THE MARK.
All that we learn of the original principle of settlement, prevalent
either in England or on the continent of Europe, among the nations of
Germanic blood, rests upon two main foundations; first, the possession
of land; second, the distinction of rank; and the public law of every
Teutonic tribe implies the dependence of one upon the other principle,
to a greater or less extent. Even as he who is not free can, at first,
hold no land within the limits of the community, so is he who holds no
land therein, not fully free, whatever his personal rank or character
may be. Thus far the Teutonic settler differs but little from the
ancient Spartiate or the comrade of Romulus.
The particular considerations which arise from the contemplation of
these principles in their progressive development, will find their place
in the several chapters of this Book: it deals with land held in
community, and severalty; with the nature and accidents of tenure; with
the distinction and privileges of the various classes of citizens, the
free, the noble and the serf; and with the institutions by which a
mutual guarantee of life, honour and peaceful possession was attempted
to be secured among the Anglosaxons. These are the _incunabula_, first
principles and rudiments of the English law[56]; and in these it
approaches, and assimilates to, the system which the German conquerors
introduced into every state which they founded upon the ruins of the
Roman power.
Footnote 56:
“Incunabula et rudimenta virtutis.” Cic. de Off.
As land may be held by many men in common, or by several households,
under settled conditions it is expedient to examine separately the
nature and character of these tenures: and first to enquire into the
forms of possession in common; for upon this depends the political being
of the state, its constitutional law, and its relative position towards
other states. Among the Anglosaxons land so held in common was
designated by the names Mark, and Gâ or Shire.
The smallest and simplest of these common divisions is that which we
technically call a Mark or March (mearc); a word less frequent in the
Anglosaxon than the German muniments, only because the system founded
upon what it represents yielded in England earlier than in Germany to
extraneous influences. This is the first general division, the next in
order to the private estates or alods of the Markmen: as its name
denotes, it is something marked out or defined, having settled
boundaries; something serving as a sign to others, and distinguished by
signs. It is the plot of land on which a greater or lesser number of
free men have settled for purposes of cultivation, and for the sake of
mutual profit and protection; and it comprises a portion both of arable
land and pasture, in proportion to the numbers that enjoy its
produce[57].
However far we may pursue our researches into the early records of our
forefathers, we cannot discover a period at which this organization was
unknown. Whatever may have been the original condition of the German
tribes, tradition and history alike represent them to us as living
partly by agriculture, partly by the pasturing of cattle[58]. They had
long emerged from the state of wandering herdsmen, hunters or fishers,
when they first attracted the notice, and disputed or repelled the
power, of Rome. The peculiar tendencies of various tribes may have
introduced peculiar modes of placing or constructing their habitations;
but of no German population is it stated, that they dwelt in tents like
the Arab, in waggons like the Scythian, or in earth-dug caverns like the
troglodytes of Wallachia: the same authority that tells of some who
lived alone as the hill-side or the fresh spring pleased them[59],
notices the villages, the houses and even the fortresses, of others.
-----
Footnote 57:
“Agri, pro numero cultorum, ab universis per vices occupantur, quos
mox inter se, secundum dignationem, partiuntur; facilitatem partiendi
camporum spatia praestant.” Tac. Germ. 26.
Footnote 58:
“Sola terrae seges imperatur,” they raise corn, but not fruits or
vegetables. Tac. Germ. 26. “>Frumenti modum dominus, aut pecoris, aut
vestis, ut colono, iniungit; et servus hactenus paret.” Ibid. 25.
Hordeum, and frumentum. Ibid. 23.
Footnote 59:
“Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit.
Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem, connexis et cohaerentibus
aedificiis; suam quisque domum spatio circumdat.” Tac. Germ. 16. When
Tacitus speaks of caverns dug in the earth, it is as granaries (which
may to this day be seen in Hungary) or as places of refuge from sudden
invasion.
Without commerce, means of extended communication, or peaceful
neighbours, the Germans cannot have cultivated their fields for the
service of strangers: they must have been consumers, as they certainly
were raisers, of bread-corn; early documents of the Anglosaxons prove
that considerable quantities of wheat were devoted to this purpose. Even
the serfs and domestic servants were entitled to an allowance of bread,
in addition to the supply of flesh[60]; and the large quantities of ale
and beer which we find enumerated among the dues payable from the land,
or in gifts to religious establishments, presume a very copious supply
of cereals for the purpose of malting[61]. But it is also certain that
our forefathers depended very materially for subsistence upon the herds
of oxen, sheep, and especially swine, which they could feed upon the
unenclosed meadows, or in the wealds of oak and beech which covered a
large proportion of the land. From the moment, in short, when we first
learn anything of their domestic condition, all the German tribes appear
to be settled upon arable land, surrounded with forest pastures, and
having some kind of property in both.
Footnote 60:
On xii mónðum ðú scealt sillan ðínum þeówan men vii hund hláfa ⁊ xx
hláfa, bútan morgemettum ⁊ nónmettum: in the course of twelve months
thou shalt give thy þeów or serf, seven hundred and twenty loaves,
besides morning meals and noon meals. Sal. and Sat. p. 192. We should
perhaps read seven hundred and thirty, which would give daily two
loaves, probably of rye or barley. Compare the allowances mentioned in
the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum. Anc. Laws. Thorpe, i. 432
_seq._
Footnote 61:
So from the earliest times: “Potui humor ex hordeo aut frumento, in
quandam similitudinem vini corruptus.” Tac. Germ. 23.
Caesar, it is true, denies that agriculture was much cultivated among
the Germans, or that property in the arable land was permitted to be
permanent[62]: and, although it seems impolitic to limit the efforts of
industry, by diminishing its reward, it is yet conceivable that, under
peculiar circumstances, a warlike confederation might overlook this
obvious truth in their dread of the enervating influences of property
and a settled life. There may have been difficulty in making a new
yearly division of land, which to our prejudices seems almost
impossible; yet the Arab of Oran claims only the produce of the seed he
has sown[63]; the proprietor in the Jaghire district of Madras changes
his lands from year to year[64]: the tribes of the Afghans submit to a
new distribution even after a ten years’ possession has endeared the
field to the cultivator[65]; Diodorus tells us that the Vaccaeans
changed their lands yearly and divided the produce[66]; and Strabo
attributed a similar custom to one tribe at least of the Illyrian
Dalmatians, after a period of seven[67].
-----
Footnote 62:
“Agriculturae non student: maiorque pars victus eorum in lacte, caseo,
carne consistit: neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet
proprios; sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus
cognationibusque hominum, qui una coierint, quantum, et quo loco visum
est, agri adtribuunt, atque anno post alio transire cogunt. Eius rei
multas adferunt causas; ne, adsidua consuetudine capti, studium belli
gerundi agricultura commutent;” etc. Bell. Gall. vi. 22.
Footnote 63:
The administration of Oran. Times newspaper, Aug. 24th, 1844.
Footnote 64:
Fifth Rep., Committee, 1810, p. 723, cited in Mill’s Brit. India, i.
315.
Footnote 65:
Elphinstone’s Caubul, ii. 17, 18, 19.
Footnote 66:
Diodorus, v. 34.
