Alterations in the Temire of Land. 2 1 5 



waste. It was in vain that tlie State lawyers attempted to 

 restrict by legislation this reassertion of popular rights.^ The 

 tenants in capite could show no valid title to their pretentious 

 claims on the waste, and the vavasours, mesne lords, and para- 

 vail were by no means intimidated by such petulant braggadocio 

 as Earl Warren's production of a rusty old sword as legal evi- 

 dence of his proprietorship. Finally, a title had to be manu- 

 factured,^ and the statutes of Quo AVarranto confirmed all that 

 was doubtful in prescriptive rights by sealing them with the 

 authority of the king's grant. 



At the same time the Statutes of Merton and II. AVestminster 

 limited whilst they confirmed the seignorial powers over the 

 waste. It is interesting to note and examine the apparent 

 callousness of the villeinage over a struggle which might have 

 extinguished the last principles of the Ager Publicus. What 

 the mesne lords demanded and what the tenants in capite 

 refused to cede Avere unstinted rights of pasturage, etc., over 

 the entire waste. The idea that anybody who chose might 

 exercise popular rights over the waste brought the respective 

 seignorial owners of neighbouring villages into collision. The 

 fresh legislation adjusted the difficulty in such a manner that 

 the rights of the villeinage for all practical purposes remained 

 unaltered. At the same time, theoretically at any rate, it 

 obliterated entirely the original cause of those rights, by dis- 

 sociating the Folcland from the people and connecting it with 

 the manor. The new statutes limited the tenants' in capite 

 right of approver, but in such a way that no visible alteration 

 appeared on the surface. They brought about no divisions 

 into separate enclosures of the general waste, but they confined 

 manorial rights thereon to certain fixed numbers and classifi- 

 cations of the general live stock belonging to each district 

 bordering upon it. It was not till the fourteenth century that 

 the different distinctions in common rights came into being. 



^ Compare Statute of Merton, 20 Hen. III. ; 13 Ed. I., st. 1, cap. xlvi. 

 and 18 Ed. I., st. 2 and 3. 



^ Contrary to Mr. Green's opinion, I hold that the Statutes of Quo 

 Warranto were intended to pave the way to the fabrication of titles. 

 Comp. Green, Hist, of the Emjlish People^ chap. iv. 



