Page 122 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Aleksander Panjek and Miha Zobec

ing participated in the work, and for the sale of wine under a false pretext
(ast, atta, 197.1, 5). Of the at least three Jakobs living at that time, this
most probably was Ivan’s brother and was a man of the previous genera-
tion, as well. This tells us the family was still regarded as belonging to the
elite.
In the last two decades of the eighteenth century, the preserved archival
materialproliferates.Between1778 and1799variousmembers oftheČerne
family were involved in as many as 54 legal proceedings, most of which re-
garded debt collection (23), transactions with immobile assets, such as es-
timates, seizures, exchanges, donations and sales (11), and hereditary and
dowry issues (5), the rest regarding other topics. A non-negligible number
of these proceedings involved members of the Černe family on both con-
tending sides, regarding immobile assets, credits and even insults (ast,
atta, 195.3, 4–7; 196.1.1, 6; 196.1.2, 14–21; 197.1, 5, 9 and 13). Although for
the sake of brevity we cannot go into any detail about this large number of
cases, the documentation testifies to the persisting and widespread activi-
ty of the Černes as money lenders. In the last of such proceedings recorded
in the nineteenth century, but held in 1799, it appears that Marko Černe,
at that time mayor in Tomaj, held the right to sell at retail the manorial
and his own wine and also the right to slaughter and sell meat together
(at fifty percent) with his second cousin Franc. The latter sued Marko’s son
because he sold wine and slaughtered cattle, exceeding his father’s share
(ast, atta, 197.1, 13). The family was therefore engaged on various fronts
which guaranteed monetary income and a predominant position in local
society, while not disdaining intra-family lawsuits to secure financial and
property interests.
The proliferation of the wider family during the seventh generation, that
reachedasmanyassevenČernemenhavingafamilyandchildreninTomaj,
brought a change in the marriage patterns of their children, that is, in the
next (eighth) generation. Between the end of the eighteenth and the begin-
ning of the nineteenth centuries numerous marriages between male and
female members of various Černe branches appear, which has never been
thecasebeforeinthetwocenturies long family history. Between1794and
1815, for example, four out of ten marriages of Černe grooms occurred with
a Černe bride (šak, žat, mkp 4). It seems reasonable to assume that these
marriage decisions must have been stimulated by concerns regarding the
fragmentation of the landed assets, not only because of the growing num-
ber of heirs, but also due to the new inheritance law introduced in Austria
towards the end of the eighteenth century, which was based on principles

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