Krzysztof Syta - Archive of Prince Andrzej Hrehorowicz Sanguszko of Kowel from the end of XVI century


In family-estate archives records very valuable source material make up archival materials registers of different sorts, either prepared for specific purposes or being a result of arrangement works. Particularly interesting are the latter since of their basis it is very often possible to reconstruct potential of archives that materially no longer exist. Naturally, an extent of the reconstruction is limited by a form of archival materials description. One of examples of such registers demonstrate lists of archival materials composing archive set of Sanguszkos of Kowel, kept at present in The Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw. They are very valuable as they date from the turn of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which was a period when family-estate archives had just started to be formed. Thus they give an idea about size and content of the archive of one of many dukes' families resident in Lithuanian-Russian lands of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Essential is that they for the most part contain descriptions of archival materials that have not been retained in collection of Sanguszkos archive, which is presently kept at State Archive in Kraków. Much better retained in this archive archival materials of two other Sanguszkos lines of descent - Niesuchojeże-Łokacze and Koszyrsk. Archival materials described in mentioned registers in most cases reflect economic activity of Andrzej Hrehorowicz Sanguszko, while in fewer cases of this family other representatives. A distinctive feature of Sanguszkos of Kowel archive collection in second half of sixteenth century was very large number of files of law-property origin, and among them of court documents in the form of suits and court receipts, decrees and testimonies of diverse sorts. Noticeable is also connection of files with landed estates, which confirms one of the basic principles of private old-Polish archive studies. Lack of larger number of files of foreign origin in collection of Sanguszkos archive might wonder. It may be however explained by early period of forming the archive, which to the moment of its describing, has grown during activity merely to three generations of weakly propagated family.