EPONYMOUS FAMILIES of DORSET. 135 



profited much by his bargain, for the poor young lady seems to 

 have died before she was of an age to be sold in marriage to one 

 of her guardian's friends ; and the land, with the feudal obliga- 

 tions, went back to an uncle or cousin, in whose family it 

 continued for probably three generations, ending with the 

 Michael Belet, who officiated as butler to Henry III.: but 

 nothing is known of his descendants. 



The iniquitous trafficking in wardships and heiresses, instances 

 of which we have here before us, marks the measure of 

 contempt for humanity which the feudal system implied. The 

 pretension of the Over-Lord to control the most intimate relations 

 of life, in respect to those beneath him, was found intolerable in 

 practice ; and, being only defensible in theory, by the necessities 

 of military organisation, it lost its moral force, when the contests 

 for sovereignty destroyed the effectiveness of that organisation. 

 In France it led to the Jacquerie, and ultimately to the Revolu- 

 tion, and in Germany to the dissolution into its constituent 

 atoms of a once powerful empire. In England the decompo- 

 sition of the feudal system, though final and complete, was 

 neither explosive as in the one case, nor sporadic as in the 

 other. The partisan warfare of York and Lancaster obliged the 

 barons in order to increase their retinue to enfranchise their 

 ''farm hands" (villani), who before that, had been irremovable 

 from the land. Thus was created a new rural class, to become 

 eventually yeomen and tenant farmers. 



BlNGHAM. 



I cannot but approach this item in our programme with the 

 greatest diffidence, sensible as I am that the loss which the 

 county has sustained in the departure from its borders of the 

 last of its mediaeval families, must be to many a cause for much 

 more than a sentimental regret, though from that standpoint the 

 cessation of a line so long distinguished for learning and 

 gallantry cannot be recorded with indifference. 



It seems probable that the original founder of this line was a 

 certain companion of the Conqueror, named Buisil or Brusli, 



