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Gutsherrschaft in East Elbian Germany and Livonia, 1500–1800: A Critique of the Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Edgar Melton
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Extract

For over a century now, scholars have viewed the divergent paths of agrarian development east and west of the Elbe river as a watershed in German history. In the west, according to this view, peasants from the late Middle Ages on enjoyed increasing freedom from direct seigniorial interference in their social, economic, and judicial affairs. Seigniorial obligations (often commuted to cash rents) remained, as did a degree of seigniorial control over peasant lands in many regions, but peasants west of the Elbe increasingly shed the more onerous seigniorial obligations, and could generally move without the lord's permission.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1988 , pp. 315 - 349
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1988

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References

Judy Sealander and Jamie Melton read an earlier draft of this article; the present version is much better for their penetrating comments and suggestions. It is also much the better for the superb efforts of Cheryl Quakers and Mary Rogers, who entered the final version on a word processor.

1. A succinct discussion of agrarian relations in the various German lands west of the Elbe can be found in Lütge, Friedrich, Geschchte der deutschen Agrarverfassung von frühen Mittelalter bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1963), 134–68.Google Scholar But see also the more recent essay by Maier, V. E. in Istoriia krest'ianstva v Europe, 3 vols. (Moscow, 1985–1986), 3: 126–46.Google Scholar

2. The best starting point–conceptually as well as bibliographically–is the recent article by Harnisch, Hartmut, “Die Gutsherrschaft: Forschungsgeschichte, Entwicklungszusammenhänge und Strukturelemente,” Jahrbuch für Geschchte des Feudalismus 9 (1985): 189–240Google Scholar; also useful, Lütge, Geschchte der deutschen Agrarverfassung, 102–33.

3. Knapp, G. F., Die Bauembefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in der älteren Theilen Preussens, vol. 1, Ausgewählte Werke, 3 vols. (Munich, 1927), 2:1–51.Google Scholar

4. Carl J. Fuchs, “Vorwort zur zweiten Auflage,” ibid., x-xi.

5. Knapp, , Grundherrschafi und Rittergut (Leipzig, 1897), 151–59.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., 1–25, esp. 5–12.

7. Die Bauembefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Theilen Preussens, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1887).Google Scholar I have relied on the second edition, published as vols. 2 and 3 of his Ausgewählte Werke in 1927.

8. Fuchs, “Vorwort zur zweiten Auflage,” x.

9. Ibid., xi.

10. von Below, Georg, “Der Osten und der Westen Deutschlands: Der Ursprung der Gutsherrschaft,” Territorium und Stadt (Munich, 1900), 1–94.Google Scholar The second edition (1923) omits this article.

11. Liütge, Geschichte der deutschen Agrarverfassung, 120, n. 72.

12. Knapp, Grundherrschaft und Rittergut, 24–25; also Fuchs, , Die Epochen der deutschen Agrargeschichte und Agrarpolitik (Jena, 1898), 27.Google Scholar

13. On the putative connection between Gutsherrschaft and absolutism in Brandenburg, see the excellent critical discussion, complete with bibliography, in Hagen, William W., “Seven teenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg: The Thirty Years' War, the Destabilization of Serfdom, and the Rise of Absolutism,” American Historical Review 94 (04 1989): 304–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Brenner, Robert, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,” in The Brenner Debate, ed. Aston, T. H. and Philpin, C.H.E. (Cambridge, 1985), 45.Google Scholar

15. The only “specialized” works on Gutsherrschaft cited by Brenner are Wächter, H. H., Ostpreussische Domänenvorwerke im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Würzburg 1958)Google Scholar, and Henning, F. W., Herrschaft und Bauernuntertänigkeit (Würzburg, 1964).Google Scholar Wächter's study deals exclusively with ducal estates. See Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development,” 41–46, nn. 66–74; also “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism,” in The Brenner Debate, 272–83, nn. 107–30.

