164 ANECDOTES OF FEUDAL TIMES IN ENGLAND. 



" To all, &c., Gregory, abbot, and the convent of Whalley, greet- 

 ing 1 . Know ye, that we for ourselves, and each of our successors, 

 have given, granted, and delivered to our beloved in Christ, John 

 G. and his assignees, R., the son of Adam, our native, together with 

 the whole of his family and all his effects, to have, and to hold for 

 one hundred shillings, delivered and paid to us by the aforesaid 

 John ; so that the aforesaid R., with all his family and all his effects, 

 as aforesaid, be discharged, and quit of all challenge, &c., and so 

 that neither we nor our successors can in future claim any thing of 

 right in the aforesaid, in respect of his state as our native,"* &c. 



The clergy, however, and especially several of the popes, en- 

 forced the manumission of slaves as a duty upon laymen, and in- 

 veighed against the scandal of keeping Christians in bondage ; but 

 they were not, it is said, equally ready in performing their own 

 parts ; the villeins upon church-lands were among the last who were 

 emancipated, f In the twelfth year of Edward III. a general com- 

 mission was issued to manumit the slaves. J The greater part of the 

 peasants in some countries of Germany had acquired their liberty 

 before the end of the 13th century ; in other parts, as well as in all 

 the northern and eastern regions of Europe, they remained much 

 longer in a state of vassalage. Particular instruments for the manu- 

 mission of slaves in England are extant of the age of Henry VIII. ; 

 and instances of predial servitude have been discovered so late as the 

 time of Elizabeth ; and perhaps they might be traced still lower. 



Insurrection of Slaves. The oppressions to which this unhappy 

 race were victims in some manors, frequently urged them to adopt 

 violent measures with a view to obtain amelioration. Of the servile 

 wars which sometimes arose, no case occurs in which the slaves 

 were eminently successful, but, on the contrary, their chains were 

 more firmly rivetted by their struggles for liberty. 



Dr. Ormerod, the historian of Cheshire, has collected from the 

 MS. leger-book of Vale Royal Abbey some curious particulars re- 

 lating to the hostility which the natives of Dernhall manor for a long 

 time displayed toward their monastic proprietors early in the 14th 

 century. It appears that the hatred of their dependents began to 

 manifest itself in a violent manner in the year 1321, "when," says 

 Dr. Ormerod, " the monks, who ventured to pass their consecrated 

 limits, were pursued by the Winningtons, Leightons, and Bulkeleys, 

 and saved their lives only by flight ; and, in the same year, the leger- 

 book records a still more atrocious instance, by which it appears 

 that the Ollingtons murdered John Boddeworth, a monk of the 

 abbey, and played at foot-ball with the head after the perpetration 

 of the deed. 



In 1329, the year before the completion of the abbey, the quarrels 

 between Vale Royal, and the natives of Dernhall, were not settled 



* Hist. Whalley, p. 134. See also Pennant's Tour in North Wales, and 

 Catherall's Hist. N. Wales, vol. ii., Anglesea. 

 t Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 221. 

 t Ryraer, Foider. torn. ii. P. 4. p. 20. 

 Harrington, p. 2/4. 



