1. The history is edited in Grodecki, Roman, ed. and trans., Księga henrykowska. Liber Fundationis claustri sancte Marie Virginis in Heinrichow (Pozńan and Wrocław: Instytut Zachodni, 1949)Google Scholar, reissued with a new preface by Matuszewski, Józef and Matuszewski, Jacek as Liber Fundationis claustri sancte Marie Virginis in Heinrichow, czyli Ksiega henrykowska (Wrocław: Muzeum Archidiecezjalne we Wrocławiu, 1991)Google Scholar [hereafter K.H., with page references to the 1991 edition], and translated into English by Górecki, Piotr, A Local Society in Transition: The Henryków Book and Related Documents (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2000)Google Scholar, from which the Appendix is excerpted by permission. For the contexts of this document, see Matuszewski, Józef, Najstarsze polskie zdanie prozaiczne: zdanie hen-rykowskie i jego tlo historyczne [The oldest Polish sentence in prose: the sentence of Henryków and its historical background] (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1981)Google Scholar; Grüger, Heinrich, Heinrichau: Geschichte eines schlesischen Zisterzienserklosters, 1227–1977 (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1978)Google Scholar; Grüger, , “Das Patronatsrecht von Heinrichau,” Cîteaux 28 (1977): 26–41Google Scholar; Grüger, , “Das Volkstum der Bevölkerung in den Dörfern des Zisterzienserklosters Heinrichau um mittelschlesischen Vorgebirgslande vom 13.-15. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 27 (1978): 241–61Google Scholar; Bartlett, Robert, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 139–40, 154–55Google Scholar; Mularczyk, Jerzy, “Ze studiów nad prawem patronatu na śląsku w wiekach średnich” [Studies on the law of patronage in Silesia in the Middle Ages], Sobótka 32 (1977): 133–47Google Scholar; R. Aubert, “Henryków,” in Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographic ecclésiastiques, vol. 23, fasc. 136–37, col. 1279–85; Górecki, Piotr, “Ad Controversiam Reprimendam: Family Groups and Dispute Prevention in Medieval Poland, c. 1200,” Law and History Review 14 (1996): 213–43, at 220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Górecki, , “Rhetoric, Memory, and Use of the Past: Abbot Peter of Henryków as Historian and Advocate,” Cîteaux 48 (1997): 261–93Google Scholar; and Górecki, , “Communities of Legal Memory in Medieval Poland, c. 1200–1240,” Journal of Medieval History 24 (1998): 127–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 139 (n. 18), 140–46.

2. The detailed treatments of the structure of the source are Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 13–14, and Górecki, “Rhetoric,” 261–62, 265, 268.

3. Regrettably, our knowledge of Peter himself is limited to his own work and his continuator's identification of him as the author. The author was almost certainly the monastery's cellarer, or “monk,” by the same name, an important actor in his history during the 1240s, 1250s, and the early 1260s; Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 21–36, 83–84, 120–21. In conjunction, these identifications suggest the following biographical elements: (1) Peter was a German, familiar with, and strongly interested in, the Polish and German vernaculars of the population that interacted with his monastery; (2) he was relatively well-educated; and (3) he had played a succession of important roles within, and on behalf of, his monastic community before becoming abbot. In earlier work, I erroneously identify him as the fourth abbot of the monastery. Even though the succession of the earliest abbots is obscure, Peter is the third in that group actually identified by name. See Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 22.

4. Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 81–82; Górecki, “Rhetoric,” 266–68; Górecki, “Ad Controversiam” 220–21.

5. Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 221, n. 34.

6. Abbot Peter's history of this holding in its entirety is at K.H., chaps. 82–93, pp. 133–38; see Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 62–64; Kolańczyk, Kazimierz, Najdawniejsze polskie prawo spadkowe [The earliest Polish law of inheritance] (Poznań: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciól Nauk, 1939), 89Google Scholar; Górecki, Piotr, “Viator to Ascriptitius: Rural Economy, Lordship, and the Origins of Serfdom in Medieval Poland,” Slavic Review 42 (1983): 14–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 22–25; Górecki, “Communities,” 144–46; Górecki, , “Local Society and Legal Knowledge: A Case Study from the Henryków Region,” in Christianitas et Cultura Europae: Księga Jubileuszowa Profesora Jerzego Ktoczowskiego—Część I [Christianitas et Cultura Europae: Festschrift for Professor Jerzy Kloczowski—Part I], ed. Gapski, Henryk (Lublin: Instytut Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 1998), 544–50Google Scholar, at 548–49.

7. K.H., chaps. 84–89, pp. 135–36.

8. K.H., chap. 85, p. 135; for the texts in Latin and English of chaps. 85–90, relevant to the discussion below, please see the Appendix.

9. Or “ancestor” (avus)—ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., chap. 86, p. 135.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.; that monastery is described in Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 45, and Górecki, Piotr, Economy, Society, and Lordship in Medieval Poland, 1100–1250 (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992), 16.Google Scholar

14. K.H., chap. 86, pp. 135–36.

15. Ibid., p. 136.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. This working definition of a “norm” is adapted from John Hudson, John Comaroff, Simon Roberts, and Stephen White—so as to best accommodate the evidence and the range of issues that are most pertinent to thirteenth-century Poland; see Hudson, , Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 9–10Google Scholar; Comaroff, John and Roberts, Simon, Rules and Processes: The Cultural Logic of Dispute in an African Context (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 70–106Google Scholar; Comaroff, and Roberts, , “The Invocation of Norms in Dispute Settlement: The Tswana Case,” in Social Anthropology and Law, ed. Hamnett, Ian (London: Academic Press, 1977)Google Scholar; White, Stephen D., Custom, Kinship, and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 13–14, 16Google Scholar, and passim. In insisting on the importance of a declaratory proposition, I follow Comaroff and Roberts; otherwise, “norms” as a phenomenon are difficult to distinguish conceptually from nondeclaratory but meaningful expressions of right and wrong, such as custom, acculturation, basic patterns of thought, and other shorthands for a vague but powerful sense of right and wrong in a given society—in Land, Law, and Lordship, Hudson indeed appears to use “norm” interchangeably with these phenomena.

