Every now and then while doing genealogical research I come across something that is intriguing. A previous post was about Rosalie (nee Pelinka) Duscheck, one of my second great grandmothers. In that post I noted how part of my ancestral tree--the Duschecks and Pelinkas--were cottagers. Under the peasant system a cottager generally did not hold any land, although they may have had a small area for a garden. The Havel family, from available records, was somewhat different. By the end of the 18th century the Havel family were sedlaks, a higher level peasant farmer, and had land under their control. This blog post will present basic information on the land holdings under the control of Franz and then Josef Havel in the small village of Dolni Chrastany in southern Bohemia. Josef and his family would emigrate to the United States in 1868, and by 1872 owned an eighty acre farm north of Fort Atkinson, WI. In departing Dolni Chrastany they left behind a land area measured in jochs and quadraklafters.
 |
| Unter Groschum German name for Dolni Chrastany, part of 1837 Indication Sketch |
Before I get into the land holdings of Frantisek (also referred to as Franz (German)) and his son Josef Havel a few things are important to know. First, land that a peasant held was not owned by that peasant, it was more like a long-term lease or permanent easement, with much power and authority still retained by the domain, under the control of the lord. With the 1848 peasant land reform the peasants were able to purchase the property they had used and on which they had paid taxes and rent. The payments could be spread out over 20 years. This is interesting as 1868 is the year the Hawel's migrated to the United States. The value of the purchase of the land from the domain was set by a special committee. The land reform act canceled all corvee (unpaid labor due to the estate or lord, also referred to as robota) and taxes due to the estate or manor. Second, Frantisek and Josef, given the land they possessed in 1837, would likely have been considered a sedlak farmer in that they had more than about 10 hectares (about 24 acres). Frantisek's father, Matheous Hawel, by some parish records, is noted as a sedlak farmer in Ratiborova Lhota. Frantisek was born in Ratiborova Lhota and moved to Dolni Chrastany upon his marriage to Teresia Jiral. They farmed on the land previously controlled by her deceased father.
 |
| 18 Dolni Chrastany, c 1990 Photo by Mary B Hovel |
Third, is the unit of measurement, the Klafter. Previously I had written about the hide, an earlier measure of area. Quadraklafter appears in specific land records from about 1837. Thus, the quadraklafter and joch replaced the hide. Klafter was a unit of measurement that could be used to measure distance, area or volume. A klafter in length was about a fathom, or often stated as an arm spread of about 1.8 meters. One Joch, a larger unit of area, is equal to 1600 quadraklafters, so it is not unlike our square feet and acres. To better understand in our terminology, one Joch is equal to somewhere between 1.42 to 1.43 acres.
 |
| Part of Land Register Source: https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/720659/445/1798/1226/31/0 |
Let us delve further into the peasant system, particularly as it relates to sedlaks. A sedlak, (Bauer in German) "owned enough arable land for agricultural subsistence, paid the highest manorial dues and state taxes and owed the most forced labour to the overlord, often with draft animals as well as human labor." (Klein and Ogilve, 2016, p 505). Generally, according to Klein and Ogilve (p 504) 10.7 acres was the minimum required to support a family of five. In the case of Josef Hawel, in 1859 he had five living children and he and his wife to support. Three more children would be born from 1960- 1967. Klein and Ogilvie infer a different area than the 25 acres noted earlier from which I confirmation of from two separate sources (John Cherney, 1994 and Judy Nelson). Those latter sources noted the requirement for 10 hectares of land for a farmer to be a sedlak. Part of the difference may be time-Klein was writing about the 17th century while the others primary focus was on 18-19th century; another may be that Klein notes arable land, while the others did not have that specific distinction. Richard D'Amelio, who knows a great deal in this area notes that generally a sedlak would have had a team of horses to assist in field planting and harvesting, hence making it more than simple acreage. In any event, it appears the importance of a sedlak was the level of self sufficiency by having more than the minimum area to support a family. Some cottagers, who were lucky to have had land, may have had up to 10 or 11 acres. Most Bohemian farmers would have less than 10 acres under their control. A sedlak had land, horses and livestock. But, they had also an obligation to raise some livestock and horses for the estate as part of that corvee system. Like other peasants, they would also have been required to provide other goods, like food, to the estate.
 |
| 1839-1842 Seignorial Register Listing Franz Hawel, wife Katherina (2nd spouse) son Josef and daughter Katherine Source: https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/53269/30/2724/2691/68/0 |
There was a strong incentive for peasants to properly take care of the property under their control, and from which they would derive their subsistence and livelihood. We know that the robota system required payment of money, goods and services to the domain. Yet, as noted by Family Search, "there were also many heavy restrictions of serfs. One of these was called Odumrt or escheat reversion." That link goes on to say that at the death of a peasant "the lord could take a share of his possessions. Also at any time the lord could confiscate land with or without compensation." What would lead to land confiscation? Usually land mismanagement or poor behavior. Although, since they did not need a reason, it may simply have been because they wanted to. A serf would need, until the peasant emancipation of 1781, the lord’s permission to move, putting serfs in a bind. Loss of serfs could lead to less income from rent and taxes, not to mention less free labor as required by the robota or corvee system. Although, the link also notes that "farmers did move within the lord’s holdings frequently." One could easily lose their livelihood to a lord at the whim of the lord. The lord was not someone you would want to tick off.
