All the above titles means that they are property owners in the Egerland. Perhaps individual nobles had different types of serfs for whom they provided a living space, but that would be for the minority of the Egerland population. So we should not assume that our ancestors were "serfs" but most likely did certain tasks in lieu of paying taxes. I have never encountered this in my own ancestral search, as they are all listed in the Berni Rula as property owners. And they appear in the Berni rula with the various description or titles of Owner, Farmer, Cottager and Gardener. If you walked through a village in Bohemia, you would see that there are as many different sized properties, as you'll find anywhere. The only difference is that the farms are all clustered together into a village and their fields are on the periphery. A farm that stood by itself was usually a "Gut" or a "Hof" and had larger and more buildings, they are very old land holdings. Now here is what I know from researching my own ancestors and at first, my opinion of Häusler and Gardener was just like yours, until I found out that they were actually owners of these places and had to pay taxes. I have several original documents and one ancestor is listed as Bürger und Schuhmacher (burgher and shoemaker) at Petschau and they owned that house and a large garden. There was a castle at Petschau, and I believe that the Beauforts lived there. If anyone offspring of these Nobles reads this, please enlighted us about the status of the common population! There is a Bürger und Uhrmacher (burgher and watchmaker) at the town of Marienbad in my family, and while he himself at the time of his marriage is not listed as Hausbesitzer (Owner), his father owned 3 hotels. There is one Wundarzt (surgeon) at Donawitz and there is no listing that he was either a Burgher or Owner. There is a Häusler" (cottager) at Neumetternich near Marienbad who owned his place and married a "Bauerntochter" (farmer's daughter) from Dürrmaul, they owned a very substantial Tudor "cottage" until they were expelled. There is a "Hausbesitzer" at Schönthal (which was a large village) who owned a "Hof" (large farm) where the family lived until expellation. They were original settlers and mentioned in the Chronic and the Berni Rula. There are several other family members who lived in the Egerland and were given the title "Häusler," but all these were well built stone or brick houses with basement and 2 stories... and were still in the family when they were expelled. What we have to do here is to pay attention to the area where they lived and who administered the area. We have to search and ask: was the land they lived on belonging to a cloister, a noble, a landholding of a nearby City, or very old settlers property. The latter can lead far back, probably to 1100-1300, for which there may be no records. The Catholic Church appears in the 12th century, but somewhat earlier in the Prag and Budweis areas. It would be best to get in touch with the expelled people, who maintain "Heimatstuben" in Germany and request a name list of early settlers of that particular village from their Chronic. Most of the original record keepers have passed on, but there are contact people for the individual villages. Go to a German website.....and www.yahoo.de is a good one, put the German name of your ancestor's village in the URL and see what comes up. Some of them are better than others. I presume that you have checked the Rootsweb first! Do not be too optimistic to get at any of the Chronics! Unfortunately, I must warn you here, that some of these irreplaceable records found their end buried in manure piles because of names recorded there during the Nazi occupation. The person in charge of these documents was most likely a Party member destroying evidence. Had the Czechs found a Chronic in a village where names were recorded who held offices during the Hitler regime, the executions would have hit even more ferociously. So don't place too much hope on finding these. You will be luckiest with those villages closest to the Bavarian Border, because the people hightailed out of there in a hurry, taking the entire village archives along - like the people of Eger, for instance - and in most cases the US occupational Forces provided their transportation. The records of the Berni Rula will show all your ancestors that were propertied it 1651. If your ancestor came from the Budweis and Pilsen area it just might be a little different than the situation in the Egerland because there is a different historical background. The Egerland was not Bohemia originally, it was part of the Oberpfalz, and that was and still is to this day: Bavaria. How to locate the Egerland correctl, that I will put into a different Email. Aida ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven and Susan Karides" <karides@sbcglobal.net> To: <GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1:45 PM Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Fw: Gärtner-Häusler-Hausbesitzer > > On May 15, 2006, at 3:04 PM, Aida Kraus wrote: > > A "Bauer" is farmer with a full spread, "Häusler" is most likely a > craftsman operating a smaller farm, "Gardener" is employed elsewhere and > just grows his vegetables and raises small animals around the house he > owns, and a "Hausbesitzer" is a Burgher in a town, a free man > > >> The definition of a "Haeusler" in William E. Wrights "Serf, Seigneur and >> Sovereign..Agararian Reform in Eighteenth-Century Bohemia" is summed up >> in his passage(p 17): " Further peasant ranks included cotters >> (Haeusler) and servants or day laborers (Inleute). These usually held no >> land other than gardens adjacent to their houses. They supported >> themselves and their families by working for their wages or payment in >> kind. Their obligations to the lord were usually considerably fewer than >> those of the land- holding peasants." I had always construed that to >> mean that they did now own any land, including the house in which they >> lived. Is that correct? I have lots of Haeuslers in the 1700s and early >> 1800s. Thanks for all your knowledge that you so unselfishly share! > > Susan > > > >> ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== >> Would you like to see messages that were posted before you joined the >> list? To browse the archives, go to: http:// >> archiver.rootsweb.com/GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L/ >> > > > > ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== > Forgotten how to UNSUBSCRIBE? > Visit http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/mailinglist/mailinglist.html >

Thank you, Aida for all your valuable information. I've, in fact been to all of my ancestral villages (not much remaining, there!), have Heimatbuecher for the villages and am still in contact and frequently visit my dad's cousins who went from the Egerland to Bavaria at the time of the expulsion. I've got my research rather far back on my main surname lines, but because I was under the incorrect assumption that they were not landowners, never endeavored to research the Berni Rula (will have to check the archives to find out how!), although have read what I think you refer to as the Chronik (am I correct to think of that as the Chronik of the Kreis such as that one I have "Falkenau, Stadt und Land"? I've just always been told by the "oldtimers" in the family in Bavaria (some who are involved in the Heimatstuben) that my names (main ones are Muehlhans and Theisinger) are very old Egerlaender names that "go way back" (no one can ever tell me how far back, though!). So, perhaps a new direction for research I thought I had finished a long time ago!! Thanks. again, for all your insight. You help a great number of people. Since I have not posted my surnames for ages, I will list the main ones: MUEHLHANS/GOETZ/THEISINGER/KNOEBL/KUEHNL/BRANDL/MAYER/GUETTER/ ERTL all in Kreis Falkenau a.d. Eger (Theisinger relocated to Karlsbad in 1920s). Susan On May 17, 2006, at 6:33 PM, Aida Kraus wrote: > > All the above titles means that they are property owners in the > Egerland. Perhaps individual nobles had different types of serfs > for whom they provided a living space, but that would be for the > minority of the Egerland population. So we should not assume that > our ancestors were "serfs" but most likely did certain tasks in > lieu of paying taxes. I have never encountered this in my own > ancestral search, as they are all listed in the Berni Rula as > property owners. And they appear in the Berni rula with the > various description or titles of Owner, Farmer, Cottager and Gardener. > If you walked through a village in Bohemia, you would see that > there are as many different sized properties, as you'll find > anywhere. The only difference is that the farms are all clustered > together into a village and their fields are on the periphery. A > farm that stood by itself was usually a "Gut" or a "Hof" and had > larger and more buildings, they are very old land holdings. > Now here is what I know from researching my own ancestors and > at first, my opinion of Häusler and Gardener was just like yours, > until I found out that they were actually owners of these places > and had to pay taxes. I have several original documents and one > ancestor is listed as Bürger und Schuhmacher (burgher and > shoemaker) at Petschau and they owned that house and a large > garden. There was a castle at Petschau, and I believe that the > Beauforts lived there. If anyone offspring of these Nobles reads > this, please enlighted us about the status of the common population! > There is a Bürger und Uhrmacher (burgher and watchmaker) at the > town of Marienbad in my family, and while he himself at the time of > his marriage is not listed as Hausbesitzer (Owner), his father > owned 3 hotels. There is one Wundarzt (surgeon) at Donawitz and > there is no listing that he was either a Burgher or Owner. There > is a Häusler" (cottager) at Neumetternich near Marienbad who owned > his place and married a "Bauerntochter" (farmer's daughter) from > Dürrmaul, they owned a very substantial Tudor "cottage" until they > were expelled. There is a "Hausbesitzer" at Schönthal (which was a > large village) who owned a "Hof" (large farm) where the family > lived until expellation. They were original settlers and mentioned > in the Chronic and the Berni Rula. There are several other family > members who lived in the Egerland and were given the title > "Häusler," but all these were well built stone or brick houses > with basement and 2 stories... and were still in the family when > they were expelled. > What we have to do here is to pay attention to the area where > they lived and who administered the area. We have to search and > ask: was the land they lived on belonging to a cloister, a noble, a > landholding