XXIII.

Concerning the freemen of the Church who are called 'coloni,' let all pay to the Church just as the coloni of the king.

These clauses seem to establish clearly three facts:--

(1) That the slavery of the slaves or _servi_ on the ecclesiastical estates had already, in A.D. 622, become modified and restricted as a matter of general ecclesiastical custom to a _three days' week-work_.

(2) That the proper tribute (or _gafol_) of persons becoming servi of the Church by surrender under this edict was to be as stated; the resemblance of the details of this tribute with those mentioned in the St. Gall surrenders showing the servile nature of the status into which those making the surrender placed themselves thereby.

(3) Freemen of the Church called '_coloni_' were [p324] to pay to the Church as the _coloni_ on the _terra regis_ did to the king.

In other words, a _whole villa_ or _manor_, with the village community of 'free coloni' and the 'servi' upon it, might be handed over _as a whole_ to the Church: in which case the free coloni were to remain free and pay tribute to the Church as they would have done to the king if they had been 'coloni' on the _terra regis_.

After thus becoming 'free coloni' of the Church they might, if they chose, by a second act surrender their freedom and become _servi_ of the Church, just as 'free coloni' on royal villas or on the _terra regis_ might do under this edict.

This evidence relates, it will be remembered, to the district on the left bank of the Rhine, which so abounded with '_heims_' and '_villas_,' as well as to that portion of the 'Agri Decumates' which was included in the province of Germania Prima.

There is still clearer evidence for the district to the east of the 'Agri Decumates,' comprehended in the Roman province of Rhætia.

Rhætia, it will be remembered, was the province, in edicts relating to which the '_sordida munera_' were most clearly defined. We have seen traces of some of these 'base services,' especially the _boon-work_ and the '_angariæ_,' in the St. Gall charters. Still clearer traces of them are found in the services described in the early 'Bavarian laws' of the seventh century. These laws, as has been seen, expressly allowed 'surrenders' by freemen of their property to the Church, and the services of the _servi_ and _coloni_ of the Church are described with remarkable clearness. [p325]

The section is headed--

«Tribute services and three days' 'week-work' under the Bavarian laws.»

_Lex Baiuwariorum, textus legis primus._[488]

13.

_De colonis vel servis ecclesiæ, qualiter serviant vel quale_ [_al. qualia_] _tributa reddant._

Hoc est agrario secundum estimationem iudicis; provideat hoc iudex secundum quod habet donet: de 30 modiis 3 modios donet, et pascuario dissolvat secundum usum provinciæ.[489] Andecenas legitimas, hoc est pertica [al. perticam] 10 pedes habentem, 4 perticas in transverso, 40 in longo arare, seminare, claudere, colligere, trahere et recondere. A tremisse unusquisque _accola_[490] ad duo modia sationis excolligere, seminare, colligere et recondere debeat; et vineas plantare, fodere, propaginare, præcidere, vindemiare. Reddant fasce [al. fascem] de lino [al. ligno]; de apibus 10 vasa [al. decimum vas]; pullos 4, ova 15 reddant. _Parafretos_ [al. palafredos] donent, aut ipsi vadant, ubi eis iniunctum fuerit. _Angarias_ cum carra faciant usque 50 lewas [al. leugas]; amplius non minentur.

Ad casas dominicas stabilire [al. stabiliendas], fenile, granica vel tunino recuperanda, pedituras rationabiles accipiant, et quando necesse fuerit, omnino componant. Calce furno [al. calcefurno], ubi prope fuerit, ligna aut petra [al. petras] 50 homines faciant, ubi longe fuerat [al. fuerit], 100 homines debeant expetiri, et ad civitatem vel ad villam, ubi necesse fuerit, ipsa calce trahantur [al. ipsam calcem trahant].

13.

_Concerning the coloni or servi of the Church, what services and tributes they are to render._

This is the tribute _for arable_, according to the estimation of the judge. The judge must look to it that according to what a man has he must give; for 30 modia he must give 3 modia. And for _pasturage_ he must pay according to the custom of the province. Legal andecenæ (the perches being of 10 feet), 4 perches in breadth and 40 in length, [he is] to plough, to sow, to fence, to gather, to carry, and to store. For spring crops every cultivator to prepare for two modia of seed, and sow, gather, and store it. And to plant vines, tend, graft, and prune them, and gather the grapes. Let them render a bundle of flax, of honey the tenth vessel, 4 fowls, and 15 eggs. Let them give post-horses, or go themselves wherever they are told. Let them do carrying service with waggons as far as 50 leugæ. They cannot be compelled to go farther.

In keeping up the buildings in the demesne, in repairing the hayloft, the granary, or the 'tun,' let them take reasonable portions, and when needful let them compound together. To the limekiln when near let 50 men, and when it is far let 100 men be found to supply wood or [lime-]stone, and where needful let the lime itself be carried to city or villa.

These are the services of the _coloni_ or _accolæ_ of the Church. Next as to the _servi_:--

Servi autem ecclesiæ secundum possessionem suam reddant tributa. Opera vero 3 dies in ebdomada in dominico operent [al. operentur], 3 vero sibi faciant. Si vero dominus eius [al. eorum] dederit eis boves aut alias res quod habet [al. quas habent], tantum serviant, quantum eis per possibilitatem impositum fuerit; tamen iniuste neminem obpremas [al. opprimas].

Let the servi of the Church pay tribute according to their holdings. Let them work 3 days a week in the demesne, and 3 days for themselves. But if their lord give them oxen or other things they have, let them do as much service as can be put upon them, yet thou shalt oppress no one unjustly.

«Gafol-yrth or ploughing of _andecenæ_ or acre strips, probably for the tenths on the 'tithe-lands.'»

In the face of this evidence it seems impossible to ignore either the continuity of the tribute and services under Roman and German rule on the one hand, or their identity with the _gafol_, the _gafol-yrth_, and the _week-work_ of the English manor on the other hand. There is first the tenth of the chief produce due as of old from these occupants of the 'Agri Decumates' of Tacitus, closely connected with the tribute of ploughing--the Saxon _gafol-yrth_ noticed above in the St. Gall charters. This is to be rendered in _lawful andecenæ_, and this measure of the plough-work is reckoned by the Roman rod of ten feet, and takes the precise form, four rods by forty, which belongs to the English acre of four roods;[491] and this is the [p327] strip to be sown, gathered, and stored, just as in the case of the Saxon '_gafol-yrth_.'

The tending of vines is peculiar to the country. The tenth bundle of flax, the tenth vessel of honey, and the fowls and eggs are also familiar items of the _census_ or _gafol_, both in the charters of St. Gall and in the services of Saxon manors.

«'Sordida munera.'»

Then there are the pack-horse services (_parafreti_) and the carrying services ('_angariæ cum carra_'), the keeping up of buildings, supply of the limekiln, and the carriage of lime to the villa--all which once public services ('_sordida munera_'), due to the Roman Emperor on whose tithe lands the coloni were settled, were now the manorial services of 'coloni' of the Church. They were called in the Codex Theodosianus '_obsequia_,' and are almost identical with the Saxon '_precariæ_' or boon-works.

Lastly, it has been observed that the coloni or _accolæ_ did not give '_week-work_.' This was, as has been seen, the distinctive mark of serfdom here in Rhætia, as for centuries afterwards throughout the manors of mediæval Europe.

In other words, in the seventh century there are two classes of tenants on ecclesiastical manors--(1) the _coloni_ or _accolæ_, to use the Saxon terms of King Ine's laws, _set to gafol_; and (2) the _servi_, _set to gafol and to week-work_.

Throw the two classes together, or let the remaining Roman coloni sink, as the result of conquest or otherwise, down into the condition up to which the slaves have risen in becoming serfs, and the serfdom of the mediæval manorial estate is the natural result. At the same time an explanation is given of the [p328] persistently double character of the later services, which apparently was a survival of their double origin in the union of the public tribute and _sordida munera_ of the Roman _colonus_ with the servile work of the Roman slave.

«Transition from slavery to serfdom.»

On the estates of the Church in the early years of the seventh century the humanising power of Christian feeling had silently raised the status of the slave. It had dignified labour, and given to him a property in his labour, securing to him not only one day in seven for rest to his weary and heavy-laden limbs, but also _three days in the week_ wherein his labour was _his own_. From slavery he had risen into serfdom. And this serfdom of the _quondam_ slave had become, in the eyes of the still more weary and heavy-laden free labourers on their own land, so light a burden compared with their own--such was the lawless oppression of the age--that they went to the Church and took upon them willingly the yoke of her serfdom, in order that they might find rest under her temporal as well as spiritual protection.

Such an impulse did this rush for safety into serfdom on ecclesiastical or monastic estates receive from the unsettlement and lawlessness of the period of the Teutonic invasions, that by the time of Charles the Great a large proportion of the land in these once Roman provinces had become included in the manorial estates of the monasteries.

«Scores of free-tenants on a single manor make surrenders to the Abbey of Lorsch.»

In the thickly peopled Romano-German lands on both sides of the Rhine, including the present Elsass on the one side, and the district between the Rhine and the Maine (the present Baden and Wirtemberg) on the other, so strong was the current in this direction that we find in the _Traditiones_ of the monasteries [p329] of '_Lorsch_' and '_Wizenburg_' scores of surrenders taking place sometimes in a single village. And these cases are of peculiar interest because _G. L. von Maurer_ relies almost solely upon them as the earliest examples available in support of his theory of the original German _mark_ and _free village community_. His _only_ early instances are taken from the Lorsch Cartulary.[492] He cites 107 surrenders to the Abbey of Lorsch in '_Hantscuhesheim_' alone,[493] and concludes that there must have been at least as many free holders resident there in earlier times. In _Loeheim_ there were eight surrenders; in other heims thirty-five, five, twenty-three, ten, forty, five, and so on. These must, he concludes, have formed part of originally free village communities on the German mark system.[494]

Now these surrenders to the abbey go back to the reign of Pepin; and the question is, What were these freemen who made these surrenders? Were they indeed members of _German free village communities_?

In the first place, they lived in a district which for many centuries had been a Roman province. The manners of the people had long been Romanised. Even across the Maine for generations the homesteads had been built in Roman fashion.[495] And it is significant that the fragments surrendered in this district, which since the time of Probus had become devoted to the vine culture, were mostly little _vineyards_; e.g. '_rem meam, hoc est vineam, i. in Hantscuhesheim_,'[496] and so [p330] on. These vineyards were often composed of so many '_scamelli_,' or little _scamni_--ridges or strips marked out by the Roman _Agrimensores_. All this is thoroughly Roman. What looks at first sight so much like a German free village community, was once a little Roman 'vicus' full of people, with their vineyards on the hills around it. They look like German settlers or 'free coloni' on the public domains, who had become appendant to the villa of the fiscal officer of the district, which had in fact by this time become to all intents and purposes a manor.

A little further examination will confirm this view.

«The _villas_ were _manors_.»

Turning to the record of the earliest donation to the abbey, in A.D. 763,[497] we find a description of a whole villa or _heim_--'_Hoc est, villam nostram quæ dicitur Hagenheim, cum omni integritate sua, terris domibus ædificiis campis pratis vineis silvis aquis aquarumve decursibus farinariis litis libertis conlibertis mancipiis mobilibus et immobilibus, &c._'

Here there clearly is a villa or manor, and the tenants of this manor are _liti_, _liberti_, _coliberti_,[498] and _mancipii_ or slaves. There are charters of other estates which are just as clearly manors with servile tenements and slaves upon them.

In the similar records of surrenders to the Abbey of St. Gall, as we have seen, there are also donations of little free properties in '_heims_' and '_villares_,' but by far the greater number of the earliest donations are distinctly of whole manors or parts of manors, with _coloni_ and _mancipii_ upon them. [p331]

The heims of this Romano-German district were therefore distinctly manors. They were also '_marks_.'

«Another instance.»

In 773 Charles the Great gave to the Abbey of Lauresham the 'villa' called 'Hephenheim,' '_in pago Rinense, cum omni merito et soliditate sua cum terris domibus ædificiis accolis mancipiis vineis sylvis campis pratis, &c._'--that is, the _whole manor_--'_cum omnibus terminis et marchis suis_.' And then follow the _marchæ sive terminus silvæ_, which pertained to the same villa of Hephenheim, 'as it had always been held _sub ducibus et regibus ex tempore antiquo_.' It was then a 'villa' or manor belonging to the Royal domain, and it was then held as a benefice by a 'comes,' whose predecessor had also held it, and his father before him, of the king.[499]

This is clearly a grant of a whole manor with the tenants and slaves upon it, and a manor of long standing; and the word _mark_ is simply the base Latin word for boundary, like the Saxon word 'gemære.' Further, the boundaries are given exactly as in the Saxon charters, in the form described in the writings of the Roman _Agrimensores_.

In 774,[500] Charles the Great made a similar grant to the abbey in almost identical terms of the 'villa' called '_Obbenheim_,' in the district of Worms, '_cum omni merito et soliditate sua, &c., accolis, mancipiis, &c._,' just as before. This was another whole royal manor granted with its tenants and slaves to the abbey. Yet in 788[501] the holder of a vineyard ('_j petiam de vinea_') in this same Obbenheim surrenders it to the abbey. In 782[502] [p332] there is another grant. In 793[503] there is a similar grant of five vineyards, and another[504] of three vineyards; and scores of other donations of vineyards occur in the reigns of Charles and of his predecessor Pepin.[505]

«The 'free coloni' were manorial tenants.»

«Surrenders by 'free coloni.'»

It is obvious, then, that these surrenders or donations, which were exactly like those of _Hantscuhesheim_, were made by 'free coloni' of the manor, who in the time of Pepin, while the lordship remained in the king, as well as afterwards when the manor had been transferred to the abbey, surrendered their holdings to the abbey, thus converting them either into tenancies on the demesne land, or into servile holdings under the lordship of the abbey. They were not members of a German free village community, for they were tenants of a manor when they made their surrenders. Nor were they slaves (_mancipii_). The only other class mentioned in the charter was that of the _accolæ_, the word used for 'free coloni' in the Bavarian laws. These _accolæ_, it seems, then, were 'coloni' or free tenants upon a royal manor, part of the old _ager publicus_, now '_terra regis_.' And as such under the Frankish law it seems that they had power to transfer themselves from the lordship of the king to that of the Church. The Alamannic laws were enacted or at least confirmed after the Frankish conquest, and probably were in force over this

## particular district at the date of these surrenders. These laws, as

we have seen, expressly forbade the _comes_ under whom they lived [p333] to prevent free tenants from making such surrenders for the good of their souls.

Indeed, among the St. Gall charters there is one exactly in point.

«Example.»

It is dated A.D. 766,[506] and by it the sons of a person who had surrendered his land to the Abbey under these laws by this charter renewed the arrangement, 'in this wise, that so as we used to do service to the king and the comes, so we shall do service for that land to the monastery, receiving it as a benefice of the same monks _per cartulam precariam_.'

This view of the case may be still further confirmed. In the Lorsch records are contained in some cases descriptions of the services of the two kinds of tenants on the manors surrendered to the Abbey. There are free tenants and servile tenants, and it is a strong confirmation of the continuity of the services from Roman to mediæval times to find some of them so closely identical with the '_sordida munera_' of the Theodosian Code and the services described in the Bavarian laws.

To take an example: In _Nersten_ the services of each _mansus ingenualis_ may be thus classified:[507]--

(1) _As census_, 5 modii of barley, 1 pound of flax, at Easter 4d., 1 fowl, 10 eggs, 2 loads of wood.

(2) _As work_, 4 weeks a year whenever required.

(3) _As_ '_gafolyrth_,' to plough 1 acre in each of the [three] fields (_sationes_), and to gather and store it.

(4) _As_ '_precariæ_,' or _sordida munera_--

3 days' work at reaping

2 days' work at mowing. [p334]

2 days' work at binding and 2 loads of carrying.

The tenant gives a _parafredum_.

Attends in the host.

Carts 5 loads of lime to the kiln.

Carts 5 loads of wood.

Goes messages 'infra regnum' whenever required.

Each _mansus servilis_ rendered, on the other hand--

(1) _As census_, 1 uncia, 1 fowl, 10 eggs, a frisking worth 4d.

(2) _As boon work_, 'facit moaticum et bracem et picturas in sepe et in grania.' In addition the tenant:--

Ploughs 4 days, and all demesne land.

Feeds for the winter 5 pigs and 1 cow.

(3) _As week-work_, 3 days a week whenever required.

For women's work, 1 uncia, 1 load of wood, 1 of grass, 10 eggs.

In total there were eighty-seven '_mansi et sortes_.'

«Their Roman connexion.»

It is evident that these _mansi_ and _sortes_ were not _allodial lots_ in the common mark of a free village community, but the holdings of two grades of _semi-servile_ and _servile_ tenants _on a manor_; and it is evident that some of the services were survivals of the _sordida munera_ exacted under Roman law. Surely the continuity in the mode of surrender and in the services and tribute on these South German manors, traced from the Theodosian Code to the Alamannic and Bavarian laws, and found again in the surrenders (identical with those described by Salvian) made under those laws, and also in the later surveys of the monastic estates, excludes the probability of their having been original settlements of German free village communities on the German mark system, such as G. L. von Maurer assumes that they were.

«Manorial tendency of the Roman land-system.»

These curious and numerous instances on which this writer relied as evidence of the mark-system, and as remains of a once free German village community, turn out in fact to be further instances of [p335] the progress under Frankish rule, within a once Roman province, of the practice described by Salvian--a practice which continued from century to century, helping on the threefold tendency (1) in the villa to become more and more manorial, _i.e._ more and more an estate of a lord with a village community in serfdom upon it; (2) for all land to fall under some manorial lordship or other, whether royal, ecclesiastical, monastic or private, and so to become part of a manorial estate; (3) for the originally distinct classes of 'free coloni' on the one hand, and _slaves_ or _servi_ on the other hand, to become merged in the one common class of mediæval serfs.

We have yet, however, to examine the German side of this continental economic history as carefully as we have examined the Roman side of it, before we shall be in a position to use continental analogies as the key to the solution of the English economic problem.

It may be that direct and important German elements also entered as factors in the manorial system, both during the period of Roman rule in the German provinces, and also after their final conquest by the German tribes.

FOOTNOTES:

[339] _Liber de Hyda_, p. 63.

[340] _Liber de Hyda_, pp. 67 _et seq._

[341] The per-centage is under-estimated, owing to the repetition of various forms of the same name having been excluded in counting those ending in _ham_, but not in counting the _total_ number of places.

[342] In Essex the _h_ is often dropped, and the suffix becomes '_am_.'

[343] _Chartularium Sithiense_, p. 97.

[344] _Traditiones et Antiquitates Fuldenses._ Dronke, Fulda, 1844.

[345] _Traditiones Corbeienses._ Wigand, 1843.

[346] _Urkundenbuch der Abtei St. Gallen_, A.D. 700–840. Wartmann, Zurich, 1863.

[347] _Historia Frisingensis_, Meichelbeck, 1729.

[348] _Traditiones possessionesqne Wizenburgenses._ Spiræ, 1842.

[349] _Codex Laureshamensis Diplomaticus_, 1768.

[350] The following are examples of the interchange of villa and heim in the names of places mentioned in the charters of the Abbey of Wizenburg in the district of Spires. The numbers refer to the charters in the _Traditiones Wizenburgenses_.

Batanandouilla (9). Batanantesheim (28).

Hariolfesuilla (4). Hariolueshaim (55).

Lorencenheim (141). Lorenzenuillare (275).

Modenesheim (2). Moduinouilare (52).

Moresuuilari (189). Moresheim (181).

Munifridesheim (118). Munifridouilla (52).

Radolfeshamomarca (90). Ratolfesham, p. 241. Radolfouuilari, Radulfo villa (71 and 73).

So also, among the manors of the Abbey of St. Bertin, 'Tattinga Villa' granted to the abbey in A.D. 648 (_Chart. Sithiense_, p. 18), called afterwards 'Tattingaheim' (p. 158). See also _Codex Dip._ ii. p. 227, 'Oswaldingvillare' interchangeable with 'Oswaldingtune,' in England. See also _Codex Laureshamensis_, iii. preface.

[351] See _Traditiones Wizenburgenses_, pp. 269 _et seq._ _Codex Laureshamensis_, iii. pp. 175 _et seq._

[352] See among the Lorsch charters that of _Hephenheim_ (A.D. 773). 'Hanc villam cum sylva habuerunt in beneficio Wegelenzo, pater Warini, et post eum Warinus Comes filius ejus in ministerium habuit ad opus regis et post eum Bougolfus Comes quousque eam Carolus rex Sancto Nazario tradidit' (I. p. 16).

[353] See again the case of _Hephenheim_. 'Limites. Inprimis incipit a loco ubi Gernesheim marcha adjungitur ad Hephenheim marcham,' &c.

[354] 'Villam aliquam nuncupatam Hephenheim sitam in Pago Renense, cum omni merito et soliditate sua, et quicquid ad eandem villam legitime aspicere vel pertinere videtur.' See also the case of the Manor of 'Sitdiu,' with its twelve sub-estates upon it, granted to the Abbot of St. Bertin A.D. 648. _Chartularium Sithiense_, p. 18.

[355] _Lex Salica_, xxxix. (cod. ii.), 4. 'Nomina hominum et _villarum_ semper debeat nominare.'

xlv. (De Migrantibus). When any one wants to move from one '_villa_' to another, he cannot do so without the licence of those 'qui in villa consistunt;' but if he has removed and stayed in another 'villa' twelve months, 'securus sicut et _alii vicini_ maneat.'

xiv. 'Si quis _villa_ aliena adsalierit. . . .'

xlii. v. 'Si quis _villam_ alienam expugnaverit. . . .'

_Capitulare Ludovici Primi_, ix. 'De eo qui villam alterius occupaverit' (Hessels and Kern's edition, p. 419).

_Chlodovechi Regis Capitula_ (id. p. 408), A.D. 500–1. 'De hominem inter duas _villas_ occisum.'

[356] _Lex Salica_, xlv.

[357] _Id._ xiv.

[358] This inference is drawn by Dr. P. Roth, _Geschichte des Beneficialwesens_, p. 74. See also _Waitz_, V. G. ii. 31.

[359] Hessels and Kern's edition, pp. 422–3.

[360] By the authors of the _Lex Emendata_. Note 39, p. 451.

[361] Note 216, p. 528.

[362] Tit. xxvi. (1) 'Si quis lidum alienum extra consilium domini sui ante Regem per denarium ingenuum dimiserit IIIIM. den. qui faciunt sol. c. culp. judicetur, et capitate domino ipsius restituat. (2) Res vero ipsius lidi legitimo domino restituantur. (3) Si quis servum alienum,' &c. &c. (H. and K. 136–144).

There were also Roman tributarii, Tit. xli. 'Si quis Romanum tributarium occiderit,' &c. (s. 7).

[363] See on this point Roth, pp. 83 _et seq._

[364] Varro. i. 13.

[365] Cato, _R. R._ 2. Columella, _R. R._ i. 6–8. M. Guerard says of the 'villicus,' 'Cet officier est le même que nous retrouvons au moyen âge sous son ancien nom de _villicus_, ou sous le nom nouveau de _major_.' _Polyptique d'Irminon_, i. 442.

[366] Columella, _De Re Rustica_, i. 8.

[367] Plutarch, _Cato_, c. 21. See _Cod. Theod._ IX. xii.

[368] 'Classes etiam non majores quam denum hominum faciundæ, quas _decurias_ appellaverunt antiqui et maxime probaverunt.'--Columella, i. 9.

[369] Fragment Jur. Rom. Vatic. 272. Huschke, p. 774.

[370] _Polyptique d'Irminon_, i. pp. 45 and 456.

[371] Bede, III. c. xxiv. 'Singulæ possessiones decem erant familiarum.'

[372] See also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 777, where mention is made of '10 bonde lands' given to the monks at Medeshampstede.

[373] Varro, i. xvii.

[374] Columella, i. vii.

[375] 'Si quis colonus _originalis vel inquilinus_ ante hos triginta annos de possessione discessit,' &c.--_Cod. Theod._ v. tit. x. 1.

[376] _Cod. Just._ xi. tit. xlvii. 22.

[377] _Cod. Just._ xi. tit. xlix. 1.

[378] Frontini, Lib. ii. _De controversiis Agrorum._ Lachmann, p. 53. 'Frequenter in provinciis . . . . habent autem in saltibus privati non exiguum populum plebeium et vicos circa villam in modum munitionum.'

[379] _Cod. Theod._ v. tit. iv. 3, A.D. 409. By this edict liberty is given for landowners to settle upon their property, as free _coloni_, people of the recently conquered 'Scyras' (a tribe inhabiting the present 'Moravia').

[380] Sid. Apol. _Epist._ ii. xii. He complains that a governor

## partial to barbarians '_implet villas hospitibus_.'

[381] _Cod. Theod._ lib. vii. tit. viii. 5. Compare as regards the _Burgundian_ settlement the passages in the _Burgundian Laws_, carefully commented upon in Binding's '_Das Burgundisch-Romanische Königreich, von 443 bis 532_ A.D.,' 1, c. i. s. ii. _et seq._

[382] Binding, p. 36. And they called them _villas_. _Leges Burg._ T. 38–9.

[383] Roth's _Geschichte des Beneficialwesens_, p. 81.

[384] _Hist. Francorum_, f. 344.

[385] _Hist. Francorum_, f. 295.

[386] _Polyptique d'Irminon._ Large donations were made to the abbey as early as A.D. 558 by the Frankish King Hildebert. See M. Guerard's Introduction, p. 35.

[387] _Chartularium Sithiense_, pp. 18 and 158.

[388] Mr. Coote has pointed out many remains of this centuriation in Britain; and the inscriptions on many centurial stones are given in _Hübner's_ collection.

[389] Siculus Flaccus, Lachmann and Rudorff, i. pp. 136–8.

[390] _Cod. Theod._ lib. vii. tit. xx. 3. A.D. 320. 'Constantinus ad universos veteranos.' 'Let veterans according to our command receive vacant lands, and hold them "immunes" for ever; and for the needful improvement of the country let them have also 25 thousand _folles_, a pair of oxen (_boum quoque par_), and 100 modii of different kinds of grain, &c. (_frugum_).'

Ib. s. 8. 'Valentinianus et Valens ad universos provinciales,' A.D. 364. 'To all deserving veterans we give what dwelling-place (_patriam_) they wish, and promise perpetual "immunity."

'Let them have vacant or other lands where they chose, free from stipendium and annual "præstatio." Further, we grant them for the cultivation of these lands both animals and seed, so that those who have been protectores (body-guards) should receive two pairs of oxen (_duo boum paria_) and 100 modii, of each of the two kinds of corn (_fruges_)--others after faithful service a single pair of oxen (_singula paria boum_) and 50 modii of each of the two kinds of corn, &c. If they bring male or female slaves on to the land, let them possess them "immunes" for ever.'

[391] _In Verrem_, Actio 2, lib. iii. 27.

[392] Varro, _De Re Rustica_, i. 44. Columella, ii. 9. Guerard, _Irminon_, i. 1.

[393] Siculus Flaccus, _De Condicionibus Agrorum_. Lachmann and Rudorff, i. pp. 154–6.

[394] In the division of the land between the Romans and Visigoths the amount allotted '_per singula aratra_' was to be 50 aripennes (i.e. 25 jugera). _Lex Visigothorum_, x. 1, 14 (A.D. 650 or thereabouts).

The _Liber Coloniarum I._ describes the 'ager _jugarius_' as 'in quinquagenis jugeribus,' the 'ager _meridianus_ in xxv. jugeribus.' Lachmann, i. 247. Here we have the normal divisions of the centuria of 200 jugera into holdings of 25 and 50 jugera. On the other hand, the _Lex Thoria_, B.C. 111, fixed 30 jugera as the largest holding to be recognised on the public lands. Rudorff, p. 213 (_Corp. Jur. Lat._ 200, 1. 14).

[395] P. 142. 'Quam maxime secundum consuetudinem regionum omnia intuenda sunt.'

[396] P. 143. See also Frontinus, p. 43, and Hyginus, p. 115, and p. 128 on the same point.

[397] P. 152.

[398] Siculus Flaccus, Lachmann, p. 152. 'Præterea et in multis regionibus comperimus quosdam possessores non continuas habere terras, sed particulas quasdam in diversis locis, intervenientibus complurium possessionibus: propter quod etiam complures vicinales viæ sint, ut unusquisque possit ad particulas suas jure pervenire. Sed et de viarum conditionibus locuti sumus. Quorundam agri servitutem possessoribus ad particulas suas eundi redeundique præstant. Quorundam etiam vicinorum aliquas silvas quasi publicas, immo proprias quasi vicinorum, esse comperimus, nec quemquam in eis cedendi pascendique jus habere nisi vicinos quorum sint: ad quas itinera sæpe, ut supra diximus, per alienos agros dantur.'

[399] Teams of six and of eight oxen in the plough are mentioned in the Vedas. '_Altindisches Leben_,' H. Zimmer. Berlin, 1879, p. 237.

[400] Hyginus, Lachmann and Rudorff, i. 113.

[401] See _Codex Theodosianus_, vii. tit. xx. s. 9, A.D. 366.

[402] In _Cod. Theod._ vii. xx. s. 10, A.D. 369, 'læti' are mentioned; and in s. 12, A.D. 400, 'lætus Alamannus Sarmata, vagus, vel filius veterani,' are mentioned together.

[403] Compare the Welsh _aillt_, or _alltud_ (Saxon _althud_, foreigner), and the _Aldiones_ of the Lombardic laws, with the _Læti_.

[404] B. iv. c. iii. s. 4.

[405] _Germania_, 28.

[406] The importance of the _Limes_ or _Pfahlgraben_ as marking the extent of Roman rule to the east of the Rhine, has recently been fully realised. See Wilhelm Arnold's _Deutsche Urzeit_, c. iii. '_Der Pfahlgraben und seine Bedeutung._' See also '_Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen_' (Berlin, 1882), Abth. 48, c. viii. And Mr. Hodgkin's interesting paper on 'The _Pfahlgraben_' in _Archæologia Æliana_, pt. 25, vol. ix. new series. Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1882.

[407] Gibbon, c. ix., quoting _Dion. Cas._, lxxi. and lxxii.

[408] Zosimus, i. p. 68. Excerpta, _Mon. Brit._ lxxv.

[409] Wietersheim's _Geschichte der Völkerwanderung_ (Dahn), i. 245. Guerard's _Polypt. d'Irminon_, i. p. 252.

[410] 'Tuo, Maximiane Auguste, nutu, Nerviorum et Treverorum arva jacentia Lætus postliminio restitutus et receptus in leges Francus excoluit.' _Eumen. Panegyr. Constantio Cæs._, c. 21. Guerard, i. 250.

[411] _Eumen. Paneg. Constantio_, 9. Guerard, i. 252.

[412] Zeuss, _Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme_, pp. 582–4, quoting the will of _St. Widrad_, Abbot of Flavigny in the eighth century: 'In pago _Commavorum_,' 'in pago '_Ammaviorum_.' In the _Notitia Occidentis_, cxl., there is mention of _Læti_ from this district--_Præfectus Lætorum Lingonensium_. Boeking, p. 120.

[413] _Kaiser Diocletian und seine Zeit_, von Theodor Preuss, Leipzig, 1869 (pp. 54–5).

[414] 'Quo [Constantio] mortuo, cunctis qui aderunt adnitentibus, sed præcipue Eroco Alamannorum rege, auxilii gratia Constantium comitato, imperium capit.' _Mon. Brit._ Excerpta. Ex Sexti Aurelii Victoris _Epitome_ (p. lxxii.).

[415] Ammianus Marcellinus, bk. xvii. c. i. 7.

[416] Am. Marc. bk. xviii. c. ii. s. 3.

[417] _Id._ xxix. c. iv. 7.

[418] _Id._ bk. xx. c. viii. 13.

[419] Among the '_Præfecti Lætorum et Gentilium_' there is mention of the Præfectus Lætorum _Teutonicianorum_, _Batavorum_, _Francorum_, _Lingonensium_, _Nerviorum_, and _Lagensium_. _Notitia Occ._ cxl. Böcking, p. 120. See also the valuable annotation '_De Lætis._' Böcking, 1044 _et seq._

[420] _Cod. Theod._ vii. 6, 3. _Per viginti juga seu capita conferant vestem. . ._

_Id._ xi. 16, 6. _Pro capitibus seu jugis suis. . ._

[421] _Cod. Theol._ xi. 17, 4. 'Universi pro portione suæ possessionis jugationis que ad hæc munia coarctentur.'

[422] _Cod. Theod._ lib. vii. tit. xx. 4.

