Służba domowa na dworach szlacheckich w Rzeczypospolitej końca XVIII w

ENThe article attempts a quantitative and demographic examination of domestic service employment in noble households. Existing literature has primarily focused on the courts of the magnates, treating various categories of servants, administrative employees, and clients collectively. Different approaches have been taken by researchers using tax and demographic sources in their analyses. This article presents the results of analyses conducted based on a database created from preserved published and manuscript parish population registers compiled for the needs of the Civil and Military Order Commissions between 1790 and 1792. The findings reveal that 28% of the surveyed households employed no servants at all, and as many as 50% of all analyzed households either had no domestic staff or employed a maximum of two servants. Only 13.7% of noble households employed eleven or more workers, while the frequently described courts with dozens of servants are rare. However, regional variation was observed. From the perspective of social theory, the observed percentage dominance of households with small or no domestic staff indicates that a significant portion of the nobility employed domestic workers primarily in response to the real needs related to the functioning of the biological family or economic activity, rather than for prestige. Nevertheless, the higher the host’s position in the social hierarchy, the more servants they employed. Domestic service in noble households was part of the traditional life cycle in the pre-industrial period. This was particularly true for women, while among men, professional service performed throughout their adult lives was more common (about 1/3 of cases).