II THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS RESULTS 35 



the earlier grants where the villein was said to hold in 

 villenagio ad volunialem domini secundum consuetudinem 

 manerii, we find the words per copiam rotuli curiae, ' by copy 

 of court roll ' added, and whereas in early days the will of 

 the lord was only limited and restrained by tlje unwritten 

 custom of the manor, that custom was now more definitely 

 defined by the terms entered on the manorial roll, and thus 

 tenure in villeinage became, gradually called ' copyhold '." 

 The question how far this copy was legally binding on the 

 lord is a vexed question of much importance which we must 

 deal with in a subsequent lecture. In any case it was 

 something that the custom should be more strictly defined. 



The second innovation, that of the increase of leases, was 

 not so much to the interest of the small owner. The system, 

 first applied to the demesne, was subsequently extended to 

 the lands on the common field. These leases were usually 

 those known by the name of ' stock land and lease ', a system 

 under which the landlord supplied the implements and the 

 stock as well as the land, the tenant paying a certain share 

 of the produce in return. They were sometimes granted 

 for years, sometimes for life, sometimes for a number of 

 lives, sometimes at the will of the lord. Under the grant 

 for a fixed term of years, the tenant was secure till the end 

 of the term, but when it was at the will of the lord there 

 was no such security. There seems also to have been some 

 confusion between copyholds and leaseholds. In some 

 cases, apparently, the new grants were made in copyhold 

 for life or lives, in others, the copyholders surrendered their 

 lands and took them on lease for life or lives at the will of 

 the lord. 



There is therefore some reason to believe that the security 

 of the small owner was in this way impaired. As long as 

 the difficulty of the landlords was to find tenants at all, 

 this was of no moment, but when, with the advance of 



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