Page 241 - Panjek, Aleksander, Jesper Larsson and Luca Mocarelli, eds. 2017. Integrated Peasant Economy in a Comparative Perspective: Alps, Scandinavia and Beyond. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 241
intangible and material evidence on the slovenian peasant economy ...
ty (“this likof serves as a document among us,” as the witnesses
claimed at the process).
5) The buyer then throws a small coin among the village kids who
struggle to catch it, and the one getting it would “comb his hair”
with it (in order to preserve the memory of the transaction by
transferring it onto the next generation).
6) In case a house was sold, one of its wooden beams under the ceil-
ing would be marked with a cross made with a hatchet.
b) The customary purchase and sale conditions
1) The seller and his family had 14 days to retreat from the sale.
2) The buyer and the seller had 1 year to complain, in case they felt
deceived.
3) The seller and his family had 15 years to buy back the real-estate
they had sold (in case they lived within the “land”, that is the ter-
ritory of the manorial jurisdiction).
4) The seller and his family had 30 years to buy back the real-estate
they had sold (in case they lived outside the “land” – jurisdiction).
Apart from being quite interesting from a historical anthropological,
ethnological and not least legal historical point of view, this case shows and
demonstrates a few aspects relevant for the purpose of this paper too.
First of all, it shows the existence of a lively real-estate market among
peasants. During the trial peasants testified they bought many pieces of
land during their lifetime, one of them even stated he purchased everything
he owned based on the mentioned custom. The very house with the wine
cellar, the object of our case, went through five sales, two inheritances and
one rental in the time span of seven decades, and only between 1585 and 1615
it underwent seven different transfers (in 30 years).
A second aspect regards the family. The customary purchase and sale
conditions gave a great role to the seller’s relatives, recognising them the
right to buy back the sold estate for a long time. Within the presented trial,
but also in other cases, it is evident that the right to buy back was extended
(at least) to the heirs, and even to their (later) spouses. We may understand
that these customary rules expressed and supported the tendency of the
peasant society to keep the family’s real-estate property as integral as pos-
sible by allowing its members to later buy back the sold items. We may also
see that the family we are addressing is not a nuclear one, but some kind of
cluster of inter-related nuclear families. Such larger families functioned as
239
ty (“this likof serves as a document among us,” as the witnesses
claimed at the process).
5) The buyer then throws a small coin among the village kids who
struggle to catch it, and the one getting it would “comb his hair”
with it (in order to preserve the memory of the transaction by
transferring it onto the next generation).
6) In case a house was sold, one of its wooden beams under the ceil-
ing would be marked with a cross made with a hatchet.
b) The customary purchase and sale conditions
1) The seller and his family had 14 days to retreat from the sale.
2) The buyer and the seller had 1 year to complain, in case they felt
deceived.
3) The seller and his family had 15 years to buy back the real-estate
they had sold (in case they lived within the “land”, that is the ter-
ritory of the manorial jurisdiction).
4) The seller and his family had 30 years to buy back the real-estate
they had sold (in case they lived outside the “land” – jurisdiction).
Apart from being quite interesting from a historical anthropological,
ethnological and not least legal historical point of view, this case shows and
demonstrates a few aspects relevant for the purpose of this paper too.
First of all, it shows the existence of a lively real-estate market among
peasants. During the trial peasants testified they bought many pieces of
land during their lifetime, one of them even stated he purchased everything
he owned based on the mentioned custom. The very house with the wine
cellar, the object of our case, went through five sales, two inheritances and
one rental in the time span of seven decades, and only between 1585 and 1615
it underwent seven different transfers (in 30 years).
A second aspect regards the family. The customary purchase and sale
conditions gave a great role to the seller’s relatives, recognising them the
right to buy back the sold estate for a long time. Within the presented trial,
but also in other cases, it is evident that the right to buy back was extended
(at least) to the heirs, and even to their (later) spouses. We may understand
that these customary rules expressed and supported the tendency of the
peasant society to keep the family’s real-estate property as integral as pos-
sible by allowing its members to later buy back the sold items. We may also
see that the family we are addressing is not a nuclear one, but some kind of
cluster of inter-related nuclear families. Such larger families functioned as
239
