„Tabella miast, wsi i osad Królestwa Polskiego” jako źródło do badań nad strukturą parafialną województwa lubelskiego
The “Tabella of Towns, Villages and Settlements of the Kingdom of Poland” as the Source for Research into the Parochial Structure of the Lublin Voivodeship

Summary/Abstract: The present article is an attempt to assess the usefulness of the Tabella of Towns, Villages and Settlements of the Kingdom of Poland for the purposes of research into parochial structures. Studies aimed at a reconstruction of parochial districts have abounded in Polish historiography. The vast majority of them referred to periods for which sources of a church provenience were available. What strikes in expert literature is the lack of representation of the parochial districts of the Lublin diocese from the 1st half of the 19th c., which most probably stems from the lack of church provenience sources for that period. Here, with reliance on geographical-historical and statistical analysis the author attempted to verify the information included in the present source. Tabella was compared and contrasted with Quartermaster map and contemporary publications. The process enabled the author to verify the source, allowing, too, for quite a meticulous reconstruction of the borders of state and church administration. Apart from information on a given location’s administrative affiliation, the investigated source includes very valuable demographic and statistical data. However, the critique of the source revealed its many flaws and imprecisions which call for extended scrutiny and research. In particular, what needs to be clarified, is the numerosity of the parish whose value diverges from the hitherto established values. The Tabella’s inaccuracy refers also to toponomastic errors and erroneous information related to parochial affiliations. All in all, despite the Tabella’s many assets, the author’s conclusion is that it cannot be relied upon as the singular source for reconstructing parochial structures of the Lublin diocese in the 1st half of the 19th c.

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