§ 11. The rural classes of medieval Germany. In the time of the Merovingians the greater part of the country was covered with forests and people relied on the products of the forests for a considerable portion of their subsistence. Land was abundant, and even the cultivated land had hardly any exchange value. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 110, 111, 163-165.]
Much new land was, however, already being taken into cultivation. The village communities, consisting of free peasants, as well as separate members of these communities, cleared considerable portions of the waste land lying round the villages. In the 8th century some communities already forbade individuals to reclaim land; but this was still of rare occurrence; generally speaking the waste could be appropriated by whoever chose to take it into cultivation. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 81-83.]
The bulk of the population consisted of free peasants. There were two unfree classes: slaves and lites (a kind of serfs); but these were not numerous. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 72, 60, 70.]
The free peasant, though he had plenty of land, was rather poorly off; he had no slaves and so could only dispose of the labour power of himself and his family; and in this [374] time of extensive tillage the produce of each man's labour was small. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 147, 148, 165.]
Great proprietors were still rare. They worked their own lands with slaves. Sometimes, however, they gave pieces of land in use, generally to slaves; for, says our informant, the free peasants did not like to take the land of the nobles and so make themselves dependent on them. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 119, 120.] And when land was given in use to free peasants (especially by the church) this was done on very advantageous terms, often at a nominal rent.[Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 123, 124.]
Land was thus abundant, slavery existed, and tenant farmers and free labourers were absent.
In the Carolingian period the clearing of forests went on continually. Some land was still reclaimed by free peasants, but much more by the great proprietors who controlled abundant labour forces. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 207-217.] The lords were already beginning to claim much uncultivated land, the reclaimiug of which they only allowed on condition of the cultivator subjecting himself to them. There was far less unappropriated land than in the foregoing period, and such as there was was claimed by the king. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 220, 221, 279-281.] Yet we cannot speak of an appropriation of the whole of the land; for we know that a claim of the king to large tracts of uninhabited land is practically of little consequence. Accordingly our informant states that land was still abundant. The free peasants were already in a difficult position, not, however, because land was scarce, but because they could not provide the labour necessary to convert woods and marshes into arable land. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 382, 235, 236.]
In this period the free peasants began to be absorbed by the great proprietors. The latter wanted labourers and did their utmost to astrict the common freemen to their estates. Many people placed themselves under the protection of nobles; others, being reduced to poverty (especially through the institution of the wergild, and the compulsory military service which interfered with the cultivation of the land) fell into the hands of the lords; and some were straightway made serfs by violence. As the landlords had the right of jurisdiction and [375] other public rights, they could easily subject the small landholders under some pretext or even without any. Former free peasants, lites, and such slaves as had received a piece of land in use, though designated by different names, came to form practically one class, the labouring as opposed to the ruling class. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 226-257.] A manorial organization arose similar to that which existed in England. There were some slaves for personal service and agricultural labour and a great number of dependent peasants of various kinds, who had to cultivate the demesne of the lord and yield him part of the produce of their own holdings. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 237, 367-371, 381.]
Free labourers were found rarely if at all. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 236, 367.]
Our informant in several passages speaks of freemen destitute of land. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 240, 241, 319, 355. Even in the Merovingian period there were already such people, according to him, see pp. 122, 124, 163.] But these people are not in any way to be identified with the poor of modern times who depend on wages. They were generally foreigners who had no rights in any village community, but the lords were always ready to receive them and give them a piece of land in use on condition of their rendering services and paying tributes. The natural increase of the labouring population and immigration of foreign labour did not yet cause any difficulty. [Inama-Sternegg, I pp. 241, 282.]
Most of the cultivators of this time had not the right of leaving the manors to which their holdings belonged. [Inama-Sternegg, I p. 367.]
We see that in this period there was still much free land; slavery existed and serfdom was on the increase; leaseholders, tenants at will and free labourers were wanting. All this agrees with our theory.
In the next period colonization and reclaiming of waste land went on on a large scale. But at the same time the population increased and the value of the land increased with it. Lamprecht, speaking of the 13th century, writes: "Colonization and reclaiming of land had entirely changed the condition of the rural population between the 10th and the 13th century. In the time of the Carolingians wood and land had [376] still been regarded as inexhaustible goods of the nation, like the sun, air and water; but now the limitations of the geographical basis of national life appeared more and more clearly. There had been an immense range of land to grow food upon; but now the supply of land became limited, chiefly and first on the Rhine, in Suabia and Franconia, afterwards in Saxony, and finally in Bavaria, the Tyrol, and Styria; people had to shift on a limited area. The soil became, more than before, an object of economic value; its price kept continually increasing. In the 12th century, in some prosperous districts, land seems to have attained twelve times the value it had in the 9th; and even afterwards, down to the second half of the 13th century, an increase of about 50 per cent, is to be observed. Taking into consideration that land was still regarded, especially by the ruling classes, as the only basis of social and political influence (though already other sources of large incomes were gradually arising), we may understand how intense the struggle for the possession of the soil must have been at this period". [Lamprecht, III pp. 56, 57. See also Inama-Sternegg, II pp. 70, 164, 285.]
