The Saxon servile class, embraced under the general name of villeins, by and by began to have a permanent and legal interest in the land they cultivated, tilling it under the condition of a copyhold. The number of tenants on the manorial lands thus rapidly increased. But for a long period, even though the law declared that no man was a villein, still less a chattel, unless a master claimed him (and while to all others he was a freeman, eligible to have and hold property), still the nobles often seized and appropriated to themselves the property of the poorer class. The laws under the Plantagenets, although in some respects hard for the villeins, indirectly favored their emancipation, and threw many obstacles in the way of suits brought to reclaim fugitives. The influence of the cities on the condition of the serfs in England was similar to that which they exercised everywhere else in Europe. As under the Anglo-Saxons, so under the Normans, the inhabitants of the cities were originally serfs and villeins, or their descendants. The Plantagenets were unceasingly at war, and the enlistment of soldiers opened up an avenue to emancipation; and predial and feudal servitude of every kind ended forever with the performance of military service on land or sea. So also the serf or villein obtained freedom in various ways--through the law of refuge in cities, by being drafted into the royal service, and finally by the tenure of the land on which the baron may have established him at his own baronial pleasure. Thus by degrees arose the right of copyhold lands; and Edward III. prohibited the lords from appropriating such lands when service was rendered or the rent regularly paid. Forced servitude steadily diminished, and the estate-holders complained that the cities and towns absorbed the labor necessary for agriculture. In 1345, Parliament regulated the wages for all kinds of farm-work, and made labor obligatory when paid for in money, but not as personal servitude. Gradually the economic and social relations became more and more those of employer and laborer, and less and less those of master and serf. Still the nobles and estate-holders continually evaded the laws, and preserved, as much as they possibly could, their oppressive rights. Against these the peasants protested by various petty insurrections.