His lord could not take it from him; and he was bound to give him aid and protection in exchange for his services.
Far different from the position of the laet was that of the slave, though there is no ground for believing that the slave class was other than a small one.

It was a class which sprang mainly from debt or crime.

Famine drove men to "bend their heads in the evil days for meat"; the debtor, unable to discharge his debt, flung on the ground his freeman's sword and spear, took up the labourer's mattock, and placed his head as a slave within a master's hands.

The criminal whose kinsfolk would not make up his fine became a crime-serf of the plaintiff or the king.

Sometimes a father pressed by need sold children and wife into bondage.