of the British Museum, the Bodleian and the Cambridge University Library[91]. I have no doubt that further verification will only confirm my opinion. On my assumption Bracton clearly distinguishes between two possibilities. In one case the deed simply binds the lord as to a particular person, in the other it binds him in perpetuity; and in this latter case, as there ought not to be any heirs of a bondman but the lord, bondage is annihilated by the deed. It is not annihilated when one person is granted a certain privilege as to a particular piece of land, and in every other respect the grantee and all his descendants remain unfree[92]:--he has no freehold, but he has a special covenant to fall back upon. This seems to lie at the root of what Bracton calls privileged villainage by covenant as distinguished from villain socage[93]. [Legal practice as to conventions.] The reader may well ask whether there are any traces of such an institution in practice, as it is not likely that Bracton would have indulged in mere theoretical disquisitions on such an important point. Now it would be difficult to find very many instances in point; the line between covenant and enfranchisement was so easily passed, and an incautious step would have such unpleasant consequences for landlords, that they kept as clear as possible of any deeds which might indirectly destroy their claims as to the persons of their villains[94]. On the other hand, even privileged serfs would have a great difficulty in vindicating their rights on the basis of covenant if they remained at the same time under the sway of the lord in general. The difficulties on both sides explain why Fleta and Britton endorse only the chief point of Bracton's doctrine, namely, the implied manumission, and do not put the alternative as to a covenant when heirs are not mentioned. Still I have come across some traces in legal practice[95] of contracts in the shape of the one discussed. A very interesting case occurred in Norfolk in 1227, before Martin Pateshull himself. A certain Roger of Sufford gave a piece of land to one of his villains, William Tailor, to hold freely by free services, and when Roger died, his son and heir William of Sufford confirmed the lease. When it pleased the lord afterwards to eject the tenant, this latter actually brought an assize of novel disseisin and recovered possession. Bracton's marginal note to the case runs thus: 'Note, that the son of a villain recovered by an assize of novel disseisin a piece of land which his father had held in villainage, because the lord of the villain by his charter gave it to the son [i.e. to the plaintiff], even without manumission[96].' The court went in this case even further than Bracton's treatise would have warranted: the villain was considered as having the freehold, and an assize of novel disseisin was granted; but although such a treatment of the case was perhaps not altogether sound, the chief point on which the contention