THE EPOCHS OF GERMAN AGRARIAN HISTORY 227 



which has come down to our day, the dualism of isolated farm- 

 steads and of villages. Against the theory advanced by Meitzen 

 but never generally accepted, that the individual farms are Celtic, 

 the village settlements Teutonic, are pitted the theories of Knapp, 

 Wittich, and Hildebrand : Knapp explains the different forms of 

 settlement from the quality of the soil ; Wittich and Hildebrand 

 perceive in the individual farmstead the general primitive form of 

 settlement. Furthermore, there is the question of the origin of 

 the mixed lots, that is, the field system characteristic of the old 

 German village settlement, whereby the fields of the individual do 

 not form one whole as in the isolated farmsteads, but are divided 

 according to the quality of the soil and scattered over a large 

 area, lying in neighborly proximity like the farmsteads in the 

 village. In this case the question is whether an intentional ration- 

 alistic origin of this peculiar division is to be assumed, substam 

 tiating the alleged equal claims of the members of the mark or 

 village community to equally valuable lots ; or a historical origin, 

 due to the gradual cultivation of the different tracts or to contin- 

 uous division ; or else a conscious creation of this system, not by 

 a free village community, but by a lord, for the realization not so 

 much of like rights as of like duties. Hanssen, Meitzen, Knapp, 

 Hildebrand, represent here just so many different theories. 



Finally, if we assume that the origin of the manorial system 

 dates from the first settlement, we must necessarily adopt a view, 

 different from the current notion, as to the origin of the large 

 manorial estates in the time of the Carolingians. It is, then, no 

 longer a question of the origin of the manorial system in general, 

 but only of the large manorial estates. In accordance with this 

 conception the persons described in the deeds of transfer and 

 commendation are not formerly free peasants, who give them- 

 selves up to a manorial estate, but small lords, who transfer 

 their farms, together with the bond peasants settled on them, to 

 a greater lord, and receive them back from him in fief. 



It is not here my task to examine these hypotheses with criti- 

 cal thoroughness, nor to decide these old and new controversial 

 questions ; I scarcely feel competent to do so, and without 

 further investigations the solution is as yet wholly impossible. 