 |
| Hawel Family 1838 Seignorial Register Source: https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/53268/31/2917/2376/64/0 |
Let me start to synthesize, and put this in perspective. By the time Frantisek married Teresia Jiral the control of the domain over peasants had lessened due primarily due to the peasant emancipation of 1781, but also due to a number of previous reforms dating as far back as 1680. With the ability to decide where they wished to live, who to marry, what to do, gave a whole new set of decisions to the individuals, more freedom. Over a several year period, starting about 1825, the empire undertook a specific survey of property often referred to as the Stable Cadastre. This survey appears to have been completed for Dolni Chrastany about 1837. I suspect that the empire knew what they planned to do and the survey was a method to obtain data for the final land reform of 1848. The survey maps are available online. A link to the Indication Map for Dolni Chrastany, like a draft map, may be found here. This map provides the owner name on each parcel so one can tell where and what property Frantisek Hawel, (or Franz Habl as it shows on the maps) controlled in 1837. Associated with the 1837 Stable Cadastre, was a book that specifically laid out, in over more than 60 pages, the owner of each parcel, the use of the property (meadow, field, forest, vineyard) and the annual value of the yield from the parcel.
 |
| Part Dolni Chrastany Indication Sketch, village is near top Notice the long narrow land parcels |
If one were to look at the parcel arrangement at the link in the above paragraph (or the map posted above), one can see a great deal of parcel fragmentation. One element of manorial control was that the manor often prohibited further division of property on the bases of the existing high level of fragmentation that is in place. As you peruse the map you can generally see long narrow parcels. Over the years the parcels were often divided lengthwise from the village out with the thought that was the most equitable distribution of property. The downside was the fragmentation that was created.
 |
| Part of 1 sheet Basic Plot Protocol, with headings Habl Josef is identified in second row |
Frantisek, and later Josef, according to the 1837 Basic Plot Protocol records had under their control 61 parcels of land. Some of the parcels were attached, most were not. It could not have been easy for our ancestors to plant, tend, and harvest such scattered parcels. Just the time frame of walking from one parcel to another would have affected their productivity. As a sedlak, the Hawel's likely used the labor of their children, but they also would have engaged hired help. For example, they would have employed a chalupnik, or cottager (someone akin to Theresa Pelinka's father, although he was in a far different part of Bohemia), or perhaps had a baracnik or celedin who were farm laborers and would have lived in the barn. Lodging was likely part of the payment to the workers.
When I happened across the 1837 recording of the Stable Cadastre a few months ago, I took the time to create a spreadsheet of the Hawel land holdings. With this, I was able to more easily count the number of parcels they had under their control, and obtain other data. What I have not done is to try and figure out the wording on the parcels that may provide an inkling of what the parcel was used for, and perhaps what crop may have been grown. I would likely need some professional assistance to figure out and translate the wording. Heck, I had trouble deciphering the headings which were in type set, soI got some assistance from Richard D'Amelio and a few others.
 |
| Basic Plot Protocol, image 5 of record |
Let us examine one of the many sheets where Hawel (Habl in the plot records) is identified. Above is the first sheet where Hawel (Habl) shows in the Basic Plot Protocol. This would be image 5 (of 66 images). Looking at Habl we will move left to right, by column. First is the plot number which would be consistent with those available on the Stable Cadastre map(s). There is a small mark in the second column to the right of the parcel number. This marks that the land is rustical ground (under control of the owner, and not domain land) and the parcel is tied to a house. A good deal of information for one small mark, but one needs to interpret the headings, which are not shown in the above image. The column where "18" appears is the house number, or address, of the Hawel house followed by the name of the owner. Then we see his standing, that he is a farmer. Things get more interesting on the right side of the page. Here we see the land classification, which in this case is forest. Following, as we go right, is the area, the first column is for joch, which is empty in this instance,with the next indicating the number of quadraklafter for the parcel. Here we see the two parcels owned by the Hawel's on this image are 963 (parcel 37) and 354 (parcel 38) quadraklafters, which would equate to about .86 and .31 acres respectively. Finally, we get to the annual yield measured in guilders (column is empty in this instance) and/or Kroners, which reads 54 and 20 for each parcel. Given annual yield, I interpret this to mean that the value of wood harvested off the property was 54 and 20 kroners. It could have been an assessed value, and the best indication of which it actually is lies in some obscure book written in German. Unfortunately, I do not have a good means of what kroner means in today's terminology of dollars or euros. The following is a map (this link indicates one of a few maps for Dolni Chrastany) of the two parcels mentioned in this inventory (parcel numbers highlighted).
