Villainage in England. Paul Vinogradoff

applies to a species; but sometimes they are used interchangeably[256], and the feminine for villain is nieve (nativa). But while villanus is made to appear both in a wide and in a restricted sense, and for this reason cannot be used as a special qualification, nativus has only the restricted sense suggesting status[257]. In connection with other denominations nativus is used for the personally unfree[258]. When we find nativus domini, the personal relation to the lord is especially noticed[259]. The sense being such, no wonder that the nature of the tenure is sometimes described in addition[260]. Of course, the primary meaning is, that a person has been born in the power of the lord, and in this sense it is opposed to the stranger—forinsecus, extraneus[261]. In this sense again the Domesday of St. Paul's speaks of 'nativi a principio' in Navestock[262]. But the fact of being born to the condition supposes personal subjection, and this explains why nativi are sometimes mentioned in contrast with freemen[263], without any regard being paid to the question of tenure. Natives, or villains born, had their pedigrees as well as the most noble among the peers. Such pedigrees were drawn up to prevent any fraudulent assertion as to freedom, and to guide the lord in case he wanted to use the native's kin in prosecution of an action de nativo habendo. One such pedigree preserved in the Record Office is especially interesting, because it starts from some stranger, extraneus[264], who came into the manor as a freeman, and whose progeny lapses into personal villainage; apparently it is a case of villainage by prescription.

      Free men holding villain land.

      The other subdivision of the class—freemen holding unfree land[265]—has no special denomination. This deprives us of a very important clue as to the composition of the peasantry, but we may gather from the fact how very near both divisions must have stood to each other in actual life. The free man holding in villainage had the right to go away, while the native was legally bound to the lord; but it was difficult for the one to leave land and homestead, and it was not impossible for the other to fly from them, if he were ill-treated by his lord or the steward. Even the fundamental distinction could not be drawn very sharply in the practice of daily life, and in every other respect, as to services, mode of holding, etc., there was no distinction. No wonder that the common term villanus is used quite broadly, and aims at the tenure more than at personal status.