Tax register of Drohobych Povit in 1511

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to analyze and publish the tax register of Drohobych povit (district) of 1511 as a historical source. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and source science methods, in particular the method of internal criticism of sources, as well as on archeography requirements. The scientific novelty consists in the fact that for the first time the analysis of the tax register of Drohobych povit of 1511 as a historical source. The Conclusion. Thus, the 1511 tax register of Przemyśl and Sianok lands is kept in the Central Archive of Ancient Acts in Warsaw. It was included in the so-called “Księgi Poborowej”, which also contains other levy registers and fiscal reporting documents for the period from 1501 to 1589. The publishing of this document is connected with the attacks of the Tatars and the Vlachs (the Moldavians), which prompted the Polish royal authorities to collect taxes for the military protection of the territories under their control. In view of this, on February 7, 1511, the General Sejm in Piotrków approved the collection of the state levy (“contributio publicarum”), which, in fact, was a continuation of the “contribution” levy (“contributio fertonum”), but it was to be collected for two years. In the Ruthenian Voivodeship the collector of this tax was the nobleman Dobeslaw Chmielecki. During the levy collection, a written record was made of its size and economic “units” that acted as payers: lans (peasant farms that were located on such a conventional unit of land measurement as a yard (lan), which occupied from 22 to 40 or more hectares of arable land and meadow), mills, inns, parishes. From the tax register it becomes known that there were 40 villages in Drohobych povit, in addition to the suburbs of Drohobych. They occupied 328 lans and a half-lan (of which royal – 150 lans, noble – 178 and a half-lan). At that time, 12 inns operated on the territory of the povit, among them one inn-brewery. In the register of 1511, 15 mills were recorded, of which 8 were also mills (foliushi), as well as 25 parishes, which gives reason to state about the existence of the same number of Orthodox parishes of the Przemyśl Diocese of the Kyiv Orthodox Metropolis. In 1511 the total amount of taxes collected from the settlements of Drohobych povit amounted to more than 164 marks (hryvnias).