Note 1 — Introductory material (continued 11)

Below the Peasants, it should be remembered, was still another even more helpless class, the servile farm-laborers. The same witness informs us that of the extraordinary imposts the Peasants paid nearly twice as much in proportion to their estimated property as the Barons, Nobles, and Burghers together. Moreover, the upper classes were assessed at their own valuation, while they arbitrarily fixed that of the Peasants, who had no voice, ("Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti." Serie I., tomo i., pp. 378, 379, 389.)