Maria Anna von Habsburg

At the table

Coffee substitute for 1 kreuzer

For 1 kreuzer, working-class people could buy a bowl of roasted barley drink sweetened with syrup, which served as an affordable substitute for expensive coffee.

What people wore

Feast day finery and marital status attire

On feast days, rural people wore finer versions of their clothing, such as a blouse made of fine linen (harbene Pfoad) compared to the coarse linen (rupferne Pfoad) worn for daily tasks. Men sometimes distinguished their marital status through their hats, wearing green hats if unmarried and black hats after marriage.

Getting around

Carriage travel times

Travel was slow and difficult; for example, a journey by carriage between St. Pölten and Melk, a distance of 30 kilometers, took 5 to 7 hours under good weather conditions.

What it cost

Price of bread in Vienna

Between 1650 and 1674, the price of bread in Vienna ranged from 1.27 to 2.82 Kreuzer per kilogram.

Music

Common rural dance instruments

In the seventeenth-century countryside, ordinary people primarily used bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies for dance music, before the violin became established as a popular instrument later on.

Daily life

Winter schooling for children

Regular schooling for children was typically only possible during the winter months when agricultural work was less demanding. Often, there was only one classroom with a single teacher who instructed all the children regardless of their different ages.