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27/E- COATTEMPORAR 1' SCIEN2CE SERIES.
EDITED By HAVELOCK ELLIS.
THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.








THE
VILLAGE CMmUNITY.
WITH
SPECIAL REFERENCE T0'-THE ORIGIN
AND FORM OF ITS SURVIVALS IN BRITAIN.
BY
GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME,
Fellow of/the Societ'y of A n/iqm, aries, and Direc/or of/the Foihiore Society.
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT,
24, WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW,
189o.




L-. 7. 




t-t/,.1 I -mes s.. ~
$7. $  / 
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION  I
CHAPTER II.
THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY... 20
CHAPTER III.
METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE... 42
CHAPTER IV.
THE NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN THE ENGLISH VILLAGE
COMMUNITY........... 69
CHAPTER V.
THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY... 116
CHAPTER VI.
TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN...... 132
CHAPTER VII.
TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN
BRITAIN...        1..,              1.,.,,  I47




vi                  CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN
IBRITAIN............  57
CHAPTER IX.
FRAGMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY SURVIVING IN
LOCAL CUSTOM...............  232
CHAPTER X.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION..... 290
INDEX...............  297




LIST OF
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
VILLAGE OF ASHBORNE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
PRIMITIVE ARYAN HOUSE IN MEDIA.........
MAP OF WILTSHIRE........
TERRACES AT NEWLANDS KIRK.........
BRYNGLAS CULTIVATION..........
MANOR HOUSE EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY..


PAGE
44
45
73
79
101
118


ELIZABETHAN COPYHOLD HOUSE
PLANS OF SURREY COTTAGES.....
MAP OF LAUDER IN BERWICKSHIRE
PLAN OF CHIPPENHAM, WILTS...
PLAN OF MALMESBURY CORPORATION LANDS
LONDON STONE AS IT IS NOW PROTECTED..
REAPING MACHINE USED IN ROMAN GAUL..
THE HIGHLAND SPADE...
THE CASCHROM......  --..   -
ANGLO-SAXON TWO-OXEN PLOUGH....
ANGLO-SAXON REAPING SCENE........PLAN OF DONISTHORPE TOWNSHIP... -.


1..  21.... 122
1. 49.. 173
1..  88.... 219.... 278.... 279.. 280.... 284.... 285.. 289








PREFACE.
I HAVE sought in this little book to bring into prominence
a view of the place which the village community occupies
in English institutions.  So far as I know, this has not yet
been considered by scholars. The subject has occupied my
attention for the past twelve years or so, and I have studied it
side by side with other subjects which of late years in increasing
force I have conceived to be in intimate relationship with it.
To many who take a considerable interest in the early history
of institutions, it will appear strange that folklore should be
adduced in evidence. But to those of us who have watched,
and perhaps aided in some slight way, the development of the
science which underlies so much that constitutes what is called
folklore, there will be no surprise.  If we want to get at the
true origin of what is now found on English soil as heirlooms
of the past, we must take into our purview not one particular
section, not one particular period, or one particular area; we
must consider all the remains of the past and pick out from the
whole group the evidence we seek for.  Englishmen did not
begin their history in the land they named, but their history in
older England had much the same original characteristics
as those of other Aryan tribes in their early homes. Because we study these characteristics at home, we are too apt
to accentuate the forces of political progress and to minimize
the forces of peasant crystallization. The latter has had no
historian by the very nature of things. The history of the
I *




x


PREFACE.


former is contained in thousands of volumes, and attracts the
notice of all advanced thought. But the relative proportion of
historical record does not measure the relative proportion of
influence.  What I am most struck with in investigating the
facts of local life is the enormous influence of tradition in
stamping custom and belief upon a people.  For centuries of
English history there was little to disturb either primitive
economic customs or primitive belief. We have ample evidence
of the survival of both, and it is with these survivals in their
relationship to each other that I have dealt in the following
pages.
I am conscious of much that I should like to improve upon
and of much more that I should like to add in the elucidation
of this fascinating but intricate subject. But the last word has.
not yet been said upon it; and I hope that my contribution to
it may help towards the desired end. The present series seems
peculiarly fitted for such a subject. It has not only a scientific
interest, viewed as a chapter in the history of institutions; it
has an interest viewed'as a contribution to some of the socio —
logical problems of the day. The peasants of to-day are no
longer unlettered, and just as we are beginning to study their
past and re-read the history of the national past by the light of
this new study, they are reading too, and influences which were
of old traditional and unconscious are now philosophical and
conscious.  The future of man with his immense mental
activity and mental grasp must take a very different line of
development to that of the past, and so far as I may presume
to judge, the difference lies largely in the interest awakened
and to be awakened in subjects like the present. They tell us of
man with communal rights, duties, and privileges, with intimate relationship to his fellows, and an almost unbroken and
unbreakable interest in the soil and institutions of his country.
I am far from urging that it is wise to return to these old
feelings, survivals of the past; I only suggest that these old
feelings are re-awakened, and if properly guided may be guided
to the good of the nation and of humanity.
I owe many thanks to kind friends for help of various kind.




PREFACE.


xi


Mr. Seebohm has kindly read through all my proofs. It will
be seen that I have ventured to differ from his views somewhat.
His help, therefore, is all the more generous, and I shall not
easily forget the marginal notes of guidance, criticism, and
appreciation with which he has favoured me.
To Mr. Hubert Hall of the Record Office I am indebted
for kindly help with reference to the illustrations I received from
him in that institution; and to the Town Clerk of Malmesbury
I owe the copy of the map of that place.
To my friend, Mr. Ralph Nevill, to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, the Cambrian Archaeological Society,
the publishers of Violett le Duc's " Habitations of Man," Mr.
Elliot Stock, and others, I am indebted for the loan of blocks
or permission to copy.
Mr. Havelock Ellis has throughout helped my revision of
the proof sheets by many useful emendations and hints.
Some portions of the work are adapted and altered from
papers originally published at various times in Archaeoogia,
Transactions of the Glasgow Archaeological Society, Middlesex
Archaeological Society, and in the Archaological Review.
G. L. GOMME.
BARNES COMMON, S.W.
Ioth March, 1890.








THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
CHAPTER I.
THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.
IN order to understand properly what the village communities
of Britain really represent in the history of our race, it is
necessary we should start with a clear view of what a village
community is. The term has become popular, and has lost
somewhat of its more precise historical and archaeological
meaning. The two sources of its. popularity in England are
the writings of Sir Henry Maine and Mr. Frederic Seebohm.
Sir Henry Maine some years since drew attention to the traces
of the village community in English local institutions and
customs, basing his proofs upon the parallel which exists
between some English and Indian phenomena. Mr. Seebohm,
more recently, has chronologically traced back the existence
of certain economical phenomena in English villages to a
period which, speaking roughly, may be identified with the
Roman occupation of this island, and he seeks, in the events
of this period, the origin of the village community in its 
English form. And it happens that, in the contrast between
the village community as represented by each of these great
scholars, the institution which the term connotes has become
somewhat indefinite and obscure. A group of men cultivating
their lands in common and having rights and duties in common
is the typical form; but students are divided as to whether this
institution is of historical origin and growth, or of primitive
origin and growth.
2




2 THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


It is just this question of origin which is of the first importance, and if, as I suggest, the village community can be proved
to be a primitive institution, this must have a most important
bearing upon its history in Britain.  It means that the village
community originated at a stage of social development long
prior to the political stage, and that hence its appearaice among
7the local institutions of Britain is of the nature of a survival
from prehistoric times. If this view is once fully understood
and accepted, much of the difficulty arising from a conflict in
terminology will vanish, because the whole method of future
research must be coloured by the evidence as to origin. If
the village community is of primitive origin, and its later
existence a survival, we should be able to note its opposition
to the political phenomena of civilized history. If it arises out
of the advanced political organization of the Roman Empire
we should be able to note that it has developed into and forms
part of the political and economical phenomena of civilized
history, which, indeed, under this hypothesis it must have
helped to 'form; for, with all the spur of Roman civilization,
it must have so influenced English institutions as to make
English institutions themselves but a continuation of Roman
institutions. Thus the evidence as to origin is of great importance; and before we can properly examine the types in
Britain, or ascertain what they really represent in English
history, we must know something of the more primitive
types, which alone can tell us anything of origin.
If the village community is a primitive institution, it must be
granted that from the present position of the subject in the
hands of those students who have dealt with it, there are some
considerable obstacles to be got over in taking up this new
position. In the first place, we must sooner or later come to
the question of race in the formation of such an institution,
because in Britain alone we have certain evidence of an Iberic,
a Celtic, and a Teutonic population, all of which lived in communities, and all of which have left their mark upon later British
history. With the researches of Professor Boyd Dawkins and Mr.
Elton before us, it is idle to attempt an investigation into any




THE SCOPE OF THE INQUIRY.


3


section of English institutions without taking count of the ethnic
influences. Secondly, we have to disentangle ourselves from
the notion that the form in which the village community is
found in Britain could only have arisen from the influences of
civilizing powers, a position forced upon us by Mr. Seebohm;
we havn to get rid of the idea that as an institution it is
a special heritage of the Aryan race, a position forced upon
us by Sir Henry Maine. And, finally, we shall have to
establish if possible that it is exactly similar in its wide
extension to other ascertained phases of human society, and
must, therefore, be reckoned with as one of the phases through
which practically all mankind who have reached a certain
stage of development must have passed. Thus it will be seen -
that in attempting to investigate the village communities of
Britain our study is, in fact, a chapter in the science of comparative custom, not in the chronological history of a nation.
What we shall be doing is to trace out the history of an institution, which may be said to be almost universal, during its
existence in a special country, namely, Britain, where it has
been subject to special influences; it is not the history of a
British institution, but the history of a human institution in
Britain. 
It seems remarkable that the early history of institutions in this
country, and in the Western world generally, should have been
so infrequently studied side by side with the monumental and
other evidence of the existence of different ethnic stocks. Cave
dwellers, hill men, lake dwellers, dolmen builders, have all left
very important proofs of their lengthened occupation of this
country, but their influences are never reckoned with when
anything but monumental archaeology is being considered.
Mr. Elton was the first to point out that certain rude customs
among the peasantry could best be accounted for by the theory
of their survival from non-Aryan tribes; but, except to explain
the prevalence of junior right in a certain well-defined tract of
country, he does not suggest that this survival may possibly
direct our attention to these race influences for an explanation
of much that is obscure in our remarkably diversified local




4 THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.
institutions. In the meantime Sir Henry Maine had put a
more express limit upon the value of race influences in comparative jurisprudence.  The tribes of men with which the
student of jurisprudence is concerned, he tells us, are exclusively those belonging to the races now universally classed,
on the ground of linguisitic affinities, as Aryan and Semitic:
besides these he has at most to take into account that portion
of the outlying mass of mankind which has lately been called
Uralian, the Turks, Hungarians, and Finns.'
Now an appeal to comparative custom to unlock some of
the hidden secrets of our own early life means that we must
study not only the prehistoric monuments and the barbaric
customs of Aryan nations, but the very rude forms of life still
existing; for, as Mr. McLennan has well observed, the preface
of general history must be compiled from the materials presented by barbarism. Rude stone monuments tell us something of the rude people who built them; philology tells us
something of the archaic social conditions of Aryan man; but
the knowledge gained from these two sources of scientific
observation, however true as to general outline, is not rich in
detail. Foi this we can only go to comparative custom;
and it is in detail that an institution like the village community
must be examined.
Comparative custom, not seeking for evidences of early man
merely in the written records of ancient nations, does not
define as old everything that is chronologically early. It has
ascertained that man is an unchanging being under certain
conditions which have been present over a large part of the
globe; it therefore seeks for evidence of early man from the
unchanged representatives still living, and it defines as old that
which has not advanced and become progressive. If we can
find rude types of the village community in India and in
Europe, we may conclude that these rude types are probably
as old as the Indo-European race; and if we can go one step
further and find rude types of the village community in still
more backward races of the world, we may conclude that these
" Early History of Institutions," p. 65.




THE METHODS OF INQUIRY.


5


rude types show us what early man was capable of doing in the
matter of social and economical organization before there was
any chance of his contact with any civilized or civilizing system.
This seems to be the necessary starting-point in our researches.  We must first note some of the details available
from this source of information, in order to set forth as clearly
as may be that the village community belongs essentially to the
primitive and archaic stage of social development; and we can
then see if there are any traces of continuity between the
rudest forms of this institution and the forms found to exist
in civilized Britain.
For this purpose I shall first of all turn to some examples of
the village community among savage races, and I shall choose
the Fijians, the Basutos, and the Dyaks. Low down in the
scale of humanity, it will be seen that these people have yet
developed a system of village economy remarkably close to that
surviving in India and Europe. The effect of such evidence is
-twofold. It shows that the mental efforts which called forth
such a system did not serve to make the race other than
savages; and it suggests that in these savage institutions we
have types of the early stages of our own history when the
village community was first formed. It may seem a far-off cry
from the Fijians of to-day to the inhabitants of our own island
in prehistoric days; but while we know from the evidence of
monumental remains that man in his most primitive condition
lived in these islands long enough to impress his barbarism
upon the successive waves of civilization, while we can trace
evidences of that stage of barbarism in a race of people which
must at least have extended from Central Asia to Britain, and
while we know   that modern savagedom  retains habits and
beliefs which best explain the silent monuments of ancient
savagedom,' it is abundantly clear that to understand the
I A very good example of this is to be found in Dr. E. B. Tylor's comparison of the Digging Sticks as the earliest agricultural implements, used
both among the North American Indians and in Sweden, and the system
of shifting-brand tillage among the Basutos and in Sweden. See Contemporary Review, vol. xxii. p. 64.




6 THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


survivals of early institutions in civilized countries, we must
examine existing types of these self-same institutions in the
rudest form in which they are to be found.  And if authority
is needed for such a course as I propose to take, I am content
to stand by the great name of Dr. E. B. Tylor, who, in one of
his most pregnant essays on primitive society, connects the
various steps in the history of legal ownership of land by
evidence which commences with the low savages of Brazil, and
leads up to the old Scandinavian and Teutonic communities.
"The case is indeed plain," says Mr. Tylor, "showing us that
while we have a land law modified from that of our barbaric
ancestors, their law again had its origin in the simplest form of
tenure still to be found among savages who have but just come
to the agricultural stage." 
But there is something more to be said for such a comparison.
I have suggested that an examination of the village community among the most backward races will go far to establish the widespread extension of this institution as a phase of
developmert through which mankind must have passed to
reach civilization.  And let me note how necessary a complement this is to those other researches into the early history
of man which are identified with the names of Tylor,
McLennan, Morgan, and Lubbock. These scholars have established landmarks in the social, religious, and mental development
of man to which every day brings further research, either confirming or varying the conclusions arrived at. But nothing, or
very little, has been attempted to set ou, landmarks of
primitive economics. The totem tribes,!male  kinship
and exogamous marriages, in their progres b rds male kinship and full tribal society, built their sto  ircles and their
burial mounds, their rude habitations, their extensive defences
against hostile tribes, and we are beginning'more and more to
trace out the connection between the monuments and their
builders. But there also existed througtut all this period of
early culture a system of economics which governed or marked
the life of the tribes. Primitive economical conditions are just
xContemnporary Review, vol. xxii. p. 66.




PRIMITIVE ECONOMICS.


7


as important in tracing out the early history of man and the bearings of that early history upon all succeeding periods as other
primitive conditions.  They may be studied by the same
methods, illustrated by the same types of modern barbarism,
and traced along the same lines of development, which have
been adopted in the corresponding studies of early man; and
thus, when from the evidence of contemporary savagedom we
for our present purposes come to select one or two instances
to guide us to the earliest stages of primitive economics,
we may allow this evidence to stand as typical of what
further research would bring forth upon the question of the
widespread existence of the village community.
Proof of this widespread existence of a definite primitive
economical system cannot now be undertaken, because it is a
subject by itself, and needs immense research into some of the
byways of the literature of travellers. But I may indicate some
of the lines which such a study would proceed upon, and where
such lines converge upon the examples I shall more particularly
examine. It appears to me that the true way to study primitive economics is to commence with the structural details of
primitive residences.
In prehistoric archaeology a very considerable section is occupied by the remains-sometimes structural, sometimesconsisting
of mere deposits of domestic utensils-of early dwelling places.
In savage archaeology we meet with examples of early dwelling
places peopled still by those who built or adapted them. If
there is an overlapping of these two departments of archaeology
at any given point, they must illustrate and elucidate each other,
because they both deal with the same phenomenon-the
swarming of human groups into their shells during a vast period
of time.  It is important, therefore, to ascertain, if possible,
whether such an overlapping does take place, and if so, at what
point.
But to accomplish this task with anything like success it
would be necessary to gather together the evidence, now almost
hopelessly scattered, as to the dwelling places and home
economy of the savage races. Only one authority, so far as I




8 THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


know, has paid close attention to this subject, namely, the late
Mr. Lewis Morgan, but his book relates entirely to the evidence
derived from the American Indians. His researches, however,
into this branch of the human race are so true that it is not
unimportant to note that they are confirmed in all essential particulars when we extend the area of research to other uncivilized peoples. For the rest, it would be necessary to pick our
way among the recorded observances of travellers who have
seldom noted the essentials of savage economics.
Mr. Tylor has remarked that "thinking of the nests of birds,
the dams of beavers, the tree platforms of apes, it can scarcely
be supposed that man at any time was unable to build himself
a shelter."'  That he does not do so is due to causes which
are inseparably connected, though how we cannot exactly say,
with the form of the society in which he is living. In such
types of society which may perhaps best be identified with the
primitive human horde to which Mr. McLennan worked back,2
there is no room for artificially-built dwellings.  Such, for
instance, are the wild Bushmen of South Africa. "A cave with
its opening protected by a few branches, or the centre of a
small circle of thorn trees, round which skins of wild animals
were stretched, was the best dwelling place that they aspired
to possess; if neither of these were within their reach
they scooped out a hole in the ground, placed a few sticks or
stones round it, and spread a skin above to serve as a roof, or
sometimes nothing more than a reed mat on the side from
which the wind was blowing: a little grass at the bottom of the
hole formed a bed, and though it was not much larger than
the nest of an ostrich, a whole family would manage to lie down
in it." 3  This is the indiscriminate squatting of a human
horde, the atoms of which are kept together by forces which
operate from outside, instead of by forces originating from the
recognition and use of the ties of blood relationship, as among
more advanced peoples.  The use of constructed dwellings
" Anthropology," p. 229.
2 Cf. my paper inJourn. Anthroop. Inst., vol. xvii. pp. 118-133.
3 Theal's " Compendium of South African History," p. 55.




THE VILLAGE COMMUNITV IN SAVAGE INSTITUTIONS.   9
would not fit in with the mental attitude or with the unregulated
individualism of this stage of human life, and accordingly it
seems possible to date the rise of a permanent form of dwelling
from the time when blood kinship began to be utilized in the
building-up of society. Much profitlessdiscussion has taken place
upon Mr. McLennan's theory as to a period in human history
when blood relationship was not recognized. That blood relationship has always Ie facto existed of course needs no proof;
that it has always to tome extent been one of the means of
calling forth the springs of natural affection in the human race,
may be accepted also as a general fact; that it has not always
been utilized as the foundation of political societies, that it has
not always been made the cement which bound large groups of
men and women together, are the points to which Mr. McLennan
has directed attention.
The stage when permanent forms of artificial dwellings were
constructed seems to mark a definite point in the line of development; and we may proceed from it to fix upon such races
as the Fijians, Basutos, and Dyaks as sufficiently indicative of
the rudest forms of the village community. When we have
examined the details presented by these examples we shall be
able to affirm that the formation of the village community as a
human institution arose in the period of primitive economics,
and that a reasonable conclusion may be drawn from this,
namely, that its existence among economical conditions which
were not primitive is not due to such conditions, but to a
resistance which all primitive institutions actively exert when
they are brought into antagonism with a system which must
in the end overthrow them.
(a) Villages in Fiji are sometimes inhabited by land-owning
tribes, and sometimes by people who have no land of their own.
Our business is with the former of these two classes, but it is
worth while pointing out that the existence of this distinction
shows some advance in social development. The village inhabited by landowners is surrounded by moat and mound and
war-fence. It is divided into two sections separated by a ditch,
which sections are subdivided into quarters. Apparently in




10 THE VILLAGE CONMMUNITY AS A I'RIMI'TIVE INSTITUTION.


some cases the sections do not appear, but the quarters generally do.
The houses are thus arranged. Each family group has its own
town lot. It is subdivided into smaller lots until each family
or household has its own. This is the precinct, and may be
surrounded by a fence at the will of its owners. Each family
lot must be built upon so as to leave a pathway between it and
the adjoining lot. It is sacred against all encroachments of
any kind.
Each of the quarters belongs to a section of the community
called a ia/taqali, a word whichl means literally a number of men
whlo are twisted together, i.e., of common descent. It is composed of the descendants of a band of brothers, from each of
which is descended a minor division called a yavusa, and each
yavusa may be again subdivided into a number of vuvale, consisting of brothers with their families who inhabit either the
same house or adjoining houses. The people of a village are
theoretically of common descent, though they are not actually
so.
The village has its own lands distinct from those of other
villages. They are of three kinds: (i) the Yavu or town lot;
(2) The Qele, or arable land; (3) the Veikau, or forest. The
town lot, as we have noted, is that which is occupied by the
house and the garden, and there seems to be a close connection
between this town lot and the arable land, the ownership of one
appearing to go far towards establishing that of the other. The
arable land lies beyond the village. In some places it is
divided into lots, and subdivided into smaller lots, each having
its owner or owners. Elsewhere it is not so divided, and all the
joint owners appear to use any piece that may be convenient.
Beyond the arable is the forest. It is not subdivided like the
arable, but is common to all the miatatali of the village. Its
members have the joint right of felling timber for building and
other purposes, but one community may not trespass upon the
forest of another.I
(b) The villages of the Iyaks of Borneo are mostly built along
7ournt,. Anthro1p. frst., vol. x. p. 332 lt seq.




THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN SAVAGE INSTI'TUTIONS. I I


the banks of the rivers, though here and there are solitary
houses hidden from view among the forests at a short distance
from a stream or creek. The houses are from So to ioo feet
in length, 20 to 30 feet in width, and with walls about io feet
high, the ridge of the roof rising another 5 or 6 feet. The
house proper has only one floor, raised about 15 to 20 feet
from the ground on posts of hard timber. Under the actual
habitation is a raised floor or platform of boards and bamboo
poles, about 4 or 6 feet fom the level of the ground and open
on all sides. Here the women pound their rice, the men hold
bitcharlrs or councils, the infants are nursed, and the rising
generation play or practise war-dances. The ground under
and around thesf platforms is occupied by the pigs, cats, dogs,
and fowls. The floor of the house proper is reached by a
ladder consisting of a block of timber or thick board, in which
deep notches are cut to form steps. The floor is composed of
bamboo and the walls of mixed bamboo and timber boards.
The roof is covered with wood or with the split leaves of the
nipa palm. Internally the house is divided longitudinally by a
bamboo partition. One of the long compartments so formed
serves as a sleeping place for the unmarried youths and men,
and as a general living room for all the occupants; the other
compartment is subdivided into a series of smaller rooms for
the married members of the family and the women.
Every Dyak has his rice-field, on which he grows sufficient
rice for his own consumption. He selects a piece of forest
land and begins, with the assistance of his family, to clear the
ground. The large trees are cut down and the undergrowth
fired, the ashes of which act as manure. Having sown their
rice, they build small huts in the rice-fields, remaining there
till the miniature plants are transplanted out into the newlycleared field, on which the women have all the time been
busily engaged.
Near the houses arc plantations of maize, bananas, pisangs,
a sort of turnip, sugar-cane, penang, and a few cocoa-nut
palms.
Their agricultural implements are the mandau and a peculiar




12 THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


axe or adze, the iron of which is fastened with cords made
from the sinews of deer plaited in chequer fashion to a shaft
made of a piece of hard wood. This again is stuck into a
large handle, to which it is firmly fastened by means of guttapercha.1
(c) The tribes of the Basutos are subdivided into groups, which
form a number of little villages, imolsis, placed under influential
men. The village settlement is nearly always in the form of a
vast circle, the centre being occupied by the flocks, while the
huts form the circumference. The site being chosen, the chief
drives into the ground a peg covered with charms, in order
that the village may be firmly nailed to the soil. The highest
spot is reserved for the habitation of the chief. Near this is a
large court, formed by a circle of rushes or boughs, which is
the general place of resort for the men, but women are not
allowed to enter. Here public affairs are discussed, lawsuits
decided, and criminal causes adjudged.  In the centre of the
village are large enclosures, perfectly round, formed of branches
of the mimosa, in which the cattle are shut in the evening;
the ground is so holy that it serves as a burial-place for the
chiefs and their families.
In the country of the Batlapsis, the Barolongs, and the Baharutsis, where the heat is excessive and wood abundant, the hut
is high and well ventilated.  It is in the form of a conical
dome, round which is a little verandah which serves to support
the roof. The Basutos, who inhabit a mountainous country,
endeavour to shut out the cold and wet, and their huts are in
the form of a large oval oven, and are entered by creeping
along a very narrow passage, which serves to prevent the wind
from  reaching the interior.  The walls are perfectly well
plastered, and often decorated with ingenious designs. The
sleeping place is on the ground. The most remote part of the
hut generally serves as a receptacle for the enormous vases of
coarse earthenware, containing the provision of wheat, and


' Bock's  IIead -Hunters of Borneo," pp. 195-202; yournal Ethnoloical Society (New Series), vol. ii. p. 28.




THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN SAVAGE INSTITUTIONS. 13


other articles of food. The door by which they go in and out
of the hut leads into a circular court surrounded by rushes or
branches; in which place is the fire and where the family
generally assemble. Each hut is occupied by a married couple
and their children. A polygamist has the same number of huts
as he has wives.
The land is understood to belong to the whole community,
and no one has a right to dispose of the soil from which he
derives his support.  ljhe sovereign chiefs assign to their
vassals the parts they are'to occupy, and these latter grant to
every father of adfamily a portion of arable land proportionate
to his wants. The land thus granted is insured to the cultivator so long as ie does not change his locality. If he goes to
settle elsewhere he must restore the fields to the chief under
whom he holds them, in order that the latter may dispose of
them to some other person. The bounds of each field are
marked with precision. The possession of pasture land is also
subject to rules. It is understood that the inhabitants of one
village should prevent their flocks from grazing on ground
which belongs to another. Among the Basutos it is the duty
of every petty village chief to see that a part of the adjacent
territory is reserved for winter pasture.
The cultivated fields are generally situated at some distance
from the village. When a piece of land is exhausted, another
piece is cleared by its side.
The Basutos, Bechuanas, and Caffres use oval hoes. The
blade is thick in the middle, and gets thinner towards the two
sides and the lower part, which renders it at the same time
solid and sharp. It is furnished at the top with a kind of elongated tail, which is inserted into a hole bored in the end of the
handle. The hoe is raised perpendicularly over the head, and
allowed to descend almost by its own weight. The Tembukis
and Amakosas dig the ground with a little wooden spade.
The Basutos assemble every year to dig up and sow the
fields appropriated for the personal maintenance of their chief
and his first wife. Hundreds of men, in a straight line, raise and
lower their mattocks simultaneously, and with perfect regularity.




r4 'THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


The Basutos preserve their songho (a grain) in large straw
baskets in the shape of a dome. The Caffres have recourse to
pits. They make deep excavations in the enclosures where
their cattle are penned. The walls of these pits are carefully
plastered. The opening, which is only large enough to admit a
mian, is even with the ground. When the subterranean granary
is filled the opening is hermetically sealed, and the whole is
covered with a thick coating of dung and earth.
Most of the flocks and herds captured in war become the
property of the chief, and the subjects regard it as a favour to
become the depositaries and guardians of these new acquisitions. The milk belongs to them; they use the oxen as
beasts of burden, and from time to time obtain permission to
kill an animal which is already old.'
It seems not difficult to trace in these three types of the
l)rimitive mode and condition of life, represented by modern
savagery, the roots of the tribal and village communities which
have been hitherto identified with Aryan races only. We have
representatives of lake-dwellers in the Dyaks; of totem tribes
in the Basutos; of the early crystallization of a village system
in the Fijis.  That lake-dwellers, totem-formed tribes, and
settled villagers are represented in the archaeological remains
of early Britain is well known, and there is no scientific reason
why we should not pursue the parallel in order to find out what
we can of the economical system of the early inhabitants of our
land. I have stated the details somewhat fully in order to
show how frequently they conform to the evidence of archeology in Europe, but an analysis of the economical details presented by these examples will show at once where the real
interest of this suggested l)arallel begins. We may tabulate
such an analysis as follows:
I. The chief, actually present in the Basuto village, has been pushed
upward into a caste, and hence disappears from the Fiji village to form the
Fiji state.
Casalis, " The Basutos," pp. 123-178.




ITS RELATIONSHIP TO CIVILIZATION.


2. Common living is the basis of the Dyak unit; the possession of a wife
that of the Basuto; common descent that of the Fiji unit.
3. Common descent brings with it the conception of the sacredness of
the homestead among the Fijians.
4. The grouping of houses into a village among the Fijians.
5. The homestead determines the right of user in the village lands
among the Basutos and Fijians.
6. The division of the tribal territ, ry into homestead, arable and pasture
amllng the Basutos and Fijians.
7. The houselands being carved out of the unoccupied forest lands by
the Dyaks, and the shifting oJ the arable lands 1)y the Basutos.
8. The village council as the source of village rights.
If we strike out of this analysis the names of the savage
tribes which haye been the subject of our examination, we
might use very nearly the same terms to describe the features
of the village system of Britain as it survives in different parts
of the country.
Such evidence enables us to say that the village community
is of primitive origin; and that it is not stamped with the marks
of advanced political progress. And it is significant that when
we come to consider its position among the institutions of
the Western world, we never see it as the dominant factor in
the constitution of nations.   In all the countries of Europe,
including those occupied by the great classical centres of
civilization, it is found to have existed during times which are
well within the ken of history. But it is always subordinated
to a more or less strong central governing power, and, according
as it is interfered with by the central authority for purposes of
government, so is the proportion of its completeness as a
primitive institution.  While almost every local institution of
Great Britain-the parish, the manor, the borough-bears upon
it the impress of its origin in the primitive village community,
no local institution of any importance is an exact representation
of what might be expected to have resulted from a normal
development of the primitive village community. There is
always a twist somewhere. Most generally this may be discovered from the growing commercialism of post-Norman
times when the customary law of England was being incor



I6 THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


porated into the king's law. Where we can succeed in subtracting the commercial elements in English manorial and
village history we come upon the remnants of the primitive
village community. These are represented by practices and
customs whose startling antagonism to anything appertaining
to commercial economy or political progress is the one
remarkable phenomenon in English economical history which
quadrates with those old faiths, beliefs, and usages, which,
under the generic title of folklore, students have now shown
to have existed side by side, but subordinated to, the established religion of the nation. This subordinate position of the
village community in the Western world, contrasted with its
l)rominent position elsewhere, is a feature in its history which
has escaped notice, and which, when examined, helps us
to understand many elements in its composition hitherto
explained by an appeal to events of political history which
do not seem  to come into the question at all. It places
it among the institutions of the land whose origin is lost
in the unrecorded history of the past; it answers the question of those who suggest that, because the village community is never mentioned in the charters and diplomatic
documents of advancing political times, therefore it is of
modern origin; and, above all, it forces upon the student the
recognition of a most important factor in its history, namely,
the cause of its long continuance, after the era to which it
essentially belongs had wholly passed away. The consideration
of this point, indeed, forms a most material section of the
history of the village community as a primitive institution.
The village community is thus presented to us as a primitive
institution, having a prominent position among the backward
races and a subordinate position among the advanced races of
the world, and it is suggested that the latter of these two phases
is a survival from the former. It should, therefore, be marked
by all the characteristics of a survival. One of these characteristics will be found in the traditional sanction given to local
practices by long ages of ancestral usage. The evidence of
folklore is very important at this stage. If there is any value




ITS TRADITIONAL USAGES.


7


in the contention of folklorists that the elements of folklore
are survivals from primitive belief and custom, they must have
belonged to some form of social organism. They were not
always waifs and strays, but once helped to consolidate the
social structure of which they formed a part. As Professor
Sayce well says, the religion of the primitive villager "in
its outward form was made up of rites and ceremonies which
could only be performed collectively."  It seems, therefore,
that we may fairly classify the survivals of folklore and the
survivals of the village community as belonging to the selfsame
stage of primitive social development. This conclusion is
considerably strengthened by the fact that the causes of the
survival of folklore and of the survival of the village community
are identical, namely, the persistence of traditional usage.
Proof of this in the case of folklore is hardly needed, and this
is not the place to set it forth. Proof of the traditional
sanction for the customs belonging to the village community
has never been set forth, and has never been sufficiently
insisted upon as an ilnportant element in the question of
origin.  But it is overwhelming. Fortunately for science, the
backward condition of agriculture in this country, during the
last years of the eighteenth century and the first decade of
the present, was so alarming as to arrest the serious attention
of the government. Under the able and indefatigable guidance
of Arthur Young and Sir John Sinclair, the Board of Agriculture set to work to collect information, county by county,
about the actual state of agricultural industry, the obstacles to
improvement, and the best means of introducing something
like scientific principles. The one answer which seems to
have almost overwhelmed the inquirers was that the then
existing system was carried on simply because it had always
been so from time immemorial-an answer which was backed
up by deep-rooted aversion to change of any sort, especially
when change meant an enclosure of lands and the allotment
of several parcels, held in common by a group, to individual
owners. Over and over again in the reports presented to the
"Introduction to Science of Language," vol. ii. p. 290.
3




18 T1L VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A PRIMITIVE INSTITUTION.


],oard of Agriculture, and in contemporary literature dealing
with the same subject, was this view of the case brought pronlinently before the economical reformers, and over and over
again do they compllain of the unreasoning folly of the peasant
fa.rilers, who loved to do only what their fathers had done, and
who looked uplon the improvements at last gradually introduced
as so extraordinary that they must have been the result of a
disordered intellect.'
A fact of the highest imp)ortance has thus been obtained
from tlie lips of the villagers themselves, namely, that the
agricultural practices observed at the beginning of the century were not the result of known economical forces; but
were, on the contrary, derived from immemorial usage, were
therefore traditional methods of agriculture. Now, traditional
methods of agriculture, like traditional metlods of belief, are
valuable to the scientific inquirer just because they are traditional, and this brings prominently before us an historical
fact of some iniportance, namely, that the attitude of civilizatiou towards lrimitive institutions, in tolerating them  and
keeping tlhem alive evenC long after their mleaning and usefulness have been lost, cannot be determined without taking
count of l)rimitive economics.  The sanction of traditional
reverence for habits and ways that have come down with men
from that far-off time which memory and fancy hold so dear,
transcends and keeps in check even the forces of political
economy wvhich we have been taught to look upon as so
irresistible, and it is worth bearing in mind that some of the
traditional features of the village conmmunity are not very far
removed from   tle socialism of to-day.  In the history of
lhuman tlhouglht it w\ill be found tlat the influences of traditional ideas far outweigh the influences of philosolhy.
Thus our plrelilinary examination of the village community by
the light of comparative custom has led us first to see that it is a
product of the backward races of the w:orld, not of the foremost;
secondly, that its existence am.idst the more advanced institutions of civilization is due to survival, not to creation; and,
See Stewart's " Iighlanders of Scotland," vol. i. pp. 147, 228.




THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY AS A SURVIVAL.        19
finally, that from its widespread existence, absolute proof of
which has not however been undertaken, it represents a phase
of economic development through which all progressive races
must have passed.




C(l  NIAI"I~ IT   I.


'1111l I.Ei-Li7i 1T )" TH'tilL VLAL;L (Oi\ALiUN iJV.
ILr has been generally assumed that the Var'1Oios type~s of the
village community originate wi'th the lparticular race amongc
wvhich they are found ]in full wvorking order, and that hence
both the 1-1 imidU auid E'Uropean typ)es arc lpurely Aryan in
or',Irin. But the examplIes of the villagre systemI of the Fiji and
B3asuto tribes no longer make it possible for comlparative
custom to ignor01e non-Aryan evidence, and it becomes alt
important qetion as to wvhether we cannot trace out the
lpoint of contact between the Aryan and non-Aryan village
system. Now fortunately inI India cIvIlIztohantcrhe
out race (listinctions, an1d we,- are still able to examiiic the
vilag'1~ e commu11Lnities as they exist amiong the aboriginal nonA\ryan races, and as they exist iii districts OCCUl ied by) the
Aryan races. Two distinct tylpes of the institutioni are hereby
revealed. If there are some points wvhere these t~vo t)'pes
converge anid synchronize, and if there are some points wNhere
they altogether differ, the evidence will be of importance; but
if wve may go somewvhat further than this, and pro N7e that the
lpoints of difference between the twvo systemns are also the
lpoints which. mark the Aryan overlordship of an original nonAr)'an settlement, if the so-called Aryan village communities
can be proved by the Indian evidence to be a composite
system so far as race is concerned, consisting both of Aryan
and non-Aryan elements, the evidence introduces an entirely
rnew feature into the history of the v'illag~e conmmunity, and
one Which must be reckoned N'vith wherever that institution
becomecs the subjeC~t Of scientific examuination.
Thie subject is one of some difficulty, but it is wvorth ~vliile




RACE-EL EMENTS IN THE INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITY. 21


attempting an examination of its main features here, because in
comparative custom  as in other branches of comparative
science, India affords a remarkable key to the facts that present
themselves, without explanation, in Europe. Civilization in
Europe has not succeeded in altogether stamping out archaic
types of society; but it has succeeded in stamping out nearly
all direct evidlence of the origin of such types. We shall have
occasion later on to lpoint out the value of Indian parallels
to European custom; it is well therefore to btring out clearly
all the initial stages of Indian village life, so that the parallels
from time to tite brought forward in explanation of some of
the details in the village life of Britain may not appear to be
the chance results of a haphazard comparison.
If we were to examine the economical system of some of the
numerous non-Aryan hill tribes of India, we should find that
their continued existence amidst the greater civilization of the
plains affords some key to the phenomena presented by the
villages inhabiting these plains.  And, moreover, it would be
found that in these examples of non-Aryan settlements in
India we meet with many facts which reappear in the history
of the village community as it is known in India and Europe.
The shifting of the cultivation site season after season, the
establishment of a central house for the unmarried of the tribe
and the sacred connection of the fire place therein with the
meeting place of the council, the influence of the widow in
matters of succession compared with the husband dwelling with
the wife's parents, the natural succession of the youngest son
to the house from which all but he have departed, the assistance
of the community towards building a house for its newlymarried members, are among the most interesting features of
these non-Aryan village customs. And it seems impossible
to get away from the fact that they represent on the outlying
lands of India, the home of the Aryan, that system of primitive
economics which, as we have seen from the evidence examined
in the first chapter, early man must have been almost universally acquainted with.
What, then, is the relationship of this non-Aryan village to




22  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE1 VILLAGE; COMMUNITY.


the Hindu system? In the pure hill examples there is no
appearance of any mixture of race, and the features common
to each are not sufficiently overlapping to suggest anything like
a settled political government as the source of their origin.
But in other examples we may plainly see written on the face
of the facts presented to our observation the influence of race
admixture, and in these we invariably discover the non-Aryan
village in complete organization under an Aryan overlordship
at the apex of the village system.  I will give one significant
example of this before passing on to more general evidence.
Among the Khonds the village generally consists of two
streets,' each with a double row of huts, one of which is
occupied by themselves and the other by the tribe named
IPrdi, of low caste, and who are weavers by trade. Their
huts are built of wattle and daub, and the roof thatched with
grass. Most of the villages are surrounded by a stout plaiting
of bamboo fence, and in some few places they are well stockaded.
In one part of the enclosure their cattle are folded, and the other
portion is converted into a vegetable garden. In the jungles
trees are rudely felled, and oil-nut, dholl, cotton, &:c., cultivated.
After the lapse of a few years, when the soil shows symptoms
of exhaustion, a fresh site is selected, and jungle once more
covers the first.  Each family raises a sufficiency to supply its
immediate wants.2  There is no system of tenure, the right of
possession being simply founded in the case of the tribe upon
priority of appropriation, and in the case of individuals upon
priority of culture.  Landed property descends exclusively in
the male line by equal division among all the sons, or in case
of failure of issue among all the brothers. The elder sons, as
they are married, have a house of their own, the youngest
always remaining in the house of his father. On the failure of
heirs male, land becomes the property of the village, and is
divided among its members.-3
Campbell, "W\ild Tribes of Khondistan," says "one street," p. 49.
2 Shortt's " Iill Ranges of S. India," vol. iii. p. i3; Carmichael's
"Manual of the Vizagapatam District," p. 90.
3 Carmichael, op. cit., pp. 95, 96.




THE RACES OF INDIA.


23


Now to these interesting details we can add a very important
fact from the observations of Colonel Campbell.  Each village,
he says, has its own chief, or mulleko, and with him is joined
an officer called Digaloo, or interpreter, of the Panoo caste,
who transacts all business for the Khonds, who consider it
beneath their dignity to barter or traffic.  Districts again are
governed by chiefs of Ooryal extraction, named the Bissoi,
who are Hindus by Lace, and the lKhonds regard them    as
much more capable df ruling over them and leading them
to battle than any of their own tribe.'
Our next task is to point out how this evidence of race admixture is confirmed from  the general conditions of Indian
village settlement.  Three distinct races in India tock a part
in forming Hindu society as we now find it. First, the Mongoloid tribes of Malayan affinities, speaking languages belonging
to the Kolarian family; secondly, the Australioids, speaking
Dravidian languages; and lastly, the Aryans, speaking dialects
connected with Sanscrit. Of these races the first are now best
known through the so-called Kol tribes of Western Bengal and
Central India, who still hold their own several districts, and
keel. quite separate from the Hindus. The second are represented by the forty-six million people in Madras, who speak
Tamul, Teloogoo, and other cognate dialects, and the Gonds,
Khonds, Ooraons, Bhuyas, and other tribes in Bengal and
Central India, who, where they still retain their native speech,
speak languages belonging to that family; while almost all the
upper classes throughout the length and breadth of India, and
the great mass of the population in the Punjab, North-West
Provinces, Bengal, and Bombay, claim to belong to the third.2
From this point we may follow the able guidance of Mr. J.
F. Hewitt, a settlement officer, whose opinion is guided by
actual observation. Mr. Hewitt shows that "not only Aryan
Campbell, " Wild Tribes of Khondistan," p. 50.
2 Journal Society of Arts, vol. xxv. p. 615. Mr. Hewitt's classification is
not essentially different from that of Mr. Justice Campbell in his article on
" The Ethnology of India," inJournalAsiatic Society of B'ngal, vol. xxxv.
part ii.




24  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VIL.LAGE COMMUNITY.


and semi-Aryan tribes divided the country into townships,
peopled and cultivated by associated villagers, but that such
townships exist also among those like the Kols and Ooraons of
Chota Nagpore, in W\estern Bengal, who have always hated the
Aryans, and have never been conquered 1by them, or subjected
to their influence " and that " fromi the examples of otliers,
in which Dravidians and Aryans confessedly live together, the
Aryan village is formed on the lines laid down by Kolarians
and T)ravidians, and it is only altered in certain details to make
it suit with the Aryan ideas of the sanctity and continuity of
the famnily, and of the equal rights of all holding land in the
village."
These conclusions invert the old ideas of the village
community by proving that the village settlement and modes
of cultivation are non-Aryan, while only the government and
administration are Aryan; ' but because they are derived fiom
actual types of race distinction it is no longer possible to think
of the Indian village community as due to only Aryan influences.  A result so implortant to the study of comparative
institutions vwants careful analysis, and Mr. Hewitt has reduced
the characteristics of the non-Aryan tribes into a systematic
grouping, which enables him   to detect the exact race influences.
Examining the characteristics of the social organization and
tribal economy of these races we will deal first with the Kolarians.  Mr. Camp)bell says the more civilized and numerous
tribes of tilis race occupy an extensive country alout 150
miles west from  Calcutta, and are known as Moondahs,
Bhoonmi;, HIos, and Santals,2 to which Colonel l)alton has
added the Kheriahs. Korewahs, and the Juangas.3 Beyond
their original settlements in the district of Chota Nagplore, Mr.
Hewitt says they can still be traced westwards, occupying larts
S1 ir Alfred Iyall, in his " Asiatic Studies," p. 154, comes to lmuch the
same conclusion as 1lr.  IIewitt; cf. also J. B. I)yall's '.' Settlement Report
of Kangra District," p. 25.:? Jo a'urat  A.sia't   Socitcy qo/  'cn,,ga, vol. xxxv. part ii. p. 34.
3 11,id., pP. 153- 157 -



THE KOLARIAN VILLAGES.


25


of their former settlements.  In the Central Provinces we find
tribes like the Kurkoos of Hioshungabad, who speak the
language and retain the customs of their forefathers, and others
are found in every stage of transition fiom nearly pure Kols to
low-caste Hindus.  Even in the cultivated parts of Bombay
traces of them appear, and if the Kolis of Maha Kanta belong
to this race, they still retain a separate organization of their
own, even in this far weret region.' Thus tie)y are to be studied
in their primitive state, fand also when they form part of an
Aryan village community.   Of their primitive characteristics
Mr. Hewitt enumerates the following as bearing upon the
history of the village community.
i. They are a, totemistic people.  Each clan of the tribe
has, as its distinguishing totem, some natural object, which is
reverenced by its members, and marks distinction of lineage.
When the totem is an article of food none of the clan may eat
it, and as no one can marry in his own clan, every man seeking
a wife must make his choice out of the girls of families with
different totems.
2. They are partly wanderers in the forests, occupying
temporary clearings, and partly a fairly settled leople, living in
fairly permanent villages, under hereditary chiefs.
3. Their settlements are generally founded by families having
the same totem, who live as they used to do, near together, and
the villages occupied by the several clans of the united section of
the tribe, find their centre of union in the Byga, or tribal
priest, who, besides offering common sacrifices to the sylvan
deities for all the confederated clans, is generally arrow-maker
to the community. The heads of the clans are chosen from
those who gain the greatest influence over their fellows, but
neither these offices, nor that of tribal priest, is hereditary or
necessarily permanent, all are dependent on popular opinion,
which may any day reduce the holders to the level of the
ordinary tribesman.
4. The territorial divisions are first the parha, or tribal
territory, under a hereditary chief called manki; then each
J' oournal Society of Aris, vol. xxxv. p. 620.




26  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


parha is divided, in the more cultivated parts of the country,
into twelve or more villages.'
5. The houses occupy some space and are somewhat
isolated.  They have verandas, well-raised plinths, and separate al)artments for the married  and single members of
the family.  Sometimes as many as twenty houses will he
formed together rolund a square interior space.?
6. Each village has its local deity or deities, called Desauli,
to which common sacrifices are offered tly the villagers. The
I)esauli is the local spirit, or spirits, of that part of the forest
where the village clearing was made, for whose residence a few
trees of the old forest are always left. The priest is paid by
dues from the villagers.
7. The government is by a council of the mankis and the
mundas and chief tenants of the villages. There is no trace
in the Kol system of government of the existence of a king,
or any power above the mankis, and the united assembly of
mankis, mundas, and chief tenants. They     regulated all
matters within the tribal territory, but it was only by negotiation, or war, that questions between adjoining tribes could be
settled.
8. They always hoed the land, as they were ignorant of
ploughs, and the use of plough-cattle.  When they keep
cattle, they only keep enough for purely agricultural purposes,
as they never drink milk, and oxen are too valuable to be used
as food.
'Ihus we have the distinctive features of the Kolarian race
-(i) organization by the totem   (2) occupation of forest
clearings; (3) settlement under a non-hereditary chief, elected
clan chiefs, tribal and clan priests; (4) territorial division of
the tribe and clans; (5) independent houses; (6) clan deities
of the forest; (7) government hy a council; (8) ignorance of
the plough and objection to cattle as food.
We next pass to the Dravidian race. We may take their
general characteristics fiomn the description given ly Mr. Hewitt.
I)alton in Jolr,,.l Asia/t7.Sic Soci ett,' al,  v1,. xxxv. part ii. p. 159.
2  Ibid., p. 176.




THE DRAVIDIAN VILLAGES.


27


They entered India from the west, and are celebrated as the
principal opponents of the Aryans. They are apparently
allied to the race described in the early Persian writings as
worshippers of the demon and great snake Azidahaka. They
were essentially a ruling and thoroughlly practical race, who
believed firmly in the necessity of a strong central government
to maintain order and unity. What they sought in their slow
and steady advance through India was fertile lands, where they
could live in peace, and they moved in large masses like an
army.  Hence they preferred to settle in lands which had
been already cleared. They were accompanied by their wives,
children, and lroperty.
Enumerating' the characteristics which bear upon the history
of the village community we have the following:
r. They are totemistic.'
2. Their settlement was on the model of their camps,
placing the central provinces under the king as general-inchief, and assigning the outlying districts to the subordinate
chiefs who, with their respective forces, were appointed to
guard the frontiers.
3. The territorial divisions are the old parhas as the provincial divisions of the kingdom, only massing several parhas
together where a large province was required, and they retained the villages.
4. The family lives very promiscuously in a small, indifferently-constructed, untidy looking hut, and the village
consists of a street or court of such huts. They have no
gardens or orchards attached to individual houses, but in and
about the villages are some fine trees which are common
property. In every village young men and girls were separated
from their parents when they were little more than children,
and obliged to live in separate lodgings, the young men in
what is called in Chota Nagpore the dhui;kuria, or bachelor's
hall, under the care of one of the elders of the village; and
the girls in another similar building superintended by one of
the matrons.
Colonel Dalton inJournalAsiatic Society Bengal, vol. xxxv. part ii. p. 192.




28 THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


5. The pahan had still to perform the sacrifices necessary to
satisfy the forest spirits called Desauli and the distinctive
village god; but their chief function was to make offerings
to the great earth-god worshipped by the Naga races.
6. The central government received contributions from the
villages, and was represented in each village. Hence a certain
proportion of the best land, called manjhus land, varying in
area according to the size of village, was set apart for the
service of the raja or king. The produce of this land was
either stored in the royal granaries or, when the village was
assigned by the raja to a subordinate, made over to the
assignee. The rest of the land was divided into allotments,
called koonts: three of these were assigned to the families
who received the right to fill the village offices. All these
offices were made hereditary.  They were called bhunhiars,
and were chosen from the original settlers. One of these
allotments was set apart for the munda, or headman, but he
was no longer supreme in the village. He divided his
authority with the pahan, and with a new officer appointed by
the Dravidians, the mahto, or accountant, who held the two
other allotments.
7. The descendants of the men who formed the village are
a privileged class, the head of whom is called the moondah,
and is generally the representative of the old moondah chief
of the village. They had a right to a certain area of cultivated
land, proportionate to their ability to till it On the admission
of a new tenant, the cultivated land was redistributed, so as
to give each cultivator a portion of each kind of soil in the
village, calculated according to the number of plough bullocks
he had. In large villages the heads of the families, who were
the oldest settlers, had a great deal of power, and formed part
of the village council. They were always consulted before a
redistribution of land was made, or a new tenant was admitted. The privileged families paid no taxes in grain, or
afterwards no money, but gave general suit and service to
the ruling authorities, carried their baggage on a journey,
supplied them, as well as travellers, with wood and grass when




THE ARYANS AS OVER-LORDS.


they visited the village, thatched and repaired the houses and
granaries of their chief, looked after the village boundaries,
and kept order in the village. The subordinate village officers
were generally paid in grain, though sometimes in land; the
water-carrier, who was also the pahan's assistant, is found
in every village, and beside him were others, viz., the blacksmith, the potter, the cowherd, the barber, the washerman, and
the watchman. There was also in every parha the ojha, or
sorcerer and witchfinder.
Thus the distinctive features of the Dravidian villages show
us a strong central government, great advance towards territorial settlement and boundaries, the redistribution of village
lands at the time of admission of a new villager, and the
imposition of dues or payments for the purposes of government. From an ethnological point of view there is not much
difference between the two races Kolarian and Dravidian:
both based upon a tribal organization, their chief characteristic
in the history of the village community in India is their power
of amalgamation within the bounds of the village system.
The amalgamation produced no alteration in the principle of
social organization. The village, before the advent of the
Dravidians, was the same unit as the village after its absorption
of the new-comers. The internal structure had to be knit
closer together; the external shell was still the village.
The question, then, becomes: What did the Aryans do
towards the construction of the village community, the
essential factors of which had already been constructed by
non-Aryan races? If we consider for one moment the
characteristics of the Aryan race we must allow that they
do not suggest any assimilation with an institution which was
based upon an agricultural economy. Bearing in mind what
Caesar and Tacitus have said of the German social organization, I will once more quote Mr. Hewitt for the Indian side
of the question.
The Aryans, when they entered India, were almost entirely a
pastoral people, whose wealth consisted in their cattle, and who
looked on agriculture and trade as degrading. Their earliest




30   THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
laws forbade these occupations to the two highest classes-the
Brahmins, or priests, and the kshattryas, or warriors-and the
latest recension of the laws of Manu, the most elaborate of the
early codes, declares that "for a Brahmin or kshattryas,
agriculture is blamed by the virtuous as the plough with the
iron point injures the earth and the beings in it."'  With these
views, their object in making a new home was not to settle
down, till the land round their homesteads, and enrich themselves by labour and trade, but to find a country which, in the
words of the "Institutes of Vishnu,"2 consisted of open plains, fit
for cattle, abounding in grain, and containing many vaisyas,
or herdsmen and Sudras, of cultivators of alien race. Such a
country they found in the plains of the Punjab, where they
first settled during the early period when the Vedic hymns
were composed. But this comparatively populous and rich
district brought with its advantages dangers, which caused
serious anxiety to a people who were both deeply religious and
intensely proud of the purity of blood which made them, in
their own eyes, the first of the natives of the earth. Among
such a people the preservation of their families from intermixture with the despised natives of the country, and the
correct performance of the sacrifices due to the heavenly
powers they worshipped, were objects of the first importance.
Hence their early codes are chiefly composed of rules
regulating, in each household —() the ritual of the daily
sacrifices offered by the head of the house to the gods and his
ancestors; (2) for the maintenance of the sacred fire kindled at
the wedding of the father and mother of each family; (3) the
conduct of students and priests of the sacred law; (4) for the
preservation of personal purity; and (5) the avoidance of
marriages with strange races.
This was not the race to settle down at once into village
communities such as we now know them. They introduced
the idea of sacred rights residing in each family; they superimposed upon a strongly organized economic system, a strongly
1 " Laws of Manu," cap. x. p. 84.
2 " Institutes of Vishnu," vol. iii. pp. 4, 5.




THE NON-ARYAN ELEMENT.


31


organized kinship system. Not only are these Aryan villagers
bands of cultivators; they are common descendants of one
ancestor, common worshippers of one family god. Within the
framework of the original Dravidian villages the Aryan race
governed the cultivating body, and one of the most significant
facts of the race history of the village community in India is that
the boundaries of the townships are preserved with the greatest
care, and are always under the charge of the aboriginal races of
the lowest castes, whose forefathers fixed them.
This evidence appears to be conclusive as to the large part
that the non-Ayran races of India have played in building
up that form of the village community which is to be found in
India, and which, on the faith of its existence there, has been
hitherto considered a perfectly homogeneous institution
belonging essentially to the Aryans.
It seems to me that if we thus get a clue to some of the race
distinctions in India, we may, by following the lines of comparative custom, get a clue to some of the race distinctions in
Europe. The details which 1 have set forth may be somewhat
wearisome, but their importance will be seen later on. In the
meantime, our next step is to produce such a typical example
of the village community in India as will illustrate first the race
distinctions which we now know to exist; and, secondly, the
close parallel between the village community in India and that
in Britain.
We find such an example ready to our hands, described
by Mr. Hodgson in the second volume of the Transactions
of the Royal Asiatic Society, I830.  It is situated about
thirty miles north-west of Madras, in the Carnatic, a southeastern province of India, and is known by the name of
Pudu-vayal.  Mr. Hodgson prefaces his observations by the
statement that "it contains little that is new on the rights
of the peasantry of the south-eastern part of the peninsula
of India;" and asserts that his object in giving the paper
is merely "to render the subject intelligible to those who
have not been in India, by divesting the description of all
technical terms."  We may conclude, therefore, even if no




32  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


other evidence were forthcoming, that in this example we have
a typical case only, one that has close parallels all round it.
And indeed Mr. Hodgson goes on to observe that it "has
never been under the direct control of any European officer of
the East India Company," and thus "exhibits a fair specimen
of the ancient usages of Southern India."
There are two classes of villagers, the original settlers or
their descendants, and strangers not descended from original
settlers. Thus at the outset we have the stamp of race
distinction brought out prominently.
The privileges of the original settlers are held by custom in
four principal shares, and each principal share is subdivided
into sixteen parts, making in all sixty-four shares. By the
custom of the village a principal share cannot be sold, because
it contains the property of many; but custom admits of the
sale of a subdivision of a principal share under certain
limitations also defined by custom. The four principal shares
are, or are supposed to have been, the shares fixed when the
village was first settled. They have remained unaltered as
long as tradition or history reaches. The subdivisions of
these principal shares are the portions held by the descendants
of the first settlers or by the purchasers of their rights.
When the season for cultivation arrives the arable land of
the village is allotted to the several shareholders in the following manner. The names of each lot and each shareholder are
written on pieces of the leaf of the palm tree, such as is used
for village records, and the names of each division of land to
be allotted are placed in a row. A child, selected for the purpose, draws by lot a leaf with the name of the principal shareholder, and places it under a number, thusI.           2.          3.            4
Tannappa.     Nina.      Narrappa.     Malliyan.
It is thus settled by lottery that Tannappa and his undershareholders are entitled to cultivate the land of the principal
share lotted under No. I. Tannappa next proceeds to settle




INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITIES.


33


in the same way each under-shareholder's portion included in
his principal share; and so on until the 64 shareholders receive
each his allotment.
The lots are not drawn for all the lands at once, but in subdivisions according to quality; for instance, for the division
nearest the reservoir as being less liable to the effects of
drought, first; then for the next division as being further
removed from the reservoir; and then for the third, which
perhaps receives an adequate supply of water once in two or
three years only. Each of these subdivisions of land has an
appropriate name in the village register.
The total amount of the arable land thus held is 36813 canis,
or nearly 487 acres. Thus each ancestral share would contain
a little more than I20 acres.  Beyond this land, however, held
by the villagers in common for their own cultivation, was
certain so-called "alienated land," that is, devoted to special
purposes by custom or by grant. The lands held by grant
from the village amounted to i i-  canis, or 15 acres, and were
in possession of a priest and ten other Brahmins. The lands
appropriated by custom amounted to 26 — canis, or 35 acres.
They were held as follows:By the temples, i.e., Church lands... =  3 acres (about).
For the benefit of the villagers generally -,,
For the village officersThe accountant.........    = 14,,
The village watchman......     I3,
The village carpenter...... =  I,,
The village blacksmith......,,
35 acres.
Beside the arable allotments the villagers have an exclusive
right to pasture over all the uncultivated lands within the
boundaries.
The villagers were assisted in their agricultural operations by
three classes of servants.  First, slaves who were transferred
with the other privileges of the village occupants when those
privileges were sold or mortgaged. Second, bondsmen, who
4




34  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


may be said to have mortgaged themselves, and who can
redeem or work out their bondage. Third, hired labourers.
All these classes are remunerated or supported by allowances
of grain and donations of cloth for clothing and the benefit of
gleanings and the sweepings of the treading-floor.' They have
small plots of ground for gardens, and have presents on marriages or births in their families, and on the new year.
The stranger settlers who are not descendants of the original
settlers, and who do not, therefore, possess any portion of the
four ancestral shares, cultivate a portion of land set apart for
them. They have no claim to a permanent possession of the
land, they take no share in the produce of the village corporation lands, and do not obtain the services of the village
officials. They are a community, as it were, by themselves,
and they pay "a fee of superiority to the original settlers in
the village."
The component parts of this Hindu village community may
therefore be thus classed:
The hereditary villagers holding 4 ancestral shares, subdivided into I6
parts each;
The priests;
The village officers;
The servi, bondsmen, and hired labourers;
The stranger settlers.
This group of persons is held together by ties which are not
imposed by the State, but which have arisen from its own
history. At the top is the Aryan clan, whose bond of union is
descent from a common ancestor. Under this are the nonAryan cultivators, whose bond of union is simply that of a
tenantry under a superior proprietary body. But the whole
community-Aryan clans founded on common kinship and
non-Aryan cultivators affixed to the soil-is now known to the
State only by the amount of its revenue paid over to the sovereign. The custom is that 481 per cent. of the produce is
All the grain is trodden out of the straw by driving cattle over it, tied
together by the neck.




INDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITIES.


35


retained by the villagers, and 511 is paid over to the State.
Though so large a proportion is paid away, considerable advantages remain to the community. They divide among themselves the produce of the land exempted from revenue granted
when (to use their own emphatic expression) the village was
born; they levy a fee of superiority from all cultivators not
descendants of the original settlers; they have the labour of
the village officers-the carpenter, blacksmith, potter, washerman, watcher, barber, herdsman, distributor of water-free of
any personal charge. And they themselves stand forth before
the world and in their own eyes as free-villagers, independent
alike of national laws and national economy, self-governing and
self-supporting.
To this I must add an important description of the system
of the Pathan tribes of the Peshawar district, who are believed
by the best authorities to be of Indian origin. Their language
is called Pashto or Pakhto and is an Aryan speech.  Ir.
Bellew and Major James identify them with the Pactiyans of
Herodotus, and seem half inclined to connect them with the
Picts of Britain. The settlements on the unoccupied lands,
as among the Yusafzai, were in families at one spot, or in
villages adjacent to each other. The remainder of the appa
or tribal land was held in common, and used chiefly as
pastruage.  Each family cultivated its bakhra or any portion
of it at pleasure, paying no tribute or share of the produce
to any one, its duty to the tribe being to join in all offensive or defensive operations.  Very little land in the immediate vicinity of the villages was at first brought under
cultivation.  In the conquered districts aboriginal cultivators
were allowed to settle amongst them.  These were styled
fakirs, and the system usually adopted with them was to
require service only in lieu of the land which they were
allowed to cultivate on their own account. The claims of a
settled government introduced a more complicated system.
When fiscal demands were enforced it became the object of
the PathAn proprietors to cast the burden upon the cultivators,
and this gave rise to the large exemptions which exist in all




36  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


villages in respect of the estate cultivated by the proprietors
themselves, the maliks or heads of families.  Owing to the
peculiar jealousy amongst Pathains of the assumption of
authority by individuals, the number of this class was very
large, and a village was a cluster, not merely of several
branches of a tribe, but of small families, the members of
which, bound together by the closest ties of kindred, yielded
obedience only to their respective maliks, which office was in
its nature hereditary.  In one village, therefore, there might
be thirty or forty maliks.1
The natural result of this fiscal arrangement has been to
increase the rights of the faki/r class.  They have all the
rights of proprietorship, except that of sale or transfer, and
they hold their shares upon hereditary right.
The division and distribution of the lands forming the
village site is effected in the same manner as in the case of
the cultivated fields, a separate quarter being apportioned to
every clan, and in every clan to every section or sub-section.
Each quarter is a collection of separate tenements of the
individual families forming a clan section.  Each tenement
consists of the house and the court-yard; these shelter the
family as well as their dependants and cattle. The court-yards
are large, with a patch of vegetables or a clump of mulberries
in the enclosure. The house is within a walled enclosure, one
side of which is taken up by the dwelling-house. Each quarter
has its own chief, whose authority is confined to it.  His duties
are to maintain order, settle disputes amongst the householders
of his quarter, to collect the revenue, and see to the fair
distribution of the crops, &c.  Each quarter has its own
mosque, its own assembly-room, both of which are situated on
the outskirts; and in villages beyond the border its own power
of defence or burj.   The mosque is under the care of an
establishment of priests who are subordinate to a leader.
They are supported by rent-free lands attached to the mosque,
and receive, besides, daily supplies of food from the residents
T " Report on Census of Punjhb," vol. i. p. 201; "Gazetteer of Peshawar
District," pp. 124-127.




iNDIAN VILLAGE COMMUNITIES.


