Bohemian textiles and glass in eighteenth

Bohemian textiles and glass in eighteenth

Bohemian textiles and glass in eighteenth-century global
trade
Leos Müller, Stockholm, Michal Wanner, Prague
Third European Congress on World and Global History,
14-17 April 2011, London School of Economics
ABSTRACT: One of the "forgotten" regions of the global trading system of the eighteenth century was
Bohemia. In the course of the century Bohemia had became a big glass-maker and producer of textiles
and a significant share of this manufactures reached distanced markets of the global economy. This paper
will enlighten this connection between the European heartlands, Bohemia, and the global economy. The
paper will provide picture of Bohemian products, its volumes and values, that reached the global markets,
and it will describe the channels in which Bohemia was connected with the global economy.
1
INTRODUCTION
The history of early-modern globalization is sometimes perceived as a shift of economic activities from
inland parts for Europe to its Atlantic coast. The economic dynamism that characterised the development
in Holy Roman Empire and Italy in late Middle Ages was replaced by a slow growth, stagnating
urbanization levels in continental Europe and even the second serfdom eastwards of Elbe. Atlantic
Europe after 1500, in contrast, is perceived as a dynamic economic zone. Cities on the Atlantic board
expanded between 1500 and 1800 much faster that the cities of inland Europe. The Atlantic trade was
stimulated by colonial expansion of Portugal, Spain, the Dutch Republic, France and Britain.1 Another
aspect of the Atlantic dynamism was the competition between early-modern fiscal-military states which
entailed a new kind of warfare, as well as modernization of taxation and administration. This view of the
great difference between North-western and Atlantic Europe and the remaining parts of the continent
(Southern, Central, Eastern and Northern) has been prevailing in much of the recent literature on global
and Atlantic history. Actors participating in the globalization are colonial empires and to some extent
those who meet the empires in the Americas, Asia and Africa. This perspective leaves large parts of
Europe out of the early modern globalization debate.
This paper will look specifically on the place of the most central part of Europe—the Lands of the Czech
Crown (the Czech Lands)—in eighteenth-century globalization. The focus is on two typical Czech
commodities—linens and glass—which also played an important role in global trade. Naturally, the global
connections of the Czech Lands could also be enlightened in other ways. For example, the Jesuit Order
recruited in these lands many members who went abroad, especially to Spanish America. Here we will
focus on the Czech-made commodities in the global commodity exchange.
Commodity trade in the eighteenth-century globalization has been studied from many different angles.
One follows the concept of "the birth of a consumer society", which stressed the role of emulation in
consumption of new commodities.2 More recently the role of the new consumer commodities has also
been pointed out in Jan de Vries's term "the industrious revolution".3 According to his view the demand
for new commodities stimulated economic activities of ordinary people, instigating a new kind of
industrious behaviour. The British historian Maxine Berg has in her recent research focused on the
Prak M. (ed.), Early Modern Capitalism. Economic and social change in Europe 1400-1800. London, 2001, see esepcially J.
L. van Zanden's chapter. More recently an influential but controversial article by Acemoglu, D., Johnson, p. and
Robinson J., ‖The Rise of Europe: Atlantic , Institutional Change, and Economic Growth‖ The American Economic
Review, no 3, June 2005, pp. 546-579.
2 McKendrick N., Brewer J. and Plumb J.H., The birth of a consumer society. The commercialization of eighteenth-century
England. London 1982.
3 De Vries, J., "The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution". The Journal of Economic History, vol
54, No 2, June 1994, pp. 249-270; De Vries, J., The Industrious Revolution. Consumer behaviour and the household economy,
1650 to the present. Cambridge 2008.
1
2
interaction between the domestic demand in England for "exotic" Indian and Chinese goods (for example
cottons and chinaware) and the introduction of new manufacturing methods in British economy.4 In this
way the shaping of new consumer tastes for foreign goods preceded the industrial revolution.
Much of the recent discussion about new consumer behaviour focuses on goods that were produced and
sold as colonial/tropical goods. The rise of the eighteenth-century Atlantic economy has been related to
the sugar revolution. Introduction of tea and coffee as breakfast and afternoon drinks affected the
contacts with China and it revolutionised coffee-growing in the Caribbean, South America and in the
Dutch East Indies. In addition, cottons, silks, chinaware, indigo, and tobacco arrived to Europe via the
channels of global exchange. Less attention has been paid to commodities produced in European inland
and exported to Western Europe, and via Western Europe to the global economy. These commodities
were often produced by established methods and distributed in traditional ways but they were as
important for the process of globalization as the brand new goods from the tropical areas. Naval stores,
iron, and hemp from the Baltic area were of crucial importance for building up of British and French
navies. European merchant tonnage that connected the distanced corners of the global economy was
build from the same materials. Manufactured metal products were often used in exchange for tropical
goods. Weapons are a well-know example. Swedish iron was in the eighteenth century used to purchase
slaves in Africa.5 Of course, linens from Germany made up an important export item in the tropical
Caribbean, as well as in Africa and the Indies. The global trade in linens has been studied most extensively,
due to linens' role in proto-industrialization debate, especially in Germany.6 The story of Bohemian linens,
indeed, is the same as that of linens from Silesia and Saxony but Bohemian linens did not receive as much
attention.
Why to study Bohemian linens and Bohemian glass? Linen industry was the most significant protoindustrial activity in the Czech Lands. For this paper the industry is interesting because foreign markets
swallowed such large proportion of linen production. To put linen industry in proper context we have also
relate it to woollens industry in the Czech Lands. Bohemian glass is, perhaps, even more interesting
commodity. Glass trade is a less-known chapter of the global commodity exchange yet it can be put in the
pair with the trade in ceramics. The "invention" of Bohemian glass by the late seventeenth century follows
See especially her most recent: Berg M., Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Oxford, 2007. The book
pays a special attention to glass and chinaware consumed in England pp. 117-153. But Berg has published on these
issues extensively.
5 Evans C. and Rydén G., Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century. Leiden 2007; Rydén G. "Från
Gammelbo till Calabar. Det svenska järnet och den expanderande atlantiska ekonomin", Leos Müller, Göran Rydén
och Holger Weiss (eds.), Global historia från periferin. Norden 1600-1850. Lund 2009, pp 75–96.
6 The debate had been intiated by F.F. Medels, P Kriedte, H Medick and J Schlumbohm already in the 1970s. See
especially Mendels F., ―Proto-industrialisation: the first phase of the industrialisation process‖, The Journal of Economic
History, 32/1 1972, pp. 241-261; and Kriedte P., Medick H., Schlumbohm J., Industrialization before
industrialization. Rural industry in the genesis of capitalism. Cambridge 1981. See also an edited volume by Ogilvie p.
and Markus C. (eds.) European proto-industrialization. Cambridge 1996. The debate influenced deeply Czech economic
historians, such as Arnost Klíma and Milan Myška (see below).
4
3
well the argument of the "birth of consumer society". Bohemian crystal was invented as a substitute of
rock crystal. It was skilfully marketed to the upper society of Austria and soon also abroad. It played an
important role in the trade with Spain and Spanish America. The connection between glass demand and
production indicates a similar rapid adaptation to the tastes of consumers that we find on the markets for
new textiles (cottons and silks) or for ceramics.7 There is also the success story of a rapid growth of
production and booming sales overseas. Even in this way Bohemian glass reminds other commodities
"invented" in the eighteenth century.
