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The article was based on the documents generated in the Notary Office of Amsterdam, which concerned the Polish noblemen’s residence in the Netherlands. The analysis of those documents was preceded by the description of the changes in grain trade in the 17th-18th centuries along with their consequences. The article presents the destinations of trade voyages from Gdańsk and the range of products involved in trade. The documents from the Notary Office of Amsterdam concern the fact of Polish noblemen becoming debtors of Dutch merchants. Their debts resulted from trade transactions or costs of their residence. Noblemen attempted to compensate their lower profits from agriculture with the trade activity as merchants. The article includes various examples of such activities conducted despite great risk and various threats. The documentation of the Notary Office of Amsterdam also includes files concerning the income of harbor workers, the record of charges for the shipping of goods presented in tables, letters of attorney, documents concerning promissory notes. The preserved files show that the Polish aristocracy and noblemen were very active economically in the 17th-18th centuries, which caused that there was no standstill in Baltic trade in the period under examination.
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The edition presented here encompasses the register of rents and services of the commandry of Człuchów written in 1446, now preserved in the Secret State Archives Prussian Cultural Heritage (Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz) in Berlin Dahlem. It also includes the inventory of horses, weapons and kitchen supplies in Człuchów castle, which was published earlier in the so-called Great Book of Offices (Das grosse Ämterbuch des Deutschen Ordens). The register of rents from the year 1446 is similar in content to the register of rents of the commandry from the year 1437 published as part of the so-called Great Rent Book (Das grosse Zinsbuch des Deutschen Ritterordens), including the data acquired during a nationwide visit. The register of 1446 includes more detailed information about the subject matter, as it records not only the number of hinds actually populated along with the value of the rent paid for them, but also the number of empty hinds and hinds in the process of settlement (in the period of the so-called wolnizna) with the date of the payment of the first rent. The register also includes rents imposed on inns and mills operating in the territory of the commandry, the former payments of knights according to Polish law (the monetary equivalent of a cow and a pig – the payment was referred to as swen und ku tzinß) along with the so-called forest oat (walthaber) – the charge for permission to collect brushwood and pasture the cattle in the beech forests of the Teutonic Order. In the final part, the source includes the register of the knight’s servants along with a list of estates that were manned with peasants or had a military function as well as abandoned ones, unable at that time to play any military role.
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Upon the decisions of the peace treaty concluding the Thirteen Years’ War between the German Order and the Kingdom of Poland supported by the Prussian estates, the monastic rule in Prussia was divided into two separate, if connected with each other, parts: Royal Prussia and Monastic Prussia. The article discusses economic relations – long distance trade, retail, the flow of people and capital between the biggest cities – Gdańsk and Königsberg in the years 1466-1525. In the older historiography there appeared information indicating that economic relations between Royal Prussia and Monastic Prussia were breached after the division of the Monastic State. Such information resulted from the insufficient database – the authors concentrated on the sources which addressed the problem in quantitative terms. On the basis of the analysis of the correspondence and scattered entries in the city books it is possible to establish that intensive trade and financial contacts between the biggest ports of Prussia were maintained. Trade relations concentrated on the exchange between Western Europe and Lithuania, where both cities played a major role. What prevailed was the export of salt, and at the beginning of the 16th century also the export of grain from Żuławy [Werder] to Königsberg. Wood, ash and hop played a major role in the import to the West. The exchange of goods invariably entailed the exchange of money and people. Inhabitants of Gdańsk and Königsberg lent money to each other and purchased property. The exchange of people was also visible; it referred mainly to journeymen and peddlers. The text shows that apart from customs books it is necessary to examine the correspondence while analyzing trade contacts of Gdańsk.
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Fischhausen is situated in the northern part of the Vistula Lagoon. It was set up in the territory of the Sambian bishopric. The foundation privilege for this town was issued in 1299 by the bishop Siegfried von Regenstein. The bishop’s castle was also situated there. The bishop of Sambia was the ruler of the town until the period of the Reformation. The first privilege was renewed in a slightly modified form in 1305. The first settlers arrived from Stralsund. In ca. 1305 there existed about forty households there. The first installations included a mill, which had existed even before the town was set up, and an inn. The first town council’s regulation is dated on 1694. Amber was collected in the vicinities of the town, which was later sold to the Grand Steward in Königsberg. It was not until the 16th century that Duke Albrecht, who in 1525 became the ruler of the town, permitted seaborne grain trade. Grain trade was hindered by officials from the neighbouring states. The first guilds appeared in the 16th century – they included mainly clothiers, potters, tailors and shoemakers. In the town there was also a parish church. Not much can be said in reference to the political system of the town. After 1525 the position of the Vogt (mayor) was introduced.
