Note 383 — Chapter III · OUTLAWS, WANDERING WORKMEN, AND PEASANTS OUT OF BOND

And they said it in the most peremptory language, highly approving of the king’s breaking his word and revoking the sweeping manumissions (“manumisimus universos ligeos et singulos subditos nostros,” Walsingham, ii. 467, Rolls) he had granted out of fear; the lords and the commons answer: “à une voice qe cele repele fuist ben faite, adjoustant que tiele manumission ou franchise des neifs ne poast estre fait sanz lour assent q’ont le greindre interesse: a quoy ils n’assentèrent unques de lour bone grée, n’autrement, ne jamais ne ferroient pur vivre et murrir touz en un jour.” “Rolls of Parliament,” iii. p. 100; year 1381. So they would rather die, all of them in a day, than assent to a freedom granted “without the assent of those most interested”: and it never occurred to them that those most interested could possibly be the villeins themselves and not the villeins’ masters.