Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/878

* SEBF. r98 SERF. handed over to the more powerful to be received back bj* the former projjrietor as a precarium ; that is to say, the latter had the usufriiet, his protector the ownership. Among the early Germans also there probalily ex- isted some siiiii relation between men. In the middle of the nineteenth century it was generally held that the organization of society descriBed in the (Icnnaxia of Tacitus was that of the free village community, by which is meant that the villages were inhabited by freemen, who held land in common, and who annually distributed the land anew. Various writers, especially Fustel de t'oulanges and Seeliolim, have attacked this theory, and hold that the manorial system was prevalent in Germany (see Manor), by which is implied that the peasants held their land from a lord, and in return for the use of the property owed service of some kind or other to the owner. In the Frankish kingdom the German and Ro- man elements met. Again historians are unable to agree whether the chief elements in the feu- dalism which developed among the Franks were German or Roman or even Celtic. It suffices, however, to state that by the tenth century there ■were few free peasants or artisans left in what is now France. Probably the institutions of pa- trociniiim and pii'citrium had been joined to- gether, and after some further development we have serfdom as it existed in France with com- paratively slight changes until abolished by the Revolution of 1780. (See Feud.^lism.) In re- gard to his general condition the French serf may be taken as typical. The relationship which in France bound the serf to the lord had at first been merely a contract between the two persons in question. The general tendency, however, was toward the es- tablishment of the principle of inheritance, and by the end of the eleventh century son inherited from father in nearly all cases. Still the laws and customs which regulated the relationship between the serf and his lord varied greatly at different periods, and in the difierent provinces of France, as well as in the rest of Europe. Jlore- over, the dividing line between the serf and the slave on the one hand and the serf and the free- man on the other is not always very clear. In general, a serf was distinguished from the slave in that he had a definite piece of land for his own usCj and was protected to some extent even against his lord by iixed customs. He was dis- tinguished from tl^e free peasant proprietor in that he could not leave his lord without the latter's consent, and was subject to some exac- tions fiom which the freeman was exempt. The chi<'f burdens of the serf were : ( I ) The census, or rent, which, "though estimated in money, was usually paid in the form of a large percentage of the crop, what remained over being nominally the property of the serf." (2) The capitagium, or census capilis, which was an annual poll-tax. (3) The faille, or arbitrary tax, which per- mitted the owner to demand money of the serf ■whenever he chose. Besides these three taxes the serf had to work on the lord's domain several days in each week. This was the corvee. Also, since the lord's consent was necessary for the serf to marry, permission had usually to be purchased by a fee, known as the formariage. Finally, when the serf died, his heir had to pay a fixed sum known as the mortmain, since accord- ing to the legal theory the property really be- longed to the lord and not to the serf, and the latter's heir paid to retain the land. The question arises. How could the serf become free? In answering this question, it must be noted that at first the serf had little desire to become a freeman. His condition was not much improved thereby, for in the absence of any cen- tral authority to which the weak could success- fully appeal, the strong could exact from him what they pleased; while, on the other hand, the lord had suHicient interest in his serf to protect him from others. Later, however, at least from the time of Philip Augustus (1180-122;^), condi- tions improved and the weak no longer needed the protection of the nobles in all cases. The lord could bring back his runawaj- serf, though in some places the theory prevailed that the serf might surrender all his property, both real and movable, to his lord, renounce his bond, and depart. Also some town charters had a clause which declared that an unfree person who came to the town and remained there unclaimed for a year and a day was free. These two methods of emancipation did not meet the demands of improving times, and more regular ineans developed b_y which the serf might obtain manumission. The most common came, in time, to be the payment of a fixed sum to the lord, and when the noble was in pressing need of money, as during the Crusades, he sometimes compelled his serfs to buy their freedom. In recent years an active controversy has been waged concerning villeinage in England. The battle has been fought l>etween the great German and French scholars: between Liibell. Waitz, and Roth on the one hand, and Raynouard. CJu^rard, and Fustel de Coulanges on the other. In England the scholars were chiefly Germanists. Kemble. Karl ilaurer. Freeman, Stubbs, and CJneist held, to all intents and purposes, the same views as Waitz and his school. In general, they believed that the Roman and Celtic civilizations played no role in the development of England ; that the Anglo-Saxon brought with him liis in- stitutions from Germany, such as the free vil- lage community or mark. In time, however, "with the growth of population, of inequalities, of social competition, the relations of dependency are seen constantly gaining on the field of free- dom," the ceorl becomes a serf, manors arise, and by the time of the Norman Conquest the transformation has been completed. In 1883 Seebohm in his English Village Communitg de- clared that there never was a mark system in England, and that ''the Saxon invasion did not destroy what it found in the island. Roman villas and their laborers passed from one lord to the other — that is all. The ceorls of Saxon times are the direct descendants of Roman slaves and coloni, some of them personally free, but all in agrarian subjection. Indeed, social develop- ment is a movement from serfdom to freedom, and the village community of its earl,v stages is connected not with freedom, but with serfdom." Since the appearance of Seebohm's book numer- ous works have appeared on both sides, and the question is far from settled. The condition of the English serf did not differ essentially from the condition of the French serf. But the English bondsman received valuable privi- leges much earlier than the French villein. An early as the reign of Edward IV. the serf had the right to plead in the royal courts, a privilege