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VILLAGE COMMUNITIES
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See also:VILLAGE COMMUNITIES . The study of village communities has become one of the fundamental methods of discussing the See also:ancient See also:history of institutions. It would be out of the question here to range over the whole See also: Let us take up a See also:concrete and See also:simple See also:case, e.g. the description of Astret See also:Canon, a trev or township (villata) of the See also:honour of See also:Denbigh, surveyed in 1334. In the See also:time of the native Welsh princes it was occupied entirely by a kindred (progenies) of See also:free tribesmen descended from a certain Canon, the son of Lawaurgh. The kindred was subdivided into four gavells or bodies of See also:joint-tenants. On the See also:half-gavell of Monryk ap Canon, e.g. there are no less than sixteen coparceners, of whom eight possess houses. The peculiarity of this See also:system of land See also:tenure consists in the fact that all the tenants of these gavells derive their positionon the land from the occupation of the township by their kindred, and have to trace their rights to shares in the See also:original unit. Although the village of Astret Canon was occupied under the Survey by something like fifty-four male tenants, the See also:majority of whom were settled in houses of their own, it continued to See also:form a unit as well in regard to the See also:payment of tungpound, that is, of the See also:direct land tax and other services and payments, but also in respect of the See also:possession and usage of the See also:soil. On the other See also:hand, movable See also:property is owned in severalty. Services have to be apportioned among the members of the kindreds according to the number of heads of See also:cattle owned by them. From the description of another township—Pireyonwe may gather another important feature of this tribal tenure. The See also:population of this village also clustered in gavells, and we hear that these gavells ought to be considered as equal shares in respect of the arable, the See also:wood and the See also:waste of the See also:town-See also:ship. If the shares were reduced into acres there would have fallen to each of the eight gavells of Pireyon ninety-one acres, one See also:rood and a half and six perches of arable and woodland, and fifty-three and one-third of an See also:acre and half a rood of waste land. But as a See also:matter of fact the land was not divided in such a way, and the rights of the tenants of the gavell were realized not through the See also:appropriation of definite acres, but as proportionate opportunities in regard to tillage and as to usages in pasture, wood and waste. See also:Pastoral habits must have greatly contributed to give the system of landholding its See also:peculiar See also:character. It was not necessary, it would have been even harmful, to subdivide sharply the See also:area on which the herds of cows and the flocks of See also:sheep and goats were grazing. Still Welsh rural life in the 14th century had already a definite though subordinate agricultural aspect, and it is important to See also:notice that individual appropriation had as yet made very slight progress in it. We do not notice any systematic equalization between members of the tribal communities of the trevs. In fact, both See also:differences in the ownership of cattle and differences of tribal See also:standing, established by complex reckonings of See also:pedigree and of social See also:rank, led to marked inequalities. But there was also the notion of birthright, and we find in the See also:laws that every free tribesman considered himself entitled to claim from his kindred grazing facilities and five erws for tillage. Such a claim could be made unconditionally only at a time when there was a superabundance of land to dispose of. In the 14th century, to which our typical descriptions refer, this See also:state of things had ceased to be universal. Although See also:great tracts of Welsh land were undoubtedly still in a state of See also:wilderness, the soil in more conveniently situated regions was beginning to be scarce, and considerable pressure of population was already See also:felt, with a consequent transition from pastoral pursuits to See also:agriculture. The See also:tract appropriated to the township of Astret Canon, for instance, contained only 574 acres of land of all kinds. In this case there was hardly See also:room for the customary five erws per See also:head of grown-up See also:males besides See also:commons. And yet although the population lived on a small See also:pittance, the system of tribal tenure was not abandoned. Although there are no rearrangements or redivision within the tribe as a whole, inside every gavell, representing more narrow circles of kinsmen, usually the descendants of one great-grandfather, i.e. second See also:cousins, the shares are shifted and readjusted according to one of two systems. In one case, that of the trevcyvriv or joint-See also:account village, every See also:man receives " as much as another yet not of equal value "—which means, of course, that the members of such communities were provided with equal allotments, but See also:left to make the best of them, each according to See also:chance and ability. This practice of reallotment was, however, restricted in the 14th century to taeog trevs, to villages occupied by half-free