17't
NEW WORKING OF MINES.
CHAP. VII.
glebes , and cultivated it, as in later periods wasdone in France , under the name of corvees, or asis still practised in a few parts of Germany , underthe name of frohndiensten. These persons werecompelled to extend their own services and thoseof their offspring to the mines, and received thenew denomination of glebes et metallis adscripti 1 .The labour imposed upon them was found op-pressive and exhausting, and drove many tomake their escape, and seek freedom in othercountries. In the reign of the Emperor Valensnumbers of the miners of Dacia joined the forcesof the victorious and invading Goths 2 , and it isprobable that similar oppression induced othersto follow their example. The mining districtssuffered in their population by the exactionsthat were required from them. At first, onehalf the inhabitants only were compelled to la-bour in the operations connected with the mines;but as the numbers decreased, a law was madeby which all the children of these hereditaryminers were required to devote their labour tothe mines 3 . Such of them as had gone to themines in other parts of the empire were orderedto return to their domiciles ; and none of themwere allowed to go to Sardinia , because it wasthought the mines there presented attractions
1 Codex Theod . de Metallis, lib. vi. sec. 9.