Note 227 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

In the next period colonization and reclaiming of waste land went on on a large scale. But at the same time the population increased and the value of the land increased with it. Lamprecht, speaking of the 13th century, writes: “Colonization and reclaiming of land had entirely changed the condition of the rural population between the 10th and the 13th century. In the time of the Carolingians wood and land had still been regarded as inexhaustible goods of the nation, like the sun, air and water; but now the limitations of the geographical basis of national life appeared more and more clearly. There had been an immense range of land to grow food upon; but now the supply of land became limited, chiefly and first on the Rhine, in Suabia and Franconia, afterwards in Saxony, and finally in Bavaria, the Tyrol, and Styria; people had to shift on a limited area. The soil became, more than before, an object of economic value; its price kept continually increasing. In the 12th century, in some prosperous districts, land seems to have attained twelve times the value it had in the 9th; and even afterwards, down to the second half of the 13th century, an increase of about 50 per cent. is to be observed. Taking into consideration that land was still regarded, especially by the ruling classes, as the only basis of social and political influence (though already other sources of large incomes were gradually arising), we may understand how intense the struggle for the possession of the soil must have been at this period”227.