A Sorry Farm

In a few previous posts I have pointed out that when doing genealogical research some interesting pieces of information may be found. This information may be funny, curious, odd, valuable, or just confusing. In southern Bohemia it is often perplexing. It is well known that the hills and valleys of southern Bohemia provided marginal farmland. Yet, many of my ancestors farmed that land. The Havel farm in Ratiborova Lhota was in my direct pedigree line for almost 200 years. I am sure some of our ancestors met with limited farming success. Looking at a translation of a land register for Chvalovice (what we now know as house #1) provided perspective on what I have concluded was a sorry farm. 

Chvalovice #1 Farm house
(1 in red, by house,1 in black nonbuilding areas) 
1830's Stable Cadastre

In a period of thirty-three years this Chvalovice farm saw four different owners, and three of those four owners had to give up the property due to an inability to make payments, or what was referred to in two cases of the three cases--poverty. For a period of 25 years, so the bulk of that time frame, the farm was managed by a 7th great grandfather, Jakub Span, from February 1662 to February 1687. Jakub obtained the farm from Fillip Liendl who "was not able to meet the payments on this farm, and as such willingly ceded it to Jacob Span of Chvavolvice." Liendl is the first to lose the farm. The Span surname would eventually be changed to Jiral. Jakob paid 120ſß at the time for the farm. By 1686, the year of his death he left a debt of 23ſß 44g 41/2₰. The currency in use is the Meisnish Schock Groschen and from here on out, instead of having to type the funny symobls, the currency will be referenced as in the following two examples: (1) the 23ſß 44g 41/2₰ where 23 is Schock Grossen (Schock is not a coin, but refers to a system of 60--that is 60 grossen makes a schock grossen, 44 is Grossen, and 41/2 is phennig, where I become sufficiently anal to use a full payment it will be, as an example, 23-44-41/2. If a whole number is used it will be schock grossen, such as 120. Understand?  23 Shock grossen times 60 will equal Grossen, So 23 Schock Grossen equals 1380 Grossen.  

Parcel owned by House #1 1830's Stable Cadastre

After Jacob died, his son Hans took over the farm in February 1687, at the same price of 120.  The commonality among the varied municipal and domain rules for inheritance was a single heir, due to no division of property. The other offspring would have to leave and establish new households. Hans, probably the youngest son of Jakob, got the short stick. Poor Hans, who became victim #2, things  did not go well for him from the start. Was he too young and inexperienced to take on the farm, climate affect the property, or just plain bad luck? We really don't know the answer. The register makes this statement: " In 1688, just after having taken over the property, no payment was offered "this year due to poverty." Hans did make a payment in 1689, and the register makes this recording: "1690 on the 7th March, again the owner showed the inability to make a payment." Half the required payment was made in 1691. The following year, 1692, on 26 February it was noted that "Hans Span, owing to reasons of poverty and inability to meet payments against his farm, ceded it for purchase to Georg Bauer in the previous valuation of 120ſß ...." Georg would also take over the remaining debt. Georg, however, did not do much better than Hans, and he was the third victim of this sorry farm. In 1695 he ceded the farm to Wenzl Kriz on the 21st of May 1695 due to poverty.

Land Register Entry of 1692, Hans cedes farm 
to Georg Bauer, (Ordinal 20, image 257)

Chvalovice #1 was not a large farm, nor a small holding. In fact, it compared well in tillable area to some other comparable ancestor farms for which I have information. A summary record from before 1662 indicates a field area of 15 strich. A strich was based on what was required to sow the varied parcels. I could do a calculation to acres, but I suspect it would not be accurate, because while I know what strich to acres was in the late 1700's it may well have been different in the mid 1600's. Instead let me compare some farms that were in the family in the same era. Jakob's son and Han's brother Nicolas Jiral bought Chvalovice #13 which was only 6 strich of arable land in 1673. Dolni Chrastany #3, which would be purchased by Jakob's grandson, Lorenz Jiral in 1716, was recorded in an earlier record of having been 14 strich of arable land. Lorenz owned Chvalovice #1 for a few years before moving to the larger holding, which he purchased from his father-in-law in Dolni Chrastany. The farm at #18 Dolni Chrastany, which would become owned by Franz Havel in 1796 through marriage to Teresia Jiral was 12 strich and 3 viertel, or one viertel (four viertel equals one strich) short of 13 strich of arable land. Of these ancestor farms, Chvalovice #1 contained the most arable land. Although it would be comparable in area to Dolni Chrastany #3, being just one strich more of arable land. 

