[1] In ancient times, when tools were crude and a single family could not support itself, the land was owned and worked by egalitarian communities.
In the 12th century tools improved and more efficient techniques were adopted; increased harvest meant that individual families could sustain themselves.
[3] The early laukininkai community, or laukas, was obligated to provide the dukes and their officials with food and other accommodations when they stayed in the vicinity, and to help in building and maintaining castles and defense fortifications.
[4] In the beginning of the 15th century rising grain prices in Europe prompted bajorai, a class of warriors and future nobility, to shift from warfare into landownership.
[5] Thus some laukininkai became veldamai – a class of peasants, which retained ownership of land, but owed taxes and levies imposed by the nobles.