Tuchów

 Tuchow - a small town, in Tarnow powiat, on the Biala river, on rail line and the highway from Tarnow (21 kilometers away) to the county seat of Grybow. Predominantly built up with single story homes, it lies on the left bank of the Biala river, which curves in this area to surround Tuchow on the west and north; the altitude is 237 meters above sea level. The terrain rises to an altitude of 343 meters above sea level to the east and 300 meters to the west. On the right bank of the Biala, the homes are scattered, creating a suburb with a rural look. The highway leads eastward to Ryglice and Brzostek. On the left side of the river stands the parish church (from the year 1460); on the right is what was originally a parish church, and later, up to the year 1810, a monastery. In the city is a county court, a railway station, a post office and telegraph (office),a people's 4 class school, the gmina offices, tax and notary offices,a doctor and several shops. In 1865 the gmina established a loan society for craftsmen (loans up to 50 zlr.). A hospital or home for invalids, of unknown origin, possesses a building and 1651 zlr. [Translator's Note: zlr. stands for zloty renski, the former German and Austro-Hungarian florin. A powiat was roughly equivalent to our "county," a gmina was a rural administrative district, a subdivision of a powiat.]

 The town itself, in 1880, had 177 homes, and 1179 inhabitants; if one includes the suburbs, it had 385 homes and 2337 inhabitants (1090 men, 1247 women) - 2062 Roman Catholics, 10 Greco-Catholics (Orthodox) and 265 Jews. According to the 1890 census, there were 390 homes, 479 farms, and 2365 inhabitants. A chart from 1891 gives different figures: 2506 inhabitants, that is, 2290 Roman Catholics, 6 Greco-Catholics and 210 Jews. The town covers a surface area of 2138 mórgs. Functioning estate, 129,475 zlr., inactive 1235 zlr. The majority estate (belonging to Wlad. Rozwadowski) has 6 inns, a mill, and a grange, 463 mórgs of fields, 13 of meadows, 3 of gardens, 17 mórgs and 131 sazens of pastureland, 249 mórgs and 815 sazen's of woods, 2 unusable mórgs, and 1410 sazen's of building lots, for a total of 748 mórgs. The minor estate has 1027 mórgs of farmland, 65 of meadows and gardens, 131 of pastureland, and 59 of woods. [Translator?s Note: in Austrian Poland 1 mórg = .575464 hectares, 1 sazen = 2.1336 meters, but these values varied from one place to another and it is difficult to know for sure exactly which is meant in a given text.]

After the abolition of the Benedictine monastery and transfer of the Tuchow estates to government ownership, they were sold at auction. In recent times (about 1889), these estates, consisting of 22 farmsteads and 9360 acres of forest, were owned by Baron Hirsch. In the 11th century Tuchow belonged to the abbots of Tyniec, for it is mentioned in the confirmation of privileges of the Tyniec monastery by Cardinal Idzi in the year 1105. In the year 1341 Casimir the Great allowed the abbots to establish a city and transferred it from Polish law to that of Magdeburg. (Codex of Tyniec, issued in Lwow in 1871, page 76). The city was to have 60 Frankish lans. Besides the usual rights bestowed upon wójts, the abbot received one slab of salt, and should there be more slabs, the king reserved these for himself. In addition, he received the right to collect one grzywna every Saturday, if a slab of salt had been extracted and the salt hauled away (Berkrecht) [Translator's Note: this is presumably the German term Bergrecht, "law governing mine," or perhaps "(the King's) mining rights"]. The salt inspectors were to employ the same laws as those of Wieliczka and Bochnia.  

