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GIFT OF MICHAEL REESE
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ENGLISH VILUaE COMMUNITY.
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THE
ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY
KXAMTNBD IN ITS RELATI0K8 TO THB MANOBIAL AND TRIBAL ST8TEMS AND TO THB COMMON OB OPEN FIELD ST8TBM OF HUSBANDBT.
AN ESSAY IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
■St FBEDERte-^SSEBOHM.
LONDON: LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 1883.
All rights reserved.
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DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO THB
SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF LONDON.
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PEEFACE.
When I had the honour to lay the two papers which have expanded into this volume before the Society of Antiquaries, it was with a confession and an apology which, in publishing and dedicating to them this Essay, I now repeat.
I confessed to having approached the subject not as an antiquary but as a student of Economic History, and even with a directly political interest. To learn the meaning of the old order of things, with its * community ' and ' equality ' as a key to a right , understanding of the new order of things, with its 1 contrasting individual independence and inequality, this was the object which in the first instance tempted me to poach upon antiquarian manors, and it must be my apology for treating fipom an economic point of view a subject which has also an antiquarian interest.
To statesmen, whether of England or of the new Englands across the oceans, the importance can hardly be over-estimated of a sound appreciation of
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viii Preface.
the nature of that remarkable economic evolution in the course of which the great English speaking nations have, so to speak, become charged in our time with the trial of the experiment — let us hope also with the solution of the problem — of freedom and democracy^ using the words in the highest political sense as the antipodes of Paternal Government and Communism,
Perhaps, without presumption, it may be said that the future happiness of the human race — the success or failure of the planet — ^is in no small degree dependent upon the ultimate course of what seems, to us at least, to be the main stream of human pro- gress, upon whether it shall be guided by the fore- sight of statesmen into safe channels or misguided, diverted, or obstructed, till some great social or political convulsion proves that its force and its direc- tion have been misunderstood.
It may indeed be but too true that, in spite of the economic lessons of the past —
The weary Titan ! with deaf Ears, and labour dimmed eyee. Regarding neither to right Nor left, goes peadvely by, Staggering on to her goal ; Bearing on ahoolders immense, Atlantean, the load, Wellnigh not to be borne, Of the too vast orb of her fate.
And she may continue to do so, however clearly and truthfully the economic lessons of the past may be dinned into her ear. But still the deep sense I
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Preface. ix
have endeavoured to describe in these few sentences of the importance of a sound understanding of English Economic History as the true basis of much of the practical politics of the future will be accepted, I trust, as a sufficient reason why, ill-furnished as I have constantly found myself for the task, I should have ventured to devote some years of scant leisure to the production of this imperfect Essay.
It is simply an attempt to set English Economic History upon right lines at its historical commence- ment by trying to solve the still open question whether it began with the freedom or with the serf- dom of the masses of the people — ^whether the village communities living in the * hams' and *tons* of England were, at the outset of English history, /r^^ village communities or communities in serfdom under , a manorial lordship ; and further, what were their 1 \ relations to the tribal communities of the Western ! and less easily conquered portions of the island.
On the answer to this question depends funda- mentally the view to be taken by historians (let us say by politicians also) of the nature of the economic evolution which has taken place in England since the English Conquest. If answered in one way, English Economic History begins with free village communities which gradually degenerated into the serfdom of the Middle Ages. If answered in the other way, it begins with the serfdom of the masses of the rural popula- tion under Saxon rule — a serfdom from which it has taken 1,000 years of English economic evolution to set them free.
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X Preface.
Much learning and labour have already been ex- pended upon this question, and fresh light has been recently streaming in upon it from many sides.
A real flash of light was struck when German students perceived the connexion between the widely prevalent common or open field system of husbandry, and the village community which for centuries had used it as a shell. Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon G. L. von Maurer's theory of the German * mark,' there can be no doubt of its service as a working hypothesis by means of which the study of the economic problem has been materially ad- vanced.
A great step was taken as regards the English problem when Mr. Kemble, followed by Mr. Freeman and others, attempted to trace in English constitu- tional histoiy the development of ancient German free institutions, and to solve the English problem upon the lines of the German ' mark.' The merit of this attempt will not be destroyed even though doubt should be thrown upon the correctness of this suggested solution of the problem, and though other and non-German elements should prove to have been larger factors in Enghsh economic history. The caution observed by Professor Stubbs in the early chapters of his great work on English Constitutional History may be said to have at least reopened the question whether the German ' mark system * ever really took root in England.
Another step was gained on somewhat new lines when Professor Nasse, of Bonn, pointed out to English
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Preface. xi
students (who hitherto had not realised the fact) that the English and German land systems were the same, and that in England also the open-field system of husbandry was the shell of the mediaeval village com- munity. The importance of this view is obvious, and it is to be regretted that no English student has as yet followed it up by an adequate examination of the remarkably rich materials which lie at the dis- posal of English Economic History.
A new flash of light at once lit up the subject and greatly widened its interest when Sir Henry S. Maine, carrying with him to India his profound insight into * Ancient Law,* recognised the fundamental analogies between the * village communities ' of the East and the West, and sought to use actually sur- viving Indian institutions as typical representatives of ancient stages of similar Western institutions. Un- doubtedly much more light may be looked for from the same direction.
Further, Sir Henry S. Maine has opened fresh ground, and perhaps (if he will permit me to say so) even to some extent narrowed the area within which the theory of archaic free village communities can be applied, by widening the range of investigation in yet another direction. In his lectures on the ' Early History of Institutions ' he has turned his telescope upon the tribal communities, and especially the * tribal system' of the Brehon laws, and tried to dissolve parts of its mysterious nebulae into stars— a work in which he has been followed by Mr. W. F. Skene with results which give a peculiar interest to the third
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xii Preface,
volume of that learned writer's valuable work ou * Celtic Scotland.'
Lastly, under the close examination of Dr. Landau and Professors Hanssen and Meitzen, the open-field system itself has been found in Germany to take several distinct forms, corresponding, in part at least, with difierences in economic conditions, if not directly with various stages in economic development, from the early tribal to the later manorial system.
It is very much to be desired that the open-field system of the various districts of France should be carefully studied in the same way. An examination of its widely extended modem remains could hardly fail to throw important light upon the contents of the cartularies which have been pubUshed in the * Collec- tion de Documents InMits sur Thistoire de France,' amongst which the ^ Polyptique d!Irmmoni with M. Gu^rard's invaluable preface, is pre-eminently useful.
In the meantime, whilst students had perhaps been too exclusively absorbed in working in the rich mine of early German, institutions, Mr. Coote has done service in recalling attention in his * Neglected Fact in English History ' and his * Eomans of Britain ' to the evidences which remain of the survival of Boman influences in English institutions, even though it may be true that some of his conclusions may require re- consideration. The details of the later Roman pro- vincial government, and of the economic conditions of the German and British provinces, remain so obscure even after the labours of Mommsen, Mar-
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xiv P'i^face,
Men are still living who have held and worked farms under its inconvenient rules, and who know the meaning of its terms and eccentric details. Making use of this circumstance the method pursued in this Essay will be, first, to become familiar with the little distinctive marks and traits of the English open- field system, so that they may be readily recognised wherever they present themselves; and then, pro- ceeding fi^om the known to the unknown, carefully to trace back the sheU by searching and watching for its marks and traits as far into the past as evi- dence can be found. Using the knowledge so acquired about the shell as the key, the inquiry will turn upon its occupant. Examining how the mediaeval English village community in serfdom fitted itself into the shell, and then again working back from the known to the unknown, it may be perhaps possible to discern whether, within historical times, it once had been free, or whether its serfdom was as old as the shell.
The relation of the * tribal system ' in Wales, in Ireland, and in Germany to the open-field system, and so also to the village community, will be a necessary branch of the inquiry. It will embrace also both the German and the Eoman sources of serfdom and of the manorial system of land manage- ment.
It may at least be possible that Economic History may sometimes find secure stepping stones over what may be impassable gulfs in constitutional history ;
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Preface. xiii
quardt, and Madvig, that he who attempts to build a bridge across the gulf of the Teutonic conquests between Boman and English institutions still builds it somewhat at a venture.
It is interesting to find that problems connected with early English and German Economic History are engaging the careful and independent research also of American students. The contributions of Mr. Denman Boss, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Professor Allen, of the University of Wisconsin, will be welcomed by fellow-students of these questions in the old country.
It has seemed to me that the time may have come when an inquiry directed strictly upon economic lines, and carefully following the English evidence, might strike a light of its own, in the strength of which the various side lights might perhaps be gathered together and some clear result obtained, at least as regards the main course 6f economic evolution in England.
The English, like the Continental village com- munity, as we have said, inhabited a shell — an open- field system — ^into the nooks and corners of which it was curiously bound and fitted, and from which it was apparently inseparable.
The remains of this cast-off shell still survive in parishes where no Enclosure Act happens to have swept them away. The common or open field system can even now be studied on the ground within the town- ship in which I am writing as well as in many others.
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Preface. xv
and it obviously does not follow that a continuity lost, perhaps, to the one may not have been pre- served by the other. The result of a strictly economic inquiry may, as already suggested, prove that more things went to the * making of England ' than were imported in the keels of the English invaders of Britain. But whatever the result — ^whatever modifi- cations of former theories the facts here brought into view, after full consideration by others, may suggest — ^I trust that this Essay will not be regarded as controversial in its aim or its spirit, I had rather that it were accepted simply as fellow-work, as a stone added at the eleventh hour to a structure in the building of which others, some of whose names I have mentioned, have laboured during the length and heat of the day.
In conclusion, I have to tender my best thanks to Sir Henry S. Maine for the kind interest he has taken, and the sound advice he has given, during the preparation of this Essay for the press ; also to Mr. Elton, for similar unsolicited help generously given. To my friend George von Bunsen, and to Professor Meitzen, of Berlin, I am deeply indebted as regards the German branches of my subject, and to Mr. T. Hodgkin and Mr. H. Pelham as regards the Roman side of it. For the ever ready assistance of my friend Mr. H. Bradshaw, of Cambridge, Mr. Selby, of the Eecord Office, and Mr. Thompson, of the Britisli Museum, in reference to the manuscripts under tlieir charge, I cannot be too grateful. Nor must I omit
a
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xvi Preface.
to acknowledge the care with which Messrs. Stuart Moore and Kirk have undertaken for me the task of revising the text and translations of the many ex- tracts from mediaeval documents contained in this volume.
F. Seebohm.
Thb Hebhitagb, HiTGHnr: May, 1883.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE ENGLISH OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM EXAMINED IN ITS MODEEN BEMATNS.
PAGB
1. The distinctiye marks of the open-field system • • 1
2. Scattered and intermixed ownership in the open fields . 7
3. The open fields were the common fields of a village com- .
munity or township under a manor . . . . 8 j ^' »
4. The wide prevalence of the system through Great
Britain 13
CHAPTER 11.
THE ENGLISH OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM TRACED BACK TO THE DOMES- DAY SURVEY — IT IS THE SHELL OP SERFDOM— THE MANOR WITH A VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN VILLENAGE UPON IT,
1. The identity of the system with that of the Middle
Ages «... 17
2. The Winslow Manor BoUs of the reign of Edward III.
—-example of a virgate or yard-land • . . .22
3. The Hundred Bolls of Edward I. emhracing five
Midland Counties • 32
4. The Hundred Eolls {corUvnued), — ^Relation of the virgate
to the hide and carueate 36
6. The Hundred Rolls {contirme^. — The services of the
villein tenants 40
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xviii Contents,
FAGK
6. Description in Fleta of a manor in the time of Edwai-d I. 45 , ' 7. S.E. of England — The bide and rirgate under other •. ^ s, names (the records of Battle Abbey and 1^. Panrft) . 49
-^\ 8. The relation of the virgate to the hide traced in the \X) cartnlariea of Gloucester and Worcester Abbeys^
and the cnstnmal of Bleadon in Somersetshire . . 55 9. Cartularies of Newminster and Kelso, thirteenth cen- tury— The connexion of the holdings with the common plough team of eight oxen .... 60
10. The Boldon Book, A.D. 1183 68
n . The * Liber Niger ' of Peterborough Abbey, a.d. 1 1 25 . 72 12. Summary of the post-Domesday eridence ... 76
CHAPTER III.
THE DOMESDAY SURVEY (a.D. 1086).
1 . There were manors ererywhere 82
2. The division of the manor into lord's demesne and land ^■
in villenage
5. The free tenants on the lord's demesne . '"^"^ 4. The classes of tenants in villenage
^ 5. The villani were holders of virgates, &c.
a. The holdings of the bordarii or cottiers .'
\
84 86 89 Dl 05 97
7. The Domesday survey of the Villa of Westminster
8. The extent of the cultivated land of England, and how
much was included in the yai-d-lands of the villani . 101
CHAPTEIl IV.
THE OPKN-FIELD SYSTE&I TRACED IN SAXON TIHES— TllE SCATTERING OF THE STRIPS ORIGINATED IN THE METHOM OP CO-ARATION.
/^ 1. Tlie village fields under Saxon rule were open fields . 105
9
The holdings were comj^osed of scattered strips . .110 3. The open-field system of co-aration described in the
ancient laws of Wales 117
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Contents. xix
CHAPTER V.
MANORS AND SEBFDOM UNDER SAXON RULE.
PAGB
1. Tho Saxon * hams ' and * tuns ' were manors with village .
comm unities in serfdom upon them . . . . 126 ^ ^ ^ .
2. The * Hectitudines Singularum Personarum ' . . l29
3. The thane and his services ^ 134
4. The geneats and their services 137
5. The douhle and ancient character of the services of the J 0
gebnr — Gafol and week- work 142 .0
6. Serfdom on a manor of King Edwy .... 148 Y^
7. Serfdom on a manor of King Alfred . .160 ^
8. The theows or slaves on the lord's demesne . . .164 •
9. The creation of new manors 166 , (^
10. The laws of King Ethelbert — There were manors in
the sixth centary . 173 \
11. Besult of the Saxon evidence 175
\ '
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIBAL SYSTEM (iN WALES).
1. Evidence of the Domesday Survey . . . .181
2. The Welsh land system in the twelfth century . .186
3. The Welsh land system according to tho Welsh laws . 189
4. Land divisions under the Welsh Codes . . 199
5. Earlier evidence of the payment of Welsh gwestva, or
food-rent 208
CHAPTER VIL THE TRIBAL SYSTEM {continued),
. The trib:il system in Ireland and Scotland . . .214
2. The tribal system in its earlier stages , . . .231
3. The distinction between the tribal and agricultural
economy of the West and Sonth-East of Britain was pre-RomaUy and so also was the open-field system . 245
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XX Contents,
CHAPTER VIII.
CONNEXION BETVTEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER MANORIAL SYSTEM.
i>A<;s
1. Importanoe of the Conimental evidence . . .252
2. The connexion between the Saxon ' ham/ the German ^
* heim/ and the Prankish ' villa ' . . . .253
3. The Roman 'villa/ its easy transition into the later
manor, and its tendency to become the predominant type of estate 263
4. The smaller tenants on the ' Ager Publicus ' in Roman
provinces — The veterans . . . . . .272
5. The smaller tenants on the ' Ager Publicus ' {continued) —
the'laeti' 280
6. The ' tributum ' of the later Empire . . . .289
7. The ' sordida munera ' of the later Empire . . . 295
8. The tendency towards a manorial management of the
' Ager Publicus/ or Imperial domain , , . 300 |
9. The succession to semi-servile holdings, and methods
of cultivation 308
10. The transition from the Roman to the later manoiial
system 316
CHAPTER IX.
TIIE GERMAN SIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE.
1. The German tribal system and its tendency towards the
' i manorial system 336
^ J 2. The tribal households of Qeiman settlers . . S46
CHAPTER X.
THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM AND SERFDOM OF ENGLAND AND OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES OF GERMANY AND GAUL.
1. The open-field system in England and in Germany com-
pared 368
2. The boundaries or ' mai*chse ' ^T")
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Contents, xxi
PAOK
3. The Uiree fields, or 'zelgen' 376
4. The division of the fields into furlongs and acres . . 380
5. The holdings— the ' yard-land ' or « hub ' . .389
6. The hide, the ' hof/ and the ' centoria ' . .395
7. The gafol and gafol-yrth 399
8. The boon-work and week- work of the serf . 403
9. The creation of serfs and the growth of serfdom • . 405
10. The confusion in the status of the tenants on English
and German manors 407
11. Result of the comparison 409
CHAPTER XI.
RESULT OF THE EVIDENCE.
i. The methdd of the English settlements . • 1^2
2. Local evidence of continuity between Roman and
English villages 424
3. Conclusion 437
APPENDIX 443
INDEX AND GLOSSARY 455
iV
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LIST OF MAPS AND PLATES.
1. Map of Hitchin Township &c. . to face tUle-^m^je
2. Map of Part of Purwell Field , . „ ;>. 2
3. Sketch of * Linces ' »> 6
4. Map of Purwell Field, Hitchin . , . „ C
5. A normal Virgate or Yard-land . . „ 26
6. Domesday Survey, Distribution of Sochmanni,
LiBERi homines, Servt, Bordarii, and Villani „ S(\
7. Manor of Tidenham &c ,,148
8. Group OF Puttchbrs ON THE Severn near Tidenham „ 152
9. Maps op an Irish * Bally' and 'half-Bally* „ 224
10. Example of Divisions in a Townland . , ,,228
11. Distribution in Europe of Local Names ending
in * heim,' * ingen,' &c
12. Map of the Neighdourhood of Hitchin .
13. Map of the Parish of Much Wymondley and
Roman Holding
14. Roman Pottery found on ditto
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ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNIS.
CHAPTER L
THE ENGLISH OPEN FIELD SYSTEM EXAMINED IN ITS MODERN REMAINS,
I. THE DISTINCTIVE MARKS OP THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM.
The distinctive marks of the open or poTmnQp fjplrl ^^^^ j
system once prevalent ip F.ngUnfl will be most easily
learned by the study of an example.
The township of Hjtr.hin. in TT^^rtfordshire, will open fields answer the purpose, ^om the time of Edward the SL^or!^'"" ' Confessor — and probfthly from much «»li^-44fiies — w4tb> JBtervate of prirate >Qwnftrsbip, it has been a royal manorr And the Queen being still the lady of the manor, the remains of its open fields have never been swept away by the ruthless broom of an Enclosure Act.
Annexed is a reduced tracing of a map of the
> The leaser manors included in | for the present purpose do not de- it are clearly only m^manors, and I stroy its original unity.
:■ B
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2 The English Village Community.
Chap^. township without the hamlets, made about the year 1816, and showing all the divisions into which its fields were then cut up.
It will be seen at once that it presents almost the features of a spider's web. A^reat part of the town- s^ip at that date, probably nearly the whole of it in earlier times, was divided UB.into little narrow strips. v^iTided (These strips, common to open fields all over Eng-
otmH^^, land, were separated from each) other not by hedges, bT baikfl' ^^^ (py green balks of unploughed turf,\and are of great historical interest. CThey vary more or less in size even in the same fields^ as in the examples given on the map of a portion of the Hitchin Purwell field. (^There are * long ' strips and * short ' strips) But tak- ing them generally, and comparing them with the statute acre of the scale at the corner of the map, it will be seen at once that the normal strip is roughly identical with it. ^The length of the statute acre of / the scale is a furiong of 40 rods or poles. It is 4
Eorm of Tods in width.N Now 40 rods in length and 1 rod in •i.p« width make 40 square rods, or a rood ; and thus, as there are 4 rods in breadth, the acre of the scale with which the normal strips coincide is an acre made up of 4 roods lying side by side.
Thus the strips are in fact roughly cut * acres,' of the proper shape for ploughing. For the furlong is the r furrow long,' i.e, the length of the drive of the plough before it is turned'^ and that this by long custom was fixed at 40 rods, is shown by the use of the Latin word * quarentena ' for furlong. The word ' rood ' naturally corresponds with as many furrows in the ploughing as are contained in the breadth of one rod. And four of these roods lying side by side made
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the aere,
To face page i.
PART OP PURWELL FIELD,
HITCHIN.
to ao to ^Itlm
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' an- cient.
The Hitchin Open Fields. 3
the acre strip in the open fields, and still make up ^=^- ^• the statute acre. (This form of thie acre is very ancient.) Six hundred \^^^
\ . J f cient.
years ago, in the earliest English law fixing the size of the statute acre (33 Ed. I.), it is declared that * 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre.' ^ And further, we shall find that more than a thousand years ago in Bavaria the shape of the strip in the open fields for ploughing was also 40 rods in length and 4 rods in width, but the rod was in that case the Greek and Koman rod of 10 ft. instead of the EngUsh rod of 16^ ft.
But to return to the EngUsh strips. ^In many Half acres, places the open fields were formerly divide^ into half- acre strips, which were called * half-acres.') That is to L^"^ say ,(a turf balk separated every two rods of goodc in the ploughing, the length of the furrow remaining the same.)
(The strips in the open fields are generally known by country folk as * balks,] and the Latin word used in terriers and cartularies for the strip is generally * selio^ corresponding with the French word * sillon^' (meaning furrow). In Scotland and Ireland the same strips generally are known as * rigs,' and the open field system is known accordingly as the ' run-rig ' system.
Vfhe' whole arable area of an uninclosed township ^^ii-""^^ was usually divided up hy turf balho into as many thousands of these strips as its limits would cuntaiu, ^^^ ' ^ and the tithing maps of many parishes besides Hitchin, dating sixty or eighty years ago, show remains of
» statutes. Record Com. Ed. i. p. 206, B 2
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4 The English Village Community,
Chap. I. them Still existing, although the process of ploughing up the balks and throwing many strips together had gradually been going on for centuries.
ilhots or
Next, it will be seen that^he strips on the m^p lie or quarin^ sidc by sidc in groups, forming larger divisions of the field, ^hv^^ ^^g^r rlHffi/>nfg nrp called ^ shots,'^ or ' furlongs,' and in Latin documents ' quarentence^ being always a furrow-long in width. Throughout their whole length tlie furrows in the ploughing run parallel from end to end ; the balks which divide them into strips being, as the word implies, simply two or three furrows left unploughed between them.^ y Crhe shots or furlongs are divided from one another ^by broader balks, generally overgrown with bushes.) This grouping of the strips in furlongs or shots is a further invariable feature of the English open field HeadiandB. systcm. And it involves another little feature which is also universally met with, viz. the headland. i
It will be seen on the map that mostly a common field-way gives access to the strips ; i,e. it runs along the side of the furlong and the ends of the strips. But this is not always the case ; and when it is not, then there is a^trip running along the length of the furlong inside its boundaries and across the ends of the strips compos- ing it.* This is the headland^ Sometimes when the strips of the one furlong run at right angles to the strips of its neighbour, the first strip in the one furlong does
J
^ Bale is a Welsh word; and when the plough ib accidentally turned adde, and leaves a sod of grass unturned between the fur- rows, the plough is said bj the
Welsh ploughman speaking Welsh, to*6flfc'(balco).
' See the map of a portion of the Purwell field.
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/
The Hitchin Open Fields.
duty as the headland giving access to the strips in the Chap, l other. In either case^all the owners of the strips in a furlong have the right to turn their plough upon the ^"^ headland,Jand thus the owner of the headland must wait until all the other strips are ploughed before he can plough his own. The Latin term for the headland is ^forera\' the Welsh, ^pen tir ; ' the Scotch, ' head- rig ; ' and the German (from the turning of the plough upon, it), ' anwende'
A less universal but equally peculiar feature of ^7^^^^ the open field system in hilly districts is the ' lynch,' and it may often be observed remaining when every other trace of an open field has been removed by enclosure. Its right of survival hes in its indestructi- bility. ^VTien a hill-side formed part of the open field the strips almost always were made to run, not up and down the hill, but horizontally along it ; and in ploughing, the custom for ages was always to turn the sod of the furrow downhill, j the plough consequently always returning one way idle. If the whole hill-side were ploughed in one field, this would result in a gradual travelUng of the soil from the top to the bottom of the field, and it might not be noticed. But as in the open field system ^the hill-side was " ploughed in strips with unploughed balks between them, no sod could pass in the ploughing from one strip to the next \ but the process of moving the sod downwards would go on age after age just the same within each individual strip. In other words, every year's ploughing took a sod from the higher edge of the strip and put it on the lower edge ; and^he result was that the strips became in time long level terraces one above the other, and the balks between them
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The English Village Community.
Ceap. L
L Butts.
y Gored 1/ acres.
No man's land.
grew into steep rough banks of long grass covered often with natural self-sown brambles and bushes. / These banks between the plough-made terraces are ^ generally called lynches^ or linces\ and the word is often applied to the terraced strips themselves, which go by the name of ' the linces.' ^
(Wlere the strips abruptly meet others, or abut yy upon a boundary at right angles, they are sometimes called huttsS
Two otner small details marking the open field system require only to be simply mentioned. (Corners of the fields which, from their shape, could not be cut up into the usual acre or half-acre strips, were sometimes divided into tapering strips pointed at one end, and called * gores,' or * gored acres.') In other cases little odds and ends of unused land re- mained, which from time immemorial were called * no man's land,' or * any one's land,' or ' Jack's land,' as the case might be.
Thus there are plenty of outward marks and traits by which the open common field may be recog- nised wherever it occurs, — ^the acre or half-acre
^ Striking examples of these lynches may be seen from the rail- road at Luton in Bedfordshire, and between Cambridge and Hitchin, as well as in various other parts of England. They may be seen often on the steep sides of the Sussex Downs and the Chiltem Hills. Great numbers of them are to be noticed from the French line be- tween Calais and Paris. In some cases on the steep chalk downs, ter- races for ploughing have evidently
been artificially cut; but even in these cases there must always have been a gradual natural growth of the lynches by annual accretion from the ploughing. In old times, in order to secure the turning of the sod downhill, the plough, after cut- ting a fun*ow, returned as stated one way idle ; but in more recent times a plough called a ' tum-wriat * plough ' came into use, which by re- versing its share could be used both ways, to the great saving of time.
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PROPR»cX??S
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I I
A 1 i
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:
2
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The Hitchin Open Fields. 7
fltrips or seliones^ the gored shape of some of them, Chip. i. the balks and sometimes lynches between them, the '
shots or furlongs (quarentence) in which they he in groups, the headlands which give access to the strips when they lie off the field-ways, the butts, and lastly the odds and ends of ^ no man's land.'
II. SCATTERED AND mTERMIXED OWXEESHIP IN THE OPEN FIELDS.
^
Passing from these httle outward marks to the Scattered matter of ownership, a most inconvenient pecuharity miied*" presents itself, which is by far the most remarkable ow'^®™^"?* and important feature of the open field system wher- ever it is found. It is the fact that^either the strips [^ nor the furlongs represented a complete holding or property, but that the several holdings were made up of a midtitude of strips scattered about on all sides of the township^one in this furlong and another in that, intermixed, and it might almost be said entangled together, as though some one blindfold had thrown them about on all sides of him.
The extent to which this was the case in the Hitchin common fields, even so late as the beginning of the present century, will be reahsed by reference *o the map annexed. It ia.^ reduced tracing of a 3 nap showing the ownership of the strips 4n onediri=-' si oil of the open fields of Hitchin called the Purwell field. The strips are numbered, and correspond with the owners' names given in the tally at the side. The S5trii»« belonging to two of the owners are also coloured, fco as al once to catch the eye, and the area of eacli ?ei)arato piece is marked upon it. The num-
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8 The English Village Community.
Chap. I. ber of Scattered pieces held by each owner is also given in the note below ; and as the map embraces only about one-third of the Hitchin fields, it should be noticed that each owner probably held in the parish three times as many separate pieces as are there described I ^ Further, at the side of the map of the Hitchin township, is a reduced tracing of a plan of the estate of a single landowner in the townfields of Hitchin, which shows very clearly the curious scatter- ing of the strips in a single ownership all over the fields, notwithstanding that the tendency towards consolidation of the holdings by exchanges and pur- chases had evidently made some progress.
III. THE OPEN FIELDS WERE THE COMMON FIELDS OF A VILLAGE COMMUNITY OR TOWNSHIP UNDER A MANOR.
The next fact to be noted is that under the ^ English system (the open fields were the common
fields — the arable land — of a village community or township under a manorial lordship^ This could hardly be more clearly illustrated than by the Hitchin example.
|
> The numbep |
of parcels |
held by |
each owner waa as follows: — |
||||
|
Owner |
FUoels |
Owner |
Paioeig |
Owner |
Paroete |
Owner |
Fwodfl |
|
No. 1. |
. 88 |
No. 14 . |
. 5 |
No. 27. |
. 1 |
No. 39. |
. 1 |
|
2. |
. 85 |
15 . |
. 8 |
28. |
. 0 |
40. |
. 1 |
|
3. |
. 28 |
16 |
. 7 |
29. |
. 1 |
41. |
. 6 |
|
4. |
. 25 |
17 . |
. 2 |
30. |
. 3 |
42. |
. 3 |
|
6. |
. 8 |
18. |
. 1 |
81. |
. 2 |
43. |
. 2 |
|
6. |
. 8 |
19 . |
. 12 |
82. |
. 1 |
44. |
. 1 |
|
7. |
. 4 |
20 . |
. 1 |
38. |
. 3 |
45. |
. 1 |
|
8. |
. 28 |
21 . |
. 3 |
84. |
. 6 |
46, |
.2 |
|
9. |
. 6 |
22 . |
. 1 |
85. |
. 4 |
47. |
. 7 |
|
10. |
. ] |
28 . |
. 4 |
36. |
. 1 |
jt8. |
. 1 |
|
11. |
. 10 |
24 . |
. 0 |
87. |
. 2 |
|
|
|
13. 18. |
. 2 . 6 |
25 . 26 . |
. 0 . 1 |
38. |
. 2 ; |
"^otal |
289 |
|
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The Hitchin Open Fields.
9
The Hitchin manor was, as abeady stated, a royal Chap. i. manor. The Court Leet and View of Frankpledge were held concurrently with the Court Baron of the manor. Periodically at this joint court a record was Periodical made on the presentment of the jurors and homage m^t°of of various particulars relating to both the manor ^nd^o^"
and township. homage of
The record for the year 1819 will be found at length in Appendix A, and it may be taken as a com- mon form.
The jurors and homage first present that the manor comprises the township of Hitchin and hamlet of Walsworth, and includes within it three lesser manors ; also that it extends into other hamlets and parishes.
They then record the boundaries of the township The (mcluding the hamlet of Walsworth) as follows, viz. :— ^^^**'
* From Orton Head to Barford Bay,
and from thence to a Water Mill called Hide Mill, „ „ „ WUlberrj Hills,
„ „ „ a place called Bossendell,
„ „ „ a Water Mill called Purwell Mill,
„ n n^ Brook or River called IppoUitt'a Brook,
„ „ „ Maydencroft Lane,
„ „ „ a place called Wellhead,
„ „ „ a place called Stubborn Bnsh,
„ „ „ a place called Offley Cross,
„ „ „ ilye Borough Hills [Five Barrows],
„ „ back to Orton Head, where the boundaries
commenced.'
The form in which these boundaries are given is of great antiquity. It is a form used by the Eomans two thousand years ago, and almost continuously followed from that time to this.^ Its importance for
^ JRyginus de Condicianibus Agro- rum. Die Schr^ten der Romiachen FMmemer (Lachmann, &c.)) i. p.
114. ' Nam invenimus s»pe in pub- licis instruments significanter in- scripta territoria, ita ut ex coUiculo
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10
The English Village Community.
Chip. I.
^ The courts.
yr
The offi- cers.
y
Reliefs, lines, &C.
the purpose in hand will be manifest as the inquiry proceeds.
The jurisdiction of the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge is recorded to extend within the fore- going boundaries, Le. over the township, that of the Court Baron beyond them over the whole manor, which was more extensive than the township. (The Court Leet is therefore the Court of the township, the Court Baron that of the manor.)
It is then stated that(in the Court Lee^ at Michael- mas/the jurors of the king elect and present to the lord —
Two constables,
Six headboroughs (two for each of the three wards),
Two ale-conners.
Two leather-searchers and sealers, and
A bellman, who is also the watchman and crier of the town.)
All the foregoing presentments have reference to the township, and are those of * the jurors of our lord the King {Le, of the Court Leet), and the homage of the Court ' [Baron] of the manor.
Then come presentments of the homage of the (Court of the Manor alone, describing the reliefs of free- holders and the fines, &c., of copyholders under the manor, and various particulars as to powers of leasing.
qui appdlatitr iUe adJUimen illud, et mperjhimen iUud adrioum ilium out viam iUanit et per viam illam ad in- fima montts illius, qui locus appel- latur iUe, et inde perjugum montis illius in summunif et super summum montis per divergia aqua ad locum ^ \
qui appdlatur ille, et inde deormim ve9'sus ad locum ilium, et inde ad compitum illius, et inde per numu- mentum illius, ad locum unde pri~ mum ccepit scriptura esse,* See as an early example, * Sententia Minu- ciorum/ Corpus Inscript, Lot. i. 199.
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The Hitchin Open Fields, 11
forfeiture, cutting timber, heriots, &c. ; the freedom Chap. i.
of grain from toll in the market, the provision by the
lord of the common pound and the stocks for the use Pound ^^
of the tenants of the manor, and the right of the
lord with the consent of the homage to grant out
portions of the waste by copy of court roll at a rent
and the customary services. \
Next the commons are described.
(1) The portions coloured dark green on the map Green are described as(Green Commons^?in^ those coloured i^m^*' light green Ba/Lammas Meadows ; ^ knd^very occupier ^^^"^^^^^ of an ancient messuage or /cottage in the township
has certain defined rights of common thereon,) the obligation to find the common bull falling upon the rectory, and a^common herdsman being elected by j the homage at a (Court Baron/N
(2) The common fields are stated to be — / Common ^^
jPurwell field, (Welshman's croft, jBurford field, ISpital field, jMoremead field, iBury field ;
and it is recorded that thes€( common fieldsj) have immemorially been, and ought to bcj^kept and culti- vated in three successive seasons of tilth grain^ etch "^i^^^l grain, and faUowX PurweU field and Welshman's rotation of croft being fallow one year ; Burford field and Spital _ field the next year ; Moremead field and Bury field the year after, and so oq/in regular rotation^
' The lammaa meadows are I land for the purpose of the hay divided into strips like the acahle I crop.
r=^- - - -
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12
The English Village Community.
Chap. I.
/Common Wrights over tlie open fields when not under crop.
Hamlet
Copyholds ana free- holds inter- mixed.
It is stated thatpvery occupier of unenclosed land in any of the common fields of the township may pas- ture his sheep over the rest of the field after the corn is cut and carried, and when it is fallow, K he choose to enclose his own portion of the com- mon field he may do so, but he then gives up for ever his right of pasture over the rest. It is under this custom that the strips and balks are gradu- ally disappearing-^
The ancient messuages and cottages in the hamlet of Walsworth had their separate green common and herdsman, but (at this date) no common fields, be- cause they had already been some time ago enclosed.
It will be seen from the map how very small a proportion of the land of the^township was in meadow or pasture. The open arable fields occupied nearly the whole of it. The community to which it be- longed, and to whose wants it was fitted, was evi- dently a community occupied maijily in agriculture.
Another feature requiring notice was the fact that in the open fields freehold and copyhold land were intermixed ; some of the strips being freehold, whilst the next strip was copyhold, instead of all the free- hold and all the copyhold lying together. And in the same way the lands belonging to the three lesser or sub-manors lay intermixed, and not all apart by themselves. The open field system overrode the whole.
Thusi^ if the Hitchin example may be taken as a typical one of the English open field system, it may be regarded generally as having belonged to a village or township under a manor. We may assume that the holdings were composed of numbers of strips scattered
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The Hitchin Open Fields. 13
over the three open fields ; and that the husbandry Chap. i. was controlled by those rules as to rotation of crops and fallow in three seasons which marked the three- field system, and secured uniformity of tillage i ^^ throughout each field. Lastly, whilst fallow aft^r l^ the crop was gathered, the open fields were pro- bably everjrwhere subject to the common rights of pasture. /The sheep of the whole township wandered and pastured all over the strips and balks of its fields, while the cows of the township were daily driven by a common herdsman to the green com- mons, or, after Tiammas Hay,;- when the hay-^rop^Of the Qiymiis was seemed, U^ the lammas meadows. )
rv. THE WIDB PREVALENCE OP THE STSTEM THROUGH GREAT BRITAIN.
But before the attempt is made to trace back the system, it may be well to ask what evidence there is as to its wide prevalence in England, and with what reason the particular example of the Hitchin town- ship may be taken as generally typical.
In the first place, an examination into the details EndoBore ^^ of an Enclosure Act will make clear the point that t^St the system as above described is the system which '^v
it was^the object of the Enclosure Acts to remove.^ " ' ) They were generally drawn m. the same form, com- . '^ •• - .. mencing with the recital than the open and common fields lie dispersed in small pieces intermixed with each other and inconveniently situated, that divers persons own parts of them, and are entitled to rights of common on them, so that in their present state they are incapable of improvement, and that it is
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14
The English Village Community.
y
Chap.l desired that they may be divided and enclosed, a specific share being set out and allowed to each owner.) For this purpose Enclosure Commissioners are appointed, and under their award the balks are ploughed up, the fields divided into blocks for the several owners, hedges planted, and the whole face of the country changed.
The common fields of twenty-two parishes within ten miles of Hitchin were enclosed in this way be- tween 1766 and 1832. All the Acts were of the
Number of same character.^ And as, taking/the whole of Eng- land,) with, roughly speaking, its 10,000 parishes, nearly 4,000 Enclosure Acts were passed between 1760
Acta.
^ These Enclosure Acts were as follows : —
|
Date of Bnclosore Aot0 |
Names of Paiighes whose open fields were thereby enoloeed |
|
1766 1796 1796 1797 1797 1797 1802 1802 1804 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1811 1827 1832 |
Hexton [Herts]. HenlowTBedsf. Norton [HertsJ. Campton-cum-Shefford rBeds]. King\ Walden [Herts]. Weston [Herts]: Hinxworth [Herts]. jShitUngton 'Beds]. tHolwSrBeas]. Arlsey [Beds]. Offley r HertsJ. Luton [Beds], Barton-in-the-Clay [Beds]. Oodicote [Herts]. Welwyn rHertsJ. Knebworth [HertsJ. rirton [Herts]. rGreat Wymondley [Herts]. ■ Little Wymondley [Herts]. IppollittB [Herts], Langford [Beds]. Clifton [Beds]. |
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The Hitchin Open Fields, 15
and 1844,^/lt will at once be understood how gene- Chap. i. raUy prevalent was this form of the open field system so late as the days of the grandfathers of this gene- ration.
The old 'Statistical Account of Scotland,' ob- tained eighty years ago by inquiry in every parish, shows that at its date, under the name of * run-rig,' a simpler form of the open field system still hngered on here and there more or legs all over Scotland, wide ex- Traces of it still exist in the Highlands, and there oj^ field are well-known remains of its strips and balks also ^^^^^' in Wales. The run-rig system is still prevalent in some parts of Ireland. But at present we confine our attention to the form which the system assumed in England, and for this purpose the Hitchin example may fairly be taken as typical.
Now, judged from a modern point of view, it will readily be understood thatAhe open field system, and especially its peculiarity of straggling or scattered ownership, regarded from a modern agricultural point Unecono- ^^^^^ of view, was absurdly uneconomical. The waste of ^^ ' time in getting about from one part of a farm to another; the uselessness of one owner attempting to clean his own land when it could be sown with thistles from the seed blown from the neighbouring strips of a less careful and thrifty owner; the quarrelling about headlands and rights of way\ or
' Porter's Progress of the Nation^ p. 146 :—
. 206
. 136
66
3,867
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|
1760-60. |
. 386 |
1820-29. |
|
1770-79 . |
. 660 |
1830-^. |
|
178a-«9. |
. 246 |
1840-44. |
|
1790-99. |
. 469 |
|
|
1800-9 . |
. 847 |
|
|
1810-19 |
. 863 |
16 The English Village Community,
Chap. I. paths made without right; the constant encroach- ments of unscrupulous or overbearing holders upon the. balks — aU this made the system so inconvenient, that Arthur Young, coming across it in France, could hardly keep his temper as he described with what perverse ingenuity it seemed to be contrived as though purposely to make agriculture as awkward and uneconomical as possible, but must But these now inconvenient traits of the open
mining ^^^^ System must once have had a meaning, a once. uge, and even a convenience which were the cause of their original arrangement. Like the apparently meaningless sentinel described by Prince Bismarck uselessly pacing up and down the middle of a lawn in the garden of the Eussian palace, there must have been an originally sufficient reason to account for the beginning of what is now useless and absurd. And just as in that case, search in the miUtary archives dis- closed that once upon a time, in the days of Catherine the Great, a solitary snowdrop had appeared on the lawn, to guard which a sentinel was posted ^y an order which had never been revoked ; so a similar search will doubtless disclose an ancient original reason for even the (at first sight) most unreasonable features of the open field system.
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CHAPTER n.
TSE ENGLISH OPEN FIELD SYSTEM TRACED BACK TO THE DOMESDAY SURVEY-^IT IS THE SHELL OF SERFDOM-^THE MANOR WITH A VILLAGE COM- MUNITY IN VILLENAGE UPON IT
I. THE IDENTITY OP THE SYSTEM WITH THAT OP THE MIDDLE AGES.
That [tRis open field system^ the remains of which Ohap. ii. have now been examinediwas identical with that which existed in the Middle Agesj might easily be proved *^
by a continuous chain of examples. But it will be enough for the present purpose to pick out a few typical instances, using them as stepping-stones.
It would be easy to quote Tusser's description of Tussor. * Champion Farming ' in the sixteenth century. In his 'Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry' he describes the respective merits of * several,' and ' champion ' or open field farming. But as he describes the latter as a system already out of date in his time, and as rapidly giving way to the more economical system of ' several ' or enclosed fields, we may pass on at once to evidence another couple of centuries earlier in date.
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Plowman.
18 The English Village Community.
Chap. II. Of the fact that the open field system 500 years ago (in the fourteenth century), with its divisions into furlongs and subdivision into acre or half-acre strips, existed in England, the * Vision of Piers the Plowman * may be appealed to as a witness.
Piers the What was * the faire felde ful of folke,' in which
the poet saw *alle maner of men* *worchyng and wandryng,' some 'putten hem to the plow,' whilst others *in settyng and in sowyng swonken ful harde '?^ A modern English field shut in by hedges would not suit the vision in the least. It was clearly enough the open field into which all the villagers turned out on the bright spring morning, and over which they would be scattered, some working and some looking on. In no other ' faire felde ' would he see such folk of all sorts, the ' [husjbondemen,' bakers and brewers, butchers, woolwebsters and weavers of linen, tailors, tinkers, and tollers in market, masons, dikers, and delvers ; while the cooks cried * Hote pies bote ! ' and tavern-keepers set in competition their wines and roast meat at the alehouse.'
Then as to the division of the fields into furlongs ; remembering that the wide balks between them and along the headlands were often covered with * brakes and brambles,' the point is at once settled by the naive confession of the priest who scarce knew per- fectly his Paternoster, and could ' ne solfe ne synge ' *ne sejmtes lyues rede,' yet knew well enough the * rymes of Eobyn hood,' and how to ' fynde an hare in a fourlonge.* ^
1 Prolopu, lines 17 to 21. > Ptologut, 216 to end.
3 PassuBf y. 400 to 428.
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Earlier Traces.
Further, a chance indication that were divided into half-acre strips occurs most natu- rally in that part of the story where the folk in the fair field, sick of priests and parsons and other false guides, come at last to Piers the plowman, and beg him to show them the way to truth ; and he rephes that he must first plow and sow his ' half-acre : '
I have an half acre to erye * bi the heighe waj: Hadde I eried this half acre * and sowen it after, I wolde wende with you * and the way teche.*
And if there should remain a shadow of doubt whether Piers' half-acre must necessarily have been one of the strips between the balks into which the furlongs were divided, even this is cleared up by the perfect little picture which follows of the folk in the field helping him to plow it. For in its unconscious truthfulness of graphic detail, after saying, —
Now 18 perkyn and his pilgrymes * to the plowe &ren : To erie his ludne acre * holpyn hym manye,
the very first lines in the list of services rendered explain that —
Bikeres and delueree * digged up the halkee.'
This incidental evidence of * Piers the Plowman* is Terrier of fully borne out by a manuscript terrier of one of the op^ Zi§l open fields near Cambridge, belonging to the later fouS^nth years of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth ««°^^y- century.* It gives the names of the owners and occupiers of all the sehones or strips. They are
« PasnUf vi. 4 to 6. > Pas$tu, vi. 107-9. ' I am indebted to Mr. Brad-
o2
shaw for having called my attention to thia MS., which is now in the Cambridge Uniyeraity Library.
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20
The English Village Community.
The system already decaying.
Chap. II. divided by balks of turf. They lie in furlongs or quarentencB. They have frequently headlands or foreroB, Some of the strips are gored, and called gored acres. Many of them are described as hutts. Indeed, were it not that the country round Cam- bridge being flat there are no lynches^ almost every one of the features of the system is distinctly visible in this terrier.
But this terrier also contains evidence that the system was even then in a state of decay and disin- tegration. The balks were disappearing, and the strips, though still remembered as strips, were becom- ing merged in larger portions, so that they lie thrown together sine balca. The mention is frequent of iii. sehones which used to be v., ii. which used to be iv., iii. which used to be viii., and so on. Evidently the meaning and use of the half-acre strips are already gone.
It will be well, therefore, to take another leap, and at once to pass behind the Black Death — that great watershed in economic history — ^so as to examine the details of the system before rather than after it had sustained the tremendous shock which the death in one year of half the population may well have given to it.
A remarkably excellent opportunity for inquiry ig presented by a complete set of manor rolls during the reign of Edward III. for the Manor of Winslow in Buckinghamshire, preserved in the Cambridge Uni- versity Library.^
\
1 MS. Dd. 7. 22. I am much indebted to Mr. Bradshaw for the loan of this MS. from the Library.
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Earlier Traces. 21
No evidence could possibly be more to the pur- Chap. h. pose. Belonging to the Abbey of St. Albans, the rolls were kept with scrupulous accuracy and care. Every change of ownership during the long reign of Edward m. is recorded in regular form ; and the year 1348-9 — the year of the Black Death — occurring in the course of this reign, and occasioning more changes of ownership than usual, the MS. presents, if one may appropriate a geological expression, something like an economic section of the manor, revealing with un- usual clearness the various economic strata in which its holdings were arranged. ^ Before examining these holdings it is needful only The open . to state that here, as in the later examples/the fielda v/
of the manor are open fields,\divided into furlongs( which in their turn are made up with apparently almost absolute regularity of half-acre strips. When- ever (with very rare exceptions) a change of owner- ship takes place, and the contenta of the holding are. described, they turn out to be made up of half-acre' pieces, or seliones, scattered all over the fields.
The typical entry on these rolls in such cases is Half-acre that A. B. surrenders to the lord, or has died holding, *^*^ a messuage and so many acres of land, of which a half-acre lies in such and such a field, and often in such and such a furlong, between land of C. D. and E. F., another half-acre somewhere else between two other persons' land, another half-acre somewhere else, and so, on. If the holding be of 1.^ acres it is found to be in 3 half-acre pieces, if of 4 acres, in 8 half-acre pieces, and so on, scattered over the fields. Sometimes amongst the half-acres are mentioned still smaller portions, roods and even half-roods or doles
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22
The English Village Community.
Chap. II. (chiefly of pasture or meadow land), belonging to the holdings, but the division into half-acre strips was clearly the rule.
There can be no doubt, therefore, of the identity of the system seen at work in these manor rolls with that of which some of the dibris may still be exa- mined in unenclosed parishes to-day.
Demesne and yillen- age.
II. THE WINSLOW MANOR BOLLS OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD ni. — EXAMPLE OF A VIRGATE OR YARD- LAND.
Starting with the fact that the fields of the manor of Winslow and its hamlets ^ were open fields divided into furlongs and half-acre strips, the chief object of inquiry will be the nature of the holdings of its various classes of tenants.
In the first place the land of the manor was divided, like that of almost all other manors, into two distinct parts — land in the hrdCs demesne^ and land in villgxuig^.
The land in demesne may be described as the home farm of the lord of the manor, including such portions of it as he may have chosen to let off to tenants for longer or shorter terms, and at money rents in free tenure.
The land in villenage is also in the occupation of tenants, but it is held in villenage, at the will of the lord, and at customary services. It lies in open fields. These are divided into three seasons, according to the
^ The MS. 18 headed ' Extnicta embraced WynseJoufef Sardwode,
Rntulorum de HalimotU tentis apud CfrenAwrghy Shipton, Nova ViUa de
^fanerium de Wyneelowe tempore Wynadowej Ony7%g, and Musttm. ICdwardi tercii a Conquest u/ and it
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The Winslow Manor RoUa. 23
three-field system. There is a, west fields east fields Chap. ii. and south field. The demesne land lies also in these Three-fieid three fields/ probably more or less intermixed, as in '^fi^ many cases, with the strips in villenage, but some- times in separate furlongs or shots from the latter.
Throughout the pages of the manor rolls, in record- ing transfers of 'holdings in villenage, the conmaon form is always adhered to of a surrender by the old tenant to the lord, and a re-grant of the holding to the new tenant, to be held by him at the will of the lord in villenage at the usual services. Where the change of holding occurs on the death of a tenant, the common form recites that the holding has reverted to the lord, who re-grants it to the new tenant as before in villenage.
Further examination at once discloses a marked difference in kind between some classes of holdings in villenage and others.
In some cases the holding handed over is simply virgatea ^ ^ described by the one comprehensive word 'virgata ^irgaU's"
(the Latin equivalent for ^ yard-land '), without any
further description. The ' virgate ' of A. B. is trans- ferred to C. D. in one lump ; i.e. the holding is an indivisible whole, evidently so well known as to need no description of its contents.
In other cases the holding is in the same way described as a * half-virgate, without any details being needful as to its contents.
But in the case of all other holdings the contents are described in detail half-acre by half-acre, each half-acre being identified by the names of the holders
A
' See entry under 44 Ed. III.
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24
2'ke English Village Community.
Chap.il of the strips on either side of it. They vary in size from one half-acre to 8 or 10 or 12 half-acres, and in a few cases more. The greater number of them are, however, evidently the holdings of small cottier tenants. A few cases occur, but only a few, where a messuage is held without land. What 18 a But the question of interest is what may be the yijrf^lan^? nature of the holdings called virgates and half-vir- gates — these well-known bundles of land, which, as already said, need no description of their contents. Fortunately in one single case a virgate or yard-land — that of John Moldeson — Closes its indivisible unity and is let out again by the lord to several persons in portions. These being new holdings, and no longer making up a virgate, it became needful to describe their contents on the rolls.^ Thus the details of which a virgate was made up are accidentally exposed to view. Putting the broken pieces of it together, this vir- gate of John Moldeson is found to have consisted of a messuage in the village of Shipton, in the manor of Winslow, and the following half-acre strips of land scattered all over the open fields of the manor.
TheTir- gate or yard-land of John Holdesou.
Where situated,
^ acre in ClayforUmg,
^ acre in Brereforltmg,
^ acre at Ananumlond bj the king's
highway (juzta regiam yiam). ^ acre at Loftham, i acre at le Wawes, i acre at Miohelpeyrfcrlony. ^ acre above le Snaute, i acre in le Snouthale, i acre above LiverehuUe, i acre above Narowe-dldemed,
Between the Land of
John Boveton KndWtllifiTnJonynffe», Richard Z|f and John Mayn,
John Watekyne and John Mayn, John JBKkkee and Henry Wards, Henry Warde and John Watekyne* John Watekyns and John Mayn, John Watehfne and Henry Warde, John Watekyns and Henry Worde,^ John Watekyns and Henry Warde,
> Sub anno 85 Ed. III.
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The Winslow Manor EoUs.
25
Where situated.
acre in SMptondene,
acre in Waterfwouffh,
itxxb below Chtrcheheigh,
acre at Fifveaeres.
acre at Sherdrforhm^,
acre at TkcrUng,
acre (of pasture) in Farnhamee-
den. acre (of pasture) in three parcels, acre (of pasture) below JEstatte-'
more. acre (of pasture) at Brodemore. acre (of meadow) at Mieehemede. dolee (of meadow) in Shroved<^, acre below le KnoUe, acre above Brodealdemade. acre above BroddangeUmde. hcte at Merslade. acre above ZangebenehuBesdene. acre above Hoggeitonforde, acre at Gmgforde. acre at NarweUmgicnde, acre at Wodetoeg. acre Benethenhgetrete.
acre ^«fietA«nAy«f refe.
acre at Langedo.
acre at Xouw.
acre at i!e JSTnofle.
acre above Brodeddemede,
acre at Shorttlo.
acre at Eldeieyen.
acre above Langeblakgrave.
acre at £/aA:^pM^M.
acre above Medeforlong.
acre at i0 7%om.
acre above OverlUeUonde.
acre above i!e BrodeUteUonde.
acre above OverliteUonde.
acre above Medeforlong.
acre at ^0 7%om.
acre at Soggegtoriforde.
acre above Elddegee.
acre above CokweU,
Between the Land cf
John JSikkes and «7oAn Howepreet. John WtUekgne and t/oAn Magn, John Watekgne and Henry Warde, John Watekyne and «7o^ Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne Bud Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde,
John Watekyne and IT^firy TTorcfe. •TbAn 7Fa^6A;yiu and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde, John Watekyne and John Mayn, John Watd^fne and John Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde, John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyfie and John Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and John Mayn. William Jonyngee and Henry Bo"
viton. John Watekyne and John Mayn, John Watekyne and John Mayn, John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and John Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne ajid John Janekyne. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and J<^n Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Jo?m Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John WateJcyne and John Mayn. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne and Henry Warde. John Watekyne dkud Henry Warde. John Watekyne and John Mayn.
Chap. n.
The vhr- gate or yard-land of John Moldeson, continaed.
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26
The English Village Community.
Chap. II.
Where situated,
acre at Brodefaniham, acre at Langefamham, acre above Famhamthide,
acre at Howeehamtne, acre at Stony ttioch, acre at Coppedemore, acre at Brerebuttee. acre at Wodeforlonge. acre at Porievoeye. acre at IMbenhidle.
acre at MickUbhkeffrove,
acre at LUeiblakegrove.
acre at Brodereten.
acre at BroddUddan.
acre at Stateford,
acre at BroddtmgeUmde*
acre above Lkelbeleeden.
acre in ^namoiMiJaiu^.
acre at Zt^/ieMaertf.
rood in fe TVen^.
acre at Merslade,
acre at Merdade.
acre at BrodeliteUonde,
acre below /e KnoUe,
acre above /e Brodealdemede,
Between the Land of
John Watekyne John Watekyne Henry Boveton
Halle, John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns Henry Boveton
Lane, John Watekyns John Watekyns John Wateikyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Watekyns John Wateikyns
and Henry Wards. andJETmry Wards, and Bichard Atte
vad Henry Warde, and Henry Wards, andJXmry Wards, and Henry Wards. and John Mayn, and John Mayn, and Matthew atte
Kod Henry Wards, and Henry Wards. and John Mayn, and John Mayn, and John Mayn, and John Mayn, and John Mayn, and Henry Wards. and Henry Warde, and Henry Warde. and Henry Warde. and Henry Warde. and Henry Warde. ejid Henry Warde, and John Mayn,
Summary Thus the virffate or yard-land of John Moldeson
contents of was composed ot a messuage and
avirgate
or yard- 68 half-acre stripe of arable land,
^"^ 8 rood fltripa of arable land,
2 doles,
1 acre of pasture,
8 half-acres of pasture, and
1 half-acre of meadow,
scattered all over the open fields in their various furlongs.
But it may be asked, how can it be proved that the other virgates were like the one virgate of John
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A NORMAL A
VIRGATE orYARDLAND
ThtB THWtmJ "HAlflmif of tliB V&UflUUS.
' * f of a. xaJ?BBua^(t and 30
. acxca cwonr6a rMyPy WM^
of ezxumSe catiie M^p of 6i« cpcn
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The Winslow Manor Bolls,
Moldeson thus by chance described and exp^ view on the manor rolls ? Is i* right to assume that this virgate may be taken as a pattern of the rest ? The answer is, that in the description of its 72 half-acre strips the 144 neighbouring strips are incidentally in- volved. And as 66 of its strips had on one side of them 66 other strips of another tenant, viz. John Watekyns, and on the other side 43 of the next strips belonged to Henry Warde, and 23 to John Mayn, Eotation and 8 of the strips only had other neighbours, it is o^^^^f evident that the virgate of John Moldeson was one of a the Btripa^ system of similar virgates formed of scattered half-acre strips, arranged in a certdn regular order of rotation, in which John Moldeson came 66 times next to John Watekyns, and two other neighbours followed him, one 43 and the other 23 times, in similar succession.
Thus the Winslow virgates were intermixed, and a virgate each was a holding of a messuage in the viUage^ and Snd*i?k between 30 and 40 modem acres of land^ not con- ^l^^^,^^
•'^ ' 30 or 40
tigtumSj but scattered in half -acre pieces all over the acres in common fields. The half- virgate consisted in the same acre or way of a messuage in the village with half as many stripsT^ strips scattered over the same fields. The intermixed ownership complained of in the Inclosure Acts, and surviving in the Hitchin maps, need no longer sur- prise us. y^/^
We know now what a virgate or yard-land was. The We shall find that its normal area was 30 scattered vll^ti acres — 10 acres in each of the three fields. Using J^^ again the map of the Hitchin fields, we may mark upon it the contents of a normal virgate by way of impressing upon the eye the nature of this peculiar holding. It must always be remembered that when
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acrai»
28
The English Village Community.
Chap. n. the fields were divided into half-acres instead of acres the number of its scattered strips would be doubled. It is not possible to ascertain from a mere record of the changes in the holdings precisely how many of these virgates and half-virgates there were in the manor of Winslow. But in the year of the Black Death it may be assumed that the mortality fell with something Uke equality upon all classes of tenants, 153 changes of holding from the death of previous holders being recorded in 1348-9. Out of these, 28 were holders of virgates and 14 of half-virgates. The virgates and half-virgates of these holders who died of the Black Death must have included more than 2,400 half-acre strips in the open fields; and add- ing up the contents of the other holdings of tenants
TVo-thirds ^^j^q (jj^d that vcar, it would seem that about two-
of the land , i
hoidinviiv thirds of the whole area which changed hands in that memorable year were included in the virgates and half-virgates. It may be inferred, therefore, that about the same proportion of the whole area of the open fields must have been included in the virgates and half-virgates whose holders died or survived. Clearly, then, the mass of the land in the open fields was held in these two grades of holdings.^
Thus much, then, may be learned from the Win- slow manor rolls with respect to the virgates and half- virgates. Not only were they" holdings each com- posed of a messuage and the scattered strips belonging to it in the open fields, not only did they form the
ates and Balf-vir- gates.
They are held in Tillenage.
' The number of tenants with smaller holdings was considerably larger than the number of holders of virgates and half-viigates, but their
holdings were so small that in the aggregate they held a much smaller acreage than the other class.
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The Winslow Manor RoUs.
29
two chief grades of holdings with equality in each Ch^p. il grade, but also they were all alike held in villenage. They were not holdings of the lord's demesne land, but of the land in villenage. The holders, besides their virgates and half-virgates, often, it is true, held other land, part of the lord's demesne, as free tenants at an annual rent. But such free holdings were no part of their virgates. The virgates and half- virgates were held in villenage. Of these they were not free
tenants, but villein tenants. So also the lesser cottage
holdings were held in villenage. But the holders of virgates and half- virgates were the highest grades in the hierarchy of tenants in villenage. They not only held the greater part of the open fields in their bundles of scattered strips ; the rolls also show that they almost exclusively served as jurors in the * Hahmot,' or Court of the Manor ; though occasionally one or two other villein tenants with smaller holdings were associated^^ with them.^ ^^
It is possible that just as villein tenants could hold Th® viiiem in free tenure land in the lord's demesne, so free men * yiUanil' might hold virgates in villenage and retain their per- ^pn " sonal freedom ; but those at all events of the holders ^^^•' of virgates who were nativi^ i.e. villeins by descent were adscripti gUhcB. They held their holdings at the will of the lord, and were bound to perform the customary services. K they allowed their houses to
* Oat of 43 juTjinen who had served in 1346, 1347, and 1348, 27 died of the Black Death in 134S-9. Ont of these 27 who died, and whose holdings thereforecan be traced, 16 held virgates, 8 held
half-virgates, and of the other 3 one held 1 messuage and 2 cottages, another a messaage and 15 acres in villenage (equivalent to a half-vir^ gate), and the third 8 acres arable and 2^ of meadow.
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30
The English Village Community.
X
CHAP.n. ) get out of repair they were guilty of waste ^ and the " jury were fined if they did not report the neglect.^
Yet the entries in the rolls prove that their hold- ings were hereditary, passing by the lord's re-grant from father to son by the rule of primogeniture, on payment of the customary heriot or relief.^
Widows had dower, and widowers were tenaiita by the curtesy^ as in the case of freeholds. The holders in villenage, even *nativi,' could make wills which were proved before the ceUerarius of the abbey, and had done so time out of mind, while the wiUs of free tenants were proved at St. Albans.'
These things all look hke a certain recognition of freedom within the restraints of the villenage. But if the * nativi ' married without the lord's consent they were fined. If they sold an ox without licence, again s they were fined. If they left the manor without
licence they were searched for, and if found arrested as fugitives and brought back.* If their daughters lost their chastity * the lord again had his fine. And
\
1 Cases of tbis are numerous after the Black Death. See in 27 Ed. III. one case, in 28 Edward III. 11 cases, in SO Ed. III. five cases.
> All the 153 holdings which changed hands on the death of the tenants of the Black Death were re-granted to the single heir of the deceased holder or to a reversioner, or in default of such were retained by the lord. In no case was there a subdivision bv inheritance. The hen<a of a virgate was generally an ox, or money payment of its value. But the amount was often reduced ' propter panpertatem ; * and some-
times when a succeeding tenant could not pay, a half-4cre was de- ducted from the virgate and held by the lord instead of the heriot.
> See under 23 Ed. III. a record of the unanimous finding of the jury to this efiect.
* The instances of fugitive vil- leins are very numerous for years after the Black Death ; and inquiry into cases of this class formed a prominent part of the business trans- acted at the halimotes.
^ There were 22 cases of * Lere- wyt ' recorded on the manor rolls in the first 10 years of Edward III.
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The Winshw Manor Rolls. 31
in all these cases the whole jury were fined if they Chap. ii. neglected to report the deUnquent.
Their services were "no doubt Umited and defined by custom, and so late as the reign of Edward m. mostly discharged by a money payment in Ueu of the actujj service, but they rested nominally on the will of the lord ; and sometimes to test their obedience the relaxed rein was tightened, and trivial orders were issued, such as that they should go ofi* to the woods and pick nuts for the lord.^ In case of dispute a court was held under the great ash tree at St. Albans, and the decision of this superior manorial court at head-quarters settled the question.^ This villenage of the Winslow tenants was, no doubt, in the fourteenth century noild in its character ; the silent working of economic laws was breaking it up ; but it was viUenage But their still. It was serfdom, but it was serfdom in the last ^^^^ stages of its relaxation and decay. ^p-
Already, any harking back by the landlord upon older and stricter rules — any return, for instance, to the actual services instead of the money payments in lieu of them — produced resentment and insubordi- nation amongst the viUein tenants. Murmurs were already heard in the courts, and symptoms appear on the rolls in the year following the Black Death which clearly indicate the presence of smouldering embers very likely soon to burst into flame.^ The rebellion under Wat Tyler was, in fact, not far ahead. But in this inquiry we are looking backwards into earher times, in order to learn what Enghsh serfdom was when fully in force, rather than in the days when
^ See a case in 25 Ed. III. » gee a case of thiflin 6 £d. III.
» See under 6 Ed. in.
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32 The English Village Community.
Chap. h. it was breaking up. In the meantime the practical knowledge gained from the Winslow manor rolls, how a community in serfdom fitted as it were into the open field system as into an outer shell, and still more the knowledge of what the virgate and half-vir- gate in villenage reallf^ were, drawn from actual examples, may prove a useful key in unlocking still further the riddle of earlier serfdom.
/-
III. THE HUNPBED BOLLS OF EDWARD I., EMBRACING FIVE MIDLAND COUNTIES.
The facts thus learned from the Winslow Manor Rolls throw just that flash of Kght upon the otherwise dry details of the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. which is needful to make the picture they give in detail of ' the manors in parts of five midland counties vivid and clear.
English economic history is rich in its materials ;
and of all the records of the economic condition of
England, next to the Domesday Survey, the Hundred
Surveys of Rolls are the most important and remarkable. The
manors m ...
five second volume, in its 1,000 folio pages, contains inter
"*""i279. cdicL a true and clear description of every manor in a large district, embracing portions o/ Oxfordshirfi^Berk- V^ shire, Bedfordshire. Huntingdonshire^ and Cambridge^ shire, in about the year 1279*^ and as in most cases the name of every tenant is recorded, with the character of his holding and a description of bis payments and services, the picture of each manor has almost the detail and accuracy of a photograph. Turning over its pages, the mass of detail may at first appear con- fused and bewildering, and in one sense it is so, because
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FA.D.
The Hundred Rolls. 33
it relates to a system which, however simple when Ohap. il fully at work, becomes broken up and entangled whilst ill process of disintegration. But the key to it once mastered, the original features of the system may still be recognised. Even the broken pieces fall into their proper places, and the ^neral economic outlines of the several manors stand out sharply and clearly marked.
Speaking generally, in its chief economic features every manor is aUke, as in the record itself one common form of survey serves for them all. Hence They ate the T^nslow example gives the requisite key to the Winsiow whole. Bringing to the record the knowledge of how *^^ the open fields were everywhere divided into furlongs, \ and acre or half-acre strips, and that virgates and - half-virgates wera equal bundles of strips scattered all over the fields, the description of the manors in the Hundred BoUs becomes perfectly intelligible.
In the first place the manor consists, as in the Winsiow example, of two parts — the land in demesne and the land in villenage.
The land in demesne consists of the home farm, and portions, irregular in area, let out from it to what are called free tenants {libere tenentes)^ some of them being nevertheless villeins holding their portions of the demesne lands in free tenure at certain rents in addition to their regular holdings.
The land in villenage, as in the Winsiow manor, is virgatea held mostly in virgates and half-virgates, and below vS^tei." these cottiers hold smaller holdings, also in villenage. _,^
In describing the tenants in villenage there is first a statement that A. B. holds a virgate in villenage at such and such payments and services, which are often
D
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34
The English Village Community.
Cottier tenants.
Chap. II. very minutely described. The meney value of each service and the total value of them all is in many cases also carefully given. This description of the holding and services of A. B. is then followed by a list of persons who also each hold a virgate at the same services as A. B.
Secondly, there is a similar statement in detail that C. D. holds a half -virgate in villenage, and that such and such are his payments and services, followed by a similar list of persons who also each hold a half- virgate at the same services as C. D.
Then follows a list of the little cottier tenants, and their holdings and services. Amongst some of these cottage holdings there is equality, some are irregular, and some consist of a cottage and nothing else.
These holdings are all in viUenage, but, as before mentioned, the names of the villein tenants often occur again in the list of free tenants {libere tenentes) of portions of the lord's demesne or of recently reclaimed land {terra assarta).
This may be taken as a fair description of the
common type of manor throughout the Hundred Kolls,
with local variations.
With ex- ^^^ chief of these is that in many places in Cam-
ceptionai bridgeshirc and Huntingdonshire the holdings of the
tbe manors villani^ instead of being described as virgates and
o^e t"pe! half- virgates, are described by their acreage. There
are so many holders of 30, 20, 15, 10, or other
number of acres each. They are not the less in
grades, with equality in each grade, but the holdings
bear no distinctive name.
There is also in these counties a class of tenants, partly above the viUani^ called sochemanniy which we
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\
The Hundred Rolls. 35
shall find again when we reach the Domesday Survey. ObapAI. But upon exceptional local circumstances it is not needful to dwell here.
'l^ke fact IS, then, that m the Hundr^ RoUS 'Of I Edward I. there is disclosed over the much wider [area of five midland counties almost precisely the same state of things as that which existed in the [manor of Winslow late in the reign of Edward ]TT ^
That manor was under the ecclesiastical lordship of an abbey, but here in the Hundred EoUs the same state of things exists under all kinds of ownership. Manors of the king or the nobihty, of. abbeys, and of private and lesser landowners, are all substantially alike. In all there is the division of the manor into demesne land and land in villenage. In all the mass of the land in villenage is held in the grades of hold- ings mostly called virgates and half-virgates, with equality in each grade both as to the holding and the services. In all aUke are found the smaller cottage holdings, also in villenage ; and lastly, in all ahke there are the free tenants of larger or smaller por- tions of the demesne land. ^
If the picture of a manor and its open 'fields and The open virgates or yard-lands in villenage — i.e. both of the fem i7Se shell and of the community in serfdom inhabiting the g^^^m shell — drawn in detail from the single Winslow example, has thrown hght upon the Hundred Eolls, these latter, embracing hundreds of manors in the midland counties of England, give the picture a typical value, proving that it is true, not for one manor only, but, speaking generally, for all the manors of central England.
They also give additional information on the rela-
D 2
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86 The English Village Community.
Chap. II. tioDL of the holdings to the hide^ and reveal more clearly than the Winslow manor rolls the nature of the serfdom under which the villein tenants held their virgates. Before passing from the Hundred Eolls it will be worth while to examine the new facts they give us, and to devote a section to an examination of the services.
TV. THE HUNDRED BOLLS {continued} — BELATION OF THE VIRGATE TO THE HIDE AND CAHUCATE.
Before passing to the villein services described in the Hundred Eolls, evidence may be cited from them showing the relation of the virgate or yard-land — which is now known to be the normal holding of the normal tenant in villenage — to the hide and carucate. If to the knowledge of what a virgate was, can be added an equally clear understanding of what a hide was, another valuable step will be gained.
In the rolls for Huntingdonshire a series of entries occurs, describing, contrary to the usual practice of the compilers, the number of acres in a virgate, and the number of virgates in a hide, in several manors.
These entries are given below,^ and they show clearly —
(i) That the bundle of scattered strips called a virgate did not always contain the same number of acres.
(2) That the hide did not always contain the same number of virgates.
But at the same time it is evident that the hide in
* For Table of entries see next page.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
7%4? Hundred RoUs.
37
Huntingdonshire most often contained 120 acres or Chap, il thereabouts. It did so in twelve cases out of nineteen. The nor-' In one case it contained the double of 120, e.^. 240 ^^^, acres. In six cases only the contents varied irregu- f^^^g. larly from the normal amount. thed<mbie
Taking the normal hides of 120 acres, five of acres : but them were made up of four virgates of thirty acres lo^ "* each, which we may take to have been normal vir- ^*®°* gates. In one case there were eight virgates of fifteen acres each in the hide. In other places these probably would have been called half-virgates, as at Winslow.
There were occasionally ^^gjorgates and sometimes six virgates in the hide, and the fact of these varia- tions will be found to have a meaning hereafter ; but in the meantime we may gather from the instances given in the Hundred Eolls for Huntingdonshire, that the normal hide consisted as a rule of four virgates of about thirty acres each. The reaJly important
|
AkHniid. |
Naofvirgatciin Mcbhide |
Aicra in a virgate |
AiOreB In a hide |
|
VI. |
40 |
240 |
|
|
ILp.e29 |
- VI. |
28 |
168 |
|
IV. |
48 |
192 |
|
|
631 |
VI. |
30 |
180 |
|
es6 |
VI. |
25 |
150 |
|
636 |
IV. V. |
30 25 |
120 125 |
|
687 |
vm. |
15 |
120 |
|
640 |
IV. |
30 |
120 |
|
640 |
V. |
25 |
125 |
|
645 |
IV. |
.30 |
120 |
|
646 |
V, |
26 |
130 |
|
648 |
IV. |
30 |
120 |
|
663 |
IV. |
30 |
120 |
|
654 |
IV. |
80 |
120 |
|
666 |
VI. |
24 |
144 |
|
658 |
V. |
25 |
125 |
|
660 |
V. |
25 |
125 |
|
661 |
VI. |
20 |
120 |
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38 The English Village Community.
Chap II. conscquence resulting from this is the recognition of the fact that as the virgate was a bundle of so many scattered strips in the open fields, the hide^ so far as it consisted of actual virgates in villenage, was also a bundle — ^a compound and fourfold bundle— of scat- tered strips in the open fields.
Whilst, however, marking this relation of the vir- gate to the hide, regarded as actual holdings in villen- age, it is necessary to observe also that throughout the Hundred EoUs the assessed value of the manors The an- ^^ generally stated in hides and virgates ; and that, ^t^hid- [j^ ^i^Q estimate thus given of the hidage of a manor assessment as a wholc, the demesne land as well as the land in
of taza*
tion. villenage is taken into account. In this case the hide
i/^ ' and virgate are used as measures of assessment, and it does not follow that all land that was measured or estimated by the hide and virgate was actually divided up by balks into acres, although the demesne land itself was in fact, as we have seen, often in the open fields, and intermixed with the strips in villen- age. Distinction must therefore be made between the hide and virgate as actual holdings and the hide and virgate as customary land measures, used for re- cording the assessed values or the extent of manors, just as in the case of the acre.
The virgate and the hide were probably, Uke the
acre, actual holdings before they were adopted as
abstract land measures. It may be even possible to
learn or to guess whaji fact made a particular number
of acres the most convenient holding.
/ The scut- In the Hundred Rolls for Oxfordshire there is
^'^' frequent reference to the payment of the tax caUed
rentage. ( The normal amount of this is assumed
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The Hundred RoUs. 39
to be 40^. for each knighfs fee, or scutum. And it cJhap. ii. appears that the knight's fee was assumed to contain ' four normal hides. ^ There is an entry, ' One hide gives scutage for a fourth part of one scutum.' And as four virgates went usually to each hide, so each virgate should contribute ^ of a scutum. There are several entries which state that when the scuts^e is 40*. each virgate pays 2^. 6d., which is tV^^ ^^^'^
And these figures seem to lead one step further. Connexion and to connect the normal acreage of the hide of aa^iTof 120a., and of the virgate of 30a., with the scutage of Iff^^ 40s. per knight's fee ; for when these normal acreages coinage. were adhered to in practice the assessment would be one penny per acre, and the double hide of 240 acres would pay one pound. In other words, in choosing the acreage of the standard hide and virgate, a num- ber of acres was probably assumed, corresponding with the monetary system, so that the number of pence in the * scutum' should correspond with the number of acres assessed to its payment. We shaU find this correspondence of acreage with the coinage by no means confined to this single instance.
But there remains the question, why the acreage in the virgate and hide as actual holdings, and the
1 Hundred ^4dl8, Oxan.
n. 706. Every virgate giyes scutage 2$. 6d, when the scutage is 40s, 2 virgatea give „ 6$. „
1 viigate gives „ 2«. 6d. „
4t virgates give „ 10». „
* ff t> n "•• fy
n. 709, 4 „ „ „ 8».
6 „ „ „ U8.6d. „
n. 890. 1 hide g^ves scutage for a fourth part of a scutum.
From these iustances it is evident that normally 4 virgates- 1 hide^ and 4 hides make a knight's fee.
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|
» |
40». |
|
if |
409. |
|
99 |
40«. |
|
ff |
40».,&c |
|
9f |
40». |
|
*> |
40«. |
40 The English Village Community.
chapJI. number of virgates in the hide, were not constant.
Their actual contents and relations were evidently
ruled by some other reason than the number of pence
in a pound.
CaruciUe, ^ tracc at least of the original reason of the vary-
a plough ing contents and relations of the hide and virgate is
i^Sad^of to be found in the Hundred KoUs, as, indeed, almost
for kt w everywhere else, in the use of another word in the place
tazBtion, of hide^ when, instead of the anciently assessed hidage
of a manor, its more modem actual taxable value is
examined into and expressed. This new word is
* carucate ' — the land ^ a plough or plough team, —
* caruca ' being the mediaeval Latin term for both plough and plough team.
The Hundred Rolls for Bedfordshire afford several examples in point. In some cases the carucate seems "^"^J^®^ to be identical with the normal hide of 120 acres, but to the soil, other instances show that the carucate varied in area.^ It is the land cultivated by a plough team ; varying in acreage, therefore, according to the light- ness or heaviness of the soil, and according to the strength of the team.]
V. THE HUNDRED BOLLS {continued) — THE SERVICES OP THE VILLEIN TENANTS.
^"^^ "^ ^^^ Hundred EoUs for Bedfordshire and
often com- muted into Buckinghamshire the services of the villein tenants
money pajrmentii.
> Hundred HoOs, Beds.
U. 321. Oarucate of 120 acres. 324 „ 80 „
326 „ 100 „
826 „ 120 „
I (. 328. Carucate of 200 acres. 332 „ 100 „
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The Hundred Bolls.
41
are almost always commuted into money payments. ^^^'^ From each virgate a payment of from 16s. to 20^. is described as due, or services to that value {vel opera ad valorem)^ showing thaWhe actual services have become the exception, and the money payments the rule J But in many cases distinguishing marks of
serfoom still remained in the^fine upon the marriage
of a daughter, the heriot on the death of the holder, and the restraint on the sale of animals.^
In Huntingdonshire and Oxfordshire, on the other hand, the services, whilst often having their money value assigned, are mostly given in great detail, as though still frequently enforced.
Speaking generally, the chief services, notwith oftiree standing variations in detail, may be classed under ^^^^' three different heads.
(1) There is the weekly work at ploughing, reap- Week ing, carrying, usually for two or three days a week,^ and most at harvest-time. In other cases there are
so many days' work required between certain dates.
(2) There are precarice, or * boon-davs/ some- ^^xauam. - times called bene works — special or extra services
which the lord has a right to require, sometimes the lord providing food for the day, and sometimes the tenant providing for himself.
(s) There are payments in kind or in money at Fixed dues specified times, such as Christmas, Easter, Martinmas, ^ki^kmd. and Michaelmas dues ; churchshot^ an ancient ecclesias-
> Sundred BoOb^ Bedford$kire, — ' £t sunt im yiUani ita send quod Don poesunt maritare filias nifli ad Tolimtatem flf^T"'"^ ' (H. 329).
'Nee palloe aibi pollatoe mas-
(n. 328).
BuckinffhamMre, — ' Sunt ad voluntatem domini, et ad alia faci- enda qu» ad servilem conditionem pertinent ' (II. d3(!h-6). And no on.
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42
The English Village Community.
Chap. II. tical due ; besides contributions towards the lord's taxes in the shape of tallage or scutate.
Sometimes the services are to be performed with one or two labourers, showing that the cottier tenants were labourers under the holders of virgates, or indi- cating possibly in some cases the remains of a slave class.
The chief weekly services were those of plough- ing, the tenants sometimes supplying oxen to the lord's plough team, sometimes using their own ploughs, two or more joining their oxen for the purpose. This co-operation is a marked feature of the services, and is found also in connexion with reaping and carrying. J The cottier tenants in respect of their smaller holdings often worked for their lord one day a week, and having no plough, or oxen, their services did not include ploughing.
Annexed are typical instances of the services of both classes of tenants. They are taken from three counties, and placed side by side for comparison.
EXAMPLES OF VILLEIN SERVICES.
|
OXFOBDBHIRB |
HUMTINODONSBIBB |
Oaxbridobbhiiib |
|
Of a Villanus holding a Virgate.^ A. B. holds a yirgate, and owes— 82 days' work [about s, d. 2 days a week] be- tween Michaelmaa and June 24, valued atid.^ . .86 lU days' work frather more than 2 days a week] be- |
a Virgatt^ A. B. holds 1 Tiigate in villenage^ By paying \2d, at Michaelmas. By doing works from Michaelmas to Eas- ter, with the excep- tion of the fortnight after Christmas, yiz. 2 days each week, |
OfaVyOanus holding ^ VtrgaU of 16 acres,* A. B. holds a \ Tirgate of cus- tomable land containing 16 acres, and does 8 daysT work each week throughout the year, and 8 precari», with |
1 n.7446.
« U.642a.
» IL6646*
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The Hundred Rolls.
43
EzAJf PLE8 07 Vitimr Sbbytcbb— <xm^ii^.
Chap. II.
OXVOBD8HIBS
Cf a VSUmuB holding a Virgate,
6
tween June 24 and Alight I, Yaiaed at Id. ^
19 days' work days a week] tween August 1 and Michaelmas, yalued at Hd. - . precariflB, with one man, yalued at
1 precaria, with 2 men, for reaping, with food from the lord, valued at
Half a carriage for carrying the wheat
Half a caniage for the hay
The ploughing and harrowing of an acre • •
1 ploughing called *yra^rthe^ .
1 day's harrowing of oat(land] .
1 horse [load] of wood .
MfJring 1 quarter of malt; and drying it
1 day's work at wash- ing and shearing sheep, valued at .
1 day's hoeing •
3 days' mowing
1 day*s nutting
1 day s work in carry- ing to the stack
Tallage once a jear at the lord's wilL
s. d. 11*
2 4J 12
1*
HUHnHaDONBHIBB
Of a VUUmuB holding a Virgate.
with one man each day.
Item, he shall plough with his own plough one selion ana a half on every Friday in the aforesaid time.
Item, he shall harrow the same day as much as he has ploughed.
He shall do works from Easter to Pen- tecost, 2 days each week, with one man each day.
And he ehall plough one selion each Fri- day in the same time.
He shall do works from Pentecost till Auffust 1, for 3 days each week, with one man each day, either hoeing the com, or mowing and lifting {levana).
He shall do works from August 1 till Septemher 8, for 8 days each week, with two men each day.
He shall make 1 ' love^ bonum ' with all his fiimily except his wife, finding his own food. And from September 8 to Michaelmas he works 3 days each week, with one man each day. He shall carry [with a horse or horses] as &r as Bolnhurst, and from Bolnhurst to Torneye.
OAMBaiDBEBSam
Of a VUlamu
hoCdxng ^ Virgate
of 16 acret,
meals found by the lord, and gives at Martin- mas \d.y and a hen at Christ- mas, and 8 eggs at Easter ; and the same works and customs if ' adfirmam ' are valued at 9«. per annum. (20 others each hold 16 acres with like ser- vices.)
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Chaf.II.
44 The English Village Community.
"RTAifPT.Ba OF ViLLEDT Sebyiobs — continued.
OXFORDBHIBB
HxnrriNaDONBHiBB
Gfa Cotanus.^
A. B. bolda one croft, and owes from Michaelmas to Aogust 1, each workable weiu^one day's work of what- eYer kind the lord requireB.
Cf a ViUanus holding a Virgate,
A.lso he gives ^ bushel of com as * bensed ' in winter-time.
Also 10 bushels of oats at Martinmas as *fodderkom*
Also 7d. as ' loksUver,* that is for 2d(. a loaf, and 6 hens.
Also W. on Ash- Wed- nesday, as 'Jispem* (fishpenny).
Also 20 eggsatEaster.
Also 10 eggs on St. BotolpVs Day (June 17).
Also in Easter week fid. towards digging the yineyaid.
Also in Pentecost week Id. towards uphold- ing the mill-dam (stagnum) of Newe- tone.
If he sell a bull calf he shall give the lord abbot 4d., and this according to custom.
He gives ' merchetum ' and ' herietum,* and is taUaged at Mi- chaelmas according to the will of the sud abbot.
He gives 2d. as ' tumewode silver* Bt Christmas.
Cfa Catarius.^
A. B. holds 1 acre at I2d., and works 4 days in autumn with one man.
Heistallaged 'quando
OAMBBIDaESRIRB
Cfa Cotarius.^
A. B. is a cota- rius, and holds 1 cottage and 1 acre, for which he gives —
« XL 768a.
» IL6186.
* U. 5356.
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The Hundred Rolls.
ExAXPLBB or Viixsnr Svayjaaa—eontiimed.
45
|
OZVOKDSHIU |
HmrrcroDONSHiBi |
Gambjudokhibi |
|
Cfa Cotarius, AtMartmmiisgivesl cock and 3 hens for charchshot, and ought to drive to certain places, and to carry writs,* nis fooi being found by the lord ; also to wash and shear sheep, receiving a loaf and a half, and being partaker of the cheese with the sem; and to hoe. In the autumn, to work and receive like as each senms works and re- cei?es for the whole week." (10 cottiers do like ser- vices). |
Cfa Cotanua, Rex taUiat Jmrgoe euae,* He p^es 'garshavea* each year for pigs kiUed and sold, vu. for a pig a year old, id. And when there is pannage in the lord's wood he gives for a pig of a year old, Id, And if he keeps his pigs alive beyond a year, he gives nothing. |
Of a Cotarius. Idav's work on Monday in every week un- less a festival prevents him. 1 hen at Christmas. 5 eggs at Easter. |
Chap. II.
YI. DESCRIPTION IN PLETA OF A MANOR IN THE TIME OP EDWARD I.
Contemporary in date with the Hundred Eolls is the anonymous work bearing the title of * Fleta^' which may be described as the vademecum of the landlords of the time of Edward I. ^t was designed to put them in possession of necessary legal knowledge ; and mixed up with this are practical directions regarding the management of their estates. The writer advises Landlords landlords on taking possession of their manors to have ^^yf * a survey made of their property, so that they may know the extent of their rights and income.\
If in the Hundred Eolls we have photographic details of hundreds of individual manors surveyed
1 In another manor in Hunt- ingdonshire certain cottiers ought to make summonses. IL 616.
* The Latin text is badly printed here, but the original has been inspected.
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46
The English Village Community.
