Page 242 - 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. 242
integr ated peasant economy in a compar ative perspective
a ‘financial community’ in which its different units might undergo different
economic vicissitudes, but they were able to activate their financial means,
when existing, in order to bring the family’s assets back under their roof.
Moreover, the option to buy-back the sold land (or house) might have
been a hidden credit instrument, like it was the case in the neighbouring
Venetian Friuli (Fornasin 1998). In this case the sale was intended – without
going into detail – to obtain cash when needed, and then have the opportu-
nity to pay the money back when possible: in this kind of sales-instrument
(livello francabile) the ‘sold’ land had the role of a pledge and of an income
source in favour of the buyer (read: source of interest for the money-lend-
er); in fact, the ‘seller’ was rented back the land he had ‘sold’ and payed a
yearly rent for it to the ‘buyer’, until he was able to pay back (extinguish)
the original amount he had received. Of course this possibility does not ex-
clude the role of the family in such hidden credit transactions too – rath-
er the opposite.
The next interpretative step we may take is to discern a somehow par-
allel system existing and functioning among the peasants. The legal histo-
rian Sergij Vilfan (1980, 430–1) already pointed out how Slovenian peasants
had their own legal understanding of their relation to the land, as far as the
ownership is concerned, differing from the standpoint of their landlords.
It is also already known that peasants (in Slovenia in general and in the
Littoral region we’re examining here in particular) practised the purchas-
ing, selling, endowing and inheriting of land regardless of its official status
(since two main terms of land-holding existed, which allowed different lev-
els of freedom of disposal to the tenant; Vilfan 1980, 442; Panjek 2002, 51–
52; Panjek 2004, 52–4). Now, – based on the just disclosed ‘intangible evi-
dence’ – we may see that they had their own legal custom for that, too! This
means the peasants of the Karst had their own understanding of the way
they owned their land, they practiced purchase and sale transactions with
it regardless of its official legal status, and they possessed a specific custom
defining the rules and conditions, and granting the validity and reliability
of their oral real-estate transactions. Indeed a parallel system.
It may be useful to point out that the peasants we are observing were
not the real owners of their land and farmsteads, although they acted as if
they had been and were, (most probably) even convinced they were. The
real owner was the landlord, after he bought the Devin manor from the
“state chamber” (Innerösterreichische Hofkammer) in 1653. Before that time
the real owner had been the Habsburg archduke (through his “state cham-
240
a ‘financial community’ in which its different units might undergo different
economic vicissitudes, but they were able to activate their financial means,
when existing, in order to bring the family’s assets back under their roof.
Moreover, the option to buy-back the sold land (or house) might have
been a hidden credit instrument, like it was the case in the neighbouring
Venetian Friuli (Fornasin 1998). In this case the sale was intended – without
going into detail – to obtain cash when needed, and then have the opportu-
nity to pay the money back when possible: in this kind of sales-instrument
(livello francabile) the ‘sold’ land had the role of a pledge and of an income
source in favour of the buyer (read: source of interest for the money-lend-
er); in fact, the ‘seller’ was rented back the land he had ‘sold’ and payed a
yearly rent for it to the ‘buyer’, until he was able to pay back (extinguish)
the original amount he had received. Of course this possibility does not ex-
clude the role of the family in such hidden credit transactions too – rath-
er the opposite.
The next interpretative step we may take is to discern a somehow par-
allel system existing and functioning among the peasants. The legal histo-
rian Sergij Vilfan (1980, 430–1) already pointed out how Slovenian peasants
had their own legal understanding of their relation to the land, as far as the
ownership is concerned, differing from the standpoint of their landlords.
It is also already known that peasants (in Slovenia in general and in the
Littoral region we’re examining here in particular) practised the purchas-
ing, selling, endowing and inheriting of land regardless of its official status
(since two main terms of land-holding existed, which allowed different lev-
els of freedom of disposal to the tenant; Vilfan 1980, 442; Panjek 2002, 51–
52; Panjek 2004, 52–4). Now, – based on the just disclosed ‘intangible evi-
dence’ – we may see that they had their own legal custom for that, too! This
means the peasants of the Karst had their own understanding of the way
they owned their land, they practiced purchase and sale transactions with
it regardless of its official legal status, and they possessed a specific custom
defining the rules and conditions, and granting the validity and reliability
of their oral real-estate transactions. Indeed a parallel system.
It may be useful to point out that the peasants we are observing were
not the real owners of their land and farmsteads, although they acted as if
they had been and were, (most probably) even convinced they were. The
real owner was the landlord, after he bought the Devin manor from the
“state chamber” (Innerösterreichische Hofkammer) in 1653. Before that time
the real owner had been the Habsburg archduke (through his “state cham-
240
