

Roman Britain and Early England 19 



We should not be surprised that this plan was adopted. It would 

 have been much more wonderful if anything different had been 

 done. A community of hunters and warriors, accustomed to 

 divide the game and venison at the end of the day, and the 

 plunder at the end of the raid, equally among them, what else 

 could they do ? If the bag consisted of partridges, hares, deei, 

 and wild boars, each man had one of each, or a portion of each. 

 So to the different kinds of land they must apply the hunters', 

 the warriors', rules. They knew nothing better, and their ideal 

 was good. The desire for equal and fair treatment is the most 

 powerful and unquenchable in human nature, but it is not the 

 only one. Very strong and deep is the desire of men to find the 

 easiest way of doing things, and if a plan intended to secure fair 

 play does not also secure economy and efficiency it is bound to fail. 

 The progress of agriculture depends (i) on man's knowledge of 

 the nature of soils and seeds, and of the proper way in which to 

 handle them, and (2) on his knowledge of human nature, and of 

 the way in which men should treat each in order, as the German 

 chiefs said, ' to preserve their contentment ', their loyalty to each 

 other in their pursuit of a common enterprise. For hundreds of 

 years there are few achievements to record on either of these 

 possible lines of progress. 



Growth of the Manor 



THE restless spirit which was driving the German tribes and 

 the Northmen southward and westward into France and Britain 

 was shaping all their habits and customs. As the dominion of 

 Rome shrank, or was beaten, back into Italy and south-west 

 Europe, those tribes pressed forward to take its place. There are 

 few parts of the world, and few periods in its history, in which 

 fighting was so incessant as in western Europe between 450 and 



B 2 