16. Wallerstein, Emmanuel, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1974)Google Scholar, especially chaps. 2 an. 6. Eric Hobsbawm has tried to fit the model of Gutsherrschaft into his analysis of the “seventeenth century crisis.” See “The General Crisis of the European Economy in the 17th Century,” Past and Present 5 (1954): 42–43Google Scholar, and “The Crisis of the 17th Century—II,” Past and Present 6 (1954). 48–50.Google Scholar

17. Żytkowicz, Leonid, “W sprawie badan prownawczych nad geneza i rozwojem folwarku panszcyznianego,” in Spoleczenstwo, gospodarka, kultura (Warsaw, 1974)Google Scholar, cited in Rusinski, W., “Some Remarks on the Differentiation of Agrarian Structure in East Central Europe from the 16th to the 18th Century,” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae 13 (1978): 92.Google Scholar

18. The key figure in the Polish historiography is Jan Rutkowski, who attempted a model of Polish economic development in his work Badanie nad podziatem dochódow w Polsce w czasách nowożytnych (Cracow, 1938).Google Scholar On Rutkowski and his model, see Topolski, Jerzy, “Le programme théoretique de Jean Rutkowski,” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae 16 (1981): 29–51.Google Scholar The most elaborate model of Gutsherrschaft was constructed by Witold Kula, and appeared first in Polish, then in French translation under the title Théorie économique du systéme féodal: Pour un modele de I'économie polonaise 16e–18e siècles (Paris, 1970).Google Scholar An English translation appeared in 1976 under the title, An Economic Theory of the Feudal System: Towards a Model of the Polish Economy 1500–1800 (London, 1976).Google Scholar Topolski has attempted to refine Kula's model in two recent articles. See Topolski, Jerzy, “La dynamique du court terme et la dynamique de la longue durée dans l'éxplication de l'évolution agraire en Pologne du xvi–xviii s.s.,” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae 17 (1983); 15–27Google Scholar; also “A propos de la conception d'un modèle de l'histoire économique de la Pologne (xvi–xviii s.),” Studia Historiae Oeconomicae 13 (1978): 3–18.Google Scholar

19. The literature on Gutsherrschaft in Poland is massive and diffuse; one shortcut is the useful survey by Doroshenko, V. V., “Model' agrarnogo stroiia Rechi Pospolitoi xvi–xviii v.v.,” in Ezhegodnik po agramoi istorii vostochnoi Evropy 1968 (Moscow, 1970).Google Scholar

20. Kula, Théorie, 15; Topolski, “A propos de la conception,” 5.

21. Kula, Théorie, 14; Topolski, “A propos de la conception,” 6.

22. Kula, Théorie, 32–33.

23. See for example, North, Douglas C. and Thomas, Robert Paul, The Rise of the Western World (Cambridge, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar North and Thomas place heavy emphasis on the importance of secure property rights.

24. Ibid., 132–56.

25. The case of Holland, however, seems to belie this connection; unlike England, Holland did not make the transition to an industrial society until the late 19th century. See the essays by Ormrod, D., Swart, K. W., and Kossmann, E. H. in Failed Transitions to Modem Industrial Society, ed. Krantz, Frederick and Hohenberg, Paul M. (Montreal, 1975), 36–54.Google Scholar

26. Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development,” 45.

27. Ibid., 26. Also, Millward, Robert, “An Economic Analysis of the Organization of Serfdom in Eastern Europe,” Journal of Economic History 3 (1982): 524–26.Google Scholar

28. Kula, Théorie, 81–82; Brenner, 45.

29. Kula, Théorie, 28–43.

30. Kula, Théorie, 46; Brenner.

31. Razumovskaia, L. V., Ocherki po istorii pol'skikh krest'ian v xv–xvi v.v. (Moscow, 1968). 170–91.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 270–72.

33. Żytkowicz, Leonid, “The Peasant's Farm and the Landlord's Farm in Poland from the 16th to the Middle of the 18th Century,” Journal of European Economic History 1 (1972): 147.Google Scholar

34. Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 317. Hagen writes of the Thirty Years' War, for example, that “In the Uckermark, the nobility had looked on helplessly as, during the war, their peasants and manorial servants shook off the bonds of personal serfdom, and fled their villages.”

