GHDI logo

Documents - Rural and Urban Economy and Labor
11-17 of 17 documents    return to chapter list < previous   |   next >  
11.   Emperor Joseph II's Taxation and Urbarial Patent (1789)
This drastic ruling, ideologically justified by the Enlightenment’s criticism of the surviving remnants of “feudalism,” aimed to replace the subject villagers’ non-monetary rents (labor services,....
12.   The Legal Status of Subject Villagers in Prussia, as reflected in the General Law Code for the Prussian States (1794)
Before the peasant emancipation [Bauernbefreiung] of the early nineteenth century, every village farmer stood in law as a subject [Untertan] under a seigneurial lord, usually a landed....
13.   Decree on the Abolition of Personal Serfdom in Schleswig-Holstein, signed in Copenhagen, by King Christian VII of Denmark-Norway and Johann Sigismund von Mösting, German Chancellory President (December 19, 1804)
The abolition of landed villagers’ personal subjection or serfdom reflected Enlightenment-inspired condemnation of the curtailment of individual freedom. But it also entailed a complex renegotiation....
14.   The Prussian "October Edict" of 1807, signed by King Frederick William III, Minister Karl Baron vom und zum Stein, and Others (October 9, 1807)
This important document brought both Prussian villagers’ subjection to seigneurial overlordship and personal serfdom (where it survived) to an immediate end. Furthermore, it stipulated that estate....
15.   Jérôme [Hieronymus] Napoleon, King of Westphalia, Decree on the Abolition of Personal Serfdom in the French Satellite Kingdom of Westphalia (January 23, 1808)
In northeastern (east-Elbian) Germany personal serfdom (where it existed) served mainly to secure labor services for noble-owned large estates that produced for local or export markets. In west and....
16.   The Prussian Regulation Edict of 1811, signed by King Frederick William III, State Chancellor Hardenberg, and Justice Minister Kircheisen (September 14, 1811)
This fundamental law governed the transformation of the (now, since 1807-1808, personally free) former subject villagers’ landholdings into freehold farms and the compensation they were obliged to....
17.   The Prussian Declaration of 1816, modifying the Regulation Edict of 1811, signed by King Frederick William III, State Chancellor Hardenberg, and other Ministers (May 29, 1816)
Post-1815 conservative aristocratic pressure on the Prussian government succeeded in altering the terms of the 1811 Regulation Edict to the disadvantage of the peasantry, especially village cultivators....
11-17 of 17 documents    < previous   |   next >