2l6 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (3) 



the rights which the freeholders and copyholders in the 

 manor enjoy depended originally on the grant of the lord." 



Another theory arises out of historical researches. It 

 traces the origin to much earlier times, when the Teutonic 

 village community cultivated and owned their land in 

 common, holding that the degeneration of this community 

 came through the strong influence of one of its members, 

 who ultimately became its lord. 



A third theory — which may be called " intermediate " — 

 is the one supported by Mr Seebohm, who shows that, 

 at all events before the Conquest, a system of agriculture 

 did exist, in form, manorial. 



It would seem, then, almost impossible to give a precise 

 date, or assign any single cause to account for this early 

 ownership and cultivation. 



Professor Maitland* says " The open field system of 

 agriculture prevails as well in the free villages as in those 

 that are under the control of the lord." 



That certain customs, however, do exist dating from 

 ancient, even perhaps pre-historic times, before the Aryan 

 settlement, is probable, e.g. the election of a mock mayor 

 in some towns in Cornwall, while a custom in the village 

 of Randwick, in Gloucestershire, points to the former 

 election of an official of whose duties all trace has been 

 lost. 



The title of certain plots of land called " No-man's 

 Land," or, as in Upton St. Leonard's, "Norman's Acre," 

 looks back to the same archaic time. The explanation 

 has been found among the villagers of India. " A Surna, 

 among the aborigines of Gangpore, is a fragment of a 

 primeval forest left where the first clearance was made as 

 a refuge for the sylvan deities who might have thus been 

 disturbed. On such plots, too, there is a record of a 



* Edinburgh /iVrvWc, 381, p. 117, July, 1897. 



