Note 209 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

The appropriation of the whole of the land had thus given to the rural economy of England a new and essentially modern character: there were now leaseholders and tenants at will, labouring poor and unemployed. And the ancient institution of serfdom could not hold its own in the presence of such thorough changes. “The slow agricultural revolution which rendered their services less useful to the manorial lords, gradually set the villans free by removing the interest their masters had in retaining a hold upon them.” “In some instances the exaction of predial services from villans by manorial lords can be traced as late as the time of Elizabeth; but though no change was made in the law, the lords seem to have found that it was not worth their while to assert their rights over the persons of their bondmen”209.