Seventeenth-century testaments of soldiers from Greater Poland and the Halicz region

Abstract

The article analyzes testaments of nobles serving in the army, registered in the nobilitycourt records of Greater Poland and the Halicz region in the 17th c. 47 testaments were investi-gated, 21 from Greater Poland and 26 from the Halicz region. The testators included nobles who went to war as a result of a mass levy, soldiers who drew their last wills during a campaign, men who recounted their past military career, and two soldiers sentenced to death for murdering another noble. Most of the wills in question were left by men who fought in the Cossack wars of the 1640s and 50s, the Swedish invasion of 1655–57 and the Turkish wars of the 1660s and 70s; eight documents in the corpus were written before 1648 and four came from the 1690s.Many of the testators mention that they draw their last will having been wounded in battle. They usually focus on dispositions concerning the movable property (including money due form debtors), bequests to the Church and relatives, as well as to servants who accompanied them at war. Many testators nominated their comrades-in-arms as executors. An important issue was that of vindicating the outstanding pay, since soldiers were often not paid their wages for several years.