After the Roman Empire and its order had disintegrated, a new social structure, based on personal relations, emerged in their place. Human relationships were strictly hierarchically arranged. This basis formed a special division of work, which had not existed in the Roman time: prayer, fighting and work. Based on this differentiation, one can define the three functional classes of European feudal society: the clergy, knights and farmers. However, this long-term arrangement did not just spontaneously appear in history, but, rather, came about gradually, as can be seen from the different rank names which include further arrangements such as "prince, knight, servant" and "earl, free man, domestic". Economic development (Naturalwirtschaft) in the Middle Ages also followed such a step by step, procedural process.

The economic structures of the smaller states and nations born after the fall or Rome were weak, and this often led to wars and/or similar complicated situations. The result was that territories changed or even completely disappeared. Of the new states, only the Frankish kingdom could maintain Rome’s political position. However, the economic situation kept deteriorating. This crisis, caused by the developments in the neighbouring regions, also affected the Frankish kingdom. Finally money lost its function as currency and every Grundherrschaft farmyard had to work as a self-sufficient economic system. Production was no longer for markets, but for self-consumption, taxes and exchange. By the late Middle Ages, development of the cities and the magnetized economy (Geldwirtschaft), based on the division of work, had gained more significance again. The barter economy (Naturalwirtschaft) had finally lost its importance.

The majority of people in the Middle Ages were of the farmer or under-farmer class, and it was they who guaranteed the stable economic situation of their landlord (Grundherr) in this barter economy system. The early free Germanic farm warriors (Bauernkrieger) also lost their rights to their own ground and land because they had to give up their own land in order to work for a landlord in exchange for protection of their life. At first they only worked for one, but later also for several clerical or secular landlords. And this dominant system ruled the framework of the farmers’ lives and deeply affected their everyday lives. Although there was much agricultural progress in the Middle Ages, such as the three-field crop rotation (Dreifelderwirtschaft) that began in the Carolingian age, and the development of modern agricultural devices, for example ploughs and harrows, the life of the farmers remained hard and they were still poor. But their work secured social operability. Until the magnetized economy gained strength again, the country totally lost its basic economic function.
1. Einleitung ......................................................1
1.1. Darstellung der Thematik ......................................1
1.2. Anmerkung .....................................................2
2. Historische Ausgangslage ........................................3
2.1.Ansatz .........................................................3
2.2.Niedergang des Römischen Reichs ................................4
3.Strukturelle Elemente des fränkischen Reich .....................12
3.1.Die Gefolgschaft im Frankenreich ..............................12
3.2.Lehnswesen und Vasallität .....................................17
4.Die arbeitsteilige Gesellschaftsordnung im Mittelalter: beten, kämpfen und arbeiten ..............................................25
5.Bäuerliches Leben ...............................................28
5.1.Vorbemerkung ..................................................28
5.2.Der Bauer .....................................................28
5.2.1.Zum Begriff „Bauer“ .........................................28
5.2.2. Von Bauernkrieger zum Ackersmann ...........................31
5.3.Grundlage für bäuerliches Leben: die Grundherrschaft ..........36
5.4.Bäuerliches Alltagsleben ......................................51
5.4.1. Raum: Siedlung, Dorf, Haus und Kirche ......................51
5.4.2. andesausbau ................................................60
5.4.3. Bodennutzung und agrarwirtschaftlicher Fortschritt .........62
5.4.4. Bäuerliches Leben: Frondienste, Arbeiten und Essen .........70
6. Schlussbemerkung ...............................................83
7. Literatur ......................................................85
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