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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Landholding In England, by Joseph Fisher
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Landholding In England
+
+Author: Joseph Fisher
+
+Release Date: February, 2003  [Etext #3799]
+Posting Date: January 8, 2010
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LANDHOLDING IN ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF LANDHOLDING IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+By Joseph Fisher, F.R.H.S.
+
+
+
+     "Much food is in the tillage of the poor, but there is that
+     is destroyed for want of Judgment."--PROV. 13: 23.
+
+     "Of all arts, tillage or agriculture is doubtless the most
+     useful and necessary, as being the source whence the nation
+     derives its subsistence. The cultivation of the soil causes
+     it to produce an infinite increase. It forms the surest
+     resource and the most solid fund of riches and commerce for
+     a nation that enjoys a happy climate.... The cultivation of
+     the soil deserves the attention of the Government, not only
+     on account of the invaluable advantages that flow from it,
+     but from its being an obligation imposed by nature on
+     mankind."--VATTEL.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+This work is an expansion of a paper read at the meeting of the Royal
+Historical Society in May, 1875, and will be published in the volume of
+the Transactions of that body. But as it is an expensive work, and only
+accessible to the Fellows of that Society, and as the subject is one
+which is now engaging a good deal of public consideration, I have
+thought it desirable to place it within the reach of those who may not
+have access to the larger and more expensive work.
+
+I am aware that much might be added to the information it contains, and
+I possess materials which would have more than doubled its size, but
+I have endeavored to seize upon the salient points, and to express my
+views as concisely as possible.
+
+I have also preferred giving the exact words of important Acts of
+Parliament to any description of their objects.
+
+If this little essay adds any information upon a subject of much public
+interest, and contributes to the just settlement of a very important
+question, I shall consider my labor has not been in vain.
+
+JOSEPH FISHER.
+
+WATERFORD, November 3, 1875.
+
+
+
+I do not propose to enter upon the system of landholding in Scotland or
+Ireland, which appears to me to bear the stamp of the Celtic origin
+of the people, and which was preserved in Ireland long after it had
+disappeared in other European countries formerly inhabited by the Celts.
+That ancient race may be regarded as the original settlers of a large
+portion of the European continent, and its land system possesses a
+remarkable affinity to that of the Slavonic, the Hindoo, and even the
+New Zealand races. It was originally Patriarchal, and then Tribal, and
+was communistic in its character.
+
+I do not pretend to great originality in my views. My efforts have been
+to collect the scattered rays of light, and to bring them to bear upon
+one interesting topic. The present is the child of the past. The ideas
+of bygone races affect the practices of living people. We form but parts
+of a whole; we are influenced by those who preceded us, and we shall
+influence those who come after us. Men cannot disassociate themselves
+either from the past or the future.
+
+In looking at this question there is, I think, a vast difference which
+has not been sufficiently recognized. It is the broad distinction
+between the system arising out of the original occupation of land, and
+that proceeding out of the necessities of conquest; perhaps I should add
+a third--the complex system proceeding from an amalgamation, or from the
+existence of both systems in the same nation. Some countries have been
+so repeatedly swept over by the tide of conquest that but little of
+the aboriginal ideas or systems have survived the flood. Others have
+submitted to a change of governors and preserved their customary laws;
+while in some there has been such a fusion of the two systems that
+we cannot decide which of the ingredients was the older, except by a
+process of analysis and a comparison of the several products of the
+alembic with the recognized institutions of the class of original or of
+invading peoples.
+
+Efforts have been made, and not with very great success, to define
+the principle which governed the more ancient races with regard to the
+possession of land. While unoccupied or unappropriated, it was common
+to every settler. It existed for the use of the whole human race. The
+process by which that which was common to all became the possession of
+the individual has not been clearly stated. The earlier settlers were
+either individuals, families, tribes, or nations. In some cases they
+were nomadic, and used the natural products without taking possession
+of the land; in others they occupied districts differently defined. The
+individual was the unit of the family, the patriarch of the tribe. The
+commune was formed to afford mutual protection. Each sept or tribe in
+the early enjoyment of the products of the district it selected was
+governed by its own customary laws. The cohesion of these tribes
+into states was a slow process; the adoption of a general system of
+government still slower. The disintegration of the tribal system, and
+dissolution of the commune, was not evolved out of the original elements
+of the system itself, but was the effect of conquest; and, as far as I
+can discover, the appropriation to individuals of land which was common
+to all, was mainly brought about by conquest, and was guided by impulse
+rather than regulated by principle.
+
+Mr. Locke thinks that an individual became sole owner of a part of the
+common heritage by mixing his labor with the land, in fencing it, making
+wells, or building; and he illustrates his position by the appropriation
+of wild animals, which are common to all sportsmen, but become the
+property of him who captures or kills them. This acute thinker seems
+to me to have fallen into a mistake by confounding land with labor. The
+improvements were the property of the man who made them, but it by no
+means follows that the expenditure of labor on land gave any greater
+right than to the labor itself or its representative.
+
+It may not be out of place here to allude to the use of the word
+property with reference to land; property--from proprium, my own--is
+something pertaining to man. I have a property in myself. I have
+the right to be free. All that proceeds from myself, my thoughts, my
+writings, my works, are property; but no man made land, and therefore
+it is not property. This incorrect application of the word is the more
+striking in England, where the largest title a man can have is "tenancy
+in fee," and a tenant holds but does not own.
+
+Sir William Blackstone places the possession of land upon a different
+principle. He says that, as society became formed, its instinct was to
+preserve the peace; and as a man who had taken possession of land could
+not be disturbed without using force, each man continued to enjoy the
+use of that which he had taken out of the common stock; but, he adds,
+that right only lasted as long as the man lived. Death put him out of
+possession, and he could not give to another that which he ceased to
+possess himself.
+
+Vattel (book i., chap, vii.) tells us that "the whole earth is destined
+to feed its inhabitants; but this it would be incapable of doing if it
+were uncultivated. Every nation is then obliged by the law of nature to
+cultivate the land that has fallen to its share, and it has no right
+to enlarge its boundaries or have recourse to the assistance of other
+nations, but in proportion as the land in its possession is incapable of
+furnishing it with necessaries." He adds (chap. xx.), "When a nation
+in a body takes possession of a country, everything that is not divided
+among its members remains common to the whole nation, and is called
+public property."
+
+An ancient Irish tract, which forms part of the Senchus Mor, and is
+supposed to be a portion of the Brehon code, and traceable to the time
+of St. Patrick, speaks of land in a poetically symbolic, but actually
+realistic manner, and says, "Land is perpetual man." All the ingredients
+of our physical frame come from the soil. The food we require and enjoy,
+the clothing which enwraps us, the fire which warms us, all save
+the vital spark that constitutes life, is of the land, hence it is
+"perpetual man." Selden ("Titles of Honor," p. 27), when treating of
+the title "King of Kings," refers to the eastern custom of homage, which
+consisted not in offering the person, but the elements which composed
+the person, EARTH and WATER--"the perpetual man" of the Brehons--to the
+conqueror. He says:
+
+"So that both titles, those of King of Kings and Great King, were common
+to those emperors of the two first empires; as also (if we believe the
+story of Judith) that ceremonies of receiving an acknowledgment of regal
+supremacy (which, by the way, I note here, because it was as homage
+received by kings in that time from such princes or people as should
+acknowledge themselves under their subjection) by acceptance upon their
+demand of EARTH and WATER. This demand is often spoken of as used by the
+Persian, and a special example of it is in Darius' letters to Induthyr,
+King of the Scythians, when he first invites him to the field; but if
+he would not, then bringing to your sovereign as gifts earth and water,
+come to a parley. And one of Xerxes' ambassadors that came to demand
+earth and water from the state of Lacedaemon, to satisfy him, was thrust
+into a well and earth cast upon him."
+
+The earlier races seem to me, either by reasoning or by instinct, to
+have arrived at the conclusion that every man was, in right of his
+being, entitled to food; that food was a product of the land, and
+therefore every man was entitled to the possession of land, otherwise
+his life depended upon the will of another. The Romans acted on a
+different principle, which was "the spoil to the victors." He who could
+not defend and retain his possessions became the slave of the conqueror,
+all the rights of the vanquished passed to the victor, who took and
+enjoyed as ample rights to land as those naturally possessed by the
+aborigines.
+
+The system of landholding varies in different countries, and we cannot
+discover any idea of abstract right underlying the various differing
+systems; they are the outcome of law, the will of the sovereign power,
+which is liable to change with circumstances. The word LAW appears to be
+used to express two distinct sentiments; one, the will of the sovereign
+power, which being accompanied with a penalty, bears on its face the
+idea that it may be broken by the individual who pays the penalty:
+"Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree, for on the day thou eatest
+thereof thou shalt die," was a law. All laws, whether emanating from an
+absolute monarch or from the representatives of the majority of a state,
+are mere expressions of the will of the sovereign power, which may be
+exacted by force. The second use of the word LAW is a record of our
+experience--e.g., we see the tides ebb and flow, and conclude it is
+done in obedience to the will of a sovereign power; but the word in that
+sense does not imply any violation or any punishment. A distinction
+must also be drawn between laws and codes; the former existed before
+the latter. The lex non scripta prevailed before letters were invented.
+Every command of the Decalogue was issued, and punishment followed for
+its breach, before the existence of the engraved tables. The Brehon
+code, the Justinian code, the Draconian code, were compilations of
+existing laws; and the same may be said of the common or customary law
+of England, of France, and of Germany.
+
+I am aware that recent analytical writers have sought to associate LAW
+with FORCE, and to hold that law is a command, and must have behind it
+sufficient force to compel submission. These writers find at the outset
+of their examination, that customary law, the "Lex non scripta," existed
+before force, and that the nomination to sovereign power was the outcome
+of the more ancient customary law. These laws appear based upon the
+idea of common good, and to have been supported by the "posse comitatus"
+before standing armies or state constabularies were formed. Vattel says
+(book i., chap. ii.), "It is evident that men form a political society,
+and submit to laws solely for their own advantage and safety. The
+sovereign authority is then established only for the common good of all
+the citizens. The sovereign thus clothed with the public authority,
+with everything that constitutes the moral personality of the nation,
+of course becomes bound by the moral obligations of that nation and
+invested with its rights." It appears evident, that customary law
+was the will of small communities, when they were sovereign; that the
+cohesion of such communities was a confirmation of such customs of each,
+that the election of a monarch or a parliament was a recognition of
+these customs, and that the moral and material FORCE or power of the
+sovereign was the outcome of existing laws, and a confirmation thereof.
+The application of the united force of the nation could be rightfully
+directed to the requirements of ancient, though unwritten customary law,
+and it could only be displaced by legislation, in which those concerned
+took part.
+
+The duty of the sovereign (which in the United Kingdom means the Crown
+and the two branches of the legislature) with regard to land, is thus
+described by Vattel:
+
+"Of all arts, tillage or agriculture is doubtless the most useful
+and necessary, as being the source whence the nation derives its
+subsistence. The cultivation of the soil causes it to produce an
+infinite increase. It forms the surest resource, and the most solid fund
+of riches and commerce for a nation that enjoys a happy climate. The
+sovereign ought to neglect no means of rendering the land under his
+jurisdiction as well cultivated as possible.... Notwithstanding the
+introduction of private property among the citizens, the nation has
+still the right to take the most effectual measures to cause the
+aggregate soil of the country to produce the greatest and most
+advantageous revenue possible. The cultivation of the soil deserves
+the attention of the Government, not only on account of the invaluable
+advantages that flow from it, but from its being an obligation imposed
+by nature on mankind."
+
+Sir Henry Maine thinks that there are traces in England of the commune
+or MARK system in the village communities which are believed to have
+existed, but these traces are very faint. The subsequent changes were
+inherent in, and developed by, the various conquests that swept over
+England; even that ancient class of holdings called "Borough English,"
+are a development of a war-like system, under which each son, as he came
+to manhood, entered upon the wars, and left the patrimonial lands to the
+youngest son. The system of gavel-kind which prevailed in the kingdom of
+Kent, survived the accession of William of Normandy, and was partially
+effaced in the reign of Henry VII. It was not the aboriginal or
+communistic system, but one of its many successors.
+
+The various systems may have run one into the other, but I think there
+are sufficiently distinct features to place them in the following order:
+
+1st. The Aboriginal.
+
+2d. The Roman, Population about 1,500,000.
+
+3d. The Scandinavian under the ANGLO-SAXON and Danish kings--A.D. 450 to
+A.D. 1066. The population in 1066 was 2,150,000.
+
+4th. The Norman, from A.D. 1066 to A.D. 1154. The population in the
+latter year was 3,350,000.
+
+5th. The Plantagenet, from 1154 to 1485; in the latter the population
+was 4,000,000.
+
+6th. The Tudor, 1485 to 1603, when the population was 5,000,000.
+
+7th. The Stuarts, 1603 to 1714, the population having risen to
+5,750,000.
+
+8th. The Present, from 1714. Down to 1820 the soil supported the
+population; now about one half lives upon food produced in other
+countries. In 1874 the population was 23,648,607.
+
+Each of these periods has its own characteristic, but as I must compress
+my remarks, you must excuse my passing rapidly from one to the other.
+
+
+
+
+I. THE ABORIGINES.
+
+
+The aboriginal period is wrapped in darkness, and I cannot with
+certainty say whether the system that prevailed was Celtic and Tribal.
+An old French customary, in a MS. treating upon the antiquity of
+tenures, says: "The first English king divided the land into four parts.
+He gave one part to the ARCH FLAMENS to pray for him and his posterity.
+A second part he gave to the earls and nobility, to do him knight's
+service. A third part he divided among husbandmen, to hold of him in
+socage. The fourth he gave to mechanical persons to hold in burgage."
+The terms used apply to a much more recent period and more modern ideas.
+
+Caesar tells us "that the island of Britain abounds in cattle, and the
+greatest part of those within the country never sow their land, but
+live on flesh and milk. The sea-coasts are inhabited by colonies from
+Belgium, which, having established themselves in Britain, began to
+cultivate the soil."
+
+Diodorus Siculus says, "The Britons, when they have reaped their corn,
+by cutting the ears from the stubble, lay them up for preservation in
+subterranean caves or granaries. From thence, they say, in very ancient
+times, they used to take a certain quantity of ears out every day,
+and having dried and bruised the grains, made a kind of food for their
+immediate use."
+
+Jeffrey of Monmouth relates that one of the laws of Dunwalls Molnutus,
+who is said to have reigned B.C. 500, enacted that the ploughs of the
+husbandmen, as well as the temples of the gods, should be sanctuaries to
+such criminals as fled to them for protection.
+
+Tacitus states that the Britons were not a free people, but were under
+subjection to many different kings.
+
+Dr. Henry, quoting Tacitus, says, "In the ancient German and British
+nation the whole riches of the people consisted in their flocks and
+herds; the laws of succession were few and simple: a man's cattle, at
+death, were equally divided among his sons; or, if he had no sons, his
+daughters; or if he had no children, among his nearest relations. These
+nations seem to have had no idea of the rights of primogeniture, or that
+the eldest son had any title to a larger share of his father's effects
+than the youngest."
+
+The population of England was scanty, and did not probably exceed a
+million of inhabitants. They were split up into a vast number of
+petty chieftainries or kingdoms; there was no cohesion, no means of
+communication between them; there was no sovereign power which could
+call out and combine the whole strength of the nation. No single
+chieftain could oppose to the Romans a greater force than that of one
+of its legions, and when a footing was obtained in the island, the
+war became one of detail; it was a provincial rather that a national
+contest. The brave, though untrained and ill-disciplined warriors, fell
+before the Romans, just as the Red Man of North America was vanquished
+by the English settlers.
+
+
+
+
+
+II. THE ROMAN.
+
+
+The Romans acted with regard to all conquered nations upon the maxim,
+"To the victors the spoils." Britain was no exception. The Romans were
+the first to discover or create an ESTATE OF USES in land, as distinct
+from an estate of possession. The more ancient nations, the Jews and
+the Greeks, never recognized THE ESTATE OF USES, though there is some
+indication of it in the relation established by Joseph in Egypt, when,
+during the years of famine, he purchased for Pharaoh the lands of
+the people. The Romans having seized upon lands in Italy belonging to
+conquered nations, considered them public lands, and rented them to
+the soldiery, thus retaining for the state the estate in the lands, but
+giving the occupier an estate of uses. The rent of these public lands
+was fixed at one tenth of the produce, and this was termed USUFRUCT--the
+use of the fruits.
+
+The British chiefs, who submitted to the Romans, were subjected to a
+tribute or rent in corn; it varied, according to circumstances, from one
+fifth to one twentieth of the produce. The grower was bound to deliver
+it at the prescribed places. This was felt to be a great hardship, as
+they were often obliged to carry the grain great distances, or pay a
+bribe to be excused. This oppressive law was altered by Julius Agricola.
+
+The Romans patronized agriculture--Cato says, "When the Romans designed
+to bestow the highest praise on a good man, they used to say he
+understood agriculture well, and is an excellent husbandman, for this
+was esteemed the greatest and most honorable character." Their system
+produced a great alteration in Britain, and converted it into the most
+plentiful province of the empire; it produced sufficient corn for
+its own inhabitants, for the Roman legions, and also afforded a great
+surplus, which was sent up the Rhine. The Emperor Julian built new
+granaries in Germany, in which he stored the corn brought from Britain.
+Agriculture had greatly improved in England under the Romans.
+
+The Romans do not appear to have established in England any military
+tenures of land, such as those they created along the Danube and the
+Rhine; nor do they appear to have taken possession of the land; the tax
+they imposed upon it, though paid in kind, was more of the nature of
+a tribute than a rent. Though some of the best of the soldiers in the
+Roman legions were Britons, yet their rule completely enervated
+the aboriginal inhabitants--they were left without leaders, without
+cohesion. Their land was held by permission of the conquerors. The wall
+erected at so much labor in the north of England proved a less effectual
+barrier against the incursions of the Picts and Scots than the living
+barrier of armed men which, at a later period, successfully repelled
+their invasions. The Roman rule affords another example that material
+prosperity cannot secure the liberties of a people, that they must be
+armed and prepared to repel by force any aggression upon their liberty
+or their estates.
+
+"Who will be free, themselves must strike the blow."
+
+The prosperous "Britons," who were left by the Romans in possession
+of the island, were but feeble representatives of those who, under
+Caractacus and Boadicea, did not shrink from combat with the legions of
+Caesar. Uninured to arms, and accustomed to obedience, they looked for a
+fresh master, and sunk into servitude and serfdom, from which they never
+emerged. Yet under the Romans they had thriven and increased in
+material wealth; the island abounded in numerous flocks and herds; and
+agriculture, which was encouraged by the Romans, flourished. This wealth
+was by one of the temptations to the invaders, who seized not only upon
+the movable wealth of the natives, but also upon the land, and divided
+it among themselves.
+
+The warlike portion of the aboriginal inhabitants appear to have
+joined the Cymri and retired westward. Their system of landholding was
+non-feudal, inasmuch as each man's land was divided among all his sons.
+One of the laws of Hoel Dha, King of Wales in the tenth century, decreed
+"that the youngest son shall have an equal share of the estate with
+the eldest son, and that when the brothers have divided their father's
+estate among them, the youngest son shall have the best house with all
+the office houses; the implements of husbandry, his father's kettle, his
+axe for cutting wood, and his knife; these three last things the father
+cannot give away by gift, nor leave by his last will to any but his
+youngest son, and if they are pledged they shall be redeemed." It may
+not be out of place here to say that this custom continued to exist in
+Wales; and on its conquest Edward I. ordained, "Whereas the custom is
+otherwise in Wales than England concerning succession to an inheritance,
+inasmuch as the inheritance is partible among the heirs-male, and
+from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary hath been
+partible, Our Lord the King will not have such custom abrogated, but
+willeth that inheritance shall remain partible among like heirs as it
+was wont to be, with this exception that bastards shall from henceforth
+not inherit, and also have portions with the lawful heirs; and if it
+shall happen that any inheritance should hereafter, upon failure of
+heirs-male, descend to females, the lawful heirs of their ancestors
+last served thereof. We will, of our especial grace, that the same women
+shall have their portions thereof, although this be contrary to the
+custom of Wales before used."
+
+The land system of Wales, so recognized and regulated by Edward I.,
+remained unchanged until the reign of the first Tudor monarch.
+Its existence raises the presumption that the aboriginal system of
+landholding in England gave each son a share of his father's land,
+and if so, it did not correspond with the Germanic system described by
+Caesar, nor with the tribal system of the Celts in Ireland, nor with the
+feudal system subsequently introduced.
+
+The polity of the Romans, which endured in Gaul, Spain, and Italy,
+and tinged the laws and usages of these countries after they had
+been occupied by the Goths, totally disappeared in England; and even
+Christianity, which partially prevailed under the Romans, was submerged
+beneath the flood of invasion. Save the material evidence of the
+footprints of "the masters of the world" in the Roman roads, Roman wall,
+and some other structures, there is no trace of the Romans in England.
+Their polity, laws, and language alike vanished, and did not reappear
+for centuries, when their laws and language were reimported.
+
+I should not be disposed to estimate the population of England and
+Wales, at the retirement of the Romans, at more than 1,500,000. They
+were like a flock of sheep without masters, and, deprived of the
+watch-dogs which over-awed and protected them, fell an easy prey to the
+invaders.
+
+
+
+
+
+III. THE SCANDINAVIANS.
