their lands in the fields at pleasure, and he seizes lands which have been sold in this way and amerces them for selling; besides this he makes them serve as reeves and collectors, and the bailiff of the late Queen Eleanor tallaged them from year to year to pay twenty marks, which they were not bound to do, because they are no villains to be tallaged high and low[189]. Such is the substance of this remarkable document, to which I shall have to refer again in other connexions. What I wish to establish now is, that we have on the king's own possessions the exact counterpart of the 'breve de monstraverunt.' The instances adduced are perhaps the more characteristic because the petitioners had not even the strict privilege of ancient demesne to lean upon, as one of the cases comes from Northumberland, which is not mentioned in Domesday, and the other concerns tenants of the honour of Richmond. There can be no doubt that the tenantry on the ancient demesne had even better reasons for appealing to immemorial usage, and certainly they knew how to urge their grievances. We may take as an instance the notice of a trial consequent upon a complaint of the men of Bray against the Constable of Windsor. Bray was ancient demesne and the king's tenants complained that they were distrained to do other services than they were used to do. The judgment was in their favour[190]. The chief point is that the writ of 'Monstraverunt' appears to be connected with petitions to the king against the exactions of his officers, and may be said in its origin to be applicable as much to the actual possessions of the crown as to those which had been granted away from it. This explains a very remarkable omission in our best authorities. Although the writ played such an important part in the law of ancient demesne, and was so peculiar in its form and substance, neither Bracton nor his followers mention it directly. They set down 'the little writ of right close' as the only writ available for the villain socmen. As the protection in point of services is nevertheless distinctly affirmed by those writers, and as the 'Monstraverunt' appears in full working order in the time of Henry III and even of John[191], the obvious explanation seems to be that Bracton regarded the case as one not of writ but of petition, a matter, we might say, rather for royal equity than for strict law. Thus both the two modes of procedure which are distinctive of the ancient demesne, namely the 'parvum breve' and the 'Monstraverunt,' though they attain their full development on the manors that have been alienated, seem really to originate on manors which are in the actual possession of the crown. [Alienation of Royal Manors.]