Village register books in the Zamoyski Entail and the neighbouring territories in the second half of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Abstract

The article presents a discussion on the origins, nature, and function of the village register books in the Old Polish period, held by Stanisław Grodziski and Ludwik Łysiak in the 1960s. The next part of the text characterises the organisation of the Zamoyski Entail and its judiciary, and describes instances of the use of the register books in rural estates belonging to it, unknown to researchers. Next, it analyses the sparse information on this type of register book used in the Lublin land. An attempt was also made to explain the reasons for not using the village register books in the Chełm Land (outside the Zamoyski Entail). The very few references to the existence of such books in these areas prove the validity of L. Łysiak’s thesis that they were rare in the Commonwealth outside southern Lesser Poland and the western part of the Ruthenian Province.