6o History of the English Landed Interest. 



iwho had received large grants subdivided thenij partly amongst 

 jtheir followers, and partly, in exchange for agricultural ser- 

 vices, amongst their bondmen. 



The old home polity of a common and equal enjoyment of 

 all the lands could never have existed in the new economj''. 

 The inequality of war services had set up a claim which could 

 only have been fairly recognised by an inequalit}'' in the 

 distribution of the plunder. 



But it had not been purely an invasion of warrior bands 

 but also an immigration of tribes. In every instance the whole 

 jMark disembarked on these shores, with its three social grades 

 of edhiling, friling, and lazzus, its wives and little ones, its 

 cattle and household gods, and lastly, its domestic associations 

 of kindred and land tenure.^ 



Did then the new life start, as Bishop Stubbs maintains, at 

 the point at which the old had been broken off? AVere the 

 eorl, ceorl, and Icet of the new society exactly identical with 

 the three distinctive grades of the old ? Would the names 

 and functions of the magistrates, the principles of customary 

 law and local organisation, be the same as in Frisia ? In other 

 words, did the long journey over a wilderness of waters effect 

 as little change in our Anglo-Saxon progenitors as did the 

 long journey over a wilderness of sand in some nomadic tribes 

 of the Sahara ? 



To answer these questions in the affirmative would be to 

 condemn them as barbarians too ignorant to appreciate the 

 relics of the advanced Roman culture, too intolerant to imitate 

 what was worth imitating in British ethics, and too self- 

 sufHcient to correct the errors of their own polity. 



It would be to ignore the similarities between Roman and 

 Teutonic land tenure, to disconnect the Ager Publicus from 

 the Folcland, the Ager Vectigalis from the common field 

 system, and the overlordship of the villa from that of the tun. 

 It would sever completely the long line of our English an- 

 cestors from the British and Roman peoples, and, as Mr. Coote 

 puts it, post-date all our great institutions and traditions. 



> Stuhbs, Constit. Hist., 4th ed., ch. iv., page 70; Hume, Hist, of Engl. 

 Append. I. 



