ponsible for the maintenance of the posting
system (_cursus publicus_), for which horses, carts or labour would be
requisitioned.

Under the Frankish kings, who in their administration followed the Roman
tradition, this system was preserved. Thus for the repair of roads, or
other public works, within their jurisdiction the counts were empowered
to requisition the labour of the inhabitants of the _pagus_, while the
_missi_ and other public functionaries on their travels were entitled to
demand from the population _en route_ entertainment and the means of
transport for themselves and their belongings. It was, however, the
economic revolution which between the 6th and 10th centuries converted
the Gallo-Roman estates into the feudal model, and the political
conditions under which the officials of the Frankish empire developed
into hereditary feudal nobles, that evolved the system of the corvee as
it existed throughout the middle ages and, in some countries, survived
far into the 19th century. The Roman estate had been cultivated by free
farmers, by _coloni_, and by slave labour. Under Frankish rule the
farmers became _coloni_ or _hospites_, the slaves, serfs. The estate was
now habitually divided into the lord's domain (_terra indominicata_,
_dominicum_) and a series of allotments (_mansi_), parcels of land
distributed by lot to the cultivators of the domain, who held them,
partly by payment of rent in money or kind, partly by personal service
and labour on the domain, these obligations both as to their nature and
amount being very rigorously defined and permanently fixed in the case
of each _mansus_ and passing with the land to each new tenant. They
varied, of course, very greatly according to the size of the holding and
the needs of the particular estate, but they possessed certain common
characteristics which are everywhere found. Luchaire (_Manuel_, p. 346)
divides all corvees into two broad categories, (1) corvees properly so
called, (2) military services. The second of these, so far as the
obligation to serve in the host (_Hostis et equitatus_) is concerned,
was common to all classes of feudal society; though the obligation of
villeins to keep watch and ward (_gueta_, _warda_) and to labour at the
building or strengthening of fortifications (_muragium_, _munitio
castri_) are special corvees. We are, however, mainly concerned with the
first category, which may again be subdivided into two main groups, (1)
personal serv