The frankpledge system is a most conspicuous link between both sections of society in this way also, that it directly connects the subjugated population with the hundred court, which is the starting-point of free judicial organisation. Twice a year the whole of this population, with very few exceptions, has to meet in the hundred in order to verify the working of the tithings. Besides this, the class of villains must appear by representatives in the ordinary tribunals of the hundred and the shire: the reeve and the four men, mostly unfree men[78], with their important duties in the administration of justice, serve as a counterpoise to the exclusive employment of 'liberi et legales homines' on juries. [Civil disability of a villain as to his lord.] And now I come to the most intricate and important part of the subject--to the civil rights and disabilities of the villain. After what has been said of the villain in other respects, one may be prepared to find that his disabilities were by no means so complete as the strict operation of general rules would have required. The villain was able in many cases to do valid civil acts, to acquire property and to defend it in his own name. It is true that, both in theory and in practice, it was held that whatever was acquired by the bondman was acquired by the lord. The bondman could not buy anything but with his lord's money, as he had no money or chattels of his own[79]. But the working of these rules was limited by the medieval doctrine of possession. Land or goods acquired by the serf do not _eo ipso_ lapse into his lord's possession, but only if the latter has taken them into his hand[80]. If the lord has not done so for any reason, for want of time, or carelessness, or because he did not choose to do so, the bondman is as good as the owner in respect of third persons. He can give away[81] or otherwise alienate land or chattels, he has the assize of novel disseisin to defend the land, and leaves the assize of mort d'ancestor to his heirs. In this case it would be no good plea to object that the plaintiff is a villain. In fact this objection can be raised by a third person only with the addition that, as villain, the plaintiff does not hold in his own name, but in the name of his lord[82]. A third person cannot except against a plaintiff merely on the ground of his personal status. As to third persons, a villain is said to be free and capable to sue all actions[83]. This of course does not mean that he has any action for recovering or defending his possession of the tenements which he holds _in villainage_, but this disability is no consequence of his servile blood, for he shares it with the free man who holds in villainage; it is a consequence of the doctrine that the possession of the tenant in villainage is in law the possession of him who has the freehold. It may be convenient for a villain as defendant to shelter himself behind the authority of his