with the ownership of
real estate, came only slightly into consideration; how far this was
the case is shown very plainly by property law, which always gives a
very clear criterion for the economic relations of the period in which
it arises. Medieval property law, for instance, with the object of
holding the property of families from generation to generation and
protecting it from dissipation, declared family property or "estate"
inalienable without the consent of the heirs; but by this family
property or "estate" was expressly understood only real estate.
Personal or portable property, on the other hand, could be disposed of
without the consent of the heirs; and in general all personal property
was treated by the old German law not as an independent
self-perpetuating basis of property (capital), but always as the fruit
of the soil--in the same way, for instance, as the annual crop from
the soil--and was subject to the same legal conditions as the latter.
Nothing but real estate was then regularly treated as an independent
self-perpetuating basis of property. It is therefore entirely in
keeping with this condition of things, and a simple consequence of it,
that landed property and those who had it in their hands almost
exclusively--the nobility and clergy--formed the ruling factor, from
every point of view, in the society of that period.

Whatever institution of the Middle Ages you may consider, you meet
this phenomenon at every point. It will suffice us to glance at a few
of the most essential of these institutions in which landholding
appears as a ruling principle.

First: The organization of the public power given by it, or the Feudal
System. The essential point of this was that kings, princes and lords
ceded to other lords and knights land for their use, in return for
which the recipient had to promise military vassalage--that is, he had
to support the feudal lord in his wards or feuds, both in person and
with retainers.

Second: The organization of public law, or the constitution of
the empire. In the German parliaments the princes and the large
landholdings of the counts, the empire, and of the clergy were
represented. The cities had the right to a seat or a vote only if they
had succeeded in acquiring the privileges of an imperial free city.

Third: The exemption from taxation of the large landholdings. It is a
characteristic and constantly recurring phenomenon that every ruling
privileged class tries const