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

chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, 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 lo ...

of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Li ...

. Although one of the least reliable sources of the epoch, it is considered the most extensive redaction of the

Lithuanian Chronicles The Lithuanian Chronicles ( lt, Lietuvos metraščiai, also called Belarusian-Lithuanian Chronicles) are three redactions of chronicles compiled in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. All redactions were written in the Ruthenian language and served the ...

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 The House of Goštautai (Lithuanian plural form), masculine Goštautas and feminine form Goštautaitė (''In Polish'' - Gastoldowie, later transformed into Gasztołdowie), Gochtovtt, were a Lithuanian family, one of the most influential magn ...

and

Olshanski Olshanski or Olshansky is a Ukrainian or Belorussian habitational name for someone from Olshana or Olshanka in Ukraine or Olshany in Belarus or a americanized form of Polish and Jewish (from Poland) Olszanski. Notable people with the name include: ...

families, particularly to

Jonas Goštautas Jonas Gostautas or Goštautas ( pl, Jan Gasztołd; c. 1383 in Geranainys – 1 September 1458 in Vilnius) was a Lithuanian nobleman from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the Gasztołd (Goštautai) noble family, a politician and skillful la ...

. Therefore, scholars concluded that it was sponsored by a member of these families. Scholars proposed Grand Chancellor

Albertas Goštautas Albertas Goštautas ( la, Albertus Gastold, links=no, pl, Olbracht Gasztołd, links=no, Belarusian/Ukrainian: ''Альберт Гаштольд'') ( – 1539) was a Lithuanian noble of the Goštautai family from ethnic Lithuanian lands of the Gr ...

, Bishop

Paweł Holszański Paweł Holszański ( lt, Povilas Alšėniškis; – 4 September 1555, Vilnius) was a notable Catholic church official Dmitry Tolstoy: ''Le catholicisme romain en Russie''pp.464-465/ref> and one of the last male scions of the once-mighty Lithuanian ...

, and Duke

Olelkovich The House of Olelkovich ( be, Алелькавічы, lt, Olelkaičiai, pl, Olelkowicze, uk, Олельковичі) was a 15th–16th-century princely family from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Their main possession was the Duchy of Slutsk–K ...

Aleksander Bychowiec Aleksander Bychowiec of Mogiła (russian: Александр Иосифович Биховец) was a Russian-Polish noble and an amateur historian of the Russian Empire from the Grodno Governorate. He is best known as the discoverer (and the name ...

, a 19th-century Polish noble and historian, discovered the chronicle in 1830 and it is now known by his name.

Teodor Narbutt Teodor Narbutt ( lt, Teodoras Narbutas; 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-langu ...

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 the chronicle is 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 The Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles (, abbr. ''PSRL'') is a series of published volumes aimed at collecting all medieval East Slavic chronicles, with various editions published in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, and Russian Federati ...

''. 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 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 Maciej Stryjkowski (also referred to as Strykowski and Strycovius;Nowa encyklopedia powszechna PWN. t. 6, 1997 – ) was a Polish historian, writer and a poet, known as the author of ''Chronicle of Poland, Lithuania, Samogitia and all of Rutheni ...

. The chronicle ends in the middle of a sentence describing the 1506

Battle of Kletsk The Battle of Kletsk ( lt, Klecko mūšis, be, Бітва пад Клецкам) was a battle fought on 5 August 1506 near Kletsk (now in Belarus), between the Grand Ducal Lithuanian army, led by Court Marshal of Lithuania Michael Glinski, and ...

. In addition to being positively biased towards

Lithuanian nobility The Lithuanian nobility or szlachta ( Lithuanian: ''bajorija, šlėkta'') was historically a legally privileged hereditary elite class in the Kingdom of Lithuania and Grand Duchy of Lithuania (including during period of foreign rule 1795–191 ...

, particularly the

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

Franciscans , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

. The legend of the

Franciscan martyrs of Vilnius Franciscan martyrs of Vilnius are 14 semi-legendary Franciscan friars murdered in Vilnius, capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, during the reign of Algirdas (1345–77). The story was first recorded in the Bychowiec Chronicle, a generally unre ...

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 Grand Dukes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The legend was born in the 15th or 16th century as proof that Lithuanians and the Grand Duchy are of Roman origins. Already Jan Długosz (1415–1480) wrote ...

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

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

. 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 Alexander Jagiellon ( pl, Aleksander Jagiellończyk, lt, Aleksandras Jogailaitis; 5 August 1461 – 19 August 1506) of the House of Jagiellon was the Grand Duke of Lithuania and later also King of Poland. He was the fourth son of Casimir IV Jag ...

(1492–1506). This section is considered valuable and reliable. The Bychowiec chronicle used many medieval documents as its sources, primarily earlier versions of

, which in turn used other chronicles, including the

Galician–Volhynian Chronicle The ''Galician–Volhynian Chronicle'' ( uk, Галицько-Волинський літопис), called "Halicz-Wolyn Chronicle" in Polish historiography, is a prominent benchmark of the Old Ruthenian literature and historiographyKotlyar, M. G ...

. After about 1446, the chronicle became an independent source, using notes made during the reign of Alexander Jagiellon. The chronicles probably had access to notes or chronicles of

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

{{reflist, refs= {{cite journal, first= Kęstutis , last=Gudmantas , title=Lietuvos metraščio Vavelio nuorašas (fragmentas) , journal=Senoji Lietuvos literatūra , year=2012 , volume=34 , pages=122, 126 , issn=1822-3656 , language=lt , url=http://www.llti.lt/failai/SLL34_internetui_6.pdf {{cite encyclopedia , first=Ignas , last=Jonynas , title=Bychovco kronika , url=http://www.epaveldas.lt/recordText/LNB/C1B0003447730/I.Jonynas_Bychovco_kronika.pdf?exId=327366&seqNr=5 , encyclopedia=Lietuviškoji enciklopedija , language=lt , location=Kaunas , publisher=Spaudos fondas , year=1934 , volume=3 , oclc=1012854 {{cite book , first=Mečislovas , last=Jučas , title=Lietuvos metraščiai ir kronikos , url=http://www.xn--altiniai-4wb.info/files/literatura/LD00/Me%C4%8Dislovas_Ju%C4%8Das._Bychovco_kronika.LD1800A.pdf , publisher=Aidai , location=Vilnius , year=2002 , language=lt , isbn=9955-445-40-8 , pages=86–126 {{cite journal , first=Jarosław , last=Nikodem , title=Przyczyny zamordowania Zygmunta Kiejstutowicza , journal=Беларускі Гістарычны Зборнік - Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne , year=2002 , volume=17 , url=http://kamunikat.fontel.net/www/czasopisy/bzh/17/17art_nikodem.htm , language=pl , issn=1232-7468 , url-status=dead , archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060113182445/http://kamunikat.fontel.net/www/czasopisy/bzh/17/17art_nikodem.htm , archivedate=2006-01-13 {{cite book, last = Rowell, first = S. C., title = Lithuania Ascending A Pagan Empire Within East-Central Europe, 1295-1345, year = 1994, publisher =

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

, location = Cambridge, isbn = 0-521-45011-X, page = 43 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=i4hpVJ51y4oC&pg=PA43 {{cite encyclopedia, url=http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CB%5CY%5CBykhovetsChronicle.htm , title=Bykhovets Chronicle , encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine , publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies , accessdate=2015-05-02

External links

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

Electronic publication from the ''

'', editor B.N.Rybakov 16th-century history books East Slavic chronicles History books about the 16th century Lithuanian chronicles