Robotpatent

Robotpatent, (German: “Forced-Labour Patent”), law governing compulsory labour, performed by peasants for their lord in the Austrian domains. Enactments from earlier times existed throughout the Austrian domains, such as a Hungarian one that was issued as a penalty in 1514 following an abortive peasant revolt. This decreed that the peasants should work 52 days a year of haulage (involving draught animals) for the landowner. Elsewhere, conditions were less harsh; and, in such regions as the...