If he assigns them a plot of ground, if he permits them merely to encamp on it, if he sets them to work or furnishes them with seeds it is on conditions, which he prescribes.

They are to become his serfs, subject to the laws on mainmorte.[1111] Wherever they may go he is to have the right of fetching them back.

From father to son they are his born domestics, applicable to any pursuit he pleases, taxable and workable at his discretion.

They are not allowed to transmit anything to a child unless the latter, "living from their pot," can, after their death, continue their service.

"Not to be killed," says Stendhal, "and to have a good sheepskin coat in winter, was, for many people in the tenth century, the height of felicity"; let us add, for a woman, that of not being violated by a whole band.