35. In many cases, estate owners restocked the farmsteads at their own expense, but peasants accepting such farmsteads generally had to accept less secure tenure conditions. Ibid., 324.

36. Ibid., 326.

37. Ibid., 325.

38. On the periodization of Gutsherrschaft, cf. Lütge, Ceschichte der deutschen Agrarverfassung, 109–34, and Harnisch, “Probleme einer Periodisierung und Typisierung der Gutsherrschaft,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus (1986): 252–53.

39. Evidence of labor services in the first half of the 16th century is scattered and episodic, but examples appear in the following works: Wunder, Heide, Siedlungs- und Bevölkerungsgeschichte der Komturei Christburg: 13.–16. Jhdt. (Wiesbaden, 1968), 228–35Google Scholar; Grossmann, Friedrich, “Über die gutsherrlich-bäuerlichen Rechtsverhältnisse in der Mark Brandenburg,” Staats- und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungen 40 (1890): 40Google Scholar; Maybaum, Heinz, Die Entstehung der Gutsherrschaft im nordwestlichn Mecklenburg (Berlin, 1926), 135–36Google Scholar; for Pomerania, Mager, Friedrich, Geschichte des Bauerntums und der Bodenkultur im Lande Mecklenburg (Berlin, 1955), 88.Google Scholar Despite the title, Mager's work deals as much with Pomerania as with Mecklenburg.

40. Guddat, Wilhelm, Die Entstehung und Entwicklung der privaten Grundherrschaft in den Ämtern Brandenburg und Balga (Ostpreussen) (Marburg, 1975), 234Google Scholar; Grossmann, 13–14; Mager, 92.

41. Kern, Arthur, “Beiträge zur Agrargeschichte Ostpreussens,” Forschungen zur brandenburgischen und preussischen Geschichte 14 (1901): 156Google Scholar; Grossmann.

42. Grossmann, 14; Maybaum, 125–33.

43. Harnisch, “Probleme einer Periodisierung und Typisierung der Gutsherrschaft,” 253; also (with Gerhard Heitz), “Feudale Gutswirtschaft in den deutschen Territorien: Eine vergleichende Analyse unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Marktproduktion,” in Large Estates and Small Holdings in Europe in the Middle Ages and Modem Times, ed. Gunst, Peter and Hoffman, Tamas (Budapest, 1982), 24.Google Scholar

44. Guddat, 222.

45. Wunder, 253.

46. Brenner, “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism,” 267.

47. Mortenson, Hans et al. , Historisch-Geographischer Atlas des Preussenlandes (Wiesbaden, 1978)Google Scholar, Teilblatt 1:2, “Der vermessene Grundbesitz in Herzogtum Preussen 1540.”

48. North, Michael, “Untersuchungen zur adligen Gutswirtschaft im Herzogtum Preussen des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Vierteljahrschift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (1983): 6.Google Scholar

49. The Junker von Mosewitz, for example, was considered a harsh landlord when he demanded, in 1595, 30 days per year plus cartage. Guddat, 415.

50. Franz, Günther, Des Dreissigjährige Krieg und das deutsche Volk (Stuttgart, 1979), 19–27.Google Scholar

51. Ibid., 19–21.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid., 25.

54. Plehn, Hans, “Zur Geschichte der Agrarverfassung von Ost und West Preussen,” Forschungen zur brandenburgischen und preussischen Geschichte 18 (1905): 114–16.Google Scholar

55. See, for example, Kriedte, Peter, Peasants, Landlords, and Merchant Capitalists: Europe and the World Economy 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1983), 69.Google Scholar

56. Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 324–25.

57. Prange, Wolfgang, “Das adlige Gut in Schleswig Holstein im 18. Jahrhundert,” in Staatsdienst und Menschlichkeit: Studien zur Adehkultur des späten 18. Jahrhunderts in Schleswig-Holstein und Dänemark, ed. Degn, Christian and Lohmeier, Dieter (Neumüster, 1980), 64.Google Scholar

58. Mager, 135–95. The extent to which peasants were expropriated of their farmsteads in Pomerania requires fuller investigation. One historian has argued that the Bauernlegen in Pomerania has been greatly exaggerated. See Peters, Jan, “Ostelbische Landarmut: Statistisches über landlose und landarme Agrarproduzenten im Spätfeudalismus (Schwedisch-Pommern und Sachsen),” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1 (1970): 115–16.Google Scholar

59. Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 330–31.

