Desperate, the lords eventually stopped cooperating with one another and instead began competing for peasants. Serfs streamed away from the manors they were legally bound to and settled wherever they were offered the best conditions. By the mid-fifteenth century, most English peasants were not just paying much lower feudal dues but had also won their freedom; they were even given a copy of the section of the manorial roll that set out the terms of their tenancy. The enfranchisement of England’s serfs was irreversible because the peasants were now freemen who could go to the king’s court to
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