CHAPTER XI.
_RESULT OF THE EVIDENCE._
I. THE METHOD OF THE ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS.
It may perhaps now be possible to sum up the evidence, without pretending to more certainty in the conclusion than the condition of the question warrants.
«The tribal system in Wales and Germany.»
At the two extreme limits of our subject we have found, on one side, the tribal system of Wales and Ireland, and, on the other side, the German tribal system.
In the earliest stage of these systems they were seemingly alike, both in the nomadic habits of the tribes, and the shifting about of the households in a tribe from one homestead to another. Sir John Davis describes this shifting as going on in Ireland in his day, and Cæsar describes it as going on in Germany 1,700 years earlier.
«Co-aration of the waste on the early open-field system.»
In both cases, such agriculture as was a necessity even to pastoral tribes was carried on under the open-field system in its simplest form--the ploughing up of new ground each season, which then went back into grass. The Welsh triads speak of it as a [p413] _co-aration_ of portions of _the waste_. Tacitus describes it in the words, 'Arva per annos mutant, et superest ager.' In neither case, therefore, is there _the three-field system_, which implies fixed arable fields ploughed again and again in rotation.
«The three-field system implies fixed settlements and rotation of crops, which came probably with Roman rule. The yard-land or hub implies servile tenants.»
The three-field system evidently implies the surrender of the tribal shifting and the submission to fixed settlement. Further, as wherever we can examine the three-field system we find the mass of the holdings to have been fixed bundles, called _yard-lands_ or _huben_--bundles retaining the same contents from generation to generation--it seems to follow either that the tribal division of holdings among heirs, which was the mark of free holdings, had ceased, _or_ that the three-field system was from the first the shell of a community in serfdom.
The geographical distribution of the three-field system--mainly within the old Roman provinces and in the Suevic districts along their borders--makes it almost certain that, in Germany, _Roman rule_ was the influence which enforced the settlement, and introduced, with other improvements in agriculture, such as the vine culture, a fixed rotation of crops.
In Wales the necessity for settlement did _not_ generally produce the three-field system _with holdings in yard-lands_,[630] because, as the Welsh tribesmen, though they may have had household slaves, as a rule held no taeogs or prædial slaves, it produced no serfdom. But under the German tribal system, even in the time of Tacitus, the tribesmen in the [p414] semi-Romanised districts, at all events, already had prædial slaves.
«The Roman villa another factor and grew into the manor.»
The manorial system, however, was not simply a development from the tribal system of the Germans; it had evidently a complex origin. A Roman element also seems to have entered into its composition.
The Roman _villa_, to begin with, a slave-worked estate, during the later empire, whether from German influence or not, became still more like a manor by the addition of _coloni_ and other mostly barbarian semi-servile tenants to the slaves.
There may have been once free village communities on the 'ager publicus,' but, as we have seen, the management of the public lands under the fiscal officers of the Emperor also tended during the later Empire to become more and more manorial in its character, so much so that the word 'villa' could apparently sometimes be applied to the fiscal district.
«Roman and German elements combined.»
Whichever of the two factors--Roman or German--contributed most to the mediæval manor, the manorial estate became the predominant form of land ownership in what had once been Roman provinces. And the German successors of Roman lords of villas became in their turn manorial lords of manors; whilst the 'coloni,' 'liti,' and 'tributarii' upon them, wherever they remained upon the same ground, apparently became, with scarcely a visible change, a community of serfs.
«Both 'ager publicus' and 'terra regis' manorial.»
On the other hand, the fact that the _terra regis_ also was divided under Saxon and Frankish kings into _manors_ probably was the natural result of the growing manorial management of the public lands under the fiscal officers of the Emperor during the later Empire, [p415] quickened or completed after the barbarian conquests. The fiscal districts seem to have become in fact royal manors, and the free 'coloni,' 'liti,' and 'servi' upon them appear as manorial tenants of different grades in the earliest grants to the monasteries.
The fact that as early as the time of Tacitus, the German chieftains and tribesmen were in their own country lords of serfs, in itself explains the ease with which they assumed the position of lords of manors on the conquest of the provinces.
The result of conquest seems thus to have been chiefly a change of lordship, both as regards the private villas and the public lands. The conquered districts seem to have become in a wholesale way practically _terra regis_. There is no evidence that the modes of agriculture on the one hand or the modes of management on the other hand were materially changed. The conquering king would probably at once put followers of his own into the place of the Roman fiscal officers. These would become _quasi_-lords of the royal manors on the _terra regis_. Then by degrees would naturally arise the process whereby under lavish royal grants manors were handed one after another into the private ownership of churches and monasteries and favourites of the king, thus honey-combing the _terra regis_ with private manors.
This seems to have been what happened in the Frankish provinces, and in the Alamannic and Bavarian districts, where the process can be most clearly traced. And the result seems to have been the almost universal prevalence of the manorial system in these districts. Even the towns came to be regarded as in the demesne of the king. And [p416] gradually manorial lordship extended itself over the free tenants as well as over the various semi-servile classes who were afterwards confused together in the general class of serfs.
The community of serfs was fed from above and from below. Free 'coloni,' by their own voluntary surrender, and free tribesmen, perhaps upon conquest or gradually by the force of long usage, sank into serfs. Slaves, on the other hand, by their lord's favour, or to meet the needs of agriculture, were supplied with an outfit of oxen and rose out of slavery into serfdom.
But what was this serfdom? It was not simply the old prædial slavery of the Germans of Tacitus. Nor was it merely a continuance of the slavery on the Roman villa.
«Slavery mitigated by Christian humanity.»
For finally, in the period of transition from Roman to German lordship, a new moral force entered as a fresh factor in the economic evolution. The silent humanising influence of Christianity seems to have been the power which mitigated the rigour of slavery, and raised the slave on the estates of the Church into the middle status of serfdom, by insisting upon the limitation of his labour to the three days' week-work of the mediæval serf.
Thus, from the point of view alike of the German and the Roman 'servi,' mediæval serfdom, except to the freemen who by their own surrender or by conquest were degraded into it, was a distinct step upward in the economic progress of the masses of the people towards freedom.
* * * * *
«The pre-Roman _one-field_ system in England.»
Applying these results especially to England, we [p417] have once more to remember that there was settled agriculture in Belgic Britain before the Roman invasion: that the fact vouched for by Pliny, that _marl_ and _manure_ were ploughed into the fields, is proof that the simplest form of the open-field system--the Welsh co-aration of the waste, and the German shifting every year of the '_arva_'--had already given place to a more settled and organised system, in which the same land remained under tillage year after year. Pliny's description of the marling of the land, however, points rather to the _one-field system_ of Northern Germany than to the three-field system, as that under which the corn was grown which Cæsar found ripening on British fields when he first landed on the southern coast.[631]
«Roman introduction of the three-course rotation of crops.»
In the meantime Roman improvements in agriculture may well have included the introduction into the province of Britain of the three-course rotation of crops. The open fields round the villa of the Roman lord, cultivated by his slaves, 'coloni,' 'tributarii,' and 'liti,' may have been first arranged on the three-field system; and, once established, that system would spread and become general during those centuries of Roman occupation in which so much corn was produced and exported from the island.
The Roman _annonæ_--founded, perhaps, on the earlier tribal food-rents--were, in Britain, as we know from the 'Agricola' of Tacitus, taken mostly in corn; [p418] and the _tributum_ was probably assessed during the later empire on that system of _jugation_ which was found to be so like to the _hidation_ which prevailed after the Saxon conquest.
«Conquest the rule. The invaders become lords of _hams_ manors.»
Putting aside as exceptional the probably peaceful but at best obscure settlements in tribal households, and regarding conquest as the rule, the economic evidence seems to supply no solid reason for supposing that the German conquerors acted in Britain in a way widely different from that which they followed on the conquest of Continental Roman provinces. The conquered territory here as elsewhere probably became at first _terra regis_ of the English, Saxon, or Jutish kings. And though there may have been more cases in England than elsewhere of extermination of the old inhabitants, the evidence of the English open-field system seems to show that, taking England as a whole, the continuity between the Roman and English system of land management was not really broken. The Roman provincial _villa_ still seems to have remained the typical form of estate; and the management of the public lands, now _terra regis_, seems to have preserved its manorial character. For whenever estates are granted to the Church or monasteries, or to thanes of the king, they seem to be handed over as already existing manors, with their own customs and services fixed by immemorial usage.
It is most probable that whenever German conquerors descended upon an already peopled country where agriculture was carried on as it was in Britain, their comparatively small numbers, and still further their own dislike to agricultural pursuits and liking for lordship, and familiarity with servile tenants in [p419] the old country, would induce them to place the conquered people in the position of serfs, as the Germans of Tacitus seem to have done, making them do the agriculture by customary methods. If in any special cases the numbers in the invading hosts were larger than usual, they would probably include the semi-servile dependants of the chieftains and tribesmen. These, placed on the land allotted to their lords, would be serfs in England as they had been at home.
«The yard-land shows this,»
At this point, as we have seen, the internal evidence of the open-field system, at the earliest date at which it arises, comes to our aid, showing that as a general rule it was the shell, not of household communities of tribesmen doing their own ploughing like the Welsh tribesmen by co-aration, but of serfs doing the ploughing under an over-lordship.
Here the English evidence points in precisely the same direction as the Continental. For, as so often repeated, the prevalence, as far back as the earliest records, of yard-lands and _huben_, handed down so generally, and evidently by long immemorial custom, as _indivisible bundles_ from one generation to another, implies the _absence_ of _division among heirs_, and is accordingly a mark of the servile nature of the holding.
«and also local names.»
«The earlier 'hams' and 'tuns' manors.»
Further, whenever a place was called, as so many places were, by the name of a single person, it seems obvious that at the moment when its name was acquired it was under a _land ownership_, which, as regards the dependent population upon it, was a _lordship_. We have seen that in the laws of King Ethelbert the '_hams_' and '_tuns_' of England are spoken of as in a single ownership, whilst the [p420] mention of the three grades of 'læts' shows that there were semi-servile tenants upon them. And in the vast number of instances in which local names consist of a personal name with a suffix, the evidence of the local name itself is strong for the manorial character of the estate. When that suffix is _tun_, or _ham_, or _villa_, with the personal name prefixed, the evidence is doubly strong. Even when connected with an impersonal prefix, these suffixes in themselves distinctly point, as we have seen, to the manorial character of the estate, with at least direct, if not absolutely conclusive, force.
Whatever doubt remains is not as to the generally manorial character of the _hams_ and _tuns_ of the earliest Saxon records, or as to the serfdom of their tenants; as to this, it is submitted that the evidence is clear and conclusive. Whatever doubt remains is as to which of two possible courses leading to this result was taken by the Saxon conquerors of Britain.
As regards the methods of their conquest, there happens to exist no satisfactory contemporary evidence. They may either have conquered and adopted the Roman villas, whether in private or imperial hands, with the slaves and 'coloni' or 'tributarii' upon them, calling them 'hams,' or they may have destroyed the Roman villas and their tenants, and have established in their place fresh 'hams' of their own, which in mediæval Latin records, whether in private or royal possession, were also afterwards called 'villas.' In some districts they may have followed the one course, in other districts the other course. Either of the two might as well as the other have produced manors and manorial serfdom. [p421]
«Survivals from the Romano-German province prove continuity, and are inconsistent with extermination»
But when the internal evidence of the Anglo-Saxon land system is examined, even this doubt as to which of the two methods was generally followed is in part removed. For it may at least be said with truth that the hundred years of historical darkness during which there is a simple absence of direct testimony, is at least bridged over by such planks of _in_direct economic evidence as the apparent connexion between the Roman 'jugation' and the Saxon 'hidage,' the resemblance between the Roman and Saxon allotment of a certain number of acres along with single or double yokes of oxen to the holdings, the prevalence of the rule of single succession, the apparent continuance of the Roman _tributum_ and _annonæ_, and even some of the _sordida munera_ in the Saxon _gafol_, _gafol-yrth_, _averagium_, and other manorial services; and, lastly, the fact that in Gaul and Upper Germany the actual continuity between the Roman _villa_ and the German _heim_ can be more or less clearly traced.
