Note 210 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

There were, however, many parts of England in which scarcely any inclosures took place210. Here the villeins remained on their lands and gradually became copyholders. They were still bound to services, which, however, were generally commuted for small money payments, so the conditions of their tenure were annoying rather than oppressive. Moreover, their obligations were no longer personal, but territorial; they were not astricted to the soil. And as they had an hereditary right to their holdings, they differed but little from freeholders. The “innocuous curiosities of copyhold,” survivals of ancient serfdom, have lasted up to modern times211.