Flurzwang

The term Flurzwang was understood to mean an agreement or an enforced regulation either on the part of the municipality , the totality of the owners or the respective landlord for the processing of the individual parcels within the three-field economy and determined which fields and how to cultivate them and which to lay fallow be. The Flurzwang was valid from the late Middle Ages to around the middle of the 19th century, locally for much longer. It was a reaction to the consequences of the real division , the dispersion of property over the entire Feldmark , the mixed situation .

Reason

No farmer or landowner should gain an advantage by harvesting earlier or growing different products than agreed. In addition, the aim of the field constraint agreements was to avoid so-called field damage from entering or even driving over the fields. The theft of vegetables and other crops should also be prevented. Part of the compulsory field was that every property owner had to cede land for dirt roads in the course of the development. Fenced-in fields were exempt from the flood requirement. Special crops could be planted on them , as was the case, for example, with viticulture . However, those who created such special cultures had to pay compensation to the rest.

Duties

Every farmer was obliged to adhere to the agreed crop rotation and the scheduled work, such as plowing, sowing and harvesting, within the framework of three-field farming. Otherwise, the neighboring fields would often have to be driven over with the wagon during the harvest in order to get to the own field. Nobody could oppose this order. The chairman of a farmers' cooperative or of a village who had to monitor the Flurzwang was called Schulze .

End of the compulsion to fall

With the introduction of clover cultivation and later beet and potato farming, the cultivation of the land became questionable for the landowners affected. Flurzwang became problematic for the municipalities, especially during the transition from three-field and fallow farming to modern manure management. It was finally abolished during the period of the peasant liberation , which took place in Germany, Switzerland and Austria as a result of the French Revolution from around 1803 to 1850.

literature

• Bernd Schildt: Art. Flurzwang . In: Albrecht Cordes , Heiner Lück , Dieter Werkmüller , Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand (eds.), Concise Dictionary of German Legal History , 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition, Volume I, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 2008, Sp. 1604–1605. ISBN 978-3-503-07912-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Max Döllner : History of the development of the city of Neustadt an der Aisch until 1933. Ph. CW Schmidt, Neustadt ad Aisch 1950; 2nd edition ibid 1978, p. 711.