Note 1018 — Chapter I

See Pearson's English History in the Fourteenth Century, pp. 23, 228, 253, etc.; cp. p. 225. In the thirteenth century Frederick II had enfranchised all the serfs on his own domains (Milman, Latin Christianity, vi, 153); and a similar policy had become general in the Italian cities. Louis VI and Louis VII of France had even enfranchised many of their serfs in the twelfth century, and Louis X carried out the policy in 1315. Cp. Duruy, Hist. de France, i, 291, note. England in these matters was not forward, but backward.