20. In contrast, an implicit or tacit invocation of a norm takes the form of a narration, argument, or conclusion that relies on the norm as an underlying assumption; these definitions are adapted from Comaroff and Roberts, Rules and Processes, 95–96, 262 (n. 19), and White, Stephen D., “Inheritances and Legal Arguments in Western France, 1050–1150,” Traditio 43 (1987): 55–103, at 79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. This formal schema of Peter's reasoning is one of the teasing glimpses, scattered throughout his work, of his learning, in this case in logic or dialectic; see Górecki, “Rhetoric,” 268–69, 271; Matuszewski, Najstarsze, 83, 87; and above all Stopka, Krzysztof, Szkoty katedralne metropolü gnieźnieńskiej w średniowieczu: Studia nad ksztalceniem kleru pol-skiego w wiekach średnich [Cathedral schools in the metropolitan province of Gniezno in the Middle Ages: Studies on the education of the Polish clergy in the medieval period] (Kraków: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, 1994), 158–59.Google Scholar

22. Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 220–21.

23. For the recurrence of the problem of inadequacy of any one particular approach, or of any one specific combination of approaches, in securing legal transactions, see Tabuteau, Emily Z., Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 113–15, 334 (n. 1)Google Scholar; White, Custom, 82–83; Rosenwein, Barbara, To Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of Cluny's Property, 909–1049 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 58–59Google Scholar; Geary, Patrick, “Vivre en conflit dans une France sans état: Typologie des méchanismes de règlement des conflits, 1050–1200,” Annales E. S. C. 41 (1986): 1107–33Google Scholar, translated as “Living with Conflicts in Stateless France: A Typology of Conflict Management Mechanisms,” in Geary, , Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 125–60, at 139Google Scholar; Bouchard, Constance Brittain, Holy Entrepreneurs: Cistercians, Knights, and Economic Exchange in Twelfth-Century Burgundy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 139Google Scholar; Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,’ 214–15.

24. John Hudson labels this approach the “piling up of methods of securing a gift” and implies an absence of an overarching or systematic pattern of their applications; Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 157–72, and this phrase at 229, 240. The phrase describes the Polish evidence exactly, despite the dramatic differences in the social and political realities between the two regions of Europe with which he and I are concerned. I am especially indebted to Tabuteau, Transfers, 113–210, and to her remarks as commentator on a version of this article in a panel at the 1998 A.S.L.H. meeting in Seattle. I have outlined several such approaches in earlier work: Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 215–17, 221–23, 226, 229–31, 234–42; “Rhetoric,” 274–78; “Communities,” 132–33, 137, 143–44, 146–51.

25. The terminology of inheritance and its modifications in thirteenth-century Polish documents require a treatment fuller than is possible within the context of this essay and than I have thus far carried out in “Ad Controversiam,” 215 (n. 10), 227–29. This essay rests on the following distinctions and working definitions of the expressions “inheritance” and “patrimony.” (1) I use the words interchangeably, to mean estates clearly identified by the documents as heritable. (2) However, Abbot Peter and his contemporaries used them in more complicated ways, (a) Patrimonium is rare, and used to connote the clearest possible heritability, as in Vincent's speech; for similar usage in Anglo-Norman England, see J. C. Holt, “Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: II. Notions of Patrimony,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 33 (1983): 193–220, at 198. (b) Usually, hereditas means the same thing, but with two important exceptions: a hereditas granted as an acquired estate may remain heritable by the grantor and does not necessarily become heritable by the recipient; and hereditas is sometimes a general term for any estate, regardless of provenance. (3) Therefore, we sometimes have identifications of acquired estates as hereditates, which is confusing when rendered in English—as in several cases cited below. In order to match contemporary meanings in particular cases, I sometimes further identify clearly heritable holdings as “ancestral estates.”

26. Dawson, John P., Gifts and Promises: Continental and American Law Compared (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 30–31, 34–35Google Scholar; Goody, Jack, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 107CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, “Inheritances,” 90–91; White, Custom, 54–55, 71, 119, 147; Tabuteau, Transfers, 101–2; Tabuteau, , “The Role of Law in the Succession to Normandy and England, 1087,” Haskins Society Journal 6 (1996): 141–69, at 155–61Google Scholar; Reynolds, Susan, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 76, 105, 400–402, 421–22Google Scholar; for Poland, Bardach, Juliusz, Historia państwa i prawa Polski [History of the state and law in Poland] (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1964), 290, 296–97Google Scholar, and, briefly, Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 215 (n. 10), 225.

27. As reflected in a kind of culturally based ontology of the relationship between people and land, classically described by Gurevich, Aron, “Représentations et attitudes à I'égard de la propriété pendant le haut moyen âge,” Annales E. S. C. 27 (1972): 523–47Google Scholar; or in “feelings of attachment” to land, noted by Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 150–51; or in the adoption of toponymic surnames by possessors of estates, described by Holt, “Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: I. The Revolution of 1066,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 32 (1982): 193–212, at 200–202, and Holt, , What's in a Name? Family Nomenclature and the Norman Conquest (Reading: University of Reading, 1982)Google Scholar; or, on the other hand, in the derivations of toponyms from personal names of possessors, and its significance over time, described by Górecki, “Communities,” 140–46, and Górecki, “Local Society.”

