[1066] In places its language becomes turbid and well-nigh untranslatable.
[1067] It may be that the bishop has just obtained from the king a grant or confirmation of the hundredal jurisdiction over what is to be Oswaldslaw.
[1068] K. vi. 125: ‘hoc est ut omnis equitandi lex ab eis impleatur quae ad equites pertinet.’
[1069] K. vi. 125: ‘et ad totum piramiticum opus aecclesiae calcis atque ad pontis aedificium ultro inveniantur parati.’ The translation here given is but guesswork; we suppose that piramiticus means ‘of or belonging to fire (πῦρ).’
[1070] Ibid.: ‘insuper ad multas alias indigentiae causas quibus opus est domino antistiti frunisci, sive ad suum servitium sive ad regale explendum, semper illius archiductoris dominatui et voluntati qui episcopatui praesidet ... subditi fiant.’ Is archiductor but a fine name for the bishop? We think not. In the Confessor’s day Eadric the Steersman was ‘ductor exercitus episcopi ad servitium regis’ (Heming, i. 81), and it would seem from this that the tenants were to be subject to a captain set over them by the bishop. But in the famous, if spurious, charter for Oswaldslaw (see above, p. 268) Edgar says that on a naval expedition the bishop’s men are not to serve under the ordinary officers ‘sed cum suo archiductore, videlicet episcopo, qui eos defendere et protegere debet ab omni perturbatione et inquietudine.’ This would settle the question, could we be certain that the words ‘videlicet episcopo’ were not the gloss of a forger who was improving an ancient instrument. For our present purpose, however, it is no very important question whether the archiductor, the commander in chief of these tenants, is the bishop himself or an officer of his.
[1071] Ibid.: ‘praevaricationis delictum secundum quod praesulis ius est emendet.’
[1072] D. B. 174. Compare the entry on f. 175 b relating to the church-scot of Pershore.
[1073] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 217. See also D. B. i. 165 b, Hinetune.
[1074] Heming, i. 81: ‘Edricus qui fuit, tempore regis Edwardi, stermannus navis episcopi et ductor exercitus eiusdem episcopi ad servitium regis.’ D. B. i. 173 b: ‘Edricus stirman’ held five hides of the bishop.
[1075] Heming, i. 77: ‘Et [episcopus] deracionavit socam et sacam de Hamtona ad suum hundred de Oswaldes lawe, quod ibi debent placitare et geldum et expeditionem ... persolvere.’
[1076] Maitland, Northumbrian Tenures, Eng. Hist. Rev. v. 625.
[1077] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 288.
[1078] In this respect Oswald’s leases seem to have closely resembled a form of lease, known as manusfirma, which became common in the France of the eleventh century: Lamprecht, Beiträge zur Geschichte des französischen Wirthschaftslebens, pp. 59, 60.
[1079] Heming, i. 259: ‘Ac primo videndum quae terrae trium heredum temporibus accommodatae sint, post quorum decessum iuri monasterii redderentur, quaeve postea iuxta hanc conventionem redditae, quaeve iniuste sunt retentae, sive ipsorum, qui eas exigere deberent, negligentia, sive denegatae sint iniquorum hominum potentia.’ See also the story told by Heming on p. 264.
[1080] Lamprecht, op. cit. p. 61, says that it was quite uncommon for the French landlord to get back his land if once he let it for three lives. One of the Worcester leases, but one stigmatized by Kemble (ii. 152), is a lease for three lives ‘nisi haeredes illius tempus prolixius a pontifice sedis illius adipisci poterint.’
[1081] K. 637 (iii. 194): ‘si in viduitate manere decreverit, vel magis nubere voluerit, ei tamen viro qui episcopali dignitati supradictae aecclesiae sit subiectus.’
[1082] D. B. i. 173: ‘Hanc terram tenuit Sirof de episcopo T. R. E., quo mortuo dedit episcopus filiam eius cum hac terra cuidam suo militi, qui et matrem pasceret et episcopo inde serviret.’
[1083] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 214.
[1085] D. B. i. 172 b: ‘Hae praedictae ccc. hidae fuerunt de ipso dominio aecclesiae, et si quid de ipsis cuicunque homini quolibet modo attributum vel praestitum fuisset ad serviendum inde episcopo, ille qui eam terram praestitam sibi tenebat nullam omnino consuetudinem sibimet inde retinere poterat nisi per episcopum, neque terram retinere nisi usque ad impletum tempus quod ipsi inter se constituerant, et nusquam cum ea terra se vertere poterat ... Kenewardus tenuit et deserviebat sicut episcopus volebat ... Ricardus tenuit ad servitium quod episcopus voluit ... Godricus tenuit serviens inde episcopo ut poterat deprecari ... Godricus tenuit ad voluntatem episcopi.’
