royal manors were the king's courts after all, and as such they could hardly be severed from the higher tribunals held in the king's name. I may be allowed to sum up the conclusions of this chapter under the following heads:-- 1. The law of ancient demesne is primarily developed in regard to the manors in the king's own hand. 2. The special protection granted to villain socmen in ancient demesne is a consequence of a certainty of condition as much recognised in manors which the king still holds as in those which he has alienated. 3. This certainty of condition is derived from the Conquest as the connecting link between the Norman and the Saxon periods. CHAPTER IV. LEGAL ASPECT OF VILLAINAGE. CONCLUSIONS. [Method of investigation.] I have been trying to make out what the theories of the lawyers were with regard to villainage in its divers ramifications. Were we to consider this legal part of the subject merely as a sort of crust superposed artificially over the reality of social facts, we should have to break through the crust in order to get at the reality. But, of course, the law regulating social conditions is not merely an external superstructure, but as to social facts is both an influence and a consequence. In one sense it is a most valuable product of the forces at play in the history of society, most valuable just by reason of the requirements of its formalism and of those theoretical tendencies which give a very definite even if a somewhat distorted shape to the social processes which come within its sphere of action. The formal character of legal theory is not only important because it puts things into order and shape; it suggests a peculiar and efficient method of treating the historical questions connected with law. The legal intellect is by its calling and nature always engaged in analysing complex cases into constitutive elements, and bringing these elements under the direction of principles. It is constantly struggling with the confusing variety of life, and from the historian's point of view it is most interesting when it succumbs in the struggle. There is no law, however subtle and comprehensive, which does not exhibit on its logical surface seams and scars, testifying to the incomplete fusing together of doctrines that cannot be brought under the cover of one principle. And so a dialectic examination of legal forms which makes manifest the contradictions and confused notions they contain actually helps us to an insight into the historical stratification of ideas and facts, a stratification which cannot be abolished however much lawyers may crave for unity and logic. [Uncertainty and contradictions of legal theory.]