THE BOHEMIAN CONTEXT
Some preliminary notes had to be made regarding the terminology and Bohemia's (the Czech Lands) place
within the Austrian state. Bohemia was the largest part of the Lands of the Czech Crown, which in the
period of this paper consisted of three parts: Kingdom of Bohemia, Markgraviate of Moravia and Silesian
Principalities. Another term for these lands is the Czech Lands. This state was a core part of the
composite state of Austria. Originally, whole Silesia was a part of the Czech Lands but in the war against
Prussia, 1742-1748, Austria lost this important province, leaving the Czech Lands with a rump territory of
Czech Silesia. The territory of the post-1748 Czech Lands equals almost exactly the present Czech
Republic. Moreover, since the Middle Ages the Lands of the Czech Crown was a member state of the
Holy Roman Empire. The semi-independent status of the Lands of the Czech Crown within the Austrian
Empire means, for example, that the trade statistics included also exports to other parts of the Austrian
Empire. Complete and comparable trade data for the Czech Lands for eighteenth century are difficult to
obtain. The quantitative data provided in this paper, consequently, are scattered and incomplete, yet they
are good enough to enlighten the global connections of the economy of the Czech Lands and the role of
foreign markets for it. Town, village and estate names are given in present Czech form, with the German
name in parentheses if possible.
Eighteenth-century trade and industry of the Czech Lands cannot be properly understood in isolation
from the political developments during the first half of the seventeenth century. The defeat of the Czech
anti-Habsburg Revolt in 1620 and the subsequent Thirty Years War greatly influenced the development of
the Czech Lands. Repression and widespread confiscations of Protestant properties in Bohemia and
Moravia followed the Battle of White Mountain, thousands of Protestants were forced to emigrate. The
outdrawn wars caused an overall decline of population by a third, a fall in economic activities, extinction
of dozens of villages, depopulation and a short-time economic decline of cities. Yet the war-related
On textiles see research of Giorgio Riello, Riello G., Lemire B., "East & West: Textiles and Fashion in Early
Modern Europe", Journal of Social History, Volume 41, Number 4, Summer 2008, pp. 887-916, on chinaware Berg M.
Luxury and Pleasure.
7
4
decline was short and renewal of economic activities followed quickly after 1648. Actually, a recent
research indicates that Prague's trade continued to grow even during the Thirty Years War. It took 50
years before the population reached the pre-war level, about 1700.
The property confiscations transferred economic resources to the hands of the domestic Catholic nobility,
and the Emperor's army officers of German, Flemish and Italian origin. Removal of gentry and cities
competed with the land ownership concentrated in large fideicommissum complexes. A noble estate became
the most important economic unit. After the post-war transfers of properties the nobles of the Czech
Lands belonged among the richest landlords in the Habsburg monarchy. In literature the process has been
labelled as process of re-feudalization and the period of the second serfdom.
The eighteenth-century wars with the Ottoman Empire, France and Prussia hampered again on the
economic development, but they also stimulated some economic sectors, especially textile and iron
production. The population of the Czech Lands rose up to the 1770s, to over four million inhabitants.
Reforms of the Emperor Joseph II brought a religious tolerance, reformed education and liberation from
feudal bonds, which made possible free movement of labour. However, the beneficial consequences of
these reforms were not fully felt until the nineteenth century. The major hindrance of a more rapid
economic development was the absence of investment capital and functional bank sector.
The areas of the Czech Lands in focus here—Silesia, Northern Bohemia and Northern Moravia—could
be considered as typical proto-industrial areas already in the seventeenth century. Due to the
predominance of serfdom, the labour was still bond to the estates and subordinated to the needs of their
landlords. Entrepreneurs, investing in urban and rural industries and looking for labour, had to solve this
problem; usually by setting up manufactures in cities and by contracts with landlords concerning the use
of serf labour. The Austrian administration perceived the bonds of labour to specific estates as a problem
for development of the Austrian economy. Thus, the interests of manufacturing became one of the main
impulses for the abolition of serfdom in 1781.
The manufacturing sector was an important part of the economy of the Czech Lands. A large share of the
production was exported to non-Austrian markets. The Czech Lands had a surplus in its balance of trade
as the imports accounted only for about a third of exports. The major export products were: linens,
woollens, yarn, glass, tin, iron and paper. Among the exported agricultural products we will find: wool,
grain, hops, feathers, cattle, animal fats and fish. The eighteenth-century policy of the Austrian
government sought to make the monarchy a unified economy and to shape the trade in a more profitable
way. The tariff decree for the Czech and Austrian Lands, in 1775, was the most far-reaching expression of
this policy, as concerns tariff unification. Yet, the government also tried to weaken the existing trade links
with Western Europe via Silesia and Saxony to Hamburg and to redirect Bohemian exports via Trieste,
5
from where the products were exported to the Levant and via Spain to the Spanish American colonies.
This policy had an impact on the re-organization of linen and glass trade in the period. As we will see in
the next section, at the beginnings the linen trade was organized from Northern Bohemia and Silesia, with
a crucial contribution of foreign capital and entrepreneurship. The Austrian government generously
supported the development of the port of Trieste, the Trieste-based commercial fleet and the
establishment of chartered trade companies. But the government succeeded only partially; the northern
connection with Western Europe was well-established and preferred in the Czech Lands.
PRODUCTION OF TEXTILES—LINENS AND WOOLLENS
In this section we describe shortly the organization of linen production and trade in the Czech Lands.
Attention is paid to the institutional preconditions of production and trade and their changes in the course
of the eighteenth century. In the seventeenth century the production of textiles in the Czech Lands was
guild-based. So it was also in the production of linen textiles (both yarn and cloth). The trade was based
on delivery contracts according to which guilds organized the purchases of yarn from spinners,
distribution of work to individual weavers, collection of linens and, finally, the control of the quality of
goods. Then linens were supplied to foreign, mainly German merchants. Due to decline in urban
population during the Thirty Years War this organization became difficult to sustain and more and more
production was outsourced to countryside.8
The production also followed the mode of putting-out system which was dominated by large contractors.
Contractors collected the produce and ensured the supplies of goods to buyers, who often were large
foreign merchant houses. Contractor could be landlord of estate who organized the textile production or
someone who has obtained the permission from the landlord to do so. The contractor provided spinners
and weavers with raw material and paid their wages. Frequently, the spinners and weavers purchased raw
material on credit provided by the contractor. The debt had been paid by the delivery of the goods. If the
linen production was organized by the estate itself, the labour provided could be serfs. The production of
linens was also dominated by extensive networks of contractors who arranged deliveries from the
scattered rural producers to the warehouses of foreign merchants.9
The literature on the proto-industrial production of textiles is voluminous and available in Czech, German and
English. For English overwies see especially Arnost Klíma and Milan Myška's work below. Klíma J., Manufakturní
období v Čechách, Praha 1955; Dohnal M., Původní akumulace a vznik manufaktur v severomoravské plátenické oblasti, Ostrava
1966; Urfus V., "O právní úpravě manufakturní výroby u nás v 18. století", PHS 1, 1955, pp. 122-135; Petráň J.,
"Technologické předpoklady manufakturní výroby", HD 3, 1979, pp. 55-77
9 Bělina P., Kaše J., Kučera J. P., Velké dějiny, pp. 374-375.
8
6
According to the logic of the predominant second serfdom in the Kingdom of Bohemia linen textile
workers in the countryside and cities remained tied to their landlords. Many landlords entered trade in
linens and signed contracts with wholesale merchants. In this way they could contract all linen production
of their estates to one wholesale merchant. 10
Figure 1: A loom in Bohemian linen workshop
Linen production in Central Europe was concentrated in Lusatia, Silesia and Northern Bohemia. Coarse
linens were woven by the foothills of the northern-Bohemian mountains—Jizerské Mountains
(Isergebirge), Orlické Mountains (Adlergebirge) and Krkonoše (Riesengebirge, Giant Mountains)—and
were supplied to near markets. Finer, so-called Dutch linens were produced in Jilemnice (Starkenbach)
and Hostinné nad Labem (Arnau an der Elbe) in Northern Bohemia. Finest so-called Swiss linens were
produced in the borderland between Saxony and Bohemia, in Šluknov Salient (Schluckenauer Zipfel), for
English customers. Another area of concentration of production was the city of Chrudim (Chrudim). In
the second half of the eighteenth century there was a boom in linen manufacturing in North-western
Moravia and Czech Silesia.
