APPENDIX 



PART I 



A. The Tun, the Vill and the Parish 



ENGLISH country people have, from very early times, been 

 grouped into small communities, living in definite areas. Before 

 the Norman Conquest the area was called the ' tun ' ; this word 

 means a wall or boundary and was in the first instance applied 

 to the fenced-in settlements. After the Conquest the word ' tim,' 

 modified into ' town,' continued for centuries to be applied to 

 the village and the area of land that went with it, and the word 

 is employed in the old sense in New England to-day. At the 

 same time a new title, the ' vill/ came into use. 



Later, in the XVIth century, and perhaps before that time, 

 the civil parish is the unit. The ' vill ' may be described as 

 the direct descendant of the ' tun/ but the parish is, of course, a 

 very old division, created by the Church, into which the vill 

 seems to have merged, giving the parish a double character, 

 civil and ecclesiastical. 



The words 'tun' and 'vill/ like 'parish/ are also often applied 

 to the community itself. 



The powers and duties of the communities varied from time 

 to time, but the characteristic features were these : 



1. The democratic transaction of business in open meeting, 

 the tun-moot of Saxon times, the town's meeting of a later 

 period, then the vestry, and finally the parish meeting of to-day. 



2. The election of special officers for the management of such 

 affairs as the community had to deal with. 



3. A right to levy rates and taxes either for local expenses, or 

 to provide an amount levied on the community by a superior 

 authority. 



B. Socage Tenants 



From the Xlllth century onwards free tenants, other than 

 those who held by military tenure, were known as ' socage 

 tenants' or 'tenants in socage/ On estates that were or had 



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