But if he
wanted to sell out of his holding, the lord of the manor exacted a
payment for the privilege. If he died, his heir had to pay for being
admitted to his inheritance, and if he died without heirs, the
property went back to the lord of the manor, who then, but only then,
could raise the ground rent if he pleased, though he rarely did so.
So much for the free tenants.
Besides these were the _villeins_ or _villani_, or
_natives_, as they were called. The villeins were tillers of the
soil, who held land under the lord, and who, besides paying a small
money ground rent, were obliged to perform certain arduous services
to the lord, such as to plough the lord's land for so many days in
the year, to carry his corn in the harvest, to provide a cart on
occasion, &c. Of course these burdens pressed very heavily at times,
and the services of the villeins were vexatious and irritating under
a hard and unscrupulous lord. But there were other serious
inconveniences about the condition of the villein or native. Once a
villein, always a villein. A man or woman born in villeinage could
never shake it off. Nay, they might not even go away from the manor
to which they were born, and they might not marry without the lord's
license, and for that license they always had to pay. Let a villein
be ever so shrewd or enterprising or thrifty, there was no hope for
him to change his state, except by the special grace of the lord of
the manor.
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