[423] See _Syrisch-Römisches Rechtsbuch aus dem Fünften Jahrhundert_ (Bruns und Sachan), Leipzig, 1880, p. 37; and Marquardt's _Staatsverwaltung_, ii. 220. See also Hyginus, _De Limitibus Constituendis_, Lachmann, &c., p. 205, where there is mention of '_arvum primum, secundum_,' &c., in _Pannonia_.

[424] Marquardt, ii. 237.

[425] Not that the Roman jugerum was equal in area to the Saxon acre. It was much smaller, and of quite a different shape, at least in Italy. The acreage of the jugum no doubt varied very much, as did also the acreage of the yard-land.

[426] It is even possible and probable that the Gallic coinage in Roman times, mentioned in the _Pauca de Mensuris_ (Lachmann and Rudorff, p. 373), 'Juxta Galios vigesima pars unciæ denarius est . . . duodecies unciæ libram xx. solidos continentem efficiunt, sed veteres _solidum_ qui nunc _aureus_ dicitur nuncupabant,'--the division of the pound of silver into 12 ounces, and these into 20 pennyweights--with which we found the Welsh _tunc pound_ to be connected, may also have had something to do with the contents of the centuria and jugum. At all events, the division of the pound into 240 pence was very conveniently arranged for the division of a tax imposed upon holdings of 240 acres, or 120 acres, or 60 acres, or 30 acres, or the 10 acres in each field. In other words, the coinage and the land divisions were remarkably _parallel_ in their arrangement, as we found was also the case with the _scutage_ of the Hundred Rolls, and the _scatt penny_ of the villani in the Boldon Book.

[427] Eumenius, _Pan. Constantini_, Marquardt, S. V., ii. 222.

[428] _Cod. Theod._ lib. xi. tit. i. 14.

[429] See also Ammianus. xxvii. 8, 7. Coote, 131.

[430] _Cod. Theod._ lib. xi. tit. vii. 2. Idem A ad _Pacatianum Vicarium Britanniarum_. Unusquisque decurio pro ea portione conveniatur, in qua vel ipse vel colonus vel tributarius ejus convenitur et colligit; neque omnino pro alio decurione vel territorio conveniatur. Id enim prohibitum esse manifestum est et observandum deinceps, quo[d] juxta hanc nostram provisionem nullus pro alio patiatur injuriam. Dat. xii. Kal. Dec. Constantino A. et Licinio C. Coss. (319).

[431] Hyginus. Lachmann, &c., i. 205.

[432] _Cod. Theod._ lib. xi. tit. xvi. _De Extraordinariis sive Sordidis Muneribus_. See also Godefroy's notes.

[433] Lib. xi. t. xvi. 4. 'Ea forma servata, ut primo a potioribus, deinde a mediocribus atque infimis, quæ sunt danda, præstentur.' 'Manu autem sua rectores scribere debebunt, quid opus sit, et in qua necessitate, per singula capita, vel quantæ angariæ vel quantæ operæ, vel quæ aut in quanto modo præbendæ sint, ut recognovisse se scribant; exactionis, prædicto ordine inter ditiores, mediocres, atque infimos observando.'

[434] _Germania_, xli.

[435] _Cod. Theod._ xi. 16, and 18.

[436] From _angarius_ = ἄγγαρος, a messenger or courier. The word is probably of Persian origin.

'Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention. . . . The Persians give the riding post the name of "_angarum_."'--_Herodotus_, bk. viii. 98.

See also the _Cyropædia_, bk. viii. c. 17, where the origin of the post-horse system is ascribed to Cyrus.

[437] From the Latin _veredus_, a post-horse.

[438] _Cod. Theod._ lib. viii. t. v.

[439] The '_veredus_' or post-horse, from which the _paraveredus_ or extra post-horse, sometimes _parhippus_ (all these words occur in the _Codex Justin._ xii. l. [li.], 2 and 4, _De Cursu Publico_), may have been equivalent to the later 'averius' or 'affrus' by which the _averagium_ was performed. Cf. '_Parhippus_ vel Avertarius' (_Cod. Theod._ VIII. v. xxii.) and see Id. xlvii., '_avertarius_' = a horse carrying 'averta' or saddlebags. Hence, perhaps, the base Latin _avera, averiæ, averii, affri_, beasts of burden, oxen, or farm horses, and the verb '_averiare_' (Saxon of 10th century '_averian_'), and lastly the noun 'averagium' for the service. See also the Gallic _Ep-o-rediæ_ (men of the horse-course) mentioned by Pliny iii. 21 (Dr. Guest's _Origines Celticæ_, i. 381), and compare this word with _paraveredi_. In modern Welsh 'Rhed' = a running, a course.

[440] Compare the careful paragraphs on these words in M. Guerard's Introduction to the _Polyptique de l'Abbé Irminon_, pp. 793 _et seq._ The sense of the word as implying a compulsory service is shown in the Vulgate of Matt. v. 4: 'Et quicunque te _angariaverit_ mille passus: vade cum illo et alia duo.'

The same word is used in Matt. xxvii. 32, and Mark xv., where Simon is _compelled_ to bear the cross.

[441] _Supra_, p. 154.

[442] There were probably _servi_ on the 'ager publicus' as there were on the Frankish public lands, called '_servi fisci_.' See _Decretio Chlotharii regis_, A.D. 511, 55S. _Mon. Germ. Hist. Legum Sectio_, ii. p. 6

[443] Compare Dr. J. N. Madvig's _Die Verfassung und Verwaltung des Römischen Staates_ (Leipzig, 1882), ii. p. 408.

[444] Madvig, ii. p. 573; and _Cod. Just._ xii. 8–14, and _Cod. Theod._ xii. i. 38. See also the _Notitia Dignitatum_, passim.

[445] With regard to the _procuratores_, _ducenarii_, and _centenarii_ see Madvig, ii. p. 411. See also _Cod. Just._, xii. 20 (De agentibus in rebus), where a certain 'magister officiorum' is forbidden to have under him more than 48 _ducenarii_ and 200 _centenarii_. Also _Cod. Just._, xii. 23 (24). Mr. Coote (_Romans in England_, p. 317 et seq.), identifies the 'centenarii' with the 'stationarii,' or police of the later provincial rule. Compare this with the distinctly police duties of the 'centenarii' of the '_Decretio Clotharii_' (A.D. 511–558), _Mon. Germ. Hist._--Capitularia, p. 7.

[446] Madvig, ii. 432, and the authorities there quoted.

[447] _Cod. Theod._, xi. tit. 11. i. 'Si quis eorum qui provinciarum Rectoribus exequuntur, quique in diversis agunt officiis principatus, et qui sub quocumque prætextu muneris publici possunt esse terribiles, rusticano cuipiam necessitatem obsequii, _quasi mancipio sui juris_, imponat, aut servum ejus aut bovem in usus proprios necessitatisque converterit. . . ultimo subjugatur exitio.' Quoting the above Lehuërou observes:--'Les ducs, les comtes, les recteurs des provinces, institués pour résister aux puissants et aux forts, n'usèrent plus de l'autorité de leur charge que pour se rendre redoutables aux petits et aux faibles, et se firent un honteux revenue de la terreur qu'ils répandaient autour d'eux. Ils enlevaient sans scrupule, tantôt le bœuf, tantôt l'esclave du pauvre, et quelquefois le malheureux lui-même avec sa femme et ses enfants, pour les employer tous ensemble à la culture de leurs _villæ_' (p. 140). See also _Cod. Theod._ viii. t. v. 7 and 15.

[448] _Cod. Theod._, xi. tit. 24, _De Patrociniis vicorum_. 'Quicumque ex tuo officio, vel ex quocumque hominum ordine, _vicos_ in suum detecti fuerint patrocinium suscepisse, constitutas luent pœnas. . . . Quoscumque autem vicos aut defensionis potentia, aut multitudine sua fretos, publicis muneribus constiterit obviari, ultioni quam ratio ipsa dictabit, conveniet subjugari.'

'Censemus ut qui rusticis patrocinia præbere temptaverit, cujuslibet ille fuerit dignitatis, sive MAGISTRI UTRIUSQUE MILITIÆ, sive COMITIS, sive ex _pro-consulibus_, vel _vicariis_, vel _augustalibus_, vel _tribunis_ (_C. J._ xii. 17, 2), sive ex ordine _curiali_, vel _cujuslibet alterius dignitatis_, quadraginta librarum auri se sciat dispendium pro singulorum fundorum præbito patrocinio subiturum, nisi ab hac postea temeritate discesserit. Omnes ergo sciant, non modo eos memorata multa ferendos, qui clientelam susceperint rusticorum, sed eos quoque qui fraudandorum tributorum causa ad patrocinia solita fraude confugerint, duplum definitæ multæ dispendium subituros.' (Dat. vi. Id. Mart. Constantinop., Theodoro v. c. Coss. 399). See also _Lehuërou_, p. 136 139, and _Cod. Just._, xi. 54.

[449] Madvig, ii. 432. 'Wie lange die Ackersleute auf den Kaiserlichen Grundstücken (_Coloni Cæsaris Dig._ vi. 6, s. 11, i. 19, 3) eine grössere persönliche Freiheit bewahrten, und seit welcher Zeit das spätere Kolonatsverhältniss galt, lässt sich nicht bestimmen, da der Uebergang schrittweise vor sich ging.'

[450] In the _Ripuarium Laws_, tit. li. (53) 'Grafio' = '_comes_' = '_judex fiscalis_,' and the _mallus_ was sometimes held 'ante centenarium vel comitem, sen ante Ducem Patricium vel Regem,' tit. 1. (52). So in the _Salic Laws_, tit. lxxv. 'debet _judex_, hoc est, _comes aut grafio_,' &c., but this occurs in one of the additions to the '_Lex Antiqua_.' Compare the 'centenarius' in his relation to his superior, the 'comes,' and in his position of 'judex' in the mallus with the 'centenarius' under _Cod. Just._, vii. 20, 4.

[451] M. Lehuërou observes, 'Il y a déjà des _seigneurs_, cachés encore sous l'ancienne et familière dénomination de _patrons_. Cela est si vrai que, non seulement la chose, mais le mot se trouve dans Libanius:--Περὶ τῶν προστασιῶν εἴσι κῶμαι μεγάλαι, πολλῶν ἑκαστη δεσποτὢν.

[452] _De Bello Gallico_, vi. c. xiii.–xv. 'In omni Galliâ eorum hominum qui aliquo sunt numero atque honore genera sunt duo. Nam plebes pœne servorum habetur loco, quæ per se nihil audet et nulli adhibetur consilio. Plerique, quum aut ære alieno aut magnitudine tributorum aut injuriâ potentiorum premuntur, sese in servitutem dicant nobilibus. In hos eadem omnia sunt jura quæ dominis in servos. . . . Alterum genus est _Equitum_. Hi, quum est usus, atque aliquod bellum incidit (quod ante Cæsaris adventum fere quotannis accidere solebat, uti aut ipsi injurias inferrent aut illatas propulsarent), omnes in bello versantur: atque eorum ut quisque est genere copiisque amplissimus, ita plurimos circum se ambactos clientesque habet. Hanc unam gratiam potentiamque noverunt.'

[453] Tacitus, _Annals_, iv. 72. 'In the course of the year the Frisians, a people dwelling beyond the Rhine, broke out into open acts of hostility. The cause of the insurrection was not the restless spirit of a nation impatient of the yoke; they were driven to despair by Roman avarice. A moderate tribute, such as suited the poverty of the people, consisting of raw hides for the use of the legions, had been formerly imposed by Drusus. To specify the exact size and quality of the hide was an idea that never entered into the head of any man till Olennius, the first centurion of a legion, being appointed governor over the Frisians, collected a quantity of the hides of forest bulls, and made them the standard both of weight and dimensions. To any other nation this would have been a grievous burden, but was altogether impracticable in Germany, where the cattle running wild in large tracts of forest are of prodigious size, while the breed for domestic uses is remarkably small. The Frisians groaned under this oppressive demand. They gave up first their cattle, next their lands; and finally were obliged to see their wives and children carried into slavery by way of commutation. Discontent arose, and they rebelled,' &c.

[454] _Hist._, f. 369.

[455] Salvian, _De Gubernatione Dei_, ib. v. s. vi.–viii.

[456] 'Hoc enim pacto aliquid parentibus temporarie attribuitur, ut in futuro totum filiis auferatur'--Salvian, s. viii.

[457] The above is only an abridged summary of the lengthy declamation of Salvian. See Gregory of Tours, '_De Miraculis S. Martini_,' iv. xi. (1122), where a surrender is mentioned. 'Tradidit ei omnem possessionem suam, dicens: "Sint hæc omnia penes S^{ti.} Martini ditionem quæ habere videor, et hoc tantum exinde utar, ut de his dum vixero alar."'

[458] Lib. ii. Tit. i. 36. 'Is ad quem ususfructus fundi pertinet, non aliter fructuum dominus efficitur, quam si ipse eos perceperit; et ideo, licet maturis fructibus nondum tamen perceptis decesserit, ad heredem ejus non pertinent, sed domino proprietatis adquiruntur. _Eadem fere et de colono_ dicuntur.

[459] Rudorff, ii. 317.

[460] _Syrisch-Römisches Rechtsbuch._ Aus dem fünften Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1880.

[461] _Early Law and Customs_, p. 260.

[462] S. 1, s. 9, and s. 27.

[463] _Inst. Just._ ii. xviii. 53, and compare Sandars' note on this passage.

[464] _Syrian Code_, s. 3.

[465] See also _Lex Burgundiorum_, i. 2, 'Si cum filiis deviserit et portionem suam tulerit, . . .' and id. xxiv. 5 and li. 1 and 2. Also 'Urkunden' of St. Gall, No. 360. 'Quicquid contra filios meos in portionem et in meam swascaram accepi.' See also Sir H. Maine's _Ancient Law_, pp. 198, 224, 228.

[466] _Reports on Tenure of Land_, 1869–70, p. 226. Just. Nov. 18.

[467] See _Syrian Code_, s. 50.

[468] See the parable of 'The unjust steward,' and _supra_, p. 145.

[469] _Journal of the Palestine Exploration Society_, January 1883. 'Life, Habits, and Customs of the Fellahin of Palestine,' by the Rev. F. A. Klein. From the _Zeitschrift_ of the German Palestine Exploration Society.

[470] Shortened form of _ard emiri_--land of the Emir.

[471] The standard measure of land throughout the Turkish Empire is called a _deunum_, and is the area which one pair of oxen can plough in a single day; it is equal to a quarter of an acre, or a square of forty _arshuns_ (nearly 100 feet). There seems to be but one allusion to this fact in the Scriptures; it is found in 1 Sam. xiv. 14, where the exploit of Jonathan and his armour-bearer is described: twenty of the enemy are stated to have fallen within a space of '_a half-acre of land_' of '_a yoke of oxen_,' an expression better rendered 'within the space of half a _deunum_ of land.' This measure is referred to in ancient profane writers, so that no change has occurred in this respect. Van Lenner's _Bible Customs in Bible Lands_, i. 75.

[472] _Early Law and Custom_, p. 332.

[473] _Lex Alamannorum_ Chlotharii. 1. 'Ut si quis liber res suas vel semetipsum ad ecclesiam tradere voluerit, nullus habeat licentiam contradicere ei, non dux, non comes, nec ulla persona, sed spontanea voluntate liceat christiano homine Deo servire et de proprias res suas semetipsum redemere. . . .

2. Si quis liber, qui res suas ad ecclesiam dederit et per cartam firmitatem fecerit, sicut superius dictum est, et post hæc ad pastorem ecclesiæ ad beneficium susceperit ad victualem necessitatem conquirendam diebus vitæ suæ: et quod spondit persolvat ad ecclesiam censum de illa terra, et hoc per epistulam firmitatis fiat, ut post ejus discessum nullus de heredibus non contradicat.'--Pertz, _Legum_, t. iii. pp. 45–6.

[474] _Lex Baiuwariorum._ Textus Legis primus.

1. 'Ut si quis liber persona voluerit et dederit res suas ad ecclesiam pro redemptione animæ suæ, licentiam habeat de portione sua, postquam cum filiis suis partivit. Nullus eum prohibeat, non rex, non dux, nec ulla persona habeat potestatem prohibendi ei. Et quicquid donaverit, villas, terras, mancipia, vel aliqua pecunia, omnia quæcumque donaverit pro redemptione animæ suæ, hoc per epistolam confirmet propria manu sua ipse. . . .

'Et post hæc nullam habeat potestatem nec ipse nec posteri ejus, nisi defensor ecclesiæ ipsius _beneficium_ præstare voluerit ei.'--Pertz, _Legum_, t. iii. pp. 269–70.

[475] _Urkundenbuch der Abtei St. Gallen_, i. p. 22.

[476] Compare with the Kentish 'yokes' and 'ioclets.' The yoke here is, however, evidently the _juger_, not the _jugum_.

[477] _Urkundenbuch_, pp. 27–8.

[478] _Id._ p. 33.

[479] See also _id._ pp. 76 and 90.

[480] Hence '_jurnal_' for _acre_.

[481] _Id._ p. 41.

[482] _Urkundenbuch_, p. 59.

[483] _Id._ p. 60.

[484] _Urkundenbuch_, p. 106.

[485] "Et ad proximam curtem vestram in unaquaque zelga ebdomedarii jurnalem arare debeamus" (p. 107).

[486] Waitz speaks of the three great fields under the '_Dreifelderwirthschaft_' as 'Zelgen.'--_Verfassung der Deutschen Völker_, i. 120. And see _infra_, chap. x. s. iii.

[487] Pertz, _Legum_, iii. pp. 51, 52.

[488] Pertz, _Legum_, t. iii. pp. 278–280.

[489] Compare _Chlotharii II. Præceptio_ (584–628) s. 11. 'Agraria, pascuaria vel decimas porcorum ecclesiæ pro fidei nostræ devotione concedimus, ita ut actor aut decimator in rebus ecclesiæ nullus accedat.'--_Mon. Germ. Hist. Capitularia_, I. i. p. 19.

[490] This word '_accola_' is often used in charters for '_free coloni_.'

[491] In the Glosses this andecena is called a '_sharwork_.'

[492] _Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland_, i. pp. 6 _et seq._

[493] _Traditiones in Pago Rhinensi. Codex Lauresham._ pp. 357 _et seq._

[494] _Dorfverfassung_, pp. 15 _et seq._

[495] Ammianus Marcellinus, bk. xvii. c. i., A.D. 357.

[496] _Codex Lauresham._ pp. 326, 362, 369, 375 and _passim_.

[497] _Codex Lauresham._ p. 3.

[498] It is curious to notice that 'coliberti' appear also in the _western_ counties of England in the Domesday Survey.

[499] _Codex Lauresham._ i. pp. 15–16.

[500] _Id._ i. pp. 18 and 19.

[501] _Id._ i. p. 297.

[502] _Id._ i. p. 303.

[503] _Codex Lauresham._ i. p. 347.

[504] _Id._ i. pp. 349–350.

[505] _Id._ ii. pp. 232 _et seq._

[506] _Urkundenbuch_ of St. Gall, i. p. 50.

[507] _Codex Laureshamensis_, iii. 212. See also the services at _Winenheim_ (iii. 205), a manor near Heppenheim.

[p336]

## CHAPTER IX.

_THE GERMAN SIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE._

I. THE GERMAN TRIBAL SYSTEM, AND ITS TENDENCY TOWARDS THE MANORIAL SYSTEM.

«Cæsar's description of the German tribal system.»

The description given of the Germans by Cæsar is evidently that of a people in the same tribal stage of economic development as the one with which Irish and Welsh evidence has made us familiar.

'Their whole life is occupied in hunting and warlike enterprise. . . . They do not apply much to agriculture, and their food mostly consists of milk, cheese, and flesh. Nor has anyone a fixed quantity of land or defined individual property, but the magistrates and chiefs assign to tribes and families who herd together, annually, and for one year's occupation, as much land and in such place as they think fit, compelling them the next year to move somewhere else.'[508]

He also alludes to the frailty of their houses,[509] another mark of the tribal system in Wales, which [p337] indeed was a necessary result of the yearly migration to fresh fields and pastures.

Now what were the tribes of Germans with whom Cæsar came most in contact?

«The Suevi.»

His chief campaigns against the Germans were (1) against the _Suevi_, who were crossing the Rhine north of the confluence with the Moselle, and (2) against Ariovistus in the territory of the _Sequani_ at the southern bend of the Rhine eastward. And it is remarkable that the _Suevi_ were prominent again among the tribes enlisted in the army of Ariovistus.[510] So that it is easy to see how the Suevi, coming into close contact with Cæsar at both ends, came to be considered by him as the most important of the German peoples.

He describes the _Suevi_ separately, and in terms which show over again that they were still in the early tribal stage[511] in which an annual shifting of holdings was practised. Indeed, their semi-nomadic habits could not be shown better than by the inadvertently mentioned facts that the Suevi who were crossing the Rhine to the north brought their families with them; and that the Suevi and other tribes forming the army of Ariovistus to the south had not had settled homes for fourteen years,[512] but brought their families about with them in waggons wherever they went, the waggons and women of each tribe being placed behind the warriors when they were drawn up by tribes in battle array.[513]

This statement of Cæsar that the Germans of his [p338] time were still in the early tribal stage of economic development in which there was an annual shifting of the households from place to place needs no corroboration or explaining away after what has already been seen going on under the Welsh and Irish tribal systems. The ease with which tribal redistributions were made under the peculiar method of clustering homesteads which prevailed in Wales and Ireland, makes the statement of Cæsar perfectly probable.

* * * * *

But how was it 150 years later, when Tacitus wrote his celebrated description of the Germans of his time?

«The 'Germania' of Tacitus.»

The 'Germania' was obviously written from a distinctly Roman point of view.

The eye of the writer was struck with those points chiefly in which German and Roman manners differed. The Romans of the well-to-do classes lived in cities. City life was their usual life, and those of them who had villas in the country, whilst sometimes having residences for themselves upon them, as we have seen, cultivated them most often by means of slave-labour under a _villicus_, but sometimes by _coloni_.

«The scattered settlements of the free tribesmen.»

«The villages of their servile tenants.»

What struck Tacitus in the economy of the Germans (and by Germans he obviously meant the _free tribesmen_, not their slaves) was that they did _not_ live in cities like the Romans. 'They dwell' (he says) 'apart and scattered, as spring, or plain, or grove attracted their fancy.'[514] Of whom is he speaking? Obviously of free tribesmen or tribal households, _not of villagers or village communities_, for he [p339] immediately afterwards, in the very next sentence, speaks of the Germans as avoiding even in their villages (_vici_) what seemed to him to be obviously the best mode of building, viz. in streets with continuous roofs. 'Their villages' (he says) 'they build not in our manner with connected and attached buildings. There is an open space round every one's house.' And this he attributes not to their fancy for one situation or another, as in the first case, but 'either to fear of fire or ignorance of how to build.'[515]

It is obvious, therefore, that the Germans who chose to live scattered about the country sides, as spring, plain or grove attracted them, were not the villagers who had spaces round their houses. We are left to conclude that the first class were the chiefs and free tribesmen, who, now having become settled for a time, were, in a very loose sense, the _landowners_, while the latter, the villagers, must chiefly have been their servile dependants. And this inference is confirmed when Tacitus comes to the second point and tells us that the _servi_ of the Germans differed greatly from those of the Romans. There were some slaves bought and sold in the market, and free men sometimes sank into slavery as the result of war or gambling ventures; but in a general way (he says) their slaves were not included in the tribesmen's households or employed in household service, but each family of slaves had a separate [p340] homestead.[516] They had also separate crops and cattle; for 'the lord (_dominus_) requires from the slave a certain quantity of corn, cattle, or material for clothing, as in the case of _coloni_. To this modified extent (Tacitus says) the German _servus_ is a slave. The wife and children of the free tribesman do the household work of his house, not slaves as in the Roman households.'

Clearly, then, the _vicus_--the _village_--on the land of the tribesman who was their lord, was inhabited by these _servi_, who, like Roman _coloni_, had their own homesteads and cattle and crops, and rendered to their lord part of their produce by way of tribute or food-rent.

The lords--the tribesmen--themselves (as Tacitus elsewhere remarks) preferred fighting and hunting to agriculture, and left the management of the latter to the women and weaker members of the family.[517]

«A later tribal stage than Cæsar described.»

«Division among heirs.»

Now, if we could be sure that the tribal homestead was a permanent possession, and that the village of serfs around it had a single tribesman for its lord, the settlement would practically be to all intents and purposes a _heim_ or _manor_ with a village in serfdom upon it. It was evidently in a real sense the tribesman's separate possession, for, after speaking of blood relationships which bind the German tribesman's family and home most strongly together, Tacitus adds, 'Everyone's children are his heirs and successors [p341] without his making a will; and if there be no children, the grades of succession are brothers, paternal uncles, maternal uncles.'[518]

But then this was also the case in Wales and Ireland. There was division among male heirs of the family land. And yet this family land was not a freehold permanent estate so long as a periodical redistribution of the tribe land might shift it over to someone else.

«The embryo manor.»

The embryo manor of the German tribesman, with its village of serfs upon it, might therefore, if the same practice prevailed, differ in three ways from the later manor. It might become the possession of a tribal household instead of a single lord; and also it possibly might, on a sudden redistribution of the tribal land, fall into the possession of another tribesman or tribal household, though perhaps this is not very likely often to have happened. Finally, it might become subdivided when the time came for the unity of the tribal household to be broken up as it was in Wales after the final redivision among second cousins.

It must be remembered that land in the tribal stages of economic progress was the least stable and the least regarded of possessions. A tribesman's property consisted of his cattle and his serfs. These were his permanent family wealth, and he was rich or poor as he had more or less of them. So long as the tribe land was plentiful, he as the head of a tribal household took his proper share according to tribal rank; and so long as periodical redistributions took place, even when the tribal household finally was [p342] broken up, room would be found for the new tribal households on the tribal land. But when at last the limits of the land became too narrow for the tribe, a portion of the tribesmen would swarm off to seek new homes in a new country. Frequent migrations were, therefore, at once the proofs of pressure of population and the safety-valve of the system.

«Fresh settlements.»

The emigrating tribesmen in their new home would form themselves into a new sept or tribe, take possession of fresh tracts of unoccupied land, and perhaps, if land were plentiful, wander about for a time from place to place as pasture for their cattle might tempt them. Then at last they would settle: each tribesman would select his site by plain, wood or stream, as it pleased him. He would erect his stake and wattle tribal house, and daub it over with clay[519] to keep out the weather. He would put up his rough outbuildings and fence in his corn and cattle yard. Round this tribal homestead the still rougher homesteads of his serfs, each with its yard around it, would soon form a straggling village, and the likeness to the embryo manor would once more appear.

«The celebrated passage of Tacitus describing German agriculture.»

Indeed, when we turn to the famous passage in which the German settlements and their internal economy are described, the words used by Tacitus seem in themselves to indicate that he had in his eye precisely this process which the example of the Welsh and Irish tribal systems has helped to make intelligible to us. Tracts of country (_agri_), he says, are '_taken possession of_' (_occupantur_) by a body of tribesmen (_ab universis_) who are apparently seeking new [p343] homes; and then the _agri_ are presently divided among them.

This passage, so often and so variously construed and interpreted, is as follows:--

'Agri pro numero cultorum ab universis vicis [or _in_ or _per vices_][520] occupantur, quos mox inter se secundum dignationem

## partiuntur: facilitatem partiendi camporum spatia præstant.

'Arva per annos mutant, et superest ager: nec enim cum ubertate et amplitudine soli labore contendunt, ut pomaria conserant et prata separent et hortos rigent: sola terræ seges imperatur.'[521]

It is unfortunate that the first few lines of this passage are made ambiguous by an error in the texts. If the true reading be, as many modern German critics now hold, '_ab universis vicis_'--by all the _vici_ together, or by the whole community in _vici_--there still must remain the doubt whether the word _vicus_ should not be considered rather as the equivalent of the Welsh _trev_ than of the modern _village_. The Welsh 'trev' was, as we have seen, a subordinate cluster of scattered households. Tacitus himself probably uses the word in this sense in the passage where he describes the choice of the chiefs, or head men (_principes_) 'qui jura per pagos _vicos_que reddunt.'[522] The _vicus_ is here evidently a smaller tribal subdivision of the _pagus_, just as the Welsh _trev_ was of the '_cymwd_,' and not necessarily a village in the modern sense.[523] [p344]

«Fresh _agri_ taken possession of and divided under tribal rules.»

If, on the other hand, the true reading be '_ab universis in_,' or '_per, vices_' or '_invicem_,' the meaning probably is that fresh tracts of land (_agri_) are one after another taken possession of by the tribal community when it moves to a new district or requires more room as its numbers increase.

The new _agri_, the passage goes on to say, are soon divided among the tribesmen or the _trevs_, '_secundum dignationem_,' according to the tribal rules, the great extent of the open country and absence of limits making the division easy, just as it was in the instance of Abraham and Lot.

«The agriculture is a co-aration of fresh portions of the waste each year.»

In any case it is impossible to suppose that Tacitus meant by the words _in vices_ or _invicem_, if he used them, that there was any _annual_ shifting of the tribe from one locality to another, for it is obvious that the very next words absolutely exclude the possibility of an annual movement such as that described by Cæsar. '_Arva per annos mutant et superest ager._' They change their _arva_ or ploughed land yearly, _i.e._, they plough up fresh portions of the _ager_ or grass land every year, and there is always plenty left over which has never been ploughed.[524] Nothing could describe more clearly what is mentioned in the Welsh triads as '_co-aration of the waste_.' The tribesmen have their scattered homesteads surrounded by the lesser homesteads of their 'servi.' And the latter join in the co-tillage of such part of the grass land as year by year is chosen for the corn crops, while the cattle wander over the rest. [p345]

This seems to have been the simple form of the open field husbandry of the Germans of Tacitus.

And this is sufficient for the present purpose; for whichever way this passage be read, it does not modify the force of the previous passages, which show how manorial were the lines upon which the German tribal system was moving even in this early and still tribal stage of its economic development, owing chiefly to the possession of serfs by the tribesmen. It gives us further a clear landmark as regards the use by the Germans of the open-field system of ploughing. Tacitus describes a husbandry in the stage of 'co-aration of the waste.' It has not yet developed into a fixed _three-course_ rotation of crops, pursued over and over again permanently on the same arable area, as in 'the three-field system' afterwards so prevalent in Germany and England.

«The tendency of the German tribal system unlike the Welsh towards the manor.»

These are important points to have gained, but the most important one is that, notwithstanding the strong resemblances between the Welsh and German tribal arrangements, there was this distinct difference between them. The two tribal systems were not working themselves out, so to speak, on the same lines. The Welsh system, in its economic development, was not directly approaching the manorial arrangement except perhaps on the mensal land of the chiefs. The Welsh tribesmen had as a rule no servile tenants under them. The _taeogs_ were mostly the _taeogs_ of the chiefs, not of the tribesmen. Thus, as we have seen, when the conquest of Wales was completed, the tribesmen of the till then unconquered districts became freeholders under the Prince of Wales, and with no _mesne_ lord over them. The taeogs [p346] became taeogs of the Prince of Wales and not of local landowners. So that the manor did not arise. But even in the time of Tacitus the German tribesmen seem to have already become practically manorial lords over their own _servi_, who were already so nearly in the position of serfs on their estates that Tacitus described them as '_like coloni_.'

«The German and Roman elements easily combined to make the manor.»

The manor--in embryo--was, in fact, already in course of development. The German economic system was, to say the very least, working itself out on lines so nearly parallel to those of the Roman manorial system that we cannot wonder at the silent ease with which before and after the conquest of Roman provinces, German chieftains became lords of villas and manors. The two systems, Roman and German, may well have easily combined in producing the later manorial system which grew up in the Roman provinces of Gaul and the two Germanies.

II. THE TRIBAL HOUSEHOLDS OF GERMAN SETTLERS.

Now, if we were to rely upon this evidence of Tacitus alone, the conclusion would be inevitable that the German and Roman land-systems were so nearly alike in their tendencies that they naturally and simply joined in producing the manorial system of later times. And there can be little doubt that, speaking broadly, this would be a substantially correct statement of the case.

«Were there other kinds of settlements not so manorial?»

But before we can fairly and finally accept it as such, it is necessary to consider another branch of evidence which has sometimes been understood to point to a kind of settlement _not manorial_. [p347]

«The patronymic suffix _ing_ or _ingas_ to local names.»