Chap. ii. for purposes of royal taxation, so here is a picture of an ordinary or typical manor — a generalisation of the ordinary features of a manor — drawn by a contemporary hand, and regarding all things from a landlord's point of view.
The manor as described in Fleta is a territorial unit, with its own courts and local customs known only on the spot. Therefore the extent is to be taken upon the testimony of * faithful and sworn tenants of the lord.' . And inquiry is to be made ^ —
Snrvey of a manor.
Free tenants.
(1) Of castles and buildings in the demesne (intrvnsecis) within and
without the moat, with gardens, curtilages, doTecotes, fish- ponds, &c.
(2) What fields {campi) and cuUurtB there are in demesne, and how
many acres of arable in each cultura.oi meadow and of pasture.
(3) WHiat common pasture there is outside the demesne (forimeca),
and what beasts the lord can place thereon [he, like his tenants, being as to this limited in his rights bj bustom].
(4) Of parlra and demesne woods, which the lord at his will can culti-
vate and reclaim {asBortare), (6) Of woods outside the demesne (foriruecis), in which others have common rights, how much the lord may approve.
(6) Of pannage, herbage, and honey, and all other issues of the forests,
woods, moors, heaths, and wastes.
(7) Of mills [belonging to the lord, and having a monopoly of grinding
for the tenants at fixed chaiges], fishponds, rivers (r^parns), and fisheries several and common.
(8) Of pleas and perquisites belonging to the county, manor, and forest
courts.
(0) Of churches belonging to the lord's advowson.
(10) Of heriots, fairs, markets, tolls, day-works (pperatumes), services,
foreign (fortnaect) customs, and gifts (exhenniis).
(11) Of warrens, liberties, parks, coney burrows, wardships, reliefB, and
yearly fees.
Then regarding the tenants, —
(1) De Ubere tenmtibut, or free tenants, how many are nUtinseci and
how many forirueci'y what lands they hold of the lord, and
> Iteta, lib. 2, c. 71. the Realm, i. p. 242.
Compare also ^Extenta Manerii:* Staitites of
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Flsta. 47
what of othera, and by what service ; whether by socage, or by ^^^* ^» niUUary service, or by fee farm, or * in eleemosynam ' ; who hold ""— l>y charter, and who not ; what rents they pay ; which of them do suit at the lord's court, &c. ; and what aocraes to the lord at their death. (2) I>e custnmariis^ or yiUein tenants ; how many there are, and what Villein is their suit ; how much each has, and what it is worth, both ^"M^nts. de €tntiquo dominico and de novo perqumto\ to what amount they can be tallaged without reducing them to poverty and ruin; what is the value of their * operationes* and * contuettidinea* — ^their day-works and customary duties — and what rent they pay; and which of them can be tallaged 'ratione 9anguinis natitn,* and who not.
Then there follows a statement of the duties of officera. the usual officials of the manor.
First there is the seneschal,^ or^teward, whose The sene- duty it is to hold the Manor Courtsjand the View of stewilid' Frankpledge, and there to (inquire if there be any withdrawals of customs, services, and rents, or of suits to the lord's courts, markets, and mills, and as to alienations of lands/ He is also to check the amount of seed required by the prcepositus for each manor, for under the seneschal there may be several manors.
^ On his appointment he must make himself ac- quainted with the condition of the manorial ploughs and plough teams. He must see that the land is pro- who ar- perly arranged, whether on the three field or the two- JiS^^g field system. If it be divided into three parts^ 180 ^^^^ acres should go to each carucate, viz. 60 acres to be tea^^"^ ploughed in winter, 60 in Lent, and 60 in summer for fallow. H in two parts^ there should be 160 acres to the carucate, half for fallow, half for winter and Lent sowing, %,e, 80 acres in each of the two * fields/
' Fktay Ub. 2, c. 72.
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48 The English Village Community.
Chap^ Besides the manorial ploughs and plough teams he must know also how many tenant or villein ploughs {carucas adjutrices) there are, and how often they are bound to aid the lord in each manor.
He is also to inquire as to the stock in each manor, whereof an inventory indented is to be drawn up between him and the serjeant; and as to any deficiency of beasts, which he is at once to make good with the lord's consent.
The seneschal thus had jurisdiction over all the
^ei^T" manors of the lord. But each single manor should
^^^^ — have its own prcepositus.
The best husbandman is to be elected by the tnY- lata, or body of tenants, as prcepositas^ and he is to be responsible for^Qie cultivation of the arable land. He must see that the ploughs are yoked early in the morning — ^both the demesne and the villein ploughs — and that the land is properly ploughed {pure et can- junctim) and sown. He is a villein tenant, and acts on behalf of the villeins, but he is overlooked by the lord's bailiff, y
The bailiff. The bailiff's^ duties are stated to be— ^o rise early and have the ploughs yoked, then walk in the fields to see that all is right. He is to inspect the ploughs, whether those of the demesne or the villein or auxiliary ploughs, seeing that they be not un- yoked before their day's work ends, failing which he will be called to account. At sowing-time the bailiff, prcepositusy and reaper must go with the ploughs through the whole day's work until they have com- pleted their proper quantity of ploughing for the day,
* Fieta, lib. 2, c. 7«.
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Battle Abbey and St PauVs. 49
wMch is to be measured, and il* the ploughmen have Chaf. ii. made any errors or defaults, and can make no ex- """""" cuses, the reaper is to see that such faults do not go uncorrected and unpunishedv^
Such is the picture, given by Meta, of the manorial machine at work grinding through its daily labour on the days set apart for service on the lord's demesne.
The other side of the picture, the work of the viUani for themselves on other days, the yoking of their oxen in the common plough team, and the ploughing and sowing of their own scattered strips ; whether this was arranged with equal regard to rigid custom, or whether in Fleta's time the co-opera- tion had become to some extent broken up, so that each villein tenant made his own arrangements by contract with his fellows, or otherwise — this inferior side of the picture is left undrawn. .
In the meantime, returning to the question of the holdings in villenage, an additional reason for the variations in their acreage is found in the statement already alluded to, viz. that the extent of the actual carucate, or land of one plough team, was dependent, among other things, upon whether the system of husbandry was the two-field or the three-field system, each plough team being able to cultivate a larger acreage on the former than on the latter system.
VII. S.B. OP ENGLAND — THE HIDE AND VIBGATE UNDER OTHER NAMES (THE RECORDS OP BATTLE ABBET AND
ST. Paul's).
Passing now to the south-eastern counties, there Bat^ie are in the Kecord Office valuable MSS. relating to the Reco^^s.
E
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50 The English VUUige Community.
Chap. II. estatcs of Battle Abbey.^ There are two distinct surveys of these estates, made respectively in the reigns of Edward I. and Henry VL
Surveys of The date of the earliest MS. is from 12 to 15
1281 7
Edward L (1284-7). It is, therefore, almost contem- poraneous with the Hundred EoUs. The estates lay in various counties ; but wherever situated, the same general phenomena as those already described are found.
Confining attention to the regular grades of hold- ings in viUenage, the following are examples from the Battle Abbey estates.
The abbot had an estate at Brichwolton (or Brightwalton), in Berkshire. In the survey of it 10 holders of a virgate each are recorded as virgarii^ and in the MS. of Henry VI., 6 holders of half-virgates are in the same way called dimidii virgarii.
There was another estate at * Apeldreham,' in Sussex. Here, under the heading *Isti subscripti dicuntur Therdlinges^* there is a list of 5 holders of virgates, 4 holders of 1| virgates each, and one of ^ a virgate.
At ' Alsiston,* in Sussex, a manor nesthng under the chalk downs, the holdings were as follows : —
1 wista. ihide. ^hide. ^liide. 1 wista. i hide.
The pr»poeitu8 1 wista (without services).
* Augmentation Office, MitceUanecus Books, Noa. 56 and 67.
|
} hides |
1 wista and 1 great wista. |
|
sndwistas. |
i hide. |
|
1 hide. |
|
|
( hide and 1 wista. |
|
|
3 wistas and 1 great wista. |
|
|
i hide. |
|
|
^hide. |
|
|
^hide. |
|
|
Ihide. |
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Battle Abbey and St. PauTs. 51
In the description of the services, those for each Chap. ii. half-hide are first given, and then there follows a note that each half-hide contains two wistas ; wherefore the services of each wista are half those above mentioned.
There is another manor (Blechinton, near the coast), where there were —
2 holdings of half-bides,
OofwisteSy
6 of half-^wistasi
and two other manors where the holders were in one case 5, all of half-hides ; and in the other case one of a hide and 4 of half-hides.
These are valuable examples of hides and half-hides, as still actual holdings in villenage, whilst apparently instead of virgates in some of these Sussex manors a new holding — the wista — occurs. And among the documents of Battle Abbey given by Dugdale there is the following statement, viz., that 8 virgates = 1 hide, and 4 virgates ss 1 wista {great wista?). Sup- posing the virgate here, as mostly elsewhere, to have been, normally, a bundle of 30 acres, it is clear that in this hide of 8 virgates we get another instance of the dottle hide of 240 acres; whilst the ^ great The double wista' of 4' virgates would correspond with the single 24(r,^Li, hide of 120 acres, and the wista would equal the ordi- nary half-hide of two virgates.
We pass to another cartulary, and of earlier date. Domesday In 1222 a visitation was made of the manors belong- p^y^ ^^^ ing to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, London. 1222. The register of this visitation is known as the * Domes- day of St. Paul's.' ^ The manors were scattered in
^ The Domesday of St, Pau/V/ edited by Archdeacon Hale, Oamden Society, 1868.
b2
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52
The English Village Community.
Chap, il Herts, Essex, Middlesex, and Surrey — all south-east-
"^"^ em counties.
In the survey of Thorp/ one of the manors in Essex, after a list of tenants on the demesne land, and others on reclaimed land {de essarto)^ there follows a list of tenants in villenage who are called hydarii. As in the Battle Abbey records the virgarii were holders of virgates, so these hydarii were probably, as their name implies, groups of viUani holding a hide. But the holdings had in fact become subdivided and irregular. Nevertheless, those belonging to each original hide are bracketed together; and adding together their acreage, it appears that the hide is assumed to contain 120 acres. The following examples will make it clear that the holdings were once hides of four virgates of 30 acres each.
HMingi,
X.fl, J
XXX. a, SB 30 a. ^hide =60 a.
»30rt/ «dOa.
|-30fl.
Hid 60 and ▼irgates.
hide of 120 acres.
XXX.
hide of 120 acres.
a, XXX. a.
XY. a.
XV. a
V. a
V. a,
vii.ia, }.-30a.
V. a. yii.^o.;
And 80 on.
SerTicee The scrvices also were reckoned by the hide, and
r^^^e*^ an abstract of them is here given, from which it will
hide. be seen that for some purposes the tenants of the now
divided hide still clubbed as it were together to
» Pp. 38 «< «7.
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Battle Abbey and St. Pa^
perform the services required for the
others ' each homestead (domus) of the hide ' had its
separate duties to perform.
The following were the services on the manor of Thorp : ^—
Eacli of the hidarU ought to plough 8 acres, 4 m winter and 4 in Lent.
Also to haiTOW and sow with the lord's seed.
After Pentecost each house [domm) of the hide has to hoe thrice.
And to reap 4 acres, 2 of rye {tiUgine), and 2 of harley azld oats.
And find a waggon (parrum) with 2 men to carry the hard grain, and another to carry the soft grain ; and each waggon (jplauttrti,m) shaU have 1 sheaf. Each house of the hide has to blow 3 half-acres. Each house of the hide has to provide a man to reap until the third
[day], if aught remains. Each house of the hide and of the demesne allotted to tenants has to
proTide the strongest man whom it has for the lord's *precaruB ' in
aotomn, the lord providing him meals twice a day. AH men, both of the hide and of the demense, have to provide their own
ploughs for the lord's 'precaruB,* the lord providing their meals. And each hide ought to thresh out seed for the sowing of 4 acres after
IGchaelmas Day. Each hide must thresh out so much seed as will suffice for the land
ploughed by one team in winter and in Lent. Each house of the whole village owes a hen at Ohristmaa and eggs at
Easter. These 10 hides ought to repair and keep in repair these houses in the
demesne, viz. the Grange, cowhouse, and threshing house. Each of these huUtrH owes 2 dodda of oats in the middle of March.
And 14 loaves for ' mesdnga ' (P). '
And a ^ (xm/panagmm ' (flesh, fish, or cheese). Each hide owes 6$. by the year, and ought to make of the brd's wood 4
hurdles of rods for the fold.
The instance of another manor of St. Paul's (Tillingham), in Essex,* may be cited as further evi- dence that sometimes, even w;here the holdings (as at Winslow) were virgates and half-virgates, their original relation to the hide was not yet forgotten. For after giving the hst of tenants in demesne, and of 19
> P. 42. • • p. e4.
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54
The English Village Community.
Solanda,ot
double
hide.
CHAi^n. tenants holding 80 acres each, who * faciunt magnas operationes/ i.e. do full service, there is a statement that in this manor 30 acres make a virgate, and 120 acres a hide ; ^ so that here also there are 4 virgates to the hide. But there was further in this manor a dovhle hide^ called a * solanda, ^ presumably of 240 acres. This double hide called a solanda is also mentioned in a manor in Middlesex,' and in another in Surrey ; ^ and the term solanda is probably the same as the well-known * suUung ' or * solin ' of Kent, meaning a * plough land/
It will be remembered that in the Huntingdon- shire Hundred Rolls a double hide of 240 acres was noticed.
It may also be mentioned that in Kent'^ the division of the sullung, or hide, was called a yoke, instead of a yard-land or virgate ; suggesting that the divisions of the plough land in some way corresponded with the yokes of oxen in the team.
On the whole little substantial difference appears between the grades of holdings in the south-east of England and those of the midland counties. We may add also that here, as elsewhere, the humbler class of cottier tenants are found beneath the regular holders of hides and virgates, and that on the demesne lands there appears the constantly increasing class of libere tenentes. Also passing from the holdings in villen- age to the serfdom under which they were held.
The '1
Kentish suUungn and yokes.
^ * In manerio isto sexcies xx. acre faciunt ludam, et zxz. acre faciunt yirgatam ' (p. 64).
' 'Cum vi bidis trium solan- darum' (p. 58).
' 6^oriy where mention 18 made
of a ^Bolanda qu» per se habet duaBhida8'(p.93).
* Draitone, 'cum una bida de solande ' (p. d9).
^ For the wUung of Kent, see Mr. Elton's Tenure$ of Kent.
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Gloucester and Worcester Records.
55
and speaking generally, the description obtained from Chap. il the Hundred Rolls of the services might with little variation be applied to the different area embraced in this section.
Vm. THE EELATION OF THE VIRGATB TO THE HIDE TRACED IN THE CABTULAEIES OF GLOUCESTER AND WORCESTER ABBEYS, AND THE CUSTUMAL OF BLEADON, IN SOMERSETSHIRE.
Further facts relating to the hide and the virgate are elicited by extending the inquiry into the west of England. Turning to the cartulary of the monastery of St. Peter at Gloucester,^ there are several ' extents ' Gloucester of manors in the west of England of about the year i2«6. 1266, which give valuable evidence, not only of the existence of the open fields divided into three fields or seasonSy furlongs, and half-acre strips, but also as re- gards the holdings.
The virgates in this district varied in acreage, some containing 48 acres, others 40, 38, 36, and 28 acres respectively.^ In one case it is inciden- tally mentioned that 4 virgates make a hide.® We have thus in these extents evidence both of the pre- valence and of the varying acreage of the virgate in the extreme west of England, to add to the evidence already obtained in respect of the midland counties.
So also the register of the Priory of St. Mary, Worcester Worcester,* dated 1240, affords still earUer evidence im^*° for the west of England of a similar kind.
1 Pablished in the Rolls Series. ' ill. p. cix. ' • iii. p. 66. * Quatuor virgatsB teiTSd continentes unam hidam.'
* Edited by Archdeacon Hale» in the Oamden Society's Series, 1866.
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56
The English Village Communiiy.
GsAP. n.
In the first manor mentioned therein the customary services of the villeins are described as pertaining to each pair of half-virgates, i.e. to each original virgate.* In the next manor there were 35 holdings in half-vir- gates, and so in other manors.* It is sometimes men- tioned how many acres in each field belong to the several half-virgates, thus showing not only the division of the fields into seasons^ but the scattered contents of the holdings.
Finally, with local variations serfdom in these two western counties was almost identical with that in other parts of England.
Two examples of the services of holders of vir- gates and half-virgates respectively are appended as before for comparison with others, and also examples of the services of cottier tenants. The hst given in the note below of the * common customs * of the villein tenants of one of the manors of Worcester Priory, describes some of the more general incidents of villenage, and shows how thorough a serfdom it originally was.®
' p. 106.
» p. 146.
' Worcester Oartulaiy, p. 15 o. Of the common customs of the yU- leins on the manor of Newenham — to give ' Tkac ' on Martinmas Day ; for pigs above a year old (sows exeept6d)| Id,, and for pigs not above a yeafi i<i ; to sell neither ox nor horse without licence; to g^ve Xd. toll on selling an ox or horse; also 'aid' and ^leyrwite* (fine for a daughtex^s incontinence) ; to redeem his sons, if they leave the land ; to pay * germrna ' for his
daughters ; no one to leave the land, nor to make his son a derk, without licence ; natives coming of age, unless they directly serve their father or mother, to pe^orm 8 ' 6e»- r^'; and '/orwiwci' (t.e. villeins not bom in the manor) shall do likewise ; to carry at the summons of the ' servUm^ (bailiff or Ser- jeant) besides the work : and if he carry ' ex necesntatef to be quit of [a day's] work; to g^ve at death his best chattel (oatallum) ; the suc- cessor to make a fine, as he can ; the widow to stay on the land as
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GUmcestei* and Worcester Records.
57
To this evidence from the counties of Worcester ^^^'^ and Gloucester we may add the evidence of the Cus- Custumai tumal of Bleadon, in Somersetshire, also dating from L Somer^ the thirteenth century. eetehire.
The manor belonged to the Prior of St. Swithin, at Winchester. There were very few lihere tenentes. The tenants in villenage were inV^am, or holders of virgates, and dimidii'Virgarii, or holders of half-virgates. There were also holders of fardels or quarter-virgates, and half-fardels, or one-eighth-vkgates, and othet small cottier tenants. Four virgates went to the hide. And the services were veiy similar to those of the Gloucester and Worcester tenants. They are de- scribed at too great length to be inserted here. We may, however, notice the importance amongst other items of the carrying service or averagium — a service often mentioned among villein services, but here defined with more than usual exactness.^
In short, without going further into details, it 'm obvious that the open field system and the serfdom which lived within it were practically the same in their general features in the west and in the east of England.
The following are the examples of the services in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire : —
long 80 she continaes the aervice ; all to attend their own mill ; ' Ck>t- Buomi' to g^aid and take prisoners
[toJMl].
' ' Et idem faciei averagium apnd BristoU* et apnd WeUias per totom annum, et apud Pridie, et post hokeday apnd Bmggewauter, com a^ suo ducente bladum domini, caaeum, et lanam, et cetera omnia
quiB sibi serriens pnecipere yolaerit, et habebit unam quadrantem et dayuam suam qnietam. Et debet facere averagium apud Azebrugge et ad nayem quotiens dominus Yoluerity et nichil habebit propter idem averagium/ — Froceedmge of Archteohgicai InetittUe^ Salisbury, p. 203. App. to Notice of the Cue- tutnal of Bleadon, pp. 182-210.
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58 The English Village Community.
VILLEIN SERVICES.
Olou
8*
Sermoea of a VirgaU.^
A, B. holds 1 Yiigate of «. J. 48 acres (in the manor of Hartpoiy), with mes- suage, and 6 acres of meadow land.
From Michaelmas till Au- gust 1 he has to plough one day a week, each day's work heing valued at ....
And to do manual labour 3 days a week, each day's work being valued at .
On the 4th day to carry horse - loads (mmma-' giare), if necessary, to Preston and other manors, and QlouoesteTf each day's work being valued at . . •
Once a year to carry to Wick, valued at .
To plough one acre called ' Madacre,^ ' and to thresh the seed for the said acre, the ploughing and threshing being valued at
To do the plougmng called ^ heneherthe ' with one meal from the lord, valued uUsra cibum at •
To mow the lord's meadow for 6 days, and more if necessary, each day's work being valued ultra opus manuale at .
To lift the lord's hay for 5 days ....
To hoe the lord's com for one day (besides the' customary labour), with one man, valued at
To do 1 ' bederipa * before autumn with 1 man, valued at . . .
8
2i
i
n
WORCBBnERSHXBI
ServiceB of a Hialf-virgate^
Of the villenage of Neweham, with appurtenances (or mem- bers), and of the viUeins' works and customs.
In this numor are 86 half-vir- gates with appurtenances, ex- clusive of the half-virgate be- longinff to the ' pr€BpomtusJ
Each half-virgate adcennim pays on St. Andrew's Day I2d. (November 80) ; on Annun- ciation Day, 12d. (March 25) ; on St John's Day, I2d, (June 24).
From June 24 till August 1, each villein to work 2 days a week, and, if the seijeant tser- viens) shall so will, to oontume the same work till after Au- gust 1.
From August 1 to Michaelmas — To work 4 days a week. To do 2 ' henrtptB ' (reapings at
reauest), with 1 man. To plough about Michaelmas a half-acre, to sow it with his own com, and to har- row it.
Also to plough for winter corn, spring corn, and fidlowing, for 1 day, exclusive of the work, and it is called ^henherthe.^
To give on Februarv 2 one quarter of oats, and 2^d, as ^6 '(fish-fee).
To hoe as [one day's] work after June 24.
All to mow as [one day's] work, and each to receive on mowing day as much grass as he can lift with his scythe, and if his scythe break he shall lose his grass and be amerced.
All to receive Qd, for drink.
* Gloucester Cartulary, vol. iii.
p. 7a
* ' Badacre ' in other places, pp.
80, 116. * Worcester Cartulary f p. 14 6.
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Gloucester and Worcester Records.
59
VuLBDl SfiBYion — continued.
GLOUdBTBBBHIBa
Services of a Virgate,
To work in. the lord's bar- s, d» vest 6 days a week with 211160, from August 1 to Michftelmaa, valued per week at • .18
To do } 'hederipa; called ^hondenebedripa^ mth 4 men, valued at . 6
To do 1 hanowing a year, called ' Umaeggmge^ valued at . • . 1
To fifive at Michaelmas an aid of . • . .88
To [pay] ' pannage^ viz. for a pig of a year old . 1
For a younger pig that can be separated . . . ^
If he hnw for sale, to give 14 gallons of ale as toll.
To sdl neither horse nor ox without Ucenoe.
Seller and buver to give id. as toll for a norse sold within the manor.
To redeem son and daughter at the will of the lord.
If he die, the lord to have his hest beast of burden as heriot, and of his widow likewise, if she outlive her husband.
Sernees of a Lundinarius.^
A. B. holds one Mundi- nariiun' (in the manor of Highnam), to wit, a messuage with curtilaffe, 4 acres of land, and a half-acre of meadow, and has to work one day a week (probably Mon- day, Lun»-diee, Lundi, whence the title of the holding), from Michael- mas to August 1, and each day's work is valued at . . .
WOBCBBTSBSHIBB
Services of a Hialf-virgate,
In this manor 8 gallons of beer are given as toll, besides the toll of the mills. Each half-viigate, if ad cperit- iionem, from Michaelmas till August 1, to work 2 days a week. To plough and sow with its own com half an acre, and to harrow the same. To plough and harrow one da^ in winter, and the prior to provide the seed; and, if necessary, each virgate to harrow as [a day's work] tillploughmg time. 'to plough one day in spring. Ana to plough for fallowing for 1 day (warrectare) as above.
Services of a Cottarius,^
In the manor of Neweham are 10 cottiers (omitting William the miller and Adam de Newe- ham), each holding 1 mes- suage with appurtenances, and 6 acres. [If a<^ operationem] each to work 2 days a week (excepting Easster, Pentecost, and Onrist- mas weeks). To drive, take messages, and
bear loads. To give *thac;' thoi; aid, and such like.
' Gloucester Cartulary, vol. iiL ^118.
Worcester Cartulary tp. 16a.
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60 The English Village Community.
ViLLXiK Sbryigbb — continued.
|
auOVCBBTEBBBIBM |
WOBCnmiSHIBB |
|
To mow the lord's mea- *, d. dow for 4 days if neoee- eaxjf and a day's mow- ing is Tallied at . . 2 To aid in cocking and lifting the hay for 6 days at least, and the day's work is valued at . ^ To hoe the lord's com for 1 day, yalued at . . ^ To doS'bederipsB'befoie August 1, valued at . 2 From Augiist 1 to Mi- chaelmas to do manual lahour 2 days a week, and each day's work is yalued at . . • li To gather rushes on Au^t 1, yalued at ^ And m all other < condi- tions ' he shall do as the customers. The total yalue of the ser- yiceof a*lundinarius'is6 8 To giye 4d. as aid at Mi- chaelmas. (16 other ' lundinarii ' hold on a like tenure.) |
Services of a Cottanue. But they giye ndther oats nor 'fyfe: U *ad firmam; to lender at each quarteiHiay (tenninum) 6d. |
IX. CABTULABIBS OF NEWMINSTBB AND KSLSO (XIII. CENTUEY) — THE CONNEXION OF THE HOLDINGS WITH THE COMMON PLOUGH TEAM OF EIGHT OXEN.
Passing to the north of England, substantially the same system is found, along with customs and details which still further connect the gradations of the holdings in villenage with the plough team and the yokes of oxen of which it was composed.
North of the Tees, in the district of the old North- umbria, virgates and half-virgates were still the
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Newminster and Kelso Records. 61
usual holdings, but they were called * husband-lands.' Chap^. The full husband-land, or virgate, was composed of Bovates or two bovatesy or oxgangs^ the bovate or oxgang being ^^*°*"" thus the eighth of the hide or carucate.
In the cartulary of Newminster,* under date 1250, amongst charters giving evidence of the division of the fields into ' seliones,' or strips,^ the holdings of which were scattered over the fields,^ as everywhere else, is a grant of land to the abbey containing 8 bovates in all, made up of 4 equal holdings of two borates each.
In the ' Rotulus Redituum ' of the Abbey of Kelso, Husbwid dated 1290,* the holdings were 'husband-lands.' In ^^""^ one place* — Selkirk — there were 15 httsband-lands^ bovaus. each containing a bovate. In another • — Bolden — the record of which, with the services of the husband- lands, is referred to several times in the document as typical of the rest, there were 28 husband-lands, owing equal payments and services. The contents are not given, but as the services evidently are doubles of those of Selkirk, it may be inferred that the husband-lands each contained 2 bovates {i.e. a virgate), and that so did the usual husband-lands of the Kelso estates. This inference is confirmed by the record for the manor of Reveden, which states that the monks had there 8 husband-lands,^ from each of which were due the services set out at length at the end of this section ; and then goes on to say that formerly each * husband ' took with his * land ' his ^^*^ stuktj viz. 2 oxen, 1 horse, 3 chalders of oats, 6 bolls two oxen.
' Surtees Society^ p. 67. « P. 57. » P. 69.
^ Published by the Bannatjne
Club, 1846.
» VoL ii. p. 462.
• P. 461. ' P. 466,
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62 The English Village Community.
CmpJI. Qf barley, and 3 of wheat. ' But when Abbot Richard commuted that service into money, then they returned their ataht^ and paid each for his husband-land IS^- per annum/ The allotment of 2 oxen as stahty or outfit, to the husband-land evidently corresponds with its contents as two bovates.
If the holding of 2 bovates was equivalent to the virgate, and the bovate to the half-virgate or one-eighth of the hide, then the hide should con- tain 8 bovates or oxgangs ; and as the single oxgang had relation to the single ox, and the virgate or ' two bovates ' to the pair of oxen allotted to it by way of * stuht,' or outfit, so the hide ought to have a similar relation to a team of 8 oxen. Thus, if the fuU team of 8 oxen can be shown to be the normal plough team, a very natural relation would be suggested between the gradations of holdings in villenage, and the number of * oxen contributed by the holders of them to the fall plough team of the manorial plough. And, in fact, there is ample evidence that it was so. Fuiieflrwsfl In the Kelso records there is mention of a * caru- t«im df** cate,' or * plough-land ' ^ (' plough ' being in these re- eight oxen, cords rendered by * caruca ') ; and this plough-land turns out, upon examination, to contain 4 husband- lands, Le. presumably 8 bovates.
Further, among the 'Ancient Acts of the Scotch Parliament ' there is an early statute * headed * Of Landmen telande with Pluche, which ordains that * ilk man teland with a pluche of viii. oxin ' shall sow at the least so much wheat, &c. : showing that the team of . 8 oxen was the normal plough team in Scotland.
* P. 361. » P. 18.
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Newminster and Kelso Records. 63
Again, among the fragments printed under the head- Oa^iL ing of * Ancient Scotch Laws and Customs,' without date, occurs the following record :^ —
^ In the first time that the law was made and or-
* dained they began at the freedom of " haUkirk,''
* and since, at the measuring of lands, the " pkw-land "
* they ordained to contain viii. oodngangy &c.'
Even so late as the beginning of the present cen- tury, we learn from the old * Statistical Account of Scotland ' that in many districts the old-fashioned ' ploughs were of such great weight that they re- quired 8, 10, and sometimes 12 oxen to draw them.^
Information from the same source also explains the use of the word ' caruca ' for plough. For the construction of the word involves not 4 yoke of oxen, but 4 oxen yoked abreast, as are the horses in ^?J|^^®" the caruca so oft^i seen upon Eoman coins. And the abreast 'Statistical Account' informs us that in some dis- tricts of Scotland in former times * the ploughs were
* drawn by 4 oxen or horses yoked abreast : one trod ' constantly upon the tilled surface, another went in
* the furrow, and two upon the stubble or white land.
* The driver walked backwards holding his cattle by
* halters, and taking care that each beast had its equal
* share in the draught. This, though it looked awk- ' ward, was contended to be the only mode of yoking
* by which 4 animals could best be compelled to exert ' aU their strength.'*
The ancient Welsh laws, as we shall see by-and- So also in by, also speak of the normal plough team as consist- ing from time immemorial, throughout Wales, of 8
1 AOs of Parliament of Scot- I ' Arudyns, p. 232. Umd, App. V. p. 387. I » Id. p. 232.
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Wales.
64 The English ViUage Communiijf.
^.^^L?' ^^^^ yoked 4 to a yoke. The team of 8 oxen seems farther to have been the normal manorial plough team throughout England, though in some districts still larger teams were needful when the land was heavy clay.
In the * Inquisition of the Manors of St. Paul's ' ^ it is stated of the demesne land of a manor in Hert- fordshire, that the ploughing could be done with two plough teams {carucoe\ of 8 head each. And in another case in the same county *with 2 plough
* teams of 8 heads, " cum consuetudinibus villatae "
* — ^with the customary services of the villein tenants.'* In another, * with 5 ploughs, of which 3 have 4 oxen *and 4 horses, and 2 each 6 horses.' In another, ' with 3 ploughs of 8 heads.'
In manors in Essex, on the other hand, where the land is heavier, there are the following instances : • —
|
4 plough teamS; 10 in each. 2 „ „ 8 „ 1 ,, team, 10. |
|
|
3 „ |
teams, 8 oxen and 2 horsea. |
|
2 „ |
„ 10 oxen and 10 horses for the two. |
|
2 » |
,f 12 oxen and 8 horses the two. |
|
2 „ |
„ 4 horses and 4 oxen in each. |
|
2 „ |
y, 10 each. |
|
1 « |
team, 6 horses and 4 oxen. |
|
In two manors in Middlesex the teams were as |
|
|
under : — |
1 of 8 heads. |
|
2 of 8 oxen and 2 horses. |
|
|
^ Domesday of St, ^ Id.^.7.' |
PauTs, p. 1. 1 > Id. pp. 28, 88, 48, 68, 86. • * Id. pp. 99, 104, |
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Netominster and Kelso Records. 65
In the Gloucester cartulary ^ there are tl^Afn]]nw-^^aiP» n. ingmstances: — j^^^vl^^ ^
jf \^ ol- THE
To each plough team 8 oxen and 4 oy«Ly vrTTT'pT^ CTTV
All these instances are from documents oTlEe^ormai thirteenth century, and they conspire in confirming plough the point that the normal plough team was, by general ^ht oxen, consent, of 8 oxen ; though some heavier lands re- quired 10 or 12, and sometimes horses in aid of the oxen.
Nor do these exceptions at all clash with the hypothesis of the connexion of the grades of holdings with the number of oxen contributed by the holders j to the manorial plough team of their village ; for as i the number of oxen in the team sometimes varied , from the normal standard, so also did the number of 1 virgates in the hide or carucate. /
So that, summing up the evidence of this chapter, I daylight seems to have dawned upon the meaning of the interesting gradation of holdings in villenage in the open fields. The hide or carucate seems to be Connexion the holding corresponding with the possession of a the^en full plough team of 8 oxen. The half-hide corre- Jow^^^ spends with the possession of one of the 2 yokes of 4 abreast ; the virgate with the possession of a pair of oxen, and the half-virgate or bovate with the possession of a single ox ; all having their fixed rela- tions to the full manorial plough team of 8 oxen. And this conclusion receives graphic illustration when the Scotch chronicler Winton thus quaintly describes
» ^foi«c«#«erCaf^. pp. 66,61,64. P
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66 The English Village Community.
Ob^^ the efforts of King Alexander IH. to increase the growth of com in his kingdom :_
YbwmeDi pewere faurl, or knawe
That wes of myeht an ox til haye
He gert that man hawe part in pluche :
Swa wes com in his land enwche :
Swa than begouth, and efter lang
Of land wes mesnre, ane oxgang.
Mjchty men that had m&
Ozyn, he gert in pluchys ga.
Be that vertu all his land
Of com he gert he ahowndand.^
Not that Alexander HI. was really the originator of the terms ' plow-land ' and * oxgate/ but that he attained his object of increasing the growth of com by extending into new districts of Scotland, before given up chiefly to grazing, the suae methods* of husbandry as elsewhere had been at work firom time immemorial, just as the monks of Kelso probably had done, by giving each of their villein tenants a 'stuht' of 2 oxen with which to plough their husband-lands.
One point more, however, still remains to be ex- plained before the principle of the open field system can be said to be fully grasped, viz. why the strips of which the hides, virgates, and bovates were composed were scattered in so strange a confusion all over the open fields. SernMs Li the meantime the foUovnng examples of the
services of the villein tenants of Kelso husband-lands and bovates are appended for the purpose of com- parison with those of other districts : —
A TFMon, ToL L p. 400 (A.P. 1249-92).
on JGs2m manon.
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Kelso Records,
67
Bou>B2r*
At Bolden— The monkB liaye ^ 'hoBlands - lands in the Tilla of Bolden, eaeh of which used to render 69. 8(^. at Pentecost and Mar- tinmas, and to do certain ser- TioeSyViz. :
To reap in autumn for 4 days with all his family, himself and wife.
To perform likewise a fifth day's work in autumn with 2 men.
To carry peat with one wagffon for one day from Gordon to the ' puUis.'
To carry one waggon-load of peat from the 'pullis' to the abbey in summer, and no more.
To carry once a year with one horse from Berwick.
And to have their meals from the abbey when doing this service.
To tall 1^ acre at the grange of Neuton every year.
To harrow with one horse one day.
To find one man at the sheepwashing and an- other man at the shear- ing, without meals.
To answer likewise for foreign service and for other suits.
To cany com in autumn with one waggon for one day.
To carry the abbot's wool from the barony to the abbey.
To find him carriage over the moor to Lessemahagu.
BBVEDIOr*
At Beveden — The monks have 8 ^husbands - lands and 1 bovate, each of which performed certain ser- vices at one time, viz. :
Each week in summer the carria^ with 1 horse to Berwick.
The horse to carry 3 ^hoaa ' of com, or 2 *bolla* of salt, or 1^ * holla ' of coals.
In winter the same carria^, but the horse only carried 2 ^bolla' of com, or 1( *bollcB' of salt, or 1 'holla' and 'ferloth* of coal.
Each week, when they came from Berwick, eacn land did one day's work ac- cording to order.
When they did not go to Berwick, they tilled 2 days a week.
In autunm, when they did not go to Berwick they did 3 days* work.
At that time each ' husband ' took with hisland 'Huht,' viz.:
2 oxen, 1 horse,
3 ' celdrsB ' of oats, 6 ' boUsB ' of barley, S'bollae'ofcora.
And afterwards, when Ab- bot Richard commuted that service into money, they returned their 'stuhtj and each one gave for his land 18«. a year.
Chap. n.
Eol. Red. Kebo, p. 461.
» Ih. p. 466.
7 2
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Chap. n.
68 The English Village Community.
X. THE BOLDON BOOK, A.D. 1183.
We are now in a position to creep up one step nearer to the time of the Domesday Survey, and in the Boldon Book to examine earlier examples of North Country manors.
The Boldon Book is a survey of the manors belonging to the Bishop of Durham in the year 1183, nearly a century earlier than the date of the Hundred Bolls. Surrey of ^^ typical entry which may be taken as the
^^f^^^* common form used throughout the record relates to the village of Boldon, from which the name of the survey is taken.
It is as follows : ^ —
The ser- ^^ Boldon there axe 22 Tillani, each holding 2 bovatea, or SO acres,
▼ices of and paying 2s. M, for ' scat-penynges ' [being in fact Id. per acre], a
▼illani. half *$hacMra* of oats, IM. for ' ayerpenynges ' [in Ueu of carrying
service], 6 four-wheel waggons of * woodlade' [lading of wood], 2 cocks,
V and 10 eggs.
They work 3 days a week throughout the year, excepting Easter
week and Pentecost, and 13 days at Obristmas. In autumn they do 4 dayworks at reaping, with all their family except the housewife. Also they reap 8 roods of ' averype,^ and plough and harrow 3 roods of ' averereJ Also each Tillein plough-team ploughs and harrows 2 acres, with allowance of food {'corrodium^ once from the bishop, and then they are quit of that week's work. When they do ' fnagnas precationts,^ they have a food allowance (eorrodium) from the bishop, and as part of their works do harrowing when necessary, and 'fadunt ladoi^ (make loads P). And when they do these each receiyes 1 loa£ Also they reap for 1 day at Octon till the eyening, and then they
receive an aUowanoe of food. And for the &irs of St. Guthbert, every 2 villeins erect a booth ; and when they make 'logia^ and ' wodcAade ' (load wood), they are quit of other labour.
» P. 666.
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The Boldon Book. 69
There are 12 * eotmannif' eaeh of whom holds 12 acree, and they work Crap. II.
thiooghout the year 2 days a week except in the aforesaid
feasts, and render 12 hens and 00 egga RohertoB holds 2 bovates or 86 acres, and renders half a mark. The Punder holds 12 acres, and receiTee from each plough 1 'trove*
of com, and renders 40 hens and 600 eggs. The MUUr [renders] 5^ marks. The * ViUam ' are, if need be, to make a house each year 40 feet long
and 15 feet wide, and when they do this each Is quit of id. of his
'averpenynges.' The whole 'villa' renders 17 b. as 'eomagwm* (ue. tax on homed
beasts), and 1 cow * de metrideJ The demesne is at farm, together with the stock for 4 ploughs and
4 harrows, and renders for 2 ploughs 16 * celdree ' of com, 16
' celdr» ' of oata, 8 * celdro ' of barley, and for the other 2 ploughs,
10 marks.
Here then at Boldon were 22 viUani, each hold- Th^ hold mg two bovates or 30 acres, equivalent to a virgate Jf ti^ or yard-land. In another place (Quycham) there are ^''^^ said to be thirty-five ^ bovat-viUant,' each of whom bovates. held a bovate of 15 acres, and performed such and such services.^ These correspond with holders of half-virgates.
Below these villani, holding one or two bovates^ as in all other similar records, were cottage holdings, some of 12 acres, some of 6 acres each. There seems to have been a certain equaUty in some places, even in the lowest rank of holdings. /
Here then, within about 100 years of the Domes- day Survey, are found the usual grades of holdings in villenage. The services, too, present little variation from those of later records and other parts of England.
Prom the Boldon Book may be gathered a few points of further information, which may serve to complete the picture of the life of the village com- munity in villenage.
* P. 679.
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70
The English Village Community.
Manor sometimes farmed by villani.
YiUage officials : the £eiber.
ThA
pnn ler.
The
prsepofii-
tus.
The unity of the * villata * as a self-acting com- munity is illustrated by the fact that in many instances the services of the villani are farmed by them from the monastery as a hody^ at a single rent for the whole village^ — ^a step in the same direction as the commuta- tion of services and leasing of land to farm tenants, practices already everywhere becoming so usual.
The corporate character of the * villata ' is also illustrated by frequent mention of the village officials. The /after,* or blacksmith, whose duty it was to keep in repair the ironwork of the ploughs of the village, usuaUy held his bovate or other holding in respect of his office free from ordinary services. The carpenter * also held his holding free, in return for his obligation to repair the woodwork of the ploughs and harrows.
Thepunder^ (pound-keeper) was another official with a recognised position. And, as a matter of course, the villein tenant holding the office of prcepositus for the time being was freed by virtue of his office from the ordinary services of his virgate or two bovates,' but resumed them again when his term of
»P.568. 'ViUani de Southby- dyk tenent Yillam euam ad fiinuun et reddanty.libras, etinyement Yiii^^ homines ad metendum in autumpno et xzzrii quadrigas (t.6. waggons) ad quadriganda blada apad Octo- nam' (t.e. a neighbouring Tillage where was probably the bishop's chief gianaiy) (608 a).
* 'Faber (de Wermoath tenet) zii. acraspro ferramentis caruc» et carbonee invenit ' (567 a).
'Faber (de Queryndonshiie) te- net xiL aoras pro ferramento caruce fabricando ' (696 b),
'Faber 1 boyat' pro suo aer- yicio' (660 a).
Compare Hundred Bolls, p. 651 a, and Dome$day of St. PauPs, p. 67.
' ' Carpentarius (de Wermoath) qui senez habet inyita sua xii. acras ' pro camcis et herceis (t.o. hairows) fiaciendi8'(667a).
^ <Punder (de Neubotill) tenet zii. acras et habet de unaquaque canicade Neubotill, de Bydyk etde Heryngton (t.6. three yillataa) nnam trayam bladi et leddit xl. (yel Iz.) gallinas et coc. oya ' (p. 668 a).
' (In Seggefeeld). < Johannes pnepositus habet ii. boyatas pro servicio suo et si seryidum praeposi- turee dimiserit, reddit et operatur sicut alii Firmarii ' (670 <i).
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The Boldon Booh 71
office ceased, and another villein was elected in his ^^ap^. stead.
In addition to the ordinary agricultural services in respect of the arable land, there is mention, in the services of Boldon and other places, of special dues CJomage. or payments, probably for rights of grazing or posses- sion of herds of cattle. This kind of payment is called ' comagium,' either because it is paid in homed cattle, or, if in money, in respect of the number of horned cattle held.
There are also services connected with the bishop's Drengage. hunting expeditions. Thus there are persons holding in * drengage,' who have to feed a horse and a dog, and * to go in the great hunt' {magna caza) with two harriers and 15 ' cordons,' &c.^
So of the villani of ' Aucklandshire ' * it is recorded Hunting that they are * to furnish for the great hunts of the *®^^' ' bishop a " cordon " from each bovate, and to make
* the Bishop's hall {avla) in the forest, sixty feet long 'and sixteen feet wide between the posts, with a
* buttery, a steward's room, a chMOiber and " privat." ' Also they make a chapel 40 feet long by 15 wide, •receiving two shillings, of charity ; and make their
* portion of the hedge {hay a) round the lodges {logice). ' On the departure of the bishop they have a full tun ' of beer, or half a tun if he should stay on. They
* also keep the eyries of the hawks in the bailiwick of Booths at ' Eadulphus CalUdus, and put up 18 booths {bothas) of st""
' at the fairs of St. Cuthbert.' ^^^^'t-
The last item, which also occurs in the services of Boldon, is interesting in connexion with a passage in a letter of Pope Gregory the Great to the Abbot ~" » P. 672. 2 P. 676,
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72 The English Village Community.
Obkp.h, Mellitus (a.d. 601), in which he requests the Bishop Augustine to be told that, after due consideration of the habits of the English nation, he (the Pope) deter- mines that, ' because they have been used to slaughter ^ many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity ' must be exchanged for them on this account, as that ^ on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the ' holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they
* may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees,
* about those churches which have been turned to
* that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity
* with rehgious feasting, and no more offer beasts to
* the devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their
* eating, it being impossible to efface everything at
* once from their obdurate minds : because he who
* tries to rise to the highest place rises by degrees or
* steps, and not by leaps.' ^
The villeios of St. Cuthbert's successor are found 500 years after Pope Gregory's advice still, as a portion of their services, yearly putting up the booths for the fairs held in honour of their patron saint — a fact which may help us to reahse the tenacity of local custom, and lessen our surprise if we find also that for the origin of other services we must look back for as long a period.
2CI. THE ^ LIBER NIGEB ' OF PETESBOROUGH ABBEY, A.D. 1126.
Fifty or sixty years earher than the Boldon Book, was compiled the * liber Niger ' * of the monastery of St. Peter de Burgo, the abbey of Peterborough.
^ Bedey bk. i. czzz. I Society, 1849, as an appendix to
' PuUiBhed by the Oamden | the Chronicon FiBtroburgerue,
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/
-<: ■- ^
- U ri /;
The ' Liber Niger' of Peterborau^. 73
This record is remarkably exact and full iil its ^'«^^- ^l detdls. Its date is from 1125 to 1128 ; and its evidence brings up our knowledge of the English manor and serfdom — the open field and its holdings — almost to the threshold of the Domesday Survey, i.e. within about 40 years of it.
The first entry gives the following information : ^ —
In Katezinges, which is aasessed at 10 hides, 40 Tillani held 40 yard- lands {virgas terras or virgates), and there were 8 cotsetee, each holding 5 acres. The serrices were as follows :
The holders of yirgatee for the brd's work plough in spring 4 acres for each viigate. And besides this they find plough teams (carucai) three times in winter^ three times for spring plowing, and once in sommer. And they have 22 plough teams, wherewith they work. And all of them work 8 days a week. And besides this they render per annum from each yirgate of custom 2s, l^d. And they all render 60 hens and 640 eggs. One tenant of 13 acres renders IQtL, and [has] 2 acres of meadow. The miU with the miller renders 209. The 8 cotsetes woA one day a week, and twice a year make malt. Each of them gives a penny for a goat, and if he has a she-goat, a halfpenny. There is a shepherd and a swineherd who hold 8 acres. And in the demesne of the manor (cuHai) are 4 plough teams with 32 oxen (ue, 8 to each team), 12 cows witii 10 calves, and 2 unemployed animals, and 3 draught cattle, and SCO sheep, and 60 pigs, and as much meadow over as is worth 168. The church of the village is at the altar of the abbey church. For the love-feast of St Peter * [they give] 4 rams and 2 cows, or 6«.'
This entry may be taken as a typical one.
Here, then, within forty years of the date of the Holdings, Domesday Survey is clear evidence that the normal ^^aif- holding of the villanus was a virgate. Elsewhere ^^'«*^"* there were semi-villani with half-virgates.®
» P. 167.
3 The love-feast (caritas) of St. Peter may possibly, like the fairs of St. Outhbert, be a survival of andent pagan sacrifices allowed to conlanue by the permission of Pope Gregory tiie Oreat. See Hazlitt under 'Wakes' and * Fairs.' And Du Oaoge under ' Caritas.'
' In the next place mentioned 20 men hold 20 virgates, and 13 hold 6^ virgates among them, or half a virgate each ; and so on. In one place 8 villani hold 1 hide and 1 virgate among them (ue, 2 probably hold virgates, and 6 of them half- virgates), and 2 others hold 1 virgate each. In another,
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74
Tke English Village Community.
Obap. n.
The mano- rial plough team of eight oxen.
Smaller teamfi of the viUani,
Further, throughout this record fortunately the number of ploughs and oxen on the lord's demesne happens to be mentioned, from which the number of oxen to the team can be inferred. And the result is that in 15 out of 25 manors there were 8 oxen to a team ; in 6 the team had 6 oxen, and in the remaining 4 cases the numbers were odd.
So far as it goes, this evidence proves that, as a rule, 8 oxen made up the full normal manorial plough team in the twelfth as in the thirteenth century. But it should be observed that this seems to hold good only of the ploughs on the lord's demesne— in dominio curicB. The villani held other and apparently smaller ploughs, with about 4 oxen to the team instead of 8, and with these they performed their services.^
In the rest of the record it is generally assumed that the 'pleni Tillani' have a virgate each, and the ' dimidii TiUani ' half a viigate each.
20 pleni villani [of 1 yirgate each] and 29 semi-viUani [of half-virgate each] hold in all 84 viigates and a half. In another, 8 yiUani hold 8 bovatee, and 3 bovates are waste.
^ The following are instances of the villein plough teams : —
The holders of 40 viigates hold 22 plough teams. f, 20 „ 12
w 20 „ 9 „
M 8 ,, 2 ••
There seems to have been as nearly as possible one plough team to each two viigates, which at two oxen the virgate would give four oxen to the plough instead of eight. Speaking generally, it may there- fore be said that there were on the Peterborough manors the greater ploughs of the lord^s demense with thdr separate teams of eight oxen belonging to the lord, and the lesser ploughs of the villani, to work which two clubbed together, for which four oxen made a sufficient
team ; and it would seem, further, that not only had the viUani to work at the great manorial ploughs, but also to do service for their lord with their own lesser ploughs in addition. This seems to explain the expressions used in the Gloucester cartulary that the demesne land of this or that manor can be ploughed with so many ploughs of eight head of oxen in the team * cum ootisiMte- dinibua viUata ; ' and also the men- tion in Fleta of the ' caruetB ad' jutrices ' of the villani.
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Tlie * Liber Niger ' of Peterborough. 75
But this fact does not appear to clash with the ^^^°^'^' supposed connexion between the hide of 8 bovates and the manorial plough with its team of 8 oxen. It probably simply shows that the connexion between them on which the regular gradation of holdings in viUenage depended had its origin at an earlier period, when a simpler condition of the community in viUen- age existed than that to be found in those days im- mediately following the Domesday Survey. There were, in fact, many other symptoms that the community in villenage had long been losing its archaic simplicity and wandering from its original type.
One of these symptoms may be found in the fact Symptonw observed in the later evidence, that the number of breaking irr^ular holdingsmcreased as time went on ; and this TOrMom. ai^EeTas well to the number of the free tenants of various portions of the lord's demesne as of the small tenancies in villenage below the regular holdings of the villani. In the * liber Niger' these irregular holdings seldom occur at all — a fact in itself very significant.
Another symptom may be noticed in the circum- stance mentioned in the Boldon Book, and also in other cartularies, of the land in demesne being as a whole sometimes let or farmed out to the villani. Another was the fact, so apparent in the Hundred Bolls and cartularies, of the substitution of money pay- ments for the services. There is no mention in the * liber Niger ' of either of these practices.
All these are symptoms that the system was not a system recently introduced, but an old system gra- dually breaking up, relaxing its rules, and becoming in some points inconsistent with itself.
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76 The English Village Community,
XII. SUMMABY OF THE POST-DOMESDAY EVIDENCE.
^f^L?' ^^ ®^^ ^P *^® evidence already examined, and
reaching to within forty years of the date of the
Manors Domcsday Survey, it is clear that England was
where. covcrcd with manors. And these manors were in
fact, in their simplest form, estates of manorial
lords, each with its village community in villenage
upon it. The land of the lord's demesne — ^the home
farm belonging to the manor-house — ^was cultivated
chiefly by the services of the viUata, i.e. of the village
Land in Community, or tenants in villenage. The land of this
and iT* village community, i.e. the land in villenage, lay round
viUenage. ^hc village in open fields. In the village were the
messuages or homesteads of the tenants in villenage,
and their holdings were composed of bundles of
Open field Scattered strips in the open fields, with rights of pas-
system. lyj^^c ovcr the latter for their cattle after the crops were
gathered, as well as on the green commons of th6
manor or township.
The tenants in villenage were divided into two distinct classes. viiiani First, there were the villani proper, whose now
i^J^ familiar holdings, the hides, half-hides, virgates, and bovates, were connected with the number of oxen allotted to them or contributed by them to the ma- norial plough team of 8 oxen, the normal holding, the virgate or yard-land, including about 30 acres in scattered acre or half-acre strips.
And further, these holdings of the villani were indivisible bundles passing with the homestead which
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Post'Domeaday Evidence.
77
formed a part of them by re-grant fipom the lord from Chap^u. one generation of serfs to another in unbroken regu- larity, always to a single successor, whether the eldest or the youngest son, according to the custom of each individual manor. They possessed all the unity and indivisibility of an entailed estate, and were sometimes known apparently for generations by the family name of the holders.^ But the reason under- lying all this regular devolution was not the preser- vation of the family of the tenant, but of the services due from the yard-land to the lord of the manor.
Below the villani proper were the numerous Bordarii,
or cottiers.
smaller tenants of what may be termed the cottier class — sometimes called in the * liber Niger,' as it is im- portant to notice, hordariP (probably from the Saxon * bord,' a cottage). And these cottagers, possessing generally no oxen, and therefore taking no part in the common ploughing, still in some manors seem to have ranked as a lower grade of villani, having small allotments in the open fields, — in some manors 5 acre strips apiece, in other manors more or less.
Lastly, below the villeins and cottiers were, in some siayea. districts, remains, hardly to be noticed in the later cartularies, of a class of servi^ or slaves, fast becoming
> * QalfnduB Snow tenet quod- dam tenementam nadvnm yocatam Snowe: . . . Willelmiis Bieaten tenet tenementum natiyum yoca- tum Biettes,^ and so on.
Extent of ' ByTchBingeseie/ near Colchester.
Leffer Book of St, John the Bap- tittj dolcheeter.
Wiert Park MSS., No. 67.
I am indebted to Earl Cowper
for the opportunity of referring to this interesting MS., containing yaluable examples of extents of manors from the reign of Edward I., and of the seryices of the tenants. See particularly the extent of * Wychami 17 Ed. I., as a good ex- ample of the three field system and serfdom.
« Pp. 162-4, &c.
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78 The English ViUage Community.
Ch^^. merged in the cottier class above them, or losing themselves among the household servants or labourers upon the lord's demesne. Open field Thus the Community in villenage fitted into the of serfdom, opcu field as into its shdl — ^a shell which was long to survive the breaking up of the system of serfdom which hved within it. The dSbris of this sheU, as we have seen, still remains upon the open fields of some English villages and townships to-day ; but for the full meaning of some of its features, especially of the scattering of the strips in the yard-lands, we have to look still farther back kilo the past even than the twelfth century, u^ Analysis Passing from the shell to the serfdom which Uved
sepvices. withiu it, wc have found it practically ahke in the north and south and east and west of England, and from the time of the Black Death back to the threshold of the Domesday Survey. CompUcated as are the numerous little details of the services and pay- ments, they fall with great regularity under three distinct heads : —
Week- 1. Week-work — i.e. work for the lord for so many days a week, mostly
^*- three days.
Boon- 2. Precaria, or ftooiMOor*— t.fl. special work at request (* ad preoem '
^opk. or ' at bene *), sometimes comiting aa part of the week-work,
sometimes extra to it. oafol '• P*yD*®'^** i^ money or kind or work, rendered by way of rent or
^Qafol'; and various dues, such aa Kirkshot, Hearthrpennyy
Easter dues, &c.
The first two of these may be said to be practically quite distinct from the third class, and intimately connected vUer se. The boon-work would seem to be a necessary corollary of the limitation of the week-work. If the lord had had unUmited right to the whole work
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Post-Domesday Evidence. 79
of his villein tenant all days a week, and had an un- Ora^^ restricted choice as to what kind of work it should be, week-work at the lord's bidding might have covered it all. But custom not only limited the number of days' work per week, but also limited the number of days on which the work should consist of ploughing, reaping, and other work of more than usual value, involving oxen or piece-work, beyond the usual work of ordinary days.
The week'worky limited or otherwise, was evidently the most servile incident of villenage.
The payments in money or kind, or in work of the third class, to which the word gafol, or tribute, was applied, were more Uke modem rent, rates, and taxes than incidents of serfdom.
Comparing the services of the villani with those of the cottiers or bordarii, the difference evidently turns upon the size of the holdings, and the possession or non-possession of oxen.
Naturally ploughing was a prominent item in the Cottiers' services of the villanus holding a virgate, with his * stuht,* or outfit of two oxen. As naturally the ser- vices of the bordarius or cottager did not include ploughing, but were limited to smaller services.
But apparently the services of each class were equally servile. Both were in villenage, and week-* work was the chief mark of the serfdom of both.
Besides the servile week- work and ^gafolj &c., there were also other incidents of villenage felt to be restrictions upon freedom, and so of a servile nature. Of these the most general were —
The leqairement of the lord's licence for the marriage of a daughter, and fine on incontinence.
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80
The English Village Community.
Chap. II.
Other seirile incidents.
All limited by custom.
The prohibition of sale of oxen, &c.; without the lord's licence. The obligation to nse the lord's miU, and do service at lus court. The obligation not to leave the land without the lord's licence.
It was the week-work of the villanus, and these restrictions on his personal liberty, which were felt to be serfdom.^
But these servile incidents were limited by custom, and this limitation by custom of the lord's demands, as well as the more and more prevalent commutation of services into money payments in later times, were, as has been said, notes and marks of a relaxation of the serfdom. The absence of these limitations would be the note and mark of a more complete serfdom.
Thus, in pursuing this economic inquiry further back into Saxon times, the main question will be whether the older serfdom of the holder of yard-lands was more or less unlimited, and therefore complete, than in the times following upon the Norman conquest.
In the meantime the Domesday Survey is the next evidence which lies before us, and judging from theDomes- the tenacity of custom, and the extreme slowness of vey, economic changes in the later period, it may be
approached with the almost certain expectation that no great alteration can well have taken place in the EngUsh open-field and manorial system in the forty
The evi- dence has led up to
^ The question of the personal status of the villein tenant is a dif- ferent one from that of villein tenure. Sir n. S. Maine (Early Law and Custom, p. 333) and Mr. F. Pollock (in his Notes on Early English Land Law, * Law Mag. and Review ' for May 1882) have pointed out that, according to Bracton, free men might be subject to villein tenure and its
incidents (except the merchetum on marriage of a daughter) and yet personally be free, as contrasted with the 'nativi' or villeins by blood. Compare Bracton f. 4 b wiQi f. 26 a and 208 b. The question of the origin of the confusion of status in serfdom will be referred to here- after.
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Post-Domesday Evidence. 81
years between its date and that of the Liber Niger Ch^pJII. of Peterborough Abbey.
If this expectation should be realised, the Domesday Survey, approached as it has been by the ladder of the later evidence leading step by step up to it,' ought easily to yield up its secrets.
Ksuch should prove to be the case, though losing apd must some of its mystery and novelty, the Domesday key* to it. Survey will gain immensely in general interest and importance by becoming intelligible. The picture it gives of the condition of rural England will become vivid and clear in its outlines, and trustworthy to a unique degree in its details. For extending as it does, roughly speaking, to the whole of England south of the Tees and east of the Severn, and spanning as it does by its double record the interval between its date and the time of Edward the Confessor, it will prove more than ever an invaluable vantage-ground from which to work back economic inquiries into the periods before the Norman conquest of Eng- land. It may be trusted to do for the earlier Saxon records what a previous understanding of later records will have done for it.
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CHAPTER m.
THE DOMESDAY SURVEY (A.D,Jfl86)^
manor.
I. THEEB WEBE MANOBS EVEKYWHEBE.
Chap, iil In the Domesdaj Survey, as might be expected from the evidence of the foregoing chapter, the unit of inquiry is everywhere the manor, andfthe manor was a landowner's estate, with a township or village com- . munity in villenage upon it, under the jurisdiction of the lord of the manor .^
But the same person was often the lord of many manors.
1,422 manors were in the ancient demesne of the Crown at the date of the Survey,^ and most of them had also been Crown manors in the time of Edward the Confessor. ' Thus, for centuries after the Conquest, the Domesday book was constantly appealed to as evidence that this manor or that was of 'ancient demesne,' Le. that it was a royal manor in the time of Edward the Confessor ; because the tenants of these manors claimed certain privileges and immunities which other tenants did not enjoy.
1 Ellis's Introduction, i. p. 225.
Manon of the king,
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The Domesday Survey. 83
The monasteries also at the time of Edward the Chap^i. Confessor were holders of many manors, often in of the various counties, and the Survey shows that they houses. were generally permitted to retain them after the Conquest.
Earls and powerful thanes were also at the time of *?^ ^^
^ thanes.
Edward the Confessor possessors of many manors, and so were their Norman successors at the date of the Survey. The resident lord of a manor was often the mesne tenant of one of these greater lords. However this might be, every manor had its lord, resident, or represented by a steward or reeve [milieus).
Sometimes the Survey shows that a village or i>ivided
manort.
township, once probably under a single lord, had become divided between two or more manors ; and sometimes again, by what was called subinfeudation, iesser and dependent manors, as in the Hitchin example, had been carved out of the original manor, once embracing directly the whole village or township.
But these variations do not interfere with the general fact that there were manors everywhere, and that the typical manor was a manorial lord's estate; with a village or township upon it, under his jurisdic- tion, and in villenage.
Further, this was clearly the case both after the Conquest at the date of the Survey, and also before the Conquest in the time of Edward the Confessor.
What land was extra-manorial or belonged to no township was probably royal forest or waste. At the date of the Survey this unappropriated forest, as well as the numerous royal manors already alluded to, was included in the royal demesne. Whatever belonged to the latter was excluded from the jurisdic-
o 2
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84 The English ViUage Community.
^^^^' ™' tion of the courts of the hundreds. It acknowledged T€TO no lordship but that of the king, and was described in the Survey as terra regis.
regia.
II. THE DIVISION OF THE MANOR INTO LORD'S DEMESNE AND LAND IN VILLENAGE.
Not only were there manors everywhere, but throughout the Domesday Survey the division of the land of the manor into lord's demesne and land in villenage was all but universal, both in the time of Edward the Confessor and at the later date. It was so equally in the case of manors both in royal and in private hands. Hidee ad The rccord generally begins with the number of
hides or carucates at which the whole manor was rated according to ancient assessment. Generally, except in the Danish district of England (where the carucate only is used), the word hide (though often originally meaning, aa already mentioned, the same thing as a carucate, viz. the land of one plough) was used in the Survey exclusively as the ancient unit of assessment, while the actual extent of the manor was described in caribcates^ and thus the number of hides often fell far short of the number of carucates. Actual In the Inquisitio Eliensis the Huntingdonshire
piOT^ ^' manors of the abbey are described as containing so many hides ' ad geldum,' and so many carucates ' ad arandum^' thus exactly explaining the use of the terms.
In Kent the ancient assessment was, consistently with later records, given by the number of solins —
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The Domesday Survey. 85
etUung being an old word used both long before and On^v, in. afterwards, as we have seen, in the south-east of England for * plough land/
Generally, whatever the terms made use of, the basis of the assessment seems to have been the number of plough teams at the time it was made, and (except in the west of England) this probably had been the case also as regards the ancient one quoted in the Survey. The actual circumstances of the manors had at the date of the Survey wandered far away from those at the date of the ancient assessment^ and therefore it was needful to state the present actual number of carucates {carucatce) or plough teams {carucce)} The devastations of the Norman Con- quest had not been wholly repaired at the date of the Survey, and therefore after the number of actual plough teams in demesne and in villenage it is often stated that so many more might be added.
The total number of plough teams being given, information is almost always added how many of them were in demesne and how many belonged to in demesne. the villeins. And it is to be noticed that the plough ^ei»ge. teams of the villeins were smaller than the typical manorial plough team of 8 oxen, just as was the case on the Peterborough manors^ according to the liber Niger.
There were on an average in most counties about half as many ploughs in villenage as there were vil- leins ; so that, roughly speaking, two villeins, as in
. ^ Unfortunately the same contracted form flerves in the Survey fox 'both corucata and caruca.
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86
The English Village Community.
Chap, iil tjj^ Peterborough manors, seem to have joined at each villein plough, which thus can hardly have possessed more than 4 oxen in its team.
III. THE FREE TENA3STS ON THE LOKD S DEMESNE.
In the Domesday Survey for the greater part of England there is no mention of free tenants, whether * Uberi homines ' or ' libere tenentes'
Nor, considering the extreme completeness of the Survey, is it easy to explain their absence on any other hypothesis than that of their non-existence.^ A glance at the map will show that throughout those
' Ab elaborate argument was rai8ed hy Archdeacon Hale in the valuable introduction to the Cam- den Society*8 edition of the Domes- day of St. PmU\ to show that the Talues given at the end of the entry for each manor in the Domesday Survey consisted of the rents of free tenants. He based his view on the fact that in two cases quoted by him the amount of the value so given was exceeded by the amount for which the manor, in these cases, wa.<< let ' ad firmam ; ' and, further, upon a comparison of the Domesday values of the manors of St. Paul's with the recorded ' Summie dena- riorum' in 1181, and 'Tenants' rents' m 1222. But the figures given are probably a sufficient refu- tation of the view taken, inasmuch as though the latter have a certain general correspondence with the Domesday values in almost every case, if the view were correct, there
must have been a falling off in the number and value of tibe temints' rents between the two periods. The falling off for the whole of the 18 manors must have been in this case from 156/. 10s. T.R.B., and 167/. 18». id. T.R.W., of Domesday amounts, to 112/. 16f. 4</. in 1181, and 126/. lOs. Sd. in 1222. llie true reading of these figures^ there can hardly be a doubt, is that the amount of tenants' rents alone at the later date had become in the inter- val nearly as great as the tchole valite of the maaors (including t4ie land both in demesne and in vil- lenage) at the time of the Domes- day Survey. There is abundant evidence of the rapid growth of population, and especially of the class of free tenants, between the eleventh and tbe thirteenth century. The value of manors is given in many cases in the Hundred Rolls for Oxfordshire (including demesne
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^'^H/Ij
The Domesday Survey.
counties of England most completely under Damsh "chap. iii. influence there were plenty of liberi homines and of the Lib^ allied class of sochmanni, but nowhere else. And ^^f^ that these two classes were distinctly and exceptionally ««»«yn Danish there is evidence in a passage in the laws of district Edward the Confessor, in which the * Manbote in ^^ ^' ^ Danelaga ' is given separately and as different from that of the rest of England, viz, * de vilano et soche- ^ man xii. oras : de liberis hominibus iii. marcas.' ^
That the existence of these classes in a manor was local and quite exceptional is also confirmed by the place m which they are mentioned in the list of classes of tenants, the numbers of whom were to be recorded. They are placed last of all, even after the 'servi/ Inquiry was to be made, * quot viUani, quot cottarii, * quot servi, quot liberi homines^ quot soehemanniJ These were tlie words used in the statement of the in- quiry to be made in the manors of the monks of Ely,
land rents and services), and the figures in the following six cases in which the oompazison is complete
show a large rise in yalue, aa might be expected i
|
DOMBSDAY SUBVKT |
Hundred Kolls |
||
|
Name |
Yalae |
Name |
Yalaa |
|
£ £ |
£ s. d. |
||
|
P.1566. Lineham (tji.k.) 12 modo 10 |
P. 748. Lynham |
. 27 8 4 |
|
|
P. 157 a. Heiiestan |
„ 20 „ 18 P. 789. Ennestan |
. 88 19 2 |
|
|
P. 166 6. Esthoote |
6 „ 8 i P. 780. Estcot . |
. 82 8 4 |
|
|
P. 168 6. Kulebroc |
„ 16 „ 16 ; P. 744. Folabtok |
. 28 7 7 |
|
|
P. 159 a. Ideberie |
,. 12 „ 12 |
P. 784. Iddebir . |
. 81 12 10^ |
|
P. 169 6. Cauiiigeham |
12 „ 16 £77 „ £79 |
P. 788. Kayngham |
. 87 4 2 |
|
£195 15 5i |
It is thus almost certain that i of the whole manor in each case, both surveys were taken on the I * Ancient Laws, ^c, cf ^n^- same plan, and embrace the value I land, Thorpe, 192.
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88
The English Village Community.
^^^- ™' which manors lay in the Danish district ; and the two last-mentioned classes were added out of order at the end of a common form, to meet its special needs.^
It is remarkable, however, that by common law
(which generally represents very ancient custom) the
existence of free tenants was essential to the Court
Baron of a manor. Without some freemen, acxjording
to the old law books, it could not be held.* And
there is a curious instance, in the Survey, of three
sochmanni being lent by one lord to another, so that
he might hold his court.®
Kurman This being so, it is curious and important to notice
of ^e ^ that the survey of the manors of the monks of Ely
manor and ^^ ^ ^ taken upou the oaths of the sheriJBf of the
men of the couutv, and of all the barons and of their Norman
hundred. /
associates {eorum Francigenarum)^ and of the whole hundred {todus centuriatus)^ the priests, praepositi, and six villani of each manor {vilia),^
The sochmanni and liberi homines must here be included either among the * Norman associates ' or the * whole hundred.'
It may be concluded, therefore, that the liberi homines and sochmanni were of Danish or Norman origin, as also probably was the Court Baron itself; whilst in those districts of England not so much under Danish or Norman influence, the demesne lands were not let out until a later period to permanent freehold- ing tenants. Upon the lord's demesne, and perhaps
> Inqvmtio Elunms, f. 497 a.
3 £Uis, I 237.
• Ibid. i. 237, note. Domudayy i. 1036. Orduudh.
« EUiB, i. 22. See, as to Fi-an-^ cigena. Laws of W, Cong. ill. Nos.
Ill and IV. Thorpe, p. 211. As to the ' centuriatus,' see Capibilare de ViUis CaroU Magni, s. 62—' Quid de liberis hominibus et centenis.' MonumerUa OemumuB HtstoruM^ Hanover, 1881, p. 80.
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The Domesday Survey. 89
in the manorial hall, may have been the * Frandgevue CHAPjar. eorum ' belongmg to the * Comitatus/ not necessarily holders of land, but more or less dependants of the lord of the manor. Out of the Danish district nearly all the population on the manor seems clearly to have been tenants in villenage or slaves.
Vf. THB CLASSES OF TENAOTS IN VILLENAGE.
We turn now to the tenants in villenage, who formed the bulk of the population, and with whom this inquiry has most to do.
The terms of the writ ordering the survey to be made on the Ely manors show clearly what classes of tenants in villenage were expected to be found on the manors. The jury were to inquire —
(1) Quot villani.
(2) Quot cotarii.
(3) Quot servi.
The three classes of tenants in villenage actually mentioned in the Survey are almost universally the —
(1) Villani.
(2) Bordarii [or cottarii].
(3) Servi.
As regards the servi, the map will show that TheserrL whilst only embracing nine per cent, of the whole popu- lation of England, they were most numerous towards the south-west of England, less and less numerous as the Danish districts were approached, and absent
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90 The English Village Community.
^^^^- ^^^- altogether from Yorkshire, Ldacohishire, and border- ing districts.
Even when most numerous they were hardly tenants in villenage. They seem to have held no land, and often to have been rather household thraUs of the lord of the manor than tenants in any ordinary sense of the word.^
Thus the real tenants in villenage were confined mainly to the two classes of villani and bordarii, or cottiers.
The cot- Taking the bordarii or cottage tenants first, the
map will show how evenly they were scattered over the whole country. They embraced 32 per cent, — roughly one-third — of the whole population in their number, and in no county were there less than 12 per cent, of them.
ThsviUani. But the viUani were evidently at the date of the Survey, and at the earlier date of Edward the Con- fessor, as they were afterwards, by far the most im- portant and typical tenants in villenage.
They were at the date of the Survey even more numerous than the cottier class below them. They embraced 38 per cent, of the whole population, and, except where partially displaced by the sochmanni of the Danish district, were pretty evenly dispersed all over England. Except in Norfolk and Suflblk, they were seldom less than one-third of the popula- tion. And if at the time of the Survey they were holders of virgates and half-virgates, as their suc- cessors were afterwards, then it follows that they held by far the largest proportion of the land of England
^ The flervi are mentioned I and Bometimea at the end of the sometimes as on the lords demesne, I tenants in villenage.
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The Domesday Survey, 91
in their holdings. But before we assume this, some ^^^^' ^^ proof may fairly be required that it was so. In the Same meantime it is clear that the classes of tenants in te^MU aa villenage bore the same names at the time of the Survey *^'^"^» as they did afterwards. The presumption evidently is that they held similar holdings.
V. THE VILLANI WERE HOLDEKS OP VIEGATES, ETC.
The compilers of the Survey were not in the habit of describing in detail the character of the holdings of the villani. ^ Whilst recording how many villani there were in a manor, the Domesday Survey does not, like the Hundred Eolls, usually go on to state how many of them held a virgate and how many a half-virgate each.
Still, notwithstanding this general silence of the The hold- Survey on this point, treating the matter manor by ^"g^^f !^^ manor, and taking for example the Peterborough J"^o«»vi^ manors, it might be inferred almost with certainty haif-vir- that as the villani of the Liber Niger in 1126 were ^ holders of virgates and half-virgates, so their fathers and grandfathers before them must also have held virgates and half-virgates at the time of the Domes- day Survey and of Edward the Confessor. And such an inference would be strengthened by the occasional use in the Survey of the terms integri villani^ and villani dimidii^ answering no doubt to the same terms, and to the pleni virgarii and semi-virgarii of the Liber Niger and the Battle Abbey records.
» Svrvey, L f. 252. « Ibid. L ff. 162, 168, 169 6, 252.
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92 The English Village Community.
Chap. IK.
That the land was really held at the date of the Survey in hides and virgates may also be gathered from the well-known statement of the Saxon Chronicle that * nces an aslpig hide ne an gyrde landes ' was omitted from the Survey — a statement which does not mean that not a hide nor a yard of land was omitted, but not a hide or a yard-land, i.e. a virgate.^ • So that it might fairly be inferred from this passage that the virgate was the normal or typical holding of the vil- lanus, and this inference might well cover the whole area of the Survey.
But there is more direct evidence than these general inferences. It so happens that there are a few local exceptions to the general silence of the Survey as regards the holdings of the villani. S'sM^ey The most remarkable exception to the general
ofMiddie- reticence occurs in the survey for Middlesex, the compilers of which go out of their way fortunately to give precisely the desired information. And wherever they do so' the holdings are found to be in the now familiar grades of hides, half-hides, virgates, and half- virgates.
The following are a few examples : —
(F. 127 a.)-^Heia.
Tke priest holds 1 hide.
8 milites hold 6^ hides.
2 Tiilaoi pf 2 „ [».«. a hide each]. 12 ,, y, 6 ,, [i,e, ^ hide each].
20 ,, y, 6 „ [f.e. \ hide each, or viigate].
40 „ ,1 5 „ \%.e, \ hide each, or ^ yirgate].
16 ,, y, 2 f, [».«. \ hide each, or | virgate].
> Sab anno MLXXXV. Bolls Edition, by Thorpe, i. p. 368.
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The Domesday Survey. 93
Chap. III.
<F. 128 a.y^In ViUa vbi tedei jEccUtia SH. Petri ( Westnmtter).
9 villani each of a yirgate. 1 YillanaB of 1 hide. 9 Tillani each of ^ virgate. 1 eotarius of 5 acres. 41 cotarii with gardens.
<F. \^h,)^nemwdmiHn^.
, 1 miles holds 2 hides.
2 Tillani hold 1 hide each. 2 „ of 1 hide (f.6. \ hide each). 14 ,^ each of 1 virgate.
" » « i w
6 hordarii each of 5 acree.
7 cotarii. 6BeTvL
And 80 on throughout the survey for the county.
As might be expected, most of the villani held virgates and half-virgates, but there are a suflScient number of cases of hides and half-hides to show con- clusively the relation to each other of the four grades in the regular hierarchy of villenage.
Another local and solitary exception occurs in the Examples record for Sawbridgeworth, in Hertfordshire. The i^^Herta. holdings in this case were as follows : —
(F. lSQb.)-^Sabricteworde.
The praBpositos holds a ^ hide.
The priest holds 1 hide.
14 villani hold each 1^ virgate.
85 villani hold each ^ virgate, and among them
1^ virgate with 9 acres, paying 17s. ^d. 46 bordarii hold each 8 acres. 2 hordarii hold 10 acres (t.e. 5 acres each). 20 cotarii hold 26 acres (i,e. among them).
A few Other exceptional cases occur in the Liber
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94
The English ViUage Community.
^^^' ^^' Eliensis. The abbey had three manors in Hert- fordshire, and in these the holdings were as follows :
(P. 501>-10.) — Iw Obdwinbstbbu Hundred.
Hadam. 1 ' yillanuB ' of 1 virgate.
18 ' yillani/ each of ^ virgate. 7 ' cotarii * of \ virgate (f.6. together).
In the two Htjndbbds of Bbasbutbe.
Hatfidd, 18 'villani' each of 1 virgate. The priest of ^ hide. 4 < homines ' of 4 hides (».6. a hide each).
Ik Odbseib Hundbbd.
CkyllesseUa, 2 villani of ^ hide {i.e, 1 virgate each).
10 villani of 5 virgates (t,e, ^ virgate each). 9 hordarii of 1 virgate {i^ together). 7 servi.
In the Fen The monks of Ely also had several manors in the Fen country, but the holdings in this district seem to have been peculiar. Instead of being * each of a virgate,' or * each of a half- virgate/ they are * each of so many acres,' as was also found to be the case in some districts of Cambridgeshire in the Hundred Eolls. The Fen district seems to have had its own local peculiarities, both in the eleventh and in the four- teenth centuries, just as Kent also had. But here was no exception to the rule that the viUani were classed in grades, each grade with equal holdings.
These accidental instances in the Domesday Survey in which the required information is given are nu- merous enough to make it clear that at the date of the Survey the holdings of the villani were generally land the hidcs, half-hides, virgates, and half-virgates. The hSg of virgate or yard-land was the normal holding, as it was Snus!^" afterwards. And this being so, it may reasonably be
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The Domesday Survey. 96
concluded also that the virgates and half-virgates Chap, m. were themselves what they were afterwards — bundles of strips scattered over the open fields, and having some connexion not yet fully explained, but clearly indicated, with the number of oxen allotted to their holders or contributed by them to the manorial plough team of eight oxen.
VI. THE HOLDINGS OF THE BOEDARII OR COTTIERS.
It has already been noticed that in the Inquisitio Eliensis the particulars to be recorded as regards the tenants were —
1. Quot villani.
2. Qxiot cottarii.
3. Quot servi, &c.
And that with few exceptions throughout the Survey the three classes actually found in the Survey
were —
1. Villani.
2. Bordarii.-
3. Servi.
From this fact alone it would not be wrong to conclude that to a great extent the words bordarii and cottarii were interchangeable.
This inference gains much weight from the fact that a great many bordarii as well as cottarii are found even in the Inquisitio Eliensis itself. The factp, however, when collected together are some-
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96
The English Village Community.
Chap. III.
Cottiers and bor-
darii mnchali
very alike.
9
f
what curious, as a reference to the note below will show.^
In a few cases there are both bordarii and cottarii mentioned, which would lead to the conclusion that they were distinct classes. But in most cases there are either one or the other of the two classes men- tioned, but not both. Examining their holdings there seems to be no difference between them.
There are bordarii holding so many acres each, generally ^t;^, but varying sometimes from one to ten. There are cottarii with aU these variations of holdings. There are * bordarii with their gardens,' and there are likewise ' cottarii with their gardens.' There are both bordarii and cottarii who, as their holdings are not described at all, may, for anything we know, have held cottages only, and no land or gardens.
Comparing these Cambridgeshire examples with those in Hertfordshire, and others in the Domesday Survey for Middlesex, we may conclude that for all
|
^ In the Iwfomtio |
Mimns the instances of bordarii and cottarii |
|
|
in Cambridgeshire are as follows :— |
||
|
iii. cot |
iiii. bor. |
xii. bor. et ix. cot |
|
iii. bor. |
viilbor. |
ix. cot de ortis suis. |
|
ii. bor. |
iv. bor. |
viii. cot |
|
iiii. bor. |
iiii. bor. |
i. |
|
vi.bor. |
XT. bor. cum suis ortis. |
iiii cot |
|
il bor. |
XY. bor. et iii. cot. |
viiL cot |
|
xiiii. bor. de sois ortis. |
X. bor. et iii. cot |
ii. cot |
|
ii.bor. |
ix. bor. et iiL cot |
viii. cot de i. a. |
|
V. bor. |
XTiii. bor. et x. cot |
V. cot |
|
y. bor. de v. acris. |
iii. bor. de xv. ac. |
iiii. cot |
|
V. bor. de v. ac. |
(».6. 6 a. each). |
X. cot quisq. de i. a. |
|
vii. bor. |
Tiii.cot |
X. cot |
|
iii. bor. de iu. ac. |
iii. cot de ortb. |
ix. cot |
|
iiii. bor. |
iv. quisq. de v. ac. |
iiii. cot |
|
xii. bor. de x. ac. quisque. |
ii. bor. et iv. cot quisql |
vL cot. et iiii. bor. quisq. |
|
T. bor. |
dex. a. |
der.a. |
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The Domesday Survey. 97
practical purposes the bordarius was a cottier — some- Chaf^iu. times with no land, sometimes* with a garden, some- times with one solitary acre strip in the open fields, sometimes with more, even up to 10 acres, but that the typical bordarius was a cottager who held, in ad- dition to his cottage, 5 acres in the open fields. His was, therefore, a subordinate position to that of the villanus proper in the village hierarchy, and he dif- fered from the villanus probably most clearly in this, that he put no oxen into the village plough teams, and took no part in the common ploughing.
His services were no less servile than those of the villanus, but of a more trivial kind. He was above the sermia^ or slave, but his was the class which most easily would slide into that of the modern labourer, and in which the sertms himself in his turn might most easily merge. The word ' bordarius ' was noticed in the Liber Niger of Peterborough, but though so universal in the Domesday Survey it soon slipped out of use ; and as * bord ' gave place to * cottage ' in the common speech, so the whole class below the villani came to be known as cottagers.
VII. THE DOMESDAY SURVEY OP THE VILLA OP WESTMINSTER.
It may be worth while to test the value of the key which the results of this inquiry have put into our hand by applying it to the Domesday description of a particular manor.
For this purpose the survey of the manor of
H
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98 The English Village Community.
Chap, ih. \\restminster may be chosen as one of great national Survey of and historical interest. It is as follows : ^ —
Wostmin-
Bter. In the yilla where is sitaated the church of St. Peter [t .e. the abbey]
the abbot of the same place holds 13( hides [t.^;. land rated at so much]. There is land for 11 plough teams.
To the dememe belong 9 hides and 1 virgate, and there are 4 plough teams.
The villeins have 6 plough teams, and one more might be made. There are 9 yillani with a virgate each. 1 Tillanus with a hide. 9 villani with a half-virgate each. 1 cottier with 5 acres. 41 cottiers rendering a shilling each yearly for thdr gardens. There is meadow for 11 plough teams, Pasture for the cattle of the village, Wood for 100 pigs. There are 25 houses of the abbot^s soldiers and of other men, who render 8«. per annum or 10/. in all ; when he recdved them, the same ; in the time of King Edward, 12/. This manor was and is in the demesne of the Church of St. Peter of
Westminster. In the same villa Bainiardus holds 3 hides of the abbot. There is land for 2 plough teaaiB, and they are there, in demesne, and one cottier. Wood for 100 pigs. Pasture for cattle. Four arpents of vineyard newly planted. All these are worth 60«. ; when he received them, 20«. ; in the time of King Edward, 6/. This land belonged, and belongs, to the Ohurch of St. Peter.
mamor.
Theabbot'e It is clear from this description that the village which nestled round the new minster just completed by Edward the Confessor, was on a manor of the abbot. It consisted of 25 houses of the abbot's im- mediate followers, 19 homesteads of villani, 42 cottages with their little \gaj;dens, and one of them with 5 acres of land. There was also the larger homestead of the sub-manor of the abbot's under- tenant, with a single cottage and a vineyard of 4 half- acrei^ newly planted. There was meadow enough by the river side to make hay for the herd of oxen
» F. 128 a.
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The Domesday Survey. 99
belonging to the dozen plough teams of the village, ^^^- ^^^* and pasture for them and other cattle. Further round The opea the village in open fields were about 1,000 acres of arable land mostly in the acre strips, lying no doubt in their shots or furlongs, and divided by green turf balks and field-ways. Lastly, surrounding the whole on the land side were the woods where the swineherd found mast for the 200 pigs of the place. On every one of these points we have the certain evidence of sworn eye-witnesses.
And so with Uttle variation must have been the incidental condition of things in all material points twenty years ®^^ *"^* earlier,^ when King Edward lay on his death-bed and wandered in his mind, and saw in his delirium two holy monks whom he remembered in Normandy, who foretold to him the coming disasters to the realm, which should only be ended when * the green tree, after severance from its trunk and removal for the space of three acres {trium jugerum spatio)^ should return to its parent stem, and again bear leaf and fruit and flower.' It may be that the dehrious king as * he sat up in bed ' dreamily gazed through the window of his chamber upon the open fields, and the turf balks dividing the acres. The green tree may have been suggested to his mind by an actual tree growing out of one of the balks. The uneven glass of his window-panes would be just as likely as not as he rose in his bed to sever the stem from the root to his eye, moving it apparently three acres' breadth higher up the open field, restoring it again to its root as he sank back on his pillow. The very delirium of
* The value of tlie rentals had | yillage had not increased in the decreased since T.R.E., so that the I interyal.
