Chapter X (2)

There is a passage in the Ripuarian laws, 'If any one shall make his slave into a "tributarius," or a "litus," &c.'[626] The 'lidus' of the 'Lex Salica' was under a lordship, and classed with 'servi,' and by a legal process he could be set free.[627] We have noticed the passage in the Theodosian Code which speaks of 'coloni' and 'tributarii' on British estates, and also the mention by Ammianus Marcellinus of 'tributarii' in Britain. We have noticed also the three grades of 'læts,' the only class of tenants mentioned in the laws of Ethelbert.

«Survivals of the period of transition in Britain.»

Now, whatever doubt there might be as to what were the 'læts' on Kentish 'hams' and 'tuns' in the sixth century, if they stood alone as isolated phenomena; taken together with the 'tributarii' and 'coloni' and 'liti' on Continental manors, there can be hardly any doubt that they belonged to the same middle [p407] class of semi-servile tenants to which allusion has been made. Their presence on the manorial 'hams' and 'tuns' of England revealed in the earliest historical record after the Saxon Conquest, taken in connexion with the many other points brought together in this chapter, makes the inference very strong indeed that they, like the 'coloni,' 'tributarii,' and 'liti' on Continental manors, were a survival from that period of transition from Roman to German rule, during which the names of the various classes of semi-servile tenants, afterwards merged in the common status of mediæval serfdom, still preserved traces of their origin.

X. THE CONFUSION IN THE STATUS OF THE TENANTS ON ENGLISH AND GERMAN MANORS.

«Serfs free in status unfree in tenure.»

In one sense both in England and Germany the holders of the 'yard-lands' and 'huben,' though serfs, were _free_. As regards their lords they were serfs. As regards the slaves they were free. In this respect they resembled very closely the Roman 'coloni' on a private villa.

«Grades of manorial tenants.»

On the Frankish manors there were two classes of these semi-servile tenants--'mansi ingenuiles,' who were free from the 'week-work;' and 'mansi serviles,' from whom 'week-work' was due. Probably owing to the nature of the Saxon conquest the first of these classes seems to have practically become absorbed in the other. The laws of Ine, indeed, mention the gafol-gelder who, providing his own homestead, did not become liable to 'week-work' like the 'gebur.' But [p408] in the statements of the services on the manors of Hisseburne and Tidenham no such class appears. In the 'Rectitudines' there is no class mentioned between the _thane_, who is lord of the manor, and the 'geneats'--_i.e._ the 'gebur' and the 'cotsetl.' In the Domesday Survey there are no tenants above the villani, as a general rule, except in the Danish districts, where the 'Sochmanni' and the 'liberi homines' appear.

Comparing the status of English and German holders of 'yard-lands' and 'huben,' the resemblances are remarkable, and they confirm the suggestion of a common origin. Both are 'adscripti glebæ.' In both cases there is the absence of division among heirs. In both the succession is single, and in theory at the will of the lord. In both there are the gafol and customary services.

In both cases there is the distinction in grade of serfdom between the man who freely becomes the holder of a yard-land or hub by his own surrender, or by voluntary submission to the semi-servile tenure, and the man who is a _nativus_ or born serf.

In both cases there is a regular contribution towards military service or the equipment of a soldier, and apparently no bar in status from actual service, though doubtless in a semi-menial position.

«The confusion perhaps partly a survival from Roman provincial conditions.»

In all these points we have noticed strong analogies between the semi-free and semi-servile conditions of the various classes of tenants on Roman villas, and on the Roman public lands, which we have spoken of as the great provincial manor of the Roman Empire. And the natural inference seems to be, that even the curious confusion of the free and servile status may [p409] be, in part, a survival of the like confusion in the Roman provinces. It naturally grew up under the semi-military rule of the German provinces, and possibly in Britain also; whilst the Saxon conquest of the latter, no doubt, as we have said, tended to reduce the confusion into something like simplicity by fusing together classes of semi-servile tenants of various historical origins, in the one common class of the later 'geneats' or 'villani,' in whose status the old confusion, however, survived.

XI. RESULT OF THE COMPARISON.

«Strong evidence of connexion between Britain and the South German provinces during Roman rule, in the serfdom and in the open-field system which was its shell.»

To sum up the result of the comparison made in this chapter between the English and the Continental open-field system and serfdom. The English and South-German systems at the time of the earliest records in the seventh century were to all intents and purposes apparently identical.

