property, acquired by devise, by gift, or other means. It
was so as a general rule through all the North of Europe; the more cruel maxims of the Roman slave-code never
prevailed with the Teutonic race.
The slave could make a contract with his lord, binding as that between peer and peer. He could in his own name bring an action against any one; in some cases even against his master. He could, in all cases and in his own name, demand a trial by jury in a court of record, to determine if he were born a slave, or free. To determine against him, it was necessary not only to show in general that he was a slave, but that he was the slave of some one person in special. If it was simply shown that the man was a slave, but was not shown to the jury^s satisfaction that he was the slave of the particular man who claimed him, the slave received his freedom at once, as one derelict by his master, and if legally claimed by nobody, he naturally belonged to himself.
He could be a witness in any court even when his master was an adverse party; though not possessed of all the privileges of a citizen—legalis homo—not admitted to hold office or serve on a jury, yet he could testify on oath even in criminal cases, as any other man.
If a slave ran away, and the master for one year neglected to pursue him with public outcry and prosecution of his claim, the slave was free by adverse possession of himself. While he was in flight, and in actual possession of freedom, the master could not seize on his children or on his possessions. He must legally possess the principal, the substance, before he could touch the subordinate and accident thereof. Did the slave flee to another borough or shire, a jury of that place—except in certain cases, when the trial must take place in another county—must not only convict him as a slave before the master could recover his body, but must convict him of being the slave of that special claimant.
If a slave took orders in the church, or became a monk, he was free from his master, though this was an exception to the law in most Catholic countries. If violence were offered to a female slave by her master, she had redress as a free woman. Slaves had all the personal rights of freemen except in regard to their own respective masters, and
