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NEW CITIZENS OF VILNIUS (1661–1795)

The term ‘new citizen of Vilnius’ was used to define a status of a person gaining the burgher rights in Vilnius. To become a new citizen of Vilnius, a person usually had to fulfil certain requirements. Merchants and artisans were admitted to burgher rights of urban citizenship under various conditions. These conditions were closely linked to guild statutes. The largest professional groups of the new citizens of Vilnius were those of artisans, merchants and traders. The new citizens of Vilnius were mainly newcomers. The vast majority of them were arrivals from within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.


Introduction
In the variety of themes of urban history the theme of new citizens deserves special attention. Its relevance is determined by its possibilities to provide answers to questions, which are crucial to understanding changes in a city and its community of citizens in the course of history. It can contribute to the exploration of such issues as the growth and decline of the citizen population, because it provides data for the study of migration to cities by people, who after certain time became members of the citizen community. A study of a history of migration is relevant for estimating the impact of migration on bio-demographic population indicators. In the theory of historical demography migration is treated as an 'open' phenomenon, since it establishes connections between two populations, that is it affects the demographical characteristics (birth-rate, fertility, rate of natural increase, nuptiality, family size, death rate and mortality) of both the population of origin and the population of destination 1 . Beyond this, study of migrants (in this case of those who became the new citizens) enables us to know their occupational composition, and geography of origin as well as the diversity of their social origin. Bearing in mind the universal char-acter of the aforementioned issues, a common basis can be found for research criteria. This circumstance makes it possible to compare data of different cities within country and between countries. That is how the history of Vilnius becomes a part of wider European or even global history. It is important to note that because of the present state of research in historical demography of Lithuania (as was the case with every country in Western Europe still in the 1970s) the migration to Vilnius can be analysed only as a 'closed' phenomenon, i.e. focusing only to the process of migration and migrants, and paying no attention to the impact of migration on either the population of origin or the population of destination. Nevertheless, this research sheds some light on the mobility of the populations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in Europe in general.
The research of Vilnius municipal history before the mid-seventeenth century is complicated due to dramatic consequences of the first Russian occupation (1655)(1656)(1657)(1658)(1659)(1660)(1661) in Lithuanian history: the city archive was burned. This is the main reason why the period under investigation begins with the year 1661. Its end is the date of the Third Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by Austria, Prussia and Russia in 1795, which marked the demise of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Previous Scholarship Generally, the theme of the new citizens appeared in the field of historical research in the second half of the nineteenth century. German historians were among the first to research it 2 . At the same time they started to explore the issue of new citizens of cities that existed within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 3 . Beginning with the early twentieth century, Polish researchers made their contribution to this investigation too 4 . However, the question of new citizens of the cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania remained unexplored up to the very recent past. The very phenomenon of the new citizens of Vilnius attracted the interest of some researchers already in the first half of the twentieth century. One historian, Ewa Makowska-Gulbinowa, published an article on the history of the Vilnius guild of weavers before 1795 5 , in which she emphasised the importance for a weaver to be sworn to the city, and provided numbers of weavers -new citizens of Vilnius in the second half of the eighteenth century (however, the numbers given by her are inexact); also, she mentioned names of some weaver-new citizens (the spelling of some of these names differ from those found in the source -the inscriptions of new citizens) and even place names of origin of some of them. In her monograph about the history of Vilnius before the Muscovite occupation of 1655, dealing with various aspects of the city's organisation, Maria Łowmiańska briefly described basic conditions of the access to the rights of urban citizenship 6 . Probably because of the fact that in  Vilnius and adjacent areas of eastern and southern Lithuania were occupied by Poland, more works devoted to the history of Vilnius began to appear in Lithuanian scholarship only after World War Two. At first, few Lithuanian historians noticed the theme of the new citizens of Vilnius. They were preoccupied with other topics of Vilnius history and only fragmentarily touched upon the question of the new citizens of Vilnius. Juozas Jurginis dealt with the role of church jurisdictions (the Church owned tracts of land within Vilnius) in the history of Vilnius and made a passing reference to the issue of the conditions of settling in the city, and of importance of being a citizen 7 . Stasys Samalavičius was among one of the first to disclose the essence of the phenomenon of a new citizen of Vilnius. He briefly discussed its legal content in an outline of history of Vilnius town hall 8 . Bernardas Križitauskas touched on the legal and social aspect of the question 9 . However, up to the very recent time, there was no specific research of the theme of new citizens of Vilnius conducted. The situation started to change with the publication (by the author of this article) of a source study of the legacy of the chancery of the City Council of Vilnius (1663-1795): a general overview was presented of that part of the legacy, which encom-passes the acts of new citizens, and the researcher concentrated upon the texts of the inscriptions of the new citizens. Beyond this, consideration was given to the informative value of both the books and the acts in the aforementioned article 10 . The same author published an article concerning migration from some towns within the southern Lithuanian ethnographical region, Dzûkija, to Vilnius 11 . This article contains a legal characteristic of a new citizen of Vilnius, analysis of distribution of the new citizens number according to towns of origin and occupational groups. The next was a monograph by Aivas Ragauskas about the political elite of Vilnius in the second half of the seventeenth century 12 . Although this work was devoted to the history of the city's government, it contains a section within a larger chapter, which explores the question of the new citizens of Vilnius. It is that section that provides a passing analysis of the dynamics of number of the new citizens and the geography of their origin as well as their occupational structure 13 . May be due to a reason that the question of the new citizens was only one among many others examined in Ragauskas' monograph and not the one mostly relevant to the main theme, the number of the new citizens of Vilnius provided in the section about their territorial origin are inexact. The author himself noted