The mediæval serf, judging from the evidence of his gafol and services, seems to have been the compound product of survivals from three separate ancient conditions, gradually, during Roman provincial rule and under the influence of barbarian conquest, confused and blended into one, viz. those of the _slave_ on the Roman villa, of the _colonus_ or other semi-servile and mostly barbarian tenants on the Roman villa or public lands, and of the _slave_ of the German tribesman, who to the eyes of Tacitus was so very much like a Roman _colonus_.

That peculiar form of the open-field system, which was the shell of serfdom both in England and on the Continent, also connects itself in Germany [p410] distinctly with the Romano-German provinces, whilst at the same time conspicuously absent from the less Romanised districts of Northern Germany.

It seems therefore inconceivable that the three-field system and the serfdom of early Anglo-Saxon records can have been an altogether new importation from North Germany, where it did not exist, into Britain, where it probably had long existed under Roman rule.

«The Saxon invaders from North Germany hardly brought the three-field system into England.»

We have already quoted the strong conclusion of Hanssen that the Anglo-Saxon invaders and their Frisian Low-German and Jutish companions could not introduce into England a system to which they were not accustomed at home. It must be admitted that the conspicuous absence of the three-field system from the North of Germany does not, however, absolutely dispose of the possibility that the system was imported into England from those districts of Middle Germany reaching from Westphalia to Thuringia, where the system undoubtedly existed. It is at least possible that the invaders of England may have proceeded from thence rather than as commonly supposed, from the regions on the northern coast. But if it be possible that a system of agriculture implying long-continued settlement, and containing within it numerous survivals of Roman elements, could be imported by pirates and the emigrants following in their wake, the possibility itself implies that the immigrants had themselves previously submitted to long-continued Roman influences.

On the whole we may adopt as a more likely theory the further suggestion of Hanssen, that if the three-field system was imported at all into England, [p411] the most likely time for its importation was that same period of Roman occupation during which he considers that it came into use in the Roman provinces of Germany.[628]

«The Romans probably introduced the three-course rotation of crops.»

Nor is there anything inconsistent with this suggestion in the irregular lines of the English open fields and their divisions, so different from those produced by the rectangular centuriation of Roman 'Agrimensores.' We must not forget that the open field system in its simpler forms was almost certainly pre-Roman in Britain as elsewhere; so that what the Romans added to transform it into the manorial three-field system probably was rather the three-course rotation of crops, the strengthening of the manorial element on British estates, and the methods of taxation by 'jugation,' than any radical alteration in the land-divisions or in the system of co-operative ploughing.[629]

FOOTNOTES:

[554] '_Die Territorien in Bezug auf ihre Bildung und ihre Entwicklung_,' Hamburg and Gotha, 1854.

[555] Dr. Hanssen's various papers on the subject are collected in his _Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen_, Leipzig, 1880.

[556] Jena, 1879.

[557] '_Georg Hanssen_, als _Agrar-Historiker_.' Von August Meitzen, 1881. Tübingen.

[558] See Hanssen's chapter, '_Die Feldgraswirthschaft deutscher Gebirgsgegenden_,' in his _Agrarhist. Abhandl._, pp. 132 _et seq._

[559] Landau, pp. 16–20.

[560] See the interesting examples given in Meitzen's _Ausbreitung_, with maps.

[561] See Hanssen's chapter on the '_Einfeldwirthschaft_,' _Agrarhist. Abhandl._ pp. 190 _et seq._

[562] Hanssen, p. 496.

[563] As to this part of the question, see especially Meitzen's _Ausbreitung_.

[564] Landau, '_Die Territorien_,' pp. 32 _et seq._

[565] Sometimes in Germany, as in England, there were _two_ or more. See Hanssen's chapters on the '_Zwei-, Vier-und Fünffelderwirthschaft_.'

[566] Tusser, 'February Abstract.'

[567] _Id._ 'February Husbandry.'

[568] _Id._ 'October Abstract.'

[569] _Id._ 'October Husbandry.'

[570] Halliwell, _sub voce_.

[571] '_Campis Sationalibus_' Charter, A.D. 704. B. M. Ancient Charter, Cotton MS. Augustus, ii. 82. '_Tuican hom_' (Twickenham, in Middlesex).

[572] Landau, 53.

[573] Guerard's _Polyp. d'Irminon_. '_Arat inter tres sationes perticatres_,' pp. 134, &c.; and see Glossary, p. 456.

[574] Landau, p. 54.

