The szlachta of the south of Halych land in the 15th century

The article focuses on the szlachta (nobility) of the south of Halych land in the 15th century (Eastern Galicia, now the southern districts of the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine). This border territory in the 15th century was known as Pokuttia. The author has studied the origin, family ties and financial situation of the gentry families who owned villages in Pokuttia. Prince Vladislaus of Opole in the 1370s and especially King Władysław Jogaila in the late 15th – early 16th centuries distributed land grants to strengthen two lines of defense on the border with Moldova – on the left banks of the Upper Prut and its tributary Cheremosh, as well as to increase the gentry population of Pokuttia. The villages were usually given to noblemen of Rusinian origin. Due to grants from the Polish authorities, some noblemen became magnates, but most of them owned one or two small villages. These noblemen died during the Polish-Moldovian war of 1431–1433. Jogaila’s sons handed over the ownerless villages to the Galician magnates and, to a lesser extent, to the natives of Poland who had not taken root in Red Rus. As a result, since the 1440s, the majority of the szlachta in Pokuttia were represented by the vassals of the Buczacki and Prokops. During military conflicts, these nobles joined the detachments of their patrons, so the territory of Pokuttia became defenseless against external threats.