Hi, I do not think there is such an entity as a "free peasant". Peasant is occupation, not the legal description of the person. Until not long ago farming required a large number of people to produce the necessary food. So, of course, peasants (people doing farm work) were quite numerous. they were not just moving around as factory worker may. You plant, you wait for food to grow. No paycheck. And you do not just arrive in village: "here I am" and start planting. Where are you going to sleep, where are your tools etc? Craftsmen and artisans would settle where they were needed. Their education was rigorously prescribed and rather expensive. They had to have exams and license. They were the ones who usually absorbed the athnicity of their new home. The German farmers who were brought to Slavonia, came because after the Turks left, the land was depopulated. They came in groups with animals etc. They knew how to run a farm, probably younger children who did not inherit their family's land. when I mentioned the city of Vukovar, this is the city. Those cities were not districts. They had walls to protect them and doors which were locked in the evening. When you travel in Europe you see remnants of those walls. In Rome the doors keep their old names, though they had to make them larger for modern traffic.