H 2
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100 The English ViUage Comviuniiy.
Further
incidental
evidence.
Chap, ih. ^q dying king thus becomes the most natural thing in the world when we know that all round were the open fields, and balks, and acres. Without this knowledge even the learned and graphic historian of the Norman Conquest can make nothing of the * trium jugerum spatio,* and casts about for other renderings instead of the perfectly intelligible right one.^
Once more; the contemporary biographer of Edward the Confessor, with the accuracy of one to whom Westminster was no doubt faraiUar, tells us that * the devout king destined to God that place, both
* for that it was near unto the famous and wealthy city
* of London, and also had a pleasant situation amongst ^ fruitful fields lying round about it, with the principal ' river running hard by, bringing in from all parts of
* the world great variety of wares and merchandise of
* all sorts to the city adjoining ; but chiefly for the
* love of the apostle, whom he reverenced with a
* special and singular affection.' * Even the delicate historical insight of the late historian of the abbey, to whom all its picturesque surroundings were so dear, failed to catch the full meaning of this passage. Whilst referred to in a note it becomes paraphrased thus in the text : — ^ By this time also the wilderness of
* Thomey was cleared ; and the crowded river with
* its green meadows, and the sunny aspect of the island,
* may have had a charm for the king whose choice
* had hitherto lain in the rustic fields of Islip and
* Windsor.' ® Yes, * meadows of Thorney ' there were.
^ Freeman*8 Norman Conquest, iii. 12.
" Oontemporary Life of Edward the Confeasor in the Harleian MSS.^
pp. 080,986.
' MemcriaU Abbey, p. 16.
of Weitmintter
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Tke Domesday Survey. 101
on which the oxen of a dozen plough teams were Chapel grazing, but the contemporary writer's *' fruitful fields lying round about the place ' were the 1,000 acres of com land of which Dean Stanley was unconscious. No blame to him, for what economic student had sufficiently understood the Domesday Survey to tell him that every virgate of the villani of the ^ villa ubi sedet ^celesta Sancti Petri ' was a bundle of strips of arable land scattered all over the three great fields stretching away from the viUage, and the river, and the ' meadows of Thomey ' for a mile or two round ?
VIII. THE EXTENT OF THE CULTIVATED LAND OF ENGLAND, AND HOW MUCH WAS INCLUDED IN THE YAED-LANDS OF THE VILLANI.
Knowing now that the virgate or yard-land was the normal holding of the villanus, though some villani held hides and half-hides, i.e. more virgates than one, and others half-virgates ; and knowing that the normal holding of the villanus, whether called a yard- land or a husband-land, or by any other name, was a bundle of scattered strips, containing normally thirty acres ; and knowing also the number of villani in the several counties embraced in the Survey, it becomes perfectly possible to estimate, roughly no doubt, but with remarkable certainty, the total area contained in their holdings.
The total number of villani in these counties was 108,407.^ If each villanus held a yard-land or virgate of 30 acres, then about 3,250,000 acres were con-
^ See Elli8*8 Introduction, toI. ii. p. 6)4.
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102 The English Village Community.
Chap. Ill, tained in their holdings. The number of villani
Area in holding half-virgates was, however, probably greater
of villani.* than the number holding half-hides and hides; so
that the average holding would perhaps hardly be
equal in acreage to the normal holding of 30 acres.
Taking the average holding at 20 acres instead of 30,
we should probably under-estimate the acreage. It
would even then amount to 2,168,000. We shall be
safe if we say that the villani held in their bundles of
strips 2\ millions of acres.^
Area in We must add the holdings of the 82,000 bordarii
ings of and of the 6,000 or 7,000 cottier tenants.^ If these
cottiers, iggggj. holdings averaged three acres each, we must add
another quarter of a million acres for them. The
total of two and a half millions of acres can thus hardly
be an over-estimate of the acreage of the arable
strips in the open fields held by the villani and
bordarii in villenage. What proportion did this bear
to the whole cultivated area of these counties ?
and of free Xo iucludc the total acreage under the plough,
tenants. . . ,. . .
the holdings of the sochmanni and liberi homines of the Danish district must be added, and also the arable land (ploughed mainly by the villani) on the lord's demesne. The 23,000 .s(?cAmanm * can hardly have held as little as a similar number of villani — say half a milUon acres. The 12,000 liberi homines may have held another half-million. And one or two million acres can hardly be an excessive estimate for the arable portion of the lord's demesne.
Putting all these figures together, the evidence of the Domesday Survey seems therefore to show that
> Ellis, ii. p. 511. « Id. » Ihid. p. 614.
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The Domesday Survey. 103
at its date about five million acres were under the Ch^hi. plough, i,e, from one-third to one-half of the acreage Total about now in arable cultivation in the same counties of acres, England.^ L^r"
This is not mere conjecture. It rests upon facts ^Jj^^ti^ recorded in detail in the Survey for each manor upon the oath of the villani themselves ; with no chance of exaggeration, because upon the result was to be founded a tax ; with Uttle chance of omission, because the men of the hundred, who also were sworn, would take care in their own interests that one place was not assessed more hghtly than others. The general opinion was that * not a single hide or yard- land was omitted.'
The acreage under arable cultivation at the time of the Survey, and twenty years earlier in the time of Edward the Confessor, was thus really very large. And the villani in then* yard-lands held nearly half of it, and together with the bordarii fully half of it, in villenage. It must be borne in mind also that by their services they tilled the greater part of the rest.
This was the economic condition in which England was left by the Saxons as the result of the 500 years of their rule. The agriculture of England, as they left ity was carried on under the open field system by village communities in villenage. It was under the system Tilled by of Saxon serfdom, with some Uttle help from the labour. actual slaves on the lord's demesne, that the land was tilled throughout all those counties which the Saxons had thoroughly conquered, with some partial excep-
^ The arable acreage in these counties in 1879 was about twelve million acres.
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104 The English Village Community.
Chap, ih. tion as regards the Danish districts, where the sochmanni and liheri homines were settled.
This is the soUd foundation of fact firmly vouched for by the Domesday Survey, read in the light of the evidence leading up to it.
From this firm basis the inquiry must proceed, carefully following the same Knes as before — ^working still from the known to the unknown — ^tracing the open field system, its villani, and their yard-lands still farther back into the earlier periods of Saxon rule.
The question to Be answered is, how far back into the earlier Saxon times the open field system and its yard-lands can be followed, and whether the serfdom connected with them was more or was less complete and servile in its character in the earlier than in the later period.
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CHAPTER IV.
THE OPEN FIELD SYSTEM TRACED IN SAXON TIMES —THE SCATTERING OF THE STRIPS ORIGINATED IN THE METHODS OF CO-ARATION
Saxon times.
I. THE VILLAGE FIELDS UNDER SAXON RULE WERE OPEN FIELDS.
We have learned from a long line of evidence, leading c^ap^. backwards to the date oif the Domesday Survey, Traces of that the community in villenage fitted into the open tieidTn^ field system as a snail fits into a shell. Let us now, following the same method, and beginning again with the shell, inquire whether its distinctive features can be traced on Enghsh fields in early Saxon times from the date of the Domesday Survey, and of Edward the Confessor, backwards.
And first it will be convenient to find out whether traces can be found of the * strips,' and the * fiirlongs,' * headlands,* *Unches,' * gored acres,' * butts,' and odds and ends of * no-man's-land,' the remains of which are still to be seen wherever the open fields are un- enclosed.
It will be remembered that the strips upon exami- nation were found to be acres laid out for ploughing
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106 Tke English Village Community,
Chap. IV. on the Open fields. They were, in fact, the original actual divisions, from the general dimensions of which the statute acre, with its four roods, was derived.
In the Bearing this in mind, the Anglo-Saxon translation
Saxon
of the Gospels.
translation of the Gospcls may be quoted in proof that the fields round a Saxon village were open fields, and generally divided into acre strips in the tenth century, just as the vision of Piers Plowman was quoted in proof that it was so in the fourteenth century.
The Saxon translator of the story of the disciples walking through the corn-fields describes them as walking over the * oecera'
Obviously the translator's notion of the corn-fields round a village was that of the open fields of his own country. They were divided into * acres,' and he who walked over them walked over the * acres.'
But by far the best evidence occurs in the multi- tudes of charters, from the eighth century down- wards, so many of which are contained in the cartu- laries of the various abbeys, and more than 1,300 of which are collected in Kemble's Codex Diphmaiicus.
These charters are generally in Latin. They most often relate to the grant of a whole manor or estate with the village upon it. And to the charters is generally added in Saxon a description of the bound- aries as known to the inhabitants. These descriptions are in precisely the same form as the description of the boundaries on the Hitchin manor rolls as pre- sented by the homage in 1819.^
The boundary is always described as starting at
In Saxon charters.
^ The boundaries of the charters contaiDed in first two volumes of the Codva: Dip, are collected in the
Appendix to vol. iii. After this they are given with the charters.
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The Saxon Open Field System, 107
some well-khown point — perhaps a road or stream — Chap^. as passing on from it to some other, and so on, from in the point to pomt, till the starting-place is reached again. The chance of finding out from these boundaries whether they contained within them open fields lies simply in the possibihty that some one or another of the distinctive features of the system may happen to occur at the edge of the estate or township, and so to be mentioned among the links in the chain of objects making up the boundary.
The fact is that this happens very often.
By way of example, the boundaries of HordweU Example in Hampshire may be taken. They are appended to weU, a charter ^ by which King Edward, the son of King Alfred, gave the estate to the Abbey of Abingdon, and they are as follows : —
MettB de Hordtoella.
An Swinbroc asrest, th8Bt up of On Swinbroc first, thence up Swinebroce in on rificslsed, of thtes from Swinbroc on to rush-slade, riscalsedee byge foran ongean Hord- i from this rush-slade's corner fore- wylli'8 weg, thiet andlang tbees against Hordwell-way, thence along weges oth hit cymth to lecenhilde this way until it comes to the wege, thonne of th»m wege, up on i Icknild way, then from these ways thone ealdan wude weg, thonne of | upon the old wood-way, then from thsen wude waga be eastan Telles- that wood-way by east Tellesburg byrg on eenne garan, thonne of to a comer, then from that corner
thaam garan on naene garsecer, thaet andlangs th»re furh to anum and- heafdum to anre forierthe, and sio
to a fforeaere, thence along its fur- row to the head of a headland^ and which headland goes into the land,
forierth gseth in to tham lande, then right on to the stone on ridge
thanne on ge'rihte to tham stane on way, then on west to a gore along
hricg weg, thanon west on anne the Airrow to its head, then adown
goran, andlanges thesre furh to tofernhills8lade,thenceonafurrow
anum anheafdum, thanon of dune in the acre nearer the Unce, then on
on fearnhyUes slsed, thset thanon on that lince at femhills slade south-
' Hist, Monasterii de Abingdon, vol. i. p. 57.
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108 The English Village Community.
Chap. IV. ane furh an adcer near thssm hlince,
thonne on th»t hlinc eet fearn-
hjlled slsede suthewearde, of thsem hlince on anon heafde, forth thaor on ane furh| on ane stannewe, thanon on gerihte on hricgweg thset thanone on ane ganscer on anon heafde, and se garaecer in on thsBt land, thanone andlanges anre furh oth hitCTmth to anum hj%, thanone of th»m hyge forth on ane furh oth hit cymth to anre forierthe, and sio forierth into tham lande, thonne on Icenhilde weg heTelleshurh weetan, thanone north ofer Icenhilde weg on sican wylle, th»t hthweres ofer an furlang on gerihte on an lelrhed on hffighyllee hroceB byge, anlang thsBs broces oth hit cymth to twam garsecer, and than garceceras in on thsBt land, thanon on ane forierthe on anon heafde, thanon on gerihte on readan clif on Swinbroc, thonne andlang tluas brocea on th»t rise* elaed.
ward from that lince to its head, forward then on a furrow to a Btonerow, then right on to the ridge-way, thence thereon to a gore-' acre at its head, the goreacre being within that land, thence along a furrow till it comes to a comer, thence from that comer forward on a furrow till it comes to a head^ land, which headland is within the land, then on the Ickenild way by Tellesburg west, thence north over the Ickenild way to Sican-well, thence . • . over a furlong right on to an elder-bed at hedgehiirs brook comer, along this brook till it comes to two goreacres, which goreacres are within that land, thence on a headland to its head, then right on to Redclifife on Swin- brook, then along this brook on that msh-slade.
All the marks are found
In this single instance there is mention of acres or strips, of gores or gored-acres, of headlands^ of fur- longs^ and of linches.
Scores of similar instances might be given from the Abingdon charters, * Liber de Hyda,' and the * Oodex Diplomaticus,' showing that the boundaries constantly make mention of one or another of the distinctive marks by which the open field system may be recog- nised.^
* Codex Dip, cclzziL ' grenan , lande,^ ccccxiii. * furlang,' * hUncei,' hiinc/ cocliii. ' Minces,' ccclxxvii. ccccadv. * tMsr klincea,' cccczvii. 'ealde gare quod indigenae none *forerthakere,'coccx\m,*fi*rl(mges,' monnea land vocant' (See also : cccczix. and xx. 'forgrthe,' * great- dlxx. * none mannes Umd '), cccxcix. | an hUnces,' and so on. Instances * furlang* ccccvii. 'forlang,* * heued , are equally numerous in the Abing-
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ago.
The Saxon Open Field System. 109
There can, therefore, be no doubt that the Ch^^. fields of Saxon manors or villages were open fields divided into furlongs and strips, and having their headlands and finches. Even the fittle odds and i,oooyea» ends of * no man's land ' are incidentaUy found to have their place in the Saxon open fields 1,000 years ago.
But how far back can these Saxon open fields be traced ? The answer is, as far back as the laws of King Ine can be held to reach into the past.
These laws were repubUshed by King Alfi-ed as * The Dooms of Ine,' who came to the throne in a.d. 688. In their first clause they claim to have been recorded by King Ine with the counsel and teaching of his father Cenred^ and of Hedde^ his bishop (who was Bishop of Winchester from a.d. 676 to 705), and of Eorcenwold^ his bishop (who obtained the see of London in 675) ; and so, if genuine, they seem to re- present what was settled customary law in Wessex during the last half of the seventh century — the century after the conquest of the greater part of Wessex.
In these laws there occurs a section which so clearly refers to open common fields divided into acres, and to common meadows also divided into strips or doles, that it would have been perfectly intelligible and reasonable if it had been included word for word in the record of the customs of the Hitchin manor as regards the three common fields and the green commons and Lammas land : —
don charters and those of the Liber de Hyda. For linees, see Hist, Abinffdan, L pp. Ill, 147, 158, 188,
259, 284, 815, 841, 404. Liber de Hyda, pp. 86, 103, 107, 178, 285,
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110 The English Village Community.
Chap. IV.
Of a CeorUs grass-tun {meadow).
(42) If ceorkhaye common mea- dow or other land divided into strips ^ to fence, and some have fenced their strip, some liave not, and . . . [stray cattle (?)] eat their common acres or grass, let those go who own the gap, and compensate the others who have fenced their strip. . . .
Be Ceories Oars-tune^
(xliL) Gif ceoplaf ja&pf-cun htebben jemsenne. ofpe of$ep jeb&l-lanb to t^anne.*] haebben pime jecyneb hiopa bael. fume na&bban.^ . . . etten hiopa je- ms&nan »cepaf offe ^a&pr* 3&n ]^a )>onne pe f ^eac ajan. *] 2ebete[n] ]>am ot$pum ]>e hiopa bil51 jecynebne. « . .
There is here in the smallest possible compass the most complete evidence that in the seventh century the fields of Wessex were common open fields, the arable being divided into acres and the meadows into doles^ ; and as the system is incidentally mentioned as a thing existing as a matter of course, it is not likely to have been suddenly or recently introduced. The evidence throws it back, therefore, at least to the earUest period of Saxon rule.
II. THE HOLDINGS WERE COMPOSED OF SCATTERED STRIPS.
The hold- Let US ucxt ask whether there are traces of the
A^Tnd scattered ownership — the scattering all over the open
yard4ands. fi^idg Qf t^g Strips included in the holdings — ^which
was so essential a characteristic of the system ; and,
further, whether in tracing it back into early Saxon
* Laws of King Ine. Ancient Laws, ^c, of England, Thorpe, p. 55.
' It will he remembered that Lammas land is divided into strips for the hay crop. In the Winslow HoUs, in the list of strips included in the virgate of John Moldeson were some strips or doles of meadow
— hence ddl and geddl-land. That gedal-land - open fields divided into strips, see Hist, Abingdon (p. 304), where there is a charter, a.d. 961, making a grant of ' 9 manias ' and ' thas nigon liida licggead on gemang othran gedcd-lande, feldes gemane and mseda gemane and yrthland gemane.*
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The Saxon Open Field System. Ill
times any clue to its original meaning and intention ^^^- ^^' can be found.
First, it may be stated generally that, when the nature and incidents of the holdings are examined hereafter, it will be found that throughout the period of Saxon rule, from the time of Edward the Confessor backward to the date of the laws of King Ine, 300 years earlier, the holdings were mainly the same as those with which we have become familiar, viz. hides^ half-hides^ and yard-lands^ and that, generally speak- ing, there were no other kinds of holdings the names of which are mentioned.
That these Saxon hides and yard-lands were com- Holdings posed of scattered strips in the open fields, as they S^^red were afterwards, might well be inferred from the mere *^''p** fact that they bore the same names as those used after the Conquest. It would be strange indeed if the same names at the two dates meant entirely different things — ^if the virgate or yard-land before the Conquest was jf thing wholly different from what it was after it.
But there is other evidence than the mere names of the holdings.
There is a general characteristic of the numerous Saxon charters of all periods, which, when carefully considered, can hardly have any other explanation than the fact that the holdings were composed not of contiguous blocks of land, but of scattered strips.
It is this — ^that whatever be the subject of the grant made by the charter, Le. whether it be a whole manor or township that is granted, or only some of the holdings in it, the boundaries appended are the boundaries of the whole manor or township. No doubt the royal gifts to the monastic houses generally
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112 The English Village Community.
The boun- daries of whole manors.
o^^^l^' did consist of whole manors, and thus the boundaries in most cases naturally were the boundaries of the whole, and could not be otherwise. But it was not always so. Thus, among the Abingdon charters there aire two of Edward the Martyr, one of vii. hides (cassatos), in * Cmgestune,' and another of xiii. * mansas ' in * Oyngestun,' one to the Church of St. Mary at Abingdon, the other to a person named ^Ifstan;^ and to both charters are appended the same boundaries in substantially the same words. And these are the boundaries of the whole township}
There can hardly be any other explanation of this peculiarity than the fact that the holdings were not blocks of land, the boundaries of which could be easily given, but, in fact, like the hides and virgates after the Conquest, bundles of strips scattered over the open fields, and intermixed with strips belonging to other holdings. Indeed, there is in a charter of King Ethelred (a.d. 982) among the Abingdon series relating to five hides at ' Cheorktun^ a direct confes- sion of the reason why in this case all boundaries are omitted. Instead of the usual boundaries of the whole township there is the statement that the estate is * the less distinctly defined by boundaries, quia jug era aUrinsecus copulata adjacent ' — because the acres are intermixed.'
On the hypothesis already suggested that the hides, half-hides, virgates, and bovates were the shares in the results of the ploughing of the village plough teams
of which they were shares.
» VoL i. pp. 340-362.
* So also see Codex Diplama- tieiUf dii. and dzri., and ccoclzTii. and occxxxv.
' Vol. i. p. 384. Oompare also the boandariefl of Draitnne, ' €Bcer umder €geer,* p. 248. Also the same expression, pp. 350 aiid 353.
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The Saxon Open Field System. 113
^n other words, the number of strips allotted to each ^^^"^•^^- holder in respect of the oxen contributed by him to the plough team of eight oxen — ^it is perfectly natural that in a grant of some .only of the holdings the y*<'bbundaries given should be those of the whole town- ship, viz. of the whole area, an intermixed share in which constituted the holding.
There is another fact, which has, perhaps, never other evi- yet been explained, but which is nevertheless per- *^^* fectly intelhgible on the same hypothesis.
It will be remembered that there was observed in the Winslow example of a virgate a certain regular turn or rotation in the order of the strips in the vir- gates — that John Moldeson's strips almost always came next after the strips of one, and were followed by those of another, particular neighbour. Now this fact strongly suggests that originally the holdings had not always and permanently consisted of the same actual strips, but that once upon a time the strips were perhaps allotted afresh each year in the plough- ing according to a certain order of rotation, the turn of the contributor of two oxen coming twice as often as that of the contributor of one ox, and so making the virgate contain twice as many strips as the bovatei. This, and this alone, would give the requisite elas- ticity to the system so as to allow, if necessary, of the admission of new-comers into the village community, and new virgates into the village fields.
So long as the limits of the land were not reached a fresh tenant would rob no one by adding his oxen to the village plough teams, and receiving in regular turn the strips allotted in the ploughing to his oxen. In the working of the system the strips of a new holding
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114 The English ViUage Community.
Chap. IV.
t^ken.
would be intermixed with the others by a perfectly natural process.
Now, that something like this process did actually happen in Saxon times is clear from the way in which the Church was provided for under the Saxon laws. Th6 mode In the Hght which is given by the knowledge of
tithes were what the Open field system really was, there is nothing intrinsically impossible even in the alleged but doubt- ful donation by King Ethelwulf of one-tenth of the whole land of England by one stroke of the pen to the Church. It has been said that he could not do it except on the royal domains without robbing the landowners and their tenants of their holdings. It would be so if the holdings were blocks. But there is nothing impossible in the supposition that a Saxon king should enact a law that every tenth strip ploughed by the common ploughs throughout the villages of England should be devoted to the Church. It would create no confusion or dislocation anywhere. And it would have meant just the same thing if Ethelwulf had enacted that every tenth virgate, or every tenth holding, should be devoted to the Church. For the sum of every tenth strip ploughed by the villagers, when the strips were tied, as it were, to- gether into the bundles called virgates or hides, would amount to every tenth virgate, or hide, as the case might be. Nor would there be anything strange in his freeing the strips thus granted to the Church from all secular services.^
The alleged donation may be spurious, the docu- ments relating to it may be forgeries, but there is
1 See, with regard to this doDa- I c. z. ; and Stubbe' Contt. But, i. tion, Kemble's Saxom in England, \ pp. 262-71.
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The Saxon Open Field System. 115
nothing impossible or unlikely in the thing itself. CHi*^. And the very fact of the forgery of such a grant is evidence of its intrinsic possibiUty. And, whatever may be said as to the donation of Ethelwulf, whether it be spurious or not, there are other proofe that something of the kind was afterwards effected.
In No. XXV.^ of the ' Excerptiones' of Archbishop ^f^^^ Egbert (a.d. 735-766) it is ordained that * to every yard-iands.
* church shall be allotted one complete holding
* (mansa), and that this shall be free from all but
* ecclesiastical services.' This was simply putting the priest in the position of a recognised village official, like the p'cepositus or the faber. They held their vir- gates free of service, and perhaps their strips were ploughed by the common ploughs in return for their services without their contributing oxen to the manorial plough team. The Domesday Survey proves that, in a great number of instances at least, room had in fact been made in the village community for the priest and his virgate}
The following passages in the Saxon laws also Tithe taken show that for some time, at all events, the tithes were u, every actually taken, not in the shape of every tenth sheaf, ^^^ *'*^^* but exactly in accordance with the plan suggested by the spurious grant of Ethelwulf, by every tenth strip being set aside for the Church in the ploughing.
In the laws of King Ethelred* (a.d. 978-1016)
• Thorpe, p. 828. 'Item— Ut unicaique aeodesuB vel una nuuiM Integra absque alio servitio adtribuatur, et presbiteri in eia con- stitnti non de decimis, neque de ob- lationibus fidelium, nee de domibua, Deque de atriia vel ortis juxta »c- clenam pontiB, neque de pnoscripta
mansa, aliquod servitium faciant prnter ssocleBiaaticum ; et a aliquid ampliuB habuerint, inde senioribue Buis secundum patrife morem, de- bitum servitium impendant.'
^ See especially the Survey for Middlesex, and gupra pp. 92-96.
» Thorpe,p. 146.
X 3
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116 The English Village Community.
^^^^' there ia a command that every Christian man shall
* pay his tithe justly, always as the plough traverses
* the tenth " cecer:' '
VII. Snb pice cpiptenpa manna jehpilc. f he hif Dpih- tene hij* teo^unje. 4 [7* T^^ pilh ])one reotSan secep ^e^d. pihtlice jel»fte.be Iiobef miltf e.*
And be it known tq every Christian man that he pay to his lord his tithe rightly always as the plough traverses the tenth acre, on peril of God's mercy.
And we command, that every man . . . give his churchshat and just tithe, . . . that is, as the plough traverses the tenth acre*
Further, in a Latin law of King Ethelred there is the following direction : —
£t prwcipimus, ut omnis homo . . . det cyricsceattum et rectam decimam suam, . . . hoc est, sicut aratrum peragrahit decimam ac- ram.'
And that this appUed to land in villenage as well as to land in demesne is clear from a stUl earlier law of King Edgar (a.d. 959, 975) : ' That every tithe be
* rendered to the old minster to which the district
* belongs, and that it be then so paid both from a
* thane's inland and from geneat-land^ so as the plough ^traverses it'
1. D»t; fynbon )K)nne aepejt;. •p Eobef c^ican fjn SBlcef pihcef J>ypt5e. ^ man ajfpe selce ceo- t5unje CO J>am ealban mynfcpe fe j-eo hypnef to-h^6. "] "^ 17 ]>onne fpa jelaeft. SBjtJep je op fejnef in-lanbe je oj: jeneac- lanbe. pp* TV^ ^^"^ F^ P^ 5^"
There is very little reference in the Domesday Survey to the churches and their tithes, but there happens to be one entry at least in which there seems
1. These then are first: that God's churches be entitled to every right ; and that every tithe be ren- dered to the old minster to which the district belongs ; and that it be then so paid, both from a thane's inland, and from geneat-land, so as the piough traverses it.
* Thorpe, p. 146. ' Ibid. p. 144. So also in the Laws of Cnut, * The tenth acre as
the plough traverses it.' Thorpe, p. 156.
» /6m?. p. 111.
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The Saxon Open Field System. 117
to be a clear reference to this practice of the tithes Chap^. being taken in actual strips and acres. It relates to Acres oi the church at Wallop^ in Hampshire (the place from Domesday which the family name of the Earls of Portsmouth is ®^^®y- derived), and it states that * to the church there per- ' tains one hide, also half of the tithes of the manor,
* also the whole kirkshot. And of the tithes of the
* villani xlvi. pence and half of the a^es. There is in ' addition a Uttle church to which pertain viii. acres
* of the tithes: ^
It may be taken then as certain that the holdings in villenage in the open fields of the Saxon * hams ' and ' tuns ' were composed, like the virgate of John Moldeson, in the manor of Winslow, centuries after- wards, of strips scattered, one in this furlong and another in that, all over the village fields ; and it may be taken as already almost certain that the scattering of the strips was in somB way connected with the order in which the strips were allotted in respect of the oxen contributed to the village plough teams.
III. THB OPEN FIELD SYSTEM OF CO-ARATION DESCRIBED IN THE ANCIENT LAWS OF WALES.
The law that every tenth strip as it was traversed strips by the plough was to be set apart for the tithe is ^^^^ of certainly the clearest hint that has yet been discovered station, of the perhaps annual redistribution of the strips among the holdings in a certain order of rotation.
* 2>. i. 38 h, Wallope (Hants). , ' norura XLVI. denarii et medietas ' Thi sBCclesia cui pertinet una hida . ' agrorum.'
'et medietas decim® manerii et 'Ibie8tadhuc»ccIesiola,adqiiam totum Oirset, et de decima villa- ' pertinent viii. acr» de decima.'
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118 The English Village Community.
Chap. IV. though it is possible of course that a redistribution being once made, to make room for the acres set apart for the tithe, the same strips might always thereafter be assigned to the tithe and to each parti- cular yard-land year after year without alteration.
What is still wanted to lift the explanation already offered of the connexion of the grades of holdings in the open fields and the scattering of the strips in each holding, with the team of 8 oxen, out of the region of hypothesis into that of ascertained fact is the discovery if possible somewhere actually at work of the system of common ploughing with eight oxen, and according the assignment of the strips in respect of the oxen to contri-^^*" their several owners. Were it possible to watch such ^"^^^ an example of the actual process going on, there pro- bably would be disclosed by some litde detail of its working the reason and method of the scattering of the strips, and of the order of rotation in which they seem to have been allotted.
Now it happens that such an instance is at hand, affording every opportunity for examination under Thegyetem the most favourable circumstances possible. We find under the it in the ancieut Welsh laws, representing to a large laiTO of extent ancient Welsh traditions collected and codified WaioB. jj^ ^Q tenth century, but somewhat modified after- wards, and coming down to us in a text of the four- teenth century. In these laws is much trustworthy evidence from which might be drawn a very graphic picture of the social and economic condition of the unconquered Welsh people, at a time parallel to the centuries of Saxon rule in England. And amongst other things fortunately there is an almost perfect picture of the method of ploughing. Nor is it too
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The Saxon Open Field System.
119
much to say that in this picture we have a key which ^^^^• completely fits the lock, and explains the riddle of the English open field system.
For the ancient Welsh laws describe a simple form of the open field system at an earher stage than that in which we have yet seen it — ^at a time, in fact, when it was a Uving system at work, and everything about it had a present and obvious meaning, and its details were consistent and intelligible.
Let us examine this Welsh evidence.
Precisely as the modem statute acre had its origin The Weinh
. ... erwp, or
in the Saxon ascer^ which was an actual division of the acre strips.
fields, so that the Saxon oecera were the strips divided
by balks — the seliones — of the open field system ; so
the modem Welsh word i6r acre as a quantity of land
is * erw^' and the same word in its ancient meaning in
the Welsh laws was the actual strip in the open fields.
This is placed beyond a doubt by the fact that
its measurements are carefully given over and over
again, and that it was divided from its neighbours by Divided by
an unploughed balk of turf two furrows wide.^
The Welsh laws describe the primitive way in which the erw was to be measured. In one province this was to be done by a man holding a rod of a cer- tain length and stretching it on both sides of him to fix the width, while the length is to be a certain mul- tiple of its breadth.^ In other provinces of Wales the width was to be fixed by a rod equal in length to the
turf balks.
Measured by a rod.
* (5) The breadth of a houndary (Jin) between two trevs, if it be of landy is a &thom and a half. . . .
(7) Between two erws, two furrows (Ancient Laws, ^c, of Wale$, p. 378). 'The boundary
(tervyn) between two erws, two furrows, and th.it la called a halk (synach).' (P. 626.)
' Ancient Laws: Venedotian Code, pp. 81 and 90. Leffes Wal- Uca, p. 831.
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120 The English Village Community.
^"^**L^' fo^ yoke used in ploughing with four oxen abreast.^ The erw thus ascertained closely resembled in shape the English strips, though it varied in size in different districts, and was less than the modern acre in its contents.
Next there was, according to the Welsh laws, a certain regulated rotation of ownership in the erws * as they were traversed by the plough^' resulting £pom a well-ordered system of co-operative ploughing. In the Venedotian Code especially are elaborate rules as to the * cyvar ' or co^ration, and these expose the system in its ancient form actually at work, with great vividness of detail.
The chief of these rules are given below,^ from
1 Ancient Laws, p. 263 {Dime- ticm Code) ; p. 874 {Owentian Code),
* Ancient Law8,^A6S» {Vene- dotian Code.) XXIV. CfCo-tiUage this treats.
1. Whoever shall engage in co- tillage with another, it is right for them to give surety for perform- ance, and mutually join hands; and, after they have done that, to keep it until the tye he completed: the tye is twelve erws.
2. The measure of the erw, has it not heen hefore set forth P
8. The first erw helongs to the ploughman ; the second to the irons ; the third to the exterior sod ox; the fourth to the exterior sward ox, lest the yoke should he broken ; and the fifth to the driver: and so the erws are appropriated, from best to best, to the oxen, thence onward, unless the yoke be stopped between them, unto the last ; and after that the plough erw,
which is called the plough-bote cyrar ; and that once in the year.
. • • • • .
10. Everyone is to bring his requisites to the ploughing, whether ox, or irons, or other things per- taining to him; and after every- thing is brought to them, the ploughman and the driver are to keep the whole safely, and use them as well as they would their own.
The driver is to yoke in the oxen carefully, so that they be not too tight, nor too loose ; and drive them so as not to break their hearts: and if damage happen to them on that occasion, he is to make it good ; or else swear that he used them not worse than his own.
12. The ploughman is not to pay for the oxen, unless they be bruised by him ; and if he bruise either one or the whole, let him pay,
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The Saxon Open Field System^
121
which it will be seen that in the co-tillage the team, Chap, iv. as in England and Scotland, was assumed to be of Team of eight oxen. And those who join in co-ploughing iTthe^ccT must bring a proper contribution, whether oxen or *^'*°°- plough irons, handing them over during the common ploughing to the charge of the common ploughman and the driver, who together are bound to keep and use everything as well as they would do their own, till, the co-ploughing being done, the owners take their own property away.
So the common ploughing was arranged But how was the produce of the partnership to be divided ? This, too, is settled by the law, representing no doubt immemorial custom. The first erw ploughed dotation in was to go to the ploughman, the second to the irons, cording to the third to the outside sod ox, the fourth to the out- * ^"^ side sward ox, the fifth to the driver, the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh to the other six oxen in order of worth ; and lastly, the twelfth was the plough erw, for ploughbote, i.e. for the mainte- nance of the woodwork of the plough ; and so, it is stated, ' the tie of 12 erws was completed.' Further,
or exonerate himeelf. The plough- man is to assist the driver in yoking the oxen ; but he is to loosen only the two short-yoked.
13. After the co-tillage shall he completed, every one is to take his requisites with him home.
16. If there should be a dispute about bad tillage between two co- tiUerSy let the erw of the plough- man be examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the furrow,
and let every one^s be completed alike.
28. Whoever shall own the irons is to keep them in order, that the ploughman and driver be not impeded ; and they are to have no assistance.
The driver is to furnish the bows of the yokes with wythes; and, if it be a long team, the small rings, and pegs of the bows.
See also Owentian Code, p. 864 ; and the Leges WtdUce, p. 801.
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122 The English ViUage Community.
Ctf^^. if any dispute should arise between the co-tillers as to the fairness of the ploughing, the common-^nse rule was to be followed that the erw which fell to the ploughman should be examined as to the depth, length, and breadth of the furrows and every one's erw must be ploughed equally well.
Here, then, in the Welsh laws is the clearest evi- dence not only of the division of the common fields by turf balks two furrows wide into the long narrow strips called erws^ or acres, and roughly corresponding in shape, though not in area, with those on English fields, but also of the very rules and methods by which their size and shape, as well as the order of their ownership, were fixed in Wales. It is the And this order in the allotment of the erws turns
diviffloa of out to be an ingenious system for equitably dividing ^*Jj^^}^ year by year the produce of the co-operative ploughing "««• between the contributors to it.
Now, without entering at present into the question of its connexion with the tribal system in Wales, which will require careful consideration hereafter, several interesting and useful flashes of light may be drawn from this gUmpse into the methods and rules of the ancient Welsh system of co-operative plough- ing. The size of In the first place, ancient Welsh ploughing was Deoessitatee evidently not like the classical ploughing of the sunny 2^^™" south, a mere scratching of the ground with a light plough, which one or two horses or oxen could draw. In the Welsh laws a team of eight oxen, as already said, is assumed to be necessary. And hence the necessity of co-operative ploughing. The plough was evidently heavy and the ploughing deep, just as was the case in
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The Sdxm Open Field System. 123
the twelfth century, and probably from still earlier to Ch^p-iv. quite modem times in Scotland, where, as we have seen, the plough was of the same heavy kind, and the team of eight or of twelve oxen. And it is curious to observe that the Welsh, like the Scotch oxen in modem times, were driven four abreast, i.e. yoked four to a yoke. So that, as already suggested, the plough was aptly described by the monks in their medisBval Latin as a ^ caruca,' and the ploughed land as a ^carucate.'
But the most interesting point about the ancient and the Welsh co-operative ploughing was the fact that the with^tS key to a share in the produce was the contribution of ^^' one or more oxen to the team. He who contributed one ox was entitled to one erw in the twelve. He who contributed two oxen was entitled to two erws. He who contributed a whole yoke of four oxen would receive four erws, while only the owner of the full team of eight oxen could possibly do without the co-opera- tion of others in ploughing. Surely this Welsh evi- dence satisfactorily verifies the hjrpothesis already suggested by the term bovate, and by the allotment of two oxen as outfit to the yard-land or virgate, and by the taking of tithes in the shape of every tenth strip as it was traversed by the plough, and lastly by the order of rotation in the strips disclosed by the Winslow example.
It explains how the possession of the oxen came to be in Saxon, as probably in still earlier British or Boman times, the key to the position of the holder, and his rank in the hierarchy of the village com- munity. And it points to the Saxon system of hides and yard-lands having possibly sprung naturally out
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124 The English Village Community.
Chap. IV.
Henoe the yard-land became a bundle of scattered BtripB.
The strip the day's ploughing.
of pre-existing British or Roman arrangements, rather than as having been a purely Saxon importation.
It also suggests a ready explanation of how when the common tillage died out, and the strips included in a hide, yard-land, or virgate, instead of varying with each year's arrangements of the plough teams, became occupied by the villein tenant year after year in per- manent possession, there would naturally be left, as a survival of the ancient system, that now meaningless and inconvenient scattering of the strips forming a holding all over the open fields which in modern times so incensed Arthur Young, and made the En- closure Acts necessary.
There is, lastly, another point in which the Welsh laws of co-aration suggest a clue to the reason and origin of a widely spread trait of the open field system. Why were the strips in the open field system uniformly so small ? The acre or erw was obviously a furrow-long for the convenience of the ploughing. But what fixed its breadth and its ai'ea ? This, too, is explained. According to the Welsh laws it was the measure of a day'a co-ploughing. This is clear from two passages in the laws where it is called a * cyvar^^ or a ' co-ploughing.' * And it would seem that a day's ploughing ended at midday, because in the legal description of a complete ox it is required to plough only to midday.^ The GaUic word for the acre or strip, ^joumelj in the Latin of the monks ^jumalisy and
^ AncUnt Laws, ^c, p. 150^ Vene^ daitian Code, The worth of ' winter tilth of a cyvar two legal pence ; * and BO p. 286y Dimetian Code,
P. 163. ' The plough erw, which
is called the ploughhot cyyaT.'
P. 354, Gwewtian Code, * The worth of one day's ploughing is two legal pence.'
' Ancient Laws, ^c, p. 134.
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The Saxon Open Field System. 125
sometimes diumalis^^ also points to a day's ploughing ; Chap, iv. while the German word * morgen ' for the same strips in the German open fields still more clearly points to a day's work which ended, like the Welsh ' cyvar,' at noon. -- '
^ See Du Cange under *Diunudu,* who quotes a passage of a.d. 704.
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The hatna and tuns were manors.
CHAPTER V.
MANORS AND SERFDOM UNDER SAXON RULE.
I. THE SAXON * HAMS ' AND * TUNS ' WERE MANORS WITH VILLAGE COMMUNITIES IN SERFDOM UPON THEM.
Chap. V. HAVING HOW ascertained that the open field system was prevalent during Saxon, and probably pre- Saxon times, we have next to inquire whether the
* hams ' and * tuns ' to which the common fields be- longed were manors — i.e. estates with a village com- munity in serfdom upon them— or whether, on the contrary, there once dwelt within them a free village community holding their yard-lands by freehold or allodial tenure.
Let us at once dismiss firom the question the word
* manor.' It was the name generally used in the Domesday Survey, for a thing described in the Survey as already existing at the time of Edward the Con- fessor. The estate called a manor was certainly as much a Saxon institution under the Confessor as it was a Norman one afterwards.
The Domesday book itself does not always adhere to this single word ^ manor* throughout its pages.
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom. 327
The word manerium gives place in the Exeter Survey paAP^. to the word tnlla for the whole manor, and mansio for the manor-house ; and the same words, viUa and mansio^ are also used in the instructions * given at the commencement of the Tnquisitio Eliensis. It is perfectly clear, then, that what was called a manor or viUa^ both in the west and in the east of England, was in fact the estate of a lord with a village community in villenage upon it.
In the Boldon Book also the word viUa is used instead of manor.
So in Saxon documents the whole manor or estate was called by various names, generally * ham ' or 'tan:
f In King Alfred's will* estates in the south-east of Kmgr ^ England, including the villages upon them, which by will. Norman scribes would have been called manors, are described as hams (the ham at such a place). In the old English version of the will given in the ' liber de Hyda ' * the word * twune ' is used to translate * ham,' and in the Latin version the word * villa.'*
In the Saxon translation of the parable of the Parable of prodigal son, the country estate of the citizen — the gaiS>ii.^ ' burhsittenden man ' — to which the prodigal was sent to feed swine, and where he starved upon the * bean- cods ' that the swine did eat, was the citizen's * tune: •
So that the * hams ' and * tuns ' of Saxon times were in fact commonly private estates with villages upon them, i.e. manors.
This fact is fiilly borne out by the series of Saxon
Deinde quomodo yocatur mansio ' (f.4»7).
^ Liber de Htfda, p. 68.
• Id. p. 68. * Id. p. 73.
» Luke XV. 16.
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Chap. V.
Grants of
-whole
manors.
Saxon words.
128 The English Village Community.
charters from first to last. They generally, as already said, contain grants of whole manors in this sense, in- cluding the villages upon them, with all the village fields, pastures, meadows, &c., embraced within the boundaries given. And these boundaries are the boundaries of the whole village or township — i.e. of the whole estate.
Further, a careful examination of Anglo-Saxon documents will show that the Saxon manors, not only at the time of Edward the Confessor, as shown by the Domesday Survey, but also long previously, were divided into the land of the lord's demesne and the land in villenage^ though the Norman phraseology was not yet used. The lord of the manor was a thane or * hlafordJ The demesne land was the thane's inland. All classes of villeins were called geneats. The land in viUenage was the geneat-land^ or the gesettes-land^ or sometimes the gafol-land. And further, this geneat-j or gesettes-^ or gafoUland was composed, like the later land in viUenage, of hides and yard-lands, whilst the villein tenants of it, as in the Domesday Survey, were divided mainly into two classes: (1) the ^eAwr^ (villani proper), or holders of yard-lands ; and (2) the cottiers with their smaller holdings. Beneath these two classes of holders of geneat land were the theows or slaves, answering to the servi of the Survey. Lastly, there is clear evidence that this was so as early as the date of the laws of King Ine, which claim to repre- sent the customs of the seventh century.
To the proof of these points attention must now be directed.
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The Saxon Manor and Ser,
11. THE BECrriTUDINES SINQULARUM PE!
In order to make these points clear, attention must be turned to a remarkable document, the Saxon ver- sion of which dates probably from the tenth, and the Latin translation from the twelfth century.^
It is entitled the ' Rectitudines Singularum Person- The ' ^«j- arum,' which may be translated ' the services due from tenth
• 9 century.
vanoibs persons. ^
It commences with two general sections, the first relating to the services of the ' thane,' and the second to those of the ' geneaf
DeceNes lsdu.
Dejenef laju if "f lie fy hif boc-jnhcef pyp6e. "3 f he t5)ieo tSmc op hif lanbe bo. ipy\ib'\9i\\e\b. ") bufih- bote "] bpyc-jepeopc Sac Of man^jum Ian- bum mape lanb-piht a|iijx CO cynijep je- banne. f pilce if beop- heje CO cynijef hame. •3 f copp CO fpitS-fCipe. -3 fae-peapb. -3 heafob- peapb. "3 p]^)ib-peapb. celmef-feoh. -3 cypic- fceac. "3 maeni^^e ot5epeinifclicet$in3C !•
TAINI LEX.
Taini lex est, ut sit dignus rectitudine testamenti eoi, et ut ita faciat pro terra sua, scilicet, expedi- tionem, burh-botam et brig-botam. Et de multis terris majus landirectum exurgit ad bannum regis, sic- ut est deorhege ad mansionem r^am et sceorpum inhosticom, et custodiam maris et capitis, et pacis, et elmesfeob, id est pe- conia elemosine et ciricsceatum, et alie res multimode.
THANKS LAW.
The thane^a law is that he be worthy of his boc-rights, and that he do three things for his land, fyrd-f«reld, burh- bot, and brig-bot. Also from ma/ny lands mare land -ser- vices are due at the king's ba/»in, as deer- /ledging at the king's ham, and apparel for the guard, a/nd searward amd head- ward arwi fyrd-ward and almsfee amd kirkshot, and many other various things.
Thane's serricee.
> See Ancient Laws and Insti- tutes cf England, Thorpe, p. 185. Xbis document was the subject of a
special treatise by Dr. Heinrich Leo, Halle, 1842.
K
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130 Tlie English Village Community.
Chap. V. neNGRTeS RIHT.
OP villein's Eeneac-pilic if miy- sorvices. tlic be fSam fSe on lanbe ps»DC. On pi- mon he fceal lanb- Xapol ryUan ^ jaepf- fp^ on jeape. "^ pi- ban "3 auepian "3 labe l«ban. pypcan "^ hla- popb peopmian. ■] pi- pan ■] mapan. beop- heje heapan. ■] faece halban. bjrlian. -^ baph heje^ian ni^e fapan to ciine peccan. cypic-pceac pyllan "] elmei'-peoh. heapob- peapbe healban -3 hopi-peapbe. spen- bian. pyp ppa nyp. ppa hp^ep fpa hiin mon co-r«Bd5 ;.
Cottiei's servicer.
VILLANI RECTUM.
Yillani rectum est varium et multiplex, secundum quod in terra statutum est. In quibusdam terns debet dare landga- blum et giersspin, id est, porcum herbagii, et equitare vel ave- riare, et summagium duoere, operari, et do- minom suum firmare, metere et falcare, de- orhege cedere, et sta- bilitatem observare, edificare et circum- sepire, novam faram adducereyCiricsoeatum dare et almesfeoh, id est, pecuniam elemo- sine, heafod-wardam custodire et horswar- dam, in nuncium ire, longe vel prope, quo- cunque dicetur ei.
Then follow what really are sub-sections of the latter clause, and they describe the services of the various classes of geneats ; first of the cottiers.
GENEATS SER- VICES.
The gene€^8 ser- vices are various a» . on the land is faced. On some he shall pay land-gafol and grass-swine yearly^ and ride J and carry ^ and lead loads ; tffork and support his hrdy and reap and movj, cut deer- hedge and keep it vpf buildy and hedge the burh, make new roads for the tun : pay kirkEthot and almsfee : keep head- ' ward and horse- | ward : go errands far or near wher- ever he is directed.
KOT-6GTLXN RIHT.
Koce-petlan piht. be t$am 6e on lanbe fcenc. On pumon he pceal aelce GDon-bsje opep j^eapep v^pp: hip lapopbe pjrpcan. oi$t$ .III. i-ajap lelcpe pu- can on heppepc
COTSETLE RECTUM.
Ootsetle rectum est juzta quod in terra constitutumest. Apud quosdam debet omni die Lune per anni spatium operari do- mino suo, et tribus diebus unaquaque septimanain Augusto. Apud quosdam 0})era- tur per totum Augus- tum, omni die, et
COTTIER'S SER- VICES.
The cottier's ser- vices are what on the land is fixed. On some he shaM each Monday in the year work for his lord, and three days a week vn harvest.
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom,
131
KOT-teTLXN RIHT.
netieapF he lanb-sapol ryllan. pim je-by- jiiaS [.v.] aecepar co Iiabbanne. mape j^p hic on lanbe t5eap py- •] CO lyrel hicbiS beo hic a laeife. fopt^an li'r peopc fceal beon opc-paehe. fylle hif heo|if5-p8Bni5 on hal- jan Dunpef-baej. eal J pa a lean n"5^^° men jebypeS. ■) pe- ]niQ hip hlajiopbef m- lanb. ^ip him man beobe. aec pae-peapbe "] sec cynijefbeop-heje. ^ sec fpilcan ^in^^an rpilc hip mae^ p^* 1 pylle hip cypic-pceac CO dDapcinup maep- pan .'•
COTSETLE RECTUM,
unam acram aveue metit pro diumale opere. Et habeat gar- bam siiam quam prse- positus vel minister domini dabit ei. Kon dabit landgablum. Debet habere quinque acras ad perhaben- dam, plus si consue- tude sit ibi, et parum nimis est si minus sit quod deservit, quia sepius est operi ilUus. Det super heorSpe- nig in sancto die Jovis, sicut omnis li- ber faoera debet, et adquietet inland do- mini sui, si submo- nitio fiat de sewarde, id est de custodia maris, vel de regis deorhege, et ceteris rebus que sue men- sure sunt ; et det suum cyricsceatum in festo Sci Martini.
COTTIER'S SER- VICES.
Chap. V.
He ought not to pay land-gafol. He ought to have five acres in his holding, more if it he the custom on the land, and too little it is if it he less: hecause his work is often required. He pays hearth-penny on Holy Thursday, as pertains to every freeman, and de- fends his lord^s in- land, if ?ie is re- quired, from sear ward and from king's deer-hedge, and from sttch things as heft his degree. And he pays his kirk- shot at Martinmas.
Then the services of the gebur or holder of a yard-land are described as follows : —
CGBUReS EGRIHTe.
Gebup-^epihca pyn miplice. jehpap hy pyn hepije. ^ehpap eac mebeme. on pumen lanbe ip f he pceal pypcan co pic-peopce .II. bajap. ppilc peopc ppilc him man raecS o,ep jeapep pyppc. aelcpe pucan. -] on haeppepc .iii ba^ap ro
GEBURI CONSUE- TUDINES.
Geburi consnetu- dines inveniuntur mnltimode, et ubi sunt onerose et ubi sunt leviores aut me- die. In quibusdam terns operatur opus septimane, ii. dies, sic opus sicut ei dioe- tur per anni spatium, omni septimana; et K 2
GEBUR»S SER- VICES.
The Gehur*8 ser- Gebui's inces are various, in seivicea. some places ?ieavy, in others modercUe. On seme land he rrvust work at week- work two days at such work as he is required tlirough the year every week, and at harvest three
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132 The English Village Community.
Chap. V.
Wcek- "work.
Gafol.
Bene- wopk.
Gafol- yrthe.
ceBURes neBiHTe.
pic-peopce. •] opEan- belmseppe ot5 €afcpan .III. pp he BfepatJ ne fSeapj: he pypcan tJa hpile tSe hif hopp uce bi6. pe fceal pyllan on GDichaelep maepfe- baeij .X. 5apol-p. ^ on GDaptinuf maefpe-baej .XXIII. ryr^P* hepef. ■]. II. henpujelap. on GafCpan hu ^eonj )ceap. ot$Se .11. p. 3 he pceal hcjan op GDapcinuf msepfan otJ €arrpan aec hlapopbef palbe. ppa ope ppa him co-bejBet5. *] op tJam CI man t$e man aepepc epet$ o^ GOajicinup msepfan he pceal aelcpe pucan epian .1. ajcep, -y paeban fylp '^ faeb on hlapopbep bepne. co-eacan t^am •III. aecepar co bene. •3 .11. CO jaepp-yptJe. 5;yp he mapan jaepfer bet5yp):etSonne eapni3e [cpije ?] tSsep ppa him man Cap^e. pif jaiiol-yjitSe .111. scepap epij^e -y rape ©F H a^anum bepne. ■] pylle hif heopS-pcnij. cpe- jen 3 cpe;^en peban snne heabop-hunb. ■] 8b1c ;;ebup pylle .vi. hlapar Sam in-fpane 9onne he hip tieopbe CO maep-cene bpi^e. On ^am fjlpum lanbe tSe t5eof paben on- fceencjebupe jebyjietJ J7 him mtm co lanb-
GEBURI CONSUE- TUDINES.
in Augusto III. dies pro septimanali opera- tione, et a festo Oan- delarum ad nsque Pascba lu. Si ave- riat, non cogitur ope- rari quamdiu equus ejus foris moratur. Dare debet in festo Sci Michael is x. d. de gablo, et ScT Martini die XXIII., et sesta- riom ordei, et 11. gal- linas. Ad Pascba i. ovem juvenem vel
II. d. Et jacebit a festo Sci Martini usqne ad Pascba ad faldam domini sui, quotiens ei pertinebit. Et a termino qno primitns arabitur usque ad festum Sci Martini arabit una- quaque septimana i. acram, et ipse parabit semen domini sui in borreo. Ad beec iii. acras precum, et duas de berbagio. Si plus indigeat berbagio, ara- bit proinde sicut ei permittatur. De ara- tura gabli sui arabit
III. acras, et semina- bit de borreo suo et dabit suum beor^pe- nig; et duo et duo pascant unum molos- sum. Et omnis ge- burus det vi. panes porcario curie quando gregem suum minabit in pastinagium. In ipsa terra ubi bee
GEBUR'S SEB« VICES.
day 8 for week- work, amd from Candle- mas to Easier three. If he do carrying he has not to work while his horse is out, Se shall pay on Michaelmas Day X* gafol'pence, and on Martvnm^as Day xxiii. sesiers of bar- ley and two hens; at Easter a young sheep or two pence ; and he shall lie from Martinmas to Easter at his lord^s fold as often as he is told. And from the time that tJiey first plough to Mar- tinmas he shall each week plough one acre, cmd prepare himself the seed in his lord's ham. Also iii. aorfi* bene- work, and ii. to grass- yrtb. If he needs more grass then he ploughs for it €U he is allowed. For his gafol-yrtbe he ploughs iii. a^sres, and sows it from his ovm bam. And he pays his hearth- penny. Two and two feed one hound, and e{ich gebur gives vi. loaves to the swineherd when he drives his herd to m/Mst. On that land where this custotn
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom.
133
treeuRes neRiHTe.
fecene fylle .11. oxan ■] .1. cu, ■) .VI fceap. 3 .VII. secepaf jepa- pene on hif jy\\be, lanbef. poii^i^e opep ^ jeap ealle jepihcu- t$e him to-^ebypi^ean. ■} fylle him man col co hif peopce -3 anbla- nian co hip hufe. Donne him popt$-fi^ Xebypije jyme hip hlafopb t$8ef be laepe I*
Deof lanb-laju jxaenc on fuman lan^e. jeh pap hic if f pa ic tep £f9s!6 hep i^pe jeh- pap eac leohcpe. pop- l$am ealle lanb-f iba ne pyft^ehce. Onfumen lanbe s^bnp fceal f^Ilan hunij-^apol. on f iimaD mece-^ap ol. on fuman ealu - ^apol. pebepetSe pcipehealbe f be pice d hpsc ealb lanb-,.a3ben py. ;] hpaec 5eobe tJeap •-
GEBUJU CONSUE- TUDINES*
oonsuetudo stat, moris est ut ad terram aasi- denclam: dentiir ei 11. boves et i. vacca, et VI. oves, et vii. acre senmiatey izt sua vir- gata terra. Post il- ium annum faciat omnefr rectitudmes que ad eum attinent ; et committantur ei tela ad opus suum et suppellex ad domum suam. Si mortem obeat, rehabeat do- minuB BUUfl omnia.
HsBC consuetude stat in quibusdam locis, et alicubi est, sicut prediximus, gra- vior, et alicubi levior ; quia omnium terra- nim> institu'ta non simt equalia. In qui- busdam locis gebur dabit hunigabbim, in quibusdam metega- blum, in quibusdam ealagabluuL Videat qui scyram tenet, ut semper Bdat que sit antiqua terrarum in- stitution vel populi consuetudo.
yard-land. Where- fore after that year he must perform aU services which per- tain to him. And he must have given to him tools for his workf €md utensils for his- house. Then, when he dies his lord takes Inick what he leaves.
This land-law- holds on some Umds^ but here and there, as I have sadd, it is heavier or lighter Jhr ■ all land services are not alike. On some Icmd the gehur shall pay honey -gafol, on some meat-gafol, on. some ale-galdl. Let him who is over the district take care that he knows what the old land-customs are, a/nd what are the customs of the people.
Then follaw the special services of the beekeeper^ oxherd, cowherd, shepherd, goatherd, &c., upon which we need not dwell here ; and the document concludes with another declaration that the services vary ac- cording to the custom of each district.
GEBUR'S SER- VICES.
holds it pertains to the gehur that he shall have given to him for his outfit iL oxen and I cow and and vii. on his
GfiAP. V.
VI.
acres
sown
Outfit of two oxen to yard- land.
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Survey.
134 The English Village Community.
Chap/v". This important document is therefore a general description of the services due from the thane to the king, and from the classes in villenage to their mano-
Corre- ^^ lovdi. And it might be the very model from
^^h^iT^* which the form of the Domesday Survey was taken.
Doraeflday Both, in fact, first speak of the lord of the manor, and then of the villein tenants ; the latter being in both cases divided into the two main classes of villani and cottiers ; for, as already stated, the Saxon thane answered to the Norman hrd^ the Saxon gebur answered to the villanus of the Survey, and the cot- setle to the cottier or bordariics of the Survey. But these various classes require separate consideration.
HI. THE THANE AND HIS SERVICES.
The The ' Reetitudines ' begins with the thane or lord
'three^ of the manor; and informs us that he owed his military and other services (for his manor) to the king — always including the three great needs — the trinoda necessitas ; viz. (1) to accompany the king in his mihtary expeditions, or fyrd ; (2) to aid in the building of his castles, or burhbote ; (3) to maintain the bridges, or brigbote. Mntrnd ' "^^^ lord's demesne land was called in the Exon
Domesday for Cornwall the ' thane's inland.' So, too, in a law of King Edgar's already quoted, the tithes are ordered to be paid * as well on the thane's inland as on geneat land,* showing that this distinction between the two was exhaustive.
So also in Scotland, where the old Saxon words were not so soon displaced by Norman terms as in
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom. 135
England, the lord of a manor was long called the Chap^. thane of such and such a place. In the chronicler Wintoun's story of Macbeth, as well as in Shakespeare's version of it, there are the * thane of Fyfe '. and the * thane of Cawdor/
And the circumstance which, according to Win- Scotch
_, _ ,,, 1 n-»r i/Y»- example of
toun, gave nse to Macbeth s hatred of Macduff is burhbote itself a graphic illustration of the ' burhbote,' or aid in castle-buHding due from the thane to his king : —
And in Scotland than as kjng
This Makbeth mad gret steryng
And set hym than in hjs powere
A gret hows for to mak off were
Upon the hycht off Dwnsynane.
Tymbjr thare-till to draw and stane
Off Fyfe and off Angws he
Gert mony oxin gadryd be.
Sa on a day in thare traivaile
A yhok off oxyn Makbeth saw fayle,
Than speryt Makbeth quha that awcht
The yhoke that fayled in that drawcht.
Thai awnaweryd till Makbeth agayne,
And sayd, < Makduff off Fyffe the Thane
That ilk yhoke off oxyn awcht
That he saw fayle in to the drawcht*'
Than spak Makbeth dyspytusly.
And to the Thane sayd angryly^
Lyk all wythyn in hys skin,
Hys awyn nek he suld put in
The yhoke and gey hym dvawchtis drawe.*
But the military service was by far the most im- The thane
as a soldier
portant of ' the three needs ' or services due from the thane to the king. The thane was a soldier iSrst of all things. The very word thane implies this. In translating the story of the centurion who had soldiers under him, the Saxon Gospel makes the
' The CronykU of Scotland, B. VL c. xviii.
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136 The English Village Community.
^^•^' ' Hundredes ealdor ' say, ' / have thanes under me * (ic haebbe J?egnas under me).^ And though the text of the translation may not be earlier than the tenth century, yet, as the meaning of words does not change suddenly, it shows that the miUtary service of the thane dated from a still earlier period.
And just as in Norman times the barons and their Norman followers {Francigenoe eorum) were marked off from the population in villenage as companions or associates of the king or some great earl, or as they might now be called * county men,' so the Saxon thanes 400 years before the Norman Conquest were * Gesithcundmen,' in respect of their obligation to ' do fyrd-faereld,' Le, to accompany the king in his royal expeditions. But this association with the king did not break the bond of service. By the laws of King Ine * the gesithcundmen were fined and for- fated their land if they neglected their * fyrd : ' —
LI. Til} ^ept$cunb mon lanb- ajenbe popptce pyP^ ^epelle .c.xx. fcill. "3 l)olie bif lanbey.
61. If a gestthcund man owning land neglect the fyrd, let bun pay cxx. shillings and forfeit his land.
A« a But the * gesithcund ' thanes were landlords as
well as soldiers. And King Ine found it needful to enact laws to secure that they performed their landlord's duties. They must not absent themselves from their manors without provision for the cultiva- tion of the land. When he foeres^ i.e. goes on long expeditions, a gesithcundman may take with him on his journey his reeve, his smith to forge his weapons, and his child's fosterer, or nurse.^ But if he have xx. hides of land, he must show xii. hides at least of
* Matt. viii. 9. * Ines Domas, &. 51. Thorpe, p. 58.
' Id. 8. 63. Thorpe, p. 62.
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdijt^ .^ } V li Jl S T T ^
gesettes land on his manor ; if he have x!^4i]^^''1?ij ^i^^. hides of gesettes land ; and if he have iii. hides, one and a half hides of gesettes land before he absents himself from his manor.i
That ' gesettes land ' was a general and rather The loose term meaning the same thing as ' geneat land ' ^^^ua, or is clear from a charter of a.d. 950, which will be re- ^^^^ ^^^' ferred to hereafter, wherein a manor is described as containing xxx. hides, ix. of inland and xxi. of * gesettes land,' and the latter is said to contain so many yard- lands (' gyrda gafol-landes '). This instance also helps us to imderstand how gafol kmd, and gesettes land, and geneat land were all interchangeable terms — all, in fact, meaning * land in villenage,' to the tenants on which we must now turn our attention.
IV. THE GENK\TS AND THEIR SEBVICES.
It has been shown that the Saxon thane's estate Geneat or manor was divided into thane's inland or demesne J^J^ J^ land, and geneat land or gesettes land^ answering to the ^^iienage. land in viDenage of the Domesday Survey. Let us now examine into the nature of the villenage on the geneat land under Saxon rule.
* Gesettes land' etymologically seems to mean simply land set or let out to tenants. In the parable of the vineyard, the Saxon translation makes the wingeardes hlaford^ gesette' it out to husbandmen (gesette J?one myd eor®-tylion) before he takes his journey into a far country, and the husbandmen are to pay him as tribute a portion of the annual fruits.
* Id. 8. 63-6. Thorpe, pp. 62-3. » Matt. xxi. 33.
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138 The Englih Village Community.
Chap. V.
Need of
husband*
men.
Settene stuhi, ur outfit of
Two oxen to yard- land.
In early times, when population was scanty, there was a lack of husbandmen.
King Alfred, in his Saxon translation of Boethius, into which he often puts observations of his own, ex- presses in one of the most often quoted of these inter- polations what doubtless his own experience had shown him, viz., that ' a king must have his tools to
* reign with — his realm must be well peopled — full
* manned.' Unless there are priests, soldiers, and workmen — ' gebedmen^ fyrdmen^ and weorcmen ' — no king, he says, can show his craft.^
We are to take it, then, that population was still scanty, that a thane's manor was not always as well stocked with husbandmen as the necessities of agri- culture required. The nation must be fed as well as defended, and both these economic needs were im- perative. How, then, was a thane to plant new settlers on his * gesettes-land ' ?
We have seen the Kelso monks furnishing their tenants with their outfit or ^ stuhV — the two oxen needful to till the husbandland of two bovates ; also a horse, and enough of oats, barley, and wheat for seed. The ^ Bectitudines' shows that in the tenth century this custom had long been followed by Saxon landlords. It further shows that the new tenants so created were settled on yard-lands^ and called geburs.
It states that in some places it is the custom that in settUng the gebur on the land, there shall be given to him ' to land setene ' {i.e, as ' stuht ' or outfit) two oxen, one cow, six sheep, and seven acres sown on his yard-land or virgate. Then after the first year
Boethius, c. xvii.
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom.
139
he performs the usual services. Having been supplied ^^p- ^• by his lord, not only with his stuht, but also even with tools for his work and utensils for his house, it is not surprising that on his death everything reverted to his lord.
The gebur here answers exactly to the villanus of post-Domesday times.^ His normal holding is the yard-land or virgate. His stuht^ which goes with the yard-land * to setene,' or for outfit, is two oxen, one cow, &c.; i.e. one ox for each of the two bovates which made up the yard-land.
That this was the usual outfit of the yard-land, and that the yard-land at the same time was the one- fourth part of the siUung or full plough-land, in still earlier times than the date of the ' Bectitudines^' re- ceives clear confirmation from an Anglo-Saxon will dated a.d. 835, in which there is a gift of ' an half siDulungy and * to Sem londe iiii oxan & ii cy & 1 scepa,' &c.^ The half-sulung being the double of the yard-land, it is natural that the allowance for outfit in
* In the Codex D^lonuUicus, No. MCOCLIV., there is im in- tereritiDg document early in the eleventh century, the original of which is in the British Museum {MS. Cott. Tib. B. v. f. 76 6), written on the back of a much older copy of the Gospels^ and con- taining particulars respecting the geburt on the Hatfield estate in Hertfordshire — ^their pediffreea, in fact — showing that they had inter- married with others of the follow- ing manors in Hertfordshire, viz. : — Taccwgatoyrde (Datchworth), Wealaden (King^s or Paul's Wal- den), Webtffun (Welwyn), Wad-
tune (Watton), Munddene (Mun- don), Wilmundeslea (Wymondley), and EsUngadene (Essenden). The fact that it was worth while to preserve a record of the pedigree of the gebun shows that they were adacripti gUha, And there can be no doubt of the identity of the gehurs of this document with the villani of the Domesday Survey of these various places. The pedigrees of villani or natioi were carefully kept in some manors even affcer the Black Death.
^ Cotton MS. Aug%utU8y ii 64, Fao-flimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, Part II.
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140
The English Village Community,
Chap. V.
Sezrices.
Gafol.
Gafol- yrthe.
JB!07f^irork.
the bequest of oxen and cows should be just double the outfit assigned by custom to the yard-land. It * is obvious that the allotment to the whole sulung would be a full team of eight oxen.
The gebur, then, having been * set ' upon his yard- land by his lord, and supplied with his 8etene or ' stuht,' bad to perform his services-
What were these services?
An examination of them as stated in the ' Recti- tudines ' wiD show at once their close resemblance to those of the holders of virgates in villenage in post- Domesday times.
They may be classified in the same way as these were classified.
Some of them are called gnfoi; i.e. they were tributes in money and in kind, and in work at plough- ing, &c., in the nature rather of rent, rates, and taxes than anything else. They were as follows :
At Michaelmas z. gafol-penoe.
At Martinmas zziii. sestero of barley and ii. liens.^
At Easter a young sbeep, or u,d.
Of gafol-ploughing (ffafol-jr^) to plough three aa^, and sow it from
his barn. The hearth-penny. With another gebur to feed a hound. Siz loaves to the swineherd of the manor^ when he takes the flock to
pasture. In some places the gebur gives hon^^a/olj in some mete-gafol, and in
some ale-^afol.
Next there were the precarice or bene-work, extra special services :
To plough three acres 'to bene' {adprecem), and two to 'gersy^e.''
^ This may be read 2Sd, and a SAster of barley ; or, perhaps^ 20d and three sestras of barley. But
the best reading seems to be that in the tezt.
' This is a word oflen used in
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom. 141
Lastly, the chief services were the regular week ^"^^- ^* work (wic-weorce), generally limited to certain days a Week- week according to the season. ^°'
' He shall work for week-work two days at sacli work as he is bid 'throughout the year^ach week; and in August three days' week- '^ work, and from Candlemas to Easter three days.'
These were the services of the gebur or villanuSy Thirty and we may gather that his yard-land embraced the yard-Und ; usual thirty acres or strips, i.e. ten strips in each of fiew" ^ the three common fields of his village. This seems to follow from the fact that his outfit included seven acres sown^ These seven acres were no doubt on the wheat-field which had to be sown before winter. It was seven acres, and not ten, because the crop on the other three counted as * gafolyrSe ' to his lord, and this was not due the first season. The oats or beans on the second or spring-sown field he could sow for himself. The third field was in fallow. The only start he required was therefore the seven acres of wheat which must be sown before winter.
So much for the gehur ; now as \f^ the cottier.
The cottier tenant, in respect of his five acres Cotfier's (more or less), rendered similar services on an humbler five^aCTog' scale. His week-work was on Mondays each week *"^ ^'^
•^ services.
throughout the year, three days a week at harvest. He was free from land-gafol, but paid hearth-penny and church-scot at Martinmas. The nature of his work was the ordinary service of the geneat as re-
later documents, and stems to mean a certain amount of ploughing done as an equivalent for an allowance of grass. OroM-yrihe may he the
gtrfol for the share in the Lammas meadows, and the^/i/o^yr^for the arahle in the yard4and.
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142 The English Village Community,
Chap^. quired by his lord from time to time ; only, having no oxen, he was exempt from ploughing, as he was also after the Norman Conquest.
V. THE DOUBLE AND ANCIENT CHARACTER OF THE SER- VICES OF THE GEBUR — GAFOL AND WEEK-WORK.
Eeturning to the services of the gebur, stress must be laid upon their double character. Like the later villantcs he paid a double debt to his lord in respect of his yard-land and outfit, or * setene' — (1) gafol; (2) week- work.
^W8 ctf This is a point of great importance at this stage
of the inquiry ; for it gives us the key to the mean- ing of an otherwise almost unintelligible passage in the laws of King Ine, which bears directly upon the matter in hand.
Gesettes This passagc immediately foUows those already
quoted, requiring one-half or more of the land of the absentee landlord to be ' gesettes land.'
It follows in natural order after this requirement, because it evidently relates to the process of in- creasing the number of tenants on the gesettes land, so introducing new geburs or villani, with new yard- lands or virgates, into the village community. The clause is as follows :
land.
Yaid-land. Be nVRDE LONDE8.
Gafol And Cip mon j^fim^atS ?^pbe
*'**^'^*' landef oJ))>e mflepe to paebe-ja- pole. "3 jeepe8. 31 p fe hlapopb him pile f !anb apaepan ro peopce 3 CO ^apole. ne )>eap]: he him 0T\j6n ^ip he him nan bod ne fM, . . .
OF A YARD OF LAND. If a man agree for a yard- land or more at a fixed gtifol and plough it, if the lord desire to raise the land to him to work and to ga/olf he need not talce it upon him, if the lord do not give him a dwelling. . . .
' Larvs of Ine, 8. 67. Thorpe, p. 63.
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom.
143
The meaniDg of it apparently is that if a man Chap^. agree for a yard- land or more to * raede-gafol ' {i.e. at such gafol payments as have been described), and plough it, still the lord cannot put the new holding * to weorce and to gafole^ that is, make the holder completely into a gehur or villanus, owing both gafol and week-work to his lord, unless the lord also supply the homestead (' botl •).
That the * botl ' or homestead was looked upon as tlie essential part of a man's holding is shown by another law of King Ine : —
LXVIIT. Erip mon jeptScunbne monnan abpipe. popbpipe ]7y bocle. naef ))sejie fecene;*
6d. If a gesithcund man be driven off, it must be from the hotl^ not the ^^916.
Now the importance of these passages can hardly The manor he exaggerated ; for, if we may trust the genuineness domln ' of the laws of King Ine,^ they show more clearly than ^^^^ anything else could do, that in the seventh century — 400 years before the Domesday Survey — the manor was already to all intents and purposes what it was afterwards. They show that at that early date part of the land was in the lord's demesne and part let out to tenants, who when supplied by the lord with everything — their homestead and their yard-land — owed, not only customary tribute or gafol^ but also * weorce' or service to the lord ; and how otherwise could this 'weorce' be given then or afterwards
^ The opening clause of Ine's laws, as repuUished by King Alfred with his own, states that they were recorded under the
coimsel and teaching of his father Cenred, who resigned his kingship to Ine in ▲.!>. 688.
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144 The English Village Community.
Chap. V. except in the shape of labour on the lord's demesne, as is described in the ' Rectitudines ' ?
It is worth while to notice that while the double debt of both gafol and week-work was due from the gebur or villanus proper, and the week- work was the most servile service, yet even the mere payment of gafol was the sign of a submission to an overlordship. It had a servile taint about it, as well it might, being paid apparently part in kind and part in work. As the class of free hired labourers had not yet been born into existence under these early Saxon economic con- ditions, in times when the theows were the servants, so the modern class of farmers or free tenants at a rent of another's land had not yet come into being. It was the * ceorl ' who lived on * gafol land,* ^ and to pay gafol was to do service, though of a limited kind.
The Saxon translators of the Gospels rendered the question, * Doth your master pay tribute ? ' * by the words * gylt he gafol f ' And they used the same word gafol also in translating the counter question, ' Of whom do kings take tribute^ of their own people or of aliens ? '
So when Bede described the northern conquest of Ethelfred, king of the Northumbrians, over the Britons in A.D. 603, and spoke of the inhabitants as being either exterminated or subjugated, and their lands as either cleared for new settlers or made tributary to the EngUsh, King Alfred in his translation expressed
Gafol 9k
servile
tribute.
Bede.
' Alfred and OuthrunC$ Peacfif Thorpe, p. 66. ' We hold all equally dear, English and Danish, at viii. half marks of pure gold, except the '* oeoirle pe on gafoHrlande tit, and
heora liewngum ^ (ly9ing<m) ; they also are e<)ually dear at cc. shillings/ ».f . they are ' tfcihmde mm,^ » Matt. xvii. 26.
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The Saxon Manor and Serfdom.
145
Steward.'
the latter alternative by the words * set to gafol ' — to Ohap^. gafulgylcbum gesette.^
No doubt the Teutonic notion of a subjugated people was that of a people reduced to serfdom or villenage. They — the conquerors — ^were the nation, the freemen. The conquered race were the aliens, subjected to gafol and servitude.
Thus, recurring to the Saxon translation of the Pa»bie parable of *the unjust steward/ one may recognise unjust how perfectly naturally everything seemed to the translators to transfer itself to a Saxon thane's estate, and to translate itself into Saxon terms.*
The * hlaford ' of the ' tan ' or manor had his * tun-
* gerefan ' or reeve, just as the Saxon thane had. The land in villenage was occupied not by mere trade debtors of the lord, as our version has it, but by
* gafolgyldan ' — tenants to whom land and goods of the lord had been entrusted, as Saxon tenants were entrusted with their ' setene/ and who, therefore, paid gafol or tribute in kind. The natural gafol of the tenant of an olive-garden would be so many ' sesters ' of oil. The tenant of corn land would pay for gafol^ like the English tenant of a yard-land inter alia so
> BedB,Lc. 84:—
Nemo enim in tri- bonifl, nemo in regibuB pluree eorum terras, exterminatis vel sub- jugatis indigenis, aut tributarias genti Ang- lorum, aut habitabilee fecit.
* Luke xvi.
Ne pBBf aeppe 8enij cyninj ne eal- bojiman f maheopa lanba. uce amaepbe 3 him CO jepealbe un- bep|>eobbe f:op]>on tSe he hi CO ^ap ul^ylbum ^efecce on Anjel Beobbe. o]>)7e op heopa lanbe abpap.
Never was there ever any king nor ealdorman that more their lands extermi- nated, and to his power subjected, for that he them to gafol set to the English people, or else off their land drove.
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146 The English Village Community.
^^g^-^' many ' mittena ' of wheat ; and it was the duty of the unrighteous ' tun-gerefan/ or reeve of the manor, to collect the gafol from these tenants, as it was the duty of the Saxon thane's reeve to gather the dues from his servile tenants.
How many otherwise free tenants hired yard-lands without becoming geburs, and rendering the full week- work as well as gafol^ we do not know. Except in the Danish district they seem to have left, as we have seen, no trace behind them on most manors in the Domesday Survey. The fact ah-eady mentioned, that the yard-lands of geburs^ who owed both gafol and services, were sometimes called ^ gyrda gafoUandes^^ shows how completely the gafol and the services had become united as coincidents of a common villein tenure. All villein tenants were apparently ' geneats ' and paid ' gafol,' and there is a passage in the laws of King Edgar which states that if a geneat-man after notice should persist in neglecting to pay his lord's gafolj he must expect that his lord in his anger will spare neither his goods nor his life} Complete- On the whole, leaving out of notice doubtful evidence * and exceptional tenants, as well we may, we are now myotUi ^ ^ position to state generally what were the main centoiy. classcs of villein tenants in early Saxon times, and what were their holdings on the land in villenage, whether it were known as geneat, or gesettes^ or gafol land.
Firsts the ' Reciitudines,' of the tenth century, de- scribes, as we have seen, these tenants as all geneats or villeins, and records their services in general terms.
^ Supplement to Edgar's Laws, L Thorpe, p. 115.
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The 'Saxon Manor and Serfdom. 147
It then divides them into classes, just as the Domes- ^^^^' ^' day Survey does. And the two chief classes of the geneats are the gehura and the cottiers. These two classes are evidently the villani and the hordarii or cottiers of the Domesday Survey.
Secondly^ the same document describes the hold- ings of these two classes. It speaks of the cottiers as holding mostly five acres each — sometimes more and sometimes less — ^in singular coincidence with the Domesday Survey and later evidence. And it describes the gebur^ as we have seen, as holding a yard-land or virgate, the typical holding of the Domesday villanus, and as having allotted to him as * outfit ' two oxen, just as was the case with the Kelso husbandmen.
TTiirdly, the laws of King Ine bring back the evi- dence to the seventh century by their incidental mention of the yard-land as a typical holding on gesetteS'land ; and also of half-hides^ and hides^ as well as of geneats^ and geburs^ with their gafol and weorce.
When this concurrence of the evidence of the tenth and the seventh century is duly considered, it will be seen how complete is the proof that in the seventh century the West Saxon estate, though called a ' tun ' or a ' Aam,' was in reality a manor in the Norman sense of the term — an estate with a village community in villenage upon it under a lord's juris- diction.
* Thorpe, p. 63, where they are mentioned u sometimes held by even WUiacmen^ i,e, tenants not of
Saxon blood.
» Thorpe, p. 50. » Ibid. p. 46.
L 2
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Chap. V.
Manor of Tidenham,
Saxon sinee a J). 677,
148 The English Village Comrrvunity.
VI. SERFDOM ON A MANOR OP KING BDWT.
The evidence hitherto given on the nature of the serfdom on Anglo-Saxon manors has been of a general character.
We are fortunately able to confirm and illustrate it by reference to actual local instances.
The first example is that of the manor of Tiden- ham, and it derives a more than ordinary value from its peculiar geographical position.
The parish of Tidenham comprises the wedge- shaped corner of Gloucestershire, shut in between the Wye and the Severn, where they join and widen into the Bristol Channel ; while to the north-east, on its land side, it was surrounded by the Forest of Dean.
In the belief of local antiquaries, the Boman road from Gloucester to Caerleon-upon-Usk — the key to South Wales — passed through it as well as the west- em continuation of the old British road of Akeman Street from the landing-place of the Severn, opposite Aust (where St. Augustine is said to have met the Welsh Christians) to the ftirther crossing-place on the Wye. Lastly, upon it was the southern end of Offa's Dyke, the mysterious rampart which, commencing thus at the mouth of the Wye, extended to the mouth of the Dee.^
The manor probably has been in English hands ever since about the time when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, after Deorham battle in a.d. 577, Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester were wrested from
* For the archieolog^ of Tiden- ham see Proceeding» of the Cattea^ foMNaturaluts' Field CM, 1874-5, and Mr. Ormerod's Archaological
Memairs relatiog to the district adjaoent to the confluence of the Severn and the Wye. London, 1861 (not puhlished).
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THE MANOR OF
TIDENHAM
Edw* WeUer
I
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Manor of King Edwy.
149
was a royal
the Welsh by Ceawlin, king of the West Saxons, On^r^. According to the Welsh legends of the Liber Lan- davensis ^ this was about the time when the diocese of Uandaff was curtailed by the Wye instead of the Severn becoming the boundary between the two king- doms. It may therefore have been for nearly five centuries before the Norman Conquest the extreme comer of West Saxon England on the side of South Wales.
Conquered probably by Ceawlin, or soon after the year 577, the manor of Tidenham seems to have remained folkland or terra regis of the West Saxon kings, till Ofia conquered it from them and gave his name to the dyke upon it. One of its hamlets bore, as we shall find, the name of Cinges tune^ and Tiden- ham Chase remained a royal chase till after the Norman Conquest.
The manor itself was granted by King Edwy in ^^^^ A.D. 956 by charter* to the Abbot of Bath, under a.d. 966,to whose name it is registered in the Domesday Survey, of Bath. ^ It is in this charter of King Edwy that the descrip- tion of the manor and of the services of the tenants is contained. The services must be regarded, there- fore, as those of a royal manor before it was handed over to ecclesiastical hands.
The boundaries as appended to the charter are d^^riee^g^ii given below,* and may still, with slight exceptions, be t^be traced on the Ordnance Survey.
» Pp. 874-6.
« Kemble'8 Cod, Dip. COCOLII. (voL iL p. 837).
* Codfix Dip, iii. p. 444 ; App. CCCOLII. < Difl synd «s landge- mera to Djddenli&aie. Of W»ge- mu^sn to iwee h^afdan; of iwes
h^fden on St&nrffiwe; of St&n-> rsswe on hwitftn heal ; of hwitan heale on iwdene; of iwdene on br&dan m6r; of bridan mdr on Twyfyrd j of Twyfyrd on astege pul ut innan Siefern.'
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150 The English Village, Community.
o^^'^* The northern limit on the Severn is described
as Aatege pul, now, after a thousand years, known as AshweU Grange Pill, the puis of 1,000 years ago and the present pills being the little streams which wear away a sort of miniature tidal estuary in the mud- banks as they empty themselves into the Severn and the Wye. Numbers of pills are marked in the Ord- nance map, and as many * puis ' are mentioned in the boundaries of Saxon charters and those inserted in the Liber Landavensis.
After the boundaries, under the heading ' Divi- * siones et consuetudines in Dyddanhamnie,'^ the docu- ment proceeds to state that * at Dyddanhamme are Inland ^viSl ^ XXX. hides, ix. of inland and xxi. of gesettes land.' fwd!** The manor was therefore in the tenth century divided into demesne land and land in villenage.
Next are stated separately the contents of each hamlet on the manor, as follows : —
Yard- At Str€Bt are zii. Iddee — ^zxvii. gyrda gafollandes, and on the devem
lands. XXX. cytweras.
At Middeitwu are y. hides — ^xiiii. gyrda gafoUandes, xiiii. cytweras on the Severn, and ii. hiBCweraa on the Wye. Hae- and At the CingeB tiine are v. hides — xiii. gyrda gafollandee, and i. hide
cyt- wein. above the dyke, which is now also gafolland ; and that outside the
hamme is still part inland and part gesett to gafol to ' scipwealan.' At the Cinges tune on the Severn are xxi. cytweras, and on the Wye xiL At the Bishop's tune are iii. hides, and xy. cytweras on the Wye. At Landcawet are iii. hides and ii. hsdcweras on the Wye, and ix. cytweras.
Thus this manor, like the Winslow manor, had hamlets or small dependencies upon it, and these are
' Cod. Dip. iii. p. 4^, where they are evidently misplaced.
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Manor of King Edwy. 151
still traceable on the map. Street is still Stroat on the Om^. old Boman street — the Via Jidia (?) — ^from Glou- The ham- cester to Caerleon. The Cinges tune, now Sudbury, lay on the high wedge-shaped southern promontory above the cliffs, between the Wye and Severn where they join ; and it lies as it did then, part on one side and part on the other side of Offa's Dyke, as if the dyke had been cut through its open fields. Its fisheries were naturally some on the Severn and some on the Wye. The ' Bishop's tune ' is still traceable in Bishton farm. Lastly, Llanccmt, the only hamlet on this Saxon manor 900 years ago with a Welsh name, bears its old name still. This hamlet is surrounded almost entirely by a bend of the Wye, and its situation backed by its woods {coit^wood) may well have protected it from destruction at the time of the Saxon conquest.
Next, it is clear that the gesettes land in the open fields round each * tiine ' or hamlet, except at Llanr caut and Bishop's tune, was divided, as usual, into yard-lands — gyrda gafollandes. These yard-lands and the open fields have long since been swept away by the enclosure of the parish.
Besides the yard-lands there were belonging to The fishing each hamlet the numerous fisheries — cytweras and hcecweras — some on the Severn and some on the Wye. What were these * cyt ' and * hcec ' weirs ?
They certainly were not the ancient dams or banks across the river which are now called * weirs,' over which the tidal wave sweeps, thus—
' Hufihiug half the habhUog Wye.'
It is impossible that there can have been so many of these as there were cytweras and hcecweras 900
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152 The English Village Community.
Chap^. years ago — as many as thirty together at Street, fourteen at Middletune, and twenty-one at Cingestune. The fact is that the old Saxon word wera meant any structure for entrapping fish or aiding their capture, And no doubt arrangements which would not be called * weirs ' now were so called then. The words cyt and hoec weras seem to point rather to wattled basket and hedge weirs than to the solid structures now called weirs.
But the best illustration of what they were may be derived from the arrangements now at work for catching salmon in the Wye and Severn.
