Inwentarze jako źródło do badań dziejów i kultury Żydów w Lublinie w pierwszej połowie XIX wieku. Rekonesans badawczy

Abstract

The purpose of this article is the source characterization of the property inventories of Lublin Jews and the indication of the possibility of their use in the study of the history and culture of this community. The source base are inventories collected as a result of a query conducted by the Notaries of the City of Lublin in the years 1810–1863. As a result of source searches, ninety-eight lists of the remains belonging to the following categories of inhabitants of the Jewish district in Lublin were collected: merchants, craftsmen, property owners, people dealing with finances, and small traders. Detailed inventories contain information about the owner and his family, as well as real estate, household equipment, clothing, and other personal items. Almost half of the inventories list the titles of individual books or lists of larger book collections. The above-mentioned sources, due to their mass nature, allow us to go beyond individual findings and authorize us to formulate more general judgments. Inventories from notarial records are therefore a valuable source for expanding knowledge of genealogy, everyday life, material and spiritual culture, and religion of Lublin Jews in the first half of the nineteenth century.