The evidence alluded to is that of _local names_ ending in the remarkable suffix _ing_ or _ingas_. It is needful to examine this evidence, notwithstanding its difficult and doubtful nature. It raises a question upon which the last word has by no means yet been spoken, and out of which interesting and important results may eventually spring. The impossibility of arriving, in the present state of the evidence, at a positive conclusion, is no reason why its apparent bearing should not be stated, provided that suggestion and hypothesis be not confounded with verified fact. At all events, the inquiry pursued in this essay would be open to the charge of being one-sided if it were not alluded to.

«Do they represent clan settlements?»

The reader of recent literature bearing upon the history of the English conquest of Britain will have been struck by the confidence and skill with which, in the absence of historical, or even, in some cases, traditional evidence, the story of the invasion and occupation of England has been sometimes created out of little more than the combination of physical geography with local names, on the hypothesis that local names ending in '_ing_,' or its plural form '_ingas_,' represent the original _clan settlements_ of the German conquerors. Writers who rely upon G. L. Von Maurer's theory of the German _mark-system_ have also naturally called attention to local names with this suffix as evidence of settlements on the basis of the _free village community_ as opposed to those of a manorial type.

Local names with this suffix, it is hardly needful to say, are found on the Continent as well as in England. [p348]

How, it may well be asked, does the evidence they afford of _clan settlements_ or _free village communities_ comport with the thoroughly manorial character of the German settlements on the lines described by Tacitus?

«What Germans did Tacitus describe?»

Now, in order to answer this question, it must first be considered how far the description of Tacitus covers the whole field--whether it refers to the Germans as a whole, or whether only to those tribes who had come within Roman influences, and so had sooner, perhaps, than the rest, relinquished their earlier tribal habits to follow manorial lines.

So far as his description is geographical it is very methodical.

«Those within the _limes_.»

(1) There are the Germans _within_ the Roman _limes_.[525] These included the tribes who, following up the conquests of Ariovistus, had settled on the left bank of the Rhine in what was then called the province of Upper Germany, including the present Elsass and the country round the confluence of the Rhine with the Maine and Moselle. These tribes were the Tribocci, Nemetes and Vangiones.[526] Further, there were the tribes or emigrants, many of them German, gradually settling within the limits of the 'Agri Decumates.' Lastly, there were the _Batavi_ and other tribes settled in the province of Lower Germany at the mouths of the Rhine, shading off into Belgic Gaul.

«Northern tribes outside it.»

(2) There were the Northern tribes _outside_ the Roman province,[527] some of them tributary to the [p349] Romans and some of them hostile, the _Frisii_, the _Chatti_ (or Hessians), and other tribes, reaching from the German Ocean to the mountains, and occupying the country embracing the upper valleys of the Weser and the Elbe, some of which tribes afterwards joined the Franks and Saxons.

«The _Suevic_ tribes on the borders.»

(3) There were the _Suevic_ tribes[528] so familiar to Cæsar, and amongst whom were the _Angli_ and _Varini_, the _Marcomanni_ and _Hermunduri_, always hovering over the _limes_ of the provinces from the Rhine and Maine to the Danube: some of them hostile and some of them friendly; some of whom afterwards mingled with the Franks and Saxons, but most of whom were absorbed in the Alamannic and the Bavarian tribes who finally, following the course of the previous emigration, passed over the _limes_ and settled within the 'Agri Decumates' in Rhætia, and in the Roman province of Upper Germany.

«Distant tribes.»

(4) Behind all these tribes with whom the Romans came in contact were others vaguely described as lying far away to the north and east.

The habits of _which_ of these widely different classes of German tribes did Tacitus describe?

«The _Suevic_ tribes most in his mind probably.»

Probably it would not be safe to go further than to say that the Germans whose manners he was most _likely_ to describe were those chiefly _Suevic_ tribes hovering round the _limes_ of the provinces, especially of the 'Agri Decumates,' with whom the Romans had most to do. It is at least possible that he left out of his picture, on the one hand, those distant northern or eastern tribes who may still have retained their early nomadic habits, and on the other hand those [p350] Germans who had silently and peaceably settled within the _limes_ of the Roman provinces, and so had become half Roman.[529]

But to what class are we to refer the settlements represented by the local names with the supposed patronymic suffix?

«The patronymic local names imply fixed _settlement_.»

The previous study of the Welsh and Irish tribal system ought to help us to judge what they were.

In the first place we have clearly learned that in tracing the connexion of the tribal system with local names, the fixing of a

## particular personal name to a locality implies _settlement_. It

implies not only a departure from the old nomadic habits on the part of the whole tribe, but also the absence within the territory of the tribe of those redistributions of the tribesmen among the homesteads--the shifting of families from one homestead to another--which prevailed apparently in Wales and certainly in Ireland to so late a date.

Following the parallel experience of the Irish and Welsh tribal system we may certainly conclude that in the early semi-nomadic and shifting tribal stage described by Cæsar the names of places, like those of the Irish townlands, would follow local peculiarities of wood or stream or plain, and that not until there was a permanent settlement of particular families in fixed abodes could personal names attach themselves to places, or suffixes be used which in themselves involve the idea of a fixed abode.

«They are suggestive of the _tribal household_.»

Then with regard to the nature of the tribal settlements which these local names with a patronymic [p351] suffix may represent, surely the actual evidence of the Welsh laws and the 'Record of Carnarvon,' as to what a _tribal household_ was, must be far more likely to guide us to the truth than any theoretical view of the 'village community' under the German mark-system, or even actual examples of village communities existing under complex and totally different circumstances at the present time, valuable as such examples may be as evidence of how the descendants of tribesmen comport themselves after perhaps centuries of settlement on the same ground.

«The joint holding of a family down to second cousins.»

Now we have seen that the tribal household in Wales was the joint holding of the heirs of a common ancestor from the _great-grandfather_ downwards, with redistributions within it to make equality, first between brothers, then between cousins, and finally between second cousins; the youngest son always retaining the original homestead in these divisions. The _Weles_, _Gwelys_, and _Gavells_ of the 'Record of Carnarvon' were late examples of such holdings. They were named after the common ancestor and occupied by his heirs. Such holdings, so soon as there was fixed settlement in the homesteads, were obviously in the economic stage in which, according to German usage, the name of the original holders with the patronymic suffix might well become permanently attached to them.[530]

«The division, the youngest retaining the family homestead.»

We may then, following the Welsh example, fairly expect the distinctive marks of the tribal household to be joint holding for two or three _generations_, and then the _ultimate division of the holding among male heirs_, the _youngest retaining the original ancestral homestead_. [p352]

We know how persistently the division among male heirs was adhered to in Wales and in Ireland under the custom of Gavelkind,[531] though of the peculiar right of the youngest son to the original homestead we have no clear trace in Ireland. Possibly St. Patrick was strong enough to reverse in this instance a strong tribal custom. But in Wales the succession of the youngest was, as we have seen, so deeply ingrained in the habits of the people that it was observed even among the _taeogs_. The elder sons received _tyddyns_ of their own in the _taeog trev_ in their father's lifetime, whilst the youngest son remained in his father's tyddyn, and on his death succeeded to it.

The persistence in division among heirs and the right of the youngest were very likely therefore to linger as survivals of the tribal household.

«Survival of this equal division and _the right of the youngest_.»

Now it is well known that in the south-east of England, and especially in Kent, the custom of Gavelkind has continued to the present day, retaining the division among male heirs and historical traces of the right of the youngest son to the original homestead. In other districts of England and in many parts of Europe and Asia the division among heirs has passed away, but the right of the youngest--_Jüngsten-Recht_--has survived.

Mr. Elton, in his '_Origins of English History_,' has carefully described the geographical distribution in Western Europe of the practice, not so much of _division among heirs_, as of the _right of the youngest_ to [p353] inherit the _original homestead_, the latter having survived in many districts where the other has not.

«In Wales and S.E. England--the old 'Saxon shore.'»

In England he finds the right of the youngest most prevalent in the south-east counties--in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, in a ring of manors round London, and to a less extent in Essex and the East Anglian kingdom,--_i.e._ as Mr. Elton describes it, in a district about co-extensive with what in Roman times was known as the _Saxon shore_. A few examples occur in Hampshire, and there is a wide district where the right of the youngest survives in Somersetshire, which formed for so long a part of what the Saxons called '_Wealcyn_.'[532]

Further, as the custom is found to apply to copyhold or semi-servile holdings, it would not be an impossible conjecture that previously existing original tribal households were, at some period, upon conquest, reduced into serfs, the division of the holdings among heirs being at the same time stopped, so as to keep the holdings in equal 'yokes,' or 'yard-lands,' thus leaving the right of the youngest as the only point of the pre-existing tribal custom permitted to survive.

«Survival of the 'right of the youngest' on the Continent.»

A similar process, perhaps in connexion with the Frankish conquest of parts of Germany, possibly had been gone through in many continental districts. Mr. Elton traces the right of the youngest in the north-east corner of France and in Brabant, in Friesland, in Westphalia, in Silesia, in Wirtemberg, in the Odenwald and district north of Lake Constance, in Suabia, in Elsass, in the Grisons. It is found also in [p354] the island of Borneholm, though it seems to be absent in Denmark and on the Scandinavian mainland.[533]

Attention has been called to this curious survival of the right of the youngest because it forms a possible link between the Welsh, English, and continental systems of settlements in tribal households.

* * * * *

We now pass to the more direct consideration of the local names with the supposed patronymic suffix.

«Wide extension and meaning of the patronymic suffix 'ing,' &c.»

These peculiar local names are scattered over a wide area; the suffix varying from the English _ing_ with its plural '_ingas_,' the German _ing_ or _ung_ with its plural _ingas_, _ingen_, _ungen_, _ungun_, and the French '_ign_' or _igny_, to the Swiss[534] equivalent _ikon_, the Bohemian _ici_,[535] and the wider Slavonic _itz_ or _witz_.

It seems to be clear that the termination _ing_, in its older plural form _ingas_, in Anglo-Saxon, not by any means always,[536] but still in a large number of cases, had a _patronymic_ significance.

We have the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself that if _Baldo_ were the name of the parent, his children or heirs would in Anglo-Saxon be called _Baldings_[537] (Baldingas).

There is also evidence that the oldest historical form of settlement in Bohemian and Slavic districts [p355] was in the tribal or joint household--the undivided family sometimes for many generations herding together in the same homestead (_dĕdiny_).[538]

And the number of local names ending in _ici_, or _owici_, changing in later times into _itz_ and _witz_, taken together with the late prevalence of the undivided household in these semi-Slavonic regions, so far as it goes, confirms the connexion of the patronymic termination with the holding of the co-heirs of an original holder.[539]

The geographical distribution of local names with the patronymic termination is shown on the same map as that on which were marked the position of the 'hams' and 'heims.'

«In England.»

First, as regards England, the map will show that in the distribution of places mentioned in the Domesday survey ending in _ing_, the largest proportion occurs east of a line drawn from the Wash to the Isle of Wight: just as in the case of the 'hams,' only that in Sussex the greatest number of 'ings' occurs instead of in Essex.

It is worthy of notice that names ending in _ingham_ or _ington_ are not confined so closely to this district, but are spread much more evenly all over England.[540] Further, it will be observed that the counties where the names ending in _ing_ occur without a suffix are remarkably coincident with those where Mr. Elton has found survivals of the _right of the youngest_, _i.e._ the old 'Saxon shore.' [p356]

«In Picardy.»

Next, as to the opposite coast of _Picardy_, the _ings_ and _hems_ are alike, for very nearly all the _hems_ in the Survey of the Abbey of St. Bertin of A.D. 850 are preceded by _ing_, _i.e._ they are _inghems_. The proportion was found to be sixty per cent.[541] In this north-east corner of France the right of the youngest, as we have seen, also survives.

«In the Moselle valley and round Troyes and Langres.»

There are also many patronymic names of places in the Moselle valley and in Champagne around Troyes and Langres.[542]

«In Frisia.»

Next, as to _Frisia_, eight per cent. of the names mentioned in the Fulda records end in '_inga_,' two and a half per cent. in _ingaheim_, and three per cent. in _ing_ with some other suffix, making thirteen and a half per cent. in all. In Friesland also there are survivals of the _right of the youngest_.

«In Germany most densely in the old Roman provinces of the 'Agri Decumates.'»

Over North Germany, outside the Roman _limes_, the proportion is much less, shading off in the Fulda records from six to three, two, and one per cent.

But the greatest proportion occurs within the Roman _limes_ in the valleys of the Neckar and the Upper Danube, where (according to the Fulda records) it rises to from twenty to twenty-four per cent.,[543] shading off to ten per cent. towards the Maine, and in the present Elsass, and to nine per cent. southwards in the neighbourhood of St. Gall.[544] [p357]

This chief home of the 'ings' was the western part of the district of the 'Agri Decumates' of Tacitus and the northern province of Rhætia, gradually occupied by the Alamannic and Bavarian tribes in the later centuries of Roman rule.

Whether they entered these districts under cover of the Roman peace, or as conquerors to disturb it, the founders of the 'ings' evidently came from German mountains and forests beyond the _limes_.

«North of the _limes_ chiefly in Grapfeld and Thuringia.»

North of the Danube names with this suffix extend chiefly through the region of the old Hermunduri into the district of Grapfeld and Thuringia, where they were in the Fulda records six per cent.

This remarkable geographical distribution in Germany suggests important inferences.

«They suggest settlements»

(1) The attachment of the personal patronymic to the name of a

## particular locality implies in Germany no less than in Ireland

and Wales a permanent settlement in that locality, and so far an abandonment of nomadic habits and even of the frequent redistributions and shifting of residences within the tribal territory.

«within Roman provinces,»

(2) The occurrence of these patronymic local names most thickly _within the Roman limes_ and near to it, points to the fact that the Roman rule was the outside influence which compelled the abandonment of the semi-nomadic and the adoption of the settled form of life.

«possibly manorial.»

(3) The addition in some cases--most often in Flanders and in England, which were both Roman [p358] provinces--of the suffix _ham_ to the patronymic local name, although most probably a _later_ addition, and possibly the result of conquest, at least reminds us of the possibility already noticed that even a _villa_ or _ham_ or manor, with a servile population upon it, might be the possession of a tribal household, who thus might be the lords of a manorial estate.

«Offshoots from Suevic tribes who became Alamanni.»

(4) Considering the geographical distribution of the patronymic termination, beginning in Thuringia and Grapfeld, but becoming most numerous in Rhætia and the 'Agri Decumates,' it is almost impossible to avoid the inference that it is in most cases connected with settlements in these Roman districts of offshoots from the old Suevic tribe of the Hermunduri--viz. _Thuringi_, _Juthungi_, and others who, settling in these districts during Roman rule, became afterwards lost in the later and greater group of the _Alamanni_.

«Forced settlement of Alamanni in Belgic Gaul,»

«and possibly in England.»

This inference might possibly be confirmed by the fact that the isolated clusters of names ending in 'ing' on the west of the Rhine, correspond in many instances with the districts into which we happen to know that forced colonies of families of these and other German tribes had been located after the termination of the Alamannic wars of Probus, Maximian, and Constantius Clorus. These colonies of _læti_ were planted, as we have seen, in the valley of the Moselle, and the names of places ending in 'ing' are numerous there to this day. They were planted in the district of the Tricassi round Troyes and Langres, and here again there are numerous patronymic names. They were planted in the district of the Nervii round Amiens close to the cluster of names ending in 'ingahem,' so many of which in the ninth century are [p359] found to belong to the Abbey of St. Bertin. Lastly--and this is a point of special interest for the present inquiry--we know that similar deportations of tribesmen of the Alamannic group were repeatedly made into Britain, and thus the question arises whether the places ending in 'ing' in England may not also mark the sites of peaceable or forced settlements of Germans under Roman rule.

They lie, as we have seen, chiefly within the district of the Saxon shore, _i.e._ east of a line between the Wash and the Isle of Wight, just as was the case also with the survivals of the _right of the youngest_.

If evidence had happened to have come to hand of a similar deportation of Alamannic Germans into Frisia instead of Frisians into Gaul, the coincidence would be still more complete.

«Such settlements naturally in tribal households without slaves.»

The suggestion is very precarious. Still, it might be asked, where should clusters of tribal households of Germans resembling the Welsh _Weles_ and _Gavells_ be more likely to perpetuate their character and resist for a time manorial tendencies than in these cases of peaceable or forced emigration into Roman provinces? Who would be more likely to do so than troublesome septs (like that of the Cumberland '_Grames_' in the days of James I.) deported bodily to a strange country, and settled, probably not on private estates, but on previously depopulated public land, without slaves, and without the possibility of acquiring them by making raids upon other tribes?

«Not necessarily Alamannic.»

Now, according to Professor Wilhelm Arnold, the German writer who has recently given the closest attention to these local names, the patronymic suffix [p360] 'ingen' is one of the distinctive marks of settlements of Alamannic and Bavarian tribes, and denotes that the districts wherein it is found have at some time or another been conquered or occupied by them. The _heims_, on the other hand, in this writer's view, are in the same way indicative of Frankish settlements.[545]

The view of so accurate and laborious a student must be regarded as of great authority. But the foregoing inquiry has led in both cases to a somewhat different suggestion as to their meaning. The suffix _heim_ is Anglo-Saxon as well as Frankish, and translating itself into villa and manor seems to represent a settlement or estate most often of the manorial type. So that it seems likely, that whatever German tribes at whatever time came over into the Roman province and usurped the lordship of existing villas, or adopted the Roman villa as the type of their settlements, would probably have called them either _weilers_ or _heims_ according to whether they used the Roman or the German word for the same thing.

And in the same way it also seems likely, that _whatever tribes_, at _whatever time_, by their own choice or by forced colonisation, settled in _house communities of tribesmen with or without a servile population under them_, would be passing through the stage in which they might naturally call their settlements or [p361] homesteads after their own names, using the patronymic suffix _ing_.

It is undoubtedly difficult to obtain any clear indication of the _time_[546] when these settlements may have been made. Nor, perhaps, need they be referred generally to the same period, were it not for the remarkable fact that the _personal names_ prefixed to the suffix in England, Flanders, the Moselle valley, round Troyes and Langres, in the old _Agri Decumates_ (now Wirtemburg), and in the old Rhætia (now Bavaria), and even those in Frisia, were to a very large extent _identical_.

«The names are not _clan_ names, but personal names.»

«But the identity of the names throughout is very remarkable.»

This identity is so striking, that if the names were, as some have supposed, necessarily _clan-names_, it might be impossible to deny that the English and continental districts were peopled actually by branches of the same _clans_. But it must be admitted that, as the names to [p362] which the peculiar suffix was added were _personal_ names and not family or clan names--_John_ and _Thomas_, and not _Smith_ and _Jones_--it would not be safe to press the inference from the similarity too far. _Baldo_ was the name of a person. There may have been persons of that name in every tribe in Germany. The Baldo of one tribe need not be closely related to the Baldo of another tribe, any more than _John Smith_ need be related to _John Jones_. The households of each Baldo would be called _Baldings_, or in the old form _Baldingas_; but obviously the Baldings of England need have no clan-relationship whatever to the Baldings of Upper Germany.[547] Nevertheless, the striking similarity of mere personal names goes for something, and it is impossible to pass it by unnoticed. The extent of it may be shown by a few examples.

In the following list are placed _all_ the local names mentioned in the Domesday Survey of _Sussex_, beginning with the first two letters of the alphabet in which the peculiar suffix occurs, whether as final or not,[548] and opposite to them similar personal or local [p363] names taken from the early records of _Wirtemberg_, _i.e._ the district of the Rhine, Maine, and Neckar, formerly part of the 'Agri Decumates.'

«In Sussex.»

_Sussex._ _Wirtemberg._

Achingeworde Acco, Echo, Eccho, Achelm

Aldingeborne Aldingas

Babintone Babinberch, Babenhausen, Bebingon

Basingeham Besigheim

Bechingetone Bechingen

Beddingesjham Bedzingeswilaeri

Belingeham Bellingon, Böllingerhof

Berchinges Bercheim

Bevringetone

Bollintun Bollo, Bollinga

Botingelle Böttinger

Brislinga Brisgau

«In Picardy.»

As regards the supposed patronymic names in the district between Calais and St. Omer, Mr. Taylor states that 80 per cent. are found also in England.[549]

«In the Moselle valley.»

We may take as a further example the resemblance between names of places occurring in Sprüner's maps of '_Deutschlands Gaue_' in the Moselle valley and those of places and persons mentioned in early Wirtemberg charters.

_Moselle Valley._ _Wirtemberg._

Beringa Beringerus Eslingis Esslingen Frisingen Frieso, Frisingen Gundredingen Gundrud Heminingsthal Hemminbah Holdingen Holda Hasmaringa Hasmaresheim Lukesinga Lucas, Lucilunburch [p364] Munderchinga Mundricheshuntun, Munderkingen Ottringas Oteric, Otrik Putilinga Pettili, Pertilo Uffeninga Ufeninga Uttingon Uto, Uttinuuilare

«In Champagne.»

The following coincidences[550] occur in the modern Champagne, which embraces another district into which forced emigrants were deported.

_Champagne._ _England._ _Wirtemberg._

Autigny Edington Eutingen Effincourt Effingham Oeffingen Euffigneux Uffington Offingen Alincourt Allington -- Arrigne Arrington Erringhausen Orbigny Orpington Erpfingen Attigny Attington Atting Etigny Ettinghall Oettinger Bocquegney Buckingham Böchingen Bettigny Beddington Böttingen

And so on in about forty cases.

A comparison of the fifteen similar names in _Frisia_ occurring in the Fulda records, with other similar names of places or persons in _England_ and _Wirtemberg_, gives an equally clear result.

«In Frisia.»

_Frisia._[551] _Wirtemberg._[552] _England._

Auinge Au, Auenhofen Avington (Berks and Hants) Baltratingen Baldhart, Baldingen Beltings (Kent) Belinge Bellingon Bellingdon, Bellings (Several counties) Bottinge Böttingen Boddington (Gloucester, Northampton) Creslinge Creglingen, Cressing (Essex), Chrezzingen Cressingham (Norfolk) Gandingen ──── ──── Gutinge ──── Guyting (Gloucester), Getingas (Surrey) Hustinga ──── ──── Huchingen Huchiheim, Hucking (Kent) Huc = Hugo Husdingun ──── ──── Rochinge Roingus, Rohinc Rockingham (Notts) Suettenge Suittes, Suitger ──── Wacheringe Uuachar Wakering (Essex) Wasginge Uuassingun Washington (Sussex) Weingi Wehingen ────

«The inferences to be drawn from the similarity.»

It is impossible to follow out in greater detail these remarkable resemblances between the personal names which appear with a patronymic suffix in the local names in England and Frisia, and certain well-defined districts west of the Rhine, and the local and personal names mentioned in the Wirtemberg charters. The foregoing instances must not be regarded as more than examples. And for the reasons already given it would also be unwise to build too much upon this evident similarity in the personal names, but still it should be remembered that the facts to be accounted for are--(1) The concentration of these places with names having a supposed patronymic termination in certain defined districts mostly within the old Roman provinces. (2) The practical identity throughout all these districts of so many of the personal names to which this suffix is attached.

The first fact points to these settlements in tribal households having taken place by peaceable or forcible emigration during Roman rule, or very soon after, at all events _at about the same period_. The second fact points to the practical homogeneity of the German tribes, whose emigrants founded the settlements which [p366] in England, Flanders, around Troyes and Langres, on the Moselle, in Wirtemberg, in Bavaria, and also in Frisia, bear the common suffix to their names.

The facts already mentioned of the survival _to a great extent in the same districts_, strikingly so in England, of the _right of the youngest_, and in Kent of the original form of the local custom of Gavelkind, point in the same direction.

Taking all these things together, we may at least regard the economic problem involved in them as one deserving closer attention than has yet been given to it.

«The settlements in tribal households may have been manors.»

In conclusion, turning back to the direct relation of these facts to the process of transition of the German tribal system into the later manorial system, it must be remembered that the holdings of tribal households might quite possibly be, from the first, embryo manors with serfs upon them. They might be settlements precisely like those described by Tacitus, the lordship of which had become the joint inheritance of the heirs of the founder. As a matter of fact, the actual settlements in question had at all events become manors before the dates of the earliest documents. We have seen, _e.g._, that the villas belonging to the monks of St. Bertin, with their almost invariable suffix 'ingahem,' were manors from the time of the first records in the seventh century, and they may never have been anything else. We have seen that in the year 645 the founder of the abbey gave to the monks his villa called _Sitdiu_, and its twelve dependent villas (_Tatinga villa_, afterwards _Tatingahem_, among them)[553] with the slaves and coloni upon them. They seem to [p367] have been, in fact, so many manorial farms just like those which, as we learned from Gregory of Tours, _Chrodinus_ in the previous century founded and handed over to the Church.

«They at least ultimately became manorial.»

We have not found, therefore, in this inquiry into the character of the settlements with local names ending in the supposed patronymic suffix, doubtful as its result has proved, anything which conflicts with the general conclusion to which we were brought by the manorial character of the Roman villa and the manorial tendency of the German tribal system as described by Tacitus, viz. that as a general rule the German settlements made upon the conquest of what had once been Roman provinces were of a strictly manorial type. If the settlements with names ending in _ing_ were settlements of _læti_ or of other emigrants during Roman rule, taking at first the form of tribal households, they at least became manors like the rest during or very soon after the German conquests. If, on the other hand, they were later settlements of the conquerors of the Roman provinces, or of emigrants following in the wake of the conquests, they none the less on that account soon became just as manorial as those Roman villas which by a change of lordship and translation of words may have become German _heims_ or Anglo-Saxon _hams_.

It is certainly possible that during a short period, especially if they held no serfs or slaves, tribal households may have expanded into free village communities. But to infer from the existence of patronymic local names that German emigration at all generally took the form of free village communities would surely not be consistent with the evidence.

FOOTNOTES:

[508] _De Bello Gallico_, lib. vi. c. 21 and 22. 'Neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios, sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum, qui una coierunt, quantum eis et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt, atque anno post alio transire cogunt.'

[509] _Id._ lib. vi. c. 22.

[510] _De Bello Gallico_, lib. i. c. 51.

[511] _Id._ lib. iv. c. 1. 'Sed privati ac separati agri apud eos nihil est, neque longius anno remanere uno in loco incolendi causa licet.'

[512] _Id._ lib. i. c. 36.

[513] _Id._ lib. i. c. 51.

[514] 'Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit.'--_Germania_, xvi.

[515] 'Vicos locant non in nostrum morem, connexis et cohærentibus ædificiis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat, sive adversus casus ignis remedium, sive inscitia ædificandi.'--_Germania_, xvi.

[516] 'Ceteris servis non in nostrum morem descriptis per familiam ministeriis utuntur. Suam quisque sedem, suos penates regit. Frumenti modum dominus aut pecoris aut vestis ut colono injungit, et servus hactenus paret: cetera domus officia uxor ac liberi exsequuntur.'--_Germania_, xxv.

[517] _Id._ xiv. and xv.

[518] _Germania_, xx.

[519] _Germania_, xvi.

[520] The Bamberg Codex has '_ab universis vicis_,' and this is followed by Waitz (_Verfassungsgeschichte_, Kiel, 1880, i. 145). The Leyden Codex has 'in vicem.' Others 'per vices,' which earlier critics considered to be an error for 'per vicos.' See Wietersheim's _Geschichte der Völkerwanderung_, with Dahn's notes, i. p. 43. Leipzig, 1880.

[521] _Germania_, xxvi.

[522] _Id._ xii.

[523] The Welsh 'trev' and German 'dorf' probably are from the same root.

[524] '"_Ager_" dictus qui a divisoribus agrorum relictus est ad pascendum communiter vicinis.' Isodorus, _De Agris_. Lachmann and Rudorff, i. p. 369.

[525] _Germania_, xxviii. and xxix.

[526] These tribes are mentioned by Cæsar as forming part of the army of Ariovistus. _De Bello Gallico_, lib. i. c. 51.

[527] _Germania_, xxx.–xxxvii.

[528] _Germania_, xxxviii.–xlv.

[529] He regarded the 'Agri Decumates' as 'hardly in Germany.'

[530] This result did not follow in Wales, because in Welsh local names suffixes are not usual.

[531] _Gavelkind_ may be derived from _gabel_, a fork or branch, and the word is used in Ireland as well as in Kent. Irish _gabal_, _gabal-cined_ (Gavelkind). _Manners, &c. of the Ancient Irish._ O'Curry, iii. p. 581.

[532] _Origins of English History_, pp. 188–9.

[533] _Origins of English History_, pp. 197–98.

[534] Arnold's _Ansiedelungen_, p. 89.

[535] Palacky's _Geschichte von Böhmen_, Buch ii. c. 6, p. 169.

[536] 'Ing' also meant a low meadow by a river bank, as '_Clifton Ings_,' near York, &c. Also it was sometimes used like 'ers,', as '_Ochringen_,' dwellers on the river 'Ohra.' In Denmark the individual strip in a meadow was an 'ing,' and so the whole meadow would be '_the ings_.'

[537] See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle _sub anno_ 522. 'Cordic was Elesing, Elesa was Esling, Esla was Gewising,' and so on. See also Bede's statement that the Kentish kings were called _Oiscings_, after their ancestor _Oisc_. Bede, bk. ii. c. 5.

[538] Palacky, pp. 168–9. Compare the word with the Welsh _tyddyn_, and the Irish _tate_ or _tath_.

[539] See Meitzen's _Ausbreitung der Deutschen_, p. 17. Jena, 1879.

[540] See Taylor's _Words and Places_, p. 131.

[541] It is curious to observe that, taking all the names in the Cartulary (including many of _later date_), only 2 per cent. end in _ing_ or _inga_, 6 per cent. in _inghem_ or _ingahem_: making 8 per cent. in all.

[542] Taylor's _Words and Places_, pp. 496 _et seq._

[543] Out of 119 places named in the charters of the Abbey of _Frisinga_ earlier in date than A.D. 800, 24 per cent. ended in _inge_, and only 1 per cent. in _heim_.--Meichelbeck, _passim_.

[544] In the St. Gall charters, out of 1,920 names, 9 per cent. end in _inga_, 3½ per cent. in _inchova_. The most common other terminations are either _wilare_ or _wanga_; only 2 per cent. end in _heim_.

[545] Arnold's _Ansiedelungen und Wanderungen deutscher Stämme_. Marburg, 1881. See pp. 153 _et seq._ He considers that the Alamanni were a group of German peoples who had settled in the Rhine valley and the _Agri Decumates_, including among them the _Juthungi_, who had crossed over from the north of the _limes_ late in the third century.

[546] In the _Erklärung der Peutinger Tafel_, by E. Paulus, Stuttgart, 1866, there is a careful attempt to identify the stations on the Roman roads from _Brigantia_ to _Vindonissa_, and from _Vindonissa_ to _Regino_. The stations on the latter, which passed through the district abounding in 'ings,' are thus identified; the distances between them, except in one case (where there is a difference of 2 leugen), answering to those marked in the _Table_ (see p. 35):--

_Vindonissa_ (Windisch), _Tenedone_ (Heidenschlöschen), _Juliomago_ (Hüfingen), _Brigobanne_ (Rottweil), _Aris flavis_ (Unter-Iflingen), _Samulocennis_ (Rottenberg), _Grinario_ (Sindelfingen), _Clarenna_ (Carlsstatt), _Ad lunam_ (Pfahlbronn), _Aquileia_ (Aalen) [up to which point there is a remarkable change of names throughout, but from which point the similarity of names becomes striking], _Opie_ (Bopfingen), _Septemiaci_ (Maihingen), _Losodica_ (Oettingen), _Medianis_ (Markhof), _Iciniaco_ (Itzing), _Biricianis_ (Burkmarshofen), _Vetonianis_ (Nassenfels), _Germanico_ (Kösching), _Celeuso_ (Ettling), _Abusena_ (Abensberg), _Regino_ (Regensburg). But these names in _ing_ and _ingen_, and Latin _iaci_, do not seem to be patronymic. So also in the case of the Roman '_Vicus Aurelii_' on the _Ohra_ river, now 'Oehringen.' Is it not possible that many other supposed patronymics may simply mean such and such or So-and-so's 'ings' or meadows?

[547] The occasional instances in which the patronymic termination is added to the name of a tree or an animal, has led to the hasty conclusion that the Saxons were '_totemists_,' and believed themselves descended from trees and animals; _e.g._ that the _Buckings_ of _Bucks_ thought themselves descendants of the beech tree. The fact that _personal names_ were taken from trees and animals--that one person called himself '_the Beech_,' another '_the Wolf_'--quite disposes of this argument, for their households would call themselves '_Beechings_' and '_Wolfings_' in quite a natural course, without any dream of descent from the tree or the animal whose name their father or great-grandfather had borne.

[548] The resemblance is equally apparent whether the comparison be made between names without further suffix or whether those with it are included. See the long list of patronymic names in England, Germany, and France in Taylor's _Words and Places_, App. B, pp. 496–513.

