and we have seen already that in England legal doctrine created a powerful check on the development of servitude by protecting the actual possession of liberty, and throwing the burden of proof in questions of status on the side contending against such liberty. [Merchet.] But not all the consequences of personal servitude could be removed in the same way by the conditions of actual life. Of all manorial exactions the most odious was incontestably the _merchetum_, a fine paid by the villain for marrying his daughter[295]. It was considered as a note of servile descent, and the man free by blood was supposed to be always exempted from it, however debased his position in every other respect. Our authorities often allude to this payment by the energetic expression 'buying one's blood' (servus de sanguine suo emendo). It seems at first sight that one may safely take hold of this distinction in order to trace the difference between the two component parts of the villain class. In the status of the socman, developed from the law of Saxon free-men, there was usually nothing of the kind. The _maritagium_ of military tenure of course has nothing in common with it, being paid only by the heiress of a fee, and resulting from the control of the military lord over the land of his retainer. The _merchetum_ must be paid for every one of the daughters, and even the granddaughters of a villain; it had nothing to do with succession, and sprang from personal subjection. When the bride married out of the power of the lord a new element was brought to bear on the case: the lord was entitled to a special compensation for the loss of a subject and of her progeny[296]. When the case is mentioned in manorial documents, the fine gets heightened accordingly, and sometimes it is even expressly stated that an arbitrary payment will be exacted. The fine for incontinence naturally connects itself with the merchet, and a Glastonbury manorial instruction enjoins the Courts to present such cases to the bailiffs; the lord loses his merchet from women who go wrong and do not get married[297]. [Origin and modifications of merchet.]