660 Hon. George C. Brodrick [May 6, 



pasturage and turf-cutting. Meanwhile, other causes were at work 

 to undermine the landed democracy, and transform it into a landed 

 aristocracy, under which the village community became the manor, 

 the greater freeholders became tenants, and the lesser freeholders 

 sank into the class of villeins or mere labourers. We must not stop 

 to investigate the steps by which this remarkable transition was 

 effected. Suffice it to say, that it seems to have been completely 

 effected in most parts of England before the Norman Conquest, and 

 had been partially, if not completely, effected in Ireland, when it 

 passed under the rule of Henry II. a century later. 



During the Middle Ages, the land systems of both countries were 

 profoundly modified by the introduction of feudal tenures. Not that 

 feudal tenures, with all their well-known incidents, were substituted 

 all at once for the old national customs by a single act of the 

 sovereign power. Even in England more than a century elapsed 

 before feudalism was fully established, and even then it was subject 

 to imj)ortant exceptions in Kent and elsewhere. As for Ireland, the 

 greater part of the island remained outside the dominion of English 

 law until the reign of Henry VIII. For some little time after the 

 Conquest, an attempt was made to extend the new institution of 

 judicial assizes over the whole country, and Magna Charta was pro- 

 claimed there as promptly as if Ireland had already formed part of 

 an United Kingdom. But, in fact, both English law and English 

 authority were confined within the boundaries of a few counties, 

 thence called the English Pale. These counties at last dwindled 

 down to four, and even here the old Irish customs of land tenure, as 

 well as the old Irish manners, had encroached more and more upon 

 English customs and land tenures. The King of England was not 

 king, but only " Lord," of Ireland ; but one English army (under 

 Eichard II.) crossed the Irish Channel in the course of three or four 

 centuries ; and we know, from the works of Edmund Spenser and 

 Sir John Davies, that all the strange anomalies of tribal ownership 

 survived in vast tracts of Ireland up to the end of Elizabeth's reign, 

 and the beginning of James I.'s reign. 



Still, the feudal system is the real basis of the English and Irish 

 land laws, as they exist at this moment. I must assume that my 

 audience is sufficiently acquainted with the broad outlines of that 

 system, which ceased to govern the whole structure of society after 

 the Eeformation, but which continued to regulate the land tenures of 

 most European countries until after the French Revolution. In 

 England, it is true, it was otherwise. " Feudal tenures," in the strict 

 legal sense, were abolished here in the reign of Charles II., but, 

 perhaps for that very reason, the principles and rules of feudal law 

 escaped revision here, when they were swept away elsewhere, and 

 have left an indelible stamp on the distinctive features of the Anglo- 

 Irish land-system. 



II. These features are five in number : — (1) The law and custom 

 of Primogeniture, governing the descent and ownership of land. 