[549] Taylor's _Words and Places_, pp. 131–4, and App. B, p. 491.

[550] See the lists given in Taylor's _Words and Places_, Appendix B, pp. 496 _et seq._ Taylor says that there are 1,100 of the patronymic names in France, of which 250 are similar to those in England. See pp. 144 _et seq._

[551] Taken from _Traditiones Fuldensis_, Dronke, pp. 240–243. The above list includes all the names in Frisia with a patronymic and no other suffix.

[552] Taken from the _Wirtembergische Urkundenbuch_.

[553] _Chartularium Sithiense_, p. 18.

[p368]

## CHAPTER X.

_THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM AND SERFDOM OF ENGLAND AND OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES OF GERMANY AND GAUL._

I. THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM IN ENGLAND AND IN GERMANY COMPARED.

We now return to the English manorial and open-field system, in order, taking it up where we left it, to trace its connexion with the similar Continental system, and to inquire in what districts the closest resemblances to it are to be found--whether in the un-Romanised north or in the southern districts so long included within the _limes_ of the Roman provinces.

«Under the manorial system, the open-field system the shell of serfdom.»

The earliest documentary evidence available on English ground left us in full possession of the Saxon manor with its village community of serfs upon it, inhabiting as its shell the open-field system in its most organised form, _i.e._ with its (generally) three fields, its furlongs, its acre or half-acre strips, its headlands, its yard-lands or bundles of normally thirty acres, scattered all over the fields, the yard-land representing the year's ploughing of a pair of oxen in the team of [p369] eight, and the acre strip the measure of a day's plough-work of the team.

This was the system described in the '_Rectitudines_' of the tenth century, and the allusions to the 'gebur,' the 'yard-land,' the 'setene,' the 'gafol,' and the 'week-work' in the laws of Ine carried back the evidence presumably to the seventh century.

«Simpler form of open-field husbandry under the tribal system.»

But it must not be forgotten that side by side with this manorial open-field system we found an earlier and simpler form of open-field husbandry carried on by the free tribesmen and taeogs of Wales. This simpler system described in the Welsh laws and the 'triads' seemed to be in its main features practically identical with that described also in the _Germania_ of Tacitus. It was an annual ploughing up of fresh grass-land, leaving it to go back again into grass after the year's ploughing. It was, in fact, the agriculture of a pastoral people, with a large range of pasture land for their cattle, a small portion of which annually selected for tillage sufficed for their corn crops. This is clearly the meaning of Tacitus, '_Arva per annos mutant et superest ager._' It is clearly the meaning of the Welsh 'triads,' according to which the tribesman's right extended to his 'tyddyn,' with its corn and cattle yard, and to _co-aration of the waste_.

«Three-field system produced by a three-course rotation of crops.»

Nor can there be much mystery in the relation of these two forms of open-field husbandry to each other. In both, the arable land is divided in the ploughing into furlongs and strips. There is co-operation of ploughing in both, the contribution of oxen to the common team of eight in both, the allotment of the strips to the owners of the oxen in rotation, [p370] producing the same scattering of the strips in both. The methods are the same. The difference lies in the application of the methods to two different stages of economic growth. The simple form is adapted to the early nomadic stage of tribal life, and survives even after partial settlement, so long as grassland is sufficiently abundant to allow of fresh ground being broken by the plough each year. The more complex and organised form implies fixed settlement on the same territory, the necessity for a settled agriculture within a definite limit, and the consequent ploughing of the same land over and over again for generations. The _three-field_ system seems to be simply the adaptation of the early open-field husbandry to a permanent three-course rotation of crops.

«The yard-land the mark of serfdom.»

But there is a further distinguishing feature of the English three-field system which implies the introduction of yet another factor in the complex result, viz. the _yard-land_. And this indivisible bundle of strips, to which there was always a single succession, was evidently the holding not of a free tribesman whose heirs would inherit and divide the inheritance, but of a serf, to whom an outfit of oxen had been allotted. In fact, the complex and more organised system would naturally grow out of the simpler form under the two conditions of _settlement_ and _serfdom_.

Now, turning from England to the Continent, we have in the same way various forms of the open-field system to deal with, and in comparing them with the English system their geographical distribution becomes very important.

«German authorities on the German system.»

Happily, very close attention has recently been given to this subject by German students, and we are [p371] able to rely with confidence on the facts collected by Dr. Landau,[554] by Dr. Hanssen,[555] and lastly by Dr. August Meitzen in his _Ausbreitung der Deutschen in Deutschland_,[556] and in his still more recent and interesting review of the collected works of Dr. Hanssen.[557]

Whilst we learn from these writers that much remains to be done before the last word can be said upon so intricate a subject, some general points seem at least to be clearly made out.

In the first place there are some German systems of husbandry which may well be weeded out at once from the rest as not analogous to the Anglo-Saxon three-field system in England.

«The Feldgraswirthschaft.»

There is the old '_Feldgraswirthschaft_,' analogous perhaps to the Welsh co-ploughing of the waste and the shifting '_Arva_' of the Germans of Tacitus, which still lingers in the mountain districts of Germany and Switzerland, where corn is a secondary crop to grass.[558]

«The Einzelhöfe.»

There are the '_Einzelhöfe_' of Westphalia and other districts, _i.e._ single farms, each consisting mainly of land all in one block, like a modern English farm, but as different as possible from the old English open-field system, with its yard-lands and scattered strips.[559]

«Forest and marsh system.»

Further, there is a peculiar form of the open-field system, chiefly found in forest and marsh districts, in which each holding consists generally of _one single [p372] long strip of land_, reaching from the homestead right across the village territory to its boundary.[560] This system, so different from the prevalent Anglo-Saxon system, is supposed to represent comparatively modern colonisation and reclamation of forest and marsh land; and though possibly bearing some analogy to the English _fen_ system, is not that for which we are seeking.

Passing all these by, we come to a peculiar method of husbandry which covers a large tract of country, and which is adopted under both the single farm system and also the open-field system with scattered ownership, but which nevertheless is opposed to the three-field system. It is especially important for our purpose because of its geographical position.

«The one-field system»

All over the sand and bog district of the north of Germany, crops, mostly of rye and buckwheat, have for centuries been grown _year after year on the same land_, kept productive by marling and peat manure, on what Hanssen describes as the 'one-field system.'[561] This system is found in Westphalia, East Friesland, Oldenburg, North Hanover, Holland, Belgium. Denmark, Brunswick, Saxony, and East Prussia. Over parts of the district under this one-field system the single-farm system prevails, in others the fields are divided into 'Gewanne' and strips, and there is scattered ownership.

«in North Germany.»

Now, possibly this one-field system, with its marling and peat manure, may have been the system described by Pliny as prevalent in Belgic Britain and Gaul before the Roman conquest, [p373] but certainly it is not the system prevalent in England under Saxon rule. And yet this district where the one-field system is prevalent in Germany is precisely the district from which, according to the common theory, the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain came. It is precisely the district of Germany where the three-field system is conspicuously absent. So that although Nasse and Waitz somewhat hastily suggested that the Saxons had introduced the three-field system into England, Hanssen, assuming that the invaders of England came from the north, confidently denies that this was possible. 'The Anglo-Saxons and the Frisians and Low Germans and Jutes who came with them to England cannot [he writes] have brought the three-field system with them into England, because they did not themselves use it at home in North-west Germany and Jutland.' He adds that even in later times the three-field system has never been able to obtain a firm footing in these coast districts.[562]

«The three-field system»

There remains the question, where on the Continent was prevalent that two-or three-field system analogous to the one most generally prevalent on the manors of England?

«in the old Suevic and Roman districts.»

The result of the careful inquiries of Hanssen, Landau, and Meitzen seems to be, broadly speaking, this, viz., that setting aside the complication which arises in those districts where there has been a Slavic occupation of German ground and a German re-occupation of Slavic ground,[563] the ancient three-field system, with its _huben_ of scattered strips, was most [p374] generally prevalent south of the Lippe and the Teutoberger Wald, _i.e._ in those districts once occupied by the Suevic tribes located round the Roman _limes_, and still more in those districts within the Roman _limes_ which were once Roman province--the 'Agri Decumates,' Rhætia, and Germania Prima--the present Baden, Wirtemberg, Swabia, and Bavaria, on the German side of the Rhine, and Elsass and the Moselle valley on its Gallic side.[564]

These once Roman or partly Romanised districts were undoubtedly its chief home. Sporadically and later, it existed further north but not generally.

This general geographical conclusion is very important. But before we can fairly assume either a Roman or South German origin, the similarity of the English and South German systems must be examined in their details and earliest historical traces. Further, the examination must not be confined to the shell. It must be extended also to the serfdom which in Germany as in England, so to speak, lived within it.

In previous chapters some of the resemblances between the English and German systems have incidentally been noticed, but the reader will pardon some repetition for the sake of clearness in the statement of this important comparison. [p375]

II. THE BOUNDARIES, OR 'MARCHÆ.'

«The boundaries, or marchæ.»

_First_ as to the whole territory or ager occupied by the village community or township. This, by the presentment of the homage of the Hitchin Manor, was described in the record by its _boundaries_--from such a place to such a place, and so on fill the starting-point was reached again.

In the '_gemæru_' of the Saxon charters the same form was used.

In the '_marchæ_' of the manors surrendered to the abbey of Lorsch in the seventh and eighth centuries, the same form was used in the Rhine valley.

It is, in fact, as we have seen, a form in use before the Christian era, and described by the Roman 'Agrimensores' as often adopted in recording the '_limites_' of irregular territories, to which their rectangular centuriation did not extend.

Now, when we consider this method, it implies permanent settlements close to one another, where even the marshes or forests lying between them have been permanently divided by a fixed line, or it implies that a necessity has arisen to mark off the occupied territory from the _ager publicus_. It may have been derived from the rough and ready methods of marking divisions of tribe-land during the early and unsettled stages of tribal life. But the German settlements described by Tacitus seem to have been without defined boundaries. 'Agri' were taken possession of according to the number of the settlers, _pro numero cultorum_. Not till some outside influence compelled final _settlement_ would the necessity for [p376] well-marked boundaries of territories arise. And we have seen that the evidence of local names strongly points to the Roman rule as this settling influence.

In the Lorsch charters the districts included within the 'marchæ' are often, as we have seen, called 'marks.'

III. THE THREE FIELDS, OR 'ZELGEN.'

«The three fields.»

Next as to the division of the arable land into fields--generally _three_ fields[565]--representing the annual rotation of crops.

The homage of the Hitchin Manor presented that the common fields within the township had immemoriably been and ought to be kept and cultivated in three successive _seasons_ of--

(1) Tilth-grain, (2) Etch-grain, and (3) Fallow.

The three fields are elsewhere commonly known as the--

(1) Winter corn, (2) Spring corn, and (3) Fallow.

Universally, the fallow ends at the autumn sowing of the wheat crop of the next season, which is hence called 'winter corn.'

The word _etch_, or _eddish_, or _edish_, occurs in Tusser, and means the stubble of the previous crop [p377] of whatever kind. Thus, in the 'Directions for February,' he says,--

«Etch-grain sown on the stubble of a previous crop.»

'Eat _etch_, ere ye plow, With hog, sheep, and cow.'[566]

This is evidently to prepare the stubble of the last year's corn crop for the spring sown bean or other crop; for under the same month he says,--

Go plow in the stubble, for now is the season For sowing of vetches, of beans, and of peason.[567]

In the directions for the October sowing are the following lines:--

Seed first go fetch For _edish_, or _etch_. White wheat if ye please, Sow now upon pease.[568]

And again,--

When wheat upon _eddish_ ye mind to bestow Let that be the first of the wheat ye do sow. * * * * * White wheat upon pease-_etch_ doth grow as he would, But fallow is best if we did as we should. * * * * * When peason ye had and a fallow thereon, Sow wheat ye may well without dung thereupon.[569]

«Tilth-grain sown on the fallow.»

'Etch-grain' is therefore the crop, generally oats or beans, sown in spring after ploughing the stubble of the wheat crop, which itself was best sown if possible upon the fallow, and so was called the 'tilth-grain.'

«Breach-corn.»

The oats or beans grown on the wheat stubble were sometimes called '_Breach_-corn,' and _Breach_-land was land prepared for a second crop.[570] [p378]

Where shall we find these words and things on the Continent?

Looking to the Latin words used for the three fields, it is obvious that these were sometimes regarded as three separate ploughings-- _araturæ_, or _culturæ_,--or as so many sowings--_sationes_,[571]--just as in the north of England they are called 'falls,' or 'fallows,' which have to be ploughed.

«Names for the three fields, 'Felder,' 'Sationes,' 'Zelgen.'»

In North Germany, where they occur, they are generally simply called '_felder_;'[572] in France around Paris they were called in the ninth century '_sationes_;'[573] but in South Germany and Switzerland the usual word for each field is _Zelg_, which Dr. Landau connects with the Anglo-Saxon '_tilgende_' (tilling), and the later English '_tilth_,' one of the Hitchin words. And he says that _Zelg_ strictly means only the ploughed field[574] (_aratura_), though used for all the three. The three fields were thus spoken of as three _tilths_. The word '_Zelg_' we have already found in the St. Gall charters in the eighth century, and Dr. Landau points out other instances of the same date of its use in the districts of Swabia, the middle Rhine, and later in the Inn Valley.

«'Esch,' and the Gothic 'Attisk.'»

On the other hand, in Westphalia, in Baden, and especially in Upper Swabia and Upper Bavaria, as far as the river Isar, and also in Switzerland, the word _Esch_ is the one in use,[575] the word being used in [p379] Westphalia, also for the whole arable area.[576] _Esch_ also was in use at the date of the earliest form of the Bavarian laws (in the seventh century). The hedge put up in defence of the sown field is there called an '_ezzisczun_.'[577] Still earlier, in the fourth century, further East the open fields seem to have been called '_attisk_;' for Ulphilas, in his translation of Mark ii. 23, speaks of the disciples walking over the '_attisk_'--_i.e._ over the 'etch,' or 'eddish'--instead of as in the Anglo-Saxon translation over the '_æcera_.' Here, therefore, we have another of the Hitchin words.

«'Brachfrichte.'»

«These words point to connexion with South Germany.»

In Hesse, according to Dr. Landau, the three fields are spoken of as--

(1) In der _Lentzen_. (2) In der _Brache_. (3) In der _Rure_.

On the Main, in the fifteenth century, they were spoken of as--

(1) _Lenz_ frichte. (2) _Brach_ frichte. (3) _Rur_ frichte.

In Elsass, in the fourteenth century, and on the Danube--

(1) Brochager (Brach field) (2) Rurager (Fallow field)

were used, and Dr. Landau says that _Esch_ is sometimes put in contrast with '_Brach_.'[578] Whatever may be [p380] the exact meaning of the word _Brach_--whether referring to the breaking of the rotation or the breaking of the stubble--there can be no doubt of the identity of the word with the English _Breach_ and _Breach-corn_.

It appears, therefore, that in South Germany, and especially in the districts once Roman province, the three fields representing the rotation of crops for many centuries have been known by names closely resembling those used in England.

IV. THE DIVISION OF THE FIELDS INTO FURLONGS AND ACRES.

Passing next to the divisions of the open fields, we take first the Furlongs or Shots (the Latin _Quarentenæ_).

«'Shot.'»

The word 'Shot' probably is simply the Anglo-Saxon '_sceot_,' or _division_; but it is curious to find in a document of 1318 mention of 'unam peciam, quod vulgariter dicitur _Schoet_' at _Passau_, near the junction of the Inn with the Danube.[579]

«'Gewann.'»

The usual word in Middle and South Germany is '_Gewende_,' in Lower Germany '_Wande_' or '_Wanne_,' or '_Gewann_'--words which no less than the Furlong[580] refer to the length of the furrow and the turning of the plough at the end of it.

«Headland.»

The _headland_, on which the plough was turned, [p381] is also found in the German three-field system as in England.

«'Voracker.'»

In a Frankish document quoted by Dr. Landau, it is called the '_Voracker_,' elsewhere it is known as the '_Anwänder_' (_versura_), or '_Vorwart_.'[581]

«The Lince called 'Rain.'»

In the English system the furlongs were divided into strips or acres by turf balks left in the ploughing, and, as we have seen, on hill-sides, the strips became terraces, and the balks steep banks called 'linces.' It will be remembered that these were produced by the practice of always turning the sod downhill in the ploughing. There are many _linces_ as far north as in the district of the 'Teutoberger Wald,'[582] and they occur in great numbers as far south as the Inn Valley, all the way up to St. Mauritz and Pontresina. Although in many places the terraces in the Engadine are now grass-land, it is well known to the peasantry that they were made by ancient ploughing.

The German word for the turf slope of these terraces is '_Rain_,' and, like the word balk, it means a strip of unploughed turf.[583] It is sometimes used for the terrace itself. Precisely the same word is used for the similar terraces in the Dales of Yorkshire, which are still called by the Dalesmen '_reeans_' or '_reins_.'[584] Terraces of the same kind are found in [p382] Scotland; and when Pennant in 1772 asked what they were called, he was told that they were '_baulks_.'[585]

«The Celtic _Rhan_.»

Both words suggest a wider than merely German origin. 'Balk' is as thoroughly a Welsh word[586] as it is English and German. 'Rain' can hardly be other than the Welsh '_Rhan_' (a division), or '_Rhyn_' and '_grwn_' (a ridge), with which the name of the open-field system in Ireland and Scotland--'_run-rig_'--is no doubt connected. The English word _lince_ or _linch_, with the Anglo-Saxon 'hlinc' and 'hlince,' is perhaps allied to the Anglo-Saxon 'Hlynian,' or 'Hlinian,' to lean, making its participle '_hlynigende_;' and this, and the old High German '_hlinen_,' are surely connected with the Latin and Italian '_inclinare_' and the French '_enclin_.' As we have seen, the Roman 'Agrimensores' called these slopes or terraces '_supercilia_.'

* * * * *

Next let us ask, whence came the English _acre strip_ itself?

«The acre strip a day's work.»

It represented, as we have seen, a day's work at ploughing. Hence the German _Morgen_ and _Tagwerk_, in the Alps _Tagwan_ and _Tagwen_; and hence also, as early as the eighth century, the Latin '_jurnalis_' and [p383] '_diurnalis_.'[587] In early Roman times Varro describes the _jugerum_ [or _jugum_]--the Roman acre--as '_quod juncti boves uno die exarare possint_.'[588]

The division of arable open fields into day-works was therefore ancient. It was also widely spread, and by no means confined to the three-field system. It was common to the co-aration of both free tribesmen and 'taeogs' in Wales; and the Fellahin of Palestine to this moment divide their open fields into day-works for the purpose of easy division among them, according to their ploughs or shares in a plough.[589]

In the Irish open-field system, as we have seen, the land was very early divided into equal 'ridges,' for in the passage quoted, referring to the pressure of population in the seventh century, the complaint was, not that the people received _smaller_ ridges than in former times, but _fewer of them_. These ridges, however, may or may not have been 'day-works.'

But perhaps, outside of the three-field system, a still more widely spread practice was that of dividing the furlongs or larger divisions into _as many strips as there were sharers_, without reference to the size of the strips. This practice seems to be the one adopted in many parts of Germany, in Russia, and in the East, and it is in common use in the western districts of Scotland to this day whenever a piece of land is held by a number of crofters as joint holders.[590] [p384]

It is doubtful whether the division into acre strips representing day-works, and divided from their neighbours by 'raine' or balks, was one of the features of the original German system of ploughing. It is chiefly, if not entirely, in the districts within or near to the Roman 'limes,' or colonised after the conquest of the Roman provinces, that it appears to have been prevalent.[591]

With regard to the word 'acre,' it is probably of very ancient origin.

The German 'acker' has the wider sense of ploughed land in general, but sometimes in East Friesland,[592] and also in South Germany and German Switzerland it has still the restricted meaning of the acre strip laid out for ploughing.[593]

* * * * *

We now pass to the form of the acre strip or day's work in ploughing.

«Roman jugerum.»

The Roman _actus_ or furrow length was 120 feet, or twelve 10-feet rods. The _actus quadratus_ was 120 feet square. The jugerum was composed of two of these _actus quadrati_. It was therefore in length still an actus or furrow of 120 feet, and it was twice as broad as it was long; whilst the length of the English acre is ten times its breadth.

«Strips of the same form as the English acre in France and in Bavaria in the seventh century.»

Thus the English acre varied much in its shape [p385] from the Roman jugerum. Its exact measurements are found in the _mappa_, or measure of the day-work of the tenants of the abbot of St. Remy at Rheims, which is described in the Polyptique of the ninth century as forty perches in length and four in width.[594] It occurs again in the '_napatica_' of the Polyptique of the abbey of St. Maur, near Nantes, which was of precisely the same dimensions.[595] And we have seen that the 'andecena,' or measure of the day's work of ploughing for the coloni and servi of the Church, was described by the Bavarian laws in the seventh century as of precisely the same form as the English acre, forty rods in length and four rods in width, only that the rods were Roman rods of 10 feet.

We have to go, therefore, to Bavaria in the seventh century for the earliest instance of the form of the English acre. And in this earliest instance it had a distinctly _servile_ connexion, as it had also in the French cases quoted. In all it fixed the day's task-work of semi-servile tenants.

Further, the Bavarian 'andecena,' if the spelling of the word may be trusted, may have another curious and interesting connexion with the Saxon acre, to which attention must be once more turned.

«The form in which the 'agrarium' or tithe-rent was taken.»

We have seen that the tithes were to be paid in Saxon times in the produce of 'every tenth acre as it [p386] is traversed by the plough.' The Roman land-tribute in Rhætia and the 'Agri Decumates' also consisted of tithes. If these latter tithes were paid as the Saxon ecclesiastical tithes were, by every tenth strip being set aside for them in the ploughing, the words of the Bavarian law have an important significance. The _judex_ or _villicus_ is required by the laws to see that the _colonus_ or _servus_ shall render by way of _agrarium_ or land tribute according to what he has, from every thirty modii three modii (_i.e._ the tenth)--'lawful _andecenæ_ (_andecenas legitimas_), that is (the rod having ten feet) four rods in width and forty in length, to plough, to sow, to hedge, to gather, to lead, and to store.'[596]

Now why is the peculiar phraseology used 'from 30 modii 3 modii'? Surely either because three modii, according to the 'Agrimensores,' went to the juger, or because the actual acre of the locality was sown with three modii of seed,[597] so that in either case it was a way of saying 'from every ten acres one acre.' Further, the form and measure of the acre is described, and it is called the '_lawful andecena_.' The word itself in its peculiar etymology possibly contains a reference to the _one strip set apart in ten for the tithe_. Be this as it may, here again, in another point connected with the 'acre,' we find the nearest and earliest analogies in South Germany within the old Roman province. [p387]

Lastly, we have still to explain the reason of the difference between the form of the Roman 'actus' and 'jugerum' and that of the early Bavarian and English acre.

The Egyptian arura was 100 cubits square.[598]

The Greek πλέθρον was 10 rods or 100 feet square.[599]

The Roman actus was 12 rods or 120 feet square.

The Roman 'jugerum' was made up of two 'actus' placed side by side, and was the area to be ploughed in a day.

«Form of the acre or day's-work connected with the number of oxen in the team.»

In all these cases the yoke of two oxen is assumed, and the length of the acre, or 'day-work,' is the length of the furrow which _two_ oxen could properly plough at a stretch.[600]

The reason of the increased length of the Bavarian and the English acre was, no doubt, connected with the fact of the larger team.[601]

If the Bavarian team was of eight oxen, like that of the English and Welsh and Scotch common plough, it would seem perfectly natural that with four times the strength of team the furrow might also be assumed to be four times the usual length. In this way the Greek and Roman furrow of 10 or 12 rods may naturally have been extended north of the Alps into the 'furlong' of forty rods. [p388] . Now, there is a remarkable proof that long furrows, and therefore probably large teams, were used in Bavaria, then within the Roman province of Rhætia, as early as the second century. The remains of the Bavarian 'Hochäcker' are described as running uninterruptedly for sometimes a kilomètre and more, _i.e._ five times the length of the English furlong. And a Roman road with milestones, dating as early as A.D. 201, in one place runs across these long furrows in a way which seems to prove that they were older than the road.[602]

«The Bavarian 'Hochäcker' and their long furrows.»

Professor Meitzen argues from this fact that these 'Hochäcker' with long furrows are pre-German in these districts, and in the absence of evidence of their Celtic origin he inclines to attribute them to the husbandry of officials or contractors on the imperial waste lands, who had at their command hundreds of slaves and heavy plough teams.

This may be the solution of the puzzling question of the origin of the Bavarian 'Hochäcker,' but the presence of the team of eight oxen in Wales and Scotland as well as in England, and the mention of teams of six and eight oxen in the Vedas[603] as used by Aryan husbandmen in the East, centuries earlier, makes it possible, if not probable, that the Romans, in this instance as in so many others, adopted and adapted to their purpose a practice which they found already at work, connected perhaps with a heavier soil and a clumsier plough than they were used to south of the Alps.[604] [p389]

V. THE HOLDINGS--THE YARD-LAND OR HUB.

We now pass from the strips to the holdings.

The typical English holding of a serf in the open fields was the yard-land of normally thirty acres (ten [p390] scattered acres in each of the three fields), to which an outfit of two oxen was assigned as '_setene_' or '_stuht_,' and which descended from one generation to another as a complete indivisible whole.

«The hub or yard-land.»

The German word for the yard-land is _hof_ or _hub_; in its oldest form _huoba, huba, hova_.[605] And Aventinus, writing early in the sixteenth century of the holdings in Bavaria in the thirteenth century, distinguishes the _hof_ as the holding belonging to a _quadriga_, or yoke of four oxen, taxed at sixty 'asses,' from the _hub_ or holding of the _biga_ or yoke of two oxen, and taxed [p391] at thirty 'asses.'[606] If the tax in this case were one '_as_' per acre, then the _hof_ contained sixty acres, and the _hub_ thirty acres. So that, as in the yard-land, ten acres in each field would go under the three-field system to the pair of oxen.

«Wide prevalence of the hub of thirty morgen in Middle and South Germany.»

The _hub_ of thirty _morgen_ seems to have been the typical holding of the serf over a very wide area, according to the earliest records. Whilst as a rule absent from North Germany, Dr. Landau traces it in Lower Saxony, in Engern, in Thuringia, in Grapfeld, in Hesse, on the Middle Rhine and the Moselle, in the old Niederlahngau, Rheingau, Wormsgau, Lobdengau and Spiergau, in Elsass, in Swabia, and in Bavaria.[607]

The double _huf_ of sixty _morgen_ also occurs on the Weser and the Rhine in Lower Saxony and in Bavaria.[608] The word 'huf' first occurs in a document of A.D. 474.[609]

The passage in the Bavarian laws of the seventh century, already referred to, declaring the tithe to be 'three modii from every thirty' modii--or one 'lawful andecena' from each ten that, in the typical case taken, 'a man has'--would seem to suggest that ten _andecenæ_ or acre strips in each field (or thirty in all) was a typical holding, whilst the use of the Roman rod of ten feet points to a Roman influence.

«The double 'hub' of sixty morgen. The outfit of oxen.»

Further, the fact of the prevalence of the double and single _huf_ or _hub_ of sixty and thirty acres over so large an area once Roman province, irresistibly suggests a connexion with the double and single yoke [p392] of oxen given as outfit to the Roman veteran, with such an allowance of seed as to make it probable, as we have seen, that the double yoke received normally fifty or sixty jugera, and the single yoke twenty-five or thirty jugera.

It is worth remembering, further, that in the Bavarian law before quoted, limiting the week-work of the _servi_ on the ecclesiastical estates to three days a week, an exception is made allowing unlimited week-work to be demanded from _servi_ who had been supplied with their outfit of oxen _de novo_ by their lord. So that there is a chain of evidence as to the system of supplying the holders of 'yard-lands,' 'huben,' and 'yokes,' with an outfit of oxen, of which the Kelso '_stuht_,' the Saxon '_setene_,' the outfit of the _servus_ under this Bavarian law, and that of the Roman veteran, are links.[610]

It is hardly needful to repeat that it does not follow from this that the system of allotting about thirty acres (varying in size with the locality) to the pair of oxen was a Roman invention. The clear fact is that it was a system followed in Roman provinces under the later empire, as well as in Germany and England afterwards; and, as the holding of thirty acres was found to be the allotment to each 'tate' or household under the Irish tribal system, it may possibly have had an earlier origin and a wider prevalence than the period or extent of Roman rule.

«Scattering of the strips composing them.»

The scattering of the strips composing a _yard-land_ or _hub_, over the open fields should also be once more mentioned in comparing the two. It was not [p393] confined to the 'yard-land' or 'hub.' It arose, as we have seen, in Wales, from the practice of joint ploughing, and was the result of the method of dividing the joint produce, probably elsewhere also, under the tribal system. It is the method of securing a fair division of common land in Scotland and Ireland and Palestine to this day, no less than under the English and German three-field system. And the remarkable passage from Siculus Flaccus has been quoted, which so clearly describes a similar scattered ownership, resulting probably from joint agriculture carried on by '_vicini_,' as often to be met with in his time on Roman ground. This passage proves that the Roman holding (like the Saxon _yard-land_ and the German _hub_) might be composed of a bundle of scattered pieces; but this scattering was too widely spread from India to Ireland for it to be, in any sense, distinctively Roman. It perhaps resulted, as we have seen, from the heaviness of the soil or the clumsiness of the plough, and the necessity of co-operation between free or semi-servile tenants, in order to produce a plough team of the requisite strength according to the custom of the country; and this necessity probably arose most often in the provinces north of the Alps.

«The single succession to the 'hub' and 'yard-land.'»

Another point distinctive of the 'yard-land' and the 'hub' was the absence of division among heirs, the single succession, the indivisibility of the bundle of scattered strips in the holding. And this finds its nearest likeness perhaps, as we have seen, in the probably single succession of the semi-servile holder, or mere 'usufructuarius' under Roman law, and especially under the semi-military rule of the border provinces. [p394]

«The Saxon 'Gebur' and the High German 'Gipur.'»

Lastly, before leaving the comparison between the _yard-land_ and _hub_ it may be asked why the serf who held it in England was called a _Gebur_.

The word _villanus_ of the Domesday Survey is associated with other words, such as _villicus_, _villata_, _villenage_, all connected with serfdom, and all traceable through Romance dialects to the Roman '_villa_.'

But the Anglo-Saxon word was '_Gebur_.' It was the _Geburs_ who were holders of yard-lands.

We trace this word _Gebur_ in High German dialects. We find it in use in the High German translation of the laws of the Alamanni, called the '_Speculi Suevici_,' where free men are divided into three classes:--

(1) The '_semperfrien_' = lords with vassals under them.

(2) The '_mittlerfrien_' = the men or vassals of the lords.

(3) The '_geburen_' = _liberi incolæ_, or 'fri-lant-sæzzen' [_i.e._ not slaves].[611]

The word 'gebur' or 'gipur' occurs also in the High German of Otfried's 'Paraphrase of the Gospels,'[612] of the ninth century, and in the Alamannic dialect of Notger's Psalms for _vicinus_.[613]

Here, again, the South German connexion seems to be the nearest to the Anglo-Saxon. [p395]

VI. THE HIDE, THE HOF, AND THE CENTURIA.

«The 'hide,' 'familla,' 'casatum,' and 'hiwisc.'»

From the yard-land, or _hub_, the holding of a serf, we may pass to the typical holding of the full free landholder, connected in England with the full team of eight oxen.

The Saxon _hide_, or the _familia_ of Bede, was Latinised in Saxon charters into '_casatum_.' We have found in the St. Gall charters the word '_casa_' used for the homestead. The present Romanish word for house is '_casa_,' and for the verb 'to dwell,' '_casar_.' And there is the Italian word '_casata_,' still meaning a family. Thus the connexion between the '_familia_' of Bede and the '_casatum_' of the charters is natural. Bede wrote more classical Latin than the ecclesiastical scribes in the charters. The hide was the holding of a family.[614] Hence it was sometimes, like the yard-land or holding of a servile family, called a '_hiwisc_,' which was Anglo-Saxon, and also High German for family.[615] But the Saxon hide, also, was translated into _ploughland_ or _carucate_, corresponding with the full team of eight oxen.

«The 'carucate,' 'sulung,' or plough-land.»

Generally in Kent, and sometimes in Sussex, Berks, and Essex, we found in addition to or instead of the hide or carucate, or 'terra unius aratri,' _solins_, _sullungs_, or _swullungs_--the land pertaining to a '_suhl_,' the Anglo-Saxon word for plough. This word is [p396] surely of Roman rather than of German origin. The Piedmontese '_sloira_,' and the Lombardic '_sciloira_,' and the Old French '_silleoire_,' are surely allied to the Romanish '_suilg_,' and the Latin '_sulcus_.'

