II] THE FRAMEWORK OF RURAL LIFE 35

36

THE FRAMEWORK OF RURAL ^LIFE

^[ch.

from

generationto generation.

The

widegulfbetweenlord

and

peasant in the east, due to the lord's never forgotten ^position asa descendantofconquerors,hadrendered thetaskof putting

down

peasants, Bduemlegen as it was called, relatively easy.

In

some

cases whole villages had been swept

away and

^their

lands added to the lord's domain. Quite apart

from

such deliberate evictions, the wasting of the people in the Thirty Years'

War

had thrown land into the lords' hands

which

they had not again relinquished.

Any

acquisition of fresh arable ground from moor,

marsh

or forest, had usually been

done

at the lord's instigation and for his advantage.

Such

were the

main

causes of thespecialsocial^charact^sticj^j^S^^

agriculture^''wTuclirHife-entiated it sharply

from

that ofeither t'rance or England.

The

Frenchseigneurofthe old order had never been

much

of a cultivator.

The

"spirited landlord" of eighteenth centuryEnglandhad boughtout small

men and

laid field to field. Often he kept

some

kind of a

home

farm for purposes of experiment. But

most

of the land

which

he in- herited or acquired he let out to the rising cja^s.of capitalist foiTTTSfg- Tn eastern .(jrermany there

was

_,^o^.giich..classTTl5e Junker was his

own

capitalist cultivator. His land might be

mixed up

with that of his tenants in the fields or itmight He outsidethefields;butin either case^it had beenhis businessto arrange it in manageable masses, so far as he could, and his evictionsand exchanges

had

been partly directed to thatend.

Evictionandconsolidationoflandinthe lords'handsduring the sixteenth,seventeenthandeighteenthcenturieshadnotbeen confined to the east,norwas itssuccess theresolely duetothe stronger positionofthe lordoveragainstthepeasant.

There had

been a similar

movement

in the west. Butina

number

^ofthe

more

importantwestern states

—

Pleading examplesare

Hanover

and Bavaria

—

^the governments, like our Tudors,

had

earlyset their faces against what was called in England the "putting

\

down

ofhousesofhusbandry."

The

putting

down

ofpeasants {Bauemlegen) had been countered

by

a policy of peasant pro- tection {Bauernschutz); while in

many

of the lesser western states, particularly in the ecclesiastical principaHties which

down

to the Napoleonic age occupied so

much

of the Rhine

II)

THE GERMAN PEASANTRY

37 valley

and

the north-west, the strength of the peasants and the comparative weakness of the knightly class had been a real protectionto the smallcultivator.

Ruling princes in the east had not altogether neglected the peasants' interests_; but for one reason and another their

work

hadnot achieved

much. The Dukes

ofMecklenburg,forexample, had protected the peasants

on

their

own

^domains, but either they

had

notbeenstrongenough,ortheyhadnottried,to check very extensive Bauernlegen

on

_{those of}theirsubordinategentry.

In parts of Pomerania things had gone so far that the true peasant,

who

lived

by

his holding, had almost disappeared. In Brandenburg

no

action

was

taken

by

the Electors in the seven- teenth century.

As

kings of Prussia in the eighteenth they put theirhands to the

work

of peasant protectionin 1739, too late to save the situation.

Even

then they only interfered in

some

oftheirprovinces.

So

the Junkers of the east had added

to their military

and

administrative functions those of the agricultural capitalist

by

1815.

A

series of events during the nextthirtyorfortyyears strengthened theirpositionas capital- istic cultivators,though theycurtailed the Junkers'powersover theirpeople.

These

werethe eventsconnectedwith the formal emancipation of the

German

peasants.

§ 8. Emancipation in

Germany was

long

drawn

out, not a

'

thing

done

onceforall,with burningofchateaux andwholesale abolitionof feudal dues,as inFrance.

On

the eve oftheFrench Revolution the legal and, in

many

districts, the economic position of the

German

peasantry

had

been lower than that of the French.

There was

no comparison between east

German

legal conditions

and

those of an average French province, so vastly worse were the former.

The

west

German

peasant's position

was

^{tolerable and,}

where

hewas not too heavilytaxed,

he couldeasilybear the legal disabilities of his status.

He was

comfortable

enough

ⁱⁿ

some

of the quaint and paternal Uttle states of old

Germany.

Conditions varied infinitely in detail^

throughoutthescoresof

Grand

Duchies, Duchies,Principalities, Electorates, Free

Town

Territories and Territories of the independent Knights of the Empire.

But

it is fairly easy to define the limits within

which

variation occurred. Putting

on

38

THE GERMAN PEASANTRY

^[ch.

one side the very small group of cultivators

who

^{were in a}

positioncomparable^withthatofanEnglish

yeoman

onfreehold land,and assuming

—

^{^asisbroadlytrue}

—

^thatevery peasant

had

alord,there^isfoundatthetop of thepeasantscale inthewesta classin

much

^the

same

position astheFrenchcensiers. (Seeante,

§^4.)

They

heldtheirlandsinreturnforananciently fixed quit- rent, paid in

money

or in kind, a quit-rent which

was

notan economic rent. Besides this they might

owe some

^ceremonial

duties totheirlord;andhe

would

generally receivedues,

which

againmightbefixed

by

ancient custom,

when

the landchanged hands fromfather to son. In essentials thesystem

was

not far

frompeasantproprietorship.

At

the other end ofthe peasantscale, omitting a few

unim-

portantcases ofcomplete servitude,

was

a class ofpeasant

who

intheeyes ofthelawcould not transmithisholdingto his heir

;

for in theorythe lord held it infull ownership and onlylet it

out ofhis freegraceandcharity. Inpractice,sonfollowedfather with great regularity. This form oftenure

was marked by

the obligation to render personal services, ploughing, harvesting, help at the winepress and so forth; but the service

owed

did not involve a heavy call

on

the peasant's time. Besides the labourdues there were,inFrench terminology, the banalith

—

the obligation to grind at the lord's mill, bake inthe manorial oven, putthegrapesthrough thelord'swinepress, and paythe lord'sagentfortheprivilege.

There

wereceremonialduties too, and always there was the personal deference, obedience, and honour

owed

tothe " graciouslord."

Betweenthese limiting types lay almost all the peasantry of the west. Services

more

and

more

occasional

and

formal, banalitds less and less irksome, a legal theory

which

did not so obviously underline the peasant's dependence

on

his lord,

marked

the transitions

upwards from

the lowestto the highest

^ade.

There was no landless class, thoughthere might be landless individuals. Buttherewas,in

most

districts,aclass

which

could not live

by

its holdings. This class

suppUed

the rural

wage

^abouras inFrance.

The

landlord ofwestern

Germany had

not usually great domains like the Junkers beyond the Elbe; but