Folwark

Originally, the associated agricultural estates were usually located outside fortifications or castles and directly in front of them, and were therefore often referred to as Folwark or, in German-speaking regions, Vorwerk, meaning advanced work or outwork, a kind of outlying defensive outpost.

[1] The term folwark came into the Polish language in the 14th century from the German Vorwerk, originally the fortified advanced work of a castle and later an outlying manor house that managed a farm estate.

That led to the exploitation of serfdom since landowners discovered that instead of collecting money-based rent and taxes, it was more profitable to force the peasantry to work on folwarks.

They originated as land belonging to a feudal lord (early on a knight) and were not rented out to peasants but worked by the owner's own hired labor or servants.

From the 16th century, the amount of this mandatory free labor was radically increased, and szlachta-sponsored legislation imposed rigid conditions on the peasants, such as the prohibition on worker's right to leave a village and seek a new lord.

Folwarks were abolished by the People's Republic of Poland with the Polish Committee of National Liberation decree of 6 September 1944, concerned with agricultural reform.

After the end of the Second World War, folwarks were nationalised at the behest of the Polish Workers' Party, resulting in PGRs, state-owned collective rural enterprises (Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne, 1949 onwards) or partitioned, usually with little or no compensation to their owners.