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The oldest part of Wallern is Hauptstrasse, the main street. The
street’s current form dates back to 1683, after the town was destroyed by Turks for the second time. We know
that Wallern existed long before then. The oldest document comes from the year 1269. The first documents don’t
tell us anything about the size of the town.
In a document from 1569 we learn that there were 23 Feudal Houses at the
time. Each house owned 21 Yoke acres and 20 Tagwerks of meadow. Besides that, there was a courtyard which
belonged to castle Forchtenstein, where the cattle were kept during winter. Wallern and Pamhagen belonged to
castle Forchtenstein at that time.
A document from 1589 gives the names of the people who lived in the 23
houses at that time. Among them are the familiar names Lang, Unger and Schneider. However I was not able to
make a connection between them and living persons with the same name.
From this list from 1589, we can determine that, in the 23 houses, there
were 26 agricultural industries. 20 houses had one owner each and the remaining three houses had two owners
each. Thus, at that time, shared industries already existed. There is no information about Söllnern and
Holden.
In the Wallern church chronicles, Minister Nemethy reports that in 1750
there were 24 “whole“ and 48 “half“ farmers. A “whole” farmer was a farmer who owned the entire farm, while a
“half” farmer shared the land with another farmer.
The Urbarial-List is an important document from 1767. In the list are
the names of all farmers, Söllner and "Holden" in Wallern at the time.
In 1767 there were:
28 “whole” farmers, 28 households in 28 houses.
40 “half” farmers, 40 households in 20 houses.
35 “Söllnern”, 35 households in 25 houses.
Altogether, 103 households in 73 houses.
The term “Söllnern” is not in the aforementioned list. Instead, the Latin term “inquilini domum habentes” is
used, meaning people who had their own house. At this time there was no house without property, even if it was
not much.
Besides the farmers and Söllnern, other families on the list were
described as “inquilini domum non habentes”. That is, people who didn’t have a house. Thus, they had no
property. There were 8 of these families. In German, one called these people “Holden”, which later changed.
After the first housenumbers, which were adopted in 1852, these 73
houses, which were built by 1767, had numbers from 1 to 109.
In 1767, besides these 73 houses, there were the Saliter house and the
Halter house on Salidergasse, and house with the old number 112 on Bahnstrasse and, since 1730, the church.
Also included in the list from 1767 is how much property each house had:
A whole farmer had 26 yoke acres and 5 Tagwerk meadow.
A half farmer had 13 yoke acres and 2½ Tagwerk meadows.
A Söllnern had 1½ yoke acres and no meadow.
Between 1767 and around 1830, 22 new houses were built. In the old numbering system, these were houses
110-134. House 112 must be excluded. This was the old courtyard, which was named in 1569 and still belonged to
the ruling family at this time. Among these newly built houses are two that housed two families each, 121/124
and 122/123.
Between 1830 and 1852 no new houses were built. The next Urbarial-List after 1767, which came into my hands,
was the list from 1857. Perhaps, instead of 1857, it should really say 1837. From this list the following can
be determined:
In 1830 in Wallern there were 131 households in 99 houses.
26 whole farmers, 26 households in 26 houses,
44 half farmers, 44 households in 22 houses,
24 Söllnern, 24 households in 17 houses,
37 Holden, 37 households in 34 houses.
Unlike before, the Holden also owned houses. Since there was no house without property, they also had
property, even if only meadows.
In the years 1852-1853, 24 new houses were built. These are the houses of the “Kurialisten”. The houses are on
Bahnstrasse: numbers 135 to 147 face the train station; number 149 is across the street facing the garden,
where house 150 once stood to house 158. Altogether, there are 22 houses. Additionally, house 159 is on
Salidergasse. The 24th newly built house is number 149. It was a Söllner’s house. Now there wre 24
Kurialisten, the 24th was house 115. This house earlier stood on the north-west corner of the cemetery.
After 1853 no new houses were built for a while. Only after 1866 were houses built again. In this year the
people in Wallern were finally owners of the property that they, until now, were only allowed to farm. There
still exists an Urbarial-List from 1865 with the following statistics:
In 1865 in Wallern there were 154 households in 122 houses.
26 whole farmers, 26 households in 26 houses,
44 half farmers, 44 households in 22 houses,
24 Söllnern, 24 households in 17 houses,
36 Holden, 36 households in 33 houses,
24 Kurialisten , 24 households in 24 houses.
The list also included how much property belonged to each house. Property relationships were also included in
the list from 1857 (or 1837?). Unfortunately I did not write them down.
The details from the Urbarial-List from 1865 are extremely accurate concerning the ownership relationships.
One must remember that at that time there were still no houses without property, even if it was only two swamp
meadows for a Kurialist.
A farmer who was the only owner of his house was a whole farmer. If there were two in a house, they were 2
half farmers.
On the list there were 5 categories of house ownership:
1. The whole farmer: He had a 41,080 yoke acre-field and a 7,099 acre meadow. There were minimal
differences between the meadows and none between fields. The area of the house, farm, and 2 gardens for every
whole farmer was 1,026 yoke.
2. The half farmer: He had a 20,540 yoke acre-field and a 3,549 or 3,50 yoke meadow. The area of the
house, farm and 2 gardens for every half farmer was 513 yoke.
3. The Söllner: He only had a 1,487 yoke acre-field and absolutely no meadow. The area of his house,
farm and garden differed between .140 and .201 yoke.
4. The Holde: He had no acre-field, but 5 yoke meadow and 2,416 or 2,417 yoke pasture. The area of his
house, farm and garden was between .090 and .190 yoke.
5. The Kurialist: He had only 2 swamp meadows. Both were absolutely equal, namely 1185 Quadraklafter, 2
X 1185= 2370. He also had a hay space 30 Quadratklafter large. Altogether that is 2400 Quadratklafter of
property. That is exactly 2 small yokes. The area of his house and farm was 72 Quadratklafter= .060 Yoke.
(Explanation: 1200 Quadratklafter= 1 yoke; 1 Quadratklafter= 3.59
Quadratmeter)
The details on the list are so exact that not only the length of every
acre and every meadow is given, but also the width three times: on both ends and in the middle. Thus, the hill
top meadow of a whole farmer was really 1,869 yoke.
The property rent probably first went into effect in 1866. From then on, those who worked on the fields also
owned the land. In 1866, an active building period began. Between 1866 and 1914, houses number 162-251 were
built. With few exceptions, they were all residential houses.
Building began late on Rosengasse. The higher the house number, the later the house was built. So, house 162
was built in 1866 and house 250 in 1913.
The number of residents
1748 = 600, 1869 = 1240, 1900 = 1347,
1833 = 850, 1875 = 1230 ,1920 = 1568
1842 = 916, 1971 = 2059
In 1696 Pamhagen and Wallern together had 1200 residents. |