28. These considerations make up the patterns of heritability and alienability of estates in a particular society; examples include: Holt, J. C., “Politics and Property in Early Medieval England,” Past and Present, no. 57 (Nov., 1972): 3–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Landlords, Peasants and Politics in Medieval England, ed. Aston, T. H. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 65–114, at 99Google Scholar; White, Stephen, “Debate: Politics and Property in Early Medieval England—Succession to Fiefs in Early Medieval England,” Past and Present, no. 65 (Nov., 1974): 118–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Aston, ed., Landlords, 123–32; Holt, “The Revolution of 1066,” 195–99, 200–202; Holt, “Notions of Patrimony,” especially 193–96, 198–200, 204–6, 215–16; Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 66–85, 93–97, 103–31, 150–51; Hudson, , “La interpretación de disputas y resoluciones: El caso inglés, 1066–1135,” Hispania: Revista Española de Historia 57 (1997): 885–916Google Scholar; White, “Inheritances,” 58 (n. 10), 61–63, 89–96; White, , “The Discourse of Inheritance in Twelfth-Century France: Alternative Models of the Fief in ‘Raoul de Cambrai,’” in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt, ed. Garnett, George and Hudson, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 173–97.Google Scholar

29. Holt, “Notions of Patrimony,” 207–8; Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 60, 151, 209–10, 220, 224; Hudson, , The Formation of the English Common Law: Law and Society in England from the Norman Conquest to Magna Carta (London: Longman, 1996), 101.Google Scholar The presence and strength of lordship is perhaps the central issue affecting heritability and alienability of estates in Anglo-Norman England (as White notes in “Inheritances,” 58, n. 10, and Hudson throughout Land, Law, and Lordship), less central in Normandy and elsewhere in France, where familial constraints were somewhat more important (White, “Inheritances,” 90, n. 156, and throughout his Custom)—while in Poland comparison in this area requires a separate inquiry into several types of lordship, especially into ducal power as a variant of lordship.

30. For examples, see Holt, “Politics and Property,” 71–80, 82–83; Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 11, 110, 182–83; Nelson, Janet, “The Wary Widow,” in Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Davies, Wendy and Fouracre, Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 82–113, at 87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. See Holt and Tabuteau on the significance of the Norman Conquest for the distinction between acquisitions and inheritances in Anglo-Norman England: Holt, “Politics and Property,” 80–83, “The Revolution of 1066,” 197–98, 204–06; and “Notions of Patrimony,” 213–14; Tabuteau, “Role of Law,” 156–57.

32. Bardach, Historia, 290, 296–97, 306; Bardach, Juliusz, Leśnodorski, Boguslaw, and Pietrzak, Michal, Historia państwa i prawa polskiego [History of the Polish state and law] (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1979), 142.Google Scholar

33. In general, here I agree with Mularczyk, Jerzy, Wladza książęca na Śląsku w XIII wieku [Ducal power in Silesia in the thirteenth century] (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 1984), 45–52.Google Scholar Although I share Mularczyk's skepticism about the normative force of the rule Abbot Peter articulated through Vincent, I think the critique of Peter's monastic history within which he situates his skepticism is so sharp that it borders on dismissing this source.

34. Hoffmann, Richard C., Land, Liberties, and Lordship in a Late Medieval Countryside: Agrarian Structures and Change in the Duchy of Wrocław (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 61–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bartlett, Making, 30–39, 106–66; Knoll, Paul, “The Urban Development of Medieval Poland, with Particular Reference to Kraków,” in Urban Society of Eastern Europe in Premodern Times, ed. Krekić, Bariša (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 63–136, at 70–76Google Scholar; Górecki, Economy, 193–282.

35. The mid-century was, among other things, an early period of adaptation of “German law,” as an abstract and learned system, in a number of directions, and of recognition of “German” and “Polish” laws as substantively analogous systems; see Górecki, Economy, 275–82.

36. For the working definition of heritability as a strong expectation of succession as a matter of course, and for the types of evidence used (and questions asked) in assessing heritability, I am especially indebted to Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 69–153.

37. Reynolds, Fiefs, 105, 401; Holt, “Politics and Property,” 75, 77.

38. Such dynamics include law making, or law finding, and one straightforward approach to them is to examine the “sources of law” in a positive sense—that is, legislation or other authoritative compilations—for which see Kaiser, Daniel, The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 18–61.Google Scholar However, use of authoritative texts as “sources” is difficult for those societies that did not produce (or retain) such texts, and so historians and anthropologists have looked to “sources” of norms outside texts, and within practice over time, within a framework largely indebted to Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu; see Comaroff and Roberts, “Tswana Case,” 86–87; White, “Discourse” 177–78, nn. 9, 12.

39. The most straightforward, but currently rather traditional, approach to this issue is to inquire into the degree to which the norms as articulated on their face are implemented, or enforced; for a critique of the “positivist” variant of this approach, and for more complex approaches, see most recently Hudson, “La interpretatión,” especially 903–13.

40. The use of norm as a strategic resource is most recently treated in an important article by Brown, Warren, “The Use of Norms in Disputes in Early Medieval Bavaria,” Viator 30 (1999): 15–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; this approach emerges, ultimately, from the literature on the “processual” and the “normative” paradigms toward the study of law in past societies, for which see Simon Roberts, “The Study of Dispute: Anthropological Perspectives,” in Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, ed. Bossy, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–24Google Scholar; Comaroff and Roberts, “Tswana Case,” 86–87, 105–9; Comaroff and Roberts, Rules and Processes, 84–106, 216–42; White, Custom, 73, 145–49. I am very grateful to Warren Brown for making his article available to me before its publication.

