The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

There were, in fact, grades in the community in serfdom not only like those of the Saxon geburs and cottiers, but also corresponding to the historical origin of the serfs. Thus, as we have seen in the 'Polyptique d'Irminon' and in many other cartularies and surveys of monastic estates, there are coloni and liti among the serfs, names bearing witness to the historical origin of the serfs, though the difference between them had all but vanished.

Slaves made into these.

The læts of the laws of Ethelbert.

There is a passage in the Ripuarian laws, 'If any one shall make his slave into a "tributarius," or a "litus," &c.' [626] The 'lidus' of the 'Lex Salica' was under a lordship, and classed with 'servi,' and by a legal process he could be set free.[627] We have noticed the passage in the Theodosian Code which speaks of 'coloni' and 'tributarii' on British estates, and also the mention by Ammianus Marcellinus of 'tributarii' in Britain. We have noticed also the three grades of 'læts,' the only class of tenants mentioned in the laws of Ethelbert.

Survivals of the period of transition in Britain.

Now, whatever doubt there might be as to what were the 'læts' on Kentish 'hams' and 'tuns' in the sixth century, if they stood alone as isolated phenomena; taken together with the 'tributarii' and 'coloni' and 'liti' on Continental manors, there can be hardly any doubt that they belonged to the same middle [p407] class of semi-servile tenants to which allusion has been made. Their presence on the manorial 'hams' and 'tuns' of England revealed in the earliest historical record after the Saxon Conquest, taken in connexion with the many other points brought together in this chapter, makes the inference very strong indeed that they, like the 'coloni,' 'tributarii,' and 'liti' on Continental manors, were a survival from that period of transition from Roman to German rule, during which the names of the various classes of semi-servile tenants, afterwards merged in the common status of mediæval serfdom, still preserved traces of their origin.

X. THE CONFUSION IN THE STATUS OF THE TENANTS ON ENGLISH AND GERMAN MANORS.

Serfs free in status unfree in tenure.

In one sense both in England and Germany the holders of the 'yard-lands' and 'huben,' though serfs, were free. As regards their lords they were serfs. As regards the slaves they were free. In this respect they resembled very closely the Roman 'coloni' on a private villa.

Grades of manorial tenants.