_THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM AND SERFDOM
OF ENGLAND AND OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES OF GERMANY AND GAUL._
I. THE OPEN-FIELD SYSTEM IN ENGLAND AND IN GERMANY COMPARED.
We now return to the English manorial and open-field system, in
order, taking it up where we left it, to trace its connexion with
the similar Continental system, and to inquire in what districts
the closest resemblances to it are to be found--whether in the
un-Romanised north or in the southern districts so long included
within the _limes_ of the Roman provinces.
«Under the manorial system, the open-field system the shell
of serfdom.»
The earliest documentary evidence available on English ground left us
in full possession of the Saxon manor with its village community of
serfs upon it, inhabiting as its shell the open-field system in its
most organised form, _i.e._ with its (generally) three fields, its
furlongs, its acre or half-acre strips, its headlands, its yard-lands
or bundles of normally thirty acres, scattered all over the fields,
the yard-land representing the year's ploughing of a pair of oxen in
the team of [p369] eight, and the acre strip the measure of a day's
plough-work of the team.
This was the system described in the '_Rectitudines_' of the tenth
century, and the allusions to the 'gebur,' the 'yard-land,' the
'setene,' the 'gafol,' and the 'week-work' in the laws of Ine carried
back the evidence presumably to the seventh century.
«Simpler form of open-field husbandry under the tribal
system.»
But it must not be forgotten that side by side with this manorial
open-field system we found an earlier and simpler form of open-field
husbandry carried on by the free tribesmen and taeogs of Wales. This
simpler system described in the Welsh laws and the 'triads' seemed
to be in its main features practically identical with that described
also in the _Germania_ of Tacitus. It was an annual ploughing up of
fresh grass-land, leaving it to go back again into grass after the
year's ploughing. It was, in fact, the agriculture of a pastoral
people, with a large range of pasture land for their cattle, a small
portion of which annually selected for tillage sufficed for their
corn crops. This is clearly the meaning of Tacitus, '_Arva per annos
mutant et superest ager._' It is clearly the meaning of the Welsh
'triads,' according to which the tribesman's right extended to his
'tyddyn,' with its corn and cattle yard, and to _co-aration of the
waste_.
«Three-field system produced by a three-course rotation of
crops.»
Nor can there be much mystery in the relation of these two forms
of open-field husbandry to each other. In both, the arable land
is divided in the ploughing into furlongs and strips. There is
co-operation of ploughing in both, the contribution of oxen to the
common team of eight in both, the allotment of the strips to the
owners of the oxen in rotation, [p370] producing the same scattering
of the strips in both. The methods are the same. The difference lies
in the application of the methods to two different stages of economic
growth. The simple form is adapted to the early nomadic stage of
tribal life, and survives even after partial settlement, so long as
grassland is sufficiently abundant to allow of fresh ground being
broken by the plough each year. The more complex and organised form
implies fixed settlement on the same territory, the necessity for
a settled agriculture within a definite limit, and the consequent
ploughing of the same land over and over again for generations. The
_three-field_ system seems to be simply the adaptation of the early
open-field husbandry to a permanent three-course rotation of crops.
«The yard-land the mark of serfdom.»
But there is a further distinguishing feature of the English
three-field system which implies the introduction of yet another
factor in the complex result, viz. the _yard-land_. And this
indivisible bundle of strips, to which there was always a single
succession, was evidently the holding not of a free tribesman whose
heirs would inherit and divide the inheritance, but of a serf, to
whom an outfit of oxen had been allotted. In fact, the complex and
more organised system would naturally grow out of the simpler form
under the two conditions of _settlement_ and _serfdom_.
Now, turning from England to the Continent, we have in the same way
various forms of the open-field system to deal with, and in comparing
them with the English system their geographical distribution becomes
very important.
«German authorities on the German system.»
Happily, very close attention has recently been given to this subject
by German students, and we are [p371] able to rely with confidence
on the facts collected by Dr. Landau,[554] by Dr. Hanssen,[555]
and lastly by Dr. August Meitzen in his _Ausbreitung der Deutschen
in Deutschland_,[556] and in his still more recent and interesting
review of the collected works of Dr. Hanssen.[557]
Whilst we learn from these writers that much remains to be done
before the last word can be said upon so intricate a subject, some
general points seem at least to be clearly made out.
In the first place there are some German systems of husbandry which
may well be weeded out at once from the rest as not analogous to the
Anglo-Saxon three-field system in England.
«The Feldgraswirthschaft.»
There is the old '_Feldgraswirthschaft_,' analogous perhaps to the
Welsh co-ploughing of the waste and the shifting '_Arva_' of the
Germans of Tacitus, which still lingers in the mountain districts of
Germany and Switzerland, where corn is a secondary crop to grass.[558]
«The Einzelhöfe.»
There are the '_Einzelhöfe_' of Westphalia and other districts,
_i.e._ single farms, each consisting mainly of land all in one block,
like a modern English farm, but as different as possible from the
old English open-field system, with its yard-lands and scattered
strips.[559]
«Forest and marsh system.»
Further, there is a peculiar form of the open-field system,
chiefly found in forest and marsh districts, in which each holding
consists generally of _one single [p372] long strip of land_,
reaching from the homestead right across the village territory to
its boundary.[560] This system, so different from the prevalent
Anglo-Saxon system, is supposed to represent comparatively modern
colonisation and reclamation of forest and marsh land; and though
possibly bearing some analogy to the English _fen_ system, is not
that for which we are seeking.
Passing all these by, we come to a peculiar method of husbandry which
covers a large tract of country, and which is adopted under both the
single farm system and also the open-field system with scattered
ownership, but which nevertheless is opposed to the three-field
system. It is especially important for our purpose because of its
geographical position.
«The one-field system»
All over the sand and bog district of the north of Germany, crops,
mostly of rye and buckwheat, have for centuries been grown _year
after year on the same land_, kept productive by marling and peat
manure, on what Hanssen describes as the 'one-field system.'[561]
This system is found in Westphalia, East Friesland, Oldenburg, North
Hanover, Holland, Belgium. Denmark, Brunswick, Saxony, and East
Prussia. Over parts of the district under this one-field system the
single-farm system prevails, in others the fields are divided into
'Gewanne' and strips, and there is scattered ownership.
«in North Germany.»
Now, possibly this one-field system, with its marling and peat
manure, may have been the system described by Pliny as prevalent
in Belgic Britain and Gaul before the Roman conquest, [p373] but
certainly it is not the system prevalent in England under Saxon rule.
And yet this district where the one-field system is prevalent in
Germany is precisely the district from which, according to the common
theory, the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain came. It is precisely the
district of Germany where the three-field system is conspicuously
absent. So that although Nasse and Waitz somewhat hastily suggested
that the Saxons had introduced the three-field system into England,
Hanssen, assuming that the invaders of England came from the north,
confidently denies that this was possible. 'The Anglo-Saxons and the
Frisians and Low Germans and Jutes who came with them to England
cannot [he writes] have brought the three-field system with them
into England, because they did not themselves use it at home in
North-west Germany and Jutland.' He adds that even in later times the
three-field system has never been able to obtain a firm footing in
these coast districts.[562]
«The three-field system»
There remains the question, where on the Continent was prevalent
that two-or three-field system analogous to the one most generally
prevalent on the manors of England?
«in the old Suevic and Roman districts.»
The result of the careful inquiries of Hanssen, Landau, and Meitzen
seems to be, broadly speaking, this, viz., that setting aside the
complication which arises in those districts where there has been
a Slavic occupation of German ground and a German re-occupation of
Slavic ground,[563] the ancient three-field system, with its _huben_
of scattered strips, was most [p374] generally prevalent south of
the Lippe and the Teutoberger Wald, _i.e._ in those districts once
occupied by the Suevic tribes located round the Roman _limes_, and
still more in those districts within the Roman _limes_ which were
once Roman province--the 'Agri Decumates,' Rhætia, and Germania
Prima--the present Baden, Wirtemberg, Swabia, and Bavaria, on the
German side of the Rhine, and Elsass and the Moselle valley on its
Gallic side.[564]
These once Roman or partly Romanised districts were undoubtedly its
chief home. Sporadically and later, it existed further north but not
generally.
This general geographical conclusion is very important. But before
we can fairly assume either a Roman or South German origin, the
similarity of the English and South German systems must be examined
in their details and earliest historical traces. Further, the
examination must not be confined to the shell. It must be extended
also to the serfdom which in Germany as in England, so to speak,
lived within it.
In previous chapters some of the resemblances between the English and
German systems have incidentally been noticed, but the reader will
pardon some repetition for the sake of clearness in the statement of
this important comparison. [p375]
II. THE BOUNDARIES, OR 'MARCHÆ.'
«The boundaries, or marchæ.»
_First_ as to the whole territory or ager occupied by the village
community or township. This, by the presentment of the homage of the
Hitchin Manor, was described in the record by its _boundaries_--from
such a place to such a place, and so on fill the starting-point was
reached again.
