Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/333

 AGRICULTURAL LIFE 321 Bavaria lived on scattered isolated farms, those of the Rhine on small holdings in little villages, those of the western forest-lands in small villages and hamlets. Many characteristic villages founded under the old German agrarian laws of field and forest confederation still existed. Besides the regular rented premises, each village owned a common district, or mark, called Allgemeine, Allmeine, or Almende, consisting of forest, pasture-grounds, meadows, heath, and bog, and from the common rights of the inhabitants of the village in this district the whole settlement was called a Gemeinde. Every man resident in the village — not only the free man, but also the serf — had his share in it ; but it was an essential condition that he should really be a resident, possessing his own ' smoke,' his own ' hearth,' his own ' meat and bread ' or ' separate, independent meals,' that is, that he should have a separate, independent house- hold. Occasionally, however, the serfs had to pay a small rental for their share in the common mark. For instance, in Homau and Keclhheim, in the Taunus dis- trict, the serfs, according to a chronicle of 1482, had to pay a ' Lent fowl and three farthings ' ; in the Almende attached to the Abbey of Lindau a Lent fowl ; in Winnigen on the Moselle ' a gracious gift of wine/ according to the harvest. Many of these communal holdings, however, were free for all, ' to use to the best of their necessities ' ; they had ' water, pasture, and game.' ' The fish of the water and the game of the land for their nourishment and necessity.' But they could sell no part of the land, neither could the land- lords sell anything without the consent of the village community ; they were not even allowed to cut wood without this consent, and export it from the district. VOL. i. y