Biliavyntsi on the Strypa: 1469, not Beauplan’s map of 1650

The entry, as printed

Litere domini Jacobi Buczaczki. Produxit literam Mtis cum sigillo super villa Podhaycze, Muzylow, Bozykow, Byalowincze, Thelacze, juribus salvis etc, servicium cum quinque hastis et decem sagittariis. Facultas locandi oppidum in Podhaycze, item jus theutonicum in villa Podhaycze.

In English

Charters of lord Jakub Buczacki. He showed a charter of His Royal Majesty with a seal for the village of Pidhaitsi, Muzhyliv, Bozhykiv, Biliavyntsi, Teliache, with rights reserved etc.; service with five lances and ten archers. Leave to found a town in Pidhaitsi, and German law in the village of Pidhaitsi.

A first mention on a map?

Of Biliavyntsi on the Strypa, Wikipedia says the village is marked on Guillaume de Beauplan’s map of Podolia of 1650, “which can be regarded as the first known written mention”. A map is a good source, but far from the oldest.

Jakub Buczacki’s charter, 1469

In the spring of 1469 royal officials in Ruthenia checked the charters by which the gentry proved their rights to estates. Jakub Buczacki showed “a charter of His Royal Majesty with a seal” for the villages of Pidhaitsi, Muzhyliv, Bozhykiv, Biliavyntsi and Teliache. From them he owed the king five lances and ten archers. The same entry records leave “to found a town in Pidhaitsi” under German law.

The inspectors did not note when the charter itself was issued. So 1469 is the latest possible date, and Biliavyntsi may well be older.

1578: “all burned by the Tatars”

More than a century later Biliavyntsi appears in the tax register of Halych district, again together with Pidhaitsi. The line reads like a verdict: “Villages belonging to the town of Pidhaitsi. All burned by the Tatars.” Then comes a list without a single number: Old Pidhaitsi, Letiatyn, Kryve, Petlykivtsi, Biliavyntsi, Lytvyniv, Bozhykiv, Voloshchyzna, Novosilka, Silka, Teliache, Muzhyliv, Rudnyky.

No tax was taken from burned villages, so there was no need to count their fields.

How we know it is our Biliavyntsi

There is no other village of that name in Galicia. Both documents place Biliavyntsi in the Pidhaitsi estate of the Buczacki family with the same neighbours, Muzhyliv, Bozhykiv and Teliache, and in 1578 next to Old Petlykivtsi, where the parish of Biliavyntsi was in the nineteenth century.

Only the distance is puzzling: Biliavyntsi lies on the Strypa, some twenty kilometres from Pidhaitsi, while the other villages of the estate cluster around the town. Biliavyntsi and Petlykivtsi were probably an outlying part of the estate, but that is our guess.

Sources

• A. Jabłonowski, Źródła dziejowe, vol. XVIII, part 1 (Warsaw, 1902), appendix “Lustratio an. 1469”, “Terra Galiciensis”, p. 39.
• Ibid., p. 91: the 1578 register of Halych district.
• Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego, vol. I (Warsaw, 1880), entry “Bielawińce”.

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