Nobility manor houses in the Zakroczym district in the 17th and 18th century

Abstract

Issues related to nobility manor houses in the early modern period have been discussed in the literature mostly in the context of art history, being of lesser interest for archaeologists and historians. This has undoubtedly been due to the type of written sources surviving: estate inventories and probate inventories usually contain rather enigmatic descriptions of manors. Therefore, they are explored primarily by historians of material culture, interested in living conditions. The present article is based on an analysis of 64 descriptions of nobility manor houses from the second half of the 17th c. and the 18th c. situated in the Zakroczym district in Mazovia. In that area middle nobility were a signifi cant proportion of landowners; additionally it was a region close to the centre of the country, i.e. Warsaw. Manors in that area were timber log constructions; of the analyzed ones 21 were thatched and 18 shingled. They were designed as bipartite build-ings with an asymmetrical hall, a room, a bedchamber and a pantry, or with two rooms. The latter layout can be considered closer to models described in architectural treatises of that time, especially to Haur’s “impoverished nobleman’s manor”. The hall divided the house into two parts, with one room in each. It is however, diffi cult to infer from descriptions whether the two parts were equal in size; the arrangement made them appear symmetrical and symmetry was promoted by theorists. The eighteenth-century manors of better-off nobility (of the Brochocki family in Kędzierzawice, and of the Łaźniewski family in Chociszew) had cabinets (one and two, respec-tively). Descriptions from the second half of the 18th c. also mention dressing rooms, one or even two in a manor. Entrance porches were uncommon; there are only seven mentions of such a feature, one from the first and the others from the second half of the 18th c. The interiors were heated by stoves; no construction details are known since descriptions only mention the overall condition of the stove or the colour of the tiles. Three sources mention tiles made in the nearby town of Zakroczym, which was a well-known pottery centre. Some descriptions indicate methods of interior decoration, usually limited to whitewashing, putting linen or more modern paper coverings on the walls and painting the doors.The simple layout, which was not always symmetrical, and unadorned elevation made the nobility manors of the area modest houses, matching the limited income of the owners, who did not have refi ned taste or great need for home comforts.