Pre-modern Towns at the Times of Catastrophes. East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective

0578750 - ARÚB 2024 RIV GB eng M - Monography Chapter
Doležel, Jiří
Jakub Holub and his relatives. On the life and economic strategies of the burghers of the Brno urban region in the first half of the 15th century.
Pre-modern Towns at the Times of Catastrophes. East Central Europe in a Comparative Perspective. Abingdon: Routledge, 2024 - (Malaníková, M.; Możejko, B.; Nodl, M.), s. 59-73. ISBN 978-1-032-34737-0
Grant - others:AV ČR(CZ) StrategieAV21/23
Program: StrategieAV
Institutional support: RVO:68081758
Keywords : Middle ages * Moravia * towns * burghers * Hussite wars * economic strategy * social topography * trade * rural property * loan
OECD category: Archaeology
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003323587-6

Jiří Doležel’s microhistorically conceived study addresses the unusual burgher Jakub Holub, a successful businessman during the turbulent period of the Hussite Wars. Despite growing up in small towns (Kamenice, Tišnov), he became one of the wealthiest burghers in the Moravian largest city of Brno in the 1430s. Holub skilfully and pragmatically adapted his business strategies to the current war situation, he profited from trade, at other times from the production of his own rural property (beer, wine), and later used his accumulated capital to make loans. And yet, he was never involved in city administration, he made no known gifts to the Church and his increasing wealth contrasts starkly with his move to a small house in a poor section of the city. Following Jakub’s death, his wife Dorota successfully administered family assets before finally bequeathing them to her aristocratic nephews. As such, burgher money funded the property and power rise of a noble family.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0347889