Warszawskie loca scribendi w drugiej połowie XV w.
Loca scribendi in Warsaw in the second half of the 15th century

Author(s): Agnieszka Bartoszewicz
Subject(s): Middle Ages, 6th to 12th Centuries, 13th to 14th Centuries, 15th Century, 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: writing environment; consistory; notary; writer; writing; office; books; XV-XVIII centuries; writing culture
Summary/Abstract: The article discusses places of production of written records in two late medieval municipalities of Warsaw (Old and New Warsaw) which influenced the literate behaviour of their inhabitants in the domain of pragmatic literacy. A number of scribal offices were active in Warsaw, attached to various institutions but unequally developed. Distinct loca scribendi worked for the municipalities of Old and New Warsaw, for the court of the Mazovian princes, and for the institutions of the Church. The places of production of records situated in New Warsaw were typical for a small town: there were simple urban offices and the parish church with its school. Development of written culture here most probably was stimulated by the direct vicinity of Old Warsaw, much more advanced in the use of written records. The close contacts between both municipalities were more important in generating the need to use the written word on the part of the inhabitants of New Warsaw than their relations with other agents of practical literacy (e.g. the Church or the rulers’ administration). In Old Warsaw, in chronological order the places on the map of written culture were the municipal offices, the collegiate church (which functioned also as urban parish church), the tribunals of the terrestrial law and the magistrate courts (iudicia castriensia), and the ducal court. The same topography of pragmatic literacy can be seen also in other Polish towns of similar size to Old Warsaw (e.g. Lublin, Przemyśl and Płock). Town dwellers, especially urban officials and members of the financial elite, frequented their loca scribendi on various occasions, although sometimes the reasons for visiting scribal offices are not entirely clear to modern scholars. Among the places where written records were created in Old Warsaw, the municipal chancery played an exceptionally important role. Here, the municipality employed clerks who originated from towns and cities known as important trade partners of Warsaw merchants (e.g. from Silesia, Vilnius and Lublin).

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