Document of Dobrzyń Land Court of 15 June 1407 on the Boundary between Osiek and Wrzeszewo

Abstract

The published document is known to the older literature on the subject, but through a nineteenth-century popularizing article, and this fact alone justifies its full edition. It was issued by the land court of Dobrzyń Land on the redrawing of the boundary between two villages in the county of Rypin: the village of Osiek belonging to Piotr Lebel, and the village of Wrzeszewo belonging to Jakub Świnka of Strzygi. Apart from valuable data on the boundary between the villages, the document informs us about a social and political situation in Dobrzyń Land two years after it was bought back from the Teutonic Knights by King Władysław (Ladislaus) Jagiello in June 1405. An analysis of the group of arbiters who set the boundary between Wrzeszewo and Osiek and a comparison of its result with the list of owners of these villages reveals that the pro-Teutonic party among the Dobrzyń nobility which formed during the Teutonic rule in 1391/1392–1405 maintained its relative internal unity, for its members did mutual legal favors (such as playing the role of arbiter fixing the boundary between villages). A personal analysis of the list of witnesses, on the other hand, indicates an advantage among the Dobrzyń officials of persons that could be associated with the supporters of the Crown in 1391/1392–1405. But there are also two representatives of the pro-Teutonic party, with one of them forced by royal reprisals to leave for Teutonic Prussia a year later.