find it impossible to distinguish between private property and official
property. Certain manors are regarded as the 'manors of the shire'
(_mansiones de comitatu_[682]); certain vills are 'comital vills[683],'
they belong to 'the consulate[684].' Hereditary right tempered by
outlawry was fast becoming the title by which the earldoms were holden.
The position of the house of Leofric in Mercia was far from being as
strong as the position of the house of Rolf in Normandy, and yet we may
be sure that King Harold would not have been able to treat the sons of
Ælfgar as removable officers. But one of the best marked features of
Domesday Book, a feature displayed on page after page, the enormous
wealth of the house of Godwin, seems only explicable by the supposition
that the earlships and the older ealdormanships had carried with them a
title to the enjoyment of wide lands. That enormous wealth had been
acquired within a marvellously short time. Godwin was a new man: nothing
certain is known of his ancestry. His daughter's marriage with the king
will account for something; Harold's marriage with the daughter of
Ælfgar will account for something, for instance, for manors which Harold
held in the middle of Ælfgar's country[685]; and a great deal of simple
rapacity is laid to the charge of Harold by jurors whose testimony is
not to be lightly rejected[686]; but the greater part of the land
ascribed to Godwin, his widow and his sons, seems to consist of
_comitales villae_.
[Private rights and governmental revenues.]
The wealth of the earls is a matter of great importance. If we subtract
the estates of the king, the estates of the earls, and the estates of
the churches--and, as we shall see hereafter, the churches had obtained
the bulk of their wealth directly from the kings,--if we subtract again
the lands which the king, the earls, the churches have granted to their
thegns, the England of 1065 will not appear to us a land of very great
landowners, and we may obtain a valuable hint as to one of the origins
of feudalism. A vast amount of land is or has recently been held by
office-holders, by the holders of the kingship, the earlships, or the
ealdormanships. We seem to see their proprietary rights arising in the
sphere of public law, growing out of governmental rights, which however
themselves are conceived as being in some sort proprietary. Many a
passage in Domesday Book will suggest to us that a right to take tribute
and a right to take the profits of justice have helped to give the king
and the earls their manors and their seignories. Even in his own demesne
manors the king is apt to appear rather as a tribute taker than as a
landowner. Manors of very unequal size and value have had to supply him
with equal quantities of victuals; each has to give 'a night's farm'
once a year. Then from the counties at large he has taken a tribute;
from Oxfordshire, for example, £10 for a hawk, 20 shillings for a
sumpter horse, £23 for dogs and 6 sesters of honey[687]; from
Worcestershire £10 or a Norway hawk, 20 shillings for a sumpter
horse[688]; from Warwickshire £23 for 'the dog's custom,' 20 shillings
for a sumpter horse, £10 for a hawk and 24 sesters of honey[689]. The
farm of the county that the sheriff pays is made up out of obscure old
items of this sort. Many men who are not the king's tenants must assist
him in his hunting, must help in the erection of his deer-hays[690].
Then there are the _avera_ and the _inwards_ that are exacted by the
king or his sheriff from sokemen who are not the king's men. The sheriff
also is entitled to provender rents; out of 'the revenues which belong
to the shrievalty' of Wiltshire, Edward of Salisbury gets pigs, wheat,
barley, oats, honey, poultry, eggs, cheeses, lambs and fleeces; and
besides this he seems to have 'reveland' which belongs to him as
sheriff[691]. Then we see curious payments in money and renders in kind
made to some royal or some comital manor by the holders of other manors.
In Devonshire, Charlton which belongs to the Bishop of Coutances,
Honiton which belongs to the Count of Mortain, Smaurige which belongs to
Ralph de Pomerai, Membury which belongs to William Chevre, Roverige
which belongs to St. Mary of Rouen, each of these manors used to pay
twenty pence a year to the royal manor of Axminster[692]. In
Somersetshire there are manors which have owed _consuetudines_, masses
of iron and sheep and lambs to the royal manors of South Perrott and
Cury, or the comital manors of Crewkerne and Dulverton[693]. Then again,
we find that pasture rights are connected with justiciary
rights:--Godwin had a manor in Hampshire to which belonged the third
penny of six hundreds, and in all the woods of those six hundreds he had
free pasture and pannage[694]; the third penny of three hundreds in
Devonshire and the third animal of the moorland pastures were annexed to
the manor of Molland[695]. Many things seem to indicate that the
distinction between private rights and governmental powers has been but
faintly perceived in the past.