More...Liczebność, utrzymanie, zakwaterowanie
In the late medieval Monastic State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia dieners were people who came from knightly families (not infrequently from beyond the territory of Prussia) and were maintained by Teutonic dignitaries and officials (they were provided with accommodation, food, clothes and pay) in exchange for the diplomatic, military-knightly and courtly service (the participation in military actions, the manning of castles, transporting information, the defence of envoys and guests, the examination of the territory occupied by the enemy, the participation in corteges, etc.). In the first half of the 15th century (the available data refers only to this period of time), every high Teutonic official, commander and Vogt had even a few dozens of dieners at their disposal, except extraordinary situations such as the manning of frontier castles in Klaipėda and Dybów. In the whole territory of the Teutonic State in Prussia there might have been about 450–500 dieners at that time. The source analysis conducted here which concerned the castles in Malbork, Świecie, Elbląg and Brandenburg allow us to state that dieners were provided with the accommodation in the buildings situated in the outer wards of the castles. They were given rooms (chambers) exclusively for their use or individual rooms in infirmaries of dieners/servants. As may be inferred from the relatively numerous sources in the Malbork castle they were accommodated on the ground floor in the southern part of the eastern wing of the first internal ward, in the infirmaries next to the Church of St. Lawrence (the southern wing of the first internal ward). In Konigsberg the solution was quite exceptional. Dieners residing there were allowed to have their residential space within the outer wards of the castle (which cannot be proved), but the infirmary where they resided was situated in the territory of the so called wolnizna [Burgfreihei], in the north of the north-east part of the outer ward.
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The article analyses the factors determining the development of the towns in the Pomeranian province in the years 1918–1939. The author maintained the typology of the towns from the period prior to WWI. The author also poses the question whether some of those towns changed the function they had played in the 19th century. The specific character of the development of Pomeranian towns in the period under discussion consisted in its new geopolitical and macroeconomic situation. After 1918 Western Pomerania became the frontier province. This situation determined the migration processes. The administrative authorities of the province indicated that it was also the reason for the economic stagnation. The author maintains that one may agree with the thesis about the migration processes being determined by the new political situation, but it should be rejected in reference to the economic development.The Pomeranian province after WWI found itself on the margin of Germany’s economic life, which concerned both average-sized towns and the capital of the province – Szczecin. After the power in Germany had been taken over by the NSDAP and the military preparations had started, only some Pomeranian towns got the impulse to develop. The area which mostly took advantage of the policy was the territory of the so called great Szczecin. The pace of the development of the remaining towns was slower than in the case of other German towns and cities.Some corrections should be introduced in the typology of Pomeranian towns for the discussed period. They concern mainly the weakening of the function of some ports such as Kołobrzeg and Greifswald. Some other towns started to play the role as communication centres important for the region – this group included Piła, which constituted a significant transport interchange of international importance, used mainly in the contacts with Poland. The deliberations included in the book indicate that economic changes in the towns of the Pomeranian province were very slow.
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The aim of this source edition is to reconstruct thoroughly the composition of the Lithuanian army in the years 1675–1676 during the next stage of the war between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with Turkey (1672–1676), in which the Grand Duchy of Lithuania took an active part. The source basis used to reconstruct the composition of the army during three quarters of the service in the years 1675–1676 were the accounts of the Grand Sub-Treasurer of Lithuania Benedykt Paweł Sapieha, which were prepared for the Grodno Sejm of 1678–1679. They include the expenditure of the treasury on individual units of the Lithuanian army in the quarters from 15 August to 15 November 1675 and two quarters of 1676 – in total from 15 May to 15 November 1676. In order to present the composition of the army in the first half of 1675 the authors used the list of the Lithuanian military units found in the Sanguszko Archive in Cracow.
