A History of Central Eastern Europe

SLOVAK SOCIETY
Slovakia has historically been an agricultural country with 3 distinct groups of “farmers” –
Farmers: worked a farm, a “full farm” being ~ 90 ac which was passed on to the eldest son or grandson.
The yearly costs in SZEPES paid to the CSÁKY family before 1848 were:
o The robota (hrs of labor) those w/ horses worked 52 days a year; without worked 104; or 1 day and 2
days a week respectively. The remaining days were spent tending to their separate fields;
o One large wagon-load of firewood, cut and brought to castle;
o 2 chickens, 2 roosters, dozen eggs, and ½ crock of rendered pig fat;
o 1 Hungarian forint
Tenants: were similar to the farmers but on a smaller scale; they had their house, but no work animals.
Their robota was 18 days a year or one and a half days per month.
Subtenants: held no land in their own right but lived with farmers or tenants. Their robota amounted to
just one day per month or a total of 12 per year.
In any year the taxes due the noble, i.e. not manual work, were subject to being doubled if the land-owner
married (nice way to guarantee an easy 1 st year). After 1848 title to the land and buildings that “farmers” had leased
was transferred from the noble to the farmer. A variety of taxes were also payable directly to the king and city:
‣ Gemeindesteuer (city tax)
‣ Mautpflicht
‣ Korbgeld
‣ Portengeld
‣ Salzfuhr (Salt was a state monopoly and each household had to buy a set amount at a set price)
As populations rose the demand for goods needed to run a farm rose: clothing, shoes & food. So did the demand for
saloons, taverns & churches. A village was run by a mayor who had been elected by the farmers.
The larger businesses, such as breweries, distilleries, mills and factories were owned by the landlord whose
economic success was intricately linked to the prosperity of their farmers and tenants. Running a saloon or a mill
was often leased out to individuals by the owner.
It was important to the State to keep the farmers in possession of their lands, the source of income through land
taxes. Nobles/landlords were exempt from land taxes. As landlords repossessed farms, the King’s income dropped
but the landlord had to have more hands to work his dominical farms. The robota was increased to 3 & 6 days/wk
(with & without animals) in some parts of the Kingdom! As dominical lands increased, farmer land decreased and
there were fewer hands to satisfy the needs of the noble’s dominical lands. With fewer farmers & farms
(urbarial/cultivated and extirpaturial/cleared land) there was less tax revenue. This was made up for by raising taxes.
This constant tug-of-war between the noble class and the monarchy created a population steadily growing less
prosperous due to increase land taxes and increased robota which led to “peasant uprisings.”
The local Roman Catholic Bishop had a right, as the state religion, established by law to 1 / 10 of all crops
cultivated – the equivalent of a 10% tithe – called the “tenth.” Only Roman Catholic clergy were enriched in this
manner and all citizens had to pay no matter what religion you adhered to. This ended in 1781 as part of JOSEPH II to
loosen the grip the Church had on the finances of the HABSBURG holdings. Landlords had a right to a further 1 / 10 of
all remaining crops, or 1 / 9 of the total crops (10% of 90%) of their subjects which was called the “ninth.” A Bishop
who was also a landlord became wealthy very quick – taking almost 1 / 5 of everyone’s harvest!
A ruled over a territory was a GRAFSCHAFT and, depending on gender, was ruled by:
LANGUAGE MASCULINE FEMININE TERRITORY
GERMAN GRAF GRÄFIN GRAFSCHAFT
SLOVAK GRÓF GRÓFKA GRÓFSTVO
HUNGARIAN GRÓF GRÓFNŐ & GRÓFNÉ GRÓFSÁG
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