«unless the invaders were themselves Romanised.»
The force of this economic evidence, it is submitted, is at least enough to prove either that there was a sufficient amount of continuity between the Roman villa and the Saxon manor to preserve the general type, or that the German invaders who destroyed and re-introduced the manorial type of estate came from a district in which there had been such continuity, and where they themselves had lived long enough to permit the peculiar manorial instincts of the Romano-German province to become a kind of second nature to them.
It is as impossible to conceive that this complex manorial land system, which we have found to bristle with historical survivals of usages of the [p422] Romano-German province, should have been suddenly introduced into England by _un-Romanised_ Northern piratical tribes of Germans, as it is to conceive of the sudden creation of a fossil.
The most reasonable hypothesis, in the absence of direct evidence, appears therefore to be that the manorial system grew up in Britain as it grew up in Gaul and Germany, as the compound product of barbarian and Roman institutions mixing together during the periods first of Roman provincial rule, and secondly of German conquest.
«The large extent of folk-land evidence against extensive allodial allotments.»
This hypothesis seems at least most fully to account for the facts. Perhaps, it is not too much to say that whilst the large tracts of England remaining folk-land or _terra regis_, in spite of the lavish grants to monasteries complained of by Bede, are in themselves suggestive of the comparatively limited extent of allodial allotments among the conquering tribesmen, the existence and multiplication upon the _terra regis_, not of free village communities, but of royal manors of the same type as that of the Frankish villas, with a serfdom upon them also of the same type, and connected with the same three-field system of husbandry in both cases, almost amounts to a positive verification when the historical survivals clinging to the system in both cases are taken into account.
«The invaders either adopted the natives as serfs or brought serfs with them.»
Even on the supposition that the Saxons really exterminated the old population and destroyed every vestige of the Roman system, it has already become obvious that it would not at all follow that they generally introduced free village communities; for in that case the evidence would go far to show that they most likely brought slaves with them and settled [p423] them in servile village communities round their own dwellings, as Tacitus saw the Germans of his time doing in Germany. But, again, it must be remembered that however naturally this might produce the manor and serfdom, still the survivals of minute provincial usages hanging about the Saxon land system would remain unaccounted for, unless the invaders of the fifth century had already been thoroughly Romanised before their conquest of Britain.
«English history begins not with free communities but with serfdom.»
We cannot, indeed, pretend to have discovered in the economic evidence a firm bridge for all purposes across the historic gulf of the fifth century, and to have settled the difficult questions who were the German invaders of England, whence they came, and what was the exact form of their settlements in one district or another. But the facts we have examined seem to have settled the practical economic question with which we started, viz. whether the _hams_ and _tuns_ of England, with their open fields and yard-lands, in the earliest historical times were inhabited and tilled in the main by free village communities, or by communities in villenage. However many exceptional instances there may have been of settlements in tribal households, or even free village communities, it seems to be almost certain that these 'hams' and 'tuns' were, generally speaking, and for the most part from the first, practically _manors_ with communities in _serfdom_ upon them.
«The yard-land not the allodial allotment of a free tribesman.»
It has become at least clear, speaking broadly, that the equal 'yard-lands' of the 'geburs' were not the 'alods' or free lots of 'alodial' freeholders in a common 'mark,' but the tenements of serfs paying 'gafol' and doing 'week-work' for their lords. And this is [p424] equally true whether the manors on which they lived were bocland of Saxon thanes, or folk-land under the 'villicus' of a Saxon king.
II. LOCAL EVIDENCE OF CONTINUITY BETWEEN ROMAN AND ENGLISH VILLAGES.
There yet remains one test to which the hypothesis of continuity between the British, Roman, and English village community and open-field system may be put.
«Doubts as to the extermination of the British population by the English invaders.»
It has sometimes been inferred, perhaps too readily, that the English invaders of Roman Britain nearly exterminated the old inhabitants, destroying the towns and villages, and making fresh settlements of their own, upon freshly chosen sites. If this were so, it would, of course, involve the destruction of the open fields round the old villages, and the formation of fresh open fields round the new ones.
The passage in Ammianus Marcellinus has sometimes been quoted, in which he describes the Alamanni, who had taken possession of Strasburg, Spires, Worms, Mayence, &c., as encamped outside these cities, shunning their inside 'as though they had been graves surrounded by nets.'[632] But this was in time of war, and no proof of what they might do when in peaceable possession of the country.
Mr. Freeman also has drawn a graphic picture of Anderida, with the two Saxon villages of Pevensey and West Ham outside of its old Roman walls, and no dwellings within them. But it would so obviously be [p425] much easier to build new houses outside the gates of a ruined city, or, perhaps, we should say rather fortified camp, than to clear away the rubbish and build upon the old site, that such an instance is far from conclusive. Nor does the fact that in so many cases the streets of once Roman cities deviate from the old Roman lines prove that the new builders avoided the ancient sites. It proves only that, instead of removing the heaps of rubbish, they chose the open spaces behind them as more convenient for their new buildings, in the process of erecting which the heaps of rubbish were doubtless gradually removed.
«Is there evidence of continuity in the rural villages?»
But, in truth, cases of fortified cities are not to the point. What we want to find out is whether, in the _rural_ districts, the British villages, with their open fields around them, were generally adopted by the Romans, and whether, having survived the Roman occupation, the Saxons adopted them in their turn.
«_e.g._ in the Hitchin district.»
It may be worth while to recur to the district from which was taken the typical example of the open fields, testing the point by such local evidence as may there be found.
«The Icknild way and other ancient roads.»
Among the ancient boundaries of the township of Hitchin, or rather of that part which included the now enclosed hamlet of Walsworth, was mentioned the Icknild way--that old British road which, passing from Wiltshire to Norfolk, here traverses the edge of the Chiltern hills. It sometimes winds lazily about uphill and down, following the line of the chalk downs. In many places it is merely a broad turf drift way. Here and there a long straight stretch of a mile or two suggests a Roman improvement upon [p426] its perhaps once more devious course. Here and there, too, are fragments of similar broad turf lanes leading nowhere, having lost the continuity which no doubt they once possessed. Sometimes crossing it, sometimes branching off from it, sometimes running parallel to it, are also frequently found similar winding broad turf drift ways, or straight roads of apparently British or Roman origin. It crosses Akeman Street at Tring, Watling Street at Dunstable, and Irmine Street at Royston. Neither Dunstable nor Royston, however, are examples of continuity, being comparatively modern towns, neither of them mentioned in the Domesday Survey. Hitchin lies about half-way between the cross-roads.
«The district under its Belgic kings.»
The district included in the annexed map, of which Hitchin is the centre, was a part of Belgic Britain. According to Cæsar this had been under the rule of the same king as Belgic Gaul, and upon the evidence of coins and certain passages in Roman writers, it is pretty well understood to have been, soon after the invasion of Cæsar, under the rule of Tasciovanus,[633] whose capital was Verulamium, and after him of his son Cunobeline, whose capital was Camulodunum. The sons of the latter (one of them Caractacus) were prevented from succeeding him by the advance of the Roman arms.[634] The intimate relations of the two capitals at Verulam and at Colchester explain the existence of the roads between them.
The dykes which cross the Icknild way at [p427] intervals, East of Royston--the Brent dyke, the Balsham dyke (parallel to the _Via Devana_), and the Devil's dyke, near Newmarket--seem to indicate that here was the border land between this district and that of the Iceni (Norfolk and Suffolk).
«Coins of Tasciovanus and Cunobeline.»
Sandy (the Roman _Salinæ_), at the north of the district in the map, is known, from the evidence of coins of Cunobeline, to have been an important British centre. A gold coin of Tasciovanus, and other British coins, have been picked up on the Icknild way, between Hitchin and Dunstable. A gold coin of Cunobeline, and many fragments of Roman pottery, have been found about half a mile to the east of Abington, a village a little to the north of the Icknild way, near Royston.[635] Coins of Cunobeline have also been found at Great Chesterford. A copper coin of Cunobeline was picked up in a garden in Walsworth, a hamlet of Hitchin, and British urns of a rude type have been recently found on the top of Benslow Hill, the high ground on the east of the town.
«Pre-Roman roads, &c.»
The map will show in how many directions the district is cut up by Roman roads, which, as they evidently connect the various parts of the domain of the before-mentioned British kings, were probably, with the Icknild way itself, British tracks before they were adopted by the Romans.
Almost every commanding bluff of the chalk downs retains traces of its having been used as a hill fort, probably in pre-Roman times, as well as later, while the numerous tumuli all along the route of the Icknild way testify, probably, to the numerous battles fought in its neighbourhood. [p428]
«Its Roman conquest under Claudius and Aulus Plautius, about A.D. 43.»
Probably this district fell under direct Roman rule after the campaigns of Aulus Plautius and Claudius, about A.D. 43.[636] The direction of the advance was probably across the Thames at Wallingford, and along the Icknild way, from which the descent upon Verulam could well be made from Tring or Dunstable down what were afterwards called Akeman Street and Watling Street. Under the tumulus near Litlington, called Limloe, or Limbury Hill, skeletons were found, and coins of the reign of Claudius, and of later date. It is possible that the battle was fought here in a later reign which brought the further parts of the district under Roman rule.
«The Saxon conquest about A.D. 571.»
The date of the Saxon conquest of this district may be as definitely determined. It preceded the conquest of Bath, Cirencester, and Gloucester by a very few years. It may be pretty clearly placed at about A.D. 571, when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, 'Cuthwulf fought with the Brit-weals at Bedcan-ford (Bedford), and took four towns. He took Lygean-birg (Lenborough) and Aegeles-birg (Aylesbury), and Bænesingtun (Bensington) and Egonesham (Eynsham).' This was the time when Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire fell into the hands of the West Saxons.
The old boundary of the ecclesiastical division of the country before the time of the Norman conquest included this district, with Bedford, in the diocese of Dorchester. The boundary probably followed the lines of the old West Saxon kingdom, and shut it off [p429] from Essex and the rest of Hertfordshire, which were included in the diocese of London.
The district, therefore, seems to have remained nearly 400 years under Roman rule, and under the British post-Roman rule another 100 years, till within twenty-five or thirty years of the arrival of St. Augustine in England, and the date of the laws of King Ethelbert, and within little more than 100 years of the date of the laws of King Ine, which laws presumably were founded upon customs of this district, once a part of the West Saxon kingdom.
«Do the Roman remains suggest continuity?»
The question is whether the position of the Roman remains which have been discovered in this neighbourhood points to a continuity in the sites of the present villages between British, Roman, and Saxon times. This question may certainly, in many instances, and, perhaps, generally, be answered distinctly in the affirmative.
«The town of Hitchin, or 'Hiz,' _i.e._ 'of the streams.'»
Take first the town of Hitchin itself. Its name in the Domesday Survey was 'Hiz,' and there can be little doubt that it is a Celtic word, meaning 'streams.'[637] The position of the township accords with this name. The river 'Hiz' rises out of the chalk at Wellhead, almost immediately turns a mill, and, flowing through the town, joins the Ivel a few miles lower down in its course, and so flows ultimately into the Ouse. The Orton[638] rises at the west extremity of the township, in [p430] a few hundred yards turns West Mill, and forms the boundary of the parish till it meets the Hiz at Ickleford, where the two are forded by the Icknild way. The Purwell, rising from the south east, forms the boundary between the parishes of Hitchin and Much Wymondley, and then, after turning Purwell Mill, and dividing Hitchin from Walsworth Hamlet, also joins the Hiz before it reaches Ickleford. Thus two of these three pure chalk streams embrace the township, and one passes through it giving its Celtic name Hiz to the town.[639]
«Its Celtic name.»
It is not likely that either the Romans or the Saxon invaders gave it this Celtic name.
«British and Roman remains.»
As already mentioned, on the top of the hill, to the east of the town, British sepulchral urns have been recently found.