37


of their quarter. The assembly-room is a public room, with
court-yard and stables attached. In most instances it is the
property of the chief of the quarter, who is expected to feed
and shelter all visitors and travellers; beds, bedding, and forage,
are provided by thefakirs, or aboriginal class, in rotation. In
the assembly-room the chief meets the residents of the quarter
for the discussion and settlement of their public business. It
is also the sleeping place of all the bachelors of the quarter.
The burj, or watch tower, in the villages beyond the border,
is always attached to the house of the chief, and is in constant
use as a place of refuge and observation in case of feuds
between the different clans of a village community as well as
against enemies outside. One ward was often pitted against
another in deadly feud.
The habitations of the villagers are mostly constructed of
mud, one storeyed, and not higher than ten feet. In the
Khattak hills, stone, of which there is plenty, cemented with
mud and unplastered is used. Inside the house will usually
be found a corn bin made of clay, which contains the corn
supply for immediate use; some beds, stools, swing-cots for
the children, clothes-chest or safe made of wood, some spindles
and earthen dishes.  In the enclosures there is a shed for
cattle and a large corn bin; this is raised from the ground, in
shape like a bathing-machine, and contains the year's supply
of grain, and it is from this the bin inside is replenished.
The tribal territory is parcelled out into blocks, of which
each is held separately, by a clan or section of a clan.
Periodical redistributions were provided at fixed periods.
These were made by casting lots. At a redistribution a reenumeration of the tribes was made, and if it happened that
the division of land which had fallen to a certain tribe contained more than the number of shares to which they were
entitled by the new enumeration, a part of another tribe,
whose shareholders were in excess of the land which had
fallen to them, or colonists who had accompanied the main
tribe, were associated for the shares with the tribe who had
land in excess of shareholders. The mode of apportionment




38   THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
is thus described by Dr. Bellew. The land to be divided is
first marked off into compact blocks, each of which is subdivided into the required number of allotments. After the
measurement and primary division of a block its distribution
is regularly by lot. It is thus managed. The representative
of each of the clans to share in the distribution selects a
private mark (a piece of wood or a rag, a grain of maize, or
pellet of sheep's dung, or a stone, or any substance near at
hand), which, in the presence of all, he hands over to the
"greybeard" appointed to cast the lot, declaring it to be his
token. The greybeard, having collected all the tokens and
seen them severally recognized, gathers them together in the
skirt of his frock, and then walks round the block of land,
followed by the assembly; and as he passes them throws on
each of the plots marked off the first token that comes into
his hand. The several plots then become the possession of
the clans severally represented by the token thrown out on
them. Each plot is then successively divided and allotted in
a similar manner to the divisions of the clans and their several
respective families. In the ultimate divisions the portions of
land are often of very small extent, and are frequently styled
pciCIca, after the process thus described. In thus dividing the
lands for cultivation the clan blocks are in detached plots all
around the village roads, watercourses and wastes intervening.
Each block is known by a separate name expressing some
quality of the soil. The division gives each section or tribe
or clan a fixed possession in the soil. Each individual's share
is scattered according to lot in the different blocks. Very
often it is customary to exchange places at fixed periods of
five, ten, or more years. The land always remains the share
of the original owners, but is mapped out afresh for distribution
amongst the new owners, who all share equally with their own
tribal divisions without reference to rank. In these exchanges
between the tribes only the houses are left standing, and often
these are deprived of their timbers. The title of the individual
is never allowed to become extinct, though the actual extent
of that title was never definitely assigned beyond his right to




RELATIONSHIP OF THE TRIBE TO THE VILLAGE.


work one, two, or more ploughs in the daflar, as the fractional
portion of a share. A man might leave his home and return
after the lapse of years to find his claim uncontested.
The elders and the chiefs compose the village council; they
are referred to on all matters of custom and matters affecting
the village society. The village servants usually receive small
grants of land free of charge in consideration of their service.
They only intermarry among themselves, weaver with weaver,
and so on.'
I do not think we could get much better evidence than
these two examples of the position I have been striving to
establish for the village community in comparative custom.
Before, however, passing away from them there is a fact
to bring into prominence which is of considerable importance
to the study of the question in Britain.  It is the relationship of the tribe to the village-the tribe as an unstable
human swarm, the village as the material shell within which
the swarm has settled. Before the village community came
under scientific observation, the chief factor in human organization, as it appeared to the student, was the tribe; now that
attention has centred upon the village community, the tribe
has been lost sight of, and the family has taken its place.
Within the village community was discovered the joint family,
and it has been assumed rather than proved that the grouping
of these primitive families together was the origin of the village
community. Our evidence takes us to the exactly opposite
view of the case. It suggests that the village community arose
from the breaking up of the tribes into families, and that the
break up of the families led on to the individualism of modern
civilization. The question is one of general interest in inquiries
of this kind, but it is of special importance to us now, because
the relationship of the tribe to the village community will go
a long way to explain the history of the village community in
Britain. The Indian example we have just examined exhibits
very clearly the tribe separating into ancestral units, and again
I "Gazetteer of the Peshawar District, Punjab," pp. 52, 120, 126;
"Report on the Census of the Panjab," vol. i. p. 192.




40  THE RACE-ELEMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


breaking up into family units, and this is the phenomenon
produced from other parts of India, where " the tribe may be
watched breaking up into villages, and the village disseminating
the germ of fresh village colonization."  Thus, as Mr. Tupper
has remarked upon evidence from the Punjab, "it is usual
for the tribe first to hold its mark jointly, and tribes thus at
first enjoying land in common do, as a matter of fact, afterwards crystallize into villages of the familiar description." 2
And it is worth while going on to point out another feature
in the history of the village community in India, namely, that
"its roots strike their firmest grasp and its stock grows with its
greatest vigour in the soil of anarchy and private war;... any
exceptional strength of the corporation and unusual degree of
union amongst its members may often be directly due, like the
endurance of the Arab character, to the dangers of its environmlents." 3
We shall presently examine the parallels to these Indian
examples, which are to be found in Britain. As we proceed
with this examination, more details of the Indian village community will be brought into relief, but it must be borne in
mind that these details will not be merely abstract observations,
drawn up by the student from some general field of study, but
actual living details belonging to some such definite examples
of the village community in India, as the two we have just had
before us. If these details of the Indian village community
illustrate and explain a rural custom  or a phase of village
economy in Britain, they likewise take back that custom
or economical feature to the village community which once
enshrined it within its borders, but which has now nearly
everywhere been broken up into congeries of local observances,
rural practices, peasant thoughts which lie loosely scattered up
and down the country like the tesserxe of some shattered
mosaic pavements revealed only by the rude disturbance of
the plough. In some cases we may piece these fragments
together.  Only the light shed by comparative custom will
I "Pu' njab Customary Law," vol. ii. p. 28.  ' Ibid., p. 22.
3 Ibid., p. 24.




IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIAN EVIDENCE.


41


enable us satisfactorily to accomplish this, and we shall
frequently have occasion to refer back to the Indian examples
just examined. If we find by this means that much of the
village life of Britain may be restored to its place as fragments
of village communities, there will remain the further question
as to the origin of these institutions, and here again we shall
find it necessary to refer back to the Indian evidence.
We have ascertained, therefore, as general results from our
examination of the Indian evidence, first, that the village
community originated in the tribe; secondly, that it owes its
most permanent features to the unrest of warlike times. As
particular results we have to note that the village community
does not belong to one ethnic stock, but is sufficiently elastic
to embrace within its system contributions from successive
waves of people, where these people have followed up conquest by settlement. If we can find in the British evidence
stages in the history of the village community parallel to those
in India; if we can see the village community commencing in
the tribe, and the tribe breaking up into the village; if we can
discover traces of ethnic influences and the results of fierce
contests waged over the heads of the villages, we may at least
fairly conclude that the village community in Britain has had
much the same sort of history as it has in India, and that
therefore all the forces which have helped to build it up must
have been derived from such primitive tribes as we know to
have lived and settled in the land.




CHAPTER III.


METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITI SH EVIDENCE.
Now that the evidence of comparative custom as to the
primitive origin and characteristics of the village community
is placed fairly before us, it becomes an important question
as to the right method of dealing with the British evidence.
Clearly it must be re-arranged; for until now no notice has
been taken of the race elements, while very great prominence
has been given to the dominating force of Roman influence.
Rome was a highly centralized and highly civilized power, and
long before the appearance of its forces in Britain it had passed
through the stage of the village community. According to our
evidence it cannot have entered into the English village system
at all, and the striking out of such an important factor necessitates a re-examination of the methods of dealing with the
British evidence.
It is singular how persistent the practice has been to trace
back everything in English institutions to Roman influences.
It was the invarying object of most of our earlier antiquaries,
and in this age the learning and research of a great scholar
have revived in double force the old theories. While, however, the judgment which Mr. Freeman passed upon the
conclusions of Mr. Coote —a judgment endorsed by Sir Henry
Maine-seemed to be confirmed by the absolute silence with
which Mr. Coote passed over the evidence as to the survival of
the primitive village community in Britain, this institution, in
the masterful hands of Mr. Seebohm, has itself been brought
within the area of Roman influences. What Jacob Grimm has
said of the old attempts to trace the gods, mythic fancies, and




UNDUE PROMINENCE OF ROMAN INFLUENCES.


43


pagan rituals of our ancestors to the intrusion of Roman ideas,
I am inclined to repeat with reference to these attempts to
trace back English institutions to the Roman chronological
era, and there to leave off the inquiry as if there was nothing
more to be said, or as if no races prior to the Romans had
occupied the country. "At that rate," says the great German
scholar, " Wuotan might without more ado be traced back to
Jupiter, Holda to Diana, the Alp to the genius, all German
mythology to Roman, and nothing be left us of our own but
the bare soil that drank in the foreign doctrine." But even
the soil is not our own if Mr. Seebohm is correct in his
opinions that th(onglish village community was reared on
the undestroyed and living Romanized land system. And the
wonder of it is that with this excessive saturation of Roman
influences we have still left to us an English language which
presents us unhesitatingly with English words for all these
Roman institutions, and yet ex Ihypothesi tells us nothing of
the English institutions which had thus become replaced.
The difficulties of such a position, however, are too numerous
to be stated succinctly. Let the word folkmoot translate
whatever Roman word for council it may be supposed to best
represent, and still the English institution rears itself up quite
independently of the Roman, and tells us of a bit of the old
Aryan world. The plain fact is, that just as in mythology,
according to the overwhelming proofs of Jacob Grimm, so in
institutions there is very little room for Roman elements or
English soil; and the more so when it seems certain that we
must find room for an intrusion of the more primitive elements
of earlier and ruder races. Undoubtedly there is much which
is not Teutonic or Celtic in the village community as it is
found in Britain. But before we can turn toRoman institu- /
tions as the source of this extraneous influence we must be
quite sure that the natural course of events following upon the
successive waves of an Aryan conquest of an extensive Iberic
population does not adequately account for the phenomena.
Let us pass on from the question of race to some of the




44 METHODS OF DEALING VWITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


other results brought out by authorities up to this time. At the
most the theory of a Roman origin for the English village community only seeks to account for the economical phenomena."
The village community in serfdom, under a manor and its lord,
is the formula which is presented to us, the dual constitution of
village and manor appearing as two distinct institutions which
meet together on the Romanized soil of England, but always
remaining distinct. Unquestionably we have here a phase of
economical development which needs some kind of explanation
to bridge over the period from its origin to the point where
the history of commercial economics begins, and we will
endeavour to see how the Roman theory accounts for it.
If we get behind the formula, presented to us for convenience of argument, we may first consider its application
to the homestead. The Roman villa is clearly not the parent
of such a state of things as Mr. Thorold Rogers has pictured
from the records of old manorial accounts. He finds that the
houses of the villagers were built of wattles smeared inside
and out with mud or clay, and were crowded near the church
in the street of the settlement. In all cases the church was
the common hall of the parish and a fortress in time of danger,
occupying the site of the stockade which had been built when
the first settlers occupied the ground. In the body of the
church were frequently stored products, corn and wool. Here,
too, the common feasts of the parish were held. The only
houses of any pretension in the village were the lord's, the
parson's, and the miller's.1 What these latter were may be
gathered by some of the remains which have lasted down to
modern days. Some eighty or ninety years ago there was in
Shropshire an old building called Gatacre Hall. It was nearly
an exact square. At each corner and in the middle of each
side and in the centre was an immense oak, hewed neatly
square and without branches, set with its head on large
stones laid about a foot deep in the ground, and with its
r Rogers' " Economical Interpretation of History," p. 14. The sketch
is taken from an Elizabethan MS. in the Record Office. Compare the
stockaded Pathan village with its burj, ante, p. 37.




C V a-                      -a 'kM            Vl tpoi^g54St dt
ick-                   -X -U1\^-/
SA -     ~&.^I~^-      1-:-_           u^: —
J^-jiniff.,   <^^ ^/ ^^-/^^ Jnjy  l^V nr_~"^P"s4
I (O                                    n -r j  f
\A  '                      THE VILLAGE OF ASHBORNE, EARLY I7TH CENTURY.
^-^'                    F~~~~~~~~~~roms a, MS. ins the Pucblic Record Offce.




I




PRIMITIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VILLAGES. 45


roots uppermost, which roots with a few rafters formed a complete arched roof.I Here we have, with most singular exactness,
a description in miniature of the primitive Aryan house which is
to be met with in Media.3 These being the hives which held
the human swarm it is impossible not to perceive that they


THE ARYAN HOUSE IN MEDIA.


belonged to a primitive stage of society. There is no indication here of commercial intercourse, no connection with the
world outside the village community, which was to the villagers
"Archeologia," vol. iii. p. 112; Guest's " Origines Celticx," vol. ii.
p. 65. Compare Clarke's " Survey of the Lakes," p. xx.
2 Cf. Viollet le Due's " Habitations of Man," p. 126,




46 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


a world of foreigners.' And how completely the theory of a
Roman origin of such homesteads breaks down is emphasized
by the fact that though contiguity with Roman civilization may
here and there be shown in the English villages,2 continuity of
Roman systems of building is disproven by the. absolute
disappearance in England, between the Roman era and the
fifteenth century of such a great manufacturing industry as
brickmaking.3
The villager in his wattle and daub, the lord in his oakrooted hall, surely carry us back to primitive economics within
which there is no room for the great commercialism of the
Roman world, stretching by means of its magnificent system of
road inter-communication from one end of Europe to the
other.  This cannot by any theory be compressed into a
sufficiently small compass to stand inside the world of the
English villager, which was bounded only by his village lands.
It would have to be deprived of all its centralizing forces,
and among these of one of its principal economical features,
namely, its system of taxation.  The vast empire of Rome was
necessarily supported by a complete method of taxation by
which the various peoples brought under its sway were compelled to contribute to the expenses of government. Thus
taxes appear to have formed one of the causes of the revolt of
the Iceni, and are mentioned as oppressive in the harangue of
Boadicea to her forces before the battle with Suetonius. But
the economical system of Rome, which thus includes a system
of regular taxation, does not find a place in the primitive
economics of Teutonic England, where no such system
existed.4 On every side in England we see Rome and its
The instances of villagers considering all outside their own boundaries as foreigners are curious survivals of the primitive conditions of
things, and the fact has been recorded in the present century.
2 Seebohm's "English Village Community," pp. 424-436; Amleriican
Jouri. Arch., June, I888, p. 219; Antizquay, Nov., I885, p. 224.
3 Rogers' "Economical Interpretation of History," p. 279; f. Baring
Gould's " Lives of the Saints," vol. i. p. I69.
4 " Essays in Anglo-Saxon Laws," 60; I)owell's " History of Taxation
and Taxes," vol. i. p. 7.




PRIMITIVE ECONOMICS IN ENGLAND.


47


civilization destroyed or pushed on one side. Not only are
cities and villas and roads trampled underfoot or under the
plough, but commerce and its economical system are pushed
out of the way by village communities and their self-contained, self-supporting exclusiveness. Stone and bricks lie in
heaps as at Caerleon, Wroxeter, Silchester, and Verulam, to
be replaced by wattle and daub and uncarpentered oaks.'
Manufactured luxuries of all kinds ceased to exist, and the
villager was clothed from the products of his own village,
woven by the females of his own family.  We shall find, as we
proceed, that commercial economy made very slow progress in
Britain until quite late down in its history; one village, it may
be, exchanged raw produce with another village, villagers performing common duties and paying common dues; but all of
it-exchanges and payments alike-was based not upon any
possible theory of economics, but upon what was customary. As
Mr. Maitland puts it of the thirteenth century, "when men
spoke of a manor they thought primarily of the single group of
tenants who worked in common at their ploughings and their
reapings." 2 But then these agricultural communities, though
decked with the title of manor, were not created by any
definite act of State or sovereign-they were the product of
deep-rooted custom and dependent upon custom for all their
doings and all their rights. On the outskirts of our land we
find such facts as the following: Coarse flax sown in the
ground was manufactured into shirts and other linens by the
farmer's wife and daughters during the long winter evenings,
and the farmer himself was clothed from the fleece of his little
flock. They ground their corn by means of the quern, i.e., a
couple of light millstones set in motion with the hand by
Too little attention has been given to the structural details of old
houses. On the use of rudely carpentered timber in early times there
is very useful evidence yet to be made known. A high room in Castle
Grant, Abernethy, appears to have been floored with deals which were
never planed, but were first split with wedges and then dressed with
axe and adze. The marks of the adze across the boards are still visible.
Sinclair's " Stat. Ace. of Scotland," vol. xiii. p. 132.
"Select Pleas of Manor Rolls," p. xl,




48 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.
means of a staff fixed to the upper stone. All the bread thus
made was generally consumed by the month of June, and they
then chiefly subsisted on their own sheep and the milk of their
cows, with what fish they chanced to catch. And that this
picture from the Scottish islands was parallelled in England is
proven by the tenacity with which, even in villages which had
won their place among municipal towns, the old industrial
economy was made the basis of the new municipal rights, and
for centuries kept the conception of rent away from the facts of
municipal organization. I shall have occasion later on to give
examples of the village community in municipal institutions;
but, in the meantime, I must point out here that an absolute
wrench from the old commercial economy of the Roman
world to the primitive economy of the village system is the
only means which adequately accounts for some of the facts
connected with the early English history of many of our
chief towns. No better example could be given than that of
London, and I will briefly point out some of the main features
of this evidence.
London originated in the Roman hill-fort, for I take it that
whether we agree with Dr. Guest or not as to Plautius in A.D.
43 having first occupied the site of the future capital of England,' there can be no doubt that any Celtic existence which
the place may have had was not of a nature to influence its
later history. But from Roman times the remarkable fact
remains that commercial greatness began to dispute for preeminence with military greatness. London took her place in
the Roman Empire. Roadways converged to her. The two
great roads, Ermyn Street and Watling Street, entered Roman
London at our now-called Bishopsgate and Newgate points of
the city boundary proper, and connected the city with all parts
of Britain. In Mr. Green's words, " the route which crossed
the downs of Kent from Richborough to the Thames linked
the roads that radiated from London over the surface of the
island with the general network of communication along


' "Origines Celtica," vol. ii. p. 405.




THE FALL OF ROMAN LONDON.


49


which flowed the social and political life of the Roman
world." I
Such roadways were among the first undertakings of the
Romans in a conquered country,2 and by their means the towns
grew up to an importance quite out of proportion to their
native capacity. London became a great centre of Roman
commerce. Her life was connected with all outer life by the
great causeways which the Roman soldier had built; her wall
girt her round securely from the immediate outer world, and
when her citizens looked for the means of gaining the necessaries of life and wealth they took their stand at the city gates
and looked up the roadways which led to Verulamium, Etocetum, and Uriconium; to Duromagus and Eboracum, to Portus
Magnus, and to Continental Rome.3
This is one of the most important and distinctive facts to
notice in connection with Roman London.     The native
capacity of British cities for greatness depended on causes
perfectly local in character; but as soon as Rome brought
them, by means of her great system of roadways, into the
imperial system, development moved at a pace measurable,
not by British skill but by Roman necessities. This important factor in the history of Roman towns in Britain
has not been sufficiently dwelt upon. It accounts for a great
deal that is otherwise unaccountable. It bridges over years of
rapid progress with a history that belongs not to Britain but to
Rome; it accounts for the rapid uprising of London into
Augusta, and it accounts for her wonderful progress and wealth
during the Roman rule. During all this time London is the
London connected by roadways with the commerce and
progress of the Roman world; her British history, if she had
any, is past and gone, and one has to think of her, not as
situated in Britain, but as situated on the Ermyn and Watling
Streets, which were connected with all other paits of Britain,
" The Making of England," p. 3.
2 Arnold's "Roman Provincial System," p. I6.
3 See Arnold's "Roman 'Provincial System," p. 208, for the relation
ship of a town to the surrounding district.
5




50  METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.
and which brought London more closely into connection with
other cities situated on the roadways than with the natives
who still occupied the open country. She dominated the
country round her, no doubt, just as all Roman cities did;
but she was independent of it, and used it for her own
purposes, as contributory to her wealth and luxury, not to
her necessities.  Thus, then, the distinction which we see
Roman London occupying, and one which is very important
to our present subject, is its connection with the Roman world,
its place on the Roman roadways; and not its connection
with the Celtic Britons, who lived near it, nor its place on the,
map of Britain.
Now let us turn to the significant story of her fall. It is
a story for the most part told from the silence of history
rather than from the monuments of history.  London was
nothing, and meant nothing, to the barbaric conquerors who
gradually closed upon her. The Saxon conquerors did not
march, as the Roman conquerors had done, straight to this
stronghold, and pounce upon it as a point of vantage; or as
the Danes did later on, and William still later. The fight
between Roman London and the Teutons was of a different
character altogether. Sharp sword-and-shield conflicts there
were, no doubt, but these did not decide the battle. It was
the breaking-up of her connection with the outer world that
broke the power of Roman London.
Mr. Green has depicted the events with incisive force.
"The conquest of Kent," he says, " had broken its communications with the Continent; and whatever trade might
struggle from the southern coast through the Weald had
been cut off by the conquest of Sussex. That of the Gwent,
about Winchester, closed the road to the south-west; while
the capture of Cunetio interrupted all communication with
the valley of the Severn. And now the occupation of Hertfordshire cut off the city from Northern and Central Britain." I
It was thus that Roman London passed into another stage of
her history-the work of two hundred long years of almost
"The Making of England," p. I o.




SAXON LONDON.


5i


unbroken silence so far as history is concerned, but a work as
effectual and a silence as eloquent as if the clash and din of
arms had dictated the most stirring epic poetry.
What we have now got to do is to ascertain what this
silence of history really means. It can be explained if the
Saxon conquerors came into the land organized upon the
tribal system, and therefore unacquainted with the system
that made commerce one of the chief agents of social and
political progress. Their treatment of the towns shows that
they did not understand their value, and, barbarian-like, they
trod them under foot.  A conspicuous example of this is
to be found in the well-known account which Roger of
Wendover gives of the fall of Andredesceaster. The citizens
" were all put to the sword and their town totally destroyed.
The desolate site is still pointed out by the traveller. Ella
and his three sons remained in that district, which they proceeded to cultivate; it is called, to this day, in English,
'Sussex,' or the country of the South Saxons."  It is not
the recorded destruction which is the important point here,
as most historians have seemed to think, but that after the
destruction the destroyers settled and began to cultivate.
They commenced, in short, at the very bottom of the ladder
of political life. They did not occupy the palaces, or the,
temples, or the senate-house, or the dwelling-places of the
conquered Roman citizens. They nestled down on the open
lands by the side of the old city, and began to cultivate in
their own fashion.
The cultivation and improvement of the country, says
Adam Smith, must be prior to the increase of the town.2
The facts connected with the post-Roman history of London
exactly fit in with this rule of political economy. We see the
Saxon cultivator approaching near. Mr. Green tells us by
what route and how; 3 and, though I cannot agree with the
"I Roger of Wendover, " anno 492; "Anglo Saxon Chronicle," anno
491.
2 " Wealth of Nations," book iii. cap. i.
3 " Making of England," p. Io.




52  MIiETHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.
opinion of Dr. Guest that good reasons may be given for the
belief that even London itself for awhile lay desolate and
uninhabited, we must recognize the settlement of the little
village of Charing within bow-shot of its ruins. Kensington
and Fulham occupy clearings to the west, while Hampstead
and Islington on the north almost complete the chain.
If we pause to consider what these settlements were like,
we cannot doubt that they were based upon the village community system. Mr. Seebohm has been enabled to, trace out
evidence of the open-field system in the lands at Westminster
which made up the scenery for the dying eyes of Edward the
Confessor;' and when we come to consider that Lammas lands,
and all the historical significance of these curious relics of the
early village system, existed on the site now occupied by
Leicester Square, there can be no difficulty, I think, in concluding that the settlement at Charing and elsewhere near
London was an agricultural settlement. This, then, is where
the Saxon destroyers of London were busying themselves
during that long period of history of which we know nothing;
and the reason that we know nothing is that the business was
the business of settlement and "making"-that ordinary routine
of life which is never chronicled by indigenous historians-but
which nevertheless was fatal to the London of Roman origin.
Without going into the history of commerce in Anglo-Saxon
Britain, there are sufficient broad facts to indicate the wide
difference of the London built upon the old Roman ways
and the London hemmed in by Saxon communities.
The evidence of early Anglo-Saxon commerce is meagre
enough, so meagre indeed as to suggest the probability of its
not being very extensive.2 The first important notice which
we have of the subject is not of earlier date than the close of
the eighth century; 3 and the chief articles of commerce were
Seebohm's " Village Community," p. Ioo.
See Macpherson's " Annals of Commerce," vol. 1.
Craik's " IHistory of British Commerce," p. 62; cf. also for this later
period Spence's " Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery," vol. i.
P. 53.




INSIGNIFICANCE OF SAXON COMMERCE.


53


objects of gold and silver, slaves, horses, and the metals.
The tolls imposed at the landing-place of Billingsgate by
Ethelred all relate to wine, fish, and other produce of this
nature. What I am      anxious to arrive at is that the Saxon
commerce of London was not a food commerce, showing the
city to be simply an emporium for the surrounding agricultural
communities. Mr. Craik says there is no evidence or reason
for believing that a single cargo of corn was ever exported
from England during the whole of the Anglo-Saxon period;
and, looking at the nature of the settlement in England by
self-supporting communities, we can well understand this to
be so. We can get a step further from another standpoint.
Mill observes that the things most liable to fluctuations in
value, those directly influenced by the seasons, and especially
food, were seldom carried to any distance in Europe during
the Middle Ages. Each locality depended as a general rule,on its own produce and that of its immediate neighbourhood.
In most years accordingly there was in some part or other of
any large country a real dearth;2 and in this fact we get a
clue to the chief causes of the famines that occurred in
England during the early ages. Not only was there not a
single cargo of corn exported from England, but it was not
exported from one locality to another.3
I f" History of British Commerce," vol. i. p. 69.
2 "( Political Economy," book iv. cap. ii. sec. 4.
3 So late as 1257 the importation of corn from Germany to meet a
famine is looked upon as a special and unusual circumstance, and as such
is recorded in the " Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London." In
this year, it says, there was a failure of the crops; upon which a famine
ensued to such a degree that people from the villages resorted to the city
for food, and then upon the famine waxing still greater many thousand
persons perished; many thousands more, too, would have died of hunger
had not corn just then arrived from Almaine (p. 40).
At the latter part of the last century most of the villages in England,
and almost all of them in Scotland, were independent of the world, so far
as food -was concerned. The corn they grew and the cattle they fed was
sufficient, and more than sufficient, for their support. Carry this fact up
the stream of time, and we arrive at a general rule applicable to early
Saxon times and their commercial supineness. A curious glimpse of this




54 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


The importance of these facts is brought out more clearly
when we know that the relics of London municipal history
show that the Teutonic conquerors of the city reared up a
system of government which is stamped with the mark of its
primitive origin. This we shall deal with later on, but we may
leave the significant history of the fall of London with the
remark that it comes right athwart the continuity of Roman
influences and brings into startling prominence the chasm
which separated the economical system of Rome from that of
Anglo-Saxon Britain.    We may accentuate this position by
noting the definitions which apply to the two systems-the
commercial economy of Rome is the exact opposite of the
village economy of early England.
" We will now consider the one remaining factor in the famous
formula, namely, serfdom. In post-Domesday times this serfdom is stamped with one great mark of an artificial origin,
namely, its singular uniformity. Now this can only be explained
it appears to me, as the uniformity which belongs essentially to
official documents.   Commissioners set to find out "Quot
villani, quot cotarii, quot servi," existed in the conquered lands
of the Norman legal-minded sovereign, would fit in the results
to suit the questions; they would see uniformity in spite of
innumerable local differences, and they would only note such
radical differences as occurred in the Danish districts; and
the importance of Domesday as a judicial record would
gradually stamp its language upon the land history of the
country.' Thus both the origin and authority of Domesday
is given by Giraldus Cambrensis, in speaking of the district of Wye, so
late as the eleventh century. The country, he says, sufficiently abounds
in grain, and if there is any deficiency it is amply supplied from the neighbouring part of England (p. 350).
It is curious to note, however, that Mr. Maitland, in his able introduction
to "Select Pleas of Manorial Courts," draws attention to the extreme
diversity of the jurisdiction exercised in manorial courts. The English
courts, he says, never came to a classification of those franchises similar to
that which obtained in France. See p. xxv, et ante; and on page 3 of his
text he points out that the custom of stewards carrying about their rolls
from manor to manor " must have tended to produce a great Uniformity in
manorial custom,"




ENGLISH SERFDOM.


55


have tended to produce uniformity in the details of English
land tenure. But even this does not hide its true origin.
The serfdom of the English villani when brought down to the
uniformity of statistical information tells us of (a) three days'
work for the lord every week; (b) special work at request; (c)
payments in money or kind; (d) the requirement of the lord's
licence for the marriage of a daughter. And comparative custom may answer for all these, and prove that not being
exclusively Saxon, they were not necessarily produced by facts
which belong exclusively to English history. In the Ditmarsh
free community " every one was free to employ himself on his
own account for three days in the week-from Saturday at sunrise to Tuesday at sunrise " — a service which fits exactly into
the facts of the English villein service, but departs most significantly from the mere words of the English formula. Again
suit and service, both of money and kind, meet us everywhere
in the Indian village communities, and there is a very remarkable development of it in the Fiji communities.2 So, too, with the
fine for the marriage of a daughter, the exact parallel is the Indian
custom in Kachahri: "whenever a cultivator marries off one of
his daughters he pays a fee, called bau, to the landed proprietor
of his village."3 These signs of serfdom in Saxon England
then need not have originated from the Roman villa because
they can be shown not to have so originated in other places.
" No doubt," says Mr. Seebohm, " the Teutonic notion of a
subjugated people was that of a people reduced to serfdom or
villeinage.  They-the conquerors-were the nation, the freemen. The conquered race were the aliens, subjected to gafol
and servitude."4  But who were the conquered race, these
aliens? Mr. Seebohm carries up the evidence of their existence
and position to the earliest Saxon times, and then they become
Archieologia, vol. xxxvii., p. 378.
2 Archeologcal Review, vol. ii. pp. 367-376.
3 Carnegy's " Kachahri Technicalities," quoted Folklore Record, v. 36.
Mr. Ashley in his "English Economic History," vol. i. p. 21, illustrates
how this became stamped in English law as a mark of serfdom.
4 " English Village Community," p. I45.




56 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


merged in Roman history; but my suggestion will be that they
have a history of their own yet unwritten, and which reveals
some remarkable lost chapters in early British history. In the
meantime, let me emphasize here the vast importance of Mr.
Seebohm's results. To those who cannot bridge over years of
silent history by appealing to comparative custom, his results
are simply invaluable. He proves most conclusively and succinctly that the main features of the village community, though
not set down with precise terminology in the chronicles,
charters, and other documentary sources of evidence, existed
through all the years of Saxon, Norman, and later English
history, and did not need explanation because they were so
well understood without it. In the face of such an authority
as Fustel de Coulanges, the importance of this evidence cannot
be over-rated.  Because Caesar and Tacitus and the leges
barbarorum do not mention the village community and its
complex system of social organization, it is no longer open to
any one to say that, therefore, the village community arose in
later times.  Mr. Seebohm's researches stand as a protest
against such a conclusion, and a protest which has the force of
almost mathematical demonstration. But I desire to emphasize
the results of Mr. Seebohm's chronological investigation on
other grounds than these.  They make perfectly clear the
whole period from Saxon to modern times. The village communities wherever they may be found to exist in Great
Britain are to all intents and purposes one and the same institution.  A nineteenth-century village community is only an
unchanged sixth-century institution. Back to the sixth century
all is clear, and the evidence I shall bring forward, surviving
in records or practices, can at once be labelled as belonging to
the sixth century. From this point, however, chronology leaves
us and comparative custom only can be our guide. And by
this method of research we shall go back into the unknown
periods of British history, showing that Teuton, Celt, and
Iberian all had a share in the building up of the village communities of Britain, because it is only thus that we can explain
the parallel between the villages of Britain and of India, both




RELATIONSHIP OF ROMAN TO ENGLISH ECONOMICS.   57
lands being the battle-ground of races, where the results of the
conflict show the non-Aryan agriculturist subordinated to an
Aryan overlordship.
What, then, was the relationship between the Roman economical system and the primitive economics of early English
villagers? This is a question which must be answered, because
in our progress backwards, from the sixth century to the unknown periods beyond, the solid history of Roman Britain has,
undoubtedly, to be reckoned with. I have attempted to show
that it does not account for some of the more prominent facts
of the Anglo-Saxon village system; but it is important to turn
from the negative side of the question and ascertain, if possible,
what relationship the imperial power in Britain bore to the tribal
settlements beneath it.
Let us get at the answer to this question by first noting
two interesting facts which bring out the parallel between
the Roman of the old civilization and the English of the
modern civilization.  Mr. Seebohm  and, following him,
Professor Earle are desirous of establishing the identity of
Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries of land with the Roman
agrimensorial system.  "The boundaries of the land," says
the latter, "are described starting from such a point or
such an object and passing through a series of stations
until the starting-point is reached again-as a general rule
this part of the deed is in English; sometimes, however, in
Latin or a mixture of Latin and English.  It must not,
however, be imagined from the use of the vernacular in this
part that this member is more native than the rest of the deed.
It is just the continuation of an old Roman usage, the formula
of which may be seen in the book of Hyginus, the land surveyor. It is the formula that was used by the agrimensores of
the Empire when they had to describe,the irregular ground
which did not well admit of their rectangular system of mensuration and allotment."' But it is also a very natural method
of describing boundaries and is practised in many places which
have never been in the slightest degree affected by Roman
" Land Charters and other Saxonic Documents," p. xxvi,




58 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


agrimensorial formule. When one considers the valuable information supplied by Mr. Coote as to the existence of very distinct traces of nearly all the forms of Roman terminal marks,
including the singular bonfnotini, it is a little difficult to believe
that the natural boundaries described in the charters are agrimensorial boundaries. And when put to the test of examination
by a practical surveyor, we find this difficulty re-stated and
accomplanied by the only possible solution. Mr. R. Woolley,
whose intimate knowledge of the open-field system must be
presumed from his business association with his father, who
gave such valuable evidence before the Enclosure Commission,
in explaining the agrimensorial system says: "It is interesting
to compare the powers and duties of a valuer in an enclosure
of open-field lands and commons of our day, with those of an
Agrimensor, in the foundation of a Roman colony; the Parliamentary Provisional order, the survey, road-making, and setting
out allotments, the security of title to the land given by the
award, the usages and the award confirmed by the commissioners and deposited in duplicate both in the parish and at
the Land Office, publicly denoting the completion of the business
and the termination of the valuer's powers-all these come to
mind in describing an assignment."'
This suggestive comparison shows that the Roman surveying
system had passed forward from the contemplation of village communities to the contemplation of landed estates, and had therefore approached the professional English surveyor of to-day,
whose education does not includea study of primitive economics.
And so it was with the Roman lawyer. " The impression left on
my mind," says Sir Henry Maine, "by a variety of passages in the
Roman legal records, is that, if a Roman lawyer had been asked
to take into his mental view a number of persons having rights
together over the same property, he would have contemplated
them not as enjoying it in turn, but as dividing it at once
between them."2  The remark holds good of English lawyers,
at least from the times of the Tudors. In Elizabeth's reign
"Proceedings of Surveyors Institute," xvi. p. 212.
2 " Early Law and Custom," p. 344.




RELATIONSHIP OF ROMAN TO ENGLISH ECONOMICS.  59


they saw what was going on in Ireland, and later, under the
East India Company, they saw what was going on in India;
and yet could only translate the facts of the village land holding thus coming under their notice by terms applicable to the
modern legal conception of estates in absolute possession of
individual owners. But English lawyers did not learn this idea
of absolute possession from English custom,' and the source of
their knowledge is an interesting commentary upon this point
of our inquiry.  The villeins always had security of tenure
(adscripti glebac), and it was only the influence of Roman law
from the time of Glanvill to that of Edward IV. which introduced the legal doctrine that the villeins could have absolutely
no property at all-a doctrine so opposed to English sentiment
and English custom that, however glad the Norman lords
might have been to lay claim to the ownership of the land under
its specious terminology, they did not for whole centuries do
violence to public opinion, which, after all, was an inheritance
from their fathers which they themselves shared.2
It thus appears that the Roman surveyor and the Roman
lawyer meet with their true parallel in English history, not in
the early days of Anglo-Saxon settlement, but in the modern
English surveyor and the modern English lawyer, and we are
now enabled to suggest an answer to the question of the
relationship between the Roman system of economics and the
primitive system of early English villagers. The suggestion
I am anxious to make takes us back to India once more. In
the " Gazetteer of the Rohtak District," 1883-4 (p. 17), occurs
the following important passage: " We know that the hosts of
many a conqueror must have carried fire and sword through
the land before the southern plunderers and northern fanatics
contended for the possession of it; that many a royal state
progress must have taken place through the district to the
hunting grounds of Hansi and Hissar; that ever since Delhi
became the capital of India, a tract lying so close to it must
"1 The law of real property was really nothing lut a collection of customs " (" Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law," p. 56).
2 Ashley's " Economic History," p. 38,




60 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


have been profoundly affected by the events of the dynastic
annals; but not a trace of all this remains. Only the villages
themselves, unbroken and unchanged, exist as they existed
eight hundred years ago. To no tract in North India do the
words of Iord Metcalfe, quoted below, more aptly apply than
to the Rohtak district-'Village communities seem  to last
where nothing else lasts.  Dynasty after dynasty changes;
revolution succeeds revolution; Hindul, Pathan, Miighal,
Mahratta, Sikh, English, are all masters in turn, but the village
community remains the same.'" This passage supplies us
with the only explanation possible to account for the facts of
the Roman occupation of this island. If we took away all
the military strength of Britain from India there would
remain the village communities to be administered, not conquered, by the next military empire who desired to acquire the
wealth of India. When the Romans took away their military
strength from Britain there remained the Celtic communities
- the clans and the tribes - just as intact as they were
before the conquest.' Where the Roman influence was most
felt was in the tightening up of the loosely-knit communal
bonds, resulting in a stronger and more lasting crystallization of existing forms whose natural development had been
arrested by the iron hand of a military master. It is the line
of arrestment which is so marked in the history of the village
community in Britain-a line, on one side of which is all the
primitive life of Britain, on the other side of which is the
force which kept that primitive life back so long and so unchanged that it lost its elasticity and its capacity for change,
and has in consequence survived into later ages. Roman influence never entered inside the village community; it was
strong enough as an outside power, forcing loosely-knit tribes
into concentrated villages, but it never became, and never
could become a part of the village system.
I have explained my reasons for this view in the preface to the volume
of " Gentleman's Magazine Library; Roman Remains," to which I may
perhaps venture to refer readers interested on the point which is really an
important one.




THE WELSH TRIBAL COMMUNITIES.


6i


A most interesting proof of this is derived from the communities of Wales.  Mr. Wright has proved on very good
evidence that Wales was more thoroughly Romanized than
other parts of Britain. And yet in Wales we have that remarkable body of evidence in the laws and in the land customs of
later times, which first introduces us to the tribal community,
a more primitive institution than the village community. This
primitive tribal community must have survived the Roman
conquest. If the evidence of Roman influences is to be
taken into account, it should be traced more completely in
the tribal communities of Wales; and it is exactly here that
Mr. Seebohm traces no such influences.: The Welsh system,"
he says, "was not manorial, its unit was not a village community on a lord's estate;... the point to be noted is the
scattering of the tyddyns [households] all over the country
side, and the clustering of them by fours and sixteens or
twelves into the group which was the unit paying the food
rents."  It is very clear that this distinction between the
village community and the tribal community is a marked one
-so marked, indeed, as to have suggested that differing degrees
of Roman influence are the primary cause of it, the village
communities, under this view, having been strongly influenced by
Rome, and the tribal communities having escaped. But first of
all we have seen that this Roman influence does not account
for much of the economical phenomena of the village community in England; then we have noted that history proves
that Roman influences were as pronounced in Wales, the
home of the tribal community, as in England. It would
seem, therefore, that we must, _rima facie, shift our view of
Roman influences altogether and see in the artificial clustering
of tribal households for the purposes of taxation some relics
of that influence which is not so discoverable in the more
closely bound system  of the village community.  Again
let us turn to India, and see if the evidence of comparative
custom does not help us to discover some clue to the relationship between these two classes of early communities which have
been so conveniently termed the village and the tribal system.




62 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


One of the most valuable of the settlement reports is that
of Mr. J. B. Lyall on the Kangra District of the Panjab. In
this district Mr. Lyall found two classes of communities, which
he has designated by the not very happy term of hamlet and
freehold communities.' But in reality these two communities
are exact equivalents to the tribal and village communities of
Britain. The freehold communities, situated on the plains,
hold their arable lands in intermixed allotments; the hamlet
communities, situated on the hills, hold their lands in scattered
household groups carved out of the waste. And then we have
this remarkable statement.  The hamlet communities are
grouped into mauzahs or circuits, which "seem to have grown
out of one man during a length of time, collecting the land
rents either as a government agent or government assignee.
The circuit as regards its waste lands was a mere arbitrary
and loosely defined division of the principality, as regards its
cultivated lands it was a chance collection of independent
family holdings, which were sometimes one household, but
oftener a group of kinsmen, the descendants of a common
ancestor holding shares of an ancestral estate and living on it
in several houses." And a little later on Mr. Lyall says: " It
may be worth while to make a guess as to the original cause
of the difference between the tenure of land in these hills and
that existing in the plains of the Panjab. It may, perhaps,
have to do with the ethnology of the country; there is an idea
current in the hills that of the landholding castes the Thakars,
Rathis, Kanets, and Girths, are either indigenous to the hills
or of mixed race and indigenous by the half-blood, and that
the Raijputs, Brahmans, Khatris, Jats, and others, are the
descendants of invaders and settlers from  the plains..
The hills remained to a much later date than the plains,
inhabited only by aboriginal tribes, and eventually they were
invaded, not by tribes of settlers driving back the old inhabitants, but by military adventurers subduing them." 2
Taking into account too the influence of the physical features
Lyall's " Settlement Report of Kangra District," p. 12.
Ibid., p. 26.




THE TEUTONIC SETTLEMENT.


of the country, the flat, defenceless plains allowing, if not
inviting, a congregation of men into villages, the hills broken
and irregular, preventing the formation of villages, I believe
we have in these facts of Indian village life a key to the lost
facts of English village life. The Roman tax-collector, like
the government agent in India, formed the singular system
found in Wales-a system arranged according to strict arithmetical rules for the purpose of paying the stipulated tax, and
probably, as Mr. Seebohm remarks, for the discharge of other
public duties, and not a system founded on a natural territorial
arrangement, such as we find in the village communities. It
thus appears that the marked artificiality of the Welsh tribal
system may have been produced by the taxing system of
Roman imperial government, which meeting the tribal community in a more or less developed state, formed it into artificial groups, and so stereotyped this arithmetical artificiality
upon the history of Welsh communities.
~   We have seen that there was no room for Roman life and
iPoman economics within the villages of Britain. We have
seen that keeping outside of this and stretching all along the
wide and diversified lands of Britain the Romans produced
a line of arrestment which marked the boundary between
primitive and civilized life. We may now take into account
the different state of things at the Teutonic conquest. Room
had to be found in the villages or in the village system for
these rude conquerors. Organized upon a primitive tribal
system, they did not tower over and keep above the village
system.  They swarmed into the villages, pushing their
way in and establishing their lordship to the land. They
swarmed thus, quite irrespective of existing towns, pushing
on one side all that stood in their path, carving out for
themselves new villages where the old ones were not sufficient.  Necessarily for such a process the settlements on
the plains, not those on the inaccessible hills, were attacked
and utilized; and hence the village system in the plains and
valleys of Britain, just as the village system in the plains and
valleys of India, became more complex and more diversified




64 AMET'HODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


than the tribal system of the hills, because the settlements
in the plains were broken into by an incoming race of
villagers who, in taking their place inside the existing village
communities, diverted the normal line of progress into that
which has allowed us to trace out serfdom and over-lordship.  So late as the time of Queen Elizabeth the main
features of village life in Britain were traceable in exactly these
two lines of hill and valley communities. " The mansion houses
of our countrie townes and villages," says Harrison, " in champaine ground stand altogether by streets and joining one to
an other, but in woodland soiles dispersed here and there each
one upon the severall grounds of their owners."'  This is only
what Mr. Lyall asserts of India and attributes partly to natural
causes, partly to the effects of conquest. And we may now
assert the like causes for the like results in Britain.
We now pass on to another point in the necessary rearrangement of the British evidence. It is to be observed
that the economical features of the village community are
neither the most important nor the most ancient of th'r
relics which have survived. The basis of the original settlement in villages was no doubt, as the rude types of savages.
have shown us, the common interest in procuring a food
supply; but the cement which bound together the indi
vidual atoms of the Aryan clans which form the upper strata
of the village communities of India and Europe was that of
kinship. Wherever we find the village community has long
been settled, no doubt the cement binding the whole group
together has practically changed from kinship to land, but
theoretically kinship still forms the basis.  In old settlements there is always the danger of bringing into undue
prominence the economical features which have imprinted
themselves very deeply on the land, and of sinking into the
background the social and religious features which, having had
to meet the continuous and deadly opposition of such a magnificent religion as Christianity, have become lost to close observation among the local superstitions and customs of the people.
Harrison's "Description of England" (N. Shakspere Soc.), pp. 237,259.




THE EVIDENCE OF FOLKLORE.


These lost features of the village community-kinship and
religion-have in their earliest forms affected the economical
development to a considerable degree. We can in these find
the answer to much that is not yet wholly understood in the
history of the village community.  The homestead was the
basis of all rights in the village. The undivided family was
the unit, and the individual was unrecognized. Fenced in by
the sacredness of the ancient family worship at the hearth;
kept together by the sanctity of a common ancestry; sending
its superfluous sons to form daughter-communities in the unoccupied territories around; ruled and represented by the oldest
male member-the homestead was occupied by its members of
one blood and possessed a code of unwritten legal rules and an
unwritten religious ritual, which have succeeded in stamping
themselves upon the laws, customs, and traditional superstitions
of succeeding ages after the old constitution of the primitive
homestead had been broken up and distributed among the
local institutions and the family rites of civilized times. When
we noted in the first chapter how the evidence of folklore
assisted us to understand the primitive nature of the village
community and its sanction of traditional usage, it implied that
there was something more than mere analogy in the aid which
folklore renders in tracing out the relics of early village life.
The traditional practices of agriculture provide us with the survivals of primitive economics; the traditional practices enshrined
in folklore provide us with the survivals of primitive law and
religion. And it is only when studying these two sections of
the village community together that we can hope to deal adequately with its history on English soil. It would be singular,
indeed, if the agricultural survivals led us up to one period of
history for their origin, while the survivals of the house-religion
led us up to another period. There can be no provable causes
for such a twist in social development, and the more we study
the types which will come before us, the more we shall find
that the lessons of comparative custom point unfailingly to the
English village community as a survival from prehistoric times,
possessing within its shell evidence of old race conflicts and old
6




66 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


race amalgamations, which in no other way are to be restored
to historic observation.
Let it be clearly understood what is meant by race in these
researches. In ancient times conquest and settlement were
performed by races, not by nations. Independent evidence
proves that in India, as in Britain and the Western world
generally, three great races have exercised the principal influence upon the formation of institutions. In India there are two
non-Aryan races preceding the Aryans; in Britain there is one
non-Aryan race preceding two Aryan. The elements are the
same, though the degrees of amalgamation are different; but
the point to note is that successive settlements of distinct
tribes over the same area produce certain economic results, the
main feature of which is the tighter drawing together of the
bonds which fasten the community-the fusion of the influences of kinship with the influences of power. The fusion
happens to retain the marks of the original race elements, and
hence the most convenient method of tracing out the results
of this fusion is by the test of race.
The rearrangement of the British evidence which, from
these, among other considerations, seems to be necessary,
must primarily be based upon an examination of all existing
survivals of the village community. I shall not in these pages
attempt such a gigantic task, but I shall proceed upon this
principle. No one example can be admitted as the normal
type. The greater the accumulation of examples, the more
likely are we to come to just and comprehensive conclusions as
to origin. Scarcely any two examples are exactly alike, and
these very differences afford us splendid material for the elucidation of origins.
For our present purposes we must strike out the word
"manor" altogether. It meant different things at different
times. At Hitchin, in the nineteenth century, it stands for a
far more modern institution than at Aston and Cote in the
seventeenth century, but the two centuries separating the two
manors do not measure with anything approaching to accuracy
the distance between one manor and the other, when con



THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY NOT LIMITED TO MANORS. 67


sidered purely as a matter of social development.  From
whatever source the term manor is derived, it indicates in
historical times an institution of definite import in the country,
and this is exactly what the different types of so-called manors
do not indicate. Moreover, it is exclusive, and passes by institutions having many of the same features as manors but not the
name.
The Wiltshire manors at the end of the eighteenth century
were far older in form than those of almost any other county.
All over the country it will be found that in some manors there
is an advance to meet modern legal requirements, and archaic
rights of succession are there translated into modern rights of
borough-English, dower and other rules engrossed in the
history of real property.  There is, in other manors, an
advance to meet agricultural improvements, and lands which
once lay fallow are there sown with potatoes, peas, and other
vegetables; cottagers who once laboured for their small holdings are there surplanted by ploughs and implements which
root up old traditional practices. There is, in other manors,
an advance to meet new political ideas, and there villagers
become tenant farmers and pay rent instead of doing suit and
service. On all sides, fortunately for the inquirer, these and
other modes of advance, when they take place, are not regular
all along the line. There is constant overlapping-a going
forward of some, a keeping back of others; and hence it is
possible to pick our way amidst this splendidly irregular progress to the line from whence all such progress started.
Getting rid of the limits implied by the use of the term
manor and by the strict adherence to chronology, we shall be
dealing with survivals of the village community which have
preserved their economical features more or less intact while
other features have disappeared. Christianity has routed out
the old hearth religion from its place in the organization of
the village, and has set it floating amidst the popular superstitions and customs which the people have preserved wherever
Christianity has not deeply penetrated. Thus we shall not be
able to produce a perfect type of the primitive village com



68 METHODS OF DEALING WITH THE BRITISH EVIDENCE.


munity in Britain. But our process of research will enable
us to note the stages of destruction which have marked its
history on British soil.
First, I shall examine the evidence of non-Aryan influences
upon the village communities of Britain just as I noted this
evidence in India; secondly, I shall examine the remnants of
the old hearth cult and trace out its influences upon the history
of the village homestead; thirdly, I shall, examine some of the
surviving types of the village community, and- take note of the
various phenomena exhibited by them; and I shall seek to
explain these various phenomena by the facts already examined
as to non-Aryan influences and as to the survival of the housereligion of the early Aryan race. Finally, I shall suggest that
the survival of such types, down to quite modern times, with
their calm ignorance of all phases of commercial economy,
their strong adherence to practices which are customary, is the
one great fact which needs to be accentuated in our study. It
supplies evidence of an archaic social organization which, in
the midst of a higher political organization, is that element in
institutions corresponding to the irrational element in folklore,
and like it representing primitive times.




CHAPTER IV.


THE NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN THE ENGLISH VILLAGE
COMMUNITY.
WE have seen that the evidence of comparative custom goes
to prove that race elements enter largely into the history of
the village community in the East, and that the parallel
between the Eastern and English types suggests also parallel
lines of development due to race elements. We know that our
thousand years of progress have obliterated for all practical
purposes all questions of race distinction in these islands, and
that while the Celtic and Teutonic stocks have some kind of
division in the pages of history and in the geographical aspect
of the country, there is nothing in history to divide off from
these the races of pre-Aryan origin. We know further that
archaeology has indicated, though with more or less of uncertainty, some of the monumental remains of this pre-Aryan
people. When we come to consider, as we must do now,
the influences of the pre-Aryan races upon the history of the
village community in Britain, it seems almost as if we should
have to begin far back in the records of archaeology before we
could arrive at anything definite upon this point, and even
then to be content with deductions from a great number of
isolated fragments of evidence. But the task is, in truth, not
so severe as this.  It is, for the most part, a re-reading
of already known facts, the placing of a fairly perfect group
of evidence in its proper ethnological division of the British
populations, instead of being content to classify it as prehistoric
or Celtic, without seeking to ascertain what these terms connote
when they are called on to explain the institutions of Great
Britain.




70 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


The pre-Aryan races of India, and those which have influenced the formation of the Indian village communities,
were, as we have already seen, the hill men; and following
up the parallel which is known to exist between India and
Britain, we will endeavour to find out whether there are any
hill folk who have left marks of their influence upon the
development of the village community in Britain.  It is
abundantly clear that there were hill folk who left their remains
in the earthworks and other monuments which, to this day,
are the most perfect relics of prehistoric archaeology; but the
point that is not so clear, or rather the point which has never
been made clear, is the relationship which these hill folk bear
to the valley folk and those of the plains. In dealing with the
neolithic civilization, Professor Boyd Dawkins makes one or
two important deductions, from the evidence of its monuments, which it is necessary we should bear in mind.  In
Britain, he says, the population was probably large. Traces of
neolithic civilization have been discovered in almost every
part of Europe, under conditions which prove that the manners and customs of the people were tolerably uniform.
Their implements and domestic animals and plants have
been discovered over the whole of E4ope, with the exception
of Northern Russia and Northern Scandinavia; and they imply
that the civilization was long established, and that it underwent
so little change, if any, in the lapse of ages, that no traces of
change have been preserved to our times. Finally, Professor
Boyd Dawkins points out that to the neolithic peoples we owe
the rudiments of the culture which we ourselves enjoy. The arts
which they introduced have never been forgotten, and all subsequent progress has been built upon their foundation. Their
cereals are still cultivated by the farmer, their domestic animals
still minister to us, and the arts, of which. they only possessed
the rudiments, have developed into the industries: spinning,
weaving, pottery-making, mining, without which we can scarcely
realize what our lives would be.'  This being so, it seems
scarcely possible to suppose otherwise than that the first wave
Boyd Dawkins, " Early Man in Britain," pp. 290, 306, 307.




AGRICULTURE DERIVED FROM NOR-ARYAN RACES.  7t


of Aryan conquerors and colonists in Britain, like the first wave
of Aryan conquerors and colonists in India, met a people who,
so far from being wiped out of existence, stood their ground
and entered into the new conditions which the contact of
Aryan with non-Aryan must have brought about. The haughty
Aryan hunting tribes, disdaining agriculture and manual industry,
accepted from the defeated occupiers of the land all the advantages of their advancement in culture, and took for their
own share in the progress of human history that overlordship
which the older races had never tolerated as a development
from their own institutions. We have seen how this dual operation worked itself out in the history of the village communities
of India, and in the facts of neolithic culture we have the first
elements necessary to prove how it worked itself out in the
history of the village communities of Britain. What we must do
to carry on the proof through all the subsequent stages, is to set
out the details which will enable us to understand that the
agricultural system of British hill tribes became incorporated
with the agricultural system of the village community. The
permanence of their industries prepares us to meet with
permanence of other tribal influences; and thus by the aid of
comparative custom wekiay trace out the forgotten and lost
signs of the overlapping o0 races in the formation of the village
community in Britain.
I can here most conveniently allude to a somewhat lengthy,
but most important passage in Mr. Hearn's valuable and suggestive researches, because it gives us, very succinctly, the main
lines of evidence upon which we must proceed. "Distinct
from the comitatus or military retainers, and yet essential to
the existence of that body was the despised and non-combatant
class which performed the humble duty of cultivating the
warriors' fields. It may be stated, generally, that this class was
composed of men outside of the kin, although dependent upon
it or upon some of its members, and that it was derived from
a conquered and alien race. In most of the countries whither
the Aryan nations wandered, they appear to have found hostile
populations of a race different from their own. Similar troubles




72 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
awaited them when they journeyed east and west. So far as
their history is known they always conquered, and either
absorbed or enslaved their opponents."  Mr. Hearn then goes
on to enumerate the countries in which the Aryans met and
conquered non-Aryan tribes, and there does not appear to be
any country where the village community has existed, in the
form hitherto supposed to be Aryan, which has not witnessed
the meeting of the Aryans with non-Aryans.
We will first test the evidence of race distinctions in Britain
by an examination of the modes of settlement; and we are
struck by the strong and sharp contrast which is represented
by certainly two distinct methods-the one method revealing a people who constructed their residences on the hill
tops, and sent their cultivation down the hill sides; the other
method showing a race who constructed their residences in the
valleys, and sent their cultivation up the hill sides for a short
distance only.
We may identify the latter system of settlement as peculiarly
indicative of Aryan origin, and we will therefore proceed with
this first, because the proof of it, by its contrast with the other
system, will lay the foundation of our conclusions with regard
to this other system. The record of the Aryan occupation of
India is the record of the occupation of the plains and valleys,
the aboriginal hill men very frequently retaining their hold of
their own homes in the midst of their Aryan conquerors. The
record of the Aryan occupation of Britain has been long ago
lost, and can only be reclaimed bit by bit, and by the aid of
evidence which has to be built up by inquiries which extend
into so many branches of archqeological knowledge, that it
seems almost hopeless to expect any results which will tell us
once for all the whole story. Still there are here and there
indications of what may be done by local observation, and I
will, for my purpose, now turn to the settlement effected in
two important districts in England where particularly good
examples of the Aryan method of settlement have survivednamely, Wilts and Sussex.
1 "The Aryan 1 ousehold."




MAP OF WILTSHIRE.
oF )
\^~3/




a




THE ARYAN METHOD OF SETTLEMENT.


73


The nature of the Teutonic settlement of Wiltshire is reflected in the undisturbed characteristics of the ancient
agricultural system of village communities which were observed
by the economical reformers of the eighteenth century. We
are told that the "valleys of the district are almost, without
exception, intersected longitudinally by rivulets. The sides of
these rivulets, being the most eligible situation for buildings,
were of course crowded with houses. These valleys, with their
accompanying rivulets, are frequently from three to five miles
apart, hills intervening between them.  The shape of the
manors, therefore, became a narrow oblong; each manor
acquired water and meadow ground, and also wood for fuel.
The manors, therefore, were naturally divided into long narrow
strips from river to wood, with a right to the use of both." 
The farm-houses were crowded together in villages situated on
the banks of the streams. Forming the centre point of all the
village rights, we find, in true archaic fashion, that the application of the " land is most uniform. The common meadows
immediately adjoin the river; the houses and small enclosures
are as near it as possible. Next follows the arable, until the
land becomes too steep or too thin to plough, and then the sheep
and cow downs; and frequently the woods at the extremity of
the manor, and adjoining the downs or woods of the manors in
the opposite bourn." 2 Here there is no room for hill cultivation, and it is not provided for in the laying out of the village
system of cultivation, it being distinctly observed that the hills
are not cultivated.
Let us now turn to the south-east of England. The chalk
escarpment is one of the best-marked physical features in
England. It is a steep-sided range of hills having its summits
remarkably level. From the crest of the escarpment the ground
falls gradually away with a slope: at the foot of the escarpment
the upper Greensand makes a broad band, beyond which
Davis, "Agriculture of Wilts," pp. 5-6.
2 Ibid., p. I8; cf. Marshall, "Rural Economy of Southern Counties,"
vol. ii. pp. 307-308.




74 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
comes the Gault. Now, Mr. Topley,' in examining this geological feature, was struck with the fact that the boundaries of
the ancient parishes followed exactly one plan so regularly as
to afford undoubted evidence of "absolute facts which our
forefathers have stamped on the great land divisions of the
country." I am not now concerned with the geological facts
but with the question of the land settlement. "Everywhere,"
says Mr. Topley, summarizing his elaborate evidence, "along
the foot of the chalk escarpment there is a line of villages. In
nearly every case the parishes ascend the escarpment, generally
taking in a good deal of the tableland above, but occasionally
ending off at or near to the crest. In the other direction they
extend over the Gault, and more or less over the underlying
beds.  As the villages are often quite close together the
parishes are narrow, and thus we find a long line of parishes
along the chalk escarpment, many of which are remarkably
narrow in proportion to their length.  The points to be
specially noted are: that villages at the foot of the chalk
escarpment send their parishes up the escarpment."  Mr.
Topley has examined these facts, and finds that the face of the
chalk escarpment around the Weald is divided amongst 125
parishes, i 9 of which belong to villages situated at the foot of
the escarpment, the six exceptions being due to perfectly
explainable causes which do not really make them exceptions.
All along the foot of the chalk escarpment names, in which -ing
is the final syllable, abound, and Mr. Topley rightly concludes
that these facts show that "the earliest settlements in the south
of England would take place along the wider chalk valleys in
which water could be found, and along the foot of the escarpment, where the settlers found good water, productive soil, and
a sheltered situation. In the division of land, consequent upon
these settlements, each knot of settlers would take the down
land behind them on which to pasture their sheep, the good
land around their dwellings would be taken under the plough,
and the forest land in the other direction, whether wood or
open glade, would afford mast for swine and pasture for cattle."
Journal A2thropological Institttion, iii. 34, 39, 43, 44, 45, 49.




METHOD OF SETTLEMENT BY THE HILL FOLK.


75


If we compare this with the Wiltshire system of settlement we
find them practically identical, and together they afford very
good evidence of the Aryan system of settlement in Britain.
That they do not provide for hill cultivation seems absolutely
clear. The hill sides were furthest away from the villages,
near to which at the foot of the hills, the arable land, cultivated
by the villagers, was situated; and I think this glimpse at the
mode of the Aryan cultivation enables us to mark off a strong
differentiation between it and the hill-folk cultivation.
We will now turn to the hill folk, and endeavour to ascertain
something of their method of cultivation and of their mode of
settlement.  Our examination of this must necessarily be
somewhat more minute and in more detail, and we shall find
that the method of settlement leads us directly to the method
of cultivation, both of which are distinct from the village life
of the Aryan races. I think it may be shown, with some
degree of precision, that the system of cultivation adopted by
the hillmen of Britain was primarily that known as terrace
cultivation. In order to investigate the history of this system
from the evidence available, it is necessary to consider-(i) the
local distribution of the examples; (2) the theories which have
been advanced as to their origin; (3) the evidence as to their
origin from their position and structural formation; (4) their
connection with prehistoric hill forts.  Then  summarizing
these results of the British evidence I shall endeavour to show
(5) how the system of terrace cultivation entirely differs from
the Aryan system of land settlement in Britain; and that (6)
it does, in point of fact, find its true parallel among the nonAryan hill-tribes of India. And, finally, I shall seek to establish
the fact that in this system of terrace cultivation we have
remnants of the Iberic or non-Aryan races of Britain.
i. Commencing in the south of England, our first example is
from a writer in The Gentleman's Magazine (I796, p. 82I), who
observes that "on the declivities of the elevated and chalky
tracts of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and other counties, there very
frequently occurs a beautiful assemblage of terraces, mostly
horizontal, and rising in a continued series like the steps of




76 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
Egyptian pyramids, or the seats of an amphitheatre. These,
which are commonly arable, with their almost perpendicular
sides of green turf, are popularly called lynchets. The slopes
of the downs between Devizes and Calne afford many examples
of them, about Beacon Hill, Hedington Hill, and between the
junction of Wansdike with the Roman road and the intrenchments of Oldbury." Mr. Marshall, noticing the chalk hills from
Devizes to Ludgershall, says, " much cultivation appears on their
sides and towards their feet in flat artificial stages, with steep
linshets between them." I
The south face of the hill, near Bellenton, takes the form of
a spacious amphitheatre.2 " Banks and small terraces " are to
be seen in the neighbourhood of Rushmore,3 on the borders of
Dorsetshire and Wilts. In the latter county Mr. Scrope has
noted numerous terraces, locally known as balks or lynchets,
which contour round the projecting headlands and far up into'
the intervening combs, being most conspicuous between Mere
and Hindon, and near to Warminster and Market Lavington,
but are indeed to be met with almost wherever the chalk downs
slope into the valleys or low plains.4
Among the best examples in Hampshire are those on the
down, about three miles south of Winchester, and close to
Shawford Station, on the London and South-Western Railway.
They may be seen on the west in passing the place in a train.
Similar terraces may be observed on the hill sides at Easton,
Michelmersh, Houghton, Vernham's Dean, St. Mary Bourne,
Woodcot, Wallop, Sombourn, and other places.5
Examples may be seen on the steep sides of the Sussex
downs and the Chiltern Hills.6   At Seaford is an ancient
Rural Economy of the Southern Counties," vol. ii. p. 300; at p. 302, he
adds, "this sort of artificial terrace is common in different parts of the
island."
2 Journal of Archeological Association, vol. xiii. p. o09.
3 Pitt-Rivers, " Excavations in Cranborne Chase, near Rushmore," p. 2.
4 "Wilts Archaeological Society," vol. xii. pp. 185-192, vol. xvii. pp.
295-297.
5 Antiquary, vol. xvii. p. 51.
6 Seebohm's, " English Village Community," p. 6.




