nd of their own, whilst
others were settled on the estates of the landed proprietors or on the
extensive domains of the monasteries. In the latter case the peasant
paid a fixed yearly rent in money, in produce, or in labour, according
to the terms of his contract with the proprietor or the monastery; but
he did not thereby sacrifice in any way his personal liberty. As soon
as he had fulfilled the engagements stipulated in the contract and had
settled accounts with the owner of the land, he was free to change his
domicile as he pleased.

If we turn now from these early times to the eighteenth century, we find
that the position of the rural population has entirely changed in the
interval. The distinction between slaves, agricultural labourers, and
peasants has completely disappeared. All three categories have melted
together into a common class, called serfs, who are regarded as the
property of the landed proprietors or of the State. "The proprietors
sell their peasants and domestic servants not even in families, but one
by one, like cattle, as is done nowhere else in the whole world, from
which practice there is not a little wailing."* And yet the Government,
whilst professing to regret the existence of the practice, takes no
energetic measures to prevent it. On the contrary, it deprives the serfs
of all legal protection, and expressly commands that if any serf shall
dare to present a petition against his master, he shall be punished with
the knout and transported for life to the mines of Nertchinsk. (Ukaz of
August 22d, 1767.**)

* These words are taken from an Imperial ukaz of April 15th,
1721. Polnoye Sobranye Zakonov, No. 3,770.

** This is an ukaz of the liberal and tolerant Catherine!
How she reconciled it with her respect and admiration for
Beccaria's humane views on criminal law she does not
explain.

How did this important change take place, and how is it to be explained?

If we ask any educated Russian who has never specially occupied himself
with historical investigations regarding the origin of serfage in
Russia, he will probably reply somewhat in this fashion:

"In Russia slavery has never existed (!), and even serfage in the
West-European sense has never been recognised by law! In ancient times
the rural population was completely free, and every peasant might change
his domicile on St. George's Day--that is to say, at the end of the
agricultural year. This right of migra