could mark her appearance, serfdom was substituted in its place. The causes which produced this result, are matters mostly of speculation. A few we may clearly perceive. The supremacy of the barbarian conquerors, unused to luxury, and eschewing even the comforts of civilized life. The common bondage into which their conquest threw both master and slave. The stagnation of commerce, and all other channels of industry. These, and concurrent causes, rendered the slave valueless in the market, and a burthen to the master. The support of the aged and infirm and infants, was without corresponding benefit, when the labor of the strong and healthy barely provided for his own necessities. The renunciation, by the master, of his rights and power, became therefore a matter of interest,-a much stronger motive, according to man's history, than humanity and charity.

Many have sought to discover in Christianity, and its pure and holy precepts, a sufficient explanation for the extinction of slavery. That it contributed to this object is undoubtedly true; and many masters felicitated themselves upon the charitable act of manumitting their slaves, when those slaves had ceased to be useful. Habit possibly would have continued the system a while longer, and Christianity, to this extent, shortened its duration. To the truly pious and zealous, imbued with the doctrine of the equality of all men before the bar of God, who is no respecter of persons, and that every man is a brother, to whom we should act as we would have him, under similar circumstances, to act towards us, the slavery of Rome must have appeared sinful, and inconsistent with their professions of universal charity. Alexander Severus caused this golden rule to be inscribed not only upon the walls of his own palace, but also upon all the public edifices. Constantine, by taking away the restraints

'Lamp. in Vita Alex. Sev. 350; Troplong, Influence du Christianisme, &c., 87.

upon manumission, and giving additional privileges to those manumitted in ecclesia, by enforcing, with stern penalties, the humane treatment of slaves, and adopting in his laws the Christian principle of brotherhood, has received from M. de Chateaubriand the praise of having "affranchi tout d'un coup une nombreuse partie de l'espèce humaine."

Yet the same Emperor forbade the marriage of the curiales with slaves, under penalty of the woman's being condemned to the mines, and the man to perpetual banishment, with confiscation of all his movable goods and city slaves to the public, and all his lands and country slaves to the city of which he was a member.'

The true agency of Christianity in effecting the destruction of Roman slavery, is more accurately described by M. Troplong: "It is the feudal age, which, at a later period, has had the eternal honor of having restored to liberty the lower classes, oppressed with the yoke of slavery. To arrive at this great result, it was necessary that Christianity, penetrating profoundly the heart, had humanized the masters to a high degree; and that the general interests had been brought, by a happy combination of circumstances, to agree with these ideas. Great revolutions are not accomplished by a sudden virtue. Ages of preparation are necessary before they arrive at their maturity. Slavery, though ameliorated by Christian morality and reforms full of humanity, continued to exist legally, and to be fed from the impure sources, trade and conquest."

In Rome, as in Athens, the morality and expediency of slavery did not fail to attract the attention of her statesmen and philosophers, and as great diversity of opinion existed in the former place as the latter. "Our

1 Essais hist., tom. i, p. 308.

3 Bingham's Antiquities of the Christian Church, Bk. XXII, ch. ii, ? 6. 3 Influence du Christianisme sur le droit civil des Romains, 162, 3. See also Sismondi, tom. i, pp. 85 104.

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slaves are our enemies," said Censor Cato. "Slaves truly, but men,"-"fortasse liberi animo," preached the almost Christian Seneca. "The old and infirm slaves are a nuisance on the farm, and should be sold," said Cato. "In servos superbissimi, crudelissimi, contumeliosissimi sumus," responded the conscientious Seneca. And in another place, either from inspiration or Christian teaching, adds the golden rule, "Sic cum inferiore. vivas, quemadmodum tecum superiorem velles vivere.”

Cicero, the greatest of Roman philosophers as well as orators, seems to have been imbued with the same views concerning slavery as Plato and Aristotle. He even justified the cruelty with which some of them were treated. "Iis, qui vi oppressos imperio coercent, est sane adhibenda sævitia, ut heris in famulos." Varro adopted, to its full extent, the doctrine of Aristotle.3 Florus speaks of slaves as an inferior species of men.' And Pliny compares them to the drones among the bees, to be forced to labor, even as the drones are compelled."

