entire grain crop of the demesne at Forncett was done
by the tenants exclusively, without the aid of any hired labour.[122]

However, in the period 1307-1376 the manor underwent a great change.
The economic position of the villeins, the administration of the
demesne, and the whole organization of the manor were revolutionized.
Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the
deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the
manor; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order
to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a
diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne
for a term of years,[123] a process which went on all over England;
and thus we have the origin of the modern tenant farmer. A fact of
much importance in connexion with the Peasants' Revolt, soon to take
place, was that the average money rent of land per acre in Forncett in
1378 was 10d., while the labour rents for land, where they were still
paid by villeins who had not commuted or run away, were, owing to the
rise in the value of labour, worth two or three times this. We cannot
wonder that the poor villeins were profoundly discontented.

On this manor, as on others, some of the villeins, in spite of the
many disadvantages under which they lay, managed to accumulate some
little wealth. In 1378 and in 1410 one bond tenant had two messuages
and 78 acres of land; in 1441 another died seized of 5 messuages and
52 acres; some had a number of servants in their households, but the
majority were very poor. There are several instances of bondmen
fleeing from the manor; and the officers of the manor failed to catch
them. This was common in other manors, and the 'withdrawal' of
villeins played a considerable part in the disappearance of serfdom
and the break-up of the system.[124] The following table shows the
gradual disappearance of villeins in the Manor of Forncett:

In 1400 the servile families who had land numbered 16
1500 " " " 8
1525 " " " 5
1550 " " " 3
1575 " " " 0

There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of
England, or which has led to more important consequences, than the
dissolution of this community in the cultivation of the land, which
had been in u