Footnote 67:
Strabo, bk. vii. p. 315.
-----
But so deeply does the possession of land enter into the principle of
all the Teutonic institutions, that I cannot bring myself to believe in
the accuracy of Caesar’s statement. Like his previous rash and most
unfounded assertion respecting the German gods, this may rest only upon
the incorrect information of Gallic provincials: at the utmost it can be
applied only to the Suevi and their warlike allies[68], if it be not
even intended to be confined to the predatory bands of Ariovistus,
encamped among the defeated yet hostile Sequani[69]. The equally
well-known passage of Tacitus,—“arva per annos mutant, et superest
ager[70],”—may be most safely rendered as applying to the common mode of
culture; “they change the arable from year to year, and there is land to
spare;” that is, for commons and pasture: but it does not amount to a
proof that settled property in land was not a part of the Teutonic
scheme; it implies no more than this, that within the Mark which was the
property of all, what was this year one man’s corn-land, might the next
be another man’s fallow; a process very intelligible to those who know
anything of the system of cultivation yet prevalent in parts of Germany,
or have ever had any interest in what we call Lammas Meadows.
Footnote 68:
Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes and Sedusii. Bell.
Gall. i. 51.
Footnote 69:
Bell. Gall. i. 31.
Footnote 70:
Tac. Germ. 26.
Zeuss, whose admirable work[71] is indispensable to the student of
Teutonic antiquity, brings together various passages to show that at
some early period, the account given by Caesar may have conveyed a just
description of the mode of life in Germany[72]. He represents its
inhabitants to himself as something between a settled and an unsettled
people. What they may have been in periods previous to the dawn of
authentic history, it is impossible to say; but all that we really know
of them not only implies a much more advanced state of civilization, but
the long continuance and tradition of such a state. We cannot admit the
validity of Zeuss’ reasoning, or escape from the conviction that it
mainly results from a desire to establish his etymology of the names
borne by the several confederations, and which requires the hypothesis
of wandering and unsettled tribes[73].
Footnote 71:
Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, von Kaspar Zeuss. München. 1837.
Footnote 72:
He cites the passage from Caesar which I have quoted, and also Bell.
Gall. iv. 1, which still applies only to the Suevi. His next evidence
is the assertion of Tacitus just noticed. His third is from Plutarch’s
Aemil. Paul. c. 12, of the Bastarnae: ἄνδρες οὐ γεωργεῖν εἰδότες, οὐ
πλεῖν, οὐκ ἀπὸ ποιμνίων ζῆν νέμοντες, ἀλλ’ ἓν ἕργον καὶ μίαν τέχνην
μελετῶντες, ἁεὶ μάχεσθαι καὶ κρατεῖν τῶν ἀντιταττομένων. A people
without agriculture or commerce, and who live only on fighting, may be
left undisturbed in the realm of dreams with which philosophers are
conversant. Zeuss proceeds to reason upon the analogy of examples
derived from notices of Britons, Kelts and Wends, in Strabo, Polybius
and Dio Cassius. See p. 52, etc.
Footnote 73:
Thus, according to his view, Suevi (Suáp, Swǽf) denotes the wanderers;
Wandal also the wanderers. Assuredly if nations at large partook of
such habits, single tribes could not have derived a name from the
custom. How much more easy would it be, upon similar etymological
grounds, to prove that the leading Teutonic nations were named from
their weapons! Saxons from _seax_, the long knife; Angles from
_angol_, a hook; Franks from _franca_, a javelin; Langobards and
Heaðobards from _barda_, the axe or halberd; nay even the general name
itself, Germans, from _gárman_ (Old Germ. _kérman_) the javelin- or
goad-man. Yet who would assert these to be satisfactory derivations?
Zahn, whose services to Old German literature cannot be overrated,
speaks wisely when he calls the similarity of proper names, a rock “on
which uncritical heads are much in the habit of splitting.” Vorrede zu
Ulphilas, p. 3.
The word Mark has a legal as well as a territorial meaning: it is not
only a space of land, such as has been described, but a member of a
state also; in which last sense it represents those who dwell upon the
land, in relation to their privileges and rights, both as respects
themselves and others. But the word, as applied even to the territory,
has a twofold meaning: it is, properly speaking, employed to denote not
only the whole district occupied by one small community[74]; but more
especially those forests and wastes by which the arable is enclosed, and
which separate the possessions of one tribe from those of another[75].
The Mark or boundary pasture-land, and the cultivated space which it
surrounds, and which is portioned out to the several members of the
community, are inseparable; however different the nature of the property
which can be had in them, they are in fact one whole; taken together,
they make up the whole territorial possession of the original
_cognatio_, kin or tribe. The ploughed lands and meadows are guarded by
the Mark; and the cultivator ekes out a subsistence which could hardly
be wrung from the small plot he calls his own, by the flesh and other
produce of beasts, which his sons, his dependents or his serfs mast for
him in the outlying forests.
-----
Footnote 74:
If a man be emancipated, his lord shall still retain the right to his
mund and wergyld, sý ofer mearce ðǽr he wille, _be he over the mark
wherever he may be_, be he out of the district where he may. Ll.
Wihtr. § 8. Thorpe, i. 38.
Footnote 75:
Grimm is of opinion that the word Marc itself originally denoted
_forest_, and that the modern sense is a secondary one, derived from
the fact of forests being the signs or marks of communities. Deut.
Gränzalterthümer; Berl. 1844. There can be no doubt that forests were
so: in Old Norse the two ideas, and the words by which they are
expressed, flow into one another: Mörk (f) is _silva_, Mark (n) is
_limes_. In the Edda and Sögur, Myrkviðr is the common name for a
wood: thus, sem þessi her kom saman, riða þeir á skóg þan er Myrkviðr
heitir, hann skilr Húnaland ok Reiðgota land; they ride to the forest
which is called Myrkviðr (mearcwidu in Anglosaxon) which separates
Huna land from Reidgota land. Fornm. Sög. i. 496. Though given here as
a proper name, it is unquestionably a general one. Conf. Edda, Völund.
cv. 1.
meyjar flugu sunnan
myrkvið igögnum.
and so in many passages. The darkness of the forest gives rise also to
the adjective _murky_.
-----
Let us first take into consideration the Mark in its restricted and
proper sense of a boundary. Its most general characteristic is, that it
should not be distributed in arable, but remain in heath, forest, fen
and pasture. In it the Markmen—called in Germany Markgenossen, and
perhaps by the Anglosaxons Mearcgeneátas—had commonable rights; but
there could be no private estate in it, no híd or hlot, no κλῆρος, or
_haeredium_. Even if under peculiar circumstances, any markman obtained
a right to essart or clear a portion of the forest, the portion so
subjected to the immediate law of property ceased to be mark. It was
undoubtedly under the protection of the gods; and it is probable that
within its woods were those sacred shades especially consecrated to the
habitation and service of the deity[76].
