THE RISE OF THE COMMON PEOPLE 139the replacement of manorial jurisdiction by the peasant commune (gmina). In
Russian Poland, the peasant assembly (gromada) elected its chairman (soltys)
and its headman (wojt), whose activities were closely subordinated to the orders
of the Tsarist police. In this way, the paternal rule of the local squire was
replaced by that of foreign officialdom. In Prussia and in Galicia, the local squire
was admitted into the workings of village administration, and his traditionally
dominant role waned only slowly.
The material condition of the peasantry did not improve dramatically.
Freedom did not necessarily engender prosperity. Living standards barely kept
pace with the pressures of the population explosion. Even in Prussia, the famine
of 1863-6 spread sleeping-sickness in the countryside; whilst in Galicia emigra-
tion was widely accepted as the only alternative to a life of semi-starvation. The
ancient three-field system maintained its hold in many regions until the turn of
the century, perpetuating and ensuring periodic shortage of bread, especially in
the spring. Scattered family strips were not consolidated. Potatoes, black bread,
and cabbage formed the basis of the diet, supplemented by concoctions of
turnips, beans, nettles, millet, buckwheat, couchgrass, origan, and even birch-
bark, and sometimes by meat on Sundays. Dairy products were sent in prefer-
ence to the market, whilst plain water was drunk more often than milk, grain,
coffee, or vodka. Colourless, homespun clothes were the norm. The man wore
a canvas shirt over loose trousers, his wife a linen shawl. The magnificently
coloured regional costumes, which became the fashion after 1870, were reserved
for Sundays and festivals. Shoes were doffed on leaving the church or the mar-
ket, and in all but the harshest weather. The timber-built, thatched cottage, with
its wood-burning stove and its single room sparsely furnished with primitive
furniture, provided shelter but a minimum of comfort. Manufactured goods
were expensive, and unobtainable by those sectors of the rural population who
lived largely outside the money economy. Purchases concentrated on agricul-
tural implements. Education was rare. The old ways changed very slowly. All
convincing descriptions of the Polish village in the nineteenth century stress its
traditional, eternal, human qualities:
... life burbled along with its usual deep stammer, splashing like running water, con-
stantly overflowing in the same brisk exuberant stream. The village of Lipce lived its
usual everyday existence. At the Wachnikow's there was a christening; at the Klebow's
there was a betrothal, where they amused themselves well enough even without an
orchestra, as it was Advent; elsewhere, there was a funeral... Jagustynka was taking her
children to court over the division of her late husband's estate. Everywhere some affair
or other was in progress. In almost every cottage, there was always something new to be
discussed, to be derided or to be bemoaned. On those long winter evenings, the women
would gather in various cottages, distaff in hand. My Jesus! What guffaws, what shrieks,
what gossip, what games were there, so much so that the merry ripples spread into the
roadway. On all sides, such quarrels, friendships, and intrigues proliferated, such private
schemes and public demonstrations, such fussing brawls, and harangues as occur in
swarms of ants or bees - that the walls of the cottages shook from the uproar.