FOUNDING OF GERMAN STATES 163 self a certain rent of the same; he became their heredi- tary bailiff, but the peasants remained free, "because they were the first to clear the soil/' and they kept their German customs. When it was a question of founding a city, the contractor had it surrounded by a moat and by walls, and established there a market, upon which he reserved the right to levy taxes. This great labor was slowly and quietly carried on. The writers of the time were too much occupied with the wars of the emperors to dream of relating the story of the founding of thousands of villages and hundreds of towns in the provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania, Prussia, Liberia, and Bohemia. On the other side of the Elbe a new Germany was born, a Germany of laborers and soldiers, the Germany of Austria and of Prussia, which was some day to rule all the nations of old Germany*