In the '_gemæru_' of the Saxon charters the same form was used.
In the '_marchæ_' of the manors surrendered to the abbey of Lorsch in
the seventh and eighth centuries, the same form was used in the Rhine
valley.
It is, in fact, as we have seen, a form in use before the Christian
era, and described by the Roman 'Agrimensores' as often adopted in
recording the '_limites_' of irregular territories, to which their
rectangular centuriation did not extend.
Now, when we consider this method, it implies permanent settlements
close to one another, where even the marshes or forests lying between
them have been permanently divided by a fixed line, or it implies
that a necessity has arisen to mark off the occupied territory from
the _ager publicus_. It may have been derived from the rough and
ready methods of marking divisions of tribe-land during the early and
unsettled stages of tribal life. But the German settlements described
by Tacitus seem to have been without defined boundaries. 'Agri' were
taken possession of according to the number of the settlers, _pro
numero cultorum_. Not till some outside influence compelled final
_settlement_ would the necessity for [p376] well-marked boundaries
of territories arise. And we have seen that the evidence of local
names strongly points to the Roman rule as this settling influence.
In the Lorsch charters the districts included within the 'marchæ' are
often, as we have seen, called 'marks.'
III. THE THREE FIELDS, OR 'ZELGEN.'
«The three fields.»
Next as to the division of the arable land into fields--generally
_three_ fields[565]--representing the annual rotation of crops.
The homage of the Hitchin Manor presented that the common fields
within the township had immemoriably been and ought to be kept and
cultivated in three successive _seasons_ of--
(1) Tilth-grain,
(2) Etch-grain, and
(3) Fallow.
The three fields are elsewhere commonly known as the--
(1) Winter corn,
(2) Spring corn, and
(3) Fallow.
Universally, the fallow ends at the autumn sowing of the wheat crop
of the next season, which is hence called 'winter corn.'
The word _etch_, or _eddish_, or _edish_, occurs in Tusser, and means
the stubble of the previous crop [p377] of whatever kind. Thus, in
the 'Directions for February,' he says,--
«Etch-grain sown on the stubble of a previous crop.»
'Eat _etch_, ere ye plow,
With hog, sheep, and cow.'[566]
This is evidently to prepare the stubble of the last year's corn crop
for the spring sown bean or other crop; for under the same month he
says,--
Go plow in the stubble, for now is the season
For sowing of vetches, of beans, and of peason.[567]
In the directions for the October sowing are the following lines:--
Seed first go fetch
For _edish_, or _etch_.
White wheat if ye please,
Sow now upon pease.[568]
And again,--
When wheat upon _eddish_ ye mind to bestow
Let that be the first of the wheat ye do sow.
* * * * *
White wheat upon pease-_etch_ doth grow as he would,
But fallow is best if we did as we should.
* * * * *
When peason ye had and a fallow thereon,
Sow wheat ye may well without dung thereupon.[569]
«Tilth-grain sown on the fallow.»
'Etch-grain' is therefore the crop, generally oats or beans, sown in
spring after ploughing the stubble of the wheat crop, which itself
was best sown if possible upon the fallow, and so was called the
'tilth-grain.'
«Breach-corn.»
The oats or beans grown on the wheat stubble were sometimes called
'_Breach_-corn,' and _Breach_-land was land prepared for a second
crop.[570] [p378]
Where shall we find these words and things on the Continent?
Looking to the Latin words used for the three fields, it is obvious
that these were sometimes regarded as three separate ploughings--
_araturæ_, or _culturæ_,--or as so many sowings--_sationes_,[571]--just
as in the north of England they are called 'falls,' or 'fallows,' which
have to be ploughed.
«Names for the three fields, 'Felder,' 'Sationes,'
'Zelgen.'»
In North Germany, where they occur, they are generally simply called
'_felder_;'[572] in France around Paris they were called in the ninth
century '_sationes_;'[573] but in South Germany and Switzerland
the usual word for each field is _Zelg_, which Dr. Landau connects
with the Anglo-Saxon '_tilgende_' (tilling), and the later English
'_tilth_,' one of the Hitchin words. And he says that _Zelg_ strictly
means only the ploughed field[574] (_aratura_), though used for all
the three. The three fields were thus spoken of as three _tilths_.
The word '_Zelg_' we have already found in the St. Gall charters in
the eighth century, and Dr. Landau points out other instances of the
same date of its use in the districts of Swabia, the middle Rhine,
and later in the Inn Valley.
«'Esch,' and the Gothic 'Attisk.'»
On the other hand, in Westphalia, in Baden, and especially in Upper
Swabia and Upper Bavaria, as far as the river Isar, and also in
Switzerland, the word _Esch_ is the one in use,[575] the word being
used in [p379] Westphalia, also for the whole arable area.[576]
_Esch_ also was in use at the date of the earliest form of the
Bavarian laws (in the seventh century). The hedge put up in defence
of the sown field is there called an '_ezzisczun_.'[577] Still
earlier, in the fourth century, further East the open fields seem to
have been called '_attisk_;' for Ulphilas, in his translation of Mark
ii. 23, speaks of the disciples walking over the '_attisk_'--_i.e._
over the 'etch,' or 'eddish'--instead of as in the Anglo-Saxon
translation over the '_æcera_.' Here, therefore, we have another of
the Hitchin words.
«'Brachfrichte.'»
«These words point to connexion with South Germany.»
In Hesse, according to Dr. Landau, the three fields are spoken of as--
(1) In der _Lentzen_.
(2) In der _Brache_.
(3) In der _Rure_.
On the Main, in the fifteenth century, they were spoken of as--
(1) _Lenz_ frichte.
(2) _Brach_ frichte.
(3) _Rur_ frichte.
In Elsass, in the fourteenth century, and on the Danube--
(1) Brochager (Brach field)
(2) Rurager (Fallow field)
were used, and Dr. Landau says that _Esch_ is sometimes put in
contrast with '_Brach_.'[578] Whatever may be [p380] the exact
meaning of the word _Brach_--whether referring to the breaking of the
rotation or the breaking of the stubble--there can be no doubt of the
identity of the word with the English _Breach_ and _Breach-corn_.
It appears, therefore, that in South Germany, and especially in the
districts once Roman province, the three fields representing the
rotation of crops for many centuries have been known by names closely
resembling those used in England.
IV. THE DIVISION OF THE FIELDS INTO FURLONGS AND ACRES.
Passing next to the divisions of the open fields, we take first the
Furlongs or Shots (the Latin _Quarentenæ_).
«'Shot.'»
The word 'Shot' probably is simply the Anglo-Saxon '_sceot_,' or
_division_; but it is curious to find in a document of 1318 mention
of 'unam peciam, quod vulgariter dicitur _Schoet_' at _Passau_, near
the junction of the Inn with the Danube.[579]
«'Gewann.'»
The usual word in Middle and South Germany is '_Gewende_,' in Lower
Germany '_Wande_' or '_Wanne_,' or '_Gewann_'--words which no less
than the Furlong[580] refer to the length of the furrow and the
turning of the plough at the end of it.
«Headland.»
The _headland_, on which the plough was turned, [p381] is also found
in the German three-field system as in England.
«'Voracker.'»
In a Frankish document quoted by Dr. Landau, it is called the
'_Voracker_,' elsewhere it is known as the '_Anwänder_' (_versura_),
or '_Vorwart_.'[581]
«The Lince called 'Rain.'»
In the English system the furlongs were divided into strips or
acres by turf balks left in the ploughing, and, as we have seen, on
hill-sides, the strips became terraces, and the balks steep banks
called 'linces.' It will be remembered that these were produced by
the practice of always turning the sod downhill in the ploughing.
There are many _linces_ as far north as in the district of the
'Teutoberger Wald,'[582] and they occur in great numbers as far south
as the Inn Valley, all the way up to St. Mauritz and Pontresina.
Although in many places the terraces in the Engadine are now
grass-land, it is well known to the peasantry that they were made by
ancient ploughing.
The German word for the turf slope of these terraces is '_Rain_,'
and, like the word balk, it means a strip of unploughed turf.[583] It
is sometimes used for the terrace itself. Precisely the same word is
used for the similar terraces in the Dales of Yorkshire, which are
still called by the Dalesmen '_reeans_' or '_reins_.'[584] Terraces
of the same kind are found in [p382] Scotland; and when Pennant
in 1772 asked what they were called, he was told that they were
'_baulks_.'[585]
«The Celtic _Rhan_.»
