o a family, makes about
seven thousand souls. The sixth ward was laid waste.]

[**** Page 102. See also de Gest. Angl. p. 333.]

[***** LL. Inae, sect. 70. These laws fixed the
rents for a hide; but it is difficult to convert it into
modern measures.]

But the most numerous rank by far in the community to have been the
slaves or villains, who were the property of their lords, and were
consequently incapable themselves of possessing any property. Dr. Brady
assures us, from a survey of domesday-book,[*] that, in all the counties
of England, the far greater part of the land was occupied by them, and
that the husbandmen, and still more the socmen, who were tenants that,
could not be removed at pleasure, were very few in comparison. This was
not the case with the German nations, as far as we can collect from the
account given us by Tacitus. The perpetual wars in the Heptarchy, and
the depredations of the Danes, seem to have been the cause of this great
alteration with the Anglo-Saxons. Prisoners taken in battle, or carried
off in the frequent inroads, were then reduced to slavery, and became,
by right of war,[**] entirely at the disposal of their lords.
Great property in the nobles, especially if joined to an irregular
administration of justice, naturally favors the power of the
aristocracy; but still more so, if the practice of slavery be admitted,
and has become very common. The nobility not only possess the influence
which always attends riches, but also the power which the laws give them
over their slaves and villains. It then becomes difficult, and almost
impossible, for a private man to remain altogether free and independent.

There were two kinds of slaves among the Anglo-Saxons; household slaves,
after the manner of the ancients, and praedial, or rustic, after the
manner of the Germans.[***] These latter resembled the serfs, which are
at present to be met with in Poland, Denmark, and some parts of Germany.
The power of a master over his slaves was not unlimited among the
Anglo-Saxons, as it was among their ancestors. If a man beat out his
slave's eye or teeth, the slave recovered his liberty:[****] if he
killed him, he paid a fine to the king, provided the slave died within a
day after the wound or blow; otherwise it passed unpunished.[*****] The
selling of themselves or children to slavery, was always the
practice among the German nations,[******] and was continued by the
Anglo-Saxons.[*