[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Koeniglich & Adlischer as village descriptions

[Paul Rakow]

    Jerry,

        Koeniglich and Adlich (or similar) tell you whether a village
  or town was owned directly by the King, or owned by an aristocrat (in
  1803 just about every village was owned by one or the other).

        After the partitions of Poland, estates which belonged to Polish
  nobles kept their previous owners, at least at first.  Estates, villages
  and towns that belonged to the Polish king; and those that belonged to
  Catholic institutions (monasteries, cathedrals); became the property of
  the Prussian King.

      In Prussia it can make a big difference to the 18th century records
  you can find. It's much more likely that there are surviving detailed
  records for royal villages (and villagers) rather than noble ones.

      Two branches of my family lived as serfs on royal estates, and I've
  found a lot about their lives through the estate records. One branch in
  Pomerania; another branch in Posen, in a Polish royal village which
  became a Prussian royal village after the first partition of Poland.

      A lot of the Prussian state's money came from renting out the
  royal lands to wealthy individuals for 6 or 12 year periods. Each time
  the estate was rented out there was a detailed assessment, describing
  every village, listing all the serfs, and working out how much unpaid
  work and other feudal duties each serf owed their master (fascinating
  if you're descended from that person).

                 Paul Rakow
                 rakow at ifh.de

  Jerry Frank <FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Subject: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Koeniglich & Adlischer as village descriptions
>
> These adjectives are used together with the names of several dozen towns
> in South Prussia on the 1803 Gilley map.? I know they translate directly
> to Kingly and Lordly but what do they mean in context of the towns?
>
> Jerry
>