Lithuanian Metrica

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A Lithuanian Metrica of 1511-18, from the chancellery of Lithuanian Grand Chancellor Mikołaj Radziwiłł, written in Ruthenian.

Grand Chancellor of Lithuania Lew Sapieha. Under his supervision the Lithuanian Metrica was reorganized.

The Lithuanian Metrica or the Metrica of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Latin: Acta Magni Ducatus Lithuaniae, Polish: Metryka Litewska, Belarusian: Літоўская Метрыка, Ukrainian: Литовська метрика, Lithuanian: Lietuvos Metrika) is a collection of the 14 – 18th cent. (maintained systematically since the 2nd half 15th cent.) documents of the Chancellery of the Grand Duchy of Lituania (GDL), consisting, initially and primarily, of the copies of the documents issued by the Grand Duke, the Council of the GDL, the sessions of the Parliament (Polish: Sejm).

The Metrica also included some important externally originated documents (like translations of the issues (yarlyks) of the Crimea Khans, copies (Belarusian: спісы) of the Muscovy diplomatic documents etc.), the office-keeping documental materials (like registers of acts, inventories of the Metrica itself etc.) The selection of the classes of the documents included in the Metrica had increased since the 2nd half 15th – 16th cent. and even more so in the 17th – 18th cent., extending to include the copies of transcripts of diplomatic correspondence, charters of privileges, wills, verdicts, judicial decrees, even certain kinds of private correspondence, e.g., received by the official persons. Sometimes, the external and thematically not quite related collections of the documents had also been referred to as the part of the Metrica, the word Metrica here to be understood as the State Archive. [Halyen 1999] The documents of the Metrica were to be preserved interminably.

Effectively, the Metrica had become the core of the Archive of the Grand Duke, later the core of the Main State Archive of the GDL, serving the notifying (judicial-registrative), judicial, referential functions. It had been the source of the authoritative official documents (copies of copies). The Metrica developed parallelly to and on the model of the Crown Metrica of Poland (Latin: Metrica Regni Poloniae).

Nowadays, over 600 (estimated) books of the Lithuanian Metrica still exist.

[edit] Names

The word metrica generates from Polish: metryka for archive, from Latin: matricula for office book.

The first historical names of the collection were metrics, books of metrica, metrica. Since the end 16th – beg. 17th cent., the full official name was Metrica of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This would be the most appropriate scientific name. [Halyen 1999] The dub Lithuanian Metrica had been occasionally used in the local office books (by analogy with the Crown Metrica of Poland), since the mid. 17th cent. the dub had consolidated its position in the documents of the Warsaw Archives, later in the Archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg, then in the 19th – 20th cent. Russian, Polish, Belarusian, Lithuanian historiographies. The name Lithuanian Metrica is till now traditionally used in the Western publications of the Metrica. The name Lithuanian Metrica is also used in reference to some contemporary archival collections, including some of the materials of the Chancellery of the GDL (together with other unrelated materials), chiefly in Russia custody. [Halyen 1999]

[edit] Languages

The prevailing language of the documents of the 15th and the most of the 16th cent. Metrica had been the Old Belarusian language. [Halyen 1999][Samuel 1972] Alternatively, the prevailing use of the Old Belarusian in the Metrica is extended up to the half 17th cent. [Samuel 1972] The documents, concerned with the Western Europe, had been issued in Latin, occasionally in German. The documents, concerned with the Roman-Catholic Church, had been issued in Latin. [Abets 1969] See also naming of the Old Belarusian language.

Since the late 16th – beg. 17th cent., the number of the documents composed in Polish and in Latin, had been steadily increasing, until the complete elimination of the Old Belarusian from the office use in the GDL, and further official ban on the Old Belarusian for the official use (1696). The language of the most of the 17th cent. and the 18th cent. Metrica is Polish and partly Latin.

[edit] History

State archives were begun in the 13th century, Kingdom of Lithuania ^[1]. Diplomacy was greatly increased under the rule of Gediminas. During the various wars, floods, and city fires that followed, many official documents were lost. Some were impossible to trace, if these documents had not been duplicated or otherwise copied. A growing need to reproduce these documents later, and the mounting number of edicts, wills, court verdicts etc., determined the evolution of the Lithuanian Metrica.

