Two documents on the tithe from the village of Boby for the parish church in Opole

Anna Łosowska

Abstract

In the Middle Ages, tithes and tributes were, among others, the sources of the emoluments of the church benefices. Basically all the parishes had the right to collect those fees, therefore among the cases usually investigated by the church courts were disputes over tithes. One example of such a dispute was Michał’s complaint (a priest of the parish church in Opole) against Świętosław, an heir to the village of Boby. The sentence which was passed by the official of Sandomierz  Mikołaj  in 1413 and  prepared in the form of a notarial instrument by a public notary Wit from Przełęk in the presence of Andrzej from Sandomierz-a public notary in the consistory of Sandomierz is now stored in the parish archive in Opole Lubelskie. In the document dated 4 July 1413, Mikołaj  from Jeżyn, the rector of the Hospital of St. Spirit and the official of Sandomierz, ordered Świętosław, under the penalty of excommunication, to pay the outstanding sum of 14 grzywnas, additional compensation of 10 grzywnas and to give the priest from Opole a tithe of two grzywnas each year. The official’s sentence was also imposed on Świętosław’s successors. It is said that the complaint was made because Świętosław, an heir to the village of Boby, unfairly collected a predial tithe from peasants’ fields, which belonged to the church and the parish priest in Opole. Although the official’s sentence was to be the final one, it did not solve the problem of tithes from the village of Boby. The complaints of the consecutive priests of Opole made before an official court in the 17th century show that the dispute over tithes became an  inherent part of the history of the two neighbouring parishes. Mikołaj’s sentence, which was published, means that the document is not the privilege of establishing a tithe from the village of Boby for the church in Opole, but an official’s sentence in the case of its non-payment. It identifies a previously unknown owner of the village of Boby and establishes earlier, than previously thought, foundation of the church in the village.