Both words suggest a wider than merely German origin. 'Balk' is as
thoroughly a Welsh word[586] as it is English and German. 'Rain' can
hardly be other than the Welsh '_Rhan_' (a division), or '_Rhyn_' and
'_grwn_' (a ridge), with which the name of the open-field system in
Ireland and Scotland--'_run-rig_'--is no doubt connected. The English
word _lince_ or _linch_, with the Anglo-Saxon 'hlinc' and 'hlince,'
is perhaps allied to the Anglo-Saxon 'Hlynian,' or 'Hlinian,' to
lean, making its participle '_hlynigende_;' and this, and the old
High German '_hlinen_,' are surely connected with the Latin and
Italian '_inclinare_' and the French '_enclin_.' As we have seen, the
Roman 'Agrimensores' called these slopes or terraces '_supercilia_.'
* * * * *
Next let us ask, whence came the English _acre strip_ itself?
«The acre strip a day's work.»
It represented, as we have seen, a day's work at ploughing. Hence the
German _Morgen_ and _Tagwerk_, in the Alps _Tagwan_ and _Tagwen_; and
hence also, as early as the eighth century, the Latin '_jurnalis_'
and [p383] '_diurnalis_.'[587] In early Roman times Varro describes
the _jugerum_ [or _jugum_]--the Roman acre--as '_quod juncti boves
uno die exarare possint_.'[588]
The division of arable open fields into day-works was therefore
ancient. It was also widely spread, and by no means confined to the
three-field system. It was common to the co-aration of both free
tribesmen and 'taeogs' in Wales; and the Fellahin of Palestine to
this moment divide their open fields into day-works for the purpose
of easy division among them, according to their ploughs or shares in
a plough.[589]
In the Irish open-field system, as we have seen, the land was very
early divided into equal 'ridges,' for in the passage quoted,
referring to the pressure of population in the seventh century, the
complaint was, not that the people received _smaller_ ridges than in
former times, but _fewer of them_. These ridges, however, may or may
not have been 'day-works.'
But perhaps, outside of the three-field system, a still more widely
spread practice was that of dividing the furlongs or larger divisions
into _as many strips as there were sharers_, without reference to the
size of the strips. This practice seems to be the one adopted in many
parts of Germany, in Russia, and in the East, and it is in common use
in the western districts of Scotland to this day whenever a piece of
land is held by a number of crofters as joint holders.[590] [p384]
It is doubtful whether the division into acre strips representing
day-works, and divided from their neighbours by 'raine' or balks,
was one of the features of the original German system of ploughing.
It is chiefly, if not entirely, in the districts within or near to
the Roman 'limes,' or colonised after the conquest of the Roman
provinces, that it appears to have been prevalent.[591]
With regard to the word 'acre,' it is probably of very ancient origin.
The German 'acker' has the wider sense of ploughed land in general,
but sometimes in East Friesland,[592] and also in South Germany and
German Switzerland it has still the restricted meaning of the acre
strip laid out for ploughing.[593]
* * * * *
We now pass to the form of the acre strip or day's work in ploughing.
«Roman jugerum.»
The Roman _actus_ or furrow length was 120 feet, or twelve 10-feet
rods. The _actus quadratus_ was 120 feet square. The jugerum was
composed of two of these _actus quadrati_. It was therefore in length
still an actus or furrow of 120 feet, and it was twice as broad as
it was long; whilst the length of the English acre is ten times its
breadth.
«Strips of the same form as the English acre in France and
in Bavaria in the seventh century.»
Thus the English acre varied much in its shape [p385] from the Roman
jugerum. Its exact measurements are found in the _mappa_, or measure
of the day-work of the tenants of the abbot of St. Remy at Rheims,
which is described in the Polyptique of the ninth century as forty
perches in length and four in width.[594] It occurs again in the
'_napatica_' of the Polyptique of the abbey of St. Maur, near Nantes,
which was of precisely the same dimensions.[595] And we have seen
that the 'andecena,' or measure of the day's work of ploughing for
the coloni and servi of the Church, was described by the Bavarian
laws in the seventh century as of precisely the same form as the
English acre, forty rods in length and four rods in width, only that
the rods were Roman rods of 10 feet.
We have to go, therefore, to Bavaria in the seventh century for
the earliest instance of the form of the English acre. And in this
earliest instance it had a distinctly _servile_ connexion, as it had
also in the French cases quoted. In all it fixed the day's task-work
of semi-servile tenants.
Further, the Bavarian 'andecena,' if the spelling of the word may be
trusted, may have another curious and interesting connexion with the
Saxon acre, to which attention must be once more turned.
«The form in which the 'agrarium' or tithe-rent was taken.»
We have seen that the tithes were to be paid in Saxon times in the
produce of 'every tenth acre as it [p386] is traversed by the
plough.' The Roman land-tribute in Rhætia and the 'Agri Decumates'
also consisted of tithes. If these latter tithes were paid as the
Saxon ecclesiastical tithes were, by every tenth strip being set
aside for them in the ploughing, the words of the Bavarian law have
an important significance. The _judex_ or _villicus_ is required by
the laws to see that the _colonus_ or _servus_ shall render by way
of _agrarium_ or land tribute according to what he has, from every
thirty modii three modii (_i.e._ the tenth)--'lawful _andecenæ_
(_andecenas legitimas_), that is (the rod having ten feet) four rods
in width and forty in length, to plough, to sow, to hedge, to gather,
to lead, and to store.'[596]
Now why is the peculiar phraseology used 'from 30 modii 3 modii'?
Surely either because three modii, according to the 'Agrimensores,'
went to the juger, or because the actual acre of the locality was
sown with three modii of seed,[597] so that in either case it was
a way of saying 'from every ten acres one acre.' Further, the form
and measure of the acre is described, and it is called the '_lawful
andecena_.' The word itself in its peculiar etymology possibly
contains a reference to the _one strip set apart in ten for the
tithe_. Be this as it may, here again, in another point connected
with the 'acre,' we find the nearest and earliest analogies in South
Germany within the old Roman province. [p387]
Lastly, we have still to explain the reason of the difference
between the form of the Roman 'actus' and 'jugerum' and that of the
early Bavarian and English acre.
The Egyptian arura was 100 cubits square.[598]
The Greek πλέθρον was 10 rods or 100 feet square.[599]
The Roman actus was 12 rods or 120 feet square.
The Roman 'jugerum' was made up of two 'actus' placed side by side,
and was the area to be ploughed in a day.
«Form of the acre or day's-work connected with the number
of oxen in the team.»
In all these cases the yoke of two oxen is assumed, and the length of
the acre, or 'day-work,' is the length of the furrow which _two_ oxen
could properly plough at a stretch.[600]
The reason of the increased length of the Bavarian and the English
acre was, no doubt, connected with the fact of the larger team.[601]
If the Bavarian team was of eight oxen, like that of the English
and Welsh and Scotch common plough, it would seem perfectly natural
that with four times the strength of team the furrow might also be
assumed to be four times the usual length. In this way the Greek
and Roman furrow of 10 or 12 rods may naturally have been extended
north of the Alps into the 'furlong' of forty rods. [p388] . Now,
there is a remarkable proof that long furrows, and therefore probably
large teams, were used in Bavaria, then within the Roman province of
Rhætia, as early as the second century. The remains of the Bavarian
'Hochäcker' are described as running uninterruptedly for sometimes
a kilomètre and more, _i.e._ five times the length of the English
furlong. And a Roman road with milestones, dating as early as A.D.
201, in one place runs across these long furrows in a way which seems
to prove that they were older than the road.[602]
«The Bavarian 'Hochäcker' and their long furrows.»
Professor Meitzen argues from this fact that these 'Hochäcker' with
long furrows are pre-German in these districts, and in the absence of
evidence of their Celtic origin he inclines to attribute them to the
husbandry of officials or contractors on the imperial waste lands,
who had at their command hundreds of slaves and heavy plough teams.
This may be the solution of the puzzling question of the origin of
the Bavarian 'Hochäcker,' but the presence of the team of eight oxen
in Wales and Scotland as well as in England, and the mention of teams
of six and eight oxen in the Vedas[603] as used by Aryan husbandmen
in the East, centuries earlier, makes it possible, if not probable,
that the Romans, in this instance as in so many others, adopted and
adapted to their purpose a practice which they found already at work,
connected perhaps with a heavier soil and a clumsier plough than they
were used to south of the Alps.[604] [p389]
V. THE HOLDINGS--THE YARD-LAND OR HUB.
We now pass from the strips to the holdings.
The typical English holding of a serf in the open fields was the
yard-land of normally thirty acres (ten [p390] scattered acres
in each of the three fields), to which an outfit of two oxen was
assigned as '_setene_' or '_stuht_,' and which descended from one
generation to another as a complete indivisible whole.
«The hub or yard-land.»
The German word for the yard-land is _hof_ or _hub_; in its oldest
form _huoba, huba, hova_.[605] And Aventinus, writing early in the
sixteenth century of the holdings in Bavaria in the thirteenth
century, distinguishes the _hof_ as the holding belonging to a
_quadriga_, or yoke of four oxen, taxed at sixty 'asses,' from the
_hub_ or holding of the _biga_ or yoke of two oxen, and taxed [p391]
at thirty 'asses.'[606] If the tax in this case were one '_as_' per
acre, then the _hof_ contained sixty acres, and the _hub_ thirty
acres. So that, as in the yard-land, ten acres in each field would go
under the three-field system to the pair of oxen.
