48 LAND REFORM 



the Middle ages, a body which in antiquity of posses- 

 sion and purity of extraction was probably superior to 

 the classes that looked down upon them as ignoble."^ 



There was another order of cultivators which, per- 

 haps, from an historical point of view is more interest- 

 ing than any other, namely, the copyholders. They 

 were largely recruited from the villeins, who were 

 a grade above the serfs, and held their lands on a 

 servile tenure, that is, on conditions of service rendered 

 to the lords, usually in the form of ploughing, mow- 

 inof, and tilling" the lords' demesnes — services which 

 in those days were deemed to be of a servile kind. 

 The nature and extent of these services were " copied " 

 or enrolled on the rolls of the manor and were en- 

 forced with more or less severity according to the will 

 of the lord. After the " Black Death," labour being 

 scarce, these services were enforced with a cruel rigour. 

 One of the outcomes of the rebellion under Wat Tyler 

 was a great increase in the ranks of this class with 

 an improvement in their position. The lesson the 

 great landholders learnt from that rebellion was, that 

 they could no longer, with impunity, inflict these oner- 

 ous conditions on those who held under them, and 

 consequently personal services were generally modi- 

 fied or commuted into annual money payments. But 

 the fines, fees, and other exactions connected with the 

 copyholds were retained. The actual tenure of these 

 copyholders, or customary tenants, was reckoned quite 

 as secure as that of the freeholders. They ranked in 

 importance and probably in numbers with the free- 

 holders, and the two classes together formed the great 

 body of English yeomanry. 



^ "Constitutional History," Vol. III. 



