John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1584

[I have been confused on note numbering.  I had one note written when the question of Johannes Frey came up so I intended to substitute a note on Johannes for the one I had written.  In the process, I scrambled my numbers.  Also, I did not write one for Friday.] (Note from Webmaster:  I have "unscrambled the numbers of John's Notes.  GWD)

(This discussion of Hesse is continued from Note Nr. 1582, dated 29 January 2003 .  GWD WebMaster)

(Leaving Johannes Freh and returning to Hesse.)
Life on the farms was hard work.  There was a minimum of equipment and poor yields on the crops.  In most of Hesse, the soils are of an indifferent quality, sometimes running to lots of stones.  [If you have been in one of the vineyards on the hillsides along the Rhine River, you will be amazed at the quantity of stone, perhaps 50% by volume, in the ground.]  Rye and oats were the principal grains.  Wheat and barley were grown, but they took a better soil.  The favored draft animal was an ox, not the horse.

At the start of the century, no fodder crops were grown.  The animals had to live on pasture.  During the century, clover was added to the rotation cycle and was cut and stored for winter food.  The animals then became barnyard or stall animals, not pasturing animals.  This resulted in an increase in food.

Yields in Hesse were generally three to four times what was planted.  Robert Selig has written that in other parts of Europe the yield could reach sixfold.  In either case, to us, it is unbelievably poor.  The ground was poor, it was not prepared the best, no fertilizers were used, and the seed was not genetically the best possible.

As poor as the crops were, crop stealing was a problem.  Night watches had to be posted in the fields at harvest times.  Some villages had sentries at the town gates to catch thieves going and coming.

Life depended to a considerable extent on access to the forests for firewood, building materials, and pasture for pigs.  All of these were strictly controlled by the Lords who held all of the ultimate rights to the forests.  We have already encountered one Landgrave who restricted access because, to him, the forest was a private hunting ground.  The most common types of trees were the oak and beech, which were driving the pine into retreat.  The forest was a valuable resource and it did require maintenance and attention if it was to serve the purposes of grazing, charcoal production, wood, and pasture.  Not given the proper care, the forests could be badly damaged.

[In the Siegen area, not far from the Hesse border, the management of these resources led to the creation of the Hauberg in an effort to achieve and preserve the forest to yield several of these objectives.  The Hauberg, run according to a strict time schedule, was intended to yield wood for charcoal, bark for tanning, smaller wood for heating and cooking in homes, pasture, and grain.] Peasants left to themselves would be inclined to overuse the forests.  Under the lords, the forests were sometimes treated as a private reserve, not a communal asset.
(01 Feb 03)