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sory for a vassal to give his grown-up sons and daughters into his master’s service, although he may sorely need them at home, and that he himself must serve his lord personally, and leave his own farming to chance; that he is not safe under his own roof, that if he incur the dislike of any of his lord’s officials, even though it were the lowest clerk, without any ceremony whatever he is ordered to move out? He then must try to buy a part of some other estate, and move out without his grown-up children. He is allowed to take children under nine years of age; the rest he must leave to his lord. You will perhaps tell me that the peasants had one protector; that Leopold I, passed a law in which he forbade the nobles to deal severely with peasants who rebelled on account of oppression. To that I can only say that Leopold took the peasants under his protection only because under such oppression they were unable to pay the imperial taxes. But little cared the nobles for the Emperor’s command. They continued their oppression, and aimed in every possible way