[1086] D. B. 173 b.
[1087] Oswald’s tenants closely resemble the ministeriales of foreign bishops; see Waitz, Verfassungsgeschichte, v. 283–350. Oswald’s lex equitandi may be compared with what is said (ibid. p. 293) of a bishop of Constance: ‘quibus omnibus hoc ius constituit, ut cum abbate equitarent eique domi forisque ministrarent, equos suos tam abbati quam fratribus suis quocumque necesse esset praestarent, monasterium pro posse suo defensarent.’
[1088] Kemble, Saxons, i. 310 ff.; K. Maurer, Krit. Ueb. i. 104; Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, No. ii. (Lodge); Brunner, Geschichte d. röm. u. germ. Urkunde, 182.
[1089] K. 617 (iii. 164).
[1090] K. 651 (iii. 216).
[1091] K. 679 (iii. 258).
[1092] K. 1287 (vi. 125): ‘propter beneficium quod eis praestitum est.’ D. B. i. 173 b. It may cross the reader’s mind that the leases of which Oswald speaks in his letter to Edgar are not the transactions recorded in the charters that have come down to us, but other and unwritten leases. But Domesday Book and the stories told by Heming make against this explanation.
[1093] Æthelr. I. 1, § 14.
[1094] Cnut, II. 13, 77.
[1095] K. 328 (ii. 133): A certain Helmstan is guilty of theft ‘and mon gerehte ðæt yrfe cinge forðon he wes cinges mon and Ordlaf feng to his londe forðan hit wæs his læn ðæt he on sæt.’
[1096] K. 330 (ii. 136).
[1097] K. 414 (ii. 273): conveyance by Wulfric with the king’s consent.—K. 491 (ii. 379): conveyance by Wulfstan with consent of king and witan, who execute the deed.—K. 690–1 (iii. 286–8): conveyances by Æscwig executed by king and witan.—K. 1124, 1130 (v. 246–54): conveyances confirmed by king and bishops.—K. 1201 (v. 378): exchange with king’s consent.—K. 1226 (vi. 25): conveyance by a thegn reciting king’s consent. A few documents we must leave unclassified; K. 499, 591, 693; we do not know how they were executed or what was their evidential value.
[1098] Brunner, Geschichte d. röm. u. germ. Urkunde, p. 175.
[1099] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 212.
[1100] K. 843 (iv. 201): ‘swa full and swa forð swa Ðurstan min huskarll hit furmest of me heold.’—K. 846 (iv. 205): ‘swa full and swa forð swa Sweyn mi may hit formest of me held.’—K. 826 (iv. 190): ‘swa Ælfwin sy nunne it heold of ðan minstre.’—K. 827 (iv. 190): ‘swa Sihtric eorll of ðan minstre þeowlic it heold.’ If K. 1237 (vi. 44) be genuine (and Kemble has not condemned it) then already in the middle of the tenth century ‘Goda princeps tenuit terram de rege,’ nor only so, ‘tenuit honorem de rege’; but this document is unacceptable. At best it may be a late Latin translation of an English original.
[1101] K. 313 (ii. 110); T. 129; B. ii. 172.
[1102] In many cases the one night’s farm is reckoned at £100 or thereabouts; Round, Feudal England, 112.
[1103] K. 477 (ii. 354); T. 509.
[1104] Vinogradoff, Villainage, 301.
[1105] Even T. R. W. and in a thoroughly manorial county such as Hampshire we may find a village in which the lord has no demesne. See e.g. D. B. i. 41 b, Alwarestoch.
[1106] Hist. Eng. Law, ii. 315
[1107] Ine, 67. See Schmid’s note.
[1109] See Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Germanen, ii. 97 ff.
[1110] Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 223.
[1111] The subject is treated at length by Kemble, Saxons, ii. 490 and App. D, and Schmid, p. 545.
[1112] D. B. i. 174. Compare Ine, 4; Æthelr. VIII. 11; Cnut, I. 10.
[1113] Hist. Eng. Law, ii. 95.
[1114] Æthelred, III. 3; Schmid, App. II. 67 and Schmid, Glossar, s. v. land-ceáp.
[1115] See above, pp. 55, 122, 125.
[1116] See above, p. 6. In a charter of Æthelred, K. 689 (iii. 284), Abp. Sigeric, the reputed inventor of the danegeld, is represented as pledging a village of thirty manses in order that he may pay the money demanded by the pirates. He thus raises 90 pounds of purest silver and 200 mancuses of purest gold. If the mancus was the eighth of a pound (Schmid, p. 595) we have 90 pounds of silver and 25 of gold, or in all perhaps £390. The whole danegeld of Kent under Henry II. was less than £106. For other transactions of a similar kind, see Crawford Charters, 76.
