The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-06-19
CHAPTER NX-Continued.

tuTV. putting IL DrOaulN. was Il CIucldi
stage in the history of villeinage in
England, the natural tendencies TO ex
press for virtual emancipation being
helped by the intervention of the min
listers religion, who urged upon masters
shat the manumission of slaves was
.pious and a meritorious act before God
and man. Then came variety OF
causes telling unfavorably upon all who
had either themselves been, or whose
ancestors had been, in state OF serf-
dom, and who could not produce docu-
mentary evidence of their freedom.
First. there vas the terrible calamity
of the Balck Plague, which enormously
increased the value of labor. Masters
were thereby tempted not only to exact
the utmost possible from such serfs as
remained to them, but also to reclaim
many who had been using the priv
ileges of freemen. Foreign wars and
court splendor increased the number of
absentee lords general rise in the
scale of living augmented their de-
mands upon their estates, and stimu
lated the sharpness of unscruplOus bail
ifs The substitution of leasehold
farms for demesne farms told in the
same direction of aggravating the con-
dition of the bondmen. Their services
were often part of the lease, and were
more sharply seen to than they had
been under the customary lord. Sim
ilarly with estates that were sold to
commercial investors eager to make the
most out of the soil.
Many causes thus combined to exas-
perate the agrLrian population. In ev-
cry parish the machinery of the law
was in action under the plea of tech
nical rights to thrust them back into
the base servitude from which they had
gradually freed themselves. Thousands
who had tasted the sweets OF freedom
found themselves in danger. They had
no chance in the courts of law against
superiors who claimed rights OF service
over them. Apart from chicanery and
corruption the law naturally laid stress
on formal documents, and the value of
these was only now becoming apparent
to the poor and ignorant. Some Will
ems who had purchased their freedom
met to carouse over the happy event.
The carousal was prolonged into the
night; their lights failed them; and
they used the wax seals of their deeds
of manumission for candles. Their
lord, hearing of this, reclaimed them,
and the law sustained his claim. In
another case, wealthy farmer, of SER
vile origin, was called upon to pay all
exorbitant rent. He refused. Tie alb
bot, who was his superior lord, sent a
force of men to his house, who broke it
open, beat him and his servants, and
carried off as much of his stock as they
pleased. The farmer brought an action
against the abbot, but the abbot simply
pleaded that the man was his nativus,
his born serf, and no serf could sue his
owner in court of law. There were
hundreds of such cases. Old court
rolls were produced with the names OF
tenants or their ancestors in them as
bondmen; if no formal deed could be
produced on the other side, the case
was at an end Forgeries were freely
made, and still more freely suspected:
legal learning and skill were all on the
side of the rich. This was how "the
craft of clerks" became hateful to the
peasantry, so that among the more ig-
norant, ability to read and write was
regarded as a criminal accomplishment.
OF course there was another side to
the quarrel between master and bond
man. The master could make out a
good enough case to justify his con-
science in pressing for his legal rights.
Ii was he that was the ill-used man in
his own eyes; the serf that was UNI
grateful aud unreaso 1able. 1t was for
the kindness and indulgence of himself
and his fathers that he was now made
to suffer. In effect, it came to this,
that he was like a big brother, who
should allow the Use of his toys to
yo nge- when he did not want them
himself. or when Ia CHANGED to be in
generous mood The day comes when
the big brother wants to have them
back, and he finds TO his anger that
new right of property has been estab-
lished, and that they are no longer re-
garded as his. If he tries to reclaim
them, chickering's and heart burnings
arise. With children of larger growth
the resentment on both sides is proper
tionately fierce.
To such outrageous lengths were
technical rights, real or spurious,
pushed by the lords OF the soil, and
such pitiless cruelty was used in en-
forcing them, that the champions of
the enraged peasantry saw no hope of
relief except in the total abolition of
serfdom by the issue of wholesale
charters of manumission direct from