60. Labor services of 10 days per week (500 days per year) meant that the peasant farmstead had to provide more than one worker at a time for Frondienst. A typical combination might be 2 workers per day, 5 days per week. Henning, F. W., Dienste und Abgaben der Bauem im 18. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart, 1969), 10–15Google Scholar, tables 1–3.

61. Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 331.

62. Details of this lawsuit, and the peasants' successful resistance, are in Hagen, , “The Junkers' Faithless Servants: Peasant Insubordination and the Breakdown of Serfdom in Brandenburg. Prussia, 1763–1811,” in The German Peasantry: Conflict and Community in Rural Society from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. Evans, Robert J. and Lee, W. R. (London, 1986), 77–88.Google Scholar

63. Ibid., 76–77.

64. Henning, Dienste und Abgaben, 10–15.

65. Livonia, the traditional name for the lands of present-day Latvia and Estonia, has a complicated history. Linguistically, the two main population groups of Livonia are quite different. The Latvian language is Indo-European and comprises one of the two modern Baltic languages (Lithuanian being the other). Estonian is a Finno-Ugrian language similar to Finnish. Beginning in the 13th century, Livonia came under the rule of German crusading orders, first the Order of the Sword, later, in the 14th century, the Livonian Order. The Livonian Order and its rival, the Archbishopric of Riga, constructed medieval polities that were nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire; they also enfiefed numerous vassals (largely German knights) who would become the ruling class in the 16th century. In 1561, Northern Estonia was taken by the Swedes, and the remaining lands—now secularized—were incorporated into the Polish state. Polish rule was brief, however, and most of Livonia was occupied by Swedish troops by 1621; formal recognition of Swedish rule came in 1629. Livonia remained a Swedish province until 1710, when, following Russian conquest in the Northern War, its nobility accepted Russian rule. Despite formal subordination to St. Petersburg, Livonia through most of the 18th century retained a substantial degree of autonomy and self-government. Its traditional corporate institutions were almost completely dominated by the German nobility. In the 1780s, the Livonian lands were more closely integrated into the Empire as the three Baltic provinces: Kurland, Livland, and Estland. Conscription was also introduced. The nobility retained, however, its strong corporate identity and the Baltic provinces preserved in the 19th and early 20th centuries a particularism unique within the Russian Empire. The best introduction to the complex history of this region is Wittram, Reinhard, Baltische Geschichte: Die Ostseelande Livland, Estland, Kurlan 1180–1918 (Munich, 1954).Google Scholar

66. Doroshenko, V. V., Ocherki agramoi istorii Latvii v xvi veka (Riga, 1960), 77–82.Google Scholar

67. Ibid., 242, n. 41.

68. Tarvel, Enni, Folwark, pan, i poddannyi: Agramye otnoshenii v pol'skikh vladeniakh na territorii iuzhnoi Estonii v knotse xvi-nachale xvii veka (Tallinn, 1964), 238–55.Google Scholar

69. Tarvel, 115; Doroshenko, Ocherki agrarnoi istorii, 137.

70. Tarvel, 196–97; Doroshenko, Ocherki agrarnoi istorii, 248.

71. Tarvel, 117, 261.

72. Kahk, J., Ligi, H., and Tarvel, E., Beiträge zur marxistischen Agrargeschichte Estlands der Feudalzeit (Tallinn, 1974), 44–45.Google Scholar

73. Philipp, Guntram, Die Wirksamkeit der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine unter den Esten und Letten, zur Zeit der Bauembefreiung (Cologne, 1974), 63, n. 50.Google Scholar

74. Kula, Théorie, 46–51; Wallerstein, The Modern World System, 310–11.

75. The best starting point for this problem is the recent article by North, Michael, “Lohnarbeit und Fronarbeit in der ostpreussischen Landwirtschaft vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 36 (1988)Google Scholar; but see also Pokhilevich, D. L., “Kapitalisticheskie zigzagi v istorii feodal'nogo pomest'ia,” in Voprosy istorii sel'skogo khoziaistva, krest'ianstva, i revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii (Moscow, 1961).Google Scholar Pokhilevich deals with the extensive use of wage labor on crown estates in Royal (West) Prussia and Lithuania.

