8 
 
 (' 
 
 
 '■/' 
 
 /I 
 
 M !
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 MAY TREAT MORRISON 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 ALEXANDER F MORRISON
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS.
 
 Edinburgh: Printed hy Tliomas and Archibald Constahlc, 
 
 FOR 
 
 EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS. 
 
 LONDON HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 GLASGOW JAMES MACLEHOSE.
 
 HISTORICAL ESSAYS 
 
 IN CONNEXION WITH 
 
 THE LAND, THE CHURCH 
 
 &c. 
 
 E. WILLIAM ROBEETSON 
 « > 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SCOTLAND UNDER HER EARLY KINGS.' 
 
 EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS 
 
 18 72.
 
 HciZ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE, . 
 INTKODUCTION, 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 Vll 
 
 STANDARDS OF THE PAST IN WEIGHT AND CUREENCY- 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 I. THE ROMAN AND BYZANTINE POUNDS, ... 1 
 
 II. TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL EEA 4 
 
 III. THE EOMAN CURRENCY, . . . . .11 
 
 IV. THE STIPENDIUM, . . •. . . .14 
 V. EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY, . . . .18 
 
 NOTE A, ....... 24 
 
 NOTE B, ....... 29 
 
 APPROXIMATE STANDARDS, . . . . .32 
 
 TABLE OF WEIGHTS, . . . . . . 3G 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 I. EARLY SUBSTITUTES FOR A COINAGE, . . .37 
 
 IL CURRENCY OF THE EARLY FRANKS AND THE HOUSE 
 
 OF CAPET, ....... 41 
 
 NOTE A, . . . . . . .45 
 
 NOTE B, ....... 46 
 
 III. EARLY GERMANIC AND PRISON CURRENCY, . . 49 
 
 IV. NORWEGIAN AND IRISH CURRENCY, .... 52 
 V. MORABETIN AND EARLY SPANISH CURRENCY, . . 55 
 
 431708
 
 iv CONTENTS. 
 
 VI. EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS, 
 NOTE C, ..... 
 
 NOTE D, ..... 
 
 MEDIEVAL STANDARDS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 60 
 67 
 68 
 70 
 
 THE YEAR AND THE INDICTION, 
 
 76 
 
 THE LAND 
 
 
 I. THE ACRE, 
 
 88 
 
 II. THE HIDE, 
 
 92 
 
 III. THE LAND-GAVEL, ..... 
 
 102 
 
 IV. THE SHIRE, ...... 
 
 112 
 
 V. SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS, .... 
 
 133 
 
 VL IRISH MEASUREMENTS, ..... 
 
 143 
 
 VIL IRISH LAND-TENURE, ..... 
 
 152 
 
 VIIL THE TOSHACH AND THE THANE, 
 
 160 
 
 CHAPTERS OF ENGLISH HISTORY BEFORE THE CONQUEST— 
 
 1. jLnxii j\.±i>(ijr o vvirjii, 
 II. HANDFASTING, 
 
 172 
 
 III. THE KING'S KIN, 
 
 177 
 
 IV. DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY, 
 
 189 
 
 NOTE A, 
 
 200 
 
 NOTE B, 
 
 202 
 
 V. THE CORONATION OP EDGAR, . 
 
 203 
 
 ROME, 
 
 216 
 
 NOTE A, 
 
 253 
 
 NOTE B, 
 
 256 
 
 NOTE C, 
 
 260 
 
 :note D, . 
 
 261
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In the following pages I have attempted to throw some light upon 
 various features of the past; and though obsolete Land Customs and 
 Measurements, and Standards of Weight and Currency that have long 
 ceased to be in use, possess but few attractions for the general reader, a 
 certain familiarity with them may be of advantage in investigating the 
 past. The use to which I have occasionally put them will appear 
 further on. Some acquaintance, also, with other questions upon which 
 I have touched, may be of assistance in enabling us, in the present age, 
 to form a clearer conception of the differences separating us from our 
 predecessors in the olden time, as well as of the similarities that unite 
 us with them. Thus the community of a certain period, which is 
 occasionally appealed to as a precedent, differed in many essential 
 particulars from the popular conception formed of it. It could never 
 be revived in its original form, whether that were free or servile, with- 
 out resuscitating serfdom (or something like it) in the latter case, or 
 again reverting to the tie of kindred by which it was bound together, as 
 long as its members continued to be full- free and independent. The 
 theory that every man is born into the world with equal rights may, or 
 may not, be correct, but it is a theory that would have been repudiated 
 by every member of a free community, whether Adaling or Friling, with 
 contempt. The ' equal division of a landed inheritance amongst the 
 heirs again, in the modern acceptation of such a division, never could 
 have existed in an age in which individual right in land was compara- 
 tively unknown ; for the heir who succeeded to his portion in the 
 division could not have parted witli it to a man of alien blood without
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 the consent of every member of his kindred who had a claim upon it 
 as a joint heir. The right of the heir was not an individual right, with 
 absolute " dominion," — a property in fee-simple, — but a joint-right, and 
 liable to all the contingencies of a joint-right. An equal division of a 
 landed inheritance between the heirs into separate properties, with 
 absolute dominion, may, or may not, be right in principle, but it should 
 be advocated on its own merits ; for it is little in accordance with the 
 practice of the past, that would have ignored or discouraged the idea of 
 a landed property in fee-simple, and entaUed, as it were, the land, as a 
 sort of common and inalienable property, upon the kindred. 
 
 In the present volume I have confined myself to " the Land ; " fur- 
 ther on I hope to touch upon " the Church," with which so much of the 
 early history of our islands is closely connected. The sketch thrown 
 together under the heading of " Eome" is necessarily very incomplete 
 and imperfect, but its present form seemed to me to be preferable to 
 distributing the conclusions at which I had arrived amongst a number 
 of separate notes. 
 
 Netherseale Hall, 
 AsiiBY-DE-LA-Zoucii, 25</t Oct. 1871.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To look upon the past with the eyes of the present, to judge of its 
 events and of its characters by a similar standard, awarding praise or blame 
 to the men who felt and thought and acted in bygone days, as if their 
 conduct had been shaped in accordance with the ideas influencing their 
 remote descendants, — such has, and is, and ever will be the habit of the 
 majority of living men. One age is fond of clothing another (practically 
 as well as figuratively) in the dress that suits its own ideas ; and as the 
 Sponsalizia presents us with Eaphael's conception of the Temple, or of 
 a Jewish synagogue, so the guests at the Marriage-feast of Cana wear 
 the Venetian satins familiar to Paul Veronese. Macbeth in bag-wig, 
 sword, and ruffles satisfied the eighteenth century, whilst the nineteenth 
 insists upon the tartan. Each age is marked by its own peculiarities, — by 
 the presence or absence of certain characteristic features through which its 
 productions may be often recognised. Beato Angelico peoples Hell with 
 friars ; a condemnation of their practices, in the fifteenth century, which 
 would have scarcely appeared upon the canvas of an orthodox Italian in 
 an age inclined to conceal their iniquities. Hence the paintings of 
 Angelico, even if the name of the artist were unknown, might be assigned 
 with safety to the era immediately preceding the Eeformation. The 
 writer is apt to reflect the peculiarities of the age in which he lives quite 
 as much as the painter, and thus is influenced, insensibly, in his delinea- 
 tions of the past ; whilst both labour occasionally under a similar 
 difficulty, — their representations, if too truthful, are either disbelieved, 
 or cease to be regarded with any interest. 
 
 Towards the opening of the sixteenth century the history of the 
 middle ages may be said to blend with the history of modern times, the 
 two preceding centuries representing the true " age of chivalry," during 
 which feudalism, having attained its height, decayed. It is with the 
 feudalism of this later period, in which the spirit of the original system 
 was dead (for it had passed away with the state of society out of which it 
 first arose) — with chivalric feudalism, so to say, in which there is something 
 
 b
 
 viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to attract as well as to repel — that tlie present age is most familiar, and our 
 impressions of earlier times are apt to be influenced accordingly. A similar 
 remark is applicable to our conception of the ecclesiastical as well as the 
 political system before the thirteenth century, for the " ancient customs " 
 of the Church can occasionally be dated no further back than the era be- 
 tween Innocent and Hildebrand. The present age, however, simply repeats 
 the habit of the past. In the opinion of " a Squyer of Englande, called 
 Henry Castyde, an honest man and a wyse, and coud well speke Frenche . . . 
 Saint Edward, kyng of Englande, lorde of Irelande and of Acquitayn, who 
 is a saynt and canonysed . . . subdued the Danes, and disconfyted them 
 by batayle on the see thre tymes . . . and bare a crosse patent, golde and 
 goules, with four white martinettis in the felde," a popular banner amongst 
 the Irish in the reign of Eichard II., for some inscrutable reason. Such 
 was the character attributed to the Confessor in the age in which Froissart 
 was writing, varying not a little in its features from the portrait left of 
 the saintly king by his contemporaries, and, with many another similar 
 instance, warning all who wish to arrive at the truth, to view with a 
 certain amount of mistrust the versions of past occurrences given by 
 writers, living some two or three centuries after the events they notice 
 are supposed to have happened. The difference, indeed, between the 
 actual history of the past and the conception entertained, or the version 
 given of it, in a later age, is occasionally very remarkable. According 
 to one of the versions of the Confessor's laws, Edgar's code remained in 
 abeyance for sixty-eight years, or from the death of the king to the acces- 
 sion of his grandson, the Confessor. Yet this statement is directly con- 
 tradicted by the entry in the Saxon Chronicle under 1018, in which 
 year the laws of Edgar were confirmed by Dane and Angle at Oxford, as 
 well as by the still existing laws of Ethelred and Canute, which are little 
 more than repetitions of Edgar's Code. The so-called laws of the Con- 
 fessor seem to have been collected into a ^vritten form in the reign of 
 Henry II., about the time when Glanville composed his celebrated treatise 
 on the Law ; and it would appear to have been in accordance with the 
 theory of that age to represent the Danish occupation as an era of 
 tyranny and oppression, from which the country was relieved by the 
 Confessor, whose "cousin," after crushing the "rebellion" of Harold, 
 confirmed the old laws of the realm revived by Edward. The recollec- 
 tion of the earlier conquest and occupation of the country began to fade 
 away in the course of the following century, the Norman grew into the 
 typical oppressor instead of the Dane (though the latter still retains 
 his place as the typical " enemy " in popular tradition), and, accordingly.
 
 INTRODUCTION-. ix 
 
 a different colouring was given to the events of the eleventh century by 
 the writers of the later period. 
 
 In the writings of the annalist, and of the chronicler, we often find 
 little more than a bare record of past or passing events ; but in the regu- 
 lations of the code, and under the forms of the chartulary, often lie hidden 
 the real causes of events. It is unnecessary to expatiate upon the influ- 
 ence exercised by improvements in military arms, in organization, in 
 discipline, and in the general science of war, upon the history of com- 
 paratively modern times; in the enactment of the code, in the stipulation 
 of the charter, such progress is often traceable from very early times ; 
 yet how seldom is it noticed by the historian ! The system originated 
 by Gustavus Adolphus turned the tide of victory against the imperial 
 arms in Germany, and won more than one hard-fought field in England, 
 when used by Fairfax and Cromwell against the ill-regulated valour 
 of the supporters of King Charles. The innovations introduced by 
 Frederick the Great contributed to place Prussia upon a footing with the 
 greater powers of Europe, and the events that have lately passed, or are 
 even now passing under our eyes, need no comment. Living men note 
 these things in their own generation, but in writing the history of the 
 past are apt to pay too little attention to their importance at the moment 
 of their introduction. Eesults are noticed without inquiring into causes, 
 and are not unfrequently attributed to any rather than the true causes. 
 The dagger screwed into the muzzle of the musket first placed that 
 weapon on a footing with the pike at close quarters ; the bayonet attached 
 to the end of the barrel completed its efficiency without interfering with 
 its use as a firearm. The firelock, and the iron ramrod, each made a 
 mark, however small that mark may have been, upon some portion 
 of the history of the last two centuries ; and the changes and improve- 
 ments of yet earlier times were not without their influence at the date of 
 their introduction, however little that influence may have been noticed. 
 
 The supremacy of the Franks over their neighbours in early times 
 may be attributed, in a great measure, to the superiority in military 
 equipment that enabled them to oppose a well-armed force to men who, 
 though equally brave, were far less efficient in arms and organization. 
 Various enactments in the Capitularies disclose the care witli which 
 Charlemagne was accustomed to provide for the necessary contingencies 
 of a campaign. Each man crossed the Mark with provisions for three 
 and clothing and equipment for six months. In every imperial vill a 
 storehouse (camera) was established, in which were implements and 
 necessaries of every description, " so that there be no need of seeking
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 for or hiring them in any place whatever," and upon the close of the 
 campaign they were to be returned into store. " Our carts that go to 
 the war " were all to be made of the same size, so as to carry twelve 
 modii of corn or of wine, and to be covered with leather, carefully sewed 
 together, so as to avoid letting in the water in fording rivers. To each 
 cart a lance and shield, with a bow and quiver, were permanently 
 attached, as arms for the baggage-guard. But the main feature in the 
 equipment of the Kaisar's army was the Brunia, or breast-defence ; the 
 Brynia of the North and Byrnie of our old English laws. Every pos- 
 sessor of twelve mansi was bound to provide himself with a byrnie, and 
 wear it on service — carrying arms in time of peace was forbidden — he who 
 failed in this particular being placed upon the same footing as the deserter 
 of his comrade in battle, forfeiting both property and honour. As the legal 
 value of the byrnie was assessed, about the same period, at the amount 
 paid as land-tax from twelve mansi, in the regulation about the byrnie, 
 which appears to have been in existence before the reign of Charlemagne 
 (and may perhaps be associated with the ascendancy of the Austrasian 
 House), may be traced the germs of the system of military tenure, by 
 which the earlier obligation of a money-payment seems to have been 
 commuted for efficiency in military equipment. As land increased in 
 value the equivalent of the original twelve mansi sunk to ten, to eight, 
 to six, and finally to five, four, and even three, until the amount of 
 service required from the land began to be regulated by the value instead 
 of by the extent of the latter. The original regulation about the byrnie 
 was incumbent upon the allodial as well as upon the beneficiary pro- 
 prietary, though more especially binding upon the Vassi Indominicati, 
 or baronage of the age ; and it must have placed a numerous and well- 
 equipped body of soldiery at the disposal of the Kaisar. As every offence 
 committed " in the host " was punished by a threefold mulct, and 
 drunkenness was atoned for by a diet of bread and water, the discipline, 
 as well as the organization of the army, was at the highest pitch of 
 excellence with which the age was acquainted. No byrnie was to be 
 sold or given to a Saxon, a most convincing proof of the Kaisar's opinion 
 of its value, and of the jealous care with which he strove to preserve and 
 perpetuate the military supremacy of his own people. 
 
 Just as the Western Empire may be said, in a certain sense, to have 
 been founded on the Byrnie, so the " kingdom," in the modern meaning 
 of the word, may be said to date its rise, both in Germany and England, 
 from the era of walled towns. The ninth and tenth centuries witnessed 
 the rise of permanent fortifications in Western Europe. Migratory tribes
 
 INTRODUCTION. .xi 
 
 were always attended by a string of carts ; and long after they conformed 
 to comparatively settled habits their armies were accompanied by a 
 similar train. Encircled by these carts they bivouacked for the night, or 
 sheltered themselves against the attack of a superior force, occasionally 
 throwing up earthworks or barricades, when they occupied a position for 
 a considerable length of time. The custom was as old as the days in 
 which Goliath " went up out of the camp of the Philistines" to defy the 
 hosts of Israel, no man " going out" to meet him from the opposite camp ; 
 and after a lapse of twenty centuries it was still in force in Ireland, when 
 Niel entrenched himself in Magh Femhin, and attacked the Northmen, 
 on the 20th of August 917, as they were ravaging the district. " Then 
 there were more slain of the Gall than of the Gael ; but the Gall issued 
 out of their camp in support of their men, who were retreating ; and the 
 Gael retired to their own camp as soon as Eagnal, King of the Dugall, 
 reached the enemy with reinforcements. Then King Niel left his camp, 
 and offered battle to the Gall, who declined to accept it in the position 
 he chose. And the king remained for twenty nights in the face of the 
 enemy, and sent orders to the Leinstermen to keep close in their camp, 
 as he did." But the Leinstermen disobeyed him, attacked Eagnal's 
 brother Sitric in his " camp" at Kinfurt, and were signally defeated, the 
 victors marching into Dublin unopposed, as the place was evidently 
 utterly defenceless. Thus there was nothing to resist an enemy if the 
 camp was once carried by storm, or if the army was so thoroughly 
 defeated as to be unable to fall back upon it for shelter. The Northmen, 
 sailing up the rivers of France and England, ravaged the open country 
 with impunity, whilst in central Europe " defenceless Saxony, in which 
 there is neither mountain nor walled town," was a helpless prey to the 
 Hun and the Magyar ; and in order to resist the ravages of these Pagan 
 spoilers, the Burh, or burgh of early days, was called into existence in 
 England and in Northern Germany. The open village was converted into 
 a permanently entrenched camp, sheltering its defenders from sudden 
 attacks, and guarding the road, or protecting the passage of the river, and 
 thus securing a firm hold upon the surrounding district. 
 
 We may look in vain for any regulations about the burgh and its 
 defenders in the ancient codes supposed to have been collected by Char- 
 lemagne ; but in the days of his immediate descendants the germs of the 
 system of permanent fortifications begin to be traceable. " From eveiy 
 hundred mansi a Hagerman, and from every thousand a cart with two 
 oxen ... so that the Hagermen should cultivate and guard tlic place 
 of strength he ordered to be built of wood and stone in that locality —
 
 xii INTRODUGTIOX. 
 
 (quatinus illi Haistaldi castdlum . . . excolerent et custodirent)." Such, 
 for instance, is the description left in Hincmar's Annals of the proceed- 
 ing of Charles the Bald in 869. Castcllum is the word used by Jerome 
 in the Vulgate for a vill, or township with its ham or open village, but it 
 is evidently applied by Hincmar in this passage to an enclosed village 
 or walled town, with its Banlieuc, which was to be cultivated by the de- 
 fenders of the Burh. The early castellum seems to have been generally 
 provided with its cippus, or stocks, in which refractory slaves were con- 
 fined — the village " cage;" and the word, which meant originally a stake 
 that was used, amongst other purposes, as a palisade in war, gradually 
 became connected with the idea of a place of strength and confinement. 
 When the castellum in later times was the property of a lord, the 
 " Cippus dominicus" was the place in which he immured delinquents and 
 his prisoners ; and thus, in course of time, the palisaded enclosure of 
 the open village grew into the " Donjon Keep'' of the feudal castle. As 
 the lesser freemen, the rural soldiery, or militcs agrarii of Widukind, 
 were collected from the country districts into walled towns, the burgh 
 began to supplant the moot-hill as the recognised place of meeting for 
 the community. Every council, and every assemblage, whether judicial 
 or convivial, was to be held in a walled town, according to the ordinance 
 of Henry the Fowler ; and our own old codes afford abundant evidence 
 of a very similar state of affairs existing in England about the same 
 period. The burgh became the centre of all the traffic of the age, occa- 
 sionally the seat of a royal mint, and generally of a royal official ; whilst, 
 as the lesser freeholders of the allodial period, the Minores Pagenses of 
 the earlier codes, were withdrawn from the rural districts into towns, the 
 country became more and more abandoned to the villeinage and to the 
 beneficiary classes, the latter the predecessors of the knights and barons 
 of a later era. Such are a few of the results that may be connected with 
 the system of permanent fortifications, first introduced, in certain quarters, 
 in order to resist the ravages of the Northman and the Magyar. So well 
 were the practical results of this system appreciated in the course of 
 their development, that, wherever the lesser freeholders were powerful, 
 as amongst the Frisons, no wall was allowed to be raised in a rural dis- 
 trict above a certain height ; and a very similar restriction will be found 
 in the old Saxon code, the Sachsenspiegel. 
 
 The Northmen may be credited with other innovations that led to 
 important consequences at the time of their introduction. Harfager 
 built " tall ships," covering over the fore-part of the vessel as a place of 
 strength, and, filling this "forecastle" with chosen fighting men, known
 
 INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 as Berserkers, he laid his ships alongside the enemy, and carried their 
 vessels by boarding. Thus he founded the kingdom of Norway, and 
 bequeathed his system of fighting at sea to the Norsemen. A heavy 
 axe wielded with both hands, or a long sword similarly used, were the 
 chosen weapons of the fighting portion of the crew, who remained under 
 the shelter of the forecastle until they came into close action ; and if 
 unsuccessful, or driven from their own ships, plunged into the sea and 
 endeavoured to escape by swimming. Defensive armour would have 
 been an uiniecessary protection in the forecastle, a worse than useless 
 encumbrance in the sea; and Jarl Hacon, in his combat with tlie 
 Jomsvikings, cast aside his torn Irynie as useless, as soon as he prepared 
 to carry his enemy's vessel by boarding. Hence the Berserker, who 
 seems to have owed his name to fighting without a Hring-serc, or shirt 
 of mail, was essentially a combatant at close quarters ; and neither 
 Frank nor island Saxon could withstand the onset of the Norsemen 
 when they first encountered the formidable weapons that won for the 
 men who wielded them Normandy and the English Danelage. The 
 Northman for a time replaced the Saxon in the Capitularies, for no 
 byrnie was to be given or sold to him on any pretence — an enactment 
 that would have been unnecessary had not the ranks of the Northmen, 
 in early days, been filled with Berserkers. The " Hache Noresche," or 
 two-handed axe, became a favourite instrument of war in every quarter 
 of the British isles, and, long after it had ceased to be used elsewhere, 
 was still retained in the Scottish Highlands, and amongst the Irish, with 
 whom the man-at-arms was long known as the Qall-oglach (Gallowglasse) 
 or " foreign soldier," — a name derived apparently from the character of 
 his equipment. 
 
 Towards the middle of the eleventh century the island Saxon was 
 noted for his wealth, his rich apparel, and his luxurious living, but he 
 seems to have paid little attention to the art of war, and went to battle 
 much in the same fashion as his ancestors in the reigns of Edward the 
 Elder and liis sons. The horseman, amongst the early Celts and Teutons, 
 was mounted upon an animal of small size, and used his spears (for he 
 carried more than one) as missile weapons, avoiding the actual shock of 
 battle, in which he would have soon been unhorsed, and dismounting 
 when he fought at close quarters. Without the stirrup and the horse- 
 shoe, the mounted man-at-arms of the middle ages, who used his spear 
 as a lance in rest, and bore down opposition by the weight of his charge, 
 could never have been called into existence ; and for the stirrup and 
 the horse -shoe, the people of modern Europe are indebted neither to
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Greek nor Eoman, in whose languages the words will not be found, but 
 to the Hun. Against the downward stroke of the Hache ISToresche the 
 Byrnie must have proved an inefficient protection, and accordingly the 
 " breast- defence" was superseded by the " neck-defence," — the Hals- 
 hcrg^ Hauberc, or shirt of mail with a hood that was drawn over the 
 head, thus protecting the neck and shoulders. The Hauberc was pro- 
 vided with long sleeves covering the arms, and, as it reached below the 
 knees, was essentially the equipment of a horseman, who, no longer 
 using his spear as a missile weapon, cleared a way with it at close 
 quarters, relying upon the weight and protection of his armour. As 
 weight grew to be indispensable to the mounted cavalier, a lighter 
 equipment, and a missile weapon that could be felt from afar, became 
 necessities for the infantry ; and thus the horseman sought the melie 
 instead of avoiding it, whilst the bow was given to the soldier who 
 fought on foot, and archery became, in a certain sense, the artillery of 
 the age. The bow, though little used apparently in England except in 
 the chase, had long been familiar to the Normans as a weapon of war, 
 playing an important part in the naval engagements of their ancestors, 
 with whom it had always been an object to shoot the steersman of the 
 enemy's vessel. Lapps and Finns were especially noted as marksmen, 
 as they continue to be at the present day with the rifle ; and both de- 
 scriptions of arrows were in use, the Boga-skot and Gaflok, or Pile and 
 Broad arrow. But the strength of the English army still lay in its 
 heavy- armed infantry, and they seem to have been fond of bringing 
 matters to a crisis in the melee, in which their two-handed weapons 
 must have played a formidable part. England, indeed, a wooded and 
 not a champaign country, must have been ill adapted to cavalry ; and 
 when Ealph, the Norman Earl of Hereford, in accordance with the 
 usual system of his countrymen, mounted his English followers to 
 attack the Welsh, they turned and fled " because they were on horses." 
 It is difficult to look at the Bayeux tapestry, or to read the descriptions 
 of Wace, without perceiving that Harold's men were behindhand in mili- 
 tary equipment, and that the island Saxon had not kept pace with the 
 improvements of the age. 
 
 " Cors haubers oreut, et petis, 
 E helmes de sor les vestis." 
 
 The Gueldons, or soldiery forming the real strength of the army, wore 
 a headpiece unprotected by the " neck-defence," and the short hauberc 
 or haubergeon, adapted to the heavy-armed foot-soldier — an equipment 
 answering to the " haubergeon et chapel de fer" required, in the reign
 
 INTRODUCTION. xv 
 
 of Henry the Second, for a secondary class of soldiery inferior in stand- 
 ing to the fully armed man-at-arms ; whilst their favourite axe is 
 stigmatized by Wace as a clumsy weapon, requiring both hands to 
 wield it — thus leaving the body without protection against the lance of 
 the horseman and the arrow of the bowman. " You have plenty of 
 men, but a rabble of vilanaille in their everyday dress is not worth 
 much in battle. I fear the Normans much, for they are all well armed, 
 and on horseback, and will trample your people under foot. They have 
 lance and shield, hauberc, helm, and sword, with bows and broad arrows 
 that fly swifter than a bird." Such are the words that are placed in the 
 mouth of Gurth by Wace ; and Harold, an able and experienced leader, 
 seems to have been fully awake to the danger of encountering William's 
 horsemen in the open field. Falling back upon the tactics of an earlier 
 age, he entrenched his army, well knowing that his enemy, in a hostile 
 country, dared not leave such a force in his rear ; and as long as the 
 Norman attack was confined to attempts at carrying the barricade by 
 storm, the advantage lay with its defenders, " for every Norman who 
 forced his way through lost his life by axe or club." But as soon as 
 Harold's men, galled by a shower of arrows to which they could make 
 no return, were tempted to follow the retreating ranks of the Norman 
 horsemen, they were drawn away from their barricade, and their defeat 
 became a matter of certainty. Whenever brave men meet in battle, 
 victory, under ordinary circumstances, is sure to incline to the side that 
 is best prepared for the conflict. Such is the lesson to be learned from 
 the battle of Hastings. 
 
 The advantages that William gained by the superior equipment and 
 organization of his army were secured by building castles ; for stone 
 fortifications of this description seem to have been little, if at all, known 
 in England before his time. Not only the surrounding country, but the 
 burgh itself, was dominated by the castellan and his garrison, and from 
 the introduction of the castle the burghers of northern and central 
 Europe, as a body, began to lose their warlike attributes, exchanging 
 their original character more and more for that of a trading class. Only 
 the larger and more populous burghs, such as London, and the great 
 cities of Elanders and the Empire were able to resist this influence, 
 always remaining formidable from the number of their inhabitants far 
 surpassing the power of any garrison to control them. Castle-building 
 may be said to have been carried out by the Crown and the greater, 
 feudatories during the next two or three centuries, securing England for 
 the Conqueror and his successors, and confirming the hold of David and
 
 xvi IFTRODUGTION. 
 
 his house upon Scotland, whilst it was the policy recommended by 
 Giraldus for completing the conquest of Ireland. It also enabled the 
 armies of the time to dispense with a portion of the unarmed rabble that 
 was the necessary attendant of an army before that time ; for in the 
 friendly castle, towards which the march of the host was directed, were 
 to be found the various stores and necessaries which would have been 
 carried upon a train of carts, " requisitioned " from the villeinage in the 
 days of Charlemagne. Thus a well-armed body of soldiery, fewer in 
 number but far more efficient, though costly to equip and support, began 
 to take the place of the half-armed multitude of earlier days, who were 
 latterly known as " the rascalry." 
 
 Henry Fitz-Empress is the first of the English kings in whose reign 
 may be traced an Assize at Arms, by which a certain light is thrown 
 upon the character of the free population of England at that time. It 
 had been for some time incumbent upon every English freeholder of a 
 certain standing, holding by military service, or fief de hauherc (per 
 loricam), to provide a mounted man-at-arms in full armour for every 20 
 lbs. of land. The rule was now extended to the free community at large, 
 every member of which became bound to provide himself, according to 
 his property, with offensive and defensive arms, to be bequeathed to 
 his heir ; and the example of the English king was followed by Philip 
 of France and the Count of Flanders. By this time, as may be gathered 
 from the Dialogus de Scaccario, the law of Murdrum, by which the man 
 found dead was paid for by the district as a Norman if not " proved 
 English," had become a dead letter, on account of the difficulty of 
 " proving Englishry " amongst the free classes, or distinguishing their 
 nationality, so thoroughly had they become intermingled at the period 
 in which the Dialogue was written. It was in consequence of this 
 intermixture of the two races that the whole free population, as is shown 
 by the Assize of the first Plantagenet, could be safely intrusted with 
 arms. None but the actual supporters of Harold who fought at Hastings, 
 or their representatives, were forfeited after the Conquest according to 
 the author of the Dialogue, the remaining landowners retaining their 
 properties, but without the power of bequeathing them. No grant or 
 charter of an earlier date was looked upon as binding ; but upon the 
 death of the actual holders, the heirs had to make their own terms with 
 the king, or with one of the great Norman overlords, amongst whom the 
 rest of England was divided ; and probably, like the barons of William 
 Rufus, they bought back their lands at the fuU value. Henry the First 
 promised to forego this custom, in the charter in which he also relieved
 
 IXTROD UCTION. xvii 
 
 all lands held in Fief cle haubcrc from the burdens entailed by the earlier 
 system of Thanage ; and from the opening of the twelfth century began 
 that amalgamation amongst the members of the free community through 
 which the law of Murdrum had died out, for all practical purposes, in 
 the reign of his grandson, when the right of inheriting and bequeathing 
 property was fully acknowledged. But so thoroughly had the recollec- 
 tion of the real state of the free population at this time died out in tlie 
 following century, that the authorities of a later period often write as if 
 the native element in the population groaned under the oppression of an 
 alien race until the reign of John ; whilst the question that was a difii- 
 culty in the twelfth century — tracing the descent of the free classes from 
 a Norman or an English ancestor — is solved with facility by the learned 
 in such matters at the present day !^ 
 
 Eichard was always occupied with the Crusade, or with his wars with 
 France ; John relied, and with reason, upon his mercenaries, and during 
 the earlier portion of his son's reign, foreign influences prevailed in Eng- 
 land. It is not surprising, therefore, that seventy years and upwards 
 were suffered to elapse before it was again thought necessary to insist 
 upon arming the community — ever heedless, apparently, upon this ^Joiut 
 — and the royal order, which seems to have been regarded as a novelty 
 by Paris and his contemporaries (so soon are we forgetful of much that 
 has happened before our own time), was "hailed with acclamation 
 throughout the land." Henceforth England, " like Italy," was to be 
 powerful in her armed hosts, and the revival of the Assize at Arms was 
 followed almost immediately by the Barons' War, Edward i., like his 
 great-grandfather, seems to have been partial to " la grande guerre " of 
 his age, occasionally known as Gallica Militia, or French tactics ; and 
 his wars with the Welsh soon taught him the weak point in his own 
 army. From this time he appears to have sacrificed everything to the 
 " cheval convert," the Destrier, or great war-horse, covered with armour ; 
 and in 1282, "on account of the serious deficiency of large and com- 
 petent war-horses in our realm," he ordered that every owner of 30 lbs. 
 of land should provide himself with a " cheval convert," all lesser pro- 
 
 ^ Most of the Confessor's servants appear to have remained undisturbed by William. 
 Scarcely a single forester, for instance (if any), was introduced from Normandy ; for, as 
 Edward was a sportsman, his keepers probably knew their business, and "his father 
 held it in King Edward's time," or some similar notice, is generally apj)cndcd to their 
 names in the Survey. Against one class, however, the Conqueror seems to have been 
 inexorable, and some may think with reason, for Domesday may be searched in vain 
 for a solitary instance of the retention in the royal household of any of King Edward's 
 — cooks.
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 prietors, down to the owner of 3 lbs, of land, uniting to provide a horse 
 of a similar description. Accordingly, when he marched into Scotland 
 in 1298, in addition to a numerous array of mounted men and infantry, he 
 carried with him a body of three thousand horsemen, mounted on covered 
 horses, a force that was irresistible, when operating in a country adapted 
 to cavalry, against anything that could be brought against it by the 
 Scots. Half a century of careful regulations about military equipment, 
 and the supervision of one of the most able kings and generals of his 
 time, had raised the English army to the highest standard of the age ; 
 but Scotland, after seventy years of comparative peace and prosperity, 
 still remained in the position held by England in the middle of the 
 century, and Falkirk was but a repetition of Hastings, and of many a 
 battle fought under similar circumstances. Wallace grouped his spear- 
 men into four circles, that were thought impenetrable (as they were) to 
 " man of blode," though they proved incapable of resisting man and 
 horse of iron. Between these circles he ranged his archers, placing in re- 
 serve his thousand mounted men, who soon fled, for they were far too few 
 in number to be of any use. Edward's heavy cavalry, after riding down 
 the archers without much difficulty, closed in upon the circles, whilst 
 his infantry, of whom he seems to have made little account, shot at 
 their helpless foes with arrows, and pelted them with stones. In the 
 description left by Wace of the battle of Hastings, the English Gueldons 
 are represented as occasionally closing with the Norman horsemen, and 
 sometimes succeeding in cutting down their horses by a stroke of the 
 axe. But no such feat was possible against horses covered with 
 armour, and the English horsemen, after transfixing a few of the spear- 
 men in the front rank with their long lances, forced their mail-clad 
 chargers into the gaps thus made in the circles, and soon succeeded in 
 breaking them up. The impunity with which they accomplished this 
 feat of arms, which would have been impracticable for horsemen 
 mounted on unprotected chargers, may be gathered from the fact that 
 only two men of note fell upon the English side, the Master of the 
 Temple and the Prior of Torphichen. 
 
 By basing his opposition to the superior forces of the invaders upon 
 a totally different system, Bruce succeeded in undoing all that Edward 
 had accomplished. The Gallica Militia, indeed, was only adapted to a 
 country fitted for the evolutions of heavy cavalry, and it was resisted 
 with success, about the opening of the fourteenth century, in the 
 swamps of the Low Countries, and amidst the broken ground and 
 mountain passes of Switzerland and Scotland. Edward, like his con-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 temporaries, may have carried his fondness for heavy cavahy too far, 
 for, as soon as he was in his grave, his system was modified. The lesser 
 proprietors were released from the necessity of providing Destriers, the 
 " poor knight " ceased to be summoned to the army, and a fully armed 
 horseman, mounted on a covered horse, was only required from the 
 great knight's-fee, or 40 lbs. of land. All the lesser proprietors were 
 bound to serve as light horsemen, or as well-armed infantry, and, in the 
 second year of the new king's reign, Eichard de Burgh was ordered to 
 forward from Ireland 300 Hdbdcrs for service in the Scottish wars. 
 This is the earliest allusion to the light horseman in the English armies 
 of that period ; but though the Hobeler was first imported from Ireland, 
 in consequence, apparently, of the absence of such a class in England, 
 he soon became an important member of the forces raised at home. 
 From the date of the French wars, and even earlier, pay was regidarly 
 issued to an army in the field, and the fighting men grew more and 
 more into a " soldiery," or a class following the profession of arms for 
 pay. The flower of such a soldiery, however, continued to be furnished 
 from amongst the landowners, great and small, serving for pay during 
 the campaign ; and the composition of a " corps d'elite " in the fifteenth 
 century was still described as consisting of 
 
 " Knights, and squires, and men of higli degree, 
 And yeomen bold, withouten rascalry." 
 
 The Land ; the Church — how far does the conception entertained of 
 the past, in the present day, correspond in either case with the truth ? 
 Are we not apt to fix our eyes upon the free community of a certain 
 stage of society, and dilate upon its supposed advantages, ignoring the 
 mass of servitude that escapes our notice, and forgetting that the whole 
 of the classes usually known as " the lower orders " were condemned, 
 during the palmy days of the free community, to remain in hopeless 
 thraldom ? The lowest free member of the Athenian democracy was 
 looked upon as a poor man if he had not in his possession at the least 
 six or seven slaves ; and however democratic may have been the prin- 
 ciples of the republics of antiquity, or of the free communities of the 
 earlier portion of the Christian era, the liberty and the equality were 
 enjoyed by the privileged classes alone, never penetrating far below the 
 surface or upper crust of society. Judged by the standard of the pre- 
 sent day, the freest of these democracies would wear the appearance of a 
 narrow oligarchy, dominating over a popidation of serfs. The exclusive
 
 XX INTRODUCTIOK 
 
 spirit of the republican of ancient Eome is displayed in the contempt 
 with which Tacitus alludes to the occasional preponderance of the 
 Libertine element amongst the Germans under kingly rule ; yet in the 
 possibility of a slave emerging from the condition in which he was 
 born, and rising to rank and power in the State, may be traced the 
 germs of the more liberal system of modern times, under which 
 eminence is attainable by talent, irrespective of the privileges of birth — 
 an impossibility under the system to which Tacitus gave the preference, 
 or under any system in which the Mmg-horh, or tie of blood, was para- 
 mount. Feudalism is represented, by a certain class of writers, as a 
 system of oppression devised for the benefit of a dominant class alone, 
 and imposed by force of arms upon a population in a state of compara- 
 tive freedom — a system through which the owners and occupiers of the 
 soil were reduced to a state of servitude, and burdened with exactions 
 extorted for the advantage of their oppressors. Yet early feudalism, or 
 the system of military tenure under which the grant of land was the 
 feo, or reward of service, instead of the cethel, or privilege attached to 
 birth alone, was the only species of free-service compatible with the 
 rude age in which it first arose ; and by the admission of the principle 
 of free-service, and its gradual development and extension, the condition 
 of the poorer and unprivileged classes was, in course of time, materially 
 alleviated. The first free-burgher, in northern and western Europe, 
 was a soldier introduced from the rural districts ; and after the intro- 
 duction of the principle of free-service from the country into the city, 
 the occupations of civic life began to be followed by a class of freemen. 
 The nearer we approach to the reality of the distant past in which the 
 early system of military tenure arose, the less does that reality wear the 
 favourable appearance in which it is sometimes clothed ; for the obliga- 
 tions that so long remained attached to base tenure, relics, and remnants 
 of a condition of absolute slavery, were in existence long before the 
 introduction of feudalism. "If any one steals, kills, or sells a farm- 
 bailiff, house-steward, or messenger, an artisan working in gold, in iron, 
 or in wood, a vine-dresser, miller, swineherd, or any household servant, 
 if they are worth 25 solidi, the fine shall be 70 solidi, in addition to the 
 value of the chattel." Such is the tenor of an enactment in the older 
 Salic Law, in which may be seen the ordinary condition of the popula- 
 tion not included amongst the privileged Ingenui of the allodial system. 
 As many of the classes, enumerated above as " chattels," were omitted 
 in the revision of the earlier code set on foot by Charlemagne, some 
 advance would appear to have been made in the direction of freedom
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXI 
 
 even at that early period. The helpless and hopeless serfdom of the 
 subject population, during the allodial period, has generally been passed 
 over without notice ; whilst the very struggles of these unprivileged 
 classes, as they won their way towards freedom, under a system founded 
 upon the principle of free-service, have drawn our attention to their 
 sufferings. 
 
 Nature appears to have implanted an instinct in animals in a wild 
 state, if they are not animals of prey, to group themselves together as if 
 for protection, and to appropriate certain feeding-grounds for their sup- 
 port. They unite to resent intrusion upon their feeding-grounds, and 
 if the flock grows too numerous for the ground, offshoots separate them- 
 selves from the main body in search of other pastures, or else civil war 
 breaks out between the members of the herd. A similar instinct seems 
 to have been implanted in man, who, from the earliest times, will be 
 found to have always been a unit in some community, however minute ; 
 for man by himself would have been an outcast, or an animal of prey, 
 and would have been hunted down by his fellows, and either killed if 
 he offered resistance, or made a slave if he chose to submit. It is only 
 in a state of society that is civilized enough to recognise the separate, 
 individual, rights of each unit of which it is composed, that man, as an 
 individual, is secure. Before this time arrived, he was safe only in his 
 family, in his neighbourhood, and in the joint association of families and 
 neighbourhoods constituting a lesser or greater community. They alone 
 w^ould have supported him in life, and revenged him if wronged or slain ; 
 and a man without some such support in such an age, a man who was 
 not a member of some sort of community, however small, would have 
 been obliged to seek support elsewhere, and obtain it by exchanging 
 independence for dependence, or the condition of a freeman for that of 
 a slave. 
 
 The early community might be pastoral or agricultural, rural or 
 civic ; for a community enclosed within walls might follow a pastoral 
 or an agricultural life, and was not necessarily commercial until a com- 
 paratively later period. In its rudest form, however, the community 
 was made up of hunters, living upon everything they could find in the 
 forest, or on the plain, in the river, or in the sea, and enjoying a state of 
 social equality, and a community of property, in perfection. The actual 
 property of the hunter, indeed, was limited to the skins in which he was 
 clad, to which perhaps may be added the weapons and instruments he 
 used in the chase ; a slave would have only been an extra mouth to 
 provide for, as he had no domestic animals to tend, and his crops, if he
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 raised any, were sown and reaped by his women, or the feeble and aged 
 members of his family. Accordingly, he had no object to gain in sparing 
 his enemy, and he killed him, as he killed every other animal that came 
 in his way, and occasionally ate him. Eaces that remain for a lengthened 
 period in such a stage of society recede before the approach of civilisation, 
 and die out, or disappear in some manner, when brought into closer con- 
 tact with it ; but as long as they continue to exist, they present the 
 nearest approach to a state of perfect social equality, combined with 
 community of property ; and if ever a civilized people were to succeed 
 in retrograding into a similar condition, a similar fate would await 
 them — in some way or other they would be broken up and disappear. 
 No mere hunting community ever arrived at civilisation. 
 
 Nomads, if not a mere collection of hunters, necessarily follow a 
 pastoral mode of life, but a pastoral community is not necessarily 
 nomadic. The corn-growing herdsman occupies an intermediate posi- 
 tion between the ever-wandering nomad, and the stationary tiller of the 
 ground, who is always more or less attached to the soil he cultivates, 
 Flocks and herds constituted the earliest source of wealth, and out of 
 wealth arose the earliest distinction between man and man, the inequality 
 between rich and poor. The rich man required attendants for his flocks 
 and herds, the poor man needed protection and support, and in return 
 for it became a dependant, or unfree ; for the earlier stages of society 
 knew of no other distinction than that between the free and the unfree. 
 The unfree member of a pastoral community, however, was a dependant 
 rather than a serf ; for the herdsman had only to fix a sharp point upon 
 the end of his goad, or staff, and he became a spearman, a warrior, and 
 a marauder, the protector of his charge against the attacks of others, and 
 the willing follower of his patron in many a predatory foray. It was 
 otherwise with the unfree member of an agricultural community, for 
 actual tillage, or manual labour, undertaken for the support of others, is 
 always more or less a work of necessity or compulsion, and the word 
 applied to Cain, as " tiller of the soil," is used elsewhere in the Old 
 Testament for a slave. Fix an Arab tribe upon the soil as cultivators, 
 and all but the leading members must exchange the condition of 
 Bedaioeen for that of Fellaheen — a class they despise and detest — and 
 must give up a free and wandering existence for a life of toil. Corn, 
 when it is grown in quantities, and the vineyards, olive- grounds, and 
 orchards of a settled agricultural community, require a cultivating class 
 of producers, and a fighting class to protect the produce ; for though the 
 herdsman is naturally a man of war, ever ready for a foray, the culti-
 
 INTROD UCTIOK xxiii 
 
 vator of the soil never becomes a soldier until he is taken from it and 
 transformed into the still more efficient fighting-machine, the soldier by- 
 profession. Hence in the contempt and detestation of the Bedaween 
 for the Fellaheen may be seen a reflection of the antipathy of the 
 Nomad, in early days, against the settled cultivator of the soil. 
 " Neither shall ye build house, nor sow corn, nor plant vineyard, nor 
 have any, but all your days ye shall dwell in tents ; " and by following 
 out these directions the Eechabites preserved their liberty, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of a comparatively settled race, from the days in which their 
 ancestors pitched their tents in the wilderness south of Judah ; just as 
 the ancestors of the Israelites lost their freedom by forsaking a wander- 
 ing and pastoral life to settle in the fertile land of Goshen amongst the 
 Egyptians. One of the laws of the ancient Nabatsean confederacy made 
 it a capital crime to sow corn, to build a house, or plant a tree, as it 
 was for such things that men were wont to sacrifice their liberty ; and, 
 accordingly, the inroads of the Nomads have ever brought desolation 
 and destruction in their track, — for it was a fixed and settled principle 
 in the Nomad to reduce the country he invaded to the condition of a 
 waste and open pasturage. In short, he looked upon such a com-se as a 
 religious duty. 
 
 The Nomad, on the other hand, was as much an object of dread and 
 detestation to the member of a settled society ; the shepherd was an 
 abomination to the Egyptian ; and this antagonism is clearly traceable 
 in some of the most ancient systems of religion in the old world. 
 Agriculture was inculcated as a sacred duty upon the follower of 
 Zoroaster, and he was taught that it was incumbent upon all who 
 worshipped Ahuramasda to lead a settled Life. Between the agricul- 
 turist and the herdsman, Ahurasmada had selected the pious cultivator 
 of the soil, who was to be blessed with riches, in which all who refused 
 to till the ground, and persisted in worshipping evil spirits, were to have 
 no share. Ahuramasda created the gadhas, or enclosed and cultivated 
 properties, which he fenced around with stakes or palisades, and assigned 
 to his worshippers as their own — as private property. Everything that 
 the Nomad was enjoined to avoid was thus inculcated, as a religious 
 duty, upon the followers of Zoroaster, and accordingly three distinct and 
 separate classes were developed by the latter system, represented by the 
 Qaetus, ox ownQV \ the Ainjama, friend, associate, ov comes (in the later 
 Gathas he appears as the client) ; and the Verezena, bondman, or actual 
 worker, the servile cultivator of the soil, who was to be consoled for a 
 life of toil by the reflection that he was performing a religious duty, and 
 
 c
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 offering in his labour acceptable worship to Ahiiramasda — qui laborat, 
 oral. The regular gradations of a fixed and settled state of society are 
 distinguishable in the Zend-Avesta. The family, the village, the larger 
 community, or civitas (rendered town, or tribe, by Mr. Haag), and the 
 country or province, each under the rule of its respective head, and over 
 all " Zarathustra," — the Magi, or priestly order, who, in one particular 
 province, that of Eagha, stood in the position of " heads of the country," 
 or, in other words, they were the owners of the soil. The principles of 
 Zoroaster, and of similar teachers, led to the federation of settled tribes, 
 out of which arose the mighty empires of antiquity. The " fenced city," 
 so often met with in the earlier portions of the Old Testament, in which 
 the " suburbs" represent the " banlieue," or tract of land over which 
 " the city" more immediately exercised jurisdiction, lay at the base of 
 all the ancient systems of settled polity ; and the influence exercised by 
 the dwellers in the fenced city over the population of the Demes — the 
 " villages" of the Zend-Avesta — must be familiar to every student of 
 classical antiquity.^ 
 
 The Hunting, the Pastoral, the Agricultural — such then may be said, 
 in a general way, to have been the different phases of the early commu- 
 nity, the first presenting the nearest approach to that purely animal 
 state of existence in which liberty and equality are combineil with 
 community of property, each brute obtaining as much as he can eat of 
 Nature's gifts. As soon as Nature fails the brute starves, and man, to 
 avoid starvation, is obliged to work ; but as soon as the intelligent 
 member of a community begins to work, the acquisition of private pro- 
 perty, and the consequent foundation of the principle of wealth and 
 inequality, cannot be prevented, except by compulsion, and with com- 
 pulsion a state of perfect liberty ceases to exist. Inequality, founded 
 upon the principle of private property and its accumulation, was first 
 developed in the Pastoral Community, in which flocks and herds con- 
 stituted the main — and in a purely nomadic society the sole — source of 
 wealth, and the pasturage was the common property of all. The sole 
 bond of union in such a state of society is the tie of kindred, as it still 
 exists amongst the Arabs, with whom the " ransom of blood" falls upon 
 all within the sixth degree of relationship. The tie of neighbourhood 
 is unknown until the community begins to lead a settled life. The 
 tribes of Koordistan, for instance, are formed of a principal family, 
 tliat of the chief, and of a series of other families, more or less closely 
 connected with it, each separate family constituting a hampa, or tent ; 
 ^ Haag's Essays on the Sacred Language, etc., of the Parsees (Bombay, 1862).
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxv 
 
 but it matters not where tlie tent is pitclied, for the bond of union be- 
 tween the families, out of which springs the privilege of sharing in the 
 rights of the connnunity, is in the blood and not in the local position. 
 But as soon as the soil began to be regularly tilled and planted the 
 settled cultivator was required, who dwelt, whether free or servile, within 
 a certain limited area, whether open or enclosed within walls. The 
 inhabitants of such an area constituted a permanently settled community, 
 under whatever name it may have been known, and the area itself was 
 " a neighbourhood," its obligations being more or less incumbent upon all 
 the members of the community within its limits, without any reference 
 to their consanguinity. Thus, out of the fixed and settled life of the 
 agricultural community arose the tie of " the neighbourhood," in which 
 lay the germ of "nationality;" and to the same source may be traced 
 the principle of private property in land. Strange as it may api^ear at 
 the present time, the principle in question is first observable — at least 
 in Western Europe — amongst a class that w^as distinct from and inferior 
 to the representatives of the original free community. It would appear 
 to have first arisen out of the development of a class connected with 
 the land, free, but unprivileged ; and to each of the members of such a 
 class, certain rights within a fixed and settled district were at first 
 assigned, which may be described as a limited right of occupation, and 
 which, in course of time, often took the shape of a fixed amount of land, 
 with which all further claims upon the community ceased at once and 
 for ever. A general right of occupation in the land that was not thus 
 set apart long continued to be the exclusive privilege of the representa- 
 tives of the original community — who were not necessarily their actual 
 descendants, — until, as time passed on, this vague and general privilege 
 was replaced, in their case also, by the grant of land to be permanently 
 held as private property with ownership. 
 
