Mortgage and material records as sources for studies on private book collections of the 19th and 20th centuries. Methodological aspects

Abstract

Mortgage and notarial documents (most often in the form of land and mortgage registers, lists of real estates, indexes, wills, correspondence books, and other voluntary legal transactions) were rarely interesting for the researchers. However, their advantage increased after (partial or total) destruction of numerous, priceless Polish archives during the World War II. Due to loss of the more adequate source basis, “substitutes” were searched, enabling exploration of many topics or problems. Mortgage and notarial records were only slightly destroyed. Therefore the article aims at presentation of a source potential of these documents, and determination of their possible usage for broad studies in history of the book and libraries in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, based on the records from the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. The article discusses also methodological difficulties in working with such sources.