Herzfelde

Herzfelde near Rüdersdorf belonged to the village landscape east of Berlin. Its medieval church and early documentary references preceded the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia. The place should be distinguished from the identically named village near Templin, whose estate history belongs to another part of Brandenburg.

The village formed part of the possessions of Zinna monastery. Ownership did not initially mean that every obligation belonged to the same lord: rights to the bede tax and wagon services had been granted elsewhere. The monastery acquired these rights in the middle of the fifteenth century and held Herzfelde completely by 1553. That year the monastery was dissolved, and its Barnim possessions became the electoral domain office of Rüdersdorf. The change transferred an existing complex of villages and revenues into princely administration. Herzfelde was still listed as a village within this office in descriptions of the early nineteenth century. Its history therefore gives a local example of monastic lordship, consolidation of dues and the growth of a territorial ruler's landed administration.