[The English state.]
If now we look at that English state which is the outcome of a purely
English history, we see that it has already taken a pyramidal or conical
shape. It is a society of lords and men. At its base are the cultivators
of the soil, at its apex is the king. This cone is as yet but low. Even
at the end of William's reign the peasant seldom had more than two lords
between him and the king, but already in the Confessor's reign he might
well have three[696]. Also the cone is obtuse: the angle at its apex
will grow acuter under Norman rulers. We can indeed obtain no accurate
statistics, but the number of landholders who were King Edward's men
must have been much larger than the tale of the Norman tenants in chief.
In the geographical distribution of the large estates under William
there is but little more regularity than there was under his
predecessor. In Cheshire and in Shropshire the Conqueror formed two
great fiefs for Hugh of Avranches and Roger of Montgomery, well
compacted fiefs, the like of which England had not yet seen. But the
units which William found in existence and which he distributed among
his followers were for the more part discrete units, and seldom did the
Norman baron acquire as his honour any wide stretch of continuous
territory. Still a great change took place in the substance of the cone,
or if that substance is made up of lords and men and acres, then in the
nature of, or rather the relation between, the forces which held the
atoms together. Every change makes for symmetry, simplicity,
consolidation. Some of these changes will seem to us predestined. To
speculate as to what would have happened had Harold repelled the invader
would be vain, and certainly we have no reason for believing that in
that case the formula of dependent tenure would ever have got hold of
every acre of English land and every right in English land. The law of
'land loans' (_Lehnrecht_) would hardly have become our only land law,
had not a conqueror enjoyed an unbounded power, or a power bounded only
by some reverence for the churches, of deciding by what men and on what
terms every rood of England should be holden. Had it not been for this,
we should surely have had some _franc alleu_ to oppose to the _fief_,
some _Eigen_ to oppose to the _Lehn_. But if England was not to be for
ever a prey to rebellions and civil wars, the power of the lords over
their men must have been--not indeed increased, but--territorialized;
the liberty of 'going with one's land to whatever lord one chose' must
have been curtailed. As yet the central force embodied in the kingship
was too feeble to deal directly with every one of its subjects, to
govern them and protect them. The intermediation of the lords was
necessary; the state could not but be pyramidal; and, while this was so,
the freedom that men had of forsaking one lord for another, of forsaking
even the king for the ambitious earl, was a freedom that was akin to
anarchy. Such a liberty must have its wings clipt; free contract must be
taught to know its place; the lord's hold over the man's land must
become permanent. This change, if it makes at first for a more definite
feudalism, or (to use words more strictly) if it substitutes feudalism
for vassalism, makes also for the stability of the state, for the
increase of the state's power over the individual, and in the end for
the disappearance of feudalism. The freeholder of the thirteenth
century is much more like the subject of a modern state than was the
free man of the Confessor's day who could place himself and his land
under the power and warranty of whatever lord he chose. Lordship in
becoming landlordship begins to lose its most dangerous element; it is
ceasing to be a religion, it is becoming a 'real' right, a matter for
private law. Again, we may guess, if we please, that but for the Norman
Conquest the mass of the English peasantry would never have fallen so
low as fall it did. The 'sokemen' would hardly have been turned into
'villeins,' the 'villeins' would hardly have become 'serfs.' And yet the
villeins of the Confessor's time were in a perilous position. Already
they were occupying lands which for two most important purposes were
reckoned the lands of their lords, lands for which their lords gelded,
lands for which their lords fought. Even in an English England the time
might have come when the state, refusing to look behind their lords,
would have left the protection of their rights to a _Hofrecht_, to 'the
custom of the manor.'
[Last words.]
It is, we repeat it, vain to speculate about such matters, for we know
too little of the relative strength of the various forces that were at
work, and an accident, a war, a famine, may at any moment decide the
fate, even the legal fate, of a great class. And above all there is the
unanswerable question whether Harold or any near successor of his would
or could have done what William did so soon as the survey was
accomplished, when he proved that, after all, the pyramid was no pyramid
and that every particle of it was in immediate contact with him, and
'there came to him all the land-sitting men who were worth aught from
over all England, whosesoever men they were, and they bowed themselves
to him, and became this man's men[697].'
FOOTNOTES:
[618] D. B. i. 91: 'Ecclesia Romana beati Petri Apostoli tenet de
Rege Peritone.' Ib. 157: 'Ecclesia Sancti Dyonisii Parisii
tenet de Rege Teigtone. Rex Edwardus ei dedit.' Ib. 20 b:
'Abbas de Grestain tenet de Comite 2 hidas in Bedingham.'
