ed. ii. 62, 234) are significant on this point. Referring to a date before 705, he writes of the Britones qui Occidentalibus Saxonibus subditi erant, Britons living in subjection in Wessex, and then, under date 681, he states that there were 250 servi on 87 hides at Selsey. But there were 7000 hides of cultivable land in the South Saxon kingdom (see HIDE), which included Selsey, so that without for a moment insisting on strict proportion, which would give 20,000 slaves, we get figures which cannot at so early a date represent Saxons reduced to bondage, but must indicate a Romano-British population spared to act as labourers.

[All the books in the list appended to MARK SYSTEM, bear, like the article itself, directly upon village communities. To them may be added the following:-G. L. Gomme, The Village Community, 1890.-The Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1896, pp. 69-86.-F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond.-Baden-Powell, The Indian Village Community, 1896.]

R. H.

On the other hand he quite fails to understand the question of the population, which he desired to see increased.

To combat usury, as it is injurious to agriculture, Villano proposes establishing a public bank to receive agricultural products to be sold at a reasonable profit, or to advance money on them to the agriculturists.

L'ozio autunnale; ovvero discorsi economicopolitici, 1768-70.

[Fornari, Delle teorie economiche nelle provincie napoletane, ii., 1888;-Gobbi, La concorrenza estera, etc., 1888;-Ricca Salerno, Storia delle dottrine finanziarie in Italia, 1881].

VILLANUS.

U. R.

Villanus, p. 624; Villein Tenure, p. 626; Villeinage, p. 626.

VILLANUS. Strictly a man of servile condition holding usually one VIRGATE of land, this is the fourth part of a HIDE, in the common fields of a MANOR by base services; but the term is sometimes applied to one of free status who holds land by servile tenure. There were also villeins not settled on the soil who paid CHEVAGE (q.v.) for living outside the manor as artificers, and there must have been, as well, the sons of villeins acting as labourers, like the homines qui serviunt extra domos patrum suorum mentioned in the Peterborough Liber Niger (p. 163). The word villanus, the feminine of which is nativa, is in an economic sense opposed to libere tenens, while the corresponding terms nativus or rusticus denote unfree status as contrasted with the condition of a

conquest it was the equivalent of ceorl or gebur, as in the Rectitudines (Thorpe, Ancient Laws, p. 185) and the body of 108,407 villani of Domesday no doubt included these classes, and probably, too, many free men holding in villeinage, for it must be remembered that Domesday treats of units of taxation and units of service, and was a census of responsibility and geldability, not of men and their status.

The ceorls had at an earlier date been personally free and could become thegn-worthy. Some were probably free at the time. of the conquest; but the manorial system under the AngloSaxon kings had tended to reduce the peasantry to dependence, and Domesday Book shows, perhaps, their lowest depression. Later records, such as the Domesday of St. Paul's, show an upward development by which some became libere tenentes, while the term custumarius applied to the others, notably in the Extenta Manerii (4 Ed. I.), marks a position in which, though they were still in legal theory subject to the absolute will of the lord of the manor, that will moved in practice on the lines of custom, and left undisturbed the man who duly The villanus could not performed his services.

quit the manor, and of course could not sell his holding; he was tallaged at the will of the lord; he paid MERCHET (q.v.) on the marriage of his daughter, and a fine on the sale of cattle; his son could not be ordained without the lord's leave; he was liable to serve as REEVE, and his minor offences were punished at the halimote. Legally he was viewed as annexed to the freehold, and so, through a technicality, could not be devised by will: but he could be sold, and deeds of sale of villeins are extant. His lands happened. Maitland (p. 45) gives a case in could be confiscated, but this probably seldom which a villein is ousted for denying that he is nativus, but is put back on confessing his servile status. On his death his holding passed to his youngest son (Ramsey Cartul., i. 372), who paid a relief, and the widow paid a HERIOT for her life interest. To prevent claims of freedom, genealogies of villeins were carefully kept, for if a villanus could not be shown to be nativus, unfree by birth, the law would declare him free in status. If a lord treated his villein as a free man, granting, for instance, land to him and his heirs, the act operated as a manumission. A villein could not maintain an action against his lord except for bodily injury or deprivation of WAYNAGE (q.v.); but he could do so against any other person, for he was free in respect to all men except his lord. It has been asserted that villeins could not serve as jurors, but manorial records (Maitland, Manorial Courts, p. 94; and Select Civil Pleas, case 123) show that they did so in the halimote. They formed part of the juries which made the Domesday returns, and villeins habitually went with their