settlers. The free tribesmen, the priodarii of Wales, held by daddenhud, and reallotted shares within the trev on the coming of each new See also:generation or, conversely, on the going out, the dying out, of each older generation. In other words: at the See also:demise of the last of the grandfathers in a gavell, all the fathers took equal rank and claimed equal shares, although formerly some of the portions had been distributed equally only between the grandfathers or their offspring (stirps). The right to claim redivision held See also:good only within the circle of second cousins. Members of the kindred who stood further than that from each other, that is, third cousins, were not entitled to reallotment on the strength of daddenhud. Another fact which is brought out with See also:complete See also:evidence by the Welsh Surveys is that the tenure is ascribed to communities of kinsmen and not to chiefs or headmen. The latter certainly existed and had exerted a powerful See also:influence on the disposal of common land as well as on See also:government and See also:justice. But in the view of 14th-century surveys each township is owned not by this or the other See also:elder, but by numerous bodies of coparceners. The gavell of See also:Owen Gogh, for instance, contained twenty-six coparceners. In this way there is a clear attribution of rights of communal ownership, if we like to use the See also:term, and not merely of rights of See also:maintenance. Nor is there any See also:warrant for a construction of these arrangements on a supposed patriarchal system. Let us now compare this description of Celtic tribal tenure with Slavonic institutions. The most striking modern examples of tribal communities settled on a territorial basis are presented by the history of the See also:Southern Slays in the See also:Balkan See also:Peninsula and in See also:Austria, of See also:Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and Bulgarians, but it is easy to trace customs of the same See also:kind in the memories of Western Slays conquered by Germans, of the Poles and of the different subdivisions of the Russians. A good See also:clue to the subject is provided by a Serb See also:proverb which says that a man by himself is See also:bound to be a See also:martyr. One might almost suggest that these popular customs illustrate the Aristotelian conception of the single man seeking the " autarkeia," a complete and self-sufficient existence in the society of his See also:fellow-men, and arriving at the See also:stage of the tribal village, the yivos, which is also a Kwµ, as described in the famous See also:introductory See also:chapter of the See also:Greek philosopher's Politic:. The Slays of the mountainous regions of the Balkans and of the See also:Alps in their stubborn struggle with nature and with human enemies have clustered and still cluster to some extent 'e.g. in See also:Montenegro) in closely See also:united and widely spreading b otnerhoods (bratstva) and tribes (plemena). Some of these See also:brother-hoods derive their names from a real or supposed common ancestor, and are composed of relatives as well as of affiliated strangers. They number sometimes hundreds of members,' of guns, as the fighting males are characteristically called. Such are—the Vukoti6i, Kovacevici, as one might say in Old English —the Vukotings or Kovachevings, of Montenegro. The dwellings, See also:fields, and pasturages of these brotherhoods or kindreds are scattered over the country, and it is not always possible to trace them in compact divisions on the See also:map. But there was the closest union in See also:war, revenge, funeral See also:rites, See also:marriage arrangements, See also:provision for the poor and for those who stand in need of See also:special help, as, for instance, in case of fires, inundations and the like. And corresponding to this union there existed a strong feeling of unity in regard to property, especially property in land. Although ownership was divided among the different families, a kind of See also:superior or eminent domain stretched over the whole of the bratstvo, and was expressed in the participation in common in pasture and wood, in the right to See also:control alienations of land and to exercise pre-emption. If any of the members of the brotherhood wanted to get rid of his See also:share he had to apply first to his next of See also:kin within the See also:family and then to the further kinsmen of the bratstvo. As the Welsh kindred (progenies) were subdivided into gavel's formed of extended family communities, even so the Bosnian, Montenegrin, Servian, Slovene tribes See also:fell into See also:house communities, Kutas, Zadrugas, which were built up on the principle of keeping See also:blood-relatives and their property together as See also:long as possible. They consisted generally of some 15 to 20 grown-up persons, some 6 or 7 first and second cousins with their wives and See also:children, living in a See also:hamlet around the They range from 8o or 90 to 700.central house of the domatin, the house See also:leader. In some in-stances the number of coparceners increased to 5o or even to 70. The members of the united house community, which in fact is a small village or hamlet, joined in meals and See also:work. Their rights in the undivided See also:household of the hamlet were apportioned according to the pedigree, i.e. this See also:apportionment took account first of the stirpes or extant descendants of former scions of the family, so