determine the introduction of
predial villenage more precisely than to say it does not appear in the
laws of England at the Conquest, and it does so in the time of Glanvil.
Mr. Wright's Memoir in the Archaeologia, above quoted, contains some
interesting matter; but he has too much confounded the _theow_, or
Anglo-Saxon slave, with the _ceorl_; not even mentioning the latter,
though it is indisputable that _villanus_ is the equivalent of _ceorl_,
and _servus_ of _theow_.

But I suspect that we go a great deal too far in setting down the
descendants of these ceorls, that is, the whole Anglo-Saxon population
except thanes and burgesses, as almost universally to be counted such
villeins as we read of in our law-books, or in concluding that the
cultivators of the land, even in the thirteenth century, were wholly, or
at least generally, servile. It is not only evident that small
freeholders were always numerous, but we are, perhaps, greatly deceived
in fancying that the occupiers of villein tenements were usually
villeins. _Terre-tenants en villenage_ and tenants _par copie_, who were
undoubtedly free, appear in the early Year-books, and we know not why
they may not always have existed.[477] This, however, is a subject which
I am not sufficiently conversant with records to explore; it deserves
the attention of those well-informed and diligent antiquaries whom we
possess. Meantime it is to be observed that the lands occupied by
_villani_ or _bordarii_, according to the Domesday survey, were much
more extensive than the copyholds of the present day; and making every
allowance for enfranchisements, we can hardly believe that all these
lands, being, in fact, by far the greater part of the soil, were the
_villenagia_ of Glanvil's and Bracton's age. It would be interesting to
ascertain at what time the latter were distinguished from _libera
tenementa_; at what time, that is, the distinction of territorial
servitude, independent as it was of the personal state of the occupant,
was established in England.

NOTE XIV. Page 173.

This identity of condition between the villein regardant and in gross
appears to have been, even lately, called in question, and some adhere
to the theory which supposes an inferiority in the latter. The following
considerations will prove that I have not been mistaken in rejecting
it:--

I. It will not be contended that the words "regardant" and "in gross"
indicate of themselves any specific difference