[1118] Hist. Eng. Law, i. p. 416.
[1119] K. 1327 (iv. 190): ‘swa full and swa forð swa Sihtric eorll of ðan ministre þeowlic it heold.’
[1120] Cnut, II. 20.
[1121] Hist. Eng. Law, ii. p. 458.
[1122] Chron. Petrob. 166: ‘Sunt etiam in eadem scira 15 undersetes qui nullum servicium faciunt nisi husbondis in quorum terra sedent.’
[1124] Schmid, App. III. p. 370; Seebohm, English Village Community, p. 129. See also Liebermann’s article in Anglia, ix. 251, where the Gerefa, which seems to be a second part of this document, is printed.
[1125] We here adopt Schmid’s conjecture: ‘and scorp to friðscipe [corr. fyrdscipe].’
[1126] Ibid.: ‘and hlaford feormian,’ and supply a feorm (firma) for his lord.
[1127] The text says that he must lie at his lord’s fold; but probably it refers to the soca faldae. See above, p. 76.
[1128] Of the serfs we hear (c. 8, 9) what they are to receive, but not what they ought to do; their services are unlimited.
[1129] Schmid, p. 596: Maurer, K. U. ii. 405.
[1130] See above, p. 305, also Maurer, K. U. ii. 406.
[1131] He is to ‘work’ for his lord; but then see how Oswald speaks of his knights and radmen: ‘semper illius ... dominatui et voluntati ... cum omni humilitate et subiectione subditi fiant secundum ipsius voluntatem.’ Cf. D. B. i. 172 b: ‘deserviebat sicut episcopus volebat’ ... ‘tenuit ad servitium quod episcopus voluit.’ The translator who turned him into a villanus was capable of turning the king’s geneat of Ine’s law into a colonus, a colonus with a wergild of 1200 shillings! See Schmid, p. 29.
[1133] See e.g. cap. i., where it is pretty clear that he can not translate scorp. So in the Latin version of Edgar II. c. 1 he renders geneatland by terra villanorum. But about such a matter as this the testimony of the Quadripartitus is of no value. See Liebermann, Gerefa, Anglia, ix. 258.
[1134] Mr Seebohm, p. 130, commits what seems to me the mistake of saying that the cottiers and boors are ‘various classes of geneats.’ To my thinking a great contrast is drawn between the geneat and the gebúr both in this document and in the account of Tidenham. So in Edgar II. c. 1 the contrast is between land which the great man has in hand and land which he has let to his ‘fellows,’ his equites and ministri. See Konrad Maurer, K. U. ii. 405–6. Such words as gebúr and burus are obviously very loose words and it is likely that many a man who answered to the description of the gebúr given by the Rectitudines appears in Domesday Book, which in general cares only about fiscal distinctions, as a villanus or bordarius. But we have clear proof that the surveyors saw a class of buri ( = coliberti) who were distinct from the ordinary villani. See above, p. 36.
[1135] K. 452 (ii. 327). See also Two Chartularies of Bath Abbey (Somerset Record Society), pp. 5, 18, 19.
[1136] K. iii. 449; E. 375: Seebohm, 148. Both documents come from MS. C.C.C. Camb. cxi. The conveyance is on f. 57, the statement of services on f. 73. The statement of services immediately precedes the lease of Tidenham to Stigand, K. 822 (iv. 171). Thus we have really better reason for referring that statement to the very eve of the Norman Conquest than to 956. See also Kemble, Saxons, i. 321, and Maurer, K. U. ii. 406.
[1137] K. 1077 (v. 146; iv. 306); T. 143; Kemble, Saxons, i. 319; Seebohm, 160. But the form of the instrument as given in the Codex Wintoniensis is best seen in B. ii. 240. We have quoted above the estimate of this Codex formed by Mr Haddan and Dr Stubbs (Councils, iii. 638).
[1138] B. ii. 238.
[1139] B. ii. 239.
[1141] Ine, 67.
[1142] Ine, 39. The man who leaves his lord (not his lord’s land, but his lord) without license, or steals himself away into another shire, is to pay 60 shillings (no trivial sum) to his lord.
[1143] Surely the law, Hloth. and Ead. c. 15, which begins ‘If a man receive a guest three nights in his own home (an his agenum hame)’ is not directed only against the lords of manors. See Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen, ii. 123.
[1144] Ashley, Translation of Fustel de Coulanges, Origin of Property, p. xvi.
