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Kitabı oku: «Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History», sayfa 4

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FIRST ESSAY.
THE PEASANTRY OF THE FEUDAL AGE

CHAPTER I.
THE LEGAL ASPECT OF VILLAINAGE. GENERAL CONCEPTIONS

Medieval serfdom.

It has become a commonplace to oppose medieval serfdom to ancient slavery, one implying dependence on the lord of the soil and attachment to the glebe, the other being based on complete subjection to an owner. There is no doubt that great landmarks in the course of social development are set by the three modes hitherto employed of organising human labour: using the working man (1) as a chattel at will, (2) as a subordinate whose duties are fixed by custom, (3) as a free agent bound by contract. These landmarks probably indicate molecular changes in the structure of society scarcely less important than those political and intellectual revolutions which are usually taken as the turning-points of ancient, medieval, and modern history.

And still we must not forget, in drawing such definitions, that we reach them only by looking at things from such a height that all lesser inequalities and accidental features of the soil are no longer sensible to the eyesight. In finding one's way over the land one must needs go over these very inequalities and take into account these very features. If, from a general survey of medieval servitude, we turn to the actual condition of the English peasantry, say in the thirteenth century, the first fact we have to meet will stand in very marked contrast to our general proposition.

Importance of legal treatment.

The majority of the peasants are villains, and the legal conception of villainage has its roots not in the connexion of the villain with the soil, but in his personal dependence on the lord.

If this is a fact, it is a most important one. It would be reckless to treat it as a product of mere legal pedantry30. The great work achieved by the English lawyers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was prompted by a spirit which had nothing to do with pedantry. They were fashioning state and society, proudly conscious of high aims and power, enlightened by the scholastic training of their day, but sufficiently strong to use it for their own purposes; sound enough not to indulge in mere abstractions, and firm enough not to surrender to mere technicalities31. In the treatment of questions of status and tenure by the lawyers of Henry II, Henry III, and Edward I, we must recognise a mighty influence which was brought to bear on the actual condition of things, and our records show us on every page that this treatment was by no means a matter of mere theory. Indeed one of the best means that we have for estimating the social process of those times is afforded by the formation and the break up of legal notions in their cross influences with surrounding political and economic facts.

Definition and terminology of villainage at Common Law.

As to the general aspect of villainage in the legal theory of English feudalism there can be no doubt. The 'Dialogus de Scaccario' gives it in a few words: the lords are owners not only of the chattels but of the bodies of their ascripticii, they may transfer them wherever they please, 'and sell or otherwise alienate them if they like32.' Glanville and Bracton, Fleta and Britton33 follow in substance the same doctrine, although they use different terms. They appropriate the Roman view that there is no difference of quality between serfs and serfs: all are in the same abject state. Legal theory keeps a very firm grasp of the distinction between status and tenure, between a villain and a free man holding in villainage, but it does not admit of any distinction of status among serfs: servus, villanus, and nativus are equivalent terms as to personal condition, although this last is primarily meant to indicate something else besides condition, namely, the fact that a person has come to it by birth34. The close connexion between the terms is well illustrated by the early use of nativa, nieve, 'as a feminine to villanus.'

Treatment of villainage in legal practice.

These notions are by no means abstractions bereft of practical import. Quite in keeping with them, manorial lords could remove peasants from their holdings at their will and pleasure. An appeal to the courts was of no avail: the lord in reply had only to oppose his right over the plaintiff's person, and to refuse to go into the subject-matter of the case35. Nor could the villain have any help as to the amount and the nature of his services36; the King's Courts will not examine any complaint in this respect, and may sometimes go so far as to explain that it is no business of theirs to interfere between the lord and his man37. In fact any attempt on the part of the dependant to assert civil rights as to his master will be met and defeated by the 'exceptio villenagii38.' The state refuses to regulate the position of this class on the land, and therefore there can be no question about any legal 'ascription' to the soil. Even as to his person, the villain was liable to be punished and put into prison by the lord, if the punishment inflicted did not amount to loss of life or injury to his body39. The extant Plea Rolls and other judicial records are full of allusions to all these rights of the lord and disabilities of the villain, and it must be taken into account that only an infinitely small part of the actual cases can have left any trace in such records, as it was almost hopeless to bring them to the notice of the Royal Courts40.

Identification with Roman slavery.

