The Local Miller

Before the age of the steam locomotive and the great factories, the local water mill was the machine at the heart of the local economy that harnessed the power of flowing water to perform useful work. While most common were grist mills for grinding grain into flour, any manner of mechanical processes could be attached to the axle of the water wheel, as for example, sawing lumber, turning a lathe, or hammering. Despite its pastoral appearance, the power of a typical grist mill was sufficient to turn a millstone weighing a ton or more. Even the first machines of the Industrial Revolution were powered by water wheels. At a time when most work was performed by hand, the local mill was the machine at the center of any rural economy. In 1837, 57 grist mills and 9 sawmills were in operation on the Lanškroun estate. As shown on the map below (where triangles and rectangles represent grist mills and sawmills, respectively), most farmers didn’t have far to go to grind their grain.

It took some special knowhow to maintain the smooth operation of such a critical machine as the mill. To qualify as a licensed miller, it was necessary to pass a detailed technical exam and demonstrate the ability to build and repair a mill. The master miller also had to be familiar with all industries related to water: bridges, water treatment works, sewers, water delivery systems, and wells; he was essentially a hydrological engineer. Moreover, he needed a working knowledge of the laws governing water rights. Master millers were freemen rather than serfs and were hired by the mill owner as either a salaried employee or under a contract in which the miller shared a portion of both the costs and profits with the owner. A third option was that the miller leased the mill for a set amount of rent; under this arrangement, he could transfer the contractual rights to his children. This seemed to have been the case for the mills in Česká Třebová, where each mill was operated by the same family for multiple generations.

The miller was a well-respected member of the community. When farmers brought their grain to the mill, it might take some hours before their flour was ready, so most mills included a large room where customers could wait in comfort with refreshments provided. Thus, the mill served as a sort of public house, where the farming community gathered to discuss the news of the day. In fact, it was the miller who was one of the few town residents who subscribed to the newspaper. The miller’s customers commonly paid him in flour, the so-called miller’s portion. With such a surplus of flour on hand, the miller was often also a flour dealer and a baker. The master miller typically managed a small crew of journeymen millers and mill workers.

In 1837, it was reported that Česká Třebová possessed four grist mills and two sawmills, which was a greater number than any other town on the Lanškroun estate. The town’s preponderance of mills may be explained by the town’s hilly terrain and local hydrology. Česká Třebová is situated among hills along the Třebovka River, where spring-fed streams originating from the western highlands flow down to the river. Canals within the town increased the flow and directed the water to the mill wheel. The town’s four grist mills can be readily located on the town’s 1839 cadastral map from the house numbers of local millers listed in the parish records. (Parish records do not identify any sawyers suggesting that the sawmills were operated by itinerant sawyers or by another occupation, perhaps a carpenter or cabinetmaker.)

The oldest of the town’s grist mills, operated by the Darzilek family for many years, was located on a stream northwest of the town square. This site must have been favorable from a hydrological standpoint since a second mill was located just upstream from the Darzilek mill. Likewise, two other mills were located in close proximity to each other on a second stream at the western edge of town. One of these mills was operated by the son-in-law of miller Darzilek. Just downstream was the large mill complex operated by the Daubrava family. Their vital records identify how they managed their business over multiple generations. Typically, the senior Daubrava held the position of the master miller who operated the grist mill at No. 158. His eldest son, who was next in succession, was the miller of the adjacent fulling mill at No. 157. The fuller’s younger brothers were employed as a flour dealer and a baker. Thus, the Daubrava’s of Česká Třebová held a near monopoly on the products of the local grain harvest.

Fulling is a process of beating newly woven woolen cloth while wet to cleanse and thicken it; the opposing fibers interlock and form a more homogenous (and warmer) fabric. Originally, the cloth was soaked in stale urine (as a source of ammonium salts) and beaten with a club or the fuller’s hands or feet. From medieval times, a fulling mill was used, where the water wheel drove a wooden stock attached to a series of heavy wooden hammers to beat the cloth in a solution of fuller’s earth (a less odiferous source of hydrous aluminum silicate). Afterwards, the cloth was stretched on great frames known as tenters, to which it was attached by tenterhooks. From this fuller’s tool comes the expression “to be on tenterhooks,” to describe a state of tension.