+
+
+The Roman legions and the outlying semi-military settlements along the
+Rhine and the Danube, forming a cordon reaching from the German Ocean to
+the Black Sea, kept back the tide of barbarians, but the volume of
+force accumulated behind the barrier, and at length it poured in an
+overwhelming and destructive tide over the fair and fertile provinces
+whose weak and effeminate people offered but a feeble resistance to the
+robust armies of the north. The Romans, under the instruction of Caesar
+and Tacitus, had a faint idea of the usages of the people inhabiting the
+verge that lay around the Roman dominions, but they had no knowledge
+of the influences that prevailed in "the womb of nations," as Central
+Europe appeared to the Latins, who saw emerging therefrom hosts of
+warriors, bearing with them their wives, their children, and their
+portable effects, determined to win a settlement amid the fertile
+regions owned and improved by the Romans.
+
+These incursions were not colonization in the sense in which Rome
+understood it; they were the migrations of a people, and were as
+full, as complete, and as extensive as the Israelitish invasion of
+Canaan--they were more destructive of property, but less fatal to life.
+These migratory hosts left a desert behind them, and they either gained
+a settlement or perished. The Roman colonies preserved their connection
+with the parent stem, and invoked aid when in need; but the barbarian
+hosts had no home, no reserves. Other races, moving with similar intent,
+settled on the land they had vacated. These brought their own social
+arrangements, and it is very difficult to connect the land system
+established by the aborigines with the system which, after a lapse of
+some hundreds of years, was found to prevail in another tribe or nation
+which had occupied the region that had been vacated.
+
+Neither Caesar nor Tacitus gives us any idea of the habits or usages
+of the people who lived north of the Belgae. They had no notion of
+Scandinavia nor of Sclavonia. The Walhalla of the north, with its
+terrific deities, was unknown to them; and I am disposed to think that
+we shall look in vain among the customs of the Teutons for the basis
+from whence came the polity established in England by the invaders of
+the fifth century. The ANGLO-SAXONs came from a region north of the
+Elbe, which we call Schleswig--Holstein. They were kindred to the
+Norwegians and the Danes, and of the family of the sea robbers; they
+were not Teutons, for the Teutons were not and are not sailors. The
+Belgae colonized part of the coast--i.e., the settlers maintained a
+connection with the mainland; but the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes
+did not colonize, they migrated; they left no trace of their occupancy
+in the lands they vacated. Each separate invasion was the settlement of
+a district; each leader aspired to sovereignty, and was supreme in
+his own domains; each claimed descent from Woden, and, like Romulus or
+Alexander, sought affinity with the gods. Each member of the Heptarchy
+was independent of, and owed no allegiance to, the other members; and
+marriage or conquest united them ultimately into one kingdom.
+
+The primary institutions were moulded by time and circumstance, and the
+state of things in the eleventh century was as different from that of
+the fifth as those of our own time differ from the rule of Richard II.
+Yet one was as much an outgrowth of its predecessor as the other.
+
+Attempts have been made, with considerable ingenuity, to connect races
+with each other by peculiar characteristics, but human society has the
+same necessities, and we find great similarity in various divisions of
+society. At all times, and in all nations, society resolved itself into
+the upper, middle, and lower classes. Rome had its Nobles, Plebeians,
+and Slaves; Germany its Edhilingi, Frilingi, and Lazzi; England its
+Eaorls, Thanes, and Ceorls. It would be equally cogent to argue that,
+because Rome had three classes and England had three classes, the latter
+was derived from the former, as to conclude that, because Germany had
+three classes, therefore English institutions were Teutonic. If the
+invasion of the fifth century were Teutonic we should look for similar
+nomenclature, but there is as great a dissimilarity between the English
+and German names of the classes as between the former and those of Rome.
+
+The Germanic MARK system has no counterpart in the land system
+introduced into England by the ANGLO-SAXONs. If village communities
+existed in England, it must have been before the invasion of the Romans.
+The German system, as described by Caesar, was suited to nomads--to
+races on the wing, who gave to no individual possession for more than
+a year, that there might be no home ties. The mark system is of a later
+date, and was evidently the arrangement of other races who permanently
+settled themselves upon the lands vacated by the older nations. And I
+may suggest whether, as these lands were originally inhabited by the
+Celts, the conquerors did not adopt the system of the conquered.
+
+Even in the nomenclature of FEUDALISM, introduced into England in the
+fifth century, we are driven back to Scandinavia for an explanation.
+The word FEUDAL as applied to land has a Norwegian origin, from which
+country came Rollo, the progenitor of William the Norman. Pontoppidan
+("History of Norway," p.290) says "The ODHALL, right of Norway, and
+the UDALL, right of Finland, came from the words 'Odh,' which signifies
+PROPRIETORS, and 'all,' which means TOTUM. A transposition of these
+syllables makes ALL ODH, or ALLODIUM, which means absolute property.
+FEE, which means stipend or pay, united with OTH, thus forming FEE-OTH
+or FEODUM, denoting stipendiary property. Wacterus states that the word
+ALLODE, ALLODIUM, which applies to land in Germany, is composed of AN
+and LOT--i.e., land obtained by lot.
+
+I therefore venture the opinion that the settlement of England in
+the fifth and sixth centuries was not Teutonic or Germanic, but
+SCANDINAVIAN.
+
+The lands won by the swords of all were the common property of all; they
+were the lands of the people, FOLC-LAND; they were distributed by lot
+at the FOLC-GEMOT; they were ODH-ALL lands; they were not held of
+any superior nor was there any service save that imposed by the common
+danger. The chieftains were elected and obeyed, because they represented
+the entire people. Hereditary right seems to have been unknown. The
+essence of feudalism WAS A LIFE ESTATE, the land reverted either to the
+sovereign or to the people upon the death of the occupant. At a later
+period the monarch claimed the power of confiscating land, and of giving
+it away by charter or deed; and hence arose the distinction between
+FOLC-LAND and BOC-LAND (the land of the book or charter), a distinction
+somewhat similar to the FREEHOLD and COPYHOLD tenures of the present
+day. King Alfred the Great bequeathed "his BOC-LAND to his nearest
+relative; and if any of them have children it is more agreeable to me
+that it go to those born on the male side." He adds, "My grandfather
+bequeathed his land on the spear side, not on the spindle side;
+therefore if I have given what he acquired to any on the female side,
+let my kinsman make compensation."
+
+The several ranks were thus defined by Athelstane:
+
+"1st. It was whilom in the laws of the English that the people went by
+ranks, and these were the counsellors of the nation, of worship
+worthy each according to his condition--'eorl,' 'ceorl,' 'thegur,' and
+'theodia.'
+
+"2d. If a ceorl thrived, so that he had fully five hides (600 acres) of
+land, church and kitchen, bell-house and back gatescal, and special duty
+in the king's hall, then he was thenceforth of thane-right worthy.
+
+"3d. And if a thane thrived so that he served the king, and on his
+summons rode among his household, if he then had a thane who him
+followed, who to the king utward five hides, had, and in the king's hall
+served his lord, and thence, with his errand, went to the king, he might
+thenceforth, with his fore oath, his lord represent at various needs,
+and his and his plant lawfully conduct wheresoever he ought.
+
+"4th. And he who so prosperous a vicegerent had not, swore for himself
+according to his right or it forfeited.
+
+"5th. And if a 'thane' thrived so that he became an eorl, then was he
+thenceforth of eorl-right worthy.
+
+"6th. And if a merchant thrived so that he fared thrice over the
+wide sea by his own means (or vessels), then was he thenceforth of
+thane-right worthy."
+
+The oath of fealty, as prescribed by the law of Edward and Guthrum, was
+very similar to that used at a later period, and ran thus:
+
+"Thus shall a man swear fealty: By the Lord, before whom this relic is
+holy, I will be faithful and true, and love all that he loves, and shun
+all that he shuns, according to God's law, and according to the world's
+principles, and never by will nor by force, by word nor by work, do
+aught of what is loathful to him, on condition that he me keep, as I am
+willing to deserve, and all that fulfil, that our agreement was, when I
+to him submitted and chose his will."
+
+The Odh-all (noble) land was divided into two classes: the in-lands,
+which were farmed by slaves under Bailiffs, and the out-lands, which
+were let to ceorls either for one year or for a term. The rents were
+usually paid in kind, and were a fixed proportion of the produce. Ina,
+King of the West Saxons, fixed the rent of ten hides (1200 acres), in
+the beginning of the eighth century, as follows: 10 casks honey, 12
+casks strong ale, 30 casks small ale, 300 loaves bread, 2 oxen, 10
+wedders, 10 geese, 20 hens, 10 chickens, 10 cheeses, 1 cask butter,
+5 salmon, 20 lbs. forage, and 100 eels. In the reign of Edgar the
+Peaceable (tenth century), land was sold for about four shillings of
+the then currency per acre. The Abbot of Ely bought an estate about this
+time, which was paid for at the rate of four sheep or one horse for each
+acre.
+
+The FREEMEN (LIBERI HOMINES) were a very numerous class, and all were
+trained in the use of arms. Their FOLC-LAND was held under the penalty
+of forfeiture if they did not take the field, whenever required for the
+defence of the country. In addition, a tax, called Danegeld, was levied
+at a rate varying from two shillings to seven shillings per hide of land
+(120 acres); and in 1008, each owner of a large estate, 310 hides, was
+called on to furnish a ship for the navy.
+
+Selden ("Laws and Government of England," p. 34) thus describes the
+FREEMEN among the Saxons, previous to the Conquest:
+
+"The next and most considerable degree of all the people is that of the
+FREEMEN, anciently called Frilingi, [Footnote: This is a Teutonic, not
+an ANGLO-SAXON term; the ANGLO-SAXON word is Thane.] or Free-born, or
+such as are born free from all yoke of arbitrary power, and from all law
+of compulsion, other than what is made by their voluntary consent, for
+all FREEMEN have votes in the making and executing of the general laws
+of the kingdom. In the first, they differed from the Gauls, of whom
+it is noted that the commons are never called to council, nor are much
+better than servants. In the second, they differ from many free
+people, and are a degree more excellent, being adjoined to the lords in
+judicature, both by advice and power (consilium et authoritates adsunt),
+and therefore those that were elected to that work were called Comites
+ex plebe, and made one rank of FREEMEN for wisdom superior to the rest.
+Another degree of these were beholden for their riches, and were called
+Custodes Pagani, an honorable title belonging to military service, and
+these were such as had obtained an estate of such value as that their
+ordinary arms were a helmet, a coat of mail, and a gilt sword. The rest
+of the FREEMEN were contented with the name of Ceorls, and had as sure
+a title to their own liberties as the Custodes Pagani or the country
+gentlemen had."
+
+Land was liable to be seized upon for treason and forfeited; but even
+after the monarchs had assumed the functions of the FOLC-GEMOT, they
+were not allowed to give land away without the approval of the great
+men; charters were consented to and witnessed in council. "There is
+scarcely a charter extant," says Chief Baron Gilbert, "that is not proof
+of this right." The grant of Baldred, King of Kent, of the manor of
+Malling, in Sussex, was annulled because it was given without the
+consent of the council. The subsequent gift thereof, by Egbert and
+Athelwolf, was made with the concurrence and assent of the great men.
+The kings' charters of escheated lands, to which they had succeeded by a
+personal right, usually declared "that it might be known that what they
+gave was their own."
+
+Discussions have at various times taken place upon the question, "Was
+the land-system of this period FEUDAL?" It engaged the attention of the
+Irish Court of King's Bench, in the reign of Charles I., and was raised
+in this way: James I. had issued "a commission of defective titles." Any
+Irish owner, upon surrendering his land to the king, got a patent
+which reconvened it on him. Wentworth (Lord Stafford) wished to SETTLE
+Connaught, as Ulster had been SETTLED in the preceding reign, and, to
+accomplish it, tried to break the titles granted under "the commission
+of defective titles." Lord Dillon's case, which is still quoted as an
+authority, was tried. The plea for the Crown alleged that the honor of
+the monarch stood before his profit, and as the commissioners were only
+authorized to issue patents to hold in capite, whereas they had given
+title "to hold in capite, by knights' service out of Dublin Castle," the
+grant was bad. In the course of the argument, the existence of feudal
+tenures, before the landing of William of Normandy, was discussed,
+and Sir Henry Spelman's views, as expressed in the Glossary, were
+considered. The Court unanimously decided that feudalism existed in
+England under the ANGLO-SAXONs, and it affirmed that Sir Henry Spelman
+was wrong. This decision led Sir Henry Spelman to write his "Treatise on
+Feuds," which was published after his death, in which he reasserted
+the opinion that feudalism was introduced into England at the Norman
+invasion. This decision must, however, be accepted with a limitation;
+I think there was no separate order of NOBILITY under the ANGLO-SAXON
+rule. The king had his councillors, but there appears to have been no
+order between him and the FOLC-GEMOT. The Earls and the Thanes met with
+the people, but did not form a separate body. The Thanes were country
+gentleman, not senators. The outcome of the heptarchy was the Earls or
+Ealdermen; this was the only order of nobility among the Saxons; they
+corresponded to the position of lieutenants of counties, and were
+appointed for life. In 1045 there were nine such officers; in 1065 there
+were but six. Harold's earldom, at the former date, comprised Norfolk,
+Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex; and Godwin's took in the whole south
+coast from Sandwich to the Land's End, and included Kent, Sussex,
+Hampshire, Wilts, Devonshire, and Cornwall. Upon the death of Godwin,
+Harold resigned his earldom, and took that of Godwin, the bounds being
+slightly varied. Harold retained his earldom after he became king, but
+on his death it was seized upon by the Conqueror, and divided among his
+followers.
+
+The Crown relied upon the LIBERI HOMINES or FREEMEN. The country was not
+studded with castles filled with armed men. The HOUSE of the Thane was
+an unfortified structure, and while the laws relating to land were, in
+my view, essentially FEUDAL, the government was different from that
+to which we apply the term FEUDALISM, which appears to imply baronial
+castles, armed men, and an oppressed people.
+
+I venture to suggest to some modern writers that further inquiry will
+show them that FOLC-LAND was not confined to commonages, or unallotted
+portions, but that at the beginning it comprised all the land of the
+kingdom, and that the occupant did not enjoy it as owner-in-severalty;
+he had a good title against his fellow subjects, but he held under the
+FOLC-GEMOT, and was subject to conditions. The consolidation of the
+sovereignty, the extension of laws of forfeiture, the assumption by
+the kings of the rights of the popular assemblies, all tended to the
+formation of a second set of titles, and BOC-LAND became an object of
+ambition. The same individual appears to have held land by both titles,
+and to have had greater powers over the latter than over the former.
+
+Many of those who have written on the subject seem to me to have failed
+to grasp either the OBJECT or the GENIUS of FEUDALISM. It was the device
+of conquerors to maintain their possessions, and is not to be found
+among nations, the original occupiers of the land, nor in the conquests
+of states which maintained standing armies. The invading hosts elected
+their chieftain, they and he had only a life use of the conquests. Upon
+the death of one leader another was elected, so upon the death of the
+allottee of a piece of land it reverted to the state. The GENIUS of
+FEUDALISM was life ownership and non-partition. Hence the oath of fealty
+was a personal obligation, and investiture was needful before the
+new feudee took possession. The state, as represented by the king or
+chieftain, while allowing the claim of the family, exercised its right
+to select the individual. All the lands were considered BENEFICIA,
+a word which now means a charge upon land, to compensate for duties
+rendered to the state. Under this system, the feudatory was a commander,
+his residence a barrack, his tenants soldiers; it was his duty to keep
+down the aborigines, and to prevent invasion. He could neither sell,
+give, nor bequeath his land. He received the surplus revenue as payment
+for personal service, and thus enjoyed his BENEFICE. Judged in this way,
+I think the feudal system existed before the Norman Conquest. Slavery
+and serfdom undoubtedly prevailed. The country prospered under the
+Scandinavians; and, from the great abundance of corn, William of
+Poitiers calls England "the store-house of Ceres."
+
+
+
+
+
+IV. THE NORMANS.
+
+
+The invasion of William of Normandy led to results which have been
+represented by some writers as having been the most momentous in English
+history. I do not wish in any way to depreciate their views, but it
+seems to me not to have been so disastrous to existing institutions, as
+the Scandinavian invasion, which completely submerged all former usages.
+No trace of Roman occupation survived the advent of the ANGLO-SAXONs;
+the population was reduced to and remained in the position of serfs,
+whereas the Norman invasion preserved the existing institutions of the
+nation, and subsequent changes were an outgrowth thereof.
+
+When Edward the Confessor, the last descendant of Cedric, was on
+his deathbed, he declared Harold to be his successor, but William of
+Normandy claimed the throne under a previous will of the same monarch.
+He asked for the assistance of his own nobles and people in the
+enterprise, but they refused at first, on the ground that their feudal
+compact only required them to join in the defence of their country,
+and did not coerce them into affording him aid in a completely new
+enterprise; and it was only by promising to compensate them out of the
+spoils that he could secure their co-operation. A list of the number
+of ships supplied by each Norman chieftain appears in Lord Lyttleton's
+"History of Henry III." vol. i., appendix.
+
+I need hardly remind you that the settlers in Normandy were from Norway,
+or that they had been expelled from their native land in consequence of
+their efforts to subvert its institutions, and to make the descent of
+land hereditary, instead of being divisible among all the sons of the
+former owner. Nor need I relate how they won and held the fair provinces
+of northern France--whether as a fief of the French Crown or not, is an
+open question. But I should wish you to bear in mind their affinity to
+the ANGLO-SAXONs, to the Danes, and to the Norwegians, the family of Sea
+Robbers, whose ravages extended along the coasts of Europe as far
+south as Gibraltar, and, as some allege, along the Mediterranean. Some
+questions have been raised as to the means of transport of the Saxons,
+the Jutes, and the Angles, but they were fully as extensive as those by
+which Rollo invaded France or William invaded England.
+
+William strengthened his claim to the throne by his military success,
+and by a form of election, for which there were many previous
+precedents. Those who called upon him to ascend it alleged "that they
+had always been ruled by legal power, and desired to follow in that
+respect the example of their ancestors, and they knew of no one more
+worthy than himself to hold the reins of government."
+
+His alleged title to the crown, sanctioned by success and confirmed
+by election, enabled him, in conformity with existing institutions, to
+seize upon the lands of Harold and his adherents, and to grant them as
+rewards to his followers. Such confiscation and gifts were entirely in
+accord with existing usages, and the great alteration which took place
+in the principal fiefs was more a change of persons than of law. A large
+body of the aboriginal people had been, and continued to be, serfs or
+villeins; while the mass of the FREEMEN (LIBERI HOMINES) remained in
+possession of their holdings.
+
+It may not be out of place here to say a few words about this important
+class, which is in reality the backbone of the British constitution;
+it was the mainstay of the ANGLO-SAXON monarchy; it lost its influence
+during the civil wars of the Plantagenets, but reasserted its power
+under Cromwell. Dr. Robertson thus draws the line between them and the
+vassals:
+
+"In the same manner Liber homo is commonly opposed to Vassus or
+Vassalus, the former denoting an allodial proprietor, the latter one who
+held of a superior. These FREEMEN were under an obligation to serve
+the state, and this duty was considered so sacred that FREEMEN were
+prohibited from entering into holy orders, unless they obtained the
+consent of the sovereign."
+
+De Lolme, chap. i., sec. 5, says:
+
+"The Liber homo, or FREEMAN, has existed in this country from the
+earliest periods, as well as of authentic as of traditionary history,
+entitled to that station in society as one of his constitutional rights,
+as being descended from free parents in contradistinction to 'villains,'
+which should be borne in remembrance, because the term 'FREEMAN' has
+been, in modern times, perverted from its constitutional signification
+without any statutable authority." The LIBERI HOMINES are so described
+in the Doomsday Book. They were the only men of honor, faith, trust,
+and reputation in the kingdom; and from among such of these as were not
+barons, the knights did choose jurymen, served on juries themselves,
+bare offices, and dispatched country business. Many of the LIBERI
+HOMINES held of the king in capite, and several were freeholders of
+other persons in military service. Their rights were recognized and
+guarded by the 55th William I.; [Footnote: "LV.--De Chartilari seu
+Feudorum jure et Ingenuorum immunitate. Volumus etiam ac firmiter
+praecipimus et concedimus ut omnes LIBERI HOMINES totius Monarchiae
+regni nostri praedicti habeant et teneant terras suas et possessiones
+suas bene et in pace, liberi ab omni, exactione iniusta et ab omni
+Tallagio: Ita quod nihil ab eis exigatur vel capiatur nisi servicium
+suum liberum quod de iure nobis facere debent et facere tenentur
+et prout statutum est eis et illis a nobis datum et concessum iure
+haereditario imperpetuum per commune consilium totius regni nostri
+praeicti."] it is entitled:
+
+"CONCERNING CHEUTILAR OR FEUDAL RIGHTS, AND THE IMMUNITY OF FREEMEN.
+
+"We will also, and strictly, enjoin and concede that all FREEMEN (LIBERI
+HOMINES) of our whole kingdom aforesaid, have and hold their land and
+possessions well and in peace, free from every unjust exaction and from
+Tallage, so that nothing be exacted or taken from them except their free
+service, which of right they ought to do to us and are bound to do, and
+according as it was appointed (statutum) to them, and given to them by
+us, and conceded by hereditary right for ever, by the common council
+(FOLC-GEMOT} of our whole realm aforesaid."