41. Tabuteau, Transfers, 114–15; White, Custom, 80–81; Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 215–16 (n. 11); perhaps best summarized by Barthélémy, Dominique, La société dans le comté de Vendôme de l'an mil au XIV siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1993), 653Google Scholar: “le rappel à la loi, à des fragments de loi, n'est pas sans effet: simplement, il n'est que le prélude à un travail de conciliation” —though the last point may perhaps be a bit optimistic. In some recent reflections, the intrinsic significance of norms (substantive and procedural) appears to be minimized in favor of the strategic, processual, or consensus-driven; Davies and Fouracre, eds., Property and Power, 2; White, Stephen, “Proposing the Ordeal and Avoiding It: Strategy and Power in Western French Litigation, 1050–1100,” in Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Bisson, Thomas (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 89–123.Google Scholar

42. Making up what Stephen White might call the discourse of property, succession, and inheritance in thirteenth-century Poland. See White, “Discourse,” and for discourse in the context of social control (more explicitly indebted to Foucault), see White, “Proposing the Ordeal,” 90–91.

43. Schlesisches Urkundenbuch, ed. Appelt, Heinrich and Irgang, Winfried, 6 vols. (Graz and Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 1963–1998)Google Scholar [hereafter S.U,] 1:no. 83 (1202–3), p. 55; 2:no. 196 (1240), p. 124; no. 265 (1244), p. 160; no. 388 (1250), p. 246; no. 409 (1250), pp. 256–57; 3:no. 127 (1254), pp. 91–92; no. 267 (1258), pp. 176–77; no. 327 (1260), pp. 215–16; Kodeks dyplomatyczny Malopolski, ed. Franciszek Piekosiński, 2 vols. (Kraków: Akademia Umiejęt-ności, 1876–86, repr. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1965) [hereafter K.Mp.], 2:no. 456 (1260), pp. 111–12; S.U., 3:no. 490 (1264), p. 316; 4:no. 1 (1267), p. 1.

44. Codex diplomatics et commemorationum Masoviae. Zbiór ogólny przywilejów i spominków mazowieckich, ed. Korwin-Kochanowski, Jan Konrad (Warsaw: Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawskie, 1919)Google Scholar [hereafter K.Maz.], no. 117 (1185–86), pp. 112–13; on this document, see Kolańczyk, Najdawniejsze, 83; and Abraham, Wladyslaw, Zawarcie malieństwa w pierwotnem prawie polskiem [Entrance into marriage under the earliest Polish law] (Lwów: Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1925), 23, n. 2.Google Scholar

45. K.Maz., no. 117 (1185–86), p. 112, lines 25–26.

46. Ibid., p. 113, lines 2–7: “offero igitur et offerendo confirmo … villas quas sudore servicii mei acquisivi videlicet Partici, Psonina, Cransi, Dransowo … hiis etiam Shupno cum ecclesia quam avia mea Drobromila ab heredibus XXX marcis argenti comparavit, adiungere curavi.”

47. K.Mp., 2:no. 436 (1252), pp. 85–86 (in 1252, Duke Boleslaw the Chaste of Little Poland and his mother Grzymislawa extend immunity over omnes hereditates supradicti comitis dementis patrimoniales, deseruite etpecunia comparate); no. 456 (1260), pp. 111–12 (medietatem hereditatis que Vsua nuncupatur quam … de bonis meis comparaui confero eidem filie mee cum omnibus utilitatibus possidentam); S.U., 3:no. 327 (1260), pp. 215–16 (quam villam comes Iohannes … a Berwico sua pecunia comparaverat).

48. Kodeks dyplomatyczny Wielkopolski, ed. Zakrzewski, Ignacy and Piekosiński, Franciszek, 4 vols. (Poznań: Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciól Nauk, 1877–1908)Google Scholar, vol. 1 [hereafter K.Wp.], no. 130 (1231), p. 117.

49. S.U., 3:no. 230 (1257), p. 154, lines 31–35, 38: an exchange by Godehardu[s] mil[es] … et … frater eius of a heredita[s] ipsorum quam a patre et ab auuo necnon ab attavo eorum possidebant pro alia hereditate mutarent, subsequently identified as [p]redicti … militis … etfratris sui hereditas etpatris eorum et avi, as heredita[s] quam a patre eorum possidebant, and as eorum heredita[s] quam a patre retinebant.

50. Only Palatine Żyra explicitly addressed the issue of security of the monastery's possession of the recorded estates, but in thoroughly conventional and general terms, without reference to what he said about provenance; K.Maz., no. 117 (1185–86), p. 112, lines 21–24.

51. E.g., S.U., 1:no. 291 (1228), p. 215: cum comite Clemente meo fideli tunc palatine.

52. K.Maz., no. 450 (1244), p. 540, lines 23–24, 36, 28 (milites nostros Henricum, Martinum et Woynonem); S.U., 2:no. 311 (1246), p. 186, line 39 (Zbroslaw and Matthew, barones nostri); no. 352 (1248), p. 222, line 31 (Wróciwój, miles noster); no. 380 (1249), p. 240, line 46 (Smil, noster miles); 3:no. 25 (1251), p. 30, line 39 (sons of Wojciech, , milites nostri); Kodeks dyplomatyczny katedry krakowskiej ś. Waclawa, ed. Piekosiński, Franciszek (Kraków: Akademia Umiejetności, 1875, repr. New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1965)Google Scholar [hereafter K.K.Kr.], no. 63 (1262), p. 85 (Dzierżykraj, miles fidelis noster).

53. S.U., 1:no. 167 (1217), p. 119 (servientium hominibus); no. 255 (1225), pp. 186–87 (John, minister noster); K.Maz., no. 448 (1244), p. 538, lines 26, 32–33, 35 (Ratiborium et Albertum bonos meos seruitores …, predictos seruitores Ratiborium et albertum …, [d]o eciam seruitoribus meis); no. 450 (1244), p. 540, lines 23–24, 36, 28 (milites nostros Henricum, Martinum et Woynonem…, iam dictis seruitoribus meis …, hijdem seruitores mei); S.U., 3:no. 55 (1253), p. 47, line 5 (Siegfried, noster famulus); no. 192 (1256), p. 130, lines 42–43 (Jasso, ministerialis noster); 4:no. 18 (1267), p. 25, line (Albeit, noster balistarius et minister); no. 34 (1267), p. 34, line 35 (Cursicus, serviens noster).

