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Servants and youth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Michael Mitterauer
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Continuity and Change , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , May 1990 , pp. 11 - 38
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Ṡee the comments on the corresponding key-words in Grimm, J., Deutsches Wörterbuch (Leipzig, 1854).Google Scholar

2 In this connection see Bühler, T., ‘Knabenschaftliches in Rekrutenbräuchen der Schweiz’, Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde 57 (1961), 82ff.Google Scholar; Caduff, G., Die Knabenschaften Graubündens (Chur, 1932)Google Scholar; Hoffmann-Krayer, E., ‘Knabenschaften und Volksjustiz in der Schweiz’Google Scholar, in Hoffmann-Krayer, , Kleine Schriften zur Volkskunde (Basle, 1946), 124ff.Google Scholar

3 Mitterauer, M., ‘Produktionsweise, Siedlungsstruktur und Sozialformen’Google Scholar in Mitterauer, , Österreichischen Montanwesen (Vienna, 1974) 292ff.Google Scholar; Mitterauer, , Grundtypen alteuropäischer Sozialformen (Stuttgart, 1979), 180.Google Scholar

4 Gillis, J. R., Youth and history (New York, 1974), 1Google Scholar. (edition, German, Geschichte der Jugend (Weinheim and Basle, 1980) 17.)Google Scholar

5 Vassberg, D. E., ‘Juveniles in the rural work force of sixteenth-century Castile’, The Journal of Peasant Studies 11 (1983), 69ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. An interesting parallel occurs in the case of Sardinia. The pre-Roman expressions ‘zerakku’ and ‘zerakka’ which formerly had been applied to youths, came from the late Middle Ages to be associated with service, see Ortu, G., ‘Zerakkus e Zerakkas sardi’, Quaderni Storici 68 (1988), 413ff.Google Scholar

6 I am grateful to Dr Gero Fischer of the Institut für Slawistik at the University of Vienna for these references. The derivative ‘devecka,’ maid, from ‘devce’, ‘girl’ in Czech, represents an exception.

7 The word ‘cseled’ for servants is linguistically linked with the root word ‘csalad’ for family; see in this context Kiss, I. N., ‘Ländliche und städtische Familienstrukturen in Ungarn während des 17. und 18, Jahrhunderts’, in Borscheid, P. and Teuteberg, H-J. eds., Ehe, Liebe, Tod, Studien zur Geschichte des Alltags (Munster, 1983), 257.Google Scholar

8 edition, German, Geschichte der Kindheit (Münster and Vienna, 1975)Google Scholar. English edition, Ariès, P., Centuries of childhood (Oxford 1962), 26.Google Scholar

9 Ariès, , Geschichte der Kindheit, 83; Centuries of childhood, 26.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 506; ibid., 367.

11 Ibid., 509; ibid., 369.

12 Ibid., 502ff.; ibid., 365.

13 Gillis, , Youth and History; Geschichte der Jugend.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., 7f.; ibid., 23.

15 Ariès was also interpreted in this sense in sociology, see, for example, Rosenmayr, L., ‘Jugend’, in R. König ed., Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung 6 (1976), 78ff.Google Scholar

16 These figures were calculated on the basis of the data bank at the Institute of Economic and Social History at the University of Vienna, within the framework of research centred on the theme ‘Familie in sozialen Wandel’ (family and social change). See in this context Ehmer, Josef, ‘The Vienna Data Base on Family History’, in Allen, F. A. ed., Databases in the humanities and social sciences (London, 1985), 185ff.Google Scholar

17 See, for example, Kussmaul, A., Servants in husbandry in early modern England (Cambridge, 1981), 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Smith, R. M., ‘The people of Tuscany and their families in the fifteenth century: Medieval or Mediterranean?’, Journal of Family History 6 (1981), 118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

19 Schmidtbauer, P., ‘The changing household: Austrian household structure from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century’ in Wall, R. et al. eds., Family forms in historic Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 358.Google Scholar

