The same writer refers the origin of vassalage in England, principally to the wars between the British, Saxon, Danish, and Norman nations, contending for the sovereignty of that country, in opposition to the opinion of judge Fitzherbert, who supposes villeinage to have commenced at the conquest. Ib. 27, 28. And this he proves from Spelman and other antiquaries. Ib. The writ _de nativo habendo_, by which the lord was enabled to recover his villein that had absconded from him, creates a presumption that all the natives of England were at some period reduced to a state of villeinage, the word _nativus_, which signified a villein, most clearly designating the person meant thereby to be a _native_: this etymon is obvious, as well from the import of the word _nativus_, as from the history of the more remote ages of Britain. Sir Edward Coke's Etymology, "_quia plerumque nascuntur servi_," is one of those puerile conceits, which so frequently occur in his works, and are unworthy of so great a man.
Barrington in his observations upon _magna carta_ c. 4. observes, that the villeins who held by servile tenures were considered as so many negroes on a sugar plantation; the words "_liber homo_," in magna carta, c. 14. with all deference to sir Edward Coke, who says they mean a _free-holder_, I understand as meaning _a free man_,[Liber homo, &c. the title of _freeman_ was formerly _confined_ to the _nobility_ and _gentry_ who were _descended_ of free ancestors.--Burgh's Political Disquisitions, vol. iii. p. 400, who cites Spelman's Glossary, voc. Liber homo.] as contradistinguished from a _villein_: for in the very next sentence the words "et _villanus_ alterius quam noster," occur. Villeins must certainly have been numerous at that day, to have obtained a place in the Great Charter. It is no less an evidence that their condition was in a state of melioration.
In Poland, at this day, the peasants seem to be in an absolute state of slavery, or at least of villeinage, to the nobility, who are the land-holders.]