Property and the German Idea of Freedom

Colin F. Wilder, Ph.D. (2010), University of Chicago, is Assistant Professor of German and Digital History at the University of South Carolina.

• ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsList of Figures1 Introduction1 The Consensus and Revisionist Views of German Freedom2 This Book’s Contribution3 Legal Operators4 Significance5 Context6 Commercialization7 Political Economy8 Sources2 The Core Stories and Ideas of German Freedom1 Ancient Germanic Freedom2 The Free German Empire3 German Freedom3 Idea-Generative Institutions1 State Expansion2 Courts3 Supply, Demand, Population, and Commercialization4 Universities and Law Faculties5 Jurists6 Books4 Free Disposition of Estates1 Chaos, Information Loss, and Self-Release2 Missing Money and Missing Records3 Tithe Conversion and Disposal4 Methods of Self-Release: The Claim of Allodial Property5 Models of Allod6 Circumventing Requirements through Legal Fictions7 Retraction Law8 Accepting the Results of Free Activity after the War9 The Princely Resolutions of 16555 Freedom from Extractions1 Noble Trespassing and Evasions2 Tax Registration, 1651–16543 The ‘Graying’ of the Clear Cadastral Picture4 New Departures in the 1680s5 The Presumption of Natural Freedom6 The Regalianism of Christian Thomasius7 Regalian Rights8 Regalia as Imprescriptible9 Too Machiavellian?6 Free Use of Paper Money1 Paper Money, Bills of Exchange, and Political Economic Ideas2 Evolution of the Law of Exchange in Europe3 The Political Economy of German States after 16484 Adoption of the Law of Exchange Throughout the Empire5 Summary Procedure and Strict Liability (“Rigor”)6 Regional Finance in the Seventeenth Century7 New Directions in the Eighteenth Century8 Variations on the Theme9 Reconciling Conflicting Law, 1732–17497 Conclusion1 Property Rights and Freedom in Early Modern Germany2 Free Disposition of Estates3 Freedom from Extractions4 Freedom and the Use of Money5 German Freedom6 The Extension of Positive and Negative Civil Liberties7 Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict8 The One and the ManyGlossaryBibliographyIndex