44 Germany. 



in the handstand or Landtag, participated in some of 

 the functions of government, especially in raising and 

 administering taxes, but by the second half of the 14th 

 century the princes had become absolute, and the 

 doctrine of the Hoheitsrecht was firmly established. 



Under this doctrine, the historic position of the 

 Mark is perverted and instead of being the common 

 property of the people, it becomes the property of 

 the prince, on which he graciously permits the usu- 

 fruct; for, forest, pasture and water (Wald, Weide, 

 Wasser) are res publicae, hence ownerless and at the 

 disposal of the king. Through this new construction 

 of relationship, as well as through the same machi- 

 nations and tricks which the princes as Obermaerker 

 or headmen of the Mark had employed during the 

 foregoing period in usurping power, and partly through 

 voluntary dissolution was the decadence of the social, 

 economic and political organization of the Mark 

 gradually completed. 



The original usufruct of a property held in common 

 is explained in the Roman sense as a precarium or 

 servitude, and from being a right of the whole organiz- 

 ation becomes a right of the single individual or group 

 of individuals. In this way the socialistic basis of the 

 Mark is destroyed. Through the exercise of the 

 Forsthoheit, i.e., the superior right of the prince over 

 all forest property, by the appointment of the officials 

 instead of their election, by issuance of ordinances, 

 in short, by the usurpation of the legislative and police 

 power, the political power of the Mark is broken and 

 the Thirty Years' War completes the breakdown; 

 the pride of the burgher and the peasant is gone, their 



