Document regarding Bezławki dated 1409
More details
Hide details
1
Katedra Historii Skandynawii i Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej
Instytut Historii i Archiwistyki
Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
Online publication date: 2020-05-20
Publication date: 2020-05-20
KMW 2020;307(1):148-154
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The presented contribution contains a discussion and a version of the document on the Bezławki settle-ment (Germ. Bäslack) dated 29 June 1409. This source survived only as a 16th-century copy included in a larger notebook with excerpts of documents confirming the bestowal of lands, estate sale and purchase transactions and land borders within the Rastenburg Hauptamt. Next to information relevant to the history of Bezławki and the nearby settlements, the discussed document also presents the manner of creating dependencies between the less affluent and the rich landowners belonging to the group of the so-called free men (Germ. Freien). As a result, it illustrates the mediatisation process, which is rather poorly confirmed by source documents and virtually non-re-searched for Prussia of the 1st half of the 15th century.