FREE LABOURERS 47 



neared its close the relations between owners, occupiers, and cul- 

 tivators of land had, in many parts of England, assumed a more 

 modern aspect. There was a large increase in the number of free- 

 holders, and of leaseholding or copyholding farmers renting land in 

 individual occupation ; there was also an increase in the number 

 of free labourers whose only capital was their labour. The complete 

 abolition of villeinage had been demanded by the people in the 

 rising of 1381, and one of the principal objects of the rioters had 

 been the destruction of the rolls of the manor courts, which were 

 the evidence not only of their titles but of their disabilities. Possibly 

 they may have hoped that, if the court rolls were destroyed, they 

 would be left in undisturbed possession of their holdings. Possibly 

 they may have expected to escape the payment of the vexatious 

 fines and licences incidental to the tenure, and there is some suggestion 

 that landlords were endeavouring to recoup themselves for the loss 

 of income, which the commutation of labour services and the 

 decrease of the manorial population had produced, by the stricter 

 exaction of payments. Eighty years later the class of villeins, 

 which once had included the great mass of the rural population, 

 was fast disappearing. The more prosperous members of the class 

 had retained their hold on the land, whether on the demesnes, the 

 assart lands, or the village farms. Some had become freeholders ; 

 others rented their holdings at fixed money rents on leases for a 

 term of years or for lives ; others, whose rights were derived from 

 ancient customs, were admitted as copyholders for lives and possibly 

 of inheritance on the court roll of the manor. The uncertainty of 

 villein tenure was gone, and its brand of personal servitude could 

 not long continue when the old relation of feudal lord and dependent 

 was exchanged for that of landlord and tenant or of employer and 

 employed, and was expressed in cash instead of personal services. 

 Even landless bondmen had for the most part gained their personal 

 freedom. Some purchased freedom by money payments ; on 

 some the influence of the Church, or the pricking of conscience 

 conferred it by a deathbed emancipation ; the legal presumption 

 of natural liberty and the decisions of the law courts bestowed it 

 on others. Here a bondman escaped from the manor and was 

 lost sight of ; here a man took refuge in a town ; another accepted 

 the tawny livery of the Berkeleys or of some other great lord ; a 

 fourth received the tonsure, or took service in a monastery, as a 

 lay brother ; a fifth made freedom the condition on which he would 