that, say, the offspring of each of two grandfathers who had been See also:brothers were considered as equal sharers although the stiips, the stock, of one was represented only by one See also:person, while the stirps of the other had grown to consist of two uncles and of three nephews all alive. There was no resettlement of shares, as in the case of Wales, but the life of the house community while it existed unbroken led to work in common, the contributions to which are regulated by common consent and supervised by the leader. Grounds, houses, implements of agriculture (ploughs, oxen, carts) and of viniculture—casks, cauldrons for the making of See also:brandy, &c., are considered to be common See also:capital and ought not to be sold unless by common consent. Divisions were not prohibited. Naturally a family had to See also:divide sooner or later, and the shares have to be made real, to be converted into fields and vineyards. But this was an event which marks, as it were, the See also:close of the See also:regular existence of one union and the See also:birth of similar unions derived from it. As a See also:rule, the kuta kept together as long as it could, because co-operation was needed and See also:isolation dangerous—for economic considerations as well as for the See also:sake of See also:defence. Attention, however, should be called more particularly to the parallel phenomena in the social history of the Russians, where the conditions seem to stand out in specially strong contrast with those prevailing among the See also:mountain Slays of the Balkans and of the Alps. In the enormous extent of See also:Russia we have to reckon with widely different See also:geographical and racial areas, among other, with the See also:Steppe settlements of the so-called Little Russians in the Ukraina and the See also:forest settlements of the Great Russians in the See also:north. In spite of great divergencies the economic history of all these branches of Slavonic stock gravitates towards one See also:main type, viz. towards rural unions of kinsmen, on the basis of enlarged households. In the See also:south the typical village See also:settlement is the dvoriste, the big See also:court or hamlet consisting of some four to eight related families holding together; in the north it is the petiSte, the big See also:oven, a hamlet of somewhat smaller See also:size in which three to five families are closely united for purposes of common husbandry. It is interesting to notice that even the break-up of the joint household does not See also:lead to an entire severance of the ties between its members. They mostly continue in another form, viz. in the shape of an open-field system with intermixture of strips, compulsory rotation of crops, commons of pasture, of wood, sometimes shifting allotments as regards meadows. There is, e.g. an See also:act of See also:division between six brothers from the north of Russia of the See also:year 164o. They agree to divide See also:bread and See also:salt, house and liberties, See also:money, See also:cloth and stores of all kinds and to See also:settle apart. As to arable, Shumila is to take the upper See also:strip in the field by the settlement, and next to him Tretjak, then See also:Maxim, then Zaviala, then Shestoy, then See also:Luke. In the big See also:harvest See also:furlong likewise, and in the small likewise, and by the meadow likewise and so on through all the furlongs. So that in this case and in innumerable other cases of the same kind the open-field system with its inconvenient intermixture of plots and limited See also:power of every husbandman to See also:manage his land appears as a direct continuation of the joint tribal households. Another fact to be noticed is the tendency to form artificial associations on the See also:pattern of the prevailing unions of kinsmen. See also:People who have no blood-relations to See also:appeal to for clearing the waste, for providing the necessary capital in the way of cattle and plough implements, for raising and fitting out buildings, join in order to carry on these economic under-takings, and also to help each other against enemies and aggressors. The members of these voluntary associations, which at once See also:call to mind See also:German, Norse and English See also:gilds, are called " siabri," " skladniki," and the gilds themselves " spblkfe," in south Russia. In a See also:district of the Ukraina called the " Ratensky Sharostvo " there were no fewer than 278 such gilds interchanging with natural kindreds. The organization of all these unions could in no way be called patriarchal. Even in cases when there is a definite elder or headman (bolshoy), he was only the first among equals and exercised only a limited authority over his See also:fellows: all the important decisions had to be taken by the See also:council of the community. In Great Russia, in the districts gathered under the sway of the See also:Moscow tsars, the basis of the household community and of the rural settlements which sprang from it was modified in another direction. The entire agricultural population was subjected to strict supervision and coercive See also:measures for purposes of military organization and See also:taxation. Society was drilled into uniformity and service on the principle that every man has to serve the See also:tsar, the upper class in war and See also:civil See also:administration, the See also:lower class by agricultural labour. A consequence of the heavy See also:burden