“The Cause of our Poverty is Colonia.” The Colonate System in the County of Gorizia and Gradisca during the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Abstract

The paper examines the colonate system – a specific form of land dependency that persisted for almost a century following the abolition of feudal relations in 1848. It was a civil law relationship that involved mostly poor peasant families who did not own property, leasing land, a house, or an entire estate based on a contract, most often from noble families or wealthy rural landlords. The system resembled serfdom and was passed down from generation to generation between the coloni. It pushed colonate families to the margins of society and into poverty. The system persisted in the Habsburg monarchy, notably in the region of Gorizia and Gradisca, especially in the western parts. This paper will present the general features of the system, as it existed at the turn of the 19th century, as well as the attempts of the authorities to formally regulate it.