Note 139 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

First. Slavery in the strict sense existed for a long time in both England and Germany. In England, shortly after the Norman Conquest, slaves were still rather numerous. “The servi or slaves” says Ashley “whose average percentage for the whole land is 9, and who in some of the eastern and midland shires do not appear at all, or fall to a percentage of 4 or 5, rise in the country on the Welsh border and in the south-west to 17, 18, 21, and 24 per cent.” A century later, however, absolute slavery had disappeared139. And in Germany there was also a class of servi, who had to perform whatever services the lords might require, and even in the 11th century, though their condition had already much improved, were sometimes sold apart from the land140.