228 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



But I will say that in my opinion these questions are well worth 

 serious consideration, and that they force us to scrutinize the 

 old, generally accepted views, to examine the old material from 

 this point of view, and to contribute new material for the final 

 decision. The importance of the new hypotheses was recognized 

 by the Fifth Historical Congress in placing on its program the 

 question of the origin of the manorial system. We need, first 

 of all, additional investigations. The Southeast of our empire, 

 Bavaria south of the Danube, the Southwest, especially Baden, 

 are, for reasons that will appear hereafter, a classical field of 

 observation. There village settlement and isolated farmsteads 

 appear side by side ; there Roman, Gallic, and German agra- 

 rian history have touched and influenced each other. We are 

 therefore eagerly expecting the appearance of the second volume 

 of Gothein's economic history of the Black Forest. 



II 



Disregarding, therefore, for to-day the uncertain ground of 

 the oldest period, and beginning our epitome of German agra- 

 rian history with the second great epoch, since the time of the 

 Carolingians, we find that while the manorial system is definitely 

 established in the older western part of Germany, and in the 

 colonized Northeast the system of estate farming is in process of 

 formation, throughout the older Germany exists a uniform rural 

 system, namely, that of the large manorial estates and- villications, 

 or bond farms. It is nothing but the transfer of the organization 

 of the demesnes created in the year 812 by Charlemagne, in the 

 " Capitulare de villis," to the manorial estates of the bishoprics, 

 cloisters, princes, and great lords. 



These manorial estates consisted of numerous farmsteads be- 

 longing to a lord, and of the manorial or bond farm. The land 

 of the latter was cultivated by the compulsory services of the 

 peasants in the field and elsewhere, particularly in carting ; but 

 these services were only trifling as compared with the tithes 

 in money and farm products which the peasants were obliged 

 to contribute to the maintenance of the lord's household in re- 

 turn for the use of their farms. The smaller manors had from 