that he made only survey and rough analysis, which may be adjusted 14 . Also, Ragauskas discovered an interesting fact that in 1928-1930 historians Henryk and Maria Łowmiański collected inscriptions of the new citizens of Vilnius (1716-1800) and compiled a list of these citizens (unfortunately, the fate of that material is unknown) 15  tion of a new citizen of Vilnius, provides the analysis of migration dynamics, makes a comparison of the number of newcomers from the cities around the Baltic with the number of newcomers from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and abroad, and discusses in detail the geographical origin of the new citizens born in the Baltic cities as well as their occupational composition. Very recently the theme of the new citizens of Vilnius became exhaustively explored in the monograph under the same title Vilniaus naujieji miestiečiai 1661-1795m. (New Citizens of Vilnius 1661-1795 17 . This article is a certain synopsis of that monograph. Also, there is one more article, which contributes to this theme. It deals with the issue of the new citizens of Vilnius who were born in the city of Kaunas 18 . Kaunas was one of the very important administrative centres in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (a district centre). The main questions explored are as follows: chronology and dynamics of swearing in new citizens, professional composition of the new citizens, change of this composition in the course of time, and share of the Kaunas-born new citizens of Vilnius in the totality of the Vilnius new citizens.
Sources All the research of the new citizens of Vilnius is based on the unpublished archival material. The basic source for research of the theme of new citizens of Vilnius (and the only one proving person's identity as a new citizen) are the records of new citizens in the books of Vilnius city council that are stored in the Lithuanian State Historical Archive 19 . The legacy of chancery of the Vilnius city council is composed of different sorts of books (e.g. act books, formulary books, and protocol books). The content of these books encompasses contracts between the citizens; complaints, protests, testimonies, recognitions of documents, manumissions, judgments, copies of privileges and papers of various state officials, inventories of personal estate etc. Records of the new citizens are scattered among the aforementioned inscriptions. The books were conducted in two languages: Latin and Polish. A record of new citizen served as evidence of his possessing the rights of urban citizenship.
While comparing different kinds of chancery books it was noticed that a part of the records is repeated. This enabled us to crosscheck information already collected and even to revise the number of new citizens. The sources of periods with crosschecked data are most reliable. It should be applied to the years 1677-1680 and 1742-1789. The data of questionable reliability come from 1688-1715, because a number of the new citizens in those years declined suddenly; also, there is evidence that a part of the sources (may be records of the new citizens alike) from those years suffered from fire.
In regard to this research, the most relevant data in the record of new citizen is the name of new citizen, his occupation, birthplace and a date of admission to the rights of citizenship. In some records facts about the social origin (especially, of noblemen) of new citizens were given, too. Only males were recorded as the new citizens.
Inscriptions of the new citizens of Vilnius share the features of sources of historical demography. In the variety of sources of historical demography they can be grouped together with organisational and institutional sources, which encompass records of migrants as well. Sources of that kind tend to be selective for age, social class, or gender 20 . A wide variety of historical agencies left these sources (e.g. the courts, notaries).
Aiming to give an answer to questions such as what was relationship between the conditions of the access to the rights of citizenship and occupation, and also between those conditions and social origin, additional sources are employed (e.g. judgments of the council court, privileges concerning the admission to citizenship rights; all mostly unpublished). Among published sources analysed in this study there are various documents issued by the rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and by high-ranking state officials to the city of Vilnius, certain laws confirmed by the Diet, and documents from the Vilnius municipality as well as documents from the Vilnius guilds.
The Concept of a New Citizen of Vilnius Before going further, it is necessary to disclose what sort of a phenomenon the new citizens of Vilnius in the second half of the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries were, what requirements they had to meet in order to gain urban citizenship rights and under what circumstances they became subjects of Magdeburg Law.
It would be reasonable to begin with analysis of various conditions, which distinguished new citizens from other groups of newcomers. These conditions not only distinguished the new citizens, but also determined the chances for artisans and merchants to adopt law differently. In the course of time these conditions changed. Presumably, they had an impact on the dynamics of a number of the new citizens, on their distribution among various occupations, social strata and on the geography of origin of the new citizens. Hence, the conditions of admission to the city law had to play a role of factors encouraging migration to Vilnius or suppressing it. Relevance of migration to the socio-economic development of the city was dependent on those conditions. An inhabitant wishing to access rights of urban citizenship had to swear allegiance to the city. Very general knowledge of this event is furnished by the acts (acceptance to citizenship certificates) of the new citizens. An oath-taking ceremony took place in the city hall during a session of the city council in the presence of high-and lower-ranking council officials. In nearly all known cases urban citizenship rights were granted in the presence of the new citizen's sponsor (sometimes there were two). The requirement to have sponsors was made by both the ruler and the guilds. In 1.5 per cent of cases sponsors were not mentioned. A new citizen had to swear allegiance kneeling in front of a Crucifix, raising his hand with two outstretched fingers, as he read the text of the oath (a text had to be either read for a new citizen or he read it himself). Although no oath text of swear for a new citizen of Vilnius is known, its essence it can be reconstructed from the acts of the new citizens of Vilnius. They swore allegiance and obedience to the city authorities and the ruler of the state. New citizens vowed to meet the obligations of the city day and night, acting according to the order of the city authorities, even if they lived temporarily or permanently under another (not municipal) Vilnius jurisdiction. Also they were obliged to further the development of the city's prosperity and to make every endeavour to prevent damage to the city, but if they were unable to stop the damage themselves, they had inform the city authority about it immediately. New citizens were required to have a weapon (it was set down in the statutes of some guilds). In order to meet their obligations new citizens were granted access to the rights and liberties invested in the city by its authorities. According to the texts of acts of new citizens, it can be assumed that the oath text was very similar to that presented by the sixteenth-century Cracovian lawyer Bartłomiey Groicki 21 .