[619] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 220.
[620] D. B. i. 218 b: 'Rex vero Willelmus sibi postea in elemosina
concessit, unde pro anima Regis et Regine omni ebdomada 2
feria missam persolvit.' D. B. ii. 133: 'et cantat unaquaque
ebdomada tres missas.'
[621] D. B. i. 3: 'reddit unum militem in servitio Archiepiscopi.'
Ib. 10 b: 'servitium unius militis.' Ib. 32: 'servitium unius
militis.' Ib. 151 b: 'inveniebat 2 loricatos in custodiam de
Windesores.'
[622] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 268.
[623] But D. B. i. 218 b gives us 'tenet in ministerio Regis.'
[624] D. B. i. 4 b: 'De terra huius manerii tenet Godefridus in feuo
dimid. solin.' Ib. 36 b: 'Humfridus Camerarius tenet de feuo
Reginae Cumbe.' Ib. 336 b: 'Ipsam [domum] clamat Normannus
Crassus de feuo Regis.'
[625] D. B. i. 129 b: 'Postea Willelmus Camerarius tenuit de Regina
in feudo pro 3 lib. per annum de firma, et post mortem Reginae
eodem modo tenuit de Rege.'
[626] But, as in general a farmer would have no heritable rights,
holding in fee may be contrasted with holding in farm. D. B.
i. 230 b: 'Has terras habet Goduinus de Rege ad firmam, Dislea
vero tenet de Rege in feudo.' So again it may be contrasted
with the husband's rights in his wife's marriage portion. D.
B. i. 214 b: 'De ista terra tenet Pirotus 3 hidas de maritagio
suae feminae et unam hidam et terciam partem unius hidae tenet
in feudum de Nigello.'
[627] D. B. i. 158: Robert de Ouilly holds forty-two houses in
Oxford, some meadow-land and a mill 'cum beneficio S. Petri,'
i.e. together with the benefice of S. Peter's church.
Elsewhere, i. 273, we read that King William gave a manor to
the monks of Burton 'pro beneficio suo'; but the meaning of
this is by no means clear.
[628] D. B. i. 44 b: 'Duo liberi homines tenuerunt de Alwino sed non
fuit alod.' The same phrase occurs on f. 46.
[629] D. B. i. 22: 'Aluuard et Algar tenuerunt de Rege pro 2
maneriis in alodia ... Ælueua tenuit de Rege Edwardo sicut
alodium.' Ib. 26: 'Godwinus Comes tenuit et de eo 7 aloarii.'
[630] D. B. i. 60 b: 'Duo alodiarii tenuerunt T. R. E. ... unus
servivit Reginae, alter Bundino.'
[631] D. B. i. 1: 'Quando moritur alodiarius, Rex inde habet
relevationem terrae.'
[632] D. B. i. 52 b: 'Has hidas tenuerunt 7 alodiarii de Episcopo
nec poterant recedere alio vel ab illo.'
[633] D. B. i. 63 b: 'Ibi sunt 5 alodiarii.'
[634] See charter of John for St Augustin's, Canterbury, Rot. Cart.
p. 105: 'omnes allodiarios quos eis habemus datos.' This
phrase seems to descend through a series of charters from two
charters of the Conqueror in which the 'swa fele þegna swa ic
heom togeleton habbe' of the one appears in the other as
'omnes allodiarios.' If so, we get from the Conqueror's own
chancery the equation þegn=alodiarius. Hist. Mon. S. August.
349-50.
[635] D. B. i. 23: in two successive entries we have 'Offa tenuit de
Episcopo in feudo.... Almar tenuit de Goduino Comite in
alodium.' So again, i. 59: 'Blacheman tenuit de Heraldo Comite
in alodio.... Blacheman tenuit in feudo T. R. E.' The
suggestion has been made that _alodium_ represents
_book-land_; see Pollock, Land Laws, ed. 3. p. 27; Eng. Hist.
Rev. xi. 227; but we gravely doubt whether the humbler
_alodiarii_ had books. The author of the Quadripartitus
renders _bócland_ by _terra hereditaria_, _terra
testimentalis_, _terra libera_, and even by _feudum_ (Edg. II.