 The Ptoman aristocracy, representatives, and in some cases descend- 
 ants, of the original community claiming to be the sole Populus Eomanus, 
 long continued to remain in the position of a class of occupying land- 
 holders rather than of proprietary landowners ; a remark that may be 
 extended to the Plebeian of early days, as long as he continued to hold 
 the position of a landholder. Two classes only can be distinguished in 
 the Twelve Tables — Adsidui and Proletarii, the landholders and the 
 landless, — and as fines were then estimated in cattle and sheep, jJccor« 
 passing for pecunia, the Eoman Adsiduus, though belonging to a civic 
 community, would appear to have followed a pastoral rather than an 
 agi'icultural mode of life. Of the Villa, or landed estate of a later age.
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 whether rustic or urban, he was as yet ignorant, and a tugurmm and 
 hortus, or a small house built upon a little plot of ground that was used 
 for garden land, vineyard, or orchard, constituted his Hceredium, the sole 
 property in land that he held with ownership. But as his wealth con- 
 sisted in the cattle and sheep with which he paid his mulcts when they 
 were levied on him, he must have required land for the support of his 
 live stock ; and, accordingly, a right of occupying the common pasturage, 
 or of depasturing his animals upon it, must have been attached to the 
 Hseredium of every Adsiduus. Land may be said to have been at this 
 time divided into sacred, public, and tribe land, for it would be difficult 
 to point out the existence of any other ; and after the system of coloni- 
 zation came into use, the portion of land made over to a colony was cut 
 off, as it were, and separated from the public land of the ruling com- 
 munity, and the ownership was centred in the offshoot or colony, 
 which has been described as a miniature Eome. The ownership of sacred 
 land was vested in a deity, whose officiating ministers enjoyed the 
 privilege of occupying it, but without proprietary right. Public land 
 was conquered land, and its ownership was vested in the State, the privi- 
 lege of occupying it, without proprietary right, being confined to the 
 privileged members of the community. In the infancy of the Eoman 
 Commonwealth the whole of the land in the immediate neighbourhood 
 of the city was probably tribe-land, held in joint- occupation by the 
 Populus Eomanus of early times ; but as the Commonwealth enlarged 
 its boundaries, conquering or incorporating a number of the neighbouring 
 communities, a certain portion of the land thus acquired was set apart 
 for the, new but unprivileged citizens added to the Commonwealth, or for 
 Koman Proletarii, who were, in this manner, converted into Adsidui, the 
 remainder lapsing to the State as public land. Within the portion thus 
 set apart as tribe-land, of which the ownership would have been vested 
 in the tribe (just as the ownership of the land made over to a colony 
 was vested in the colonial community), the plebeian Adsiduus would ap- 
 pear to have enjoyed a limited right of occupation, or of depasturing his 
 stock within a limited area ; a privilege resembling that of the Colonus 
 of the same period, and very similar in its character to the unlimited 
 right of occupying the public land originally belonging to the Patricians. 
 But it was a privilege of occupation and not a right of ownership ; " in 
 horto, hperedium," — the proprietary right was limited to the little plot of 
 garden- ground on which the house was built, resembling the " toft and 
 croft " of the mediaeval period. There is not a trace of any fixed and 
 measured portion of land, resembling the hide, having been attached to
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
 
 the HEeredium, to pass, with the Jiortus, to the heir. The Hoeredium 
 carried with it a privilege of occupation, and of pastoral rather than 
 agricultural occupation. Tillage-farmers were not planted upon the 
 public land before the Eevolution of the Gracchi, and the tribe- 
 land, in early days, was probably only a reflection on a lesser scale of 
 the public land, and, like the colony, governed by similar custom. The 
 plebeian Adsiduus was a stock-farmer on a small scale, or a corn-growing 
 herdsman, rather than a small tillage-farmer, who woiild have had 
 no market for his corn. His wealth consisted in his stock, and not in 
 his corn, of which he would have only raised enough for his own im- 
 mediate consumjDtion, as he had no " overlord " to supply ; and accord- 
 ingly most of the larger land-measurements, and standards of capacity, 
 used in a later age, were borrowed by the Eomans from corn- growing 
 Campania. 
 
 The privilege of occupation was restricted within certain limits by 
 the regulations of Licinius, but public land continued to be inalienable 
 from the State until a much later period ; and it is difficult to understand 
 how private property in land could have been acquired with absolute 
 ownership, during the continuance of this restriction, except by purchasing 
 Hseredia. The right of occupation within a limited area, that was attached 
 to every Hseredium, would have passed with the land when sold ; and, by 
 buying up a whole area, a property with absolute (Quiritarian) owner- 
 ship would have been acquired in the district, for every right and privi- 
 lege once belonging to the little group of plebeian Adsidui — " the neigh- 
 bourhood," — would have been centred in the purchaser. So in England, 
 during the mediaeval period, if the joint rights of the occupiers of a vill 
 or township were centred in one owner, he could do what he liked 
 with the land, and it would have exchanged the character of common- 
 land held in joint occupation by a little community, for that of a landed 
 estate held in absolute ownership by a single proprietor. It may have 
 been for some such a cause that the lesser plebeian Adsidui had all but 
 disappeared from the tribe-lands in the time of Tiberius Gracchus, and 
 at the date of his reforms the privileged families seem to have almost 
 succeeded in establishing a title to ownership in the public land from 
 lengthened occupation. In consequence of the revolution brought about 
 at that period, and the changes subsequently introduced, the system of 
 farming the revenues of the State superseded the earlier custom of actual 
 occupation, and the public land was planted with small tillage-farmers, 
 the agricultural Coloni, who became the types and precursors of the rural 
 fiscalini of a later period, and of the Geneats, Bauers, or Husbandmen of
 
 xxviii INTROD UCTIOK 
 
 the middle ages. Thus the Italian yeoman, the lesser Adsiduus who 
 fought in the ranks of the early Legion and occupied the tribe-land with 
 allodial right, was replaced by the Italian husbandman, who was planted 
 on the public land as the cultivator employed by the State, and was 
 usually a Vectigalian, or customary tenant; for vcctigal originally answered 
 to the old English woxdi feorm, or rent paid in kind, until it was more or 
 less commuted for rent paid in money. The Roman magnate, no longer 
 an occupant of the public land which he left to the Coloni, dwelt upon 
 his urban villa or private property cultivated by slave labour, and often 
 acted as a middleman between the State and the tenantry of the State, 
 becoming answerable to the former for the fixed amount of rent imposed 
 upon the Coloni, and extracting from the latter all that he could exact 
 in addition. The public land ceased from about this period to be inalien- 
 able, but as the power of the Censors over it seems to have been limited 
 to the Locatio (to letting it), land that was alienated and sold would ap- 
 pear to have been known for a certain time as Ager Queestorius — as if a 
 sale by the officials of the Senate, and thus made under the authority of 
 the Senate, was requisite to give a secure and satisfactory title to the 
 purchaser. All such distinctions, however, vanished after every right 
 and privilege was centred in the sole representative of the State, the 
 Emperor. Thus in course of time, and during the lapse of many genera- 
 tions, the members of the Eoman aristocracy gradually exchanged the 
 somewhat unsettled character of a privileged occupying class, in which 
 many of the features incidental to the early pastoral community are 
 traceable, for that of a class of fixed and stationary landowners, and an 
 intermediate class grew up in connexion with the public land, or the 
 property once occupied in common by the members or representatives of 
 the early community. The servant of the State was superior to the 
 servant of an individual member of the State, for the cultivator upon 
 a private property was a slave, whilst the cultivator on the public land 
 was a freeman, though unprivileged, — originally a customary tenant-at- 
 will, or with a lease, until the principle of Emphyteusis was acknowledged, 
 and lengthened occupation was allowed to give him a right of hereditary 
 tenancy in the land he cultivated, from which he was irremoveable 
 as long as he acquitted himseK of the obligations of his tenure.'^ 
 
 In the description of the Germans left by Tacitus, the germs of many 
 of the institutions existing in a much later stage of society seem to be 
 more or less traceable. Two classes alone can be distinguished in con- 
 
 ^ The autliorities for tlie deductions I liave drawn will be found further on, under 
 tlie head of "E.omu."
 
 INTRODUCTIOX. xxix 
 
 nexion with the land, as in most early societies of a similar character, 
 -^the absolutely free and the unfree. Ignorant of the advantages to he 
 derived from orchard, garden-land, or vineyard, and even of the separate 
 meadow, close, or gmrs-tun, in which were kept in after times the oxen 
 used in agriculture, the German freeman followed a pastoral life, and 
 was essentially a corn-growing herdsman, delighting in the numbers of 
 his cattle, his sole and favourite source of wealth — " solse et gratissimse 
 opes." Eestless alike and indolent, when not engaged in war or hunting, 
 he passed his time in idleness, and in after times, accordingly, the 
 Lindisfarne Glossarist explains the Paradise of Scripture as " a place in 
 which no labour is enforced." Field-work, when he had no slaves, he 
 left tc the women of his family, or to the members incapacitated by age 
 or infiimity from serving in war. The tie of kindred was alone acknow- 
 ledged by the members of the community, for the " Hundred " warriors 
 contributed from every Pagus were ranged by families and kins, and not 
 by chance or arbitrary selection — " nee fortuita conglobatio . . . sed 
 familise et propinquitates." The bond of neighbourhood was as yet com- 
 paratively unknown, for the freemen dwelt apart from each other, " ut 
 fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit," and were not collected into villages. 
 Each had his separate house, with an open space around it, wdiich 
 he had not yet learned to utilize — " suam quisque domum spatio cir- 
 cumdat," — just as in later days the freeholder dwelt upon his own 
 " hedged off" property, and apart from the Geneats, or customary tenants 
 of the village. No tax was levied on the freemen, but it was usual for 
 every member of a community to offer, of his own accord (" ultro et 
 viritim "), a gift of cattle and corn to his Pmicep.s,— his ealdor, or his 
 cyning, — and the custom seems to have been perpetuated in the " night's 
 feorm " long attached to frank-tenure, and in the feudal aid of a some- 
 what later period. As the freeman's household was strictly limited to 
 his own family, he had no employment for domestic servants ; and, 
 accordingly, every member of the unfree class dwelt in his own liomc, 
 reminding Tacitus of the Eoman husbandman (colonus), and supplying 
 the corn, cattle, and clothing his lord required from him, — the Hlaford- 
 feorm, or Ptefection, of later days, — thus being the representative of a 
 servile agricultural class, solely employed in cultivating the soil. The 
 land belonging to the community, or confederacy, resembled the Agar 
 Occupatorius of early Eome in certain points ; for it was not held in 
 private ownership, but possessed in common by the privileged free class, 
 though not assigned among them in equal portions ; and its extent was 
 so great that the whole of it was never occupied at the same time. The
 
 XXX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Pagus, in other words, covered so wide a surface, that the Pagenses only 
 occupied a portion of it, or as much as was required, apparently, for raising 
 corn for their immediate consumption, leaving the remainder waste as 
 pasturage for the support of their sole and favourite source of wealth, 
 their numerous flocks and herds. The arable was changed from year to 
 year, — " arva per annos mutant, et superest ager ; " — for with abundance 
 of space there was not the same necessity for the rotation of crop and 
 fallow, and the field or ploughland set apart permanently for raising 
 corn, as in the more settled system of husbandry, followed at a later 
 period. A very similar rude system of cultivation seems to have sub- 
 sequently prevailed in every part of England, in which land was held by 
 the tenure of Cornage, or by the payment of rent in cattle, and where 
 the Gafol-pcning was not levied upon the fixed and measured portion of 
 arable land. The vestiges of such a system, indeed, were long traceable 
 in some of the western districts, in which the " common field " of arable 
 was unknown, and a separate portion of pasturage was set apart to be 
 ploughed up every two years. The German stored away his corn in a 
 pit or cave dug in the ground, and plastered over with a rude cement, 
 and he often sought refuge in his underground storehouse from the 
 severity of the cold, and occasionally from the pursuit of his foe. His 
 secret hiding-place was the only "fenced city" with which he was 
 acquainted, and he would not have appreciated the use of a permanent 
 building like a barn, which would have at once pointed out to his enemy 
 the place in which he was accustomed to store up his corn.^ 
 
 As soon as the land in the immediate neighbourhood, or within easy 
 distance, of the temporary settlement was exhausted for the time by 
 tillage, it seems to have been abandoned to resume its original character 
 of pasturage, a different portion of the Pagus was similarly settled, and 
 thus, after the lapse of a few years, the whole of it would be occupied 
 " per vices," or in turns. " Without land, or home, or care of any sort, 
 wherever they come, there they find their maintenance," — such is the 
 description of the Chatti left by Tacitus ; and the unsettled character of 
 the German occupation of the land, their partiality to flocks and herds, 
 and the little attention they paid to agriculture, the rude and fragile 
 structure of their dwellings, and their custom of moving about with 
 their families in carts, may have induced Strabo to compare them with 
 the Nomads. Centuries passed away before " the house " was large 
 enough to receive a number of comites, or contain the stores necessary 
 for their support, and the magnate, accordingly, long continued to migrate 
 
 1 Tac. Germ. 5, 8, 14, 15, 16, 25, 26.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxi 
 
 amongst his vills in a similar semi-nomadic manner, remaining a certain 
 number of nights in each of them, and receiving feorm, or refection, until 
 the means of supporting him and his followers were temporarily exhausted. 
 The extent of land required for the German settlement was calculated " pro 
 numero cultorum'' or in proportion to the number of the actual tillers 
 of the soil, comprising the whole of the unfree cultivating class, with 
 the women, the aged, and the feeble amongst the poorer freemen ; and 
 out of such a custom may have arisen the measurement to which Beda 
 gives the Latin name of " terra familite," or the amount of land allotted 
 to the support of a family. As soon as the requisite number of " terra? 
 familiae" was ascertained, the extent of land required was occupied 
 " ab universis," or by the whole community alike, both free and unfree, 
 and divided " inter se, secundum dignationem," or amongst the freemen, 
 according to their position. " Epulse . . . pro stipendio," and the 
 wealthy Princeps, who supported a numerous comitatus, must have 
 necessarily required a larger amount of arable land for his servile 
 cultivators, and of pasturage for his live stock, than the family of the 
 lesser freeman, which was supported by the labour of its own members. 
 The whole extent of country over which the community or confederacy 
 could exercise a right of occupation, seems to have been often known in 
 early days as the ^thcl ; for when " Farre the priest " wrote his glosses 
 on the Gospels, he could only render " patria sua " by " cethcl his." The 
 Fatherland in those days was literally the father's land, and nationality, 
 or rather the feeling out of which it subsequently arose, was limited to 
 the kindred and the district until a much later period than is generally 
 supposed. Hence every member of the free community was an iEtheling, 
 Adaling, or Odaller ; but his allodial right, like that of the early Eoman 
 Adsiduus, was originally a privilege of occupation rather than an owner- 
 ship in any portion of the land. The Folcland was the asthel of tlie 
 English king ; his right of occupying it, and of letting it out in lams, 
 was undisputed and without a limit ; but for a permanent appropria- 
 tion, or an alienation in perpetuity of any part of it, a Boc or charter 
 was necessary, requiring the consent of the leading members of the 
 community. The children of the free member of the community, or 
 his next of kin, were the heirs of his personality in the time of 
 Tacitus, — "et nullum testamentum," — for no will was required when 
 everything passed by tke custom that grew,, in course of time, to be 
 known as "Land-right."^ 
 
 1 Tac. Germ. 20, 26, .31 ; Strabo, L. 7, p. 44G (cd. Amsterdam, 1707). To inc it ap- 
 pears extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the descriptions left by Tacitus
 
 xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But, even in the days of Tacitus, the German often exchanged the 
 position of an Adaling for that of a Comes (Gasind or Gesith), and thus 
 became a member of a Comitatus, or Gasindschaft ; and the represen- 
 tatives of this class were known in after times, amongst the Angles, as 
 Gesithcundmen instead of ^thelings, for the application of the latter 
 name was restricted to the families in whom the ownership of the land 
 was supposed to be vested. The Gasindschaft was essentially military, 
 and was supported by the wealthy Adaling whom its members followed, 
 who must, accordingly, have been the possessor of a numerous body of ser- 
 vile cultivators, to supply the epulce that stood in the place of stipcndium ; 
 and thus arose, in course of time, the two distinct and separate classes 
 that subsequently characterized the Gasindschaft, the one essentially 
 military and always free, the other originally servile, precursors respec- 
 tively of the Ritterschaft and BauerscJiaft of a later age. The fighting 
 man, in return for his military service, had a right to his E2ndce or pay, 
 which in course of time assumed the shape of a Isen or benefice of land ; 
 the cultivator, in return for his agricultural service, was entitled to his 
 " Sedes et Penates," which, in a more settled stage of society, took the . 
 form of a house, with the privilege of sharing in the common-land of the 
 district or neighbourhood, with the customary obligations entailed upon 
 such a holding. After the servile cultivator was enfranchised, or re- 
 placed by a freeman, an intermediate class grew up in connexion with 
 the land," free within the limits of the district within which they 
 enjoyed the privilege of joint-occupation, and irremoveable from it, but 
 bound by the customary obligations of the original servile tenure. They 
 were free of the neighbourhood, but not free of the realm, and must not 
 be confounded (as they are occasionally) with the representatives of the 
 full-free Adalings. The original right of occupying the extent of 
 common-land belonging to the community, upon which the mihtary and 
 cultivating classes of the Gasindschaft were temporarily settled, was 
 vested solely in the Adaling and his kindred, and the leading member 
 amongst his descendants would have been known as the head of the 
 lineage, the Gyning or king. Hence the right of ownership in the land, 
 and the duty of distributing it in fixed but unequal portions, according 
 to the number of families to be supported, a privilege and an obligation 
 which the principle of the community vested in its impalpable self, the 
 principle of the Gasindschaft centred in its supreme head ; but every free 
 
 and Strabo of the GermaDS, with the theory representing them as an agricultural, and 
 therefore necessarily a settled, race, living in village communities from time imme- 
 morial.
 
 INTROD UCTIOK xxxiii 
 
 member of it was as mAich entitled to his share, according to his position, 
 as was the Adaling or free member of the community. It was not alto- 
 gether a " legal fiction," therefore, to vest the original ownership of tlie 
 soil in the sovereign, when the kingdom had been founded upon and 
 grown out of a Gasindschaft. The " fiction " consisted in confounding 
 the principle of the Teutonic Gasindschaft, which was simply a free 
 community, with a palpable instead of an impalpable supreme head, 
 with the principle of imperial Eome, " quod principi placet, legis habet 
 vigorem;" thus ignoring the obligations entailed upon the Teutonic 
 king, and gradually converting him into an absolute and despotic 
 monarch. Some of the greater German confederacies w^ould appear to 
 have been often made up of Communities and Gasindschafts, the leaders 
 of the latter appearing in a double character as it were, — Principes 
 (Fiirsten) and Ealdors in their relation towards the Adalings of the com- 
 munity. Kings in their relation towards their own Gasindschaft.-^ 
 
 In the case of one of the greatest of these confederacies, the Saxon, 
 it may be vaguely gathered from Beda that, in his time, they were under 
 the rule of Ealdermen, one of whom- was chosen in time of war to com- 
 mand, as a Hcrctoga ; relinquishing his supreme authority at the close of 
 the war, and returning to his original position of equality with the other 
 Ealdermen. After the dissolution of the Saxon Confederacy — the Sax- 
 Note that was to be abjured by every Christian convert together with 
 Thor and Woden — and the incorporation of its members into the king- 
 dom of the Franks, only two classes can be clearly distinguished in the 
 Lex Saxomim, the Nobiles and Liti, or Adalings and Ltets (Lassen), the 
 free members of the community and the unfree cultivators with whom 
 Tacitus was familiar, the former reckoned at twelve times the valuation 
 of the latter, or in the old proportion once existing in England between 
 the Twelfhyndman and the Wealh. The Liber, or Eriling, can only be 
 
 ^ The principle, extracted from Justinian's Institutes, " quod principi placet legis liabet 
 vigorem," is only hinted at in the Prologue to Glanville, but Thornton, Bracton, and 
 Fleta incorporate it in the body of their works, adopting it, and trying to explain it 
 away in a very singidar manner. It was popular with several of the English kings, ac- 
 cording to Fortescue, who ascribes much of the misery of France in his time to the ]>re- 
 valence of a Code by which a noble might be tried for his life at the will of the King, 
 put in a sack by the Provost-Marshal, and droM^ned without power of appealing to " the 
 judgment of his peers." After the destruction of the English Baronage in the Wars of 
 the Poses, Prerogative, under its Eoman not its Feudal form, flourished under the 
 Tudors and the Stuarts ; but no clear conception can be formed of the real character of 
 Feudalism, or the system of military tenure and free-service, without keeping in view 
 the difference between the two s])ecies of Prerogative. Those wlio are curious on the 
 subject will find, by comparing the Sachscnspienel with the old Lihcr ile Btncfic'ds, that 
 Laud-recht and Lchen-recht were, in the most essential points, identical.
 
 xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 recognised in the " Liber homo sub tutela nobilis," or under the patron- 
 age of a superior, the Hlaford-socn of the island Saxons.^ If driven 
 from the country, he might offer his land to his next of kin, and, if the 
 latter declined to purchase it, to his Tutor (patron), or to the superior 
 placed over him by the king ; and if his lord refused the land, he might 
 sell it to any purchaser. Thus he was a landholder, but an irremoveable 
 and hereditary tenant of his land, rather than a proprietor ; for the 
 ownership was clearly vested in his lord, or in the king who appointed 
 a superior over him, his next of kin enjoying the right of succeeding 
 to the hereditary tenancy, with the privilege of pre-emption if the land 
 was to be sold. His valuation, however, is never alluded to in the Code 
 of Saxon laws, which only treats of the obligations and privileges of the 
 Adalings — for the Lsets were in a certain sense their property or 
 " chattels" — and the Friling, as a free dependant under the protection 
 of a superior, had no pretensions to belong to the community of which 
 his superior was a member. His position in some respects resembled 
 that of the free Eoman client who was provided for by his patron, and 
 served in the Legion, in the early days in which the Patricians consti- 
 tuted the sole Populus Eomaniis ; for the Saxon Friling was probably 
 the Cnecht, or military follower of his lord, though not after the fashion 
 of the later feudal times ; and he may be recognised, apparently, in the 
 opening years of the tenth century, when Henry the Fowler laid the 
 foundation of the Burgher class, by collecting the milites agrarii into 
 walled towns.^ The Miles agrarius of Old Saxony seems to have been 
 the equivalent of the Haistaldus amongst the Franks, who was occasion- 
 ally moved into a walled town in a similar manner, but at rather an 
 earlier period. The Haistaldus was evidently a Hager-staller, the occu- 
 pant of a " hedged off," or separate property, and apparently the fore- 
 runner of the Saxon Hdgerman of later days, living by Hiiger-recht, and 
 not included amongst the ordinary Bauers of the Dorf, or liable to their 
 customary obligations. The Hagerman was an Erhzinsman, or hereditary 
 tenant-at-rent, irremoveable as long as he fulfilled the obligations of his 
 hereditary tenancy, which he could part with in the same manner as the 
 Friling of the Lex Saxonum, and under very similar conditions. In short, 
 with due allowance for the different era in which he lived, the Saxon 
 Hagerman appears to have been the true representative of the Friling. 
 
 Another glimpse of the state of Saxony, in an era some three cen- 
 turies later than the reign of Henry the Fowler, is obtained in the Sachsen- 
 spiegel, in which the Adalings are clearly traceable in the "Flirsten 
 
 ^ Lex. Sax. xvi. 2 Widukind, i. 35,
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxv 
 
 Freyherren, and Schoppenbar Frey-leute," who continued to be nominally 
 assessed at the old wergild of 1440 solidi, reckoned as 18 lbs., and at the old 
 manbote of 120 solidi, or 30 shillings, the Ruoda of the Lex Saxomtm. 
 Before this time a number of the more important members of the class 
 had evidently been enrolled in the ranks of the feudal nobility, and their 
 manbote was "reckoned in gold" — the mark of the noble by service. 
 They had exchanged the position of Leudes, or members of a Community, 
 for that of Antrustions, and thus become members of a Gasindschaft of 
 which the supreme head was the Kaisar ; whilst the remainder, the 
 Schoppenbar Frey-leute, represented the free community of the Reich, or 
 realm, as judices regis supplying the jury in the highest courts held 
 " under the king's ban," in which the wite was " the king's wite " of sixty 
 shillings, and alone entitled to act as hereditary judges. " No man can 
 have a Gcricht as a lehen except a Schoppenbar freeman, who does fealty 
 with freeman's right to the king." The Bauermeister, who could only 
 punish " in hair and hide," was chosen from a totally different class, and 
 could take no notice of offences committed in the night, which could 
 only be dealt with by the Bclchente Gograf, who was enfeoffed by the 
 Graf. Halsgericht, or jurisdiction in cases of life and death, involving 
 all thefts of property worth more than three shillings, belonged to the 
 Schoppenbar freemen alone. Such was the sole service (Dienst) by 
 which they held their lands, and the leading members of the class were 
 known as Keichs-Schoppen, inheriting and bequeathing their Schoppen- 
 stuhl, or hereditary court, to the eldest son or nearest heir-male, and in 
 heathen times they would probably have been known amongst the 
 Northmen as Godrs. If the Schoppenbar freemen died out in a district 
 the Kaisar alone could replace them, in order that the court " under the 
 king's ban" might be held ; but no one but a Eeich's Dienstman (king's- 
 thegn) could be converted into a Schoppenbar-freeman, and he was to 
 be provided with property enough to sustain his position, either vacant 
 Schoppcn-eigen, or Reich' s-gute — land that was not liable to the obliga- 
 tions of base-tenure.'^ 
 
 Next in order to the Schoppenbar freemen were the Bauergiilden, 
 the Pfleghaftige-leute, and all who were bound to attend the court of the 
 Schuldheiss, in which the wite paid by the Bauergiilden was eight 
 shillings ; or the whole of the landholding class of inferior standing, 
 who, with the free Landsessen, or freemen without property in land, 
 were reckoned at half the valuation of the representatives of the Adal- 
 ings. The Bauergiilden appear to have been superior to the Pfleghaftige- 
 
 » Sachsenspierjel, Bk. i. A. 5, 8, 59 ; Bk. ii. A. 13 ; Bk. iii. A. 26, 45, 54, 81.
 
 xxxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 leute, as a considerable amount of landed property must have occasion- 
 ally been in the possession of members of this class ; for if one of them 
 died without heirs, his inheritance, if amounting to less than three hufen, 
 lapsed to the Schuldheissdom, if to less than thirty to the Grafschaft, 
 and if to more it fell to the Reich. They were Zinsmen, or only liable 
 to rent without customary service, and the proprietor of an erhzinsgut, or 
 hereditary property held by payment of rent, had a right to quarry, 
 sink pits, fell timber, and clear land, witliin the limits of his property 
 without demanding leave from his superior, privileges not belonging to 
 the tenant of an ordinary zinsgut. Thus, though the ownership of the 
 land they held was vested in the Kaisar, or in their immediate overlord, 
 they were irremoveable as long as they performed the obligations of their 
 tenure, which, as in the case of Burgess-tenure, was neither gentle, nor 
 base, but free — the tenure neither of the Adaling nor of the La3t, but of 
 the Friliug ; and the Bauergiilden of the Sachsenspiegel were evidently 
 the true representatives of the Frilings of the Lccc Saxonum., and members 
 of the same class as the Milites Agrarii removed by Henry the Fowler 
 into walled towns, and the Hagermen who were only liable to the juris- 
 diction of their own Hager-gerichter. The Pfleghaftige-leute seem to 
 have been originally Frilings planted on land held by base tenure, free 
 representatives of the Lasts, or servile cultivators of an earlier period, 
 irremoveable from the land they cultivated, but bound by the obligations 
 of customary tenure. Like the early English Geneats, or sharers in the 
 vill, they held the common-land of the Dorf in hereditary joint-occupa- 
 tion, representing the village community, or villani, of the age, and their 
 rights were at this time strictly protected. " He who ploughs, digs up, 
 or encloses the common arable of his Bauers, on complaint of the Bauer- 
 meister shall pay three shillings, and if he carries his cause to the higher 
 courts and fails, he shall pay thirty shillings, and make reparation for the 
 damage done to the common arable, with hote." A similar reparation 
 was demanded from a Dorfschaft, or village community, if guilty of a 
 similar offence. The FroJm-botc, sometimes known as the Gericht's 
 cnecht, and apparently the equivalent of the Summoner or Apparitor of 
 the Welsh Laws, might be chosen by the Piichter and Schoppen from 
 this class, when his inanhotc was immediately doubled ; but he was 
 bound to be in the possession of at least three hufen, in order, apparently, 
 to release him from the obhgations entailed upon the ordinary member 
 of a Dorfschaft, and to place him above the jurisdiction of the Bauer- 
 meister. Three hufen-lands represented the smallest amount of pro- 
 perty entitling the holder to employ a herdsman of his own. The cattle
 
 INTROD UCTIOK xxxvii 
 
 of the ordinary Bauer were under the charge of the " common herdsman," 
 his arable land lay in the " common field," and his holding seems to 
 have been generally limited to the Dorf-hufe of two hufen, or to the 
 Haker-hufe of half that amount. The free Landsessen, " who come and 
 go guestwise in the land, and have no landed property," were bound to 
 attend in the Gografs Court, in which the wite was a shilling ; and of 
 the rights of the Lsets no mention is made, for they were probably 
 entirely dependent on their lords, and it would be long before a village 
 community of this description would be enfranchised from a condition 
 of servitude. The actual labourers were a servile class, known as Day 
 workers, the " Journeyman," whether in a town or in the rural districts, 
 being still numbered amongst the unfree. His bote was a pitchfork and 
 a pair of woollen gloves (the mufflas of King Henry's Laws) and his 
 wergild a Bergful of wheat, so slight was the estimation in which he was 
 held.i 
 
 Gentle tenure, Frank tenure, Base tenure — in general terms such 
 may be said to have been the systems of land-tenure in the age in which 
 the Sachsenspiegel was compiled, the holders in frank-tenure jealously 
 resisting any attempt at converting them into base-tenants. A little 
 before the era of the Sachsenspiegel, a number of Saxon emigrants settled 
 in Transylvania, where their descendants are still existing as a distinct 
 and separate people at the present day. They dwell in " Seats," or 
 communities, each man possessing his own land as a small landed pro- 
 prietor rather than as a mere cultivator of the soil or husbandman ; and 
 the union of all the Seats forms one political body, known as " the Saxon 
 Nation." The land they occupy is called " the king's land," for they 
 acknowledge no superior except " the King of Hungary," and his 
 appointed deputy their Graf ; some of their oldest Statutes providing 
 against the settlement of any Hungarian lord within the hmits of the 
 
 1 8.S. Bk. i. A. 54 ; Bk. ii. A. 54 ; Bk. iii. A. 45, 64, 80, 86. In many parts of West- 
 phalia, whicli may be looked upon as ])eculiarly the land in which the usages of Old 
 Saxony may be supposed to linger, large detached farm-hoiises will be found iu the 
 place of villages. The occupiers have generally inherited their properties as eldest sons, 
 and usually bequeath them to their eldest sons, providing in other ways for the rest of 
 the family. They are only liable to the payment of an annual-rent, generally a tenth 
 of the produce, and are apt to cling to the old custom of paying in kind. Iu every other 
 respect they are owners of their properties, irremoveable fee-farmers as it were, repre- 
 senting apparently the Erbzinsmen of the Sachsenspiegel, the Frilings of Old Saxony, 
 living apart like the Germans in the age of Tacitus, and ranking as a class above the 
 ordinary Bauers of a Dorf, representatives of the Lretic community of early days. 
 Similar large detached homesteads, unconnected with any village-community, will be 
 found in Norway, i)assing in general to the eldest son, whilst the rest of the family is 
 provided for as in Westphalia.
 
 xxxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 district originally occupied by, or made over to, the Saxon Nation, 
 These Transylvanian Saxons probably present the nearest approach in 
 tlie present time to the free community of the rural districts as it once 
 existed in Germany, and as it was often in the course of the tenth cen- 
 tury enclosed within walls, and converted into a free burgh — only 
 acknowledging the authority of the sovereign and his deputy, whether 
 Graf or Burgraf, and jealously tenacious of any attempt at intruding a 
 feudal overlord within their boundaries ; a proceeding that would have led 
 eventually to the conversion of the Schoppenbar-freeman, free-Zinsman, 
 or free-Burgher more or less into Pfleghaftige-leute. Out of an attempt 
 of this description arose the original confederation of the Waldstatten, 
 or Forest Cantons of Switzerland. The area of German-speaking Swit- 
 zerland once formed part of Suabia, and was occupied by a population of 
 the same description as will be found in the pages of the Sachsenspiegel, 
 in which it is laid down that, except in crhe and ortel, Schwabische-recht 
 and Sachsische-recht were identical. The members of the Waldstatten 
 — who would have been indignant at the modern theory converting them 
 into the mere boors, or peasants, with whom they refused to be confounded 
 — claimed to belong to the free community of Suabia, owning no superior 
 except " the German king," to whom they appealed, though in vain (for 
 at this time he was a nonentity), when Albert of Austria, by placing 
 "overlords" amongst them, sought to convert them into Pileghaf- 
 tige-leute in dependence on the House of Hapsburg. By becoming 
 " Eidgenossen " the Swiss severed their connexion with Germany, 
 for all who " swear together with oaths separate themselves from 
 the Kaisar and the Eeich, and offend against the Empire;" but 
 they continued to retain the old Germanic constitution ; for though 
 the Graf disappeared with his master, every State in the early confedera- 
 tion was still reckoned as a Canton, or Hundred, in which the supreme 
 magistrate was the Schuldheiss. In every settled district of old Germany 
 within the Altmark, in which the king's ban was held — and Suabian 
 Switzerland would once have answered to this description — the Graf 
 would have been found, and the Schoppen, with the Schuldheiss, or his 
 equivalent, the Zentgraf. In Eranconia, and in the Ehenish Palatinate, 
 the Schoppen and the Schuldheissdom seem to have been known as the 
 Zent-schoppen and the Zentgrafscliaft,the Schuldheiss was replaced by the 
 Zentgraf, or Zent-richter, and his jurisdiction was called his Zentgericht, 
 telling of the institution of the Zent, or Hundred, amongst the Eastern 
 Franks. The Zentgraf would therefore have been found apparently 
 amongst the Franks, but an Adaling could only be judged by his equal
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxix 
 
 by birth belonging to the same race, for it was an axiom of old Ger- 
 manic law that " the Schoppenbar freeman can sit in judgment on any 
 man, but in cases touching his life, his property, or his honour, none can 
 sit in judgment on the SchopjDenbar freeman except his equal by birth." 
 Hence, after the Hundred was introduced, by the authority of the King 
 of the Franks, into the dependencies of his kingdom, the Graf, who 
 was probably in early times a Frank by birth, could not have sat in 
 judgment upon Adalings of a different race ; and accordingly, as " no 
 Graf, holding a court under the king's ban, can hold it rightly without 
 his Schuldheiss," and as " no man can be Schuldheiss unless he is free, 
 and horn in the land in which lies his Schuldheissdom and Gericht," in 
 Saxony, Suabia, and Bavaria, the native-born, hereditary Schuldheiss 
 seems to have stood in the place of the Zentgraf. The distinction, how- 
 ever, may have been gradually disappearing in the thirteenth century, 
 for in the enumeration of " the lords of the Saxon-land" ten of the 
 Eeichs-Schoppeu are credited with a Suabian descent. No allusion at 
 all is made to them in the catalogue of the " lords of Thuringen," for the 
 ruling community in that quarter, descendants or representatives of the 
 " Angles and Werns " living by Salic Law, would have been classed 
 amongst the Franks.^ 
 
 Before the close of the century in which the Sachsenspiegel was com- 
 piled the last of the great imperial families of Germany disappeared for 
 ever, and the various classes, whose separate existence depended upon 
 the support they were accustomed to receive from a powerful German 
 king, are lost sight of in the subsequent confusion. The Schoppen dis- 
 appeared from the rural districts, and their very name is often supposed to 
 have been confined to the magistrates of a free burgh, the Echevins, who 
 were merely Schoppen removed from the rural districts into walled towns. 
 Most of the imperial property was dissipated in the lavish grants of land 
 with which rival claimants to the empire bought, or requited, the services 
 of the greater German princes; and thus the classes, that had once 
 acknowledged the superiority of the Head of the empire alone, passed 
 under the jurisdiction of its feudal chiefs, and lived by Lehen-recht, whilst 
 Land-recht was only retained behind the sheltering walls of the greater 
 civic communities. The Sachsenspiegel, about the same time, and other 
 similar compilations of German Land-recht, were placed under papal ban, 
 in consequence of certain unwelcome truths they contained on the subject 
 of papal supremacy in the matter of civil rights. But the recollection of 
 the old German Land-recht, that had once been the " king's law" amongst 
 
 1 ,S'.<S'. Bk. i. A. 19, 59 ; Bk. ii. A. 1, 12 ; Bk. iii. A. 52, Gl. 
 
 d
 
 xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the free communities of the rural districts and the burghs, never died out 
 entirely, and, in the fifteenth century, when Faust-recht, or the rule of 
 lawlessness, was at its height, it was revived in the famous tribunal of 
 the Vehni, in which the proceedings were necessarily secret, as they were 
 held under the ban of the Church. " A Schoppenbar freeman may sit 
 in judgment upon any man/' and in the ranks of the feudal nobility, in 
 the fifteenth century, would have been found the descendants and the 
 representatives of the Eeichs-schoppen of an earlier date, in whom the 
 right of a Schoppen-stuhl, or of holding and judging in a court with 
 Halsgericht, or jurisdiction over life and limb, would have been here- 
 ditary.^ The citation to the tribunal of the Vehm was fixed upon the 
 door or gateway, just as the Frolm-bote used, in certain cases, to mark a 
 cross upon a man's door with the judgment of the Eichter and Schoppen. 
 The accused was summoned by the Bodes of the Vehm to attend at " the 
 king's Court," which was to be held by the Frei-graf, at the Frei-stuhl, 
 of the district named in the citation ; and the Court in which the Graf, the 
 Schuldheiss, and the Schoppen judged in all criminal cases was held at the 
 hereditary Schoppen-stuhl " under the king's ban." If a man neglected 
 to attend such a court, after having been three times summoned, he was 
 put to the ban in the fourth court without further ceremony ; and the 
 accused who omitted to answer before the Frei-graf of the Vehm, after 
 the third citation, was condemned in his absence — hanging being the 
 mode of punishing the criminal in either case when death was decreed. 
 The tribunal of the Vehm met " on the red earth," or in the open air, 
 and not within walls ; it was held on a mound, or moot-hill, or under a 
 tree, and the very word used in the Sachsenspiegel for assembling a 
 court, or Thing — " gehagen," to hedge around, or encircle, in the sense 
 of our English expression, " make a ring" — seems to point to a similar 
 custom of meeting in the open air. It is still customary in the Cinque 
 Ports to choose certain functionaries in an open field instead of in the 
 town-hall, and Magna Charta was signed upon Eunnymede, and not 
 within walls or in a castle hall. Western Germany, and particularly 
 Westphalia, was the seat of the Vehmic tribunals, for the law of old was 
 different in the Mark and in the Gau, and the Eeich's-schoppen would 
 not have been found beyond the Altmark. The very name of Vehm, 
 which, according to the best authority (Grimm), means " Punishment," 
 
 1 " Over the fourth hand in Heerschild from the king shtall no Lehen descend, in 
 which there is a Gericht over hals and hand, except only the Schuldheissdom in a 
 county ; for no Graf can hold a lawful court without the Schuldheiss." — S.S. Bk. iii. 
 A. 52. Thus there was an especial provision for perpetuating the hereditary character 
 of the judge who administered justice " under the king's ban."
 
 INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 seems to point to the revival of the obsolete jurisdiction of the old 
 " courts under the king's ban'' in criminal cases alone, for none others 
 were ever brought before the tribunal of the Vehm. 
 
 The nearest approach in modern Europe to the subordinate agricul- 
 tural community of Laetic, or servile, cultivators as it may have existed 
 in various quarters under the dominant Adalings or Gesithcundmen, is 
 traceable in Russia, where, before the recent abolition of serfdom, the 
 organization of the land may be described substantially as follows. A 
 certain portion, usually a third, of every manor, whether it was the pro- 
 perty of the Crown or of a private landowner, was set apart as the 
 demesne or Inland of the lord, the remainder, corresponding with the 
 Outland, belonging to the village community. For centuries the will of 
 the lord alone decided upon the portions thus set apart respectively for 
 the demesne and for the community, which might be exchanged on the 
 occasion of a re-allotment at his pleasure ; the sole rule in force, at the 
 abolition of serfdom, rendering it imperative that every peasant house- 
 holder should receive at least four and a half Degatines (or twelve statute 
 acres) for the maintenance of his family. The Inland was entirely cul- 
 tivated by the members of the community, whose service was at will ; and 
 though this service was usually given on three days in the week, and 
 every day in harvest time, it might be demanded at any time when the 
 lord required it, unless he chose to commute it for olroc — a money pay- 
 ment or rent. The community, in short, was entirely dependent on the 
 lord, who was supposed, on the other hand, to be bound to take charge 
 of its members in sickness or distress, like any other live-stock on his 
 estate ; but the various gradations between the full-free and the abso- 
 lutely servile, wliich would have been found at a certain period in Western 
 and Central Europe, might have been looked for in vain in Eussia. The 
 individual possessions of the member of a village community were 
 limited to a house and garden, with his stock and other personal pro- 
 perty, whilst all the rest of the Outland was held in common and in 
 joint occupation, subject to re-allotment, usually every nine years, on 
 which occasion every new household put in a claim to a share. The 
 arable was divided, as seems to have been usually the case in all similar 
 communities, into narrow strips of land, varying from three to six 
 fathoms in breadth, and from a hundred to five hundred fathoms in 
 length (or between a dec^atine and a tenth of that amount), which were 
 distributed by lot, so that no one necessarily, after a re- allotment, held 
 the same portion as before. The possibility of acquiring an actual pro- 
 perty in the land, arising out of lengthened occupation, would appear
 
 xlii INTRODUCTIOK 
 
 to have been thus avoided. Woods, pastures, fisheries, and every other 
 species of property in the Outland, were enjoyed in common ; and 
 wherever there was a superabundance of land, which was more par- 
 ticularly the case upon the property of the Crown, all beyond a 
 certain definite amount lay fallow as reserve-land, and was occasionally 
 let out on lease. The lord would thus appear, in addition to his tliird 
 of the land in occupation, to have enjoyed the privilege of availing 
 himself of all the land that was not required for the actual use of the 
 village community dependent upon him ; whilst the wealthier members of 
 the community would have availed themselves of the same opportunity 
 for increasing their personal property, by the employment of their surplus 
 capital and stock. Allotments were made, either in accordance with 
 the number of persons in the community, — in which case each father of a 
 family received an amount of land calculated upon the numbers of his 
 household, — or by Tyaglos. The Tyaglo, answering in early times to a 
 certain number of persons, usually from three to five, latterly came to 
 mean a married couple with children who were not grown up ; and 
 when several lived together, as in the case of a father and his married 
 sons, it was known as a double, threefold, or fourfold Tyaglo, according 
 to the circumstances of the case. The internal affairs of the community 
 were left entirely to its members, and were regulated by its elders under 
 a Starosta, or senior, a decision, to be final and binding upon the com- 
 munity, requiring the consent of two-thirds of all the members. The 
 peasant might quit his village for a town, with the permission of his 
 lord, continuing to pay obroc during his absence, in the place of his 
 actual service ; and if he prospered in trade, the amount of obroc 
 demanded from him was occasionally very large. As soon as he became 
 a townsman he was necessarily enrolled in a Tsek, an association of 
 artisans or traders, under a Starosta, though, by doing so, he was not 
 obliged to follow any particular calling. It was simply the perpetuation 
 of the custom of the rural districts under a civic form. A number of Tseks, 
 under a supreme Starosta, constituted an Artel, which was answerable, 
 up to a certain point, for each of its members, regulating the wages for 
 which they worked, and dividing the profits, which seem to have repre- 
 sented, as it were, the land of the village, and were similarly held in com- 
 mon. During his life in a town, however, the native-right of the peasant in 
 his own locality was only in abeyance ; for he might return at any moment 
 to his village, and claim his share in the land at the next re-allotment.-^ 
 In the Eussian peasant, therefore, before his recent emancipation, 
 
 ^ My aiitliority is Eckhardt.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 might have been seen the equivalent of the Laet amongst the Germans 
 of a thousand years ago, little, if at all, in advance of the servile culti- 
 vator of the days of Tacitus, who was left in the undisturbed occupation 
 of his " Sedes et Penates" as long as he fulfilled the bidding of his lord 
 in all that was required of him. The reason must be sought for in the 
 history of Eussia in the past. Vladimir, the great-grandson of Eurik, 
 and the first of his descendants who embraced Christianity, assumed the 
 title of. "Veliki Knez," or Grand Prince, and dying in 1015, is supposed 
 to have bequeathed his dominions between his eleven sons and a nephew. 
 Before the close of the same century the supremacy had passed from the 
 elder branch of the family, ruling at Novgorod, to Andrew Knez of 
 Vladimir, or White Eussia, the ancestor of the Grand-Dukes of Moscow. 
 The battle of Kalka was fought in 1223, and from that time forward, 
 down to the close of the fifteenth century, Eussia was under the rule of 
 the Tartars. In the age in which the oldest Eussian legal document 
 was in force, the " Pravda Eusskaya," which is supposed to have been in 
 existence in the early period of Eussian Christianity, corporal punish- 
 ment is said to have been unknown ; in other words, before the inroad 
 of the Tartars there would appear to have been a free class in Eussia, 
 as in Western Europe, with a code ignoring a punishment confined to 
 the servile classes. Two centuries and a half of Tartar thraldom must 
 have obliterated the recollection of such a class, if it ever existed ; for 
 when the leading Eussian Knez, the reigning Duke, was bound to find 
 his way once every year to the citadel of Moscow, and in the presence 
 of the Golden Horde, on foot, bareheaded, and with his cap filled to the 
 brim with oats, to feed the horse of his lord the Tartar Khan, in token 
 of submission, his subjects must have been in a condition of the most 
 abject serfdom. Christian was but another word for slave, and the 
 Tartars, a Nomad horde, ignoring every principle of settled government, 
 quartered themselves at will upon their serfs, without interfering with 
 the internal regulations of a class upon which they looked with contempt. 
 The Tartars were driven out, towards the close of the fifteenth century, 
 by Ivan iii., or the Great, who assumed the title of Czar, and reducing 
 all the descendants of Eurik to the position of subjects, enrolled them 
 as Princes, with the title of Knez, side by side with the Boyars of the 
 duchy of Moscow, in the " Baratnaia Kniga," the famous " Velvet Book" 
 of Eussian nobility. The condition of the peasantry appears to have 
 remained unaltered. As serfs they had existed under the rule of the 
 alien and Mahometan Tartars, and their servile condition was perpetuated 
 under the rule of Christians of kindred oridn. In the course of the
 
 xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 following century they are supposed to have been converted into "Kre- 
 pestnoi," or fixed to the soil. The equivalent of the Vill, or Manor, 
 seems to have been unknown before this period, for the Tartars ignored 
 all such subdivisions of the land, and two or three generations were 
 suffered to elapse after the expulsion of the Tartars before the organi- 
 zation of the land, in the manner already described, appears to have 
 been set on foot. Each of the separate principalities, or independent 
 districts, in existence before this time, would appear to have been the 
 common land, as it were, in the occupation of the servile cultivating 
 class, like the German Pagus in the age of Tacitus ; subject to the gene- 
 ral demands of the overlords quartered on the soil at will, whether 
 native or foreign, but not subdivided permanently into settled vills, or 
 set apart in private properties owned by the supreme ruler and his 
 nobility. Much as a wealthy stock-owner might collect his cattle into 
 separate " closes," instead of letting them wander at will over an open 
 pasturage, so would the Eussian peasantry appear to have been grouped 
 into villages, in each of which they continued to enjoy, though within a 
 fixed and narrower area, their original rights of joint- occupation and 
 self-government, on the footing of servile communities. 
 