In contrast to the trade in glass, which was traditionally dominated by Bohemian and German-Bohemian
merchants, the trade in linens mainly was in the hands of foreigners. In the early part of the eighteenth
Hassinger H., "Die Anfänge der Industrialisierung in den böhmischen Ländern", BöhJb 2, 1961, pp. 164-181;
Klíma A., "The Role of Rural Domestic Industry in Bohemia in the eighteenth Century", The Economic History Review
II/27, 1974, pp. 48-56; Myška M., "K charakteristice výrobních vztahů a forem předení lnu ve slezsko-moravské
protoindustriální oblasti v 16. až polovině 18. století", Časopis Slezského muzea, vol. 33, 1984, pp. 253-270; Myška M.,
"Proto-industrialisierung in Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien", Proto-Industrialisierung in Europa. Industrielle Produktion vor
dem Fabrikszeitalte, Wien 1994, pp. 177-191; Martínek Z., "Necechovní řemeslníci v Čechách v polovině 18. Století",
Český lid 83, 1996, pp. 275-288.
10
7
century the dominant position among the wholesale merchants in Central Europe had the Nuremberg
house Viatis and Peller, whose business in Bohemia is confirmed until 1740. Yet other dynamic firms
from Nuremberg, Augsburg, Leipzig, Memmingen, Hamburg and other German cities acquired their
market shares.11 The important roles in export of Czech and Silesian linens played Austrian Oriental
Company (in export to Spain, Portugal, Latin America and India) and in less scale also Austrian Ostend
Company (in export to Africa).12
There were also numbers of Dutch and English merchants who established their permanent trading
stations in Silesia, Lusatia and Saxony. These merchants organized their purchases of linens through
putting-out system. Moreover, there were firms from Wroclaw (Breslau) and other Silesian towns who
attempted to enter the trade in Bohemian linens. Bohemian and Silesian linens were finished for demand
of foreign markets in places such as Greiffenberg (Gryfów Śląski), Hirsberg (Jelenia Góra), Schmiedeberg
(Kowary) and Landeshut (Kamienia Góra) in Silesia. 13
These finishing industries were known already by the end of the seventeenth century, when exports of the
north-Bohemian and north-Moravian linens via Silesia began to grow. In Lusatia and Silesia, then still a
part of Austria, several English firms had representatives who organized not only purchases but also
finishing of linens (refining, bleaching and dyeing). Via Hamburg these refined products were exported to
England. In the course of time, the English merchants Nathaniel Cambridge, Daniel Remington, John
Hollman and others successfully replaced the German firms in the trade in yarn and cloth. In 1713, the
English businessman Robert Allason settled in Rumburk (Rumburg), a small town in North-western
Bohemia. He ensured supplies of linens from the weavers in the town and its surroundings, and later from
the surrounding estates. He established also workshops for bleaching, dyeing and refining of linens.
Allason's firm thrived and in a couple of years it became probably the biggest trading firm in Bohemian
linens. Only between 1713 and 1724 he exported to England linens worth of 4.7 million Gulden, which was
about 430,000 Gulden annually. Allason died in 1724 leaving his trade to a nephew Henry Wingfield who
supplied Bohemian linens to the leading English companies. In this way Bohemian linens reached the East
and West Indies.14 Rumburk and Jiřetín pod Jedlovou (Georgenthal) in Northern Bohemia continued
being a centre of English linen trade in Bohemia during the whole eighteenth century.
Klepl J., Počátky továrního průmyslu lnářského v českých zemích, Praha 1941; Novotný K., "Rozmístění manufakturní
výroby v Čechách kolem roku 1790 (Materiály)", HD 11, 1983, pp. 5-99; Novotný K., "Průmyslová výroba v
Čechách", Počátky českého národního obrození, Praha 1990, pp. 55-64.
12
Mayer F. M., Die Anfänge des Handels und der Industrie in Österreich und die orientalische Compagnie, Innsbruck 1882, s. 7576; Parmentier J., The Ostend-Guinea Trade, 1718-1720, in: International Journal of Maritime History, sv. II, No 1 (June
1990), s. 190-195
13 Cerman M., Proto-industrialisierung und Grungherrschaft, Ländliche Sozialstruktur, Feudalismus und
Protoindustrielles Heimgewerbe in Nordböhmen vom 14. Bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (1380-1790), Dissertation zur
Erlagung des Doktorgrades an der Geisteswissenchaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Wien 1996, p. 345.
14 Klíma A., "English Merchant Capital in Bohemia", The Economic History Review 1959, No. 1, pp. 34-48
11
8
The loss of Silesia in the War of Austrian Succession partly had a damaging impact on trade in Bohemian
linens because Silesia mediated Bohemian exports and because the finishing and refining processes in
linen production were located there. An outcome of the loss was a restructuring of the production and
trade in Bohemian linens. To meet foreign competition, in 1753, German and Czech merchants from the
area south of Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) created a trading partnership (Gebirgshandlungscollegium) based in
the town Trutnov (Trautenau). The partnership exported the linens worth a half million Gulden annually.
Similar partnerships were created in mentioned Rumburk, and in north-eastern parts of Bohemia, for
example the towns of Opočno (Oppotschno) and Nové Zámky (a part of Hostinné nad Labem). The
Wallenstein-Vartemberg family and Count Josef Kinsky in cooperation with the Italian merchant banker
Joseph Bolza and some other Prague financiers founded the Bohemian Trading Company for exports of
linens to Spain. 15 It is worth to note that even some glassmaking companies from Northern Bohemia
complemented their trade in glass with linens. 16
In the second half of the eighteenth century the production of linens was made gradually free. The decree
issued in 1750 instructed about the uniform quality of yarn and linen cloth for sale. In 1755 the linen
weaving industry was declared a free, means non-guild industry, and in 1773 the whole linen industry,
including the spinning, was declared free. From 1775 spinners were free to work for anyone.
Gasser P., "Die Handelsbeziehungen der Litorale zu den Ländern der böhmischen Krone im 18. Jahrhundert",
MÖStA 14, 1961, p. 88, Koblížek V., "Plátenictví v Podkrkonoší v druhé polovině 18. století", Z historie
podkrkonošského textilu, Trutnov 1971, pp. 7-77
16 Lněničková J., Bohemian Glass in Spain and the Spanish colonies (until the mid-19. Century), Prague PHIR 2001, pp. 61-74.
See also Weber K., Deutsche Kaufleute im Atlantikhandel 1680-1830, Unternehmen und Familien in Hamburg, Cádiz und
Bordeaux, München 2004, Schriftenreihe zur Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte, Band 12, p. 135.
