REASONS FOR IMMOBILITY 305
the soil?" Many things, no doubt; but one was of overwhelming,
importance: a sense of fair play and an ability to compromise.
We have seen that changing conditions were forcing men to view
things in a new light: little by little even the most grasping lords
were relinquishing some of their immemorial rights. Here and
there up and down the countryside, week-works were dying out as
the lord and his serfs found their interests marching side by side
in exchanging a service rent for one of money. Again, we have
seen the constant challenge of the towns: privileged, compara-
tively safe, seemingly luxurious—they were throughout these
centuries a magnet which attracted a percentage of those
peasants living around them—how large a percentage we cannot
tell. But there they were; and, as we have seen, the lord with
average foresight knew he must deal with them. Once let the
opinion gain ground that the manorial conditions were unfairly
exacting, and flight became a subject of discussion within the
village ale-house, and in the moments of rest in the fields and at
the plough. The Abbot of Burton may have won the applause of
lawyers when he told his serfs that they had nothing of their own
save their bellies (nihil praefer ventrem), but he was a foolish
fellow nevertheless.1 Again, the story of Bury St Edmunds shows
clearly enough what difficulties landlords created for themselves
by a resolute refusal to see how the times were changing.2 In
general, however, lord and peasant found it mutually convenient
to compromise—the well-known phrase of the customals "and
he shall serve ad voluntatem domini et secundum consuetudinem
manerii" shows how custom had taken its place in manorial life,
and that "the will of the lord" had been softened by the passage
of time, so that it had now to be interpreted by the custom of the
manor.3 The majority of peasants were kept on the manor by
a reluctance to leave home, and a general belief that their lot
was not unduly hard but approximated to that of their neigh-
bours.4
1 Wm. Salt Soc. V, 82.
2 Seejfocelin of Brakelond, passim, and compare conditions at Dunstable in
1229 (Ann. Dunst. R.S. 122), or at Darnall and Over in 1326 and 1336
(Vale Royal Ledger Book, 378. and nyff.).
3 See above, p. 100.
4 Compare V.C.H. Herts, iv, 186, where it says that flight was rare in the
thirteenth century, for as commutation increased there was less necessity to
bind tenants to the soil.