76. See, for example, Peters, “Ostelbische Landarmut: Statistisches über landlose und landarme Agrarproduzenten im Spätfeudalismus,” 100. Peters argues that the ratio of landless laborers to peasants in the mid-17th century was only 1:10. It is, however, quite possible that the landless population in the 16th and 17th centuries was more numerous, since much of the landless population may have eluded the tax records.

77. Ibid., 107.

78. For East Prussia, Henning, , Herrschaft und Bauernuntertänigkeit: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Herrschaftsverhältnisse in den ländlichen Bereichen Ostpreussens und des Fürstentums Paderborn vor 1800 (Würzburg, 1964), 113Google Scholar; for Brandenburg, Schissler, Hanna, Preussische Agrargesellschaft im Wandel (Göttingen, 1978), 99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Schissler's figures include only the Kurmark and Mittelmark.

79. Haack, Hanna, “Ländliche Bevölkerung und Siedlung in Mecklenburg-Schwerin und Preussischer Ämtern Vorpommerns im 18. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus 7 (1983): 362–77.Google Scholar

80. Prange, “Das adlige gut in Schleswig-Holstein,” 67.

81. Ligi, , “Bobyli i myza v Estonii (xvi-nachalo xix v.),” in Problemy razvitiia feodalizma i kapitalizma v stranakh Baltiki (Tartu, 1975), 332Google Scholar; Kahk, , “Einige Ergebnisse der Erforschung sozialer Aspekte des bäuerlichen Lebens in Estland in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhundert,” in Bäuerliche Wirtschaft und landwirtschaftliche Produktion in Deutschland und Estland 16. bis 19. Jh., Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Sonderband (Berlin, 1982), 342.Google Scholar

82. Andrejs Plakans and Charles Wetherell, “Family and Economy on a Baltic Serf Estate in the Early Nineteenth Century” (unpublished paper), 20. Cited with the kind permission of the authors.

83. Peters, , “Ostelbische Landarmut: Sozialökonomisches über landarme und landlose Agrar. produzenten im Spätfeudalismus,” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 3 (1967): 255–302.Google Scholar

84. Franz, Der Dreissigjährige Krieg und das deutsche Volk, 115–16.

85. Mager, 159–60.

86. Henning, Dienste und Abgaben, 131.

87. Steinborn, Hans-Christian, Abgaben und Dienste holsteinischer Bauern im 18. Jahrhundert (Neumünster, 1982), tables 13–14, pp. 169–70Google Scholar, and table 41, p. 186.

88. Steinmann, Paul, Bauer und Ritter in Mecklenburg: Wandlungen der gutsherrlich-bäuerlichen Verhältnisse im westen und osten Mecklenburgs vom 12/13. Jahrhundert bis zur Bodenreform 1945 (Schwerin, 1960), 41.Google Scholar

89. Mager, 192.

90. Schelling, Renate, “Lage und Struktur der ländlicher Bevölkerung in Schwedisch-Pommern Ende des 17. Jh.,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte des Feudalismus 4 (1980): 310–11.Google Scholar

91. Wunder, Heide, Die bäuerliche Gemeinde in Deutschland (Göttingen, 1986), 41–42.Google Scholar

92. For Brandenburg, Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 330; for East Prussia, Henning, Dienste und Abgaben, 16–17.

93. Abel, Wilhelm, Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft (Stuttgart, 1967), table 27, 240.Google Scholar

94. Kahk, “Einige Ergebnisse,” table 4, p. 313.

95. Plakans and Wetherell, “Unfree Labor and Family Life: The Russian Baltic Province. 1800–1820” (unpublished paper), 7. Cited with the kind permission of the authors.

