In case no one could be found who would willingly take up the land, the method of compulsion was tried. The responsibility for providing a tenant in these cases seems to have been shifted to the whole community. A villain chosen by the whole homage had to take up the land. At Crawley in 1315 there were two such cases. A fine was paid by one villain for a cottage and ten acres "_que devenerunt in manus domini tanquam escheata pro defectu tenentium & ad que eligebatur per totam decenuam_." At Twyford in 13433-1344, J. paid a fine for a messuage and a half virgate of land, "_ad que idem Johannes electus est per totum homagium_."[61] In other entries cited by Page, the element of compulsion is unmistakable: the new holder of land is described as "_electus per totum homagium ad hoc compulsus_," a phrase which is frequently found also in the entries of fines paid on some of the Winchester manors after the Black Death.[62] This method of compulsion was useful to some extent, but there were limits beyond which it could not be pushed. Five men of Therfield in 1351 were ordered to take up customary land, and several of them left the manor rather than obey. "_Vendiderunt quod habuerunt et recesserunt nocitante._"[63] At Nailesbourne, in the same year, "_Robertus le Semenour compulsus finivit et clam recessit et ea tenere recusavit_."[64] The problem which confronted landowners during the Black Death was not so much an absolute lack of men on the manors, as a stubborn unwillingness on the part of these men to hold land. There were enough men left by the pestilence, but they were determined to avoid taking up the tenements whose holders had died. The pressure which was brought upon the villains to induce them to take up land and to prevent them from leaving the manor could not prevent the desertions, which had begun before the pestilence, and which took away the men who would naturally have supplied the places of those who died. The whole village must have been anxious to prevent the desertion of these men, for the community was held responsible for the services from vacant tenements, when they failed to provide a tenant. At Meon, for instance, each of twenty-six tenants paid 1 _d._ in place of works due from a vacant holding, according to an arrangement which had been made before the Black Death,[65] and at Burwell, in 1350, when three villains left the manor, their land was "_tradita toto homagio ad faciendum servicia et consuetudines_."[66] In spite of the deterring force which must have been exerted by public opinion under these conditions, and in spite of the aggressive measures taken by bailiffs to prevent desertion and to recapture those who had fled, the records are full of the names of those who had been successful in making their escape. Throughout the latter half of the fourteenth century and the first part of the fifteenth there was a gradual leakage from the Winchester manors. "Villeins were apt 'to go away