Page 61 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

The Family Economy in the Bohemian Rural Milieu in the Long-Term Perspective

originally privileged homesteads (náprava) in Svépravice, which were allo-
cated multiple portions of land at the time of their founding (na, apa, tk,
inv.no.3056, 886; na, apa, vs ,inv.no. 1).
The full-sized farms were of course given the most attention by the land-
lord, and later also by the tax officials, because they bore the largest part
of the tax burden and the prosperity of the manorial economy depended
on them. As such, they were meticulously recorded in all types of sources.
They are captured for the first time in the above-mentioned oldest land reg-
ister (purkrechtní kniha), kept between 1590–1623 (na, apa i, inv. no. 1754,
b43/11a).² Immediately after its conclusion, a new volume was apparent-
ly established, which did not survive the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War
(Skořepová 2010). A continuous series of land registers then begins with
a volume commencing in 1680, which also includes transcriptions or reca-
pitulations of entries made for previous holders of the homesteads, from
approximately the 1660s (na, apa i, inv. no. 2609). However, one or two
generations of rural people, living in the extraordinarily turbulent times
of the mid-seventeenth century, completely drop out of the picture of the
Červená Řečice estate. From the second quarter of the eighteenth century,
new land registers were established, which served approximately until the
end of the eighteenth century (na, vs , inv. no. 60, 202). In 1780, they
were followed by new, larger volumes, whose extent reflected the increase
in the official agenda (na, vs , inv. no. 52, Pelhřimov 145, and inv. no.
53, Pelhřimov 146).³ All these registers have a similar character: they were
kept and stored at the manorial office, and each homestead was allocated
several sheets in advance, on which all the data related to the homestead’s
issues was gradually written down.
From the end of the eighteenth century, the registers were obligatorily
supervised by officials educated in the law, who were supposed to control
the legal practice of manorial offices, which in many regards began to ful-
fil functions arising from the transferred powers of the state (Šolle 1960;
Maur 1996; Velková 1999). The Enlightenment reforms, carried out most
intensively during the reign of Emperor Joseph ii, indelibly changed the
character of the countryside; above all they significantly reduced the con-

² The register was already established by noble owners of the estate in the sixteenth century,
but the archiepiscopal office continued to keep the records without interruption.
³ Two volumes of the land register of the Popelištná judicial district were used. Entries of
individual homesteads regularly begin with paraphrases or transcriptions of the last entry
in the preceding volume. The volumes were then transferred to the civil district courts after
1848 and used till the 1870s.

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