+
+These FREEMEN were not created by the Norman Conquest, they existed
+prior thereto; and the laws, of which this is one, are declared to be
+the laws of Edward the Confessor, which William re-enacted. Selden, in
+"The Laws and Government of England," p. 34, speaks of this law as the
+first Magna Charta. He says:
+
+"Lastly, the one law of the kings, which may be called the first MAGNA
+CHARTA in the Norman times (55 William I.), by which the king reserved
+to himself, from the FREEMEN of this kingdom, nothing but their free
+service, in the conclusion saith that their lands were thus granted to
+them in inheritance of the king by the COMMON COUNCIL (FOLC-GEMOT) of
+the whole kingdom; and so asserts, in one sentence, the liberty of the
+FREEMEN, and of the representative body of the kingdom."
+
+He further adds:
+
+"The freedom of an ENGLISHMAN consisteth of three particulars: first, in
+OWNERSHIP; second, in VOTING ANY LAW, whereby ownership is maintained;
+and, thirdly, in having an influence upon the JUDICIARY POWER that must
+apply the law. Now the English, under the Normans, enjoyed all this
+freedom with each man's own particular, besides what they had in bodies
+aggregate. This was the meaning of the Normans, and they published the
+same to the world in a fundamental law, whereby is granted that all
+FREEMEN shall have and hold their lands and possessions in hereditary
+right for ever; and by this they being secured from forfeiture, they are
+further saved from all wrong by the same law, which provideth that they
+shall hold them well or quietly, and in peace, free from all unjust tax,
+and from all Tallage, so as nothing shall be exacted nor taken but their
+free service, which, by right, they are bound to perform."
+
+This is expounded in the law of Henry I., cap. 4, to mean that no
+tribute or tax shall be taken but what was due in the Confessor's time,
+and Edward II. was sworn to observe the laws of the Confessor.
+
+The nation was not immediately settled. Rebellions arose either from the
+oppression of the invaders or the restlessness of the conquered; and,
+as each outburst was put down by force, there were new lands to be
+distributed among the adherents of the monarch; ultimately there were
+about 700 chief tenants holding IN CAPITE, but the nation was divided
+into 60,215 knights' fees, of which the Church held 28,115. The king
+retained in his own hands 1422 manors, besides a great number of
+forests, parks, chases, farms, and houses, in all parts of the kingdom;
+and his followers received very large holdings.
+
+Among the Saxon families who retained their land was one named
+Shobington in Bucks. Hearing that the Norman lord was coming to whom
+the estate had been gifted by the king, the head of the house armed his
+servants and tenants, preparing to do battle for his rights; he cast up
+works, which remain to this day in grassy mounds, marking the sward of
+the park, and established himself behind them to await the despoiler's
+onset. It was the period when hundreds of herds of wild cattle roamed
+the forest lands of Britain, and, failing horses, the Shobingtons
+collected a number of bulls, rode forth on them, and routed the Normans,
+unused to such cavalry. William heard of the defeat, and conceived a
+respect for the brave man who had caused it; he sent a herald with a
+safe conduct to the chief, Shobington, desiring to speak with him. Not
+many days after, came to court eight stalwart men riding upon bulls, the
+father and seven sons. "If thou wilt leave me my lands, O king," said
+the old man, "I will serve thee faithfully as I did the dead Harold."
+Whereupon the Conqueror confirmed him in his ownership, and named the
+family Bullstrode, instead of Shobington.
+
+Sir Martin Wright, in his "Treatise on Tenures," published in 1730, p.
+61, remarks:
+
+"Though it is true that the possessions of the Normans were of a sudden
+very great, and that they received most of them from the hands of
+William I., yet it does not follow that the king took all the lands of
+England out of the hands of their several owners, claiming them as
+his spoils of war, or as a parcel of a conquered country; but, on the
+contrary, it appears pretty plain from the history of those times that
+the king either had or pretended title to the crown, and that his
+title, real or pretended, was established by the death of Harold,
+which amounted to an unquestionable judgment in his favor. He did not
+therefore treat his opposers as enemies, but as traitors, agreeably to
+the known laws of the kingdom which subjected traitors not only to the
+loss of life but of all their possessions."
+
+He adds (p. 63):
+
+"As William I. did not claim to possess himself of the lands of
+England as the spoils of conquest, so neither did he tyrannically and
+arbitrarily subject them to feudal dependence; but, as the fedual law
+was at that time the prevailing law of Europe, William I., who had
+always governed by this policy, might probably recommend it to our
+ancestors as the most obvious and ready way to put them upon a footing
+with their neighbors, and to secure the nation against any future
+attempts from them. We accordingly find among the laws of William I. a
+law enacting feudal law itself, not EO NOMINE, but in effect, inasmuch
+as it requires from all persons the same engagements to, and introduces
+the same dependence upon, the king as supreme lord of all the lands of
+England, as were supposed to be due to a supreme lord by the feudal law.
+The law I mean is the LII. law of William I."
+
+This view is adopted by Sir William Blackstone, who writes (vol. ii., p.
+47):
+
+"From the prodicious slaughter of the English nobility at the battle
+of Hastings, and the fruitless insurrection of those who survived, such
+numerous forfeitures had accrued that he (William) was able to reward
+his Norman followers with very large and extensive possessions, which
+gave a handle to monkish historians, and such as have implicitly
+followed them to represent him as having by the right of the sword,
+seized upon all the lands of England, and dealt them out again to his
+own favorites--a supposition grounded upon a mistaken sense of the
+word conquest, which in its feudal acceptation signifies no more
+than acquisition, and this has led many hasty writers into a strange
+historical mistake, and one which, upon the slightest examination, will
+be found to be most untrue.
+
+"We learn from a Saxon chronicle (A.D. 1085), that in the nineteenth
+year of King William's reign, an invasion was apprehended from Denmark;
+and the military constitution of the Saxons being then laid aside, and
+no other introduced in its stead, the kingdom was wholly defenceless;
+which occasioned the king to bring over a large army of Normans and
+Britons who were quartered upon, and greatly oppressed, the people. This
+apparent weakness, together with the grievances occasioned by a foreign
+force, might co-operate with the king's remonstrance, and better incline
+the nobility to listen to his proposals for putting them in a position
+of defence. For, as soon as the danger was over, the king held a
+great council to inquire into the state of the nation, the immediate
+consequence of which was the compiling of the great survey called the
+Doomsday Book, which was finished the next year; and in the end of that
+very year (1086) the king was attended by all his nobility at Sarum,
+where the principal landholders submitted their lands to the yoke of
+military tenure, and became the king's vassals, and did homage and
+fealty to his person."
+
+Mr. Henry Hallam writes:
+
+"One innovation made by William upon the feudal law is very deserving of
+attention. By the leading principle of feuds, an oath of fealty was due
+from the vassal to the lord of whom he immediately held the land, and
+no other. The King of France long after this period had no feudal, and
+scarcely any royal, authority over the tenants of his own vassals; but
+William received at Salisbury, in 1085, the fealty of all landholders in
+England, both those who held in chief and their tenants, thus breaking
+in upon the feudal compact in its most essential attribute--the
+exclusive dependence of a VASSAL upon his lord; and this may be reckoned
+among the several causes which prevented the continental notions of
+independence upon the Crown from ever taking root among the English
+aristocracy."
+
+A more recent writer, Mr. FREEMAN ("History of the Norman Conquest,"
+published in 1871, vol. iv., p. 695), repeats the same idea, though
+not exactly in the same words. After describing the assemblage which
+encamped in the plains around Salisbury, he says:
+
+"In this great meeting a decree was passed, which is one of the most
+memorable pieces of legislation in the whole history of England. In
+other lands where military tenure existed, it was beginning to be held
+that he who plighted his faith to a lord, who was the man of the king,
+was the man of that lord only, and did not become the man of the king
+himself. It was beginning to be held that if such a man followed his
+immediate lord to battle against the common sovereign, the lord might
+draw on himself the guilt of treason, but the men that followed him
+would be guiltless. William himself would have been amazed if any vassal
+of his had refused to draw his sword in a war with France on the score
+of duty toward an over-lord. But in England, at all events, William
+was determined to be full king over the whole land, to be immediate
+sovereign and immediate lord of every man. A statute was passed that
+every FREEMAN in the realm should take the oath of fealty to King
+William."
+
+Mr. FREEMAN quotes Stubbs's "Select Charters," p. 80, as his authority.
+Stubbs gives the text of that charter, with ten others. He says: "These
+charters are from 'Textus Roffensis,' a manuscript written during the
+reign of Henry I.; it contains the sum and substance of all the legal
+enactments made by the Conqueror independent of his confirmation of the
+earlier laws." It is as follows: "Statuimus etiam ut OMNIS LIBER HOMO
+feodere et sacramento affirmet, quod intra et extra Angliam Willelmo
+regi fideles esse volunt, terras et honorem illius omni fidelitate cum
+eo servare et eum contra inimicos defendere."
+
+It will be perceived that Mr. Hallam reads LIBER HOMO as "vassal." Mr.
+FREEMAN reads them as "FREEMAN," while the older authority, Sir Martin
+Wright, says: "I have translated the words LIBERI HOMINES, 'owners of
+land,' because the sense agrees best with the tenor of the law."
+
+The views of writers of so much eminence as Sir Martin Wright, Sir
+William Blackstone, Mr. Henry Hallam, and Mr. FREEMAN, are entitled to
+the greatest respect and consideration, and it is with much diffidence I
+venture to differ from them. The three older writers appear to have had
+before them the LII of William I., the latter the alleged charter
+found in the "Textus Roffensis;" but as they are almost identical in
+expression, I treat the latter as a copy of the former, and I do not
+think it bears out the interpretation sought to be put upon it--that it
+altered either the feudalism of England, or the relation of the vassal
+to his lord; and it must be borne in mind that not only did William
+derive his title to the crown from Edward the Confessor, but he
+preserved the apparent continuity, and re-enacted the laws of
+his predecessor. Wilkins' "Laws of the ANGLO-SAXONs and Normans,"
+republished in 1840 by the Record Commissioners, gives the following
+introduction:
+
+"Here begin the laws of Edward, the glorious king of England.
+
+"After the fourth year of the succession to the kingdom of William of
+this land, that is England, he ordered all the English noble and wise
+men and acquainted with the law, through the whole country, to be
+summoned before his council of barons, in order to be acquainted with
+their customs, Having therefore selected from all the counties twelve,
+they were sworn solemnly to proceed as diligently as they might to write
+their laws and customs, nothing omitting, nothing adding, and nothing
+changing."
+
+Then follow the laws, thirty-nine in number, thus showing the continuity
+of system, and proving that William imposed upon his Norman followers
+the laws of the ANGLO-SAXONs. They do not include the LII. William
+I., to which I shall refer hereafter. I may, however, observe that the
+demonstration at Salisbury was not of a legislative character; and that
+it was held in conformity with ANGLO-SAXON usages. If, according to
+Stubbs, the ordinance was a charter, it would proceed from the king
+alone. The idea involved in the statements of Sir Martin Wright, Mr.
+Hallam, and Mr. FREEMAN, that the VASSAL OF A LORD was then called on
+to swear allegiance to the KING, and that it altered the feudal bond in
+England, is not supported by the oath of vassalage. In swearing fealty,
+the vassal knelt, placed his hands between those of his lord's, and
+swore:
+
+"I become your man from this day forward, of life and limb, and of
+earthly worship, and unto you shall be true and faithful, and bear you
+faith for the tenements at that I claim to hold of you, saving the faith
+that I owe unto our Sovereign Lord the King."
+
+This shows that it was unnecessary to call vassals to Salisbury to
+swear allegiance. The assemblage was of the same nature and character as
+previous meetings. It was composed of the LIBERI HOMINES, the FREEMEN,
+described by the learned John Selden (ante, p. 10), and by Dr. Robertson
+and De Lolme (ante, pp. 12, 13).
+
+But there is evidence of a much stronger character, which of itself
+refutes the views of these writers, and shows that the Norman system,
+at least during the reign of William I., was a continuation of that
+existing previous to his succession to the throne; and that the meeting
+at Salisbury, so graphically portrayed, did not effect that radical
+change in the position of English landholders which has been stated.
+I refer to the works of EADMERUS; he was a monk of Canterbury who
+was appointed Bishop of St. Andrews, and declined or resigned
+the appointment because the King of Scotland refused to allow his
+consecration by the Archbishop of Canterbury. His history includes the
+reigns of William I., William II., and Henry I., from 1066 to 1122, and
+he gives, at page 173, the laws of Edward the Confessor, which William
+I. gave to England; they number seventy-one, including the LII. law
+quoted by Sir Martin Wright. The introduction to these laws is in Latin
+and Norman-French, and is as follows:
+
+"These are the laws and customs which King William granted to the whole
+people of England after he had conquered the land, and they are those
+which KING EDWARD HIS PREDECESSOR observed before him."
+
+     [Footnote: The laws of William are given in a work entitled
+     "Eadmeri Monachi Cantuariensis Historia Novorum," etc. It
+     includes the reigns of William I. and II., and Henry I.,
+     from 1066 to 1122, and is edited by John Selden. Page 173
+     has the following:
+
+     "Hae sunt Leges et Consuetudines quas Willielmus Rex
+     concessit universo Populo Angliae post subactam terram.
+     Eaedum sunt quas Edwardus Rex cognatus ejus obscruauit ante
+     eum.
+
+     "Ces sont les leis et les Custums que le Rui people de
+     Engleterre apres le Conquest de le Terre. Ice les meismes
+     que le Rui Edward sun Cosin tuit devant lui.
+
+     "LII.
+
+     "De fide et obsequio erga Regnum.
+
+     "Statuimus etiam ut omnes liiben homines foedere et
+     sacramento affirment quod intra et extra universum regnum
+     Anglias (quod olim vocabatur regnum Britanniae) Willielmo
+     suo domino fideles esse volunt, terras et honores illins
+     fidelitate ubique servare cum eo et contra inimicos et
+     alienigonas defendere."]
+
+This simple statement gets rid of the theory of Sir Martin Wright, of
+Sir William Blackstone, of Mr. Hallam, and of Mr. FREEMAN, that William
+introduced a new system, and that he did so either as a new feudal law
+or as an amendment upon the existing feudalism. The LII. law, quoted by
+Wright, is as follows:
+
+"We have decreed that all FREE MEN should affirm on oath, that both
+within and without the whole kingdom of England (which is called
+Britain) they desire to be faithful to William their lord, and
+everywhere preserve unto him his land and honors with fidelity, and
+defend them against all enemies and strangers."
+
+Eadmerus, who wrote in the reign of Henry I., gives the LII. William I.
+as a confirmatory law. The charter given by Stubbs is a contraction
+of the law given by Eadmerus. The former uses the words OMNES LIBERI
+HOMINES; the latter, the words OMNIS LIBERI HOMO. Those interested can
+compare them, as I shall give the text of each side by side.
+
+Since the paper was read, I have met with the following passage in
+Stubbs's "Constitutional History of England," vol. i., p. 265:
+
+"It has been maintained that a formal and definitive act, forming the
+initial point of the feudalization of England, is to be found in a
+clause of the laws, as they are called, of the Conqueror, which directs
+that every FREEMAN shall affirm, by covenant and oath, that 'he will be
+faithful to King William within England and without, will join him
+in preserving his land with all fidelity, and defend him against his
+enemies.' But this injunction is little more than the demand of the oath
+of allegiance taken to the Anglo-Saxon kings, and is here required
+not of every feudal dependant of the king, but of every FREEMAN or
+freeholder whatsoever. In that famous Council of Salisbury, A. D, 1086,
+which was summoned immediately after the making of the Doomsday survey,
+we learn, from the 'Chronicle,' that there came to the king 'all his
+witan and all the landholders of substance in England, whose vassals
+soever they were, and they all submitted to him and became his men, and
+swore oaths of allegiance that they would be faithful to him against all
+others.' In the act has been seen the formal acceptance and date of the
+introduction of feudalism, but it has a very different meaning. The oath
+described is the oath of allegiance, combined with the act of homage,
+and obtained from all landowners whoever their feudal lord might be.
+It is a measure of precaution taken against the disintegrating power
+of feudalism, providing a direct tie between the sovereign and all
+freeholders which no inferior relations existing between them and the
+mesne lords would justify them in breaking."
+
+I have already quoted from another of Stubbs's works, "Select Charters,"
+the charter which he appears to have discovered bearing upon this
+transaction, and now copy the note, giving the authorities quoted
+by Stubbs, with reference to the above passage. He appears to have
+overlooked the complete narration of the alleged laws of William I.,
+given by Eadmerus, to which I have referred. The note is as follows:
+
+"Ll. William I., 2, below note; see Hovenden, ii., pref. p. 5, seq.,
+where I have attempted to prove the spuriousness of the document called
+the Charter of William I., printed in the ancient 'Laws' ed. Thorpe, p.
+211. The way in which the regulation of the Conqueror here referred
+to has been misunderstood and misused is curious. Lambarde, in the
+'Archaionomia,' p. 170, printed the false charter in which this genuine
+article is incorporated as an appendiz to the French version of the
+Conqueror's laws, numbering the clauses 51 to 67; from Lambarde,
+the whole thing was transferred by Wilkins into his collection of
+ANGLO-SAXON laws. Blackstone's 'Commentary,' ii. 49, suggested that
+perhaps the very law (which introduced feudal tenures) thus made at the
+Council of Salisbury is that which is still extant and couched in these
+remarkable words, i. e., the injunction in question referred to by
+Wilkins, p. 228 Ellis, in the introduction to 'Doomsday,' i. 16,
+quotes Blackstone, but adds a reference to Wilkins without verifying
+Blackstone's quotation from his collection of laws, substituting for
+that work the Concilia, in which the law does not occur. Many modern
+writers have followed him in referring the enactment of the article
+to the Council of Salisbury. It is well to give here the text of both
+passages; that in the laws runs thus: 'Statuimus etiam ut omnis liber
+homo foedere et sacremento affirmet, quod intra et extra Angliam
+Willelmo regi fideles esse volunt, terras et honorem illius omni
+fidelitate eum eo servare et ante eum contra inimicos defendere' (Select
+Charters, p. 80). the homage done at Salisbury is described by Florence
+thus: 'Nec multo post mandavit ut Archiepiscopi episcopi, abbates,
+comitas et barones et vicecomitas cum suis militibus die Kalendarum
+Augustarem sibi occurent Saresberiae quo cum venissent milites eorem
+sibi fidelitatem contra omnes homines jurare coegit.' The 'Chronicle'
+is a little more full: 'Thaee him comon to his witan and ealle tha
+Landsittende men the ahtes waeron ofer eall Engleland waeron thaes
+mannes men the hi waeron and ealle hi bugon to him and waeron his men,
+and him hold athas sworon thaet he woldon ongean ealle other men him
+holde beon.'"
+
+Mr. Stubbs had, in degree, adopted the view at which I had arrived, that
+the law or charter of William I. was an injunction to enforce the oath
+of allegiance, previously ordered by the laws of Edward the Confessor,
+to be taken by all FREEMEN, and that it did not relate to vassals, or
+alter the existing feudalism.
+
+As the subject possesses considerable interest for the general reader
+as well as the learned historian, I think it well to place the two
+authorities side by side, that the text may be compared:
+
+LII. William I., as given by Eadments. "De fide et obsequio erga Regnum.
+
+"Statuimus etiam ut omnes LIBERI HOMINES foedere et sacramento affirment
+quod intra et extra univereum regnum Anglise (quod olim vocabatur regnum
+Britanniae) Wilhielmo suo domino fideles ease volunt, terras et honores
+ilius fidelitate ubique servare cum eo et contra inimicos et alienigenas
+defendere."
+
+Charter from Textus Roffensis, given by Mr. Stubbs.
+
+"Statuimus etiam ut omnis liber homo feodere et sacramento affirmet,
+quod intra et extra Angliam. Willelmo regi fideles ease volunt, terras
+et honorem illius omni fidelitate cum eo servare et ante eum contra
+inimicos defendere."
+
+I think the documents I have quoted show that Sir Martin Wright, Sir
+William Blackstone, and Messrs. Hallam and FREEMAN, labored under a
+mistake in supposing that William had introduced or imposed a new feudal
+law, or that the vassals of a lord swore allegiance to the king. The
+introduction to the laws of William I. shows that it was not a new
+enactment, or a Norman custom introduced into England, and the law
+itself proves that it relates to FREEMEN, and not to vassals.
+
+The misapprehension of these authors may have arisen in this way:
+William I. had two distinct sets of subjects. The NORMANS, who had
+taken the oath of allegiance on obtaining investiture, and whose
+retinue included vassals; and the ANGLO-SAXONS, among whom vassalage was
+unknown, who were FREEMAN (LIBERI HOMINES) as distinguished from serfs.
+The former comprised those in possesion of Odhal (noble) land, whether
+held from the crown or its tenants. It was quite unnecessary to convoke
+the Normans and their vassals, while the assemblage of the Saxons--OMNES
+LIBERI HOMINES--was not only to conformity with the laws of Edward
+the Confessor, but was specially needful when a foreigner had possesed
+himself of the throne.
+
+I have perhaps dwelt to long upon this point, but the error to which I
+have referred has been adopted as if it was an unquestioned fact, and
+has passed into our school-books and become part of the education given
+to the young, and therefore it required some examination.
