Compulsory servants

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The servants forced service , even servants forced, forced household services or servants official duty called, was a particular form of service obligation. It is to be understood as an expression of feudal dependence. It was later regulated by the servants' ordinances .

This duty of service forced all dependent peasants as subjects to offer their children to the landlord as servants at the age of 14 . Only after completing this service could they accept work elsewhere. The young people had to meet twice a year at the estate.

The compulsory character of such service obligation may result from the emergency situation of armed defense measures, as it emerges from the original meaning of the servants as " people of war ".

distribution

In Holstein and Pomerania compulsory servants existed even before the Thirty Years War , and in Mecklenburg it was introduced indirectly in 1645, when farmers' children were legally forbidden to leave. It was also used in Prussia and Saxony .

Legal specifics

While in the East Elbe areas forced service fell under the obligations of serfdom , it was z. B. In Saxony under Elector August I (1533–1583) initially only permitted for subjects of electoral chamber estates. After the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), however, it was available to all landlords, insofar as they had jurisdiction , in order to build up and run the manors devastated by the war more quickly. Compulsory service was associated with the risk of abuse, in particular through the right to punishment and the strict regulation of the life of the subjects associated with the compulsory character. This repeatedly led to peasant unrest such as B. 1654/61 in the Schönburg area . In the countryside, compulsory servants played a disorganizing role in traditional family structures. The servants' ordinances were not repealed until 1918 in Austria and 1925 in Switzerland.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Genealogical terms
  2. ↑ a b servants . In: The Great Brockhaus. Compact edition in 26 volumes . 18th edition. FA Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-7653-0353-4 , Volume 8, p. 166.
  3. ^ Günther Drosdowski: Etymology. Dictionary of origin of the German language; The history of German words and foreign words from their origins to the present . Dudenverlag, Volume 7. 2nd edition. Mannheim, 1997, ISBN 3-411-20907-0 ; (a) Wb.-Lemma “Gesinde” and “Gesindel”: p. 237 (see also the similar meaning of “Mob” and “People”; (b) Wb.-Lemma “People”: p. 793
  4. ^ Agricultural history. In: Annual reports for German history. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on November 18, 2014 .
  5. ^ Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre. On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry (1969). Fischer Taschenbuch, books of knowledge, Frankfurt / M. 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 , p. 192.