r
everything saleable, in the first instance, to the lord of the
manor,--dung, wool, honey, and even eggs and poultry: if the
authorities would not take his goods, he was bound to expose them for a
fixed period in the nearest town; it was only then that the sale became
free. But it was truly monstrous, when the authorities compelled their
subjects to buy goods from the manorial property which they did not
need. These barbarisms were quite common, at least in the East of
Germany, after 1650, especially in Moravia, Bohemia, and Silesia. When
the great proprietors drew their ponds and could not sell the fish, the
villeins were obliged to take them, in proportion to their means, at a
fixed rate. The same was the case with butter, cheese, corn, and
cattle. This was the cause of so many of the country people in Bohemia
becoming small traders, as they had to convey these goods into
neighbouring countries, often to their own great loss.[27] In vain did
the magistrates in Silesia in 1716 endeavour to check this abuse.[28]

We will only mention here the worst tyranny of all. The nobleman had
seigneurial rights: he decreed through the justices, who were dependent
on him, the punishments of police offences: fines, imprisonment, and
corporal punishment. He was also in the habit of using the stick to the
villeins when they were at work. Undoubtedly there was already in the
sixteenth century, in the provincial ordinances, a humane provision,
which prohibited the nobles from striking their villeins; but in the
two following centuries this prohibition was little attended to. When
Frederick the Great re-organized Silesia, he gave the peasants the
right of making complaint to the government against severe bodily
punishment! And this was considered a progress!

But other burdens also weighed upon the life of the peasant. For,
beside the landowner, the territorial ruler also demanded his impost or
contribution, a land-tax or poll-tax; he could impress the son of the
peasant under his banner, and demand waggons and gear for relays in
time of war. And again, above the territorial ruler, was the Holy Roman
Empire of the German nation, which claimed in those parts of Germany
where the constitution of the circles was still in force, a quota for
their exchequers.

The peasants, however, were not everywhere under the curse of bondage.
In the old domain of the Ripuarian Franks, the provinces on the other
side of the Rhine from Cleves to the Mose