The city developed on the left bank of the river; the wooden church stood in the village on the right bank. Therefore, in the year 1456, the abbots obtained from Callistus III permission to unite the pastorate with the monastery, and when the last secular pastor Daniel died, the parish was transferred to the church in the city (date of construction unknown) and entrusted to the monks, who established a priory at the former church. They combined the parish's endowment with the priory's, leaving the parish meager income. Dlugosz complains of this, charging the abbot with violating the regulation of St. Benedict, changing the monks and hermits into residents and secular priests. At the time, there were in Tuchow 17 lans owned by residents, from which tithes were paid with wheat or oats, or money. The value of the tithes was 6 grzywnas, 18 measures of wheat, and as much of oats. The abbot had a manse and a predium from which 4 grzywnas were given as tithes to the pastorate. The soltys had 2 fields, from which he paid a tithe to the parish. The tenants of the city gave one grosz to the pastor at Christmas; those of the village, ? grosz. [Translator's Note: the grzywna and grosz were coins ? it is difficult to approximate their value in terms that make sense today. A lan is literally a "field," but was also a measurement of acreage, a Frankish lan was 43.2 mórgs, according to Gerald Ortell's book Polish Parish Records of the Roman Catholic Church: Their Use and Understanding in Genealogical Research, PGSA 1996 ? a book which, incidentally, would be very helpful to anyone trying to make sense of all this.] 

In addition, the townspeople paid the room and board of the schoolmaster. To the pastor belonged a field of three parts. From the gardens, the townspeople each paid the abbots rents of 1 grzywna and 2 groszy; some paid 2 grzywnas and 8 groszy each; from the pastures, they gave 2 quarts of honey. The slaughter houses brought 2 grzywnas less 6 groszy and 7 stones [a measure of weight] of tallow, the spa 2 grzywnas, and the fish houses, shops of salt, and the cobblers - 3 grzywnas and 8 groszy. The soltys collected the rents, from which he withheld every sixth donar (a coin value), and beyond that, had 2 water mills (Dlugosz, Liber Beneficiorum, III, 199). 

The following belonged to the parish in Dlugosz's day: Siedliska, Dabrowa, Beschwoschowa (Bistuszowa), Burzyn, Meszna, Libuszowa or Lube (Lubassowa), Buchcice, Kolanowice and Piotrkowice with a branch church. In 1536 (Pawinski, Malopolska, 548), the taxmasters expressed themselves thus: 

THUCHOW- the city of the reverend abbot of Tyniec. The inhabitants and nearby residents have fields in it, from which they pay rent of 15 grzywnas, 2 groszy and 7 denars, 72 bushels of oats; from the baths, the slaughterhouses, the cobblers, bakery shops and salt stores; likewise, from the fuller (cloth maker) flow 32 grzywnos, 30? groszy, 200 chickens and nothing more; a Manse, a good Predium, 2 good ponds and 2 abandoned ones, a mill, a stamp trough of which they rate the income at 30 grzywnas, a forest adequate for their needs. On the day of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin [2 February], an income from the inhabitants and the nearby residents is 30 grzywnas. Buchcice and Meszna belonged to the parish. 

Judging by highway paid off in 1581 (Ibid., 266), Tuchow was smaller than Strzyzin, Tarnow, Pilzno, and Ropczyce, bigger than Brzostek, Debica, Zochow. 62 florins were paid for the road from the city, 10 from the city's fields, 8 from tenants, 27 from craftsmen, 5 from butchers, 5 from distillers, 4 from the mill, 2 from peddlers, for a total of 67 florins and 24 groszy. 

In 1627 the provost of the Benedictines, Sebastian Pilsz built a new brick church, which burned down in 1789. The current one was built, at personal cost, by Provost Odo Kontenlowicz. The construction lasted from 1791 to 1800. In 1864 the Pastor-canon Stanislaus Zabierzewski remodeled and repainted it. The abbots resided in the manor, and collected income from Tuchow, Lubaszowa, Meszna Opacka, Brzozowa and Brzostek. The last abbot was Florian Amand Janowski, appointed bishop of Tarnow in 1786. Up till 1810 the Benedictines ran the parish, after which the estate was confiscated and finally sold. At present the following belong to the parish (in Tuchow deanery): Joniny, Kowalowy, Uniszowa, Bistuszowa and Kielanowice. 

Tuchow is bordered on the south by Siedlisko and Kielanowice; on the west by Meszna Opacka and Szlackecka; on the north by Garbek and Karwodrza; on the east by Zalaszowa and Uniszowa.

Source: Slownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego - Warsaw [1892, vol. 12, pp. 599-600]