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Landowning and estates

This chapter presents documents on land ownership and the administration of estates.  Among them, rulers‘ charters granting the right of estate management, documents related to property contests, estate inventories and plans, warrants to administer estates, land sale agreements etc. The oldest document dates from 1583 and concerns establishing the boundaries of an estate owned by Trakai Chamberlain Bogdan Marcjan Ogiński.  The documents contain information on economic activities at the main Ogiński estates in Lithuania (those in Plungė, Rietavas and Salantai).  Lithographs and photographs represent the manor houses of Rietavas and Plungė, buildings of their home farms, workers and servants, town landscapes. Among the photographs are images of the Ogiński Canal. This was the first canal to connect the basins of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.  The website shows the list of the trees, flowers, fruit trees and other plants in the winter garden and the kitchen garden of the Rietavas estates, photographs of the gardeners in the winter garden.  The chronological range of the documents is 1583–1937.