The right of the king to unappropriated land was now enforced more strictly than before, and the lords began to claim a right of property over the commons surrounding the villages, which, however, were often still left to the use of the peasants. [Inama-Sternegg. II pp. 115, 145, 84, 85, 207, 209.]
However, there was no over-population as yet. The proprietors did their best to attract people to the vast newly colonized districts, especially to the eastern parts of Germany. [Inama-Sternegg. II pp. 4-27. Similarly in France, in the 12th century, the landlords encouraged emigration to the outlying, newly reclaimed districts. Villeins who were willing to settle in these parts were granted special privileges, a house and land were given them at a nominal rent (Luchaire, in Lavisse, Vol. II Part. II p. 336.)]
During the whole of this period the landlords went on subjugating the rural population, so that at the end of it the peasant proprietors, who had once formed the bulk of the population, had almost entirely disappeared, and most of the land was taken up with the estates of the great proprietors. [Inama-Sternegg, II pp. 36-38.]
But the increase in the value of land already made itself [377] felt in the way in which the lords managed their estates. They less and less frequently worked their own lands; their chief aim was no longer the disposal of the labour of their dependents, but the receiving of rent. The labour dues were often commuted for money payments. [Inama-Sternegg, II pp. 70, 71, 63.]
Labour was not worth so much to the lords as it had been. They sometimes emancipated their slaves, retaining the land which they had given them in use. [Inama-Sternegg, II p. 64.]
At the same time a class of free tenants arose. Lamprecht remarks that while the value of land had considerably increased the tributes which the villeins had to pay had remained unchanged for several centuries. In an economic sense the landlords had been dispossessed of a large proportion of their property in the land. Therefore it was not their interest to let serfdom continue.
"At this time, especialy since the middle of the 12th century, the villeins and landlords of the most progressive districts settled their mutual relations by free contract. Serfdom was abolished, sometimes entirely, sometimes for the greater part, some formalities only subsisting. The former villein acquired the right to emigrate, and remained as a free tenant on the land he had till then occupied. Thus, by leasing his lands for terms of years, and sometimes for life or on hereditary tenancy, the landlord got back the full rent of his property; and this system, especially the lease for years, enabled him to raise the rent at the end of each term, according as the value of the land had increased in the meantime". [Lamprecht, III p. 63.]
Inama-Sternegg does not quite agree with this view of Lamprecht's. Even where the rent was higher than the former customary payment, he says, the leaseholder was free from the labour dues and additional payments to which the villein had been bound, so the transition from fixed payment to rent did not always mean an enhancement of the obligation of the peasant. [Inama-Sternegg, III Part I pp. 394, 395.] Yet this writer too states that the leasing of land became more and more frequent. There were free contracts between proprietor and tenant, which did not interfere with the [378] personal liberty of the latter; even non-fulfilment of his obligations by the tenant had only pecuniary consequences. [Inama-Sternegg, II pp. 203, 204.]
We cannot but think that the reason given by Lamprecht for the transition from servile to free tenure is true. For even when the original rent was not higher than the former customary payment plus the value of the labour dues, the possibility of raising the rent after each term remained.
We hear of free tenants in this period, but not yet of free labourers. This is exactly what our theory teaches us to expect. Land, in some parts of Germany, had already acquired a high value; such land must have been very renumerative, and so people were ready to pay a rent for its use, even though there was still land to be had gratis or at a nominal rent, but far from the market and therefore less profitable. But the country was not yet so densely peopled that there were men who could not secure the use of any piece of land; therefore a class of people dependent on wages did not yet exist.
In the 13th century much new land was still taken into cultivation, in Western as well as Eastern Germany; but in the following centuries very little land was added to the arable area. The woods, which had formerly been regarded as inexhaustible, were no longer present in great abundance, and the rulers of the German states as well as the landlords exerted themselves to preserve the remainder and forbade the peasants to clear them. From the middle of the 14th century these prohibitive measures became general. [Inama-Sternegg, III Part I pp. 1-13.]
As the population continued to increase, land became scarce. In many parts of Southern and Western Germany the lords parcelled out their lands in small portions, and farms of the size which had been customary for centuries became rare. [Lamprecht, V Part I p. 82; Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, p. 212.]