During the whole period in question, no less than 4,353 persons were granted city law in Vilnius. If we count only those days when men became the new citizens of Vilnius, we will find that this process encompassed 3,072 days; average daily rate of acceptance to the city law was equal to 1.4±1.2. The least number of the accepted per diem was equal to 1 (76.9 per cent of all days), the highest -20 (1 December 1683). For the most part people were admitted to citizenship on Mondays (22.8 per cent), least on Sundays (1.3 per cent). In the eighteenth century the number of new citizens admitted per diem was distributed more evenly among the weekdays than had been the case in the second half of the seventeenth century.
Apart from inscriptions of new citizens, more information about the conditions of access to urban citizenship rights in Vilnius can be found in documents issued or received by the city authority as well as in guild records. It is known that admission process was linked to a person's profession and social status. A decree, issued by the ruler Władisław Vasa in 1646, determined that merchants and artisans must be admitted to citizen rights under separate conditions. Merchants, wishing to become citizens of Vilnius, had to fulfil such requirements as: (1) to be working in the sphere of trade from youth, (2) to be of patrician origin, and (3) to be well served out to their masters (i.e. merchants-teachers). Among artisans only those who accomplished enough in their guilds could become new citizens of Vilnius.
Only freeborn persons of good morals were allowed to become citizens of Vilnius. Not only the city council, but also guilds were responsible for this. There were some reservations concerning the freeborn. One who was not a freeborn was allowed to become a new citizen, once he had manumission. However, one can find evidence that there were cases when a person was given citizen rights before he obtained manumission 22 . Also, a person could have become freeman, if he lived in Vilnius for a certain number of years (six, three, ten, -the term was changed several times). Sometimes the patronage of a powerful man was sufficient.
In regard to urban citizenship rights the dealer's occupation requires a separate explanation. In the period before the mid-seventeenth century the activities of the dealer in the city of Vilnius were either prohibited or severely limited. Dealers did not have access to citizenship rights (at least up to the mid-seventeenth century). Actually, from the second half of the seventeenth century the situation started to change, and dealers were allowed to become new citizens of Vilnius.
Access to urban citizenship rights was open not only for newcomers from Catholic countries, but also from Protestant and Orthodox countries as well. However, access to these rights was closely linked to access to guilds, and some guilds were rigorous with respect to the confession of newcomers (especially, the guild of bookbinders where only Catholics were accepted).
A fee was established for admission to urban citizenship rights. Although sources present very scant information relating to this fee, it is known that between the second half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century the fee was compulsory. It ranged from 7 to 20 zloty. Some persons were admitted gratis. The Diet of 1766 exempted new citizens of Vilnius from this taxation 23 . This decision was repeated by the Diet of 1768 24 .
The necessity for merchants and artisans, permanently living and working in Vilnius, to become the citizens of Vilnius was often emphasised in charters and other documents, issued by the rulers of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the city of Vilnius, and also, in the decisions of diets, the orders of the high-ranking state officials and in the guild documents. In the majority of guild statutes it was an essential requirement for artisan to become a citizen of Vilnius. Usually this was applied to the artisans of master rank.
For the research of dynamics of migration to Vilnius, it is highly important to find out how much time passed from the settling of a person in Vilnius to his admission to citizenship. It is generally known that for a newcomer artisan it was compulsory to enter a guild (for those crafts which were organized in guilds) as soon as possible. The investigation shows that tin founders may have accessed the citizen rights both before (from one year and a half to three months) becoming a member of a guild or after it (from eight days to one year and one month) 25 . From the goldsmiths, who finished their education of apprenticeship in Vilnius, some became the new citizens of the city in the same years but for some it took from one to eight years 26 .