15
9
Figure 2: Textile workshop Horní Litvínov (Leutensdorf) (1728)
The process of institutional liberation of the linen production is parallel with the introduction of new
organization of work. The first concentrated manufactures in linen industry appeared in the final stages of
the production—refining and end-processing of cloth. One of the best known manufactures was that in
Potštejn (Pottenstein) in Eastern Bohemia, established in 1755 and managed by Count Jan de Harbuval
Chamaré. The manufacture had commercial contacts with merchants from Vienna and the Austrian
Netherlands. Via the mediation of the house Kennedy Wellens in Fiume (Rijeka) the manufacture's linens
went as far as to Philadelphia and New York, and via the house of Joachim Hirschl in Trieste the linens
were exported to Cadiz and from there to the North and South Americas. 17
The reforms in the mid-eighteenth century entailed a rapid overall growth of the linen industry in
Bohemia. According to an official figure for 1772 there were 230,000 flax spinners in Bohemia. At the
turn of the 1780s and 1790s there were already 400,000 workers engaged in linen production, mostly in
Czech Silesia, East Bohemia and North Moravia. In 1793, it is said, about a half million people made their
living by spinning and weaving.18 Although they were partly part-time employees, they represented
important part of the total population of the Czech Lands comprising 4.17 million inhabitants (1783).19
Cerman I., Chotkové, příběh úřednické šlechty, Praha 2008, p. 261-265.
Klíma A., "The Role of Rural Domestic Industry in Bohemia", p. 49.
19 Fialová L., Horská P., Mučera M., Maur E., Dějiny obyvatelstva českých zemí. Praha 1998, p. 139.
17
18
10
Proto-industrial production of linens provided means for living in the less-fertile areas of Northern
Bohemia and Moravia and instigated population growth. The population density in these less-fertile areas
was larger than in the country at average. Demographical data for Bohemia from 1764 indicate the
population density in of 48 per square km in Northern Bohemia, but only 32.4 per square km in the rest
of the country. The population density in the less-fertile areas was also 30 per cent higher than in the
fertile ones. In less-fertile and linen-producing areas the population continued to grow. By 1789 the
population density there was 82 persons per square km.20 The population density levels are not far from
present Czech figures (130 persons per square km for 2008).21
This is a remarkable but not unknown pattern. It follows quite exactly the logic of proto-industrial
development in which rising shares of rural population became dependent on production of linens for
exports. The proto-industrial debate in the 1970s and 1980s pointed mainly at the problems of
pauperization and increasing dependency on capital-strong intermediaries, a process of protoproletarization within proto-industrialization. The debate did not stress sufficiently the importance of
global markets for the proto-industrial textile production; the eighteenth-century globalization was a
precondition of the proto-industrial development in the Czech Lands.
In the 1780s the linen textile production made about 60-70 per cent of all textile production in the country
and the Bohemian linens had a strong position on foreign markets. Regarding the state's foreign trade, the
linen cloth and yarn were the most important items of the exports of the Czech Lands. In the second half
of the eighteenth century the linen trade accounted for about three-quarters of all exports from the Czech
Lands.22 Only in 1768, the exports of linens were worth of 2.6 million Gulden.23
Because of its quality and relatively low price there was a great demand for Central European linen not
only in Western and Southern Europe but also in the Ottoman Empire and overseas. The linens were
exported via Hamburg and Amsterdam to Spain, the Mediterranean and Spanish America. After 1748,
when the political and trade relations between Spain and Austria normalized, the linen goods could be
exported to Spain and Latin America via Trieste and Cadiz. In Cadiz there were two trading companies
maintaining direct links with traders from Nové Zámky in North-eastern Bohemia and a group of Prague
noblemen and bankers. 24
Klíma A., "The Role of Rural Domestic Industry in Bohemia", p. 50.
Školní statistická ročenka, Praha 2008, pp. 13-14.
22 Otruba G., Die Wirtschaftspolitik Maria Theresias. Wien 1963, p. 151.
23 Klíma A., Čechy v období temna, Praha 1961, p. 139.
24 Gasser P., "Triests Handelsversuche mit Spanien und die Probleme der österreichisschen Shiffahrt in den Jahren
1750-1800". MÖStA 36, 1983, pp. 150-178 and 37, pp. 172-197.
20
21
11
The American War of Independence damaged the trade with the Bohemian linens, as the connections
with Philadelphia and New York were broken. Similarly damaging effects on the trade in Bohemian linens
had introduction of higher tariffs on trade with Hamburg in 1787, which was an outcome of the Austrian
troubles with the Dutch. On the other hand the division of Poland in 1772 stimulated the linen exports
because of the lowering of export duties there. 25 The final blow to the eighteenth-century trade in
Bohemian linens was the Napoleonic Wars and the Continental Blockade introduced in 1806. The wars
and the blockade cut off the Bohemian producers from the important overseas markets and provided a
extra stimulus to British textile industry.26 In the course of the wars Prague became a major transfer centre
on the smuggling road from Odessa, via Brody, Brno to Frankfurt am Main. But the illicit trade links
could not replace the well-established key connections overseas.27 In addition, the decline was caused by
the persistence of outdated manufacturing methods.
The linen industry and trade was the most dynamic and most important part of the Bohemian textile
industry. It showed a peculiar mixture of, on the one hand, guild regulations, feudal institutions, the use of
free and non-free labour, and on the other hand, remarkably tense encounters with global markets, the
engagement of foreign merchant networks and their commercial know-how and foreign capital in the
industry. The woollen industry was less dynamic and less important from a trade perspective. Yet it is
worth to look at it, in the context of the success of the Bohemian linen industry. Production of woollens
made about 30 per cent of textile production of the Czech Lands, accounting for about 12 per cent of the
export value from the Czech Lands. In woollen cloth production the guild organization prevailed. This
was mainly due to the lack of domestic raw material. Wool was imported and sometimes smuggled from
Hungary, Austria and Poland, rarely even from Macedonia in the Ottoman Empire, Sicily and Spain.28
The Austrian government did not forbid the woollen cloth guilds but, as for other sectors, it issued
decrees that gradually reduced guild privileges and made the industry more free. It did not restrict the
number of workshops and apprentices, nor the number or products, and it abolished the guild
prohibitions of employment of unskilled labour. The so-called commercial crafts (Kommerzialgewerbe),
which produced goods for the whole Austrian Empire and for exports, were directly subordinated to
provincial authorities, which had regularly had to report to the Emperor. The guild production managed
successfully to compete in the quality of their products with production of the manufactures. 29
Grossmann H., Österreichs Handelspolitik im Bezug auf Galizien in der Reformperiode 1772-1790, Wien 1914; Šmerda M.,
"K počátkům hospodářských vztahů českých zemí a Haliče", SIPř 58, 1972, pp. 116-122.
26 Bělina P., Kaše J., Kučera J. P., Velké dějiny, p. 412.
27 Švankmajer M., Čechy na sklonku napoleonských vákek 1810-1815, Praha 2004, p. 9.
28 Šmída J., "Historické podmínky a předpoklady rozmachu nákladnictví v Čechách v létech 1700-1754", ČSPS 60,
1952, p. 29.
