The article deals with the meanings and effects of a collection of documents that was taken as spoils by the Swedish army in the Livonian town Mitau in 1621. An object biography of the documents from Mitau makes it possible to follow the collection through the entire 17th century in order to analyse how the meanings and effects of the documents changed when introduced into new contexts. But such a biography also reveals how the war booty object itself was transformed over time. The Mitau object, which came into being when the collection was gathered and taken as war booty by the Swedish army, quickly changed in the context of the Swedish national archives, which were located in the royal castle during the 17th century. Several inventorie...