| Abstract [eng] |
The Lithuanian Metrica consists of the volumes of document copies drawn up in the Chancellery of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 15th-18th century. Books of the Lithuanian Metrica feature a great variety of documents, including the sovereign's privileges to noblemen with regard to land donations, appointments to various positions, privileges to towns and cities, wills, various court rulings, letters of central authorities to local officials, state treasury documents, diplomatic correspondence, etc. Book No. 273 of the Lithuanian Metrica accommodates rulings of the assessors' court and the court in relationibus made in 1579 and 1580, i.e. during King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Steponas Batoras' rule. The assessors' court (lat. assessores - "sitting side by side", i.e. judges of the sovereign's court) dealt with the appeals filed by townsmen from towns and cities holding Magdeburg rights with regard to the rulings of the courts of first instance, namely the voigt's, scabini's or council courts. The court in relationibus (lat. relatio - notification, filing for consideration) was a higher tier of appeal which would hear townsmen's complaints with regard to the rulings of the assessors' court or the court of special commissioners appointed by the sovereign. In total, the book contains 305 documents. Because of the irreparable archival losses that most of the cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania suffered in the middle of the 17th century, rulings of the assessors' court and the court in relationibus are a most important secondary source which at least partially compensates for the lost urban history sources of the 16th-early 17th century. Most of the documents contained in Book No. 273 of the Lithuanian Metrica have little been used in historiography and are published for the first time. |
