manor to which a villain belonged begins however to come in during the reign of Edward II, and the terminology is by no means settled at the outset; expressions are often used as equivalent to 'regardant' which could hardly have misled later antiquaries as to the meaning of the qualification[48]. In a case of 1322, for instance, we have 'within the manor' where we should expect to find 'regardant to the manor[49].' This would be very nearly equivalent to the Latin formula adopted by the Plea Rolls, which is simply _ut de manerio_[50]. Every now and then cases occur which gradually settle the terminology, because the weight of legal argumentation in them is made to turn on the fact that a particular person was connected with a particular manor and not with another. A case from 1317 is well in point. B.P. the defendant excepts against the plaintiff T.A. on the ground of villainage (_qil est nostre vileyn_, and nothing else). The plaintiff replies that he was enfranchised by being suffered to plead in an assize of mort d'ancestor against B.P.'s grandmother. By this the defendant's counsel is driven to maintain that his client's right against T.A. descended not from his grandmother but from his grandfather, who was seised of the manor of H. to which T.A. belonged as a villain[51]. The connexion with the manor is adduced to show from what quarter the right to the villain had descended, and, of course, implies nothing as to any peculiarity of this villain's status, or as to the kind of title, the mode of acquiring rights, upon which the lord relies--it was ground common to both parties that if the lord had any rights at all he acquired them by inheritance. [Prior of the Hospitalers _v._ Thomas Barentyn and Ralph Crips.]