History of the English Landed Interest. 
737 
strong light of contemporary history glitters upon the giant form 
of William the Conqueror, as he stands out against that dark 
and distant background, his good sword in one hand, his great 
Domesday Book in the other. We may rest assured that the 
Conqueror regarded the land — the fair face of all England — 
as a sheet of white paper on which to scribble the inflexible 
determinations of his iron will. This Domesday Book, this 
huge English rate book, allowing for times and circumstances, 
is unique amongst nations in the grandeur of its conception 
and the completeness of its execution ; it is the basis of every 
English historical account of the Middle Ages. The contem- 
porary writer in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates how, in the 
year 1085, England was threatened with invasion, and how 
King William prepared for defence and raised the largest army 
England had ever seen ; the soldiers wei’e quartered upon the 
inhabitants, every man according to the land which he possessed. 
The King sent and caused to write down what property every 
inhabitant of all England possessed in land or in cattle, and 
how much money this was worth ; so very straightly did he 
cause the survey to be made that there was not a single hyde, 
nor ayardland of ground, nor — says the annalist — it is shameful 
to say what he thought no shame to do — was there an oxen or 
cow or pig passed by, and that was not set down in the 
accounts, and all these writings were brought to him. 
Turning to our author’s subdivided period of the Middle Ages 
— 109G-1485 — Hallam, that most philosophic of historians, con- 
templates the fully extended i^eriod from a.d. 486 to the inven- 
tion of printing about the year 1450 — Mr. Garnier’s first chapter 
of this period is headed the “ Birth of the Land Laws ; ” perhaps 
this leading chapter in the history of English land might more 
properly be defined as the abnormal conception in the casuistical 
clerico-iegal mind of the fictitious system of fines and recoveries, 
and all the complicated doctrines of leases and trusts — which 
together go to form that professional conveyancing which has 
been called the science and art of alienation. 
“ Fee simple and a simple fee 
And all the fees in tail ! ” 
The law, as was well said, subsequently became a great 
tangled forest in which lawyers prowled in order to devour 
their prey. And here, referring my reader to Mr. Gamier for 
full explanation, I sum in my own way all I have further to say 
on the English land laws — in the widest, not in the mere 
statutory sense of that term — “All lands in England,” says Lord 
Bacon, “were the Conqueror’s, and held of him except (1) 
