The extent to which the French barons were independent of the throne will be evident from a glance at their privileges. They possessed unchallenged: (1) The right of coining money. In Hugh Capet’s time there were one hundred and fifty independent mints in the realm. (2) The right of waging private war. Every castle was a fortress, always equipped as in a state of siege. (3) Immunity from taxation. Except that the king was provided with entertainment on his journeys, the crown had no revenue beyond that coming from the personal estates of its occupant. (4) Freedom from all legislative control. Law-making ceased with the capitularies of Carloman in 882. The first renewal of the attempt at general legislation was not until the time of Louis VIII. in 1223. Even St. Louis declared in his establishments that the king could make no laws for the territories of the barons without their consent. (5) Exclusive right of original judicature. But if such was the independence of the feud-holder in his relations to the sovereign, those beneath him were in absolute dependence upon their lord. This is seen in the following obligations of feudal tenants to their superior: (1) Reliefs: sums of money due from every one coming of age and taking a fief by inheritance; fines upon alienation or change of tenant ownership. (2) Escheats: reversion to the lord of all property upon a tenant’s dying without natural heirs, or upon any delinquency of service. (3) Aids: contributions levied in special emergency, as the lord’s expedition to the Holy Land, the marriage of his sister, eldest son, or daughter, his paying a “relief” to his overlord, making his son a knight, or redeeming his own person from captivity. (4) Wardship of tenant during minority. This involved on the part of the lord the right to select a husband for a female dependent, which alliance could be declined only on payment of a fine equal to that which any one desiring the woman could be induced to offer for her. If the feudal system pressed so harshly upon those who were themselves of high rank, it need not be said that the common people were utterly crushed by this accumulation of graded despotisms, whose whole weight rested ultimately on the lowest stratum. The mass of the lowly was divided into three orders: (1) Freemen possessing small tracts of allodial land, so called because held by original occupancy and not yet merged in the larger holdings. There were many freemen in the fifth and sixth centuries, but in the tenth century nearly all the land of Europe had become feudal. The freemen, whose possessions were small, soon found it necessary to surrender land and liberty for the sake of protection by some neighboring lord. (2) Villains or serfs, who were attached to the land and transferable with it on change of owners.