ORIGIN OF COMMONS. 7 



them fixity of tenure, with rights of pasturage and 

 turbary over the adjoining mountains and moors ; and 

 the owners of such uncultivated lands would have had 

 their ownership qualified by the rights of their 

 neighbours, as was the case with Lords of Manors in 

 England. 



There has been much discussion of late years as to 

 the origin of English Commons. Till lately, the 

 views of the feudal lawyers of mediaeval times were 

 generally accepted, equally by antiquarians and his- 

 torians, as by the Courts of Law. It was held that 

 these open and uninclosed tracts were the uncultivated 

 parts of areas of land, or Manors, granted originally by 

 the Sovereign to individual owners, and that the rights 

 of common over such wastes, enjoyed by the freehold 

 and copyhold tenants of such Manors, had arisen from 

 grants by their superior lords, or by custom, later 

 recognised by law, in derogation of the lord's rights. 



Owing, however, to the investigations of Professor 

 Nasse, Von Maurer, Sir Henry Maine, and others, 

 another theory is now more generally accepted : namely, 

 that the common rights now existing are in most 

 cases survivals of a system of collective ownership of 

 land by the inhabitants of their several districts, the 

 prevalence of which in the early stages of communities 

 has been traced over the greater part of Europe. 

 Under this system there was originally no individual 

 ownership of land. It was owned in common by 

 village communities. That portion of it only which 

 was suitable and necessary for the production of corn 