of a nearby City, or very old settlers property. The > latter can lead far back, probably to 1100-1300, for which there > may be no records. The Catholic Church appears in the 12th > century, but somewhat earlier in the Prag and Budweis areas. It > would be best to get in touch with the expelled people, who > maintain "Heimatstuben" in Germany and request a name list of early > settlers of that particular village from their Chronic. Most of > the original record keepers have passed on, but there are contact > people for the individual villages. Go to a German > website.....and www.yahoo.de is a good one, put the German name of > your ancestor's village in the URL and see what comes up. Some of > them are better than others. I presume that you have checked the > Rootsweb first! > Do not be too optimistic to get at any of the Chronics! > Unfortunately, I must warn you here, that some of these > irreplaceable records found their end buried in manure piles > because of names recorded there during the Nazi occupation. The > person in charge of these documents was most likely a Party member > destroying evidence. Had the Czechs found a Chronic in a village > where names were recorded who held offices during the Hitler > regime, the executions would have hit even more ferociously. So > don't place too much hope on finding these. You will be luckiest > with those villages closest to the Bavarian Border, because the > people hightailed out of there in a hurry, taking the entire > village archives along - like the people of Eger, for instance - > and in most cases the US occupational Forces provided their > transportation. > The records of the Berni Rula will show all your ancestors that > were propertied it 1651. > If your ancestor came from the Budweis and Pilsen area it just > might be a little different than the situation in the Egerland > because there is a different historical background. The Egerland > was not Bohemia originally, it was part of the Oberpfalz, and that > was and still is to this day: Bavaria. > How to locate the Egerland correctl, that I will put into a > different Email. > Aida > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven and Susan Karides" > <karides@sbcglobal.net> > To: <GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com> > Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1:45 PM > Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Fw: Gärtner-Häusler-Hausbesitzer > > >> >> On May 15, 2006, at 3:04 PM, Aida Kraus wrote: >> >> A "Bauer" is farmer with a full spread, "Häusler" is most >> likely a craftsman operating a smaller farm, "Gardener" is >> employed elsewhere and just grows his vegetables and raises small >> animals around the house he owns, and a "Hausbesitzer" is a >> Burgher in a town, a free man >> >> >>> The definition of a "Haeusler" in William E. Wrights "Serf, >>> Seigneur and Sovereign..Agararian Reform in Eighteenth-Century >>> Bohemia" is summed up in his passage(p 17): " Further peasant >>> ranks included cotters (Haeusler) and servants or day laborers >>> (Inleute). These usually held no land other than gardens >>> adjacent to their houses. They supported themselves and their >>> families by working for their wages or payment in kind. Their >>> obligations to the lord were usually considerably fewer than >>> those of the land- holding peasants." I had always construed >>> that to mean that they did now own any land, including the house >>> in which they lived. Is that correct? I have lots of Haeuslers >>> in the 1700s and early 1800s. Thanks for all your knowledge that >>> you so unselfishly share! >> >> Susan >> >> >> >>> ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== >>> Would you like to see messages that were posted before you >>> joined the list? To browse the archives, go to: http:// >>> archiver.rootsweb.com/GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L/ >>> >> >> >> >> ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== >> Forgotten how to UNSUBSCRIBE? >> Visit http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/mailinglist/mailinglist.html > > > ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== > Would you like to see messages that were posted before you joined > the list? To browse the archives, go to: http:// > archiver.rootsweb.com/GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L/ >

The discussion of peasant landholdings and responsibilites covers a huge field. My own ancestors were from the southern Saazer Kreis, a bit unlike most of the Egerland in that it was much more of a mix of Germans and Czechs. In fact the lords of my ancestors' estate were members of a very old Czech family. Based on this we might imagine that what Aida has stated about the Egerland would apply differently in the Saaz. Surprisingly, the amount of land held and the taxes owed often varied not only from Kreis to Kreis or estate to estate, but, as you can see in the quotation which follows, even with an estate! from "Noble Landowners and Agriculture in Austria, 1918-1848: A study in the origins of the peasant emancipation of 1848," by Jerome Blum, the Johns Hopkins Press, 1948. pages 68-9 - Peasant Tenures - Dues and Obligations The land occupied by the peasants was divided into units called by various names. A peasant might hold a full unit, or more probably, a part of a unit, down to a quarter or an eighth. Still smaller holdings were occupied by