Klaipėdos universitetas

Historical research on trade and transport shows the rapid development of the road network and travel in 16th and 17th-century Europe. This article contributes to research on the development of transport by focusing on the peasants’ duty, which was developed rapidly in Žemaitija during the 17th century, to provide vehicles and to transport the products and belongings of the manor, for the needs of their lords and their officials. In the process of fulfilling this duty, which was called podwoda in Polish, peasants were sent with orders on short and long-distance trips. Based on visitation data from the Diocese of Žemaitija from the 1670s, the article analyses how this duty was applied in the diocese in different parishes. The author tries to outline the types of transport duty, and to answer questions such as who fulfilled them and how, and what distance and for what purposes these peasants travelled. Thus, the article shows the variety of podwodas characteristic of parishes in the Žemaitijan Bishopric, who fulfilled them, how the duty was organised, and the area it covered.

The paper deals with the issue of land-ownership formation in the early 16th – late 17th centuries by the newly-arrived noblemen elite in Samogitia, given the local communication network and the directions of the commercial market areas. The principal Samogitian land and water routes are overviewed that could have made an impact on the potential of the formed holdings. The land holding formation of four families of Evangelical noblemen and church funders, i.e. those of Skaševskis, Radziminskis, Stabrovskis, and Gruževskis, is analysed. As proved by the research findings, the newly arrived nobility formed their holdings not only on the previously recorded Samogitian axis of the southwest-the centre-the northwest. The families worked consistently and intentionally, arranging their holdings in accordance with the communications with commercial markets and the formed land and water routes.