2); _alodium_ occurs in the Instituta Cnuti. After this we can
hardly say for certain that D. B. does not use _alodium_ and
_feodum_ as equivalents, both representing a heritable estate,
as absolute an ownership of land as is conceivable.
[636] Hist. Eng. Law, i. 46.
[637] D. B. i. 197.
[638] D. B. i. 238 b: 'Reliquas autem 7 hidas et dimidiam tenuit
[_sic_] Britnodus et Aluui T. R. E., sed comitatus nescit de
quo tenuerint.'
[639] D. B. i. 23: 'Offa tenuit de episcopo in feudo.' Ib. i. 59 b:
'Blacheman tenuit in feudo T. R. E.'
[640] D. B. i. 28 b: 'Bricmar tenuit de Azor et Azor de Heraldo ...
Terra est 2 carucis. In dominio est una et 2 villani et 2
bordarii cum dimidia caruca.'
[641] D. B. i. 75 b: 'De eadem terra ten[ent] 3 taini 3 hidas et
reddunt 3 libras excepto servicio.' Ib. 86 b: 'Huic manerio
est addita dimidia hida. Tres taini tenebant T. R. E. et
serviebant preposito manerii per consuetudinem absque omni
firma donante.'
[642] D. B. i. 1: 'Quando moritur alodiarius, Rex inde habet
relevationem terrae.'
[643] D. B. i. 179: 'Burgensis cum caballo serviens, cum moriebatur,
habebat Rex equum et arma eius. De eo qui equum non habebat,
si moreretur, habebat Rex aut 10 solidos aut terram eius cum
domibus.'
[644] D. B. i. 50 b: 'Alric tenet dimidiam hidam. Hanc tenuit pater
eius de Rege E. Sed hic Regem non requisivit post mortem
Godric sui avunculi qui eam custodiebat.'
[645] D. B. i. 238 b: 'Huic aecclesiae dedit Aluuinus vicecomes
Cliptone concessu Regis Edwardi et filiorum suorum pro anima
sua.' Ib. 59: 'De hoc manerio scira attestatur, quod Edricus
qui eum tenebat deliberavit illum filio suo qui erat in
Abendone monachus ut ad firmam illud teneret et sibi donec
viveret necessaria vitae donaret; post mortem vero eius
manerium haberet. Et ideo nesciunt homines de scira quod
abbatiae pertineat, neque enim inde viderunt brevem Regis vel
sigillum. Abbas vero testatur quod in T. R. E. misit ille
manerium ad aecclesiam unde erat et inde habet brevem et
sigillum R. E.'
[646] D. B. i. 154: 'Quando Rex ibat in expeditione, burgenses 20
ibant cum eo pro omnibus aliis, vel 20 libras dabant Regi ut
omnes essent liberi.'
[647] D. B. i. 230: 'Quando Rex ibat in exercitu per terram, de ipso
burgo 12 burgenses ibant cum eo.'
[648] D. B. i. 238: 'Consuetudo Waruuic fuit, ut eunte rege per
terram in expeditionem, decem burgenses de Waruuic pro omnibus
aliis irent.'
[649] D. B. i. 57 b.
[650] D. B. i. 64 b: 'Quando Rex ibat in expeditione vel terra vel
mari, habebat de hoc burgo aut 20 solidos ad pascendos suos
buzecarlos, aut unum hominem ducebat secum pro honore 5
hidarum.'
[651] D. B. i. 100: 'Quando expeditio ibat per terram aut per mare
serviebat haec civitas quantum 5 hidae terrae.'
[652] Above, p. 156, note 650.
[653] Schmid, App. VII. c. 2. § 9-12; App. V; Pseudoleges Canuti
(i.e. Instituta Cnuti) 60, 61 (Schmid, p. 431).
[654] Of this we shall speak in another Essay.
[655] D. B. i. 375 b; above, p. 145.
[656] D. B. i. 87 b: 'Istae consuetudines pertinent ad Tantone ...
profectio in exercitum cum hominibus episcopi.... Hae duae
terrae non debent exercitum.'
[657] See above, p. 85, note 326.
[658] D. B. i. 172: 'Quando Rex in hostem pergit, si quis edictum
eius vocatus remanserit, si ita liber homo est ut habeat socam
suam et sacam et cum terra sua possit ire quo voluerit, de
omni terra sua est in misericordia Regis. Cuiuscumque vero
alterius domini homo si de hoste remanserit et dominus eius
pro eo alium hominem duxerit, 40 sol. domino suo qui vocatus
fuit emendabit. Quod si ex toto nullus pro eo abierit, ipse
quidem domino suo 40 sol. dabit, dominus autem eius totidem
solidis Regi emendabit.'
