Paportno: a village that no longer exists, on record in 1444

The entry, as printed

Stanislaus servus Tluczymost actor contra Sym de Paporthno. Nunccius reposuit primum terminum simplici infirmitate.

In English

Stanisław, servant of Tłuczymost, plaintiff against Sym of Paportno. The messenger put off the first hearing on the plea of ordinary illness.

A village cut in two by a border

South of Pacław, right on the border with Ukraine, a cemetery and the site of a church stand in the woods. That is all that remains of the village of Paportno. In 1943 over a thousand people lived here. In 1945–1946 they were deported to the USSR; in 1948 the new border cut the village in half, and the Polish part later ended up inside the closed hunting grounds of Arłamów.

The Polish and Ukrainian Wikipedias know only that around 1600 this was a Herburt village. They give no older date.

Sym, a royal servant, 1444

On 23 November 1444 Stanisław, servant of the nobleman Mikołaj Tłuczymost, summoned “Sym of Paportno” before the Przemyśl court. The messenger put off the hearing on the plea of the defendant’s “ordinary illness”. In December the case was put off twice more, by then with Tłuczymost suing in person. In January 1445 the starosta took the case to himself: Sym, his messenger said, was “a servant of the king”. What Tłuczymost wanted, the entries do not say.

Eleven witnesses for Mańko, 1468

On 21 July 1468 an unusually eminent court sat in Przemyśl: Dziersław of Rytwiany, Palatine of Sandomierz, Jan of Tarnów, castellan of Wojnicz, and Stanisław Wątróbka, castellan of Sącz. They ruled that “Mańko of Paportno” must clear himself by oath “as one of twelve” of the charges brought against him by the starosta of Przemyśl himself.

Mańko managed it in six days. On 27 July he came before the court with witnesses whom the clerk named one by one: Stepan, Sydor and Sawka of Dobromil, Sydor of Kniaziepole, knyaz Iwan, a second Iwan and a third Iwan of Hubicze, Kost the knyaz and Mol of Buniowice, Iwan of Grabownica, Dynisz of Pacław and Szymko of Paportno. All of them swore, “testifying that Mańko never stole nor robbed, but is a good man, so help them the Holy Cross and all the saints”.

The witnesses came from the neighbouring villages that still surround the site of Paportno. Two of them are called knyaz, the title of a village headman under Wallachian law. And it is they who best confirm that the “Paprothno” of 1468 is our Paportno.

A honey tribute and the field of Arłamów, 1485

In 1485 Seweryn Herburt divided the family estates with his nephews. He took half of the “honey tribute” from the forests of Dobromil, Kniaziepole, Piątnica, Michowa Wola, Łaćkie and Paportno. The nephews received Kniaziepole, Michowa Wola, Paportno and “the field of Arłamów, on which they may found a village”. So Paportno was already a village with tree hives in its forest while today’s Arłamów was still a field.

Sources

• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XIII (Lwów, 1888), p. 162, nos. 2275 and 2286–2287 (November–December 1444); p. 579, nos. 7053 and 7061 (21 and 27 July 1468).
• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XVIII (Lwów, 1903), p. 268, no. 1846 (1485).
• Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego, vol. VII, entry “Paportno”.

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