29 Klíma A., Manufakturní období, pp. 342-374.
25
12
In the second part of the eighteenth century the woollen manufacturing was concentrated in Southern
Bohemia in Plzeň (Pilsen) and Jindřichův Hradec (Neuhaus), in Northern Bohemia in Česká Lípa
(Böhmisch Leipa), Liberec (Reichenberg), Broumov (Braumau), Rychnov nad Kněžnou (Reichenau an der
Knieschna, and in Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. The majority of the woollens production was destined
for the domestic markets and for the Austrian army.30
Even by the late eighteenth century the guilds produced four times more woollen textiles than the
manufactures. Some guilds developed gradually into modern enterprises. Perhaps the most enlightening
example of this development was the woollen textile guild in Jihlava (Iglau) in south-western corner of
Moravia. At the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Jihlava became a centre of
manufacturing of the army uniforms. From 1704, the Jihlava guild held a monopoly on this production
and the army supplies consumed two-thirds of Jihlava's total woollen production. In this time, the
successful development was related to the demand caused by the War of Spanish Succession and the
Austrian wars with the Ottoman Empire. After the War of Spanish Succession the Jihlava textile industry
declined. The crisis entailed a reorganization of the whole production. In 1726, a joint stock company was
founded to solve the problems. The business did not go well so the company was abolished in 1728 and
the company stocks taken over by a group of six merchants under leadership of Joseph Ignatius Zeb
(1696-1765), which dominated sales of the Jihlava woollen textiles until the mid-eighteenth century. 31
The Jihlava woollen industries employed one-sixth of drapers in Moravia. Woollens that were not supplied
to the army were exported to other parts of the Holy Roman Empire, mostly to Bavaria, Switzerland, the
Upper and Lower Austria, Carniola, Hungary, Silesia, Poland, and by foreign merchants to Italy, the
Balkans, Russia, and even the Levant. Exports increased when the army demand declined. To secure the
sales of Jihlava woollen another joint stock company (Tuchhandlungs-Confraternität) was established in
August 1769 (under the Imperial decree) and this attempt was successful. The company took care of sales
of goods, not of organization of production. Its agents were active in the neighboring countries as well as
far away. In 1767, after the wars with Prussia, Jihlava woollen industries produced seventeen kinds of
woollen cloth. In 1771 the industries produced 20,000 pieces of cloth, in 1781 between 33,000 and 34,000
pieces, and in 1794 more than 53,000 pieces of cloth.
In the mid-eighteenth century, there were about 360 guild masters in Jihlava. In the end of the century
their number increased to 500. This was an unusual concentration of masters in one town, in the context
of the whole Austrian Empire. The Jihlava guild owned industrial facilities in the town and was very rich.
In surroundings of Jihlava and in the town itself there were a large number of spinners working for the
guild. The estimated number for 1781 was 4,230. They spun wool imported from various places, mainly
30
31
Bělina P., Kaše J., Kučera J. P., Velké dějiny, p. 377.
Blažek L. a kol., Vlnařská centra Evropy od počátků do 20. století, Brno-Jihlava 2008, pp. 24-26.
13
from Hungary, but some wool was imported as well from the Ottoman Empire. By the 1780s the value of
Jihlava export reached 1 million Gulden. 32
The complexity of woollens production caused concentration of production in towns. Jihlava is a good
example of this tendency. The same complexity of production created favorable conditions for growth of
the manufactures in woollen industry. Yet, in comparison with Western Europe the manufacture
production of woollens developed slowly in Bohemia. One problem was the resistance of guilds; another
problem was the weak domestic market. The first textile manufactures, indeed, appeared already by the
late seventeenth century, often founded on initiative of religious orders. The orders saw the manufactures
not only as manufacturing units but also as means of solution of social problems (elimination of vagrancy,
care for orphans, et cetera). For example, the first cloth manufacture in Bohemia in Soběchleby
(Sobochleben) was founded by the Jesuits in 1684. Another more successful cloth manufacture was
founded by the Cistercians in Osek (Ossegg) near the town Duchcov (Dux), in north-western part of
Bohemia in 1697. The majority of the manufactures were set up by noblemen with help of foreign experts.
The workforce was often the serfs of the landlord's estate, but these serfs worked for wages, not as a part
of their feudal obligation. This eliminated the difference between free labour and serfs. These nobilityowned manufactures were, indeed, true capitalist enterprises. A typical example of such manufacture
managed by nobility was the cloth manufacture founded in 1715 by Johan Joseph von Wallenstein, in
Horní Litvínov (Leutensdorf).33
In the second half of the eighteenth century the number of manufactures in Bohemia increased, as well as
their average size. The manufactures were now employing thousands of workers. The development was
stimulated by the ongoing integration of the Austrian domestic market, due to the reduction of internal
tariff barriers. Another contributing factor was the government's interest in increasing state revenues,
according to the ideas of Kameralismus. The loss of Silesia gave an important impetus to the development
in Bohemia. The Vienna government strove to break up Austria's dependency on Silesia's textile industry
cluster and to achieve an economic development within the Empire's new borders. The means were tariff
policy, as mentioned, as well as a direct support to the domestic manufactures. The economic core of the
Austrian Empire shifted towards Bohemia and Moravia.34
Finally, we should mention the new cotton textile industry which was made free trade in 1763. Cotton
printing business was made free in 1773. Production of cotton fabrics began to spread in Bohemia in the
Hladký J., "Příspěvek k dějinám soukenické výroby v Jihlavě v druhé polovině 18. století", VVM 17, 1965, pp. 199214.
33 Klíma A., Čechy, pp. 67-71.
34 The Emperor Francis Stephen of Lorraine itself founded the cloth manufacture in Kladruby, which was relocated
to Brno. Mikoletzky H. L., "Franz I. Stephan von Lotringen als Wirtschaftspolitiker", MÖStA 13, 1961, pp. 231-257.
32
14
1760s, along with the cotton printing. Both parts of the production were concentrated in manufactures, in
similarity with the sector's development in Western Europe. This new textile sector was based on
imported raw materials. The sector was established independently from the feudal estate-based economy
as well as guild regulations. The cotton industry became primarily a new urban business. One of the
leading businessmen n the new sector was J. J. Leittenberger originally working in dying business. After his
return from Western Europe he based his business on supplying of cotton for numerous spinning mills
that in total employed thousands of spinners. 35 Prague became a major center of Bohemian cotton
industry. By 1790 there were 31 cotton mills producing textiles. 36 The cotton sector was also the first
textile industry introducing spinning machines—in 1797—still powered by water.37
Yet, the cotton industry was working for domestic markets. It was established to reduce imports of
cottons from abroad. It were linens that connected the Czech Lands with the eighteenth-century global
economy. Wollen industry worked mainly for the domestic markets and government orders. Woollen
industry kept being conservative and had diffultulty with leaving bonds of guild-based production. The
production of linens in the Czech Lands might be characterised as a classical example of a proto-industrial
development. It was at large extent based on putting-out system, in which capital-strong intermediaries
organised and controlled channels between producers and buyers. The flax-growing, spinning and weaving
were carried out in less-fertile northern parts of Bohemia and Moravia, while the finishing processes, at
the beginning, were located in Silesia. After the loss of Silesia, linen production and sales were
concentrated in northern parts of the Czech Lands. The central government had an ambition to re-direct
linen trade from north to south, to Trieste and via the Mediterranean to overseas. In similarity with linens
made in German lands, textiles were distributed in Western Europe and overseas by wholesale merchant
firms vi Hamburg. It is difficult to estimate the overall significance of Bohemian linens in the European
trade in linens, but it is apparent that the linen-producing sector was a highly dynamic and a very
important part the state's economy. By the late eighteenth century linens made about 60-70 per cent of all
textile production of the kingdom and accounted for roughly the same share of its exports (including
exports to other parts of Austria).
Glassmaking did not make such a contribution to the economy of the Czech Lands and it did not account
for big share of exports. The numbers of people employed in glassmaking—and so the industry's
demographical footprint—were far from the figures mentioned above for the linen industry. Yet the
"invention" of Bohemian glass and its succesful road to the tables of refined eighteenth-century
consumers in Europe and overseas is a good example of how the global economy of the period worked.
Hallwich H., Firma Franz Leittenberger 1783-1793, Prag 1893.
Míka Z., "Počátky průmyslové výroby v Praze", PSH 12, 1980, pp. 85-169.
