Note 250 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

The same writer, recapitulating his conclusions as to the condition of the rural population at the end of the Middle Ages, begins by saying that the cultivators, who formerly had had an hereditary right to the land on condition of paying a fixed sum, were now far more heavily taxed and had little security of remaining on the land250. We think that this is what the statements of our informants about the reappearance of slavery mean. The cultivators were not slaves, but impoverished and despised tenants at will and agricultural labourers.