ON LAND TENURE IN ANCIENT TIMES. 171 
been strongly affected by its indirect influence, but perfectly 
plain and unmistakeable in the parts of the world, peopled 
by the Aryan race, where the Empire has made itself felt 
very slightly or not at all. As regards the Sclavonic Com- 
munities. ... We now know much more clearly than we 
did before that the soil of the older provinces of the Russian 
Empire has been, from time immemorial, almost exclusively 
distributed aiougst groups of self-styled kinsmen, collected 
in cultivating Village-Communities, and self organised and 
self-governing. ... The re-examination of the written 
_ evidence respecting ancient Teutonic life and custom pro- 
ceeds without intermission, and incidentally much light has 
beeu thrown on the early history of property by the remark- 
able work of Sohm (Frdnkische Reichs- und Gerichtsverfassunq). 
The results obtained by the special method of G. L. von 
Maurer have meantime been verified by comparison with 
phenomena discovered in the most unexpected quarters. . . . 
Irish scholars, distinguished by remarkable sobriety of 
thought ... had pomted out many things in Jrish custom 
which connected it with the archaic practices known to be 
still followed or to have been followed by the Germanic races. 
As early as 1837 Mr. W. F. Skene, in a work of much value 
called The Highlanders of Scotland, had corrected many of the 
mistakes on the subject of Highland usage into which writers 
exclusively conversant with feudal rules had been betrayed; 
and the same eminent antiquarian, in an appendix to his 
edition of the Scottish chronicler, Fordun, published in 1872, 
confirms evidence which had reached me in considerable 
quantities from private sources to the effect that Village- 
Communities with ‘ shifting severalties’ existed in the High- 
lands within living memory.* Quite recently, also, M. Le 
Play and others have come upon plain traces of such commu- 
nities in several parts of France. ... But much the most 
instructive contribution to our knowledge of the ancient 
Celtic Societies has been furnished by the Irish Government, 
in the translations of the Ancient Laws of Ireland, which 
have been published at its expense. The first volume of 
these translations was published in 1865; the second in 1869 ; 
the third, enriched with some valuable prefaces, has only just 
appeared [1875]. T 
* Mr. W. F. Skene, in a valuable note on Z'ribe Commuiiities in Scot- 
land, appended to the second volume of his edition of Fordun’s Chronicle 
says that “he believes the system of re-division of land to have been once 
uiiversal, or at least widely extended, amongst the Scottish Celts.” 
+ Lectures on the Karly History of Institutions, pp. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8. 
VOL. XXIV. ©) 