-----
Footnote 76:
Tacitus says of the Semnones: “Stato tempore in silvam, auguriis
patrum et prisca formidine sacram, omnes eiusdem sanguinis populi
legationibus coeunt, caesoque publice homine celebrant barbari ritus
horrenda primordia. Est et alia luco reverentia. Nemo nisi vinculo
ligatus ingreditur, ut minor, et potestatem numinis prae se ferens. Si
forte prolapsus est, attolli et insurgere haud licitum, per humum
evolvuntur: eoque omnis superstitio respicit, tanquam inde initia
gentis, ibi regnator omnium deus, cetera subiecta atque parentia.”
Germ. 39. Again: “Apud Naharvalos antiquae religionis lucus
ostenditur.” Ibid. 43. Without asserting the existence of the Mark
among the Greeks with all the peculiar German characteristics, we may
borrow from them an illustration and definition of its nature. Between
the territories of the Athenians and Megareans lay a tract of land,
the cultivation of which by the latter formed the pretext or
justification of the excommunication launched against them by
“Olympian” Pericles, which ultimately led to the Peloponesian war, and
the downfal of Athens. The Athenians, Thucydides tells us, refused to
rescind their intemperate decree, ἐπικαλοῦντες ἐπεργασίαν Μεγαρεῦσι
τῆς γῆς τῆς ἱερας καὶ τῆς ἀορίστου· (Lib. i. 139), where the Scholiast
explains ἀορίστου by οὐ σπειρομένης. _Sacred and not divided into
plots for cultivation by the plough_, is the exact definition of a
Teutonic Mark. Compare χοίριος νάπη (silva porcina) between Laconia
and Messenia. Paus. iv. 1. In the legend of St. Gúðlác, the saint is
said to occupy the desert wilderness, mearclond, the mark (Codex
Exoniensis, p. 112, l. 16), and this is accurately defined as ídel ⁊
ǽmen, éðelrihte feor, _empty and uninhabited, in which there were no
rights of property_. Ibid. p. 115. l. 9.
-----
If the nature of an early Teutonic settlement, which has nothing in
common with a city, be duly considered, there will appear an obvious
necessity for the existence of a mark, and for its being maintained
inviolate. Every community, not sheltered by walls, or the still firmer
defences of public law, must have one, to separate it from neighbours
and protect it from rivals: it is like the outer pulp that surrounds and
defends the kernel. No matter how small or how large the community,—it
may be only a village, even a single household, or a whole state,—it
will still have a Mark, a space or boundary by which its own rights of
jurisdiction are limited, and the encroachments of others are kept
off[77]. The more extensive the community which is interested in the
Mark, the more solemn and sacred the formalities by which it is
consecrated and defended; but even the boundary of the private man’s
estate is under the protection of the gods and of the law. “Accursed,”
in all ages and all legislations, “is he that removeth his neighbour’s
landmark.” Even the owner of a private estate is not allowed to build or
cultivate to the extremity of his own possession, but must leave a space
for eaves[78]. Nor is the general rule abrogated by changes in the
original compass of the communities; as smaller districts coalesce and
become, as it were, compressed into one body, the smaller and original
Marks may become obliterated and converted merely into commons, but the
public mark will have been increased upon the new and extended frontier.
Villages tenanted by Heardingas or Módingas may cease to be separated,
but the larger divisions which have grown up by their union, Meanwaras,
Mægsetan or Hwiccas[79] will still have a boundary of their own; these
again may be lost in the extending circuit of Wessex or Mercia; till a
yet greater obliteration of the Marks having been produced through
increasing population, internal conquest, or the ravages of foreign
invaders, the great kingdom of England at length arises, having wood and
desolate moorland and mountain as its mark against Scots, Cumbrians and
Britons, and the eternal sea itself as a bulwark against Frankish and
Frisian pirates[80].
Footnote 77:
Caesar appears to have understood this. He says: “Civitatibus maxima
laus est, quam latissimas circum se vastatis finibus solitudines
habere. Hoc proprium virtutis existimant, expulsos agris finitumos
cedere, neque quemquam prope audere consistere: simul hoc se fore
tutiores arbitrantur, repentinae incursionis timore sublato.” This is
true, but in the case of most settlements the necessity of maintaining
extensive pasture-grounds must have made itself felt at a very early
period.
Footnote 78:
Efese. Goth. Ubiswa. The name for this custom was Yfesdrype,
_Eavesdrip_. In a charter of the year 868 it is said: “And by the
custom (folces folcriht) two feet space only need be left for
eavesdrip on this land.” Cod. Dipl. No. 296. In Greece the distances
were solemnly regulated by law: see Plut. Solon, cap. 23.
Footnote 79:
The people in the hundreds of East and West Meon, Hampshire; in
Herefordshire; and in Worcester and Gloucester.
Footnote 80:
To a very late period, the most powerful of our nobles were the Lords
Marchers or Lords of the Marches of Wales and Scotland. Harald was
lord of the Marches against the Welsh. And so the hereditary
Markgraves or Counts of the Mark, Marchiones, have become kings in
Germany and Italy. Our only Markgraviats by land could be against the
Welsh on the west, the Picts and Scots on the north. There were
undoubtedly others among the Saxons while their kingdoms remained
unsettled: but not when once the whole realm became united under
Æðelstán. The consolidation of the English power has put down all but
transmarine invaders; hence the sea is become our Mark, and the
commanders of our ships, the Margraves. But, as Blackstone rather
beautifully says, “water is a wandering and uncertain thing,” and our
Margraves therefore establish no territorial authority. The reader is
referred to Dönniges, Deutsches Staatsrecht, p. 297, _seq._, for a
very good account of the Marches of the German Empire.
But although the Mark is waste, it is yet the property of the community:
it belongs to the freemen as a whole, not as a partible possession: it
may as little be profaned by the stranger, as the arable land itself
which it defends[81]. It is under the safeguard of the public law, long
after it has ceased to be under the immediate protection of the gods: it
is unsafe, full of danger; death lurks in its shades and awaits the
incautious or hostile visitant:
eal wæs ðæt mearclond all the markland was
morðre bewunden, with death surrounded,
feóndes fácne: the snares of the foe[82]:
punishments of the most frightful character are denounced against him
who violates it[83]; and though, in historical times, these can only be
looked upon as comminatory and symbolical, it is very possible that they
may be the records of savage sacrifices believed due, and even offered,
to the gods of the violated sanctuary. I can well believe that we too
had once our Diana Taurica. The Marks are called accursed; that is
accursed to man, accursed to him that does not respect their sanctity:
but they are sacred, for on their maintenance depend the safety of the
community, and the service of the deities whom that community
honours[84]. And even when the gods have abdicated their ancient power,
even to the very last, the terrors of superstition come in aid of the
enactments of law: the deep forests and marshes are the abodes of
monsters and dragons; wood-spirits bewilder and decoy the wanderer to
destruction: the Nicors house by the side of lakes and marshes[85]:
Grendel, the man-eater, is a “mighty stepper over the mark[86]”: the
chosen home of the firedrake is a fen[87].
Footnote 81:
If a stranger come through _the wood_, he shall blow his horn and
shout: this will be evidence that his intentions are just and
peaceful. But if he attempt to slink through in secret, he may be
slain, and shall lie unavenged. Leg. Ini. § 20, 21. Thorpe, i. 114,
116. If the deathblow under such circumstances be publicly avouched,
his kindred or lord shall not even be allowed to prove that he was not
a thief: otherwise, if the manslaughter be concealed. This raises a
presumption in law against the slayer, and the dead man’s kindred
shall be admitted to their oath that he was guiltless.
