The Structure of Custom-House System of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the End of XV – Middle of XVI cc.

Larysa Zherebtsova
Candidate of Historical Sciences (Ph.D. in History), Associate Professor,
Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University (Ukraine, Dnipropetrovsk),
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.15407/ul2009.01.144

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Abstract

The development of the customs system in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (henceforth. – the GDL) is defined by the economic, political and socio-cultural processes which took place from the end of the 15th to the middle of the 16th centuries. Changes, which happened in the economy in the middle of the 16th century, that is the growth of farms, the increase of the commodity grain production, the development of the urban settlement and the following legalization of the petty bourgeoisie according to the European sample, the expansion of the external trade, favored the development of institutes that formed the basis of the customs system. The main source for the research was documents from Lithuanian Metrica. During the research the following statements have been made:

1) Initially customs were used as compensation for using of the communication facilities. On the other hand customs were a form of payment for the right of trade license, ownership of the pot-houses (inn), and also for production and sale of the alcoholic drinks;

2) It is difficult to point out the single criteria for classification of customs duties in historiography. The most acceptable is the division of the duties into: internal (duties which were collected as fare and during the trade) and external («golovnoe»);

3) The order of the duties establishment is regulated by the Article 21 of the First Lithuanian Statute (1529) which said that nobody except for the grand Lithuanian duke could invent or introduce new duties on any roads, bridges, weirs, in any cities, markets and his own estates. From the 1540-ies the gentry started the struggle for decrease of the state duties quantity in private estates and free trade of the own goods;

4) The administration of the customs districts in the GDL was carried out in two ways: the first way – management of the customs offices by one person «k vernoy ruke» [«to the loyal hand»] who received a salary for his work and gave all income to the state treasury; the second way – rent of the duties to certain persons for a certain period of time on defined conditions. The second way allowed to receive the «real» money the Lithuanian treasury constantly required before the beginning of the lease;

5) Imported goods, salt and wax were dutiable – the «myto» [duty], which was collected by the special governors – customs officials, solynichie [the governors who collected duty for salt] and voskovnichie [the governors who collected duty for wax] in monetary or natural form. The trade duties, which were mainly spent to pay for the local governors service, were collected by the administrative and financial representatives of the grand duke in regions – the deputies, lord governors, the elders;

6) Although, the customs system in the GDL remained archaic and disordered to some extent during the defined period, one cannot but admit the positive actions of the public authority which were aimed at its regulation, reorganization (in 1509 the Land treasurer Abraham Ezofovich replaced the tax farming system with the system of control through authorized representatives) and centralization (in 1523 Michel Ezofovich, the main leaser of the state duties, took control of the management of the customs districts of the GDL, except for the Kaunas district, in his hands.

 

Keywords

Grand Duchy of Lithuania, custom-house system, impost, duty, structure.

 

Archives

Российский государственный архив древних актов [Russian State Archive of Early Acts].

 

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