laid on the land and of the growth of a landed See also:aristocracy somewhat resembling the gentry and the noblesse of the See also:West was a See also:change in the management of land allotments. They became as much a badge of service and a basis for fiscal requirements as a means of livelihood. The result was the practice of reallotments according to the strength and the needs of different families. The shifting of arable (peredel) was not in this case a reapportionment of rights, but a consequence of the See also:correspondence between rights and obligations. But although this admeasurement of claims appears as a comparatively See also:recent growth of the system, the fundamental solidarity between kinsmen or neighbourly associates grouped into villages was in no way an invention of the tsars or of their officials: it was rooted in traditional customs and naturally suggested by the practices of joint households. When these households become crowded in certain areas, open-field systems arise; when they are burdened with public and private service their close co-operation produces occasional or periodical redivisions of the soil between the shareholders. Let us now pass to village communities in See also:Teutonic countries, including See also:England. A convenient starting-point is afforded by the social and economic conditions of the southern part of See also:Jutland. Now the Saxon or Ditmarschen portion of this region gives us an opportunity of observing the effects of an extended and highly systematized tribal organization on Germanic soil. The See also:independence of this See also:northern See also:peasant See also:republic, which reminds one of the Swiss cantons, lasted until the time of the See also:Reformation. We find the Ditmarschen organized in the 15th, as they had been in the loth century, in a number of large kindreds, partly composed of relatives by blood and partly of " cousins " who had joined them. The membership of these kindreds is based on agnatic ties—that is, on relationship through males—or on See also:affiliation as a substitute for such agnatic kinship. The families or households are grouped into brother-hoods, and these again into clans or " Schlachten " (Geschlechter), corresponding to See also:Roman genies. Some of them could put as many as 500 warriors in the field. They took their names from ancestors and chieftains: the Wollersmannen, Hennemannen, Jerremannen, &c.—that is, the men of Woll, the men of Henne, the men of Jerre.. In spite of these See also:personal names the organization of the clans was by no means a monarchical one: it was based on the participation of the full-grown fighting men in the government of each See also:clan and on a council of co-opted elders at the head of the entire federation. We need not repeat here what has already been stated about the mutual support which such clans afforded to their members in war and in See also:peace, in judicial and in economic matters. Let us notice the influence of this tribal organization on husbandry and property. The regular economic arrangement was an open-field otie based on a three-field and similar systems. The furlongs were divided into intermixed strips with cornpulsory rotation on the usual pattern. And it is interesting to notice that in these economic surroundings indivisible holdings corresponding to the organic unities required for efficient agriculture arose of themselves. In spite of the equal right of all coheirs to an See also:estate, this estate does not get divided according to their See also:numbers, but either remains undivided or else falls into such fractions, halves or fourths, which will enable the farming to be carried on successfully, without mischievous interruption and disruption. Gradually the people settled down into the See also:custom of united See also:succession for agrarian See also:units. The Hufe or See also:Hof, the virgate, as might have been said in England, goes mostly to the eldest son, but also sometimes to the youngest, while the brothers of the See also:heir either remain in the same household with him, generally unmarried, or leave the house after having settled with the heir, who takes See also:charge of the holding, as to an See also:indemnity for their relinquished claims. This indemnity is not See also:equivalent to the See also:market See also:price, but is fixed, in case of dispute or doubt, by an See also:award of impartial and See also:expert neighbours, who have to consider not only the claims of interested persons but also the economic quality and strength of the holding. In other words, the heir has to pay so much as the estate can conveniently provide without being wrecked by the outlay. This evidence is of decisive importance in regard to the formation of unified holdings; we are on entirely free soil, with no vestige whatever of manorial organization or of See also:coercion of tenants by the See also:lord, and yet the Hufe, the normal holding, comes to the fore as a result of the economic situation, on the strength of considerations See also:drawn from the efficiency of the farming. This " Anerben " system is widely spread all through See also:Germany. The question whether the eldest or the youngest succeeds is a subordinate one. Anyhow, manorial authority is not necessary to produce the See also:limitation of the rights of succession to land and the creation of the system of holdings, although this has been often asserted, and one of the arguments for a servile origin of village communities