Kariera Samuela Hieronima Kociełła jako przyczynek do badania mechanizmów awansu urzędników skarbu litewskiego w drugiej połowie XVII wieku

Samuel Hieronim Kociełł’s Career as a Contribution to the Study of Promotion Mechanisms of Lithuanian Treasury Offi cials in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century Summary Th e career of Samuel Hieronim Kociełł (d. 1685), a Lithuanian treasury scribe from 1649 to 1670, is one of the most interesting examples of the considerable social advancement of ‘money men’ in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the early modern era. He owed his spectacular success less to political strings and magnate patronage than to his own professional competence. Th e fi nancial services he provided to the wealthiest Lithuanian magnates (especially the administration of the Šiauliai economy on behalf of the Sapiehas) allowed Kociełł to accumulate a vast fi nancial capital. It was further multiplied by successful investments (loans), which allowed him to purchase numerous landed estates and property in towns. Kociełł tried to separate his ‘professional’ activities from his political activities, where sober assessment dictated that in the mid-1660s, he collaborated with the Pacs’ party, dominant in Lithuania at the time, and aft er 1682 – with the Sapiehas’ party. His right political choices allowed him to be elected a deputy as many as twelve times. Kociełł became one of the most infl uential activists in the Oszmiany district, where he also reached the most important local offi ces – he was appointed the chamberlain and marshal. Th e legacy he left behind allowed his only son Michał Kazimierz to rise to the top of the power elite and enter the magnate class.