 In England the principle of the Gasindschaft is traceable from the 
 earliest times, for the King and the Gesithcundman are found in every 
 quarter occupied by the Angles. Gesithes tun, gesithes cirice, gesith- 
 mannes cniht, are the renderings of villa comitis, ecclesia comitis, and 
 jmer comitis in the translation of Beda's History ; and it is natural to 
 suppose that a series of invasions, in which the sea was crossed, would 
 have been earned out by separate military Gasindschafts rather than 
 by more or less settled communities. The German confederacies with 
 which the Eomans of the second and third centuries were most familiar 
 seem to have often been Gasindschafts, as they would occasionally send 
 back to the old country for a king, a proceeding that looks like a Gasind- 
 schaft renewing the tie that bound together the confederacy ; for in a 
 community of Adalings the want of an Ealdorman would have been 
 supplied on the spot. The Judex preceded the Eex amongst the Goths, 
 but the Gasind was on a footing with the Primus or Adaling amongst 
 the Lombards, and the Bavarian Confederacy would appear to have been 
 a Gasindschaft from very early times ; for instead of the Nobilis and 
 Litus of the Lex Saxonum, and the Primus, Mediocris, and Minor of the 
 Codes of the Burgundians and Alamanni, the Bavarians were divided 
 into Agilolfings from whom the Duke was chosen, the Five Families, and 
 Ingenui. In his letter to Egbert of York, in which Beda inveighs against
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlv 
 
 the abuse of grants in alms, lie points to the two occupying classes of his 
 age, when he deplores the absolute want of land for the provision of the 
 " filii nobilium aut emeritorum militum." The noble in right of his 
 birth, and the soldier in right of his service, were evidently entitled to 
 grants of land, or Icens ; but the grant or Isen was neither inheritable 
 nor bequeathable, resembling rather the portion of public land allocated 
 by the Censors, and occupied by a member of the privileged class in the 
 early days of Eome. The right of receiving such a grant was inherited 
 by the descendant of the noble and of the soldier, but it may be seen 
 from the words of Beda that the son had, as yet, no claim upon the 
 actual Isen iu the occupation of his father. His claim was upon his lord 
 the king, or, if he was a cniht, upon his lord the Gesithcundman, from 
 whom he seems to have been entitled to receive a provision in accordance 
 with his standing ; and Benedict Biscop, when he exchanged a secular 
 for a religious life, resigned the benefice he had received from his kins- 
 man the Northumbrian king " in accordance with his birth," — it was his 
 birthright. A reflection of the custom of Beda's age might still have 
 been observed in Western Europe, about the opening of the present 
 century, in the district of Friesland known as the Theel-land, in w^hich the 
 son, on arriving at manhood, received a separate Theel, or portion of the 
 common land, as if his claim were upon the community rather than upon 
 the father : and the custom known as Borough-English, Mainete, and 
 under various other names — the succession of the youngest son — may 
 have arisen out of this practice. The youngest son remained with the 
 father, and naturally succeeded to the Theel on the supposition that the 
 elder brothers were provided for ; but it was not until a later age than 
 that in which Beda wi'ote, and in a more settled stage of society, that 
 the son " relieved " the actual acres in the occupation of his father, and 
 the barony, the vill, or the " hedged off" portion of land in the vill, 
 gradually became a landed property held with absolute right of owner- 
 ship, and descending to the heir. The grant of land by Boc, or charter, 
 seems to have been confined in Beda's time to church lands held in pure 
 alms, without the military obligations of secular service ; for, by the abuse 
 of which he complains, the State lost the service that the Church did not 
 gain — " Neque Deo, neque hominibus, utilia sunt loca," — and the Trinoda 
 Necessitas would appear to have been imposed a little later in the cen- 
 tury. But the acts of previous kings might be reversed, he adds, by 
 better princes, and the writings of evil scribes could be annulled by the 
 sentence of discreet bishops, — showing the little weight he attached to 
 the written document in comparison with the power of the reigning
 
 xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 sovereign in temporalities, and of the bishop in things ecclesiastical. 
 The grant of land might be resumed by the king, and the writing of the 
 evil clerk could be annulled and pronounced worthless by his ecclesias- 
 tical superior, the bishop. The acts of a king were not supposed to be 
 necessarily binding on his successor, and accordingly the Boc required 
 confirmation or renewal, a sum of money being made over to the reigning 
 king for this purpose, which, in course of time, grew into a fixed and 
 settled payment attached to the tenure of Bocland.-' 
 
 Of tlie two classes to which Beda alludes one was evidently " Gesith- 
 cund and Twelfhynd," but the soldier and his son, as distinguished from 
 the noble and his son, were not Gesithcund. Imma, the follower of 
 Egfred's brother ^If wine, "juvenisde militia ejus," appears in the trans- 
 lation as " sum geong thseses cyninges thegin ;" bvit the military follower 
 who was not of gentle origin, or the Cniht, as soon as he left the Ilird, or 
 immediate following of his lord, and was planted on the land, became 
 the equivalent of the miles agrarius of Widukind, and was probably 
 known in Northumbria as the Dreng. The Dreng will be met with in 
 Vegetius and Vopiscus as the soldier, or member of the rank and file, and 
 Lego-dreng is quoted by Hire in the sense of " hired soldier." The expres- 
 sion, " gentle and simple," was often rendered in the North by " Danumadr 
 and Drengr;" and where Simeon uses the words " quidem Dregmo," 
 Ailred writes (as Mr. Eaine has pointed out) " quidem de minoris ordinis 
 proceribus," or a' leading Ceorlcundman. A member of this class in 
 Beda's age who was in the position of a Cniht, or fighting man, was en- 
 titled to the reward of a fighting man, a Ifen of Folclaud, and was thus 
 converted into a miles agrarius, and numbered " inter minoris ordinis 
 proceres," bequeathing to his descendants the obligations of cniht-hood, 
 entitling them to a similar reward. The Gesithcundman, like the Adal- 
 ing of a community, was entitled to his Isen, or birthright, in virtue of 
 descent, or by allodial right ; but the Isen of the cniht, or miles, was 
 
 1 Ep. ad Fcf/h. ii. For the customs of the Theel-land and Mainete, v. Scotlavd under 
 h'T Early Kimj-i, App. D. The money-payments were made, in early times, to others be- 
 sides the king,— to any one, in short, who had a claim on the land. Thus Wilfred set 
 apart a portion of his property, by his will, " ut cum muneribus Regnm etEpiscoporum 
 amicitiam impetrare potuerint;" and Humbert, " princeps Tonsetorum," received a 
 drinking cup, ornamented with gold, in return for resigning all the rights exercised by 
 the " princijjes " in the lands of Breedon Minster. Two early charters afford a glimpse 
 of an age in which the Comes joins with the Rex, — " Ego Oshere, rex Huicciorum, . . . 
 consentiente comite meo Cuthberto ;" and "Ego Sueabrsed, rex Eastsaxonorum, et ego 
 PiEogthath cum licentia ^delredi regis comis." In each case the Comes was probably the 
 oflBcial of the Mercian King (like the Pfalz-graf of the German duchies), exercising a 
 certain authority within the dominions of the Underkings. A little later a King's-Reeve 
 and a King's-Ealdorman would have been found amongst the Huiccii and East-Saxons. 
 — Cod. Dip. xxxvi. lii. cclxi.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlvii 
 
 the benefice or reward of military service, to be held exclusively in 
 return for, and by the tenure of, such service ; and thus arose the feudal 
 tenure by military service, — always free, but not originally noble. The 
 land of the Dreng was liable to aU the base services entailed upon Folc- 
 land ; like the Friling of the lex Saxonum he was under a lord, or a 
 superior set over him by the king; and, accordingly, lands held in 
 Drengage appear in Domesday either as Berewics, or as dependencies in 
 some other way upon a manor. But the Dreng himself was only bound 
 to personal attendance on his lord in hunting, in war, and in riding 
 on his errands ; he and his family were free from all the base services 
 attached to his land, to which his dependants alone were liable.-^ 
 
 The holding of the Dreng seems to have amounted, at the fuU extent, 
 to four carucates, a small vill or hamlet, the knight's fee of a later age ; 
 and thus, as a cniht, he would appear to have been the precursor of the 
 Medial-thegn, the Vavassor, and the knight of after times, much as the 
 king's-thegn developed into the baron. Not that he was necessarily in 
 the possession of a small vill, for most of the Bishop of Durham's Drengs, 
 in the thirteenth century, seem to have held a carucate of land in return 
 for performing the fourth part of the service of a Dreng. By the custom 
 of Berkshire, in the reign of the Confessor, a miles was found for every 
 five hides, each hide contributing four shillings towards the pound that 
 represented the soldier's pay for two months (a sum that appears to coin- 
 cide with the ordinary scutage of the following century), and the custom 
 is exemplified by the following entry : — " Hubert holds five hides ; four 
 of these were of vUlein-land, and used to pay with the hides of the 
 manor ; but the thegn's hide was free, though he could not go where he 
 willed." It may have suited many another landholder, as well as the 
 Abbot of Abingdon and the Bishop of Durham, to plant small freemen 
 in their viUs, and pay them in this manner for performing the requisite 
 military service ; and it was probably to the fighting men of this class 
 that the words attributed to Gurtli by Wace may be supposed to have ap- 
 plied, — " A rabble of vilainaille in their every-day dress does not count for 
 much in a battle." The Dreng was still existing in Northumbria in the thir- 
 teenth century, and was liable, as of old, to utware, or military service ; for 
 he was tallaged heavily in the reign of John for permission to escape Con- 
 
 1 Beda, //. E. iv. 22. The Dreng will be found in the Boldon Buke with all his 
 liabilities, iu the Testa de Nevill, and in the Pipe and other Ilolls. Most of the pas- 
 sages relating to him have been collected in " Hodgson's Northumljerland. His 
 equivalent in the South-country, in early days, was ])robably the Radcnecht, Radman, 
 or Riding cniht. " The bailiff holds a Radraan's-laud," and other similar entries, are 
 occasionally fouud in Domesday.
 
 xlviii INTROD UCTIOK 
 
 tinental service (ne transf retard). The class, however, was fast becoming 
 obsolete; its leading members had long been absorbed amongst the medial- 
 thegns and knights, whilst those of lesser standing seem to have often 
 commuted the obligations of their tenure for rent, and were thus converted 
 into fee-farmers, or hereditary tenants-at-rent, without the obligations of 
 base service attached to their land, resembling the Zinsmen and Hager- 
 men of Germany. From the amount of merchet, heriot, relief, and other 
 fines and dues to which the Northumbrian Dreng was liable in the 
 thirteenth century, it may be gatliered that the full Dreng, as the holder 
 of a small vill, once belonged to the Sixhynd class. The landless Gesith- 
 cundman, who only paid half the fine imposed upon his landholding 
 equal by birth for " neglecting the Fp'd," and the Wealh with five hides, 
 or Cniht of alien origin, appear amongst the Sixhynd class in the Laws of 
 Ini ; and with the Dreng, and his equivalent as a miles agrarius in other 
 parts of England, made up the Mediocres or middle-class of the age, in 
 which the poorer members of the Gesithcund class were blended, as cnihts, 
 with the leading Ceorlcundmen, and with the descendants of the earlier 
 proprietors of the soil who were fast becoming amalgamated with the 
 conquering race. About the opening of the tenth century the Sixhynd- 
 man disappeared from the South-country upon the establishment of 
 Thanage (Dienst) as the prevalent tenure ; all who fought for England 
 began to be reckoned as English ; " Angle and Dane " will be met with 
 instead of " Angle and Wealh," and every tenant in thanage, without 
 reference to his origin, ranked as a Twelfhyndman. The Ceorlcundmen, 
 deprived of their " Proceres," only figured as Twyhyndmen attached as 
 cultivators to the soil, the fighting members of the class, whether upland 
 or in-burgh, were known as thegns, knighthood gradually became an 
 element of " gentle service," and three generations of military service 
 as a landholder with " helm and byrnie," and the holding of a cniht, 
 rendered the race Gesithcund.-^ 
 
 Wlien Imma, the young king's- thegn, found himself in the hands of 
 his enemies, he escaped immediate death by declaring himself a poor 
 
 1 Domesday, vol. i. p. 56 b, 58 b ; Ini, 24, 51. In the Testa de Nevill, p. 389, 
 the merchet, heriot, forfeiture, and relief of the Drengs are reckoned respectively at 16 
 sol, or at one lb. by the standard of the old light-pound once used throughout Northern 
 England. The Less-thegn paid at this time for similar mulcts, 40 sol., or two lbs. 
 sterling, the tenth of his wergild. Assuming the Dreng to have been mulcted on a 
 similar principle, his wergild would have amounted to ten light-pounds, or 120 ores of 
 sixteen (the North-country Hundred of 8 lbs. sterling), each containing six light scillings, 
 or Six Hundreds of scillings, reckoning the hundred by English tale at six-score. Hence 
 he was a Sixhyndman, valued (like the Saxon Bauergulden) at half the amount of the 
 Twelfhyndman. Mr. Hodgson has pointed out that the Dreng seems to have held one, 
 where the Thegn held more than one vill — he was the semi-nobilis, in other words.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlix 
 
 man belonging to the class attached to the land, a " folclic and dearfende 
 man," who had accompanied the army with his fellows of a similar class 
 (heafod gemacum), to carry supplies and provisions for the king's-thegns.^ 
 His looks, his hearing, and the words he used, however, soon betrayed 
 he was not of " dearfende folc," but of " sethelre strynde ;" but the 
 Mercian Gesith, who had kept him for a slave, as he had promised him 
 life, though the death of his own brothers and kinsmen who had fallen 
 in the fight remained unavenged through sparing Imma, sent him to 
 London, where he was sold to a Frison. He dealt with him as his 
 ancestor in the days of Tacitus would have dealt witli his equal by birth, 
 who had staked his liberty at a game of chance, and lost — lie sold him 
 out of the country, a proceeding so strictly forbidden in the Capitularies, 
 and other contemporary codes, that the universal prevalence of the 
 custom may be inferred from its universal prohibition. Besides the 
 noble and military classes, therefore, there was also a Folclic class in 
 Beda's age, whose claim to a grant of land is ignored by the historian, 
 for they were without a " birthright" — without either the allodial right 
 of the Gesithcundman, or the feudal right of the Cniht, or miles agrarius. 
 Their services seem to have been limited to tilling the soil to which 
 they were attached, and to supplying in war, as well as in peace, the 
 wants of the fighting classes entitled to occupy the land. Military 
 service, and its contingencies, were not entailed upon an ordinary 
 member of the Folc, and if captured in war he became the property of 
 the conqueror, to be retained or sold at the option of his owner. He 
 might be slain in pure wantonness, but he was not deemed a proper 
 object for avenging a blood-feud. He may be supposed to have been the 
 representative, in a different state of society, of the free cultivator in 
 the time of Tacitus — the man unfitted for war ; and accordingly he was 
 reckoned as a Twyhyndman, or at twice the value of the Wealh, who, 
 like the Slav upon the Continent, was the representative of the unfree 
 cultivator, or of the Laet permitted to remain on the land to till it. The 
 old Germanic principle seems to have been still in force, though in a 
 more settled phase of society it was carried out differently. The Pagus 
 had by this time been measured out permanently into vills and shires 
 " pro numero cultorum," or in proportion to the number of the whole 
 cultivating class ; but it was still divided " inter se," and occupied in 
 Itens by the fighting classes " secundum dignationem," or in accordance 
 with their rank and position. 
 
 A glimpse may be obtained of a very early stage of society in the 
 
 » Beck, //. E. iv. 22.
 
 1 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Code of ^thelbert of Kent, in which the King, the Eorl, the Ceorl, and 
 the Lset appear above the population in a state of actual servitude. The 
 Lffits were divided into three classes, corresponding so closely with the 
 Frigiven-man, his son, and the Bonder (not the Odal-Bonder) in the 
 Gulathing, that they may be supposed to have answered, in a similar 
 manner, to the enfranchised cultivator of the soil, his son, and the third 
 in descent, the free Lset with his mmghorh complete, or his " Vier Anen" 
 (his two grandfathers and two grandmothers) the necessary qualification 
 for full freedom, as well as for gentle birth. A Laet of the highest class 
 was valued at eighty Kentish scillings, the equivalent of the five pounds 
 that still represented in Domesday, and in the reign of Edward i., the 
 wergild of the Kentish Gaveller, who thus stood in the position of the 
 Laet of ^thelbert's time, just as the Knight, who was the contemporary 
 of the Gaveller, occupied the place of the Dreng, or miles agrarius of 
 earlier days. Land in Kent used to pass by the custom of Gavelkind, 
 unless proof was shown to the contrary, just as it passed elsewhere by 
 the common law, unless proof of customary tenure was shown, pointing 
 to the universality of the custom of Gavelkind in the old kingdom of 
 Kent. When John permitted the Archbishop of Canterbury to convert 
 his tenants in Gavelkind into tenants by Knight-service, the " consuetus 
 redditus denariorum," or the gavel-penny exacted from every acre, was 
 to be retained, and the " xenia, averagia, et opera," due of old from the 
 land, were to be commuted for the payment of rent in money. ■^ Frank- 
 socage is defined by Bracton as " servitium in denariis," and thus the 
 Archbishop's tenants in Gavelkind were " enfranchised." By the custom 
 of Kent, therefore, all the land was originally held by base- service, for 
 the Gaveller was not liable to military service. He was only bound to 
 attend in the manor-court of his lord, held every three weeks, to swear 
 fealty to him, to pay all his rents, and to render all his services ; but he 
 handled the plough in early days, not the sword, and was never a soldier 
 unless he was taken from the plough. He was the representative of the 
 free Lset of ^thelbert's Code, not of the Ceorl, and thus it may be seen 
 that the land in Kent was left entirely in the hands of the cultivating 
 class, and merely occupied by the fighting classes, represented by the 
 Eorls and Ceorls, Jutes probably of the purest blood. The king's-thegn 
 and the Gesithcundman re^Dlace the Eorl in Wihtred's Laws, and, in the 
 
 1 Lamhard, p. 5.S2. The payment of Xenia — optional payments (nominally), or the 
 " aids " of base service — marks the Gavelkind tenure as free, though base, the essential 
 characteristics of Roturier tenure. Xenia answered to the Gersume, and the expression 
 " nunquam gersumavit" will occasionally be met with, marking that certain services, 
 or payments, were obligatory and not " precarious."
 
 INTRODUCTION. li 
 
 course of the same century, before the establishment of the system of 
 Dienst or Thanage over the whole of the South-country, Kent ceased to 
 be numbered amongst independent kingdoms. Hence, whilst the custom 
 of Berkshire provided a fighting man from every five hides, in accordance 
 with the system of Thanage, the custom of Kent, ignoring the connexion 
 of the fighting man with the soil, provided a gafol-gelding man or 
 Gaveller, from every messuage with a certain amount of land attached 
 to it. The fighting was left to " the lord," whether Jutish Eorl and Ceorl, 
 or Thegn and Cniht in later times ; and accordingly, though the men 
 of Kent fought at Hastings, the Gavellers retained their lands and 
 ancient privileges after the Conquest, for, from the tenure of their 
 service, they were not engaged in the battle. The Boc, or the Lseu, 
 gave a grant of rights, more or less permanent, over the soil, and over 
 the owners of the soil, to the thegn or the cniht ; but the soil itself, by 
 the custom of Kent, was the property of the cultivating class, free 
 tenants by base service, unless the land was enfranchised by commuting 
 the service for rent. 
 
 In Kent alone, however, would have been found a community of 
 allodial cultivators, with proprietary rights, resembling the Emphyteutoe 
 of the Empire, and corresponding in some respects with a free class in 
 the position of the Eussian peasantry. A few alodiarii were scattered 
 here and there in Eastern Wessex and in Surrey ; but as a class, combin- 
 ing the privileges of full freedom with the obligations of base-service, 
 they were nowhere to be found in the reign of the Confessor, except in 
 Kent — for the Socmen of the Danelage would not have answered to a 
 class of this description.-^ The Geneat or sharer in the Vill was not an 
 alodiarius ; for, even where he was irremoveable from the district to 
 which he was attached, he could neither dispose of his share-right nor 
 quit the district and " go where he willed," as was the case with the 
 Gaveller. To go where he willed, either with or without his land, to sell 
 his land to any buyer, to sell it after first offering it to his lord, to sell 
 his tenancy in the land, or to resign and go where he willed, — such 
 were some of the privileges belonging to full freedom, and to none of 
 these could the Geneat aspire. Personal enfranchisement was originally 
 of a double character ; the State, whether represented in the person of 
 the sovereign of a Gasindschaft, or in that of the chosen Ealdor of a com- 
 
 ^ The classes that could claim the "wites," or fines levied on their "men," by the 
 Conqueror's Laws " en Merchene lahe," were " Li Erevesque, li eveske, li qucns, li barun, 
 et li socheman," where the proprietor in Frank socage, levying fines on his men, figures 
 in a very different character from the Gaveller in attendance on the court of his lord.
 
 Hi IKTRODUCTIOF. 
 
 nmnity of Adalings, being alone entitled to confer full freedom or public 
 enfranchisement. It was a principle of northern law, that "he who 
 gives freedom must provide the means of living;" and a man was not 
 allowed to enfranchise his serf and throw him upon the general com- 
 munity for support — the State alone could provide him with a leen of 
 the public-land, or !Folcland. Private enfranchisement, accordingly, by 
 charter, or at the altar, only represented in early times a gift of free- 
 rights as far as the power of the donor extended — freedom within the 
 limits of the vill, the manor, or the barony ; and out of private enfran- 
 chisement arose the adscription to the district, which was in full force 
 amongst the majority of the Twyhyndmen for many a generation before 
 the Conquest. Accordingly, the right of the Geneat, where he had any, 
 was in the blood, like that of the fighting classes in early days, and as 
 the latter enjoyed a right to a lien without the privilege of ownership in 
 the soil, so the inborn Geneat, or Nativus, enjoyed a right to a virgate 
 or two of land in the district in which he was located, without any 
 privilege of ownership attached to it.'^ His arable, his pasture, his mea- 
 dow, were in the common-land in which he enjoyed the right of sharing 
 with his fellows belonging to the vill, from which they acquired the 
 name of Villani. Within the vill he was a freeman, wdth rights as well 
 as duties ; but both rights and duties were alike bounded by the limits 
 of the vill. The bailiff of the Bishop of Eochester, for instance, was 
 bound to ride at his own cost on the service of his lord within the limits 
 of the barony ; but if business carried him beyond the " forty hides," he 
 and his horse lived at the cost of the Bishop. The villein might sell his 
 stock to whom he chose within the vill, but his lord had a right of pre- 
 emption over a buyer from without. He might marry his daughter 
 within the vill without the permission of his lord, but if he married her 
 
 ^ " Les Naifs, ki departet de sa terre, ne deivent cartre faut naivir'ie quere, que il ne 
 facent lur dreit service, qui apend a lour terre." — ( Will. Cong, xxx.) From the necessity 
 of obtainiug a "charter of nativity," it seems evident that the Nativi, or Adscript! 
 glebse, as a class, represented at this time the Liberti per chartam of the Continental 
 codes. The class seems first traceable in the Laws of Wihtred : — (8.) " If any one give 
 freedom to his man at the altar, let him be folk-free ; let the freedom-giver have his 
 yi'fe, and wei'-rjild, and the mund of his family, be he over the march or wherever he 
 may be." Thus the freedman had no right of property, and, as far back as four cen- 
 turies before the Conquest, was in as strict dependence on his lord, whether " over the 
 march," or within the manor, as the Eussian peasant before his emancipation. The form 
 of conferring full freedom, the equivalent of emancipation " per denarium," is not pre- 
 served in the old English codes, unless it may be supposed to have been similar to the 
 rule of the Conqueror's Laws (iii. 15). In the presence of the shire and shire-gerefa, the 
 master gave his serf the arms of a freeman, sword and lance, and showed him " liberas 
 vias et portas," bidding him go where he willed. The gift of arms seems to mark the 
 military character of the full-freeman.
 
 IXTRODUCTIOK liii 
 
 to a stranger, he paid merchet — mearc-scat, or maiden -money. Some of 
 the maternal kindred were always included in the mcegborh and in the 
 werborh, and the kinsmen of a married woman were, by ancient custom, 
 up to a certain extent answerable for her. But the lord was answerable 
 for his dependants ; and before he consented to the liability of paying 
 for one of them in a strange vill, he seems to have demanded a sum of 
 money for assuming the responsibihty ; the merchet remaining attached 
 to base-tenure, as an obligatory payment, long after the probable reason 
 for its original assessment had passed away and been forgotten. 
 
 There was another class besides the Geneats, the Geburs, who were sup- 
 plied with stock and seed when planted on the land ; and, upon the death 
 of a man of this class, it was customary for the lord to " take what he left." 
 His property, like the peculium of the Eoman serf, was only acquired by 
 the permission of his lord ; it was the surplus, as it were, of the stock and 
 seed committed to his charge ; and hence it lapsed to the lord, upon 
 the death of the Gebur. As the Heriot of early military tenure repre- 
 sented the return of the loan of arms, committed to the charge of the 
 thegn or cniht, so the Heriot of base tenure represented the return of 
 the stock committed to the charge of the base-tenant, and known as 
 ferreum pecus, steclboio, and under various other names ; but as the 
 tenancy became hereditary, the Heriot of gentle-tenure disappeared in 
 the Relief, or sum paid as a fine upon the renewal of the benefice, whilst 
 the Heriot of base- tenure became the " best beast," given in return for a 
 similar renewal of the share-right of the base-tenant, the Relief and the 
 Heriot becoming attached respectively to both tenures as fixed and obli- 
 gatory payments. In the Laws of Ini it is laid down, that if a Gesith- 
 cundman was " driven from his land," or deprived of his benefice, he was 
 to be driven from the house (botl), and not from the stock, which was 
 evidently his own. In other words, he was a man of property, and 
 supplied the stock for the land that he held ; but, as he might only take 
 with him his reeve, his smith, and his child's fosterer, the actual cultiva- 
 tors of his benefice, whether bond or free, belonged to the district. In 
 the Confessor's reign, however, if the Lancashire Less-thegn declined to 
 relieve his father's land by paying the tenth of his wergild, he might go 
 where he willed, but he left the stock upon the king's land. He was a 
 full-freeman, liable to military service, and bound to attendance in tlie 
 Court of the Hundred ; but his tenure resembled that of the Gebur, and 
 though he might go where he willed, neither the land nor the stock was 
 his own. He must originally have been a fighting man without property, 
 planted with stock and seed on the land, and provided with arms to
 
 liv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 defend it ; and similarly, the Gebur was originally the " pauper et rusti- 
 cus" of Beda, — belonging to a lower class, the " dearfende folclic man," 
 who was supplied with stock and seed, and planted on the land to cul- 
 tivate it for the benefit of the men who won and defended it with the 
 sword. The descendant of the Gebur, if permitted to remain on the 
 land, would grow into the Nativus or Geneat, and the prevalence of the 
 Heriot amongst the villeinage points to the fact that the majority of the 
 class were originally of this description. When Denewulf,. Bishop of 
 Winchester, returned to Edward the Elder the seventy hides he had 
 received at Beddington, he stated that the land, when originally made 
 over to him, was entirely waste, without either " pecunia" or "pauperes" 
 belonging to it. He supplied it with both, and accordingly the " pau- 
 peres " he planted in it would have had neither right to the stock nor 
 claim on the land, and such would have been the ordinary condition of 
 the villeinage.^ 
 
 As the Lset, therefore, was a relic of the earlier system under which 
 the servile cultivator dwelt in his own home, and supplied his lord with 
 all that he wanted, so the Geneat came into existence with the introduc- 
 tion of free service in connexion with the cultivation of the soil, through 
 which a member of the poorest class of freemen was planted as a cul- 
 tivator on the land to which he had no claim, like the Adaling or Gesith- 
 cundman, in right of his birth, or, like the Miles Agrarius, in right of his 
 military service. The Northumbrian ^thelfrith, according to Beda, was 
 remarkable above all his predecessors for the success with which he drove 
 the Britons from off the land or set them to tribute, an expression ren- 
 dered in the translation by " to gafolgyldum gesette" — he made them 
 Gafolgeldas or Gavellers. The land he won would have been occupied 
 and defended by the fighting classes, and cultivated either by the La^ts, 
 who were permitted to remain as Gavellers (much as " the Eoman" was 
 allowed to hold his land under the Burgundian), or, when the Britons 
 were driven out, a free cultivating class would have been introduced in 
 
 ^ Inl, 6.3, 68; Domesday, vol. i. p. 269 b; Cod. Dip. mlxxxix. "Wasted by 
 heathen folk " is the expression in the original charter, pointing to the normal state of 
 many parts of England at the opening of the tenth century. Even assuming the exist- 
 ence of a number of small allodial communities in England, before the close of the ninth 
 century, they must have been more or less broken up by the wide-spread ravages of the 
 Northmen. The re-settlement of the land would have been carried out in accordance 
 with the principle of Dicnst, thanage, or military tenure, adopted by the House of Alfred ; 
 and throughout the South-country and English Mercia, all who were not Thegns remained 
 (with few exceptions), as a class on the footing of the Danish freedmen, as " Ceorls upon 
 Gafol-land." The effects of the Scandinavian inroads iipon the British Isles are usually as 
 much underrated, as those of the Norman Conquest upon England are overrated. It is 
 " the Dane," not " the Norman," who lives in local tradition as the popular "enemy."
 
 IFTRODUGTION. . Iv 
 
 tlieir place as a Gafolgelding tenantry, amongst whom the land would 
 have been roped out and divided, each recipient of a share becoming a 
 Gen eat, with share-right in the common land of the district. Hence 
 the Wealh will be found in the earlier codes with a hide, or half a hide, 
 of land, representing the Lget who had been permitted to remain on his 
 land as a cultivator, whilst the Ceorl was either a Geneat, or a fighting 
 man bound to attendance in the Fyrd, holding respectively by base or 
 by military service. A similar course appears to have been followed 
 upon the Continent. A measure of grain, forty cords, and twelve pence 
 of pure silver, were annually due to the Bishop of Magdeburg, from 
 every plough amongst the Wends of his diocese, whom Otho i. had 
 permitted to remain in the position of Lsets or Gavellers ; but, when 
 Henry Count of Eacesburg, introducing Westphalian colonists " in 
 terram Poloborum , . . divisit eis terram in funiculo distributionis," 
 the Wends must have .been driven out, and their lands "roped out" 
 amongst Saxon immigrants.^ In the treaty between Alfred and Guth- 
 rum-Athelstan of East Anglia, every Dane and Angle was reckoned 
 in gold as a Twelfhyndman, " except the Ceorl that sits upon gafol- 
 land, and their Leysings," who were valued as Twyhyndmen. In 
 Alfred's reign, accordingly, or towards the close of it, the fighting Ceorl 
 was reckoned as a Twelfhyndman, whilst the cultivating Ceorl, or Gavel- 
 ler, was a Twyhyndman, and reckoned on a footing with the Freedman, 
 or enfranchised serf of a Dane. As the touch of oar or sail, by Northern 
 law, enfranchised the serf, every follower of the Danes landed on the 
 shore of England as a freeman. A similar rule may have prevailed 
 amongst the Angles, and, as they roped out the land they won from the 
 Britons, they probably planted in their Liberti as a free cultivating 
 class, or " Ceorls upon gafol-land," — for the Angle of pure descent was 
 most assuredly " a fighting man." 
 
 Three free classes, therefore, may be distinguished in connexion 
 with the land in England, two of them full-free, Gentle and Simple, 
 Eorl and Ceorl, who defended the lands they won with the sword, and 
 
 ^ Ildmold, i. 12, 14, 87, 91. The " aratrum Sclavorum " was drawn by a yoke of 
 oxen, or two horses — by one, according to another earlier account. The " twelve pence 
 of pure silver" represented the " solidus from every mansus" demanded in the Capitu- 
 laries ; and it is worthy of remark, that the smallest holding of the Russian jjcasant 
 householder (the four and a half de^atines, or twelve statute acres) corresponds very 
 closely with the mansus of twelve acres from which the solidus was demanded. It 
 probably rei)resents the amount of land originally assigned to every possessor of one of 
 these small ploughs. The mansus, or fixed residence, was scarcely iu existence amongst 
 the Wends iu the days of Otho T., and accordingly they appear to have been rated at 
 the number of ploughs they kept in use.
 
 Ivi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 occupied it iu right of gentle birth or of military service. The third 
 class was only partially free, cultivating the soil on which its members 
 were originally planted, or suffered to remain, after the conquered land 
 was divided into vills and shires ; and as Geneats, Geburs, Cotsetlas, 
 Bordars, and under various other names, they were the representatives, 
 and occasionally the descendants, of the class of servile cultivators 
 attached, in yet earlier times, to the soil. The remaining population of 
 the rural districts had not emerged from servitude. The germs of the 
 system of military or feudal tenure may be traced in the Icen, or benefice, 
 rewarding the services of the Cniht, or Miles, the precursor of the Eitter, 
 or Knight ; and to the immediate successors of Alfred, if not to the 
 great king himself, may be attributed the establishment of military 
 tenure over every portion of England under the more immediate rule of 
 the sovereigns of his House. From about the opening of the tenth 
 century, if not from the close of the ninth, frank-tenure and gentle- 
 tenure became identified with the tenure of the Thegn (or Dienstman) 
 throughout English Mercia and the South-country, all who held by it 
 acquiring the position of Twelfhyndmen, though they were not neces- 
 sarily Gesithcund, or of gentle birth and descent. Hlaford-socn, or the 
 obligation of " seeking a lord," became incumbent upon the whole free 
 population, the principle of commendation binding them in dependence, 
 more or less direct, upon the sovereign. " If he have Bocland, let that 
 be forfeited (for a deed of outlawry) into the king's hand, be he the man 
 of whatever man he may." ^ Such was the principle laid down in the 
 Laws of Canute, but it was acted upon by Alfred long before the reign 
 of the Danish king. When the forty hides at Alresford, granted origi- 
 nally by Tunbert, Bishop of Winchester, to one of his kinsmen, were 
 forfeited for the misconduct of Alfred, a descendant of the latter, the 
 king not only confiscated the personal property of the delinquent, but 
 made Bishop Denewulf buy back the land thus forfeited by " his thegn," 
 wdth a fine of sixscore mancuses-of gold. He assumed that the land 
 was chartered thegn-land, held by military service, and as such reverting 
 to the crown on forfeiture ; as directly, or indirectly, the sovereign was 
 the overlord of all who held their land by military tenure.^ A Isen of 
 
 ^ Gnut. S. 13. The princii)le will be found long afterwards in English law. For 
 instance, " in case the tenaunt . . . have but one parceUe of lande holden of the kynge 
 in capite, the kynge shall have all the hole laudes, holden of every lorde, during the 
 nonage." — Fitzherbert's Surveyengc, p. 46. 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip. mlxxxvi. mxc. mclxxxix. Dci. " Omni substantia peculiali recte pri- 
 vatus est, et prtefatum rus ab eo abstractum rex hujus patrise suas ditioni avidus 
 deveiiire injuste optavit." From these expressions, used by the scribe of Edgar's docu- 
 ment, be seems to have assumed the tenui-e of Church-lands to have been in " pure
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ivii 
 
 Folcland, however, unless specially enfranchised, was liable to the obli- 
 gations of Folcland, though the holder was personally free from them ; 
 for it was a legal axiom in later times that tenure in villeinage did not 
 constitute a villein ; and the benefice from which the service of " a helm 
 and byrnie" was required, remained more or less liable to the obligations 
 of Folcland, until the charter of Henry i. freed the demesne lands of all 
 who held by the hauberc [per loricam) from every service except the 
 strict obligations of military tenure. 
 
 The germs of the principle of private ownership in land may be 
 traced in the Boc, or charter, first introduced, apparently, by the clergy, 
 in connexion with grants of lands made to the Church, the " possessiones 
 prsediorum" of Beda, rendered in the translation by " Bocland sehte." 
 The protest raised by the clergy against the practice of " enslaving" the 
 lands of the Church, or treating them like Folcland, seems to have led 
 to a compromise about the middle of the eighth century, the original 
 tenure of " pure alms" w^as practically abandoned, and Bocland was 
 released from all secular services except the Trinoda Necessitas — attend- 
 ance in the Fyrd for general military service, Bridge-work and Burgh- 
 bote, which may be rendered in a general way as the duties of keeping 
 up the king's highways and royal burghs. A certain amount of building 
 was annually due from all tenants in base service, and this seems to 
 have been compounded for by a fixed and settled service, or an equiva- 
 lent payment entailed upon Bocland, London Bridge and the Tower 
 were built by labour contributed in this manner from a wide extent of 
 country round the capital. Bocland, if inherited, passed by the will of 
 the first recipient of the grant, and by those of the subsequent holders, 
 and, if it was so settled, could be strictly entailed in the family, which 
 would seem to have been the course usually followed. Alfred, in whose 
 Laws this principle will be found, adhered to it so strictly, that, by the 
 provisions of his own will, every grant of land he bequeathed to " the 
 spindle-side" was to be annulled, if the land was found to have been 
 inherited from Egbert, whose Boclands were all entailed on " the 
 
 alms," or allodial, when, as in the case of the allodial Gavellei's of Kent, the land would 
 not have been forfeited for felony. Alfred thought otherwise, and the iirineijile he 
 enforced will be found in King Henry's Laws (Ixxxviii. 14), " Nemo forisfaciat feudum 
 suum legitimis heredibus suis tiisi propter felonlam, vel reddicionem spontaneam." It 
 still remains in force. -(Elfric, son of the defaulting Alfred, seems to have obtained the 
 lands from Edred, and they were confirmed to him in the first year of Edwy's reign, 
 Odo, yElfsige of Winchester, and all the West-Saxon prelates, attesting the grant ; but 
 i?ithelwold got them back for his See in Edgar's time, if an unwitnessed cliaiter may be 
 trusted. In both cases the grants were " Bocs on ece yrfe," or in pcri)etual inherit- 
 ance. In both cases curses were invoked on all who cancelled the charters — mere 
 forms in either case.
 
 Iviii INTROD UCTIOX. 
 
 sword-side." Hence it was in the power of the original recipient of 
 a grant of Bocland to entail it in any manner he chose, the inheritors 
 holdinff it under the provisions of his will, and bequeathing it with 
 additional provisions if they thought fit to do so.-^ Hence also arose the 
 necessity of a w^ill ; and for the privilege of making it, as well as for the 
 confirmation of its provisions, the sanction of the sovereign was required, 
 the Boc by which the land was held also requiring confirmation or renewal. 
 Athelstan made over sixteen hides at Pipingminster to " ^Ifheah his 
 theo-n," a sum of money passing as usual upon the occasion of the grant ; 
 and three years afterwards, Edmund, in the second year of his reign, 
 granted the same sixteen hides to " ^Ifheah his thegn." Both the grants 
 are indorsed as " Bocs on ece yrfe," or in perpetual inheritance, yet the 
 perpetuity of the inheritance was evidently dependent on the will of each 
 successive sovereign, who was not necessarily bound by the acts of his 
 predecessor. Twenty hides at Mordun were granted to ^Ifsige " on ece 
 yrfe " by Edmund, and thirteen years later the same twenty hides were 
 granted " on ece yrfe" by Edmund's son Edwy to Winsige. The five 
 hides at Worthig, first made over by Egbert to the Old Minster at Win- 
 chester, after passing through various hands, will be found in the Book 
 of Abingdon amongst the lands belonging to that monastery ; and 
 amongst the charges for which ^Ifric, Ealdorman of Mercia, was out- 
 lawed in the great Gemote held at Cirencester, was his violent entry into 
 certain lands, some of which had been granted to his father ^Ifhere, by 
 charters that are still existing.^ Out of the custom of acquiring and 
 bequeathing landed property in Bocland, therefore, arose the double 
 necessity of making a will and obtaining a confirmation of the original 
 grant. Every early will, accordmgly, dated after the opening of the tenth 
 century, commences with a petition that the king would permit it to 
 hold good, always containing a bequest to the sovereign, and usually to 
 his queen, in order that the petition might be granted. If the bequest 
 was refused, the will was not allowed to stand, or, in other words, the 
 
 1 Lerj. Alf. 41. The will of Alfred will be foimd in Thorpe's Diplom. p. 484. The 
 document immediately preceding it, the will of Ealdorman Alfred, affords an excellent 
 instance of the power of entail possessed by an owner of Bocland. Alfred bequeaths 
 the bulk of his property eventually to his sole daughter and her children ; failing heirs 
 of her body, to " the nearest hand of her direct paternal kin . . . whosoever it may 
 suit," — to the heir-in-chief of the direct paternal line. He provides for a son who had 
 no claim on the property (evidently illegitimate) with a gift of land that was to be 
 made up to at least ten hides, the holding of a full thegn. Lands, he seems to have 
 inherited from his mother, were to pass eventually in his " direct maternal kin." 
 Finally, if " a nearer heir come forth of the male sex, and is born, then I give to him, 
 after my day, all my inheritance to enjoy as may be most agreeable to him." 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip. mcxvii. mcxl. mcxlvi. mclxxxv. mcccxii.
 
 INTRODUCTION. lix 
 
 grant was not renewed, — an instance in point will be found amongst 
 the wills collected in Thorpe's Diplomata, in one of which the widow 
 appears to have been obliged to clear the character of her dead husband, 
 whose will had not been allowed to stand on the ground of his defection 
 to the Danes.^ The heriots, which are distinctly traceable in the wills 
 of the tenth century, appear as fixed and settled payments in the Laws 
 of Canute ; for the amount of the money payment, forming an important 
 portion of the heriot, seems to have been left in earlier times very much 
 at the option of the sovereign. A rough and summary method appears 
 to have been adopted in the case of Church-lands ; for, upon the death 
 of a bishop, or an abbot, the king quartered a number of his thegns upon 
 the lands of the see, or minster, which were thus " enslaved" or treated 
 as ordinary Folcland, until the payment of a fine secured a renewal of 
 the enfranchisement. The heriots of Canute's Laws were confirmed by the 
 Conqueror with two characteristic alterations. A certain number of the 
 horses in the heriot were to be hunters and hacks, and the money pay- 
 ment of the tenant-in-capite, no longer reckoned as a fixed and settled 
 sum, was left as in earlier days at the option of the sovereign — point- 
 ing to the Relief a misericorde, and confirming the account left upon 
 record by the contemporary chronicler of the two blots upon the charac- 
 ter of one of the ablest princes that ever ruled over England, — his over- 
 fondness for the chase, and his avarice. The charter of Henry i. re- 
 established the principle of " a reasonable relief," but in the Dialogus 
 de Scaccario, and in tlie legal treatise of Glanville, who alludes in his 
 Preface to the doctrine of the Civil Law, "quod principi placet, legis 
 habet vigorem," the Eelief a misericorde again appears in connexion with 
 tenants-in-capite. The first stipulation in Magna Charta provided for a 
 return to "the old relief" of 100 lbs. from every full barony, in accord- 
 ance with the principle laid down in the Laws of Canute, and confirmed 
 by the charter of Henry i. ; but after 1297, when, for the first time in 
 his reign, Edward, who was in want of money to provide for his impend- 
 ing wars in France and Scotland, confirmed the Great Charter in return 
 for a grant of the eighth of the chattels of his lay subjects, the relief of 
 a barony, as distinguished from an earldom, was reduced to 100 marcs.^ 
 
 ^ Thorpe, DlpJom. p. 539. The heriot is not mentioned in the few wills that are 
 dated before the tenth century, but in two instances the wergild is "bef]ueathed to St. 
 Peter." All the earlier wills, however, are connected with the countj' of Kent, and their 
 form may have been in accordance with the custom of Kent. Otherwise, the change 
 is quite in keeping with the introduction of Thanage or military tenure, at this period. 
 
 - Gnut. S. 72 ; W'dl. Conq. xx. ; Feed. i. p. 878. The meaning of the change in 
 Edward's time belongs to the history of a later period, and ma}' be touched upon here- 
 after. The principle of the Relief was acknowledged long before the Conquest.
 
 Ix INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Bocland passed by will, and everything that was held by customary 
 tenure passed by the custom of the tenure ; but that land, in very early 
 times, was not included amongst bequeathable property may be gathered 
 from the very word by which the latter seems to have been originally 
 known — y?]fe. A " Boc on ece yrfe" was a charter in perpetual inherit- 
 ance ; yet in the charter of the lands at Beddington, already alluded to, 
 where the Latin text uses the expression " sine pecunia," the context in 
 the vernacular is " iaerfaelffiss," or without yrfe. " Londe" and "yrfe" 
 are occasionally distinguished in old wills, and thus the meaning of the 
 word, that came in time to signify "inheritance" of every description, 
 was confined originally to " pecunia," personal property or stock — the 
 goods and chattels which alone represented the property that was be- 
 queathable and divisible amongst the heirs, " cwice yrfe " meaning live 
 stock. The "hereditas" by Ptipuarian Law was divisible amongst male 
 and female heirs, but the " hereditas aviatica" passed to the males alone ; 
 the same word hereditas being here used in two separate meanings, per- 
 fectly intelligible a thousand years ago, but leading to confusion in the 
 present age if the distinction is not carefully noticed. Wills were un- 
 known to the Germans of the time of Tacitus, nor was a will required 
 in customary tenure, nor indeed in any tenure in which the yrfe, or in- 
 heritable property, passed by uniform and unalterable custom. In the 
 case of a man who died intestate, the property, following ancient cus- 
 tom, was divided amongst the heirs, " the wife and children and rela- 
 tions, to every one according to the degree that belongs to him ;" the 
 " lord," after deducting " his heriots," superintending the division in the 
 capacity of a guardian, as it were, thus pointing to the acknowledgment 
 of the principle of "wardship" at least as early as the days of Canute.^ 
 When Alfred rebuilt London and gave it to his son-in-law, the Mercian 
 Ealdorman, the milites agrarii introduced within the walls continued to 
 live by the custom of the rural districts from which they were with- 
 drawn. They counted their tythings and their hyndens in the time of 
 Athelstan ; the chattels of the thief, after he was hung, were divided 
 within the walls between the king and the fellowship, as in the rural 
 
 1 Cniit. S. 71. So in tlie Conqueror's Laws (xxxiv.) — "If a man die intestate, let 
 liis children divide the inheritance in equal portions," an enactment in strict accordance 
 with the principle laid down in the Grand Coustinnkr (c. 26) : " Tout heritage est part- 
 able." The actual fief to which " wardship " attached was indivisible, but where there 
 were many fiefs they were divisible in equal portions among the heirs " by custom of 
 Normandy," in the manner laid down in the chaj)ter above quoted. The earlier Norman 
 custom was confined, in course of time, to the property of heiresses, and accordingly, in 
 the commentary on the CouMumkr, the passage quoted above is elaborated into "tout 
 heritage est partable ct impu^-table."
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ixi 
 
 districts between the king and the Hundred ; and in the reign of 
 Henry in., when a " Plee de Terre" was heard in the Court of Hustiug, 
 a fourth of the jury was taken from the Ward in which the Terre was 
 situated, and the remainder in equal portions from the three nearest 
 wards — ^just as the decanus and two men from a Frithborh or Tythiiig, 
 with the decanus and two men from each of the nearest Frithborhs, 
 made up the jury in the rural districts according to the directions in the 
 Laws of the Confessor. The yife or inheritance of the London burgher, 
 as far as it was represented by separate messuages and goods and chat- 
 tels, was divided in ordinary cases into three portions ; one for the 
 widow, another divisible amongst the children, whilst the third was set 
 apart for discharging the debts of the deceased, the residue passing to 
 the heir he may have named — occasionally to the Church. His 
 " conquest," or all that he may have acquired and not inherited, was at 
 his own disposal, on the principle governing Bocland, a grant of which 
 was the " conquest " of the first recipient, and bequeathable by will. 
 The actual burgage tenement, though it might be sold on the plea of 
 poverty, with a right of pre-emption for the heir, was as indivisible 
 as the Fief de Hauberc and its members, passing to the heir-in- 
 chief, subject to the claims of the other heirs upon it. It was usual 
 in the Gavelkind tenure, when there was only one tenement, for the 
 heir-in-chief to buy off the claims of the other heirs upon the messuage 
 and buildings, and a similar usage was customary in Normandy ; but 
 when it could not be done, the whole of the heirs must have lived in 
 the house with the heir- in-chief, for whom the hearth, witli a space of 
 forty feet around it, was reserved. So, by the custom of London, the 
 widow had a right of " free bench " for her life, or a claim upon certain 
 rooms of the house when it was occupied in common by the heirs. A 
 similar system is still widely prevalent amongst many of the Slavonic 
 races of the Continent, the family, often amounting to fifty, or even a 
 hundred persons, living together under the same collection of roofs under 
 a Pater-familias, or Goszpadar, upon the death of the latter, the heir- in- 
 chief succeeding to a similar position. The actual joint-occupation of a 
 single tenement, however, only occurred in the case of the smaller pro- 
 prietors ; for, wherever it was possible, a separate house with its depen- 
 dencies was assigned to each of the heirs.^ 
 
 There can be little doubt as to who was the heir-in- chief by the ordi- 
 nary custom of England. " Parents are accustomed to recognise their 
 
 1 Jud. Civ. Lond. i. iii. ; Lib. Alb. i. p. 181, 392, 393 ; Lci/. Conf. xx. ; Lib. Civ. vi. ; 
 Lombard, p. 574, 575 ; Grand Count, c. 2G.
 
 Ixii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 eldest-born as the lieacl of the family {jwincipium libcrorum), and to give 
 him the preference in dividing the inheritance," wrote Beda. " Let the 
 eldest son succeed to the father's fee ; his purchases, and all that he may- 
 have acquired (the conquest), let the father bequeath to whom he wills." 
 Such was the ordinary usage in the age in which the " Laws of King 
 Henry " were compiled, or about the opening of the thirteenth century, 
 the very custom of Borough-English pointing to the practice of selecting 
 one of the sons as heir-in- chief. In tlie usage of Beda's age may be 
 traced the principle of tenure in Parage, ignored by the Common Law of 
 England, but widely prevalent upon the Continent, where the expression 
 Haute Parage was identical in early days with Haute Noblesse. It was 
 tenure par Parage, according to the Grand Coustumier of Normandy, 
 when the brothers and the cousins shared in the ancestral inheritance 
 and held of the eldest born, and when the holder of a fief and he of whom 
 he held it were " pers par le reson del lignage," — " peers," or equals, in 
 right of kindred descent. The family ended at a certain point, at the 
 fifth, the sixth, or the seventh degree, and beyond the limits of blood- 
 relationship tenure in parage ceased, and tenure in homage began — the 
 holder of the fief, ceasing to be the peer of the heir-in-chief, became his 
 dependant or man, holding by service of some description ; in gentle- 
 tenure by military or other gentle- service, in frank- tenure by servitium 
 in denariis or payment of rent, and in base-tenure by base-service. 
 Wherever the title descends to every member of a famiLy of which the 
 heir-in-chief is the recognised head, the tenure is still in existence up to 
 a certain point, clinging to the blood, as it were, even after the land and 
 other property may have long ceased to pass by a similar rule.'^ 
 
 Tenure in parage, therefore, or rather the ancient custom out of 
 which it arose, may be supposed to represent the earlier usage of England, 
 and the principle was widely prevalent, if not universal, amongst nearly 
 every people of Celtic, as well as of German origin. The Duchy of Bavaria, 
 for instance, was vested in the Agilolfings, who appear in the Lex Baiorum 
 as the " pares" and '' cosequales" of the reigning Duke, who was the heir- 
 in-chief. On the death of the latter his sons divided the inheritance, the 
 
 1 Leg. Hen. I. Ixx. 21 ; Grand Const, c. 28, 30. "Terreni parentes, quern primuin 
 partu fuderint, eum principium liberorum siiorum cognoscere, et ceteris in partienda sua 
 hereditate pragferendum dueere soleiit," were the words of Benedict Biscop, according to 
 Beda {Vit. St. Ben. ii.) Tenure in i)arage was allowed by the Common Law, according 
 to Glanville (L. vii. c. iii.) in the case of heiresses, homage and "a reasonable Relief" 
 commencing from the third descent. After the lapse of another generation or two, it 
 ceased to be the law of the land. When the Grand Coustumier was compiled, it was the 
 " custom of Normandy ; " but when the Cotitumes de Normandie were written, it was 
 confined (as in England in the twelfth century) to heiresses.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ixiii 
 
 lieir-in- chief succeeding to the dukedom, subject to the approval of the 
 Kaisar ; whilst the nephews, though heirs in default of sons, were only 
 entitled to divide the inheritance of their respective fathers, the brothers 
 of the deceased duke. A few generations of similar descents and divisions 
 would have partitioned out the inheritance of Agilolf, or the sors sup- 
 posed to have been allotted to him at the original division of Bavaria, 
 amongst a number of descendants, yet not an acre would have been 
 alienated from the blood without the consent of the heirs, and the whole 
 would have been held, in some way or another, under the heir-in- chief, 
 the Duke. A similar principle governed the smallest inheritance, which 
 seems to have been indivisible below a certain point, as well as the 
 largest, and Bocland appears to have been in ordinary cases subject to a 
 similar rule, in as far as it generally became an inheritance inalienable 
 from the Mgegborh, or family, though not necessarily divided in accord- 
 ance with the strict rule of equality prescribed by ancient custom. The 
 numerous cyns, the Bocingas, Hsestingas, Wociugas, and others, wdiose 
 existence has been pointed out by Kemble, were the Adalings, or Gesith- 
 cundmen, who were located in the districts still retaining their names ; 
 districts that once represented the sots, cethel, or patria, allotted to their 
 ancestors at the original distribution of the land ; and within the limits 
 of their cethel they enjoyed a right of occupation, like the Agilolfings, as 
 members of the privileged community, as long as they were full-free and 
 full-born, or of pure descent, — for the son of a freeman and a woman who 
 was not of free descent had no claim, by ancient custom, upon the 
 inheritance of the father. If not provided for during the lifetime of the 
 father, he was left at the mercy of his brothers of the pure blood, and 
 was a " Dearfende folclic man," without any right of property in the an- 
 cestral district. Birthright, in Beda's age, seems to have been still 
 identified, as far as land was concerned, with the hereditary right of occu- 
 pation ; and in the reign of Ethelred, nearly three centuries later, the 
 expression " patrimonium " would appear to have been still applied in 
 the higher ranks of society to a very similar right, ^thelwine, Ealdor- 
 man of East Anglia, and his brothers, claimed the forty hides at Hatfield, 
 on the ground that their father, Ealdorman Athelstan, had received them 
 in exchange for his " patrimony " in Devonshire, a proceeding that could 
 have hardly been carried out if the patrimony had been an inheritance 
 in Bocland. It was the Isen rather, or benefice, to which Athelstan was 
 entitled as his birthright in his native province, through his connexion 
 with the king.^ The recipient of such a benefice would have held it in 
 ^ Hist. Earn. 3 ; Hist. Ely, i. 5. The family of Athelstan, who, as a kinsman of the
 
 Ixiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 absolute ownership for his life, free from all the claims of his blood 
 relations, who, in a certain early stage of society, would have been entitled 
 to a similar laen ; but as soon as the benefice began to be transmitted as 
 a property, or in allod, the inheritor of such a property would have held 
 it in parage, as heir-in-chief, subject to the claims of his peers in the 
 Mnegborh. The principle of the benefice was transmitted in the strict 
 military tenure of the English Common Law, in which the actual 
 fief was possessed or inherited by one man alone, and, after the estab- 
 lishment of the principle of entail by Edward i. in 1285, was entailed 
 upon the eldest son.^ The allodial principle, on the other hand, was 
 a relic of the early system under which the birthright, as far as land 
 was concerned, was represented by a general right of occupying a 
 portion of land, corresponding with the position of the recipient. As 
 soon as the actual land passed to the heirs, it passed by the ordinary 
 usage of the age, and tenure in parage arose. By custom, or by Boc, the 
 land was entailed on the heirs of the blood, holding under the heir- 
 in-chief, the enactment laid down in Alfred's Laws, on the subject of 
 inherited Bocland, pointing to the recognition of the principle of entail 
 before the Conquest. 
 