Cytwerw. Xhc Stranger who visits this locality will find here
and there across the muddy shore of the Severn struc- tures which at a distance look like breakwaters ; but on nearer inspection he will find them to be built up of rows two or three deep of long tapering baskets arranged between upright stakes at regular distances. These baskets are called jmtts or butts or kypes^ and are made of long rods wattled together by smaller ones, with a wide mouth, and gradually tapering almost to a point at the smaller or butt end. These putts are placed in groups of six or nine between each pair of stakes, with their mouths set against the outrunning stream ; and each group of them be- tween its two stakes is called a * puttcher.' The word * puttcher ' can hardly be other than a rapidly pronounced putts weir^ i.e. a weir made of putts. If the baskets had been called * cyts ' instead of * putts,' the group would be a cytweir. So, e.g.^ the thirty cytweras at Street would represent a breakwater such as may be seen there now, consisting of as many putt- chers. This use of what may be called basket weirs
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Manor of King Edwy. 153
is peculiar to the Wye and the Severn, and has been Chat^v. adopted to meet the difficulty presented by the un- usual volume and rapidity of the tidal current.
Then as to the hascweras there is nothing unusual HaBcweras. in the use of barriers or fences of wattle, or, as it is stUl called, hackle^ to produce an eddy, or to entrap the fish. Thus a statute (1 Geo. I. c. 18, s. 14) relating to the fisheries on the Severn and the Wye uses the following words : * If any person shall make, ' erect, or set any bank, dam, hedge^ stank, or net * across the same,' &c.
These wattled hedges or hackle -weirs are some- times used to guide the fish into the puttchers, but generally in the same way as more permanent struc- tures on the Wye, now called mAs, to make an eddy in which the fish are caught from a boat in what is called a stop-net
This mode of fishing is also peculiar to the Wye Sahnon and Severn. The boat is fixed by two long stakes *"^' sideways across the eddy, and a wide net, Uke a bag with its open end stretched between two poles, is let down so as to ofier a wide open mouth to the stream which carries the closed end of the bag-net under the boat. When a salmon strikes the net the open end is raised out of the water, and the fish is taken out behind. This clumsy process of catching salmon is the ancient traditional method used in the Wye and Severn fisheries, and so tenaciously is it adhered to that the fishermen can hardly be induced to substi- tute more efficient modem improvements.
So much for the cytweras and the hcecweras.
The fisheries are now almost exclusively devoted to salmon. About the date of the Norman Conquest
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154 The English Village Community,
^^^^- the manor of Tidenham was let on lease by the Bishop of Bath to Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury,^ and as a portion of the rent reserved was 6 porpoises (merswin) and 30,000 herrings, it would seem at first sight that the main fisheries there were for herrings rather than salmon, but it is more probable that the lease was a mutual arrangement whereby the arch- bishop's table was provided with salmon from the west, and the monks of Bath with herrings from the east.
Turning from the fisheries to the services, they are described as follows :* —
Oenerftl serviceB of geneaU*
Of Djddanhamme gebyretS micel weorcrtlden.
Se geneat soeal wjrcan 8w& on lande, 8w& of lande, hwetSer 8W& him man byt, and ridan and aue- rian, and l&de l^edan, drafe drifan, and fela 6Sra ]>inga d6n.
To Tidenham belong many serviceg.
The geneat shall work as well on land as off land, whicheyer he is bid; and ride, and carry and lead loads, and drive droves, and do other things.
And after thus stating, to begin with, the general services of aU geneatSj the document proceeds, like the * Rectitudines,' to describe the special services of the gebur, or holder of a yard-land.
Services of gebwra.
Week- work.
Se gebur soeal his riht d6n.
He sceal erian healfne t6 wlceworce, and necan sylf t^set e»d on hlifordes heme geh^lne t6 cyrcscette, s& h wetSere of his ^num beme.
To werbolde xl. meera otS^e &n fo<5er gyrda ; ot$t$e viii. geocu byld. iii. ebban tyne. -/Ecertyninge xv. g^rda, otS^e diche fiftyne; and dlde i. gyrde burhheges, ripe 6t$er heal&e »cer, m&we healfhd; on otSran weorcan wyrce, k be weorces msdtSe.
The gebur shall do his < riht: He shall plough a half-«cre as week-work, and himself prepare the seed in the lord's bam ready for kirkshot, or else from his own bam.
For weisvbuilding 40 large rods or 1 }oad of small rods, or build 8 yokes and wattle 3 ebbs. Of acre-fencing 15 yards, or ditch 16 ; and ditch 1 yard of burh-hedge, reap 1 acre and a half, mow half an acre. At other work, work as the work requires.
» Cod, Dip, DOOC., XXII, « Cod, Dip, iu. p. 460,
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Manor of King Edtvy. 155
These are the various details of his tceek-work. c^arV. Then follow the ^o/b^payments.
SjUe tL penegas ofer ^tre, i Pay Qd. after Easter, half a Chifol. healfne sester hunies t6 Hl&f- sester of honey (or mead?) at m»88an. yi. aystres mealtes t6 Mar- Lammas. 6 sesters of malt at Mar- lines miBsse, an cliwen g6defi nett- tinmas, 1 dew of good net-yam. On gemes. On ^am sylfum lande stent , the same land, if he has 7 swine, he 6e5evii.swynh8BbbetothesylleiiL pays 3, and so forth at that rate, and 8W& fbrt$ & f$at teo^, and tSies and nevertheless give mast dues if naSulsds nuBstonni&dene tk>mie there be mast, mffisten bed. i
It will be observed that in their week-work the geburs of Tidenham, in addition to strictly agricul- tural services, had to provide the materials for the puttchers and hedge- weirs, as well as other requisites for the fisheries.
What the eight geocu to be built may have been is doubtfiil ; but the tyning or wattling of three ebbs was at once explained on the spot by the lessee of the fisheries, who pointed out that when hackle weirs were used, three separate wattled hedges would always be needed, as, owing to the very various heights of the tide, the hedge must be difierently placed for the spring tides, the middle tides, and the neap tides re- spectively.
The * week- work ' was shown by the ' Rectitudines ' to be the chief service of the gebur, and this work^ added to the gafoU made the holder of the yard-land into a gebur ^ according to the laws of Ine.
Two things are very striking about the week- work No limita-
on the manor of Tidenham. (1) There is no limit to week-work three days a week more or less, as in the ^ Recti- ^yg, tudines.' (2) There is a clear adaptation of the week-
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156 The English Village Community.
Chap.v. -v^ork to local circumstances. In particular the fisheries have a prominent regard in its arrangement. As described in the ' Rectitudines^' the work varied accord- ing to the customs of each place. So much for the ' week-work.' Noben^ Next, there were at Tidenham no ^ precarice^ or
**^ * * bene ' works, which formed so prominent a feature in the later services. When the week-work was not limited to some days only, clearly there was no need or room for these additional services.
Lastly, as to the gafol — this formed a prominent feature of the weork-roeden of the Tidenham yard- land. G^fiA It consisted mainly of the produce of the land, like
pwiiwe^ the gafol of the gafolgylders in the Saxon translation honey, &c. ^f ^^ parable of ' the unjust steward.' Honey and malt, or ale, and yam and pork — these, as we shall see by-and-by, were the chief products of this and the ad- joining districts of Wales.
These, then, were the services of the geburs of
Tidenham in respect of their yard-lands in a.d. 950,
while the manor was still in royal hands just before it
was handed over to the Abbot of Bath.
Compari- Now let US Compare these services with the
se^eeBin scrviccs on the same manor 350 years afterwards,
toenS"^ in the time of Edward I. An Inquisiiio post mortem
centuiy. of the 35th year of Edward I. enables us to make
this comparison.^
The following is an abstract of the services of a tenant who held a messuage and xviii. acres of land in villenage (probably -e half-virgate).
^ Record Office, Chancery InquigUicru pott mortem, Anno 36 Edw. 1. No. 46 b. Gloucestria, $ Manerium de Tudenham,
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Manor of King ^^^|UKI X' J'-f?^ I X ^ ''
.0.
Wl8 week-work wBs — ^^^ii7r'^» yry^^*'^-
5 days in every other week for xxzv. weeks in nte^^^^KULJbBi- ^ Michaelmas to Midsummer, except the festival weeks of Christmas, . Easter, and Pentecost f^^ works.
2| days every week for 6 weeks from Midsummer to Gules of August ; 15 works.
3 days every week for 8 weeks from Gules of August to Michaelmas ; 24 works.
And of this week-work between Michaelmas and Christmas, 1 day's work every other week was to be ploughing and harrowing a half-acre. Each ploughing was accounted for a day's work.
Then as to his precarice^ —
He made 1 preearia called 'cherched,' and he ploughed and har- rowed a half-acre for com, and sowed it with 1 bushel of com from his own seed ; and in the time of harvest he had to reap and hind and stack the produce, receiving one sheaf for himself on account of the half-acre, ' as much as can be bound vnth a binding of the same com, cut near the land.'
And he had to plough 1 acre for oats, and this was accounted for 2 days' manual work.
And he made another precariay ploughing a half-acre with his own plough for winter sowing with as many oxen as he possessed, so that there should be a team of 8 oxen. But if he had no oxen he did not plough.
And he made [several otheT precaruB of various kinds].
Lastly came his gafol^ &c.
He gave i. hen, which was called ' wodehen,' at Christmas.
And 5 eggs at Easter.
And Id. for every yearling pig, and id. for those only of half-year,
by way of pannage. He paid ... for every horse or mare sold. And viii. gallons of beer at every brewing. And he could not marry his daughter without licence.
Now, comparing the services on the manor of Tidenham at these dates 300 years apart, at which period was the service most complete serfdom? at the later date, when the week-work of the villeins was limited to two and a half, or three days a week, and in addition he made precarice or extra works ; or at the earlier date, when his week-work was unlimited
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158 The English Village Community.
^^^^^* as to the days, and therefore there was no room for
the extra work ? Saxon Ber- Surely the unlimited week-work marked the most complete. Complete serfdom. Surely the later services, limited in their amount and commutable into money pay- ments, were clearly a mitigated service fast growing into a fixed jnoney rent. In fact, the gebur or viUa- nus was fast growing into a mere customary tenant in the time of Edward I. Indeed, he is not called in the ' Inquisition ' a ' viUanus^* but a ' custumariusy' and such he was. He was halfway on the road to free- dom. Another sign of the times was this, that at the later date, side by side with the customary tenants on the land in villenage, a whole host of libere tenentes had already grown up upon the lord's demesne, not, as we have more than once observed, necessarily Uberi homines at all, but some of them viUein tenants or custumarii holding additional pieces of free land of the lord's demesne. Of these free tenants there were none at the earlier period. So that the gebur^ with his weorh-rceden 100 years and more before the Norman Conquest, was much more clearly a serf, and rendered far more complete and servile ser- vices than his successor in the thirteenth century, with the Black Death and Wat Tyler's rebellion in the near future before him.
Finally, let us look backward and ask how long this more complete serfdom had lasted on the manor of Tidenham. They pro- If in the laws of King Ine are found, as we have
biiWv ffo
back to seen, the ^ gesettes land' dindi ^ gyrd lands ^' and the first con^ * gafoly and the ' weork^' and the ' geneat,' and the qneet ^ gebur,' and the obligation not to leave the lord's
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Manor of King Edwy. 159
land ; and if all these were incidents of what in the Ch^p. v. ' Rectitudinea ' and in the charter of King Edwy just examined was in fact serfdom — if the laws of Ine are good evidence that this serfdom existed in full force in the seventh century anywhere — they must surely be good evidence that it existed on the manor of Tidenham. For it was, as we have seen, a royal manor of King Edwy, and most probably he had received it through a succession of royal holders from King Ine. There is no evidence of its having ceased to be folcland, and so to be in the royal demesne . of the kings of Wessex or of Mercia, from Ine's time to Edwy's. And if it was a royal manor of .Bang Ine's, surely the laws of King Ine may be taken to interpret the serfdom on his own estate. Lastly, - looking further back still, as King Ine probably held the manor in direct succession from CeawUn, or whoever conquered it from the Welsh, and cut it from the diocese of Llandaff in a.d. 577 or thereabouts, the inference is very strong indeed that the weork- rceden had remained much the same ever since, 100 years before the date of King Ine's laws, it first fell under Saxon rule.
The lesson to be learned from a careful tracing Changes in back of the customs of such a manor as Tidenham, tomaT^^ and we might add also the methods of fishing, and ®^*^^* the construction of the * cyt ' and ' hcecwera^^ surely is, that in those early times changes in custom and habit were slow, and not easily made. It would be as unlikely that between the days of King Ceawlin and those of King Ine great changes should have been made in the internal economic structure of a Saxon manor, as that in the same period bees should have changed the shape of their hexagonal cells.
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160
The English Village Community.
Chap. V,
VII. SERFDOM ON A MANOR OP KING ALFRED.
and Alfred.
Manor of "^^^ second example of a Saxon manor is that of
Hyaae- < Stoke-by-Hyssebume ' on the river Itchin in Hamp- which had shire.^ It had belonged in succession to King Egbert, to Egbert, King Ethelwulf, and Bang Alfred, and was by his son Eth wuif, E^^Q^j-d given over to the monks of the *old minster' at Winchester under the following curious circum- stances.
King Alfred, towards the close of his reign, in his anxiety for the better education of the children of his nobles, called to his aid the monk Grimbald, from the monastery of St. Bertin, near St. Omer in Picardy, in which he himself had spent some time in his child- hood on his way to Eome. It was the plan of Grim- bald and King Alfred to build a new monastery (the * new minster ') at Winchester where Grimbald should carry out the royal object. But King Alfred died before this wish was fully accomplished. He had bought the land for the chapel and dormitory in
^ Mr. Kemble identifies this place with Stoke near Hurstbeume Priors, near Whitechurch ; but it seems rather to be one of the Stokes on the Itchin Biver near Win- chester.
That the upper part of the Itchin was called ' Hyssebume* and * Ticce- bume,' see Cod. Dip. MLXXVII., CCCXLII., MXXXIX. & OLVni. The boundaries in MLXXVIT. of ' Hyssebuma * (beginning at Twy- ford) correspond at a few points with those of ' Hissebume ' in Abingdon, i. p. 318, und of Eastime appended thereto, and of Eastune
in Cod. Dip. MOCXXX. The portion of Twyford and Easton fixes the locality on the Itchin. The parishes of Itchin Stoke and Titoh- bourne (^et Hissebume') still nearly adjoin those of Twyford and Easton, but the parishes here are intermixed, and the 'Hyssebume' of the charters may have been a district with different boundaries. Compare Domesday Survey, i. 40, where Tw^ffordy £astune, and Stoches occur together among the ' Terra WhUofiensis Epi^eopi.^ See the map in the last section.
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Manor of King Alfred. 161
the city, but the building and endowment of the Chap. v. monastery was left for his son King Edward to complete. Grimbald, then eighty-two years old, was the first abbot, but within a year died and was canonised. The body of King Alfred lay en- shrined in Winchester Cathedral, in the ' old minster ' of the bishop ; but the canons of the old foundation having, according to the Abbey Chronicle, conceived * delirious fancies ' that the royal ghost, roaming by night about their cloisters, could not rest in peace, the remains of Alfred and his queen were removed to the ' new minster.'^
Now, King Ethelwolf, when dying, having left to King Alfred his son certain lands at ' Cyseldene ' and elsewhere, with instructions when he died to give them over to the refectory of the old minster. King Alfred in his will gave his land at that place to the proper official at Winchester accordingly. In other words, the body of King Alfred lay in the * new minster,' and this land given for the good of his soul belonged to the ' old minster.' So it came to pass — whether this time the * delirious fancies ' of the super- stitious canons had anything to do with it or not cannot be told — ^that this property at Cyseldene, Kke the royal donor's body, could not rest in the hands of the * old minster,' but must be transferred to the ' new minster.' So King Edward in the year 900 made an arrangement with the monks, whereby the lands at Cyseldene were transferred to the ' new Granted to minster,' and by charter he gave instead of them to mhist^e^* the ' old minster ' ten holdings (manentes) at Stoke- *^J^°"
^ See Idber de Myda, Mr. Edwards* Introduction. M
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The English Village Community.
Ohap. V.
The
or fiunily holding, eqaal here to jard- land. Serviceg,
be-Hissebume, tvith all the men who were thereon^ and those at ' Hissebume^' when King Alfred died.
It is in the charter ^ effecting this object that the services are described. * Here are written the gerihte ' that the ceorls shall do at Hysseburne.' From every ' hiwisce ' such and such services. The hiwisce or family holding seems from the services to have been a yard-land of 30 acres. The services were as follows : —
Gafbl and
gafol-
yHke,
H^r synd gewriten t$a gerihta t$83 "Sa ceorlas sculan d6n td Hysae- buman.
^rest 8Bt hilcan hiwisce feor- werti penega 16 herfestee eninihte : and yi. ciricmittan ealatS ; and iii. ses^lar hlaf hw^tes : and iii. seceras ge-erian on heora SBgenre hwile, and mid heora %enan 8»da gee6- wan, and on hyra figenre [h]wile on h»rene gebringan : and ]?r^ pund gauolbeeres and healfie seoer gaaol- m&de on hiora dgienie hwfle, and t$et on hreaee gebringan : and iiii. f6Sera iclofenas gauolwyda t6 •cidhrsdoe on hiora ^nre hwjQe: and zvi. gyrda gauoltininga edc on hiora &genre hwfle: and t6 E&stran tw6 ewe mid twam lam- ban, and we [talatS] two geong sceap 16 eald soeapan : and hi scu- lan waxan sceap and sciran on hiora ^igenre hwlle.
Here we have clearly, as in the * RectitudineSy the gafoly including the three acres of gafol-yrth or plough- ing, as well as other gafol-work and payments in
Here are written the services that the ceorls shaU do at Hysse- bume.
From each hiwisc (family) 40d. at harvest equinox, and 6 church- mitlans of ale, and 3 sesters of bread-wheat: and plough 3 acres in their own time, and sow it with their own seed, and in their own time bring it to the barn: and 3 pounds of gafol-barley, and a half- acre of gafol-mowing.in their own time, and to bring it to the rick: and split 4 fothers (loads) of gafol- wood and stack it in their own time, and 16 yards of gafol-fendng in their own time ; and at Easter two ewes with two lambs, and two young sheep may be taken for one old one : and they shall wash sheep and shear them in their own time.
» Codex Dip, MLXXVII. ; and Dugdale, Winchester Monastery, Num. X. This charter is preserved in a copy of the twelfth century in
the Winchester Cartulary (St. Swithin's) now in the British Museum. Add. MSS. 15360, f. 696.
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Manor of King Alfred.
163
kind. And if the services had stopped here, we might Ch^^^- have concluded that the ' ceorls ' of Hysseburne were gafolgelders, and not serfs. But there is another clause which forbids such a conclusion — ^which shows that, in the words of the laws of King Lie, they were * set to work 2iS well as to gafoV It is this : —
And ^Ice wocan wircen t$8Bt hi man h&te butan Jvim, &n t6 middan-wintra, o^ru t6 E&stran, ))ridde to Gangdagan.
And every week do what work Week- they are hid, except three weeks — work, one at midwinter, the second at Easter, and the third at ' Gang days.'
Comparing these services with the other examples, they do not seem to be any more the services of free- men, or any les? those of serfs. They seem to plainly bear the ordinary characteristics of what is meant by serfdom wherever it is found. There is the gafol and there is the week-work ; and the latter is not limited Unlimited. to certain days each week, as in the * RectitudineSy but ' each week^ except three in the year^ they are to work
AS THEY ARE BID.'
And these are the services — this is the serfdom — on a manor which was part of the royal domain of King Alfred, which for three successive reigns at least, and probably for generations earlier, had been royal domain, and now by the last royal holder is handed over, with the men that were upon it, to the perpetual, never-dying lordship of a monastery, as an eternal inheritance.
Finally, the evidence of these Saxon documents — The chain the * Hectitudines ' and the charters of Tidenham and complete. Hysseburne — ^read in the light of the later evidence and of the earlier laws of King Lie, is so clear that it seems needful to explain how it has happened that
II 2
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164
The English Village Community.
^^^'^* there has ever been any doubt as to the servile nature of the services of the holders of yard-lands in Saxon times. The explanation is simple. Mr. Kemble quotes from all these documents in his chapter on ^Lcenland ; ' ^ but for want of the clear knowledge what a yard-land was, it never seems to have occurred to him that in these services of the geburs or holders of yard-lands we have the services of the later viUani of the Domesday Survey — the services of the holdings embracing by far the greater part of the arable land of England. Dr. Leo, in his work on the * Rectitu- dines,* confesses that he does not know what is meant by the yard-land of the gebur.* It is only when, pro- ceeding from the known to the unknown, we get a firm grasp of the fact that the yard-land was the normal holding of the gebur or villanus, that it was a bundle of normally thirty scattered acres in the open fields, that it was held in vUlenage, and that these were the services under which it was held of the manorial lord of the ham or tun to which it be- longed— ^it is only when these facts are known and their importance realised, that these documents be- come intelligible, and take their proper place as links in what really is an unbroken chain of evidence.
VIII. THE THEOWS OR SLAVES ON THE LOED's DEBiESNE.
One word must be said of the theows or slaves on
lest we should
daw. the lord's demesne — the thane's inland-
^ Saxom m England, pp. 819 et seq.
> H. Leo, Rectitudmes. Halle, 1842, p. 281. ' Wenigstens weisz
ich " on liis gyrde landes ** (auf fleiner rute des gutea, oder dea landea) an dieaer stelle mcht andera zu er- Uaren.*
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The Theows or Slave Class.
165
forget the existence of this lowest class of all, in con- GharV. trast with whose slavery the geburs and cottiers on the geneat land, notwithstanding their serfdom, were ^free' These latter were pi-aedial serfe * adscripti glebae,' but not slaves. The theows were slaves, bought and sold in the market, and exported from English ports across the seas as part of the commercial produce of the island. Some of the theows were slaves by birth. But it seems to have been a not uncommon thing for freemen to sell themselves into slavery under the pressure of want.^
The ' servi ' of the Domesday Survey were no doubt The eem the successors of the Saxon theows. And as in the Domeeday Survey the servi are mostly found on the demesne ®^' land of the lord, so probably in Saxon times the theows were chiefly the slaves of the manor-house. Most of the farm work on the thane's inland, espe- cially the ploughing, was done . no doubt by the ser- vices of the villein tenants ; but as, in addition to the villein ploughs, there were the great manorial plough teams, so also there were theows doing slave labour of various kinds on the home farm of the lord, and maintained at the lord's expense.
In the bilingual dialogue of -Mfric,* written in Saxon and Latin late in the tenth century as an educa- tional lesson, in the reply of the ' yrthling ' or plough- man to the question put as to the nature of his daily work, a touching picture is given of the work of a theow conscious of his thraldom : —
^ See Kemble's Saxcns m Eng^ land, i. p. 106.
^ BrttUh Mumm Cotton MS.
Tib. A. III. f. 68 h. For the text of this paasage I am indebted to Mr. Thompson of the British Museum,
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The English Village Community.
Chap. V.
Feeling! of the theow.
Hwet fiSBgest )m yrj^linge P Hu begsBst }»u weoro ]nii P Eala leof hlaford )>earle ic deorfe ic ga ut on dttgrsd l^j- wende ozon to felda and iugie big to syl. NyB hyt swa stearc winter ]i8et ic durre lutian mt ham for ege hlafordes mines ac geiukodan oxan and gefsBstnodon Bceare and cultre mit ))8ere syl (elce dsBg ic sceal erian fiilne Vd^et (sacer) o^^ mare.
HsB&t ]7u lenigne geferan P Ic ludbbe sumne cnapan ]>y wende oxan mid gad isene )>e eacswilce nu has ys for cylde and hreame. Hwet mare dest ])n on daeg P Gewyslioe )>8Bnne mare ic do. Ic sceal fyUan binnan oxan mid big and wsBterian big and soeasn (scearn) heora beran ut. big big micel gedeorf ys byt geleof micel gedeorf bit ys for]>am ic neom freoh.
What sayeat thou, plowman P How dost tbou do thy work P Ob, my lord, bard do I work. I go out at daybreak driving the oxen to field, and I yoke them to the plough. Nor is it ever so hard winter that I dare loiter at home, for fear of my lord, but the oxen yoked, and the ploughshare and coulter fastened to the plough , every day must I plough a full acre, or more.
Hast tbou any comrade P I have a boy driving the oxen with an iron goad, who also is hoarse with cold and shouting.
What more dost thou in the dayP
Verily then I do more. I must fill the bin of the oxen with bay, and water them, and cany out the dung. Ha! ha I bard work it is, hard work it is ! because lani not free.
Perhaps some day* his lord will provide him with an outfit of oxen, give him a yard-land, and make him into a gebur instead of a theow. This at least seems to be his yearning.
IX. THE CREATION OP NEW MANORS.
We have hitherto spoken only of the manors. Are we therefore to conclude that there was no land extra-manorial ?
It may be asked whether * folkland ' was not extra- manorial.
Now in one sense all that belonged to the ancient or manors. (Jemesnc of the Crown was folkland and extra-ma- norial. All estates with the villages and towns upon them, which had no manorial lord but the king.
Folkland, or terra regii^ in- cluded royal Aa^TM
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Creation of New Manors. 167
were in the demesne of the Crown, as also were the Chap. v. royal forests.
Formerly, while there were many petty kings in England, and before the kingship had attained its unity and its fiill growth, i.e. before it had, as we are told by historians, absorbed in itself exclusively the sole representation of the nation, the term folkland was apparently applied to all that was afterwards included in the royal demesne. All that had not become the boc-land or private property either of members of the royal house or of a monastery or of a private person was still folkland. And it has been supposed that the kings had originally no power to alienate this folkland without the consent of the great men of their witan.
But inasmuch as the royal demesne or folkland included an endless number of manors as well as forest, it cannot properly be said that it was neces- sarily extra-manorial. More correctly it was in the manor of the king. The king was its manorial lord, and the geburs and cottiers upon it were geneats or villani of the king. The Tidenham and Hysseburne manors were both of them manors of the royal de- mesne until they were granted by charter to their new monastic owners.
Now, it is clear that in the course of time, after that in a similar way grant after grant had been made of ' ham ' after ' ham,' with its httle territory — its agerj or ageUus^ or ageUuluSj as the ecclesiastical writers were wont to describe it in the charters — to the king's thanes or to monasteries, as boc-land or private estate, the number of * hams ' still remaining folkland would grow less and less.
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168
The English Village Community.
P=^- V. In the meantime the royal forests were managed by royal foresters under separate laws and regulations of great severity, whilst the royal hams or manors These were Were put Under the management of a resident steward, Snflnd to prcBpositus OT viUicns — ^in Saxon ' tun-gerefan^ — or reW for ^^^® ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^ losnland to neighbouring great serTioeB. men or their sons, or to thanes in the royal service. This granting of life-leases of folkland or hams on the royal demesne seems to have been a usual mode of rewarding special military services, and Bede bitterly complained that the profuse and illegitimate grants which were wheedled out of the king for pre- tended monastic purposes had already in his time seriously weakened the king's power of using the royal estates legitimately as a means of keeping up his army and maintaining the national defences.^ To be able to provide some adequate maintenance for the thanes, on whose services he reUed, was a king's necessity; for well might King Alfred enforce the truth of the philosophy of his favourite Boethius by exclaiming that every one may know how ' full miser- able and full unmighty ' kings must be who cannot count upon the support of their thanes.^
But from the nature of the case it was inevitable that the area of folkland or royal demesne must con- stantly be lessened as each succeeding grant increased the area of the hoc-land. In other words, to use the later phrase, the tendency was not only for new
Tendency for them to pHSS into priTato hands.
^ Bede*B letter to Bishop Egbert. Smith, p. 809. ' Quod enim turpe est dicere, tot sub nomine monasterio- rum loca hi qui monachicea Titffi prorsus sunt ezpertos in suam ditio- nem acceperunt, sicut ipfii melius
nostis, wt omnino desk locua, ubiJUii nobilium out emeritorum militwn possessionem aecipere possint, &c.
' King Alfred's Boethius, c. zxix. 8. 10.
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Creation of New Manors.
169
Chap. V.
manors to be created out of the royal forests and wastes, but also for more and more of the royal manors to pass from the royal demesne into private hands.
Now there is a remarkable passage in one of King ^« , Alfred's treatises^ which incidentally throws some sketch of ^ light upon this process, and
T . ^1 . the growth
explams the way m of a new
which new manors may have been created. He de- ^^ scribes how the forest or a great wood provided every
* AIfred*B Blouom Gatherinffa otU of St, Augtutine, British Mu- seuniy Vit. A. xv. f. 1: — Gade- Tode me {wnne M^das 3 8tu]}an Bceaftas -j lobsceaftas ^ hylfa to aelcum partL tola fe ic mid pircan cu«e ^ bohtimbm ^ bolt timbru 3 to SBlcum Jwra peorca ])e ic pyrcan cat$e ])a plite^ostan treopo be ]>am dele t$e ic aberan meibte. ne com ic iia)«T mid anie bytt^ene bam \fe me ne 1 jste ealne Jmne pude bam bren^an pf ic byiie eeJne aberan meibte. on eelcum treopo ic ^eseab bpset bpu^u ]>ees )« ic set bam be|)orfte. For ]?am ic Isere eelcne "Sara }>e ma^a si -^ ma[mgne] psen biebbe f be menije to ]}am ilcan puda par ic t^as stutJan ficeaffcas oearf. Fetije bjm ])ar ma "} ^efe^ri^e bys posnas mid feprum gerdum J^at be ma^e pindan manipie amicerne pan 3 mani^ SBnlic bus settan "^ fejeme tun timbrian 3 ]7ara ■3 f aer mur^e 3 softe mid mseje on- eardian sej'Ser ^e pintras ^e snme- ras Bpa spa ic nu ne ^ ne dyde. Ac Be ye me Iterde ]>am se pudu licode Be msDj ^edon f ic softer eardian tepSer je on Jnsmn l»nan stoclife be )ds psB^e Sa phile pe ic on piaae peorulde beo ^e eac on phm becan hame 5e be us ^ebaten ben$ )>urb
scanctuB augustinus "^ sde jre^oriuB 3 scanctus leronimus 3 purb manege o6t5re balie fsedraa spa ic ;i;elyfe. eac f be ^edo for beoraealra eamum je ffi^er ^e ]>i8ne pei^ ^elimpfulran jedo ]70Dne be ter jnsBum pes ^e bure mmes modes eajan to ]>am on- ^elibte f ic ma^e ribtne pei^ are- dian to )>aai ecan bame "^ to ]7am ecan are "^ to ]>are ecan reste fe ua ^ehaten is ]nirb ]» baljan fee- deras sie spa. Nis hit nan pundor feah m[an] 8p[ylce] on timber je- pirce ^ eac on f8B[re] lade "] eac on |>88re bytlinje. ac eelcne man lyst si^tSan he teni; cotlyf on his hla- fordes leene myd his fultume jetim- bred b»f8 f be bine mote hpilum ]?ar on^erestan. 3 hunti^an. -] fulian. "3 fiscian. 3 bis on ^ehpilce pisan to J^eere leenan tilian 8e^]>8sr ^e on se ^e on lande 06 ot$ fone fyrst fe be bocland "] aece yrfe Jmrb bis blafordes miltse^eeami^e. spa^e- do se pile ^a jidfola set^e e^^r pilt ^e l^issa benena stoclife je ]>ara ecena hama. Set$e ffi^J^er ^escop 3 iBgt^eres pilt for^ife me ^ me to 8Bjf5rum onhajije je her nytpyrde to beonne ^e hum ]>ider to cu- mane. — For the text of this passage I am indebted to Mr. Thompson.
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170 TTie English Village Community.
^^^- ^' requisite of building, shafts and handles for tools, bay timbers and bolt timbers for house-building, fair rods {gerda) with which many a house {htis) may be con- structed, and many a fair tun timbered, wherein men may dwell permanently in peace and quiet, summer and winter, which, writes the king with a sigh, * is more than I have yet done ! ' There was, he said, an eternal * ham ' above, but He that had pro- mised it through the holy fathers might in the mean- time make him, so long as he was in this world, to dwell softly in a log-hut on Icenland (' Icenan stoclif ^ ), waiting patiently for his eternal inheritance. So we wonder not, he continued, that men should work in timber-felling and in carrying and in building,* for a man hopes that if he has built a cottage on laenland of his lord, with his lord's help, he may be allowed to lie there awhile, and hunt and fowl and fish, and occupy the Icen as he likes on sea and land, until through his lord's grace he may perhaps some day obtain boc-land and permanent inheritance. Then finally he completes his parable by reverting once more to the contrast between ' thissa laenena stoclife ' and * thara ecena hama ' — between the log hut on laen- land and the permanent freehold ' ham ' on the boc- land, or hereditary manorial estate.
It is true that in this passage King Alfred does not suggest distinctly that the lord would make the actual holding of laenland into boc-land, thus convert- ing a clearing in his forest into a new manor for his thane ; but, on the other hand, there was a good reason
> ' 8toc-Uf; literally etake-hta. The logs were put upright, as in the case of the Saxon church at Greenr
Btead in Essex.
^ *Bytlinge;' hence the house was a * hotl,^
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Creation of New Manors. 171
for this omission, seeing that such a suggestion would Oa^^^. have just overreached the point of his parable.
Be this as it may, the vivid httle glimpse we get into the modus operandi of the possible growth of a Saxon manorial estate, out of folkland granted first as Icenland^ and then as hoc-land^ or out of the woods or waste of an ealdorman's domain, may well be made use of to illustrate the matter in hand.
The typical importance in so many ways of the The rod, gyrd^ or rod^ or virga in the origin and growth of the wrga in Saxon ' tun ' or * ham ' is worth at least a moment's S*a^w*^ notice. ***^-
The typical site for a new settlement was a clear- ing in a wood or forest, because of the * fair rods ' which there abound. The clearing was measured out by rods. An allusion to this occurs in Notker's paraphrase of Psa. Ixxviii. 55 — *He cast out the ' heathen before them, and divided them an inherit- ' ance by line.' The Vulgate which Notker had before him was * Et sorte divisit eis terram in fiini- * culo distributionis ;' and he translated the last clause thus — ' teilta er daz lant mit mazseile,' — to which he added, * also man nu tuot mit buoto,' as they now do it with rods^ i.e. at St. Gall in the tenth or eleventh century.^
So in England the typical holding in the cleared land of the open fields was called a yarrf-land, or in earlier Saxon a gyrd landes, or in Latin a virgata terra ; yard^ gy^d^ ai^d virga all meaning rod, and all meaning also in a secondary sense a yard measure. The holdings in the open fields were of yarded or
1 SchOteri Thesaur. AfUiq, Teut, i. p. 168. Ulm, 1728.
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172 The English Village Community.
0^^^. rooded land — ^land measured out with a rod into acres four rods wide, each rod in width being there- fore a rood^ as we have seen.
Again, the whole homestead was called a tun or a worthj because it was ^Tied or girded with a wattled fence of gyrds or rods. And so, too, in the Gothic of Ulfilas the homestead was a * gard.' So that in the evident connexion of these words we seem to get confirmation of the hint given by King Alfred of the process of the growth of new manors, it.^jw The young thane, with his lord's permission,
dearing in makcs a clearing in a forest, building his log hut and then other log huts for his servants. At first it is forest game on which he hves. By-and-by the cluster of huts becomes a httle hamlet of homesteads. He provides his servants with their outfits of oxen, and they become his geburs. The cleared land is measured out by rods into acres. The acres ploughed by the common plough are allotted in rotation to the yard- lands. A new hamlet has grown up in the royal forest, or in the outlying woods of an old ham or manor. In the meantime the king perhaps rewards his industrious thane, who has made the clearing in his forest, with a grant of the estate with the village upon it, as his boc-land for ever, and it becomes a manor, or the lord of the old manor of which it is a hamlet grants to him the inheritance, and the hamlet becomes a subject manor held of the higher lord
So we seem now to see clearly how new tuns and hams or manors were always growing up century after century, on the royal demesne and on private estates or manors, as in a former chapter it became
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Laws of King Ethelhert 173
clear incidentally how new geburs with fresh yard- ^=*^- ^• lands could be added to the village community, and the strips which made up the yard-lands intermixed with those of their neighbours in the village fields.
X. THE LAWS OP KING ETHELBBBT — THERE WERE MANORS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY.
We have seen that not only the general descrip- Tuns and tion of serfdom contained in the ' EectitudineSy but ^3^? ^* also the two examples we have been able to examine ^*^«^^'*» of serfdom upon particular manors in Saxon times, testify clearly to the existence of a serfdom upon Saxon manors as complete and onerous as the later serfdom upon Norman manors. And we have seen that, connecting this evidence with that of the laws of Eiiig Ine, the proof is clear of the existence of manors and serfiiom in the seventh century, i.e, 400 years before the Norman Conquest. There remains to be quoted the still earlier though scanty evidence of the laws of King Ethelbert, a.d. 597-616 ; which, if genuine, bring us back to the date of the mission of St. Augustine to England.
The evidence of these laws is accidental and in- direct, but taken in connexion with that already con- sidered, it seems to show conclusively that the * hams ' and * tuns ' of that early period were already manors. Upon one point at least it is clear. It goes so far in single as to indicate that they were in the ownership of ^™"* ^' individuals, and not of free village communities.
The following passages occur : —
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174 The English Village Community.
Chap. V.
in. Eip cyninj »c manne]* bam &pinc8&'5, &c.
v. Eip m cyninje]* tune man mannan opj-lea, &c.
xin. Ifif on eoplep tdnc man mannan opflaehfS, &c.
XYii. Lip man m mannep cun aepepc jeipnet5, &c.
with sevni' servile tenantfl or •lata/
8. If the king drink at a man*8 h4tm, &c.
5. If in the king's tun a man slay another, &c.
13. If in an earFs tun a man slay another, &c.
17. If a man into a man's tun enter^ &c.
If there be any doubt as to the manorial charac- ter of these ' hams * and * tuns/ it lies not in the point of the single ownership of them, but in other points, whether they were worked and tilled by the owners' slaves, or by a village community in serfdom.
The only classes of tenants which are mentioned in the laws of King Ethelbert are the three grades of Icets referred to in the following passage :
XXVI. dp [man] l«c oppla&htS pone f elepran. Ixxx. p ciU. popjelbe. dp fane ot5ejine opplaehfS. Ix. pcillmjum pojijelbe. fane f pib- ban. xl. pcillmjum popjelben.
26. If [a man] slay a Ust of the best [class], let him pay Ixxz. shil- lings : if he slay one of the second, let him pay Ix. shillings: of the third, let him pay xl. shillings.
The word Icet is of doubtful meaning in this pas- sage. It might have reference to the Roman Iceti^ or people of conquered tribes deported into Eoman provinces at the end of a war ; or it might refer to the liti or lidi — the servile tenants mentioned in so many of the early Continental codes. We are not yet in a position to decide. But in any case these Icets of Bang Ethelbert's laws were clearly of a semi- servile class here in Kent, as were the lidi in Frankish Gaul,^ for their * wergild ' was distinctly less than that of the Kentish freemen.^ Whether they were a dif-
1 SeeM. Gu^rard's Introduction I pp. 260-76. to the Polyptyque de VAJM Irmmon, I ' The leod^M or toer-gUd of a
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Result of Saxon Evidence.
175
ferent class from the geburs or villani^ or identical Ch^^. with them, it is not easy to decide.
XI. RESULT OF THE SAXON EVIDENCE.
The evidence of the earliest Saxon or Jutish laws thus leaves us with a strong presumption, if not actual certainty, that the Saxon ham or tun was the estate of a lord, and not of a free village community, and that it was so when the laws of the Kentish men were first codified a few years after the mission of St. Augustine.
It becomes, therefore, all but impossible that the The manorial character of English hams and tuns can have system not had an ecclesiastical origin. The codification of the asticaT"' laws was possibly indeed the direct result of eccle- ®"^°* siastical influence no less than in the case of the Ala- mannic, and Bavarian, and Visigothic, and Burgundian, and Lombardic codes. In all these cases the codifi- cation partook, to some extent, of the character of a compact between the king and the Church. Room had to be made, so to speak, for the new ecclesiastical authority. A recognised status and protection had to be given to the Church for the first time, and this introduction of a new element into national arrange- ments was perhaps in some cases the occasion of the codification. This may be so ; but at the same time it is impossible that a new system of land tenure can have been suddenly introduced with the new reU-
' man ' was 200 shillings (see men- tion of the lialf leod-geld of c. shil- lings, B. 21). As regards the three grades of laUj there were also three grades of female theows of the king
(see s. 10-11), the cup-bearer, the grinding^theoWy and the lowest class. See also & 16, where again there is mention of three dasses of theoiM, each with its yalue.
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176 The English Village Community.
^^^' ^' gion. The property granted to the Church from the first waa already manorial. A ham or a tun could not be granted to the Church by the king, or an earl, unless it already existed as a manorial estate. The monasteries became, by the grants which now were showered down upon them, lords of manors which were already existing estates, or they could not have been transferred.
Further, looking within the manor, whether on the
royal demesne or in private hands, it seems to be
The hold- clear that as far back as the evidence extends, i,e. the
Jr^-^nda time of King Ine, the holdings — the yard-lands — were
JI^QOj^ held in viUenage, and were bundles of a. recognised
number of acre or half-acre strips in the open field,
handed down from one generation to another in single
succession without alteration.
Now let it be fully understood what is involved in this indivisible character of the holding, in its devolu- tion from one holder to another without division among heirs. We have seen that the theory was that as the land and homestead, and also the setene^ or outfit, were provided by the lord, they returned to the lord on the death of the holder. The lord granted the holding afresh, most often, no doubt, to the eldest son or nearest relation of the landholder on his pay- ment of an ox or other relief in recognition of the servile nature of the tenure, and thus a custom of primogeniture, no doubt, grew up, which, in the course of generations — how early we do not know — being sanctioned by custom, could not be departed from by the lord. The very possibility of this per- manent succession, generation after generation, of a single holder to the indivisible bundle of strips
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Result of Saxon Evidence, 177
called a yard-land or virgate, thus seems to have Ohap^. implied the servile nature of the holding. The lord becauae put in his servant as tenant of the yard-land, and put nstent in a successor when the previous one died. This ^^"^ seems to be the theory of it. It was probably pre- ^^^ ^ cisely the same course of things which ultimately pro- property duced primogeniture in the holding of whole manors, hein. The king put in a thane or servant of his (sometimes called the * king's geneat '), or a monastery put in a steward or viUicus to manage a manor. When he died his son may have naturally succeeded to the office or service, until by long custom the office became hereditary, and a succession or inheritance by primo- geniture under feudal law was the result. The bene- fice, or ten, or office was probably not at first generally hereditary; though of course there were many cases of the creation of estates of inheritance, or hoc-land^ by direct grant of the king. As we have seen fi-om the passage quoted from Bede, the Icen of an estate for life was the recognised way in which the king's thanes were rewarded for their services.
Thus it seems that in the very nature of things the permanent equahty of the holdings in yard-lands (or double, or half yard-lands), on a manor, was a proof that the tenure was servile, and that the com- munity was not a firee village community. For imagine a firee village community taking equal lots, and holding these lots, as land of inheritance, by allodial tenure, and with (what seems to have been the universal cus- tom of Teutonic nations as regards land of inheritance) equal division among heirs, how could the equality be possibly maintained? One holder of a yard-land would have seven sons, and another two, and another
N
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178 The English Village Community.
^^1^^' one. How could equality be maintained generation after generation ? What could prevent the multipli- cation of intricate subdivisions among heirs, breaking up the yard-lands into smaller bundles of all imagin- able sizes? Even if a certain equahty could be restored, which is very unhkely, at intervals, by a re-division^ which should reverse the inequality pro- duced by the rule of inheritance, what would become of the yard-lands ? How could the contents of the yard-land remain the same on the same estate for hundreds of years, notwithstanding the increase in the number of sharers in the land of the free village community ?
We may take it, then, as inherently certain that the system of yard-lands is a system involving in its continuance a servile origin. The c^onmiunity of holders of yard-lands we may regard as a community of servile tenants, without any strict rights of in- heritance— ^in theory tenants at the will of their lord, becoming by custom adscripti glehce^ and therefore tenants for life, and by still longer custom gaining a right of single undivided succession by primogeniture, or something very much hke it. ^J^^;j[^ Now we know that the holdings were yardrlands and the holders geburs, rendering the customary gafol and week-work to their lords, in the time of King Ine, if we may trust the genuineness of his * laws.' There was but an interval of 100 years between Ine and Ethelbert ; whilst Ine lived as near to the first con- quest of large portions of the middle districts of England as Ethelbert did to the conquest of Kent.
The laws of Ethelbert, taken in connexion with the subsequent laws of Ine, and the later actual in-
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ayidence.
ResuU of Saxon Evidence. 179
stances of Saxon manors which have been examined, Q^^*^- form a connected chain, and bring back the links of No zoom the evidence of the manorial character of Saxon t«m^i?freo estates to the very century in which the greater part ^^^i. of the West Saxon conquests took place. The exist- ^JJ^^jJrS ence of earl's and king's and men's hams and tuna sank into in the year of the codification of the Kentish laws, A.D. 602 or thereabouts, means their existence as a manorial type of estate in the sixth century ; and with the exception of the southern districts, the West Saxon conquests were not made till late in the sixth century. Surely there is too short an interval left unaccounted for to allow of great economic changes — to admit of the degeneracy of an original free vil- lage community if a widely spread institution, into a community in serfdom. So that the evidence strongly points to the hams and tuns having been manorial in their type from the first conquest. In other words, so far as this evidence goes, the Saxons seem either to have introduced the manorial system into Eng- land themselves, founding hams and tuns on the manorial type, or to have found them already existing on their arrival in Britain. There seems no room for the theory that the Saxons introduced ever3nvhere free village communities on the system of the German *mark,' which afterwards sank into serfdom under manorial lords.
But before we can be in a position to understand what probably happened we must turn our attention to those portions of Britain which were not manorial^ and where village communities did not generally exist. They form an integral part of our present England, and English economic history has to do with the
V 3
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180 The English Village Community.
o^^^. economic growth of the whole people. It cannot. The tribal therefore, confine itself to facts relating to one ele- must be mcnt Only of the nation, and to one set of influences, ^^^ merely because they became in the long run the paramount and overruling ones. And, moreover, the history of the manorial system itself cannot be pro- perly understood without an understanding also of the parallel, and perhaps older, tribal system^ which in the course of many centuries it was destined in some districts to overrule and supplant ; in others, after cen- turies of efibrt, to fail in supplanting.
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181
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIBAL SYSTEM (IN WALES). I. EVIDENCE OF THE DOMESDAY SUEVBY.
The Saxon land system has now been examined. No <^^^^' feature has been found to be more marked and general than its universally manorial character ; that is to say, the Saxon * ham ' or * tun ' was an estate or manor with a village community in villenage upon it. And the services of the villein tenants were of a uniform and clearly defined type ; they consisted of the combination of two distinct things — ^fixed ga/ol payments in money, in kind, or in labour, and the more servile week-work.
It is needful now to examine the land system beyond the border of Saxon conquest.
A good opportunity of doing this occurs in the Domesday Survey.
The Tidenham manor has already been examined. It afforded a singularly useful example of the Saxon system. Its geographical position, at the extreme south-west comer of England, on the side of Wales, enabled us to trace its history from its probable conquest in 577, or soon after, and to conclude that it remained Saxon from that time to the date of
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182
The Tribal System.
West side of the
Wye.
On^^ the Survey ; and distinctly manorial was found to be the character of its holdings and services.
Now, the neighbouring land, on the west side of the Wye, was equally remarkable in its geographical position. For as long as Tidenham had been the extreme south-west comer of England, so long had the neighbouring land between the Wye and the Usk been the extreme south-east corner of un- conquered Wales.
It was part of the district of Gwent, and it seems to have remained in the hands of the Welsh till Harold conquered it from the Welsh king Grufiydd, **• a few years only before the Norman Conquest.
Harold seems to have annexed whatever he conquered between the Wye and the Usk — i.e. in Gwent — to his earldom of Hereford ; and after the Norman Conquest it fell into the hands of William RtzOsbom, created by William the Conqueror Earl of Hereford and Lord of Gwent.^
It was he * who built at Chepstow the Castle of Estrighoielj the ruins of which still stand on the west bank of the Wye, opposite Tidenham. His son, Boger FitzOsbem, succeeded to the earldom of Hereford and the lordship of Gwent ; and, upon his rebellion
Gwent.
Eemained WeUh tiU conquered
^ Liber LandavensiSf p. 6^, Ordericus Vitdlis, ii. 190. It may have been conquered in 1049, after Grufiydd and Irish pirates had, ac- cording to Florence, crossed the Wye and burned 'Dymedham' (see Freeman's Norman Conquest, ii. App. P) ; but most likely shortly before A.n. 1066, under which date is the following entry in the Saxon Chronicle : —
' A. 1066. In this year before
Lammas, Harold the Eorl ordered a building to be erected in Wales tt Portskewith irfter he had subdued it, and there he gathered much goods and thought to have King Edward there for the purpose of hunting; but when it was all ready, then went Cradock, Griffin's son, with the whole force which he could pro- cure, and slew almost all the people who there had been building.^ > I>ome$day,l 162a.
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The Domesday Surr^ey in Wales. 183
and imprisonment, this region of Wales became terra Obat.yl regis, and as such is described in the Domesday Sur- vey, mostly as a sort of annexe to Gloucestershire,^ but partly as belonging to the county of Hereford.^
Nor is Gwent the only district very near to ??»l»oJ*»«
•^ "^ distncp of
Tidenham whose Welsh history can be traced down Archrt. to the time of the Domesday Survey. There was another part of ancient Wales, the district of Ergyng, or Archenjieldj — ^which included the * Golden VaUey ' . of the Dour. It lay, like Gwent — ^but further north — between the unmistakable boundaries of the Wye and the Usk, and it remained Welsh till conquered by Harold ; and this is confirmed by the fact that the district of ^Arcene/elde ' is brought within the limits of the Domesday Survey ' as an irregular addition to Herefordshire, just as Gwent was an annexe to Gloucestershire.
Here, then, we have two districts, one to the west and the other to the north of Tidenham, both of which clearly remained Welsh till conquered by Harold a few years before the Norman Conquest, and both of them are described in the Domesday Survey. Both Further, it so happens that because they had been ^^^Sd but recently conquered, and had not yet been added g *^® ^ to any English county, and because also their cus- Surrey. toms difiered from those of the neighbouring EngUsh manors, the services of their tenants, quite out of ordinary course, are described.
So that, by a convenient chance, we are able to bring together upon the evidence of the Domesday
> Ibid. 162 aet$eq.
^ 1866. See also Freeman's
Nannan Ccnque8t,u. App. SS, p. 685.
' Ihme»dajf, 1 179 a.
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184
The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. Survey thie land systems of a district which for five hundred years before the Norman Conquest had been the extreme south-east edge of Wales, and of a dis- trict which for the same five hundred years had been the extreme south-west comer of Saxon England, beyond the Severn.
We have seen what was the Saxon land system on one side of the Wye, which divided the two dis- tricts; let us now see what was the Welsh land system on the other side of the river, so far as it is disclosed in the Survey.
Gwent. Part of theWclsh district of Gwen t is thus described
in the Domesday annexe to Gloucestershire : —
'Under Waswic, the pnepositus, are zm.Ti]l8B ; under [another pn&- poeitus] xiiii. vilUo, under [another prssposituB] xiii., under [another prao- podtuB] xiiii. (t.e. 64 in all). These render xlvii. sextars of honey, and xl. pigs, and xli. cows, and xxriii. shillings for hawks.^ . . .
'Under the same prsspoeiti are four Till» wasted by King Cara- duech.'*
Again, a little further on, this entry occurs : —
' The same A. has in Wales viL vSUb which were in the demesne of Count William and Roger his son (•'.«. Fitz-Osbem, Earl of Hereford and Lord of Qwent). These render vi. sextars of honey, yi. pigs, and x. shillings.''
Passing to the Domesday description of the dis- trict of Archenjield, we find a similar record. Arehen- The heading of the survey for Herefordshire * is
as follows : ' Hie annotantur terras tenentes in Here-
» See Leges WaUice, p. 812. ' De qualihet yilla rusticana debet habere ovem fetam Tel 4 denarios in cibos acdpitrum.' The 64 TillsB at id, each would make xviii* s.
(P whether xxyiii. by an extra x. in error).
* Domesday, i. 162 a.
* Domesday, i. 162 a (lastentiy).
* F.179fl.
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The Domesday Survey in
fordscire et in Arcenefelde et in Walis.' on ^ we learn that —
' In Areenefdde the king has 100 men less 4, who with theur men have 73 teams, and giye of custom 41 seztars of honey and 20«. instead of the sheep which thej used to give, and 10». for fumagium ; nor do they give geld or other custom, except that they march in the king's army if it is so ordered to them. If a liber homo dies there, the king has his horse, with arms. From a viUanus when he dies the king has one ox. King Gbifin and Blein devastated this land in the time of King Edward, and so what it was then is not known.' Lagademar pertained to Arcenefelde in the time of King Edward, &c. There is a manor [at Arcenefelde] in which 4 liberi homines with 4 teams render 4 sextars of honey and IQd, of custom. Also a villa with its men and 6 teams, and a forest, rendering a half sextar of honey and Qd,
There are other instances of similar honey rents, e.g.—
Ip Ckipeete 67 men with xix. teams render xy. sextars of honey and X. shillings.
In Ctqte t. Welshmen having v. teams render v. sextars of honey, and V. sheep with lamhs, and xil.
In Mainaure one under-tenant having iv. teams renders vi. sextars of honey and x. $,
In Penebecdoc one under-tenant having iv. teams render vi. sextars of honey and x. «•
Li MtUla xii. villani and xiL hordarii with xi. teams render xviiL sextars of honey.
The distinctive points in these descriptions of the Fbod rents recently Welsh districts west and north of Tidenham tersof*" are obviously (1) the prevalence of produce or food ^^ ^ rents — ^honey, cows, sheep, pigs, &c. — honey being p^pootns. the most prominent item; (2) the absence of the word * manor,' used everywhere else in the survey of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire ; (3) the remark- able grouping in the district of Gwent of the ' villas ' in batches of thirteen or fourteen^ each batch under a separate propositus.
» F. IBlo.
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186 The Tribal System.
onM^. It is clear that on the Welsh side of the Wye Welsh instead of Saxon customs prevailed, and that these were some of them.^ So much we learn from these irregular additions of newly conquered Welsh ground to the area of the Domesday Survey.
The meaning of the peculiarities thus indicated will become apparent when the Welsh system has been examined upon its own independent evidence.
II. THE WBLSH LAND STSTBM IK THE TWELFTH CENTUBT.
There is no reason why, in trying to learn the
nature of the Welsh land system, the method followed
throughout, of proceeding backwards from the known
to the unknown, should not be followed.
Open-Md It has already been shown that such arable fields
system in *'
Wales. as there are in Wales, like the Saxon arable fields, were open fields. They were shown to be divided by turf balks, two furrows wide,' into strips called erws — representing a day's work in ploughing. The Welsh laws were also found to supply the simplest and clearest solution given anywhere of the reason of the scattering of the strips in the holdings, as well as of the relations of the grades of holdings to the number of oxen contributed by the holders to the common plough team of eight oxen.
In fact, the Welsh codes clearly prove that, as regards arable husbandry, the open field system was the system prevalent throughout all the three dis- tricts of Wales.
1 So f. 185 hi 'In Oastellaria I ii. l)ord. cum dim. car. et reddunt de Carlion . . . iiL Walenaes lege iiii. Bextar. mellia.' Walmti vwentee cum iiL car. et' * AndentLawt of Waie9, ^.973,
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GiraJdua Cambrensis. 187
But partly from the mountainous nature of the gbap. vl country, and partly from the peculiar stage of TheWeUh economic development through which the Welsh ^^^ were passing, long after the Norman Conquest they were still a pastoral people. Cattle rather than com claimed tlie first consideration, and ruled their habits ; and hence the Welsh land system, even in later times, was very different from that of the Saxons.
In fact, the two land systems, though both using an open-field husbandry, were in their main features radically distinct. In those parts of Wales which were unconquered, and therefore uncivilised, till the conquest of Edward I., we look in vain in the early surveys for the manor or estate with the village community in villenage upon it.
The Welsh system was not manorial. Its unit Noi
was not a village community on a lord's estate. cwvuiagee.
As late as the twelfth century Giraldus Cambrensis ^ scattered described the houses of the Welsh as not built either timber in towns or even in villages, but as scattered along ^''^' the edges of the woods. To his eye they seemed mere huts made of boughs of trees twisted together, easily constructed, and lasting scarcely more than a season. They consisted of one room, and the wh61e family, guests and all, slept on rushes laid along the wall, with their feet to the fire, the smoke of which found its way through a hole in the roof.* The Welsh, in fact, being a pastoral people, had two sets of home- steads. In summer their herds fed on the higher ranges of the hills, and in winter in the valleys. So they themselves, following their cattle, had separate
Dmnption cf Walm, ehap. cxrii. * C. x.
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188
The Tribal System.
Welsh ploughing.
Chap. VI. huts for summer and for winter use, as was also the custom in the Highlands of Scotland, and is still the case in the higher Alpine valleys. Giraldus Cam- brensis describes the greater part of the land as in pasture and very Uttle as arable ; and accordingly the food of the Welsh he describes, just as Csesar had described it eleven centuries earUer, as being chiefly the produce of their herds — milk, cheese and butter, and flesh in larger proportions than bread.^ The latter was mostly of oats.
The Welsh ploughed for their oats in March and April, and for wheat in summer and winter, yoking to their ploughs seldom fewer than four oxen ; and he mentions as a pecuUarity that the driver walked backward in front of the oxen, as we found was the custom in Scotland.*
Another marked pecuUarity of the Welsh was their hereditary hking and universal training for war- Uke enterprise. They were soldiers as well as herds- men ; even husbandmen eagerly rushed to arms from the plough.® Long settlement and the law of division of labour had not yet brought about the separation of the military from the agricultural population of Wales even so late as the twelfth century. And here we come upon traces of their old tribal economy. For the facts that they had not yet attained to settled villages and townships, that they had not yet passed from the pastoral to the agricultural stage, that they were still craving after warfare and wild enterprise — all
Love of war.
* 0. Tiii. The district of Snow- don afforded the best pasturage and Anglesey the best corn-grow- ing land.
' 0. viii. and xvii. In the Isle of Man four oxen were yoked abreast to the plough, Train's Ide of Man, ii p. 241. » 0. Tiii.
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Ancient Laws of Wales. 189
these axe traces of tribal habits still remaining. And Chap. vi. a still clearer mark of the same thing was the stress oeneaio- they laid upon their genealogy. Even the common ^®"* people (he says) keep their genealogies, and can not only readily recount the names of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, but even refer back to the sixth or seventh generation, or beyond them, in this manner: Rhys, son of Gruffydhj son of Rhys, son of Theodor, son of Eineon, son of Owen, son of Howel, son of Cadelh, son of Roderic Mawr, and so on.^
Thus in the twelfth century there were in Wales Survivaia distinct survivals of a tribal economy. Instead of a tribal system like the Saxons, of village communities and ^^"^^ townships, the Welsh system was evidently a tribal system in the later stages of gradual disintegration, tenaciously preserving within it arrangements and customs pointing back to a period when its rules had been in full force.
But the Welsh codes must be further examined before the significance of the Domesday entries can be fully appreciated.
III. THE WELSH LAND SYSTEM AGCOEDING TO THE WELSH
LAWS.
The Welsh version of the ancient laws of Wales contains three several codes : The Yencdotian of North. Wales^^ the Dimetian and Gwentian of South Wales. They profess to date substantially from Howel dda. Laws of who codified the local customs about the middle of theTenth the tenth century. They contain, however, later ^^^^^'
* 0. xyii.
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190 Tlie Tribal System.
Chap, vl additions, and the MSS. are not earlier than the end of the thirteenth century. There is a Latin version of the Dimetian code in MS. of the early part of the thirteenth century, which is especially valuable as giving the received Latin equivalent of the Welsh terms used in the laws. And there are also, apart from these codes, triads of doubtful date, but profess- ing to preserve traditional customs and laws of the Welsh nation before the time of the Saxon conquest of Britain.^
For the present purpose the actual date of a law or custom is not so important as its own intrinsic character. We seek to gain a true notion of the tribal system, and an economically early trait may well be preserved in a document of later date.
Sazon and There is no reason why we should be even tempted
Welsh , . . „ , ., %--
ajBtema to exaggerate the antiquity of the evidence. The
J^"P**" later the survival of the system the more valuable for
our purpose. The Saxon and Welsh systems were
contemporary systems, and it is best to compare them
as such.
It would appear that under this tribal system a
district was occupied by a tribe (cenedl) under a petty
king {brenhin) or chief.
Free The tribe was composed of households of free
of triSf " Welshmen, all blood relations ; and the homesteads of
^^^^ these households were scattered about on the country
side, as they were found to be in the time of Giraldus
Cambrensis. They seem to have been grouped into
artificial clusters mainly, as we shall see, for purposes
of tribute or legal jurisdiction.
^ Ancient Lam and InttituUs of Wales, Record Commiflfllon, 1841. See pre&ce hj Anaurin Owen.
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Ancient Laws of Wales.
191
But all the inhabitants of Wales were not members Chap. vi. of the tribes. Besides the households of tribesmen of blood relations and pure descent, there were hanging on to the tribes or their chiefs, and under the over- lordship of the latter, or sometimes of tribesmen, strangers in blood who were not free Welshmen ; Taeogs also Welshmen illegitimately born, or degraded for Sw"*^ crime. And these classes, being without tribal or ^^^^• family rights, were placed in groups of households and homesteads by themselves. If there were any approach to the Saxon village community in villenage upon a lord's estate under Welsh arrangements, it was to be found in this subordinate class, who were not Welshmen, and had no rights of kindred, and were known as ailUs and taeogs of the chief on whose land they were settled. Further, as there was this marked distinction between tribesmen and non-tribesmen, so also there was a marked and essential distinction between the free tribe land occupied by the families of freeWelsh tribesmen, called ' tir gwelyawg^ or family land, and the ^caeth land' or bond land of the taeogs and aillts, which latter was also called ' tir-cyfrif or register land, and sometimes ' tir-kyllydus ' or geldable land {gB£o\'l3.nd?y
The main significance of the Welsh system, both as regards individual rights and land usages, turns
' Veneehtian Cod€. Ancient Zaw» of Wale$, pp. 81-2, and see pp. 644^6 (Welah Laws). Mr. Skene, in hU chapter on TAe Tribe m Wales in his CeUic Scotland, iii. pp. 200, 201, does not seem to have gnsped fully the distinction between ihefree tribetmm and their famibf
land on the one hand and the Aillts and Taeogs with their geldable or register land on the other. Every- thing, however, turns upon this. Compare Welsh Laws, xiv. s. 31 and 8. 82 (pp. 73©-741), where the distinction is again clearly stated*
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192 The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. on this distinction between the two different classes of persons and the two different kinds of land occupied by them. They will require separate examination.
Let us first take the free tribesmen (* Uchelwyrs ' or * Breyrs ') and their * family land.' te^wT ^ ^^^ professed triads of Dyvnwal Moelmud may
be taken to represent, as they claim to do, the con- dition of things in earher centuries, the essential to membership in the cenedl, or tribe, was btj'th within it of Welsh parents.
Free-born Welshmen were * tied ' together in a * social state ' by the three ties of —
(1) Common defence (cyvnawdd).
(2) Common tillage (cyvar).
(3) Common law (chyvraith).^
Every free Welshman was entitled to three things : —
(1) Five free erws (or acre strips).
(2) Co-tillage of the waste (cyvar gobaith).
(3) Hunting.^
Thehomo- pjjj^ g,^^ tribesman's homestead, or tyddyn^ con- tyidyn. sistcd of three things : —
(1) His house (ty).
(2) „ cattle-yard (bu-arth).
(3) „ corn-yard (yd-arth).^
And the five free strips, afterwards apparently
1 Andmt Lam of Wahs, p. I » Id. 661 (a. 83). 888 (8. 46). I » P. 689 (8. 61).
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Ancient Laws of Wales,
193
reduced to four, of each liead of a bouse — free, Chap. vi. possibly, in the sense of their having been freed from the common rights of others over them, as well as being free from charges or tribute — we may pro- bably regard as contained in the tyddyn^ or as lying in croft near the homesteads.
The Gweniian, Dimetian. and Venedotian codes all ?^® i*^^^'
mg that
represent the homestead or tyddyn and land of the of a free Welshman as a family holding. So long as the or femUy. head of the family lived, all his descendants lived with him, apparently in the same homestead, unless new ones had already been built for them on the family land. In any case, they still formed part of the joint household of which he was the head.^
When a free tribesman, the head of a household, died, his holding was not broken up. It was held by his heirs for three generations as one joint holding ; it was known as the holding of * the heirs of So-and- so.'* But within the holding there was equality of division between his sons ; the younger son, however, retaining the original tyddyn or homestead, and others having tyddyns found for them on the family land. All the sons had equal rights in the scattered strips and pasture belonging to the holding.^
Thus, in the first generation there was equality Equality between brothers; they were co-tenants in equal femiiy
» Pp. 81-2.
> See the Burveys in the Beccrd of Carnarvon (14th century), where the holdings are sometimes called * Weles,' thus:— 'In eadem villa sunt tria Wele libera, viz. Wele Yarthur ap Kuwon Wele Joz. ap Ruwon and fTe^ Keneth ap Ru-
won. £t sunt heredes predicte Wele de Yarthur ap Kuwon, Eign. ap Grif&ri and Hoell. ap Grifin et alii coheredee sui ; ' and so on of the other Weles (p. 1 1 ) . This is the conunon form of the survey passim,
• Ancient Laws, ^c, of WaleSf p. 741.
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194
The Tribal System.
to second ooosins.
Chap, vl shaxes of the family holding of which they were co-heirs.
When all the brothers were dead there was, if desired, a re-division, so as to make equality between the co-heirs, who were now first cousins.
When all the first cousins were dead there might be still another re-division, to make equality between the co-heirs, who were now second cousins.
But no one beyond second cousins could claim equality ; and if a man died without heirs of his body, and there were no kindred within the degree of second cousins, the land reverted to the chief who represented the tribe.^
The great-grandfather was thus always looked back to as the common ancestor, whose name was still given to the family holding of his co-heirs. The family tie reached from him to his great-grandchildren, and then ceased to bind together further genera- tions.*
We have seen that even in the twelfth century the household all used one couch, extending round the wall of the single room of the house ; this couch was called the ' gwely.' The * tir gwelyawg ' was thus the land of the family using the same couch ; and the descendants of one ancestor living together were a ' gweli-gordd.' * As late as the fourteenth century, in the Record of Carnarvon^ the holdings
Great- grand- father the oommon ancestor.
The Gwely or family couch.
1 Id, pp. 82 and 74a
' The ftillest description of the rales of ' family land ' are those in the VeiMdatian Code, c. zii., The Law ofBrathenfor Land, pp. 81 et
seq. See also Welsh Laws, Book IX. zxxL p. 586 ; also Book XIV. xzxi. pp. 739 ^ seq,
• Ancient Laws, SfC, of Wales, Gloflsary, p. 1001.
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Ancient Laws of Wales. 196
are still called *Weles' and *Gavells.' They are Chap, vi. essentially * family ' or tribal holdings.^
And now as to the tenure upon which these holdings of the free tribesmen were held.
It was a free tenure, subject to the obligation to The pay Gwesiva, or ' food rent,' to the chief, and to some orTooT* incidents which marked an almost feudal relationship '®'*^* to the chief, viz. : —
(1) The Amobrj or marriage fee of a female.
(2) The Ebediw^ or death payment (heriot).
(3) Aid in building the king's castles.
(4) Joining his host in his enterprises in the country whenever required, out of the country six weeks only in the year.®
These were the usual accompaniments of free tenure everywhere, and are no special marks of serfdom.
Several homesteads were grouped together in The<«iic
* maenols ' or * trevs ' for the purpose of the payment of lieu of it. the Gwesiva^ as we shall see by-and-by. This consisted
in Gwent^ of a horse-load of wheat-flour, an ox, seven threaves of oats, a vat of honey, and 24 pence of silver.* And as the money value of the Gwestva was always one pound, so that its money equivalent was known as * the tunc pound,' holdings of family land were spoken of, as late as the fourteenth century, as
* paying tunc ' ^ — the gwestva^ or tunc pound in lieu
* The JRecord of Camarvcm^ pasdm. Thufl 'the Wele of So- and-eo, the son of So^andnso, and the heiis of this Wele are So-and- so.'
* This was not payable if an
0 2
inTeetiture fee had been paid by the person dying.
' Ancient Laws, ^c, p. 92 and 98.
* Id. p. 376.
' Book of Carnarvon, pamm.
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196
Tlie Tribal System.
A free tribal tenure,
Chap. VI. of it, being the distinctive tribute of the free tribes- men.
Such was the tenure of the family land, and these were the services of the free tribesmen.
There is no trace here of viUenage, or of the servile week-work of the Saxon serf. The tribesmen had no manorial lord over them but their chief, and he was their natural and elected tribal head. So, when Wales was finally conquered, the tunc was paid to the Prince of Wales, and no mesne lord was inter- posed between the tribesman and the Prince.
Thus the freedom of the free tribesman was guarded at every point.
The ailUs or taeoga.
Their tyddyns and ploughs.
Turning now to the other class, the aiUts or taeogs — who in the Latin translations of the laws are called villani — the key to their position was their non-possession of tribal blood, and therefore of the rights of kindred. They were not free-born Welsh- men ; though, on the other hand, by no means to be confounded with caeths^ or slaves. They must be sworn men of some chieftain or lord, on whose land they were placed, and at whose will and pleasure they were deemed to remain.^ Each of these taeogs had his tyddyn — his homestead, with corn and cattle yard. In his tyddyn he had cattle of his own. In South Wales several of these taeogs' homesteads were grouped together into what was called a taeog-trev. Further, the arable fields of the ' taeog-trev ' were ploughed on the open-field system by the taeogs'
* Sometimes an 'uchelwr^ or tribesman had taeogs under him. Ancient Laws, ^c, pp. 88, 339, and
673. See also Id. p. 046. Laws.
Welsh
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Ancient Laws of Wales.
197
common plough team, to which each contributed chap. vi. oxen.
But the distinctive feature of the taeoff-trev was Equality
^ in the
that an absolute equality ruled, not between brothers taeog-trev. or cousins of one household, as in the case of the family land of the free tribesmen, but throughout the whole trev. Family relationships were ignored. All adults in the trev — fathers and sons, and strangers in blood — took equal shares, with the single exception of youngest sons^ who lived with their fathers, and had no tyddyn of their own till the parent's death. This principle of equality ruled everything.^ The common ploughing must not begin tiQ every taeog in the trev had his place appointed in the co-tiDage.^ Nor could there be any escheat of land in the taeog-trev to the lord on failure of heirs ; for there was nothing heredi- tary about the holdings. Succession always fell (except in the case of the youngest son, who took his father's tyddyn) to the whole trev.® When there was a death there was a re-division of the whole land, care, how- ever, being taken to disturb the occupation of the actual tyddyns only when absolutely needful.*
The principle upon which the taeog's rights rested Per capita was simply this : where there was no true Welsh of blood ^ blood no family rights were recognised. In the ab- ^^\1^^^' sence of these, equality ruled between individuals ; they shared ' per capita,' and not ' per stirpes.'
The land of a taeog-trev was, as already said, ^heip called ' register land ' ^-^tir cyfrif. laud.
1 Id, pp. 82 and 636. Lata, B. xzxii « Id, p. 376. » Id. p. 82.
WeUh
* Id. p. 82.
^ It was sometimes called * tir kyllidin/ or geldable land, as before stated.
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198 The Tribal System.
Chap, vl There were other incidents marking off the taeog from the free Welshman. He might not bear arms ; ^ he might not, without his lord's consent, become a scholar, a smith, or a bard, nor sell his swine, honey, or horse.^ Even if he were to marry a fi^e Welsh woman, his descendants till the fourth, and in some cases the ninth degree, remained taeogs. But the fourth or ninth descendant of the free Welsh woman, as the case might be, might at last claim his five free strips, and become the head of a new kindred.® Incidents Evcu the tacog was, however, under these laws,
ten^«L hardly a serf. With the exception of his duty to assist the lord in the erection of buildings, and to submit to kylch^ i.e. to the lord's followers, being quartered upon him when making a ' progress,' and to dovraith, or maintenance of the chief's dogs and ser- vants, there seems to have been no exaction of menial personal services.* Food- The taeogs' dues, like those of free Welshmen,
^^^^' consisted of fixed summer and winter contributions of food for the chiefs table. In Gwent they had to provide in winter a sow, a salted flitch, threescore loaves of wheat bread, a tub of ale, twenty sheaves of oats, and pence for the servants. In summer, a tub of butter and twelve cheeses and bread.^
These tributes of food were called ' dawnbwyds,' gifts of food, or ' board-gifts,' and from these the taeog or register land is in one place in the Welsh laws called tir bwrddj or ' board-land ' (terra viensalia.
* Ancient Laws, <Jv., p. 673. » Pp. 86-7 and 212-13. » Id. pp. 88 and 646.
* Pp. 98 and 876.
* P. 876-6. Choentim Code, 11, zxzy.
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Ancient Laws of Wales.
199
or * mensal land ' ^), a term which we shall find again ^^^^' vi. when we come to examine the Irish tribal system.
Lastly, it must not be forgotten that beneath the The cseth, taeogs, as beneath the Saxon geneat and gehur^ were the ' caeths/ or bondmen, the property of their owners,' without tyddyn and without land, unless such were assigned to them by their lord. These caeths were, therefore, not settled in separate trevs, but scattered about as household slaves in the tyddyns of their masters.
IV. LAND DIVISIONS UNDER THE WELSH CODES.
There were, then, these two kinds of holdings — those of the free tribesmen, of * family land,' and those of the taeogs, of ' register land.' There remains to be considered the system on which the holdings were clustered together.
The principle of this it is not very easy at first to The understand, and the difficulty is increased by a con- g^u^ fusion of terms between the codes. But there is one men^*of fact, by keeping hold of which the system becomes the^^ood- inteUigible, viz., that the grouping seems to have been tunc based upon the collective amount of the food-rent The homesteads, or tyddyns, each containing its four free erws, were scattered over the country side. But they were artificially grouped together for the purpose of the payment of the food-rent, or tunc pound in lieu of it. And by following the group which pays the
pound.
* Ancient Lavos, ^c, p. 697. « P. 294 (Dimetian Code). ' The cadh — there is no gaianas (death-
fine) for him, only payment of his ''werth" to his master Uke the ** werth'' of a beast:
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200 The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. « t^n^ pound ' as the unit of comparison, the at first conflicting evidence falls into its proper place.
In the Venedotian Code the maenol is this unit. In the Dimetian and Gwentian Codes this unit is the trev.
In North Accordiuff to the Veuedotiau Code of North Wales,^
Wales the °
maenol the 4 ^-_„„ i x^j j,^
unitfop ^®^® -Ityddyn.
food-rent. ^ tyddyna - 1 randir
4 randirs » 1 gavael.
4 gayaels » I trev.
4 trevB *- 1 maenol.
12 maenolsand 2 supernumerary trevs - 1 cymwd (or comote).
2 cymwdfi -1 cantrev (100 trevs).
Thecf^wd rj\^Q cymwd was thus a half-hundred, and each
hundred of cymwd had its court, and so was the unit of legal
maenoifi. jurisdiction. At its head was a maer and a canghellor^
the two officers of the chief who had jurisdiction over
it.
The twelve maenols in the cymwd were thus dis- posed : —
1 free maenol for the support of the office of maer.
1 free maenol for the support of the office of canghellor.
6 occupied by ' ucMwrs, or tribesmen.
Making 8 free maenols of ' family land/ from each of which a gwestva or twnc pound was paid. The other 4 maenols were 'register land' occupied by aiUts or taeogs, paying 'dawn bwyds.'
12 in the ' cymwd.'
3
Now, it must be admitted that all this singular system, arranged according to strict arithmetical rules, looks very much hke a merely theoretical arrange- ment, plausible on paper but impossible in practice.
It will be found, however, that there is more
Ancient Laws, ^c, pp. 90-1. * Id, p. 01, s. 14.
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Ancient Laws^of Wales.
201
probability, as well as reason and meaning in it, than Chap^i. at first sight appears.
In the first place, as regards the twelve maenols making up the cymwd^ there is no difficulty ; four of them were taeog maenols and eight were free maenols. But there is an obvious difficulty in the description of the contents of each maenol. Taken literally, the description in the Venedotian Code seems to imply that every maenol was composed of four trevs, each of which contained four gavaels composed of four randirs, each of which contained four tyddyns com- posed of four erws. But in this case the maenol would Threescore contain nothing but tyddyns — nothing but home- the tunc steads! — there would be no arable and no pasture, ^^trev. This cannot be the true reading. A clue to the real meaning is found in a clause which, after repeating that from each of the eight free maenols in the cymwd the chief has a gwestva yearly, ' that is a pound yearly from each of them,' goes on to say, * Threescore pence is charged on each trev of the four that are in a maenol, and so subdivided into quarters in succession until each erw of the tyddyn be assessed.' ^
Now, from this statement it may be assumed that there must be some correspondence between the number of pence in the tunc pound and the number of erws in the maenol, otherwise why speak of each erw being assessed ? But, according to the foregoing figures, there would be 1,024 erws in the maenol.^
^ Id. p. 91; 8. 15. In Lege* Walltce, p. 826, 'score pence' or ' score of silver ' is translated * uncia axgenta;' .'. 8 uncie agri should equal a ' treo.^ See lAber Landor venris, pp. 70 and 317.
4 erw » tyddyn. 16 '„ « randir. 64 „ - gavael.
1024 ,y - maenol.
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202 The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. Each trev, which thus contains 256 erws, is to pay Four threescore pence. How can 256 erws be divided hoitogsTii into quarters till each erw is assessed ? Dividing the each trev. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ g^^. ^^ gavael of sixty-four erws, and
threescore pence divided by four is sixty farthings.
It is evident that sixty farthings cannot be divided
between sixty-four erws. But if we suppose each
trev to contain four homesteads or tyddyns, then
the gavael ^ of sixty-four erws would be the single
holcHng belonging to a tyddyn or homestead, and Uie
four erws in the actual tyddyn (which are to be free
erws) being deducted, then the sixty farthings exactly
correspond with the remaining sixty erws forming the
holding of land appendant to the tyddyn, and each
erw would pay one farthing. We may take it then
as possible that each Venedotian maenol contained
four trevs, paying sixty pence each, and that each
trev was a cluster of four holdings of sixty erws
each, in respect of which the holders paid sixty
farthings each to the gwestvay holding their actual
tyddyns free.
A group of In other words, each of the eight free maenols
h^i^° contained sixteen homesteads, which sixteen home-
«*^8 steads were first classified in groups of four called
tunc trevs. Or, to put the case the other way, the eight
^^^ ' free maenols, were divided into quarters or trevs, and
these trevs again each contained four homesteads.
It is evidently a tribal arrangement, clustering the homesteads numerically for purposes of the pay- ment of gwestva, and probably the discharge of other
^ The word (?a5<rt2Btillin Scotch Gaelic retains its meaning of a farm. The word is pronounced *gdi/'tU,^
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Ancient Laws of Wales.
203
public duties, and not a natural territorial arrangement Chap. vi. on the basis of the village or township.
Turning now to the Dimetian and Qwentian Codes, ^ South
Wales the
according to which the free trev instead of the maenol trev is the is the gwestva-paying unit :^ there is first the group ^^^ of twelve trevs (instead of twelve maenols) under a single maer, and under the name of maenol instead of cymwd ; but apparently all the trevs in the group of twelve ' are free trevs. There ai-e other groups of seven taeog -trevs making a taeog-maenol, and the maenol (instead of the cymwd) has its court, and becomes the unit of legal jurisdiction.®
Confining attention to the free maenol, the first thing to notice is that each of the twelve free trevs of which it was- composed paid its gwestva, or tunc pound in lieu of it. The trev, therefore, was the gwestva-paying unit.
And as to the interior of the trev we read, —
' There are to he four randirs in the treV; from which the king's gwestva shall he paid.'
' 812 erws are to he in tlie randir hetween clear and hrake, wood and field, and wet and dry, except a supernumerary trev [the upland has in addition].'*
In this case the ' tunc pound ' of 240c?. was paid by each trev of 4 randirs, each randir containing 312 erws, and the trev 1,248 erws in all. The trev in South Wales is, therefore, slightly larger than the
* Ancient Laws, pp. 261. ' Four randirs are to he in the trey from which the king's gwestva is to he paid' (s. 6).
' In upland districts there were 13 trevs in the maenol, p. 375.
• There were seven taeog-trevs in taeog-maenolS; and each contained
three randirs, in two of which there were three taeog-tyddyns to each, the third heing pasture for the other two. There were therefore six taeog holdings in each taeog- trev. Ancient Laws, ^c, pp. 375 and 829.
* Pp. 374-5.
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204
The Tribal System.
Chap, vt. Venedotian maenol. Here we are bound by no law that the pence in the gwestva should exactly corre- spond with the number of erws. But in the other versions the 12 odd erws in the randir are stated to be for * domiciUa/ ^ or buildings, and 12 erws would allow of 3 tyddyns of the requisite 4 erws each.
This fixes for us the number of homesteads or tyddyns in the trev. There were 3 tyddyns to each randir, and 4 randirs to the trev, and so there were 12 tyddyns in each trev, and to each tyddyn there were appendant 100 erws in the arable, pasture, and waste. The trev which paid its tunc pound of 240rf. was thus made up of 12 holdings, each paying a score pence. And as in the Latin version of the Dimetian paying an Laws (p. 825) a scorc pence is translated uncia argentic score of the couuexiou is at once made clear between the system of grouping the holdings so as to pay the tunc pound, and the monetary system which prevailed in "Wales, viz., that according to which 20rf. made an ounce, and 12 ounces one pound. The 12 holdings each paying a score of pence, or ounce of silver, made up between them the tunc pound of the trev.
This curious geometrical arrangement or classifi- cation of tyddyns and trevs, with an equal area of land to each, is at first sight entirely inconsistent with the division of the family land among the heirs of the holder, inasmuch as the greatgrandchildren when they divided the original family holding must, one would suppose, have held smaller shares than their great
The tareva cluster of twelve holdings, each
silver, 80 between them the tunc pound.
* P. 829. ' In randir continen- tur ccc. et zii. acre : at in ccc. acrb, araturam, et pascua et focalia pos- sessor habeat; inde xii. domicUia.'
See also p. 790. * Id est xii. domi- cilia.' The Dimetian Code has it ' space for baildings on the 12 erws ' (p. 263).
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Ancient Laws of Wales. 205
grandfather. And there is only one answer to this. It ^=^' ^^• would have been so if the tribe, and the families com- posing it, were permanently fixed and settled on the same land, and pursuing a regular agriculture, with an increasing population within certain boundaries. But the Welsh were still a pastoral people, and, as we shall see when we come to examine the Irish tribal The tribal system, while the homesteads and land divisions were shifted fixed, the occupants were shifted about by the chiefs holdings. ^ from time to time, each sept, or clan, or family receiv- ing at each rearrangement a certain number of tyddyns or homesteads, according to certain tribal rules of blood relationship of a very intricate character.
This permanence of the geographical divisions and homesteads, and shifting of the tribal households whenever occasion required it, was only possible with a pastoral and scanty population. Long before the fourteenth century the households were settled in their homesteads, geometrical regularity had ceased, and the land was divided and subdivided into irre- gular fractions. This is the state of things disclosed in the Record of Carnarvon, But in the tenth cen- tury, according to the Welsh laws, the old tribal rules were apparently still in force.
Without pretending to have mastered all the Thecius- details of these obscure tribal arrangements, the ho^sfhofds point to be noted is that the scattering of the tyddyns ^^l^^^ aU over the country side, and the clustering of them mark of
, « 1 . 1 . , the tribal
by fours and sixteens, or twelves, mto the group system. which was the unit paying the gwestva or tunc pound, and again into clusters of twelve or thirteen ^ under a
^ ' There are to be thirteen trevs I of these is the supernumerary trev.* in eyerymaenol, and the thirteenth | Gwentum Code, p. 876.
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206 The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. maer, as the unit of civil jurisdiction, were obviously distinctive features arising from the tribal holding of land, and that the system was adopted apparently to facilitate the division of the land among the families in the tribe somewhat in the same way as in the open field system the division of the arable land by turf balks into actual erws facilitated the division of the ploughed land among the contributors to the plough team.
Bearing this in mind we may now turn back to the Domesday Survey, and compare its description of the land system of Gwent and Archenfield with the results obtained from the Welsh laws.
In order, however, to make this comparison the Welsh terms must be translated into Latin, otherwise it will be difficult to recognise the trev, and maer, and maenol, and gwestva in the Domesday description.
Latin The before-mentioned Latin version of the Dimetiaa
^ taibir*^ Code, the MS. of which dates from the early thirteenth
ki*^the century, will do this for us.^
S?™!^*^ It translates trev^ the unit of the tunc pound, by villa. It takes the Welsh word ' maenol ' as equivalent to manor ^ and indeed it did resemble the Saxon and Norman manor in this, that it was the unit of the jurisdiction of each single steward or viUicus of the chief. This officer was called in Welsh the maer^ which was translated into the Latin prcepositus. He did to some extent resemble the English praepo- situs, but he differed in this — that instead of being set over the ' trev ' or ' villata ' of a single manor,
* Zegei WalUce, Ancient Laws, ^., p. 771 et 9eq.
Surrey.
