The ''Bychowiec Chronicle'' (; ; also spelled ''Bykhovets'', ''Bykovets'' or '' Bychovec'') is an anonymous 16th-century

chronicle A chronicle (, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events ...

of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

. Although one of the least reliable sources of the epoch, it is considered the most extensive redaction of the Lithuanian Chronicles. It is named after its discoverer.

Origin and publication

The chronicle was most probably authored between 1519 and 1542, though some parts continued to be added until 1574. Authors of the chronicle are not known. The text highlights achievements of the Goštautai and Olshanski families, particularly to Jonas Goštautas. Therefore, scholars concluded that it was sponsored by a member of these families. Scholars proposed Grand Chancellor Albertas Goštautas, Bishop Paweł Holszański, and Duke Olelkovich. Aleksander Bychowiec, a 19th-century Polish noble and historian, discovered the chronicle in 1830 and it is now known by his name.

Teodor Narbutt Teodor Narbutt (; 8 November 1784 – 27 November 1864) was a Polish–Lithuanian romantic historian and military engineer in service of the Russian Empire. He is best remembered as the author of a nine-volume Polish-language history of Lithuani ...

studied, copied and published it in full in 1846 under the title ''Pomniki do dziejów litewskich''. The original 159-page manuscript went missing soon after Narbutt's publication, and until 2011 the chronicle was known only from Narbutt's copy. Because of that, earlier researchers were skeptical of the chronicle's authenticity. The chronicle was also published in 1907 in the volume 17 of the '' Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles''. A Lithuanian translation was published in 1971. In 2011, Lithuanian historians discovered a fragment (about one-fifth of the original) of a chronicle that is essentially identical to the Bychowiec Chronicle at the and published it in 2018.

Content

Narbutt claimed that the reverse of the last page said that it is a Lithuanian chronicle translated from the

Ruthenian language Ruthenian (see also #Nomenclature, other names) is an exonymic linguonym for a closely related group of East Slavic languages, East Slavic linguistic Variety (linguistics), varieties, particularly those spoken from the 15th to 18th centuries in ...

into Polish. In fact, it is in Ruthenian transcribed in the Polish alphabet. The chronicle is missing a beginning and an end. The first page was reconstructed by editors of the ''Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles'' using the writings of Maciej Stryjkowski. The chronicle ends in the middle of a sentence describing the 1506 Battle of Kletsk. In addition to being positively biased towards

Lithuanian nobility The Lithuanian nobility () or ''szlachta'' of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (, ) was historically a legally privileged hereditary elite class in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth (including during period of foreign r ...

, particularly the Goštautai family, the chronicle also pays closer attention to Catholic affairs, particularly the

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

. The legend of the Franciscan martyrs of Vilnius was first recorded in the chronicle. The content can be broadly divided into three parts: legendary, historical, and contemporary. The legendary section elaborated on the

Palemonids The Palemonids () were a legendary dynasty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The legend was born in the 15th or 16th century as proof that Lithuanians and the Grand Duchy were of Roman origins. History Jan Długosz (1415–1480) wrote that th ...

legends, tracing genealogy of Lithuanian nobility back to Apolon or Palemon, a 5th-century noble from the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

. The historical section describes historical events using other chronicles as a source. This section is often confused and contradictory. It rarely dates events and mixes them according to the theme; the reconstruction of proper chronology would be impossible without other sources. This section is not considered reliable. The contemporary section describes events during the chronicler's life, particularly the reign of Alexander Jagiellon (1492–1506). This section is considered valuable and reliable. The Bychowiec chronicle used many medieval documents as its sources, primarily earlier versions of Lithuanian Chronicles, which in turn used other chronicles, including the Galician–Volhynian Chronicle. After about 1446, the chronicle became an independent source, using notes made during the reign of Alexander Jagiellon. The chroniclers probably had access to notes or chronicles of Jonas Goštautas as his activities in 1440–53 are particularly detailed. Although one of the least reliable Slavonic chronicles, the Bychowiec chronicle is generally believed to have used many medieval documents as its sources. The research by the comparative text analysis, however, attempted to prove that a very important source of the Bychowiec manuscript was, in fact, the Galician-Volhynian Chronicle only, possibly in a copy or in excerpts that differed slightly from the versions which we know now.

References

External links

''Pomniki do dziejów litewskich''
published by Teodor Narbutt in 1846

Electronic publication from the '' Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles'', editor B.N.Rybakov {{italic title 16th-century history books Old East Slavic chronicles History books about the 16th century Chronicles about Lithuania Grand Duchy of Lithuania