It is not strange that in view of such disabilities Bracton thought himself entitled to assume equality of condition between the English villain and the Roman slave, and to use the terms servus, villanus, and nativus indiscriminately. The characteristics of slavery are copied by him from Azo's commentary on the Institutes, as material for a description of the English bondmen, and he distinguishes them carefully even from the Roman adscripticii or coloni of base condition. The villains are protected in some measure against their lord in criminal law; they cannot be slain or maimed at pleasure; but such protection is also afforded to slaves in the later law of the Empire, and in fact it is based in Bracton on the text of the Institutes given by Azo, which in its turn is simply a summary of enactments made by Hadrian and Antonine. The minor law books of the thirteenth century follow Bracton in this identification of villainage with slavery. Although this identification could not but exercise a decisive influence on the theory of the subject, it must be borne in mind that it did not originate in a wanton attempt to bring together in the books dissimilar facts from dissimilar ages. On the contrary, it came into the books because practice had paved the way for it. Bracton was enabled to state it because he did not see much difference between the definitions of Azo and the principles of Common Law, as they had been established by his masters Martin of Pateshull and William Raleigh. He was wrong, as will be shown by-and-by, but certainly he had facts to lean upon, and his theory cannot be dismissed on the ground of his having simply copied it from a foreigner's treatise.

Villains in gross and villains regardant.

Most modern writers on the subject have laid stress upon a difference between villains regardant and villains in gross, said to be found in the law books41. It has been taken to denote two degrees of servitude—the predial dependence of a colonus and the personal dependence of a true slave. The villain regardant was (it is said) a villain who laboured under disabilities in relation to his lord only, the villain in gross possessed none of the qualities of a freeman. One sub-division would illustrate the debasement of freemen who had lost their own land, while the other would present the survival of ancient slavery.

In opposition to these notions I cannot help thinking that Hallam was quite right in saying: 'In the condition of these (villains regardant and villains in gross), whatever has been said by some writers, I can find no manner of difference; the distinction was merely technical, and affected only the mode of pleading. The term in gross is appropriated in our legal language to property held absolutely and without reference to any other. Thus it is applied to rights of advowson or of common, when possessed simply, and not as incident to any particular lands. And there can be no doubt that it was used in the same sense for the possession of a villein.' (Middle Ages, iii. 173; cf. note XIV.) Hallam's statement did not carry conviction with it however, and as the question is of considerable importance in itself and its discussion will incidentally help to bring out one of the chief points about villainage, I may be allowed to go into it at some length.

Littleton's view.

Matters would be greatly simplified if the distinction could really be traced through the authorities. In point of fact it turns out to be a late one. We may start from Coke in tracing back its history. His commentary upon Littleton certainly has a passage which shows that he came across opinions implying a difference of status between villains regardant and villains in gross. He speaks of the right of the villain to pursue every kind of action against every person except his lord, and adds: 'there is no diversity herein, whether he be a villain regardant or in gross, although some have said to the contrary42' (Co. Lit. 123 b). Littleton himself treats of the terms in several sections, and it is clear that he never takes them to indicate status or define variation of condition. As has been pointed out by Hallam, he uses them only in connexion with a diversity in title, and a consequent diversity in the mode of pleading. If the lord has a deed or a recorded confession to prove a man's bondage, he may implead him as his villain in gross; if the lord has to rely upon prescription, he has to point out the manor to which the party and his ancestors have been regardant, have belonged, time out of mind43. As it is a question of title and not of condition, Littleton currently uses the mere 'villain' without any qualification, whereas such a qualification could not be dispensed with, if there had been really two different classes of villains. Last but not least, any thought of a diversity of condition is precluded by the fact, that Littleton assumes the transfer from one sub-division to the other to depend entirely on the free will of the lord (sections 175, 181, 182, 185). But still, although even Littleton does not countenance the classification I am now analysing, it seems to me that some of his remarks may have given origin to the prevalent misconception on the subject.

The 'villain regardant' of the Year Books.

