Early in the second millennium, the spread of the money economy eroded and eventually destroyed feudalism. The moment that a peasant could sell his labor to the highest bidder, the ties that bound servant and master dissolved. … Not only were individuals able to buy their freedom with coin of the realm; at times, entire villages did so, as when the northern French city of Coucy-le-Château bought its charter of liberties from the penniless widow of the lord for 140 livres in 1197.

I can feel, said he, for a gentleman in your circumstances; but it is my duty to see that no communication takes place between yourself and the ladies involved in the suspicion of treasonable practices. Your farewells must be made in my presence.

I start my shift at three in the afternoon, and get to burn out at midnight.

Roaring in from the south and the ocean, we saw a rolling white bank of clouds falling onto the bay and the town, a thick dense curse of a fog crawling downward, a fogfall,