This post is about the annual dues Mathias Havel owed to his Roman Catholic pastor in Lhenice, which served his small village of Ratiborova Lhota. The information for this post is from an Urbarium dated 1773, or one year shy of 250 years ago. Ten subjects of the Krumlov domain for Ratiborova Lhota are identified in the portion of the Urbarium which records Church dues. All ten households paid the same dues. This is the last of four posts regarding the 1773 Urbarium record, with the other three identifying Mathias' contributions to the domain for free labor (robot service), his payments to the domain, and the community obligations to the domain.
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| St James the Greater Church, Lhenice, present day Source: Google Maps |
The Church annual dues record first identifies the person associated with house #1 in Melthutka, the German name for Ratiborova Lhota, with the dues then identified. The other village households who will owe the domain is then identified with by name and house number, followed by this statement, translated from German: "Pays the same annual dues to the parish pastor as the preceding subjects." Hence, all ten subjects, or farmers, identified paid the same annual church dues. Mathias lived in house #15, the last house identified. Houses to pay the dues included house numbers 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12 14, and 15. Other houses existed in the village, but probably due to status or capability did not owe dues to the church. Regardless of income, crop yield or fowl held, the payment of cash and the in-kind contributions were the same for all ten persons in the village to the local parish. This parish may have been St Jakub, as the death record of Mathias' grandmother indicates her burial at St Jakub's. Currently, it appears Lhenice is served by St James the Great parish.
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| Stable Cadastre Map of Melhutka, abt 1826 Source: https://ags.cuzk.cz/archiv/ Havel House, circled in blue by author |
Ratiborova Lhota, by today's roads is about 5.2 km (approximately 3.2 miles) to Lhenice. There is no direct route, due to the hills and valleys that separate the two communities. While the main parish church was in Lhenice, Ratiborova Lhota and a few other surrounding small villages were served by parish churches in that large settlement. It was here that family members may have been baptized, married and buried. Most of the small villages had an associated small chapel, so it is possible that some sacramental events took place in the chapel, or perhaps in the home. The sacrament of anointing of the sick most likely took place in the family home. The Havel family connection to this parish would run at least four generations before Mathias. The Urbarium is detailed so we specifically know the dues Mathias and the nine other tenants in Ratiborova Lhota provided annually to the Church.
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| First part of Page of Church Obligations Source: 1773 Urbarium |
I will first discuss cash payments, then move to the varied in-kind contributions. Recall that the information provided is for one year. There was a cash payment of one Rhenish gulden provided to the parish pastor. However, at Pentecost, Mathias had the obligation to provide cheese, or a cash payment in lieu of the cheese of 6 kreuzer. A final cash payment, referred to as a hearth tax, was three kreuzer. To give an idea of value comparisons 60 kruezer equals one Rhenish gulden, so the hearth tax cash payment was a tenth of the value of a Rhenish gulden. In total, if Mathias provided cash in lieu of cheese on Pentecost, he would have had a monetary payment to the parish of 1 Rhenish gulden and 9 kreuzer. However, Mathias had six in-kind contributions to be made to the parish.
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| Part 2nd page of 1773 Urbarium |
Of the six in-kind contributions Mathias had, two were identified as "tithes" and three as hearth taxes, and one was a contribution due at Easter. Tithe was used more loosely in that time than we know of today. Crop yield would have varied by farm, but each farmer in Ratiborova Lhota paid the same in-kind contribution, so we know the tithe was not 10% of the farmers yield for that crop. Mathias, to meet the in-kind tithe requirement, provided rye and oats to the parish in the amount of one maaßl each. In dry goods measurement 16 maaßl is equal to one strich, and with one strich being about 24.73 US gallons, Mathias paid about a gallon and a half each of each rye and oats to the parish. Interestingly, he also had a hearth tax to pay in oats and rye, and these were at one-half maaßl, so about three-quarters of a gallon. In total, between what was due with his tithe and hearth tax, Mathias provided about two and a quarter gallons each of oats and rye to the parish priest.
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| Mathias Havel House #15 Church Obligations Source: 1773 Urbarium |
However, Mathias also had the obligation to provide a hearth tax of flax fiber in the amount of one-quarter pfund. A pfund is about 1.23 pounds, so the measure of flax Mathias paid is about .3 pounds, or 4.8 ounces. Mathias, as did the other noted households in the village, had one other payment obligation to the Lhenice Parish. Flax seed, when ground, is considered a heart healthy food, but fiber seems that it is different than seed.
Showing the importance of eggs at Easter, Mathias provided six hen eggs to the parish at Easter. The parish priest would receive, just from this small village, five dozen eggs. Eggs at Easter whether dyed as here, or painted, as in Bohemia and Czechia, are long-standing traditions. Five dozen is a large number of eggs for the pastor so I am sure they were used for some symbolism at Easter. The farms at this time may have also had ducks and geese, but the record is specific to hen eggs, which I take to be chickens.
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| From Google Maps, present time travel route between Ratiborova Lhota and Lhenice |
There was one other requirement identified for Mathias and the other members of the village and that related to transportation. We know that Mathias' village was about 3.2 miles from the Church and rectory in Lhenice, which would take over an hour to walk, probably closer to an hour and a half given the terrain, so there was a requirement, that "When a member of a household is sick and a member of the clergy is required, a horse must be sent at all times." In a day and age without phone, or even a telegraph, a relative, or neighbor would have been dispatched to fetch the parish priest, and so would have taken a horse along with him, or would have allowed the use of his horse to the parish priest. A horse can walk slightly faster than the typical human, and much faster if that human has planter fasciitis, but the horse can also run faster than a human. The priest would have provided the sacrament of anointing of the sick, or extreme unction as it would have been known at the time. This sacrament, was important to the faithful as it likely, depending on the abilities of the infirmed, involved confession and the Eucharist. Individually, or taken together, all three were to help guide the soul on its path to eternal reward. As poor as the serfs may have been this shows that some clergy, at this local level, were not sufficiently well off to own their own horse. Showing the inequity in the system, some Bishops were holders of some estates, and would not have lacked for horses.
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| Havel House (l) in Ratiborova Lhota, present time Source: Google Maps |
I am not sure if at this time Mathias had a horse for customary/daily use, but we do know he had either draft horses or oxen to undertake his hauling labor for the Krumlov Estate. Mathias would live to see changes to serfdom, changes which some of his children would use to their advantage. Life was not easy for Mathias, but we can glean from this Urbarium that not only was he a hard worker, but was also a man of faith. Faith provided meaning, purpose, and hope to their situation and status in life as they trudged through the daily grind of peasant life in an attempt to allow better conditions for their children. It was probably never in Mathias' mind that his grandson, Josef, would emigrate to the United States setting his descendants on a truly different path than that of Josef's father, Frantisek or the generations of Havel's before.
As any regular reader of this blog can see, my wife has not accomplished anything sufficiently funny or of note on which to write about, so I now have my fourth family history post in a row. Perhaps this coming week things will change in that area.
Sources:
1773 Urbarium, at https://digi.ceskearchivy.cz/134166/196/2801/1741/37/0, transcription and translation provided by Richard D'Amelio
Wright, William E. 1966. Serf, Seigneur, and Sovereign: Agrarian Reform in Eighteenth Century Bohemia, University of Minnesota Press.
Google Maps
https://ags.cuzk.cz/archiv/
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