Changes in the Number of New Citizens
In the beginning of the analysis of time-series it is necessary to discuss influences that might have had a potential impact in the change of number of new citizens. It is generally agreed that there were three possible types of influence affecting any time-series: (1) trend influences, affecting longterm growth or decline; (2) regular fluctuations around the long-term trend caused by seasonal or cyclical factors; (3) irregular fluctuations, that are short-term, generally unrepeated, movements caused by, for example, wars, diseases and changes in government policy 27 . There may have been a variety of reasons for those influences to occur. They can be grouped as follows: (1) a change in the quality of chancery work, such as defective registration, caused by the death of the incumbent registrar, periods of war or social disturbance, lost pages or the illegibility of the sources; (2) political events; (3) economic factors; and (4) ecological circumstances. Later historical estimations show that at least two types of the aforementioned influences might have affected time-series in question. Here it would be appropriate to draw reader's attention to the chronology of some events, which possibly caused changes of the number of the new citizens of Vilnius in the course of time. Among the events, although different in character and scale, but happening in Vilnius or just having impact on it, there should be mentioned, firstly, wars in 1655-1661, 1693, 1702-1710, 1734-1736, 1769, 1788, and 1794; secondly, famines and epidemics in 1657-1659, 1668, 1669, 1708-1711; thirdly, fires in 1655, 1700, 1706, 1715, 1737, 1741, 1748, 1749, 1760, 1770, 1776, 1778, and 1780. Now let us take a glance at the numbers (see Table 1).  Sources: LVIA, SA 5097, 5098, 5102, 5104-5113, 5115, 5116, 5118-5122, 5124-5126, 5128-5147, 5150, 5152, 5212, 5214-5216, 5218, 5219, 5221, 5223, 5225, 5227-5229, 5231, 5232, 5235, 5236;RGADA, 1603.12.14. Analysis of time-series allows us to see a chronology of peaks (part of curve above the trend-line) and falls (part of curve beyond the trend-line) in number of new citizens (see Chart 1). It must be emphasised that in historical demography the suggested trends and turning points are more to be trusted than the absolute levels 28 . From those 4,353 new citizens, the maximum number (117) was admitted to the rights of citizenship in 1789. According to the data available, no new citizen was registered in 1688, 1697-1698, 1702, 1707, 1709-1710, 1712, 1714-1715 and 1794. The average rate of persons becoming the new citizens per year was equal to 32.2±24.1.
The average percentage growth rate was equal to +0.4. It means that volume of migration to Vilnius was growing slowly, and the longterm trend of growth was positive. In absolute numbers, that volume increased about 18 people from 1661 to 1795. Fluctuations in the number of new citizens were frequent during all our research period, although their intensity and duration was uneven. Fluctuations in the second half of the seventeenth century, in comparison to the eighteenth century, were rare, but peaks and falls were of longer duration. The duration of peaks was from 1 to 10 years, duration of falls -from 1 to 31 years. The total duration of peaks and falls was nearly equal: 67 and 68 years respectively. Periods of rapid growth and fall were prevailing in respect to those of slower growth and fall. The average duration of one peak lasted 3.5±2.5 years, as one fall lasted 3.4±6.8 years. This circumstance that aforementioned rates of peaks and falls are similar with each other shows that the impact of peak and fall periods on the long-term trend, in the presence of frequent fluctuations, should have been inconsiderable.
After linking the dynamics of number of the new citizens with known events in the history of both Vilnius and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania it became clear that some changes in the numbers coincide with certain events. For instance, low number of 1664-1665 might have been affected by the fact that a part of the legacy of the Vilnius city council of 1663-1666 was lost (thus, these years It is likely that economic reasons also played a significant role in determining changes of the new citizens' number. After the midseventeenth-century wars the city of Vilnius, on the one hand, looked uninviting, but, on the other hand, its emptiness might have acted as a potential attracting force. That is why in the second half of the seventeenth century peaks were higher and lasted longer than in the most part of the eighteenth century. Difficulties of economic development in the first half of the eighteenth century (after the Northern War and epidemics that accompanied it) might have affected lower numbers and more frequent fluctuations in comparison to the preceding period and the succeeding one, when the number began to rise considerably in the last third of the eighteenth century due to better conditions for economic development and improvements in the situation of citizens.

The Occupational Structure of New Citizens
Occupation is one of the basic variables in social and economic history 29 . The investigation of occupational variety (both spatial and temporal), number of occupations and its change over time enables to find out about certain features of the economic development: was the economy or some of its branches expanding (or shrinking), how many occupations (or groups of them) existed during a certain period, did their number change in the course of time, etc. Although in part it is possible to find an answer to such questions as which occupations might have had the strongest impact on the development of the Vilnius economy and which branches of the economy developed most notably, and what might have been the significance of the migration of future new citizens to Vilnius for that development.
Aiming to distinguish the spheres of economy linked with each other by sorts of raw material, production and its quantity and to explore them emphasising the main economic features of migration, it is necessary to group the variety of crafts and other occupations. Grouping of occupations is of particular importance because it enables comparison with the same characteristics in other societies (and cultures) and periods. Care should be taken to avoid the transfer of the present-day values and mentality to the past and so confuse the knowledge of historical reality. That is why in this work not only the experience of other researchers, but also the criteria used by contemporaries were employed.
Many sources confirm that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries citizens of Vilnius, according to their occupations, were divided into two major groups: artisans and merchants 30 . It was found that contemporaries used to group crafts according to the sorts of raw material and the character of performed job 31 . Also, analysis of the distribution of crafts among the guilds showed that craftsmen of various specialties used to join the guild according to the sorts of raw material (e.g. wood, metal, leather), products (e.g. parts of clothing) and similitude of work 32 . However, there is a lack of information about the classification by contemporaries of crafts not belonging to guilds. Researchers of artisan history (of Vilnius, e.g. 30  Maria Łowmiańska 33 , Józef Morzy 34 , Vytautas Merkys 35 , in part Aivas Ragauskas 36 , and of the towns of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, e.g. Stanisław Alexandrowicz 37 , Elmantas Meilus 38 ) chose to employ nearly the same criteria, which were of considerable importance to contemporaries too.