+
+I believe that a very large portion of the land in England did not
+change hands at that period, nor was the position of either SERFS
+or VILLEINS changed. The great alteration lay in the increase in the
+quantity of BOC-LAND. Much of the FOLC-LAND was forfeited and seized
+upon, and as the king claimed the right to give it away, it was called
+TERRA REGIS. The charter granted by King William to Alan Fergent, Duke
+of Bretagne, of the lands and towns, and the rest of the inheritance of
+Edwin, Earl of Yorkshire, runs thus:
+
+"Ego Guilielmus cognomine Bastardus, Rex Anglise do et concede tibi
+nepoti meo Alano Brittanias Comiti et hseredibus tuis imperpetuum omnes
+villas et terras qua nuper fuerent Comitis Edwini in Eborashina cum
+feodis militise et aliis libertatibus et consuetudinibus ita libere et
+honorifice sicut idem Edwinus eadem tenuit.
+
+"Data obsidione coram civitate Eboraci."
+
+This charter does not create a different title, but gives the lands as
+held by the former possessor. The monarch assumed the function of the
+fole-gemot, but the principle remained--the feudee only became tenant
+for life. Each estate reverted to the Crown on the death of him who held
+it; but, previous to acquiring possession, the new tenant had to cease
+to be his own "man," and became the "man" of his superior. This act was
+called "homage," and was followed by "investiture." In A.D. 1175, Prince
+Henry refused to trust himself with his father till his homage had been
+renewed and accepted, for it bound the superior to protect the inferior.
+The process is thus described by De Lolme (chap, ii., sec. 1):
+
+"On the death of the ancestor, lands holden by 'knight's service' and
+by 'grand sergeantcy' were, upon inquisition finding the tenure and
+the death of the ancestor, seized into the king's hands. If the heir
+appeared by the inquisition to be within the age of twenty-one
+years, the King retained the lands till the heir attained the age of
+twenty-one, for his own profit, maintaining and educating the heir
+according to his rank. If the heir appeared by the inquisition to have
+attained twenty-one, he was entitled to demand livery of the lands by
+the king's officers on paying a relief and doing fealty and homage. The
+minor heir attaining twenty-one, and proving his age, was entitled to
+livery of his lands, on doing fealty and homage, without paying any
+relief."
+
+The idea involved is, that the lands Were HELD, and NOT OWNED, and that
+the proprietary right lay in the nation, as represented by the king.
+If we adopt the poetic idea of the Brehon code, that "land is perpetual
+man," then HOMAGE for land was not a degrading institution. But it is
+repugnant to our ideas to think that any man can, on any ground, or for
+any consideration, part with his manhood, and become by homage the "man"
+of another.
+
+The Norman chieftains claimed to be peers of the monarch, and to sit in
+the councils of the nation, as barons-by-tenure and not by patent.
+This was a decided innovation upon the usages of the Anglo-Saxons, and
+ultimately converted the Parliament, the FOLC-GEMOT, into two branches.
+Those who accompanied the king stood in the same position as the
+companions of Romulus, they were the PATRICIANS; those subsequently
+called to the councils of the sovereign by patent corresponded with
+the Roman NOBILES. No such patents were issued by any of the Norman
+monarchs. But the insolence of the Norman nobles led to the attempt made
+by the successors of the Conqueror to revive the Saxon earldoms as a
+counterpoise. The weakness of Stephen enabled the greater fudges to
+fortify their castles, and they set up claims against the Crown, which
+aggravated the discord that arose in subsequent reigns.
+
+The "Saxon Chronicles," p. 238, thus describes the oppressions of the
+nobles, and the state of England in the reign of Stephen:
+
+"They grievously oppressed the poor people with building castles, and
+when they were built, filled them with wicked men, or rather devils, who
+seized both men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them
+into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever
+endured; they suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet,
+or the head, or the thumbs, kindling fires below them. They squeezed the
+heads of some with knotted cords till they pierced their brains, while
+they threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and
+toads."
+
+The nation was mapped out, and the owners' names inscribed in the
+Doomsday Book. There were no unoccupied lands, and had the possessors
+been loyal and prudent, the sovereign would have had no lands, save his
+own private domains, to give away, nor would the industrious have been
+able to become tenants-in-fee. The alterations which have taken place in
+the possession of land since the composition of the Book of Doom, have
+been owing to the disloyalty or extravagance of the descendants of those
+then found in possession.
+
+Notwithstanding the vast loss of life in the contests following upon the
+invasion, the population of England increased from 2,150,000 in 1066,
+when William landed, to 3,350,000 in 1152, when the great-grandson of
+the Conqueror ascended the throne, and the first of the Plantagenets
+ruled in England.
+
+
+
+
+
+V. THE PLANTAGENETS.
+
+
+Whatever doubts may exist as to the influence of the Norman Conquest
+upon the mass of the people--the FREEMEN, the ceorls, and the
+serfs--there can be no doubt that its effect upon the higher classes was
+very great. It added to the existing FEUDALISM--the system of Baronage,
+with its concomitants of castellated residences filled with armed men.
+It led to frequent contests between neighboring lords, in which the
+liberty and rights of the FREEMEN were imperilled. It also eventuated
+in the formation of a distinct order-the peerage--and for a time the
+constitutional influence of the assembled people, the FOLC-GEMOT, was
+overborne.
+
+The principal Norman chieftains were barons in their own country, and
+they retained that position in England, but their holdings in both were
+feudal, not hereditary. When the Crown, originally elective, became
+hereditary, the barons sought to have their possessions governed by the
+same rule, to remove them from the class of TERRAREGIS (FOLC-LAND), and
+to convert them into chartered land. Being gifts from the monarch, he
+had the right to direct the descent, and all charters which gave land
+to a man and his heirs, made each of them only a tenant for life; the
+possessor was bound to hand over the estate undivided to the heir, and
+he could neither give, sell, nor bequeath it. The land was BENEFICIA,
+just as appointments in the Church, and reverted, as they do, to the
+patron to be re-granted. They were held upon military service, and the
+major barons, adopting the Saxon title Earl, claimed to be PEERS of
+the monarch, and were called to the councils of the state as
+barons-by-tenure. In reply to a QUO WARRANTO, issued to the Earl of
+Surrey, in the reign of Edward I., he asserted that his ancestors had
+assisted William in gaining England, and were equally entitled to
+a share of the spoils. "It was," said he, "by their swords that his
+ancestors had obtained their lands, and that by his he would maintain
+his rights." The same monarch required the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk
+to go over with his army to Guienne, and they replied, "The tenure of
+our lands does not require us to do so, unless the king went in person."
+The king insisted; the earls were firm. "By God, sir Earl," said Edward
+to Hereford, "you shall go or hang." "By God, sir King," replied the
+earl, "I will neither go nor hang." The king submitted and forgave his
+warmth.
+
+The struggle between the nobles and the Crown commenced, and was
+continued, under varying circumstances. Each of the barons had a large
+retinue of armed men under his own command, and the Crown was liable to
+be overborne by a union of ambitious nobles. At one time the monarch had
+to face them at Runnymede and yield to their demands; at another he was
+able to restrain them with a strong hand. The Church and the barons,
+when acting in union, proved too strong for the sovereign, and he had to
+secure the alliance of one of these parties to defeat the views of the
+other. The barons abused their power over the FREEMEN, and sought to
+establish the rule "that every man must have a lord," thus reducing
+them to a state of vassalage. King John separated the barons into two
+classes--major and minor; the former should have at least thirteen
+knights' fees and a third part; the latter remained country gentlemen.
+The 20th Henry III., cap. 2 and 4, was passed to secure the rights of
+FREEMEN, who were disturbed by the great lords, and gave them an appeal
+to the king's courts of assize.
+
+Bracton, an eminent lawyer who wrote in the time of Henry III., says:
+
+"The king hath superiors--viz., God and the law by which he is made
+king; also his court--viz., his earls and barons. Earls are the king's
+associates, and he that hath an associate hath a master; and therefore,
+if the king be unbridled, or (which is all one) without law, they ought
+to bridle him, unless they will be unbridled as the king, and then the
+commons may cry, Lord Jesus, pity us," etc.
+
+An eminent lawyer, time of Edward I., writes:
+
+"Although the king ought to have no equal in the land, yet because the
+king and his commissioners can be both judge and party, the king ought
+by right to have companions, to hear and determine in Parliament all
+writs and plaints of wrongs done by the king, the queen, or their
+children."
+
+These views found expression in the coronation oath. Edward II. was
+forced to swear:
+
+"Will you grant and keep, and by your oath confirm to the people of
+England the laws and customs to them, granted by the ancient kings of
+England, your righteous and godly predecessors; and especially to the
+clergy and people, by the glorious King St. Edward, your predecessor?"
+
+The king's answer--"I do them grant and promise."
+
+"Do you grant to hold and keep the laws and rightful customs which the
+commonalty of your realm shall have chosen, and to maintain and enforce
+them to the honor of God after your power?"
+
+The king's answer--"I this do grant and promise."
+
+I shall not dwell upon the event most frequently quoted with reference
+to the era of the Plantagenets--I mean King John's "Magna Charta." It
+was more social than territorial, and tended to limit the power of the
+Crown, and to increase that of the barons. The Plantagenets had not
+begun to call Commons to the House of Lords. The issue of writs was
+confined to those who were barons-by-tenure, the PATRICIANS of the
+Norman period. The creation of NOBLES was the invention of a later age.
+The baron feasted in his hall, while the slave grovelled in his cabin.
+Bracton, the famous lawyer of the time of Henry III., says: "All the
+goods a slave acquired belonged to his master, who could take them from
+him whenever he pleased," therefore a man could not purchase his own
+freedom. "In the same year, 1283," says the Annals of Dunstable, "we
+sold our slave by birth, William Fyke, and all his family, and received
+one mark from the buyer." The only hope for the slave was, to try and
+get into one of the walled towns, when he became free. Until the Wars of
+the Roses, these serfs were greatly harassed by their owners.
+
+In the reign of Edward I., efforts were made to prevent the alienation
+of land by those who received it from the Norman sovereigns. The statute
+of mortmain was passed to restrain the giving of lands to the Church,
+the statute DE DONIS to prevent alienation to laymen. The former
+declares:
+
+"That whereas religious men had entered into the fees of other men,
+without license and will of the chief lord, and sometimes appropriating
+and buying, and sometimes receiving them of gift of others, whereby the
+services that are due of such fee, and which, in the beginning, were
+provided for the defence of the realm, are wrongfully withdrawn, and the
+chief lord do lose the escheats of the same (the primer seizin on
+each life that dropped); it therefore enacts: That any such lands were
+forfeited to the lord of the fee; and if he did not take it within
+twelve months, it should be forfeited to the king, who shall enfeoff
+other therein by certain services to be done for us for the defence of
+the realm."
+
+Another act, the 6th Edward I., cap. 3, provides:
+
+"That alienation by the tenant in courtesy was void, and the heir was
+entitled to succeed to his mother's property, notwithstanding the act of
+his father."
+
+The 13th Edward I., cap. 41, enacts:
+
+"That if the abbot, priors, and keepers of hospitals, and other
+religious houses, aliened their land they should be seized upon by the
+king."
+
+The 13th Edward I., cap. 1, DE DONIS conditionalitiis, provided:
+
+"That tenements given to a man, and the heirs of his body, should, at
+all events, go to the issue, if there were any; or, if there were none,
+should revert to the donor."
+
+But while the fiefs of the Crown were forbidden to alien their lands,
+the FREEMEN, whose lands were Odhal (noble) and of Saxon descent, the
+inheritance of which was guaranteed to them by 55 William I. (ANTE, p.
+13), were empowered to sell their estates by the statute called QUIA
+EMPTORES (6 Edward I.). It enacts:
+
+"That from henceforth it shall be lawful to every FREEMEN to sell, at
+his own pleasure, his lands and tenements, or part of them: so that the
+feoffee shall hold the same lands and tenements of the chief lord of the
+fee by such customs as his feoffee held before."
+
+The scope of these laws was altered in the reign of Edward III. That
+monarch, in view of his intended invasion of France, secured the
+adhesion of the landowners, by giving them power to raise money upon and
+alien their estates. The permission was as follows, 1 Edward III., cap.
+12:
+
+"Whereas divers people of the realm complain themselves to be grieved
+because that lands and tenements which be holden of the king in chief,
+and aliened without license, have been seized into the king's hand, and
+holden as forfeit: (2.) The king shall not hold them as forfeit in such
+case, but will and grant from henceforth of such lands and tenements
+so aliened, there shall be reasonable fine taken in chancery by due
+process."
+
+1 Edward III., cap. 13:
+
+"Whereas divers have complained that they be grieved by reason of
+purchasing of lands and tenements, which have been holden of the king's
+progenitors that now is, as of honors; and the same lands have been
+taken into the king's hands, as though they had been holden in chief of
+the king as of his crown: (2.) The king will that from henceforth no man
+be grieved by any such purchase."
+
+De Lolme, chap. iii., sec. 3, remarks on these laws that they took from
+the king all power of preventing alienation or of purchase. They left
+him the reversionary right on the failure of heirs.
+
+These changes in the relative power of the sovereign and the nobles took
+place to enable Edward to enter upon the conquest of France; but that
+monarch, conferred a power upon the barons, which was used to the
+detriment of his descendants, and led to the dethronement of the
+Plantagenets.
+
+The line of demarcation between the two sets of titles, those derived
+through the ANGLO-SAXON laws and those derived through the grants of the
+Norman sovereigns, was gradually being effaced. The people looked back
+to the laws of Edward the Confessor, and forced them upon Edward II.
+But after passing the laws which prevented nobles from selling, and
+empowering FREEMEN to do so, Edward III. found it needful to assert his
+claims to the entire land of England, and enacted in the twenty-fourth
+year of his reign:
+
+"That the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all land
+in his kingdom; that no man doth or can possess, any part of it but what
+has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him to be held
+on feodal service."
+
+Those who obtained gifts of land, only held or had the use of them; the
+ownership rested in the Crown. Feodal service, the maintenance of armed
+men, and the bringing them into the field, was the rent paid.
+
+The wealth which came into England after the conquest of France
+influenced all classes, but none more than the family of the king. His
+own example seems to have affected his descendants. The invasion of
+France and the captivity of its king reappear in the invasion of England
+by Henry IV., and the capture and dethronement of Richard II. The
+prosperity of England during the reign of Edward had passed away in that
+of his grandson. Very great distress pervaded the land, and it led to
+efforts to get rid of villeinage. The 1st Richard II. recites:
+
+"That grievous complaints had been made to the Lords and Commons, that
+villeins and land tenants daily withdraw into cities and towns, and a
+special commission was appointed to hear the case, and decide thereon."
+
+The complaint was renewed, and appears in Act 9 Richard II., cap. 2:
+
+"Whereas divers villeins and serfs, as well of the great Lords as of
+other people, as well spiritual as temporal, do fly within the cities,
+towns, and places entfranched, as the city of London, and other like,
+and do feign divers suits against their Lords, to the intent to make
+them free by the answer of the Lords, it is accorded and assented that
+the Lords and others shall not be forebound of their villeins, because
+of the answer of the Lords."
+
+Serfdom or slavery may have existed previous to the ANGLO-SAXON
+invasion, but I am disposed to think that the Saxon, the Jutes, and the
+Angles reduced the inhabitants of the lands which they conquered, into
+serfdom. The history of that period shows that men, women, and children
+were constantly sold, and that there were established markets. One at
+Bristol, which was frequented by Irish buyers, was put down, owing to
+the remonstrance of the Bishop. After the Norman invasion the name of
+Villein, a person attached to the villa, was given to the serfs. The
+village was their residence. Occasional instances of enfranchisement
+took place; the word signified being made free, and at that time every
+FREEMAN was entitled to a vote. The word enfranchise has latterly come
+to bear a different meaning, and to apply solely to the possession of a
+vote, but it originally meant the elevation of a serf into the condition
+of a FREEMAN. The act of enfranchisement was a public ceremony usually
+performed at the church door. The last act of ownership performed by the
+master was the piercing of the right ear with an awl. Many serfs fled
+into the towns, where they were enfranchised and became FREEMEN.
+
+The disaffection of the common people increased; they were borne down
+with oppression. They struggled against their masters, and tried to
+secure their personal liberty, and the freedom of their land. The
+population rose in masses in the reign of Richard II., and demanded--
+
+1st. The total abolition of slavery for themselves and their children
+forever;
+
+2d. The reduction of the rent of good land to 4d. per acre;
+
+3d. The right of buying and selling, like other men, in markets and
+fairs;
+
+4th. The pardon of all offences.
+
+The monarch acted upon insidious advice; he spoke them fair at first, to
+gain time, but did not fulfil his promises. Ultimately the people gained
+part of their demands. To limit or defeat them, an act was passed,
+fixing the wages of laborers to 4d. per day, with meat and drink, or 6d.
+per day, without meat and drink, and others in proportion; but with the
+proviso, that if any one refused to serve or labor on these terms, every
+justice was at liberty to send him to jail, there to remain until he
+gave security to serve and labor as by law required. A subsequent act
+prevents their being employed by the week, or paid for holidays.
+
+Previous to this period, the major barons and great lords tilled their
+land by serfs, and had very large flocks and herds of cattle. On the
+death of the Bishop of Winchester, 1367, his executors delivered to
+Bishop Wykeham, his successor in the see, the following: 127 draught
+horses, 1556 head of cattle, 3876 wedders, 4777 ewes, and 3541 lambs.
+Tillage was neglected; and in 1314 there was a severe dearth; wheat sold
+at a price equal to L30 per quarter, the brewing of ale was discontinued
+by proclamation, in order "to prevent those of middle rank from
+perishing for want of food."
+
+The dissensions among the descendants of Edward III. as to the right
+to the Crown aided the nobles in their efforts to make their estates
+hereditary, and the civil wars which afflicted the nation tended to
+promote that object. Kings were crowned and discrowned at the will of
+the nobles, who compelled the FREEMEN to part with their small estates.
+The oligarchy dictated to the Crown, and oppressed and kept down
+the FREEMEN. The nobles allied themselves with the serfs, who were
+manumitted that they might serve as soldiers in the conflicting armies.
+
+From the Conquest to the time of Richard II., only barons-by-tenure, the
+descendants of the companions of the Conqueror, were invited by writ to
+Parliament. That monarch made an innovation, and invited others who were
+not barons-by-tenure. The first dukedom was created the 11th of Edward
+III., and the first viscount the 18th Henry VI.
+
+Edward IV. seized upon the lands granted by former kings, and gave them
+to his own followers, and thus created a feeling of uneasiness in the
+minds of the nobility, and paved the way for the events which were
+accomplished by a succeeding dynasty. The decision in the Taltarum case
+opened the question of succession; and Edward's efforts to put down
+retainers was the precursor of the Tudor policy.
+
+We have a picture of the state of society in the reign of Edward IV.
+in the Paston Memoirs, written by Margaret Paston. Her husband, John
+Paston, was heir to Sir John Fastolf. He was bound by the will to
+establish in Caister Castle, Fastolf s own mansion, a college of
+religious men to pray for his benefactor's soul. But in those days might
+was right, and the Duke of Norfolk, fancying that he should like the
+house for himself, quietly took possession of it. At that time, Edward
+was just seated on the throne, and Edward had just been reported to
+Paston to have said in reference to another suit, that
+
+"He would be your good lord therein as he would to the poorest man in
+England. He would hold with you in your right; and as for favor, he will
+not be understood that he shall show favor more to one man to another,
+not to one in England."
+
+This was a true expression of the king's intentions. But either he
+was changeable in his moods, or during these early years he was hardly
+settled enough on the throne always to be able to carry out his wishes.
+This time, however, in some way or another, the great duke was reduced
+to submission, and Caister was restored to Paston.
+
+In 1465 a new claimant appeared; and claimants, though as troublesome
+in the fifteenth as the nineteenth century, proceeded in a different
+fashion. This time it was the Duke of Suffolk, who asserted a right to
+the manor of Drayton in his own name, and who had bought up the assumed
+rights of another person to the manor of Hellesdon. John Paston was
+away, and his wife had to bear the brunt. An attempt to levy rent
+at Drayton was followed by a threat from the duke's men, that if her
+servants "ventured to take any further distresses at Drayton, even if
+it were but of the value of a pin, they would take the value of an ox in
+Hellesdon."
+
+Paston and the duke alike professed to be under the law. But each was
+anxious to retain that possession which in those days seems really to
+have been nine points of the law. The duke got hold of Drayton, while
+Hellesdon was held for Paston. One day Paston's men made a raid upon
+Drayton, and carried off seventy-seven head of cattle. Another day the
+duke's bailiff came to Hellesdon with 300 men to see if the place
+were assailable. Two servants of Paston, attempting to keep a court at
+Drayton in their master's name, were carried off by force. At last the
+duke mustered his retainers and marched against Hellesdon. The garrison,
+too weak to resist, at once surrendered.
+
+"The duke's men took possession, and set John Paston's own tenants to
+work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break
+down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church,
+turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very
+completely every house in the village. As for John Paston's own place,
+they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead,
+brass, pewter, iron, doors or gates, or other things that they could not
+conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke
+rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were
+still busy completing the wreck of destruction by the demolition of the
+lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls,
+is visible even now" (Introd. xxxv.).
+
+The meaning of all this is evident. We have before us a state of society
+in which the anarchical element is predominant. But it is not pure
+anarchy. The nobles were determined to reduce the middle classes to
+vassalage.
+
+The reign of the Plantagenets witnessed the elevation of the nobility.