TERRACE CULTIVATION IN ENGLAND AND WALES.          77
cultivated terrace extending from the cliff inland for a distance
of about a quarter of a mile on the slope.'
At Luton in Bedfordshire, at Clothall in Herts, and between
Cambridge and Hitchin, are striking examples.2
Coming next to the Welsh district we find that the hills
which form the watershed on the south side of the Clun rivulet
were on the slopes leading to the brook, in many places distinctly marked with ridges or butts curved according to the
formation of the ground. The butts were of various sizes,
some narrow, some wide.3
On several hills in North Carmarthenshire there are also
clear evidence of this cultivation. The ridges, or butts, are
never more than 6 or 8 feet wide.4 Near Llangollen there are
some fine examples to be seen from the Llantysilio railway
station.5
We next go to the northern districts of England, and thence
into Scotland. In Wharfedale, Coverdale, Wensleydale, and
on the slopes of the hills to the east of Nidderdale, the country
is covered with little step-like terraces called "reins."  " The
sides of the limestone slopes of Wharfedale are covered with
them-each being twenty or thirty or more yards long, and two
or three yards wide, and though they almost always there run
horizontally, yet occasionally they lie up and down." 6
The eastern side of Humbledon, the outermost span of the
Cheviots, consists of a series of wide terraces. There is first a
level plateau; then a steep ascent; then a similar plateau, and
so on, to a fifth or sixth, &c.7
Many of the hills on the north of the Cheviot Range have
been formed into terraces for cultivation. In speaking upon
I Journal Anthropological Institution, vol. vi. p. 297.
2 Seebohm, loc. cit., p. 6.
3 " Bygones relating to Wales," vol. v. p. 21.
4 Ibid., vol. v. p. 195.
5 Mackintosh, " On the Origin of the Scenery of England and Wales."
6 Lucas, " Studies in Nidderdale," p. 6; cf. Seebohm's " English Village
Community," p. 38I.
7 Land, May 5, 1883, p. 192; Pennant's "Tour in Scotland," vol. iii.
284; " Berwickshire Nat. Hist. Field Club," vol. iv. p. I6o.




78 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


this subject, Mr. Tate said that upon Heethpool he had
counted sixteen terraces, rising in succession one above the
other, having a platform of from io feet to 42 feet, though
usually it is about 20 feet in width, and that this mode of
cultivation was in some instances resorted to on hills that
rose about I,ooo feet above the level of the sea.     White
Hill, near to the farm-house, is terraced to its summit. These
terraces are generally flat, but some are slightly convex, not
quite horizontal, nor are they parallel; some run into each
other, and in such cases one or two other terraces are intercalated for a short distance. They rise above each other by
nearly perpendicular steps, which vary in height from 2 feet to
I5 feet, generally it is about 4 feet or 5 feet.'
Between Coldstream and Palinsburne, in Northumberland,
Pennant observed "several very regular terraces cut on the
face of a hill. They are most exactly formed, a little raised in
the middle, like a fine 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. Such tiers of
terraces are not uncommon in these parts, where they are
called baulks." 2 Near Chollerton is a flight of terraces called
Hanging Shaws.3 At Greaves Ash, near Linhope, are some
horizontal ridges, high up on the hill side, which appear to be
remains of ancient terrace culture.4
At Yetholm, Linhope, and Ingram, in Northumberland,
there are many cases of terraced hills.5
In Scotland these terraces are to be found in the vale of the
Tweed and the neighbouring districts, where they are called
Daisses, i.e., bench seats. At Purves Hill, about eight miles
below Peebles, the steep hill face is marked all the way down
Gentleman's Magazine, 1862, part ii. p. 455; "Berwickshire Nat.
Hist. Field Club," vol. iv. pp. 245, 448.
2 Pennant's " Tour in Scotland," vol. iii. p. 281; "Berwickshire Nat.
Iist. Field Club," vol. iv. p. 236.
3 Wallis, " History of Northumberland," vol. ii. p. 70.
4 " Berwickshire Nat. Hist. Field Club," vol. iv. p. 314.
5 Ibid., vol. iv. p. 244.




TERRACE CULTIVATION IN SCOTLAND.


to the haugh by the river side with terraces extending over the
space of a quarter of a mile. Another equally marked series
of terraces is found on a hill face close to Newlands Kirk, in
the west of Peeblesshire. They occupy a piece of the hill face
commencing about 40 feet above the immediate banks of the
Lyne, and extending upwards about rlo feet. The length of
the entire space occupied is now about the fifth part of a
mile, but early in the last century it was terraced for about a
mile. Similar terraces exist at Kilbucho, in Peeblesshire; and
at Dunsyre, in Lanarkshire; at North Middleton, in Edinburghshire; on the south-east slopes of Arthur's Seat, above
Duddingston; all around Dunsapie, towards Musselburgh, on
the hill behind Markinch.I
TERRACES AT NEWLANDS KIRK, PEEBLESSHIRE.
Gordon says, "all along from the village of Romana, about
seventeen miles from Edinburgh, for a mile and a half upon
the side of a considerable hill, are to be seen seventeen or
eighteen distinct rows of artificial terraces raised one above
another in a most regular manner, each of them 15 or I8 or
20 feet broad, and as much in height, and may be seen at four
or five miles distance; and for a whole mile it appears not
unlike a large amphitheatre.  About three miles south of
Romana, at a place called Kirkurde, upon the water of Terth,
are to be seen other rows of terraces like those of Romana.
At Skerling are other terraces, near all which places upon the
" Proceedings Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. i. pp. 127-I33
with illustration of the terraces at Newlands Kirk, Peeblesshire.




80 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


tops of many other hills are to be seen these kind of forts
strongly entrenched with double and single ditches."'
The hill sides above Swineside Hall, Oxnam, in Roxburghshire, are distinctly terraced.2
There are also similar terraces at Castle Sempel, in Argyleshire.3 It is observable, says a writer on the Grampians, in
many parts of the highest inhabited places in the Scottish
Highlands, that ridges can be distinctly traced near the summit
of our most elevated mountains.4
I have not succeeded in identifying any examples in Ireland,
but the following passage from   Boate's "Ireland's Natural
History," 165?, must, I think, allude to terrace cultivation. " It
hath been observed in many parts of Ireland, but chieflie in
the county of Meath, and further northward, that upon the top
of the great hills and mountains, not onely at the side and foot
of them, to this day the ground is uneven as if it had been
plowed in former times." 5
It will be admitted, I think, that this is very striking evidence
of the wide prevalence of terrace cultivation in Britain. In
Wales and Scotland the hill folk have almost a natural home
arising from the physical peculiarities of the country; and in
those parts of England where hill ranges exist, there also exist
traces of this peculiar system of agriculture. I am far from
suggesting that all the examples I have adduced are representative of the most primitive form  of terrace cultivation,
about which we shall have much to say presently. What I am
anxious to put into clear prominence first is the fact of terrace
cultivation as a distinct feature of the agricultural practices of
Britain according to the signs of it which remain upon the
hills. It will appear, presently, that these examples really fall
into two distinct classes, one of comparatively recent origin,
Gordon's " Itin. Septentrionale," pp. 114, 115.
2 " Proceedings Berwickshire Nat. Hist. Field Club," 1885, p. 26.
3 " Proceedings Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. i. p. 129.
4 Campbell's " Grampians Desolate," p. 167.
5 Boate's "Ireland's Natural History," 1652, p. 83; cf. Wood's; Primitive Inhabitants of Ireland," 1821, p. 220.




THE ORIGIN OF TERRACE CULTIVATION.


8i


possessing no very remarkable features, nor extending over a
very wide area; the other of unknown origin, possessing
features which strike us at once as indicative of a very extensive hill population, and extending over an area which is
the centre of archaeological interest.
2. We now pass on to consider the theories which have been
advanced concerning the origin of these singular terraces.
They have excited the curiosity of travellers for many years;
and in 1790 Mr. Marshall, one of the most thorough investigators of our agricultural system, observed that " the antiquary
might be less profitably employed than in tracing their origin."'
But the antiquary has not done much during the hundred years
since this observation was made to solve the problem, and
certainly he has not demonstrated their great significance in
the history of our race. An. examination of the several theories
advanced will, however, assist us in some important particulars.
It. will show that many of the later suggestions are wide of the
mark because they are made with no attention to the complete
circumstances of the case, and it will bring once more into
prominence the value of local tradition as a factor in the search
for historical origins.
The most important theory, because the most far-reaching
in its consequences, is that which attributes to these terrace
formations a natural origin.  Dr. Mackintosh in The Geological Magazine, and later in a separate work, considered them
to have been formed by the erosive power of sea waves, or
marine currents, "at different levels, with or without floating
ice." And he specially notes the Llangollen terraces as the
finest series of undoubted old coast-lines or raised sea-beaches
that he ever met with.2 The geological origin of the famous
parallel roads of Glen Roy has been discussed and accepted
by many distinguished geologists; 3 but the true answer to
this view seems to be that advanced by Mr. Poulett Scrope,
"1 ( Rural Economy of the Southern Counties," vol. ii. p. 302.
2 " On the Origin of the Scenery of England and Wales."
3 Cf. Macfadzean's " Parallel Roads of Glen Roy," pp. xx, xxi, for a
table of the various theories held.
7




82 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


namely, that the cultivation terraces are of a different kind
to anything that may have been formed by such vast geological changes as it is necessary to postulate before
accepting nature as the author.'   Thus when Mr. Tate,
speaking of the Humbleton Heugh Terraces, says: "they are
formed on gravel which lies at the base of the porphyry hills,
and which had been accumulated when the whole valley of the
Till had been filled with water; and as the land emerged from
the water, especially along its shores, places more or less level
would appear," 2-we can meet this by the objection raised by
Dr. Milne Home, who satisfied himself "that they were not
terraces formed by water, inasmuch as though some of them
were horizontal, others ran obliquely round the hills, and in
several instances they coincided with the slope, forming in this
last case wide ridges with deep trenches between." 3
Of the suggestions which declare for the artificial origin of
these terraces, the most wild is one advanced by Pennant,
who considered them to be places for the militia to arrange
themselves on that they might show themselves to advantage,
thus placing rank above rank, as nothing could more highly
gratify the pride of a chieftain's heart.4 Similar to this is the
theory advanced by Mr. Baird, the minister of Yetholm, who
regards the terraces to have been made for the purpose of
enabling the inhabitants of the district to come together and
witness the ceremonies performed by the Druid priests on the
hills.5 Gordon, in his archaeological tour in Scotland in
1726-32, was of opinion that "most of these terraces,
especially those so extraordinarily large, are Roman works,
and may probably have been thrown up by their armies for
itinerary encampments."6  These theories are, of course,
worthless; but let me point out that they postulate the
formation of the terraces by manual labour, and while we
"Wilts Archceological Society," vol. xii. p. I89.
"2 Berwickshire Nat. Hist. Soc.," vol. iv. p. I6o.  3 Ibid., p. 244,
4 " Tour in Scotland," vol. iii. p. 281.
s " Berwickshire Nat. Hist. Field Club," vol. iv. p. 244.
6 Gordon, "Itin. Septentrionale," p. 115.




THE AGRICULTURAL ORIGIN OF TERRACE CULTIVATION. 83
must unhesitatingly reject the cause assumed for all this
labour, we may note that at the time of Pennant and Gordon,
a century and more ago, there was nothing either in popular
tradition or in actual practice which gave the clue to their
origin, and therefore these two authorities fell back upon the
supposition that they were constructed by labour devised for
the express purpose.
The only remaining theory is that which considers them to
have been formed for the purpose of cultivation. Even Mr.
Tate, who argued for their geological formation, suggested
that they had been used for agriculture. Such places, he says,
" have been further levelled and trimmed by art, and used by
the early inhabitants of the district for the purpose of cultivation. Some broad and irregular ridges and furrows running
along these terraces I consider evidences of this ancient
cultivation."' The point we have to note here is that the
formation of the ridges and the use of them, just as in the
theories advanced by Pennant and Gordon, are deemed to be
two different operations, a view which is in direct opposition to
the opinions of Mr. Poulett Scrope and Mr. Seebohm. In
point of date, Mr. Scrope was the first to suggest that the
action of agriculturists was the cause of the terraces. But the
theory is intimately connected with the system of cultivation
now known to have been adopted by the village community,
and it appears to me that the facts ascertained of the latter
have coloured the theories about the formation of these
terraces. Thus at the very outset Mr. Scrope makes an
assumption which does not seem to apply to the most
important types of terrace cultivation at all, namely, that
the strips lying one above the other were held by distinct
occupiers.2 He then proceeds more cautiously, and I will
quote his exact words: "The boundary line between two of
these neighbouring strips may have been originally only a
mathematical one, and yet a bank would soon have been
formed along it, for each upper cultivator will naturally take
Berwickshire Naturalists Field Club," vol. iv. p. I6o,
' " Wilts Archaeological Society," vol. xii. p. I87.




84 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
care not to allow the soil of his strip to descend to fertilize
that of his neighbour. He would draw the lower limit of his
strip by a reversed furrow, throwing the last ridge of soil up
hill, thus leaving a slight trench, sufficient, however, to stop
the silt washed down from above, which consequently would
accumulate there in a bed perhaps only an inch or two in
depth. But the next year the process is repeated, and thus by
degrees a slight bank of earth is formed, which, in the progress
of years, increases into lynchets or balks, i.e., a steep grassgrown bank several feet in height, with a somewhat flattened
terrace above, separating the parallel strips on a hill-side in
the hands of distinct cultivators."' This theory is adopted
also by Mr. Seebohm, who says "the custom for ages was
always to turn the sod of the furrow down hill, the plough
consequently always returning one way idle. If the whole
hill-side were ploughed in one field, this would result in a
gradual travelling of the soil from the top to the bottom of
the field, and it might not be noticed. But as in the openfield system, the hill-side was ploughed in strips, with unploughed balks between them, no sod could pass in the
ploughing from one strip to the next; but the process of
moving the sod downwards would go on age after age just the
same within each individual strip. In other words, every
year's ploughing took a sod from the higher edge of the strip
and put it on the lower edge; and the result was that the
strips became in time long level terraces one above the other,
and the balks between them grew into steep rough banks of
long grass, covered often with natural self-sown brambles and
bushes." 2
It seems to me that such an elaborate process describes
perhaps one form of terrace cultivation, namely, that which
belongs to the villages which began their settlement at the
bottom of the hill, and which gradually extended the area of
cultivation up the sides of the hill, leaving off as soon as the
hill-side becomes precipitous, and always long before it reaches
" Wilts Archaeological Society," vol. xii. pp. I87-188.
2 "The English Village Community," pp. 5-6.




HILL FARMING.


the top. In the meantime Mr. Scrope himself suggests, though
not purposely, some of the objections to the purely agricultural
origin of these terraces, objections derived from the actual
practice of hill cultivation.  In Wiltshire where the hills
are under arable cultivation, "the ridge of the soil raised
by the mould board of the plough has everywhere a
tendency, through the action of gravity upon it, to fall
down hill.   This down - hill tendency   of the disturbed
soil is greatly assisted by the wash of heavy rains upon the
loosened materials of the sloping surface, and the result is
that year by year the whole surface soil of the slope, when
under continuous arable culture, is slowly, indeed, but surely,
travelling downwards, until it is stopped by some hedge or
wall or bank.... In the meantime the upper parts of the
slope, losing their vegetable mould, get poorer and poorer;...
and the thrifty farmers of Devonshire therefore often employ
their idle hands and teams in winter in digging out the soil
which has descended to the bottom of their steep fields, and
carting it up to the top again, I But, then, such practices,
rude as they are, are not illustrative of, and do not produce,
terrace cultivation; and until the necessity of such practices
are proved to be needless, in consequence of the balks which
Mr. Seebohm establishes between each terrace, the formation
of these terraces by the sole action of the plough must,     )
on the whole, be considered as unproven.2  The Rev. Canon
Jackson has also challenged this theory, and concludes that
while it is intelligible that banks should be formed in this way
in certain places and under certain circumstances, these cases
would be comparatively few, namely, where the ground slopes
very gradually, and where the strips are of considerable breadth.
1 Wilts Archaeological Society," vol. xii. p. I86-187. See Clarke's
"Survey of the Lakes " (I789), p. 64, for a farmer's mode of cultivating the
hills.
2 Mr. Seebohm tells me he knows of actual cases near IIitchin formed
by the plough. But these are by no means of the same class as those
alluded to and described above; they fall rather under Canon Jackson's
exceptions,




86 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


In other cases, where the hill falls precipitously, and the
terraces are narrow and come close and quick upon the other
like a steep staircase, that they could ever be formed according
to Mr. Poulett Scrope's idea seems to Canon Jackson a simple
impossibility. 
Dr. Daniel Wilson introduces us to a new idea concerning
these terraces, for the first time suggesting that their formation
turns upon the question of an extensive occupation of the
hill sites, and noting the popular tradition of their connection
with elves. The passage is as follows:" In various districts of the neighbourhood of the road from
Port Ellen towards the shooting lodge of Islay, the curious
traveller may decry amid ' desolate heath' indications on the
hill-sides of a degree of cultivation having existed at some
former period far beyond what is exhibited in that locality at
the present day. These singular terraces occur frequently at
such altitudes as must convey a remarkably vivid idea of the
extent and industry of an ancient population, where now the
grazing of a few black cattle alone tempts to the claim of
property in the soil. In other districts the half-obliterated
furrows are still traceable on heights which have been abandoned for ages to the wild fox or the eagle. Such evidences
of ancient population and industry are by no means confined
to the remote districts of ancient Dalriada. They occur in
many parts of Scotland, startling the believer in the unmitigated
barbarism of Scotland prior to the medieval era with evidence
of a state of prosperity and civilization at some remote epoch,
the date of which has yet to be ascertained; though there are
not wanting periods within the era of authentic Scottish history
to which some of these may with considerable probability be
assigned.  The very simple explanation of such ancient
plough marks which has satisfied the popular mind is apparent
in the appellation of elf-furrows, by which they are commonly
known." 2
This clearly leads us to that other system of terrace cultiva"Wilts Archaeological Society," vol. xvii. p. 294.
a Wilson's " Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," p. I23.




ANCIENT PRACTICE OF TERRACE CULTIVATION.


tion which is far more conspicuous and far more general than
any system which could have been formed by the plough.
This system begins at the top of the hill, and creeps down the
side, leaving off, however, long before it reaches the more
gentle slopes near the valley, and is thus in direct contrast to
that system which begins towards the bottom of the hill, through
the exigencies of modern farming, and does not extend to where
the precipitous sides commence.  And this is really the only
system which is of importance to us to examine, and we shall
find that there are no traces of its modern use. As Mr. Seebohm
himself puts it, the only right of survival of terrace cultivation
lies in its indestructibility,' that is, in other words, unless we
had archaeological evidence of it, we should never have discovered its existence in Britain. It is necessary to state the
evidence in proof of the non-survival of the practice of terrace
cultivation, besides which this will help us to form new conclusions as to its origin. Mr. Scrope's modern examples are
not really examples, as Canon Jackson proves, of terrace
cultivation.  Mr. Tate says "they have been used down even
to the middle of last century," 2 and Mr. Lucas doubtfully
suggests their recent use.3 But such use as these remarks
indicate does not really involve the question of a continuity of
terrace cultivation. The modern farmer does occasionally use
these parts of his holding for raising crops, but he is not
thereby keeping up any traditional practice. Mr. Chambers,
who observed them in Scotland, says "the country people
have no traditions about them, and are even under an uncertainty as to their design and use."4 A writer in The
Gentleman's Magazine of 1796, speaking of the Wilts and
Dorset examples, says "they are generally regarded in the
neighbourhood as the offspring of human exertion in remote
ages to facilitate and extend the dominion of the plough." s
I English Village Community," p. 5.
"Berwickshire Nat. Hist. Field Club," vol. iv. p. 448.
3, Studies in Nidderdale," p. 62.
4 "( Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. i. p. 130.
5 Gentleman's Magazine, 1796, p. 82I.




88 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


Thus it seems clear that in tradition there is nothing to prove
the continuity to modern times of the true, as distinct from
the partial, terrace cultivation, and accordingly we have thus
far gained the right to appeal to archaeology and to comparative custom for a solution of the problem.
3. We have therefore to consider now what evidence as to
origin is to be obtained from their position and their structural
formation. The face of the country has now so changed
that it is difficult for the modern observer to arrive at correct
conclusions when they so much depend upon a long previous
state of things. But if we take note of the older authorities,
we may obtain what may be fairly considered as echoes from
the oldest times. Thus when Boate, in 1652, was observing
the hill cultivation of Ireland, the topographical features of the
country, much more than his own knowledge and ingenuity,
suggested to him some ideas of considerable importance to the
subject we have in hand. He says: " The inhabitants doe
affirm that their forefathers being much given to tillage, contrarie to what they are now, used to turn all to plowland.
Others say that it was done for want of arable, because the
champain was most everywhere beset and overspread with
woods which by degrees are destroyed by the warres. They
say further that in those times, in places where nothing now
is to be seen but great boggs of a vast extent, there were
thick woods, which they collect from hence, that now and
then trees are digged out there being for the most part some
yards long and some of a very great bignes and length."'
Dr. Milne Holme observes of the district about Linhope, in
Northumberland, that if corn was to be grown there in ancient
times the most suitable spots would not be in the valleys, then
covered with woods and liable to river-floods, but on the hillsides, which were free from trees, and at all events more easily
cleared, and where the soil, consisting in great part of decomposed porphyry, must have been peculiarly fertile.  These
spots also had the advantage of being dry, and it appeared
to him that in order to prevent the water running away the soil,
Boate's " Ireland's Natural History," p. 83.




CONSTRUCTION OF THE TERRACES.


89


the ground had been formed in broad terraces more or less
horizontal. Where the ridges and furrows slope down the
hill there is to be observed, from the immense quantity of
rushes and other aquatic plants, that the ground was full of
natural springs, and if it was intended to keep the soil free
from water, the mode adopted certainly was the best for the
purpose.' Another writer on the subject says: " Such appearances of culture are referable to remote times, when, by reason
of the valleys being overgrown with woods which were the
haunts of wolves, bears, and enormous snakes, it was necessary
for safety to retire to the tops of hills, and there cultivate
those spots which still retain the appearance of human
industry." 2
What, then, does this accumulation of evidence point to?
Certainly to no existing system of agriculture, and as certainly
to a system belonging to a people occupying the hills in some
force. Mr. Chambers concludes, mainly from the discoveries
at Arthur's Seat, that to the era of the Bronze period "we
must assign the examples of that peculiar mode of culture
which have been noticed."3 One important fact remains to
be noted which comes out of the Scottish evidence, viz.,
absolute proof that the terraces are not produced by the
plough, as Mr. Scrope, Mr. Seebohm, and others seem to
think, but are artificially produced. Dr. Wilson observes of
the Port Ellen terraces that they were retained by dwarf
walls.4 Although of one place Mr. Chambers states "there
is no trace of masonry in their construction," he says of the
group round Dunsapie that "it is quite evident that they have
been carefully formed with a facing of wall composed of rough
blocks, and the faces of some of them are so well defined and
steep that it is barely possible to climb them;" and "the
pastoral ground over which they extend has many rough
blocks scattered over it." 5  Now, although there does not
x "c Berwickshire Naturalists' Field Club," vol. iv. p. 244.
2 Campbell's " Grampians Desolate," p. 167.
3 ' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. i. p. 133.
4 " Prehistoric Annals of Scotland," p. I23.
5 " Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. i. p. 130.




90 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


appear to be any signs of such constructive evidence in the
more southern examples, it is open to remark that the lapse of
ages might account for the stone facing having been gradually
removed, or that in some districts where stone was not plentiful some other material was used for the purposes of construction. For instance, of the Wilts example Mr. Scrope says the
late Mr. Cunnington informed him that it was "a practice to
dig in these lynchets for flints, and when engaged in this work
the labourers have frequently found Roman coins, fibulae,
pottery, &c."I Mr. Scrope thinks this evidence is full proof
that the ancient terrace cultivation was the work of the
Romanized Britons, and this was the opinion of Gordon.
The term Romanized Britons is a misleading one. Romanized
Britons would not bury their "coins, fibulae, pottery, &c.," in
their tillage grounds; but after the departure of the Romans
the un-Romanized hill tribes might very well have set to work
again, upon their old sites building up their broken terracefacings with flints from the deserted Roman sites, and thus
unconsciously burying " coins, fibulae, pottery, &c." Thus, then,
the high position and structural formation of these terraces
suggest that they were artificially formed, unconnected with
and anterior to the open-field system, and that they must
have been built up by a people unacquainted with the use of
the plough, and who occupied the hills before the plains were
cultivated.
4. We next want to show the connection between terrace
cultivation and the other evidences of early hill occupation.
This can only be accomplished by examining carefully their
archaeological surroundings.  In some of the examples we
have noticed this may be accomplished, and.I select the
following examples.
With reference to the Hampshire terraces it has to be noted
that "at Woodcot, in Wallop Fields, on Sombourn Common
Down, and elsewhere, they are more remote from the village, and
quite close to ancient earthzorks."2 At St. Mary Bourne the
" Wilts Archaeological Society," vol. xii. p. I92.
Antiquary, vol. xvii. p. 51,




TERRACE CULTIVATION AND THE HILL-FORTS.


91


evidence is still more definite. Very near to the terraces at
Linksfield have been found the relics of an old settlement,
consisting of querns, pottery, and articles of domestic use,
while at Hurstbourne siding have been excavated eight sites
of pit-dwellings dug in the chalk, the floors of which were
either pitched with flints or formed by the solid chalk, and
outside of one was found a cooking hole. These were usually
circular in plan, contained a central fireplace, and had sloping
entrance passages. Their contents show them to have belonged
originally to a neolithic people with traces of later occupation.
Other remains of a prehistoric occupation exist, including an
extensive camp known as Eggbury, which leads the local
historian to the observation that " the district appears to be
prolific in relics of a people who occupied the platform on
which the camp is seated, and who most likely frequented it
as a stronghold." I
On the top of Humbledon Hill one is standing in the centre
of a British camp. Round two-thirds of the wide summit there
is a circle of rude stones, themselves arranged into smaller
circles, each representing the dimensions of a hut. As the
walls have fallen the stones have become heaped confusedly
together, but they always seem to have fallen outwards, so that
the round plot of land which may have been the floor of each
stone cabin is a clear green space. When the huts round the
summit of Humbledon Hill were constructed, the terraces we
have described above would be the only pieces of land in the
neighbourhood which were capable of cultivation. The now
fertile valley of Glendale might not then have safely been
crossed even by a naked Briton on foot. Having to live,
and to grow corn the inhabitants of these windy stone cabins
would naturally level the sides of their chosen hill into fields,
and in proof that they did so one seems to detect under the
short grass the furrows of some ancient plough.2
With reference to the Heethpool terraces, it seems that the
whole of this district, wherever the ground is sufficiently eleStevens, " History of St. Mary Bourne," p. 37.
Land, May 5, I883, p. 192.




92 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
vated as to be thoroughly dry, is covered with remains of
prehistoric buildings. The sites show that the circular form
seems to have been adapted for most structures. Three or
four courses of very large stones, arranged in a circle 10 feet
or 12 feet in thickness, formed the groundwork upon which
the walls, made of smaller stones, were raised to a height of
about 7 feet. In the instance of one fort, a circle of this
description was 30 feet in diameter. Within it, also built
in circles, were the habitations of those who defended them.
In towns, or large assemblies of the same huts, the diameter
of the circumvallation was correspondingly greater. Many of
the habitations at Yevering were cut out of the hill-side.
Encircling the summit of the Bell, a strong wall of the kind
mentioned enclosed a space of twelve acres.' It was built of
porphyry blocks without lime. There are four gateways, one
on the west, one on the east, a third on the north, and the
principal entrance on the south. This has a guard-house on
its west side, of oval shape, 9 feet by 6 feet. All around the
Bell, where the inclination is not very steep and craggy,
fortlets and hut circles are traceable.2
At Greaves Ash, right in the centre of the Northumberland
examples of terrace cultivation, and immediately adjacent to
terraces which have been already noted, is perhaps the most perfect example of a prehistoric hill-town or settlement. Mr. Tate
has described it in great detail, and I collect from his account
the following salient features:-It is situated on an elevated
platform on the southern slope of Greenshaw Hill, and consists of three principal parts, all defended by encircling walls.
The western part is the largest, and connected with the eastern
part by enclosures and a rampart; the third or upper part is
north-eastward from the latter, and is connected with the others
by a road and rampart. On the lower ground south-eastward
of the outermost rampart several old walls form enclosures
which, with the town itself, make up an area of about twenty
acres. All the walls of the town, dwellings, and enclosures
Gentleman's Magazine, 1862, part ii. p. 456.
2 " Berwickshire Field Club," vol. iv. p. 434.




TERRACE CULTIVATION AND THE HILL-FORTS.


are built of the porphyry rock of the district, and no cement
of any kind has been used in their construction, nor is any
tool mark visible. The western part of the town consists of a
number of hut circles and other inclosures surrounded and
defended by two strong walls; on the south side the defence
consists of three walls running parallel with, but a little
distant from, each other, with the intervening spaces filled
up with small stones and    earth.  The foundations of
eighteen huts are visible, and traces of several more. They
are quite circular, their diameters varying from rI feet to
27 feet.   Each has a regularly formed entrance, which
generally faces the east or south-east. In the eastern part
the hut circles are from 8 to 20 feet in diameter, and in
the upper part are distinct remains of fifteen hut circles,
besides obscure remains of other foundations. On the north
side of the principal gateway to the western part is a rectangular chamber I2 feet by Io feet, with an entrance from
the gateway by a very rude passage; and from the position,
this must have been a guard-house to the gateway. The
entrance to the outer rampart is not opposite this gateway,
but diagonal to it, being thirty yards to the southward.
The principal roadway winds down the hill from the gateway
of the western part; it is hollow to the depth of two or three
feet, and defended on both sides by a mound of earth and
stones. From the west side another road branches out, and
this is defended by a stone wall. On looking at the position
of the town with reference to the adjoining hill, we find it
commanded by Greenshaw Hill. There is, however, no camp
on this hill. These arrangements seemed to Mr. Tate to
countenance the view that the camps and fortified towns in
this district do not form a combined system of defence against
a common foe, but that they are the works of independent
tribes to protect themselves against the attacks of their neighbours.'
In some of the Scottish examples, Mr. Chambers has noted
much the same phenomena that have been adduced of the
" Berwickshire Field Club," vol. iv. pp. 294-303.




94 NON-ARYAN ELEMENT'S IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
English. At Purves Hill the site of the ancient homestead is
still to be traced. At Newlands Kirk " there were, till lately,
the remains of an ancient house on the top of the hill,
immediately over the centre of the terraced space.  The
farmer found many freestones among the ruins of this building,
and a fragment of a quern."  On Arthur's Seat "lumps of
brass, mixed with the purest shell marl, human skulls and
bones, large fragments of deer horns of uncommon size" have
been discovered, which has led Dr. Wilson and Sir Alexander
Dick to conclude that there was a settlement of the Bronze
Age people.'
On the whole, it seems clear that the remains of terrace
cultivation are intimately associated with the remains of primitive hill residences, and that these hill residences were occupied by tribes or clans, whose system of local defence shows
that they had no idea of warfare, whereby a whole nation is
involved against another nation, but that clan was pitted
against clan-an important piece of evidence which tells us
much of the degree of civilization to which these hill folk had
attained. Canon Greenwell, from other evidence, has come to
practically the same conclusion, and as the point is an important one when we come to discuss the position of these
hill folk among the races of Britain, I shall quote the words
of this great authority. In noticing some of the ancient grave
hills in the North Riding of Yorkshire, Canon Greenwell compares them with the Northumberland mounds, and goes on to
say that "in Northumberland every hill-end has its place of
defence; in some instances two or three in connection, each
one stronger than the other. They are provided with enclosures for cattle, and covered ways for concealed ingress and
egress. These fortresses, in many cases not a mile apart, are so
numerous, that in a day's walk some dozen or more may easily
be visited. Can we come to any other conclusion than that we
have in this the evidence of a number of small tribes living in
a constant state of feud and warfare, probably about hunting
"1 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol, i, pp.
127-133.




SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE ON TERRACE CULTIVATION. 95
grounds and pasturage; each tribe independent, to some extent, of the others, though possibly all, for certain purposes
joined into a general confederation by some bond of political, and, therefore, at that time, of religious union?" 
The importance of this evidence rests upon the nature of
these defence works, the concealed ways of ingress and egress,
each clan being defended against all the other clans, and the
bond of federation being not political as Canon Greenwell
suggests, but simply the loose dwelling together of people of
the same ethnic stock.
5. We may now usefully summarize the results of the
British evidence as to terrace cultivation. It seems that
the most important of these terraces were artificially formed
with stone-faced banks, or with flints, by a race of hill
folk, who constructed these stupendous efforts of labour
because of the impossibility of occupying the thicklywooded valleys; that the residences of the hill men were
strongly fortified and extensively occupied; that the system
of occupation does not indicate anything in the nature of
national efforts at settlement in a new country, but rather
tribal and clan migrations taken step by step, and without
eradicating tribal and clan feuds.
Our evidence so far pushes back the inquiry as to who
were these hill folk, who constructed the cultivating terraces,
to a pre-Teutonic period. I think it might be shown from the
history of the village community that it also goes back beyond
the Celtic period, but I prefer to bridge over this period by
an appeal to the evidence of comparative custom.
6. The pre-Aryan races seem to have been essentially hill folk.
They have attained their highest point of civilization in that
wonderful country, China, and there, accordingly, we find
terrace cultivation in perfection. The following account will
serve to illustrate one fact, not easily understood by those who
look at everything from the point of view of modern economics, namely, the expenditure of labour.  " In South-west
China there are two or three ranges between Ch'ung-ch'ing
1 ArehaeologicalJourtal, vol. xxii. p. Ioo.




96 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


and Lu-chou with summits about 2,000 feet above the sea, but
little hills and narrow valleys form the distinctive features of the
country. The rock is soft sandstone and shale, often much
displaced. The softness of the stone makes terrace cultivation
very easy, and this system is carried to greater perfection here
than in any other part of China. Crossing one of the little
cols, and looking over the valleys that break away from it, one
is struck by the thought of the sum of human labour expended
to bring rugged hills into such complete subjection, and one
receives a most lively impression of the patient industry of this
wonderful people. From peak to valley the whole hill-side has
been levelled into terraces, so that not a foot of ground is lost.
More than this, the terraces are cut up into fields-beds would
be a better word-averaging 50 feet by 40 feet, perfectly
level, and inclosed by narrow banks. The outside bank of
each bed has a rough sluice to regulate the level of water, any
surplus, after the ground is sufficiently covered for paddy,
falling into the bed below, and so on till the bottom of the
valley is reached. The result is that water lies at all levels,
and appears to defy the law of gravity."'  Another instance
is supplied by the Karen rice country, adjoining the territory
of the Shans, where the slopes of the hills are terraced for cultivation-the terraces being faced with stones, and each frequently 5 feet or 6 feet high.2 This is an exact parallel of the
Scottish terraces at Dunsapie; but in order to show the true
relationship between the non-Aryan constructors of the hill
terraces, and the Aryan holders of the valley lands, we must
turn to an Aryan country. Fortunately in India the races have
not yet become merged as they have in Europe, and I think I
can produce from these a parallel to the state of things which
must have existed in prehistoric Britain.
The village fields of the Khonds are formed in a succession
of terraces, to which water is conducted with no mean skill. 3 -The hill villages of Madras are surrounded by terraced fields'
Bluebook, "China No. I," I888, p. 2.
2 Colquhoun, "Amongst the Shans," p. 65.
3 Campbell's " Wild Tribes of Khondistan," p. 49.




TERRACE CULTIVATION IN INDIA.


97


running along the sides of the valleys.' "Native agriculture
in Coorg," says Mr. Richter, " is still carried on as it was centuries ago. A system of rural economy, formed at a remote
period, and transmitted for ages unchanged, is not likely to be
disturbed by so conservative a people as the Coorgs." 2 This
observation by a settlement officer, who has actual experience
of the people he is treating of, is very important, and it
emphasizes the significance of the Coorg custom of terrace
cultivation, which takes place, we are told, in the narrower
valleys near the Ghats, where the ground is terraced with considerable pains, the lower and broader fields having a rivulet
running through them, and those terraced up along the sides
being chiefly dependent upon the rainfall.
I could pause here and enter into a long description of
customs and superstitions recorded of the Coorgs, which are
identical with the customs and superstitions recorded in the
folklore of these islands, and such a pause would be justified
by the demands which comparative custom constantly interposes upon the scientific inquirer.  But passing on with a
mere statement that such a comparison might be instituted
without difficulty, it is important to note another range of
comparison between the structural methods of the hill folk of
Coorg and of Britain. Mr. Richter, in seeking for language
proper to describe the fortified positions of the Coorg hills,
cannot find anything more adequate than the language used by
Mr. W. W. Wilkins in The Fortnightly Review in describing
early British fortified positions, and Mr. Wilkins says the organization of labour necessary for carrying them out evinces a
condition of society utterly incompatible with the prevailing
notions on the subject.3 But this condition of society cannot
be conceived by any one influenced only by modern economical
conditions. To understand properly the position of affairs
which allowed our prehistoric races to accomplish these feats
of engineering skill, we must study the crystallized descendants
Shortt's " Hill Ranges of Southern India," vol. ii. p. 76.
2 Richter's " Manual of Coorg," p. 86.
3 Fortnightly Review, April, 1855; Richter, op. cit., p. 189.
8




98 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


of prehistoric races. Noting that the Coorg house, by its
position, style of building, and the approaches, strongly remind
us of small fortifications, while tradition points back to a time
of general feuds when chief fought with chief, and clan with
clan,' I will turn to another hill tribe of India, which presents
us with the actual facts of which Coorg has only the tradition.
One of these, the Angamis Nagas, cultivate by terracing
their fields. While some of the tribes follow the mode of
cultivation known as juim, a system which necessitates fresh
lands being taken up every two or three years, " in the higher
ranges, where the hills have a gentle slope, the sides are cut
into terraces from the base to the summit, and the same land
is continuously cultivated."2 These terraces are constructed,
not made by the plough during a continuous period of cultivation, the only agricultural implements the people possess being a
a heavy, long, square-headed dao, or hand-bill, and a light hoe.
The terraces are constructed "with wonderful care and skill
in the valleys, and on the hill-sides ascending the latter for
upwards of I,ooo feet each little field having its own retaining
wall of stone 5 or 6 feet high. Water is brought round for
long distances in channels cut with beautiful accuracy. The
soil in the terrace fields is manured." 3
This seems to present a very near parallel to the British evidence, and it is therefore worth while ascertaining what the
villages of these Naga terrace cultivators are like. They are
invariably built on the very summits of the hills, and are strongly
fortified with stockades, deep ditches and massive stone walls;
the hill-sides being thickly studded with pdnjis, a chevreux de
frise of sharp-pointed bamboo sticks planted in the ground. In
some cases, also, the slopes of the hill are cut away so as to
form a perpendicular wall. The approaches to the villages are
tortuous narrow covered ways only wide enough to admit the
passage of one man at a time; these lead to gates closed by
Richter, op. cit., p. I28.
2 Hunter's " Statistical Account of Assam," vol. ii. p. 185.
3 Journal Anthropological Institution, vol. iii. p. 478; vol. xi. p. 62;
Shortt's " HIill Tribes of South India," vol. v. p. 65.




CLAN FEUDS IN THE INDIAN HILL VILLAGES.


99


strong heavy wooden doors with look-outs, on which a sentry
is posted day and night when the clans are at feud. Very
often these approaches are deeply scarped, and the only means
of entry into the village is by means of a ladder, consisting of
a single pole, some 15 or 20 feet high, cut into steps. The
several clans, of which there are from two to eight in every
village, are frequently divided off by deep lanes and stone walls.
The cause of all this defensive work is a very well marked
feature of early tribal history, when each tribe was composed of
heterogeneous families, namely, the blood feud between clans.
Accordingly, we very seldom find the whole of one village at
war with the whole of another village, but almost invariably
clan is pitted against clan. Thus a village is often split up into
two hostile camps; one clan at deadly feud with another,
whilst a third lives between them in a state of neutrality, and
at perfect peace with both. The roads, connecting the several
villages, as well as the paths leading down to their cultivation,
are made with considerable skill; the more precipitous hills
turned with easy gradients.'
Rude as all this unquestionably is, there is nothing in this
description of clan life in India inconsistent with archaeological
remains in Britain. The fortifications described on the Cheviots
are as complete and intricate as those now existing on the
Naga Hills. On Yeavering Bell, where terrace cultivation
occurs, we find a guarded entrance remarkably like the Naga.
"The entrance of one fortlet is divided into two by a large
upright stone placed jambwise in the centre of it, and in the
thickness of the wall to the right of this entrance there is a
chamber"2 equivalent to the Naga sentinel chamber. Another
instance of tortuous protected entrances occurs at Hillsborough,
near Ilfracombe, where, nearly at the end of the protecting
banks, "the entrance presents a remarkable feature, for at the
outer bank it makes a return at right angles to its general
direction towards the inner, so that an enemy attempting to
IJournal Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. xliv. pp. 315-324; Hunter's
"Statistical Account of Assam," vol. ii. p. i83.
Gentleman's Magazine, I862, part ii. p. 456.




00 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


force an entrance would have to advance with the right side
exposed to the defenders;"I while again at Linhope, in
Northumberland, there "is a protected path leading down to
the neighbouring stream."2 It is impossible to do more per
haps than thus to indicate some parallels between the system
of hill fortification in India and Britain, but this is quite
sufficient to establish one more point of identity.
Finally, we have seen that the description of these hill
fortresses reveals, in Britain as in India, protected clan
homesteads, protected, therefore, because of clan blood
feuds. Again, we must remark that there is nothing in the
existing clan life of India inconsistent with the archaeological
remains at such places as Humbledon, Yeavering, and Arthur's
Seat. And if we enlarge our outlook to places where the
remains of hill settlements have been examined with some care,
we shall find evidence which confirms this idea. Thus a part of
Wansdyke presents a ditch and mound remaining very perfect.
" In following the course of the ditch (where Wansdyke can just
be traced to have entered the camp) round the western part, we
come to a spot where the hard compact nature of the rock has
been too much for the tools used in making the ditch, and
where the original workmen have been compelled to leave it
standing out of the ground. This shows that their instruments
were small, and only capable of splitting the rock where it was
already shivered and dislocated." And then we find that
" the divisions of the settlement are still distinctly visible. Each
family or clan had its allotted space, enclosed by a mound,
which probably carried on it a palisade, somewhat after the
manner of the divisions which exist in the pah of the New
Zealander. Remains of hut circles may be closely traced in
many portions." 3
Thus step by step we have traced out the position which
must be allotted to the remains of terrace cultivation in Britain,
and it seems to me to be impossible to turn aside the evidence
Gentleman's Magazine, I840, part ii. p. 489.
2 Ibid., 1865, part ii. p. 716.
3 Journal Archacological Association, vol. xiii. pp. 104-Io7.




PARALLELS IN BRITAIN AND INDIA.


IOI


which has been derived from structural formation and position,
and from comparative custom; all which proves the existence
in Britain of a hill folk who bear a relationship to the Aryan
occupiers of the valleys, exactly similar to that obtaining in
India, where races have not lost their special characteristics,
and are still marked off from each other instead of being
crushed out by the greater weight of nationality. And when
we come to test this evidence by the ascertained facts of man's
early life in Britain, we are met by Mr. Boyd Dawkins' prehistoric farmer of the Neolithic Age, whose characteristics and
position produced such vast changes in the history of prehistoric man, and whose descendants are to be traced in the
surviving Iberic populations,' a remnant of which may still be
HILL CULTIVATION AT BRYNGLAS.
found in Britain, and types of which are represented by the
hill tribes of Asia.
Another very interesting feature of agricultural usage may be
mentioned here. "On the hill of Brynglas, between the ravines
of Cwm Pysgottwr Fach and Cwm Pysgottwr Fawr, the hill
rises in a portion of its line to a conical form, and here the
corona is curiously ridged, and looks as if a furrow had been
drawn at right angles across the apex; and then on each side
of it other furrows made broad at the middle and gradually
narrowing as they came near the central one, until at last they
seemed to join each other and be carried continuously around
Boyd Dawkins, "Early Man in Britain," pp. 247, 369.




102 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


the hill-top in an enlarging circle. They are considered to be
remains of early ploughing; and Mr. Chidlow has met with
other examples of the same kind on this extensive range. In
connection with this it is interesting to compare what Sir John
Lubbock has written in his chapter on North American archaeology, relative to evidences of ancient agriculture in the state
of Wisconsin. In many places, he tells us, the ground is
covered with small mammillary elevations which are known
as Indian corn hills. They are without order of management,
being scattered over the ground with the greatest irregularity.
That these hillocks were formed in the manner indicated by
their name is inferred from the present custom of the Indians.
The corn is planted in the same spot each successive year, and
the soil is gradually brought up to the size of a little hill by the
annual additions (Lupham, c. i. p. I9). But Mr. Lupham has
also found traces of an earlier and more systematic cultivation.
These consist of low parallel ridges, as if corn had been planted
in drills. They average 4 feet in width, twenty-five of them
having been counted in the space of Ioo feet, and the
depth of the walk between them is about 6 inches. These
appearances, which are here denominated 'ancient garden
beds,' indicate an earlier and more perfect system of cultivation
than that which now prevails; for the present Indians do not
appear to possess the ideas of taste and order necessary to
enable them to arrange objects in consecutive rows. Traces
of this kind of cultivation, though not very abundant, are
found in several parts of the state. The garden beds are
of various sizes, covering generally from twenty to one hundred
acres; as a general fact they exist in the richest soil, as it is
found in the prairies and the bunoak plains. In the latter case
trees of the largest kind are scattered over them (p. 282).
Arguing fiom such analogies as this we may infer that the remains
on Brynglas belong to a very early period, and we are led to ask
Whether they may not have been the work of the builders of
the adjacent cairns, and of the occupants of the hut dwellings
on craig Twrch? The entire absence of metal, and indeed of
any implements whatever, removes them at once back beyond




NON-ARYAN SURVIVALS IN BRITAIN.


the range of history, and we can only assign them to the Stone
Age."2 
Thus, then, with the village communities dating back
in documentary evidence to the sixth century, we have
now turned by the aid of comparative custom to a still
older period.  And it seems probable that the village
communities in the valleys and plains must have existed
alongside of the ruder communities of the hills. Our next
step is to see if, after the conflict between the two races
(the non-Aryan and the successive waves of Aryan settlers)
had been succeeded by settlement, amalgamation had taken
place in Britain as it did in India. And it may be at once
stated that there are many signs in Britain, as there are many
absolute proofs in India, of this amalgamation. Mr. Elton has
noted some rude and barbarous customs surviving in folklore
which are non-Aryan; Mr. Beddoe has identified surviving
types of non-Aryan physiognomy; General Pitt-Rivers has
discovered a place of conflict between a short dwarfy people
and the Romans; Professor Rhys not only points out some
considerable remnants of the non-Aryan beliefs surviving in
Celtic heathendom, but absolutely identifies Druidism as a nonAryan cult; Professor Boyd Dawkins, as we have already seen,
points out that the non-Aryan farmer introduced the cereals
and some of the arts used by his Aryan successor; and I myself have sought to trace out evidence of the existence of
totemism in Britain by its survival in folklore-totemism being
primarily a non-Aryan cult, and obtaining among the hill
tribes of India who helped to form the Hindu village community. As the archaeological evidence in Britain reveals the
existence of a hill folk constituted like the non-Aryan hill
folk of India; as the points of contact between the Aryan and
non-Aryan races are revealed in the structure of the Indian
village community; and further, as the parallel between the
Indian village community and the English village community
is complete, it seems that we may quite properly turn to some
"Archzeologia Cambrensis," Fourth Series, vol. x. p. 60.




104 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


of the rural customs of England, and see if they do not reveal
traces of their non-Aryan origin through the parallel they bear
to the non-Aryan parts of the Indian village community.
Caesar, describing the attributes of the Druids, includes some
important characteristics which have a direct bearing on the
proposition before us. "They decide all controversies, public
and private; if a crime be committed, if a person be slain, if
succession to property or the boundaries of land be in question,
they determine the case and adjudge the awards and punishments " (lib. vi.). We see from this passage that the non-Aryan
Druid caste performed for the village community the following
functions:
(i) Settlement of controversies.
(2) Adjudging of crime.
(3) Settlement of succession [to property].
(4) Settlement of boundaries.
Now the appropriation of all these functions to a priestly
or sacred caste is opposed to Aryan sentiment.' Certainly
among the Hindus, the Greeks, the Romans, and, so late
down as Tacitus, the Germans, the house-father was priest
and judge in his own clan; and it is only amongst the rudest
of the so-called Celtic tribes that we find this superimposing of
an apparently official priesthood. But the suggestion of Professor Rhys that the cultus of the Druids bespeaks a nonAryan origin, supplies the most perfect explanation as to why
these functions should have been left in the hands of this caste.
Compare them with what we have already seen were the functions of the Kolarian tribal priests, and with the functions of
the aboriginal race of the lowest caste who always have charge
of the boundaries of the village community in India, and the
explanation is complete.  They supply us, in fact, with the
British evidence for what is so apparent in India, that the nonAryan races have forced upon their Aryan overlords a position
as priests to the still feared gods of nature. Some further
details on this subject show us the means whereby the earliest
non-Aryan settlers obtained a distinct place in the new life of
I Pictet, " Les Origines," vol. ii. p. 690.




POWER OF NON-ARYAN VILLAGERS IN INDIA.


105


the village community, when it had become an undergrade of
Aryan institutions.
About one half of the agricultural population of Bonai, near
the wildest part of Singbhoom, is of the Bhooya caste or race.
They are doubtless the oldest settlers, and it was from their
hands that the ancestor of the present Rajah first obtained his
insignia as chief. The Bamra and Gangpore Rajahs are
reported to have in the same manner derived their chieftainship from the Bhooya aborigines, and when a succession to
the Raj takes place in any of these districts the acknowledged
head of the Bhooya clan goes through a ceremony of making
over to the new' chief the country and the people. The
Bhooyas also have charge of the oldest temples and shrines,
and yet the temples are dedicated to the Hindu gods.'
The Kaurs (not strictly Hindus) have a yearly festival for
each of the gods they worship-Shiva and Parvati-and in
some villages there is a Baiga who offers sacrifices at these
festivals, but the Baiga is not a Kaur. He belongs to one of
the aboriginal tribes, and it is a remarkable feature in the
religious ceremonies of the people of the Tributary Mehals
that the aborigines should have a monopoly of such offices.
The new settlers dread the malignancy of the local spirits, and
to appease them naturally rely upon the aborigines who have
longest known them.2
Among the Badagas of the Nilgiri Hills it is the custom for
the low-caste Kurrumban to plough the first furrow, and give
his benediction to the field, without which there would be no
harvest, and he is again summoned when the season arrives to
reap the first handful of corn.3
Sir Walter Elliot has described the festival of the village
goddess, which is observed in every village of Southern India.
The object of this ceremony is intimately connected with the
preservation of boundaries, and it includes the sacrifice of a
buffalo, and the burial of a piece of the sacred animal in the
I yournal Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. xxxiv. (2), 2.  2 Ibid., p. 20.
3 Dubois, "Manners, &c., of the People of India," p. 343; King,
"Aboriginal Tribes of the Nilgiri Hills," p. 43.




106 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


lands of each of the villagers. The officiating priests are the
Pariahs, the low-caste tribe of village servants, who, on this
occasion, are exempt from the degrading condition which
excludes them from the village and from contact with the
inhabitants, and who afterwards retire to their hamlet outside
the town, and resume their humble servile character.'
It seems to me that these facts of Indian life, bringing into
distinct prominence the influence of non-Aryan people upon
the course of village history in India, should once more restore
an ethnological meaning to some of the apparently meaningless customs of rural England. Confining ourselves simply to
those that relate to the history of the village community, there
are at least two curious features in early constitutional history
and in surviving local custom which receive some kind of illustration from the Indian facts. The duality which everywhere
seems to mark Teutonic and Celtic chieftainship extends from
the village to the kingdom, and has attracted the notice of all
our writers. The office was, on the one hand, hereditarydescending from the deified ancestor in the eldest male line;
and, on the other hand, it was elective-chosen from the one
god-descended family. This dual characteristic of chieftainship is represented in English manorial law where, as the last
surviving example of Pamber in Hampshire fully shows, the
lordship of the manor was elective as well as hereditary.
Why may we not explain this dualism in custom   by the
dualism of race, each chieftain being (of course) hereditary
so far as his own tribesmen were concerned, elective so far
as his alien tribesmen were concerned? Such a hypothesis,
reasonable in itself, is confirmed by many unnoted phases
of peasant life which contribute much more information on
the facts of unwritten history than is generally admitted. Some
of these I shall proceed to note, but in the meantime I will
draw attention to Dr. Hearn's strongly supported suggestion
that the mass of the chief's dependents were not connected by
any tie of consanguinity with the clansmen of pure descent,
which helps to explain a very singular fact, the readiness with
J foirnal Ethnological Society of London, New Series, vol. i. pp. 96-Ioo.




PARALLEL CUSTOMS IN INDIA AND BRITAIN.


1o7


which the Celtic peasantry transferred their attachment to new
lords.'
We may now proceed to notice the many curious examples
which occur in England of the election of a village officer upon
some special day, and independently of the recognized officials.
This officer is generally known as the mock-mayor. Examples
are too numerous and too regular in all the details of old ceremonial observances to have arisen spontaneously all over the
country merely from local caprice, or merely as the local expression on newly imposed institutions. They have no connection
with a calendar festival, and they vary sufficiently to prove their
antiquity in some now forgotten ceremony which once had a
significance, the force of which is now lost. But the origin may
be still traced if my reading of comparative custom be correct.
If we examine some of the most curious examples, we are
struck by the extreme closeness with which they parallel Indian
customs.
One of the first objects on entering the village of St.
Germans (East Cornwall) is the large walnut-tree, at the
foot of what is called Nut-tree Hill. Many a gay May-fair has
been witnessed by the old tree. In the morning of the 29th
of the month, the mock mayor, who had been chosen with
many formalities, remarkable only for their rude and rough
nature, starting from some "bush-house " where be had been
supping too freely of the fair-ale, was mounted on wain or cart,
and drawn around it, to proclaim his pretended jurisdiction
over the ancient borough, until his successor was chosen at the
following fair.2
"Upon little Easter Sunday, the freeholders of the towne and
mannour of Lostwithiel, by themselves or their deputies did
there assemble, amongst whom one (as it fell to his lot by
turne), bravely apparelled, gallantly mounted, with a Crowne on
his head, a scepter in his hand, a sword borne before him, and
dutifully attended by all the rest also on horseback, ride thorow
the principal streete to the Church; there the Curate in his best
I Hearn's "Aryan Household," pp. 256, 257.
Hunt's "Drolls, &c., of Old Cornwall."




108 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


'beseene' solemne receiud him at the Church-yard stile, and
conducted him to heare diune seruice; after which he repaired
with the same pompe, to a house foreprouided for that purpose,
made a feast to his attendants, kept the table's end himselfe,
and was serued with kneeling, assay, and all other rites due to
the estate of a Prince; with which dinner the ceremony ended,
and every man returned home again." 
Ovingham Fair is on the 26th of April and the 25th of
October. The day after the October fair is called " Gwonny
Jokesane's day," why so is not known, and has been so
called since the recollection of the oldest living. A mayor is
elected, and carried in procession. On his advancing, his worship begins thus: " A yes! twe times a yes! an' three times a
yes! If ony man, or ony man's man, lairds, loons, lubberdoons,
dog-skelpers, gabbrigate swingers, shall commit a parliament as
a twarliament, we, in the township o' Ovingham, shall hev his
legs, an heed, tied to the cog-wheel, till he say yonce, twice,
thrice prosper the fair o' Ovingham, on gwonny Jokesane's
day." 2
The ceremony of choosing a mock mayor was also observed
at Penryn (near Falmouth), but it took place in the autumn, on
a day in September or October, when hazel nuts were ripe, and
" nutting day " was kept by the children and poor people. The
journeymen tailors went from Penryn and Falmouth to Mylor
parish, on the opposite side of the River Fal. There they made
choice of the wittiest amongst them to fill that office. His title
was the " Mayor of Mylor."  When chosen, he was borne in a
chair upon the shoulders of four strong men from his "goode
towne of Mylor " to his " anciente borough of Penryn." He
was preceded by torch-bearers and two town sergeants, in
gowns and cocked hats, with cabbages instead of maces, and
surrounded by a guard armed with staves. Just outside Penryn
he was met with a band of music, which played him into the
town.   Bonfires were lighted, and fireworks set off soon
I Carew's " Survey of Cornwall," p. 322.
2 " Jackson the Painter" in Hone's " Every Day Book," and see " Table
Book," Leg. Div. iii. p. I98, &c.




PARALLEL CUSTOMS IN INDIA AND BRITAIN.


Io09


after dusk. It was popularly supposed that this choosing of
a mock mayor was permitted by a clause in the town charter.'
A very curious carnival was originally held under a Lord
of Misrule, in July, on Halgaver Moor, near Bodmin, thus
quaintly described by Carew: "The youthlyer sort of Bodmin
townsmen vse to sport themselves by playing the box with
strangers whom they summon to Halgauer. The name signifieth the Goat's Moore, and such a place it is, lying a little
without the towne, and very full of quanemires. When these
mates meet with any rawe seruing-man or other young master,
who may serue and deserue to make pastime, they cause him
to be solemnely arrested, for his appearance before the Maior of
Halgauer, where he is charged with wearing one spurre, or
going vntrussed, or wanting a girdle, or some such felony.
After he had been arraygned and tryed, with all requisite circumstances, iudgement is given in formal terms, and executed in
some one vngracious pranke or other, more to the skorne than
hurt of the party condemned. Hence is sprung the prouerb when
we see one slouenly appareled to say he shall be presented at
Halgauer Court (or take him before the Maior of Halgauer).
But now and then they extend this merriment with the largest,
to preiudice of ouer-credulous people, persuading them to fight
with a dragon lurking in Halgauer, or to see some strange
matter there, which concludeth at least with a trayning them
into the mire." 2
On the third day of the patron festival at Polperro there is a
"mayor-choosing, never a valid ceremony, but a broad burlesque.
The person who is chosen to this post of mimic dignity is
generally some half-witted or drunken fellow, who, tricked out
in tinsel finery, elects his staff of constables, and these, armed
with staves, accompany his chariot (some jowter's [huckster's]
cart, dressed with green boughs) through the town, stopping at
each inn, where he makes a speech full of large promises to his
listeners, of full work, better wages, and a liberal allowance of
beer during his year of mayoralty. He then demands a quart
FolkloreJournal, vol. iv. p. 241.
2 Carew's " Survey of Cornwall," pp. 126, 127.




IIO NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


of the landlord's ale, which is gauged with mock ceremony, and
if adjudged short of measure is, after being emptied, broken on
the wheel of the car. Having completed the perambulation of
the town, his attendants often make some facetious end of the
pageant by wheeling the mayor in his chariot with some impetus
into the tide." '
Other places may be noted as observing these singular
customs. At Leigh, in Lancashire, near the church tower, on
an open space, a townsman was annually chosen to be Lord
Mayor for the day of election only, and he was carried through
the town.2  At Hanley,3 and at Mold,4 other examples occur.
At Kidderminster formerly occurred a custom which, taking
place at the election of Bailiff, falls into this group of customs.
The town is for one hour in the hands of the populace, who
meet and throw cabbage stalks at one another, and who afterwards gather together in order to pelt the newly elected bailiff
and his official procession with apples.5
These customs, now reduced to the apparent foolishness of
village frolics, will bear both scientific analysis and comparison.
Although some of them are accounted for in the popular mind
by some historical legend of lost chartered rights, this cannot
account for all their peculiar characteristics. Not only do
they present us with examples of the old village-moot assembling in the open air under a tree, and of the significant
procession in the wain, but they parallel those significant ceremonies in India, when on special days the non-Aryan castes of
the village meet together, elect their own leader, and take possession in wild and riotous freedom of the entire village. All
the vagaries and nonsense practised at these festivals in India
are so many symbolical expressions of the power of the nonAryan tribes during the admitted period of licence. There is
no reason why in Britain they should not express, in survival,
Couch's " History of Polperro," p. I59.
2 Leigh Chronicle, May 29, I88o.
3 Notes and Queries, Sixth Series, vol. vi. p. 77.
4 " Cambro Briton," vol. i. p. 259.
5 Gentleman's Magazine, 1790, p. I191.




DEVELOPMENT OF ARYAN LORDSHIP.


III


the same village festival with all its significant ethnic symbolism.
It would be impossible now to enter minutely into the comparisons these curious customs bear towards savage customs still
obtaining in India, but I will give some few examples.
Grimm has dealt with the significance of the wain, or waggon,
as a vehicle for some of the gods of heathen Teutonism;' but
it is certainly older than the Aryan cults. In the Masulipitam
district of Southern India the village goddess was carried round
the boundaries in a car, each corner of which was surmounted
by a sharp wooden spike, on which a lamb was impaled alive,
and four sucking pigs in the middle.2 This was one of the old
village festivals where, as we have noted above, the non-Aryan,
out-caste tribes, act as priests. Now, in the villages of Southern
India, a sacred buffalo is dedicated to the village, goddess, and
its head is carried in procession, and Sir Walter Elliot points out
how clearly this is a modification of the more primitive Khond
practice of sacrificing a human being to the village goddess.
Noting that the sacrifice of human beings has always been attributed to the Druid cult, noting, too, that sending the victim out
to the mercy of the waves was a common form of such sacrifice, is it too much to suggest that the Polperro custom of
wheeling the mock mayor in his chariot to the sea and there
dipping him in is a modern relic of the more ancient sacrifice?
Is it again too much to suggest that the attack upon the newly
elected chief officer at Kidderminster is paralleled by similar
customs recorded in ancient Corinthia 3 and in modern Africa? 4
When the history of the rise of the Aryan " lord" comes to be
written, it will be found that such symbolic actions as this
tell us much of his early power and position, which were
derived not from his own tribesmen, among whom he was
simply primnus inter pares, but from those servile class of non"Teutonic Mythology," vol. i. pp. 107, 213, 252.
2 Journal Ethnological Society, New Series, vol. i. p. Ioo.
3 Auban, "De Moribus Gentium." Ulster Journal Archetology, vol. v.
p. 217.
4 Du Chaillu, " Equatorial Africa," p. g9.




112 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


Aryans who assisted him towards an independent position in
the community.
For further illustration of this subject it will be necessary to
turn to another phase of the South-Indian village festival, where
the non-Aryan tribes act as priests. The buffalo procured by
the Pariah priest is thrown down before the goddess, its head
struck off by a single blow, and placed in front of the shrine,
with one fore-leg thrust into its mouth. Around are placed
vessels containing the different cereals, and hard by a heap of
mixed grains, with a drill plough in the centre. The carcass
is then cut ul) into small portions, and each cultivator receives
a portion to bury in his field. Afterwards a great number of
buffaloes and several hundred sheep are slain as private
offerings by the different families. On the last day of the
festival the heap of grain deposited in front of the temple is
divided among all the cultivators, to be buried by each one in
his field with the bit of flesh. After this a distribution of the
piled-up heads is made, a fearful scramble taking place among
the candidates for the honour.'.
Remembering that this festival takes place among the Aryan
villagers of India, though the heads of it all are the non-Aryan
out-caste tribes, we will now summarize its chief features:
(I) Sacrifice of the buffaloes and sheep.
(2) Dedication of cereals.
(3) Burial of flesh and cereals in the fields.
(4) Scramble for the head-trophies.
It is scientifically probable, and by the proof of examples it
has been demonstrated, that folklore, if it retains any relics of
such rude practices as these, might retain the several parts of
the one ceremony at different places and under different conditions. It would be too much to expect that so savage a ritual
could have survived in all completeness in English villages,
though it has in Indian villages. But we may possibly pick up
the fragments, and we proceed to show where these fragments
may be sought for.
I. Adam of Bremen (iv. 27) mentions that at Upsala, the
I Journal Ethnological Society, New Series, vol. i. pp. 98, 99.