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The article was devoted to the system of supporting families of soldiers fighting on the front, which was set up in Szczecin – the main city of the Prussian Province of Pomerania. The system was based on the legislation introduced in the Reich at the end of the 19th century. The research aim is to look for the specific nature of the actions undertaken by the authorities of the city as against other cities which also launched such similarities. The first part of the article is devoted to the principles according to which the system of supporting families of soldiers was founded with particular emphasis on its significance for inhabitants of German towns. The second part of the article deals with the practical side of the system, in particular with the forms and organization of the assistance offered by the authorities of Szczecin. According to the regulations included in the legislation, the state guaranteed allowances to the wife, children and other family members maintained by a conscripted soldier, but certain conditions had to be fulfilled. Allowances were financed by the budgets of the communes and counties with a reservation that the sums assigned for this purpose would be returned to them from the central budget. In the first days of August the authorities of Szczecin started to pay out the allowances guaranteed by the regulation. They also decided to pay to families of soldiers optional city allowances, which, despite the fact of being provided for in the regulation, were not reimbursed by the state. Those allowances were complemented with additional forms of assistance financed by the special civil budget and the city military social care established at the end of August 1914. In terms of organization, the association referred to as the National Service of Women, set up in Szczecin upon the Berlin pattern in the first days of the war, played a major role. In practice, the legislators’ intention to introduce allowances financed by the state was not carried out. The financial aid was financed mainly from the communes’ budgets and they would not have supported soldiers’ families properly without the allowances financed by the city. Additionally, new regulations enforced from the beginning of 1916 converted the allowances into a form of social aid for families of soldiers from the lowest social strata.
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The article includes a description of taxes paid by Jews to the state treasury / royal treasury, which contributed to the budget of cities. The analysis was divided into two parts. The first of them addresses taxes the distribution of which was handled by the Lithuanian Waad. These were: the Jewish poll tax, return taxes, housing tax and general poll tax. The analysis of the treasury materials and minutes of the Lithuanian Waad made it possible to state that the poll tax rate depended on the political situation of the state and the Jews were obliged to pay larger sums during wars. The comparison of the Jewish sources with the sources of the treasury of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania allowed for a detailed description of the return tax, which was imposed on Lithuanian Jews in the first half of the 16th century and continued to exist until the 18th century. It constituted a minor royal income but a significant burden for Lithuanian Jews. Tax sources also show that Jews paid their housing taxes and general poll taxes. The system of taxes paid by the Jews at the local level, through the local qahals, was not transparent. The amount and type of taxes collected from the Jews were determined by many local factors, among them the most important were the position of the burghers and the policy of the city owner. Depending on the centre, the system of collecting rents from Jews differed. In some centres the Jews were obliged to pay: the hiberna tax (winters bread), the czopowe tax (excise tax), the kapszczyzna tax (alcohol tax) and paleczkowe tax. In many cities, besides paying taxes, Jews were also obliged to participate in defensive military actions.
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Military operations during the First World War resulted in material damage to Evangelical parish buildings in East Prussia. 26 temples and 26 rectories were destroyed, along with numerous residential, school and farm buildings. During the war, they were being rebuilt. This process was preceded by preparations that were to serve the introduction of legal and organizational solutions related primarily to the adaptation of temporary places of liturgical celebrations, the collection of the capital necessary to carry out the construction or the development of architectural designs. The state treasury, the local Church and believers not only from East Prussia, but also from the whole country, contributed to the financing of this reconstruction. The Church associations and organizations, in particular the Gustav Adolf Union, also contributed to this venture.
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The subject of the study is the edition of the list of rents and military services of the Barciany district, including a list of services of the then western part of the Pfleger’s territory of Giżycko. This source complements earlier lists of rents from 1422 and 1437, which were issued under the so-called grand book of rent (Das Grosse Zinsbuch des Deutschen Ritterordens). The basis of the edition is the account preserved in Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Secret Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage) in Berlin Dahlem (GStA PK), as part of the collection of letters from the former archives of the Teutonic Order (Ordensbriefarchiv No. 28754). The data included in the list may be useful in further work on the reconstruction of the condition of the settlement of Barciany and Kętrzyn in the mid-15th century. Taking into account previous accounts, thanks to the source presented here, one may trace the changes in the village development and the type, number and distribution of service goods in individual villages.
