History of villages: Lelekovice, Moravia

Haven't done a history of villages post for a while - and as there are quite many villages still waiting on the list, I decided I should write such blog post. Anyway - if you are interested in history of some village from Bohemia, Moravia or Silesia, let me know in comments!
 

Lelekovice belongs to South Moravian region, Brno-venkov district. You can find it about 10 kilometers north from Brno center and it's one of the villages which are quite rapidly growing as it's in small distance from Brno which provides many jobs and other opportunities. It lies in valley of Ponávka river and it's surrounded by small hills (usually abt 360 to 390 meters above sea level, highest is Babí Lom with 562 meters).

Location of Lelekovice in the Czech Republic. Source: Wikipedia.org

Its coat of arms contains quite many references to the history of village: bull's head refers to the noble family of Lelekovice to which the village belonged in 14th century. Hook refers to family Válecký from Mírov which later owned the village, fortification reminds people there once was a castle in Lelekovice.

History

The oldest known source which mentions Lelekovice village comes from 1288 when Heřman of Lelekovice is named as a witness in a document by Hartman of Holštejn. The village itself had to be founded before this year, most probably in the first half of 13th century. Local yeomans with title "of Lelekovice" were know during the 14th century, they also built a castle. Unfortunately the castle was destroyed in 15th century and there is just a little of it preserved. 

Projection of Lelekovice castle - how it most probably looked like. Source: Castles.cz

There were many changes in ownership of Lelekovice domain in 15th and 16th century until it became property of Válecký of Mírov family in 1543. They stabilized the domain, incorporated it to Kuřim estate, ensured its income and also made first "census" of local farmers. It comes from 1570 and hopefully it will be available on Moravian Land Archives website soon. 

The village Lelekovice was sold to the town Brno in 1557 and it belonged to its property till 1848 when large administrative reform was done. The village was lucky one during the 30 years war as it wasn't so heavily impacted by it as other villages in Brno administration. Only few farmhouses were abandoned, most of them were still maintained by their previous owners.

Lelekovice on the map of 1st military mapping. Source: Oldmaps.geolab.cz

Lelekovice grew over the time as more and more farmhouses were built and many craftsmen came to the village. As it was located near Brno and near business route from Brno to Svitavy and to Poland it was a good place to live and work in. But there were of course also not-so-good events during the time - large fire in 1856 which destroyed quite many houses, Prussian army settling in the village in 1866 which meant the people of Lelekovice had to feed them, another large fire in 1893...

Church of St. Filip and Jakub
The oldest building in the village is the church of Saint Filip and Jakub. It was built in 13th century in Roman style, then rebuilt in Gothic style during 15th century. The church originally had wooden tower, which was replaced by stone one in 1873.

Church in Lelekovice. Source: Fotodoma.cz

Genealogical information
Lelekovice belong under administration of Moravian Land Archives in Brno (which is not far away from the village). It belongs under Vranov parish from 1784, records before this year could be found in Lipůvka, Kuřim or Brno - St. Jacob parishes. Parish books are available online on ActaPublica website.

Information from the oldest Moravian census of farmers ("lánový rejstřík") is available online: Lelekovice
Map of stabile cadaster from 1826 is available online: Stabile cadaster website of Brno archives

Lelekovice on historical postcard. Source: Fotohistorie.cz

Oldest surnames (excerpt from the Moravian farm census, abt 1670): Babák, Balák, Bednář, Buchta, Cibulka, Čada, Čeloud, Čumera, Doležal, Fleischhacker, Hnilička, Holcíř, Holík, Horák, Hořínka, Hromádka, Hudec, Hulín, Jebáček, Kohoutek, Komárek, Kot, Kouřil, Králíček, Krbůšek, Kroutný, Lakota, Mucha, Paříček (Pařízek), Pekárek, Procházka, Proušánek, Řezáč, Šmerovský, Švec, Tschova, Valů, Vejrosta, Weber

Surnames from 1784 to 1800: Albrecht, Antonín, Balák, Beran, Böhm, Brodecký, Buchta, Charvát, Činčara, Čížek, Čumera, Draža, Drescher, Fiala, Filka, Franta, Holešovský, Hrdlička, Hruška, Hudeček, Kaša, Kratochvíla, Kropáček, Leicher, Lipenský, Macháček, Majda, Malík, Mátal, Merta, Mikola, Milion, Nechmač, Perníkář, Pichmann, Piták, Pokorný, Procházka, Sedláček, Schlesinger, Schmid, Souš, Stejskal, Suchý, Škarohlíd, Šrámek, Štětina, Toufar, Váňa, Vermosek, Veselý, Vlček, Závodník