[92] Selected Records of Norwich (Tingey), vol. vi. p. 180: “Robert Ryngwoode brought in a certain indenture wherein Lewis Lowth was [bound] to hym to serve as a prentys for seven years. And Mr. John Holdiche cam before the Mayor and other Justices and declared that the said Lewis is a bondman to my lord of Norfolk’s Grace, and further that he was brought up in husbandry untyl he was xx year old. Whereupon he was discharged of his service.”
Note the way in which Statute law is used to compel the agricultural labour which the vanishing jurisdiction of lord over serf is ceasing to be able to enforce.
[93] Roxburghe Club, Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl of Pembroke, Manor of Chilmerke: “Johannes Reve tenet per indenturam totum illud capitale messuagium excepta et omnino reservata omnia wardas, maritagia fines ... nativos,” &c.
[94] Russell, Ket’s Rebellion in Norfolk, p. 49: “We pray that all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his precious blood shedding.” The German peasants in the articles drawn up at Memmingen in 1525 demanded the abolition of serfdom “since Christ hath purchased and redeemed us all with his precious blood.” The [Christian] appeal is a common one; see below.
[95] Selden Society, Select Cases in the Court of Requests, John Burde and another v. The Earl of Bath. The quarrel dragged on from 1535 to 1544, when the plaintiff's goods were restored. (In 1551, however, when all bad landlords were raising their heads, his house and cattle were again seized.)
[96] Ibid., Netheway v. George, 1534. For other cases see Selden Society, Select Cases in the Court of Star Chamber. Carter v. Abbot of Malmesbury (vol. i., 1500), and Selby v. Middlemore (vol. ii., 1516–1522). Mr. Leadam's remarks (int. cxxix.) show that a man who was legally a villein might be economically very prosperous: “Thomas Carter ... was charged 40 marks for his enfranchisement. He kept a man-servant. He rode on horseback. He gave a feast to celebrate his freedom. He was even on friendly terms with the gentlemen of the Abbot’s household.” See also Savine, Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., vol. xvii. Lord Stafford actually tried to seize the Mayor of Bristol and his brother as bondmen!
[97] Hargreave’s speech in Somersett’s case (1771–1772, Howell, State Trials, xx.) is based largely on precedents drawn from villeinage: “Though villeinage itself is obsolete ... those rules, by which the claim of it was regulated, are not yet buried in oblivion.... By a strange progress of human affairs the memory of slavery expired now furnishes one of the chief obstacles to slavery attempted to be revived.... The law of England, then, excludes every slavery not commencing in England, every slavery, though commencing there, not being ancient and immemorial. Villeinage is the only slavery which can possibly answer to such a description, and that has long expired by the death or emancipation of all those who were once the objects of it. Consequently there is now no slavery which can be lawful in England.”
[98] 1 Ed. VI., c. 3. Possibly, however, the penalty of bondage was regarded as a step towards greater leniency, as the punishment of “incorrigible rogues” had hitherto been death.
[99] More’s remarks on the lot of the wage-workers of his day have a refreshing note of reality. The Utopians are “not to be wearied from earlie in the morning to late in the evenninge with continuall worke, like labouringe and toylinge beastes. For this is worse then the miserable and wretched condition of bondemen. Whiche nevertheless is almooste everywhere the lyfe of workemen and artificers, saving in Utopia” (More, Utopia, Pitt Press Edition, pp. 79–80).
[100] Smith, De Republica Anglorum, Lib. III., ch. 8. See also Fitzherbert, Surveying (1539): “How be it, in some places the bondmen continue as yet, the which me seemeth is the greatest inconvenience that now is suffered by the law.” Norden, The Surveyor’s Dialogue (1608): “Which kinde of service and slavery, thanks be to God, is in most places of this Realme quite abolished and worne out of memory.... Truly I think it is a Christian parte so to do [i.e. manumit bondsmen], for seeing we be nowe all as the children of one father, the servants of one God, and the subjects of one king, it is very uncharitable to retain our brethren in bondage, sith, when we were all bond, Christ did make us free.”