Indeed, the rural settlement appears in our records as a 'juridical person.' The Court Rolls of Brightwaltham, edited for the Selden Society by Mr. Maitland, give a most beautiful example of this. The village of Brightwaltham enters into a formal agreement with the lord of the manor as to some commons. It surrenders its rights to the lord in regard to the wood of Hemele, and gets rid in return of the rights claimed by the lord in Estfield and in a wood called Trendale[778]. Nothing can be more explicit: the village acts as an organised community; it evidently has free disposition as to rights connected with the soil; it disposes of these rights not only independently of the lord, but in an exchange to which he appears as a party. We see no traces of the rightless condition of villains which is supposed to be their legal lot, and a powerful community is recognised by the lord in a form which bears all the traits of legal definition. In the same way the annals of Dunstable speak of the seisin of the township of Toddington[779], and of a feoffment made by them on behalf of the lord. I have only to say in addition to this summing up of the subject, that the quasilegal standing of the villains in regard to the lord appears with special clearness when they stand arrayed against him as a group and not as single individuals. We could guess as much on general grounds, but the self-dependent position assumed by the 'communitas villanorum' of Brightwaltham is the more interesting, that it finds expression in a formal and recorded agreement. [The village as a farmer.] We catch a glimpse of the same phenomenon from yet another point of view. It is quite common to find entire estates let to farm to the rural community settled upon them[780]. In such cases the mediation of the bailiff might be dispensed with; the village entered into a direct agreement with the lord or his chief steward and undertook a certain set of services and payments, or promised to give a round sum. Such an arrangement was profitable to both parties. The villains were willing to pay dearly in order to free themselves from the bailiff's interference with their affairs; the landowner got rid of a numerous and inconvenient staff of stewards and servants; the rural life was organised on the basis of self-government with a very slight control on the part of the lord. Such agreements concern the general management of manors as well as the letting of domain land or of particular plots and rights[781]. Of course there was this great disadvantage for the lord, that the tie between him and his subjects was very much loosened by such arrangements, and sometimes he had to complain that the conditions under which the land was held were materially disturbed under the farmer-ship of the village. It is certain, that in a general way this mode of administration led to a gradual improvement in the social status of the peasantry. [The village and agricultural arrangements.]