Thanks to the wealth of available sources, the Stavenow lordship in the Prignitz, a district of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, has been very well researched. The lordship comprised a noble manor hall, several large-scale demesne farms, and eight villages whose land was farmed by generations of peasants. In the rural areas of pre-modern Germany and Europe, many local communities were organized in ways similar to the Stavenow lordship. Noble landlords exercised considerable authority over entire villages, both in terms of the leasing and management of farmland and labor and in terms of jurisdiction, in which they represented the territorial princes locally.  The map also shows Stavenow’s proximity to the network of pre-modern trade and postal routes between Hamburg and Berlin. At that time, the town of Lenzen on the Elbe river was an important hub for stagecoaches from Berlin and Magdeburg to Hamburg. In 1724, a Prussian cavalry garrison was established in Perleberg, which increased the town’s importance. Another important route was the pilgrims’ road from Berlin to Wilsnack, whose church held fourteenth-century blood relics.