hills boys received blows on their cheeks and had their
ears pulled, and already was it called an old custom to set up a small
bundle of straw as a warning on a forbidden footway. Already we find
the property not unfrequently divided, where the vassals dwell in the
house and farm, the grades of their vassalage and their burdens being
various. The households of freemen also contained bondservants, who
differed little from Roman slaves; only in the service of God could
they be equal with the free; they shared in all the holy usages of the
Church; they could become priests and perform marriages with the
permission of their masters, but the master had a right over their
life.

Among the farms of freemen and vassals might be found the farm of a
larger landed proprietor, who had a manor house with a hall, and a
great number of huts for domestics and labourers. For as yet, artisans,
wheelwrights, potters, armourers, and goldsmiths were most of them
bondmen; as the number of markets and cities were small, their
influence in the country was still unimportant. All kinds of grain were
cultivated in the fields, which are now used in our succession of
crops, and in the gardens, almost all the vegetables of our markets,
also gherkins, pumpkins, and melons; the laws were vigilant for the
protection of the orchards. The clergy brought from Italy costly
grafts, and peaches and apricots were to be found in the gardens of the
wealthy. Already the old Bavarian house began to appear, formed of
beams, with galleries outside, and its flat projecting roof; and it may
be assumed also, that the old Saxon house with its heathen horses'
heads on the gable ends, its thatched roof over the porch, its hearth,
sleeping cells, and cattle stalls, spread widely over the country, and
that the Thuringians, even then, as in a century later, lived in the
unfloored hall, in the background of which a raised dais--the most
distinguished part of the house--separated from the hall the women's
apartments and the sleeping-rooms. Dwellings were seldom without a
bathhouse; for their winter work the women descended into their
underground chamber, which had already astonished the Romans, where
stood the loom; the places for the mistresses and servants were
separated. In the court-yard fluttered numerous poultry, amongst them
swans and even cranes, which, up to the Thirty Years' War, were
treasured as masters of the German poultry yard. The greatest pleasure
of the co