SURVIVAL OF NON-ARYAN CUSTOMS.


I13


very centre of Teutonic idolatry, the heads of male animals
were offered up to the divinities; and Grimm has many notes
upon the practice. If we turn to the letter of Pope Gregory
the Great to Bishop Mellitus, in A.D. 60r, we find him saying
that the English nation have been used to slaughter many oxen
in the sacrifices to devils.I
2. Of the dedication of cereals there are too many wellknown examples in English folklore to need setting down
here, but their connection with animals was not so well recognized until Mr. J. G. Fraser pointed out the instances where
the last sheaf of corn at harvest-time was sometimes known by
the name of an animal.2 What was the custom at harvest
might well be duplicated from the spring festival.
3. In that curious piece of Anglo-Saxon ritual which
explains how the restoration of fertility to land was accomplished by our ancestors, the ceremony was concluded by
taking meal of every kind, baking it into a broad loaf, kneading
it with milk and holy water, and depositing it under the first
furrow 3-practices which have survived among peasant beliefs
to modern times.4
4. At the village of Holne, in Devonshire, is a field of about
two acres, the property of the parish, called Ploy field. In the
centre stands a granite pillar, 6 feet or 7 feet high. On May
morning, before daybreak, the young men of the village used
to assemble there, and then proceed to the moor, where they
selected a ram, and after running it down, brought it in triumph
to the Ploy field, fastened it to the pillar, cut its throat, and
then roasted it whole, skin, wool, &c. At midday a struggle
took place, at the risk of cut hands, for a slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing year on the fortunate
devourer.5
From these folklore fragments I suggest we may yet dis-:over and piece together the surviving relics of the savage
"Beda," lib. i. cap. xxx.  2 bolpkore Journal, vol. vii. p. 48.
3 " Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms," vol. i. p. 405.
4 Gregor, "Folklore of Scotland," p. S8I.
s Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. vii. p. 353.
9




114 NON-ARYAN ELEMENTS IN ENGLISH VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


ceremony which took place in Aryan village communities, because of their retention of the non-Aryan tribes in their midst.
Collectively they afford a very near parallel to the South
Indian practices when non-Aryan villagers are allowed to
assert their old rights, and the suggestion is that they form the
detritus in England of an old non-Aryan festival which has
been preserved by these scattered fragments from absolute
abolition.
Many parallels suggest themselves in the local festivals
of all Aryan countries.  Among classical references it is
curious to note that in the Anthesterian Dionysia, called
the waggon revel, the objurgations and abuse of the upper
classes were delivered from a waggon; while a still more
significant coincidence with the English survivals at Holne,
in Devonshire, was the sacrifice of a kid or fawn, which
was torn in pieces for some mystical or unknown reason. This
Devonshire custom receives further illustration from another
source. Referring back to the Badaga custom of the Nilgiri
Hills, at the first ploughing, let us note how, with the addition
of more minute details, it serves to illustrate the folklore of
our island.  Captain Harkness, in his account of the first
ploughing, describes the low-caste Kurrumbar as setting up a
stone in the midst of the fields, prostrating himself before it,
and sacrificing a goat to it, of which goat he possessed himself of the head.' These details are not given by the other
authorities; but it will be at once observed that they illustrate
some of the details of the savage practice at Holne, in Devonshire, and possibly afford a clue to the origin of this singular
custom, especially when we note from the evidence in Scotland
that a grey stone is associated with the act of reaping.2
One further subject seems worthy of noting in this place.
Mr. Seebohm has observed, as a common feature of English
village lands, that little odds and ends of unused land have
from time immemorial been called "no man's land," or "any
one's land," or "Jack's land."  I conceive these to be what
Harkness, "Nilgherry Hills," p. 56.
Gregor, " Folklore of North-East Scotland," pi 18i.




NO MAN'S LAND.


II5


Mr. Henderson has noted in Scotland, under a more definite
category. Cloutie's croft, he says, or the gudeman's field, consisted of a small portion of the best land set apart by the
inhabitants of most Scottish villages as a propitiatory gift to
the devil, on which property they never ventured to intrude.
It was dedicated to the devil's service alone, being left untilled
and uncropped, and it was reckoned highly dangerous to break
up by tillage such pieces of ground. In several places in
Devonshire similar patches of ground are also found.' The
explanation of them comes from the non-Aryan villagers of
India. A surna among the aborigines of Gangpore is a fragment of the primitive forest left where the first clearance was
made, as a refuge for the sylvan deities whom the clearing
might have disturbed.2  Every family among the Coorgs has
some spot on the estate, in a retired part of the jungle land,
where a sacrifice of a fowl is offered every year to the departed by the living members of the house.3
From all these subjects of investigation we have obtained, so
far at least as my judgment goes, a not inconsiderable body of
evidence as to the existence of a non-Aryan element in the
village communities of Britain.  Over and over again the
certain evidence of these race distinctions which is forthcoming
from the unamalgamated elements in Indian villages, finds a
parallel among the existing archaeological and traditional facts
of English villages, and my contention is that the parallel must
be true all along the line-must therefore tell us of the old
race origins of the English village life. I do not, of course,
suggest that the actual performers in these village rites are nonAryan people, or the descendants of such. Blood descent
from the old races cannot be identified except in some few
isolated cases. But customs die hard: they continue long after
their meaning and origin have been lost, and long after the
descendants of their original performers have passed away from
their class or caste, and become amalgamated with the nationality.
I Henderson's " Folklore of Northern Counties," p. 278.
Journal of Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. xxxiv. (2), p, Io;
3 Richter's " Manual of Coorg," p. 164.




CHAPTER V.


THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.
VERY little systematic attempt has been made to trace out the
growth of the various beliefs among early man as to the
sacredness of the homestead.  One has to dig deep down
in human history before coming upon the possible origins
of such a cult; but it certainly appears as a special feature of
Aryan religious thought that the homestead, containing the
sacred hearth of the family, was a hallowed spot, where no one
but members of the family might intrude, and where members
of the family partook of their common meal, performed their
common rites, and worshipped their common ancestor. Some
of this old tribal cult has to this day survived among the
peasantry of Britain.
It has already been noted that the Aryan house, in its
primitive structural form, has survived in Britain, and I quoted
the remarkable example in Gloucestershire as probably a perfect
specimen. I shall have occasion to note hereafter some particular specimens of house-structure in connection with certain
types of the village community with which we shall be dealing.
But it will be best to collect in this chapter some few notes on
the other examples of these primitive houses, for they mark
the outward form into which the most important part of the
village system fitted. The common fields and the pasture
ground make up only a part of this outward form. Much more
significant are the dwelling places, because they have a story to
tell altogether independent of that told by the open fields
around them, and relating to a phase of old village life which
l:as to do with some of the most essential relics of primitive




THE LORD S HOMESTEAD.


I I7


times. Before dealing with the house religion which made
every village homestead its temple, we will examine some of
the structural features of these homesteads. The importance
of these in their relationship to the primitive house religion
we shall presently see.
Much has been said about the lord of the village community.
The extent of serfdom has been measured not only by its own
characteristics, but by the power and position of the lord under
whom and for whom the serfdom is supposed to have developed.  Well, let us look at the lord in his village home.
There is much to show us that his position was by no means
one of undefined power: he had rights in the village but duties
also. At Pamber, in Hampshire, the fact of his election as
village chief was transmitted through manorial records to
modern times. Mr. Peacock has noted instances in Lincolnshire where the lord was fined for non-fulfilment of his village
duties, and Mr. Grange has given an example of how the fine
was to be levied and how distributed.'
Apart, however, from these incidental evidences of his
equality in the village system, the fact of his home being but
little removed from the homes of his co-villagers is of great
significance. The Gloucestershire example shows neither great
wealth nor great advance beyond the primitive villager. Mr.
Baring-Gould has given us further evidence by closely
inspecting some fifteenth-century examples of domestic
architecture near his own house-examples which show that a
clay-walled cottage under thatch represents an ancient family
mansion of a grand squirearchical race four hundred years ago.
Mr. Baring-Gould goes on with his description of such houses
in a manner which for my purpose does not bear curtailing,
and I must quote a rather lengthy passage from him about a
fifteenth-century example. He says it "has stained-glass coats of
arms in the hall window. This house has been used as a farmhouse for three hundred years at least, but it was originally the
seat of an influential county family. Now, what are its
arrangements? There is a porch; from the porch you enter
I Atfzentzm, November 21, 1885; September 25, I886.




118   THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


the hall, with a huge fireplace and stained-glass in the windows;
but do not imagine a baronial hall, but a low room, 7 feet
to the rafters, unceiled. Behind this a lean-to back kitchen,
which, I suspect, is a later addition. Beside the porch a dairy
and larder. A winding stair of stone, and you reach the
bedroom. I say the bedroom, because positively there was


\2 ilQ;37\VVJ —  L I
3-i-L~ -?~1
8sY
-- g
g
 —" o2i
Vh —

c       QzZ


A MANOR HOUSE, EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(From a MS. in the Record Office.)
only one, with a huge six-light window opening into it, over the
porch, dairy, and hall. In the hall the family sat-squire,
ladies, serving-men, and maids; upstairs-let us trust with
some sort of screen between them-the whole community
slept in one room. In Queen Anne's time this arrangement
was too primitive even for the farmer, and an additional wing




THE LORD'S HOMESTEAD.


II9


was erected, with a drawing-room below and a second bedroom
upstairs. But no, I am, perhaps, wrong in thinking and
asserting that the entire family of squire and retainers pigged
upstairs in one room; on further consideration, I believe that
the serving-men lay on the benches and in the straw on the
floor, and slept about the fire of the hall; and very probably so
did the sons of the squire. Upstairs he had his four-poster
with curtains round, but the daughters and servant-girls had
their uncurtained truckle bedsteads in the same room.
"An advance was made when partitions were erected, constituting a series of bedrooms; but even then all the rooms
communicated with each other. Usually this was the arrangement-In the centre of the house, upstairs, at the stair head,
slept the squire and his wife; on the right hand, through a
door, marched the sons and serving-men to their beds; and
through a door on the left hand trotted the daughters and the
maid-servants to their beds.
"In a will in Somerset House as late as I652 a gentleman
leaves his dwelling-house to his son Thomas, 'and my will is
that Joan, my daughter, shall have free ingress, egress, and
regress to the bedd in the chambre wherein she now lyeth, so
long as she continueth unmarried,' which is explicable enough
when we understand how the bedrooms opened one out of
another, and how the master of the house commanded the
approach to them by sleeping at the head of the stairs.
" In the parish of Little Hempston, near Totnes, is a perfect
example of a house of the time of Richard II. It was
probably a manor house of the family of Arundell, but was
given to the church and became the parsonage.    It is
absolutely unaltered, and is of extraordinary interest. It
consists of a quadrangle, with building on all four sides, but
the central court is only about 20 feet by  2 feet, into
which all the windows look from sunless rooms. The only
exception is the hall window, which has a southern outlook.
The hall was heated by a brazier in the centre, and the smoke
went out at a louvre in the roof. There was one gloomy
parlour, with a fireplace in it, opening out of this hall. All the




120   THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


rest of the quadrangle was taken up with kitchen, porter's
lodge, cellar, and stables. Upstairs, one long dormitory.
"The hall window for long remained a prominent feature.
Often it forms a bay, and in the side of it may frequently be
found a lavatory. The ladies of the house sat in this window
at their needlework, whilst in the smaller houses the cooking
went on at the hall fire. The hall served as kitchen, diningroom, parlour, and bedroom for the men. In Elizabeth's reign
the bay of the hall window became more prominent, and was
even sometimes cut off from the hall by panelling. The
ceiling of this bay is low, whereas that of the hall is high. The
ladies began to look to their comforts, but they had no separate
fire in this bower. If their fingers became cold, they had to
run into the hall and warm them at the common fire. Then,
still later, came parlours as distinct rooms, generally on the
side of the hall opposite to the entrance, and often forming a
wing projecting at right angles.
"At first all houses of any consequence affected the quadrangle; but the dwelling-house formed only one side of the
quadrangle; the other sides were occupied by stables, cowhouses, barns, and lodge. The windows all looked into the
yard.  When, however, this   arrangement ceased to be
necessary, because of the greater security in the country, the
owners pulled down their farm buildings and reconstructed them
behind the house, so that they might have a little sun look in
at their windows, and a little prospect out of them other than
at heaps of stable manure and the walls and roofs of cowhouses. There still remain, however, in certain districts on
the borders of Dartmoor, a number of the early manor houses
thus constructed and quite unaltered, left unaltered because
their protection is needed from the boisterous gales. When
the farm buildings before the house were removed, the house
itself presented a perfectly plain straight front, occasionally
with projecting porch, but not usually. The projecting porch
was erected later, because the front entrance was exposed by
the removal of the farm   buildings.  Eliminating these
erections, the earliest houses of Henry III.'s reign were plain




THE VILLAGER'S HOMESTEAD.


121


long buildings. Then a porch was added. Next, at right
angles, a set of superior apartments, or a parlour, was erected,
and the house was changed to the shape of a capital F.
Increased wealth and need of accommodation, fashion, and
compliment to the reigning Sovereign, made the house assume
the shape of H or E. But the old quadrangles-very smallremain often where least expected. They have been glazed
over and turned into a central staircase." 
__               _
i       iiL=<=I- i I
ELIZABETHAN COPYHOLD HOUSE.
(From a MS. in the Reco d Office.)
Such being the lord's homestead, we will now note those of
the other villagers. Mr. Hubert Hall has reproduced from
MS. sources elevations of old copyhold houses and barns from
which it may be seen that the red-tiled, pointed roofs of our
country villages are descendants of the earlier homesteads.2
These facts may be further tested by reference to some well-known
works on architecture, and I would refer to Mr. Niven's notes on houses in
Shakspere's time, in Furnival's edition of Harrison's "Description of
England."
2 Hall's "Elizabethan Society," p. 36.




122   THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


In southern and middle England these houses are all situated
in villages. Thus an old agricultural writer says, "in Northamptonshire, as well as in the greater part of England, the
farmers still live crowded together in villages or townships." I


i


F I RST


I


LO OR 


I


I


t


1-L =  I. -h — -N




rho


1.0


N~ l COTTAC EC


PLANS OF SURREY COTTAGES.
In Wiltshire "the houses are crowded together in villages.
Every yard-land has its farm-house, its yard for cattle, its barns
and its stables, and the owner resided upon it." 2  In Rutland
I Donaldson's "Agriculture of Northamptonshire," pp. 38, 43.
2 Davis, "Agriculture of Wilts," p. 9.




THE VILLAGER'S HOMESTEAD.


123


"the houses are situated in townships, not upon the farms." 
In Surrey the houses were always detached from the farm in
townships.2 In Lincolnshire the inhabitants were "collected
in villages and hamlets, and almost every house you see is
inhabited by a farmer, the proprietor of his farm, scattered
about in the open fields" surrounding the village.3 What these
village houses were in construction may be gathered by turning
to Mr. Nevill's recently published work on Surrey cottages, from
which it appears that "the normal plan of the oldest cottages
was a simple parallelogram containing one room on the ground
floor, and one on the upper floor" 4 exactly, that is to say, the
same as the plan and construction of the lord's house. A
century ago, says another authority, many sets of farm buildings
consisted of oblong blocks adjoining the farmyard, the
dwelling being at one end of the block and separated from the
out-buildings by a covered passage.5 In Lancashire thereseems to be some evidence that the houses were congregated
together in enclosed folds for the purposes of defence. At a
place called Tetlow fold, Mr. R. Wood has noted that the
farmers seemed to combine for mutual protection, building
their houses and farm buildings, so as to enclose them on
every side, with the exception of a large doorway for access and
exit. These buildings all faced inwards, and originally there
were no back-doors, so that when the cattle were shut in at
nights and a good dog left to watch, the inhabitants of the
houses considered themselves tolerably safe. But if the
marauders considered themselves strong enough to venture on
a night attack, the farmers and their sons and servants and
labourers would muster up twenty or thirty men, all trained to
the use of the bow and quarterstaff, and it would take a much
stronger force to drive them out of their den.
Bearing in mind what has been said about the mode of
Crutchley's "Agriculture of Rutland," p. 21.
2 Malcolm's "Compendium of Modern Husbandry," vol. i. p. Io6.
3 Stone's "Agriculture of Lincoln," p. I7.
4 Nevill's " Old Cottage Architecture of South-west Surrey," p. Io.
S Dickinson's "Qumbriana," p. I97.




124   THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMIUNITY.


occupation of the lowland villages, this is remarkable evidence,
and it will be borne out by some subsequent facts which are to
be noted later on.
It will be anticipated that in Ireland this primitive state of
things will be most fully represented. But I think the following account with its curious facts about the position of the
fireplace and the absence of chimneys, will give us a clearer
idea of the archaeological value of this information than is
generally recognized. "The term cabin is applied to houses of
a single story, having one, two, and in some instances as many
as four divisions on the ground floor, which is the only one.
There is seldom more than one fireplace, which is commonly
in the largest or family room. Sometimes the walls are formed
of clay, sometimes of stones. About thirty of these cabins
within the town of Boyle might be classed as destitute of
chimneys, that is, of chimneys appearing above the thatch of
the roof, and it was not easy to distinguish between those
which had a hole cut in the thatch for the escape of the smoke,
and those which had no passage for it but the house door or
window." I
As evidence of the state of economical development, these
village structures are extremely interesting; they show us the
lord's place in the village system. Clearly he belonged to it
and formed an essential integer in the composite system; he
was not above it, belonging to another system. The examples
hitherto examined explain to us the homesteads of the village
community, and it is remarkable that when we examine the
homesteads of the tribal community there is practically no
difference in structure. The type house of the village community is square, and Henning has proved in his work, "I as
Deutsche Haus," that the same type exists in Germany. The
type house of the tribal community is also square, and Mr.
Seebohm has pointed out its resemblance to the Gothic
cathedral. There is one other feature to note, namely, that the
homestead was composed, not of one house under one roof,


I "Statistical Survey of Roscommon," p,. 89.




SHEALNGS IN SCOTLAND.


I25


but of a group of houses under separate roofs, the principal
house always being the living house.'
An example of the tribal homestead may be cited: "A
farmer's mains, as they were called, consisted formerly of a set
of low buildings in the form of a square.  One side was
occupied by the master himself, whose habitation was composed
of two or three dismal apartments on an earthen floor, having
a low ceiling and a few diminutive lights. On another side
stood the barn; in which the roof timbers were built into the
wall from the foundation.  Opposite to the barn were the
stables and the byre or cow-house.  The cottages occupied
the remaining side; in the midst of all lay the dunghill. These
buildings were made of turf and stone alternating, or with
stone, and clay for mortar-the roof of thatch, or of thatch
and divot (turf or sods) intermixed. It was also very common
to have a number of these farm-houses placed together in a
village." 2
It is the custom in some districts of Scotland for the people
to retire in the summer to temporary residences or shealings
for the purpose of herding the cattle at their summer pasturage.
These shealings are commonly spoken of as beehive houses,
and at one time were no doubt the permanent residences of
early tribesmen. Dr. Mitchell has dealt with the subject of
beehive houses in a very instructive manner in his excellent
work, "The Past in the Present"; but he has not noted that
they supply us with the necessary examples of the round
structure figured on the column of Antoninus as typical of the
Gaulish house, and on the column of Aurelius as typical of the
house of the German barbarians. Not only do these shealings
remind us of the shifting characteristics of tribal society, but
they also appear to me to represent the stage of tribal development when the group living together were a band of descendants from a common ancestor. Thus they are often to be
found, not singly and isolated, but joined together in groups.
' See Sullivan's "Introduction to O'Curry's Lectures," vol. i. p. ccc.
2 Robertson's "Agriculture of Midlothian," p. 31; Lowe's " Agriculture
of Berwick," p. 62; Smith's " Agriculture of Argyle," pp. I7, 19.




126   THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


The first group described by Dr. Mitchell' consists of
two beehive houses, making two apartments opening into
each other.   "Though    externally the two  blocks looked
round in their outline, and were, in fact, nearly so, internally
the one apartment might be described as irregularly round, and
the other as irregularly square." The floor space of one was
about 6 feet square, and of the other 6 feet by 9 feet. But this
union of beehive huts is extended to a greater number than
two. A remarkable instance of this is described and figured by
Dr. Mitchell.2 It has several entrances, and would acconimodate many families, who "might be spoken of as living in one
mound rather than under one roof."   Looking at the ground
plan of these beehive huts as figured by Dr. Mitchell, one
cannot resist the conclusion that the cluster has grown up by
accretion, as it were; that it has been added to by the beehive
men to meet the increased wants of the primitive family who
resided in it. One other form of the beehive hut I must
notice here.  Dr. Mitchell says the ruins of it are still older,
still more complex, than any to be seen in South Uist.  Its
interior is round, and measures 28 feet in diameter. Within this
area there are ten piers or pillars formed of blocks of dry-stone
masonry.   The stones are entirely undressed and of every
possible size and shape, and there is no evidence of the use of
any tool by the builders. This beehive house would accommodate from forty to fifty people.3
We are a long way from civilization in these summer
shealings of eighteenth-century Scottish farmers. They represent in the most practical manner the force of traditional usage
upon the ways of man when no disturbing force arises to break
up such usage. But the history of the village community in
Britain is not perfect if we do not consider their place among
" " Past in the Present," p. 69.       2 Ibid., p. 64.
3 Ibid., pp. 68, 69; for the sites of old villages of beehive formed houses,
I would refer the reader to Boyd Dawkins' " Early Man in Britain," p.
267; Archeeological yournzal, vol. xxiv. p. 229; King, " Munimenta
Antiqua," pp. 12-5; Rowland, " Mona Antiqua," pp. 25-27; " Archaeological Association," vol. xviii. p. Ig9; Stevens, "Flint Chips."




PRIMITIVE HOME ECONOMY.


127


the survivals which take us back to past ages. It may well be
that the lowland types of the village community, as at Hitchin,
at Winslow, or at those other places which we shall presently
consider, have advanced beyond the most primitive type.
They have been situated in the midst of the struggle which has
led through feudalism to civilization. But on the outskirts of
our land, village communities have remained crystallized, and
they represent not only the degree of non-interference with
primitive institutions which has been possible under the governments in Britain, but the point from which other survivals
subject to much interference must have developed.
The internal home economy is just as simple and rude as
the external structure. We read that "they had a window
on each side, which they opened or shut as the wind blew,
to give them light. These windows they stopped with straw
or fern. When they kindled a fire they lived in a constant
cloud of smoke. They had no standing beds, but slept on
heath and straw, covered with the coarsest blankets, upon
the floor. They kept their cattle in the same house with
themselves tied to stakes in one end of the house. Their
furniture consisted of stools, pots, wooden kogs, and bikkers.
At their meals they eat and supped together out of one
dish.  Each person in the family had a short-hafted spoon
made of horn, which they called a munn, with which they
supped, and carried it in their pocket or hung it by their
side. They had no knives and forks, but used their fingers." I
This picture represents not a going back to barbarism, but an
absolute non-advance from barbarism. It is this side of the
question which must be considered most strongly in connection
with our present subject. A group of men living under conditions of domestic economy and village or tribal economy
which betray how they have kept themselves back during the
time that others have been advancing, tells as much of the past
history of the whole nation as the archeological remains which
lie scattered on the hill-tops and plains.  And we cannot
ignore them in seeking for the origin of institutions in these
Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland," vol, ix. pp. 325-326.




128   THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE CONMMUNITY.


islands. I have already stated that one of the subjects to be
taken into account is the survival of the old domestic hearth cult
which occurs in folklore, and which must have come down from
the village community; and it appears to me we shall be less
reluctant to admit the possibility of these survivals if we point
to such surroundings as these we have just examined as the
home of the old religion.
Some passages in Bede reveal the fact that the villages in his
time were much as they have been described in the preceding
pages.  The story of Germanus having found shelter in a
villager's house, and so preserved it from the fire which destroyed all the other houses in the village, reveals the collection
of the homesteads into villages instead of in tribal homesteads
(lib. i. cap. xix.); while the story of the sanctity shown by the
earth taken from St. Oswald's grave not only shows us the
village homestead, but reveals at least one important feature of
primitive house life, namely, the situation of the central fire in
the middle of the room (lib. iii. cap. x.)-an arrangement
prevalent in Scotland so recently as the latter part of the last
century.'
Following up this clue, it will be found that our examination
of the village house structure in England leads us to perceive
that it is intimately connected with the primitive Aryan principle of the sacredness of the homestead.  The group of
buildings making up the homestead is centred round that
portion which contains the sacred house-fire, and it has been
remarked with truth that " it is no fanciful metaphor to say
that the house-fire is the seed out of which the house has
grown." If the architecture of the old village homestead
reveals this much to us, custom tells us something more. The
preservation of the old chimney-stack of ancient dwellings
while all else has been rebuilt and the right of house-bote
attached thereto; the old tenure locally called "keyhole"
tenure in Hampshire, by which, if a squatter could build a
house or hut in one night, and get his fire lighted before
the morning, he could not be disturbed; the demolition of
Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. viii. p. 510.




THE PRIMITIVE HEARTH CULT.


I29


the homestead as a sign of loss of village rights,' taken in connection with a law of Canute which lays it down that housebreaking is an inexpiable crime, punishable only with death;
seem to me to connect the house unmistakably with the old
hearth cult. And the importance of this as a potent force in
keeping together old forms of society may be to some extent
measured if we bear in mind what Dr. Hearn has so strongly
and ably set forth of Aryan society, that "it was not the tie of
blood, or of family habit, or of superior physical force that
held men together, but the far more potent bond of a common
worship.  Those who worshipped the same gods were relatives." 2
We may now turn to another source of evidence-custom
and usage-and see what relics have been preserved of the old
hearth cult of the homestead.
Of the worship of ancestors as it affects the law of inheritance, Sir Henry Maine has already stated the principal
features from the Indian evidence.3 Mr. Elton has supplied
much of the English evidence, concluding that "the oldest
customs of inheritance in England and Germany were, in their
remote beginnings, connected with a domestic religion, and
based upon a worship of ancestral spirits, of which the hearthplace was essentially the shrine and altar;" 4 and he goes on
to suggest an explanation of the prevalence of junior-right and
its connection with the hearth cult, which is of peculiar interest
to the view we have been considering as to the origin of the
village community, namely, that this form of succession is due
to a race of pre-Aryans, traces of which are still to be made
out in the populations of Europe.
An analysis of the customs which attended the primitive
hearth cult shows us that the sacred fire on the hearth was
never allowed to go out; that the ritual attendant upon
marriage, birth, and death centred round the sacred fire; that
Archaeological Review, vol. iv. p. 366.
2 Hearn's "Aryan Household," p. 27.  3 "Early Law and Custom."
4 "Origins of English History," p. 216; cf. cap. xxxviii. of Ine's laws,
"Let the kin hold the homestead until it [the child] be grown up."
IO




130


THE HOMESTEAD OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


offerings to the ancestral god at the hearth were made from
the food of the household; and that the hearth represented
to its early worshippers the source of all their happiness and
prosperity.
The Laws of Ireland have preserved for us the earliest relic
of this cult, setting it forth that "the Brughfer should have an
ever-living fire."  How this ever-living fire is represented in
folklore I have already shown in my work on "Folklore
Relics of Early Village Life." Spenser observes that in Ireland
at the kindling of the fire and the lighting of candles they say
certain prayers, and use some other [superstitious] rites, which
show that they honour the fire and the light;2 and an early
writer of this century affirms the same of Scotland; 3 while in
England the verse of Shakespeare, Herrick, and other poets
has preserved the same practices. That the oldest rituals of
the marriage ceremony, of baptism, and of burial were centred
round the hearth in Britain, as also in India, is proved by frequent examples perfectly preserved in folklore, all of them
together making up an exact parallel to those facts of the early
Aryan world which Dr. Hearn has so well described from
sources other than British. Among the Irish there is an expression "the breaking of cinders," meaning to charge and
confirm guilt on a man at his own hearth, so that his fire,
which represents his honour, is broken up into cinders-the
trampling of a man's cinders being one of the greatest insults
which could be offered to him, as it conveyed the idea of guilt,
not only of the individual himself, but also of his family and
household; 4 and when we note how this is parallelled by the
English proverbial expressions preserved to us from Northamptonshire, " kill's a fire 'tween they two," and "the tow is in
the fire," intimating the existence of great enmity between two
persons,5 there is certainly no room to doubt that the primitive
Sullivan, " Introduction to O'Curry's Lectures," vol. i. p. cccxviii.
2 Spenser, " View of the State of Ireland," p. 98.
3 Wood's "Primitive Inhabitants of Ireland," p. I7o.
4 Sullivan's " Introduction to O'Curry's Lectures," vol. i. p. cclxxviii.
5 Sternberg's "Northamptonshire Glossary," p. 58.




THE PRIMITIVE HEARTH CULT.


13I


hearth cult of the Aryan village community is preserved among
the traditional practices of the English peasantry alongside of
the traditional agricultural practices.
It has not been found necessary to set forth the proofs of
this early cult at great length, because this has already been
done in a separate work, and writers have very frequently
alluded to this most interesting survival. I think it may, on
the whole, be considered as forming the most perfect survival
preserved in folklore. But the point to insist on here is its close
connection with the village community, and its bearing upon
those other relics of the village community which have hitherto
been made into an exclusive study. Clearly, as it appears to me,
it points to the descent of the village community from primitive
originals.  The old worship, the old kinship, cannot be
divorced from the concurrent agricultural practices, and in
seeking out for origins we must group all these survivals
together. As an old author puts it with force, speaking
of the villagers he knew, "his religion is a part of his copyhold."' The peasants of Britain have preserved the whole
group intact, during the time when the political rulers of the
nation have been carving out a destiny for the country outside
the conception of villagers. Let it be remembered that the
documents which teach us of lordship and serfdom are drawn
from the ruling class, possessed of national instincts and
national hopes, whose terminology must frequently have been
in advance of the facts. In the meantime it was the peasants
who were preserving the history of the nation, which was thus
changing and developing over their heads, and so often as the
facts of this preserved history take us back to a stream from
which flowed that great body of custom which tells us of a
hearth-cult and a primitive system of agriculture, so often are
we justified in the conclusion that this stream is the origin
alike of Indian and British village life.
Clarke's " Survey of the Lakes," p. 36.




CHAPTER VI.


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.
WE are now able to examine the types of the village community which have survived in Britain to the present day. Our
equipment for the task, as set forth at length in the preceding
chapters, may seem to be very heavy; but it is quite certain
that, looking at the facts in the history of the village community which I have there attempted to bring together, it is
impossible to properly examine existing survivals without
adequate knowledge of the facts which bring into relief all that
such survivals mean in the history of institutions. A sudden
plunge into manorial history has succeeded in bringing out
certain economical features which are in strange contrast with
the commercial economy of the age. It would also succeed in
explaining that the works of our great political economists, from
Adam Smith downwards, could only have been written after
the manorial system had ceased to play any part, or at all events
any important part in the development of the nation; and would
enable us to trace in Adam Smith theories derived from the
influence, dying as it was, of the manorial system, and to discover
that these are just the theories which Mill and the later writers
have rejected, not without some unwarranted feelings of scorn
for the older master. Attempt to work this manorial system
back through the centuries of English history, and we should
find it fit in more nearly to the economical development of
each age the further back we go. But on the great questions
to be asked concerning it-Whence its origin? whence its
long continuance? and what is its place among English local
institutions?-we can get no sufficient answer, as it seems to




LOCALITY OF THE TRIBAL COMMUNITIES.


I33


me, by confining our researches to manorial history. Right
athwart such an inquiry is the gap left by the absence of all
detailed evidence in the early ages, the overshadowing influence
of Roman history largely preserved by Roman historians, and
the extreme difficulty of estimating or appreciating the accelerated force of the march of civilization, which makes each
succeeding age so much in advance of what has gone before.
We have already noted that the two classes of communities
-tribal and village -appear in all Aryan lands; that the
former is the more primitive form, having been preserved by its
home on the hills, and that the latter has resulted from a constant reception within its boundaries of swarms of new villagers
whenever settlement has succeeded to conquest.  We will
now examine the survivals of tribal communities in Britain; and
it will be found that these are invariably to be found in the hilly,
or the outlying districts, difficult of approach and conquest, in
contradistinction to the plains and valleys, easy of approach
and conquest. Surely this is evidence enough of an origin due
to causes which lay within the communities themselves. As
we proceed I shall direct attention to the evidence which has
already been shortly stated, that the hill communities, being
difficult of access and difficult to conquer, remained in their
primitive stage longer than the valley or plain communities,
who always received the first shock of any conquest, and who
had at successive eras to open their ranks and take in new
villagers, who had first appeared as conquerors. Let me note
that the late survival of the community constitutes the most
essential part of the evidence. It is plain proof of the vitality
of the communal principle as distinct from the national principle. Where Roman power was greatest in Britain was in the
creation of a national government; if it had ever entered into
the inner life of the communities, it would have burst the
boundaries of such a localizing system, and the internal
structures thus revealed would have become welded into a
national system. That the community should have survived
so late is the strongest proof of primitive origin.
I think there are few more archaic types of society than we




134


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.


meet with in the Island of Harris in I795. The higher order
of tenants were mostly descendants of different branches of the
chieftain's family, originally settled in patrimonial possessions
on the estate. Many of these possessions had devolved in
regular succession from father to son through a long course of
ages. Subordinate to this grade were the small tenants. A
small tenant farm was a little commonwealth of villagers whose
houses or huts were huddled close together, "with too little
regard," says Sir John Sinclair, "to form, order, or cleanliness."
The lands belonging to these farmsteads were yearly divided
by lot for tillage, whilst their cattle grazed on the pasture in
common. Labour was performed by a class of cottar tenantry
attached to the farmsteads, who were paid in kind and in land
allowances, one day a week of their time being granted for
their own use. Coarse flax sown in the ground was manufactured into shirts and other linens by the farmer's wife and
daughters during the long winter evenings, and the farmer
himself was clothed from the fleece of his little flock.' They
ground their corn by means of the quern, i.e., a couple of light
millstones set in motion with the hand by means of a staff
fixed to the upper stone. All the bread thus made was
generally consumed by the month of June, and they then
chiefly subsisted on their own sheep and the milk of their
cows, with what fish they chanced to catch.2
Sir Arthur Mitchell has taught us the true archaic value of
such domestic economy as this in his " Past in the Present ";
but I much question whether the social structure to which
it belongs is not of almost unique value. The strip of sea
which separates the inhabitants from the mainland has preserved the form of society which has existed for centuries, and
this little tribal community presents just such another picture
as we obtain from the "Germania" of Tacitus, and from the
early documentary evidence of Wales and Ireland.
We may sum up the constitution of this tribal community in
t Martin, in " Western Isles of Scotland," p. 57, describes a curious and
primitive method of thickening cloth by the native women.
2 "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. x. pp. 352-370.




THE HARRIS COMMUNITY.


t35


the exact words of the statistical writer of the last century, who
notes that the whole "estate " is occupied by(i) Principal tacksmen or gentlemen;
(2) Small tenants;
(3) Cottars;
just the three classes which reappear in the village community
wherever its traces are to be found in England. Now can we
in this outlying island detect the race origin of these three
classes?
It seems clear that the uppermost ranks of this community are the descendants of a band of settlers who,
at the time of settlement, were organized upon the tribal
system; for it is remarkable to note that the self-acting
system. of the Irish " fine," accounts not only for the
organization of the first rank of this community as it appears
in the eighteenth century, but will account for the existence of the lower rank of smaller tenants. The first step
to take in order to show how this is so is to explain the system
of tenure by which the lands of this community were held.
This we can do by reference to an old account of the Highlands of Scotland which was published by Sir Walter Scott.
We are told that " the property of the Highlands belongs to a
great many different persons who are more or less considerable
in proportion to the extent of their estates and to the command
of men that live upon them or follow them on account of their
clanship out of the estates of others. These lands are let by
the landlord during pleasure on a short tack to people whom
they call good-men and who are of a superior station to the
commonalty. These are generally the sons, brothers, cousins,
or nearest relations of the landlords. [Those sons who marry]
are preferred to some farms. This, by means of a small portion and the liberality of their relatives, they are able to stock,
and which they, their children and grandchildren, possess at an
easy rent till a nearer descendant be again preferred to it. As
the propinquity removes they become less considered, till at
last they degenerate to be of the common people. As this
hath been an ancient custom, most of the farmers and cottars




136


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.


are of the name and clan of the proprietor."     The shifting
nature of this tribal tenure is explained very clearly in this
extract, and it represents in survival the ancient practice which
has been recorded in the Welsh laws and in the Brehon laws of
Ireland,2 the latter of which has been so much discussed. We
shall have to revert to this again later on, but the point to note
here is that a system of tenure depending upon the degree of
propinquity to the tribal chief goes on uninterruptedly so long
as there are tribal lands to meet the "going out" of sons from
the chief homestead.
There now remains the cottar class of servile attendants.
The position of the non-Aryan people, which, as we have seen,
extended all over Europe and had to withstand the Aryan
conqueror, might very readily be accepted as sufficient warrant
for the origin of this cottar class, confirmed as it is by the
analogy of the serfs mentioned in the "Germania " of Tacitus
and of the most servile class in the Hindu village community.
But in this case we may go beyond the argument of analogy,
for there is not wanting evidence of the non-Aryan race element
among the people of Harris.    We first get at this by the physical characteristics of the people. They are described as of
" small stature.... Scarcely any attain the height of 6 feet,
and many of the males are not higher than 5 feet 3 or 4 inches.... The cheek bones are rather prominent, and the nose is
invariably short, the space between it and the chin being
disproportionately long.   The   complexion is of all tints.
Many individuals are as dark as mulattoes."3 Then, if we
Burt's "' Letters from Scotland," vol. ii. p. 341.
2 Compare Sir John Davies' account of the Irish sept, "Historial
Tracts," p. I28: " If any one of the sept had died, his portion was not
divided among his sons, but the chief of the sept made a new partition of
all the lands belonging to that sept, and gave every one his part according
to his antiquity." "Ancient Laws of Ireland," vol. iv. introduction;
Jozurnal des Savants, August, I887.
3 Dawson's " Statistical History of Scotland," p. 550.  Mr. David
MacRitchie, in the Archeological Review, vol. iv. p. I6, et seq., has discussed
this with other features of Harris ethnology with a view of establishing
evidence of Ugrian blood in these islanders. Cf. Skene, " Celtic Scotland," vol. iii. p. 323.
I* i. 




THE HARRIS COMMUNITY.


137


look into some of their superstitions, we find them sufficiently
near to non-Aryan beliefs to warrant the theory of a common
origin. In an ancient chapel on one of the islands attached
to Harris was "a flat thin stone, call'd Brownies stone, upon
which the antient inhabitants offered a cow's milk every
sunday," ' a custom which has its counterpart among the
non-Aryan Todas of the Nilgiri Hills,2 whilst the stone circles
'and the remarkable temple of "Annat" 3 afford other parallels
to Toda antiquities and customs, and, what is more significant,
perhaps, a total contrast to any of the forms of primitive Aryan
beliefs.
It appears from this evidence that we may, in the outlying
parts of our land, detect a still surviving specimen of the
primitive tribal community, and that it enables us to retranslate Mr. Seebohm's famous formula of the manor with
a village community in serfdom under it into a formula written
on the archives of native history-the tribal community with a
village of non-Aryan serfs under it.
It will be well, perhaps, before leaving this important type
of the tribal community, to state shortly the proof that the
Harris example does not stand absolutely alone. Let me, as
a starting point, once more revert to the Toda people of the
Nilgiri. Describing their dwellings, Colonel King says, "the
walls are made of roughly-planed boards joined together with
clay; the sides are not more than 3 feet high by about
12 feet long;... the roofs are made of reeds and thatched
with lemon grass. The whole structure is very substantially
and neatly built, but there is no chimney, and the smoke from
the fires pours out of the door and exudes from every crevice.
The huts are built close together in clusters of three or four
only, and not in villages, the family groups being called munds.
The inhabitants migrate periodically from one to another for
i Martin's "Western Islands of Scotland," p. 67; cf. Pennant's " Tour
in Scotland," vol. iii. p. 437.
2 King's " Aboriginal Tribes of the Nilgiri Hills," p. 2I.
3 " Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. x. p. 375.




138


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.


change of pasture."  Now, what Martin, in 17 6, only saw in
Harris a single specimen of, and describes in two or three
lines,2 Sir Arthur Mitchell has drawn with a master's hand,
giving all the striking details.3 Toda and Harris islander are
clearly in the same stage of culture-tribal nomads living in
clustered homesteads of the rudest fashion, so small, low,
chimneyless, and uncouth as to show that the inhabitants lived
in the open and sought only refuge in their huts.
Now let us turn to the mainland of Scotland. "Formerly,"
says Marshall, "sod huts were the common habitations of the
tenantry of the central Highlands, and they are still (I794) in
use in the more northern districts. Those huts were built
with sods, or thick turf, taken from the pasture lands, and
having remained a few years in the capacity of walls, were
pulled down and spread over the arable fields as manure;
another square of rock being laid bare and another set of sods
piled up for the same purpose.  The materials for the roof
were used, and still are used, in the same intention; and
perhaps the roof itself, in places where wood was plentiful and
peats difficult to procure, was pulled to pieces for fuel, and a
new one, culled from the nearest wood at the tenant's pleasure,
set up in the form of a roof, to dry for a future store of fuel.
At present the building material is stone; but no cement as
yet is in use except in particular cases. The dwelling-houses
are seldom more than five or six feet high, perhaps without
glass in the window, and with door-way so low that even
a middle-sized man must stoop. The roof is set on with
'couples' or large principal rafters, fixed in the walls two or
three feet above the foundation, generally upon large stones
set to receive their feet. Upon these couples lines of 'pantrees' or parlines are fixed, and resting on these rough boughs
(stripped of the leaves and smaller twigs) are laid rafter-wise
and termed 'cabbers'; upon these 'divot' or thin turf laid
on in the manner of slates; and upon this sod covering a coat
King's " Aboriginal Tribes of the Nilgiri Hills," pp. 12-I3.
2 Martin's "Western Isles of Scotland," p. 67.
3 Mitchell's " Past in the Present," p. 59, 63.




HIGHLAND COMMUNITIES.


139


of thatch composed of straw, rushes, heather, or fern. The
gables and the ridge are loaded with 'feal,' thick sods taken
from the deepest best soil." I
These houses are tribal houses, not village houses. Studied
by themselves they are extremely curious and. capable of
affording much insight into archaic society. But we can study
them fortunately with the tribal community living in them.
After describing such stone and turf houses as these the
agricultural report of Forfarshire by Mr. James Headrick
(1813) goes on to state that a considerable number of them
are commonly arranged together in clusters, with intermediate
houses for their cattle, forming a sort of village without symmetry or plan. The inhabitants cultivated the contiguous land
in the way called run-rig, that is, patches scattered here and
there, with baulks or intervals betwixt them which received no
cultivation, while their cattle and sheep grazed promiscuously
on the neighbouring waste (pp. 128, 129).      To these farmsteads were attached cottages collected in small villages called
cot-towns, where they occupied a house and garden and sometimes kept a cow under the farmer. Their rent is paid in
labour and services to their master (p. I37).
This is the type of tribal community to be met with in all
the Highland districts. In [Argyle, Inverness, Perth, Aberdeen, I have obtained specimens of this archaic society. The
form of joint-tenancy has taken the place of joint-kinship.2 All
Marshall's " Agriculture of Central Highlands of Scotland," I794, P. 20.
2 Mr. Seebohm has remarked of the tribal community that "the
evidence, as regards Scotland, is scanty " (" Village Community," p. 222),
simply contenting himself with a reference to Mr. Skene's " Celtic Scotland." If we look for the tribal community in full archaic form, based
upon kinship, I confess the evidence is not direct. In the first place,
direct legislation has interfered to upset it. By the Act of I695 run-rig
ownership was abolished, and this at once cut at the root of the tribal
community. As, however, it did not abolish run-rig tenancy, we have the
exact date of the passing away of the old form of common ownership by
blood relations, in favour of the new form of common tenancy by rentpaying to one landlord.  My suggestion, then, is that joint-tenancy
succeeded to joint-kinship without any break in the historical succession,
and that evidence of the former is evidence of the latter.




I40


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.


the owners of the clustering houses just described were joint
tenants of one landlord, each and all jointly responsible for the
rent of the farmstead. At Caputh in Perthshire there were for
the most part eight tenants in one farm, and the whole farm
was in run-rig (Sinclair's "Stat. Acc.," ix. 494). This short but
suggestive description is to be met with throughout the reports
on Highland agriculture and parish statistics; and of course it
carries with it all the extra particulars we have ascertained
about Harris and Forfar. Now and again we obtain some
interesting additional details of the system of dividing the
lands. In Inverness the reports of the Board of Agriculture,
I808 (p. 334), state that the land is first ploughed without
leaving any boundaries; then the field was divided by putting
small branches of trees into the ground to mark off every
man's portion before the field was sown. No man knew his
own land till the seed was to be cast into the ground, and it
became impossible for him to have the same strip of land any
two successive years. At Kilmorie, in Bute, we get still more
interesting particulars.  "Nearly the whole of this tract was,
till the last twenty-five years, in a state of undivided common,
to which all persons, be they cottars or farmers, might send as
many sheep and field cattle as they chose.... All the lands
were undivided and unenclosed. Each farm was leased by a
number of individuals, sometimes by as many as ten and fifteen,
who were jointly and severally liable for the rent. Each farm
was thus a societas arandi or township, containing as many
families, having each an equal interest in its cultivation, each
field being subdivided into as many strips, separated by a
narrow ridge called a 'bone,' where the stones, weeds, and
other rubbish gathered off the land were accumulated. These
strips generally changed possessors every second or third year,
according to arrangement of parties. The milch cows grazed
in common upon the pasture lands which lay between the
arable and the hill common; but when the crops were secured
at the end of autumn, sheep, cattle, horses, swine ranged at
large over the whole farm.... The arable land was divided
into infield and outfield. The latter was exclusively devoted




IRISH TRIBAL COMMUNITIES.


14I


to white crop, which was taken off in succession, as long as it
would return more than the seed, and then suffered to lie lea
for six or seven years." I
The designation of the separate strips as "bones" enables
us to carry on the examples to Ireland. We are told that in
the hilly district of Kilkenny lands are held at will by tenants
who generally live in scattered homesteads and hold in partnership. The custom is, when ground is to be broken for tillage, to
divide it into shares, or what they call lochs; and they are so
desirous of making the divisions equal in value, that each
portion, though small, does not lie together, but is scattered in
fragments. When the division is made out, lots are prepared;
each man takes a bit of stick, or particular stone well marked;
these are enveloped in a ball of clay, and a child or stranger
is called to place each ball upon some one of the lots, by
which each man's share is determined. These lochs in tillage
are divided by ribs of sod left in the field, called bones, and are
sometimes marked by stones. These ribs often produce a
singularly striped and patched appearance in small farms.2
The townlands of Kilmactige, county Sligo, are divided into
three or four portions, and each of these occupied by a certain
number of tenants who hold in common, dividing the arable in
equal parts, and appropriating the coarse ground and pasture
in grazing; each having a right to put on a certain number of
cattle, reckoning by their ages and kinds. Then we have a most
curious primitive law of succession. Whenever a man has a
farm or a part of an undivided farm, and has one or more sons
to marry, he gives to each of them a division of his holding,
making them subject to pay their proportion of the landlord's
rent.3
In Roscommon are some examples of the farms in coparcency exactly similar to the Scottish examples.4
In these surviving types of the tribal community we are
" New Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. v.
2 "Statistical Survey of Kilkenny," p. 419.
3 Mason's "Statistical Account of Ireland," vol. ii. p. 384.
4 "' Statistical Survey of Roscommon," pp. 475, 478.




142


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.


clearly dealing with cases which have not met any great wave
of opposition to their normal line of development. Gradually
they have been hemmed in by the growth of surrounding
populations; they have had less capacity for extension into
wider areas; but no development of economical theory and
practice, no conquest by tribal communities as rude as themselves, have occurred to turn their development into new
channels. Constant repetition of all the details of life has
succeeded in crystallizing these details into an unchanging
form, and it is these crystallizations which we can study now
as the best evidences of the past. The picture which Caesar
has presented to us of the constantly moving tribal communities,
occupying some tract of virgin soil for one season and then
moving to another tract (vi. 21-22), is not to be met with in
surviving British custom, but it is, as we know, presented by
modern Indian communities.    On the other hand, the
communities which Tacitus described, one hundred and fifty
years later than Caesar, as "dwelling apart and scattered as
spring or plain or grove attracted their fancy," with villages
containing those who were not free tribesmen ("Germ." xvi.),
are to all extents and purposes represented in the tribal communities surviving on the borders of English civilization.
When we turn to the Welsh types, however, we meet with
something over and above the tribal community. Like the
Scottish and Irish tribal settlements, they outwardly exhibit
the same characteristics, Leland long ago noting that "there is
no place yn al these commotes where the people dwelle
vicatim but al sparsim." '  But this is not all. The artificial
clustering of the homesteads into mathematically formed
groups appears above the tribal communities themselves, and
we recognize therein the iron-hand of the Roman tax-gatherer.
While leaving untouched the internal structure of the community, the Roman power has diverted the outward form
from its original type; and there being no later infusion of
primitive tribesmen into the Welsh communities to uproot the
influences of Roman imperialism, the Welsh tribal communities
1 Leland's "Itinerary,' vol. v. p. 54.




THE HEISGEIR COMMUNITY.


143


and their superstructure of taxation units remain in tolerable
perfection for our observation.
The form of tribal community which we have described in
the Island of Harris has now passed away, and private property
in land has succeeded to it. It may therefore be suggested
that, in the transition from tribal community to individual
holding, the village community does not appear as a necessary
term in the series of development; and that, therefore, in this
case the ordinary course of events for the tribal community to
develop into the village community, for the village to break up
into families, and for the families to break up into severalty, has
not taken place. But there is not wanting evidence that the
normal transition, even in these remote islands, and under the
enormous pressure which the influence of modern ideas has
exerted in the contrary direction, did actually take place.
Harris belongs to a group of islands known as the Outer
Hebrides, and other islands, Lewis, North Uist, Long Island,
possessed much the same kind of tribal community as Harris.
But Mr. Carmichael, before the Crofter Commission, described
the intermediate stages between this and private ownership to
have actually survived thus: (i) the island of Heisgeir being
occupied in run-rig wholly; (2) North Uist and South Uist in an
intermixed system of crofts and run-rig; and (3) Barra, all
divided into crofts, and no part being common. Now, if we
examine the system followed in the island of Heisgeir, we find
that it is occupied by one class of tenants only, equivalent to
the lower tenants of the Harris community, and that these
tenants work their farms on the principle, pure and simple, of
the village community. Tenants of one lord, the tribal
characteristics have all been swept away, and without the
interposition of the manorial system we arrive at the village
community-still tribal in one remarkable feature, the annual
migration from village to hill for the pasture of flocks, but in all
else belonging to the village type. So much is necessarily
made of the manorial system in England, that it is important
to observe similar results where the manorial system does not
exist; and it strengthens a suggestion I am strongly inclined to




144


TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.


make, that manors are the form in which the central
government in England in the eleventh and perhaps late tenth
century clothed the then existing village communities.
We may describe the Heisgier community as follows. It
consists of ten tenants, or more properly, twelve, because two
of the ten have two shares each instead of one: these I shall
call the villagers. The dwelling-houses of the village are made
of wattling, plastered over on both sides with boulder clay and
whitewashed with lime.   There are as officers of the
community, the maor, the constable, and the herdsman. The
maor is appointed by the lord's factor, and acts for the lord as
a kind of sub-factor. The constable is elected by the villagers
in a most primitive and interesting manner. The people meet
together at a gathering called "Nabac" (neighbourliness), or
if presided over by the maor, it is called mod, moot-the
official title of the assembly thus following the official mode of
meeting. The place of meeting is locally known as Cnoc Na
Comhairle, the Council Hill, or Clach Na Comhairle, the
Council Stone. The constable having been elected, he takes
off his shoes and stockings, uncovers his head, and bowing
reverently low, promises in presence of heaven and earth, of
God and of men-am fianuis uir agus adhair, am fianuis De
agus daoine-that he will be faithful to his trust. At Hallowtide the villagers meet and decide upon the piece of ground
within their mark which is to be broken up for arable
cultivation, a different piece being selected every three years,
and the old ground put under grazing as before. This land is
called Scat, Clar, or Leob.
The allotment of the land is the next process. The
constable takes a rod and divides the scot into each equal
divisions. At the boundary of each division he cuts a mark in
the ground, which is called by the curious name of Torc, and
resembles the broad-arrow of the Ordnance Department. A
man, probably the herdsman, is then sent out from the meeting,
and each of six men then put a lot info a bonnet. The man
sent out is recalled and the bonnet is handed to him. From
this the man takes the lots and places them one after one on a




THE HEISGEIR COMMUNITY.


I45


line on the ground, the order in which they thus stand being
the order in which the owners of the lots stand to one another
in the shares, each man knowing his own mark. The two
tenants who have double shares retain their two shares each;
the four other tenants subdivide their divisions with four other
men, whom they thus represent at the division. These subdivisions are called Imirean or Iomairean, rigs or ridges, and
each two tenants again cast lots for the subdivided rigs, A
piece of ground is then set apart for their herdsman, which is
the outside rig bordering on the grazing, and further pieces of
ground are set out for the poor.
Having finished their tillage, the people go early in June to
the hill grazing with their flocks. The different families bring
their herds together and drive them away; the men carrying
burdens of sticks, &c., to repair their summer shealings, the
women carrying bedding, meal, dairy and cooking utensils.
Barefooted, bareheaded comely boys and girls flit hither and
thither keeping their herds together.
When the grazing ground is reached the huts are repaired
outwardly and inwardly, fires are rekindled and food is
prepared.  Having seen to their cattle and sorted their
shealings, they repair to their merry feast, Feisd na h-imrig,
which consists chiefly of a cheese provided from last year's
produce and shared among the-neighbours and friends, as
they wish themselves and their cattle luck and prosperity.
Every head is uncovered, every knee is bowed as they dedicate
themselves and their flocks to God, or in some touching
dedicatory hymn invoke their patron saint.'
We have already seen what these summer shealings are and
how entirely they take us back to the Stone Age for the origin
of their structural features-unmortared sleeping-places made
in the recesses of the thick wall, beehive in form, a low doorway just large enough to enter, everything bespeaking the
primitive origin both of the shell which receives the human
swarm and of the community which fits into the material shell.
See "Report of the Crofter Commission," I884, appendix xcix, paper
by Mr. A. Carmichael, pp. 451-473.
II




146         TRIBAL COMMUNITIES IN BRITAIN.
The gathering of the moot at its open-air meeting-place, the
election of officers and the payment of them by grants of land,
the setting aside of land for the poor, and generally the combined action of the villagers, bespeak a close approximation to
the village community. All these features we shall see repeated
when we come to examine the types situated in the more
thickly occupied lands of Southern Britain, where they form
part of the so-called manorial system. That the manor does
not appear as a term in the Heisgeir process of development is
a point of some significance, and we must examine, if possible,
any other transitional types that exist before proceeding to the
latest forms of development in the village communities of
Britain.




CHAPTER VII.


TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
So long as we keep to the outlying lands which have
been left untouched by commercial and political activity,
we see the tribal community with its system of shifting
homesteads, telling us of unlimited space for expansion
and its villages of cottar serfs, telling us of the race it
displaced.  When we pass on to the lands occupied by
the Teutonic tribes, we find evidence of a more restricted
range of occupation land, and a development of the village
principle. The Teutonic conquest was tribal, not political;
and the tribes settled down side by side or in conjunction with
the tribal communities of the Celts already settled. The
Teutonic conquerors entered within the communal life of the
Celtic conquered, and so drew tighter together the local bonds
which kept each community together. There was less room
for the tribal communities to expand with their principle of
shifting homesteads; the tribal communities themselves were
more closely packed because they had been compelled to open
their bounds in order to admit new-comers.  And this great
change was marked by the homesteads becoming fixed.
It seems to me that the process by which this fixity of the
homestead was obtained, is explained by the working out of
the curious system of the " fine " recorded in the " Brehon
Laws."' We have already noted how the system must have
worked so long as there was territory enough to meet the
constant "going out" of sons from the geilfine or original
household. What we have now to find out is how the system
"Brehon Laws," vol. iv. p. xciii.




148 TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


would meet the closing up of the boundary of tribal territory,
because of the pressure of other tribes all around. In the lowlands of Scotland and on the eastern coasts of Ireland this
pressure was brought about by the invasion and settlement of
new tribal hosts.  When these Teutonic and Scandinavian
conquerors took possession of the territory of Celtic tribes, or
when they settled alongside of Celtic tribal holdings, the
inevitable result was that the land had to support more people,
and that hence there was no room for the old shifting of the
homesteads, a system no doubt common alike to the Teutonic
and the Celtic organization.  Clearly, then, new homesteads
must be built around the parent homestead, and gradually the
group of homesteads would assume the characteristics of a
village, the necessity of close habitation for purposes of common defence and the limitation put upon tribal boundaries both
tending to produce the change from scattered to collected living.
If this is the correct explanation of the method of transition
from tribal to village community, we ought to be able to detect
some significant feature of the more primitive tribal system in
some types which had not developed so far towards the final
form of the village community as those which settled in the
more thickly inhabited districts of Southern England. As a
matter of fact we do meet with such types, and the feature
which seems to me to stamp them as such is the shifting of
the arable mark from place to place in the tribal territory.
We will examine these types and see how far they conform to
the theory. They must show, as at Harris, the race elements
which are at the root of the village community; they must
show, what cannot be seen at Harris, a closer assimilation of
the whole community to the village system.
The first example we shall have to examine is the famous
burghal community of Lauder in Berwickshire. This came
under the notice of Sir Henry Maine, and he characterized it
as perhaps the most perfect example of the primitive cultivating
community extant in England or Germany. Sir Henry Maine
obtained his information from a Parliamentary return of I870,
and he did not notice the decay which had already begun in




i


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THE LAUDER COMMUNITY.


I49


the form of the community itself-a process which leaves the
forms of land-tenure and the system of cultivation as archaic as
we could well find them, while it leaves the social organism in
the last stages of decomposition. But when we come to examine into this we find that it is possible to trace out its causes,
so that we have in this example an almost perfect type of the
tribal community in the stage of development which has been
already explained.  In the local reports of the Municipal
Corporation Commissioners of 1835, we ascertain that the
earliest recorded number of burgesses at Lauder was 315. A
new division took place in 1744 and the number then was I05.
In I816 there were 48. In I835 there were 25. We ascertain
the reason of this from Kerr's " Report on the Agriculture of
Berwick," 18I3. The burgess acres, it is there stated, "are
subject to private sale, disposition, or inheritance like any
other private property," and it goes on to say that "from the
heritable and transferable nature of the burgess lots, it has
necessarily happened that several have been concentrated into
the possession of single individuals, and it may happen that
the whole may ultimately fall to one proprietor, who will then
become the corporation " (p. 80). It is perfectly clear that
the causes which are bringing about this state of things belong
to modern and not to ancient history. We see the community
in process of decay, but this also enables us to see the original
from which it is the lineal descendant. Camden notes that in
his time "Lauder had 40 houses and cottages, all according to
the universal practice, sashed" (iv. 43). The increase of the
community beyond its village capacity brought about the new
tenure of village lands, and so we lose all traces of kinship and
of clan relationship except one very important relic, namely,
that the right to hold burghal lands depends upon the possession of a homestead in the village. When we consider that
the extent of the parish is 34,981 acres, while the burghal
community now holds only 1,700 acres under a tenure which is
rapidly passing them into personal property, we may gather
some idea of the former condition of things of which we are
now only examining the relics.




150 TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
But if the community itself has thus died away, its old
system of land cultivation has survived, and this we proceed
to examine. There are o05 separate portions of land called
Burgess Acres. These vary in extent from one and a half
acres to three and a half acres. To each such acre there is a
separate progress of writs, and these "Acres " are the private
and absolute property of individuals.... No one has hitherto
been admitted a burgess of the burgh who has not been an
owner of one of these Burgess Acres. The lands of the burgh
consist of... Lauder Common, extending to about 1,700
acres, which has, from all time of which there is any record,
been possessed thus: A portion of it has been set off periodically, say once in five or seven years, to be broken up and
ploughed during that time, and at the end of the time fixed
has been laid down in grass, and grazed along with the other
lands; when another portion of the common was, in the same
way, broken up and ploughed, and again laid down in grass.
The portion of the common so broken up and ploughed at a
time, has, of recent years, been about 130 acres in extent. An
allotment of this portion of the common has been given to the
owner of each of the I05 burgess acres, whether he happened
to be a burgess or not, one allotment for each acre. The portion laid off for cultivation is, in the first place, cut into the
number of allotments required, and the share of each person
is decided by lot. The conditions attached to the taking of
hill parts have been-compliance with a system of cultivation
prescribed by the town council, and payment of a small assessment, generally just sufficient to reimburse the burgh for
expenses laid out in making drains, roads, &c., to enhance the
value of the land for cultivation.  These allotments have
been called " hill parts." The whole of the remainder of the
common has been used for grazing purposes, and has been
utilized as follows:-Each burgess resident within the bounds
of the burgh has grazed on the common two cows, or an
equivalent, and a certain number of sheep-at present, and
for some years, fifteen; and each widow of a burgess, resident
in the burgh, has grazed on the common one cow, or an




THE KELLS COMMUNITY.


I5I


equivalent, and a certain number of sheep-at present, and for
many years, twelve.
The chief points to be noted in this extremely archaic mode
of cultivation are, first, the arable mark being cultivated under
rules prescribed by the town council; secondly, the arable
mark being shifted periodically from one part of the domain
to another; thirdly, the assignment of parcels within the cultivated area to members of the community by lot; fourthly, the
right to land for purposes of tillage being inseparably connected with the ownership of certain plots of land within the
township; fifthly, the right to pasture on that part of the
common in grass. All these features of the modern Scottish
burgh are features also of the primitive village community,
and they are not repeated in any of the examples nor in any
portion of the voluminous chronological evidence which Mr.
Seebohm has collected concerning the village community in
Southern England. And yet there is this to note. The Roman
roadway passes through the parish, and a little to the west of
the village-evidence of contiguity to Roman influences, which
elsewhere is held sufficient to prove the Roman origin of the
village community in serfdom under a lord. There is absolutely no such evidence here. The seven round camps within
the boundary of the parish tell us of old conflicts and old
tribal settlements, and the village of Addinston tells us of the
subjected race ousted from their once supreme position. But
the village in serfdom is not under a lord-it is under a community which has, even in this century, something to tell us of
its old tribal organization.
The next example is in Ireland, namely Kells, County
Meath.   The constitution of the corporation is extremely
interesting. It is a place of considerable antiquity, and certainly existed as a walled and fortified town during the long
occupation of the district by the Danes. When the English
first conquered the country Kells was at once made a centre
of operations, and its importance to them is shown by the
grant of a charter by Richard I.
This charter not only marks an important epoch in the




152 TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


political history of Kells, but the circumstances attending it
lead directly up to the question as to the source of the constitution which reappears under its provisions. It is said to be
the means by which the corporation obtained its landed
property; but this distinctly legal way of stating the case is
shown not to be historically true by the charter of 2 Richard
II., wherein an inspeximus of the charter of Richard I. is said
"to have been made at the request of the then burgesses; "2
in other words, the royal sanction was given to an existing
state of things. This is shown to be equally true of the charter
of Richard I. by the terms of that document which granted
"three acres in the fields to each burgage "-a form which,
in the first place, leads to the conclusion that burgages already
existed, and in the second place that the grant of three acres
was in addition to a territory which already existed.
Of the unquestioned influence of the Danes there is some
interesting evidence to be obtained from the agrarian condition of the county-a condition which supplies us with the
same terminology as that existing in England, certainly as early
as the time of Domesday.
The full organization of the community does not appear
from the only sources of evidence at command, but one or
two details connected with the later system of borough government indicate an archaic origin. Thus one very important
feature of the village community is to be found in the provision that freemen are not allowed to enjoy their shares of the
common lands unless they are resident. Traces too of the
old system of kinship are recognizable in the provision that
widows of freemen do not retain any portion of their deceased
husbands' rights in the arable allotments, though they enjoy a
right of grazing upon the common pasture.   One further
archaic feature in the organization of the community exists in
the custom of setting apart a portion of the common field,
generally five or six acres, for letting and utilizing the rent thus
obtained to pay the tithes and taxes of the entire community.
These scraps of information, however, do not enable us to
" Mun. Corp. Corn. of Ireland," vol. i. p. I8Ir  2 Ibid.