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The Domesday Survey in Wales. 207
the Welsh maer was, as we have seen, set over a Chap, vi. number of ' villas ' or trevs — thirteen free trevs or seven taeog-trevs, in Gwent — each free trev of which rendered its 'tunc pound' or 'gwestva/ and each taeog or villein-trev its * dawn-bwyd ' of food.
Now, this is precisely what is described in the Domesday Survey of Gwent.
There are four groups of thirteen or fourteen The
.__ , ,1 . , clusters of
' villas or trevs, each group under a ' praepositus or viiiaa maer ; and these four groups, which were in fact "^t^^us Qwentian ' maenols,' rendered as gw^sta a food-rent ^.^nt. amounting to 47 sextars of honey, 40 pigs, 41 cows, and 28 shillings for hawks.
In the district of Archenjield the clusters of trevs do not appear, but the food-rents were similar — honey being a marked item throughout.
In the Welsh gwestva, also, honey wsis an important Honey element. It is mentioned as such in the Welsh codes, and it is conspicuous also in the Domesday Survey both of Gwent and Archenfield.
Its importance is shown by the fact that in the import- Gwentian Code a separate section was devoted to honey. * The Law of Bees.' It begins as follows : — * The origin of bees is from Paradise, and on account of the sin of man they came from thence, and they were blessed by God, and, therefore, the mass cannot be without the wax.' ^
The price of a swarm of bees in August was equal to the price of an ox ready for the yoke, i.e. ten or fifteen times its present value, in proportion to the ox.
Honey had, in fact, two uses, besides its being the
1 Ancient Lawa, ^., p. 860.
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208 The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. substitute for the modern sugar — one for the making of mead, which was three times the price of beer ; the other for the wax for candles used in the chiefs house- hold, and on the altar of the mass.^ The lord of a taeog had the right of buying up all his honey ;^ and in North Wales, according to the Venedotian Code, all the honey of the king's aillts or taeogs was reserved for the court.® The mead brewer was also an important royal officer in all the three divisions of Wales.
It is not surprising, then, that the tribute of honey, which formed so important a part of the Welsh gwestva, should be retained as an item in the tribute of the trevs of Gwent after their conquest by Harold.
V. EARLIER EVIDEXCE OP THE PAYMENT OF WELSH GWESTVA, OR FOOD-RENT.
From the combined evidence of the Domesday Survey and the 'Ancient Laws of Wales,' the fact has now been learned that in the eleventh century, as it had done previously probably for 400 years, the river Wye separated by a sharp line the Saxon land, on which the manorial land system prevailed, from the Welsh land, on which the Welsh tribal land system prevailed. On the one side of the river, at the date of the Sur- vey, clusters of scattered homesteads of free Welsh- men contributed food-rents in the form of gwestva to the conqueror of their chief, and taeogs their dawn- bwyds. On the other side the villata of geneats and geburs, besides paying gafol, performed servile week-work upon the demesne lands of the lord of the
» Ancient Laws, ^-c, p. 826. • Id. p. 213. » Id. p. 02 (s. 6).
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Early Welsh Evidence, 209
village or manor. It may be well, however, to seek Chap^i. for some earlier evidence of the payment of gwestva on the Welsh side of the river.
Documentary evidence of the manorial system on the Saxon side was forthcoming as early as the seventh century, in the laws of King Ine. How far back can documentary evidence be traced of the Welsh system ?
In the possession of the church of UandafF there The Book was long preserved an ancient MS. of the Gospels in chMtereof Latin, called the Book of St. Chad.^ This MS. eontufy'^ appears to date back to the eighth century. And it jnention was for long the custom to enter on its margin a record of solemn compacts sworn upon it, as in the similar case of the Book of Deer. It thus happens to contain {inter alia) two short records of grants to the church of St. Teilo (or Llandaflf). One of these gifts is as follows : ^ —
* This writing showeth that Eis and the family of ' Grethi gave to God and St. Teilo, Treb guidauc. . . . ' and this is its census : 40 loaves and a wether sheep
* in summer ; and in winter, 40 loaves, a hog, and 40 ' dishes of butter. . . .'
Another is in these words : —
* This writing showeth that Eis and Hirv .... ' gave Bracma as far as Hirmain Guidauc^ from the
* desert of Gelli Irlath as far as Camdubr, its " hichet "
* [food-rent ?], 3 score loaves and a wether sheep,
' lAber Landavensis, p. 271, guidauc i malitiduck Oimai^ich, App., and p. 615. et hie est census ejus, douceint
' For the translation eee p. 616. For the original, p. 27'2, as follows : ' Ostendit ista scriptio quod de- derunt Ria et. luith Grethi Trd
torth hamaharuin in irham, hadu- ceint torth in irgaem, ha huch, ha douceint mannudenn deo et sancto elindo. . . .
I*
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210 The Tribal System.
Chaf. VI. i an^ a vessel of butter. And then follow the wit-
*nesses/' E^dentiy Khys ap Ithael, the donor in these two cases, was
trem^^" king of the district of Glewyssig in the middle of the ninth century, about the time of Alfred the Great. Now, a king or chief would hardly be likely to transfer to the church of Uandaff a free trev and the gwestva paid therefrom. This would have involved the sever- ance of free members of the tribe from the tribe, to put them under an ecclesiastical lordship. We should ex- pect then to find that the Trev * Guidauc ' was a taeog- trev on the chiefs own land, and according to the description given in the grants, the census corresponds not with the gwestva of a free trev under the Welsh laws, but with the * dawn-bwyd ' of the taeog-trev.
The food tribute in these grants was divided into summer and winter payments, and so, as we have seen, were the dawn-bwyds of the taeogs in the Welsh laws ; the scores of loaves, the sow, the wether sheep, and the tubs of butter, correspond also with the food-gifts from the taeog-trevs, as described in the laws, though with varying quantities.^
These grants in the margin of the Book of St.
Chad may, therefore, be taken as evidence that the
system of food-rents was prevalent in Wales in the
middle of the ninth century.
Sumvai There is still earlier evidence of the prevalence
cTwtoms in of the system of food-rents where we should little
^®"®^ expect to find it, viz., in the laws of King Ine. Ine
being King of Wessex, and Wessex shading off as it
^ For the translation see p. 617 ; for the original; p. 272.
• See Lrffes WalUcej ii. 14,
' De Dawnbwyt ' [Done Oibi]. An- cient Lata, ^., of WaU$, p. 790.
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Early Welsh Evidence.
211
were into the old British districts both south and east c^hap. yi. of the Severn, it was but natural that some old Welsh or British customs should have survived in certain places ; as Walisc men here and there survived amongst the conquering English. These Welshmen were allowed under Ine's laws to hold half-hides and hides of land. We have only to examine the Domesday Survey for Gloucestershire and Herefordshire to find traces even at that date of survivals of Welsh and Saxon customs in exceptional cases, even outside those districts which had only just been conquered.
In some places where Saxon customs had long prevailed a little community of Welshmen remained under Welsh customs. Li other places the customs were partly Welsh and partly English.^
> Fol. 162 6. * In O^eneeiter handred King Edward had five hides of land. In demesne v. ploughs and xxxi, yillani with z. ploughs, xiii. servi and x. hordarii, See, The Queen has the wool of the sheep. T. R E. : this manor ren- dered iii.^ modii of corn^ and of harley iii. modii, and of honey vi.J Eextars, and ix./. and t.«., and 3,000 loaves for dogs.'
This w very much like a sur- vival of the Welsh food-rents at one of the cities conquered by the Saxons in 677.
In some other places out of Arcbenfield there was a mixture of Welsh and English customs.
The manor of Westwode (f. 181) was held by the St. Peter of Glouces- ter. It contained vi. hides, 'one of which had Welsh custom, the others English.' A Welshman in
p
this manor had half a carucate, and rendered i. sextar of honey.
And at Clive (f. 179 b), 8 Welsh- men had 8 teams, and rendered x.t^ sextais of honey and vi.«. y.d,, and in the forest of the king was land of this manor, which T. K. E. had rendered vi. sextars of honey, and vi sheep with lambs.
These instances are sufficient to show that in Herefordshire, as in Gloucestershire, in the newly con- quered districts, the old Welsh dues of honey, sheep, &c., remained un-* disturbed; while in the districts which had long been under Saxon rule, in some few cases there was a mixture of services, and in others the Saxon services of ploughing on the lord^s demesne had become general.
It may be assumed that when the services were thus described 2
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212
The Tribal System.
Chap. VI. jj^ precisely the same way survivals such as these Food-rents must have cxisted in King Ine's time. There must in the laws havc been then, as 400 years afterwards, at the date ^e\°eventh ^^ ^^ Survey, places in Wessex where Welshmen pre- centupy. dominated and Welsh customs survived. There must have been, in other words, manors which paid Welsh gwestva instead of Saxon services. There is a remark- able passage in King Ine's laws which can only be thus explained. On the same page, and in the next paragraph but two to the law about the yard-land set to ' gafol ' and to ' weork^ ^ there is a clause appa- rently out of place, which begins abruptly with this heading : * ^t x. hidum to poj-trjie.' ^ In the Latin version this is rendered ' De "x. hides ad corredium.' ^ Now, there is a passage in a charter of Louis Vll. of France, anno 1157, given by Du Cange under the word * Corrediumy in which certain * villas ' are freed from the exaction of ' qusedam convivia, qua3 vulgo Coreede vel Giste vocantur.' This definition of corredium and of 'giste,' as a contribution of food exacted from tenants, corresponds exactly to the Welsh ' gwestva.' And the Saxon word fostre also means food. So that this heading to the passage in question may be translated — * from x. hides paying gwestva.' And so interpreted the following hst be-
contrary to the usual routine of the Domesday surveyors, it was because there was something unusual about them ; and that in the majority of instances where Saxon customs pre- vailed; no description was deemed needful. Compare the Domesday survey of Dorsetshire— a portion of the * West Wales '—where the
manors in the royal demesne are grouped so that each group renders a 'firm a unius noctis/ or a ^ firm a dimidin noctis.'
* Law8 of Ine, No. 67. Thorpe, p. 63.
» M No. 70. Thorpe, p. 63.
» M p. 504,
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Early Welsh Evidence. 213
comes perfectly intelligible, for it describes what the Chap. vi. gwestva consisted of.
From 10 hides — z. doliaofboney. ccc. loaves.
xii. amphora of Welsh' XXX. of clear [do.] ii. oxen or x. wethers. X. geese. XX. hens. X. cheeses.
A full amphora of butter. y. salmons of xx. pounds weight. c. eels.
Now, if the system of gwestva payment or food-rent described in this passage of the laws of King Ine be evidence of the survival of the Welsh custom after the Saxon conquest, it is at the same time equally clear documentary evidence of the seventh century that the system of gwestva or food-rents was prevalent outside Wales in the west of Britain before the Saxon conquest.^
* For much curious information I tenures, see Taylor's Histoty of respecting the Welsh system of I Oaod-kind. London. 1663.
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CHAPTER Vn.
THE TRIBAL SYSTEM {continued), I. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM IJT IRELAND ANT) SCOTLAND.
Chap. VII. The Welsh evidence brings us back to a period parallel with the Saxon era marking the date of King Ine's laws. The Welsh land system was then clearly distinguished from the Saxon by the absence of the manor with its village community in serfdom, and by the presence instead of it of the scattered homesteads {tyddyns) of the tribesmen and taeogs, grouped to- gether for the purpose of the payment to the chief of the food-rents, or their money equivalents.
Further light may possibly be obtained from obser- vation of the tribal system in a still earlier economic stage, though at a much later date, in Ireland.
Now, first — ^without going out of our depth as we might easily do in the Irish evidence — it may readily be shown, sufficiently for the present purpose, that the system of land divisions, or rather of the group- ing of homesteads into artificial clusters with arith- metical precision, was prevalent in Ireland outside the Pale as late as the times of Queen Elizabeth and
Iribh laud divisions cloeely resemble the Welsh.
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The Iri^h Evidence, 215
James L, when an effort was made to substitute Chap. vii. English for Irish customs and laws.
There are extant several surveys of parts of Ire- land of that date in which are to be recognised arrangements of homesteads almost precisely similar to those of the Welsh Codes. And further, the names of the tenants being given, we can see that they were blood relations like the Welsh tribesmen, with a carefully preserved genealogy guarding the fact of their relationship and consequent position in the tribe.
The best way to realise this fact may be to turn to actual examples.
According to an inquisition ^ made of the county of Fermanagh in 1 James 1. (1603), the county was found to be divided into seven equal baronies, the description of one of which may be taken as a sample.
* The temporal land within this barony b all equally divided into Clusters of 7J haUyhetaghes [literally victuallerB" towns,' or units for purposes of the ^^ ^ food-rents like the Welsh trem^ each containing 4 quarters, each of ^ ^^' those quarters containing 4 tathes [corresponding with the Welsh tyddyns], and each of thoee tathes aforesaid to he 30 acres country measure.'
Of * spiritutd lands ' there are two parish churches, one haying 4 qiiar* ters, the other 1 quarter.
Also there are 'other smaU freedoms containing small parcels of land, some belonging to the spiritualty, and others being part of the menaal lands allotted to Macgwire (the chief).'
This exactly corresponds with the arrangement for the purposes of the gwestva of the Welsh tyddyna in groups of 4 and 16, as in the Venedotian Code.
> InqmsUwne$ CanceUaria Hi- I Academy, viL p. xiv., p. 474, Paper hernia, ii xxx. iii. by the Rev. W. Reeves, D.D.
• ProceediwfB of the Royal Irish
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216
The Tribal System.
OiiAP. vu. There is also a Survey of County Moimghan in 33 Elizabeth ^ (1591), in which the names of the holders of the tates in each bailebiatayh, or group of 16, are given. Thus, again, to take a single example, —
Example in Co, Monaghan.
BaUeclonanffre, a ballibeatacli containing xvi. totes.
To Breine McCabe Fitz Alexander . 5 tates.
„ Edmond McOabe Fitz Alexander . I tate.
„ Cormocke McOabe .... 2 tates.
„ Breine Kiagh McOabe . , 2 „
„ Edmond boy, McOabe . . .1 tate.
f, Rosse McOabe McMelaghen . 1 ,,
„ Gilpatric McOowla McOabe . . 1 „
,, Toole Mc Alexander McOabe . . 1 ,,
„ James McTirlogb McOabe . 1 ,,
„ Arte MeMelaghlin Dale McMahon . 1 ,,
ie"
A fresh survey of the same district was made by Sir John Da vies in 1607 ;^ the record for this same bailebiatagh is as follows : —
(1. Lissenarte. 2. Oremojle. 3. Sharaghanadan. 4. Nealoste. 6. Tirehannely.
Patrick M^Edmond M*Oabe Fitz- Alexander, in ) ^ q , . , ae, 1 tate I '
demesne, Oormock M'Oabe, in demesne, 2 tates
Rosse M'Arte Mojle, in demesne, 2 tates .
jlO. Oowlerasack.
James M'Edmond boy M'Oabe, in demesne, 1 ) , , _ „ , . tate . . . . . . jli- Tollagbeiace.
Oolloe M'Art Oge M^Mahowne, in demesne, 1) ,« T^
tate . . . . . . Jl2. Dromegeryne.
j 7. Agbenelogh. 'I 8. Derraghlin.
j 9. Benage. 110.
^ InquigUiones CancdlaruB Hi^ I * Calendar of State Papen, Ire^ hei-nia, ii. p. xxi. I land^ 160G-8, p. 170.
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The Irish Evidence. 217
Patrick M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in regard there \ Chap. VII.
is good hope of his honest deserts, and that [ i o p „
the first patentee disclaimeth, in demesne. If* tate j
Toole M*Toole M* Alexander M'Oahe, in demesne, ) , . „, Itate [14. Tungher.
James M'Tirleogh M'Oabe, in demesne, 1 tate . 15.
Brian M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in demesne, IK^ tate j ■
Now, by comparison it will be seen that at both The tribes- dates there were sixteen tates in the bailebiatagh, and rektions. that the holders were evidently blood relations. In some cases the name of a son takes the place of his father (the genealogy being kept up), and in others new tenants appear.
There is also reason to suppose that these tates The /<i/« were family homesteads (like the tyddyns of the hoidiugs. Welsh * family land '), with smaller internal divisions, and embracing a considerable number of lesser house- holds. The fact that one person only is named as holding the tate, or the two tates, as the case may be, suggests that he is so named as the common an- cestor or head of the chief household representing all the belongings to the tate. Within the tate the sub- division of land seems to have been carried to an indefinite extent. The following extract from Sir John Davies' report will probably give the best account of the actual and, to his eye, somewhat con- fused condition of things within the tates, as he found them. It relates to the county of Fermanagh, and is in the form of a letter to the Earl of Salisbury, dated 1607:^—
* Appended to Sir John Davies' Di8coveri/ of Irdmid, in some of the ' t;arly editions.
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218
The Tribal System,
Bi»i tS.
Chap. VII. For the several poafiessions of all these lands we took this course to find ~ them out, and set them down for his lordship's information. We called Da vies* ^^^^ "® *^® inhabitants of every barony severally. . . We had present oer- deocription ^^^^ o^ ^^® clerks or scholars of the coimtry, who know all the septs and of the famUietf and all their branches, and the dignity^ of one sept above another,
and what families or peraons were chief of every sept, and who were next, and who were of a third rank, and so fortJi, till they descended to the most infeiior man in all the baronies ; moreover, they took upon them to tell what quantity of land every man ought to have by the custom of their country, which is of the nature of gavelkind. Whereby, as their septs or families did multiply, their possessions have been from time to time divided and subdivided and broken into so many small parcels as nknost every acre of land hath a several owner, which termeth himself a lord, and his portion of land his country : notwithstanding, as McGuyre himself hnd a chiefry over all the country, and some demesnes that did over pass to him only who carried that title ; so was there a chief of every sept who had certain services, duties, or demesnes, that ever passed to the tannist of that sept, and never was subject to division. When this was understood, we first inquired whether one or more sepU did possess that barony which we had in hand. That being set do^-n, we took the names of the chief parties of the sept or septs that did pos- sess the baronies, and also the names of such as were second in them, and 80 of others that were inferior unto them again in rank and in possessions. Then, whereas every barony containeth seven ballibetaghs and a half, we caused the name of every ballibetagh to be written down ; and there- upon we made inquiry what portion of land or services every man held in every ballibetagh, beginning with such first as had land and services ; and after naming such as had the greatest quantity of land, and so de- scending unto such as possess only two taths ; then we stayed, for lower we could not go,^ because we knew the purpose of the State was only to establish such freeholders as are fit to serve on juries; at least, we had found by experience in the county of Monaghan that such as had less than two taths allotted to them had not 409. freehold per annum ultra repri^ salem ; and therefore were not of competent ability for that service ; and yet the number of freeholders named in the county was above 200.
Sir John Davies, in the same report, also gives a graphic description of the difficulty he had in ob-
* Compare the words of Tacitus, * Agri pro numero cultorum ab uni- versis vicis occupantur, quos mox inter se secundum digmttionem par- tiuntur. Germania, zxvi.
* In Monaghan Sir J. Davies had found tates with 60 acres each. Here there were only 80 aci-es in a tate, so he kept to his old rule, and took 2 tates as his lowest unit.
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The Irish Evidence. 21&
taining from the aged Brehon of the district the roll Charvh. on which were inscribed the particulars of the various holdings, including those on the demesne or mensal land of the chiefs
It is difficult to form a clear conception of what the tribes, septs, and families were, and what were their relations to one another. But for the present purpose it is sufficient to understand that a sept con- sisted of a number of actual or reputed blood relations^ bearing the same family names, and bound together by other and probably more artificial ties, such as com- mon liabihty for the payment of eric^ or blood fines.
A curious example of what is virtually an actual sept is found in the State Papers of James I.
In 1606 a sept of the 'Grames,' under their Example chief * Walter, the gude man of Netherby,' being beriand™ troublesome on the Scottish border, were trans- "®p^ planted from Cumberland to Eoscommon ; and in the schedule to the articles arranging for this transfer, it appears that the sept consisted of 124 persons, nearly all bearing the surname of Grame, They were divided into families, seventeen of which were set down as possessed of 20/. and upwards, four of 101. and upwards, six of the poorer sort, six of no abilities, while as dependants tliere were four servants of the name of Grame, and about a dozen of irregular hangers on to the sept.^
The sept was a human swarm. The chief was the Queen Bee round whom they clustered. The territory occupied by a whole sept was divided
* This may be foimd also in Ancient Lares of Ireland, iii. Pre- face, XXXV. G.
' Calendar of State Papertt, Ire-' land, 1603-6, p. 654; and 1606-8, p. 492.
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220
The Tribal System.
CiAP.vii. among the inferior septs which had swarmed off it. And a sort of feudal relation prevailed between the parent and the inferior septs.
There can probably, on the whole, be no more correct view of the Irish tribal system in its essence and spirit than the simple generalisation made by Sir John Davies himself, from the various and, in some sense, inconsistent and entangled facts which bewildered him in detail.^
First, as regards the chiefs, whether of tribes or septs, and their demesne lands, he writes :^ —
' 1. By the Irish custom of tanistry the chieftains of every country and the cliief of every sept had no longer estate than for life in their chieferieM, the inheritance whereof did rest in no man. And these chieferies, though they had some portions of land allotted unto them, did consist chiefly in cuttings and coscheries and other Iruih exactionsy wherehy they did spoil and impoverish the people at their pleasure. And when their chieftains were dead their sons or next heirs did not succeed them, hut their tanists, who were elective, and purchaned their elections hy show of hands.'
Next, as to tribesmen and their inferior tenan-
The chicfii and ti e tanists.
Division of holdings among tribesmen.
cies
' 2. And by the Irish custom of gavelkind the inferior tenancies were partible amongst all the males of the sept ; and after partition made, if any one of the sept had died his portion was not divided among his sons, but the chief of the sept made a new partition of all the lands belonging to that sept, and gave every one his part according to his antiquity.'
The These two Irish customs (Sir John Davies con-
andchlu^g- tinucs) made all their possessions uncertain, being fr^'uont shuffled and changed and removed so often from one ir!!f "^"" ^^ another, by new elections and partitions, ' which
uncertainty of estates hath been the true cause of
desolation and barbarism in this land.'
tions.
* The evidence by which he was gradually informed may be traced in detail in the above-men-
tioned Calendars,
* Sir John Davies' Discovery of Irdand, 1012, pp. 167 et seq.
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The Irish Evidence.
221
These were obviously the main features of an Chap.vil earlier stage of the tribal system than we have seen in Wales. It was the system which fitted easily into the artificial land divisions and clusters of home- steads. And this method of clustering homesteads, in its turn, not only faciUtated, but even made possible those frequent redistributions which mark this early stage of the tribal system.
The method of artificial clustering was apparently widely spread through Ireland, as we found it in the various divisions of Wales.
It also was ancient; for according to an early TheBy«t«ra poem, supposed by Dr. SulKvan ^ to belong * in sub- *°°*®°^ stance though not in language to the sixth or seventh century,' Ireland was anciently divided into 184
* Tricha C^ds ' (30 hundreds [of cows]), each of which contained 30 bailee (or townlands) ; 5,520 bailes in all.
The baile or townland is thus described : —
' A bsdle sustains 800 cows, Four full herds therein may roam.'
The poem describes the bailes (or townlands) as and paa- divided into 4 quarters, i.e. a quarter for each of the ^*^" 4 herds of 75 cows each.
The poem further explains that the baile or town- Baiiys and land was equal to 12 ' seisrighs ' (by some translated ^^'^^^^•
* plough-lands '), and that the latter land measure is 120 acres,^ making the quarter equal to three * seisrighs '
' Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, E, O'Curry. Dr. Sullivan's Introduction, p. xcvi. See also Skene's Celtic Scotland,
iii. 154.
« Skene, p. xcii.
iii. 155. Sullivan,
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222
The Tnbal System.
Chap. VII. or 360 acFcs. But this latter mode of measurement is probably a later innovation introduced with the growth of arable farms. The old system was division into quarters, and founded on the prevalent pastoral habits of the people. In the earliest records Con- naught is found to be divided into baUys^ and the ballys into quarters^ which were generally distinguished by certain mears and bounds.^ The quarters were sometimes called ^cartronSy but in other cases the caitron was the quarter of a quarter, i.e. a * tate.' O'Kelly's county in 1589 was found to contain 665^ quarters of 120 acres each.*
Lastly, it may be mentioned that in the re-allot- ment of the lands in Eoscommon to the sept of the Grames on their removal from Cumberland each family of the better class was to receive a quarter of land containing 120 acres.*
The evidence as regards Scotland is scanty, but Mr. Skene, in his interesting chapter on * the tribe in * Scotland,' has collected together sufficient evidence to show that the tribal organisation in the Gaelic dis- tricts was closely analogous to that in Ireland.*
There are also indications that the Isle of Man was anciently divided into ballys and quarters.*
The system in Sootlnnd
and in the Isle of Man.
' Skene, iii 158, quoting a tract published in the appendix to Tribes and Cusfoms of Hy Fiachraich, p. 453.
» Id. p. 160, quoting the Tribes and CustwM of Hy Many.
> Calendars of State Paper's, h^- land, 1606-8, pp. 401-2.
* Skene's Celtic Scotland, iii. c. vi.
* In a poem of the sixteenth
century (1507-22), in Manks, given in Train's Isle of Man, i, p. 60, occur the lines —
' Ayns dagh treen Bailey ren eh unnane D'an sleih shen ayn dy heet dy ghuee,'
alluding to St. Germain; trans- lated thus by Mr. Train :—
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The Irish Evidence.
223
The old tribal division of the ballys into * quar- Chap.vii. ters ' and ' tates ' has left distinct and numerous traces in the names of the present townlands in Ireland.
Annexed is an example of an ancient bally divided into quarters. It is taken from the Ordnance Survey of county Galway. Two of the quarters, now town- lands, still bear the names of ' Cartron ' and ' Carrow,' or 'Quarter,' as do more than 600 townlands in various parts of Ireland.^ This example will show that the quarters were actual divisions.
Scattered over the bally were the sixteen 'tates' or homesteads, four in each quarter ; and in some counties — ^Monaghan especially — they are still to be traced as the centres of modem townlands, which bear the names borne by the ' tates ' three hundred years ago, as registered in Sir John Davies' survey. There is still often to be found in the centre of the modern townland the circular and partly fortified enclosure ^ where the old * tate ' stood, and the lines of the pre- sent divisions of the fields often wind themselves round it in a way which proves that it was once their natural centre.
Moreover, the names of the ' tates ' still preserved in the present townlands bear indirect witness to the
< For each four qtutrterlands he made a chapel For people of them to meet in prayer.'
For the * quarterlands ' see Statute of the Tinwald Ck)urt, 1646. Also Feltham's Tour, Manx Society, p. 41, &c.
^ That in many cases the quar-
ters had hecome townlands as early as the year 1683, see Tribes and Customs ofHy Afany,Introd.p. 454. See also Dr. Beeye*s paper ' On the Townland Distrihution of Ireland,' Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy y 1861, vol. vii. p. 483.
^ Many thousands of these cir- cular enclosures are marked on the Ordnance Map of Ireland.
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1
224 The Tribal System,
Chap. VI J.
reality of the old tribal redistributions and shifdn^ra of the households from one ' tate ' to another. They seldom are compounded of personal names. They generally are taken from some local natural feature^ The homestead was permanent. The occupants wer«j shifting.
Again, an example taken from the Ordnance Sur-i vey — from county Monaghan — will most clearly illus- trate these points, and help the reader to appreciate the reality of the tribal arrangements.
In the survey of the barony of ' Monoughan ' ^ made in 1607, the ' half baUibetogh called CorreskaUie ' is described as containing eight Hates,' the Irish names of which are recorded. They are given below, and an Enghsh translation of the names is added' in brackets to illustrate their pecuKar and generally non-personal character.
In the half ballibetogh called Correfikallie (Round Hill of the Story-; t«llers) —
rOorneskelfee (? Oorreskallie).
J Oorrevolen (Round Hill of the Mill). 4 totes <| OorreduU (Round Hill of the Bkck Fort).
L Aghelick (Field of the Badger).
f Dromore (the Great Ridge).
J Killagharnaue (Wood of the Heap). 4 tfttes N Yedowe (Bl ick Wood).
I Olonelolane (Lonan's Meadow).
A reduced inap of this ancient * half-ballibetogh,' as it appears now on the large Ordnance Survey, is appended, in which the names of the. old ' tates ' appear, with but little change, in the modern town- lands. The remains of the circular enclosures inark-
^ Calendars of State Papers, 1 * Taken from Shirley's Sist, ofm^ Ireland, 1607, p. 170. 1 Monat/han, part iv. pp. 480-482.
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J
MAP of Hie'hair Baliy
or ^
CORRESKALB
Co. Mona^on; From the Ordnance Su|
SITY
l
,^>^
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The Irish Evidence.
225
ing the sites of the old ' tates ' are still to be traced Chap.vil in one or two cases. The acreage of each townland is given on the map in Enghsh measures. It will be remembered that in Monaghan 60 Irish acres were allotted to each tate instead of the usual 30.
This evidence will be sufficient to prove that the arithmetical clustering of the homesteads was feal, and that, as in Wales, so in Ireland, under the tribal sys- tem the homesteads were scattered over the country, and not grouped together in villages and towns.^
Passing to the methods of agriculture, it is obvious, that, even in a pastoral state, the growth of corn cannot be wholly neglected. We have seen that in Wales there was agriculture, and that, so far as it ex- tended, the ploughing was conducted on an open- field system, and by joint-ploughing.
It was precisely so also in Ireland, and it had been from time immemorial.
It is stated in the ' Book of the Dun Cow ' [Lebor Opeafieida. na Buidre), compUed in the seventh century by the Abbot of Clanmacnois, known to us in an Irish MS. of the year 1100, that* there was not a ditch, nor fence, ' nor stone wall round land till came the period of the
* sons of Aed Slane [in the seventh century], but only
* smooth fields.' Add to this the passage pointed out by Sir H. S. Maine ^ in the ' Liber Hymnorum ' (a MS. probably of the eleventh century), viz. —
* ' Neither did any of them in aU this time plant any gardens or orchards, enclose or improve their lands, live together in settled vil- lages or towns.' — Discovery of Ire- land, p. 170. Compare this with the description of the Germans by Tacitus. It was, as Sir John
Davies remarks, a condition of things 'to be imputed to those [tribal] customs which made their estates so uncertain and transitory in their possessions ' (id,),
" Early History of Institutions,
p. iia
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226
The Tribal System.
CHAP.vn.
The run- rig or Bundale system in Ireland and Scot- land.
' Very numerous were the inhabitants of Ireland at this time [the time of the sons of Aed Slane in the seventh century], and their number was so great that they only received in the partition 3 lots of 9 rufges [immaire] of land, namely 9 ridges of bog land, 9 of forest, and 9 of arable land.'
Taking these two passages together, and noting that the word for * ridges ' {immaire) is the same word {imire^ ar iomair ^) now used in GaeKc for a ridge of land, and that the recently remaining system of strips and balks in Ireland and Scotland is still known as the * run-rig ' system, it becomes clear that whatever there was of arable land in any particular year lay in open fields divided into ridges or strips.
There are, further, some passages in the Brelwn Laws which show that at least among the -lower grades of tribesmen there was joint-ploughing. And this arose not simply from ' joint-tenancy ' of un- divided land by co-heirs,* but from the fact that the tribesmen of lower rank only possessed portions of the requisites of a plough,^ just as was the case with Welsh tribesmen and the Saxon holders of yard-lands.
There can be little doubt, therefore, that we must picture the households of tribesmen occupying the four ' tates ' in each * quarter * as often combining to produce the plough team, and as engaged to some extent in joint-ploughing.
^ Skene's Celtic Scotland, iii. p. 881.
* As to joint-tenancy between co-heirs, see tract called 'Judg- ments of Co-tenancy.' Brehon Laws, iv. pp. 69 ei seq.
3 See the tract ' Crith Gabhkch.' Brehon Laws, iv. pp. 800 et seq. One grade has ' a fourth part of a ploughing apparatus, i.e, an ox, a plough 'Straw, a goad, and a bridle '
(p. 807) ; another * half the means of ploughing' (p. 809) ; another *a perfect plough ' (p. 311) ; and so on. And the size of their respective houses and the amount of their food- rent is graduated also according to their rank in the tribal hierarchy. There is a reference to ' tillage in common' in the 'Senchus Mor.' Brehon Laws, iii. p. 17.
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The Irish Evidence,
227
At first, what little agriculture was needful would Chap. vir. be, like the Welsh * coaration of the waste,' the joint- ])loughing of grass land, which after the year's crop, or perhaps three or four years' crop, would go back into grass.^ But it would seem from the passage quoted above, that the whole quarter of normally 120 Irish acres was at first divided into * ridges ' — possibly Irish acres — to facilitate the allotment among the households not only of that portion which was arable for the year, but also of the shares in the bog and the forest. No doubt originally there was plenty of mountain pasture besides the thirty, or sometimes sixty scattered acres or ridges allotted in
* The following appeared in the Athenceurrif March 3, 1883, under the signature of Mr. G. L. Gomme : — ' The 312 acres in possession of the Corporation of Kells (co. Meath) are divided into six fields, and thus used. The fields are broken up in rotation one at a time, and tilled during four years. Before the field is broken the members of the Cor^ poration repair to it with a sur- veyor, and it is marked out into equal lots, according to the existing number of resident members of the body. Each resident freeman getd one lot, each portreeve and bur- gess two lots, and the deputy sove- reign five lots. A portion of the field, generally five or dx acres, is set apart for letting, and the rent obtained for it is applied to pay the tithes and taxes of the entire. The members hold their lots in severalty for four years and cultivate them as they please, and at the expiration
a
of the fourth year the field is laid down with grass and a new one is broken, when a similar process of partition takes place. The other five fields are in the interim in pas- ture, and the right of depasturing them is enjoyed by the members of the Corporation in the same pro- portion as they hold the arable land; that is to say, the deputy sovereign grasses five heads of cattle (called "boUs") for every two grazed by the portreeves and burgesses, and for every one grazed by the freemen ; with this modifi- cation, however, that the widow of a burgess enjoys a right of grazing to the same extent as a freeman, and the widow of a freeman to half that extent. The widows do not obtain any portions of the field in tillage. I should note that the first charter of incorporation to Kells dates from Richud I.'
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228 The Tribal System,
Chap. VII. * run-rig ' to each *tate' or household. In the seventh century, as we have seen, the complaint was made that the pressure of population had reduced the shares to twenty-seven ridges instead of thirty.
Finally, when we examine in the Highlands of Scotland as well as in Ireland the still remaining custom known as the ' Rundale ' or * run-rig ' system, whereby a whole townland or smaller area is held in common by the people of the village, and shared among them in rough equaUty by dividing it up into a large number of small pieces, of which each holder takes one here and another there ; we see before us in Scotland as in Ireland a survival of that custom of scattered ownership which belonged to the open-field system all the world over ; whilst we mark again the absence of the yard-land, which was so constant a feature of the English system. The method is even appUed to potato ground, where the spade takes the place of the plough ; and thus instead of the strip, or acre laid out for ploughing, there is the * patch' which so often marks the untidy Celtic townland.
Existing maps of townlands, whilst showing very clearly the practice still in vogue of subdividing a holding by giving to each sharer a strip in each of the scattered parcels of which the old holding con- sisted, hardly retain traces of the ancient division of the whole * quarter ' into equal ridges or acres. But they show very clearly the scattered ownership which has been so tenaciously adhered to, along with the old tribal practice of equal division among male heirs. An example of a modern townland is annexed, which will illustrate these interesting points. The confusion it presents will also illustrate the inherent incompati-
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Thd* towrdand contam»205 aert now acaupied m 4?^ lot»,hyJ^9tmanU 3 afwtioim aoatbereci KoOm^ are shownin. dffKr^nt colore.
Eaxnnplt of 3iyi»iong and. hdOings in a. Ttnndand onlheBinvti^'sywttrntEjctnicteci /rontlUpoTt of Devon. CbmtTtUsiain,9^eI<wd])ufifkrn.'sli-^^Erni^^
Lond/mj^ Longmans t C?
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The Irish Evidence. 229
bility in a settled district of equal division among Chap.vil heirs with anything Uke the yard-land, or bundle of equal strips handed down unchanged from generation to generation.
Mr. Skene, in his interesting chapter on the * Land Tenure in the Highlands and Islands,* ^ has brought together many interesting facts, and has drawn a vivid picture of local survivals of farming communi- ties pursuing their agriculture on the run-rig system, and holding their pasture land in common. And the traveUer on the west coast of Scotland cannot fail to find among the crofters many examples of modified forms of joint occupation in which the methods of the runi-ig system are more or less applied even to newly leased land at the present time.
Thus whilst the tribal system seems to be the result mainly of the long-continued habits of a pas- toral people, it could and did adapt itself to arable agriculture, and it did so on the Unes of the open field system in a very simple form, extemporised wherever occasion required, becoming permanent when the tribe became settled on a particular territory.
Returning now to the main object of the inquiry The Irish we seem, in the perhaps to some extent superficial and s^tem in too simple view taken by Sir John Davies of the Irish g^^hln tribal arrangements, to have found what we sought — ^^^ ^^^• to have got a glimpse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of an earlier stage in the working of the tribal system than we get in Wales nearly 1,000 years earher. In this stage the land in theory was still in tribal ownership, its redistribution among the tribes-
^ Celtic Scotland, iii. c. x. See I the BBi&tQ of Sutherland J* By James also ' Account of Improvementa on | Loch. London, 1826.
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230 The Tribal Sy^stem.
Chap. VII. men was still frequent, and arable agriculture was still subordinate to pasture. Lastly, the arithmetical clustering of the homesteads was the natural method by which the frequent redistributions of the land were made easy ; while the run-rig form of the open- field system was the natural mode of conducting a co-operative and shifting agriculture.
But whilst gaining this step, and resting upon it for our present purpose, we must not be bhnd to the fact that in another way the Irish system had become more developed and more complex than the Welsh.
Sir John Davies sometimes dwells upon the fact that the chief was in no true sense the lord of the county, and the tribesmen in no true sense the free- holders of the land. The land belonged to the tribe. But, as we have seen, he found also that, as in Wales, the chiefs and sub-chiefs had, as a matter of fact, rightly or wrongly, gradually acquired a permanent occupation of a certain portion of land — so many townlands — which, using the English manorial phrase, he speaks of as ' in demesne.' Upon these the chief's immediate followers, and probably bondservants, lived, like the Welsh taeogs, paying him food-rents or tribute very much resembling those of the taeogs. The amx- This land, as we have seen, he calls ' mensal land^
described probably translating an Irish term ; and we are re- ^Br^ minded at once of the Welsh taeog-land in the Regis- L'lws, f^r trevs^ which also, from the gifts of food, was called in one of the Welsh laws ' mensal land,'
Further, besides these innovations upon the ancient simplicity of the tribal system, there had evidently, and perhaps from early times, grown up artificial relationships, founded upon contract, or even
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The Irish Evidence, 231
fiction, which, so to speak, ran across and complicated Chap. vii. very greatly the tribal arrangements resting upon blood relationship. This probably is what makes the Brehon laws so bewildering and apparently inconsist- ent with the simplicity of the tribal system as in its main features it presented itself to Sir John Davies.
The loan of cattle by those tribesmen (Boaires) who had more than enough to stock their proper share of the tribe land to other tribesmen who had not cattle enough to stock theirs, in itself introduced a sort of semi-feudal, or perhaps ^Qmi-commercial dependence of one tribesman upon another. Tribal equality, or rather gradation of rank according to blood relation- sliip, thus became no doubt overlaid or crossed by an actual inequality, which earlier or later developed in some sense into an irregular form of lordship and service. Hence the complicated rules of * Saer * and ' Daer ' tenancy. There were perhaps also artificial modes of introducing new tribesmen into a sept with- out the blood relationship on which the tribal system was originally built. These complications may be studied in the Brehon laws, as they have been studied by Sir Henry Maine and Mr. Skene, and the learned editors of the ' Laws ' themselves ; but, however ancient may be the state of things which they de- scribe, they need not detain us here, or prevent our recognising in the actual conditions described by Sir John Davies the main features of an earlier stage of the system than is described in the ancient Welsh laws.
II. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM IN ITS EABLIER STAGES.
The comparison of the Gaelic and Cymric tribal systems has shown resemblances so close in leading
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232 The Tribal System.
ChapJ^i. principles, that we may safely seek to obtain from some of the differences between them a glimpse into earlier stages of the tribal system than the Welsh evidence, taken alone, would have opened to our view. Outside in- Two powcrful influences had evidently already Rome, partially arrested the tribal system in Wales, and ityrand ' tumcd it as it were against its natural bent into fixed siMtic^* and hardened grooves, before it assumed the shape in system. which it appears in the Welsh laws. These two powerful influences were (1) Roman rule and (2) Christianity. Their first action was to some extent exercised singly and apart, though concurrently in point of time. But their separate influences were afterwards surpassed and consolidated by the remark- able combination of them both which was presented in the ecclesiastical system.
The influences of Christianity, and of the later ecclesiastical system, were powerfully exerted in Ireland also ; but the Irish tribal system differed from the Welsh in its never having passed directly under Eoman imperial rule.
The Brehon laws of Ireland perhaps owe their form and origin to the necessity of moulding the old traditional customs to the new Christian standard of the ecclesiastics, under whose eye the codification was made So, also, the Welsh laws of Howell the Good, and the Saxon laws of Ine and his successors, all reflect and bear witness to this influence, and had been no doubt moulded by it into softer forms than had once prevailed. At least the harshest thorns which grew, we may guess, even rankly upon the tribal system, must, we may be sure, have been already removed before our first view of it.
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Its Earlier Stages. 233
In fact, nearly all the early codes, whether those of Chap. vn. Ireland, Wales, or England, or those of German tribes on the Continent, bear marks of a Christian influence, either directly impressed upon them by ecclesiastical authorship and authority, or indirectly through con- tact with the Eoman law, which itself in the later edicts contained in the Codes of Theodosius and Justinian had undergone evident modification in a Christian sense.
So far as the Welsh tribal system is concerned, it is quite clear that whatever had been the influence upon it of direct Roman imperial rule and early Cliristianity, it submitted to a second and fresh in- fluence in the tenth century.
This appears when we consider the avowed motives and object of Howell the Good in making his code. Its preface recites that he 'found the Cymry per- verting the laws and customs, and therefore sum- moned from every cymwd of his kingdom six men practised in authority and jurisprudence; and also the archbishop, bishops, abbots, and priors, imploring grace and discernment for the king to amend the laws and customs of Cymru.' It goes on to say that, ' by the advice of these wise men, the king retained some of the old laws, others he amended,, others he aboUshed entirely, estabUshing new laws in their place;' special pains being taken to guard against doing anything * in opposition to the law of the Church or the law of the Emperor' ^
Finally, it is stated in the same preface that Howell the Good went to Rome to confirm his laws by papal
1 Ancient Xoim, ^c, of WtUeSf p. 165.
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234 77^6? Tribal SystetJi.
Chap.vu. authority, a.d. 914, and died a.d. 940. It may be added that the reference to the ' law of the Emperor ' was no fiction, for • Blegewryd^ Archdeacon of Llandav,
* was the clerk, and he was a doctor in the law of the
* Emperor and in tlie law of the Church.'
The tribal In connexion with this ecclesiastical influence ftraing*^ there is a curious exception which proves the rule, ^viver" ^" ^^^ refusal of Howell the Good to give up the tribal these in- ^vXe of coual division amonff sons, which lay at the
root of the tribal system, and to introduce in its place
the law of primogeniture.
' The ecclesiastical law says that no son is to have the patrimony but the eldest born to the father by the married ^dfe: the law of Howell, however, adjudges it to the youngest son as well as to the oldest, [i.e. all the sons] and decides that sin of the father or his illegal act is not to be brought against a son as to his patrimony.' '
And so tenaciously was this tribal rule adhered to that even Edward I., after liis conquest of Wales, was obliged for the sake of peace to concede its continu- ance to the Welsh, insisting only that none but lawful sons should share in the inheritance.'"^
The fixing of the gwestva dues, and their commu- tation into the tunc pound from every free trev, may well have been one of the emendations needful to bring the Welsh laws into correspondence with the
* law of the Emperor,' if it was not indeed the result of direct Koman rule, under which the chiefs paid a fixed tributum to the Eoman State, possibly founded on the tribal food-rent.^
> The Venedotian Code, An- i Lotos, p. 872. dent Latos, ^c, p. 86. I ^ 1'^^ pound of 12 ounces of
^ See the last clause in the 20 pence used in codes of South
* StattUn de Rothelan,^ Record of j Wales seems to have been the Carnarvon, pp. 128-9, and Afieient '■ pound used iu Gaul in Roman
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Its Earlier Stages,
235
The special Welsh laws which reUeve the free Chap. vii. trevs of ' family land ' from being under the maer (or Early villicus) and canchellor^ and from kylch (or progress), and and from dovraeth (or having the king's officers quar- [he^art of tered upon them), and even limit the right of the tiie chiefs. maer and canchellor to quarter on the taeogs to three times a year with three followers, and their share in the royal dues from the taeogs to one-third of the dawnbwyds^^ look very much like restrictions of old and oppressive customs resembling those prevalent in Ireland in later times, made with the intention of bringing the tribesmen and even the taeogs within the protection of rules similar to those in the Theodosian Code protectii:g the coloni on Roman estates.
The probability, therefore, is that the picture drawn by Sir John Da vies of the lawless exactions of the Irish chieftain from the tribesmen of his sept would apply also to early Welsh and British chieftains before the influence of Christianity and later Roman law, through the Church, had restrained their harsh- ness, and limited their originally wild and lawless exac- tions from the tribesmen. The legends of the Liber Landaverisis contain stories of as wild and unbridled license and cruelty on the part of Welsh chieftains as are recorded in the ancient stories of the Irish tribes. And Cajsar records that the chiefs of Gallic tribes had so oppressively exacted their dues (probably food- rents), that they had reduced the smaller people almost into the condition of slaves.
timea. 'Juxta G alios vigesinia pars unci» denarius eat et duode- cim denarii solidum reddunt . . . duodecim uncisB libram xz. solidos continentein elRciunt. Sed veteres
solidum qui nunc aureus dicitur nuncupabunt' De menmria or- cei-pta, Qromatici Veteres, Lach- mann, i. pp. 373-4.
* Anciewb LafGs, ^c,, p, 781.
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236 The Tribal System.
Chap.vii. The close resemblance of the Welsh system of clustering the homesteads and trevs in groups of four and twelve or sixteen, to that prevalent in Ireland, points to the common origin of both. It confirms the inference that both in Wales and in Ireland this curious practice found its raison d'etre in a stage of tribal Ufe when the famihes of free tribesmen did not as yet always occupy the same tyddyn, but were shifted from one to another whenever the dying out of a family rendered needful a redistribution to ensure the fair and equal division of the tribal lands among the tribesmen, ' according to their antiquity ' and their rank under the tribal rules. Redivi- This occasional shifting of tribal occupation within
shifting of the tribc-laud was still going on in Ireland under the oi »ng8. gygg Qf g^. John Da vies, and it seems to have survived the Eoman rule in Wales, though it was there pro- bably confined within very narrow hmits.
It seems, however, to have been itself a survival of the originally more or less nomad habits of pastoral tribes. Semi- So, also, the frailty of the slightly constructed
habita^^ homcsteads of the Welsh of the thirteenth century, t^^R^man ^hich seemed to Giraldus Cambreims as built only to "*^®- last for a year, may be a survival of a state of tribal
life when the tribes were nomadic, and driven to move from place to place by the pressure of warlike neigh- bours, or the necessity of seeking new pastures for their flocks and herds. But the nomadic stage of Welsh tribal life had probably come to an end during the period of Eoman rule.
Putting together the Irish and Welsh evidence in
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Its Earlier Stages.
237
a variety of smaller points, a clearer conception may chap. vii. perhaps be gained than before of the character and Twl^ea relations to each other of the three or four orders ^° !"^i
Bociety.
into which tribal life seems to have separated peoples — the chiefs, the tribesmen^ the taeogs^ and under all these, and classed among chattels, the slaves.
The chief evidently corresponds less with the later lord of a manor than with the modern king. He is the head and chosen chief of the tribesmen. His office is not hereditary. His successor, his tanist or edling, is chosen in his lifetime, and is not necessarily his son.^ The chieftains of Ireland are spoken of in mediaeval records and laws as reguli — little kings. When Wales (or such part of it as had not been before conquered and made manorial) was conquered by Edward I. the chieftainship did not fall into the hands of manorial lords, but was vested directly in the Prince of Wales.^
The tribesmen are men of the tribal blood, i.e. of The tribes- equal blood with the chief. They, therefore, do not ^^^ at all resemble serfs. They are more Uke manorial lords of lordships split up and divided by inheritance, than serfs. They are not truly allodial holders, for they hold tribal land ; but they have no manorial lord over them. Their chief is their elected chief, not their manorial lord. When Irish chieftains claim to be owners of the tribal land in the Enghsh sense, and set up manorial claims over the tribesmen, they are disallowed by Sir John Davies. When Wales is con-
^ This presenta a curious ana- logy to the method followed by * adoptiTe' Roman emperors.
' See the surreys in the Record of Carnarvon, and compare the Statute of Rothelan.
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238
The Tribal System.
CiiAP. vu. quered, the tunc pound is paid by the free tribesmen direct to the Prince of Wales, the substituted chieftain of the tribe, and the tribesmen remain freeholders, with no mesne lord between him and them.^ So it woidd have been also in Ireland if the plans of Sir John Davies had been permanently carried out.^
Thetaeogs. The taeogs are not generally the serfs of the free tribesmen, but, if serfs at all, of the chief. They are more like Eoman coloni than mediaeval serfs. But they are easily changed into serfs. In Ireland the mensal land on which they live is allowed by Sir John Davies to be (by a rough analogy) called the chiefs demesne land. In Wales they are called in Latin documents villani ; but they become after the Conquest the villani, not of manorial lords, but of the Prince of Wales, and they still live in separate trevs from the tribesmen.^
The slaves. Thcsc, then, are the three orders in tribal life ; while the slaves in household or field service, and more or less numerous, are, like the cattle, bought and sold, and reckoned as chattels aUke under the tribal and the manorial systems.
And we may go still further. These three tribal orders of men, with their large households and cattle in the more or less nomadic stage of the tribal system, move about from place to place, and wherever they
' See the surveys in the Record of Carnarvon. The tunc potmd in some districts of Wales is still col- lected for the Prince of Wales. Id. Introduction, p. xvii.
' See Sir John Davies' Discovery, &c., the concluding paragraphs.
And for further information on this point, see my articles in the Fort- nightly Bevietc, 1870, and the Nineteenth Century , January 1881, ' On the Irish Land Question.'
' See the surveys in the Record of Carnarvon.
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Its Earlier Stages
239
go, what may be called tribal houses must be erected Chap. vii. for them.
The tribal house is in itself typical of their tribal and nomadic life. It is of the same type and pattern for all their orders, but varying in size according to the gradation in rank of the occupier.
It is built, like the houses observed by Giraldus t^® ^"^1 Cambrensis, of trees newly cut from the forest.^ A long straight pole is selected for the roof-tree. Six well- grown trees, with suitable branches apparently reach- ing over to meet one another, and of about the same size as the roof-tree, are stuck upright in the ground at even distances in two parallel rows — three in each row. Their extremities bending over make a Gothic arch, and crossing one another at the top each pair makes a fork, upon which the roof-tree is fixed. These trees supporting the roof-tree are called gavaels^ forks^ or columns^^ and they form the nave of the tribal house. Then, at some distance back from these rows of columns or forks^ low walls of stakes and wattle shut in the aisles of the house, and over all is the roof of branches and rough thatch, while at the ends are the wattle doors of entrance. All along the aisles, behind the pillars, are placed beds of rushes.
^ To make a royal house more pretentiouB the bark is peeled off, and it is called ' the White Housed See Ancient LatoSj ^c, pp. 164 and 303.
^ See Ancient Laws, 8fc,, p. 142. —Hall of the chief, 40d, for each gavaei supporting the roof, Le, six Icolfmm, 80rf. for roof. Hall of uchelwe or tribesman, 20d. each gavael supporting tho roof^ i.e. six
colonen, 4^0d. the roof. House of aillt or taeog, 10c?. for each gavael supporting the roof, t.6. six kolovyn. P. 361. — Worth of winter house, 30d. the roof-tree, 30rf. each forck supporting the roof-tree. P. 676. — Three in&peneables of the summer bothy (htod havodwr) — a roof-tree (nen bren), roof-supportiog forks (nen fjrrch), and wattling (bangor). See also p. 288.
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240 The Tribal System.
Chap. VII. called Qwelys {lecti)^ on which the inmates sleep.
The^^^A, The footboards of the beds, between the columns,
or ledi, ^QYm their seats in the daytime. The fire is lighted
on an open hearth in the centre of the nave, between
the middle columns, and in the chieftain's hall a screen
runs between these central pillars and either wall,
so partially dividing ofi* the upper portion where the
chief, the edling, and his principal officers have their
own appointed places, from the lower end of the hall
Thehoufle- whcrc the liumblcr members of the household are
^^^ ranged in order. ^ The columns, hke those in Homeric
houses and Solomon's temple, are sometimes cased in
metal, and the silentiary, to call attention, strikes
one of them with his staff. The bed or seat of the
chieftain is also sometimes cx)vered by a metal canopy.*
In his hand he holds a sceptre or wand of gold, equal
in length to himself, and as thick as his Uttle finger.
He eats from a golden plate as wide as his face, and
as thick as the thumb-nail of a ploughman who has
handled the plough for seven years.®
The kitchen and other outbuildings are ranged round the hall, and beyond these again are the corn and the cattle-yard included in the tyddyn.
The chieftain's hall is twice the size and value of the free tribesman's, and the free tribesman's is twice
^ Compare description of Irish houses in Dr. SuUivan^s Introduc- ticn, cccxlv. et seq., with the Vene- dotitm Code. Ancient Lowe, ^e,, of WaleBf p. 5, 8. vi. — * Of Appro- priate Places.' Compare also the curious resemblances in the struo- j * Id, ture of stone huts in the Scotch | ' Ancient Laws, <$v., p. 8, islands where trees could not be
used, and especially the position of the beds in the walls or in the rough aisles. — Mitchell's Past in the /Ve- sent, Lecture III. Compare Dr. Quest's description of the Celtic houses. Originu CMca, ii. 70-88.
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Its Earlier Stages.
241
that of the taeog. But the plan is the same. They Chap. vn. are all built with similar green timber forks and roof- tree and wattle,^ with the fireplace in the nave and the rush beds in the aisles. One might almost con- jecture that as the tabernacle was the type which grew into Solomon's temple, so the tribal house built of green timber and wattle, with its high nave and lower aisles, when imitated in stone, grew into the Gothic cathedral. Certainly the Gothic cathedral, LikeneBs simplified and reduced in size and materials to a tribal rough and rapidly erected structure of green timber thrGoUiic and wattle, would give no bad idea of the tribal <»^^®^^- house of Wales or Ireland. It has been noticed in a former chapter that the Bishop of Durham had his episcopal bothy, or hunting hall, erected for him every year by his villeins, in the forest, as late as the time of the Boldon Book. This also was possibly a survival of the tribal house.^
In this tribal house the undivided household of The tribal free tribesmen, comprising several generations down to the great-grandchildren of a common ancestor, lived together ; and, as already mentioned, even the structure of the house was typical of the tribal family arrangement.
In the aisles were the gwelys of rushes, and the whole household was bound as it were together in one gwellygord. The gwelys were divided by the
' See Ancient LawSy 8^c,y p. 142.
* Compare Strabo's description of the OaiUc houfles, 'great houses, arched, constructed of planks and wicker and covered with a heavy thatched roof ^iv. c. iv. s. 8). Also for the early stake and watUe (?er-
man houses, see Tacitus (Oemiania, xvL), and the interesting section (Bk. i. s. 4) on the subject in Dr. Karl von Inama-Stemegg^s Deut- sche Wirthschaftsgeschiehte, Leipzig, 1870.
R
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242
The Tribal System.
Chap^vil central columns, or gavaels (Welsh for * fork '), into four separate divisions ; so there were four gavaels in a trev, and four randirs in a gavael. And so in after times, long after the tribal life was broken up, the original holding of an ancient tribesman became divided in the hands of his descendants into gaveUs and gwelySj or weles}
Another point has been noticed. In the old times, when the tribesmen shifted about from place to place, their personal names by necessity could not be given to the places or tyddyns they lived in. The local names in a country where the tribal system pre- vailed were taken from natural characteristics — the streams, the woods, the hills, which marked the site. This was the case, for instance, with the townlands and tates of Ireland. Most of them bear witness, as we have seen, by their impersonal names, to the shift- ing and inconstant tenancy of successive tribesmen.*
It was probably not till the tribes became sta- tionary, and, after many generations, the same families became permanent holders of the same homesteads, that the Welsh gwelya and gavells became permanent family possessions, known by the personal name of their occupants, as we find them in the extents of the fourteenth century.^
Another characteristic of the tribal system in its early stages was the purely natural and tribal charac- ter of the system of blood-money^ answering to the
The tribal blood- money.
* See the Record of Carnarvon, Introduction, p. vii. Wde^ Gwele, or Gwelym Welsh signifies a bed, and accordingly in these extents it is often called in Latin Lectiu, See pp. 90, 96-00, 101.
^ See supra, and the lists given of the names of townlands and their meanings in Shirley's Hist, of Co. Monaghan, pp. 392-643.
• Record of Carnarvon^ passim.
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Its Earlier Stages. 243
WergeU of the Germans. It was not an artificial CHAP.vn.
bundling together of persons in tens or tithings, like
the later Saxon and Norman system of frankpledge^
but strictly ruled by actual family relationship. The
murderer of a man, or his relations of a certain degree,
and in a certain order and proportion, according to
their nearness of blood, owed the fixed amount of
blood-money to the family of the murdered person,
who shared it in the same order and proportions on
their side.^ The same principle held good for insults
and injuries, between not only individuals, but tribes.
For an insult done by the tribesman of another tribe
to a chief, the latter could claim one hundred cows
for every cantrev in his dominion (i.e. a cow for
every trev), and a golden rod.*
The tribesmen and the tribes were thus bound Tenacity together, by the closest ties, all springing, in the first habits.* instance, from their common blood-relationship. As this ruled the extent of their liability one for another, so it fixed both the nearness of the neighbourhood of their tyddyns, and the closeness of the relationships of their common life. And these ties were so close, and the rules of the system so firmly fixed by custom and by tribal instinct, that Roman or Saxon conquest, and centuries of Christian influence, while they modi- fied and hardened it in some points, and stopped its actual nomadic tendencies, left its main features and spirit, in Ireland and Wales and Western Scotland, unbroken. It would seem that tribal Ufe might well go on repeating itself, generation after generation, for a thousand years, with Uttle variation, without
* See Dimetian Corf«,B. II., c. i. Ancient Lotos, ^c, pp. 107 et »eq, ^ Id. p. 3.
R 2
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244 The Tribal System.
Chap.vil really passing out of its early stages, unless in the meantime some uncontrollable force from outside of it should break its strength and force its life into other grooves.
Nor was the tenacity of the tribal system more remarkable than its universality. As an economic stage in a people's growth it seems to be well-nigh universal. It is confined to no race, to no continent, and to no quarter of the globe. Almost every people in historic or prehistoric times has passed or is passing through its stages. Wide pp©- Lastly, this wide prevalence and extreme tenacity the^^b^ of the tribal system may perhaps make it the more system. q^j ^^ Understand the almost equally wide preva- lence of that open-field system, by the simplest forms of which nomadic and pastoral tribes, forced by cir- cumstances into a simple and common agriculture, have everywhere apparently provided themselves with com. It is not the system of a single people or a single race, but, in its simplest form, a system belonging to the tribal stage of economic progress. And as that tribal stage may itself take a thousand years, as in Ireland, to wear itself out, so the open field system also may linger as long, adapting itself meanwhile to other economic conditions ; in England becoming for centuries, under the manorial system, in a more complex form, the shell of serfdom, and leaving its debins on the fields centuries after the stage of serfdom has been passed ; in Ireland following the vicissitudes of a poor and wretched peasantry, whose tribal system, running its course till suddenly arrested under other and economically sadder phases than serfdom, leaves a people swarming on the subdivided
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Eastern Britain not Tribal. 245
land, with scattered patches of potato ground, held in Chap. vii. * run-rig ' or * rundale,' and chnging to the ' grazing ' on the mountain side for their single cow or pig, with a pastoral and tribal instinct ingrained in their nature as the inheritance of a thousand years.
Such in its main features seems to have been the tribal system as revealed by the earhest Irish and Welsh evidence taken together.
There remains the question. What was the rela- tion of this tribal system to the manorial system in the south-east of England and on the continent of Europe ?
III. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE TBIBAL AND AGRI- CULTURAL ECONOMY OF THE WEST AND SOUTH-EAST OF BRITAIN WAS PRE-ROMAN, AND SO ALSO WAS THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM.
The manorial system of the east and the tribal The south system of the west of Britain have now been traced Britain ^ back, in turn, upon British ground, as far as the tutma^^y direct evidence extends, i.e. to within a very few agricui- generations of the time of the Saxon conquest ; and before the in neither system is any indication discernible of a conquest, recent origin.
So far as the evidence has hitherto gone, the two systems were, and had long been, historically dis- tinct. The tribal system probably once extended as far into Wessex as the eastern limits of the district long known as West Wales, i.e. as far east as Wilt- shire ; and within this district of England the manorial system was evidently imposed upon the conquered country, as it was later in portions of
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246 Tlie Tribal System,
CHAP.vn. Wales, leaving only here and there, as we have found, small and mainly local survivals of the earlier tribal system.
But no evidence has yet been adduced leading to the inference that before the Saxon invasion the Welsh tribal system extended all over Britain.
Indeed, the evidence of Caesar is clear upon the point that the economic condition of the south-east of Britain was quite distinct from that of the interior and west of Britain even in pre-Roman times. Evidence Ca3sar describcs the south and east of Britain,
which he calls the maritime portion, as inhabited by those who had passed over from the country of the BelgBB for the purpose of plunder and war, almost all of whom, he says, retain the name of the states (civitates) from which they came to Britain, where after the war they remained, and began to cultivate the fields. Their buildings he describes as exceedingly numerous, and very like those of the Gauls. ^ The most civilised of all these nations, he says, are those who inhabit Kent, which is entirely a maritime dis- trict ; nor do they differ much from Gallic customs.*
He speaks, on the other hand, of the inland in- habitants as aborigines who mostly did not sow com, but fed upon flesh and milk.^
Now, we have seen that the main distinctive mark of the tribal system was the absence of towns and villages, and the preponderance of cattle over corn.
When corn becomes the ruling item in economic arrangements, there grows up the settled homestead and the village^ with its open fields around it.
' Lib. V. c 12. » 0. 14. » 0. 14.
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Eastern Britain not Tribal. 247
Caesar, therefore, in describing the agriculture and Chap. vii. buildings of the Belgic portion of England, and the non-agricultural but pastoral habits of the interior, exactly hit upon the distinctive differences between the already settled and agricultural character of the south-east and the pastoral and tribal polity of the interior and west of Britain.
Nor was this statement one resting merely upon ^ <^®™-
growing
hearsay evidence. Caesar himself found com crops country ripening on the fields, and relied upon them for the during maintenance of his army. Nay, the reason which pui^" led him to invade the island was in part the fact that the Britons had given aid to the Gauls. Further, he obtained his information about Britain from the merchants^ and the news of his approach was carried by the merchants into Britain, thus making it evident that there was a commerce going on between the two coasts, even in pre-Eoman times.^
We know that throughout the period of Eoman occupation Britain was a corn-growing country.
Zosimits represents Julian as sending 800 vessels, ^/^^^® larger than mere boats, backwards and forwards to mua. Britain for corn to supply the granaries of the cities on the Rhine.*
Eumeniics, in his ' Panegyric of Constantine ' (a.d. Eumenius. 310), also describes Britain as remarkable for the richness of its corn crops and the multitude of its •cattle.®
Pliny further describes the inhabitants of Britain Piiny. as being so far advanced in agriculture as to plough
' Book lY. c. zz. and xzi. | p. Izzvi., a.d. 8^.
> Book iii c« v. M<m. BrU, \ ' Men. Brit, p. Ixix.
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248
The Tribal System.
Tacitus.
Chap VII. in marl in order to increase the fertility of the .fields.^
Tacitus,^ in the same way (a.d. drca 90), speaks of the soil of Britain as fertile and bearing heavy crops {patiem frugum)^ and describes the tricks of the tax gatherers in collecting the tributum^ which was exacted in com.*
Strabo * (b.c. 30) mentions the export from Britaui of * corn^ cattle, gold, silver, iron, skins, slaves, and dogs/
Diodorus Siculus ^ (b.c. 44) describes the manner of reaping and storing corn in England thus : —
They have mean habitations constructed for the most part of reeds or of wood, and they gather in the harvest by cutting off the ears of com and storing them in subterraneous repositories; they cull therefrom daily such as are old, and dressing them, have thence their sustenance. . . . The island is thickly inhabited.
Strabo.
Diodoras Siculus.
Pythoas. Lastly, we have been recently reminded by Mr.
Elton that Pytheas, ' the Humboldt of antiquity,' who visited Britain in the fourth century B.C., saw in the southern districts abundance of wheat in the fields.
* Pliny {Monument, Hist, Brit, pp. yiii. ix.) : * Alia est ratio, quam Britannia et Gallia invenere alendi earn (terram) ipsa: quod genus vocant ** marffctm,^ . . , Omnis autem marga aratro injicienda est.'
Pugh's WeUh Diet,, p. 828: ' Marl, earth deposited by water, a rich kind of clay (with many com- pounds).'
See Chron, Monas, Abingdon. II. XXX. P. 147, 'on tha iam- pyttea ; ' p. 402, ' on thone Unnpyt ' {*iam,^ loam, mud, clay. — Bos- worth, p. 416). Pp. 150 and
{chalk-
88,
404, *on tha cealc Beathas^ pits).
See JUber de Hyda, p. ' caelcgrafan ' (chalk-pits).
Compare Pliny (ubi mpra) with Abingdon, ii. p. 294 : ' Totam ter- ram qu8B nimis pessima et infruc- tifera erat tarn citra aquam quam ultra oompositione terrsB qu» vulgo ** Maria " dicitur, ipse optimam et fructiferam fecit.' {Cohs in Essex.)
' In his Agrieola, xii.
• Agrieola, xix.
* Strabo, Bk. IV. c. v. a 2. '^ Mon, Brit, Exoerpta, iL
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Eastern Bntain not Tribal. 249
and observed the necessity of threshing it out in Chap.vh. covered barns, instead of using the unroofed thresh- ing-floors to which he was accustomed in Marseilles. ' The natives,' he says, * collect the sheaves in great
* bams, and thresh out the corn there, because they ' have so little sunshine that our open threshing-places ' would be of httle use in that land of clouds and
* rain.' ^
It is clear, then, that in the south-east of Britain a considerable quantity of corn was grown all through the period of Roman rule and centuries before the Eoman conquest of the island. And if so, that differ- ence between the pastoral tribal districts of the in- terior and the more settled agricultural districts of the south and east, noticed by Caesar, was one of long standing.
The tribal system of Wales furnishes us, there- fore, with no direct key to the economic condition of South-eastern Britain. ^
But, on the other hand, the continuous and long- continued growth of corn in Britain from century to century adds great interest to the further question. Upon what system was it grown ?
Upon what other system can it have been grown The com than the open-field system ? The universal prevalence |J^w^in of this system makes it almost certain that the fields fieMTT found by Caesar waving with ripening corn were ^™- open fields. The open-field system was hardly first introduced by the Saxons, because we find it also in Wales and Scotland. It was hardly introduced by the Eomans, because its division lines and measure-
* Elton's Oriffma of English Histati/f p. a \
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250 The Tribal System.
Chap. VII. ments are evidently not those of the Eoman agrimen- sores. The methods of these latter are well known from their own writings. Their rules were clear and definite, and wherever they went they either adopted the previous divisions of the land, or set to work on their own system of straight lines and rectangular divi- sions. We may thus guess what an open field would have been if laid out, de novo, by the Roman agrimen- sores \ and conclude that the irregular network or spider's web of furlongs and strips in the actual open fields of England with which we have become famihar is as great a contrast as could well be imagined to what the open field would have been if laid out directly under Roman rules.
We happen to know also, from passages which we shall have occasion to quote hereafter, that the Roman agrimensores did find in other provinces — we have no direct evidence for Britain — an open-field system, with its irregular boundaries, its joint occupa- tion, its holdings of scattered pieces, and its common rights of way and of pasture, existing in many dis- tricts— in muUis regionibus — where the red tape rules of their craft had not been consulted, and the land was not occupied by regularly settled Roman colonies.^
The open-field system in some form or other we may understand, then, to have preceded in Britain even the Roman occupation. And perhaps we may go one step further. If the practice of ploughing marl into the ground mentioned by Pliny was an early and local peculiarity of Britain and of Gaul, as it seems to have been from his description, then clearly
> Siculus Flaccas, Be Conditio- I Lachmaim. P. 162. The passagB nibus Agrorum. Gromalici veterea. | will be ^ven in full hereafter.
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Eastern Britain not Tribal. 251
it indicates a more advanced stage of the system than Chap^vii. the early Welsh co-aration of portions of the waste. The marling of land implies a settled arable farming of the same land year after year, and not a ploughing up of new ground each year. It does not follow that there was yet a regular rotation of crops in three courses, and so the fully oi^anLsed three-field system ; but evidently there were permanent arable fields devoted to the growth of com, and separate from the grass land and waste, before Eoman improvements were made upon British agriculture.
But the prevalence of an open-field husbandry in wm the its simpler forms was, as we have been taught by the Sa^riai ? investigation into the tribal systems of Wales and Ireland, no evidence of the prevalence of that parti- cular form of the open-field husbandry which was connected with the manorial system, and of which the yard-land was an essential feature. In order to ascertain the probability of the manorial system having been introduced by the Saxons, or having preceded the Saxon conquest in the south and east of Britain, it becomes necessary to examine the manorial system in its Continental history, so as if possible, working once more from the known to the unknown — ^this time from the better known Roman and German side of the question — to find some stepping- stones at least over the chasm in the English evi- dence.
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|
M |
^^^H |
CHAPTER Vin.
CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER MANORIAL SYSTEM.
Chap.
vm.
The ques- tion a complex one.
I. IMPORTANCE OF THE COJ^INENTAL EVIDENCE.
In now returning to the question of the origin of the English manorial system it is needful to widen the range of the inquiry, and to seek for further hght in Continental evidence.
The question itself has become a complex one. There may have been manors in the south-eastern districts of Britain before the Saxon conquest, while Britain was a Eoman province, or the Saxons may have introduced the manorial system when they con- quered the country. These remain the alternatives now that we have seen that the tribal system in Britain was evidently not its parent. But even if the Saxons introduced the manorial system, the further question arises whether it was a natural growth from their own tribal system, or whether they had themselves adopted it from the Eomans? It is obvious, therefore, that no adequate result can be obtained without a sufficiently careful study (1) of the Eoman provincial land system and (2) of the
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lUlTIVEKSITY^
The Ham^ ffeim, and Villa\.C^ •. ,.2^^\5\^v>/ German tribal system. Not till both these have Chap.
VIII
been examined can it be possible to judge which 1
of the two factors contributed most to the manorial system, and to what extent it was their joint pro- duct.
The question must needs be complicated by the The two fact that during the whole period of the later empire the :^maii a large portion of Germany was included within the ^^ lines of the Roman provinces ; or, to state the point ^^® ^®!- more exactly, that a large proportion of the inhabitants system. of these Eoman provinces were Germans. It will be seen in the course of the inquiry how much depends upon the full recognition of this fact. Indeed, the very first step taken will bring it into prominence, and put us, so to speak, on right geographical Unes, * by showing that the nearest analogies to the EngUsh \ manor were to be found in those districts precisely I which were both Roman and German under the / later empire.
In studying, therefore, the land system in Roman provinces, we must not forget that we are studying what, though Roman, may have been subject to barbarian influences. In studying, on the other hand, the German tribal system, it is no less important to remember that some German customs may betray the results of centuries of contact with Roman rule.
II. THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE SAXON * HAM,' THE GERMAN * HEIM,' AND THE PRANKISH ' VILLA.'
It would be unwise to build too much upon a mere The Saxon resemblance in terms, but we have seen that the Saxon ^fL^Jn words generally used for manor were 'ham' and 'tun.' ^^'
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254 The Roman Land System.
Chap. We have seen how King Alfred, in the remarkable
VIII. . .
passage quoted in an earlier chapter, put in contrast
the temporary log hut on lasnland with the permanent hereditary possession — the * ham * or manor. This latter was, as we have seen, the estate of a manorial lord, with a community of dependants or serfs upon it, and not a village of coequal freemen. Hence the word ham did not properly describe the clusters of scattered homesteads in the Welsh district. In King Alfred's time Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and even parts of Wiltshire were still, as already mentioned, regarded as Welsh. They formed what was known as West Wales. The manorial system had encroached far into them, but it would seem that the phraseology of the earUer system had not yet wholly disappeared. King Alfred in his will carefully abstained from ap- plying the word ham to his numerous possessions in these districts.
He disposed in his will of more than thirty sepa- rately named estates in this West Welsh district, but he invariably used, in describing them, the word * land ' — the land or the landes at such and such a place ; — and he concluded this part of his will with the statement, * These are all that I have in Wealcytu^ except in Truconstirie ' (Cornwall). Then in the rest of his will King Alfred disposed of nearly as many estates in the south-east or manorial districts of Eng- land, and here he immediately changed his style. It was no more the land at this place and that, but the ham at such and such a place.^ In the old English translation of the will given in the Libe^* de Hyda
> Liber de Byda, p. 63.
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The Ham^ Heim^ and Villa.
255
' land ' is rendered by ' lond * and * ham ' invariably Chap.
VIII
by ^tumne'^ Thus without saying that the words 1
ham and tun always were used in this sense, and could be used in no other, they were generally at least synonymous with manor.
As late as the time of Bede, the suffix ' ham * or * tun ' was not yet so fully embodied with the names of places as to form a part of them. In the Cam- bridge MS. of his works ' ham ' is still written as a separate word.
It is a curious fact that the suffix * ton ' or ' tun ' was practically used nowhere on the Continent in the names of places ; but the other manorial suffix, ' ham,' The Oer-
* , . , man hewtt
in one or other of its forms — *hem,' *heim,' or * haim* — ^was widely spread. And as in those districts where it was found most abundantly, it translated itself, as in England, into the Latin villa^ its early geographical distribution may have an important significance.
On the annexed map is marked for each county Oeogra- the per-centage of the names of places mentioned in tribution the Domesday Survey ending in ham} This will give and^^ww. a fair view of their distribution in Saxon England.
(It wiU be seen that the ' hams ' of England were in Eng- most numerous in the south-eastern counties, from ^°^* Lincolnshire and Norfolk to Sussex, finding their densest centre in Essex.^
Passing on to the Continent, very similar evidence, in ?» but of earlier date, is afibrded for a small district surrounding St. Omer, in Picardy, by a survey of the
cardy.
* Lib€r de Syda, pp. 67 et seq,
* The per-centAge is under-esti- mated, owing to the repetition of Tarioufl forms of the same name baTing been excluded in counting
those ending in ham, but not in
counting the total number of places.
' In Essex the h is often
dropped, and the suffix becomes
am.
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256 The Roman Land System,
Chap, estates of the Abbey of St. Bertin, taken about the
VIII. ,
year 850. The ' villas ' there mentioned as * ad
fratrum itsus pertinentes^' and which were distinctly manors, are twenty-five in number, and the names of fifteen of them ended in * hem.' ^
Similar evidence is given for various districts in
Germany in the list of donations to the abbeys, the
abbots of which possessed estates in different parts
of Germany — sometimes whole manors or villages,
sometimes only one or two holdings in this or that
place.
In the On the accompanying map are marked the sites
Sbey* of places mentioned in the cartularies of the Abbeys
of Fulda,* Corvey,» St. Gall,^ Frising,* Wizenburg,«
Lorsch,'' and in other early records, ending in heim in
the various districts of Germany. The result is re-
Heinu markablc. It shows that these helms were most
™umeroufl uumcrous in what was once the Eoman province of
Romrn Germania Prima, on the left bank of the upper Rhine,
province the prcscut Elsass, and on both sides of the Rhine
of Germa- *■
nia Prima, arouud Maycucc — districts conquered by the Frankish and Alamannic tribes in the fifth century, but in- habited by Germans from the time of Tacitus, and perhaps of Cassar, and so districts in which German populations had come very early and continued long under Roman rule. In this district the heims rose in
* Chartularmm Sithiense, p. Zurich^ 1863. 97. * Historia Frisingeims, Mei-
cartu- laries,
« Traditiones et ArUiquitates chelbcck, 1729.
Fuldenaes, Dronke, Fulda^ 1844.
' Traditiones Carbeienses. Wi- gand, 1843.
* Urkundenbuch der Abtei St. Oallen, A.D. 700-840. Wartmann,
• Traditiones jwssesstone^sque Wizenfjurgenses, SpiitB, 1842.
^ Codex Laureshamensis Diplo- maticusj 1768.
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■^4ipp^
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The Ham, Heim, and Villa. 257
number to 80 per cent, of the places mentioned in ^^^ the charters.
There were many, but not so many, heims in the valley of the Neckar ; but everywhere (with small local exceptions) they faded away in districts outside the Roman boundary, except in Frisia, where the proportion was large.
Now, the question is, what do these heims repre- sent?
We have already said that they interchange like Hnm and the EngUsh ' ham ' with the Latin * villa.' The dis- ^a^ngr*^ tricts where they occur most thickly, where they formed 80 per cent, of the names of places in the time of the monastic grants, and which had formed for several centuries the Eoman province of Upper Germany, shade off into districts which abounded with local names ending in villa.
They did so a thousand years ago, and they do so now. It is only needful to examine the Ordnance Survey of any piart of these districts to see how, even now, the places with names ending in ' heim ' are mixed with others ending in ' villa,' or * wilare,' or Wiiare, the Germanised form of the word, ' weiler,' or * wyl ; ' wyC' *" and further, how the region abounding with * heims ' shades off into a district aboimding with names end- ing in * villa,' or * wilare,' and we may add the equally manorial Latin or Eomance termination curtis, or ' court,' and its German equivalent * hof,' or ' hoven.' And such was the case also at the date of the earliest monastic charters.
This fact in itself at least suggests very strongly that here, as in England, ' ham ' and * villa ' were synonyms for the same thing, sometimes called by its
s
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258
The Roman Land System.
Chap. VIIL
Latin and sometimes by its German name. Indeed, actual instances may be found in the charters of these districts in which the name of the same place has sometimes the suffix viUa or wilare and sometimes heim}
Moreover, these places which are thus called ' villas ' or * heims ' in the monastic charters were to all intents and purposes manors as far back as the re- cords allow us to trace them.
The earliest surveys of the possessions of the abbeys leave no doubt as to their manorial character.*
And the earliest charters prove that they were often at least manorial estates before they were handed over to the monks.
Indeed, a careful examination of the Wizenburg and Lorsch charters and donations leads to the result that these * heims' and 'villas' were often royal manors, * villas fiscaUs' on the royal domains, just as Tidenham and Hyssebume were in England. They seem to have often been held as benefices by a dux
^ The followiog are examples of the interchange of villa and heim in the names of places mentioned in the charters of the Abbey of Wizenborg in the district of Spires. The numbers refer to the charters in the TradUiones Wizenburgenseg.
Batanandouilla (9). Batanantesheim (28).
HariolfesuiUa (4). Hariolueshaim (55).
Lorencenheim (141). Lorenzenuillare (275).
Modenesheim (2). Moduinouilare (52).
Moresuuilari (189). Moreaheim (181).
Munifridesheim (118). Munifridouilla (52).
Badolfeshamomarca (90).
Batolfesham, p. 241.
Radolfouuilari, Badulfo yilla (71 and 78). So also, among the manors of the Abbey of St. Bertin, « Tat- tinga Villa' granted to the abbey in k.J>. 648 (Chart. Sithietue, p. 18), called afterwards ' Tattingahdm ' (p. 158). See also Citdex Dip. ii. p. 227, 'Oswaldingvillare' inter* changeable with ' Oswaldingtune/ in England. See also Codex Laur- reshamensiSf iii. preface.
* See Tradition08 Wisenburgen- ses, pp. 269 et seq. Codex Ltntres^ hamensis, iii. pp. 175 e^ 9eq,
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The Eam^ Heim^ and Villa.
259
oi* a cdmes^ or othet beneficiary of the king, just as ^^.
Saxon royal manors were held by the king's thanes as 1
* ten-land/ ^
Thus the royal domains of Frankish kings were apparently under manorial management, and practi- cally divided up into manors. The boundaries or 'marchaB' of one manor often divided it from the next manor ;* while one * villa' or * heim ' often had sub-manors upon it, as in the case of Tidenham.*
Thus the ' villa,' ' heim,' or ^ manor,' seems to have been the usual fiscal and judicial territorial unit under Frankish rule, as the manor once was and the parish now is in England. And this alone seems to afibrd a satisfactory explanation of the use of the word ^ villa ' in the early Frankish capitularies, and in the Salic laws. It is there used apparently for both private estates and the smallest usual territorial unit for judicial or fiscal purposes.*
When a law speaks of a person attacking or taking possession of the * villa ' of another, the ' villa ' is clearly a private estate. But when it speaks of a
> See among the Lorsch char- ters that of Hephenheim (a.d. 773). ' Hanc Tillam cum sylva habuerunt in beneficio Wegelenzo^ pater Wa- rioi^ et post eum Warinus Comes filios ejus in ministerium habuit ad opus regis et post eum Bougolfus Comes quousque eam Carolus rex Sancto Nazario tradidit ' (I. p. 16).
^ See again the case of HepKerir heinu * Limites. Inprimis incipit a loco ubi G^mesheim marcha adjun- gitur ad Hephenheim marcham/ &c.
* ' Villam aliquam nuncupatam Hephenheim sitam in Pago Be- nense, cum omni merito et solidi-
3s
tate sua, et quicquid ad eandem yillam legitime aspicere vel perti- nere videtur.' See also the case of the Manor of ' Sitdiu/ with its tweWe sub-estates upon it, granted to the Abbot of St. Bertin a.d. 648. Chartulariufn SUhiense, p. 18.
* Lex SaHca,xxxix^ (cod. iL), 4. 'Nomina hominum et viUarum semper debeat nominare.'
3dv. (De Migrantibus). When any one wants to move from one ' Ma ' to another, he cannot do so without the licence of those ' qui in villa consistunt ; * but if he has re- moved and stayed in another ' vUla '
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260
The Roman Land System.
Chap, crime committed * between two villas/ the word seems
VIII .
1 to be used for a judicial jurisdiction, just as if we
should say * between two parishes/
This double use of the word becomes intelligible if * villa * may be used as ' manor/ and if the whole country — the terra regis with the rest — were divided in the fifth century into * villas ' or * manors,' but hardly otherwise.
The remarkable passage in the Salic laws ^ De MigrantibuSy which provides that no one can move into and settle in another ' villa ' without the license of those * qui in villa consistunt,' but that after a twelvemonth's stay unmolested he shall remain secure, ' sicut et alii vicini,' seems at first sight to imply B,free village} But another clause which per- mits the emigrant to settle if he has the royal * pras- ceptum ' to do so,* suggests that the * villa ' in ques- tion was one of the royal ' villas ' — a ' villa fiscalis * in the demesne of the Crown.^ Ham and The SaUc laws are in Latin, but in the Malberg
SSc^Uwb! glosses they contain some indications that the word villa was translated by variations of the word Aarw, then apphed by the Franks to both kinds of viUas in the manorial sense.
The old tradition recorded in the prologue to the
twelve months, * securos sicat et aUi vicini maneat.'
ziy. 'Si quis viUa aliena adsa- lierit. . . .'
xlii. T. ' Si quis viUam alienam expugnaTerit. . . .'
Capitulare Ludovici iVmt, viii. ' De oo qui villam alterius occu- paverit ' (Hossels and Kern s edition, p. 419).
Oklodovecki Regis Capiiuln. Pertz, iv. 4. a.d. 500-1. < De hominem inter duas viUa$ occisum.'
^ Lex SaUca, xlv.
» Id. xiv.
' This inference is drawn by Dr. P. Both, Oeschichte den Benefkialti
sens, p. 74. ii. 31.
See also WmtZy V. Q.
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The Ham J Heim^ and Villa.
261
later versions of the Salic laws, whatever it be worth, • Chap.
VIll
attributes their first compilation to four chosen men, _J — whose names and residences are as follows : — Uuiso- gastis, Bodogastis, Salegastis, Uuidogastis, in loca nominancium, Bodochamae, SalchamaB, UuidochamaB.
In another version of the prologue instead of the words ' in loca nominandum^ the reading is * in villis^* and the termination of the names is * chem,' ^ hem,' and ' em.'^
Dr. Kern, in editing the Malberg glosses, points and in the out that the gloss in Title xlii. shows that * ham ' gioss^ might be used by the Franks in the sense of * court ' — king's court,' — just as in some parts of the Nether- lands, especially in the Betuwe, ' ham ' is even now a common name for ancient mansions, such as in me- diaeval Latin were termed * curies.' Thus he shows that the Frankish words ' chami theuto ' (the bull of the ham) were translated in Latin as * taurum regis^' cham being taken to mean king's court.^ Possibly the lord of a mUa provided the * village bull,' just as tUl re- cent times in the Hitchin manor, as we have seen, the village bull was under the manorial customs provided for the commoners by the rectorial sub-manor.
