modern money.

As early as the fourteenth century, serfdom or servitude no longer existed
except in "mortmain," of which we still have to speak.

[Illustration: The Court of Mary of Anjou, Wife of Charles VII.

Her chaplain the learned Robert Blondel presents her with the allegorical
Treatise of the "_Twelve Perils of Hell_." Which he composed for her
(1455). Fac-simile of a miniature from this work. Bibl. de l'Arsenal,
Paris.]

_Mortmain_ consisted of the privation of the right of freely disposing
of one's person or goods. He who had not the power of going where he
would, of giving or selling, of leaving by will or transferring his
property, fixed or movable, as he thought best, was called a man of
mortmain.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Italian Nobleman of the Fifteenth Century. From a
Playing-card engraved on Copper about 1460 (Cabinet des Estampes, National
Library of Paris).]

This name was apparently chosen because the hand, "considered the symbol
of power and the instrument of donation," was deprived of movement,
paralysed, in fact struck as by death. It was also nearly in this sense,
that men of the Church were also called men of mortmain, because they
were equally forbidden to dispose, either in life, or by will after death,
of anything belonging to them.

There were two kinds of mortmain: real and personal; one concerning land,
and the other concerning the person; that is to say, land held in mortmain
did not change quality, whatever might be the position of the person who
occupied it, and a "man of mortmain" did not cease to suffer the
inconveniences of his position on whatever land he went to establish
himself.

The mortmains were generally subject to the greater share of feudal
obligations formerly imposed on serfs; these were particularly to work for
a certain time for their lord without receiving any wages, or else to pay
him the _tax_ when it was due, on certain definite occasions, as for
example, when he married, when he gave a dower to his daughter, when he
was taken prisoner of war, when he went to the Holy Land, &c., &c. What
particularly characterized the condition of mortmains was, that the lords
had the right to take all their goods when they died without issue, or
when the children held a separate household; and that they could not
dispose of anything they possessed, either by will or gift, beyond a
certain sum.

The noble who franchised mortmains, imposed on them in almost all cases
ver