an law, preserved
the thraldom from wanton aggravation; and slavery was felt to be wrong
and unchristian. The Saxon Church--not the less, perhaps, for its very
ignorance--sympathised more with the subject population and was more
associated with it, than the comparatively learned and haughty
ecclesiastics of the continent, who held aloof from the unpolished
vulgar. The Saxon Church invariably set the example of freeing the
theowe and emancipating the ceorl, and taught that such acts were to the
salvation of the soul. The rude and homely manner in which the greater
part of the Saxon thegns lived--dependent solely for their subsistence on
their herds and agricultural produce, and therefore on the labour of
their peasants--not only made the distinctions of rank less harsh and
visible, but rendered it the interest of the lords to feed and clothe
well their dependents. All our records of the customs of the Saxons
prove the ample sustenance given to the poor, and a general care of their
lives and rights, which, compared with the Frank laws, may be called
enlightened and humane. And above all, the lowest serf ever had the
great hope both of freedom and of promotion; but the beast of the field
was holier in the eyes of the Norman, than the wretched villein [200].
We have likened the Norman to the Spartan, and, most of all, he was like
him in his scorn of the helot.

Thus embruted and degraded, deriving little from religion itself, except
its terrors, the general habits of the peasants on the continent of
France were against the very basis of Christianity--marriage. They lived
together for the most part without that tie, and hence the common name,
with which they were called by their masters, lay and clerical, was the
coarsest word contempt can apply to the sons of women.

"The hounds glare at us," said Odo, as a drove of these miserable serfs
passed along. "They need ever the lash to teach them to know the master.
Are they thus mutinous and surly in England, Lord Harold?"

"No: but there our meanest theowes are not seen so clad, nor housed in
such hovels," said the Earl.

"And is it really true that a villein with you can rise to be a noble?"

"Of at least yearly occurrence. Perhaps the forefathers of one-fourth of
our Anglo-Saxon thegns held the plough, or followed some craft
mechanical."

Duke William politicly checked Odo's answer, and said mildly:

"Every land its own laws: and by them alone should it be gover