Let us take up the Year Books, which, even in their present state, afford such an inestimable source of information for the history of legal conceptions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries44. An examination of the reports in the age of the Edwards will show at once that the terms regardant and in gross are used, or rather come into use, in the fourteenth century as definitions of the mode of pleading in particular cases. They are suggested by difference in title, but they do not coincide with it, and any attempt to make them coincide must certainly lead to misapprehension. I mean this—the term 'villain regardant' applied to a man does not imply that the person in question has any status superior to that of the 'villain in gross,' and it does not imply that the lord has acquired a title to him by some particular mode of acquisition, e.g. by prescription as contrasted with grant or confession; it simply implies that for the purpose of the matter then in hand, for the purpose of the case that is then being argued, the lord is asserting and hoping to prove a title to the villain by relying on a title to a manor with which the villain is or has been connected—title it must be remembered is one thing, proof of title is another. As the contrast is based on pleading and not on title, one and the same person may be taken and described in one case as a villain regardant to a manor, and in another as a villain in gross. And now for the proof.

The expression 'regardant' never occurs in the pleadings at all, but 'regardant to a manor' is used often. From Edward III's time it is used quite as a matter of course in the formula of the 'exceptio' or special plea of villainage45. That is, if the defendant pleaded in bar of an action that the plaintiff was his bondman he generally said, I am not bound to answer A, because he is my villain and I am seised of him as of my villain as regardant to my manor of C. Of course there are other cases when the term is employed, but the plea in bar is by far the most common one and may stand for a test. This manner of pleading is only coming gradually into use in the fourteenth century, and we actually see how it is taking shape and spreading. As a rule the Year Books of Edward I's time have not got it. The defendant puts in his plea unqualified. 'He ought not to be answered because he is our villain' (Y.B. 21/22 Edward I, p. 166, ed. Horwood). There is a case in 1313 when a preliminary skirmish between the counsel on either side took place as to the sufficiency of the defendant's plea in bar, the plaintiff contending that it was not precise enough. Here, if any where, we should expect the term 'regardant,' but it is not forthcoming46. What is more, and what ought to have prevented any mistake, the official records of trials on the Plea Rolls up to Edward II always use the plain assertion, 'villanus … et tenet in villenagio47.' The practice of naming the manor to which a villain belonged begins however to come in during the reign of Edward II, and the terminology is by no means settled at the outset; expressions are often used as equivalent to 'regardant' which could hardly have misled later antiquaries as to the meaning of the qualification48. In a case of 1322, for instance, we have 'within the manor' where we should expect to find 'regardant to the manor49.' This would be very nearly equivalent to the Latin formula adopted by the Plea Rolls, which is simply ut de manerio50. Every now and then cases occur which gradually settle the terminology, because the weight of legal argumentation in them is made to turn on the fact that a particular person was connected with a particular manor and not with another. A case from 1317 is well in point. B.P. the defendant excepts against the plaintiff T.A. on the ground of villainage (qil est nostre vileyn, and nothing else). The plaintiff replies that he was enfranchised by being suffered to plead in an assize of mort d'ancestor against B.P.'s grandmother. By this the defendant's counsel is driven to maintain that his client's right against T.A. descended not from his grandmother but from his grandfather, who was seised of the manor of H. to which T.A. belonged as a villain51. The connexion with the manor is adduced to show from what quarter the right to the villain had descended, and, of course, implies nothing as to any peculiarity of this villain's status, or as to the kind of title, the mode of acquiring rights, upon which the lord relies—it was ground common to both parties that if the lord had any rights at all he acquired them by inheritance.

Prior of the Hospitalers v. Thomas Barentyn and Ralph Crips.

Another case seems even more interesting. It dates from 1355, that is from a time when the usual terminology had already become fixed. It arose under that celebrated Statute of Labourers which played such a prominent part in the social history of the fourteenth century. One of the difficulties in working the statute came from the fact that it had to recognise two different sets of relations between the employer and the workman. The statute dealt with the contract between master and servant, but it did not do away with the dependence of the villain on the lord, and in case of conflict it gave precedence to this latter claim; a lord had the right to withdraw his villain from a stranger's service. Such cross influences could not but occasion a great deal of confusion, and our case gives a good instance of it. Thomas Barentyn has reclaimed Ralph Crips from the service of the Prior of the Hospitalers, and the employer sues in consequence both his former servant and Barentyn. This last answers, that the servant in question is his villain regardant to the manor of C. The plaintiff's counsel maintains that he could not have been regardant to the manor, as he was going about at large at his free will and as a free man; for this reason A. the former owner of the manor was never seised of him, and not being seised could not transfer the seisin to the present owner, although he transferred the manor. For the defendant it is pleaded, that going about freely is no enfranchisement, that by the gift of the manor every right connected with the manor was also conferred and that consequently the new lord could at any moment lay hands on his man, as the former lord could have done in his time. Ultimately the plaintiff offers to join issue on the question, whether the servant had been a villain regardant to the manor of C. or not. The defendant asserts, rather late in the day, that even if the person in question was not a villain regardant to the manor of C. the mere fact of his being a villain in gross would entitle his lord to call him away. This attempt to start on a new line is not allowed by the Court because the claim had originally been traversed on the ground of the connexion with the manor52.

