a neighborhood community in the Middle Ages in the countries of Western Europe.
The mark community, which was historically preceded by earlier types of communities, began forming in the states founded in the fifth and sixth centuries by Germanic tribes on the territory of the Western Roman Empire. Originally the mark was a free community. It was an association of the farmsteads of free peasants, where the arable land was the property of the individual peasant households that were members of the mark community (allodium) and where pastures, forests, and other undivided lands (Almende) remained the common property of the members of the community. Uniting the peasants of one or several villages according to the neighborhood (territorial) principle, the mark fulfilled primarily economic functions, such as compulsory crop rotation and control over the way undivided lands were used. The free mark was also an organ of public authority in the broad sense of the term; the members of a mark participated in the establishment of the norms of customary law, in administration, and in the judicial system within the boundaries of the mark.
In the process of feudalization the mark gradually became dependent on big feudal landholders, and the arable lands, originally the property of peasant households, became tenancies of feudally dependent peasants. The feudally dependent mark retained, although in a curtailed form, its economic and judicial function and watched over the fulfillment of rent obligations by the peasants. The mark, as F. Engels pointed out, gave “to the oppressed class, the peasants, even under the hardest conditions of medieval serfdom, local cohesion and the means of resistance” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 21, p. 155). Communal customs called in question by the feudal lords were settled in the 13th to 17th centuries at communal assemblies and peasant gatherings at which mark statutes (transcripts of the mark customary law) were compiled. The mark system had a considerable influence on the urban constitution of the emerging medieval cities. The mark died out as a result of the plunder of almost all the land by the feudal lords. It ceased existing economically with the development of capitalism in agriculture.
A communal organization similar to the Germanic mark was characteristic for the majority of peoples engaged in farming.
E. V. MAIEN
(1) The German currency, equal to 100 pfennigs. Named after the old measure of weight, the medieval High German Mark, which equaled one-half pound of silver. Introduced in 1871, after Germany was united into the German Empire, as the single German currency to replace the various currencies that had existed in every German state.
The gold content of the mark, 0.358423 g, remained unchanged until 1914. Gold coins were minted in denominations of 10 and 20 marks, and silver coins in 5, 3, 2, and 1 marks. The enormous inflation engendered by World War I resulted in a disastrous devaluation of the mark. In 1923 the Rentenmark was introduced. In monetary exchange, 1 Rentenmark equaled 1 trillion old marks. In 1924 the reichsmark was declared to be the German currency; it and the Rentenmark were in circulation until 1948.
(2) The currency of Finland, equaling 100 pennia. It is also called the markka. Introduced by the law of 1860. In January 1963 the value of the mark was increased by a factor of 100. According to the rate of the Gosbank (State Bank) of the USSR on Jan. 1, 1974, 100 Finnish marks were equal to 20 rubles 16 kopeks.