The Business of the Court Baron, 389 



yeoman. We have seen all the profits of the land absorbed 

 by the wants of a warlike age, until every difference in its 

 tenure had acquired some military significance ; and we have 

 seen the peaceful art of agriculture emancipate itself from the 

 obstructive influences of strife and chase. 



We have accompanied the Englishman throughout his 

 struggles for freedom ; from his successful retention of com- 

 munal rights during the period of his slavery, until as a 

 free agent he can dispose of his labour services in whatever 

 market he chooses. We have shown how the innate freedom 

 of the Anglo-Saxon rebelled against the mediseval lawyer's 

 attempts to enslave him, and we have seen how the civilizing 

 effects of Norman refinement raised the tone of the national 

 character. We have traced the system of agriculture from 

 the first rude attempts to reclaim forest and morass, to the 

 economy observed on lord's demesne, common field, and waste, 

 to be replaced in its turn by the enclosure system. We have 

 noted the improvement in grain crops, and seen pulse crops 

 supplement them. From the dual cultivation of corn and 

 fallow, to the trinity field system, and from that to the four- 

 course rotation, we have carried forward the nation's methods 

 of husbandry. Livestock have been bettered in breed and 

 condition, winter feeding has come into use, fresh vegetables 

 have taken root in the kitchen garden and fresh fruit trees in 

 the orchard. Scurvy and famine have ceased to decimate the 

 rural population in early spring. A great middle class has 

 sprung into being, and the labourer has obtained an important 

 if not political status in the national ranks. His cottage has 

 been fitted with chimneys and his garden brightened with 

 flowers. There remains only to add a slopstone and gully to 

 his kitchen, connect his refuse heap with a line of drainpipes, 

 and he will do well enough till he shall have educated himself 

 to the dignities of the national polling booth. Lastly, we have 

 studied England's acres as they were successively possessed by 

 families and tribes, by overlords and allodialists, by thanes 

 and barons, and by noblemen and squires. We have passed 

 through the stages of land conveyance, from sj'^mbol to charter 

 and from charter to deed. We have jotted down each phase 