+The descendants of the Norman barons menaced, and sometimes proved too
+powerful for the Crown. In such reigns as those of Edward I., Edward
+III., and Henry VI., the barons triumphed. The power wielded by the
+first Edward fell from the feeble grasp of his son and successor. The
+beneficent rule of Edward III. was followed by the anarchy of Richard
+II. Success led to excess. The triumphant party thinned the ranks of its
+opponents, and in turn experienced the same fate. The fierce struggle
+of the Red and White Roses weakened each. Guy, Earl of Warwick, "the
+king-maker," sank overpowered on the field of Tewkesbury, and with
+him perished many of the most powerful of the nobles. The jealousy
+of Richard III. swept away his own friends, and the bloody contest on
+Bosworth field destroyed the flower of the nobility. The sun of the
+Plantagenets went down, leaving the country weak and impoverished, from
+a contest in which the barons sought to establish their own power, to
+the detriment alike of the Crown and the FREEMEN. The latter might have
+exclaimed:
+
+"Till half a patriot, half a coward, grown, We fly from meaner tyrants
+to the throne."
+
+The long contest terminated in the defeat alike of the Crown and the
+nobles, but the nation suffered severely from the struggle.
+
+The rule of this family proved fatal to the interest of a most important
+class, whose rights were jealously guarded by the Normans. The Liberi
+Homines, the FREEMEN, who were Odhal occupiers, holding in capite from
+the sovereign, nearly disappeared in the Wars of the Roses. Monarchs who
+owed their crown to the favor of the nobles were too weak to uphold
+the rights of those who held directly from the Crown, and who, in their
+isolation, were almost powerless.
+
+The term FREEMAN, originally one of the noblest in the land, disappeared
+in relation to urban tenures, and was applied solely to the personal
+rights of civic burghers; instead thereof arose the term FREEHOLDER from
+FREE HOLD, which was originally a grant free from all rent, and only
+burdened with military service. The term was subsequently applied to
+land held for leases for lives as contradistinguished from leases for
+years, the latter being deemed base tenures, and insufficient to qualify
+a man to vote; the theory being that no man was free whose tenure could
+be disturbed during his life. Though the Liberi Homines or FREEMEN were,
+as a class, overborne in this struggle, and reduced to vassalage, yet
+their descendants were able, under the leadership of Cromwell, to regain
+some of the rights and influence of which they had been despoiled under
+the Plantagenets.
+
+Fortescue, Lord Chief-Justice to Henry VI., thus describes the condition
+of the English people:
+
+"They drunk no water, unless it be that some for devotion, and upon a
+rule of penance, do abstain from other drink. They eat plentifully
+of all kinds of flesh and fish. They wear woollen cloth in all their
+apparel. They have abundance of bed covering in their houses, and
+all other woollen stuff. They have great store of all implements of
+household. They are plentifully furnished with all instruments of
+husbandry, and all other things that are requisite to the accomplishment
+of a great and wealthy life, according to their estates and degrees."
+
+This flattering picture is not supported by the existing disaffection
+and the repeated applications for redress from the serfs and the smaller
+farmers, and the simple fact that the population had increased under
+the Normans--a period of 88 years--from 2,150,000 to 3,350,000, while
+under the Plantagenets--a period of 300 years--it only increased to
+4,000,000, the addition to the population in that period being only
+650,000. The average increase in the former period was nearly 14,000 per
+annum, while in the latter it did not much exceed 2000 per annum. This
+goes far to prove the evil from civil wars, and the oppression of the
+oligarchy.
+
+
+
+
+
+VI. THE TUDORS
+
+
+The protracted struggle of the Plantagenets left the nation in a state
+of exhaustion. The nobles had absorbed the lands of the FREEMEN, and
+had thus broken the backbone of society. They had then entered upon a
+contest with the Crown to increase their own power; and to effect their
+selfish objects, setup puppets, and ranged under conflicting banners,
+but the Nemesis followed. The Wars of the Roses destroyed their own
+power, and weakened their influence, by sweeping away the heads of the
+principal families. The ambition of the nobles failed of its object,
+when "the last of the barons" lay gory in his blood on the field of
+Tewkesbury. The wars were, however, productive of one national benefit,
+in virtually ending the state of serfdom to which the aborigines were
+reduced by the Scandinavian invasion. The exhaustion of the nation
+prepared the way to changes of a most radical character, and the reigns
+of the Tudors are characterized by greater innovations and more striking
+alterations than even those which followed the accession of the Normans.
+
+Henry of Richmond came out of the field of Bostworth a vistor, and
+ascended the throne of a nation whose leading nobles had been swept
+away. The sword had vied with the axe. Henry VII. was prudent and
+cunning; and in the absence of any preponderating oligarchical
+influence, planted the heel of the sovereign upon the necks of the
+nobles. He succeeded where the Plantagenets had failed. His accession
+became the advent of a series of measures which altered most materially
+the system of landholding. The Wars of the Roses showed that the power
+of the nobles was too great for the comfort of the monarch. The decision
+in Taltarum's case, in the reign of Edward IV., affected the entire
+system of entail. Land, partly freed from restrictions, passed into
+other hands. But Henry went further. He destroyed their physical
+influence by ridigly putting down retainer; and in one of his tours,
+while partaking of the hospitality of the Earl of Oxford, he fined him
+L15,000 for having greeted him with 5000 of his tenants in livery. The
+rigid enforcement of the laws passed against retainers in former reigns,
+but now made more penal, strengthened the king and reduced the power of
+the nobles. Their estates were relieved of a most onerous charge, and
+the lands freed from the burden of supporting the army of the state.
+
+Henry VII. had thus a large fund to give away; the rent of the land
+granted in knights' service virtually consisted of two separate
+funds--one part went to the feudee, as officer or commmandant, the other
+to the soldiery or vassals. The latter part belonged to the state. Had
+Henry applied it to the reestablishment of the class of FREEMEN
+(LIBERI HOMINES), as was recently done by the Emperor of Russia when he
+abolished serfdom, he would have created a power on which the Crown and
+the constitution could rely. This might have been done by converting the
+holdings of the men-at-arms into allodial estates, held direct from
+the Crown. Such an arrangement would have left the income of the feudee
+unimpaired, as it would only have applied the fund that had been paid
+to the men-at-arms to this purpose; and by creating out of that land
+a number of small estates held direct from the Crown, the misery that
+arose from the eviction and destruction of a most meritorious class,
+would have been avoided. Vagrancy, with its great evils, would have been
+prevented, and the passing of the Poor laws would have been unnecessary.
+Unfortunately Henry and his counsellors did not appreciate the
+consequence of the suppression of retainers and liveries. By the course
+he adopted to secure the influence of the Crown, he compensated the
+nobles, but destroyed the agricultural middle class.
+
+This change had an important and, in some respects, a most injurious
+effect upon the condition of the nation, and led to enactments of a very
+extraordinary character, which I must submit in detail, inasmuch as I
+prefer giving the ipsissima verba of the statute-book to any statement
+of my own. To make the laws intelligible, I would remind you that the
+successful efforts of the nobles had, during the three centuries of
+Plantagenet rule, nearly obliterated the LIBERI HOMINES (whose rights
+the Norman conqueror had sedulously guarded), and had reduced them to a
+state of vassalage. They held the lands of their lord at his will, and
+paid their rent by military service. When retainers were put down,
+and rent or knights' service was no longer paid with armed men, their
+occupation was gone. They were unfit for the mere routine of husbandry,
+and unprovided with funds for working their farms. The policy of the
+nobles was changed. It was no longer their object to maintain small
+farmsteads, each supplying its quota of armed men to the retinue of the
+lord; and it was their interest to obtain money rents. Then commenced a
+struggle of the most fearful character. The nobles cleared their lands,
+pulled down the houses, and displaced the people. Vagrancy, on a
+most unparalleled scale, took place. Henry VII., to check this
+cruel, unexpected, and harsh outcome of his own policy, resorted to
+legislation, which proved nearly ineffectual. As early as the fourth
+year of his reign these efforts commenced with an enactment (cap. 19)
+for keeping up houses and encouraging husbandry; it is very quaint, and
+is as follows:
+
+"The King, our Sovereign Lord, having singular pleasure above all things
+to avoid such enormities and mischiefs as be hurtful and prejudicial
+to the commonwealth of this his land and his subjects of the same,
+remembereth that, among other things, great inconvenience daily doth
+increase by dissolution, and pulling down, and wilful waste of houses
+and towns within this his realm, and laying to pasture lands, which
+continually have been in tilth, WHEREBY IDLENESS, THE GROUND AND
+BEGINNING OF ALL MISCHIEF, daily do increase; for where, in some towns
+200 persons were occupied, and lived by those lawful labors, now there
+be occupied two or three herdsmen, and the residue full of idleness.
+The husbandry, which is one of the greatest commodities of the realm, is
+greatly decayed. Churches destroyed, the service of God withdrawn, the
+bodies there buried not prayed for, the patrons and curates wronged, the
+defence of the land against outward enemies feebled and impaired, to the
+great displeasure of God, the subversion of the policy and good rule of
+this land, if remedy be not hastily therefor purveyed: Wherefore,
+the King, our Sovereign Lord, by the assent and advice, etc., etc.,
+ordereth, enacteth, and establisheth that no person, what estate,
+degree, or condition he be, that hath any house or houses, that at
+any time within the past three years hath been, or that now is, or
+heretofore shall be, let to farm with twenty acres of land at least, or
+more, laying in tillage or husbandry; that the owners of any such house
+shall be bound to keep, sustain, and maintain houses and buildings, upon
+the said grounds and land, convenient and necessary for maintaining and
+upholding said tillage and husbandry; and if any such owner or owners of
+house or house and land take, keep, and occupy any such house or house
+and land in his or their own hands, that the owner of the said authority
+be bound in likewise to maintain houses and buildings upon the said
+ground and land, convenient and necessary for maintaining and upholding
+the said tillage and husbandry. On their default, the king, or the other
+lord of the fee, shall receive half of the profits, and apply the same
+in repairing the houses; but shall not gain the freehold thereby."
+
+This act was preceded by one with reference to the Isle of Wight, 4
+Henry VII., cap. 16, passed the same session, which recites that it is
+so near France that it is desirable to keep it in a state of defence. It
+provides that no person shall have more than one farm, and enacts:
+
+"For remedy, it is ordered and enacted that no manner of person, of what
+estate, degree, or condition soever, shall take any farm more than one,
+whereof the yearly rent shall not exceed ten marks; and if any several
+leases afore this time have been made to any person or persons of divers
+and sundry farmholds whereof the yearly value shall exceed that sum,
+then the said person or persons shall choose one farm, hold at his
+pleasure, and the remnant of the leases shall be void."
+
+Mr. Froude remarks (History, p. 26), "An act, tyrannical in form, was
+singularly justified by its consequences. The farm-houses were rebuilt,
+the land reploughed, the island repeopled; and in 1546, when the French
+army of 60,000 men attempted to effect a landing at St. Helens,
+they were defeated and driven back by the militia, and a few levies
+transported from Hampshire and the surrounding counties."
+
+Lord Bacon, in his "History of the Reign of Henry VII., says:
+
+"Enclosures, at that time, began to be more frequent, whereby arable
+land (which could not be manured without people and families) was turned
+into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen; and tenancies for
+years, lives, and at will (whereupon much of the yeomanry lived) were
+turned into demesnes. This bred a decay of people and (by consequence) a
+decay of towns, churches, tithes, and the like. The king, likewise, knew
+full well, and in nowise forgot, that there ensued withal upon this a
+decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes; for the more gentlemen,
+ever the lower books of subsidies. In remedying of this inconvenience,
+the king's wisdom was admirable, and the parliaments at that time.
+Enclosures they would not forbid, for that had been to forbid the
+improvement of the patrimony of the kingdom; nor tillage they would not
+compel, for that was to strive with nature and utility; but they took a
+course to take away depopulating enclosures and depopulating pasturage,
+and yet not by that name, or by any imperious express prohibition, but
+by consequence. The ordinance was, that all houses of husbandry, that
+were used with twenty acres of ground and upward, should be maintained
+and kept up for ever, together with a competent proportion of land to be
+used and occupied with them; and in nowise to be severed from them,
+as by another statute made afterward in his successor's time, was more
+fully declared: this, upon forfeiture to be taken, not by way of popular
+action, but by seizure of the land itself, by the king and lords of the
+fee, as to half the profits, till the houses and land were restored. By
+this means the houses being kept up, did of necessity enforce a dweller;
+and the proportion of the land for occupation being kept up, did of
+necessity enforce that dweller not to be a beggar or cottager, but a
+man of some substance, that might keep hinds and servants, and set the
+plough a-going. This did wonderfully concern the might and mannerhood
+of the kingdom, to have farms, as it were, of a standard sufficient
+to maintain an able body out of penury, and did, in effect, amortise a
+great part of the lands of the kingdom unto the hold and occupation
+of the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between gentlemen and
+cottagers or peasants. Now, how much this did advance the military
+power of the kingdom, is apparent by the true principles of war, and the
+examples of other kingdoms. For it hath been held by the general opinion
+of men of best judgment in the wars (howsoever some few have varied,
+and that it may receive some distinction of case), that the principal
+strength of an army consisteth in the infantry or foot. And to make good
+infantry, it requireth men bred, not in a servile or indigent fashion,
+but in some free and plentiful manner. Therefore, if a state run most to
+noblemen and gentlemen, and that the husbandman and ploughman be but
+as their workfolks and laborers, or else mere cottagers (which are but
+housed beggars), you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable
+bands of foot; like to coppice woods, that if you leave in them standing
+too thick, they will run to bushes and briars, and have little clean
+underwood. And this is to be seen in France and Italy, and some other
+parts abroad, where in effect all is nobles or peasantry. I speak of
+people out of towns, and no middle people; and therefore no good forces
+of foot: insomuch as they are enforced to employ mercenary bands of
+Switzers and the like for their battalions of foot, whereby also it
+comes to pass, that those nations have much people and few soldiers.
+Whereas the king saw that contrariwise it would follow, that England,
+though much less in territory, yet should have infinitely more soldiers
+of their native forces than those other nations have. Thus did the king
+secretly sow Hydra's teeth; whereupon (according to the poet's fiction)
+should rise up armed men for the service of this kingdom."
+
+The enactment above quoted was followed by others in that reign of a
+similar character, but it would appear they were not successful. The
+evil grew apace. Houses were pulled down, farms went out of tillage.
+The people, evicted from their farms, and having neither occupation nor
+means of living, were idle, and suffering. Succeeding sovereigns strove
+also to check this disorder? and statute after statute was passed. Among
+them are the 7th Henry VIII., cap. 1. It recites:
+
+"That great inconveniency did daily increase by dissolution, pulling
+down, and destruction of houses, and laying to pasture, lands which
+customarily had been manured and occupied with tillage and husbandry,
+whereby idleness doth increase; for where, in some town-lands, hundreds
+of persons and their ancestors, time out of mind, were daily occupied
+with sowing of corn and graynes, breeding of cattle, and other increase
+of husbandry, that now the said persons and their progeny are disunited
+and decreased. It further recites the evil consequences resulting
+from this state of things, and provides that all these buildings and
+habitations shall be re-edificed and repaired within one year; and all
+tillage lands turned into pasture shall be again restored into tillage;
+and in default, half the value of the lands and houses forfeited to the
+king, or lord of the fee, until they were re-edificed. On failure of the
+next lord, the lord above him might seize."
+
+This act did not produce that increased tilth which was anticipated.
+Farmers' attention was turned to sheepbreeding; and in order to supply
+the deficiency of cattle, an act was passed in the 21st Henry VIII., to
+enforce the rearing of calves; and every farmer was, under a penalty of
+6s. 8d. (about L3 of our currency), compelled to rear all his calves for
+a period of three years; and in the 24th Henry VIII. the act was
+further continued for two years. The culture of flax and hemp was also
+encouraged by legislation. The 24th Henry VIII., cap. 14, requires every
+person occupying land apt for tillage, to sow a quarter of an acre of
+flax or hemp for every sixty acres of land, under a penalty of 3s. 4d.
+
+The profit which arose from sheep-farming led to the depasturage of the
+land; and in order to check it, an act, 25 Henry VIII., cap. 13, was
+passed. It commences thus:
+
+"Forasmuch as divers and sundry persons of the king's subjects of
+this realm, to whom God of His goodness hath disposed great plenty and
+abundance of movable substance, now of late, within few years, have
+daily studied, practised, and invented ways and means how they might
+gather and accumulate together into few hands, as well great multitude
+of farms, as great plenty of cattle and in especial sheep, putting such
+lands as they can get to pasture and not to tillage: whereby they have
+not only pulled down churches and towns, and enhanced the old rates
+of the rents of possessions of this realm, or else brought it to such
+excessive fines that no poor man is able to meddle with it, but have
+also raised and enhanced the prices of all manner of corn, cattle, wool,
+pigs, geese, hens, chickens, eggs, and such commodities almost double
+above the prices which hath been accustomed, by reason whereof a
+marvellous multitude of the poor people of this realm be not able to
+provide meat, drink, and clothes necessary for themselves, their wives,
+and children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty, that they
+fall daily to theft, robbery, and other inconveniences, or pitifully die
+for hunger and cold; and it is thought by the king's humble and loving
+subjects, that one of the greatest occasions that moveth those greedy
+and covetous people so to accumulate and keep in their hands such great
+portions and parts of the lands of this realm from the occupying of the
+poor husbandmen, and so use it in pasture and not in tillage, is the
+great profit that cometh of sheep, which be now come into a few persons'
+hands, in respect of the whole number of the king's subjects, so that
+some have 24,000, some 20,000, some 10,000, some 6000, some 5000,
+and some more or less, by which a good sheep for victual, which was
+accustomed to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at most, is now sold for 6s.,
+5s., or 4s. at the least; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some
+shire of this realm was accustomed to be sold from 16d. to 20d, is now
+sold for 4s. or 3s. 4d. at the least; and in some counties, where it has
+been sold for 2s. 4d. to 2s. 8d., or 3s. at the most, it is now 5s. or
+4s. 8d. at the least, and so arreysed in every part of the realm, which
+things thus used to be principally to the high displeasure of Almighty
+God, to the decay of the hospitality of this realm, to the diminishing
+king's people, and the let of the cloth making, whereby many poor people
+hath been accustomed to be set on work; and in conclusion, if remedy be
+not found, it may turn to the utter destruction and dissolution of this
+realm which God defend."
+
+It was enacted that no person shall have or keep on lands not their own
+inheritance more than 2000 sheep, under a penalty of 3s. 4d. per annum
+for each sheep; lambs under a year old not to be counted; and that no
+person shall occupy two farms.
+
+Further measures appeared needful to prevent the evil; and the 27th
+Henry VIII., cap. 22, states that the 4th Henry VII., cap. 19, for
+keeping houses in repair, and for the tillage of the land, had been
+enforced on lands holden of the king, but neglected by other lords. It,
+therefore, enacted that the king shall have the moiety of the profits
+of lands converted from tillage to pasture, since the passing of the
+4th Henry VII., until a proper house is built, and the land returned
+to tillage; and in default of the immediate lord taking the profits as
+under that act, the king might take the same. This act extended to
+the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, Rutland,
+Northampton, Bedford, Buckingham, Oxford, Berkshire, Isle of Wight,
+Hertford, and Cambridge.
+
+The simple fact was, that those who had formerly paid the rent of their
+land by service as soldiers were without the capital or means of paying
+rent in money; they were evicted and became vagrants. Henry VIII. took
+a short course with these vagrants, and it is asserted upon apparently
+good authority that in the course of his reign, thirty-six years, he
+hanged no less than 72,000 persons for vagrancy, or at the rate of 2000
+per annum. The executions in the reign of his daughter, Queen Elizabeth,
+had fallen to from 300 to 400 per annum.
+
+32 Henry VIII., cap. 1, gave powers of bequest with regard to land; as
+it explains the change it effected, I quote it:
+
+"That all persons holding land in socage not having any lands holden by
+knight service of the king in chief, be empowered to devise and dispose
+of all such socage lands, and in like case, persons holding socage
+lands of the king in chief, and also of others, and not having the lands
+holden by knight service, saving to the king, all his right, title, and
+interest for primer seizin, reliefs, fines for alienations, etc. Persons
+holding lands of the king by knight's service in chief were authorized
+to devise two third parts thereof, saving to the king wardship, primer
+seizin, of the third paid, and fines for alienation of the whole lands.
+Persons holding lands by knight's service in chief, and also other lands
+by knight's service, or otherwise may in like manner devise two third
+part thereof, saving to the king wardship of the third, and fines for
+alienation of the whole. Persons holding land of others than the king
+by knight's service, and also holding socage lands, may devise two third
+parts of the former and the whole of the latter, saving to the lord
+his wardship of the third part. Persons holding lands of the king by
+knight's service but not in chief, or so holding of the king and others,
+and also holding socage lands, may in like manner devise two thirds of
+the former and the whole of the latter, saving to the king the wardship
+of the third part, and also to the lords; and the king or the other
+lords were empowered to seize the one third part in case of any
+deficiency."
+
+The 34th and 35th Henry VIII., cap. 5, was passed to remove some doubts
+which had arisen as to the former statute; it enacts:
+
+"That the words estates of inheritance should only mean estates in
+fee-simple only, and empowers persons seized of any lands, etc., in
+fee-simple solely, or in co-partnery (not having any lands holden of
+knight's service), to devise the whole, except corporations. Persons
+seized in fee-simple of land holden of the king by knight's service
+may give or devise two thirds thereof, and of his other lands, except
+corporation, such two thirds to be ascertained by the divisor or by
+commission out of the Court of Ward and Liveries. The king was empowered
+to take his third land descended to the heir in the first place, the
+devise in gift remaining good for the two thirds; and if the land
+described were insufficient to answer such third, the deficiency should
+be made up out of the two thirds."
