Community through the Ages
In the beginning the townspeople of Cieszyn were all equal and the main features distinguishing them from peasants were; their individual freedom, their rights as citizens and that they earned their living other than by agriculture. In the case of Cieszyn the final criterion was not strictly true, since the majority of Cieszyn’s citizens supplemented their incomes by keeping kitchen gardens. They also kept livestock which grazed on pastures serving all the town’s householders.
The members of the town’s community could be distinguished on the basis of the profession they practised and the issue of house ownership. Householders with the right to brew and sell beer were the most prominent group, who of course could be further divided up on the basis of wealth. The wealthier of them gradually created the class of the town’s patriciate, who, nonetheless, were not especially rich in comparison with larger towns and cities. Householders without the right to sell beer, and people who rented their accommodation formed a lower category of townspeople. The inhabitants of Cieszyn’s suburbs also did not possess full civic rights, while hired hands and servants had none whatsoever.
A substantial majority of Cieszyn’s medieval population were craftsmen. Many different crafts were represented, beginning with those of fundamental importance to the people of those times such as; butchers, bakers, carpenters, shoemakers and tailors. Other trades were ones which specifically characterise a town and its surrounding region. In Cieszyn these were trades linked with the production of textiles; represented by weavers and clothiers. This was particularly true from the 16th century onwards when the Walachs colonised the Beskid Mountains and the sheep they kept guaranteed a ready supply of wool. However, the capital of the Cieszyn Duchy was most famous in former times for the work of its gunsmiths, who, from the end of the 16th century – apart from other weapons – manufactured the celebrated cieszynki – light fowling-pieces. Owing to their rich decoration these guns were prized as luxurious embellishments of royal and noble courts, and today adorn the world’s most famous armouries and museums.
In former times craftsmen formed themselves into guilds whose members practised the same or similar craft. The guilds functioned on the basis of privileges granted to them and statutes sanctioned by the Prince, in order to maintain a high standard of goods manufactured by the masters of the guilds. The guilds also saw to it that no-one apart from their members carried out their crafts either in the town or within a radius of a mile from it. The butchers, bakers and shoemakers guilds were the oldest, while the gunsmiths the most famous. The latter guild existed until the end of the 19th century when their guild had to join the locksmiths and clockmakers for want of members. The work of Cieszyn goldsmiths was also widely known, particularly after the people of the surrounding villages started decorating their folk costume with jewellery. In 1720 only 10 clerks lived within the town’s walls, the remaining townspeople supported themselves by their crafts. In the 19th century the work of the guilds began to be superseded by factory-made products and the guild system was replaced by the principle of the free-market economy which led to the gradual decline of craftsmanship.
Another social group in the Cieszyn in past times were the merchants. There were many fewer of them even though trade always played an important role in the life of the town, located fortuitously at the crossroads of important trade routes. Most of the trade took place at weekly markets, during which country folk would barter farm produce in exchange for handmade goods. Larger markets or fairs initially took place only twice a year, but later Cieszyn’s rulers gave the town the right to hold a third (in 1475) and a fourth (in 1581). In 1657 Emperor Leopold gave permission for a fifth fair, at which livestock could also be bought and sold. The trade in livestock grew to great proportions in the 18th century when large quantities of oxen were driven from Ukraine and Galicia to markets in western parts of the monarchy. Cattle traders passing through Cieszyn most often stayed in Pod Złotym Wołem (the Golden Ox), an inn built specially for them where Górny Rynek stands today.
Cieszyn traders, owing to lack of capital, above all served local people. This situation changed, when in 1631 the Jewish family of the Singers settled in Cieszyn, and started to trade extensively with Kraków, Moravia and Vienna. In the 18th century their role was assumed by Italian merchants who came in great numbers from Lombardy (also belonging to the Habsburgs). In 1775 the Austrian authorities organised international trade fairs in Cieszyn with the aim of enticing customers away from Prussian towns and help to economically integrate the recently acquired Galicia with the rest of the monarchy. In spite of early success the fairs were soon abandoned. Only in the second half of the 19th century, in the age of free trade, did Cieszyn merchants take full advantage of the attractive location of their town, acting as middle-men in the exchange of goods and services between Galicia, Prussian Silesia and the Hungarian lands, and Bohemia, Moravia and the Austrian countries.
