Families and households of the poor: The 19th-century Slovenian gostači

Abstract

The present study examines the position of day laborers, a social category still awaiting comparative study by family historians. In 19th-century Slovenian sources these laborers, called gostači, were a very mobile group that did not own property; they could be married or single and could be involved in various occasional jobs, agricultural or industrial, skilled or unskilled. By comparing two communities (one agrarian, the other centered on iron production), the study shows that the living and working arrangements of gostači were profoundly affected by the economy and by natural resources. They therefore developed different residential patterns, though in neither case did their families constitute a part of the owner's sub-household in the Laslettian sense. The study concludes that in the 19th century this poor social group should not be treated as a homogenous workforce but as flexible and dynamic.

Acknowledgment

An earlier version of this article was presented at a seminar of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure. I wish to thank seminar participants for their comments. I am also most grateful to Sheilagh Ogilvie, Richard Wall, and Tony Wrigley for their generosity and help in commenting on versions of this article.

Notes

1 Mitterauer stated, “Since the end of the 8th century, a measure of land that was used repeatedly in the case of such bestowals was the Hufe”. This corresponds to the Slovenian usage of Hube. Typical examples of this Hube-based agrarian system are the descriptions of occupations in the sources, such as Hübler (farmer), 1/2 Hübler and 1/4 Hübler, which refer to the size of individual properties.

2 The research on which this observation is based drew upon two types of Status Animarum: for gostači and for the rest of the population (owners of property or land). Investigation of gostači families has shown that when gostači acquired property, they moved from the former register to the latter (see Sovič, 2001, Section 4.1.1.).

3 These vulgo names are important indicators for the determination of issues such as inheritance and changes of residence. For instance, a son who inherited the property also inherited his parents' vulgo name, whereas if he married on the farm of his wife's parents and remained there, he would take her parents' vulgo name.

4 Inhabitants of Mislinja still remember that gostači, in contrast to servants, did not have a fixed renewal date but for the most part moved into rented huts in spring ([oral information from Mislinja]. For Strojna, located a few kilometers from Mislinja, the ethnologist Makarovič found that gostači changed their contract with their landlord on St. George's Day (April 24, according to Slovenian tradition, changed only recently to the more usual date of April 23). The saying “Jure kaže duri,” means “George shows the door” (Makarovič, 1982, p. 49).

5 On social inequalities between skilled and unskilled workers, see Kaelble (1986). Sjöberg has argued that in Swedish iron production “hierarchical division of the areas of responsibility in the process of producing iron was combined with a geographical division: each group and task was allocated different charcoal purchasing areas,” a division which is also evident in Mislinja's iron community (Sjöberg & Tomilov, 1998, p. 41).

6 The conjugal family unit (CFU) is the critical unit upon which the Hammel–Laslett household classification system is built. It consists “of either a married couple with or without offspring, or the remaining partner of a marriage with offspring present” (Laslett, 1972, p. 87).

7 Although the number of cases is small (15), the pattern is supported–for the whole of the 19th century–by the reconstitution of the families of many other unskilled gostači who worked in the foundry but lived outside it in the agrarian surroundings (Sovič, 2001 [Chapters 5 and 6]).

8 This observation is made on the basis of the detailed examination of gostaški families containing one or more single mothers. 19 such families were reconstructed for Mislinja and 21 for Šenčur.

9 The whole parish of Šenčur, which included several Status Animarum sources for gostači, had 37 such residential units, while Mislinja had 14, which were established from the longitudinal reconstitution of residential patterns in Mislinja (Sovič, 2001 [Chapters 5 and 6]).

10 Examples abound in the Šenčur Status Animarum for gostači and are evident from the reconstitution of households. The combination of information about names, social status, and residence makes it possible to follow the circulation of these women. (Sovič, 2001 [Chapters 5 and 6], esp. Figs. 5.3.4.c and 6.2.d.).

11 Figures for the female population in the iron community are significant. The ratio of males to females between the ages of 14 and 29 is 1.10 (compare 0.93 for Šenčur gostači); for single people, it is 1.30 (1.02 for Šenčur gostači). There were 72 females between ages 15 and 29 in Mislinja, 54 of whom were unmarried. To survive they would have had to find work.

12 The transfer of knowledge to the younger generation within the family can be illustrated by an example: the occupation of the oldest son of a smith was recorded in the marriage register as Smiedhelfer bey dessen Vater und Mutter (smith assistant to his father and mother). Keeping knowledge within the circle of close kin was of great importance in Mislinja, a characteristic that strongly emerged through the longitudinal nature of the sources for the late 18th and the whole of the 19th centuries.

13 Episcopal Archive, Maribor: Šentilj pod Turjakom, Mrliška Knjiga (Burial Register of Mislinja), 1775–1862. Descriptions in the sources for later periods support this tendency.

14 The reconstruction of families in the iron community of Mislinja revealed the tendency of smiths to choose farmers' daughters as partners, whereas skilled workers who were involved in various jobs connected with wood production were more likely to marry other foresters' daughters. Marriage partners of unskilled gostači could either be non-inheriting sons and daughters (and thus future gostači) or individuals whose parents were already gostači. Sons and daughters who did not inherit their fathers' property tended to marry individuals similarly positioned rather than those who were already born into a gostači family (see Sovič, 2001 [Chapter 3]).

15 In her investigation of Strojna in the province of Koroška (Slovenian, Carinthia), Makarovič observed similar characteristics of servants. She remarked that individuals retained the status of servant until marriage. Afterward their status broadly changed to landless gostači. She argued that at a young age (around 9), children were usually employed by various farmers as cowhands and shepherds, around 15 or 16, they became servants (Makarovič, 1982, pp. 41–60).

16 Štuhec observed a high proportion of unmarried women over the age of 30 in Kranj, the nearest major town to Šenčur, in the middle of the 18th century. He argued that girls left the parental home around age ten. Half of them became nursemaids and rather fewer became shepherdesses or servants. Around ages 15–25 servants predominated, especially in the early 20s. At that age there were very few shepherdesses and almost no nursemaids (Štuhec, 1983, p. 288).

17 The Status Animarum shows a growth in the number of addresses, while the cadastral records make it clear that the new addresses are subdivisions of previously existing properties.

18 Conclusions are drawn from the reconstruction of over 30 families from baptismal, burial and marriage registers and Status Animarum for the late 18th and the 19th centuries.