THE EPOCHS OF GERMAN AGRARIAN HISTORY 229 



twelve to twenty of these bond peasants ; the large properties, 

 particularly the cloisters, had them by the thousands. Although 

 these peasants were personally unfree, bond, bound to the soil, 

 they nevertheless enjoyed unrestricted civil rights, formed a 

 guild according to the law of the court, and had hereditary right 

 of usufruct in their indivisible farms. Their tithes and services, 

 fixed from ancient times, were not subject to increase. 



Since these manorial estates were usually not contiguous lots, 

 but mixed hides of land, in consequence of which the peasants 

 of a village might belong to different manors, it was not possible 

 to manage the larger properties from a central point. They 

 were divided, therefore, into several bond farms, each of which 

 formed, with the peasants belonging to it, a villication, and was 

 managed for the lord by one of his agents, the villicus, or 

 steward, originally selected from the peasants, later from the min- 

 isterials. The agent tilled the manorial land with its own serfs, 

 aided by the peasants, and gathered in the tithes for the lord. 



The significance of this entire system is thus summarized by 

 Knapp : 



On the one hand we know merely the pursuit of agriculture, and, within 

 this, farming on a small scale only, the family farm. On the other hand we 

 face the problem of feeding the king, the duke, the count, the freeman ; there 

 must also be an economic foundation for churches and cloisters. All this is 

 accomplished by the manorial estate. It is the prerequisite for all higher and 

 freer pursuits. 



If. in this period, approximately from the tenth to the twelfth 

 century, the agrarian system was uniform throughout older Ger- 

 many, thenceforward the further development follows remark- 

 ably divergent courses in the northern and southern halves of 

 the country; so that we must now make a distinction between 

 the Northwest and the Southwest. 



In the Northwest, beginning with Lower Saxony, the later 

 Hanover, this further development of the manorial system is 

 manifested after the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by the dis- 

 integration of the villications. The desire of an increased in- 

 come on the part of the lords, caused by the appearance of the 

 monetary regime which followed in the wake of the crusades 



