In the Bury St. Edmund's case just quoted in a foot-note the fundamental principle of servility is stated emphatically, but the statement was occasioned by gradual encroachments on the part of the molmen, who were evidently becoming hardly distinguishable from freeholders[383]. And in many Cartularies we find these molmen actually enumerated with the freeholders, a very striking fact, because the clear interest of the lord was to keep the two classes asunder, and the process of making a manorial 'extent' and classifying the tenants must have been under his control. As a matter of fact, the village juries were independent enough to make their presentments more in accordance with custom than in accordance with the lord's interests. In a transcript of a register of the priory of Eye in Suffolk, which seems to have been compiled at the time of Edward I, the molmen are distinguished from villains in a very remarkable manner as regards the rule of inheritance, Borough English being considered as the servile mode, while primogeniture is restricted to those holding mol-land[384]. Borough English was very widely held in medieval England to imply servile occupation of land[385], and the privilege enjoyed by molmen in this case shows that they were actually rising above the general condition of villainage, the economical peculiarities of their position affording a stepping-stone, as it were, towards the improvement of their legal status. It is especially to be noticed, that in this instance we have to reckon with a material difference of custom, and not merely with a vacillating terminology or a general and indefinite improvement in position. An interesting attempt at an accurate classification of this and other kinds of tenantry is displayed by an inquisition of 19 Edward I preserved at the Record Office. The following subdivisions are enumerated therein:-- Liberi tenentes per cartam. Liberi tenentes qui vocantur fresokemen. Sokemanni qui vocantur molmen. Custumarii qui vocantur werkmen. Consuetudinarii tenentes 4 acras terre. Consuetudinarii tenentes 2 acras terre[386]. The difference between molmen and workmen lies, of course, in the fact that the first pay rent and the second perform week-work. But what is more, the molmen are ranged among the sokemen, and this supposes a certainty of tenure and service not enjoyed by the villains. In this way the intermediate class, though of servile origin, connects itself with the free tenantry. [Censuarii and gavelmen.]