Before estimating the number of the new citizens of certain occupations, it is important to emphasise that data of occupations of over one quarter (1,123, or 25.8 per cent) of new citizens were not recorded (i.e. were not provided by contemporaries, -most likely by a scribe). This fact might influence considerably conclusions of the research in the occupational composition of the new citizens. In certain years, especially in the first half of the eighteenth 33 M. Łowmiańska, 'Wsprawie składu narodościowego cechów wileńskich (w. XVI-XVIII)', Ateneum Wileńskie, vol. 7, no. century, the percentages of cases with not stated occupations were fluctuating from 0 to 100.
Craftsmen comprised the vast majority among the newcomers (2,795, or 64.2 per cent) in the second half of the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century. Merchants and traders were the other largest occupational group (382, or 8.8 per cent), which was, however, considerably smaller than the group of artisans. A number of newcomers of every other occupational group were hardly seen in the total flow of migrants to Vilnius.
Among the craftsmen none of the aforementioned artisan groups was the vast majority. Leather workers of various specialties accounted for 716 (16.4 per cent) (shoemakers alone made up 55.0 per cent of the leather workers) of all artisans -the new citizens, craftsmen linked to preparation of food and drinks -521 (12.0 per cent), those linked to construction works -464 (10.7 per cent), linked to metal-working -383 (8.8 per cent), linked to clothing production -372 (8.5 per cent), linked to wood-working -157 (3.6 per cent), carriers and watermen -81 (1.9 per cent), linked to health protection and hygiene -52 (1.2 per cent). Percentages of other artisan groups are even lower than 1 per cent.
The Vilnius city authorities attempted to revive the city devastated by the mid-seventeenth century war, plague and fires as soon as possible, to restore the community of taxpayers. That is why even day labourers and journeymen were admitted to the rights of citizenship (data about them is available only from the second half of the seventeenth century). The same could be said about the dealers: up to the mid-seventeenth century, they were forbidden to gain access to citizenship rights, but in the second half of the same century they were admitted to the city law, too. Twice as much of them became the new citizens in the second half of the seventeenth century than in the eighteenth one.
It is clear that a number of both craftsmen and merchants were declining from the last third to the end of the seventeenth century. Nothing reliable could be said about the first half of the eighteenth century (in this time a new citizen's occupation was stated extremely rarely). In 1746-1760 the number of artisans and merchants (new citizens) nearly reached the level of the beginning of last third of the seventeenth century. Later on the number slightly decreased, but in the end of the eighteenth century it grew up again. The general trend of the artisan number dynamics was positive, as of the merchants was negative. Current research on the dynamics of the new citizens' number strengthens a proposition that in the second half of the eighteenth century the meaning of the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to a trade (also, vice versa) declined. However, its significance as a centre of crafts increased considerably.
Fluctuations in the number of new citizens, belonging to certain (mostly numerous) professional groups, shared some features characteristic of the change of a total number of the new citizens (e.g. short-term changes, trends and turning-points) as well. Because of this it might be assumed that fluctuations in the number of migrating artisans (the new citizens), merchants (and traders), leather workers, food producers (of different specialties), and construction workers (brick-layers, carpenters etc.) were affected by the same reasons and factors as fluctuations of the total number of the new citizens (discussed above). However, the change of merchants' and leather workers' number may also have been affected by other influences: although fluctuations in their number remained similar in respect to short-term growth or decrease and turning-points, the volume of fluctuations tended either to remain even (in the case of merchants) or increase permanently (in the case of leather workers; specifically in 1761-1775 the number of the newcomers of other professional groups nevertheless showed a short-term decline).
The permanent increase of the leather workers' number from the mid-eighteenth century may have been caused by the growing need for raw material and products from leather (especially, shoes). This might point to a general increase in the Vilnius population and favourable conditions for economic development. Fractionally fluctuating (but not considerably growing, especially, in the late eighteenth century) rates of merchant migration to Vilnius can be explained by the economic policy of the government as in 1776 the Diet passed a sumptuary law, which was designed to help the state economy recover by restricting the volume of imports. The law was issued repeatedly and expanded by the diets of 1778 and 1780. Also, there is no evidence that the decision of the 1590 Diet to restrict conditions for merchants (new citizens) to leave the city, setting a requirement to pay one tenth of their property 39 , was cancelled. Thus, if it was in force in our research period, it should have been acting as a factor discouraging merchants from settling in Vilnius. Also, the sumptuary law had to create more favourable conditions for home (i.e. not foreign) producers. This circumstance might have had an impact on the increasing number of craftsmen within the state and on the volume of their production. That is why rates of migration of artisans to Vilnius were growing in the course of the eighteenth century (especially, in the last third thereof). Growing rates of migration among artisans were conditioned not only by the magnetism of Vilnius, safety of roads or circumstances of economic development of the country, but also by the chance to find a job in the city, which in many cases depended on the size of a guild. The guild statute usually defined this size. For instance, names of the most numerous occupational groups of the new citizens such as tailors, shoemakers, curriers and maltsters did coincide with the names of the largest guilds.

