DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL LIBERTY 145 the saints (the relics) before he has sworn and said the words such as usage and law direct, must lose his case." Every word binds the one who pronounces it, for the judges only take account of words, not of intentions. The punishments were also irrevocably regulated, the judges could change nothing. The homicide was to have his head cut off, the murderer, he who killed with premeditation, was to be dragged on a hurdle to the gibbet and hung, the incendiary was to be burned, the woman condemned to death was to be buried alive. The rule was applied without excep- tion. If the condemned escaped, he was executed in effigy; a manikin, supposed to represent him, was burned or hung. When a man had committed suicide his body was dragged on the hurdle and hung, for "he should have the same justice done to him as if he were the murderer of another." If a bull killed a man, or if a boar devoured a child, the executioners must hang the bull or the boar. These executions of animals continued until the end of the Middle Ages. Amelioration of Serfdom.—In the country also the condition of the inhabitants was somewhat amelior- ated during the Middle Ages. In the eleventh century there were still more serfs than freemen to be found among the villeins; the greater part of the peasants were then, as was said, taxable at will, taxable at mercy; that is, their master could make them pay as much money as it pleased him to demand; they were subject to the law of "mortmain," at their death the master took back the land they had cultivated. Grad- ually, from the beginning of the twelfth century, the serfs of the villages, like the inhabitants of the towns,