THE PRODUCTION OF KINSFOLK 313
John who is here declareth this to you, that Peter who is there
wrongfully fled from him, and herein wrongfully, that he is our
villein who fled from his land within the term etc.,1 and of whom he
was seized as of his villein until such a year when he fled from him,
and if he denies this, he denies it wrongfully, for the plaintiff hath
good suit and sufficient.2
Then, says Britton,
immediately let the suit be examined, not only by taking their acknow-
ledgements whether they are villeins to the plaintiff, but whether he
against whom the plaint is prosecuted was ever upon the land of the
plaintiff, and in what manner the plaintiff was seized of him. And if
the suit be found to disagree, in so much it is bad and defective, and
the plaint shall be lost.2
The plaintiff may well have hesitated, for the production of
kin was a risky business. They could evidently be driven into
court, but once there, it was by no means certain what they
would say. A man produced in court to prove the unfree condi-
tion of his brother, on being questioned says he is a free man and
no villein, and the lord's case promptly collapses.3 And so with
many cases: the men are not of close enough kin, or indeed turn
out not to be kinsmen at all. A plaintiff brings forward two men
whom he says are serfs of his, and kinsmen of the defendant, but
the defendant says he never had a grandfather bearing either of
their names, and h? <*oes free.4 Again, in an interesting case in
Northumberland, in 1280, there are produced as witnesses a
man's sister as well as two of his more distant relatives—a William
Rudd and Cristina his sister. The defendant at once takes ex-
ception to these on the score that women ought not to be ad-
mitted in such a suit, being of a more fragile nature than are
males, and the court decided that th ? plaintiff was wrong to bring
such feeble witnesses, and inferred that he could find no satis-
factory male evidence, and declared for the liberty of the
defendant.5 Cases such as this show that a clever attorney could
often take full advantage of the many opportunities the law
offered him.
But we must not imagine that such suits were, in general,
1 The term allowable by the statute. See above, p. 311, n. 3.
2 Britton, I, 204.
3 Fitzherbert, Abridgement, Villeinage, § 39; and cf. B.NJB. No.
* Chester Rolls, 86.
* North. Assize Rolls, 374; and see Britton, I, 207; Villainage, 84.