Current issue

The focus of this paper lies on the inhabitants of the duchy of Styria, those from small towns, market towns and the capital Graz, as well as those from rural dominions. Special stress is laid on local merchants as distributors of fabrics and final products. Their probate inventories allow us to get at least some insights into the locally available products and they often are regarded as best source for the research in changes of consumer habits. Cotton and silk are important indicators of these changes.
The article is based on probate inventories covering mainly the period from about 1660 to about 1790 with some earlier as well as some later examples. The core of the research database comes from nearly 1,140 probate inventories from the monastery of Seckau, and about 110 from the city of Graz, another 234 from other Styrian towns, market towns, and dominions. Despite the relatively large number of sources, the contribution follows a historical-anthropological approach.

V průběhu 16. století došlo ve středoevropském prostoru k rozsáhlé proměně oděvních zvyklostí. Změny v odívání se nevyhnuly ani venkovu, kde se v začaly postupně uplatňovat nové druhy textilních materiálů, nahrazujících dominantní sukno. Vlněné, bavlněné a hedvábné materiály se uplatnily především ve svátečním oděvu. Nejprve to bylo při šití tradičních oděvních součástí, vedle nichž se ovšem stále častěji objevují i zcela nové oděvní kusy, které venkov s jistým časovým odstupem přejímal z městského prostředí. Právě v prostředí městských cechovních krejčí je nutné hledat zdroj konstrukčních inovací, které proměnily dosavadní střih ženské celistvé sukně, z níž se oddělily rukávy a následně i živůtek. Na konci 16. století se na venkově ustálila nová skladba oděvních součástí, obsahujících sice jednotlivé oděvní kusy různého původu a stáří, v souboru však vytvářející novou estetickou kvalitu, která přetrvala několik dalších století.

The study deals with the furnishing of households in Sovinec region on the basis of books of inheritance inventories and testaments written in German from the 17th and 18th centuries in comparisn with other areas and source types. The main emphasis is placed on the equipment of the interiors, namely the furniture and decoration. The author examines what kind of equipment appears in the inventories, how often they appear, or what equipment can be classified as standard in the period under review, and what equipment or material used spread to the countryside later.

The clothing of criminals in the 18th century did not differ significantly from the clothing of the people around them, which is hardly surprising, as they came from their ranks. However, we can see in their clothing a reflection of their professional or social status. For example, it is evident from the clothing of most robbers that they came from a shepherd’s environment. In their clothing, we find components that have been explicitly designated as shepherd’s or were often found on shepherd’s clothing. Various forms of individual decoration are found on trousers and headgear, such as cloth ribbons and beads in particular, and also seashells.
As for other categories of criminal, identifying a pattern for such a small number of cases is complicated. However, in general, their clothing contained mostly elements typical of their status or profession. Still, it is clear that even the clothes of the lower social groups were not uniform.