Lietuvos žemės teisė ir žemės teismų pareigūnų antspaudai 1564–1764 metais

ENHaving emerged after the Reform of 1564–1566, land courts handled civil cases and performed notarial functions. From their establishment, each district land court had their own institutional stamps: the stamp of the land court was used exclusively for summons with the sovereign’s title, and stamps of the land court officials (the judge and the deputy judge) were used for all other land court documents signed by the land court scribe. The archive sources confirm that the regulations, established in the articles of the Lithuanian Statutes and the Seimas Constitution concerning the use of the land court seals and its officials, were implemented in real-life practice. A thorough analysis of the heraldry and the sigillography of the land court officials in the Vilnius and Trakai voivodeships (9 districts) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is presented, and it is based on over a hundred previously unpublished seals stored in library and archive collections. This practice of the use of different stamps of the land court officials, the judge and the deputy judge was discontinued after the 1764 Reform. A single land court stamp was used by each district land court since then. Similarities can be found in other districts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but this should be an object of further detailed research. [From the publication]