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ordination the records of which have perished. Prosecutions 

 for heresy were, as Mr. Hal lam has shewn, not uncommon 

 before the beginning of the fifteenth century, but they were 

 generally directed against those who indulged in speculative 

 novelties. It was only about this time that the spirit of 

 religious innovation was coupled with social excesses and 

 political disaffection. And though, from a later point of view, 

 the Lollards and their teachers may have derived some lustre 

 by the fact that some of their doctrines are identified with 

 the leading tenets of the Reformation, yet it is pretty clear 

 that to their contemporaries they seemed to be a body of 

 fanatics, whose opinions were just as dangerous to civil order 

 as to established belief. 



It is said that uninterrupted residence for a year and a day 

 in a walled town was a bar to any claim on a villain. This 

 statement is perhaps too wide ; it does not at least seem 

 consistent with some of the facts which have been collected 

 as to the prosecution and reclamation of villains by their 

 lords. But even if the prescription was in practice longer, the 

 borough towns must have been strongholds to the unenfran- 

 chised classes, and a constant refuge for runaways. It must be 

 remembered, too, that the annual fine for absence from the 

 manor was low, and that absolute emancipation was frequently 

 obtainable for what was even then a trifling payment. 



There is abundant information as to the families, and 

 sometimes as to the population, resident in towns. Two of 

 the oldest taxing accounts are printed in the Rolls of Par- 

 liament, both being for the town of Colchester, and the 

 hamlets of Miland, Grinsted, Westdoniland, and Lexeden, 

 reckoned as parcels of the borough. 



These accounts purport to be a valuation for the purpose 

 of assessing a tax on the inhabitants, and the names, and in 

 some degree the occupations, of the contributors are given. 

 Five years intervene between the first and second roll, but 

 I am disposed to think that the first roll must be imperfect, 

 as only two hundred and fifty-one persons are reckoned in it, 