Farm Comparison

Besides arable land, the farms also had meadow land which was measured in cartloads, likely as in harvest of hay. Chvalovice #1 and Dolni Chrastany #3 each had 3.5 cartloads, Chvalovice #13 had only one cartload of meadow area and Dolni Chrastany #18 had four cartloads. Ability to produce ample crops, for human an animal food, clothing (yes they would grow and spin flaxseed, and perhaps had some sheep), and perhaps to sell on the market was a key factor to the existence of our ancestors. We know from information in the Urbaria of 1773 for Ratiborova Lhota the fields were in a system of three, where every year one third of the arable land lied fallow. This also placed on emphasis on crop rotation. The concept of allowing land to lie fallow for a year, and a system of rotation was created in the middle ages, and so it came to be used at this point in Bohemia. As isolated as southern Bohemia was, they still would have been the recipient of  knowledge transfer affecting crop production. The domain may very well have dictated this production/conservation measure. While, the records indicate that no woodland existed for any of the farms we don't know if that meant they owned no woodlot or the woodlot did not produce anything for the year in which the calculations were accomplished in the 17th century. For example, the cadastral mapping of the 1830's shows the Havel farm at Dolni Chrastany having some woodlots, and no land purchase appears to show in the land register. Not to mention what a farm had a farm kept. These farms really did change in size for over 200 years. As to firewood, recent research shows that much of the cooking wood, if not even some heating wood, the fence wood likely came from coppicing of trees.  Many varieties of hardwood deciduous trees provide an ability of coppice, ash being one example.  I am not sure if the smallholding at Chvalovice #13 would be able to practice the system of three given its limited area. It was a meager existence for our ancestors--peasants as they were--with marginal land, and most usually another trade to supplement their farm income or help offset farm losses.

Parcels (531 and 533 owned by House #1)
1830's Stable Cadastre

Farm value did not much change over the years, and it is instructive that the value of our sorry farm at Chvalovice, while the largest in terms of arable land, was valued at 120, or six less than the 126 for the farm which had one less strich of arable land at Dolni Chrastany #3. Chvalovice #13 was valued at 106 even though it had less than half the arable land of Chvalovice #1 (6 strich compared to 15). Many factors likely influenced farm value, yet I find this striking. Jakob made a go of the Chvalovice farm, and had, through 1686 made payment owing just under 24 on the farm. A general rule of thumb is that a farmer makes a payment of about 4 a year, meaning that it would take thirty years to cover the payments on a farm valued at 120. Thirty years remains a standard term of mortgage today. 

Mueller's Map--early 18th Century
Unt Kraschum is Dolni Chrastany
Kolowitz is Chvalovice

I suppose anticipated yield would affect property value, and while our ancestor farmers were generally illiterate, which would discard the farmer keeping a log of their own harvests, they would have had a good idea of what their yield produced relative to sowing. In any event, the domain did keep records. In fact, according to Die Grundsteuer-Verfassung in Bohem (see note 4) the "...individual subjects were to make them (declarations of yield and properties) publicly in the presence of the community headman and community committee."  Declaring your yield publicly was to prevent understatement. Their own method of an audit. It seems the domain counted on a bunch of tattle talers to keep things above board. Our ancestors did not own the land outright, and had to pay taxes to the state and fees to the domain. At times, as we know from Mathias Havel's 1773 Urbaria record, the domain fee required a certain amount of grain, referred to as a tithe. Given the time and localized weather, at times a yield may well have been less than the seed to sow a field. I have been unable to locate a soil survey for the area, which I could compare against the 1836 cadastral survey of the property with a soil map. Better, yet, it would be fun to compare it to the Iowa prairie soils Martin farmed after his arrival in the United States. Martin would farm a whole different landscape (mostly very level) compared to his father's farm in Dolni Chrastany. Farming in southern Bohemia was not easy. 

Parcels above creek owned by House #1
Meadow and arable land
1830's Stable Cadastre

If life was not sufficiently difficult, add to the mix the forced labor for the domain a peasant farmer had to perform over labor on his own farm. The affect of this institutional factor cannot be discounted, particularly when already in a marginal situation. While Chvalovice and Dolni Chrastany did not have the onerous restrictions of the Krumlov estate, it appears they still had robota labor, the serf level of labor a peasant was required to provide to the domain. The era of this post--mid to late 1600's to the mid 1700's was during a time of increasingly restrictive manorial control. In other words, the domains increased what and what could not be done by their peasant subjects. This meant their crops may have been last in and last harvested. If a freeze came, the domain was just happy to have their crop harvested. Long hours were required. 