The rights of the peasants to the use of the commons, on which they had always relied for a considerable portion of their subsistence, were now restricted, and the lords asserted their claims to the commons more strictly than before. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 38, 214, 237, 285 sqq.] [379]
Another consequence of the increase of population was that cattle-keeping was no longer possible on such a large scale as formerly when the common pasture occupied a great part of the land. At the end of the Middle Ages there was a scarcity of meat, and people had to rely, more than before, on vegetable food. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 366, 367.]
The need of the landlords for the services of the peasants went on diminishing. They no longer worked their own estates; nearly the whole of their income consisted of the payments in kind and in money which they received from their dependents. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 261-265.]
In Lower Saxony and part of Westphalia the lords, as early as the 13th century, emancipated considerable numbers of villeins in their own interest. For the villeins had gradually acquired some right to their holdings, and the landlords, by setting them free, got back the free disposal of the land, which they thenceforth let out to free tenants. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, p. 220.]
In the 14th century the lords began to turn out peasants (Bauernlegen) and lease the land of which they thus re-acquired the free disposal. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, p. 176.]
Free tenancies became now general, parts of the demesne, as well as lands which had been held in servile tenure, being leased. The increased demand for land enabled the lords to let small allotments at extravagant prices. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 202-205, 208-210, 225, 251, 255, 256, 277; Lamprecht, 1. c, p. 82.]
Even where the customary tenures remained, the obligations of the peasants, which had been personal, in many cases became territorial, the holder of the land as such being subject to payments. And the conditions of this tenure were so little servile that sometimes nobles and knights received such land in use and took the obligations on themselves. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 46, 174, 175.]
The difference between farmers and agricultural labourers now first came into existence. The latter most often held a small patch of land, but this was not sufficient to live upon; they depended on wages. Besides agricultural labourers there were male and female servants for household labour. The [380] regulation of wages by law, which occurred especially after the ravages of the great plague, proves that in the southern and western parts of Germany free labour had become general. Such servile work as still remained was often done by labourers hired by the peasant to whose duty the work fell, just as in the case of the English peasant who "found" a man. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 48, 50, 51, 213, 223, 241, 282, 303-309, 314, 408, 413.]
All land was now held as property; consequently the land was more and more held by free tenants and worked with free labourers dependent on wages, whereas serfdom gradually died out.
In the 15th century, however, according to both Lamprecht and Inama-Sternegg, serfdom and even slavery reappeared.
Lamprecht, after speaking of the raising of rents by the landlords, adds: "But more disastrous in its consequences than all this was the manner in which the landlords dealt with the increasing surplus population of the farms occupied by their villeins. Formerly, younger sons of villeins, as well as children of free parents, had removed to the woods for the purpose of clearing them; and it was with their help that the landlords had in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries extended their landed properties. In later times such younger sons had often gone to the towns or the newly colonized districts of Eastern Germany. Now there was a stagnation among them as well as among the small remainder of the free population. There remained no other alternative but to divide the farms of the villeins. But the interest of the landlord was opposed to this. He had no security of receiving rent and services from farms parcelled out into small allotments. Therefore he did not, as a rule, divide the farms into more than four parts; and those of the servile population who could not secure the use of such a small holding were regarded as slaves. This institution, the origin of which went back to the first half of the 12th century, had till then been almost entirely foreign to the development of Germany. Together with a rural proletariat destitute of nearly everything, a real slavery came now for the first time into existence on German ground . . . . And this new slave class went on continually [381] increasing; in the first half of the 15th century they already formed a considerable number, about whose fate patriots were very uneasy . . . . Nor did the evil stop here. The term slavery, used first with regard to villeins who occupied no farm, was soon applied to all villeins, in order to tax them more and more heavily and dispute their right of succeeding to the farms of their parents, which had been established at least since the end of the 12th century. Finally the landlords came to regard even free tenants as slaves and slavery as the only status of the rural population". [Lamprecht, 1. c, p. 83; see also Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 54, 55, 420.]
We can easily understand that the lords designated these proletarians by the most contemptuous name they could devise. But were they really slaves? A slave, as opposed to a free labourer, is not allowed to leave his master. Now it is remarkable that Inama-Sternegg, describing the condition of the rural population in the different states of Germany, though he states that in the newly colonized eastern parts of Germany the peasants, who had been free, were restricted in their right of leaving their lords, mentions no such particulars of Western Germany. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 56—61.] And the chief aim of the peasants, in their revolts at the end of the 15th century, was not to acquire personal freedom, but to retain the use of the commons, which the lords were appropriating. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, p. 67.]
The peasants were, indeed, obliged to more services in the 15th than in the 13th and 14th centuries. But we cannot regard this as a mark of returning serfdom or slavery; for Inama-Sternegg explicitly states that the greater oppression of the rural classes in the 15th century was chiefly due to the increase of the services required by the rulers of the several German states. The services exacted by the landlords had rather diminished. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, pp. 54, 398, 417, 419, 411.]