[1145] K. 220 (i. 280): ‘ad regalem villam Lundoniae perveniens.’
[1146] Fustel de Coulanges, L’Alleu, ch. vi. There is much to be said on the other side; see Flach, Les origines de l’ancienne France, ii. pp. 47–62. As to the villa of the Lex Salica, see Blumenstok, Entstehung des deutschen Immobiliareigenthums, i. 219 ff.
[1147] The suggestion that villa appears in some of our place-names as the termination -well runs counter, so Mr Stevenson tells me, to rules of phonology.
[1148] See Bosworth’s Dictionary; Kemble, Cod. Dipl. iii. p. xli. In the translation of St. Mark viii. 23, 26 both wíc and tun are used as equivalents for vicus:—‘eduxit eum extra vicum ... et si in vicum introieris’ = ‘and lædde hine butan þa wic ... and ðeah þu on tun ga.’ Even in France the word vicus becomes part of numerous place-names: see Flach, op. cit. i. p. 53.
[1149] There is something curious about the use made of wick. It is often used to distinguish a hamlet or small cluster of houses separate from the main village. Thus in the parish of X we shall find X-wick. The berewicks and herdwicks of D. B. (see above, p. 114) seem to be small clusters. On the other hand London is a wíc; Hloth. and Ead. 16.
[1150] K. 1041 (v. 88): ‘in Dorobernia etiam civitate unam villam donabo ad quam pertinet quinque iugera terrae et duo prata.’ K. 276 (ii. 57): ‘dabo unam villam, quod nos Saxonice an haga dicimus.’ K. 259 (ii. 26): ‘villam unam ab orientale parte muri Doroverniae civitatis.’
[1151] K. 829 (iv. 191).
[1152] K. 845 (iv. 204). In a passage which has been interpolated into one copy of the A.-S. Chronicle (Thorpe, p. 220) we read ‘And se biscop ... bohte þa feala cotlif æt se king.’
[1153] Crawford Charters, pp. 22, 125; K. 1293 (vi. 138).
[1154] Thus K. 109 (i. 133): ‘villam unam ... quae iam ad Quenegatum urbis Dorovernensis in foro posita est.‘ It is not denied that in some quite early charters a king gives a villa or villula, e.g. K. 209 (i. 264): ‘Heallingan cum villulis suis’; see also K. 140 (i. 169), in which villula and viculus are used as synonyms.
[1155] A good example is that abominable forgery K. 984 (v. 2), Wulfhere’s charter for Peterborough.
[1156] For example, K. 117–8–20 (i. 144–7).
[1157] One of the earliest instances of what looks like manorial organization will be found in K. 201 (i. 253); B. i. 485. In 814 Cenwulf gives to the Abp. of Canterbury a plough-land: ‘et hoc aratrum cum omnibus utensilibus bonis ad mansionem in grafon æa [Graveney] æternaliter concessum est.’
[1158] A.D. 880, K. 311 (ii. 107): ‘Insuper etiam huic donationi in augmentum sex homines, qui prius pertinebant ad villam regiam in Beonsinctune, cum omni prole stirpeque eorum ad eandem conscripsimus aecclesiam.’ A.D. 889, K. 315 (ii. 117): ‘cum hominibus ad illam pertinentibus.’ A.D. 962, K. 1239 (vi. 49): ‘vineam ... cum vinitoribus.’ In late documents penned in English it is common to convey land ‘with meat and with man.’ Instances are collected in Crawford Charters, 127.
[1159] Therefore we sometimes meet with the form cassata, while manens is treated as a feminine word; K. i. 301; B. i. 573: ‘has x. manentes ... dividendas dimisit.’ So Asser (ed. Camden, p. 4) says that Æthelwulf ordered that one poor man should be fed and clothed ‘per omnem hereditariam terram suam semper in x. manentibus.’
[1160] K. 1033 (v. 73): ‘aliquam portionem terrae ... in modum videlicet ut autumo v. cassatorum.’ K. 1308 (v. 83): ‘aliquam portionem terrae ... in modum videlicet ut autumo xx. manentium.’ K. 565 (iii. 64): ‘quoddam ruris clima sub aestimatione decem cassatorum.’ K. 573 (iii. 87): ‘ruris quandam particulam, denis ab accolis aestimatam mansiunculis.’ K. 602 (iii. 146): ‘quoddam rus x. videlicet mansarum quantitate taxatum.’
[1161] Let us open the Cod. Dipl. at the beginning of Edmund’s reign (ii. 218). The number of manses given in twenty-five consecutive charters is as follows: 10, 20, 10, 10, 9, 10, 15, 7, 8, 20, 10, 3, 5, 20, 30, 3, 6, 5, 3, 7, 20, 20, 5, 8, 5.
