Note 216 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Great proprietors were still rare. They worked their own lands with slaves. Sometimes, however, they gave pieces of land in use, generally to slaves; for, says our informant, the free peasants did not like to take the land of the nobles and so make themselves dependent on them216. And when land was given in use to free peasants (especially by the church) this was done on very advantageous terms, often at a nominal rent217.