Stanisław Lubomirski

What people wore

Simple leather footwear and puttees

Ordinary residents often wore naginės, which were simple, plain-sole footwear crafted from animal skin, and they frequently wrapped their shins and feet with cloth puttees.

Daily life

Limited schooling for peasant children

Peasant children were mostly illiterate and rarely attended parish schools, as parents prioritized their agricultural labor and schools were sparse due to a lack of funding.

Work

Paying labor dues with money and goods

Peasants often commuted their mandatory labor dues by paying 12 groshi, or they paid taxes in kind, such as a cow for every thirty holdings or a hen and ten eggs per holding.

Music

Earnings of local musicians

For performing at festivals such as St. George and the Holy Ascension, trumpeters from Alsėdžiai were paid seven gold coins, with 20 gold coins paid for playing at nine annual festivals.

At the table

Rye bread as a staple and currency

Rye was the primary cereal used for staple black bread, which was often baked in large oblong loaves on wooden peels and sometimes placed on leaves like maple or cabbage for flavor. Bread was so valued that in earlier periods it was even used as a form of currency to pay fees when traveling across private lands.

Getting around

Slow travel for common people

Commoners traveled on foot at about 20-25 km per day, while carts pulled by horses or oxen moved at a similarly slow pace.

What it cost

Value of animals compared to clothing

For the price of one expensive coat, which was 40 groschen, one could purchase two pigs or two sheep.