[1162] It seems almost necessary to protest that to-day our landowners are not semi-servile occupants of the soil, though they pay land taxes, house taxes, income taxes and rates innumerable.
[1163] I can not but think that Fustel de Coulanges knew his business thoroughly well, and that if the German is to be taught his proper and insignificant place, the less that is said of intermixed ‘strip-holding’ the better, though to ignore it utterly was, even in France, a bold course.
[1164] Meitzen, op. cit. i. 431–41.
[1166] This seems to me the net outcome of the long and interesting controversy which has divided the Germanists as to the nature of the German Genossenschaft.
[1167] This is no extravagant hypothesis. See e.g. Stat. 7 Hen. VIII. c. 1 Thacte advoidyng pullyng downe of townes.
[1168] See Army Act, 1881, 44 and 45 Vic. c. 58, sec. 115.
[1169] Flach, Les origines de l’ancienne France, ii. 45, referring to the classical passages in Cæsar and Tacitus, says: ‘Ce serait un abus de mots de dire que la tribu ou que le clan sont propriétaires. La tribu (civitas) a la souveraineté du territoire, les clans de leurs subdivisions ont l’usage des parts qui leur sont assignées. La conception même de la propriété est exclue par la nature des terres: étendue de friches toujours renaissantes et en surabondance toujours: superest ager.’ See also Dargun, Ursprung des Eigenthums, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, v. 55.
[1170] Dargun, Ursprung des Eigenthums, Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, v. 1 (1884). See also Hildebrand, Recht und Sitte, Jena, 1896.
[1171] In the A.-S. laws about tithes there is really no hint of communalism. When a landowner has ploughed his tenth acre, he is to assign that acre, or rather the crop that it will bear next year, to the church. That is all; and though it may be a rude plan, it is compatible with the most absolute individualism. Mr Seebohm, Village Community, 114, however, seems to think otherwise. As to the Welsh laws, we beg an enormous question if we introduce them into this context. A distribution of acres when the ploughing is done is just what we do not see in England.
[1172] As to the famous words of Tacitus ‘Agri pro numero cultorum ab uniuersis in uices [al. inuicem] occupantur’ and the proposal to read uniuersis vicis, one of the best suggestions yet made (Meitzen, Siedelung, iii. 586) is that Tacitus wrote merely ab uniuersis occupantur, that a copyist repeated the word uniuersis, and that other copyists tried to make sense of nonsense.
[1173] As to the state of things represented by the Lex Salica see Blumenstok, Entstehung des deutschen Immobiliareigenthums, Innsbruck, 1894, pp. 196 ff.
[1174] Hist. Eng. Law, ii. 155. It may be convenient now-a-days to say that ownership implies a power of alienation. See Pollock, Jurisprudence, 166. But to insist on this usage in such discussions as that in which we are engaged would lead to needless circumlocution. The question that is before us is whether as a complaint to which a court of law will give audience ‘This acre is mine’ is more modern than ‘This acre is ours.’
[1175] As to the whole of this matter see Meitzen, op. cit., especially iii. 574–589. As regards arable land in this country the only ‘survivals’ which point to anything that should be called communal ownership are singularly inconclusive. They relate to small patches of arable land held by burgesses: that is to say, they relate to places in which a strong communal sentiment was developed during the later middle ages, and they do not relate to communities that ought to be called agricultural. The ‘burgess plot’ is not large enough to have been any man’s livelihood when cultivated in medieval fashion, and it may well be modern. It is demonstrable that in one case a very ‘archaic’ arrangement was deliberately adopted in the nineteenth century by burgesses who preferred ‘allotment grounds’ to pasture rights. Maitland, Survival of Archaic Communities, Law Quarterly Review, ix. 36.
[1176] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 610–12.
[1177] Hist. Eng. Law, ii. 238. A hypothetical practice of endogamy will hardly give us the requisite explanation, for on the whole the church seems to have encountered little difficulty in imposing its extravagantly exogamous canons. To persuade the converts not to marry their affines was a much harder task.
[1178] Heusler, Institutionen, 229.
[1179] As to the ownership of land by ‘families,’ see Hist. Eng. Law, ii. 242.
[1181] Of this in the next essay.
[1182] A valuable and interesting discussion of the proprietary system of the Lex Salica will be found in Blumenstok, Entstehung des deutschen Immobiliareigenthums, Innsbruck, 1894. This will serve as a good introduction to the large literature which surrounds the De migrantibus. The least probable of all interpretations seems that given by Fustel de Coulanges.
[1183] See Meitzen, op. cit. i. 526–35.
