The Rural Classes of England. 233 



quest and the accession of Edward I. At this time the process 

 of deterioration in their social condition had reached its low- 

 est point, and the free villager had become a servile villein, 

 bound to the soil, and almost a slave. After this time the 

 history of the class is one of progress and amelioration, no 

 longer of degradation. 



Note. — Since writing the above paper, I have succeeded in procuring 

 a copy of Nasse's important work, " The Agricultural Community of the 

 Middle Ages," which I tried in vain to secure while preparing it. Prof. 

 Nasse's attention is given rather to the organization of the community, 

 than to the classification of the peasantry; he gives a few pages, how- 

 ever, to the latter, and his views are in the main the same as those here 

 presented. Especially he takes the same ground as to the identity of the 

 consuetudinarii with the mllani (p. 39), and as to the lundinarii being 

 " a peculiar kind of ' cotarii ' " (p. 42). It may be remarked that his au- 

 thorities, for the thirteenth century, are entirely diflerent from mine. 

 He makes no reference to the Gloucester Cartulury, and on the other 

 hand I have not had access to the documents to which he refers. I need 

 not say that I have been on my guard against drawing conclusions 

 broader than the facts will warrant. I have made use — for this period — 

 of only a small group of manors in the west of England, and, what is of 

 more importance, the property of an ecclesiastical corporation, where 

 we might expect to find peculiar usages, and jierhaps a more liberal or- 

 der of things. It is gratifying, therefore, to find ui}^ conclusions sup- 

 ported by researches based upon such a mass of evidence as tiiat used 

 by Prof. Nasse. 



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