turns on a supposed incompatibility between unified succession and the equal rights of free coheirs. We need not speak at any length about other parts of Germany, as space does not permit of a description of the innumerable combinations of communal and individual elements in German law, the various shapes of manorial and See also:political institutions with which the influence of blood relationship, gild and neighbourly union had to struggle. But we must point out'some facts from the range of. Scandinavian customs. In the mountainous districts of See also:Norway we notice the same tendency towards the unification of holdings as in the plains and hills of See also:Schleswig and See also:Holstein. The bonder of Gudbrandsdalen and Telemarken, the free peasantry tilling the soil and pasturing herds on the slopes of the hills since the days of Harold Harfagr to our own times, sit in Odalgaards, or See also:freehold estates, from which supernumerary heirs are removed on receiving some indemnity, and which are protected from See also:alienation into See also:strange hands by the See also:privilege of pre-emption exercised by relatives of the seller. Equally suggestive are some facts on the Danish See also:side of the Straits, viz. the arrangements of the Nils which correspond to the hides and virgates of England and to the Hufen of Germany. Here again we have to do with normal holdings See also:independent of the number of coheirs, but dependent on the requirements of agriculture—on the plough and oxen, on certain See also:constant relations between the arable of an estate and its outlying commons, meadows and See also:woods. The bol does not stand by itself like the See also:Norwegian gaard, but is fitted into a very close union with neighbouring bols of the same kind. Practices of coaration, of open-field intermixture, of compulsory rotation of See also:lot-meadows, of stinting the commons, arise of themselves in the villages of See also:Denmark and See also:Sweden. Laws compiled in the 13th century but based on even more ancient customs give us most interesting and definite See also:information as to Scandinavian practices of See also:allotment. We catch a glimpse, to begin with, of a method of dividing fields which was considered archaic even in those See also:early times. The See also:Swedish laws use the expression " forniskift," which means ancient mode of allotment, and another term corresponding to it is " hamarskift," which may possibly be connected with throwing the See also:hammer in order to See also:mark the boundary of land occupied by a man's strength. The two principal features of forni or See also:hamar skift are the irregularity of the resulting shapes of plots and the temporary character of their occupation. The first observation may be substantiated by a description like that of Laasby in Jutland: " These lands are to that extent scattered and intermixed by the joint owners that it cannot be said for certain what (or how much) they are." Swedish documents, on the other hand, speak expressly of practices of shifting arable and meadows periodically, some-times year by year. Now the uncertainty of these practices based on occupation became in See also:process of time a most inconvenient feature of the situation and evidently led to constant wrangling as to rights and boundaries. The description of Laasby which I have just quoted ends with the significant remark: " They should be compelled to make allotment by the See also:cord." This making of allotments by the cord is the process of rebning, from reb, the surveyor's cord, and the juridical See also:procedure necessary for it was called " solskift "—because it was a division following the course of the See also:sun. The two fundamental positions from which this form of allotment proceeds are: (1) that the whole area of the village is common land (faellesjord), which has to be lotted out to the single householders; (2) that the See also:partition should result in the creation of equal holdings of normal size (bbls). In some cases we can actually recognize the effect of these allotments by ancient solskift in the 18th century, at a time when the Danish enclosure acts produced a second general revolution in land tenure. The See also:oldest twelve inhabitants, elected as sworn arbitrators for effecting the allotment, begin their work by throwing together into one See also:mass all the grounds owned by the members of the community, including dwellings and See also:farm-buildings, with the exception of some privileged plots. There is a close correspondence between the sites of houses and the shares in the field. The first operation of the surveyors consists in marking out a village See also:green for the See also:night-See also:rest and pasture of the cattle employed in the tillage (forth), and to assign sites to the houses of the coparceners with orchards appendant to them (tofts); every householder getting exactly as much as his See also:neighbour. From the tofts they proceed to the fields on the customary notion that the toft is the See also:mother of the field. The fields are disposed into furlongs and shots, as they were called in England, and divided among the members of the village with the strictest possible equality. This is effected by assigning to every householder a strip in every one of the furlongs constituting the arable of the village. Meadows were often treated as lot-meadows in the same way as in England. According to the account of a solrebning executed in 1513 (Oester