The peculiarity of the case is that a third person has an interest to prove that the man claimed as villain had been as a free man. Usually there were but two parties in the contest about status; the lord pulling one way and the person claimed pulling the other way, but, through the influence of the Statute of Labourers, in our case lord and labourer were at one against a third party, the labourer's employer. The acknowledgment of villainage by the servant did not settle the question, because, though binding for the future, it was not sufficient to show that villainage had existed in the past, that is at the time when the contract of hire and service was broken through the interference of the lord. Everything depended on the settlement of one question—was the lord seised at the time, or not? Both parties agree that the lord was not actually seised of the person, both agree that he was seised of the manor, and both suppose that if the person had as a matter of fact been attached to the manor it would have amounted to a seisin of the person. And so the contention is shifted to this point: can a man be claimed through the medium of a manor, if he has not been actually living, working and serving in it? The court assumes the possibility, and so the parties appeal to the country to decide whether in point of fact Ralph Crips the shepherd had been in legal if not in actual connexion with the manor, i.e. could be traced to it personally or through his relatives.

Results as to 'villain regardant' and 'villain in gross.'

The case is interesting in many ways. It shows that the same man could be according to the point of view considered both as a villain in regard to a manor, and as a villain in gross. The relative character of the classification is thus illustrated as well as its importance for practical purposes. The transmission of a manor is taken to include the persons engaged in the cultivation of its soil, and even those whose ancestors have been engaged in such cultivation, and who have no special plea for severing the connexion.

As to the outcome of the whole inquiry, we may, it seems to me, safely establish the following points: 1. The terms 'regardant' and 'in gross' have nothing to do with a legal distinction of status. 2. They come up in connexion with the modes of proof and pleading during the fourteenth century. 3. They may apply to the same person from different points of view. 4. 'Villain in gross' means a villain without further qualification; 'villain regardant to a manor' means villain by reference to a manor. 5. The connexion with a manor, though only a matter of fact and not binding the lord in any way, might yet be legally serviceable to him, as a means of establishing and proving his rights over the person he claimed.

The astrier.

I need hardly mention, after what has been said, that there is no such thing as this distinction in the thirteenth century law books. I must not omit, however, to refer to one expression which may be taken to stand in the place of the later 'villain regardant to a manor.' Britton (ii. 55) gives the formula of the special plea of villainage to the assize of mort d'ancestor in the following words: 'Ou il poie dire qe il est soen vileyn et soen astrier et demourrant en son villenage.' There can be no doubt that residence on the lord's land is meant, and the term astrier leads even further, it implies residence at a particular hearth or in a particular house. Fleta gives the assize of novel disseisin to those who have been a long time away from their villain hearth53 ('extra astrum suum villanum,' p. 217). If the term 'astrier' were restricted to villains it would have proved a great deal more than the 'villain regardant' usually relied upon. But it is of very wide application. Britton uses it of free men entitled to rights of common by reason of tenements they hold in a township (i. 392). Bracton speaks of the case of a nephew coming into an inheritance in preference to the uncle because he had been living at the same hearth or in the same hall (in atrio or astro) with the former owner54, and in such or a similar sense the word appears to have been usually employed by lawyers55. On the other hand, if we look in Bracton's treatise for parallel passages to those quoted from the Fleta and Britton about the villain astrier, we find only a reference to the fact that the person in question was a serf and holding in villainage and under the sway of a lord56, and so there is nothing to denote special condition in the astrier. When the term occurs in connexion with villainage it serves to show that a person was not only a bondman born, but actually living in the power of his lord, and not in a state of liberty. The allusion to the hearth cannot possibly mean that the man sits in his own homestead, because only a few of the villains could have been holders of separate homesteads, and so it must mean that he was sitting in a homestead belonging to his lord, which is quite in keeping with the application of the term in the case of inheritance.

