At the slightest invitation of better wages, or better soil or conditions, whole communities might desert a locality--would gather up their goods and walk off.

Boris, while Regent, conceived the idea of correcting this evil, in a way which would at the same time make him a very popular ruler with the class whose support he most needed, the Princes and the landowners.

He would chain the peasant to the soil.

A decree was issued that henceforth the peasant must not go from one estate to another.

He belonged to the land he was tilling, as the trees that grew on it belonged to it, and the master of that land was his master for evermore! Such, in brief outline, was the system of serfdom which prevailed until 1861.