Geography of Origin of New Citizens
As in nearly all the records of the new citizens only the place of birth (but not the data on places of later residence) of a new citizen was given, in spite of the fact that migration research involves several facets of geography, this research deals mainly with the geography of origin of new citizens. We can contribute to the solving of such questions as the origin and intensity of cultural and economic influences on the formation and change of the community of Vilnius citizens, and magnetism of Vilnius, and political, professional or other aspects of mentality of citizens.
The new citizens of Vilnius of between 1661-1795 came from two continents: Europe and Asia. In the period of research they were divided in different and more numerous political entities than today. The geographical content of those entities was not unvarying in the course of time. Grouping of the places of origin can allow highlighting political, economic and cultural distinctions between different areas, which the new citizens of Vilnius were from. Looking for the well-grounded criteria of grouping the birthplaces, it is necessary to overview criteria employed for this purpose by both the contemporaries and modern researchers.
Nearly all Lithuanian and foreign researchers used criteria of political, administrative and geographical division while grouping places of origin of migrants, and some of them added the historical-cultural criterion (i.e. by singling out historically developed cultural regions, e.g. Livonia) as well.
Criteria used by contemporaries (in this case, most likely scribes of the Vilnius city council) can be discerned from the records of the new citizens, in which the birthplaces of new citizens were stated. Birthplaces were recorded in two ways: either by toponym alone, e.g. of a town, country, or the name of the place together with the name of the surrounding territory, e.g. of a district, province, state or historical-cultural region (for example, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Electorate of Hanover, Italy, Poland Minor, Persian Armenia, Duchy of Warmland). The last example confirms that for the early modern Europeans linkage of a place to a small geographical, political or historical-cultural unit was of higher importance and more telling than its dependence to the large state.
The number of new citizens was distributed unevenly among the 16 listed countries and regions. The overwhelming majority of newcomers (3,139, or 72.1 per cent) were born in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Many new citizens of Vilnius were born in Poland (334, or 7.7 per cent), Germany (305, or 7.0 per cent), East Prussia (251, or 5.8 per cent), considerably less in the Habsburg monarchy (89, or 2.0 per cent), Courland and Livonia (64, or 1.5 per cent), Russia (44, or 1.0 per cent), a very small number was from Scandinavia (16, or 0.4 per cent), the Northern Mediterranean (14, or 0.3 per cent), the Balkans (7, or 0.2 per cent), France (6, or 0.1 per cent), Switzerland (5, or 0.1 per cent), Holland (3, or 0.1 per cent), Anglia (2, or 0.05 per cent), Armenia (1, or 0.02 per cent), Persia (1, or 0.02 per cent). Cases with not stated and not identified birthplaces comprise only 1.6 per cent (such cases occurred slightly more frequently in the second half of the seventeenth century).
Percentage of the new citizens from certain countries, counted separately for the second half of the seventeenth century (1661-1700), early eighteenth (1701-1715) and remaining eighteenth (1716-1795) century, differed from those counted for the whole period. The most noticeable features of the aforementioned shorter periods were changes in the percentage of newcomers from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland and Germany, because of their greater numbers (in comparison to arrivals from the other countries). In the second half of the seventeenth century over eighty per cent of the new citizens were from all over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (relatively more than in the whole period), 5.8 per cent from Poland (less than in the whole period), and 3.8 per cent from Germany (also less). However, the difference between the percentage of the newcomers from Poland and Germany was evident. For the early eighteenth century it was characteristic a small number of immigrants and only from two countries -the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (44) and East Prussia (1). In the remaining part of the eighteenth century 2,169 (68.6 per cent) of the new citizens were from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the lowest percentage of all periods), 267 (8.4 per cent) from Poland (the highest percentage) and 262 (8.3 per cent) from Germany (also the highest).
It is evident that absolute majority of the new citizens of Vilnius (no matter which period) were born within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A number of the newcomers from Poland, despite the fact that it was a federal part of the common Polish-Lithuanian state, was nearly the same as from Germany, which was a foreign country and was situated considerably farther from Vilnius than Poland. It points to the relative weakness of ties between Poland and Lithuania (between citizens, at least) in the sense of migration to Vilnius. A relatively high percentage of the new citizens from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the seventeenth century can be explained by the demographic and economic difficulties that Poland faced due to wars and epidemics in the middle of the century as well as by the consequences of the Thirty Years War and a long-lasting (ca. 1600-1750) demographic crisis in Western Europe. In the course of the eighteenth century (especially, since the second half) conditions for the demographic and economic development in many Western European countries and in Poland were shaping up. Numbers of the new citizens, born in those countries, were increasing, and that is why the percentage of the newcomers from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the eighteenth century became smaller than in the previous sub-periods of research. Also, it is important to emphasise that migration to Vilnius did not stop even during critical times in its history (i.e. 1701-1715). The characteristics of fluctuations in the number of new citizens from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were similar to those of the total number; hence, it is likely that they were affected by the same factors (mostly linked to the features of the internal development of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). The fluctuations of the number of newcomers from Western Europe (and partly from Poland) might have been affected by such events like the War of the Austrian Succession and the Silesian wars. This impact may have been twofold: direct and delayed.
Small numbers of the new citizens from some countries did not necessarily mean that their settling in Vilnius was of minor importance. As historians of economy noticed, 'the diffusion of innovation did not always depend on large-scale migration': there often sufficed the movement of a few strategic individuals 41 .