A Roman cemetery, with a large number of sepulchral urns, dishes, and bottles, and coins of Severus, Carausius, Constantine, and Alectus, was turned up a few years ago on the top of the hill on the opposite side of the town, in a part of the open fields called 'The Fox-holes'[640]--a plot of useless ground being often used for burials by the Romans.
Another Roman cemetery, with very similar pottery and coins, has been found on Bury Mead, near the line where the arable part ceases and the [p431] Lammas meadow lands begin. Bury field itself (_i.e._ the arable) has been deeply drained, but yielded no coins or urns.
Occasional coins and urns have been found in the town itself.
This, so far as it goes, is good evidence that Hitchin was a British and a Roman before it was a Saxon town.
In the sub-hamlet of Charlton, near Wellhead, the source of the Hiz, small coins of the lower Empire have been found. As already mentioned, a coin of Cunobeline was found in the village of Walsworth. In even the hamlets, therefore, there is some evidence of continuity. At Ickleford, where the Icknild way crosses the Hiz, Roman coins have been found.
«Much Wymondley.»
The next parish to the east, divided from Hitchin by the Purwell stream, is Much Wymondley.
The evidence of continuity, as regards this parish, is remarkably clear. The accompanying map[641] supplies an interesting example of open fields, with their strips and balks and scattered ownership still remaining in 1803. These open arable fields were originally divided off from the village by a stretch of Lammas land.
«Roman holding perhaps of a retired veteran.»
Between this Lammas land and the church in the village lie the remains of the little Roman holding, of which an enlarged plan is given. It consists now of several fields, forming a rough square, with its sides to the four points of the compass, and contains, filling in the corners of the square, about 25 Roman [p432] jugera--or the eighth of a centuria of 200 jugera--the extent of land often allotted, as we have seen, to a retired veteran with a single pair of oxen. The proof that it was a Roman holding is as follows:--In the corner next to the church are two square fields still distinctly surrounded by a moat, nearly parallel to which, on the east side, was found a line of black earth full of broken Roman pottery and tiles. Near the church, at the south-west corner of the property, is a double tumulus, which, being close to the church field, may have been an ancient 'toot hill,' or a terminal mound. In the extreme opposite corner of the holding was found a Roman cemetery, containing the urns, dishes, and bottles of a score or two of burials. Drawings of those of the vessels not broken in the digging, engraved from a photograph, are appended to the map, by the kind permission of the owner.[642] Over the hedge, at this corner, begins the Lammas land.[643]
How many other holdings were included in the Roman village we do not know, but that the village was in the same position in relation to the open fields that it was in 1803 is obvious.
«Ashwell.»
Ashwell also evidently stands on its old site round the head of a remarkably strong chalk spring, the clear stream from which flows through the village as the river _Rhee_, a branch of the _Cam_. Early Roman coins and sepulchral urns have been found in the hamlet called 'Ashwell End,' and a Roman road, called 'Ashwell Street,' passes by the town parallel [p433] to the Icknild way. Near to the town is a camp, with a clearly defined vallum, called Harborough Banks, where coins of the later Empire have been found. A map of the parish, made before the enclosure, and preserved in the place, shows that it presented a remarkably good example of the open-field system.
«Roman villa and cemetery.»
An instance of continuity as remarkable as that of Much Wymondley occurs at Litlington,[644] the next village to Ashwell, on the Ashwell Street. The church and manor house in this case lie near together on the west side of the village, and in the adjoining field and gardens the walls and pavements of a Roman villa were found many years ago. At a little distance from it, nearer to the Ashwell Street, a Roman _ustrinum_ and cemetery were found, surrounded by four walls, and yielding coins of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Quintillus, Carausius, Constantine the Great, Magnentius, &c. A map of this village is appended.
When the Roman villa was discovered, the open fields around the village were still unenclosed, and the position of Ashwell Street was pushed farther from the village at the time of the enclosure.
The tumulus called 'Limloe,' or 'Limbury Hill,' lies at the side of the road leading from the Icknild way across the Ashwell Street to the village, and immediately under it skeletons with coins of Claudius, Vespasian, and Faustina were found, as already mentioned.
«Ickleton and Chesterford.»
A few miles further east than Royston are two villages, Ickleton on the Icknild way, and Great [p434] Chesterford a little to the south of it. That both these places are on Roman sites the foundations and coins which have been found attest.[645] There are remains of a camp at Chesterford, and coins of Cunobeline as well as numerous Roman coins have been dug up there.[646]
«Hadstock.»
At Hadstock, a village near, in a field called 'Sunken Church Field,' Roman foundations and coins have been found.[647]
«Other instances of continuity in the sites of villages.»
Proceeding further east the list of similar cases might be greatly increased. But keeping within the small district, in the following other cases the finding of Roman coins in the villages seems to be fair proof of continuity in their sites, viz.:--Sandy, Campton, Baldock, Willian, Cumberlow Green, Weston, Stevenage, Hexton, and Higham Gobion.
«Ancient mounds and earth works.»
Two remarkable instances of ancient mounds or fortifications close to churches occur at Meppershall and Pirton, of both of which plans are given. The Pirton mound is called in the village the 'toot hill.' These mounds in the neighbourhood of churches may be much older than the Saxon conquest. Open air courts were by no means confined to one race.[648] Roman remains have been found in the neighbourhood of both these places, but how near to the actual village sites I am unable to say.[649]
Leaving out these two and many more doubtful cases, and without pretending to be exhaustive, there have been mentioned nearly a score in which Roman [p435] remains or coins have already been found on the present sites of villages in this small district.
«Strong evidence of continuity in this district.»
So far the local evidence supports the view that the West Saxons, who probably conquered it about A.D. 570, succeeded to a long-settled agriculture; and further it seems likely that, assuming the lordship vacated by the owners of the villas, and adopting the village sites, they continued the cultivation of the open fields around them by means of the old rural population on that same three-field system, which had probably been matured and improved during Roman rule, and by which the population of the district had been supported during the three generations between the departure of the Roman governors and the West Saxon conquest.
But it may perhaps be urged that these districts, conquered so late as A.D. 570, may have been exceptionally treated. If this were so, it must be borne in mind that the whole of central England--i.e. the counties described in the second volume of the Hundred Rolls as to which the evidence for the existence of the open-field system was so strong--was included in the exception. Indeed, if the line of the Icknild way be extended along Akeman Street to Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester, the line of the Saxon conquests which were later than A.D. 560 would be pretty clearly marked. The laws of Ine, pointing backwards as they do from their actual date, reach back within two or three generations of the date of the Saxon conquest of this part of Old Wessex.
«The Hitchin district hardly exceptional.»
It would be impossible here to pursue the question in detail in other parts of England. Perhaps it will be sufficient to call attention to the many cases [p436] mentioned in Mr. C. Roach Smith's valuable 'Collectanea,'[650] in which Roman remains have been found in close proximity to the churches of modern villages, and to his remark that a long list of such instances might easily be made.[651]
The number of such cases which occur in Kent is very remarkable, and Kent was certainly not a late conquest.
I will only add a passing allusion to the remarkable case at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, where the church, present mansion, and Roman villa are close together,[652] and mention that in two of the hamlets on the manor of Tidenham--Stroat and Sedbury (or Cingestun)--Roman remains bear testimony to a Roman occupation before the West Saxon conquest.[653]
The fact seems to be that the archæological evidence, gradually accumulating as time goes on, points more and more clearly to the fact that our modern villages are very often on their old Roman and sometimes probably pre-Roman sites--that however much the English invaders avoided the walled towns of Roman Britain, they certainly had no such antipathy to the occupation of its villas and rural villages. [p437]
III. CONCLUSION.
«Economic result.»
The economic result of the inquiry pursued in this essay may now be summed up in few words.
Its object was not to inquire into the origin of village and tribal communities as the possible beginning of all things, but simply to put English Economic History on true lines at its historical beginning, viz.: the English Conquest.
«Two rural systems throughout--the village community in the east, and the tribal community in the west.»
Throughout the whole period from pre-Roman to modern times we have found in Britain two parallel systems of rural economy side by side, but keeping separate and working themselves out on quite different lines, in spite of Roman, English, and Norman invasions--that of the _village_ community in the eastern, that of the _tribal_ community in the western districts of the island.
«Community and equality in both.»
«Each had its own open-field system.»
Both systems as far back as the evidence extends were marked by the two notes of community and equality, and each was connected with a form of the open or common field system of husbandry peculiar to itself. These two different forms of the common field system also kept themselves distinct throughout, and are still distinct in their modern remains or survivals.
«Both pre-Roman.»
Neither the village nor the tribal community seems to have been introduced into Britain during a historical period reaching back for 2,000 years at least.
«The English village community in serfdom, and its»
«three-field system.»
«A step out of slavery towards the freedom of the new order of things.»
On the one hand, the village community of the eastern districts of Britain was connected with a settled agriculture which, apparently dating earlier [p438] than the Roman invasion and improved during the Roman occupation, was carried on, at length, under that three-field form of the open-field system which became the shell of the English village community. The equality in its yard-lands and the single succession which preserved this equality we have found to be apparently marks not of an original freedom, not of an original allodial allotment on the German 'mark system,' but of a settled serfdom under a lordship--a semi-servile tenancy implying a mere usufruct, theoretically only for life, or at will, and carrying with it no inherent rights of inheritance. But this serfdom, as we have seen reason to believe, was, to the masses of the people, not a degradation, but a step upward out of a once more general slavery. Certainly during the 1,200 years over which the direct English evidence extends the tendency has been towards more and more of freedom. In other words, as time went on during these 1,200 years, the serfdom of the old order of things has been gradually breaking up under those influences, whatever they may have been, which have produced the new order of things.
«The tribal community and its 'run-rig' system.»
«opposed to the new order of things.»
On the other hand, the tribal community of the western districts of Great Britain and of Ireland, though parallel in time with the village community of the eastern districts, was connected with an earlier stage of economic development, in which the rural economy was pastoral rather than agricultural. This tribal community was bound together, perhaps, in a unique degree, by the strong ties of blood relationship between free tribesmen. The equality which followed the possession of the tribal blood involved an equal division among the sons of tribesmen, and was [p439] maintained in spite of the inequality of families by frequent redistributions of the tribal lands, and shiftings of the tribesmen from one homestead to another according to tribal rules. We have traced the curious method of clustering the homesteads in arithmetical groups mentioned in the ancient Welsh laws, and still practised in Ireland in the seventeenth century, and we have found many survivals of it in the present names and divisions of Irish townlands. We have found the simple form of open-field husbandry used under the tribal system, and suited to its precarious and shifting agriculture, still surviving in the 'rundale' or 'run-rig' system, by which, to this day, is effected in Ireland and western Scotland that infinite subdivision of holdings which marks the tenacious adherence to tribal instincts on the part of a people still fighting an unequal battle against the new order of things.
«The new order opposed to community and equality.»
The new order has, no doubt, arisen in one sense out of both branches of the old, but neither the manorial village community of the eastern district, nor the tribal community of the west, can be said to be its parent. Its fundamental principle seems to be opposed to the community and equality of the old order in both its forms. The freedom of the individual and growth of individual enterprise and property which mark the new order imply a rebellion against the bonds of the communism and forced equality, alike of the manorial and of the tribal system. It has triumphed by breaking up both the communism of serfdom and the communism of the free tribe.
«Belongs to a wider range of economic development.»
Nor, it would seem, can the new order be regarded with any greater truth as a development from the [p440] germs of any German tribal or 'mark' system imported in the keels of the English invaders. It would seem to belong to an altogether wider range of economic development than that of one or two races. Its complex roots went deeply back into that older world into which the Teutonic invaders introduced new elements and new life, no doubt, but, it would seem, without destroying the continuity of the main stream of its economic development, or even of the outward forms of its rural economy.