«Wide prevalence of the hub of thirty morgen in Middle and
South Germany.»
The _hub_ of thirty _morgen_ seems to have been the typical holding
of the serf over a very wide area, according to the earliest records.
Whilst as a rule absent from North Germany, Dr. Landau traces it in
Lower Saxony, in Engern, in Thuringia, in Grapfeld, in Hesse, on the
Middle Rhine and the Moselle, in the old Niederlahngau, Rheingau,
Wormsgau, Lobdengau and Spiergau, in Elsass, in Swabia, and in
Bavaria.[607]
The double _huf_ of sixty _morgen_ also occurs on the Weser and the
Rhine in Lower Saxony and in Bavaria.[608] The word 'huf' first
occurs in a document of A.D. 474.[609]
The passage in the Bavarian laws of the seventh century, already
referred to, declaring the tithe to be 'three modii from every
thirty' modii--or one 'lawful andecena' from each ten that, in the
typical case taken, 'a man has'--would seem to suggest that ten
_andecenæ_ or acre strips in each field (or thirty in all) was a
typical holding, whilst the use of the Roman rod of ten feet points
to a Roman influence.
«The double 'hub' of sixty morgen. The outfit of oxen.»
Further, the fact of the prevalence of the double and single _huf_
or _hub_ of sixty and thirty acres over so large an area once Roman
province, irresistibly suggests a connexion with the double and
single yoke [p392] of oxen given as outfit to the Roman veteran,
with such an allowance of seed as to make it probable, as we have
seen, that the double yoke received normally fifty or sixty jugera,
and the single yoke twenty-five or thirty jugera.
It is worth remembering, further, that in the Bavarian law before
quoted, limiting the week-work of the _servi_ on the ecclesiastical
estates to three days a week, an exception is made allowing unlimited
week-work to be demanded from _servi_ who had been supplied with
their outfit of oxen _de novo_ by their lord. So that there is a
chain of evidence as to the system of supplying the holders of
'yard-lands,' 'huben,' and 'yokes,' with an outfit of oxen, of
which the Kelso '_stuht_,' the Saxon '_setene_,' the outfit of the
_servus_ under this Bavarian law, and that of the Roman veteran, are
links.[610]
It is hardly needful to repeat that it does not follow from this that
the system of allotting about thirty acres (varying in size with the
locality) to the pair of oxen was a Roman invention. The clear fact
is that it was a system followed in Roman provinces under the later
empire, as well as in Germany and England afterwards; and, as the
holding of thirty acres was found to be the allotment to each 'tate'
or household under the Irish tribal system, it may possibly have had
an earlier origin and a wider prevalence than the period or extent of
Roman rule.
«Scattering of the strips composing them.»
The scattering of the strips composing a _yard-land_ or _hub_, over
the open fields should also be once more mentioned in comparing
the two. It was not [p393] confined to the 'yard-land' or 'hub.'
It arose, as we have seen, in Wales, from the practice of joint
ploughing, and was the result of the method of dividing the joint
produce, probably elsewhere also, under the tribal system. It is the
method of securing a fair division of common land in Scotland and
Ireland and Palestine to this day, no less than under the English
and German three-field system. And the remarkable passage from
Siculus Flaccus has been quoted, which so clearly describes a similar
scattered ownership, resulting probably from joint agriculture
carried on by '_vicini_,' as often to be met with in his time on
Roman ground. This passage proves that the Roman holding (like the
Saxon _yard-land_ and the German _hub_) might be composed of a bundle
of scattered pieces; but this scattering was too widely spread from
India to Ireland for it to be, in any sense, distinctively Roman. It
perhaps resulted, as we have seen, from the heaviness of the soil
or the clumsiness of the plough, and the necessity of co-operation
between free or semi-servile tenants, in order to produce a
plough team of the requisite strength according to the custom of
the country; and this necessity probably arose most often in the
provinces north of the Alps.
«The single succession to the 'hub' and 'yard-land.'»
Another point distinctive of the 'yard-land' and the 'hub' was
the absence of division among heirs, the single succession, the
indivisibility of the bundle of scattered strips in the holding.
And this finds its nearest likeness perhaps, as we have seen, in
the probably single succession of the semi-servile holder, or
mere 'usufructuarius' under Roman law, and especially under the
semi-military rule of the border provinces. [p394]
«The Saxon 'Gebur' and the High German 'Gipur.'»
Lastly, before leaving the comparison between the _yard-land_ and
_hub_ it may be asked why the serf who held it in England was called
a _Gebur_.
The word _villanus_ of the Domesday Survey is associated with other
words, such as _villicus_, _villata_, _villenage_, all connected with
serfdom, and all traceable through Romance dialects to the Roman
'_villa_.'
But the Anglo-Saxon word was '_Gebur_.' It was the _Geburs_ who were
holders of yard-lands.
We trace this word _Gebur_ in High German dialects. We find it in
use in the High German translation of the laws of the Alamanni,
called the '_Speculi Suevici_,' where free men are divided into three
classes:--
(1) The '_semperfrien_' = lords with vassals under them.
(2) The '_mittlerfrien_' = the men or vassals of the lords.
(3) The '_geburen_' = _liberi incolæ_, or 'fri-lant-sæzzen' [_i.e._
not slaves].[611]
The word 'gebur' or 'gipur' occurs also in the High German of
Otfried's 'Paraphrase of the Gospels,'[612] of the ninth century, and
in the Alamannic dialect of Notger's Psalms for _vicinus_.[613]
Here, again, the South German connexion seems to be the nearest to
the Anglo-Saxon. [p395]
VI. THE HIDE, THE HOF, AND THE CENTURIA.
«The 'hide,' 'familla,' 'casatum,' and 'hiwisc.'»
From the yard-land, or _hub_, the holding of a serf, we may pass to
the typical holding of the full free landholder, connected in England
with the full team of eight oxen.
The Saxon _hide_, or the _familia_ of Bede, was Latinised in Saxon
charters into '_casatum_.' We have found in the St. Gall charters
the word '_casa_' used for the homestead. The present Romanish word
for house is '_casa_,' and for the verb 'to dwell,' '_casar_.' And
there is the Italian word '_casata_,' still meaning a family. Thus
the connexion between the '_familia_' of Bede and the '_casatum_' of
the charters is natural. Bede wrote more classical Latin than the
ecclesiastical scribes in the charters. The hide was the holding of
a family.[614] Hence it was sometimes, like the yard-land or holding
of a servile family, called a '_hiwisc_,' which was Anglo-Saxon,
and also High German for family.[615] But the Saxon hide, also, was
translated into _ploughland_ or _carucate_, corresponding with the
full team of eight oxen.
«The 'carucate,' 'sulung,' or plough-land.»
Generally in Kent, and sometimes in Sussex, Berks, and Essex, we
found in addition to or instead of the hide or carucate, or 'terra
unius aratri,' _solins_, _sullungs_, or _swullungs_--the land
pertaining to a '_suhl_,' the Anglo-Saxon word for plough. This
word is [p396] surely of Roman rather than of German origin. The
Piedmontese '_sloira_,' and the Lombardic '_sciloira_,' and the Old
French '_silleoire_,' are surely allied to the Romanish '_suilg_,'
and the Latin '_sulcus_.'
«The 'gioc,' or 'jugum.'»
Again, in Kent the quarter of a 'sulung' (answering to the yard-land
or virgate of other parts) is called in the early charters a 'gioc,'
'ioclet,' or 'iochlet,'[616] _i.e._ a yoke or small-yoke of land.
We have seen in the St. Gall charters, also, mention of 'juchs' or
'jochs,' which, however, were apparently jugera. This word _gioc_ is
surely allied to the Italian '_giogo_,' and the Latin _jugum_.
«The 'hide' and 'centuria' the typical free holding.»
Here, then, we have the _hide_ the typical holding of a _free_
family, as the _centuria_ was under Roman law. A free Saxon thane
might hold many hides, and so might and did the lord of a Roman villa
hold more than one 'centuria' within its bounds. Still Columella
took as his type of a Roman farm the 'centuria' of 200 acres,[617]
and calculated how much seed, how many oxen, how many _opera_, or
day-works of slaves, or 'coloni' were required to till it. The hide,
double or single, was also a land measure, and contained eight or
four yard-lands, and so also was the 'centuria' a land measure
divisible into eight normal holdings allotted with single yokes. Both
also became, as we have seen, units of assessment. But in England the
hide was the unit. Under the Roman system of taxation the _jugum_ was
the unit. [p397]
This variation, however, confirms the connexion. The Roman _jugum_,
or yoke of two oxen, made a complete plough. Nothing less than the
hide was the complete holding in England, because a team of eight
oxen was required for English ploughing. The yard-land was only a
fractional holding, incomplete for purposes of ploughing without
co-operation. Hence it would seem that the complete _plough_ was
really the unit in both cases.
