Word: landed
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Dates: during 1900-1909
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...Avenel said that land-wealth had greatly increased of late years, whereas formerly, when land was cheap, great tracts had been held by single individuals. Land rents in the Middle Ages were more indirect than direct, and were levied more on the people than on things produced on the land. A great element of recent fortunes is town and city property, whether built on or not, and this was almost unknown to the people of the Middle Ages. Land which has been built on in France, has increased in value from three to twelve million dollars in the last...
...present, nothing was paid for in money, but in labor. People engaged themselves in exchange for commodities; but such contracts soon became very odious, and every attempt was made to annul them. In consequence of the rising of values, debtors found it to their advantage to take back any land, renouncing the services which were the price paid therefor...
...revolution of modern times is the change in opinion, first about things which can be possessed and second, about the extent of possession. Individual ownership in the Middle Ages was less complete than nowadays. Ownership was taken for use and special formalities were performed to make possessions secure. All land was the common property of anyone who could use it, sometimes gratis, sometimes for a trivial payment...
...legal right to them except during the periods when crops were being raised and harvested. The rest of the time, the field was common property, and anyone might pasture cattle upon it. An owner could not sow his soil oftener than once in three years. No pasture land could be ploughed because by so doing it was ruined as pasture land. Cattle lived but did not prosper under this system...
Agricultural labor was paid very little in the early Middle Ages, but as its necessity increased, and as the tools were poor, it became dearer. In the time of Louis XVI, however, the land was at its highest period of cultivation, while the condition of the laborer had fallen to a very low state. The history of property shows the economical forces which make human combinations necessary; through its development labor organizations have been materially affected...