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 servitude 142 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii served for the use, or pleasure, of the lord, might ravage, with impunity, the fields of his industrious vassals. The chase was the sacred privilege of the nobles and their domestic servants. Plebeian transgressors were legally chastised with stripes and imprisonment ; 10 ° but, in an age which admitted a slight com- position for the life of a citizen, it was a capital crime to destroy a stag or a wild bull within the precincts of the royal forests. 101 personal According to the maxims of ancient war, the conqueror be- came the lawful master of the enemy whom he had subdued and spared ; 102 and the fruitful cause of personal slavery, which had been almost suppressed by the peaceful sovereignty of Eome, was again revived and multiplied by the perpetual hos- tilities of the independent Barbarians. The Goth, the Burgun- dian, or the Frank, who returned from a successful expedition, dragged after him a long train of sheep, of oxen, and of human captives, whom he treated with the same brutal contempt. The youths of an elegant form and ingenuous aspect were set apart for the domestic service : a doubtful situation, which alternately exposed them to the favourable or cruel impulse of passion. The useful mechanics and servants (smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, cooks, gardeners, dyers, and workmen in gold and silver, &c.) employed their skill for the use or profit of their master. But the Roman captives who were destitute of art, but capable of labour, were condemned, without regard to their former rank, to tend the cattle and cultivate the lands of the Barbarians. The number of the hereditary bondsmen who were attached to the Gallic estates was continually in- creased by new supplies ; and the servile people, according to 100 Jonas, bishop of Orleans (a.d. 821-826. Cave, Hist. Litteraria, p. 443), censures the legal tyranny of the nobles. Pro feris, quas cura hominum non aluit, sed Deus in commune mortalibus ad utendum concessit, pauperes a potentioribus spoliantur, flagellantur, ergastulis detruduntur, et multa alia patiuntur. Hoc enim qui faciunt, lege mundi se faoere juste posse contendant. De Institutione Laicorum, 1. ii. c. 23, apud Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, torn. iii. p. 1348. 101 On a mere suspicion, Chundo, a chamberlain of Gontran, king of Burgundy, was stoned to death (Greg. Turon. 1. x. o. 10, in torn. ii. p. 369). John of Salis- bury (Poliorat. 1. i. c. 4) asserts the rights of nature, and exposes the cruel practice of the twelfth century. See Heineccius, Elem. Jur. Germ. 1. ii. p. 1, No. 51-57. 102 The oustom of enslaving prisoners of war was totally extinguished in the thirteenth century, by the prevailing influence of Christianity ; but it might be proved, from frequent passages of Gregory of Tours, &c. that it was practised without censure under the Merovingian race ; and even Grotius himself (de Jure Belli et Pacis, 1. iii. o. 7), as well as his commentator Barbeyrac, have laboured to reconcile it with the laws of nature and reason.