«The Saxon 'hidation' and the Roman 'jugatio.'»
How closely the English hidation followed the lines of the Roman
'_jugatio_' has already been seen. When to the many resemblances
of the hide to the 'centuria,' and of the 'jugum' to the virgate,
regarded as units of assessment, are now added the other connecting
links found in this chapter, in things, in figures, and in words,
between the Saxon open-field system, and that of the districts of
Upper Germany, so long under Roman rule, the English hidation may
well be suspected to go back to Roman times, and to be possibly
a survival of the Roman _jugation_. When Henry of Huntingdon, in
describing the Domesday Survey, instead of saying that inquiry was
made how many hides and how many virgates there were, uses the words
'quot _jugata_ et quot virgata terræ,'[618] he at any rate used the
exact words which describe what in the Codex Theodosianus is spoken
of as taxation 'per _jugationem_.'[619]
Not, as already said, that the Romans introduced into Britain the
division of land according to plough teams, and the number of
oxen contributed [p398] to the plough team. It would grow, as
we have seen, naturally out of tribal arrangements whenever the
tribes settled and became agricultural, instead of wandering about
with their herds of cattle. It was found in Wales and Ireland and
Scotland, in Bohemia, apparently in Slavonic districts also and
further east.[620] It is much more likely that the Romans, according
to their usual custom, adopted a barbarian usage and seized upon an
existing and obvious unit as the basis of provincial taxation.
«Roman _tributum_ in Frisia paid in hides.»
The Frisian tribute of hides was perhaps an example of this. The
Frisians were a pastoral people, and a hide for every so many oxen
was as ready a mode of assessing the tribute as counting the plough
teams would be in an agricultural district. The word 'hide,' which
still baffles all attempts to explain its origin, may possibly have
had reference to a similar tribute. Even in England it does not
follow that it was in its origin connected with the plough team.
Its real equivalent was the _familia_, or _casatum_--the land of a
family--and in pastoral districts of England and Wales the Roman
tribute may possibly have been, if not a hide from each plough team,
a hide from every family holding cattle; just as in A.D. 1175 Henry
II. bound his Irish vassal, Roderic O'Connor, to pay annually '_de
singulis animalibus decimum corium placabile mercatoribus_'--perhaps
a tenth of the hides he himself received as tribute from his own
tribesmen.[621] The supposition of such an origin of the connexion of
the word 'hide' with the 'land of a family' [p399] or of a plough
team is mere conjecture; but the _fact_ of the connexion is clear.
All these three things, the _hide_, the _hiwisce_, and the _sullung_,
and their subdivision the _yard-land_, were the units of British
'hidation,' just as the _centuria_ and the _jugum_ were the units of
the Roman 'jugatio.'
VII. THE GAFOL AND GAFOL-YRTH.
Passing now to the serfdom and the services under which the
'yard-lands' and the 'huben' were held, it may at least be said that
their practical identity suggests a common origin.
We learned from the _Rectitudines_ and from the _Laws of Ine_, to
make a distinction between the two component parts of the obligations
of the 'gebur' in respect of his yard-land.
There was (1) the _gafol_, and (2) the _week-work_.
The _gafol_ was found to be a semi-servile incident to the yard-land.
The week-work was the most servile one.
A man otherwise free and possessing a homestead already, could, under
the laws of Ine, hire a yard-land of demesne land and pay _gafol_ for
it, without incurring liability to _week-work_. But if the lord found
for him both the yard-land and the homestead, then he was a complete
'gebur' or 'villanus,' and must do _week-work_ also.
«The Saxon 'gafol' and 'gafol-yrth.'»
Taking the _gafol_ first, and descending to details, it was found to
be complex--_i.e._ it included _gafol_ and _gafol-yrth_. [p400]
The _gafol_ of the 'gebur,' as stated in the _Rectitudines_, was
this:--
For _gafol proper_:--
10d. at Michaelmas.
23 sesters of beer, and
2 fowls, at Martinmas.
1 lamb at Easter, or 2d.
For _gafolyrth_:--the ploughing of 3 acres, and sowing of it
from the 'gebur's' own barn.
Comparing the _gafol_ proper with the _census_ of the St. Gall
charters, and the _tribute_ of the 'servi' of the Church under
the Alamannic laws of A.D. 622, the resemblance was found to be
remarkably close.
The tribute of the 'servi' of the Church was thus stated in the
latter:--
15 siclæ of beer.
A sound spring pig.
2 modia of bread.
5 fowls.
20 eggs.
As regards this tribute _in kind_ the likeness is obvious, and
it further so closely resembles the food-rent of the Welsh free
tribesmen as to suggest that it may have been a survival of ancient
tribal dues--a suggestion which the word 'gafol' itself confirms. It
seems to be connected with the _Abgabe_, or food gifts of the German
tribesmen.[622]
«Possible connexion with Roman _tributum_.»
We saw that the word _gafol_ was the equivalent of _tributum_ in the
Saxon translation of the Gospels. 'Does your master pay tribute?'
'_Gylt he gafol?_'
Further, the French evidence seems to show [p401] that the later
manorial payments in kind and services upon Frankish manors were,
to some extent, a survival of the old Roman exactions in Gaul.[623]
And the tribute of the Alamannic and Bavarian laws, and of the St.
Gall and other charters, was found to be equally clearly a survival
of the Roman tributum in the German province of Rhætia and the 'Agri
Decumates.'
«The Saxon 'gafol-yrth' and the Roman 'agrarium' or
tithe-rent.»
But in addition to the 'gafol' in kind, there was the _gafol-yrth_;
and of this also we found in the St. Gall charters numerous examples.
In the many cases where the owner of homesteads and land surrendered
them to the Abbey, and henceforth paid tribute to the Abbey, there
was not only the tribute in kind, but also the _ploughing of so
many acres_, sometimes of one, sometimes of two, and sometimes
of one in each _zelga_ or field--to be ploughed, and reaped, and
carried by the tenant. The combination of the dues in _kind_
and in _ploughing_, with sometimes other services, made up the
_tributum in servitium_--_i.e._ the gafol of the _tributarius_, or
'_gafol-gelder_,' which he paid under the Alamannic laws to his lord,
the latter thenceforth paying the public tributum for the land to the
State.
Perhaps we may go one step further.
«Not always a tenth.»
From the remarkable resemblance of the English _gafol-yrth_ and its
South German equivalent the inference was drawn that this peculiar
_rent taken in the form of the ploughing of a definite number of
acres_, was probably a survival of the Roman tenths, [p402] or other
proportion of produce claimed as rent from settlers on the _ager
publicus_ of the 'Agri Decumates,' and of Rhætia. Indications were
found that the _agrarium_, or tenth of the arable produce, may have
been taken _in actual acres_ like the Saxon tithes--_i.e._ in the
produce of so many '_andecenæ_,' the ploughing, sowing, reaping, and
garnering of which were done by the tenant.
But under Roman usage the proportion taken was not always a
_tenth_. The State rent was nominally a tithe. But it was in fact
so extortionately gathered as sometimes in Sicily to _treble_ the
tithe.[624] Hyginus also says that the 'vectigal,' or tax, was taken
in some provinces in a certain part of the crop, in some a fifth, in
others a seventh.[625] In Italy the dues from the _Agri Medietates_
perhaps surviving in the later _métayer_ system, amounted sometimes
to _one-half_. At any rate, the proportion varied.
Now the Saxon 'gafol-yrth' of the yard-land of thirty acres seems,
according to the 'Rectitudines,' as we have seen, to have been the
produce of three acres in the wheat-field, ploughed by the 'gebur'
and sown with seed from his own barn. For it will be remembered that
the first season after the yard-land was given there was to be no
gafol, and in the gebur's outfit only seven out of the ten acres in
the wheat-field [p403] were to be handed over to him already sown,
leaving three unsown, _i.e._ probably _the three_ which otherwise he
must have sown for the _gafol-yrth_ due to his lord. As ten acres of
the yard-land were probably always in fallow, three acres of wheat
was a heavier _gafol-yrth_ than a fairly gathered tithe would have
been.
It would therefore seem probable that as the 'gafol' in kind may be
traced back to the Roman _tributum_, itself perhaps a survival of the
tribal food-rents of the conquered provinces, so the 'gafol-yrth' may
be traced back to the Roman _decumæ_, or other proportion of the crop
due by way of land-tax or rent to the State. And this survival of
the complex tribute or gafol, made up of its two separate elements,
from Roman to Saxon times, becomes all the more striking when it is
considered also that it was due from a normal holding with an outfit
of a pair of oxen, both in the case of the Saxon _yard-land_ and of
the Roman veteran's allotment.
VIII. THE BOON-WORK AND WEEK-WORK OF THE SERF.
«The Saxon 'boon-work' and the Roman 'sordida munera.'»