20 Kussmaul, , Servants 3, 173.Google Scholar

21 Hajnal, J., ‘Two kinds of pre-industrial household formation systems’Google Scholar, in Wall, , Family forms, 94Google Scholar. These figures are limited to rural areas. For Scandinavian countries Loftur Guttormsson has recently presented some detailed data, see Guttormsson, L., ‘Il Servizio come istituzione sociale in Islandi e nei paesi Nordici’, Quaderni Storici 68 (1988), 355ffGoogle Scholar. Especially noteworthy is the report of the transition in Iceland from ‘life-cycle servant’ to ‘life-time servant’ which has a parallel in several cattle-breeding areas of the Alps, cf. above on the regions of Lower Carinthia. Urban data from a later period are to be found in Engelsing, R., ‘Der Arbeitsmarkt der Dienstboten im 17., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert’, in Kellenbenz, H. ed., Wirtschaftspolitik und Arbeitsmarkt (Vienna, 1974), 203Google Scholar. In Hamburg in 1871, 79 per cent of all servants were between the ages of 16 and 30; in the entire German Empire in 1882, 78 per cent were between 15 and 29. In Bavaria in 1882 the average age of female servants was 25. Only 10.8 per cent of servants at that time were older than 40 years. See Schulte, R., ‘Bauernmägde in Bayern am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in Hausen, K. ed., Frauen suchen ihre Geschichte (Munich, 1982), 111.Google Scholar

22 Gillis, , Geschichte der Jugend, 31Google Scholar. Gillis, , Youth and history, 17Google Scholar, following Macfarlane, A., The family life of Ralph Josselin, a seventeenth century clergyman. An essay in anthropology (Cambridge, 1970), 209.Google Scholar

23 For a more exhaustive discussion of this, see Mitterauer, M., ‘Zur familienbetrieblichen Struktur im zünftischen Handwerk’, in Knittler, H. ed., Wirtschafts-und sozialhistorische Beiträge (Festschrift for A. Hoffman) (Vienna, 1979), 190ff.Google Scholar, and Mitterauer, , Grundtypen alteuropäischer Sozialformen (Stuttgart, 1979), 98ff.Google Scholar

24 Macfarlane, A., The origins of English individualism (Oxford, 1978), 74Google Scholar. In a similar vein, see Ankarloo, B., ‘Agriculture and women's work: directions of change in the West, 1700–1900’, Journal of Family History 4 (1979), 114ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. ‘Farm hands and maids are fanners' children expecting to marry and take over the parental farmstead’.

25 For England, see on this point Wall, R., ‘The age at leaving home’, Journal of Family History 3 (1978), esp. 196CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the clear graphical illustrations in Kussmaul, , Servants, 77Google Scholar. For Scandinavia, see Ankarloo, , ‘Agriculture’, 126Google Scholar. For Austria in this connection exact figures can be calculated from the series of Seelenbeschreibungen. In this respect the situation in the Upper Austrian parish of Pennewang was particularly striking. In the nineteenth century children from the sub-farmer strata left the parental home on average at 12.7 years, whereas those from the rural middle class did not leave until they were 34.8. See Gruber, B., ‘Familienformen und Familienzyklen aus sozialhistorischer Sicht’ (unpublished dissertation, University of Vienna, 1989).Google Scholar

26 Recollections of ah early start in service can be found in Gremel, M., Mil neun Jahren im Dienst. Mein Leben im Stübel und am Bauernhof 1900–1930 (Vienna, 1983), 156ff.Google Scholar

27 Kussmaul, , Servants, 72.Google Scholar

28 Tenfelde, K., ‘Ländliches Gesinde in Preussen’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 19 (1979), 221Google Scholar. Slettan, D., ‘Farmwives, farm hands and the changing rural community in Trondelag, Norway’, in Thompson, P. ed., Our common history (London, 1982), 150.Google Scholar

29 Slettan, , ‘Farmwives’, 150.Google Scholar

30 For example, Shorter, E., Die Geburt der modernen Familie, 41.Google Scholar

31 See, for example, the age composition of servants in Baling, Middlesex in 1599, cited by Kussmaul, , Servants, 71Google Scholar. For the seventeenth century there is further relevant material available for England. Despite this J. E. Illick writes ‘of the custom in England … of sending children between the age of six and seven away from home’, see Illick, J. E., ‘Kindererziehung in England und Amerika im siebzehnten Jahrhundert’, in de Mause, L. ed., Hört ihr die Kinder weinen. Eine psychogenetische Geschichte der Kindheit (Frankfurt, 1977), 446Google Scholar. For the sixteenth century there is also evidence from Spain concerning the age of young servants (Vassberg, , ‘Juveniles’, 70ff.)Google Scholar. Here too children most frequently left home at 14 or 15, although there are individual cases of 10 year-olds.

