oath and promise from the villain to his lord.
Villanage, in the reign of Henry VIII., had practically ceased. The name of
it last appears upon the statute book in the early years of the reign of
Richard II., when the disputes between villains and their liege lords on
their relative rights had furnished matter for cumbrous lawsuits, and by
general consent the relation had merged of itself into a more liberal form.
Thus serfdom had merged or was rapidly merging into free servitude; but it
did not so merge that labouring men, if they pleased, were allowed to live
in idleness. Every man was regimented somewhere; and although the
peasantry, when at full age, were allowed, under restrictions, their own
choice of masters, yet the restrictions both on masters and servants were
so severe as to prevent either from taking advantage of the necessities of
the other, or from terminating through caprice or levity, or for any
insufficient reason, a connection presumed to be permanent.[9]

Through all these arrangements a single aim is visible, that every man in
England should have his definite place and definite duty assigned to him,
and that no human being should be at liberty to lead at his own pleasure an
unaccountable existence. The discipline of an army was transferred to the
details of social life, and it issued in a chivalrous perception of the
meaning of the word duty, and in the old characteristic spirit of English
loyalty.

From the regulations with respect to land, a coarser advantage was also
derived, of a kind which at the present time will be effectively
appreciated. It is a common matter of dispute whether landed estates should
be large or small; whether it is better that the land should be divided
among small proprietors, cultivating their own ground, or that it should
follow its present tendency, and be shared by a limited and constantly
diminishing number of wealthy landlords. The advocates for a peasant
proprietary tell us truly, that a landed monopoly is dangerous; that the
possession of a spot of ground, though it be but a few acres, is the best
security for loyalty, giving the state a pledge for its owner, and creating
in the body of the nation a free, vigorous, and manly spirit. The advocates
for the large estates tell us, that the masses are too ill-educated to be
trusted with independence; that without authority over them, these small
proprietors become wasteful, careless, improvident; that the free spirit
bec