In the 13th century much new land was still taken into cultivation, in Western as well as Eastern Germany; but in the following centuries very little land was added to the arable area. The woods, which had formerly been regarded as inexhaustible, were no longer present in great abundance, and the rulers of the German states as well as the landlords exerted themselves to preserve the remainder and forbade the peasants to clear them. From the middle of the 14th century these prohibitive measures became general[236].
As the population continued to increase, land became scarce. In many parts of Southern and Western Germany the lords parcelled out their lands in small portions, and farms of the size which had been customary for centuries became rare[237].
The rights of the peasants to the use of the commons, on which they had always relied for a considerable portion of their subsistence, were now restricted, and the lords asserted their claims to the commons more strictly than before[238]. [[379]]
Another consequence of the increase of population was that cattle-keeping was no longer possible on such a large scale as formerly when the common pasture occupied a great part of the land. At the end of the Middle Ages there was a scarcity of meat, and people had to rely, more than before, on vegetable food[239].
The need of the landlords for the services of the peasants went on diminishing. They no longer worked their own estates; nearly the whole of their income consisted of the payments in kind and in money which they received from their dependents[240].
In Lower Saxony and part of Westphalia the lords, as early as the 13th century, emancipated considerable numbers of villeins in their own interest. For the villeins had gradually acquired some right to their holdings, and the landlords, by setting them free, got back the free disposal of the land, which they thenceforth let out to free tenants[241].
In the 14th century the lords began to turn out peasants (Bauernlegen) and lease the land of which they thus re-acquired the free disposal[242].
Free tenancies became now general, parts of the demesne, as well as lands which had been held in servile tenure, being leased. The increased demand for land enabled the lords to let small allotments at extravagant prices[243].
Even where the customary tenures remained, the obligations of the peasants, which had been personal, in many cases became territorial, the holder of the land as such being subject to payments. And the conditions of this tenure were so little servile that sometimes nobles and knights received such land in use and took the obligations on themselves[244].
The difference between farmers and agricultural labourers now first came into existence. The latter most often held a small patch of land, but this was not sufficient to live upon; they depended on wages. Besides agricultural labourers there were male and female servants for household labour. The regulation [[380]]of wages by law, which occurred especially after the ravages of the great plague, proves that in the southern and western parts of Germany free labour had become general. Such servile work as still remained was often done by labourers hired by the peasant to whose duty the work fell, just as in the case of the English peasant who “found” a man[245].