examples, true and false, of insecurity of life in the Middle
Ages; but these are people who do not grasp what we mean by the
characteristic institutions of a society. For the matter of that,
there are plenty of examples of equality in the Middle Ages, as the
craftsmen in their guild or the monks electing their abbot. But just
as modern England is not a feudal country, though there is a quaint
survival called Heralds' College--or Ireland is not a commercial
country, though there is a quaint survival called Belfast--it is true
of the bulk and shape of that society that came out of the Dark Ages
and ended at the Reformation, that it did not care about giving
everybody an equal position, but did care about giving everybody a
position. So that by the very beginning of that time even the slave
had become a slave one could not get rid of, like the Scotch servant
who stubbornly asserted that if his master didn't know a good servant
he knew a good master. The free peasant, in ancient or modern times,
is free to go or stay. The slave, in ancient times, was free neither
to go nor stay. The serf was not free to go; but he was free to stay.

Now what have we done with this man? It is quite simple. There is no
historical complexity about it in that respect. We have taken away his
freedom to stay. We have turned him out of his field, and whether it
was injustice, like turning a free farmer out of his field, or only
cruelty to animals, like turning a cow out of its field, the fact
remains that he is out in the road. First and last, we have simply
destroyed the security. We have not in the least destroyed the
inequality. All classes, all creatures, kind or cruel, still see this
lowest stratum of society as separate from the upper strata and even
the middle strata; he is as separate as the serf. A monster fallen
from Mars, ignorant of our simplest word, would know the tramp was at
the bottom of the ladder, as well as he would have known it of the
serf. The walls of mud are no longer round his boundaries, but only
round his boots. The coarse, bristling hedge is at the end of his
chin, and not of his garden. But mud and bristles still stand out
round him like a horrific halo, and separate him from his kind. The
Martian would have no difficulty in seeing he was the poorest person
in the nation. It is just as impossible that he should marry an
heiress, or fight a duel with a duke, or contest a seat at
Westminster, or enter a club in Pall Ma