f society, the advance from this mere serfage was a
silent one; indeed its more galling instances of oppression seem to have
slipped unconsciously away. Some, like the eel-fishing, were commuted for
an easy rent; others, like the slavery of the fullers and the toll of
flax, simply disappeared. By usage, by omission, by downright
forgetfulness, here by a little struggle, there by a present to a needy
abbot, the town won freedom.

[Sidenote: The Towns and Justice]

But progress was not always unconscious, and one incident in the history
of St. Edmundsbury is remarkable, not merely as indicating the advance of
law, but yet more as marking the part which a new moral sense of man's
right to equal justice was to play in the general advance of the realm.
Rude as the borough was, it possessed the right of meeting in full
assembly of the townsmen for government and law. Justice was administered
in presence of the burgesses, and the accused acquitted or condemned by
the oath of his neighbours. Without the borough bounds however the system
of Norman judicature prevailed; and the rural tenants who did suit and
service at the Cellarer's court were subjected to the trial by battle.
The execution of a farmer named Ketel who came under this feudal
jurisdiction brought the two systems into vivid contrast. Ketel seems to
have been guiltless of the crime laid to his charge; but the duel went
against him and he was hung just without the gates. The taunts of the
townsmen woke his fellow farmers to a sense of wrong. "Had Ketel been a
dweller within the borough," said the burgesses, "he would have got his
acquittal from the oaths of his neighbours, as our liberty is"; and even
the monks were moved to a decision that their tenants should enjoy equal
freedom and justice with the townsmen. The franchise of the town was
extended to the rural possessions of the Abbey without it; the farmers
"came to the toll-house, were written in the alderman's roll, and paid
the town-penny." A chance story preserved in a charter of later date
shows the same struggle for justice going on in a greater town. At
Leicester the trial by compurgation, the rough predecessor of trial by
jury, had been abolished by the Earls in favour of trial by battle. The
aim of the burgesses was to regain their old justice, and in this a
touching incident at last made them successful. "It chanced that two
kinsmen, Nicholas the son of Acon and Geoffrey the son of Nicholas, waged
a due