all the bondmen on some particular
domain, in return for a fixed rent to be yearly assessed on the
inhabitants.

But the progress of emancipation was slow; the improved condition of
their former fellows served only to embitter the discontent of those who
still wore the fetters of servitude; and in many places the villeins
formed associations for their mutual support, and availed themselves of
every expedient in their power to free themselves from the control of
their lords. In the first year of Richard's reign a complaint was laid
before parliament that in many districts they had purchased
exemplifications out of the _Domesday Book_ in the king's court, and
under a false interpretation of that record had pretended to be
discharged of all manner of servitude both as to their bodies and their
tenures, and would not suffer the officers of their lords either to levy
distress or to do justice upon them. It was in vain that such
exemplifications were declared of no force, and that commissions were
ordered for the punishment of the rebellious. The villeins, by their
union and perseverance, contrived to intimidate their lords, and set at
defiance the severity of the law. To this resistance they were
encouraged by the diffusion of the doctrines so recently taught by
Wycliffe, that the right of property was founded in grace, and that no
man, who was by sin a traitor to God, could be entitled to the services
of others; at the same time itinerant preachers sedulously inculcated
the natural equality of mankind, and the tyranny of artificial
distinctions; and the poorer classes, still smarting under the exactions
of the late reign, were by the impositions of the new tax wound up to a
pitch of madness. Thus the materials had been prepared; it required but
a spark to set the whole country in a blaze.

It was soon discovered that the receipts of the treasury would fall
short of the expected amount; and commissions were issued to different
persons to inquire into the conduct of the collectors, and to compel
payment from those who had been favored or overlooked. One of these
commissioners, Thomas de Bampton, sat at Brentwood in Essex; but the men
of Fobbings refused to answer before him; and when the chief justice of
the common pleas attempted to punish their contumacy, they compelled him
to flee, murdered the jurors and clerks of the commission, and, carrying
their heads upon poles, claimed the support of the nearest townships. In
a f