So in another place the word ' chamesialia ' seems to be used in the Malberg gloss for ' in truste do- minica^'^ the ' cham' again being taken in a thoroughly manorial sense.
That there were manorial lords with lidi and tri- butarii — semi-servile tenants — as well as servi^ or slaves, under them, is clear from other passages of the Salic laws.*
^ HesselB and Kern's edition, pp. 422-3.
' By the authors of the Lex
Smendata, Note 39, p. 451. » Note 210, p. 528. * Tit. xxvi. (1) 'Si quis lidiim
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262
The Roman Land System.
Chap. VIII.
But the * ham ' of the Malberg glosses seems to have had sometimes at least the king for its lord. And this brings us again to the double use in the Salic laws of the word * villa/ It seems, as we have said, to have been used not only for a ' villa ' in private hands, but also in a wider sense for the usual fiscal or judicial territorial unit, whether under the juris- diction of a manorial lord, or of the * viUicus ' or ' judex,* or beneficiary of the king.
Lastly, the early date of the Salic laws bringing the Frankish and Eoman provincial rule into such close proximity, irresistibly raises the question^ whether there may not have been an actual continuity, first between the Eoman and Frankish villa, and secondly, between the Eoman system of management of the imperial provincial domains during the later empire, and the Frankish system of manorial management of the * terra regis ' or * villas fiscales ' after the Frank- ish conquest. If this should turn out to have been the case, then the further question will arise whether under the tribal system of the Germans the beginnings of manorial tendencies can be so far traced as to explain the ease with which Frankish and Saxon conquerors of the old Eoman provinces fell into manorial ways, and adopted the manor as the normal type of estate.
This is the hne of inquiry which it is now pro- posed to follow.
alienum extra consiliuin domini sui ante Begem per denarium ingenaum dimiserit miK. den. qui faciunt sol. c. culp. judicetar, et capitate do- mino ipsius restitaat. (2) Res vero ipsius lidi legitimo domino resti- tuantur. (8) Si quia servum alie-
num/ &c. &c. (H. and K. 136-144).
There were also Roman tribu- tarily Tit. zlL ' Si quia Romanum tributarium oociderit/ &c. (a. 7).
^ See on this point Rotb; pp. 83 et seq.
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The Roman Villa.
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Chap. VUL
III. THE EOMAN * VILLA/ ITS EASY TRANSITION INTO THE LATER MANOR, AND ITS TENDENCY TO BECOME THE PREDOMINANT TYPE OF ESTATE.
The Eoman villa was, in fact, exceedingly like The
1 1 . -I Roman
a manor, and, moreover, becoming more and more TiUaUkea so in the Gallic and German provinces, at least under ™*'^^'- the later empire as time went on.
The villa, as described by Varro and Columella, An estate, before and shortly after the Christian era, was a farm — a fundus. It was not a mere residence, but, like the villa of the present day in Italy, a territory or estate in land.
The lord's homestead on the villa was surrounded The mrtu. by two enclosed * cohortes,' or courts, from which was derived the word * Curtis^' so often applied to the later manor-house.^
At the entrance of the outer court was the abode The
vUltout
of the ' milieus * — a strictly manorial officer, as we have and Biaves. seen — generally a slave chosen for his good qualities.* Near this was the common kitchen, where not only the food was cooked, but also the slaves performed their indoor work. Here also were cellars and granaries for the storing of produce, the cells in which were the night quarters of the slaves, and the under- ground * ergastulum^' with its narrow windows, high and out of reach, where those slaves who were kept in chains lived, worked, and were tormented ; for
» Varro, i. 18.
« Oato, R. R, 2. Columella, R. R. i. 6-^. M. Querard says of the
* villicus/ * Cat officier est le memo
que nous retrouvons au moyen Sge 60U8 son ancien nom de viUieu$, oa sous le nom nouveau de tni^cr^ Polyiptiqiie cTIrminon, i. 442.
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264 The Roman Land System.
Chap, in the erqastulum was revealed the cruel side of the
Till.
1 system of slave labour under Boman law. Columella
says that the cleverest slaves must oftenest be kept in chains.^ Cato, according to Plutarch, advised that slaves should be incited to quarrel amongst them- selves, lest they should conspire against their master, and considered it to be cheaper to work them to death than to let them grow old and useless.^
In the inner ' cohort ' were the stalls and stables for the oxen, horses, and other live stock ; and all around was the land to be tilled.
Thus the Eoman villa, if not at first a complete manor, was already an estate of a lord (dominus) worked by slaves under a villicus.
Sometimes the whole work of the estate was done by slaves ; and though the estimates of historians have varied very much, there is no reason to doubt that in the first and second centuries the proportion of slaves to the whole population of the empire was enormous. The <?«?»- But even the management of slaves required
fiSvM. organisation. The anciently approved Roman method of managing the slaves on a vUla was to form them into groups of tens^ called decurice^ each under an overseer or decurio}
The villicus^ or general steward of the manor, was sometimes a freedman. And there was a strong reason why a freedman was often put in a position of trust, viz. that if he should be dishonest, or show
^ Oolnmella^ De Be JRustioa^ L 8. « Plutarch, Cato, c 21. See Cod. Theod. IX. xii.
* ' Classes etiam non majores mella, L 0.
quam denum honunum fAciundtei quas decurias appellaverunt antiqui et maxime probavenmt.' — Colu*
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The Roman Villa.
265
ingratitude to his patron, he waji liable to be degraded Chap.
again into slavery. There is an interesting fragraenL 1
of Eoman law which suggests that the decurioof a gang of slaves was sometimes Sifreedmanj and that it- was a common practice to assign to the freedman a portion of land and a decuria of slaves, and no doubt oxen also to work it, thus putting him very much in the position of a colonus with slaves under him. The result of his betrayal of trust, in the case mentioned in the fragment, was his degradation, and the re- sumption by his patron of the decuria of slaves.^ Thus we learn that the lord of a villa might, in addition to his home farm worked by the slaves in his own homestead, have portions of the land of his estate let out, as it were, to farm to freedmen^ each with his decuria of slaves, and paying rent in produce.
There was nothing very pecuHarly Eoman in this -Groups of system of classification in tens. The fact that men everywhere have ten fingers makes such a classifica- tion all but universal. But the Komans certainly did use it for a variety of purposes — for taxation and military organisation as well as in the management of the slaves of a villa. And M. Guerard^ probably with reason, connects these decurice of the Eoman villa with the decanice, or groups of originally ten servile holdings, under a villicus or decantis, which are described on the estates of the Abbey of St, Ger- main in the Survey of the Abbot Irminon about a.d. 850.* So possibly a survival of a similar system may be traced also in the much earlier instances men- tioned by Bede under date a.d. 665, in one of which
tens.
* Fragment Jur. Bom. Vatic. 272. Huflchke, p. 774.
• Pclyptique (Tlrtninon, i. pp. 46 and 456.
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266
The Roman Land System.
Chap. VIII.
The coloni, on a villa.
King Oswy grants to the monastery at Hartlepool tYf^vepossessiunculcB^ each of^ ten families ; ' and in the other of which the abbess Hilda, having obtained a 'possession of ten families^' proceeds to build Whitby Abbey.^ In all these cases of the Eoman freedman and his decuria^ the GaUic decajius aiid his decania^ and the Saxon possessiuncuda of ten famiUes, there is the bundle of ten slaves or semi-servile tenants with their ^holdings, treated as the smallest usual territorial division.*
But to return to the Roman villa. The organisa- tion of decurice of slaves was not the only resource of the lord in the management of his estate.
Varro speaks of its being an open point, to be decided according to the circumstances of each farm, whether it were better to till the land by slaves or by freemen, or by both.^ And Columella, speaking of the famihes or * hands ' upon a farm, says * they
* are either slaves or cohni ; ' * and he goes on to say,
* It is pleasanter to deal with coloni, and easier to get 'out of them work than payments. . . . They will
* sooner ask to be let off the one than the other. The
* best colonic' he says, * are those which are indigent^ *born on the estate and bound by hereditary ties ' to it.' Especially distant corn farms, he considers, are cultivated with less trouble by free coloni than by slaves under a villicus, because slaves are dishonest and lazy, neglect the cattle, and wafite the produce ;
* Bede, III. c. xxiv. ' Sinfpilas poaBesfflones decern erant famili- ar urn.'
* See also the Anf^lo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 777, where mention
is made of ' 10 bonde lands ' gi^ en to the monks at Medeshampstede.
* Varro, i. xvii.
^ Columella, i. vii.
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77te Roman Villa.
267
Chap. VIII.
whilst colonic sharing in the produce, have a joint interest with their lord^
That the coloni sometimes were indigent upon th^Adscripti estate, and were sometimes called originarii^ shows f *** the beginning at least of a tendency to treat them as ; adscripti gleboB^ like the mediaeval ' nativi.I Indeed, \ we find it laid down in the later laws of the empire 1 tKat coloni leaving their lord's estate could be re- J claimed at any time within thirty years.^ And nothing 1 could more clearly indicate the growth of the semi servile condition of the colonus, as time went on, than/ the declaration (a.d. 531) that the son of a colonugf who had done no service to the * dominus terrse * during his father's lifetime, and had been absent more than thirty or forty years, could be recalled upon higf father's death and obliged to continue the services due from the holding.*
We know from Tacitus that the typical colonus had his own homestead and land allotted to his use, and paid tribute to his lord in com or cattle, or other produce. And there is a clause in the Justinian Code prohibiting the arbitrary increase of these tri- \ butes, another point in which the coloni resembled the later villani.^
A villa under a villicus, with servi under him Likeness living within the *curtis' of the villa, and with a little group of coloni in their vicus also upon the estate, but outside the court, would thus be very much like a later manor indeed. And Frontinus,* describing
* ' Si quia colonus ortgmnlis vel mquUiniis ante hos triginta an- no8 de posseBfiione dieoeasit,' &c. — Cbrf. Theod, v. tit. x. 1.
« Cod. Jiuft, xi. tit. xlvii. 22. » Cod, Just, xi. tit. xlix. 1. * Frontinii Lib. ii. De oowtro' vermis Agrorum. Lachmann, p. 63.
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268
The Roman Land System.
Chap. VIII.
Village round a villa.
the great extent of the latifundia, especially of pro- vincial landowners, expressly says that on some of these private estates there was quite a population of rustics, and that often there were villages sur- rounding the villa like fortifications. It would seem then that the villas in the provinces were still more like manors than those in Italy. The villa It is now generally admitted that indirectly, at
the preva- Icast, the Eomau conquest of German territory — the ofestot!^ extension of the Roman province beyond the Rhine and along the Danube — added greatly to the number of semi-servile tenants upon the Roman provincial estates, and so tended more and more to increase during the later empire the manorial character of the 'villa;' whilst at the same time the pressure^ of Roman taxation within the old province of Gaul, ^ and beyond it, was so great as steadily to force more and more of the free tenants on the Ager Publicus to surrender their freedom and swell the numbers of the semi-servile class on the greater estates ; so that ; not only was the villa becoming more and more / manorial itself, but also it was becoming more and^^ more the prevalent type of estate.
As regards the first point, during the later em- pire there was direct encouragement given to land- owners to introduce barbarians taken from recently conquered districts, and to settle them on their estates as colonic and not as slaves. These foreign coloni ^became very numerous under the name of tributarii and perhaps ' l»ti ; ' so that the proportion of coloni to
'Frequenter in provinciiB .... habent autem in saltibas privati non eziguum populum plebeium et
vicoa circa villain in modum muni- tionum.'
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The Roman Villa.
269
slaves was probably, during the later period ofEoman rule, always increasing, and the Eoman villa under its villicus was becoming more and more like a later manor, with a semi-servile village community of coloni or tributarii upon it in addition to the slaves.^
As regards the second point, the evidence will be given at a later stage of the inquiry.
Chap. VIII.
Confining our attention at present to the Eoman villa, and the slaves and semi-servile tenants upon it, we have finally to add to the fact of close resem- blance to the later manor and manorial tenants proof of actual historical connexion and continuity in dis- tricts where the evidence is most complete.
A clear and continuous connexion can be traced in many cases, at all events in Gaul, between the Eoman villa and the later manor.
In the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris the Visi- gothic and Burgundian invaders are described as adapting themselves roughly and coarsely to Eoman habits in many respects. He speaks of their being put into the * villas ' as ' hospites.' Indeed, it is well known that these Teutonic invaders settled as in- German^ vited guests, being called hospites or gasti;^ that viuaa. they shared .the villas and lands of the Eomans on the same system as that which was adopted when Koman legions — often of German soldiers — were quartered on a district, according to a well-known
» Cod. Theod. v. tit. iv. 8, ▲.D. 409. By this edict liberty is given for landovmers to settle upon their property, as free cofofit, people of the recently conquered ' Scyras ' (a tribe inhabiting the present
' Morayia ').
• Sid. Apol. Epigt. ii. xii. He complains that a governor partial to barbarians *%mpUt viUas ha&pi'
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270
The Roinan Land System.
Chap.
vm.
Villus given to the Church.
passage of the ' Codex Theodosianus.' ^ They took their sortes^ or fixed proportions of houses and lands and slaves, and, sharing the lordship of these with their Roman * consortes,' they must have sanctioned and adapted themselves to the manorial character of the viUas whose occupation they shared, ultimately becoming themselves lords of villas probably as ma- norial as any Eoman villas could be.*
Dr. P. Roth has shown that in Frankish districts many of the wealthy provincials remained, under Frankish rule, in unbroken possession of their former estates — their numerous ' villas.' Amongst these the bishops and abbots were conspicuous examples. He shows that thousands of * villas ' thus remained un- changed upon the widely extended ecclesiastical estates.^
Gregory of Tours speaks of the restitution by King Hildebert of the * villas ' unjustly seized under the law- less regime of Hilperic* He also relates how bishops and monasteries were endowed by the transfer to them of villas with the slaves and coloni upon them.
Under the year 582, he mentions the death of a certain Chrodinus^ also the subject of a poem by Fortunatus, a great benefactor of the clergy, and describes him as ' founding villas, setting vineyards, * building houses [domos\ making fields [culhiras]^ and then, having invited bishops of slender means to
» Cod, Theod. lib. vii. tit. viii. 6. Compare as regards the Bur- gwndian settlement the passages in the Burgundian Law9, carefully commented upon in Binding's ' Das BurgundUch-Romanwihe Konig- reich, tnm 443 Mi 532 A.D./ 1, c. i.
s. ii. et mq.
* Binding, p. 36. And they called them taUom. Leges Burg, T. 38-9.
s Roth's Oeschickte dee Benefi- cialwesens, p. 81.
* Hist. Francorumf f. 344.
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The Roman Villa,
271
his table, after dinner 'kindly distributing these Chap.
^houses, with the cultivators and the fields^ with the 1
^ furniture^ and male and female servants and house- * hold slaves [ministris etfamulis^ saying, " These are ' " given to the Church, and whilst with these the * " poor will be fed, they will secure to me favour '" with God." '1
Here, then, after the Frankish conquest, we have the word villa still used for the typical estate ; and the estate consists of the domus^ with the vineyards and the fields, and their cultivators.
Turning to the earliest monastic records we have seen that the ' villas ' or ' heims ' of the abbeys of Wizenburg and Lorsch were in fact manors.
The donations to the Abbot of St. Germain-des- viUas be- Pr^s,' in the neighbourhood of Paris, commenced in J^^^^" the year 558, and in the survey of the estates of the Abbey made in the year 820, there are described villas still cultivated by colonic leti^ &c. — villas which grew into villages which now bear the names of the villas out of which they sprang : —
Levaci ViUa, now ZevamUe (p. 90). Landulfi Vitta, now LandowoiUe (p. 04). Aneis ViUa, now Anville. Gaudeni Villa, now Ormville (p. 99). Sonam Villa, now SenainviUe (p. 100). VUla Alien*, now Allainville (p. 102). Ledi Villa, now LaidevUle (p. 102). Di^foth Villa, now JBimville (p. 104). Marnane VUlare, now MainviUiern (p. 112). And 80 on in numbers of instances.
The chartulary of the Abbey of St. Bertin also
* But. Franewum, f. 296. ' Pdyptique d^Irminon. Large donations were naade to tbe abbey
as early as a.d. 658 by the Frank- ish King Hildebert. See M. Gue- rard*s Introduction, p. 36.
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272
I%e Roman Land System.
Chap. VUI.
and' A«m8' which are manors.
contains instructive examples. By the earliest charter of A.D. 648 the founder of the abbey granted to the monks his villa called * Sitdiu^' and it included within it twelve sub-estates, one of them, the Tattinga ViUa^ which later is called in the cartulary Tattingaheim}
The chief villa with these sub-estates was granted to the abbey ' cum domibus^ cedijiciis^ terris cuUis ef ^tncultis, mansiones cum silvis pi^atis pascuiSj aquis
* aquarumve decursibtiSj seu farinariis^ mancipiis, acco-
* labus^ greges cum pasta ribus^ &c. &c., and therefore was a manor with both slaves {mancipia) and colonic or other semi-servile tenants {accolce) upon it, as indeed were the generality of villas handed over to the monasteries.
There seems, therefore, to be conclusive evidence not only of a remarkable resemblance, but also in many cases of a real historical continuity between the Eoman * viUa ' and the later Frankish manor.
Tenants on the Ager Fublicus,
IV. THE SMALLER TENANTS ON THE AGEB PUBLICUS IN ROMAN PROVINCES — THE VETERANS.
Passing from that part of the land in Roman provinces included in the villas, or latifundia^ of the richer Eomans, and so placed under private lordship, we must now turn our attention to the wide tracts of * Ager Publicus^' and try to discover the position and social economy of the tenants, so to speak, on the great provincial manor of the Eoman Emperor.
Care must be taken to discriminate between the
> CkartuUtrium Sithiensej pp. 18 and 168.
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The Small Holdings. 273
different classes of these tenants, some of them being Chap. of a free and some of them of a semi-servile kind. 1
First, there were the veterans of the legions, who, The according to Eoman custom, were settled on the public lands at the close of a war, by way of pay for their services.
For the settlement of these, sometimes regularly ^^^lar
J.,. ,. „ TTT. centuriffi.
constituted military colomce were founded ; and m this case, where everything had to be started de novOy a large tract of land was divided for the purpose by straight roads and lanes — ^pointing north, and south, and east, and west — into centurice of mostly 200 or 240 jugera^ which were then sub-divided into equal rectangular divisions, according to the elaborate rules of the Agrimensores^ the odds and ends of land, chiefly woods and marshes, being alone left to be used in common by the * vicini,' or body of settlers.
But in other cases the settlement was much more irregular and haphazard in its character.
Sometimes the veteran received his pay and his outfit, and was left to settle wherever he could find un- occupied land — ' vacantes terrce ' — to his mind. Under the later empire, owing to the constant ravages of German tribes, there was no lack of land ready for cultivators, without the appliance of the red-tape rules of the Agrimensores. The veterans settled upon this and occupied it pretty much as they liked, taking what they wanted according to their present or prospective means of cultivating it. Lands thus h^^*' taken were called * agri occupatorii,' and were irre-
* Mr. Ooote has pointed out many remains of this centuriation in Britain; and the inscriptions
on many centurial stones are given in Hilbner's collection.
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274
The Roman Land System.
Chap.
vni.
Outfit of oxen and seed of two kinds.
Single or doable
gular in their boundaries and divisions, instead of being divided into the rectangular centurice}
It is to these more irregular occupations of terri- tory that the chief interest attaches.
When, under the later empire, veterans were allowed to settle upon ' vacantes terras^ they had assigned to them an outfit of oxen and seed closely resembling the Saxon ' setene ' and the Northumbrian * stuht.'
Those of the upper grade, whether so considered from military rank or special service rendered by them to the State, were provided, according to the edicts of A.D. 320 and 364, with an outfit of two pairs of oxen and 100 modii of each of two kinds of seed. Those of lower rank received as outfit one pair of oxen and fifty modii of each of the two kinds of seed.^ And the land they cultivated with these single or double yokes of oxen was perhaps called their single or double jugum. Cicero, in his oration
^ Siculua Flaccus, Lachmann and Rudorff, i. pp. 136-8.
• Cod, Theod. lib. vii. tit. xx. 8. A.i>. 820. ' CoDStantinus ad universes veteranos.' * Let veterans according to our command receive vacant lands, and hold them " im- munes " for ever ; and for the need- ful improvement of the country let them have also 25 thousand foUes, a pair of oxen (houm quoque par), and 100 modii of different kinds of grain, &c. ( fruffumy
lb. s. 8. ^ ValentinianuB et Var- lens ad universos provindales/ a.d. 864. 'To all deserving veterans V7e give what dwelling-place (ptt- triam) thev wish, and promise per-
petual " immunity.'*
* Let them have vacant or other lands where they chose, free from stipendium and annual " prssstatio." Further, we grant them for the cul- tivation of these lands both animals and seed, so that those who have been protectores (body-guards) should re- ceive two pairs of oxen (e^ bourn porta) and 100 modii, of each of the two kinds of com {fruges) — others after faithful service a single pair of oxen {gingtUa paria houm) and 50 modii of each of the two kinds of com, &c. If they bring male or female slaves on to the land, let them 089888 them '' immunes " for
Digitized by VjOOQIC
The Small Holdings. 275
against Verres, speaks of the Sicilian peasants as Chap.
mostly cultivating ' in singulis jugis' ^ During the L
later empire the typical holding of land — ^the hypo- thetical unit for purposes of taxation — as we shall The^ii^w. see, came to be the jugum^ but the assessment no longer always corresponded with the actual holdings.
But to return to the holding of the Roman veteran. It is not impossible to ascertain roughly its normal acreage from the amount of seed allotted in the out- fit, as well as from the number of oxen.
A single pair of oxen was, as we have seen, allotted of about under Saxon rules as outfit to the yard-land of J°^*"*' thirty acres, of which, under the three-field or three- course system, ten acres would be in wheat, ten in oats or pulse, and ten in fallow. With the single pair of oxen was allotted to the veteran fifty modii of wheat seed, and fifty of oats or pulse. Five modii of wheat seed, according to the Roman writers on agriculture, commonly went to the jugerum ; ^ so that the veteran with a single yoke of oxen had seed for ten jugera of wheat, and thus was apparently as- sumed to be able to cultivate, if farming on the three-course system, about thirty jugera in all, like the holder of the Saxon yard-land. The veteran to whom was assigned the double yoke of four oxen and 200 modii of seed — 100 modii of each kind — would have about 60 jugera in his double holding.
Of course, too much stress should not be placed upon any close correspondence in the number of jugera ; but it is, on the other hand, perfectly natural
* In Verrefn, Actio 2, lib. iii. 27. | Columella, ii. 9. Guerard, Imiinon, 2 Varro, De Re Rwftiea, I 44 | i. 1.
T 2
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276
The Roman Land System.
that, in the theory of these outfits, seed should be given for a definite area, and that this should be some actual division of the centuria of the Agri- mensores,
Siculus Flaccus, who wrote about a.d. 100, and chiefly of Italy, describes how, in the regular allot- ments by the Agrimensores, one settler, according to his military rank, would receive a single modus, another one and a half, and another two modii, whilst sometimes a single allotment was given to several people jointly. He mentions also that the centurice varied in size, being sometimes 200 jugera 240jiigera. and sometimes 240 ; the smaller lots also sometimes varying in size, even in the same centuria, according to the fertility or otherwise of the land.*
All we can say is that the centuria of 240 jugera would be divisible into single and double holdings of thirty and sixty jugera respectively, just as the EngUsh double hide of 240 acres, or single hide of 120 acres, was divisible into yard- lands of thirty acres. The centuria of 200 jugera would be divisible into holdings of fifty and twenty-five jugera respec- tively.*
Passing from the outfit and the holdings, it may
Normal centuria^ 200 and
^ SIculuB Flaccus, Db Condicuh nilnu Agrorwn. Lachmann and Rudorff, i. pp. 154-6.
' In the division of the land between the Romans and Visigoths the amount allotted ^per singula aratra * was to be 60 aripennes (i.e. 26 jugera). Lex Visigcthorum, x. 1, 14 (a.d. 660 or thereabouts).
The lAher Cdoniarum 1. de- scribes the ' ^er jufforku * as 'in
quinquagenis jugeribus/ the 'ager m«rtiikinu«inxzT.jugeribus.' Lach- mann, i. 247. Here we have the normal divisions of the centuria of 200 jugera into holdings of 26 and 60 jugera. On the other hand, the Lea: Thoria, B.C. Ill, fixed 30 jugera as the largest holding to be recog nised on the public lands. Rudorfi^ p. 218 (Cofy. Jur. Lot, 200, 1. 14).
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The Small Holdings.
277
be asked, what was the system of cultivation ? was it Cm. an open field husbandry ? ^ 1
It is obvious that formal centuriation in straight lines and rectangular divisions, by the Agrimensores^ produced something entirely different from the open TraceB of field system as we have found it in England. But Seid^C*- Siculus Flaccus records that in some cases, when ]^^e'^w. vacant districts were occupied by settlers without this formal centuriation, as * agri occupatorii ' — the settlers taking such tracts of land as they had the means or expectation of cultivating — the boundaries were irregular, and followed no rules but those of common sense and the custom of the country.* And he gives as an instance of such a common-sense rule the custom about * superdlia,' or linches^ the sloping ^"T^*^ surface of which, where they formed boundaries between the land of two owners, should be kept the same number of feet in width, the slope always belonging to the upper owner, because otherwise it would be in the power of the lower owner, by ploughing into the slope, to jeopardise the upper owner's land.^ This, he says, is the reason of the rule that the land of the owner of the upper terrace generally descends to the bottom of the slope.*
Here, in this mention of linches and irregular The hold- boundaries, traces seem to turn up of an open-field iimer™*" husbandry; and a few pages further on the same ^™^^ writer makes another observation which shows clearly ^"^
"^ pieces.
that frequently the holding, like the yard-land, was
^ p. 142. ' Quam mazimo se- cundom consaetudinem regionam omnia intuenda sunt'
* P. 143. See also Frontinus,
p. 43, and Hyginns, p. 115, and p. 128 on the same point ' P. 162,
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278 The Roman Land System,
Chap, composed of Scattered pieces in open fields, and that
1 this scattered ownership, as in England, was the
result of an original joint occupation, and probably of a system of co-operative ploughing.
He says ^ that in many districts were to be found possessores whose lands were not contiguous, but made up of little pieces scattered in different places, and intermixed with those of the others, the several owners having common rights of way over one another's land to their scattered pieces, and also to the common woods, in which the vicini only have common rights of cutting timber and feeding stock.
This reference to the common woods and rights of way belonging only to the ' vicini ' seems to show that the scattering of the pieces in the holdings had arisen as in the later open-field system, from an origi- nal co-operation of ploughing or other cultivation. The residt Counectinff thcsc statements with the previous occupa- one, that sometimes land was assigned to a number of settlers jointly^ and that sometimes settlers took possession, without centuriation, of so much land as they could cultivate, and transferring these same methods from Italy, where Flaccus observed them, to transalpine provinces, where larger teams were
' Siculus Flaccus, Lachmann, ' suxnus. Qaorondam agri seiritu- p. 152. ' Pneterea et in multis I tern poasessoribus ad particulaa suas regionibus comperimus quosdam , eundi redeondique pnestant. Quo- poesessores non oontinuas habere rundam etiam vicinorum aliquas terras, sed particulas quasdam in ' silvas quasi publicas, immo propriaa diversis locis, intervenientibus com* | quasi yicinorum, esse compeiimus, plurium possessionibus : propter ' nee quemquam in eis cedendi pac-
tion.
quod etiam complures vidnales viae sint, ut unusquisque poesit ad particulas suas j ure pervenire. Sed et de viarum conditionibus locuti
cendique jus habere nisi Ticinoe quo- rum sint : ad quas itinera ssDpe, ut supra diximus, per alienoe agros dantur.'
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The Small ffoldtngs.
279
needful for ploughing, it would seem that we may chap. rightly picture bodies of free settlers on the 'ager ^^^' publicus ' as frequently joining their yokes of oxen together to plough their allotments on the open- field system. And if this was done by retired veterans on public land, they were probably only following the common method adopted by the coloni on the villas of the richer Eoman landowners in the provinces. If they did so, they probably simply adopted the custom of the country in which they settled, and followed a method common not only to Gaul and Germany, but also to Europe and Asia.^
Even in the case of the regular centuriation, there The was an opportunity, apparently, for joint occupation, ^n^ia!^ and probably often a necessity for joint ploughing. *^^°*
Hyginus, describing the mode of centuriation, speaks first of the two broad roads running north and south and east and west ; and then he says the * .^ortes ' were divided, and the names recorded in tens {per decurias, i.e. per homines denos), the subdivision among the ten being left till afterwards.* It does not follow, perhaps, that the subdivision was always made in regular squares. There may sometimes have been a common occupation and joint plough- ing ; but of this we know nothing.
The retired veterans were a privileged class, and The
* . ^ ' veterans a
specially exempted from many public burdens ; ® but privileged in other respects there is no reason to suppose that in their methods of settlement and agriculture, and
claee.
* Teams of six and of eight oxen in the plough are mentioned in the Vedas. ' AUindisches LeheUy II. Zimmer. Berlin, 1879, p. 237.
^ HyginuBy Lachmann and Ru- dorff, i. 113.
' See Codex Theodosiantu, vii. tit. XX, 8. 9, A.D. 366.
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280 The Roman Land System.
^^- in the size of their holdings proportioned to their ■ single or double yokes, they differed from other
free settlers or ancient original tenants on the ager puhlicus. We may add that, following the usual Roman custom, these settlers probably as a rule lived in towns and villages, and not on their farms. We may assume that, having single or double yokes of oxen and outfits of two kinds of seed, they were arable and not pasture farmers, with their home- steads in the village and their land in the fields around it — in some places under the three-field system, in others with a rectangular block of land on which they followed the three-course or other rotation of crops for themselves.
Groups of settlers may therefore be regarded as sometimes forming something very much like a free village community upon the public land of the Empire, with no lord over it except the fiscal and judicial officers of the Emperor,
V. THE SMALLER TENANTS ON THE 'AGER PUBLICUS *
{continued) — the L^arri. \
The ifH In the second place, there were settlers of quite
se^Ue' another grade — families of the conquered tribes of i^WeLsh Germany, who were forcibly settled within the limes iaeog$. Qf the Romau provinces, in order that they might repeople desolated districts or replace the other- wise dwindling provincial population — in order that they might bear the pubUc burdens and minister to the public needs, i.e. till the public land, pay the
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The Small Holdings.
281
public tribute, and also provide for the defence of ^^•
the empire. They formed a semi-servile class, partly. 1
agricultural and partly military ; they furnished corn for the granaries and soldiers for the cohorts of the empire, and were generally known in later times by the name of ' Z^ftV. or * Liti' * They were somewhat in the same position as the Welsh * taeogs ' or * aillts* They 'Were foreigners, without Eoman blood, and hence a semi-servile class of occupiers distinct from, and without the full rights of, Eoman citizens^ — a class, in short, upon whom the full burden of taxation and military service could be laid.
Probably this system had been followed from the Mostly time of Augustus, as a substitute for the earlier and GermaML more cruel course of sending tens of thousands of vanquished foes to the Eoman slave market for sale ; but it became a more and more important part of the imperial defensive policy of Eome during the later empire, as the inroads of barbarians became more and more frequent.
There is clear evidence, from the third century, System of of the extension of this kind of colonisation over emigration a wide district. It is important to reaUse both its ^^eTed to- extent and locaUty.
In order fully to comprehend the meaning and consequences of this German colonisation of Eoman provinces, it must be borne in mind that the rich lands on the left bank of the Ehine, between the Vosges mountains and the river, had been settled
tricts.
» In Cod. Theod. vii. xx. 8. 10, A.D. 369/ Iseti ' are mentioned ; and in B. 12, A.D. 400, ' Iffitus Alaman- nuB Sarmata, yagus, yel filius Teterani,' are mentioned together.
' Compare the Welah aillty or tUUud (Saxon aithudj foreigner), and the Aldumes of the Lomhardic laws, with the L€Bti,
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282 The Roman Land System.
Chap, bv Germans before the time of Tacitus. Strabo ^ dis-
VIII.
tinctly says that the Suevic tribes, who in his day
^pS^n dwelt on the east bank of the Rhine, had driven out Rh^a *° ^^^ former German inhabitants, and that the latter the^w had taken refuge on the west bank. Tacitus de- and in scnbes three German tnbes as settled m this district ^^' (now Elsass).*^ Further, the large extent of country to the east of the Rhine, within the Roman lines, reachii^ from Mayence to Regensburg, included in the Agri Decumates and the old province of Rhaetia {i.e. what is now Baden, Wirtemberg, and Bavaria), had by the third century become filled with strag- gling offshoots from various German and mostly Suevic tribes who had crossed the * Limes ' — a mixed population of Hermunduri, Thuringi, Marcomanni, and Juthungi, with a sprinkling of Franks, Vandals, Longobards, and Burgundians, — some of them friendly, some of them hostile to the empire and gradually becoming absorbed in the greater group of the * Alamanni.' The Ala- Further, it should be remembered that in the third
"^°°'* century offshoots from the Alamanni and the Franks attempted to spread themselves over the country on the GaUic side of the Rhine, assuming, during periods of Roman weakness, a certain independence and even over-lordship, so that Probus found sixty The Limsa, citics uudcr their control. Probus completely re- fflabm: duced them once more into obedience, and again made the Roman authority supreme over the ' Agri Decumates,' and Rhaetia as far as the ' Limes.' *
* B. iy. c. iii. 8. 4.
« Oermania, 28.
' The importance of the JJimes
or Pfahlgraben as markiDg the ex- tent of Roman rule to the east of I the Rhine, has reoenUj heen fuUj
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The Small Holdings.
A few years before, Maxcus Antoni had conquered the Marcomanni in this district, had deported many of them into Britain.^
Probus followed his example, and deported also forced
, "■• colonisa-
into Britain such of the Burgundians and Vandals tioninBri- from the * Agri Decumates ' as he could secure aUve BeigiT as prisoners, * in order that they might be useful as ^*^' security against revolts in Britain.' ^
He also colonised large numbers of Germans in 9^^\
. . . in Belgic
the Ehine valley (where he introduced, it is said, the Gani and vine culture), and some of them in Belgic Gaul. In vaiiey. his report to the Senate he described his victory as the reconquest of all Germany. He boasted of the subjection of the numerous petty kings, and declared that the Germans now ploughed, and sowed, and fought for the Eomans. And, as he himself had de- ported Germans into Britain, his words cover the British as well as the GaUic and German provinces.^ This victory over the Alamannic tribes and colonisa- tion of them in Britain and Gaul, by Probus, was in A.D. 277.
Very soon afterwards the same policy was again followed in deahng with the Franks, who were plun- dering and depopulating the Belgic provinces of Gaul further to the north, and ravaging the coasts of Britain.
realised. See Wilhelm Amold^s T>eut$che Urxeit, c. iii. 'Der Pfahlgraben und seine Bedeutung.' See also ' AUgemeine Oeschichle in EinzeldarBteUwngen ' (BerUn, 1882), Abth. 48, c. viii. And Mr. Hodg- kin's intereetiiig paper on ' The Pfahlgraben^ in ArcJuBologia Mlir ana, pt. 26, vol. iz. new series.
NewcasUe-on-Tjne, 1882.
^ Gibbon, c. ix., quoting Dion, Cas,f Ixxi. and Ixxii.
" Zosimus, i. p. 68. Excerpta, Mon, Brit. Ixxv.
' Wietersheim's Oetchickte der Volkerwanderung (Dahn), i. 245. Querard's Polypi. d'Irminon, i. p. 252.
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284
The Roman Land System.
Chap. VIU.
Farther deporta- tions of Franks, Frisians, and Cha- mayi.
In 286, Carausius, who was put in charge of the Eoman fleet, and whose business it was to guard the GaUic and British shores infested by the Saxons and Franks, revolted and proclaimed himself Emperor, defending himself successfully against the Emperor Maximian, and leaguing himself with the Franks and Saxons. In 291, Maximian, after directing his arms against the Franks, deported a number of them and settled them as Iseti on the vacant lands of the Nervii and Treviri, in Belgic Gaul and in the valley of the Moselle.-
The further steps taken by his co-Gaesar Constan- tius to put an end to the revolt of Carausius are very instructive. He first recovered the haven of Gesori- acum (Boulogne), and cut off the connexion of the British fleet with Gaul. Then he turned northward again upon the districts from whence the Frankish and Saxon pirates had been accustomed to make their ravages upon Britain and Gaul. They were, as has been said, in league with the British usurper, but succumbed to the arms of Constantius. The first use he made of his victory over them was to repeat the pohcy of his predecessors — to deport a great multitude into those very Belgic districts which they had depopulated by their ravages. This was the time when the districts around Amiens and Beau- vais, once inhabited by the Bellovaci, and further south around Troyes and Langres, where the Tricassi and lingones had dwelt, were colonised by Franks,
^ ' Tuo, Mazimiane Auguste, nu- tu, Nerviorum et Treverorum arva jacentia Leetus poBtliminio restitu- tos et receptus in leges Francos ez-
coluit.' Ewneiu Panegyr, Con- gtofntio C(8S,, c. 21. Guenid, i. 260.
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The Small Holdings.
285
Chamavi, and Frisians ; and Eumenius,^ in his Pane- ^^•
gyric, represented them, as Probus had described the ^
Alamanni, as now tiUing the fields they had once plundered, and supplying recruits to the Eoman legions. A ^pagus Chamavorum ' existed in the ninth century in this district, and so bore witness to the extent and permanence of this colony of Chamavi^ Similar evidence for the other districts, as we shall have occasion to see hereafter, is possibly to be found in the names of places with a Teutonic termi- nation remaining to this day, though the language spoken is French.
A recent German writer, in a sketch of the reign of Diocletian, makes the pregnant remark that when account is taken of all the masses of Germans thus brought into the Eoman provinces, partly as colonists and partly as soldiers, it becomes clear that the northern districts of Gaul were already half German before the Prankish invasion. These German settlers were valuable at the time as tillers of the land, payers of tribute, and as furnishing recruits to the legions ; but in history they were more than this, for they were, partly against their will, the pioneers of the German * Vdlkerwanderung'^
We have seen that Probus had deported Ala- Alamanni manni into Britain in pursuance of this continuous
^ Eumen, Paneg. Constantio, 9. Guerard, i. 262.
' ZeuBS; Die Deutschen und die Nachharstamme, pp. 582-4, quoting the wiU of St. Widrad, Abbot of Flavigny in the eighth century: 'In pago Commavorum,* 'in page * Ammaviorum.* In ihe NctUia
Occidentie, cxl., there is mention of Lati from this district — Prmfectus Latorum Lingonenaium. Booking, p. 120.
" Kaher Diocletian und seine Zeity von Theodor Preuss. Leip- zig, 1809 (pp. 54-5),
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286
The Roman Land System.
Chap.
vin.
policy. It is curious to observe that when Constan- tius soon after (in a,d. S06) died at York, and Con- stantine was proclaimed Emperor in Britain, one of his supporters was Crocus or Erocus/ a king of the Alamanni, proving that there were Alamannic soldiers in Britain under their own king — probably, more properly speaking, a sept or clan under its own chief — at that date.
But it was not long before both the Alamanni and the Franks again became troublesome in the Ehine valley. Under the year 357, in the history of Ammianus Marcellinus, there is a vivid description of the struggle of Juhan to regain from the Alamanni the cities on the Lower Ehine which the latter had occupied, as in the time of Probus, within the Roman province of Lower Germany. After the decisive battle of Strasburg, Juhan crossed the Ehine at Mayence and laid waste the country between the Maine and the Rhine, * plundering the wealthy farms
* of theif crops and cattle, and burning to the ground
* all the houses, which latter in that district were built
* in the Roman fashion.'^ He then restored the fortress of Trajan which protected this part of the
* Limes.' The next year, the Salian Franks having taken possession of Toxandria, on the Scheldt, Julian pounced down upon them and recovered possession, and then set himself * to restore the fortifications of
* the cities of the Lower Ehine, and to establish afresh
* the granaries which had been burned, in which to stow
* * Quo [Constantio] mortuo, cunclis qui aderunt adjaitentibus, aed prsdcipue Eroco Alamannorum rege, auxilii gratia Confitantium comitato, imperium capit.* ^ —
Man,
Brit, Excerpta. Ex Sexti Aure- lii Victoria EpUoTne (p. Ixxii.).
' Ammianua MarcellinuSi bk. xvii, c. i. 7.
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The Small Holdings,
287
* the com usually imported from Britain.' * This was Chap.
the occasion on which, according to Zosimus, 800 L
vessels, more than mere boats, were employed in going backwards and forwards bringing over the British com, thus proving both the extent of British agriculture and the close connexion between Britain
and the province of Lower Germany.
The aggressions of the Alamanni, however, con- Buceno- tinued, and again we find Ammianus Marcellinus d^^©d describing how, at the close of a campaign, Valen- j^|^ ^"" tinian, in a.d. 371, deported into Britain the Buceno- bantes, a tribe of the Alamanni from the east banks of the Ehine, immediately north of Mayence. He made them elect Fraomarius as their chief, and then, giving him the rank of a tribune, sent him with his tribe of Alamannic soldiers to settle in Britain, as probably Crocus or Erocus had been sent before him.^
This pohcy of planting colonies of German colo- The policy ni8ts-;-even whole clans under their petty chiefs — ^in one!^ana the Belgic provinces and Britain, with the double ii°fed!°" object of keeping up the supply of com for the empire and soldiers for the legions, was therefore steadily adhered to for several generations. And a further proof of the extent to which the system was carried turns up later in the numerous co- • horts of Laeti mentioned by Ammianus,' and in the
* Notitia,' * as having been drawn from these colonies
^ Anu Maic. bk. xviii. c. ii. s. 8.
* Id, zziz. c. iv. 7.
» Id. bk. XX. c. viii. 13.
* Among the * Ptafecti Lasto- rum et OentiHum ' there is mention of the PwefectuB Leetorum Teuio-
nicianorum, Batavorum, Franco^ rwny Lififfonennum, Nervwrumy and Laffensium, Notitia Occ. cxl. Booking, p. 120. See also the valu- able annotation ' De Lati9,^ Book- ing, 1044 et seq.
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288 The Roman Land System.
Chap, and placed as garrisons all over Gaul and Germany,
!. but especially on the banks of the Ehine.
It has been necessary to dwell upon this subject because it is needful for the present purpose that it should be fully understood that throughout the Ger- man provinces of Rhcetia^ the Agri Decumates^ Upper and Lower Germany^ in Belgic Gaul, and in Britain, there were large numbers of German semi-servile settlers upon the Ager Publicus interspersed among the free coloni and veterans ; and that most of the settlers, whether free coloni, veterans, or keti, were engaged in agriculture. Some of them, no doubt, especially since the encouragement said to have been given by Probus to vine culture, may have occupied vineyards in Southern Gaul, or in the valleys of the Ehine and its tributaries.
Lastly, it must also be remembered that there may have been intermixed among the privileged veterans and the overburdened ' Iseti,' on the public lands, dwindling remains of original Gallic inhabitants, and other free coloni or tenants, not privileged like the veterans, but subject to the various public burdens. Some of these were scarcely to be distinguished, per- haps, in point of law and right from the owners of villas. They may have been holders of slaves, and have had possibly sometimes even free coloni of their own, though varjdng very much in the size of their hold- ings, and falling far below the owners of latifundia in social importance. Be this as it may, we shall pre- sently find the free class of landholders, whoever they might be, sinking steadily into a semi-servile condition under the oppression of the Imperial fiscal oflGlcers and the burden of the taxation and services
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Chap.
vin.
The ' Tributum: 289
imposed upon them — the tributum and sordida munera — the oppressive exaction of which during the later empire was forcing them gradually to surrender their freedom, and to seek the shelter of a semi-servile posi- tion under the patrocinium^ sometimes of the fiscal officer himself, sometimes of the lord of a neighbour- ing * villa.*
VI. THE 'tributum' OF THE LATER EMPIRE.
Passing now to the system of taxation and forced services during the later empire, it will be found to be of peculiar importance, not only because of its connexion with the growing manorial tendencies, but also because the taxation resembled so closely the system of * hidation ' prevalent afterwards in Saxon England, and some of the forced services actually survived in the manorial system.
The system of taxation was modified by the Em- peror Diocletian at the very time when the policy of forced colonisation described in the last chapter was being carried out.
It was known as the taxation * juqatione vd capi- Tho^i^atto
, •' "^ -« or asBesfl-
tatione' — the tribute or stipendium of so much for mentby
the jugum
every jugum or caput or caput,
' Jugum ' and * caput ' were names for a hypo-
thetically equal, if not always the same, Unit of
taxation.^
The 'jugum ' was probably originally taken from
the area which could be cultivated by the single or
double yoke of oxen allotted to the settler, and may
' Cod, Theod. vii. 6, 3* Pier vighti juga tea capita canferant vettem, . .
Id, xi. 16, 6. Pro capittbu* Beujugis mis, . .
U
Digitized by VjOOQIC
290 The Roman Land System,
^JJ- have been a single or double one accordingly. But
a person holding a fraction of a jugum or caput
was said to hold only a ^portio,' ^ and paid, in conse- quence, a proportion only of the burdens assessed upon the whole jugum.
Now, if the taxation had continued at actually so much per yoke of oxen, the system would have been simple enough ; and it would be easy to under- stand how, whilst the jugum represented the unit of taxation for land, the caput might be the unit corre- sponding in value with the jugum, but applying to other kinds of property, such as slaves and cattle, and including the capitation tax levied in respect of wives and children. And this, probably, may be the meaning of the double nomenclature — jugum vel caput At any rate, we know from the Theodosian Code, that the members of a veteran's family were constituent parts of his ' caput.' ^
The subject is obscure, but the reform of Diocletian seems to have aimed at an equahsation of the taxation according to the value of property, b^*^"** This seems to have involved an assessment of unit of various kinds of land in hypothetical juga^ of the same value (said to be fixed at 2,000 solidi) ; and this involved a variation in the acreage of the hypo- thetical jugum, according to the richness or other- wise of the land, just as according to Flaccus was the case also as regards the actual centuriae and allotments.
In one instance in which the figures have been
^ Cod, Thed, zi. 17, 4. ' Universi I nis que ad hfec munia coarctentur.' pro portionesuae poesessionis jugatio- I ^ Cod, Theod, lib. ?ii. tit, xx. 4.
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The ' Tributam:
291
preserved, viz. for Syria, under the Eastern Empire, Chap. the assessment was as follows under the system of Diocletian : ^ —
and varied in area.
Of vine-land . AraMe, first class . Arable, second class Arable, third class .
5 jugera, or lO plethra or half-acres. 20 „ 40 „ 40 „ 80 „ 60 „ 120 „
In the east, therefore, sixty jugera, or 120 Greek plethra or half-acres, of ordinary arable land, were assessed as 2ijugum.
This instance makes it clear that while originally the actual allotment to a single or double yoke of oxen may have been taken as the basis of taxa- tion, the *jugum ' had already become a hypothetical unit of assessment^ just as, by a similar process, was the case with the English hide. Property had come to be assessed at so many juga under the jugation, without any attempt to make the assessment accord with the actual number of yokes employed.
The assessment was revised every fifteen years at what was called the Indiction,^
We have seen that the nominal acreage of the typical holding assigned to the single yoke of two oxen under Eoman law on the Continent resembled very closely that of the Saxon yard-land, which also had two oxen allotted with it.'
Theln- diction.
' See Syrisch^Romiaches JRechU- buck au8 dem Fiinften Jahrhundert (BruDs und Sachan), Leipzig, 1880, p. 37; and Marquardt's StaaUver- waUwug/vi, 220. See also Hy- ginuB, Be lAnwtibus ConstMuendis, Liachmann, &c., p. 205, where thei-e
is mention of * arvum prtmnmy ««»- cundum, &c., in Pannonia,
« Marquardt, ii. 237.
' 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.
TT 2
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292
The Raman Land System.
Analogy of the jugum and cen-' turia to the yard- land and hide.
Chap. We have also seen that the twenty-five or thirty
jugera of the single yoke were probably fixed as an
eighth of the Eoman centuria, as the yard-land was the eighth of a double hide.
The common acreage of the centnria was, as we have seen, 200 or 240 jugera. The latter number may be the simple result of the use of the long hundred of 120 ; or it may have resulted, as suggested above, from the necessity of making the centuria of the 'free citizen's typical estate divisible into four double holdings of 60 acres, or eight single holdings of 30 acres each.
Be this as it may, the centuria, or typical estate of a free citizen in a regularly constructed Eoman colony, seems to have stood to the single or double holding of the common and often semi-servile settler in the same arithmetical relation as the Saxon larger hide of 240 acres did to the yard-land.^
We have, then, two kinds of holdings : —
1. The one or more centurice embraced in the
The acreage of the jugum no doubt varied very much, as did also the acreage of the yard-land.
^ It is even possible and pro- bable that the Qallic coinage in Roman times, mentioned in the Pauca de Mennaria (Lachmann and Rudorfi; p. 878), * Juxta Gallos vigesima pars unciss denarius est . . . duodecies uncise libram xx. eolidos oontineutem efficiunt, sed veteres solidum qui nunc aureus dici- tur nuncupabant/ — the division of the pound of silver into 12 ounces, and these into 20 pennyweights — with which we found the Welsh
tuncpound 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 con- veniently arranged for the division of a tax imposed upon holdings of 240 acres, or 120 acres, or 60 acres, or 80 acres, or the 10 acres in each field. In other words, the coinage and the land divisions were remark- ably parallel Id their arrangement, as we found was also the case with the Bcutoffe of the Hundred Rolls, and the ectftt penny of the villani in the Boldon Book.
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The ' Tributum: 293
latifundia or villas of the large landowners, which, ^^ however, when tilled by their coloni, and not by ■ slaves, might well be subdivided into holdings of sixty or thirty acres each.
2. The double and single holdings of the snxaller settlers on the ' ager publicus ' of fifty or sixty and twenty-five or thirty acres each.
And we may conclude that the system of taxation called the ^jugatio' was founded upon these facts, though in order to equaUse its burden the assessment of an estate or a territory in juga became, under Diocletian, a hypothetical assessment, corresponding no longer with the actual number of yokes, just as the Saxon hide ad geldarrij at the date of the Domesday Survey, no longer corresponded with the actual caru- cate ad arandum.
Another resemblance between the Eoman juga- tion and the Saxon hidage was to be found in the method adopted when it became needful to reduce the taxation of a district.
Thus, the land of the jEdui had been ravaged and depopulated. It had paid the tributum on 32,000 juga ; 7,000 juga were released from taxa- tion. In future it was assessed at 25,000 juga only ; and so reUef was granted.^
Further, as the "English manorial lord paid the The^*«- hidage for the whole manor, so the lord of the villa, ^t^^ under Eoman law, paid the tributum not only for his ^ilho^^ own demesne land, but also for the land of his coloni tribute and tenants. Just as the servile tenants of a Saxon tenants, or thane were called his ^ gafol gelders^' so the semi- *' ''^'
* £umeniu8, Pan. Cofutantini, Marquardt, 8. V., ii. 223,
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294
The Roman Land System,
Crap. VIII.
Ccioni and tribfUarii in Britain.
The Ro- man *tri- Lutum * sind the Saxon •gafol.'
servile tenants of a Boman lord were called his trihutarii. In both cases they paid their tribute to their lord, whilst the lord paid the imperial tributum . for himself and for them.^
In a decree of the year 319, issued by Constan- tine to the * Vicar of Britain,' words are used which prove that there were coloni and tributarii ^ on British estates.^
Putting aU these things together, the analogy between the Eoman * jugation' and the later English hidage can hardly be regarded as accidental.
But to return, at present, to the tribute and the service due from each jugum or caput
The tribute was generally paid part in money and part in produce, and was, in fact, a tax. It was a separate thing from the tithe of produce, ren- dered as rent to the State on the tithe-lands of the Agri decumates and of Sicily, though all these various annual payments in produce may have been confused together under the term annonce. The tribute proper survived probably, as we shall see, in the later manorial ' gafoU The tithe^ or other proportion taken as rent — for the proportion was not always a tenth * — more nearly resembled the manorial * gafoUyrth,
* Cod. Theod, lib. xi. tit.i. 14.
' See also Ammianus, xxyii. 8, 7. Coote, 131.
' Cod. 2%ecH^. lib. xi. tit. vii. 2. Idem A ad Pacatianum Vicarium Britanniarum. UnuBquisque de- curio pro ea portione conyeniatur, in qua vel ipse vel colonus vel tri- Vutariufl ejus conTenitur et colligit ; neque omnino pro alio decurione
vel territorio conTeniatur. Id enim prohibitum esse manifestum est et obeerTandumdeinceps,quo[d] juxta hanc nostram proyisionem nuUus pro alio patiatur injuriam. Dat. zii. Eal. Dec. Oosstaotino A. et licinio 0. Ooss. (310).
^ Hjginua. Lachmann, &c., i. 205.
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The ^ Sordida Munera.'
295
But we are riot quite ready yet to trace the actual connexion between these Eoman and later manorial payments.
Chap. VIU.
VII. THK ^SORDIDA MUNERA ' OF THE LATER EMPIRE.
In addition to the payments in kind or rents in The produce, called annonce^ there were other personal munera, services demanded from settlers in the provinces. They were called ^ sordida munera^ and strangely resembled the base services of later manorial tenants.
There is a special title of the * Codex Theodo- sianus ' on the * base services ' exacted under Eoman law ; ^ so that there is evidence of the very best kind as to what they were.
By an edict of a.d. 328 there was laid upon the rectores of provinces the duty of fixing the burden of the services according to three grades of holdings ^^"^ — those of the greater, the middle, and the lowest holdings. class — as well as the obUgation of seeing that the services were not exacted at unreasonable times, as during the collection of crops. Further, the rectores were also ordered to record with their own hand ' what is the service and how to be performed for
* every " caput " [or jugum], whether so many angarice .
* or so many operce^ and in what way they are to be
* rendered for each of the three grades of holdings.' *
1 Cod. Theod. lib. xi. tit. xH De Extraordmariis sive Sordidis Muneribu8» See also Godefroj's notes.
' lib. xi. t. xyi. 4. ' Ea forma serrata, ut primo a potioribus, deiu-
de a mediocribuB atque infimis, qum sunt danda^ prsestentur.' 'Manu autem sua rectores scribere debe- bunt; quid opus sit, et in qua ne- oeedtate, per singula capita, vel quant» angari® yel quantce operae,
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296
Tlie Roman Land System.
Chap.
vm.
What they were in Hhetia.
Certain privileged classes were specially exempted from these * base services,' and it happens that edicts expressly mentioning Ehsetia specify from what ser- vices they shaD be exempt, and so reveal in detail what the services were.
The province of Ehaetia lay to the south of the Boman Limesy and east of the * Agri decumates * of Tacitus, whilst also extending into the Alpine valleys of the present Graubunden. The chief city in North Bhastia, of which we speak (Vindelicia), was AtLgvsta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), and Tacitus de- scribes, the German tribes of the Hermunduri, north of the LimeSj as engaged in friendly commerce with the Bomans, and as having perfectly free access not only to the city, but also to the Boman viUas around it.^
We have seen that in this district south of the Danube, and in the Agri decumate-i between the Danube and the Bhine, there were large numbers of German as well as Boman settlers, occupying land probably as free * coloni ' and * laeti,' paying tribute to the State, in addition to the usual tenth of the produce and personal services, according to their grades of holding. Edicts of a.d. 382 and 390* represent the tenants and settlers in this Boman pro- vince as Uable with others to render, in addition to the tithe of the produce in corn, &c. {annonce)^ inter alia^ the following * base services ' {sordida munera)^ viz. : —
vel quffi aut in quanto modo pr8e<» bendie sint, at recognoviase se scri* l)aiit; exactionis, pnodicto ordine inter ditiorea, medincree, atqua in-
iimoe obeervando.' ^ Oermania, xli. • Cod, Theod. xiAQyKo^lS,
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Supply of bread.
Poat-horae and cany-
▼ICMk
The * Sordida Munera'
(1) The ^cura poUinis conficiendi^ ex^^^^^^riis^l ^^^ and obsequium piatrinij i.e, the preparation of flour, making of bread, and service at the bakehouse.
The supply of so many loaves of bread is a very common item of the later manorial services every- where.
(2) The prcebitio paraveredorum et parangaria- rum. These also were services found surviving, j°£ in fact and in name, amongst the later manorial ser- vices. The angarice ^ and the veredi * were carry- ing services, with waggons and oxen or with pack- horses, on the main public Eoman roads. The parangarice and paraveredi were extra carrying services off the main road. There is a special title of the Codex Theodosianus * De Cursu Publico^ An- gariis et Parangariis,' ® in which, by various edicts, abuses are checked and the services restrained within reasonable Umits, both as to the weight to be carried and the number of oxen or horses required.
Carrying services also are familiar in manorial records under the name of ^ averagium' In the Hundred Eolls and the Cartularies, and in the Domesday Survey, they occur again and again ; and in the Anglo-Saxon version of the * Rectitudines^ in describing the services of the * geneat ' or * villanus,' the Latin words ' equitare vel averiare et summagium
' From angarnu » Syyapos, 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 *' on^orttw."' — Hero-
dotus, bk. viii. 98.
See also the C)/rcpadia, bk. viii. c. 17, where the origin of the po8t> horse system is ascribed to Gyrus.
* From the Latin vereduSf a post-hoTse.
» Cod. Theod. lib. viii. t v.
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298
The Roman Land System.
Chap. VIII.
Various ojperiB,
ducere/ are rendered * jiiban -] auejiian -] lat>e lacban.' Also, in the record of the services of the Tidenham
* geneats ' the words run, * ridan^ and averian, and lade
* Icedan, drdfe drifan^' &c.^ At the same time, on the Continent the word * angarioe ' became so general a manorial phrase as to be almost equivalent to ' villein services ' of aU kinds.*
The carrying and post-horse services, more strictly included in the manorial angarioe and averagium^ extended over Britain, Gaul, and the German pro- vinces.
(3) The ^obsequia operarum et artijicum diver- sorum' — the doing aU sorts of services and labour when required — ^like the Saxon * boon-work,' which formed so constant a feature of manorial services in addition to the gafol and regular week-work. How could the words be better translated than in the Anglo-Saxon of the Tidenham record — ' and sela odra
* The 'veredus* or post-horse^ from which the paraveredus or extra post-horse, sometimes par-^ hippus (all these words occur in the Codex Juttin. zii. 1. [li.]; 2 and 4, De Cwrau PMico), may have been equivalent to the later ' averius ' or 'affirus' by which the avercigium was performed. Cf. ^Parhippiu vel Avertarius ' {Cad, Theod, YIII. V. xxii) and see Id. zlvii., * avertarius « a horse carrying 'averta' or saddlebags. Hence, perhaps, the base Latin avera, averi^f averii, qffrtf beasts of burden, oxen, or farm horses, and the verb * averiare^ (Saxon of 10th century ' ar>er%an^)f and lastly the noun 'averagium' for the service. See also the Gallic Ep-^>'
reduB (men of the horse-couiBe) mentioned by Pliny iii. 21 (Dr. Guest's Oriffine$ CeUic€B, i. 881), and compare this word with/Mira- veredi. In modem Welsh < Rhed ' B a running, a course.
' Compare the oarefiil para- graphs on these words in M. Guerard's Introduction to the Po- Iffptiqiie de VAlibS Irminony pp. 793 et seq. The sense of the word as implying a compulsory service is shown in the Yulgate of Matt. v. 4 : < Et quicunque te angariaverU miUe passus : vade cum iUo et alia duo.'
The same word is used in Matt, xxvii. 32, and Mark xv., where Simon is cotnpelled to bear the cross.
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The ' Sordida Munera.'
299
Jingad6n,' ' and shall do other things^' qualified by the Chap. previous words, * swd him man byt/ ^ as he is bid ' ? ^ 1
(4) The ' obsequium coquendce calcis ' — ^lime-burn- i,in,e ing. This was one of the specially mentioned ser- ^^^n^^K- vices of the servi of the Church in Frankish times, under the Bavarian laws, in this very district of RhsBtia, as we shall see by-and-by.
(5) The prcebitio materice, lignorum^ et tabuhrum ; Building, cura publicarum vel sacrarum cedium construend- support of arum atque reparandarum ; cura hospitalium domo- ^^' ** rum et viarum et pontium ' — the supply of material, ^'»^««- wood, and boarding for building, repairing, or con- structing public and sacred buildings, and the keeping
up of inns, roads, and bridges. Here we have two out of the ' three needs ' marking in England the higher service of the Saxon thane.
Such were the chief ' sordida munera ' of the settlers in Rhrotia and other Roman provinces. But servile as they were, and like as they were to the later manorial services, we must not therefore con- clude that the settlers from whom they were due — whether German or Roman, in Romano- German pro- vinces— ^were under Roman law necessarily serfs. They ^ were, as we have said, * free coloni ' or * laeti,' and below them were the * servi.' The three grades in which they were classed, ' diiiores, mediocres^ atque * infimi^' marked gradations of wealth, — probably ac- cording to the number of yokes of oxen held, or the size of their holdings — not necessarily degrees of freedom.^
* Supra, p. 154.
■ There were probably servi on tbe 'ager publicus' as there were on the Frankish public lands, called
' servi JisciJ See Decretio Cklo' tKarii regis^ A.D. 61 1, 668. Man. Oerm, Hist, Legum Seetio, ii. p, 6.
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300
The Roman Land System.
Chap.
vm.
Tb« Im- perial mili- taiy and iidcal officers.
VIII. THE TENDENCY TOWARDS A MANORIAL MANAGE- MENT OP THE ' AGER PUBLICUS/ OR IMPERIAL DOMAIN.
Having now examined into the character of the holdings, tribute, and *sordida munera' of the tenants on what may be called the great provincial manor of the Roman emperor, it may perhaps be pos- sible to trace some steps in the process by which these tenants became in some districts practically serfs on the royal villas or manors of the Teutonic conquerors of the provinces.
The beginning of the process can be traced appa- rently at work during the later empire.
The German and Gallic provinces had for long been considered as in an especial sense Imperial pro- vinces, and their ' ager publicus ' and tithe-lands had become regarded to a great extent as the personal domain of the' emperors. They were under the personal control of his imperial procuratoresy or agents.^
In fact there had grown up strictly imperial classes of military and fiscal officers with local juris- diction over larger or smaller areas. There were the
* duces,' or ' magistri militum,' and * comites,' and
* vicarii,' ^ whilst in the lowest rank of * procuratores,' possibly controlling smaller fiscal districts or sub-
* Oompare Dr. J. N. Madyig's Die Verfassimg und VerwaUwng des Itonnschen Staates (Leipzig, 1882), ii. p. 408.
' Madvig, ii. p. 673 ; and Cod, Just. zii. 8-14, and Cod. TAeod. xii. i. 88. See also the Notitia Dignitatum^ paesim.
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Manorial Tendencies.
301
districts, were the ' ducenarii^* and * centenarii.'^ They ^'|p seem to have combined military, and judicial, and — — fiscal duties with functions belonging to a local police.
Whatever at first the exact position and autho- rity of these military and fiscal officers of the Emperor may have been, there is evidence that they easily assumed a kind of manorial lordship over the portion of the public domains under their charge in two distinct ways.
In the first place, the ' villa ' in which a mili- Were apt
to aesume
tary or fiscal officer lived was the fiscal centre of a sort of his district. He was the 'villicus* by whom the their dL?** *annonas,' tribute, and ' sordida munera' were exacted. ^^^ - In some instances the services seem to have been ren- dered in the form of work on his * villa,' or on the villas of * conductores,' by whom the special products of some districts were sometimes farmed.^ And there are passages in the Codes which complain of the tendency in these Imperial officers of higher and lower rank to oppress those under their jurisdiction, even sometimes using their seridces on their own estates, and thus arrogating to themselves almost the position of manorial lords, whilst reducing their fiscal dependants to the position of semi-servile tenants.*
* With regard to the procura- tores, ducenariif and centenarU flee Madviff, ii. p. 411. See also Cod. Jutt., xii. 20 (De agentihus in rehus), where a certain ' magister officiorum ' is forhidden to have under him more than 48 ducenarii and 200 centenani. Alao Cod. Just., xii. 23 (24). Mr. Coote (^Romans in England^ p. 317 et 8eq.)i identifies the 'eentenarii'
with the ' stationarii/ or police of the later provincial rule. Oom^- pare this with the distinctly police duties of the 'centenarii' of the * Decreth Clotkarii' (a.d. 611-668), Mon. Oerm. Hist — Oapitularia, p. 7.
' Madvig, ii. 432, and the authorities there quoted.
» Cod. Tkeod.j xi. tit. 11. i. ' Si quis eorum qui provinciarum Bectorihus exequuntur, quique m
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302
The Roman Land System.
Chap. In the second place, the practice also was com- 1 plained of by which the fiscal officers, using their in- fluence unduly, induced tenants on the public lands Take t- ^^ ^^^ district, and sometimes even whole villages^ to sons and place themsclves under their ' patrocinium^* thereby under their practically Converting themselves into semi-servile ^iZu tenants of a mesne lord who stood between them and the emperor.^
The question would be well worth a more careful consideration than can be given here how far these tendencies towards the gradual estabUshment under
diyerais agiuit officiis prindpatiu, et qai sub quocumque prntextu muneris public! poamnt esse terri- biles, rusticano cuipiam neoessita- tern obsequii, quasi mancipio 8U% juriBy imponat, aut servam ejus aut bovem in ubub proprios neoeseitatis- que converterit . . ultimo subjugatur exitio.' Quoting the above Le- buerou observes: — 'Les dues, les comtes, les recteurs des provinces, institu^s pour roister aux puis- sants et aux forts, n'us^rent plus de Tautorit^ de lear charge que pour se rendre redoutables aux petits et aux faibles, et se firent un hon- teux revenue de la terreur qu*ils rdpandaient autour d'eux. Us en- levaient sans scrupule, tantdt le bceuf, tant6t I'esclave du pauvre, et quelquefois le malheureux lui-meme avec sa femme et ses enfants, pour les employer tons ensemble a la culture de leurs mUa * (p. 140). See also Cod. Theod. viii. t. v. 7 and 15.
» Cod.Theod.yXltit'UfDePa' trocmM vicorum. * Quicumque ex tuo officio, vel ex quocumque ho- minum ordine, vico9 in suum detecti
fuerint patrocinium suscepisse, con- stitutas luent pcenas. . . . Quoe- cumque autem vicos aut defensionis potentia, aut multitudine sua fretos, publicis muneribus constiterit ob- viari, ultioni quam ratio ipsa dicta^ bit, conveniet subjugaii'
' Gensemiis ut qui rusticifl pa- trocinia pr»bere temptaverit, cu- juslibet ille fuerit dignitatis, aire MAOisTBi UTRnrsQUE uiiATiM^ sive COMITIB, dve ex pro-consuiUmSf vel vienrws, vel augtutalihus^ vel ^- hunis {C, J. xii. 17, 2), sive ex ordine curiali, vel ewfuslibet aUertut dignitatis^ quadraginta librarum auri se sciat diapendium pro mngu- lorum fundorum pr»bito patroci- nio subiturum, nisi ab hac postea temeritate discesserit. Omnes ergo sciant, non modo eos memorata multa ferendoe, qui dientelam 8u»- oeperint rusticorum, sed eos quoque qui frandandorum tiibutorum causa ad patrocinia solita fraude oonfuge- rint, duplum definitie multss dispen- dium subituros.' i^Dat. vi. Id. Mart. Constantinop., Theodoro v. c. Goes. d9()). See also LehueroUj p. 13G- 139, and Cod, Just., xi. 64.
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Manorial Tendencies.
303
the later empire of a manorial relation between the Chap.
VIII
' coloni ' and ' Iseti ' on the crown lands, and the fiscal 1
officer of the district in which they lived, were the beginnings of a process which ended in the division of the crown lands practically into * villae,* or districts appendant to the villa of the fiscal officer, which in their turn may have been the prototypes of the villas or manors on the * terra regis ' of Frankish and Saxon kings.^
As we have said, the use of the word * villa ' Frankish in the Salic laws and early capitularies, for the Ee^ smallest general territorial unit as well as for the ^^ymg * villa * of a private lord, would thus perhaps be most <>' Manon. easily accounted for. And possibly the continuity which such a result would indicate between Boman and Frankish institutions might, after all, be confirmed by the seeming continuity, in name at least, between the fiscal officers of the later empire and those of the Salic and Eipuarian, and other early barbarian codes. The appearance of the dux and the comes and the centenarius in these codes, and in the early capitularies, as the military, fiscal and judicial officers of the Frank- ish kings, is at least suggestive of continuity in fiscal and judicial arrangements, though of course it does not follow that many German elements may not have been directly imported into institutions which, even under the later Roman rule in the Romano-German provinces, already indirectly and to some extent were
» Madvig, ii. 432. ' Wie lange die Ackersleute auf den Kaiser- lichen Grundstucken {Coloni CdBsaris Big. vi. 6, s. 11, L 10, 8) eine groesere personliche Freilieit be-
wabrten, und seit welcher Zeit das spatere Eolonatsverlialtniss gait, lafist sich nicht bestimmen, da der Uebergang scbiittweiae vor dch filing.'
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304 The Roman Land System.
Chap, no doubt the compound product of both Boman and
L German ingredients.^
The settlement of these difficult points perhaps
belongs to constitutional rather than to economic
history.
The pro- Having noticed the evident tendencies of the fiscal
opf.e of district of the later empire to approach the manorial
dation tvpc, and to bccome a crown villa or manor with
under dependent holdings upon it, we must pass on to
rule. a further important effect of the oppression of
the imperial officers. We have noticed the edicts
intended to prevent the tenants on the imperial
domain from putting themselves under their direct
* patrocinium/ These edicts did not prevent the over- burdened and oppressed tenant from putting himself under the ' patrocinium ' of the lord of a neighbour- ing villa, thereby becoming his semi-servile tenant, in order to escape from the cruel exactions of the tax- gatherer.
This process was called * commendation,' and it was carried out. on a remarkable scale. It consisted in the surrender by the smaller tenants on the public lands of themselves and their property to some richer landowner; so parting with their inheritance and their freedom whilst receiving back a mere occu- pation of their holding by way of usufruct only as a
* prcecarium^' or for life, as a servile tenement, paying
* In the Ripuarian Latos^ tit. li. (58) ' Grafio ' « 'come* ' - * judex fi- tealisy and the fiuitftu was sometimes held 'ante eentenarium vel comi- temySeu ante Ducem Patricium vel Regem/ tit. 1. (62). So in the Salic LawSf tit. IxxT. ' debet judex^ hoc eaty comes out grafio/ &c., bat this
occurs in one of the additions to the ' Lex AntiquaJ Compare the ' cen- tenarius' in his relation to his supenoT, the ' comes/ and in his position of 'judex' in the mallus with the ' centenarius ' under Cod. Jutt., vii. 20, 4.
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Manorial Tendencies, 305
to their lord the fixed census or ^ gafol ' of the servile Chap.
° VIII.
tenant.
By this process they rapidly swelled the number ^^^ ^ of servile tenants on villas of the manorial type, and on ma- hastened the growing prevalence of the manorial tendencies, system.^
This process of commendation was nothing new. 9''^YT"" It was an old tribal practice at work long before very Roman times in Gaul, and destined not only to outlast the Eoman rule, but also to receive a fresh impulse afterwards from the German invasions. And as its progress can be traced step by step from Roman times, through the period of conquest into the times of settled Frankish rule, and its history is closely mixed up with the history of the growth of the Roman villa into the mediaeval manor, and with the change of the * sordida munera ' from public burdens into manorial services, it presents useful stepping- stones over a gulf not otherwise to be easily crossed with security.
Cassar describes how in Gaul, even before the Caesap. Roman conquest, the free tribesmen, overburdened to wT^vep- by the exactions of chieftains and the tributes imposed ^*a'^* upon them (probably by way of ' gwestva ' or food- ©scape rents), surrendered their freedom, and became little oppression, more than * servi ' of the chiefs. And so far had this practice proceeded that he describes the people of Gaul as practically divided into two classes— the chiefs, whom he likened to the Roman ' equites ; *
^ M. Lehuerou obeeryes, ' II y a d^j& des seigneurBf cach^ encore sous randenne et famili^re denomi- nation de patrons. Oela est si vrai
que, non eeulement la chose, nuus le mot se trouve dans Libanius : — Qtpi T&u nftotrrairuiv dai lucfiat /xc« ydkat, iroXXwi/ cicaori; dcoTTorcSv.
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306
The Roman Land System,
Chap. VIII.
Tacitus.
Gregory of Tours.
and the common people, who were in a position little removed from slavery.^
Further, there is the evidence of Tacitus himself that oppressive Eoman exactions were forcing free tribesmen, even in Frisia^ to surrender their lands and their children into a condition of servitude.^
Again, Gregory of Tours ^ describes how, in a year of famine, the poor surrendered their freedom — subdebant se servitio — to escape starvation.
* De BeUo GaUico, vi. c. xiii.- XV. * In omni Gallifi- eoinim homi- nam qui aliquo sunt numero atque honore genera sunt duo. Nam plebee poene servorum habetur locO| qu8d per se nihil audet et nuUi ad- hibetur consilio. Plerique, quum aut eere alieno aut magnitudine tri- butorum aut injuria potentiorum premuntur, sese in servitutem di- cant nobilibus. In bos eadem omnia sunt jura qusB dominis in servos. . . . Alterum genus est Eqmtum, Hi, quum est usus, atque aliquod bellum incidit (quod ante Csesaris adventum fere quotannis accidere solebat, uti aut ipsi injurias inferrent aut illatas propulsaront), omnes in bello versantur: atque eorum ut quisque est genere copiis- que amplissimufl, ita pluriraos cir- cum se ambactos clientesque babet. Hanc unam gratiam potentiamque noverunt.'
' Tacitus, AnndU, 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 insur- rection was not the restless spirit of a nation impatient of the yoke ;
they were driven to despair by Roman avarice. A moderate tri- bute, 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 Fridans, collected a quan- tity of the hides of forest bulls, and made them the standard both of weight and dimensions. To any other nation this would hare been a grievous burden, but was alto- gether impracticable in Germany^ where the cattle running wild in large tracts of forest are of prodi- gious size, while the breed for do- mestic 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.
» Hist., f. 369.
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. Manorial Tendencies. 307
Lastly, in the fifth century (a.d. 450-90) Salvian ^ chap. describes at great length the process by which Eoman
freemen were in the practice of surrendering their ^^piaint possessions to great men and becoming tributary to jj^jj^® them, in order to escape the exactions of the officers century. who collected the * tributum.' He narrates how the rich Eomans threw upon the poor the weight of the public tribute, and made extra exactions of their own ; how multitudes in consequence deserted their property and became bagaudce — rebels and out- laws ; — how, in districts conquered by the Franks and Goths, there was no such oppression ; how Romans living in these districts had their rights respected ; how people even fled for safety and freedom from the districts still under Roman rule into these Teutonic districts ; and he expresses his wonder why more did not do this.
Many (he says) would fly from the Roman districts if they could carry their properties and houses and famihes with them. As they cannot do this (he goes Tjie effect
1 / 1 IT ofsurren-
on to say), they surrender themselves to the care and ders to an protection of great men, becoming their dediticii or ^^^^ ° semi-servile tenants. And the rich (he complains) receive them under their ' patrocinium ' or overlord- ship, not from motives of charity, but for gain : for they require them to surrender almost all their substance, temporary possession only being allowed to the parent making the surrender during his life^ while the heirs lose their inheritance. And this (he adds) is not all.
* Salvian, De Gubematione Dei, ib. V. 8. vi.-viii.
* * Hoc eiiim pacto aliquid paren-
tibus temporarie attribuitur, ut in futuro totum filiia auferatur' — Salvian, 8. viii.
X 2
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308
The Roman Land Syfftem,
Chap. VIII.
The poor wretches who have surrendered their pro- perty are compelled nevertheless to pay tribute for it to these lords, as if it were still their own. Better is the lot of those who, deserting their property altogether, hire farms under great men, and so become the free coloni of the rich. For these others not only lose their property and their status, and everything that they can call their own ; they lose also themselves and their Uberty.^
This evidence of Salvian proves that the surrender by freemen of themselves and their property to an overlord was rapidly going on in Eoman provinces during the fifth century, and this as the result of Eoman misrule, not of German conquest.
IX. THE SUCCESSION TO SEMI-SERVILE HOLDINGS; AND METHODS OF CULTIVATION.
From the evidence of Salvian we can pass at once, crossing the gulf of Teutonic conquest, to that of the Alamannic and Bavarian laws and the monastic cartularies, in which we shall find the process de- scribed by Salvian still going on under German rule, and thereby holding after holding, which had once been free, falhng under the manorial lordship of the monasteries.
* The above is only an abridged summary of the lengthy declama- tion of Salvian. See Gregory of Tours, ' De Miraculis S. Martvniy* iv. xl. (1122), where a siirrender is mentioned. ^Tradidit ei omnem
possessionem suam, dicens: ''Sint hffic omnia penes S^ Martini ditio- nem qua) habere videor, et hoc tan- turn ezinde utar, ut de his dum vixero alar." *
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Semi'Servile Holdings,
309
Chap. VIII.
But before we do so it may be worth while to inquire further into the position, under Eoman rule, of the class of semi-servile tenants into which a free possessor of land descended when he made the sur- render of his holding. We may ask. What was the rule of succession to semi-servile holdings ? and what were the customary methods of cultivation followed by semi-servile tenants, whether upon the villa of a lord or upon the imperial domains ?
Salvian distinctly states, as we have seen, that The rule upon the death of the person making the surrender gu^ew^n to a lord, the right of inheritance was lost to his ^a?erviie children. The holding became, on the surrender, a * prajcarium ' — a tenancy at the will of the lord by way of usufruct only. This being so, any actual succession to the holding must naturally have been, not by inheritance, but, in theory at all events, by regrant from the lord to the successor — generally a single successor — for, under the circumstances, the rule of single succession would be likely to be adopted as most convenient to the landlord.
The tenants produced by commendation were, however, hardly a class by themselves. They most likely sank into the ordinary condition of the large class of ' coloni,' &c., on the great provincial estates. And there is a passage in the * Institutes of Justinian ' which incidentally seems to imply that the ordinary r^^ j^^^, ' colonus ' of the later empire was very nearly in the ^^^^} position of the * usufructuarius,' and held a holding tuarii; which, in legal theory at least, ended with his Ufe.*
» Lib. ii. Tit. i. 86. * la ad quem usufifructus fundi pertinet, non alitor fmctuiim dominus efiicitur,
quam si ipse eos perceperit ; et ideo, licet maturis fructibus nondum tamen percept is decesserit, ad here-
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310 The Roman Land System.
vTii* ^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ gerferally received theory of the
status of semi-servile tenants on the great estates, the
probabiUty is that the practice of single succession by regrant may have followed as a matter of conveni- ence and as an all but universal usage.
Further, if we may suppose this to have been the
case on the private estates of provincial landowners,
the question remains whether the semi-servile classes
of tenants on the imperial domains may not have
been subject to the same customary rules.
Tenants on Now it must bc remembered that the legal theory
ETndi^in ^ regards that part of the provincial land which was
theoiy nQt centuriated and allotted to the soldiers of the
* usufrnc*
tuarii.' conqucring Eoman army as a ' colonia,* but left in the possession of the old barbarian inhabitants, was that the latter were merely usufructuary tenants, paying tribute for the use of the land which belonged now to the conquerors.^ And although yao^i-rights of inheritance, founded perhaps more upon barbarian usage than direct Eoman law, probably grew up generally in the more settled districts of Gaul and the two Germanics, yet there may well have been grades of tenants, some with rights of inheritance and some without them. It may well be questioned whether, in the case of the * laeti ' and other semi-servile tenants, hereditary rights were generally recognised. K we take into account the tendency we have noticed in the management of the provincial domains towards manorial methods and usages, it seems at least pro- bable that the semi-servile classes of tenants under
dem ejus noii pertinent, sed domino I fere et de colono dicuntur.' proprietaliH adqiiiruntur. JEadem \ " Hudorff, ii. 317.
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Semiservile Holdings. 311
the imperial military and fiscal officers were placed Chap.
much in the same position as the coloni on private . L
vDlas ; that, in fact, their tenure was only a usufruct pre^^^^^^
ence
for life or at will — a tenure to which, by custom, ^fgfn ,7*® the single succession would be a natural incident. bucccssiod-
Passing now specially to the tenants on the ' Agri The Decumates ' and other tithe lands north of the Alps, ^™?ed and asking what were their rules of succession and themfiejyes
T to existing
methods of husbandry, perhaps sufficient stress has usages. not always been laid upon the elasticity with which Roman provincial management adopted local customs and adapted itself to the local circumstances of a widely extended empire. We know Uttle of the methods and rules adopted in the management of the * tithe lands,' but if the foregoing considerations be sound, it may be that but Uttle change was needful to convert their tenants into serfs on a manorial estate. They may have had but little to gain or to lose, or even to alter in their habits, in exchanging the rule of the imperial fiscal officers for the lordship of the later manorial lord.
It is much to be hoped that more light may ere Manage- long be thrown upon this obscure subject by students ^^^^^ ^^ of provincial law and the barbarian codes. In the Jj^®*^ meantime it may be possible, perhaps — so slowly do Eastern things change in the East — that an actual modern ®"™^®' example taken from thence of the customary mode of managing pubUc tithe lands at the present moment in what was once a Eoman province might be a better guide to a correct conception of what went on 1,500 years ago on the ' Agri Decumates ' than we could easily get in any other way.
The Roman province of Syria is peculiarly in-
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312 The Roman Land System.
Chap, terestiiig, because the Eoman code* applyi^^g to it in the fifth century happens to remain, and to afford
fifth
tentuiy.
The Synan ij^t^regting evidcuce of adaptation to local customs in
a district unique in the advantage that its usages, little
altered by the lapse of time, can be studied as well
in the parables of the New Testament as on its
actual fields to-day.
The Sir Henry S. Maine * has recently referred to the
their in parable of the * Prodigal Son* as illustrating the
in Bav^a custom stUl foUowcd in Turkey of sons taking their
opi^"***^ portions during the parent's lifetime, leaving one
home-staying son to become the single successor to
the remainder, including the family homestead and
land.
The Syrian code,^ following Roman Law,* insisted upon three-twelfths of a man's property going to his children equally, and left him at liberty to dispose of the remaining nine-twelfths among them at his plea- sure. But an emancipated son had no claim to a share in the ^Are^-twelfths.* These local or Eoman usages have an interesting connexion with the per- mission which, as we shall see in the next section, was given by the Bavarian code of the seventh century, to free possessors of land * after they had made division icith their sons ' to surrender their * own portion^' by way of commendation, to the Church."
' Syrisch-BoniiacheM RechUhuch, i » Syrian Code^ 8. 3. Au8 dem fiinften JahrhuDdert. | 6 g^ ^lao Lex Burgundivrum, Leipzig, 1880. j i. 2, * Si cum filiifl deviaerit et por-
^ JEarly Law and Customs j-g. 200, tionem suam tulerit, . . .* and id.
« S. 1, 8. 9, and a. 27.
* Inst. Just. ii. x\m, 63, and
compare Sandars* note on this pas-
xxiv. 5 and li. 1 and 2. Also *Urkunden' of St. Gall, No. 860. * Quicqiiid contra filios meos in por-
6f^gG- tionem et in meam swaacaram
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Semi-servile Iloldimjs. 313
It is remarkable that, to the present day, in those Chap.
districts of Bavaria where the Code Napoleon has . 1
not superseded ancient custom and law, the * Pflicht- theil ' of not less than one-half or one-third, as fixed by the later Eoman law, still remains inalienable from the heirs, whilst a custom for the father to hand over the whole or a part of the family holding to a son during his Kfetime also occurs.^
These coincidences between customs of Syria and Bavaria — both once Eoman provinces — refer to land of inheritance. But there were also in Syria as elsewhere in the fifth century, between the freeholders and the slaves, a class of semi-servile tenants — adscriptitii — who were, in a sense, the property of a lord.* And besides these, again, from the time of the New Testament ^ to the present, there have been tenants paying a tithe or other portion of the pro- duce in return for a usufruct only of public or private lands.
There is no direct reference to public tithe lands in the Syrian code, but the following description of present customs as regards such lands may be valuable in the absence of earlier evidence. It de- scribes the tenants of the Crown tithe lands in Palestine as having only a usufruct, expiring at their death, and as conducting their husbandry upon an open-field system, which l)eing so widely spread is no doubt very ancient, and likely enough to resemble
accepi.' See also Sir II. Maine's j ' See Syrian Code, s. 60. Ancient Law, pp. 198, 224, 228. » See the parable of * The unjust
* Reports on Tenure of Landf | steward,' and supra, p. 146. 18G0 70, p. 220. Just. Nov. 18. '
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314
The Roman Lcirid System.
Chap, more or less closely local methods followed on the
VIII. .
1. * Agri Decumates ' under Roman rule.^
Land sys- tem in Paleutiop.
Tithe lunds lot to villages, and worked under the open-field system.
