Next Research Steps

1. Johann Henrich Krückeberg was not a full farmer. He is explicitly called “ein Brinksitzer”. A Brinksitzer was a smallholder/cottager, normally below the level of a full Meier or Colon. His holding was marginal.

2. He held the place through marriage. Answer 2 says:

That means he “married onto it,” i.e. he obtained the holding by marrying the woman connected with the place or household.

3. Earlier occupants or possessors were Friedrich Kuhlmann and Johann Tönnies Eggerding. The line:

means that before Johann Henrich Krückeberg, the place was associated with those two men. This may indicate prior household heads, tenants, or possessors of No. 10.

4. The holding was extremely small. He says he had:

That is, “nothing except a garden, in which there is also a little arable/sown land.” He had no real farmland in the normal sense.

5. He had no separate Rottland. Answer 6 says he had no Rottland except the garden. So any cleared or newly cultivated land attached to the holding was minimal and effectively part of the garden.

6. The holding belonged to the lordship. Answer 7:

This means it was owned by His Serene Highness / the ruling lordship. So Krückeberg was not an allodial owner; he held under the territorial lord.

7. His labor duties were limited but not absent. He did not perform weekly services, but he owed:

So he was not free of obligations, but his duties were scaled to his small status.

8. He paid some dues despite having little land. He owed several payments, including:

But he explicitly did not pay Landschatz because:

“because he has no land.”

That is one of the clearest statements of his economic status.

9. His livestock was modest but not negligible. He had:

So: one cow, one head of young cattle, and one pig. This fits a smallholder household with limited subsistence capacity.

10. He used the common herding system. Answer 25 says he drove the animals:

That means he sent them out with the village herdsman, rather than herding them independently.

11. He denied owing some obligations because he lacked land. Answer 34 says he believed that because he had no land, he was not liable for the obligation being asked about:

This reinforces that his legal and fiscal status was tied to being nearly landless.

12. He owed ordinary church dues. Answer 32 says he gave nothing to anyone except the usual payments to the:

that is, the pastor and sexton/clerk.

13. His fuel supply came from gathering wood or buying it. Answer 40:

He gathered wood in the forest or bought it. This suggests he did not have sufficient private woodland rights to rely on his own land.

Johann Henrich Krückeberg at No. 10 Berenbusch was a Brinksitzer, not a full landholding farmer. Johann Henrich Krückeberg appears to have entered or taken up residence on No. 10 Berenbusch through marriage, but the record does not yet prove the precise legal mechanism by which he acquired occupancy or possessory rights.

He possessed essentially only a garden with a little arable ground, kept a few animals, owed limited but real labor services and dues to the lordship, and was exempt from some land-based taxes because he had no real farmland. The record portrays No. 10 as a small dependent holding under the Schaumburg-Lippe lordship, economically modest and legally subordinate.

The record identifies Johann Henrich Krückeberg as the current resident of No. 10 Berenbusch and names Friedrich Kuhlmann and Johann Tönnies Eggerding as earlier persons associated with that same holding. The wording “habe darauf geheyrahtet” still indicates that Krückeberg came onto the holding through marriage. However, since his wife Anna Maria Vahlsing was a shepherd’s daughter, the evidence no longer supports the stronger assumption that he married directly into the Kuhlmann or Eggerding family as an heiress or widow. The exact mechanism by which the marriage gave him access to No. 10 remains unproven.

Given what we now know, the next step is not church records and not specifically a “purchase petition.” The next step is to trace No. 10 Berenbusch as a holding through administrative/fiscal records.