 The division of the inheritance and the choice of the heir seem to 
 have been left, up to a certain point, to the discretion of the parents in 
 
 king, seems to have been entitled to a lien in his native district, complained that Edgar 
 had deprived them both of the " jjatrimony " and of the land at Hatfield received in 
 exchange for it. The King may have thought that the Ealderdom of East-Anglia was 
 enough for the family, and resumed the Lajn-lands. Such struggles were continually 
 going on, as long as the pi-inciple of hereditary property in land was unsettled. The 
 greater nobles attempted to convert their benefices into allodial holdings, and where the 
 power of the king was strong, as in England, he resisted ; where it was weak, as in 
 France, he succumbed. 
 
 1 " Tenant in fee taile est per force de la Statute de West, 2, c. 1. Car devant le dit 
 Statute tons enheritances faeront fee simple," Coke's Insflfutes, L. i. sec. 13. The Statute 
 was passed in consequence of "divers of the realm being disinherited." The earlier 
 custom, therefore, that Bocland should pass according to the will of the first reci])ient 
 of the grant — the i)rinciple of entail — must have been abrogated by the Conquest. The 
 property of the man who died intestate was divided, by the Conqueror's Laws, amongst 
 the heirs ; the military fief, when Glanville wrote, passed to the eldest son alone. Ac- 
 cording to the Dkihxjus de Scaccario, hereditary right in land was abrogated by the 
 Conqueror for political reasons ; but it may be a question if he did not merely introduce 
 the custom of the Scandinavian kingdoms ; for in the fifteenth century it was still a 
 principle of Danish law that " jus aut consuetudinem Romanl feudi Danianon agnoscit." 
 In the year before the Conquest the Anglo-Danes claimed the right of living by " the 
 Laws of Canute" (Chron. Sax. 10G5), and the classes connected wdth the land in this 
 quarter were represented by the King's-thegn or Liberalis, the Land-agende man or 
 Homo allodium habens, and the Cyrl or Villanus. Of the two first classes the tenants 
 in capite were evidently beneficiary, whilst the Land-agende men were, in a certain sense, 
 ahdiarii ; and William is supposed to have wished to introduce the customs of the 
 Danelage into the rest of England, from their similarity to those of Normandy. Compare 
 Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. pp. 324, 461.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ixv 
 
 the time of Benedict Biscop, tliougli the preference was usually accorded 
 to the eldest born. The power of choosing an heir, who was usually the 
 eldest born, seems to be alluded to in the passage in which Tacitus notices 
 that, amongst the Usipites, the horse and arms were bequeathed to the 
 most warlike of the sons, not, as elsewhere, to the eldest. It was in 
 accordance with this ancient custom that Otho i. was presented to the 
 Germans assembled at Aix, as the " heres designatus " of his father 
 Henry, and the usage of designating a successor continued more or less 
 in force until a much later period. It is still a source of troubles in- 
 numerable in Affghanistan ; whilst according to the principle of succes- 
 sion in the Turkish Empire, a principle once widely prevalent in many 
 other quarters, upon the death of a Sultan, the eldest living member of 
 the family succeeds. When a man received a benefice from the State, or 
 Sovereign, in absolute possession, he became the representative of the 
 State or Sovereign, for the time being, within the limits of the property 
 thus assigned to him, — he became its lord. When the London thief was 
 hanged, a portion of his property was divided between the king and " the 
 fellowship ;" but if the property was in Bocland, the king's portion 
 passed to the owner of the Bocland, the lord, who was thus the repre- 
 sentative of the king. The various privileges, conveyed by a grant of 
 Bocland were carefully enumerated in many of the charters of the early 
 Norman period, for they appear to have passed as a matter of course be- 
 fore that time, and to have corresponded still more closely with the full 
 prerogative of the sovereign. It is laid down in Edgar's Laws, for instance, 
 that " if any Geneat man neglect his lord's tribute . . . and be obdurate, 
 and think to resist it . . . the lord's anger will so greatly increase, that he 
 will neither grant him property nor life." The lord had the power of 
 life and death over the cultivating classes attached to the soil, until the 
 " Pleas of the Crown " were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the lesser 
 Courts. The smallest subdivision of a rural district was represented by 
 the Tything, with which the ordinary large vill of early days seems to have 
 originally corresponded ; and he who was in the possession of a large vill, 
 or Tything (the appanage of a Twelfhyndman in early days), would have 
 been entitled to hold a court equivalent to a Tything-court, in which his 
 Tungreve or bailiff would have occupied the position of the Decanus or 
 Tythingman. The lord of a lesser shire, whicli would have been known 
 in later days as a Barony (the appanage of an Eorl), would have been 
 entitled to possess the equivalent of a Shire-court ; and after the institu- 
 tion of the Hundred-court, whenever a Hundred was made over to " a 
 lord," the court of the latter would have been placed on a similar footing.
 
 Ixvi INTROD UOTIOK 
 
 Hence, according to the " Laws of King Henry," every county was sub- 
 divided into Hundreds and Gesith-socns (Sithessocna) ; the lords of the 
 latter exercising the prerogatives of the State, up to a certain point, 
 within the limits of their properties, and presiding, either in person or 
 by deputy, in the courts which developed in course of time into the 
 Court Leet, the Court Baron, and the Customary Court of the Manor. 
 But as the State could only make over to its representative the privi- 
 leges it actually possessed, the freeholders, if there were any within the 
 Gesith-socn, would have been only liable to the overlord to the extent of 
 their rent, or their free-service ; nor could the cultivating class attached 
 to the soil, whether full-free or only partially free, be driven from the 
 district in which they had acquired " in-born," or native, right, as long 
 as they rendered the base-service due from them. The freehold properties 
 were dependencies of the Gesith-socn rather than integral portions of it, 
 appearing in Domesday as " Maneria," or as Berewics ; but the actual 
 property of the lord was divided into Inland and Utland, the former 
 answering to the Demesne of later days, and retained in the lord's own 
 hands. The Utland represented the gc-sd land, or land let out and cul- 
 tivated in common by the Geneats, or Villani, dwelling in the Ham, or 
 village home. Each of the occupiers of one of the messuages in the 
 Ham, as a Husbandman, or Hcorth-fcst (a householder), either singly or 
 with his fellow shareholders in the messuage, would have possessed a 
 right of depasturing a limited amount of stock upon the common waste, 
 with certain other definite and limited privileges, in addition to a share 
 in the common arable. All that would have belonged to the sovereign 
 of the State, as long as the land remained the public property of the State, 
 or Folcland, would have passed to the representative of the State, and 
 would have been known in later days as " manorial rights."^ 
 
 In the preceding pages I have endeavoured, though very imperfectly, 
 to point out a few of the leading features characterizing various early 
 
 ^ Such I believe to have been the origin of the " lord of the manor " and his privi- 
 leges, and he seems to have been the represeu tative of the proprietor "with his socn " of an 
 earlier generation. Where the privilege of socn was not possessed the proprietor attended 
 the court of a Gerefa. In the theory tracing the rise of manorial privileges to " en- 
 croachments " on the village community I cannot acquiesce. The very existence of such 
 a community in a state of isolated independence seems more than doubtful, and if it 
 formed an \\i\\t in some great confederacy, " the State," from the very first, would have 
 claimed certain rights, which would have been exercised by its representative, and 
 passed in course of time, by permission of the State, to some hereditary representative. 
 Even amongst the Old Saxons in the seventh century the vill was under a villicus 
 (tungerefa) who in turn was under a Satrapa (Eorldorman), who took upon himself to 
 put to death the whole of the " village community " (tunscii>e), and burn their tun 
 (Beda, H. E. v. 10). The community thus treated were itete, surely, and not Adalings.
 
 IFTROD UCTION. Ixvii 
 
 stages of society in their relationship towards land, from which it may- 
 be gathered, that many of the differences between the systems of the 
 past and of the present arose out of the preponderance of the Mceg, or 
 kin, over the individual. Individual right, in the sense in which it is 
 now understood, can scarcely be said to have been recognised as long as 
 the individual was merged in the kin, and the family embraced a number 
 of members, whom it is no longer customary to include within its limits. 
 So far, indeed, does the principle of joint-participation appear to have 
 been carried, in the case of some of the communities with which the 
 Romans were brought into contact, that, within a certain degree of 
 relationship, wives and children were possessed in common ; and though 
 a community of wives does not appear to have ever been a feature of 
 the Teutonic scheme of polity, one of the most prevalent of the abuses 
 to which the Christian clergy endeavoured to put a stop, amongst their 
 Germanic converts, was marriage with the widow of a father or a 
 brother. The desire of preventing the joint-property from passing 
 beyond the limits of the Mceg, would appear to have been the induce- 
 ment to marriages of this description — the principle on which tlie 
 daughters of Zelophehad were married to their cousins, " so that the 
 inheritance of the children of Israel should not remove from tribe to 
 tribe." As long as the individual was ignored, as it were, and land was 
 allotted out in districts amongst the Mmgs of a community, enfranchise- 
 ment must have been all but unattainable by the servile classes, amongst 
 whom v/ere originally numbered the children of the freeman and the 
 bondwoman. Hence the Canon of the early English Church, " Let the 
 full-born wed with the full-born — ingenuus cum ingenua." None but 
 the full-born Prison, who was a native of the district, could aspire to a 
 theel in the Theel-land ; and long after the earlier system had passed 
 away, " the stranger" could not acquire any permanent rights in a 
 district, or in a burgh, until after the lapse of a year and a day ; as any 
 well-founded objection raised against him during the interval, by a 
 member of the community he wished to join, would have prevented him 
 from participating in its privileges. Gaps made in the ranks of a com- 
 munity, in early days, by a disastrous war, may have occasionally been 
 filled up by enfranchising serfs ; but during a lengthened peace, in a 
 comparatively settled state of society, there would have been literally no 
 room for enfranchisement. Where a district, of which the proprietary 
 right was vested in a community (a Folcland), was portioned out 
 amongst a number of Mccgs, the head of any one of them could not set 
 a slave at liberty and provide for him at the expense of the rest; he
 
 Ixviii INTROD UCTIOK 
 
 could not plant his freedman on the land, or give him the right of 
 sharing in the district, and thus diminish the amount of land to be 
 distributed amongst the full-born freemen of the community. A similar 
 difficulty beset the religious community of a certain period, as, according 
 to a Canon of Isidore, it was " unlawful for an abbot or a monk to set a 
 slave at liberty, as it is impious that he who has contributed nothing to 
 the property of the Church should do her harm." Hence the free com- 
 munity of Western Europe in its purest form — when the line drawn 
 between the Adaling and the Ltet was all but impassable, and the Friling, 
 if he existed, was " sub tutela domini," or a client — must have resembled, 
 in many points, the Eoman Commonwealth in that early age in which 
 the Patrician alone was a member of the Populus Eomanus. The free- 
 dom, in either case, was confined to the privileged class alone. After 
 the introduction of the principle that lay at the base of the feudal 
 system — that of free service — a free military class arose in connexion 
 with the land ; and, after the principle of private property in land was 
 acknowledged, it became possible for the individual to enfranchise his 
 slave and provide for him, or for his kinsman who was not full-born, 
 who no longer necessarily sunk to the position of the Ltet. Hence 
 arose the various classes which, whilst partially free, were irremoveable 
 from the district in wliich they were planted, and with whose condition 
 under the later feudal system we are most familiar — classes that are too 
 often confounded with the Adalings of the free community, and supposed 
 to have been deprived of their freedom and overwhelmed with oppres- 
 sive and illegal burdens by a military aristocracy. The opj^ressions and 
 the burdens undoubtedly existed, but scarcely as illegal novelties, for 
 they were relics of an age in which the cultivation of the soil was 
 mainly carried out by a servile class, " chattels," without rights in the 
 eyes of their masters, the full-born members of the free community. 
 The Adaling was in existence before the Friling, and the nobles of the 
 mediaeval period, as a class distinguished from the simple freemen, rose 
 out, as it were, from the ranks of the Adalings. They did not exist as a 
 separate class amongst the Community, and force down the Frilings 
 into servitude. 
 
 Long after the acknowledgment of the principle of private property 
 in land, the joint-participation attaching to the earlier system of the 
 community remained in force ; and land, as soon as it became yrfe-land 
 or bequeathable, continued to be divisible, like the rest of the yrfe or 
 inheritance, amongst the full-born members of the family, which was 
 still looked upon in the light of a small community, and governed
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ixix 
 
 according to its rules. Hence arose the tenure in Parage, by which the 
 whole of the original property, however it may have been divided in 
 course of time, continued to be held under the heir-in-chief by the mem- 
 bers of the family, none of whom could part with their portion of the 
 inheritance without the permission of the rest. The tenant in Gavel- 
 kind, for instance, who succeeded to " the hearth and forty feet around 
 it," could not have sold his portion of the house until he had bought off 
 the claims of the joint-heirs upon the remainder ; when, as proprietor 
 of the whole, he could have parted with it to a stranger. The introduc- 
 tion of the principle of primogeniture, vesting the landed inheritance in 
 the eldest son, may be traced in England to the influence of the Boc, by 
 which the whole of the Bocland was entailed according to the will of the 
 original proprietor ; and as it may be gathered from the words of Bene- 
 dict Biscop, that a preference was usually given amongst the Angles to 
 the eldest-born, it is natural to suppose that Bocland, as a rule, was 
 entailed upon him. Wherever the system of Parage remained in force, 
 the duties as well as the privileges of the heir-in-chief devolved upon 
 him as a portion of his "birthright," and he was bound to provide for 
 the members of the Maeg in such a manner that the inheritance of the 
 family should not pass beyond its limits. But wherever the principles 
 of Feudalism prevailed over those of AUodialism, and the influence of 
 the Mseg declined, the military fief, committed to a single holder, after it 
 exchanged the character of a Lsen or life-benefice for that of an inherit- 
 ance, became the absolute property of the eldest son. Changes of this 
 description, however, were gradual, and their growth is often traceable 
 in the codes and legal treatises of different eras. They were seldom 
 introduced at once, or enforced by conquest upon a reluctant and unwill- 
 ing people. Nor did tliey extend below the members of a certain class, 
 and whilst the lord of the vill held his land by military or by frank tenure, 
 and exercised within its limits more or less of the prerogatives originally 
 belonging to the State, the " custom" regulating the cultivating classes 
 was seldom disturbed, and wherever they .represented a joint-occupying 
 class, more or less hereditary, they continued to be governed by many of 
 the usages of the community.
 
 STANDARDS OF THE PAST IN WEIGHT 
 AND CURRENCY. 
 
 PART THE FIRST. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Roman and Byzantine Pounds. 
 
 The Roman measures of capacity were based upon the same principle 
 as our present standard, for as an English imperial bushel contains 
 60 lbs. of average wheat, or 80 lbs. liquid measure, so a Roman amphora 
 of three modii held 60 Roman lbs. of average wheat, or 80 lbs. of wine. 
 kGrain measure, however, rather than liquid, wheat bound to weigh not 
 less than 20 lbs. to the modius, lay at the base of the Roman system as 
 it used to form the ground-work of our ownji for every weight mentioned 
 in our old Statutes was founded upon the sterling penny, estimated at 32 
 grains of average wheat. That this was actually the case amongst the 
 Romans may be gathered from the poem ascribed to Rhemnius Fannius, 
 or Priscian, in which a weight of 10 drachmse is given to the cyathus, and 
 consequently 120 drachrate, or 15 oz., to the sextarius, 20 lbs. to the 
 modius, and 60 lbs. to the amphora ; the allowances to be made in 
 adapting dry measure to wine, oil, or honey, being briefly alluded to 
 towards the end of the poem. As the Roman amphora in the reign of 
 Vespasian contained 80 lbs. of wine, or a talent of Attic silver-weight, it 
 is evident that the mina of Attic silver-weight and the Roman pound 
 must, like liquid and dry measure, have stood in the proportion of four 
 and three. Hence a Roman pound of 12 oz. would have weighed 75 
 drachmae, or (75 x 675 =) 5062*5 gr. tr., and 16 Roman oz. would 
 have weighed an Attic mina — a remark in the poem already quoted, " The 
 Attic pound is less than the Roman, weighing 75 drachmae," showing 
 that some such adaptation of the Attic to the Roman system correspond- 
 
 a
 
 2 THE ROMAN AND BYZANTINE POUNDS. 
 
 ing with the " mina of 84 denarii," to which Pliny alludes, must have 
 once been actually made. Shrinking with the diminution of the drachma 
 this Attic pound must have fallen below the original standard, always 
 remaining at 2i fourth less than a I'iil mina of 100 drachm^e.-^ 
 
 When four Koman oz. were equal in weight to 25 Attic drachma, or 
 to 28 denarii, the nubdivisions o:^ tlie Roman standard could not have 
 corresponded wiih those of Attic silver-weight, and though the drachma 
 and the Eoman coin were subsequently identical, neither the scruple nor 
 the sesterce corresponded with the Attic obolus. But Greek and Roman 
 weight were thoroughly identified, obolus and gramme, sextula and 
 drachma, were each and all in relative proportion to the other, when 
 Rhemnius Fannius wrote that " 100 drachmee go to the weight called by 
 the Greeks mna, and by our forefathers mina. Take away /o2<r drachrafe 
 and you have our pound ; deduct a fourth, and you have the Attic mna." 
 In consequence of this adaptation of the Roman to the Greek, or Attic, 
 standard, which may apparently be regarded as one of the results of the 
 removal of the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople, the 
 later Roman or Byzantine pound fell short of the earlier standard by 4 
 Byzantine drachmae, or half an ounce. Hence the remark of Symmachus, 
 that the standards of the city of Rome, urhana pondera, were heavier 
 than those in ordinary use. Hence the notice in Priscian that " the 
 great talent/' or Attic silver-weight, was equal to 83 lbs. 4 oz. ; so that 
 80 lbs. of the later standard must have fallen short of 80 lbs. of the 
 earlier standard by 40 oz., each pound therefore weighing 4 drachmas, or 
 half an ounce, less. The weight to which Rhemnius Fannius gives the 
 name of Greek mna was the true representative of the old Roman pound 
 divided into 100 drachmae, of which 96 made a Byzantine pound, thus 
 
 giving to the latter I "^^r^ or j 4860 gr. tr., and that this was the 
 
 actual weight of the later Roman or Byzantine pound can easily be 
 shown.^ 
 
 The Sextula of the Byzantine ounce was identical in weight with the 
 Solidus aureus of Constantinople, which, as the Hyperpyrns of 72 to the 
 
 ^ Curm. de Pond. This is often attributed to Priscian, but it does not agree in all its state- 
 ments with his treatise on Weights and IMeasures. According to the poem, and the chapters 
 at the close of Galen's AVorks, a Roman sextarius of average wheat weighed 15 oz., of oil 18 oz., 
 of wine 20 oz., and of honey 30 oz. The authorities on which I rely, when not expressly 
 quoted, are the very excellent ".Dictionaries" of Antiquities and of the Bible. 
 
 - " Urbanis ponderibus . . . id est trutinre largioris examine," are the words of Symmachus. 
 The passage in Priscian (de Pond. p. 850, edit. I3asle, 1545) is as follows: —"Libra vel mina 
 Attica, drachmae 80 ; libra vel mina graia, drachmae S6 ; talentum Atheniense parvum, minse 
 60; magnum, minaj 83 et uncia 4 . . . et sciendum quod, secundum Livii computationera, 
 100 minae Atticae, qnarum singuh-e 75 drachmas habent, fl^ciunt talentum magnum. Nam 
 minas habet GO secundum Dardanum . . . Italica mina drachmas habet ... 96, quod est 
 libra 12 unciarum, id est denarii 72. Hac igitur computatione 83 librae Eomanae et 4 uncise, 
 quod est magnum talentum, 100 minas Atticas faciunt. " The denarius of Priscian is evidently 
 the aureus denarius of his days, the Byzantine solidus of 72 to the lb. His last calculation is 
 perfectly correct, for 8000 drachmas, at the Byzantine standard of 50*625 gr. tr., would give a 
 talent of 405,000 grains, equal to 80 lbs. Eoman weight, or 83 lbs. 4 oz. Byzantine weight.
 
 THE ROMAN AND BYZANTINE POUNDS. 3 
 
 pound, was, for a thousand years, an almost universal standard of gold 
 
 weight, and even yet continues to exercise a theoretical influence in every 
 
 mint and goldsmith's shop in Europe. " Twenty-four carats fine " is the 
 
 expression still applied to gold of the finest quality, meaning originally 
 
 that eveiy Keration in the twenty-four that made up the weight of the 
 
 standard coin of Constantinople was of the purest gold, unmixed with 
 
 alloy. The coinage of Constantinople passed, almost exclusively, for 
 
 nearl}'^ four centuries, over the greater part of the Eastern world, which, 
 
 after giving her standards to the West, received one back again from the 
 
 same quarter — the names of Dinar, Dirliem, and Fels, applied to the coins 
 
 which first began to be issued under the early Khalifs about the opening 
 
 of the seventh century, telling of the universal prevalence of the later 
 
 Koman currency. In Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Barbary, and Arabia, the 
 
 Dirhem, as a standard of weight, continues at the present day to be 
 
 divided into 16 killos, or carats, and 64 grains, giving 24 carats and 96 
 
 grains to the mithcal, which thus represents, in theory, the aureus solidus 
 
 of Constantinople, weighing 24 keratia. To this Byzantine keration, 
 
 Oribasius, the contemporary of Julian, gives a weight of 4 sitaria, or 
 
 wheat-corns, wheat averaging 20 lbs. to the modius, being evidently at 
 
 the basis of Byzantine weight, as well as of the ordinary measures of 
 
 capacity. Thus the sitarion of Oribasius is identified with our own 
 
 22'5 
 original unit of weight — the wheat-corn of "^^y-, or "703125 gr. tr., and 
 
 the solidus, or standard gold coin of 96 wheat-corns, must have weighed 
 
 three sterling pence, or 67'5 gr. tr., a drachma of Attic silver-weight. 
 
 "A bezant of pure gold, weighing not less than three pence" — such is 
 
 the standard laid down in an old document of the ninth century, quoted 
 
 by Ducange, for the coin of Constantinople, agreeing exactly with the 
 
 entry in the Sachsenspiegel, "twelve gold pence, each of which shall 
 
 weigh three penny-weights of silvers," and the coin passed into Germany 
 
 as a gold weight under the name of the gold schilling of 80 to the pound, 
 
 /5400 \ 
 or I -Qrr= ) 67"5 gr. tr. ; for the old standard of the mint in Germany, 
 
 Agrippaniske, or Cologne, weight, was identical with the English sterling 
 standard. Thus 24 grains of wheat went to the gramme, or Byzantine 
 scruple, 72 to the drachma, and 576 to the ounce, just as in the case of 
 the denier, gros, and ounce of the old Paris standard, or marc de Troyes, 
 which was an offshoot from the Byzantine pound, but with an ounce 
 weighing seven instead of six solidi. This would give a weight of 
 405 gr. tr. to the ounce, and 4860 gr. tr. to the pound of Byzantium, 
 which, by the addition of half an ounce — four drachmai, or 2025 gr. tr. — 
 is raised to 5062*5 gr. tr., the original weight of the true Koman pound, 
 containing seventy-^ve solidi, or drachmai of Attic silver-weight, instead 
 of seventy-i!?(;o. Multiply these pounds respectively by 80 and 83 J, and 
 the result in each case will give 405,000 gr. tr. ; the talent of Attic silver- 
 weight thus confirming the passages in Livy and Priscian, and attesting
 
 4 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 
 
 the singular accuracy with which the standard of Alexander, the old mint- 
 weiglit of Athens, has been estimated from the coins.^ 
 
 II. 
 
 Talents of the Classical Era. 
 
 When the younger Cyrus, a Persian prince, and in a Persian province, 
 promised the soothsayer " three thousand Darics," and, upon the fulfil- 
 ment of the prophecy, paid him with " ten talents," it is only natural to 
 suppose that he carried out his engagement in Persian currency. Hence 
 300 Darics were equal in value to a Persian talent of silver, 5 Darics to 
 a mina, and a Daric would have passed for 20 Persian sigli. The siglos, 
 according to Xenophon, was equal in value to seven and a half Attic 
 oboli, or in the proportion of Jive to four to the Attic drachma, each at 
 this time weighing respectively 84*375 gr. tr., and 67'5 gr. tr., at the full 
 standard. Thus, a gold Daric would have been worth 20 Persian sigli, 
 or 25 Attic drachmce, or four Eoraanoz., and at the proportion of 13 to 1, 
 the ratio of gold to silver in the reign of Darius, according to the authority 
 of Herodotus, the standard of the gold coin will be found to have been 
 
 — -I„— or I about 129"8 gr.tr. Five Darics would have passed for a 
 
 Persian mina of (5 X 1687"5 =) 84375 grains, or 20 Koman oz., giving 
 a talent of 506,250 grains, or 100 lbs. ; four for an Attic mina of 
 (4 X 1687*5 =) 6750 grains, or 16 oz., with a talent of 405,000 grains, 
 or 80 lbs. Three Darics, or a Sicilian gold talent, before the earlier coin 
 was superseded by the gold stater of the Macedonian kings, would have 
 been equal in value to (3 x 1687'5 =) 5062*5 grains, or the Eoman 
 pound. Thus the Koman pound, and the Attic and Persian current 
 minai, would have been at this time in the proportion respectively of 
 three, four, and^ye.^ 
 
 1 Ducan.E^e, in voc. KeparLov, Byzantinus ; /Sachs enspie gel, Bk. iii. Art. 65; Ersch und 
 Gruher, Pfund. The historian of Ely also uses the expressions "centum aurei," and " C. 
 tripondiis auri," for the same sum of money (Hist. El. vi. vii.), evidently regarding the aureus 
 as "a weight oi three," i.e., of three pence. The aureus, or gold mancus, of his days, was not 
 necessarily a coin of Constantinople, but a solidus, or bit of bullion, of the same weight as the 
 bezant — a tripondiwn weighing three pence of the Carlovingian, or sterling standard. 
 
 ■^ Xenoph. Aiiab. i. 5, 7 ; Ilerod. iii. 95, iv. 166. Some very erroneous conclusions have 
 been drawn from overlooking the apparently self-evident fact that a sum of money promised by 
 a Persian prince, in a Persian province, and in Persian currency, must have been paid in Persian, 
 and not in Attic talents ; in sigli, and not in drachmcB. That a Daric, worth twenty sigli, 
 should have only passed for twenty drachmae, seems as strange as a sovereign worth twenty 
 shillings passing for only twenty francs ; yet are we taught to believe that such was the case, 
 though Harpocration seems to be the earliest authority for the statement. He remarks that 
 the Daric " was of the same value as the coin the Athenians call Chrysous, some adding that
 
 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 5 
 
 Aristotle identified the Chalcos of his own time, eight of which passed 
 for an Attic obolus, with the Sicilian uncia, of which tiuelve, an As or 
 pound of copper, passed for a silver litra, which was thus half as large 
 again as the ohohis of Attic silver-weight. Of these oboli, a Koman 
 pound would have contained (6x75, or) 450, and consequently 300 
 litrae, so that the proportion between silver and copper in Greece and 
 Sicily, about the time of the conquests of Alexander, may be reckoned 
 at 300 to 1. The litra, which also figures in the Sicilian gold talent as 
 the noummos of three hemioboli, or an obolus and a half Attic weight, 
 was the ^ginetan obolus according to Aristotle ; so that in his days the 
 JEginetan talent must have weighed half as much again as the Attic 
 silver talent, 607,500 gr. tr., or 120 Koman lbs., and was thus retained 
 in the Roman system of weight as the ordinary medimnus of six raodii, 
 each calculated at 20 lbs. of average wheat. In other words, the Eoman 
 and Sicilian systems of weight and currency were originally identical. 
 Ten ^ginetan oboli made the Decalitron or Corinthian stater, giving 
 it a weight of 168'75 gr. tr., or two Persian sigli, and thus identifying 
 the standard silver coin of Corinth, in the days of Aristotle, with the 
 stater of the Persian silver talent, ten of which passed for the Persian 
 Daric.^ 
 
 Appended to the works of Galen are certain chapters on weights and 
 measures, not written by the great physician, who could never have 
 quoted Oribasius, the contemporary of Julian, as an authority, but appa- 
 rently collected from various sources, and added by some later hand. 
 
 it was worth 20 draclimfe, because 5 Uarics passed for a mina." The mistake is palpable, and 
 easily rectified. He has suLstituted an Attic for a Persian silver mina. Indeed, the very 
 existence of a Persian silver talent seems to have been forgotten. 
 
 ^ Pollux, ix. 6, iv. 24. He confirms the identification of the ^ginetan talent with the 
 medimnus of 120 lbs. by his remark that the drachma of ^gina, known as dpaxfJ-v iraxeta, 
 passed for 10 Attic oboli, the talent thus containing 10,000 Attic drachma. As long as the 
 ^ginetan and Attic oboli were in the proportion of three and hvo, an ^ginetan drachma would 
 have passed for nine, not te7i Attic oboli. But as Pollux is not in this instance quoting Aris- 
 totle, ho is reckoning by the standard of his own age, the standard of Varro, Celsus, and Pliny, 
 who, identifying the Attic drachma with the Eoman denarius, estimate the obolus at a tenth 
 less than the obolus of Attic silver-weight or (11'25 — 1'125:=) ]0'12.5 gr. tr., which gives an 
 ^ginetan drachma of ten oboli, or l6l"25 grains, and a talent of 607, .500 grains, or 120 lbs. 
 So Aulus Gellius, who may be looked upon as a contemporary of Julius Pollux, gives the price 
 of Bucephalus, who is supposed to have cost 13 talents, at 320 sestertia (v. 2) ; estimates three 
 Attic talents of the time of Aristotle at 72,000 H.S. (iii. 17) ; and renders ixvpiai dpaxfjiai. of 
 the date of Demosthenes by 10,000 denarii (i. 8), in each case identifying the Attic drachma 
 with the Roman denarius. Again, the Attic drachma of a later period represents a totally dif- 
 ferent standard ; for when Suidas gives only six chalci to the " obolus of the Athenians," lie is 
 alluding to the Byzantine obolus, three-fourths of the earlier Attic, half of the old yEginctan, 
 standard, Priscian and his contemporaries using the Byzantine drachma in their calculations. 
 Care must be also taken to avoid confusion between the later currency of Corinth and Sicily, 
 after it was adapted to the standard of Alexander, or Attic silver-weight, .and the earlier cur- 
 rency to which Varro alludes as the parent of the early Roman coinage, and which was familiar 
 to Aristotle when he wrote, in his treatise upon Agrigentum, " The litra is wortli an yl'>ginotan 
 obolus, and the Corinthian stater is called Decalitron, because it is wortli 10 oboli." Kor nmst 
 the early currency of JEgina be confounded with the drachma of a heavier typo to which Pollux 
 alludes, which must have been current at a time when the Attic talent no longer reached the 
 full standard of Attic silver-weight.
 
 6 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 
 
 In some of these chapters the Eoman or Italian mina is estimated at 
 20 oz., the Attic, also called the Egyptian mina, at 16 oz., and the Roman 
 pound at 12 oz., or in the proportion oijive, fow% and three, each repre- 
 senting respectively the Persian, earlier Attic, and Roman standards. The 
 artaba, an old Persian corn-measure, is reckoned at Jive modii, 100 
 Roman lbs., or a Persian silver talent. It was the half of a medimnus, 
 which consequently would have contained 200 Roman lbs,, or a double 
 Persian silver talent, of average wheat. One of the duties of the farm- 
 bailiff, according to Columella, was to see to the proper condition of the 
 DecemmodicB and Trimodice, measures of ten and three modii, or 200 lbs. 
 and 60 lbs. respectively. The larger measure, or Decemmodia of 200 lbs., 
 was thus identical with a large medimnus, or double artaba of the old 
 Persian standard ; the smaller, or Trimodia, of 60 lbs., was an amphora 
 or half-medimnus of the Sicilian standard, answering to the half of an 
 ^ginetan talent.^ 
 
 In other chapters of the same appendix the Italian and Ptolemaic 
 minse are reckoned at 18 oz., and the Egyptian artaba, or the half of a 
 Ptolemaic medimnus, is elsewhere estimated at four and a half modii. 
 Thus the standard of both mina3 and artaba must have either shrunk at 
 some period a tenth in weight, representing Persian weight at a reduced 
 standard, with a talent of 90 lbs., or they must have conformed to some 
 other system represented by the Ptolemaic talent. This diminution or 
 change in the standards of weight and capacity is very evident in the 
 case of the artaba, which appears in the poem of Rhemnius Fannius as 
 a measure of three modii and a third, or a third of a Roman decem- 
 modia, having thus adapted itself in turn to the Persian, the Alexandi'ian, 
 and the Roman systems ; and it still exists in Egypt under the name of 
 a7'deb, having probably accommodated itself to various other standards 
 since the Roman era.^ As the Hebrew seah, the third of an ephah, was 
 in the days of Josephus half as large again as the Roman modius, so 
 that it would have contained 30 lbs. of average wheat, the ephah would 
 
 ^ Galen (Kiilin), vol. xis. p. 751 et seq. ; Colum. xii. 18. 
 
 ^ As the artaba aJajDted itself to the standard of the Roman decemmodia, so at a somewhat 
 later period the modius seems to have adapted itself to the artaba, or, to speak more correctly, 
 to its equivalent, or a trimodia that was a third of the larger measure. Gregory the Great, in 
 one of his ejjistles (L. i. c. 42), inveighs against the custom of making the church-tenants pay 
 by the major modius, and limits the standard of the Church to a measure of eighteen sextarii, 
 a ninth instead of a tenth of the original decemmodia, giving the modius a standard of 
 
 / 200_lbs._22 i|jg_ 2-33 oz., oA 22 lbs. of wheat instead of 20 lbs. According to Isidore 
 
 (L. xvi. c. 25), who ■wrote about two generations later, the sextarius was a measure of 2 lbs., 
 instead of 15 oz., and 22 sextarii, or 44 lbs., went to the modius, 5 modii, or 220 lbs., to the 
 medimnus, which thus represente(l a decemmodia of the standard of Gregory, raised from 200 
 lbs. to 220 lbs., or from 10 to 11 Eoman modii, by the adaptation of the Eoman trimodia to the 
 standard given by Ehemnius Fannius to the artaba. The true Eoman modius was known to 
 Isidore under a difi'erent name, for he describes the amphora as a Pes Qnadratus of wine — the 
 old standard — or three Italian modii. Thus disguised as the Italian modius, and the Italian 
 mina, the standards of imperial Eume had dwindled into " urban," or local measures, and were 
 fast passing into oblivion.
 
 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 7 
 
 have answered to this talent of 90 lbs. ; and the Jews would also appear 
 to have conformed to the reduced or changed standard of the East. 
 Plato, in the Hqyparclms, makes Socrates inquire of his companion if a 
 man gained or lost by exchanging gold for twice its weight in silver. 
 " He loses largely," is the prompt reply ; "for he only gets twice instead 
 of twelve times the amount of his gold." Gold, therefore, must have 
 fallen in value since the establishment of the Persian standard of pro- 
 portion in the days of the first Darius ; and as this reduction was 
 familiarly known in Greece about the middle of the fourth century before 
 the Christian era, its effects must have been felt in the East rather 
 before that time, probably contributing to produce the changes in 
 question.^ 
 
 The Hebrew mina, according to Josephus, weighed 30 Eoman oz., 
 or 720 scruples; in other words, 100 gold coins, or Darics, of the standard 
 of the Eoman aureus of 40 to the lb., weighing 7"2 scruples— 50 double 
 Darics, or gold tetradrachma. The Hebrew system of weight, however, 
 differed from that of the Persian empire, 100 mina3 or 10,000 coins going 
 to the talent, instead of 60 minfe, or 3000 Darics, according to the Persian 
 custom. Hence, assuming the identity of the coin, a Hebrew mina would 
 have weighed tioo Persian minas, and 30 Hebrew minaj, or 75 lbs., would 
 represent the weight of a Persian gold talent at this standard. Accord- 
 ing to the Persian system of reckoning ten talents of silver to a gold 
 talent, a silver talent of 90 lbs., with the proportion at 12 to 1, would 
 
 imply the existence of a gold talent of ( ^^-^ or | exactly 75 lbs., and thus 
 
 the reduction in the earlier standards would appear to be accounted for 
 by the fall in the value of gold. Alexander, in accordance with a policy 
 that dictated the suppression of every reminiscence of the previous 
 supremacy of the Persian kings, superseded their coinage by his own, in- 
 troducing the Attic silver talent as the standard of currency throughout 
 his empire ; and to this standard East and West for a considerable time 
 very generally conformed, though it failed to supplant the national coin- 
 age in Asia Minor and in Syria, as well as in some other quarters. But 
 with the ordinary measures of capacity and commercial weight the novel 
 standard would scarcely have interfered, and accordingly the earlier sys- 
 tem at the reduced standard would appear to have been perpetuated, its 
 
 ^ Joseph. Ant. ix. 4. 5 ; Plato, Ilip. (Bekker, vol. iii. p. 40). Josephus reckons the seali 
 at a moclius and a half, the ephah at 72 se.xtarii. ^Vhc^ever a t^old stater passed lor 10 silver 
 staters, a geld talent must have been worth 10 silver talents ; hut the proportion hcttwecn the 
 two metals cannot be determined without ascertaining the weight of the respective coins. 
 Hence, when it is found from a comparison between two passages in Menander {Follux, ix. 6), 
 that a gold talent was worth 10 silver talents, and when the liomans allowed the yHtolians to 
 pay a third of their fine in gold, at the rate of a mina for 10 silver miiiaj {Fuhjh. xxii.), or an 
 aureus for 10 argentei according to Livy (xxxviii. 9, 11), the proportion between gold and 
 silver can no mure be ascertained from the passages in question than it can be calcuhited 
 at the present time from the fact that both in France and England an aureus passes for 20 
 arfjentei. Yet on the strength of the tliree passages quoted above, it has been very generally 
 assumed that the proportion between gold and silver fell suddenly to 10 to 1.
 
 8 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 
 
 origin perhaps as much forgotten as the very existence of a Persian 
 silver talent ; for it seeros to have very generally acquired the name of 
 Attic — or Greek — weight in many parts of the East, perhaps from repre- 
 senting the ordinary standard in the Grreek kingdoms of Egypt and 
 Western Asia. In a similar manner the Hebrew mina would appear to 
 have perpetuated the later standard of gold weight in the East, which 
 long remained unchanged, as, from the Alexandrian 'era, silver seems to 
 have rej)laced gold as the regulating standard of the currency, gold pass- 
 ing in bullion quite as often, if not more frequently, than in coins.^ 
 
 A similar influence seems to have been felt in the West, but appar- 
 ently at a later period. Varro reckoned the Egyptian talent at 80 lbs., the 
 Attic at 6000 denarii, for the true Eomans always appear to have re- 
 garded this talent of 80 lbs. as an Eastern standard rather than as Attic 
 weight — as the standard of Egypt, or, more correctly perhaps, of Alex- 
 andria. When Celsus, dividing the denarius into sixths, identifies each 
 sixth with the Attic obolus ; when Pliny, giving ten instead of eight 
 chalci to the Attic obolus, also identifies it with the sixth of the silver 
 denarius ; they are not alluding to the Attic silver-weight familiar to 
 Xenophon and Aristotle, but to Varro's Attic talent of 6000 denarii, 
 weighing (71 lbs. 5 oz. 1 den. or) a little under 72 lbs. Upon the final 
 ratitication of peace between Antiochus and the Eomans, the king bound 
 himself in a second treaty, according to Polybius, to carry out the re- 
 mainder of liis engagement by twelve annual payments of 1000 talents 
 of the finest Attic silver, each talent to weigh not less than 80 lbs. Livy, 
 in his version of the treaty, uses the expressions : — " Attic talents of fine 
 silver, the talent not to weigh less than 80 lbs.," as if more than one 
 standard of Attic weight was in existence at that time ; for he invariably 
 reckons the Attic, or Greek, talent of that era in denarii, a name he never 
 applies to the Eoman coinage of the same period. Thus, whilst in his 
 version of the treaty with Antiochus he alludes to an Attic talent of 
 80 lbs. for weighing silver bullion, he invariably calculates the talent of 
 coined money, or the standard of currency, in denarii, identifying it with 
 the Attic talent of Varro, Celsus, and Pliny. " Two talents, or 144 lbs.," 
 are the words of Plautus, quoted by Isidore, which would give a weight 
 of 72 lbs., or 6048 denarii, to the talent with which Plautus seems to 
 have been familiar, and which may be identified apparently with the 
 Attic standard of currency about the time of the Second Punic War. 
 The accuracy of this quotation from Plautus seems to be completely borne 
 out by facts. Assuming the Hebrew mina to have represented the stan- 
 
 ^ Joseph. Ant. iii. 6. 7 ; xiv. 7. 1. For the various standards of Attic weight vide Note A. 
 The system in force amongst the Hebrews is still very prevalent throughout the East ; for the 
 Indian Lak represents 100,000 rupees, and the Persian Tomaun 10,000 dinars. The name of 
 the latter is derived, says Colonel Yule, from Tiiman, meaning in the Mongol dialect "ten 
 thousand." It is worthy of remark that the lesser subdivisions of the Eoman measures of 
 capacity, as they have descended to us, seem to have been based upon, or conformed to, gold- 
 weight, the Sextarius of 15 oz. containing 50 aurei, or a Persian gold mina, at the reduced 
 standard.
 
 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 9 
 
 dard of gold-weight in the East at the proportion of 12 to 1, 720 scruples 
 of gold would have passed for 8640 scruples of silver, and the hundredth 
 part of the mina, a gold stater, or Daric, would have been worth 86*4 
 scruples of silver. Wherever such a coin, or a similar amount of gold, 
 passed for 20 silver drachma3, each of the latter would have weighed 
 /86-4 \ . _ , . . . 1 . f /4-32X6000 \ „„ ,, 
 I "20" ^^] scruples, giving a talent ot I ^co orj 90 lbs.; 
 
 wherever it passed for 25, each drachma would have weighed ( -^^ or 
 
 o AKa 1 cf\<-n + • • + 1 ^ r /3-456x6000 i 
 
 3"456 scruples, or 60'75 gr. tr., giving a talent of ^^^ or 
 
 y Zoo j 
 
 72 lbs. ; exactly a tenth less than the earlier Attic silver talent of 80 lbs., 
 just as the talent of 90 lbs. was a tenth less than the earlier Persian 
 standard of Darius. As the mediasval gold florin, when adapted to the 
 Cologne marc, shrunk infinitesimally below the normal standard, so the 
 Roman denarius, coined at 7 instead of 6*92 to the ounce, weighed about 
 half a grain less than its original type (3'43 scruples, or 60268 gr. tr.), 
 and to this standard the Attic drachma latterly conformed.-^ 
 
 All these talents may be recognised in the account of an anonymous 
 Alexandrian, writing apparently in the Byzantine era, after every stan- 
 dard of weight had been adapted to the reduced Roman denarius, and 
 when, as he says, the Italian mina was a stater, ov four drachmee, heavier 
 than the Italian pound. In the " Talent of the Islands," half as large 
 again as the Attic, the old ^ginetan weight may be recognised, perhaps 
 under its true name. The Rhodian standard, to which that of iEgina in 
 the time of this writer conformed, was a fourtli heavier than the Attic, 
 or in the proportion o^ five to four, preserving the recollection of Persian 
 weight at the reduced standard. In an inscription from Cibyra, dated 
 in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, or about eight years before 
 the death of Pliny, in whose days the correct standard of the denarius 
 still remained at 84 to the lb., the half-drachma of Rhodes passed for 
 10 Asses, or five-eighths of a denarius, thus identifying the Rhodian 
 drachma of that period with a siglos of the reduced Persian standard, 
 which would have passed for 20 Asses, a denarius and a quarter, or in the 
 proportion of five to four. The cistopliorus, which passed at the same 
 period for 40 Asses, or two Rhodian drachmte, is thus connected with the 
 didrachmon of the same talent as Rhodian weight, representing a double- 
 siglos, or silver stater of Persia at the reduced standard. Rhodes, after 
 the death of Alexander, drove out the Macedonian garrison, and, assert- 
 ing her liberty, seems to have retained her original coinage upon the 
 later type of the Persian empire in token of independence. Tlie same 
 may be said of Pergamus, and of the other cities of Asia Minor in which 
 
 Plin. U'lst. Nat. xxi. 19, xxxiii. 15, xxxv. 40 ; Celsvs, v. 17. 1 ; Puhjh. xxii. 26 ; Livy, 
 xxxviii. 38; Isicl. Orig. xvi. 24. Isidore notices three talents, " Minus i.., Medium Lxxii., 
 Summum cxx." To the ktter talent Vitruvius also alludes (x. 21) when ho says that 4000 
 talents weisrhed 480,000 lbs.
 
 10 TALENTS OF THE CLASSICAL ERA. 
 
 the cistopliorus, struck upon the same type, attests their retention of the 
 right of a local coinage, which may be generally regarded as an expres- 
 sion of independence, where it is not conceded as a privilege. Trifling 
 as such coincidences may appear at first sight, they are not without their 
 use in estimating the accuracy of contemporary history.^ To return to 
 the Alexandrian authority : he identifies Tyrian with Attic weight, as 
 was the case in the days of Josephus, who gives a value of four Attic 
 drachmae to the Tyrian stater of his epoch.^ The talent of Antioch, or 
 Syrian talent, as in the time of Pollux, was a fourtli less than Attic 
 weight, or in the proportion of three to four^ which identifies the Syrian 
 mina, at its original standard of 75 Attic drachmee of full weight, with 
 the Eoman pound. Under the Flavian emperors at the time already 
 referred to, the tetradrachmon of Antioch passed for three denarii, so 
 that the Syrian mina of that period was s. fourth less than the Attic, and 
 a tenth less than the Eoman pound.'^ This was apparently the standard 
 as far back as the era of Antiochus the G-reat, for the tetradrachma, 
 " containing a weight of about three denarii of silver," which contributed, 
 with the cistophori, to fill the Eoman treasury after the war with An- 
 tiochus, were coins of Antioch rather than of Attica, giving to the 
 Syrian talent, about the time of the Second Punic War, a weight of 
 
 P J— ^ — x60, or) 54 Eoman lbs., a tenth less than a talent of 60 
 
 Eoman lbs. Thus, like the other standards of the East, the Syrian 
 talent seems to have diminished a tenth in weight before the fall of the 
 Persian empire, and was adopted, apparently, at the reduced standard, by 
 the Seleucidae for their national silver currency. It is curious to notice 
 the gradual extension westward of the results of the fall in the value of 
 gold, first felt throughout the East, reaching Greece apparently in the 
 course of the third century before the Christian era, but never sufficiently 
 influencing Eome so as to afiect permanently her early standard of weight.* 
 
 ^ Corp. Insc. Grcec. 4380, a. vol. Hi. p. 1167, and note. Awafiei Se [to Attikov raXavrov) 
 Tov JlroXefxaiKov Kara to vofiifffia TerpawXaffiov, eirirpLTOv 5e tov ^Avtcoxov, ry de Tvpiu) 1<tov. 
 .... TTjj' Al-yivaiav Kai T7]v'Fooi.av fivav rrjs IlroXe^at/ci;? eivai TrevraTrXacnov, e^aTrXaaiou 5e 
 Tr]u v7]aiwTiKT]v oiiTco trposayopevofJLevqv. Sucli is the substance of the quotation in Momm- 
 sen's lioman Weights, p. 3U. 
 
 * Joseph. D.B. J. ii. 21. 2. Bockh quotes the Talmud as also identifying the standard of 
 the currency in Judtea with the Tyrian. 
 
 * " The Attic drachma, though sensibly heavier than the denarius, was yet reckoned equal 
 to it ; the tetradrachmon of Antioch, weighing on an average 15 grammes of silver, was made 
 equal to three Roman denarii, which only weigh about 12 grammes; the cistophorvs of Asia 
 Minor was according to the value of silver above 3, according to the legal tarifi'=2|- denarii; 
 the Rhodian hnU-drachma according to the value of silver=5, according to the legal tariff=f 
 of a denarius, and so on." — Mommsen's Eoman History (Dickson), vol. iv. p. 554, note. If 
 the Professor is correct, it must have been a profitable speculation to buy up these local coins, 
 and sell them again as bullion, and they would have soon disappeared from circulation. But 
 in his first remark he is at issue with every Roman authority of the time, and he seems in con- 
 sequence to have over-estimated the weight of all the other coins. The Attic drachma and the 
 Eoman denarius had long been identical, and the legal tariff gives the correct value of the 
 coins. 
 
 * Livy, xxxiv. 52. " Signati argenti, 84,000 fuere ; Atticorum tetradrachma vacant; t.ium
 
 THE ROMAN CURRENCY. II 
 
 Lowest upon the list, but not the least interesting, stands the weight 
 to which the Alexandrian authority gives the name of the " Ptolemaic" 
 talent, weighing o. fourth of the Attic standard — the " Egyptian" talent 
 of Pollux, and of the Book of Cleopatra, which had an obolus for the 
 drachma. This obolus, at its original standard, would have weighed a 
 fourth of the drachma of Attic silver-weight ; in other words, it was the 
 Litra, and thus the smallest of the Egy^itian talents represented origin- 
 ally the full talent of Sicilian gold-weight, the standard of the earliest 
 silver coinage known to the Eomans. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Koman Currency. 
 
 For upwards of fifty years after the death of Aristotle, the Eoman 
 currency continued to be struck in copper alone, until, shortly after the 
 defeat of Pyrrhus, silver is said to have been coined about five years 
 before the First Punic War. By subsequently reducing the weight of tli© 
 As to 2 oz., the Komans are supposed to have cleared off the liabilities) 
 incurred during their earliest contest with Carthage, though hardly to- 
 the extent sometimes imagined. An Attic obolus which, in the time of 
 Aristotle, passed for 8 oz. of copper, was worth 2 oz. when Polybius was 
 writing ; and as a Ptoman pound of silver passed for 5Q> lbs. of copper 
 when the As was reduced to half an ounce, the actual rise in the 
 value of copper in Italy during the whole of the intervening period 
 
 I ^ .^ or about 5'4| was, in reality, not as great as its apparent rise 
 
 on this occasion. Before the close of the same century, the weight of 
 the As was again reduced, and for a similar reason, during the Second 
 Punic War ; and at the standard of an ounce it appears to have long 
 remained.^ 
 
 The silver coins of this period, generally known as Quadrigati and 
 Bigati, seem to have followed the Italian type, and, to judge from 
 the weight of some of the heavier specimens, which reach as high as 
 112"5 gr. tr., the Decalitron would appear to have been superseded by a 
 
 fere denariorum in singulis argenti est pondus." Commentators have found a stumbling-block 
 in trium, but does not the mistake lie rather in Atticoritmf Livy, using the present tense, — 
 " they are called," " there is a weight," — seems to be describing a coin of his own time. Tho 
 Attic tetradiachmon was a coin of the past, but the tetradrachnion of Antioch was still current 
 for three denarii when he was writing. Multitudes of these Syrian coins must have found their 
 way into the Itoman treasury at the time of the wars with Antiochus, and with the Asiatic 
 Gauls, and may have been vaguely known as Attic, or Greek, tetradrachma. 
 1 Pliu. JI. N. xxxix. 13.
 