THE KELLS COMMUNITY.


I53


build up the old organization of the village community with
any degree of certainty, but they are necessary preliminaries to
a consideration of the evidence supplied from other sources.
Leaving this portion of the subject we will turn to the system
of cultivation, one portion of which will afford an interesting
and valuable clue to the original organization of the cultivators.
The system of agriculture adopted at Kells is the same as
that at Lauder, namely, that known as co-aration of the waste.
It has held its own at Kells, not because of the unlimited
amount of land belonging to the community, but by the constant limitation of the members of the community.  The
details of this interesting system are thus described by the
Municipal Corporation Commissioners of I835:-" The 312
acres in possession of the corporation are divided into six
fields and thus used. The fields are broken up in rotation
one at a time, and tilled during four years.  Before the
field is broken the members of the corporation repair to it
with a surveyor, and it is marked out into equal lots, according
to the existing number of resident members of the body. Each
resident freeman gets one lot, each portreeve and burgess two
lots, and the deputy sovereign five lots. The members hold
their lots in severalty for four years and cultivate them as they
please; and at the expiration of the fourth year the field is laid
down with grass and a new one is broken, when a similar
process of partition takes place. The other five fields are in
the interim in pasture, and the right of depasturing them is
enjoyed by the members of the corporation in the same proportion as they hold the arable land; that is to say, the deputy
sovereign grasses five heads of cattle (called 'bolls') for every
two grazed by the portreeves and burgesses, and for every one
grazed by the freemen."' Mr. Thompson in his statistical
survey of Meath, I802, adds that three yearling calves, or one
yearling and a two-year-old, are considered equal to one beast 2
-a method of calculation which obtains from the earliest
times.
I "Mun. Corp. Cor. of Ireland," vol. i. p. I8I.  2 Ibid., p. I23




154 TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
This system exhibits all the main features of the primitive
village community. There is the shifting of the arable mark;
there is the division of the arable land by lots every fourth
year, and then the return of the whole into common and a
re-division in another part; there is the right of pasture regulated by the holding in the arable field-a form which is
scarcely to be distinguished from its archaic original, which
regulated all rights according to the homestead.
Now that we have the whole facts before us, we may look a
little closer into the working of this system to see if something
more may not be discoverable concerning the homestead and
its position in the tribal organization.  The division of the
whole territory into six fields, only one of which is allotted for
arable culture, the other five remaining in common pasture,
has a strangely artificial appearance. Why should the common
pasture be divided into five fields? There is nothing in the
archaic systems of cultivation to explain it, and unless it
represents the survival of an older state of things by an unmeaning adhesion to custom no longer observed in its original
form, there is no explanation that I know of for it.  Apart
from the extreme improbability of it having been invented to
meet some modern contingency no longer discernible, there
is evidence to suggest that it represents the result of an old
racial conflict when the new-corners did not carry out the complete system of the conquered, though they did not upset it
entirely.
It will be, in the first place, advisable to point out why these
five fields were used as pasture. They were no doubt taken into
pasture when the old pasture lands of the community had
become alienated. In I802 it was observed that "about Ioo
acres which had not hitherto been enclosed " were to be enclosed
and improved forthwith.' This was clearly original pasture
land. On the map of the Down Survey there is delineated a
portion of ground amounting to 37 acres and known as the
" White commons of Kells," but which, says the Municipal
Corporation Commission, "are not now in possession of the
' Thompson's " Statistical Survey of Meath," p. I24.




THE KELLS COMMUNITY.


I55


Corporation;"' and again the same authority asserts that "it
was stated that a denomination called 'Sherries' containing
upwards of go acres and now in possession of Lord Headfort,
formerly belonged" to the Corporation.2 These examples of
alienation do not, it is true, account for a very large extent of
pasture land; but they serve to show that outside the area of.
the "six fields ' there once existed lands which were utilized
by the community as pasture; and my suggestion is that when
these old pasture lands were given up, a portion of the "six
fields " was used in exactly the same way and for exactly the
same purpose as the original pastures. It is fortunate that the
force of custom had become so established as to bring about
the performance of the same rules within a restricted area as
once obtained in a larger area, otherwise this extremely archaic
survival would have perished.
If the evidence is admitted to be sufficient to allow this
conjectural explanation of a state of things not otherwise
explainable, we may go a step further, and say that originally
the whole arable mark, was shifted about periodically from one
part of the waste to another as it is now within a very
restricted area, and that it was divided into six fields-that is,
the whole of the present six fields was formerly cultivated as
arable land, and the pasture land was outside of it. What,
then, is the explanation of this division of the arable mark into
six fields? It was no longer of any definite meaning to the
Corporation of Kells. But a reference to the organization of
the tribal community will enable us to detect in these six fields
at Kells the arable allotments of six tribal homesteads into
which the tribal community at Kells was originally divided.
The Danish settlers would not accept the Celtic division of
the tribe, though they did not break up the Celtic division of
the land, and thus we are able to detect the two race influences
stamped on the surface of the land, though originating in the
organization of the community.
With these two examples of Lauder and Kells as transitional
"Municipal Corporation Commission, Ireland," vol. i. p. 18I.
2 Ibid.




156 TRANSITIONAL TYPES OF VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
types between the tribal and the village community, we must
for the present be content. They show us in the shifting of
the arable mark the adhesion to old tribal institutions; they
show in the fixity of the homestead the development towards
village institutions.




CHAPTER VIII.


THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
WE have now examined two types of the village community as
it has survived in this country-the tribal community in its
most primitive form, and in its transitional form towards the
village type. We have next to examine the survivals of the
village type. Let it be remembered that we are examining
survivals only. The famous example of Hitchin which Mr.
Seebohm has brought forward, and from which he started in
order to proceed back through records and chronicle history
to the centuries during which English history was still unwritten,
does not stand alone, and I suggest that the methods of
comparative custom impose upon the inquirer into this subject
an examination of a wide group of survivals. We have said
that the plains of India give us examples of a village community into whose bounds are gathered the relics of old race
conflicts, one chief relic of which is the serfdom of the conquered aborigines.  We have pointed out that evidence is not
wanting of aboriginal race elements in English local customs
and thought. We have noted that in the extreme parts of our
land where successive conquest and settlement could not have
taken place so frequently, tribal communities have survived,
and in the archaeology of hill cultivation, traces of non-Aryan
tribal settlement are to be found. We have, finally, suggested
that the parallel types of village community in India and in
England may very well indicate a parallel origin. It therefore
remains for us to examine those types of the village community
which surviving in the lowlands and districts most easily
settled by succeeding waves of new-comers, may indicate to us,




158 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
roughly it may be, but still sufficiently, that they originate in a
primitive system which is recovered from the lost history of our
race by the aid of comparative custom.
The peculiar tenure of the lands in the manor of Aston and
Cote is well known to students. It is quoted in text-books on
real property law and in books dealing with the early history
of land holding, but I do not find that the evidence it affords
upon the history of the village community in England has ever
been considered.  This can only be done by a critical
examination of the chief points in the history of the manor,
and until this is done this famous example of an ancient system
of society will not be properly understood, and will not therefore
receive its rightful place in the early history of English institutions.
The manor of Aston and Cote is a sub-manor of the manor
of Bampton, and is situated in the parish of Bampton in
Oxfordshire. Our first step will be to consider the evidence
as to the earliest occupation of this district. There is, first of
all, evidence of a British occupation at Bampton in "Lew
Barrow," a mound about 15 feet high and of proportional
dimensions standing on the highest point of the Lew Hills,'
but there is no Roman roadway or evidences of Roman
occupation. We next turn to the Anglo-Saxon period. In
614, the Welsh, making a raid on the valley of the Cherwell,
struck over the Cotswolds by Cirencester,2 and proceeded to
Bampton, probably to their old settlement at Lew. There they
were met by Cynegils and Cwichelm, who slew three thousand
of them,3 and probably after this decisive victory the conquerors
resolved at last to settle and build up a home for themselves.
This conclusion seems to be confirmed by the name of the
town itself, which implies what modern tradition confirms, the
tree-town, or " Bampton-in-the-Bush,"4 that is, a settlement
Giles, " History of Bampton," p. lIo. The " Low Barrow " is most
likely Saxon.
2 Green, " Making of England," p. 239.
3 "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," A.D. 614.
4 Giles, op. cit., p. I5. It is marked as " Bampton in the Bush " in the
map attached to Young's " Agriculture of Oxford."




THE ASTON VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I59


carved out of the unoccupied woodlands. There are other
place names which unquestionably give evidence of its AngloSaxon origin. Thus among the names of the lands we have,
as noted by Mr. Williams,' the Byttam=byht-ham, from byht,2
a corner or bend; the " hucket "=a hooked field from     hock
or h6; the Stew meads and the Steway, probably from stig, " a
path"; the Edy-Garston or Gaston, Blechingworth, the Stathe
(a bank), Stadge, Bosengay, Mallenge, Sinderworth, Sinbury
Ham, and the Woo. We have therefore, first, traces of British
occupation, later on there are traces of Danish occupation,3
but we may fairly conclude that the predominant influences of
the Bampton settlement were Anglo-Saxon.
The spot on which this Anglo-Saxon community settled was
one well suited to them.  It is perfectly flat except towards its
most northerly portion, where there is a gradual rise towards a
line of low hills. On these low hills it reaches its highest
elevation at Lew Barrow and again falls gradually away on all
sides.4 Upon such suitable territory as this they settled, and
how completely the community was isolated in its inter-village
independence is witnessed by a fact which has gone far to
preserve to this day the remarkable archaic survivals we shall
presently have before us, namely, that no stoned road of any
kind led from Bampton to the neighbouring towns and villages,
travellers of modern days even being compelled to strike across
the common which surrounded the town, and thence to find
their way to Witney, Burford, or Oxford as best they could.5
Arclceologia, vol. xxxiii. pp. 269-270.
2 Examples of this word in place names are collected from the " Codex
Diplomaticus" and other authorities in Toller's edition of Bosworth's
"Anglo-Saxon Dictionary," s.v. byht.
3 Traces of Danish influences are observable at Bampton; see Arc/z
acologia, vol. xxxvii. p. 382.
4 Giles, " History of Bampton," pp. 17-18.
5 Giles, op. cit., p. 17; cf.Young's "Agriculture of Oxford," I813, p. 324,
for the general condition of Oxford roads. How remarkably parallel the
state of things at Bampton is to the village community in India may be
seen by referring to Sir John Phear's " Aryan Village Community in India
and Ceylon" p. 4, "there exist almost no roads... only irregular tracks,
sometimes traversable by wheels, along the balks which divide the soil int
small cultivated patches."




I60 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


Scarcely anything could be more indicative of archaic village
life than this absence of roads, and I wish to draw special
attention to it. One other fact which has helped to preserve
the archaic social group at Bampton is that, abandoning
whatever chances might have existed for carrying on a
manufacturing occupation, the people almost wholly engaged
in agriculture.'
The initial facts in the history of this district are, therefore,
all in favour of producing a good example of the village community, and we will now endeavour to ascertain whether the
organization of the manor, as known to us in later times, may
be taken to be a survival of the more archaic institution.  Let
me recapitulate what these initial facts are-there is evidence
of Celtic occupation, no evidence of Roman occupation, there
is isolation of the district consequent upon there being no
roads, there is a very late and exclusive agricultural industry.
The superior manor of Bampton had under it several submanors, one of which was Aston and Cote; and to the facts
of this sub-manor we shall now pay exclusive attention. I
have made an extensive search through the calendars of the
deputy-keeper of the Public Records and other MS. sources of
information, and have not been able to light upon any information relative to Aston. We have, therefore, to rely for the
principal evidence as to the organization of the village community at Aston upon a "case " which the lord of the manor
Giles, op. cit., 72. Mr. Ashley, "English Economic History and
Theory," has sufficiently pointed out the nature of English trade and
commerce down to the fourteenth century. " What existed," he says, " was
scarcely more than a trade between certain towns, an inter-communal or
inter-municipal commerce " (p. 102). Bampton carried on this feature of
early English village life longer than other parts of the country. Plot,
writing in I677, says there are in Witney " a great many Fellmongers, out
of whom at the neighbouring towns of Bampton there arrises another
considerable trade, the Fellmongers' sheep skins after dressed and stained
being here made into wares, viz., jackets, breeches, leather linings, &c.,
which they chiefly vent into Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, no
town in England having a trade like it in that sort of ware " (Plot's
"Natural History of Oxfordshire," p. 280).




THE ASTON VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


i6i


stated to Sir Orlando Bridgman and Mr. Jeffrey Palmer, on the
3oth of November, 1657, and which has fortunately been
printed by Mr. Giles as a supplement to his "History of
Bampton."   The importance of this document is greatly
enhanced by its having been written for the purpose of getting
legal opinion upon the lord's rights and the rights of the
manorial courts as opposed to the organization of the tenants.
It was, in point of fact, an attempt on the part of the lord to
take over to himself the free institutions of the community.
On the one hand, we have a statement of what were considered
to be the lord's rights; on the other hand, we have a statement of what were considered to be the tenants' rights. While
these two contrasting statements enable us to obtain a lurid
view of the organization of the agricultural community in the
seventeenth century, they also afford us very valuable evidence
as to one of the modes of transition from village rights to lord's
rights-evidence which has never yet been brought to bear
upon the history of the village community in England. And
when we consider how extremely difficult it is to meet with
such evidence, it will be recognized that in this example we
must be careful to note every step of the process, so as to gain
a complete knowledge of details, which will serve as a guide
to many phases of our local institutions, the origin of which
cannot easily be established for lack of evidence. Not only
does it afford an almost unique example of the process by
which the lord of the manor sought to obtain rights that
almost everywhere else we find him in full possession of; but
by the successful resistance to this claim it affords a very late
example of the village community in England with much of its
archaic structure and archaic methods of government and cultivation of land.left intact. If the lord had succeeded in his claim,
the Manor of Aston and Cote would not probably have been distinguishable in its customs from other manors; that he did not
succeed has preserved for us a type of archaic village organization not to be matched elsewhere in manorial history.
The manor consisted of sixteen hides. To each of these
hides were attached four yard-lands-making altogether sixty12




162 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


four yard-lands belonging to the sixteen hides.   Confining
ourselves, in the first place, to the structure of this social
organism, it was stated by the lord of the manor in I657, that
"there hath been a custom time out of mind that a certain
number of persons called the sixteens, or the greater part of
them, have used to make orders, set penalties, choose officers
and lot the meadows, and do all such things as are usually performed or done in the Courts Baron of other manors."  This is
the free democratic assembly, and its title, the Sixteens, as well
as its constitution, takes us back to primitive times.' Nor is
this all.  From the body of "the sixteens" are elected four of
"the most influential persons" as grass stewards.     These
represented the manor of Aston and Cote at the superior
court of the manor of Bampton, and are thus brought into
close parallel with the four best men of the Anglo-Saxon township.2  The archaic nature of this village organization and its
entire independence of political thought and action, are also
shown by the fact that for the purpose of taking combined
action, it met in the open air, like the assemblies of all early
social groups before they have become associated with higher
organizations leading on to the nation.3 The meeting-place of
the Aston and Cote Assembly was the cross situated in the
centre of the village,4 and though the custom   had already
fallen into desuetude in 1848, Mr. Horde, in I657, sufficiently
attested its importance by the assertion that its orders "if
proclaimed from  the Town Cross are binding upon the inhabitants." 5
Over and above the extensive system    of self-government
See Arckhaolooia, vol. xxxiii. p. 269; Gomme's " Primitive Folkmoots," pp. II9, I20. We may compare this court of sixteens with two
other similarly named and similarly constituted courts, namely, those at
Ditmarsh and Corbey.
2 Stubbs' " Constitutional History," vol. i. p. 90. The " four best men
and the reeve " are the full representatives. Still the analogy is curious
enough to note.
3 See " Primitive Folkmoots," p, II9, etpassim.
4 Giles, " History of Bampton," p. 78.
5 Archacologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 274.




THE ASTON VILLAGE COMMUNITY,


which this community exercised upon its members, including
all those numerous powers conveyed by the possession of
pillory, ducking-stool, &c., it retained some functions which
are of special significance to our present inquiry. The Sixteens
were bound to provide at their joint expense four two-year-old
bulls every season to run on the common pasture; at the end
of the season they sold them for their own benefit, and during
the season they claimed a fee for every cow that fed on the
common.'    Comparing this with the municipal custom at
Marlborough,2 the gild custom at Leicester,3 and the manor
custom at Hitchin,4 it may appear that we have a clue to the
origin of the lord's bull. If the Sixteens and their powers had
passed intothe hands of the lord of the manor in I657, the village
bull would have been indistinguishable from that at Hitchin,and
Mr. Seebohm's conclusions as to its origin could hardly have
been shaken.  As it is, we have clearly in this instance one of
the duties of the community at large for the benefit of the
individual members; and it is in the hands of the community,
not in those of the lord.
The other function of the community to which special
reference must be made in this place is the appointment of
officers.  These are made known by the names of certain
"town-hams" set forth by Mr. Horde in I657 as follows:In the Out-Mead-Brander Ham, Bull Ham, Hayward's
Ham, Water Steward's Ham; in the Inn-Mead-Water Hayward's Ham, Homage Ham, Constable's Ham, Penny Ham,
Herd's Ham, Smith's Ham, Grass Steward's Ham, Another
Grass Steward's Ham, Wonter's H-am, Worden Ham. Mr.
Benjamin Williams has investigated the titles of these officers,
comparing them with the officers mentioned in " Rectitudines
Singularum Personarum," with some very useful results, into the
details of which it will not be necessary to enter now.5 But
1 Giles, " History of Bampton," p. 78.
2 "( Municipal Corporation Commission," I835, p. 83.
3 Thompson's " English Municipal History," pp. 51, 52.
4 Seebohm's " English Village Community," p. 11. See also Nelson's
"Lex Maneriorum," I726, app. p. 28.
5 Archaologia, vol. xxxiii. pp. 276-278.




I64 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


the point to which attention must be drawn is that they supply
a very full complement of village officers exactly on a parallel
with the village officers in the communities of India. Then
there is the still more important custom of allotting land to
them for their services.1 With such a set of officers the village
was independent of other villages with respect to all the labour
necessary for the support of its members; and with such a
method of payment, identical with that to be found extant in
all early types of the primitive village community, it was independent of any fiscal considerations outside the most perfect
village economy.
Then the Sixteens in their corporate capacity held lands for
the benefit of the community. These consisted of "several
leyes of greensward lying in the common fields two years
mowed and the other fed, viz, Catmore leyes, other greensward, and bushes on Claywell Hill, No-man's Plot, Holliwell
Green, the Ham Ways, Trueland's Plotts, and some other."
Besides these were the Hams above-mentioned, which were not
allowed to officers, namely, the Homage Ham, and the Penny
Ham; and Mr. Horde, in I657, said that these hams "are
disposed at the discretion of the Sixteens, some for the public
use of the town, as for making of gates, bridges, &c., and some
sold to make ale for the merry meeting of the inhabitants."
Alike in the providing of the bull, the appointment and payment of officers, the possession of lands for public purposes,
we find these "Sixteens" exercising important corporate functions as a self-governing community.
We now pass on to a consideration of the methods of holdng and cultivating the lands. The whole district is divided
into three parts-(i) common field; (2) common meadow;
(3) common pasture-the three parts, in fact, by which the
economy of early agricultural society is almost everywhere
represented. This is distributed as follows:-Each proprietor
of a yard-land, or originally each member of a homestead,
who, it will be remembered, owned four yard-lands, possessed
Cf. Gomme's "Municipal Offices," pp. 34, 35; Maine's " Village
Communities," p. I26.




THE ASTON VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I65


about thirty acres, which were divided among the three abovenamed sections of the territory. In the first place, he had
twenty acres of arable land in the common field, from which
he obtained wheat, beans, and other similar crops; then he
had four or five acres in the common meadow, which he made
into hay for feeding his cattle in the winter; lastly, he had the
right of feeding either eight cows or four horses, at discretion,
on one part of the common pasture, and sixteen sheep on that
part set aside for sheep.'
In the common field every occupant knew his own land.
The whole of the field was divided by landmarks, and each
strip always belonged to the same owner.  All the owners
adopted the same mode of cultivation according to the fouryear course, leaving always a fourth part fallow. This fixity of
ownership is only a development from one of the chief features
of the common-field system, for in 1577, when a terrier was
taken which is still extant, the land was intermixed in small
portions of half an acre or less,2 each yard-land thus representing a bundle of acre strips scattered over the common
field.
The common meadow was laid out by boundary stones into
thirteen large divisions technically called " layings out." These
always remained the same, and each, laying out, in like manner
was divided into four pieces called "sets "-first set, second
set, third set, and fourth set. Recourse was then had to lots;
and the following mode was practised. From time immemorial
there have been sixteen marks established in the village,
each of which corresponds with four yard-lands, and the whole
sixteen consequently represent the sixty-four yard-lands into
which the common was divided. A certain number of tenants
therefore have the same mark which they always keep, so that
every one of them knows his own. The use of these marks
I Mr. Williams adds that the right of pasture was for " 8 rother beasts,
or 4 horses and 32 sheep, but formerly of 12 rother beasts and 40 sheep."
Rother is from Anglo-Saxon hyrther, "horned cattle" (Archcologia, vol.
xxxiii. p. 271).
2 Arc/wologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 271.




166 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


was to enable the tenants every year to draw lots for their
portions of the meadow.'
When the grass was fit to cut, the grass stewards and Sixteens
summoned the freeholders and tenants to a general meeting,
and the following ceremony took place. Four of the tenants
came forward, each bearing his mark cut on a piece of wood,
which, being thrown into a hat, were shaken up and drawn by
a boy. The first drawing entitled its owner to have his portion
of the common meadow in set one, the second drawn in set
two, &c., and thus four of the tenants have obtained their
allotments. Four others then come forward, and the same
process is repeated until all the tenants have received their
allotments. When the lots are all drawn, each man went
armed with his scythe and cut out his mark on the piece
of ground which belonged to him, which in many cases lied
in so narrow a strip that he had not width enough to take a
full sweep with his scythe. A single farmer might have to cut
his portion of grass from twenty different places, though the
tenants frequently accommodated one another by exchanging
allotments when it was convenient for parties to do so.2
The common pasture has already been sufficiently described.
Mr. Horde adds to his other valuable information about the
state of things in 1657 that the manor had fishing rights as
well. He says, "It hath been long accustomed and known
by repute that such a part of the fishing of the river belongs
to such tenants, and in all or most part of the old deeds or
leases of the several tenements are granted the fishings thereunto belonging; those parts of the river called 'several waters,'
and then there are other parts of the river called 'common
waters,' though every man knoweth his part of the ridding
Mr. Williams, in Archaeologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 275, gives a description.of these marks as follows:-Each of the hides of land has its distinctive
mark, as the one thwart over —, the two thwart over, the three
thwart over -, and Mr. Giles, in his "History of Bampton," p 79,
adds the following examples: the " frying-pan," the "crane's foot," the
" bow," " the two strokes to the right and one at top,"
2 Giles' " History of Bampton," pp. 75-80.




THE ASTON VILLAGE COMMUNITY.. I67


thereof, in which is pretended a liberty for all to fish without
control."
Such is the main outline of the Aston village community and
of its self-governing powers, which had not disappeared from
legal observation in I657.  Mr. Horde, "for the better understanding the meaning of the sixteens " as they existed in his
time, gave the archaic account of them which has just been
described. If we now proceed to contrast this description of
the old state of things with their exact condition, as Mr.
Horde himself observed around him, we shall find some explanation of the changes which had come about; the changes
are significant rather than sweeping, and from them, I think, can
be ascertained a very important period in the history of manors.
The yard-land, in I657, was the unit of holding. Of the
64 yard-lands, the lord held 40.    Of these 40, I2 were
" estated out to several tenants for lives by copy of court roll,
22 yard-lands are let by lease to several tenants for 99 years
if certain lives so long live, and 5 yard-lands are let by several
leases 'to several tenants for several terms under rack rents,
so as there is now no parcel of the said manor in the lord's
hands." Of the remaining 24 yard-lands out of the total of
64, "about I2 yard-lands thereof was ancient freehold, not
holden of the manor of Aston Boges, nor paying any rent to
the lord thereof, or doing any suit to the courts there; 9 yardlands more were heretofore parcel of the manor of Shifford;
and 4 yard-lands residue do belong to the manor of Bampton
Deanery."    How   it came about that the yard-lands once
belonging to other manors were included in the government
of Aston manor, is far from clear. Shifford was a manor from
an early date, as there is a charter giving its metes and bounds
ill  oo05,2 but it is certain that the 9 yard-lands said to have
It will be observed that 39 yard-lands out of the 40 held by the lord
are accounted for, and that for the 24 out of the lord's hands 25 are
accounted for. I have no means of correcting this error in the figures, but
it does not affect the argument.
2 " Codex Diplomaticus," No. dccxiv. The place is called Scypforda
in the charter, and it is not identified with Shifford in Mr. Kemble's index
locorum, but I think there is no doubt that Shifford in Oxfordshire is meant.




168 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


once belonged to it, were in i657 locally situate in Aston and
intermixed with the other lands there.' And the statement
as to them originally belonging to Shifford advanced.by Mr.
Horde, does not obviate the very significant fact that the
owners of these yard-lands took part with the other owners
of yard-lands in the government of the manor of Aston and
Cote; so that the true state of the case may possibly have
been that at some time previously a re-arrangement between
the lords and tenants of the several manors subordinate to
Bampton had taken place, by which Aston still kept up its
traditional constitution, and released or exchanged lands in
return for the nine yard-lands obtained from Shifford.
But, however this may be, and the point is not very material,
it will be seen, upon closer examination, that the village
organization, the rights of assembly, the free open-air meetings,
and the corporate action incident to the manor of Aston and
Cote in reality attach themselves, not to the 64 yard-lands, but
to the sixteen hides, because although these hides had grown in
1657 into a considerable tenancy, fortunately as a tenancy
they kept their original unity in full force and so obstinately
clung to their old system of government as to keep up by
representation the once undivided holding of the hide. If the
organization of the hide had itself disappeared, it still formed
the basis of the village government, the sixteen hides sending
up their sixteen elected representatives.
How the tenancy grew out of the original sixteen homesteads may perhaps be conjecturally set forth. We shall
presently come upon other survivals of the village community
in England which give clear evidence of the steps which
accompany the growth of an increasing tenancy.  In the
meantime it may be seen that the owners of the yard-lands
succeeded to the place originally occupied by the owners of the
sixteen hides. Instead of the original sixteen group-owners
we have therefore 64 individual owners, each yard-land having
remained in possession of an owner. And then at succeeding
stages of this dissolution we find the yard-lands broken up
Archaologia, vol. xxxiii. p. 269.




THE ASTON VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I69


until in I848 " some farmers of Aston have only half or even
a quarter of a yard-land, whilst some have as many as ten
or eleven yard-lands in their single occupation."' Then disintegration would proceed to the other proprietary rights, which,
originally appendant to the homestead only, became appendant
to the person and not to the residence and are consequently
"bought and sold as separate property, by which means it
results that persons resident at Bampton, or even at great
distance, have rights on Aston and Cote Common."2 And
finally we lose all traces of the system, as described by Mr.
Horde and as depicted by the representative character of the
Sixteens, and in its place find that "there are some tenants
who have rights in the common field and not in the common
pasture, and vice versa several occupiers have the right of
pasture who do not possess any portion of arable land in the
common field,"3 so that both yard-lands and hides have now
disappeared, and absolute ownership of land has taken their
place. Mr. Horde's MS. enables us to proceed back from
modern tenancy-holding to the holding by yard-lands; the
right of election in the yard-lands enables us to proceed back
to the original holding of the sixteen hides.
This process of evolution of the tenancy of the manor of
Aston from an original division into sixteen hides enables
us to suggest that we have in this instance stumbled
upon a very late survival of ancestral shares in the village
community. Turning back to the Indian example quoted
in the second chapter, we must perhaps pass over the singular
parallel it affords by the division into sixty-four shares, because
at Aston the process seems to have been from  6 to i6 x 4=
64, whereas at Pudu Vayal the process seems to have been
from 4 to 4 x 6 = 64. But knowing that the hide was the
original holding of the family, knowing that the law of succession in England is stamped in its early stages with one of
the most significant marks of early Aryan life, namely, the
undivided family as the owner and the prohibitions against
partition of the family homestead, it is a reasonable hypothesis
Giles' "History of Bampton," p. 76.  2 Ibid.  3 Ibid., p. 79.




170 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


to put forth that this Aston community has preserved by means
of its elected representatives in later ages the original constitution of the community by ancestral units. Like the Indian
example, the ancestral shares at Aston have stamped their
imprint upon the land so unalterably that though subdivision
has gone on through succeeding ages still the history of the
original settlement is to be traced. This history tells us of
(I) the original sixteen families forming a community of hereditary villages;' (2) the periodical allotment of land on the
basis of the original ancestral shares and the subdivision of
each ancestral share among the under-shareholders; (3) the
peculiar method of allotment according to marks belonging
to each of the ancestral shares; (4) the holding of land by
the community for the benefit of the villagers generally; (5) the
corporate assembly of the villagers in the open air and the
rights of government by this assembly; (6) the position of the
lord as holder of village lands bound to conform to village
rights, and unable to translate these as lord's rights; and (7) the
position of the cottar tenancy as servants of the community.
And finding all these phenomena repeated in the Indian
example which has been put forward, we may suggest that they
are due to causes which are adequate to explain both the
Eastern and Western village community.
Before passing away from the Aston village community
it may be well to point out that its typical division into
sixteen and sixty-four units is parallelled by an example from
Scotland, namely, at Elgin. Unfortunately all the details of
this case are not to hand, still there are enough to
make the parallel exceedingly interesting.  In the first place,
we get the assembly of the Burgh in the churchyard
of St. Giles in the open air.2   Secondly, there are the
burgh-lands, the tenure and management of which are
TI he permanency of the original shares in the village is a well-ascertained fact of Indian village communities, and Professor IIaussen has dealt
with the German evidence.
2 See a charter printed in Macphael's "Religious I-ouse of Pluscardyn,"
dated I272, pp. 210, 2II.




THE ELGIN VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I7I


described sufficiently to indicate their origin in the primitive village community of the Aston type.     "There is
a large field of arable land to the west of Elgyn divided into
what are called auchteen parts, but consisting of sixty-four
which vary in extent from four to six acres each. Originally
they belonged to sixty-four distinct proprietors, burgesses of
Elgyn. They lie in run-rig, and so disjoined that different
portions of the same lot may be almost an English mile
asunder. They still are the property of a number of different
persons, though many of them have been acquired by one
individual."' And finally there are traces of the settlement
having been formed by the admixture of different races. The
final settlement was probably Scandinavian, the district having
been conquered by Sigurd, the Norwegian Earl of Orkney,
in 927. But on a hill called Tor Ruadh, a little east of which
is Gallowhill, both significant names, has been found a splendid
hoard of bronze implements.2 Perhaps still more significant
of the ancient race distinction, and parallel to the facts already
noted of the tribal communities, is the situation of the village
of Lossiemouth within the parish bounds of Elgin, and since
I694 belonging to the burgh corporation.
In this case of Elgin we have perhaps some remnant of the
original ancestral shares (represented at Aston by the sixteen
hides) in the so-called auchteen parts. I will now turn to an
example where we are face to face with yard-lands only-a
type which has been taken by Mr. Seebohm to be the type
of the village community in England. I shall describe its
chief characteristics so far as they are discoverable from the
scant evidence to hand, and I shall suggest that these characteristics are sufficiently near to those belonging to Aston to
conclude that we have in this example an instance where the
higher organization into ancestral shares or hides has been cut
away during the lapse of ages.
Rothwell in Northamptonshire contains about 3,000 acres.
Sinclair's "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. v. pp. 17, I8.
2 " Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. ix.
p. 428,




172 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
Of this 600 acres were enclosures near the town, and the
remaining 2,400 acres open common lands in three distinct
fields of about 800 acres each. These fields contained a considerable breadth of grass land never in tillage. In round
numbers there were 600 acres of arable land in each common
field and 200 acres of grass land.
First, we note the organization of the village. The farm
houses and offices were congregated into a village which was
situated at one end of the cultivating lands, so that the parish
being some four or five miles long and one to one and a half
broad, each owner of the lands possessed portions two or
three miles from home. The greater number of the tenements
were built with mud and covered with thatch.
Next we note the tenure of the lands. A farm was what
is called four yard-lands, and contained about I20 acres of
open land and 30 acres enclosed. Five horses, i8 head
of cattle, 96 sheep, 24 sheep being attached to each yard-land.
This describes very succinctly how rigidly exacting and artificial the yard-land system had become, and yet in the grouping
of four yard-lands to each farm we can detect the last faint
relics of the original ancestral shares or hides.
There are curious details of the method of occupation. The
common field was occupied in yard-lands. There were altogether
in the parish eighty yard-lands, each comprehending about
thirty acres of the common field, with a right of pasturage for four
heads and a half of cattle and twenty-four sheep to every yardland. The cattle were kept in two distinct herds of about one
hundred and eighty in each, and pastured on different sides of
the parish, attended each by a herdsman and assistant. They
were driven home at night through the summer, separated, to
each one his own, confined in yards or home closes during the
night, and sent out again in the morning to pasture in the
grass land of the common field. After harvest they were left
at large in the common field till wheat seed-time. The sheep
grazed promiscuously on the grass plots of the fallow field; or,
if the owner thought proper, on his own enclosures during the
day time, and every night were folded on the fallows, each one's




I
-ar 
$Valker 6 Booutalsc.




I




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I73


flock on his own land, the distinct occupations being dispersed
and intermixed throughout every part of each field, and every
occupier having land in all directions.'
One thing cannot fail to be noted here, that the manor is
not a necessary factor in the history of this community. If it
exists it is shut out of sight by the organization into " farms
of four yard-lands each "-the farmer taking his place in the
village in lineal succession to the village owner of the homestead. The farms are not broken up into manorial tenancies
of single yard-lands or half yard-lands, each tenant performing
his pro rata service to the manor; but each bundle of four
yard-lands is preserved in the farmstead as in the hide at Aston
in the seventeenth century and at Thorp in the thirteenth
century.2
We may now turn to a Wiltshire example of the village community and the survivals of its archaic origin still obtainingnamely, Chippenham. We will consider first the basis of
membership.
The homestead is clustered together in a village. The plan
of Chippenham shows us that through the centre of a tongue
of land formed by the windings of the River Avon, a roadway
from Bristol to Calne was cut, and along the sides of this
roadway, in English fashion, the village community of Chippenham constructed their homesteads.3 These formed the
initial points of all rights, and this archaic rule left its imprint
on municipal custom, when in I835, it was reported that the
freemen are " those who occupy what are now called burgage
tenements,"4 and "if a burgess ceases to reside in the town,
it is usual for him to resign." 5
What kind of tenements these were, and how nearly they
answered to the description of the homesteads of the archaic
community, can fortunately be ascertained from a document to
Pitt's "Agriculture of Northamptonshire," pp. 25, 27, 36, 64-67.
2 Seebohm, " Village Community," pp. 52, 53.
3 Compare the description given by Davis in his "Agriculture of Wilts'"
of the situation of Wiltshire villages in general, p, 9.
4 C' Municipal Corporation Commission."  5 Ibid.




174 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
be presently more fully quoted, dating from James I.'s reign.
It is there stated that " no inhabitant or householder within
the said borough taking or who is to take any benefit of the
said borough lands by virtue of these presents, shall at any
time hereafter divide his tenement house or habitation into
divers parts or habitations, or into more habitations than one." 
Clearly therefore we have here as the homestead of King
James's time, something far larger than the ordinary village or
town house; 2 and it is not too much to suggest a comparison
with the enclosed homestead and its "gerstun," "st6dfald,"
" oxena gehoeg," "sceap-hammas," " flax-hammas," which Dr.
Nasse has collected from the charters,3 and which are within
recent times typical of Kentish farm-houses.4 It appears, then,
that Chippenham was, so recently as the early seventeenth
century, a collection of farm homesteads rather than a town in
the ordinary sense of the term.
In order to obtain some idea as to how this cluster of homesteads in a village held together before the days of chartered
privileges, we must turn to the name of a portion of the land
still held by the corporation. This land is called "Englands,"
and is situated very near to the town, and close to the site, or
reputed site, of the King's Villa, which tradition assigns to the
spot now occupied by the premises adjoining the new county
court, including perhaps the Angel Inn.5  In a survey of
Chippenham, dated 1275 (i. Edward I.), this land is called
"Hinlond," and Canon Jackson very appropriately identifies
this with the inland or home ground of the Anglo-Saxons. Dr.
Leo says of this word "an Anglo-Saxon estate was usually
divided into two parts; one of which was occupied by the
proprietor or usufructuary himself with his establishment, and
I s Municipal Corporation Commission."
2 This may be compared with the burgage tenements of other municipalities. At Westbury there were " 6I burgage tenements covered by 140
houses," and other examples occur of a like nature.
3 Nasse's " Agricultural Commmunity of the Middle Ages," pp. i6, 17.
4 " Arch. Cant.," vol. iv. p. 217.
5 Jackson's " History of Chippenham," p. I6.




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I75


the other was ceded to the greater part of the servants in
return for rent and service, as a reward for their assistance, or
as the means of support to those who were not freed men.
The portion so surrendered was called ztlland, and that occupied by the owner himself inland, or hlafordes inland." I This
is of course in accordance with Mr. Seebohm's reading of the
evidence, when he points out that " the lord's demesne land
was called in the Exon Domesday for Cornwall, the thane's
inland; so, too, in a law of King Edgar's the tithes are ordered
to be paid 'as were on the thane's inland as on geneat land,'
showing that the distinction between the two was exhaustive."2
But our evidence proves that in modern times, that is, certainly
since the reign of Queen Mary, this inland, translated so freely
by the authorities just quoted as lord's demesne land, belonged
at Chippenham to the village community itself without the
interposition of any manorial lord. The only question is then,
did it belong to the village community at any earlier period,
and especially at a period which enables us by strong historic
probability to suggest that it had so descended age after age
from the date when the market village first carved out its clearing in the forest? Such a period is represented by the Domesday survey. What is recorded there Mr. Seebohm proves is
true of the early Anglo-Saxon period.3 In Domesday, then,
Chippenham   is termed a "manerium."4 The king held it,
and it provided one night's entertainment with all its customs.
Here is the community acting in its corporate capacity. It
was, moreover, absolutely free-non geldavit, nec hidata fuit.
Its land consisted of Ioo carucates; in deresne were I6 carucates and 28 serfs, the villani (48), bordarii (45), cotarii (20),
and swineherds   (23), holding, inter omnes, 66   carucates.
I " Local Nomenclature of the Anglo-Saxons," p. 54.
2 Seebohm's " English Village Community," p. I35. and cf. p. I50.
The passage cannot be identified in the Exon Domesday, but I have let
the quotation stand.
3 See cap. iii. of the " English Village Community."
4 This term is an important distinction from the other term used in
Domesday for a community, villa,  See Ellis's "Introduction to Domesday."




176 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


There were also 12 mills and Ioo acres of meadow, wood 4
miles square, and pasture 2 miles long and i mile broad. WVe
have here a description of the "inland," the "outland," and
the surrounding meadows, pasture, and wood. The survey
goes on to say that Bishop Osbern held 2 hides, Ulviet i hide,
Edric half a virgate, and in other folios it is recorded that
Roger de Berchelai held i hide, ~ virgate of the demesne, and
Rainald Canut held i hide of the king. Now, these special
holdings were certainly taken from the demesne lands: in one
case it is expressly said so, and they therefore represent the
earliest transfer of lands held in common to a tenure in
severalty. But however early this tendency to break up the
old system was, these grants did not exhaust the i6 carucates
of the demesne or inland; and the holder of the remaining
lands must therefore have been the manerium in its corporate
capacity.  One expression in the Domesday account of
Chippenham   indicates the existence of group  holding
as distinct from  individual holding, namely, inter omnes,
by which term the holding of the 66 carucates of the
villani, &c., is recorded.  I am inclined to think that this
and other similar expressions in Domesday meant a holding in
common, not a quantity of land held by many individual
tenants; and therefore if we translate this method of holding
into its proper historic equivalent, we get the individual group
[of kinsmen] holding their possessions in lineal descent from
those times when to divide a family holding was almost the
last, not the first, resort of the co-heirs of an estate. And
hence the suggestion that the manerium of Chippenham held
the demesne lands as a group-holding is borne out by Domesday evidence itself.
Our next point in this survey of the community is to ascertain whether the same continuity of custom which marks the
method of holding lands and of cultivation, and which thereby
tends to show that the charter of Queen Mary did not create
the institutions it legislates upon, marks also the system of selfgovernment existing at Chippenham.  Before the reign of
Mary there is evidence that within the manor and under the




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I77


jurisdiction of the Bailiff there was not only a pillory and a
prison, but also a gallows.' And when we come to the byelaws enacted after the granting of the charter, there is exactly the
same species of jurisdiction, though nothing in the charter but
general clauses grants or suggests the powers assumed to exist.
The system of self-government of Chippenham alike before
and after incorporation was practically the same, and it bears
further witness to the archaic origin of the community. In the
39th of Elizabeth a set of byelaws was framed by the bailiff
and burgesses, "with the consent of the chief commons," a
consent which certainly takes us back for its origin to a time
prior to the charter.  These byelaws provided, inter aZia,
under penalty of fine and disfranchisement, for the attendance
of all the inhabitant householders on the bailiff and burgesses
when summoned for the composition and maintenance of good
order within the borough.  Offenders were interdicted for
transgressing against the regulations for buying or selling
within the borough on pain of fine and imprisonment. Bakers
offending against the assize were to be set in the pillory; every
tippler setting up a tippling-shop to be bound by recognizances;
and there were also similar regulations for butchers, brewers,
chandlers, and others. Every burgess was required to have in
his house a staff and a club, and every other inhabitant householder a club, to come forth whenever need should require.
No inhabitant within the borough was allowed to " seek for
reformation or justice to be ministered in any matter touching
good order in the borough " at any court other than that of the
bailiff and burgesses " upon pain every offender to lose his and
their whole freedom." 2
These enactments are curious, and as evidence of archaic
continuity of self-government are of great value. But the true
force of their evidence as to archaic origin lies in the sanctions
enforcing the law. These were not dependent upon the national
executive, but were strictly communal in their character, and
one of them, "that the offender should also be debarred of all
Jackson's " History of Chippenham," p. 20.
2 " Municipal Corporation Commission," vol. ii. p. I247.
I3




178 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


benefit out of the borough lands until he submit himself," has
its counterpart all over India and among other peoples who live
in village communities.
Thus far, then, the community of Chippenham presents an
interesting example of the archaic village community, independent of any special manorial influences. The period which
witnessed its probable spoliation of lands kept alive the archaic
customs of holding and cultivating lands, and with these kept
alive its connection with the lands themselves. And hence
without any real break in the continuity of its history as a landowning and land-cultivating community, we can now pass on to
consider the exact nature of the customs which regulated its
internal economy.
The lands set out in Queen Mary's charter are as
follows:A messuage, the moiety of a yard-land and four parcels
of land called Poxes in Rowder Down..     I20 acres
Arable land in the common field of Chippenham...  2I acres
A mead called West Mead.........     30 acres
Close of pasture called Englands......      7 acres
A close in Chippenham called Burleaze......  4 acres
A coppice called Rowder Down Coppice......   21 acres
213 acres
Pasture in Chippenham called Boltscroft, admeasurement
not set out.
These lands, however small in extent, represent the full
requirements in kind of a village community of the most
perfect type, and it is suggestive that the community of
Chippenham should thus have obtained in the reign of Queen
Mary so archaic a provision.
Turning first to the arable land it is surely significant that
the old bundle of acre-strips knows as a yard-land should
appear among the lands. If the yard-land here was the same
as it was in other manors nearly all over the country, the
villagers of Chippenham possessed one relic, at all events, of




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


179


the most ancient form  of holding land."  They evidently
carried out the archaic practice most fully in their twenty-one
acres in the "common field of Chippenham."  It must be remembered that the limited body created by the charter, and not
the general body of freemen known by prescription only, enjoyed
this arable land; and when they cultivated their own scattered
strips they were mixing with others who were likewise engaged,
but who represented the descendants of the once undivided
ownership of the common field of Chippenham.     In later
times this partial survival of archaic custom had passed away,
for in 1835 there was no mention of the arable land in the
common field, but in its place appears "about six acres of land
which the corporation have of their own property" and from
which they received rent.2
The meadow land was used even so late as 1835 in a very
archaic fashion. From the Commissioner's report it appears
that the land, called "West Mead," was laid down in meadow,
and the grass divided annually among the bailiff and burgesses
and the ninety-seven first freemen on the anciatry. An acre
was first set out for the bailiff and twelve burgesses, and the
remainder was then divided into quarter-acres called "farthingdoles," and each of the ninety-seven freemen was entitled to
one. None were allowed to enter the mead until the bailiff
had cut his acre; but after the bailiff had carried away, any
one was at liberty to cut his farthingdole when it suited himself, and application was made to the sub-bailiff who, if
necessary, trod down a path to the specified farthingdole.
The freemen were said to be much attached to this mode of
occupying their property.3
Now observing from what has already been said that the
bailiff was the " headman " of the Chippenham community,
the archaic significance of his cutting the first acre is best
shown by some Hindu customs. At the chief Hindu festival
connected with agriculture the Raja goes through the form of
1 The meaning of the term yard-land in Wiltshire and its archaic
provisions, is recorded in Davis, " Agriculture of Wilts," p. 268.
2 " Mun. Corp. Corn.," vol. ii. p. I248.  3 Ibid.




I80 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


ploughing and sowing before any one else commenced these
operations, and this was considered to take away the sin which
tilling the land is supposed to convey.I
After the grass is cut in the West Mead the whole is stocked
in common by the freemen and freeholders, the freemen paying 4d. to the corporate fund for every beast which they put in,
and the freeholders putting in three beasts for every acre free
of any charge.
Besides this pasture the land known as Englands was stocked
by the freemen each putting in two horses or six beasts;
and, probably, this took the place of the older pasture ground
called Boltscroft, which is now lost to the corporation, though by
what means is not now ascertainable. Then there is the forest
or woodland, which is represented by the coppice called
Rowder Down Coppice and the Burleaze close.       Further
evidence of this is to be obtained from the Hundred Rolls
(ii. p. 506), where we have the following curious and valuable
entry, "communa de Chippenham habet in bruariis viii
quarant in longitudine et in latitudine iiii quarant; eadem villa
habet in morisco," &c.
Thus, then, the arable land with its relics of archaic allotment
into yard-lands, the meadow land with its still surviving
custom of tribute by the headman, the pastures and the forest
held in common, make up together the exact requirements in
kind of the ancient village community. That in extent they
were far short of the requirements of the ancient village
community is due to the conflict between archaic rights and
more modern necessities.
We have noted that the evidence points to Chippenham as
an example of the free village community, and Professor Nasse
quotes the Hundred Rolls as being one proof out of many
that "it is not to be seen who could have been lord of the
Biddulph's "Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh," p. Io6. Such a ceremony
by the headman is by no means confined to the agricultural community of
the Aryans, as may be proved by the feast of the Zulus, when the king
sacrifices a bullock, and so renders it lawful to cut the new-ripe mealies
(South Africa Folklore Journal, vol. i. p. 134; Antiquary, vol. v. p. 138).




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I81


manor on this pastura communis, and we may assume that the
common pasture must have belonged actually to the villata, i.e.,
either to the possessors of the different feoda or to all the
libere tenentes," a conclusion coinciding remarkably with all
the other evidence here drawn together that in Chippenham
we have an example of a village community not under the
dominion of a lord.
When we come to gather up the facts for a comprehensive
view of the community of Chippenham we see plainly enough
that it passed through several stages of decay or disruption
until finally it was broken up, leaving only the mosaics of its
original constitution, which we have now examined. From
these facts we discover three very important stages in the
process of breaking up. The evidence is to be derived from
the settlement of a dispute in Chancery in the reign of James I.,
the charter of Queen Mary, and Domesday; and I represent
these to myself as epochs in the history of the Chippenham
community when the force of outside events had produced
internal disruptions-a state of things which, if read by the
light of comparative history, will reveal to us several important
features in the transition from the village community to an
organization which would meet the requirements of an advanced commercial society.
The document dating from the reign of James I. is a decree
of Chancery settling a dispute which had arisen between the
inhabitants of one portion of the then borough and the
borough authorities as to who were entitled to enjoy the
borough lands. Finally it was settled that all the tenements
which then stood within the borough were in future to represent the initial rights of the community to the exclusion of all
tenements which might subsequently be created. Here it will
be seen that in the village itself first commenced the process
of decay: the old homesteads did not suffice for the growing
population, so long as group-living did not obtain. But this
decree not only reveals where the decay had set in; but where
the natural development of the primitive community was
arrested. The original democratic constitution of the old




182 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


community is revealed by the struggle which took place before
it was possible to create tenements which did not carry with
them  the rights of burghal freemanship; and this sudden
stoppage of a development from a democratic village community to a democratic burghal community is the fact which
marks the break-up of the older organization of the village.
But if in the reign of James I. it had become necessary
to resort to the law courts to obtain an arrest of the natural
growth of the community, may we not assume that the previous
charter of Mary had been obtained for a somewhat similar
object?  Up to that date Chippenham   was unchartered.
Whatever rights and privileges it possessed, had descended
with its old position of a village community or, to speak technically, a manor; and for it to have suddenly obtained the
position of a chartered borough, without possessing any great
commercial activity which needed protection, betokens that
something was going on which threatened its existence as a
corporate body. This is what appears to me to be fairly
deducible from the legal operations of King James and Queen
Mary. And this inference is borne out by some facts which
are presented to us from other sources, and which show that
the danger to be met was the transfer of the village lands into
holdings in severalty.
In early days the Bailiff of Chippenham had struggled hard
to maintain the old land-rights of the community; in the days
of Mary it would appear, if we take the charter to represent
the whole facts of the case, that the community was almost
landless. It might be argued from this that the community
of Chippenham had lost its lands during the disruptions which
enabled the Lords of Hungerford to grasp at all they could
lay hands on. But it does not at all follow that the grant
of Queen Mary suggests that Chippenham possessed no lands
other than those then bestowed. The alienation of the cor-.poration lands has been enormous since this period,2 and this
Jackson's "' History of Chippenham," p. 21.
2 For instance, the " Municipal Corporation Commission" shows that
over 86 acres of the chartered lands were " missing " in I835.




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I83


alienation may well have been from lands held by prescriptive
rights, which would be more readily disposed of, while the
charter-granted lands, possessing a more definite and publiclyknown title, could not have been so readily alienated. This
view of the case is confirmed by a very curious piece of evidence. Some land called the West Mead is granted by Queen
Mary's charter. The extent of it was then stated to be 30
acres, and it still remained in the hands of the corporation
in I835, its exact acreage being 30 ac. 3 r. 15 p. But in the
occupation of this mead, which is cultivated as we have
seen in an extremely archaic fashion, are associated several
individual freeholders who hold their portion of the common
"in the same manner as the corporation hold theirs."' Who,
then, are these individual freeholders? They must have been
small holders, as their whole possession did not amount to
more than thirteen acres, and their intimate association with
the corporation lands is most significant.  Surely we have
something more here than a merely convenient arrangement for
agricultural purposes? My own suggestion is, that they are
descendants of original members of the community who before
Queen Mary's time had transferred their temporary rights
in the land to a holding in severalty. If this is the right
reading of the evidence, we may go one step further, and say
they represent the last of a series of transactions which had
been going on from time to time since the days of the first
carving out of the market village in the forest, and which will
fully account for the necessity of converting the prescriptive
village community into a chartered burghal community.
Taking into account, then, that the community was already
in possession of some lands at the time of Queen Mary's grant,
our next point is to consider the nature of this grant. The
lands granted to the newly-made burgh had belonged to Walter,
Lord Hungerford, beheaded by Henry VIII. They were in
temporary possession of the Crown, until the heir came of age,
which event happened within twenty-three days after the date


I "Municipal Corporation Commission."




184 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


of the charter.' And the reason for cutting off from the possessions of Lord Hungerford lands which made up a great
part of the parish of Chippenham seems to me to rest, not so
much in the caprice of the sovereign, as in the asserted rights
of the community which had at one time or other been
despoiled of these very lands. For there are two very important facts which suggest such a state of things. The first
and most important is that when the new corporation began
to utilize their newly chartered lands, they did so in a
thoroughly archaic fashion, and not in the spirit of the charter,
nor of the transactions in King James's reign. This gives us
evidence of the continuity of the methods of holding and cultivation, and hence it goes a long way towards establishing
a continuity of the holding itself; for why should a community
suddenly created by a modern charter proceed to exercise its
rights in the fashion it might have done if its lands had
descended uninterruptedly from the earliest times? It certainly could not have invented the traditional customs of a
bygone age, and the tradition could scarcely have survived
without the aid of the lands which supported it. Secondly,
the evidence of Domesday proves that at the time of the
Norman conquest, the community possessed the lands subsequently granted to it by Queen Mary out of the possessions
of Lord Hungerford. Taking into account what we have
noted of the survivals of archaic custom and the evidence
of Domesday, it appears that Mary's grant may be interpreted
as representing the asserted rights of the community based
upon their continuance from early times.  The evidence
on the whole, therefore, seems to prove that the period
which witnessed the inauguration of the new borough witnessed, too, the last stages of the village community. The old
democratic and archaic constitution was not suited to the
times which recognized landed property as one of the chief
means of individual wealth. The village community, therefore, passed on into the burghal community, and in its new
capacity re-asserted some of its old rights. It obtained some
1 Jackson's " History of Chippenham," p. 23.




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I85


of these rights in the charter-granted lands, and by retaining
with these the old methods of cultivation, we are able to
identify them as remnants of a once more extensive land
community.
Finally let us note some of the race elements in the early
settlement, for here, as in our other examples, it will be found
that Saxon and Celt have settled side by side. There is some
evidence that the Britons had one of their forest homes not far
from the present site of the town of Chippenham. Turning up
from the river Avon through a narrow roadway indicative enough
of early occupation is a farm now known by the name of Cockleborough, and Aubrey has preserved for us a tradition of his
time that this place was once a "borough."   The thick
woods of a forest, which can even now be traced in the forests
of Braden, Calne, and Bowood, Pewsham Wood, Blackmore,
Selwood, Groveley, Gillingham, Cranbourn Chase, and New
Forest,2 hemmed this place in and made it a stronghold such
as Caesar tells us that the Britons retreated to. That this
British stronghold guided the settlement of the English on the
river Avon, there is no evidence to tell; but the process may
be pictured by what we know of the doings under similar
circumstances in other lands. The holding in the forest is
traditionally recorded in the rhyme preserved by Aubrey, who,
noting that "this towne did stand in the Pewsham forest
before it was disafforested about the year i6[3o], the people
made this rhyme:
"'When Chipnam stood
In Pewsham Wood
Before it was destroyed
A cowe might have gone for a groate a yeare
But now it is denayied' "-3
and the ancient way to the forest is even now marked in the
place-names of the modern town by the name of Forest Lane.
Aubrey's " Collections for Wilts," p. o0.
2 Rev. Canon Jackson, " History of Chippenham," p. 2.
3 " Collections for Wilts," p. 8.




I86 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
Bearing in mind what Mr. Kemble has to say about the
gradual encroachment of the communities on the mark, "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,"I we may turn to the evident origin of the name
Chippenham as the market village for our next guidance.
Dotted here and there in the ancient forest lands of middle
England are market villages whose history is of considerable
importance. By the side of Chippenham in Wilts we must
place Chipping [Campden] and Chipping [Sodbury] in
Gloucestershire; Chipping [Lambourn] in Berks; Chippenhurst, Chippinghurst, and Chipping [Norton] in Oxfordshire;
Chipping [Wycombe] in Bucks; Chipping [Warden] in
Northamptonshire; Chipping and Chipping [Barnet] in Herts;
Chipping [Ongar] in Essex; and Chippingham in Cambridgeshire. All these were carved out of the forest land of the early
communities. This crucial fact enables us to take an important step in ascertaining the origin of these market villages.
"In order to understand what a market originally was," says
Sir Henry Maine, "you must try to picture to yourselves a
territory occupied by village communities, self-acting, and as
yet autonomous, each cultivating its arable lands in the middle
of its waste, and each, I fear I must add, in perpetual war
with its neighbour. But at several points, points probably
where the domains of two or three villages converged, there
appear to have been spaces of what we now call neutral
ground. These were the markets. They were probably the
only places at which the members of the different primitive
groups met for any purpose except warfare, and the persons
who came to them were doubtless at first persons specially
empowered to exchange the produce and manufactures of one
little village community for those of another."2 Of course in
this passage we have a picture drawn rather from India than


I " Saxons in England," vol. i. pp. 48, 49.
2 " Village Communities," p. I92.




THE CHIPPENHAM VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I87


England, but we know that much of it is as true of the past
state of one country as of the arrested stage of the other.
Thus, then, we have the market village of Chippenham,
situated conveniently on the banks of the river Avon, which
helps to show us that the Wilsetas understood the art of settlement, a fact which is abundantly evidenced by the situation
of their towns throughout the county-a situation which led
the rural economists of last century to speak so eloquently
about them.' When next we come to the period when the
kings of Wessex possessed a hunting seat at Chippenham, and
the Latin Chronicles begin to style it "villa regia,"2 we are
dealing with the accidents of its early history. That the
Danes encamped here for a short time, that one of their chieftains found his last resting-place in a tumulus still called after him
"Hubba's low," are facts of more pregnant importance, because
where the Danes settled, there, as a rule, they stamped the
mark of their occupation.3
In considering the settlement at Chippenham therefore there
are the following interesting facts to note: There is evidence
of contact with the Celtic settlement in its neighbourhood;
and there is absolutely no trace of any town or even occupationland having been on this site during the Roman period.4
So much has occurred to disrupt the course of its history that
we do not find that the traces of the old Celtic tribal organization remain alongside of a later Saxon organization; but we 
find, as at Aston, ample evidence as to the evolution of a /
tenancy in severalty from an original communal holding in the
village.                                                /
We next come to Malmesbury; and turning first to the
See Marshall's " Rural Economy of the Southern Counties," l. ii.
PP. 307, 308.
2 Canon Jackson's "History of Chippenham," p. 7.  /
3 That the Danes had some degree of influence at Chippenhai is shown
by the Domesday record of " Rainaldus Canut," who held thbere one hide
of the king. Canut is certainly a Danish name, and he held /ands nowhere
else in Wiltshire.
4 Jackson's "History of Chippenham," p. 3. The nAarest evidences
of Roman occupation are at Studley, Bromham, LacockIBox, and Colerne.
/
/




I88 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


structure of the community itself we will consider it under the
heads of (i) the basis of membership; (2) the rights of
membership.
The basis of membership has some features which are of
almost unique importance. Our knowledge of them is chiefly
to be obtained from an account in The Gentleman's Magazine
of 1832, which is copied from a manuscript dated i685-6.
What this manuscript is, and where it is, I have failed to discover, but that the extract I am going to use is original cannot
for one moment be doubted: " Being to mention Malmesbury
often in the ensuing narration, I have thought it not unfit, to
say something of the policy of that auntient Corporation, which
by the justice and clemency and liberality of former Kings,
hath not only retained its auntient forme of Government, but
hath been inriched with great quantitys of land, which are
disposed amongst the Freemen and Guildeners, by very just
and prudent methods. The Borrow of Malmesbury is situated
in two parishes, that of Malmesbury properly, and that of
Westport. The Commoners and Guildeners of Malmesbury
are divided into sixe centurys or hundreds or tribes, and every
Commoner is reduced under one of these tribes, and inrolled
in a large skin, under the name of a tribe or hundred, so that
there are six columns of names, all which persons have right
of Common in the large portion of grounde called King's
Heath, given to them by Charter, in reward of faithful services
done to King Athelstan, whose monument is yet extant in
Malmesbury, by that magnanimous King, but wisely limited,
sQ that every Commoner hath an equal advantage by it. Now
the 48 names which by antiquity or seniority come to be next
the names of the respective centurys or tribes, are termed the
48ths, and have an Addition of Land in a Common Field,
belonging to that Corporation, as a Corporation. There is
also a superiore order of 24s, which are elected ever out of the
48 by the, majority of the 24s, who doe not always respect
seniority, bu\t the tribes of the persons. There is also another
order, which consists of 13, who by the majority of the I3, are
ever elected out of the majority of the 24s onely, in which




The Town of Malmesbury is to the northward,of
the Common~and the"Lanidholde~rs Lands and
"Burgess Parts"Iie between the Common and.5
the Town.
The six hundreds are:-.
Thorn hill           Coxfoot
Dauids Loynes        Fishers
Taylors              Clovers


I
I
li
I
I






THE MALMESBURY VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


189


Election seniority is also not always regarded. Three persons
of this 13 are yearly presented to the Commoners by the rest
of the 13, who choose out of them an Alderman for the
ensuinge yeer, which Alderman is a Justice of the Peace for
the Burrow; and hath power to nominate a Deputy, who is
to act onely when the Alderman is out of the Burrow. These
13 have also large Meadowes or Pastures, none lesse than ~8
nor none worth more than ~I6 per ann. to each one, but
under penalties of waste, so that these grounds are not
empayred, altho they pass thorow many hands."
We have to deal with modern phraseology in considering
the extent to which the Malmesbury community is indebted
to blood relationship for its basis of membership; but in spite
of this we can detect, I think, the archaic original which preceded the record as it has come down to us. The mode
by which persons can become free burgesses was settled in
1821, and this was preserved by an Act of Parliament then
obtained for the enclosing of the borough lands. It is thus
given by the commissioners of 1835: "Every son of a free
burgess or commoner in his own right, he being at the time
of claiming admission of the age of twenty-one years and
married, and also a parishioner of one of the parishes within
the borough, and likewise at the same time an inhabitant
householder in an entire tenement (and not an inmate) within
the borough, is entitled to be admitted a free burgess or commoner of this borough. Every man who has married a free
burgess's daughter, he being at the time of claiming admission
so married and his wife living (but not otherwise), he being
also of the age of twenty-one years and a parishioner of one
of the parishes within the borough, and an inhabitant householder in an entire tenement (and not an inmate) within the
borough, is entitled to be admitted a free burgess or commoner
of this borough; but a free burgess's daughter having once
married cannot communicate to a second husband a right to
admission: nor will such subsequent marriage give to the sons
or daughters of such husband by another wife any right to
admission. No son of a free burgess born before his father




190 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
shall have been admitted in court a free burgess is entitled
to be admitted a free burgess. No daughter born before her
father shall have been admitted in court a free burgess can
communicate to or invest any husband with any right or title
to be admitted a free burgess."
Disqualification and causes for rejection and amoval are
(i) conviction of felony; (2) not being at the time of admission, or at any time after admission ceasing to be an
inhabitant householder in an entire tenement within one of the
said parishes within the borough.
Blood relationship is by this constitution absolutely the
basis of the Malmesbury community,' and even where it oversteps the line of male descent, it runs parallel to the archaic
system, where, as in some tribes in the Punjab, the daughter
may bring her husband to fill up the ranks of the community,
failing through disease or any other calamity.2 We even have
preserved in this curiously constructed system of municipal
freedom the archaic succession of all the sons-" every son "
being entitled to take up his freedom upon coming of age.
There is also the practical prohibition against widow marriage
which is parallelled in Hindu usage.
The regulation of the affairs of the community was determined by an assembly composed of all its members. The
report of the Municipal Corporation Commission of 1835
describes the assembly at Malmesbury as follows: " An
assembly composed of the alderman, capital burgesses, assistant burgesses, landowners, and commoners, has the privilege
of deciding on the title of claimants to a share in the
Corporation lands."  The commissioners of 1876 obtained
the information that there are four courts during the yearone for the appointment of officers, one for the swearing in of
officers, one for admission of commoners, and one for the
turning out of commoners upon disqualification. We do not
know sufficiently the details of the proceedings of this
The evidence of Mr. Player before the Commission of 1876 illustrates
how actual was the kinship basis of the community. See Question 6318 et seq.
2 Tupper, " Punjab Customary Law," vol. ii. pp. 74, 75.




