Newly Discovered Court Records of the Duchy of Livonia(1679–1694) in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives

Abstract

Based on primary sources and historiography, this article examines the activities of the courts of the Duchy of Livonia in the 17th–18th centuries and discusses the complex development of the Livonian Castle and Land Courts’ archives. It also presents new findings on the contents of the four earliest documents from the Livonian Castle Court books (1679–1694), preserved in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives. These books were long considered lost to the academic community. Their rediscovery is significant, as these largely unexplored and unpublished materials shed new light on the history of Livonia and the region of Latgale in present-day Latvia.