Title: Ukmerge Castle Court Year Books for 1626–28
Description
- At the height of its power in the 15th century, the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania ruled over the territory of present-day Belarus, Latvia,
Lithuania, and Ukraine, and parts of Estonia,
Moldova, Poland, and Russia. In the Union of Lublin of
1569, the Grand Duchy and the Kingdom
of Poland merged to form the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The commonwealth had a
highly developed legal and administrative system, based on local land courts
that decided civil cases involving the gentry and castle courts that dealt with
other local matters, including criminal cases. Courts were required to maintain
detailed records of their proceedings, which were kept in old Byelorussian and
in Polish. In the 19th century, the court records of the Grand Duchy were
centralized in Vilnius,
and eventually became part of the manuscript collections of the Vilnius
University Library. The library now holds 543 books of court acts of the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania dating from 1540 to 1845. These books are a unique source
for the histories of Lithuania,
Poland, and Belarus. Shown
in this volume are the Ukmerge castle court year books for 1626–28. Ukmerge is 78 kilometers from Vilnius, in east-central Lithuania. In 1655, during the
Second Northern War of 1655–60, Swedish and Russian armies plundered the city.
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Physical Description
- 267 pages, no cover, missing pages in beginning; 30.5 x 20.5 x 5 centimeters
Notes
- Signed by Czarist administrative officers. Red lacquer stamp. Watermark: fish. Old signature in N. Gorbachevskiĭ catalog: 16/13893. Book was numbered, pierced with string and stamped in 1834.
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