THE MALMESBURY VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


191


assembly to pick out all the points of contact with the
assemblies of early social groups; but Mr. Trice Martin has
preserved in his preface to the " Registrum  Malmesburiense "
(vol. iii. p. xliii) an interesting archaism which accompanies
the delivery of the allotted portions of land to the commoners.
Seizin was given by the transferring of a twig and the repetition of the rhyming formula"This land and twig I give to thee,
As free as Athelstan gave it me,
And I hope a loving brother thou wilt be."
The appearance of the rhyme at once denotes that we are
in the presence of archaic custom,' and the last line recalls
that " common brotherhood " which is a typical feature of early
communities, and of which we have already had some evidence
in the kinship which underlies the constitution of the Malmesbury community. Further than this is the significant practice
of the delivery of the twig. Comparing the method of allotment
adopted at Aston and Cote, we have seen that the allotment of
the land is made by means of curiously formed twigs,2 a twig
being placed on each strip of land, and corresponding twigs
being cast into a hat, from which the various members of the
community draw. The twigs so drawn denote the piece of land
which each drawer is to have for the coming year. With these
interesting facts before us I suggest that in the rhyming
formula still surviving at Malmesbury we have a relic of the
periodical redistribution of land by the assembly of the community.
We have next to deal with the rights of the community. The
rights of membership at Malmesbury, governed by that intricate system which has already been noted, are entirely of an
archaic order. There is the tenement or homestead. There
I I have given some details of this interesting subject, rhyming formule,
in an article in the Antiquary, vol. viii. pp. 12-15.
2 See also Archacologia, vol. xxxvii. p. 383.  symbols of transfer
generally, consult Spence's "Court of Chancery," vol. i. p. 22.




192 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


is a right to land " in a common field," that is, land held in
common by those bundles of strips of acres or half-acres which
Mr. Seebohm has made so familiar to us. There is the
common pasture attached to the arable lots. In 1835 the
Municipal Corporation Commission thus described this land:
"The property of the Corporation consists of about 516
acres of land, divided among the entire body in the following
proportion: 280 commoners, about i acre each; 48 landholders, about i acre each; 24 assistants, about 2 acres each;
the alderman and eleven [twelve] senior capital burgesses, I40
acres between them" (see "Report," vol. i. p. 77) —but the
Commissioners of 1876 obtained much more valuable information. This information I summarise as follows, the reference
figures being the number of question and answer in the
evidence:1. The homestead, which gives in primitive times the right
to land allotments in the common lands, is represented by
thirty-nine properties, which belong to the alderman and
capital burgesses (5487-5500).
2. The allotment of lands.-No one can hold land unless
he be a freeman of the borough either by right of birth or
marriage (5415). This enables them to take up their right as
commoners (5420), and they take common as a vacancy occurs.
The commoners then succeed by rotation to a vacant acre held
by the landholders. The mode of succession to this higher
body is regulated by custom. The custom is, that the whole
common is divided into six "hundreds," each hundred part
having a particular name (5433-6), though the names are not of
much significance in their present form. The commoner draws
lots upon one or more of these six "hundreds," and enters
himself as a candidate for vacancies as they arise (54II). He
cultivates or lets his allotment, which is not marked out by
boundaries or by fences (553i). The next grade is that of
assistant burgess. To become a member of this grade the
This is the same as recorded in the preamble of the local Act I and 2
Geo. IV. cap. 34, and it is interesting to note this as an instance of
archaic custom being recorded in a modern statute.




THE MALMESBURY VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


193


candidate must first give a "seeking feast" to the body of
twenty-four (6293), and then take up his allotment upon the
death of a present holder. Then from the assistant burgesses
are elected the capital burgesses, who have each a burgess
part in the lands of the borough (5470).
Now this remarkably intricate custom has many features
common to the primitive agricultural holdings, some of them
of special interest. The village tenements, the arable allotments, the common pasture, are all characteristics that do not
belong to modern times.   Rotation by death or seniority
replaces the annual allotment of primitive times. And this
slight deviation is quite capable of historical explanation (see
Laveleye's "Primitive Property," p. 93), besides which we may
compare this succession to long-established allotments to the
Punjab custom of succession to ancestral shares.
Another fact it is important to note is the use of the word
acre in its archaic sense. The common land is divided out
into lots or "acres." These, it was explained to the Commissioners of I876 (Q. 649I), are not statute acres, some being
half and some three-quarters of an acre, and it is these nominal
acres which form the holding of the members of the hundreds.'
Now, the area of land belonging to the modern corporation
has admittedly diminished. The Commissioners of I876 obtained from one of the witnesses evidence to the effect that,
"by reputation," they had lost some lands, and do not know
where they have gone to, and they possessed "old deeds
relating to property " of which they do not know the existence.
If we turn to the doings of the abbey, as chronicled in the
"Registrum Malmesburiense," we can obtain some explanation
of this. The enclosure of the common lands round Malmesbury, says Mr. Trice Martin in his preface to that volume,
furnishes the subject of many of the documents. Fouleswike
This naming of the holdings by the term " acres ' led to a wrong statement of the area of the corporation property. In 1835 it was stated to be
516 acres (see above), but there were really 516 lots, which represented
800 statute acres, if not more. See Commission of I876, Question
32,61 3 e seq.
14




194 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


and the Rowmerse, which are frequently mentioned in this
connection, are probably what is now known as Bird's Marsh,
about a couple of miles north of Chippenham, on the Malmesbury road. Portmaneshethe recalls the familiar Portmeadow
of Oxford, and was the property of the burgesses, as well as
Barndehethe or Burntheath, which the Malmesbury people are
fond of telling strangers was granted to their ancestors by
Athelstan for help given in the battle against the Danes.'
Turning to the documents, they tell us the same story which
we may learn from other parts of the history of Malmesbury.
The lands are intermixed allotments in a common field, and
held by their various owners in bundles of acres. It will be
sufficient to quote one or two examples to prove this; and I
will select the documents dealing with Thornhill.  This is the
name of one of the six "hundreds" into which the lands of
Malmesbury are divided; and I think we have here not only
evidence of the ancient mode of culture and holding, tut of
the once wider extent of these "hundreds."  The first document is a grant of "tres acras terrae cum omnibus pertinentiis
suis in campis de Thornhulle, quarum duae acrae jacent juxta
tenementum quondam Roberti le Charpenter versus occidentem,
una dimidia acra extendit se versus terram Willelmi Parcarii
inter terram Willelmi le Frere et Ricardi Pinnock, et alia
dimidia acra jacet in campo de Borghtone qui vocatur le Ham,
inter terram Roberti Woderove et terram Aliciae de la Grene."2
Here we have two acres lying together, and two half-acres lying
between the acre-strips of other holders. The next document
relates to an exchange of land at Thornhill, consisting of " illas
septem acras terrae arabilis quae jacent in campis de Boruhtone et Thornhulle," 3 of which two acres and two half-acres
are the same as described as above, and the remaining four
acres are scattered in parcels, two of one acre each, and the
remaining two acres together. The last document relating to
this district is the grant to the abbey "totum tenementum


I (, Registrum Malmesburiense," vol. ii. p. xliii.
2 Ibid., vol. ii. p. I84.    3 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 230.




THE MALMESBURY VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I95


meum et terram meam apud Thornhulle, cum domibus, gardinis, curtillagiis, pratis, pascuis, et pasturis." 
The documents of Malmesbury Abbey show us very clearly
how the abbey gradually gathered into its hands tenements in
the town and large tracts of land without, which once no doubt
belonged to the community. And when we come to the
charters of John, which granted the town to the abbey in feefarm, and gave them absolutely the castle, the Norman successor of that ancient British castellum which was the centre
of all civil rights in Malmesbury, we know quite well that the
stage when old communal lands were to be transformed into
church lands had been reached.
Looking at the evidence thus, I do not think it is too much
to suggest that the community of Malmesbury was once a
community independent of the national economy for its support, obtaining its own food and its own clothes from the lands
and flocks which it owned. One special illustration of this
view is the custom of granting land for the support of the
village officers.  We have already drawn attention to this
point,2 and its bearing upon the independent economy of each
settlement. That we have a survival at Malmesbury in the
annual grant to the alderman of a piece of land known as the
" Alderman's kitchen" is evidence of a once existing system
of economy which did not extend beyond the community itself.
And I would venture to suggest a survival of the duty of
the free tribesmen " to join the chiefs host in his enterprises,"
in the "Domesday" record that "when the king was going
on an expedition, whether by land or sea, he was either wont
to have from this borough twenty shillings for the support of
his sailors, or took with him one man for each honour of five
hides."
It will have been seen from these details of the village community surviving at Malmesbury that they are far more than
ordinarily complicated, and it becomes a question whether
by attempting to unravel some of the complications we can
arrive at any clear data as to the origin of the community.
I " Registrum Malmiesburiense," vol. ii. p. 349.  2 Ante, p. I63.




196 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


We find it divided into four classes, as we may call them, and
also into six hundreds or tribes; and it is to be noted that
these are concurrent divisions and not subordinated the one
to the other. The first thing is to distinguish between the
four classes as representing one group of custom and the tribes
or hundreds as representing another group of custom; for,
looking at these two classifications of the community how we
may, it is clear that they do not belong to one system, and must
therefore come from different origins.
Confining ourselves at first to the three classes of thirteens,
twenty-fours, and forty-eights, what is the evidence to be
derived from the remarkable document quoted above? The
answer is to be found by ascertaining the constitution of the
Welsh tribal communities, which can readily be done by
turning to Mr. Seebohm's "English Village Community"
(pp. 181-206). Mr. Seebohm is there treating, not of the
late survivals, imperfect in form and twisted from their archaic
originals by the forces of modern politics, but of the early tribal
communities as seen from the evidence of laws and other early
authorities. And though I shall not suggest that we can
absolutely identify the Malmesbury community, with its
" hundreds or tribes" and its "thirteens," with the "tribes"
and " thirteens " of the Welsh system, yet I shall urge that the
archaic arithmetic of the early Welsh tribes has unquestionably
survived in the curiously complicated system of the Malmesbury community. " Without pretending to have mastered all
the details," says Mr. Seebohm, "of these obscure [Welsh]
tribal arrangements, the point to be noted is that the scattering
of the tyddyns all over the country side, and the clustering
of them by fours and sixteens, or twelves, into the group which
was the unit paying the gwestva or tune pound, and again into
clusters of twelve or thirteen under a maer as the unit of civil
jurisdiction were obviously distinctive features arising from the
tribal holding of the land." I Apply this statement to the con"English Village Community, p. 205. Mr. Seebohm quotes from
the " Gwentian Code," p. 375, the following: " There are to be thirteen
trevs in every maenol, and the thirteenth of these is the supernumerary trev."




THE MALMESBURY VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


I97


dition of things at Malmesbury, and what do we find? Except
that there was no "scattering of the tyddyns all over the
country side," Mr. Seebohm's summary of the early Welsh
tribal constitution holds good as a summary of the late
Malmesbury constitution.
Of course, it is not to be expected that the structure of the
community in the seventeenth or nineteenth centuries was
exactly the same as the original from which it descended.
But the twisting which has taken place, owing to the operation
of modern economic laws, is wonderfully small.  I have elsewhere entered into the details by which this is proved; hbut I
will deal here with the evolution of the landholding body.
The Malmesbury constitution may be grouped thus:1835.                      I685.
Per Municipal Corporation Com-  Per quotation from Gentleman's
mission.                   Magazine.
280 commoners
48 landowners                   The forty-eights
24 assistants            I      The twenty-fours.
12 capital burgesses and           thirt
i alderman        j-           The thirteens.
It will be seen by this that the 280 commoners are the outcome of the period between I685 and 1835, and as constituent
portions of the community must be struck out of our present
consideration. But, what is much more important, we must
strike out, too, the " titles " of the other bodies, and substitute
for them the extremely archaic titles derived from the number
comprising the body. There thus remains the three bodies of
the forty-eights, the twenty-fours, and the thirteens.  Now,
if we eliminate from these the body of "twenty-fours," we are
enabled to make a tolerably perfect comparison of the Malmesbury community with the South Wales tribal system; and I


Archaologia, vol. L.




198 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
would suggest that we may well consider this body to have
been the creation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, just
as the 280 commoners are proved to have been the creation of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If this is so, we
have left as representatives of the archaic tribal constitution
of Malmesbury, the forty-eights and the "thirteen "; and my
suggestion is, that in these two bodies we have the twelve
tyddyns, and one supernumerary tyddyn, with their corresponding four erws (or acres) each, or together, 48 erws.
We will deal first with the 48 erws, or acres, belonging to
the tyddyn, and endeavour to ascertain how they helped to
form the group of "landholders" who became an integral
part of the community. Mr. Seebohm points out the difficulty
attending the curious geometrical system of the early Welsh
tribes, unless we adopt the shifting characteristics of a pastoral
people; and he states that, long before the fourteenth century,
the households were settled in their homesteads, geometrical
regularity had ceased, and the land was divided and subdivided
into irregular fractions. I suggest we have in Malmesbury a
curious example of these irregular fractions.  When the
tyddyns lost their archaic nature, they could no longer keep to
the old laws of succession by undivided groups, and hence at
some period when the pressure of population began to tell, the
question of the succession to the communal property began to
arise. To meet this state of things the then possessors of the
48 erws, or acres, belonging to the tyddyns, were allowed to
keep their holdings, and in virtue of them to become the basis
of a new class in the community, just as at later periods the
same question would arise, and additional classes such as the
"assistants" and "commoners" subsequently succeeded to
the inheritance of the once undivided households of the
original tribal holdings.
We have next to deal with the "thirteen," and I may
advance the suggestion that the close analogy it bears
to the group of tyddyns in the old Welsh tribal system considerably strengthens the perhaps somewhat speculative considerations I have put forward as to the origin of the other




THE MALMESBURY VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


199


bodies. The group of tyddyns was made up of twelve, plus
one supernumerary tyddyn, making together thirteen. And
so the "thirteen" at Malmesbury were composed of twelve,
plus one supernumerary. This important fact did not appear
until 1876 when evidence was taken before the municipal
commissioners.' Nor is this all. It was one of the features
of the tribal system, as we see it in Ireland, that "the families
of free tribesmen did not always occupy the same tyddyn, but
were shifted from one to another whenever the dying out
of a family rendered needful a redistribution to ensure the fair
and equal division of the tribal lands according to antiquity
and their rank under the tribal rules." 2 The holdings of the
" thirteen " at Malmesbury were likewise at one time, though
not now, subject to a re-allotment whenever a new member
was admitted upon the death or removal of an old member.3
Whether this be the correct explanation or not of the
curious classification of the Malmesbury community, one thing
seems very certain, namely, that the thirteens and the two
other classes do not originate from the six tribes or hundreds,
and in point of fact appear to have the hundreds superimposed
upon them. These three classes have their special holdings
in the land as we have seen, but the hundreds themselves also
have rights in the land, each of them having a portion of the
common land allotted to it. Now we have noted that at Kells
in Ireland the division of the community was into six groups,
and if these groups at Malmesbury similarly represented the
old ancestral shares stamped upon the land by some later
comers into the community who did not at the same time
stamp out thereby the old divisions of the Welsh tribal system,
we have an explanation which does to some extent answer for
the curious dual constitution which appears to have obtained
with this community. We are, by the evidence of analogy,
See "Municipal Corporation Commission," I876, part ii. p. 836,
"There is always one capital burgess who has not a ' burgess part'; he is
paid money out of what is subscribed by the other capital burgers."
2 Seebohm, " English Village Community," p. 236; see alte, p. 135.
3 See "Municipal Corporation Commission," 1876, part ii. p. 833.




200 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMAUNITY IN BRITAIN.


which has been put forward throughout these pages as our
guide, prepared to find such curious divergencies as these, and
we would ex /hypothesi attribute them to race influences. In
this particular instance there is much in the history of the
district which would enable us to identify some of the race
conflicts and race settlements of early days when Malmesbury
was at the head of a wedge-like area of Celtic occupation surrounded on either side by Anglo-Saxons. The conflict took
place at Malmesbury, and the records of the settlement may
still be read, the only points of which that need be mentioned
here are the surviving strongholds of the early races, namely,
at Caer Dur, which the Celts had formed, and at Brokenburgh,
the work of the Saxons.'
In the cases which we have now examined the one phenomenon which appears common to them all is what I have
already termed the evolution of a numerous tenancy from an
original community based upon kinship.  At Aston, as at
Malmesbury and Chippenham, we meet as the latest form
of the community a body of men entitled to share in the
land privileges of the community who have succeeded to a
much smaller body who are dimly discernible in the remote
past. In the case of Aston we have seen that the evolution
had proceeded so far as to practically dissolve the community,
leaving only its imprint upon the land.  In the cases of
Malmesbury and Chippenham   we have seen that the more
modern features of municipal life arrested the progress of
this evolution at a certain stage which is almost everywhere to be recognized in municipal history, the stage,
namely, where the burghs passed from their earlier democratic constitution to their late medieval constitution of close
corporations.  In no case, however, is this so peculiarly
exemplified as in the Scottish burgh of Newton-upon-Ayr,
and it is a case well worth studying. It presents us with
phenomena which are perfectly familiar to settlement officers
in India, and which have been presented to the student in
I have detailed these facts from my point of view in Arch'iologia,
vol. L.




THE NEWTON-UPON-AYR COMMUNITY.


201


that somewhat remarkable collection of Punjab customary law
published by the Government of India under the superintendence of Mr. C. L. Tupper. The gradual individualization of
original communal rights has proceeded upon lines which have
left marks on the history of villages in India, and these lines
are parallelled in a remarkable manner by the evidence which
Newton-upon-Ayr supplies, supplemental to that we have
already noted in other examples.'
The constitution of Newton-upon-Ayr is thus described:
"The number of freemen or burgesses is limited to forty-eight,
which compose the community. Each of these freemen possess
what is called a lot or freedom, containing about four acres of
arable land, besides the common, on which the burgesses have
an exclusive right to pasture their cattle.  No houses are
annexed to these freedoms; but every burgess must reside
in the burgh, or possess a house as his property, which he may
rent to any of the inhabitants. The community meet every
two years to elect their magistrates, and at this election every
freeman has a vote..... The right of succession to these
freedoms is limited.  A son succeeds to his father; and a
widow, not having a son, enjoys the property of her husband
as long as she lives. But as the female line is excluded, the
lots of freedom frequently revert to the town, who dispose of
them to the most industrious inhabitants of the place, on their
advancing a certain sum of money which is placed in the public
fund." 2
We can pick out at once in this example the safeguards
against the decay of the community, and these safeguards all
belong to archaic law. Every landowner is also a houseowner; the right of succession is based upon kinship, and
limited; when the right of succession fails the land reverts to
the community. With these provisions in force, the community
of Newton could not, like the communities of Lauder and
Aston, revert to a single individual. There is life and means
See Tupper, op. cit., pp. 44-50; and cf. Fenton's " Early Hebrew
Life," p. 71.
2 Sinclair's "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. ii. pp. 263-4.




202 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


of continued life in the system. But Newton, like Lauder and
Aston, has had to fight against the encroaching powers of
modern economical laws, and, as in every other case, archaic
legal rules have had to give way. Newton has retained the old
forms of her community, but she has given up the old forms of
her land tenure and cultivation.
The first cause of the decay was the fatal practice of selling
the " freedoms." No such right existed in early times, and
the Commissioners of Municipal Corporations of I835 report
that few instances occurred till within the last half-century.
But even in these there is a safeguard based upon the archaic
rules of early society. A freeman wishing to dispose of his
right renounced it to the community at a fixed price, who
resold it to the purchaser.  Beneath this legal fiction we
can easily perceive that the lands were not the freeman's
to sell; they belonged, as in archaic times, to the community.
But a far more powerful cause than this put an immediate
end to the archaic rules obtaining with reference to the burghal
lands of Newton. They were originally divided out into separate holdings every year, and returned into common after the
harvest had been gathered in. The departure from this plan
is recorded in the reports of the Municipal Corporation
Commissioners, and the whole extract is so curious that I
must be pardoned for giving it in full (vol. i. pp. 92-94).
It appears that the community or freemen of the burgh had,
from a very ancient period, records of their own, separate from
those of the council. These records were relied on by the
freemen as establishing the following points:I. That prior to the date of the existing charters the territorial possessions of the burgh were enjoyed by the individual
freemen patrimonially, each having in old times had his own
"daill" given to him at the periodical partition of the lands
"according to the auld ordour use and wont."
2. That the right of a freeman in this burgh was heritable as
well as patrimonial, inasmuch as sons-whom failing, sons-in



THE NEWTON-UPON-AYR COMMUNITY.


203


law-were entitled to succeed to the right of their father's
demise, and to enter to the freedom in his stead.
3. That the number of freemen entitled to "daills " of the
common property was limited, and in 1604, the date of the
first " daill " after the existing charters, the limitation was held
and understood to be precisely forty-eight, which is said to have
been agreeable to the established law and custom.
The "daill " of 1604 was declared to subsist for eleven years,
or till 1615, at which period a new division must have occurred,
but of this there is no direct evidence.
On the 8th of December, I642, a resolution is passed to
"daill" to each freeman the east side of the moss, but on
the 5th of November, I644, this part of the common property " befoir dealt" is " with consent of the hail counsale and
communittie" set to the two bailies. This transaction does
not seem to have been approved of, for on the 8th of May,
1648, the bailies renounce their right, and this property is again
ordained to be dealt to the freemen.
At successive periods, extending to seven years each, during
the whole time between I655 and 1764 inclusive, the allotment
of "daills " is entered in the minute-book. The next " daill"
occurred on the 2ist of November, 1771, when, to remedy the
evils experienced from the short periods of possession for which
the casts had hitherto been made, it was resolved that the casts
or divisions of the lots or daills " shall endure and continue for
fifty-seven years from this date."
The period of this last division expired in 1828, when a
new division of the property by lot fell to be made, and at
the community meeting of the 23rd of January, 1829, the
report of the committee was approved of, which recommended
the continuance of the lot assigned to the individual burgesses
at that cast or division to be for nine hundred and ninety-nine
years after Martinmas, 1828.
More recently it appeared to the freemen to be desirable that
their several possessions should be vested in them by "charter
and sasine," and it was resolved by the community on the Ioth




204 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COIMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
of April, 1833, that the magistrates and council should grant
feu rights of their lots to such of the freemen as might wish to
hold their lands in that manner.
The patrimonial rights thus vested in the forty-eight freemen
were never, until the attempts in 1829 and since, the subject
of separate titles in their persons. Under the charters and
the immemorial usage of the burgh the entry as burgess and
freeman formed of itself the evidence of the freeman's right to
his share of the common property, and the record in the community books of his entry and of the right thereby acquired
by him to a " daill " constituted his only title. Non-residence
in the burgh was in early times declared to nullify the right.
The right, when freedoms fell in from any cause, was at the
disposal of the community.'
I know of nothing to equal this in the history of the village
community in the British Isles. It places absolutely at
our disposal a complete record of the means by which lands
originally held of the community for the temporary purpose of
one year's cultivation became the private property of individuals; and in travelling back along the lines which these
burghal documents point out to us we arrive at the most
perfect evidence for ascertaining the several stages in the development of freehold property.
There are two other points yet to be noted about this
Newton-upon-Ayr community. The assembly of the freemen,
as we have seen, was in many respects peculiar, and it was
composed, as the assemblies of all archaic societies are composed, of the men who possessed tenements in the village and
allotments in the village lands. It is interesting to note that it
bore also a very significant name-the " Beltan Court"; and
I would venture to throw out a suggestion that this name gives
us some traces of older race origins than the purely Teutonic
name of the town. Secondly, there is the status of the widow.
It cannot be one of the accidents of burghal custom that, like
See reports of the Municipal Corporation Commission, vol. i. pp.
92-94; and compare "New Statistical Account of Scotland," sub voce
" Newton-upon-Ayr."




THE PRESTWICK COMMUNITY.


205


many of the manorial customs in England, Newton has preserved in its rule that widows shall hold for life, if they have
no children, one of the oldest of Aryan customs, and the
history of which, as Sir Henry Maine has so remarkably
proved, bears very closely upon the early history of women
in relation to law.' And I will add in passing that there seems
great need for a re-examination of burghal rights and of the
means of their transmission. The surrender of manorial lands in
the lord's court has been held to be a peculiar mark of serfdom,
but at all events we have in this example a case of surrender,
not to a lord, but to a community.
In the same county occurs an example which illustrates
some of the same facts as at Newton. The burgh of Prestwick, in Ayr, contained in 1794 about sixty-six dwelling-houses
and two hundred and sixty-six persons. There were thirty-six
freeholders in the burghs whose freeholds had the privilege of
pasturage for seventy-two soums of sheep upon the common,
five sheep being reckoned to a soum. Sometimes poinds were
driven and executed at the cross of Prestwick. A freeman,
when incarcerated, could not be confined with locked doors;
but if he came out he lost his freedom, unless liberated by the
judicial sentence of the magistrates. None could sell their
freedom but to the community, who have power to sell it to
whom they please upon paying the agreed price. Males and
females equally succeed to the freeholds.... The enclosures
were few, the tenure by which they held their freedoms being
unfavourable to such improvements, being subject to a revolution every nineteen years, when they cast lots for the respective
freedom each freeman is to possess.2
I will mention two other examples which illustrate this
portion of our subject. The first is that of the village of
Crawford in Lanarkshire.  Sir John Sinclair's "Statistical
Account of Scotland" (iv. 512) thus describes this remarkable
village community: "It consisted of about twenty freedoms,
I Early History of Institutions," p. 334; cf. my paper in ArchlPolqogcal
Review, vol. ii., on Widowhood in Manorial Law.
2 Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. xii. pp. 396, 397,398.




206 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


which were in the form of run-rig. Besides the masters of
these freedoms, who were called lairds, and their wives ladies,
there was a subordinate rank, who feued ground for a house
and a yard. Each freedom consisted of four or five acres of
croft land parcelled out in all the different parts of the town,
with a privilege of keeping a certain number of sheep, cows,
and horses on the hill, or common pasture.    This little
republic was governed by a birley court, in which every proprietor of a freedom had a vote. If the proprietor resided not
in the place his tenant voted for him. The great business of
the court, which was held weekly, was to determine the proportion and number of sheep, cows, and horses which the
respective proprietors should keep on the common pasture."
There is scarcely anything wanting in this example to
absolutely identify it with the most archaic type of the
village community. The village itself is the centre of all the
rights; the assembly is composed of men possessing land
rights; the allotments are determined by the assembly; and
the nature of the cultivation is also thus determined.
In many respects this bears a close resemblance to another
archaic type, namely, that of Whitsome in Berwickshire. I
cannot help drawing attention in this instance to one remarkable fact, viz., the meeting of the village assembly, called,
as at Crawford, the birlie court. In the "New Statistical
Account of Scotland" it is recorded that till the middle
of last century a mound was visible called the Birlie
Knowe. Thither the villagers usually repaired to submit their
petty grievances and to ask redress; and there the birlie-men,
after hearing parties, pronounced their cheap and sapient
decisions (vol. iii. p. 172). The system of landholding at
Whitsome is thus described: "To convey some idea of Whitsome as it was, it may be noticed that the range of land on
the north side of the village was divided into several small
portions, still denominated 'lands.' Hence the possessors or
occupiers were styled 'portioners.' 'The ten lands' formed
the southern part of the present farm of Ravelaw; and 'the
nine' and ' the eight' lay east from the preceding, and are




THE CHIRNSIDE VILLAGE COMMUNITY.


207


included in the farm of Leetside. The southern side was parcelled out in like manner. The space between the two ranges,
of considerable breadth, and upwards of half a mile in length,
was enjoyed in common."
At Chirnside in Berwick the line of the village runs in two
rows of houses east and west over the broad summit of the hill
to the length of more than half a mile. Another row of them,
not so compact, descends the hill in a southerly direction.
Departing from the former at an opening near the middle,
called the Corse, and properly the Cross, it has the church for
its termination. Before the division of the lands of the barony
into the separate shares of its proprietors in 1740, the village
houses made that mean appearance common to the others in the
country. Until 1745 no edifice of modern structure was to be
seen in the whole parish. The village comprehended all the
houses and cottages appertaining to the several proprietors, great
and small. Adjacent to the mansion house of some of the large
proprietors there was what was called the mains farm, or that
of his domain or household. During the continuance of the
blended property of the several heritors the further extension
of farms and steadings was prevented by the common property
they had in the out-fields. Of these the only use which could
be made was that of a pasturage for all the cattle and sheep
of the village. Besides the common moor adjacent to the
village, a commonalty, running in a certain track several miles
into Lammermuir, appertained to the barony of Chirnside.
The acres and smaller lots of the arable were laid out in
such a manner that balks or strips of untilled ground being
interposed between every five or six ridges, a waste of the best
land was thus made for the sake of marches not only between
the grounds of the different proprietors, but amidst the lots
and subdivisions of acres into which they were cast. The
husbandmen had certain days or weeks at least marked out,
especially in the spring season, for commencing their labours.
The tradesmen in the village had portions of acres in the
fields.'
1 Sinclair's "' Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. xiv. pp. 8, Io.




208 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


As we move on from one example to another we should be
able to show again and again that in the survivals of the village
community in Britain there exist, sometimes in one place and
sometimes in another, facts parallel to the village community in
India, all of which bear upon the suggestion which has been
made throughout these pages, namely, that in Aryan custom
and in the contact between Aryan and non-Aryan custom must
be found the true history of village institutions in this country.
In a succeeding chapter I shall collect some few fragmentary
survivals of various details of the village community, and I
shall suggest that they represent once complete examples.
We have met with serfdom, we have met with dues to the
lord, but neither of these two important characteristics of the
survivals of the village community in Britain are necessarily
connected with the manor, nor do they connect themselves
with the ascertained facts of the Roman occupation of our
country.
In the meantime it is important to have before us, if possible,
evidence of the close contact between Roman institutions and
the village community. Which is the intruding element-the
Roman town constitution intruding into the villages, or the
village community intruding into the towns? The continuity
of Roman occupation is far from certain even in such cities
as York and London; but if it be granted for the latter city,
and it may well be so, we may perhaps ascertain whether the
influences of Roman London penetrated into the village
communities which settled, as we have already seen, in close
proximity to her walls, or whether, on the contrary, it was the
village communities which penetrated into the city. If the
Romans could not keep the Saxons out of Londinium they could
not overlord the Saxons in the country. If the Saxons, with their
old Aryan instincts, could settle down alongside of the Romans
in London, and could for a time dominate the city, they could
much more settle alongside of Celtic villagers and never lose
their hard-won overlordship, typified by their dominant name
of Englishmen.
London stands out as absolutely unique throughout her




LONDON.


209


long and glorious history. She is unique in two ways-at the
commencement and in the present stage of her history. As
the hill-fort of the Romans, standing out above swamp and
waters, and yet commanding such an important position, she
is unique in origin; as a city, whose suburbs have outgrown
and almost hidden from sight and knowledge the parent urbs,
she is unique in her later and present history. And whether
we approach her early history from one side or the other, up
or down the stream of time, difficulties clog the way. If we
stand on the Roman oppidum   and attempt to penetrate
onward from thence there is the shock of Teutonic conquest
to meet, there is the rapid commercial prosperity, there is the
strong medieval power; if, on the other hand, we stand in the
modern Guildhall there is the vast stretch of houses and streets
obscuring the topographical outlook, and hiding in almost
impenetrable gloom that view of London from extra-London
which is so valuable to the archeologist. We can see Colchester and Dorchester and Winchester and Chester and even
York from points of vantage which lay outside the borough
walls; but where are we to go if we want to see London in the
same way? At Breakneck Steps we may see with Mr. Waller
the old course of the Fleet river; in this alley or that court
we may select the last remnants of ancient land or water
marks; but everywhere vast buildings shut out that view
of ancient London which would have slown her standing
in the midst of country fields and country scenes; which
would have shown the gathering in of her citizens to their
town homes, and the wandering forth of her citizens to their
country haunts and walks. For when the citizen lived who
came into contact with the early municipal history of London
he walked out of a city gate into green fields-to Finsbury
archery-butts, to Moorfields, to the fields where churches came
to be built dedicated to St. Giles and to St. Martin; or maybe
he walked along the narrow trackway by the river which led
to the little village of Charing and to the king's city of West"Transactions, London and Middlesex Archaeological Society," vol. iv.
p. 96 et seq.
is




210 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


minster. This is the citizen with whom we must converse of
the older history which he is still in touch with; and this
is the London which must be asked to give up its tale of older
days.
Thus as the starting-point for any consideration of the early
municipal history of London we meet with the strongly contrasted positions of Roman London, the centre of commerce
situated on great highways which connected her with Europe;
and Saxon London, first hemmed in by small agricultural
settlements, then overcome and occupied by these bands of
fighting agriculturists.  And the question before us may now
be asked in the following terms: What is the evidence that
exists as to the descent of Roman municipal custom: what
is the evidence of Teutonic village custom; and, finally, in
what relationship do they stand towards each other? '
Modern inhabitants of the great city, and students of her
history as well, are apt to think of municipal Iondon as a
London of chartered rights, of lord mayor's shows, aldermanic
banquets, guild festivities, and common council debates; and
that beyond these facts there is nothing in her history or her
customs which need trouble the historian. But fortunately
chartered rights do not by any means express all the rights
appertaining to municipalities: there is a vast body of custom
and unwritten law which tells us more than even chartered
rights can tell, and it is with this that I shall now have to deal.
Now the mere grouping of London municipal customs into
Roman and Saxon origins will not establish at least one
important fact, namely, the intrusion of Saxon customs
upon Roman customs. Our next question is which system of
polity predominated in the government of London? If we see
one group of customs becoming distinctly and clearly recogI " I shall next take notice of some ancient customs which had their
original from the Romans (as I take it)... and if a collection of all of
them were drawn up and published together I am apt to think that it would
be very useful as well as a pleasant undertaking, and conduce in a great
measure to the clearing of many particulars of Roman history " (Bagford's
letter in IHearne's Leland, vol. i. p. lxxiv.).




MUNICIPAL LAW AND CUSTOM IN LONDON.


211


nized as municipal law, and so losing its historical origin in
its later utility, and if we see another group of customs
delegated to municipal usage only, having no force as municipal law, we may be reasonably sure as to the method of
fixing upon the dominating power. The men who practise
customs because their fathers practised them, though they
have a historical continuity of race origin, have no historical
continuity of power if they have not succeeded in getting
those customs promoted to the dignity of legal sanction.
The case here put generally is applicable to the early municipal history of London: we see municipal law and municipal
custom side by side; the one with a legal or political sanction at the back of it, the other supported by social effort
only. I have succeeded in collecting what I shall venture
to characterize as a remarkable collection of customs practised
in London far down in the mediaeval ages, and which are
unquestionably of Teutonic origin. But I have not found
this body of custom recognized or codified. It obtains in
one locality and not in another; it is mentioned incidentally
by one authority and not by another; it is practised by one
body of citizens and not by another; it has no cohesion one
item with another, no systematic codification into municipal
law; it is, in short, the sport of an undercurrent life of the
citizens, and not the outspoken action of the dominant life.
And hence I conclude that this Teutonic custom existing here
in the midst of mediaeval London had met with a power with
which it was hard to fight. That power could not have been
Norman, because the Normans, partly Teutonic themselves,
would have legalized or chartered their innovations. And the
London charters of Norman times are distinct and definite in
their formal recognition of existing municipal law.  If it was
not the Norman, then, who fought with the Teuton and relegated his barbarous law into municipal custom, it must have
been the Roman. The Roman, with his precious gift of
commercial insight, with the, growing powers of wealth, stood
firm to his old ways; and while the Saxon Londoners kept
their folkmoots, drowned their criminals, pilloried their minor




212 THE FINAL TYPE OF ThE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


offenders, tilled their lands, the Roman merchants kept to their
own laws, until they ultimately superimposed them upon the
whole community.
Now, the Anglo. Saxons, as masters of London, would
introduce the village system, or its central ideas, into the
government of the town: these would be, the village
tenement, the coimmunal lands around, the common pasture
beyond these.
Commencilg, then, with the subject of municipal polity, let
us see what evidence there is of old village life as the basis of
later municipal life in London. Every free villager was an
owner of a tenement within the village, and the possession
of such a tenement was the basis of all his political and social
rights. Mr. Coote draws attention to the fact that the citizens
of London were landowners,' and he specifies two remarkable
instances, namely, Becket's father and Osbern, who in later
days held many possessions.2  Mr. Loftie does something
more than suggest that, in the oldest days, the aldermen were
the owners of their respective wards; 3 and the process by
which this ownership was obtained is an interesting feature in
London municipal history. Looking at the earlier times by
the light of later events, the facts appear to shape themselves
somewhat as follows: The Saxon intrusion upon the old
Roman site was not of the same nature as an ordinary village
settlement in the open country. The citizens did not cluster
into one space, with their lands stretching round them. The
Roman wall dictated a boundary to their settlement which
they could not and did not ignore; and, therefore, great open
spaces of unbuilt land separated the tenements of the new
settlers. Such open spaces could not be used for agricultural
purposes, and they became the means of starting in London
the wide-reaching powers of economical laws which proclaim
that private ownership, not collective ownership, is the means
to national prosiperity. These ward-owning aldermen followed
witliout a break the model, if not the personality, of the Roman
" lRomans of Britain," p. 377.  2 Ibid., p. 380.
3 *, History of London," vol. i. pp. 158-I6I.




CORPORATION IANDS IN LONDON.


2 T3


citizen, and they sealed the fate of the smaller tenements which
existed all around.  Mr. Riley, in his introduction to the
" Liber Custumarum," has summarized from the text of that
remarkable volume several instances of public land, that is,
land belonging to the municipality, having been appropriated
and built upon.' 'We get a glimpse of this corporation property, too, from the Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of
London.   At page 35 of Mr. Riley's edition we read how
Henry III. issued letters patent restoring the right of the
citizens, among which it is said that " they shall have all issues
of rents arising from houses and tenements as well in the city
aforesaid as in the suburbs thereof." And again, at page 83,
we read how the populace, in I262, "endeavoured to throw
open lanes, which, by writ of his lordship the King, and with
the sanction of the Justiciars Itinerant, the community assenting thereto, had been stopped up and rented to certain
persons;" and again: " King Henry III. in 1265 came to
London and gave away more than sixty houses belonging
to the citizens, they, with all their families, being expelled"
(P- 59).
These facts show us, I think, a departure from the primitive
system of village ownership; the struggle which they indicate
could not have resulted from the existence of a Roman municipal polity, which fully recognized individual ownership,
whereas they present to us a picture of the growth of individual power converting village tenements into personal property. But this process was arrested before it finally swept
away the last remnant of old constitutional life; and the
possessions which now remain in the hands of the City
Corporation, situated in the neighbourhood of Broad Street,
New Broad Street, Broad Street Fields, Fenchurch Street,
Aldgate, and the Minories, testify to the times when the
Corporation of London held land by the common law of
village rights before they had converted it into rent-bearing
holdings.
We shall see more fully how these facts relating to citizen
Introduction, pp. cx-cxiii.




214 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


tenements suggest an intrusion of a primitive village system if
we turn to some remarkable evidence to be found in old citizen
law. We have said that the tenement in the village was the
basis of all rights in the village. This tenement was, therefore,
an important symbol, and its destruction would be considered
most fatal. Before the sanctions of law were clearly established,
that is, before the establishment of a central sovereignty, the
practice of destroying the village tenement was used as an
engine of judicial procedure.
Now let us turn to London. The assize of Henry II. states
"that the house of the individual who harbours a heretic shall
be carried out of the town and burnt." I There is the same principle underlying this and the above-mentioned law, and it is
difficult to overlook the significance of such a law cropping up
in the unwritten code of London municipal custom, where it
must have entered from the barbaric law of Saxon conquerors.
Examples occur of this custom in other places, accompanied by
evidence that the framework of the old village houses was
always put together by villagers in the forests whence they
obtained their wood, and from thence carried into the town
and fixed.2
This carrying of the framework to the site clearly explains
the possibility of carrying the houses out of the city of London,
and we must bear in mind the evidence given by the assize of
Fitzalwyne, first Lord Mayor of London, that the houses in the
city were all thatched (" Liber Albus," vol. i. p. 328), and the
curious story told by Stow of his father's house having in one
night been moved bodily some distance. From these scraps
of information, pieced together from various sources, it is thus
possible to discover one feature of barbaric law plainly written
in the municipal life of London.
Another distinguishing feature of the early Teutonic community was the power of its assembly in the regulation and
Section 21. See Palgrave's "English Commonwealth," vol. ii. p.
clxxiii.
See Dobson and Harland, "Preston Guild," p. 47; Ramsay's
"Paston Letters," vol. i. p. 33; Archaeological Review, vol. iv.




THE LONDON FOLKMOOT.


215


management of its lands. Such an assembly existed in some
municipal boroughs in I835 in a very distinct form; and the
ancient powers of the Londort court of hustings are to be
attributed to the same cause. In this court all kinds of real
actions for the recovery of lands and tenements within the
city and its liberties are cognizable; and in this language we
can easily recognize a translation of that which would have
described the archaic duties of the old village assembly, especially if we take into consideration the exceedingly curious
powers which attend proceedings under this court.  The
recorder must pronounce judgment, and forty freeholders
formed the inquest, chosen from twelve men and the aldermen from the ward where the tenements in question lie, and
the same number from each of the three wards next to the said
tenements.' Such a court as this was the result of no political
legislation. It is the descendant of that archaic assembly which
belonged to every village community.
But when we come to speak of the assembly of the citizens
there is much closer analogy to the assembly of old Teutonic
communities; and its decay and final wiping out from the
institutions of the city mark the struggle between the community as the Saxon Londoners understood it and the
community as the Roman Londoners sought to make it.
Nothing is more curious than the history of the London
folkmoot. We see it standing out, now and again, in all
its original strength, attended by all the citizens in early
Teutonic fashion; but we see towering behind it, overshadowing it too, a small compact body of aldermen, just such a
body, in fact, as Mr. Coote tells us governed the Roman
municipia, a high class of citizens-optimates, meliores, prirnmaes,
polentes-who monopolized all municipal power and privilege
to the absolute exclusion of the other class.2  Though we
see this struggle going on late down in history, though our
only record of it is a post-Norman chronicler, it appears to
me to be something far greater, historically speaking, than a
1 See " Privilegia Londini," I702, p. I62.
2 "Romans of Britain," p. 368.




216 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


struggle for liberty against a mediaeval tyrant king. If the
actual struggle is against Henry III. and his faction, the contending parties are old foes, who have met and fought often
before, and who fight on the historic ground chalked out by
the place of meeting of an open-air folkmoot, and who use
such archaic weapons as the "Yea, yea," and " Nay, nay," of
Teutonic folk-speech. We know how late in modern times
relics of archaic custom have survived; and when I consider
these struggles of mediaeval Londoners, and all that they
reflect upon the past history of the city, it appears to me as
if these citizens wielded weapons of stone and bronze, to tell
us of the age from whence they are descended.
The folkmoot was held in the open air, upon a piece of
ground at the east end of St. Paul's church, adjoining the
cross.' Here, at all events, we stand upon undoubted Teutonic ground, conquered from the Roman by men who knew
and loved the village institutions they sought to transplant
into the city. But then there is no evidence that this assembly
of the citizens ever wholly dominated tle city, and was recognized as the supreme council; but it seems more than probable, since at times it took its part in those survivals of the
old primary assemblies of the nation which met to elect their
king.2
The fight between the popular assembly or folkmoot, where
every citizen had a right to attend, and the smaller body, is
well related in the " Chronicles of the Mayor and Sheriffs of
London," 1188 to I274. In I249, upon the Abbot of Westminster and his advisers desiring to hold a conference with the
mayor and aldermen, "the whole of the populace opposed it,
and would not allow them, without the whole of the commons
I See " Liber Custumarum," pp. 338, 339, and my " Primitive Folkmoots," p. 158, where I have discussed the archaic importance of this.
2 For the significance of the action of the London folkmoot in the
election of Stephen, see Green's " History of the English People," vol. i.
pp. 15I, I52; Freeman's "Norman Conquest," vol. v. pp. 245, 305.
That this connection of the London folkmoot was kept up is shown by the
oath of fealty the citizens in assembly gave to Prince Edward, I252. See
" Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London," p. 20.




THE LONDON FOLKMOOT.


21 7


being present, to treat at all of the matter" (p. i8). Again,
in 1257, on the occasion of charges being made against certain
aldermen, the king gave orders to the sheriffs to convene the
folkmoot on the morrow at Saint Paul's Cross, upon which day
all the aldermen and citizens came there. The proceedings
are fully described, but the passage interesting to us is the following: "To which inquiry (no conference being first held
among the discreet men of the city, as is usually the practice)
answer was made by some of the populace, sons of divers
mothers, many of them born without the city, and many of
servile condition, with loud shouts of 'Nay, nay, nay'" (p. 38).
In 1262 we have the following remarkable passage. "The
mayor, Thomas FitzThomas, during the time of his mayoralty,
had so pampered the city populace, that, styling themselves
the 'commons of the city,' they had obtained the first voice
in the city. For the mayor, in doing all that he had to do,
acted and determined through them, and would say to them,
'Is it your will that so it shall be?' and then, if they
answered 'Ya, ya,' so it was done. And on the other hand,
the aldermen or chief citizens were little or not at all consulted
on such matter" (p. 59). In I265 the populace cried "Nay,
nay," to the proposed election of William FitzRichard as
sheriff, and demanded Thomas FitzThomas (p. 91). In 1266
" the low people arose, calling themselves the commons of the
city " (p. 95). In 1271 the old dispute broke out again in the
election of mayor, and the record of this is very instructive
(PP. I54-I56).
In these curious and instructive passages I cannot doubt
that we have a record of the final chapters of the history of
the Teutonic folkmoot in London. Its name, its place of
meeting, its popular form, its formula of "Yea, yea," or "Nay,
nay," all proclaim its primitive origin. But then under what
circumstances do we see it with these evident signs of its historical origin? There are by its side "the discreet men of the
city." We have never met with it, either before the date of
these records we have quoted or afterwards, as the dominant
' Cf. Freeman's "Comparative Politics," sect. v.




218 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


power of the city, impressing its forms and ceremonies, its
political system, its derivative forces, upon the municipal
history of the city. It was never powerful; it was only fitful.
And we may well ask why the Teutonic conqueror, who met
in his folkmoot without let or hindrance, bowed in municipal
government to another body, separate and distinct from it?
The answer must be reserved until we have considered some
other facts of London municipal custom.
Other subjects of municipal internal polity claim attention
at this juncture before we turn our attention to London beyond
the walls. At the election of chief magistrate in Teutonic communities many curious and significant customs were observed,
chiefly in connection with the old religion. Among all primitive communities, when a village was first established, a stone
was set up. To this stone the head man of the village made
an offering once a year.' Of the many traces of this custom
in England I will not speak here; but of its survival as a
London municipal custom there exists some curious evidence
accidentally preserved. IHolinshed tells us that when Cade
in 1450 forced his way into London he first of all proceeded
to London Stone, and, having struck his sword upon it, said,
"Now is Mortimer [i.e., Cade] lord of this city." Pennant
in 1793 was the first to note that this act was something more
than meaningless nonsense,2 but it was reserved for Mr.
Coote to put it in its true place as a fragment of municipal
folklore.3 He points out that Holinshed attached a meaning
to it, and that the crowd of Londoners who witnessed it must
have attached a meaning to it. Well, what was that meaning?
It is almost lost to us in London municipal custom. We find
that London Stone entered into municipal legal procedure, as
when the defendant in the lord mayor's court had to be summoned from that spot, and when proclamations, and other
For 'examples, see "Indian Antiquary," vol. ii. p. 66; Biddulph's
"Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh," pp. 105-107, I14; Forbes Leslie's "Early
Races of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 497.
2 "Some Account of London," p. 4.
3 (( London and Middlesex Archaeological Society," vol. v. p. 282.




LONDON STONE.


219


important business of the like nature, were transacted there;'
but there is no direct clue to the action of Cade and its consequent association of London Stone with an archaic Teutonic
custom. But if we turn to a parallel municipal custom elsewhere we shall find the clue we are in search of. On the
mayor's day at Bovey Tracey the mayor used to ride round the
stone cross and strike it with a stick.2 This significant action
proclaimed the authority of the mayor of Bovey, and it is not


LONDON STONE AS IT IS NOW PROTECTED.
difficult to translate this curious parallel into the explanation
which comparative politics afford of the old municipal custom
at London Stone.    But it will be noted that, while at Povey
Tracey the custom obtains almost the force of a municipal law,
in London it had sunk so low in its scale of importance as only
to have been rescued by the record of the acts of a rebel.
I Brandon's "Customary Law of Foreign Attachment," p. 6; and
"Lord Mayor's Court of the City of London," p. 14.
2 Ormerod's "Arrchkeology ofEastern Dartmoor," p. Ix.




220 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


I have another remarkable custom to mention in connection
with this stone-worship, if it may be so designated. In the
Totnes Times, of I3th May, 1882, is an account of the customs
adopted on Mayor's Monday at Bovey Tracey, which gives us
the additional piece of information, unnoticed by Mr. Ormerod
in the book above quoted, that young men were induced to
kiss the magic stone, pledging allegiance in upholding ancient
rights and privileges.  In London there is a remarkable
survival of such a custom, though it is not identified with
London Stone. In Bagford's Letter to Hearne' there is
related how the porters at Billingsgate " used civilly to intreat
and desire every man that passed that way to salute a post
that stood there in a vacant space. If he quietly submitted
to kiss the same and paid down sixpence, then they gave him
a name, and chose some one of the gang to be his godfather."
Now, in these curious relics of old London life we have
stumbled upon a set of facts altogether outside the municipal
formularies of Roman London. That they are hidden among
the popular customs, as distinct from municipal law, proclaims
that they had been ousted from their official place by a power
that we must recognize to be Roman, but that they exist at all
shows that they owed their origin to a power which we must
recognize as extremely archaic, and therefore brought in by
the intruding Teutonic villagers.
In strict association with this subject is a piece of curious
legal procedure, preserved for us in the "Chronicles of the
Mayors and Sheriffs of London." In the charter of Henry III.,
granted in 267, is the following clause, that, as to pleas of the
Crown, the citizens "may deraign themselves according to the
ancient custom of the said city; this, however, excepted, that
upon the graves of the dead it shall not be lawful to make oath
in the precise words as to what the dead persons themselves
would have said if they had been living." This custom was
common to the Teutons and Scandinavians in ancient times.2
See Hearne's "Leland's Itinerary," vol. i. p. Ixxiv.
2 See Thorpe's "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England," pp. 59, 123.




LONDON MUNICIPAL CUSTOMS.


221


In the present instance allusion is made, says Mr. Riley, to a
privilege which had been allowed in London to a person when
accused: to the effect that when one of his compurgators or
jurors had died, whom he had selected to clear or exonerate
him by making oath as to his belief of his innocence, it was
allowable for the accused to say on oath, over the deceased
person's grave, what the precise nature of his intended verdict
would have been; such oath having the same virtue as that of
the deceased in favour of the person so accused.'
The other subject of municipal internal polity which we
must consider is that of punishment awarded for offences
against the laws. Pennant has a very interesting note about
Execution Dock, which in his time still remained at Wapping.
The criminals, he says, are to this day executed on a temporary
gallows, placed at low-water mark, but the custom of leaving the
body to be overflowed by three tides has long since been
omitted.2 It appears to me that this curious practice bears
upon the face of it the character of an archaic survival, and
something which indicates a Teutonic origin. These things
do not originate in the days of Charters and Acts of Parliament,
and we see here an old custom passing away into oblivion.
There can be no doubt, I think, that this represents the old
punishment by drowning, an undoubted Teutonic and
Scandinavian custom. 3 This old custom was extant in the
Cinque Ports; and it is an important fact to notice that the
transitional custom mentioned by Pennant is confirmed by a
record of the actual practice. Kemble, in the first volume of
his " Codex Diplornaticus," speaks of a woman who, being
condemned to death for aiming at the life of a nobleman, was
executed by drowning on London Bridge, in the middle of
the tenth century. A singular prerogative, belonging to the
castellan of Baynard's Castle, consisted in the fact that, if any
traitor was taken within his soke or jurisdiction, it was his duty
"Chronicles of London," p. Io8.
"Some Account of London," p. 324.
3 See Hampson's " Origines Patriciae," pp. Io4-105; Grimm's
"Deutsche Rechtsaltherthiimer," pp. 696-699.




222 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


to sentence him to death by drowning, in conformity wherewith the offender was bound to a pillar in the Thames, used
for mooring vessels, at Woodwharf, near Baynard's Castle, and
left there two floods and two ebbs of the tide.' We read also
in the " Liber de Antiquis Legibus," that in the year 1266, while
the Earl of Gloucester was treating for peace with Henry III.,
at Westminster, certain of his partizans pillaged many of the
citizens of London, and slew one of their number; whereupon
the Earl had four of the offenders seized, bound hand and foot,
thrown into the Thames, and drowned.      And such, the
chronicler adds, was the judgment passed during all this
period upon those who were condemned.2  I should like to lay
stress upon the importance of this piece of evidence, because
it is an example, all too seldom found, of a modern custom
meeting its true explanation and significance by a reference to
ancient custom, and it thus illustrates the correctness of the
principle I have followed in less certain cases.
There are other modes of punishment in London which take
us back to the village life of our TIeutonic ancestors. In the
"Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London" we read that
the bakers, ' whose bread did not weigh according to the assay
of the city, not being placed in the pillory, as they used to be,
but at the will of the Justiciar and Earl exalted in the tumbril,
against the ancient usage of the city and all the realm " (p. 43).
There were two pillories in London; one stood in Cheapside.
In 1269 we read, in the above-named Chronicle (p. I27), it was
out of repair.
A curious legal custom is mentioned by Aubrey as still
obtaining in London during his day, he having observed one
instance. If an unmarried man was capitally condemned, he
was pardoned if a woman begged for his release upon condition
that he married her.3 This is old German law.
Now the particular fact upon which I wish to dwell in conSee Stow's " London " (edit. Thors), p. 25.
2 Riley's " Liber Custumarum," Introd. pp. Ixxxiii, lxxxiv; "Chronicles
of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London," p. 97.
3 Aubrey's " Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme," p. 126.




ROMAN LAW IN LONDON.


223


nection with these various subjects is that they do not exist in
any of the recognized collections of city law and custom.
They have never been codified, never been able to lift themselves beyond the title of municipal usage. I have collected
them from all sorts of places, and have had to piece them
together in a kind of patchwork, with no chronological basis of
connection between them.  Archaeologically they present us
with a fair field of observation, because they belong to the era
of archaic society; but before the tribunal of historical succession they have been found wanting. And, I think, if we look
a little further we shall find that the Roman Londoner had an
excellent piece of machinery wherewith to thrust in the background the barbaric usages of his conquerors. Roman law and
Roman lawyers were all-powerful where commerce was concerned; and their recognition by the ignorant Teutons was, as
we well know, among the first steps towards the formation of the
Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Well, how do we find that Roman law
and Roman lawyers were treated in London? Legal history
contains within it some of the most archaic survivals of our
complicated social system, and when its details are treated
minutely it comes home to the student with considerable force.
Now the order of the coif is the oldest established association
of lawyers in our country; there is no law for its first institution,
no charter from a sovereign, nothing to show from whence it
sprang except its remarkable parallel to Roman customs. The
assembling of the Roman Jurisperiti at early morn, sub galli
cantun, and their peripatetic exercise up and down the Forum,
in actual consultation, or ready to confer with the consultores
or clients, is described by Horace and many other writers.
Horace alludes to it in the following lines (Sat. I. i. 9):"Agricolam laudat juris legumque peritus
Sub galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat;"
and again in the first epistle of his second book he explains
more at large the custom, which is again mentioned by Cicero
in his oration for Murena. But this practice applied to those




224 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COIMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
lawyers whose years and honours had grown with their knowledge of the laws. In their younger days, on the public days
of market or assembly, the masters of the art, says Gibbon,
were seen walking in the Forum ready to impart the needful
advice to the meanest of their fellow-citizens, from whose votes
on a future occasion they might solicit a grateful return. Let
us take a step further in the history of Roman lawyers. When
they awaited their clients at home the youths of their own
order and family were permitted to listen; and Gibbon goes
on to point out the evident corollary from this, that some
families, as for instance the Mucian, were long renowned for
their hereditary knowledge of the civil law.
Now all these facts are in exact parallel to the early customs
of the order of the coif. Serjeant Pulling points out the
significance of the order as a family of lawyers, so to speak,
who appear at the earliest dawn of English history, but
originating from no special enactment from the government of
the day, called into being by no charter or sanction of the
sovereign. But the close parallel between the order of the
coif as a family or corporation of lawyers and the Roman
lawyers who developed into hereditary custodians of legal
knowledge becomes even more remarkable when we consider
their practices, and the theory of their duties. They assembled
in the parvis of old St. Paul's Cathedral, each serjeant having
been allotted a special pillar in the cathedral at his appointment, where they met their clients in legal consultation, hearing
the facts of the case, and taking notes of the evidence, or pacing
up and down. Parvis sometimes implies the church porch,
but in the case of St. Paul's it comprehended the nave or the
middle aisle of the old cathedral, or Paul's Walk. This is
only the old Roman practice over again, and a practice which
was clearly related in the nature of parent to child, not that of
descendant from a common ancestor. Further than this is the
parallel between the theory of their action. As the Roman
lawyer was ready to give aid to the poorest citizen without
pecuniary reward, so was the serjeant '"truly to serve the
King's people " without pecuniary reward.




AGRICULTURAL LONDON.


225


It is before such an institution as this, formed of men
learned'in law far more extensive and philosophical than the
barbarian codes could furnish, that Teutonic custom in London
gradually declined into municipal usage of medimeval and later
days. The law administered in this centre of Roman life was
doubtless the lex mercatoria which contributed to the continued
life in London, perhaps alone, of all the cities of Roman
Britain.'
We have now reviewed some of the municipal customs of
London, and they have shown to us, according to my interpretation of the facts, some features of the contest between
Roman and Saxon. The men who occupied, in early days,
the little hill-fort, and who built up around it a flourishing
commercial port, stood the shock of isolation, and then the
shock of-conquest, without giving up everything to the newcomers. Fortunately for them, the new-comers did not understand, and did not appreciate, the commercial importance of
the place, and did not comprehend the system of government
necessary for such a place. They occupied the lower part of
the ruined city while the Roman traders kept to their old
bounds. This seems to me to be the state of affairs as
revealed to us by a study of the institutions as far as we have
gone. And we now have to go a step further, and ask, Did
the Saxon conquerors and settlers of London, who gave to
the Roman city her Teutonic folkmoot, her Teutonic modes
of punishment, did they also bring with them their agricultural
system? London decommercialized (if I may coin such a
word) must have become London agriculturalized. The limits
of the old walls did not bind the limits of the new citizenship.
A Saxon citizen not only possessed tenements within, but he
possessed his corn-lands, pastures, wood and forest, without
That the lex mercatoria was formed by the merchants themselves is a
curious point in legal history of much significance when dealing with the
question of origins (see Maitland's "Select Pleas of Manorial Courts,"
p. 132), and in the courts of the merchants alone did they have advocates
or professional lawyers (Maitland, p. 136). This fact is certainly remarkable in connection with the evidence set forth above.
i6




226 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


the town boundaries.   And he possessed them    not by
individual ownership, but as a member of the whole community. I am now speaking of times when London was
supported by her agriculture, and not by her commerce.
These agricultural lands without the boundary were held in
common tenure, as we know the agricultural lands of'other
municipal towns were held down to within recent days. But
we see here, just as we saw in matters relating to internal
polity, that the influence of the Roman began to exert itself
very early. Lands held in common were converted either into
corporate property, let out to tenants paying rent, or were
seized upon by citizens who had ceased to be members of an
agricultural community, and had begun to see the advantage
of individual ownership.
FitzStephen, so late as the reign of Henry II., was able to
give an account sufficiently archaic to afford evidence of the
general agricultural aspect of London citizenship.  Everywhere, he says, without the houses of the suburbs, the citizens
have gardens extensive and beautiful, and one joining to the
other (contigui). Then he describes the arable lands of the
citizens as bringing plentiful corn, and being like the rich
fields of Asia. And then come the pastures. On the north
side there are pasture fields, and pleasant meadows intersected
by streams, the waters of which turn the wheels of mills with
delightful sounds. Very near lies a large forest in which are
wild beasts, bucks and does, wild boars, and bulls.I Now,
such a description as this, coming from a Norman chronicler
at a time when Roman and Teuton had both become
Londoners, and when London was the capital of the nation,
tells a great deal more than the meagre words of the Latin
narrative. It must be noted that the citizens owned all these
lands-garden grounds, arable lands, and pasture.   The
citizens then were agriculturists. The gardens were contiguous, and the pasture and forest were in common. This
much we do know; and by analogy we know also that such a
state of things shows a Teutonic settlement, shows a remarkI Liber Custumarum," vol. i. p. 4.




AGRICULTURAL LONDON.


227


able parallel to the land system of other English municipal
towns-Berwick, Nottingham, Malmesbury, and others.' The
long series of parallel customs and remarkable archaic
analogies, which, I think, proclaim English municipal institutions to have been founded upon a Teutonic basis, proclaims, too, that London municipal institutions possess a large
share of the same original stock. The very name of Long
Acre, preserved in modern street nomenclature, tells its tale of
archaic land tenure. It was one of the long narrow strips of
arable into which the lands of the citizen community were
divided.  Such strips, possessing exactly the same name,
' Long Acre," exist in many parts of the country as portions
of the village community, as it survives in England to this day,
and we cannot disassociate the London " Long Acre " from
the same set of facts. When once we can grasp the conception, and FitzStephen enables us to do so, that London was
once agricultural London; that her citizens depended upon
their garden ground, arable lands, and pastures for the means
of existence; and when we add to this that her folkmoot was
the old Teutonic folkmoot, where one and all had a right of
attendance; that her hustings court, possessing its ancient
name, was the court which governed the tenures of citizen
landholding; that parts of her criminal law belonged to the
ancient code which was extant in the homes of Scandinavia
and Germany-we may identify some portions of the early
history of municipal London as belonging to Teutonic times.
And correlatively I would urge that because we see signs of the
imperfect development of this archaic system, signs of a something which exists always alongside of it and yet is not a part
of it, we see the latent powers of Roman citizenship exerting
themselves.
What, then, has become of the garden ground, arable lands,
and pastures of London citizenship? Some of it became
corporate property, and remains so to this day, the city still
owning their conduit-mead estate in Marylebone, which was
once citizen meadow land, lying by the conduit which supplied
See Archaologia, vol. xlvi. pp. 403-422.




228 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.


water to the city. But this last outlying relic of old citizen
land does not tell us of the alienations which have taken
place during these last eight hundred years. Just let us turn,
for instance, to the "Liber Albus,"   and study that most
instructive list of grants and agreements made by the city.
"Concessio majoris et communitatis" is the formula. And
the mayor and commonalty grant extra-mural property away
with a free hand-"de domo vocata Bedlem extra Bysshopisgate, de domo extra Newgate, de quadam domo extra
Crepulgate." And besides these there are such instructive
documents as " Memorandum de quadam Placea terrae extra
Crepulgate capta in manum civitatis." 2 I cannot conceive a
more instructive piece of work than a map of the city property, restored from the archives and documents of the city,
to show the possessions of the earliest times.
Some of the old citizen land remained citizen land, changing
its uses as the circumstances of the time changed. Thus
Finsbury Field 3 and Smithfield were used for games and
sports, as open lands outside the city, long after their archaic
significance as open lands had passed away.
Thus, then, it appears that we may translate these phenomena
of the early municipal history of London as representing the
intrusive influence of a primitive village organization upon the
settled constitution of a Roman town, and the distinctions so
clearly manifest between the two systems afford evidence that
they could not commingle, and that even on admitted Roman
territory Roman institutions could not enter within the bounds
of the village system. There remains the second part of this
proposition to consider-how far were the village communities
round London influenced by the Roman constitution of the
great city?
Vol. i. p. 552.
2 In the "Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London" we read
how Henry III. in I265 came to London and took all theforeign lands of
the citizens into his hands, foreign lands being those without the liberties
of the city (see p. 83).
3 See " Chronicles of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London," p. I74, for a
relation of the possible loss of this to the citizens in 1173.




LONDON AND MIDDLESEX.