A different opinion prevailed among the later writers, and hence we find but one voice in the Digest and Code: "Jure naturali omnes liberi nascuntur." "Servitus est constitutio gentium contra naturam.”

So Quintillian: "Quid non liberum natura genuit? Taceo de servis, quos bellorum iniquitas in prædam victoribus dedit, iisdem legibus, eâdem fortunâ, eâdem necessitate natos. Ex eodem cœlo spiritum trahunt; nec natura ullis, sed fortuna dominum dedit."

Let. 47: "Quid est eques Romanus, aut libertinus, aut servus? Nomina ex ambitione aut ex injuria nata." Let. 32. 2 De Off. Lib. II, 7. See also his rep. iii.

oration against Verres, V. 3, De De re rustica, lxvii, 1.

CHAPTER VII.

SLAVERY IN EUROPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.

"IN every age and country, until times comparatively recent," says Mr. Hallam, "personal servitude appears to have been the lot of a large, perhaps the greater portion of mankind." Certainly during the middle ages, upon the continent of Europe, it was universal. So much oppressed and deprived of so many privileges were even the freemen of the lower classes, that it is with some difficulty that we are enabled to distinguish the slave, the serf, and the freeman. A term which, in one nation, indicated slavery, in an adjoining one represented a class of freemen. Thus, the collibert of France was a slave: "Libertate carens colibertus dicitur esse;' but among the Lombards, the collibert was ranked among freemen. The truth seems to be, that all the classes below the nobles or lords, were in a state of actual servitude. In the absence of well-ordered government, the small proprietors of lands were the constant subjects of depredation by the lawless and warlike. Their only recourse was the protection of some more powerful neighbor. For that protection they yielded their liberty, frequently voluntarily, becoming thus the serfs or coloni

'Hist. Middle Ages, ch. ii, pt. ii, p. 89. "In the infancy of society," says M. Guizot, "liberty is the portion of strength. It belongs to whoever can defend it. In the absence of personal power in the individual, it possesses no other guarantee."-Essais sur l'Histoire de France, 126. 2 See Appendix to Michelet's History of France.

so universal in these ages. In seasons of famine, also, many freemen sold themselves as slaves. Their redemption, at equitable prices, is provided for in a Capitulary of Charles the Bald. Others surrendered themselves and their property to churches and monasteries, and became, with their posterity, their perpetual bondmen.3 To these, extraordinary, were added the usual and universal sources of slavery, viz., war, debt, crime, birth, and sale of themselves and of children."

Slavery existed in these countries long before their subjection to the Roman yoke. The number of domestic slaves, previous to that period, was small; but the prædial or agrestic slaves were numerous. Of the slavery in Gaul and Germany, previous to that time, we have some accounts. After the Roman subjugation, the laws of Roman slavery were extended more or less to every nation, modified necessarily by their previous customs.

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Frequently, the status of slavery attached to every inhabitant of a particular district, so that it became a maxim, "Aer efficit servilem statum;" a different atmosphere it must have been from that which fans the British shores, according to the boasts of some of their judges. It is a little curious that, by an ordinance of Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, the air of Wales was declared to be of the infected species."

1 Guizot's Hist. of Civilization in France, 8, citing Salvianus de Gubern. Dei. Lib. v. Bishop England gives us this quotation from Salvianus at large, in Letter VI, to Jno. Forsyth, p. 53. See also Michelet, Origines du Droit Français, p. 274.

2 Hallam, as above. See also Muratori, Annali d'Italia.

3 Beaumanoir, ch. 45. In a charter granted by the Emperor, Otto I, to a monastery, are these words: "Si vero aliquis ex liberis voluerit litus fieri, aut etiam colonis, ad monasteria supra dicta, cum consensu suorum hæredum, non prohibeatur a quâlibet potestate." Potg. i, 5.

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See Du Cange v. Heribannum.

Cæsar, De Bel. Gall. Lib. VI, cap. xiii; Tacitus, cap. xxiv; Potg. Lib. I, cap. i; Giraud, Histoire du Droit Français au Moyen-Age, art. v. Hertius, Lib. II, p. xii; Potgiesser, De Stat. &c., Lib. I, cap. i, 2 15.