James, This very interesting, However I have a question, does this mean "Everyone had title to there land and could be called Military Service?" Or everyone that had title to there land were required to preform military Service? I would think this would conflict somewhat with what I know of the Eltz estate and defeat the feudal system, if everyone owned their own land, unless they were still required to pay there tiths to the lord. Could the Tithe be the military service for some of the people? I do know that the Soldiers were given land to encourage them to move to the area and protect the border after the Turks were chased out. But also the Lord recruited farmers to develop his land along with tradesman. What does "Half the men" mean? Half of the males in the family? In all the families or just the Military families? I would think that the Ban or lord would be responsible to Vienna and the "Border Guard" to the Lord of the area? But I have not studied this yet.....Gee... Is that information on line or in a book? If so which one, I need to read it. Thank You Kurt James Castellan <james.castellan@alumni.brown.edu> wrote: Re: Feudal system and land ownership in Croatia. The Austrian "military border" of Croatia established in 1522 (and technically lasted until 1881) was a special exception in two ways: 1) direct control from Viena 2) the peasants had title to their land. Title to the land was the motivation that kept them anchored there on land that wasn't generally the best for farming with the obligation that half the males had to serve in the "border guard" that could be called out at any time to oppose the invading Turks. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CROATIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message --------------------------------- The fish are biting. Get more visitors on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.