Biographies of the Glynski princes

Nicholas Zharkikh

In this section, the biographies of the Glynski princes will be presented on the basis of documents contemporary to the actors themselves. Genealogical reconstructions and materials of Commission in 1638 are rejected and will not be used (on the basis of the conducted analysis).

All the princes Glynski should be divided into five independent groups. Whether the protoplasts of these groups were related to each other and if they were – to what degree – our documents do not know, and I am not going to indulge in baseless fantasies (you can see such fantasies in the "Historiography" section). All these princes should be considered self-proclaimed princes, those who do not come from some ancient princely family.

To establish kinship, it is necessary to know the person’s patronymic and surname. But in documents of the Lithuanian metric for the 15th century often are omitted either the patronymic, or the surname, or both. In such cases, the belonging of this or that prince to a certain family becomes the subject of a discussion, often fruitless.

Even knowing the patronymic does not always allow one to reliably determine the genealogical position of a person. Study of the Pechersk synodikon of the late 15th – early 16th century showed that Ivan, Semen, Vasyl, Fedir and Mykhailo make up the five most common princely names [Zharkikh N. I. Pechersky synodikon. – K.: 2017, section Princely names], and among the Glynski these names are the most used. Within the framework of one generation, we have several Ivan-s, several Vasyl-s, etc., and if it was clear to contemporaries who they were talking about, it is far from clear to us.

In such cases, the fact of inheriting one possession can help to establish kinship, but the first such case in the history of the Glynski family took place only in 1505, and this does not help anything for early history (15th century).