Page 113 - Changing Living Spaces

The Transformation of the Migratory Strategies of the Rural Population

In the heart of the town, the area enclosed by the town walls, there
mainly lived families of craftsmen and merchants. They were not serfs
but freemen. The town was a centre of production and trade. In 1757, 237
craftsmen were registered there. The local economy mainly focused on
textile production (the town had 18 woollen-weavers, 13 linen-weavers,
and 10 stocking-makers) and food production (there were 28 butchers, 15
bakers, and 15 brewers) (Chalupa et al. 1964, 116–7). The town also prof-
ited from the salt trade. Salt from Upper Austria was imported to České
Budějovice and then transported on boats down the River Vltava as far
as Prague. Approximately two-thirds of the town’s population lived from
crafts and trade. Only one third of the town’s population owned land in
the surrounding countryside, comprising a total area of 931 hectares in
1757. The immigration of serfs from the countryside boosted the growth
of three suburbs. These free rural labourers found employment as lodgers
in the buildings of the town’s demesne farms.

Immigration and Emigration
The surviving records for the period 1750–1787 yielded a total of 1,073 ap-
plications for release from serfdom.11 Of this total, immigrants slightly
outnumbered emigrants. There were 567 immigrants (52.8 percent of the
total), which included serfs who transferred over from other lords to the
royal town of České Budějovice. There were 506 emigrants (47.2 percent of
the total), in which a serf of the town of České Budějovice was granted his
or her freedom (284 cases) or was transferred to another lord (222 cases).
The mutual release of serfs between individual overlords followed the
principle of reciprocity. There is a widely held view that manorial offic-
es, in order to maintain mutual balance, would release equal numbers of
serfs. However, the present study found that the numbers of individu-
als released into the lordship of the town of České Budějovice was high-
er than the numbers of outgoing individuals. For example, there were 91
applications for release from serfs from the estate of Český Krumlov to
transfer to the lordship of the town of České Budějovice. But only 15 ap-
plications for release (one-sixth that number) were made for transfer in
the opposite direction. The greatest interest in change of lordship in fa-
vour of the town of České Budějovice was evinced by serfs of the Vyšší
Brod monastery (on the estate of Komařice). From this estate, 96 serfs

11 From the perspective of historical demography, a representative sample is a sam-
ple having more than 1,000 units, see: Maur (1978, 72–6).

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