Page 72 - Upland Families, Elites and Communities

Markéta Skořepová

Table 2.5 Number of Rural Farms According to the Indebtedness Rate Upon Takeover
by the New Householder
Share of debt Year of the homestead’s takeover
on the price for – – – – – – – –
the homestead        
–        
–        
–        
–        
–        
–        
Total        
Notes Only the first transfers in given periods are included. Based on data from na, apa
i, inv. no. 1754, and 2609; na, apa, vs , inv. no. 52, 53, and 60.

the creditors. From the 1780s, again in connection with the reforms of the
personal status and proprietary rights of rural people, the manorial offi-
cials only recorded the repayments in land registers, while the proper act
of repayment was managed by the involved parties themselves.
At the beginning of the period under study, most of the farmers were
bound by the ongoing obligation to pay the emphyteutic price for the
homestead to the landlord. That part of the farm’s value which had al-
ready been paid off to the landlord became the object of the inheritance
procedure, where each of the householder’s descendants was entitled to
the same proportional amount. The father could have made the situation
easier for his successor by already settling up with some of his descen-
dants during his lifetime, for example by organizing a wedding and paying
a dowry. Also, if the homestead was sold to an unrelated buyer, the obli-
gation to pay the debts was passed on to the new holder. The obligation
to pay equal inheritance shares led to the generational renewal of indebt-
edness of the homesteads, but, of course, the larger the older debts tied
to the farm, the smaller the share that the new householder could claim
on it.
At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury, i.e. before the Thirty Years’ War, the indebtedness of the incoming
householders most often ranged between one-half and three-quarters of
the price for the homestead. Only about a third of the householders ac-
tually owned less than a quarter of their farm at the beginning of their
tenure. After 1650, when the starting position of the incoming household-

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