Znaczenie tytulatury książąt brzeskich w świetle kopiarza Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus 5105
The importance of titles of dukes of Brzeg in the light of cartulary Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus 5105

Summary/Abstract: From the end of the fourteenth century dukes of Legnica and Brzeg used different, and often changeable intitulation, as they were named as the rules of Oława, Lubin, Niemcza, Kluczborg etc., which – according to historians – meant changes in territorial structure of the duchy and political transformations.The purpose of the present text is to indicate the relationship between the intitulation of Silesian rulers and the legal aspect of a document, and to point out that conclusions drawn on the basis of titles written in documents as to the political divisions are often unjustified.Such are the conclusions drawn from the analysis of the Codex Vindobonensis Palatinus, containing the fifteenth-century cartulary of documents related to Saint Hedwig collegiate church at Brzeg, systematised mainly on a geographical basis. From among 722 documents I have analysed the titles in 200 documents issued by the dukes of Brzeg from the period between 1352 and 1479. An analysis of those titles suggests that they were related to the content of the charters, and precisely to the provincial district (Weichbild) of the village or town of the relevant transaction, which – in turn – confirms the duke’s jurisdiction over the area. It was called Weichbild titles, while the titles related to the whole duchy were ducal titles.The titles related to the Weichbild were used increasingly often in the 1370s (see the table in the text), mainly in the chancellery of Duke Louis I of Brzeg, after the imposition in the principality the joint family ownership (niedział). The relation between the intitulation of the duke and the document content revealed in the text indicates the need for greater caution in interpreting the existence of smaller “principalities” within the Duchy of Legnica and Brzeg only on this basis, for it is almost certain that those “principalities” were in fact the Weichbild districts administered by the members of the Piasts of Legnica and Brzeg.

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