EARLY BREADSALL CHARTERS. l6l 



these tenants at Breadsall. Of the second of these classes, he 

 writes : — 



" There were free men at the time of the Conquest, who lield 

 their tenements freely by free services and customs, and when 

 they were ejected by their conquerors after their reverse, they 

 received their tenement back again in villenage, doing servile 

 work for the same, but certain and defined ; and these are called 

 glebce ascripticii, because written down as attached to the soil. 

 They are not free because they are allowed to do servile work 

 which is not done in consideration of persons, but in respect of 

 their tenements, and so (he writes) they have not the privilege of 

 * new disseisin ' because their tenement is in villenage, although 

 privileged, nor yet of Assize of Mort-ancestor, but only a little 

 brief of right according to the custom of the manor, and so they 

 are called g/ebce ascripticii (living ascripts to the soil), because they 

 rejoice in the privilege that they cannot be removed from the soil 

 as long as they are able to perform their appointed duties to the 

 chief tenant of the Royal demesne, neither can they be compelled 

 to the holding of such a tenement unless they please." 



Of the fourth class, or slaves, the same writer observes : — 

 " They hold by villenage, and by the undefined service of 

 villains, and perform whatsoever may be commanded them as 

 long as it be lawful and honest. 



" In the sixth chapter we are informed that slaves are either 

 such by birth or have become sucli. They are born of any man 

 serf or woman serf, married or not. The issue of a female seif 

 is a slave, though the father be a free man, because the child 

 follows the condition of the mother. 



'• A free man may become a slave by confession made in the 

 King's Court that he has attached himself to villenage. Again, 

 a free man may become a slave if, when once he is made free, he 

 be recalled to servitude by reason of his ingratitude. 



" A slave, to become a clerk or monk, must be made free, and 

 if after a time he lays aside his clerical estate and returns to a 

 secular life, he becomes a slave again, because such ought to be 

 returned to his former lord. 

 n 