cotters. The services and dues, especially the labor service, which were required of the peasant depended, in general, upon the share of the unit which he held. The peasant who occupied a whole unit was known as a "Ganzbauer," the holder of a half unit was a Halb-bauer, and so on (note - estate records show that my own ancestors were originally Halb-bauers - ru). There were actually large variations between the amount and yield of land held by peasants of the same status. This variation was found not only between provinces and between different areas of an individual province, but even within a single manor. On such an estate one "Ganzbauer" might have 50 or more yokes of land in his possession while a neighboring "Ganzbauer" had only half as much. Yet the services required of the two men were identical....The type and the amount of the obligation the peasant owed his lord varied between the provinces and also within the individual province. The diversity of the obligations and their number were revealed during the process of emancipation after 1848. Thus, in Moravia 246 different types of money payments alone were reported. Concerning the paying of taxes and "robota," things changed greatly as a "proto-industrial" revolution began to take hold in Bohemia during the the 18th century. The rise of a landless class ("herrenlose") is described in the following quotation from "Absolutism and the eighteenth-century origins of compulsory schooling in Prussia and Austria," by James Van Horn Melton, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988. Pages 123-5 - The Labor Force For the most part...proto-industrial production was centered in the countryside, where the absence of guilds made for a more elastic labor market. Moreover, seasonal fluctuations in the agricultural labor market left the rural population free to spin or weave during much of the year. Rural labor was also cheaper: The cost of living was lower in the countryside, and because many rural laborers still derived a part of their income from agriculture, the entrepreneur could pay lower wages than would have been required had the laborers depended on industry alone for their subsistence. The labor force in rural manufacturing consisted largely of land-poor households dependent upon non-agricultural pursuits for their subsistence. The number of these households grew steadily in eighteenth-century Prussia and Austria and constituted most of the rural population. Some were so-called lodgers ("Einlieger" or "Inleute"), who roomed with and were subject to the authority of more prosperous rural households. Most were gardeners ("Gartner") and cotters ("Hausler") who owned little or no land and lived on the physical and social fringes of the village community.... Rural manufacturing further hastened the growth of a subpeasant stratum by encouraging peasant displacement ("Bauernlegen"). In the eighteenth century, peasant displacement was most common in regions like Bohemia, Silesia, and East Prussia, where labor services were the predominant form of seignorial rent. Peasant displacement had been rare as long as peasants had few sources of income outside of agriculture. After all, the use of peasant labor on siegnorial demesne was possible only as long as the peasant household could subsist off its own holding. Page 146 - The crisis of seigniorial authority ...economic changes in the countryside had begun to belie many of the cherished assumptions of seigniorial paternalism...the rapid expansion of a land-poor, subpeasant stratum was creating a "herrenlose" class only loosely bound by seigniorial ties. A lack of land made this group less subject to the juridical authority of the lord, while the growing availability of employment in rural industry further increased their independence from seigniorial control. The landless laborer's relationship to seigniorial authority was far more ambigious than that of the peasant, whose plot of land concretely defined his feudal obligations. Bob Ullman ullman@easystreet.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Aida Kraus To: GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 4:33 PM Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Fw: Gärtner-Häusler-Hausbesitzer All the above titles means that they are property owners in the Egerland. Perhaps individual nobles had different types of serfs for whom they provided a living space, but that would be for the minority of the Egerland population. So we should not assume that our ancestors were "serfs" but most likely did certain tasks in lieu of paying taxes. I have never encountered this in my own ancestral search, as they are all listed in the Berni Rula as property owners. And they appear in the Berni rula with the various description or titles of Owner, Farmer, Cottager and Gardener. If you walked through a village in Bohemia, you would see that there are as many different sized properties, as you'll find anywhere. The only difference is that the farms are all clustered together into a village and their fields are on the periphery. A farm that stood by itself was usually a "Gut" or a "Hof" and had larger and more buildings, they are very old land holdings. Now here is what I know from researching my own ancestors and at first, my opinion of Häusler and Gardener was just like yours, until I found out that they were actually owners of these places and had to pay taxes. I have several original