498 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



presently resulted a peasants revolt which was put down by 

 force, and there followed a temporary re-institution of serf 

 dom. Says Cunningham: 



Before long the old regime reasserted itself, and the villeins re 

 turned to nominal servitude, until, owing to the spread of new 

 agricultural methods, their services ceased to be valuable.&quot; 

 And here we may recognize the actions and reactions which, 

 in societies as in other aggregates, produce rhythmical move 

 ments the rise of free copyholders, the return of them to a 

 partial serfdom, and again a decay of this serfdom, to be 

 followed as we shall see by another partial return to it. 



Beyond the emancipations of serfs arising in these ways 

 more or less gradually, there were in some cases wholesale 

 emancipations arising suddenly. In France, for example, 



&quot;A charter of emancipation, comprehending the whole population 

 of a village, was sometimes given by a lord in return for a money 

 payment.&quot; 



Moreover, Philip Augustus, to strengthen himself against 

 the feudal aristocracy, further facilitated enfranchisement 



&quot;The tenants of Crown- vassals or of the feudal inferiors of these, 

 though continuing to reside on the land, could repudiate their lord by 

 a declaration on oath and become burgesses of a particular city, by 

 payment of a fixed yearly amount.&quot; 



The result was that presently tenants refused to redeem 

 themselves from their lords by ransom. 



But the lapse of serfdom was not complete. There re 

 mained serious restrictions of freedom on those who had 

 become possessors of the lands they had been tied to. France 

 furnishes evidence. Over considerable areas of it the pea 

 sant-proprietor, now cultivating his small freehold (to which 

 he often joined an additional portion as a tenant), and now 

 working as a labourer for hire, was under various obligations 

 to his seigneur. There were in some cases corvees or labour- 

 rents ; there were tolls to be paid at fairs and markets ; there 

 were payments to be made for grinding his corn, crushing 

 his grapes, and baking his bread, at the mill, winepress, 

 and oven belonging to the seigneur ; and there were fines on 



