The Svistelnitskies-Zheliborskies and the Skomrokhskies-Novitskies in Galicia of the 15th century: Different fates of Polish gentry of Rusinian origin

Abstract

The article deals with the genealogy of two wealthy noble families of Rusinian origin in Galicia of Ruthenian Voivodeship of the Polish Kingdom in the 15th century (the east of Galicia, now mainly Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine). The rise of the first family is connected with the land grant of 1385, while the other began to rise when its progenitor assumed the position of the Galician judge in the late 14th – early 15th centuries. The author studied the history of these two families in the 15th century, including family ties, land holdings, relations with neighbours. The Svistelnitskies Zheliborskies continued their history after the 15th century. Several members of this family were Galician Orthodox bishops in the 16th–17th centuries. The family tree of the Skomrokhskies-Novitskies died out in the late 15th century for various reasons. The history of the two families suggests that historians erroneously exaggerated the size of land wealth and the number of Galician boyars in the 13th – 14th centuries and their descendants – Polish gentry of Ruthenian origin. There were no more than a hundred local boyars in the second half of the 14th century. In Galicia of the 15th century, only two families of Rusinian origin can be qualified as large landowners and five or six families – as medium (wealthy) landowners. The vast majority of Rusinian gentry in the 15th century owned one or two small villages or even part of the village.