4 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



documents, on the other hand, estates are given by their dimen- 

 sions, which vary very greatly. 



For example i"^ Erlentens and his wife Hildegarde hold one 

 mansus (peasant's holding) containing sis hunuaria about [five 

 acres] of arable land, three arijyenni [thirty-six rods] of vineyard, 

 and two and one half of meadow ; besides this, he has of allodial 

 property three hunuaria of arable land, and one aripennus of 

 meadow. And so throughout : land is held not in uniform and 

 equal portions, but always in specified and varying amounts. 

 In ten holdings, for example, in Theodaxium,^; the hunuaria of 

 arable land range from two to twelve; the aripenni of vineyard 

 from two and one half to four and one half the aripenni of 

 meadow from one and one half to two and one half. 



JSTearly contemporary with this document in date, is ihePolyp- 

 tichum of the Abbey of St. Eemi, at Rheims. In this register we 

 find a totally different system. Each estate is given under the 

 term mansus, and the size of the mansus is not described. It is a 

 natural inference, therefore, that that mansi were of uniform ex- 

 tent, corresponding, therefore, to the English hyde. Now these 

 lands, being in the neighborhood of Rheims, at a considerable dis- 

 tance to the east of Paris, may very easily have been settled un- 

 der a different system. Moreover, being near the German fron- 

 tier, there was in all likelihood a larger proportion of Grerman 

 population than in the neighborhood of Paris. However this may 

 be, we find, in the dissimilarity of. these nearly contemporaneous 

 records, a confirmation of the a priori probability that the tenure 

 of land in France would be irregular or heterogeneous. 



Appended to the Polyptichum of St. Remi are fragments of 

 a rather later date, of the description of some estates in the neigh- 

 borhood of TreveSj still further east, and in a country of nearly 

 pure German population. Here, as might be expected, we find a 

 complete uniformity in the tenures, so far as the incompleteness 

 of the documents permits us to form a judgment. The mansi are 

 spoken of as being themselves definite and uniform quantities of 

 land, like the English hyde ; and their extent, in acres, hunuaria 

 or aripenni, is not alluded to. 



*Book XXV. 8. fBook XIV. 



