aut cuilibet conditioni obnoxium notatumque ad sacros ordines permittat accedere."

*

That he should never presume to hold unlawful ordinations; that he should not allow to holy orders * * any person bound to the service of the court, or liable to bond for his condition (slavery) or marked thereto.

In the year 506, a council was held at Agdle, the sixty-second canon of which is

"Si quis servum proprium sine conscientiâ judicis occiderit, excommunicatione vel pœnitentia biennii reatum sanguinis emen

dabit."

If any one shall put his own servant to death, without the knowledge of the judge, let him make compensation for the guilt of blood by excommunication or two years' penance.

Another council was held eleven years later. Many of the canons of this synod are transcripts of those of Agdle. The thirty-fourth is:

"Si quis servum proprium sine conscientiâ judicis occiderit, excommunicatione biennii effusionem sanguinis expiabit."

If any one shall slay his own servant without the knowledge of the judge, let him expiate the shedding of blood by an excommunication of two years.

This was nearly two hundred years after the law of Constantine forbidding this exercise of power by the master.

year 538.

The third council of Orleans was held in the The thirteenth canon regulates, that if Christian slaves shall be possessed by Jews, and these latter require them to do any thing forbidden by the Christian religion, or if the Jews shall seize upon any of their servants to whip or punish them for those things that have been declared to be excusable or forgiven, and those slaves fly to the church for protection, they are not to be given up, unless there be given and received a just and sufficient sum to warrant their protection.

The canon xxvi. gives a specimen of the early feudalism nearly similar to the subsequent villain service.

"Ut nullus servilibus colonariisque conditionibus obligatus, juxta statuta sedis apostolicæ, ad honores ecclesiasticos admittatur; nisi prius aut testamento, aut per tabulas legitime constiterit absolutum. Quod si quis episcoporum, ejus qui ordinatur conditionem sciens, transgredi per ordinationem inhibitam fortasse voluerit, anni spatio missas facere non præsumat."

Let no one held under servile or colonizing conditions be admitted to church honours, in violation of the statutes of the Apostolic see; unless it be evident that he has been previously absolved therefrom by will or by deed. And if any bishop, being aware of such condition of the person so ordained, shall wilfully transgress by making such unlawful ordination, let him not presume to celebrate mass for the space of a year.

The colonial condition was in its origin different from the mere servile. The mancipium or manu captum was the servus or slave made in war the colonus, or husbandman, though, at the period at which we are arrived, he frequently was in as abject a condition, yet was so by a different process. St. Augustine, in cap. i. lib. x. De Civitate Dei, tells us, "Coloni dicuntur, qui conditionem debebant genitali solo propter agriculturam sub dominio possessorum." They are called colonists who owe their condition to their native land, under the dominion of its possessors.

The following history of various modes by which they became servants, is taken from the work De Gubernat. Dei, lib. v., by the good and erudite Salvianus, a priest, who died at Marseilles, about the year 484.

Nonnulli eorum de quibus loquimur,

cum domicilia

atque agellos suos pervasionibus perdunt, aut fatigati ab exactoribus deserunt, quia tenere non possunt, fundos majorum expetunt, et coloni divitum fiunt. Aut sicut solent hi qui hostium terrore compulsi, ad castella se conferunt, aut qui perdito ingenuæ incolumitatis statu ad asylum aliquod desperatione confugiunt: ita et isti qui habere amplius vel sedem vel dignitatem suorum natalium non queunt, jugo se inquilinæ abjectionis addicunt: in hanc necessitatem redacti, ut exactores non facultatis tantum, set etiam conditionis suæ, atque exultantes non a rebus tantum suis, sed etiam a seipsis, ac perdentes secum omnia sua, et rerum proprietate careant, et jus libertatis amittant. * * Illud gravius et acerbius, quod additur huic malo servilius malum. Nam suscipiuntur advenæ, fiunt præjudicio habitationis indigenæ, et quos suscipiunt ut extraneos et alienos, incipiunt habere quasi proprios: quos esse constat ingenuos, vertunt in servos.

*

Some of those, when they lose their dwellings and their little fields by invasion, or leave them, being worried by exactions, as they can no longer hold them, seek the grounds of the larger proprietors, and become the colonists of the wealthy. Or, as is usual with those who are driven off by the fear of enemies, and take refuge in the castles,

or who, having lost their state of safe freedom, fly to some asylum in despair: so they who can no longer have the place or the dignity derived from their birth, subject themselves to the abject yoke of the sojourner's lot; reduced to such necessity, that they are stripped not only of their property, but also of their rank; going into exile not only from what belongs to them but from their very selves, and with themselves losing all that they had, they are bereft of any property in things and lose the very right of liberty.

A

more degrading injury is added to this evil. For they are received as strangers, they become inhabitants bereft of the rights of inhabitants; they who receive them as foreigners and aliens begin to treat them as property, and change into slaves those who, evidently, were free.

In this picture of the colonist, we may find the outline of the villain of a later age; and in the several enactments and regulations of succeeding legislators and councils, we shall discover the changes which servitude underwent previous to its total extinction in Europe.

