The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.  They fled, by throngs, to church and monastery, and were happy, by enslaving themselves, to escape the more terrible bondage of the sea-kings.  During the brief dominion of the Norman Godfrey, every free Frisian was forced to wear a halter around his neck.  The lot of a Church-slave was freedom in comparison.  To kill him was punishable by a heavy fine.  He could give testimony in court, could inherit, could make a will, could even plead before the law, if law could be found.  The number of slaves throughout the Netherlands was very large; the number belonging to the bishopric of Utrecht, enormous.

The condition of those belonging to laymen was much more painful.  The Lyf-eigene, or absolute slaves, were the most wretched.  They were mere brutes.  They had none of the natural attributes of humanity, their life and death were in the master’s hands, they had no claim to a fraction of their own labor or its fruits, they had no marriage, except under condition of the infamous ‘jus primoe noctis’.  The villagers, or villeins, were the second class and less forlorn.  They could commute the labor due to their owner by a fixed sum of money, after annual payment of which, the villein worked for himself.  His master, therefore, was not his absolute proprietor.  The chattel had a beneficial interest in a portion of his own flesh and blood.

The crusades made great improvement in the condition of the serfs.  He who became a soldier of the cross was free upon his return, and many were adventurous enough to purchase liberty at so honorable a price.  Many others were sold or mortgaged by the crusading knights, desirous of converting their property into gold, before embarking upon their enterprise.  The purchasers or mortgagees were in general churches and convents, so that the slaves, thus alienated, obtained at least a preferable servitude.  The place of the absent serfs was supplied by free labor, so that agricultural and mechanical occupations, now devolving upon a more elevated class, became less degrading, and, in process of time, opened an ever-widening sphere for the industry and progress of freemen.  Thus a people began to exist.  It was, however; a miserable people, with personal, but no civil rights whatever.  Their condition, although better than servitude, was almost desperate.  They were taxed beyond their ability, while priest and noble were exempt.  They had no voice in the apportionment of the money thus contributed.  There was no redress against the lawless violence to which they were perpetually exposed.  In the manorial courts, the criminal sat in judgment upon his victim.  The functions of highwayman and magistrate were combined in one individual.