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The aim of the article is to present trade contacts between Prussia and Hungary from the end of the 13th century to the mid-15th century. The problem has hitherto remained beyond the interest of researchers dealing with trade relations. On the basis of the Hanseatic, Polish and Hungarian sources the author analyses the structure of goods being traded, participants of the trade and trade routes. The author points out the connection between the development of trade contacts with political relations in East Central Europe. After the death of King Louis I of Hungary (1382) the trade conducted between Hungary and Prussia, which went through the Polish territories, became heavily dependent on the balance of power between the Teutonic Order, the Kingdom of Poland and the Kingdom of Hungary. The author underlines that the range of goods which were the subject of the trade started to grow at the end of the 13th century. Apart from metals (copper, iron, silver) Hungarian merchants sold to Prussian merchants wax, furs, wine, cheap cloth and southern products such as fruit, spice and condiments. In the 15th century Melnaterite (Kupferwasser), the mineral used in dyeing, was exported from Upper Hungary to the Baltic zone. Merchants from Prussian towns exported to Hungary goods imported from West Europe, mainly cloth. Until the mid-15th century the main role in Prussian trade with Hungary was played by merchants from Toruń, while in the second half of the 15th century their place was taken over by merchants from Gdańsk.
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The economic effects of the Marshall Plan are many. The present text starts from the distribution by country of the approximately 13 billion dollars offered for development, during the four years provided, and follows the sectors in which the sums of money received were used, according to the needs and economic particularities of each of them. the 16 beneficiary states. The conclusion is that the implementation of the Plan has been a complete success, ensuring the stability and development of the world economy. The Marshall Plan can also be an incentive for the subsequent establishment of the Coal and Steel Economic Community, the forerunner of today's European Union. From a political point of view, it accentuated the gap between East and West, between Western democracies and the states of the communist camp.
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The article is dedicated to the fundamental subject of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) – feudalism. During the 30 years of Lithuanian independence the topic of Lithuanian feudalism was connected, first of all, with the name of Edvardas Gudavičius. Following his death, it became relevant to overview and evaluate Lithuanian historiography dealing with the topic. The main conclusions of the article are the following: 1) After 2003 a theoretical discussion about feudalism began; 2) Gudavičius himself pointed out two criteria to define feudalism from the Marxist point of view: individual peasant households and large landownership; but his interpretation of socioeconomic structure of early GDL applied to only one of them. The concept of the model of the early Central European state, ignored by Lithuanian medievalists so far, was proposed as alternative to the concept of early feudalism.
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Autor daje podatke o fondu Brodske imovne općine koji se čuva u Arhivskom sabirnom centru Vinkovci Državnog arhiva u Osijeku. Budući da nisu sačuvani fondovi drugih imovnih općina iz Vojne krajine, dokumenti Brodske imovne općine vrlo su važan izvor za proučavanje gospodarske povijesti cjelokupne Vojne krajine.
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In the paper the author outlines from the aspect of the history of institutions the structure and the activity of the Danube-Sava Vicinal Railway Stock Company during the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Like the majority of other vicinal railways, the company had its headquarters in Budapest. The stock company’s tasks were performed by: the stockholders’ general assembly, headquarters and the inspecting committee. The company’s railway lines were: Vukovar-Ilača and Šid-Rača-Sava. These private railway lines were exploited i.e. administrated by the state. During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy the company’s railway lines came under the jurisdiction of the Traffic Administration of the Royal Hungarian State Railways in Pecs. The railway’s purpose was to connect Sava with Danube through fertile Syrmia, as well as to make accessible the famous oak woods of the Petrovaradin Proprietary District Council, which were situated between Morović and Rača. Apart from that the railway line had the direction to cross by Rača into Bosnia and through the rich Bosnian Posavina through Bjeljina and Janja by Glavčica to connect the upper Drina and the main roads that intersect from southern Serbia. More precisely, the plan was to establish a trade-traffic railway link that would connect the entire Podrinje, particularly the rich Serbian Mačva and the fertile Bosnian plain, entering in Rača into the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia and further to world markets (Budapest, Vienna, etc.). The construction of railway opened the possibility for rational exploitation of the vast layers of pebbles lying around Rača. Due to the stock company’s capital of 8.252,00 crowns and being solvent we can conclude that the stock company represented a minor, but successful private vicinal railway.
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