Essay by Sona Svancarova

Sona attended Secondary Grammar School Boskovice, Czech Republic in 2006.
Essay about Frantisek Valek – A Moravian Potter and Farmer

This is a story of my great great .. great-grandfather from my Mother’s side, Frantisek Valek. Through this story I want to tell you about the life of a small town master potter who later on became a village Farmer, at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries in the Czech countries.

Frantisek Valek was born on 12th October 1770, in the Czech lands which were then a part of the Habsburg monarchy. He came to the world under the rule of Marie Therese in the period which was very difficult for the people of this country. In 1771, the whole Czech lands suffered from terribly poor crops. The lack of food was felt especially in the year 1772, when a famine started, epidemics spread and about a tenth of population died.

Frantisek lived in the town of Kunstat, situated in a picturesque hilly countryside in the east part of the Czech lands, called Moravia. It was the centre of a rather vast manor of Kunstat, which belong to the masters of Imbsen and since 1783 to the free masters Honrichs of Wofswarffen.

The town of Kunstat was by no means a big one. In 1800, there were about 130 houses and 815 people lived there. They had the market rights for wine and two annual festivals. The most impressive architectural structure was a castle (at the time when Frantisek lived it had been turned into a chateau), on a rocky hill. Furthermore, there were also a school, two churches, farmstead, brewery and several inns. Kunstat was a poor town at the time of Frantisek Valek. Most inhabitants worked hard day and night to earn their living.

The worst times for Kunstat came during the war with France, when more and more payments were required. Especially in the year 1805, after the battle at Slavkov (Austerlitz), when a French platoon arrived and Kunstat had to pay them 2000 quids. In the following years, French army continued to plague the small town, as all expenses related to their stay were paid from the town funds.

Frantisek Valek was the youngest son of a Kunstat citizen Vaclav Valek and Dorota, nee Kazdova, a daughter of the local Mayor and councilor Bernard Kazda. Nevertheless, Frantisek also came from a significant local family. In 1720s his grandfather, Pavel Valek, was the Mayor and councilor of Kunstat.

Frantisek was one of five children. When he was born, his father Vaclav was 41, and his mother Dorota was even 47 years old. Frantisek had two brothers and two sisters. The eldest brother (also named Frantisek) was born in 1759 but lived only until the age of nine. He died in 1768 and since the parents wanted to keep the name in the family, they gave it to “our” Frantisek. His sister Kateoina died when she was one year old. Only two of Frantisek’s siblings lived until the adult age. Frantisek became an orphan very soon in his life. His father died in 1771, when the boy was only one year old. His mother was left alone with three children. However, she died soon, too, and so he became an orphan at the age of nine. He was left with two siblings only: seventeen-year-old Josef, who became a potter in a nearby village of Sulikov, and fourteen-year-old Anna, who got married and settled down in the native town of Kunstat.

Where and how Frantisek lived after the death of his parents is not known. The next records of his life come from the year 1794, when two significant events happened in his family.

On 28th May 1794, at the age of 24, he married Veronika Prochazkova, who was much older than he. She was a good match, though. Her father, Stanislav Prochazka, also belonged to Kunstat councilors.

On 22nd June 1794, less than a month later, Frantisek was accepted into the potters’ guild as an “honest master”. The guild especially saw to it that the handicraft was done only “properly and only by members of the handicraft guild”. The reason was that this handicraft was not a free one, but only allowed to be done by the guild members whose numbers were limited. Frantisek had to pass an exam – he had to create a master work and pay a fee of 2 quid and 30 kreutzer into the guild’s treasury. In the following period he paid a tax on the handicraft, which was about 30-45 kreutzers per year. Frantisek remained a member of the guild almost for 41 years, that is until his death in 1835.
Frantisek as a potter not only carried on the family tradition (also his predecessors pursued this career) but also chose a prosperous trade. At the time of his life the pottery in the manor of Kunstat was blossoming and around the year 1800 there were 12 master potters in the town.

Frantisek, as a master potter had to participate in the guild’s activities. He went to the annual guild meetings, which were attended not only by all masters, but also by two guild masters and an official commissar. At the meeting, new masters were accepted into the guild and new apprentices and journeymen were appointed by their masters. These festive meetings usually took place in December and February.

