CNIDR Isearch-cgi 1.20.06 (File: 167) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 09:25:47 -0900 From: "Mach Family" <machfam@mtaonline.net> To: CZECH-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <007c01c0abeb$08cd2420$673e200c@machfam> Subject: Re: [CZ] Palacky Lookup Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kevin, Thanks so much for the history on the villages and towns! It is fascinating! I will pay close attention when my daughter goes through that section in her World History class! We are now just starting the Renaissance. (I homeschool so I am learning with my children.) I am thankful you are so learned in this area. Appreciate all you have done. Sharon P.S. My goal is to have one of my kids learn German so I can learn it right along with them! ----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Kittilson <kkittils@wcca.state.mn.us> To: <CZECH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 7:45 AM Subject: Re: [CZ] Palacky Lookup Hi Sharon, Palacky has Ronsperk, german "Ronsberg", 223 houses and 1905 inhabitants, in the estate of the same name. Like the estate of Bystrice it is listed in the Klatovy district. I would think the spellings you give are all variants of this place. "Fozane" rings no bells and is not a spelling that would be either a Czech or German village name as such. Regarding your last question: The settlement patterns in Bohemia as in most of Europe are the result of the pattern of life in the middle ages and earlier. The farming techniques available until quite recently were very labor intensive and really limited the amount of land a peasant family could farm to about 40-60 acres, more than that was beyond the capacity of a horse or ox and a wheeled plow. In order to afford any degree of personal safety from marauding brigands or soldiers, farmers mostly lived in villages rather than in isolated farmsteads, with their land extending outwards in strips from the village. The villages consisted of groups of houses, each with its barns and sheds, and the size of a village could not be very great as land could not be too far away, so that the amount of productive farmland within easy walking distance surrounding the village limited the number of people that could live there. Accordingly, you find throughout Europe a pattern of many small villages a mile or two apart separated by field land. Originally as a matter of further protection, most villages had in the early middle ages submitted to or otherwise come under the protection and rule of powerful local "strongmen". In return for protection villages were to provide labor and agricultural produce to the knight which allowed the knight to sustain and equip himself as a non-laboring warrior. Over time, the descendants of such knights, the nobility, expanded and protected their hereditary priveleges and were viewed as the owners of the estate and masters of its inhabitants. Many of the old feudal priveleges were still being enforced until serfdom was abolished in Bohemia in 1848, due to the rise of the modern nation-state in the 1700s. Estates or parts of estates were sold or inherited among and between the nobility and thus what estate a village was in could change from time to time. Some villages were founded by the nobility which populated them with immigrants lured away from other estates where conditions were worse or with serfs involuntarily relocated from the lord's other estates. Overlaid on this were towns. Towns developed as centers for distributing products that were too specialized to be profitably made in small villages and as centers of military control and religious control. They could be walled or fortified and withstand sieges. Some towns became important and powerful enough that they were given royal charters by the king by which the townspeople were freed from obligations to the local nobility. Many towns acquired some of the surrounding villages by purchase from noblemen who needed ready cash, and the city itself exacted from these villages the same kinds of feudal payments in work and produce that the village had paid to the preceding nobleman. Towns thus assured for themselves a supply of foodstuffs without the necessity of being depended on the often predatory local nobility. Superimposed over this patchwork was the Catholic church's administrative network of parishes, chapels and bishoprics, which did not necessarily follow estate or town boundaries. Beginning in the 1600s, further administrative divisions were imposed over this scheme as the central monarchy began to assert more and more control over things previously left to the nobility, such as the administration of military conscription, taxation, law courts and so on. Royal administrative districts were sometimes deliberately designed in such a way as to overlap or ignore estate boundaries so that the power of local noblemen to influence the administration of the king's business might be lessened. The size and distribution of villages was also influenced by local factors of geography and natural resources, for example where the land was mountainous or forested or the exploitation of mineral or other resources altered the typical pattern of how many people could be sustained by a specific area. I find that in trying to answer your last question I have gotten carried away and written what amounts to a short treatise. I apologize for the length. Frankly, it is also a bit oversimplified, as this whole topic is far more complex than I could explain in a few paragraphs. I hope it does not bore you to death, but instead that it gives you a sense of the complex history of this area. machfam@mtaonline.net 03/13/01 10:50AM >>> Kevin, I was wondering since this look up is still fresh in your mind if you wouldn't mind seeing if one more town is in this village or vice versa (it is kind of confusing). Anyway, Andrew and Wenzel, the Soukup brothers came over to the US together and in a story Andrew wrote (which I would like to share with the list but don't know if that is allowed since it is quite lengthy) he said he was born in the Village of Harlau (which I suspect is Hoslau since this is where I have documented proof of his grandfather being born) and he wrote our town was Rompsberg. I also got the word Fozane from somewhere. Is this the bigger area? Now on my greatgrandfather Wenzel's death certificate it lists his birth place as Ransperk which I think is just a misspelling of Rompsberg. Am I correct in this? So now, are there alot of small villages in these towns? Or alot of towns in the villages? I am definitely confused. If you don't have time that's fine. You have already done quite alot for me. Thanks so much. Sharon ----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Kittilson <kkittils@wcca.state.mn.us> To: <CZECH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 7:25 PM Subject: Re: [CZ] Palacky Lookup Hi Sharon, Here is something further based on your note. In Bystrice estate there is a village listed in Palacky as "Boztesice". Sounds like this would be the same as the "Bozatice" in the death record. Here is the data on that place: Boztesice, 8 houses and 88 inhabitants. The other book lists it even closer to your spelling, as Bozetitz, aka Bozetice, in the estate of Bistritz, a hamlet of 14 houses 114 inhabitants in the parish of Drosau. Drosau in Palacky is the German name of the parish village of Strazow, a town, really, of 188 houses and 1602 inhabitants; it is listed in Palacky directly next to Boztesice. K machfam@mtaonline.net 03/12/01 10:08PM >>> Hi Kevin, Thanks so much for researching these towns for me! I really appreciate it! My Barbara Dusek according to her death certificate was born in Bozatice. Now I know it is probably Bystrice. So both the Soukups and Duseks are from the same village. Thanks also for the military and parish info. Sharon Sukup Mach Alaska, USA Hello Darlene On Sunday, February 2, 2003, you wrote > At one time apparently there there was an article containing an explanation of the WHY & HOW of the pattern of Land Ownership shown on a map. The pattern resembles the "spokes" on a wheel which > radiate out from the village center. I would like to get a copy of this article and map. Thanks, Darlene > If List Archives allow search with author's name, that > was a great background piece by Kevin Kittilson. > --------------------------------- > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now > ==== CZECH Mailing List ==== > The mailing list is configured to reply only to the list. 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