without permission under the
king's seal; nor might any who had been bred to husbandry till twelve
years old exercise any other calling.[420] A few years afterwards the
commons petitioned that villeins might not put their children to school
in order to advance them by the church; "and this for the honour of all
the freemen of the kingdom." In the same parliament they complained that
villeins fly to cities and boroughs, whence their masters cannot recover
them; and, if they attempt it, are hindered by the people; and prayed
that the lords might seize their villeins in such places without regard
to the franchises thereof. But on both these petitions the king put in a
negative.[421]

From henceforward we find little notice taken of villenage in
parliamentary records, and there seems to have been a rapid tendency to
its entire abolition. But the fifteenth century is barren of materials;
and we can only infer that, as the same causes which in Edward III.'s
time had converted a large portion of the peasantry into free labourers
still continued to operate, they must silently have extinguished the
whole system of personal and territorial servitude. The latter, indeed,
was essentially changed by the establishment of the law of copyhold.

I cannot presume to conjecture in what degree voluntary manumission is
to be reckoned among the means that contributed to the abolition of
villenage. Charters of enfranchisement were very common upon the
continent. They may perhaps have been less so in England. Indeed the
statute de donis must have operated very injuriously to prevent the
enfranchisement of villeins regardant, who were entailed along with the
land. Instances, however, occur from time to time, and we cannot expect
to discover many. One appears as early as the fifteenth year of Henry
III., who grants to all persons born or to be born within his village of
Contishall, that they shall be free from all villenage in body and
blood, paying an aid of twenty shillings to knight the king's eldest
son, and six shillings a year as a quit-rent.[422] So in the twelfth of
Edward III. certain of the king's villeins are enfranchised on payment
of a fine.[423] In strictness of law, a fine from the villein for the
sake of enfranchisement was nugatory, since all he could possess was
already at his lord's disposal. But custom and equity might easily
introduce different maxims; and it was plainly for the lord's interest
to encourage his tenants in t