The Lithuanian Metrica was stored in the Trakai Island Castle under the supervision of the Treasurer, until 1511. Afterwards the documents were transferred to Vilnius, and kept in what was referred to as the Lower Castle. The responsibility for safeguarding the Metrica there, was supervised by the State Chancellor. By 1569, when the regions of Podlachia, Volhynia, Podolia and the Kiev were separated from Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and incorporated into Kingdom of Poland, the books which concerned these regions, were removed from the Lithuanian Metrica, and merged into the Polish Metrica. Due to the deterioration of the books, the State Grand Chancellor, Lew Sapieha, ordered the volumes of the Metrica to be recopied in 1594. The recopying process continued until 1607. The newly recopied books were inventoried, rechecked, and transferred to a separate building in Vilnius, with the older books remaining in the Castle of Vilnius.

Great parts of the Metrica were lost during the wars with Muscovy, and others were taken way by Swedish armies in 1656-1657. Only after the Treaty of Oliva, in 1660, did the Swedes return many books from the Metrica, but some of them were lost at sea, in the Baltic, during transport back to Lithuania.

The Metrica from Vilnius was taken to Warsaw in 1765 ^[2]. The books were bound, catalogued and integrated into the system that was in use, in Warsaw. According to an edict issued in 1793, the Lithuanian Metrica was to be transferred from Warsaw to Vilnius again. After the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Lithuanian Metrica was transferred to Russia as a war trophy and was kept in St. Petersburg. Russia gave several of the Lithuanian Metrica books to Prussia in 1799. Afterwards Prussia transferred these books to the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. The remaining Lithuanian Metrica books in St. Petersburg were inventoried and taken to Moscow. The majority of the historical Lithuanian Metrica's books have been kept in Russia, and only a small fraction of them are in Lithuania and Poland today.

[edit] Publications

The Metrica is one of the most authoritative and revered sources on the history of the GDL. Some of the documents of the Metrica and parts of them had begun to be published in the end 18th cent. Larger collections of the materials had begun to be published since 1830s («Digest of Prince Obolyenskiy», altern. «Ambassador’s Book of the Metrica...», in 3 volumes, includes detailed register of the books of the Metrica by Anastasyevich (1817)). Other notable publishers of the Metrica materials had been Lyeontovich, Prohaska, Bershadskiy and others. Other notable publications of the period:

• Acts of the Lithuanian Metrica (Акты Литовской метрики, т. 1, в. 1 – 2, Варшава, 1896 – 1897).
• Acts of the Western Russia (Акты Западной России, full name: Акты, относящиеся к истории Западной России, собранные и изданные Археографическою комиссиею. – СПб., 1846 – 1853).

Consists of about two thousand official documents (not all of them belonging to the Metrica proper), published in five volumes, covering the period of 1340 – 1699 (I: 1340 – 1506, II: 1506 – 1544, III: 1544 – 1587, IV: 1588 – 1632, V: 1633 – 1699).

• Acts of the Southern and Western Russia (Акты Южной и Западной России, full name: Акты, относящиеся к истории Южной и Западной России, собранные и изданные Археографическою комиссиею, т.1-15 – СПб., 1861 – 1892).

Consists of the official documents (not all of them belonging to the Metrica proper), published in fifteen volumes, covering the period of 1361 – 1678. Thematically, concentrates on the 17th cent. Ukrainian wars and on 16th – 17th cent. Russian-Commonwealth wars. Does not include originally Polish and Latin documents.

• Russian historical library, V. 20, 27, 30, 33 (Русская историческая библиотека, т. 20, 27, 30, 33, Спб. – П., 1903 – 1915).
• Acts of the Lithuanian-Russian state (Акты Литовско-Русского государcтва, в. 1 – т.2, М., 1897 – 1899).

Consists of the documents, mainly of the Metrica, covering the 14th – 16th cent., published by Dovnar-Zapol’skiy.

• Malinovskiy. Digest of the materials related to the history of noble council of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Малиновский И. Сборник материалов, относящихся к истории панов-рады Великого Княжества Литовского, [ч. 1 – 2], Томск, 1901 – 1912).

In 1980s – 1990s there had begun a new wave of the publishing of the Metrica materials, this time as an international, Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish-Russian effort.

The Metrica had served as a basis for the works of the notable researchers of the GDL history, e.g., Lyubavskiy, Dovnar-Zapol’skiy, Maksimeyka, Lappo, Pichyeta, Malinovskiy, Lawmyanski and others.

The scientific research of the Metrica itself had begun with the work of Ptaszycki (1887). Other notable researchers of the Metrica: Byeryezhkov, Grimstead, Sułkowska-Kurasiowa.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Publications of the Lithuanian Metrica