Place: “Germany”
Time: 18th Century
By: Dan C. Heinemeier
(Rural Life in Hesse-Kassel)(I return to "A Social History of Hesse", by Dan C. Heinemeier.)
(We are back in Kassel in the eighteenth century.)
(This discussion of Hesse is continued from Note Nr. 1569, dated 15 January 2003 . GWD WebMaster)As the century went on, the reduced assets available to some of the citizens made for sharp distinctions. The village of Grandenborn was not large, about 350 people in 1745. The wealthiest group here made their living from farming alone and their land holdings averaged about 40 acres each. They numbered 17% of the population. The next group owned slightly less land (average was about 30 acres each) and they supplemented their income with part-time work at some trade. They were 27% of the population. Third were the farmers who had enough land to provide some food for themselves, but they depending strongly on their earnings from a trade. This group had 25 acres on average and constituted 19% of the population. Next was the group who owned a house, but had only five acres of land. This was a quarter of the population. The lowest group owned no house, and worked as laborers for someone else. It was definitely a small minority who could make a living from a farm alone.
The villagers enfranchised with land dominated the disenfranchised people who got by on their dependence on the better-off people. The villagers, as a whole, had a legalized system of authority and domination (“clients of the nobles”). The village corporation or body had authority to use sanctions as they saw fit. The village government could prevent undesirables from taking up residence and they protected the common property from use by the poor.
Taxes, tithes, and compulsory service owed to the Lords continued to exist and to play a big role in the common man’s life. The nobles assessed the village as a whole, and the village government had to apportion the assessment among the citizens. As an example, in one village (Körle), the Lord personally owned about 156 acres of land. The meadow, farmland, and the garden land were actually worked by the villagers for the benefit of the Lord. The assignment of this unpaid labor was by the village.
Later in the century, the tendency was for the Lord to rent the land, either yearly or a long-term basis, and to collect money. There was a shift from labor services to monetary services. Often, though, this land was used by the village as a whole, so the government of the village had to collect the total sum, by assessments on the users, and pay the Lord.
There were still services the enfranchised villages had to perform. They had to haul wood to the Court. In this particular case, it was sent by water, not by road. They also had to haul “his lordship’s produce” to the Capital. Building materials had to be hauled for the Lord (many of the farmers were freighters for a variety of customers for added income). Mills and buildings had to be repaired, forests had to be maintained, mail had to be carried. In wartime, five horses had to be provided by farmers in the village. The village government was becoming an agent of the Lord and responsible for the detailed supervision, while the Lord merely made the overall assessment.
(This discussion of Hesse continues in Note Nr. 1579, dated 25 January 2003 . GWD WebMaster)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.