While German historiography of the agrarian reforms of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries mainly concentrated on the progress achieved by agrarian individualism, it greatly neglected the decisive role played by rural communities in this process. In order to understand it, it is necessary to analyze, beginning with the use of the social goods within the traditional economic system. These lands did not serve as pasture alone. Several of them were individually used by members of the community for intensive crop growing and horticulture. Furthermore, the earliest divisions of the social goods were initiated by rural communities themselves. It was not until the end of the 18th century that the State became the main initiator in the partitioning of social goods. Through this change, the purposes of reform changed too since they were aimed at abolishing the traditional open field system. The reaction of the rural communities differed considerably, according to the specific economic situation and the prevailing relations of power. In order to understand the varying paces and consequences of the division of commons in different regions, we need to consider the specific interests of different groups within the rural communities. Finally, the reforms did not mark an end to the history of the communities and the commons.