The lords of manors of the European continent.1 found it more profitable and convenient to receive money payments in lieu of the ancient predial services, and the tenants were very willing by such payments to relieve themselves from the burthen of personal perRise of the class formance of the services. This change was gradually carried out between the end of the thirteenth and the middle of the fifteenth centuries. In this way a numerous class of free labourers arose, and the lords of manors passed into the condition of the landlord of modern times, who must hire, but cannot command, labour. of free labourers. Transmutation of villein-tenure into copyhold. Gradual emancipation of the 'nativi,' The first to profit by this change were the higher classes of villeins, who gradually, by force of custom, developed from mere tenants-at-will into customary freeholders and copyholders, with inheritable estates in their lands subject to fixed services. The lowest class, the 'nativi,' still continued for a long time in state of transition, their birth state of slavery presenting an almost insuperable bar to emancipation otherwise than by the free will of their lords, so long as they continued on the manors to which they were attached. Their ultimate emancipation was due partly to voluntary manumission, which the clergy persistently urged upon the lords, partly to the humane presumptions of the law in favour of liberty, but mainly to the efforts of the slaves themselves, who being in bondage only relatively to their masters, but free as to all the world besides, practically escaped from servitude by flight to distant counties, or sought the shelter of some city or borough within whose hospitable walls unmolested residence for a year and a day rendered them for ever freemen. 1 Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages (translated by Ouvry), p. 67. 2 The remarkable transmutation of villein tenure into copyhold began at least as early as the time of Henry III., and was completely carried before the reign of Edward IV., when the judges permitted the copyholder to bring an action of trespass against his lord for dispossession. The dreadful pestilence of 1348, by greatly reducing Statutes regulating labour. the number of the new class of hired labourers, nearly doubled the value of their labour,-to the great loss of those landed proprietors who had commuted the predial services of their tenants. The landlords, with an utter disregard of the rights of the labourers, had recourse to the statute of 1349, and to a series of similar statutes between that year and 1368, by which every able-bodied man, not living of his own nor by any trade, was compelled to hire himself to any master who should demand. his services, at such wages as were paid three years previously, or for some time preceding. These statutes, whilst failing in the object which they had in view, as appears by the frequent complaints of the commons Discontent of that they were not kept, greatly increased the general the peasantry. discontent of the peasantry. In a great many manors at this period the ancient services still remained due, but the villeins, lured by the prospect of high wages impatient of the burthens of predial service, and animated by the general democratic spirit which the progress in knowledge and refinement had excited throughout Europe, began to confederate for the purpose of resisting their lords. A statute of the first year of Richard II., 1 Statute of Labourers, 23 Edw. III. 2 The legislation respecting the whole class of free labourers, from the early part of the 14th century till the end of the 15th, was selfish and unjust throughout. The labourer,' remarks Mr. Pashley, was never to better his condition. Imprisonment and branding on the forehead with a hot iron was the lot of the fugitive servant, although he had never consented to enter into the service of his lord, and had been compelled to do so for wages less than he was justly entitled to receive. Even "artificers and people of mysteries" were liable to be pressed by the lord to get in his harvest (13 Rich. II. c. 3), and if a poor labourer's unmarried daughter of eighteen or twenty years of age, had been “required to serve" any master, she must, under the statutory provisions, either have gone into the service, or have been committed to gaol for refusing. No child could be apprenticed to any useful craft, unless its parents were owners of land yielding a certain amount of yearly rent, and the compulsory service, such as has been described, paid for by a rate of wages below the just level would be a perpetual cause why servants should have endeavoured to free themselves from their bondage, and why the "valiant beggars" of whom we read, should have so greatly increased throughout the country.'-Pauperism and the Poor Laws, p. 163. Demands of the insurgent vil leins in 1381. Reaction after the insurrection of 1381. 'To inquire of and punish villeins,' recites that ‘villeins and tenants of land in villeinage, had withdrawn their customs and services from their lords, having attached themselves to other persons who maintained and abetted them; and under colour of exemplifications from Domesday of the manors and villes in which they dwelt, and by wrong interpretation of those exemplifications, claimed to be quit and discharged of all manner of service, either of their body or of their lands, and would suffer no distress or other course of justice to be taken against them; the villeins aiding their maintainers by threatening the officers of their lords with peril to life and limb, as well as by open assemblies and by confederacies to support each other.' It has been suggested, with much probability, that about this period the lords of manors who had commuted the services of their tenants, attempted to reimpose the old predial burthens, and that this, in conjunction with