Cities and Colonization. 35 



with money and arms. In return for their loans, the 

 forest properties of the kings were often mortgaged 

 to the burghers; and, failing of redemption, were 

 often forfeited to them. In this way and through 

 purchases the city forests came into existence. 



Still other property conditions arose when, under 

 Otto the Great (960), colonization of the eastern 

 country beyond the Elbe was pushed. In these cases, 

 the Mark institution was absent, although the colon- 

 ists did often become part owners in the king's forest, 

 or acquired parts of it as common property, or else 

 secured rights of user in the nearest royal forest. 



By the end of the period, due to these various de- 

 velopments, a great variety of property conditions 

 in forest areas had developed, most of which continue 

 to the present time, namely royal properties, which 

 by the end of the eighteenth century and the begin- 

 ning of the nineteenth were in part to become state 

 property; princely and lordly possessions under 

 separate jurisdiction, with or without entail, and 

 mostly encumbered with rights of user; allodial 

 possessions (held independent of rent or service) ; 

 municipal possessions owned by city corporations; 

 communal properties, the remnants of the Mark; 

 and farmers' woodlots (Bauernwald), resulting from 

 partitions of the Mark. 



All these changes from the original communal pro- 

 perty conditions did not, of course, take place without 

 friction, the opposition often taking shape in peasants' 

 revolts; hundreds of thousands of these being killed 

 in their attempts to preserve their commons, forests 

 and waters free to all, to re-establish their liberty to 



