Urbars (Land Registers) of the feudal estates of Paz, Belaj and Kožljak

Abstract

The articles describes urbarial levies and provisions of »statutory nature« of the Urbars (Land Registers) of feudal estates of Paz, Belaj and Kožljak, with the transcript of the Urbar compared to another, partly preserved and older copy. After explaining the term urbar, the author compares the four preserved copies of the urbar and collections of urbarial levies for the area of the County of Pazin dated 1578. Namely, the urbars relating to the above listed feudal estates were incorporated at the end of the urbarial collections for the County of Pazin in order to establish the reasons to compile such collections. After an effort to reconstruct the dating of sections of the urbarial levies, which, with the exception of final and subsequent records made at the end of the 17th century, is not given, the author elaborates the territorial jurisdiction of the feudal estates and urbarial levies and obligations of »statutory nature«. Urbarial levies were divided into regular and irregular taxes, land rent, tithes and tributes. Among the provisions of »statutory nature« there is a description of the functions of the župan (iupanus, district prefect) and podžupan (vice-iupanus, viceprefect) and estate guardians – saltar and gvardijan. Furthermore, there are also provisions enabling the feudal master to keep his estates under his immediate control and those where he controls the sources of his income and economy of the whole estate. Urbars contain fragments of provisions on patrimonial jurisdiction of these areas. The second section of the article contains the transcripts of the Urbars of the feudal estates of Paz, Belaj and Kožljak, compared to a somewhat older copy which is, due to damages of the medium, ,mostly illegible and could not be used as the template for the transcription.