Apart from townspeople, Cieszyn was also inhabited by the nobility who liked to buy properties in the town, particularly if they held office at the Prince’s court or later with the Habsburgs. The town houses they bought would be converted into their town residences. The best known of these are Baron Bludowski’s residence – which today houses the Cieszyn Historical Library, the mansion of the Barons Kalisch – today the convent of the Order of St. Charles Borromeo, and the mansion of the Counts Larisch – now the Museum of Cieszyn Silesia. The nobility were not, however, inclined to pay town taxes, and their behaviour caused protests from the townspeople. A renewal of the ban on buying houses in Cieszyn by the nobility did not help the situation as some of the aristocracy circumvented that by acting as if civic rights applied to them. In the 19th century the nobility practically ceased to exist, and were replaced by the officer corps of the local garrison which numbered almost 200 men at the beginning of the 20th century.
At the end of the 18th century the Cieszyn intelligentsia, consisting of government servants, clergymen and teachers, began to take shape. In Cieszyn at the beginning of the 19th century out of a population of 5,379 there were 38 clergymen (Catholic or Lutheran), over 100 government servants and 60 people from noble families. With time their numbers grew and with it their influence in the town. Representatives of the professions become more active. They included teachers, lawyers and editors of various newspapers and magazines published in Cieszyn. Doctors, of whom there were almost 30 before the First World War, were among the most respected. The most well known were Dr. Alois Kohn, Dr. Samuel Reichert, and above all the distinguished surgeon, Dr. Hermann Hinterstoisser, director of the Silesian Hospital in Cieszyn.
In the second half of the 19th century the population of Cieszyn was varied socially and professionally, with representatives of all groups of the modern, urbanised world. Cieszyn was also heterogeneous in other respects, not least religiously. The majority of people were Catholics (67%), a significant proportion were Lutherans (23%), particularly in the Górne Przedmieście district around the Lutheran Church of Jesus. Jews made up approximately 10% of the town’s population. The Catholic Church was run by the Vicar General, who supervised the whole of the Austrian part of the Wrocław (Breslau) diocese, and by the Cieszyn rector, who usually carried out the function of the dean. There were nine Catholic churches in Cieszyn and four monasteries and convents: those of the Jesuits, the Order of John of God, the Order of the Grey Nuns of St. Elizabeth and the Convent of the Order of St. Charles Borromeo who came from Prussian Silesia in 1876. Apart from a brief period at the end of the 18th century the whole of Cieszyn was one parish, including the surrounding villages. After the Second World War new parishes were created, usually within the boundaries of former villages incorporated into Cieszyn after the war. The number of Catholic churches also increased. Since 1992 the Cieszyn parish, after almost a thousand years, ceased to belong to the Wrocław diocese, and along with the Bielsko-Żywiec diocese became part of the arch-diocese of Kraków.
Also Lutherans traditionally formed a single Cieszyn congregation focussed on the Church of Jesus led by a pastor who was responsible to the Eastern Silesian Elder. Cieszyn and the Cieszyn diocese today still play a very important role in the life of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (the Lutheran Church) in Poland. Since the end of the 19th century other independent reformed church communities have formed.
Jews living in Cieszyn up until the First World War formed a joint Jewish community which included other towns and villages in the Cieszyn and Jabłonków (Jablunkov) judicial district. The Cieszyn rabbi was the spiritual leader of the community. In 1923 an independent Jewish community was founded in Český Těąín. After the Second World War very few Jews returned to Cieszyn and both communities disappeared.
Cieszyn society, in a town located on the crossroads of many countries and cultures, was ethnically mixed in the distant past. Polish could be heard as often as Czech and German in the streets, along with Slovakian, Jewish languages and even Italian and Hungarian. In the 19th century Germans occupied the dominant position in the town, and in the inter-war period still made up about one third of the inhabitants of Cieszyn and Český Těąín. After the Second World War Cieszyn became an entirely Polish town, while a sizeable Polish minority continues to live in Český Těąín.