96 The Tenants and their Land. 1400 — 1575. [ch. 



From the foregoing accounts of the bond families several con- 

 clusions may be drawn. From 1400 to 1556 the number of bond 

 families holding land of Forncett manor steadily diminished, owing 

 to the withdrawal of serfs from the manor, to the lack of male heirs, 

 or possibly in some cases to the failure on the part of the heir 

 to enter upon his inheritance. 



Withdrawal from the manor occurred under various conditions. 

 In many cases the serfs fled, and the manorial officers failed to attach 

 the fugitives. In other cases they paid chevage for license to remain 

 away, and the lord apparently failed to keep account of their 

 descendants or to exact any servile dues from them. After 1500 

 strict account seems to have been kept of the children of the serfs 

 who dwelt outside the manor, and some of them at least paid 

 chevage when they became of age. But, in the fifteenth century, 

 if a serf left the manor, he was fairly certain to win freedom for 

 his children, if not for himself. 



Now, if the history of villeinage in Forncett is typical of its 

 history throughout Rngland, sufficient importance has not been 

 assigned hitherto to the withdrawal of bondmen from the manor as 

 one of the causes of the disappearance of serfdom. Thus, in an 

 article in the English Historical Review for January, 1900 (p. 29), 

 we read : ' The fugitive villein appears as a regular character in the 

 literature and the local and national records. . . . Yet these can 

 have been only the restless spirits. All mediaeval influences tended 

 towards stability, not movement. ... On the manor court rolls 

 the notices of departure are after all exceptional ; the rolls rather 

 show a striking continuity of population. . . . Flight, like 

 voluntary manumissions, emancipated occasional persons, not a 

 whole class.' 



But neither the Forncett nor the Moulton rolls show continuity in 

 the servile population, at least after 1350. The change comes slowly, 

 but gradually the old names of the bond families disappear. In 

 Forncett, by 1556, only three bond families were left as tenants 

 of the manor. 



In that year these families were manumitted as well as the families 

 of two chevage-paying serfs. 



After the granting of these manumissions, only two bond families, 

 and these non-tenants, appear to have been connected with the manor. 

 In 1563 a bondwoman purchased license to marry. In I575> ^.s has 

 been said, Sir Henry Lee sought out the representatives of these two 

 families and apparently exercised the power granted him by Queen 



