AGRARIAN REVOLUTIONS OF THE PAST 39 



peasant population and a spirit of protest against 

 various forms of service tenure. Peasant emanci- 

 pation was gradually brought about in one way or 

 another. As a rule, the immediate results of peas- 

 ant revolutions and organized resistance against 

 existing conditions had the effect of decreasing the 

 freedom of action of the peasant, but the ultimate 

 results were liberalizing and helpful to their cause. 

 In some countries the emancipation of the peas- 

 ant population came relatively late. For example, 

 in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, in Poland and in 

 Hungary, freedom from serfdom did not come until 

 well on in the nineteenth century. In all the central 

 and southern European countries freedom of action 

 of the peasants was more restricted in the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries than it had been 

 during most of the late Middle Ages. This is ex- 

 plained by Helen Douglas Irvine, as follows: 

 "Partly this was due to the strengthening power 

 and the growing arrogance and exclusiveness of the 

 aristocracy. Partly it was a result of the new knowl- 

 edge of agriculture which made landlordship poten- 

 tially very profitable. All over Central Europe there 

 came to be two kinds of landlords. There was first 

 the landlord of the mediaeval type who on his 

 demesne produced only for the needs of his house- 

 hold, and who derived his further income from the 

 customary rents paid to him in kind and in money. 

 Secondly, there was the landlord whose chief de- 

 pendence was on his home farm, whose object it 



