The appropriation of the whole of the land had thus given to the rural economy of England a new and essentially modern character: there were now leaseholders and tenants at will, labouring poor and unemployed. And the ancient institution of serfdom could not hold its own in the presence of such thorough changes. “The slow agricultural revolution which rendered their services less useful to the manorial lords, gradually set the villans free by removing the interest their masters had in retaining a hold upon them.” “In some instances the exaction of predial services from villans by manorial lords can be traced as late as the time of Elizabeth; but though no change was made in the law, the lords seem to have found that it was not worth their while to assert their rights over the persons of their bondmen”[209].
There were, however, many parts of England in which scarcely any inclosures took place[210]. Here the villeins remained on their lands and gradually became copyholders. They were still bound to services, which, however, were generally commuted for small money payments, so the conditions of their tenure were annoying rather than oppressive. Moreover, their obligations were no longer personal, but territorial; they were not astricted to the soil. And as they had an hereditary right to their holdings, they differed but little from freeholders. The “innocuous curiosities of copyhold,” survivals of ancient serfdom, have lasted up to modern times[211].
Our theory can thus be of much use in accounting for the [[373]]changes which have taken place in the rural economy of England. As long as there was still free land, i.e. land which, though sometimes claimed by an owner, could not fetch any reasonable price, the cultivators were astricted to the soil; but as soon as the proprietors had got the practical command over the whole of the land, many of the villeins were evicted and replaced by leaseholders or tenants at will or became such themselves; and the remainder became copyholders, i.e. proprietors obliged to some services or payments without being personally unfree.
We shall inquire now whether in Germany too the appropriation of the whole of the land coincided with the transition from serfdom to freedom.
§ 11. The rural classes of medieval Germany.
In the time of the Merovingians the greater part of the country was covered with forests and people relied on the products of the forests for a considerable portion of their subsistence. Land was abundant, and even the cultivated land had hardly any exchange value[212].
Much new land was, however, already being taken into cultivation. The village communities, consisting of free peasants, as well as separate members of these communities, cleared considerable portions of the waste land lying round the villages. In the 8th century some communities already forbade individuals to reclaim land; but this was still of rare occurrence; generally speaking the waste could be appropriated by whoever chose to take it into cultivation[213].
The bulk of the population consisted of free peasants. There were two unfree classes: slaves and lites (a kind of serfs); but these were not numerous[214].