[1184] Meitzen, i. 517 and the Maps 66 a, 66 b in the Atlas.
[1185] Meitzen, ii. 97–122.
[1188] Throughout the historical time, so far as we know, the right of every commoner has been well protected against strangers. He might drive off the stranger’s beasts, impound them, and, at all events if he had been incommoded, might sue for damages. See Marys’s case, 9 Coke’s Reports, 111 b; Wells v. Watling, 2 W. Blackstone’s Reports, 1233. He needed no help from his neighbours.
[1189] See above, pp. 13, 124.
[1190] I refer to the much discussed case of Aston and Cote. See Law Quarterly Review, ix. 214.
[1191] Meitzen, op. cit. i. 573.
[1192] Ibid. i. 122–60.
[1193] Therefore its assembly is a Holtding, and a Holzgraf presides there: Meitzen, op. cit. i. 125.
[1194] D. B. ii. 339 b: ‘In hundret de Coleness est quedam pastura communis omnibus hominibus de hundret.’ At Rhuddlan (D. B. i. 269) Earl Hugh has given to Robert half the castle, half the burg, and ‘half of the forests which do not pertain to any vill of the said manor.’ This, however, is in Wales.
[1195] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 608.
[1196] Ibid. i. 547.
[1197] Blomefield, Hist. Norfolk, iv. 691 gives an account of an extremely fertile tract of pasture known as Tilney Smeeth upon which the cattle of seven ‘towns’ intercommoned.
[1198] If we are right in supposing that very generally a royal land-book disposes of a whole village, then if it proceeds to give rights in the communis silva, it is probably speaking of a wood that is not regarded as annexed to that village but of one which is common to various villages. The intercommoning of vills in a forest is illustrated by the famous Epping case, Commissioners of Sewers v. Glasse, Law Reports, 19 Equity, 134. But for the king’s rights in forest land, a ‘mark community’ might have grown up in Epping. On the other hand, but for the king’s rights, the land might long ago have been partitioned among the mark-men.
[1199] The word tenement will be often employed hereafter. Has it become needful to protest that a tenement need not be a house? If my body is my soul’s ‘frail tenement,’ that is not because my body holds my soul (a reprobate error), but because (for this is better philosophy and sound law) my soul holds my body. But, to descend from these heights, it will be a thousand pities if a vulgar blunder compels us to abandon the excellent tenement in favour of the feeble holding or the over-worked estate.
[1200] Hist. Eccl. lib. 4, c. 21 (23), ed. Plummer, i. 253.
[1201] Ibid. lib. 3, c. 24, ed. cit. i. 178.
[1202] Ibid. lib. 4, c. 13, ed. cit. i. 230.
[1203] Ibid. lib. 4, c. 14 (16), ed. cit. i. 237.
[1204] Ibid. lib. 1, c. 25, ed. cit. i. 45.
[1206] If, as Mr Seebohm suggests (Village Community, p. 398), this word meant the skin of an ox, some one would assuredly have Latined it by corium, and not by terra unius familiae (manentis etc.)
[1206] Schmid, App. VII. (Wergilds), 2, § 7. By comparing this with Ine 32 we get an even more explicit equation: ‘Gif Wylisc mon hæbbe hide londes’ = ‘Gif Wilisc mon geþeo þæt he hæbbe hiwisc landes.’
[1207] K. 271 (ii. 52), a forgery: ‘æt Cemele tien hyda, æt Domeccesige þriddehalf hiwisce.’—K. 1077 (v. 146): ‘æt hilcan hiwisce feowerti penega.’—K. iii. 431: ‘ðæs anes hiwisces boc ... ðas oðres hiwisces.’—K. 1050 (v. 98). See also Crawford Charters, 127, for hiwscipe.
[1208] K. 1006 (v. 47): ‘de terra iuris mei aliquantulam portionem, iuxta mensuram scilicet decem familiarum.’ See also K. 1007.
[1209] The would-be Latin hida occurs already in K. 230 (i. 297), but is rare before the Conquest. On the other hand, as an English word híd is in constant use.
[1210] K. 131 (i. 159); K. 140 (i. 169).
[1211] Thus, to give one early example, K. 1008 (v. 49): ‘duodecim tributarios terrae quae appellantur Ferrinig.’ So in K. 124 (i. 151) we have the neuter form manentia.
[1212] A good instance in Egbert’s Dialogue, H. & S. iii. 404. For how many hides may the clergy swear? A priest may swear ‘secundum numerum 120 tributariorum’; a deacon ‘iuxta numerum 60 manentium’; a monk ‘secundum numerum 30 tributariorum.’ Here tributarii alternates with manentes for the same reason that secundum alternates with iuxta. So K. 143 (i. 173): ‘manentes ... casati ... manentes ... casati.’