reeves to the courts of the hundred and the snire. Villeins, too, came under the system of FRANKPLEDGE, and were thus free men as regards the criminal law. These facts would alone show that they were far removed from slavery. | A villein's normal holding, a virgate, commonly of about thirty acres, with rights of grazing cattle on the waste, and with grass rights as well, was in Anglo-Saxon times usually stocked by the lord with two oxenthat is a fourth part of the great plough team of eight oxen, a unit of labour which determined in a practical way the unit of assessment, the hide, of which a virgate was one quarter, and a bovate an eighth part. In addition, as appears from the Rectitudines, he had a cow and six sheep, and was provided with farming and household implements. In return he or his substitute worked, as a rule, for three or four days in the week from Michaelmas to 1st August on the lord's demesne lands at ploughing, harrowing, and other field labour. Often, too, he was bound to provide seed. At harvest time he worked still harder, and brought all his family, except his wife and grown-up daughters, with him into the field. There were the ploughing PRECARIÆ (q.v.) at other times in addition (see SERVICES, PREDIAL AND MILITARY). Usually he paid a small annual sum of money as well, and rendered at specified dates a fixed number of chickens and other produce. In some manors an ell of cloth was required, an exaction which points to weaving as a common home industry. The annual value of this labour varied very much. From 5s. to 8s. is a common reckoning, though there is an entry in the TESTA DE NEVILL, p. 186, c. 2, which values the annual services of a villein (probably after extensive commutations) at 8d.; but those of a nativus operarius, an agricultural labourer, at 8s. 44d. It is clear, however, that on the average the villani | had a good margin of profit from their holdings.

Occasionally, even in early times, a villein commuted his services for money payments, and these commutations frequently led to successful assertions of freedom. The villeins on land in ancient demesne were chiefly villein SOCMEN, men free in status holding land in villenage. In all manors the lord would tend to view the mechanism as a whole, and if his demesne lands were well cultivated by the united teams of his peasantry, and if the stipulated produce was duly offered, he would have no inducement to disturb the working of a profitable co-operative organisation; while the early rolls of manorial courts show that there was in fact little wanton interference on his part. Occasionally the body of servile tenants appears to have been treated as a community, exchanging or adjusting claims with their lord, to whom they were often personally bound

VOL. III

625

by an oath of fealty (Maitland, Select Pleas, Manorial, p. 172). In fact, throughout manorial records there is an inconsistency between the legal view of the villanus and his visibly sustained rights and privileges.

The early practice of commuting services for fixed money payments, the steady influence of the church, and the tendency of judicial decisions in favour of freedom, prepared the way for the breakdown of the manorial system which was to follow in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The gradual rise from the position of villein to that of copyholder began very early; but its first definite stage is marked by the Year Book of 42 Ed. III., which, in stating that if a customary tenant does not perform his services his land may be seized, shows that on due performance his holding was then legally secure (see COPYHOLD). This alone would show that the system of cultivation by a servile tenantry was breaking down. Many became free labourers, and the BLACK DEATH of 1348, by causing a dearth of cultivators, led to the statute of labourers, 23 Ed. III. c. i., by which hired service was made compulsory on all who had no definite means of living, and an artificial restriction was placed on the rates of hiring of the important class of free cultivators and workmen (see LABOUR STATUTES).

The statutes 1 Ric. II. c. 6, and 2 Ric. II. c. 7, show the smouldering of the rebellion among the peasantry which broke into flame in 1381, when the villeins extorted the charters of freedom which were annulled by 5 Ric. II. c. 7. Court rolls and other records

of servitude were destroyed to an extent which necessitated the special provisions of 5 Ric. II. c. 9. Other methods by which the villeins were seeking enfranchisement were met by futile statutes, some of which restricted the power of apprenticing children of the peasant class. These appear in the 9th and 12th years of Richard II. and the 4th and 7th of Henry IV., and mark a late stage in the ruin of the system. It lingered, however, for many years, and Fitzherbert (Surveyinge, c. xiii. ed. 1539, p. 31) wrote of bondmen continuing in some places, while in 1536 their existence was publicly recognised by an abortive bill for their manumission. Mr. Hubert Hall has found a case in Elizabeth's reign in which predial services were exacted by a lord of a manor at Gimingham in Norfolk. But the queen exerted herself in favour of the villeins, and in 1574 issued a commission for the enfranchisement of those on certain royal manors (Fœdera, ed. 1713, xv. 731). Law cases in which villenage was pleaded appear as late as 1617, and relics of serfdom seem to have existed considerably later.

