Note 236 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

In the 13th century much new land was still taken into cultivation, in Western as well as Eastern Germany; but in the following centuries very little land was added to the arable area. The woods, which had formerly been regarded as inexhaustible, were no longer present in great abundance, and the rulers of the German states as well as the landlords exerted themselves to preserve the remainder and forbade the peasants to clear them. From the middle of the 14th century these prohibitive measures became general236.