Dokumentacja skarbowo-wojskowa z czasów Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskiego a rejestry poborowe województwa Podlaskiego z lat 1578–1580

ENKingdom of Poland under the provisions of the Union of Lublin resulted, among other things, in the replacement of the previous Lithuanian system of tax collection with the system of extraordinary taxes of the Kingdom of Poland. Instead of the so-called silver tax and poll tax levied on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania inhabitants, three new taxes were imposed on local people: land and city collections and urban wealth tax (szos). The article aims to assess the extent of the influence of the Lithuanian tax system, which was used in Podlasie until 1569, on the new Polish fiscal system introduced in 1569. Of course, as far as the preserved sources allow. Unfortunately, neither tax registers nor tax cadastres which were the basis for calculating tax dues in the sixteenth century when Podlasie belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, have survived. Thus, we do not know their exact office form. We only know that the documentation of records created during tax collection had the form of separate tax registers.Separate lists were made for grand-ducal estates, separately for estates of large landowners and separately for estates of petty nobility. However, cadastres of military obligations (created based on tax cadastres) and military records, which were the effect of enforcing military obligations registered in these cadastres, have been preserved. Comparison of registers of land collections from 1578, 1579, 1580, 1588 and 1591, created after Podlasie was incorporated into the Kingdom of Poland, with cadastres of military obligations (from 1528 and 1547) and military records (from 1565 and 1567), allows for several establishments. The order in which parishes appear in the tax registers of 1578–1580 clearly indicates the use of information patterns taken from the military records of 1565 and 1567 in the preparation of these registers. It is also evident that habits developed in the course of performing military duties had an impact on the way petty noblemen paid taxes. For the years 1578–1580, the tax records show a common practice of joint tax payment by the petty nobility living in one locality. This resulted from the practice of several families of petty nobility jointly supplying one mounted warrior from a specific area of arable land. There is also a noticeable influence of the practice of separate tax registers for royal and noble estates in the times of the GDL. This is manifested by the lack of detailed registration in the tax registers of 1578–1580 of the places that belonged to the king. Their tax base was summed up for the entire estate complexes, which constituted starostwa or forest districts. Keywords: early modern history, tax system of the 16th century, Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Podlasie. [From the publication]