Land Tentire and Agriciilhire. 9 1 



about it/ and early Norman prose authors discussed it ; - that 

 its measurements of hide and acre owed their derivation to 

 what one man could plough respectively in aj'^ear and in a day ; 

 that there was a good deal of quarrelling over its headlands, 

 a good deal of waste ground about its divisions, a good deal 

 of time lost in getting about it, and that altogether it was a 

 system destructive of good husbandry. 



But was this Saxon practice of land tenure, strictly speaking, 

 feudal ? It was, and it was not. There was the military 

 service, the lord and vassal, and the State reversionary interest 

 on the failure of male heirs ; ^ but there was no primogeniture, 

 for, on the contrary, the custom of gavelkind, still existing in 

 Kent, extended the hereditary succession to all the children, 

 while a now local practice, called " Borough English," also still 

 alive, entailed the estates on the youngest son. Again, upon 

 the death of the son without issue, the father inherited, 

 whereas by Norman legislation, only recently repealed, he was 

 excluded. 



The chief distinction, from a lawyer's point of view, between 

 the Saxon and the Norman system of land legislation is very 

 clearly expressed by Mr. Williams in his introductory chapter 

 on " The Principles of the Law of Eeal Property." He says, 

 " Before the Conquest, landowners were subject to military 

 duties ; and to a soldier it would matter little whether he fought 

 by reason of tenure or for any other reason. The distinction 

 between his services being annexed to his land^ and their being 

 annexed to tlie tenure of Ms land, would not strike him as very 

 important." The system was so far feudal, if we compare it 

 with that of the free Danes, who, with not a single serf in their 

 hosts, overthrew the priest and lord-ridden Anglo-Saxon race 

 in those thirteen campaigns which gave the crown of all Eng- 

 land to Canute. But it was free in comparison with that of 

 Continental nationalities. The ancient French system was at 

 first, no doubt, similar to that we have just described. The 



' Vision of Piers the Plowman. 

 ■ Walter of Henlej^, etc. 



^ Compare also Canute's Secular Dooms, cap. 71. Stwhhs, Select Char- 

 ters, pt. ii., p. 74, ed. 5. 



