Note 353 — Chapter VIII · THE UNFREE. THE SERF.
Reading edition
Lingard (A. S. Church, i. 45) accuses the pagan Saxons of selling their children into foreign slavery. I am not sure that this is not asserted too strongly by this estimable author, who appears unjustly to depreciate the Saxons, in order to enhance the merit of their convertors. I admit the probability of the fact, only because the right is a direct corollary from the paternal power, and because Archbishops Theodore and Ecgberht (the first a Roman missionary) recognize it; but I cannot suppose its exercise to have been common.