 12 THE ROMAN CURRENCY. 
 
 Decoholus of the Attic type, a piece of 10 Attic oboli instead of 10 litree.^ 
 A coin of this description, according to Polkix, the -^ginetan drachma 
 passing for 10 Attic oboli, was familiar to the Athenians as a Spaxfj-rj 
 Traxeta, a name Avhich, according to Hesychius, was given to every drachma 
 passing for more than six Attic oboli ; and the " nummus Qiiadrigatus " 
 of the time of the Second Punic War seems to have belonged to the 
 heavier type. Polybius, writing about sixty years later, gives to the 
 Attic obolus a value of 2 Asses, so that the iEginetan drachma, or the 
 Decoholus, would have passed in his days for 20 Asses ; for ten, or as 
 a denarius, before the reduction in the weight of the As at the com- 
 mencement of the Second Punic War ; after which time, a Pentobolus, 
 or piece of 5 Attic oboli, would have represented the denarius. As the 
 Attic drachma at this time weighed 3*456 scruples, a Decoholus would 
 
 have weighed ( ^ or j 5*76, a Pentobolus 2"88, thus represent- 
 ing respectively the hundredth part, or drachma, of a large Sicilian mina 
 and of the Koman pound, 400 sesterces in each case being coined out of 
 the mina, or pound, of silver. The ransom agreed upon between Han- 
 nibal and Fabius Maximus is reckoned by Polybius at 2J Eoman lbs., by 
 Plutarch at 250 drachmte, thus giving 100 Pentoboli to the lb.; and 
 when Pliny calculates that, by passing the gold Scripula for 20 sesterces, 
 a profit of 900 sesterces was gained, he must have based his calculation 
 upon a denarius of this standard. He evidently assumes that a pound of 
 gold which, at 12 to 1, the ordinary proportion of the age, was worth 
 12 lbs. of silver, was made to pass in the proportion of 14"25 to 1, thus 
 giving a profit of 2'25 lbs., which would have been coined into 900 ses- 
 terces of the standard of 400 to the Ib.^ 
 
 As long as the triumphs of the Eoman generals were celebrated over 
 
 ^ "There is reason to believe that the denarius weighed at first about 112 gr. tr. " (Trans. 
 i?. S. Lit. iii. 367, quoted in Num. Hel. p. 141.) Only one coin mentioned by Mommsen, from 
 Mionnet, exceeds this weight, reaching 7"41 grammes, or 114"36 gr. tr. 
 
 ^ Folyh. ii. 15, vi. 19, xxii. 23 ; Plut. Fab. Max. Vn. The expressions of Pliny (xxxix. 13), 
 " Quod effecit in libris, ratione sesterti qui tunc erat, sestertios dcccc," imply a difference 
 between the sesterce of the time when the gold scripula was first issued, and the sesterce of his 
 own age. When the scruple passed for 20 sesterces, the pound of gold would have been worth 
 6760, or, as the As then weighed an ounce, (2*5X5760=) 1200 lbs. of copper. With silver 
 
 and copper at 84 to 1, this would give the proportion between gold and silver as ( —q-.~ or ) 
 
 about 14'25 to 1, so that a pound of gold was made to pass for 14'25 lbs. instead of 12 lbs. of 
 silver. As at this time 10 Asses were worth 5 Attic oboli, or 2"88 scruples of silver, the sesterce 
 would have been worth '72, 400 would have been coined out of a pound, 900 out of 2 lbs. 3 oz. 
 My reasons for concluding that the denarius continued to pass for 10 Asses, for some time after 
 the dictatorship of Fabius Maximus, I have given in Note B. Pliny and other authorities often 
 seem to be writing as if their readers were familiar with many things about which they are 
 now in comparative ignorance. When the Attic drachma passed for 12 Asses, or 1 lb. of 
 
 copper, the exact proportion between the two metals was ( or j 83^ to 1 ; according to 
 
 which standard 10 Asses would pass for a silver coin weighing (■ — ^^— or') 50'625 gr. tr., 
 or a Pentobolus.
 
 THE ROMAN CURRENCY. 13 
 
 the Carthagiaians, and the people of Italy and Western Europe, the trea- 
 sury was filled with Quadrigati, Bigati, and the Spanish coinage of 
 " Osca," the soldiery receiving their donatives in money of the copper 
 standard. Tetradrachma of Antioch, Cistophori of Pergamus, gold 
 Philips of Macedonia, and the pure silver coinage of Attica, flowed into 
 the treasury after the wars with Philip and Antiochus, Denarii and 
 Victoriati from Illyria a little later, — thus familiarizing the Koman people 
 with the currency of Eastern Europe, and of the Greek kingdoms of 
 Western Asia. Livy now calculates the donative of the Legionary in 
 denarii, for the use of silver was becoming common ; but the type' 
 of the coinage seems to have still remained unaltered. A character in 
 one of the comedies of Plautus sneers at " the miserables who are ready 
 to take a drachma, when, for his part, he would never stir under a 
 nummus" apparently a "nummus Quadrigatus,"or Decobolus of the larger 
 type ; for the man who would refuse to move for a drachma would 
 hardly rise for a Pentobolus, and would most assuredly never get up for 
 a sesterce. The obolus, the drachma, the mina, and the talent, familiar 
 to the audiences of Plautus, who was probably writing during the Second 
 Punic War, and one of whose plays was exhibited as late as B.C. 191, 
 or about seven or eight years before the date assigned to his death by 
 Cicero, appear in the six comedies of Terence, whose brief caieer was 
 terminated by his early death in B.C. 159. Money at this time was 
 still calculated by the mina, the pound and the ounce never appearing 
 except with the addition of ])ondo; and the nummus, as in the days of 
 Plautus, seems to have been a larger coin than the drachma. A thousand 
 silver drachmae were equivalent to ten minas ; but a thousand nummi 
 seem to have passed for a larger sum. In the days of Polybius, who on 
 his first arrival at Rome may have witnessed the representation of the 
 earliest comedy exhibited by Terence, the Attic drachma passed for twelve 
 Asses, the obolus for two, the denarius not as yet conforming to the Attic 
 type ; but the time was fast approaching when Eome waxs about to step 
 into the position occupied in turn by Persia and by Greece, and assert her 
 right to give the standard to the world.-^ 
 
 Two-and-twenty years after the surrender of Perseus in B.C. 1G8, the 
 same year witnessed the final destruction of Carthage and the temporary 
 fall of Corinth ; Greece ceased to be independent, Macedonia was already 
 a Roman province, and the pre-eminence that had passed away from 
 Persia upon the rise of the Macedonian empire was gradually transferred 
 to Rome. Her currency must have now begun to sup[)ly, at any rate, 
 the Western world, and, abandoning the earlier standard of her coinage, 
 she began to issue her denarii upon the Attic type of 84 to the lb. 
 Polybius brought down his history to the year in which Carthage and 
 Corinth fell, and when he wrote he still calculated the soldiers' pay in 
 Attic drachma3 and oboli ; valuing each coin respectively at 12 and 2 
 Asses. Fifteen years afterwards, Papirius Carbo was Tribune of the 
 ^ riaut. Pseud, iii. 2. 19 ; Ter. Ueuut. iii. 3. 4U, 45 ; iv. 4. 2.
 
 14 THE STIPENDIUM. 
 
 Plebs, in B.C. 131, and about this date may be placed the Papirian law 
 that reduced the weight of the As to half an ounce. It would be diffi- 
 cult to fix the exact time at which the Roman denarius was first assimi- 
 lated to the Attic type, though it was probably about this period ; for 
 the era of the change is unmistakably connected with the well-known 
 regulation about the soldiers' pay, which could hardly have been in exist- 
 ence when Polybius was writing his account of the pay and allowances 
 of the Roman legionary. The stipendium of the legionary, reckoned at 
 four Asses a day over a period of 120 days, must have amounted at the 
 time when Polybius was writing to 480 Asses, or 40 drachmae; but as soon 
 as the denarius passing for 16 Asses was assimilated to the drachma which 
 had once passed for 12, the pay would have fallen by the new arrange- 
 ment to ( -^jr or I 30 denarii. Hence it was agreed that the soldier's 
 
 pay should be calculated at 48 denarii, each passing, as of old, for 10 
 Asses ; so that the stipendium, though nominally remaining at the same 
 amount of four Asses a day, or 480 Asses, was practically raised from 
 
 I j^ or) 40 drachmae to (^^ or) 48 denarii. But so intimately is the 
 
 stipendium of the Roman soldier connected with the change in the coin- 
 age, that it cannot be passed over without a brief notice. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Stipendium. 
 
 The Roman Legion was originally composed of the Adsidui, or 
 Freeholders, who served at their own cost ; but the soldier was not a 
 " continuous-service man/' being only liable, during twenty years of his 
 life, to bo called out annually to serve a certain number of days under 
 arms. The necessity of continuing under arms beyond the limits of the 
 original term of service naturally became burdensome upon the yeoman 
 freeholder who wished "to get back to his farm ;" and, accordingly, he 
 was compensated iiy pay, the first issue of the Sti'pendium being generally 
 associated with the lengthened siege of Veii. The amount of the 
 stipendium in the reign of Domitian was three aurei, 75 denarii, or 1200 
 Asses, which, as the pay of the legionary was at that time 10 Asses a day, 
 gives 120 days, or four months of 30 days, as the annual length of service 
 to which the freeholder was originally liable. It is easy to understand 
 the manner in which such a system would have gradually adapted itself 
 to the lengthened wars of the later Republic, in which the legionary,
 
 THE 8TIPENDIUM. 15 
 
 being paid by the campaign, would receive his pay, not by the year, but 
 by the stipendium, or according to the number of " four months " during 
 which he continued " facere stipendium," or to carry arms in face of the 
 enemy. After continuous service was exacted from the Koman soldier 
 the same system remained in force, and he continued to be paid by the 
 stipendium, receiving three in the course of the year, until Domitian raised 
 his pay to four. 
 
 The war with Pyrrhus, the epoch in which a silver coinage was first 
 issued, and in which the erection of a sun-dial in the Forum familiarized 
 the Romans with the Eastern divisions of time, also marked the com- 
 mencement of important changes in the military system of Rome. It 
 was no longer property, but length of service, that qualified the soldier to 
 take his place amongst the chosen band, known henceforth as veterani. 
 Men were wanted, and the proletarii, freemen, but not freeholders, were 
 enrolled in the legions. A fleet was needed, and the poorest of the 
 proletarian class, with all the freedmen, were inscribed upon the roll of 
 sailors, much against their will, for galley-service was naturally unpopular. 
 Even the slave-market is said to have been ransacked for recruits to fill 
 the ranks, shattered by the victories of the great Carthaginian ; and, at 
 the close of the Second Punic War, allotments were assigned to Scipio's 
 veterans, Binajugera, the normal amount of the old Roman hwredium, 
 being given for every year of service beyond the frontiers of Italy, in 
 Spain, or Africa ; probably as a reward or pension for foreign service. 
 Thus, in the course of about seventy years, the whole military system had 
 been gradually remodelled. The legionary who received an allotment at 
 the close of twenty years of service, at home and abroad, must have been 
 the representative of a totally different class from that of the small 
 freeholder, whose presence was as necessary at the farm as in the field, 
 and whose service could not have been rendered without inconvenience 
 until the vintage and the harvest had been secured. No ties bound the 
 other either to family or farm ; his home was in the camp : for though a 
 freeman in arms, he was not a freeholder until he received, upon his dis- 
 charge, a hereditary allotment, and, accordingly, the germs of the military 
 colony, and of continuous service, the one in close connexion with the 
 other, may be traced to the period in question. 
 
 The earliest notice of the pay of the legionary is to be met with in 
 one of the comedies of Plautus, in which an allusion is made to the man 
 " who risks the chance of fifteen spears in his body in the assault for 
 three nummi." To be an enfant perdu in the forlorn hope told off to 
 carry a walled town by storm " sub falas," under the wooden defences 
 put together for the protection of the storming party, was evidently 
 regarded as one of the most hazardous services of the time. Calculated 
 at 3 Asses a day, the stipendium must have amounted at this time to 
 360 Asses, or 30 Attic drachmae, so that pay must have risen in the days 
 of Polybius, when the legionary received 2 Attic oboli, or 4 Asses a day, 
 which would have raised the stipendium to 480 Asses, or 40 Attic drachma}.
 
 16 THE STIPENDIUM. 
 
 His rations consisted of a monthly allowance of " as nearly as possible 
 two-thirds of an Attic medimnus of wheat," apparently the four and a 
 half modii, Koman measure, or about nine imperial gallons, which Cato 
 reckoned as the monthly allowance for a man at full work during the 
 six summer months. The centurion received double pay, the Eques three 
 times as much as the legionary, 12 Asses or an Attic drachma a day, with 
 a monthly allowance of two Attic medimni of wheat, and seven of barley, 
 or rations for three men, and forage for tivo, if not more, horses ; the cost 
 of rations, forage, and equipment, being, in each case, deducted from the 
 pay. Thus the State found the soldier with every necessary he required, 
 deducting the price from the stipendium. Rations and forage were also 
 issued to the allies whilst on service, free of all deductions, the infantry 
 receiving the same allowance as the Roman legionary, but only a medim- 
 nus and a third of wheat, and five medimni of barley, were served out to 
 the horseman, or rations for tioo men, and forage in proportion. The 
 Roman Eques had, from the earliest times, been mounted at the cost of 
 the State, ibrage for his horse having been provided, before the institution 
 of the stipendium, by an annual tax levied upon the widows of Rome, 
 perhaps in lieu of the personal service which they could not render in the 
 field ; and, under the name of uEs Equestre and uEs Hordearium, or the 
 cost and keep of the charger, certain legal claims seem to have beer, 
 asserted upon the military treasury by the Equestrian order, long after 
 they had ceased to supply the State with cavalry.^ 
 
 As the soldiers' pay was always calculated by the nummus of the copper 
 standard, the alteration through which sixteen Asses passed for a denarius, 
 which, when assimilated to the Attic drachma, ought to have only passed 
 for twelve, would have considerably reduced its amount, but for the 
 arrangement that, in reckoning the stipendium, the denarius should con- 
 tinue to pass at its original standard — a regulation which has been 
 connected by Pliny with the reduction in the weight of the As during the 
 
 1 Plaut. Most. ii. 1, 10 ; Pohih. vi. 39 ; Cato, Ivi. ; Livy, i. 43. The five Attic medimni, or 
 35 modii of barley supplied to the Allies, would give a daily allowance of rather under 14 lbs., 
 English weight — too much for a single horse to eat. The English charger consumes daily 
 10 lbs. of oats, but the lighter horse, of Arab race, that supplies his place in India, is contented 
 with about 8 lbs. of gram, or less when he can get green forage — with " three feeds " a day. 
 A comparison between a Roman horse of the modern type and the bronze charger of Marcus 
 Aurelius will show that the Roman Eques was mounted on a much smaller horse than the 
 English dragoon, and the five medimni of barley supplied to the Allies probably represent forage 
 hr two chargers, to mount the two men to whom rations were also supplied — an Eques and his 
 rear-rank man. The extra ration and two medimni — a smaller amount of barley — supplied to 
 the Roman, imply the presence of a third man and horse, probably a supernumerary and a bag- 
 gage animal. There were many slaves in attendance on the Roman array, and in the case o 
 the Eques his slave would be mounted. "Ad equos emendos dena millia a;ris ex publico 
 dato ; et quibus equos alerent, vidufe attributae, quie hlna millia ccris in annos singulos pende- 
 rent." Some very ingenious calculations have been grounded upon the assumption that the 
 dena millia represented the price of each horse, the biiia millia the pay of each Eques. If a 
 horse was worth 10,000 Asses, when a proprietor of 100,000 — or ten horses — was enrolled 
 amongst the richest class in Rome, the horse must have been a very valuable animal, and the 
 Equites were a very costly troop. The sums mentioned by Livy mounted the whole body, and 
 kept aU their horses.
 
 THE STIPENDIUM. 17 
 
 Second Panic war ; but as no allusion to it will be found in Polybius, the 
 change must be dated after the era in which the earlier and more accurate 
 writer conclnded his history. It must have raised the pay of the legion- 
 ary from (' or] the 40 Attic drachmae of the days of Polybius to 
 
 I yjy- or I 48 silver denarii, which continued to represent the amount of 
 
 the stipendium till it was nominally doubled by Julius Ctesar, through 
 whose arrangements the soldier received his rations from the State with- 
 out deduction, with a slave from amongst the captives to carry his 
 baggage. Thus Cassar's legionary only carried his arms and military 
 necessaries ; and not a little of the success of the great Roman captain 
 may probably be attributed to the increased celerity of movement which 
 he thus secured. The exceptional regulation about the soldiers' pay 
 must now have terminated, for it would have raised the stipendium, at 
 
 8 Asses a day, to ( ^ or J 96 denarii, a sum far above the three aurei, 
 
 or 75 denarii, at which it stood in the reign of Domitian ; but, by 
 doubling the daily pay, and abolishing the exceptional standard, Cresar 
 
 practically raised the amount of the stipendium to ( ^ ^ or I 60 denarii. 
 
 Augustus, who assigned additional sources of taxation for the military 
 treasury, and passed various regulations about the soldier's privileges and 
 pay, seems to have raised the latter to 10 Asses a day, the amount at which 
 it stood at the time of the Emperor's death, as may be gathered from the 
 grievances of the legionary at that period, which have been handed down 
 in the pages of Tacitus, as follows : — " He was often kept on service, fre- 
 quently with a body seamed with wounds, over thirty or forty campaigns ; 
 and even when dismissed he was still retained under the eagle, to perform 
 the same service under another name. If he survived, he was dragged 
 all over the world to get a bit of mountain or marsh that was called a 
 farm ; and he endured all this, and risked body and soul for ten Asses 
 a day, out of which he had to find himself in clothes, arms, a tent, and 
 to satisfy the exactions of the centurions. All this was well worth at 
 least a denarius a day. The Praetorians received twice that amount, and 
 left the service after sixteen years. Let the service of the legionary end 
 after sixteen years, and let him be paid on his discharge in money, and 
 in the camp." It is curious to observe how persistently the policy of 
 Augustus excluded the legionary from proximity to the capital, for, 
 whilst on service, he was never quartered within a certain distance of 
 Rome, and on his discharge he received, in strict conformity with the 
 principle of Scipio's age, an allotment in some distant province, which 
 lie would have willingly exchanged for " money paid in the camp," with 
 permission to spend it in Rome. The charge of the imperial city, and 
 the duty of guarding the Emperor's person, were committed to the 
 Praetorians alone, who, with the triple pay, seem to have occupied, in a 
 
 B
 
 18 EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY. 
 
 certain sense, the position of the earlier Eqnites. The complaints of the 
 soldiery extorted a double donative from Tiberius, with a promise that 
 their service should not be prolonged beyond the original limit of twenty 
 years, but the pay was not increased before the reign of Domitian, who 
 augmented it, not by raising its daily amount, but by the addition of a 
 fourth stipendium, thus increasing its yearly amount from nine to twelve 
 aurei, or 300 denarii.^ 
 
 V. 
 
 Early Byzantine Currency. 
 
 It may be gathered from Herodotus that gold was the standard of 
 the Persian currency as early as the reign of Darius, but, as the tribute 
 in the precious metals due from all the provinces was, with the solitary 
 exception of India, paid in silver, the estabUshment of a gold standard 
 could scarcely have preceded the extension of their authority by some of 
 the Great Kings over the distant province, from which a permanent 
 supply of the metal could be relied upon. In Greece, the supply of gold 
 was principally derived from the mines of the Pangeian range, which 
 were still worked by the neighbouring Thracian tribes when Herodotus 
 was writing, and from the possession of these mines by Philip of Macedon 
 dates the first issue of a Macedonian coinage in gold. The successors of 
 Alexander failed to extend their authority over the farther East, and 
 accordingly, though gold coins were issued in Syria, in Egypt, and in 
 Asia Minor, the currency in those quarters seems to have been regulated 
 on a silver standard, the stater of the Macedonian kings, who, froui 
 the possession of gold mines, could count upon a supply of the metal, 
 replacing the Daric as the ordinary standard of the gold coins of the 
 age. The acquisition of Spain placed the rich silver mines of that 
 country in the power of Kome, and, from the neighbourhood of Cartha- 
 gena alone, upwards of 1500 talents of silver are said, at one time, to 
 have been paid annually into the treasury ; but no gold mines of any 
 consequence ever fell into the possession of the Eomans of the Kepublic. 
 In the time of Poly bins, indeed, gold seems to have been discovered in 
 such plenty amongst the Taurisci of Noricum, that it fell a third in 
 value throughout Italy for the brief period during which the mines were 
 worked by Italians ; but the fall was only temporary, producing no per- 
 manent effect upon the Roman system, for the Taurisci, driving away 
 the Italian miners, retained the mines exclusively in their own posses- 
 
 ^ Suet. Jul. 26, Oct. 49, Domit. 7 ; Tac. AnA. 17, 36. The expression put in the mouth 
 of the military grumbler by Tacitus, " Only ten Asses for risking body and soul, which is well 
 worth a denarius" renders it impossible that the regulation should have been still in force, 
 by which the denarius was counted at ten Asses in paying the legionary.
 
 EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY. 19 
 
 sion. The scripula, current above its actual value, was evidently a local, 
 and probably a temporary coin, for gold continued to pass by weight, 
 and to be stored in the treasury in bars — the Komans of this period, to 
 the surprise of Pliny, who records the fact, invariably mulcting their 
 vanquished opponents in silver. As the ordinary standard of the cur- 
 rency of the West, silver could be re-issued with a profit in the form 
 of coins, whilst, as long as gold passed by weight at its market value, a 
 loss would have been entailed by coining it. The permanent extension 
 of their power beyond the limits of Europe seems to have impressed the 
 Bomans with the advantages of a coinage in gold, and, before the middle 
 of the first century before the Christian era, aurei upon the Eastern type 
 began to be circulated. Ceesar's conquest of Gaul placed at his disposal 
 the mines of that country, which were, at this period, renowned for 
 the purity of their gold, and from this time forward silver ceased to be 
 the regulating standard of the Eoman currency. The invariable result 
 of such a change in such an age soon became apparent, the denarius 
 dwindling away from its original standard, until it disappeared entirely 
 from circulation. 
 
 When Pliny wrote, "Alii a pondere svhtraJmnt, cum sit justum, 
 Ixxxiv. e libris signari," he was surely using the present tense ; and as 
 the standard of the silver denarius remained unaltered after the aureus 
 had been reduced in weight from 40 to 45 in the lb., or from 7"2 scruples 
 
 to 6'4, gold must have risen in value | -^^ = 13 "4 i, though the silver coin, 
 
 curtailed in weight, or mixed with alloy, no longer reached the correct 
 standard of value. It has been conjectured, indeed, that to meet the 
 depreciation of the aureus in the reign of Nero, the standard of the silver 
 denarius was lowered from 7 to 8 in the oz. ; but Pliny, writing some 
 time after the death of Nero, was unaware of any such change, nor can 
 any contemporary authority be cited in support of this opinion. It was 
 the Byzantine and not the Eoman ounce that was divided into 8 drachma3, 
 and the Byzantine drachma, as a weight, was never coined. Probably, 
 like our own shilling, as the coined denarius shrunk in size, it ceased to be 
 regarded as a weight ; for Josephus and Pollux calculated, not in silver 
 denarii, but in Attic drachmas, the standard of weight, apparently, in their 
 time, though the recollection of the denarius at its full standard may 
 have been retained under the name of the Holce — the weight. Fifty aurei 
 are said to have been coined out of a pound of gold in the tlays of Cara- 
 calla, sixty during the reign of Diocletian, who restored the denarius to the 
 silver currency, for it had ceased to be coined from the time of Caracalla ; 
 but its resuscitation under its original name was only temporary, and the 
 coin of Diocletian seems to have passed into the Byzantine system as the 
 Centenionalis.^ 
 
 * Another passage in Pliny, " Quaternis denariis scripula ejus permutata quondam, 7(t auri, 
 reperio," appears to conlirm the rise iu the value of gold iu his days, which seems to have
 
 20 EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY. 
 
 When Constantine instituted his reform in the Eoman coinage, he 
 would appear to have decreed that 7 aurei, each weighing 4 Byzantine 
 scruples, or grammes, should be coined out of the ounce of gold, each 
 aureus accordingly coutaining 3 "43 scruples of fine gold to '57 of alloy. 
 Hence 84 aurei were coined out of 288 Byzantine scruples of gold, and 
 thus a heavier standard was established, weighing fourteen ordinary 
 ounces, but divided as usual into twelve, each ounce containing seven solidi 
 instead of six, and weighing 28 scruples instead of 24 — 472'5 gr. tr. 
 instead of 405 gr. tr. As it was decided by the Emperor that all pay- 
 ments into the treasury in fine gold — aurum coctum — should be made 
 in this heavier pound, the profit must have been considerable ; but about 
 forty years later, in the reign of the elder Valentinian, this enactment 
 was set aside, and it was ordered that all payments in bullion — massa 
 auri — should be made in the pound of 72 solidi ; the solidus itself being 
 henceforth coined auri ohryzi, or of the finest gold. Thus, it would 
 appear, were laid the foundations of a double system of weight ; the 
 ordinary standard, often known as the Libra Occidua, or the pound of 
 72 solidi, and the heavier pound of 84 solidi, based upon the number of 
 aurei coined by Constantine out of the pound of gold, which was used 
 subsequently for weighing balluca, gold ore, or unrefined gold. To this 
 heavier pound may be traced Troyes-io eight. The Merovingians, adopt- 
 ing the Byzantine system for the standard of their currency, and the 
 wheat-corn for their unit of weight, gave 24 grains to the denier, and 
 576 to the ounce, or 16"875 gr. tr., and 405 gr. tr. respectively; but 
 in the Paris Poid-de-Marc, after it was assimilated to the standard of 
 Troyes-weight, the ounce weighed 472-25 gr. tr., or 672 wheat-corns, 
 exactly 96 grains of corn, three sterling pence, or a bezant of 67"5 gr. 
 tr. more than the lighter ounce, which was thus raised from six to seven 
 solidi.^ 
 
 steadily continued. The Argenteus Antoninianus of 60 to the lb., or 4*8 scruples, replaced the 
 denarius under Caracalla; and if 100 passed for six aurei of 50 to the lb., or 5"76 scruples of 
 
 gold, the proportion between the two metals would have stood at this time at f or\ about 
 
 13*9 to 1. When it can next be ascertained, it stood at (- — or ) 14"4 to 1. An excellent 
 
 account of the coinage of this period will be found in Mr. Finlay's Greece, vol. i. App. ii., " On 
 Roman and Byzantine Money." The Bj^zantine authorities identify the okK-q with the drachma 
 of their own time; but it seems allowable to conjecture that the name grew into use to dis- 
 tinguish the standard of weight from the diminished coin. So, as the sterling penny shrunk 
 from its original size in the course of the fourteenth century, the standard of weight began to 
 be known as the Troy poimd, to distinguish it from the standard of the currency, the sterling 
 pound. 
 
 ^ Cod. TJieod., Lib. xii. tit. vii. 1, ad an. 325; tit. vi. 13, and Lib. x. tit. xix. 4, ad 
 an. 367 ; Lib. vii. tit. xxiv. 1, ad an. 397. The enactments of the two later years were 
 repeated and confirmed by Justinian {Cod. Lib. x. tit. Ixx. 5; Lib. xi. tit. x. 3) who ordered 
 that all coins of his predecessors, if of the proper weight, should pass at their current value. 
 The old Paris grain and the average wheat-corn stand in the exact proportion of seven and six, 
 or of the heavier and lighter Byzantine pounds. A medallion of Priscus Attalus, weighing 
 1203 gr. tr., is looked upon as abnormal, for three Eoman oz. would give 1265 grains. But 
 three Byzantine oz. would only weigh 1215 gr. tr., and a difference of 12 grains is more
 
 EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY. 21 
 
 When Constantine fixed the weight of the aureus at the standard 
 which it so long retained, he also instituted a change in the silver coinage, 
 tlie Milliarensis and the Keration usurping the position once held by the 
 earlier denarius and quinarius. The milliarensis is supposed to have re- 
 ceived its name from 1000 passing for a pound of gold when it was 
 originally coined, or, to speak more correctly, 1008, twelve being given in 
 exchange for each of the new aurei of 84 to the lb. Of the specimens of 
 these coins mentioned by Pinkerton, two are worthy of especial notice, a 
 milliarensis of Constantine, weighing 695 gr. tr., and another of Prisons 
 Attains, weighing 81'25 gr. tr., or exactly in the proportion of six and 
 seven. Assuming that the proportion between gold and silver stood at 
 the later imperial standard of 20 scruples of gold to 288 of silver, or 
 14'4 to 1, 3'43 scruples of fine gold would have passed for 49-392 
 
 /49"3'^2 \ 
 scruples of silver, giving {— -.o— o^J 4116 scruples, or about 695 gr. tr. 
 
 to the milliarensis, calculating by the Byzantine scruple, the exact weight 
 of the coin of Constantine; whilst 4 scruples of fine gold w^ould have 
 
 passed for 67'6 scruples of silver, giving i^^^ or j 4'8 scruples, or 81 
 
 gr. tr., to the larger coin, answering to the milliarensis of Attains. 
 The lesser coin then would appear to have been the true and original 
 
 milliarensis, or " thousandth," of Constantine I — Tfui^ — = 69*5 1 adapted 
 
 to his alloyed aureus containing 3"43 Byzantine scruples, or 57*9 gr. 
 
 tr. of fine gold [ ^ ' jl =69 -5 J; whilst the larger may be identified 
 
 with the major- nummus of 60 to the lb. (60x81=4860), a milliarensis 
 only in name, though twelve would have passed for an aureus containing 
 
 67-5 gr. tr. of fine gold [^^^^^^^=8l] when a pound of silver was 
 
 worth five solidi. The keration, from its name, was evidently the half 
 of the milliarensis, representing the amount of silver passing for the sixth 
 part of a scruple of gold, twenty-four keratia being thus exchanged for a 
 solidus. The denarius still continued to be coined, but not under its 
 original name. Upon its revival by Diocletian, if gold had stood in the 
 proportion of 14*4 to 1, and if twenty-five denarii passed, as usual, for 
 an aureus of 60 to the lb, (or 48 scruples of gold, lioman weight), each 
 
 denarius would have contained (^^^o-f^ ^^) ^^^ ^^" *^' ^^ ^^^^^^' 
 and would have passed under the new system as a coin of tioenty in- 
 
 easily accounted for. Mr. Finlay alludes to coins tliat oui^lit to have weighed 400 grains, cal- 
 culating by the Roman pound, adding that no specimens have been ever found above 384 
 grains. But 384 : 400 : : 24 : 25, or in the exact proportion of the Byzantine and Bonian pounds. 
 The denarius of Diocletian, weighing 48*6 gr. tr., was not the hundredth of tlie Roman pound, 
 but it was exactly the hundredth of the Byzantine pound of 48G0 grains. For these and many 
 similar reasons, it is, I think, allowable to conclude that the Byzantine, or later Roman, system 
 dates from the reign of Constantine.
 
 22 EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY. 
 
 ^tead of twenty-five to the aureus containing 67"5 gr. tr. of fine gold 
 
 I — rJTT — =67'5 |. Sucli would appear to have been the case, but as the 
 
 denarius revived by Diocletian exactly answered to the hundredth part of 
 the Byzantine pound, weighing 4860 gr. tr., it seems to have acquired 
 the name of Centenionalis, under which it figures in the edicts of the 
 fourth and fifth centuries.^ 
 
 From this time forward, the name of denarius ceasing to be applied to 
 a silver coin, was transferred to a piece of copper money, 6000 usually 
 passing for a solidus, which would give the copper denarius an average 
 weight a little under the Byzantine scruple, — the third of a centenionalis 
 rather than the third of a drachma. When a solidus passed for 20 lbs. 
 
 of copper, the denarius would have weighed (?.tw^ or) '96 of a scruple, 
 
 and 300 would have been coined out of a pound; when 25 lbs. were given 
 
 for a solidus, the denarius would have reached (tyjaa or) 1"2 scruples, or 
 
 240 to the lb., thus giving a difference of about 4 gr. tr. in the weight of 
 the coin, according to the value of copper at the period in which it was 
 struck.'^ Shortly before the middle of the fifth century, the third Valen- 
 tinian issued a decree, enacting, under heavy penalties, that a solidus 
 " bought of the Collectarius for 7200 nummi," or a coin of full weight, 
 should never pass for less than 7000, thus fixing its current value at the 
 latter sum ; but as Cassiodorus, writing in the name of Theodoric to 
 Boethius, about seventy years later, assigns various abstruse and philo- 
 sophical reasons why "the ancients decided that the solidus should always 
 
 ^ Cod. Theod., Lib. ix. tit. xxiii. 2, ad an. 395 ; Lib. xiii. tit. ii. 6, ad an. 397 ; Lib. xv. 
 tit. ix. 1, ad an. 384. It may be iuferred, I tbink, from tbe milliarensis differing in tbe exact 
 proi^ortion of the aurei containing 57'9 gr. tr. and 67o gr.tr. respectively of fine gold, that 
 upon the repeal of the enactment of Constantine abont the pound of gold, a coinage in fine gold 
 was resumed. The earliest mention of the coin by name will be found, I believe, in Epipha- 
 nius, who held the see of Constantia, in Cyprus, from 367 to 402, and who writes, " The Romans 
 call the argenteus Miliarision.'^ Tbe coin of the larger type of 60 to tbe lb. seems to have 
 become the standard, for it adapts itself exactly to the fluctuations in the value of gold. Thus 
 
 (14'4X67*5 \ 
 or) twelve milliarenses passed for a solidus, when it rose 
 
 to 18 ( — — j orj fifteen, and when it again declined to 16*8 ( -^^ or) fourteen of 
 
 the silver passed for one of the gold coins. The coin of the lighter type, 14 of which would 
 have passed for 12 of the heavier milliarenses, must have disappeared from the circulation 
 when gold ceased to be in the proportion of 14'4 to 1, which would appear to have been the 
 standard in the time of Diocletian and Constantine. It is curious to notice the return to the 
 old standard of the East, — five gold coins to a silver mina, — in the five aurei passing for 100 
 centenionales, a poimd or mina of silver. 
 
 - Mr. Finlay [Greece, i. p. 536) looks upon these as separate coins, which he calls the num- 
 mus and the denarius, but I doubt if, as a name, "nummus" was ever applied exclusively to 
 any one particular coin. It belonged rather to tbe coin, whether silver, copper, or gold, in 
 which accounts were kept ; and in this sense our shilling and penny are nummi, but not the 
 florin, half-crown, or fourpenny jiiece. The dilfcrcnce in the weight of the various copper 
 denarii is, I think, fully accounted for by the fluctuation in the proportion of gold and silver 
 between 18 and 14 4 to 1.
 
 EARLY BYZANTINE CURRENCY. 23 
 
 pass for 6000 denarii," it may be inferred that the enactment of Valen- 
 tinian was regarded in the sixth century as an exception to the general 
 rule, due probably to some fluctuation in the value of the metal. Jus- 
 tinian, re-establishing or confirming the proportion between gold and 
 silver at 14"4 to 1, decreed that the solidus should pass for 180 oboli, 
 instead of 210, thus reducing its current value a seventh, and making it 
 pass for 6000 instead of 7000 denarii. As the Emperor also fixed the 
 value of copper at 20 lbs. to the solidus, this obolus would have been 
 
 equal in value to I -j^ or j 32 scruples of copper ; and at the relative 
 
 proportion between silver and copper during the reign of Justinian, of 
 
 /288 \ 
 100 to 1, 1 ~ or I 900 oboli would have been coined out of the pound of 
 
 silver. The obolus to which Procopius alludes was, therefore, evidently 
 the oholus hractcalis, or silver foUis, twenty-five being coined out of 8 
 
 scruples of silver, thus giving about I ^ orj 5 4 gr.tr. to each 
 
 silver follis. The copper denarius, answering as a weight to the gramme, 
 or Byzantine scruple of 6 keratia or 24 grains of corn, passed into 
 Western Europe as the prototype of the Merovingian denarius, or silver 
 denier, the precursor of the Carlovingian or sterling penny, whilst the 
 silver follis, weighing 8 grains of corn, became the original of the Heller 
 or halfpenny of the old Cologne marc, and of the Braciealis of the 
 North and West, its equivalent appearing amongst the Irish as the Pin- 
 ginn, or third of their silver SgreabaU 
 
 ^ Novell. Tlieod. xxv. ad an. 440 ; Cassid. Var. Lib. i. Ep. 10 ; Cod. Just. Lib. x. tit. 
 Ixxvi. ; Cod. Tlieod. Lib. xi. tit. xxi. 2, ad an. 396 ; Procop. Hist. Arc. 25 ; Do. traduit 
 par M. Isamhert, p. 860 (quoted by Mr. Finlay). The 200 nummi above its current vahie of 
 7000 represented the price of the solidus. Fortunate indeed woukl be the purchaser who coukl 
 " buy money" for nothing. Assuming that the proportion between silver and copper remained 
 stationary at 100 to 1, when the solidus passed for 6000 denarii, each weighing 16'2 gr. tr. of 
 cojjper, the gold coin was worth 972 gr. tr., or the Jifth of a pound of silver, and the proportion 
 between gold and silver was at the normal standard of 14*4 to 1. When the solidus passed for 
 6000 denarii, each weighing 2025 gr. tr., it was worth 1215 gr. tr., or the fotirth of a pound of 
 silver, — the medallion of Attains, — and the proportion was as high as 18 to 1. The enact- 
 ment of 422 {Cod. Tlieod. Lib. viii. tit. iv. 27), permitting the Primipilares to pay into the 
 treasury, as sportula, foiir aurci for a pound of silver, fixes the proportion at that epoch at 
 18 to 1. Justinian, re-establishing the standard of l)iocletian and Constantine, jiassed the 
 solidus for 180 instead of 210 oboli, or silver folles, — for 972 gr. tr. of silver, instead of 1134 
 
 gr. tr. — thus reducing the proportion from (p^r- or) 16'8 to 14-4 to 1. Hence it seems 
 
 evident that the decree of Valentinian in. in 440, fixing the current value of the solidus at 
 
 7000 copper denarii of the lighter type, or ( — r^r =j 1134 gr. tr. in silver, was a first 
 
 attempt at bringing down gold from the high price to which it had risen during the confusion 
 following the fall of the Western Empire. When a solidus passed for 1134 gr. tr. of silver, 
 five would have been worth 5670 gr. tr., or Constantino's heavy pound, and tioentij of these 
 
 pounds would have been coined into ( ^ — =1G2 or) 7000 copper denarii, each weighing 
 
 16"2 gr. tr. ; so that it would seem as if, between a.d. 440 and the era of Justinian, the heavier 
 pound of Constantino must have replaced the Libra Occidua as the monetary standard. It was
 
 24 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 The Eoman measures of capacity have descended to us with siifficient accuracy, for 
 though they are reckoned in the poem of Ehemnins Fannius by the Byzantine stan- 
 dard, they were then still identical in principle with the system in use under Vespasian, 
 and the difference is easily calculated. In the Attic measures, however, we have not been 
 equally fortunate, for with the statement of Pliny that 10 Attic drachmae, of the type 
 of his time, went to the Cyathus, it is impossible to suppose that they were originally 
 adapted to the drachma of Constantinople ; whilst the identification of the Attic me- 
 dimnus with the measure of six modii in ordinary use amongst the Eomans, is exceed- 
 ingly doubtful. Cicero, in his oration against Verres, the scene of whose misdeeds was 
 in Sicily, alludes several times to the medimnus as a well-known measure of six modii 
 in that quarter, without ever hinting that it was the Attic medimnus ; for it appears 
 to have been the measure in ordinary use amongst the Romans, who derived their sys- 
 tem of weight, their earlier currency, and apparently their measures of capacity, from 
 Sicily rather than from Attica. Nepos, the contemporary of Cicero, in his account of 
 Atticus, says that the latter gave to every Athenian citizen " seven modii of wheat, 
 which is the amount of the measure that is called a medimnus at Athens," — " scpkm 
 modii tritici, qui modus mensuraj medimnus Athenis appellatur" — an explanation that 
 would appear to be utterly micalled for, if the measure in use at Athens in his days 
 had been the ordinary medimnus of six modii. Polybius, who calculates by the 
 Sicilian as well as by the Attic medimnus, gives " as nearly as possible — fj-aXia-Ta 
 TTCJs— two-thirds of an Attic medimnus of wheat," as the monthly rations of the Eoman 
 legionary on service. Cato allowed four and a /i«// modii of wheat to a slave for each 
 of the six summer months during which he was at full work, and a rather larger 
 amount of bread and wine to a labourer hired by the day, in return apparently for 
 more work : so that if the Attic medimnus of the days of Polybius is reckoned at only 
 six modii, the monthly allowance of a Eoman legionary on service was less than that of 
 one of Cato's slaves at full work.^ 
 
 The Issaron, or Omer, the tenth of an Ephah or of a Bath, was equal to seven Attic 
 Cotylte according to Josephus, which serves to identify the Hebrew measure of his 
 days with the Heftacoiylon mentioned by Aristophanes. This Attic Cotyla must not 
 be confounded with the measure that appears in Pollux as the third of a Chcenix, still 
 less with the Cotyla, or quarter-Choenix, of the Byzantine standard. As the tenth of 
 an Ephah of 90 Eoman lbs., an Issaron of wheat would have weighed 9 lbs., its seventh 
 part, or an Attic Cotyla, about 15'54 oz. — (15-36 oz.=) 50 Danes, or a little over a 
 Sextarius — and as the Bath, or Ephah, contained 72 Sextarii, the Attic Cotyla and the 
 Sextarius would have been in the proportion of 7'2 and 7. As the Sextarius was the 
 sixth of a Chous, the Cotyla the seventh of a Heptacotylon, any two systems in which 
 the Chous and the Heptacotylon occupied a similar position would have diilered in 
 the proportion of 6 and 7"2 — that is to say, as an ordinary medimnus of which the 
 Chous was the sixteenth, contained 120 lbs. of wheat, a medimnus of which the Hep- 
 tacotylon was the sixteenth, would have held 144 lbs., a double talent of the lighter 
 Attic standard, or rather over seven modii. When Pliny gives 15 Attic drachmaj to 
 
 during this epoch that the Merovingian kingdom first arose, — the heart of it, Champagne ; 
 wliicli, perhaps, may account for the standard of Constantine becoming the peculiar standard 
 of weight in that quarter. 
 
 1 Cic. in Ver. ; Cor. Nep. Aft. 2 ; Poh/h. vi. 39 ; Cato, Ivi. It would be difficult to point 
 out the authority by whom the Attic medimnus was first identified with the measure of six 
 modii, but I cannot trace the assertion furtlier back tlian one of the chapters appended to 
 Galen. Herodotus distinguisLes the Attic measure from the medimnus in which he calcuhates, 
 which was apparently the measure in ordinary use, that passed from Greece, through Sicily, 
 to the Komans.
 
 NOTES. '' 25 
 
 the quarter-Hemina, he implies the existence of a Hemina of 60, a Sextarius of 120, 
 and a Medimnus of 5760 Attic drachmse, or 138"6 lbs., about a sextarius short of stvcn 
 modii. These trivial differences had probably been done away with long before his 
 time, though the earlier measure seems to have been adapted to the full standard of 
 the talent, to judge from the passage in Herodotus, in which he says : — " The Arta,ba is 
 a Persian measure containing 3 Attic chcenixes more than an Attic medimnus." As- 
 suming that the Attic medimnus was made up of the usual number of 48 choenixes, 
 the two measures would have been in the proportion of 48 and 51, thus giving 
 
 ( — j 153 lbs. or 6000 Darics to the Persian measure, which evidently corre- 
 sponded with a double-talent of the gold-weight of that age. Thus from the era in which 
 Herodotus was writing, until the date at which the Attic drachma was adapted to the 
 later Roman ounce, the local medimnus in use at Athens seems to have been a measure 
 answering to seven Roman modii.^ 
 
 Josephus, however, when he gives Un Attic medimni to the Cor, identifies the former 
 measure with the ephah of 90 Roman lbs., in which he is borne out by Hesychius and 
 Suidas, who describe the artaba as " a Median corn-measure identical with the Attic 
 medimnus," evidently meaning the artaba at the intermediate standard of four and a 
 half modii. In the poem of Rhemnius Fannius also, the Attic amphora is described 
 as half as large again as the Roman, or as a measure of four and a half modii, thus 
 identifying the Attic measures of capacity there described with the system familiar to 
 Josephus ; for as it is in a subsequent passage that the writer gives the rules for liquid 
 measure, his previous remarks must have reference to dry measure. Hence the medim- 
 nus of seven modii, which may be regarded as the true and original Attic standard of 
 the West, must be distinguished from the lesser measure, which may be looked upon 
 as the Attic standard of the East. The name of " Attic " seems to have been applied, 
 at a certain period, throughout the East, to everything that was Greek or Western, 
 much as the name of " Frank" has been used indiscriminately in the same quarter for 
 everything that is European, and may have come in this manner to mean the standards 
 in ordinary use throughout the Greek kingdoms of the East. "The Attic mina must 
 be used for weight and currency, for it is identical with the Italian mina which has 
 25 staters (the Roman pound), the Italian litra has 24 ;" thus the Alexandrian autho- 
 rity already quoted, from which it may be seen how the Attic standard accommodated 
 itself to successive eras.^ 
 
 Attic silver-weight, gradually forgotten under that name in the West after the rise 
 of the Macedonian empire, seems to have been more familiarly known as the standard 
 of Alexandria, and occasionally as the Egyptian talent. In the time of Epiphanius an 
 Alexandrian sextarius of oil weighed 2 lbs., or a third, more than the Roman sextarius 
 
 1 Joseph. Antici. iii. 6. 6 ; Pollux^ x. 19, iv. 23 ; PJin. H.N. xxi. sec. 109 ; Herod. \. 192. 
 The word used by Josephus is daaapiov, the Greek form of the " nummus assariun" of the 
 Eomans, which was the tenth of a decalitron or denarius. " Apud Ronianos talentum est sep- 
 tuaginta librse, sicut Plautus oslendit in Mustellaria, qui ait duo talenta esse centum quadra- 
 ginta libras " (Serv. in 2Ev. v. 112). The talent is often used by Polybius as a measure of 
 capacity, " talents of wbeat " being frequently stipuhitcd for in the conventions which he re- 
 cords ; 80 that the difference between Servius and Isidore may be reconciled by supposing the 
 standard of 72 lbs. to have represented the talent of GOOO denarii, that of 70 lbs. the medimnus 
 of 7 modii. The intimate connection between Attic-weight and gold-weight is worthy of 
 notice, 48 staters of Attic silver-weight and 50 Darics being equal in weight, the two talents 
 standing, like the Roman and Byzantine pounds, in the proportion of 25 and 24. If the 
 Eoman pound, which was a mina subdivided on the duodecimal principle, represents the 
 original system of the West, Attic silver-weight was once apparently identical with the Persian 
 current gold-talent, the Sicilian gold-talent of tliree staters (3 X IG = 48 staters = 50 Darics) 
 representing a niiiuite portion of it. At a later period 48 aurei weighed a lighter Attic mina 
 of 100 drachma', or 50 staters. 
 
 * Joseph. Antiq. xv. 9. 2. From the passage in the Alexandrian writer it will be seen that, 
 under the name of the Italian mina, the old Roman pound continued to be used after the 
 establishment of the Byzantine standard
 
 26 NOTES. 
 
 of oil, or 18 oz. ; so that the standard of weight at Alexandria about the opening of the 
 fifth century stood in the proportion oifoiir to three towards the Roman standard, thus 
 representing Attic silver-weight. The talents of 90 lbs. and 20 lbs., both of which 
 occasionally appear under the name of " the Ptolemaic talent," are also met with as 
 Egyptian standards of weight ; but the true Alexandrian mina of 16 oz. seems to have 
 represented the scientific standard of the East, for it is quoted in one of the chapters 
 appended to Galen's works as " the physician's mina," a description applied by Pliny 
 to the mina of 100 lighter drachmae, or denarii, which was evidently regarded in his 
 days as the scientific standard of the West.i 
 
 At Jerusalem, and at Tyre, the Attic system, as it was known in the East, seems to 
 have obliterated all recollection of any pre-existing standards. In the well-known 
 passage of Ezekiel (xlv. 10-14) the Septuagint renders Ephah and Bath by Chcenix and 
 Cotyla, using Mdron indiscriminately for both measures. Elsewhere, " the Omcr is the 
 tenth of an Ephah" is rendered " the Gomer is the tenth of the Trimodia — tuv rpiuv 
 juerpwj'," thus making the Scah the metron or modius ; whilst Cotyla stands for the Log 
 in Leviticus, and both Omer and Homer are always rendered by the same word, Gomer. 
 Josephus, a trustworthy authority for his own days, can scarcely be said to throw more 
 light than the Seventy translators upon the time before the Captivity. He weighs gold 
 by the Daric, a coin not to be found in the Pentateuch, in which the shekel of gold is 
 always the shekel of the sanctuary, to which Josephus gives a weight of four Attic 
 drachma?, identifying it with the Tyrian coin of his own days, and thus giving the 
 talent of the Pentateuch a weight of 12,000 denarii, or a double talent of the later 
 Attic standard. Not that he commits himself to such a statement, for whilst he gives 
 100 minse to the Hebrew talent, specifying the weight of the mina of his own time, in 
 his calculations he always uses the Daric or the shekel, cautiously avoiding all allusion 
 to the talent of the Pentateuch. The Darhmon is never alluded to by any of the writers 
 of the Old Testament before the Captivity ; the mina only occurs once, in the I'irst Book 
 of Kings. The talent of the Pentateuch seems to have been based upon a difi'erent sys- 
 tem from the standard familiar to Josephus ; and from the reticence and vagueness of 
 the Alexandrian translators and Josephus upon such points, it may be gathered that 
 the Jews of their time retained little, if any, recollection of the standards in use before 
 the date of the Captivity.^ 
 
 The information afforded on the same subject by Epiphanius, who held the see of 
 Constantia in Cyprus from 367 to 402, is probably only a reflection of the Christian 
 tradition of his age, but it is orthodox rather than convincing. With a denarius of 8 
 to the oz., a talent of 12,000 denarii would weigh 125 Eoman lbs., and the Hebrew 
 talent is naturally estimated at this amount by the bishop. The obolus, according to 
 the same authority, was once a small silver coin of 80 to the oz., " because 20 oboli 
 went to the didrachTuon in Leviticus." The denarius "brought into Canaan by 
 Abraham" affords a basis of calculation, the sicilicus supplies a shekel, the stater a 
 shekel of the sanctuary, and so 2000 shekels, the talent of the Pentateuch, weigh 1500 
 oz., or 125 lbs. From the apparent similarity between Syrian and Eoman weight, the 
 original Hebrew talent may have approached very closely to the same standard, but in 
 following up any researches into the subject, Epiphanius is scarcely a guide to be 
 implicitly relied upon. The light of tradition, which seems to have glimmered faintly, 
 if at all, upon the Alexandrian translators, shone with a steady glare, as usual, some 
 twelve or thirteen centuries afterwards, upon the Eabbins. The nominal unit of weight 
 under the Caliphs and Egyptian Sultans was the habbas, or barley-corn, and in these 
 
 ^ Plin. H. N. xxi. 19 ; Galen (Kiihn), vol. xix. etc. c. 14 ; Epiph, de Pond. xxiv. 
 
 ^ To the names which have an Eastern origin, such as mina, sicilicus, and nummas assarivs, 
 may apparently be added drachma. It has been sometimes supposed to have meant originally 
 " a handful," but Homer and Hesiod, ignorant of that happy, but problematical, era in which 
 money passed by the handful, never allude to such a coin. Had they been aware of its existence, 
 they would have written darchma and didarchmon, in accordance with the rules of the dialect 
 they used. The appearance of the darlcmon in the writings of the Jews after the Captivity 
 seems to mark an epoch of change.
 
