Note 180 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

In a passage quoted in the last paragraph Ashley states that most of the “free tenants” were villeins who had commuted their labour services for a money or corn payment, and had been freed from the more servile “incidents” of their position, such as inability to sell a horse without the lord’s consent180. Hence it follows that personal freedom, i.e. the right to leave the manor, was not regarded as characteristic of free tenure. Yet at the end of the 13th century every tenant was already permitted to sell his lands or parts of them181. This transition from personal to territorial obligations was certainly due to the increase of population and consequent enhanced value of land. In early times labour was scarce and therefore the landlord could not let a cultivator leave the manor. But now land, or at least some pieces of land, had already acquired so much value that there were always people to be found ready to cultivate them on condition of paying certain dues to the lord.