See source: https://archive.org/details/dnombrementsde01grobuoft/page/280/mode/2up?q=Rogery&view=theater
In the declarations provided for the fire census of 1528, the vast majority of declarants, both commissioners and lords, used the words "fire" or "household" to designate the object counted, in German the words "Herd" or "Feuerstätte", while some used one of the terms "bourgeois", in German "Bürger"; "Schätzung", in French "imposition, tax"; "Vogtei", in French "vouerie". Several others finally used the word "fire" by specifying it by adding one of the terms "conduit" or "vouerie". It is therefore important to establish the meaning of these terms at this time.
The general customs of the country of Luxembourg say about the Vogtey: "The 25 inheritances of servile condition called "Leibeigene Schafftgutter" and "Schafftgutter" cannot be sold, alienated, pledged, charged or shared without the will of the lord, and the holders of these have no other disposition, except that they can, with the permission and consent of the said lord, marry into their home one of their children, either son or daughter, who is more agreeable to the said lord, and can make him their successor to the said goods commonly called Vogtey, on condition that, etc." (1).
The Vogtey" or "Vouerie" is therefore a rural property of servile condition exploited by a hereditary tenant.
Through manumission, the "Vogtey" becomes a "hoffstat" or "hobested," a free rural property occupied by a bourgeois
5 The "Vogtey" is none other than the old "servile manse" of the charters of the early Middle Ages; but if we consider that just as at the beginning of the Middle Ages there were "demi-manses" and "quartales," the census of 1603 speaks of "demy laboreur," we must infer that when the "Vogtey" was shared between several owners, the whole of this "Vogtey" paid "only one fire" and 10 that the head of the mother house, of the "Stockhaus," appeared alone in the census, just as, according to Luxembourg law, he was primarily responsible for any other charge encumbering the said "Vogtey."
The meaning of the term "conduit" is similar. It is the German "Pflug," the modern "plow," that is, the area of land that can be cultivated with a plow. According to documents, charters, and censuses, a distinction was made between "full conduits, ganzer Pflug" and "half conduits, halber Pflug"; and four horses were required to work a full conduit.
(1) It may not be useless for the better understanding of these texts to say a word about the divisions of the former Duchy of Luxembourg. From time immemorial, two divisions coexisted in the former country of Luxembourg: one, the division into villages, the other, the division into lordships. The division into villages was essentially territorial. The village, and, in this sense, the word community, Gemeinde, is often used as a synonym, is the set of dwellings included within the limits of the village ban. The village as such had its special organization, it had its leader, the centurion, centenarius, Zentner or Zenner. It formed a moral being with its rights and duties, able to contract loans and obligations. Its members bear the name of Gemeiner, "common inhabitants." Their community owned the communal goods and shared the usufruct. The centurion was, as a general rule, elected for one year by the common inhabitants. Independently of this division into villages, there was the division into lordships, which can be considered a personal division, opposed to the territorial division by villages. The lordship was composed of the various peasants dependent on the same lord, the owners of the "Voueries" or "Vogteyen" belonging to the same lord. We call this division personal because ordinarily a part of the inhabitants of the same village depended on a lord, another part on a second, or even a third and fourth lord. Thus, to cite a striking example, in 1541, in the small village of Beidweiler-sous-Rodenbourg:
Three families depended on the lordship of Meysenbourg.