Hoejsted), every oiling, the eighth part of a bbl (corresponding to the English oxgang or bovate), got a toft of 40 roods in length and 6 in breadth. One of the coparceners received, however, 8 roods because his land was worse than that of his neighbours. Of the arable there were allotted to each otting two roods' breadth for the plough in each furlong and appendant commons " in See also:damp and in dry "—in meadow and pasture. After such a " solskift " the peasants held their tenements in undisturbed ownership, but the eminent See also:demesne of the village was_ recognized and a revision of the allotment was possible. Many such revisions did actually take See also:place, and in such cases all rights and claims were apportioned according to the See also:standard of the original shares. Needless to say that these shares were subjected to all the usual limitations of See also:champion farming. After having said so much about different types of village communities which occur in See also:Europe it will be easier to analyse the incidents of English land tenure which disclose the work-See also:ing of similar conceptions and arrangements. Features which have been very prominent in the case of the Welsh, Slays, Germans or Scandinavians recur in the English instances some-times with equal force and at other times in a mitigated shape. There are some vestiges of the purely tribal form of community on English soil: Many of the place-names of early Saxon and See also:Anglican settlements are derived from personal names with the suffix ing, as designations like Oakington, the town of the Hockings.
True, it is just possible to explain some of these place-names as pointing to settlements belonging to some great man and therefore taking their designation from him with the See also:adjunct of an ing indicating possession. But the See also:group of words in question falls in exactly with the common patronymics of Saxon and German families and kindreds, and therefore it is most probable, as See also:Kemble supposed, that we have to do in most of these instances with tribal and family settlements, although the See also:mere fact of belonging to a great landowner' or a monastery may have been at the See also:root of some cases.
A very noticeable consequence of tribal habits in regard to landownership is presented by the difficulties which stood in the way of alienation of land by the occupiers of it. The Old English legal system did not originally admit of any alienation of See also:folkland, land held by folkright, or, in other words, of the estates owned under the See also:ordinary customary law of the people. Such land could not be bequeathed out of the kindred and could not be sold without the consent of the kinsmen. Such complete disabilities cculd not be upheld indefinitely, however, in a growing and progressive community, and we find the ancient folkright assailed from different points of view. The See also: ' It would have been absurd to build up these practices cf compulsory rotation of crops, of a temporary relapse of plots into common pasture between harvest and ploughing time, of the interdependence of thrifty and negligent husbandmen in respect of weeds and times of cultivation, &c., from the point of view of individual appropriation. On the other hand, it was the natural system for the apportionment of claims to the shareholder's of an organic and perpetual joint-stock See also:company. Practices of shifting arable are seldom reported in English evidence. There are some traces of periodical redivisions of arable land in See also:Northumberland: under the name of runrig system such practices seem to have been not uncommon in the See also:outer fields, the non-manured portions of townships in See also:Scotland, both among the Saxon inhabitants of the lowlands and the Celtic population of the See also:highlands. The joining of small tenants for the purpose of coaration, for the formation of the big, heavy ploughs, drawn by eight oxen, also produced sometimes the shifting in the possession of strips between the coparceners of the undertaking. But, as a rule, the arable was held in severalty by the different members of the township. On the other hand, meadows were constantly owned by entire townships and distributed between the tenements entitled to shares from year to year either by lot or according to a definite order. These practices are in full vigour in some places even at the present day. Any person living in See also:Oxford may See also:witness the See also:distribution by lot on See also:Lammas day (1st of See also:August) of the Lammas meadows, that is, the meadows inclosed for the sake of raising See also:hay-grass in the village of Yarnton, some three See also:miles to the north of Oxford. Let us, however, return for a moment to the arable. Although held in severalty by different owners it was subjected to all sorts of interference on the part of the village union as represented in later ages by the manorial court framing by-laws and settling the course of cultivation. It might also happen that in consequence of encroachments, disputes and general uncertainty as to possession and boundaries, the whole distribution of the strips of arable in the various fields had to be gone over and regulated anew. In an interesting case reported from a Cartulary of See also:Dunstable in See also:Bedfordshire, all the possessions of the villagers in a place called Segenhoe were thrown together in the 12th century and redivided according to an award of experts chosen by a See also:meeting of the villagers from among the oldest and wisest inhabitants.
