II THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS RESULTS 33 



increased their holdings either of old villein land or soiled 

 land (i. e. land originally free), but now held by them on 

 villein tenure, and were in comfortable circumstances. 1 



With the practical disappearance of villeinage by tenure 

 the ralson d'etre of villeinage by blood status was gone. It 

 has often been observed that slavery, or something like it, 

 is the accompaniment of farming or of tillage on a large 

 scale from the days of the Roman latifundia to those of the 

 plantations of America and the West Indian Islands. But 

 in consequence of the industrial revolution of the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries, the manorial lords either gave up 

 the old system of farming on a large scale through their 

 bailiffs or betook themselves to sheep-farming which did not 

 require so many hands. The farmers who took the land on 

 lease, though sometimes they were given the right of using 

 the labour due from bondsmen, would find difficulty in 

 enforcing these rights, especially as the lords of the manor 

 would no longer have a direct interest in insisting upon 

 them. 



Moreover the bondsman, having no claim on the land, had 

 I cason for staying than the villeins by tenure. They ran 

 away to seek a better livelihood elsewhere, or to the wars, or 

 to wear the livery of some great noble, or to become clerks 

 or lay brethren in the monasteries. The manorial records 

 still kept the names of those who fled and insisted on the 

 right to seize their goods at discretion. But action rarely 

 followed. 



Meanwhile the courts, both manorial and royal, favoured 

 liberty. They would not allow any one to be claimed as a 

 serf who was not born in serfdom. The tests of serfdom, 

 the merchet, the leyrwite, the gersumma, were often paid 

 by those who were villeins by tenure only, and thus became 

 indistinct and confused. The king's courts threw the 



1 Transactions Royal Hist. Soc. xiv. 141, 131. 



JOHNSON C 



