From henceforward we find little notice taken of villenage in parliamentary records, and there seems to have been a rapid tendency to its entire abolition. But the fifteenth century is barren of materials; and we can only infer that, as the same causes which in Edward III.'s time had converted a large portion of the peasantry into free labourers still continued to operate, they must silently have extinguished the whole system of personal and territorial servitude. The latter, indeed, was essentially changed by the establishment of the law of copyhold. I cannot presume to conjecture in what degree voluntary manumission is to be reckoned among the means that contributed to the abolition of villenage. Charters of enfranchisement were very common upon the continent. They may perhaps have been less so in England. Indeed the statute de donis must have operated very injuriously to prevent the enfranchisement of villeins regardant, who were entailed along with the land. Instances, however, occur from time to time, and we cannot expect to discover many. One appears as early as the fifteenth year of Henry III., who grants to all persons born or to be born within his village of Contishall, that they shall be free from all villenage in body and blood, paying an aid of twenty shillings to knight the king's eldest son, and six shillings a year as a quit-rent.[422] So in the twelfth of Edward III. certain of the king's villeins are enfranchised on payment of a fine.[423] In strictness of law, a fine from the villein for the sake of enfranchisement was nugatory, since all he could possess was already at his lord's disposal. But custom and equity might easily introduce different maxims; and it was plainly for the lord's interest to encourage his tenants in the acquisition of money to redeem themselves, rather than to quench the exertions of their industry by availing himself of an extreme right. Deeds of enfranchisement occur in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth;[424] and perhaps a commission of the latter princess in 1574, directing the enfranchisement of her bondmen and bondwomen on certain manors upon payment of a fine, is the last unequivocal testimony to the existence of villenage;[425] though it is highly probable that it existed in remote parts of the country some time longer.[426] [Sidenote: Reign of Henry VI.]