Every year, at the festival of Corpus Christi, i.e. at the beginning of June, a church ceremony took place, during which the guild standards were presented, decorated with flowers, ribbons and candles. Apart from that, an annual guild mass was served, silent or sung, which all members of the guild also attended compulsorily.

Frantisek and his wife Veronika had five children: Veronika, Kristian, Antonin and two sons named Frantisek. These children were born within twelve years, from 1795 to 1805. Unfortunately, three of them died on the day when they were born or by the age of one month. Only the two youngest sons survived – Antonin and Frantisek. At that time the death of so many children in a family was nothing unusual; only about 45 to 50 % of all born children lived until their adult age.

At the time of Frantisek’s life, many significant reforms took place, and influenced all spheres of public administration, army, education and economy, and also influenced lives of ordinary people. The compulsory school attendance was introduced for children from six to twelve, labor edict was issued, vassalage was cancelled, the edict of religious tolerance was issued, etc. Since then, it was possible for the subjects to freely marry, move, put children into apprenticeship and schools without the agreement of the authorities as well as to profess religions other than Catholic.

His life was surely also affected by the state bankruptcy announced in 1811, when the value of paper money fell to one fifth and new paper banknotes were issued.

Until 1805, Frantisek lived with his family in Kunstat. That year, however, he decided to move to a neighboring village called Sychotin.

Sychotin was not a rich village, but by the local standards belonged to the better prospering ones. There were 42 houses, out of which four were farmhouses. And Frantisek bought one of these estates on 29th January 1806. He paid 2,400 quid for it to the original owner, Jan Pavlu. The estate included fields, meadows, gardens and pastures, in total about 38 acres.

As all subjects, Frantisek Valek also had to pay contributions (taxes to the authorities), interest (payment from the lands to the authorities) and tithe to the church. He was also obliged to labor for the Kunstat authorities three days per week.

In 1820, the farmhouse of Frantisek Valek had one floor with one habitable room. At that time, he still had about 38 acres of lands. The annual yield from his land was then – in cash value – 121 quid and 40 kreutzers, which made it the third biggest in the village of Sychotin.

The indication scheme (colored maps processed for the fixed land register in 1826) shows that the farmhouse of Frantisek Valek, No. 29 in Sychotin, already was a brick house with many wooden farm buildings.

It is difficult to determine who was at that time poor and who was rich. There was no exact distinction between a farmer and the others. A man was usually considered a farmer when he had his own team and lands of more than 10 acres. Frantisek, with his 38 acres was an average farmer. But generally it was held that farmers of all categories belonged to the better society in a village.

Until the end of the 18th century, peasants operated the three-field system. They divided their land into three parts. They sowed one third in the autumn, another in the spring of the following year, and the third part was left idle. These three parts of the fields, called winter field, spring field, and fallow land, were regularly rotated. At the beginning of the 19th century, when Frantisek Valek became a farmer, this system was slowly going out of practice. The three-field system was replaced by diversified farming. Apart from the traditional cereals, potatoes and fodder plants were already grown in the Czech lands, too. Frantisek was also already able to use for his field work a new invention – an improved plow.

The life of a farmer was governed by a strict order, which was passed on from generation to generation. Spring meant the beginning of farming work. When the snow melted, the farmer walked around his land with a hoe repairing waterways and ditches. He sent the hired workers to rake meadows and he himself plowed the fields and sowed.

After the St John’s holiday (in the mid-June), the haymaking came. However, the biggest event in the working life throughout the year was the harvest-time. During the harvest season, only the sick and old stayed in the village. All the others were cutting and raking the corn, sheaving it, building it into jackstraws and taking it into the barns. Frantisek, as a good farmer, had only one worry at that time – how to harvest the crop safely and in time, which was essential for the life of his family. Autumn was the harvest time for potatoes and other crop-plants.

After St Martin’s holiday (11th November) the winter started. Corn was flailed, women processed flax and hemp. For farmers, winter was the time of small works and resting.

Frantisek and his wife were Catholics. They went to the church in the town of Kunstat. The church was a place were people met, learnt of weddings and other news and so on. At the turn of 18th and 19th century, Christmas started to be celebrated in our lands and so the Valek family surely went also to midnight masses.

