terminological analysis, comparative, typological. The authors adhere to the civilizational approach and principles of cultural and intellectual history.
The author came to the conclusion that during the investigated period there were significant changes in the history of Trypillia: thanks to the active work of its owners, from a small village, it became a town with the Magdeburg Law, a castle and a parish. In the middle of the XVIIth century, the Didovichy-Trypilsky family has increased substantially, which led to the dispersal of the lands in its’ ownership among the numerous heirs who, in search of profits, pursued an active land policy (leasing out separate estates, keeping the other owners away from the village, seeking to expand their lands though invasion of their neighbors, etc.), often using illegal means, which made the family increasingly unpopular among its peers. They remained inactive, however, when it came to the local political scene and were usually not elected into the voivodeship governments, with the exception of Fedir Vasylovych (the Senior), who was elected ambassador to the Sejm in 1572 and became a deputy to the Lublin Tribunal in 1592. All members of the family remained faithful to Orthodoxy. Certain circumstances forced them to sell their estates in the Kyiv region and to settle down in the Ovruch region, where they laid strong roots. During the Cossack Revolution of the middle of the XVIIth century, the town of Ovruch became a Cossack stronghold. It permanently lost its’ status of the city with the Magdeburg Law. And in the postwar years, the Trypillia Castle gradually collapsed, turning into ruins.
This article deals with detailed analysis of the Zhytomyr dietine of 1640: instruction to deputies and petition from the Kyiv palatinate on the Warsaw Diet of 1640 and decision of the Zhytomyr relational dietine, which took place after Diet. Content of these materials reflects a wide range of political, social and economic problems that local nobility want to resolve. Documents published in Appendix show demands of local nobility, enable to reconstruct the number of events, illustrate their positions and opinions on important local and state problems.
The Zhytomyr dietine successfully fulfills its self-government functions. In its activity, as in other regions of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, tax problems played the main role and dominated in resolutions and instructions. The Kyiv nobility gives positive answers to king’s demands concerning state problems, as pay of taxes.
The main part of analyzed documents deals with agreeing of local problems, that disturb nobility of the Kyiv palatinate: debts to the state treasury, reconstruction and defense the Kyiv castle, release from army placements in regional cities (Kyiv and Zhytomyr), release of Kyiv merchants from payment of duties on Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth’s territory, regulation of army placements in winter time, provision of foods for military units, awarding honored soldiers etc.
Analyze of dietine documentation make possible to fix two levels of state-territorial identity of Kyiv nobility: 1) belonging to political nation of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; 2) belonging to their own region (palatinate). Thus, local identity has clear nature, characterized by all typical values of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Key words: history of parliamentarism, Diet, the Zhytomyr dietine, nobility, taxes, the Kyiv palatinate, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the 17th century.