[1213] See Schmid, p. 611.
[1214] See, for instance, Werhard’s testament (A.D. 832), K. 230 (i. 297): ‘Otteford 100 hidas, Grauenea 32 hidas.’ These are Kentish estates. Hereafter we shall give some reasons for thinking that the Kentish sullung may have a history that is all its own.
[1215] Mr Seebohm, Village Community, p. 395, admits that the familia of Bede and the casatum of the charters is the hide, and that the hide has 120 acres. This does not prevent him from holding (p. 266) that when Bede speaks of king Oswy giving to a church twelve possessiunculae, each of ten families, we must see decuriae of slaves, ‘the bundle of ten slaves or semi-servile tenants.’ He seems also to think that while the hide was ‘the holding of the full free landholder,’ the hiwisc was the holding of a servile family. But the passage which he cites in a note (Wergilds, § 7) seems to disprove this, for there undoubtedly, as he remarks, hiwisc=hide. It is the passage quoted above on p. 359. The Welshman gets a wergild of 120 shillings (three-fifths of an English ceorl’s wergild) by acquiring a hiwisc or (Ine 32) hide of land. Why the hide should not here mean what it admittedly means elsewhere is not apparent.
[1216] Though Eyton has (for some reason that we can not find in his published works) allowed but 48 ‘gheld acres’ to the ‘gheld hide,’ he can hardly be reckoned as an advocate of the Small Hide. His doctrine, if we have caught it, is that the hide has never been a measure of size. This raises the question—How comes it then that the fractions into which a hide breaks are indubitably called (gheld) ‘acres’? Why not ounces, pints, pence?
[1217] D. B. ii. 47 b.
[1218] Ibid. 61.
[1219] Ibid. 64.
[1220] Ibid. 65.
[1221] Ibid. 69 b.
[1223] For this reason I do not feel sure that Mr F. Baring (Eng. Hist. Rev. xi. 98) has conclusively proved his case when he accuses D. B. of omitting to notice the free tenants on the estates of the Abbey of Burton.
[1224] The antiquity and universality of the balk must not be taken for granted; see Meitzen, op. cit. i. 86; iii. 319. However, in recent times balks did occur within the shots (this Meitzen seems to doubt) as may be seen to-day at Upton St. Leonards, Co. Gloucester. Mr Seebohm, op. cit. 4, 382, claims the word balk for the Welsh; but see New Eng. Dict. and Skeat, Etymol. Dict. In this, as in many another case, the Welsh claim to an English word has broken down.
[1225] A.-S. Chron. ad ann. 1043. Henry of Huntingdon, p. 192, took the sestar of this passage to be a horse-load. Even if we accept his version, the price would be high when compared with the prices recorded on the Pipe Rolls of Henry II.; for which see Hall, Court Life, 219, 220. But, though the point can not be argued here, we may strongly suspect that the chronicler meant something that is almost infinitely worse, and that his sestar was at the very least as small as our bushel. We know of no English document which suggests a sextarius that would be comparable with a horse-load.
[1226] Geatfled’s will, K. 925 (iv. 263).
[1228] Observe the clumsy nomenclature illustrated by K. 816 (iv. 164), a deed forged for the Confessor:—‘Middletun et oðer Middletun ... Horningdun et oðer Horningdun ... Fifehyda et oðer Fifehyda.’
[1229] See in this context the interesting letter of Bp. Denewulf to Edward the Elder, K. 1089 (v. 166). An estate of 72 hides, a very large estate, came to the bishop almost waste. He prides himself on having now tilled 90 acres!
[1230] A good programme of this system is given by Cunningham, Growth of English Industry, i. 71.
[1231] Rectitudines, 4, § 3; Seebohm, Village Community, 141. Mr Seebohm’s inference is ingenious and plausible. See also Andrews, Old English Manor, 218.
[1232] K. 259 (ii. 26), A.D. 845: Gift of 19 acres near the city of Canterbury, 6 acres in one place, 6 in another, 7 in a third.
[1233] K. 241 (ii. 1), A.D. 839: Gift of 24 acres, 10 in one place, 14 in another.—K. 339 (ii. 149), A.D. 904: Gift of 60 acres of arable to the south and 60 to the north of a certain stream.—K. 586 (iii. 118): ‘and 30 æcra on ðæm twæm feldan dallandes.’
