Other clauses both of John’s Charter and of the various re-issues show scrupulous care to avoid infringing the rights of property enjoyed by manorial lords over their villeins. The King could not amerce other people’s villeins harshly, although those on his own farms might be amerced at his discretion. Chapter 16, while carefully prohibiting any arbitrary increase of service from freehold property, leaves by inference all villein holdings unprotected. Then the “farms” or rents of ancient demesne might be arbitrarily raised by the Crown,[216] and tallages might be arbitrarily taken (measures likely to press hardly on the villein class). The villein was deliberately left exposed to the worst forms of purveyance, from which chapters 28 and 30 rescued his betters. The horses and implements of the _villanus_ were still at the mercy of the Crown’s purveyors. The re-issue of 1217 confirms this view; while demesne waggons were protected, those of villeins were left exposed.[217] Again, the chapter which takes the place of the famous chapter 39 of 1215[218] makes it clear that lands held in villeinage are not to be protected from arbitrary disseisin or dispossession. The villein was left by the common law merely a tenant-at-will—subject to arbitrary ejectment by his lord—whatever meagre measure of protection he might obtain under the “custom of the manor” as interpreted by the court of the lord who oppressed him. ----- Footnote 216: See under c. 25 _infra_. Footnote 217: See chapter 26 of 1217. Footnote 218: See chapter 35 of 1217. Even if it were possible to neglect the significance of any one of these somewhat trivial points, when all of them are placed side by side their meaning is clear. If the bulk of the English peasantry were protected at all by Magna Carta that was merely because they formed valuable assets of their lords. The Charter viewed them as "villeins regardant"—as chattels attached to a manor, not as members of an English commonwealth.[219] ----- Footnote 219: Dr. Stubbs takes an entirely different view. While admitting that there is “so little notice of the villeins in the charter,” he explains the omission apparently on two distinct grounds, (1) that they had fewer grievances to redress than members of other classes, and (2) that they participated in all the grants from which they were not specially excluded. “It was not that they had no spokesman, but that they were free from the more pressing grievances, and benefited from every general provision.” Preface to _W. Coventry_, II., lxxiii. -----