The Brandenburg Recess: Resolutions agreed to by Frederick William ("the Great Elector") and the Brandenburg Estates in the Recess of July 26, 1653 (1653)

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[Art. 32 deals with the legal position of agnates succeeding to a heavily indebted estate; Art. 33, with the position of the creditors of a bankrupt. Art. 34 deals with the provision to be made for the daughters of a noble landowner whose estate is inadequate to provide proper dowries for them. If a noble’s daughter marries below her station, but to an honorable man, decent provision should be made for her; but those who live dishonorably, or marry dishonorably, forfeit their dowries. Art. 35 limits the obligation of a depopulated Kreis to pay in full debts contracted by it when it was more densely inhabited.]

36. Thirty-sixthly, landlords cannot demand rents for years in which a farm was derelict, nor can persons who remained on their farms be subject to writs or distraints, but they must be granted substantial reductions, especially for those years in which Our lands were visited and ravaged by the scourge of war. In token whereof We are graciously conceding to Our own subjects and tenants not only a proper and substantial reduction, but total remission for most of these years.

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[The Church is to allow similar remissions of tithe.]

[Art. 37: nobles or Crown agents occupying derelict holdings are liable to taxation on them. Art. 38: how prices are to be calculated when rents are paid in kind. Art. 39: nobles retain their privilege that only their properties in towns are liable to quitclaim duty, not those lying outside the jurisdiction of the municipality. Art. 40: a subject under obligation to resume possession of his holding and return to his lord’s jurisdiction and offered a temporary holding ad interim while his own is being put in order is bound to accept it.]

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41. Forty-firstly, subjects and peasants who have remained on their holdings throughout the war, endured the great hardships, and helped to carry the common burden, are not to be evicted, nor are persons of totally unknown origin and conduct to be put in their places, but the Estates cannot object, seeing that it is to their advantage, if, besides natives, foreigners also are accepted in the places of those who have gone away and the derelict localities settled with them or new places established and brought under cultivation.