96. On the Uckermark, see the important work by Harnisch, Hartmut, Die Herrschaft Boitzenburg (Weimar, 1968)Google Scholar; also the comments by Hagen in “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 309; also Harnisch, “Die Gutsherrschaft: Forschungsgeschichte, Entwicklungszusammenhänge, und Strukturelemente,” 234–35. On Livonia, Doroshenko, Ocherki agrarnoi istorii, 88–106; Tarvel, Folvark, pan, ipoddanyi, 237–55.

97. Hagen, , “How Mighty the Junkers? Peasant Rents and Seigniorial Profits in Sixteenth Century Brandenburg,” Past and Present 108 (1985): 113–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

98. For Swedish Pomerania, Schelling, 298; for East Prussia, Henning, Herrschaft und Bauernuntertänigkeit, 148.

99. Hanssen, Georg, Die Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft und der Umgestaltung der gutscherrlich-bäuerlichen Verhältnisse Überhaupt in den Herzogthümern Schleswig und Holstein (St. Petersburg, 1861), 18Google Scholar; Kramer, Karl S. and Wilken, Ulrich, Volksleben in einem Holsteinischen Gutsbezirk (Neumünster, 1979), 212Google Scholar; Prange, “Das adlige Gut in Schleswig-Holstein,” 67–68.

100. Henning, Herrschaft und Bauemuntertünigkeit, 171–77.

101. Ibid., 171.

102. For East Prussia, ibid., 148; for Brandenburg, Hagen, , “The Junker's Faithless Servants,” passim; for Mecklenburg, Steinmann,” Ritter und Bauer in Mecklenburg, 53–79.Google Scholar

103. For Brandenburg, and Pomerania, , Zur ostdeutschen Agrargeschichte: Ein Kolloquium (Würzburg, 1960), 22–25Google Scholar; for East Prussia, Henning, Herrschaft und Bauernuntertänigkeit, 101.

104. Hagen, “The Junkers' Faithless Servants,” 71–94.

105. Philipp, Die Wirksamkeit der Hermhuter Brüdergemeine unter den Esten und Letten, 120.

106. Kahk, , Die Krise der feudalen Landwirtschaft in Estland (Tallinn, 1969), 179–87.Google Scholar

107. Ibid., 185–86.

108. The number of peasant farmsteads on seigniorial estates in Mecklenburg declined from 6,235 in 1729 to only 2,490 in 1794. See Mager, Geschichte des Bauerntums und der Bodenkultur in Lande Mecklenburg, 159–60.

109. Nichtweiss, Johannes, Das Bauernlegen in Mecklenburg (Berlin, 1954), 32.Google Scholar

110. Schelling, “Lage und Struktur der ländlicher Bevölkerung in Schwedisch-Pommern Ende des 17. Jh.,” 298.

111. Kahk, “Einige Ergebnisse” tables 12 and 13, p. 336.

112. Plakans and Wetherell, “Unfree Labor and Family Life,” 12, 37, n. 22.

113. Kramer and Wilken, 327.

114. Plehn, 69. Plehn studied material relating to 887 Junker estates, and found that 342 of these estates relied entirely on servants and hired labor.

115. Kramer and Wilken, 27, 239; Hagen, , “Working for the Junker: The Standard of Living of Manorial Workers in Brandenburg, 1584–1810,” Journal of Modern History 58 (1986): 150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

116. Ibid., 147.

117. For East Holstein, Prange, “Das adlige gut in Schleswig-Holstein im 18. Jahrhundert,” 67; for Livonia, Plakans and Wetherell, “Unfree Labor and Family Life,” 12; see also n. 160. Henning estimates that in East Prussia, a farmstead of 17 hectares (42.5 acres) would have performed only half the labor services with its own family members, using hired labor for the remainder. But as Henning himself points out, the typical farmstead had 85 acres, which would have absorbed virtually all the labor capacity of the peasant family itself, leaving labor service obligations completely to the hired hands. See Henning, Dienste und Abgaben, 155.

