There is one further element in the problem which must not be overlooked. Mr. Seebohm’s doctrine that the later villeins were descended from servile dependants has perhaps led some to suppose that the only alternative to the mark theory is the supposition that the villeins of the Middle Ages were all the descendants of slaves. But here the analogy of Continental conditions is again of use. Though there is no trace of the free village community, at any rate in historical times, and the villa with its slaves was the germ of the later seigneury; yet the servile tenants of subsequent centuries were to no small extent the descendants of _coloni_, who, though bound to the soil, were still technically free, centuries after the Roman rule had passed away.[43] And so in the early English laws we find men technically free, whom, none the less, it can scarcely be exaggeration to describe as _serfs_. Such, for instance, is the freeman who works on the Sabbath “by his lord’s command,”[44] or who kills a man “by his lord’s command;”[45] who pays a fine if he goes from his lord without leave;[46] or who receives from his lord a dwelling as well as land, and so becomes bound not only to the payment of rent, but also to the performance of labour services.[47] Yet, the _colonus_ of pre-English days and his descendants might long retain a position superior to that of a slave with an allotment. In obscure differences of this kind may possibly be found the origin of the distinction between the “privileged” and “unprivileged” villeins of later centuries.[48] It must be allowed that there is still very much that is obscure in the early history of villeinage. This obscurity may be expected to disappear as social antiquities come to be studied by scholars who are economists as well as historians. It was on the economic side, if the criticism may be ventured, that M. Fustel de Coulanges was weak. He never seemed to grasp the difference between what we may call the joint-husbandry of the mediæval village group, and the liberty of the modern farmer to make of his land what he pleases. While pointing out that M. de Laveleye does not prove common _ownership_, he fails to realise that, even if this is so, the joint-husbandry, with its appurtenant common rights, is a phenomenon of the utmost interest, and deserves careful attention. He seems to think that it explains itself; although, the more complex and the more widespread it proves to be, the less likely does it seem that it originated in the miscellaneous promptings of individual self-interest.