THE RISE OF THE COMMON PEOPLE 137simply to declare that all people were equal before the law. In theory, this put
the serf on the same legal footing as his lord. In practice, by upholding the lord's
title to possession of the land and by emphasizing the contractual basis of the
new relationship between lord and tenant, it exposed the peasantry to new
forms of exploitation. Henceforth, if the peasant refused to accept the terms of
employment or tenancy proposed by the landlord, he and his family faced evic-
tion, homelessness, and destitution. As at subsequent stages of Emancipation,
pretexts could be found to clear manorial land of peasants altogether. These
rugi or 'clearances' were much feared, and discouraged the majority of peasants
from insisting on their new-found liberties. Hence, most of the egalitarian ideals
remained a dead letter. Personal legal freedom did not engender economic free-
dom. Another method, oczynszowanie or 'rentification', sought to transmute
ancient labour services into money rents, thus bringing the feudal estates into
line with land worked by the free peasantry. It was first practised in the late eigh-
teenth century on the municipal estates of the city of Poznari, and on the great
magnatial latifundia of the Zamoyskis, Myszkowskis, and Potockis: later in
Prussia, in the Congress Kingdom, and in the Republic of Cracow.
Unfortunately (from the peasant's point of view), it was usually attended by so-
called regulacje or 'adjustments', whereby part of the peasants' holdings were
ceded to the lord without compensation, together with their rights to free use of
the forests, meadows, or mills of the village. In this way, the peasant was cast
headlong into the cash economy with all its opportunities and dangers. At the
same time, he did not gain full possession of the land. He could well find that the
task of earning his rent and of supporting his family from a diminished holding
was more burdensome than the tribulations of serfdom. Thus, by the early nine-
teenth century, it was widely recognized that the abolition of the feudal system
could only succeed if the peasants were able to gain full possession of the land
that they worked. Half-measures compounded existing problems. The eco-
nomic efficiency, and the moral validity, of serfdom was called increasingly into
question. One by one, inch by inch, the governments conceded the principle of
uwlaszczenie or 'impropriation' whereby the serfs were granted the right to
landed property.
Much, however, depended on the continuing political debate and on the con-
ditions which landowners were able to insert into the various statutes of
Emancipation in each of the three Partitions. In Prussia, the first step was taken
in 1811 when a royal edict permitted the impropriation of state peasants in
return for the cession of between one-third and one-half of their holdings. The
reform of 1816 extended the process to the larger private estates. But only a
small sector of richer peasants could hope to buy their land outright, and most
had to think in terms of rentification. Land Purchase was confined to those peas-
ants who already owned their own farm equipment, and it required the payment
of a cash sum equivalent to 25 years' rent. It proceeded slowly over four decades.
In the Grand Duchy of Posen, the local reform of 1823 furnished a solitary
instance where territorial adjustments in favour of the landlord were accompa-