II] THE GERMAN PEASANTRY 39

40

THE GERMAN PEASANTRY

^[gh.

contract as not binding

on

himself,

and

treat the peasants ^as tenants-at-will,whichperhaps theywereinlegaltheorythoughat

one time they had certainly not so been in economicfact.

So

they might be evicted, if it

became

expedient to extend the

domain

land ofthemanor.

Below

thesesoil-boundyet evictable peasantsweretobe foundinplaces a certain

number

of people

who

could not acquire property and might be sold, like the domesticserfof Russia before 1862.

From

thatriskat leastthe ayerage peasant

was

^free.

But his servilitywas clearlyreflectedinthe duties laid

upon

him.

He owed

hislordheavyservices,servicesoftwosorts,the Spanndienste,

when

he

went

toservewithhis ploughing cattle, vand the Handdienste,

when

he

went

to do whatever

work

the lord required ofhim.

The man who

had no ^cattlegavehand- servicesonly. Services ofbothsortshad

grown

with thegrowth ofthemanorial

domain

whichdepended

on

them.

The

^services were supplemented

by

various dues and payments, hens and eggs presented at this season and that, payments for leave to break the rules of the manor, payments

on

taking

up

an in- heritance, and the other familiar incidents ofserfdom ^all over Europe.

Of

course there were also banalitis, strictly enforced.

Then

therewasamostgallingand humiUatingobUgationinthe so-called Gesindediemt. This was service exacted from the peasant's family. For

many

years, and for extremely small reward, theywere

bound

to menial service about the

manor

house,inthekitchen perhaps,orthestables^;ortoanequivalent

^^,inanyagricultural

work

ofwhichtheywerecapable.

In the east as in the west three-field agricultureandallthat

went

with it implied access to

commons,

and the isolation of most villages

made

access to

woodland

essential. Forest

was

abundantinmostpartsof

Germany.

Inthewestit

was

generally recognised that

much

of the forest belonged to the village as a community. In the east the subjection of the peasants was accentuated

by

the concentration ofall

woodland

in the lord's hands.

The

peasant's rightofaccess toitwas,inlaw, revocable.

Similarly the lordkeptcontrol ofthe

commons,

regulatingand

ifhe saw fit cutting

down common

rights. This cutting

down

had been going

on

for a long time. In all such matters of

ii]

PEASANT EMANCIPATION

₄₁

manorial

economy

thelord

was

judgein his

own

cause.

And

so, to quote a

German

historian, the peasant of the east was

"gloomy, discontented, coarse, slavish...a hapless missing link betweena beast ofburden and aman^."

Nor

isit surprising.

That

the Junker

and

hisKriegsherr

may

not be misjudged, notethatinthe newly

won

Polishprovincesthe position of the peasant

was

definitely worse than in Brandenburg or East Prussia.

The

Polishpeasant, it

may

besaid, had norights. His land, his goods, his services were all at the lord's disposal.

He

had

no

cause to love hiscountry;and itisprobable thathe found the Prussian government an

improvement

on his own, even before Prussiabeganthe emancipation.

§ 9. Before the French peasants began burning chateaux, the abolition of agrarian servitude or its remains had been discussed

by

almost everygovernmentofWesternEurope.

The

lesserprinces

had

donethebestwork.

The Dukes

ofSavoygot rid of feudal dues andsurvivalsbetween 1770and 1780.

Den- mark

began a

most

important series of reforms in 1784. For over twenty years the abolition of personal service and other feudal obligations

went

on.

The

Danish peasant

became

free

;

sometimesa freeholder,sometimes a free tenant. Emancipation was accompanied

by

inclosureandconsolidation ofholdings;and provision

was made

to help the peasant in meeting incidental expenses

by

a national agrarian bank.

The

whole series of reforms, coinciding as it does with the unsystematic and ill-

regulated completion of the inclosure

movement

in England, shows theenhghtened despotism ofthelate eighteenth century at its best.

There

were repeated delays in completing these Danish reforms,

and when Denmark ^became

a constitutional country in 1848 there

was

still

some

^clearing

up

^{of feudal} remains tobe done; but the progress

made

before that dateis indicated

by

the fact that the

main

task undertaken after 1848 wasthe turning of rent-paying peasants into freeholders.

Many German

^{princes, great}

^and

^small,

^had

^{been feeling}

their

way

towards emancipation^before1789.

The

princes of^the south-west

had

not a great deal to do.

There

the almost free peasant of the censier type predominated. His heavy ^services

' Knapp,DieBauem-Befreiung...Preussens,i, 77

42

PEASANT EMANCIPATION

^[ch.

had long since been

commuted

for money, and he ^paidvsith easethequit-rents fixed inthemiddleages

when

the purchasing

power

of

money

washigh.

He owed

afew dues;he

was

^subject

to the manorial court. But his general economic ^position

was

^ood

although he might be legally servile. Therefore the chief pre-revolutionary reforming prince of the south-west, Karl Friedrich of Baden, had a straightforward task

when

he took thematter

up

in 1783. In Bavaria, where conditions wereless favourable tothe peasant,abeginningwas

made on crown

land in 1779; but not very

much had

been accomplished before the hurricaneseasonsetinafter 1789. Inthe

Hapsburg

dominions, whose detailed study lies outside the scope of this book, a famous beginning ofreform

on

the grand scale

was made by

Joseph II inthe year 1789 itself. His mother before

him

had fought Bauernlegen, had tried to fix or ease the ^peasant's services,andtogetridofthelegal doctrine ofbodilyservitude.

But themost conspicuous emancipation

movement was

that inPrussia; and as Prussia after 1815 was the sole state repre- sentative ofalmostall

Germany,

with lands stretching

from

the servile Slavonic east to the free

Dutch

west, the Prussian

movement

deservesthe closeststudy. Itillustrates every point of importance in

German

agrarian history during the early nineteenthcentury.

Itbegins,where mostPrussianstoriesbegin,withFrederick.

Before his accession the rulers of Prussia had barely

begun

to takeaninterestinstopping Bauernlegen.

They

had evenpractised

it not so long ago.

As owner

ofnearly a third of his kingdom, Frederick had an ample field for experiment.

On

his

own

manors he could easily define- and lighten peasants' services, secure for

them

the right of inheritance, and begin an attack

on

the legal doctrine which placed

some

of

them

in a state of bodily servitude.

He

could also attack the technical side of agrarian reform, divide

up commons and

rearrange fields, so as to allow of

more

individual agriculture. His

work

however was not extensive enough to affect the face of the country greatly. Outside his

own

manorsFredericktried topressthese

same

reforms, together with a policy ofBauermchutz. Strong ruler as he was, he had little success.

He came up

againstthe