Of _mol-land_ I have already spoken in another chapter. I will only point out now that this class of tenements appears to have been a very common one. Thirteenth-century surveys often describe certain holdings in two different ways--on the supposition of their paying rent, and also on that of their rendering labour-services; when they pay rent they pay so much, when they supply labour they supply so much. By the side of such holdings, which are wavering, as it were, between the two systems, we find the _terra assisa_ or _ad censum_. This class, to which molland evidently belongs, is distinguished from free tenure by the fact that its rent is regarded as a manorial arrangement; there is no formal agreement and no charter, and therefore no action before the king's courts to guard against disseisin or increase of services. In practice the difference is not felt very keenly, and these tenements gradually came to be regarded as 'free' in every sense. A characteristic feature of the movement may be noticed in the terms '_Socagium ad placitum_' and '_Socagium villani_[734].' These expressions occur in the documents, although they are not very common. It would be hard to explain them otherwise than from the point of view indicated just now. The tenement is paying a fixed and certain rent and therefore _socage_, but it is not defended by feoffment and charter; it is not recognised by law, and therefore it remains _at the will_ of the lord and unfree[735]. The grant of a charter would raise it to the legal standing of free land. [Ancient freeholds.] Every student of manorial documents will certainly be struck by one well-marked difference between villain tenements and free tenements as described in the extents and surveys. The tenants in villainage generally appear arranged into large groups, in which every man holds, works, and pays exactly as his fellows; so that when the tenement and services of some one tenant have been described we then read that the other tenants hold similar tenements and owe similar services. On the other hand, the freeholds seem scattered at random without any definite plan of arrangement, parcelled up into unequal portions, and subjected to entirely different duties. One man holds ten acres and pays three shillings for them; another has eight and a half acres and gives a pound of pepper to his lord; a third is possessed of twenty-three acres, pays 4_s._ 6_d._, and sends his dependants to three boonworks; a fourth brings one penny and some poultry in return for his one acre. The regularity of the villain system seems entirely opposed to the capricious and disorderly phenomena of free tenure.