SS History of the English Landed Interest. 



" yrth," or sliare of the Lammas meadows, three additional 

 acres of inland ploughing were required of him. The lesser 

 tenantry of the cotter class, requiring no loan of plough oxen 

 or tackle, performed proportionately less service. They were 

 free from land gafol, sowed onlj'-one day a week on the inland, 

 but paid their hearth penny and Martinmas scot just as 

 though they occupied hides on the common field, instead of 

 some half-dozen acres only,^ 



The theows, wealhs, or slaves, made up the remaining in- 

 habitants of the township. They performed all menial labour 

 of the estate, but were often put to work side by side with the 

 lowest class of geburs, though not entitled like the latter to any 

 remuneration beyond board and lodging. Occasionally some 

 individual's life-long frugality obtained for him the purchase 

 money of liis freedom, or some act of devotion won the same 

 from an indulgent master ; and as Christianity spread, the 

 class gradually disappeared. Otherwise, the theow was as 

 much a chattel of his lord as the latter's hounds, excepting 

 (what we have elsewhere mentioned) the liability of the lord 

 to fines if he damaged or killed his slave. 



Turning back to the account already given of early Germanic 

 tenure, we can trace a close resemblance in its Landes Ge- 

 meinde and Dorf to the " Gau," or common territory, and 

 township of the Anglo-Saxon polity. The Gemeinanger 

 answered to the Folcland, the Feldmark to the Gesetland, the 

 three huren to its three divisions of spring corn, winter corn, 

 and fallow. The Hof of the Germanic overlord was the same 

 fenced court-house as the tun of the Saxon overlord. His 

 Horige corresponded to the geburs and theows.^ Further, there 

 is evidence in the limited control of the Anglo-Saxon landlord 

 over the common lands, and in his almost unlimited judicial 

 authority over the people, of those two distinct aspects which Sir 

 Robert Morier has emphasised in the Teutonic freeman. As we 

 have already pointed out, the latter, within the pale of his home- 

 stead, was in all aspects autocratic, without it, he was but a 



* Seebohm, Village Community, c. v. 



^ Sir Robert Morier, Prussian Land Tenure, iu the Cobden Club Prize 

 Essay Series. 



