Dan Jones wrote in Summer of Blood:
“Between the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the end of the fourteenth century, large numbers of the common people of England paid their rent for the small plots of land that fed them in the form of compulsory, hereditary labor service for a lord.” Jones further noted that “lordship existed everywhere…there was little freedom to swap lords and in many areas serfdom (the total ownership of a servant by his or her master) still ran strong.”
These “common people of England,” were subjects to their lord. They had limited rights, limited chances of advancement, and limited freedom. Private ownership of land was beyond the reach for most of them. They belonged to a lower class than their lords. Their access to travel was restricted. Deprived of opportunities their lives were subject to the whims of their masters. The lords would live by one set of rules and the subjects were restricted by another set of rules.
Today there are people who ...
“The whole world is a series of miracles, but we're so used to them we call them ordinary things.”
Hans Christian Andersen
“Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes: it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something else is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
