Page 115 - Changing Living Spaces

The Transformation of the Migratory Strategies of the Rural Population

and April), so they submitted their applications in advance of those times
of year (Dokoupil et al. 1999, 82–3). There was a strong tendency to hold
the wedding ceremony in the village of the bride’s parents.12 Marriages of
individuals who had not yet been released from serfdom were very excep-
tional. The feudal allegiance of both members of a married couple had to
be identical. It was unthinkable that a husband and wife would have dif-
ferent overlords. When a woman gave birth to a child before obtaining a
release letter, her existing feudal allegiance automatically passed to the
offspring.
In one-third of all the cases analysed (366, comprising 34.1 percent of
the total), it was possible to determine the period between the submis-
sion of an application and the issuing of a release letter. When a serf was
transferred to a neighbouring estate, his or her application was handled
positively within a few days, a maximum of one week from submission of
the application (244 cases, comprising 66.7 percent of the total). The dura-
tion of the release procedure, however, could be as long as 14 days (46 cas-
es, comprising 12.6 percent of the total) or even 4 weeks (51 cases, com-
prising 13.9 percent of the total). This situation might have been caused
by complications in the reasons for treatment of the application or by dif-
ficult communication between individual overlords, which had to over-
come long distances. It was exceptional for the handling of an application
to take longer than one month (25 cases, comprising 6.8 percent of the
total). The short duration of the release procedure, which can be demon-
strated in most of the examined cases, testifies to a responsive attitude of
manorial lords to most of the cases analysed in this study.

Personal and Family Status of Migrants
Among the applicants for release from serfdom, most were individual
persons (1,004 cases, representing 93.6 percent of the total). Women (594
cases, comprising 55.4 percent of the total) outnumbered men (410 cases,
comprising 38.2 percent of the total). The same is when broken down by
marital status: unmarried women (550 cases, comprising 51.3 percent of
the total) outnumbered unmarried men (378 cases, comprising 35.2 per-
cent of the total). These proportions must be considered against the back-
ground of the fact that most of the release letters were issued in con-
nection with marriage. From the viewpoint of Bohemian society in that

12 The wedding ceremony was held in the village of the bride’s parents not only in the
Czech lands, but in other areas too, for example in France, see: Hayhoe (2016, 22).

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