44 History of the English Landed Interest. 



meinde, i.e., Peasants' Community of a.d. 900 is but a miniature 

 of the Landes-Gemeinde, i.e., Land Community of a.d. 100. 

 There are still evidences of the three Fluren of the Feldmarck, 

 answering to the three divisions of the arable ground, the 

 Dorf answering to the vicus, and the Gemeindesanger answer- 

 ing to the old uncultivated Mark, which, as surrounding all the 

 lands of the village community, came to embrace within its 

 meaning their people and customs. 



But let us examine more closely the processes whereby the 

 primus inter pares of Caesar gradually turned into the overlord 

 of Tacitus. 



Each landowner was by law a soldier, and it was this polity 

 which provoked the constantly arising warfare between Mark 

 and Mark. Such intertribal strife eventually overthrew the 

 strange levelling economy of the Teutonic land system, which 

 not only equalised men's property but their physical and men- 

 tal qualities. 



As one Dorf gradually absorbed by conquest the surrounding 

 Dorfs, she became the Miitter-Dorf of the others. Their several 

 common wastes became the one common waste of the new 

 system, from which arable Marks would be severed whenever 

 fresh Dorfs were founded.^ After this the appearance of the 

 overlord was not long delayed. The selection of the primus 

 infer pares at first from the whole community came to be con- 

 fined to a few privileged families. The gradual growth of this 

 individual's hereditary claims, and the combination in his 

 person of the war-chief and the judge, eventually introduced 

 both the Herzog and the Hof. 



We need not follow the fortunes of the Gemeinde through 

 the vicissitudes caused successively by allodial and feudal 

 tenures ; but it may be added that there are far more survivals 

 in Germany to-day of an agricultural economy in which 

 movable property was private and immovable property 

 common, than in any other country of EurojDe, except perhaps 

 Russia. 



Before we come to adapt this system of the Teutonic Mark 



' Sir Tl. Morier, Sijst. of Pniss. Land Tenui'e (Cobclcn Club Essays). 