[575] Landau, p. 54. 'Die alte Form dieses Wortes ist _ezzisc_, _ezzisca_, _ezzisch_ (gothisch _atisk_), und wird in den Glossen durch _segetes_ erklärt.'

[576] Hanssen's chapter, _'Zur Geschichte der Feldsysteme in Deutschland_,' in his _Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen_, p. 194.

[577] 'Si illum sepem eruperit vel dissipaverit quem _Ezzisczun_ vocant,' &c. _Textus Legis Primus_, x. 16. Pertz, p. 309. In _id._ x. 21 the words '_Semitæ convicinales_' are used of open fields. In the _Burgundian Laws_ 'Additamentum Primum,' tit. 1, 'Agri communes.'

[578] Landau, pp. 54–5.

[579] _Passau_ received its name from a Roman legion of _Batavi_ having been stationed there.--_Mon. Boica_, xxx. p. 83. Landau, p. 49.

[580] In East Friesland, under the one-field system, the word '_flaggen_' is used for 'furlongs.' Hanssen, p. 198.

[581] Landau, p. 32.

[582] There are great numbers to be seen from the railway from Ems as far as Nordhausen on the route to Berlin.

[583] Thus _Rainbalken_ is the turf balk left unploughed as a boundary.

[584] Halliwell. '_Räin_,' a ridge (north). See also _Studies_, by Joseph Lucas, F.G.S., c. viii., where there is an interesting description of the 'Reins' in Nidderdale. These terraces occur in the neighbouring dales of Billsdale, Bransdale, and Furndale; and also in Wharfdale and the valley of the Ribble, &c.

[585] Pennant's _Tour in Scotland_, p. 281. 'Observed on the right several very regular terraces cut on the face of a hill. They are most exactly formed, a little raised in the middle like a firm walk, and about 20 feet broad, and of very considerable length. In some places were three, in others five flights, placed one above the other, terminating exactly in a line at each end, and most precisely finished. I am told that such tiers of terraces are not uncommon in these parts, where they are called baulks.'

[586] See Pugh's _Welsh Dictionary_:

_Balc_, a break in furrow land. _Balcia_, a breaking of furrows. _Balcio_, to break furrows. _Balciog_, having irregular furrows. _Balciwr_, a breaker of furrows. And see _supra_, p. 4.

[587] So in the St. Gall charters, quoted above. Thus also Dronke, _Traditiones et Antiq. Fuldenses_, p. 107, 'xx. diurnales hoc est quod tot diebus arari poterit.'--Landau, 45.

[588] Varro, _De Re Rustica_, i. 10; and see _Plin. Hist. Nat._ 18. 3. 15.

[589] See _supra_, chapter viii.

[590] I have found it in use on the coast opposite the Isle of Skye. Several crofters will take a tract of land, divide it first into larger divisions, or 'parks,' and then divide the parks into lots, of which each takes one.

[591] I am indebted for this information to Professor Meitzen, who informs me that he doubts whether it was a feature of the old purely German open fields. In undisturbed old German districts the 'Gewanne' and strips are of irregular and arbitrary size, and are not separated by permanent turf 'raine' or balks.

[592] Hanssen, p. 198.

[593] In the Engadine, in reply to the question what the flat strips between the linches were called, the driver answered, '_acker_.' When it was pointed out that they were _grass_, the reply was, 'Ah! but a hundred years ago they were ploughed.'

[594] M. Guérard's Introduction to the _Polyptique d'Irminon_, p. 641.

[595] _Id._ p. 641; and Appendix, i. p. 285. The Irish acre is of the same form as the English--4 rods by 40--but the rod is 21 feet. See the _Cartulaire de Redon_ in Brittany, No. cccxxvi. (p. 277), where a church is given to the abbey 'cum sedecim porcionibus terræ quæ lingua eorum "acres" nominantur' (A.D. 1061–1075). In Normandy, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were acres of four roods, 'vergées.' _Id._ p. cccxi. Compare also the form of the Welsh erw.

[596] Pertz, 278. _Lex Baiuwariorum textus legis primus_, 13.

[597] The Agrimensores reckoned 3 modii of land to the jugerum. _Gromatici Veteres_, i. p. 359 (13). In general 5 modii of wheat seed was sown on the jugerum, but the '_lawful andecena_,' being only about three-fifths of a jugerum, would require only 3 modii of wheat seed to sow it.

[598] Herod, ii. 168

[599] According to Suidas it was equal to four ἄρουραι, and Homer mentions τετράγυον as a usual field representing a day's work. (Od. xviii. 374.) Hence τετράγυον = 'as much as a man can plough in a day.'

