The number of slaves throughout the Netherlands was very large; the number belonging to the bishopric of Utrecht, enormous.
The condition of those belonging to laymen was much more painful.

The Lyf-eigene, or absolute slaves, were the most wretched.

They were mere brutes.

They had none of the natural attributes of humanity, their life and death were in the master's hands, they had no claim to a fraction of their own labor or its fruits, they had no marriage, except under condition of the infamous 'jus primoe noctis'.

The villagers, or villeins, were the second class and less forlorn.