+
+"The next attack," remarks Sir William Blackstone, vol. ii., p. 117,
+"which they suffered in order of time was by the statute 32 Henry VIII.,
+c. 28, whereby certain leases made by tenants in tail, which do not tend
+to prejudice the issue, were allowed to be good in law and to bind the
+issue in tail. But they received a more violent blow the same session
+of Parliament by the construction put upon the statute of fines by the
+statute 32 Henry VIII., cap. 36, which declares a fine duly levied by
+tenant in tail to be a complete bar to him and his heirs and all other
+persons claiming under such entail. This was evidently agreeable to the
+intention of Henry VII., whose policy was (before common recovery had
+obtained their full strength and authority) to lay the road as open as
+possible to the alienation of landed property, in order to weaken the
+overgrown power of his nobles. But as they, from the opposite reasons,
+were not easily brought to consent to such a provision, it was therefore
+couched in his act under covert and obscure expressions; and the judges,
+though willing to construe that statute as favorably as possible for
+the defeating of entailed estates, yet hesitated at giving fines so
+extensive a power by mere implication when the statute DE DONIS had
+expressly declared that they should not be a bar to estates-tail. But
+the statute of Henry VIII., when the doctrine of alienation was better
+received, and the will of the prince more implicitly obeyed than before,
+avowed and established that intention."
+
+Fitzherbert, one of the judges of the Common Pleas in the reign of Henry
+VIII., wrote a work on surveying and husbandry. It contains directions
+for draining, clearing, and inclosing a farm, and for enriching the soil
+and reducing it to tillage. Fallowing before wheat was practised, and
+when a field was exhausted by grain it was allowed to rest. Hollingshed
+estimated the usual return as 16 to 20 bushels of wheat per acre; prices
+varied very greatly, and famine was of frequent recurrence. Leases began
+to be granted, but they were not effectual to protect the tenant
+from the entry of purchasers nor against the operation of fictitious
+recoveries.
+
+In the succeeding reigns the efforts to encourage tillage and prevent
+the clearing of the farms were renewed, and among the enactments passed
+were the following:
+
+5 Edward VI., cap. 5, for the better maintenance of tillage and increase
+of corn within the realm, enacts:
+
+"That there should be, in the year 1553, as much land, or more, put
+wholly in tillage as had been at any time since the 1st Henry VIII.,
+under a penalty of 5s. per acre to the king; and in order to secure
+this, it appoints commissioners, who were bound to ascertain by inquests
+what land was in tillage and had been converted from tillage into
+pasture. The commission issued precepts to the sheriffs, who summoned
+jurors, and the inquests were to be returned, certified, to the Court of
+Exchequer. Any prosecution for penalties should take place within three
+years, and the act continues for ten years."
+
+2 and 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 2, recites the former acts of 4 Henry
+VII., cap. 19, etc,, which it enforces. It enacts:
+
+"That as some doubts had arisen as to the interpretation of the words
+twenty acres of land, the act should apply to houses with twenty acres
+of land, according to the measurement of the ancient statute; and it
+appoints commissioners to inquire as to all houses pulled down and all
+land converted from pasture into tillage since the 4th Henry VII. The
+commissioners were to take security by recognizance from offenders,
+and to re-edify the houses and re-convert the land into tillage, and
+to assess the tenants for life toward the repairs. The amount expended
+under order of the commissioners was made recoverable against the
+estate, and the occupiers were made liable to their orders; and they had
+power to commit persons refusing to give security to carry out the act."
+
+2 and 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 3, was passed to provide for the increase
+of milch cattle, and it enacts:
+
+"That one milch-cow shall be kept and calf reared for every sixty sheep
+and ten oxen during the following seven years."
+
+The 2d Elizabeth, cap. 2, confirms the previously quoted acts of 4 Henry
+VII., cap. 19; 7 Henry VIII., cap. 1; 27 Henry VIII., cap. 22; 27 Henry
+VIII., cap. 18; and it enacts:
+
+"That all farm-houses belonging to suppressed monasteries should be
+kept up, and that all lands which had been in tillage for four years
+successively at any time since the 20th Henry VIII., should be kept in
+tillage under a penalty of 10s. per acre, which was payable to the heir
+in reversion, or in case he did not levy it, to the Crown."
+
+31 Elizabeth, cap. 7, went further; and in order to provide allotments
+for the cottagers, many of whom were dispossessed from their land, it
+provided:
+
+"For avoiding the great inconvenience which is found by experience to
+grow by the erecting and building of great number of cottages, which
+daily more and more increased in many parts of the realm, it was enacted
+that no person should build a cottage for habitation or dwelling,
+nor convert any building into a cottage, without assigning and laying
+thereto four acres of land, being his own freehold and inheritance,
+lying near the cottage, under a penalty of L10; and for upholding any
+such cottages, there was a penalty imposed of 40s. a month, exception
+being made as to any city, town, corporation, ancient borough, or market
+town; and no person was permitted to allow more than one family to
+reside in each cottage, under a penalty of 10s. per month."
+
+The 39th Elizabeth, cap. 2, was passed to enforce the observance of
+these conditions. It provides:
+
+"That all lands which had been in tillage shall be restored thereto
+within three years, except in cases where they were worn out by too much
+tillage, in which case they might be grazed with sheep; but in order to
+prevent the deterioriation of the land, it was enacted that the quantity
+of beeves or muttons sold off the land should not exceed that which was
+consumed in the mansion-house."
+
+In these various enactments of the Tudor monarchs we may trace the
+anxious desire of these sovereigns to repair the mistake of Henry VII.,
+and to prevent the depopulation of England. A similar mistake has been
+made in Ireland since 1846, under which the homes of the peasantry have
+been prostrated, the land thrown out of tillage, and the people driven
+from their native land. Mr. Froude has the following remarks upon this
+legislation:
+
+"Statesmen (temp. Elizabeth) did not care for the accumulation of
+capital. They desired to see the physical well-being of all classes of
+the commonwealth maintained in the highest degree which the producing
+power of the country admitted. This was their object, and they were
+supported in it by a powerful and efficient majority of the nation. At
+one time Parliament interfered to protect employers against laborers,
+but it was equally determined that employers should not be allowed to
+abuse their opportunities; and this directly appears from the 4th and
+5th Elizabeth, by which, on the most trifling appearance of a diminution
+of the currency, it was declared that the laboring man could no longer
+live on the wages assigned to him by the Act of Henry VIII.; and a
+sliding scale was instituted, by which, for the future, wages should be
+adjusted to the price of food. The same conclusion may be gathered
+also indirectly fom the acts interfering imperiously with the rights of
+property where a disposition showed itself to exercise them selfishly.
+
+"The city merchants, as I have said, were becoming landowners, and some
+of them attempted to apply their rules of trade to the management of
+landed estates. While wages were rated so high, it answered better as a
+speculation to convert arable land into pasture, but the law immediately
+stepped in to prevent a proceeding which it regarded as petty treason
+to the state. Self-protection is the first law of life, and the
+country, relying for its defence on an able-bodied population, evenly
+distributed, ready at any moment to be called into action, either
+against foreign invasion or civil disturbance, it could not permit the
+owners of land to pursue, for their own benefit, a course of action
+which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often that we are
+able to test the wisdom of legislation by specific results so clearly
+as in the present instance. The first attempts of the kind which I have
+described were made in the Isle of Wight early in the reign of Henry
+VII. Lying so directly exposed to attacks by France, the Isle of Wight
+was a place which it was peculiarly important to keep in a state of
+defence, and the 4th Henry VII., cap. 16, was passed to prevent the
+depopulation of the Isle of Wight, occasioned by the system of large
+farms."
+
+The city merchants alluded to by Froude seem to have remembered that
+from the times of Athelwolf, the possession of a certain quantity of
+land, with gatehouse, church, and kitchen, converted the ceorl (churl)
+into a thane.
+
+It is difficult to estimate the effect which the Tudor policy had upon
+the landholding of England. Under the feudal system, the land was held
+in trust and burdened with the support of the soldiery. Henry VII., in
+order to weaken the power of the nobles, put an end to their maintaining
+independent soldiery. Thus landlords' incomes increased, though their
+material power was curtailed. It would not have been difficult at this
+time to have loaded these properties with annual payments equal to the
+cost of the soldiers which they were bound to maintain, or to have
+given each of them a farm under the Crown, and strict justice would have
+prevented the landowners from putting into their pockets those revenues
+which, according to the grants and patents of the Conqueror and his
+successors, were specially devoted to the maintenance of the army.
+Land was released from the conditions with which it was burdened when
+granted. This was not done by direct legislation but by its being the
+policy of the Crown to prevent "king-makers" arising from among the
+nobility. The dread of Warwick influenced Henry. He inaugurated a policy
+which transferred the support of the army from the lands, which should
+solely have borne it, to the general revenue of the country. Thus he
+relieved one class at the expense of the nation. Yet, when Henry was
+about to wage war on the Continent, he called all his subjects to
+accompany him, under pain of forfeiture of their lands; and he did not
+omit levying the accustomed feudal charge for knighting his eldest son
+and for marrying his eldest daughter. The acts to prevent the landholder
+from oppressing the occupier, and those for the encouragement of
+tillage, failed. The new idea of property in land, which then obtained,
+proved too powerful to be altered by legislation.
+
+Another change in the system of landholding took place in those reigns.
+Lord Cromwell, who succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as minister to Henry VIII.,
+had land in Kent, and he obtained the passing of an act (31 Henry VIII.,
+cap. 2) which took his land and that of other owners therein named, out
+of the custom of gavelkind (gave-all-kind), which had existed in Kent
+from before the Norman Conquest, and enacted that they should descend
+according to common law in like manner as lands held by knight's
+service.
+
+The suppression of the RELIGIOUS HOUSES gave the Crown the control of
+a vast quantity of land. It had, with the consent of the Crown, been
+devoted to religion by former owners. The descendants of the donors were
+equitably entitled to the land, as it ceased to be applied to the trust
+for which it was given, but the power of the Crown was too great, and
+their claims were refused. Had these estates been applied to purposes
+of religion or education they would have formed a valuable fund for the
+improvement of the people; but the land itself, as well as the portion
+of tithes belonging to the religious houses, was conferred upon
+favorites, and some of the wealthiest nobles of the present day trace
+their rise and importance to the rewards obtained by their ancestors out
+of the spoils of these charities.
+
+The importance of the measures of the Tudors upon the system of
+land-holding can hardly be exaggerated. An impulse of self-defence led
+them to lessen the physical force of the oligarchy by relieving the land
+from the support of the army, and enabling them to convert to their own
+use the income previously applied to the defence of the realm. This was
+a bribe, but it brought its own punishment. The eviction of the working
+farmers, the demolition of their dwellings, the depopulation of the
+country, were evils of most serious magnitude; and the supplement of
+the measures which produced such deplorable results was found in the
+permanent establishment of a taxation for the SUPPORT of the POOR. Yet
+the nation reeled under the depletion produced by previous mistaken
+legislation, and all classes have been injured by the transfer of the
+support of the army from the land held by the nobles to the income of
+the people.
+
+Side by side, with the measures passed, to prevent the Clearing of the
+Land, arose the system of POOR LAWS. Previous to the Reformation the
+poor were principally relieved at the religious houses. The destruction
+of small farms, and the eviction of such masses of the people, which
+commenced in the reign of Henry VII., overpowered the resources of
+these establishments; their suppression in the reigns of Henry VIII.
+and Elizabeth aggravated the evil. The indiscriminate and wholesale
+execution of the poor vagrants by the former monarch only partially
+removed the evil, and the statute-book is loaded with acts for the
+relief of the destitute poor. The first efforts were collections in the
+churches; but voluntary alms proving insufficient, the powers of the
+churchwardens were extended, and they were directed and authorized
+to assess the parishioners according to their means, and thus arose a
+system which, though benevolent in its object, is a slur upon our social
+arrangements. Land, the only source of food, is rightly charged with the
+support of the destitute. The necessity for such aid arose originally
+from their being evicted therefrom. The charge should fall exclusively
+upon the rent receivers, and in no case should the tiller of the soil
+have to pay this charge either directly or indirectly. It is continued
+by the inadequacy of wages, and the improvidence engendered by a social
+system which arose out of injustice, and produced its own penalty.
+
+Legislation with regard to the poor commenced contemporaneous with the
+laws against the eviction of the small farmers. I have already recited
+some of the laws to preserve small holdings; I now pass to the
+acts meant to compel landholders to provide for those whom they had
+dispossessed. In 1530 the act 22 Henry VIII., cap. 12, was passed; it
+recites:
+
+"Whereas in all places through the realm of England, vagabonds and
+beggars have of long time increased, and daily do increase, in great and
+excessive numbers by THE OCCASION OF IDLENESS, THE MOTHER AND ROOT OF
+ALL VICES, [Footnote: See 4 Henry VII., cap, 19, ante, p. 27, where the
+same expression occurs, showing that it was throwing the land out of
+tilth that occasioned pauperism.] whereby hath insurged and sprung,
+and daily insurgeth and springeth, continual thefts, murders, and other
+heinous offences and great enormities, to the high displeasure of
+God, the inquietation and damage of the king and people, and to the
+marvellous disturbance of the commonweal of the realm."
+
+It enacts that justices may give license to impotent persons to beg
+within certain limits, and, if found begging out of their limits, they
+shall be set in the stocks. Beggars without license to be whipped or set
+in the stocks. All persons able to labor, who shall beg or be vagrant,
+shall be whipped and sent to the place of their birth. Parishes to be
+fined for neglect of the constables.
+
+37 Henry VIII., cap. 23, continued this act to the end of the ensuing
+Parliament.
+
+1 Edward VI., cap. 3, recites the increase of idle vagabonds, and enacts
+that all persons loitering or wandering shall be marked with a V, and
+adjudged a slave for two years, and afterward running away shall become
+a felon. Impotent persons were to be removed to the place where they had
+resided for three years, and allowed to beg. A weekly collection was
+to be made in the churches every Sunday and holiday after reading the
+gospel of the day, the amount to be applied to the relief of bedridden
+poor.
+
+5 and 6 Edward VI., cap. 2, directs the parson, vicar, curate, and
+church-wardens, to appoint two collectors to distribute weekly to the
+poor. The people were exhorted by the clergy to contribute; and, if they
+refuse, then, upon the certificate of the parson, vicar, or curate, to
+the bishop of the diocese, he shall send for them and induce him or them
+to charitable ways.
+
+2 and 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 5, re-enacts the former, and requires the
+collectors to account quarterly; and where the poor are too numerous for
+relief, they were licensed by a justice of the peace to beg.
+
+5 Elizabeth, cap. 3, confirms and renews the former acts, and compels
+collectors to serve under a penalty of L10. Persons refusing to
+contribute their alms shall be exhorted, and, if they obstinately
+refuse, shall be bound by the bishop to appear at the next general
+quarter session, and they may be imprisoned if they refuse to be bound.
+
+The 14th Elizabeth, cap. 5, requires the justices of the peace to
+register all aged and impotent poor born or for three years resident in
+the parish, and to settle them in convenient habitations, and ascertain
+the weekly charge, and assess the amount on the inhabitants, and yearly
+appoint collectors to receive and distribute the assessment, and also an
+overseer of the poor. This act was to continue for seven years.
+
+The 18th Elizabeth, cap. 3, provides for the employment of the poor.
+Stores of wool, hemp, flax, iron, etc., to be provided in cities and
+towns, and the poor set to work. It empowered persons possessed of land
+in free socage to give or devise same for the maintenance of the poor.
+
+The 39th Elizabeth, cap. 3, and the 43d Elizabeth, cap. 2, extended
+these acts, and made the assessment compulsory.
+
+I shall ask you to compare the date of these several laws for the
+relief of the destitute poor with the dates of the enactments against
+evictions. You will find they run side by side.
+
+     [Footnote: The following tables of the acts passed against
+     eviction, and enacting the support of the poor, show that
+     they were contemporaneous:
+
+            Against Evictions.
+        4 Henry VII.,      Cap. 19.
+        7 Henry VIII,      Cap.  1.
+       21 Henry VIII,
+       24 Henry VIII,      Cap. 14.
+       25 Henry VIII,      Cap. 13.
+       27 Henry VIII,      Cap. 22.
+        5 Edward VI.,      Cap.  2.
+  2 and 3 Philip and Mary, Cap.  2.
+  2 and 3 Philip and Mary, Cap.  3.
+        2 Elizabeth,       Cap.  2.
+       31 Elizabeth,       Cap.  7.
+       39 Elizabeth,       Cap.  2.
+
+
+           Enacting Poor Laws.
+       22 Henry VIII.,     Cap. 12.
+       37 Henry VIII.,     Cap. 23.
+        1 Edward VI.,      Cap.  3.
+  5 and 6 Edward VI.,      Cap.  2.
+  2 and 4 Philip and Mary, Cap.  5.
+        5 Elizabeth,       Cap.  3.
+       14 Elizabeth,       Cap.  5.
+       18 Elizabeth,       Cap.  3.
+       39 Elizabeth,       Cap.  3.
+       43 Elizabeth,       Cap.  2.]
+
+I have perhaps gone at too great length into detail; but I think I could
+not give a proper picture of the alteration in the system of landholding
+or its effects without tracing from the statute-book the black records
+of these important changes. The suppression of monasteries tended
+greatly to increase the sufferings of the poor, but I doubt if even
+these institutions could have met the enormous pressure which arose from
+the wholesale evictions of the people. The laws of Henry VII and Henry
+VIII., enforcing the tillage of the land, preceded the suppression of
+religious houses, and the act of the latter monarch allowing the poor to
+beg was passed before any steps were taken to close the convents. That
+measure was no doubt injurious to the poor, but the main evil arose from
+other causes. The lands of these houses, when no longer applicable to
+the purpose for which they were given, should have reverted to the heirs
+of the donors, or have been applied to other religious or educational
+purposes. The bestowal of them upon favorites, to the detriment alike of
+the State, the Church, the Poor, and the Ignorant, was an abuse of great
+magnitude, the effect of which is still felt. The reigns of the Tudors
+are marked with three events affecting the land--viz.:
+
+1st. Relieving it of the support of the army;
+
+2d. Burdening of it with the support of the poor;
+
+3d. Applying the monastic lands to private uses.
+
+The abolition of retainers, while it relieved the land of the nobles
+from the principal charge thereon, did not entirely abolish knight's
+service. The monarch was entitled to the care of all minors, to aids
+on the marriage or knighthood of the eldest son, to primerseizin or a
+year's rent upon the death of each tenant of the Crown. These fees were
+considerable, and were under the care of the Court of Ward and Liveries.
+
+The artisan class had, however, grown in wealth, and they were greatly
+strengthened by the removal from France of large numbers of workmen in
+consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. These prosperous
+tradespeople became landowners by purchase, and thus tended to replace
+the LIBERI HOMINES, or FREEMEN, who had been destroyed under the wars
+of the nobles, which effaced the landmarks of English society. The
+liberated serfs attained the position of paid farm-laborers; had the
+policy of Elizabeth, who enacted that each of their cottages should have
+an allotment of four acres of land, been carried out, it would have been
+most beneficial to the state.
+
+The reign of this family embraced one hundred and eighteen years, during
+which the increase of the population was about twenty-five per cent.
+When Henry VII. ascended the throne in 1485 it was 4,000,000, and on the
+death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 it had reached 5,000,000, the average
+increase being about 8000 per annum. The changes effected in the
+condition of the farmers' class left the mass of the people in a far
+worse state at the close than at the commencement of their rule.
+
+
+
+
+
+VII. THE STUARTS.
+
+
+The accession of the Stuarts to the throne of England took place under
+peculiar circumstances. The nation had just passed through two very
+serious struggles--one political, the other religious. The land which
+had been in the possession of religious communities, instead of being
+retained by the state for educational or religious purposes, had been
+given to favorites. A new class of ownership had been created--the lay
+impropriators of tithes. The suppression of retainers converted land
+into a quasi property. The extension to land of the powers of bequest
+gave the possessors greater facilities for disposing thereof. It
+was relieved from the principal feudal burden, military service, but
+remained essentially feudal as far as tenure was concerned. Men were no
+longer furnished to the state as payment of the knight's fee; they were
+cleared off the land, to make room for sheep and oxen, England being
+in that respect about two hundred years in advance of Ireland, though
+without the outlet of emigration. Vagrancy and its attendant evils led
+to the Poor Law.
+
+James I. and his ministers tried to grapple with the altered
+circumstances, and strove to substitute and equitable Crown rent or
+money payment for the existing and variable claims which were collected
+by the Court of Ward and Livery. The knight's fee then consisted of
+twelve plough-lands, a more modern name for "a hide of land." The class
+burdened with knight's service, or payments in lieu thereof, comprised
+160 temporal and 26 spiritual lords, 800 barons, 600 knights, and 3000
+esquires. The knight's fee was subject to aids, which were paid to the
+Crown upon the marriage of the king's son or daughter. Upon the death
+of the possessor, the Crown received primer-seizen a year's rent. If the
+successor was an infant, the Crown under the name of Wardship, took the
+rents of the estates. If the ward was a female, a fine was levied if she
+did not accept the husband chosen by the Crown. Fines on alienation
+were also levied, and the estates, though sold, became escheated, and
+reverted to the Crown upon the failure of issue. These various fines
+kept alive the principle that the lands belonged to the Crown as
+representative of the nation; but, as they varied in amount, James I.
+proposed to compound with the tenants-in-fee, and to convert them into
+fixed annual payments. The nobles refused, and the scheme was abandoned.
