The Yorkshire-born barrister, banker and economic historian Frederic Seebohm (1833 1912) first came to attention with his work on the Reformation intellectuals Colet, Erasmus and More. In this work, first published and then reissued in 1883, Seebohm's focus is on the agrarian history of medieval England, with special reference to problems of early land tenure and the social system that developed from it. Seebohm stresses the continuity between Roman settlement and English villages, and he regards the manor, whose lands were cultivated by serfs, as the original form of landed property among...