DATE OF THE ABOLITION OF SERFDOM IN GERMANY.
The following table will show that the abolition of serfdom in most parts of Germany has taken place very recently. Serfdom was abolished—
1. In Baden, in 1783.
2. In Hohenzollern, in 1804.
3. In Schleswig and Holstein, in 1804.
4. In Nassau, in 1808.
5. In Prussia, Frederick William I. had done away with serfdom in his own domains so early as 1717. The code of the Great Frederick, as we have already seen, was intended to abolish it throughout the kingdom, but in reality it only got rid of it in its hardest form, the leibeigenschaft, and retained it in the mitigated shape of erbunterthänigkeit. It was not till 1809 that it disappeared altogether.
6. In Bavaria serfdom disappeared in 1808.
7. A decree of Napoleon, dated from Madrid in 1808, abolished it in the Grand-duchy of Berg, and in several other small territories, such as Erfurt, Baireuth, &c.
8. In the kingdom of Westphalia, its destruction dates from 1808 and 1809.