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Archiver > HERBARZ > 2003-08 > 1060014837


From: "Leon Stevens" <>
Subject: RE: Query ..
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 12:33:57 -0400


> clear and unbroken line <

A good description of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility may be found in
Norman Davies' well-respected history of Poland entitled "God's
Playground" and in particular his chapter called "Szlachta - A Paradise
of Nobles." Prior to the early 18th century, public records of
baptisms, births and deaths are relatively rare. Only court records may
indicate who was noble at any given time, but these were recorded only
when people were engaged in litigation. Only great lords for the most
part have "unbroken genealogies," but in many cases, even the early
ancestors of these nobles are highly suspect (in particular when their
genealogies extend back to Noah or Adam and Eve). Throughout all of
Polish history, nobility had to be proved only when challenged in court
(a rare occurrence), and was proved by local noble witnesses, who simply
testified that the ancestors of the accused had been noble (or not) for
at least two generations. Documents were neither summoned nor entered as
evidence until the partitions. Vast numbers of old court records were
destroyed by fire, decay, floods, countless wars etc. (and still are
being destroyed) so that few nobles today may trace any sort of lengthy
unbroken genealogy extending back much before 1700.


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