736 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 



lords and the peasants? In the west and south the soil came, the 

 greater part, into the hands of the peasants (or remained therein), 

 but in the east a very large part fell into the hands of the' former 

 masters of the peasant, the Rittergutsbesitzer, who established there 

 gross cultures with free laborers. But this was only the conse- 

 quence of the fact that the uniformity of the agrarian constitution 

 had disappeared before the emancipation of the peasants. The dif- 

 ference between the west and east was confirmed but not cre- 

 ated by the same. The difference had existed, in its main points 

 since the sixteenth century, and meanwhile had constantly grown. 

 Landlordship had undergone interior changes before its dissolution. 

 Everywhere in the east and west the endeavor of the landlords to 

 increase their intakes was the urging factor. This desire had sprung 

 up with the invasion of capitalism, the growing wealth of the in- 

 habitants of cities, the growing possibility of selling agricultural pro- 

 ducts. The transformations effected in the west and south date 

 partly back to the thirteenth century, in the east to the fifteenth 

 century. The ways by which the landlords pursued their aim were 

 characteristic. In -the south and west they remained landlords, i. e., 

 they increased the rates of rent, interest, and taxes of the peasants, 

 but they did not go into rural culture. In the east they became 

 Gutsherren, cultivating lords; they appropriated parts of the 

 peasants' land (the legten Bauern, as the saying was), procured 

 thus a large estate for themselves, became agriculturists, and used 

 the peasants as serfs to till their own soil. Gross culture existed 

 there only to a smaller extent and with labor of serfs even 

 before the emancipation of the peasants; but not in the west. What 

 has caused this difference? 



When this question is discussed, vast weight is laid upon the con- 

 duct of political power; indeed, this power was greatly interested in 

 the formation of the agrarian constitution. Since the knight was 

 exempted from paying taxes, the peasant was the only one in the 

 country who paid them. When standing armies were established, the 

 peasants furnished the recruits. This, in connection with certain 

 points of view of commercialism, induced the rising territorial state 

 to forbid by edicts the Bauernlegen, i. e., the appropriation of the 

 peasants' land by the lords, hence to protect the existing peasants' 

 farms. The stronger the ruler of the country was, the better he 

 succeeded; the mightier the nobility was, the less he succeeded. 

 According to this the differences of the agrarian constitution in the 

 east are based, to a great extent, upon these conditions of power. 

 But in the west and south we find that, in spite of the greatest weak- 

 ness of a great many states, in spite of the indubitable possibility to 

 appropriate peasants' land, the landlords do not attempt this at all. 

 They do not show at all any tendency to deprive the peasant, to 



