Note 317 — Chapter II

Mr. Eccleston (English Antiq. p. 138) says, that in 1450 ‘villenage had almost passed away;’ and according to Mr. Thornton (Over-Population, p. 182), ‘Sir Thomas Smith, who wrote about the year 1550, declares that he had never met with any personal or domestic slaves; and that the villains, or predial slaves, still to be found, were so few, as to be scarcely worth mentioning.’ Mr. Hallam can find no ‘unequivocal testimony to the existence of villenage’ later than 1574. Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 312; see, to the same effect, Barrington on the Statutes, pp. 308, 309. If, however, my memory does not deceive me, I have met with evidence of it in the reign of James I., but I cannot recall the passage.