10 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [in. 



in kind to their lords. He says (after speaking of 

 those who become slaves by staking their liberty in 

 gambling), " Caeteris servis, non in nostrum morem, 

 descriptis per familias, utuntur : suam quisque sedem, 

 suos penates regit. Frumenti modum dominius, aut 

 pecoris, aut vestis, ut colono injungit: et servi 

 hactenus parent. . . . Verberare servum ac vinculis 

 et opere coercere rarum." TACITUS, Germ. cap. 25. 



Why should we suppose that a people so tenacious 

 of ancient habits as the Germans, introduced into 

 England a system of cultivation unknown in Ger- 

 many ? We find serfdom existing in England, soon 

 after the Norman Conquest, under the name of 

 villenage ; we find serfs in Saxon times under the 

 designation of geneats or geburs ; we find serfdom 

 forming part of the German agricultural system in 

 the days of Tacitus. Is there not, at least, a strong 

 probability that the first-mentioned custom was 

 derived from the last ? Would the German warriors 

 become more inclined to follow the plough, when 

 they had the larger part of England at their disposal, 

 than they were in their native country ? 



What then was there to prevent the Anglo-Saxon 

 invaders, few in numbers as they were, from appro- 

 priating large tracts of country and cultivating them, 

 however imperfectly, by serfs brought from Germany, 

 or drawn from the inhabitants of the conquered 

 lands ? Bondage in one form or other was, we know, 

 rife among the Anglo-Saxons. 