«The 'gioc,' or 'jugum.'»

Again, in Kent the quarter of a 'sulung' (answering to the yard-land or virgate of other parts) is called in the early charters a 'gioc,' 'ioclet,' or 'iochlet,'[616] _i.e._ a yoke or small-yoke of land. We have seen in the St. Gall charters, also, mention of 'juchs' or 'jochs,' which, however, were apparently jugera. This word _gioc_ is surely allied to the Italian '_giogo_,' and the Latin _jugum_.

«The 'hide' and 'centuria' the typical free holding.»

Here, then, we have the _hide_ the typical holding of a _free_ family, as the _centuria_ was under Roman law. A free Saxon thane might hold many hides, and so might and did the lord of a Roman villa hold more than one 'centuria' within its bounds. Still Columella took as his type of a Roman farm the 'centuria' of 200 acres,[617] and calculated how much seed, how many oxen, how many _opera_, or day-works of slaves, or 'coloni' were required to till it. The hide, double or single, was also a land measure, and contained eight or four yard-lands, and so also was the 'centuria' a land measure divisible into eight normal holdings allotted with single yokes. Both also became, as we have seen, units of assessment. But in England the hide was the unit. Under the Roman system of taxation the _jugum_ was the unit. [p397]

This variation, however, confirms the connexion. The Roman _jugum_, or yoke of two oxen, made a complete plough. Nothing less than the hide was the complete holding in England, because a team of eight oxen was required for English ploughing. The yard-land was only a fractional holding, incomplete for purposes of ploughing without co-operation. Hence it would seem that the complete _plough_ was really the unit in both cases.

«The Saxon 'hidation' and the Roman 'jugatio.'»

How closely the English hidation followed the lines of the Roman '_jugatio_' has already been seen. When to the many resemblances of the hide to the 'centuria,' and of the 'jugum' to the virgate, regarded as units of assessment, are now added the other connecting links found in this chapter, in things, in figures, and in words, between the Saxon open-field system, and that of the districts of Upper Germany, so long under Roman rule, the English hidation may well be suspected to go back to Roman times, and to be possibly a survival of the Roman _jugation_. When Henry of Huntingdon, in describing the Domesday Survey, instead of saying that inquiry was made how many hides and how many virgates there were, uses the words 'quot _jugata_ et quot virgata terræ,'[618] he at any rate used the exact words which describe what in the Codex Theodosianus is spoken of as taxation 'per _jugationem_.'[619]

Not, as already said, that the Romans introduced into Britain the division of land according to plough teams, and the number of oxen contributed [p398] to the plough team. It would grow, as we have seen, naturally out of tribal arrangements whenever the tribes settled and became agricultural, instead of wandering about with their herds of cattle. It was found in Wales and Ireland and Scotland, in Bohemia, apparently in Slavonic districts also and further east.[620] It is much more likely that the Romans, according to their usual custom, adopted a barbarian usage and seized upon an existing and obvious unit as the basis of provincial taxation.

«Roman _tributum_ in Frisia paid in hides.»

The Frisian tribute of hides was perhaps an example of this. The Frisians were a pastoral people, and a hide for every so many oxen was as ready a mode of assessing the tribute as counting the plough teams would be in an agricultural district. The word 'hide,' which still baffles all attempts to explain its origin, may possibly have had reference to a similar tribute. Even in England it does not follow that it was in its origin connected with the plough team. Its real equivalent was the _familia_, or _casatum_--the land of a family--and in pastoral districts of England and Wales the Roman tribute may possibly have been, if not a hide from each plough team, a hide from every family holding cattle; just as in A.D. 1175 Henry II. bound his Irish vassal, Roderic O'Connor, to pay annually '_de singulis animalibus decimum corium placabile mercatoribus_'--perhaps a tenth of the hides he himself received as tribute from his own tribesmen.[621] The supposition of such an origin of the connexion of the word 'hide' with the 'land of a family' [p399] or of a plough team is mere conjecture; but the _fact_ of the connexion is clear. All these three things, the _hide_, the _hiwisce_, and the _sullung_, and their subdivision the _yard-land_, were the units of British 'hidation,' just as the _centuria_ and the _jugum_ were the units of the Roman 'jugatio.'

VII. THE GAFOL AND GAFOL-YRTH.

Passing now to the serfdom and the services under which the 'yard-lands' and the 'huben' were held, it may at least be said that their practical identity suggests a common origin.

We learned from the _Rectitudines_ and from the _Laws of Ine_, to make a distinction between the two component parts of the obligations of the 'gebur' in respect of his yard-land.

There was (1) the _gafol_, and (2) the _week-work_.

The _gafol_ was found to be a semi-servile incident to the yard-land. The week-work was the most servile one.

A man otherwise free and possessing a homestead already, could, under the laws of Ine, hire a yard-land of demesne land and pay _gafol_ for it, without incurring liability to _week-work_. But if the lord found for him both the yard-land and the homestead, then he was a complete 'gebur' or 'villanus,' and must do _week-work_ also.

«The Saxon 'gafol' and 'gafol-yrth.'»

Taking the _gafol_ first, and descending to details, it was found to be complex--_i.e._ it included _gafol_ and _gafol-yrth_. [p400]

The _gafol_ of the 'gebur,' as stated in the _Rectitudines_, was this:--

For _gafol proper_:--

10d. at Michaelmas.

23 sesters of beer, and 2 fowls, at Martinmas.

1 lamb at Easter, or 2d.

For _gafolyrth_:--the ploughing of 3 acres, and sowing of it from the 'gebur's' own barn.

Comparing the _gafol_ proper with the _census_ of the St. Gall charters, and the _tribute_ of the 'servi' of the Church under the Alamannic laws of A.D. 622, the resemblance was found to be remarkably close.

The tribute of the 'servi' of the Church was thus stated in the latter:--

15 siclæ of beer. A sound spring pig. 2 modia of bread. 5 fowls. 20 eggs.

As regards this tribute _in kind_ the likeness is obvious, and it further so closely resembles the food-rent of the Welsh free tribesmen as to suggest that it may have been a survival of ancient tribal dues--a suggestion which the word 'gafol' itself confirms. It seems to be connected with the _Abgabe_, or food gifts of the German tribesmen.[622]

«Possible connexion with Roman _tributum_.»

We saw that the word _gafol_ was the equivalent of _tributum_ in the Saxon translation of the Gospels. 'Does your master pay tribute?' '_Gylt he gafol?_'

Further, the French evidence seems to show [p401] that the later manorial payments in kind and services upon Frankish manors were, to some extent, a survival of the old Roman exactions in Gaul.[623] And the tribute of the Alamannic and Bavarian laws, and of the St. Gall and other charters, was found to be equally clearly a survival of the Roman tributum in the German province of Rhætia and the 'Agri Decumates.'

«The Saxon 'gafol-yrth' and the Roman 'agrarium' or tithe-rent.»

But in addition to the 'gafol' in kind, there was the _gafol-yrth_; and of this also we found in the St. Gall charters numerous examples. In the many cases where the owner of homesteads and land surrendered them to the Abbey, and henceforth paid tribute to the Abbey, there was not only the tribute in kind, but also the _ploughing of so many acres_, sometimes of one, sometimes of two, and sometimes of one in each _zelga_ or field--to be ploughed, and reaped, and carried by the tenant. The combination of the dues in _kind_ and in _ploughing_, with sometimes other services, made up the _tributum in servitium_--_i.e._ the gafol of the _tributarius_, or '_gafol-gelder_,' which he paid under the Alamannic laws to his lord, the latter thenceforth paying the public tributum for the land to the State.

Perhaps we may go one step further.

«Not always a tenth.»

From the remarkable resemblance of the English _gafol-yrth_ and its South German equivalent the inference was drawn that this peculiar _rent taken in the form of the ploughing of a definite number of acres_, was probably a survival of the Roman tenths, [p402] or other proportion of produce claimed as rent from settlers on the _ager publicus_ of the 'Agri Decumates,' and of Rhætia. Indications were found that the _agrarium_, or tenth of the arable produce, may have been taken _in actual acres_ like the Saxon tithes--_i.e._ in the produce of so many '_andecenæ_,' the ploughing, sowing, reaping, and garnering of which were done by the tenant.

But under Roman usage the proportion taken was not always a _tenth_. The State rent was nominally a tithe. But it was in fact so extortionately gathered as sometimes in Sicily to _treble_ the tithe.[624] Hyginus also says that the 'vectigal,' or tax, was taken in some provinces in a certain part of the crop, in some a fifth, in others a seventh.[625] In Italy the dues from the _Agri Medietates_ perhaps surviving in the later _métayer_ system, amounted sometimes to _one-half_. At any rate, the proportion varied.

Now the Saxon 'gafol-yrth' of the yard-land of thirty acres seems, according to the 'Rectitudines,' as we have seen, to have been the produce of three acres in the wheat-field, ploughed by the 'gebur' and sown with seed from his own barn. For it will be remembered that the first season after the yard-land was given there was to be no gafol, and in the gebur's outfit only seven out of the ten acres in the wheat-field [p403] were to be handed over to him already sown, leaving three unsown, _i.e._ probably _the three_ which otherwise he must have sown for the _gafol-yrth_ due to his lord. As ten acres of the yard-land were probably always in fallow, three acres of wheat was a heavier _gafol-yrth_ than a fairly gathered tithe would have been.

It would therefore seem probable that as the 'gafol' in kind may be traced back to the Roman _tributum_, itself perhaps a survival of the tribal food-rents of the conquered provinces, so the 'gafol-yrth' may be traced back to the Roman _decumæ_, or other proportion of the crop due by way of land-tax or rent to the State. And this survival of the complex tribute or gafol, made up of its two separate elements, from Roman to Saxon times, becomes all the more striking when it is considered also that it was due from a normal holding with an outfit of a pair of oxen, both in the case of the Saxon _yard-land_ and of the Roman veteran's allotment.

VIII. THE BOON-WORK AND WEEK-WORK OF THE SERF.

«The Saxon 'boon-work' and the Roman 'sordida munera.'»

Proceeding still further, besides the _gafol_ and _gafol-yrth_, and yet distinct from the _week-work_, was the liability of the serfs on the Saxon manor to certain _boon-work_ or services _ad preces_; sometimes in ploughing or reaping a certain number of acres of the lord's demesne land in return for grass land or other advantages, or without any special equivalent; sometimes in going errands or carrying goods to market or otherwise, generally known as _averagium_. 'He shall land-gafol pay, and shall _ridan_ and _averian_ [p404] and _lade lædan_' for his lord. So this boon-work in addition to 'gafol' is described in the 'Rectitudines.'

The various kinds of manorial 'averagium' were, as we have seen, often called in mediæval Latin _angariæ_, a going on errands or postal service; _paraveredi_, or packhorse services; and _carroperæ_, or waggon services.

We have seen how these services resembled the _angariæ_ and the _parangariæ_ and _paraveredi_, which were included among the '_sordida munera_' or '_obsequiæ_' of the Theodosian Code in force in Rhætia in the fourth century, found still surviving, though transformed into manorial services, in the same districts in the seventh century and afterwards, under the Bavarian laws and in the monastic charters. The carrying services and other boon-work on Saxon manors closely resembled those of the Frankish charters and the Bavarian laws, and probably therefore shared their Roman origin.

«The week-work of the serf.»

There remains to complete the serfdom its most servile incident, the _week-work_--that survival of the originally unrestricted claim of the lord of the Roman villa to his slave's labour which, limited, as we have seen, according to the evidence of the Alamannic laws, under the influence of Christian humanity by the monks or clergy, in respect of the servi on their estates, to three days a week, became the mediæval _triduanum servitium_. The words of the Alamannic law are worth re-quoting.

'_Servi dimidiam partem sibi et dimidiam in dominico arativum reddant. Et si super hæc est_, SICUT SERVI ECCLESIASTICI _ita faciunt, tres dies sibi et tres in dominico._'

Let _servi_ do plough service, half for themselves and half in demesne. And if there be any further [service] let them work _as the servi of the Church_, three days for themselves, and three in demesne. [p405]

This remarkable passage in the Alamannic code of A.D. 622 seems to be the earliest version extant of the Magna Charta of the agricultural servus, who thus early upon ecclesiastical estates was transformed from a slave into a serf.

IX. THE CREATION OF SERFS AND THE GROWTH OF SERFDOM.

«Serfdom recruited from above and from below.»

There is yet another point in which the correspondence between British and Continental usages is worth remarking.

The community in serfdom on a lord's estate was both by Saxon and Continental usage recruited from above and from below.

«Free-men become serfs.»

Free men from above, by voluntary arrangement with a lord, could and did descend into serfdom. The Saxon free tenant could, by free contract, arrange to take a yard-land, and if he were already provided with a homestead and oxen, he became a 'gafol-gelder,' or _tributarius_ of his lord, without incurring the liability to the more servile 'week-work,' just as was the case when, under the Alamannic laws, free men made surrender of their holdings to the Abbey of St. Gall. In both cases, as we saw, week-work was added if the lord found the homestead and the outfit.

«Slaves become serfs.»

On the other hand, whenever a lord provided his slave with an outfit of oxen, and gave him a part in the ploughing, he rose out of slavery into serfdom. To speak more correctly, he rose into that middle class of tenants who, by whatever name they were [p406] known at first, afterwards became confounded together in the ranks of mediæval serfdom.

«Grades in serfdom during the period of transition.»

«'Tributarii,' 'coloni,' and 'liti.'»

There were, in fact, grades in the community in serfdom not only like those of the Saxon geburs and cottiers, but also corresponding to the historical origin of the serfs. Thus, as we have seen in the 'Polyptique d'Irminon' and in many other cartularies and surveys of monastic estates, there are _coloni_ and _liti_ among the serfs, names bearing witness to the historical origin of the serfs, though the difference between them had all but vanished.

«Slaves made into these.»

«The læts of the laws of Ethelbert.»

There is a passage in the Ripuarian laws, 'If any one shall make his slave into a "tributarius," or a "litus," &c.'[626] The 'lidus' of the 'Lex Salica' was under a lordship, and classed with 'servi,' and by a legal process he could be set free.[627] We have noticed the passage in the Theodosian Code which speaks of 'coloni' and 'tributarii' on British estates, and also the mention by Ammianus Marcellinus of 'tributarii' in Britain. We have noticed also the three grades of 'læts,' the only class of tenants mentioned in the laws of Ethelbert.

«Survivals of the period of transition in Britain.»

Now, whatever doubt there might be as to what were the 'læts' on Kentish 'hams' and 'tuns' in the sixth century, if they stood alone as isolated phenomena; taken together with the 'tributarii' and 'coloni' and 'liti' on Continental manors, there can be hardly any doubt that they belonged to the same middle [p407] class of semi-servile tenants to which allusion has been made. Their presence on the manorial 'hams' and 'tuns' of England revealed in the earliest historical record after the Saxon Conquest, taken in connexion with the many other points brought together in this chapter, makes the inference very strong indeed that they, like the 'coloni,' 'tributarii,' and 'liti' on Continental manors, were a survival from that period of transition from Roman to German rule, during which the names of the various classes of semi-servile tenants, afterwards merged in the common status of mediæval serfdom, still preserved traces of their origin.

X. THE CONFUSION IN THE STATUS OF THE TENANTS ON ENGLISH AND GERMAN MANORS.

«Serfs free in status unfree in tenure.»

In one sense both in England and Germany the holders of the 'yard-lands' and 'huben,' though serfs, were _free_. As regards their lords they were serfs. As regards the slaves they were free. In this respect they resembled very closely the Roman 'coloni' on a private villa.

«Grades of manorial tenants.»

On the Frankish manors there were two classes of these semi-servile tenants--'mansi ingenuiles,' who were free from the 'week-work;' and 'mansi serviles,' from whom 'week-work' was due. Probably owing to the nature of the Saxon conquest the first of these classes seems to have practically become absorbed in the other. The laws of Ine, indeed, mention the gafol-gelder who, providing his own homestead, did not become liable to 'week-work' like the 'gebur.' But [p408] in the statements of the services on the manors of Hisseburne and Tidenham no such class appears. In the 'Rectitudines' there is no class mentioned between the _thane_, who is lord of the manor, and the 'geneats'--_i.e._ the 'gebur' and the 'cotsetl.' In the Domesday Survey there are no tenants above the villani, as a general rule, except in the Danish districts, where the 'Sochmanni' and the 'liberi homines' appear.

Comparing the status of English and German holders of 'yard-lands' and 'huben,' the resemblances are remarkable, and they confirm the suggestion of a common origin. Both are 'adscripti glebæ.' In both cases there is the absence of division among heirs. In both the succession is single, and in theory at the will of the lord. In both there are the gafol and customary services.

In both cases there is the distinction in grade of serfdom between the man who freely becomes the holder of a yard-land or hub by his own surrender, or by voluntary submission to the semi-servile tenure, and the man who is a _nativus_ or born serf.

In both cases there is a regular contribution towards military service or the equipment of a soldier, and apparently no bar in status from actual service, though doubtless in a semi-menial position.

«The confusion perhaps partly a survival from Roman provincial conditions.»

In all these points we have noticed strong analogies between the semi-free and semi-servile conditions of the various classes of tenants on Roman villas, and on the Roman public lands, which we have spoken of as the great provincial manor of the Roman Empire. And the natural inference seems to be, that even the curious confusion of the free and servile status may [p409] be, in part, a survival of the like confusion in the Roman provinces. It naturally grew up under the semi-military rule of the German provinces, and possibly in Britain also; whilst the Saxon conquest of the latter, no doubt, as we have said, tended to reduce the confusion into something like simplicity by fusing together classes of semi-servile tenants of various historical origins, in the one common class of the later 'geneats' or 'villani,' in whose status the old confusion, however, survived.

XI. RESULT OF THE COMPARISON.

«Strong evidence of connexion between Britain and the South German provinces during Roman rule, in the serfdom and in the open-field system which was its shell.»

To sum up the result of the comparison made in this chapter between the English and the Continental open-field system and serfdom. The English and South-German systems at the time of the earliest records in the seventh century were to all intents and purposes apparently identical.

The mediæval serf, judging from the evidence of his gafol and services, seems to have been the compound product of survivals from three separate ancient conditions, gradually, during Roman provincial rule and under the influence of barbarian conquest, confused and blended into one, viz. those of the _slave_ on the Roman villa, of the _colonus_ or other semi-servile and mostly barbarian tenants on the Roman villa or public lands, and of the _slave_ of the German tribesman, who to the eyes of Tacitus was so very much like a Roman _colonus_.

That peculiar form of the open-field system, which was the shell of serfdom both in England and on the Continent, also connects itself in Germany [p410] distinctly with the Romano-German provinces, whilst at the same time conspicuously absent from the less Romanised districts of Northern Germany.

It seems therefore inconceivable that the three-field system and the serfdom of early Anglo-Saxon records can have been an altogether new importation from North Germany, where it did not exist, into Britain, where it probably had long existed under Roman rule.

«The Saxon invaders from North Germany hardly brought the three-field system into England.»

We have already quoted the strong conclusion of Hanssen that the Anglo-Saxon invaders and their Frisian Low-German and Jutish companions could not introduce into England a system to which they were not accustomed at home. It must be admitted that the conspicuous absence of the three-field system from the North of Germany does not, however, absolutely dispose of the possibility that the system was imported into England from those districts of Middle Germany reaching from Westphalia to Thuringia, where the system undoubtedly existed. It is at least possible that the invaders of England may have proceeded from thence rather than as commonly supposed, from the regions on the northern coast. But if it be possible that a system of agriculture implying long-continued settlement, and containing within it numerous survivals of Roman elements, could be imported by pirates and the emigrants following in their wake, the possibility itself implies that the immigrants had themselves previously submitted to long-continued Roman influences.

On the whole we may adopt as a more likely theory the further suggestion of Hanssen, that if the three-field system was imported at all into England, [p411] the most likely time for its importation was that same period of Roman occupation during which he considers that it came into use in the Roman provinces of Germany.[628]

«The Romans probably introduced the three-course rotation of crops.»

Nor is there anything inconsistent with this suggestion in the irregular lines of the English open fields and their divisions, so different from those produced by the rectangular centuriation of Roman 'Agrimensores.' We must not forget that the open field system in its simpler forms was almost certainly pre-Roman in Britain as elsewhere; so that what the Romans added to transform it into the manorial three-field system probably was rather the three-course rotation of crops, the strengthening of the manorial element on British estates, and the methods of taxation by 'jugation,' than any radical alteration in the land-divisions or in the system of co-operative ploughing.[629]

FOOTNOTES:

[554] '_Die Territorien in Bezug auf ihre Bildung und ihre Entwicklung_,' Hamburg and Gotha, 1854.

[555] Dr. Hanssen's various papers on the subject are collected in his _Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen_, Leipzig, 1880.

[556] Jena, 1879.

[557] '_Georg Hanssen_, als _Agrar-Historiker_.' Von August Meitzen, 1881. Tübingen.

[558] See Hanssen's chapter, '_Die Feldgraswirthschaft deutscher Gebirgsgegenden_,' in his _Agrarhist. Abhandl._, pp. 132 _et seq._

[559] Landau, pp. 16–20.

[560] See the interesting examples given in Meitzen's _Ausbreitung_, with maps.

[561] See Hanssen's chapter on the '_Einfeldwirthschaft_,' _Agrarhist. Abhandl._ pp. 190 _et seq._

[562] Hanssen, p. 496.

[563] As to this part of the question, see especially Meitzen's _Ausbreitung_.

[564] Landau, '_Die Territorien_,' pp. 32 _et seq._

[565] Sometimes in Germany, as in England, there were _two_ or more. See Hanssen's chapters on the '_Zwei-, Vier-und Fünffelderwirthschaft_.'

[566] Tusser, 'February Abstract.'

[567] _Id._ 'February Husbandry.'

[568] _Id._ 'October Abstract.'

[569] _Id._ 'October Husbandry.'

[570] Halliwell, _sub voce_.

[571] '_Campis Sationalibus_' Charter, A.D. 704. B. M. Ancient Charter, Cotton MS. Augustus, ii. 82. '_Tuican hom_' (Twickenham, in Middlesex).

[572] Landau, 53.

[573] Guerard's _Polyp. d'Irminon_. '_Arat inter tres sationes perticatres_,' pp. 134, &c.; and see Glossary, p. 456.

[574] Landau, p. 54.

[575] Landau, p. 54. 'Die alte Form dieses Wortes ist _ezzisc_, _ezzisca_, _ezzisch_ (gothisch _atisk_), und wird in den Glossen durch _segetes_ erklärt.'

[576] Hanssen's chapter, _'Zur Geschichte der Feldsysteme in Deutschland_,' in his _Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen_, p. 194.

[577] 'Si illum sepem eruperit vel dissipaverit quem _Ezzisczun_ vocant,' &c. _Textus Legis Primus_, x. 16. Pertz, p. 309. In _id._ x. 21 the words '_Semitæ convicinales_' are used of open fields. In the _Burgundian Laws_ 'Additamentum Primum,' tit. 1, 'Agri communes.'

[578] Landau, pp. 54–5.

[579] _Passau_ received its name from a Roman legion of _Batavi_ having been stationed there.--_Mon. Boica_, xxx. p. 83. Landau, p. 49.

[580] In East Friesland, under the one-field system, the word '_flaggen_' is used for 'furlongs.' Hanssen, p. 198.

[581] Landau, p. 32.

[582] There are great numbers to be seen from the railway from Ems as far as Nordhausen on the route to Berlin.

[583] Thus _Rainbalken_ is the turf balk left unploughed as a boundary.

[584] Halliwell. '_Räin_,' a ridge (north). See also _Studies_, by Joseph Lucas, F.G.S., c. viii., where there is an interesting description of the 'Reins' in Nidderdale. These terraces occur in the neighbouring dales of Billsdale, Bransdale, and Furndale; and also in Wharfdale and the valley of the Ribble, &c.

[585] Pennant's _Tour in Scotland_, p. 281. 'Observed on the right several very regular terraces cut on the face of a hill. They are most exactly formed, a little raised in the middle like a firm walk, and about 20 feet broad, and of very considerable length. In some places were three, in others five flights, placed one above the other, terminating exactly in a line at each end, and most precisely finished. I am told that such tiers of terraces are not uncommon in these parts, where they are called baulks.'

[586] See Pugh's _Welsh Dictionary_:

_Balc_, a break in furrow land. _Balcia_, a breaking of furrows. _Balcio_, to break furrows. _Balciog_, having irregular furrows. _Balciwr_, a breaker of furrows. And see _supra_, p. 4.

[587] So in the St. Gall charters, quoted above. Thus also Dronke, _Traditiones et Antiq. Fuldenses_, p. 107, 'xx. diurnales hoc est quod tot diebus arari poterit.'--Landau, 45.

[588] Varro, _De Re Rustica_, i. 10; and see _Plin. Hist. Nat._ 18. 3. 15.

[589] See _supra_, chapter viii.

[590] I have found it in use on the coast opposite the Isle of Skye. Several crofters will take a tract of land, divide it first into larger divisions, or 'parks,' and then divide the parks into lots, of which each takes one.

[591] I am indebted for this information to Professor Meitzen, who informs me that he doubts whether it was a feature of the old purely German open fields. In undisturbed old German districts the 'Gewanne' and strips are of irregular and arbitrary size, and are not separated by permanent turf 'raine' or balks.

[592] Hanssen, p. 198.

[593] In the Engadine, in reply to the question what the flat strips between the linches were called, the driver answered, '_acker_.' When it was pointed out that they were _grass_, the reply was, 'Ah! but a hundred years ago they were ploughed.'

[594] M. Guérard's Introduction to the _Polyptique d'Irminon_, p. 641.

[595] _Id._ p. 641; and Appendix, i. p. 285. The Irish acre is of the same form as the English--4 rods by 40--but the rod is 21 feet. See the _Cartulaire de Redon_ in Brittany, No. cccxxvi. (p. 277), where a church is given to the abbey 'cum sedecim porcionibus terræ quæ lingua eorum "acres" nominantur' (A.D. 1061–1075). In Normandy, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were acres of four roods, 'vergées.' _Id._ p. cccxi. Compare also the form of the Welsh erw.

[596] Pertz, 278. _Lex Baiuwariorum textus legis primus_, 13.

[597] The Agrimensores reckoned 3 modii of land to the jugerum. _Gromatici Veteres_, i. p. 359 (13). In general 5 modii of wheat seed was sown on the jugerum, but the '_lawful andecena_,' being only about three-fifths of a jugerum, would require only 3 modii of wheat seed to sow it.

[598] Herod, ii. 168

[599] According to Suidas it was equal to four ἄρουραι, and Homer mentions τετράγυον as a usual field representing a day's work. (Od. xviii. 374.) Hence τετράγυον = 'as much as a man can plough in a day.'

[600] 'Sulcum autem ducere longiorem quam pedum centumviginti contrarium pecori est.'--Col. ii. 11, 27.

[601] The Rev. W. Denton, in his _Servia and the Servians_, p. 135, mentions Servian ploughs with six, ten, or twelve oxen in the team. See also mention of similar teams of oxen or buffaloes in Turkey--_Reports on Tenures of Land_, 1869–70, p. 306.

[602] '_Der älteste Anbau der Deutschen._' Von A. Meitzen, Jena, 1881.

[603] Zimmer's _Altindisches Leben_, p. 237.

[604] There are two other points which bear upon the Roman connexion with the _acre_.

(1) If the length of the furrow was to be increased, it would be natural to jump from one well-known measure to another. The _stadium_, or length of the foot race, was one-eighth of a mile, and was composed of ten of the Greek ἅμμα. The 'furlong' is also the one-eighth of a mile, and contains ten chains. But the stadium contained 625 Roman feet or 600 Greek feet--about 607 English statute feet. How does this comport with its containing 40 rods? The fact is, the rod varied in different provinces, and the Romans adopted probably the rod of the country in measuring the acre. 'Perticas autem juxta loca vel crassitudinem terrarum, prout provincialibus placuit videmus esse dispositas, quasdam decimpedas, quibusdam duos additos pedes, aliquas vero xv. vel x. et vii. pedum diffinitas.'--_Pauca de Mensuris, Grom. Vet._, Lachmann, &c., p. 371. Forty rods of 10 cubits, or 15 feet each, would equal the 600 feet of the Greek stadium. In fact, the English statute furlong is based upon a rod of 16½ feet. There is also the further fact that the later Agrimensores expressly mention a 'stadialis ager of 625 feet' (Lachmann, Isodorus, p. 368; _De Mensuris excerpta_, p. 372). So that it seems to be clear that the stadium, like the furlong, was used not only in measuring distances, but also in the division of fields.

(2) We have seen that the acre strips in England were often called 'balks,' because of the ridge of unbroken turf by which they were divided the one from the other. We have further seen that the word 'balk' in Welsh and in English was applied to the pieces of turf left unploughed between the furrows by careless ploughing. There is a Vedic word which has the same meaning.

The Latin word 'scamnum' had precisely this meaning, and also it was applied by the Agrimensores to a piece of land broader than its length. The 'scamnum' of the Roman 'castrum' was the strip 600 feet long and 50 to 80 feet broad--nearly the shape of the English and Bavarian 'acre'--set apart for the 'legati' and 'tribunes.' The fields in a conquered district, instead of being allotted in squares by 'centuriation,' were divided into 'scamna' and 'striga;' and the fields thus divided into pieces broader than their length were called 'agri scamnati,' while those divided into pieces longer than their breadth were called 'agri strigati.' Length was throughout reckoned from north to south; breadth from east to west. Frontinus states that the 'arva publica' in the provinces were cultivated 'more antiquo' on this method of the 'ager per strigas et per scamna divisus et assignatus,' whilst the fields of the 'coloniæ' of Roman citizens or soldiers planted in the conquered districts were 'centuriated.' See Frontinus, lib. i. p. 2, and fig. 3 in the plates, and also fig. 199; and see Rudorff's observations, ii. 290–298. The whole matter is, however, very obscure, and it is difficult to identify the 'ager scamnatus' with the Romano-German open fields. Frontinus was probably not specially acquainted with the latter.

[605] The meaning of 'hub' is perhaps simply 'a holding,' from 'haben.'

The term 'yard-land,' or 'gyrd-landes,' seems to be simply the holding measured out by the 'gyrd,' or rod; just as gyrd also means a 'rood.' Compare the 'vergée' of Normandy.

The Roman 'pertica' was the typical rod or pole used by the Agrimensores, and on account of its use in assigning lands to the members of a colony, it is sometimes represented on medals by the side of the augurial plough. By transference, the whole area of land measured out and assigned to a colony was known to the Agrimensores as its 'pertica' (Lachmann, Frontinus, pp. 20 and 26; Hyginus, p. 117; Siculus Flaccus, p. 159; Isodorus, p. 369).

The Latin 'virga,' used in later times instead of '_pertica_' for the measuring rod, followed the same law of transference with still closer likeness to the Saxon 'gyrd.' Both 'virga' and 'gyrd' = a rod and a measure. Both 'virga terræ' and 'gyrd landes' = (1) the rood, and (2) the normal holding--the virgate or yard-land. The word 'virgate,' or 'virgada,' was used in Brittany as well as in England. In the _Cartulaire de Redon_ it is, however, evidently the equivalent of the Welsh 'Randir.' See the twelve references to the word 'virgada' in the index of the _Cartulary_.

[606] Du Cange, under 'Huba.'

[607] Landau, p. 36.

[608] _Id._ 37–8.

[609] In the will of Perpetuus. Meitzen, _Ausbreitung_, &c., p. 14.

[610] The practice was long continued in what was called the 'steel bow tenancy' of later times.

[611] _Juris Prov. Alemann._ c. 2. Schilteri editio.

[612] Otfried, v. 4, 80; ii. 14, 215.

[613] Notger, Psalm xliii. 14; lxxviii. 4; lxix. 7.

[614] Compare _Cod. Theod._ IX. tit. xlii. 7: 'Quot mancipia in prædiis occupatis . . . quot sint _casarii vel coloni_,' &c.

[615] See _Ancient Laws of England_, Thorpe, p. 79, under _wer-gilds_, s. vii., where 'hiwisc' = 'hide.' See also '_hiwiski_,' '_hiwischi_,' for '_familia_,' in '_St. Paules Glossen_,' sixth or seventh century. Braune's _Althochdeutsches Lesebuch_, p. 4.

[616] _B. M. Ancient Charters_, ii. Cotton MS. Aug. ii. 42, A.D. 837. The Welsh _short yoke_ was that of two oxen, _i.e._ a fourth part of the full plough team.

