Page 264 - Changing Living Spaces

Aleksander Panjek and Gregor Kovačič

to Archduke Ferdinand II of Habsburg in December 1606, asking that
Štanjel be taken out of the dominion of Rihemberk manor, transformed
into an independent manor, and granted to him. Although his petition
was granted, there were complications that finally led us to the subject of
this research.
When a new land register was created a few decades later, when the
Rihemberk manor was sold to the noble house of Lanthieri, the Štanjel
area was accidentally listed in it. The commissioners appointed by the
Inner Austrian Court Chamber to estimate the revenues of the manor,
who also paid attention to the increased levies compared to the past, re-
corded 55 gardens in Štanjel. Since this was a new development, the com-
missioners added a note in their appraisal stating that these 55 small gar-
dens in the community of Štanjel had been acquired through the draining
of a small lake 16 years earlier and the land had been divided among the
subjects (StLA, IÖHKS, K. 90, H. 11, f. 29–33). This appraisal is dated 1624;
the information it contains allows us to date the draining of the ‘small
lake’ at Štanjel precisely to 1608. How does the draining of the lake logi-
cally fit into the description of the local agricultural and climatic condi-
tions that Philip of Cobenzl himself had outlined two years earlier (1606)
in his petition to the Archduke to acquire the dominion? Very little soil
and a great deal of rocks, too much bora wind and not enough water – this
image of the Karst corresponds to the widespread conception today:
A barren, wild and stony world, without any natural element apart
from the gusty bora wind; where there is not an inch of land lengthwise
or breadthwise on which a plough could be placed to sow a handful of
grain. There are no more than two inhabitants who are able to survive on
their crops for four or five months; all others, like the poor cottagers and
day labourers, and very few of them I might add, are able to survive on
their grain for 14 days, having to acquire the rest elsewhere. There is only
one whole farm among all the people. The gardens from which the com-
munity or manor of Rihemberk receive levies are nothing but bare rock
and the soil has to be brought there with great effort; the poor people
grow vegetables there but rarely cultivate anything useful on account of
the arid climate and strong winds. (Panjek 2015, 21)
We already published this two decades ago (Panjek 2002), but the ques-
tion of how sensible it was to drain a lake in an environment where there
is a proverbial lack of water sources remained unanswered until we met
a resident of Štanjel, Mr Jožef Švagelj. He pointed out to us an error he
had noticed in the way the functions of dry stone walls and forms of wa-

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