54. S.U., 1:no. 291 (1228), p. 215 (cum comite Clemente meofideli tune palatine); 2:no. 257 (1243), p. 154, line 48 (Arnold, providusvir…, scultetus et familiaris noster); S.U., 3:no. 247 (1257), p. 164, lines 17–18 (Otto, notarius curie nostre); no. 440 (1263), p. 290, lines 7, 11, 18 (Peter, procurator noster; villicus; scultetus); 4:no. 17 (1267), p. 24, line 40 (Henry, clypeator noster); no. 18 (1267), p. 25, line 16 (Albert, noster balistarius et minister).

55. Ibid., 1:no. 167 (1217), p. 119; no. 247 (1224), p. 181.

56. The populations designated by these epithets can be subdivided into four groups: (1) the “knights” (milites), or the holders of “knightly law” (ius militare); (2) several kinds of people who performed specified service for the dukes and for other important lords, and whose status was defined in terms of that function; (3) seigneurial managers of landed estates, including above all German settlement entrepreneurs (sculteti and advocati); and (4) clergy. For these groups, see Górecki, Economy, 24–25, 69–71, 73–78, 80–85, 105–8, 151, 181–86, 196, 208–30; Górecki, , Parishes, Tithes and Society in Earlier Medieval Poland, c. 1100–1250 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1993), 102–3, 105–15, 122Google Scholar; for group (1), see Górecki, , “Words, Concepts, and Phenomena: Knighthood, Lordship, and the Early Polish Nobility, c. 1100–c. 1350,” in Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins, Transformations, ed. Duggan, Anne (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2000), 115–55Google Scholar, and the literature cited at 115–16, n. 2.

57. The remainder refers to a wide range of specific functions performed by the recipients for the duke, including what has been called the “service” population of several kinds, of which the classic treatment is Modzelewski, Karol, “La division autarchique du travail à l'échelle d'un état: l'organisation ‘ministériale’ en Pologne médiévale,” Annales E. S. C. 19 (1964): 1125–38.Google Scholar Perhaps the “ducal peasants” to whom Abbot Peter referred in the story of Glebowice (and in other passages of his history), who had briefly regained Glebowice from the monastery, had been one such group of inhabitants in a fairly distant past; see Górecki, “Viator to Ascriptitius,” 24.

58. For what follows concerning the populations identified in terms of knighthood and service—especially in matters of proprietary, ethical, and political balance between donors and recipients—see, briefly, Górecki, Economy, 185–86, and, at more length, Górecki, “Words,” 134–43.

59. S.U., 1:no. 77 (1202), p. 50: “Godek… servicialis patris mei villam que Godcouo dicitur a patre meo pro suo sibi datam servicio cum assensu eiusdem in Lubens contulit.”

60. Ibid., 2:no. 79 (1234), p. 51, line 24 (fidelitatis ipsius erga nos intuitu et obsequii respectu); no. 311 (1246), p. 186, line 39 (pro fideli servicio dilectorum baronum nostrorum); no. 352 (1248), p. 222, lines 31–32 (Vrocowoyo militi nostro respectu servitiorum que fecit nobis et antecessori nostro); 3:no. 32 (1252), p. 34, line 17 (perspectis eiusdem obsequüs fidelibus et immensis); no. 213 (1257), p. 144, lines 4–6 (conspicientes fidele obsequium comitis lanusü).

61. Very few documents described estates acquired through service as possessions conditional on the possessors' performance of future service to the donor, or indeed otherwise associated with any obligation by the possessor to the donor. The emphasis of the documents is on the recipient's entitlement, not future obligation.

62. S.U., 1:no. 167 (1217), p. 119 (“Ut autem libertas mea circa personam predicti domini Sebastiani capellani et fratris eius Gregorü non stringatur sed amplificetur, concedo et donoipsis Milowanow et Virk in perpetuum”); K.Mp., 1:no. 79 (1270), p. 96 (inclinati fidelitate continua meritorum eorumdem H. et P…, cupiendo beneficia nostre nobilitatis crescere in eisdem [Boleslaw supplements the grant]); S.U., 2:no. 37 (1233), p. 25, lines 37–38 ([i]n defensione… terre [the settlers], ut eo validius hostilis incursio reprimatur, proprüs sumptibus adesse tenentur); no. 86 (1234), p. 57, lines 8–9 (“Contulimus … sculteto tabernam in ville predicta … ut eo studiosius et fldelius sit claustro servitüs preparatus”).

63. S.U., 1:no. 167 (1217), p. 119; K.Mp., 2:no. 425 (1244), p. 73 (nos qui ex officio suscepti regiminis nostri tenemur merita mentis preuenire et dignam dignis seruicüs reddere recompensam, idea pro fidelibus suis seruicüs [Boleslaw makes the grant]); similar formulas in no. 436 (1252), p. 86; K.K.Kr., no. 63 (1262), p. 85; K.Mp., 1:no. 79 (1270), p. 95; S.U., 3:no. 55 (1273), p. 47, lines 5–6 (ut sui laboris et servicü recipiant a nobis debitam recompensacionem).

64. K.H., chap. 85, p. 135; for the Latin text, see Appendix, 519.

65. That is, without intervening steps in the process of succession—comparable, perhaps, to the renewals of homage and fealty in the context of succession to fiefs, for which see Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship.