This, from an economic point of view, is the important conclusion to which the facts examined in this essay seem to point. These facts will be examined afresh by other and abler students, and the last word will not soon have been said upon some of them. They are drawn from so wide a field, and from lines reaching back so far, that their interest and bearing upon the matter in hand will not soon be exhausted or settled. But if the conclusion here suggested should in the main be confirmed, what English Economic History loses in simplicity it will gain in breadth. It will cease to be provincial. It will become more closely identified with the general economic evolution of the human race in the past. And this in its turn will give a wider interest to the vast responsibilities of the English-speaking nations in connexion with the progress of the new order of things and the solution of the great economic problems of the future.
«The communism of the old order a thing of the past,»
What are the forces which have produced, and are producing, the evolution of the new order, and to what ultimate goal the 'weary Titan' is bearing the 'too full orb of her fate,' are questions of the [p441] highest rank of economic and political importance, but questions upon which not much direct light has been thrown, perhaps, in this essay. Still the knowledge what the community and equality of the English village and of the Keltic tribe really were under the old order may at least dispel any lingering wish or hope that they may ever return. Communistic systems such as these we have examined, which have lasted for 2,000 years, and for the last 1,000 years at least have been gradually wearing themselves out, are hardly likely--either of them--to be the economic goal of the future.
«like the open-field system.»
The reader of this essay may perhaps contemplate the few remaining balks and linces of our English common fields, and the surviving examples of the 'run-rig' system in Ireland and Scotland, with greater interest than before, but it will be as historical survivals, not of types likely to be reproduced in the future, but of economic stages for ever past.
FOOTNOTES:
[630] There are undoubtedly manors and yard-lands in some districts, but of later and English introduction.
[631] The '_one-field system_ 'of _permanent arable_ must not be confused with the improvement of the early Welsh and Irish 'co-aration of the waste,' by which the land was cropped perhaps two or three or four years before it was _left to go back into grass_. This resembles the German _Feldgraswirthschaft_ and not the German one-field system.
[632] Amm. Marc. xvi. c. ii.
[633] Evans' _Ancient British Coins_, p. 220 _et seq._
[634] _Ibid._ p. 284 _et seq._
[635] I am indebted to the Rev. W. G. F. Pigott for this information.
[636] See the paper on 'The Campaign of Aulus Plautius,' in Dr. Guest's _Origines Celticæ_, vol. ii.
[637] Compare supra, p. 161: the change of 'Hisse-burn' or 'Icenan-burn' into 'Itchin River,' and of 'æt Icceburn' into 'Ticceburn,' and 'Titchbourne.' May not Icknild Way, or 'Icenan-hild-wæg,' mean highway 'by the streams,' and Ricknild Way mean highway 'by the ridge'? See map, _supra_, ch. v., s. v. They are sometimes parallel as an upper and lower road.
[638] Formerly 'Alton.' See Survey of the Manor of Hitchin. 1650, Public Record Office.
[639] In Hampshire the old Celtic or Belgic names of rivers in many cases gave their names to places upon them. The '_Itchin_' to Itchin Stoke, Itchin Abbas, Itchbourne, &c. The '_Meona_' (_Cod. Dip._ clviii.) to Meon Stoke, East and West Meon, &c. The '_Candefer_' (_Cod. Dip._ mcccix.) to three 'Candovers.' So also the _Tarrant_ gives its names to several places.
[640] Now part of the garden of Mr. W. T. Lucas, in whose possession many of them now remain. Three skeletons, one of them of great size, were found near the urns.
[641] For permission to reproduce this map I am indebted to the present lord of the manor, C. W. Wilshere, Esq., of the Fryth, Welwyn.
[642] Mr. William Ransom, of Fairfield, near Hitchin.
[643] As regards Roman cemeteries, as placed in the extreme corner of a holding, _see_ Lachmann, pp. 271–2; _De Sepulchris Dolabell_. p. 303.
[644] _Archæologia_, vol. xxvi. p. 376.
[645] _Journal of British Archæological Association_, iv. 356, and v. 54.
[646] _Archæologia_, xxxii. p. 350.
[647] _Id._, p. 352.
[648] _See_ Mr. Gomme's interesting work on _Primitive Folkmotes_, c. ii.
[649] A remarkably fine _glass_ funeral urn was found about half a mile below the Meppershall Hills in 1882 by the tenant of the neighbouring farm.
[650] Vol. i. pp. 17, 66, 190; vol. iii. p. 33; vol. iv. p. 155; vol. v. p. 187; vol. vi. p. 222.
[651] _Collectanea_, v. p. 187. The recently discovered Roman villa on the property of Earl Cowper, at Wingham, near Canterbury, is a striking instance. See Mr. Dowker's pamphlet thereon. See also _Archæologia_, xxix. p. 217, &c., where Mr. C. Roach Smith mentions several other instances.
[652] _Account of the Roman Antiquities at Woodchester_, by S. Lysons. Lond.: MDCCXCVII.
[653] See Mr. Ormerod's _Archæological Memoirs_.
[p443]
APPENDIX.
THE MANOR OF HITCHIN (PORTMAN AND FOREIGN) IN THE COUNTY OF HERTFORD.
«1891. Oct. 21»
'At the Court [Leet and] of the View of Frank pledge of our Sovereign Lord the King with the General Court Baron of William Wilshere, Esquire, Lord Firmar of the said manor of his Majesty, holden in and for the manor aforesaid, on Thursday, the twenty-first day of October, One thousand eight hundred and nineteen, Before Joseph Eade, Gentleman, Steward of the said manor, and by adjournment on Monday, the first day of November next following, before the said Joseph Eade, the Steward aforesaid.
'The jurors for our Lord the King and the Homage of this Court having diligently enquired into the boundaries, extent, rights, jurisdictions, and customs of the said manor, and the rights, powers, and duties of the lord and tenants thereof, and having also enquired what lands in the township of Hitchin and in the hamlet of Walsworth respectively within this manor are subject to common of pasture for the commonable cattle of the occupiers of messuages, cottages, and land within the said township and hamlet respectively, and for what descriptions and number of cattle, and at what times of the year and in what manner such rights of common are by the custom of this manor to be exercised, and what payments are by such custom due in respect thereof, they do upon their oaths find and present as follows:--
'That the manor comprises the township of Hitchin and the hamlet of Walsworth, in the parish of Hitchin, the [p444] lesser manors of the Rectory of Hitchin, of Moremead, otherwise Charlton, and of the Priory of the Biggin, being comprehended within the boundaries of the said manor of Hitchin, which also extends into the hamlets of Langley and Preston in the said parish of Hitchin, and into the parishes of Ickleford, Ippollitts, Kimpton, Kingswalden, and Offley.
«Boundaries.»
'That the following are the boundaries of the township of Hitchin with the hamlet of Walsworth (that is to say), beginning at Orton Head, proceeding from thence to Burford Ray, and from thence to a water mill called Hide Mill, and from thence to Wilberry Hills; from thence to a place called Bossendell, from thence to a water mill called Purwell Mill, and from thence to a brook or river called Ippollitts' Brook, and from thence to Maydencroft Lane, and from thence to a place called Wellhead, and from thence to a place called Stubborn Bush, and from thence to a place called Offley Cross, and from thence to Five Borough Hills, and from thence back to Orton Head, where the boundaries commenced. And that all the land in the parish of Hitchin lying on the north side of the river which runneth from Purwell Mill to Hide Mill is within the hamlet of Walsworth, and that the following lands on the south side of the same river are also within the same hamlet of Walsworth (vizt.), Walsworth Common, containing about fourteen acres; the land of Sir Francis Sykes called the Leys, on the south side of Walsworth Common, containing about four acres; the land of William Lucas and Joseph Lucas, called the Hills, containing about two acres; and nine acres or thereabouts, part of the land of Sir Francis Sykes, called the Shadwells, the residue of the land called the Shadwells on the north side of the river.
«Jurisdiction.»
'That the lord of the manor of Hitchin hath Court Leet View of Frank pledge and Court Baron, and that the jurisdiction of the Court Leet and View of Frank pledge extendeth over the whole of the township of Hitchin and the hamlet of Walsworth. That a Court Leet and Court of the View of Frank pledge and Great Court Baron are accustomed to be holden for the said manor within one month [p445] after the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel in every year, and may also be holden within one month after the Feast of Easter. And that general or special Courts Baron and customary Courts are holden at the pleasure of the lord or of his steward.
'That in the Court Leet yearly holden after the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel the jurors for our Lord the King are accustomed to elect and present to the lord two constables and six headboroughs (vizt.), two headboroughs for Bancroft Ward, two for Bridge Ward, and two for Tilehouse Street Ward (each such constable and headborough having right and being bound to execute the office through the whole leet), and likewise two ale conners, two leather searchers and sealers, and a bellman who is also the watchman and cryer of the town. And they present that Bancroft Ward contains Bancroft Street, including the Swan Inn, Silver Street, Portmill Lane, and the churchyard, church and vicarage house, and the alley leading out of Bancroft now called Quaker's Alley. That Bridge Ward contains the east and north sides of the market place, and part of the south side thereof to the house of John Whitney, formerly called the Maidenhead Inn, Mary's Street, otherwise Angel Street, now called Sun Street, Bull Street, now called Bridge Street, to the river; Bull Corner, Back Street, otherwise Dead Street, from the south to the north extremities thereof; Biggin Lane with the Biggin and Hollow Lane. And that Tilehouse Street Ward contains Tilehouse Street, Bucklersbury to the Swan Inn, and the west side and the remainder of the south side of the market place.
PRESENTMENTS OF THE HOMAGE.
«Reliefs.»
'And the Homage of this Court do also further present that freeholders holding of the said manor do pay to the lord by way of relief upon the death of the preceding tenant one year's quitrent, but that nothing is due to the lord upon the alienation of freehold.
«Fines on admissions.»
'That the fines upon admissions of copyholders, whether by descent or purchase, are, and beyond the memory of [p446] man have been, certain (to wit), half a year's quitrent; and that where any number of tenants are admitted jointly in one copy, no greater fine than one half year's quitrent is due for the admission of all the joint tenants.
«Power of leasing.»
'The Homage also present that by the custom of the manor the customary tenants may without licence let their copyholds for three years and no longer, but that they may by licence of the lord let the same for any term not exceeding twenty-one years; and that the lord is upon every such licence entitled to a fine of one year's quitrent of the premises to be demised.
«Forfeiture.»
'The Homage present that the freehold tenants of the said manor forfeit their estates to the lord thereof for treason and for murders and other felonies; and that the copyholders forfeit their estates for the like crimes, and for committing or suffering their copyholds to be wasted, for wilfully refusing to perform their services, and for leasing their copyholds for more than three years without licence.
'The Homage also present that by the custom of this manor copyholds are granted by copy or court roll for the term of forty years, and that a tenant outliving the said term is entitled to be re-admitted for the like term upon payment of the customary fine of half a year's quitrent.
«Heriots.»
'The Homage present that there are no heriots due or payable to the lord of this manor for any of the tenements holden thereof.
«Woods and trees.»
'The Homage also present that, all woods, underwoods, and trees growing upon the copyhold lands holden of the said manor were by King James the First, by his Letters Patent, under the Great Seal of England, bearing date the fourteenth day of March, in the 6th year of his reign (in consideration of two hundred and sixty-six pounds sixteen shillings paid to his Majesty's use), granted to Thomas Goddesden and Thomas Chapman, two copyholders of the said manor, and their heirs and assigns, in trust to the use of themselves and the rest of the copyholders of the said manor; and that the copyhold tenants of the said manor are by virtue of such grant entitled to cut all timber and [p447] other trees growing on their copyholds, and to dispose thereof at their will.
«Grain sold in the market toll free.»
'The Homage also present that no toll has ever been paid or ought to be paid for any kind of corn or grain sold in the market of Hitchin.
«Common pound and stocks.»
'They also present that from the time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary, the lord of this manor has been used to find and provide a common pound and stocks for the use of the tenants of this manor.
'And the Homage do further present that by the custom of this manor the lord may, with the consent of the Homage, grant by copy of court roll any part of the waste thereof, to be holden in fee according to the custom of the manor, at a reasonable rent and by the customary services, or may with such consent grant or demise the same for any lesser estate or interest.
COMMONS WITHIN THE TOWNSHIP OF HITCHIN.
