Torki in 1463: a royal groom’s sons sue over their father’s head

The entry, as printed

Brodka. Iwan, Fyed, Hrynyecz filii olim Masch de Torky Subagazones Regales proposuerunt super provid. Iwan Brodka de ibidem pro capite patris ipsorum olim Masch et pro domesticis rebus…

In English

Brodka. Iwan, Fed and Hryniec, sons of the late Masz of Torki, royal under-grooms, brought a claim against the prudent Iwan Brodka of the same place for the head of their father, the late Masz, and for household goods…

A village of the royal stud

The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland says that Torki belonged to the royal estate of Medyka and that its people were to look after the royal stud at Medyka. Only around 1560 were they ordered to pay rent and do the usual labour. Polish Wikipedia gives Torki only the year 1589.

The entry of 1463 shows this service from the inside. The sons of the murdered Masz are called “Subagazones Regales”, royal under-grooms.

A suit over a father’s head, June 1463

Iwan, Fed and Hryniec, sons of the late Masz of Torki, summoned Iwan Brodka of the same village “for the head of their father” and for the household goods Brodka had taken “after the killing of their father”. The “head” in old law was the blood-price, compensation for a man killed.

Brodka answered: “Lords judges, for this head of Masz and for these household goods I have already cleared myself at law before their uncle Iwan Spakowicz and before them, before lord burgrave Sulikowski, in this same castle court. I am ready to go to that same old book.” The brothers replied: “We too want to go to the book, the one written under lord Sławski three years ago.”

The court reads two books

The court ordered both to be read. In the older, from the time of burgrave Sulikowski, it found that Brodka had indeed cleared himself of Masz’s head before Masz’s brother Iwan Spakowicz and before the sons Iwan, Fed and Hryń. In the newer, from Sławski’s time, it found that nothing had been awarded to the sons and that the case had been sent to the starosta.

Seeing that Brodka had won earlier, the court declared him free of the head and of the household goods. Checking two books like this is a rare picture of a medieval court working with its own archive.

What follows from this

Torki was a village of the king’s grooms already in the mid-15th century, more than a hundred years before 1589, the year from which Wikipedia counts its history. The entry also keeps the names of the whole family: Masz, his sons Iwan, Fed and Hryniec, their uncle Iwan Spakowicz, and the neighbour Iwan Brodka.

Who killed Masz, and how, the entry does not say. On the same page appears “Lecz, royal groom of Batycze”: around Przemyśl there were several villages whose people served the king’s horses.

Sources

• Akta grodzkie i ziemskie, vol. XIII (Lwów, 1888), p. 411, nos. 5177–5178 (13 June 1463).
• Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego, vol. XV, pt. 2, entry “Torki”.

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