Footnote 82:
Cod. Vercel. And. l. 38.
Footnote 83:
Grimm has given examples of these, but they are too horrible for
quotation. They may be read in his Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, pp.
518, 519, 520.
Footnote 84:
I am inclined to think that the cwealmstow or place of execution was
properly in the mark; as it is indeed probable that all capital
punishments among the Germans were originally in the nature of
sacrifices to the gods. When Juliana is about to be put to death, she
is taken to the border, londmearce neáh, nigh to the landmark. Cod.
Exon. p. 280. Prometheus hung in the ἄβροτος ἐρημία: though perhaps
there is another and deeper feeling here,—that the friend of man
should suffer in the desert
“where no man comes,
Nor hath come, since the making of the world!”
Footnote 85:
Beów. l. 2822.
Footnote 86:
Beów. l. 2695. micle mearcstapan.
Footnote 87:
“Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen
Makes fear’d and talk’d of more than seen.”
Shaksp. Coriol. act iv. sc. 1.
The natural tendency, however, of this state of isolation is to give
way; population is an ever-active element of social well-being: and when
once the surface of a country has become thickly studded with
communities settled between the Marks, and daily finding the several
clearings grow less and less sufficient for their support[88], the next
step is the destruction of the Marks themselves, and the union of the
settlers in larger bodies, and under altered circumstances. Take two
villages, placed on such clearings in the bosom of the forest, each
having an ill-defined boundary in the wood that separates them, each
extending its circuit woodward as population increases and presses upon
the land, and each attempting to drive its Mark further into the waste,
as the arable gradually encroaches upon this. On the first meeting of
the herdsmen, one of three courses appears unavoidable: the communities
must enter into a federal union; one must attack and subjugate the
other; or the two must coalesce into one on friendly and equal
terms[89]. The last-named result is not improbable, if the gods of the
one tribe are common to the other: then perhaps the temples only may
shift their places a little. But in any case the intervening forest will
cease to be Mark, because it will now lie in the centre, and not on the
borders of the new community. It will be converted into common pasture,
to be enjoyed by all on fixed conditions; or it may even be gradually
rooted out, ploughed, planted and rendered subject to the ordinary
accidents of arable land: it will become _folcland_, public land,
applicable to the general uses of the enlarged state, nay even divisible
into private estates, upon the established principles of public law. And
this process will be repeated and continue until the family becomes a
tribe, and the tribe a kingdom; when the intervening boundary lands,
cleared, drained and divided, will have been clothed with golden
harvests, or portioned out in meadows and common pastures, appurtenant
to villages; and the only marks remaining will be the barren mountain
and moor of the frontiers, the deep unforded rivers, and the great ocean
that washes the shores of the continent.
-----
Footnote 88:
“Facilitatem partiendi camporum spatia praestant.” Tac. Germ. 26. But
as the space diminishes, so also diminishes the stability of a form of
society founded upon its existence.
Footnote 89:
History supplies numerous illustrations of this process. Rome grew out
of the union of the Rhamnes and Luceres with the Sabines: and
generally speaking in Greece, the origin of the πόλις lies in what may
be called the compression of the κώμαι. The ἀγορὰ is on the space of
neutral ground where all may meet on equal terms, as the Russians and
Chinese trade at Kiachta: but then when the πόλις has grown up, the
ἀγορὰ is in its centre, not in its suburbs.
-----
Christianity, which destroys or diminishes the holiness of the forests,
necessarily confines the guarantee of the Mark to the public law of the
state. Hence when these districts become included within the limits of
Christian communities, there is no difficulty in the process which has
been described: the state deals with them as with any other part of its
territory, by its own sovereign power, according to the prevalent ideas
of agricultural or political œconomy; and the once inviolate land may at
once be converted to public uses, widely different from its original
destination, if the public advantage require it. No longer necessary as
a boundary, from the moment when the smaller community has become
swallowed up and confounded in the larger, it may remain in commons, be
taken possession of by the state as folcland, or become the source of
even private estates, and to all these purposes we find it gradually
applied. In process of time it seems even to have become partible and
appurtenant to private estates in a certain proportion to the
arable[90]: towards the close of the tenth century I find the grant of a
mill and millstead, “and thereto as much of the markland as belongeth to
three hydes”[91].
-----
Footnote 90:
Most likely as commons are distributed now, under enclosure-bills;
allotments being made in fee, as compensation for commonable rights.
Footnote 91:
And se mylenham ⁊ se myln ðǽrtó, ⁊ ðæs mearclandes swá mycel swá tó
þrim hidon gebyrað. an. 982. Cod. Dipl. No. 633.
-----
The general advantage which requires the maintenance of the Mark as
public property, does not however preclude the possibility of using it
for public purposes, as long as the great condition of indivisibility is
observed. Although it may not be cleared and ploughed, it may be
depastured, and all the herds of the Markmen may be fed and masted upon
its wilds and within its shades. While it still comprises only a belt of
forest, lying between small settlements, those who live contiguous to
it, are most exposed to the sudden incursions of an enemy, and perhaps
specially entrusted with the measures for public defence, may have
peculiar privileges, extending in certain cases even to the right of
clearing or essarting portions of it. In the case of the wide tracts
which separate kingdoms, we know that a comprehensive military
organization prevailed, with castles, garrisons, and governors or
Margraves, as in Austria, Brandenburg and Baden, Spoleto and Ancona,
Northumberland and the Marches of Wales. But where clearings have been
made in the forest, the holders are bound to see that they are
maintained, and that the fresh arable land be not encroached upon; if
forest-trees spring there by neglect of the occupant, the essart again
becomes forest, and, as such, subject to all the common rights of the
Markmen, whether in pasture, chase or estovers[92].
-----
Footnote 92:
_Estoveria._ In this case, small wood necessary for household
purposes, as Housebote, Hedgebote and Ploughbote, the materials for
repairing house, hedge and plough. But timber trees are not included.
See Stat. West. 2. cap. 25; and 20 Car. II. c. 3.
-----
The sanctity of the Mark is the condition and guarantee of its
indivisibility, without which it cannot long be proof against the
avarice or ambition of individuals: and its indivisibility is, in turn,
the condition of the service which it is to render as a bulwark, and of
its utility as a pasture. I therefore hold it certain that some solemn
religious ceremonies at first accompanied and consecrated its
limitation[93]. What these may have consisted in, among the heathen
Anglosaxons, we cannot now discover, but many circumstances render it
probable that Wóden, who in this function also resembles Ἑρμῆς, was the
tutelary god[94]: though not absolutely to the exclusion of other
deities, Tiw and Frea appearing to have some claim to a similar
distinction[95]. But however its limit was originally drawn or driven,
it was, as its name denotes, distinguished by marks or signs. Trees of
peculiar size and beauty, and carved with the figures of birds and
beasts, perhaps even with Runic characters, served the purpose of
limitation and definition[96]: striking natural features, a hill, a
brook, a morass, a rock, or the artificial mound of an ancient warrior,
warned the intruder to abstain from dangerous ground, or taught the
herdsman how far he might advance with impunity. In water or in marshy
land, poles were set up, which it was as impious to remove, as it would
have been to cut or burn down a mark-tree in the forest.
