Petrykiv near Ternopil: 1441, not 1458

The entry, as printed

Iohannes Skarbek. In presenti termino veniens nobilis Iohannes Skabek (sic) de Szeranynczuky recognovit fideiussoriam, quia fideiussit pro fratre germano Bogdan, quia Alberto de Svynyow habuit coram iudicio reformare centum marcas in villa Petrikow sita in districtu Trebowliensi, ad quam villam dedit eis centum marcas.

In English

Jan Skarbek. Appearing at the present term, the noble Jan Skarbek of Szeranynczuky acknowledged a surety: he stood surety for his own brother Bohdan, who was to register again before the court, for Albert of Svynyow, one hundred marks on the village of Petrikow lying in the district of Terebovlia, for which village Albert had given them one hundred marks.

A village older than Ternopil

Today Petrykiv is almost a suburb of Ternopil: a few kilometres from the centre, in the Velyka Berezovytsia community. But when Petrykiv first appears in the records, Ternopil did not yet exist. The town was founded in 1540 on “an empty place called Sopilche”. A century earlier Petrykiv was already a village that changed hands for serious money.

The card on the village's Wikipedia page gives 1458 as its founding year. The court book of Halych knows Petrykiv seventeen years earlier.

A loan secured on a village

There were no banks in the 15th century, and the nobility were always in need of money: for a daughter's dowry, to buy out an estate, for a military campaign. They borrowed against land. The debtor “inscribed” the money on his village, and if he did not repay, the creditor took the village's income, or even the village itself, until he had his due.

For such an agreement to have force it was entered in the land book before the judge. And when a debt passed from hand to hand, it had to be registered again before the court. The record about Petrykiv is about exactly such a re-registration.

The Monday before Candlemas, 1441

In the winter of 1441, on the Monday before the feast of the Purification, that is, on 30 January, the land court of Halych sat in session. Among other business the clerk entered a short surety. A nobleman, Jan Skarbek of Szeranynczuky, acknowledged before the court that he stood surety for his own brother Bohdan. Bohdan was to register again, for Albert of Svynyukhy, one hundred marks secured on the village of Petrykiv, “lying in the district of Terebovlia”. For that village Albert had given the brothers a hundred marks.

A surety was an everyday thing then: if Bohdan failed in his obligation, Jan would answer for it. Brothers vouched for each other because their land was shared, held by the family.

What a hundred marks means

The mark was not a coin but a unit of account for large sums. A hundred marks was serious money, enough in those days to take a whole village in pledge. So in 1441 Petrykiv was not a new settlement on cleared forest but a holding with people, fields and an income, which had existed for some time. How long, the document does not say.

How we know it is this Petrykiv

Several Galician villages had similar names, so the name alone proves nothing. Here the clerk settled it himself: the village lies “in districtu Trebowliensi”, in Terebovlia district, to which the land around the future Ternopil then belonged. There is no other Petrykiv in that district, and later records call our village Petryków “near Tarnopol”.

A correction, not a sensation

Curiously, the text of the same Wikipedia article already mentions 1441, though with the day as 31 January rather than the 30th. The card at the top still says 1458. So this is not the discovery of something unknown but the correction of a date that contradicts itself: the earliest known written mention of Petrykiv is 30 January 1441.

What happened to the village in the following decades this record does not tell. The next step is the other volumes of the Halych books, where the Skarbeks and Terebovlia district appear more often.

Sources

• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XII (Lwów, 1887), p. 93, no. 917 (30.01.1441).

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