placuit totam insulam vastare, et de bonis illius ditari, et sic ad propria reverti. Godredus autem paucis qui secum remanserunt de insulanis australem partem insulae, et reliquiis Mannensium aquilonarem tali pacto concessit, ut nemo eorum aliquando auderet iure haereditario sibi aliquam partem terrae usurpare. Unde accidit ut usque in hodiernum diem tota insula solius regis sit, et omnes redditus eius ad ipsum pertineant[334].” The not being able to dispose of property hereditarily is the true badge and proof of slavery. ----- Footnote 331: This is the condition of the Perioecians in Laconia, with the exception that these were called upon for military service. The Helotae or Penestae were more nearly praedial serfs. Footnote 332: This led by degrees to the vast power and influence of all the clergy, who were originally Roman, and who, whatever their nation might be, lived under the Roman law, “per clericalem clericalem Footnote 333: Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv. 3. The Franks imposed a tribute of hides upon the Frisians: we hear also of tribute paid them by the Thuringians, Saxons and Slavic races. Footnote 334: A.D. 1056. Chron. Manniae. MS. Cott., Jul. A. VII., fol. 32. ----- Tacitus draws a great distinction between the different degrees of servitude among the Germans. He tells us that the unsuccessful gambler who had staked and lost his liberty and the free disposal of his own body upon one fatal cast of the dice, would voluntarily submit to be bound and sold[335], but that it was not usual for them to reduce their other serfs to the condition of menials; they only demanded from them a certain amount of produce (or, unquestionably, of labour in the field or pasture), and then left them the enjoyment of their own dwellings and property[336]. The general duties of the house, beyond such supplies, which were provided for among the Romans by the _ministeria per familiam descripta_, were left among the Germans to the wife and children of the householder[337]. It will be desirable to follow a somewhat similar distinction in treating of the different kinds of slaves; and having shown that one class of the unfree are those who have been partially dispossessed by conquest, but retain their personal freedom in some degree, to proceed to those who are personally unfree, the mere chattels of a lord who can dispose of them at his pleasure, even to the extent of sale, mutilation and death. The class we have hitherto been observing is that intended by the term Læt in Anglosaxon, Litus, Lito, Lazzo, etc. in German monuments[338], and the Laeti of the Romans, applied by them to the auxiliary Germans settled on imperial land, and bound to pay tribute and perform military service. They formed, as Grimm has well observed, a sort of middle class among the unfree; comprising the great majority of those who, without being absolutely their own masters, were yet placed somewhat above the lowest and most abject condition of man, which we