The Rural Classes of England. 221 



mined ; commerce and industry began to assume a leading 

 place in society ; in the fourteenth century serfdom was abol- 

 ished. At the accession of Edward I., in 1272, English ville- 

 nage was at its height; at the death of Edward III., in 1877, 

 (just about a century later,) villenage no longer existed. The 

 commencement of the reign of Edward I. is therefore the time 

 which one would choose, of all others, to study the full de- 

 velopment of feudal institutions. 



It so happens that this is precisely the time at which our 

 materials are most abundant ; those materials, at all events, to 

 which I have had access. If any thing is lacking to the full 

 understanding of them, it is not so much in the actual exist- 

 ence and workings of the institutions, as in their history and 

 formation. 



Edward I., the greatest king who sat upon the throne of 

 England between William I. and William III., has left the 

 marks of his legislative activity in every department of Eng- 

 lish law ; from him, as is natural, we derive our first clue to 

 the solution of the problem before us. In the fourth year of 

 his reign, 1276, a document was issued, entitled Extenta Mane- 

 rii, which prescribes the several points to be reported upon, in 

 what we may call the census of the manors — their extent, pop- 

 ulation and value. In this document we find three classes of 

 tenantry specified ; the liberi tenentes (free tenants), ciistumarii 

 (customary tenants), and coterelli (cottagers) — the free tenants 

 being again divided into those who held by military service, 

 those who held by socage, and those held in any other manner 

 {alio raodo). There is no mention, by name, of villeins, which 

 we know from other sources to have been at this time the ap- 

 pellation of the great mass of the tenantry. Here we have a 

 general classification of the English peasantry, to which we 

 may expect the census of the several manors to conform. 



The Cartulary of the Abbey of St. Peter of Gloucester,* 

 contains the register of twenty-seven manors, belonging to 



1 Historia et Cartulariiiin Monasterii Gloucestriae, Vol. iii. 