37 Klíma A., Manufakturní období, p. 387-412
35
36
15
GLASSMAKING
After the Thirty Years War, glassmaking in the Czech Lands became an important part of the economy of
the Bohemian feudal estate. The nobility supported the industry because it was profitable and because it
made use of untapped forest resources. Supplies of wood and its relative cheapness was one of the
reasons why glassmaking was located to forest-rich areas of Bohemia. Glassworks were usually founded
by glass masters who rented a part of forest from estate landowners. Glass masters built glassworks at
their own expense and they employed usually free glass workers. The use of serf labour in glassmaking
was unusual, but possible. For example, the well-known glassworks Nový svět (Neuwelt), on the
Harrachov estate (Harrachsdorf), used serf labour. But also in this glassmaking enterprise serfs were paid
in wages. 38
The leading Bohemian historian of the seventeenth century, Bohuslav Balbín, testified about the high
quality of Bohemian glassmaking in these words:"Some glassworks make glass so transparent, clean and
subtle, that it is sold throughout the Empire and Germania for very high prices... The tables of nobility are
full of such glass."39 In the second part of his work Miscellanea historica regni Bohemiae (1679-1688) Balbín
mentions 24 glassworks in Bohemia and he points out their increase since the 1670s. The majority of
Bohemian glassworks were situated in the counties of Plzeň (Pilsen) and Hradec Králové (Königgrätz).
At the beginnings Bohemian glassmakers were largely influenced by the style of the Venetian glassmaking.
But there was a gradual transition in style towards more Baroque mode and a new typically Bohemian
glass-mode emerged. Also regarding the technique Bohemian glassmakers were innovative and adjusted
glassmaking to the local conditions. The most important innovation was an advanced technique of limepotassium glass (chalk glass). The glass made by this new potash-chalk method was clear and colourless
and hard and enabled better employment of glyptic techniques. The contemporary taste required a
colourless glass that should remind as much as possible mountain crystal, because of its ascribed magical
properties. 40 The substitution of mountain crystal was the beginnigs of the famous Bohemian crystal. This
new so-called Bohemian crystal was invented already in the 1670—a hard, thick-walled, clear and bright
(potash-chalk) glass. Bohemian crystal made it possible to use new techniques of glass-engraving and
glass-cutting and it increased in popularity from the 1680s and 1690s. According to recent research, the
Menčík Ferdinand, Neuwelt-Harrachsdorf. Andenken an die am 5. August 1902 stattgefundene Einweihung…, Neuwelt
1902, 22 p.
39 "Některé sklárny dělají sklo tak průhledné, čisté a subtilní, že se prodává do císařství a celé Germanie za vysoké
ceny…Stoly vznešených lidí jsou plné takového skla.", Balbín B., Miscellanea historica regni Bohemiae..., Výbor z díla
Rozmanitosti z historie království českého pod titulem: krásy a bohatství české země. (transl. H. Businská), Praha 1986.
40 Mareš F., České sklo, Praha 1893, p. 32.
38
16
invention of Bohemian crystal had been a result of the development of a few outstanding Bohemian
glassworks. 41
Figure 3: Glass furnace (1689)
The major expansion of the Bohemian glassmaking took place in the first half of the eighteenth century.
This was an outcome of combination of innovative technology in glassmaking and successful marketing of
the product. The artistic quality and adjustment to consumer tastes did also play an important role in the
success story at home and abroad. The Bohemian glassworks were able to produce excellent colourless
glass and also the quality of glass-engraving remarkably increased. 42
41
42
Drahotová O. at al., Historie sklářské výroby v českých zemích, I. díl Od počátků do konce 19. století, Praha 2005, p. 197.
Drahotová O. at al., Historie, p. 206.
17
It is difficult to get a more exact total number of glassworks operating in Bohemia at the turn of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. New glassworks appeared in times of prosperity while many
disappeared in bad time. Moreover, old glassworks moved to new locations when the wood supplies in
one place were exhausted. Older estimates claimed that there were about 40 glassworks on the territory,
some sources point out—probably misleadingly—even 90 glassworks. On the so-called Müller's map of
Bohemia from 1720 there are 42 glassworks. This corresponds fairly well with the number in a landowner
survey from the reign of Maria Theresa (the Theresian Cadastre), which is about fifty. According to
reports from Austrian county officers and statistics there were 54 glassworks in Bohemia in the mideighteenth century, 64 glassworks in the 1780s, and 79 glassworks by 1799. 43 In 1771 the number of
people employed in the whole Bohemian glassmaking sector was estimated above 3,000 individuals—a
significant figure but far from the linen industry. 44
The prevailing majority of production—about 80 per cent—was exported. The market conditions
fluctuated naturally in accordance with the political and economic situation in different European
countries. In periods of crisis, unemployed glassmakers, cutters and engravers were looking for
employment abroad and so they disseminated the Bohemian glassmaking technology and style all over
Europe, despite the official decrees trying to prevent such a development. The trade in Bohemian glass
was controlled by German-speaking merchants from Northern Bohemia. These merchants ordered the
shapes, decorations et cetera according the requirements of markets, and they could mediate wishes of
individual customers. They ordered the popular glass shapes in many different glassworks.45 In this way
the Bohemian glassmaking industry was capable quickly adjust to new customer demands.
In addition to a wide range of blown glass (about 60 per cent of production) majority of glassworks made
also flat glass (about 30 per cent of production), chandeliers, special glass items, strass (goods and small
crystal beads) (in all about 10 per cent). During the seventeenth and the first half of eighteenth centuries
glassworks were not specializing on specific products. But in the course of the second half of the
eighteenth century, the glassmaking of some products concentrated in specialized glassworks. The
production of flat glass, for example, was closely linked to mirror-making. The production took a big step
forward in the first half of the eighteenth century after the abolishment of the imperial monopoly on
mirror-making manufacture at Neuhaus in Vienna in 1690.
From the decades after 1700 there is a plenty of evidence of exports of glass abroad. From the 1720s the
Prague glass merchants and North-Bohemian manufacturers supplied Bohemian chandeliers abroad.
Hangings for candle holders and chandeliers belonged among important glass export items. In 1723,
Drahotová O. at al., Historie, pp. 206-207.
Klíma A., Manufakturní období, p. 462.
45 Drahotová O. at al., Historie, p. 207.
43
44
18
North-Bohemian chandeliers manufacturers sent their chandeliers to the Prague Castle, at the occasion of
the coronation of Charles VI. In 1725, Johann Ferdinand Bramberger from Prague (Prag, Neustadt)
supplied grandiose chandeliers to Paris, for decorations of Versailles, and to Brussels. In 1726, Eva Marie
Pichler supplied chandeliers to Prince Adam of Schwarzenberg in Vienna and the Palace of Hluboká
(Frauenberg) in Southern Bohemia. Bohemian chandeliers were exported to Spain, Germany, the
Netherlands, Russia, Denmark and elsewhere.46 Traditionally, the sales of glass had been carried out by
glassmakers via their contacts with merchants. Glassworks had frequently their own storehouses at
important market places for glass, such as in Prague, Vienna and Linz, and they supplied their products
directly abroad—to Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Foreign merchants visited often the most
famous glassworks themselves.47
The distribution of glass goods changed radically with the emergence of new sale organization in
Northern Bohemia and this relatively small area played a special role in the developemtn of glass trade in
the second half of the century. Therefore we will pay more attention, specifically to the development of
this trade. rade in glass in Northern Bohemia had a long tradition. There is evidence of trade in glass
already from the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Česká Lípa (Böhmisch Leipa)
area.48 After modest beginnings, when traders travelled with their glass goods on the wheelbarrow to local
markets and sold it to houses, in the 1680s we meet the first merchants selling glass abroad. For example,
George F. Kreybich sold his glass goods in the 1670s and 1680s in Bavaria, Tyrol, Carinthia, Transylvania,
Silesia, Poland, Brandenburg, the Baltic area, England, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Russia. 49 In the
1680s Johann Kaspar Kittel from a village of Polevsko (Blottendorf) near Česká Lípa appeared to sell
Bohemian glass in Lower Saxony, and even Denmark and the Netherlands.50 Another example of an
enterprising glassmaker from Northern Bohemia, from the estate of the Eggenberg family, was Michael
Müller (1639-1709) who kept trade connections with Vienna, Salzburg, Venice, Amsterdam, Moscow and
Spain.51
The rapid increase of exports from Northern Bohemia followed after the end War of Spanish Succession
in 1714. By then the Bohemian glass was exported to Spain and Portugal and from there to Spanish and
Portuguese colonies. After 1725 there emerged trading companies, which in due time concentrated in their
hands 75-90 per cent of all foreign trade in Bohemian glass. These groups consisted of individuals or
family groups. But there were also joint stock companies, which shared profits and risks of transport
Brožová J., "Český křišťálový lustr 18. a 19. století", Ars vitraria 8, 1986, pp. 7-26.
