> the poorest person was entitled to live his life as he saw fit on his land, and should be regarded as equal to a rich plantation owner with employees and slav

> the poorest person was entitled to live his life as he saw fit on his land, and should be regarded as equal to a rich plantation owner with employees and slaves I think this describes neither medieval Europe nor the antebellum US South. Certainly in Europe, a king needed no 'bureaucracy' to take anything he wanted from anyone at any time. Lords could largely do the same with impunity, since they had the power to do so and were largely immune from prosecution due to the heavily politicized courts prior to the rise of heavy industry in 1700, after which non-lord authorities like commercial barons arose, and demanded better legal representation. IMHO, the US south never really lost that same feudal sensibility, that titled folk deserve greater power / immunity than commoners and the demi-people below that. Before modern telecommunications which enabled enforcement of federal law, that mindset allowed ad hoc laws like Jim Crow to displace formal legal codes in the courts and enabled the segregationist inequality that persisted until the 1960's. I believe that even today that value system lives on in hearts and minds, even if the courts are shaped by it much less.