66. S.U., 2:no. 245 (1243), p. 148, lines 17–20 (grant of the village of Biala to Janusz, sibiheredibusque suis iure contulimus hereditario possidendam); no. 311 (1246), p. 186, lines 38–44 (grant of three sortes for Zbroslaw and Matthew et posteris eorum iure hereditario possidentes); 3:no. 32 (1252), p. 34, lines 15–17 (village granted to Paul hereditarie possidendam); no. 55 (1253), p. 47, lines 4—10 (several localities to Bethold iure hereditario conferimus perpetuo possidendas sum suis pertinencüs unversis); no. 105 (1253), p. 78, lines 15–18 (Olric, the knight, receives in an exchange Otok, ei suisque pueris liberis hereditarie possidendam); no. 142 (1254), p. 100, lines 26–29 (grant of town to be settled/expanded to Henry et suis posteris iure hereditario in perpetuum possidendam); no. 213 (1257), p. 144, lines 4–7 (grant to Janusz of a village, tam ab ipso quam a suis successoribus iure hereditario inperpetuum possidendam concessimus et donamus); S.U., 3:no. 351 (1261), p. 229, line 16 (grant of a village and German law, to Drzesko, sibi et suis heredibus iure hereditario possidenda); K.K.Kr., no. 63 (1262), pp. 85–86 (grant to Dzierżykraj and Vison of a forest, which “ipsisque eorum liberis heredibus et legittimis successoribus conferimus, damus, tradimus et confirmamus, … iure perpetuo hereditarie possidendam,” and another locality ipsis eorumque posteritati); KMp., 1:no. 79 (1270), p. 96 (a grant of Bojków to Hensir and Peter iure hereditario pacifice ac quiete in perpetuum possidendam, and of Bojków, Dubie, rights to recruit settlers, and liberty, similiter iure hereditario donamus).

67. S.U., 3:no. 204 (1256), p. 138, line 42–p. 139, line 5 (exchange of a village with Goslaw the knight and his nephews, eis et eorum heredibus … ut sit eis in perpetuam hereditatem).

68. S.U., 2:no. 245 (1243), p. 148, lines 17–20; no. 380 (1249), p. 240, line 45–p. 241, line 1 (grant of a village and German law to the knight Smilo sibi et suis heredibus perpetuo possidendam eiusdem ville plenum dominium habens); 3: no. 127 (1254), p. 91, lines 37–46 (sale of a village to Nicholas, ipsi et suis heredibus sive successoribus); no. 204 (1256), p. 138, line 42–p. 139, line 5 (exchange of a village with Goslaw the knight and his nephews, eis et eorum heredibus … ut sit eis in perpetuam hereditatem); no. 351 (1261), p. 229, line 16; K.K.Kr., no. 63 (1262), pp. 85–86; S.U., 4:no. 2 (1251–62), p. 15, lines 28–30 (grant of a village and German law, to Godyslaw, knight: dedimus ei et suis heredibus villam nostram).

69. S.U., 2:no. 224 (1241), p. 136, line 23 (grant of estate with German law comitis Mrochconi et suis posteris); no. 311 (1246), p. 186, lines 38–44; 3:no. 142 (1254), p. 100, lines 26–29.

70. S.U., 1:no. 255 (1225), pp. 186–87 (area of arable for John and [q]uicunque successor eius fuerit); 3:no. 127 (1254), p. 91, lines 37–46; no. 213 (1257), p. 144, lines 4–7; K.K.Kr., no. 63 (1262), pp. 85–86; S.U., 4:no. 66 (1268), p. 58, lines 14–15 (grant of arable to Albert: in perpetuum dedimus sibi et suis successoribus possidendos).

71. S.U., 2:no. 136 (1237), p. 89, lines 18–19 (an estate to be cleared in a forest granted to Conrad vel eius linea de ipso progrediens legitima); no. 352 (1248), p. 222, lines 31–33 (grant of revenue from a village Vrociwoyo militi nostro … ut eius et filiorum suorum sit census); 3:no. 105 (1253), p. 78, lines 15–18; K.K.Kr., no. 63 (1262), p. 86.

72. S.U., 1:no. 210 (1221), p. 154 (grant of village of Budzów and liberty to Menold, ipsi et heredibus suis vel cuicumque inposterum vendere voluerit); similar formulas in: no. 255 (1225), p. 187 ([q]uicumque successor eiusfuerit sive ab eo emerit); 2:no. 380 (1249), p. 241, lines 5–8; 3:no. 55 (1253), p. 47, lines 8–10 (“ipsis iure hereditario conferimus perpetuo possidendas cum suis pertinenciis universis ita quod tam in vita quam in morte possint de predictis hereditatibus libere disponere vendendo vel dando pro sue beneplacito voluntatis”).

73. S.U., 3: no. 55 (1253), p. 47, lines 8–10; no. 105 (1253), p. 78, lines 16–18; see also no. 127 (1254), p. 91, lines 42–44; no. 436 (1263), p. 288, lines 1–3; no. 490 (1264), p. 316, lines 9–11; 4:no. 66 (1268), p. 58, lines 14–19; K.Mp., 1:no. 79 (1270), p. 96.

74. S.U., 2;no. 49 (1233), p. 33; 3:no. 48 (1252), p. 43, lines 22–23 (“suisque heredibus seu cuicumque in posterum vendere voluerint hereditario iure perpetuo libere possidendum”).

75. K.Mp., 1:no. 13 (1231), p. 20.

76. S.U., 2:no. 79 (1234), p. 51, lines 25, 28–29.

77. K.Mp., 1:no. 26 (1243), p. 32.

78. Slight and circumstantial, to be sure; see Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 232–33 (Bronisz and his wife), 235–38 (Dzieržko's case).

