294 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



portions of produce or labour) ; yet they remain alike as being 

 undetached from their original places of residence. That 



serfdom in Europe originated in an analogous way, there is 

 good reason to believe. In Greece we have the case of Crete, 

 where, under the conquering Dorians, there existed a vassal 

 population, formed, it would seem, partly of the aborigines 

 and partly of preceding conquerors ; of which the first were 

 serfs attached to lands of the State and of individuals, and the 

 others had become tributary landowners. In Sparta the like 

 relations were established by like causes. There were the 

 helots, who lived on, and cultivated, the lands of their 

 Spartan masters, and the periceci, who had probably been, 

 before the Dorian invasion, the superior class. So was it also 

 in the Greek colonies afterwards founded, such as Syracuse, 

 where the aborigines became serfs. Similarly in later times 

 and nearer regions. When Gaul was overrun by the Romans, 

 and again when Romanized Gaul was overrun by the Franks, 

 there was little displacement of the actual cultivators of the 

 soil, but these simply fell into lower positions : certainly 

 lower political positions, and M. Guizot thinks lower indus 

 trial positions. Our own country yields illustrations. 

 &quot; Among the Scottish Highlanders some entire septs or clans aro 

 stated to have been enslaved to others ; and on the very threshold of 

 Irish history we meet with a distinction between free and rent-paying 

 tribes, which may possibly imply the same kind of superiority and sub 

 ordination.&quot; 



In ancient British times, writes Pearson, &quot; it is probable that, 

 in parts at least, there were servile villages, occupied by a 

 kindred but conquered race, the first occupants of the soil.&quot; 

 More trustworthy is the evidence which comes to us from 

 old English days and Norman days. Professor Stubbs says 

 &quot; The ceorl had his right in the common land of his township ; his Latin 

 name, villaiius, had been a symbol of freedom, but his privileges were 

 bound to the land, and when the Norman lord took the land he took 

 the villein with it. Still the villein retained his customary rights, his 

 house and land and rights of wood and hay ; his lord s demesne depended 

 for cultivation on his services, and he had in his lord s sense of self- 

 interest the sort of protection that was shared by the horse and the ox.&quot; 