 NOTES. 27 
 
 grains Maimonides estimates the shekel of the sanctuary. Six eggs displaced the 
 amount of water contained in the Log, and the whole system of early Hebrew weii^ht 
 was rebuUt upon the basis supplied by this traditionary measurement. Amongst 
 Cliristians, as well as Jews, the weights and measures of the Old Testament had 
 acquired a sanctity and mysterious signification unknown apparently to the Jews of an 
 earlier age, who seem to have contented themselves with reckoning their sacred shekel 
 as a tetradrachmon of the ordinary currency of the time.^ 
 
 Into the mysteries of the earlier talents I have not ventured to penetrate, leaTincr 
 such questions in far abler hands. When Alexander substituted the Greek for the 
 Persian standard of currency, he seems to have followed an Asiatic precedent, for 
 Eastern conquerors obliterated, as far as in them lay, every vestige of the ascendancy 
 of their predecessors. Defaced cartouches, and charred fragments of inscriptions, 
 everywhere attest their policy in this respect ; and when Darius regulated the Persian 
 currency it may be doubted if he merely perpetuated the fixed and immutable standards 
 of pre-existing empires. During his reign the silver tribute was weighed by the Baby- 
 lonian, the gold from India by the Euboic talent, to be melted into bullion, and ao-ain 
 issued in the form of coins ; but it is more than doubtful if the coins, whether of gold 
 or silver, which were thus issued, were a<:lapted respectively to either of the above 
 standards of weight. When Petits Royaiu: were coined in France in 1305, at 70 to the 
 marc, it was ordered that 64 should pass for a " marc d'or fin de Paris ; " so that, by 
 weighing a Paris coined marc of fine gold of that date, we should obtain (64X54, or) 
 3456 gr. tr., the marc Tournois, not the marc de Troyes, the standard of currency, and 
 not the standard of weight. Assuming that the Siglos of the age of Xenophon corre- 
 sponded exactly with the silver coin of Darius, the mina of 20 oz., and the talent of 
 100 lbs., represent the standard of the silver coinage issued by that king, without 
 however afi'ording any certain clue to the talent by which the silver tribute was 
 weighed.^ 
 
 Various minor difficulties beset the path of the inquirer into the distant past. It 
 is curious to find amongst the ancients the peculiarity, sometimes supposed to have been 
 confined to the nations of Northern Europe, of counting by " the fifth half," for instance 
 or " the seventh half," meaning respectively four and a half or six and a half. Priscian 
 in alluding to this custom, asserts that the Eomans learnt it from the Greeks, but Varro 
 merely calls it " a custom of our forefathers," and it was probably a relic of very ancient 
 times, derived originally from the East. The "long hundred" of 120, or six score 
 known amongst our ancestors, at the time of the Norman conquest, as "the English 
 hundred," is also traceable ; for the Scholiast on the first Phili^jpic of Demosthenes in 
 describing the talent, says, " The drachma has 6 oboli, so are there in the talent 6000 
 drachnife, and th7-ce myriads of oboli — rpicrfivpiovs 6;3oXoi's." Thus the Myriad seems 
 originally, like the Hebrew Kilkar, to have represented a round number, fluctuating 
 between the decimal and duodecimal systems until it settled finally into " ten thousand." 
 The duodecimal system was in favour with the Babylonians ; the talent of the Penta- 
 teuch evidently followed the decimal : starting from the same basis, the ^ginetan 
 obolus, the former system develops the " talent of the Islands," the latter, the Persian 
 silver talent ^ 
 
 ^ Epiph. de Pond. xxiv. The Eabbinical experiment has been duly tested in modern times, 
 but 108 Egyptian dirhems of 61 barley-corns, according to Maimonides, also coincided iii 
 weight witli the amount of water disphiced by the six eggs. Consequently the scientific 
 German's calculation gives barley of about 10 lbs, to the modius, a result that would liave 
 astonished Pliny, who gives 15 lbs. as the highest average, and would gladden llic heart of a 
 practical agriculturist, if the grain would grow beyond the fostering atmosphere of the study. 
 
 ^Ilerod.iW. 89, 96; Le. Plane (edit. 1G92), p. 180. Some very able authorities on such 
 subjects calculate as if lluctuations in the value of the precious metals, and variations in the 
 standards of currency, commenced at the epoch in which they are first traceable, and were 
 unknown in the great Eastern empires of antiquity. 
 
 ■■* " Multiplica 100 vicies 126, in 15120 summa concressit," wrote the venerable Ecda ; and, 
 on another occasion, " in 100 autem quatuordccies 7 uumcrantur." " Quindccies quadragcni',
 
 28 NOTES. 
 
 A more serious difficulty is presented by the Hrope. " Let the commercial mina 
 weigh 138 Stephanephoran drachma) according to the standard of the mint, and have a 
 Hrope of 12 drachma) ; and let all buy and sell by this mina, except where there is 
 an express agreement to buy and sell by monetary weight (irpos dpyvpLov, or silver- 
 weight), setting the beam of the balance on a level, carrying the 150 Stephanephoran 
 drachmae. The Pentamnoun to have for Hrope a commercial mina, the commercial 
 talent to have five commercial minse." Such is the substance of a portion of a Greek 
 inscription in which this Hrope {poTryj) plays a part for which it is difficult to assign a 
 satisfactory explanation. Apply the test to Attic silver-weight, and 138 drachma) give 
 a mina of 9315 gr. tr., raised, by the addition of a Hrope of 12 drachma?, or 810 gr. tr., 
 to 10,125 grains, or a mina of the iEginetan talent. To a mina of 100 denarii add a 
 Hrojye of 12, and it will weigh (6026-8-|-723-216, or) 6750 gr. tr., a mina of Attic silver- 
 weight. No rule can be laid down upon the subject of the Hropte without some further 
 knowledge of the system with which it was connected ; but as all the earlier weights 
 with which we are practically acquainted are considerably heavier than the standards 
 reached from existing coins, it may be conjectured that, in early days, and with an 
 unalloyed coinage, the difi'erence between the standards of weight and currency was in 
 some manner regulated by this contrivance.^ 
 
 The Euboic talent must have been a familiar standard amongst the Eomans when 
 they used it for all their conventions with the Carthaginians and Western Greeks ; so 
 familiar, indeed, that no Roman authority has thought it necessary to enter into any 
 explanation on the subject. By reckoning the Babylonian talent at 7000 Attic 
 drachmae, Pollux seems to have tacitly assumed that the familiar Attic talent of 6000 
 represented Euboic weight, and the calculation of Appian, by identifying it with the 
 Alexandrian standard, seems to point to a very similar conclusion. Rightly or wrongly, 
 they appear to have identified Euboic weight with the talent in ordinary use amongst 
 the Romans. In the fragments of Festus, preserved by Paulus Diaconus and others, 
 there seems to be too much confusion to arrive at any certainty ; but if the Attic mina 
 of iElian may be supposed to represent the mina of Rhemnius Fannius, or Roman 
 pound, his calculation that 72 of these minse went to the Babylonian talent would 
 identify the Babylonian standard with that of the lighter Attic weight, and consequently 
 the Euboic mina with the Roman pound.^ 
 
 sexcenti ; quindecies octoni, centies," such is his calculation in the rule he gives for finding the 
 indiction. Some of the early English Statutes lay down a rule for using the hundreds of five 
 and of six score respectively, but without some such clue arithmetical problems are occasionally 
 involved in considerable mystery. Beda evidently calculated by both ; but by what long- 
 forgotten " custom " was he guided ? A notable instance of a similar difficulty occurs in the 
 Servian census, by which the first class was assessed, according to Livy, at 100,000 Asses, but 
 according to Pliny and Festus at 120,000. The lowest assessment mentioned by Polybius 
 was 400 draclimre, or 4800 Asses, which seems to favour the reckoning of Pliny and Festus, 
 and to show that the early Eomans calculated by "the long hundred." 
 
 1 Bockh, Poltt. Econ., p. 193, Note A. The heavier of the two standards brought from 
 Athens by Mr. Buri^on, weighing 9980 gr. tr., approaches very closely to this commercial or 
 Jj^ginetan mina, which, without the Hro2>e of 12 drachmae, reduced to 9315 grains, also 
 approaches very closely to the standard generally ascribed to the earlier ^Eginetan coinage. 
 Assuming 60'75 gr. tr. as the weight of the Stephanephoran drachma, 138 drachmre give a 
 commercial mina of 8383*5 gr. tr., approaching very closely to the Persian silver mina, and the 
 early standard of Corinth, which is raised by a Hrope of 12 drachma;, or 729 gr. tr., to 9112"5, 
 a double Syrian mina. corresponding with (10125 — 1012*5 = 9112*5, or) an ^ginetan mina 
 reduced a tenth in weight. Where Pollux (ix. 6) says that the stater in gold weight M'as 
 equivalent to the mina in silver weight, he is evidently alluding to the Hrope. 
 
 " Pollux, ix. 6 ; Appian, v. 2 ; Julian, i. 22 ; Festus (Midler, 1839), p. 359, and Notes. To 
 the talents of Rhodes and Asia Minor — Cistophorum — Festus is supposed to give 4500 denarii, 
 or 4000 cistiophori and 7500 denarii ; to the Euboic talent 7500 cistophori " in Greek money, 
 which in ours is 4000 denarii." It is easy to point out the oonfusion, 7500 denarii being the 
 proper standard of the talents of Khodes and Asia Minor, whilst a talent of 4000 cistophori, 
 each of which was worth 2.^ denarii, would have been equal to 10,000 denarii, the early .^gine-
 
 NOTES. 29 
 
 The Romans of the later EepulDlic and earlier Empire seem to have been familiar 
 with two standards, a larger talent, weighing 120 lbs. or 10,000 Attic drachmpc, and a 
 lesser, weighing 72 lbs. or 6000 drachmaj, to which they always seem to have given the 
 name of Attic weight. To the heavier standard, corresponding with the iEginetan, 
 Sicilian, or Island talent, they give no name, Vitruvius merely remarking that 4000 
 talents weighed 480,000 lbs. ;^ but it was probably the "magnum talentuni" so often 
 met with in the earlier writers, — for it may be gathered from the Assyrian weights 
 brought from Nineveh, that a system of double-weight was in use of old, and the Roman 
 pound seems to have been a lesser mina, or Hcmina, of the standard adopted from the 
 Sicilian Greeks. This was the talent that formed the groundwork of the Roman 
 measures of capacity, and most of the Greek, and to which the original copper coinage 
 conformed, whether uncia or chalcos, as well as the silver currency of the type of the 
 SpaxfJ-v iraxeia. In short, it was the talent in ordinary use amongst the Romans, in 
 common with many other people of Western Europe, before they adapted their denarius 
 to the later Attic type. Sixtij larger minee of average wheat would have been contained 
 in an ordinary medimnus of six modii, seventy of these minte in an Attic medimnus of 
 seven modii, the Roman and Athenian measures answering in this respect to the Euboic 
 and Babylonian talents in the well-known passage of Herodotus. It would be not a 
 little singular if, in their conventions and treaties, the Romans were accustomed to use 
 a different talent from either of the two with which they were most familiar ; equally 
 singular, if not more so, that this talent in particular should have escaped the notice of 
 all their writers on the subject. But in the very ftimiliarity of the standard lay the 
 chance of its being forgotten. No explanation about the "magnum talentum" was 
 required by the audiences of Plautus, or of Terence, nor did the Romans of the later 
 Republic experience any difficulty about the talent that appeared in the majority of 
 their treaties. Pollux and the writers of his age, by which time the earlier standard, 
 adapted from the Sicilian Greeks, lay hidden and forgotten at the base of the Roman 
 measures of capacity, naturally identified the talent in ordinary use with the Attic 
 weight with which they were most familiar. In later days Epiphanius and Priscian 
 wrote as if the denarius and Attic drachma had conformed from time immemorial to the 
 Byzantine standard of eight to the oz. As it is hazardous on such a subject to venture 
 beyond a conjecture, I will only add that there seems a strong probability tliat the 
 Euboic talent was only another name for the ^ginetan, Sicilian, or Island standard, 
 which may be traced apparently as far as Syria, and may be regarded perhaps as the 
 earliest standard of weight and currency in use amongst the Greeks.^ 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 If the denarius is supposed to have passed for 16 Asses as early as the dictatorship 
 of Fabius Maximus, the difficulty of understanding the Roman coinage becomes very 
 great. Assuming that a denarius passed for 16 Asses when Polybius was writing, it 
 must have been worth 8 Attic oboli, or a third more than the drachma, to which he 
 gives a value of 12 Asses. Hence, when the scripula was first coined in gold, and passed 
 
 tan standard. But the passages thus "emended " can scarcely be used as the basis for any 
 very satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 1 Vitruv. X. 21. 
 
 ^ " The only gold coin of Eubcca known to ns has the extraordinary weight of 49"4 gr. tr." 
 So writes one of the best authorities on such subjects, Mr. Pooh-, and the weight approaches 
 very closely to 50*025 grains, a Pentobolus or drachma of the Ilonian pound. Aristotle 
 describes the Maris as a measure of G cotyl.-io, so that the Ileptacotylon of Aristoplianes and 
 the Maris were in the same proportion as the Babylonian and Pjuboic talents of the time of 
 Herodotus. With the difference of the " heaped " and " stricken " bushel, so often alluded to 
 in our old Statutes, both Greek and Roman seem to have been thoroughly familiar, the Kopvcrros 
 /JLodio? and the xJ/tjktos /j-odios being duly noticed in the Greek inscriptions.
 
 30 . NOTES. 
 
 for 20 sesterces, or 5 of these denarii, it would have been worth at least 40 oboli, or 
 (•576 X 40 = ) 23'04 scruples of silver, and the proportion between the two metals must 
 have stood at 23 to 1. Give the Attic obolus its full standard, and the proportion rises 
 (to "64 X 40 = 25'6, or) beyond 25 to 1. Rome at this period was neither so isolated as 
 to possess an exceptional currency, nor of sufficient importance to enforce such a 
 currency upon the rest of the world. The Philip, or gold stater of Macedon, was 
 perhaps more familiarly known to the audiences of Plautus than their newly coined 
 scripula, which seems only traceable in one comedy — the liudcns ;^ yet must the 
 scripula be supposed to have been current for 40 oboli, side by side with the Philip, of 
 full seven times its intrinsic value, which has only passing at the highest estimate for 
 (25 X 6, or) 150 oboli ! Silver coins were struck by the Romans weighing more than a 
 quarter of a Roman oz., and if these heavier coins are supposed to have been at that 
 time in circulation as denarii, the proportion would have been infinitely higher, the 
 improbability even more glaring. 
 
 Fortunately Pliny has contradicted himself, for in no way can the end of the follow- 
 ing passage be reconciled with the beginning : — " Q. Fabio Maxumo dictatore asses 
 unciales facti, placuitque denarium sedecem assibus permutari, quinarium octonis, 
 sestertium quaternis ; ita resjniblica dimidium luarda est." If 16 oz. of copper instead 
 of 20 oz. passed for a denarius, it is difficult to see how the State was a gainer of 50 
 per cent., but his inference is perfectly correct, if the denarius, after the reduction in 
 the weight of the As to an oz. still continued to be exchanged as before for 10 Asses ; 
 and as his calculation about the profit gained by passing the gold scripula for 20 sesterces 
 is based upon a sesterce of 400 to the lb., requiring for the denarius a pentobolus, which 
 would have passed for 1 Asses, he really seems to have antedated the ctange in ques- 
 tion by a slip of the pen. Plutarch, writiug of the censorship of Cato, renders the 
 15,000 Asses of Livy by 1500 drachmae, evidently supposing that the denarius was still 
 passing for 10 Asses some thirty years after the dictatorship of Fabius Maximus ; and 
 when Polybius wrote that, in his time, all who were assessed under 400 drachma? were 
 enrolled in the fleet, he was scarcely familiar with a denarius passing for 16 Asses, for 
 6400 Asses seems an unlikely amount to figure in the census, which was reckoned by 
 the copper standard.^ 
 
 It would be easy to make the change in question coincide with the Papirian law that 
 reduced the weight of the As to half an ounce, but for a coin in the Numismata Hcllcnica 
 which seems to forbid the supposition. Marked with an X, and Boma, it weighs 80 
 gr. tr., or eigJit Attic oboli, and would have passe'd for 16 Asses when the Attic drachma 
 was worth 12 ; so that the denarius would appear to have passed for 16 Asses before it 
 was assimilated to the Attic type. As long as a denarius that was exchanged for 16 oz., 
 or 8 oz. of copper, was also worth 8 Attic oboli, no change was necessary in the regula- 
 tion about the military pay, for the stipendium reckoned at 4 Asses a day would have 
 
 ^ Plant. i?Mc?. V. 2, 26 — "Nummi octingenti aurei in marsupio infuerunt, prjeterea ceutum 
 denaria Pbilippea in pasceolo seorsus." The small gold coins were evidently scripulce. 
 
 ^ Liv. xxxix. 44; Plut. Cato, viii. ; Poh/b. vi. 19. If Mommsen's view is correct, it is diffi- 
 cult to see in what manner the Roman State profited by the changes in the coinage. Assuming 
 the standard of the original denarius to have been 72 to the lb., or 4 scruples of silver passing 
 for 20 oz. of copper, he supposes that it was reduced during the dictatorship of Fabius to 84 to 
 the lb., or 3"43 scruples of silver passing for 16 oz. of copper, which would have been rather less 
 than before (17"] 5 : 343 : : 20 : 4). To me the financial policy of the Romans seems to have 
 been of a much more simple character. By passing an nyicia of copper, instead of a dupondius, 
 for an As, and a Pentoholus instead of a Decoholits for a denarius, they " paid ten shillings in the 
 poand," as we should do by passing a halfpenny for a penny, a sixpence for a shilling. "Ita 
 respublica dimidium lucrata est." In the conclusions drawn by the very able historian whom 
 I have quoted above, about the westward circulation of the Roman currency, and the sup- 
 pression of local mints, I entirely concur ; with the proviso, that the Roman coinage at that 
 time conformed to the standard represented by the Uecobolus, or 5paxp-y) Trctxeta, which was 
 already familiar in the AVestern Europe of the period in question. The Romans did not, at 
 first, introduce a novel currency, but only reserved to themselves the privilege of issuing the 
 familiar bigati and quadrigati, by supplying or regulating the local mints.
 
 NOTES. 31 
 
 amounted to 240 oboli, whether they were counted as (^' -orj 30 denarii or ( -7- or) 
 
 40 drachmfe. It was only when the denarius was adapted to the Attic type, and made 
 to pass for 16 instead of 12 Asses, when to six oboli was given the value of eight, that 
 it became necessary to introduce the regulation by which the stipendium was calculated 
 by an exceptional standard.^ 
 
 It is sometimes assumed, from a comparison of certain passages in Livy and Poly- 
 bius, that the quadrigatus and the denarius of 84 to the lb. were identical. The depu- 
 tation from the Roman soldiery who surrendered after Cannae, declared, according to 
 Polybius, that the terms fixed by Hannibal for their ransom were three mince for each 
 Roman. According to Livy, the Carthaginian general originally demanded 300 quadri- 
 gati for every Roman, 200 for every ally, and 100 for every slave, subsequently raising 
 the amount through the deputies to 500 for an eques and 300 for a legionary. It seems 
 rather doubtful whether any certain conclusion can be arrived at from a comparison 
 between these passages, which are very far from identifying the quadrigatus with the 
 Attic drachma of this date ; for the " three minte " of Polybius were hardly Attic mina?, 
 as not a single instance can be brought forward in which the Attic talent was used in 
 any of the transactions between the Carthaginians and the Romans. If it is to be 
 assumed that the "three minaj" represent 300 quadrigati, if the mina was of the 
 Sicilian standard, the coin would have been a decobolus ; if the mina was the Roman 
 pound — the mina of 84 denarii to which Pliny alludes — the coin would have been a 
 pentobolus ; but perhaps it may be doubted whether the conqueror would have fallen in 
 so readily with the reduction in the Roman coinage in the previous year. Livy writes of 
 " nummi denarii " in early times as coins of the copper standard, but he never calls the 
 "nummus quadrigatus" a denarius, nor indeed does he ever apply that name to a sUver 
 coin before he makes the calculation about the Roman captives in Achasa. Denarii began 
 to flow into the Roman treasury about the same time as the lUyrian Victoriatus first 
 appears upon the records, and Livy seems to have always understood an Attic, or Greek, 
 drachma, or a coin of a similar type, after he begins to apply the name to a silver coin.^ 
 
 The old Roman pound, though apjiarently forgotten, may have lingered on in 
 Western Europe as a moneyer's weight. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, the 
 earlier standard coin of Byzantium was replaced in Western Europe by the gold florin 
 of Florence, the original of all the ducats and gold crowns of comparatively recent 
 times. A hundred of these florins would have been coined out of the sterling pound, 
 for when Edward iii. issued a gold coinage of 50 to the lb. in 1343, each coin was to 
 weigh " two petits florins de Florence of full weight," thus giving to the standard coin 
 
 a weight oi ( - or) 54 gr, tr. The same florin was the type of the original petit 
 
 royal of France, coined " as of old," or at the customary standard, at 70 to the marc, 
 in 1305, and identified in 1313 with the florin de Florence, reckoned at 70 to the marc, 
 
 thus confirming the weight assigned to it above of (—^ — = ) 54 gr. tr, ; though in 
 
 Germany, from adapting the ducat to the standard of the mint, and coining 67 instead 
 of 66;:| out of the Cologne marc, the amount of fine gold in the standard coin was 
 infinitesimally diminished. About the middle of the fourteenth century, 50 florins of 
 Florence were worth 52 florms of Dauphind, thus giving to the latter a weight of 
 
 ( -^- or) 51'92308 gr. tr. ; and as 65 florins of Dauphin^, or 64 Pontifical florins, 
 
 ^ Leake, Num. Hel. p. 141. "The weights," says the same authority (p. 142), in refcronco 
 to the copper coinage, "will not agree with any of the three reductions mentioned by Pliny; 
 it seems evident, therefore, that besides those he has mentiored, tliere were several intermcdiato 
 reductions," a remark that might also be extended to the silver coinage. As at Athens, there 
 were Dioboli, Trioboli, and other subdivisions of the drachma, so amongst the older liomaii 
 coins will be found lesser multiples of the obolus than the decobolus. 
 
 * Pohjh. vi. 58 ; Livy, xxii. 52, 58 ; viii. 11 ; xxxiv. 50.
 
 32 
 
 APPROXIMATE STANDARDS. 
 
 " twenty-four carats fine," went to the Marca Romance Gurce, the standard marc of the 
 Papal Court must have then weighed (65X51-92308 or) 3375 gr. t"r., eight ounces of a 
 pound of 50625 gr. tr. — the old Roman pound, exactly in the quarter in which some 
 traces of it might be expected to linger.^ 
 
 APPROXIMATE STANDARDS. 
 
 A. 
 
 Talent of l'>0 lbs - ^ ^'^'^'•^'^^ ^r- tr. 
 lalent ol l.u ids. _ ^ 39353.75 grammes. 
 
 Mina of 2 Iba. = 10,125 gr. tr. 
 
 Drachma of 576 scr.=: 10125 „ 
 Obolus of '96 ser. = 16-875 „ 
 
 E. 
 
 Talent of 72 lbs. = 
 
 Mina of 14-4 oz. = 
 Drachma of 3 456 scr.:= 
 Obolus of '576 scr. =: 
 
 364,500 gr. tr. 
 23618-25 grammes. 
 6075 gr. tr. 
 
 60-75 „ 
 
 10-125 „ 
 
 Talent of 100 lbs. 
 
 Mina of 20 oz. 
 Siglos of 4-8 scr. 
 Obolus of '96 scr. = 
 
 B. 
 
 _ \ 506,250 gr. tr. 
 ~~ ( 32803-125 grammes. 
 = 8437-5 gr. tr. 
 = 84-375 „ 
 16-875 „ 
 
 Talent of 90 lbs. = 
 
 Mina of 18 oz. = 
 
 Drachma of 4*32 scr. = 
 Obolus of -864 scr. = 
 
 a 
 
 oA^A-n • r,^Q„ ( 388,800 gr, tr. 
 
 3000 Danes = 76-8 lbs. or j 251^2-8 |rammes, 
 
 50 „ = 15.36 oz. or 6480 gr. tr. 
 1 „ = 7-3728 scr. or 129-6 gr. tr. 
 
 D. 
 
 Talent of 80 lbs. = 
 
 Mina of 16 oz. = 
 
 Drachma of 3-84 scr. = 
 Obolus of -64 scr. = 
 
 405,000 gr, tr. 
 26242-25 grammes.^ 
 6750 gr. tr. 
 
 67-5 „ 
 
 11-25 „ 
 
 455,625 gr. tr. 
 29522-75 grammes. 
 7593-75 gr. tr. 
 
 75-9375 „ 
 
 15-1875 „ 
 
 G. 
 
 Talent of 54 lbs. = 
 
 Mina of 10-8 oz. = 
 
 Drachma of 2-592 scr.:= 
 
 273-375 gr. tr. 
 17713-675 grammes. 
 4550-25 gr, tr. 
 45-5625 „ 
 
 H. 
 
 Talent of 250 lbs. = \ iS*^^^ ^'- ^'- 
 ( 82008 grammes. 
 
 Mina of 2 lbs. 6 oz. = 12,656-25 gr. tr. 
 
 3000 Aurei = 75 lbs. or 379,687-5 gr. tr. 
 
 50 „ = 15 oz. or 6328-125 ,, 
 
 Aureus = 7-2 scr. or 126-5625 „ 
 
 ^ Ending, vol. ii. pp, 89, 160 ; Le Blanc (edit, 1692), pp. 180, 194 ; Ducange 3Iarca, Flor- 
 enus. The ounce of gold contained 8. florins of Florence, the marc 64, the pound 96, each 
 representing respectively the ounce, marc, and pound of the Tournois standard (432 gr. tr., 
 3456 gr. tr,, and 5184 gr. tr.), and as the florin of Florence was coined at 100 to the sterling 
 pound, so the florin of Dauphine may have been coined at 100 to the Tournois pound, or its 
 equivalent, the gold-weight of Florence. This would give the florin of Dauphine a weight of 
 51-84 gr. tr., the Roman marc a weight of (65X51-84=) 3370 gr. tr. and 5055 gr. tr, to the 
 Roman pound. The result is close enough after the lapse of so many centuries. In the reign 
 of Edward i. a pound of EasterHng money was bound to contain, "as of old," 12 oz. of Guthrum's 
 Lane silver, 11 oz. 5 dwt. 1 ferling fine to 17 dwt. 3 ferliugs of alloy, or 5000 gr, tr, of fine 
 
 silver to 400 of alloy, thus giving (~ — or") 208 J gr. tr. of fine silver to each sterling penny. 
 
 \ 240 / 
 Every "pound of account," however, was bound to weigh 20 oz. 3 dwt., thus adding 62-5 gr. 
 tr. of fine silver, and raising the total amount to 5062-5 gr. tr., or a Roman pound. Fifteen- 
 
 (5400X15 \ 
 -^ — =) 5062-5 gr. tr,, or a 
 
 Roman pound of fine silver, were distributed over the 243 dwts, or a sterling pound of account; 
 
 and if the Tournois pound is similarly divided f — -~^ — = 486o") the Byzantine pound 
 
 appears. Is the coincidence entirely accidental ?
 
 APPROXIMATE STANDARDS. 
 
 33 
 
 
 K. 
 
 Pound of Constan 
 
 ' ( 3br39o grammes. 
 
 Talent of 20 lbs. 
 
 _ { 101,250 gr. tr. 
 ' 6560-625 grammes. 
 
 ]\lHrc, . 
 Ounce, 
 
 = 3780 gr. tr. 
 = 472-5 „ 
 
 Mina of 4 oz. 
 
 = 1687-5 gr. tr. 
 
 
 
 Litra of -94 scr. 
 
 = 16-875 ,, 
 
 I'jisantine Pound, 
 
 _ r 4860 gr. tr. 
 
 \ 314-91 grammes, 
 
 
 
 8 Litrae, or fiold Stater, = 135 gr. tr. 
 
 .AJarc of 4608 gr 
 
 ain.s =r 3240 gr. tr. 
 
 24 „ or Gold Talent, = 405 ,, 
 
 Ounce of 576 
 
 ,, = 405 
 
 
 
 Solidus of 96 
 
 ,, = 67-5 
 
 
 
 Drachma of 72 
 
 ,. = 50-625 ,, 
 
 
 
 (iramme of 24 
 
 .. = 16-875 „ 
 
 jRoman round, . 
 Ounce, 
 
 \ 5062-5 gr. tr. 
 
 ■~ 1 328-031 grammes. 
 = 421-875 gr. tr. 
 
 Obolus of 12 
 Keration of 4 
 
 ., — 8-4375 „ 
 „ = 2-8125 ,, 
 
 Denarius, . 
 
 = 60-268 
 
 
 / 69-5 gr. tr. 
 
 ~ 181- 
 
 Scripulum, . 
 
 = 17-578125 „ 
 
 ililliarensis, 
 
 
 
 
 Centenionalis, 
 
 = 48-6 „ 
 
 Decalitron, . 
 
 = 168-75 gr. tr. 
 
 Keration, 
 
 = 40-5 „ 
 
 Uecobolus, . 
 Pentobolus, 
 
 ni2-5 
 
 ~ 1 101-25 ,, 
 = 50-625 ,. 
 
 FolHs, 
 Denarius, . 
 
 = 5-4 „ 
 _ /16-2 „ 
 ~~ 1.20-25 „ 
 
 A. 
 
 The Talent of the Islands, the Sicilian, early ^ginctan, and appar- 
 ently early Syrian standard — perhaps the Enboic also. In measures of 
 capacity it represented the ordinary medimnus of six modii, in use 
 amongst the Eoiuans, often known as the Sicilian medimnus, and pro- 
 bably in general use amongst the Greeks in early days. The iEginetan 
 coinage of the era of the Spay/i?; Traxeto, conformed to this standard, as 
 well as the copper coinage in general use, apparently, throughout Greece, 
 Italy, and Sicily in the days of Aristotle, when the uncia and the chalcos 
 were identical. The Roman pound was a lesser mina, or heynina, of this 
 talent, divided upon the duodecimal instead of the decimal principle ; 
 the uncia, stater, sicilicus, and scripula, representing the tetradrachmon, 
 didrachmon, siglos, and obolus or litra, slightly raised in weight in the 
 proportion of 25 to 24. 
 
 B. 
 
 The standard of the Persian silver coiiiage in the days of Xenophon, 
 to which in the time of Aristotle the silver currency of Corinth con- 
 formed, when 20 sigli — 10 staters or decalitra — would have passed for 
 a gold Daric. The early silver currency of Sicily, the first with which 
 the Romans were acquainted, also conformed to this standard, which 
 seems to have been the commercial weight in general u.se in the days of 
 the Persian empire. It lay at the base of the Italian measures of capa- 
 city, and was adapted to the Roman system as the decenuuodia, or 
 measure of ten modii, representing a large or double talent. It seems 
 traceable in some of the old copper coins occasionally found in Asia 
 Minor and elsewhere — as mi<i,ht be expected, for a local coinage in 
 
 copper was often allowed, after the right of issuing a currency in 
 
 c 
 
 rold
 
 31 APPROXIMATE STANDARDS. 
 
 and silver had been withdrawn, or only retained in the case of silver 
 under restrictions. Both these talents seem to have been based upon a 
 common origin, one representing the duodecimal, the other the decimal, 
 system of calculation. 
 
 a 
 
 A Persian gold talent in the days of Xenophon, when the proportion 
 between gold and silver in the Persian empire seems to have still re- 
 mained at 13 to 1, the standard assigned by Herodotus to the reign of 
 Darius. 
 
 D. 
 
 Attic silver-weight, the monetary talent of Athens in the time of 
 Xenophon and Aristotle, and the general standard of the currency 
 under the Macedonian empire, when it became the local standard of 
 Alexandria, apparently, and hence, perhaps, was known to Varro and 
 others as an Egyptian talent. It stood in the proportion of 25 to 24 to 
 the Persian gold talent, with which it seems to have been very closely 
 connected. A Daric would have passed for 25 drachmaa. This was the 
 scientific standard of the East. 
 
 E. 
 
 The lighter talent, weighing a tenth less than silver-weight, which 
 was familiar to the Romans of the republic and early empire as Attic- 
 weight, and known occasionally as the Roman talent. It appears to 
 have been the scientific standard of the West, and the basis of the earlier 
 measures of capacity known as Attic. It was the monetary standard of 
 Tyre and Juda3a in the days of Josephus, and probably of all the pro- 
 vinces which, without a coinage upon a local standard, used that of 
 Rome, and calculated by the mina and talent instead of the pound. 
 The drachma, coined as the denarius at 84 instead of 83|^ to the pound, 
 shrunk infinitesimally in weight, 25 passing for an aureus, until the 
 silver coin dwindled away, and disappeared from the circulation. 
 
 F. 
 
 Often called the Ptolemaic talent, a tenth less than the standard of 
 the Persian silver currency. It was the standard of the local coinage of 
 Rhodes, Pergamus, and many other parts of Asia Minor, as late as the 
 reign of Vespasian, when a Rhodian drachma passed for a denarius and 
 a quarter, or 4"32 scruples of silver, a cistophorus for twice that amount, 
 each coin representing respectively the drachma and didrachmon of this 
 talent, 20 of tlie former, 10 of the latter passing for an aureus. The 
 Hebrew measures of capacity, in the time of Josephus, were based upon 
 this standard, which he calls Attic, probably because it seems to have 
 replaced the earlier Persian talent as the general commercial weight of 
 the East under the Macedonian — Greek or Attic — empire. The later 
 Attic measures conformed to it.
 
 APPROXIMATE STANDARDS. 35 
 
 G. 
 
 The standard of the local coinage of Syria under the Flavian em- 
 perois, when a tetradrachmon of Antioch passed for 3 denarii, givinii; 
 to the drachma a standard of 2*592 scruples. The mina was thus a tenth 
 less than the Roman pound, apparently connecting the early Syrian talent 
 with the standard of ^. 
 
 H. 
 
 The Hebrew talent of the time of Josephns, representing 100 mina?, 
 or 10,000 coins of the standard of the original aureus. A mina cal- 
 culated on the Persian system, or 50 aurei, was a hemina of this stan- 
 dard. 
 
 K. 
 
 Known occasionally as the Egyptian, sometimes as the lesser Ptole- 
 maic, talent, in which the obokis, or litra, represented the drachma. 
 It was evidently the standard to which the early Sicilian coinage con- 
 formed, the gold talent representing the sixteenth portion of a mina of 
 48 staters, or 50 Darics. 
 
 As the hyperpyrus was of the purest gold, 24 carats fine, its value at 
 the present time, reckoning the Troy grain of fine gold at 2-12385 den., 
 would be 11 sol. 11*36 den., or for all practical purposes, 12 shillings. 
 This would give a value of £1, 4s. to the gold stater of the full standard 
 of 135 gr. tr. ; £1, 3s. to the Persian Daric ; £1, 2s. 6d. to the original 
 aureus ; and £1 to the aureus of 45 to the Roman lb., always assuming 
 that the coin in each case reached the full standard, antl was struck in 
 the finest gold. In the same way, the standard gold florin of Florence, 
 24 carats fine, weighing 54 gr. tr., that replaced the hyperpyrus towards 
 the close of the thirteenth century, may be reckoned at 9s. 6d. It 
 is more difficult to give the present value of old silver coins in English 
 money. Before 1816, when the shilling was coined at 62 to the lb., 
 and standard silver was reckoned at 5s. 2d. per oz., the coin of full 
 weight corresponded with its actual value, containing 85*935 gr. tr. of 
 fine silver, and thus giving 7*16125 gr. tr. of fine silver to the penny% 
 or 240th part of a pound. Since that date, 66 shillings have been coined 
 out of the lb., but they are not " a legal tender" for £3, 6.s., ior the coin 
 passes above its intrinsic value; a sovereign is worth at least 21 shillings, 
 and 80*727 gr. tr. do not represent the true value of 12 ])ence, or the 
 sovereign would bo only worth 23*28 francs. Every valuation, accord- 
 ingly, that is based upon the value given in England to the amount of 
 fine silver contained in the shilling is slightly in error. Professor 
 Hussey, for instance, reckoning the amount of fine silver in the Attic 
 drachma at 65*4 gr. tr., values the coin at 9*72 den., or above the franc
 
 3G 
 
 APPROXIMATE STAXDARDS. 
 
 containing 69"4 gr. tr., or four grains more of fine silver. Silver coins, 
 therefore, should be valued either by the old standard, giving 712385 
 gr. tr. of fine silver to the penny, or in French centimes. The old Attic 
 coinage was famous for its purity, containing only eV of alloy, which 
 would give to the drachma (67'5 - 1 125, or) 66*375 gr. tr. of fine silver, 
 worth (95"64, or) about 96 centimes, or a little over 9 "25 den., reckoning 
 the value of the centime at '694 gr. tr. of fine silver. A talent of Attic 
 silver, weighing not less than 80 Roman lbs., as stipulated in the treaty 
 between the Romans and Antiochus, would thus be worth at the present 
 time (5728'40, say) 5760 francs, or about £230. The Attic obolus may 
 be reckoned at (15 "94, or) 16 centimes, the litra at (23-91, or) 24 ; and 
 as Xenophon estimates the value of the Persian siglos in Attic oboli, 
 whilst the litra was, according to Aristotle, worth half as much again as 
 the obolus, a fair approximation can be attained to the value of the other 
 standards. The Roman denarius, if coined at the same standard as the 
 Attic drachma, would have been worth about 86 centimes, or a little over 
 825 den., giving 72 francs, or about £2, 18s., to the Roman pound of 
 coined silver. 
 
 Table of Weights. 
 
 Troy Pound, 
 
 
 = 
 
 5760 gr. tr. 
 
 or 373-233 grammes 
 
 Tower Pound, 
 
 
 = 
 
 5400 
 
 350 
 
 Sterling Dwt., 
 
 
 = 
 
 22-5 
 
 1-458 
 
 Marc de Troyes, 
 
 
 — 
 
 3777-6 
 
 244-772 
 
 Marc Tournois, 
 
 
 :=; 
 
 3456 
 
 224 
 
 Tournois Pound-weight, 
 
 
 = 
 
 5184 
 
 336 
 
 Marc de la Rochelle, 
 
 
 :zz 
 
 3556 
 
 230-4 
 
 P^ench Sterling Pound, 
 
 
 z= 
 
 5333 
 
 345-6 
 
 Esterlin de Poix, 
 
 
 = 
 
 222212 ,, 
 
 1-44 
 
 Marc of Castille, . 
 
 
 =r 
 
 3550 ,, 
 
 230 
 
 Cologne Marc, 
 
 
 = 
 
 3608 
 
 233-79 
 
 Vienna Marc, 
 
 
 = 
 
 4320 
 
 280 
 
 Augsburg Marc, 
 
 
 = 
 
 3643 
 
 23605 
 
 Copenhagen Mint-weight (double i 
 
 narc), = 
 
 7266 
 
 470-85 
 
 Veitszlo Pound (silver-weight), 
 
 = 
 
 6563 
 
 425-275 
 
 Swedish Mint Ore, 
 
 = 
 
 405 
 
 26-2425 
 
 Norwegian Ore, 
 
 = 
 
 412-5 
 
 26-72 
 
 Paris Gramme, 
 
 
 
 15-433 gr. tr. 
 
 
 Paris Grain, 
 
 — 
 
 •8198 „ 
 
 
 Grain Troy, 
 
 
 = 
 
 '0647974 grammes.
 
 EARLY SUBSTITUTES FOR A COINAGE. 
 
 PART THE SECOND. 
 
 I. — Early Substitutes for a Coinage. 
 
 It was a settled principle under the later emperors to guard with 
 jealous care the secrets of certain State rDonopolies. In the imperial 
 Gynceceia alone were woven the costly vestments distributed by the 
 Emperor, in token of official dignity, to clergy as well as laity ; for he 
 who held office under the State, or inherited the capacity of doing so by 
 birth, could alone aspire to stand out from the plebeian and servile orders 
 as a Decurion. No private person was allowed to make paragatcdce, the 
 official fringe of gold, or of twisted silk and gold, or to use unmixed the 
 cruor conchyli, the dye of the murex, or purple-fish, that communicated 
 its deep red hue to the imperial porphyry. Within the walls of these 
 Gynseceia none found employment who were not Fiscal serfs, to whom 
 intermarriage beyond the limits of their class was strictly forbidden ; 
 all transgressors of this law, if free, being reduced with their children to 
 the condition of Fiscal serft, to be employed henceforth in the service of 
 the Emperor, lest the secrets of the State monopoly should permeate into 
 the outer world. The mint was as jealously guarded as the factory, and 
 the Monetarius was a Fiscal serf, bound by the same restrictions as the 
 Gyncpceiarius and the Murilegulus} 
 
 Released from the obligations of the imperial code, after the fall of 
 the Western Empire and the irruption of the Northern tribes, a class of 
 this description must have soon ceased to exist as a special caste under 
 the rule of their new masters, and accordingly the Monetarius seems for 
 some time to have generally been a prominent citizen in some city, 
 licensed by the king or other authority to coin money. " An honourable 
 man of the name of Abbo, an a]:)proved goldsmith, . . . filled the office 
 of Fiscal moneyer in the city of Limoges," — such is the description of a 
 monetarius under the early Merovingians given by Gregory of Tours. 
 
 ^ The various rules and regulations to which I refer will he found in the Cod. Theod. 
 The Decurio, and tilius Decurionis, the Plebeius, and the Servus of the law of Constantino 
 (ad an. 319, 1. ix. t. xxi. c. 1), answer exactly to the Noble, Free, and Servile orders of the 
 Germanic codes. After the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the empire, service in 
 the Church was in course of time supposed to confer the same nobility as service to tiie State. 
 The seven orders of the priest, by Anglo-Saxon law, gave him tltegn-rifjht, and members 
 of the priesthood were authorized by the head of the State to assnux" vestments in accordance 
 with the rank and dignity of the offices they filled. 
 
 431708
 
 38 EARLY SUBSTITUTES FOR A COINAGE. 
 
 In imitation, apparently, of the system of the Eastern Emperors, 
 Charlemagne revived the monopoly of the coinage, and no denarii were 
 allowed to be coined " except in our palace;" — a restriction relaxed by 
 liis successors in favour of a few leading cities, and notably of Quentavic 
 on La Canche, the leading port of communication with England, which 
 claimed the {)rivilege of a mint " of ancient custom ; " — an incidental 
 testimony to the great intercourse between Gaul and Britain from very 
 early times. The privilege of coining money, so lavishly conceded in a 
 later age to the leading magnates, lay and ecclesiastical, as well as to 
 the greater cities, marks the decay of the imperial or royal power, whilst, 
 on the other hand, the extent and progress of the king's authority over 
 Saxon England may be traced in the localities of the royal mints before 
 the Conquest, 
 
 Skilful armourers were still unknown amongst the Franks in the 
 middle of the sixth century, because they were not wanted, and, for a 
 similar reason, some time must have elapsed before the monetarius, as a 
 skilful craftsman, penetrated beyond the boundaries of the old Koman 
 provinces. Various substitutes, however, existed for a metallic currenc}', 
 or rather coinage. Cattle passed from very early times at a fixed value 
 as money, feoh, or pecunia ; hence the high valuations of the eye, the 
 horn, and the tail, in Ini's laws, for " the best beast," was always insisted 
 upon, and a mutilated animal was " bad money," the malicious injurer 
 of his neighbour's means of paying " rent and taxes" being apparently 
 amerced in the estimated amount of the depreciation. A very ancient 
 and wide-spread custom was that of reckoning the ox as a vo/^6o-/xa, or 
 measure of currency. " Let him pay ten oxen," say the laws of Draco, 
 quoted by Pollux ; and in the well-known lines of Homer, the golden 
 armour of Glaucus, and the brazen armour of Diomed, are valued not in 
 money, but in oxen. When a man was bribed to silence, the Greeks 
 used to say, " He has an ox on his tongue;" and though the learned 
 choose to explain the proverb as if it referred to " a coin with the impress 
 of an ox," the beast passed as money long before his image was stamped 
 upon a bit of metal. This cattle-tribute, known in England as Noiot- 
 geld, or Cornage, affords a very ftiir criterion of the state of the society 
 in which it prevailed. Thus the Continental Saxons, in the days of 
 Charlemagne, evidently paid the greater part of their tribute in cattle 
 and produce lather than in coined money, and the value of the animal 
 according to his age and condition, with the amount of grain or honey 
 passing for a solidus, was carefully laid down in their laws. The beast 
 remained stationary in value between autumn and spring, thriving little 
 apparently as a " winter-steal" upon had hay ; but the valuations in 
 Ini's laws are not repeated in any of the later English codes, and the 
 custom of estimating payments in cattle would appear to have died out 
 in the South-country at a comparatively early period, its cessation dating 
 at any rate from the establishment of a royal moneyer in the most im- 
 portant burghs, if not before. In the Welsh and Scottish laws, however.
 
 EARLY SUBSTITUTES FOR A COINAGE. 39 
 
 of a much later date, assessments were still reckoned by " the cow," as 
 well as by the penny, the ox, and the shilling, and nowtgeld long con- 
 tinued to be the " custom of the country" in the north of England ; for, 
 at the date of the Conquest, there was but one mint in existence — at 
 York — throughout the whole of the great Northumbrian provinces and 
 St. Cuthbert's territory, whilst, in the wild western districts, gradually 
 known as the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, cornage con- 
 tinued to be nearly the only tenure for several generations after the 
 Norman Conquest. 
 
 The collar and the armlet, the Celtic torque, the Teutonic heag, were 
 at one time familiar, in a certain sense, as " a currency" throughout the 
 North. The beag was originally the ornament of the Godr, or member 
 of the sacred race, whenever he officiated at a sacrifice ; and to swear 
 upon the " holy beag" was the most solemn oath known to the heathen 
 Northmen when they invaded England. It was probably amongst the 
 earliest marks of nobility, and is still traceable as such under the form 
 of the nobleman's coronet, though the "circlet of gold" is now supposed 
 to be worn upon the head instead of as an armlet or collar. Kings, the 
 " ring-givers" of the scop or bard, bestowed such ornaments upon their 
 followers as marks of royal favour, to be resumed apparently in case of 
 misconduct ; for the earliest name for a fine seems to have been Bang, 
 and in the laws of ^thelbert the regius hannus, or fine of fifty scillings 
 due to the king for killing a Kentish Lend, is called the Drihten-6eaA, 
 or " lord's-ring." From a passage in the Scop's Tale, a fixed and legal 
 value would appear to have been set upon the beag, according to its 
 intrinsic worth, from an early date, and it would seem to have been as 
 much a recognised ty}ie of value in its way as the ore or pound. '' He 
 gave me a collar, on which were scored six hundred sceats of beaten gold 
 reckoned in scillings, which I to Eadgils gave, my patron lord, . . . 
 because he had given me land, my paternal heritage." The beag thus 
 presented to the bard seems to have represented a certain amount of 
 solidi aurei, or golden scillings — mancuses or bezants — beaten out into a 
 collar or armlet ; and the use to which he put it in " relieving" his 
 paternal heritage finds a parallel amongst the Anglo-Saxons of the tenth 
 and eleventh centuiies in the Heriot, in which the beag, reckoned accord- 
 ing to its value in mancuses of gold, plays a conspicuous part. A relic of 
 this period may have also survived, perhaps, in the name of Bafz, or 
 Batzen, applied to a coin once current in Southern Germany and Switzer- 
 land, meaning, in its original sense, a link or pendant of a chain. ^ 
 
 Both before and after the issue of a coinage, uncoined bullion, passing 
 by weight, continued to be used as an ordinary medium of exchange. In 
 
 ^ Scopes Tale (Thorpe), l.,180. Notliing shows more clearly the manner in which gold 
 passed by weight in Northern Europe than the wording ot two cliartcrs, in which the 
 " pateram, centum auri siglis appendentem " of the first is riMiderod in the second by " datis 
 centum viginti auri mancusis." — Thorpe, IJijJlom , pp. 1G4, 2aS. The use of ce.vtnm in tiie 
 earlier charter for six score is also wortliy of reniaik.
 
 40 EARLY SUBSTITUTES FOR A COINAGE. 
 
 a hoard discovered at Ciierdale were found ingots of silver, many of them 
 stamped with a cross, and generally averaging about eight ounces of the 
 Tower standard in weiglit, evidently representing the marc of silver in its 
 true and original form ; whilst there were also numerous fragments of 
 ingots, and portions of silver ornaments and rings — Beags — which would 
 have passed, according to their weight, as scUUngs and ores.^ Cattle, 
 produce, and bullion in any shape, must have been always acceptable 
 from possessing a certain intrinsic value ; but the coin which, even in its 
 purest form, is worth less than bullion, necessarily implies in the issuer 
 the power of enforcing its circulation. The penalties in the Capitularies 
 and other early laws, for refusing coins of pure metal and full weight, 
 disclose the reluctance with which denarii were originally received in the 
 place of solidi, and it may be safely assumed that they were never issued 
 until after the establishment of the royal authority. Beyond the limits, 
 therefore, of the old Roman provinces, the king, or the king's authority, 
 preceded the coin which, on its first appearance, was probably of a rude 
 and simple description. Log-sil/r, or the legal currency, according to the 
 Icelandic code of the thirteenth century, was bound to " stand cutting," 
 in other words, the silver and alloy were to be properly amalgamated, so 
 as to avoid such accidents as befell a follower of Harald Hardrada, who 
 tossed his pay into the air, says the Saga, and all the silver fell off I'rom 
 the base metal ; a story that tells little for the capacity of the Norwegian 
 moneyers in the middle of the eleventh century. Hence, in the absence 
 of the skilled monetarius, the earliest fonn of the coin was probably the 
 " beaten sceat," or bi-acteate — the ore or scilling was beaten fiat and cut 
 into sceats, or hits of metal, which were rudely stamped upon one side. 
 An alloyed coinage, in which the coin retained its proper weight, whilst 
 diminishing in value, was the work of a more experienced class of 
 moneyers. 
 
 Cloth, to use the word in its widest sense of clothing, passed as a sort 
 of currency that lingered longest in the north of Europe under the name 
 of the ynarc-Wadmal, and amongst the Frisons as the Hreil-merh o{ 
 four Weden ; Rail and Weed would have conveyed the idea of clothing 
 to our own ancestors. Amongst the Norwegians, six Ells went to the 
 ore of Wadmal, twelve in Sweden ; and Wadmal su])plied the place of 
 Log-silfr, the ordinary or legal currency, before the existence of an 
 alloyed coinage. The ell was subsequently coined as a penny of 4 shil- 
 lings, just as the Wede, or ore of the Hreil-merk, became a skilling of 
 12 pence, instead of the twelve measures of cloth which it probably once 
 represented. The Frison Leinmerk may also be supposed to have 
 originally been a measure of linen or flax ; but it is not in Northern 
 
 ' liingarJ, Ang.-Sax. Church, vol. ii. p. 441. He writes, "eight ounces aiul a quarter," 
 evidently meaning Avoirdupois ounces, for 8'25 X 437*5 gives 3609'375gr. tr., tlie weight of 
 the Cologne marc (^ 3608 gr. tr.) In all such calculations, the standard of weight should be 
 given, and the Troy lb. should be used, if possible, for it is in close connexion with all the older 
 standards, which is not the case with the present standard of Avoirdupois.
 
 CURRENCY OF THE EARLY FRANKS. 41 
 
 Europe alone that Cloth-marcs, or their equivalents, are traceable. The 
 literal meaning of the word Vellon, from which Billon is derived, is luool, 
 and the Vellon coinage of Spain would thus appear to have been 
 originally a currency in wool, a sort of cloth-marc, before the introduction 
 of the alloyed coinage, or Log-silfr, which has perpetuated the name of 
 Billon ; whilst, in the local pounds of Arragon and Catalonia, the weight 
 answering to the Adarmeis, known as Ariense, or "young ram," telling 
 of an era in which the sheep, or its fleece, passed for money ; for the 
 Ariense was once a coin, answering apparently to the Sterling penny. 
 Sheep took the place of cattle to the southward of the Pyrenees, where 
 the flock, rather than the herd, constituted the wealth of the Ricos 
 Ombres in early days. 
 
 II. 
 
 Currency of the Early Franks and the House of Capet. 
 
