character of the master and his necessities. Food, clothing and shelter they had, for they must be kept in condition to work, and, since the tools of production were simple and large numbers of hands were needed to keep up the power and luxury of the masters, they were encouraged to breed—to reproduce themselves. They must be obedient and submissive; so they were kept in the densest ignorance, filled with the vilest superstitions and taught to believe in themselves only a little above the beasts, while their masters were descended from the gods.
Under the Feudal system the slave became a serf—a creature bound to the soil and forbidden to leave the lands of his overlord. He must cultivate the fields and perform various personal services. He had food, clothing and shelter—the amount and kind depending on the fertility of the soil, his own industry and the exactions of his Lord—and he could always work. The tools of the time were simple and many hands were needed. The more there were to labor and wait upon the Lord, the more were his vanity and his palate gratified. Petty wars, scourges and famines raged, and the serfs must breed, that more plowmen should turn the furrow and more soldiers march at the heels of the military chieftains. Also, they must be kept in ignorance—they must believe the false and debasing superstitions that would keep them in submission. They were taught to accept "the natural depravity of man"; to submit to every villainy on this earth, that thereby they might win a home in heaven; and to endure the brutalities of the overlord as the will and desire of an all-wise, all merciful and omnipotent god.
With the fall of Feudalism the Capitalists set up the fiction that all men are free and equal. The serfs were liberated from their personal obligations to the Lords and became the landed peasantry, or rented lands for a cash payment from the gentry. Lands and commodities passed from one proprietor to another by direct purchase. Trade
