Pawn laying (history)

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As Bauernlegen one calls the expropriation and confiscation of farms by landlords in order to be managed as Gutsland itself. The buying up of free farms, often with the use of pressure, is called farmer laying. The laying of the farms usually had the purpose of increasing the income of the landowners through the direct cultivation of the mostly low-income goods.

Development in Germany

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From the 14th century a movement began in East Germany that was fatal for the peasant class. As a result of the replacement of the old feudal armies by mercenary troops and the associated end of knight service , which had previously been the almost exclusive occupation of the knightly landlords, the knights turned back to agriculture. The knights began to farm their estates themselves, they became owners of manors. They tried to round off and expand their property at the expense of the farmers' hooves and to gain the necessary labor for cultivation. Based on the notion that the landlord owned the entire village corridor, entire farms were moved in and incorporated into their own property . The right of peasant ownership became a meaningless pseudo-right in various parts of the country. At the same time, the mass of peasants were pushed down to serfs or, more precisely, to members of the estate or estate subjects or inherited subjects , that is, the farmers were hereditary linked to a manor, were not allowed to leave it without permission and could be sold with the same. A new, supposedly always existing serfdom arose. The bearing of the farmers at the expense, in particular the forced labor were of fixed scheduled to unsecured measured duties.

This development was particularly favored by the tremors of the Thirty Years' War . In Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania in particular, more and more independent farms disappeared after the Thirty Years' War due to the laying of peasants and the merging of several farmsteads into small estates, while the manors became larger and larger. The sovereigns initially supported the local expansion of power of the manor owners, they bought the tax permits and thus the taxation of the modern state institutions in the army, administrative and judicial systems through such concessions to the estates.

In the interest of preserving the peasant class, peasant laying was forbidden by law several times in the 17th and 18th centuries and the re-loan of abandoned farms was ordered. Peasant laying ended in Prussia with the 1709 laws on peasant protection in connection with hereditary subservience . The real protection of the peasants came under Friedrich Wilhelm I , but a complete success only came through the enlightened absolutism of Friedrich II . Under his rule, the domanial farmers achieved a moderate level of inheritance and the obligation of the estate subjects to cleave was lifted first for Silesia , then for East and West Prussia . By the edict of August 12, 1749, it was forbidden to draw the land from farmsteads to manor land. In 1764 the ban was then reinforced by the positive instruction to re-occupy all goods that had become desolate during the Seven Years' War within a year.

Development in Austria

In Austria , the term peasant laying is primarily used to describe the development between 1848 and 1890. After the revolution of 1848 and the liberation of the peasants , the now free peasants had to make high transfer payments to the former landlords and, like all citizens, now pay their taxes in cash, which the tax offices consistently demanded. In addition, there was compulsory military service, which withdrew important workers from the farming sector. When agricultural prices fell as a result of free trade in the 1850s , many farmers got into economic difficulties and were forced to sell their farms - often at disproportionately low prices. In addition to aristocratic landowners, industrial and church institutions also acted as buyers. These processes were processed literarily by the writer Peter Rosegger in his novel Jakob the Last . In Styria (including Lower Styria) around 50,000 farms were given up and sold between 1860 and 1890; in Rosegger's closer home in the Mürz Valley , this affected around a third of all farms.

Development in Great Britain

In England the small farms did not disappear due to the strengthening of the feudal lords , but rather from the reign of Henry VIII through early capitalism . The medieval feudal system with feudal rights and labor was replaced by modern property titles. The new landowners, to a large extent prosperous citizens , fenced in their possessions ( enclosures ) and employed only as many farm workers as they needed. The rest of the rural population became beggars , often vagabonds . The massive hardship prompted Thomas More to write his Utopia . In Scotland , the phenomenon continued into the 18th and early 19th centuries with the Highland Clearances , which in some areas displaced up to 90% of the population. The plight of the displaced rural residents was only partially alleviated by the early industrialization in England . It was also a driving force behind emigration to colonies in the then growing British Empire .

literature