Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/323

 AGRICULTURAL LIFE 311 There were also ' free farmers ' on church or seignorial land, paying generally to the lord of the soil the ' third sheaf.' The first was supposed to pay the necessary expenses of cultivating, the remaining two went to the farmer and to the lord. Others held land for life, this land being termed ' Zinslehen ' (i.e. a feudal tenure for which rent is paid) ; others again by inheritance and in return for certain personal service. Many lived on the manors under the special protection of the lord of the soil, cultivating their land (i.e. the land of their lords), many as ' coloni ' on outlying (or detached) land. The agricultural population being made up of these different classes of holders, it might be said that at the close of the Middle Ages most of the land was virtually in the hands of the tenants, the lords of the soil merely receiving rent or service for it. By degrees the posses- sions of tenants became as independent as those of free peasants. We never find that tenants were serfs. Serfdom, which became so general after the close of the social revolution of the sixteenth century, was only known in the fifteenth century among the peasants of Pome- rania. Besides, Germany was under the influence of the Church, which proclaimed the old Suabian common law taken from the Scripture : ' No man belongs to another ' ; also the imperial law : ' The people are God's and the tribute is the Emperor's.' These principles pre- vailed generally. Those who paid rent for their land, either in money or personal service, could not leave the holdings confided to them without the permission or knowledge of their lords; they were 'bound to the land,' but they had personal liberty, and their leases were for the most part perpetual, descending from father to son,