79. For uncertainties and ambiguities of agency in such cases, see Stafford, Pauline, “Women and the Norman Conquest,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 4 (1994): 221–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson, “Wary Widow,” 93, 95–101; Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 231–43. Earlier in this century, Lesinski and Abraham have usefully discussed several instances of acquisitions by women, but did not explore the issues of agency and power of more current interest; Lesiński, Bogdan, Stanowisko kobiety w polskim prawie ziemskim do polowy XV wieku [The position of the woman in Polish common law until the mid-fifteenth century] (Wrocław: Ossolineum, 1956), 38–40Google Scholar, and Abraham, Zawarcie, 23, n. 2.

80. S.U., 1:no. 115 (1208), p. 81.

81. K.K.Kr., no. 65 (1266), p. 90.

82. S.U., 1:no. 77 (1202), p. 50.

83. Ibid.; on this controversy and its basis, see Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 223–26, and Kolańczyk, Najdawniejsze, 36–37, 41–42, 76–77.

84. U.S.U., 1:no. 77 (1202), p. 50.

85. Ibid., no. 247 (1224), p. 181; for a brief summary of this case, see Kolańczyk, Najdawniejsze, 38.

86. K.Mp., 2:no. 434 (1251), p. 84: “omnes hereditates quas donacione nostra uel patris nostri bone memorie ducis Lestkonis seu qualibet legitima taxacione acquisiuit, sibi omnibusque successoribus suis confirmamus, dantes ei liberum arbitrium commutare, posteris relinquere, seu pro remedio anime sue ecclesie donare, nulla obstante filiorum uel consanguineorum suorum contradiccione.” Please note that here and in Chociemir's case, discussed below (Latin text below, at nn. 99–100, 102–3), omnes hereditates seems to refer to all components of a recipient's estate, regardless of provenance, as explained in the brief comments in the terminology of inheritance and its modifications in Poland, at n. 25 above.

87. Ibid.: “Prefatus … Wierzgo zelo caritatis inductus in nostra presencia et cum nostro consensu et fauore fauente et adstante fratre ipsius comite Gytone nee non et filio eius comite Woyzlao unam de suis hereditatibus quam tempore patris nostri pacifice et sine imped-imento possedit fratribus sancti Sepulchri … pro summe pecunie CCC marcarum puri argenti contulit, hereditario iure possidendam.”

88. Ibid.: “Quod si filius eius Woyzlaus predictus earn ad suos usus reuocare uoluerit datis CCC marcis puri argenti prefate domui nominata hereditate suam dotabit posteritatem; alioquin fratres dicte domus … sine omni strepitu calumnie eandem in perpetuum possidebunt.”

89. This provision seems to be a clear example of yet another expression of familial interest in the alienation of estates (in addition to the patterns of familial involvement I discussed in “Ad Controversiam,” i.e., consent, partition, and interspousal gifts)—namely, the rétrait lignager, allowing one or more family members a right to repurchase the alienated estate or some portion of it, typically within a specified period, and under specified circumstances; White, Custom, 179. Despite the clarity of this instance, this type of familial involvement is recorded very infrequently; significantly, on this occasion it was used in the context of alienation of acquisitions, rather than ancestral estates. I am grateful to one of the anonymous readers of this essay for alerting me to this connection.

90. Long ago, Kolańczyk (Najdawniejsze, 78–79) thought that this document reflected an actual tension, but his perception may have been an artifact of his own formal legal reasoning. Whether the contemporaries actually recognized this tension, and, if so, in what ways, is a concern of the rest of this essay.

91. Górecki, “Ad Controversiam,” 222.

92. Tabuteau, “Role of Law,” 156–57.

93. S.U., 3:no. 50 (1252), p. 44, lines 13–17: “dominus Zdislaus custos ecclesie Wratislauiensis olim sub temporibus avi nostri Henrici bone memorie ducis Slesie et eciam sub temporibus pie recordacionis Henrici patris nostri fllii supradicti ducis contulit villam suam Zarouinam ecclesie beat Iohannis in Wratislauia quam adeptus est suo honesto servicio apud ambos duces memoratos.”

94. Ibid., lines 17–18.

95. Ibid., lines 19–21.

96. Ibid., lines 21–24: “quas eciam addidit ecclesie sepedicte coram nobis accedente super hoc fratris sui Strese militis consensu et omnium consanguineorum suorum qui tamen nullum ius in eadem villa habere quoad successionem patrimonio debitam dinoscuntur.”

97. K.Mp., 2:no. 389 (1224), p. 33; there are two brief summaries of this case in Kolańczyk, Najdawniejsze, 38, 64–65.

98. K.Mp., 2:no. 404 (1232), p. 50; for useful sketches of this case—which, however, do not resolve the substantive idiosyncrasies of Pakoslaw's words—see Zientara, Benedykt, Henryk Brodaty i jego czasy [Henry the Bearded and his times], 2nd ed. (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo TRIO, 1997), 308Google Scholar, and Kolańczyk, Najdawniejsze, 78.

99. K.Mp., 2:no. 389 (1224), p. 32: “ne cuiquam super hac nostra donacione dubietatis scrupulus remaneat in futurum, nouerint uniuersi quod noverint universi quod cum dictam hereditatem Lan. Chocemiro olim de nostra gracia contulissemus…. quam pro suis seruiciis a nobis acceperat.”

100. Ibid., pp. 32–33: “earn pro tempore possedisset, idem Chocemirus graui quadam necessitate constrictus loco eiusdem hereditatis quam pro suis seruiciis a nobis acceperat de nostra permissione et ordinacione recepit ab abbate … octoginta marcas … argenti et quinque Erfordienses … omni iuri suo quod habere poterat in predicta hereditate penitus renunciando.”

101. Or, possibly, “at the beginning”; please see Latin original immediately below.

102. Ibid., p. 33: “Insuper cum in nostra presencia super eadem heretitate aquam abrenunciacionis bibisset accedens huna [sic] cum filiis suis Nicolao et Leonardo sepedictam hereditatem in manus nostras prenominatus Chocemir, quia ab inicio ducalis fuerat, voluntarie resignavit.”

