FREE LABOUR AND CONTRACT. 497 



economic cause for growth of the free class was a chief 

 cause. 



Under some conditions the self-interests of feudal lords 

 put an end to serfdom in a very prompt way. Serfs ceased to 

 have the obligations of tenants because they were evicted. 

 Their partial servitude was abolished in the act of abolishing 

 their part of ownership of land. This process went on exten 

 sively in Germany. Already in the 16th century it had 

 commenced, and it assumed in later times very large propor 

 tions: being in some cases regulated in the interests of the 

 landowners by statute. In Mecklenburg, between 1621 and 

 1755, the number of baronial serfs had been reduced from 

 12,000 to 5,000. Inama-Sternegg writes: 



&quot; This inequitable proceeding had the important result that there 

 grew up in connexion with these large estates a special class of agri 

 cultural labourers a class of day-wage workers.&quot; 



In England, early in the 16th century, the power of land 

 lords, little checked by the power of the people, brought 

 about in some cases similar results. Partly enclosure of com 

 mons, with consequent inadequate pasturage, which disabled 

 tenants from cultivating their fields properly, partly the 

 turning of them out for non-fulfilment of nominal obliga 

 tions, caused numerous detachments of men from the land. 

 Professor Cunningham remarks that the agricultural dis 

 tresses of the time &quot; bring the period of manorial economy to 

 an end, for the traces of serfdom which crop up at intervals 

 before this time may now be said to cease; the wholesale 

 evictions of those days put an end to the astriction of labour 

 ers to the soil, and thus helped to swell the numbers of the 

 tramps who infested the country.&quot; In the case of England, 

 however, it must be added that this process of detachment 

 from the land had been preceded by a process of re-attach 

 ment to it and diminished freedom. When, after the de 

 population due to the Black Death, labourers became scarce 

 and landowners were unable to cultivate their estates, laws 

 were passed to enforce the taking of lower wages. There 



