Whenever we come to examine closely the reason underlying the cases when the classification into servile and free is adopted, we find that it generally resolves itself into a contrast between those who have to serve, in the original sense of the term, and those who are exempted from actual labour-service. Being dependent nevertheless, these last have to pay rent. I need not repeat that I am speaking of main distinctions and not of the various details bound up with them. In order to understand thoroughly the nature of such diversities, let us take up a very elaborate description of duties to be performed by the peasants in the manor of Wye, Kent, belonging to the Abbey of Battle[677]. Of the sixty-one yokes it contains thirty are servile, twenty-nine are free, and two occupy an intermediate position. The duties of the two chief classes of tenants differ in many respects. The servile people have to pay rent and so have the free, but while the first contribute to make up a general payment of six pounds, each yoke being assessed at seven shillings and five-pence, the free people have to pay as much as twenty-three shillings and seven-pence per yoke. Both sets have to perform ploughings, reapings, and carriage duties, but the burden of the servile portion is so much greater in regard to the carriage-work, that the corresponding yokes sometimes get their very name from it, they are _juga averagiantia_, while the free households are merely bound to help a few times during the summer. Every servile holding has a certain number of acres of wood assigned to it, or else corresponding rights in the common wood, while the free tenants have to settle separately with the lord of the manor. And lastly, the relief for every unfree yoke is fixed at forty pence, and for every free one is equal to the annual rent. This comparison of duties shows that the peasants called free were by no means subjected to very light burdens: in fact it looks almost as if they were more heavily taxed than the rest. Still they were exempted from the most unpopular and inconvenient labour-services.