Eleanor de Lorraine

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.

Daily life

The heart of the home: The Stube

The Stube was a central, heated room in homes, where children often sat on a bench over the stove to stay warm while others worked.

Work

Days spent in gainful employment

Before reforms aimed at increasing productivity, ordinary people typically spent only 200 to 250 days per year in gainful employment due to numerous church holidays.

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.

At the table

Creative peasant food substitutions

Peasant families practiced creative food substitutions, using names like false meat soup or false almond cake to describe dishes made from simpler, available ingredients.

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

Daily wages for laborers

In the late 17th century, day laborers earned about 6 kreuzer for women and up to 18 kreuzer for some skilled laborers like carpenters.