Testamenty i inwentarz Jadwigi i Marcina Mitkiewiczów– przyczynek do dziejów mieszczaństwa krakowskiego
Jadwiga and Marcin Mitkiewicz’s Wills and Inventory: A Contribution to the History of Kraków Bourgeoisie

Summary/Abstract: In recent years Polish historiography has noted an enormous interest in both wills and post-mortal inventories. The former ones are an excellent source for the study of life of a society in the past centuries. Most of all, they provide a more detailed image of its mentality and religiosity. They are also helpful in reconstruction of the Materiały i źródła 121 testator’s family connections and his business activity (for instance through the analysis of property and wealth dispositions, lists of liabilities and debts). Post-mortal inventories in turn allow to familiarize oneself with both material (from the range of contemporaneous clothing, jewellery, armaments, furniture and interior decoration, etc.) as well as intellectual culture. They facilitate reconstruction of a person’s financial conditions, and also build the economic image of the period in question. Therefore the subject matter of this article are two wills and an inventory of Jadwiga and Marcin Mitkiewicz, who were the representatives of the baker’s trade of the 18th century Kraków. On the backdrop of other contemporaneous bakers the Mitkiewicz family stood out in terms of accrued wealth. According to the inventory its value was estimated to the sum of more than 10000 zlotys. Owing to these documents stored in the State Archives in Kraków it was possible to give more insight into the previously unknown history of one of many tradesman families from Kraków.

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