PREFACE 183 



Cottenham is of special interest : it may be that the owners of 

 common right felt especial need of effective administration so that 

 the banks which protected the fens might be kept in good 

 condition, but they bargained to take the whole matter into their 

 own hands. The responsibility for the management of the herd and 

 the waste was transferred to twenty four order makers chosen 

 according to specified proportions from among the copyholders 

 in the various manors. This system of government was maintained 

 with success till the parish was enclosed in 1842 and the kine could 

 no longer be pastured as a common herd ; but a tradition still lingers 

 of the picturesque procession which was formed at milking time 

 by the herd of two thousand kine which moved from the fen, past 

 the church, and along the village street with each cow turning 

 into her own byre as it was reached. 



The machinery for managing the common waste at Cottenham, 

 which was introduced in 1596, is of interest in its constitutional 

 aspect, as it furnishes an instance of a democratically governed 

 township successfully carried on for two hundred and fifty years. 

 The system has interesting analogies with the townships which 

 were springing up on the Borders as the country became more 

 peaceable, and in the colonies which were soon to be planted in 

 Ulster and in New England. The owners of common right at 

 Cottenham formed a village community which had become free by 

 the buying out of the manorial rights : and this type of social 

 organisation had a great future before it. The circumstances of 

 the New England settlers gave the opportunity for the reproduction 

 of similar institutions for the regulation of economic affairs. The 

 system in vogue in Massachusetts, at Chelsea in 1638, l at Maiden 

 in 1678, 2 or at Lexington 3 was closely allied to that which existed 

 at Cottenham in 1596, and the township, in a new atmosphere and 

 in new surroundings came to play an important part in the consti- 

 tutional and political history of the United States. 



1 M. Chamberlain, History of Chelsea, I, 89. 



2 D. P. Covey, History of Maiden, 352. 



3 C. Hudson, History of the town of Lexington, 33, 63. 



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