-----
Footnote 93:
“Silvam auguriis patrum et prisca formidine sacram.” Tac. Germ. 39.
See Möser, Osnabrückische Geschichte, i. 57, _seq._
Footnote 94:
Ἑρμῆς, in this one sense Mercurius, is identical with Wóden. Both
invented letters; both are the wandering god; both are Odysseus. The
name of Wóden is preserved in many boundary places, or chains of
hills, in every part of England. See chap. xii. of this Book. The
Wónác (Cod. Dipl. No. 495), the Wónstoc (ibid. Nos. 287, 657), I have
no hesitation in translating by Wóden’s oak, Wóden’s post. Scyldes
treów (ibid. No. 436) may also refer to Wóden in the form of Scyld, as
Hnices þorn (ibid. No. 268) may record the same god in his form of
Hnicor, or Hnic.
Footnote 95:
Teowes þorn, Tiw’s thorn. Cod. Dipl. No. 174. Tiwes mére, Tiw’s lake.
Ibid. No. 262. Frigedæges treów (ibid. No. 1221), the tree of
Frigedæg, a name I hold equivalent to Frea or Fricge.
Footnote 96:
The boundaries of the Anglosaxon charters supply a profusion of
evidence on this subject. The trees most frequently named are the oak,
ash, beech, thorn, elder, lime and birch. The heathen burial-place or
mound is singularly frequent. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 247, 335, 476. The
charter No. 126 has these words: “Deinde vero ad alios monticulos,
postea vero ad viam quae dicitur Fíf ác, recto itinere ad easdem fíf
ác, proinde autem ad þreom gemǽran.” Here the boundaries of three
several districts lay close to a place called _Five Oaks_. That the
trees were sometimes marked is clear from the entries in the
boundaries: thus, in the year 931, tó ðære gemearcodan ǽc æt
Alerburnan, _the marked oak_. Cod. Dipl. No. 1102. ða gemearcodan
æfse, _the marked eaves_ or edge of the wood. Ibid. Also, on ða
gemearcodan lindan. Ibid. No. 1317. Cyrstelmæl ác, or Christ cross
oak. Ibid. No. 118. At Addlestone, near Chertsey, is an ancient and
most venerable oak, called the Crouch (crux, crois), that is Cross
oak, which tradition declares to have been a boundary of Windsor
forest. The same thing is found in Circassia. See Bell, ii. 58. The
mearcbeám, without further definition, is common: so the mearctreów.
Cod. Dipl. No. 436. The mearcbróc. Ibid. No. 1102. Artificial or
natural stone posts are implied by the constantly recurring háran
stánas, grǽgan stánas, _hoary_ or _grey_ stones. Among Christians,
crosses and obelisks have replaced these old heathen symbols, without
altering the nature of the sanction, and the _weichbild_, or mark that
defines the limits of a jurisdiction, can, in my opinion, mean only
the _sacred_ sign. On this point see Haltaus. Gloss. in voce, whose
derivation from wíc, _oppidum_, is unsatisfactory. See too Eichhorn,
Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 76. § 224 a. note _c_: with
whose decision Grimm and I coincide.
-----
In the second and more important sense of the word, the Mark is a
community of families or households, settled on such plots of land and
forest as have been described. This is the original basis upon which all
Teutonic society rests, and must be assumed to have been at first amply
competent to all the demands of society in a simple and early stage of
development: for example, to have been a union for the purpose of
administering justice, or supplying a mutual guarantee of peace,
security and freedom for the inhabitants of the district. In this
organization, the use of the land, the woods and the waters was made
dependent upon the general will of the settlers, and could only be
enjoyed under general regulations made by all for the benefit of all.
The Mark was a voluntary association of free men, who laid down for
themselves, and strictly maintained, a system of cultivation by which
the produce of the land on which they settled might be fairly and
equally secured for their service and support; and from participation in
which they jealously excluded all who were not born, or adopted, into
the association. Circumstances dependent upon the peculiar local
conformation of the district, or even on the relations of the original
parties to the contract, may have caused a great variety in the customs
of different Marks; and these appear occasionally anomalous, when we
meet with them still subsisting in a different order of social
existence[97]; but with the custom of one Mark, another had nothing to
do, and the Markmen, within their own limit, were independent,
sufficient to their own support and defence, and seised of full power
and authority to regulate their own affairs, as seemed most conducive to
their own advantage. The Court of the Markmen, as it may be justly
called, must have had supreme jurisdiction, at first, over all the
causes which could in any way affect the interests of the whole body or
the individuals composing it: and suit and service to such court was not
less the duty, than the high privilege, of the free settlers. On the
continent of Germany the divisions of the Marks and the extent of their
jurisdiction can be ascertained with considerable precision; from these
it maybe inferred that in very many cases the later courts of the great
landowners had been in fact at first Markcourts, in which, even long
after the downfall of the primæval freedom, the Lord, himself had been
only the first Markman, the patron or defender of the simple freemen,
either by inheritance or their election[98]. In this country, the want
of materials precludes the attainment of similar certainty, but there
can be no reason to doubt that the same process took place, and that
originally Markcourts existed among ourselves with the same objects and
powers. In a charter of the year 971, Cod. Dipl. No. 568, we find the
word _mearcmót_, which can there mean only the place where such a court,
_mót_ or meeting was held: while the _mearcbeorh_, which is not at all
of rare occurrence, appears to denote the hill or mound which was the
site of the court, and the place where the free settlers met at stated
periods to do right between man and man[99].
-----
Footnote 97:
For example in Manors, where the territorial jurisdiction of a lord
has usurped the place of the old Markmoot, but not availed entirely to
destroy the old Mark-rights in the various commons.
Footnote 98:
Numerous instances may be found in Grimm’s valuable work, Die
Deutschen Weisthümer, 3 vols. 8vo. These are the presentments or
verdicts of such courts, from a very early period, and in all parts of
Germany. It is deeply to be lamented that the _very early_ customs
found in the copies of Court Rolls in England have not been collected
and published. Such a step could not possibly affect the interests of
Lords of Manors, or their Stewards; but the collection would furnish
invaluable materials for law and history. We shall have to refer
hereafter to the Advocatus or Vogt, the elected or hereditary patron
of these and similar aggregations.
Footnote 99:
Mearcbeorh, the _Mark-hill_, seems too special a name to express some
hill or other, which happened to lie in the boundary. A Kentish
charter names the gemótbeorh (Cod. Dipl. No. 364. an. 934), but this
is indefinite, and might apply to the Shiremoot.
-----
It is not at all necessary that these communities should have been very
small; on the contrary, some of the Marks were probably of considerable
extent, and capable of bringing a respectable force into the field upon
emergency: others, no doubt, were less populous, and extensive: but a
hundred heads of houses, which is not at all an extravagant supposition,
protected by trackless forests, in a district not well known to the
invader, constitute a body very well able to defend its rights and
privileges.
