Dollhopfs have been farming in the village of Mistelbach for 600 years. Hans Tollhopf was the first; he acquired 3½ acres in Mistelbach in the 1430s, a village then of only 19 farms. For the next 450 of those 600 years the Dollhopfs were serfs, peasants bound to the land and the rulers who owned it. As serfs they were granted fiefs – more or less permanent leases – to plots of land and the buildings on them. This blog traces the number of acres held in fief by each of 15 generations from 1430 to 1871. How big were their farms? How many acres did they need to produce enough food to survive? Did they struggle, or were they comfortable? What finally drove many of them to America? What happened to those who stayed in Germany?