Land tenure in Palestine ia of three kinds : —
I. Ard mirif^ or taxed Crown land.
In this claas are included nearly all the large and fruitful plains like those of Jaffa, Ramleh^ and Esdraelon. These lands are leased by the Government to yarious individuals, or sometimes to a whole vUlage. The lessee pays a tenth of the produce of the soil for his right of cultivation. Miri land, therefore, cannot be sold by the lessee, nor has he the power to tiansfer it ; he merely possesses the right of cultivation for a given time, and this only holds good during the lifetime of the lessee. In the event of his death, the contract he has made becomes null and void, even though its term be not expired.
II. Ard wakuf, or glebe-land. . . «
III. Ard tntdkf or freehold, is chiefly composed of small pieces ol ground in the neighbourhood of the villages, such as fig and olive planta- tions, gardens, and vineyards. . . .
It has been already mentioned that by far the greater part of the Cultivated land is not private, but Government property, either miri or wakuf, and that the cultivator is merely the holder. Each district has certain tracts of such lands, and after the rains they are let to the different inhabitants in separate plots. The division is decided by lottery. Herr Schick has given an account of the manner in which this lottery takes place. All those who are desirous of land assemble in the sdha (an open place generally in front of the inns). The Imam, or khatib, who is writer, accountant, and general archivist to the whole village, presides over this meeting. The would-be cultivators notify how many ploughs they can muster. If a man has only a half-share in one, he joins another man with a like share. Then the whole number is divided into classes. Supposing the total number of ploughs to be forty, these would be divided into four classes of ten, and each class would choose a Sheikh to represent them. Tlie land of course varies in quality, and this division into classes makes the distribution simpler. Say there are four classes, the land Ls divided into four equal portions, so that each class may have good as well as bad. When the Sheikhs have agreed that the division is fair, the lots are drawn. Each of the Sheikhs puts some little thing into the khatib^s bag. Then the khaiib calls out the name of one of the divisions, and some pnssing child is
* Journal of the Palestine Ex- ploration Society y January 1883. * lAie, Habits, and Customs of the Fellahin of Palestine,* by the Rev. F. A. Klein. From iheZeitschrift
of the German Palestine Explora- tion Society.
' Shortened form of ard emiri — land of the Emir.
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Semi-servile Holdings. 315
made to draw out one of the things from the bag, and to whichever Sheikh Chap. it belongs, to this class belongs the division named by the khatib. This ^^^^• decided, the Sheikhs have to determine the individual distribution of the — — land. In the case of ten ploughs to a class, they do not each receive a tenth piece of the whole, but, in order to make it as fair as possible, the land is divided into strips, so that each portion consists of a collection of strips in different parts of the viUage lands. The boundaries are marked bj furrows or stones, and to move a neighbour's landmark is still accounted an ^ accursed deed,' as in the days of ancient Israel (Deut. xix. 4). . . .
The measure by which the FeUahin divide their land is thefedddn. It is denided by the amotmt which a man with a yoke of oxen can plough per day, and is therefore a most uncertain measure.
This description of the mode ' in which public Was it so land in Palestine is often let to individual tenants or Eoman to whole villages at a rent of a tenth of the produce, uukU? and further, the picture it gives of the cultivation of the land let to a village by those villagers who supply oxen for the ploughing on an open-field system so like that of Western Europe, at least may suggest the possibility of a somewhat similar system having been adopted in the management of the tithe lands of the * Agri Decumates.'
The allusion to the division of the fields into strips, and to the unit of land measurement being the day's work of a pair of oxen, and, we may add, the use of the same unit of measurement throughout the Turkish Empire,^ may at least prepare us to find
^ The standard measure of land found in 1 Sam. ziv. 14, where the throughout the Turkish Empire is { exploit of Jonathan and his armour- called a deunum, and is the area i bearer is described : twenty of the which one pair of oxen can plough enemy are stated to have fallen in a single day ; it is equal to a within a space of * a half-acre of quarter of an acre, or a square of ' land ' of * a yoke of oxen,* an ex- forty arshuns (nearly 100 feet). I pression better rendered * witliin There seems to be but one allusion i the space of half a deunum of land.' to this fact in the Scriptures ; it is This measure is referred to in
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316
The Roman Land Sy intern.
Chap. VIII.
indications of a somewhat similar system of cultiva- tion on the tithe lands on the Danube and the Rhine when we come to examine their conditions under the early Alamannic and Bavarian laws.
And, lastly, this Eastern illustration of the modern management of * tithe lands ' may help us to give due weight to the suggestion of Sir H. S. Maine ^ that not only on the 'ager publicus,' but even on the lloman provincial villa itself, in the organisation of tlie mostly barbarian and servile tenants, and of the husbandry, many features may well have been borrowed from ordinary and wide-spread customs of barbarian communities, thus partially explaining what must again and again strike us in this investi- gation, viz., the ease with which Eoman and bar- barian elements combined during the later Eoman rule of the provinces and afterwards in producing a complex and joint result — the typical manorial estate.
X. THE TRAJS^SITION FROM THE ROMAN TO THE LATER MANORIAL SYSTEM.
Laws of the
Alnmanni, A.D. 622.
Tlie Alamannic conquest of the province of Ger- mania Prinia^ including what is now Elsass and the western part of the ' Agri Decumates,' may be de- scribed as almost a passive one. The population had long been partly German, and Eoman provincial usages can hardly have been altogether supplanted in the fifth century. It was not till the Alamanni were themselves
ancient profane writers, so that no change has occurred in this rcsjiect. Van Lenner's Bible CuMams in
Bible Landf, i. 75.
' JEarli/ Lnw and CustQfH^ p. 332,
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Growth of the Manor, 317
conquered by the Franks (who had in the meantime Chap.
become nominally Christian) that their laws were !•
codified. When this took place in the year 622 it was with special reference to the interests of the Church that the laws were framed, just as in the case of the first codification of Anglo-Saxon laws on King Ethel- bert becoming a Christian.
The very first provision of the Alamannic laws Permission was a direct permission to any freeman, mthout dertTthe hindrance from * Dux ' or * Comes,* to surrender his ^^"*^- property and himself to the Church by charter exe- cuted before six or seven witnesses ; and it provided further that if he should surrender his land, to re- ceive the usufruct of it back again during Ufe as a benefice charged with a certain tribute or census, his heir should not dispute the surrender.^
In the Bavarian laws of slightly later date there is a similar permission to any freeman, from his own sharCy after he has made division with his sons^ to surrender to the Church viUas^ lands^ slaves^ or other property, to be received back as a henefidum in the same way,^ and neither * rex,' ' dux,' nor * any other person ' is to prevent it.
^ Lex Alanumnorum GhlothArii. est^ et poBt hsBC ad pastorem ecclesiae 1 . ' Ut si quia liber ree auas vel semet- ipeum ad ecclesiam tradere toIu- erit^ nuUus habeat licentiam con- tradioere ei, non dii3:,non comee, nee ulla persooa, sed spontanea Tolun- tate liceat christiano homine Deo servire et de propiias res suas semet^ ipeum redemere. . . .
2. Si quia lilwr, qui rea suas ad ecclesiam dederit et per cartam firmi- tatem fecerit, sicut superius dictum
ad beneficium susceperit ad victua- lem necesffltatem conquirendam die- bus vitce 8U£e : et quod spondit per- solvat ad ecclesiam censum de ilia terra, et hoc per epistulam firmitatis fiat, ut post ejus disoessum nullus de heredibus non contradicat.' — Pertz, Leffum, t, iii. pp. 45-6.
^ Lex Bamwariorum, Textus Legis primus.
1. 'Ut si quis liber persona
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318
The Roman Land System,
Chap. Who ETe the people thus permitted to surrender
1 their possessions to the Church ? Clearly they are
the free possessores or tenants on the public lands, now become * terra regis, under the fiscal officers who are still called duces and comites.
Here, then, is still going on, but in the interest of the Church, precisely the process described by Sal- vian, and with precisely the same results.
Further, these results can be traced with remark- able exactness ; for in the charters of *S^. Gall and Lorsch and Wizenburg there are numerous instances of surrenders made under this law. Instances In the ' Urkundenbuch ' of the Abbey of St. Gall,
der in the uuder date A.D. 754,^ there is a charter by which a charters, posscssor of land in certain * villas ' in the neighbour- hood of St. Gall hands over to the monastery all that he possesses therein, with the cattle, slaves, houses, fields, woods, waters, &c., thereon, together with two servi and all their belongings ; and (it proceeds)
* for these things I am willing to render service every
* year as follows : — viz. xxx. seglas of beer (cervesa),
* xl. loaves and a sound spring pig (frischenga), and *xxx. mannas, and to plough 2 jugera* (jochos) per
Toluerit et dederit res suae ad ec- clesiam pro redemptione animse 8uiB| licentiam habeat de portione sua, postquam cum filiis suis par- tivit. NuUuB oum prohibeat, non rex, non dux, nee ulla persona ha- "beat potestatem prohibendi ei. Et quicquid donaverit, villas, terras, mancipia, vel aliqua pecunia, om- nia quiecumque donaverit pro re- demptione animsd suee, hoc per epistolam confirmet propria manu
sua ipse. . . .
' Et post h»c nollam habeat pen testatem nee ipse nee poster! ejuB, nisi defensor ecclesisB ipsius bene- Jicium prsBstare voluerit ei.* — Pertz, Legum^ t iii. pp. 269-70.
^ Urkundenimch der Ahtei St, OaUen, \. p. 22.
' Compare with the Kentish ' yokes * and * ioclets.' The yoke here is, however, evidently the jtiger^ not t\kejiigum.
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Growth of the Manor. 319
' annum, and to gather and carry the produce to Chap.
* the yard, also to do post service {angaria) when L
* required.*
Here we have not only the public tribukcm con- verted into a manorial census or ' gafol,' but also the sordida munera transformed into manorial services.
In another charter, a.d. 759, is a surrender of all a man's possessions in the place called Heidolviswilare^ to the Abbey, * in this wise that I may receive it back ' from you per precariam, and yearly I will pay ' thence census^ i.e. xxx. siclas of beer, xl. loaves,
* a sound spring frisginga, 3 day-works (operas) of ' one man in the course of the year ; and my son
* Hacco, if he survive me, shall do so during his life.' ^
In another, a.d. 761,^ the monks of St. Gall re- grant a 'villa' called ' Zozinvilare' to the original maker of the surrender at the following census^ Viz. xxx. siclas of beer and xl. loaves, a friscinga, and two^hens, with this addition — 'In quisqua sicione^ ^ ' thou shalt plough saigata una (one selion ?) and ' reap this and carry it into [the yard], and in one ' day (jurno) * thou shalt cut it, and in another gather ' it and carry it, as aforesaid.'
In the surrender of a holding ' in villa qui dicitur
* Wicohaim^ the census is . . . siclas of beer, xx.
* maldra of bread and a frisginga, and work at the ' stated time at harvest and at hay-time, two days in
* reaping the harvest and cutting the hay, and in ' early spring one ''jumalis " at ploughing, and in ' the month of June to break up [brachan] another,
» Urkundenbitch, pp. 27^8.
» Id, p. 83.
' See also u{. pp. 7&and 00.
* Hence {jumaV for acre.
* JW. p.41.
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320 The Roman Land System.
Chap. « and in autumn to plough and sow it — this is the
' census for that villa.'
Like those These srants were clearly surrenders by freemen
descnbed o ^ •'^ ...
bjrSaivian. hke those described by Salvian, which carried with them whatever coloni or servi there were upon the land. Thus, under date 771,^ a priest gives to the monks all his property in villa Ailingas and another place, except two servi and five yokes of land ; and in another place he gives 'servum, unum cum hoba ' sua et JUiis suis et cum uxore sua* The hoha was clearly the ' hub ' or yard -land of the serf, and it, he and his wife and children were all granted over by their lord to the abbey.
In the same year 771 ^ a man named Chunibertiis and his wife surrendered an estate called Chunihertes- wilari, and it is described as including just what a Koman villa would include, i.e. the viUa itself {casa)^ surrounded by its court {curte circumclausa), together , with buildings, slaves, arable land, meadows, fields, &c., &c. And yet in this case also he retains posses- sion * sub tisu fructuario ' during his Ufe, paying the same kind of census as in the other cases — ^xx. siclas of beer, a maldra of bread, and z, frisking. Likeness Now, it will at oucc be seen how like is the census
^nsiwand dcscribcd iu these charters to the Saxon gafol of the ^7sMon* * Eectitudines,' and of the manors of Tidenham or *^°^lfi Hysseburne. There is distinctly the gafol^ and in yrth/ many cases the gafolyrth also, but no mention of the week-work. Add this, and there would be an almost exact Hkeness to Saxon serfdom.
But it will be remembered that even under the
» Urkundenbuch, p. 59. « Id. p. 00.
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Growth of the Manor.
821
laws of Ine the week-work was not added to the qafol Chap*
VTTT-
unless the lord provided not only the yard-land, but
also the homestead. These surrenders were sur- renders by freemen of their own land and home- steads. It was hardly likely that the more servile week-work should be added to their census. How it would fare with their children when they sought to succeed their parents in the now servile holding is quite another thing.
There is, indeed, apparently an instance, under New serf date 787,^ of the settlement of a new serf — the S^*week- grant of a fresh holding in villenage from the Abbot JJ^J^ of St. Gall to the new tenant. The holding, if we may use the Saxon terms, is * set ' both * to gafol and to week-work \' for the tenant binds himself (1) to pay to the abbey as census {i.e. as gafol) yearly vii. maldra of grain and a sound spring frisking, to be de- livered at the granary of the monastery ; and (2) to plough every toeek {i.e. as week-work)^ at their nearest manor {curtem) a ^juimal '(or acre strip) in every zelga ® {i.e. in each of the three fields) ; and also six days in a year when work out of doors is needed, whether in harvest or hay-mowing, to send two * mancipii ' for the work : also, when work is wanted in building or repairing bridges, to send one man with food to the work, who is to stop at it as long as required. And to these payments and services the new tenant bound * himself, his heirs, and aU their descendants lawfully ' begotten.'
1 Urhundmbw^, p. 106.
* ' £t ad piozimam curtem ves- tram in unaqaaque zelga ebdome- darii jumalem arare debeamus'* (p. 107).
' WaitK speakB of the three great fields under the * DreifMer^ wirth9chtrft ' as * Zelgen.'— Ver- fasmng der DeuUcken Vblker, i. 120. And see infroy chap. z. s. iii.
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322 The Roman Land System.
Chap. This surely is a distinct case of the settlement of
^™' a new serf upon the land, rendering in Saxon phrase both gafol and week-work ; and the serfdom created is as nearly as possible identical with that of an Enghsh manor of the same date, of whoiT -^^^ *^ return to the surrenders. It is clear from
viiiftg OP the instances quoted that some of these owners who on viiUe. Surrendered their holdings were holders of whole villas or heims, some of them of portions of villas or heims. And yet they placed themselves by die surrender, as Salvian described it, in a servile position, lowerj as he says, than that of the coloni of the rich^ for they merely retained the usufruct during their life. The inherit- ance was lost. And they still had a tribute to pay to their lord, though free from tribute to the public purse. The Frankish kings now stood in the place of the Roman Emperor. The old Roman tributum apparently remained, but was payable to the Frankish king. When under the Alamannic laws these sur- renders were made to the Church, the tribute also was transferred from the king to the Church.
We have seen that when such a surrender had been made under Roman rule to a rich Roman land- owner, the latter became responsible to the public ex- chequer for the tributum, but he exacted tribute in his turn from his tenant, who thus, as Salvian said, though parting with his inheritance, still paid tribute to his lord. But this tribute can hardly have been the full tributum at which the holding was assessed to the jugatio. It seems to have been rather a fixed and typical gafol or census, marking a servile con- dition. For in the Alamannic laws there are clauses making the following remarkable provisions : —
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Growth of the Manor.
323
Leges Alamannorwn HlotharH ^ (a.d. 622).
xzn. (1) Servi enim ecclesiie tributa aiia legitime reddant, quindecim adas de ceirisa, poroo Talente [al. poiciim yalentem] tremiase uno, pane' [al. panem] media dua, pullos quinque, ova yiginti.
(2) Ancilln autem opera in- poflita sine neglecto faciant.
(8) Seryi dimidiam partem dbi et ^JiTwiiliftTn [al. dimidinm] in domi- nico aratiTomreddant Et si super hiec est^ sicut servi eoclesiastici ita facianty tres dies sibi et tree in dominico.
xxm. De liberie autem ecclesiasticis, quod [al. quoe] colonos Tocant, omnea sicat coloni regis ita reddant adecclesiam.
TTTT-
(1) Let seryi of the Oburch pay tbeir tribute rightlj, viz., 16 sicl» of beer, with a sound spring pig, of bread two modia, five fowls, twenty eggs.
(2) Let female servi do services required vdthout neglect.
(3) Let servi do ploughingybalf for themselves and half in the de- mesne. And if there be other services, let them do as the servi of the Church— three days for themselves and three days in the demesne.
xxm,
Oonceming the freemen of the Ohurch who are called ' coloni/ let all pay to the Church just as the colon! of the king.
Chap.
vm.
Tribute, services, and three days' * week- work' under the Alaman- nic law.
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 eccle- siastical 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
PertZy Legum, iii. pp. 61, 52. ./• T 2
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324 The Roman Land System,
Chap, to pay to the Church as the coloni on the terra regis 1 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 re- main 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 seroi 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 Ehine, which so abounded vdth * heims ' and ' vilUis^ 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 Eoman province of Ehaetia.
Ehsetia, 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 * angaricBi* 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 * sur- renders ' by freemen of their property to the Church, and the services of the servi and coloni of the Church are described with remarkable clearness.
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Growth of the Manoi\
325
The section is headed —
CH4P.
VIII,
Lex Baktwariarum, textu$ hg%» prinrns.^
13. De cohnii vd wrm eedegia, quO" Uter serviant vd quale [a/. quaUa] tributa reddant*
Hoc est agrario secundum esti* mationem iudicis; provideat hoc iudex secundum quod habet donet : de 80 modiis 8 modios donet, et pascuario diasolvat secundum usum proTincuB.* Andecenas legitimas, hoc est pertica [aL perticam] 10 pedes lukbentem, 4 perticas in trans- Teno, 40 in longo arare, seminare, claudere, eolligere, trahere et re- oondere. A tramisse unusquisque aeccia ' ad duo modia sationis ezcol- Iigere, seminarei coUigere et re- condere debeat ; et vineas plantare, fodere, propaginare^ prsdcidere^ yin- demiare. Reddantfiiace[al.fa8cem] de lino [al. ligno] ; de apibus 10 ▼asa [aL decimum ras] ; pullos 4, OTa 16 Teddant. Parqfretoe [al. palafredos] donent, aut ipei yadant, uln eis iniunetum fuerit. Angariae cum cam &ciant usque fiO lewas [aL leugas] \ amplius non minentur.
Ad casas dominicas stabilire [al. stabiliendas], fenile, granica vel tunino xecnperanda, pedituras ra- tionabiles aocipiant, et quando ne- fiierit, omnino oomponant.
13. Concerning the coUmi or servi of the Tribute Church,whatiervicesandtrQmte$ emmcea they are to render. Sys'
This is the tribute for arable, * week- according to the estimation of the ^' ^ judge. The judge must look to it Bavarian that according to what a man has laws, he must g^ye; for 80 modia he must give 8 modia. And for pas- turage he must pay according to the custom of the proyinoe. Legal andeoensd (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 16 eggs. Let them giye post-horses, or go them- selves wherever they are told. Let them do carrying service with wag- gons as far as 60 leug». 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 to-
* Parts, Legum, t iii. pp. 378- 380.
* Compaie Chlotharii IL Fta- eeptio (684r-638) s. 11. ' Agraria, paseuaria vel decimas porcorum ecdeslBB pro fidei nostrae devotione
conoedimus, ita ut actor aut deci- mator in rebus eoclesin nullus acoe- dat.' — Mon. Oerm. Hist, CapUvtf laria, L L p. 19.
' This word ' accola* is often used in charters for *free eolomJ
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326
The Roman Land System.
Chap.
vni.
Oalce ftmo [aL caloefanio]| ubi prope fueriti ligna aut petra [aL petraa] 60 homines fadant, ubi longe fderat [al. fuerit], 100 ho- mines debeant expetiri, et ad ciyi- tatem vel ad villam, ubi necesee fuerity ipsa calce trahantur [aL ipsam caloem trahant].
Gafol-yrth or plough- ing of andecenm or acre strips, probably for the tenths on the ' titho- lands/
gether. To the limehiln when near let 60 men, and when it is far let 100 men be found to supply wood or [lime-JBtone, and wheie needful let the lime itself be earned to city or villa.
These are the services of the coloni or accolce of the Church. Next as to the servi : —
Servi autem eodesiiB secundum possessionem suam reddant tributa. Opera vero 8 dies in ebdomada in dominico operent [al. operentur], 8 Tero sibi faciant. Si vero dominus eius [al. eorum] dedeiit 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 Churcb pay tribute according to their holdings. Let them work 8 days a week in the demesne, and 3 days for tfaemselyes. But if their lord give them oxen or other things they ha^^e, let them do as much service as can be put upon them, yet thou shalt oppress no one unjustly.
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 ga/ol, the gafolyrth^ 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 plough- ing— the Saxon gafoUyrth noticed above in the St. Gall charters. This is to be rendered in lawful andecence, and this measure of the plough-work is reckoned by the Eoman rod of ten feet, and takes the precise form, four rods by forty, which belongs to the English acre of four roods ; ^ and this is the
' Id the Glosses this andecena is called a ' akartoork.'
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Chowth of the Manor. 327
strip to be sown, gathered, and stored, just as in the Cbap. 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.
Then there are the pack-horse services {parafreti) )^^^ and the carrying services (* angarioe cum carta '), the keeping up of buildings, supply of the limekiln, and the carriage of lime to the villa — all which once pubUc services i^ 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 Theodo- sianus ^obsequia^' and are almost identical with the Saxon ^ precarioB^ or boon-works.
Lastly, it has been observed that the coloni or a^colcB did not give * week-work.^ This was, as has been seen, the distinctive mark of serfdom here in Ehaetia, as for centuries afterwards throughout the manors of mediaeval Europe.
In other words, in the seventh century there are two classes of tenants on ecclesiastical manors — (1) the coloni or accolce^ to use the Saxon terms of King Lie's laws, set to gafol ; and (2) the servi^ set to gafol and to week-work.
Throw the two classes together, or let the remain- ing 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 mediaeval manorial estate is the natural result. At the same time an explanation is given of the per-
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828 The Roman Land System.
Chap, sistently double character of the later services, which
1 apparently was a survival of their double origin in the
union of the public tribute and sordida munera of the Boman colanusvnth the servile work of theEoman slave. 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 Tmnaition labour was his own. From slavery he had risen into •iftveryto 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 Boman provinces had become included in the
manorial estates of the monasteries.
Scores of In the thickly peopled Romano-German lands on
toouits on both sides of the Ehine, including the present Elsass
Ifl^^* en the one side, and the district between the Rhine
manor '
m^e Bnp- and the Maine (the present Baden and Wirtemberg) to the on the other, so strong was the current in this direc- LonS.^ tion,that we find in the Traditiones of the monasteries
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Growth of the Manor.
of * Lorsch ' and * Wizenburg * scores of 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.^ He cites 107 surrenders to the Abbey of Lorsch in * Hantscuhesheim ' alone,* and concludes that there must have been at least as many free holders resident there in earlier times. Li 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.*
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?
Jn 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.* 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^ '^ and so
VIIL
* Oegckichte der Dcrfveffasmng m Dmt9chland, i. pp. 6 et ieg.
* TradibUmet m Pago Bhrnend. Codex iMuresham. pp. 357 et seq,
* Dotfvevfasmnff, pp. 16 et seq.
* Ammianufl MarcellinuB, bk. XTii. c. i., A^B. 357.
* Codex Laureaham. pp. 826, 362, 369, 375 and paseim.
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330
The Roman Land System.
Chap.
vni.
ThibviUai
on. These vineyards were often composed of so many ^scameUi,' or little scamni — bridges or strips marked out by the Eoman Agrimensores. All this is thoroughly Boman. What looks at first sight so much like a German free village community, was once a little Boman * 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 be- come 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.
Turning to the record of the earliest donation to the abbey, in a.d. 763,^ we find a description of a whole villa or heim — 'Hoc est^ viUam nostram qwB
* dicitur Hagenheim^ cum omni integritate sua, terris
* domibus cBdifieiis campis pratis vinds silvis aquis
* aquarumve decursibits farinariis litis libertis conUberHs
* mancipiis mobilibus et immobilibus, Sfc^
Here there clearly is a villa or manor, and the tenants of this manor are &'fo', liberti^ coliberti^ 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 Uttle free properties in * heims ' and * viUareSj' 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.
* Codex LauresKam, p. 3.
* It is curious to notice that ' coliberti 'appear also in the toestem
counties of England in the Domes- day Survey.
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^ Growth of the Manor. 331
The heims of this Eomano-Qerman district were ^^• therefore distinctly manors. They were also * marks J
In 773 Charles the Great gave to the Abbey of Another Lauresham the ' villa ' called * Hephenheim/ ' in pago ^ Binensey cum omni merito et soliditate sua cum terris ' domibus cedificiis accolis mancipiis vineis sylvis
* campis pratis, Sfc^ — ^that is, the whole manor — ^ cum
* omnibus terminis et marchis suis.* And then follow the m^archoB sive terminus silvce, which pertained to the same villa of Hephenheim, *as it had always ' been held suJb dudbus 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.^
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
* gemaera/ Further, the boundaries are given exactly as in the Saxon charters, in the form described in the writings of the Boman Agrimensores.
In 774,* 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.y just as before. This was another whole royal manor granted with its tenants and slaves to the abbey. Yet in 788 • the holder of a vineyard (^j petiam de vinea ') in this same Obbenheim surrenders it to the abbey. In 782 *
' Codex Lauretham, L pp. 1&- 16.
> Id, i. pp. 18 and 19.
" Id. i. p. 297. * Id. i. p. 308.
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832 The Roman Land System.
Chap, there is another grant. In 793 ^ there is a similar
vin.
grant of five vineyards, and another • of three vine- yards ; and scores of other donations of vineyards occur in the reigns of Charles and of his predecessor Pepin.® The 'free It is obvious, then, that these surrenders or dona- were tions, which were exactly like those of Hantscuhes- traan^ A^m, wcrc 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 Sniren- wcrc uot members of a German free village com- ^Se^^ munity, for they were tenants of a manor when they coloni/ made their surrenders. Nor were they slaves {mancipit). The only other class mentioned in the charter was that of the accolcBj the word used for ^ free coloni ' in the Bavarian laws. These accoke, it seems, then, were * coloni ' or free tenants upon a royal manor, part of the old ager publictiSj now * terra regis.* And as such under the Prankish 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 con- firmed after the Prankish 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
Codex LawreBkam. L p. 347. ^ Id. i. pp. 849-^350.
* Id. ii. pp. 232 et $eq.
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Growth of the Manor.
S33
to prevent free tenants from making such surrenders Chap. for the good of their souls. .. 1
Indeed, among the St. Gall charters there is one Example. exactly in point.
It is dated A.D. 766,^ 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 con- firmed. 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 Boman to medisBval 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 Semces each mansvs ingenualis may be thus classified : '— temmtli
and of
(1) Ab census, 6 modii of barley, 1 pound of flax, at Easter id., 1 ^^^*
fowl, 10 egga, 2 loads of wood.
(2) Am work, 4 weeks a year whenever required.
(8) As ^gafoLyrthi to j^ugh 1 acre in each of the [three] fields
{satvmei), and to gather and store it. (4) As ^prscitricsi or sordida nwnera —
3 days* work at reaping. 2 days' work at mowing.
1 Urhundenhuch of St. Gall, i. p. 60.
' Codex Laureshamensts, liL
212. See also the services at Winenheim (iii. 206), a manor near Heppenheim.
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Roman connezioo*
334 The Roman Land System.
Chap. 2 daya' work at binding and 2 loads of carrying.
VIII. The tenant gives a parafredum.
Attends in the host
Garts 6 loads of lime to the kiliL
Carts 6 loads of wood.
Goes messages * infra regnum ' whenever xeqtdred.
Each mansus servilis rendered, on the other hand —
(1) A8 censtu, 1 imciay 1 fowl, 10 eggs^ a frisking worth id.
(2) A8 boon work, * fadt moaticum et braoem et pictuias 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 foeeh-toark, 8 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 It is evident that these mansi and sortes were not
alhdial lots in the common mark of a free village community, but the holdings of two grades of semu servile and servile tenants on a manor; and it is evident that some of the services were survivals of the sordida munera exacted under Koman law. Surely the con- tinuity 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 Bava- rian 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 probabiUty of their having been original settlements of German free village communi- ties on the German mark system, such as G. L. von Maurer assumes that they were.
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 com- munity, turn out in fact to be ftirther instances of
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Growth of the Manor. 335
the progress under Frankish rule, within a once Roman Chap. province, of the practice described by Salvian — a 1
practice which continued from century to century, helping on the threefold tendency (1) in the villa to Manorial become more and more manorial, i.e. more and more "^^^ an estate of a lord with a village community in serf- ^^ dom upon it; (2) for all land to fall under some system. manorial lordship or other, whether royal, eccle- siastical, 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, arid daves or servi on the other hand, to become merged in the one common class of mediaeval 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 ele- ments 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.
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CHAPTER IX.
THE GERMAN SIDE OF TRE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE.
I. THE OBRMAN TRIBAL STSTEM, AND ITS T£ND£NCT TOWARDS THE MANORIAL SYSTEM.
Chap. IX. The description given of the Germans by Csesar 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.
CiBsar'B
descrip-
tion or the
Germjui
tribal
sjstenu
' Their whole life is occupied in hunting and warlike enterpriae. • • • They do not apply much to agricultuie, and their food moatly coneista of milky oheeae, and flesh. Nor has anyone a fixed quantity of land or defined indiyidual property, but the magistrates and chiefs assign to tribes and families who heid together, annually, and for one year's occu- pation, as much land and in such place as they t ink fit^ compelling them the next year to move somewhere else/ *
He also alludes to the frailty of their houses,' another mark of the tribal system in Wales, which
1 Db BeUo GdOico, lib. yi. c 21 and 22. * Neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios, sed magistratus ac prin- dpes in annos singulos gentibus
cognatiouibusque hominum, qui una coieruut, quantum eis et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt, atque anno post alio transire cogunt' « Id. Hb. vi. c 22.
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The ' Germahia ' of Tacitus. 337
' indeed was a necessaiy result of the yearly migration Chap, ix to fresh fields and pastures.
Now what were the tribes of Germans with whom Cassar came most in contact ?
His chief campaigns against the Germans were (1) The Snevi. against the Suevi, who were crossing the Ehine north of the confluence with the Moselle, and (2) against Ario- vistus in the territory of the Sequani at the southern bend of the Ehine eastward. And it is remarkable that the Suevi were prominent again among the tribes enlisted in the army of Ariovistus.^ So that it is easy to see how the Suevi, coming into close contact with Caesar at both ends, came to be considered by him as the niost important of the German peoples.
He describes the Suetn separately, and in terms - which show over again that they were still in the early tribal stage ^ in which an annual shifting of holdings was practised. Indeed, their senai-nomadic habits could not be shown better than by the inadvertently mentioned facts that the Suevi who were crossing the Ehine 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,^ 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.*
This statement of Cassar that the Germans of his
^ De Bello OaUico, lib. i. c. 51.
» Id. lib. iv. 0. 1. * Sed privati ac separati agri apud eos nihil est, neque' longius anno remanere uno in
loco incolendi causa licet.' » Id. lib. i. c. 36. * Id. lib. i. c. 61.
Z
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338 The German Land System.
Chap. k. 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 cor- roboration 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 Csesar perfectly probable.
But how was it 150 years later, when Tacitus wrote his celebrated description of the Germans of his time?
P^ ^ The *Germania' was obviously written from a
nia'of Ta^ distinctly Eoman point of view.
ci iw. rjijj^^ ^yg ^£ ^^ writer was struck with those points
chiefly in which German and Eoman manners diflered. The Eomans of the well-to-do classes lived in cities. City life was their usual life, and those of them who had viUas in the country, whilst sometimes having residences for themselves upon them, as we have seen, cultivated them most oft;en by means of slave-labour under a viUicus, but sometimes by coloni.
The What struck Tacitus in the economy of the
scattered
settle- Germans (and by Germans he obviously meant the STfre^ A^^ tribesmen^ not their slaves) was that they did tribesmen. ^^ jj^^ j^ ^^^.-^g jjj^^ ^j^e Romaus. * They dwell ' (he
says) * apart and scattered, as spring, or plain, or * grove attracted their fency.'^ Of whom is he speak- ing? Obviously of free tribesmen or tribal house- holds, not of villagers or village communities^ for he
1 ' OoluBt discreti ac diverm, ut fons^ ut campus, ut nemos placuit.* — Oermania, xvi.
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The * Germania ' of Tacilkis. 339
immediately afterwards, in the very next sentence, Cbap. ix, 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 con- tinuous roofs. ' Their villages ' (he says) ' they The
* build not in our manner with connected and at- S^p
* tached 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.' ^
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 landozonerSj while the latter, the villagers, must chiefly have been their servile dependants. And this inference is con- , firmed when Tacitus comes to the second point and tells us that the servi of the Germans differed greatly irom those of the Eomans. 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 tribes- men's households or employed in household service, but each family of slaves had a separate home-
1 < Vicos locant non in nostrum moram^ connezis et cohserentibus ndifidis: Buam quisque domum
spatio drcumdat, rive adyersus Cfums Ignis remediumy sive inscitia »di- ^cajidL'—Oermama, xvi.
M 9
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340
The German Land System.
Chap. IX. stead.^ They had also separate crops and cattle; for * the lord (dominus) requires from the slave a
* certain quantity of com, cattle, or material for
* clothing, as in the case of coloni. To this modi-
* fied extent (Tacitus says) the German servus is ^ a slave. The wife and children of the free tribes-
* man do the household work of his house, not slaves
* as in the Eoman households.'
Clearly, then, the mcus — the viUage^-on the land of the tribesman who was their lord, was inhabited by these servij who, like Eoman colonic 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.* ^}^ Now, if we could be sure that the tribal home-
■tage than stcad 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 tribes- man'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
Oesar described,
^ 'Ceteris Bervis non in noe- trum morem descriptis per familiam ministeruB utuntur. Suam quiaque sedem, suoe penates regit. Fru- menti modum dominua aut pecoris
aut vestifi ut colono injungit, et servus hactenus paret : cetera doiiius oiRcia uxor ac llberi ex- sequuntur.' — Oermania, xxv. ^ Id, xiy. and xy.
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The * Gei'mania ' of Tacitus. 341
^ without his making a will ; and if there be ' no Chap; ix, * children, the grades of succession are brothers, Dm.iion ' paternal uncles, maternal uncles.' ^ ^i^
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 of the German tribesman, ^^® with its village of serfs upon it, might therefore, if manor, 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 tribes- maii 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
> Gertnama, zx.
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342 The German Land System.
Chap. IX. broken up, room would be found for tbe 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 The emigrating tribesmen in their new home
monto! 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 ^ to keep out the weather. He would put up his rough outbuildings and fence in his com and cattle yard. Eound 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.
'^\\ . . Indeed, when we turn to the famous passage in
celebrated i • , , ^ -• i i . . i
passage of which the German settlements and their mternal describing ecouomy are described, the words used by Tacitus ^ricld- ^^^ in themselves to indicate that he had in his eye ture. precisely this process which the example of the Welsh and Irish tribal systems has helped to make intelli- gible to us. Tracts of country {agri\ he says, are ' taJcen possession of {occupanttir) by a body of tribes- men {ab universis) who are apparently seeking new
^ Germania, xvi.
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The * Germania ' of Tacitus.
343
homes ; and then the agri are presently divided among Chap. ix. them.
This passage, so often and so variously construed and interpreted, is as follows : —
' Agri pro numero coltorum ab uiuTersis rids [or in or per vices'] ^ occupantur, quo6 mox inter se secundum dignationem partiuntur : facili- tatem partiendi camponim epatia prssstant.
' Arva per annoe mutant, et superest ager : nee enim cum ubertate et ampMtttdine soli labore oontendunty ut pomaria oonaeraat et prata separent et hortos rigent : sola terr» seges imperatur.' ^
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 vicosque reddunt.'^ The vicus is here evidently a smaller tribal subdivi- sion of the paguSj just as the Welsh trev was of the ' cymwd,' and not necessarily a village in the modem sense.^
1 The Bamberg Codex has ' ab universie vudB^ and this is followed by Waitz ( VerfassungsgeKMchte^ Kiel, 1880, i. 146). The Leyden Oodex has ' in yicem.' Others ' per vices/ which earlier critics con- sidered to be an error for 'per vicos.' See Wietersheim*s Qe-
Bchiekte der VoUcerwanderung, with Dahn's notes, L p. 43. Leipzig, 1880.
* Oermania, xztL
* Id, xii.
* The Welsh * trev ' and Ger- man ^dorf' probably are from the same root
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844
The German Land System.
Cha*. IX.
Fresh agri taken pos- session of and dirided under tri- bal mles.
The agri- cnltnre is aco-ara- tion of fresh
portions of the waste each year.
K, on the other hand, the true reading be 'aft unive:^sis in^ or per^ vices or invicem^ the meaning pro- bably 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 in- stance of Abraham and Lot.
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 possibihty of an annual movement such as that described by Caesar. * Arva per annos mutant et superest ager.^ They change their arva or ploughed land yearly, Le.y 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.^ Nothing could de- scribe 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.
* * "Ager " dictiis qui 8 divisori- bu8 agrorum relictus est ad pascen- dumoommuniteryicinis.' laodoruB,
De Affri8, i. p. 369.
Lachmann and Rudorff,
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The * Germania ' of Tacitus. . 345
This seems to have been the simple form of the Ckar ix. 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-ara- tion 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.
These are important points to have gained, but Theten- the most important one is that, notwithstanding the the^e^ strong resemblances between the Welsh and German ^^^^^^l tribal arrangements, there was this distinct difference ^^^^ the
1 . 1 r.1, .11 Welsh to-
between them. The two tnbal systems were not irardsthe working themselves out, so to speak, on the same °^°^'' lines. The Welsh system, in its economic develop- ment, 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 be-
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manor.
346 The German LanA System.
^^^^' came 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 Oerman 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 cohnV
The Gep- The manor — ^in embiyo — ^was, in fact, already in
Roman coursc of development. The German economic
easily com- systcm was, to Say the very least, working itself out
m^ket^e ^^ ^^^^ ^^ nearly parallel to those of the Eoman
manorial system that we cannot wonder at the silent
ease with which before and after the conquest of
Boman provinces, German chieftains became lords
of villas and manors. Th6 two systems, Eoman and
German, may weU have easily combined in producing
the later manorial system which grew up in the Boman
provinces of Gaul and the two Germanics.
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 wete so nearly alike in their tendencies that they naturally and simply joined in producing the manorial system of later times. And there can be Uttle doubt that, speaking broadly, this would be a substantially correct statement of the case. Werethere But before wc Can fairly and finally accept it as kindfl of such, it is neccssarv to consider another branch of
settle*
mentsDot evidence which has sometimes been understood to TO^mano- ^\^^ ^q g^ Vwdi of Settlement not manorial.
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Tribal Households. 847
The evidence alluded to is that of local names Chap.dc ending in the remarkable suffix ing or ingas. It is The needful to examine this evidence, notwithstanding its SicsSx difficult and doubtful nature. It raises a question ^^i^^^*" upon which the last word has by no means yet been Tuames. 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 sugges- tion 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.
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 ^jj^^^ geography with local names, on the hypothesis that ^^^ local names ending in *iw^,' or its plural form ^ingas^' menu? 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.
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348
The German Land System.
Chap. IX.
What Ger- mans did Tacittu describe?
Those within the limea.
Northern tribes out- side it.
How, it may well be asked, does the evidence they aflford of clan settlements or free village communities comport with the thoroughly manorial character of the German settlements on the hnes described by Tacitus?
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 Eoman influences, and so had sooner, perhaps, than the rest, relinquished their earher tribal habits to follow manorial lines.
So far as his description is geographical it is very methodical.
(1) There are the Germans within the Roman limes} These included the tribes who, following up the conquests of ArJovistus, had settled on the left bank of the Ehine in what was then called the pro- vince of Upper Germany, including the present Elsass and the country round the confluence of the Ehine with the Maine and Moselle. These tribes were the Tribocci, Nemetes and Vangiones.* Further, there were the tribes or emigrants, many of them German, gradually setthng within the hmits of the ' Agri Decumates.' Lastly, there were the Batavi and other tribes settled in the province of Lower Germany at the mouths of the Ehine, shading off* into Belgic Gaul.
(2) There were the Northern tribes ouiside the Eoman province,' some of them tributary to the
^ Oermania, xxviii. and xxix. ' These tribes are mentioned bj Ccesar as forming part of the army
of ArioTifituB. De BeUo OaUieo, Ub. i. c. 61.
' Germania, xxx.~xxxvii.
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Tribal Households. 349
Bomans and some of them hostile, the Frisii, the Chap.ix, 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.
(3) There were the Suevic tribes ^ so familiar to The Suewe Caesar, and amongst whom were the Angli and Varini^ the ho^ the Marcomanni and Hermunduri^ always hovering ^^ over the limes of the provinces from the Ehine 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 Rhaetia, and in the Eoman province of Upper Germany.
(4) Behind all these tribes with whom the Eomans i>;8t*nt 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 ?
Probably it would not be safe to go further than The 8uetfio to say that the Germans whose manners he was most most in hb likely to describe were those chiefly Suevic tribes £^yy;^^ hovering round the limes of the provinces, especially of the *Agri Decumates,' with whom the Eomans 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
> Oermama, xzxviii.-xly.
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350 The German Land System.
Chap. DC Qermaiis who had silently and peaceably settled within the Um£s of the Boman provinces, and so had become half Boman.^
But to what class are we to refer the settlements represented by the local names with the supposed patronymic siiflSx ?
^!^ The previous study of the Welsh and Irish tribal
mic local gystem ought to help us to judge what they were.
impijfixed 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 imphes 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 terri- tory of the tribe of those redistributions of the tribes- men among the homesteads — ^the shifting of famihes 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 Caesar 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 them- selves to places, or suffixes be used which in them- selves involve the idea of a fixed abode.
Then with regard to the nature of the tribal settlements which these local names with a patronymic
' He regarded the ' Agri DecumateB ' as ' hardly in GFennanj.'
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Tribal Households. S61
suffix may represent, surely the actual evidence of Chap. ix. the Welsh laws and the * Becord of Carnarvon/ as to They are what a tribal household was, must be far more likely JJ^^*^ to guide us to the truth than any theoretical view of J^J^J^^ the * village community* under the German mark- system, or even actual examples of village communities existing under complex and totally different circum- stances at the present time, valuable as such examples may be as evidence of how the descendants of tribes- men comport themselves after perhaps centuries of settlement on the same ground.
Now we have seen that the tribal household in The joint Wales was the joint holding of the heirs of a common a f,^ny ancestor from the great-grandfather downwards, with i^^^ redistributions within it to make equahty, first between ^^^^' brothers, then between cousins, and finally between second cousins; the youngest son always retaining ' the original homestead in these divisions. The WeleSj Gwelys^ and GaveUs of the * Eecord 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.^
We may then, following the Welsh example, fairly Thedivi- expect the distinctive marks of the tribal household to ^"ig^* be joint holding for two or three generations^ and then ^^*^§ the ultimate ditnsion of the holding among male heirs, homestead, the youngest retaining the original ancestral homestead.
> This result did not follow in Walea^ becaiue in Welsh local names BuiBxee are not uroaL
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352 The German Land System,
Chap. IX. We know how persistently the division among
• male heirs was adhered to in Wales and in Ireland
under the custom of Gavelkind,^ 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 iyddyns of their own in the taeog treo 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 Now it is wcll kuowu that in the south-east of dWisw^ England, and especially in Kent, the custom of Gavel- a?d <*^ kind has continued to the present day, retaining the youngeBt. divisiou amoug 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 — JungstenrRecht — ^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
* Gavelkind may 1)6 derived [ as in Kent. "Lnah gabal^ (fabtd-emed from gabel, a fork or branch, and (Oavelkind). Maimers, Sre, of the the word is used in Ireland as well I Ancient Irish. O^Curry, ill. p. 581.
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Tribal ITotiseholds, 353
inherit the original homestead^ the latter having sur- Chap. ix. vived in many districts where the other has not. ^
In England he finds the right of the youngest inWaiea most prevalent in the south-east counties — in Kent, England - 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 * Weakyn.''^
Further, as the custom is found to apply to copy- hold or semi-servile holdings, it would not be an im- possible conjecture that previously existing original tribal households were, at some period, upon con- quest, 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.
A similar process, perhaps in connexion with the Survival of Frankish conquest of parts of Germany, possibly of Uie'^ had been gone through in many continental districts, on^^e^^* Mr. Elton traces the right of the youngest in the Continent, north-east comer of France and in Brabant, in Fries- land, in Westphaha, 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
* Oriffine of English Histoty, pp. 188-9. A A
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354
The German Land System.
Chap. IX.
the island of Borneholm, though it seems to be absent in Denmark and on the Scandinavian mainland.^
Attention has been called to this curious survival of the right of the youngest because it forms a possible link between the Welsh, EngHsh, and continental systems of settlements in tribal households.
Wide ex- tenHion nnd mann- ing of the pfttrouy- mic suffix *ing,' Ac.
We now pass to the more direct consideration of the local names with the supposed patronymic suffix.
These peculiar local names are scattered over a wide area ; the suffix varying from the English ing with its plural * inga^^ the German ing or ung with its plural ingas^ ingen, ungen,^ ungicn^ and the Frencli ' ign ' or igny^ to the Swiss ^ equivalent ikon, the Bohemian id^ and the wider Slavonic itz or witz.
It seems to be clear that the termination ing, in its older plural form ingOrS, in Anglo-Saxon, not by any means always,* 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^ (Baldinga^).
There is also evidence that the oldest historical form of settlement in Bohemian and Slavic districts
* Origins of English Histon/y pp. 197-98.
' Arnold's Ansiedeltmgm, p. 89. ■ P«ilacky*B Geichichte von Boh- mm, Buch ii. c. 6, p. 169.
* ' Ing ' also meant a low mea- dow by a river bank, as ' Clifton Ingst near York, &c. Also it was sometimes used like ' ers/ as ' Och- i'ingen,' dwellers on the river * Ohra.*
In Denmark the individual strip in a meadow was an ^ ing/ and so the whole meadow would be * tlte ings.^ '^ See Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tub anno 522. ' Gordic was £le- sing, 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.
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Tribal Households. 355
was in the tribal or joint household — the undivided Chap. ix. family sometimes for many generations herding to- gether in the same homestead {dediny)}
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 ter- mination with the holding of the co-heirs of an original holder .^
The geographical distribution of local names with the patronymic termination is sliown on the same map as that on which were marked the position of the * hams * and ' heims/
First, as regards England, the map will show that in Eng- in the distribution of places mentioned in the Domes- day survey ending in ing^ the largest proportion occurs east of a Une 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.^ Further, it will be observed that the counties where the names ending in ing occur without a suffix are re- markably coincident with those where Mr. Elton has found survivals of the right of the youngest, i.e. the old * Saxon shore.'
> Palacky, pp. 168-9. Com- pare the word with the Welsh tyddyn, and the Irish tate or tath.
■ See Meitzen's Ausbreitvng der
▲ iL 2
DeiUsehen, p. 17. Jena, 1879.
• See Taylor's Words cmd Place*, 1^. 131.
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356
The German Land Sy><tem.
In the
JMoselle
valley
and round
Troyesaud
Langres.
In Frisia.
Chap. IX. Next, as to the opposite coast of Picardy^ the ings inPicardy. and hcms 8X6 alike, for very nearly all the herns in the Survey of the Abbey of St. Bertin of a.d. 850 are pre- ceded by ing^ i.e. they are inghems. The proportion was found to be sixty per cent.^ In this north-east corner of France the right of the youngest, as we have seen, also survives.
There are also many patronymic names of places in the Moselle valley and in Champagne around Troyes and Langres.^
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.
Over North Germany, outside the Boman 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.,® shad- ing 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.*
In Ger- many most densely in the old Boman provinces ofthe'Agri Decu- mates.'
' It IB curiouB to observe tliat, taking all the names in the Cartu- lary (including many of later date), only 2 per cent, end in itiff or inga, 6 per cent, in mghem or ingahem : making 8 per cent, in all.
* Taylor's Wot'ds and Places, pp. 496 et seq.
^ Out of 119 places named in the charters of the Abbey of Fri- singa earlier in date than A.\^. 800, 24 per cent, ended in ingey and only 1 per cent, in heim. — Meichelbeck, passim,
* In the St. Gall charters, out of 1 ,020 names, 9 per cent, end in
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Tribal Iloitseholds. 357
This chief home of the ' ings ' was the western Chap. ix. part of the district of the *Agri Decumates ' of Tacitus and the northern province of Ehaetia, gradually oc- cupied by the Alamannic and Bavarian tribes in the later centuries of Eoman rule.
Whether they entered these districts under cover of the Eoman 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 Danube names with this suffix extend North of chiefly through the region of the old Hermunduri chfeaTin into the district of Grapfeld and Thuringia, where fn^Thu- they were in the Fulda records six per cent. "^*-
This remarkable geographical distribution in Ger- many suggests important inferences.
(1) The attachment of the personal patronymic to Theysug- the name of a particular locality implies in Germany mentT^^ ^ no less than in Ireland and Wales a permanent settle-
^ment in that locality, and so far an abandonment of nomadic habits and even of the frequent redistribu- tions and shifting of residences within the tribal terri- tory,
(2) The occurrence of these patronymic local within names most thickly within the Roman limes and near provinces, to it, points to the fact that the Eoman rule was the outside influence which compelled the abandonment
of the semi-nomadic and the adoption of the settled form of life.
(3) The addition in some cases — most often in possibly Flanders and in England, which were both Eoman ^^^^ *
ingay 3^ per cent, in inchova. The I are either tnlare or wanga ; only most common other terminations ' 2 per cent, end in heim.
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358 The German Lami System.
Chap. IX. provincGs — 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 possibihty 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. offshw>ts (4) Considering the geographical distribution of
Tic tribee the patrouymic termination, beginning in Thuringia came Ala- ^nd Grapfcld, but becoming most numerous in Rhaitia manni. ^^^ ^Y\e * Agri Dccumatcs,' it is almost impossible to avoid the inference that it is in most cases connected with settlements in these Koman 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 This inference might possibly be confirmed by
of Ala- the tact that the isolated clusters of names ending m Beig^c ^^ ' 5ng ' 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 ter- mination of the Alamannic wars of Probus, Maximian, and Constantius Clorus. These colonies of IcpH 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 hi the district of the Nervii round Amiens close to the cluster of names ending in * ing- ahem,' so many of which in the ninth century are
manm in
Belgi<
Gaul,
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Tnhal Ilouseholds. /['u Y^ "^ "^ * T^' ""^^•f rp ^- ■»
found to belong to the Abbey of St. Be^™^^'J:iflMly^v^!*«^^ i^- and this is a point of special interest forttrg-iprosGPlrAnd pos^ inquiry — ^we know that similar deportations of tribes- Eng^,ina. men 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 Koman rule.
They lie, as we have seen, chiefly within the district of the Saxon shore, Le> east of a line be- tween 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.
The suggestion is very precarious. Still, it might Such be asked, where should clusters of tribal households ments of Germans resembling the Welsh WeUs and Gavells j^ tribal be more likely to perpetuate their character and ^1^0^°^*^* resist for a time manorial tendencies than in these slaves. 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 ' Grarnes ' in the days of James I.) deported bodily to a strange country, and settled, probably not on private estates, but on previously depopulated pubUc land, without slaves, and without the possibility of acquiring them by making raids upon other tribes ?
Now, according to Professor Wilhelm Arnold, the Not neces- German writer who has recently given the closest mannic. attention to these local names, the patronymic suffix
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360
The German Land System .
Chap. IX. * ingeii ' 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 settle- ments.^
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 some- what 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 re- present a settlement or estate most often of the manorial type. So that it seems Ukely, that what- ever German tribes at whatever time came over into the Koman province and usurped the lordship of existing villas, or adopted the Eoman villa as the type of their settlements, would probably have called them either weilers or heims according to whether they used the Eoman 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 tliey might naturally call their settlements or home-
' Arnold's Anmedelungen und Wanderungen deutacher Stdmme. Marburg, 1881. See pp. 166 <rf seq, lie 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 Juthungiy who had crossed oyer from the north of the limes late in the third century.
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Tribal Households,
361
steads after their own names, using the patronymic Chap. ix. suffix ing.
It is undoubtedly difficult to obtain any clear in- dication of the time^ when these settlements may have been made. Nor, perhaps, need they be referred generally to the same period, were it not for the re- markable 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 Rhaetia (now Bavaria), and even those in Frisia, were to a very large extent ideniicaL
This identity is so striking, that if the names were, '^^^^^^ as some have supposed, necessarily clan-names^ it might c/a»iiawe», be impossible to deny that the English and continental sonar^ districts were peopled actually by branches of the same °^™®^' clans. But it must be admitted that, as the names to
* In the Erklarung der Peutin" ger Tafd, bj J!i. Paalus, Stuttgart, 1866, there is a careful attempt to identify the etatiooB on the Koman roads from Brigantia to Vindonissa, and from VindonisM to JRegino. The stations on the latter, which passed through the district abound- ing in ' ings/ are thus identified ; the distances between them, except in one case {where there is a dif- ference of 2 leugen), answering to those marked in the Table (see p. 35) :—
Vindonissa (Windisch), Tene- done (Heidenschloschen), J'uUomago (Ililfingen), Brigcbanne (Rottweil), Arisjiavis (Unter-Iflingen), Samtdo- cermia ( Rottenberg ), Grvnario (Sindelfingen), Clarerma (Oann- Btatt), Ad lunam (Pfiihlbronn),
AguUeia (Aalen) [up to which point there is a remarkable change of names throughout, but from which point the similarity of names becomes striking], Opie (Bopfin- gen), Septemiaci (MaihiDgen), Xo- iodica (Oettingen), Mediants (Mark- hof), Icvniaco (Itzing), Biricianis (Burkmarshofen), Vetonianis (Nas- senfels), Oermanko (Kosching), Celeuao (Ettling), Abusena (Abens- berg), Regino (Regensburg). But these names in ing and tn^en, and Latin tact, do not seem to be patro- nymic. So also in the case of the Roman * Victu AurelU ' on the Ohra river, now ' Gehringen.' Is it not possible that many other supposed patronymics may simply mean such and such or So-and-so's * ings * or meadows ?
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362
The German Land Sy^steni.
Chap. IX. wliich the peculiar suffix was added were per.^onal names and not family or clan names — John and Thoma^^ 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 Geimany.^ Nevertheless, the striking similarity of mere personal names goes for something, and it is impossible to pass it by un- The extent of it may be shown by a few
But the
iduniity
of the
names
through- .
out is very UOtlCeu.
remark- i
able. examples
In the following list are placed all the local names mentioned in the Domesday Survey of Sussex^ be- ginning with the first two letters of the alphabet in which the pecuhar suffix occurs, whether as final or not,^ and opposite to them similar personal or local
* The occasional instances in which the patronymic termination is added to the name of a tree or an animal, has led to the hasty con- clusion that the Saxons were * to- temistSj and believed themselves de- scended from trees and animals ; e.(f. that the Buckings of Bucks thought themselves descendants of i the beech tree. The fact that per- sonal names were taken from trees j and animals — that one person called - himself ' t/te Beech,' another ' the ,
Wolf — quite disposes of this argu- ment, for their households would caU themselves ' Beeckmgs ' and * Wolflngs' 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.
^ The resemblance is equally apparent whether the companson be made between names without further suffix or whether those with it ai'e included. See the long list
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Tribal Households,
363
names taken from the early records of Wirtembergy Chap. tX. i.e. the district of the Khine, Maine, and Neckar, for- merly part of the ' Agri Decumates.'
|
In Sussex, |
|
|
Sussex, |
Wn-temberg. |
|
Achingeworde |
Acco, Echo, Eccho, Acheloi |
|
Aldingeborne |
Aiding^ |
|
Babintone |
Babinberchy Babenhausen, |
|
Bebingon |
|
|
Basingeham |
Besigheim |
|
Bechingetone |
Becbingen |
|
Beddingefijham |
Bedzingeewilaeri |
|
Belingeham |
Bellingon, BSllingerhof |
|
Berchinges |
Bercheim |
|
Bevriugetone |
|
|
Bollintun |
BoUo^ BoUinga |
|
Botingelle |
Bottinger |
|
Brialinga |
Briagau |
As regards the supposed patronymic names in inPittu-dy. the district between Calais and St. Omer, Mr. Taylor states that 80 per cent, are found also in England.^
We may take as a further example the resemblance in the between names of places occurring in Sprliner's maps vauTy.^ of * Deutschlands Gaibe ' in the Moselle valley and those of places and persons mentioned in early Wirtemberg charters.
|
MoMUe VaUey. |
Wirtemberf/. |
|
Berisga |
Beringerus |
|
EelingiB |
Easlingen |
|
Frisingen |
Frieso, Frisingen |
|
Gundredingen |
Qandrud |
|
IleminiDgsthal |
Hemminbah |
|
Holdingen |
Holda |
|
IlaBxnariDga |
Hasmaresbeim |
|
Lukesinga |
Lucas, Lucilunburch |
of patronymic names in England, 496-513.
Germany, and France in Taylor's * Taylor's Wards and Places, ip'j^.
li'artis and PiaceSj App. B, pp. l;^l-4, aud App. B, p. 491.
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364
The German Land Syatem,
Chap. IX.
In Cham- pagne.
In Frisia.
Moselle Valley, Munderchioga
Ottringas Putilinga Uffeninga Uttingon
Wirtemberg. Mundriclieshuiituny Mun-
derkiDgen OteriCy Otrik Pettili, Pertilo Ufeninga Uto, Uttinuuilare
The following coincidences ^ occur in the modem Champagne, which embraces another district into which forced emigrants were deported.
Champagne,
Autignj
Effincourt
Eufiigneux
Alincourt
Arripne
Orbigny
Attigny
Etigny
Bocqiiegney
Bettigny
England.
Edington
Effingbam
Uffington
Allington
Amngton
Orpington
Attington
Ettingball
Buckingham
Beddington
Wirtemberg.
Eutingen Oeffingen OfBngen
ErringhauBen
Erpfingen
Atting
Gettinger
Bochingen
Bottingen
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.
|
JW«Vi.« |
WiHemberg.^ |
|
Auinge |
Au^ Auenhofen |
|
Baltratingen |
Baldhart, Baldingen |
|
Belinge |
Bellingon |
|
Bottinge |
Bottingen |
Etigland. (Berks
and
{Avington Hants) Beltings (Kent)
{Bellingdonn Several Bellings j counties (Boddington (Gloucester, Northampton)
* Sec the lists given in Taylor^s Words and PlnceSy Appendix B, pp. 496 et 8oq, 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 eeq.
' Taken from Traditwnes Fuld- mm, Dronke, pp. 240-243. The above list includes all the names in Frisia with a patronymic and no other suffix.
' Taken from tlie JVitiem" hergische Urkundenbuch,
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Tribal Hottseholds.
365
JMsia,
Oresliiige
Gandingen
Gutinge
Hostinga
Huchingen
Ilusdingun
Rochinge
Suetten^e
Wftcheringe
Waa^nge
Weingi
Wirtemberg.
rOreglingen, Chrez- 1 \ zingen J
rHuchiheim 1 \Huc = Hugo/
Koingus, RohiDC SuitteS; Suitger Uuachar Uuassingun Wehingen
England,
rOreflfiing (Essex) \Opessingham (Norfolk)
r Guy ting (Gloucester) LGetiDgas (Surrey)
Hucking (Kent)
Rockingham (Nott<t)
Wakering (Essex) Washington (Sussex)
Chap. IX.
It is impossible to follow out in greater detail these The infer- 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 Khine, 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 Eoman 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 Eoman 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
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ot
}66 The German Land System,
Chap. IX. 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 Eng- land, 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 settle- In couclusion, turning back to the direct relation Sibar° of these facts to the process of transition of the m^hate" Q^crman tribal system into the later manorial system, ^^^ it must be remembered that the holdings of tribal
manons. ^
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 Sitdiuy and its twelve dependent villas {Taiinga villas afterwards Tatingahem^ among them) ^ with the slaves and coloni upon them. They seem to
* CharttUarium Sithieiise^ p. 18.
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Tribal Households. 367
have been, in fact, so many manorial farms just like Chap. ix. those which, as we learned from Gregory of Tours, Chrodirms in the previous century founded and handed over to the Church.
We have not found, therefore, in this inquiry into They at the character of the settlements with local names mHteiy be- ending in the supposed patronymic suflBx, doubtful as mimoriai. its result has proved, anything which conflicts with the general conclusion to which we were brought by the manorial character of the Eoman villa and the mano- rial 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 Eoman provinces were of a strictly manorial type. K the settlements with names ending in ing were settlements of Ueii or of other emigrants during Koman rule, taking at first the form of tribal house- holds, they at least became manors Uke the rest during or very soon after the German conquests. K, on the other hand, they were later settlements of the con- querors of the Eoman provinces, or of emigrants fol- lowing in the wake of the conquests, they none the less on that account soon became just as manorial as those Eoman villas which by a change of lordship and translation of words may have become German heims or Anglo Saxon liams.
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 patronjrmic local names that German emigration at all generally took the form of free village communities would surely not be consistent with the evidence.
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CHAPTEE 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.
Chap. X. We iiow retum 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-Komanised north or in the southern districts so long included within the limes of the Koman provincea Uuderthe The earliest documentary evidence available on system, the English grouud left us in full possession of the Saxon ryatem^Se mauor wlth its village community of serfs upon it, serfdom 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, scat- tered all over the fields, the yard-land representing the year's ploughing of a pair of oxen in the team of
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The Open-Field System. 369
eight, and the acre strip the measure of a day's plough- Chap. x. work of the team. """^
This was the system described in the * Bectitudines* 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 evi- dence presumably to the seventh century.
But it must not be forgotten that side by side simpler With this manorial open-field system we found an open-fiew earlier and simpler form of open-field husbandry tiSep"th7 carried on by the free tribesmen and taeogs of Wales, gyg^^. 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 Geitnania 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,
* Ajwa per annos mutant et superest ager.' It is clearly the meaning of the Webh * triads,' according to which the tribesman's right extended to his Hyddyn,' with its com and cattle yard, and to co-aration of the waste.
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-opera- tion 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,
B B
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370
The Open-Field System
Chap. X.
Three-field system produced by a three- course ro- tation of crops.
The yard- land the mark of serfdom.
producing the same scattering of the strips in both. The methods are the same. The diBTerence lies in the appKcation 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 suflSciently 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 agri- culture within a definite hmit, 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.
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 oi 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 EngUsh system their geographical distribution becomes very important.
Happily, very close attention has recently been given to this subject by German students, and we are
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in England and Germany.
371
able to rely with confidence on the facts collected by Ghap. x. Dr. Landau/ by Dr. Hanssen,^ and lastly by Dr. August German Meitzen in his Ausbreitung der Deutschen in Deutsch- ^^^^^^^^ land^^ and in his still more recent and interesting German review of the collected works of Dr. Hanssen.*
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 weU be weeded out at once from the rest as not analogous to the Anglo-Saxon three-field system in England.
There is the old ^ Feldgrasioirthschaft,' analogous TheFeid- perhaps to the Welsh co-ploughing of the waste and ^St. the shifting ' Arva ' of the Germans of Tacitus, which still Ungers in the mountain districts of Germany and Switzerland, where corn is a secondary crop to grass.^
There are the * Einzelhofe ' of Westphalia and other The Ein- districts, i.e. single farms, each consisting mainly of ^^^^^^ land all in one block, like a modern EngUsh farm, but as difierent as possible from the old English open- field system, with its yard-lands and scattered strips.^
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
* ' Die Territarien in Bemg mf ikre BUdnmg und ihre Entvnckhmg,* Hamburg and Gotha^ 1854.
> Dr. Hansaen's various papers on the subject are collected in his Agrarhistoritche AbhaneUungen, Leipzig, 1880.
» Jena, 1879.
* ' Oeorg Hanssm, als Agrar- Historiker.* Von August Meitzen, 1881. Tubingen.
^ See Hanssen's chapter, *Die FeldgraswirthschqfTt deutscher Ge- hirgagegenden! in his Agrarhist. Abhandl., pp. 132 et seq.
^ Landau, pp. 16-20.
B B 2
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The Open-Field System
marsh sjrBtem,
Chap^ long strip of land^ reaching from the homestead right Forest and across the village territory to its boundary.^ This system, so diflterent from the prevalent Anglo-Saxon system, is supposed to represent comparatively modem colonisation and reclamation of forest and marsh land ; and though possibly bearing some analogy to the Eng- lish fen system, is not that for which we are seeking.
JPassing 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 scat- tered ownership, but which nevertheless is opposed to the three-field system. It is especially important for our purpose because of its geographical position.
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 marhng and peat manure, on what Hanssen describes as the * one-field system.' * This system is found in Westphalia, East Eriesland, Oldenburg, North Hanover, Holland, Belgium, Den- mark, 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.
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 Eoman conquest.
The one- field 8}-s- tem
^ See the interestang examples g^ven in Meitzen'B Ausbreitunff, with mapB.
' See Haneeen's chapter on the 'Emfddwirthachaft; Affrarkut, Ab- hcmdl, pp. 190 et seq.
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but certainly it is not the system prevalent in Chap. x. England under Saxon rule. And yet this district in North where the one-field system is prevalent in Gtermany Germany. is precisely the district from which, according to the conmion 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, con- fidently 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.^
There remains the question, where on the Conti- Thethpce- nent was prevalent that two- or three-field system tem '^*^ analogous to the one most generally prevalent on the manors of England ?
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-occu- pation of Slavic ground,^ the ancient three-field system, with its huben of scattered strips, was most
* HaimeD, p. 496. i tion, see eepecially Meitzen^s Aw'
^ As to tliifi part of the ques^ | breiiuru/.
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374 The Open-Field System
Chap. X. generally prevalent south of the lippe and the
in the old Teutobcrger Wald, Le. in those districts once occu-
RoTan*" pi^d by the Suevic tribes located round the Eoman
difltricts. limes^ and still more in those districts within the
Roman limes which were once Boman provinces —
the ' Agri Decumates/ Khaetia, and Germania Prima —
the present Baden, Wirtemberg, Swabia, and Bavaria,
on the German side of the Khine, and Elsass and the
Moselle valley on its Gallic side.^
These once Eoman 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 im- ' portant. But before we can fairly assume either a Eoman 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 inci- dentally been noticed, but the reader will pardon some repetition for the sake of clearness in the state- ment of this important comparison.
^ Landau, ' Die Territorien,^ pp. 32 et seq.
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Chap. X. II. THE BOUNDARIES, OR ' MARCH^.'
First as to the whole territory or ager occupied T**® ^"°"
1 1 -n • 1 . mi . 1 danea, or
by the village community or township. This, by marchae. 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 till the start- ing-point was reached again.
In the * gemoera ' of the Saxon charters the same form was used.
In the * marchce ' of the manors surrendered to the abbey of Lorsch in the seventh and eighth cen- turies, the same form was used in the Khine 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 rect- angular centuriation did not extend.
Now, when we consider this method, it impUes 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 im- plies that a necessity has arisen to mark ofi* the occu- pied 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 pos- session of according to the number of the settlers, pro numero cultorum. Not till some outside influence compelled final settlement would the necessity for
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Ch^. X. well-marked boundaries of territories arise. And we have seen that the evidence of local names strongly points to the Boman rule as this settling influence.
In the Lorsch charters the districts included within the ^marchse' are often, as we have seen, called * marks.'
III. THE THREE FIELDS, OB ^ ZELGEN.'
The three Ncxt as to the divisiou of the arable land into fields — ^generally three fields^ — ^representing the annual rotation of crops.
The homage of the Hitchin Manor presented that the common fields within the township had im- memoriably been and ought to be kept and cul- tivated in three successive seasons of —
(1) Tilth-grain,
(2) Etch^ain, and
(3) Fallow.
The three fields are elsewhere commonly known as the —
(1) Winter com,
(2) Spring com, and
(3) Fallow.
Universally, the fallow ends at the autumn sowing of the wheat crop of the next season, which is hence called * winter com.'
The word etch^ or eddish^ or edish^ occurs in Tusser, and means the stubble of the previous crop
' SometimeB in Germaoy, as in I SeeHanssen'schaptenonthe'ZKWt*, England, there were two or more. I Viet' und FunffUdencirAKhaft^
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of whatever kind. Thus, in the * Directions for Chip, x, February,' he says, — Etch-grain
80wn on ' Eat etch, ere ye pbw, the stabble
With hog, sheep, and cow.' » of a pre-
T10118 crop.
This is evidently to prepare the stubble of the last year's com crop for the spring sown bean or other crop ; for under the same month he says, —
Go plow in the stubUe, for now is the season For sowing of yetches, of beans, and of peason.*
In the directions for the October sowing are the
following lines ; —
Seed first go fetch For edMy or eteh. White wheat if ye please, Sow now upon pease.'
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-^foA doth grow as he would, But faUow is best if we did as we should.
When peason ye had and a &llow thereon,
Sow wheat ye may well without dung thereupon.^
* Etch-grain ' is therefore the crop, generally Tilth-grain oats or beans, sown in spring after ploughing the thlfeUow, stubble of the wheat crop, which itself was best sown if possible upon the fallow, and so was called the * tilth-grain.'
The oats or beans grown on the wheat stubble Breach- were sometimes called * jBreacA-corn,' and Breach- ^™' land was land prepared for a second crop.*
> Tnsser, * February Abstract' ' Id. ' February Husbandry/ 3 Id. 'October Abstract.'
* Id. 'October Husbandry.' ^ Halliwell, sub voce.
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The Open-Field System
Ghap.X.
Names for the three fields, 'Felder/ 'Sationes, Zelgen/
* Ksch/ and the Gothic •Attisk.'
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 — araturne, or culturas^ — or as so many sowings — sationes^ — just as in the north of England they are called ' falls,' or ' fallows/ which have to be ploughed.
In North Germany, where they occur, they are generally simply called ^ f elder \^^ in France around Paris they were called in the ninth century ' sationes ; '^ but in South Germany and Switzerland the usual v^ord for each field is Zelg^ which Dr. Landau connects with the Anglo-Saxon * tilgende ' (tilling), and the later English ^ tilths' one of the Hitchin words. And he says that Zelg strictly means only the ploughed field * {aratura)^ though used for aU the three. The three fields were thus spoken of as three tiltlis. 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.
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,* the word being used in
^ ' Campis SationaUbus^ Char- ter, A.D. 704. K M. Ancient Charter, Cotton MS. Augustus, ii. 83. ' Tuican h&m ' (Twickenham, in Middlesex).
3 Landau, 63.
' Guerard's Polyp, tPImiinon, *Arat inter tres sationes pertica tres,'
pp. 134, &c. ; and see Gloseary, p. 466.
^ Landau, p. 64.
^ Landau, p. 64. ' Die alte Form dieses Wortes ist essifr, esswM, egsisch (gothisch atisk), und wiiti in den Glossen durch segetes erklart/
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879
frichte.*
Westphalia, also for the whole arable area.^ Esch Ohap. x. 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.' ^ Still earlier, in the fourth century, further East the open fields seem to have been called * atHsk ; ' 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 ' cecera.' Here, therefore, we have another of the Hitchin words.
In Hesse, according to Dr. Landau, the three * Bmch- fields are spoken of as —
(1) Jn dBt Lentzen.
(2) In der Brache. (d) In der Burs.
On the Main, in the fifteenth century, they were spoken of as —
(1) Z«fwMchte.
(2) Brach tnchte. (8) Bur frichte.
In Elsass, in the fourteenth century, and on the Danube —
(1) Brochager (Bracli field)
(2) Rurager (FaUow field)
were used, and Dr. Landau says that Esch is sometimes put in contrast with ' Brack.' ^ Whatever may be
^ Hanssen'B chapter, * Zur (?e- BcMehte der Feldtysteme m Deutsoh- landj in his AffrarhistartKhe Ab- handhtngen, p. 194.
3 <Si ilium sepem eruperit vel dissipaverit quern Exziaczun vocant/ &c. Textue Legit Prinms, z. 16.
Pertz, p. 309. In id. x. 21 the worde ' Semita convieinales ' are used of open fields. In the Bur- gundian Laws ' Additamentum Pri- mum/ tit. 1, ' Agri communes.' • Landau, pp. 64-5.
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380
The Open-Field System
Gbap. X
These words point to connexion with Sonth Germany.
the exact meaning of the word Brack — ^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 Breachrcom.
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.
•Shot'
'Gewann.'
Headland.
IV. THE DIVISION OP THE FIELDS INTO PUBLONGS AND ACRES.
Passing next to the divisions of the open fields, we take first the Furlongs or Shots (the Latin Quarentence).
The word * Shot ' probably is simply the Anglo- Saxon * sceotj 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.^
The usual word in Middle and South Germany ' is * Gewendcj in Lower Germany * Wande ' or * Wanne,' or * Gewann ' — ^words which no less than the Furlong * refer to the length of the furrow and the turning of the plough at the end of it.
The headland, on which the plough was turned,
^ Pa88€tu received its name from a Roman legion of Batavi haying been stationed there. — Mon, Boica, XXX. p. 83. Landau, p. 49.
' In East Friesland^ under the one-field system, the word '^fiag^en * is used for ' furlongs.* Hanssen, p. 198.
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381
called ■ Bain/
is also found in the German three-field system as in Chap. x. England.
In a Frankish document quoted by Dr. Landau, it •Voracker/ is called the * Voracker^' elsewhere it is known as the
* Anwander ' {vermra\ or * Vorwart' ^
In the English system the furlongs were divided into strips or acres by turf balks left in the plough- ing,, 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 The Lince produced by the practice of always turning the sod downhill in the ploughing. There are many Knees as far north as in the district of the * Teutoberger Wald,'* 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, hke the word balk, it means a strip of unploughed turf.® 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.' ^ Terraces of the same kind are found in
' Landau, p. d2.
' There are great numbers to be seen from the railway from Ems as far as Nordbausen on tbe route to Berlin.
* Thus Bainbalken is tbe turf balk left unploughed as a boundary.
* HalliwelL 'i2dm/ a ridge (north). See also Studies, by
Joseph Lucas, F*G.S., c. viii., where there is an interesting de- scription of the ' Beins ' in Nidder- dale. These terraces occur in the neighbouring dales of Billsdale, Bransdale, and Fumdale ; and also in Wharfdale and the yalley of the Bibble, &c.
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382
The Open-Field System.
TheCaltdc Rhan.
Chap. X, Scotland ; and when Pennant in 1772 asked what they were called, he was told that they were ' batUks/ * Both words suggest a wider than merely German origin. * Balk ' is as thoroughly a Welsh word * as it is English and German. 'Eain' can hardly be other than the Welsh * Rhan ' (a division), or * Rhyn ' and * grvm * (a ridge), with which the name of the open-field system in Ireland and Scotland — ' runrrig ' — is no doubt connected. The English word lince or linchj 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 *in- clinare' and the French ^ enclin' As we have seen, the Eoman ' Agrimensores ' called these slopes or terraces * supercilia'
Next let us ask, whence came the English acre strip itself?
It represented, as we have seen, a day's work at
day-work, ploughing. Hcuce the German Morgen and Tagwerk,
in the Alps Tagwan and Tagwen ; and hence also, as
early as the eighth century, the Latin ^jumalis ' and
The acre stri
^ Pennant's Tour in Scotland, p. 281. 'Obfierved 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 consider- able 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 un- conmion in these parts, where they are called baulks.'
^ See Pugh's Wdsh Dictionary : Bale, a break in furrow land. BcHcia, a breaking of furrows. Balcio, to break fitrrowB. Baldog, having irregular furrows. Balciwr, a breaker of furrows. And see mpra, p. 4.
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^ diumalis'^ In early Eoman times Varro^
the jugerum [or jugurn] — the Koman acre — as ' quod
^juncti boves una die exarare possinV^
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, accord- ing to their ploughs or shares in a plough.®
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, hut fewer of them. These ridges, how- ever, may or may not have been ' day-works.'
But perhaps, outside of the three-field system, a stiU 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 Eussia, 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.*
^ So in the St. Gall charters^ quoted above. Thos also Dronke, Traditiones et Antiq, FMenaes, p. 107, 'xx. diuniales hoc est quod tot diebuB arari potent/ — ^Landau, 45.
« Vanro, De Re RuHica, i. 10 ; and see P/tn. Hist, Nat, 18. 3. 16.
^ See supra, chapter viii.
^ 1 have found it in use on the coast opposite the Isle of Skye. Several crofters wiU take a tract of landy divide it first into larger divisions, or * parks/ and then divide the parks into lots, of which each takes one.
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384
The Open-Field System
Ceap. X.
It is doubtful whether the division into acre strips representing day-works, and divided from their neigh- bours 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.^
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,* and also in South Germany and German Switzerland it has stiU the restricted meaning of the acre strip laid out for ploughing.^
Boman jugerum.
We now pass to the form of the acre strip or day's work in ploughing.
The Roman actus or furrow length was 120 feet, or twelve 10-feet rods. The actus qaadratus 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.
Thus the English acre varied much in its shape
1 I am indebted for this informi^ tion to Professor Meitaen, who in- forms me that he doubts whether it wsA a feature of the old purely German open fields. In undisturbed old German districts the ' Ge wanne ' and strips are of irregular and arbitrary size, and are not separated by permanent turf ' raine ' or
> Hanssen, p. 198.
' In the Engadine, in reply to the question what the flat stripe between the linches were called, the driver answered, < acker.' When it was pointed out that they wn« grass, the reply was, 'Ah I but a hundred years ago they wwe ploughed.'
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in England and Germany. 385 .
from the Roman jugerum. Its exact measurements ^^^' ^- are found in the mappa^ of measure of the day-work of strips of the tenants of the abbot of St. Remy at Rheims, which form as the is described in the Polyptique of the ninth century J^ jn as forty perches in length and four in width.^ It J^^l^^^ occurs again in the ' napatica ' of the Polyptique of i° ^^^ the abbey of St. Maur, near Nantes, which was of century, precisely the same dimensions.^ 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 cen- tury 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 earhest 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.
We have seen that the tithes were to be paid in Saxon times in the produce of * every tenth acre as it
1 M. Gu^rard*8 Introduction to , is given to the abbey < cum sede6Im
the Polyptique cCIrmirum, p. 641
' Id. p. 641 ; and Appendix, i. p. 285. The Iriah acre is of the aame fonn as the English— 4 rods bj 40— but the rod is 22 feet. See the OartulairB de Bedon in Brittany, No. oocxxyi. (p. 277), where a church
porcionibus teme quse lingua eonim '' acres '^ nominantur' (a.I). 106^« 1076). In Normandy, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were acres of four roods, * verg^es.' Id, p. cccxi. Compare also the form of the Welsh erw.
C C
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386
The Open-Field System
Chap. X. is traversed by the plough.' The Roman land-tribute
The form in Rhsctia and the * Agri Decumates ' also consisted of
tho^'^jl^- tithes. K these latter tithes were paid as the Saxon
tith™. wnt ecclesiastical tithes were, by every tenth strip being
iR-as taken, set asidc for them in the ploughing, the words of the
Bavarian law have an important significance. The
judex or villictis is required by the laws to see that
the colonus or serous shall render by way of agra-
rium or land tribute according to what he has, from
every thirty modii three modii {i.e. the tenth) — lawful
' andecence {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.' ^
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,' 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 de- scribed, 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.
* Pertz, 278. Lex BaiuwarxO' rum textm legit primus, 13.
" The AgrimensoreB reckoned 3 modii of land to the jugerum. Oro- matici Veteres, i. p. 860 (18). In general 6 modii of wheat seed was
sown on the jugernm, but the '/<m>^ ful andecena/ being only about three- fifths of a jagerum, would re- quire only 3 modii of wheat seed to sow it.
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iri England and Germany. 387
Lastly, we have still to explain the reason of the Chap. x. difference between the form of the Eoman * actus ' and 'jugerum* and that of the early Bavarian and English acre.
The Egyptian arura was 100 cubits square.^ The Greek irkiOpov was 10 rods or 100 feet square.* The Roman actus was 12 rods or 120 feet square. The Boman * jugerum ' was made up of two ' actus ' placed side by side, and was the area to be ploughed in a day.
In all these cases the yoke of two oxen is assumed. Form of and the length of the acre, or ' day-work,' is the da/s-work length of the furrow which two oxen could properly ^thThf* plough at a stretch.^ number of
oxen in
The reason of the increased length of the Bavarian the team, and the English acre was, no doubt, connected with the fact of the larger team.*
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 Boman furrow of 10 or 12 rods may na- turally have been extended north of the Alps into the ' furlong ' of forty rods.
» Herod, ii. 168. 11, 27.
' According to Suidas it was ^ ^ The Rey. W. Denton, in his equal to four Spovpai, and Homer Servia and the Servians, p. 136, mentionfi rerpayvov aa a usual field mentions Servian ploughs with six, repreeentmg a day's work. (Od. ten, or twelve oxen in the team. xviiL 874.) Hence rerpayvov ■•' as See also mention of similar teams much as a man can plough in a day.* ' of oxen or buffaloes in Turkey —
* * Sulcum autem ducere longi- ' Reports on Tenures of Land, 1869- orem quam pedum centumviginti 70, p. 306. contrarium pecori est.* — Col. ii.
c c 2
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388 The Open-Field System
Chap. X. Now, there is a remarkable proof that long furrows,
and therefore probably large teams, were used in Bavaria, then within the Roman province of Rhaetia, as early as the second century. The remains of tlie Bavarian ' Hochiicker ' are described as running un- interruptedly for sometimes a kilometre and more, i,e, five times the length of the English furlong. And a Roman road with milestones, dating as early as A.n. 201, in one place runs across tliese long fur- rows in a way whicli seems to prove that they were older than the road.^ Ti,e Professor Meitzen argues from this fact that these
vlwh^^ ' Hochacker ' with long furrows are pre-German acker 'and in thcse districts, and in the absence of evidence of fiirrowB. 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 * Hochacker,' 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* as used by Aryan husbandmen in the East, centuries earlier, makes it possible, if not probable, that the Romans, in tliis 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.^
* ' Der altegte Anbau der Dewb- aehenJ' Von A. Meitzen, Jena, 1881 .
* Zlminer's AUindisches Leheti^
* Tliere are two other points which bear upon the Roman con- nexion with the acre,
(1) If the length of the furrow
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171 England and Genaany,
389
Chap. X.
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
was to be increafied, it would be na- tural 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 com- posed of ten of the Greek a/x/ia. The * furlong ' is also the one-eighth of a mUe, and contains ten chains. But the stadium contained 626 Roman feet or 600 Greek feet — about 607 English statute feet. How does this comport with its containing 40 rods P 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, ali- quas vero xv. vel x. et vii. pedum difiinitas.' — Pauca de Mensuris, Grom, Fe^., Lachmann, &c., p. 371. Forty rods of 10 cubits, or 16 feet each, would equal the 600 feet of the Greek stadium. In fact, the English statute fiirloDg is based upon a rod of 16^ feet. There is also the further fact that the later Agrimensores expressly mention a 'stadialis ager of 626 feet' (Lach- mann, Isodorus, p. 368; De Men- mris 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 un- broken 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 60 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
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390
The Open-Field System
Chap. X.
The hub or yard- land.
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 German word for the yard-land is hof or hub ; in its oldest form huoba^ huha, hova} 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 higa or yoke of two oxen, and taxed
' arva pubLica ' in the provinces were cultivated * more antiquo * on this method of the ' ager per stiigas et per scamna divisuB et assignatas/ whilst the fields of the 'coloniie' of Roman citizens or soldiers planted in the conquered districts were ' centuriated.' See Frontinus, lib. L p. 2y and fig. 8 in the plates, and also fig. 199 ; and see Rudorff's ob- servations; ii. 290-298. The whole matter is, however, very obscure, and it b difficult to identify the ' ager scamnatus ' with the Romano- German open fields. Frontinus was probably not specially ac- quainted with the latter.
^ The meaning of <hub' is perhaps simply 'a holding/ from 'haben;
The term < yard-land/ or * gyrd- landesy' seems to be simply the holding measured out by the * gyrd/ or rod ; just as gyrd fdso means a 'rood.' Compare the 'veig^' of Normandy.
The Roman 'pertica' was the typical rod or pole used by the Agrimensores, and on account of its
use in asagning lands to the mem- bers of a colony, it is sometimes represented on medals by the side of the augurial plough. By trans- ference, the whole area of land measured out and assigned to a colony was known to the Agri- mensores as its 'pertica' (Lach- mann, Frontinus, pp. 20 and 26; Hyginus, p. 117 ; Siculus Flaocus, p. 159 ; Isodorus, p. 360).
The Latin * viiga/ used in later times instead of *pertica* for the measuring rod, foUowed the same law of transference with still closer likeness to the Saxon ' gyrd.' Both 'virga' and 'gyrd' « a rod and a measure. Both ' virga terree ' and 'gyrd landes'-B(l) the rood, and (2) the normal holding — the viigate 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 ' viigada ' in the index of the Cartulary.
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at thirty ' asses.' ^ If the tax in this case were one Chap. x. ' 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.