Although the Mark seems originally to have been defined by the nature of
the district, the hills, streams and forests, still its individual,
peculiar and, as it were, private character depended in some degree also
upon long-subsisting relations of the Markmen, both among themselves,
and with regard to others. I represent them to myself as great family
unions, comprising households of various degrees of wealth, rank and
authority: some, in direct descent from the common ancestors, or from
the hero of the particular tribe: others, more distantly connected,
through the natural result of increasing population, which multiplies
indeed the members of the family, but removes them at every step further
from the original stock: some, admitted into communion by marriage,
others by adoption; others even by emancipation; but all recognizing a
brotherhood, a kinsmanship or _sibsceaft_[100]; all standing together as
one unit in respect of other, similar communities; all governed by the
same judges and led by the same captains; all sharing in the same
religious rites, and all known to themselves and to their neighbours by
one general name.
-----
Footnote 100:
Refer to Caesar’s expression _cognatio_, in a note to p. 39. It is
remarkable that early MS. glossaries render the word _fratrueles_ by
_gelondan_, which can only be translated, “those settled upon the same
land;” thus identifying the local with the family relations.
-----
The original significance of these names is now perhaps matter of
curious, rather than of useful enquiry. Could we securely determine it,
we should, beyond doubt, obtain an insight into the antiquities of the
Germanic races, far transcending the actual extent of our historical
knowledge; this it is hopeless now to expect: ages of continual
struggles, of violent convulsions, of conquests and revolutions, lie
between us and our forefathers: the traces of their steps have been
effaced by the inexorable march of a different civilization. This alone
is certain, that the distinction must have lain deeply rooted in the
national religion, and supplied abundant materials for the national
epos. Much has been irrecoverably lost, yet in what remains we recognize
fragments which bear the impress of former wealth and grandeur. Beówulf,
the Traveller’s Song, and the multifarious poems and traditions of
Scandinavia, not less than the scattered names which meet us here and
there in early German history, offer hints which can only serve to
excite regret for the mass which has perished. The kingdoms and empires
which have exercised the profoundest influence upon the course of modern
civilization, have sprung out of obscure communities whose very names
are only known to us through the traditions of the poet, or the local
denominations which record the sites of their early settlements.
Many hypotheses may be formed to account for these ancient aggregations,
especially on the continent of Europe. Perhaps not the least plausible
is that of a single family, itself claiming descent, through some hero,
from the gods, and gathering other scattered families around itself;
thus retaining the administration of the family rites of religion, and
giving its own name to all the rest of the community. Once established,
such distinctive appellations must wander with the migrations of the
communities themselves, or such portions of them as want of land and
means, and excess of population at home, compelled to seek new
settlements. In the midst of restless movements, so general and
extensive as those of our progenitors, it cannot surprise us, when we
find the gentile names of Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark,
reproduced upon our own shores. Even where a few adventurers—one
only—bearing a celebrated name, took possession of a new home, comrades
would readily be found, glad to constitute themselves around him under
an appellation long recognized as heroic: or a leader, distinguished for
his skill, his valour and success, his power or superior wealth, may
have found little difficulty in imposing the name of his own race upon
all who shared in his adventures. Thus Harlings and Wælsings, names most
intimately connected with the great epos of the Germanic and
Scandinavian races, are reproduced in several localities in England:
Billing, the noble progenitor of the royal race of Saxony, has more than
one enduring record: and similarly, I believe all the local
denominations of the early settlements to have arisen and been
perpetuated[101]. So much light appears derivable from a proper
investigation of these names, that I have collected them in an Appendix
(A.) at the end of this volume, to the contents of which the reader’s
attention is invited[102].
-----
Footnote 101:
The Harlings, in Anglosaxon Herelingas (Trav. Song, l. 224); Harlunge,
(W. Grimm, Deut. Heldensage, p. 280, etc.,) are found at Harling in
Norfolk and Kent, and at Harlington (Herelingatún) in Bedfordshire and
Middlesex. The Wælsings, in Old Norse Völsungar, the family of Sigurdr
or Siegfried, reappear at Walsingham in Norfolk, Wolsingham in
Northumberland, and Woolsingham in Durham. The Billings, at Billinge,
Billingham, Billinghoe, Billinghurst, Billingden, Billington, and many
other places. See Appendix A.
Footnote 102:
These local denominations are for the most part irregular
compositions, of which the former portion is a patronymic in -ing or
-ling, declined in the genitive plural. The second portion is a mere
definition of the locality, as -geat, -hyrst, -hám, -wíc, -tún,
-stede, and the like. In a few cases the patronymic stands alone in
the nominative plural, as Tótingas, Tooting, Surrey; Wócingas, Woking,
Surrey; Meallingas, Malling, Kent; Weðeringas, Wittering, Sussex. In a
still smaller number, the name of the eponymus replaces that of his
descendants, as Finnes burh, Finsbury; Wælses hám, Walsham, in
Norfolk; in which last name, as well as in Wælses eafora (Beówulf, l.
1787), we have a record of the progenitor of the Wælsings, who is
alike unknown to the Scandinavian and the German legends of that noble
race. In dealing, however, with these names, some amount of caution is
necessary: it is by no means enough that a word should end in -ing, to
convert it into a genuine patronymic. On the contrary it is a power of
that termination to denote the genitive or possessive, which is also
the generative, case: and in some local names we do find it so used:
thus Æðelwulfing lond (Cod. Dipl. No. 179, a. 801) is exactly
equivalent to Æðelwulfes lond, the estate of a duke Æðelwulf, not of a
family called Æðelwulfings. So again, ðæt Folcwining lond (Cod. Dipl.
No. 195, a. 811), ðæt Wynhearding lond (Cod. Dipl. No. 195, a. 811),
imply the land of Folcwine, of Wynheard, not of marks or families
called Folcwinings and Wynheardings. Woolbedington, Wool Lavington,
Barlavington, are respectively Wulfbæding tún, Wulfláfing tún,
Beórláfing tún, the tún or dwelling of Wulfláf, Wulfbæd and Beórláf.
Between such words and genuine patronymics the line must carefully be
drawn, a task which requires both skill and experience: the best
security is, where we find the patronymic in the genitive plural: but
one can very generally judge whether the name is such as to have
arisen in the way described above, from a genitive singular. Changes
for the sake of euphony must also be guarded against, as sources of
error: thus Abingdon in Berks would impel us strongly to assume a
family of Abingas; the Saxon name Æbban dún convinces us that it was
named from an Æbba (m.) or Æbbe (f). Dunnington is not Duninga tún,
but Dunnan, that is Dunna’s tún.
