Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Cottager
(1,095 words)

1. Definition and variants

Since the late 15th century, cottagers constituted the last secondary wave of settlers (see Settlement) in early modern rural society. They owned their own homes, but apart from a small garden they possessed no productive land worth speaking of, especially not farmland (Hide; see Agrarian constitution). Their ownership of buildings distinguished them from the unlanded laborers (Laborer, unlanded) below them. The line separating t…

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Grüne, Niels, “Cottager”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_020726>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20170206



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