The hub of thirty morgen seems to have been the wide pre- typical holding of the serf over a very wide area, the^^ub o^f according to the earliest records. Whilst as a rule thirty mop-
^ , gen in
absent from North Germany, Dr. Landau traces it in Middle Lower Saxony, in Engern, in Thuringia, in Grapfeld, Germany. in Hesse, on the Middle Rhine and the Moselle, in the old Niederlahngau, Rheingau, Wormsgau, Lob- dengau and Spiergau, in Elsass, in Swabia, and in Bavaria.*
The double huf of sixty morgen also occurs on the Weser and the Rhine in Lower Saxony and in Bavaria.^ The word ' huf first occurs in a document ofA.D. 474.*
The passage in the Bavarian laws of the seventh century, already referred to, declaring the tithe to be ' three modii firom 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 andecencB 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.
Further, the fact of the prevalence of the double and single huf or hvh of sixty and thirty acres over so large an area once Roman province, irresistibly suggests a connexion with the double and single yoke
' Du Caoge, under * Huba.' | * In the wiD of Perpetuus. ^ Landau, p. 30. ^ Id, 37-8. | Meitzen, Atuibreitwngf ScCf p. 14,
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392 The Open-Field System
Ohap. X. of oxen given as outfit to the Eoman veteran, with The double such an allowance of seed as to make it probable, sixty mor- ^^ ^^ Yi^YQ Seen, that the double yoke received ou^t ?^^ normally fifty or sixty jugera, and the single yoke oxen. twenty-five or thirty jugera.
It is worth remembering, further, that in the Bava- rian 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
* staht^ the Saxon ' setene, the outfit of the servus under this Bavarian law, and that of the Boman veteran, are links, ^
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 earher origin and a wider
prevalence than the period or extent of Roman rule.
^*hr*°* ^^^^ scattering of the strips composing a yard-
stripe com- land, or hub, over the open fields should also be once
them. more mentioned in comparing the two. It was not
^ The practice was long continued in what was called the 'steel bow tenancy ' of later times.
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ill Enylaml arid Germany. 393
confined to the ' yard-land ' or * hub/ It arose, as we Chap. x. have seen, in Wales, from the practice of joint plough- ing, 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 Enghsh 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 * vicinij as often to be met with in his time on Eoman ground. This passage proves that the Eoman holding (hke 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, distinc- tively 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 cus- tom of the country ; and this necessity probably arose most often in the provinces north of the Alps.
Another point distinctive of the ' yard-land ' and The dngie the ' hub ' was the absence of division among heirs, to aw*^°" the single succession, the indivisibility of the bundle !y^p^i'_*"^ of scattered strips in the holding. And this finds its ian<i-' 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.
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394
The Open-FieUl System
' Gebur and the High Ger- man 'Gipor/
Chap, X, Lastly, before leaving the comparison between the The Saxon yard-latid and hub it may be asked why the serf who held it in England was called a Gebur,
The word viUanus of the Domesday Survey is associated with other words, such as milieus^ viUata^ villenage^ all connected with serfdom, and all traceable through Eomance dialects to the Eoman * 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 dia- lects. We find it in use in the High German trans- lation of the laws of the Alamanni, called the * Specidi Suevici^' where free men are divided into three classes : —
(1) The ^ semperfrien' = lords with vassals under them.
(2) The * viitderfrien ' = the men or vassals of the lords.
(3) The * geburen ' = liberi incoke, or * fri-lant- saezzen' [i.e. not slaves].^
The word * gebur ' or * gipur ' occurs also in the High German of Otfried's * Paraphrase of the Gos- pels,'^ of the ninth century, and in the Alamannic dialect of Notger's Psalms for vidnus.^
Here, again, the South German connexion seems to be the nearest to the Anglo-Saxon.
* Jw-is Prov. Alemann. c. 2. Schilteri editio.
« Otfried, v. 4, 80 j ii. 14, 215.
• Notger, Psalm IxxvilL 4 ; bdx. 7.
zliii. 14;
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in England and Germany,
395
Chap. X.
VI. THE HIDE, THE HOF, AND THE CENTURTA.
From the yard-land, or huh^ the holding of a serf. The * hide, we may pass to the tjrpical holding of the full free • cnsatuw, landholder, connected in England with the full team *°^;^^" of eight oxen.
The Saxon hide^ or the familia of Bede, was Latin- ised in Saxon charters into ^casatum.' We have found in the St. Gall charters the word * casa ' used for the homestead. The present Eomanish 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 ' casaium ' 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.^ 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.^ But the Saxon hide, also, was translated into ploughland or carucatey corresponding with the full team of eight oxen.
Generally in Kent, and sometimes in Sussex, The* cam- Berks, and Essex, we found in addition to or instead uJn^V or^' of the hide or carucate, or * terra unius aratri,' solins, undf^ mdlungs^ or swullungs — the land pertaining to a ' suhl^' the Anglo-Saxon word for plough. This word is
1 Compare Cod, Theod. IX. tit. xlii. 7 : * Quot mancipia in prsediis occupatis . ciikniy &c.
' See Ancient Laws of JEn^land^ Thorpe, p. 70, under wer-t/Udsy s.
quot sint casarii vel
Tii., where ' hiwisc * = * hide.* See also ' hitoiskif^ ^hncischi,' foT/amilia,* in *St. Patdes Olossen,^ sixth or seventh century. Braune's AUhock- deutsches Lesebuclif p. 4.
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396
The Open-Fiekl Sy^^tem
Chap. X.
Tbe * gioc/ or'jugum.'
The* hide* and 'cen- taria ' the typical free i holding. ^^W.
surely of Rdman rather than of German origin. The Piedinontese 'sloira,' and the Lombardic ^ sciloiraj and the Old French ' silleoirej are surely allied to the llomanish ' suilg^' and the Latin ' sulcus.'
Again, in Kent the quarter of a ' sulung ' (answer- ing to the yard-land or virgate of other parts) is called in the early charters a * gioc,' * ioclet/ or
* iochlet,' ^ 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.
Here, then, we have the hide the typical holding of a free family, as the ceniuria was under Roman 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,*^ 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 * centu- ria ' a land measure divisible into eight normal hold- ings 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.
' B. M. Ayicient Chartej's, ii. Cotton MS. Aug. ii. 42, a.d. 837. The Welsh short yoke was that of two oxen, t.r. a fourth part of the full plough team.
* Columella, ii. 12. The calcu- lation in this passage, how many opera or day-works a farm requires shows strikiof; resemblance to the later manorial system.
^
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171 England and Germany. 397
This variation, however, confirms the connexion. Chap. x. The Eoman 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, incom- plete for purposes of ploughing without co-operation. Hence it would seem that the complete plough was really the unit in both cases.
How closely the Enghsh hidation followed the The Saxon hues of the Eoman *yw^a^*(? ' has already been seen. IndthlT^ When to the many resemblances of the hide to the ?^™*^iQ. *centuria,' and of the 'jugum' to the virgate, re- garded 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 Eoman rule, the English hidation may well be suspected to go back to Eoman times, and to be possibly a survival of the Eoman 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 terras,' ^ he at any rate used the exact words which describe what in the Codex Theodosianus is spoken of as taxation *per juga- tionem.'^
Not, as already said, that the Eomans intro- duced into Britain the division of land according to plough teams, and the number of oxen contributed
* Da Oange, ' Jugatum.' | ' See Marquardt^ ii. 225 n.
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398 The Open-Field System
Chap. X. 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.^ 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.
The Frisian tribute of hides was perhaps an ex- ample 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- Roman Even in England it does not follow that it was in its in Fruu Origin connected with the plough team. Its real EidM° equivalent was the familia^ or casatum — the land of a family — and in pastoral districts of England and Wales the Eoman 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 IE. 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 tribes- men.* The supposition of such an origin of the con- nexion of the word ' hide ' with the * land of a family '
^ Mdtzen, Audyrekung, pp. 21 I * Feed, vol. i. p. 81. Robertson^s and 33. I Historical Essays, p. 133.
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in England and Germany. 399
or of a plough team is mere conjecture ; but the fact Chap. x. of the connexion is clear. All these three things, the hide, the hiwisce, and the sullung, and their sub- division the yard-land, were the units of British ' hidation/ just as the centuria and the jugum were the units of the Eoman * jugatio.'
VII. THE GAFOL AND GAFOL-TRTH.
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 Eectitudines and from the Laws of Ine, to make a distinction between the two component parts of the obUgations 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-seivile 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 in- curring UabiUty to week-work. But if the lord found for him both the yard-land and the homestead, then he was a complete * gebur ' or * viUanus,' and must do week-work also.
Taking the gafol first, and descending to details. The Saxon it was found to be complex — i.e. it included gafol a^*\afoi- and gafoUyrih. ^^^^^*
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The Open-Field System
Ch4p. X. The gafol of the * gebur/ as stated in the Hec- titudines^ was this : —
For gafol proper : —
IlOd. at Michaelmaa. aSsestersofbeer 1 At Martinmr«. 2 fowls I
1 lamb at Easter, or 2d, For gafolyrthe : — the ploughing of 8 acres, and sowing of it from the * gebur's ' own bam.
Comparing the^a/b/ 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 : —
16 sicla of beer. A sound spring pig. 2 modia of bread. 6 fowls. 20 eggs.
As regards this tribute in kind the likeness is obvious, and it fiirther 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.^
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
Possible
conDexion
with
Roman
tributum.
1 Diez, p. 150. ' OabeUa,' Pop- tuguese^ Spanish, And Provencal » tax. French gabeUe = salt-tax.
Italian ' gabeUan,^ to tax, from v. b. gifarif Goth, giban.
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• in England and Germany. 401
that the later manorial payments in kind and services Chap. x. upon Frankish manors were, to some extent, a sur- vival of the old Eoman exactions in Gaul.^ 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 Eoman tributum in the German province of Ehsetia and the 'Agri Decumates/
But in addition to the ' gafol ' in kind, there was p® Saxon the gafolryrtk ; and of this also we found in the St. ySh^ and Gall charters numerous examples. In the many cases !^^^™*° where the owner of homesteads and land surrendered Jl^^^^nt 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 seiintium — i,e, the gafol of the tributarius^ or ' gafoUgelder^' 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.
From the remarkable resemblance of the English Notaiwaya gafoUyrih and its South German equivalent the in- * ^" ference was drawn that this pecuhar rent taken in the form of the ploughing of a definite number of acres^ was probably a survival of the Eoman tenths.
* See Gu^rard's Polypttque ctlr-- nUnon, i. chap. viii. Also Lehu^rou's Institut, Meroving, liv. ii. c. 1 ; and
B D
JIT 1^ Vuitry's Etudes mr le RSgime Financier de la Drance, Premiere Etude.
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402
The Open-Field System
Chap. X. or Other proportion of produce claimed as rent from settlers on the ager puhlicus of the ' Agri Decumates/ and of Khaetia. Indications were found that the agrarium^ or tenth of the arable produce, may have been taken in actual acres Uke the Saxon tithes — i.e. in the produce of so many ' andecencBj the ploughing, sowing, reaping, and garnering of which were done by the tenant.
But under Eoman 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.^ 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.^ In Italy the dues from the Agri Medietates perhaps surviving in the later mitayer 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 * Eectitudines,' 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 remem- bered 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
^ So Cicero asserted against Verres. The seed, he argaed, was fairly to be taken at about a me- dimnus to each jugprum. Eight me- dimni of corn per acre would be a good crop ; ten would be the out- side 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 fAtvemedimni per j ugerum, and so by extortion had trebled the tithes. — In Verrem, act ii. lib. iii. c 47, 48, 49.
* HygM de JUtnitibus Cafuti- tttemUi, p. 204.
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in England and Germany. 403
were to be handed over to him already sown, leaving Ohap. x three unsown, i,e, probably the three which other- wise he must have sown for the gafol-yrth due to his lord. As ten acres of the yard-land were pro- bably always in fallow, three acres of wheat was a heavier gafoUyrth 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 Eoman tributum^ itself perhaps a survival of the tribal food- rents of the conquered provinces, so the * gafol-yrth ' may be traced back to the Eoman decumce, 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 Eoman 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 Eoman veteran's allotment.
VIII. THE BOON-WORK AND WEEK-WORK OP THE SERF.
Proceeding still further, besides the gafol and The Snxon gafol-yrth, and yet distinct from the week-work, was ^ri[*»"and the liability of the serfs on the Saxon manor to cer- |^i»o Ko™*'' tain boon-work or services ad preces ; sometimes in munera.* 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
D D 2
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404
The OperirField System
Chap. X. * and lade Icedan * for his lord. So this boon-work in addition to ' gafol ' is described in the * Eectitudines/ The various kinds of manorial * averagium ' were, as we have seen, often called in mediaeval Latin angarice, a going on errands or postal service ; para- veredi, or packhorse services ; and carraperae^ or waggon services.
We have seen how these services resembled the angari€B and the parangarice and paraveredi^ which were included among the * sordida munera ' or ' obse- quice ' of the Theodosian Code in force in Bhaetia in the fourth century, found still surviving, though transformed into manorial services, in the same dis- tricts 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- There remains to complete the serfdom its most work of the ggrvilc incident, the week-work — that survival of the originally unrestricted claim of the lord of the Eoman 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 mediaeval triduanum servitium. The words of the Alamannic law are worth re-quoting.
' Senai dimidiam partem sUn et dimidiam in dominico arativum red' dant, Et $i super kcec est, bicut BBRTi BOCLBsiiSTioi ttafodunt, tree dies sibi et tree in dominico*
Let «ert?i do plough service, half for themselvee and half in demesne. And if there he any further [senioe] let them work as the eervi of ike Church, three days for themselyee, and three in demesne.
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in England and Germany. 405
This remarkable passage in the Alamannic code Chap. x. 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 CBBATION OF SERFS AND THE GROWTH OF SERFDOM.
There is yet another point in which the corre- Serfdom spondence between British and Continental usages is from Lbovo worth remarking. S^f^4""^
The community in serfdom on a lord's estate was both by Saxon and Continental usage recruited from above and from below.
Free men from above, by voluntary arrangement Froe-men with a lord, could and did descend into serfdom. BerfiT* The Saxon free tenant could, by free contract, arrange ta 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 in- curring 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.
On the other hand, whenever a lord provided his Slaves i.e- 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
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406
The Open-Field System
•Tribu- tarii/ * coloni/ and ' lit!/
SlaveB made into tlieBO.
Chap. X. known at first, afterwards became confounded together
in the ranks of mediaeval serfdom.
Grades in There wcrc, in fact, grades in the community in
during, the serfdom not only like those of the Saxon gebnrs and
tMMition. 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.
There is a passage in the Eipuarian laws, ' If any one shall make his slave into a " tributarius," or a " litus," &c.' ^ The * lidus ' of the ' Lex Salica ' was under a lordship, and classed with * servi,' and by a legal process he could be set free.^ 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
* lasts,' the only class of tenants mentioned in the laws of Ethelbert.
Now, whatever doubt there might be as to what were the ' lasts ' on Kentish ' hams ' and * tuns ' in the sixth century, if they stood alone as isolated pheno- mena ; 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
The l»t8 of the laws of Ethel- bert.
» Tit. Ixii.
' Lex Salica, tit. xzxviii. ' De homicidiis servorum et ancillArum. T. Si quia homo ingenuus lidum altenum expoliayerit/ &c. See aLso tit. x\i. See also tit. xxvi. ' De
libertis extra oonsilium Domini sui dimisda' (xxxv. 'Delibertia di- miasis ingenoia *). ^ Si quia aUenum krium ftote rege per dinaiium m- genuum demiserit,* &c.
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in England and Germany. 407
class of semi-servile tenants to which allusion has Chap. x. been made. Their presence on the manorial * hams ' Sairiyais and ' tuns ' of England revealed in the earliest his- per^d of torical record after the Saxon Conquest, taken in J^b^^„ 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 Boman to German rule, during which the names of the various classes of semi-servile tenants, afterwards merged in the common status of mediaeval serfdom, still preserved traces of their origin.
X- THE CONFUSION IN THE STATUS OF THE TENANTS ON ENGLISH AND GERMAN MANOES.
In one sense both in England and Germany the Serfs free holders of the ' yard-lands ' and ' huben,' though serfs, nnfree in were free. As regards their lords they were serfs. As regards the slaves they were free. In this respect they resembled very closely the Eoman ' coloni ' on a private villa.
On the Frankish manors there were two classes of <^™de« of
manorial
these semi-servile tenants — * mansi ingenuiles,' who tenants. 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.' Bat
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408 The Open-Field System
Chap. X. 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 be- tween the thane, who is lord of the manor, and the * geneats ' — Le. the * gebur * and the * cotsetL' In the Domesday Survey there are no tenants above the villani, as a general rule, except in the Danish dis- tricts, where the 'Sochmanni' and the 'liberi ho- mines ' 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 glebae.' 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 bom serf.
In both cases there is a regular contribution to- wards military service or the equipment of a soldier, and apparently no bar in status from actual service, though doubtless in a serai menial position. The con- In all thcsc points we have noticed strong analogies
haps between the semi-free and semi-servile conditions of TO^iTsi ^^® various classes of tenants on Roman villas, and on E^man ^^® Roman public lands, which we have spoken of as provincial the great provincial manor of the Roman Empire.
conditions. .
And the natural inference seems to be, that even the curious confusion of the free and servile status may
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in England and Germany. 409
be, in paxt, a survival of the like confusion in the Chap. x. Boman provinces. It naturally grew up under the semi-military rule of the German provinces, and pos- sibly 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 confu- sion, however, survived.
XI. RESULT OF THE COMPABISON.
To sum up the result of the comparison made in strong evi- this chapter between the English and the Continental connexion open-field system and serfdom. The English and BritolnLnd
South-German systems at the time of the earliest Ge^an^^ records in the seventh century were to all intents proyincea and purposes apparently identical. Roman
The mediaeval serf, judging from the evidence of wrfdom his gafol and services, seems to have been the com- open-fieW^ pound product of survivals from three separate »y»t®"^
^ ^ , , ^ "which wa»
ancient conditions, gradually, during Eoman pro- itseheU. vincial rule and under the influence of barbarian conquest, confused and blended into one, viz. those of the slave on the Eoman villa, of the colonus or other semi-servile and mostly barbarian tenants on the Boman villa or public lands, and of the slave of the German tribesman, who to the eyes of Tacitus was so very much like a Eoman 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
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410 The Open-Field System
Chap. X. dbtinctly with the EomanoGerman provinces, whilst at the same time conspicuously absent from the less Eomanised 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 Boman rule. The Saxon We havc already quoted the strong conclusion of ftom^" Hanssen that the Anglo-Saxon invaders and their o^J^any ^^siau Low-Saxou and Jutish companions could not ^J^y introduce into England a system to which they were the three- uot accustomcd at home. It must be admitted that gygtem the conspicuous absence of the three-field system into Eng- fi.Qu^ ^]j^q 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 WestphaUa to Thu- ringia, 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 imply- ing 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 possibiUty itself implies that the immigrants had themselves previously submitted to long-continued Eoman 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,
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in England and Germany.
411
course ro- tation of
the most likely time for its importation was that same Ohap. x. period of Eoman occupation during which he con- siders that it came into use in the Eoman provinces of Germany.^
Nor is there anything inconsistent with this The
^ • IT #•! -n Ti Bonmiw
suggestion m the irregular hues of the English open probably fields and their divisions, so different from those the'^hree- produced by the rectangular centuriation of Eoman * Agrimensores.' We must not forget that the open <^p»- field system in its simpler forms was almost certainly pre-Eoman in Britain as elsewhere ; so that what the Eomans 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.*
^ ' SoU die Dreifelderwirtbschaft nach England importirt sein, so bliebe wohl nur iibrig an die Periode der rdmischen Okkapation zu denken, wie ich eine ahnliche Yermuthang, die sich freilich auch nicht weiter begriinden laset, fur Deutechland auagesprochen habe (p. 163). Einfacher ist es den fielbststandigen Ursprung der Drei- felderwirthflchaft in ganz yerechie- denenen Landemalfl einen anf einer gewissen wirthscbaftlichen Kultur- stufe wie too selber eintretenden
Fortschritt 8icb zu denken * {Affrar* hist, Ahhcmd. p. 497).
* Mr. Coote bas adduced ap- parently dear evidence of centuri- ation in many parts of England ; but we bave 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 cultiyated by the conquered popu- lation.
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Si^/ii^l^-^.^lSi^^^l^Sif^'a^^^^ii^^^iS
CHAPTER XI.
ItESULT OF THE EVIDENCJS,
Chap. XI.
The tribal system in Wales and Germany.
Co-aration of the "waste on the early open-field system.
I. THE METHOD OF THE ENGUSH SETTLBMBNTO.
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.
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 Caesar describes it as going on in Germany 1,700 years earlier.
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
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The English Settlements. 413
co-aration of portions of the waste. Tacitus describes Chap. xi. it in the words, ' Arva per annos mutant, et superest ^
ager/ In neither case, therefore, is there the three-field system^ which impKes fixed arable fields ploughed again and again in rotation.
The three field system evidently implies the sur- The three- render of the tribal shifting and the submission to impiiJs^^ fixed settlement. Further, as wherever we can exa- ^^^^^_ mine the three-field system we find the mass of the ni«°^? ^^^ holdings to have been fixed bundles, called yard-lands crops. or huben — bundles retaining the same contents from pr.,Li%^^ generation to generation — ^it seems to follow either Eoman that the tribal division of holdings among heirs, which ^^^ ^^^ was the mark of free holdings, had ceased, or that or hub the three-field system was from the first the shell of ^Ue* a community in serfdom. tenants.
The geographical distribution of the three-field system — mainly within the old Eoman 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^ because, as the Welsh tribesmen, though they may have had household slaves, as a rule held no taeogs or praedial slaves, it produced no serfdom. But under the German tribal system, even in the time of Tacitus, the tribesmen in the semi-
^ There are nndoubtedly manors I but of later and English intro- and yard-lands in some districts, I duction.
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414 Result of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. Romanised districts, at all events, already had prsedial
slaves. TheRoman The manorial system, however, was not simply a othe/fac- development from the tribal system of the Germans ; grew^nto ^^ ^^^ evidently a complex origin. A Roman element the manor. ^Iso secms to havc 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 man- agement 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 ' coidd apparently some- times be applied to the fiscal district. Boman Whichever of the two factors — Roman or Ger-
^n eit n^an — contributed most to the mediaeval manor, the TOmblneci. Dianorial cstatc 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 On the Other hand, the fact that the terra regis and Hewa also was divided under Saxon and Frankish kings into manorial. ^«^w>^« probably was the natural result of the growing manorial manj^ement of the public lands under the fiscal officers of the Emperor during the later Empire,
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The English Settlements. 415
quickened or completed after tlfe barbarian conquests. Chap. xi. 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 difierent grades in the earliest grants to the monasteries.
The fact that as early as the time of Tacitus, tEe 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 Boman fiscal oflGicers. 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 aJmost universal pi^evalence of the manorial system in these ' districts. Even the towns came to be regarded as in the demesne of the king. And
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416 Result of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. 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 serfe 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 Qther 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 praedial slavery of the Germans of Tacitus. Nor was it merely a continuance of the slavery on the Koman villa. Slavery For finally, in the period of transition from Roman
by*^Ch^ to German lordship, a new moral force entered as a manity. ^^'^^ 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 hmitation of his labour to the three days' week- work of the mediaeval serf
Thus, from the point of view alike of the German and the Eoman ' servi,' mediaeval 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.
Applying these results especially to England, we
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The English Settlements.
417
have once more to remember that there was settled Ohap^i. agriculture in Belgic Britain before the Koman Thepre- invasion : that the fact vouched for by Pliny, that marl one^id and manure were ploughed into the fields, is proof ^i^a? 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 Csesar found ripening on British fields when he first landed on the southern coast.^
In the meantime Eoman improvements in agri- Roman in- culture may well have included the introduction into of the the province of Britain of the three-course rotation ^u^se of crops. The open fields round the villa of the ^^^°" ^^ Roman lord, cultivated by his slaves, ' coloni,' ' tribu- tarii,' and * Hti,' may have been first arranged on the three-field system ; and, once estabhshed, that system would spread and become general during those cen- turies of Roman occupation in which so much corn was produced and exported from the island.
The Roman annonce — ^founded, perhaps, on the earher tribal food-rents — ^were, in Britain, as we know from the ' Agricola ' of Tacitus, taken mostly in corn ;
* The * one-Jidd system ' of per^ vianent arable must not be confused with the improyement 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.
E £
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418 Result of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. and the tributum was probably assessed during the later empire on that system oi jugation which was found to be so like to the hidation which prevailed after the Saxon conquest. Conqnest Putting asidc as exceptional the probably peaceful
The^-' but at best obscure settlements in tribal households, ^*^®"^ and regarding conquest as the rule, the economic of hamt or evidencc 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 Eoman provinces. The conquered territory here as elsewhere probably be- came 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 us a whole, the continuity between the Eoman and English system of land management was not really broken. The Eoman provincial villa still seems to have remained the typical form of estate ; and the management of the pubUc lands, now terra regis^ seems to have pre- served 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 con- querors descended upon an akeady peopled country where agriculture was carried on as it was in Britain, their comparatively small numbers, and still further their own disUke to agricultural pursuits and liking for lordship, and familiarity with servile tenants in
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Hie English Settlements. 419
» the old country, would induce them to place the Chap> xi. 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.
At this point, as we have seen, the internal evi- Theyard-
•'• , land BQOws
dence of the open-field system, at the earliest date at this, which it arises, comes to our aid, showing that as a general rule it was the shell, not of household com- munities 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 Enghsh 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 hicben, 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.
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 and aUo Ethelbert the * hams ' and * turn ' of England are ISSL. spoken of as in a single ownership, whilst the men-
E E 2
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420 Remit of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. tion of the three grades of ' lasts ' shows that there were semi-servile tenants upon tliem. And in the vast number of instances in which local names con- sist of a personal name with a suffix, the evidence of the local name itself is strong for the manorial The earlier character of the estate. When that suffix is fwn, or and^^uns* ham^ or viUa^ with the personal name prefixed, the manorB. evidcucc is doubly strong. Even when connected with an impersonal prefix, these suffixes in them- selves 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 earhest 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 evi- dence. 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 estab- lished in their place fresh * hams * of their own, which in mediaeval 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.
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The Englkh Settlements. 421
But when the internal evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chap. xi. land system is examined, even this doubt as to which Surrivais j ^ of the two methods was generally followed is in part r^^^o* removed. For it may at least be said with truth ^e'™»^
•^ ^ provmco
that the hundred years of historical darkness during p«>^e con- which there is a simple absence of direct testimony, and are in- is at least bridged over by such planks of indirect ^th ^t^r- economic evidence as the apparent connexion between ™^°a^^<>'^ the Eoman ' jugation * and the Saxon * hidage,' the resemblance between the Roman and Saxon allot- ment of a certain number of acres along with singte or double yokes of oxen to the holdings, the preva- lence of the rule of single succession, the- apparent continuance of the Roman tributum and annance, 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 viUa and the German heim can be more or less cleariy traced'.
The force of this economic evidence, it is sub- unless the mitted, is at least enough to prove either that there we7e tuem- was a sufficient amount of continuity between the Romanised. Roman villa and the Saxon manor to preserve the general type, or that the German invaders who de- stroyed and re-introduced the manorial type of estate came from a district in which there had been such continuity, and whef e they themselves had Uved long enough to permit the pecuUar 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 Romano- ) ,
Digitized by VjOOQIC
422 EesuU of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. German province, should have been suddenly intro- duced 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 Eoman institutions mixing together during the periods first of Eoman provincial rule, and secondly of German conquest.
This hypothesis seems at least most fully to The large accouut for the facts. Perhaps, it is not too much to fouSind "^y *^^* whilst the large tracts of England remaining *^^tnrt ^ folk-land or terra regis, in spite of the lavish grants to extensive monasteries complained of by Bede, are in themselves aUotments. 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 Prankish villas, with a serfdom upon them also of the same type, and con- nected with the same three-field system of husbandry in both cases, almost amounts to a positive verifica- tion when the historical survivals clinging to the system in both cases are taken into account. The in- Evcu ou the Supposition that the Saxons really
lithe" exterminated the old population and destroyed every ^e natives ^cstige of the Romau system, it has already become as serfs or obvious that it would uot at all follow that they
brought , , , •'
serfs irith 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
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The English Settlements. 423
them in servile village communities round their own Chap. xt. dwellings, as Tacitus saw the Germans of his time doing in Germany. But, again, it must be remem- bered that however naturally this might produce the manor and serfdom, still the survivals of minute pro- vincial usages hanging about the Saxon land system would remain unaccounted for, unless the invaders of the fifth century had already been thoroughly Eo- manised before their conquest of Britain.
We cannot, indeed, pretend to have discovered Engiisii in the economic evidence a firm bridge for all pur- b^Tnot poses across the historic gulf of the fifth centurv, ^^^^^ ^^^ and to have settled the difficult questions who were ties but the German invaders of England, whence they came, dom."^ 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 econo- mic 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 vil- lage 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 Vtuns ' were, generally speak- ing, and for the most part from the first, practically manors with communities in serfdom upon them.
It has become at least clear, speaking broadly, that ^® y*^' the equal ' yard-lands ' of the ^ geburs ' were not the theaiiodiai * alods ' or free lots of * alodial' freeholders in a .com- of a frJ mon ' mark,' but the tenements of serfs paying * gafol' ^"^•*™*"" and doing * week- work' for their lords. And this is
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424 Result of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. 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 EVIDBNCB OP CONTINUITY BETWEEN BOMAN AND ENGLISH VILLAGES.
There yet remains one test to which the hypothesis of continuity between the British, Soman, and Eng- lish village community and open-field system may be put. Donbteas It has somctimes been inferred, perhaps too temfn^" readily, that the English invaders of Boman Britain tionof the nearly exterminated the old inhabitants, destroy- popuiation ing the towns and villages, and making fresh settle- Eupiishin- ments of their own, upon freshly chosen sites. If this ▼«iers. Yrexe 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 MarceUinus has some- times 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.' ^ 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 Eoman walls, and no dwellings within them. But it would so obviously be
^ Amm. Marc. zvi. c. ii.
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Continuity in English Villages. 425
much easier to build new houses outside the gates of Chap, xl 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 fronir conclusive. Nor does the fact that in so many cases the streets of once Eoman cities deviate from the old Roman hues prove that the new builders avoided the ancient sites. It proves only that, in- stead 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.
But, in truth, cases of fortified cities are not to la there the point. What we want to find out is whether, in contMtj the rural districts, the British villages, with their open iiu^^™* fields around them, were generally adopted by the Romans, and whether, having survived the Roman | occupation, the Saxons adopted them in their turn.
It may be worth while to recur to the district ^. in the from which was taken the typical example of the diitric^ open fields, testing the point by such local evidence as may there be found.
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 r^^ i^y, from Wiltshire to Norfolk, here traverses the edge of '^^^^ ^^ the Chiltern hills. It sometimes winds lazily about ancient 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
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426 Result of the Evidence,
Chap. XI. 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 wind- ing broad turf drift ways, or straight roads of appa- rently British or Eoman origin. It crosses Akeman Street at Tring, Watling Street at Dunstable, and Irmine Street at Royston. Neither Dunstable nor Eoyston, however, are examples of continuity, being comparatively modem tpyms, neither of them men- tioned in the Domesday Survey. Hitchin Ues about half-way between the cross-roads. Thedis- The district included in the annexed map, of
Its^Bei^r which Hitchin is the centre, was a part of Belgio kings. Britain. According to Caesar this had been under the rule of the same king as Belgic Gaul, and upon the evidence of coins and certain passages in Boman writers, it is pretty well understood to have been, soon after the. invasion of Caesar, under the rule of Tasciovanus,^ whose capital was Verulamium, and after him of his son Cunobehne, whose capital was Camulodunum. The sons of the latter (one of them Caractacus) were prevented from succeeding him by the advance of the Eoman arms.^ The intimate relations of the two capitals at Verulam and at Col- chester explain the existence of the roads between them.
The dykes which cross the Icknild way at in-
' Evans' Ancient British Coins, p. 220 et wq. ^ Ibid. p. 28-1 et seq.
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^^t
111
THE
i^r
TOOl
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Continuity in English Villages. 427
tervals, East of Eoyston — the Brent dyke, the Bals- Chap. xr. ham 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).
Sandy (the Roman Salince)^ at the north of the Coins of district in the map, is known, from the evidence of dus and 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 Eoman 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 Eoyston.^ 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 Hi]], the high ground on the east of the town.
The map will show in how many directions the ^- district is cut up by Roman roads, which, as they roads,&c. 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.
* I am indebted to the Rev. W. Q. F. Pigott for this information.
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428 Result fo the Evidence-.
Chap. XL Probably this district fell under direct Eoman Its Roman Tule after the campaigns of Aulus Plautius and 3^*" Claudius, about a.d. 43.^ The direction of the ad- ^^"aT vance was probably across the Thames at Walling- Plautius^ ford, and along the Icknild way, from which the de- A.D. 43. scent 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 Eoman rule. The Saxon The date of the Saxon conquest of this district Xut Aj). ^^y 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 Chro- nicle, * Cuthwulf fought with the Brit-weals at Bed- can-ford (Bedford), and took four towns. He took Lygean-birg (Lenborough) and Aegeles-birg (A.yles- bury), and Baenesingtun (Bensington) and Egones- ham (Eynsham).' This was the time when Bedford- shire, 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
^ See the paper on 'The Campaign of Aulus Plautius/ in Dr. Guest's Origines CeltiMB, vol. E.
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Continuity in English Villages.
429
from Essex and the rest of Hertfordshire, which were Cbap. xi. included in the diocese of London.
The district, therefore, seems to have remained -nearly 400 years under Roman rule, and under the British post-Eoman 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 pre- sumably applied to this district as a part of the West Saxon kingdom.
The question is whether the position of the Eoman Do the remains which have been discovered in this neigh- m^^^s^. bourhood points to a continuity in the sites of the ffn^jtyT present villages between British, Roman, and Saxon times. This question may certainly, in many in- stances, and, perhaps, generally, be answered dis- tinctly in the affirmative.
Take first the town of Hitchin itself. Its name The town in the Domesday Survey was * Hiz,' and there can be or *HiE/°* little doubt that it is a Celtic word, meaning * streams.'^ stie^s;* 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 ^ rises at the west extremity of the township, in
^ Oompare supra, p. 161: the change of * Hisse-hurn ' or ' Icenan- burn' into 'Itchin River,' and of * iBt locebum * into * Ticcebum,* and * Titchboume.* May not Ick- nild Way, or * Icenan-hild-waeg/ mean highway 'by the streamsi'
and Ricknild Way mean highway * by the ridge * P See map, supra, ch. Y.,8.y. They are sometimes parallel as an upper and lower road.
^ Formerly 'Alton.' See Sur- vey of the Manor of Hitchin. 1650. Public Record Office.
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430
Result of the Evidence,
Chap. XI. a few hundred yards turns West Mill, and forms the boundary of the parish till it meets the Hiz at Ickle- ford, 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 Pearl 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 town- ship, and one passes through it giving its Celtic name Hiz to the town.^
It is not Ukely that either the Bomans or the Saxon invaders gave it this Celtic name.
As already mentioned, on the top of the hill, to
Roman r©- ^hc cast of the towu, British sepulchral urns have
mama •*•
been recently found.
A Eoman 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'* — a plot of useless ground being often used for burials by the Romans.
Another Eoman cemetery, with very similar pottery and coins, has been found on Bury Mead, near the Une where the arable part ceases and the
lis Celtic Dame.
British and
^ 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, Itchboume, &c. The *Me<ma' (Cod, Dip. clviiL) to Meon Stoke, East and West Meon, &c. The ' Candefer*
{Cod. Dip. mcocix.) to three ' Oan- dovers.' So also the Tarrant ^vea its names to several places.
' Now part of the garden of Mr. W. T. Lucas, in whose posses- sion many of them now remain. Three skeletons, one of them of gpreat size, were found near the urns.
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Continuity in English Villages. 431
Lammas meadow lands begin. Bury field itself {i.e. Chap. xi. 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 Eoman 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, Eoman coins have been found.
The next parish to the east, divided from Hitchin Much Wy- by the PurwcU stream, is Much Wymondley. "^° ^^'
The evidence of continuity, as regards this parish, is remarkably clear. The accompanying map ^ sup- plies an interesting example of open fields, with their strips and balks and scattered ownership still remain- ing in 1803. These open arable fields were originally divided off from the village by a stretch of Lammas land.
Between this Lammas land and the church in the Roman village lie the remains of the little Eoman holding, of perblT^ of which an enlarged plan is given. It consists now of %lu^ several fields, forming a rough square, with its sides to the four points of the compass, and contains, fill- ing in the corners of the square, about 25 Eoman
' For pennission to reproduce • Wilahere, Esq., of the Fryth, Wel- this map I am indebted to the wyn. pieeent lord of the manor, C. W, I
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432 Result of the Evidence.
Chap. XI. jugeia — OT 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 Eoman 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 comer of the holding was found a Eoman cemetery, contain- ing 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.^ Over the hedge, at this corner, begins the Lammas land.^
How many other holdings were included in the Eoman 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.
Aflhweii. Ash well 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^ sl 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
^ Mr. William Ransom, of Faiiv . as placed in the extreme corner of field, near Ilitchin. I a holding, see Lachmann, pp. 271-2 ;
As regards Roman cemeteries, I J)e Sejpulchris Dolabell. p. 303.
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PLAN of &e Faxish of
MUCH WYMONDLEY
Rfsdoced irom a map made
ia the jeaz 1303 . in ^e
possessioBi of C .W.T'uLbIiCTO Ssq*
is oolourt
HnMfng
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/ V^ J.} THE ^r \
I'UlTIVERSITy^
Continuity in English ViUagii^CA f "^3 *\V^*y
to the Icknild way. Near to the town is acSntpT'^p. xi. 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 enclo- sure, and preserved in the place, shows that it pre- sented a remarkably good example of the open-field system.
An instance of continuity as remarkable as that Litiington of Much Wymondley occurs at Litiington,^ the jiext vin™ and village to Ashwell, on the Ashwell Street. The church <»"eter7. and manor house in this case he 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 ustri- num and cemetery were found, surrounded by four walls, and yielding coins of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Quinrtillus, Carausius, Constantine the Great, Mag- nentius, &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 im- mediately under it skeletons with coins of Claudius, Vespasian, and Faustina were found, as already men- tioned.
A few miles further east than Royston are two ickieton villages, Ickieton on the Icknild way, and Great terford!^
* ArchiBoiogia, vol. xxvi, p. 376 F F
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434
BesuU of the Evidence.
Chap. XL
Hadstock.
Other in- stances of continuity in the sites of Tillages.
Ancient mounds and earth works.
Chesterford a little to the south of it. That both these places are on Eoman sites the foundations and coins which have been found attest.^ There are remains of a camp at Chesterford, and coins of CunobeUne as well as numerous Eoman coins have been dug up there.*
At Hadstock, a village near, in a field called * Sunken Church Field,' Eoman foundations and coins have been found.®
IVoceeding 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 Eoman coins in the villages seems to be fair proof of continuity in their sites, viz.: — Sandy, Campton, Baldock, Willian, Cumberlow Green, Weston, Ste- venage, Hexton, and Higham Gobion.
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.* Eoman remains have been found in the neighbourhood of both these places, but how near to the actual village sites I am unable to say.*
Leaving out these two and many more doubtful cases, and without pretending to be exhaustive, there have been mentioned nearly a score in which Eoman
* Journal of British Arclueo- hgictd Associationf iy. 856, and y. 64.
' jirchaologiOf xzzii. p. 850. » Id., p. 352.
* 8es Mr. Gomme's interesting
work on Primitive Foikmates, c. ii. ^ A remarkably fine ^/as9 funeral urn was found about half a mile below the Meppershall Hills in 1882 by the tenant of the neighbouring farm.
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to
I-
DC liJ
<
o
3C
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Coniinmty in English Villages. 435
remains or coins have already been found on the Chap. xi. present sites of villages in this small district
So far the local evidence supports the view that stwDg evi- the West Saxons, who probably conquered it about continuity A.D. 570, succeeded to a long-settled agriculture ; and ^^t"*^^**" 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 popula- tion on that same three-field system, which had pro- bably been matured and improved during Koman rule, and by which the population of the district had been supported during the three generations between the departure of the Eoman 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 excep- tionally treated. If this were so, it must be borne in mind that the whole. of central England — ^i.e. the coun- ties described in the second volume of the Hundred Eolls as to which the evidence for the existence of the open-field system was so strong — ^was included in the exception. Indeed, if the Une 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 his kingdom.
It would be impossible here to pursue the ques- tion in detail in other parts of England. Perhaps it will be sufficient to call attention to the many cases
F P 2
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436
Result of the Evidence.
The Hitchin district hardly excep- tional.
Chip. XI. mentioned in Mr. C. Eoach Smith's valuable * Collec- " tanea,'^ in which Eoman remains have been found in
close proximity to the churches of modem villages, and to his remark that a long list of such instances might easily be made.'^
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 remark- able case at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, where the church, present mansion, and Eoman villa are close together,® and mention that in two of the ham- lets on the manor of Tidenham — Stroat and Sedbury (or Cingestun) — ^Roman remains bear testimony to a Eoman occupation before the West Saxon conquest.* -^ The fact seems to be that the archaeological evi- dence, gradually accumulating as time goes on, points more and more clearly to the fact that our modem villages are very often on their old Eoman and some- times probably pre-Eoman sites — ^that however much the English invaders avoided the walled towns of Eoman Britain, they certainly had no such antipathy to the occupation of its villas and rural villages.
1 Vol. L pp. 17, 66, 190; voL iii. p. 33 ; vol. iv. p. 156 ; vol. v. p. 187 ; vol. vi. p. 222.
« CoUectanea, v. p. 187. The recently diacovered Roman villa on the property of Earl Oowper, at Wingham, near Canterbury, IB a striking instance. See Mr. Dowker's pamphlet thereon. See
also Archaologiaj xxix. p. 217, &c, where Mr. C. Roach Smith men- tions several other instances.
' Account of the JRoman An-^ tiguities at Woodchester, by S. Lysons. Lond.: MDOCXCvn.
^ See Mr. Ormerod*s Arehmt^ logical Memoirs.
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Conclusion. 437
Chai. XI. III. CONCLUSION.
The economic result of the inquiry pursued in this Economic 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 be- ginning of all things, but simply to put English Economic History on true lines at its historical be- ginning, viz. : the English Conquest.
Throughout the whole period from pre-Eoman to Two rural modern times we have found in Britain two parallel through- systems of rural economy side by side, but keeping ?Si^^ separate and working themselves out on quite differ- ^^™^^ ent lines, in spite of Eoman, Enfjlish, and Norman ^ th©
, ^ , .„ . . , tnbalcom-
mvasions — that of the milage commumty m the manityin eastern, that of the tribal community in the western ® ^^ ' districts of the island.
Both systems as far back as the evidence extends Com- were marked by the two notes of commumty and and equality, and each was connected with a form of the Sth. ^^^ open or common field system of husbandry peculiar to itself. These two different forms of the common Bach had field system also kept themselves distinct throughout, ©^nXid j and are still distinct in their modem remains or "ys**™- survivals.
Neither the village nor the tribal community Bothpre- seems to have been introduced into Britain during a historic^ period reaching back for 2,000 years at y least.
On the one hand, the village community of the The Eng- eastem districts of Britain was connected with a community settled agriculture which, apparently dating earlier J^a^ite^"**
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438 Conclusion.
Chap. XI. than the Roman invasion and improved during the tiiK»4ieid Roman occupation, was carried on, at length, under Byrtem. ^^^ 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 ^ mai*k 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 Asepout the masses of the people, not a degradation, but a towdl step upward out of a once more general slavery. Cer- doin^the taiuly during the 1,200 years over which the direct of Tiuw' English evidence extends the tendency has been to- wards 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 On the other hand, the tribal community of the community ^^gtern districts of GreatBritain and of Ireland, though l^to"*' 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 be- tween free tribesmen. The equality which followed the possession of the tribal blood involved an equal division among the sons of tribesmen, and was main-
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Conclusion. 439
tained in spite of the inequality of families by frequent Chap. xi. redistributions of the tribal lands, and shifdngs 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 prac- tised 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 ' 1 or * run-rig ' system, by which, to this day, is eflfected opposed to in Ireland and western Scotland that infinite sub- order of division of holdings which marks the tenacious ad- ^ "^"' herence to tribal instincts on the part of a people still fighting an unequal battle against the new order of things.
The new order has, no doubt, arisen in one sense The new out of both branches of the old, but neither the ^os^to manorial village community of the eastern district, ^a™'*^**^^ nor the tribal community of the west, can be said to ^^^'^^i- 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 I serfdom and the communism of the free tribe. i
Nor, it would seem, can the new order be regarded f^^^w ^ with any greater truth as a development from the »°geof
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440 Conclusion.
Ohap. XI. germs of any German tribal or * mark ' system im- eoonomic ported in the keels of the English invaders. It would ment.^^ Seem to belong to an altogether wider range of eco- nomic 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 ex- amined 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 EngUsh-speaking nations in connexion with the progress of the new order of things and the solution of the great economic pro- blems of the future. The com- What are the forces which have produced, and
the old are producmg, the evolution of the new order, and to thing of what ultimate goal the * weary Titan ' is bearing the past, ^YiQ < too full orb of her fate,' are questions of the
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Conclusion. 441
highest rank of economic and political importance, Chap. xi. but questions upon which not much direct light has been thrown, perhaps, in this essay. Still the know- ledge what the community and equaUty of the Eng- lish village and of the Keltic tribe really were under the old order may at least dispel any Ungering 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.
The reader of this essay may perhaps contemplate the few remaining balks and linces of our English Hkethe common fields, and the surviving examples of the uyBtem. ' run-rig' system in Ireland and Scotland, with greater interest than before, but it will be as historical sur- vivals, not of types Ukely to be reproduced in the future, but of economic stages for ever past.
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Q U
APPENDIX.
THE MANOR OF HITCHIN (PORTMAN AND FOREIGN) IN THE COUNTY OF HERTFORD.
^ At the Court pLeet and] of the View of Frank pledge 1819. ^ 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, Oentleman, Steward of the said manor, and by ad- ^joumment on Monday, the first day of November next ^ following, before the said Joseph Eade, the Steward afore- ' said*
* 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 town-
* ship of Hitchin and in the hamlet of Walsworth respectively ' ?dthin 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 com-
* mon 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
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444 Appendix,
* 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, Bangswalden, « and Offley.
Bonndar * 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 Bur-
* ford Ray, and from thence to a water mill called Hide Mill, ' and from thence to Wilbeny Hills ; frx>m thence to a place
* called Bossendell, from thence to a water mill called Pur-
* well Mill, and from thence to a brook or river called Ippol-
* litts' 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 ham-
* let 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 laud called
* the Shadwells on the north side of the river.
JTuriadic- * ThsX the lord of the manor of Hitchin hath Court Leet
tion. « View of Frank pledge and Court Baron, and that the juris-
* diction of the Court Leet and View of Frank pledge ex-
* tendeth 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 accus-
* tomed to be holden for the said manor within one month
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Appendix. 445
* 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 con-
* stables 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 watch-
* man and cryer of the town. And they present that Ban-
* croft 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, other-
* wise Angel Street, now called Sun Street, Bull Street, now
* called Bridge Street, to the river ; Bull Comer, 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.
* 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 Reliefs.
* one year's quitrent, but that nothing is due to the lord ^ upon the alienation of freehold.
* That the fines upon admissions of copyholders, whether Pines on < by descent or purchase, are, and beyond the memory of ^^^^
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446
Appendix.
Power of leasing.
Forfeiture.
Herioto.
Woods and trees.
^ man have been, certain (to wit), half a year's qoitrent ; and
* that where any number of tenants are admitted jointly in
* one copy, no greater fine than one half yearns quitrent is ^ due for the admission of all the joint tenants.
* 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 ex-
* ceeding 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.
* The Homage present that the fi-eehold 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 quit-
* rent.
^ The Homage present that there are no heriots due or
* payable to the lord of this manor for any of the tenements
* holden thereof.
* 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
* P&^tent, tmder 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
* Groddesden 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
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Appendix. 447
* other trees growing on their copyholds, and to dispose
* thereof at their will.
* The Homage also present that no toll has ever been Grain sold
* paid or ought to be paid for any kind of corn or grain sold J^^p^et
* in the market of Hitchin. toll free.
* They also present that from the time whereof the Common
* memory of man is not to the contrary, the lord of this ^J^j^toctg ^ 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 —
* Divers parcels of ground called the Green Commons, let. Green
* the soil whereof remains in the lord of the said manor (that ?^5^™**^
* is to say) : township
* Butts Close, contaimng eight acres or thereabouts ; of Hitchin.
* Orton Mead, containing forty acres or thereabouts, exclu-
< sively of the Haydons, and extending from the Old Boad
* 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
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448
Appendix.
2nd.
Lammas
MttadowB.
3rd. Com- mon fields.
Bight of common.
Common bull
* Bansom, lately called Burnt Mill, and now called Grove
* Mill, which hath been fenced off and planted by John ^ Ransom.
* 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.
* And of the open and unenclosed land within the several
* common fields, called Purwell Field, Welshman's Croft, Bur-
* ford Field, Spital Field, Moremead Field, and Bury Field.
' 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.
* That the rect>ors impropriate of the rectory of the parish
* of Hitchin or their lessees of the said rectory are hound 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 firom 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 col-
* lecting in the morning the herd going out to the other ^ commons.
* That Orton Mead, including the Haydons, is an open
< common upon and firom the thirteenth day of May, called
< Old May-day, till the fourteenth day of February, called
* Old Candlemas Day.
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Appendix, 449
* 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 Welsh-
* man's Croft are commonable for cows only from the time
* when the com 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
* Buttfi 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
* taming 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 Coiut 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 implied in and towards
* such expenses. And that the further sum of threepence be
* paid on Monday weekly for every head of cattle which any
G O
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450 Appendix,
' 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 CX)MM0NS.
* That every occupier of unenclosed land in any of the xnon fields. * 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 com is cut and carried until the same be again sown with com, 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 * That the common fields within the township of Hitchin
BeasoiiB. * have immemorially been and ought to be kept and culti-
^ vated in three successive seasons of tilthgrain, etchgrain,
* and fallow.
* That the last fallow season of Purwell Field and Welsh-
* man's Croft was from the harvest of 1816 until the wheat < sowing in the autumn of 1817; and that the fallow season
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Appendix, 451
* 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 common- ^ able for sheep at the same time with the field called Welsh-
* man's Croft.
' The Homage find and present that every owner and Right of
* every occupier of land in any of the common fields of this ^yint^^
* township may at his will and pleasure enclose and fence right of
* 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 con-
* sist of —
* A parcel of meadow ground called Walsworth Common, Walsworth
* containing fourteen acres or thereabouts, the soil whereoif ^™™o°-
* 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 con-
* taining four acres or thereabouts ; Ickleford Mead, contain-
* ing 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 Eansom, heretofore called Burnt
* Mill, and now called Grove Mill.
o G 2
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452 AppeTtdix,
* 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, con-
* taining twelve acres or thereabouts.
* And they find and present that four several parcels of
* land hereinafter described have been by John Eansom en-
* closed 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 altera-
* tion 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 comer of Woolgroves, con-
* taining 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 com-
* monable land thereof, in respect of and as appurtenant to
* his messuage or cottage, two cows and a bidlock 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 Walswort.h be-
* tween 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 appli-
<
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Appendix, 453
^ cation and request of any of the persons entitled to common
* the cattle upon the commons within the hamlet of Wals-
* worth, 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 com-
* moners 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. Wn.LM. Dunnage. Wm. Bloom. BoBT. Newton. Willm. Hall. Wm. Martin. Thos. Waller. Geo. Beaver. W. Sworder. John Moore.'
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INDEX AND GLOSSARY.
ACR
A ORE, the * selio,* or strip in the open -^ field (40x4 rods), 3, 106. A
day's work in ploughing, 124. Kea-
son of it8 shape, 124. Welsh acre,
tee * Erw * Ager, at/elluSy agellulus, territory of a
manor, 167 Ayer pvUicus^ tenants on, 272<-288.
Tendencies towards manorial methods
of management, 300, 808 Agri deeumates, occupied by Alamannic
tribes, 282-288. Position of tenants
on, 311 Agri occupatorii, with irregular bound- aries, 277i and sometimes scattered
ownership, 278 Agrimensores (Roman), methods of cen-
tanation, 260, 276, 279 AiUtf or akud. See * Taeog.' Compare
Aldiones of Lombardic Lhws and
f^axon 'althud' a foreigner, 281 Alamanni, German tribes, offshoots of,
Hermunduri, Thuringi, &c., 282.
Some deported into Britain, 285.
Conquered by Julian, 286 Alfred the Greats his founding the New
Minster at Winchester, 160. Services
of serfs on his manor of Hyssebume,
162. His sketch of growth of a new
haniy 169. Bis Boethius quoted, 168 AmobTf fee on marriage of fenoales under
Welsh laws, 195 Amdeeena, day work of serf under
Bavarian laws same shape as English
acre, 325, 386, 391 Angaria and parangaria, carrying or
post-horse services {see Roman ' sor-
oida munera'), 297. and so any forced
service, 298. Manorial services, 324>
327 Antoandery German 'headland,^ 381 Archer^eldy in Wales, survey of, in
Domesday Book, 182, 206-7
BOV
Averagiumf manorial carrying service from avera or affrif beasts of burden, 298, 11. ; at Bleadon, 57
JDALK, the nnploughed turf between
two acre strips in the open fields,
4; in 'Piers tke 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 rownland, 221, 223
BaUU 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-tDork. SSm Precariae
Black Death, 20 ; influence on villen- age, 31
Boc'land, land of inheritance perma- nently made over by charter or deed, 168, 171
B<^don Book (a.d. ]183)» evidence of, 68-72
Book of 8t, Chad, Welsh charters in margins of, 209
Booths, making of, by villam^ for fiiirs ofStCuthbert, 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 Kdwy (Tid- enham), 149; in Lnrsch charters, 331. Roman method, 9. See also, Z7 5
Bovate {Bovata terra!), the half yaid^ land contributing one ox to the team of eight, 61.' 2 bovates in Boldon Book»viigate, 68
Digitized by VjOOQIC
456
Index and Glossary.
BBS
DRS
Brehon Lam, 226, 281, 282 Breyr, free Welah tribesman, 102 ^rttotfi, Belgic districts of, pre-Roman settled agrieulture in, 246. Exports of corn during Roman role, 247, 286. The marling of the land described by Pliny, 260. Analogous to ' one-field system' of North Germany, 372 BucenobanieSf deported into Britain, 287 Butts, strips in open fields abutting others, 6
flMSAR, description of British and
^ Belgic agriculture, 246. Ditto of chiefs and tribesmen in G-aul, 306. Description of German tribal system, 336-338
Cambridge, terrier of open fields of, in fourteenth or fifleenth century, 19, 20
Carpenter, village official having his holding free, 70
Carttca (see Carucate), plough team of
eight oxen, yoked four to a yoke, 62,
74, 123 ; carttctB a^utricea, or smaller
^ teams of villeins, 48, 74, 86 ; variations
/ in team, 64, 74 ; of Domesday Survey,
86
Carucate, unit of assessment » land of a caruca {see Camca), connexion 'with hide, 40. Used in Domesday Survey, 86
Centenarii, Roman and Frankish officials, 300-303
Centnria, division of land by Roman Agrimensores of 200 or 240 jngera, 276. Divided into eight normal sin- gle holdings of 26 or 30, or double holdings of 60 or 60 jugera, 276
Ceniuriaiion, See Agrimensores
Ce<>r/ = husbandman; a wide term em- bracing, like * geneat,' the lower class of freemen and serfs above the slaves, 110, 144
Chamavi, pagus chamavicrnm, 286
Co-aratian, 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 pro- vinces, 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 uii^rucfiiarii, 309, ». Pos- sibly with single succession, 308-310
Commendation, surrender, pnttii^g s freeman under the patmeimiMm or lordship of another, instances of, 305. Salvian*s description of, 807. Effect l^^ of, 807-310. Practioe oontinaeB un- der Alamannic and Bavarian lawfe, allowing surrenders to the Church, 316-336
Continuity of English village sites, 424- 436
Cumaqe, comagium, tribute on horsed cattle, 71
Co-tillage. See Co-aiation
Ootsetle, or cottier, in * Rectitudines,' ■tbordarins in Domesday Survey, 130; his services, &c., 130-131
Cottier tenants, holders in villenage ofV^ a few scattered strips in open fields, 24, 29, 34, 69
Cgvar, See Co-aration
6 T}AER' and * Saer ' tenancy in Ire- -^ land, 231
Davits, Sir John, his surveys in Ireland and description of the Iriah tribal system, 214-231
Daumbwgd, food rent of Welsh taeogs, 198
Decurisf, of slaves on Roman villa, 264
Dimetian Code of South Wales. See 'Wales, Ancient Laws of
Domesday Survey (a.d. 1086). Manors eveiywhere, 82. Lord's demesne and -^ land in villenage, 84. Assessment by hides and carucates, 84 ; in Kent by solins, 86 ; libtri homines and 9oeh- manni in Danish district, 86-89. ^^ Tenants in villenage, viUani, bordarii ^^^ or oottarii, and servi, 89. The villani ^ holders of virgates or yard-lands, 91 ; examples from survm of Middlesex, Herts, and Liber Eliensts, 92-94. Bordarii hold about five acres earh, more or less, 96-97. Survey of Villa of Westminster, 97-101 ; area of arable land in England, and liow^ much of it held in the yard-lands of villani, 101-104. Survey of portions ofWales, 182-184, 211
Doles, or D&Ls, 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, 26)
Drengage, hunting service (Boldon Book), 71
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Index and Glossary.
457
HAM
'PJBEDIW, Welsh death payment or
heriot, 196 Edward the Confeasor, his djing yision
of the open fields round Westminster,
100 EmzeUwfe, Qerman single farms in
Westphalia, 871 Enclosure Acta, 4,000 between 1760-
1844, 13 English settlcTnents, methods of, 412-
423 Erffostulunij prison for slaves on Boman
villa, 264 £Vt0, Welsh acre, the actual strips
in open fields described in Welsh
Laws, 119 Etchj crop sown on stnbble, 377 Ethelbertj Laws of, hams and tuns in
private ownership and mention of
l»t«, 173-174
JpABER, or village bladumith, holds
his virgate free of services, 70 FUta (temp. Ed, L), description of
manor in, 45 Forera (Saxon foryrthe), or headland,
20, 108 Frankpledge, View of, 10 Franks, their inroads, 283 ; deported
into Belgic Ganl, 284 Frisians, 285. Tribute in hides, 306, fi. Furlong (shot, or quarentena), division
of open fields ' a fuirow long,' divided
into strips or acres, 4; in Saxon
open fields, 108 ; German, Gewann,
380
Q.AFOL (from German Gahen, Ahgor ben, food gifts under German tribal system), tribute, 144, 145 ; in money and in kind, of viUein tenants. Perhaps survival of Koman 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, 165, 162. Marked a semi-servile condition, 146, 326
Gafol-land, \^1 . 5e« Geneat-land Ga/ol-gelder, payer of gafol or tribute,
146 Gafol-yrthe, the ploughing of generally Uiree acre strips and sowing by the ffebur, from his own barn, and reap- ing and carrying of crop to lord's
bam by way of rent; in ' Recti tudines,' 132-140; on Hyssebume Manor of Ejng Alfred, 162 ; in South Germany in seventh century, 326 6^ seq. Possibly survival of the agraHum or tenth of produce on Roman provincial tithe lands, 399-403
Gavael, the tribal homestead and hold- ing in N. Wales, 200-202
Gavelkind, Irish gabal-cined, distin- guished by equal division among heirs, 220, 352
Gebur, viUanus proper, or owner of a yard-land normally of thirty acres with outfit of two oxen and seed, in
* Bectitudines/ 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, 164. In High German ' Gebur and Gipor ' * vicinns, 894, and compare 278
Gedal-Umd, land divided into stripe (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
GeneatAand, 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
Gesettes-land, land set or let out to husbandmen, 128. See * Geneat- hind'
Gored Acres, strips in open fields pointed at one end, 6, 20 ; in Saxon open fields, 108
Ctwely, the Welsh family conch (lectus), also a name for a family holding, 196 ; in Record of Carnarvon, 194
Gweniian Code, of South Wales. See
* Wales, Ancient La^-s of ' Gweatva, food rent of Welsh tribesmen,
and titne pound in lieu of it, 196 ;
early evidence of, in Ine's laws, 209-
213 Gt/rd (a rod-virga) Gfgrd/and. See Yardknd. See 169-
172
TJAM (hem, heim, haim), in Saxon,
like *tun,* generally » villa or
manor, 126, 254. A private estate
Digitized by VjOOQIC
458
Index and Glo88ai*y.
HEA
with a village community in serfdom upon it, 127. Geographical distribu- tion of suffix, 255. See Villa
Headland^ strip at head of strips in a furlong on which the plough was turned, 4. Latin */<ir<ra,' Welsh • pentir* Scotch * headrig* Qerman ' anwattder,* 5, 880. In Saxon open fields, 108
Hide J normal holding of a free family (hence Latin casatum and the familia of Bede), but in later records corre- sponding with the full plough te^m of eight oxen, and so » four yard- lands. Used as the unit hf assess- ment for early times, 38. Perhaps &om Boman times. Compare I^man tributum, 290-294. Connexion with carucate and yard-land, 86. Normal hide, 120 a., 37. Double hide of, 240 a., 37, 39, 51, 54. Possible origin of word, 898. The hide, the hoft 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 com- munity 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
Hivnsc, Saxon for family holding, 162, 395
Honey, Welsh rents in. See Gwestva, 207, 211-213
Hordwelt, boundaries of, in Saxon Charter, 107
Hundred Eolhol Edward I., a.d. 1279, evidence of, as to the prevalence of the Manor, the open-field system and serfdom in five Midland Coimties, 32, et seq.
Husband-lands in Kelso and New- . minster Records svii^Hte or yard- land, 61
Hydarii, holders of hides, 52
Hyssebume, Manor of Stoke by, on the river Itchin netir Winchester, held by King Alfred, 160. Serfdom and services of ceorls on, 162
JNE, LAWS OF (A.D. 688), evidence of open-field system, 109. Acre
LEX
strips, 110. Yardlands, 142. Hid«a and half hides, 147. Geneats, geburs, gafol, week-work, 147. Welsh food rents, 212-218
Ing, suffix to local names; whether denotes dan settlements and where found, 354-367
Iftqumiio Mtensis mentions liberi homines and sochmanni, 87. Men- tions villani as holding vii^tes, &c., 94. Mentions both bordarii and cottarii, 96
Isle of Man, early division of land into bailys and quarters, 222
JUG A TJO. See Roman tributam Jugerum, size and form of, 387
Jugum. {See lioman tributum.) Roman unit of assessment, 289-205. De- scription of, in Syrian Code, 291. Analogy to virgate and hide, and sulung, 292
Jungsten-Reeht, right of youngest to succeed to holding, 352-854. See also under Welsh laws, 193, 197
VELSO, ABBEY OF, *Soitdus re- dituum,* etuht or outfit to tenants of, 61
J^AMMAS LAND, meadows owned in strips, but commonable after Lammas bay, in Hitchin Manor, 1 1 ; in lawsof Ine, 110
Ltfn-land, lands granted as a benefice for life to a thane, 168
Lmti, conquered barbarians deported and settled on public lands during later Roman rule, chiefly in Belgic Caul and Britain, 280-289
Leges AlaTnannorum (a.d. 622), sur- renders to Church al lowed under, 317; services of servi and eoloni of the Church tinder, 328
Leges Baiuwariorum (7th centurjr) sur- renders under, 317. Servic^8 of co/oni and servi of the Church under, 325
Leges Ripuartorum, 304
Lex Salica, use of * villa* in a manorial sense, 259-262, 303
Lex Visigothorttm (a.i>. 650 about) in division of land between Romans and Visigoths, fifty aripennes allotted per singula aratra, 276 n.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
hidex and Glossary,
459
LIB
lAber Niger of Peterborough Abbey (a.d. 1125), nearest evidence to the Domesday Surrey, 72 et seq,
lAbere tenentes, holders of portions of demesne- land, i.e. land not in villen- age, 33. Villeins holding yard-lands in yillenage may be libere ienentea of other land besides, 34. Increasing in later times, 54. Absent from Domes- day survey generally, 86 ; Archdeacon Hale*s theory of tneir presence dis- proved, 86-87 «.
Lweri homineSt of Domesday Survey in Danish districts, 86, 102
lAnce, or lip^cK acre strip in open fields formed into a terrace by always turn- ing the sod downwards in ploughing a hill side, 5 ; sketch of, 5 ; in Saxon open fields, 108 ; in Yorkshire 'reean * and Germany • rain * = linee or balk, 381
Lingones^ 284
Lorach (Lauresham), instances of sur- renders to the Abbey of, 329-833
lifAENOL, cluster of tribal home- steads in Welsh laws, in North Wales of sixteen homesteads paying between them the tunc pound, 202. In South Wales the nuunol is a group of twelve trevsy each paying tunc pound, 203-4
Manor ^ or viUa, in Saxon, ham or tun. An estate of a lord or tbane with a village community generally in serf- dom upon it Hitchin Manor and its connexion with open-field system, 1-13. Manors before Domesday Sun-ey— Winslow, 22; Hundred Bolls, 32 ; described in Fleta, 45 ; Sattle Abbey and St. Paul*s 49 ; Gloucester and Worcester, 65 ; Blea- don, 57 ;> Newminster and Kelso, 60. In Boldon Book, 68 ; in liber Niger of Peterborough, 72 ; summary, 76. In Domesday Survey manors every- where, 82 et seq. Westminster, 97. Saxon ' hams ' and * tuns ' were manors, 1 26 ^^ seq. Manor of Tiden- ham, of King Edwy, 148. Hysse- bume, of King Alfred, 160. Creation of new manors, 166. Terra Begis composed of manors, 167. * Hams' and ' tuns ' in King Ethel bert's laws, manors, i.e., in private ownership with semi-servile tenants (kete)
OPE
upon them, 173. There were manors in England before St. Augustine's arrival, 175. English and Prankish identical, 253. Villa of Salic Laws probably a manor on Terra Regis, 259-263. Likeness of Homan villa to, 263-272 (see Roman 'Villa'). Villas, or fiscal districts of Imperial officials, tend to become manors, 300- 805. Transition from villas to manors under Alamannic and Bavarian laws in South Germany, 316-335. Fr»ink- ish manors, their tenants and ser- vices, 333. Manorial tendencies of German tribal system, 346 Monetary System, Gallic and Welsh pound of 240 pence of siher divided into twelve uncise each of a score pence, 204. The Gallic system in Roman times, 234, 292
^JEUVII, 284
Netomhister 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
QPEN- FIELD System in England; re- mains of open fields described, 1, ei seq. Divided into acre or half-acre strips, 2, and furlongs or shots, 4. Holdings in bundles of scattered strips, 7; i.e.i 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, repre- senting three -course rotation of crops, 11. Traced back in Winslow manor rolls (Ed. III.), 20 et seq. ; in Glou- cester 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. Pre- valence in Saxon times, shown by use of the word aeera, 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 Latos o/in^, 109- 110. Holdings in hides, half-hides,
Digitized by VjOOQIC
460
Index and Glossary.
PAR
and yard-landfl, 110-117. iScattering of strips in a holding the result of co-operatiye ploughing, 117-126. The three-field system would grow out of the simple form of tribal sys- tem, by addition of rotation of crops in three courses, settlement, and serf- dom, 868-870. Welhh open-Jidd sys- tem, 181, 213, with division into *ertDS* or acres, 119. Scattering of strips in a holding arising from oo- aration, 121. The system *co-ara- tion of the waste,' i.e. of grass land which went back into grass, 192, 227, 244, 25 1 . Like that of the Germania of Tacitus, 369, 41 2. No Bxed 'yai-d- lands' or rotation of crops, 251, 413. Irish and Scotch open-field system like the Welsh ; modern remains of, in Bundale or Run-rig system, 214-231. German open-field systems, 369-411; differentkin<1sof. Fdd^aswirthsehaft 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. notation 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 Fkccns, 278. Possibly in use on Roman tithe lands, 315. Re- mains of the simple tribal form of, in modern rundale or run-rig of Ire- land 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
pARANGARIJS, extra carrying ser-
vices, see 'angarise' Paraveredtf extra post-horses (see Roman
' sordida munera '), 297, from veredus
a post-horse, 298. Manorial Para-
fretus, 325-334 Patrotinium. See ' Commendation * PfaU-grahen, the Roman liiiics on the
side of Germany, 282
BAN
Pflieht-theily survival of late Roman law, obliging a fixed proportion of a man's property to go equally to his sons. In Bavaria, 313. Oompara Bavarian laws of the seventh century, 317, and Syrian code of fifth century, 312
Piers the Plowman, his ' fiiire felde,* an open field divided into half-acre strips and furlongs, by balks, 18-19
Plouffh-bote, or Plough-erw, the strips set apart in the co-ploughing, Ibr 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 ». in India, 388. Single yoke of 2 oxen in Egypt and Palestine, 314, 387; and in Sicily, 275, and Spain, 276
Polyptique d'lrminon, Abbot of St. Germain dee Pr^, and M. Guiraid s Introduction quoted, 265, 298, 641
Pr<Bpo8itus of a manor elected by tenants, 48. Holds one wista with- out 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, 819,4(33
Precarim or Boon-works, work at will of lord, 78. On Saxon Manors, 140, 157. In South Germany, 327. Sometimes survivals of the Roman ' sordida muneni,' 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 Leeti Rhine Valley and Belgic Gaul, 283
Punder, keeper of the village pound, 69, 70
QUARENTlSyA. &e Furlong. Length ^ of furrow 40 poles long
"Q^N, German for * balk ' as in York- shire ' reean ' « linch, 381 Randir, from rhan, a division, and tir, land ; a share of land under Welsh
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Indev and Glossary.
461
laws, 200. A cluster of threo home- steads in South Wales, 204 ; and four randirs in the trev, 204; but in North Wales a subdiTision of the homestead, 200
' Reciiiudines Singularum Pcrsonarv/m* (10th century?), evidence of, 120 et teq. Br. Leo's work upon, 164
Fedon, Cartulaire de, quoted, 385
Bhatia^ semi-serrile barbarian settlers in, 288. Sordida munera in, 296- 299. Roman custom, in present Bavaria as ro land tenure, 313. Transition from Roman to Mediaeyal manor in, 316-335
Bifft strip in Irish and Scotch open fields, 3.V Hence Run-rig system
Roman jttgbUo sivt tapitatio, 289, 295. See RomantfTbutum
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 a^ger pub- licus with single or •double yokes of oxen and seed for about 30 or 60 jugera, 272-276
Roman Vil/a. See Villa
Run-riff or Rundale, the Irish and Scotch modem open-field system, 3. Survival of methods of tribal system now used in subdivision of holdings among heirs, 226, 230, 438-440
Cfr. 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 * ingh^ ' to names of manors, 356
St, Gall, records of Abbey, surrenders to, 316-824
St. PauVa (Domesday of), a.d. 1222, 51
Salian Franks in Tozandria, 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 mnrig system, 226-229
Seutage^ Id, per acre or H. per double hide of 240 a., or 40«. per scv^m, to
aru
which four ordinary hides contri- buted, 38
SelUmeSftYie 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 oa^h, 199, 238. On Roman Villa, 263. Arranged in deeuria, 264. Under Alamannic and Bavarian laws, 317, 323-326
Services of tdllani, chiefiy of three kinds: (1) Gafol, (2)precari8Bor boon- work, (3) week-work (refer to these heads), 41. In Hundred Rolls, 41. Domesday of St. Paul's, 53. Glou- cester and Worcester records, 58. In Kelso records, 67. Boldon Book, 68 . Liber Niger of Peterborough, 7 8 . Summary of post^-Domesday evi- dence, 78. On Saxon manors, in • Rectitudines,' 130, 187-147. On Tidenham manor of King Edwy, 154. On Hysseburne manor of King Alfred, 162. In Saxon * weork-resden* 168. Of cottiers (or bordarii) in Hundred Rolls, 44. Gloucester and Worcester, 58, 69. Of Saxon 'cotsetle,' 130, 141. On German and English manors compared, 399^05
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 oocupatorii, 274- 278
Sochmanni,ikCi\sLB8 of tenants on manors chiefiy in the Danish districts, 34. Mentioned in Hundred Rolls in Cam- bridgeshire, 84; in Domesday Survey, 87, 102
Solanda, in Domesday of St Paul's a double hide of 240 a., 54
SoHn, sullung, of Kent, plough land from ' Suhl,' a plough, 54 ; divided into * yokes* (—yard-lands), 54; sul- lung B 4gyrdlands and to ^ sullung, outfit of four oxen, a.d. 885, 139. See also, 895
Siuht, Kelso records, outfit of two oxen, &c., with husband-land (yard- land), 61. Compare *seiene* of the Saxon gebur with yard-land, 133 and 189, and outfit ot Roman veteran,
Digitized by VjOOQIC
462
Index and Glossary,
sue
274 ; and see under Bayarian 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 pro- bably in the case of semi-«ernle holdings of nsufruetnarii under Roman law, 308
Supercilia, or linches, mentioned by Agrimensores, 277
Sjifrian Code of fifth century, 291-204
J^ACITUS, description of German tribal system in the Gsrmaniat 338-343
Taeogs (or aillts), Welsh tenants with- out Welsh blood or rights of inheri- tance, not tribesmen — their * regis- ter 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
Taie, or Tath, the Irish homestead, analogous to Welsh *tyddyn,' 214, 231. Sse Tribal system, Irish
Thane, Lord of a ham. Thane's inland « Lord's demesneland, 1 28. Thane's law or duties in 'Rectitudines.' 129 ; his services, 134; a soldier and servant of king, 136; his 'fyrd,' 186; tri- fioda necessitas, 134
ITteowSy slaves on Saxon estates, 144 ; their position, 164. Example from * iElfric's Dialogue,' 166
Three-Field System, {See Open-field system.) Form of the open-field system with three-course rotation of crops
Tidenkam, Manor of King Edwy. Description of, and of services of geneats and geburs upon, a.d. 966, 148-159. Cjftvaeras and hacweras, for salmon fishing, 162
Tir-bwrdd sierra menailia, 198
Tir^welyawg, family land of Welsh free tribesmen, 191
71ir-c^r(/i 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
TBI
Survey, 117; Ethel wulfs grant, 114
Tithe land* of Sicily, 276; of modern Palestine, 314. {See * Agri decuma- tes:)
Trtv, cluster of Welsh free tribesmen's homesteads, four in North Wales, 200-202; twelve in South Wales, 204. liteog trevs, 203
Treviri, 284
Tricasn, 284
Tribal System in Wales, 181-213. Welsh districts and traces of, in Domesday Survey, 182, 206-7- Food rents in D.S., 186. Welsh land sys- tem described by GiraJdus Cambreu- sis, 186-189. In Ancient Laws of Wales, 189 etseq. The iVee tribes- men of Welsh blood, 190. Home- steads scattered about, but grouped into dubters for payment of food rents, 190. Their family land (tir- gwelyawg), 1 90- 1 9 1 . 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 oioes^tNz, or food rent, snd tunc pound in lieu of it, 195. Other obligations of tribes- men, 195. The Uuogs or aillts (see these words) not tribesmen, their tenure and rules of equality, 197. Land divisions under Welsh Codes connected with thegiDestva and food rents, 199-208. &rly 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 Ire/and and Scotland, 214-231. Clusters of six- teen tates or taths (Welsh tyddyn) 216-217. Sir John Ddvies'S surveys and description of tribal system, Tanistry, and Gavelkind, 216-220. Example of a Sept deported fh>m Cumberland, 219. Ancient division of Bally or townland into qwirters and tates, 221,224. Quaiters and names of tates still traceable on Ord- nance Survey. 223-224. Names of tates not personal, owing to tribal distributions and shifttngs of tribal households from tate to <tate, 224.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
Index and Glossary,
463
TUN
Irish open-field system — rondale or run-rig— 226-228. Similar sys- tem in Scotland, 228-229. Tribal system in its earlier stages, 231-246. 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 con- quest, 245. In Germany^ description of tribal system by Caesar, 336-337. Description of, by Tacitus, 338-342. Husbandry like WeUh co-tillage of the waste for one year only, 343-345. Manorial tendencies of German sys- tem : tribesmen have their servi who are 'like cohni,' 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 aweatva (to which refer) paid to the Prince of Wales, 196
Tusser^ his description of * Champion * or open-field husbandry, 1 7
TyMyn, the Welsh homestead, 192- 193. Compiire Irish ' tate ' or * tath' and Bohemian ' d^my,' 355
TJCHELWYR, free Welsh tribesman,
yENEDOTJAN Code of North Wales. See Wales, Ancient Laws of
VereduSt post horse, derivation of word, 298
Villa, word interchangeable with manor i ham, tun, 126, 254. Prankish heim or vUla on I'erra Regis was a manor and unit of jurisdiction, 25 7i
262. The Roman villa, an estate under a villicns, worked by slaves,
263. Its cohortea and ergastulum, 263-264. Slaves arranged in decuria,
264. Colonif often barbarians on a ▼ilia, 266. Likeness to a manor increasing, 267-268. Burgnndians shfl^red villas with Romans, 269. Villas transferreil to Church. 270. And continued under German rale to
il
WIH
be villas, 270. And became gradually mediseysil manors with villages upon them, 271. Villas surrendered under Alamannie 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, 1 1 ; meadow and pasture, 11. lU officials, 10, 70
Villani, holders of land in villenage, 29. Sometimes nativi and adscripti gleha, 29. Pay heriot or relief widows have dower ; make wills proved in Manor Court, 30. The yard-land the normal holding of full vilUnus with two oxen, 27 (^«c Yard- land). Sometimes they hold the de- mesne land at farm, 69. Sometimes £urm whole manor. 70. Pleni'mlUmi and seTni-vUlani, 74 ,
ViUenage, 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 in- ' eidents, 80. See Servius
Virgarii, holders of Virgates, 60
Virgat\ See Yardland.
jyALES, 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, 186
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 Tiden- ham unlimited, 155. So in those of Hysseburne, 163. In laws of Ala- manni (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, 834. See also, 404
Wele, Welsh holding in Record of Car- narvon. See * Qwely,' 193-195
Westminster, description of its manor and open fields in Domesday Survey, 97-101
Window, Court Rolls of, 20-32
Digitized by VjOOQIC
464
Jridex and Glossary,
WIS
WUta, in Battle Abbey records » \ hide
—the Great Wista»^ double hide,
50 Wigenhurg, gurrenders to Abbey of,
329. Interchange between vt/^ and
heimi in recoids of, 258
YARD'LAND {gyrd-landes, virgata terra), normal holding of yillanus with two oxen in the common plough of eight oxen — a bundle of mostly thirty scattered strips in the open fields s: German 'hub.' Example of yard-land in Winslow Manor rolls, 24. Botation in the strips, 27. Large area in yard-lands, 28. Held in villenage by Tillani, 29. Evidence of Hundred Rolls, 33. Variation in acreage and connexion with *hide,' 36, 55 = husband-land of two borates in the North, 61, 67. Normal hold-
YOU
ing of villanus in Liber Niger of Peterborough, 73. Normal holding of Tillanus of Domesday Surrey, 91- 95. Large proportion of arable land of England held in yard-lands at date of survey, 101. Ssjcon *gyrd-lands,' 111, 117. In 'RectitudineB,* 138. In *Laws of Ine,' 142. A bundle of scattered stripe resulting from co- operative ploughing, 117-1 25. 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. Divi- sion of the sttllung or double hide in Kent, 54. Compared with Boman 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 Jiingsten-Recht
LOXDOV: razimD bt
rOOSa AHO OOm VBW-BTBBST S<|UAU AVD TAMhlAMWHT BTKSKT
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INDEX.
AMey 6" OvtrUnCs English Church History 14
Ahuy$ Photography zo
Actom's Modem Cookery 90
Alpine Club Map of Switzerland 17
r- Guide (The) 17
Amto^s Juxisprudenoe 5
«^-— lUmer of the Constitution 5
^— so Years of English Constitution 5
AmUrstm*s Strength of Materials zo
^mfj/lrvMF^j Organic Chemistry zo
Arnolds (Dr. ) Lectures on Modem History a
Miscellaneous Works Z5
Sermons Z5
' (T.) English Literature 6
— — -^-^ Poetry and Prose ... 6
Arm/tfs Elements of Physics 9
Atelier (The) du Lys z8
Atnerstone Priory z8
Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson ... 7
/fynr^j Treasury of Bible Knowledge ao
BacoH*s Essays* by WkaUfy 5
-^-^— Life and Letters, by Spedding ... 5
■ Promus, edited by Mrs, Pott 5
Works 5
Bagehot^s Biographical Studies 4
— Economic Studies ai
— — Literary Studies 6
BaiUys Festus. a Poem z8
Auji*j James Mill and J. S. Mill 4
Mental and Moral Science 5
■ on the Senses and Intellect 5
— Emotions and Will 5
Baker^s Two Works on Ceylon zy
BiUFs Alpine Guides Z7
^a/Tj Elements of Astronomy zo
Barry on Railway Appliances zo
— ^— & Bramwell on Railways, &c....... Z3
Bauermans Mineralogy zo & iz
BtaconsfUld's (Lord) Novels and Tales zy & z8
■ — Speeches ,.... z
Digitized by VjOOQIC
32
WORKS published by LONGMAIfS ^ "€&.
BeacoHsJt/d'siLotA) WitandWifldOm...... 6
Bulut^s Charictes and Gallus 7
Btisi/s Gnocfat Miuivs^ aMi3u]Ui •»..*•,. 3
DingkanCs Boxuiparte Marriages 4
BtiuMs l>i6atJae on Brewing .*......,^ — ao
Blacklegs Goman-EngUsh Dictionaxy...... 7
Bloxam 6* Huntington s Metals zo
Botland and Langs Aristotle's PoHtic^....;. 5
BouUba on 39 Articles.... 14
-'j History of the English Chnrch... 14 Boumis Works on tbe'Steam Engine...z3& 14
B&wdier'sVsjnpJlf Skahespeart .».. 19
BrudoMme'sFury-LBaal^,^ ^..••. 18
-^— Higgledy-Piggledy •.....«••»•• 18
BrumlejhMwfr/fSix Sisters of the Valleys • z8
Bramston 6* Lerof/s mstoiic Winchester . a
Brandis Diet, of Science^ Literature, '& Art zz
Brasa^s British Navy., - Z3
■ Sunshine and Storm in the East • zy
^^— Voyage in the * Sunbeam '.. 17
Bra^i Elements of Morality « 16
Broumis Eacpotltktt of the 39 Articles.....* Z4
^fvnwijtf'j Modem England ..m.. 3
BuckUs History of Civilisation 9
Bmckt9n*s Food and Home Cookeiy ••• az
■ Health in the House za&sz
Bulls Hints to Mothers *. as
<— ^ Maternal Management of Childten . az
Boigomaster's Family (The) z8
Cabinet Lawyer ao
Cahirfs Wife's Manual z6
Capers Age of the Antonines 3
^^ — Early Roman Empire * 3
CarlyUs Reminiscences ^ 3
■ (Mrs.) Letters and Memorials ... 4
Cates's Biographical Dictionary • 4
CayU^s Iliad of Homer Z9
Changed Aspects of Unchanged Tnitha ••• 7
CiUM^j Waterloo Campaign .^ a
Christ our Ideal z6
Church's Beginning of the Middle Ages ... 3
CoUnso's Pentateuch and Book of Jodiua . zo
Commonplace Philosopher ' 7
Condir's Handbook to the Bible Z5
C<mingtan*s Translation of Viigil's iGndd Z9 Prose Translation of Virgil's
Poems z8
C<mtanseau*s Two French Dictionaries ... 7
Conybiart and Hawson's St. Paul Z5
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Counsel and Comfort from a City Pulpit... 7
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Crusades 3
■ ■ ■ ■ Greeks and Persians 3
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Davidsotis New Testament ....•••..•• Z4
Dead Shot (The) Z9
De Caisne and Le Mcumts Botany .., \i
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Di t4egu$viiUs DemoeiMr te- AsJidiiiUL 4 Denes' s Life and Jjetters of fit** BmL..^... Z5 Dixon: s Rural Bird LUe «.«<.m.#«««m.m«iz & Z9
Doyle's English in America....,^ z
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BasUakis Hints on Household Tkistr:..,
Foreigii Picture GaUerfes
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Modem History *...^;:;;^,:..^
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Rwaldt Antiquities of Israel ...m.......,— .•
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13 X3 zz
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History of Engkmd .....n..^-— .« z
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Puritan Resolution .....«.•••....• 3
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(Mrs.) FVench Revolution ...... 3
■ ■ StruggleagainstAbfiohite
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Goethe's Faust, by Birds z8
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Qoodtvis Mechanism ••••.i..................... 13
Gor£s Electro-MecaHurgy. zt»
Gospd (The) for the Ninetdentfa Ceatorr* x6
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Graver Thoughts of a Country Plosdfi...... 7
Graves's Life of Sir W. Hamilton ......... 4
GrtviiUsJoattial .......^m.. z
Orijht's Algebra and Ttigonomobj......... z«
Gfm«onCorKlationaf niysiottl'Fofoes..* 9
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Hale's Fall of the Stuarts.t...^.^............... 3
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Hartwigs Works on Popular Natural
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m:' German Dictionary ... .7
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