Village Communities - Germany

Germany

The Saxon or Ditmarschen portion of this region gives us an opportunity of observing the effects of an extended and highly systematized tribal organization on Germanic soil. The independence of this northern peasant republic, which reminds one of the Swiss cantons, lasted until the time of the Reformation. We find the Ditmarschen organized in the 15th, as they had been in the 10th century, in a number of large kindred~, partly composed of relatives by blood and partly of cousins who had joined them. The membership of these kindreds is based on agnatic ties that is, on relationship through males or on affiliation as a substitute for such agnatic kinship. The families or households are grouped into brotherhoods, and these again into clans or Schlachten (Geschlechter), corresponding to Roman gentes. Some of them could put as many as 500 warriors in the field. They took their names from ancestors and chieftains: the Wollersmannen, Hennemannen, Jerremannen, etc.; that is, the men of Woll, the men of Refine, the men of Jerre., In spite of these personal names the organization of the clans was by no means a monarchical one: it was based on the participation of the full-grown fighting men in the government of each clan and on a council of co-opted elders at the head of the entire federation. We need not repeat here what has already been stated about the mutual support which such clans afforded to their members in war and in peace, in judicial and in economic matters.