[600] 'Sulcum autem ducere longiorem quam pedum centumviginti contrarium pecori est.'--Col. ii. 11, 27.

[601] The Rev. W. Denton, in his _Servia and the Servians_, p. 135, mentions Servian ploughs with six, ten, or twelve oxen in the team. See also mention of similar teams of oxen or buffaloes in Turkey--_Reports on Tenures of Land_, 1869–70, p. 306.

[602] '_Der älteste Anbau der Deutschen._' Von A. Meitzen, Jena, 1881.

[603] Zimmer's _Altindisches Leben_, p. 237.

[604] There are two other points which bear upon the Roman connexion with the _acre_.

(1) If the length of the furrow was to be increased, it would be natural to jump from one well-known measure to another. The _stadium_, or length of the foot race, was one-eighth of a mile, and was composed of ten of the Greek ἅμμα. The 'furlong' is also the one-eighth of a mile, and contains ten chains. But the stadium contained 625 Roman feet or 600 Greek feet--about 607 English statute feet. How does this comport with its containing 40 rods? The fact is, the rod varied in different provinces, and the Romans adopted probably the rod of the country in measuring the acre. 'Perticas autem juxta loca vel crassitudinem terrarum, prout provincialibus placuit videmus esse dispositas, quasdam decimpedas, quibusdam duos additos pedes, aliquas vero xv. vel x. et vii. pedum diffinitas.'--_Pauca de Mensuris, Grom. Vet._, Lachmann, &c., p. 371. Forty rods of 10 cubits, or 15 feet each, would equal the 600 feet of the Greek stadium. In fact, the English statute furlong is based upon a rod of 16½ feet. There is also the further fact that the later Agrimensores expressly mention a 'stadialis ager of 625 feet' (Lachmann, Isodorus, p. 368; _De Mensuris excerpta_, p. 372). So that it seems to be clear that the stadium, like the furlong, was used not only in measuring distances, but also in the division of fields.

(2) We have seen that the acre strips in England were often called 'balks,' because of the ridge of unbroken turf by which they were divided the one from the other. We have further seen that the word 'balk' in Welsh and in English was applied to the pieces of turf left unploughed between the furrows by careless ploughing. There is a Vedic word which has the same meaning.

The Latin word 'scamnum' had precisely this meaning, and also it was applied by the Agrimensores to a piece of land broader than its length. The 'scamnum' of the Roman 'castrum' was the strip 600 feet long and 50 to 80 feet broad--nearly the shape of the English and Bavarian 'acre'--set apart for the 'legati' and 'tribunes.' The fields in a conquered district, instead of being allotted in squares by 'centuriation,' were divided into 'scamna' and 'striga;' and the fields thus divided into pieces broader than their length were called 'agri scamnati,' while those divided into pieces longer than their breadth were called 'agri strigati.' Length was throughout reckoned from north to south; breadth from east to west. Frontinus states that the 'arva publica' in the provinces were cultivated 'more antiquo' on this method of the 'ager per strigas et per scamna divisus et assignatus,' whilst the fields of the 'coloniæ' of Roman citizens or soldiers planted in the conquered districts were 'centuriated.' See Frontinus, lib. i. p. 2, and fig. 3 in the plates, and also fig. 199; and see Rudorff's observations, ii. 290–298. The whole matter is, however, very obscure, and it is difficult to identify the 'ager scamnatus' with the Romano-German open fields. Frontinus was probably not specially acquainted with the latter.

[605] The meaning of 'hub' is perhaps simply 'a holding,' from 'haben.'

The term 'yard-land,' or 'gyrd-landes,' seems to be simply the holding measured out by the 'gyrd,' or rod; just as gyrd also means a 'rood.' Compare the 'vergée' of Normandy.

The Roman 'pertica' was the typical rod or pole used by the Agrimensores, and on account of its use in assigning lands to the members of a colony, it is sometimes represented on medals by the side of the augurial plough. By transference, the whole area of land measured out and assigned to a colony was known to the Agrimensores as its 'pertica' (Lachmann, Frontinus, pp. 20 and 26; Hyginus, p. 117; Siculus Flaccus, p. 159; Isodorus, p. 369).