Sources:

Blahnik, Ladislav “The History of Millcraft in Bohemia” Naše Rodina 9 (1) (1997) 10-14.

Sommer, Johann Gottfried Das Königreich Böhmen: statistisch – topographisch dargestellt: Chrudimer Kreis Prague: J.G. Calveschen Buchhandlung, 1837.

Map of the Lanskroun Estate created in 2022 by Logan Brown in collaboration with James Kleinschmidt. Locations of grist- and sawmills added by the author of this blog.

Population Dynamics I: Census Data

The population dynamics of a community, whether expanding or contracting, is an important indicator of the social and economic environment in which its residents lived. A community with an expanding population is typically one that attracts new residents because of a vibrant economy with job opportunities. On the other hand, a contracting population suggests a community in economic decline. To explore the economic status of several 19th century Lanškroun communities, I plotted population data available from J.G. Sommer’s 1837 almanac, Das Königreich Böhmen (Chrudim Kreis) and national censuses of 1869 and every decade thereafter up to 1910. Despite a limited number of time points, this data can provide a reasonable outline of the growth trajectory of any 19th century Lanškroun town of interest.

Findings. The differences in population dynamics for Lanškroun towns and villages during the 19th century are striking. Populations in agricultural communities show little or no growth in contrast to crafts towns, where substantial population growth is seen. For example, Česká Třebová, the most robust Lanškroun town, exhibited a 3.5-fold increase in population from 1837 to 1910, whereas none of the surveyed farming towns show more than 23% growth over the same time period. Notably, the agricultural towns of Čermná (pop. 2,964) and Dolni Dobrouc (pop. 2,175) were of similar size to Česká Třebová (pop. 2,545) in 1837 but lacked the extent of growth experienced by the latter town, suggesting that size alone does not create growth. Smaller villages such as Třebovice (pop. 1,069), also lacked significant population growth; many other farming villages lost population over the 19th century.

Population growth in any 19th century community would be expected based on natural increase of the population, taking into consideration both the high infant-child mortality and the even higher fertility rates at the time. Yet the fact that most farming communities exhibited static or negative population growth suggests that significant out-migration was taking place. From an economic and land use perspective, this makes sense. In farming communities, most arable land was fully occupied and indivisible by law until 1869. Thus, with each generation, the landless population increased. Moreover, any increases in agricultural productivity were not sufficient to support additional population. This left few opportunities for each new generation (or potential newcomers) to make a living in a farming community. It was essential that excess population had to leave.

In contrast, craft towns such as Lanškroun (pop. 4,609), Ústí nad Orlicí (pop. 2,883), and Česká Třebová (pop. 2,545) could offer more job opportunities without land division. Notably, greater growth took place in Česká Třebová and Ústí nad Orlicí, where the railroad’s arrival in 1845 spurred the construction of new textile factories. The late arrival of the railroad (1885) to the city of Lanškroun meant a later industrial development.

There were, however, a few villages that seemed to prove the exception to the rule of the two described patterns of population growth. These were farming villages that experienced exceptional growth throughout the century by virtue of their economic transformation by the nearby construction of new factories. Originally farming villages, they became factory towns. Some examples are: Hylvaty and Kerhartice, which are both situated on the outskirts of Ústí nad Orlicí and also Parník, lying on the northern border of Česká Třebová.

The different patterns of population dynamics within the Lanškroun region were a local manifestation of a larger phenomenon of urbanization that was taking place across Bohemia and much of Europe as rural peasants migrated away from agricultural communities for jobs in larger towns and cities, and in some cases, to other countries. In the Czech lands, this migration was enabled by Joseph II’s decree abolishing mobility restrictions on serfs in 1781 and in 1848, the abolition of robota that tied peasant farmers to the land. The large job market created by the industrial revolution further boosted rural migration to urban centers.