Proceeding still further, besides the _gafol_ and _gafol-yrth_,
and yet distinct from the _week-work_, was the liability of the
serfs on the Saxon manor to certain _boon-work_ or services _ad
preces_; sometimes in ploughing or reaping a certain number of
acres of the lord's demesne land in return for grass land or other
advantages, or without any special equivalent; sometimes in going
errands or carrying goods to market or otherwise, generally known
as _averagium_. 'He shall land-gafol pay, and shall _ridan_ and
_averian_ [p404] and _lade lædan_' for his lord. So this boon-work
in addition to 'gafol' is described in the 'Rectitudines.'
The various kinds of manorial 'averagium' were, as we have seen,
often called in mediæval Latin _angariæ_, a going on errands or
postal service; _paraveredi_, or packhorse services; and _carroperæ_,
or waggon services.
We have seen how these services resembled the _angariæ_ and the
_parangariæ_ and _paraveredi_, which were included among the
'_sordida munera_' or '_obsequiæ_' of the Theodosian Code in force
in Rhætia in the fourth century, found still surviving, though
transformed into manorial services, in the same districts in the
seventh century and afterwards, under the Bavarian laws and in the
monastic charters. The carrying services and other boon-work on Saxon
manors closely resembled those of the Frankish charters and the
Bavarian laws, and probably therefore shared their Roman origin.
«The week-work of the serf.»
There remains to complete the serfdom its most servile incident, the
_week-work_--that survival of the originally unrestricted claim of
the lord of the Roman villa to his slave's labour which, limited,
as we have seen, according to the evidence of the Alamannic laws,
under the influence of Christian humanity by the monks or clergy, in
respect of the servi on their estates, to three days a week, became
the mediæval _triduanum servitium_. The words of the Alamannic law
are worth re-quoting.
'_Servi dimidiam partem sibi et dimidiam in dominico arativum
reddant. Et si super hæc est_, SICUT SERVI ECCLESIASTICI _ita
faciunt, tres dies sibi et tres in dominico._'
Let _servi_ do plough service, half for themselves and half in
demesne. And if there be any further [service] let them work
_as the servi of the Church_, three days for themselves, and
three in demesne. [p405]
This remarkable passage in the Alamannic code of A.D. 622 seems to be
the earliest version extant of the Magna Charta of the agricultural
servus, who thus early upon ecclesiastical estates was transformed
from a slave into a serf.
IX. THE CREATION OF SERFS AND THE GROWTH OF SERFDOM.
«Serfdom recruited from above and from below.»
There is yet another point in which the correspondence between
British and Continental usages is worth remarking.
The community in serfdom on a lord's estate was both by Saxon and
Continental usage recruited from above and from below.
«Free-men become serfs.»
Free men from above, by voluntary arrangement with a lord, could
and did descend into serfdom. The Saxon free tenant could, by free
contract, arrange to take a yard-land, and if he were already
provided with a homestead and oxen, he became a 'gafol-gelder,'
or _tributarius_ of his lord, without incurring the liability to
the more servile 'week-work,' just as was the case when, under the
Alamannic laws, free men made surrender of their holdings to the
Abbey of St. Gall. In both cases, as we saw, week-work was added if
the lord found the homestead and the outfit.
«Slaves become serfs.»
On the other hand, whenever a lord provided his slave with an outfit
of oxen, and gave him a part in the ploughing, he rose out of slavery
into serfdom. To speak more correctly, he rose into that middle
class of tenants who, by whatever name they were [p406] known at
first, afterwards became confounded together in the ranks of mediæval
serfdom.
«Grades in serfdom during the period of transition.»
«'Tributarii,' 'coloni,' and 'liti.'»
There were, in fact, grades in the community in serfdom not only
like those of the Saxon geburs and cottiers, but also corresponding
to the historical origin of the serfs. Thus, as we have seen in the
'Polyptique d'Irminon' and in many other cartularies and surveys of
monastic estates, there are _coloni_ and _liti_ among the serfs,
names bearing witness to the historical origin of the serfs, though
the difference between them had all but vanished.
«Slaves made into these.»
«The læts of the laws of Ethelbert.»
There is a passage in the Ripuarian laws, 'If any one shall make
his slave into a "tributarius," or a "litus," &c.'[626] The 'lidus'
of the 'Lex Salica' was under a lordship, and classed with 'servi,'
and by a legal process he could be set free.[627] We have noticed
the passage in the Theodosian Code which speaks of 'coloni' and
'tributarii' on British estates, and also the mention by Ammianus
Marcellinus of 'tributarii' in Britain. We have noticed also the
three grades of 'læts,' the only class of tenants mentioned in the
laws of Ethelbert.
«Survivals of the period of transition in Britain.»
Now, whatever doubt there might be as to what were the 'læts' on
Kentish 'hams' and 'tuns' in the sixth century, if they stood alone
as isolated phenomena; taken together with the 'tributarii' and
'coloni' and 'liti' on Continental manors, there can be hardly
any doubt that they belonged to the same middle [p407] class of
semi-servile tenants to which allusion has been made. Their presence
on the manorial 'hams' and 'tuns' of England revealed in the earliest
historical record after the Saxon Conquest, taken in connexion
with the many other points brought together in this chapter, makes
the inference very strong indeed that they, like the 'coloni,'
'tributarii,' and 'liti' on Continental manors, were a survival from
that period of transition from Roman to German rule, during which
the names of the various classes of semi-servile tenants, afterwards
merged in the common status of mediæval serfdom, still preserved
traces of their origin.
X. THE CONFUSION IN THE STATUS OF THE TENANTS ON ENGLISH AND GERMAN
MANORS.
«Serfs free in status unfree in tenure.»
In one sense both in England and Germany the holders of the
'yard-lands' and 'huben,' though serfs, were _free_. As regards their
lords they were serfs. As regards the slaves they were free. In this
respect they resembled very closely the Roman 'coloni' on a private
villa.
«Grades of manorial tenants.»
On the Frankish manors there were two classes of these semi-servile
tenants--'mansi ingenuiles,' who were free from the 'week-work;' and
'mansi serviles,' from whom 'week-work' was due. Probably owing to
the nature of the Saxon conquest the first of these classes seems
to have practically become absorbed in the other. The laws of Ine,
indeed, mention the gafol-gelder who, providing his own homestead,
did not become liable to 'week-work' like the 'gebur.' But [p408]
in the statements of the services on the manors of Hisseburne and
Tidenham no such class appears. In the 'Rectitudines' there is no
class mentioned between the _thane_, who is lord of the manor, and
the 'geneats'--_i.e._ the 'gebur' and the 'cotsetl.' In the Domesday
Survey there are no tenants above the villani, as a general rule,
except in the Danish districts, where the 'Sochmanni' and the 'liberi
homines' appear.
Comparing the status of English and German holders of 'yard-lands'
and 'huben,' the resemblances are remarkable, and they confirm the
suggestion of a common origin. Both are 'adscripti glebæ.' In both
cases there is the absence of division among heirs. In both the
succession is single, and in theory at the will of the lord. In both
there are the gafol and customary services.
In both cases there is the distinction in grade of serfdom between
the man who freely becomes the holder of a yard-land or hub by his
own surrender, or by voluntary submission to the semi-servile tenure,
and the man who is a _nativus_ or born serf.
In both cases there is a regular contribution towards military
service or the equipment of a soldier, and apparently no bar in
status from actual service, though doubtless in a semi-menial
position.
«The confusion perhaps partly a survival from Roman
provincial conditions.»
In all these points we have noticed strong analogies between the
semi-free and semi-servile conditions of the various classes of
tenants on Roman villas, and on the Roman public lands, which we have
spoken of as the great provincial manor of the Roman Empire. And the
natural inference seems to be, that even the curious confusion of the
free and servile status may [p409] be, in part, a survival of the
like confusion in the Roman provinces. It naturally grew up under the
semi-military rule of the German provinces, and possibly in Britain
also; whilst the Saxon conquest of the latter, no doubt, as we have
said, tended to reduce the confusion into something like simplicity
by fusing together classes of semi-servile tenants of various
historical origins, in the one common class of the later 'geneats' or
'villani,' in whose status the old confusion, however, survived.
XI. RESULT OF THE COMPARISON.
«Strong evidence of connexion between Britain and the
South German provinces during Roman rule, in the serfdom and in the
open-field system which was its shell.»
To sum up the result of the comparison made in this chapter between
the English and the Continental open-field system and serfdom. The
English and South-German systems at the time of the earliest records
in the seventh century were to all intents and purposes apparently
identical.
The mediæval serf, judging from the evidence of his gafol and
services, seems to have been the compound product of survivals from
three separate ancient conditions, gradually, during Roman provincial
rule and under the influence of barbarian conquest, confused and
blended into one, viz. those of the _slave_ on the Roman villa, of
the _colonus_ or other semi-servile and mostly barbarian tenants on
the Roman villa or public lands, and of the _slave_ of the German
tribesman, who to the eyes of Tacitus was so very much like a Roman
_colonus_.
