Seiznorial Powers. 6i 



Thougli ready to admit that, under similar circumstances, 

 any human community will regulate the distribution of its 

 landed property on very similar lines, and though the accidents 

 of circumstances are stronger than ethnic instincts, we are not 

 prepared, to throw over any one of the curious parallels which 

 we have raked up out of the dead past, in either Eoman or 

 British history, until we have further examined, the customs 

 and manners of the new invaders. 



At the first outset the vicus was probably too small to 

 constitute a unit of the pagus ; but as the population of each 

 petty djmasty increased, we are prepared to recognise the old 

 subdivision of the populus into pagi and vici, as also under 

 their Saxon names, the reges, duces, and principes, which 

 figured in the works of Tacitus. The rex, however, seems to 

 have been surrounded with more of those monarchical attri- 

 butes with which our English kings are endowed, than with 

 what we associate with the Saxon title of cyning. And with 

 regard to the duces and principes, we should be inclined to 

 derive from their combination in the person of one individual 

 the creation of the overlord. 



But if there was no equality of rank or property a greater 

 portion of the British soil remained subject to common rights 

 similar to those of the Mark. Nor would any alteration in this 

 system occur when the entire community was split up into a 

 number of smaller communities, each owning its individual 

 lord of the allod. 



There was, however, no authority vested in the central 

 power, such as the king and his Witangemote now formed, 

 whereby could be enforced the annual interchange of laud 

 which had so successfully checked anything of that tendency to 

 isolation and independence apparently peculiar to the Teutonic 

 nature. 



Thus, as soon as these petty and multitudinous settlements 

 had become superseded by the kingdoms of the Heptarchy, 

 and even long after the latter had grown into a single Mon- 

 archy, this fatal tendency continued. The owners of landed 

 property acted as though they governed separate kingdoms, 

 Each district supported itself by its own efforts and produce. 



