ON LAND TENURE IN ANCIENT TIMES. 177 
the whole of the Jands in villenage, which were held in 
common, and were reallotted amongst them as a community 
in proportion to the number of acre or half-acre strips which 
each, as belonging either to the class of virgarti or dimidit 
virgarii, had an hereditary right to plough. In a word, all 
that they possessed at first was the ancient right of muzara’a, 
or sowing, in the common lands of the villata, or Village-Com- 
munity now passed into villenage, for which they would 
have to cast lots each year with the other virgarit, or geburs 
as they were commonly called, or possibly with all the 
geneats, or villein tenants in general, including the cotsetles, 
the bordarii, or cottarii, our cottagers, with small holdings, 
generally of 5 acres, but varying from 1 to 10 acres, and the 
simple village officials, who, like those in Palestine to-day, 
had their land ploughed for them in return for their services, 
the faber, or blacksmith, the carpenter, the punder, or keeper 
of the village pound, the miller, the bailiff} and the prapo- 
situs, or foreman, this last bemg the best lusbandman 
temporarily elected by the body of tenants to be responsible 
for the cultivation of all the arable land. The chief differences 
letween the once free Village-Community and the same 
Village-Community now in serfdom were that these virgarii, 
or geburs, were limited as to the number of acres they were 
permitted to plough, not as in the former free times, by the 
number of oxen they might be rich enough to keep, but by 
the number of acre and half-acre strips to which they were 
entitled by their feudal holdings, and had to give, amongst 
other sordida munera, or base services, as a rule from one-half 
to two-thirds of their time to do unpaid compulsory work on 
the lord’s demesne, cultivating their own 15 or 30 acres and 
those of the village officials when and how they could. And 
that this really was so Mr. Seebohm not only admits, but in 
one part of his work attempts to prove. He says. “It will 
be remembered that there was observed in the Winslow 
example of a virgate a certain regular turn or rotation in the 
order of the strips in the v7rgates—that John Moldeson’s 
strips almost always came next after the strips of one, and 
were followed by those of another, particular neighbour. 
Now this fact strongly suggests that originally the holdings 
had not always and permanently consisted of the same actual 
strips. but that once upon a time the strips were perhaps 
allotted afresh each year in the ploughing according to a 
certain order of rotation, the turn of the contributor of two 
oxen coming twice as often as that of the contributor of one 
ox, and so making the virgate contain twice as many strips af 