 Gold continued to be the standard of the currency in the old Eoman 
 provinces after the fall of the Western Empire, the solidus and tremissis 
 alone appearing in the Burgundian Laws, compiled about the opening of 
 the sixth century ; for they contain no allusion to a denarius, or to a silver 
 currency. The gold coin, however, must have fallen below the original 
 standard of value, for an edict of Majorian, dated in 458, prohibited the 
 circulation of the Grallic solidus within the Empire on account of the 
 inferiority of the gold, four difierent gold coins being subsequently, some 
 fifty or sixty years later, refused currency in Gaul itself, within the 
 frontiers of the Burgundian kingdom. Silver denarii were current 
 amongst the Western Franks by this time, forty passing for a solidus ; 
 and as the Merovingian denarius, at its full standard, seems to have been 
 identical with the Byzantine scruple, or gramme, an aureus of full weight 
 would have passed for (40 x 1G875, or) 675 gr. tr. of fine silver, or in 
 the proportion of ten to one. By the edict of Pistoia, dated in 8G4, the 
 finest gold passed in Italy in the proportion of tivelve to one ; the pro- 
 portion of inferior gold towards silver being fixed at ten to one. Gallic 
 gold, once famous for its purity, had deteriorated in quality before (he 
 time of Clovis, and the depreciation in the value of the Gallic solidus may 
 account for its passing for only forty scruples of silver, or in the propor- 
 tion of ten to one.* 
 
 The solidus continued to be coined in gold under the Merovingians, 
 
 ' Major. Novell, vii. 14, de Curialilns ; Leg. Burg. (Pertz) c. vii. 6; Edict. Fist. c. 24 
 (Pertz, Leg. vol. i. p. 494). The Merovingian deiiiers, according to Le Blanc, contain ^'~ 
 of fine silver, and weigh a little under 21 gr. Paris, or a Byzantine gramme (=: '20"57 gr. 
 Paris). For the pmpoition between gold and silver ride Note B.
 
 42 CURRENCY OF THE EARLY FRANKS 
 
 ojenerally, if not always, in the provinces to the southward of the Loire. 
 It was probably superseded in course of time for general use by the 
 Mancus, a weight of forty scruples, or thirty Sterling pence ; and this 
 epoch in the Merovingian system of currency would appear to be reflected 
 in the Scilling and Sceat of the Kentish Laws, the former a half-mancus, 
 the latter a scruple, or Merovingian denier. The mancus of thirty pence 
 was a familiar standard of reckoning amongst the Anglo-Saxons in the 
 days of Alfred, and it will be found in the so-called Laws of Henry i., 
 where it is occasionally confounded with the marc. It appears in a 
 diploma of the Emperor Henry ii. ; and in Europe, to the northward of 
 the Alps and of the Pyrenees, the name seems to have generally been 
 applied to the silver- weight, or solidus of thirty Sterling pence ; for when 
 a gold coin is meant' — an aureus siclus, gold schilling, or bezant — 
 the expression generally used is " gold mancus," or " mancus of gold." 
 Beyond the limits of " Roman France," the Sextula of the Byzantine 
 ])0und, or monetary standard of the Western Franks, seems to have been 
 struck in silver, and used very generally as a solidus, long remembered 
 in England as the Thrums, or Tremissis, the third part of the Loth, or 
 light-ounce of the half-marc. It was better known amongst the North- 
 men as the Silfn7\ and it seems to have been current in Germany, and 
 apparently in many parts of England, as the original Scilling or Schilling. 
 Little can be said upon the subject of the later Merovingian coinage 
 beyond its evident depreciation. The Old Saxons and the Frisons, before 
 they were familiarized with the Nova 3Ioneta, continued to be assessed 
 in certain cases by the solidus of forty deniers, the earlier standard of the 
 Western Franks; and, as it may be gathered from the valuation of the 
 Liber in the Frison Wergilds, that 160 new pence, or a marc of Sterlings, 
 ])assed for (jQ oz. of "old money," the deterioration in the earlier coinage 
 must have been considerable.^ 
 
 The Austrasians would appear to have adopted from the first a differ- 
 ent system from their Western kindred, and their standard of weight is 
 often called in old authorities " the Gallic pound." " From every mansus 
 a solidus, that is twelve pence ;" so runs a decree of Carloman, the son 
 of Charles Martel, dated in 743, and when the Ripuarian code assumed 
 a written form, a solidus of twelve, and a tremissis oi four pence were in 
 use in this quarter, " sicut antiquitus constitutum." The earliest known 
 attempt at rectifying the currency was made in 756, by Pepin, who 
 ordered that " no more than twenty -two solidi shall be cut from the 
 Libra pensans" or standard of weight ; and a decree of his son Charles, 
 })romulgated about twenty-five \ears afterwards, enacted that " on and 
 
 1 Alf. and Guth. 3.; Muratori, Ant. Ital. torn. ii. p. 798. In the Frison Wergilds (Scot- 
 land under her Early Kings, A\). E), the Liber "between Fie and Sincfal " is reckoned at 
 50 sol., and in Addit. iii. 58, at 53 sol. 1 den., or 160 pence, thus identifying his assessment 
 with the other Wergilds. As the tine for a cladolg, a claw WDund or scratch with the nail that 
 drew no blood, is reckoned at 30 Frison pence, the " old pence " were evidently of little value, 
 passing apparently in the proportion of 8 to 1.
 
 AND THE HOUSE OF CAPET. 43 
 
 after the month of August 781, the new pence that bear our name, and 
 are of full weight, shall be current." Ee-establishing a coinage of full 
 weight and pure metal, Charles adopted, or confirmed, a silver standard, 
 the solidus ceased to be struck in gold, and the Eastern Emperors and 
 Khalifs long continued to supply the sole gold coinage current in Western 
 Europe. From this time forward the Libra denariorum., or pound of 
 coined money, began to take the place of the solidus as the standard of 
 calculation; bits of uncoined bullion, always readily received, ceased to 
 be issued from the moneyer's hand, and the solidus itself sunk by degrees 
 into " a money of account," ^ 
 
 The descendants of the Austrasian Pepin introduced the penny of the 
 Austrasian pound; changes of this description, from time immemorial, 
 often accompanying the establishment of a new dynasty. The Western 
 Franks, however, seem to have retained the use of their earlier standard 
 of currency, for it will be often found that, in this quarter, eighteen pence 
 were given to the ounce, eighteen solidi to the pound, or hcelve to the 
 marc ; in other words, they adapted the nova moneia to the Byzantine 
 ])Ound. The imperial currency continued to be regulated by the enact- 
 ment of 781 until after the division of the Empire in the middle of the 
 ninth century, when Charles the Bald, as the sovereign of the Western 
 Franks, seems to have reverted to one of their earlier standards. His 
 
 average 32 gr. Paris, or I -^^= ) eighteen pence to the ounce of 
 
 the old Livre de Troyes, or the heavy pound of Constantine, which he 
 thus appears to have adopted as the standard of the currency of " the 
 Western kingdom." From the accession of the House of Capet may be 
 dated the introduction of the Livre Tournois, at any rate as the standard 
 of Southern France, and the denier under the third race gradually 
 shrunk into the old Merovingian type, averaging about 20 gr. Paris.- 
 
 * Pertz, Leg. vol. i. pp. 18, 31, 41, 72 ; Lex Rip. tit. xxiii., xxxvi. The solitary denier of 
 Pepin from which a judgment can be formed weighs " 23 grains trebuchans " (turning the 
 bcale), but those of his son Carloman, which must represent with the greatest accuracy the 
 standard between 756 and 781, weigh 24 grains trebuchans, or a denier of the Troyes standard, 
 24 to the oz., about 19'675 gr. tr., approaching very closely in weight to the coins struck in 
 England a little later. The deniers of Charlemagne average between 27 and 28 gr. Paris, and 
 as 27'5 gr. Paris = 22"5 gr. tr., or a sterling penny of 32 wheat-corns, the Fundus CaroU Magni 
 must have approached very closely to the standard of the Tower pound and the Cologne marc. 
 My authority is Le Blanc (edit. 1692.) 
 
 '^ According to Le IManc, some of the earlier deniers of the third race average 24 gr. Paris;, 
 
 giving (-|— or) 192 to the marc de Troyes, or the full amount of 288 to the pound. Others 
 
 average 22 srr. Paris, giving { "" or) 192 to the marc Tournois. Hence I imply the n.sc of 
 
 both standards under the House of Capet. The influence of the Marc de Troyes is traceable 
 in the Frison little pound of 7 schillings, or half-marc de Troyes ; in the Tremissa of the 
 Bavarian lb. weighing 7 pence, or a third of the oz. de Troyes ; and in the addition at some 
 remote period of a penny to every oz. of the Cologne marc, raising it i'rom 13 sol. 4 den. to 14 
 sol. Tlie return to the Caroline standard marks the separation of the l^asteilings from the 
 Western Franks in " Roman France," and the rise of the kingdom of the Four Deutschlands. 
 
 coins
 
 44 CURRENCY OF THE EARLY FRANKS 
 
 French money continued to be coined from silver ff fine until the 
 opening of the twelfth century, when in 1103, towards the close of the 
 reign of Philip i., " great tribulation arose," according to the Chronicle of 
 Maillezai, on account of the depreciation of the currency, a third of copper 
 being mixed with the silver, so that the current pound only contained 
 a marc of fine silver. From this reign the French calculated by the marc 
 as the standard of weight, using the pound henceforth only as a measure 
 of the currency. A further deterioration is placed by the Chronicle of 
 Meleac under the year 1120, when the money of Compiegne was allowed 
 to remain at " half alloy ;" and as the marc of fine silver passed in 1144 
 for 40 sol., or two pounds, the current pound only contained at this time 
 4 oz. of fine silver, and had thus shrunk into the half-marc. A few years 
 later, in 1158, a marc of English sterling pence passed for 53 sol. 4 den., 
 or four marcs Tonrnois, so that the Livre Tournois only contained at 
 that time 3 oz. of fine silver ; and as throughout the reign of St. Louis, 
 and until the great depreciation of the currency in the time of Philip le 
 Bel, the Esterlin continued to pass for foitr deniers Tournois, this may be 
 regarded as the correct standard of the Tournois currency for about a cen- 
 tury and a half, being referred to in later times as " the standard of St. 
 Louis." The Angevin pound, the ordinary standard of the currency in the 
 continental possessions of the early Plantagenets, seems to have corre- 
 sponded at this time with the Livre Tournois, for/o^w Angevin pence passed 
 for an Esterlin in 1190, and 500 marcs of silver were repaid, in 1202, in 
 three instalments, each of 400 Angevin lbs., with an additional 50 marcs 
 of silver. Hence 1200 Angevin lbs. passed for (500 — 50, or) 450 marcs, 
 or 300 lbs. of sterling silver, thus identifying the Angevin standard with 
 the Tournois.-^ 
 
 The Paris currency, however, retained its original standard, for in the 
 will of Philip Augustus, dated in 1222, the Paris marc still passed for 
 40 sol., or two current lbs., so that the Livre Parisis was still identical 
 with the half-marc. Thus during the greater part of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries there were tivo standards of the royal currency in 
 France, the Livre Parisis containing four oz., or a half-marc, of fine 
 silver, evidently the standard of the North, long remembered in the Low 
 Countries as the " little pound " of seven shillings, and the Livre Tournois, 
 or standard of the South, only containing tJu^ee oz. or a quarter of a lb. of 
 fine silver. As the Livre Tournois, at the standard of 3 oz.„ would only 
 have weighed 20 Gros deniers, the latter, when coined in silver ff- fine, 
 
 1 Le Blanc, pp. 146, 148, 152, 153, 172 ; Ben. Ah. (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 132 ; Bot. Pat. 
 (Hardy), vol. i. pt. i. p. 4. At 3 oz. or 1296 gr. tr. of fine silver to tbe Livre Tournois, the 
 
 Jenier of St. Louis would bave contained ( or) 5*4 gr. tr. of pure metal. According to 
 
 Le Blanc it was coined at 220 to tbe marc (de Trojes), and contained 3'75 parts of fine silver to 
 
 ■ <. /^777*(^ \ / 17*171 V^'7^ \ 
 
 8"25 of alloy, thus weighing y otJ about 17*171 gr. tr., and containing ( or j 
 
 about 5'366 gr. tr. of pure metal. When results so similar are obtained from different calcu- 
 lations, they may be assumed to be tolerably correct.
 
 AND THE HOUSE OF CAPET. 45 
 
 passing for 12 deniers, took the place of the solidus, and was known, 
 sometimes as the G^^ossus, sometimes as the Argenteiis — white money — 
 the denier being the Parvus or Niger Turonensis, " the black penny," 
 remembered in the fourteenth century as the old Petit Tournois. The 
 reason for this double standard in France will probably be found in the 
 great depreciation in the silver coinage in many parts of Southern Europe, 
 fifteen " black pence " of Provence only passing for tioo and a half " alba 
 moneta," or in the proportion of 6 to 1, as early as 1138, so that the 
 Provengal current pound, even at that time, contained only 2 oz. of fine 
 silver. A double currency was established in 1295, " manifold evils 
 resulting in consequence," say the annals of St. Victoire, the Paris and 
 Touruois deniers being from this date coined in the proportion of 5 to 4. 
 The value of the Florenus Censualis, or florin of Florence, is reckoned 
 by Cabraspino in 1356 at " 10 sol. old petits Tournois," and, says Villani, 
 " it used to be worth 10 sol. Parisis in the old good money, but in 1338 
 its value was 24 sol., in 1340 it reached to 30 sol., and a fourth more in 
 Tournois currency," thus identifying the correct standard of the Paris 
 currency in the first half of the fourteenth century with the old Touruois 
 currency of the standard of St. Louis. The reason of this proportion 
 between the denier Parisis and denier Tournois, which does not seem to 
 have existed previously, may be probably traced to the introduction of a 
 gold standard. Down to this date, throughout the different kingdoms of 
 Western Europe, a certain recognised proportion seems to have regulated 
 the various standards of the silver currency, which henceforth fluctuated 
 and varied in apparently inextricable confusion.^ 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 Four marcs were recognised by the French mint in the fourteenth century, according 
 to the old Reg. Cam. Comp. of Paris, quoted by Ducange : — (1.) The " marc de Troyes 
 qui est de Parisis," or standard weight of 170 esterlins de poix ; (2.) the "marc de 
 deniers Tournois," or current marc of 155-5 esterlins de poix ; (3.) the marc de Limoges, 
 heavier by two esterlins ; and (4.) the "marc de la Rochelle, dit d'Angleterre," weigh- 
 ing 160 esterlins de poix, by which " money of every description is alloyed, and all the 
 money in the world is regulated, and its value raised or lowered." Taking the Paris 
 marc at (244-772 grammesX 15-433=) 3777-6 gr. tr., the marc de la Eochelle weighed 
 / 3777-6X16 \ , , 
 
 V^ yj =3555'4,orJ a little under 3556 gr. tr., the pound (5332-6, or) about 5333 
 
 gr.tr., and the esterlin de poix 22-2212 gr. tr. The marc Tournois was 100 grains 
 lighter, giving 3456 gr. tr. to the marc, and 5184 gr. tr. to the livre by weiglit. The 
 marc de Limoges weighed about 3500 gr. tr. Thus the French esterlin de poix Avas 
 infinitesimally lighter than the English, and the marc de la Rochelle weighed tiuo, the 
 pound three, pence less than the standards of England and Germany, ncncc the Paris 
 lialf-marc of 7 sol. 1 den. French sterling weight, which was identical witii the Frison 
 "little pound," was long known in the Low Countries as the "pound of seven schil- 
 
 ^ Ducange, in voc. Gigliati; Muratori, Ant. Ilal. torn. ii. p. 783 ; Villani, lAh, xi. c. 71.
 
 46 NOTES. 
 
 lings," which shows that the Paris marc only weighed 14 sol. by the sterling-weight of 
 England and Germany, instead of 14 sol. 2 den. by the standard of La Rochelle. The 
 marc of Castille, which for about 400 years has been the standard of the Spanish mint, 
 weighs 3550 gr. tr., or a few grains short of French sterling-weight.^ 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 The relative proportion between gold and silver appears, at a certain period, to have 
 
 differed widely upon the opposite sides of the Alps and Pyrenees. The standard of 
 
 Darius, or the early proportion of 13 to 1, alluded to by Herodotus, fell in course of 
 
 time to 12 to 1, — or the standard of Alexander, as it may be loosely termed, — at which 
 
 it appears to have been stationary for a considerable length of time, until the rise of 
 
 gold under the Roman Emperors becomes dimly traceable, till it reached 14"4 to 1 
 
 during the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine. The fall of the Western Empire 
 
 seems to have sent up gold to IS to 1, the proportion falling again under the third Valen- 
 
 tinian to 16'8 to 1, and it was again fixed by Justinian at 14'4 to 1, or the standard of 
 
 Constantine. If Al-Makrizi is correct in saying that the early Khalifs issued their 
 
 gold and silver coins in the proportion of ten and seven, — 10 silver dirhems weighing 7 
 
 gold dinars, — at 20 dirhems passing for a dinar, the standard of the East at the open- 
 
 /20X7 \ 
 ing of the eighth century was ( ,^ or ) 14 to 1. Before this time the value of the 
 
 Merovingian solidus had been fixed at 40 scruples of silver, or in the proportion of 10 
 to 1, if the solidus was of full weight ; but the quality of the Gallic gold was at this 
 time notoriously defective, and with the advent of the Austrasian family to the throne 
 gold ceased to be coined to the northward of the Alps. By the edict of Pistoia, dated 
 in 864, the proportion of fine and inferior gold to silver was fixed respectively at 12 and 
 10 to 1, but at this very period, or very soon afterwards, the finest gold was passing in 
 the north of Europe at 8 to 1, or even less. In the agreement between Alfred and 
 Guthrum, the wergild of Dane and Angle was fixed at eifjht half-marcs of the finest 
 gold, which was evidently regarded as the equivalent of 1200 Anglian scillings, or 20 
 lbs. of silver, the old valuation of a Twelfhyndman in East Anglia. Reckoning the 
 
 marc by the Tower standard, the proportion would only reach ( — ^— = \ 7'5 to 1, but 
 if gold-weight was represented by the Libra Occidua, a marc of 48 aurei, or 144 dwts., 
 would raise it to ( = \ S\ to 1. For the greater part of the two following cen- 
 turies 50 mancuses of gold passed for 5 lbs. of silver in England, giving a value of 24 
 pence. Tower-weight, to the luancus, or in the exact proportion of 8 to 1, and perhaps 
 during this period the marc of gold may have been reckoned at 50 mancuses " by tale." 
 Four centuries after the time of Alfred, or towards the close of the thirteenth century, 
 the relative value of gold and silver remained unaltered in the extreme north of Europe, 
 for an ore of fine gold is reckoned in the Gragas at a marc of fine silver, and the old 
 proportion of 8 to 1 seems to have held its ground in England until the beginning of 
 the twelfth century.'' 
 
 ^ Ducange, in voc. Marca; Bichthofen Diet, in voc. Fund. The French commercial gramme 
 weighs 15'434 gi'. tr., but the correct standard of Paris, according to Kelly, only reaches 
 15-433 gr. tr, 
 
 - Marsdeii, Iiitrod.; Pertz, Xcr/. vol. i. p. 479; Alf.avd Gutli. 2 (compare Gutalag, in Scotland 
 under her Earhj Kings, Ap. E) ; Gragas, sec. 7, c. 83, 85. As the Medial-thegns in Mercia and 
 East Anglia were assessed on the same footing in Canute's law regulating the lieriot, the wergild 
 in East Anglia was evidently reckoned, as in ]Mercia, at 20 lbs. The Tower pound was a silver 
 standard, for in the reign of Edward iii. gold was weighed by "the touch of Paris," or the 
 Tournois standard, to which the gold florin of Florence conformed. Before this florin replaced
 
 NOTES. 47 
 
 A marc of fine gold passed for six lbs., or nine marcs of silver, in the reigns of 
 Stephen and Henry ii. ; Benet the Jew was fined by Richard a marc of gold oboli of 
 Murcia, or ten marcs of silver ; and in John's reign 21 sol. 8 den. of fine gold were 
 purchased for 10 lbs. — about 9"25 oz. of silver for an oz. of gold — so that from the close 
 of the reign of Henry i. to the accession of Henry iii., the proportion in England seems 
 to have tiuctuated between 9 and 10 to 1. Yet as late as 12 Ed. i., the value of a 
 " talent of rent" — or a bezant— was reckoned at 24 pence, or in the old proportion of 
 8 to 1. Such assessments, however, do not represent the actual, but the imst value of 
 the coin — its value at the time when the donation was originally made, or the rent 
 fixed. Thus a bezant was valued by a French Parlenient in 1282 at 20 sol. ; whilst 
 by a similar authority, and in the same year, the annual donation of a bezant made to 
 the Church by the Counts of Soissons was assessed at 8 sol., or in the old proportion of 
 8 to 1 ; for the sol. Tournois was at that time worth three sterling pence. The grant 
 was evidently of old standing, telling of an epoch in which the relative value of gold 
 and silver stood in France at 8 to i ; and as the aureus paid to the Pope from the 
 Abbey of Kelso was compounded for by a payment of " two solidi of sterlings," accord- 
 ing to the Liber Censuum compiled m 1192, the old proportion was in force in Scot- 
 land at least as late as the reign of David, the founder of the abbey ; and it may be 
 assumed that it held its ground in England until the opening of the twelfth century.' 
 
 In France the relative value of gold and silver would seem to have long remained 
 at 10 to 1. The ransom at first demanded for St. Louis was fixed, according to Join- 
 ville, at " a million of bezants, which are well worth half a million livres," thus giving 
 the bezant, in the middle of the thirteenth century, a value of 10 sol. Tournois — there 
 was no Paris currency in the days of St. Louis — 30 sterling pence, or in the proportion 
 of 10 to 1. From the monastery of St. Florentine, in the diocese of Anjou, the Pope 
 received 3 aiirei, which were compounded for, in 1192, at 10 sol. Tournois for each ; 
 whilst, according to the French translator of William of Tyre, " une perpre (a bezant) 
 
 (1 QQU'Q y 7 \ 
 = j 661 gr. tr., very much in the same 
 
 proportion. Gilbert de Nogent, however, who died in 1124, at the age of seventy-one, 
 values the Hyperpyrus at 15 sol., in which he is followed by, or follows, two contem- 
 porary authorities ; but as the marc of silver passed for three instead of four livres in 
 
 the days in which he wrote, his Hyperpyrus would have been worth ( — ; — , or j 
 
 20 sols, in the days of Joinville, and was apparently a double-bezant. Thus the pro- 
 portion in France remained at 10 to 1 during the greater part of the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries. But the daily revenue of the " Soldan of Egypt" is calculated by 
 Vincent of Beauvais at " 400 mille Iperperi, id est, 57 mille marcae argenti," or 
 
 ( = J 7 bezants to the marc of silver, which, assuming the marc to be the French 
 
 standard weight of " Troy es de Parisis," would give ( — '-^ — = j 539'66 gr. tr., or 24 
 
 sterling pence, to the bezant, in the old proportion of 8 to 1, the standard of tiie age 
 
 the bezant as the standard gold coin, gold-weight was probably represented by the Libra Occidiia, 
 or pound of Constantinople. It is remarkable that in all the wills relating to East Anglia in 
 Thorpe's Diplomata, the marc of gold is used instead of the niancns ; as if in that province, 
 from the time when Alfred assessed the wergild in half-marcs of gold, the marc of gold was 
 taken for 50 mancuses of gold, or 5 lbs. of silver. 
 
 * Madox, Hist. Exch. o. ix. ; liudivg, vol. ii.; Le Blanc, ]\ 158 ; Menage, in voc. Bezant ; 
 Lib. Cens. Bom. Ecc. (Muratori, Avt. Ital. vol. v.) p. 893. According to a charter of John 
 (quoted in Ellis, Introd. vol. i. p. 1G5) a marc of gold was worth 10 marcs of silver, as in his 
 brother Richard's time; so that the proportion of the currency -was jirobably 10 to 1, as in 
 France. The proportion was the same in Germany at the date of the compilation of the b'acli- 
 senspiegel, for twelve gold pence, each weighing three silver pennyweights — a bezant — passed 
 for thirty shillings of silver, giving thirty pence, or a manciis of silver, to each gold penny 
 (Bk. iii. art. 45).
 
 48 XOTES. 
 
 in which the original donation of the Counts of Soissons was made. It seems allowable 
 to assume, therefore, that the relative value of gold and silver remained at 8 to 1, in 
 France as well as in England, until about the opening of the twelfth century, or as 
 long as silver of the standard of |^} was coined in France, and until the influence of 
 the newly issued coinage of the Morabetin Khalifs, whose authority in Spain dates 
 from after 1056, began to be felt beyond the Pyrenees.* 
 
 A similar difference in the proportion between gold and silver is observable in 
 Eastern Asia and India during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Tangah, or 
 gold dinar of India, usually passing for ten silver dinars of similar weight ; whilst in 
 certain remote localities gold only passed for eight times in value in silver. It is not 
 to be supposed that the lesser relative value of gold in the north of Europe arose from 
 its greater abundance in that quarter. On the contrary, the more precious metal was 
 so little used, except in the shape of rings and ornaments, that it passed at a nominal 
 value, and by weight, or as bullion rather than as coin — as a luxury rather than as a 
 necessity. But as soon as a coinage in gold was attempted in France and England, 
 and gold in consequence became a necessity, its intrinsic value asserted itself, and was 
 recognised at once. The horse may be quoted as an instance in point. He was valued 
 in the time of Athelstan at half a pound, worth .six cows, and four-and-twenty sheep ; 
 he had doubled in value in the Conqueror's reign, and was reckoned at a pound, and 
 in the laws of King Henry is estimated at forty sheep ; but in the Gragas he is only 
 rated at " a good cow." In Iceland he was only a luxury ; elsewhere he had become a 
 necessity, and, gold amongst the animals, rose to his proper value of many sheep and 
 cows. So when Henry in., in 1257, attempted to establish a coinage in gold, he 
 struck a gold penny, weighing trvo, and current for ticenti/, sterling pence ; but in a 
 very few years his coin rose to twenty-/oi(r pence, or from 10 to 12 to 1, and the inno- 
 vation was so unpopular that the king desisted from his attempt. The bezant, at the 
 date of the capture of St. Louis, was worth 10 sol. Tournois ; but no sooner did the 
 French king issue his Denier cVor a VAirjnel, a coin of a similar type weighing about 
 64 gr. tr., than it passed for 12 sol. 6 den., or (64-8 X 12-5=) 810 gr. tr. — for 150 in- 
 stead of 120 deniers, or in the proportion of fire to four — gold thus rismg in France 
 from 10 to 12'5 to 1. Hence the florin of Florence, first coined in 1252, according to 
 Malaspina and Villani, and weighing 54 gr. tr., or four-fifths of the bezant, took the 
 place of the latter coin, passing for 10 sol. Tournois ; and this is the reason why many 
 old authorities identify the florin, or ducat, with the bezant, their calculations, in 
 consequence, being often erroneous. Hence, also, the cause of the numerous valuations 
 
 * Lib. Cciis. p. 882 ; Ducange, Diss, cle Inf. CEv. Num. cap. xc. ; Gcsta Dei per Francos, 
 p. 501. The epithet Hyperpyrus— "T7re/37ri'/3pos — referred to the purity of the metal, and pro- 
 bably became attached to the standard coin of fine gold after the introduction of an alloyed 
 coinage of inferior value. As o/3d, or 72 Ilypcrpyri, went to the pound, the ordinary Hyper- 
 pyrus was evidently the Constantinople solidus, or bezant, weighing 67'5 gr. tr. ; but the 
 name would have been applicable to any coin of the finest gold, and would have thus included 
 the double bezant. From the time of Louis le Jeune an offering of 13 bezants d'or was made 
 to the Church at the consecration of the kings of France, the Byzantines thus ofl'ered by 
 Henry ii. weighing a double-ducat {Le Diane, p. 157), which seems to identify the original 
 coins with tlie large or double-bezant. As the florin of Florence, the type of the petit 
 royal of 70 to the Paris marc, was the equivalent of the bezant at its original value, so the 
 ?ros royal, and the first gold coin struck by Edward iii., weighing two florins, represented 
 the double-bezant. As Hyperpyrus denoted a coin of pure " red " gold, so the name of 
 Asper, or " white money," was originally attached to the coin of fine silver, the eqinvalent of 
 the Silfur, Weispfenning, Blanc, Argenteus, and Albus, in other quarters. It was at one time 
 " well worth two sterlings," and mnst have then represented the drachma of Constantinople — 
 the coin not the weight — the original of the Eastern dirhem. "When Pegolotti wrote, 202 
 aspers were coined out of a Sommo of silver, 11 oz. 17 den. fine; so that, as the Sommo 
 weighed about 8'25 oz. of the Genoese pound — the Byzantine apparently — the aspcr nuist 
 have shrunk in the fourteenth century into the gramme. It still exists in the East as a money 
 of account. — Ducange, as above ; Yule's Cathay (Hakluvt Soc.) vol. ii. pp. 205, 298.
 
 EARLY GERMANIC AND FRISON CURRENCY. iO 
 
 of the older standard, fast becoming obsolete, towards the close of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury — as well as the reason, apparently, of a double currency in the proportion of five 
 to four, the Livre Parisis corresponding with the earlier, the Livre Toumois with the 
 later, standard of gold.^ 
 
 III. 
 
 Eakly Germanic and Frison Currency. 
 
 " Unce ainan scillinga selisi, unciam unam aureos sex . . . Stuhi, 
 halb scriptolus, silikhi tri," — thus wrote an old German glossarist, quoted 
 by Adalung, displaying bis familiarity with the Byzantine standard. The 
 eicruple, however, was as often divided into three parts, corresponding 
 with the subdivision of the Byzantine gramme into three /oZ/es. In this 
 case the equivalent of the Stilck or Styca of 12 grains of corn only 
 weighed 8 grains, and was probably a bracteate, answering to the Heller 
 of the early Cologne standard, the Irish Pinginn, and the original of the 
 Spanish Follaz, a small coin still existing when Ducange was writing, 
 deriving its name from the Arabic Fels, and representing the third part 
 of a denier.- 
 
 Both the standards of the eastern empire in use amongst the Western 
 Franks as well as the Gallic or Caroline pound, are traceable amongst 
 the Frisons. The identity of the London and Cologne standards known 
 indiscriminately as English, Agrippaniske, and Cologne weight, is 
 shown in the regulation that " these merks are to be reckoned at 4 pence 
 and 13 skillings of English pence, so as to weigh the Cologne merk;" 
 but many of their older mulcts and dues were payable in " the pund of 
 seven skillings," often known as " the little pund," sometimes as the 
 Frison pund. " Three pund the frana, that is, 21 skillings the Koning's 
 ban," so runs more than one old Frison law ; and every i'reeman with 
 " 30 pund eerwis," or inheritance, was bound to attend the Landwehr 
 with horse and arms, all who had 12 punds coming on foot with spear 
 and shield. Thus the Little pund in which the freeholder was rated at 
 the old Frank assessment of 30 lbs., or 600 solidi, and fined 3 lbs. or GO 
 solidi, for the king's ban, was the Livre Parisis, or half-marc de Troves, 
 weighing four ounces, or a third of the heavier Byzantine standard. He 
 was assessed in the old currency of northern France, and as he was not 
 a nobleman, he paid or received " by tale" and not " in gold." The 
 Wed-merh of fourteen skillings answered to the full ]\Iarc de Troyes ; 
 the Lein-merh of twelve skillings to the ordinary marc, or eight ounces 
 of the Libra Occidua ; and the existence of the ordinary half-nuuc of 
 
 * Cathay, vol. i. p. ccxivii.-ccl. ; Le Blanc, cap. i. ; Budui//, vol. ii. p. 70; Villani, lib. vi. 
 c. .53 ; 31alaspina, cap. 152, in Muiatori, Ant, Ilal. ii. p. 817. 
 - Adelung, in voc. Sc/iillliu/. 
 
 I)
 
 50 EARLY GERMANIC AND FRISON CURRENCY. 
 
 four ounces is also traceable, particularly in the provinces of Groningen 
 and East Frieslancl, or ancient Friesland, " between Laubach and Weser." 
 " The Fresca Skeld is tbirty grate from Staweren to Groningen, and the 
 Groningen Skeld is nine grate. The great Coloi2;ne pound is four Skeld, 
 and tbirty Flamsken go to the old Skeld." The Skeld, or Ecu, was 
 reckoned as the quarter of a pound, and as the FlamsJce, or Frison groat, 
 was worth tivo sterling pence, the Groningen Skeld was worth eighteen, 
 or an ounce of the ordinary Byzantine standard, representing tbe quarter 
 of a " pund of six skillings," or a half-marc of four ounces. The exist- 
 ence of this obsolete pund of six skillings is further shown by the Hreil- 
 merc, the Groningen-merc, and the West Friesland Liod-merc, each 
 valued at four skillings, or two-thirds of a pound of six, which would 
 have once answered to a Groningen-pund} 
 
 Three different solidi are alluded to in the old Frison Laws, a solidus 
 of three pence current in central Friesland, a solidus oi jive oboli in the 
 province bordering upon Flanders, and a solidus of two pence current 
 " between Laubacn and Weser," or in the provinces of Groningen and 
 East Friesland. There were also, according to Pertz, three dialects 
 amongst the Frisons, corresponding with this difference in their solidi. 
 The dialect in East Friesland resembled " old English" — Anglo-Saxon — 
 and in this quarter was the solidus of two pence, corresponding with the 
 Flamske, or Groningen grate, and connected with the " ore of sixteen." 
 The speech of Central Friesland resembled the dialect found in old West- 
 phalian documents, and here was the solidus of three pence, corresponding 
 with the Thryms or Silfur, half as large again as the Flamske and con- 
 nected with the " ore of twenty-four." The dialect of the other Frisons 
 resembled the language spoken in Brabant in the thirteenth century, and 
 here was the solidus oi five oboli, or half of a scilling of five pence, con- 
 nected with the " ore of twenty," or the ounce in uf-e amongst the Franks 
 at that time. Nearest and most akin to the Franks in dialect and cur- 
 rency lay the Flemings ; beyond them the central and western Frisons, 
 ancestors of the Dutch, resembling the Westphalian Saxons in speech 
 and customs : whilst further towards the north-east lay the eastern 
 Prisons, in their dialect and solidus connected with the men of Engern 
 and Ostphalia.^ 
 
 Fiirst, Freyherr and Schoppenbar freeman, were assessed in the Sach 
 
 /4320 
 senspiegel at 18 lbs. for their wergild, or 4320 pence, answering to I —^ 
 
 ' Eichthofen, Die. Fris. in voc. Frana, Pund, Merk, Grate, Skeld, etc. The penny of 
 Charles the Bald, weighing 32 gr. Paris, is exactly adapted to the standard of the Little pund, 
 pointing to the era in which Troyes-weight supplanted the earlier standards in northern France. 
 
 * Pertz, Leg. vol. iii. p. 639, and Lex Fris. addit. 73, 78. He identifies the Frison with the 
 Caruliiie solidus, which would give the Frisons in the eighth and ninth centuries a coined penny 
 weighing four sterling pence. The existence in the ninth centurj' of a silver coin, half as large 
 again as the Gros Denier of St. Louis, is, I helieve, unknown to numismatists. The expression 
 used in the Frison Laws is always " denarii novce monetce^^ — minted or coined money — and 
 the Capitularies are silent about the existence of any mint in Friesland.
 
 EARLY GERMANIC AND FRISON CURRENCY. 51 
 
 1440 solidi — thrymsas or silfurs — the wergild of the Saxon NohiHs,or Adel- 
 ine. Their bot was also identical, but, in the case of the two first classes, 
 paid in gold, and reckoned at 12 gold pence wortli 30 shillings of silver, 
 answering to the 120 solidi jiaid as Ruoda by the old Saxon laws ; whilst 
 the bot of the Schop[)enbar Frei was 30 shillings paid in Wendisli p.-nce, 
 " of which 20 shillings weigh a rcarc," Twelve oz. or a lb. of Wendish 
 pence, therefore, would have weighed eight oz., or a marc of sterling 
 pence, the solidus and penny would have been in a similar proportion, 
 and whenever the Thryms of tliree sterling pence was reckoned as the 
 solidus, the Elamske of tvjo sterling, or ^/«-ee Wendish pence, would have 
 answered to the solidus of a currency upon the Wendish principle. 
 Before the introduction of the Nova Moneta, the AVestphalians used a 
 solidus of three, the Ostphalians and men of Engern a solidus of two 
 tremisses, or exactly in this proportion ; in other words, the latter divided 
 the marc into 12 oz. on the principle of the Wendish cnri ency, reckoning- 
 it as a pound — just as the Attung in Sweden was divided by the Groths 
 into twelve, and by the Sviar into eigltt portions — an oz. of the lighter 
 standard containing 24 pence would have only weighed 16 of the heavier 
 type, and a wergild of 18 lbs., reckoned in " ores of sixteen," would have 
 only weighed 18 marcs or 12 lbs. of the heavier currency.^ 
 
 The custom of dividing the marc like the pound seems to date from 
 an early period, and is observable in many quarters, particularly in 
 northern Europe, the Austrasian Franks following it, a[)parently, for the 
 original standard of Cologne was divided in this manner. The esch, as 
 elsewhere, was a grain of wheat, 8 went to the Heller, IG t* the Pfennig, 
 which were thus respectively two-thirds of the Stiick or Halb-scriptolus of 
 12, and the Denier or gramme of 24 grains ; whilst the Quent of 64 grains 
 or two sterling pence, answering to the Frison Flamske, and the Batz of 
 two pence amongst the southern Germans, was a solidus weighing two- 
 thirds of the Thiyms or Siltur. The Loth was a light " ore of sixteen" 
 pfennige ; the ore weighed 16 sterling pence, and eight of these ores made 
 a light marc of 10 sol, 8 den., or 4096 giains, twelv^e a light pound of 
 of 16 sol. or 6144 grains, answering to the Full-merk or Liod-merk in 
 ordinary use amongst the Frisons, weighing 16 skillings, or eight " ores 
 of twenty-four" sterling pence. The mint-marc of Vienna, weighing 9 
 oz. troy-weight, 4320 gr. tr., or 6144 grains of corn, answers to this 
 heavier standard, or full-mavc, weighing 16 sol. ; and as it is divided like 
 
 the Cologne marc, the divt. represents the denier of ( ^y..- = 1 24 grains, 
 
 ' Sachnensinerjel, Bk. iii. Art. 45; Lex Sax., tit. xix. ; Grimm, iJ.li.A., p. 533. The 
 theory of coining 240 pence out of the marc was retained in the Livre '1 ournois coined out of 
 the Marc de Troyes. The wergild of 18 lbs. of Wendish pence seems traceable in the "18 
 marcs Log-aura, reckoned in gold," of the Norwegian Odelsmand, and the " 12 punds ecrwis" 
 of one class of freeholders in Friesland — perhaps also in the 240 sol., or 12 lbs., constituting the 
 wergild of the " Primus Alamannus," for, " except in inheritance and ovtd, Suhwabischc Kcclit 
 is the same as Sachsische," says the Sachsenspiegel, Bk. i. Art. Hi. A wergild of 12 lbs. 
 represents 1440 solidi, reckoning by the Flamske. For Wergilds vide Scotland, etc., Ap. E.
 
 52 NORWEGIAN AND IRISH CURRENCY. 
 
 half as lai'ge again as the pfennig. As the Caroline pence weighed two 
 pfennige or oboli, so the Viennese pence weighed two deniers or tJi7'€e 
 oboli, exactly in the proportion of the solidi of two and three ttemisses, and 
 were known as " Broad pence of Vienna" — the " lati denarii Viennenses, 
 quorum quilibet denarius valet tres obolos esterlingorum" of Matthew 
 Paris. Thus the Vienna marc represents the Full-marc of eight heavy 
 oz., which, when reckoned as a pound, gave the lighter oz. of the old 
 Colojine standard, fifteen of which went to the " Great Pound of Cologne," 
 and to the old standard of London weight.^ 
 
 According to an authority of the twelfth century, quoted by Pertz, 
 whilst Frank and Alaman, Saxon, Thuringian, and Lombard, united in 
 using the solidus of 12 pence, giving 3 to the Saiga (or Thryms) and 4 
 to the Tremissis (or Anglian scilling), the Bavarians continued to divide 
 the pound, like the marc, into eight solidi of 30 pence. Their solidus, or 
 heavy oz., Avas thus the mancus " of forty deniers," their semi-solidus of 
 15 pence the half-mancus or Kentish scilling " of twenty sceats ;" their 
 saiga of 5 pence answered to the scilling of Wessex, and their scotus, or 
 scatt, was a double-denier, like the broad penny of Vienna, weighing 
 three sterling oboli. The recollection of this old pound, superseded as a 
 moneyer's weight by the Cologne marc, seems to have been retained in 
 the Kegensburg pound, divided into eight schillings of 30 pence, the 
 Pfenning -'pfmid in which the Grund-zins, or land-tax, of Bavaria used to 
 be levied." 
 
 IV. 
 
 Norwegian and Irish Currency. 
 
 In the opinion of the best authorities of the North, no coins were 
 struck in Norway before the middle or close of the tenth century. 
 Bullion must have passed before this time, and the earliest substitute for 
 a coinage was Wadmal. Hence the Northman was assessed by the 
 Hundrada, which still retains its oiiginal meaning of six score ells in 
 Haldorson's Dictionary, though the ell is no longer cloth but a coin. 
 According to the Gragas, or the Icelandic code of laws, compiled towards 
 the close of the thirteenth century, some fifty years after the Sachsen- 
 
 ^ Ethelred iv. 9 ; Mat. Par. (Ed. 1C40), vol. ii. p. 730. In another passage Paris says the 
 Jmperialis corresponded very closely with the sterling penny, with which it might be considered 
 identical. In his days, therefore, the penny in Germany, as in England, still conformed to the 
 regulations of 781. This was the penny of the Sachsenspiegel. 
 
 ^ Pertz, Leg. iii. p. 132, note 24. The distinction once existing in England between the 
 scillings oi four and five pence, current on opposite sides of the Thames, is long traceable in 
 the German currency. Ihus the imperial kreutzer of GO to the gulden, 90 to the thaler, was 
 woxVafour light pence ; whilst the hea\ier kreutzer current in Ikmburg and Wurtzburg, 48 to 
 the gulden, 72 to the thaler, was worth jiwfi piMice ; and the guter-groschen wa« worth \\ kaisar- 
 groBchen, in a similar proportion oi' five to/our.
 
 NORWEGIAN AND IRISH CURRENCY. 53 
 
 Spiegel, silver was current in Iceland about the opening of the eleventh 
 century, " white silver, which was mostly silver, and would stand cutting," 
 equivalent apparently to " Guthrun's-Lane silver," or silver plate. " It 
 was coined so that Ix. penings (some read xx) went to the ore-vegin, and 
 weight and tale were identical. At that time c. silfurs passed for four 
 hundreds and xx. ells-wadmal, and a half-marc of wadmal was worth an 
 ore of silver." Silver therefore stood in the proportion of 4 to 1 to wad- 
 mal, and as six ells-wadnial went to the Norwegian ore, an ore of 
 silver passed for 24 ells, and the silfur or solidus of six to the ounce was, 
 at this time, worth four ells, each thus representing a denier or scruple. 
 The ell, when coined in a later age, was divided into four skillings, cor- 
 responding probably with its original subdivisions ; and thus the marc- 
 wadmal literally represented the raarc-vegin in cloth, the ell halved and 
 quartered answering to the silfur of four scruples, and representing the 
 solidus of the marc-wadmal, six score ells or silfurs being contained in 
 either case in twenty ores or five half-marcs.^ 
 
 Three descriptions of silver are alluded to in the Gragas, Burnt silver. 
 Blue or Grey silver, and Law silver. A marc of burnt or fine silver was 
 known as the marc-vegin, or marc by weight, and occasionally as the 
 marc of silfurs. The marc of law-silver, or a current marc, was known 
 as the marc-log-aura, or the marc of legal ores, and occasionally as the 
 marc of penings. Grey-silver was double the value of law-silver, and 
 both were reckoned by the marc-talin, talder-rnarc, or marc by tale. An 
 ore of burnt silver passed for a marc-lug-aura, or in the proportion of 8 to 
 1, and thus grey silver, standinii; in the proportion of 1 to 4, represented the 
 earlier standard of wadmal. At the close of the chapter upon Baugatal, 
 it is laid down that " the silver used for sacgikU, whether for bang, thai-, 
 or thiveiti, shall be of the standard of the log-silfur of the time in which 
 ^e?i penings went to the ore ;" and in the chapter on Manumission it is 
 said, " In a Jarl's jorp he pays half-rett, in a king's the whole. A 
 pening shall he give to the goda who brings him into the law, that shall 
 be the tenth part of an ore." Thus the " silver used for sacgildt" was of 
 a different standard from the later law-silver, and as grey silver was of the 
 same standard as wadmal when it was used for " sacgildt," passing current 
 for twice the value of the later law-silver, it may be identified with the 
 older standard alluded to in these laws. At tioo ores of fine silver to the 
 maro, or three to the pound, tliis earlier currency corresponded with the 
 Livre Tournois at the standard of St. Louis, and thus the Northmen 
 were long as>essed in the usual currency of the period, In Sweden, 
 where the marc-wadmal was at one time worth tioo marcs of penings, 
 twelve ells went to the ore — " Six marcs of penings, or three marcs- 
 wadmal, twelve ells to the ore," writes Ihre, quoting from an old East 
 Gothland code. Thus in Sweden the marc-wadmal would have been 
 
 * Oro/jas, sec. 7, cap. 3. 8t. In another cliaiitor tlie legal value of tlu! oro is fixcnl at six 
 ells of new anil unworn wadmal. The ore of wadmal is here meant, and not the ore of silver, 
 as has been sometimes erroneously supposed.
 
 54 NORWIJGIAK AND IRISH CURRENCY. 
 
 worth a marc of grey-silver, corresponding, as of old, with " the silver 
 used for sacgildt ;" but as three Swedish would have passed for six Nor- 
 wegian marcs-wadmal, the cloth itself must have lost its former value, 
 for the ell would have passed at half its former standard, thus corre- 
 sponding with the later law-silver.^ 
 
 The pening of ten to the ore seems to he alluded to by Snorro in the 
 passage where he says that every bonder in Iceland recompensed Eyvind 
 the Scald with " a scatt-pening of pure white silver, worth three penings- 
 vegin ;" for it is laid down in the later Gulathing that " thirty penings 
 shall be in every ore, whether by weight or tale." The marc was thus 
 divided into 80 scatt- penings and 240 penings, on the principle of the 
 Wendish currency, f)r there are 80 silfurs and 240 pence in the Caroline 
 pound. In the earlier coinage alluded to in the Grragas, the half-marc 
 was similarly divided, for a coinage of xx. or Ix. to the ore gives either 
 80 small solidi or 240 small penings to the half-marc ; and the earliest 
 asse-!sments of the Danes in England are invariably reckoned in half- 
 marcs. As long as the Northmen were only familiar with bullion and 
 wadnial, the marc-wadmal seems to have followed the sub-divisions of the 
 marc-vegin, or the Byzantine standard, giving 6 ells to the ore, and 48 
 to the marc, the ell thus answering to the sextnla, silfur, or original 
 scilling ; but as soon as a coinage was issued, it was adapted, on the 
 principle of the Wendish currency, to the Caroline pound, thus pointing 
 to the comparatively late era in which a coinage first appealed. " A pen- 
 ing, ten of which went to the ell-wadmal," such was the tax levied upon 
 the Icelanders by Olaf the Saint, according to Snorro ; and if he is cor- 
 rect, 40 penings would have passed for a silfur, and 240 for an ore, or in 
 the proportion of the earlier law-silver, corresponding with wadmal, of 
 which a half-marc passed for an ore of silver, for the earliest coinage 
 alluded to in the Gragas was evidently based upon the half-marc.'- 
 
 The Northmen are occasionally credited with the introduction of a 
 knowledge of coined money into Ireland ; but they were still in the age of 
 bullion and wadmal when they were ravaging the English and Irish coasts 
 in the eighth and ninth centuries. The relics of a very early system are 
 traceable in Ireland, where the Tinde and the Hinge, the bar or ingot and 
 the ounce, were the weights in ordinary use, the Pinginn and Leth-pin- 
 ginn, or penny and halfpenny, bracteates apparently, representing the coin- 
 age. The ScrepaU, known also as the Pwicne and Oiffing, appears as the 
 Sigel, Iri>h siclus or ordinary unit of calculation, a small solidus rather 
 than a coin, divided into three pinginns and six leth-pinginns. The 
 screpnll, at its full weight of 24 grains of corn, was identical, as its name 
 shows, with the Merovingian denier of full weight, or the gramme of the 
 Byzantine standard, the pinginn of 8 grains answering to the Follis or 
 Heller, the leth-pinginn to the half-follis or keration. There was also a 
 lighter screpall weighing 21 grains of corn, the bracteates that have been 
 
 ' Gragas, nee. 7, cap. 3. 84; sec. 8, cap. 114 ; sec. 6, cap. 43. Ihre in voc. Wadmal. 
 ' Ileiiiisk. Ilurf. Saga, cap. 18 ; St. Olafs Saga, c. 14G.
 
 MORABETIN AFD EARLY SPANISH CURRENCY. 55 
 
 found usually corresponding with this lighter type. The uinge of 24 
 screpalls of full weight would have answered to the Byzantine ounce 
 wei.fjhing 576 grains, but the lighter screpall would have given an uinge 
 of 504 grains. When 240 pence were coined out of the marc, an ounce 
 weighing 24 pence would, in reality, be " an ore of sixteen," each penny 
 
 weighing two-thirds of the full weight, or I -^-X 2=^ 1 21 grains of corn. 
 
 Thus the lighter uinge and screpall seem to tell of the influence of the 
 Saxon ore of sixteen. 
 
 The early Irish were not familiar with the pound weight in connexion 
 with the precious metals, nor were they singular in ignoring it. Ulphilas 
 renders a pound of spikenard by " pund balsamis," but he translates ten 
 talents — pounds in the Anglo-S^ixon version, bezaimts in Wicliflf — by 
 " taihun dailos" and " taihun skattans," ten deals or portions, reckoning 
 money by tale and not by weight. The pound appears in Ini's Laws as 
 the " pund-vega," tlie Libra-pondo of Plautus and Terence, the Libra- 
 pensans of Pepin, for the solidus was the ordinary standard of reckoning 
 before the establishment of the Libra denariorum. The highest metal- 
 weight in use amongst the Irish was the Tinde, a hundred-weight of six 
 score uinges apparently, varying according to the weight of the uinge. 
 Seven score uinges of 576 grains, at which it is sometimes reckoned, would 
 give a weight of 10 lbs, of the heavier standard of Constantine, or six 
 score ounces of the marc de Troyes. The tinde, writes Petrie, should 
 have weighed, " according to the table," 69,120 grains of corn. 10 lbs. of 
 the ordinary standard, or six score uinges of 576 grains. When it is 
 reckoned at " sixty thou.^ands and four hundreds of wheat-corns," it 
 represents six score uinges of 504 grains, calculating the hundreds at six 
 score. Two sorts of gold were also known, " base gold of which dishes 
 are made," and the better description used in torques and rings; but gold 
 coins seem to have been as scarce among the Irish as in the north of 
 Europe.^ 
 
 V. 
 
 MORABETIN AND EaRLY SpANISH CURRENCY. 
 
