Persons worsted in judicial duels, shipwrecked sailors, vagrants, strangers, criminals unable to pay the money-bote imposed upon them, were all deprived of freedom; but the prolific source of slavery was war.

Prisoners were almost universally reduced to servitude.

A free woman who intermarried with a slave condemned herself and offspring to perpetual bondage.

Among the Ripuarian Franks, a free woman thus disgracing herself, was girt with a sword and a distaff.

Choosing the one, she was to strike her husband dead; choosing the other, she adopted the symbol of slavery, and became a chattel for life.
The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.