The territorial hold of villainage.

The facts we have been examining certainly suppose that in the villains we have chiefly to do with peasants tilling the earth and dependent on manorial organisation. They disclose the working of one element which is not to be simply deduced from the idea of personal dependence.

It may be called subjection to territorial power. The possession of a manor carries the possession of cultivators with it. It is always important to decide whether a bondman is in the seisin of his lord or not, and the chief means to show it is to trace his connexion with the territorial lordship. The interposition of the manor in the relation between master and man is, of course, a striking feature and it gives a very characteristic turn to medieval servitude. But if it is not consistent with the general theory laid down in the thirteenth century law books, it does not lead to anything like the Roman colonatus. The serf is not placed on a particular plot of land to do definite services under the protection of the State. He may be shifted from one plot within the jurisdiction of his lord to another, from one area of jurisdiction to another, from rural labour to industrial work or house work, from one set of customs and services to another. He is not protected by his predial connexion against his lord, and in fact such predial connexion is utilised to hold and bind him to his lord. We may say, that the unfree peasant of English feudalism was legally a personal dependant, but that his personal dependence was enforced through territorial lordship.

30.Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 70; Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 44. Cf. Chandler, Five Court Rolls of Great Cressingham in the county of Norfolk, 1885, pp. viii, ix.
31.Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures, 304, 305; Maitland, Introduction to the Note-book of Bracton, 4 sqq.
32.Dial. de Scacc. ii. 10 (Select Charters, p. 222). Cf. i. 10; p. 192.
33.Glanville, v. 5; Bracton, 4, 5; Fleta, i. 2; Britton, ed. Nichols, i. 194.
34.Bracton, 5; Britton, i, 197. Pollock, Land-laws, App. C, is quite right as to the fundamental distinction between status and tenure, but he goes too far, I think, in trying to trace the steps by which names originally applying to different things got confused in the terminology of the Common Law. Annotators sometimes indulged in distinctions which contradict each other and give us no help as to the law. The same Cambridge MS. from which Nichols gives an explanation of servus, nativus, and villanus (i. 195) has a different etymology in a marginal note to Bracton. 'Nativus dicitur a nativitate—quasi in servitute natus, villanus dicitur a villa, quasi faciens villanas consuetudines racione tenementi, vel sicut ille qui se recognoscit ad villanum in curia quae recordum habet, servus vero dicitur a servando quasi per captivitatem, per vim et injustam detentionem villanus captus et detentus contra mores et consuetudines juris naturalis' (Cambr. Univers. MSS. Dd. vii. 6. I have the reference from my friend F.W. Maitland).
35.Placita Coram Rege, Easter, 14 Edw. I, m. 9: 'Willelmus Barantyn et Radulfus attachiati fuerunt ad respondendum Agneti de Chalgraue de placito quare in ipsam Agnetem apud Chalgraue insultum fecerunt et ipsam verberaverunt, vulneraverunt et male tractaverunt, et bona et catalla sua in domibus ipsius Agnetis apud Chalgraue scilicet ordeum et avenam, argentum, archas et alia bona ad valenciam quadraginta solidorum ceperunt et asportaverunt; et ipsam Agnetem effugaverunt de uno mesuagio et dimidia virgata terre de quibus fuit in seysina per predictum Willelmum que fuerunt de antiquo dominico per longum tempus; nec permiserunt ipsam Agnetem morari in predicta villa de Chalgraue; et eciam quandam sororem ipsius Agnetis eo quod ipsa soror eam hospitavit per duas noctes de domibus suis eiecit, terra et catalla sua abstulit. Et predicti Willelmus et Radulfus veniunt. Et quo ad insultacionem et verberacionem dicunt quod non sunt inde culpabiles. Et quo ad hoc quod ipsa Agnes dicit quod ipsam eiecerunt de domibus et terris suis, dicunt quod predicta Agnes est natiua ipsius Willelmi et tenuit predicta tenementa in villenagio ad voluntatem ipsius Willelmi propter quod bene licebat eidem Willelmo ipsam de predicto tenemento ammouere.—Juratores dicunt … quod predicta tenementa sunt villenagium predicti Willelmi de Barentyn et quod predicta Agnes tenuit eadem tenementa ad voluntatem ipsius Willelmi.' Cf. Y.B. 12/13 Edw. III (ed. Pike), p. 233 sqq., 'or vous savez bien qe par ley de terre tout ceo qe le vileyn ad si est a soun seignour;' 229 sqq., 'qar cest sa terre demene, et il les puet ouster a sa volunte demene.'
36.Coram Rege, Mich., 3 4 Edw. I, m. 1: 'Ricardus de Assheburnham summonitus fuit ad respondendum Petro de Attebuckhole et Johanni de eadem de placito quare, cum ipsi teneant quasdam terras et tenementa de predicto Ricardo in Hasseburnham ac ipsi parati sunt ad faciendum ei consuetudines et servicia que antecessores sui terras et tenementa illa tenentes facere consueverint, predictus Ricardus diversas commoditates quam ipsi tam in boscis ipsius Ricardi quam in aliis locis habere consueverint eisdem subtrahens ipsos ad intollerabiles servitutes et consuetudines faciendas taliter compellit quod ex sua duricia mendicare coguntur. Et unde queruntur quod, cum teneant tenementa sua per certas consuetudines et certa servicia, et cum percipere consueverunt boscum ad focum et materiam de bosco crescente in propriis terris suis, predictus Ricardus ipsos non permittit aliquid in boscis suis capere et eciam capit aueria sua et non permittit eos terram suam colere.—Ricardus dicit, quod non debet eis ad aliquam accionem respondere nisi questi essent de vita vel membris vel de iniuria facta corpori suo. Dicit eciam quod nativi sui sunt, et quod omnes antecessores sui nativi fuerunt antecessorum suorum et in villenagio suo manentes.'
