Munich, Albert Langen, 1993. 208 pages. (Study book series of the Foundation of the East German Culture Council, vol. 3, Langen Müller)
Extracted & translated by Posen-L subscriber Sue Wolf, 2000 (Other contributions by Sue Wolf)
[Information in brackets added by Sue Wolf] Not all of the text was
translated, some of the non-translated material is replaced with just the
heading and/or a description.
The first attempt of the Polish landlords to promote a colonization of German farmers in the border region on the Obra and Netze [rivers], through land donations of the German monasteries, remained without success because of the scarcity of suitable settlers until the middle of the 13th century. After that, at first a surge of German immigrants arrived, above all from Silesia, which was already settled by Germans, but also from Great and Little Poland, and made available the necessary potential settlers. The German settlers, above all the Silesians, discovered the woodland cleared for cultivation and, first and foremost, settled the forest districts, which had been undeveloped until that time. The village founders, by order of the landlords, particularly the monasteries, dealt with locators, according to contracts concluded with them. The settler-contractors staked them to some capital and their experience, and were responsible for the recruitment of settlers and the successful accomplishment of the settler process. In return they received a portion of the village common land rent-free in hereditary tenure, the hereditary office of mayor, and generally also a series of broader privileges, such as the rights to sell liquor or to strike coinage. The colonists followed the "German law" (ius teutonicum), under which they were not, as one would suppose, in accord with prevailing law in the old German settlement territory, but a special settler law, in contrast to the local "Polish" law. For the settler this "German law" meant exemption from Polish land laws and, with it, the accompanying taxes and obligations, rural self-government under the leadership of a mayor, local common jurisdiction and financial law, and also, among others, civil, hereditary and criminal laws, according to their custom, or after the model of the Magdeburg laws, or laws derived from them, such as the Neumark laws. On account of the apparent distinctions here between the settler groups the "ius teutonicum" grew. To some extent, it only formed the framework, then it specified, that is, conferred on the settlers, the applicable form, for example, within Posen or Breslau.
The settlement land was distributed to the settlers in uniform areas, called Hufen [hides], for which, from time to time, a fixed tax was handed over. In the first "free year" no tax had to be paid. The hides were so limited that they had to be cultivated well by a farm family, more extensively on poor land, less on good land. In the Polish district the larger French hide, with about 24 hectares, prevailed over the Flemish hide, with around 16.8 hectares. The most frequent village shapes used with the colonization were called the Strassen- [roads], Anger- [village green], Marschhufen- [alluvial land hides], and Waldhufendorf [forest hides village].
With the Strassendorf the houses stand on both sides of a road; with an Angerdorf the road forks within the village and encloses a central plaza, in which a village fishpond, trees or a church with cemetery frequently is found. Here the farms lie on both sides of the two branches of the road.
With both village shapes the neighboring arable land is arranged in equal-sized communal fields, and these, in turn, are subdivided into equal large stripes. Each farm owns such a stripe or parcel in each communal field, so that no one is at a disadvantage regarding the possession of land. All parcels of a farm amount to the already named hides.
The Marschhufendorf is typical for swampy lowland, while the Waldhufendorf is found only in forest districts. With these village shapes the farms stand on one or on both sides of a road, and from each farm the hides go off at right angles to the road in a single, long piece of field.
A new wave of German farm settlement began around the middle of the 16th century. Here also the initiative originated with the Polish landlords, whose unused and unproductive estates were said to have been opened up by emigration. At the same time they were obviously unconcerned that it was predominately German Protestants who answered their appeal.
The law for the establishment of their own schools and the appointment of an Evangelical teacher was continued by the settlers, this at the time when the pastor, as "speaker" or choirmaster" at the divine service gatherings, private baptisms or burials, had to advocate the suppression of the dissenters by the dominant Catholic church. Since the establishment of Protestant houses of God was forbidden in many places, the schools served on Sundays and feast-days as prayer houses.
The settlements occurred in two different forms, the "Schulzendörfern" and the "Holländereien".
a) The "Schulzendörfer"
The modern "Schulzendörfer" was linked up with the Middle Ages village settlement. Again there were settlement contractors (locators), who carried out an immigration on behalf of the Polish landlords and, in return, got to carry forward the hereditary office of village mayor. The colonization occurred according to the Magdeburg law, although, compared with the Middle Ages, the settlement laws were, of course, more modest, and the villages smaller.
The village mayor received, in most cases, only two hides as personal property and, in addition, was committed to various services, such as the furnishing of vehicles for the landlords. The settler received the land in hereditary tenancy, was obliged to make tax payments and, in addition, duties in kind and military service. Nevertheless, his situation was more advantageous than in Brandenburg and Pomerania, and, therefore, many farmers followed the advertising appeal and made the broad forest district on the sand-flats on both sides of the Netze arable.
Not all Schulzendörfer sprang "from wild roots"; in some cases even fallow, that is, forsaken, settlements were reestablished. For the Schulzendörfer which was distributed particularly in the northwest of the Posen province the Angerdorf was characteristic. A minority of the Evangelical settlers in time became Counter-Reformation Catholics.
b) The Holländereien
The "Holländer settlements" are actually traced back to Netherlands Protestants, above all, to the Mennonites (an Anabaptist community named after their founder, Menno Siemons), who had to leave their homeland for religious reasons and had been summoned by Duke Albrecht of Prussia and the city of Danzig for the damming up and draining of the Weichsel [river] lowlands. On account of their extremely successful work they also were immediately enlisted to settle by other landlords who wanted to open up swampy estates. As settlement specialists they were entitled to religious freedom, even by the Catholic clerical landlords, and were allowed to keep their Protestant creed. In this way, the Holländer settlements kept on pushing towards Poland along the river lowlands. The Posen province was already taken hold of by the end of the 16th century. In 1594 the first Holländerei originated at Bromberg/Bydgoszcz, and many additional ones followed along the river valleys of the Netze and Warthe.
Characteristic of the "Holländereien" was the cooperative self-administration by the community of free settlers, called "neighbors". The mayor was chosen yearly; however not he, but the community, concluded the contracts with the landlords. The land was taken possession of in long-term time-leases (25-60 years, then generally extended). No one had to perform military services, and the rent was to be paid in cash. The tax obligation existed after the expiration of the free year.
The "Holländereien" were laid out like Marschhufendörfer, but, in addition, the Einzelhöfe [individual farms] also occurred.
Since the end of the 16th century, as the migration from Holland diminished, the notion of "Holländerei" (variant also "Hauländerei") passed on to all settlements their form of law and economic system, and the name "Holländer" was thereby transferred also to those settled there from Pomerania, Brandenburg, Silesia and, in some cases, even Poland.