Читать книгу The Child's Pictorial History of England. From the Earliest Period to the Present Time онлайн

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18. But I must tell you something more about these country folks, who, at the time, formed the great mass of the English population. They were, strictly speaking, in bondage, for they could not leave the place where they were born, nor the master they belonged to, unless he gave them their freedom; they were obliged to serve as soldiers in war time, and when the land was transferred to a new lord, the people were transferred with it.

19. All they had might at any time be taken from them, and their sons and daughters could not marry, without consent of their lord.

20. Yet these people considered themselves free, because they could not be sold like the slaves; for I ought to tell you there was a lower class of bondmen, called thralls, and there were regular slave markets where they were bought and sold.

21. A landowner could sell a thrall just as he could sell an ox; but he could not sell a vassal tenant, or, as they were called in the Saxon times, a ceorl, or churl, without the estate to which he belonged. The thralls were employed to do the hardest and meanest work, and had nothing of their own.