We know that in 1837 our ancestors, Frantisek and his son Josef, had 61 parcels of land identified in the Stable Cadastre survey and land use records. These lands were spread out among the land that comprises Dolni Chrastany. If I did my calculations correct, the Hawel family in 1837 "owned" about 42 acres of land. I would have to go through each parcel to identify what was meadow, forest, or tilled, and to more easily do that I need to figure out their handwriting. The Germans liked their records, but whoever invented the Kurrent script should have been sent to the loony farm, preferably before they invented it. Experts even have a hard time figuring out the scribbles. We also know that the totaled annual yield for the property was 107 guilders and 2,025 kroners.
 |
| Present day, 18 Dolni Chrastany |
At this point we know about how much land the Hawel's owned in Dolni Chrastany. But, there was one more parcel which was identified in a separate record, and that was the Building Protocol record. From the Basic Protocol, and the parish records of births, deaths and marriages, we know the Hawel family resided at 18 Dolni Chrastany. The building parcel record, below, shows that the Hawel house, was on parcel #23, associated with house number 18. The area of parcel 23, the building parcel, which is not counted with the basic parcels, is 239 quadraklafters. The area is equal to 9,253 sq ft. The record indicates an annual value of 51 kroners. By comparison, the area of my lot is about 17,000 sq ft.
The maps also give us more information. We can see that many of the buildings were attached and formed an upside down L shape. The front part, which comprised the living quarters, being of masonry construction in keeping with government mandates to limit fires. The outbuildings at the rear of the site are attached to the house and are of wood construction. The wood buildings may not have been fully enclosed and had no wall on the side by the courtyard. There is also a small building to the right side of the courtyard sharing a wall with address #17. You can read more about house, or a dum in the blog post from a year ago at this link. Likely with his retirement from farming Frantisek lived with his wife in what was referred to as the "Outer house." This separate house could be that building. From present day air photo we can see this outer house seems less wide than on the map from 1837. Further, the opening to the street has been enclosed with additional building construction--likely what we see as garage doors. The whole front of the house is about 46 feet. Behind the house and the attached outbuildings are gardens and orchard. The village chapel sits near the Hawel house.
 |
| Hawel House in Dolni Chrastany Indication Sketch |
What is interesting is the number of similarities we see today with our ancestors of 185 years ago. We still tax parcels, we have parcel numbers, parcel area is important, we have land use. Like the 1837 maps of Bohemia which identified building construction, we an get similar information from Sanborn maps of the 19th century. In fact, that Bohemian Stable Cadastre provides more information than we have mapped today, the key piece being they mapped type of building construction which the Sanborn maps did, but is not mapped, in many localities, today. Yet our lives and lifestyles were much different. We have central heating in our homes, they would have been lucky to have a wood stove; I type this on a computer, they used pen and paper. We drive, they walked. Some of the problems are still the same, fragmentation of the land resource being one. Fragmentation led to the domain to regulate land division, and in many cases, to allow no more division. Most municipalities regulate land divisions today. The domains highly regulated the land and who it could be passed down to, although they generally allowed it to be passed down to family members. In a sense there was an understanding of some of the same problems we share today.
 |
| Part of Habl Franz owned land Dolni Chrastany Indication map |
Frantisek's father was referred to as a sedlak, which shows that the Hawel's were near, or at the top of the peasant structure. When Frantisek's father sold his farm to his son Johann in 1805 it notes arable land area of 14 jochs and 280 quadraklafter (20 acres), meadow 6 and 1002 (9.4 acres), and woodlot of 4 and 362 (6 acres). This is the first recorded reference of which I am aware identifying a Hawel as a sedlak, Matheous, Frantisek's dad, owned land in Ratiborova Lhota, while Frantisek would marry Teresa Jiral and acquire the Jiral property. Mathous Hawel's position is in contrast to some of our other ancestors at a similar point in time (late 1700's to early 1900's). The Duschecks, were identified as landed cottagers, the Pelinka's who were cottagers, and even lower were our Appl ancestors who were small cottagers.* We may never know the reasons why Josef, and Anna Hawel and their children emigrated to the United States, but one has to think it was the abundance of farming opportunity available in the United States for a family of four living sons and four daughters. The Hawel family would see their land area measured differently in the United States as they would need to change their methods of calculations from jochs to acres, and from quadraflafters to square feet.
Footnote:
*The difference between small cottager and cottager is not well defined. Some sources indicate that a cottager worked perhaps a couple hectares of land, and a small cottager none. Other sources say most cottagers may have been lucky to have a garden. In a sense I think it is more a social type of distinction, than a purely economic one. A cottager would work for a farmer (such as a sedlack) or plied another trade. I have seen two different, but reliable sources that do not agree on the listed occupation with one listing chalupnik as a cottager or upper cottager, and the other chalupnik as a small peasant cottager.
Sources:
1. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Czechia_Land_and_Property
2. 2016 Klein, Alexander and Sheilagh Ogilvie "Occupational structure in the Czech lands under the second serfdom" The Economic History Review, 69,2 pp 493-521
3. https://ags.cuzk.cz/archiv/
4. https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/image-details?page=1&place=7257629&rmsId=TH-909-81190-74230-6&imageIndex=4&singleView=true
No comments:
Post a Comment