The Birth of the English Land System. 19 



Ere we dismiss the subject of coins we must mention one 

 Roman coin of interest stamped with the inscription of Claudius 

 Cassar, and on the reverse a husbandman with a cow and bull 

 is imprinted. " The Romans " (saith Servius), " when they were 

 about to found and build cities, being girt and clad after the 

 Sabine fashion, . . . yoked on the right hand a bull, and 

 within forth a cow, and held the crooked plough taile bending 

 inward, so as all the clods of the earth might fall inward ; and 

 that having made a furrow, they did set out the places for 

 walls, holding up the plough for the ground where the gates 

 should be." 



This coin, so graphically described by Camden, not only 

 represents the founding of the Colonia Camolodunum, but is 

 probably the earliest pictorial evidence of the use of the plough 

 in Britain that has descended to our days. 



But to return to the main subject of this chapter. How far 

 may we use the parallels between Roman and Anglo-Saxon 

 land tenure, so as to weld connecting links in the chain of our 

 History ? 



There are writers like Coote ^ who would have us see the 

 agency of Rome in almost every characteristic of our English 

 constitution. On the other hand there are writers like Kemble 

 who would Teutonise our Institutions so effectually as to exclude 

 all influences anterior to the Anglo-Saxon invasion. It is be- 

 tween such a Scylla and Char3^bdis that we must now attempt 

 to steer our undertaking. 



We shall have to be careful lest we catch too carelessly at 

 any chance similarity between the Roman and later English 

 landed economies. We might for instance point to the already 

 existing Roman practice of devoting a portion of the Ager 

 Publicus to the service of the gods as the germ of the later tithe 

 system of the Western Church ; whereas the dedication of a 

 portion of Man's worldly goods to the Deity was as old as Abra- 

 ham and as familiar to every Christian as the Bible. We might 

 again draw erroneous conclusions from the similarity of the 

 common-field system of agriculture practised by the primitive 

 inhabitants of Italy with that practised by the Anglo-Saxons 

 ^ Coote, Botnans la Britain. 