The same writer, recapitulating his conclusions as to the condition of the rural population at the end of the Middle Ages, begins by saying that the cultivators, who formerly had had an hereditary right to the land on condition of paying a fixed sum, were now far more heavily taxed and had little security [382] of remaining on the land. [Inama-Sternegg, 1. c, p. 420; see also p. 311.] We think that this is what the statements of our informants about the reappearance of slavery mean. The cultivators were not slaves, but impoverished and despised tenants at will and agricultural labourers.
At any rate, in the 16th century eviction of peasants, which is the reverse of astriction to the soil, became of frequent occurrence. Ashley, who has consulted some of the best literature, states that "the Bavarian code of 1518 laid down that the peasant had no hereditary right to his holding, and not even a life interest unless he could show some documentary evidence. In Mecklenburg a decree of 1606 declared that the peasants were not emphyteutae but coloni, whom their lords could compel to give up the lands allotted to them, and who could claim no right of inheritance even when their ancestors had held the land from time immemorial. In Holstein, again, a great number of the peasants were expelled from their holdings, and such as remained became tenants at will". [Ashley, II pp. 281,282; see also Inama-Sternegg, III Part II p. 201.]
Serfdom, in Southern and Western Germany, thus died out towards the end of the Middle Ages, at a time when population had become numerous and land scarce.
The eastern parts of Germany had quite another agrarian history. Here serfdom was not common before the 16th century. From this time, however, and especially after the Thirty Years' War, it became more and more general. As this is quite a separate history we shall not speak of it any further. [On the history of the rural classes in Eastern Germany, see Knapp, Die Bauernbefreiung.
It may be of some interest to point out the great resemblance between the rise of Roman colonatus as described by Max Weber and the rise of serfdom in Eastern Germany. In both countries most of the peasants were originally free (Weber, Romische Agrargeschichte, p. 244; Knapp, I p. 32). The landlords, who formerly had passed most of their time outside their properties, when they lost their military function took the cultivation of their manors into their own hands (Weber, 1. c, pp. 243, 244; Knapp, I p. 37). They soon acquired rights of jurisdiction over the peasants (Weber, 1.c., p. 260; Knapp, I p. 33), and began to compel them to work on the demesne (Weber, 1. c, p. 244; Knapp, I p. 40). The cultivators lost the right of emigrating (Weber, 1. c, pp. 256-258; Knapp, I p. 42). Even the Bauernlegen, i. e. the joining of a peasant's holding to the demesne, occurred in Rome as well as in Eastern Germany (Weber, 1. c, p. 247; Knapp, I pp. 50, 55). And it is most lemarkable that in both countries the rise of serfdom took place at an advanced period of their history.
This proves once more that the institutions of different countries may closely resemble [383] each other, even in many details, without the one country haying derived its institutions from the other. For even the influence of Roman law cannot serve as an explanation of this resemblance, as Roman law takes little notice of colonatus (Weber 1. c, p. 259).]
We think the above remarks on England and the older parts of Germany may suffice to show that our theory can throw some light on the agrarian history of Western Europe.
We are fully aware that the condition of the rural classes must have been determined by many more circumstances of greater and lesser importance. But it seems to us that the general cause of which we have spoken in these paragraphs is second to no other in its operation.
[We must admit that we are not sure whether the facts of Roman agrarian history agree with our theory. In Rome slavery prevailed to a large extent at a time when the relative scarcity of land gave rise to the difficulties about the ager publicus.
We shall not attempt to solve this question. We will only mention our impression, on reading Weber's Romische Agrargeschichte, viz. that, even in the time of the Empire, though some land fetched a high price, all disposable land had not yet been appropriated, and therefore the want of servile labour remained. At the beginning of the Empire free labourers were very scarce, and could only be got to help the landlords in sowing and at harvest time on condition of receiving a pretty considerable part of the harvest (Weber, 1. c, pp. 236-238). Under Augustus and Tiberius the procuring of slaves from abroad became very difficult, and this led to kidnapping of men by the landlords (Ibid., p. 242). In the boundary provinces, even in later centuries, barbarians were imported and became coloni attached to the soil (Ibid., pp. 259, 260).
Slavery proper declined from the beginning of the Empire (Meyer, Altertum, p. 71); but the coloni, who originally seem to have been free tenants, gradually lost the right of removing from the manor they inhabited (Weber, 1. c, pp. 242, 248-250, 256-258).
We must, however, hear in mind that the writers on the economic history of Rorne still disagree very much, not only as to the explanation of the facts, but as to the facts themselves. See Max Weber's article on "Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum", in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 3rd edition, Vol. I.]