The case of the Scotch colliers who, it is stated in the act 39 Geo. III. c. 56, were "in 2 s

VILLEINAGE. The servile condition in which the bulk of the English peasantry are found in the 11th century, and in which they continued down to about the middle of the 14th.

From that time the villein class lasted in decreasing numbers and in improving conditions until, by the beginning of the 17th century, villenage had practically disappeared from England (see VILLANUS).

In old records the word villenagium, however, often means the part of a manor allocated to the villeins, or rather the sum of the scattered acre strips held by them. In the Ramsey Cartulary,

for instance (ii. 37), we read "de villenagio sunt ibi quinque hydæ."

VILLEIN. SEE VILLANUS.
VILLENAGE. See VILLEINAGE.

R. H.

VILLENEUVE-BARGEMONT, VICOMTE ALBAN DE (1784-1850), born at the Château of St. Alban (Var.), became a prefect under the empire and the restoration, and a deputy during the monarchy of 1830. He was perhaps the earliest to describe his economic tenets as

'Christian," thus subordinating the science to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic church.

Of his two works, the first, Économie politique

chrétienne ou recherches sur la nature et les causes du paupérisme en France et en Europe et sur les moyens de le soulager et de le prévenir (3 vols. 8vo, 1834), as the sub-title shows us, only discusses indigence, charity, and benevolence.

He seeks to found political economy on new principles in opposition to those which the economists -especially in England-with whom he couples J. B. SAY, have taken as the bases of their works. He pities France for having undergone "the great catastrophe of the revolution of 1789," which he attributed to the anti-religious and anti-monarchical spirit diffused through that country, and he foretells for England "a catastrophe inevitable, more or less near, and without doubt terrible." Besides these faults, resulting from the spirit of the system which inspired their author, there is a great deal well said in his work, and which clashes, though unconsciously, with his expressed views. He made an exception among his countrymen, which should be noticed, in favour of MALTHUS, declaring that this author "proclaimed sorrowful though striking and serious truths."

Villeneuve-Bargemont's second book-Histoire de l'Economie politique, ou Etudes historiques, philosophiques et religieuses sur l'Économie politique des peuples anciens et modernes (2 vols. 8vo, 1841), is-even more than BLANQUI's work with a nearly similar title-rather a history of facts than of ideas.

The economic literature referred to in this work shows wide reading compared to that of Blanqui, and is on this account interesting to study; unfortunately the author cannot persuade himself to break with his religious beliefs, and he too readily subordinates to these the principles of his science. Thus he reproaches the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments for having omitted any consideration of moral and religious ideas in his Wealth of Nations. "Thus it is that modern political economy arose -in it products are no longer made for man, but man for products. In a word, though sentiment, according to Villeneuve-Bargemont, should prevail, cold reason is the rule. But the author had happier inspirations than these. Preferring, from the religious and moral point of view, agriculture to manufactures, he assisted in founding, in 1822, the celebrated model farm at Roville (Vosges), which was directed by Mathieu de DOMBASLE until his death in 1843. A. C. f.

VILLERME, LOUIS RENÉ (1782-1863), born and died at Paris. Patient and in

dustrious, an acute observer, an able theorist,

striving to reconcile, as far as possible, the requirements of the present with economic principle, Villermé had a large share in introducing the law of 12th March 1841 into France, amended 19th May 1874 and 2nd November 1892. This law aimed at the protection of about similar good results to those produced in children employed in factories, and to bring England by the acts of 1833, 1844, and 1878 (see FACTORY ACTS).

Having been directed by the Institute (Académie des Sciences morales et politiques), of which he had condition of factory workers, he visited the been a member since 1832, to enquire into the principal industrial centres of France, and brought out, in 1840, his Tableau de l'état physique et moral des ouvriers employés dans les manufactures de coton, de laine et de soie (2 vols. 8vo). This work contained the results of enquiries made on the spot, and supplied information collected with the most commendable and conscientious impartiality. His conclusions were against invoking

Like

state intervention in favour of adults. Charles Dunoyer, whose liberal principles he adopted, he maintained that "nothing more can be done for workmen who rely on their own unaided efforts, and always keep their expenses within their means, and steadily lay by"; but he invokes the protection of the law for the children, those poor irresponsible beings whose sufferings he sympathetically describes, sometimes breaking into fierce indignation.1

The work quoted above is not the only book by Villermé deserving notice. He was also the historical point of view, as a description of the condition 1 At the present time this work is interesting from a of the factory hands some half century since.

author of many reports on prisons, the movement of population, workmen's associations, CITÉS OUVRIÈRES, accidents caused by machinery, etc.