+
+In the succeeding reign, the attempt to stretch royal power beyond its
+due limits led to resistance by force, but it was no longer a mere war
+of nobles; their power had been destroyed by Henry VII. The Stuarts had
+to fight the people, with a paid army, and the Commons, having the
+purse of the nation, opposed force to force. The contest eventuated in
+a military protectorship. Many of the principal tenants-in-fee fled
+the country to save their lives. Their lands were confiscated and given
+away; thus the Crown rights were weakened, and Charles II. was forced to
+recognize many of the titles given by Cromwell; he did not dare to
+face the convulsion which must follow an expulsion of the novo homo in
+posession of the estates of more ancient families; but legislation went
+further--it abolished all the remaining feudal charges. The Commons
+appear to have assented to this change, from a desire to lessen the
+private income of the Sovereign, and thus to make him more dependent
+upon Parliament, This was done by the 12th Charles II., cap. 24. It
+enacts:
+
+"That the Court of Ward and Liveries, primer seizin, etc., and all fines
+for alienation, tenures by knight's service, and tenures in capite, be
+done away with and turned into fee and common socage, and discharged of
+homage, escuage, aids, and reliefs. All future tenures created by the
+king to be in free and common socage, reserving rents to the Crown
+and also fines on alienation. It enables fathers to dispose of their
+children's share during their minority, and gives the custody of the
+personal estate to the guardians of such child, and imposes in lieu of
+the revenues raised in the Court of Ward and Liveries, duties upon beer
+and ale."
+
+The land was relieved of its legitimate charge, and a tax on beer and
+ale imposed instead! the landlords were relieved at the expense of
+the people. The statute which accomplished this change is described by
+Blackstone as
+
+"A greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even
+Magna Charta itself, since that only pruned the luxuriances that had
+grown out of military tenures, and thereby preserved them in vigor; but
+the statute of King Charles extirpated the whole, and demolished both
+root and branches."
+
+The efforts of James II. to rule contrary to the wish of the nation,
+led to his expulsion from the throne, and showed that, in case of future
+disputes as to the succession, the army, like the Praetorian Guards of
+Rome, had the election of the monarch. The Red and White Roses of the
+Plantagenets reappeared under the altered names of Whig and Tory; but
+it was proved that the decision of a leading soldier like the Duke of
+Marlborough would decide the army, and that it would govern the nation;
+fortunately the decision was a wise one, and was ratified by Parliament:
+thus FORCE governed LAW, and the decision of the ARMY influenced the
+SENATE. William III. succeeded, AS AN ELECTED MONARCH, under the Bill
+of Rights. This remarkable document contains no provision, securing the
+tenants-in-fee in their estates; and I have not met with any treatise
+dealing with the legal effects of the eviction of James II. All patents
+were covenants between the king and his heirs, and the patentees and
+their heirs. The expulsion of the sovereign virtually destroyed the
+title; and an elected king, who did not succeed as heir, was not bound
+by the patents of his predecessors, nor was William asked, by the Bill
+of Rights, to recognize any of the existing titles. This anomalous state
+of things was met in degree by the statute of prescriptions, but even
+this did not entirely cure the defect in the titles to the principal
+estates in the Kingdom. The English tenants in decapitating one landlord
+and expelling another, appear to have destroyed their titles, and then
+endeavored to renew them by prescriptive right; but I shall not pursue
+this topic further, though it may have a very definite bearing upon the
+question of landholding.
+
+It may not be uninteresting to allude rather briefly to the state of
+England at the close of the seventeenth century. Geoffrey King, who
+wrote in 1696, gives the first reliable statistics about the state of
+the country. He estimated the number of houses at 1,300,000, and the
+average at four to each house, making the population 5,318,000. He says
+there was but seven acres of land for each person, but that England was
+six times better peopled than the known world, and twice better than
+Europe. He calculated the total income at L43,500,000, of which the
+yearly rent of land was L10,000,000. The income was equal to L7, 18s.
+0d. per head, and the expense L7, 11s. 4d.; the yearly increase, 6s. 8d.
+per head, or L1,800,000 per annum. He estimated the annual income of 160
+temporal peers at L2800 per annum, 26 spiritual peers at L1300, of 800
+baronets at L800, and of 600 knights at L650.
+
+He estimated the area at 39,000,000 acres (recent surveys make it
+37,319,221). He estimated the arable land at 11,000,000 acres, and
+pasture and meadow at 10,000,000, a total of 21,000,000. The area under
+all kinds of crops and permanent pasture was, in 1874, 26,686,098 acres;
+therefore about five and a half million acres have been reclaimed and
+added to the arable land. As the particulars of his estimate may prove
+interesting, I append them in a note.
+
+
+  [Footnote--Geoffrey King thus classifies the land of England and
+  Wales:
+
+
+
+                                           Acres.   Value/Acre  Rent
+
+  Arable Land,                           11,000,000   L0 5 10  L3,200,000
+  Pasture and Meadow,                    10,000,000    0 9  0   4,500,000
+  Woods and Coppices,                     3,000,000    0 5  0     750,000
+  Forests, Parks, and Covers,             3,000,000    0 3  6     550,000
+  Moors, Mountains, and Barren Lands,    10,000,000    0 1  0     500,000
+  Houses, Homesteads, Gardens, Orchards,) 1,000,000 (The Land,    450,000
+  Churches, and Churchyards,            )      (The Buildings,  2,000,000
+  Rivers, Lakes, Meres, and Ponds,          500,000    0 2  0      50,000
+  Roadways and Waste Lands,                 500,000
+                                         ----------   -------  ----------
+                                         39,000,000   L0 6 0  L12,000,000
+
+  He estimates the live stock thus:
+                                         Value without
+                                           the Skin
+  Beeves, Stirks, and Calves,    4,500,000  L2  0 0   L9,000,000
+  Sheep and Lambs,              11,000,000   0  8 0    4,400,000
+  Swine and Pigs,                2,000,000   0 16 0    1,600,000
+  Deer, Fawns, Goats and Kids,                           247,900
+
+                                                      15,247,900
+
+  Horses,                        1,200,000   2  0 0    3,000,000
+  Value of Skins,                                      2,400,000
+                                                     -----------
+                                                     L20,647,900
+
+  The annual produce he estimated as follows:
+
+                                  Acres       Rent         Produce
+  Grain,                       10,000,000  L3,000,000    L8,275,000
+  Hemp, Flax, etc.,             1,000,000     200,000     2,000,000
+  Butter, Cheese, and Milk, )                          (  2,500,000
+  Wool,                     )                          (  2,000,000
+  Horses bred,              )                          (    250,000
+  Flesh Meat,               )- 29,000,000   6,800,000 -(  3,500,000
+  Tallow and Hides,         )                          (    600,000
+  Hay Consumed,             )                          (  2,300,000
+  Timber,                   )                          (  1,000,000
+                               ----------  -----------  -----------
+  Total                        39,000,000  L10,000,000  L22,275,000]
+
+
+He places the rent of the corn land at about one third of the produce,
+and that of pasture land at rather more. The price of meat per lb. was:
+beef 1 and 1/8d.; mutton, 2 and 1/4d.; pork, 3d.; venison, 6d.; hares,
+7d.; rabbits, 6d. The weight of flesh-meat consumed was 398,000,000
+lbs., it being 72 lbs. 6 oz. for each person, or 3 and 1/6 oz. daily.
+I shall have occasion to contrast these figures with those lately
+published when I come to deal with the present; but a great difference
+has arisen from the alteration in price, which is owing to the increase
+in the quantity of the precious metals.
+
+The reign of the last sovereign of this unfortunate race was
+distinguished by the first measures to inclose the commons and convert
+them into private property, with which I shall deal hereafter.
+
+The changes effected in the land laws of England during the reigns of
+the Stuarts, a period of 111 years, were very important. The act of
+Charles II. which abolished the Court of Ward and Liveries, appeared to
+be an abandonment of the rights of the people, as asserted in the person
+of the Crown; and this alteration also seemed to give color of right to
+the claim which is set up of property in land, but the following law of
+Edward III. never was repealed:
+
+"That the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all land
+in his kingdom, and that no man doth or can possess any part of it but
+what has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him to be
+held on feodal service."
+
+No lawyer will assert for any English subject a higher title than
+tenancy-in-fee, which bears the impress of holding and denies the
+assertion of ownership.
+
+The power of the nobles, the tenants-in-fee, was strengthened by an act
+passed in the reign of William and Mary, which altered the relation of
+landlord and tenant. Previous thereto, the landlord had the power of
+distraint, but he merely held the goods he seized to compel the tenant
+to perform personal service. It would be impossible for a tenant to pay
+his rent if his stock or implements were sold off the land. As the
+Tudor policy of money payments extended, the greed for pelf led to
+an alteration in the law, and the act of William and Mary allowed the
+landlord to sell the goods he had distrained. The tenant remained
+in possession of the land without the means of tilling it, which was
+opposed to public policy. This power of distraint was, however, confined
+to holdings in which there were leases by which the tenant covenanted to
+allow the landlord to distrain his stock and goods in default of payment
+of rent. The legislation of the Stuarts was invariably favorable to
+the possessor of land and adverse to the rights of the people. The
+government during the closing reigns was oligarchical, so much so, that
+William III., annoyed at the restriction put upon his kingly power,
+threatened to resign the crown and retire to Holland; but the
+aristocracy were unwilling to relax their claims, and they secured by
+legislation the rights they appeared to have lost by the deposition of
+the sovereign.
+
+The population had increased from 5,000,000 in 1603 to 5,750,000 in
+1714, being an average increase of less than 7000 per annum.
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.
+
+
+The first sovereign of the House of Hanover ascended the throne not by
+right of descent but by election; the legitimate heir was set aside, and
+a distant branch of the family was chosen, and the succession fixed by
+act of Parliament; but it is held by jurists that every Parliament
+is sovereign and has the power of repealing any act of any former
+Parliament. The beneficial rule of some of the latter monarchs of this
+family has endeared them to the people, but the doctrine of reigning by
+divine right, the favorite idea of the Stuarts, is nullified, when
+the monarch ascends the throne by statute law and not by succession or
+descent.
+
+The age of chivalry passed away when the Puritans defeated the
+Cavaliers. The establishment of standing armies and the creation of
+a national debt, went to show that money, not knighthood or knight's
+service, gave force to law. The possession of wealth and of rent gave
+back to their possessors even larger powers than those wrested from
+them by the first Tudor king. The maxim that "what was attached to the
+freehold belonged to the freehold," gave the landlords even greater
+powers than those held by the sword, and of which they were despoiled.
+Though nominally forbidden to take part in the election of the
+representatives of the Commons, yet they virtually had the power, the
+creation of freehold, the substance and material of electoral right; and
+consequently both Houses of Parliament were essentially landlord, and
+the laws, for the century which succeeded the ascension of George I.,
+are marked with the assertion of landlord right which is tenant wrong.
+
+Among the exhibitions of this influence is an act passed in the reign
+of George II., which extended the power of distraint for rent, and the
+right to sell the goods seized--to all tenancies. Previous legislation
+confined this privilege solely to cases in which there were leases,
+wherein the tenant, by written contract, gave the landlord power to
+seize in case of non-payment of rent, but there was no legal authority
+to sell until it was given by an act passed in the reign of William III.
+The act of George II. presumed that there was such a contract in all
+cases of parole letting or tenancy-at-will, and extended the landlord's
+powers to such tenancies. It is an anomaly to find that in the freest
+country in the world such an arbitrary power is confided to individuals,
+or that the landlord-creditor has the precedence over all other
+creditors, and can, by his own act, and without either trial or
+evidence, issue a warrant that has all the force of the solemn judgment
+of a court of law; and it certainly appears unjust to seize a crop, the
+seed for which is due to one man, and the manure to another, and apply
+it to pay the rent. But landlordism, intrusted with legislative power,
+took effectual means to preserve its own prerogative, and the form of
+law was used by parliaments, in which landlord influence was paramount,
+to pass enactments which were enforced by the whole power of the state,
+and sustained individual or class rights.
+
+The effect of this measure was most unfortunate; it encouraged the
+letting of lands to tenants-at-will or tenants from year to year,
+who could not, under existing laws, obtain the franchise or power to
+vote--they were not FREEMEN, they were little better than serfs. They
+were tillers of the soil, rent-payers who could be removed at the
+will of another. They were not even freeholders, and had no political
+power--no voice in the affairs of the nation. The landlords in
+Parliament gave themselves, individually by law, all the powers which a
+tenant gave them by contract, while they had no corresponding liability,
+and, therefore, it was their interest to refrain from giving leases, and
+to make their tenantry as dependent on them as if they were mere serfs.
+This law was especially unfortunate, and had a positive and very great
+effect upon the condition of the farming class and upon the nation, and
+people came to think that landlords could do as they liked with their
+land, and that the tenants must be creeping, humble, and servile.
+
+An effort to remedy this evil was made in 1832, when the occupiers, if
+rented or rated at the small amount named, became voters. This gave the
+power to the holding, not to the man, and the landlord could by simple
+eviction deprive the man of his vote; hence the tenants-at-will were
+driven to the hustings like sheep--they could not, and dare not, refuse
+to vote as the landlord ordered.
+
+The lords of the manor, with a landlord Parliament, asserted their
+claims to the commonages, and these lands belonging to the people,
+were gradually inclosed, and became the possession of individuals. The
+inclosing of commonages commenced in the reign of Queen Anne, and was
+continued in the reigns of all the sovereigns of the House of Hanover.
+The first inclosure act was passed in 1709; in the following thirty
+years the average number of inclosure bills was about three each year;
+in the following fifty years there were nearly forty each year; and in
+the forty years of the nineteenth century it was nearly fifty per annum.
+
+The inclosures in each reign were as follows:
+
+                    Acts.    Acres.
+     Queen Anne,      2      1,439
+     George I.,      16     17,660
+     George II.,    226    318,784
+     George III.,  3446  3,500,000
+     George IV.,    192    250,000
+     William IV.,    72    120,000
+                   ----  ---------
+     Total,        3954  4,207,883
+
+These lands belonged to the people, and might have been applied to
+relieve the poor. Had they been allotted in small farms, they might have
+been made the means of support of from 500,000 to 1,000,000 families,
+and they would have afforded employment and sustenance to all the
+poor, and thus rendered compulsory taxation under the poor-law system
+unnecessary; but the landlords seized on them and made the tenantry pay
+the poor-rate.
+
+The British Poor Law is a slur upon its boasted civilization. The
+unequal distribution of land and of wealth leads to great riches and
+great poverty. Intense light produces deep shade. Nowhere else but in
+wealthy England do God's creatures die of starvation, wanting food,
+while others are rich beyond comparison. The soil which affords
+sustenance for the people is rightly charged with the cost of feeding
+those who lack the necessaries of life, but the same object would be
+better achieved in a different way. Poor-rates are now a charge upon a
+man's entire estate, and it would be much better for society if land
+to an amount equivalent to the charge were taken from the estate and
+assigned to the poor. If a man is charged with L100 a year poor-rate,
+it would make no real difference to him, while it would make a vast
+difference to the poor to take land to that value, put the poor to work
+tilling it, allowing them to enjoy the produce. Any expense should be
+paid direct by the landlord, which would leave the charge upon the land,
+and exempt the improvements of the tenant, which represent his labor,
+free.
+
+The evil has intensified in magnitude, and a permanent army of paupers
+numbering at the minimum 829,281 persons, but increasing at some
+periods to upward of 1,000,000, has to be provided for; the cost, about
+L8,000,000 a year, is paid, not by landlords but by tenants, in addition
+to the various charities founded by benevolent persons. There are two
+classes relieved under this system, and which ought to be differently
+dealt with--the sick and the young. Hospitals for the former and schools
+for the latter ought to take the place of the workhouse. It is difficult
+to fancy a worse place for educating the young than the workhouse, and
+it would tend to lessen the evil were the children of the poor trained
+and educated in separate establishments from those for the reception
+of paupers. Pauperism is the concomitant of large holdings of land and
+insecurity of tenure. The necessity of such a provision arose, as I have
+previously shown, from the wholesale eviction of large numbers of the
+occupiers of land; and, as the means of supplying the need came from
+the LAND, the expense should, like tithes, have fallen exclusively
+upon land. The poor-rates are, however, also levied upon houses and
+buildings, which represent labor. The owner of land is the people, as
+represented by the Crown, and the charges thereon next in succession to
+the claims of the state are the church and the poor.
+
+The Continental wars at the close of the eighteenth and the commencement
+of the nineteenth century had some effect upon the system of tillage;
+they materially enhanced the price of agricultural produce--rents were
+raised, and the national debt was contracted, which remains a burden on
+the nation.
+
+The most important change, however, arose from scientific and mechanical
+discoveries--the application of heat to the production of motive power.
+As long as water, which is a non-exhaustive source of motion, was used,
+the people were scattered over the land; or if segregation took place,
+it was in the neighborhood of running streams. The application of steam
+to the propulsion of machinery, and the discovery of engines capable of
+competing with the human hand, led to the substitution of machine-made
+fabrics for clothing, in place of homespun articles of domestic
+manufacture. This led to the employment of farm-laborers in procuring
+coals, to the removal of many from the rural into the urban districts,
+to the destruction of the principal employment of the family during the
+winter evenings, and consequently effected a great revolution in the
+social system. Many small freeholds were sold, the owners thinking they
+could more rapidly acquire wealth by using the money representing their
+occupancy, in trade. Thus the large estates became larger, and the
+smaller ones were absorbed, while the appearance of greater wealth from
+exchanging subterranean substances for money, or its representative,
+gave rise to ostentatious display. The rural population gradually
+diminished, while the civic population increased. The effect upon the
+system of landholding was triplicate. First, there was a diminution in
+the amount of labor applicable to the cultivation of land; second, there
+was a decrease in the amount of manure applied to the production of
+food; and lastly, there was an increase in the demand for land as a
+source of investment, by those who, having made money in trade, sought
+that social position which follows the possession of broad acres. Thus
+the descendants of the feudal aristocracy were pushed aside by the
+modern plutocracy.
+
+This state of things had a double effect. Food is the result of two
+essential ingredients--land and labor. The diminution in the amount of
+labor applied to the soil, consequent upon the removal of the laborers
+from the land, lessened the quantity of food; while the consumption of
+that food in cities and towns, and the waste of the fertile ingredients
+which should be restored to the soil, tended to exhaust the land, and
+led to vast importations of foreign and the manufacture of mineral
+manures. I shall not detain you by a discussion of this aspect of the
+question, which is of very great moment, consequent upon the removal
+of large numbers of people from rural to urban districts; but I may
+be excused in saying that agricultural chemistry shows that the
+soil--"perpetual man"--contains the ingredients needful to support human
+life, and feeding those animals meant for man's use. These ingredients
+are seized upon by the roots of plants and converted into aliment. If
+they are consumed where grown, and the refuse restored to the soil, its
+fertility is preserved; nay, more, the effect of tillage is to increase
+its productive power. It is impossible to exhaust land, no matter how
+heavy the crops that are grown, if the produce is, after consumption,
+restored to the soil. I have shown you how, in the reign of Queen
+Elizabeth, a man was not allowed to sell meat off his land unless he
+brought to, and consumed on it, the same weight of other meat. This was
+true agricultural and chemical economy. But when the people were removed
+from country to town, when the produce grown in the former was consumed
+in the latter, and the refuse which contained the elements of fertility
+was not restored to the soil, but swept away by the river, a process
+of exhaustion took place, which has been met in degree by the use of
+imported and artificial manures. The sewage question is taken up mainly
+with reference to the health of towns, but it deserves consideration in
+another aspect--its influence upon the production of food in the nation.
+
+An exhaustive process upon the fertility of the globe has been set on
+foot. The accumulations of vegetable mould in the primeval forests
+have been converted into grain, and sent to England, leaving permanent
+barrenness in what should be prolific plains; and the deposits of the
+Chincha and Ichaboe Islands have been imported in myriads of tons, to
+replace in our own land the resources of which it is bereft by the civic
+consumption of rural produce.
+
+These conjoined operations were accelerated by the alteration in the
+British corn laws in 1846, which placed the English farmer, who tried to
+preserve his land in a state of fertility, in competition with foreign
+grain--growers, who, having access to boundless fields of virgin soil,
+grow grain year after year until, having exhausted the fertile element,
+they leave it in a barren condition, and resort to other parts. A
+competition under such circumstances resembles that of two men of equal
+income, one of who appears wealthy by spending a portion of his capital,
+the other parsimonious by living within his means. Of course, the latter
+has to debar himself of many enjoyments. The British farmer has lessened
+the produce of grain, and consequently of meat; and the nation has
+become dependent upon foreigners for meat, cheese, and butter, as well
+as for bread.
+
+This is hardly the place to discuss a question of agriculture, but
+scientific farmers know that there is a rotation of crops, [Footnote:
+The agricultural returns of the United Kingdom show that 50 and 1/2 per
+cent of the arable land was under pasture, 24 per cent under grain,
+12 per cent under green crops and bare fallow, and 13 per cent under
+clover. The rotation would, therefore, be somewhat in this fashion:
+Nearly one fourth of the land in tillage is under a manured crop or
+fallow, one fourth under wheat, one fourth under clover, and one fourth
+under barley, oats, etc., the succession being, first year, the manured
+crop; next year, wheat; third year, clover; fourth, barley or oats; and
+so on.] and that as one is diminished the others lessen. The quantity
+under tillage is a multiple of the area under grain. A diminution in
+corn is followed by a decrease of the extent under turnips and under
+clover; the former directly affects man, the latter the meat-affording
+animals. A decrease in the breadth under tillage means an addition to
+the pasture land, which in this climate only produces meat during the
+warm portions of the year. I must, however, not dwell upon this topic,
+but whatever leads to a diminution in the labor applied to the land
+lessens the production of food, and DEAR MEAT may only be the supplement
+to CHEAP CORN.
