Page:Ferdinand Lassalle - The Working Man's Programme - tr. Edward Peters (1884).djvu/11

 It is the landed interest, gentlemen, which in all respects bore sway in the Middle Ages, which impressed its own specific stamp on all the arrangements and on the whole life of that time; it is that which must be proclaimed as the ruling principle of that period.

The reason of this, namely that the landed interest was the ruling principle of that age, is a very simple one. It lies—at least this reason may for the present fully satisfy us—in the domestic and economic constitution of the Middle Ages; in the conditions of production at that period. Trade was at that time very slightly developed, and industry still less so. The staple of the wealth of the community consisted to an immensely preponderating degree in the produce of agriculture.

Movable possessions were at that time but little thought of in comparison with possession of the land and the soil, and you may plainly see to what an extent this was the case by the law of property, which always throws a clear light on the economic condition of the periods in which it was instituted. Thus for instance the law of property of the Middle Ages, with the object of preserving family property from generation to generation, and protecting it against dissipation, declares family property or "Estate" to be inalienable without the consent of the heirs. But by this family property or "Estate" is understood by express limitation only landed property. Chattels (fahrniss), on the contrary, as movable property was then called, were alienable without the consent of the heirs. And, in general, all personal or movable property was treated by the old German laws, not as an independent reproductive