A doctor by profession, he early ceased to practise, and devoted himself to questions of public hygiene. During the 1832 epidemic of cholera in France, he resumed medical work, and courageously laboured among the sufferers, only ceasing his efforts when the scourge disappeared. A. c. f.

VILLES FRANCHES AND CHARTERED TOWNS. In the 13th century the kings of England frequently granted charters to English towns, which after receiving a charter usually became known as boroughs; but that word also applies to towns that were so called at the time of the Domesday survey, as Totnes and Barnstaple. The charters conferred many and various privileges; some were much wider and more extensive than others. Sometimes they were only granted by reference; thus the charter to Hartlepool (1201) conferred on the burgesses there the same liberties and franchises as were enjoyed by the burgesses of Newcastle-on-Tyne. In France such chartered towns were known as Villes Franches.

The privileges enjoyed by burgesses have been classified by Sir F. Pollock and Professor Maitland as follows: (1) Privileges of jurisdiction, such as the right of not being impleaded except in the courts of the BOROUGH; or the franchise of the return of writs, which were executed by the bailiffs or other officers of the borough instead of by the sheriff of the county. (2) Privileges of tenure, such as the right of disposing of land by will. (3) Mercantile privileges, such as freedom from toll outside the borough. (4) Power to farm the boroughthat is, to take the borough tolls, to receive the profits of the borough courts, and the rents which before the grant were paid to the king. (5) Power to elect officers such as coroners and bailiffs, or a mayor; but it should be noticed that a MAYOR was not an essential officer of a borough. (6) Power to make bye-laws, though these were usually of narrow application. (7) Certain limited powers of self-taxation. (8) Power to form gilds merchant to maintain the mercantile privileges granted by the charter.

These privileges were not always enjoyed together; they were often granted by different charters. Nor did the grant necessarily make a borough; many manors enjoyed most of the usual privileges, but not the title of a borough.

During the 13th century, and especially during the reign of Edward I., many new boroughs were created, but afterwards this happened less frequently. As government became more centralised and the incidents of the feudal system less grievous, there were fewer advantages to be gained by these privileges. It has been stated that Edward I. granted charters as part of a settled policy; he certainly

627

granted a large number to small but rising towns, such as Melcombe Regis in Dorsetshire. But his charters were of the same form as those of earlier kings; the one granted to Melcombe Regis (1280), for instance, was little wider than the one which King John granted to Northampton (1200). They, no doubt, did much to develop trade and industry; but it is probable that a charter was usually granted for pecuniary rather than political reasons; the king sold and the burgesses bought privileges (see GILDS).

[Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, Cambridge, 1885, 8vo. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond, Cambridge, 1897, 8vo. Maitland, Township and Borough, Cambridge, 1898, 8vo.

G. J. T.

VILLES NEUVES. In the 13th century a large number of towns were built in the south of France upon a certain definite plan; they are called Villes Neuves. Their principal streets all ran in the same direction, and were connected with one another by narrower lanes at right angles to them, so that the houses stood upon rectangular plots. There was usually a large square in the centre of the town for a marketplace, but in one corner of it there was a church and graveyard. The two principal streets did not run through the square, but passed along two sides of it. Montpazier in the department of Dordogne is an excellent example of such a town. They were built to encourage commerce and were free from the jurisdiction of the neighbouring feudal lords, who looked upon their growth with much jealousy. They also enjoyed other extensive liberties and privileges. Most of them were built by Edward I. in Aquitaine; but similar towns had been founded in France before his time. Some towns of this nature were also built in England, of these Winchelsea and Kingston-upon-Hull are good instances.-Turner, Domestic Architecture in England, Oxford, 1851, 8vo. G. J. T.

VILLIAUME, NICOLAS (1818-1877). This economist deserves notice as an early disseminator of the doctrines of State Socialism, at that time hardly recognised in France.

He

He published several historical works, as Histoire de la Révolution de 1789, and the Nouveau traité d'Economie politique, 2 vols. 1857, which passed through two editions. maintained in this work the arguments in favour of government interference, progressive taxation, the suppression of the power of bequest to collateral relations, and the limitation of the rate of interest. These views, though scarcely heretical, drew upon him a severe admonition from Monsieur Hippolyte PASSY in a report to the Institut (see Journal des Economistes, 15th August 1857), and a very flattering letter from John Stuart MILL.