Exactly as in the Danish examples quoted before, the strips were apportioned, not to the single owners, but to the normal holdings, the hides, and the actual owners had to take them in proportion to their several rights in the hides. This point is very important. It gives the English village community its peculiar See also:stamp. It is a community not between single members or casual households, but between determined holdings constructed on a proportional See also:scale. Although there was no provision for the admeasurement and equalization of the claims of See also: The German examples adduced in the beginning of this See also:article See also:teach us that the See also:device is not suggested primarily by the See also:interest of the landlord. Unified succession takes the place of the equal rights of sons, because it is the better method for preserving the economic efficiency of the household and of the See also:tenement corresponding to it. There are exceptions, the most notorious being that of Kentish See also:gavelkind, but in agricultural districts the holding remains undivided as long as possible, and if it gets divided, the division follows the lines not of the casual number of coheirs, but of the organic elements of the ploughlands. Fourths and eighths arise in connexion with natural fractions of the ploughteam of eight oxen. One more feature of the situation remains to be noticed, and it is the one which is still before oxsr eyes in all parts ofthe country, that is, the commons which have survived the wholesale process of inclosure. They were an integral part of the ancient village community from the first, not only because the whole ground of a township could not be taken up by arable and meadows, at a time when population was scanty, but because there existed the most intimate connexion between the agricultural and pastoral part of husbandry in the time of the open-field system. Pasture was not treated as a commodity by itself but was mostly considered as an adjunct, as appendant to the arable, and so was the use of woods and of See also:turf. This fact was duly emphasized, e.g. in an Elizabethan case reported by See also:Coke—Tyrringham's case. The problem of admeasurement of pasture was regulated in the same way as that of the apportionment of arable strips, by a reference to the proportional holdings, the hides, yardiands and oxgangs of the township, and the only question to be decided was how many heads of cattle and how many sheep each hide and yardland had the right to send to the common pasturage grounds. When in course of time the open-field system and the tenure of arable according to holdings were given up, the right of free-holders and copyholders of the old manors in which the ancient townships were, as it were, encased, still held good, but it became much more difficult to estimate and to apportion such rights. In connexion with the individualistic policy of inclosure the old See also:writ of admeasurement of commons was abolished in 1837 (3 & 4 Will. IV.). The ordinary expedient is to make out how much commonable cattle could be kept by the tenements claiming commons through the See also:winter. It is very characteristic and important that in the leading modern case on sufficiency of commons—in See also:Robertson v. Hartopp—it was admitted by the Court of Appeal that the sufficiency has to be construed as a right of turning out a certain number of beasts on the common, quite apart from the number which had been actually turned out at any given time. Now a vested right has to be construed from the point of view of the time when it came into existence. The See also:standards used to estimate such rights ought not to be drawn from modern practice, which might help to dispense altogether with commons of pasture by See also:stable feeding, substitutes for grass, &c., but ought to correspond to the ordinary usages established at a time when the open-field system was in full vigour. The legal view stands thus at present, but we cannot conceal from ourselves that after all the inroads achieved by individual appropriation it is by no means certain that the reference to the rights and rules of a previous period will continue to be recognized. However this may be, in the present commons we have certainly a system which draws its roots from customs, as to the origin of which legal memory does not run. We may, in conclusion, summarize very briefly the principal results of our inquiry as to the history of See also:European village communities. It seems that they may be stated under the following heads: (r) See also:Primitive stages of See also:civilization disclose in human society a strong tendency towards mutual support in economic matters as well as for the sake of defence. (2) The most natural form assumed by such unions for defence and co-operation is that of kinship. (3) In epochs of pastoral husbandry and of the beginnings of agriculture land is mainly owned by tribes, kindreds and enlarged households, while individuals enjoy only rights of usage and possession. (4) In course of time unions of neighbours are substituted for unions of kinsmen. (5) In Germanic See also:societies the community of the township rests on the See also:foundation of efficient holdings-b6ls, hides, hufen—kept together as far as possible by rules of united or single succession. (6) The open-field system, which prevailed in the whole of Northern Europe for nearly a thousand years, was closely dependent on the customs of tribal and neighbourly unions. (7) Even now the treatment of commons represents the last manifestations of ancient communal arrangements, and it can only be reasonably and justly interpreted by reference to the law and practice of former times. AurnoarrIES.