'And the Homage of this Court do further present that the commonable land within the manor and township of Hitchin consists of--
«1st. Green Commons in the township of Hitchin.»
'Divers parcels of ground called the Green Commons, the soil whereof remains in the lord of the said manor (that is to say):
'Butts Close, containing eight acres or thereabouts; Orton Mead, containing forty acres or thereabouts, exclusively of the Haydons, and extending from the Old Road from Hitchin to Pirton by Orton Head Spring west unto the way which passes through Orton Mill Yard east; and that the Haydons on the east of the last mentioned way, containing four acres or thereabouts, are parts of the same common, and include a parcel of ground containing one rood and thirteen perches or thereabouts adjoining the river, which have been fenced from the rest of the common by Samuel Allen; and the ground called the Plats lying between Bury Mead and Cock Mead, containing two acres or thereabouts, including the slip of ground between the river and the way leading to the mill of the said John [p448] Ransom, lately called Burnt Mill, and now called Grove Mill, which hath been fenced off and planted by John Ransom.
«2nd. Lammas Meadows.»
'And of the lands of divers persons called the Lammas Meadows in Cock Mead, which contain eighteen acres or thereabouts, and in Bury Mead, which contains forty-five acres or thereabouts, including a parcel of land of the Rev. Woollaston Pym, clerk, called Old Hale.
«3rd. Common fields.»
'And of the open and unenclosed land within the several common fields, called Purwell Field, Welshman's Croft, Burford Field, Spital Field, Moremead Field, and Bury Field.
«Right of common.»
'That the occupier of every ancient messuage or cottage within the township of Hitchin hath a right of common for such cattle and at such times as are hereinafter specified upon the Green Commons and the Lammas Meadows, but no person hath any right of common within this township as appurtenant to or in respect of any messuage or cottage built since the expiration of the 13th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, unless the same shall have been erected on the site of an ancient messuage then standing.
'That any person having right of common in respect of the messuage or cottage in his actual occupation may turn on the Green Commons and the Lammas Meadows two cows and one bullock, or cow calf under the age of two years.
«Common bull.»
'That the rectors impropriate of the rectory of the parish of Hitchin or their lessees of the said rectory are bound to find a bull for the cows of the said township, and to go with the herd thereof, and that no other bull or bull calf may be turned on the commons.
'That Butts Close is the sole cow common from the 6th day of April, being Old Lady-day inclusive, to the 12th day of May also inclusive, and after that time is used for collecting in the morning the herd going out to the other commons.
'That Orton Mead, including the Haydons, is an open common upon and from the thirteenth day of May, called Old May-day, till the fourteenth day of February, called Old Candlemas Day. [p449]
'That the Plats are an open common upon and from Whitsunday till the 6th day of April.
'That Cock Mead and Bury Mead became commonable on the thirteenth day of August, called Old Lammas Day, and continue open till the 6th day of April.
'That the common fields called Bury Field and Welshman's Croft are commonable for cows only from the time when the corn is cut and carried therefrom until the twelfth day of November, called All Saints', and that the close of Thomas Wilshire, gentleman, called Bury Field Close, is part of the common field called Bury Field, and the closes of John Crouch Priest, called Ickleford Closes, are part of Welshman's Croft, and are respectively commonable at the same times with the other parts of such respective common fields.
'That every occupier of an ancient messuage or cottage hath right of common upon the Green Commons, except Butts Close, for one gelding from and after the thirteenth day of August until the fourteenth day of February.
'That no person entitled to common for his cattle may turn or suffer the same to remain on any of the commons between the hours of six in the evening and six in the morning.
'That it is the duty of the Homage at every Great Court Baron holden next after the Feast of St. Michael to appoint a herdsman for this township, and that every commoner turning his cows upon the commons is bound to pay a reasonable sum, to be from time to time assessed by the Homage, for the expenses of scouring the ditches, repairing the fences and hedges, and doing other necessary works for the preservation of the commons and for the wages of the herdsman. And the Homage of this Court assess and present such payments at one shilling for every head of cattle turned on the commons, payable by each commoner on the first day in every year on which he shall turn his cattle upon the commons, to be paid to the foreman of the Homage of the preceding Court Baron, and applied in and towards such expenses. And that the further sum of threepence be paid on Monday weekly for every head of cattle which any [p450] commoner shall turn or keep on the commons for the wages of the herdsman.
'That the cattle to be depastured on the commons ought to be delivered or sent by the owners to Butts Close between the hours of six and eight of the morning from the sixth day of April to the eleventh day of October, both inclusive; and after the eleventh of October between the hours of seven and nine of the morning. And that it is the duty of the herdsman to attend there during such hours, and to receive into his care the cattle brought to him, and to conduct them to the proper commons, and to attend and watch them there during the day, and to return them to the respective owners at six o'clock in the evening or as near thereto as may be; but no cow which is not brought to the herdsman within the hours before appointed for collecting the herd is considered as part of the herd or to be under the herdsman's care; and that no horned cattle ought to be received into the herd without sufficient knobs on their horns.
SHEEP COMMONS.
«The common fields.»
'That every occupier of unenclosed land in any of the common fields of the said township hath common of pasture for his sheep levant and couchant thereon over the residue of the unenclosed land in the same common field, in every year from the time when the corn is cut and carried until the same be again sown with corn, and during the whole of the fallow season, save that no sheep may be depastured on the land in Bury Field and Welshman's Croft between the harvest and the twelfth day of November, the herbage thereof from the harvest to the twelfth day of November being reserved for the cows.
«The three seasons.»
'That the common fields within the township of Hitchin have immemorially been and ought to be kept and cultivated in three successive seasons of tilthgrain, etchgrain, and fallow.
'That the last fallow season of Purwell Field and Welshman's Croft was from the harvest of 1816 until the wheat sowing in the autumn of 1817; and that the fallow season [p451] of those fields commenced again at the close of the last harvest. That the last fallow season of Burford Field and Spital Field was from the harvest of the year 1817 until the wheat sowing in the autumn of the year 1818. And the last fallow season of Moremead Field and Bury Field was from the harvest of 1818 until the wheat sowing of 1819.
'That no person hath any right of common for sheep on any of the Green Commons or Lammas ground within this township except on Old Hale and on the closes of John Crouch Priest, called Ickleford Closes, which are commonable for sheep at the same time with the field called Welshman's Croft.
«Right of enclosure giving up right of common.»
'The Homage find and present that every owner and every occupier of land in any of the common fields of this township may at his will and pleasure enclose and fence any of his land lying in the common fields of this township (other than and except land in Bury Field and Welshman's Croft), and may, so long as the same shall remain so enclosed and fenced, hold such land, whether the same belong to one or to more than one proprietor, exempt from any right or power of any other owner or occupier of land in the said township to common or depasture his sheep on the land so enclosed and fenced (no right of common on other land being claimed in respect of the land so enclosed and fenced).
'The Homage also find and present that the commonable lands in the hamlet of Walsworth within this manor consist of--
«Walsworth Common.»
'A parcel of meadow ground called Walsworth Common, containing fourteen acres or thereabouts, the soil whereof remains in the lord of the manor.
'And of certain parcels of meadow called Lammas Meadow (that is to say), the Leys, part of the estate of Sir Francis Sykes adjoining to Walsworth Common, and containing four acres or thereabouts; Ickleford Mead, containing two acres or thereabouts; Ralph's Pightle, adjoining to Highover Moor, containing one acre or thereabouts, Woolgroves, containing three acres or thereabouts, lying near to the mill of John Ransom, heretofore called Burnt Mill, and now called Grove Mill. [p452]
'A close called the Hills, containing two acres or thereabouts, on the west side of the road from Hitchin to Baldock, and a parcel of land called the Shadwells on the east side of the same road, and divided by the river, containing twelve acres or thereabouts.
'And they find and present that four several parcels of land hereinafter described have been by John Ransom enclosed and fenced out from the said Lammas ground called Woolgroves, and are now by him held in severalty.
'And that the same are and always have been parts of the commonable land of the said hamlet (to wit): A piece of land containing twenty-one perches or thereabouts on the south-west side of the present course of the river, and between the same and the old course; a piece of land containing twelve perches or thereabouts, now by the alteration of the course of the river surrounded by water; a piece of land on the north-east side of Woolgroves, containing one rood and twenty-two perches or thereabouts; and a piece of land at the south-east corner of Woolgroves, containing one rood or thereabouts.
'And the Homage find and present that the occupier of every ancient messuage or cottage within the hamlet of Walsworth hath a right to turn and depasture on the commonable land thereof, in respect of and as appurtenant to his messuage or cottage, two cows and a bullock or yearling cow calf upon and from the thirteenth day of May, called Old May-day, until the sixth day of April, called Old Lady-day, and one horse upon and from the said thirteenth day of May until the thirteenth day of August, called Old Lammas-day, and hath a right to turn the like number of cattle upon the Lammas ground in Walsworth upon and from Old Lammas-day until Old Lady-day. That no person hath a right to common or turn any sheep upon the said common called Walsworth Commons, and that no sheep may be turned on the Lammas ground of Walsworth between Old Lammas-day and the last day of November.
'The Homage also present that it is the duty of the Homage of this Court at every Great Court Baron yearly holden next after the Feast of St. Michael, upon the [p453] application and request of any of the persons entitled to common the cattle upon the commons within the hamlet of Walsworth, to appoint a herdsman for the said hamlet, and to fix and assess a reasonable sum to be paid to him for his wages, and also a reasonable sum to be paid by the commoners for draining and fencing the commons.
'This Court was then adjourned to Monday, the first day of November next.
'Signed THOS. JEEVES (Foreman). SAMUEL SMITH. JOHN MARSHALL. WILLM. DUNNAGE. WM. BLOOM. ROBT. NEWTON. WILLM. HALL. WM. MARTIN. THOS. WALLER. GEO. BEAVER. W. SWORDER. JOHN MOORE.'
INDEX AND GLOSSARY.
