Samowole i swawole żołnierzy frejkompanii Franciszka Teodora Denhoffa w dobrach klarysek krakowskich pod koniec XVII w.
Acts of lawlessness among the soldiers of Franciszek Teodor Denhoff’s free company in the estates belonging to the Cracow-based Poor Clares

Summary/Abstract: In the 1690’s, in Umianowice and Wołoszczowice – two villages owned by the convent of the Cracow Poor Clares, located in the Sandomierz voivodeship – soldiers from the foreign infantry regiment, belonging to the Wiślica starost Franciszek Teodor Denhoff, were stationing at the so-called winter quarters. The starost had claimed the right to those villages as well as the revenue they generated. Hence, with his consent, the soldiers demanded payments in grain or money, and apart from that mercilessly pillaged and physically abused the subjects of the convent. In addition, they would rape women, and they forced an entry to a noble house, disregarding the fact that these felonies were punishable by death. Also, drunk soldiers sneered at the Catholic religion, mocking the ceremonies connected with the celebration of Corpus Christi. These events ended up in court, when the nuns, the nobility, and the peasants from the plundered villages sued the violators. The ones charged with the heaviest crimes were condemned to infamy and beheading, but it remains unknown whether the sentence was ever carried out. Starost Denhoff was punished by kondemnata (a sentence in absentia). He was also obliged to pay compensation for all the damage caused. The losses were made up for a few years later by Denhoff ’s widow, Katarzyna Potocka.

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