118. Peters, “Ostelbische Landarmut: Sozialökonomisches über landarme und landlose Agrarproduzenten im Spätfeudalismus,” 285.

119. For Pomerania, ibid., 275–76; for Brandenburg, Hagen, “Working for the Junker,” 146. for East Prussia, Henning, Herrschaft und Bauemuntertänigkeit, 107; for Livonia, Ligi, “Bobyli i myza v Estonii,” 320; for East Holstein, Kramer and Wilken, 319.

120. Estate owners in East Holstein were reluctant to permit hired hands to stay on for more than 2 years since residence for a period of 3 years gave the worker resident status (Heimatsrecht), thus making the seignior liable for his upkeep in times of poverty or sickness. See Kramer and Wilkin, 331.

121. For Pomerania, Peters, “Ostelbische Landarmut: Sozialökonomisches über landarme und landlose Agrarproduzenten,” 275–76; for East Holstein, Kramer and Wilken, 321; for East Prussia, Henning, Herrschaft und Bauemuntertünigkeit, 107.

122. Kramer and Wilken, 213.

123. Plehn, 92.

124. Knapp, , Ausgewählte Werke, vol. 2.Google Scholar

125. In East Prussia, for example, a commission set up to investigate the fiscal situation of the rural population enumerated 14 categories of male and female rural wage earners. See Kern, “Beiträge zur Agrargeschichte Ostpreussens,” 214–15. In 1682, the estate of Schönweide, in East Holstein, listed 8 categories of hired hands. Kramer and Wilken, 27.

126. Kern, 216–17.

127. Ibid., 220–21.

128. Ibid., 216–35.

129. Abel, Wilhelm, Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe (New York, 1980), 198–99.Google Scholar

130. Kramer and Wilken, 234–35.

131. Hagen, “Working for the Junker,” 150.

132. Ibid., 143, n. 1.

133. Ibid., 150.

134. Beggars comprised as much as 10 percent of the population of 18th century Berlin. See Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 329.

135. North, 15.

136. Hagen, “Working for the Junker,” 153.

137. Kern, 216–19.

138. Ligi, “Bobyli i myza v Estonii,” 323.

139. Spittler, Gerd, “Abstraktes Wissen als Herrschaftsbasis: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte bürokratisher Herrschaft im Bauernstaat Preussen,” Kölner Zeitschrijt für Soziologie und Sozial-psychologie 32 (1980): 599.Google Scholar

140. For Pomerania, Eggert, Oskar, Die Massnahmen der preussischer Regierung zur Bauenbe freiung in Pommern (Cologne, 1965), 18Google Scholar; for Brandenburg, Blum, Jerome, The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe (Princeton, 1978), 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for East Prussia, Henning, , Herrschaft und Bauernuntertänigkeit, 115Google Scholar; for East Holstein, where the evidence is only impressionistic, Kramer and Wilken, 227–28.

141. Kahk, “Einige Ergebnisse,” 307–33.

142. The correlation is more complicated than one might expect. Farmsteads with very low labor services (1 day per week) and very high labor services (4 day per week) showed a strong correlation between labor services and farmstead resources (farm size, labor capacity of family, livestock inventory); farmsteads with 1 day per week of labor services had a much lower index of resources than farmsteads with 4 days per week. But the correlation was weak for farmsteads with 2–3 days per week labor services. Ibid., 331 and passim.

143. Spittler, “Abstraktes Wissen als Herrschaftsbasis,” 599.

144. Henning, Herrschaft und Bauernuntertänigkeit, 123.

145. Compare these categories in Kern, 230–35.

146. Cited in Spittler, “Abstraktes Wissen als Herrschaftsbasis,” 599.

147. Ligi, “Bobyli i myza v Estonii,” 323.

148. Kern, 172. In East Holstein, however, if the peasant died before a son was old enough to take over the farmstead, the seignior might appoint an interim occupant, who would support the children of his predecessor and return the farm to the family after 20 years. Kramer and Wilken, 202.

