the same principle really applied to every grade of feudal society; Count William of Evreux only stated a simple fact in grotesque language when he complained that his homage and his services had been made over together with the overlordship of his county by Robert Curthose to Henry I., with no more regard to his own will than if he had been a horse or an ox.[182] The mere gift of personal freedom, when it meant the uprooting of all local and social ties and the withdrawal of all accustomed means of sustenance, would have been in itself but a doubtful boon. There were, however, at least three ways in which freedom might be attained. Sometimes the lord on his death-bed, or in penance for some great sin, would be moved by the Church’s influence to enfranchise some of his serfs. Sometimes a rustic might flee to one of the chartered towns, and if for the space of a year and a day he could find shelter under its protecting customs from the pursuit of his lord’s justice, he was thenceforth a free burgher. And there was a greater city of refuge whose protection was readier and surer still. The Church had but to lay her consecrating hands upon a man, and he was free at once. To ordain a villein or admit him as a monk without his lord’s consent was indeed forbidden; but the consecration once bestowed was valid nevertheless; and the storm of indignation which met the endeavour of Henry II. to enforce the prohibition shows that it had long been almost a dead letter. [181] Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. I. (Hunter), p. 55. [182] Ord. Vit. (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._), p. 814.