Istorijos šaltinių tyrimai

The title of this article is taken from a somewhat unusual image of the ruler as fisherman. It comes from a summary of the now lost letter from Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania (1392–1430) to Paul von Rusdorf, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (1422–1441). The letter accompanied a batch of sturgeon sent to Marienburg as a gift to the grand master and other officersof the Teutonic Order. The grand duke emphasised that this was fish he had caught himself in the Dniester estuary. Given that this piece of evidence has received little attention so far, this article will: 1. present the manuscript containing the document; 2. date the document; 3. analyse its contents; 4. consider what political purposes Vytautas might have been pursuing at the time; 5. examine what, if any, insights this information could give to a more general picture of Vytautas’ political activities in the last decade of his rule; 6. offer a critical edition of the summary of the letter.

The authors of this article present their opinion on the most suitable application of archaeography principles in the academic publication of medieval documents. It is believed that the principles discussed in the article will be implemented in the publication of the books of “Queen Bona‘s Metrica”, due to be released by the authors.

The article presents an analysis of the rich collection of private correspondence of the Białłozor, Koncza and Römer families. The addressees and addressers were from a group of inter-married landed nobility, thus the personal destinies of the representatives of these families were associated with the most important political, social and cultural processes underway in the first half of the 19th century. As a result, their correspondence is considered a broad history source. The accounts made of the same events, circumstances and experiences created a uniform narrative characteristic of a group of people sharing a similar sense and view of the world and value system. The correspondence discussed here is suitable for researching the sociocultural model of this group, formed through self-perception, the perception of others and the world.

The article presents an analysis of a genealogical chronicle of the Bilevičius family from the 15th to the first half of the 17th centuries that was found in Lviv, and was written up in the beginning of the 17th century. It is an exclusive genealogical written source relating to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which mentions 520 individuals and presents up to five generations of the history of another 51 families (besides the Bilevičius family).

A unique inventory of Lithuanian Metrica books compiled in September–October, 1641, which had thus far escaped the attention of Lithuanian Metrica researchers, was discovered in the Vilnius Chapter’s collections (F 43) at the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. It was compiled by the notary public Fr Laurynas Mocarskis (Wawrzyniec Mocarski). Due to objective shortcomings, Mocarski’s list cannot be considered a proper inventory of the Lithuanian Metrica books, but, lacking other material, it is nonetheless an important and useful auxiliary source helping us to understand the development of the entire complex of books of the Lithuanian Metrica and subtleties in the history of individual books.

This article presents an analysis of the long legal battle (1533–1546–1549) waged by the Pasvalys church parish priest Erazmas, son of Eustachijus (†1545/1546), over the allocation of four vacant plots of land to the Pasvalys church’s jurisdiction. Suspicions over the falsification of documents are proven. Attention is given to the legal culture environment existing in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and how justice was executed. Both the favourable and unfavourable elements of legal culture are distinguished, which determined.

The article presents the analysis of a significant aspect regarding problems with the coronation of Grand Duke Vytautas and his wife Uliana – data from the story behind the rulers’ crowns that has hitherto practically not been noticed is being brought into academic circulation. A number of important historical sources are brought under analysis: inscriptions from the book of expenses of the city of Nuremberg, a description of the Teutonic Order’s legation under the Vogt of Stuhm Klaus von Redwitz to meet with the German Roman king Sigismund of Luxemburg (in 1429), and a previously unknown document regarding the coronation that has survived in manuscript form at the Bavarian State Library (BSB, Clm 22372), which once belonged to Sigismund’s advocate, the Bishop of Augsburg Peter von Schaumberg.