Page 105 - Changing Living Spaces

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The Transformation of the Migratory
4
Strategies of the Rural Population During

the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century:
A Case Study of the Royal Town and Estate

of České Budějovice (Budweis)

Josef Grulich
University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Czech Republic

© 2024 Josef Grulich
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-399-9.103-124

Mobility Controls and Migration Research
Czech demography defines migration as ‘spatial movement of individuals
across any border (mostly administrative) connected to changing place
of residence, whether short-term, long-term, or permanently’ (Kalibová,
Pavlík and Vodáková 2009, 66). Historical demography defines it as ‘geo-
graphic change’ or ‘spatial movement’ (Maur 1978, 145–52). If it is perma-
nent, it is migration; if it is brief (or temporary), it is called mobility.
Czech historians began to study the mobility of the early modern
Bohemian rural population in the context of the so-called ‘second serf-
dom’ (Míka 1957; Válka 1958). The first efforts to limit mobility in the
Bohemian lands can be traced to the period after the Hussite Wars in
1434. Some serfs experienced problems in proving their allegiance. The
Bohemian Estates (the national parliament) dealt with this issue in the
second half of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth cen-
tury. The effort to limit the mobility of serfs can also be demonstrated us-
ing the legal regulations that were issued for each estate by the manorial
offices (Černý 1930, 89, 345, 347, 351).
The proceedings of the Bohemian Estates between the end of the
Hussite Wars and the first half of the sixteenth century were analysed
Murayama, S., Ž. Lazarević, and A. Panjek, eds. 2024. Changing Living
Spaces: Subsistence and Sustenance in Eurasian Economies from Early Modern
Times to the Present. Koper: University of Primorska Press.

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