37.Note-book of Bracton, pl. 1237: 'dominus Rex non vult se de eis intromittere.'
38.It occurs in the oldest extant Plea Roll, 6 Ric. I; Rot. Cur. Regis, ed. Palgrave, p. 84: 'Thomas venit et dicit quod ipsa fuit uxorata cuidam Turkillo, qui habuit duos filios qui clamabant libertatem tenementi sui in curia domini Regis … et quod ibi dirationavit eos esse villanos suos, et non defendit disseisinam … Et ipsi Elilda et Ricardus defendunt vilenagium et ponunt se super juratam,' etc.
39.Maitland, Select Pleas of the Crown (Selden Soc. I), pl. 3: 'Quendam nativum suum quem habuit in vinculis eo quod voluit fugere.' Bract. Notebook, pl. 1041: 'Petrus de Herefordia attachiatus fuit ad respondendum R. fil. Th. quare ipse cepit Ricardum et eum imprisonauit et coegit ad redempcionem 1 marce. Et Petrus venit alias et defendit capcionem et imprisonacionem set dicit quod villanus fuit,' etc.
  It must be noted, however, that in such cases it was difficult to draw the line as to the amount of bodily injury allowed by the law, and therefore the King's courts were much more free to interfere. In the trial quoted on p. 45, note 2, the defendants distinguish carefully between the accusation and the civil suit. They plead 'not guilty' as to the former. And so Bishop Stubbs' conjecture as to the 'rusticus verberatus' in Pipe Roll, 31 Henry I, p. 55 (Constit. Hist. i. 487), seems quite appropriate. The case is a very early one, and may testify to the better condition of the peasantry in the first half of the twelfth century.
40.As to the actual treatment experienced by the peasants at the hands of their feudal masters, see a picturesque case in Maitland's Select Pleas of the Crown (Selden Soc.), 203.
41.Stubbs, Constitutional History, ii. 652, 654; Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 477; Digby, Introduction to the Law of Real Property, 244.
42.Sir Thomas Smith, The Commonwealth of England, ed. 1609, p. 123, shows that the notion of two classes corresponding to the Roman servus and the Roman adscriptus glebae had taken root firmly about the middle of the sixteenth century. 'Villeins in gross, as ye would say immediately bond to the person and his heirs.... (The adscripti) were not bond to the person but to the mannor or place, and did follow him who had the mannors, and in our law are called villains regardants (sic), for because they be as members or belonging to the mannor or place. Neither of the one sort nor of the other have we any number in England. And of the first I never knew any in the Realme in my time. Of the second so fewe there bee, that it is not almost worth the speaking, but our law doth acknowledge them in both these sorts.'
43.Section 182 is not quite consistent with such an exposition, but I do not think there can be any doubt as to the general doctrine.
44.I need not say that the work done by Mr. Horwood, and especially by Mr. Pike, for the Rolls' Series quite fulfil the requirements of students. But in comparison with it the old Year Books in Rastall's, and even more so in Maynard's edition, appear only the more wretchedly misprinted.
45.For instance, Liber Assisarum, ann. 44, pl. 4 (f. 283): 'Quil fuit son villein et il seisi de luy come de son villein come regardant a son maneir de B. en la Counte de Dorset.'
46.Y.B. Hil. 5 Edw. II: 'Iohan de Rose port son [ne] vexes vers Labbe de Seint Bennet de Holme, et il counta qil luy travaille, etc., e luy demande.' Migg.: 'defent tort et force, ou et quant il devera et dit qil fuist le vilein Labbe, per qi il ne deveroit estre resceve.' Devom.: 'il covient qe vous disez plus qe vous estes seisi, ut supra,' etc. Migg.: 'il est nostre vileyn, et nous seisi de luy come de nostre vileyn.' Ber.: 'Coment seisi come,' etc.? Migg.: 'de luy et de ces auncestres come de nos vileynes, en fesant de luy nostre provost en prenant de luy rechate de char et de saunk et redemption pur fille et fitz marier de luy et de ces auncestres et a tailler haut et bas a nostre volente, prest,' etc. (Les reports des cases del Roy Edward le II. London, 1678; f. 157.)
47
  I do not think it ever came into any one's mind to look at the Plea Rolls in this matter. Even Hargrave, when preparing his famous argument in Somersett's case, carried his search no further than the Year Books then in print. And in consequence he just missed the true solution. He says (Howell's State Trials, xx. 42, 43),'As to the villeins in gross the cases relative to them are very few; and I am inclined to think that there never was any great number of them in England.... However, after a long search, I do find places in the Year Books where the form of alledging villenage in gross is expressed, not in full terms, but in a general way; and in all the cases I have yet seen, the villenage is alledged in the ancestors of the person against whom it was pleaded.' And he quotes 1 Edw. II, 4; 5 Edw. II, 157 (corr. for 15); 7 Edw. II, 242, and 11 Edw. II, 344. But all these cases are of Edward II's time, and instead of being exceptional give the normal form of pleading as it was used up to the second quarter of the fourteenth century. They looked exceptional to Hargrave only because he restricted his search to the later Year Books, and did not take up the Plea Rolls. By admitting the cases quoted to indicate villainage in gross, he in fact admitted that there were only villains in gross before 1350 or thereabouts, or rather that all villains were alike before this time, and no such thing as the difference between in gross and regardant existed. I give in App. I the report of the interesting case quoted from 1 Edw. II.


