^be teutonic 3nva6ion. 



A.D. 441. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE MAEK SYSTEM. 



AYhen next we pick up the threads of history, the Romans, 

 with their imperial and commercial polity, have vanished. 

 Gone are scripturse, decumse, and portaria, and along with 

 them the procurator and his liberti. The Roman villa has 

 made way for the lord's rude over-grown hut ; bricks and 

 mortar for wattle and daub ; Ager Publicus for Folcland, citi- 

 zens for landfolk, and in a large degree devastated municipia 

 for the rusticity of village life. Roman customs, like their 

 vines and fig culture, survived chiefly in genial soils, and spots 

 sheltered from the storm. Such were the towns which, from 

 their geographical position on the great Roman roads, remained 

 still the centres of commerce. 



The causes of this vast social upheaval are to be found partly 

 in the instincts of the Saxon conquerors, partly too, in those of 

 the conquered. "Without entering prematurely on the contro- 

 versy of the Mark system, it may be safely concluded that 

 the old ethnic habits of the ancient British were far more 

 akin to those of the new invaders than of the Romans.^ 



What then was the character of this fresh race of con- 

 querors ? How would their system of life affect British rural 

 economy ? What were they like in their German homes, these 



^ Tacitus, AgiHcola, ii. 



35 



