ВОЈВОДСТВО (ВЛАСТЕЛИНСТВО) ПОДБОРЈЕ: ПРИВРЕДНЕ ПРИЛИКЕ (1702–1750)
THE VOIVODESHIP OF PODBORJE: ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES (1702–1750)

Summary/Abstract: Economic circumstances in the Voivodeship (vojvodstvo, Squiredom, vlastelinstvo) of Podborje in Western Slavonia are presented on the basis of tax records, tithe lists and other sources. Its inhabitants lived under Ottoman rule from the mid-16th century until 1691. At that time they performed military service (kept guards on the border toward the Habsburg Monarchy in Slavonia) and in return enjoyed tax reliefs – they were required to pay only minimum pecuniary duties from their farm holdings. At the time of the Great Turkish War (1683–1699) they agreed to become Habsburg subjects and participated together with the Habsburg army in battles against the Turks in Slavonia. That is why they were recognized the status of free peasants – soldiers, which they enjoyed until 1702. When the Habsburg Monarchy, after the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, decided to reorganize its administration in Slavonia, the Voivodeship of Podborje became a feudal estate, in the ownership of the Court Chamber (Hofkammer) in Vienna between 1702 and 1750. As a consequence, its inhabitants lost their status of free peasants – soldiers and became serfs, required to pay duties to the state and their landlord (dominus terrestris). The basic tax unit was a standard farm holding (session, estate), assumed, according to 1702 regulations, to include 24 acres of plowland, two kosa of meadow (1 kosa had an area of about 4314 sq.m) and 8 draft oxen. Individual farm holdings, depending on their size, were converted into aliquot parts of a tax session, with one eighth (⅛) as the smallest unit. An eighth of a session (3 acres of plowland, ¼ kosa of meadow and one ox) was the smallest holding that was supposed to provide payment of proportionate duties and sustenance to its owner. The whole session entailed pecuniary duties amounting to 24 forints – 3 forints for land fee and 8 forints for redemption from labour, as well as 13 forints of contribution to the state. The contribution was later increased to 21.5 forints. In addition to this, peasants were required to give a tithe of their cereal crops to the Court Chamber. When converting individual farm holdings into aliquot parts of a tax session and assessing taxes, the Chamber officers did not observe the regulations about the structure of tax sessions. As a consequence, according to their calculations, a tax session contained only 12 to 17 acres of arable land instead of 24. Thus they increased peasants’ tax duties per acre of plowland, rendering crop production for the market unprofitable. Its unprofitability was further aggravated by low cereal prices in the first decades of the 18th century. This led to drastic decrease in the size of farm holdings in Podborje Voivodeship between 1702 and 1736 (see Figure 1), and cereals have been produced only in quantities that satisfied the needs of farm households. Regulation of agrarian relations through adoption of urbarium by Emperor Charles VI for Slavonia and Sirmium in 1737, as well as market upturn for cereals (since 1738) resulted in the increase of plowland areas owned by farm households. Unlike other landlords (church institutions and private owners), the Court Chamber did not create allodia (land plots on which feudal landlords organized crop production or raised livestock) on its estates and allowed village communities to use all land within the village territory. According to the census taken in 1702, plowland (2500 acres or 1438.66 hectares) and vineyards (334 motika or about 26.72 hectares) accounted for only 4.69% of the total area of this voivodeship. The remaining areas (meadows, pastures, rough grazing and forests), as well as fallow farmland, were available to be used to lesser or greater extent for cattle or pig breeding. Owing to this, in the first decades of the 18th century farm households owned many heavy (horses and cattle) and small livestock (sheep and goats), way out of proportion to the areas under meadows they owned (see Figure 4). Feeding of heavy livestock and pigs over most of the year depended on grazing on pastures and in forests. Since there was no conflict between peasants and landlords in the Podborje Voivodeship over available resources (pastures, forests) for livestock breeding, the livestock population of an average farm household there was larger than livestock population of an average household in other fiefs in Slavonia and Sirmium (see Figure 5). Their numbers dropped down in the late 1730s and during 1740s due to perishing of animals during a long and severe winter 1739/1740 and animal contagion in 1746.

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