229


In the long series of charters; which a recently published
work has made more generally accessible to readers, there is a
charter granted by Henry I. confirming to the city of London
the county of Middlesex in fee-farm. Such a grant as this
points to much more than a King's favour, even if we take
into account Henry's peculiar position. -There is evidence of
ancient rights claimed by the citizens, "and the citizens of
London may have their chases to hunt as well and fully as
their ancestors have had."    Mr. Green places these ancient
rights far back in the past.  "Middlesex," he says, "possibly
represents a district which depended on London in this earlier
[i.e., 500-577] as it certainly did in a later time; and the
privileges of the chase which its citizens enjoyed throughout
the Middle Ages in the woodland that covered the heights of
Hampstead, and along the southern bank of the river as far as
the Cray, may have been drawn from the rights of the Roman
burghers."2   No doubt, I think, the limits of the "territorium " of Roman London determined the limits of the wood
and forest rights of Saxon and later London. No doubt the
jurisdiction of the London sheriff over the county of Middlesex
is a relic of Roman times, but, in spite of all, the walls of
Roman London determined the limits of the city boundary.
1  Historical Charters and Constitutional Documents of the City of
London," 1884.
2 "The Making of England," pp. Io6, Io7. One or two instances of
the usages of the citizens outside the city boundaries may perhaps be useful;
they are taken from the " Chronicles of the Mayor of London." In 1232
the citizens of London mustered in arms at the Mile End and were arrayed
in the London Chepe ("Chronicles of London," p. 7). "His Lordship
the King requested them [the Corporation] to permit the Abbot of Westminster to enjoy the franchise which the King had granted him in Middlesex
in exchange for other liberties which the citizens might of right demand.
To which the citizens made answer that they could do nothing as to such
matter without the consent of the whole community" (Ibid. p. I6). This
subject was afterwards settled, it being decided that the Sheriffs of London
may enter all vills and tenements which the Abbot holds in Middlesex,
even unto the gate of his abbey (Ibid. p. 6I). " Upon the King (1257)
approaching Westminster the mayor and citizens went forth to salute him,
as the usage is, as far as Kniwtebrigge " (Ibid. p. 34).




230 THE FINAL TYPE OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY IN BRITAIN.
Unlike Lauder, Malmesbury, Buckingham, and other municipal
towns, the boundaries of London did not extend beyond the
wall, and become co-terminous with the burghal lands. The
village communities exercised their powers here unaffected by
the Romans of London, and thus we find the manors of
Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent do not differ from those of other
parts of the country, and old parishes like Fulham possess
common lands to this day on tenures closely assimilating to
those of the village community.' The intrusion of village
institutions into London is not therefore accompanied by the
overflow of Roman institutions into the villages around, and
no better evidence could be adduced to prove how completely
outside the village system the power of Roman influences was.
In this interesting group of survivals of the village community in Britain only some few analogies to the Indian village
community have been pointed out, without entering into closer
comparison or giving further examples. I think this course
may be justified on the ground that constant reiteration of the
many points of parallelism which present themselves would be
wearisome and needless. The student has but to refer back for
himself, and compare each English type with the Indian types
described in the second chapter. But I have this to point
out. It is almost certain that but for the discovery of the
Indian communities we should never have been able to discover these remnants of archaic life in our own land. It is
not the laborious study of historical documents, nor minute
and patient research into fragments of early law, which has
testified to the existence of the village community in the
Western world; but it is the survival in custom and usage of
primitive agricultural economy and of a lex loci which defies
codification because of its diversity, and which has only not
been crushed out of existence by the professional law because,
Cf. the printed manor laws of Stepney and Wimbledon; Hales,
"Domesday of St. Paul's," and the Isleworth Manor Rolls in the Fifth
Report of the Historical MSS. Commission. Also Gomme's " Primitive
Folkmoots," p. I57, for the open-air court held formerly in the Strand.




LOCAL CUSTOM AND LAW.


23t


first, of its safe home in the unwritten common law of the land,
and secondly, because it did not trench upon any of the recognized legal maxims which governed the advanced portion of the
nation. How little that advanced portion has hitherto had to do
with the great mass of the nation! If ever it is true that there is
one law for the poor and another for the rich, it is true as an outcome of the development of law from custom, and it is not due
to the initiative of the rich. The ruling classes of this country
have governed themselves, and have sought to govern the
whole nation, by uniform laws derived from philosophical
sources, and defined and put into force by the king's courts;
the peasant and the yeoman have constantly ignored the law
of the king's courts, and have governed themselves, by their
own preference, by maxims and rules obtaining in the manorial
courts and in the old parish assemblies. Older than the law
of the king's courts, the lex loci shows the marks of its primitive
origin by its diversity and by its capacity for keeping up its
special characteristics. Accordingly when we come to examine
the constitution of the communities which are the natural
home of this local law, we detect so much divergence from a
common standard, and yet so many points of likeness, that we
are justified in the argument that the unstable primitive communities must be the ancestor of the present local communities. At all events, I would submit that the variations in
the types of survival which we have examined prove beyond
doubt that we cannot absolutely solve the question of origins
until we have settled what the normal type is like, and that
therefore the true line of future inquiry is to gather together all
examples of the village community which local survival has
preserved.




CHAPTER IX.


FRAGMENTS OF THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY SURVIVING IN
LOCAL CUSTOM.
THE breaking up of the village communities under the
advancing conditions which economical and political necessity
have forced upon the nation, did not proceed at a uniform rate
all over the country. The examples we have examined show some
of the latest survivals of the old order of things. Elsewhere we
come upon mere fragments, preserved from further destruction
by various causes, sometimes by the minute form in which
they have survived, sometimes by their unimportance, or we
might say by their innocuous influence upon the prevailing
system of the age. These fragments are well worth studying.
We cannot do now much more than indicate their existence
and their main characteristics, but a detailed examination of
them would lead to much valuable information as to the condition of the country when it was passing slowly from primitive
to civilized conditions, and as to the wide-spread influences
which the primitive organization of society has exercised upon
the development of the nation.
If we analyze and set down the most significant of the
characteristics of the village communities in Britain, judged by
the types we have already examined, we find them to fall under
the following heads:I. Recognition of kinship.
2. The mixture of races.
3. The homestead as the source of rights in the village.




THE INFLUENCE OF KINSHIP.


233


4. The open village assembly.
5. The periodical allotment of lands.
6. The existence within the village of a servile class.
7. Primitive agricultural economy.
8. The manorial element.
And we will examine some of the survivals in custom of these
several characteristics of the village community.
i. A very considerable amount of controversy has arisen
both in Germany and England upon the constitution of the
Anglo-Saxon family, the best comment upon which, for our
present purpose, has been made by an American writer, who,
after reviewing the most important authorities, points out that
"one fact is made evident by this controversy, that no system
can ever be found which will be in all respects consistent with
all the sources: the German laws of inheritance were not the
results of legislation based on philosophic principles, but rather
the slow outgrowth of custom adapting itself to special needs.
It is useless to expect that uniformity of system and logical application of fundamental rules which characterize Roman law." 
It will be seen that this observation made of the Anglo-Saxon
family is true of the other branches of the Teutonic social
organization in England the relics of which we have been
examining. We do not know of the Anglo-Saxon family what
we do of the Indian family, but that it occupied a corresponding position in the village system, we are more than justified in
assuming from the relics of its organization, which are to be
traced in law, custom, and usage.
We are not now concerned, however, with the Anglo-Saxon
family in its ancient integrity: all we want is to point out
its influence while the primitive village community was
gradually breaking up.  In the primitive system  of the
Punjab, as Mr. Tupper has pointed out, "status formed
the whole, or nearly the whole, civil law; and kinship,
which is a department of status, is a paramount influence
in regulating property and obligations. As Sir Henry Davies
I, Anglo-Saxon Law," p. I32.




234


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


pointed out in his report on Gurdaspur, this system served
in troublous times, and for several centuries, instead of title
deeds."I In India a special class exists among some tribes
for the purpose of keeping a knowledge of the facts of relationship, and it is noted that they can tell the genealogical descent
of the family without missing a name. It is surely a relic of the
same condition of the law that in all the chief divisions of Great
Britain the same evidence is forthcoming. Among the Irish
and the Scottish every chief had a poet whose duties included
the recitation of the pedigree of his lord. Giraldus Cambrensis
(c. xvii.) describes how even the common people of Wales
kept their genealogies, and could not only readily recount the
names of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, but even
refer back to the sixth and seventh generation. And there is
at least very good evidence of the custom among the English
villani, as Mr. Seebohm points out from the "Codex Diplomaticus "2; while local dialect has preserved the old kinship
of the primitive clan in the word " kit" which, in Northamptonshire, is applied to denote collectively a number of families of
the same name, among which a kind of ideal clanship still
existed, never more discernible, says Sternberg, than in the
broils and pugnacious manifestations which are continually
occurring to disturb the harmony of the feast-day. 3 It is also
significant to note the expression of a manorial tenant being
"of the blood of" the manor, which is printed by Mr. Maitland, from the rolls of Kings Ripton, in I296-de sanguine
de Repton Regis.4  I think this expression must carry with it
a surviving belief in common descent and common blood kinship.
Many authorities, including Brentano, Sullivan, Herbert
Spencer, and Sir Henry Maine, are agreed that the origin of
gilds is due to the primitive family, and Sir Henry Maine has
I Tupper, "Punjab Customary Law," vol. ii. p. 84.
2 Seebohm's "Village Community," p. I39. Cf. "Codex Diplomaticus,"
No. MCCCLIV.; Kemble's " Saxons in England," vol. i. p. 226.
3 Sternberg's " Dialect of Northamptonshire," p. 59.
4 " Select Pleas of Manorial Courts," p. 122.




KINSHIP AND GILDS.


235


stated the general conclusion in language which will bear
quotation.  "The ideas of kinship," he says, "and the
phraseology proper to consanguinity, are extended to associations which we should now contemplate as exclusively founded
on contract, such as partnerships and gilds.... It is most
instructive to find the same words used to describe bodies of
co-partners formed by contract, and bodies of co-heirs, or coparceners, formed by common descent. As regards gilds, I
certainly think that they have been too confidently attributed
to a relatively modern origin, and that many of them, and much
which is common to all of them, may be suspected to have
grown out of the primitive brotherhoods of co-villagers and
kinsmen-joint in food, worship, and estate."'  It does not
seem worth while to pursue this subject any further here, because
of the generally accepted theory as set forth in easily accessible
works; but I wish to emphasize its significance as bearing upon
the continuance in England, to later times than is generally
supposed, of the old ties of kinship in the village community,
and therefore as supporting the theory of a survival of
ancestral shares in the village lands by which I have ventured
to explain certain phenomena which have been brought under
notice in describing the customs of Aston, Malmesbury, Kells,
and other places.
A fact which has not hitherto been noted, and which must
be referred to the same basis of kinship, should, however, be
more formally mentioned. To many of the Domesday manors
are said to belong so many burgesses, just as in Russia at the
present day members of the mir frequently go to the towns to
work while retaining, and ultimately returning to claim, all the
privileges of their ancestral villages. To give one example, we
will note the case of the Wiltshire manors. In Wilton there
were five burgesses of Nigrave, seven of Sarisberie, one of
Stradford, two of Fifhide,one of Come, four of Diarneford, one of
Scarentone, one of Meresdene, and one of Odestoke. In Cricklade there were six burgesses of Aldeborne, five of Ramesberie,
I Maine's "Early History of Institutions," p. 232; Gomme's" Literature
of Local Institutions," section Gilds; Hearn's "Aryan Household," p. 241.




236


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


one of Badeberie, one of Piritone, six of Chiseldene, one of
Ledentone, seven of Lediar, three of Clive, and three of Colecote. In Malmesbury there were one burgess of Langhelei,
one of Sumreford, two of Werocheshalle, two of Come, one of
Wodetone, one of Hunlavintone, one of Aldritone, one of Foxelege, and one of Segrie. In Calne there were three burgesses
of Calestone, and one of Cainingham. Thus each of these
Wiltshire boroughs included within their membership men
living under the different laws of their parent manors,' and the
continental picture, drawn by Bishop Agobardus, of men
standing side by side in cities and large towns, each one of
whom is governed by a different law, namely the law of the
place where he comes from, is thus reproduced in England;
law being incidental not to the locality, but to the person, flowing not from the sovereign of the country, but from the kinship
which binds together all descendants of a common ancestor.2
No doubt when we are able to catch a glimpse at this phase
of the old tribal law the increasing powers of towns were
gradually trespassing upon the older village rights; so that when
a community sent forth some of its members to settle down
elsewhere, the newly formed communities thus invigorated from
without would constantly absorb the laws and customs of their
members. In this way special and peculiar customs would be
spread, and when the sovereign law of united England began
to take cognisance of them, and to allow their existence as a
part of the law of the land, it classified them as lex loci.
2. In pointing out what evidence there appears to exist for
the late survival of the intermixture of races, and hence of
tribal laws and customs, in some parts of the British Isles long
after the political advancement of the nation had permanently
fixed the settling places of the bulk of the population, we must
The formula in these cases is invariably as follows:-" huic manerio
[Aldeborne] pertinent 6 burgenses in Crickelade"; "ad hoc manerium
[Nigrave] pertinent 5 burgenses in Wiltune"; "in burgo Caune una domus
pertinet huic manerio " [Cainingham].
2 For examples as to how this acted in Gild History, see Ashley's
"Economic History," p. 75.




CLAN FEUDS.


237


rest our evidence almost entirely upon the relics of clan feuds
which are known as so prominent a factor in early society.
An important passage from Caesar has not been noted as it
deserves to be.  He says, "Factions exist not only in the
states and in all the cantons and their divisions, but almost in
each family, and that seems to have been instituted in ancient
times with a view that no one of the common people should be
in want of support against one more powerful." I Such a state of
things could not be made to fit in with the generally accepted
view of homogeneous tribes descended from a common
ancestor, but it almost exactly explains the state of things
which we see reproduced in our own land from the evidence
that remains of the English conquest. Of course Caesar's own
supposition as to the origin of these intertribal conflicts must be
passed over as the only possible idea that could have occurred
to a Roman statesman ignorant of the first elements of tribal
history; but in the light of Mr. McLennan's researches we may
re-quote the passage with some degree of certainty that it
reflects the tribal stage when each clan within the tribe was of
different kinship and at enmity with the other clans.
Mr. Kemble was the first to note that " the Gentile names
of Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark" are reproduced
upon our own shores. Thus he goes on to say Harlings and
Waelsings and Billings are reproduced in several localities in
England, and his well-known table showing the wide distribution of English clan names may easily be referred to as
evidence.2 In explaining this phenomenon of the English
settlement, Mr. Kemble cannot account for its non-agreement
with the generally received origin of tribes and clans being
homogeneous descendants from a common ancestor, and he
falls back upon the "restless movements of our progenitors,"
and the possibility of a leader being followed by "comrades
glad to constitute themselves around him under an appellation
long recognized as heroic," or of a leader "distinguished for
skill, valour, and success imposing the name of his own race
"De Bello Gall.," lib. vi., cap. xi.
2 Kemble's " Saxons in England," vol. i. p. 59.




238


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


upon all who shared in his adventures."   But against this
explanation Mr. Lang has set some very powerful difficulties.
First, that of accounting for the non-homogeneous character of
local tribes; secondly, the difficulty of accounting for the
union of elements confessedly so exclusive as the different
families; thirdly, of understanding how the same family names
were scattered through many local tribes.' Clearly if a successful leader, calling himself and his followers Harlings, or
Waelsings, or Billings, had conquered territory enough to
settle and found a home, he would not split up his band and
scatter it in face of the perils they had to encounter as
conquerors; and as clearly the only satisfactory explanation
of this wide scattering of family names is that each tribe was
composed of mixed kinships caused by the almost universal
tribal practice of exogamy among the clans of each tribe.
The late survival of clanship in Scotland ought to give us
some evidence of the same system of clan exogamy.    Mr.
Skene has once for all established that the organization
which was known to the travellers of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and which is known to all readers of
Scott's novels, is historically a late development, based though
it is upon kinship and not upon locality.2  This important fact
ought to enable us to get a glimpse of the older organization
from which the later was developed; and we know sufficient
of the name-system to show that originally each clan was
composed, not as lately of all Campbells, or all Macintoshes,
or all Rosses, but of intermixed names.3  Thus in Burt's
"Letters from the Highlands" (p. I7), first published in I754,
we are told that "the different surnames of the Highlanders
in general are but few; in regard they are divided into large
families, and hardly any strangers have intermarried with or
settled among them; and with respect to particular tribes they
commonly make that alliance among themselves who are all of
Bolland and Lang's " Aristotle," introd. p. 99.
2 Skene's " Celtic Scotland," vol. iii. p. 324.
3 Mr. Skene has worked out the history of the clans in " Celtic Scotland," cf. vol. iii. p. 332.




CLAN FEUDS.


239


one name, except some few who may have affected to annex
themselves to the clan, and those for the most part assume the
name." The significance of the latter portion of this paragraph
is made perfectly clear by a statement in an account of the
Highlanders, written in 1747, and communicated by Sir Walter
Scott to Dr. Jamieson, the editor of Burt's "Letters," in I 88.
This account sets forth that "it hath been for some time a
custom through the Highlands, amongst those who pretend to
be chiefs or leaders of clans, to oblige all the farmers or cottars
that gett possessions in their grounds, to take their names. In
a generation or two it is believed that they really are of that
name, and this not only adds to the number of the clan and
keeps it up, but superinduces the tye of kindred to the obligation and interest of the former."'  Thus, although the
Scottish clans present in their more popular aspect homogeneous groups all bearing the common patronymic, we see by
this that formerly they must have conformed to the general
tribal practice of clan exogamy, each local settlement therefore
being made up of different kinships. A picture of Inverness
before it had grown into a town, when the hovels and lanes
might well have belonged to a village of an Indian hill tribe,
tells us how these mixed kindreds kept up the blood feud of
archaic times. " Those houses that were not sashed have two
shutters that turn upon hinges for the lower half of the window.
The people still continue these shutters as an old custom which
was first occasioned by danger, for in their clan quarrels several
had been shot from the opposite side of the way." 2 We have
already seen that in Camden's time the windows of Lauder
were sashed.
So far, then, as the clans of Scotland and so far as the local
settlements founded by such clans are concerned, we have evidence of the ancient tribal phenomenon of intermixed kinships.
Appendix to Burt's " Letters," p. 362. On the custom of giving
nick-names in the Highlands, see Guthrie's "Old Scottish Customs,"
p. I33, and compare the anonymous book on " Scotch Surnames," Edinburgh, I86o, pp. 24 et seq.
2 Burt's " Letters," p. 6I.




240


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM,


Caesar's language about the organization of the Gallic and
German tribes into " cantons " and "tribes" I prepares us to
find evidence of tribal kinships formed for the purpose of
carrying on wars. Giraldus Cambrensis, speaking of the condition of things in Wales in the twelfth century, says, "The
young men move about in troops and families, under the
direction of chosen leaders:... they have free admittance
into every house as if it were their own." 2
In the passage above quoted from Burt as to the condition
of Inverness a hundred years ago, we were introduced to an
example of the late survival of clan feuds. I now wish to note
in what manner these clan feuds have survived in England.
If we only possessed early maps of all our towns it would be
seen how the formation of the village was almost invariably
based upon the aggregation of different clans. In one instance,
that of Witney, in Oxfordshire, we meet with a most singular
example of this, and the evidence of the construction of the
town is enhanced by a very shrewd suggestion made by the
local historian.  I must quote this entire passage: "An old
map of the country (engraved in Hamper's 'Life of Sir William
Dugdale') represents Witney in former days as two separate
towns, an upper and a lower; and Mr. Langford suggests
that the yearly fights which take place on the 5th of November
between the up-town and the down-town boys, may be a
lingering relic of the former state of things." 3 Here not only
do we have distinct evidence of the old clan divisions, but of
the old clan antagonisms. It may be well, therefore, to use
the remarkable instance which Witney affords as a type
example which may serve the purpose of leading the way to
other and perhaps less perfect types.
We will confine our attention to examples which show
Commentaries," lib. i. caps. 12, 37, 51; lib. iv. cap. I; lib. vii.
cap. 36.
2 " Description of Wales," lib. i. cap. Io.
3 Dr. Giles, " History of Witney," p. 2I. I cannot discover the map
here alluded to in any of the copies of Hamper's " Life of Dugdale " that
I have been able to consult. Nor have I been able to find a trace of this
interesting map elsewhere.




CLAN FEUDS IN ENGLAND.


241


definite traces of clan divisions.  At Scarborough on the
morning of Shrove Tuesday hawkers parade the streets with
party-coloured balls which are purchased by all ranks of the
community. With these, and armed with sticks, men, women,
and children repair to the sands below the old town and
indiscriminately commence a contest. At Ludlow there was a
grand "tug of war" between the inhabitants of Broad Street
and Corve Street Wards with a rope three inches thick and
thirty-six yards long, with a large knob at each end. The
shops were shut at four o'clock, when the rope, which was
bought by the Corporation, was given out of the Market Hall
window by the Mayor. One man stood on another's shoulders,
and the chimney-sweep's wife on his shoulders.  These represented the Red Knob; three others, mounted in the same way,
representing the Blue Knob. When they got the rope, if the
struggle were carried down Mill Street, the Red Knob had won,
and the knobs were dipped in the river Teme in token of
victory; if the contest were carried through the Bull Ring, the
Blue Knob won, and the dipping took place in the river Corve.
After the rope was won it was taken back to the Market Hall
and given out again, and if the same side won, the contest was
ended; but if the opposite side conquered, then it was given
out and pulled once more, and whichever side won remained
the victors. The rope was sold, and the money got for it
spent in beer, and then the fighting and quarrelling commenced. These disorderly scenes and the dangerous accidents
resulting caused it to be discontinued in i85i.'
At Derby there was a football contest between the parishes
of All Saints' and St. Peter's. The ball was thrown into the
market-place from the Town Hall.  The moment it was
thrown the "war cries " of the rival parishes began, and the
contest, nominally that of a football match, was in reality a
fight between the two sections of the town: and the victors
were announced by the joyful ringing of their parish bells.2  At
Burne's "Shropshire Folklore," p. 319; Brand's "Popular Antiquities," vol. i. p. 92.
2 Dyer's " Popular Customs," p. 75.
i7




242


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


Chester-le-Street the game is played between what are termed
"Up-streeters" and "Down-streeters," one side endeavouring
to get the ball to the top of the town, whilst their opponents
try to keep it near the lower or north end. At one o'clock the
ball is thrown out from near the old commercial hotel, the
Queen's Head, in the centre of the town, and it has often been
received by over three and four hundred people, so great is the
interest taken in this ancient sport. At Asborne the struggle
was between the up'ards and down'ards.    At Dorking the
divisions were between the east and west ends of the town,
and there was first a perambulation of the streets by the
football retinue composed of grotesquely dressed persons.I
At Alnwick the divisions were the parishes of St. Michael's
and St. Paul's. At Kirkwall the contest is on New Year's
Day, and is between "up the gates" and "down the gates,"
the ball being thrown up at the Cross.
It is impossible, I think, to contemplate these fierce contests,
to note their connection with official authorities and official
boundaries, without coming to the conclusion that the struggles
were after all not rope matches or football games so much as
local struggles;2 and when we observe further that locality
now takes the place of clanship, the argument is forced home to
us that we have in these modern games the surviving relics of
the earliest conditions of village life and organization, when
different clans settled down side by side, but always with the
recollection of their tribal distinctions. And I may note here
that such contests are well-ascertained features of tribal society.
Mr. Morgan has noticed this fact, and puts forth an example from
the Seneca Indians who play a ball game by phratries one against
the other,3 and the Greek phratries certainly developed the
same characteristic. Again in the North-West Provinces of India
I Dyer's " Popular Customs," p. 87.
2 Colonel Forbes Leslie notes that " The playing ball was not originally
football, for no one was allowed to kick it" (" Early Races of Scotland,"
vol. i. p. I25).
3 ", Ancient Society," p. 94.




CLAN FEUDS IN WALES.


243


a very thick grass rope is pulled by the villagers among themselves. The party in whose quarter the rope is broken, or
by whom the rope is pulled out of the hands of their antagonests, are the victors, and retain the rope for the year.' The
quarters of an Indian village are clan quarters. In Wales we
know the old tribal system lasted much longer than in England,
and it is here also that tribal games, as we may perhaps call
them, have lasted in their purest form. To Miss Burne, author
of "Shropshire Folklore," I am indebted for the following
graphic account of Welsh customs which was printed in the
Oswestry Observer of March 2, 1887: "In South Cardiganshire it seems that about eighty years ago the population, rich
and poor, male and female, of opposing parishes, turned out on
Christmas Day and indulged in the game of football with such
vigour that it became little short of a serious fight.  The
parishioners of Cellan and Pencarreg were particularly bitter
in their conflicts; men threw off their coats and waistcoats
and women their gowns, and sometimes their petticoats. At
Llanwenog, an extensive parish below Lampeter, the inhabitants for football purposes were divided into the Bros and the
Blaenaus. My informant, a man over eighty, now an inmate
of Lampeter Workhouse, gives the following particulars:-In
North Wales the ball is called the Bel Troed, and was made
with a bladder covered with a Cwd Tarw. In South Wales it is
called Bel Ddu, and was usually made by the shoemaker of
the parish, who appeared on the ground on Christmas Day
with the ball under his arm, and, said my informant, he took
good care not to give it up until he got his money for making
it. The Bros, it should be stated, occupied the high ground
of the parish. They were nick-named 'Paddy Bros,' from a
tradition that they were descendants from Irish people who
settled on the hills in days long gone by.  The Blaenaus
occupied the lowlands, and, it may be presumed, were purebred Brythons. The more devout of the Bros and Blaenaus
joined in the service at the parish church on Christmas
morning. At any rate, the match did not begin until about
Carnegy's " Kachahri Technicalities," see Folklore Record, vol. v. p. 36.




244


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


midday, when the service was finished. Then the whole of
the Bros and Blaenaus, rich and poor, male and female,
assembled on the turnpike road which divided the highlands
from the lowlands. The ball having been redeemed from the
crydd, it was thrown high in the air by a strong man, and when
it fell Bros and Blaenaus scrambled for its possession, and a
quarter of an hour frequently elapsed before the ball was got
out from among the struggling heap of human beings. Then
if the Bros, by hook or by crook, could succeed in taking the
ball up the mountain to their hamlet of Rhyddlan they won the
day; while the Blaenaus were successful if they got the ball to
their end of the parish at New Court. The whole parish was
the field of operations, and sometimes it would be dark before
either party scored a victory. In the meantime many kicks
would be given and taken, so that on the following day some
of the competitors would be unable to walk, and sometimes a
kick on the shins would lead the two men concerned to
abandon the game until they had decided which was the better
pugilist. There do not appear to have been any rules for the
regulation of the game; and the art of football playing in the
olden time seems to have been to reach the goal. When once
the goal was reached, the victory was celebrated by loud
hurrahs and the firing of guns, and was not disturbed until the
following Christmas Day. Victory on Christmas Day, added
the old man, was so highly esteemed by the whole country-side,
that a Bro or Blaenau would as soon lose a cow from his cowhouse, as the football from his portion of the parish."
The traditions of race are here most marked, and it is an important addition to former observations to see that the distinction
of race is also a distinction between hill folk and valley folk.
From this we may turn to a still earlier form of tribal games
where the element of clan feuds is more decidedly preserved.
In the first volume of the "Archaeologia Scotica," published by
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1792, there is a very
good description of the manner in which the Lammas festival
used to be celebrated in Midlothian about the middle of the
eighteenth century.  This account is all the more valuable




CLAN FEUDS IN SCOTLAND.


245


because it is in all probability unique.  From this paper it
appears that all the herds within a certain district towards the
beginning of summer associated themselves into bands, sometimes to the number of a hundred and more. Each of these
communities agreed to build a tower in some conspicuous place
near the centre of their district. This tower was usually built
of sods, though sometimes of stones. It was for the most part
square, about 4 feet in diameter at the bottom, and tapering to
a point at the top, which was seldom above 7 feet or 8 feet from
the ground. In building it a hole was left in the centre for
admitting a flagstaff, on which were displayed their colours on
the great day of the festival. This tower was usually begun to
be built about a month before Lammas, being seldom entirely
completed till a few days before.  From the moment the
foundation of the tower was laid it became an object of care
and attention to the whole community, for it was reckoned a
disgrace to suffer it to be defaced. As the honour that was
acquired by the demolition of a tower, if effected by those
belonging to another, was in proportion to the disgrace of
suffering it to be demolished, each party endeavoured to
circumvent the other as much as possible. To give the alarm
of the approach of an attacking party every person was armed
with a tooting-horn. As the great day of Iammas approached
each community chose one from among themselves for their
captain.  They marched forth early in the morning on
Lammas Day dressed in their best apparel, each armed with a
stout cudgel, and, repairing to their tower, there displayed
their colours in triumph. If news was brought that a hostile
party approached, the horns sounded to arms.  Seldom did
they admit the approach of the enemy, but usually went forth
to meet them.   When the two parties met they mutually
desired each other to lower their colours in sign of subjection,
and if there appeared to be a great disproportion in the
strength of the parties, the weaker usually submitted to this
ceremony without much difficulty. But if they were nearly
equal in strength none of them would yield, and it ended in
blows, and sometimes in bloodshed. When they had remained




246


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


at their tower till about midday, if no opponent appeared, or if
they themselves had no intention of making an attack, they
then took down their colours and marched with horns sounding
towards the most considerable village in their district, when
the lasses and all the people came out to meet them and
partake of their diversions.  Boundaries were immediately
appointed and a proclamation made that all who intended to
compete in this race should appear. A bonnet ornamented
with ribbons was displayed upon a pole as the prize of the
victor. The prize of the second race was a pair of garters, and
the third a knife. When two parties met, and one yielded to
the other, they marched together for some time in two separate
bodies, the subjected body behind the other; and then they
parted good friends, each party performing their races at their
own appointed place.
We now turn to other evidence for the like facts of early life.
The mode of settlement in some of our great towns exhibits
clear traces of tribal divisions.  At Nottingham, until so
recently as I715, the market-place was divided lengthwise
by an ancient wall breast-high, supposed to have been erected
to provide separate market-places for the irreconcilable Saxons
and Normans. This wall was taken down about this date,
and the market-place for the first time was paved.' This
division is most probably much older than the Norman era,
as at Nottingham we have that remarkable instance of a
difference between the two parts of the town in the modes of
descent of property, one part following the rule of primogeniture, the other that of junior right or borough English,2 and
junior right is at all events older than political history.
Some manors are also thus divided in their methods of treating
descent of property.  Thus at Eling, in Hampshire, "the
custom of the manor is that in the south part of the manor
Antiquary, I887, vol. xv. p. 90.
"Yearbook I Edward III.," i2a; Robinson, "Gavelkind," p. 386;
"Records of the Borough of Nottingham," vol. i. p. I73. The Danish
element at Nottingham is much stronger than the Norman, see W. H.
Stevenson's " Early History of Nottingham " (a pamphlet), p. I4,




RACE DIVISIONS IN ENGLISH TOWNS.


247


the youngest son of an intestate is the heir, and in the north
part the eldest son."' Outside Shrewsbury, beyond the Severn,
and at the foot of the Welsh Bridge, there is a suburb called
Frankwell, written in the oldest documents in which it is
mentioned "Frauncheville," which has always been reputed a
free town, beyond the jurisdiction of the burgesses of Shrewsbury, and of the merchant companies who had the monopoly
of trade within the town. By Acts passed in the reigns of
Henry IV. and Henry VI., no Welshman might hold lands
within an English "merchant town," or become a burgess of it,
or even buy and sell within it; and even when these Acts fell
into abeyance the race enmity between English and Welsh
would make the Shrewsbury trading companies very chary of
admitting any Welshman to their fellowship. Hence the "free
town " without the walls became the resort of such Welshmen
as embarked in trade with England. Within the memory of
aged, but still living, persons it was inhabited almost wholly by
a Welsh population, and Welsh, not English, was the language
which visitors heard spoken as they passed through the streets.
The Municipal Reform Act of 1835, by abolishing the exclusive rights of the trading companies, was the cause of the
amalgamation of the two races, for the Welsh character of
Frankwell has now almost, if not quite, disappeared. The
name of " D. Lloyd ap Roger, 1623," on an old house, and
the still-remembered site of St. Cadogan's Chapel (pulled down
before the civil wars), are relics of the old state of things, and
the privileges of the " free town " are not yet forgotten. Any
supposed slight to Frankwell still arouses the old watchword,
"Frankwell, maintain your rights!" which so late as I821,
when the population was still Welsh, was used to incite resistance to a newly-passed street Act, under which the Corporation proposed to cleanse the streets of the suburb as well as of
the borough itself.2
The question as to the early history of the Boley Hill at
Easton's " Statements Relative to Pauperism of Kirriemuir, Forfarshire," I825, p. 176. A similar division occurs at Cheshunt, Herts. See
Aotes and Queries, 7th Ser. ix. 206.
2 Miss C. S. Burne, in the Atheneurn, August 7, i886.




248


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


Rochester affords another illustration of the long survival of
race divisions in local settlements, and it is worth while, I
think, tracing out this interesting point, because it may serve
to show how much may be accomplished by a close examination of local history.
Mr. Clark has taught us the relationship between Norman
castle and early earthworks, and he has thus described those
at Rochester. They "are on a large scale," and "seem to
have been composed of an oblong space included within a
ditch which commenced near the bridge foot, and was carried
eastwards for about I30 yards, when it turned to the south and
ran for about 270 yards, roughly, parallel to the river, towards
which it was again returned. This oblong area was sub-divided
into two unequal parts, the southern being the smaller, by a
cross ditch, and the latter part was occupied by a large flattopped conical mound known as Boley Hill. The northern
part contains the castle.... The area thus included is about
74 acres. The mound is of large size, though reduced by
modern operations. It is in part natural, in part formed by
the adjacent ditches.",' I gather from this that the earthwork,
as a whole, may be said to have preceded both Boley Hill and
the Castle as they are presented to us now, and that it formed
the original British settlement before Roman or Saxon had put
their stamp upon it. Rochester has not an entrenched area
surrounding an inner earthwork such as Wareham and York
have; but it has, like Wareham and York, not only the castle
mound, but what Mr. Clark designates as purely English work,
another mound dominating the river. Thus when we consider
this latter mound, the Boley Hill, as a part of the earthworks,
there does not seem much to distinguish it from other wellknown characteristics of English defensive positions. It was,
together with the castle mound, thrown up by the English
occupiers of the British Oppidum, when they in their turn had
to face the foe in the shape of Danish and Norwegian Vikings.
Subsequently, when the Normans took possession of the
stronghold, they built the castle, as in all other cases, on one
1 Mediaeval Military Architecture," vol. ii. p. 406.




RACE DIVISIONS IN ENGLISH TOWNS.


249


of the English mounds, and the other mound, the Boley Hill,
remained untouched by any works of masonry.
Almost all that is known of this district is collected by
Hasted (vol. iv. pp. i6I, I63-I64), from  whom, for my
immediate purpose, I will quote the following passages. The
hill was "in all likelihood thrown up by the Danes in the
year 855, at the time they besieged this city, a circumstance
mentioned by most of our ancient historians.... By King
Edward IV.'s charter to the citizens of Rochester he granted to
them a view of frank pledge and also to hold a court of pie powder
in a certain place called the Boley within the bounds of the city.
This is a separate leet from that held in the Guildhall, and the
inhabitants of this small district are bound to appear before the
recorder as steward of the court of the mayor and citizens,
which is annually held on the Monday after St. Michael, who
then appoints an officer, called the Baron of the Bully, for the
year ensuing by presenting him with staff of office. The court
is holden under an elm tree at the east end of the hill. The
householders of this spot are generally appointed to the above
office in succession."
The first thing to note about this account is the charter of
Edward IV. This document must not be supposed to have
originated the court leet that met on Boley Hill. As a matter
of fact, the charter of Henry VI. is the first to mention the
court leet, while the charter of Edward IV. adds the information about its meeting-place being the Boley Hill.  One
cannot, therefore, resist the conclusion that this additional
clause in the charter of Edward IV. is one of those delightful
accidents in record history which help the student so materially
in gathering up the fragments of an unrecorded past. Mr.
Thomson was, I believe, one of the first to point out that the
charters of the Norman sovereigns did little more than cover
with official or regal authority privileges which already existed;
Mr. Peacock has urged the same view; and I myself have more
than once brought forward proof of what is now admitted as
a feature of charter-sanctions. If it were not for an apparently
accidental clause in the charter of Edward IV. which is not




250


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


given in the previous charter of Henry VI., we should not be
able to carry back the documentary evidence of the Boley
Hill beyond the eighteenth century; but contrariwise because
of this reference in the charter of Edward IV. we must not
stop at that date and say that the gay, pleasure-loving monarch
in London knew and cared sufficiently for Rochester and its
local history to make such a grant, the real fact being that the
men of Rochester obtained at this time legal sanction to an
institution that had existed for ages before.
What we then have to consider is a most singular jurisdiction, of unknown date and origin, within the municipal
jurisdiction of Rochester city. Now this special jurisdiction
appertains to a particular district. It is most important to
note that the locality itself can have had very little to do with
forming the special jurisdiction belonging to it, but that this
must have been derived from the community which settled
down upon the locality. The "inhabitants of the district," in
the language of the modern historian, are the descendants of a
community who at one time or other settled in Rochester and
stamped its influence upon the city's history. And it is from
this little Boley Hill community that are derived the customs
and privileges now appertaining to the district.
What was this little community which has stamped itself so
indelibly upon the municipal history of Rochester? We see
it now in its degenerate stage.  There is nothing in it
necessary to the modern government of the city; it is too
unimportant to be antagonistic to the municipal authority;
but still it has lived on side by side with the progress of
Rochester through all the struggles which mark the mediaeval
history of English towns, and it has thus shown a vitality which
stamps it as a phenomenon of some significance.
Let us first notice the meeting-place-in the open air
under a tree. That this is the survival of an archaic custom,
and therefore descended from an archaic community, is, I
think, proved by the mass of evidence adduced in my
"Primitive Folkmoots." Next, there is the democratic constitution of this little community-all the inhabitants of the




THE BOLEY HILL AT ROCHESTER.


251


district, just as in the Russian " Mir " and in the " Things " of
the Danish districts of Orkney and Shetland.
Through the kindness of Mr. T. H. Baker, I have received
the following account from Miss Katherine Gunning, who
remembered the ceremony of electing a new "Baron of the
Boley":-"The Mayor and some members of the Corporation, with the householders living at Boley Hill, walked round
the old elm tree, and a form of words was said. The
'conzing in' Baron sent his servants with supplies of cake and
wine, which were consumed on the spot. The staff of office
was a shabby black wooden pole, resembling a warming-pan
handle in shape and size. It had blue and red and faded gold
letters on it. When my father was the Baron, the staff
always hung in our hall at the Friary.  The old elm tree
stood nearly opposite Mr. Simmons' gateway.  It was cut
down and carried away at the time Mr. Styles, the Quaker,
built his school-house close to it.  He said that the tree
shaded his house, and to the great regret of all the other
Boley Hill householders the elm tree was destroyed."  It
cannot fail to be observed that the ceremonial at the tree is
singularly archaic in its nature.
Thus far we have noted the shreds of information left to us
about the community itself. Of its independence of the city
authorities there is important evidence by a writer in Notes
and Queries (3rd S. xi. 124), who says that the mayor, attended
by the officers of the corporation, always proceeded to the elm
tree, where the courts were held, for the purpose of reading
royal proclamations, &c.-a proceeding which clearly shows
that the reading of proclamations at the Guildhall of the city
did not carry any authority within the precincts of the Boley
Hill community.
Now comes the final and perhaps most important question,
Of what race and origin was this Boley Hill community at
Rochester? All tradition points to the Boley Hill as connected with the Danes. It is highly improbable that the hill
itself was actually thrown up during the attack on the city in
855; but it is not improbable that a community of this race




252


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


settled there during the prevalence of Danish rule in England
a century and a half later. We know how greatly the Danes
influenced the local history of our land, even if we cannot yet
fully trace their influence upon national history; and in London
there is a somewhat curious analogy to what I am trying to
prove at Rochester. Just near the portion of the Strand where
stands St. Clement Danes Church, a little eminence admittedly
occupied by a Danish colony, there was once a court held in
the open air near a large stone. Here, then, we have a Danish
colony surrounded by other races impressing its peculiar
customs on the history of London; and similarly I would
suggest that the facts and traditions connected with the Boley
Hill community at Rochester, with its independence and its
open-air democratic assembly, point to the time when the
Danes occupied the city in sufficient strength to obtain a
special, though not a dominant, power in its government. As
time went on and the later municipal organization became
more complete, the Boley Hill community sank into insignificance until it reappears in history as the charter-sanctioned
court of view of frankpledge for a special district, the inhabitants of which, for local or traditional reasons, kept up
their old privileges.
In Ireland we meet with the extreme form of these race
distinctions continued down to within political times, and almost
for political reasons. But they tell exactly the same story.
" In many of the ancient corporate towns and boroughs in
Ireland, certain quarters are known under the appellation of
Irish To7iwn, and were occupied by the so-called 'mere Irish,'
in contradistinction to the more favoured inhabitants of a
different caste. In walled towns the quarters very commonly
stood outside." 
It is impossible, as it seems to me, to neglect the lessons to
be derived from evidence like this. Alike from the feuds and
the settlement of clans we find proof of their difference in race.
Much that is still obscure in our early history may be explained
if we turn to these hitherto neglected facts of local history.
" Statistical Survey of Roscommon," p. i96.




THE RISE OF LORDSHIP.


253


Somewhere from among these facts, for instance, will be
found the key to that position which the lord appears to occupy
everywhere in English history, and certain features of which
must be noted a little later on. If the pure genealogic clan
settled down amidst alien races whom they had reduced to
servitude, there would easily arise a strong body of antagonistic
forces, the clashing of which would naturally tend to produce
enhanced power to the primus inter pares.   Beyond the
boundary of kinship there were the non-kindred, and Dr.
Hearn has already noted some signs which tell of the influence
of dependents, among which he puts, first, the strengthening
of the lords against their own clans; secondly, the forcing
their way, not indeed over the close barriers of the genealogic
tribe, but into the new political association in which those
tribes were absorbed. The language used is too advanced for
the period and the races to which I would point for the origin
of the growth of the lord's power, but it serves to show that
already something has been done towards solving the question.
3. The possession of a homestead was the source of all
other rights.' We have noted how this early law operates in
the barbarous communities outside the Aryan race, and how
strongly it appears in the surviving types of the village community in England. We have also noted how, at London, the
negative side of this law is represented by the custom of
destroying the village tenement as a punishment for crime.
This custom was widely prevalent in French municipal law,
and it appears to be one of the minutiae of a large subject
which may afford considerable information if it is investigated.
In the meantime it may be useful to note some of the English
examples, which are introduced by the law of King Ine (lxviii.).
" If a gesithcund man be driven off, it must be from the botl
[homestead], not from the setene."
" The punishment of Petit Jurors attainted of giving a verdict
contrary to evidence, wittingly, is severe and terrible; they are
condemned to lose the franchise or freedom of the law; that
Grimm, " Deutsche Rechtsalterthiimer," p. 539; Hearn, " Aryan
Household," p. 212.




254


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


is, become infamous and of no credit, uncapable of being a
witness or of a jury; their houses, lands, and goods shall be
seized into the king's hands, their houses pulled down, their
meadows ploughed up, their trees rooted up, all their lands
laid waste, and their bodies imprisoned." 
At Folkestone, if either the mayor or any of the jurats
refused to assume their respective offices upon being elected,
"the commons were to go and beat down their principal
messuage." 2 On the occasion of the election of bailiff at
Hastings it was a law that " if the said bailiff be absent, or will
not accept the charge, all the commoners shall go and beat
down his chief tenement." 3 The same law obtained in all
the Cinque Ports. At Preston it is somewhat modified. A
debtor for the king's farm is liable to have the door of his
burgage tenement taken away, which he cannot replace until
he has paid his debt.4
Of course the chief interest of these old customs is their
extreme independence of anything like a central system
of law. Maine has already drawn our attention to a very
well-marked feature of early legal codes, namely, the absence
of any notice of a penalty to be inflicted upon breakers of the
laws, and he goes on to point out that in the most primitive
codes the penalty or sanction, as the technical phrase is, is to
be inflicted in another state of existence. It appears that
before English law had passed into its final stages, where the
sovereign power stood by its side to enforce its commands, it
must have passed through a stage when destruction of the
delinquent's property represents the sanction-practically that
is outlawry. All communities who can at once place its malefactors outside its bounds have little need of an elaborate
criminal jurisprudence, and we have seen at Malmesbury that
excommunication or outlawry was the means adopted there.
Chamberlayne, " State of England " (I687), vol. i. p. 47.
2 "Report of the Record Commission," I837, p. 453.
3 ", Sussex Archoeological Collections," vol. xii. p. I97. Ct. Mr. Round's
admirable paper in Arch(eological Review, vol. iv. p. 366.
4 Dobson and Harland, " Preston Guild," p. 75.




OUTLAWRY IN VILLAGE CUSTOM.


255


But an outlaw from one village community was in the territory
of another village community, and from what is known of the
history of "broken men" and their influence upon the formation ot society we may suggest that a wide field of inquiry is
yet open for an investigation of the operations of outlawry.' I
must presently recur to this subject, and will therefore give one
example of this primitive system of punishment.  "When two
Khans or maliks chance to fall out, or have any dispute, the
people expel both parties from  the place.  The two disputants are then termed sharruinl, or the driven  out, or
expelled, from the Pushto verb sharral, to drive away, &c.;
and in this state they are compelled to seek shelter in other
villages, and are obliged to live on the charity of those who
will take them in; for they lose all civil rights on such occasions, and have no claim to wife, or children, dwelling, cattle,
horses, or anything whatsoever. Some continue in this helpless state until they can come to an accommodation or reconciliation, which often does not take place for years. In Upper
Sumat they are even more severe than this; for there they
expel the families also, and confiscate the property of the disputants altogether. Yet these people seem to be always at
feud." 2
We are taken back by this evidence and by the direct
evidence of such examples as Lauder, Whitsome, Malmesbury, and others to a totally different state of things to that
upon which Mr. Seebohm has laid so much stress. From the
evidence of the Welsh laws he argues that the acre strips of the
English open-field system were allotted in respect of the oxen
contributed to the village plough teams. Whatever the evidence of the Welsh laws on this point may prove, it cannot
prove that a system of co-operative ploughing is the foundation of the English village community, in face of the evidence
I Cf. what Skene has to say of the Fuidhir class of tenants (" Celtic
Scotland," vol. iii. pp. 173-323); and Seebohm (" Village Community,"
191). Hearn (" Aryan Household," p. I32) notes the Irish formula of
expulsion and its significant place in Aryan society.
2 journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, I862, p. 272.




256


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


brought forward in this and preceding chapters that the possession of a homestead in the village was the basis of allotment
in the village lands. This evidence is far from being exhausted
in the examples already quoted. For instance, at Kilmaurs " the
land of the barony was divided into five-pound lands consisting
of 240 acres, each such five-pound land being disponed to forty
different persons in feu-farm and free burgage, and to be held
in equal proportions by them, their heirs and successors. The
mode of holding this was by run-rig. The number of the
portioners is now (I 795) less than when the charter was granted,
several of the fortieth parts having been sold and laid together
by one purchaser, and it is probable that they will all in time
become one property. N1o man can be elected a magistrate
unless he be also a jortioner, and none but those zwho are portioners can vote in such elections.'  It appears to me that in this
as in other details we may see the contrast between the tribal
and the village communities; but I see nothing to indicate
that the tribal system of co-operative ploughing became the
actual parent of the village system. It may well be that the
tribal communities, arrested in their progress towards village
communities in the manner we have already explained, would
easily and readily develop into communities of cultivators
bound together by an economical tie of co-operative labour
after the kinship tie had ceased to be paramount or operative.
But in the case of village communities, originating from the
break-up of the tribe as it settled down among the alreadyformed villages of Southern and Western Britain, it is easy to
discern that the homestead might become the most fixed point
of cohesion; and that this was actually the case the examples
brought forward seem to me to be conclusive evidence. We
may once more refer back, in face of this evidence, to the
Aston and Rothwell village communities, which so plainly
revealed the late survival of the primitive unity of the hide.
To the hide was attached the domus, and the domus was the
fountain of all village rights, a fact of early English history
Sinclair, "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. ix. pp. 368, 370;
Fullarton, "Agriculture of Ayrshire," p. 23.




THE VILLAGE ASSEMBLY,


257
257


revealed most plainly by the Domesday survey, and reappearing
in later surveys, as in the already quoted case of Thorp, surveyed in I222.1
4. In the open village assembly which we have noted at
Aston, at Newton, at Whitsome, and above all in London,
there seems to me to be ample evidence of the descent of the
village community from primitive elements. I have discussed
this subject at some length in my book on " Primitive Folkmoots," and whatever need there may be for a revision of some
passages in this little work, it has a certain value in showing
the cumulative evidence in favour of a primitive origin of the
village assembly in Britain.  I have suggested that in custom
and usage must be sought the true history of the divergent
types of the village community to be met with, and I now
suggest that in the long-continued idea of the peculiar sanctity
of assemblies held in the open air must be sought one of the
causes for the survival of custom and usage in sufficient force
to affect the history of the local institutions of the land.
The Hindu sacred law declares that cases decided inside a
house are izso facto null and void, a conception of the evil
surroundings derived from the close confinement of buildings
which reappears in early English ideas when Beda recorded the
meeting between Augustine and Ethelbert of Kent as taking
place in the open air, " for he had taken the precaution that
they should not come to him in any house, lest, according to an
ancient superstition, they practised any magical arts upon him,
and so got the better of him." 2 The same idea of magic being
associated with roofed buildings appears with reference to the
judgments of the Brehons in Ireland and of the Deemsters in
the Isle of Man,3 and it cannot be doubted that it kept alive
the custom of holding the local assemblies of shire, hundred,
and manor in the open air until comparatively recent times.
What seems to me important is that an assembly meeting in
this primitive fashion, performing both legislative and judicial
1 Seebohm, " English Village Community," p. 53.
2 Beda, lib. i. cap. 25.
3 Train, " History of the Isle of Man," vol. i. p. 269.
i8




258


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


functions, must indicate to us a community of primitive origin.
Turning back to that Birlie court at Whitsome, in Berwickshire,
already described, where the Birliemen sit on the raised mound
in the village, and the villagers receive from them their decisions on matters in dispute, we can see that it is exactly the
same system as Campion describes in Ireland in 1571-" The
Breighoon sitteth downe on a banke, the Lords and Gentlemen
at variance round about him, and then they proceede;' "  and
as Ritson describes of the English manor courts generally,
which "formerly used to be held in the open air upon a fair
green on the side of a hill or under a large tree." 2
Now, the history of the manor courts has scarcely yet been
approached. When it is taken up by competent authority the
primitive methods of meeting must form a very important
chapter in the inquiry. In the meantime it may be asserted
that from the materials already in hand Sir Henry Maine's
general conclusion as to their origin is practically correct.
"Under the name of manorial courts," he says, "three courts
are usually included which legal theory keeps apart-the court
leet, the court baron, and the customary court of the manor.
There cannot be reasonable doubt of the legitimate descent
of all three from the assembly of the township.  Besides the
wide criminal and civil jurisdiction which belonged to them,
and which, though it has been partly abolished, has chiefly lost
its importance through insensible decay, they long continued
in the exercise of administrative or regulative powers which are
scarcely distinguishable from legislation."3 We may read their
acts of legislation in the curious little volumes occasionally
published for the use of the tenants and in the codes of Birlaw
laws which are sometimes to be met with, and some examples
of which I have printed in my " Primitive Folkmoots."  Other
H "  istorie of Ireland," p. 26.  2 Ritson, " Court Leets," p. ix.
3 Maine, " Village Communities," p. 139. Mr. Maitland (" Select Pleas
of Mlanorial Courts," p. xvi) says there is no evidence that the three
courts were separately named in the thirteenth century. " It would seem
that to a definite classification of courts the legal theory of the time had
not attained " (p. xvii.). Cf/ p. lxiv., on the customary court.




THE VILLAGE ASSEMBLY.               259
features of their constitution and their practice illustrate their
primitive organization. Every free tenant was bound to attend,
and a penalty was imposed upon every one who was absent; 
the court had the right of admitting a new tenant; it had to
judge in matters of dispute or in matters of offence against the
community; and it had the duty of determining the bye-laws
for the regulation of the common husbandry. The right of
attendance, the fine for non-attendance, the judicial functions,
the power of admitting new tenants, the duty of regulating
agricultural matters, are all features which are not peculiar to
the English manorial courts, but are general characteristics of
the assembly of village communities.  " Even in the last
extremity of decline," says Sir Henry Maine, "the manorial
courts have not wholly ceased to be regarded as the tie which
connects the common interests of a definite group of persons
engaged in the cultivation of the soil." 2
Between these features of the manorial courts and the constitution of some municipal assemblies there is but a thin wall
of partition. At Berwick-on-Tweed, at an annual meeting of
the burgesses called the "meadow guild," the meadow lands
are distributed as they become vacant by the death or nonresidence of the last occupiers among the senior resident
burgesses and widows of burgesses, and the conditions of
husbandry are prescribed.3 At Lauder, Malmesbury, and
other places it is the town council who perform the duties
generally attributed to manor courts, and there are many
instances, as at Tottenham and Hornsey in Middlesex, and at
Yardley or Ardley in Hertfordshire, where agricultural rights
and duties reside in the modern vestry or township assembly.
The merely nominal presence of the lord in this organization is not accidental, as the Domesday example of Alverstoke
well illustrates. This entry shows that the manor was held by
the forty-eight villeins, and I will draw attention to the fact
" Year Book of Edward I.," p. xxi., Middlesex Iter.
2 "Village Communities," p. 140; Maitland, " Select Pleas of Manorial
Courts," p. xl.
3 " Municipal Corporation Commission," vol. iii. p. 1443.




260


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSl'OM.


that this body of forty-eight is a multiple of sixteen, which has
already been identified at Aston as an ancient organization.'
A similar community existed at Millbrook and other places in
Hampshire.
"Several manors in Hampshire," says Mr. T. W. Shore,
"have peculiar customs, which appear to have come down from
a remote time, before the manorial system had taken the place
of the village community. The most remarkable instance is
that of Ibthorpe, which is now a hamlet in the parish of
Hurstbourn Tarrant, and is about six miles north of Andover.
The people of Ibthorpe are lords of their own manor, and to
this day exercise their manorial rights, in respect of which they
have exclusive common rights on the seventy acres of commonland at Pillheath, including a right to everything that grows on
this common, with liberty to take it away for their use in Ibthorpe, but not for sale. They have also a right of pasturage
in common with the Hurstbourn people on Hurstbourn Common. On the south of Hurstbourn Tarrant is a hill of considerable height above the village, now covered with wood,
stretching away towards Andover, and called Doles Wood.
From the circumstance that this part of Hurstbourn was subject to common pasturage to within recent time, it is probable
that the ancient pasturage acres or Doles which were held in
community, and which can be traced in Wessex as early as the
seventh century, as Mr. Seebohm has pointed out, were situated here.  The wood itself, which now forms a beautiful
hanger, is probably modern; but it was until recent times
subject to the common pasturage, which the Hurstbourn commoners latterly maintained by annually driving a cow through
Doles House, situated upon it."2
It appears to me from this evidence, and from what Mr.
Maitland has advanced relative to a similar communitas of
villeins at Brightwalltham in Berkshire,3 that the identification
The seal of the men of Alverstoke is figured in the Winchester volume
of the ArchieologicalJournal.
2 Antiquary, i888, vol. xvii. p. 52; cf. Seebohm's "Village Community," p. 70.
3 "( Select Pleas of Manorial Courts," p. I63.




THE VILLAGE ASSEMBLY.


26i


of manor courts with the old township assemblies, and hence
with the assembly of the primitive village community, cannot
be reasonably denied, and future investigation must certainly
be extended beyond the area of manorial courts if it is to be
of scientific value. But at present I am anxious to dwell upon
the exceedingly rude characteristics of these manorial assemblies, and the absolute identification of them with village
assemblies in countries where the primitive community has
not been transformed into manors.  In Switzerland all the
commoners assemble every year in April to receive reports of
accounts and to regulate current affairs.  In Germany the
inhabitants assembled to deliberate on all that concerned the
cultivation, and to determine the order and time of the various
agricultural operations. In Holland the partners in the work
met once a year, on St. Peter's Day, in a general assembly, or
holting. They appeared in arms; and no one could absent
himself, under pain of a fine. This assembly directed all the
details as to the enjoyment of the common property; appointed
the works to be executed; imposed pecuniary penalties for the
violation of rules, and nominated the officers charged with the
executive power. The mound where the holting met (MalenpoT) is still visible in Heldermalenveld, and at Spoolderberg,
near Zwolle.1 Neither of these are manorial courts, and yet
they perform identical duties, and meet in the same primitive
fashion, as the manorial courts of England. As we get nearer
the east, we get more absolute identification with the primitive
assembly of the village community.  Among the South Slavonians every male of the brotherhood has a voice in its
government. The assembly of kinsmen meets every day as
a rule, generally in the evening when the work is over, under a
tree in the neighbourhood of the common dwelling. All the
affairs of the community are there discussed, and every man may
theoretically mingle in the deliberations.2 In Russia, where, Sir
Henry Maine reminds us, the village communities were seen to
be identical with the Indian village communities, only if anything
Laveleye's " Primitive Property," pp. 94, I I, 283.
2 Maine's " Early Law and Custom," p. 245.




262


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


in a more archaic condition than the eastern cultivating group,
the assembly of the mir, or commune, met under the village
tree, and determined all matters relating to agricultural and
other village affairs, and one feature of this assembly which
appears to be essential, namely, that all decisions must be
unanimous,' reappears in the constitution of the English jury
-that assembly of mcn's peers which can certainly trace its
genealogy back to the village community. Turning finally to
India, we find that the mandu is the open public place in every
village where business is transacted and public games carried
on;2 and in the panchayet, an assembly which Indian scholars
have not yet clearly defined,3 there exists the rudiments of all
that we have been considering about these rude survivals of
English manor courts.
It is difficult to see how any investigation into the history of
the village community in Britain can be considered satisfactory
unless it has taken into due account all that the rude constitution of these open-air assemblies means in such an inquiry.
They add much towards tracing out the original status of the
villein tenants. If, as we have already noted above, the villeins,
as adscripti glebca, were de facto landowners up to the time
when Glanville introduced his legal conceptions of ownership,
filched from the highly philosophical law of the Justinian
codes, and distinctly alien to English common law; if these
landowners had a right of attendance in the assembly of their
commune, and the right of vote and speech there; if this
assembly was noted for and preserved by its strict adherence
to traditional forms and ceremonies derived from primitive
times yet to be traced in Aryan history-the tenants of manors
were originally no serfs under a lord, but co-equal partners in
a social group to which the lord himself belonged. " Let the,Laveleye, " Primitive Property," p. 14; Wallace's " Russia," vol. i.
pp. 194-196.
2 Gover, " Folk Songs of Southern India," p. io8.
3 Elliot, "Races of North-West Provinces of India," vol. i. p. 279;
Tupper, "Punjab Customary Law," vol. ii. p. II I; Hearn, "Aryan
Household," p. 129, point out some of the lines of parallel development.




THE VILLAGE ASSEMBLY.


263


lawyers say what they will," says a distinguished legal scholar,
"the manorial jurisdiction is a true jurisdiction, an administration of the custom of the manor; it is no mere exhibition
of the will of a lord who is owner of the villan tenements and
owner of the villans."' This is what the evidence of the
thirteenth century has to tell us. Going back by the aid of
unbroken traditional observance of a once sacred custom, to
meet sub dio, under the light of heaven, is it not an admissible
conclusion to set forth that if the English settlers brought with
them to their new home in Britain the free open-air assembly,
they brought with them the free community in tribal form
ready to settle down with alien serfs under it?
The exact contribution which the history of the village
assembly may ultimately supply towards the elucidation of the
history of the village community in Britain cannot now be
stated, because it is a subject by itself, and one of some considerable magnitude. But following up a subject touched upon
in the last section of this chapter, namely, the original absence
of, and subsequent rude substitute for, the sanction necessary to
the carrying out of English village law, we may point out one
phase in the history of the village assembly which may be
accepted as of some considerable importance. The council of
village elders, says Sir Henry Maine, "does not command anything; it merely declares what has always been... in the almost
inconceivable case of disobedience to the award of the village
council the sole punishment, or the sole certain punishment,
would be universal disapprobation." 2 How was the step from
this condition of things to that of enforcing outlawry and the
destruction of the village holding arrived at? The answer
seems to be that just as the sovereign kingly power supplied the
state with the necessary force to compel obedience to the state
law throughout the Western world,3 so it supplied to the lord of
each manor, the elected or the most able, sufficient power to
Maitland, "Select Pleas of Manorial Courts," p. lx.
2," Village Communities," p. 68.
3 Cf. Maine, "Early Law and Custom," cap. vi.; " Essays in Anglo$Sx.on Law," pp. 262-305.




264


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


bring about obedience to village law. At first this power was
simply, no doubt, the power of an arbitrator in a dispute, the
parties to which had agreed to refer it to the lord, and traces
of which very primitive phase of local law are to be found in
the history of Hundred Courts.'  But such a power once
assumed would soon grow. Norden, in I607, wrote, "Is not
every manor a little commonwealth, whereof the tenants are
the members, the land the bulke, and the lord the head? "2
The analogy is true to a greater extent than has been recognized. The sanctions of village law grew in the hands of
chiefs who were originally only primi inter pares. Fines,
amercements, duties, and obligations, nominally due to the
lord under the manorial system, actually appertaining to him
in their ultimate destination, were primarily dealt with in the
manorial courts-the assembly of the villagers.3 Thus it is
through the medium of the assembly that the position of the
lord constantly improved - that duties to the community
became duties to the lord.  When the lord of Aston and
Cote began his fight with the village assembly, the Court of
Sixteens, he was two or three centuries behind time. They
could appeal to the King's Law Courts against the lord, and
they had no need of his services for the enforcement of their
own commands. Very often in manorial laws there is a clause
forbidding tenants to appeal for justice to any courts outside
the manor courts. We can understand this prohibition if we
take it back to the times when the lord was building up his
position as the sovereign power within the little community
which put into operation the commands of the assembly; and
it serves as a key to an obscure point in manorial history
whereby it seems possible that the connection between manor
court and village assembly-between manor and village community- may yet be plainly shown.     Writers who have
ignored the assistance which the history of the village com"1 Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law," p. 53.
2 " Surveyor's Dialogue," p. 28.
3 Mr. Maitland gives us some evidence of the importance of the assembly
to the lord, " Select Pleas of Manorial Courts," p. lvii,




THE VILLAGE ASSEMBLY.


265


munity affords upon the early periods of historical institutions
have missed points which appear to me to be made perfectly
clear. On the origin of manor courts and their jurisdiction in
law, Mr. Kemble, Bishop Stubbs, and Dr. Konrad Maurer
agree that they are to be found much earlier than can be traced
back by documentary evidence. But Mr. Adams, a very able
American writer, prefers to consider them of later origin,
though he hits upon an explanation which might almost be
accepted by his opponents. He says, " The peasant cultivator
would be inclined to accept, or even to invite, the decision of
his lord rather than incur the risks of a public suit without
his lord's support, or the possibility of drawing upon himself
the extremity of his lord's disfavour.  It was therefore natural
that the lord should have developed for his own use a certain
system of law in mediating between his own people in their
disagreements with each other or with the public.  It was
natural, too, that this system should be based upon the
ordinary Hundred law-the only code known to England.
Yet all this did not create a jurisdiction in the eye of the law... [though] the great landed proprietors appear to have been
actively supported by the Crown."'  Going back once more to
the Birlie court, at Whitsome, with "its cheap and sapient
decisions," to the Irish Brehon sitting on the bank deciding
disputes, to the Deemster of the Isle of Man always compelled
to stop and hear suits, we may picture to ourselves the growth
of the lord's power as arbitrator overtaking the powers of the
village assembly, "which did not command anything," and
building up a system of village law based upon a much older
code than that of the Hundred courts. When we pass away
from documentary evidence, therefore, we must proceed to the
assembly of the village community for the earlier evidence,
and there we see the history of English lordship following the
history of English kingship, and developing its power and position as the chief executive authority of the assembly.2
"I Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law," pp. 27-28.
2 How independent of the sovereign the local jurisdictions of manorial
lords were may be seen by reference to Maitland's " Select Pleas of
Manorial Courts," pp. xxiii-xxiv.




