316 The Customs of Four Manors of the Abbey of Lacoch 



villein tenant, as against all other men, was free, and that he could 

 invoke the power of his own lord to defend him from external 

 injustice or oppression. He could not now he bought or sold, 

 excepting in so far that a transference of the manor carried with it 

 tlie transference of manorial rights over the men of the manor. 

 While in theory, at any rate, lie received no wages, yet it must also 

 be remembered that neither could he be out of work ; that the 

 amount and duration of that work left him with a large proportion, 

 often with the greater part, of his time at his own disposal, to 

 cultivate his own holding, and that he appears to have had a strong 

 tenant-right in that liolding, so that he was not (whatever the 

 theory might be) liable in practice to capricious eviction. 



The process, in fact, of wliich we catch a glimpse in these 

 customs, is one of steady, though gradual, emergence on the part 

 of the lower classes of society from complete serfdom to the 

 individual freedom and independence which Englishmen are sup- 

 posed to enjoy to-day. From having no personal rights at all the 

 villein comes to possess such by custom or the courtesy of the lord, 

 and at last is al)le to vindicate them in a court of law. 



And many of the customs, which seem to us most unjust and 

 oppressive, tind a ready explanation, as the disappearing relic of 

 an older state of things. Thus, for instance, it seems most unfair 

 that, at the death of a tenant, the lord should step in and claim, as 

 heriot, his best beast, or a money e(|uivalent ; Ijut the origin of the 

 custom is found in the time when the villein, having no property 

 of his own, was supplied on loan, as it were, by the system called 

 " steelbow " in the north, with the necessary stock for his land. 

 At his death the stock would naturally revert to the landlord, and 

 the fact that, as a rule, only one animal was taken, or a money 

 composition which represents an earlier and therefore cheaper 

 value, indicates that the custom is gradually losing its strict 

 application. The same facts will, of course, equally explain the 

 prohibition on selling stock without the lord's leave, since he re- 

 mained the owner, and had only given the tenant the use thereof. 



Our records for Lacock, etc., show the process of the increasing 

 indepentlence of the villein class at a very interesting point, 



