The 1676 poll tax of the Łuków land

What this register is

The title page of the volume reads:

LIBER Regestrorum Charitativi Subsidij Generalis in Comitijs Generalibus Felicissimæ Coronationis Joannis III. Regis, Cracoviensibus in Anno 1676. Laudati, Palatinatusq[ue] Lublinensis Laudo approbati, prima Rathæ duplicis fidelissime percepti. Conscriptus.

Book of the registers of the general charitable subsidy enacted at the general Sejm of the most fortunate coronation of King John III at Kraków in the year 1676, approved by the resolution of the Lublin Palatinate, of the first double instalment most faithfully collected. Compiled.

The levy was assessed per head, by estate, which is why the register is known as the general poll tax. The Łuków land belonged to the Lublin Palatinate and was therefore bound by that palatinate’s resolution.

The collector was Marcjan Franciszek Szaniawski, exactor of the Łuków land; his signature closes the last leaf, above the note that the account was settled in the Crown Treasury at Warsaw on 15 April 1677.

The register proceeds parish by parish and estate by estate. Within each place it lists first the manor with its servants, then the petty nobility by first name, byname and surname, and finally the subject peasants — usually in a single collective item (Poddanych utriusq Sexus N° 122). Hence the lopsided shape of the edition: name after name where petty nobles sat on their fractions of a village, and one line for a whole village on royal or magnate estates.

There are 196 collective items, carrying 12 868 złoty — close to three fifths of the whole sum. The remaining 2 216 entries are households named individually.

Just after the Swedish wars the Łuków land appears here as a country of petty nobility: 535 distinct surnames, 3 082 household members named by their role, 199 households headed by women. Nearly three hundred entries carry a note about the spade — a noble with no draught team, working his fraction by hand, who pays the lowest rate.

Rates, abbreviations and how entries are written

The register states amounts, not a tariff. The rates below are read off the material: they follow from what households of known composition pay, and they close in the collective items, where the manuscript sets the number of heads beside the sum.

Estate abbreviations

P. — Pan, the ordinary form for a petty noble (1,637 entries). Szla:, Szlachetny — nobilis, the same estate, another abbreviation. JmPan, JeymP. — His/Her Grace, for the wealthier and for officers. Robotny, Chłopi, Poddani — plebeian. N. — Nobilis in the stretches written in Latin.

How the entries are given

• Each entry is transcribed literally, in the spelling of the manuscript. That is the core of the edition.
• Nothing is supplied. No first name means no first name; a missing amount is left empty, not set to zero.
• Wife-of forms are kept as they stand and are not expanded.
• Notes on means are data, not decoration: “rydlem kopie” (digs with a spade), “bez Wołow” (no oxen), “ubogi” (poor). They explain the lower rate.
• Every doubtful reading is marked as uncertain and shown under the entry. There are 381 such places.

The reckoning of the register

The register closes with its own reckoning. The last leaf carries three figures:

Summa Laterum omnium in Unum Computata à Personis Nobilibus, Spiritualibus, Plebeijs et Judaeis Utriusq Sexus facit fl. 21915.
Z tey Summy na Salarium JmPana Exaktora po pułgrosza od Złotego cedit juxta Legem fl. 365. / 7. / 9.
Restat pro Thesauro realis Summa fl. 21549. / 22. / 9.

The three check one another to the denarius. Half a grosz per złoty of 21,915 fl. is 10,957½ gr., that is 365 fl. 7 gr. 9 den. — exactly the figure given; the remainder is 21,549 fl. 22 gr. 9 den., again exact. So 21,915 fl. is not a slip of the pen: the collector reckoned on it and the Crown Treasury settled on it.

Nine collective items carry an amount that is not a multiple of the number of heads given with them. In four of these the count covers only the servants or only the subjects while the amount covers the whole household, and the arithmetic closes. The remaining five cannot be derived; their counts and amounts were checked again against the manuscript and are certain, so these are discrepancies of the register itself. They are visible at the entries below.

The places on a present-day map

Each dot is one item of the register, placed where its present-day counterpart lies; the size of the mark follows the amount paid. 269 of 302 items are located — 220 exactly, 49 approximately (the settlement is today part of a larger village, or a hamlet with no point of its own). 33 items carry no mark: parish headings, castles and land-wide items, which are not places at all, and nine settlements — mills and hamlets — lost or absorbed, which cannot be pinned down today without guessing.

Positions come from present-day gazetteers, and each item in the list below carries its modern name. This is not a map of 1676; it is a map of today with the register plotted on it.

List of places