[659] See above, p. 77, note 294.
[660] See Round, Feudal England, 249.
[661] D. B. i. 208: 'Testantur homines de comitatu quod Rex Edwardus
dedit Suineshefet Siuuardo Comiti soccam et sacam, et sic
habuit Haroldus comes, praeter quod geldabant in hundredo et
in hostem cum eis ibant.' It is here noted that though Harold
had sake and soke over Swineshead, it paid its geld and did
its military duty in the hundred. Our record would hardly
mention such a point unless very often the exaction of geld
and military service was one of the rights and duties of the
lord who had sake and soke.
[662] In the next chapter we shall speak of the bishop's land-loans.
[663] See the capitularies of 807 and 808 (ed. Boretius, pp. 134,
137). Also, Fustel de Coulanges, Les transformations de la
royauté, 515 ff. It may well be doubted whether the five-hide
rule had not been borrowed by English kings from their
Frankish neighbours. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 208 ff.
[664] D. B. i. 152 b: 'duo teigni homines Alrici filii Goding.' Ib.
'Hoc manerium tenuit Azor filius Toti teignus Regis Edwardi et
alter teignus homo eius tenuit unam hidam et vendere potuit.'
[665] D. B. i. 84 b: at the end of a list of royal thegns 'Omnes qui
has terras T. R. E. tenebant, poterant ire ad quem dominum
volebant.'
[666] D. B. i. 41: 'Tres taini tenuerunt de episcopo et non
potuerunt ire quolibet.'
[667] D. B. i. 91: 'Hae terrae erant tainland in Glastingberie T. R.
E. nec poterant ab aecclesia separari.'
[668] Hamilton, Inquisitio, pp. xviii. xix.
[669] D. B. i. 66 b: 'De hac eadem terra 3 hidas vendiderat abbas
cuidam taino T. R. E. ad aetatem trium hominum, et ipse abbas
habebat inde servitium, et postea debet redire ad dominium.'
Ib. i. 83 b: 'Ipsa femina tenet 2 hidas in Tatentone quae
erant de dominio abbatiae de Cernel; T. R. E. duo teini
tenebant prestito.'
[670] D. B. i. 64 b: 'Herman et alii servientes Regis ... Odo et
alii taini Regis ... Herueus et alii ministri Regis.' Ib. 75:
'Guddmund et alii taini ... Willelmus Belet et alii servientes
Regis.'
[671] D. B. i. 56 b (Berkshire custom): 'Tainus vel miles Regis
dominicus moriens, pro relevamento dimittebat Regi omnia arma
sua et equum unum cum sella, alium sine sella.'
[672] D. B. i. 83: 'Bricsi tenuit miles Regis E.' Such entries are
rare. D. B. i. 66: 'De eadem terra huius manerii ten[ent] duo
Angli.... Unus ex eis est miles iussu Regis et nepos fuit
Hermanni episcopi.' Here the king compels an Englishman to
become a _miles_. D. B. i. 180 b: 'Quinque taini ... habebant
sub se 4 milites.' The warrior was not necessarily of thegnly
rank.
[673] See the passages collected by Schmid, Gesetze, p. 667.
[674] In their treatment of the thegnship of the last days before
the Conquest, Maurer lays stress upon the proprietary element,
Schmid upon the hereditary. See Little, Gesiths and Thegns, E.
H. R. iv. 723.
[675] Cnut, ii. 71.
[676] D. B. i. 280 b.
[677] Hamilton, Inquisitio, 121.
[678] Eyton, Somerset, i. 84.
[679] D. B. iv. 75: 'Dominicatus Regis ad Regnum pertinens in
Devenescira.' Ib. 99: 'Mansiones de Comitatu.' Eyton,
Somerset, i. 78.
[680] D. B. ii. 119: 'Hoc manerium fuit de regno, sed Rex Edwardus
dedit Radulfo Comiti.' Ib. 144: 'Suafham pertinuit ad regionem
et Rex E. dedit R. Comiti.' Ib. 281 b: 'Terra Regis de Regione
quam Rogerus Bigotus servat.' Ib. 408 b: 'Tornei manerium
Regis de regione.' Mr Round, Feudal England, p. 140, treats
_regio_ as a mere blunder; but it may well stand for
_kingship_.
