Page 110 - Changing Living Spaces

Josef Grulich

2005, 81). The number of release letters granted on the estate of Pardubice
in the seventeenth century (1617-1652, 1654-1690) was also low and fluc-
tuated a great deal from year to year (see Maur 1983, 17). But on the estate
of České Budějovice in the second half of the eighteenth century, which
was a period of plentiful population and high labour availability, most ap-
plications were granted.
The research presented here analyses release letters issued between
1750 and 1787. Why this particular period? Release letters already began
to appear on the estate of České Budějovice in the early eighteenth cen-
tury, but did not occur en masse until after 1750, when their number tre-
bled compared to the preceding period. In 1781, serfdom was abolished in
Bohemia and release letters lost their importance, but the records contin-
ued to be kept until 1787. The archival documents used here are held in the
State District Archives in České Budějovice – České Budějovice Municipal
Archives.6 This compact collection of records includes not only release
letters, but also serfs’ applications.7 The personal applications made by
would-be migrants or their relatives (such as parents or intended hus-
bands) make it possible to analyse the context and extent of migration in
the rural population.8 The manorial lord could also request the release of
a serf with a letter of intervention, after prior agreement.
A certain sum of money had to be paid to the landlord for any individ-
ual to be released from serfdom. Most of the documents used were writ-
ten in German,9 which dominated public records in Bohemia in the sec-
ond half of the eighteenth century. Czech-language applications by the
Czech inhabitants occur only sporadically, with three surviving cases in
the documents used for this study. Only rarely (in two cases) do we also
find release letters in Latin; these were issued by the Catholic Church.

6 Archive ‘release letters’ consist of two parts: SDAČB, tA, Ss, Tematická řada,
Obyvatelstvo, listy propouštěcí (1676–1787) and SDAČB, tA, Ss, Poddanské vsi.
7 These sources were brought to attention by Kubák (1964).
8 The complex analysis was done by Grulich (2018).
9 German settlers appeared in Bohemia and Moravia as early as the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. Most towns that became economic centres were found-
ed by German colonists. In big towns, the German population predominated
until the second half of the nineteenth century. The Renewed Land Ordinance
(1627, 1628) established German as the second official language in Bohemia and
Moravia and declared it to be of equal status to the Czech language. Czech still
predominated in the countryside, but German prevailed in towns and among
higher social strata.

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