Bridges and ferries, as objects of dispute and crime locations among the eighteenth
century nobles of Vilnius district, is the main topic of research in this article.
Case materials and auxiliary documents from the records of Vilnius district castle
and land courts reveal how often bridges are mentioned in the court processes
in both violent and non-violent crimes. Research explores what types of violent
crimes took place on bridges or ferries most often. It also works on questions of
geographic localisation and statistics, discussing general situation of bridges in
Vilnius and its neighbouring areas in the eighteenth century.
Bridges are regularly mentioned in the books of the eighteenth century Vilnius
castle and land courts, albeit most references are not related to conflicts and
bridges are mentioned as orientation marks or in reference to location of a real
estate object. Both non-violent legal disputes, involving bridges as objects, and
violent crimes on the bridges were not in multitude, however non-violent crimes
were in smaller numbers. There were seven dispute cases about lands, properties
and plots of land where bridges and ferries are mentioned. Non-violent conflicts
mostly took place in rural areas of the district, four of them, and three such
disputes happened in Vilnius (one on the Green Bridge and two on the bridges
over the River Vilnia).
Most commonly recorded violent crime on a bridge was beating and, since
this was the most common type of crime perpetrated by nobles in the eighteenth
century Vilnius district, this trend is logical. A bridge is once mentioned in the
record about a raid. In terms of location, more crimes on the bridges took place
in the rural space, although this particular space wasn’t dominant, since six crimes
were reported in the province and five in the city – two in Vilnius on the Green
(Stone) Bridge, two on the bridges over the River Vilnia and one on a ferry near
Šnipiškės. Trends in crime locations match general crime tendencies in Vilnius
district, where more crimes took place in the rural space than in the urban one.
One may guess, that the rare mention of bridges partially testifies to the fact that
in the eighteenth century Vilnius district level of communication was not high
and there were not too many bridges. On the other hand, when assessing trends
in violent crimes in Vilnius district it was revealed that bridge based crimes comprised
only one percent of all crimes. Having in mind that bridge is a relatively small object, compared to several different or other urban and rural spaces, this
number isn’t that small.
Keywords: Vilnius district, castle court, land court, crimes, nobles, peasants, bridges,
ferries, passings.
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