Page 185 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Innkeepers in Tyrol

the deceased is addressed and titled in the documents, namely as ‘the dis-
tinguished Martin Schenk, innkeeper at the Lamb’ and also as ‘the well-
distinguished Martin Schenk’ (sla, vbk 1781, 411, 450). The men in charge
of securing the property and taking the inventory made several visible
trips to the inn to carry out their duties, while the guardian of the minor
children, the widow and her gender guardian, and sometimes other rela-
tives of the deceased, made several trips to the court, which was located
in the centre of the village, just like the inn. The dates begin on 16 Febru-
ary 1781, the day after Martin Schenk’s death, when the court ordered the
property to be blocked – secretur. The whole process, up to the final contract
and appraisal, took over two months.
In the extensive archival material on Martin Schenk, he is always re-
ferred to as an innkeeper: when he took over the inn from his father, in
his marriage contract, in purchase contracts, promissory notes, receipts,
etc. At a certain point, however, it seems very likely that he was also a
wine merchant. This canbeseenbyfollowing thetracesofsomeofthe
items listed in the inventory: his bookkeeping and his archiving of docu-
ments. Among the 23 pieces of paper mentioned in the inventory, there
are account books and calendars with his records of wine debts and wine
contracts. The debts recorded in the account books and calendars, as well
as on the writing slate, amounted to a total of 453 gulden (sla, vbk 1781,
447,’ 491). Among Martin Schenk’s outstanding debts was a bill from a wag-
oner who had carried wine for him. Another indication of his trading activ-
ities are the numerous and varied gold and silver coins, totalling over 1,700
gulden in cash and a gold assay balance. A further indication that Martin
Schenk’s activities extended beyond Kastelruth is the fact that he stipulat-
ed in his will that his eldest son should be sent ‘to a respectable place in
Italy’ for at least two years to learn Italian. It was important to be able to
speak Italian for trading activities in this region. Remarkably, this trading
activity was completely hidden in all the other documents I had previously
studied.
Both sons were to learn to read and write. If the younger son was ‘willing
and able to study,’ the widow had to support him with a certain amount of
money each year. As for the daughter, the widow was free to keep her in
the house or ‘send her elsewhere’ to acquire the necessary knowledge of
‘domestic economy’ – a thoroughly bourgeois and gendered programme of
education. The widow was given the task of carrying on the innkeeper’s
trade (sla, vbk 1781, 520–523). This shows that Martin Schenk paid great
attention to the education of his children – both sons and daughter, in

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