In calling him a _colibertus_ the Norman clerks are giving him a foreign name, the etymological origin of which is very dark[105]; but this much seems plain, that in the France of the eleventh century a large class bearing this name had been formed out of ancient elements, Roman _coloni_ and Germanic _liti_, a class which was not rightless (for it could be distinguished from the class of _servi_, and a _colibertus_ might be made a _servus_ by way of punishment for his crimes) but which yet was unfree, for the _colibertus_ who left his lord might be pursued and recaptured[106]. As to the Englishman upon whom this name is bestowed we know him to be a _gebúr_, a boor, and we learn something of him from that mysterious document entitled 'Rectitudines Singularum Personarum[107].' His services, we are told, vary from place to place; in some districts he works for his lord two days a week and during harvest-time three days a week; he pays gafol in money, barley, sheep and poultry; also he has ploughing to do besides his week-work; he pays hearth-penny; he and one of his fellows must between them feed a dog. It is usual to provide him with an outfit of two oxen, one cow, six sheep, and seed for seven acres of his yardland, and also to provide him with household stuff; on his death all these chattels go back to his lord. Thus the boor is put before us as a tenant with a house and a yardland or virgate, and two plough oxen. He will therefore play a more important part in the manorial economy than the cottager who has no beasts. But he is a very dependent person; his beasts, even the poor furniture of his house, his pots and crocks, are provided for him by his lord. Probably it is this that marks him off from the ordinary _villanus_ or 'townsman,' and brings him near the serf. In a sense he may be a free man. We have seen how the law, whether we look for it to the code of Cnut or to the Leges Henrici, is holding fast the proposition that every one who is not a _theówman_ is a free man, that every one is either a _liber homo_ or a _servus_. We have no warrant for denying to the boor the full wergild of 200 shillings. He pays the hearth-penny, or Peter's penny, and the document that tells us this elsewhere mentions this payment as the mark of a free man[108]. And yet in a very true and accurate sense he may be unfree, unfree to quit his lord's service. All that he has belongs to his lord; he must be perpetually in debt to his lord; he could hardly leave his lord without being guilty of something very like theft, an abstraction of chattels committed to his charge. Very probably if he flies, his lord has a right to recapture him. On the other hand, so dependent a man will be in a very strict sense a tenant at will. When he dies not only his tenement but his stock will belong to the lord; like the French _colibert_ he is _mainmortable_. At the same time, to one familiar with the cartularies of the thirteenth century the rents and services that this boor has to pay and perform for his virgate will not appear enormous. If we mistake not, many a _villanus_ of Henry III.'s day would have thought them light. Of course any such comparison is beset by difficulties, for at present we know all too little of the history of wages and prices. Nevertheless the intermediation of this class of _buri_ or _coliberti_ between the serfs and the villeins of Domesday Book must tend to raise our estimate both of the legal freedom and of the economic welfare of that great mass of peasants which is now to come before us[109].