@oralloy,
oralloy wrote:Do you notice how when the Germanic tribes started writing down their laws, they all had the same basic class of free peasant?
The German word "Bauer" is ordinarily translated into English as "peasant" , giving an image of an oppressed agricultural worker. However, the German "Bauer" was, by definition, a farmer who owned a heritable, saleable, lease - a farmer with property rights in his land.
The original form of the term "Bauer" was only used from the late 9th century onward, for the owners of a "manses" (=house) - the Germanic tribes didn't know peasants/farmers (
rusticus/
agricola).