103. Ibid.: “Nos autem … hereditatem Lanchina prefato abbati et eius monasterio appropriamus libere et perpetuo possidendam.”

104. Matuszewski, Józef, “Aqua abrenuntiationis: studium z średniowiecznego prawa prywatnego” [The aqua abrenuntiationis: a study in medieval private law], Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne 4 (1952): 164–237Google Scholar (French summary, 234–37); Adamus, Jan, “Wzdanie a symbol aqua abrenuntiationis” [The conveyance and the symbol of the aqua abrenuntiationis], Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne 7 (1955): 409–19Google Scholar; Bardach, Historia, 301, n. 47.

105. K.Mp., 2:no. 404 (1232), p. 50: “uilla data per me sancto Sepulchre non est obnoxialis que mihi ab intestate succederet, possessio enim dicte uille deuenit ad me tamquam aduenticia, non ad me perueniens ex paterna hereditate et ob hoc ad suos non transferetur heredes.”

106. In his work of 1939, Kolańczyk maintained, not very helpfully, that Pakoslaw's entire rationale was borrowed from “Roman law,” but did not explain what that meant (Najdawniejsze, 78).

107. K.Mp., 2:no. 404 (1232), p. 50: “dedi uillam in subsidium sancte terre Vdorz nomine et prepositum de Miechow … nomine ecclesie Hierosolymitane heredem institui … Quisquis igitur hoc pium factum conatus fuerit infringere, Dei omnipotentis indignacionem incurrat et sciat se non hominem uelle exhereditare sed ipsum Dominum quern in suis ministris heredem institui”.

108. K.H., chap. 87, p. 136.

109. Ibid., chap. 89, p. 137.

110. On the ceremony and significance of boundary perambulation, see Myśliwski, Grzegorz, “Boundary Delimitation in Medieval Poland,” in Historical Reflections on Central Europe: Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 1995, ed. Kirschbaum, Stanislav (Houndmills: Macmillan, 1999), 27–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Górecki, “Communities,” 132–33, 146–51.

111. K.H., chap. 88–89, p. 137.

112. I have examined Peter's uses of the past, including his division between the past and the present in legal and ethical terms, in Górecki, “Rhetoric,” especially 266, 277–78, with particular debt to Coleman, Janet, “Memory and Its Uses: The Relationship between a Theory of Memory and Twelfth-Century Historiography,” in Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 274–324CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Clanchy, Michael, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066–1307, 2d ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)Google Scholar, and Clanchy, , “Remembering the Past and the Good Old Law,” History 55 (1970): 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

113. See the case of Wierzgo and his estate of Lacko, at nn. 87–88 above.

114. K.H., chap. 90, p. 137.

115. S.U., 3:no. 230 (1257), p. 154, cited in n. 49 above.

116. Górecki, Economy, 168–69 (peasant status ascertained back to the generations of “grandfathers and great-grandfathers” [avi et attavi]), 179–80 (legitimacy of a punishment ascertained in terms of the past two generations of dukes); see also the statement Peter attributed to a group of peasants, concerning their avus, cited above at n. 9. I am especially indebted to Grzegorz Myśliwski for his remarks, in a private communication, on the significance of two generations, going back to ego's grandfather, as a benchmark of property rights in medieval Poland.

117. White, “Discourse.”

118. As Reynolds notes in connection with another medieval society, “[a]fter acquired property had been inherited once it must have been liable to be absorbed in the rest of the inheritance so that heirs would resent being deprived of it” (Fiefs, 105). The question posed by the medieval Polish evidence concerns the meaning and the dynamics of that “liability,” “absorption,” and “resentment,” to and among the contemporaries.

119. Compare the later medieval adaptation—to be sure, in the very different context of academic law—of what was on its face a somewhat limited tenure, the feudum, into an estate most closely corresponding to what might be called full property, described in Reynolds, Fiefs, 68–70, 207–40, 256–57, 295–322, 353–85.

120. For primeval emptiness in contemporary Poland as a political construct, especially in the context of Cistercian ideology, see Górecki, Economy, 8, 34–35 (n. 32), 272–74. For the broader ideological significance, and patterns of interpretation, of European frontier phenomena, see Bartlett, Making, 84–105, 154–55, and Bartlett, , Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 158–210.Google Scholar

121. Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 229, 240.

122. For more on Peter's categories of truth, plausibility, verisimilitude, and their uses, see Górecki, “Rhetoric,” 267, n. 34.

123. Comaroff and Roberts, “Tswana Case,” 86–87.

124. Although it differs from it, this definition of “norm,” “rule,” and the relationship among them is indebted to Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship, 10. In the context of Abbot Peter's reality, a “norm” could hardly become a “rule” when it was “regularly enforced by superior authority,” because that “superior authority” was largely absent; instead, Peter sought to endow his norm with the status of a “rule” by presenting it as if it commanded the kind of authority Hudson used in his definition.

125. “German law” and its impact are only one example, though an especially important one; much of my Economy concerns the other broad areas, though I have yet to situate the change in the conceptual context of the expansion of literacy.

126. Please note that one part of the circumstances narrated here is more complex in the original than in the paraphrase in my own text, at note 108 above —namely, the role of Nicholas, to whom I have not referred in the present article. This person was a significant benefactor of the monastery on the eve of its foundation and earlier in the history of the holding of Głębowice. His role affects the proprietary history of that holding prior to the transactions in which Stephen Kobylagłowa was involved, but not (at least in any demonstrable way) Stephen's title to that holding between 1227 and 1234, and thus the core point of departure for the present essay. I have examined the roles of Nicholas, and other elements of the regional history before 1227 of which Nicholas was a part, in several of my articles cited above.