the unjust poll-tax of twelve pence a head exacted from rich and poor alike, was the exciting cause of the formidable insurrection of 1381, in which all classes of the villeins-free and slave-made common cause. The actual demands of the insurgents were evidently framed so as to include the grievances of the free agricultural labourers as well as of the 'nativi.' They comprised (1) the abolition of slavery; (2) a fixed rent of fourpence the acre on lands instead of the predial services due by villeinage; and (3) freedom of commerce in market towns without toll or impost. The immediate effect of the violence of the democratic party was to create a reaction of stern repression. The general charter of manumission extorted from Richard by the rioters, was annulled by royal proclamation and 11 Ric. II. c. 6. * Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices in England, A.D. 1259-1400. by statute, both Houses of Parliament unanimously refusing to accept the king's suggestion to entirely abolish the state of bondage, and affirming, in the exaggerated language of panic, that they would never consent to such a measure even 'to save themselves from perishing all together in one day.' But the insurrection was really the turning-point in the history of predial servitude. When the panic had passed away, the process of decay, which had begun in the previous century, proceeded at an accelerated pace, and was consummated by the Wars of the Roses, which weakened the authority of the lords over all classes of their tenants, and enabled the latter in the midst of the political confusion to make good their independence. In a few exceptional instances the state of servitude lingered on till the commencement of the seventeenth century, when it became extinct without any legislative abolition.2 Decay and ulti mate extinction of villeinage. II. 1389-1397. During this period of nearly eight Secona period: years, comparative harmony subsisted between Richard A.D. 1389-1397. 1 Rot. Parl. iii. 100. The last case in which villeinage was pleaded was that of Pigg v. Caley (Noy, R. 27), in the 15th of James I. The plaintiff, Pigg, sued the defendant in trespass for taking his horse. The defendant pleaded that he was seised of the manor of D., to which Pigg was a villein regardant, and that defendant and those seised of the said manor had been seised of the plaintiff and his ancestors. The plaintiff replied that he was free, and this issue was found in his favour. Since the extinction of villeinage, no form of slavery in England has been recognized by law. But in the Colonies it was legalized by statutes 10 Will. III. c. 26, 5 Geo. II. c. 7, and 32 Geo. II. c. 31; and the status of a colonial slave in England long continued doubtful. As early as Queen Anne's reign, Lord Chief Justice Holt expressed an opinion that as soon as a negro comes into England he becomes free,' and Mr. Justice Powell also declared that, 'the law takes no notice of a negro' (2 Salk. 666); but the first express adjudication on the subject was not given till 1772, when Lord Mansfield, in the celebrated case of the negro Summersett, pronounced the decision of the Court of King's Bench that slavery in England is illegal, and that the negro must be set free. (State Trials, xx. i; Broom, Const. Law, 65-119.) Four years later, in the case of the negro Knight, the Court of Session of Scotland declared the unlawfulness of negro slavery in that country (Morison, Dict. of Decisions, iii. 14545). It was not however till 1799 that the colliers and salters of Scotland, who, by force of a comparatively modern custom which had grown into recognition since the extinction of the ancient feudal villeinage, had been reduced to a state of serfdom, were declared absolutely free by Statute 39 Geo. III. c. 56. Seven years later the Slave Trade was prohibited; and on the 1st of August, 1834, colonial slavery itself was abolished. Apparent harmony between Richard and his Parliament. the leading nobles. and his Parliament. The events of the earlier part of his reign had taught the king discretion, or rather dissimulation; and the return of John of Gaunt, who had been absent during the late revolutionary proceedings prosecuting his claim to the throne of Castile, served to keep his brother of Gloucester in check, and exercised a mitigating influence over the excited passions of all parties. A revulsion of popular feeling, somewhat similar to that which in later times brought about the restoration of Charles II., seems to have set in; and the Parliament during this period proved complaisant and even Division among obsequious. The popular leaders among the nobles were moreover divided by personal jealousies, and thus the commons lacked the powerful support which they had hitherto received. The Parliament refrained from interfering with the king's household expenses, and repealed the statute by which Edward II. had been deposed;1 but they continued the practice of making conditional grants, to be levied only in case of an expedition against the enemy, and on account of the non-fulfilment of this condition, several subsidies were remitted by proclamation. The king on his side behaved with unusual courtesy. In 1390, he ordered the chancellor, treasurer, and other members of his council, to resign their offices in Parliament, and submit themselves to its judgment in case any charge should be brought against them. After a day's deliberation the commons declared, in full Parliament, that nothing amiss had been found in the conduct of the ministers, who were consequently restored to their former positions. Prosecution of As soon however as Richard, having secured an alliance with the royal family of France, and perceiving the disunion which existed among his principal nobility, fancied himself secure upon his throne, he ventured once more to indulge his naturally arbitrary and tyrannical |