Among the new citizens of Vilnius there were arrivals born in all the palatinates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Over a half of them were from the Palatinate of Vilnius alone (1,790, or 55.7 per cent; including 268 born in Vilnius). Arrivals from the Palatinate of Trakai comprised only 14.5 per cent (465), Novogrodek -9.2 per cent (296), Polotsk -5.1 per cent (164), the Duchy of Žemaitija (called also 'the Duchy of Raseiniai' 42 ) -4.3 per cent (137), Palatinate of Minsk -3.8 per cent (123), Brest Litovsk -2.2 per cent (70), Vitebsk -1.2 per cent (37) and Mstislavl -0.7 per cent (22). Places of origin, not assigned to any palatinate, but assumed to have been within the borders of the GDL, comprise nearly one per cent.
Fluctuations in the numbers of new citizens from the palatinates of Vilnius, Trakai and Novogrodek share partly the same features as the fluctuations in the total number. The average percentage growth rate of these newcomers was equal to 8.7 per cent (from the Palatinate of Novogrodek), 1.6 (of Vilnius), and 3.6 per cent (of Trakai). The most intensive migration to Vilnius from its own palatinate, from the Palatinate of Minsk, of Brest, Vitebsk, Mstislavl occurred during the eighteenth century, from the palatinates of Trakai, Polotsk and Žemaitija -in the second half of the seventeenth century. The demographical data from the second half of the seventeenth century confirm that ethnic Lithuanian palatinates (Vilnius, Trakai, Žemaitija) suffered less than the Slavic ones because of the wars and epidemics of the mid-seventeenth century 43 . A different situation emerged after the Northern War: the ethnic Lithuanian lands became more exhausted in many respects, while the Slavic ones suffered less. During the eighteenth century the number of newcomers from the eastern palatinates increased. However, that number remained low in comparison to the number of those born in the ethnic Lithuanian palatinates (i.e. Vilnius, Trakai, Žemaitija), which undoubtedly continued to prevail.
The extremely small numbers of new citizens in the crisis period (1701-1715) reveal not only the general decline in many spheres of life, but also testify to the strength of ties between Vilnius and certain palatinates of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: 26 new citizens were from the Palatinate of Vilnius, 10 from the Palatinate of Trakai, three from Novogrodek and Žemaitija, and 1 from Polotsk.
Sources give very scant information about the geographical mobility of people before they became new citizens of Vilnius. In some records of new citizens not only the details about their birthplace but also on the place of later residence are given. Investigation of these records revealed that only a completely small number of new citizens changed their place of residence at least one time before they settled in Vilnius. The same was observed about the intergenerational mobility of the new citizens. Also it is possible that knowledge not about every place of earlier residence of a new citizen was recorded.

The Social Origin of New Citizens
There is no doubt that the populations both living in pre-state conditions and in a state tended to cluster into socially unequal groups 44 . Investigation of these groups is necessary to cognise every society or part of it.
It is important to emphasise that nearly all newcomers to Vilnius from outside the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were of equal social origin, but the new citizens from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were different in this respect.
In the investigation of the social composition of the new citizens of Vilnius, the object of interest is not the position of a person in the social hierarchy within the citizen community, but his social identity before he became a new citizen, i.e. his earlier identity with a certain social layer. What is the place of the question of a person's social extraction in migration research? While generalising from experience of research in migration history, the well-known specialist of this sphere Ian D. Whyte described different ways, in which migration has been classified, such as by the distances and time involved, the nature of people's origins and destinations (or in other words, by environments of origin and destination, which means 'distinctions such as movements within the countryside, rural to urban flows, and migration within the urban hierarchy' 45 ), and the reasons for their movement 46 . Hence, the nature of people's origins is one of the criteria to classify migration. The term 'nature of origin' encompasses the aspect of social origin as well.
Records of the new citizens contain data on their earlier identity with certain estates or social environment. According to that data it is possible (except in some cases) to group the new citizens of Vilnius as descended from the estates of noblemen and burghers as well as from the social status of small-town inhabitant and villager. Similar grouping of the new citizens (or migrants in more general sense) is common in historiographies of some other European countries 47 .
Historians of migration underline that social or cultural differences between places may sometimes have been more significant than geographical distance 48 .
In this research, it was possible to single out new citizens of a citizen-, townsman-and villager-origin according to the administrative level of their birthplace (e.g. a city, small-town or village). They were born in 842 places, of which 556 were villages, 235 small towns, 46 cities (possessing the city law) and 5 towns (not chartered). The majority of the new citizens of Vilnius (1661-1795) were of townsmen origin (1,123, or 42.7 per cent), over one third -of villagers (956, or 36.4 per cent) and nearly one fifth -of citizen (548, or 20.9 per cent; without those born in Vilnius). Generally, the distribution of relative values among categories of social origin in every sub-period of research (i.e. 1661-1700, 1701-1715, 1716-1795) was similar. However, some differences between sub-periods are observed. For instance, in the second half of the seventeenth century there were relatively less new citizens of villager origin (29.3 per cent). It can be explained by the devastating impact of the midseventeenth century wars and epidemics. In the eighteenth century at least two changes occurred: there were relatively less persons of citizen origin (18.5 per cent), and the percentage of villagers (39.4 per cent) among the new citizens considerably increased. The first change was influenced by the formal circumstance that in 1776 the majority of chartered cities within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania lost their self-rule charters (i.e. the number of cities within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was reduced; due to this the number of new citizens of citizen origin was reduced too). Both the increasing number of villagers and growing percentage of personally free villagers caused the second change.
