In the midst of Slovenia’s oldest forests lies a cluster of small settlements, the village of Loški Potok. Winters there are as harsh as they come, the soil is poor and the people are hardworking and resilient, shaped by centuries of hard living. For most of history, if they didn’t starve or freeze, they were already doing well. It’s where my family’s lived for the last 500 years, ever since when the village was first mentioned in historical records.
1795 Appeal
As a boy, while reading, I stumbled across a publication of an old document. It was merely a copy from a previous publication by dr. Ivan Prijatelj, who, in 1909 transcribed and published a document he found in the archives of Ribnica castle of lower Carniola. The paper was a legal document. In 1795 the entire village wrote an appeal not against their lord but their own parish vicar.
The appeal was written by an educated local in the local dialect, a linguistic and legal rarity as official documents of the time were usually written in German. The complaint accused the parish vicar Lukež Ferdinand Kostajnovic (Kastainoviz, Kostanjevec) of gross misconduct: purposefully neglecting his duties as a man of God, carelessly allowing several people to die without absolution, embezzling church funds, interfering in marriage wishes and demanding bribes, seizing and destroying others’ property, terrorising the village through severe corporal punishments, maintaining an unkept knacker’s yard next to the village cemetery, forging documents and tax papers and even driving a woman to commit suicide.
I wanted to know more about this complaint, see the original paper – signed by my family members – and uncover what happened next as this case has never been researched in any way and so secondary sources are completely non-existent.
Archival work
I made my way to the National Archives of Slovenia where the archives of the beforementioned Ribnica castle and its estate are stored. Looking into the Loški Potok appeals folder I was met with quite a few surprises.
First, there wasn’t just one appeal, there were 7 or more in a large pile of some 300 pages. Second, all those 300 pages were in German and written in German Kurrentschrift, which is, as the reader may be aware, a rather tricky handwriting to read. And third – the 1795 appeal in Slovene was nowhere to be found. So far it seems to have been lost.
The number of complaints points to one thing. They must have been unsuccessful. The first appeal of 1790 was even rejected with: “the investigation has amply demonstrated the malice of the plaintiffs, their unfoundedness and the innocence of the parish vicar; Thus the plaintiffs are not only severely condemned for their lying complaint, but they are also ordered to publicly ask the parish vicar for forgiveness.”
Despite this harsh response, the complaints failed to cease. More complaints against the vicar followed, most of them written collectively by the local community with involvement of the village mayor and one lawsuit initiated by a private individual. Official investigations were conducted, with both the local community and vicar Kostajnovic making oral and written statements, but without success for the plaintiffs. Or so it seemed.
1803 appeal and investigation
In 1803 another appeal may have come forth as both the imperial and royal district authority (Kresija/Kreisamt) of Novo mesto as well as the ordinariate of the bishopric of Ljubljana began a joint investigation with an adversarial legal procedure in the case of the Loški Potok parish community (soseska/Gemeinde) against the parish vicar Lukež Ferdinand Kostajnovic.
This investigation – orally carried out in Slovene and written down in German Kurrentschrift included testimonies given by members of the entire village. Some 100 people gave testimony, a quarter of them women. It includes the mayor and teacher, Simon Nosan and an outsider, a man called Johan Langmaier, whom I so far think may have been skilled in law and may have been representing the village. The 1803 investigation comprises of 53 numbered sheets of paper, each with 3 or 4 written pages. This accounts to nearly 200 pages of signed personal statements.
Figure 5 Incomplete list of the testimony givers of 1803. Names, though Slovene, are given in German grammatical form as standard for most official documents. Note only two manu propira signatures.
And you may ask yourself what the result of this investigation was? Did the parish community succeed? Was the vile vicar gotten rid of? What was the verdict? The unfortunate strictly formal answer to the end result of the legal proceedings is that I don’t know yet. There is no judgement. No conclusion. But, through letters, notes and later appeals I managed to piece together some fragments that show us the events that followed and the consequences of the 1803 Investigation.
Later events
In March 1804 Kostajnovic is no longer in Loški Potok, but in the princely capital Ljubljana. He humbly asks the Bishopric of Ljubljana to be given the right to exercise spiritual duties, which he is denied, and mentions having to return to Vienna, the imperial capital, after having received some “instructions of the highest order”. But most importantly he signs this letter with the appendix of “resignirter Pfarrvikar” – resigning or retired parish vicar. He was after all nearly 70.
But the story doesn’t end there and it may well have something to do with the vicar’s supposed instructed visit to Vienna or better still – his proven transgressions. In February 1806 the Princely Bishopric of Ljubljana received a letter containing a decision concerning an appeal this time made by the resigning parish vicar Kostajnovic himself. The ruling came from none other than the Emperor Francis I:
“His Majesty has deigned to ordain that the priest Lukas Ferdinand Kastainoviz … may not, due to his frequent and grievous wrongdoings, receive either a medal of honour which he claims as a reward for his services, nor the pension of 400 florins he is seeking, nor a position as an independent priest and least of all for is he eligible for a promotion to the parish of Ribnica, to which the neighbouring curacy of Loški Potok used to belong, but should be strictly denied all these requests.”
This was one end to the story. The villain was proven a villain and as “his offence is rank, it smells to heaven”, the emperor himself reprimands the wrongdoer and thus gives the poor rural community a moral victory. But what of the harm done, what of the damages, restitution and indemnities? The legal proceedings of the village against their ex-vicar continued at least until 1817. Were they successful? Did they ever win more than just moral satisfaction? It is my research goal to find out.
By Kristjan Krapež
This contribution is part of the Ljubljana students' collective project The rights of association and assembly between assertion and resistance among Slovenes with an outlook to Spain in the long 19th century: villagers, workers, academics, lawyers, gymnasts, citizens at large (curated by Prof. dr. Katja Škrubej).
Bibliography:
-National Archives of the Republic of Slovenia: Archives of the Ribnica Estate – AS 774. Fond: 14 – Ecclesiastica.
-Naši zapiski (1909), letnik 6, številka 3/4. URN:NBN:SI:doc-KLZAPNTP from http://www.dlib.si
-Debeljak, J. (1972). Plenkača pesmi poje: kulturnozgodovinska kronika Loškega p otoka. Krajevna skupnost Loški potok.
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