"Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man." - George Washington

Understanding the Czech Farm and our Farming Roots - You are What you Own

One thing is for certain, we are descendants from at least 300+ years of farmers. I have records of ancestors dating back to around the very late 1600's/very early 1700's, and so far nearly everyone is a farmer...or should I say a peasant?

Portrait of a Czech Peasant - Hans Tschelan

Originally there was nothing derogatory about the word peasant. It originated from an old French word in the 1400's which was "paisant," which meant countryman, or one who lived in the "pagus," which was a Latin word for an outlying administrative district, or rural areas. Latin definitely had an influence, since Bohemia was an Imperial State of the Holy Roman Empire until its dissolution in 1806.

Over the years the semantics of the word peasant obviously has changed into something derogatory, but still back in the 1700's and 1800's, peasant could be interchanged with farmer. Most of the people who lived in the countryside were farmers, or agriculture laborers, since there wasn't a whole lot of other options for occupations in the rural areas of developing countries. Although, prior to 1848 the term for farmer was mostly peasant. And a "farmer" in Bohemia was most likely a Serf since Serfdom existed until 1848. A Serf would be given land to use, but was burdened with paying fees and taxes to the Lords who owned the land. In 1848 after an unsuccessful revolt against the ruling Habsburg dynasty, Serfdom was abolished. This basically created equal rights for those who were serfs, or better opportunities and/or circumstances for them. The revolt also started to change the balance of power from the local aristocracy to the middle classes.

Of course, farmer and peasant are English words, and the Czech language has its own words which would describe the economic status of individuals who were involved in agriculture. The terminology of landowners did fluctuate in the 1800's and the terms used to describe farmers went from more of an economic status description to more of a social status description, but regardless, in Bohemia, you were what you owned.

                     John Lutovsky 1863-1959                                Katherine Broz Lutovsky 1868-1930

When I first started getting my hands on old Czech birth, marriage and death records, I was amazed at how much information was contained in them. They would state the social/economic status for the parents and grandparents, as well as state where everyone was from originally. I was extremely happy to see the information since it really helps to give us a little glimpse into the lives of our ancestors...but then on the other hand, I was kind of disturbed at how intrusive the information seemed to be. We have never made where or how a person lives as part of our civil registry in the US, however it was that way in Bohemia.

Imagine if my birth record says...Wesley John, born to parents who live in an apartment, or who live in a small house with a tiny yard, or who live in a small house with a big yard, or who live in a house on a farm, etc. This was basically the Czech social/economic classification system, but of course in the Czech language.

How Large is a Farm?

Believe it or not, there was a minimum dimension requirement for a farm to be technically considered a farm in Bohemia. The dimension size was one "hide," in English, and one "Lán" in Czech. A hide was a term that was started in Great Britain, which referred to a piece of land that was about 120 acres there, but could vary greatly. Nobody is quite sure exactly how this came to be or was calculated. They have records of using hides from around the year 1000. The kings used the hide for taxation purposes basically, but it didn't really seem to be a very fair or just system since the sizes fluctuated.

In Bohemia a hide was 45 acres. This number was determined to be the minimum amount of land needed to support a household. And the Bohemian economic and social structure was based off of this measurement, as you will see below.

And now we learn some Czech. We will be seeing these terms in every civil registry document...birth, marriage and death...so, we'll start by getting familiar with them now. When I use these terms moving forward I'll always put the meaning in parenthesis just to keep things simple...so don't feel like you need to memorize them, unless you want to.