266


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


5. We have spoken of there being proof that the tenants of
English manors were descended from co-equal partners in a
social group. One of the proofs of this point rests upon a
most interesting characteristic of the village community, namely,
the periodical redistribution of the arable lands. We have had
examples of this, but the subject is one of some considerable
importance, and is worth paying more attention to. Enumerating some of the features in correspondence between the
Teutonic and Indian village communities, Sir Henry Maine
says: "The evidence appears to me to establish that the arable
mark of the Teutonic village community was occasionally
shifted from one part of the general village domain to another.
It seems also to show that the original distribution of the
arable area was always into exactly equal portions corresponding to the number of free families in the township. Nor can
it be seriously doubted upon the evidence that the proprietary
equality of the families composing the group was at first still
further secured by a periodical redistribution of the several
assignments. The point is one of some importance."  Mr.
Tupper, investigating this subject in India, brings sufficient
proof to support his suggestion, that it is a distinct relic of the
tribal community before it had split up into villages. The
land, he says, being originally held by the whole community on
shares, possession was readjusted when necessity arose.2  We
have noted these redistributions in the tribal communities of
the west upon the introduction of a new tribesman, and the
relics still remaining of periodical redistribution of village lands
suggests not only the prevalence of collective ownership, but of
ownership by the tribe.
In  England there are examples of the distribution by
annual allotment of arable lands and of meadow lands, the
latter well known by the name of lot meads. It appears to me
from the evidence that this process of allotting meadow land
is derived from the older process of allotting arable lands to
the members of the village community. In the remarkable
1 "Village Communities," p. 81; Iearn, "Aryan HIousehold," p. 226.
2 " Punjab Customary Iaw," vol. iii. p. 138.




ALLOTMENT OF LANDS.


267


example of Newton-upon-Ayr, in Scotland, we have seen by
what kind of process this crude method of land tenure was
gradually abolished, and it is a process which constantly comes
before the land settlement officers in India. Referring back to
the Indian examples of the village community given in the
second chapter, where the methods adopted for the yearly
distribution of land are set forth in detail, there will, I think,
be little difficulty in identifying the English examples as the
western descendants from  a common original.  And it is
important to note that we identify the process of allotting
arable land with the possession of a homestead in the village,
so that the necessary connection between homestead and land is
again brought to the front.
That the land-marks of the modern English villagers may
be identified with the ancient homestead or clan-marks receives
illustration from the strongly surviving Scandinavian custom.
Mr. Du Chaillu, in his "Land of the Midnight Sun," says: "Each
farmer seemed to have a mark of his own; the agricultural
implements and other articles being stamped differently. This
old custom is called Bo-marken, and each family has inherited
its distinguishing mark from its ancestors. Each parish has its
own Bo-marke." I
Every one has his own mark branded on the ears of all his
reindeer, and no other person has a right to have the same, as
this is lawful proof of ownership. According to custom, no
one can make a new mark, but must buy that of an extinct
herd; if these are scarce, the price paid to the families that
own them is often high; the name of the purchaser and each
mark have to be recorded in court like those of any other
owner and property.2
This system of house-marks prevails in North Germany, and
Professor Michelsen, in his treatise Die Hausemarke, traces
them to a prehistoric period. Mr. Williams thus summarises
the evidence in a valuable paper in Archaeologia.3 In southern
Ditmarsh a stone slab of the sepulchral chamber in one of the
hunengrabe or gigantic tumuli of the stone period has been
Vol. i. p. 314.  2 Vol. ii. p. I68.  3 Vol. xxvii.. pp383-384.




268


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


found, rudely engraved with a mark of a type which is still
popular. Weapons of stone and metal are also thus found
marked. Marks have been found on Urgraber in the south of
Sweden and the north of Europe. They were in common use
in Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Denmark in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, and the Icelandic Gragas in particular
contain numerous minute regulations as to the adoption and the
use of marks for sheep, house-cattle,-eider-ducks, harpoons, &c.
They are also mentioned in the Old Norse and Swedish
Rights. In Iceland marks were not to be taken arbitrarily, but
the owner's intention was to be announced before five neighbours, and also at the spring Thing. In Ditmarsh and
Denmark the owner's mark was cut in stone over the principal
door of the house; it designated not only his land and cattle,
but his stall in the church, and his grave when he was no more.
In Holstein the beams of the cottages of the bondservants
were incised with the marks of their masters. A pastor writing
from Angeln says: "The hides had their marks, which served
instead of the names of their owners." In the island of Fohr,
the mark cut on a wooden ticket is always sold with the house,
and it is cut in stone over the door; and the same custom is
still in use in Schleswig and Holstein.
From these important facts it may be concluded that the
ancient house-mark included the land-mark, cattle-mark,
implement-mark, and grave-mark appertaining to each house,
and that house, land, cattle, and grave, thus linked together
under a common mark, were the descendants of the once
undivided possessions of the clan.
I will now proceed to note such survivals as occur in
England, taking first the arable allotments, and secondly the
meadow allotments.
In the parishes of Congresbury and Puxton (Somersetshire)
are two large pieces of common land, called East and West
Dolemoors (from the Saxon dal, which signifies a share or
portion), which are divided into single acres, each bearing a
peculiar and different mark cut in the turf-such as a horn,
four oxen and a mare, two oxen and a mare, a pole-axe, cross,




ALLOTMENT OF LANDS.


269


dung-fork, oven, duck's nest, hand-reel, and hare's tail. On
the Saturday before old Midsummer several proprietors of
estates in the parishes of Congresbury, Puxton, and Week St.
Lawrence, or their tenants, assemble on the commons. A
number of apples are previously prepared, marked in the same
manner with the before-mentioned acres, which are distributed
by a young lad to each of the commoners from a bag or hat.
At the close of the distribution each person repairs to his
allotment, as his apple directs him, and takes possession for
the ensuing year. An adjournment then takes place to the
house of the overseer of Dolemoors (an officer annually elected
from the tenants), when four acres, reserved for the purpose of
paying expenses, are let by inch of candle.
Bridges, in his "History of Northamptonshire," (vol. i. p.
219) tells us: "Within the Liberty of Warkworth is Ashe
Meadow, divided amongst the neighbouring parishes, and
famed for the following customs observed in the mowing of it.
The meadow is divided into fifteen portions, answering to
fifteen lots, which are pieces of wood cut off from an arrow,
and marked according to the landmarks in the field. To each
lot are allowed eight mowers, amounting to I20 in the whole.
On the Saturday seven nights before Midsummer Day, these
portions are laid out by six persons, of whom two are chosen
from Warkworth, two from Overthorp, one from Grimsbury,
and one from Nethercote. These are called field-men, and
have an entertainment provided for them upon the day of
laying out the meadow at the appointment of the lord of the
manor. As soon as the meadow is measured, the man who
provides the feast, attended by the Hayward of Warkworth,
brings into the field three gallons of ale. After this the meadow
is run, as they term it, or trod, to distinguish the lots; and
when this is over the hayward brings into the field a rump of
beef, six penny loaves, and three gallons of ale, and is allowed
a certain portion of hay in return, though not of equal value
with his provision. This hayward and the master of the feast
have the name of crocus-men. In running the field each man
has a boy allowed to assist him. On Monday morning lots




270


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


are drawn, consisting some of eight swaths, and others of four.
Of these the first and last carry the garlands. The two first
lots are of four swaths, and whilst these are mowing the mowers
go double, and as soon as these are finished the following
orders are read aloud:-' Oyez, oyez, oyez, I charge you under
God, and in his Majesty's name, that you keep the king's
peace in the lord of the manor's behalf, according to the orders
and customs of this meadow. No man or men shall go before
the two garlands; if you do you shall pay your penny, or
deliver your scythe at the first demand, and this so often as
you shall transgress. No man or men shall mow above eight
swaths over their lots, before they lay down their scythes and
go to breakfast. No man or men shall mow any further than
Monks holm Brook, but leave their scythes there and go to
dinner, according to the custom and manner of this manor.
God save the King."'
Mr. Rose has described as follows the method of allotting
the meadow lands at Haddenham, in Bucks. "The method
of deciding the ownership, after the meadow was plotted out,
was by drawing lots. This was done by cutting up a common
dock-weed into the required number of pieces to represent the
lots, a well-understood sign being carved on each piece, representing crows' feet, hog-troughs, and so on; these were placed
in a hat and shaken up. Before this could be done, however, notice must be given by one of the men calling out
at the top of his voice, 'Harko,' and using some sort of rigmarole, calling people to witness that the lots were drawn fairly
and without favour. Long Crendon men working at Notley
Abbey (just opposite Anxey) used to be highly amused with
this custom, and the word ' harko' was echoed back with
remarkable power, not only then but for weeks afterwards.
The hat being shaken up, and one of the boys standing by,
looking on with the greatest interest, is pitched upon as a disinterested person to draw the lots; and each owner had to
'sup up' with the lot that fell to him."
In the parish of Southease, in Sussex, on July Ioth, those
tenants who possessed rights met on the ground and drew lots




ALLOTMENT OF LANDS.


271I


for the hides, commencing at the south end. The mode of
drawing lots was as follows:-Fourteen pieces of stick, five or
six inches in length, were severally notched or marked with a
knife, with certain characters named as follows:I. One score.   6. Six score.   ii. C.
2. Two score.   7. Seven score.  12. C.
3. Three score. 8. The Doter.   13. D.
4. Four score.  9. Dunghook.    I4. The Drinker.
5. Five score.  io. Cross.
These hides were not each mown wholly by one tenant, but
in various proportions; for instance, No. 8 was in six parts,
No. 9 in six parts, No. Io in three, and so on. The tenants
having met, the following was the mode of proceeding: —These
marked pieces of stick were put into the pocket of one of the
party and drawn at random by those who had rights. As soon
as the first stick was drawn it was stuck into the ground on the
south side of the first hide, and the turf was cut with a mark
similar to that on the stick; and so on till all the sticks were
drawn and the several pieces marked.'
6. The existence within the village of a servile class is
proved by many well-known authorities who group whole
sections of the early population of England into unfree classes,
one of the results of which has been the creation of the now
famous formula of the village community in serfdom under
a lord. One instructive feature of these unfree classes has
been lost by ignoring the question of race admixture upon
which we have dwelt throughout these researches. Another
and almost equally important feature has only incidentally been
touched upon, but that it is to be met with as one of the
scattered fragments of the primitive system is significant
because of its direct parallel to Indian facts. Dr. Hearn puts
this important fact most elaborately before us.  He says:
"We find, in the archaic community, vestiges of an elaborate
organization of inferior offices, Every Indian village contains
a number of hereditary trades, which seem to be the relics of
such a system. It is noteworthy that there are some trades in
" Sussex Archaeological Colllections," vol. iv. pp. 305-308.




272


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


these villages which are not hereditary.  The exceptions
include those which belong to commerce rather than to trade
-that is, which involve a supply of goods from   distant
markets. These employments, although lucrative and respectable, do not appear to be regarded as customary offices, or to
confer any status in the community. Such, for example, is the
business of the grain dealer. In early Greece the nlrjovpyot
seem to be the analogues of these Hindo officials. Homer
mentions the herald, the prophet, and the bard, the carpenter,
the fisherman, and the leech, all of whom, although we cannot
trace their exact position, appear to have exercised some kind
of public function. Among the Keltic clans similar classes
are known to have existed." I Now, at Aston, and in a minor
degree at Malmesbury, we have already noticed that some of
the villagers were set apart as village servants, paid for out of
village lands, and regarded as a necessary part of the village
system. Everywhere in India these servants belong to a low
caste non-Aryan race, and everywhere they help to make the
Indian village community self supporting and independent of
each other. The servants thus belonging to the village system
have of course gradually dwindled down under the influence of
economical progress in England. In Scotland, however, we have
found them occupying villages by themselves in serfdom under
the tribal community. The means of identifying these relics of
old village economy in England, are not so telling as in the
Scottish examples, but they are by no means insignificant. Sir
Henry Maine puts it in this way: " It is the assignment of a
definite lot in the cultivated area to particular trades which
allows us to suspect that the early Teutonic groups were
similarly self-sufficing. There are several English parishes in
which certain pieces of land in the common field have from
time immemorial been known by the name of a particular
trade; and there is often a popular belief that nobody, not
following the trade, can legally be owner of the lot associated
with it. And it is possible that we have here a key to the
plentifulness and persistence of certain names of trades as
"1 Aryan Household," p. I30.




VILLAGE SERVANTS.


273


surnames among us."' It may be advisable to show that this
quotation is based upon actual facts, although the labour of
collecting examples from existing field names is too great to
compensate for the results. But some few examples will serve
to show not only that such evidence exists, but that the sources
from which it is to be derived are very scattered.
Field allotments for village servants form a valuable portion of
our early municipal history. The aldermen of Nottingham were
paid by an allotment of the seventh part of a meadow to each,
called an alderman's part.  The chamberlain, mace-bearer,
and mayor's common serjeant had likewise an allotment.
The alderman was chief man of the borough of Malmesbury,
and he was paid by a piece of land called the alderman's kitchen.
The field grieve of Berwick-upon-Tweed had an allowance of
money in lieu of a meadow. The portreeve, haywards, and
other officers of Aberavon had a field of enclosed hay-land
divided amongst them. The hayward of Godmanchester received
an annual sum of money in lieu of land. The bailiffs of
Northampton were allowed the rent of a piece of ground called
the bailiff's hook, and the bailiff of Axbridge possessed a piece
of ground called the bailiff's wall. The mayor of Queenborowe
had, too, a right of depasturing a certain number of sheep,
cows, and horses all the year. The pinder of Doncaster had a
small piece of land in Doncaster field called the pinder's balk;
and we have some examples of this system fallen into disuse in
the name of bellman's acre, at Newport, which is still extant,
though the office is obsolete.
We will now turn to corresponding evidence in manorial
tenements. These seem to carry us at once to many of the
surrounding circumstances of early village life. I collect a few
of my first instances of trade-allotments in the village lands
from a Paper contributed to the Law Magazine and Review, on
the "Rights, Disabilities, and Usages of the Ancient English
Peasantry." For his services the smith at Chalgrave had an
acre of meadow called Sundacre. At Ashbury the " berebrat,"
"Village Communities," p. I26; "Early History of Institutions,"
p. I73.
I9




274


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


the old Saxon designation of the gamier or keeper of the
granary, held a yardland almost freely for his services. The
hayward at the same place had an acre of the lord's corn in
autumn, always in a certain part of the field. The Saxon laws
of Landright ordain that the sheaves granted to the hayward in
harvest should be assigned to him out of the part of the field
adjoining the pastures, and that any strip of land conceded to
him should likewise be next to the pastures, that the hayward's
own corn might be the first to be trodden by prowling cattle.
At Darent, near Rochester, the beadle held five acres as
beadle, shepherd, and hayward.   At Ickham, in the same
county, the beadle's office was hereditary, and he held five
acres and a cottage. The office of reeve was hereditary at
Clapham in Yorkshire, and he held an oxgang of land and
eight acres. In many places he had a small meadow called
ref-ham or ref-mede, and in the same way the meadow allowed
to the beadle was called beadel-mead. The reeve of Winterborne had two cartloads of hay out of the lord's meadow called
ref-ham.' At Bleadon Manor there is an allotment called
revelond, occupied ex officio by the reve.2  The owner of
Colchester Castle had a right to appoint the steward and bailiff
of the hundred and to demise to the latter an acre of land
called the bailiff's acre.3  The custumal of the manor of
Isleworth states that every tenant of half a virgate shall be
bedell, and then be quit of all rent and customs except tallage,
and shall have the meadow called bedelmead.4
And thus we pass on to less distinctive evidence than these
manorial holdings. In a schedule of the names and areas of
the furlongs into which the open arable fields in the parish of
Whitechurch, near Stratford-on-Avon, had been divided prior
to their enclosure we find two names of fields, barber's furlong,
and blacksmith's furlong, which illustrate our subject.5  In
Law Magazine and Review, vol. xiii. pp. 205-216.
" Archaeological Institute, Salisbury Meeting," p. I99.
3 "Commissioners' Reports on Common Law," vol. iv. p 101.
4 s Historical Manuscripts Commission," vol. vi. p. 233.
5 Notes and Queries, Fifth Series, vol. viii. p. 192.




VILLAGE SERVANTS.


275


Scotton (Lincolnshire), we have Pinder's Piece; in Barrow,
Pinder's Thing. Then there are Constable's Lands, Constable's
Meadow, Smythie Thing, Smith Land, Piper's Acre, Piper's
Close, Borsholder Hill, Notheard's Mead, Reeve's Meadow, and
other names, not perhaps now needful to specify in detail,
which show that the old system of having village officers and
paying them by grants of lands are fully represented in the
fields of English manors, by which evidence alone can be
interpreted the phenomena mentioned by Mr. Seebohm, from
the Boldon Book.'
In Scotland we find the Smith's Croft, the Arrow-maker's,
the Bow-maker's, the Waulker's, the Cook's, the Baker's, the
Piper's, the Fiddler's, &c. In one parish there are Belnagown,
the town of the Smiths, Teanafile, the residence of the fiddler,
and Cruitach, the field of the harp, or harper's field.  All
the above names and more from the same origin are to be
found near ancient seats.2
In Ireland the same evidence meets us.    In Tullarvan
cantred, Kilkenny, there is a townland of the physician, of
the huntsman, of the tailor, and, in short, of every necessary
dependent; the hawker had his portion allotted in another
portion of the cantred, but the swineherd was nearer the
castle.3
7. The primitive agricultural economy is not fully described
when it has been ascertained that villagers till their lands upon
the open-field system. There are the implements of tillage.
It is singular that in discussing the various phases in which
primitive systems of agriculture have survived in Britain, so
little attention should have been given to at least one available source of information, namely, the implements by which
agriculture has been carried on. The proposition presents itself
in this way. The methods of cultivation, the common rights
of landholders in arable, meadow, and pasture, the position of
the servile class, the relics of the old house religion, as set
"' English Village Community," p. 70.
2 Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. vii. p. 259.
3 " Statistical Account of Ireland," p. 652.




276


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


forth in the previous pages, have all tended towards the conclusion that the village community, to which these elements
all belong, was derived from the primitive races who have
occupied and settled in this island; and that the influences of
the Roman civilization upon this section of our institutions
was not very deep. Who then supplied us with our agricultural implements? Did the village communities continue
using their own; did they borrow the Roman implements?
Very considerable stress has been laid upon the position which
the plough holds in the history of agricultural economy. What
was this plough-was it the Roman aratrum, and did the
Anglo-Saxons borrow it, and with it borrow also the bulk of
the usages which belonged to it in the Roman system? It
will be seen that the questions to be asked upon approaching
this question are by no means few or unimportant. They have
been pushed into the background by some more weighty
questions perhaps; but they cannot always be ignored, and
though it is not intended on this occasion to do more that just
signify some of the important conclusions to be derived from a
study of the old agricultural implements of this country, and
their methods of use, there is much room for a more extended
research.
Mr. Seebohm has a somewhat remarkable passage towards
the close of his book on the use of the plough-team of eight
oxen, which occupies so important a place in his researches.
He says, " 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 mentioned in the Vedas 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."  It does not seem clear that the conclusion here arrived at is sufficient for the facts. The question
as to whether the Romans adopted the eight-oxen plough team
"English Village Community," p. 388.




AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS,


277


into their system cannot depend upon the wide prevalence of
such a team in Aryan countries. The conclusion from such
evidence is rather that the plough team, as an essential in primitive agriculture, lies altogether outside the sphere of Roman
influences one way or the other, and that in this as in other
evidence we have proof of the primitive origin of the village community in England. But the argument may be pushed further
home than this. The Roman instruments of husbandry are well
known, and in countries where Roman influence was most
felt they are actually in use at the present day, without much
difference in their structure. Thus the wheel plough, with its
earth-boards, handle, crossbar, and coulter, capable of accurate
description from the writings of classical authors, and figured
on a piece of engraved jasper of Roman workmanship, is, in
all essential particulars, the same as that used about Mantua
and Venice.
Speaking of reaping corn, Pliny says, "There are different
modes of reaping.  In the vast plains of Gaul very large
wooden machines, armed with teeth on their edges, and
mounted on two wheels, are forced through the standing corn
by an animal propelling them from behind; thus, as the ears
are cut off, they fall into the machines." And Palladius, in his
" De re Rustica," says, "The more level parts of Gaul use the
following expeditious method for reaping, and dispensing with
the labour of men, with a single ox complete the whole extent
of the harvest. For this purpose a vehicle is made, carried
upon two low wheels. Its surface is square and bordered by
planks, which, sloping outwards, make the inside wider at top
than bottom. On the fore part of the carriage the planks are
not so high as at the sides, and here are planted in a row
numerous small teeth, set at distances according to the size of
the wheat ears, and all curving upwards. From the rear of the
aforesaid vehicle a couple of small poles are arranged just like
the poles used in carrying litters (sedan-poles), into which the
ox is fastened, his head towards the carriage, by means of a
yoke and straps. He must, however, be a quiet beast, so as
not to go beyond the direction of his driver (the pace required).




278


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


When the latter begins to drive the machine through the
standing corn, all the ears that are seized by the teeth are
carried in a heap into the
vehicle, the straw being torn.'       off and left standing; the
ox-driver following behind,
i  ^^'^'  ~  regulating  the  elevation  or
depression of the machine
occasionally, and thus in a
':fS   few goings forward and re\   turnings, in the short space
~ of a few hours the whole
\God~        harvest is carried (or com4  pleted). This plan is suit> able for plains and level
[' t    11  z gground, and where the straw
A:.3 is not considered a thing of
I        importance."
f    These instruments have
been used in late times, and
S    i   1.~ ~      ~ an example is figured in the
third volume of the " Met  moires de l'institute Royal"
i  of France (plate iv.), which
is here reproduced.
L0EO9~ 'wJI  a /When we turn to the imIg V < Q j  f   plements used by the village
'it,/SS!  |((^^~ /          communities of Britain, it is
Hea  r  *. '    remarkable what a very dif-'j — -'-'- - -   ferent picture we have to
draw. It is a picture which
confirms the view      taken
throughout     these   pages,
namely, that in Britain we have evidence of the oldest
forms of agricultural settlement, commencing far back in the
past before the Aryan conquest, that is, to times prior to the
use of the plough. Let me note how important this is to us.




AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.


279


Reverting to the examples of terrace cultivation, it seems
perfectly obvious that the plough could not have been used
on these high narrow hill ridges,' and it so happens that not
only can we point to terrace cultivation as examples of agriculture before the use of the plough, but we can point to the
instrument which took the place of the plough.
Dr. E. B. Tylor has traced out the development of the
plough from the earliest stages of agricultural implements.
For the purpose of preparing the ground ready for use, two
implements are in use among primitive people-namely, the
digging-stick and the hoe, and both of these have been
developed in Britain in rather a remarkable degree.
The digging-stick is, of course, the ancestor of the spade.
It was first long in use simply in the form of a digging-stick.
The Tahitians have agricultural implements of hard wood,:-. ---> -------        7__
THE HIGHLAND SPADE.
about 5 feet long, with sharp edges and pointed, which they
use as spades or hoes.2 The only instrument used by the
Maori New Zealanders for tillage was a long narrow stake,
sharpened to an edge at one end, with a short piece fastened
transversely at a little distance above it for the convenience
of pressing it down with the foot.3 The Fijians use diggingsticks made of the young mangrove tree. They are about the
size of an ordinary hay-fork, and the lower end is tapered off
on one side after the shape of a quill tooth-pick. In digging
this flattened side is kept downwards.4 Comparing these with
the Highland spade, we shall find that the development is very
slight. This rude instrument is a strong stick about 6 feet in
length; the shaft is round, and bended a little for the sake of
purchase. The head or lower part is about 14 inches long,
See " Wilts Archeological Society," vol. xii. p. 190; vol. xvii. p. 296.
2 Lubbock's " Prehistoric Times," p. 373.  3 Ibid., p. 365.
4 Williams' "Fiji and the Fijians," vol. i. p. 63.




280


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


and 4 to 6 broad. This is furnished with a plate of iron that
covers the fore part about 6 or 8 inches up, but behind it does
not reach above 2 or 3. The notch in which the foot is placed
in time of delving is on the right side, and is commonly very
narrow.' A still further development is to be met with in
which the spade or digging action has been applied to ploughing purposes. This is in the caschrom, which is a crooked
piece of wood, the lower end of which is about 2- feet in
length, somewhat thick, pretty straight, and armed at the end
with iron, made thin and square, to cut the earth. The upper
end of this instrument is called the shaft, and the lower is
termed the head. The shaft above the crook is 6 feet long,
and tapering towards the end, which is slender. Just below
T'IE CASCHROM.
the crook or angle, which is an obtuse one, there must be a
hole wherein a strong peg must be fixed for the workman's
right foot, in order to push the instrument into the earth.
While standing upon his left foot and holding the shaft firm
with both his hands, he with his right foot drives the head far
enough into the earth with one bend of his body; he then
raises the clod by the iron headed part of his instrument,
making use of the heel or hindpart of the head as a fulcrum;
in so doing turns it over always to the left hand, and then
proceeds to push for another clod in the same manner. With
some disadvantages, it is of all instruments the fittest for turning
up ground in a rocky country, where a plough can do little or
nothing, either from a multitude of rocks, or from the earth
being so marshy that cattle cannot pass over it without sinking.
Ure's "Agriculture of Dumbarton," p. 39.




AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.


281


It is asserted that one man can turn over more ground with it
in a day than four can do with a common spade.'
This adherence to the use of implements which originate in
the earliest stages of agricultural progress, before the introduction of the plough, is a very important illustration of the
adherence to old methods of cultivation which have been
previously examined. Not only do we get the archaeological
remains of old cultivation sites on the terrace-cut hill-sides
from the south to the north of Britain; but we get the primitive implements which were used where no plough could have
been used. I am anxious to dwell upon the significance of
these two parallel streams of survival. They each help us to
form some notion of how complete the survival of archaic life
in Britain has been, and how recent the filtration of highly
developed society to all parts of the nation has been. The
survival of primitive agricultural implements implies the survival of primitive agricultural usages. We have noted how far
these are reflected in the social group which the cultivating
communities assume-co-operation between the members of
each group being the economical feature corresponding to the
blood kinship between the members of each group.   Cooperative ploughing is a well marked feature of the village
community. Co-operative digging is as well marked among
peoples who have not reached the stage of complete development, which marks the history of the Aryan communities. Thus
in the village communities in Fiji, when preparing a piece of
ground for yams, a number of men are employed, divided into
groups of three or four. Each man being furnished with a
digging-stick, they drive them into the ground so as to enclose
a circle of about 2 feet in diameter. When by repeatedstrokes
the sticks reach the depth of I8 inches, they are used as levers,
and the mass of soil between them is thus loosened and raised.2
The same practice is adopted by the Basutos with their hoe" Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. vi. p. 288; Mitchell's " Past in
the Present," p. 95; Robertson's "Agriculture of Inverness," p. I02;
"Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. iii. p. 463.
Williams, " Fiji and Fijians," vol. i. p. 63.




282


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


like implement, and Casalis, in his account of the practice, has
inserted a spirited sketch, showing a long line of natives
simultaneously lifting their implements to strike into the earth.'
But then this was exactly the practice of Scottish Highlanders.
Highland spades, says Ure, are found to be of great utility in
cultivating small pieces of ground on the declivities of hills, to
which the plough cannot have access. It is the common practice for eight or ten men and women to assemble with their
spades for the purpose of digging a piece of ground; and it is
amazing with what speed they accomplish their work. They
begin at the lower extremity of the ground, and form themselves into a row at a convenient distance from one another;
they cut with their spades a line in the ground, 9 or io inches
deep, and then, with one united effort, throw over at once a
furrow or piece of ground about I8 or 20 feet in length, and
8 or ro inches in breadth.2 Such close analogies in customs,
as well as in the implements used, imply much more than
can conveniently be stated. Backwardness in culture and in
inventive capacity are among the least important points to be
considered. What is far more important is to reckon the
length of time, to be numbered by centuries, during which
these outlying populations of our island, and of Europe, have
continued the practices of their fathers. The grip of Roman
civilization, the grip of Anglo-Saxon kingship, the grip of
feudalism, was not strong enough to lift the peasantry out of
barbarism, and the nation went on developing for centuries
without much, if any, aid from the peasantry.
Let us now turn to the plough.  Dr. Tylor conclusively
proves that it was "a hoe dragged through the ground to form
a continuous furrow."3 The earliest transitional forms from
the hoe to the plough seem to have survived longest in
Sweden,4 but the next stage is undoubtedly represented by the
old Scottish one-stilt plough. In Orkney, in the year i808,
"The plough [had] only one stilt with neither rest nor
r Casalis'" Basutos," p. I63.
Ure's " Agriculture of Dumbarton," p. 40.
3 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. x. p. 77.  Ibid.




AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.


mould-board, and its other parts [werel joined in such a form
that it had not a single quality to recommend it but its simplicity."   This was used last century throughout Scotland
and in some parts of England. Comparing it with the rude
instrument in use in some of the outlying parts of India, there
can be no doubt of its vast antiquity. The Indian plough is
described as "consisting of a simple crooked stick with a
handle fastened to it, the lower part being of conical shape,
with a handle fastened to it. To its point is affixed a bar of
iron, about a foot in length and an inch and a half in thickness, sharpened at the end, which serves merely to scratch the
ground, but does not turn up the soil."2    That the Scottish
plough could do no more is stated over and over again by the
old writers on agriculture in the last century, and it is proved
by the singular and barbarous practice of drawing it by attaching it to a horse's tail. I have not come across any mention of
this cruel custom outside the British Isles, in Scotland and in
Ireland, but it signifies once more what rude barbarism has
survived amidst our civilization.3
Now this is a very different implement to the plough with its
team of eight oxen, but we can show the means by which the
one developed from the other. In the same district of India
where it has just been noted the primitive hoe-plough was used,
the plough is drawn by a pair of bullocks, in a yoke, which are
guided by the ploughman himself with a goad. These bullocks
however "only work for a part of the day, as two or three pairs
of tilling cattle are assigned to each plough. When it is necessary to plough the ground to a considerable depth, several
I Barry's " History of Orkney," p. 353; cf. Mitchell, " Past in Present,"
p. 95.
2 Carmichael's "Manual of the District of Vizagapatam," p. 150; cf.
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. xiii. p. 265.
3 In Scotland I can note the following references to this practice;
Smith's "Agriculture of Argyle," p. 65; "Proceedings of the Society
of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. v. p. 201. In Ireland the following: Ulster
Joturnal of Archeology, vol. vi. pp. 22-221, 363; " Statistical Survey of
Roscommon," p. 654; Gentleman's AMagazine, 1855, vol. ii. pp. 136-140;
Lithgow's " Travels," I619, p. 41 t.




284


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


ploughs follow one another. For each crop the ground is prepared by being ploughed up a certain number of times." This
is very instructive information. In the first place, it sets forth
the intermediate stages of co-operative ploughing before the
establishment of the heavy plough with a team of eight oxen;
it also enables us to identify this as the earliest Anglo-Saxon
practice. In the Harley Psalter, a manuscript of the eleventh
century, is a drawing, in colour, of a man ploughing with a
very crude wheel-less plough drawn by two oxen, directed
simply by the goad, with no head gear or driver, and this may
be compared with the rock drawing at Tegneby, in Bohuslan
in Sweden.2  This is not the only early drawing showing the
ANGLO-SAXON TWO-OXEN PLOUGH TEAM.
(Fromr the Harleian MS.)
two-oxen plough among the Anglo-Saxons, and one instance is
here figured. It disproves the strict uniformity of AngloSaxon agricultural practices, and once more turns us back
from a more advanced type to a backward type-from an eightoxen plough team, with all its accompaniment of rights and
privileges in the common field, to the two-oxen plough team,
with its significant rudeness of structure and use, and its more
than probable use prescribed after the manner of its Indian
prototype. There is certainly no room to argue for a uniformity of practice with such evidence before us, and it confirms the evidence elsewhere given that we must turn back
upon more primitive institutions and more primitive communities for some of the lost facts in the English evidence.
I Carmichael, loc. cit.
2 Du Chaillu's " Land of the Midnight Sun," vol. i. p. 351.




AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.


285


I now turn to the reaping implements and customs. In the
Harleian MS., No. 603, are some outline drawings of agricultural operations throughout the year, and Mr. Wright
reproduced a few in one of
his miscellaneous publications. l  -
Describing this picture, "the
activity of the reapers," says
Mr. Wright, "is well represented. The corn appears at
this period not to have been
sheaved in the field, but to
have  been carried directly   \away. The warrior with his
spear and horn appears to be
guardian of the field, whose    l   - c
duty it was to watch against 
sudden attacks on the harvest 
in those unsettled times."r 
But incidentally we are also                        X
introduced in this interesting 
illustration to the balks and
the long narrow strips indicative of the open-field system,
and we may add this to the
many proofs that exist of the
existence of the village community among    the  AngloSaxons.  Two facts will be
noticed about the   reaping.
The sickle is simply a hand
implement, and it is used to
cut off the tops of the grain,
leaving the straw standing.2  -
In this illustration a wheeled cart is figured, and the wheels
I " Archaeological Album," p. 64.
2 Cf. Boyd Dawkins' "Early Man in Britain," p. 360; Elton, " Origins
of English History," pp. 32-33,




286


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


are spoked. Noting that Dr. Tylor has traced out the various
stages of development in the wheeled cart,' it is significant that
the introduction of wheeled carts is so recent in many parts of
Britain. Sir Arthur Mitchell has touched upon this topic, and
has figured three examples of the kind of sledge-cart used in the
Highlands;2 but the evidence is far more extensive than would
at first thought be imagined. General Pitt-Rivers has drawn
attention to evidence of the use of the sledge-cart in the Rushmore excavations. Mr. Lucas, in his "Studies in Nidderdale"
(pp. 214-215), observes that wheeled conveyances are of very
recent introduction in the upper part of the dale, and he gives
an account of the first pair of wheels seen. They were all of
one piece, and quite solid, being cut out of a single piece of
wood, and before this the vehicle used for the conveyance of
the dead was a kind of litter drawn by two horses, one before
and one behind.    In Ross-shire the farmers collected their
manure into dunghills, and spread it on their fields by means
of a kind of cart called kellachies. They consist of small solid
wheels on which a frame is placed, and in an opening a conical
coarse wicker basket is set wherein the dung is carried.3 In
Dumbarton sledges were used to a considerable extent,4 and
the same was the case all over Stirlingshire.5 In Caithness
there were no carts made use of. The farmers carried their
manure to the land and their corn from it in creels upon the
backs of horses,6 and in Galloway the same kind of contrivance was used, persons being employed on each side with
forks to keep the basket in a proper poise.7 In the districts of
Culdaff, Ireland, it is observed, "very few of the inhabitants
possess wheeled cars or carts, the substitute for them being
slide cars. A pair of shafts, connected by a few cross bars,
Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. x. pp. 79-81.
2 (1 Past in the Present," p. 97.
3 Sinclair's "Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. iii. p. i; Donaldson's " Agriculture of Elgin," p. 22.
4 Ure's " Agriculture of Dumbarton," p. 43.
5 Belsche's " Agriculture of Stirling," p. 41.
6 Marshall's "Agriculture of the Highlands," p. 204.
7 Webster's "Agriculture of Galloway," p. 12.




THE MANOR.


287


constitute this vehicle, which is dragged along the ground by a
horse, to the great injury of the public roads." Other districts
of Ireland are similarly situated.T
Turning back now to that picture of domestic economy
which was noted in a previous chapter, we find that it does not
stand alone. The more we penetrate into the details of English
agricultural economy, the more we find that it presents the
inquirer with evidence of its primitive origin; And when at
last a manufacturing industry arises, we can see it in its very
earliest stages. Mr. Ashley points out from the records of gild
history some of the most salient features, but even these do
not take us so far back as we can get among the peasantry of
Aberdeenshire in the last century. The knitting of stockings
was the principal manufacture of this district. It was carried
on by almost all the women, and by many boys and old men.
"A woman," says the local historian, "can work at her stocking while feeding her cows in the baulks or patches of grass
between the ridges, which are not uncommon in this district."2
8. There remains one word to be said about the manorial
element of the English village community. In the types
which have been used for the purpose of the present study
the manorial element does not find a prominent place. I
think too much has been made of the manorial element in
England, and I think its origin has been antedated. That it
has absorbed much of the primitive institutions in England is
undoubted; that it did not originate those institutions, and
did not stamp them with any of their primary features, seems
to be the proper conclusion from the evidence we have now
examined. I am, however, aware that this evidence does not
stand alone, and that it has to compete with Mr. Seebohm's
dictum that " there were manors everywhere." In the meantime much has been done by independent workers to enable
us to understand more about the position of the manor. Mr.
Maitland has discussed one important subject in this connection, and has made the acute suggestion that there may have
1 Mason's " Statistical Account of Ireland," vol. ii. p. I65; vol. iii. p. 8.
2 Sinclair's " Statistical Account of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 539.




288


SURVIVALS IN LOCAL CUSTOM.


been a time when township and hundred were identical, and
he refers to some interesting evidence "which seems to show
that the vill of ancient times was often a much larger tract
of land than the vill of modern times; that the area belonging
to an agricultural community was not unfrequently as large as
the area of some of our hundreds."  Of course there are
limitations to this suggestion, which Mr. Maitland has taken
care to note, but I allude to it now in order to point out one
other problem which it helps to solve.
We have, on the one hand, the non-manorial type of Lauder,
with its extensive area of nearly thirty thousand acres, and, on
the other hand, the village type of Aston, held under a superior
manor, whose lands were intermixed with the contiguous
manor of Shifford. The Lauder type helps us to understand
Mr. Maitland's suggestion without much trouble, and I think
the Aston type will help in the same direction. We know that
manors having their lands intermixed is not an uncommon
feature of manorial land rights. If we may go back to the
hundreds of Southern England as the representatives of the
village community, it is clear that the manor must have been
carved out of the older village community as land came to
be held under feudal tenures  This process might well have
brought about the imprint of ownership by a lord at the same
time as it transferred the only known system of agricultural
economy then obtaining, namely, that developed under the
older village community. The intermixture of manorial lands,
therefore, would be the natural outcome of an original intermixed tribal ownership in the hundred, and thus manors must
have been a late derivative institution from the village community, and not a primary institution from which the village
community evolved.  This is borne out by an extremely
suggestive parallel between the intermixture of lands belonging
to different manors and the intermixture of parish lands within
one township. A case is given in the evidence before the
Enclosure Commission of I844. Donisthorpe is situated in
three.parishes, each parish being scattered about in the open
I Archaological Review, vol. iv. p. 235.




I.


8


A


--,,  I
e-9


Chilcote 
Parish        I
cJ~
tio
-A
0.~.,


~~   -- ----- --   ~ --   ---— ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"I-I. - - 1 — -1 




'valiee v Bo soutalisc.


I  OF
<.S








THE MANOR.


289


fields of the township, as illustrated in the accompanying map.
Now we know that parishes are the outcome, to a large extent,
of ecclesiastical requirements and of the operation of the poor
law. If, therefore, such a late institution as the parish stands
in relation to the township in much the same position as the
manor stands in relation to its parent institution, whatever that
may prove to be, it is an admissible conjecture that the manor
like the parish is a late derivative institution, and not an early
primary institution. To the evidence of non-manorial types
of the village community which has been adduced we may
add the additional evidence as to the possibly late origin of
manors; and, on the whole, it appears to me that the conclusion is irresistible that the village community in England owes
its form and growth, its agricultural economy, its homestead
rights and privileges, to primitive institutions and not to the
manor.
The fragmentary survivals of the village community have
now been examined with a view of showing that they all have
a place in determining the history of that institution in Britain.
This is a portion of the subject which needs careful handling,
and a considerable amount of reconstruction is needed before
these fragments can be fitted into their several positions. But
the fact of their fragmentary condition goes far to suggest that
they are more primitive, and carry us further back into the
past, than more perfect examples. They have not been able
to resist the march of political progress. Those who know by
repeated evidence all over the world how extremely slowly
man changes his customs and practices will not be disposed to
question the place I have attempted to give to some apparently
trivial facts in village life. These are more likely to be descended
from older facts than to have originated in the current events
of political life, with which the peasant portion of the population have had so little to do. It only remains now for the student
to get all of them together, and then to redraw the picture of
the past which they present.


20




CHAPTER X.


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
I HAVE ventured in these pages to apply the methods of
anthropological research to the investigation of the origin and
development of the village community in Britain.
The usages and beliefs of the races inhabiting Britain have
been used by anthropologists for proof of several phases in the
early history of man. Mr. McLennan notably has deduced
from the language of Caesar evidence as to a distinct type of
polyandry, which he classifies by the name British, and distinguishes from other types, the Nair type and the later types.
Mr. Tylor and Sir John Lubbock have used the evidence of
superstition and custom in their researches into the primitive
history of man. Mr. Lang has drawn upon Scottish myth in
discussing his important theories on early ritual and religion.
Thus it appears that survivals in British usages and beliefs are
fully recognized as standing in some definite relationship to
the usages and beliefs of early mankind. But the complement
to this state of things in anthropological evidence has never
been quite recognized-British institutions have not been
investigated thoroughly on the lines of anthropological
research. To satisfy ourselves that this method would rightly
apply to the village community, it was necessary, first of all,
to understand that this institution was primitive, and not
historical, in origin-due, that is, to the earliest instincts of
our race, not to the political thought of a governing class, or to
the commercial necessities of a trading class, in historical
times.
We started off by showing that the village community was




SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.


291


not a modern institution, but that it must have begun far back
in the history of the human race, and probably has been a
phase of social existence through which all peoples who have
progressed onwards from savagery to civilization must have
passed. We examined some savage types of the village community, and we noted that its existence in the civilized countries
of Europe must be due to survival.
We then referred to the well-known parallels which existed
between the village community in India and in England, and
we suggested that, in view of these parallels, facts now ascertainable of the former would no doubt explain the lost facts of
the latter. But here intervened a new problem. It was proved
that the village communities of India were not Aryan in origin,
but were formed by a pre-Aryan race, who, having been
conquered by the tribal Aryans, had thus had superimposed
upon them the Aryan overlordship, with its fixed notions of
sacredness in kinship and in domestic worship. In India
these Aryans and non-Aryans exist side by side, the contributions of each to the building up of the Indian form of the
village community being still stamped with the impress of race.
And we argued that this impress of race, now lost in the uprise
of British nationality, might be recovered by studying the
analogy of institutions.
But in Britain there was the Roman conquest to account
for. In the rearrangement of the evidence as to the village
community in Britain, it was plainly necessary to understand
what was the Roman contribution to the history of the village
community, especially in view of the fact that English historians
have at various times brought so much evidence to prove that
English institutions are derived from Roman institutions. We
then worked out the contrast between the Romans and the
conquered Celts and the later-coming Teutons. On the one
hand, there is the Roman imperial system extending over
nationalities and races, knit together by vast political power;
on the other hand, there are the tribal Celts and Teutons
knit together by their faith to kin and chief. Under Carausius
it might have been possible to have begun the history of the




292


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.


British Empire. But this foretaste of what could be done
with the splendid machinery of an island navy and an island
army was due to Roman genius, not to British, and after the
withdrawal of the Roman legions it was not a national or
imperial army that met the invading Teutons, but clans and
tribes, who fought with clans and tribes. How little Roman
institutions affected the great mass of the Celts of Britain is
clearly seen by this pregnant fact. Rome was outside the
village system altogether. In her own home in Latium she
had passed away from this phase to that of imperialism and
nationality, and she could not again be compressed within the
narrow boundaries of the village system. But the case was far
different with the new conquerors of Celtic Britain. They
were organized on the tribal system, and so Teuton and Celt
stood upon a common level.   The result of the English
conquest was that the Celts had to give way in their villages.
Room had to be made for the new incomers inside the village
system, and tribal and clan society again became the type of
civilization in Britain, never better illustrated than by the keen
insight of Kingsley, who pictures Hereward as passionately
resisting the notion that Harold's defeat at Hastings meant
the conquest of Britain-it was merely the defeat of the local
West Saxon army. This contrast between the Roman and
Teutonic conquest brought us to two conclusions: That Rome
left the village communities of Celtic Britain like England
would leave the village communities of India, untouched in
their inner life, but crystallized in form by the pressure from
without; that the Teutons affected the inner life, and did not
affect the outer shell.
This conclusion as to the non-interference of Roman
influence on the village communities of Britain left us clear
ground to inquire whether there were any traces of the preAryan influences, and in the hill cultivation and settlement,
parallel to so much that is known of the hill cultivation and
settlement in India, we discovered the first clue to this preAryan element. Also in the rude and fantastic, sometimes
savage, customs of English villages we traced out strong




SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.


293


parallels to similar customs in Indian villages, where they were
observed distinctly and solely as the rights and privileges
of the non-Aryan outcast tribes, which were doubtless
wrung from their Aryan overlords through the ever-present
fears arising out of the powers of an antagonistic race who
were in communion with the gods of nature. And we concluded that these customs of India and England, parallel in
their present form, must have been also parallel in origin.
With this equipment we turned to the evidences of the village
communities in Britain as they have survived in historic observation. The old hearth religion and the tribal houses founded
thereon were discovered in the usages and beliefs and in the
undestroyed primitive structures of rural Britain. That this
religion and its relics, as preserved in folklore, must be considered as part and parcel of the village community, was insisted
upon by the evidence which folklore is so prominently bringing
before us now, and the intimate connection thus brought out
explained clearly that economical features were not the sole
survivals from the village communities of Britain.
Passing on to the surviving types we first examined the tribal
form of the village community, and it appeared that the wellknown description of Tacitus was true in all essentials of the
survivals in the last century. The community in its tribal form
was the prominent feature; the village of serfs was the subordinate feature.  Groups of kindred occupying their several
homesteads and the lands around; small villages of serfs
occupying cottage homes massed together and using the lands
around them in intermixed or run-rig occupation. And from
this evidence it was suggested that Mr. Seebohm's famous formula
defining the English institution as a manor with a village community in serfdom under it, must be rewritten as a tribal
community with a village in serfdom under it. Then some
transitional types were examined, showing the development
from the tribal community to the village community. Finally,
the villages of the more thickly-populated parts of Britain were
examined, and it appeared not only that the ordinary manorial
type was insufficient to account for types that did not assimilate




294


SUIMMARY AND CONCLUSION.


to the manorial type, but that municipal institutions yielded up
evidence as to their origin in the village community. The case
of London was then examined, and it appeared by the curious
and interesting distribution of municipal law with unrecognized
custom that the primitive village system was not absolute here,
as it was in the villages of rural Britain. This was to be
explained, however, by evidence in full support of the position
which has been asserted for Roman influences. In London
there are distinct traces of the continuity of Roman institutions. The presence of village institutions must therefore be
due to an intrusion from the surrounding settlements-an
intrusion, which is even more significant of the relative position of Roman organization to village institutions than the
general evidence derivable from  other sources previously
examined.
This concluded the examination of the surviving types of
the village community in Britain. No one of these types, taken
singly, can be said to illustrate all the points in its history.
The development has been irregular in the various localities
where they have survived, and the true method of treating the
subject is to collect together as many varieties of type as can
begot, and to draw from their differences as much as from their
identities the necessary evidence. Only a portion of this work
has been attempted in these pages, but it may be hoped that it
is a representative portion.
Finally, we examined some of the fragments of village community which survive in unconnected form. This was important
because it indicates the variety of degrees in which survivals
must necessarily appear. If all exa les of the village community assumed a more or less ide ical form, the probability
of them having originated in some well-known political or
national event would be enormous. If manors only were the
source from which all evidence was to be derived, if Hitchin
were the normal type to which all others assimilated, it would
be difficult to get away from the argument that it arose from a
fusion with the -Roman villa. But that Hitchin does not, in the
first place, represent anything like a normal type of the English




SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.


295


village community, and, in the second place, that scattered
here and there among the local institutions of the country are
innumerable fragments of the village community now separated
and distinct from any definite examples, we have proof that the
survivals of this primitive institution have met with the fate and
experience which we know survivals in myth and belief have
met.
The limits of the present work will be apparent to most
scholars. The task has been a difficult and complex one, and
it is easy to see that it requires much more research and study
before the final word is said. On some points I have done
little more than indicate the direction of future research if the
view I take is admitted as a tenable one. There has been no
opportunity of examining the village community as it survives
in the Russian mir, and parallels to which exist in many of the
most curious features of English manorial history. There has
been no opportunity of turning to the details of the German
system which Von Maurer and others have investigated and set
before us. Close up to the boundaries of Italian cities there
exist forms of old tribal communities, and in France the village
system is even yet in vigorous existence. But the special object
of the present inquiry was to establish, if possible, that the preCeltic inhabitants of this island, surviving, as Dr. Beddoe has
proved, in the physical peculiarities of many localities in the
British Isles, must have lent their aid in the fashioning of
British institutions. The tenacity of custom, the potent force
of tradition, the indestructibility of superstitious practices, have 
been brought to bear upon the evidence of comparative institutions. Much of this evidence is argumentative; much of it is
not to be brought within the bounds of explanation except by
frequent repetition of argument and elaboration of detailed
proof; some of it is capable of other explanation than that I
have sought to give it. Still, on the whole, it seems to me that
we must give up the theory of a Roman origin for what has
hitherto seemed to be adequately explained by that theory.
The Celtic tribal communities have been examined, and much




296


SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.


of their common characteristics are known to be present in the
later village communities, but the tribal communities of all
Aryan stocks are proved to have possessed the germ of the
villages of serfs resting under their headship. If this be admitted
there is no logical, as there certainly is no scientific, reason, why
we should not carry back our research even to those far-off times
when an Iberic people began to sow the cereals and to practise
some of the domestic arts which we do to this day.


THE END.




INDEX.


"Acre," the term, I93
Allotment of lands, 266-271
Anglo-Saxon commerce, 52
Anglo-Saxon London, 54
Aryan elements in village community, 20
Aryan lordship, development of,
III
Ashley's  " Economic  History,"
quoted, I60
Assembly (the) of the village, 257 -265
Aston and Cote, 158
Baring-Gould, quoted, 117
Basutos, village community among,
12
Beddoe (Dr.), quoted, 103
Bede, quoted, I28
Boate, " Ireland's Natural History,"
quoted, 88
Boley Hill, Rochester, 247
Bovey Tracey, Mayor's Monday at,
220
Boyd Dawkins (Prof.), quoted, 2, 70,
101, 285
Chippenham village community,
173; British element in, 185;
Danes in, I87
Chirnside village community, 207
Clan feuds, 237-245


Coif, Order of the, 224
Commerce, Anglo-Saxon, 52
Coorgs, 97
Corn in Anglo-Saxon times, 53
Craik's " History of Commerce,"
quoted, 53
Crawford village community, 205
Derby, clan divisions at, 241
Dravidian villages, 26
Drowning, execution by, 221
Druids, non-Aryan, Io4, III
Dyaks, village community among,
IO0
Earle (Prof.), quoted, 57
Elgin, village community at, 170
Elton(C. J.), quoted, 2, 103, 129, 285
Fiji, village community in, 9, 55
Fraser (J. G.), quoted, I13
Gatacre Hall, 44
Greaves Ash, 92
Green's " History," quoted, 48, 50
Greenwell (Canon), quoted, 94
Guest (Dr.), quoted, 48, 52
Iall (Hubert), quoted, 121
Harris community, I34
Harrison's " Description of England," quoted, 64




298


INDEX.


Hearn (Dr.), quoted, 71, io6, 129,
253
Hearth cult, primitive, 129
Heisgeir community, I43
Hewett (Mr.), quoted, 23
Highland communities, I38
Hill farming, 85
Hill forts and terrace cultivation,
91
Hill tribes of India, 21; of Britain,
75
Holme, Milne (Dr.), quoted, 88
Homestead, I 6-131; sacredness of,
116; the lord's, 117; the villager's, 121; the source of all
rights, 253-257
Humbledon Hill, 9I
Iberic elements in Britain, 101
Implements, agricultural, 275-287
Indian village communities, 20-4I
Inverness, primitive conditions at,
239
Irish tribal communities, 141
Jackson's " History of Chippenham," quoted, 85, 87, 174
Kachahri, 55
Kells community, 151
Kemble (Mr.), quoted, I86
Khonds, 22
Kinship, 233-236
Kolis of Maha Kanta, 25
Lang (Mr.), quoted, 238
Lauder community, I48
London, origin of, 49; its unique
history, 208; Roman, 211; village
life in, 212; agriculture in, 226
London Stone, 218
Lord, manorial, 263-265
Lubbock (Sir J.), quoted, 6, 102
Lyall (J. B.), quoted, 62


McLennan (Mr.), quoted 4, 8
Maine (Sir H.), quoted, I, 4, 58,
I29, 148
Maitland (Ir.), quoted, 47, 54 288
Malmesbury village community, 187
Manors, 287-289
Manu, 30
Marshall,  " Rural   Economy,')
quoted, 8 
Mitchell (Sir Arthur), quoted, 125
Mock mayors, I07
Morgan (L.), quoted, 6, 8
Nasse, " Agricultural Community,'
quoted, 180
Newton-upon-Ayr village communit)y, 200
No Man's land, 115
Non-Aryan survivals in Britain, 69 -115
Offices, village, 271-275
Origin (primitive) of village community, I-19
Pathan tribes of Peshawur, 35
Prestwick village community, 205
Race-elements of the village community, 20-41, 236-253
Rhyming formula at Malmesbury,
I9I
Rhys (Prof.), quoted, I04
Rogers (Thorold), quoted, 44
Roman influences, 43-63
Roman London, 49
Rothwell village community, 17r
Savage type of village community,
9-I5
Sayce (Prof.), quoted, 17
Scarborough, clan divisions at, 241
Scrope (Poulett), quoted, 8I, 83, 87




INDEX.


299


Seebohm (Mr.), quoted, 1,42, 52, 55,
6i, 83, 85, 114, I39, I75, I96, 255
Serfdom, English, 55, 271-275
Shealings in Scotland, 125
Smith (Adam), quoted, I32
Terrace cultivation in England, 75;
in Wales, 77; in Scotland, 78;
in Ireland, 80; origin of, 8; its
agricultural origin, 83; ancient
practice of, 87; construction of,
89; summary of evidence, 95; in
China, 96; in India, 97
Topley (Mr.), quoted, 74
Traditional usages, I7-r8
Transitional types in Britain, 147-I 56
Tribal communities in Britain, 132 -146
Tribal games, 243
Tylor (Dr.), quoted, 6
Village, the primitive English, 45
Village community, origin of, 15;
Aryan and non-Aryan elements,
20; parallels between India and


Britain, 31; persistence of, in England, 56; in Wales, 6; in the
Punjab, 62; transitional type,
I47; final type, 157; at Aston
and Cote, 158; at Elgin, 170;
at Rothwell, 7I; at Chippenham, 173; at Malmesbury, I87;
at Newton-upon-Ayr, zfo; at
Prestwick, 205; at Crawford,
205; at Whitsome, 206; at
Chirnside, 207; in London, 212;
importance of the Indian examples, 230; survivals of, in local
custom, 232; in recognition of
kinship, 233; in mixture of races,
236; in homestead as source of all
rights, 253
Wansdyke, Ioo
Wapping, Execution Dock at, 221
Welsh tribal communities, I43, I96
Whitsome village community, 206
Wiltshire, Teutonic settlement of,
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24. Premature Death: Its Promotion and Prevention.
25. Change, as a Mental Restorative.
26. The Gentle Art of Nursing the Sick.
27. The Care of Infants and Young Children.
28. Invalid Feeding, with Hints on Diet.
29. Every-day Ailments, and How to Treat Them.
30. Thrifty Housekeeping.
31. Home Cooking.
32. Flowers and Flower OCliture.
33. Sleep and Sleeplessness.
34. The Story of Life.
35. Household Nursing.
36. The Ear, and Ear Troubles.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
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The Music Story Series.
A SERIES OF LITERARY-MUSICAL MONOGRAPHS.
Edited by FREDERICK J. CROWEST,
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Illustrated with Photogravure and Collotype Portraits, HIalf-tone and Line
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Square Crown 8vo, Cloth, 3s. 6d. net.
VOLUMES NOW       READY.
THE STORY OF ORATORIO. By ANNIE W. PATTERSON, B.A., Mus. Doc.
THE STORY OF NOTATION, By C. F. ABDY WILLIAMS,
M.A., Mus. Bac.
THE   STORY    OF   THE   ORGAN.     By C. F. ABDY
WILLIAMS, M.A., Author of "Bach" and "Handel" ("Master
Musicians' Series").
THE STORY OF CHAMBER MUSIC. By N. KILBURN,
Mus. BAc. (Cantab.).
THE STORY OF THE VIOLIN. By PAUL STOEVING,
Professor of the Violin, Guildhall School of Music, London.
THE STORY OF THE HARP, By WILLIAM H. GRATTAN
FLOOD, Author of " History of Irish Music."
THE   STORY    OF  ORGAN    MUSIC,    By C. F. ABDY
WILLIAMS, M.A., Mus. Bac.
THE STORY OF ENGLISH MUSIC (I604-I904): being the
Worshipful Company of Musicians' Lectures.
THE STORY OF MINSTRELSY. By EDMONDSTOUNE
DUNCAN.
IN  PREPARATION.
THE STORY OF THE PIANOFORTE. By ALGERNON S.
ROSE, Author of "Talks with Bandsmen."
THE STORY OF MUSICAL SOUND. By CHURCHILL
SIBLEY, Mus. Doc.
THE STORY OF CHURCH MUSIC. By THE EDITOR.
ETC., ETC., ETC.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED,
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MUSICIANS' WIT, HUMOUR AND
ANECDOTE:
BEING ON BITS OF COMPOSERS, SINGERS, AND
INSTRUMENTALISTS OF ALL TIMES.
By FREDERICK J. CR0OWEST,
Author of "The Great Tone Poets," "1The Story of British Music,"
Editor of "The Master Musicians" Series, etc., etc.
Vrotusely Illustrated with Quaint Drawings by
J. P. DONNE.
In One Volumie-Crown 8vo, Cloth, Richly Gill, Price 3/6.
" It is one of those delightful medleys of anecdote of all times, seasons,
and persons, in every page of which there is a new specimen of humour,
strange adventure, and quaint saying."-T. P. O'CONNOR in T. P.'s
Weekly.
TOLSTOY: His Life and Works.
By JOHN C. KENWORTHY,
AN? INTIMATE. FRIJEND OF THlE GREAT RussIAN WRITER.
Ca Volu.jme, Crown 8VO, 256 rages, Rickily Bound, containing
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PRICE SIX SHILLINGS.
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The Emerald Library.
Crown 8vo, Gilt Top, Half Bound in Dark Green Ribbed
Cloth, with Light Green Cloth Sides, 2s. each.
Barnaby Rudge         Caudle's Lectures      The Days of Bruce
Old Curiosity Shop    Jack Ilinton           The Vale of Cedars
Pickwick Papers       Bret Harte             Hunchback of Notre
Nicholas Nickleby      Ingoldsby Legends    Vashti       (Dame
Oliver Twist           Handy Andy            The Caxtons
Martin Chuzzlewit      Lewis Arundel         Harold, Last of the
Sketches by Boz        Guy Mannering           Saxon Kings
Olive                  Rob Roy               Toilers of the Sea
The Ogilvies           Fortunes of Nigel     What Can She Do?
Ivanhoe                Man in the Iron Ma;sk  New Border Tales
Kenilworth             Great Composers       Fiank Fairlegh
Jacob Faithful         Louise de la Valliere  Zanoni
Peter Simple           Great Painters        Macaria
Paul Clifford          Rory O'More           Inez
Eugene Aram           Arabian Nights         Conduct and Duty
Ernest Maltravers      Swiss Family Robinson  Windsor Castle
Alice; or, The Mys-    Andersen's Fairy Tales  Hard Times
teries               Three Musketeers      Tower of London
Rienzi                 Twenty Years After    John Halifax, GentlePelham                 Vicomte de Bragelonne  Westward Ho I [man
The Last Days of       Monte Cristo-Dantes   Lavengro
Pompeii, Revenge of Dantes  It is Never Too Late
The Scottish Chiefs    The Newcomes            to Mend
Wilson's Tales        Life of Robert Moffat  Two Years Ago
The Fair God           Life of Gladstone     In His Steps
Miss Beresford's       Cranford              Crucifixion of Phillip
Mystery              North and South         Strong
A Mountain Daisy      Life of Gen. Gordon    His Brother's Keeper
Hazel; or, Perilpoint  Lincoln and Garfield  Robert Hardy's Seven
Lighthouse           Great Modern Women      Days, and Malcom
Vicar of Wakefield    Henry Esmond             Kirk (in 1 vol.)
Prince of the House    Alton Locke           Richard Bruce
of David             Life of Livingstone   The Twentieth Door
Wide, Wide World       Life of Grace Darling  House of the Seven
Village Tales          White's Selborne        Gables
Ben-Hur               Tales of the Covenanters Elsie Venner
Uncle Tom's Cabin     Barriers Burned Away   The Romany Rye
Robinson Crusoe       Opening a ChestnutBurr Little Dorrit
The White Slave       Pendennis              The Scarlet Letter
Charles O'Malley      David Copperfield      Mary Barton
Midshipman Easy       Luck of Barry Lyndon   Home Influence
Bride of Lammermoor    St. Elmo              The Mother's RecomHeart of Midlothian    Son of Porthos          pense
Last of the Barons    Stanley and Africa     Tennyson's Poems
Old Mortality          Life of Wesley        Harry Coverdale's
Tom Cringle's Log     Life of Spurgeon         Courtship
Cruise of the Midge   For Lust of Gold       The Bible in Spain
Colleen Bawn          Wooing of Webster      Handbook of HouseValentine Vox         At the Mercy of Ti-      keeping
Night and Morning       berius               The Dead Secret
Bunyan                Countess of Rudolstadt  Queen Victoria
Foxe's Book of Mar-    Consuelo              Martin Rattler
tyrs                 Two Years before the  Ungava
Mansfield Park          Mast                 The Coral Island
Last of the Mohicans  Fair Maid of Perth     Adam Bede
Poor Jack             Peveril of the Peak    The Young Fur-Traders
The Lamplighter        Shirley               The Virginians
Jane Eyre              Queechy               A Tale of Two Cities
Pillar of Fire        Naomi; or, the Last    Scenes of Clerical Life
Throne of David         Days of Jerusalem    The Mill on the Floss
Dombey and Son        Little Women and       Danesbury House
Vanity Fair             Good Wives           A Life for a Life
Infelice              Hypatia                Christmas Books
Beulah                Villette               Tom Brown'sSchooldays
Harry Lorrequer       Ruth                   Grimm's Fairy Tales
Essays of Elia        Agatha's Husband       East Lynne    [Stress
Sheridan's Plays      Head of the Family     Through  Storm  and
Waverley               Old Helmet            The Channings
Quentin Durward       Bleak House            Old St. Paul's [Hlearth
Talisman               Cecil Dreeme          The Cloister and the
From Jest to Earnest   Melbourne House       Mrs. Halliburton's
Knight of 19th Century  Wuthering Heights      Troubles.




THlE WORLD'SGREAT NOVELS.
A series of acknowleeaged masterfiieces by thre most eminent wtiters
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3s. 6d. per Vol.
Adam Bede. By George Eliot. With Six Full-page Illustrations by S. H. Vedder and J. Jellicoe.
Anna Karenina. By Count Tolstoy. With Ten Illustrations
by Paul Fre'nzeny, and a Frontispiece Portrait of Count Tolstoy.
David Copperfield. By Charles Dickens. With Forty Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (" Phiz ").
Ivanhoe. By Sir Walter Scott. With Eight Full-page Illustrations by Hugh M. Eaton.
lane Eyre. By Charlotte Bront~. With Eight Full-page
Illustrations, and Thirty-two Illustrations in the Text, and Photogravure
Portrait of Charlotte Bront~.
JTohn Halifax, Gentleman. By Mrs. Craik. With Eight Fullpage Illustrations by Alice Barber Stephens.
lMiserables, Les. By Victor Hugo. With Twelve Full-page
Illustrations.
Notre Dame. By Victor Hugo. With many Illustrations.
Three Musketeers, The. By Alexandre Dumas. With
Twelve Full-page Illustrations by T. Eyre Macklin.
Twenty Years After. By Alexandre Dumas. With numerous
'Illustiations.
'Vicomte de Bragelonne, The. By Alexandre Dumas. With
Eight Full-page Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
Louise de la Va~lfere. By Alexandre Dumas. With Eight
Full-page Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
The Man in the Iron Mask. By Alexandre Dumnas. With
Ir Eight Full-page Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
Count of Monte-Cristo, The. By Alexandre Dumas. With
Sixteen Full-page Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
Chicot, the jester (La Dame de Monsoreau). By Alexandre
Dumas. New and Complete Translation. With Nine Full-page Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
Marguerite de Valois. By Alexandre Dumas. New and
Complete Translation. With Nine Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
Forty-Five Guardsmen, The. By Alexandre Dumnas. New
and Complete Translation. With Nine Illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
'War and Peace. By Count Tolstoy. Two Volumes. With
Five Full-page Illustrations by E. H. Garrett.
Tnu WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING COMPANY, LiSIITED,
LONDON AND FELLING-ON.TYNE.




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THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
GRADUATE LIBRARY

DATE DUE


P. 33


AteK 2


1983




UNIVERSITY OF MICHGAN
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