Historians of late medieval England have been waiting for a comprehensive history such as this. The theoretical models for late medieval socioeconomic development are still contested, and the lived experience of medieval peasants has been approached from multiple angles; it was assumed that with enough microhistories we could return to the major developmental questions with better evidence, but when it comes to a basic starting point for late medieval serfdom and manorialism, students still are sent to read Rodney Hilton and J. Ambrose Rafits. Now, with the Brenner debate about agrarian change and the transition from feudalism to capitalism in its fourth decade, Mark Bailey has provided that reassessment and historians will not be disappointed. His book not only provides a clear assessment of the state of scholarship but also tests the conclusions, theories, and explanations with new research. Bailey challenges existing views on the timing and course of serfdom's decline, linking the economic and personal transformations in the later medieval period to trends found in recent works on the early modern economy.

The book is straightforward and organized into three parts: a literature review, a set of case studies, and a concluding reassessment. Part one provides a lucid overview of the scholarship focusing on the chronology of the decline of serfdom in relation to both land and personal status using commonly acknowledged markers of servility, correlating these observations with the theories proposed to explain the decline. The general consensus Bailey finds is that tenure by villeinage transformed into early modern copyhold by inheritance slowly, beginning in the 1390s, with more changes later in the fifteenth century. The markers of villein tenure, such as labor services, heriot, and suit of mill, disappeared at different times, but mainly between 1380 and 1430, with some survivals into the sixteenth century. Personal incidents of serfdom, such as leyrwite (a fine for fornication by women) and chevage (an annual payment to live outside the manor), paralleled this uneven decline. Bailey ends part one with a brief review of the main explanations for the decline—manumission, economic and demographic changes, overt peasant resistance, and migration—each of which is found wanting.

In part two, Bailey seeks to construct a more precise chronology of the decline of serfdom. First, he offers a three-part definition of English serfdom: holding land by villein tenure; rendering payments or services based on unfree status, both personal and tenurial; and “a condition regarded as inferior and subordinate” (88). He then selects multiple factors to measure each component of his definition. The focus is on quantifiable elements of serfdom, but Bailey acknowledges what these changes can reveal about broader attitudes. With his method established, he then evaluates the decline of serfdom in thirty-eight manors. Most manorial studies have looked at large ecclesiastical estates (largely because of record survival) even though the “average” English manor tended to be small and held by a lay lord, and Bailey seeks to rectify this imbalance in his choice of manors. Geographically, most of his selections come from East Anglia (primarily Suffolk), with nine from the South Midlands (primarily Oxfordshire). These areas represent “typical” English serfdom, but the selections mean that most of England is not represented. Bailey divides the manors into six case studies of either a single estate or a village and their component manors, with a seventh case study focused on twenty-three smaller manors held by lesser landlords and scattered across the two regions; individually manors such as these are difficult to study, but taken together they provide a picture of villeinage on manors of this scale.

In part three Bailey uses the findings from the case studies to argue that the traditional chronology of decline discussed in part one is off the mark and too elongated. Instead, “villein tenures were, in fact, in headlong retreat from the 1350s,” with most changes complete by the 1380s (287). Giving a “copy” of the court record to the new tenant (part of the transformation of villein tenure into copyhold) spread quickly in the same period. The collection of servile dues declined quickly and cases of lords restraining their serfs or extorting money were uncommon: “after c. 1400 personal servility was largely irrelevant, and its survival . . . on a few manors was more about upholding an arcane social theory than profit” (301–02). While the decline of serfdom did not inaugurate agrarian capitalism directly, Bailey suggests that developments that historians have examined for the fifteenth century may be traceable earlier, as the combination of changes in rents and services with the loss of the stigma of unfree land made possible later capitalist developments. This new chronology does not match with any of the theories for the decline of serfdom, and thus Bailey argues for a new focus and a reevaluation of the period between the Black Death and the 1381 Peasants' Revolt, with more attention to the interplay of forces. The limited geographical scope of the work highlights the need for research on other English regions where serfdom was weaker or was expressed differently to evaluate Bailey's chronology and the relevance of the factors employed in his case studies.

The entire work is thorough and nuanced; part one is a model of a fair historiographical assessment, and Bailey's approach in part two and the analysis in part three are explained carefully. Those whose research involves serfdom or economic development will pore through the book carefully and repeatedly; other readers will be able to extract the information they seek quickly. Early modernists will be interested as Bailey carefully draws connections across traditional period boundaries; likewise, many social historians will find useful material through his focus on merchet, leyrwite, and other servile incidents. There is no grand theory here, and not everyone will agree with Bailey's rejection of a primary cause of the decline of serfdom, and it will be interesting to see how partisans of different explanations will engage with Bailey's arguments. While this study cannot replace those of Hilton and Raftis, it successfully provides a new starting point for debates on serfdom.