_Acre_, the 'selio,' or strip in the open field (40 x 4 rods), 3, 106, 385. A day's work in ploughing, 124. Reason of its shape, 124. Welsh acre, _see_ 'Erw'
_Ager_, _agellus_, _agellulus_, territory of a manor, 167
_Ager publicus_, tenants on, 272–288. Tendencies towards manorial methods of management, 300, 308
_Agri decumates_, occupied by Alamannic tribes, 282–288. Position of tenants on, 311
_Agri occupatorii_, with irregular boundaries, 277, and sometimes scattered ownership, 278
_Agrimensores_ (Roman), methods of centuriation, 250, 276, 279
_Aillt_, or _altud._ _See_ 'Taeog.' Compare Aldiones of Lombardic Laws and Saxon 'althud' = foreigner, 281
_Alamanni_, German tribes, offshoots of, Hermundori, Thuringi, &c., 282. Some deported into Britain, 285. Conquered by Julian, 286
_Alfred the Great_, his founding the New Minster at Winchester, 160. Services of serfs on his manor of Hysseburne, 162. His sketch of growth of a new _ham_, 169. His Boethius quoted, 168
_Amobr_, fee on marriage of females under Welsh laws, 195
_Andecena_, day work of serf under Bavarian laws same shape as English acre, 325, 386, 391
_Angariæ and parangariæ_, carrying or post-horse services (_see_ Roman 'sordida munera'), 297, and so any forced service, 298. Manorial services, 324–327
_Anwänder_, German 'headland,' 381
_Archenfeld_, in Wales, survey of, in Domesday Book, 182, 206–7
_Averagium_ manorial carrying service from _avera_ or _affri_, beasts of burden, 298, _n._; at Bleadon, 57
_Balk_, the unploughed turf between two acre strips in the open fields. 4; in 'Piers the Plowman,' 19; in Cambridge terrier, 20; in Welsh laws, 119; a Welsh word, 382
_Ballibetogh_, cluster of 16 taths or homesteads, 215–224
_Bally_, Irish townland, 221, 223
_Battle Abbey Records_ (A.D. 1284–7), 49
_Bede_, complaint of lavish grants of manors to monasteries, 168
_Bees_, Welsh Law of, 207
_Bene-work_ or _Boon-work_. _See_ Precariæ
_Black Death_, 20; influence on villenage, 31
_Boc-land_, land of inheritance permanently made over by charter or deed, 168, 171
_Boldon Book_ (A.D. 1183), evidence of, 68–72
_Book of St. Chad_, Welsh charters in margins of, 209
_Booths_, making of, by villani, for fairs of St. Cuthbert, 71
_Bordarii_, or cottagers (from 'bord,' a cottage), 76; in Domesday Survey, 95; normal holding about 5 acres, 97; mentioned in Liber Niger of Peterborough, 97
_Boundaries_, method of describing, in Hitchin Manor, 9; in Saxon charters, 107, 111. Manor of King Edwy (Tidenham), 149; in Lorsch charters, 331. Roman method, 9. _See also_, 375
_Bovate_ (_Bovata terræ_), the half yard-land contributing _one_ ox to the team of eight, 61. 2 bovates in Boldon Book = virgate, 68
_Brehon Laws_, 226, 231, 232
_Breyr_, free Welsh tribesman, 192
_Britain_, Belgic districts of, pre-Roman settled agriculture in, 245. Exports of corn during Roman rule, 247, 286. The marling of the land described by Pliny, 250. Analogous to 'one-field system' of North Germany, 372
_Bucenobantes_, deported into Britain, 287
_Butts_, strips in open fields abutting others, 6
_Cæsar_, description of British and Belgic agriculture, 246. Ditto of chiefs and tribesmen in Gaul, 305. Description of German tribal system, 336–338
_Cambridge_, terrier of open fields of, in fourteenth or fifteenth century, 19, 20
_Carpenter_, village official having his holding free, 70
_Caruca_ (_see_ Carucate), plough team of eight oxen, yoked four to a yoke, 62, 74, 123; _carucæ adjutrices_, or smaller teams of villeins, 48, 74, 85; variations in team, 64, 74; of Domesday Survey, 85
_Carucate_, unit of assessment = land of a _caruca_ (_see_ Caruca), connexion with hide, 40. Used in Domesday Survey, 85
_Centenarii_, Roman and Frankish officials, 300–303
_Centuria_, division of land by Roman _Agrimensores_ of 200 or 240 jugera, 276. Divided into eight normal single holdings of 25 or 30, or double holdings of 50 or 60 jugera, 276
_Centuriation._ _See_ Agrimensores
_Ceorl_= husbandman; a wide term embracing, like 'geneat,' the lower class of freemen and serfs above the slaves, 110, 144
_Chamavi_, pagus chamaviorum, 285
_Co-aration_, or co-operative ploughing by contributors to team of eight oxen, 117. Described in Welsh Laws as 'Cyvar,' 118–124; in Ireland, 226; in Palestine, 314; in Roman provinces, 278
_Coloni_, position of, on the later Roman villa, 266. Right of lord to compel son to continue his parent's holding and services, 267. Often barbarians, 269. Like _usufructuarii_, 309, _n._ Possibly with single succession, 308–310
_Commendation_, surrender, putting a freeman under the _patrocinium_ or lordship of another, instances of, 305. Salvian's description of, 307. Effect of, 307–310. Practice continues under Alamannic and Bavarian laws, allowing surrenders to the Church, 316–335
_Continuity_ of English village sites, 424–436
_Cornage, cornagium_, tribute on horned cattle, 71
_Co-tillage._ _See_ Co-aration
_Cotsetla_, or cottier, in 'Rectitudines', = bordarius in Domesday Survey, 130; his services, &c., 130–131
_Cottier tenants_, holders in villenage of a few scattered strips in open fields, 24, 29, 34, 69
_Cyvar._ _See_ Co-aration
'_Daer_' and '_Saer_' tenancy in Ireland, 231
_Davies, Sir John_, his surveys in Ireland and description of the Irish tribal system, 214–231
_Dawnbwyd_, food rent of Welsh taeogs, 198
_Decuriæ_, of slaves on Roman villa, 264
_Dimetian_ Code of South Wales. _See_ 'Wales, Ancient Laws of'
_Domesday Survey_ (A.D. 1086). Manors everywhere, 82. Lord's demesne and land in villenage, 84. Assessment by hides and carucates, 84; in Kent by solins, 85; _liberi homines_ and _sochmanni_ in Danish district, 86–89. Tenants in villenage, villani, bordarii or cottarii, and servi, 89. The villani holders of virgates or yard-lands, 91; examples from surveys of Middlesex, Herts, and Liber Eliensis, 92–94. Bordarii hold about five acres each, more or less, 95–97. Survey of Villa of Westminster, 97–101; area of arable land in England, and how much of it held in the yard-lands of villani, 101–104. Survey of portions of Wales, 182–184, 211
_Doles_, or Dǽls, i.e. pieces or strips, hence 'gedal-land,' 110; and run-dale (or run-rig) system of taking strips in rotation or scattered about, 228 (_see also_ Doles of Meadow-land, 25)
_Drengage_, hunting service (Boldon Book), 71
_Ebediw_, Welsh death payment or heriot, 195
Edward the Confessor, his dying vision of the open fields round Westminster, 100
_Einzelhöfe_, German single farms in Westphalia, 371
_Enclosure Acts_, 4,000 between 1760–1844, 13
_English settlements_, methods of, 412–423
_Ergastulum_, prison for slaves on Roman villa, 264
_Erw_, Welsh acre, the actual strips in open fields described in Welsh Laws, 119
_Etch_, crop sown on stubble, 377
_Ethelbert_, Laws of, _hams_ and _tuns_ in private ownership and mention of læts, 173–174
_Faber_, or village blacksmith, holds his virgate free of services, 70
_Fleta_ (temp. Ed. I.), description of manor in, 45
_Forera_ (Saxon foryrthe), or headland, 20, 108
_Frankpledge_, View of, 10
_Franks_, their inroads, 283; deported into Belgic Gaul, 284
_Frisians_, 285. Tribute in hides, 306, _n._
_Furlong_ (shot, or quarentena), division of open fields 'a furrow long,' divided into strips or acres, 4; in Saxon open fields, 108; German, Gewann, 380
_Gafol_ (from German _Gaben_, _Abgaben_, food gifts under German tribal system), tribute, 144, 145; in money and in kind, of villein tenants. Perhaps survival of Roman tributum based upon tribal food rents (_see_ 'Roman tributum,' and 'jugatio,' 'gwestva'); of villani, on English manors, 78; of _gebur_, on Saxon manors, 132, 140–142, 155, 162. Marked a semi-servile condition, 146, 326
_Gafol-land_, 137. _See_ Geneat-land
_Gafol-gilder_, payer of gafol or tribute, 145
_Gafol-yrth_, the ploughing of generally three acre strips and sowing by the gebur, from his own barn, and reaping and carrying of crop to lord's barn by way of rent; in 'Rectitudines,' 132–140; on Hysseburne Manor of King Alfred, 162; in South Germany in seventh century, 326 _et seq._ Possibly survival of the _agrarium_ or tenth of produce on Roman provincial tithe lands, 399–403
_Gavael_, the tribal homestead and holding in N. Wales, 200–202
_Gavelkind_, Irish _gabal-cined_, distinguished by equal division among heirs, 220, 352
_Gebur_, villanus proper, or owner of a yard-land normally of thirty acres with outfit of two oxen and seed, in 'Rectitudines,' 131–133. His services described, 131–133, and 137–143; his gafol and week-work in respect of yard-land, 142; his outfit or 'setene,' 133, 143; in laws of Ine, 147. Services and gafol on Tidenham Manor of King Edwy, 154. In High German 'Gebur and Gipur' = vicinus, 394, and compare 278
_Gedal-land_, land divided into strips (Laws of Ine), 110. _See_ Doles
_Geneat_, a wide term covering all tenants in villenage, 129, 137, 154. Servile condition of, liable to have life taken by lord, 146
_Geneat-land_, land in villenage as opposed to 'thane's inland,' or land in demesne, 116. Sometimes called 'gesettes-land' and 'gafol-land, 128, 150; 'gyrds of gafol-land,' 150
_Geset-land_, land set or let out to husbandmen, 128. _See_ 'Geneat-land'
_Gored Acres_, strips in open fields pointed at one end, 6, 20; in Saxon open fields, 108
_Gwely_, the Welsh family couch (lectus), also a name for a family holding, 195; in Record of Carnarvon, 194
_Gwentian Code_, of South Wales. _See_ 'Wales, Ancient Laws of'
_Gwestva_, food rent of Welsh tribesmen, and _tunc pound_ in lieu of it, 195; early evidence of, in Ine's laws, 209–213
_Gyrd_ (a rod-virga)
_Gyrdland._ _See_ Yardland. _See_ 169–172
_Ham_ (hem, heim, haim), in Saxon, like 'tun,' generally = villa or manor, 126, 254. A private estate with a village community in serfdom upon it, 127. Geographical distribution of suffix, 255. _See_ Villa
_Headland_, strip at head of strips in a furlong on which the plough was turned, 4. Latin '_forera_,' Welsh '_pentir_,' Scotch '_headrig_,' German '_anwänder_,' 5, 380. In Saxon open fields, 108
_Hide_, normal holding of a free family (hence Latin _casatum_ and the _familia_ of Bede), but in later records corresponding with the full plough team of eight oxen, and so = four yard-lands. Used as the unit of assessment for early times, 38. Perhaps from Roman times. Compare Roman _tributum_, 290–294. Connexion with carucate and yard-land, 36. Normal hide, 120 a., 37. Double hide of 240 a., 37, 39, 51, 54. Possible origin of word, 398. The _hide_, the _hof_, and the _centuria_ compared, 395
_Hitchin_ (Herts), its 'open fields,' 1–7. Map of township and of an estate therein, _opposite title-page_. Map of Purwell field, 6. Its village community described in Manor Rolls of 1819, 8, and appendix. Boundaries, 9. Officers, 10. Common fields, 11. Its Celtic name _Hiz_, 429. Roman remains, 430. Continuity of villages in Hitchin district from Celtic and Roman and Saxon times, 424–436
_Hiwisc_, Saxon for family holding, 162, 395
_Honey_, Welsh rents in. _See_ Gwestva, 207, 211–213
_Hordwell_, boundaries of, in Saxon Charter, 107
_Hundred Rolls_ of Edward I., A.D. 1279, evidence of, as to the prevalence of the Manor, the open-field system and serfdom in five Midland Counties, 32, _et seq._
_Husband-lands_ in Kelso and Newminster Records = virgate or yard-land, 61
_Hydarii_, holders of hides, 52
_Hysseburne_, Manor of Stoke by, on the river Itchin near Winchester, held by King Alfred, 160. Serfdom and services of ceorls on, 162
_Ine, Laws of_ (A.D. 688), evidence of open-field system, 109. Acre strips, 110. Yardlands, 142. Hides and half hides, 147. Geneats, geburs, gafol, week-work, 147. Welsh food rents, 212–213
_Ing_, suffix to local names; whether denotes clan settlements and where found, 354–367
_Inquisitio Eliensis_ mentions liberi homines and sochmanni, 87. Mentions villani as holding virgates, &c., 94. Mentions both bordarii and cottarii, 96
_Isle of Man_, early division of land into ballys and quarters, 222
_Jugatio._ _See_ Roman tributum
_Jugerum_, size and form of, 387
_Jugum._ (_See_ Roman tributum.) Roman unit of assessment, 289–295. Description of, in Syrian Code, 291. Analogy to virgate and hide, and sulung, 292
_Jüngsten-Recht_, right of youngest to succeed to holding, 352–354. See also under Welsh laws, 193, 197
_Kelso, Abbey of_, '_Rotulus redituum_,' _stuht_ or outfit to tenants of, 61
_Lammas land_, meadows owned in strips, but commonable after Lammas Day, in Hitchin Manor, 11; in laws of Ine, 110
_Læn-land_, lands granted as a benefice for life to a thane, 168
_Læti_, conquered barbarians deported and settled on public lands during later Roman rule, chiefly in Belgic Gaul and Britain, 280–289
_Leges Alamannorum_ (A.D. 622), surrenders to Church allowed under, 317; services of _servi_ and _coloni_ of the Church under, 323
_Leges Baiuwariorum_ (7th century) surrenders under, 317. Services of _coloni_ and _servi_ of the Church under, 325
_Leges Ripuariorum_, 304
_Lex Salica_, use of 'villa' in a manorial sense, 259–262, 303
_Lex Visigothorum_ (A.D. 650 about) in division of land between Romans and Visigoths, fifty aripennes allotted _per singula aratra_, 276 _n._
