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Article Untitled Article ← Page 10 of 10 Article ON THE POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. Page 1 of 6 →
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Untitled Article
Buzzard , 1 6 ^ 1 , is the satisfactory imprint of The Downefall of tempori sing Poets , tooting Mercuries , and bawling Hawkers . " Robin ' s Panegyrick ; or , the Norfolk Miscellany , printed for T . Tims , and sold by the booksellers of London ana Westminster * was a strange magazine ; and H . Travers published , in 1731 , some
curious poems , which were printed for Benj . Motte , at the Middle Temple Gate , in Meet-street . This list of books might be continued ad infinitum , but we are fond of a short yarn ; and any follower of Captain Cuttle , who keeps a note-book , and roams amongst small and big Sunday books in second-hand book-shops , might invent a concise and interesting catalogue . ( To be continued . )
On The Political Condition Of The English Peasantry During The Middle Ages.
ON THE POLITICAL CONDITION OE THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY DTJEING THE MIDDLE AGES .
( Concluded from page 293 . ) Ukder the feudal barons the condition of the peasantry was much worse than under the Anglo-Saxon kings . In addition to their permanent taxes , they were compelled to contribute to the fines levied
on their lords by the king , or the heavy ransoms incurred to some victorious enemy . The following is a picture of the grievances under which the English villans laboured , given by Wace and Beuvil , in their account of the popular insurrection in Normandy , in 997 . In Wace the villans complain thus : " Their lords do nothing but persecute them ; they cannot have their goods safe , nor their earnings , nor
the fruits of their labour . They pass their days in tribulation , with great pain and labour . Every year is worse than that which preceded . Every day their beasts are taken from them for aids and services : there are so many claims brought against them , and taxes , old and new . They cannot have an hour of peace . Every day they are summoned to answer to actions of different kinds There
are so many reeves , and beadles , and bailiffs , that they cannot have an hour ' s peace ; they bring so many things against them that they cannot defend themselves , or have justice , but each will have his pay . They are deprived of their beasts by force ; they cannot keep them , or obtain restitution . They cannot live in this manner , but must be forced to abandon the land . They can have no security , either against the lord or against his seargeant , who keep no covenant with them ; and some even apply to them opprobions epithets . "
Their lords exacted services galling and degrading in the extreme . Even the intercourse of the sexes was made a subject of taxation . A villan could not marry without paying a tax of money to his lord , represented by some legal writers as being a composition for an older custom of levying the tax " in kind ; " but I believe there is no evidence of such a practice having ever existed , and I think it is a mere
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
Buzzard , 1 6 ^ 1 , is the satisfactory imprint of The Downefall of tempori sing Poets , tooting Mercuries , and bawling Hawkers . " Robin ' s Panegyrick ; or , the Norfolk Miscellany , printed for T . Tims , and sold by the booksellers of London ana Westminster * was a strange magazine ; and H . Travers published , in 1731 , some
curious poems , which were printed for Benj . Motte , at the Middle Temple Gate , in Meet-street . This list of books might be continued ad infinitum , but we are fond of a short yarn ; and any follower of Captain Cuttle , who keeps a note-book , and roams amongst small and big Sunday books in second-hand book-shops , might invent a concise and interesting catalogue . ( To be continued . )
On The Political Condition Of The English Peasantry During The Middle Ages.
ON THE POLITICAL CONDITION OE THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY DTJEING THE MIDDLE AGES .
( Concluded from page 293 . ) Ukder the feudal barons the condition of the peasantry was much worse than under the Anglo-Saxon kings . In addition to their permanent taxes , they were compelled to contribute to the fines levied
on their lords by the king , or the heavy ransoms incurred to some victorious enemy . The following is a picture of the grievances under which the English villans laboured , given by Wace and Beuvil , in their account of the popular insurrection in Normandy , in 997 . In Wace the villans complain thus : " Their lords do nothing but persecute them ; they cannot have their goods safe , nor their earnings , nor
the fruits of their labour . They pass their days in tribulation , with great pain and labour . Every year is worse than that which preceded . Every day their beasts are taken from them for aids and services : there are so many claims brought against them , and taxes , old and new . They cannot have an hour of peace . Every day they are summoned to answer to actions of different kinds There
are so many reeves , and beadles , and bailiffs , that they cannot have an hour ' s peace ; they bring so many things against them that they cannot defend themselves , or have justice , but each will have his pay . They are deprived of their beasts by force ; they cannot keep them , or obtain restitution . They cannot live in this manner , but must be forced to abandon the land . They can have no security , either against the lord or against his seargeant , who keep no covenant with them ; and some even apply to them opprobions epithets . "
Their lords exacted services galling and degrading in the extreme . Even the intercourse of the sexes was made a subject of taxation . A villan could not marry without paying a tax of money to his lord , represented by some legal writers as being a composition for an older custom of levying the tax " in kind ; " but I believe there is no evidence of such a practice having ever existed , and I think it is a mere