loqh Domesday and Feudal Statistics 



late been credited with statements, whose inconsistencies 

 could tcarcely have failed to impress the well informed 

 readers of his own day. In one version the word mutant is 

 supposed to refer to a rotation, and ager is rendered fa/low''' 

 (I know not on what authority) ; it is clear therefore arva is 

 either equivalent to all the ploughed land, or such of it as is 

 sown, so that Tacitus is constrained to say that (a) the entire 

 arable is in rotation, and () a fallow is left, the (l>) statement 

 being contained in (a\ as the mere fact of a shift denotes a 

 fallow, or else that the land under crop (or some of it) is 

 changed to a fallmt 1 , and a falloiv is left, which reading is 

 alike elegant and cogent with the other. f In another 

 lectio (A. J. Church, M.A., Latin text, 1898, notes) the word 

 mutant is attributed to a change of occupancy ; but certain 

 t is that the mere usure of a piece of ploughed land by 

 &5es~frinceps t dux, or ingenuus in turns has nothing what- 

 ever to do with the relative abundancy of the fields other 

 than arable (here agri), the above version leaving the rest of 

 the sentence connected by et in suspense "betwixt earth, 

 air, and seas," and void of meaning, whereas the ploughing 

 of ley land reduces the ager, for the simple reason that land 

 left from the plough would not be particularly profitable ager 

 for some time to come ; further, the alternate occupation of 

 arable presupposes a rotation, and how mere difference of 

 owners year after year on the arva could affect the ager is a 

 mystery that no one (tenuiter edoctus) can hope to explain. 

 It has been stated (supra) that Tacitus does not absolutely 

 negative rotations, but if arva per annos mutant requires the 

 rendering that all the arable is changed p.a., the ploughed 



* If it is held that the change implies rotations which include fallow, 

 and hence a diminution of the grass land (ager), this would mark a con- 

 trast between a nation using no, or not so much \axzf allow, and one ac- 

 customed to some, or more of it, and hence relative extravagance of 

 Husbandry : at the same time the latter would not change their arable 

 (as with 2 fields in a 2 course shift both would be arva}, but merely its 

 cultivation ; further the literal rendering of the words arva per annos 

 mutant (an actual change of fields), is full of meaning, whereas ideas 

 read in, to support theories (e.g., they change their fields amongst them- 

 selves, or change the crops in their fields, or change their arable from 

 crop to fallow) are rebutted as well by the context, as the inconsistencies 

 they involve. 



t Arva seems to denote the entire arable (whatever was "ered"), 

 rather than only that portion sown ; and a possible, but improbable, 

 reading might be formed by limiting arva to seeded arable, and by 

 supposing the Romans made little use of bare fallows rendering ager 

 as land not under the plough. 



