THE EPOCHS OF GERMAN AGRARIAN HISTORY 227 



which has come down to our day, the dualism of isolated farm- 

 steads and of villages. Against the theory advanced by Meitzen 

 but never generally accepted, that the individual farms are Celtic, 

 the village settlements Teutonic, are pitted the theories of Knapp, 

 \\ittich, and Hildebrand : Knapp explains the different forms of 

 settlement from the quality of the soil; Wittich and Hildebrand 

 ve in the individual farmstead the general primitive form of 

 settlement. Furthermore, there is the question of the origin of 

 the mixed lots, that is, the field system characteristic of the old 

 German village settlement, whereby the fields of the individual do 

 not f>rm one whole as in the isolated farmsteads, but are divided 

 according to the quality of the soil and scattered over a large 

 lying in neighborly proximity like the farmsteads in the 

 village. In this case the question is whether an intentional ration- 

 alistic origin of this peculiar division is to be assumed, substan- 

 tiating the alleged equal claims of the members of the mark or 

 village community to equally valuable lots ; or a historical origin, 

 due to the gradual cultivation of the different tracts or to contin- 

 uous .division ; or else a conscious creation of this system, not by 

 village community, but by a lord, for the realization not so 

 much of like rights as of like duties. Hanssen, Meitzen, Knapp, 

 Hildebrand, represent here just so many different theories. 



Finally, if we assume that the origin of the manorial system 



dates from the first settlement, we must necessarily adopt a view. 



different from the current notion, as to the origin of the large 



manorial estates in the time of the Carolingians. It is, then, no 



ion of the origin of the manorial system in general. 



but only of the large manorial estates. In accordance with this 



ption the persons described in the deeds of transfer and 



commendation are not formerly free peasants, who give thcm- 



^ up to a manorial estate, but small lords, who transfer 



their farms, together with the bond peasants settled on them, to 



a greater lord, and receive them back from him in fief. 



It is not here my ta :mine these hypotheses with criti- 



cal thoroughness, nor to decide these old and new controx 

 questions; I v feel competent to do so, and without 



further investigations the solution is as yet wholly impossible. 



