Zwięczyca in 1450: forty names of villagers

The entry, as printed

Nobil. Raphael, Nicolus et Iohannes fratres germani filii Iohannis Golwchowski de speciali consensu patris … talem inter se fecerunt divisionem in bonis suis Swanczicza et Wola Swancziska … cum kmethonibus Yakel, Lech, Myszs, Stasek, Brudni, Royowiczi, Pechowicz, Sywthka, Rathayowicz, Pyenek, Pisczadlo, Ppheta, Czarnocha, Kvna, Coszel…

In English

The noblemen Rafał, Mikołaj and Jan, full brothers, sons of Jan Gołuchowski, with their father’s special consent … made the following division of their estates of Zwięczyca and Wola Zwięczycka … with the peasants Jakiel, Lech, Mysz, Stasiek, Brudny, Rojowicz, Pechowicz, Świtka, Ratajowicz, Pieniek, Piszczało, Pfeta, Czarnocha, Kuna, Koszel…

A village without a Middle Ages

Zwięczyca is today a south-western district of Rzeszów. It was finally joined to the city in 2008; before that it was a village in Gmina Boguchwała. Polish Wikipedia gives nothing from its history older than 1672, when the Tatars laid it waste. The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland describes only the Zwięczyca of the 19th century.

In the 15th century Rzeszów and the villages around it belonged to the district of Przeworsk in the land of Przemyśl, and their cases were heard at sessions in Przeworsk. Zwięczyca is in those books, and early.

First mention: spring 1443

At a session before 29 April 1443, Fal of Pełnatycze summoned “Jan of Zwięczyca”. The defendant sent word that he was ill, and the case was put off. This is the earliest mention of Zwięczyca we have found, 229 years older than the date in Wikipedia.

Who this Jan was, an entry seven years later suggests: most likely Jan Gołuchowski, father of the three brothers of 1450. The record does not say so in so many words.

The division of 5 February 1450

On Thursday 5 February 1450 three brothers, Rafał, Mikołaj and Jan, sons of Jan Gołuchowski, came before the court at Przeworsk. Their father came with them and gave his “special consent” for them to divide “their estates of Zwięczyca and Wola Zwięczycka”.

Rafał and Mikołaj jointly received the manor with all its fields, the house, the storeroom, the home farm, the pond “in front of the gate” and fifteen peasants: Jakiel, Lech, Mysz, Stasiek, Brudny, Rojowicz, Pechowicz, Świtka, Ratajowicz, Pieniek, Piszczało, Pfeta, Czarnocha, Kuna and Koszel. In the Wola they got six householders: Masiowa, Jakub Drygulec, Jakub Luban, Mikulec, Kuszowicz and Zaleśny.

Jan received the other peasants with their fields: Pyszczek, Jadro, Swach, Sobek, Barszcz, Tomasz Krawiec, Czyż Pokywka, Kurek, Dunaj, Gerej, Piotrek, Kruk, Pszonka, Ordych, Kost Zagroda, Geś Róg, Michoń, Maciejasek, Michałowska and a second Jaśko Michałowski. One name is damaged; only the ending “…kowka” survives. Jan also got the empty fields “on both sides”.

Three ponds and forty names

The water was divided separately. The village had three ponds. The pond “in front of the gate” of the manor went to the elder brothers, the pond “in front of Michałowski’s” to Jan, and the third, “which lies in the middle between the other two”, was cut in half.

The entry names some forty-two householders. Among them are women, Masiowa and Michałowska, probably widows running their own holdings. Many names sound like nicknames: Jadro (“kernel”), Kruk (“raven”), Dunaj (“Danube”), Kuna (“marten”), Czarnocha, Pszonka (“millet”). Here one can watch surnames being born from nicknames in the mid-15th century. For anyone whose ancestors came from Zwięczyca, this is the oldest known list of its people.

What is known, and what is not

Adam Fastnacht’s Historical and Geographical Dictionary of the Sanok Land knows Rafał of Zwięczyca from 1471. The entries of 1443 and 1450 are older than that too. We have not seen the first volume of the “History of Rzeszów” (1994) and do not know whether its authors knew this division.

Where Wola Zwięczycka with its six householders lay, we have not established. It may be part of Zwięczyca itself, or one of the neighbouring “Wolas”.

Sources

• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XIII (Lwów, 1888), p. 310, no. 4231 (5 February 1450); p. 150, no. 2105 (spring 1443).
• A. Fastnacht, Słownik historyczno-geograficzny ziemi sanockiej w średniowieczu, vol. 3 (Kraków, 2002), entry “Piotraszówka”.
• A. Jabłonowski, Źródła dziejowe, vol. XVIII, pt. 1 (Warsaw, 1902): register of 1515 (“Swyączycza, lan. 12”).

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