32 Desportes, P., ‘La population de Reims au XV siècle d'après un denombrement de 1422’, Le Moyen âge 72 (1966), 498ffGoogle Scholar. This contrasts with the situation discovered on the basis of the ‘Catasto’ of 1427 by Herlihy, D. and Zuber, C. Klapisch, Les Toscans et lews families (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar. See also Smith, , ‘The people of Tuscany’, 118.Google Scholar

33 See also Davis, N. Z., ‘The reasons of misrule’Google Scholar, in Davis, , Society and culture in early modern France (London, 1965), 113Google Scholar, who accepts the start of apprenticeship for the sixteenth century at the age of 12, and at a somewhat earlier age for the fourteenth century. In medieval Cologne apprenticeship began between the ages of 12 and 16, and exceptionally even at 10, see Feilzer, H., Jugend in der mittelalterlichen Ständegesellschaft (Vienna, 1971), 196.Google Scholar

34 Davis, , ‘The reasons’, 108.Google Scholar

35 An extreme example of the servant hierarchy in the eighteenth century, with 17 grades for male servants and 7 grades for female servants can be found in Bruckmüller, E., ‘Soziale Organisationsformen der landlichen Arbeit’, Beiträge zur historischen Sozialkunde, 11 (1981), 58Google Scholar. For material on servant hierarchies in different areas of Germany, see Tenfelde, , ‘Ländliches Gesinde’, 222Google Scholar, and for England, see Kussmaul, , Servants, 34ff.Google Scholar

36 Kussmaul, , Servants, 37.Google Scholar

37 Examples can be found in Sieder, R., ‘Strukturprobleme der ländlichen Familie im 19. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrft für bayerische Landesgeschichte 41 (1978), 199ffGoogle Scholar. Mitterauer, M. and Sieder, R., ‘The developmental process of domestic groups: problems of reconstruction and possibilities of interpretation’, Journal of Family History 4 (1979), 264, 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Sieder, R. and Mitterauer, M., ‘The reconstruction of family life course: theoretical problems and empirical results’, in Wall, R. et al. eds., Family forms (Cambridge, 1983), 322, 330, 333Google Scholar. See also Mitterauer, M., ‘Formen ländlicher Familienwirtschaft Historische Ökotypen und familiale Arbeitsorganisation im öster-rischen Raum’, in Ehmer, J. and Mitterauer, M. eds., Familienstruktur und Arbeitsorganisation in ländlichen Gesellschaften (Vienna, Cologne and Graz, 1986), 185–324Google Scholar. Kussmaul, , Servants, 85ffGoogle Scholar. provides a vivid example which illustrates the frequently very rapid circulation of servants in England.

38 Mitterauer, , ‘Formen ländlicher Familienwirtschaft’. Examples of fanners' children being expressly called ‘famulus’ or ‘famula’ are given in M. Mitterauer, ‘Marriage without co-residence’, Journal of Family History 6 (1981), 179Google Scholar. A division of servants' tasks among grown-up farmers' children and paid servants can be found in the case of a large farm in the Southern Tyrol, see the biography of Dorfmann, Maria in Kreuztragen. Drei Frauenleben (Vienna, 1984), 35.Google Scholar

39 Hajnal, J., ‘European marriage patterns in perspective’, in Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C. eds., Population in history (London, 1965), 101–43.Google Scholar

40 For an initial summary, see Laslett, P., ‘Characteristics of the Western family considered over time’, Journal of Family History 2 (1972), 89ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for a slightly expanded version with the same title, in Laslett, P., Family life and illicit love in earlier generations (Cambridge, 1977), 12ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Further modifications and refinements can be found in Laslett, , ‘Family and household as work group and kin group: areas of traditional Europe compared’, in Wall, R. et al. eds., Family forms (Cambridge, 1983), 513ff.Google Scholar

41 Laslett, , ‘Characteristics’, 90, 104.Google Scholar

42 Hajnal, J., ‘Two kinds of pre-industrial household formation system’, 65ff.Google Scholar

43 Ibid., 96.

44 For comparisons in this context, see Mitterauer, M. and Kagan, A., ‘Russian and central European family structures: a comparative view’, Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 103ffCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. On Russian family structures in general, see Czap, P., ‘Ther perennial multiple family household, Mishino, Russia 1782–1858’, Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 5ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Czap, , ‘Eine zahlreiche Familie – des Bauern grösster Reichtum’ – Leibeigenenhaushalte in Misino, Russland 1814–1858, in Mitterauer, M. and Sieder, E. eds., Historische Familienforschung (Frankfurt, 1982), 192ff.Google Scholar, and Czap, , ‘A large family: the peasant's greatest wealth: serf households in Mishino, Russia, 1814–1858’Google Scholar, in Wall, et al. eds., Family forms, 105ff.Google Scholar

45 Blum, J., Lord and peasant in Russia, from the ninth to the nineteenth century (Princeton, 1961), 455Google Scholar. Mitterauer, and Kagan, , ‘Russian and central European family structures’, 126.Google Scholar