The majority of new citizens of citizen origin were from the cities situated within the Palatinate of Trakai -148 (27.0 per cent), and the least number of them came from the Palatinate of Vitebsk -20 (3.6 per cent The percentages of craftsmen and merchants (together with traders) are distributed among the new citizens of citizen origin similarly like in the total number of the new citizens. The same is with the new citizens of townsmen origin as well as with these of villager origin. Comparing the distribution of the aforementioned professional groups of new citizens according to social layers, it is evident that the majority of artisans (43.8 per cent) were from small towns, and their minority were of citizen origin (19.8 per cent), while of villager origin -36.3 per cent. Among merchants and traders the distribution was as follows: the new citizens of citizen origin comprised 29.1 per cent, and percentages of persons from small towns and villages were distributed evenly by 35.5 per cent. The distribution of percentages (according to social origin) in the group of artisans is quite similar to the distribution of the total number of the new citizens among the groups of social origin. Among the newcomers of citizen origin there were relatively many merchants and traders (13.3 per cent) and fewer artisans (59.8 per cent), while among the new citizens from small towns there were relatively many artisans (64.6 per cent), but fewer merchants and traders (7.9 per cent). The percentage of those from the villages was 62.9 (artisans) and 9.3 (merchants and traders). It points to possibilities of the social and occupational mobility in certain groups of social origin in the city of Vilnius.
According to the records of the new citizens of Vilnius, certain people of noble origin became new citizens. Terms in the records, such as the honorific Generosus Dominus, or a short note after a new citizen's last name, such as Nobilis, Terrigena, Szlachcić, and Ziemianin, reveal that not less than 48 persons, who became the new citizens of Vilnius in 1661-1795, were noblemen (1.1 per cent of a total number of the new citizens). It is known that noblemen comprised from five to ten percent of all inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Seeing various legal obstacles imposed by the Third Lithuanian Statute (1588) on the social and occupational mobility of the noblemen, which threatened of losing privileges and legal status of a nobleman in the case of disobeying the laws (for example, becoming an urban citizen), even one percent of noblemen among the new citizens can be classed as a high enough figure. Noblemen, who accessed the rights of urban citizenship in Vilnius, shared the artisan, merchant and trader occupations, and the distribution of percentages among these occupations was similar to that of the total number of the new citizens. The same can be said about the geography of origin of these noblemen.
The question of whether it was compulsory for Vilnius-born sons of the citizens of Vilnius to swear allegiance to Vilnius city once they wanted to use citizen rights is placed among other important questions in our research. Sources are very scant on this issue. It has been estimated that no less than 268 (6.2 per cent) of the new citizens were born in Vilnius (including 37, or 13.8 per cent, born in its suburbs). This equals nearly one third of all the new citizens born in cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Only in one case it was reported that a Vilnius-born new citizen came of a family of a Vilnius citizen. The analysis of the variety of sources enables us to make an assumption that a person became a citizen of Vilnius per se, once he was born in Vilnius in a family of a Vilnius citizen and was making his living by the same trade as his father. Also, it was estimated that a fact of being born in Vilnius was of a high importance to the social mobility of a Vilnius citizen.

Conclusions
The term 'new citizen of Vilnius' was used to define a status of a person accessing to the rights of urban citizenship in Vilnius. It applied only to males. To become a new citizen of Vilnius, a person usually had to fulfil certain requirements: to have a sponsor (or two), to provide a documentary evidence of legal origin, of free status, of appropriate conduct in his earlier place of residence, to pay a certain sum of money (7-20 zloty), and to swear the oath of allegiance to the city and the ruler. Merchants and artisans were admitted to the rights of urban citizenship under different conditions. These conditions were closely linked to the statutes of the guilds. Artisans of the crafts not organised into guilds had to become citizens too. The time of admission to the rights of citizenship may be earlier or later in regard to the time of entering the guild, which had to be close to a settlement of a newcomer in the city. The largest professional groups of the new citizens of Vilnius were those of the artisans (64.2 per cent) and merchants and traders (8.8 per cent). The largest artisan groups were those of leather (16.4 per cent), of food (12.0 per cent), and of construction (10.7 per cent). The new citizens of Vilnius were mainly newcomers (93.8 per cent of 4,353). The majority of them were arrivals from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (72.1 per cent). Actually 51.8 per cent of them were from the palatinates of Vilnius and Trakai (if one more Lithuanian territory (Žemaitija) is added -54.9 per cent). The new citizens of Vilnius from Poland comprised 7.7 per cent, from Germany 7.0 per cent, from East Prussia 5.8 per cent. The new citizens of Vilnius developed the community of the city not only demographically but also professionally and culturally by their experience brought from almost the whole of Europe and from some Asian countries; their immigration strengthened the ties of the city and of the entire Grand Duchy of Lithuania with other countries. The varied social origin of the new citizens enriched the variety of cultural factors. Therefore the citizen community of Vilnius in the investigated period was a complex social and cultural phenomenon.