Iš miestietiškos kilmės LDK bajorijos istorijos. Vilniaus suolininkas Reinholdas Wittmacheris-Palmstruchas (1612–1670) ir jo švediška nobilitacija
From the History of Nobility of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of City Origins...

Summary/Abstract: The publication addresses a unique case when Reinhold Wittmacher-Palmstruch (1612–1670), a merchant of Dutch descent from Riga, previously nobilitated (1651) by the queen of a foreign country – Sweden – Christina together with his brothers Hans and Gerhard for their father’s merits, became an elite member of the Vilnius city administration – Lay Judge (Lith. Suolininkas, Pol. Ławnik) before 1655. During the Swedish rule (1655–1656), he collected taxes for Sweden in Samogitia. The article analyses the data from Vilnius city record books and other sources, which are supplemented by the achievements of Swedish historiography – the major work of Gabriel Anrep (1821–1907), studies on business history. The author raises a hypothesis that this large-scale merchant, with business interests in Livonia, Lithuania and Sweden, could have sought to become a member of the elite of Vilnius city administration nobilitated in 1568 for the purpose of gaining various social (e.g. exemption from the duty of accommodation of guests) and economic privileges (exception from the payment of certain customs duties, etc.). With no plans to acquire land holdings and to take up any posts, Reinhold Wittmacher-Palmstruch was not interested in the procedure of recognition of indigenate – foreign nobility – in court. It sufficed for him to have a status of double nobility in practice – to maintain Swedish in Livonia and the whole Sweden and to acquire the Vilnius nobility – valid in Vilnius and the entire Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The office of the lay judge of Vilnius served for that matter. In the war between Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Reinhold Wittmacher- Palmstruch chose the former and finally stayed there. The research concluded that it is essential to separate the biographical facts of the Wittmacher-Palmstruch brothers, financiers of Dutch descent from Riga – Hans Johann (1611–1671) and Reinhold (1612–1670) – merged together in historiography (Andrej Kotljarchuk). The latter collected taxes for Sweden in Samogitia but he was not the founder of the Swedish National Bank and the inventor of paper money in Europe. A merchant from Vilnius, lay judge Reinhold Wittmacher-Palmstruch de facto had two nobility statuses – individual Swedish (nobilitation of 1651) and collective Lithuanian (as a lay judge of Vilnius City). He belonged to two worlds at the same time – Polish-Lithuanian and Livonian-Swedish. Contemporaries refused to notice this fact; researchers have failed to record this fact as well. The belonging was versatile – familial, professional, political, cultural. His integration in the latter world was far more intensive and thorough. Facing the necessity to choose, the son of the Dutch merchant stayed on the Swedish side and acted for the benefit of it; hence, for his own benefit as well.

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