That peculiar form of the open-field system, which was the shell of
serfdom both in England and on the Continent, also connects itself
in Germany [p410] distinctly with the Romano-German provinces,
whilst at the same time conspicuously absent from the less Romanised
districts of Northern Germany.
It seems therefore inconceivable that the three-field system and the
serfdom of early Anglo-Saxon records can have been an altogether new
importation from North Germany, where it did not exist, into Britain,
where it probably had long existed under Roman rule.
«The Saxon invaders from North Germany hardly brought the
three-field system into England.»
We have already quoted the strong conclusion of Hanssen that the
Anglo-Saxon invaders and their Frisian Low-German and Jutish
companions could not introduce into England a system to which they
were not accustomed at home. It must be admitted that the conspicuous
absence of the three-field system from the North of Germany does
not, however, absolutely dispose of the possibility that the system
was imported into England from those districts of Middle Germany
reaching from Westphalia to Thuringia, where the system undoubtedly
existed. It is at least possible that the invaders of England may
have proceeded from thence rather than as commonly supposed, from the
regions on the northern coast. But if it be possible that a system of
agriculture implying long-continued settlement, and containing within
it numerous survivals of Roman elements, could be imported by pirates
and the emigrants following in their wake, the possibility itself
implies that the immigrants had themselves previously submitted to
long-continued Roman influences.
On the whole we may adopt as a more likely theory the further
suggestion of Hanssen, that if the three-field system was imported at
all into England, [p411] the most likely time for its importation
was that same period of Roman occupation during which he considers
that it came into use in the Roman provinces of Germany.[628]
«The Romans probably introduced the three-course rotation
of crops.»
Nor is there anything inconsistent with this suggestion in the
irregular lines of the English open fields and their divisions, so
different from those produced by the rectangular centuriation of
Roman 'Agrimensores.' We must not forget that the open field system
in its simpler forms was almost certainly pre-Roman in Britain as
elsewhere; so that what the Romans added to transform it into the
manorial three-field system probably was rather the three-course
rotation of crops, the strengthening of the manorial element on
British estates, and the methods of taxation by 'jugation,' than
any radical alteration in the land-divisions or in the system of
co-operative ploughing.[629]
FOOTNOTES:
[554] '_Die Territorien in Bezug auf ihre Bildung und ihre
Entwicklung_,' Hamburg and Gotha, 1854.
[555] Dr. Hanssen's various papers on the subject are collected in
his _Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen_, Leipzig, 1880.
[556] Jena, 1879.
[557] '_Georg Hanssen_, als _Agrar-Historiker_.' Von August Meitzen,
1881. Tübingen.
[558] See Hanssen's chapter, '_Die Feldgraswirthschaft deutscher
Gebirgsgegenden_,' in his _Agrarhist. Abhandl._, pp. 132 _et seq._
[559] Landau, pp. 16–20.
[560] See the interesting examples given in Meitzen's _Ausbreitung_,
with maps.
[561] See Hanssen's chapter on the '_Einfeldwirthschaft_,'
_Agrarhist. Abhandl._ pp. 190 _et seq._
[562] Hanssen, p. 496.
[563] As to this part of the question, see especially Meitzen's
_Ausbreitung_.
[564] Landau, '_Die Territorien_,' pp. 32 _et seq._
[565] Sometimes in Germany, as in England, there were _two_
or more. See Hanssen's chapters on the '_Zwei-, Vier-und
Fünffelderwirthschaft_.'
[566] Tusser, 'February Abstract.'
[567] _Id._ 'February Husbandry.'
[568] _Id._ 'October Abstract.'
[569] _Id._ 'October Husbandry.'
[570] Halliwell, _sub voce_.
[571] '_Campis Sationalibus_' Charter, A.D. 704. B. M. Ancient
Charter, Cotton MS. Augustus, ii. 82. '_Tuican hom_' (Twickenham, in
Middlesex).
[572] Landau, 53.
[573] Guerard's _Polyp. d'Irminon_. '_Arat inter tres sationes
perticatres_,' pp. 134, &c.; and see Glossary, p. 456.
[574] Landau, p. 54.
[575] Landau, p. 54. 'Die alte Form dieses Wortes ist _ezzisc_,
_ezzisca_, _ezzisch_ (gothisch _atisk_), und wird in den Glossen
durch _segetes_ erklärt.'
[576] Hanssen's chapter, _'Zur Geschichte der Feldsysteme in
Deutschland_,' in his _Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen_, p. 194.
[577] 'Si illum sepem eruperit vel dissipaverit quem _Ezzisczun_
vocant,' &c. _Textus Legis Primus_, x. 16. Pertz, p. 309. In _id._ x.
21 the words '_Semitæ convicinales_' are used of open fields. In the
_Burgundian Laws_ 'Additamentum Primum,' tit. 1, 'Agri communes.'
[578] Landau, pp. 54–5.
[579] _Passau_ received its name from a Roman legion of _Batavi_
having been stationed there.--_Mon. Boica_, xxx. p. 83. Landau, p. 49.
[580] In East Friesland, under the one-field system, the word
'_flaggen_' is used for 'furlongs.' Hanssen, p. 198.
[581] Landau, p. 32.
[582] There are great numbers to be seen from the railway from Ems as
far as Nordhausen on the route to Berlin.
[583] Thus _Rainbalken_ is the turf balk left unploughed as a
boundary.
[584] Halliwell. '_Räin_,' a ridge (north). See also _Studies_,
by Joseph Lucas, F.G.S., c. viii., where there is an interesting
description of the 'Reins' in Nidderdale. These terraces occur in the
neighbouring dales of Billsdale, Bransdale, and Furndale; and also in
Wharfdale and the valley of the Ribble, &c.
[585] Pennant's _Tour in Scotland_, p. 281. 'Observed on the right
several very regular terraces cut on the face of a hill. They are
most exactly formed, a little raised in the middle like a firm walk,
and about 20 feet broad, and of very considerable length. In some
places were three, in others five flights, placed one above the
other, terminating exactly in a line at each end, and most precisely
finished. I am told that such tiers of terraces are not uncommon in
these parts, where they are called baulks.'
[586] See Pugh's _Welsh Dictionary_:
_Balc_, a break in furrow land.
_Balcia_, a breaking of furrows.
_Balcio_, to break furrows.
_Balciog_, having irregular furrows.
_Balciwr_, a breaker of furrows.
And see _supra_, p. 4.
[587] So in the St. Gall charters, quoted above. Thus also Dronke,
_Traditiones et Antiq. Fuldenses_, p. 107, 'xx. diurnales hoc est
quod tot diebus arari poterit.'--Landau, 45.
[588] Varro, _De Re Rustica_, i. 10; and see _Plin. Hist. Nat._ 18.
3. 15.
[589] See _supra_, chapter viii.
[590] I have found it in use on the coast opposite the Isle of Skye.
Several crofters will take a tract of land, divide it first into
larger divisions, or 'parks,' and then divide the parks into lots, of
which each takes one.
[591] I am indebted for this information to Professor Meitzen, who
informs me that he doubts whether it was a feature of the old purely
German open fields. In undisturbed old German districts the 'Gewanne'
and strips are of irregular and arbitrary size, and are not separated
by permanent turf 'raine' or balks.
[592] Hanssen, p. 198.
[593] In the Engadine, in reply to the question what the flat strips
between the linches were called, the driver answered, '_acker_.' When
it was pointed out that they were _grass_, the reply was, 'Ah! but a
hundred years ago they were ploughed.'
[594] M. Guérard's Introduction to the _Polyptique d'Irminon_, p. 641.
[595] _Id._ p. 641; and Appendix, i. p. 285. The Irish acre is of the
same form as the English--4 rods by 40--but the rod is 21 feet. See
the _Cartulaire de Redon_ in Brittany, No. cccxxvi. (p. 277), where
a church is given to the abbey 'cum sedecim porcionibus terræ quæ
lingua eorum "acres" nominantur' (A.D. 1061–1075). In Normandy, in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were acres of four roods,
'vergées.' _Id._ p. cccxi. Compare also the form of the Welsh erw.
[596] Pertz, 278. _Lex Baiuwariorum textus legis primus_, 13.
[597] The Agrimensores reckoned 3 modii of land to the jugerum.
_Gromatici Veteres_, i. p. 359 (13). In general 5 modii of wheat seed
was sown on the jugerum, but the '_lawful andecena_,' being only
about three-fifths of a jugerum, would require only 3 modii of wheat
seed to sow it.
[598] Herod, ii. 168
[599] According to Suidas it was equal to four ἄρουραι, and Homer
mentions τετράγυον as a usual field representing a day's work. (Od.
xviii. 374.) Hence τετράγυον = 'as much as a man can plough in a day.'