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48.Y.B. 32/33 Edw. I (Horwood), p. 57: 'Quant un home est seisi de son vilein, issi qil est reseant dans son vilenage.' Fitzherbert, Abr. Vill. 3 (39 Edw. III): '… villeins sunt appendant as maners qe sount auncien demesne.' On the other hand, 'regardant' is used quite independently of villainage. Y.B. 12/13 Edw. III (Pike), p. 133: 'come services regardaunts al manoir de H.'
49.Y.B. Hil. 14 Edw. II, f. 417: 'R. est bailli … del manoir de Clifton … deins quel manoir cesti J. est villein.'
50.See App. I and II.
51.Y.B. Trin. 9 Edw. II, f. 294: 'Le manoir de H. fuit en ascun temps en la seisine Hubert nostre ael, a quel manoir cest vileyn est regardant.'
52
  Y.B. Trin. 29 Edw. III, f. 41. For the report of this case and the corresponding entry in the Common Pleas Roll, see Appendix II.


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53.Cf. Annals of Dunstaple, Ann. Mon. iii. 371: 'Quia astrarius eius fuit,' in the sense of a person living on one's land.
54.Bracton, f. 267, b.
55.Bract. Note-book, pl. 230, 951, 988. Cf. Spelman, Gloss. v. astrarius. Kentish Custumal, Statutes of the Realm, i. 224. Fleta has it once in the sense of the Anglo-Saxon heorð-fæst, i. cap. 47, § 10 (f. 62).
56.Bracton, f. 190.