42 Germany. 
The original usufruct of a common property was ex- 
plained in the Roman sense as a precarium or servitude, 
and from being a right of the whole organization became 
a right of the single individual or group of individuals. 
In this way the socialistic basis of the Mark was de- 
stroyed. Through the exercise of the Forsthoheit, the 
appointment of the officials instead of their election, is- 
suance of ordinances and the usurpation of the legisla- 
tive 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 autonomy destroyed and their economic 
political organizations sink into mere corporations based 
on land tenure, which, according to Roman doctrine, 
come under the regulation of the State or prince. 
The nobility move into the cities and leave the ad- 
ministration of their estates to officials who are con- 
stantly pressed to furnish the means for the extravagant 
life of their masters. These in turn harass and oppress 
the peasantry, who finally become bondsmen, Gutshérige 
(bound to the glebe) and lose their independence en- 
tirely. 
Reforms in this situation of the peasantry began first 
in Prussia in 1702, when bondage was abolished for all 
those who could purchase their houses and farms from 
the gentry. As few had the means to do so, the result 
was the creation of a proletariat, hitherto unknown be- 
cause under the old feudal system the lord had to feed 
his impoverished bondsmen. 
Changes in forest property in particular were brought 
about by the increase of princely property through the 