C. G.

VINCENT, J. C. M. DE. See GOURNAY. VINGTIEME. One of the most obvious defects of French finance before the revolution was the exemption of the privileged classes

from direct taxation. The injustice of the system was strikingly depicted by VAUBAN in the DIME ROYALE, in which he advocated the substitution of one universal tax on income in place of the existing imposts. The book was burned and the author disgraced, but the government did not forget the lesson which it so bitterly resented. In 1710 DESMARETS, the controller-general, reduced to great financial straits by the war of the Spanish Succession, induced the king and council to impose a Dixième based on the proposal of Vauban, not instead of, but in addition to, all the existing taxes. By the edict of 10th October all incomes, whatever their origin, and whatever the rank of the holder, were to pay the tax; the assessment was to be based on the returns of the tax-payers; all disputes were to be decided by the intendants, subject to an appeal to the royal council. No such blow had yet been struck at the edifice of privilege in France, and a cry of indignation was raised by nobles, clergy, and the official classes. As usual their agitation was successful. The clergy soon induced the pious king to grant them a formal exemption. One after another most of the powerful corporations, the pays d'états, and many of the larger towns, arranged to pay a commutation in place of a direct assessment.

The dixième was abolished in 1717, but as soon as war began its revival was at once considered necessary. Thus it was reimposed from 1733-1736 for the war of the Polish Succession, and again from 1741-1749 for the war of the Austrian Succession. The expenditure in this latter war was enormous; and though the military expenses were reduced after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the burden of interest on loans had so enormously increased that MACHAULT, the controller-general, found it impossible to conduct the government without some other direct tax in addition to the TAILLE and the CAPITATION. But the dixième was still detested by the privileged orders. It had always been regarded as peculiarly a war tax, and the king had formally promised its abolition on the termination of hostilities. In these circumstances Machault determined to get rid of the name dixième, but to keep the tax itself while reducing the nominal charge by a half. He reckoned that if the exemptions and commutations were abolished the vingtième would bring in almost as much as its predecessor, and that its collection in time of peace would render possible the gradual reduction of the public debt.

Accordingly in May 1749, a royal edict substituted the vingtième for the dixième, and ordered its imposition upon all classes, privileged and non-privileged. On the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756 a second vingtième was imposed, and in the later years of the war a third, but this was abolished in 1764. The

vingtièmes, though always unpopular, were undoubtedly the fairest of the direct taxes in France. Adam SMITH (bk. v. ch. ii.), in discussing the reform of French finance, suggests the abolition of the TAILLE and the CAPITATION and the collection of an equivalent revenue by increasing the vingtièmes. Undoubtedly such a measure would have remedied some of the chief grievances of the lower classes. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the equality of incidence prescribed by the edict of 1749 was carried out in actual administration. The clergy were successful in maintaining the exemption they had enjoyed from the dixième, and the pays d'états and many corporations succeeded, after a lengthy struggle, in securing their right to compound, and their composition was far below their real obligations.

The only incomes which were at all regularly taxed were those derived from real property, and Adam Smith compares the vingtièmes, which should have been an INCOME TAX, to the English LAND TAX as settled under William and Mary. But perhaps the worst abuse arose from the private negotiations by which the nobles secured very advantageous terms from the royal officers. CALONNE admitted that the tax would have brought in twice as much but for the favour accorded to the nobles. The letter from a noble to the intendant of his district has been frequently quoted: "Your sensitive heart will never allow a father of my rank to be strictly taxed for his twentieths like one of the common people." Thus the principle of inequality, which in France seemed to be irresistible, succeeded in affecting a tax which had been originally imposed with the greatest parade of equality.

[Clamagéran, Histoire de l'Impôt en France, tome III.-Gasquet, Précis des Institutions de l'Ancienne France. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. v. ch. ii.]

R. L.

VIOLET, THOMAS (fl. 1635-1662), was a 17th century free trader. The Advancement of Merchandise (1651), republished as Mysteries and Secrets of Trade Affairs (1653), was, like Potter's Humble Proposals (1651), dedicated to the council of trade whose deliberations he had, since the 20th August 1650, been ordered to assist. The cardinal principles of his book-"Let every man come in to trade according to their skill,"—"Let no man have a greater privilege than another "- - were aimed at the privileged trading companies whose privileges, he said, raised imports and exports some 30 per cent in price, and thereby impoverished "the general" (consumer) "for the benefit of the few" (producers), and enabled foreigners to undersell English producers.

The reasoning was inspired by Sir E. Sandys (1604) (Journal of House of Commons, i. 218), who was director of monopolising companies most of his life, and by MISSELDEN who denied that