The Latin 'virga,' used in later times instead of '_pertica_' for the measuring rod, followed the same law of transference with still closer likeness to the Saxon 'gyrd.' Both 'virga' and 'gyrd' = a rod and a measure. Both 'virga terræ' and 'gyrd landes' = (1) the rood, and (2) the normal holding--the virgate or yard-land. The word 'virgate,' or 'virgada,' was used in Brittany as well as in England. In the _Cartulaire de Redon_ it is, however, evidently the equivalent of the Welsh 'Randir.' See the twelve references to the word 'virgada' in the index of the _Cartulary_.

[606] Du Cange, under 'Huba.'

[607] Landau, p. 36.

[608] _Id._ 37–8.

[609] In the will of Perpetuus. Meitzen, _Ausbreitung_, &c., p. 14.

[610] The practice was long continued in what was called the 'steel bow tenancy' of later times.

[611] _Juris Prov. Alemann._ c. 2. Schilteri editio.

[612] Otfried, v. 4, 80; ii. 14, 215.

[613] Notger, Psalm xliii. 14; lxxviii. 4; lxix. 7.

[614] Compare _Cod. Theod._ IX. tit. xlii. 7: 'Quot mancipia in prædiis occupatis . . . quot sint _casarii vel coloni_,' &c.

[615] See _Ancient Laws of England_, Thorpe, p. 79, under _wer-gilds_, s. vii., where 'hiwisc' = 'hide.' See also '_hiwiski_,' '_hiwischi_,' for '_familia_,' in '_St. Paules Glossen_,' sixth or seventh century. Braune's _Althochdeutsches Lesebuch_, p. 4.

[616] _B. M. Ancient Charters_, ii. Cotton MS. Aug. ii. 42, A.D. 837. The Welsh _short yoke_ was that of two oxen, _i.e._ a fourth part of the full plough team.

[617] Columella, ii. 12. The calculation in this passage, how many _opera_ or day-works a farm requires shows striking resemblance to the later manorial system.

[618] Du Cange, 'Jugatum.'

[619] See Marquardt, ii. 225 _n._

[620] Meitzen, _Ausbreitung_, pp. 21 and 33.

[621] _Fœd._ vol. i. p. 31. Robertson's _Historical Essays_, p. 133.

[622] Diez, p. 150. '_Gabella_,' Portuguese, Spanish, and Provençal = tax. French _gabelle_ = salt-tax. Italian '_gabellan_,' to tax, from v. b. _gifan_, Goth. _giban_.

[623] See Guérard's _Polyptique d'Irminon_, i. chap. viii. Also Lehuérou's _Institut. Meroving._ liv. ii. c. 1; and M. Vuitry's _Etudes sur le Régime Financier de la France_, Première Etude.

[624] So Cicero asserted against Verres. The seed, he argued, was fairly to be taken at about a _medimnus_ to each jugerum. Eight medimni of corn per acre would be a good crop; ten would be the outside that under all possible favour of the gods the jugerum could yield. Therefore the tithe ought not to exceed at the highest estimate one medimnus per jugerum. But the tax-gather had taken _three_ medimni per jugerum, and so by extortion had _trebled the tithes_.--_In Verrem_, act. ii. lib. iii. c. 47, 48, 49.

[625] _Hygini de Limitibus Constituendis_, p. 204.

[626] Tit. lxii.

[627] _Lex Salica_, tit. xxxviii. 'De homicidiis _servorum_ et ancillarum. v. Si quis homo ingenuus _lidum alienum_ expoliaverit,' &c. See also tit. xvi. See also tit. xxvi. 'De libertis extra consilium Domini sui dimissis' (xxxv. 'De libertis dimissis ingenuis'). 'Si quis _alienum lætum_ ante rege per dinarium _ingenuum demiserit_,' &c.

[628] 'Soll die Dreifelderwirthschaft nach England importirt sein, so bliebe wohl nur übrig an die Periode der römischen Okkupation zu denken, wie ich eine ähnliche Vermuthung, die sich freilich auch nicht weiter begründen lässt, für Deutschland ausgesprochen habe (p. 153). Einfacher ist es den selbstständigen Ursprung der Dreifelderwirthschaft in ganz verschiedenenen Ländern als einen auf einer gewissen wirthschaftlichen Kulturstufe wie von selber eintretenden Fortschritt sich zu denken' (_Agrarhist. Abhand._ p. 497).

[629] Mr. Coote has adduced apparently clear evidence of centuriation in many parts of England; but we have already seen that only the land actually assigned to the soldiers of a _colonia_ was centuriated. There would seem to be no reason to suppose that they disturbed the generally existing open fields still cultivated by the conquered population.

[p412]