The Roman, British, and TeiUonic Systems. 57 



the exigencies of a cramped and isolated position, hemmed in 

 as it was by the hostile peoples of an invaded country. And 

 again, these G-erman tribes coming over in driblets, each band 

 under its private leader, and slicing out a small area of landed 

 possessions by means of the sword, would never surely submit 

 to such a communal s^^stem as that either described by Csesar 

 or fought over by the theorists. The primus inter pares form 

 of communal government might be, and no doubt was, possible 

 in times of peace, when hedged around with the restraining 

 laws of a central authority, such as described by the Roman 

 historian. It cannot, however, be for a moment imagined that 

 a warlike host would be for long restricted by any such arti- 

 ficial institution. That the most trustworthy and gifted mem- 

 bers of a community should be permanently on an equality 

 with those who just escaped the consequences of criminality 

 and idiocy, was to destroy all enterprise and offer a premium 

 to mediocrity. That the gallant deeds of prowess and leader- 

 ship during the recent fighting should be ignored, and that 

 the courageous should be placed on a par with the coward, was 

 a policy impossible to a band of warriors surrounded by vindic- 

 tive peoples, maddened not crushed by recent defeat. The 

 discipline of war demands that rigid obedience which creates 

 the overlord ; which was able to turn the Consul Buonaparte 

 into the Emperor Napoleon, and which would still more turn 

 a Mark of freemen into a manor of serfs. However doubtful we 

 may be of the former's existence at any time in these islands, 

 we need not hesitate to accept that of the latter. The ancient 

 British residing outside the Roman municipia may or may 

 not have been hitherto free from the yoke of overlordship, but 

 now, at an}^ rate, they would be subjected either to that of a 

 Mark or of an individual. Henceforth, then, they Avere a body 

 of serfs, either obeying the beck and call of a community of 

 freemen, or of a lord of the Tun — a term which is less ana- 

 chronous than the word manor, but which was replaced by the 

 latter as soon as the Norman baron turned out the Saxon 

 etheling. 



We may give full allowance to the arguments that would 

 annul the civilising effects of the Roman occupation, and we 



