History of Kostel from the end of 15th Century to the end of the 19th century.

Dr. Stanislav Juznic

ABSTRACT:

Kostel is a small region on the south of central region of today Slovenia. It was happy enough in genealogical sense to be trapped between political frontier with Croatia and ethnical frontier of German Gottscheers. In such circumstances it is comparatively easy to research genealogy of Kostel of the proposed period because there was comparatively minor mixing with neighbors. In the time before 1702, when there were no church records kept, we can hardly make any mistake by tracing ones family back just by using urbarial records, that were rewritten once every generation or so. So when I was, by the generosity of the priest of our two Kostel parishes of Fara and Banja Loka, given the opportunity to copy the records to the computer, work was nearly finished. Now by simple computer program we can find out ancestors of Kostelian families.

Kostelian history of the last half of millennium can be parted by the feudal rulers of that region: Habsburgs themselves up to 1620, Langenmantels until the last decade of 17th century, Androchas in the first half of 18th century and Nugents in 19th century. Each of them had a stamp of their time. Langenmantels were Protestants until it was good to be so in Carniola and made a good fortunes by working in the Military frontier. Androchas were Liburnian merchants who used Kostel castle as an in-between station for their trade. And, finally, Nugents, politically the most important of them all were members of a new military oriented oligarchy in Habsburg monarchy. By changing of political and economical circumstances with their masters also Kostelians themselves changed from ethnically mixed population of the military border district to a group of small merchants who tried to survive and succeeded in their own ways in the new capitalist system of the second part of 19th century.

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