The serfs were divided into two principal classes, known to the technical jargon of the law as villains in gross and villains regardant. The authority of the lord over both of these was absolute and irresponsible; the former were attached to his person and, like other chattels, could be sold or otherwise disposed of; the latter belonged to the soil and could under no circumstances be alienated. In every case villains were inventoried and valued as beasts of burden. They experienced all the hardships that greed and malice could invent or cruelty inflict. Not only were they exposed to the violence and rapacity of their superiors, but they were subject to the exaction of certain privileges which could only have been tolerated in an age wholly devoid of the principles of honor, justice, and decency. A conveyance for the transfer of a fief scarcely deigned to mention the wretched creatures who in the eye of the law formed a part of the glebe, and one from which the latter derived its principal value. The avarice of unfeeling lords compelled the peasant to labor throughout the night and to share the lodgings of the cattle. Around his neck was soldered a metal collar, sometimes of brass, often of silver, on which were engraved his name and that of his master. His manhood was entirely destroyed; he possessed no rights, enjoyed no liberties, participated in no diversions. His identity was lost, his very being was merged into the soil on whose surface he toiled from early childhood until released by death. No more pathetic and forlorn example of the deplorable effects of human tyranny and human suffering exists than that presented by the life of the villain regardant of the Middle Ages. The code of seignioral rights which governed the lord in the relations he maintained with his vassals is one of the most curious and remarkable collections in the entire system of jurisprudence. Voluminous treatises have been written upon it. Dictionaries have been compiled in explanation of the obscure and technical terms by which its customs are designated. The abuse of its prerogatives has led to more than one event whose effects have been experienced in the fall of empires, the institution of anarchy, the weakening of religious sentiment, the destruction of social order.