_Liber Niger_ of Peterborough Abbey (A.D. 1125), nearest evidence to the Domesday Survey, 72 _et seq._
_Libere tenentes_, holders of portions of demesne-land, i.e. land _not_ in villenage, 33. Villeins holding yard-lands in villenage may be _libere tenentes_ of other land besides, 34. Increasing in later times, 54. Absent from Domesday survey generally, 86; Archdeacon Hale's theory of their presence disproved, 86–87 _n._
_Liberi homines_, of Domesday Survey in Danish districts, 86, 102
_Lince, or lynch_, acre strip in open fields formed into a terrace by always turning the sod downwards in ploughing a hill side, 5; sketch of, 5; in Saxon open fields, 108; in Yorkshire 'reean' and Germany 'rain' = _lince_ or _balk_, 381
_Lingones_, 284
_Lorsch_ (Lauresham), instances of surrenders to the Abbey of, 329–333
_Maenol_, cluster of tribal homesteads in Welsh laws, in North Wales of sixteen homesteads paying between them the _tunc pound_, 202. In South Wales the _maenol_ is a group of twelve _trevs_, each paying _tunc pound_, 203–4
_Manor_, or _villa_, in Saxon, _ham_ or _tun_. An estate of a lord or thane with a village community generally in serfdom upon it. Hitchin Manor and its connexion with open-field system, 1–13. Manors before Domesday Survey--Winslow, 22; Hundred Rolls, 32; described in Fleta, 45; Battle Abbey and St. Paul's, 49; Gloucester and Worcester, 55; Bleadon, 57; Newminster and Kelso, 60. In Boldon Book, 68; in Liber Niger of Peterborough, 72; summary, 76. In Domesday Survey manors everywhere, 82 _et seq._ Westminster, 97. Saxon 'hams' and 'tuns' were manors, 126 _et seq._ Manor of Tidenham, of King Edwy, 148. Hysseburne, of King Alfred, 160. Creation of new manors, 166. Terra Regis composed of manors, 167. 'Hams' and 'tuns' in King Ethelbert's laws, manors, i.e., in private ownership with semi-servile tenants (_læts_) upon them, 173. There were manors in England before St. Augustine's arrival, 175. English and Frankish identical, 253. Villa of Salic Laws probably a manor on Terra Regis, 259–263. Likeness of Roman villa to, 263–272 (_see_ Roman 'Villa'). Villas, or fiscal districts of Imperial officials, tend to become manors, 300–305. Transition from villas to manors under Alamannic and Bavarian laws in South Germany, 316–335. Frankish manors, their tenants and services, 333. Manorial tendencies of German tribal system, 346
_Monetary System_, Gallic and Welsh pound of 240 pence of silver divided into twelve unciæ each of a score pence, 204. The Gallic system in Roman times, 234, 292
_Nervii_, 284
_Newminster Abbey_, cartulary of, 60
_No Man's Land_, or 'Jack's Land,' odds and ends of lands in open fields, 6. In Saxon boundaries, 108
_Open-Field System in England_; remains of open fields described, 1, _et seq._ Divided into acre or half-acre strips, 2, and furlongs or shots, 4. Holdings in bundles of scattered strips, 7; _i.e._, hides, half-hides, yard-lands, &c. (to which refer). Wide prevalence of system in England, 13. The shell of a village community, 8–13--which was in serfdom, 76–80. The English system, the _three-field system_, _i.e._, in three fields, representing three-course rotation of crops, 11. Traced back in Winslow manor rolls (Ed. III.), 20 _et seq._; in Gloucester and Worcester surveys, 55; Battle Abbey and St. Paul's records, 49; Newminster and Kelso records, 60; Boldon Book, 68; Liber Niger of Peterborough, 72. Summary of post-Domesday evidence, 76. Prevalence in Saxon times, shown by use of the word _æcera_, 106, and by occurrence of _gored acres_, _head-lands_, _furlongs_, _linces_, &c., in the boundaries appended to charters, 108. Evidence of division of fields into acre strips in seventh century in _Laws of Ine_, 109–110. Holdings in hides, half-hides and yard-lands, 110–117. Scattering of strips in a holding the result of co-operative ploughing, 117–125. The three-field system would grow out of the simple form of tribal system, by addition of rotation of crops in three courses, settlement, and serfdom, 368–370. _Welsh open-field system_, 181, 213, with division into '_erws_,' or acres, 119. Scattering of strips in a holding arising from co-aration, 121. The system 'co-aration of the waste,' _i.e._ of grass land which went back into grass, 192, 227, 244, 251. Like that of the Germania of Tacitus, 369, 412. No fixed 'yard-lands' or rotation of crops, 251, 413. _Irish and Scotch open-field system_ like the Welsh; modern remains of, in _Rundale_ or _Run-rig_ system, 214–231. _German_ open-field systems, 369–411; different kinds of, _Feldgraswirthschaft_ resembling that described by Tacitus and Welsh 'co-aration of waste,' 371. One-field system of N. Germany, 372–373. Forest and marsh system, 372. Three-field system in S. Germany, 373. Comparison of, with English, and connexion with Roman province, 375–409. Absent from N. Germany, and so could not have been introduced into England by the Saxon invaders, 373, 409, 411. Rotation of crops, perhaps of Roman introduction, 410, 411. Wide prevalence of forms of open-field system, 249. Description of, in Palestine, 314. Mention of, by Siculus Flaccus, 278. Possibly in use on Roman tithe lands, 315. Remains of the simple tribal form of, in modern rundale or run-rig of Ireland and Scotland, quite distinct from the remains of the three-field form in England, 437–439. Described by Tusser as uneconomical, 17, and by Arthur Young, 16
_Parangariæ_, extra carrying services, _see_ 'angariæ'
_Paraveredi_, extra post-horses (_see_ Roman 'sordida munera'), 297, from _veredus_ a post-horse, 298. Manorial _Parafretus_, 325–334
_Patrocinium._ _See_ 'Commendation'
_Pfahl-graben_, the Roman _limes_ on the side of Germany, 282
_Pflicht-theil_, survival of late Roman law, obliging a fixed proportion of a man's property to go equally to his sons. In Bavaria, 313. Compare Bavarian laws of the seventh century, 317, and Syrian code of fifth century, 312
_Piers the Plowman_, his 'faire felde,' an open field divided into half-acre strips and furlongs, by balks, 18–19
_Plough-bote_, or _Plough-erw_, the strips set apart in the co-ploughing, for the carpenter, or repair of plough, 121. (_See_ Carpenter)
_Plough team_, normal English manorial common plough team of 8 oxen (_see_ 'Caruca'). Welsh do., also of 8 oxen, 121–2. Scotch also, 62–66. 6, 10, or 12 oxen in Servia, 387 _n._ In India, 388. Single yoke of 2 oxen in Egypt and Palestine, 314, 387; and in Sicily, 275, and Spain, 276
_Polyptique d'Irminon_, Abbot of St. Germain des Prés, and M. Guérard's Introduction quoted, 265, 298, 641
_Præpositus_ of a manor elected by tenants, 48. Holds one wista without services at Alciston, 50. Holds his two bovates free (Boldon Book), 70. Word used for Welsh 'maer,' 184
_Precaria_, a benefice or holding at will of lord or for life only, 319, 333
_Precariæ_ or Boon-works, work at will of lord, 78. On Saxon Manors, 140, 157. In South Germany, 327. Sometimes survivals of the Roman 'sordida munera,' 327, 403
_Priest_, his place in village community often with his yard-land, 90–111, 115
_Probus_ introduces vine culture on the Rhine, 288. Deports Burgundians and Vandals into Britain, 283. Colonised with Læti Rhine Valley and Belgic Gaul, 283
_Punder_, keeper of the village pound, 69, 70
_Quarentena._ _See_ Furlong. Length of furrow 40 poles long
_Rain_, German for 'balk' as in Yorkshire 'reean' = linch, 381
_Randir_, from _rhan_, a division, and _tir_, land; a share of land under Welsh laws, 200. A cluster of three homesteads in South Wales, 204; and four randirs in the _trev_, 204; but in North Wales a subdivision of the homestead, 200
'_Rectitudines Singularum Personarum_' (10th century?), evidence of, 129 _et seq._ Dr. Leo's work upon, 164
_Redon, Cartulaire de_, quoted, 385
_Rhætia_, semi-servile barbarian settlers in, 288. _Sordida munera_ in, 296–299. Roman custom, in present Bavaria as to land tenure, 313. Transition from Roman to Mediæval manor in, 316–335
_Rig_, strip in Irish and Scotch open fields, 3. Hence Run-rig system
_Roman jugatio sive capitatio_, 289, 295. _See_ Roman tributum
_Roman_ '_sordida munera_,' 295–299. Some of them survive in manorial services, 324, 325, 327, 334, 404
_Roman tributum_ of later Empire, 289–295. Roman _jugatio_ and Saxon hidage compared, _id._, and 397
_Roman Veterans_ settled on _ager publicus_ with single or double yokes of oxen and seed for about 30 or 60 jugera, 272–276
_Roman Villa._ _See_ Villa
_Run-rig_ or _Rundale_, the Irish and Scotch modern open-field system, 3. Survival of methods of tribal system now used in subdivision of holdings among heirs, 226, 230, 438–440
_St. Bertin_, Abbey of Sitdiu at, Grimbald brought by King Alfred from thence, 160; Chartularium Sithiensis, and surveys of estates of, 255–6; villa or manor of Sitdiu, 272, 366; suffix 'inghem' to names of manors, 356
_St. Gall_, records of Abbey, surrenders to, 316–324
_St. Paul's_ (Domesday of), A.D. 1222, 51
_Salian Franks_ in Toxandria, 286
_Scattered Ownership_, in open fields, 7. Characteristic of 'yard-land' in Winslow manor rolls, 23. In Saxon open fields, 111. In Welsh laws, 118. Resulted from co-ploughing, 121. Under runrig system, 226–229
_Scutage_, 1d. per acre or 1l. per double hide of 240 a., or 40s. per _scutum_, to which four ordinary hides contributed, 38
_Seliones_, the acre or half-acre strips into which the open fields were divided, separated by turf _balks_, 2, 3, 19, 119
_Servi_ (_slaves_), in Domesday Survey, 89, 93–95. Saxon _Theow_ 164–166, 175. Welsh _caeth_, 199, 238. On Roman Villa, 263. Arranged in _decuriæ_, 264. Under Alamannic and Bavarian laws, 317, 323–326
_Services_ of _villani_, chiefly of three kinds: (1) Gafol, (2) precariæ or boon-work, (3) week-work (refer to these heads), 41. In Hundred Rolls, 41. Domesday of St. Paul's, 53. Gloucester and Worcester records, 58. In Kelso records, 67. Boldon Book, 68. Liber Niger of Peterborough, 73. Summary of post-Domesday evidence, 78. On Saxon manors, in 'Rectitudines,' 130, 137–147. On Tidenham manor of King Edwy, 154. On Hysseburne manor of King Alfred, 162. In Saxon '_weork-ræden_,' 158. Of cottiers (or bordarii) in Hundred Rolls, 44. Gloucester and Worcester, 58, 69. Of Saxon 'cotsetle,' 130, 141. On German and English manors compared, 399–405
_Setene_, outfit of holder of Saxon yard-land, 133, 139. _See_ Stuht
_Shot_, 4 (_see_ furlong), Saxon 'sceot,' a division, occurs at Passau, 380
_Siculus Flaccus_ mentions open fields, irregular boundaries, and scattered ownership, on _agri occupatorii_, 274–278
_Sochmanni_, a class of tenants on manors chiefly in the Danish districts, 34. Mentioned in Hundred Rolls in Cambridgeshire, 34; in Domesday Survey, 87, 102
_Solanda_, in Domesday of St. Paul's = double hide of 240 a., 54
_Solin_, _sullung_, of Kent, plough land from 'Suhl,' a plough, 54; divided into 'yokes' (= yard-lands), 54; sullung = 4 gyrdlands and to ½ sullung, outfit of four oxen, A.D. 835, 139. _See also_, 395
_Stuht_, Kelso records, outfit of two oxen, &c., with husband-land (yard-land), 61. Compare '_setene_' of the Saxon gebur with yard-land, 133 and 139, and outfit of Roman veteran, 274; and see under Bavarian Laws, 326
_Succession to holdings_, under the tribal system to all sons of tribesmen equally, 193, 234, 340; to yard-lands and other holdings in serfdom _single_ by regrant, 23–24, 133, 176; so probably in the case of semi-servile holdings of _usufructuarii_ under Roman law, 308
_Supercilia_, or linches, mentioned by _Agrimensores_, 277
_Syrian Code_ of fifth century, 291–294
_Tacitus_, description of German tribal system in the _Germania_, 338–343
_Tacogs_ (or aillts), Welsh tenants without Welsh blood or rights of inheritance, not tribesmen--their 'register land' (tir cyfrif), 191; arranged in separate clusters or trevs with equality within each, 197; their 'register land,' 197; their dues to their lord and other incidents, 198–199
_Tate, or Tath_, the Irish homestead, analogous to Welsh 'tyddyn,' 214, 231. _See_ Tribal system, Irish
_Thane_, Lord of a ham. Thane's inland = Lord's demesne land, 128. Thane's law or duties in 'Rectitudines,' 129; his services, 134; a soldier and servant of king, 135; his 'fyrd,' 136; _trinoda necessitas_, 134
_Theows_, slaves on Saxon estates, 144; their position, 164. Example from 'Ælfric's Dialogue,' 165
_Three-Field System._ (_See_ Open-field system.) Form of the open-field system with three-course rotation of crops
_Tidenham_, Manor of King Edwy. Description of, and of services of geneats and geburs upon, A.D. 956, 148–159. _Cytweras_ and _hæcweras_, for salmon fishing, 152
_Tir-bwrdd_ = terra mensalia, 198
_Tir-gwelyawg_, family land of Welsh free tribesmen, 191
_Tir-cyfrif_, register land of taeogs, 101
_Tir-kyllydus_, Welsh geldable land, 191
_Tithes_ of Church under Saxon laws taken in actual strips or acres 'as they were traversed by the plough,' 114; acres of tithes in Domesday Survey, 117; Ethelwulf's grant, 114
_Tithe lands_ of Sicily, 275; of modern Palestine, 314. (_See_ '_Agri decumates_.')