1952 Topographic Map of Dolni Chrastany
Provides indication of hills in this area

Yield was also affected by weather, and perhaps the poverty was induced in part by climate. It is well documented during the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850) which affected Europe, that the coldest part was from 1645 to 1715, which fits well with poverty documentation described for Chavolvice #1 (1). That environmental history document also noted that the area was generally one degree Celsius cooler than present which led to climate induced failures:

Winters were bitterly cold and summers were often cool and wet. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and population decline. The tree line and snowline dropped and glaciers advanced, overrunning towns and farms in the process. There were increased levels of social unrest as large portions of the population were reduced to starvation and poverty.

However, none of the other three farms to which this farm is compared, nor the Havel farm in Ratiborova Lhota had any remarks in the relevant land registers for the periods examined that the farm was ceded due to poverty or an inability to make payments. While this makes me want to discard the harsh climate theory, one cannot fully do so, as perhaps the land holdings of Chvalovice were more susceptible to flooding or other climatic-induced damages. The land may have been of poorer quality, in a flood zone, steeper slopes with poorer (i.e. washed out) soils, than some of the other property. Our Bohemian ancestors were a crop away from starvation, or poverty, and hence a site with more grade, or susceptible to flooding, or poorer soils could make a big difference on yield. A reduced yield from just one field could make a difference in the ability of a farmer to provide for their family.

Arable and meadow parcels owned
by House #1, 1830's Stable Cadastre

The arable land in Bohemia was often in odd-sized parcels, no wonder they outlawed further division of property, in many cases long and narrow, which we would consider small by today's standards. The farmland was not like what was found in the United States, large square chunks of 160 acres being the standard sized farm in the US, following the Homestead Act of 1862. The generally contiguous (part divided by a rail line) 80 acres farmed by the Martin Hovel, and later Rudy, near Manly, IA was quite different from the fragmented farm Martin helped farm with his father at Dolni Chrastany #18. The early pre-1662 land register accounting for Chvalovice #1 mentions 18 arable parcels and another three meadow parcels. The #18 Dolni Chrastany farm had over sixty parcels according to the cadastral survey of the 1830's. Fragmentation affects ability to farm, and while tillage by beast and man, may have been less affected than with the large equipment of today, loss may have been greater due to so many property lines to be minded. The parcels were small and scattered, leading to inefficiencies in planting, tending and harvesting crops. When one lives on the razor edge of poverty any inefficiency in production can matter.

Parcel owned by House #1
1830's Stable Cadastre

In the end, we really lack any specific knowledge of why Fillip Liendl, Hans Span, and Georg Bauer all failed, and settled into poverty on the farm at Chvalovice #1. It was likely a combination of factors as so often happens in life today. My record for Chvalovice #1 is not complete, but runs from 1662 to 1706. There are other registers, but for my pedigree research it does not make sense to have this translated. This record was found and translated by Richard D'Amelio, at no cost, as he worked on the record for Chvalovice #13, which drew him to this record. I am grateful that he accomplished this as it certainly provides a more depth into life of our ancestors in 17th and 18th century Bohemia. It is unfortunate that the sorry farm could not have been more productive for at least those three farmers. 

Notes/Sources:

1. https://www.eh-resources.org/little-ice-age/

2. Trebon Archives Land Registers--Chvalovice and Dolni Chrastany. Translated by Richard D'Amelio of Bohemib Research Services. 2022

3.  https://ags.cuzk.cz/archiv/openmap.html?typ=skicic&idrastru=PRA280018370. Indication Sketch
and https://ags.cuzk.cz/archiv/
Sources of Map images in this document.

4. Falk, Vincent, 1847Die Grundsteuer-Verfassung in Bohem, Translation provided by Richard D'Amelio 2022.

5. Velkova, Alice. 2011. "Household Formation in Bohemia 1700-1850: Inheritance Practice and Family Strategy." The Czech Historical Review 109/2011 no. 2. 

6. Ogilvie, Sheilagh. 2005 May. "Communities and the 'Second Serfdom' in Early Modern Bohemia." Past and Present. Oxford University Press. No 187.