[Illustration: RICHARD II After an engraving based on the original in Westminster Abbey. Probably the oldest authentic portrait in England.]
EXTINCTION OF SERFDOM
Though these first great struggles of labor against capital were failures, the emancipation of the peasantry went steadily on throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By 1500 A.D. serfdom had virtually disappeared in Italy, in most parts of France, and in England. Some less- favored countries retained serfdom much longer. Prussian, Austrian, and Russian serfs did not receive their freedom until the nineteenth century.
CONDITION OF THE PEASANTRY
The extinction of serfdom was, of course, a forward step in human freedom, but the lot of the English and Continental peasantry long remained wretched. The poem of Piers Plowman, written in the time of Chaucer, shows the misery of the age and reveals a very different picture than that of the gay, holiday-making, merry England seen in the Canterbury Tales. One hundred and fifty years later, the English humanist, Sir Thomas More, a friend of Erasmus, published his Utopia as a protest against social abuses. Utopia, or "Nowhere," is an imaginary country whose inhabitants choose their own rulers, hold all property in common, and work only nine hours a day. In Utopia a public system of education prevails, cruel punishments are unknown, and every one enjoys complete freedom to worship God. This remarkable book, though it pictures an ideal commonwealth, really anticipates many social reforms of the present time.
STUDIES
1. Prepare a chronological chart showing the leading men of letters, artists, scientists, and educators mentioned in this chapter.
2. For what were the following persons noted: Chrysoloras; Vittorino da Feltre; Gutenberg; Boccaccio; Machiavelli; Harvey; and Galileo?
3. How did the words "machiavellism" and "utopian" get their present meanings?
4. Distinguish and define the three terms, "Renaissance," "Revival of Learning," and "Humanism."