[681] D. B. i. 30 b: 'Huius villae villani ab omni re vicecom[itis]
sunt quieti.'
[682] D. B. iv. 99.
[683] Pseudoleges Canuti (= Liebermann's Instituta Cnuti), 55
(Schmid, p. 430): 'Comitis rectitudines secundum Anglos istae
sunt communes cum rege: tertius denarius in villis ubi
mercatum convenerit, et in castigatione latronum, et comitales
villae, quae ad comitatum eius pertinent.'
[684] D. B. ii. 118 b: 'Terre Regis in Tetford ... est una leugata
terre in longa et dim. in lato de qua Rex habet duas partes:
de his autem duabus partibus tercia pars in consulatu iacet.'
But this seems to mean that only this part of the land is in
the county of Norfolk. Ibid. i. 246: in Stafford the king has
twenty-two houses 'de honore comitum.'
[685] D. B. i. 246.
[686] Ellis, Introduction. i. 313. When twenty years after Harold's
death a question about the title to land is at issue, there
seems no reason why the jurors should tell lies about Harold.
[687] D. B. i. 154 b.
[688] D. B. i. 172.
[689] D. B. i. 238.
[690] D. B. i. 56 b: Berkshire custom, 'Qui monitus ad stabilitionem
venationis non ibat 50 sol. Regi emendabat.' See also the
Hereford custom, Ib. 179; also Rectitudines (Schmid, App.
III.) c. 1.
[691] D. B. i. 69. But the meaning of _reveland_ is obscure. The
most important passages about it are in D. B. i. 57 b
(Eseldeborne), 181 (Getune). D. B. i. 83: 'Hanc tenet Aiulf de
Rege quamdiu erit vicecomes.'
[692] D. B. i. 100.
[693] D. B. i. 86, 86 b, 92, 97; so in Devonshire, 117 b: 'Hoc
manerium debet per consuetudinem in Tavetone manerium Regis
aut 1 bovem aut 30 denarios.'
[694] D. B. i. 38 b.
[695] D. B. i. 101: 'Ipsi manerio pertinet tercius denarius de
hundredis Nortmoltone et Badentone et Brantone et tercium
animal pasturae morarum.'
[696] Above, p. 155.
[697] Chron. ann. 1085.
§ 9. _The Boroughs._
[Borough and village.]
Dark as the history of our villages may be, the history of the boroughs
is darker yet; or rather, perhaps, the darkness seems blacker because we
are compelled to suppose that it conceals from our view changes more
rapid and intricate than those that have happened in the open country.
The few paragraphs that follow will be devoted mainly to the development
of one suggestion which has come to us from foreign books, but which may
throw a little light where every feeble ray is useful. At completeness
we must not aim, and in our first words we ought to protest that no
general theory will tell the story of every or any particular town[698].
[The borough in cent. xiii.]
In the thirteenth century a legal, though a wavering, line is drawn
between the borough and the mere vill or rural township[699]. It is a
wavering line, for stress can be laid now upon one and now upon another
attribute of the ancient and indubitable boroughs, and this selected
attribute can then be employed as a test for the claims of other towns.
When in Edward I.'s day the sheriffs are being told to bid every borough
send two burgesses to the king's parliaments, there are somewhat more
than 150 places to which such summonses will at times be addressed,
though before the end of the middle ages the number of 'parliamentary
boroughs' will have shrunk to 100 or thereabouts[700]. Many towns seem
to hover on the border line and in some cases the sheriff has been able
to decide whether or no a town shall be represented in the councils of
the realm. Yet if we go back to the early years of the tenth century, we
shall still find this contrast between the borough and the mere township
existing as a contrast whence legal consequences flow. Where lies the
contrast? What is it that makes a borough to be a borough? That is the
problem that we desire to solve. It is a legal problem. We are not to
ask why some places are thickly populated or why trade has flowed in
this or that channel. We are to ask why certain vills are severed from
other vills and are called boroughs.
[The number of the boroughs.]
We may reasonably wish, however, since mental pictures must be painted,
to know at the outset whereabouts the line will be drawn, and whether
when we are speaking of the Conqueror's reign and earlier times we shall
have a large or a small number of boroughs on our hands. Will it be a
hundred and fifty, or a hundred, or will it be only fifty? At once we
will say that some fifty boroughs stand out prominently and will demand
our best attention, though a second and far less important class was
already being formed.
[The aid-paying boroughs of cent. xii.]