—See also:Sir H. S. See also:Maine, Village Communities in the See also:East and West (1872) ; E. de See also:Laveleye, See also:Des Ureigenthum, ubers. von K. See also:Bucher (See also:Leipzig, 1879) ; A. Meitzen, Siedelung and Agrarwesen der Westgermanen and Ostgermanen, der Kelten, Romer, Finnenuud,Slaven. Wanderungen, Anbau and Agrarrechl der Volker Europas nordlich der ,4lpen (4 vols., See also:Berlin, 1895); F. de Coulanges, See also:Les Origines de la See also:pro priete (See also:Paris, 1893) ; M. Kovalewsky, See also:Die okonomische Entwicklung Europas bis zum Beginn der kapitalischen Wirtschaftsform (Berlin, 1901) ; B. H. See also:Baden-See also:Powell, The See also:Indian Village Community (See also:London, 1896); The Land Systems of See also:British See also:India (Oxford, 1892); J. See also:Jolly, Tagore Lectures on the Law of See also:Inheritance and Succession in India; Th. See also:Mommsen, Romische Forschungen (Berlin, 1864); P. See also:Guiraud, La Proprieti fonciere en Grece jusqu' a la conquete Romaine (Paris, 1893) ; R. Pohlmann, Geschichte des antiken Kommunismus and Socialismus (Munchen, 1893); F. de Coulanges, La Cite See also:antique (Paris, 1872) ; F. Seebohm, The Tribal System in Wales (London, 1904) ; H. S. Maine, Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (London, 1875); H. d'See also:Arbois de Jubainville, La Famille celtique, (Paris, 1905) ; Coors de litterature celtique (Paris, 1902) ; R. See also: Peisxer, Die alteren Beziehungen der Slawen zu Turkotataren and Germanen and ihre sozialgeschichtliche Bedeutung (See also:Stuttgart, 1905) ; G. See also:Cohn, Gemeindenschaft and Hausgenossenschaft (Zeitschrift See also:fur vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft, XI I?., 1899) ; Bogine, Zborniken (Servian Collection of modern legal customs of the Southern Slays (See also:Agram, 1874) ; De la forme date Inokosna de la famille rurale chez les Serbes et les Croates (Paris, 1884) ; T. T. Smirnoff, See also:Sketch of Culture History of the Southern Slays (Kazan, 1900) (See also:Russian) ; F. Krauss, Sitte and Brauch der St dslaven (Wien, 1885) ; A. Tschuproff, Die Feldgemeinschaft (See also:Strassburg, 1902) ; A. Efimenko, Southern Russia (Russian), vol. i. (1901); Peasant Land-tenure in the Extreme North, I. (Russian) (1884) ; B. Cieerin, Essays on the History of Russian Law (Russian) ; V. Sergievil, Antiquities of Russian Law, III. (Russian) (St See also:Petersburg, 1903) ; Koearovsky, The Russian Village Community (Russian) (1906); A. See also:Kaufmann, The Russian Village Community, I. (Russian) (Moscow, 1908); G. L. von .See also:Maurer, Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark-, Hof-, Dorf- and Stadtverfassung and der offentlichen Gewalt (Munchen, 1854) ; Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland (See also:Erlangen, 1856) ; Geschichte der Fronhofe, der Bauernhofe and der Hofvcrfassung in Deutschland (4 vols., Erlangen, 1862) ; Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland (2 vols., Erlangen, 1865) ; F. de Coulanges, Histaire des institutiors politiques de l'ancienne See also:France (Paris, 1875—91); J. See also:Flach, Les Origines de l'ancienne France (Paris, 1893) ; E. Glasson, Les Communaux et le domaine rurale d l'ipoque franque: riponse a M. Fustel de Coulanges (Paris, 1890) ; K. Lamprecht, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben See also:im Mittelalter (4 vols., Leipzig, 1885) ; F. Knapp, Grundherrschaft and Rittergut (Leipzig, 1897) ; W. Wittich, Die Grundherrschaft in Nordwest Deutschland (Leipzig, 1896) ; Rhamm, Die Grosshafen der Nordgermanen (1905) ; G. Haussen, Agrarhistorische Abhandlungen (2 vols., Leipzig, 1880); H. See also:Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1887); R. See also:Schroder, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (2nd ed., 1894); Fr. Seebohm, Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law (London, 1902) ; M. Sering, Erbrecht and Agrarverfassung in Schleswig-Holstein (Berlin, 1968); F. \V. See also:Maitland and Sir F. See also:Pollock, The History of English Law before the Time of See also:Edward I. (See also:Cambridge, 1895) ; F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England (Cambridge, 1897) ; Township and Borough (See also:Cam-See also:bridge, 1898) ; Fr. Seebohm, The English Village Community (London, 1884) ; P. See also:Vinogradoff, Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892) ; The Growth of the See also:Manor (London, 1905); English Society in the zzth Century (Oxford, 1907) ; G. L. Gomme, The Village Community (London, 189o) ; C. I. See also:Elton, A See also:Treatise on Commons and Waste Lands (London, 1868) ; Th. E. Scrutton, Commons and Commonfields (Cambridge, 1887) ; J. See also:Williams, Rights of Commons (London) ; j Steenstrup, Studier over See also:Kong Valdemars Jordebog (See also:Copenhagen) ; Lauridsen, Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed, II Raekke, vol. ii. (Copenhagen, 1896) ; Steman, Dansk Retshistorie (Copenhagen, 1871) ; A. Taranger, Norsk Retshistorie (See also:Christiania, 1899). (P. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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