Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/182

 170 THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES allowed to live. Usage set a limitation to the demands for service and for produce which the lord might make upon his serfs ; what was additional had to be paid for with some form of wages, and on the other hand the villeins were allowed to substitute some form of payment for service. Thus forced labour came to be replaced by paid labour, and the labourer paid rent instead of giving service. Hence villeinage had practically disappeared in England near the beginning of the fifteenth century ; but on the continent serfdom lasted much longer, and was not brought to an end till the French Revolution. In Russia the serfs were not emancipated till the second half of the nineteenth century.