[617] Columella, ii. 12. The calculation in this passage, how many _opera_ or day-works a farm requires shows striking resemblance to the later manorial system.

[618] Du Cange, 'Jugatum.'

[619] See Marquardt, ii. 225 _n._

[620] Meitzen, _Ausbreitung_, pp. 21 and 33.

[621] _Fœd._ vol. i. p. 31. Robertson's _Historical Essays_, p. 133.

[622] Diez, p. 150. '_Gabella_,' Portuguese, Spanish, and Provençal = tax. French _gabelle_ = salt-tax. Italian '_gabellan_,' to tax, from v. b. _gifan_, Goth. _giban_.

[623] See Guérard's _Polyptique d'Irminon_, i. chap. viii. Also Lehuérou's _Institut. Meroving._ liv. ii. c. 1; and M. Vuitry's _Etudes sur le Régime Financier de la France_, Première Etude.

[624] So Cicero asserted against Verres. The seed, he argued, was fairly to be taken at about a _medimnus_ to each jugerum. Eight medimni of corn per acre would be a good crop; ten would be the outside that under all possible favour of the gods the jugerum could yield. Therefore the tithe ought not to exceed at the highest estimate one medimnus per jugerum. But the tax-gather had taken _three_ medimni per jugerum, and so by extortion had _trebled the tithes_.--_In Verrem_, act. ii. lib. iii. c. 47, 48, 49.

[625] _Hygini de Limitibus Constituendis_, p. 204.

[626] Tit. lxii.

[627] _Lex Salica_, tit. xxxviii. 'De homicidiis _servorum_ et ancillarum. v. Si quis homo ingenuus _lidum alienum_ expoliaverit,' &c. See also tit. xvi. See also tit. xxvi. 'De libertis extra consilium Domini sui dimissis' (xxxv. 'De libertis dimissis ingenuis'). 'Si quis _alienum lætum_ ante rege per dinarium _ingenuum demiserit_,' &c.

[628] 'Soll die Dreifelderwirthschaft nach England importirt sein, so bliebe wohl nur übrig an die Periode der römischen Okkupation zu denken, wie ich eine ähnliche Vermuthung, die sich freilich auch nicht weiter begründen lässt, für Deutschland ausgesprochen habe (p. 153). Einfacher ist es den selbstständigen Ursprung der Dreifelderwirthschaft in ganz verschiedenenen Ländern als einen auf einer gewissen wirthschaftlichen Kulturstufe wie von selber eintretenden Fortschritt sich zu denken' (_Agrarhist. Abhand._ p. 497).

[629] Mr. Coote has adduced apparently clear evidence of centuriation in many parts of England; but we have already seen that only the land actually assigned to the soldiers of a _colonia_ was centuriated. There would seem to be no reason to suppose that they disturbed the generally existing open fields still cultivated by the conquered population.

[p412]

## CHAPTER XI.

_RESULT OF THE EVIDENCE._

I. THE METHOD OF THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS.

It may perhaps now be possible to sum up the evidence, without pretending to more certainty in the conclusion than the condition of the question warrants.

«The tribal system in Wales and Germany.»

At the two extreme limits of our subject we have found, on one side, the tribal system of Wales and Ireland, and, on the other side, the German tribal system.

In the earliest stage of these systems they were seemingly alike, both in the nomadic habits of the tribes, and the shifting about of the households in a tribe from one homestead to another. Sir John Davis describes this shifting as going on in Ireland in his day, and Cæsar describes it as going on in Germany 1,700 years earlier.

«Co-aration of the waste on the early open-field system.»

In both cases, such agriculture as was a necessity even to pastoral tribes was carried on under the open-field system in its simplest form--the ploughing up of new ground each season, which then went back into grass. The Welsh triads speak of it as a [p413] _co-aration_ of portions of _the waste_. Tacitus describes it in the words, 'Arva per annos mutant, et superest ager.' In neither case, therefore, is there _the three-field system_, which implies fixed arable fields ploughed again and again in rotation.

«The three-field system implies fixed settlements and rotation of crops, which came probably with Roman rule. The yard-land or hub implies servile tenants.»

The three-field system evidently implies the surrender of the tribal shifting and the submission to fixed settlement. Further, as wherever we can examine the three-field system we find the mass of the holdings to have been fixed bundles, called _yard-lands_ or _huben_--bundles retaining the same contents from generation to generation--it seems to follow either that the tribal division of holdings among heirs, which was the mark of free holdings, had ceased, _or_ that the three-field system was from the first the shell of a community in serfdom.

The geographical distribution of the three-field system--mainly within the old Roman provinces and in the Suevic districts along their borders--makes it almost certain that, in Germany, _Roman rule_ was the influence which enforced the settlement, and introduced, with other improvements in agriculture, such as the vine culture, a fixed rotation of crops.

In Wales the necessity for settlement did _not_ generally produce the three-field system _with holdings in yard-lands_,[630] because, as the Welsh tribesmen, though they may have had household slaves, as a rule held no taeogs or prædial slaves, it produced no serfdom. But under the German tribal system, even in the time of Tacitus, the tribesmen in the [p414] semi-Romanised districts, at all events, already had prædial slaves.

«The Roman villa another factor and grew into the manor.»

The manorial system, however, was not simply a development from the tribal system of the Germans; it had evidently a complex origin. A Roman element also seems to have entered into its composition.

The Roman _villa_, to begin with, a slave-worked estate, during the later empire, whether from German influence or not, became still more like a manor by the addition of _coloni_ and other mostly barbarian semi-servile tenants to the slaves.

There may have been once free village communities on the 'ager publicus,' but, as we have seen, the management of the public lands under the fiscal officers of the Emperor also tended during the later Empire to become more and more manorial in its character, so much so that the word 'villa' could apparently sometimes be applied to the fiscal district.

«Roman and German elements combined.»

Whichever of the two factors--Roman or German--contributed most to the mediæval manor, the manorial estate became the predominant form of land ownership in what had once been Roman provinces. And the German successors of Roman lords of villas became in their turn manorial lords of manors; whilst the 'coloni,' 'liti,' and 'tributarii' upon them, wherever they remained upon the same ground, apparently became, with scarcely a visible change, a community of serfs.

«Both 'ager publicus' and 'terra regis' manorial.»

On the other hand, the fact that the _terra regis_ also was divided under Saxon and Frankish kings into _manors_ probably was the natural result of the growing manorial management of the public lands under the fiscal officers of the Emperor during the later Empire, [p415] quickened or completed after the barbarian conquests. The fiscal districts seem to have become in fact royal manors, and the free 'coloni,' 'liti,' and 'servi' upon them appear as manorial tenants of different grades in the earliest grants to the monasteries.

The fact that as early as the time of Tacitus, the German chieftains and tribesmen were in their own country lords of serfs, in itself explains the ease with which they assumed the position of lords of manors on the conquest of the provinces.

The result of conquest seems thus to have been chiefly a change of lordship, both as regards the private villas and the public lands. The conquered districts seem to have become in a wholesale way practically _terra regis_. There is no evidence that the modes of agriculture on the one hand or the modes of management on the other hand were materially changed. The conquering king would probably at once put followers of his own into the place of the Roman fiscal officers. These would become _quasi_-lords of the royal manors on the _terra regis_. Then by degrees would naturally arise the process whereby under lavish royal grants manors were handed one after another into the private ownership of churches and monasteries and favourites of the king, thus honey-combing the _terra regis_ with private manors.

This seems to have been what happened in the Frankish provinces, and in the Alamannic and Bavarian districts, where the process can be most clearly traced. And the result seems to have been the almost universal prevalence of the manorial system in these districts. Even the towns came to be regarded as in the demesne of the king. And [p416] gradually manorial lordship extended itself over the free tenants as well as over the various semi-servile classes who were afterwards confused together in the general class of serfs.

The community of serfs was fed from above and from below. Free 'coloni,' by their own voluntary surrender, and free tribesmen, perhaps upon conquest or gradually by the force of long usage, sank into serfs. Slaves, on the other hand, by their lord's favour, or to meet the needs of agriculture, were supplied with an outfit of oxen and rose out of slavery into serfdom.

But what was this serfdom? It was not simply the old prædial slavery of the Germans of Tacitus. Nor was it merely a continuance of the slavery on the Roman villa.

«Slavery mitigated by Christian humanity.»

For finally, in the period of transition from Roman to German lordship, a new moral force entered as a fresh factor in the economic evolution. The silent humanising influence of Christianity seems to have been the power which mitigated the rigour of slavery, and raised the slave on the estates of the Church into the middle status of serfdom, by insisting upon the limitation of his labour to the three days' week-work of the mediæval serf.

Thus, from the point of view alike of the German and the Roman 'servi,' mediæval serfdom, except to the freemen who by their own surrender or by conquest were degraded into it, was a distinct step upward in the economic progress of the masses of the people towards freedom.

* * * * *

«The pre-Roman _one-field_ system in England.»

Applying these results especially to England, we [p417] have once more to remember that there was settled agriculture in Belgic Britain before the Roman invasion: that the fact vouched for by Pliny, that _marl_ and _manure_ were ploughed into the fields, is proof that the simplest form of the open-field system--the Welsh co-aration of the waste, and the German shifting every year of the '_arva_'--had already given place to a more settled and organised system, in which the same land remained under tillage year after year. Pliny's description of the marling of the land, however, points rather to the _one-field system_ of Northern Germany than to the three-field system, as that under which the corn was grown which Cæsar found ripening on British fields when he first landed on the southern coast.[631]

«Roman introduction of the three-course rotation of crops.»

In the meantime Roman improvements in agriculture may well have included the introduction into the province of Britain of the three-course rotation of crops. The open fields round the villa of the Roman lord, cultivated by his slaves, 'coloni,' 'tributarii,' and 'liti,' may have been first arranged on the three-field system; and, once established, that system would spread and become general during those centuries of Roman occupation in which so much corn was produced and exported from the island.

The Roman _annonæ_--founded, perhaps, on the earlier tribal food-rents--were, in Britain, as we know from the 'Agricola' of Tacitus, taken mostly in corn; [p418] and the _tributum_ was probably assessed during the later empire on that system of _jugation_ which was found to be so like to the _hidation_ which prevailed after the Saxon conquest.

«Conquest the rule. The invaders become lords of _hams_ manors.»

Putting aside as exceptional the probably peaceful but at best obscure settlements in tribal households, and regarding conquest as the rule, the economic evidence seems to supply no solid reason for supposing that the German conquerors acted in Britain in a way widely different from that which they followed on the conquest of Continental Roman provinces. The conquered territory here as elsewhere probably became at first _terra regis_ of the English, Saxon, or Jutish kings. And though there may have been more cases in England than elsewhere of extermination of the old inhabitants, the evidence of the English open-field system seems to show that, taking England as a whole, the continuity between the Roman and English system of land management was not really broken. The Roman provincial _villa_ still seems to have remained the typical form of estate; and the management of the public lands, now _terra regis_, seems to have preserved its manorial character. For whenever estates are granted to the Church or monasteries, or to thanes of the king, they seem to be handed over as already existing manors, with their own customs and services fixed by immemorial usage.

It is most probable that whenever German conquerors descended upon an already peopled country where agriculture was carried on as it was in Britain, their comparatively small numbers, and still further their own dislike to agricultural pursuits and liking for lordship, and familiarity with servile tenants in [p419] the old country, would induce them to place the conquered people in the position of serfs, as the Germans of Tacitus seem to have done, making them do the agriculture by customary methods. If in any special cases the numbers in the invading hosts were larger than usual, they would probably include the semi-servile dependants of the chieftains and tribesmen. These, placed on the land allotted to their lords, would be serfs in England as they had been at home.

«The yard-land shows this,»

At this point, as we have seen, the internal evidence of the open-field system, at the earliest date at which it arises, comes to our aid, showing that as a general rule it was the shell, not of household communities of tribesmen doing their own ploughing like the Welsh tribesmen by co-aration, but of serfs doing the ploughing under an over-lordship.

Here the English evidence points in precisely the same direction as the Continental. For, as so often repeated, the prevalence, as far back as the earliest records, of yard-lands and _huben_, handed down so generally, and evidently by long immemorial custom, as _indivisible bundles_ from one generation to another, implies the _absence_ of _division among heirs_, and is accordingly a mark of the servile nature of the holding.

«and also local names.»

«The earlier 'hams' and 'tuns' manors.»

Further, whenever a place was called, as so many places were, by the name of a single person, it seems obvious that at the moment when its name was acquired it was under a _land ownership_, which, as regards the dependent population upon it, was a _lordship_. We have seen that in the laws of King Ethelbert the '_hams_' and '_tuns_' of England are spoken of as in a single ownership, whilst the [p420] mention of the three grades of 'læts' shows that there were semi-servile tenants upon them. And in the vast number of instances in which local names consist of a personal name with a suffix, the evidence of the local name itself is strong for the manorial character of the estate. When that suffix is _tun_, or _ham_, or _villa_, with the personal name prefixed, the evidence is doubly strong. Even when connected with an impersonal prefix, these suffixes in themselves distinctly point, as we have seen, to the manorial character of the estate, with at least direct, if not absolutely conclusive, force.

Whatever doubt remains is not as to the generally manorial character of the _hams_ and _tuns_ of the earliest Saxon records, or as to the serfdom of their tenants; as to this, it is submitted that the evidence is clear and conclusive. Whatever doubt remains is as to which of two possible courses leading to this result was taken by the Saxon conquerors of Britain.

As regards the methods of their conquest, there happens to exist no satisfactory contemporary evidence. They may either have conquered and adopted the Roman villas, whether in private or imperial hands, with the slaves and 'coloni' or 'tributarii' upon them, calling them 'hams,' or they may have destroyed the Roman villas and their tenants, and have established in their place fresh 'hams' of their own, which in mediæval Latin records, whether in private or royal possession, were also afterwards called 'villas.' In some districts they may have followed the one course, in other districts the other course. Either of the two might as well as the other have produced manors and manorial serfdom. [p421]

«Survivals from the Romano-German province prove continuity, and are inconsistent with extermination»

But when the internal evidence of the Anglo-Saxon land system is examined, even this doubt as to which of the two methods was generally followed is in part removed. For it may at least be said with truth that the hundred years of historical darkness during which there is a simple absence of direct testimony, is at least bridged over by such planks of _in_direct economic evidence as the apparent connexion between the Roman 'jugation' and the Saxon 'hidage,' the resemblance between the Roman and Saxon allotment of a certain number of acres along with single or double yokes of oxen to the holdings, the prevalence of the rule of single succession, the apparent continuance of the Roman _tributum_ and _annonæ_, and even some of the _sordida munera_ in the Saxon _gafol_, _gafol-yrth_, _averagium_, and other manorial services; and, lastly, the fact that in Gaul and Upper Germany the actual continuity between the Roman _villa_ and the German _heim_ can be more or less clearly traced.

«unless the invaders were themselves Romanised.»

The force of this economic evidence, it is submitted, is at least enough to prove either that there was a sufficient amount of continuity between the Roman villa and the Saxon manor to preserve the general type, or that the German invaders who destroyed and re-introduced the manorial type of estate came from a district in which there had been such continuity, and where they themselves had lived long enough to permit the peculiar manorial instincts of the Romano-German province to become a kind of second nature to them.

It is as impossible to conceive that this complex manorial land system, which we have found to bristle with historical survivals of usages of the [p422] Romano-German province, should have been suddenly introduced into England by _un-Romanised_ Northern piratical tribes of Germans, as it is to conceive of the sudden creation of a fossil.

The most reasonable hypothesis, in the absence of direct evidence, appears therefore to be that the manorial system grew up in Britain as it grew up in Gaul and Germany, as the compound product of barbarian and Roman institutions mixing together during the periods first of Roman provincial rule, and secondly of German conquest.

«The large extent of folk-land evidence against extensive allodial allotments.»

This hypothesis seems at least most fully to account for the facts. Perhaps, it is not too much to say that whilst the large tracts of England remaining folk-land or _terra regis_, in spite of the lavish grants to monasteries complained of by Bede, are in themselves suggestive of the comparatively limited extent of allodial allotments among the conquering tribesmen, the existence and multiplication upon the _terra regis_, not of free village communities, but of royal manors of the same type as that of the Frankish villas, with a serfdom upon them also of the same type, and connected with the same three-field system of husbandry in both cases, almost amounts to a positive verification when the historical survivals clinging to the system in both cases are taken into account.

«The invaders either adopted the natives as serfs or brought serfs with them.»

Even on the supposition that the Saxons really exterminated the old population and destroyed every vestige of the Roman system, it has already become obvious that it would not at all follow that they generally introduced free village communities; for in that case the evidence would go far to show that they most likely brought slaves with them and settled [p423] them in servile village communities round their own dwellings, as Tacitus saw the Germans of his time doing in Germany. But, again, it must be remembered that however naturally this might produce the manor and serfdom, still the survivals of minute provincial usages hanging about the Saxon land system would remain unaccounted for, unless the invaders of the fifth century had already been thoroughly Romanised before their conquest of Britain.

«English history begins not with free communities but with serfdom.»

We cannot, indeed, pretend to have discovered in the economic evidence a firm bridge for all purposes across the historic gulf of the fifth century, and to have settled the difficult questions who were the German invaders of England, whence they came, and what was the exact form of their settlements in one district or another. But the facts we have examined seem to have settled the practical economic question with which we started, viz. whether the _hams_ and _tuns_ of England, with their open fields and yard-lands, in the earliest historical times were inhabited and tilled in the main by free village communities, or by communities in villenage. However many exceptional instances there may have been of settlements in tribal households, or even free village communities, it seems to be almost certain that these 'hams' and 'tuns' were, generally speaking, and for the most part from the first, practically _manors_ with communities in _serfdom_ upon them.

«The yard-land not the allodial allotment of a free tribesman.»

It has become at least clear, speaking broadly, that the equal 'yard-lands' of the 'geburs' were not the 'alods' or free lots of 'alodial' freeholders in a common 'mark,' but the tenements of serfs paying 'gafol' and doing 'week-work' for their lords. And this is [p424] equally true whether the manors on which they lived were bocland of Saxon thanes, or folk-land under the 'villicus' of a Saxon king.

II. LOCAL EVIDENCE OF CONTINUITY BETWEEN ROMAN AND ENGLISH VILLAGES.

There yet remains one test to which the hypothesis of continuity between the British, Roman, and English village community and open-field system may be put.

«Doubts as to the extermination of the British population by the English invaders.»

It has sometimes been inferred, perhaps too readily, that the English invaders of Roman Britain nearly exterminated the old inhabitants, destroying the towns and villages, and making fresh settlements of their own, upon freshly chosen sites. If this were so, it would, of course, involve the destruction of the open fields round the old villages, and the formation of fresh open fields round the new ones.

The passage in Ammianus Marcellinus has sometimes been quoted, in which he describes the Alamanni, who had taken possession of Strasburg, Spires, Worms, Mayence, &c., as encamped outside these cities, shunning their inside 'as though they had been graves surrounded by nets.'[632] But this was in time of war, and no proof of what they might do when in peaceable possession of the country.

Mr. Freeman also has drawn a graphic picture of Anderida, with the two Saxon villages of Pevensey and West Ham outside of its old Roman walls, and no dwellings within them. But it would so obviously be [p425] much easier to build new houses outside the gates of a ruined city, or, perhaps, we should say rather fortified camp, than to clear away the rubbish and build upon the old site, that such an instance is far from conclusive. Nor does the fact that in so many cases the streets of once Roman cities deviate from the old Roman lines prove that the new builders avoided the ancient sites. It proves only that, instead of removing the heaps of rubbish, they chose the open spaces behind them as more convenient for their new buildings, in the process of erecting which the heaps of rubbish were doubtless gradually removed.

«Is there evidence of continuity in the rural villages?»

But, in truth, cases of fortified cities are not to the point. What we want to find out is whether, in the _rural_ districts, the British villages, with their open fields around them, were generally adopted by the Romans, and whether, having survived the Roman occupation, the Saxons adopted them in their turn.

«_e.g._ in the Hitchin district.»

It may be worth while to recur to the district from which was taken the typical example of the open fields, testing the point by such local evidence as may there be found.

«The Icknild way and other ancient roads.»

Among the ancient boundaries of the township of Hitchin, or rather of that part which included the now enclosed hamlet of Walsworth, was mentioned the Icknild way--that old British road which, passing from Wiltshire to Norfolk, here traverses the edge of the Chiltern hills. It sometimes winds lazily about uphill and down, following the line of the chalk downs. In many places it is merely a broad turf drift way. Here and there a long straight stretch of a mile or two suggests a Roman improvement upon [p426] its perhaps once more devious course. Here and there, too, are fragments of similar broad turf lanes leading nowhere, having lost the continuity which no doubt they once possessed. Sometimes crossing it, sometimes branching off from it, sometimes running parallel to it, are also frequently found similar winding broad turf drift ways, or straight roads of apparently British or Roman origin. It crosses Akeman Street at Tring, Watling Street at Dunstable, and Irmine Street at Royston. Neither Dunstable nor Royston, however, are examples of continuity, being comparatively modern towns, neither of them mentioned in the Domesday Survey. Hitchin lies about half-way between the cross-roads.

«The district under its Belgic kings.»

The district included in the annexed map, of which Hitchin is the centre, was a part of Belgic Britain. According to Cæsar this had been under the rule of the same king as Belgic Gaul, and upon the evidence of coins and certain passages in Roman writers, it is pretty well understood to have been, soon after the invasion of Cæsar, under the rule of Tasciovanus,[633] whose capital was Verulamium, and after him of his son Cunobeline, whose capital was Camulodunum. The sons of the latter (one of them Caractacus) were prevented from succeeding him by the advance of the Roman arms.[634] The intimate relations of the two capitals at Verulam and at Colchester explain the existence of the roads between them.

[Illustration: MAP of the neighbourhood of HITCHIN.

THE HILLS AT MEPPERSHALL.

LITLINGTON.

TOOT HILL AT PIRTON.]

The dykes which cross the Icknild way at [p427] intervals, East of Royston--the Brent dyke, the Balsham dyke (parallel to the _Via Devana_), and the Devil's dyke, near Newmarket--seem to indicate that here was the border land between this district and that of the Iceni (Norfolk and Suffolk).

«Coins of Tasciovanus and Cunobeline.»

Sandy (the Roman _Salinæ_), at the north of the district in the map, is known, from the evidence of coins of Cunobeline, to have been an important British centre. A gold coin of Tasciovanus, and other British coins, have been picked up on the Icknild way, between Hitchin and Dunstable. A gold coin of Cunobeline, and many fragments of Roman pottery, have been found about half a mile to the east of Abington, a village a little to the north of the Icknild way, near Royston.[635] Coins of Cunobeline have also been found at Great Chesterford. A copper coin of Cunobeline was picked up in a garden in Walsworth, a hamlet of Hitchin, and British urns of a rude type have been recently found on the top of Benslow Hill, the high ground on the east of the town.

«Pre-Roman roads, &c.»

The map will show in how many directions the district is cut up by Roman roads, which, as they evidently connect the various parts of the domain of the before-mentioned British kings, were probably, with the Icknild way itself, British tracks before they were adopted by the Romans.

Almost every commanding bluff of the chalk downs retains traces of its having been used as a hill fort, probably in pre-Roman times, as well as later, while the numerous tumuli all along the route of the Icknild way testify, probably, to the numerous battles fought in its neighbourhood. [p428]

«Its Roman conquest under Claudius and Aulus Plautius, about A.D. 43.»

Probably this district fell under direct Roman rule after the campaigns of Aulus Plautius and Claudius, about A.D. 43.[636] The direction of the advance was probably across the Thames at Wallingford, and along the Icknild way, from which the descent upon Verulam could well be made from Tring or Dunstable down what were afterwards called Akeman Street and Watling Street. Under the tumulus near Litlington, called Limloe, or Limbury Hill, skeletons were found, and coins of the reign of Claudius, and of later date. It is possible that the battle was fought here in a later reign which brought the further parts of the district under Roman rule.

«The Saxon conquest about A.D. 571.»

The date of the Saxon conquest of this district may be as definitely determined. It preceded the conquest of Bath, Cirencester, and Gloucester by a very few years. It may be pretty clearly placed at about A.D. 571, when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, 'Cuthwulf fought with the Brit-weals at Bedcan-ford (Bedford), and took four towns. He took Lygean-birg (Lenborough) and Aegeles-birg (Aylesbury), and Bænesingtun (Bensington) and Egonesham (Eynsham).' This was the time when Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire fell into the hands of the West Saxons.

The old boundary of the ecclesiastical division of the country before the time of the Norman conquest included this district, with Bedford, in the diocese of Dorchester. The boundary probably followed the lines of the old West Saxon kingdom, and shut it off [p429] from Essex and the rest of Hertfordshire, which were included in the diocese of London.

The district, therefore, seems to have remained nearly 400 years under Roman rule, and under the British post-Roman rule another 100 years, till within twenty-five or thirty years of the arrival of St. Augustine in England, and the date of the laws of King Ethelbert, and within little more than 100 years of the date of the laws of King Ine, which laws presumably were founded upon customs of this district, once a part of the West Saxon kingdom.

«Do the Roman remains suggest continuity?»

The question is whether the position of the Roman remains which have been discovered in this neighbourhood points to a continuity in the sites of the present villages between British, Roman, and Saxon times. This question may certainly, in many instances, and, perhaps, generally, be answered distinctly in the affirmative.

«The town of Hitchin, or 'Hiz,' _i.e._ 'of the streams.'»

Take first the town of Hitchin itself. Its name in the Domesday Survey was 'Hiz,' and there can be little doubt that it is a Celtic word, meaning 'streams.'[637] The position of the township accords with this name. The river 'Hiz' rises out of the chalk at Wellhead, almost immediately turns a mill, and, flowing through the town, joins the Ivel a few miles lower down in its course, and so flows ultimately into the Ouse. The Orton[638] rises at the west extremity of the township, in [p430] a few hundred yards turns West Mill, and forms the boundary of the parish till it meets the Hiz at Ickleford, where the two are forded by the Icknild way. The Purwell, rising from the south east, forms the boundary between the parishes of Hitchin and Much Wymondley, and then, after turning Purwell Mill, and dividing Hitchin from Walsworth Hamlet, also joins the Hiz before it reaches Ickleford. Thus two of these three pure chalk streams embrace the township, and one passes through it giving its Celtic name Hiz to the town.[639]

«Its Celtic name.»

It is not likely that either the Romans or the Saxon invaders gave it this Celtic name.

«British and Roman remains.»

As already mentioned, on the top of the hill, to the east of the town, British sepulchral urns have been recently found.

A Roman cemetery, with a large number of sepulchral urns, dishes, and bottles, and coins of Severus, Carausius, Constantine, and Alectus, was turned up a few years ago on the top of the hill on the opposite side of the town, in a part of the open fields called 'The Fox-holes'[640]--a plot of useless ground being often used for burials by the Romans.

Another Roman cemetery, with very similar pottery and coins, has been found on Bury Mead, near the line where the arable part ceases and the [p431] Lammas meadow lands begin. Bury field itself (_i.e._ the arable) has been deeply drained, but yielded no coins or urns.

Occasional coins and urns have been found in the town itself.

This, so far as it goes, is good evidence that Hitchin was a British and a Roman before it was a Saxon town.

In the sub-hamlet of Charlton, near Wellhead, the source of the Hiz, small coins of the lower Empire have been found. As already mentioned, a coin of Cunobeline was found in the village of Walsworth. In even the hamlets, therefore, there is some evidence of continuity. At Ickleford, where the Icknild way crosses the Hiz, Roman coins have been found.

«Much Wymondley.»

The next parish to the east, divided from Hitchin by the Purwell stream, is Much Wymondley.

The evidence of continuity, as regards this parish, is remarkably clear. The accompanying map[641] supplies an interesting example of open fields, with their strips and balks and scattered ownership still remaining in 1803. These open arable fields were originally divided off from the village by a stretch of Lammas land.

«Roman holding perhaps of a retired veteran.»

Between this Lammas land and the church in the village lie the remains of the little Roman holding, of which an enlarged plan is given. It consists now of several fields, forming a rough square, with its sides to the four points of the compass, and contains, filling in the corners of the square, about 25 Roman [p432] jugera--or the eighth of a centuria of 200 jugera--the extent of land often allotted, as we have seen, to a retired veteran with a single pair of oxen. The proof that it was a Roman holding is as follows:--In the corner next to the church are two square fields still distinctly surrounded by a moat, nearly parallel to which, on the east side, was found a line of black earth full of broken Roman pottery and tiles. Near the church, at the south-west corner of the property, is a double tumulus, which, being close to the church field, may have been an ancient 'toot hill,' or a terminal mound. In the extreme opposite corner of the holding was found a Roman cemetery, containing the urns, dishes, and bottles of a score or two of burials. Drawings of those of the vessels not broken in the digging, engraved from a photograph, are appended to the map, by the kind permission of the owner.[642] Over the hedge, at this corner, begins the Lammas land.[643]

How many other holdings were included in the Roman village we do not know, but that the village was in the same position in relation to the open fields that it was in 1803 is obvious.

«Ashwell.»

Ashwell also evidently stands on its old site round the head of a remarkably strong chalk spring, the clear stream from which flows through the village as the river _Rhee_, a branch of the _Cam_. Early Roman coins and sepulchral urns have been found in the hamlet called 'Ashwell End,' and a Roman road, called 'Ashwell Street,' passes by the town parallel [p433] to the Icknild way. Near to the town is a camp, with a clearly defined vallum, called Harborough Banks, where coins of the later Empire have been found. A map of the parish, made before the enclosure, and preserved in the place, shows that it presented a remarkably good example of the open-field system.

[Illustration: PLAN of the Parish of MUCH WYMONDLEY.

Enlarged Plan of the Roman Holding.]

«Roman villa and cemetery.»

An instance of continuity as remarkable as that of Much Wymondley occurs at Litlington,[644] the next village to Ashwell, on the Ashwell Street. The church and manor house in this case lie near together on the west side of the village, and in the adjoining field and gardens the walls and pavements of a Roman villa were found many years ago. At a little distance from it, nearer to the Ashwell Street, a Roman _ustrinum_ and cemetery were found, surrounded by four walls, and yielding coins of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Quintillus, Carausius, Constantine the Great, Magnentius, &c. A map of this village is appended.

When the Roman villa was discovered, the open fields around the village were still unenclosed, and the position of Ashwell Street was pushed farther from the village at the time of the enclosure.

The tumulus called 'Limloe,' or 'Limbury Hill,' lies at the side of the road leading from the Icknild way across the Ashwell Street to the village, and immediately under it skeletons with coins of Claudius, Vespasian, and Faustina were found, as already mentioned.

«Ickleton and Chesterford.»

A few miles further east than Royston are two villages, Ickleton on the Icknild way, and Great [p434] Chesterford a little to the south of it. That both these places are on Roman sites the foundations and coins which have been found attest.[645] There are remains of a camp at Chesterford, and coins of Cunobeline as well as numerous Roman coins have been dug up there.[646]

«Hadstock.»

At Hadstock, a village near, in a field called 'Sunken Church Field,' Roman foundations and coins have been found.[647]

«Other instances of continuity in the sites of villages.»

Proceeding further east the list of similar cases might be greatly increased. But keeping within the small district, in the following other cases the finding of Roman coins in the villages seems to be fair proof of continuity in their sites, viz.:--Sandy, Campton, Baldock, Willian, Cumberlow Green, Weston, Stevenage, Hexton, and Higham Gobion.

«Ancient mounds and earth works.»

Two remarkable instances of ancient mounds or fortifications close to churches occur at Meppershall and Pirton, of both of which plans are given. The Pirton mound is called in the village the 'toot hill.' These mounds in the neighbourhood of churches may be much older than the Saxon conquest. Open air courts were by no means confined to one race.[648] Roman remains have been found in the neighbourhood of both these places, but how near to the actual village sites I am unable to say.[649]

Leaving out these two and many more doubtful cases, and without pretending to be exhaustive, there have been mentioned nearly a score in which Roman [p435] remains or coins have already been found on the present sites of villages in this small district.

[Illustration: ROMAN POTTERY FOUND AT GREAT WYMONDLEY, HERTS. MARCH 1882.]

«Strong evidence of continuity in this district.»

So far the local evidence supports the view that the West Saxons, who probably conquered it about A.D. 570, succeeded to a long-settled agriculture; and further it seems likely that, assuming the lordship vacated by the owners of the villas, and adopting the village sites, they continued the cultivation of the open fields around them by means of the old rural population on that same three-field system, which had probably been matured and improved during Roman rule, and by which the population of the district had been supported during the three generations between the departure of the Roman governors and the West Saxon conquest.

