The plight of peasants in Eastern Europe included a lack of personal freedom portraying the peasants sympathetically as human beings unjustly condemned under serfdom to an unending life of toil. When left up to the lords they maximized labor services, expelled peasants when they desired their land, maintained the burden of taxation entirely on the peasant, and skimmed off as much of the peasant’s productivity as possible in the form of rents or manorial dues. Agrarian reform began with Maria Theresa. She tried to eliminate the weakness and backwardness of the Hapsburg monarchy. In place of offices governed by the nobility, central state offices with paid common clerks were established. A standard gold currency, a unified system of weights and measures an
d the printing of the first paper money were introduced. She introduced German as the official language and implemented a series of school reforms. The great obstacle to improving the conditions in the Hapsburg monarchy was the oppression of its subjects, especially the peasants. Maria Theresa issued a labor decree, which modified serfdom according to property and set the highest term of compulsory labor to 3 days a week. Numerous decrees to this effect were issued, though there was little the state could do to enforce them rigorously. Maria Theresa succeeded in doing what French king had not managed: to subject the nobility (except for Hungary’s) to payment of the regular land tax, thus easing the burden on the peasants. She authorized sweeping change
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