Semi-peasant

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In the Middle Ages and up to modern times, a half-farmer was the owner or tenant of a homestead who had an arable land of about half a height available.

With this yield, which, depending on the region, corresponded to an area of five to twelve hectares , a family could barely get away with it and had to use around half of its labor for it. They often hired out the remaining working time with larger farmers ( Ganzbauer , Huber ) or with the manor .

Chaste in Großlobming, Styria

Even smaller farms were named as follows in the southern German-speaking area:

  • Hostel (under ½ a hat) with sheep or goat instead of cattle; otherwise
  • Quarter farmer (¼ to ½ stroke), always an additional sideline
  • Smallhouses (under ¼ of a bonnet); the residents of such “chaste” hired themselves out, for example. B. as servants and were not allowed to marry into the peasant class .
  • Zulehner if the managed land did not have a building.

Many of these names, some of which are different in Northern Germany , are still used in family names today:
Halbgebauer, Groß, Huber, Hueber, Huemer, Häusler , Zulehner, etc.

Small agricultural Area - - In Austria, a small farmhouse called Chaste, the inhabitants as Keuschler . An even smaller unit was a hut , the resident a shaker .

See also

literature

  • August Haxthausen, Alexander Padberg: The rural constitution in the provinces of East and West Prussia. Königsberg 1839, especially p. 337 ff .