149. See especially Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development,” 45.

150. For Brandenburg, Hagen, “Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Brandenburg,” 324 n. 42; for East Prussia, Kern, 179; for East Holstein, Prange, “Das adlige Gut in Schleswig-Holstein,” 62. In Livonia, however, the seignior did not stock the farmsteads, leaving it to the peasant to provide the necessary implements and plow teams necessary for the farmstead. See Philipp, Die Wirksamkeit der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine unter den Esten und Letten, 97–99.

151. Henning, Dienste und Abgaben, 8–10.

152. Ibid., 25–45.

153. Evidence from Polish estates suggests that the sale of beer and spirits may have contributed as much as 40 percent of estate revenues in the late 18th century. This has led Kula to speculate that the peasants' cash income increased in the 18th century, but was in part siphoned off by the seignior through the village tavern. See Kula, Théorie, 101–2.

154. Labor services in Central Holstein varied, but in the regions of Bordesholm and Neumünster they amounted to only 7–8 days per year plus limited cartage obligations. See Steinborn, 12, 29, 197.

155. Kramer and Wilken, 213.

156. Steinborn, 71, 170.

157. Chayanov, A.V., The Theory of Peasant Economy, ed. Thorner, Daniel, Kerblay, Basile, Smith, R.E.F.; Introduction by Theodor Shanin (Madison, 1986), 42–48.Google Scholar

158. For an excellent introduction to Chayanov's theories, see the essays by Shanin and Thorner in ibid., 1–20, i–xxiii.

159. Ibid., 70–89, 132–33. Chayanov based his theories on the “family labor farm” that hired no wage labor and relied solely on the labor of family members. One might therefore question its applicability to the East Elbian farmstead, which relied considerably on hired labor. At the same time, the 18th-century farmhand in East Elbia and Livonia usually lived and ate with the peasant family, receiving much, and probably most, of his wages in kind. In many economic respects, he was indistinguishable from the working-age members of the peasant household, and might therefore be considered part of the household. On the pre-industrial concept of the household, see the brilliant article by Brunner, Otto, “Das ‘ganze Haus’ und die alteuropäische ‘Ökonomik,’” in Neue Wege der Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte (Göttingen, 1968), 103–27.Google Scholar

160. It is not clear that peasants always provided all the labor services stipulated by the seignior. For example, the total labor services imposed by the owner of Schönweide, in East Holstein in 1798/99, came to 13,524 workdays per year, but the peasant farmsteads on the estate actually provided only 9,379(69%). Illness, bad weather, and holidays accounted for part of the shortfall, but part may have been the result of conscious decisions by the peasants to deny labor to the seignior in order to use it on their farmsteads. See Kramer and Wilken, 219. But compare the Holstein case to the Livonian estate studied by Plakans and Wetherell in “Unfree Labor and Family Life.” The authors show clearly that even with hired hands, most farmsteads sometimes used family members to perform the labor services stipulated by the seignior.

161. Kern, “Beiträge zur Agrargeschichte Ostpreussens,” 179.

162. Philipp, Die Wirksamkeit der Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine unter den Esten und Letten, 96.

163. See the observations of an 18th century Junker in East Holstein, Qualen, Josias von, in Beschreibung eines adelichen Guths in Holstein nebst einigen Betrachtungen (n.p., 1760)Google Scholar, reprinted in Staatsdienst und Menschlichkeit, 309–84, see 133–34.

164. See n. 130.

165. This is the approach taken by Brenner in “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development.”

166. Sabean, David, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modem Germany (Cambridge, 1984), 11.Google Scholar

167. Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development,” 40–44.

168. Full citation of the relevant articles are in footnotes 13, 62, and 97.

169. Sabean, 25.

170. Kramer and Wilken, 213.

171. Ibid., 46–49.

172. Sabean, 25.

173. Kramer and Wilken, 211–12.

174. Kahk, “Einige Ergebnisse,” table 16, p. 342.

175. Kramer and Wilken, 322–30; Kahk, “Der Umbruch in der Lebeneinstellung der Bauern in der Übergangsperiode vom Feudalismus zum Kapitalismus,” in Beiträge zur marxistischen Agrargeschichte Estlands der Feudalzeit, 66–74.