Pabėgusių iš dvarų valstiečių „užribiškumo“ problema XVI–XVIII a. Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės visuomenėje
Runaway from Estate Peasants as a Marginal Group in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (16th–17th centuries)

Summary/Abstract: This article deals with one group of people in the society of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 16th–18th centuries, i. e. the run-away peasants, who wilfully left the estates of their own patrons. This wilful act in the legal system of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1529, 1566, 1588 Lithuanian Statutes) was considered as a crime. According to the Statutes, punishable were not only the acts of getaway but also hiding of the fugitives and refusal to return them to their masters. From year 1529, Lithuanian Statutes expanded the norms and requirements to deal with this kind of crime. The Lithuanian Statutes of the years 1566, 1588 were supplemented by the articles improving the ways fugitives should be persecuted and detained, the description of the judicial procedure, the terms of prescription and its application (from six to ten years dependently on the distance where the fugitives were captured), evaluation of the damage done to the master by fugitives and its restitution. Because the runaway of the peasants was considered as a crime, the fugitives found themselves behind the limits of law; consequently, their status radically changed from ordinary peasants to the marginal group of the society. To solve this problem and to validate their status, three possibilities were offered: to change the master and retain the status of the dependant peasants with their duties, to blend in the mass of city dwellers, thus changing the lifestyle and taking a risk to hide until the prescription validates, or to choose the vagrancy lifestyle thus becoming an object of intolerance and persecution. To run away from the estates and masters was one of the possibilities to change the conditions of peasants’ life, but its success depended on many factors. Running away was associated with hiding one’s identity; it was possible and successful only with the help of other people who frequently were economically interested in collaborating in such a crime (as the new masters who got working hands). So, runaway peasants, though officially treated as criminals, were able to validate their illegal state because of the interest clash between different groups.

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