226 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



German agrarian history, from remote antiquity to the time of the 

 Carolingians, from- the first settlement to the rise of the large 

 manorial estates, has, in consequence of the conclusive researches 

 of recent times, become more uncertain than ever. 



First of all, the old question of the origin and age of the 

 manorial system has again arisen, which was discussed so much 

 in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century, the 

 question whether, after the first permanent settlement, in the 

 adoption of agriculture as the chief means of livelihood the great 

 mass of the old Germans were free members of the mark com- 

 munity, with equal rights, or peasants subjected to a lord. This 

 question was formerly answered one way or another for political 

 reasons, the answer serving as a historical justification for or 

 rejection of the contemplated or accomplished emancipation of 

 the peasants and the granting to them of property. The liberal 

 construction prevailed at that time, and has remained in vogue up 

 to the present ; but to-day, when such props for emancipating the 

 peasants are no longer needed, this prevailing view, which still forms 

 the basis of Meitzen's recent great work, is severely shaken in Ger- 

 many by two simultaneous attacks, from independent quarters free 

 from political bias, at the hands of Wittich and Hildebrand, after 

 having already received similar treatment from Seebohm, Fustel 

 de Coulanges, and other foreign writers on agrarian history. 



Wittich, starting with the investigation of the later development 

 in Lower Saxony, comes to the conclusion that the manorial sys- 

 tem prevailed even in the time of Tacitus ; while Hildebrand, 

 from comparative ethnological researches, disputes for the earliest 

 period the existence of a free mark and village community, as 

 well as that of the manorial system and landed property in gen- 

 eral, but contends that the transition to agriculture caused from 

 the very outset a certain dependency on the part of those en- 

 gaged in it : in the words of the prophet, " Whithersoever this 

 implement (the plough) hath gone, bondage and shame have 

 followed in its wake." Thus the old hopeless contention over 

 Caesar and Tacitus has again burst into flame. 



With this controversy, however, is closely connected the ques- 

 tion of the causes of the dualism of colonization in Germany 