But it may perhaps be urged that these districts, conquered so late as A.D. 570, may have been exceptionally treated. If this were so, it must be borne in mind that the whole of central England--i.e. the counties described in the second volume of the Hundred Rolls as to which the evidence for the existence of the open-field system was so strong--was included in the exception. Indeed, if the line of the Icknild way be extended along Akeman Street to Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, the line of the Saxon conquests which were later than A.D. 560 would be pretty clearly marked. The laws of Ine, pointing backwards as they do from their actual date, reach back within two or three generations of the date of the Saxon conquest of this part of Old Wessex.

«The Hitchin district hardly exceptional.»

It would be impossible here to pursue the question in detail in other parts of England. Perhaps it will be sufficient to call attention to the many cases [p436] mentioned in Mr. C. Roach Smith's valuable 'Collectanea,'[650] in which Roman remains have been found in close proximity to the churches of modern villages, and to his remark that a long list of such instances might easily be made.[651]

The number of such cases which occur in Kent is very remarkable, and Kent was certainly not a late conquest.

I will only add a passing allusion to the remarkable case at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, where the church, present mansion, and Roman villa are close together,[652] and mention that in two of the hamlets on the manor of Tidenham--Stroat and Sedbury (or Cingestun)--Roman remains bear testimony to a Roman occupation before the West Saxon conquest.[653]

The fact seems to be that the archæological evidence, gradually accumulating as time goes on, points more and more clearly to the fact that our modern villages are very often on their old Roman and sometimes probably pre-Roman sites--that however much the English invaders avoided the walled towns of Roman Britain, they certainly had no such antipathy to the occupation of its villas and rural villages. [p437]

III. CONCLUSION.

«Economic result.»

The economic result of the inquiry pursued in this essay may now be summed up in few words.

Its object was not to inquire into the origin of village and tribal communities as the possible beginning of all things, but simply to put English Economic History on true lines at its historical beginning, viz.: the English Conquest.

«Two rural systems throughout--the village community in the east, and the tribal community in the west.»

Throughout the whole period from pre-Roman to modern times we have found in Britain two parallel systems of rural economy side by side, but keeping separate and working themselves out on quite different lines, in spite of Roman, English, and Norman invasions--that of the _village_ community in the eastern, that of the _tribal_ community in the western districts of the island.

«Community and equality in both.»

«Each had its own open-field system.»

Both systems as far back as the evidence extends were marked by the two notes of community and equality, and each was connected with a form of the open or common field system of husbandry peculiar to itself. These two different forms of the common field system also kept themselves distinct throughout, and are still distinct in their modern remains or survivals.

«Both pre-Roman.»

Neither the village nor the tribal community seems to have been introduced into Britain during a historical period reaching back for 2,000 years at least.

«The English village community in serfdom, and its»

«three-field system.»

«A step out of slavery towards the freedom of the new order of things.»

On the one hand, the village community of the eastern districts of Britain was connected with a settled agriculture which, apparently dating earlier [p438] than the Roman invasion and improved during the Roman occupation, was carried on, at length, under that three-field form of the open-field system which became the shell of the English village community. The equality in its yard-lands and the single succession which preserved this equality we have found to be apparently marks not of an original freedom, not of an original allodial allotment on the German 'mark system,' but of a settled serfdom under a lordship--a semi-servile tenancy implying a mere usufruct, theoretically only for life, or at will, and carrying with it no inherent rights of inheritance. But this serfdom, as we have seen reason to believe, was, to the masses of the people, not a degradation, but a step upward out of a once more general slavery. Certainly during the 1,200 years over which the direct English evidence extends the tendency has been towards more and more of freedom. In other words, as time went on during these 1,200 years, the serfdom of the old order of things has been gradually breaking up under those influences, whatever they may have been, which have produced the new order of things.

«The tribal community and its 'run-rig' system.»

«opposed to the new order of things.»

On the other hand, the tribal community of the western districts of Great Britain and of Ireland, though parallel in time with the village community of the eastern districts, was connected with an earlier stage of economic development, in which the rural economy was pastoral rather than agricultural. This tribal community was bound together, perhaps, in a unique degree, by the strong ties of blood relationship between free tribesmen. The equality which followed the possession of the tribal blood involved an equal division among the sons of tribesmen, and was [p439] maintained in spite of the inequality of families by frequent redistributions of the tribal lands, and shiftings of the tribesmen from one homestead to another according to tribal rules. We have traced the curious method of clustering the homesteads in arithmetical groups mentioned in the ancient Welsh laws, and still practised in Ireland in the seventeenth century, and we have found many survivals of it in the present names and divisions of Irish townlands. We have found the simple form of open-field husbandry used under the tribal system, and suited to its precarious and shifting agriculture, still surviving in the 'rundale' or 'run-rig' system, by which, to this day, is effected in Ireland and western Scotland that infinite subdivision of holdings which marks the tenacious adherence to tribal instincts on the part of a people still fighting an unequal battle against the new order of things.

«The new order opposed to community and equality.»

The new order has, no doubt, arisen in one sense out of both branches of the old, but neither the manorial village community of the eastern district, nor the tribal community of the west, can be said to be its parent. Its fundamental principle seems to be opposed to the community and equality of the old order in both its forms. The freedom of the individual and growth of individual enterprise and property which mark the new order imply a rebellion against the bonds of the communism and forced equality, alike of the manorial and of the tribal system. It has triumphed by breaking up both the communism of serfdom and the communism of the free tribe.

«Belongs to a wider range of economic development.»

Nor, it would seem, can the new order be regarded with any greater truth as a development from the [p440] germs of any German tribal or 'mark' system imported in the keels of the English invaders. It would seem to belong to an altogether wider range of economic development than that of one or two races. Its complex roots went deeply back into that older world into which the Teutonic invaders introduced new elements and new life, no doubt, but, it would seem, without destroying the continuity of the main stream of its economic development, or even of the outward forms of its rural economy.

This, from an economic point of view, is the important conclusion to which the facts examined in this essay seem to point. These facts will be examined afresh by other and abler students, and the last word will not soon have been said upon some of them. They are drawn from so wide a field, and from lines reaching back so far, that their interest and bearing upon the matter in hand will not soon be exhausted or settled. But if the conclusion here suggested should in the main be confirmed, what English Economic History loses in simplicity it will gain in breadth. It will cease to be provincial. It will become more closely identified with the general economic evolution of the human race in the past. And this in its turn will give a wider interest to the vast responsibilities of the English-speaking nations in connexion with the progress of the new order of things and the solution of the great economic problems of the future.

«The communism of the old order a thing of the past,»

What are the forces which have produced, and are producing, the evolution of the new order, and to what ultimate goal the 'weary Titan' is bearing the 'too full orb of her fate,' are questions of the [p441] highest rank of economic and political importance, but questions upon which not much direct light has been thrown, perhaps, in this essay. Still the knowledge what the community and equality of the English village and of the Keltic tribe really were under the old order may at least dispel any lingering wish or hope that they may ever return. Communistic systems such as these we have examined, which have lasted for 2,000 years, and for the last 1,000 years at least have been gradually wearing themselves out, are hardly likely--either of them--to be the economic goal of the future.

«like the open-field system.»

The reader of this essay may perhaps contemplate the few remaining balks and linces of our English common fields, and the surviving examples of the 'run-rig' system in Ireland and Scotland, with greater interest than before, but it will be as historical survivals, not of types likely to be reproduced in the future, but of economic stages for ever past.

FOOTNOTES:

[630] There are undoubtedly manors and yard-lands in some districts, but of later and English introduction.

[631] The '_one-field system_ 'of _permanent arable_ must not be confused with the improvement of the early Welsh and Irish 'co-aration of the waste,' by which the land was cropped perhaps two or three or four years before it was _left to go back into grass_. This resembles the German _Feldgraswirthschaft_ and not the German one-field system.

[632] Amm. Marc. xvi. c. ii.

[633] Evans' _Ancient British Coins_, p. 220 _et seq._

[634] _Ibid._ p. 284 _et seq._

[635] I am indebted to the Rev. W. G. F. Pigott for this information.

[636] See the paper on 'The Campaign of Aulus Plautius,' in Dr. Guest's _Origines Celticæ_, vol. ii.

[637] Compare supra, p. 161: the change of 'Hisse-burn' or 'Icenan-burn' into 'Itchin River,' and of 'æt Icceburn' into 'Ticceburn,' and 'Titchbourne.' May not Icknild Way, or 'Icenan-hild-wæg,' mean highway 'by the streams,' and Ricknild Way mean highway 'by the ridge'? See map, _supra_, ch. v., s. v. They are sometimes parallel as an upper and lower road.

[638] Formerly 'Alton.' See Survey of the Manor of Hitchin. 1650, Public Record Office.

[639] In Hampshire the old Celtic or Belgic names of rivers in many cases gave their names to places upon them. The '_Itchin_' to Itchin Stoke, Itchin Abbas, Itchbourne, &c. The '_Meona_' (_Cod. Dip._ clviii.) to Meon Stoke, East and West Meon, &c. The '_Candefer_' (_Cod. Dip._ mcccix.) to three 'Candovers.' So also the _Tarrant_ gives its names to several places.

[640] Now part of the garden of Mr. W. T. Lucas, in whose possession many of them now remain. Three skeletons, one of them of great size, were found near the urns.

[641] For permission to reproduce this map I am indebted to the present lord of the manor, C. W. Wilshere, Esq., of the Fryth, Welwyn.

[642] Mr. William Ransom, of Fairfield, near Hitchin.

[643] As regards Roman cemeteries, as placed in the extreme corner of a holding, _see_ Lachmann, pp. 271–2; _De Sepulchris Dolabell_. p. 303.

[644] _Archæologia_, vol. xxvi. p. 376.

[645] _Journal of British Archæological Association_, iv. 356, and v. 54.

[646] _Archæologia_, xxxii. p. 350.

[647] _Id._, p. 352.

[648] _See_ Mr. Gomme's interesting work on _Primitive Folkmotes_, c. ii.

[649] A remarkably fine _glass_ funeral urn was found about half a mile below the Meppershall Hills in 1882 by the tenant of the neighbouring farm.

[650] Vol. i. pp. 17, 66, 190; vol. iii. p. 33; vol. iv. p. 155; vol. v. p. 187; vol. vi. p. 222.

[651] _Collectanea_, v. p. 187. The recently discovered Roman villa on the property of Earl Cowper, at Wingham, near Canterbury, is a striking instance. See Mr. Dowker's pamphlet thereon. See also _Archæologia_, xxix. p. 217, &c., where Mr. C. Roach Smith mentions several other instances.

[652] _Account of the Roman Antiquities at Woodchester_, by S. Lysons. Lond.: MDCCXCVII.

[653] See Mr. Ormerod's _Archæological Memoirs_.

[p443]

APPENDIX.

THE MANOR OF HITCHIN (PORTMAN AND FOREIGN) IN THE COUNTY OF HERTFORD.

«1891. Oct. 21»

'At the Court [Leet and] of the View of Frank pledge of our Sovereign Lord the King with the General Court Baron of William Wilshere, Esquire, Lord Firmar of the said manor of his Majesty, holden in and for the manor aforesaid, on Thursday, the twenty-first day of October, One thousand eight hundred and nineteen, Before Joseph Eade, Gentleman, Steward of the said manor, and by adjournment on Monday, the first day of November next following, before the said Joseph Eade, the Steward aforesaid.

'The jurors for our Lord the King and the Homage of this Court having diligently enquired into the boundaries, extent, rights, jurisdictions, and customs of the said manor, and the rights, powers, and duties of the lord and tenants thereof, and having also enquired what lands in the township of Hitchin and in the hamlet of Walsworth respectively within this manor are subject to common of pasture for the commonable cattle of the occupiers of messuages, cottages, and land within the said township and hamlet respectively, and for what descriptions and number of cattle, and at what times of the year and in what manner such rights of common are by the custom of this manor to be exercised, and what payments are by such custom due in respect thereof, they do upon their oaths find and present as follows:--

'That the manor comprises the township of Hitchin and the hamlet of Walsworth, in the parish of Hitchin, the [p444] lesser manors of the Rectory of Hitchin, of Moremead, otherwise Charlton, and of the Priory of the Biggin, being comprehended within the boundaries of the said manor of Hitchin, which also extends into the hamlets of Langley and Preston in the said parish of Hitchin, and into the parishes of Ickleford, Ippollitts, Kimpton, Kingswalden, and Offley.

«Boundaries.»

'That the following are the boundaries of the township of Hitchin with the hamlet of Walsworth (that is to say), beginning at Orton Head, proceeding from thence to Burford Ray, and from thence to a water mill called Hide Mill, and from thence to Wilberry Hills; from thence to a place called Bossendell, from thence to a water mill called Purwell Mill, and from thence to a brook or river called Ippollitts' Brook, and from thence to Maydencroft Lane, and from thence to a place called Wellhead, and from thence to a place called Stubborn Bush, and from thence to a place called Offley Cross, and from thence to Five Borough Hills, and from thence back to Orton Head, where the boundaries commenced. And that all the land in the parish of Hitchin lying on the north side of the river which runneth from Purwell Mill to Hide Mill is within the hamlet of Walsworth, and that the following lands on the south side of the same river are also within the same hamlet of Walsworth (vizt.), Walsworth Common, containing about fourteen acres; the land of Sir Francis Sykes called the Leys, on the south side of Walsworth Common, containing about four acres; the land of William Lucas and Joseph Lucas, called the Hills, containing about two acres; and nine acres or thereabouts, part of the land of Sir Francis Sykes, called the Shadwells, the residue of the land called the Shadwells on the north side of the river.

«Jurisdiction.»

'That the lord of the manor of Hitchin hath Court Leet View of Frank pledge and Court Baron, and that the jurisdiction of the Court Leet and View of Frank pledge extendeth over the whole of the township of Hitchin and the hamlet of Walsworth. That a Court Leet and Court of the View of Frank pledge and Great Court Baron are accustomed to be holden for the said manor within one month [p445] after the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel in every year, and may also be holden within one month after the Feast of Easter. And that general or special Courts Baron and customary Courts are holden at the pleasure of the lord or of his steward.

'That in the Court Leet yearly holden after the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel the jurors for our Lord the King are accustomed to elect and present to the lord two constables and six headboroughs (vizt.), two headboroughs for Bancroft Ward, two for Bridge Ward, and two for Tilehouse Street Ward (each such constable and headborough having right and being bound to execute the office through the whole leet), and likewise two ale conners, two leather searchers and sealers, and a bellman who is also the watchman and cryer of the town. And they present that Bancroft Ward contains Bancroft Street, including the Swan Inn, Silver Street, Portmill Lane, and the churchyard, church and vicarage house, and the alley leading out of Bancroft now called Quaker's Alley. That Bridge Ward contains the east and north sides of the market place, and part of the south side thereof to the house of John Whitney, formerly called the Maidenhead Inn, Mary's Street, otherwise Angel Street, now called Sun Street, Bull Street, now called Bridge Street, to the river; Bull Corner, Back Street, otherwise Dead Street, from the south to the north extremities thereof; Biggin Lane with the Biggin and Hollow Lane. And that Tilehouse Street Ward contains Tilehouse Street, Bucklersbury to the Swan Inn, and the west side and the remainder of the south side of the market place.

PRESENTMENTS OF THE HOMAGE.

«Reliefs.»

'And the Homage of this Court do also further present that freeholders holding of the said manor do pay to the lord by way of relief upon the death of the preceding tenant one year's quitrent, but that nothing is due to the lord upon the alienation of freehold.

«Fines on admissions.»

'That the fines upon admissions of copyholders, whether by descent or purchase, are, and beyond the memory of [p446] man have been, certain (to wit), half a year's quitrent; and that where any number of tenants are admitted jointly in one copy, no greater fine than one half year's quitrent is due for the admission of all the joint tenants.

«Power of leasing.»

'The Homage also present that by the custom of the manor the customary tenants may without licence let their copyholds for three years and no longer, but that they may by licence of the lord let the same for any term not exceeding twenty-one years; and that the lord is upon every such licence entitled to a fine of one year's quitrent of the premises to be demised.

«Forfeiture.»

'The Homage present that the freehold tenants of the said manor forfeit their estates to the lord thereof for treason and for murders and other felonies; and that the copyholders forfeit their estates for the like crimes, and for committing or suffering their copyholds to be wasted, for wilfully refusing to perform their services, and for leasing their copyholds for more than three years without licence.

'The Homage also present that by the custom of this manor copyholds are granted by copy or court roll for the term of forty years, and that a tenant outliving the said term is entitled to be re-admitted for the like term upon payment of the customary fine of half a year's quitrent.

«Heriots.»

'The Homage present that there are no heriots due or payable to the lord of this manor for any of the tenements holden thereof.

«Woods and trees.»

'The Homage also present that, all woods, underwoods, and trees growing upon the copyhold lands holden of the said manor were by King James the First, by his Letters Patent, under the Great Seal of England, bearing date the fourteenth day of March, in the 6th year of his reign (in consideration of two hundred and sixty-six pounds sixteen shillings paid to his Majesty's use), granted to Thomas Goddesden and Thomas Chapman, two copyholders of the said manor, and their heirs and assigns, in trust to the use of themselves and the rest of the copyholders of the said manor; and that the copyhold tenants of the said manor are by virtue of such grant entitled to cut all timber and [p447] other trees growing on their copyholds, and to dispose thereof at their will.

«Grain sold in the market toll free.»

'The Homage also present that no toll has ever been paid or ought to be paid for any kind of corn or grain sold in the market of Hitchin.

«Common pound and stocks.»

'They also present that from the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary, the lord of this manor has been used to find and provide a common pound and stocks for the use of the tenants of this manor.

'And the Homage do further present that by the custom of this manor the lord may, with the consent of the Homage, grant by copy of court roll any part of the waste thereof, to be holden in fee according to the custom of the manor, at a reasonable rent and by the customary services, or may with such consent grant or demise the same for any lesser estate or interest.

COMMONS WITHIN THE TOWNSHIP OF HITCHIN.

'And the Homage of this Court do further present that the commonable land within the manor and township of Hitchin consists of--

«1st. Green Commons in the township of Hitchin.»

'Divers parcels of ground called the Green Commons, the soil whereof remains in the lord of the said manor (that is to say):

'Butts Close, containing eight acres or thereabouts; Orton Mead, containing forty acres or thereabouts, exclusively of the Haydons, and extending from the Old Road from Hitchin to Pirton by Orton Head Spring west unto the way which passes through Orton Mill Yard east; and that the Haydons on the east of the last mentioned way, containing four acres or thereabouts, are parts of the same common, and include a parcel of ground containing one rood and thirteen perches or thereabouts adjoining the river, which have been fenced from the rest of the common by Samuel Allen; and the ground called the Plats lying between Bury Mead and Cock Mead, containing two acres or thereabouts, including the slip of ground between the river and the way leading to the mill of the said John [p448] Ransom, lately called Burnt Mill, and now called Grove Mill, which hath been fenced off and planted by John Ransom.

«2nd. Lammas Meadows.»

'And of the lands of divers persons called the Lammas Meadows in Cock Mead, which contain eighteen acres or thereabouts, and in Bury Mead, which contains forty-five acres or thereabouts, including a parcel of land of the Rev. Woollaston Pym, clerk, called Old Hale.

«3rd. Common fields.»

'And of the open and unenclosed land within the several common fields, called Purwell Field, Welshman's Croft, Burford Field, Spital Field, Moremead Field, and Bury Field.

«Right of common.»

'That the occupier of every ancient messuage or cottage within the township of Hitchin hath a right of common for such cattle and at such times as are hereinafter specified upon the Green Commons and the Lammas Meadows, but no person hath any right of common within this township as appurtenant to or in respect of any messuage or cottage built since the expiration of the 13th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, unless the same shall have been erected on the site of an ancient messuage then standing.

'That any person having right of common in respect of the messuage or cottage in his actual occupation may turn on the Green Commons and the Lammas Meadows two cows and one bullock, or cow calf under the age of two years.

«Common bull.»

'That the rectors impropriate of the rectory of the parish of Hitchin or their lessees of the said rectory are bound to find a bull for the cows of the said township, and to go with the herd thereof, and that no other bull or bull calf may be turned on the commons.

'That Butts Close is the sole cow common from the 6th day of April, being Old Lady-day inclusive, to the 12th day of May also inclusive, and after that time is used for collecting in the morning the herd going out to the other commons.

'That Orton Mead, including the Haydons, is an open common upon and from the thirteenth day of May, called Old May-day, till the fourteenth day of February, called Old Candlemas Day. [p449]

'That the Plats are an open common upon and from Whitsunday till the 6th day of April.

'That Cock Mead and Bury Mead became commonable on the thirteenth day of August, called Old Lammas Day, and continue open till the 6th day of April.

'That the common fields called Bury Field and Welshman's Croft are commonable for cows only from the time when the corn is cut and carried therefrom until the twelfth day of November, called All Saints', and that the close of Thomas Wilshire, gentleman, called Bury Field Close, is part of the common field called Bury Field, and the closes of John Crouch Priest, called Ickleford Closes, are part of Welshman's Croft, and are respectively commonable at the same times with the other parts of such respective common fields.

'That every occupier of an ancient messuage or cottage hath right of common upon the Green Commons, except Butts Close, for one gelding from and after the thirteenth day of August until the fourteenth day of February.

'That no person entitled to common for his cattle may turn or suffer the same to remain on any of the commons between the hours of six in the evening and six in the morning.

'That it is the duty of the Homage at every Great Court Baron holden next after the Feast of St. Michael to appoint a herdsman for this township, and that every commoner turning his cows upon the commons is bound to pay a reasonable sum, to be from time to time assessed by the Homage, for the expenses of scouring the ditches, repairing the fences and hedges, and doing other necessary works for the preservation of the commons and for the wages of the herdsman. And the Homage of this Court assess and present such payments at one shilling for every head of cattle turned on the commons, payable by each commoner on the first day in every year on which he shall turn his cattle upon the commons, to be paid to the foreman of the Homage of the preceding Court Baron, and applied in and towards such expenses. And that the further sum of threepence be paid on Monday weekly for every head of cattle which any [p450] commoner shall turn or keep on the commons for the wages of the herdsman.

'That the cattle to be depastured on the commons ought to be delivered or sent by the owners to Butts Close between the hours of six and eight of the morning from the sixth day of April to the eleventh day of October, both inclusive; and after the eleventh of October between the hours of seven and nine of the morning. And that it is the duty of the herdsman to attend there during such hours, and to receive into his care the cattle brought to him, and to conduct them to the proper commons, and to attend and watch them there during the day, and to return them to the respective owners at six o'clock in the evening or as near thereto as may be; but no cow which is not brought to the herdsman within the hours before appointed for collecting the herd is considered as part of the herd or to be under the herdsman's care; and that no horned cattle ought to be received into the herd without sufficient knobs on their horns.

SHEEP COMMONS.

«The common fields.»

'That every occupier of unenclosed land in any of the common fields of the said township hath common of pasture for his sheep levant and couchant thereon over the residue of the unenclosed land in the same common field, in every year from the time when the corn is cut and carried until the same be again sown with corn, and during the whole of the fallow season, save that no sheep may be depastured on the land in Bury Field and Welshman's Croft between the harvest and the twelfth day of November, the herbage thereof from the harvest to the twelfth day of November being reserved for the cows.

«The three seasons.»

'That the common fields within the township of Hitchin have immemorially been and ought to be kept and cultivated in three successive seasons of tilthgrain, etchgrain, and fallow.

'That the last fallow season of Purwell Field and Welshman's Croft was from the harvest of 1816 until the wheat sowing in the autumn of 1817; and that the fallow season [p451] of those fields commenced again at the close of the last harvest. That the last fallow season of Burford Field and Spital Field was from the harvest of the year 1817 until the wheat sowing in the autumn of the year 1818. And the last fallow season of Moremead Field and Bury Field was from the harvest of 1818 until the wheat sowing of 1819.

'That no person hath any right of common for sheep on any of the Green Commons or Lammas ground within this township except on Old Hale and on the closes of John Crouch Priest, called Ickleford Closes, which are commonable for sheep at the same time with the field called Welshman's Croft.

«Right of enclosure giving up right of common.»

'The Homage find and present that every owner and every occupier of land in any of the common fields of this township may at his will and pleasure enclose and fence any of his land lying in the common fields of this township (other than and except land in Bury Field and Welshman's Croft), and may, so long as the same shall remain so enclosed and fenced, hold such land, whether the same belong to one or to more than one proprietor, exempt from any right or power of any other owner or occupier of land in the said township to common or depasture his sheep on the land so enclosed and fenced (no right of common on other land being claimed in respect of the land so enclosed and fenced).

'The Homage also find and present that the commonable lands in the hamlet of Walsworth within this manor consist of--

«Walsworth Common.»

'A parcel of meadow ground called Walsworth Common, containing fourteen acres or thereabouts, the soil whereof remains in the lord of the manor.

'And of certain parcels of meadow called Lammas Meadow (that is to say), the Leys, part of the estate of Sir Francis Sykes adjoining to Walsworth Common, and containing four acres or thereabouts; Ickleford Mead, containing two acres or thereabouts; Ralph's Pightle, adjoining to Highover Moor, containing one acre or thereabouts, Woolgroves, containing three acres or thereabouts, lying near to the mill of John Ransom, heretofore called Burnt Mill, and now called Grove Mill. [p452]

'A close called the Hills, containing two acres or thereabouts, on the west side of the road from Hitchin to Baldock, and a parcel of land called the Shadwells on the east side of the same road, and divided by the river, containing twelve acres or thereabouts.

'And they find and present that four several parcels of land hereinafter described have been by John Ransom enclosed and fenced out from the said Lammas ground called Woolgroves, and are now by him held in severalty.

'And that the same are and always have been parts of the commonable land of the said hamlet (to wit): A piece of land containing twenty-one perches or thereabouts on the south-west side of the present course of the river, and between the same and the old course; a piece of land containing twelve perches or thereabouts, now by the alteration of the course of the river surrounded by water; a piece of land on the north-east side of Woolgroves, containing one rood and twenty-two perches or thereabouts; and a piece of land at the south-east corner of Woolgroves, containing one rood or thereabouts.

'And the Homage find and present that the occupier of every ancient messuage or cottage within the hamlet of Walsworth hath a right to turn and depasture on the commonable land thereof, in respect of and as appurtenant to his messuage or cottage, two cows and a bullock or yearling cow calf upon and from the thirteenth day of May, called Old May-day, until the sixth day of April, called Old Lady-day, and one horse upon and from the said thirteenth day of May until the thirteenth day of August, called Old Lammas-day, and hath a right to turn the like number of cattle upon the Lammas ground in Walsworth upon and from Old Lammas-day until Old Lady-day. That no person hath a right to common or turn any sheep upon the said common called Walsworth Commons, and that no sheep may be turned on the Lammas ground of Walsworth between Old Lammas-day and the last day of November.

'The Homage also present that it is the duty of the Homage of this Court at every Great Court Baron yearly holden next after the Feast of St. Michael, upon the [p453] application and request of any of the persons entitled to common the cattle upon the commons within the hamlet of Walsworth, to appoint a herdsman for the said hamlet, and to fix and assess a reasonable sum to be paid to him for his wages, and also a reasonable sum to be paid by the commoners for draining and fencing the commons.

'This Court was then adjourned to Monday, the first day of November next.

'Signed THOS. JEEVES (Foreman). SAMUEL SMITH. JOHN MARSHALL. WILLM. DUNNAGE. WM. BLOOM. ROBT. NEWTON. WILLM. HALL. WM. MARTIN. THOS. WALLER. GEO. BEAVER. W. SWORDER. JOHN MOORE.'

INDEX AND GLOSSARY.

_Acre_, the 'selio,' or strip in the open field (40 x 4 rods), 3, 106, 385. A day's work in ploughing, 124. Reason of its shape, 124. Welsh acre, _see_ 'Erw'

_Ager_, _agellus_, _agellulus_, territory of a manor, 167

_Ager publicus_, tenants on, 272–288. Tendencies towards manorial methods of management, 300, 308

_Agri decumates_, occupied by Alamannic tribes, 282–288. Position of tenants on, 311

_Agri occupatorii_, with irregular boundaries, 277, and sometimes scattered ownership, 278

_Agrimensores_ (Roman), methods of centuriation, 250, 276, 279

_Aillt_, or _altud._ _See_ 'Taeog.' Compare Aldiones of Lombardic Laws and Saxon 'althud' = foreigner, 281

_Alamanni_, German tribes, offshoots of, Hermundori, Thuringi, &c., 282. Some deported into Britain, 285. Conquered by Julian, 286

_Alfred the Great_, his founding the New Minster at Winchester, 160. Services of serfs on his manor of Hysseburne, 162. His sketch of growth of a new _ham_, 169. His Boethius quoted, 168

_Amobr_, fee on marriage of females under Welsh laws, 195

_Andecena_, day work of serf under Bavarian laws same shape as English acre, 325, 386, 391

_Angariæ and parangariæ_, carrying or post-horse services (_see_ Roman 'sordida munera'), 297, and so any forced service, 298. Manorial services, 324–327

_Anwänder_, German 'headland,' 381

_Archenfeld_, in Wales, survey of, in Domesday Book, 182, 206–7

_Averagium_ manorial carrying service from _avera_ or _affri_, beasts of burden, 298, _n._; at Bleadon, 57

_Balk_, the unploughed turf between two acre strips in the open fields. 4; in 'Piers the Plowman,' 19; in Cambridge terrier, 20; in Welsh laws, 119; a Welsh word, 382

_Ballibetogh_, cluster of 16 taths or homesteads, 215–224

_Bally_, Irish townland, 221, 223

_Battle Abbey Records_ (A.D. 1284–7), 49

_Bede_, complaint of lavish grants of manors to monasteries, 168

_Bees_, Welsh Law of, 207

_Bene-work_ or _Boon-work_. _See_ Precariæ

_Black Death_, 20; influence on villenage, 31

_Boc-land_, land of inheritance permanently made over by charter or deed, 168, 171

_Boldon Book_ (A.D. 1183), evidence of, 68–72

_Book of St. Chad_, Welsh charters in margins of, 209

_Booths_, making of, by villani, for fairs of St. Cuthbert, 71

_Bordarii_, or cottagers (from 'bord,' a cottage), 76; in Domesday Survey, 95; normal holding about 5 acres, 97; mentioned in Liber Niger of Peterborough, 97

_Boundaries_, method of describing, in Hitchin Manor, 9; in Saxon charters, 107, 111. Manor of King Edwy (Tidenham), 149; in Lorsch charters, 331. Roman method, 9. _See also_, 375

_Bovate_ (_Bovata terræ_), the half yard-land contributing _one_ ox to the team of eight, 61. 2 bovates in Boldon Book = virgate, 68

_Brehon Laws_, 226, 231, 232

_Breyr_, free Welsh tribesman, 192

_Britain_, Belgic districts of, pre-Roman settled agriculture in, 245. Exports of corn during Roman rule, 247, 286. The marling of the land described by Pliny, 250. Analogous to 'one-field system' of North Germany, 372

_Bucenobantes_, deported into Britain, 287

_Butts_, strips in open fields abutting others, 6

_Cæsar_, description of British and Belgic agriculture, 246. Ditto of chiefs and tribesmen in Gaul, 305. Description of German tribal system, 336–338

_Cambridge_, terrier of open fields of, in fourteenth or fifteenth century, 19, 20

_Carpenter_, village official having his holding free, 70

_Caruca_ (_see_ Carucate), plough team of eight oxen, yoked four to a yoke, 62, 74, 123; _carucæ adjutrices_, or smaller teams of villeins, 48, 74, 85; variations in team, 64, 74; of Domesday Survey, 85

_Carucate_, unit of assessment = land of a _caruca_ (_see_ Caruca), connexion with hide, 40. Used in Domesday Survey, 85

_Centenarii_, Roman and Frankish officials, 300–303

_Centuria_, division of land by Roman _Agrimensores_ of 200 or 240 jugera, 276. Divided into eight normal single holdings of 25 or 30, or double holdings of 50 or 60 jugera, 276

_Centuriation._ _See_ Agrimensores

_Ceorl_= husbandman; a wide term embracing, like 'geneat,' the lower class of freemen and serfs above the slaves, 110, 144

_Chamavi_, pagus chamaviorum, 285

_Co-aration_, or co-operative ploughing by contributors to team of eight oxen, 117. Described in Welsh Laws as 'Cyvar,' 118–124; in Ireland, 226; in Palestine, 314; in Roman provinces, 278

_Coloni_, position of, on the later Roman villa, 266. Right of lord to compel son to continue his parent's holding and services, 267. Often barbarians, 269. Like _usufructuarii_, 309, _n._ Possibly with single succession, 308–310

