Livonian and Courlander nobility in Samogitia in the 17th and 18th century

The main issue of this paper is Livonian nobles’ immigration to Lithuania. This topic is very difficult to investigate, because of significant deficiency in sources presenting a registration of estates and real estate transactions from Livonia and Courland. There are no registers of owners, tenants, or pledgees of estates from Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 16th to the 18th century and therefore primary sources for research presented in the paper are military and tax registers from 1567, 1621, 1667, 1690 and 1765. Unfortunately those registers have many disadvantages, which need to behighlighted. The author of the article analysed transformations of nobles’ surnames. The findings of this analysis show that in the above mentioned period of time several dozensof Livonian and Coulrand noble families settled in Samogitia. Those families were forced to leave Livonia as they remained loyal to the Polish king, although they also wanted toimprove their economic status. The paper was originally published as Inflantczycy i Kurlandczycy na Żmudzi w XVI–XVIII wieku, “Klio” 2015, vol. 35 (4), pp. 45–68; DOI: 10.12775/KLIO.2015.044

Ancient history · Archaeology · Duchy · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Estate · Immigration · Nobility · Political science · Politics · Central European Literary Studies · Historical and Cultural Studies of Poland · History · Law · Medieval European History and Architecture