46 Plakans, A., ‘Identifying kinfolk beyond the household’, Journal of Family History 2 (1977), 8, 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Kahk, J., Palli, H. and Uibu, J., ‘Peasant family and household in Estonia in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century’, Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Plakans, A., ‘The familial context of early childhood in Baltic serf estates’, in Wall, R. et al. eds., Family forms (Cambridge, 1983), 171Google Scholar. Kahk, , Palli, and Uibu, , ‘Peasant family’, 85ff.Google Scholar

49 Plakans, A., ‘Ties of kinship and kinship roles in an historical Eastern Europe peasant community: a synchronic analysis’, Journal of Family History 7 (1982), 69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Kochanowicz, J., ‘The peasant family as an economic unit in the Polish feudal economy of the eighteenth century’, in Wall, R. et al. eds. Family forms (Cambridge, 1983), 159ff.Google Scholar

51 Kula, W., ‘The seigneury and the peasant family in eighteenth century Poland’, in Forster, R. and Ranum, O. eds., Family and society, Selections from the Annales (Baltimore and London, 1976), 196.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 197.

53 Bogucka, M., ‘Die städtische Familie in Polen während des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Borscheid, P. and Teuteberg, H. J. eds., Liebe, Ehe, Tod. Studien zur Geschichte des Alltags (Munster, 1983), 237.Google Scholar

54 From the abundant literature on Southern Slav family forms reference may be made to the exemplary essays in Byrnes, R. F. ed., Communal families in the Balkans: the zadruga (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Halpern, J., A Serbian village (New York, 1967)Google Scholar; Halpern, , ‘Town and countryside in Serbia in the nineteenth century, social and household structure as reflected in the census of 1863’, in Laslett, P. and Wall, R. eds., Household and family in past time (Cambridge, 1972), 401ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haramel, E. A., ‘The zadruga as process’, in Laslett and Wall eds., Household and family, 335ff.Google Scholar; Erlich, V. St., Family in transition (Princeton, 1966)Google Scholar. Nowhere here is any reference made to rural servants.

55 Laslett, P. and Clarke, M., ‘Houseful and household in an eighteenth-century Balkan city’Google Scholar, in Laslett, and Wall, eds., Household and Family, 399.Google Scholar

56 See for a summary Smith, , ‘The people of Tuscany’, 111Google Scholar, with biographical notes for further references. See also Benigno, Francesco, ‘The Southern Italian family in the early modern period: a discussion of co-residential patterns’, Continuity and Change 4 (1989), 165ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which looks at this issue at greater length.

57 Ibid., 125; Laslett, , ‘Characteristics’, 32Google Scholar; Flandrin, J. L., Familien. Soziologie-Oekonomie-Sexualität (Frankfurt a. Main, 1978), 105Google Scholar; Barbagli, M., Sotto lo stesso tetto (Bologna, 1984), 234ff.Google Scholar

58 Vassberg, , ‘Juveniles’, 71ff.Google Scholar

59 Feyertag, C., ‘Analyse der Bevölkerungs-und Haushaltsstruktur in Rom (17.–19. Jahrhundert)’ (unpublished diss., University of Vienna, 1983), 196ff.Google Scholar; Arru, A., ‘Lavorare in casa d'altri servi et serve domestici a Roma nell “800”’, Annuali delta Fondazione Lelio et Lisli Basso-Issoco 7 (Mailand, 1985), 15Google Scholar; Arru, , ‘Il matrimonio tardivo dei servi e delle serve’, Quaderni Storici 68 (1988), 469ff.Google Scholar; Pelaja, M., ‘Mestieri femminili e luoghi commune. Le domestiche a Roma a metà Ottocento’, Quaderni Storici 68 (1988), 497ff.Google Scholar

60 Kuchenbuch, L., Bäuerliche Gesellschaft und Klosterherrschaft im 9. Jahrhundert, (Beiheft der Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial-und Wirtschaftsgeschkhte 66) (Wiesbaden, 1978), 78Google Scholar; Dollinger, P., Der bayerische Bauernstand vom 9. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1982), 125, 406ff.Google Scholar

61 Monumenta Germaniae historica, Constitutiones I, 88.Google Scholar

62 Duby, G., Rural economy and country life (London, 1968), 221.Google Scholar

63 Hammer, C. J. Jr, ‘Family and “familia” in early-medieval Bavaria’, in Wall, R. et al. eds., Family forms (Cambridge, 1983), 246.Google Scholar

64 Dollinger, , Bauernstand, 150.Google Scholar

65 On domestic allegiance to nobility and its roots, see Wenskus, R., Stammesbildung und Verfassung (Cologne and Vienna, 1977), 346ffGoogle Scholar. The word ‘Gesinde’ may originally have belonged to the domain of allegiance, see ibid., 349.