[600] 'Sulcum autem ducere longiorem quam pedum centumviginti
contrarium pecori est.'--Col. ii. 11, 27.
[601] The Rev. W. Denton, in his _Servia and the Servians_, p.
135, mentions Servian ploughs with six, ten, or twelve oxen in the
team. See also mention of similar teams of oxen or buffaloes in
Turkey--_Reports on Tenures of Land_, 1869–70, p. 306.
[602] '_Der älteste Anbau der Deutschen._' Von A. Meitzen, Jena, 1881.
[603] Zimmer's _Altindisches Leben_, p. 237.
[604] There are two other points which bear upon the Roman connexion
with the _acre_.
(1) If the length of the furrow was to be increased, it would
be natural to jump from one well-known measure to another. The
_stadium_, or length of the foot race, was one-eighth of a mile,
and was composed of ten of the Greek ἅμμα. The 'furlong' is also
the one-eighth of a mile, and contains ten chains. But the stadium
contained 625 Roman feet or 600 Greek feet--about 607 English
statute feet. How does this comport with its containing 40 rods?
The fact is, the rod varied in different provinces, and the Romans
adopted probably the rod of the country in measuring the acre.
'Perticas autem juxta loca vel crassitudinem terrarum, prout
provincialibus placuit videmus esse dispositas, quasdam decimpedas,
quibusdam duos additos pedes, aliquas vero xv. vel x. et vii. pedum
diffinitas.'--_Pauca de Mensuris, Grom. Vet._, Lachmann, &c., p.
371. Forty rods of 10 cubits, or 15 feet each, would equal the 600
feet of the Greek stadium. In fact, the English statute furlong is
based upon a rod of 16½ feet. There is also the further fact that the
later Agrimensores expressly mention a 'stadialis ager of 625 feet'
(Lachmann, Isodorus, p. 368; _De Mensuris excerpta_, p. 372). So that
it seems to be clear that the stadium, like the furlong, was used not
only in measuring distances, but also in the division of fields.
(2) We have seen that the acre strips in England were often called
'balks,' because of the ridge of unbroken turf by which they were
divided the one from the other. We have further seen that the word
'balk' in Welsh and in English was applied to the pieces of turf left
unploughed between the furrows by careless ploughing. There is a
Vedic word which has the same meaning.
The Latin word 'scamnum' had precisely this meaning, and also it
was applied by the Agrimensores to a piece of land broader than
its length. The 'scamnum' of the Roman 'castrum' was the strip 600
feet long and 50 to 80 feet broad--nearly the shape of the English
and Bavarian 'acre'--set apart for the 'legati' and 'tribunes.' The
fields in a conquered district, instead of being allotted in squares
by 'centuriation,' were divided into 'scamna' and 'striga;' and the
fields thus divided into pieces broader than their length were called
'agri scamnati,' while those divided into pieces longer than their
breadth were called 'agri strigati.' Length was throughout reckoned
from north to south; breadth from east to west. Frontinus states that
the 'arva publica' in the provinces were cultivated 'more antiquo'
on this method of the 'ager per strigas et per scamna divisus et
assignatus,' whilst the fields of the 'coloniæ' of Roman citizens
or soldiers planted in the conquered districts were 'centuriated.'
See Frontinus, lib. i. p. 2, and fig. 3 in the plates, and also fig.
199; and see Rudorff's observations, ii. 290–298. The whole matter
is, however, very obscure, and it is difficult to identify the 'ager
scamnatus' with the Romano-German open fields. Frontinus was probably
not specially acquainted with the latter.
[605] The meaning of 'hub' is perhaps simply 'a holding,' from
'haben.'
The term 'yard-land,' or 'gyrd-landes,' seems to be simply the
holding measured out by the 'gyrd,' or rod; just as gyrd also means a
'rood.' Compare the 'vergée' of Normandy.
The Roman 'pertica' was the typical rod or pole used by the
Agrimensores, and on account of its use in assigning lands to the
members of a colony, it is sometimes represented on medals by the
side of the augurial plough. By transference, the whole area of land
measured out and assigned to a colony was known to the Agrimensores
as its 'pertica' (Lachmann, Frontinus, pp. 20 and 26; Hyginus, p.
117; Siculus Flaccus, p. 159; Isodorus, p. 369).
The Latin 'virga,' used in later times instead of '_pertica_' for
the measuring rod, followed the same law of transference with still
closer likeness to the Saxon 'gyrd.' Both 'virga' and 'gyrd' = a
rod and a measure. Both 'virga terræ' and 'gyrd landes' = (1) the
rood, and (2) the normal holding--the virgate or yard-land. The
word 'virgate,' or 'virgada,' was used in Brittany as well as in
England. In the _Cartulaire de Redon_ it is, however, evidently the
equivalent of the Welsh 'Randir.' See the twelve references to the
word 'virgada' in the index of the _Cartulary_.
[606] Du Cange, under 'Huba.'
[607] Landau, p. 36.
[608] _Id._ 37–8.
[609] In the will of Perpetuus. Meitzen, _Ausbreitung_, &c., p. 14.
[610] The practice was long continued in what was called the 'steel
bow tenancy' of later times.
[611] _Juris Prov. Alemann._ c. 2. Schilteri editio.
[612] Otfried, v. 4, 80; ii. 14, 215.
[613] Notger, Psalm xliii. 14; lxxviii. 4; lxix. 7.
[614] Compare _Cod. Theod._ IX. tit. xlii. 7: 'Quot mancipia in
prædiis occupatis . . . quot sint _casarii vel coloni_,' &c.
[615] See _Ancient Laws of England_, Thorpe, p. 79, under
_wer-gilds_, s. vii., where 'hiwisc' = 'hide.' See also '_hiwiski_,'
'_hiwischi_,' for '_familia_,' in '_St. Paules Glossen_,' sixth or
seventh century. Braune's _Althochdeutsches Lesebuch_, p. 4.
[616] _B. M. Ancient Charters_, ii. Cotton MS. Aug. ii. 42, A.D. 837.
The Welsh _short yoke_ was that of two oxen, _i.e._ a fourth part of
the full plough team.
[617] Columella, ii. 12. The calculation in this passage, how many
_opera_ or day-works a farm requires shows striking resemblance to
the later manorial system.
[618] Du Cange, 'Jugatum.'
[619] See Marquardt, ii. 225 _n._
[620] Meitzen, _Ausbreitung_, pp. 21 and 33.
[621] _Fœd._ vol. i. p. 31. Robertson's _Historical Essays_, p. 133.
[622] Diez, p. 150. '_Gabella_,' Portuguese, Spanish, and Provençal =
tax. French _gabelle_ = salt-tax. Italian '_gabellan_,' to tax, from
v. b. _gifan_, Goth. _giban_.
[623] See Guérard's _Polyptique d'Irminon_, i. chap. viii. Also
Lehuérou's _Institut. Meroving._ liv. ii. c. 1; and M. Vuitry's
_Etudes sur le Régime Financier de la France_, Première Etude.
[624] So Cicero asserted against Verres. The seed, he argued, was
fairly to be taken at about a _medimnus_ to each jugerum. Eight
medimni of corn per acre would be a good crop; ten would be the
outside that under all possible favour of the gods the jugerum
could yield. Therefore the tithe ought not to exceed at the highest
estimate one medimnus per jugerum. But the tax-gather had taken
_three_ medimni per jugerum, and so by extortion had _trebled the
tithes_.--_In Verrem_, act. ii. lib. iii. c. 47, 48, 49.
[625] _Hygini de Limitibus Constituendis_, p. 204.
[626] Tit. lxii.
[627] _Lex Salica_, tit. xxxviii. 'De homicidiis _servorum_ et
ancillarum. v. Si quis homo ingenuus _lidum alienum_ expoliaverit,'
&c. See also tit. xvi. See also tit. xxvi. 'De libertis extra
consilium Domini sui dimissis' (xxxv. 'De libertis dimissis
ingenuis'). 'Si quis _alienum lætum_ ante rege per dinarium _ingenuum
demiserit_,' &c.
[628] 'Soll die Dreifelderwirthschaft nach England importirt sein,
so bliebe wohl nur übrig an die Periode der römischen Okkupation
zu denken, wie ich eine ähnliche Vermuthung, die sich freilich
auch nicht weiter begründen lässt, für Deutschland ausgesprochen
habe (p. 153). Einfacher ist es den selbstständigen Ursprung der
Dreifelderwirthschaft in ganz verschiedenenen Ländern als einen
auf einer gewissen wirthschaftlichen Kulturstufe wie von selber
eintretenden Fortschritt sich zu denken' (_Agrarhist. Abhand._ p.
497).
[629] Mr. Coote has adduced apparently clear evidence of centuriation
in many parts of England; but we have already seen that only the land
actually assigned to the soldiers of a _colonia_ was centuriated.
There would seem to be no reason to suppose that they disturbed the
generally existing open fields still cultivated by the conquered
population.
[p412]