documents and one ancestor is listed as Bürger und Schuhmacher (burgher and shoemaker) at Petschau and they owned that house and a large garden. There was a castle at Petschau, and I believe that the Beauforts lived there. If anyone offspring of these Nobles reads this, please enlighted us about the status of the common population! There is a Bürger und Uhrmacher (burgher and watchmaker) at the town of Marienbad in my family, and while he himself at the time of his marriage is not listed as Hausbesitzer (Owner), his father owned 3 hotels. There is one Wundarzt (surgeon) at Donawitz and there is no listing that he was either a Burgher or Owner. There is a Häusler" (cottager) at Neumetternich near Marienbad who owned his place and married a "Bauerntochter" (farmer's daughter) from Dürrmaul, they owned a very substantial Tudor "cottage" until they were expelled. There is a "Hausbesitzer" at Schönthal (which was a large village) who owned a "Hof" (large farm) where the family lived until expellation. They were original settlers and mentioned in the Chronic and the Berni Rula. There are several other family members who lived in the Egerland and were given the title "Häusler," but all these were well built stone or brick houses with basement and 2 stories... and were still in the family when they were expelled. What we have to do here is to pay attention to the area where they lived and who administered the area. We have to search and ask: was the land they lived on belonging to a cloister, a noble, a landholding of a nearby City, or very old settlers property. The latter can lead far back, probably to 1100-1300, for which there may be no records. The Catholic Church appears in the 12th century, but somewhat earlier in the Prag and Budweis areas. It would be best to get in touch with the expelled people, who maintain "Heimatstuben" in Germany and request a name list of early settlers of that particular village from their Chronic. Most of the original record keepers have passed on, but there are contact people for the individual villages. Go to a German website.....and www.yahoo.de is a good one, put the German name of your ancestor's village in the URL and see what comes up. Some of them are better than others. I presume that you have checked the Rootsweb first! Do not be too optimistic to get at any of the Chronics! Unfortunately, I must warn you here, that some of these irreplaceable records found their end buried in manure piles because of names recorded there during the Nazi occupation. The person in charge of these documents was most likely a Party member destroying evidence. Had the Czechs found a Chronic in a village where names were recorded who held offices during the Hitler regime, the executions would have hit even more ferociously. So don't place too much hope on finding these. You will be luckiest with those villages closest to the Bavarian Border, because the people hightailed out of there in a hurry, taking the entire village archives along - like the people of Eger, for instance - and in most cases the US occupational Forces provided their transportation. The records of the Berni Rula will show all your ancestors that were propertied it 1651. If your ancestor came from the Budweis and Pilsen area it just might be a little different than the situation in the Egerland because there is a different historical background. The Egerland was not Bohemia originally, it was part of the Oberpfalz, and that was and still is to this day: Bavaria. How to locate the Egerland correctl, that I will put into a different Email. Aida ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven and Susan Karides" <karides@sbcglobal.net> To: <GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2006 1:45 PM Subject: Re: [GERMAN-BOHEMIAN] Fw: Gärtner-Häusler-Hausbesitzer > > On May 15, 2006, at 3:04 PM, Aida Kraus wrote: > > A "Bauer" is farmer with a full spread, "Häusler" is most likely a > craftsman operating a smaller farm, "Gardener" is employed elsewhere and > just grows his vegetables and raises small animals around the house he > owns, and a "Hausbesitzer" is a Burgher in a town, a free man > > >> The definition of a "Haeusler" in William E. Wrights "Serf, Seigneur and >> Sovereign..Agararian Reform in Eighteenth-Century Bohemia" is summed up >> in his passage(p 17): " Further peasant ranks included cotters >> (Haeusler) and servants or day laborers (Inleute). These usually held no >> land other than gardens adjacent to their houses. They supported >> themselves and their families by working for their wages or payment in >> kind. Their obligations to the lord were usually considerably fewer than >> those of the land- holding peasants." I had always construed that to >> mean that they did now own any land, including the house in which they >> lived. Is that correct? I have lots of Haeuslers in the 1700s and early >> 1800s. Thanks for all your knowledge that you so unselfishly share! > > Susan > > > >> ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== >> Would you like to see messages that were posted before you joined the >> list? To browse the archives, go to: http:// >> archiver.rootsweb.com/GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L/ >> > > > > ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== > Forgotten how to UNSUBSCRIBE? > Visit http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/mailinglist/mailinglist.html >