Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Folwark
Summary
Folwark is a Polish word for a primarily serfdom-based farm and agricultural enterprise (a type of latifundium), often very large.
Folwarks ( folwarki) were operated in the Crown of Poland from the 14th century, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 15th century and in the joint Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from the second half of the 16th century. Folwarks also developed in the Commonwealth-controlled Ukrainian lands. The institution survived after the 18th-century Partitions of Poland until the early-20th century.
Folwarks aimed to produce surplus produce for export. The first folwarks were created on Church- and monastery-owned lands. Later, the folwark system was adopted both by the nobility (szlachta) and by rich peasants (singular: sołtys), but the sołtys positions were eventually taken over by the szlachta.
The term folwark came into the Polish language in the 14th century from the German Vorwerk, originally the fortified advanced work of a castle and later an outlying manor house that managed a farm estate. The English translation would be "grange", the historical meaning of which is "an outlying farm with tithe barns belonging to a monastery or feudal lord".
The development of folwarks was boosted by growing demand for grain and by the profitability of its export, both to Western Europe and within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. That led to the exploitation of serfdom since landowners discovered that instead of collecting money-based rent and taxes, it was more profitable to force the peasantry to work on folwarks. Folwark-based grain export became an important part of the economy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Folwarks were primarily an early modern postfeudal rural formation. They originated as land belonging to a feudal lord (early on a knight) and were not rented out to peasants but worked by the owner's own hired labor or servants. The peasants toiled on the lots that they rented from the lord and were obliged to provide complimentary labour for the lord on his folwark, originally a few days per year.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.