_Commendation_, surrender, putting a freeman under the _patrocinium_ or lordship of another, instances of, 305. Salvian's description of, 307. Effect of, 307–310. Practice continues under Alamannic and Bavarian laws, allowing surrenders to the Church, 316–335

_Continuity_ of English village sites, 424–436

_Cornage, cornagium_, tribute on horned cattle, 71

_Co-tillage._ _See_ Co-aration

_Cotsetla_, or cottier, in 'Rectitudines', = bordarius in Domesday Survey, 130; his services, &c., 130–131

_Cottier tenants_, holders in villenage of a few scattered strips in open fields, 24, 29, 34, 69

_Cyvar._ _See_ Co-aration

'_Daer_' and '_Saer_' tenancy in Ireland, 231

_Davies, Sir John_, his surveys in Ireland and description of the Irish tribal system, 214–231

_Dawnbwyd_, food rent of Welsh taeogs, 198

_Decuriæ_, of slaves on Roman villa, 264

_Dimetian_ Code of South Wales. _See_ 'Wales, Ancient Laws of'

_Domesday Survey_ (A.D. 1086). Manors everywhere, 82. Lord's demesne and land in villenage, 84. Assessment by hides and carucates, 84; in Kent by solins, 85; _liberi homines_ and _sochmanni_ in Danish district, 86–89. Tenants in villenage, villani, bordarii or cottarii, and servi, 89. The villani holders of virgates or yard-lands, 91; examples from surveys of Middlesex, Herts, and Liber Eliensis, 92–94. Bordarii hold about five acres each, more or less, 95–97. Survey of Villa of Westminster, 97–101; area of arable land in England, and how much of it held in the yard-lands of villani, 101–104. Survey of portions of Wales, 182–184, 211

_Doles_, or Dǽls, i.e. pieces or strips, hence 'gedal-land,' 110; and run-dale (or run-rig) system of taking strips in rotation or scattered about, 228 (_see also_ Doles of Meadow-land, 25)

_Drengage_, hunting service (Boldon Book), 71

_Ebediw_, Welsh death payment or heriot, 195

Edward the Confessor, his dying vision of the open fields round Westminster, 100

_Einzelhöfe_, German single farms in Westphalia, 371

_Enclosure Acts_, 4,000 between 1760–1844, 13

_English settlements_, methods of, 412–423

_Ergastulum_, prison for slaves on Roman villa, 264

_Erw_, Welsh acre, the actual strips in open fields described in Welsh Laws, 119

_Etch_, crop sown on stubble, 377

_Ethelbert_, Laws of, _hams_ and _tuns_ in private ownership and mention of læts, 173–174

_Faber_, or village blacksmith, holds his virgate free of services, 70

_Fleta_ (temp. Ed. I.), description of manor in, 45

_Forera_ (Saxon foryrthe), or headland, 20, 108

_Frankpledge_, View of, 10

_Franks_, their inroads, 283; deported into Belgic Gaul, 284

_Frisians_, 285. Tribute in hides, 306, _n._

_Furlong_ (shot, or quarentena), division of open fields 'a furrow long,' divided into strips or acres, 4; in Saxon open fields, 108; German, Gewann, 380

_Gafol_ (from German _Gaben_, _Abgaben_, food gifts under German tribal system), tribute, 144, 145; in money and in kind, of villein tenants. Perhaps survival of Roman tributum based upon tribal food rents (_see_ 'Roman tributum,' and 'jugatio,' 'gwestva'); of villani, on English manors, 78; of _gebur_, on Saxon manors, 132, 140–142, 155, 162. Marked a semi-servile condition, 146, 326

_Gafol-land_, 137. _See_ Geneat-land

_Gafol-gilder_, payer of gafol or tribute, 145

_Gafol-yrth_, the ploughing of generally three acre strips and sowing by the gebur, from his own barn, and reaping and carrying of crop to lord's barn by way of rent; in 'Rectitudines,' 132–140; on Hysseburne Manor of King Alfred, 162; in South Germany in seventh century, 326 _et seq._ Possibly survival of the _agrarium_ or tenth of produce on Roman provincial tithe lands, 399–403

_Gavael_, the tribal homestead and holding in N. Wales, 200–202

_Gavelkind_, Irish _gabal-cined_, distinguished by equal division among heirs, 220, 352

_Gebur_, villanus proper, or owner of a yard-land normally of thirty acres with outfit of two oxen and seed, in 'Rectitudines,' 131–133. His services described, 131–133, and 137–143; his gafol and week-work in respect of yard-land, 142; his outfit or 'setene,' 133, 143; in laws of Ine, 147. Services and gafol on Tidenham Manor of King Edwy, 154. In High German 'Gebur and Gipur' = vicinus, 394, and compare 278

_Gedal-land_, land divided into strips (Laws of Ine), 110. _See_ Doles

_Geneat_, a wide term covering all tenants in villenage, 129, 137, 154. Servile condition of, liable to have life taken by lord, 146

_Geneat-land_, land in villenage as opposed to 'thane's inland,' or land in demesne, 116. Sometimes called 'gesettes-land' and 'gafol-land, 128, 150; 'gyrds of gafol-land,' 150

_Geset-land_, land set or let out to husbandmen, 128. _See_ 'Geneat-land'

_Gored Acres_, strips in open fields pointed at one end, 6, 20; in Saxon open fields, 108

_Gwely_, the Welsh family couch (lectus), also a name for a family holding, 195; in Record of Carnarvon, 194

_Gwentian Code_, of South Wales. _See_ 'Wales, Ancient Laws of'

_Gwestva_, food rent of Welsh tribesmen, and _tunc pound_ in lieu of it, 195; early evidence of, in Ine's laws, 209–213

_Gyrd_ (a rod-virga)

_Gyrdland._ _See_ Yardland. _See_ 169–172

_Ham_ (hem, heim, haim), in Saxon, like 'tun,' generally = villa or manor, 126, 254. A private estate with a village community in serfdom upon it, 127. Geographical distribution of suffix, 255. _See_ Villa

_Headland_, strip at head of strips in a furlong on which the plough was turned, 4. Latin '_forera_,' Welsh '_pentir_,' Scotch '_headrig_,' German '_anwänder_,' 5, 380. In Saxon open fields, 108

_Hide_, normal holding of a free family (hence Latin _casatum_ and the _familia_ of Bede), but in later records corresponding with the full plough team of eight oxen, and so = four yard-lands. Used as the unit of assessment for early times, 38. Perhaps from Roman times. Compare Roman _tributum_, 290–294. Connexion with carucate and yard-land, 36. Normal hide, 120 a., 37. Double hide of 240 a., 37, 39, 51, 54. Possible origin of word, 398. The _hide_, the _hof_, and the _centuria_ compared, 395

_Hitchin_ (Herts), its 'open fields,' 1–7. Map of township and of an estate therein, _opposite title-page_. Map of Purwell field, 6. Its village community described in Manor Rolls of 1819, 8, and appendix. Boundaries, 9. Officers, 10. Common fields, 11. Its Celtic name _Hiz_, 429. Roman remains, 430. Continuity of villages in Hitchin district from Celtic and Roman and Saxon times, 424–436

_Hiwisc_, Saxon for family holding, 162, 395

_Honey_, Welsh rents in. _See_ Gwestva, 207, 211–213

_Hordwell_, boundaries of, in Saxon Charter, 107

_Hundred Rolls_ of Edward I., A.D. 1279, evidence of, as to the prevalence of the Manor, the open-field system and serfdom in five Midland Counties, 32, _et seq._

_Husband-lands_ in Kelso and Newminster Records = virgate or yard-land, 61

_Hydarii_, holders of hides, 52

_Hysseburne_, Manor of Stoke by, on the river Itchin near Winchester, held by King Alfred, 160. Serfdom and services of ceorls on, 162

_Ine, Laws of_ (A.D. 688), evidence of open-field system, 109. Acre strips, 110. Yardlands, 142. Hides and half hides, 147. Geneats, geburs, gafol, week-work, 147. Welsh food rents, 212–213

_Ing_, suffix to local names; whether denotes clan settlements and where found, 354–367

_Inquisitio Eliensis_ mentions liberi homines and sochmanni, 87. Mentions villani as holding virgates, &c., 94. Mentions both bordarii and cottarii, 96

_Isle of Man_, early division of land into ballys and quarters, 222

_Jugatio._ _See_ Roman tributum

_Jugerum_, size and form of, 387

_Jugum._ (_See_ Roman tributum.) Roman unit of assessment, 289–295. Description of, in Syrian Code, 291. Analogy to virgate and hide, and sulung, 292

_Jüngsten-Recht_, right of youngest to succeed to holding, 352–354. See also under Welsh laws, 193, 197

_Kelso, Abbey of_, '_Rotulus redituum_,' _stuht_ or outfit to tenants of, 61

_Lammas land_, meadows owned in strips, but commonable after Lammas Day, in Hitchin Manor, 11; in laws of Ine, 110

_Læn-land_, lands granted as a benefice for life to a thane, 168

_Læti_, conquered barbarians deported and settled on public lands during later Roman rule, chiefly in Belgic Gaul and Britain, 280–289

_Leges Alamannorum_ (A.D. 622), surrenders to Church allowed under, 317; services of _servi_ and _coloni_ of the Church under, 323

_Leges Baiuwariorum_ (7th century) surrenders under, 317. Services of _coloni_ and _servi_ of the Church under, 325

_Leges Ripuariorum_, 304

_Lex Salica_, use of 'villa' in a manorial sense, 259–262, 303

_Lex Visigothorum_ (A.D. 650 about) in division of land between Romans and Visigoths, fifty aripennes allotted _per singula aratra_, 276 _n._

_Liber Niger_ of Peterborough Abbey (A.D. 1125), nearest evidence to the Domesday Survey, 72 _et seq._

_Libere tenentes_, holders of portions of demesne-land, i.e. land _not_ in villenage, 33. Villeins holding yard-lands in villenage may be _libere tenentes_ of other land besides, 34. Increasing in later times, 54. Absent from Domesday survey generally, 86; Archdeacon Hale's theory of their presence disproved, 86–87 _n._

_Liberi homines_, of Domesday Survey in Danish districts, 86, 102

_Lince, or lynch_, acre strip in open fields formed into a terrace by always turning the sod downwards in ploughing a hill side, 5; sketch of, 5; in Saxon open fields, 108; in Yorkshire 'reean' and Germany 'rain' = _lince_ or _balk_, 381

_Lingones_, 284

_Lorsch_ (Lauresham), instances of surrenders to the Abbey of, 329–333

_Maenol_, cluster of tribal homesteads in Welsh laws, in North Wales of sixteen homesteads paying between them the _tunc pound_, 202. In South Wales the _maenol_ is a group of twelve _trevs_, each paying _tunc pound_, 203–4

_Manor_, or _villa_, in Saxon, _ham_ or _tun_. An estate of a lord or thane with a village community generally in serfdom upon it. Hitchin Manor and its connexion with open-field system, 1–13. Manors before Domesday Survey--Winslow, 22; Hundred Rolls, 32; described in Fleta, 45; Battle Abbey and St. Paul's, 49; Gloucester and Worcester, 55; Bleadon, 57; Newminster and Kelso, 60. In Boldon Book, 68; in Liber Niger of Peterborough, 72; summary, 76. In Domesday Survey manors everywhere, 82 _et seq._ Westminster, 97. Saxon 'hams' and 'tuns' were manors, 126 _et seq._ Manor of Tidenham, of King Edwy, 148. Hysseburne, of King Alfred, 160. Creation of new manors, 166. Terra Regis composed of manors, 167. 'Hams' and 'tuns' in King Ethelbert's laws, manors, i.e., in private ownership with semi-servile tenants (_læts_) upon them, 173. There were manors in England before St. Augustine's arrival, 175. English and Frankish identical, 253. Villa of Salic Laws probably a manor on Terra Regis, 259–263. Likeness of Roman villa to, 263–272 (_see_ Roman 'Villa'). Villas, or fiscal districts of Imperial officials, tend to become manors, 300–305. Transition from villas to manors under Alamannic and Bavarian laws in South Germany, 316–335. Frankish manors, their tenants and services, 333. Manorial tendencies of German tribal system, 346

_Monetary System_, Gallic and Welsh pound of 240 pence of silver divided into twelve unciæ each of a score pence, 204. The Gallic system in Roman times, 234, 292

_Nervii_, 284

_Newminster Abbey_, cartulary of, 60

_No Man's Land_, or 'Jack's Land,' odds and ends of lands in open fields, 6. In Saxon boundaries, 108

_Open-Field System in England_; remains of open fields described, 1, _et seq._ Divided into acre or half-acre strips, 2, and furlongs or shots, 4. Holdings in bundles of scattered strips, 7; _i.e._, hides, half-hides, yard-lands, &c. (to which refer). Wide prevalence of system in England, 13. The shell of a village community, 8–13--which was in serfdom, 76–80. The English system, the _three-field system_, _i.e._, in three fields, representing three-course rotation of crops, 11. Traced back in Winslow manor rolls (Ed. III.), 20 _et seq._; in Gloucester and Worcester surveys, 55; Battle Abbey and St. Paul's records, 49; Newminster and Kelso records, 60; Boldon Book, 68; Liber Niger of Peterborough, 72. Summary of post-Domesday evidence, 76. Prevalence in Saxon times, shown by use of the word _æcera_, 106, and by occurrence of _gored acres_, _head-lands_, _furlongs_, _linces_, &c., in the boundaries appended to charters, 108. Evidence of division of fields into acre strips in seventh century in _Laws of Ine_, 109–110. Holdings in hides, half-hides and yard-lands, 110–117. Scattering of strips in a holding the result of co-operative ploughing, 117–125. The three-field system would grow out of the simple form of tribal system, by addition of rotation of crops in three courses, settlement, and serfdom, 368–370. _Welsh open-field system_, 181, 213, with division into '_erws_,' or acres, 119. Scattering of strips in a holding arising from co-aration, 121. The system 'co-aration of the waste,' _i.e._ of grass land which went back into grass, 192, 227, 244, 251. Like that of the Germania of Tacitus, 369, 412. No fixed 'yard-lands' or rotation of crops, 251, 413. _Irish and Scotch open-field system_ like the Welsh; modern remains of, in _Rundale_ or _Run-rig_ system, 214–231. _German_ open-field systems, 369–411; different kinds of, _Feldgraswirthschaft_ resembling that described by Tacitus and Welsh 'co-aration of waste,' 371. One-field system of N. Germany, 372–373. Forest and marsh system, 372. Three-field system in S. Germany, 373. Comparison of, with English, and connexion with Roman province, 375–409. Absent from N. Germany, and so could not have been introduced into England by the Saxon invaders, 373, 409, 411. Rotation of crops, perhaps of Roman introduction, 410, 411. Wide prevalence of forms of open-field system, 249. Description of, in Palestine, 314. Mention of, by Siculus Flaccus, 278. Possibly in use on Roman tithe lands, 315. Remains of the simple tribal form of, in modern rundale or run-rig of Ireland and Scotland, quite distinct from the remains of the three-field form in England, 437–439. Described by Tusser as uneconomical, 17, and by Arthur Young, 16

_Parangariæ_, extra carrying services, _see_ 'angariæ'

_Paraveredi_, extra post-horses (_see_ Roman 'sordida munera'), 297, from _veredus_ a post-horse, 298. Manorial _Parafretus_, 325–334

_Patrocinium._ _See_ 'Commendation'

_Pfahl-graben_, the Roman _limes_ on the side of Germany, 282

_Pflicht-theil_, survival of late Roman law, obliging a fixed proportion of a man's property to go equally to his sons. In Bavaria, 313. Compare Bavarian laws of the seventh century, 317, and Syrian code of fifth century, 312

_Piers the Plowman_, his 'faire felde,' an open field divided into half-acre strips and furlongs, by balks, 18–19

_Plough-bote_, or _Plough-erw_, the strips set apart in the co-ploughing, for the carpenter, or repair of plough, 121. (_See_ Carpenter)

_Plough team_, normal English manorial common plough team of 8 oxen (_see_ 'Caruca'). Welsh do., also of 8 oxen, 121–2. Scotch also, 62–66. 6, 10, or 12 oxen in Servia, 387 _n._ In India, 388. Single yoke of 2 oxen in Egypt and Palestine, 314, 387; and in Sicily, 275, and Spain, 276

_Polyptique d'Irminon_, Abbot of St. Germain des Prés, and M. Guérard's Introduction quoted, 265, 298, 641

_Præpositus_ of a manor elected by tenants, 48. Holds one wista without services at Alciston, 50. Holds his two bovates free (Boldon Book), 70. Word used for Welsh 'maer,' 184

_Precaria_, a benefice or holding at will of lord or for life only, 319, 333

_Precariæ_ or Boon-works, work at will of lord, 78. On Saxon Manors, 140, 157. In South Germany, 327. Sometimes survivals of the Roman 'sordida munera,' 327, 403

_Priest_, his place in village community often with his yard-land, 90–111, 115

_Probus_ introduces vine culture on the Rhine, 288. Deports Burgundians and Vandals into Britain, 283. Colonised with Læti Rhine Valley and Belgic Gaul, 283

_Punder_, keeper of the village pound, 69, 70

_Quarentena._ _See_ Furlong. Length of furrow 40 poles long

_Rain_, German for 'balk' as in Yorkshire 'reean' = linch, 381

_Randir_, from _rhan_, a division, and _tir_, land; a share of land under Welsh laws, 200. A cluster of three homesteads in South Wales, 204; and four randirs in the _trev_, 204; but in North Wales a subdivision of the homestead, 200

'_Rectitudines Singularum Personarum_' (10th century?), evidence of, 129 _et seq._ Dr. Leo's work upon, 164

_Redon, Cartulaire de_, quoted, 385

_Rhætia_, semi-servile barbarian settlers in, 288. _Sordida munera_ in, 296–299. Roman custom, in present Bavaria as to land tenure, 313. Transition from Roman to Mediæval manor in, 316–335

_Rig_, strip in Irish and Scotch open fields, 3. Hence Run-rig system

_Roman jugatio sive capitatio_, 289, 295. _See_ Roman tributum

_Roman_ '_sordida munera_,' 295–299. Some of them survive in manorial services, 324, 325, 327, 334, 404

_Roman tributum_ of later Empire, 289–295. Roman _jugatio_ and Saxon hidage compared, _id._, and 397

_Roman Veterans_ settled on _ager publicus_ with single or double yokes of oxen and seed for about 30 or 60 jugera, 272–276

_Roman Villa._ _See_ Villa

_Run-rig_ or _Rundale_, the Irish and Scotch modern open-field system, 3. Survival of methods of tribal system now used in subdivision of holdings among heirs, 226, 230, 438–440

_St. Bertin_, Abbey of Sitdiu at, Grimbald brought by King Alfred from thence, 160; Chartularium Sithiensis, and surveys of estates of, 255–6; villa or manor of Sitdiu, 272, 366; suffix 'inghem' to names of manors, 356

_St. Gall_, records of Abbey, surrenders to, 316–324

_St. Paul's_ (Domesday of), A.D. 1222, 51

_Salian Franks_ in Toxandria, 286

_Scattered Ownership_, in open fields, 7. Characteristic of 'yard-land' in Winslow manor rolls, 23. In Saxon open fields, 111. In Welsh laws, 118. Resulted from co-ploughing, 121. Under runrig system, 226–229

_Scutage_, 1d. per acre or 1l. per double hide of 240 a., or 40s. per _scutum_, to which four ordinary hides contributed, 38

_Seliones_, the acre or half-acre strips into which the open fields were divided, separated by turf _balks_, 2, 3, 19, 119

_Servi_ (_slaves_), in Domesday Survey, 89, 93–95. Saxon _Theow_ 164–166, 175. Welsh _caeth_, 199, 238. On Roman Villa, 263. Arranged in _decuriæ_, 264. Under Alamannic and Bavarian laws, 317, 323–326

_Services_ of _villani_, chiefly of three kinds: (1) Gafol, (2) precariæ or boon-work, (3) week-work (refer to these heads), 41. In Hundred Rolls, 41. Domesday of St. Paul's, 53. Gloucester and Worcester records, 58. In Kelso records, 67. Boldon Book, 68. Liber Niger of Peterborough, 73. Summary of post-Domesday evidence, 78. On Saxon manors, in 'Rectitudines,' 130, 137–147. On Tidenham manor of King Edwy, 154. On Hysseburne manor of King Alfred, 162. In Saxon '_weork-ræden_,' 158. Of cottiers (or bordarii) in Hundred Rolls, 44. Gloucester and Worcester, 58, 69. Of Saxon 'cotsetle,' 130, 141. On German and English manors compared, 399–405

_Setene_, outfit of holder of Saxon yard-land, 133, 139. _See_ Stuht

_Shot_, 4 (_see_ furlong), Saxon 'sceot,' a division, occurs at Passau, 380

_Siculus Flaccus_ mentions open fields, irregular boundaries, and scattered ownership, on _agri occupatorii_, 274–278

_Sochmanni_, a class of tenants on manors chiefly in the Danish districts, 34. Mentioned in Hundred Rolls in Cambridgeshire, 34; in Domesday Survey, 87, 102

_Solanda_, in Domesday of St. Paul's = double hide of 240 a., 54

_Solin_, _sullung_, of Kent, plough land from 'Suhl,' a plough, 54; divided into 'yokes' (= yard-lands), 54; sullung = 4 gyrdlands and to ½ sullung, outfit of four oxen, A.D. 835, 139. _See also_, 395

_Stuht_, Kelso records, outfit of two oxen, &c., with husband-land (yard-land), 61. Compare '_setene_' of the Saxon gebur with yard-land, 133 and 139, and outfit of Roman veteran, 274; and see under Bavarian Laws, 326

_Succession to holdings_, under the tribal system to all sons of tribesmen equally, 193, 234, 340; to yard-lands and other holdings in serfdom _single_ by regrant, 23–24, 133, 176; so probably in the case of semi-servile holdings of _usufructuarii_ under Roman law, 308

_Supercilia_, or linches, mentioned by _Agrimensores_, 277

_Syrian Code_ of fifth century, 291–294

_Tacitus_, description of German tribal system in the _Germania_, 338–343

_Tacogs_ (or aillts), Welsh tenants without Welsh blood or rights of inheritance, not tribesmen--their 'register land' (tir cyfrif), 191; arranged in separate clusters or trevs with equality within each, 197; their 'register land,' 197; their dues to their lord and other incidents, 198–199

_Tate, or Tath_, the Irish homestead, analogous to Welsh 'tyddyn,' 214, 231. _See_ Tribal system, Irish

_Thane_, Lord of a ham. Thane's inland = Lord's demesne land, 128. Thane's law or duties in 'Rectitudines,' 129; his services, 134; a soldier and servant of king, 135; his 'fyrd,' 136; _trinoda necessitas_, 134

_Theows_, slaves on Saxon estates, 144; their position, 164. Example from 'Ælfric's Dialogue,' 165

_Three-Field System._ (_See_ Open-field system.) Form of the open-field system with three-course rotation of crops

_Tidenham_, Manor of King Edwy. Description of, and of services of geneats and geburs upon, A.D. 956, 148–159. _Cytweras_ and _hæcweras_, for salmon fishing, 152

_Tir-bwrdd_ = terra mensalia, 198

_Tir-gwelyawg_, family land of Welsh free tribesmen, 191

_Tir-cyfrif_, register land of taeogs, 101

_Tir-kyllydus_, Welsh geldable land, 191

_Tithes_ of Church under Saxon laws taken in actual strips or acres 'as they were traversed by the plough,' 114; acres of tithes in Domesday Survey, 117; Ethelwulf's grant, 114

_Tithe lands_ of Sicily, 275; of modern Palestine, 314. (_See_ '_Agri decumates_.')

_Trev_, cluster of Welsh free tribesmen's homesteads, four in North Wales, 200–202; twelve in South Wales, 204. _Taeog_ trevs, 203

_Treviri_, 284

_Tricassi_, 284

_Tribal System in Wales_, 181–213. Welsh districts and traces of, in Domesday Survey, 182, 206–7. Food rents in D.S., 185. Welsh land system described by Giraldus Cambrensis, 186–189. In Ancient Laws of Wales, 189 _et seq._ The free tribesmen of Welsh blood, 190. Homesteads scattered about, but grouped into clusters for payment of food rents, 190. Their family land (tir-gwelyawg), 190–191. Their right to a tyddyn (homestead), five free 'erws' and co-tillage of waste, 192. The tribal household with equality within it among brothers, first cousins, and second cousins, 193. The gwely or family couch, 194. The _gwestva_, or food rent, and tunc pound in lieu of it, 195. Other obligations of tribesmen, 195. The _taeogs or aillts_ (see these words) not tribesmen, their tenure and rules of equality, 197. Land divisions under Welsh Codes connected with the _gwestva_ and food rents, 199–208. Early evidence of payment of gwestva and of food rents of taeogs, 208–213. Shifting of holdings under tribal system, 205. Cluster of twelve tyddyns in Gwent and sixteen in N. Wales pay _tunc pound_, 202, 203. _In Ireland and Scotland_, 214–231. Clusters of sixteen tates or taths (Welsh tyddyn), 215–217. Sir John Davies's surveys and description of tribal system, Tanistry, and Gavelkind, 215–220. Example of a Sept deported from Cumberland, 219. Ancient division of Bally or townland into _quarters_ and _tates_, 221, 224. Quarters and names of tates still traceable on Ordnance Survey, 223–224. Names of tates not personal, owing to tribal distributions and shiftings of tribal households from tate to tate, 224.

Irish open-field system--rundale or run-rig--226–228. Similar system in Scotland, 228–229. Tribal system in its earlier stages, 231–245. Tenacity with which tribal division among sons maintained, 234. The tribal house, 239. Blood money, 242. Wide prevalence of tribal system, 244. Absent from S.E. or Belgic districts of England at Roman conquest, 245. _In Germany_, description of tribal system by Cæsar, 336–337. Description of, by Tacitus, 338–342. Husbandry like Welsh co-tillage of the waste for one year only, 343–345. Manorial tendencies of German system: tribesmen have their _servi_ who are 'like _coloni_,' 345–346. The manor in embryo, 346. Tribal households of German settlers--local names ending in 'ing'--whether clan settlements or perhaps as manorial as others, 346–367

_Tun_, generally in Saxon = ham or manor, (to which refer), 255

_Tunc pound_, payment in lieu of Welsh _gwestva_ (to which refer) paid to the Prince of Wales, 196

_Tusser_, his description of 'Champion' or open-field husbandry, 17

_Tyddyn_, the Welsh homestead, 192–193. Compare Irish 'tate' or 'tath' and Bohemian 'dĕdiny,' 355

_Uchelwyr_, free Welsh tribesman, 192

_Venedotian_ Code of North Wales. _See_ Wales, Ancient Laws of

_Veredus_, post horse, derivation of word, 298

_Villa_, word interchangeable with _manor_, _ham_, _tun_, 126, 254. Frankish _heim_ or _villa_ on _Terra Regis_ was a manor and unit of jurisdiction, 257, 262. _The Roman villa_, an estate under a villicus, worked by slaves, 263. Its _cohortes_ and _ergastulum_, 263–264. Slaves arranged in _decuriæ_, 264. _Coloni_, often barbarians on a villa, 266. Likeness to a manor increasing, 267–268. Burgundians shared villas with Romans, 269. Villas transferred to Church, 270. And continued under German rule to be villas, 270. And became gradually mediæval manors with villages upon them, 271. Villas surrendered under Alamannic and Bavarian laws to the Church, 317 _et seq._

_Village Community or Villata_, under a manor, 8. Hitchin example. _See_ Hitchin. Its common or open fields: arable, 11; meadow and pasture, 11. Its officials, 10, 70

_Villani_, holders of land in villenage, 29. Sometimes _nativi_ and _adscripti glebæ_, 29. Pay heriot or relief; widows have dower; make wills proved in Manor Court, 30. The yard-land the normal holding of full villanus with two oxen, 27 (_see_ Yard-land). Sometimes they hold the demesne land at farm, 69. Sometimes farm whole manor, 70. _Pleni-villani_ and _semi-villani_, 74

_Villenage._ _See_ Villani. Breaking up in 14th century, 31. Its death-blow the Black Death and Wat Tyler's rebellion, 31–32. Incidents of, in Worcestershire, 56. General incidents, 80. _See_ Servius

_Virgarii_, holders of Virgates, 50

_Virgate._ See Yardland.

_Wales, Ancient Laws of_, ascribed to Howel Dda (10th century), 189. Contemporary with Saxon Laws, 190. _See_ 'Tribal System' of, 181–213. Parts of, mentioned in Domesday Survey, 182, 185

_Wat Tyler's_ rebellion, 31

_Week-work._ The distinctive service of the serf in villenage, 78 (and see for details 'Services'), in _Rectitudines_, week-work of gebur three days a week, 131, 141. In services of Tidenham unlimited, 155. So in those of Hysseburne, 163. In laws of Alamanni (A.D. 622) three days on estates of Church, 323. So in Bavarian laws (7th century), 326. Unless lord has found everything, 326. On Lorsch manors three days, 334. _See also_, 404

_Wele_, Welsh holding in _Record of Carnarvon_. _See_ 'Gwely,' 193–195

_Westminster_, description of its manor and open fields in Domesday Survey, 97–101

_Winslow_, Court Rolls of, 20–32

_Wista_, in Battle Abbey records = ½ hide--the _Great Wista_ = ½ double hide, 50

_Wizenburg_, surrenders to Abbey of, 329. Interchange between _villas_ and _heims_ in records of, 258

_Yard-land_ (_gyrd-landes_, _virgata terræ_), normal holding of villanus with two oxen in the common plough of eight oxen--a bundle of mostly thirty scattered strips in the open fields = German 'hub.' Example of yard-land in Winslow Manor rolls, 24. Rotation in the strips, 27. Large area in yard-lands, 28. Held in villenage by villani, 29. Evidence of Hundred Rolls, 33. Variation in acreage and connexion with 'hide,' 36, 55 = husband-land of two bovates in the North, 61, 67. Normal holding of villanus in _Liber Niger_ of Peterborough, 73. Normal holding of villanus of Domesday Survey, 91–95. Large proportion of arable land of England held in yard-lands at date of survey, 101. Saxon 'gyrd-lands,' 111, 117. In 'Rectitudines,' 133. In 'Laws of Ine,' 142. A bundle of scattered strips resulting from co-operative ploughing, 117–125. With single succession (_see_ 'Succession') which is the mark of serfdom of the holders, 176, 370

_Yoke of Land_ (mentioned in Domesday Survey of Kent) = yard-land. Division of the _sullung_ or double hide in Kent, 54. Compared with Roman _jugum_. _See_ Jugum

_Yoke_, _short_ for two oxen, _long_ for four oxen abreast in Welsh laws, 120

_Youngest_ son, custom for, to succeed to holding. _See_ Jüngsten-Recht

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., COLCHESTER LONDON AND ETON, ENGLAND

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Transcriber's note:

Original punctuation and spelling were generally retained.

Illustrations are moved from inside paragraphs to between paragraphs.

Footnotes are renumbered and moved from the ends of pages to the ends of chapters.

The List of Maps and Plates was reformatted slightly to eliminate the original ditto marks ahead of each page number. Ditto marks have also been removed elsewhere, adding repetitive text as necessary. Large curley brackets, "{" or "}", meant to indicate combination or grouping of information on two or more lines, have been eliminated from this ebook. Such information has been recast appropriately to retain the original meaning.

Page 142: No anchor was found for the footnote; a new anchor was therefore inserted thus: "an otherwise almost unintelligible passage in the laws of King Ine[170]".

Page 144, first footnote: The text looks like "twihinde mek"; this has been changed to "twihinde men".

Page 207: changed "rendered as gwesta" to "rendered as gwestva".

Page 216–217: "ballibeatach" is also spelled "bailebiatagh" on these pages.

Page 261: changed "in the sense of 'court'--king's court,'--just as in" to "in the sense of 'court'--'king's court,'--just as in", by adding the single quote.

Page 340: The first footnote on this page lacks the volume number for the reference _Germania_. The second edition of the book contains the same footnote, but shows the volume number as "xxv", which has been inserted herein.

Page 391: The third footnote is rendered "_Id._ 37–8" herein, based on the second edition of the book. The current (reprint of the fourth) edition was illegible.

Index, under "Hide": "Double hide of, 240 a" changed to "Double hide of 240 a".

Index, under "Polyptique d'Irminon": It says "Introduction quoted, 265, 298, 641", but there is no page 641 in the book. However, footnote number 594 refers to page 641 of M. Guérard's Introduction.