between the two, or can
mean anything but the title by which the villein was held; prescriptive
and territorial in one case, absolute in the other. For the proof,
therefore, of any such difference we require some ancient authority,
which has not been given. II. The villein regardant might be severed
from the manor, with or without land, and would then become a villein in
gross. If he was sold as a domestic serf, he might, perhaps, be
practically in a lower condition than before, but his legal state was
the same. If he was aliened with lands, parcel of the manor, as in the
case of its descent to coparceners who made partition, he would no
longer be regardant, because that implied a prescriptive dependence on
the lord, but would occupy the same tenements and be in exactly the same
position as before. "Villein in gross," says Littleton, "is where a man
is seised of a manor whereunto a villein is regardant, and granteth the
same villein by deed to another; then he is a villein in gross, and not
regardant." (Sect. 181.) III. The servitude of all villeins was so
complete that we cannot conceive degrees in it. No one could purchase
lands or possess goods of his own; we do not find that any one, being
strictly a villein, held by certain services; "he must have regard,"
says Coke, "to that which is commanded unto him; or, in the words of
Bracton, 'a quo praestandum servitium incertum et indeterminatum, ubi
scire non poterit vespere quod servitium fieri debet mane.'" (Co. Lit.
120, b.) How could a villein in gross be lower than this? It is true
that the villein had one inestimable advantage over the American negro,
that he was a freeman, except relatively to his lord; possibly he might
be better protected against personal injury; but in his incapacity of
acquiring secure property, or of refusing labour, he was just on the
same footing. It may be conjectured that some villeins in gross were
descended from the _servi_, of whom we find 25,000 enumerated in
Domesday. Littleton says, "If a man and his ancestors, whose heir he is,
have been seised of a villein and of his ancestors, as of villeins in
gross, time out of memory of man, these are villeins in gross." (Sect.
182.)

It has been often asserted that villeins in gross seem not to have been
a numerous class, and it might not be easy to adduce distinct instances
of them in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though we should
scarcely infer, from the pains Littleton takes to de