Frantisek, being the farmer, had the main say in the family. He delegated work and checked how it was done. Also the work of his wife was esteemed. She, above all, took care of the family and children, controlled the household works, prepared food, and looked after the fowls. The farming family also included hired workers – farmhands and maids who worked in the fields, looked after the cattle, and helped with other work in the farmhouse and mostly went to labor for the authorities, too. The reason for this was the fact that labor was tied to the land, not to a person. So the farmer could fulfill his labor duties through his workers.

An ordinary day at a farmstead was devoted solely to work. The family got up early in the morning, especially in spring and summer, sometimes even before the dawn. The everyday life started with feeding the cattle. Then the cattle were driven to pastures.

The housewife started the fire and prepared breakfast. People ate what the farmstead provided: bread, cottage cheese, milk, buttermilk, potatoes, various kinds of soups etc. After breakfast the farmer set off for work. The housewife stayed at home to prepare lunch. At noon people fed cattle and had lunch. At meals they sat together at the table, the farmer sat at the place of pride, that is at the head of the table. Around the noon various wandering handicraftsmen and tradesmen used to come to the village, most often tinkers, traders with cloth, herbe women, basket-makers, brush-makers, drovers, etc.

After the noon people returned to work – they went back to the field, and herdsmen drove the cattle again to the pastures. After the sunset the village lived a busy life. In the stables, the cattle waited to be fed and milked, and the farm was preparing for the next day. Fodder was being prepared and wood cut. For dinner, people had soup, pulses mash, potatoes, butter, bread, buttermilk etc. In winter, people visited each other and chatted, while they were cleansing feathers, spinning, etc. Around nine o’clock the family went to bed. The only one awake was the night watchman, who looked after the safety of the village.

A different regime was in practice on Sundays and holidays, when people observed the Christian rule of celebrating the festive day. Nevertheless, even on holidays certain chores had to be done, the cattle had to be fed, milked and pastured. In the morning, people put on their Sunday best and went to the church for a mass. The farmer and his wife as well as the retired people went to the morning mass; the youth went to the 11 o’clock mass. After the mass, women rushed home to prepare lunch and men went to the local pub or stood around talking with neighbors in front of houses. People used to spend Sunday afternoon relaxing; farmers walked about their fields and checked the crops.
Festive times came for the farmer and his family with family events such as birth of a child or a wedding; on the other hand they were filled with sorrow when somebody died. An important social event and a holiday was a trip to a fair; the Valek family went to fairs mostly to Kunstat, where annual fairs took place.

Frantisek lived until the age of 65, when he died of lung disease on 18th February 1835. His wife Veronica died at the age of 68 of pneumonia. Their ages were rather remarkable taking into consideration the fact that even in 1840s the medical care in the Kunstat manor consisted solely in the activities of a couple of healers.

Frantisek Valek followed the creed that to extend the estate is a good deed and to sell it is a sin. In 1829, he left his estate in Sychotin No. 29 to his son Antonin, who not only expanded his father’s lands but also deserves the credit for extending the Valek family, which lives in the village until this day.

Pictures:

page 8 Records in the registry showing the birth (1770), wedding (1794) and death (1835) of Frantisek Valek

page 9 The town of Kunstat in 1850s. The view of the Kunstat chateau from the village of Sychotin, where Frantisek Valek lived

page 10 Records from the book of masters potters about accepting Frantisek into the potter’s guild in 1794

page 11 Record from the land registry for the village of Sychotin about the purchase of the estate No. 29 by Frantisek Valek in 1806

page 12 The farmstead in Sychotin No. 29 on the indication outline from the year 1826 … and in reality in the 20th century.

Archive photographs (Moravian Land Archive in Brno)

Regional Archive in Boskovice

Books and Articles
   Jan Tenora: History of the town of Kunstat, Brno 1885
   Jan Tenora: Moravian Homeland Studies II – the region of Kunstat, Brno 1903
   Vaclav Frolec: Traditional peasant life
   History of Czechoslovakia in dates, Prague 1986
   Milan Hlavieka: History for secondary schools 3, Prague 2001

Other resources
   The text accompanying the exhibition Chapters from the history of Kunstat with the reference to the historical development of pottery in Kunstat

About the author:
   Sona Svancarova, winner of the 1st prize in CGSI’s family history essay competition, is a student at secondary grammar school in Boskovice. She and her family continue to live in the family’s home village of Kunstat. After she graduates from school, she looks forward to studying law in Brno.