Pomorzany grounds of the Kyerdeys (Kyerdeyevitches) in the fifteenth-century Lvov area

Abstract

The article discusses the history of the Pomorzany grounds, which were situated in the Lvov area, till the end of the fifteenth century. The set of grounds was situated in the basin of the Złota Lipa River around the town and castle of Pomorzany. The extant sources allow us to trace and analyze the process of creation of this set of grounds. It appears that in the earliest preserved documents it is recorded that the grounds, situated in the valley of one river and its tributaries, formed a common settler ecumen. Its creation was determined by the ground formation of this part of the Podole plateau. The marshy and wide river valleys and their mild slopes were a more propitious place for the development of settlements than the steep ridges that were thickly covered with woods. The upper parts of the plateau remained outside the settlement sphere. The Pomorzany grounds were owned by the wealthy boyar family of Kyerdeys, who originated from Volyn and Podole. Its four lines (the Świnkas, the Kyerdey from Pomorzany who were descendants of Jan Hryćko, the Szpikłoskis, and the Urmańskis) related themselves to this possession for good till the extinction of the first two lines in dramatic circumstances at the turn of the sixteenth century. Efficiently administering the grounds, the Kyerdeys transformed them in the fifteenth century into a modern and well-developed set of possessions. Owing to internal colonization they densified the settlement and started to fully use the land economically within these grounds; the land had so far been inaccessible. They started to administer the woods that were growing on the upper parts of the ridges, dried a part of the bog, and banked up the rivers and the brooks, thus creating chains of ponds. They increased the area of the Pomorzany grounds by taking over and settling the settlements that so far had been situated on the outside. This example illustrates the process of linearizing borders of properties by taking over deserted settlements and gradual narrowing down and then abolishment of borders between properties. All of the above was characteristic of the Red Rus in the historical period in question. The settlement structure, which was started at the time and developed in the centuries to come, influenced the organization of geographic space and landscape till the industrial times. The traces of this structure have been preserved up till now.