[592]. See English Village Community, passim.
[593]. Thomson, Magna Charta, p. 202, seems completely to have misunderstood this 16th chapter of the reissue of 1217, construing the four interpolated words in a sense the Latin will not bear, viz.:—“A villein, although he belonged to another.” The view here taken of the motive for protecting villeins is strengthened by the use of the peculiar phrase, “vastum hominum” in chapter 4 (q.v.).
[594]. Notably by Professor Vinogradoff in his Villeinage in England, passim.
[595]. The wide gulf which separated the villein from the freeman in this matter of amercements is shown by an entry on the Pipe Roll of 16 Henry II. (cited Madox, I. 545) Herbertus Faber debet j marcam pro falso clamore quem fecit ut liber cum sit rusticus. A villein might be heavily amerced for merely claiming to be free. It is peculiarly difficult to reconcile any theory of the villein’s freedom with the doctrine of Glanvill, V. c. 5, who denies to everyone who had been once a villein the right to “wage his law,” even after emancipation, where any third party’s interests might thereby be prejudiced.
[596]. Cf. infra, c. 55, which supplements this chapter, providing for the cancellation of all amercements unjustly inflicted in the past, whereas this chapter seeks to prevent the infliction of new ones in the future.
[597]. IX. 8.
[598]. III. folio 116 b.
[599]. 3 Edward I. c. 6.
[600]. Second Institute, p. 27.
[601]. See II. 208-9.