The British nation a history / by George MWrong . s distin-guished from the churl, or man without rank. The powerand influence of aruling class appearto have grown stead-ily, and little of theold English libertiesendured to the ^N^or-man Conquest. Bythat time great land-owners held in sub-jection the villagers,most of whom had become villeins (the people of the vill), who paid rent, in labour and in kind, for theirholdings, and were under the authority of their the villeins, there were slaves, who were the merechattels of their master, and whose ranks were recruitedmainly from amo
The British nation a history / by George MWrong . s distin-guished from the churl, or man without rank. The powerand influence of aruling class appearto have grown stead-ily, and little of theold English libertiesendured to the ^N^or-man Conquest. Bythat time great land-owners held in sub-jection the villagers,most of whom had become villeins (the people of the vill), who paid rent, in labour and in kind, for theirholdings, and were under the authority of their the villeins, there were slaves, who were the merechattels of their master, and whose ranks were recruitedmainly from among the captives taken in war. The oldvillage organization may long have remained, as it hasremained in Eussia to our own day, with its regular re-allotment of land, but any real liberty in the villages ap-pears to have died out early. The Englishin the^laff^^ village, it must be admitted, was a squalidlittle community, with a very meagre socialdevelopment. Its houses were of wood, sometimes evenof wattled branches, with thatched roofs. They were. Ploughing, Eleventh Century. 64 THE BRITISH NATION ranged near each other along the village street, or theyclustered round the fortified house of the lord, whichwas often not a castle in the proper sense of the word,but a simple wooden structure surrounded by earthworks
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