ORIGIN OF COMMONS. 13 
thirds of England, was at that time common or waste 
land of Manors, the right of approval thus conceded to 
the lords was of great value. It gave rise to frequent 
disputes between Lords of Manors and the free tenants 
of their Manors. The early law-books are full of such 
cases. Very often we find that inclosures were effected 
for the purpose of making parks for deer and other 
game. More frequent was the inclosure of a pastura 
separabilis, which it is often added fuct guondam com- 
munis and gue solebat esse communis totius ville, 
showing that the recollection of the folk-land of the 
vill had not been lost. 
Later a much greater restriction was practically 
imposed on these inclosures, by the legal recognition 
of fixity of tenure, on the part of the villeins of the 
Manor, in the land which they occupied. This con- 
version of villeinage into fixed customary tenure, which 
was the origin of Copyholds, came about almost im- 
perceptibly, without the intervention of Parliament, 
and by the gradual expansion of legal doctrines, 
borrowed by the judges from the Roman law. It 
cannot be traced earlier than the time of Henry IV. 
These Copyholders, when fixity of tenure was conceded 
to them, constituted the main class of yeomen. They 
had customary rights over the waste of the Manor, 
which were also recognised at the same time, and must 
have limited greatly the power of inclosing under the 
Statute of Merton. 
About the same time, or perhaps somewhat earlier, 
the lowest class of dependants on the Manor—the serfs 