[1234] See e.g. Glastonbury Rentalia (Somerset Record Soc.) pp. 14, 15, 55, 67, 89, 119, 128–9, 137–8, 155, 166, 192, 195, 208, 219. A system which leaves half the land idle in every year is of course quite compatible with the growth of both winter and spring corn. When, as is not uncommon, the villeins have to do between Michaelmas and Christmas twice as much ploughing as they will do between Christmas and Lady Day, this seems to point to a scheme which leaves one field idle and divides the other between winter and spring corn in the proportion of 2:1. Even in the fourteenth century a three-field system seems to have been regarded in some places as ‘high farming.’ Larking, Domesday of Kent, App. p. 23: Extent of Addington, A.D. 1361: ‘Et sunt ibidem 60 acrae terrae arabilis, de quibus duae partes possunt seminari per annum, si bene coluntur.’ For evidence of the three-field system, see Nasse, Agricultural Community, Engl. transl. 53.
[1235] Meitzen, op. cit. ii. 592.
[1236] Turton, Forest of Pickering (North Riding Record Society), 148 ff. Twenty years ago A. E. enclosed an acre; sown eight times with spring corn; value of a sown acre 1s., of an unsown, 4d. Twenty-two years ago E. C. enclosed a rood; sown seven times with oats, value 6d. a year; value, when unsown, 1d. a year. In the same book are many instances of a husbandry which alternates oats with hay.
[1237] Scrutton, Commons and Common Fields, 118, citing a Report to the Board of Agriculture.
[1238] Ine, 63–68, 70. See above, p. 238.
[1239] A very fine instance is found on the north coast of Norfolk:—Burnham Deepdale, B. Norton, B. Westgate, B. Sutton, B. Thorpe, B. Overy. As to this see Stevenson, E. H. R. xi. 304.
[1240] Index Map of Ordnance Survey of Norfolk. Six inch Map of Norfolk, LVI. Another instance occurs near Yarmouth along the banks of the Waveney. Even if the allotment was the result of modern schemes of drainage, it still might be a satisfaction of very ancient claims.
[1242] Fines (ed. Hunter) i. 242: ‘sex acras terrae mensuratas per legalem perticam eiusdem villae [de Haveresham].’
[1243] Acts of Parliament of Scotland, i. 309.
[1244] Schmid, Gesetze, App. XII.: ‘three feet and three hand breadths and three barley corns.’
[1245] Acts of Parliament of Scotland, i. 309. Compare Statutes of the Realm, i. 206: ‘Tria grana ordei sicca et rotunda faciunt pollicem.’ This so-called Statute of Admeasurement has not been traced to any authoritative source. Probably, like many of the documents with which it is associated, it is a mere note which lawyers copied into their statute books.
[1246] Hoveden, iv. 33: ‘et ulna sit ferrea.’
[1247] Britton, ii. 189.
[1248] Magna Carta is careful of wine, beer, corn and cloth; not of land.
[1249] Gloucester Corporation Records, ed. Stevenson, p. 80. Near the year 1200 a grant is made of land in Gloucester measuring in breadth 30 feet ‘iuxta ferratam virgam Regis.’ Ducange, s. v. ulna, gives examples from the Monasticon. The iron rod was an iron ell. Were standard perches ever made and distributed? Apparently the only measure of length of which any standard was made was the ulna or cloth-yard.
[1250] See the apocryphal Statute of Admeasurement, Stat., vol. i. p. 206.
[1251] If the jurors had superficial measure in their heads and were stating this by reference to two straight lines, they would make the length of one of these lines a constant (e.g. one league or one furlong). This is not done: the space is 6 furlongs in length by 3 in breadth, 14 furlongs in length by 4 in breadth, 9 furlongs and 1 perch in length by 5 furlongs and 2 perches in breadth (instances from Norfolk) or the like. They are endeavouring to indicate shape as well as size. See the method of measurement adopted in K. 594 (iii. 129): ‘and ðær ðæt land unbradest is ðer hit sceol beon eahtatyne fota brad.’
[1252] The league of 12 furlongs has dropped out of modern usage; it is very prominent in D. B., where miles, though not unknown, are rare.
[1253] Our foot is ·30479 meters. Our perch is very close to 5 meters. Our acre 40·467 ares. A hide of 120 acres would be 48·56 hectares.
[1254] Statutes of the Realm, i. 206: ‘Tres pedes faciunt ulnam.’ Though this equation gets established, the ulna or cloth-yard seems to start by being an arm’s length. See the story that Henry I. made his own arm a standard: Will. Malmesb. Gesta Regum., ii. 487. Britton, i. 189, tells us that the aune contains two cubits and two thumbs (inches). Our yard seems too long to be a step.
[1255] Second Report of Commissioners for Weights and Measures, Parliamentary Papers, 1820, Reports, vol. vii.