Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/536

 486 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE accepted by the Lords and King, would become regular statutes of the realm, although their wording might be con- siderably altered from that of the original petitions. In the House of Commons the knights from the shires, though less numerous than the burgesses, were more influential and received twice as large salaries. The English towns were still small at this time. It is noteworthy that the knights had become detached from the nobility and were simply the elected representa- Transforma- tives of the freemen holding lands in the shires, tionof the The knights were ceasing to live the fighting knighthood ° _,. if :. . . 11 into coun- careers ol the typical feudal noble and were be- try gentry CO ming simply the more prosperous landowners in the counties. Indeed, many such men were never for- mally knighted, so that it became increasingly difficult to secure knights as shire members and the government often had to be content with ordinary freemen. One of Edward I's legislative measures, known as " Distraint of Knighthood," provided that all freeholders whose land yielded an income of twenty pounds sterling a year must become knights or pay a fine. But many preferred to pay the fine and remain simple esquires. Being a knight was still more expensive. Serfs and villeins could neither be elected to Parliament nor vote for members. Their place was on the manor where The unfree they were subject to the r ulings of their lord in the private manorial court. The co mmon law of the ro yal_ courts was not for them. The manorial system, however, had never been universal or complete in England, and some of its features were disappearing by the end of the thirteenth century. Payments in kind and the performan ce of pe rsonal service on t h e lord's demesne lands were being l argely replaced by money payment s of corres ponding v alue. Men who legally were villeins bound to the manor, in actual practice were moving about from place to place working for wages as hired agricultural laborers. In its general civilization thirteenth-century England was in large measure indebted to the Continent, yet in some respects peculiar. The friars appeared in England soon