66 See, for example, Thurnwald, R., ‘Werden, Wandel und Gestaltung von Familie, Verwandtschaft und Bünden im Lichte der Völkerforschung’Google Scholar, in Thurnwald, , Die menschliche Gesellschaft in ihren ethno-soziologischen Grundlagen (Berlin and Leipzig, 1932), 281ff.Google Scholar, who referred to the fact that in European rural society marriage rites are more important than initiation rites – this indicates that full adulthood is not attained until this time.

67 On this, see Reininghaus, W., Zur Entstehung der Gesellengilden im Spätmittelalter (Beiheft der Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial-wd Wirtschaftsgeschichte 71) (Wiesbaden, 1981)Google Scholar, which contains additional references. In a later publication Reininghaus comes to the conclusion that the model of the ‘whole house’, as developed by O. Brunner for craftsmen, can at best only be applied to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, although in my opinion he over-emphasizes the disintegrating, as opposed to integrating factors for the later period. See Reininghaus, W., ‘Das “ganze Haus” und die Gesellengilden’, in Elkar, R. S. ed., Deutsches Handwerk im Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit (Göttingen, 1982), 82Google Scholar. What was probably decisive in determining membership in the ‘whole house’ was primarily acceptance into the master's family, with board and lodging. In any case the element of conflict so strongly stressed by Reininghaus normally existed between master and servants, without the household being broken up by it.

68 For an overall view of this, see Mitterauer, M., ‘Jugendgruppen’, Beiträge zur historischen Sozialkunde 6 (1976), 34ff.Google Scholar; Mitterauer, , Sozialgeschichte der Jugend (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), 162ff.Google Scholar

69 Wikman, K. R. V., ‘Die Einleitung der Ehe’, Acta Academiae Aboensis, Humaniora 11 (1937)Google Scholar, in particular the map on 264.

70 Schulte, , ‘Bauernmägde in Bayern’, 116.Google Scholar

71 An interesting phenomenon in this connection is the fact that in different regions of Europe, children from the borders of language zones were given in service into areas with a different language, so that they could learn the new language. See in this context in relation to the border area between Lower Austria and Czechoslovakia, Fielhauer, H. P., ‘Kinder – “Wechsel” und “Böhmisch-Lernen”’, Oesterreichische Zeitschrft für Volkskunde 32 (1978), 115ffGoogle Scholar. For Hungarian shepherd boys who were sent to Lower Austria to learn German, see Gremel, , Mit neun Jahren im Dienst, 164Google Scholar; for the exchange of children between Slovenian-speaking Krainer and German speaking Carinthia, see Mitterauer, M., Ledige Mütter. Zur Geschichte unehelicher Geburten in Europa (Munich, 1983), 128Google Scholar; between German-speaking and Hungarian-speaking farmers in Southern Hungary, see Meiners, U., ‘Zur gegenwärtigen und historischen Sprachsituation in ungarndeutschen Dörfern des Mecsekgebirges und des westlichen Alfölds’, Jahrbuch fur ostdeutsche Volkskunde 25 (1982), 269ffGoogle Scholar. On the ‘Welschlandjahre’ (foreign years) of the inhabitants of Bern, see Gyr, U., ‘Erziehung in der Fremde, Lebenslauf und Lebenszusammenhang’, in Brednich, R. et al. eds., Lebenslauf und Lebenszusammenhang (Freiburg, 1982), 214ff.Google Scholar; and Mesner, B., ‘Migration über die Sprachgrenze. Zur Wanderung der Deutschberner über die Sprachgrenze’, Berner Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Heimatkunde 45 (1983), 177Google Scholar. On Flemish farmer's sons learning French in Artois and Picardy, see Shorter, E., Die Geburt der modernen Familie (Reinbek, 1977), 42.Google Scholar

72 Darroch, A. G., ‘Migrants in the nineteenth century: fugitives or families in motion?’, Journal of Family History 6 (1981), 267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73 Kussmaul, , Servants, 66.Google Scholar

74 Ankarloo, , ‘Agriculture and women's work’, 114.Google Scholar

75 McCracken, G., ‘The exchange of children in Tudor England: an anthropological phenomenon in historical context’, Journal of Family History 8 (1983), 307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 Wall, R., ‘Introduction’Google Scholar, in Wall, R. et al. eds., Family forms, 17ff.Google Scholar

77 Laslett, , ‘Family and household as work and kin groups’, 531ff.Google Scholar

78 On the significance of the European marriage pattern for the sexuality of youth, in particular in respect of servants, see Mitterauer, , Ledige Mütter.Google Scholar