Note 53 — II. The Necessity for Dissolution.

It was highly desirable for the Abbot to maintain this distinction. In the King’s courts the villein had no case against his lord save for bodily injury. In practice it appears that the Abbot of St. Albans could inflict even bodily injury with impunity. See, for instance, the case of Nicholas Tybson, who, having been stripped, thrashed and wounded by the Abbot’s servants, brought an action for redress. The case was at once dismissed as a false appeal on the ground that Tybson was the born villein of the Abbot (Gesta Abbatum III, p. 39).