90 History of the English Landed Interest. 



long time to come. It was to provoke the bloodshed of Ket's 

 rebellion ; it was to brave the exposure of its defects by that 

 sound critic, Fitzherbert ; ^ to stand out against the adverse 

 reasoning of the Flemish authors ; '^ it was to be carried, across 

 the seas by the emigrant passengers of the Mayfloicei' to New 

 England ; it was to defy the intolerant language of Young ; ^ 

 it was to be ignorantly described, by authors like Marshall,* 

 who possessed no true key to its explanation, and learnedly 

 discussed by theorists like Seebohm, who drew from it infer- 

 ences for which, perhaps in reality, it afforded no basis ; and 

 lastly, it was to survive the onslaughts of ten thousand Enclo- 

 sure Acts, and afford the 19th century agriculturist an ocular 

 proof of its existence in the royal manor of Hitchin and other 

 parts of this country. 



Its birth in Europe is hidden behind a barrier of pre-historic 

 ages. It may have been brought across two continents by some 

 Aryan tribe from India, ° it may have sprung into life with 

 the Mark system,'"' it may have owed its existence here to some 

 transitional stage of ancient British economy,^ or it may have 

 been the sporadic inspiration of some early European states- 

 man's brain. These points must remain for ever undecided. 

 All we know for certain is, that it was the system of husbandry 

 pursued in the Saxon lord's time,^ that Saxon ceorls mowed 

 and fenced its common meadow doles, that Saxon serfs held its 

 yard-lands in villeinage, that Saxon clergy claimed the produce 

 of its tenth acre strip as tithe,'-* that early Norman poets sang 



* Vide his Works. 



- Such as Hartlib, Worledge, Blith, etc., etc. 



^ Young was especially indignant at tindiug it even in France. 



■• Marshall wrote iu the 18th centuiy, and Sir Henry Maine uses the 

 very expression adopted by us in describing Marshall's views of the 

 sj'Stem. 



* As Sir Henry Maine has thought. 



^ As Bishop Stubbs would probably believe. 



' As Seebohm thinks. 



® Vide Seebohm, Eng. Villaije Covimunify, ch. v., who cites expres- 

 sions in the Saxon version of the parables of the Prodigal Son and Unjust 

 Steward as evidences. 



^ Ibid., ch. iv. Seebohm cites the Saxon Laws. 