In looking over this list we are immediately struck with a remarkable
repetition of various names, some of which are found at once in several
counties; and most striking are those which, like the examples already
alluded to, give a habitation upon our own shores to the races
celebrated in the poetical or historical records of other ages and other
lands. There are indeed hardly any enquiries of deeper interest, than
those whose tendency is to link the present with the past in the bonds
of a mythical tradition; or which presents results of greater importance
to him who has studied the modes of thought and action of populations at
an early stage of their career. The intimate relations of mythology, law
and social institutions, which later ages are too apt scornfully to
despise, or superstitiously to imitate, are for them, living springs of
action: they are believed in, not played with, as in the majority of
_revivals_, from the days of Anytus and Melitus to our own; and they
form the broad foundation upon which the whole social polity is
established. The people who believe in heroes, originally gods and
always god-born, preserve a remembrance of their ancient deities in the
gentile names by which themselves are distinguished, long after the
rites they once paid to their divinities have fallen into disuse; and it
is this record of beings once hallowed, and a cult once offered, which
they have bequeathed to us in many of the now unintelligible names of
the Marks. Taking these facts into account, I have no hesitation in
affirming that the names of places found in the Anglosaxon charters, and
yet extant in England, supply no trifling links in the chain of evidence
by which we demonstrate the existence among ourselves of a heathendom
nearly allied to that of Scandinavia.
The Wælsings, the Völsungar of the Edda, and Volsungen of the German
Heldensage, have already been noticed in a cursory manner: they are the
family whose hero is Siegfried or Sigurdr[103], the centre round which
the Nibelungen epos circles. Another of their princes, Fitela, the Norse
Sinfiötli, is recorded in the poem of Beówulf[104], and from him appear
to have been derived the Fitelingas, whose name survives in Fitling.
-----
Footnote 103:
In Beówulf (l. 1743), Siegfried is replaced by Sígmund, his father.
Here occurs his patronymical appellation of Wælsing (l. 1747), and
Wælses eafora (l. 1787).
Footnote 104:
Lines 1752, 1772.
-----
The Herelingas or Harlings have also been noticed; they are connected
with the same great cycle, and are mentioned in the Traveller’s Song, l.
224. As Harlingen in Friesland retains a record of the same name, it is
possible that it may have wandered to the coast of Norfolk with the
Batavian auxiliaries, _numerus Batavorum_, who served under their own
chiefs in Britain. The Swǽfas, a border tribe of the Angles[105],
reappear at Swaffham. The Brentings[106] are found again in Brentingby.
The Scyldings and Scylfings[107], perhaps the most celebrated of the
Northern races, give their names to Skelding and Shilvington. The
Ardings, whose memorial is retained in Ardingley, Ardington and
Ardingworth, are the Azdingi[108], the royal race of the Visigoths and
Vandals: a name which confirms the tradition of a settlement of Vandals
in England. With these we probably should not confound the Heardingas,
who have left their name to Hardingham in Norfolk[109]. The Banings,
over whom Becca ruled[110], are recognized in Banningham; the
Hælsings[111] in Helsington, and in the Swedish Helsingland[112]: the
Myrgings[113], perhaps in Merring, and Merrington: the Hundings[114],
perhaps in Hunningham and Hunnington: the Hócings[115], in Hucking: the
Seringas[116] meet us again in Sharington, Sherington and Sheringham.
The Ðyringas[117], in Thorington and Thorrington, are likely to be
offshoots of the great Hermunduric race, the Thyringi or Thoringi, now
Thuringians, always neighbours of the Saxons. The Bleccingas, a race who
probably gave name to Bleckingen in Sweden, are found in Bletchington,
and Bletchingley. In the Gytingas, known to us from Guiting, we can yet
trace the Alamannic tribe of the Juthungi, or Jutungi. Perhaps in the
Scytingas or Scydingas, we may find another Alamannic tribe, the
Scudingi[118], and in the Dylingas, an Alpine or Highdutch name, the
Tulingi[119]. The Wæringas are probably the Norman Vǽringjar, whom we
call Varangians. The Wylfingas[120], another celebrated race, well known
in Norse tradition, are recorded in Beówulf[121] and the Traveller’s
Song[122].
-----
Footnote 105:
Trav. S. l. 121.
Footnote 106:
Béow. l. 5610.
Footnote 107:
Ibid. l. 60, 125, etc.
Footnote 108:
See Zeuss, p. 461 and pp. 73, 74; especially his note upon the
Astingi, p. 461, where he brings forward a good deal of evidence in
favour of the form Geardingas.
Footnote 109:
The Rune poem says that Ing was first known among the Eastdanes, and
that he was so named by the Heardings. This may refer to Norfolk: or
must we read heardingas, _bellatores_? See Anglos. Runes, Archæolog.
xxviii. 327, _seq._
Footnote 110:
Trav. S. l. 37.
Footnote 111:
Ibid. l. 44.
Footnote 112:
Zeuss, p. 544.
Footnote 113:
Trav. S. l. 45.
Footnote 114:
Ibid. l. 46
Footnote 115:
Ibid. l. 57, perhaps the Chauci.
Footnote 116:
Ibid. l. 150.
Footnote 117:
Ibid. l. 60.
Footnote 118:
Zeuss, p. 584.
Footnote 119:
Ibid. pp. 226, 227.
Footnote 120:
Cod. Dipl. No. 1135. Wylfinga ford.
Footnote 121:
Lines 916, 936.
Footnote 122:
Line 58. They are the Ylfingar of Norse tradition. Helg. Hund. l. 5.
-----
These are unquestionably no trivial coincidences; they assure us that
there lies at the root of our land-divisions an element of the highest
antiquity; one too, by which our kinsmanship with the North-german races
is placed beyond dispute. But their analogy leads us to a wider
induction: when we examine the list of names contained in the Appendix,
we see at once how very few of these are identified with the names
recorded in Beówulf and other poems: all that are so recorded, had
probably belonged to portions of the epic cycle; but there is nothing in
the names themselves to distinguish them from the rest; nothing at least
but the happy accident of those poems, which were dedicated to their
praise, having survived. In the lapse of years, how many similar records
may have perished! And may we not justly conclude that a far greater
number of races might have been identified, had the Ages spared the
songs in which they were sung?
“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes inlachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro!”
Whatever periods we assume for the division of the land into Marks, or
to what cause soever we attribute the names adopted by the several
communities, the method and manner of their dispersion remains a
question of some interest. The Appendix shows a most surprising
distribution of some particular names over several counties[123]: but
this seems conceivable only in two ways; first, that the inhabitants of
a Mark, finding themselves pressed for room at home, migrated to other
seats, and established a new community under the old designation; or,
secondly, that in the division of the newly conquered soil, men who had
belonged to one community upon the continent, found themselves thrown
into a state of separation here, either by the caprice of the lots,
supposing their immigration simultaneous, or by the natural course of
events, supposing one body to have preceded the other. Perhaps too we
must admit the possibility of a dispersion arising from the dissolution
of ancient confederacies, produced by internal war. On the whole I am
disposed to look upon the second hypothesis as applicable to the
majority of cases; without presuming altogether to exclude the action of
the first and third causes. It is no doubt difficult to imagine that a
small troop of wandering strangers should be allowed to traverse a
settled country in search of new habitations. Yet, at first, there must
have been abundance of land, which conduct and courage might wring from
its Keltic owners. Again, how natural on the other hand is it, that in
the confusion of conquest, or the dilatory course of gradual occupation,
men once united should find their lot cast apart, and themselves divided
into distant communities! Nor in this can we recognize anything
resembling the solemn planting of a Grecian, far less of a Roman,
colony; or suppose that any notion of a common origin survived to
nourish feelings of friendship between bodies of men, so established in
different lands. Even had such traditions originally prevailed, they
must soon have perished, when the Marks coalesced into the Gá or Shire,
and several of the latter became included in one kingdom. New interests
and duties must then have readily superseded maxims which belonged to an
almost obsolete organization.