_Trev_, cluster of Welsh free tribesmen's homesteads, four in North Wales, 200–202; twelve in South Wales, 204. _Taeog_ trevs, 203
_Treviri_, 284
_Tricassi_, 284
_Tribal System in Wales_, 181–213. Welsh districts and traces of, in Domesday Survey, 182, 206–7. Food rents in D.S., 185. Welsh land system described by Giraldus Cambrensis, 186–189. In Ancient Laws of Wales, 189 _et seq._ The free tribesmen of Welsh blood, 190. Homesteads scattered about, but grouped into clusters for payment of food rents, 190. Their family land (tir-gwelyawg), 190–191. Their right to a tyddyn (homestead), five free 'erws' and co-tillage of waste, 192. The tribal household with equality within it among brothers, first cousins, and second cousins, 193. The gwely or family couch, 194. The _gwestva_, or food rent, and tunc pound in lieu of it, 195. Other obligations of tribesmen, 195. The _taeogs or aillts_ (see these words) not tribesmen, their tenure and rules of equality, 197. Land divisions under Welsh Codes connected with the _gwestva_ and food rents, 199–208. Early evidence of payment of gwestva and of food rents of taeogs, 208–213. Shifting of holdings under tribal system, 205. Cluster of twelve tyddyns in Gwent and sixteen in N. Wales pay _tunc pound_, 202, 203. _In Ireland and Scotland_, 214–231. Clusters of sixteen tates or taths (Welsh tyddyn), 215–217. Sir John Davies's surveys and description of tribal system, Tanistry, and Gavelkind, 215–220. Example of a Sept deported from Cumberland, 219. Ancient division of Bally or townland into _quarters_ and _tates_, 221, 224. Quarters and names of tates still traceable on Ordnance Survey, 223–224. Names of tates not personal, owing to tribal distributions and shiftings of tribal households from tate to tate, 224.
Irish open-field system--rundale or run-rig--226–228. Similar system in Scotland, 228–229. Tribal system in its earlier stages, 231–245. Tenacity with which tribal division among sons maintained, 234. The tribal house, 239. Blood money, 242. Wide prevalence of tribal system, 244. Absent from S.E. or Belgic districts of England at Roman conquest, 245. _In Germany_, description of tribal system by Cæsar, 336–337. Description of, by Tacitus, 338–342. Husbandry like Welsh co-tillage of the waste for one year only, 343–345. Manorial tendencies of German system: tribesmen have their _servi_ who are 'like _coloni_,' 345–346. The manor in embryo, 346. Tribal households of German settlers--local names ending in 'ing'--whether clan settlements or perhaps as manorial as others, 346–367
_Tun_, generally in Saxon = ham or manor, (to which refer), 255
_Tunc pound_, payment in lieu of Welsh _gwestva_ (to which refer) paid to the Prince of Wales, 196
_Tusser_, his description of 'Champion' or open-field husbandry, 17
_Tyddyn_, the Welsh homestead, 192–193. Compare Irish 'tate' or 'tath' and Bohemian 'dĕdiny,' 355
_Uchelwyr_, free Welsh tribesman, 192
_Venedotian_ Code of North Wales. _See_ Wales, Ancient Laws of
_Veredus_, post horse, derivation of word, 298
_Villa_, word interchangeable with _manor_, _ham_, _tun_, 126, 254. Frankish _heim_ or _villa_ on _Terra Regis_ was a manor and unit of jurisdiction, 257, 262. _The Roman villa_, an estate under a villicus, worked by slaves, 263. Its _cohortes_ and _ergastulum_, 263–264. Slaves arranged in _decuriæ_, 264. _Coloni_, often barbarians on a villa, 266. Likeness to a manor increasing, 267–268. Burgundians shared villas with Romans, 269. Villas transferred to Church, 270. And continued under German rule to be villas, 270. And became gradually mediæval manors with villages upon them, 271. Villas surrendered under Alamannic and Bavarian laws to the Church, 317 _et seq._
_Village Community or Villata_, under a manor, 8. Hitchin example. _See_ Hitchin. Its common or open fields: arable, 11; meadow and pasture, 11. Its officials, 10, 70
_Villani_, holders of land in villenage, 29. Sometimes _nativi_ and _adscripti glebæ_, 29. Pay heriot or relief; widows have dower; make wills proved in Manor Court, 30. The yard-land the normal holding of full villanus with two oxen, 27 (_see_ Yard-land). Sometimes they hold the demesne land at farm, 69. Sometimes farm whole manor, 70. _Pleni-villani_ and _semi-villani_, 74
_Villenage._ _See_ Villani. Breaking up in 14th century, 31. Its death-blow the Black Death and Wat Tyler's rebellion, 31–32. Incidents of, in Worcestershire, 56. General incidents, 80. _See_ Servius
_Virgarii_, holders of Virgates, 50
_Virgate._ See Yardland.
_Wales, Ancient Laws of_, ascribed to Howel Dda (10th century), 189. Contemporary with Saxon Laws, 190. _See_ 'Tribal System' of, 181–213. Parts of, mentioned in Domesday Survey, 182, 185
_Wat Tyler's_ rebellion, 31
_Week-work._ The distinctive service of the serf in villenage, 78 (and see for details 'Services'), in _Rectitudines_, week-work of gebur three days a week, 131, 141. In services of Tidenham unlimited, 155. So in those of Hysseburne, 163. In laws of Alamanni (A.D. 622) three days on estates of Church, 323. So in Bavarian laws (7th century), 326. Unless lord has found everything, 326. On Lorsch manors three days, 334. _See also_, 404
_Wele_, Welsh holding in _Record of Carnarvon_. _See_ 'Gwely,' 193–195
_Westminster_, description of its manor and open fields in Domesday Survey, 97–101
_Winslow_, Court Rolls of, 20–32
_Wista_, in Battle Abbey records = ½ hide--the _Great Wista_ = ½ double hide, 50
_Wizenburg_, surrenders to Abbey of, 329. Interchange between _villas_ and _heims_ in records of, 258
_Yard-land_ (_gyrd-landes_, _virgata terræ_), normal holding of villanus with two oxen in the common plough of eight oxen--a bundle of mostly thirty scattered strips in the open fields = German 'hub.' Example of yard-land in Winslow Manor rolls, 24. Rotation in the strips, 27. Large area in yard-lands, 28. Held in villenage by villani, 29. Evidence of Hundred Rolls, 33. Variation in acreage and connexion with 'hide,' 36, 55 = husband-land of two bovates in the North, 61, 67. Normal holding of villanus in _Liber Niger_ of Peterborough, 73. Normal holding of villanus of Domesday Survey, 91–95. Large proportion of arable land of England held in yard-lands at date of survey, 101. Saxon 'gyrd-lands,' 111, 117. In 'Rectitudines,' 133. In 'Laws of Ine,' 142. A bundle of scattered strips resulting from co-operative ploughing, 117–125. With single succession (_see_ 'Succession') which is the mark of serfdom of the holders, 176, 370
_Yoke of Land_ (mentioned in Domesday Survey of Kent) = yard-land. Division of the _sullung_ or double hide in Kent, 54. Compared with Roman _jugum_. _See_ Jugum
_Yoke_, _short_ for two oxen, _long_ for four oxen abreast in Welsh laws, 120
_Youngest_ son, custom for, to succeed to holding. _See_ Jüngsten-Recht
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., COLCHESTER LONDON AND ETON, ENGLAND
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Transcriber's note:
Original punctuation and spelling were generally retained.
Illustrations are moved from inside paragraphs to between paragraphs.
Footnotes are renumbered and moved from the ends of pages to the ends of chapters.
The List of Maps and Plates was reformatted slightly to eliminate the original ditto marks ahead of each page number. Ditto marks have also been removed elsewhere, adding repetitive text as necessary. Large curley brackets, "{" or "}", meant to indicate combination or grouping of information on two or more lines, have been eliminated from this ebook. Such information has been recast appropriately to retain the original meaning.
Page 142: No anchor was found for the footnote; a new anchor was therefore inserted thus: "an otherwise almost unintelligible passage in the laws of King Ine[170]".
Page 144, first footnote: The text looks like "twihinde mek"; this has been changed to "twihinde men".
Page 207: changed "rendered as gwesta" to "rendered as gwestva".
Page 216–217: "ballibeatach" is also spelled "bailebiatagh" on these pages.
Page 261: changed "in the sense of 'court'--king's court,'--just as in" to "in the sense of 'court'--'king's court,'--just as in", by adding the single quote.
Page 340: The first footnote on this page lacks the volume number for the reference _Germania_. The second edition of the book contains the same footnote, but shows the volume number as "xxv", which has been inserted herein.
Page 391: The third footnote is rendered "_Id._ 37–8" herein, based on the second edition of the book. The current (reprint of the fourth) edition was illegible.
Index, under "Hide": "Double hide of, 240 a" changed to "Double hide of 240 a".
Index, under "Polyptique d'Irminon": It says "Introduction quoted, 265, 298, 641", but there is no page 641 in the book. However, footnote number 594 refers to page 641 of M. Guérard's Introduction.