The Bu'th of the English Land System. 



I =; 



public land had ceased to exist. Private holdings had in- 

 creased in size and quality, the farming class had declined, and 

 slave labour had spread. 



Imperial Rome, however, carried forward the idea of the 

 public field under the same name, but with a different policy. 

 Land was continually being added to the Ager Publicus by 

 conquest ; onl}'-, instead of being subject to the Leges Agrarise, 

 it was, in the greater part of the Empire, administered by the 

 procurators under imperial instructions. 



Military frontiers had to be formed, whereby men received 

 grants of land on threatened and exposed boundaries which 

 they were called upon to defend in times of danger. 



But in the ^ majority of cases (Britain among others) the 

 soil of the provincial communities was " ager publicus extra 

 commercium," that is to say, it was never allowed to pass out 

 of the hands of the State, and was always chargeable with a 

 land tax, even when held by the Roman citizens. This State 

 charge took the shape of a tribute payable by the inhabitants 

 of the conquered countries. It may be divided into tv/o heads : 

 the " tributum soli," a tax on real property (of which the 

 scriptura, decunice, etc., would be classed by the Roman as 

 vectigales), and the " tributum capitis," which was not so 

 much a poll tax as a charge on the earnings of the individuals 

 composing the industrial community. In the wilder districts 

 of the Roman provinces the tribute was obtained from personal 

 property. It was, no doubt, levied in the half-civilised districts 

 of Britain, as we know it to have been levied in half-civilised 

 Spain. Thus, probably, each tribe would be made responsible 

 for a certain amount, which was payable in such commodities 

 as ox-hides and the like. As the principal portion of Britain 

 was waste, and as the majority of its industrial classes were 

 cattle farmers, it is more than probable that wherever the 

 British soil came directly under the Roman fiscal of&cer's 

 jurisdiction it did so as pasturage under the scriptura system. 

 But it would be an error to imagine that all parts of Britain 

 were treated alike, or that any one part was taxed on exactly 



. ' Willeius, Broil Tnhl. Eovi. 



