Inwohner

Inwohner is a German expression for lower-ranking inhabitants of a populated place. The exact significance varies regionally, but the word generally refers to lodgers without real property.

In the Middle Ages and the early modern period in places such as in southern Germany, in Saxony and in Austria the word meant inhabitants of a town or a village who generally did not possess real property and therefore did not enjoy full civic rights. Of similar meaning are the expressions Inste and Instleute who were also lodgers in rural communities. Likewise, similarities exist to the expression Einlieger for day labourers without real property who rented living room from farmers. An Inwohner must be distinguished from a member of the household who was either related to the home owner or was a direct employee (e.g. a maid or a servant) of the latter.

In Mecklenburg, inhabitants of towns were called [E]inwohner or Einlieger if they did not possess the status of a burgher nor any other specific privileges. According to the old country laws of Mecklenburg, burghers could only have one main occupation in trade, crafts, or services. Thus, special organisations similar to those of craftsmen also formed for those "farmer-burghers" who lived in the towns, but whose main occupation was agriculture. Their number, however, remained comparatively low in all Mecklenburg country towns.

In south-western Saxony, it became common around 1700 to speak of "propertied Inwohner". This could mean Hufners and other inhabitants of the villages who held real property, or home owners in towns. In this region as well as in the Vogtland, the sense of the word shifted towards today's Einwohner, meaning any inhabitant of a populated place.

In northern and north-eastern Germany, Instleute were day labourers contracted to work for certain landowners in exchange for living quarters, payment and wages in kind; they also had to provide a second labourer and acted thus as a kind of sub-contractors.

In Slovenia, so-called osabeniki were allocated living quarters in the wineyards where they worked.

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