c) Such farm-holdings that, although of such size as would customarily require their occupants to cultivate them themselves, are nonetheless not registered in the provincial tax rolls as peasant farms, or were established only after the above-specified normative years, even if the possessors of such holdings must render manorial and public dues and services like regular peasant farmers.
d) Such holdings as have been, with official legal consent, enclosed within manorial demesne-land. [ . . . ]
Article 7: Parish and church lands, whether cultivated directly or leased out, and likewise farms held from the parish by peasant farmers, are excluded from the [1811] edict. [ . . . ]
Article 9. Even if the time specified in this paragraph has passed for reaching amicable settlement [between lord and peasant eligible for freehold conversion], We do not wish to enforce a settlement through official channels. But as soon as one of the parties, even if a farmer subject to manorial services, submits a petition, the General Commission must, through commissioners named by it, carry out the regulation [freehold conversion]. Suspension of regulation may occur only when legal provisions allow it.
The parties remain free to reach amicable settlement among themselves, without the involvement of the designated authorities. But in all cases the agreement between them must be legally executed and submitted to the General Commission for review and confirmation. [ . . . ]
Source: Gesetz-Sammlung für die Königlichen Preußischen Staaten 1816 [Collection of Laws for the Royal Prussian States]. Berlin: Georg Decker, 1816, pp. 155-58.
Reprinted in Walter Demel and Uwe Puschner, eds., Von der Französischen Revolution bis zum Wiener Kongreß 1789-1815 [From the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna, 1789-1815]. Deutsche Geschichte in Quellen und Darstellung, edited by Rainer A. Müller, Volume 6. Stuttgart: P. Reclam, 1995, pp. 345-48.
Translation: William Hagen
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