serfdom, the obtaining of their land on burdensome conditions, were
all recorded on the rolls and could be produced to prove the custom of
the manor to the disadvantage of the tenant. It is true that these
same rolls showed who held each piece of ground and defined the
succession to it, and that they were long afterward to be recognized
in the national courts as giving to the customary holder the right of
retaining and of inheriting the land, so that it might seem an injury
to themselves to destroy the manor court records. But in that period
when tenants were in such demand their hold on their land had been in
no danger of being disturbed. If these records were destroyed, the
villains might well expect that they could claim to be practically
owners of the houses and little groups of acres which they and their
ancestors had held from time immemorial; and this without the
necessity for payments and reservations to which the rolls testified.

Again, lawyers and all connected with the law were the objects of
special hostility on the part of insurgents. This must have been
largely from the same general cause as that just mentioned. It was
lawyers who acted as stewards for the great lords, it was through
lawyers that the legal claims of lords of manors were enforced in the
king's courts. It was also the judges and lawyers who put in force the
statutes of laborers, and who so generally acted as collectors of the
poll tax.

More satisfactory relations with their lords were demanded by
insurgents who were freeholders, as well as by those who were
villains. Protests are recorded against the tolls on sales and
purchases, and against attendance at the manorial courts, and a
maximum limit to the rent of land is asked for. Finally, the removal
of the burdens of serfdom was evidently one of the general objects of
the rebels, though much of the initiative of the revolt was taken by
men from Kent, where serfdom did not exist. The servitude of the
peasantry is the burden of the sermon of John Ball at Blackheath, its
abolition was demanded in several places by the insurgents, and the
charters of emancipation as given by the king professed to make them
"free from all bondage."

These objects were in few if any cases obtained. It is extremely
difficult to trace any direct results from the rising other than
those involved in its failure, the punishment of the leaders, and the
effort to restore everything to its former condition. There w