[Gutenberg 38876] • Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History

Vinogradoff argues that the Norman-era villain was the direct descendent of the Anglo-Saxon freeman, so the typical Anglo-Saxon settlement was a free community rather than a manor. An impressive work of original scholarship and synthesis, it "shed a wholly new light on the social and legal aspects of the institution of villainage" (William Holdsworth, *The Historians of English Law* 86). xii, 464 pp.