IX. THE CREATION OF SERFS AND THE GROWTH OF SERFDOM.
Serfdom recruited from above and from below.
There is yet another point in which the correspondence between British and Continental usages is worth remarking.
The community in serfdom on a lord's estate was both by Saxon and Continental usage recruited from above and from below.
Free-men become serfs.
Free men from above, by voluntary arrangement with a lord, could and did descend into serfdom. The Saxon free tenant could, by free contract, arrange to take a yard-land, and if he were already provided with a homestead and oxen, he became a 'gafol-gelder,' or tributarius of his lord, without incurring the liability to the more servile 'week-work,' just as was the case when, under the Alamannic laws, free men made surrender of their holdings to the Abbey of St. Gall. In both cases, as we saw, week-work was added if the lord found the homestead and the outfit.
Slaves become serfs.
On the other hand, whenever a lord provided his slave with an outfit of oxen, and gave him a part in the ploughing, he rose out of slavery into serfdom. To speak more correctly, he rose into that middle class of tenants who, by whatever name they were [p406] known at first, afterwards became confounded together in the ranks of mediæval serfdom.
Grades in serfdom during the period of transition.
'Tributarii,' 'coloni,' and 'liti.'