Unicorns of our Middle Ages. Scribes of the Land Courts of Ruthenian and Podolian Voivodeships in 1434–1500

The article analyzes the quantitative composition, qualifications, regions of origin, and work experience of scribes in the land courts of the Ruthenian and Podolian Voivodeships from 1434 to 1500. The Ruthenian Voivodeship included the land courts of Lviv, Przemyśl, Halych, and Sanok, while the Podolian Voivodeship encompassed the Kamyanets land courts. A unique feature of the Ruthenian Voivodeship was the visiting sessions of the Przemyśl land court in Przeworsk and, presumably, of the Lviv land court in Zhydachiv. This study revises, supplements, and clarifies the existing list of land scribes in these voivodeships, drawing on newly discovered data and a re-examination of all available references to these officials. The article focuses on the earliest references to the scribes’ appointments in both voivodeships, their experience in governance or as scribes in other institutions, their educational background, regions of origin, and the frequency of references to their governance. Notably, given the shortage of qualified personnel, individuals from the Catholic Church, who often had the requisite knowledge of Latin, were recruited to fulfill governmental roles, thus combining zemstvo governance with their pastoral duties. A particularly remarkable figure is Mykolay from Pyashchytsi, a Kamyanets zemstvo scribe, who concurrently served as a personal scribe to the Starosta and as the Vogt of the Ruthenian community in Kamyanets. In the late Middle Ages, the skill of writing was rare in the Ruthenian territories of the Kingdom of Poland. Those who could draft Latin documents for courts where proceedings occurred in both Ruthenian and Polish were highly valuable.