+
+I shall probably be met with the hackneyed cry, The question is entirely
+one of price. Each farmer and each landlord will ask himself, Does it
+pay to grow grain? and in reply to any such inquiry, I would refer to
+the annual returns. I find that in the five years, 1842 to 1846, wheat
+ranged from 50s. 2d. to 57s. 9d.; the average for the entire period
+being 54s. 10d. per quarter. In the five years from 1870 to 1874 it
+ranged from 46s. 10d. to 58s. 8d., the average for the five years being
+54s. 7d. per quarter. The reduction in price has only been 3d. per
+quarter, or less than one half per cent.
+
+I venture to think that there are higher considerations than mere profit
+to individuals, and that, as the lands belong to the whole state as
+represented by the Crown, and as they are held in trust TO PRODUCE FOOD
+FOR THE PEOPLE, that trust should be enforced.
+
+The average consumption of grain by each person is about a quarter
+(eight bushels) per annum. In 1841 the population of the United Kingdom
+was 27,036,450. The average import of foreign grain was about 3,000,000
+quarters, therefore TWENTY-FOUR MILLIONS were fed on the domestic
+produce. In 1871 the population was 31,513,412, and the average
+importation of grain 20,000,000 quarters; therefore only ELEVEN AND A
+HALF MILLIONS were supported by home produce. Here we are met with the
+startling fact that our own soil is not now supplying grain to even
+one half the number of people to whom it gave bread in 1841. This is a
+serious aspect of the question, and one that should lead to examination,
+whether the development of the system of landholding, the absorptions of
+small farms and the creation of large ones, is really beneficial to the
+state, or tends to increase the supply of food. The area under grain
+in England in 1874 was 8,021,077. In 1696 it was 10,000,000 acres, the
+diminution having been 2,000,000 acres. The average yield would probably
+be FOUR QUARTERS PER ACRE, and therefore the decrease amounted to the
+enormous quantity of EIGHT MILLION QUARTERS, worth L25,000,000, which
+had to be imported from other countries, to fill up the void, and feed
+8,000,000 of the population; and if a war took place, England may, like
+Rome, be starved into peace.
+
+An idea prevails that a diminution in the extent under grain implies an
+increase in the production of meat. The best answer to that fallacy lies
+in the great increase in the price of meat. If the supply had increased
+the price would fall, but the converse has taken place. A comparison of
+the figures given by Geoffrey King, in the reign of William III., with
+those supplied by the Board of Trade in the reign of Queen Victoria,
+illustrates this phase of the landholding question, and shows whether
+the "enlightened policy" of the nineteenth century tends to encourage
+the fulfilment of the trust which applies to land--THE PRODUCTION OF
+FOOD.
+
+The land of England and Wales in 1696 and 1874 was classified as
+follows:
+
+                                           1696.              1874.
+                                           Acres.             Acres.
+     Under grain,                       10,000,000          8,021,077
+     Pastures and meadows,              10,000,000         12,071,791
+     Flax, hemp, and madder,             1,000,000          ---------
+     Green crops,                        ---------          2,895,138
+     Bare fallow,                        ---------            639,519
+     Clover                              ---------          2,983,733
+     Orchards,                           1,000,000            148,526
+     Woods, coppices, etc,               3,000,000          1,552,598
+     Forests, parks, and commons,        3,000,000|
+     Moors, mountains, and bare land,   10,000,000|-        9,006,839
+     Waste, water, and road,             1,000,000|
+                                        -----------       -----------
+                                        39,000,000         37,319,231
+
+The estimate of 1696 may be corrected by lessing the quantity of
+waste land, and thus bringing the total to correspond with the extent
+ascertained by actual survey, but it shows a decrease in the extent
+under grain of nearly two million acres, and an increase in the area
+applicable to cattle of nearly 8,000,000 acres; yet there is a decrease
+in the number of cattle, though an increase in sheep. The returns are as
+follows:
+
+                     1696.         1800.        1874.
+     Cattle       4,500,000     2,852.428    4,305,440
+     Sheep       11,000,000    26,148,000   19,859,758
+     Pigs         2,000,000   (not given)    2,058,791
+
+The former shows that in 1696 there were TEN MILLION acres under grain,
+the latter only EIGHT MILLION acres. Two million acres were added for
+cattle feeding. The former shows that the pasture land was TEN MILLION
+ACRES, and that green crops and clover were unknown. The latter that
+there were TWELVE MILLION ACRES under pasture, and, in addition, that
+there were nearly THREE MILLION ACRES of green crop and THREE MILLION
+ACRES of clover. The addition to the cattle-feeding land was eight
+million acres; yet the number of cattle in 1696 was 4,500,000, and in
+1874, 4,305,400. Of sheep, in 1696, there were 11,000,000, and in 1874,
+19,889,758. The population had increased fourfold, and it is no marvel
+that meat is dear. It is the interest of agriculturists to KEEP DOWN THE
+QUANTITY AND KEEP UP THE PRICE. The diminution in the area under corn
+was not met by a corresponding increase in live stock--in other words,
+the decrease of land under grain is not, PER SE, followed by an increase
+of meat. If the area under grain were increased, it would be preceded by
+an increase in the growth of turnips, and followed by a greater growth
+of clover; and these cattle-feeding products would materially add to the
+meat supply.
+
+A most important change in the system of landholding was effected by the
+spread of RAILWAYS. It was brought about by the influence of the trading
+as opposed to the landlord class. In their inception they did not appear
+likely to effect any great alteration in the land laws. The shareholders
+had no compulsory power of purchase, hence enormous sums were paid for
+the land required; but as the system extended, Parliament asserted the
+ownership of the nation, over land in the possession of the individual.
+Acting on the idea that no man was more than a tenant, the state took
+the land from the occupier, as well as the tenant-in-fee, and gave it,
+not at their own price, but an assessed value, to the partners in a
+railway who traded for their mutual benefit, yet as they offered to
+convey travellers and goods at a quicker rate than on the ordinary
+roads, the state enabled them to acquire land by compulsion. A general
+act, the Land Clauses Act, was passed in 1846, which gives privileges
+with regard to the acquisition of land to the promoters of such works as
+railways, docks, canals, etc. Numbers of acts are passed every session
+which assert the right of the state over the land, and transfer it from
+one man, or set of men, to another. It seems to me that the principle
+is clear, and rests upon the assertion of the state's ownership of the
+land; but it has often struck me to ask, Why is this application of
+state rights limited to land required for these objects? why not apply
+to the land at each side of the railway, the principle which governs
+that under the railway itself? I consider the production of food the
+primary trust upon the land, that rapid transit over it is a secondary
+object; and as all experience shows that the division of land into small
+estates leads to a more perfect system of tillage, I think it would be
+of vast importance to the entire nation if all tenants who were, say,
+five years in possession were made "promoters" under the Land Clauses
+Act, and thus be enabled to purchase the fee of their holdings in the
+same manner as a body of railway proprietors. It would be most useful
+to the state to increase the number of tenants-in-fee--to re-create the
+ancient FREEMEN, the LIBERI HOMINES--and I think it can be done without
+requiring the aid either of a new principle or new machinery, by simply
+placing the farmer-in-possession on the same footing as the railway
+shareholder. I give at foot the draft of a bill I prepared in 1866 for
+this object.
+
+     [Footnote: A BILL TO ENCOURAGE THE OUTLAY OF MONEY UPON LAND
+     FOB AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES.
+
+     Whereas it is expedient to encourage the occupiers of land
+     to expend money thereon, in building, drainage, and other
+     similar improvements; and whereas the existing laws do not
+     give the tenants or occupiers any sufficient security for
+     such outlay: Be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent
+     Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords
+     Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled,
+     and by the authority of the same:
+
+     1. That all outlay upon land for the purpose of rendering it
+     more productive, and all outlay upon buildings for the
+     accommodation of those engaged in tilling or working the
+     same, or for domestic animals of any sort, be, and the same
+     is hereby deemed to be, an outlay of a public nature.
+
+     2. That the clauses of "The Land Clauses Consolidation Act
+     1845," "with respect to the purchase of lands by agreement,"
+     and "with respect to the purchase and taking of lands
+     otherwise than by agreement," and "with respect to the
+     purchase money or compensation coming to parties having
+     limited interests, or prevented from treating or not making
+     title," shall be, and they are hereby incorporated with this
+     act.
+
+     3. That every tenant or occupier who has for the past five
+     years been in possession of any land, tenements, or
+     hereditaments, shall be considered "a promoter of the
+     undertaking within the meaning of the said recited act, and
+     shall be entitled to purchase the lands which he has so
+     occupied, 'either by agreement' 'or otherwise than by
+     agreement,' as provided in the said recited act."
+
+    Then follow some details which it is unnecessary to recite here.]
+
+The 55th William I. secured to freemen the inheritance of their lands,
+and they were not able to sell them until the act QUIA EMPTORES
+of Edward I. was passed. The tendency of persons to spend the
+representative value of their lands and sell them was checked by the
+Mosaic law, which did not allow any man to despoil his children of their
+inheritance. The possessor could only mortgage them until the year of
+jubilee--the fiftieth year. In Switzerland and Belgium, where the nobles
+did not entirely get rid of the FREEMEN, the lands continued to be held
+in small estates. In Switzerland there are seventy-four proprietors for
+every hundred families, and in Belgium the average size of the estate is
+three and a half hectares--about eight acres. These small ownerships are
+not detrimental to the state. On the contrary, they tend to its security
+and well-being. I have treated on this subject in my work, "The Food
+Supplies of Western Europe." These small estates existed in England at
+the Norman Conquest, and their perpetual continuance was the object of
+the law of William I., to which I have referred. Their disappearance was
+due to the greed of the nobles during the reign of the Plantagenets,
+and they were not replaced by the Tudors, who neglected to restore the
+men-at-arms to the position they occupied under the laws of Edward the
+Confessor and William I.
+
+The establishment of two estates in land; one the ownership, the
+other the use, may be traced to the payment of rent, to the Roman
+commonwealth, for the AGER PUBLICUS. Under the feudal system the rent
+was of two classes--personal service or money; the latter was considered
+base tenure. The legislation of the Tudors abolished the payment of rent
+by personal service, and made all rent payable in money or in kind. The
+land had been burdened with the sole support of the army. It was then
+freed from this charge, and a tax was levied upon the community. Some
+writers have sought to define RENT as the difference between fertile
+lands and those that are so unproductive as barely to pay the cost of
+tillage. This far-fetched idea is contradicted by the circumstance
+that for centuries rent was paid by labor--the personal service of the
+vassal--and it is now part of the annual produce of the soil inasmuch as
+land will be unproductive without seed and labor, or being pastured by
+tame animals, the representative of labor in taming and tending them.
+Rent is usually the labor or the fruits of the labor of the occupant.
+In some cases it is income derived from the labors of others. A broad
+distinction exists between the rent of land, which is a portion of the
+fruits or its equivalent in money, and that of improvements and houses,
+which is an exchange of the labor of the occupant given as payment for
+that employed in effecting improvements or erecting houses. The latter
+described as messuages were valued in 1794 at SIX MILLIONS per annum; in
+1814 they were nearly FIFETEEN MILLIONS; now they are valued at EIGHTY
+MILLIONS.
+
+   [Footnote--A Parliamentary return gives the following information
+   as to the value of lands and messuages in 1814 and 1874:
+
+                             1814-15.        1873-74.
+   Lands,                  L34,330,463     L49,906,866
+   Messuages,               14,895,130      80,726,502
+
+     The increase in the value of land is hardly equal to the
+     reduction in the value of gold, while the increase in
+     messuages shows the enormous expenditure of labor.]
+
+The increase represents a sum considerably more than double the national
+debt of Great Britain, and under the system of leases the improvements
+will pass from the industrial to the landlord class.
+
+It seems to me to be a mistake in legislation to encourage a system by
+which these two funds merge into one, and that hands the income arising
+from the expenditure of the working classes over to the tenants-in-fee
+without an equivalent. This proceeds from a straining of the maxim that
+"what is attached to the freehold belongs to the freehold," and was made
+law when both Houses of Parliament were essentially landlord. That maxim
+is only partially true: corn is as much attached to the freehold as
+a tree; yet one is cut without hindrance and the other is prevented.
+Potatoes, turnips, and such tubers, are only obtained by disturbing
+the freehold. This maxim was at one time so strained that it applied to
+fixtures, but recent legislation and modern discussions have limited the
+rights of the landlord class and been favorable to the occupier, and I
+look forward to such alterations in our laws as will secure to the man
+who expends his labor or earnings in improvements, an estate IN PERPETUO
+therein, as I think no length of user of that which is a man's own--his
+labor or earnings--should hand over his representative improvements to
+any other person. I agree with those writers who maintain that it is
+prejudicial to the state that the rent fund should be enjoyed by
+a comparatively small number of persons, and think it would
+be advantageous to distribute it, by increasing the number of
+tenants-in-fee. Natural laws forbid middlemen, who do nothing to make
+the land productive, and yet subsist upon the labor of the farmer, and
+receive as rent part of the produce of his toil. The land belongs to the
+state, and should only be subject to taxes, either by personal service,
+such as serving in the militia or yeomanry, or by money payments to the
+state.
+
+Land does not represent CAPITAL, but the improvements upon it do. A man
+does not purchase land. He buys the right of possession. In any transfer
+of land there is no locking up of capital, because one man receives
+exactly the amount the other expends. The individual may lock up
+his funds, but the nation does not. Capital is not money. I quote a
+definition from a previous work of mine, "The Case of Ireland," p. 176:
+
+"Capital stock properly signifies the means of subsistence for man, and
+for the animals subservient to his use while engaged in the process of
+production. The jurisconsults of former times expressed the idea by the
+words RES FUNGIBILES, by which they meant consumable commodities, or
+those things which are consumed in their use for the supply of man's
+animal wants, as contradistinguished from unconsumable commodities,
+which latter writers, by an extension of the term, in a figurative
+sense, have called FIXED capital."
+
+All the money in the Bank of England will not make a single four-pound
+loaf. Capital, as represented by consumable commodities, is the product
+of labor applied to land, or the natural fruits of the land itself. The
+land does not become either more or less productive by reason of the
+transfer from one person to another; it is the withdrawal of labor that
+affects its productiveness.
+
+WAGES are a portion of the value of the products of a joint combination
+of employer and employed. The former advances from time to time as wages
+to the latter, the estimated portion of the increase arising from their
+combined operations to which he may be entitled. This may be either in
+food or in money. The food of the world for one year is the yield at
+harvest; it is the CAPITAL STOCK upon which mankind exist while engaged
+in the operations for producing food, clothing, and other requisites
+for the use of mankind, until nature again replenishes this store. Money
+cannot produce food; it is useful in measuring the distribution of that
+which already exists.
+
+The grants of the Crown were a fee or reward for service rendered; the
+donee became tenant-in-fee; being a reward, it was restricted to a man
+and his heirs-male or his heirs-general; in default of heirs-male or
+heirs-general, the land reverted to the Crown, which was the donor.
+A sale to third parties does not affect this phase of the question,
+inasmuch as it is a principle of British law that no man can convey to
+another a greater estate in land than that which he possesses himself;
+and if the seller only held the land as tenant-in-fee for HIS OWN LIFE
+and that of HIS heirs, he could not give a purchaser that which belonged
+to the Crown, the REVERSION on default of heirs (see Statute DE DONIS,
+13 Edward I., ANTE, p. 21). This right of the sovereign, or rather
+of the people, has not been asserted to the full extent. Many noble
+families have become extinct, yet the lands have not been claimed, as
+they should have been, for the nation.
+
+I should not complete my review of the subject without referring to what
+are called the LAWS OF PRIMOGENITURE. I fail to discover any such law.
+On the contrary, I find that the descent of most of the land of England
+is under the law of contract--by deed or bequest--and that it is only in
+case of intestacy that the courts intervene to give it to the next heir.
+This arises more from the construction the judges put upon the wishes of
+the deceased, than upon positive enactment. When a man who has the right
+of bequeathing his estate among his descendants does not exercise that
+power, it is considered that he wishes the estate to go undivided to the
+next heir. In America the converse takes place: a man can leave all his
+land to one; and, if he fails to do so, it is divided. The laws relating
+to contracts or settlements allow land to be settled by deed upon
+the children of a living person, but it is more frequently upon the
+grandchildren. They acquire the power of sale, which is by the contract
+denied to their parents. A man gives to his grandchild that which he
+denies to his son. This cumbrous process works disadvantageously, and it
+might very properly be altered by restricting the power of settlement
+or bequest to living persons, and not allowing it to extend to those who
+are unborn.
+
+It is not a little curious to note how the ideas of mankind, after
+having been diverted for centuries, return to their original channels.
+The system of landholding in the most ancient races was COMMUNAL. That
+word, and its derivative, COMMUNISM, has latterly had a bad odor.
+Yet all the most important public works are communal. All joint-stock
+companies, whether for banking, trading, or extensive works, are
+communes. They hold property in common, and merge individual in general
+rights. The possession of land by communes or companies is gradually
+extending, and it is by no means improbable that the ideas which
+governed very remote times may, like the communal joint-stock system, be
+applied more extensively to landholding.
+
+It may not be unwise to review the grounds that we have been going over,
+and to glance at the salient points. The ABORIGINAL inhabitants of
+this island enjoyed the same rights as those in other countries,
+of possessing themselves of land unowned and unoccupied. The ROMANS
+conquered, and claimed all the rights the natives possessed, and levied
+a tribute for the use of the lands. Upon the retirement of the Romans,
+after an occupancy of about six hundred years, the lands reverted to
+the aborigines, but they, being unable to defend themselves, invited
+the SAXONS, the JUTES, and the ANGLES, who reduced them to serfdom, and
+seized upon the land; they acted as if it belonged to the body of the
+conquerors, it was allotted to individuals by the FOLC-GEMOT or assembly
+of the people, and a race of LIBERI HOMINES or FREEMEN arose, who paid
+no rent, but performed service to the state; during their sway of
+about six hundred years the institutions changed, and the monarch, as
+representing the people, claimed the right of granting the possession of
+land seized for treason by BOC or charter. The NORMAN invasion found a
+large body of the Saxon landholders in armed opposition to William, and
+when they were defeated, he seized upon their land and gave it to his
+followers, and then arose the term TERRA REGIS, "the land of the king,"
+instead of the term FOLC-LAND, "the land of the people;" but a large
+portion of the realm remained in the hands of the LIBERI HOMINES or
+FREEMEN. The Norman barons gave possession of part of their lands to
+their followers, hence arose the vassals who paid rent to their lord by
+personal service, while the FREEMEN held by service to the Crown. In
+the wars of the PLANTAGENETS the FREEMEN seem to have disappeared, and
+vassalage was substituted, the principal vassals being freeholders. The
+descendants of the aborigines regained their freedom. The possession
+of land was only given for life, and it was preceded by homage to the
+Crown, or fealty to the lord, investiture following the ceremony. The
+TUDOR sovereigns abolished livery and retainers, but did not secure the
+rights of the men-at-arms or replace them in their position of FREEMEN.
+The chief lords converted the payment of rent by service into payment
+in money; this led to wholesale evictions, and necessitated the
+establishment of the Poor Laws, The STUARTS surrendered the remaining
+charges upon land: but on the death of one sovereign, and the expulsion
+of another, the validity of patents from the Crown became doubtful. The
+PRESENT system of landholding is the outcome of the Tudor ideas. But the
+Crown has never abandoned the claim asserted in the statute of Edward
+I., that all land belongs to the sovereign as representing the people,
+and that individuals HOLD but do not OWN it; and upon this sound and
+legal principle the state takes land from one and gives it to another,
+compensating for the loss arising from being dispossessed.
+
+I have now concluded my brief sketch of the facts which seemed to me
+most important in tracing the history of LANDHOLDING IN ENGLAND, and
+laid before you not only the most vital changes, but also the principles
+which underlay them; and I shall have failed in conveying the ideas of
+my own mind if I have not shown you that at least from the Scandinavian
+or ANGLO-SAXON invasion, the ownership of land rested either in the
+people, or the Crown as representing the people: that individual
+proprietorship of land is not only unknown, but repugnant to the
+principles of the British Constitution; that the largest estate a
+subject can have is tenancy-in-fee, and that it is a holding and not an
+owning of the soil; and I cannot conceal from you the conviction which
+has impressed my mind, after much study and some personal examination
+of the state of proprietary occupants on the Continent, that the best
+interests of the nation, both socially, morally, and materially, will be
+promoted by a very large increase in the number of tenants-in-fee; which
+can be attained by the extension of principles of legistration now in
+active operation. All that is necessary is to extend the provisions
+of the Land Clauses Act, which apply to railways and such objects, to
+tenants in possession; to make them "promoters" under that act; to treat
+their outlay for the improvement of the soil and the greater PRODUCTION
+OF FOOD as a public outlay; and thus to restore to England a class which
+corresponds with the Peasent Proprietors of the Continent--the FREEMAN
+or LIBERI HOMINES of ANGLO-SAXON times, whose rights were solemnly
+guaranteed by the 55th William I., and whose existence would be the
+glory of the country and the safeguard of its institution.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Landholding In England, by Joseph Fisher
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