Štrýtová D., "K počátkům obchodu s českým sklem", Ars Vitraria 1/1996, p. 32
48 Volf M., "Hospodářský a sociální obraz litoměřického kraje podle Berní ruly", Sborník archivních prací XVIII, Praha
1968, pp. 142-236.
49 Schlesinger L., "Reisebeschreibung eines deutsch-böhmischen Glasschneiders (G. F. Kreybich aus Steinschönau)".
Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Deutschen in Böhmen, 8, 1870, p. 220.
50 Hegenbart J. A., "Zur geschichte des Böhmischen Haidaer Glashandels", Mitteilungen des Nordböhmischen ExcursionsClubs, 4, 1866, pp. 111-118, 142-149.
51 Mareš F., České sklo, pp. 81-91.
46
47
19
costs. The companies were often connected to glassmakers engaged in finishing and refining glass
products. They resided in small northern-Bohemian towns and villages: Nový Bor (Haida), Kamenický
Šenov (Steinschönau), Sloup (Bürgstein), Chřibská (Kreibitz), Česká Kamenice (Böhmische-Kamnitz),
Srbská Kamenice (Windisch-Kamnitz), Polevsko (Blottendorf), Skalice (Langenau), Arnultovice
(Arnsdorf), and Prácheň (Parchen). Regarding the scale of their business these companies by far exceeded
the business of the Prague glass merchants, such as Moser, Bramberg, Steigerwald and Pichler, working
primarily for the domestic demand.52
Figure 4: A view of the town Nový Bor (Haida)
We will find the agents of the northern-Bohemian glass-trading companies in many other major ports in
Europe, and even in Asia and South America. The most important destinations of Bohemian glass in
Europe were: St. Petersburg, Stralsund, Tallinn, Riga, Copenhagen, Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen,
Amsterdam, Leiden, The Hague, Rotterdam, Dordrecht, Middelburg, London, Bordeaux, San Sebastian,
Bilbao, Santander, Ferrol, La Coruna, Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Seville, Cadiz, Malaga, Valencia, Alicante,
Barcelona, Marseille, Livorno, Naples, Palermo, Ancona, Trieste, and Constantinople. In the inland the
most important destinations were: Paris, Strasbourg, Nancy, Lyon and Aix-en-Provence. Overseas we find
destinations such as Cairo, Smyrna, Havana, Lima, New York, Baltimore and others.
Lněničková J., Sklo v Praze, Praha 2002, pp. 56-66; Lněničková J., "Pražští sklenáři, skláři, rytci, brusiči, malíři a
obchodníci se sklem v Praze (I. část – do roku 1861)", HP 2003, pp. 93-263.
52
20
When exported to Latin America, which was one of the most important destinations, the Bohemian glass
was formally declared Spanish glass which makes it difficult to trace it in the written sources, and to
provide data on export values or volumes. Regarding Spanish American colonies we know, however, that
the glass products labelled as Spanish were, in the seventeenth century, of the Italian origin and, in the
eighteenth century, of the Bohemian origin. Another undisputable evidence of this trade is Bohemian
glass found by archaeologists in Spanish wrecks.53 First from 1778 the Spanish regulated trade with
America was opened for foreigners and glass could be traded as product made in Bohemia. In that
moment a number of Spanish and Mexican companies started a direct trade in Bohemian glass, with
destination in Mexico, Cuba, even Colombo in Ceylon. 54
The scale of the northern-Bohemian engagement in glass trade to Spanish America is enlightened in their
share among the registered German merchants in Cadiz. Of the 236 merchants of German origin
identified in Cadiz for the period 1680-1830, 47 originated in Bohemia. Majority of them (33) arrived in
the 1780s and 1790s, apparently after the mentioned liberation of Spanish trade with colonies.55 This
group of Bohemian merchants in Cadiz originated in a very small area with three towns/villages; Polevsko
(Blottendorf), Skalice (Langenau), Arnultovice (Arnsdorf) and it was dominated by a couple of leading
families and individuals, such as Rautenstrauch and Preysler families, Elias Zincke, Josef Hiecke, August
Piltz, Ferdinand Geltner and Josef Anton Riedel. Rautenstrauch family established early a connection with
Lima and Mexico City. August Rautenstrauch II was living in Lima in 1784-1787. This group also formed
a very tight family-linked network of firms specialised on glass exports to Spain and Spanish colonies.
In the second part of the century, in addition to the Spanish Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Persia
became important markets for Bohemian glass. By then, the so-called Turkish companies were formed in
Northern Bohemia. There is also evidence of Ottomans purchasing Bohemian glass in Passau in Bavaria.56
Glass factories abroad were managed by a company agent and his assistant. Some of them could be large,
having between five and thirty employees. Factories owned usually a house in which the employees lived.
There were both merchants and glassmakers-refiners who adjusted the products according to local
customer requirements. Life in foreign factories followed the strict, almost monastic rules. Hard work,
godliness, honesty, modesty and order were required from all employees. There was also a strict social
The boxes laden with Bohemian glass were found in the wrecks of two galleons that sunk in 1724 near to the Cape
Samaná by the coast of the present Dominican Republic. The vessels „Conde de Tolosa― and „Nuestra Seňora de
Guadalupe― were bound for Vera Cruz in Mexico, via Havana; delivering a consignement of mercury (quicksilver)
for the mines of Mexico. Peterson M., "Graveyard of the Quicksilver Galleons", National Geographic 156/1979, pp.
850-877.
54 Baďura B., "K počátkům obchodu českých zemí s Latinskou Amerikou", Bulletin Komise pro dějiny krajanů Čechů a
Slováků v zahraničí ČSAV, 1964-1965, 2-3, pp. 30-31.
55
Weber K., Deutsche Kaufleute im Atlantikhandel 1680-1830, tables 3 and 4, pp. 352-363. see also pp. 133-143.