An additional feature reported in censuses is the number of houses in each community, which provides an average measure of housing density. By tracking housing density in the Lanškroun region over the century, it is evident that housing commonly lagged population growth. One stark example (see figure below) is the farming-turned-factory village of Kerhartice, where the population increased ten-fold during the 19th century, while housing increased by only five-fold so that, the average housing density rose to 18 persons per house. Therefore, moving to a larger town in search of work often meant also finding a resident family willing to rent space in their own home. In parish records, it is not uncommon to find multiple families living at the same address. While history books often mention crowded living conditions in large cities such as Prague or Vienna, population growth in rural Lanškroun was also accompanied by more congestion in housing. One can imagine that one attraction of America would have been the promise of more personal living space.

References

Panek, Jaroslav, Tuma, Oldrich, et al. A History of the Czech Lands (2nd Ed.) Prague: Karolinium Press 2019.

Sommer, Johann Gottfried Das Königreich Böhmen: statistisch-topographisch dargestellt (Chrudim Kreis) Prag: J.G. Calveschen Buchhandlung, 1837.

Population Dynamics: Part II(Annual Births)

In Population Dynamics I, two distinct patterns of census-derived population growth in Lanškroun communities were described. Towns or villages with predominantly agricultural economies showed little growth, or even declining population over the course of the 19th century, consistent with full land occupancy and no improvement in agricultural productivity. On the other hand, towns with strong non-agricultural (typically textile) economies experienced substantial population growth over the century and suggest an urbanization phenomenon whereby there was a net movement from agricultural to crafts towns. These observations were based on census data from six different years (from 1837 to 1910) which provide a general outline of population trends but miss year to year details of population dynamics.

A case can be made that the annual number of births (from counting birth records) can serve as a surrogate measure of population and one that fills in the years missing from available censuses. In fact, by using the birth records, population trends can be retrieved as far back as the earliest years of recorded births, i.e., the mid-17th century. While annual births cannot provide a direct measure of the total population, they track the subset of the population comprised of reproducing couples, i.e., families. As discussed in Quitting Bohemia, short-term changes in annual births can signal widespread decreases in female fertility caused by food shortages and some diseases, or temporary separation of couples, as in war. In the longer-term, rising annual births commonly result from both natural increase and the migration of new families into a community; declining births are commonly the result of out-migration. In general, trends in annual births should provide a good estimate of population trends that apply specifically to families in their childbearing years. Annual birth data is information that is both more detailed and available on a longer timescale than is census-derived data.

Findings. Plots of the annual number of births for several 19th century Lanškroun communities showed a general qualitative agreement with census-derived population trends (data not shown). This comparison is explicitly shown by the graph below, where relative changes in census-derived population numbers are plotted along with the relative changes in annual births for the same year; this data describes the textile town of Česká Třebová. The trends from both parameters show a good correlation, with the exception of the 1910 timepoints. However, from 1870 to 1900, annual births somewhat lag population data, suggesting a selective loss of reproductively aged couples and their children from the town’s population.

Local population dynamics, however, can be better appreciated from the detailed perspective of an annual birth curve. As shown by the graph below (Annual Births in Česká Třebová), five distinct phases are evident, some of which would seem to correlate with historic events that hint at possible underlying causes. For example, (1.) from 1770-1795, Česká Třebová’s annual births underwent a slow increase that leveled off before (2.) a slight decrease (1795-1818) during the years of the French

Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, in which many local men fought. Soon thereafter came (3.) a rapid and extensive growth phase (1820-1860). Notably, this phase began before the arrival of the railroad, which is often credited with the town’s major population growth. Thus, while the railroad and subsequent industrial development undoubtedly helped fuel this growth, it had already been well underway for several decades. The end of this vigorous growth phase was followed by (4.) a dramatic 20-year drop in population, coinciding with the initial wave of Czech emigration, in which the Lanškroun region was a major contributor. (5.) Lastly, from 1880 to 1910, the level of annual births returned to its 1860 levels, which may have been a result of the major expansion taking place at the local textile factory, which drew a large number of new employees from outside the community.

While these correlations remain speculative, trends in annual births and population from an ancestral hometown can provide the kind of information that adds color and context to a family’s emigration story. Even before emigration, population dynamics can suggest the community’s economic vibrancy and the opportunities available to its residents.