Flodoardin, c. 28, History of the church of Rheims, gives us the will of St. Remi, its bishop, who baptized Clovis, upon his conversion in 496, and who was still living in the year 550. This document grants freedom to some of the colonists belonging to that church and retains others in service.

Du Cange says (Art. Colonus) that though in several instances the condition of the colonists was as abject as that of slaves, yet generally they were in a better position. Erant igitur coloni mediæ conditionis inter ingenuos seu liberos et servos.

LESSON VIII.

FROM the fact that the slaves of this era were of the same colour and other physical qualities of their masters; from their great number, and consequently little value, their condition became attended with extremely diverse circumstances; so various were, therefore, the relations between them and the master, that it would now be impossible, perhaps, to give an accurate history of their various castes. These facts should be kept in mind, lest we mistake, and find confusion, where distinction was sufficiently clear and obvious.

Muratori, treating of the Roman slaves and freedmen, acknowledges that he is unable accurately to state the conditions on which they manumitted their slaves. In his treatise, “Sopra i Servi e Liberti Antichi," he has a passage thus:

Noi non sappiamo se con patti, e con quai patti una vulta si manomettessero que' Servi, che poi continuavano come Liberti a servire in Casa de' loro Padroni, con essere alzati a piu onorati impieghi. Sappiamo bensi dal Tit. ne Operis Libertorum, e dall' altro de bonis Libertorum ne' Digesti, che moltissimi acquistavano la Liberta con obbligarsi di fare ai Padroni de' Regaii, o delle Fatture, se erano Artefici, Operas, vel Donum. Questo si praticava verisimilmente dai soli Mercatanti, ed altri Signori dati all' interarse, ma non gia dalle Nobili Case. Per conto di questo, le antiche Iscrizioni ci fanno vedere, che moltissimi furono coloro, che anche dopo la conseguita Liberta seguitavano a convivere, e servire in quelle medesime Case, non piu come Servi, ma come Liberti, perche probabilmente tornava il conto agli uni e agli altri. I Padroni si servivano di Persone loro confidenti, e gia innestate nella propria Famiglia; ei Liberti cresciuti di onore, e di guadagno poteano cumulare roba per se e per li Figli. Non ho io potuto scoprire se i Romani tenessero Servi Mercenarj come oggidi. O di veri Servi, o di Liberti allora si servivano. Cio posto, maraviglia e, che il Pignoria, in trattando degli Ufizj de' Servi antichi, imbrogliasse tanto le carte, senza distinguere i Servi dai Liberti, e con attribuir molti impieghi ai primi, che pure erano riserbati agli ultimi. E piu da stupire e, citarsi da lui Marmi, che parlano di Liberti, e pure sono presi da esso, come se parlassero di Servi.

We know not whether they manumitted upon condition, or, if 80, upon what conditions they manumitted formerly those servants who continued thenceforth as freed persons, but elevated to more honourable employments, to serve in the houses of their masters. We do indeed know in the Tit. de Operis Libertorum, and in another de bonis Libertorum of the Digests, that very many acquired their liberty with the obligation of giving to their masters presents, or doing work if they were artists, Operas vel donum. This was in all likelihood practised only by merchants or other masters given to making profit, but not by noble houses. As to these the ancient inscriptions exhibit to us that very many who obtained their freedom, yet continued to live and to do service in those same houses, no longer as slaves, but as freed persons, because

probably each party found it beneficial. The patrons kept about them persons in whom they had confidence, and who had already been engrafted on their families; the freed persons, grown to honour and making profit could create property for themselves and for their children. I cannot discover whether the Romans had hireling servants, as is now the case. They had then true slaves and sometimes freed persons. This being the case, it is matter of surprise that Pignoria, in treating of the employment of the ancient slaves, should have been so perplexed as not to be able clearly to distinguish slaves from freed persons, and should have attributed to the former many employments which were specially reserved for the latter and it is more to be wondered at, that marbles which speak of freed persons are referred to by him and explained as treating of slaves.

It is clear that even in the days of the Emperor Claudius, to whose reign, A. D. 45, the marble of which he treats refers, and probably long before that period, many of the freedmen of the Roman empire were bound to do certain services for the patrons who had been their masters, and that this obligation descended to their progeny. Hence this would still be a species of servitude.

The barbarians who overran the empire came chiefly from Scythia and Germany, as that vast region was then called which stretches from the Alps to the Northern Ocean. When they settled in the conquered provinces of Gaul and in Italy, they introduced many of their customs as well of government as of policy. Most of their slaves were what the writers of the second, third, and fourth centuries describe as coloni and conditionibus obligati. As Tacitus describes, in xxv. De Moribus Germanorum :

"The slaves in general are not arranged at their several employments in the household affairs, as is the practice at Rome. Each has his separate habitation, and his own establishment to manage. The master considers him as an agrarian dependant, who is obliged to furnish a certain quantity of grain, cattle, or wearingapparel. The slave obeys, and the state of servitude extends no further. All domestic affairs are managed by the master's wife and children. To punish a slave with stripes, to load him with chains, or condemn him to hard labour, is unusual. It is true that slaves are sometimes put to death, not under colour of justice, or of any authority vested in the master; but in a transport of passion, in a fit of rage, as is often the case in a sudden affray; but it is also true that this species of homicide passes with impu