56 Mareš F., České sklo, pp. 196-197.
53
21
hierarchy among the factory employees. Members of the leading glass-trading families were sent abroad
from the age of 15. Initially they were allowed to keep in only assistant duties, but gradually they were
trained and took more important positions in the management of the factory. After 15-20 years abroad
they could return home as honourable company members. 57
Entrepreneurship of the northern-Bohemian glass-trading companies affected broadly the development of
Bohemian glass industry in the eighteenth century, but it also made the industry and its employees
exposed to fluctuations on European and global markets. In the first half of the eighteenth century the
Bohemian glass merchants did not face any serious competition, and so their profits soared. In 1732 the
glass exports from Bohemia was estimated at 97,000 Gulden, in 1752 it was estimated already at 281,640
Gulden and in 1768 it was estimated as much as 352,740 Gulden. Only about 5 per cent of the glass exports
ended in other parts of the Austrian Empire, the rest went to foreign countries.58
The mid-eighteenth century marked a new phase also as regards the glassmaking itself. On the one hand,
the trading organization changed and glass exports rose. On the other hand, there were also visible
obvious signs of crisis. The decorative style of glass production which was the mark of the Bohemian glass
design for forty years became old-fashioned. Many leading glassworks disappeared or declined in
importance, due to the lack of wood for furnaces. Other glassworks were left aside by the glass trading
companies because of the distance, for example, in Orlické Mountains.59
Another problem of the Bohemian glass industry was the emigration of glassmakers. At first, glassmakers
were drawn abroad due their know-how of glassmaking. In the next stage, they were leaving Bohemia
because of the lack of opportunities and bad times. The first decrees prohibiting glassmakers' emigration
are dated back to 1723 and 1735. Next wave of decrees prohibiting emigration came in the 1750s (1752,
1755, 1756 and 1761). To improve their status and keep them in the country glass journeymen were
exempted from military obligations (1780). In 1767 a decree was issued, which regulate legal relations
between glassworks managers and their employees. The same decree restricted founding of new
glassworks and taking apprentices. It defended also glassworks employees against the misconduct of their
masters. In spite of the labour-friendly policies there is a growing flood of reports about escaping
glassmakers, cutters and engravers. Many of them left for countries such as Alsace, Russia, Bavaria,
Saxony, Denmark, Wallachia, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, Sweden, England and even America.60
57Weber
K., Deutsche Kaufleute im Atlantikhandel 1680-1830. pp. 133-143.
Lněničková J., "Obchodníci sklem od poslední čtvrtiny 17. do poloviny 19. století – profil sociální skupiny". K
novověkým dějinám českých zemí I., Čechy mezi tradicí a modernizací 1566-1848, Praha 1999, pp. 239-294.
59 Brožová J., "České sklářství v polovině 18. století", Sklář a keramik 29, 1979, pp. 45-49.
60 Drahotová O. at al., Historie, p. 246.
58
22
Glass trade was also disrupted by wars, the Seven Years War 1756-1763, and the War of American
Independence in 1777-1783. Crop failures, famine and the financial crisis damaged badly the European
economy. Tariff barriers and protectionist policies of different European states were obstacles to
Bohemian merchants. This culminated after 1800, in the enactment of Napoleon's Continental Blockade.
The domestic sources of potash and wood were insufficient, and the prices high, which made the
Bohemian production uncompetitive. The English lead glass, made with cheap coal, was replacing
Bohemian glass on foreign markets. Merchants attempted to meet the new situation by reducing their
production costs. More simple designs affected the artistic quality of the glass. The golden age of
Bohemian glass ended about 1800 and it took a couple of decades before the Bohemian glass industry
once again expanded during the nineteenth century.61
In the course of the eighteenth century the Bohemian glassmaking went through a similar development as
other new consumption goods, for example ceramics.62 The market of Bohemian glass expanded from the
society's upper class down to lower ladders of population. In addition to this social emulation-based
expansion the markets expanded geographically. Bohemian glass was marketed in Europe as well as
overseas as a global commodity. The expansion was made possible by an ongoing process of adaptation
of production to consumers' tastes. When glassmakers failed to meet consumers' tastes the production
disappeared. The regular, intense and rapid information exchange between demand and supply sides is
typical for many other globally-traded commodities. The more we know about functioning of markets for
chinaware, cottons, silks, European porcelain, iron and steel products, and of course glass, the more it is
apparent how important the global consumers were.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper aimed to enlighten the role of the Czech Lands in the eighteenth-century globalization by
looking at production and trade of two Czech-made and globally-traded commodities. Bohemian linens
and Bohemian glass are, of course, very different kinds of commodities.63 Linen trade and production has
attracted much attention in historical research, due its overall importance for employment and trade.
Linen production had been in the core of the proto-industrial debate in the 1970s and 1980s and linens
are recognized as a key European commodity of the eighteenth-century global trade. The story of the
linen production and trade in the Czech Lands confirms its characteristics as typical proto-industry. It was
Drahotová O. at al., Historie, p. 246.
See the example of Wedgewood porcelain in McKendrick N., Brewer J. and Plumb J.H., The birth of a consumer
society. pp. 100-138.
63 The difference may be illustrated in the values of linens and glass in the Hamburg trade, the major export port for
the Czech-made goods. In 1753 linen exports from Hamburg to Spain (including all linens, not only Bohemian ones)
were valued at 462,674 Mark banco, whereas glass was valued at 9,290 Mark banco. In all Hamburg declared exports
were valued at 569,980 Mark banco. Weber K., Deutsche Kaufleute im Atlantikhandel 1680-1830. table 15, p. 386. (1 Mark
banco=0.7 Gulden. ibid. p. 351)
61
62
23
immensely important in less-fertile areas in northern parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia,
providing living to hundreds of thousands people—significantly also serfs. It was primarily a rural industry
with finishing stages of production often concentrated in cities. In difference to woollens it is also
apparent that Bohemian linens were a global commodity. They were made for foreign markets. Foreign
know-how and foreign capital did play an important role in establishing of trade links via Silesia and
Hamburg to England and overseas. These links explain the remarkable engagement of English merchants
in organizing of this trade in Northern Bohemia. Yet this engagement appears being related to the place of
Silesia textiles in the global trade. The loss of Silesia to Prussia, on the one hand, damaged the established
trade links. On the other hand, it stimulated a more independent development of linen sector in the Czech
Lands. Due its importance—for balance of trade and for employment—the linen industry was made a
priority of the Vienna's economic policy. An ambition, only partially successful, was to re-direct the flows
of linens from the north of Bohemia to Trieste, the Mediterranean and in this way to Spanish colonial
markets. But the traditional Silesian link was difficult to replace in spite of the new borders and the state's
new policy. By the end of the century the linens were exported in both ways, via Silesia and Hamburg and
via Austria and Trieste.
The story of Bohemian glass in the eighteenth century is different. Bohemia's competitive advantage was
not cheap labour but forest resources so the access to cheap forest resources and introduction of lime
potasium glass technique shaped foundation of Bohemian glassmaking cluster. The impact of foreign
influence is minimal. There was no foreign capital involved in the development of the glass industry and
also the Bohemian glassmaking technology has domestic origin. Yet the ability of Bohemian glassmakers
to follows consumer tastes was as well important. The link between buyer/consumer and
merchant/glassmaker appears being much more important in glass trade than in linen trade. This might
explain why glass trade was often organised by glassmaking families that shifted to trade. Trade in linens
was organised by foreign wholesale merchants, often of German or even English origin, as we could see.
The group of North-Bohemian glass merchants in Cadiz indicates the importance of foreign markets, and
especially Spain and Spanish America, for Bohemian glassmaking. Yet, the link Hamburg-Cadiz-America
is not the only distribution. We will find Bohemian glass products all over the world—even on bottom of
the seas.
The summary here shows the differences between trade in linens and glass. Yet, the commodities share
the fact that they were produced in the core of the continent, in the Czech Lands. Glassmaking and linen
production took place in the less-fertile areas, mountainous areas of Northern, Eastern and North-western
parts of the state which were rich in forests and cheap labour. Glass and linens from the Czech Lands
were typical global commodities, even if it sometimes difficult to trace their ways and to identify them as
Czech-made.
24