-----
Footnote 123:
Æscings in Essex, Somerset and Sussex: Alings in Kent, Dorset,
Devonshire and Lincoln: Ardings in Sussex, Berks and Northamptonshire:
Arlings in Devonshire, Gloucestershire and Sussex: Banings in
Hertfordshire, Kent, Lincolnshire and Salop: Beadings in Norfolk,
Suffolk, Surrey, Sussex and the Isle of Wight: Berings in Kent,
Devonshire, Herefordshire, Lincolnshire, Salop and Somerset: Billings
in Bedfordshire, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk,
Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Salop, Sussex and the Isle of Wight,
etc.
-----
But in truth, to this question of dispersion and relationship,
considered in its widest generality, there is no limit either of place
or time: it derives, indeed, some of its charm from the very vagueness
which seems to defy the efforts of the historian: and even the
conviction that a positive and scientific result is unattainable, does
not suffice to repress the anxiety with which we strive to lift the veil
of our Isis. The question of every settlement, large or small,
ultimately resolves itself into that of the original migrations of
mankind. Unless we can bring ourselves to adopt the hypothesis of
autochthonous populations,—an hypothesis whose vagueness is not less
than attaches to a system of gradual, but untraced, advances,—we must
fall back from point to point, until we reach one starting-place and one
origin. Every family that squats upon the waste, assumes the existence
of two families from which it sprang: every household, comprising a man
and woman, if it is to be fruitful and continue, presupposes two such
households; each of these continues to represent two more, in a
geometrical progression, whose enormous sum and final result are lost in
the night of ages. The solitary who wanders away into the uncultivated
waste, and there by degrees rears a family, a tribe and a state, takes
with him the traditions, the dispositions, the knowledge and the ideas,
which he had derived from others, in turn equally indebted to their
predecessors. This state of society, if society it can be called, is
rarely exhibited to our observation. The backwoodsman in America, or the
settler in an Australian bush, may furnish some means of judging such a
form of civilization; and the traditions of Norway and Iceland dimly
record a similar process: but the solitary labourer, whose constant
warfare with an exulting and exuberant nature does little more than
assure him an independent existence, has no time to describe the course
and the result of his toils: and the progress of the modern settler is
recorded less by himself, than by a civilized society, whose offset he
is; which watches his fortunes with interest and judges them with
intelligence; which finds in his career the solution of problems that
distract itself, and never forgets that he yet shares in the cultivation
he has left behind him.
Still the manner in which such solitary households gradually spread over
and occupy a country, must be nearly the same in all places, where they
exist at all. The family increases in number; the arable is extended to
provide food; the pasture is pushed further and further as the cattle
multiply, or as the grasslands become less productive. Along the banks
of the river which may have attracted the feelings or the avarice of the
wanderer, which may have guided his steps in the untracked wilderness,
or supplied the road by which he journeyed, the footsteps of
civilization move upward: till, reaching the rising ground from which
the streams descend on either side, the vanguards of two parties meet,
and the watershed becomes their boundary, and the place of meeting for
religious or political purposes. Meantime, the ford, the mill, the
bridge have become the nucleus of a village, and the blessings of mutual
intercourse and family bonds have converted the squatters’ settlement
into a centre of wealth and happiness. And in like manner is it, where a
clearing in the forest, near a spring or well[124],—divine, for its uses
to man,—has been made; and where, by slow degrees, the separated
families discover each other, and find that it is not good for man to be
alone.
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Footnote 124:
Water seems the indispensable condition of a settlement in any part of
the world: hence, in part, the worship paid to it. It is the very key
to the history of the East.
-----
This description, however, will not strictly apply to numerous or
extensive cases of settlement, although some analogy may be found, if we
substitute a tribe for the family. Continental Germany has no tradition
of such a process; and we may not unjustly believe the records of such
in Scandinavia to have arisen from the wanderings of unquiet spirits,
impatient of control or rivalry, of criminals shrinking from the
consequences of their guilt, or of descendants dreading the blood-feud
inherited from ruder progenitors. But although systematic and religious
colonization, like that of Greece, cannot be assumed to have prevailed,
we may safely assert that it was carried on far more regularly, and upon
more strict principles than are compatible with capricious and
individual settlement[125]. Tradition here and there throws light upon
the causes by which bodies of men were impelled to leave their ancient
habitations, and seek new seats in more fruitful or peaceful districts.
The emigration represented by Hengest has been attributed to a famine at
home, and even the grave authority of history has countenanced the
belief that his keels were driven into exile: thus far we may assume his
adventure to have been made with the participation, if not by the
authority, of the parent state.
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Footnote 125:
The solemn apportionment of lands and dwellings is nowhere more
obvious, or described in more instructive detail, than in Denmark.
Norway and the Swedish borderlands may have offered more numerous
instances of solitary settling. The manner of distributing the village
land is called Sólskipt or Sólskipti: the provisions of this law are
given by Grimm, Rechtsalt. p. 539. There is an interesting account of
the formalities used upon the first colonization of Iceland, in
Geijer, Hist. of Sweden, i. 159. (German translation of 1826.)
-----
In general we may admit the division of a conquered country, such as
Britain was, to have been conducted upon settled principles, derived
from the actual position of the conquerors. As an army they had obtained
possession, and as an army they distributed the booty which rewarded
their valour. That they nevertheless continued to occupy the land as
families or _cognationes_, resulted from the method of their enrolment
in the field itself, where each kindred was drawn up under an officer of
its own lineage and appointment, and the several members of the family
served together. But such a distribution of the land as should content
the various small communities that made up the whole force, could only
be ensured by the joint authority of the leaders, the concurrence of the
families themselves, and the possession of a sufficient space for their
extension, undisturbed by the claims of former occupants, and suited to
the wants of its new masters. What difficulties, what jealousies
preceded the adjustment of all claims among the conquerors, we cannot
hope to learn, or by what means these were met and reconciled: but the
divisions themselves, so many of whose names I have collected, prove
that, in some way or other, the problem was successfully solved.
On the natural clearings in the forest, or on spots prepared by man for
his own uses; in valleys, bounded by gentle acclivities which poured
down fertilizing streams; or on plains which here and there rose,
clothed with verdure, above surrounding marshes; slowly and step by
step, the warlike colonists adopted the habits and developed the
character of peaceful agriculturists. The towns which had been spared in
the first rush of war, gradually became deserted, and slowly crumbled to
the soil, beneath which their ruins are yet found from time to time, or
upon which shapeless masses yet remain, to mark the sites of a
civilization, whose bases were not laid deep enough for eternity. All
over England there soon existed a network of communities, the principle
of whose being was separation, as regarded each other: the most intimate
union, as respected the individual members of each. Agricultural, not
commercial, dispersed, not centralized, content within their own limits
and little given to wandering, they relinquished in a great degree the
habits and feelings which had united them as military adventurers; and
the spirit which had achieved the conquest of an empire, was now
satisfied with the care of maintaining inviolate a little peaceful plot,
sufficient for the cultivation of a few simple households.