Page 60 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Markéta Skořepová

houses (domek), if completely without any land. This is how rural subjects
are also divided in the first state cadastres and dominical registers, which
record their tax and labour duties.

Červená Řečice Estate
The former Červená Řečice estate is located in the area of the Bohemian-
Moravian Highlands, in the relatively mountainous and infertile region.
Its centre is the town of Červená Řečice (455 m asl), which, since the
Middle Ages, has been the rural seat of the Archbishops of Prague as well
as the administration centre of their land holdings in this region. At the
beginning of the fifteenth century, the estate was acquired by the first sec-
ular landlord, and noble families alternated here until 1623, when Červená
Řečice returned to the hands of the archbishop. The local mansion contin-
ued to serve as the centre of the domain and the seat of economic admin-
istration of the archiepiscopal estates until 1945 (Dobiáš 1936; 1957; 1970).
From thelateMiddle Ages, the estate was divided into several judicial
districts (rychta) headed by reeves. In this study, analysis was applied to
the Zmišovice judicial district, sometimes also called the Popelištná judi-
cial district, located in the centre of the vast Červená Řečice domain. It
constantly included five villages, namely Pobistrýce, Popelištná, Svépravi-
ce, Těchoraz and Zmišovice. In the first preserved land register established
shortly after 1590, nine farms are located in the village of Svépravice, nine
in Zmišovice, seven in Popelištná, five farms and one cottage were in Tě-
choraz, and four farms are reported to have been in Pobistrýce. These rural
farms already had their roots in the founding of medieval villages, when
each homestead was meant to be assigned a piece of land called a ‘hide’
(lán), which was sufficient to comfortably support one household (na, apa
i, inv. no. 1754, b43/11).
The basic recording unit was later referred to as the full farmer (osed-
lý). The extent of land belonging to particular homesteads has of course
changed over the centuries and the measurements were assessed more and
more accurately. The first precise determination of their area was not made
until the implementation of the so-called Theresian Cadastre during the
eighteenth century (Chalupa et al. 1966). In 1714, when the first tax decla-
ration was worked out, most of the farms of the Zmišovice judicial district
had an area of between 35 and 50 strychs (about 10 to 14 hectares; 1 strych
2
correspondstoabout 2833.3m in the seventeenth century, and to 2877.3
2
m after 1765) of arable land, meadows, usually also forests and sometimes
ponds. The richest ones were the reeve’s residence (rychta)and two other

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