The Historians' History of the World 08

But the villeins were a numerous lot. The chief, the noble, had not only vassals but subjects residing on that portion of his estate that he never enfeoffed. And these were the serfs, properly called, men of the soil who were entirely at their lord’s disposal. “The lord,” says Beaumanoir,f “can take from them all that they have, put them in prison, rightly or wrongly, and as often as he pleases, and has no account to give of them except to God.”

In spite of this the condition of the serf was better than that of the slave of ancient times. The progress which slavery had made at the fall of the Roman Empire was not entirely lost in the wreckage of invasion, but appeared again in feudal society. The freeman of antiquity had been harder towards his slave than was the barbarian in whom the leaven of Christianity had produced some effect. The serf was recognised as a man having a family, sharing the common ancestry of his lord, and made in the image of God. Serfs finally entered the church, and sometimes mounted higher than the most powerful lords.

Above the serfs were the inalienables (mainmortables), “more kindly treated,” continues the old jurist of Beauvais,f “since the lord, if they did no wrong, could ask nothing of them except their dues and rents and the debts which they were accustomed to pay for their servitude.” But the inalienable could not marry without the consent of his lord, and if he took a free wife, or one outside the seigneury, there was a fine at the pleasure of the lord. This was the right of “formarriage” (a tax for marriage out of rank or condition), and the issue of such a marriage was divided between the lords of the husband and of the wife. If there was but one child, it went to the lord of the mother. At an inalienable’s death all his property went to his lord. For these people there was no way of escape from the hand that bent them to the furrow. Wherever they went the right of succession was attached to their persons and their purse. The lord inherited on every hand from his serfs.

In a higher degree still were to be found the free tenants known as villeins, peasants, or commoners. Their condition was less precarious. They had preserved the freedom the serf did not possess, and had hung on to it at the sacrifice of an annual tax, a statute duty, and the rent of the land which the landlord had ceded them and which they could transmit with all their other property to their children. But while the beneficiary holdings or fiefs were under the protection of a public and well-defined law, the land of the villeins was under the absolute jurisdiction of the landlord and protected only by private agreements. This is why the villeins, and especially those in the country, where it was not necessary to oversee them as strictly as those in the large towns, were often under the heel of absolute dominion.

One reads in ancient documents about the lords: “They are masters of heaven and earth; they have jurisdiction above and beneath the ground, over necks and heads, over the water, winds, and fields.” The villeins could not escape their jurisdiction, for the feudal law said, “Between thee, lord, and thee, villein, there is no judge but God.” “We recognise from our gracious lords,” runs another formula, “both ban and convocation; the high forest, the bird in the air, the fish in the stream, the beast in the bush, as far as our sovereign lord, or the servants of his grace, can hold his own. For this our gracious lord will take under his shelter and protection the widow and orphan as well as the peasant.” Thus were all rights given over to the lord, but in exchange he protected the weak. Such is the principle of feudal society towards its subjects. Royalty no longer filled the office for which it was instituted; bishops, counts, barons, and other powers were called upon for the protection which could no longer be expected from the nominal head of the state.