 In Spain, in southern Italy, and Sicily, and even in parts of France 
 bordering upon the Mediterranean, Saracen influences are plainly visible. 
 Tlie commercial pound of Arragon corresponds with the old Tower 
 standard, for it weighs 5398 gr. tr. The Libra Jaquesa, Jaca pound, or 
 Stan lard of the old provincial currency of the kingdom of Arragon, 
 
 1 Petrie's BoHnd Towers, pp. 209-219; Ulpli. John xii. 3; Luhe xix, 13. 16. Tlie 
 lighter type of uinge and screpall was prolialjly of a later date than tin; heavier, corrcspondin<j 
 with the Austrasian rather than with the Merovingian era.
 
 5G MORABETIN AND EARLY SPANISH CURRENCY. 
 
 contains 20 sneldos, each divided into 8 quartos and 16 dineros. answer- 
 ing to the "ore of sixteen," containing 8 quents of ^?yo-pence, or Flamsken. 
 The Arragonese marc is divided nominally into 128 arienses and 4096 
 grains, or into "eight ores of sixteen ;" for the Ariense of 32 grains was 
 once a coin, familiar apparently in England as the Jaca penny, and 
 evidently corresponding with the sterling penny. The pound and marc 
 of Barcelona are considerably heavier, and the marc is divided into 192 
 arienses, representing originally " eight ores of twenty-four." Thus ster- 
 ling weight, and the heavier and lighter standards in use elsewhere, were 
 once also familiar to the Spaniards, who, beyond the Ebro, and under the 
 shelter of the Pyrenees, seem to have retained the standards of their 
 Christian forefathers. In the greater part of Spain, however, the Arabic 
 Arroba is found, and the Adarme, or dirhem, replaces the Ariense as a 
 weight ; whilst the still existing Maravedi recalls the time in which the 
 Spanish coinage was principally supplied by the khalifs of the Morabetin 
 dynasty.^ 
 
 The name of Morahetin would appear to have been applied, strictly 
 speaking, to the general coinage of the Al-3Ioravid or Morahetin 
 khalifs who ruled in Spain from 1056 to 1146. Silver dirhems and 
 oboli of base metal, or billon, known asfels—foUes — had alone been issued 
 from the mints of their predecessors, the Ommiad khalifs, but the Mora- 
 betin dynasty were the first amongst the princes of western Europe to 
 put into circulation a coinage of gold from a native mint. Hence, 
 though the name was applied in the Peninsula to silver as well as gold 
 coins of the Mooiish type, it was usually limited elsewhere to gold coins 
 alone ; and as a coin of the full standard seems to have been generally 
 implied under the epithet of aureus, so the obolus, or coin of a smaller 
 type, was often distinguished by the name of Marabotinus. The Pope, 
 for instance, received from the monastery of Nantes a payment of ten 
 sol., in lieu of two marahotins, thus giving to the marabotin the value of 
 only half an aureus, or bezant. Not that the coins of the Morabetin 
 dynasty woro necessarily oboli, but the mints of Spain and Portugal seem 
 to have been the first to familiarize western Christendom, beyond the 
 Alps and Pyrenees, with gold coins of a smaller type than the bezant, or 
 gold mancus, of the normal standard; and as at this period all gold coins, 
 beyond the limits of the realm in which they were struck, passed in 
 northern and western Europe by their weight and intrinsic value, a cer- 
 tain vagueness in the names by which they were distinguished was com- 
 paratively immaterial. From the description of the Morabetin dinars 
 given by Marsden, their standard, varying from 6175 gr. tr. to 57 gr. tr., 
 seems to have been below that of the earlier khalifs, in this agreeing very 
 well with a remark of the liistorian of Eavenna, quoted by Muratori, 
 that a marabotin of the proper standard in 1076 weighed 7 to the oz. 
 
 ' KeWy's^Oamhist. Tlie jaku nipiitioneil in Jiiidivrj, ii. 72, was evident!)' a coin of Jaca. 
 The old Cataloiiian current pound contained 2U sneldos ami 240 dineros.
 
 MORABETIN AND EARLY SPANISH CURRENCY. 57 
 
 In 1216, sixty marabotins of Portugal weighed a marc of gold, giving 
 7"5 to the oz., and thus the coin would appear to have dwindled down till 
 it assumed the type of the dirhem rather than of the dinar.^ 
 
 Cabraspino, the Papal nuncio in Hungary and Poland, has left a table 
 of the value of different coins in 1356, which throws much light upon 
 the currency of his age. As 8 florins went to the oz. of gold " in gold," 
 and 8 florins were worth a lb. of pure silver, the relative proportion be- 
 tween the two metals in his calculations was evidently taken at 12 to 1. 
 He reckons in " Floreni Censuales," valuing each at 10 sol. 1 den. 
 " Turpitiorum antiquorum," evidently the amplification by some co[)yist 
 of Tur. pt. antiq., his contraction for "old Petits Tournois." As 10 sol. 
 Tournois, at the old standard, would have contained (120 X 54, or) 648 
 gr. tr. of tine silver, and the florin of Florence, weighing 54 gr. tr., would 
 have passed, at 12 to 1, for 648 gr. tr. of fine silver, the florenus cen- 
 sualis may be safely identified with the standard gold coin of the age, 
 which was worth, according to Villani, 10 sol. Parisis (or 648 gr. tr. of fine 
 silver at the correct standard of his age), and a little more than the 
 Pontifical florin, to which Cabraspino alludes under the name of Florenus 
 Komanas Curias. In silver he calculates by the grosso, giving it a value 
 
 of 12 deniers, or a gros-tournois about I — ~ — = j 51*84 gr. tr. of fine 
 
 silver, according to the proper standard at that time of 4.32 gr. tr. to the 
 denier. As he estimates the lb. of silver from Spain, Tuscany, and various 
 other quarters at 75 florins, and the oz. at 7*5 grossi, the latter coin, like 
 the florin J was the eighth of an ounce, and approaches so closely to the eighth 
 of a Roman oz. (52"73 gr. tr.), that I think it may be identified with it. 
 As the bezant and the florin were in the proportion oifive and/owr, the 
 value of the former in fine silver would have amounted, at this time, to 
 
 I — j-^ , or) 810 gr. tr., or, including the denier, to | -. — '- , or) 818 
 
 gr. tr. ; and as the bezant is reckoned at 15*5 grossi, or, calculating the 
 
 grosso as the eighth of a Eoman oz. j -^^^ ;— = j, 817 gr. tr. of fine 
 
 silver, the identification may be regarded as tolerably correct.^ 
 
 1 Muratori, Ant. It. v. p. 883, ii. p. 785 ; Le Blanc, p. 1G5. The latter gives to the Por- 
 tuguese coin a weight of 7G gr. Paris, or 62-3 gr. tr., assuming the marc of gold to have been 
 Paris-Troyes weight. But when Philip le Bel in 1305 coined petits royaux, "as before," at 
 70 to the marc, or at the Florentine standard of 54 gr. tr., it is added, " et doivent donner les 
 dits Compagnons au marc cVorfin de Furls G4 des royaux dessus dits," thus ideutiiying the 
 marc d'or fin de Paris, or marc of currency, with (54X64 = 3456 gr. tr., or) the marc Tournois, 
 the standard of the currency. 
 
 ^ Muratori, Ant. It. toni. ii. p. 783. Quite in accordance with the calculations of the 
 Nuncio is a passage quoted by Ducange [Jaccences Floreni), reckoning the gold liorin of Flor- 
 ence at 16 solidi of Barcelona, and the grosso and gros tournois at 15 I3arcelonese pence, thus 
 
 giving to the gold coin in Catalonia in 1348 a value of (-^- or) 12"8 gros tournois in the 
 
 currency of Barcelona. As 12 .Jaca pence passed at this time for 14 pence of Barcelona, llie 
 
 (14\ 
 ,-. j than a denier Tournois.
 
 58 MORABETIN AND EARLY SPANISH CURRENCY. 
 
 Turning to the coinage of Castile and Leon, it appears that the Mara- 
 botin passing for 24 marabotins of silver was worth 12 den. tournois less 
 than a florin, or 11 sol, 6 den. tournois, about (4'32xl38 = ) 596 gr. tr. 
 
 of fine silver, which would give it [-—- or) about 49*5 gr. tr. of fine 
 
 gold, — a dirhem of gold according to the existing standard of Constan- 
 tinople. The silver roarabotin, or Maravedi, to use the more familiar 
 name, of which 24 passed for the gold coin, would have thus contained 
 about 24'75 gr. tr. of fine silver. Tlie Dobia Castellano, passing also for 
 24 maravedis, is thus identified with the gold marabotin ; and, as the 
 marabotin passed for 15 pepions, according to a charter of Alfonso the 
 Wise, dated in 1258, and the same amount is given in the Lihei' Censuum 
 as the value of tivo alfonsins, the latter coin may be identified with the 
 original castellano. The Castellano, once a coin, now a weight, seems to 
 have acquired its name from bearing the impress of a castle, the arms of 
 Castillo, — " tengan un Castillo encima, y una C al pie," says the Recopi- 
 lation of Philip ii., — ^just as the gold coin of Philip de Yalois was called 
 " denier d'or a I'Escu," from the shield with the arms of France, borne 
 in token of Philip's claim to the throne. The earlier name of Alfon.sin, 
 given to the Spanish coin, may be traced to the numerous kings of the 
 name of Alfonso who ruled over Castillo, and issued the gold piece on the 
 type of a Morabetin obolus.^ 
 
 The Double Maroqnita and the Vetus Sciliata, names evidently derived 
 from Saracen coins with the mint- marks of Marakash and SikiHah, 
 passed respectively for 25 and 22 maravedis ; the Massamutin, of which 
 100 went to the marc of Montpellier, according to the Liber Censuum, is 
 reckoned at two-thirds of a florin, — about 36 gr. tr., — and may be set 
 down as an obolus aureus of the dynasty met with under the name of 
 Massemudini in some of the old chronicles. It seems to be still traceable 
 under the name of the Mahmudi in some of the Eastern systems of coin- 
 age. The Malachin, valued at 8 grossi, a little less than the massamutin, 
 a little more than half a bezant, was also apparently an obolus of one of 
 
 ' Muratori, Ant. It. vol. v. (Lib. Cen. Bom. Ecc), p. 898 ; DucariEje in voc. Pepio. When 
 the vahie of the escudo de oro was fixed in 1566 at 400 maravedis, raising the dncado of " the 
 Catholic kings" to 429 mvds., the dobla castellano passed for 365 mvds. The ducado of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella 65^ to the marc of Castille, and 23.75 carats fine, giving about 53"8 
 gr. tr. of fine gold, may be identified with the standard florin, or ducat, which would make the 
 dobla castellano, as in the time of Cabraspino, a coin of a smaller type. Covarruvia, identify- 
 ing the maravedi de oro of Alfonso the Wise with the bezant, gives to both coins a conjectural 
 value of 480 mvds., 485 according to other authorities, who also identify the coin of Alfonso 
 with the dobla castellano of the 14th century, giving a similar value to the latter, with the 
 weight of a castellano of the present Castillian gold marc, or 71 gr. tr. The table of values left 
 by the Papal Nuncio overturns all these conjectural theories, which are grounded upon the 
 error of identif\'ing the comparatively modern tvei(/ht with the ancient coin, ignoring the exist- 
 ence of an earlier Moorish standard. {Die. del Leng. Cast, in voc. Ducado, Castellano.) In 
 the Liber Censuum a payment from the " Ecclesia St. Cerni" is entered at p. 889, as " x. sol. 
 pip. vel. 2 Anfusini ;" and at p. 898, as " xv. sol. pip. vel. 2 Alfonsini." One of these entries, 
 apparently the first, must be the error of a copyist, through which the Anfusinus has been 
 sometimes supposed to have been a difTerent coin from the Alfonsinus.
 
 MORABETIN AND EARLY SPANISH CURRENCY. 59 
 
 the numerous dinars. It was also worth 12 pepions, which would iden- 
 tify the weight of the two coins, at the existing proportion of 12 to 1, 
 giving to the pepion in the 14tli century a value of about two-thirds of 
 a grosso, or 8 den. tournois. The Pepion (pigeon), once a coin of fine 
 gold, is said by the Spanish authorities of the 16th century to have been 
 replaced in the currency by the Burgales, a coin of inferior quality ; but 
 the " old burgales" was " bona moneta" in 1290, for " 26,000 marabotini 
 de bona moneta, vid. veterura Burgalensium" were at that time worth 
 7160 livres tournois, giving the burgales a value of about 6 sol. tournois, 
 or 7 sol. 6 den. in the time of Cabraspino, a little less than the malaquin 
 or pepion in gold.-^ Both pepion and burgales, like the alfonsin, were 
 evidently oboli aurei, all the earlier coins that issued from the mints of 
 the Christian princes of Spain being apparently of this smaller type. 
 Highest upon the list of Cali)raspino stands the " Dnpla, magna, lata 
 Saracenorum," valued at 30 Duplae, or double maravedis, and evidently a 
 double dinar, approaching very closely to the standard of the English 
 gold-noble of the same period."'^ 
 
 The silver marabotin or Maravedi was supposed to be worth 10 
 dineros, and was evidently a maille d'argenf, representing in silver the 
 obolus aureus of 10 dirhems, just as the Dupla was the silver representa- 
 
 ^ Le Blanc, p. 168. The pepion could have hardly been a gold coin when the Liher Cen- 
 suum was compiled at the close of the 12th century, a,\\i\ fifteen passed for tivo Alfonsins. 
 
 * This large Saracen coin, containing about 125 gr. tr. of fine gold, was probably a double 
 dinar of Egypt. Pegolotti gives to the " bezant of Egypt" a value of a sixth more than the 
 
 (54X7 \ 
 — ^— or) 63 gr. tr. of fine gold. He also estimates the weight of the 
 
 Florentine oz. of 8 florins at 6 bezants of 24 carats and 16'75 carats, evidently a very exact 
 
 calculation. The Florentine lb. of 96 florins, lighter by 4 florins than the Tower standard of 
 
 100, or in the proportion of 24 to 25, was thus the Tournois pound-weight of 51 84 gr. tr., giving 
 
 /432X-4 \ 
 to the bezant here alluded to a weight of ( i^o.-f. o"") 64*5 gr. tr., with a carat of 2"6875 gr. 
 
 tr. As a bezant, according to Frescobaldi, was worth, about the year 1384, a fourth more than 
 the Venetian sequin, or about 67 '5 gr. tr. of fine gold, if his estimate is correct, and it tallies 
 exactly with the calculations of Cabraspino, the Byzantine hyperpyrus must have remained at 
 the full standard when Pegolotti was writing in the middle of the century, and the bezant of 
 his calculation must have been the dinar of Egypt, a florin and a sixth probably representing 
 its ordinary value in Europe {Cathay, vol. ii. note A). The dinar of the early khaliis seems to 
 have been generally a little lighter than the Byzantine solidus, for three hahhas, according to 
 Al-Makrizi (quoted by Marsden) were deducted from the original standard at a very early 
 period, and Maimonides, writing in the 12th century, gives 61 habbas to the dirhem of Egypt. 
 The present standard of the dirhem, as a weight, throughout Turkey, Syria, Egypt, and Bar- 
 bary, and the Mocha coffola in Arabia, is invariably 16 killos, or carats, and 64 grains, giving 
 24 carats and 96 grains to the mithcal, which thus represents theoretically the old standard of 
 the solidus of Constantinople. Assuming the habba to have represented the f/rain, or unit of 
 weight, rather than an actual barley-corn, and that the dirhem of Egypt in tlie 1211) century 
 weighed f^ grains of the Byzantine standard, 15"25 Byzantine keratia would give a dirhem of 
 43 gr. tr., with a carat of 2*6875 gr. tr., and a dinar of 64"5 gr. tr. In this case tlie standard 
 of Egypt in the 12th century corresponds with the calculations of Pegolotti in the fourteenth. 
 The reduction in the standard of the khalifs may be traced, probably, to the custom, from time 
 immemorial in the East, of calculating by the " hundred coins," or mina; for 96 solidi, or an 
 equivalent weight of gold — two marcs, or a pound of 16 oz. — divided in this manner, would 
 
 give ( ' =) 100 dinars of 64'S gr. tr., or 50 to the marc.
 
 60 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 
 
 tive of the aureus marabotinus, or dinar of 20 dirliems. According to 
 Frescobaldi, the diremo was woi'th a Venetian grosso, of which 24 
 passed for a sequin ; and as the Ducato di Zeccha and the bezant were 
 in the proportion oifour andj'ive, according to the same authority writ- 
 ing about 1384, thus identifying the standards of the sequin and florin of 
 his days, the Venetian grosso was evidently a maille or obolus, and both 
 dirhem and maravedi had shrunk in the fourteenth century into this 
 smaller type, corresponding with an old sterling penny.^ The maravedi 
 de oro is said to have passed in the reign of Alfonso the Wise for sz'j; 
 old raaravedis, and as in the time of Cabraspino the dobla castellano 
 was worth 12 dupte, the castellano or alfonsin would have passed for 
 six, and the duplas may thus be identified with the maravedi viejo, the 
 argenteus marabotinus, or type of the silver dirhem of the old Mora- 
 betin standard, in the thirteenth century. The actual coin in circula- 
 tion in 1356 was the Coronatus, or Cornado^ first coined, on account of 
 the depreciation of the dinero, by Alfonso xi. in 1331, each cornado con- 
 taining 5 oboli, or malles, and 6 cornados passing for a maravedi. 
 Three cornados subsequently went to the Uanco, which was thus origin- 
 ally an obolus of the maravedi, probably deriving both name and origin 
 from the era in which the latter coin became the maravedi prieto — 
 black money. The bianco was next coined at 3 to the maravedi, and 
 before the close of the century had shrank into a cornado. When the 
 Keal, which was not in existence in the time of Cabraspino, was first 
 coined, it was the ochave, or eighth of an oz., thus corresponding with 
 the gold florin and the silver grosso, or Koman giidio, and marking, 
 as it were, the ahaudonraent of the old Moorish standard for another sys- 
 tem of coinage, into which the maravedi was fitted as the third of a real 
 — a scruple. It was probably about this time that the Castilian marc 
 was adapted to the marc de la Rochelle, or French sterling-weight, 
 which from this time forward became the monetary standard of the 
 Spanish mint. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Early English Currency and Standards. 
 
 The influence of the mint of Quentavic seems traceable in the old 
 Kentish currency. It may be gathered from a comparison between the 
 
 ' Cathaji, vol. ii., note A. The standard of the coined dirhem probably varied and fluctu- 
 ated in different quarters, and at different periods, like that of the dinar. For instance, 25 
 dirhems of Egypt passed for a dinar in the time of Ibn Batuta, whose contemporary, Pegulotti, 
 gives the value of the gold coin at from 23 to 25 dirhems. But in the following century 30 
 dirhems, according to Uzzano, passed for a dinar, the value of the gold coin varying from a 
 florin to an eiyldli, and even a third more, whilst in weight it was only 125 carats heavier. 
 When a Florentine oz. of gold contained about 7-5 dinars instead of G"G7, and j)assed for about 
 225 dirhems instead of for about IGG, both dinar and dirhem must have diminished in size and 
 value.
 
 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 61 
 
 Kentish laws and the later codes, that 50 Kentish scillin^s, the Driliien- 
 beah, or kin^'s-wite, and the Mund-hyrd of the archhishop in Kent, 
 were reckoned in Alfred's reign at 3 lbs. of mcerra, or unalloyed, pence — 
 the regius bannus amongst the Franks — or half as much again as the 
 mund-byrd of an eaklerman or a bishop ; and the eame fine may be also 
 traced in the 150 Wessex scillings of fivepence, paid for drawing a 
 weapon in the presence of the archbishop, half as much again as the fine 
 of 100 scillings paid to a bishop for a similar offence. The Kentish 
 scilling was, therefore, a solidus weighing 20 Merovingian, or 15 Caroline 
 pence, an " ore of twenty" containing five thrymsas or silfurs instead of 
 six, or a " solidus of forty deniers," when the " Stuhi halb Scriptolus " of 
 the old Glossary was reckoned as the nummus or sceat ; and it may be 
 supposed to have been identical with the Loth or Semuncia of the pound 
 that seems to have been perpetuated in Bavaria under the name of the 
 Regensburg pound, or Pfennig-pfund, divided as a marc into 8 oz., or 
 schilhngs of 30 pence, each answering to the Mancus of 40 deniers ; the 
 Semisolidus of 15, and the Saiga of 5 pence, corresponding exactly with 
 the respective scillings of Kent and Wessex. In the ore of 20 pence, 
 as well as in the larger acre, the early influence of Kent over the whole 
 of the south-country is distinctly traceable, and in the Laws of Alfred 
 the fines and valuations are reckoned by the scilling of 5 pence, repre- 
 senting the quarter of an oz. of twenty, and corresponding with the 
 Bavarian saiga and the solidus of 5 oboli — or pfennige — in use amongst 
 the Frisons bordering upon the Franks, of which it was the double ; for 
 the substitution of the Caroline penny for the Merovingian denier must 
 have raised the scilling of 20 sceats to the standard oz. of the Tower 
 pound.^ 
 
 Northward of the Thames a different standard is traceable in the 
 pound of 16 sol., corresponding with the Vienna marc divided into 12 
 " ores of sixteen," each subdivided into 4 scillings, and containing ori- 
 ginally 24 light pence. Hence the north-country standard was a f/th 
 lighter than that of the south, and all fines and valuations were less in a 
 similar proportion from being reckoned by the ore of sixteen, and the 
 scilling of fourpence — known at the date of the Norman conquest as the 
 " Sol Engleis que est apele quaer denier " — instead of by the ore of 
 twenty, and the scilling of fivepence. The wergild of the thegn, for 
 example, was reckoned at 1200 scillings, or 25 lbs., which, calculated by 
 the north-country lb. of 16 sol., were only equal to 20 lbs. of the south- 
 country standard ; whilst the mulct of a tenth of the wergild, or six 
 
 ' Leg. JSthelb. 8; Wild. 2; Alf. 3, 15; Ethelred. vii. 6, 8, 11, 12; Cnut. Ecc. ?,. A 
 certain affinity seems to be traceable between the Kentish men, Central Frisons, and West- 
 phalians. By the custom of Engern and Ostphalia, for instance, the widow retained her dowry 
 without any claim upon the personality of her husband ; whilst amongst the Westphalians the 
 dowry went at once to the sons, and half the personality was made over to the widow. " If 
 she bear a live child, and the husband dies first, let her have half the sceat — or personality " — 
 gay the Kentisli codes ; for the feoh went to the child, to be held in ward by the father's kin 
 until be camo of age. Leg. Sax, tit. viii. ix ; Lrr/. yEthel. 78 ; //. and E., 6.
 
 62 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 
 
 score scillings, so often met with In the old codes, and amounting to 
 50 sol. in the south, fell to 40 sol. amongst the Angles beyond the 
 Thames, and is perpetuated in our familiar fine of " forty shillings," re- 
 presenting the ordinary Mng's luite amongst the Angles, the highest 
 penalty that could be levied in any of the lesser courts. From the 
 original practice, however, of giving 24 light pence to the ore of 
 sixteen, each penny was necessarily a third lighter than a penny of ordi- 
 nary weight, which, in the case of the denier of 24 grains, and the 
 pfennig of 16, was easily carried out. Not so, however, with the Caro- 
 line penny of 32 grains, for, as the wheat-corn is indivisible, the light 
 
 /32x2 \ 
 
 penny only weighed 1-^^^^ — =21 J I 21 grains, and the ore of sixteen, 
 
 weighing in current pence only (24x21 = ) 504 grains, fell 8 grains 
 short of the correct standard of 512. Hence the marc and pound of 
 current pence weighed respectively tioo and three dwts. less than the 
 standard of weight, or 10 sol. 6 den. and 15 sol. 9 den., instead of 10 
 sol. 8 den. and 16 sol. The ore of current pence penetrated into Ireland, 
 where it may be recognised in the uinge of 504 wheat-corns ; and it is 
 easily traceable in the Galanas, or wergild, paid amongst the Welch, 
 with whom the Boneddig, for example, was valued at 63 cows, each 
 reckoned at 60 pence, giving a wergild of 15 lbs. 15 sol., or 20 lbs. of 
 16 sols., each weighing in current pence only 15 sol. 9 den. With the 
 almost universal prevalence of the Caroline penny, the lighter pence 
 must have disappeared from circulation, but they left their mark for a 
 time upon every mint in Western Europe. Tico pence continued to be 
 added to the marc, three to the lb. of current pence, long after the 
 original reason for doing so had ceased to exist, and by the regulations 
 of Edward i., when the lb. of 16 sol. had ceased to be acknowledged as 
 a moneyer's standard in England for at least three centuries, the lb. 
 of account of Easterling money was still bound to iceigh 20 sol. 3 dwt., 
 the difference between the sterling weight of France and Spain, and that 
 of Germany and England, evidently arising out of the omission or reten- 
 tion of these pence. The Marc de la Kochelle, for instance, the standard 
 of sterling w^eight in the old French mint, weighed tivo dwts. less than 
 the Tower marc, whilst the marc of Augsburg weighed tiuo dwts. more, 
 and the standard of the Copenhagen mint is three pence over a lb. of 
 16 Tower oz. In all these cases the additional pence belonging to the 
 pound of account have been either added to, or subtracted from, the 
 standard of weight, retained in its original accuracy at London and 
 Cologne ; and the custom of so many mints seems to point to a period in 
 which the lighter ore was widely prevalent.^ 
 
 ^ Scotland under her Early Kings, Ap. E. Welch Gicerth ; Stat. 31, Ed. I. Kelly is my 
 authority for standards of weight. The lighter marc of 10 sol. 8 den. weighed 2880 gr. tr., 
 and the addition of 2 oz., or 720 gr. tr. raised it to the Tower standard of 3600 gr. Ir. The 
 marc of current pence weighed (2880 — 45 =) 2835 gr. tr., and the additional two oz. would 
 have raised it to 3555 gr. tr., the standard of the marc de la Rochelle. Such, I imagine, was 
 the origin of the difference between the two standards. A lb. of pence, weighed by the latter,
 
 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 63 
 
 Of the three types of the early English coinage which are recognised 
 by numismatists under the names of Sceatta., Sfyca, and Penny, the 
 sceatta may be supposed to represent the earliest coinage in pure, the 
 styca in base metal. The average weight of about seventy sceattas is 
 given at " about 17 grains (Troy), some weighing as much as 20 grains, 
 others not more than 12 or 13," or in the proportion of 2 to 3, of the 
 pfennig to the denier, of the light to the ordinary penny. From a coin 
 of the Northumbrian ^thelred, who died in 848, a sceatta in fine silver, 
 but " in all other respects like his usual stycas," it may be inferred that 
 the pure and alloyed coins, differing only in value, were identical in type 
 and weight, resembling in this respect the log-pening and pening-vegin 
 of Norway. In an age in which all money was more or less measured 
 by weight, when an ore of pure silver passed for four or eight ores of 
 adulterated metal, such a course was necessary to avoid confusion. The 
 sceatta and the styca then may be supposed to represent respectively the 
 pure and adulterated coinage struck upon the type of the denarii of the 
 Merovingian period, but upon the accession of the Austrasian House, or 
 soon afterwards, the mint at Quentavic ceased to issue coins of this 
 description, and accordingly no trace of either sceatta or styca will be 
 found in Southumbrian England after the middle of the eighth century. 
 They continued to be coined beyond the Humber for another century, 
 until the invasion of the Danes, and the Northumbrian kings may have 
 retained the distinctive type of their coinage as a sort of protest against 
 the ascendancy of the South. ^ 
 
 Offa, or perhaps ^thelbald, seems to have been the earliest sovereign 
 
 to introduce the penny of the Austrasian type into England. According 
 
 to the authority already quoted, an average of forty of Ofifa's coins, which 
 
 /4320 \ 
 were weighed, amounted to 18 gr. tr., which would give (-^ro-= ) 240 
 
 to the lb. ; and, as the coins of his contemporary, Jaenbert, Archbisho]) 
 of Canterbury, are of the same weight, it may be supposed that the 
 Mercian king, following the example of the great Kaisar, adopted a 
 current pound of 240 pence. If the " Mercian wergilds" may be trusted, 
 
 would have only been equal to 237 esterlins of the correct type, or s!x pence short of the pound 
 of account ; and the custom of adding six pence to every lb. in payments made ad scalam in 
 the twelfth century may, perhaps, be traced to this cause— that is to say, a lb. of Esterling 
 pence, at the Rochelle standard, represented a lb. of current pence upon the old princijjle, 
 3 dwts. short of the full weight ; whilst a lb. of Esterling pence at the standard of London and 
 Cologne represented full weight, and 243 esterlings represented the lb. of account, full weight. 
 Thus it would be necessary to add six dwts. to the lb. of current pence, to raise it to the full 
 lb. of account. 
 
 1 Hawkins' Silver Coinage, pp. 18, 42. — The weight of yl^thelred's coin is 18 gr. tr., or 
 
 ( — - =) 240 to the light lb., so that the Northumbrians would appear to have adapted the 
 
 subdivisions of the Caroline lb. to their own lighter standard. A solitary sceatta of the East 
 Anglian Beonna, a contemporary of Offa, weighing 15'5 gr. tr., jjoirits to the existence in 
 that quarter of a coinage of the lighter type, before the introduction of the penny into that 
 part of England — the result of Mercian ascendancy.
 
 64 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 
 
 30,000 sceattas were equal to 120 lbs. of 20 sol., or 150 lbs. of 16 sol., 
 which would give 200 pence to the latter ; and the heavier coins of Offa's 
 successors, generally reaching 21 gr. tr., seems to point to the existence 
 of such a practice. Under Egbert and his son, the weight of the We.st 
 Saxon penny rose to the Caroline standard, their coins averaging 22 
 gr. tr., and from this time forward the variations in the weight of the 
 current pence may generally be attributed to the circumstances of the 
 kingdom, though they often seem to correspond with fluctuations in the 
 standard of the currency upon the opposite side of the Channel. In the 
 troubled times of Egbert's grandsons, the penny deteriorated in purity 
 and shrunk in weight, the heavier coins of Alfred's later years telling of 
 a return to a more prosperous era, whilst the moerra prcninga, insisted 
 upon in his laws, seem to point to a previous era of debasement ; and it 
 may have been in consequence of this deterioration, that, in his agree- 
 ment with Guthrum, Dane and Twelfhyndman are reckoned " in gold," 
 — a sure sign of a debased currency. As most of the pence of Charles 
 the Bald reach to nearly 32 gr. Paris, or about 26 gr. tr., the influence 
 of the imperial mint seems traceable in Alfred's heavier pence.^ 
 
 In the mulct and in the mint, the progress of the royal authority is 
 traceable over England. The tine of a Hundred in the Danelage, of six 
 score ores of sixteen pence, or 8 lbs., is divided in the so-called Laws of 
 the Confessor into the king's share of 5 lbs., and the ealderman's or 
 sheriS"s share of 2 lbs. 10 sol, the West Saxon hing's-hot of Alfred's 
 Laws, and the ordinary West Saxon king's-ivite of 120 scillings, telling 
 of the authority of Alfred's race over the North country; whilst the share 
 of the Decanus, or head of the Tenmantale, assessed at 10 sol. or 30 
 Anglian scillings, the lesser tuite, or ordinary fine of the Hundred-court, 
 points out the fact that, though the " relationship to the king " alluded 
 to in Canute's laws, affected all who were connected with the royal court 
 as king's-thegns — whose tenure was by reich-dienst — the community 
 remained uninfluenced by the change, and the lesser courts continued 
 to be regulated by earlier custom. So in the " commoda ad valentiam 
 quinqne solidorum ad minus," and the " pa3na sexaginta soliclorum" of 
 Glanville, may be traced the half-mansus of the Jus Benificii and the 
 king's-wite at the Frank standard of 60 sol., which is first seen in the 
 king's-hot of 6 lbs. in the Conqueror's Laws ; whilst in the court of the 
 Count 40 sol., and in the court of the Hundred, and of " tons icous ki 
 curt unt en Engleterre, xxx solz en solz Engleis," continued to be paid 
 according to earlier custom. Uniformity in the coinage was first insisted 
 upon in the laws of Athelstan, in whose reign the pence of a south 
 country king appear for the first time with the mint-mark of York. 
 Both the Kentish prelates, and the Abbot of St. Augustine's, possessed 
 at this time the right of coinage, but in no other quarter of Southern 
 
 ^ Hawkins, p. 24, 50 ; Le Blanc, p. 124. The lighter standard was evidently retained 
 throughout the North country until the extinction of the Anglian kingdoms, in conicquence of 
 the invasion of the Danes.
 
 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. G5 
 
 England was a subject alloived to exercise a privilege which the West 
 ISaxon line of kings seem to have long retainea as peculiarly a royal 
 prerogative. " Let no man have a moneyer except the king," are tbe 
 words of Ethelred's agreement with the Anglo-Danes of the Five Burghs 
 ofMercia; and though Chichester possessed three "cunei"inthe reign 
 of John, two belonging to the king, one to the bishop, only two moneyers 
 were apportioned to the same city by the regulations of Athelstan, both 
 belonging to the king. The privilege, however, of a bishop's moneyer, 
 which is assigned in the Domesday Survey to Hereford and Norwich, as 
 well as the coins struck by the Archbishops of York, seem to point to a 
 right of coinage belonging to certain leading ecclesiastics in the king- 
 doms of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, as well as in Kent.^ 
 
 The coins of Canute, though of pure metal, are often light, some 
 weighing but little over 12 gr. tr. ; but as the Scandinavian pening of 
 30 to the ore would have only reached about 135 gr. tr., these coins may 
 represent the pening-vegin of the north rather than the old English 
 penny of the lighter type, especially as they do not seem to have been 
 issued by Canute's sons, whose rule was confined to England. By this 
 time the House of Capet reigned over the Western Franks, and their 
 deniers, averaging at first from 23 to 24 gr. Paris, or between 188 and 
 19"6 gr. tr., were fast shrinking into the old Merovingian type. The 
 coins of the Confessor vary very much in weight, but the value of the 
 I)Ound by tale, towards the close of his reign, may be estimated from an 
 entry in Domesday, in which the King's manor of Bosham is rated at 
 " 40 lbs., and it is worth the same amount now, but it pays 50 lbs. by 
 weight and assay, which are wortli 65 lbs.," thus giving the value of 
 
 f FTj — I 312 current pence to the lb. by weight and assay, or at 
 
 the rate of 218*4 to the Paris marc de Troyes, corresponding with the 
 standard of Philip i. The mints upon the opposite side of the Channel 
 seem to have still exercised an influence upon the English coinage. 
 Numbers of the Confessor's coins of his earlier types have been found in 
 the Scandinavian kingdoms, few, if any, of the later, which may be 
 ascribed to the abolition of the Danegeld in 1052, when the Litsmcn 
 were disbanded — the foreign force that guarded the realm of England for 
 the Danish kings— who were evidently accustomed to carry off their pay 
 to the north. The marc supplanted the pound as the standard of weight 
 in France during the reign of Philip i., and the currency began to be 
 depreciated, an example not followed in England, for any length of time, 
 before the introduction of a gold coinage in the reign of Edward iii. It 
 would appear as if, from the era of this depreciation in the French cur- 
 rency, the English coinage ceased to be influenced by the French minis. 
 
 1 Leg. Conf. xxvii. ; Lp.cj. Will. xlii. xlvii. ; Leg. Alh. 84; Etkclrcd, iii. 8; Ellis, 
 Introd. i. p. 176; Glaus. VI., John, m. 1. So anionj^st the Old Saxons, tliu iiilioduction 
 of the imperial authority raised the Jlochste-gewettc to tlio Frank standard ol' GO bol., whilst for 
 all causes tried by the courts of the duchy {infra patriam), the highest gewctte remained at 
 43 sol., or four times the amount of the ordinary fine of 12 sol., as amongst the ibLmd Saxous. 
 
 £
 
 66 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 
 
 The coins of the Norman kings, though of pure silver, are of light weight. 
 Stephen's reign was an era of confusion, and when Henry ii. issued his 
 Nova Moneta towards the clo^e of his reign, 215 of his new pence were 
 worth the old pound by tale. From this time forward the weight and 
 currency of England were both founded upon the ]ienny of 32 wheat- 
 corns, which acquired the name of Esterling, or German penny, from 
 representing the penny of the Pondus Caroli Magni, the monetary 
 standard of the Empire.^ 
 
 The standard of London was confirmed rather than established by the 
 regulations in the Institutes of Ethelred, enacting that " every pound 
 shall be marked to the weight of the pound by which our pecunia is 
 taken, so ihoX fifteen ores go to the pound."'^ London weight was again 
 confirmed by Magna Charta, and it may be seen from the Statutes of 
 Henry iii. and Edward i. that it was based upon the Sterling penny of 
 32 wheat-corns, 12 dwts. going to the shilling, 20 dwts. to the oz. ; " and 
 every thousand contains x. c, and every hundred vi. xx.," continues the 
 Statute of Edward, in reference to certain articles of commerce, so that 
 the hundred was still sometimes reckoned at six score, whilst the gross of 
 twelve dozen retains the recollection of the great hundred. The pound 
 of pence contained 20 sol., but for ordinary commercial purposes it was 
 raised to 25, and divided either into 12 oz. of 25 pence, or 15 oz. of 20 ; 
 and this heavier pound, to which Fleta gives the name of Libra Blerca- 
 toria, was in ordinary use in 1419, when the Liber Alhus was compiled ; 
 for no " avoir du poys" was to be sold " sinoun par Balaunce de I'Estand- 
 arde," which, by the custom of London, was " the lb. of 15 oz." The 
 Merchant's pound appears in the Scottish Statutes of the Guild under the 
 name of " King David's pound," and may have been introduced by the 
 king as the standard of southern Scotland, destined to supersede " Caith- 
 ness weight," probably the Yeitzslo lb., or silver-weight, of the Northmen, 
 which was apparently the standard of the north. After the middle of the 
 fourteenth century, the pounil sterling ceased to be the standard of weight. 
 From 1351 to 1411 it only contained 16 sol. of fine silver, shrinking 
 between the latter date and 1464 to 8 oz., or a marc, and then still further 
 to 10 sol. 8 den. (the old light marc of 8 oz. of sixteen pence), or little 
 more than 6 oz. In a Statute of Henry vii., at the close of the fifteenth 
 century, it was enacted that the bushel was to weigh 8 gallons of wheat, 
 the gallon 8 lbs. Troy, each pound containing 12 oz. of Troy weight, each 
 ounce 20 sterlings, each sterling 32 wheat-corns, " according to the old 
 laws of the land ;" an Irish Act, dated in 1483, also alluding to " the 
 pound of Troy-weight of London, to be used in this land." Thus, as the 
 sterling pound shrunk into a money of account, the standard of weight 
 kept at the Tower seems to have gradually acquired the name of " Troy- 
 
 1 Le Blmic, p. 146-150; Ellis, Introd. j. p. 164. The " pund be getale" is distinguished 
 from the " puud be gewihte " in some Anglo-Saxon wills as early as the reign of Ethelred. 
 Thorpe, Diplom., p. 558, 572, 577. 
 
 2 Ethelred, vi. y.
 
 EARLY ENGLISH CURRENCY AND STANDARDS. 67 
 
 weight of London," or " London Troys," to distinguish it from the current 
 pound ; probably because the standard of weight in France, the Paris 
 Poid de Marc, was known as " the Pound Troy of Paris," or " Paris Troys," 
 to distinguish it from the Livre Parisis and the Livre Tournois. London 
 weight, or the Troy pound, was raised by Henry viii. to its present 
 standard in 1526, and thus the true Sterling standard, or Tower pound, 
 latterly known as London Troys, became a thing of the past, just about 
 the time when Charles v. confirmed its equivalent at Cologne, as the 
 monetary standard of Germany.^ 
 
 By introducing " French Troys" into Scotland, James vi. assimilated 
 the Scottish stanclard to the English ; for the old " Commercial pound " 
 of 7600 gr. tr. — Dutch Troys rather than French — was long in use upon 
 either side of the Tweed ; and after the earlier standard of the mint was 
 replaced by the modern Troy pound, the commercial standard of France 
 and Holland seems to have been substituted for the old weight used for 
 lighter goods, or Avoirs du Pois, the "merchant's pound" of 15 oz., 
 whilst the "Winchester bushel" supplanted the Loudon measure. 
 Beckoning the imperial bushel at 80 lbs. liquid measure, or 60 lbs. of 
 wheat, the imperial gallon contains 7 lbs. 8 oz. of wheat, or 8 lbs. of 
 15 oz. ; and, by a similar calculation, the Winchester bushel gives a 
 pound of 6742 gr. tr. ; the bushel of Elizabeth a pound of 6726 gr. tr. 
 Hence it is evident that, by the substitution of the Winchester for the 
 London standard, the pound of 15 oz. of 20 dwts., or the old weight for 
 Avoirs du Pois (= 6750 gr. tr.), was established as the basis of reckoning 
 in the place of London Troys, or the Tower pound of 12 oz, of 20 dwts. 
 (= 5400 gr. tr.) — in other words, the South-country pound of 15 "ores 
 of twenty" supplanted the Anglian pound of 15 " ores of sixteen," — a 
 fact which must be always borne in mind in calculating the lighter 
 weights and measures which were in existence before the sixteenth 
 century. The Avoirdupois pound was raised from 15 to 16 oz. at some 
 uncertain period, probably during the reign of Elizabeth, when it was 
 first established as an authorized standard weight, though the ounce is 
 12'5 gr. tr. short of the original weight of the old London standard.- 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 Old Scottish weight, like old Scottish burgh law, retains the impress of a Northum- 
 brian origin. The old Newcastle Kcd of coals contained 8 chaldrons by Newcastle, 
 about 15^ by London weight, the north-country standard being evidently, in theory, 
 double the weight of that of London. The Scottish Firlot, or quarter-boll, answered 
 to the English bushel, and, as the Scottish chalder contained 64 firlots, whilst the 
 
 1 Stat. 51 Jlen. III., 31 Ed. I., 12 Ilcn. VII. ; Lib. Alb. i. p. 588 ; Act. Pari Scot. i. p. 5, 
 309. Compare Ruding aiul Hawkins. 
 
 2 This is further shown from the fact that a cwt. of 112 lbs. avilp. = 144 lbs. Tower, or a 
 great bundred— a gross of lbs.— by the old London standard. The standard of weight in the
 
 G8 NOTES. 
 
 English chaldron contains 32 bushels, the Scottish measure evidently represents the old 
 Northumbrian standard. Northward of the Forth the boll was considerably heavier 
 than the standard of southern Scotland, owinif, perhaps, to the influence of Caithness 
 weight, which was probably akin to the Scandinavian silver weight, or Veitszlo pound 
 of If) nz. As the earliest known pound-weight in Scotland seems to have been the 
 Caithness standard, the Scots, like the Irish and Norsemen of early days, may have 
 ignored the pound-weight, and used some equivalent of the Irish tinde, or the " hundred 
 ores " — the cwt. of ounces — before they adopted the standard with which the Norsemen 
 replaced their original lighter weight. Tron weight simply represented the public 
 standard for weighing heavier goods. It may be gathered from the Liber Albus that all 
 goods weighing less than two London stones, or 25 lbs., paid fcsagc, and were weighed 
 by the pound for avoirs du j^ois. Beyond that weight they paid tronage, and were 
 weighed by the king's Tron, which was brought to the seller's door, under the charge 
 of the Pondcrarius, or Poyndcr, at the cost of the purchaser. From the reign of 
 Ethelred, perhaps earlier, Trons were marked to the king's weight, and seem to have 
 been supplied to the English burghs when required ; but the innumerable variations 
 in the Tron weight of Scotland point to the want of a commercial capital to supply a 
 common standard, each burgh apparently adopting its own. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 Most of the names which were in use amongst our ancestors for measures of a 
 certain fixed capacity, the Amber or amphora, the Sester or sextarius, the Mitta — Muid, 
 Mud, or Modius — the Mina and the Statera, tell of a Roman origin ; whilst a certain 
 vagueness seems to have attached originally to the Scam, the Keel, the Wey, the 
 Fother, the Eskippa, and other names which appear to have been derived from a 
 Teutonic source. The Amber, which survives apparently in the German Ohm, the 
 Scandinavian Alim, was a measure of 4 bushels in the thirteenth century, by the London 
 standard, -whilst from a passage in a Kentish will of the ninth century — " xxx. ambers 
 of good Welsh ale, which are equal to xv. mittas " ^ — the Mitta contained two Ambers, 
 
 hands of the seller has a natural tendency to diminish, and as 112 lbs., merchant's weight, are 
 only equal to 140 lbs. Tower, by reckoning them as a great hundred of 144 lbs,, the oz. shrunk 
 from 450 gr. tr. to 437'5 gr. tr. (450 : 437'5 : : 144 : 140). When avoirdupois from a customary 
 became a statutory standard, sixteen of these lighter ounces seem to have been given to the 
 standard of ordinary weight, thus raising the cwt. to its original amount, answering to 144 lbs. 
 Tower, or tiie old Sterling and London Troy standard. 
 
 ^ Thorpe, Diplom. p. 460. This represents the allowance given to the monks of Canterbury 
 on the anniversary of the death of the original donor, a mitta of honey and two of wine being 
 also provided for the same occasion. An ox, 4 sheep, 2 flitches, 5 geese, 10 fowls, and 10 lbs. 
 of cheese, or, if the anniversary fell on a fast-day, a wey of cheese and "fish, butter, and eggs, 
 what can be got," represent the solid portion of the entertainment. Unless the measures were 
 smaller than in the thirteenth century, the proportion of liquid seems considerable, whether the 
 mitta is reckoned at 64 gallons or 80; giving at the lower standard 600 imperial gallons of ale, 
 750 at the higher, with a chance of 80 or 100 gallons of wine in addition. A monk's ordinary 
 daily allowance at Abingdon was a gallon of ale, or 5 imperial pints, and the same allowance 
 was given to many of the fishermen and other servants of the See of Eochester, some getting 
 more, others less. A wider margin, however, must be given for festivals, to judge from the rule 
 laid down in Theodore's Penitential, that if a priest or monk got exceedingly drunk " pro gaudio 
 in Natale Domini, aut iu Pascha, aut pro alicujus Sanctorum commemoratione, et tunc plus non 
 accepitquam decretum est a senioribus, non nocet," "or if the hishop ordered it,'' the rule goes 
 on to say, " non nocet, unless the bishop gets drunk as well." A bishop with a seasoned head 
 must have been popular in his diocese ('fheod. Pcen. xxvi. 9). The Custumal also alludes to 
 " a monk's loaf," and a "man-at-arms' loaf" — panis monnchi and panis armigeri — though it 
 does not say which was the largest.
 
 NOTES. G9 
 
 jinswering by the London standard to a quarter, or the fourth of a chaldron. Kelham, 
 however, gives 10 bushels to the Mitta, which, if he is correct, would answer to the 
 south-country standard, which seems still traceable in the Wey of five quarters, 10 
 combs and 40 bushels, London or the old standard measure being represented by the 
 chaldron of four quarters, 8 combs and 32 bushels. In Kent, according to the 
 Rochester Custumal, 5 Eskippas went to the mina, 2 to the quarter, and 8 to the 
 seam, 3 Seams making a comb ; but there is no clue to the size of the Eskippa, though 
 the name seems akin to the French chopine, or 8cho2)pen. 'In liquid measure, 2 Pots 
 made a gallon, 2 Gallons a boll in the same quarter. The Sester of London was a 
 measure of four gallons, according to Fleta, and 52 sesters of pure wine went to the 
 cask. The Fother was a cart-load, the Seam was apparently the load of a pack-horse, 
 and, according to the Statute of Edward i., a sack of wool and a seam of wheat ought 
 both to weigh 28 stones, or about 3 lbs. over 19 stone by the present standard. When 
 the gallon of wine weighed 8 lbs., and the pint was a lb. of the Tower standard, measures 
 were much smaller and lighter than at the present time. The pint, for instance, in 
 liquid measure answered to about 12'3 oz. avdp. instead of 20 oz., and the gallon would 
 have held about 98 oz. 8 dr., instead of IGO oz., or a little under 5 imperial pints, at 
 which it may be reckoned for all practical purposes ; whilst the London bushel of G4 lbs. 
 
 Tower-weight, contained t — ^ = 49-5 or) as nearly as possible 50 lb. avdp. of 
 
 wheat, or five-sixths of the present standard. Customary weight and measure often differed 
 from the King's standard, and were generally below it. The Sester " majoris mensuriX'" 
 is occasionally distinguished in Domesday from the Sester " of the burgh," and the 
 Guildhall foot was shorter than the standard of the King's yard. The privilege of using 
 a customary or private standard seems to have been occasionally an object of desire, 
 for the Bishop of Worcester is represented as purchasing Ceolmund's haya in London, 
 with the liberty of having "medium et pondera et mensuram, sicut in portu meo est," 
 for 60 scilUngs, or a pound, the price paid originally by Ceolmund, with a yearly rent 
 of 12 pence to the King. The charter is marked by Kemble as of doubtful authenticity, 
 which only tells stUl more strongly for the supposed advantages of the privilege.^ 
 
 The existence of another system seems also traceable in the Church-mitta mentioned 
 in one of the charters of Edward the Elder. When Gregory the Great limited the size 
 of the modius in use upon the Church-lands to 18 sextarii, he probably inaugurated the 
 system of measurement which seems to have become the ecclesiastical standard, par- 
 ticularly in those countries in which ecclesiastics and their dependants so long continued 
 to live by Roman law, and the great body of the laity by Teutonic custom. The size 
 of the authorized Ancing is carefully laid down in the Capitularies, 40 perches by 4, 
 measured by a pole of 10 feet, evidently the Roman dcecmpcda ; the same measurement 
 appearing in the Bavarian laws as the standard of the Church-lands in that quarter, 
 and indeed as a general standard, for the Bavarian ruthe, or measuring-pole, was 10 feet 
 in length. The Ancing was a corvee or measure of work, as well as a surface-measure, 
 defining the amount of labour to be performed by the dependants of the Church, just 
 as the modius of 18 sextarii, or 22 lbs., was the measure by which they paid their corn- 
 rent and other similar dues. The mention of a ChurcJi-mitta seems to point to the in- 
 troduction of this ecclesiastical standard into England, and tlic Rochester Custumal 
 appeals to " the Archbishop's pound " as a recognised standard of weight ; but the liigh 
 sense of prerogative exhibited by the House of Egbert, and by none seemingly more 
 than by the great Alfred, appears to have soon placed the standard of the Church upon 
 a level with other "customary" weights and measures. "By the Confessor's direction, 
 and by his own measure, it is justly fitting that the thralls work for their hlafords over 
 aU the district in which he shrives. And it is right that there be not any nioasuring- 
 rod longer than another, but all regulated by the Confessor's measure ; and lot every 
 measure m his shrift-district, and every weight be, by his direction, very riglitly regulated ; 
 
 1 Ellis, Introd. vol. i. pp. 133, 134 ; Cust. lioff] pp. 32-35 ; Lib. f'list. fMiid. vol. 1. p. 117 ; 
 Cod. Dip. 280.
 
 •0 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 and if there be any dispute, let the bishop arbitrate. And let every burg-raeasure, and 
 every balance for weighing, be, by his (the bishop's) direction and furthering, very 
 exact." Thus the Church was the protector of the tlarall, but the measure was the Gyrd 
 of the King, and the weight " the pound in which our pecunia is received." ^ 
 
 MEDIEVAL STANDAEDS. 
 
 28 rS'''^ins= 2 oboli := 1 denier. 
 
 96 \ 
 
 112 J 
 
 288 \ 
 
 336 J 
 
 576 1 
 
 672/ 
 
 23U4) 
 
 2G88J" 
 
 46081 
 
 5376 J 
 
 6912 i 
 
 8064 j 
 
 = 24 
 = 48 
 = 192 
 = 384 
 = 576 
 
 = . 4 =r 1 tremissis. 
 
 = 12 = 3 = 1 semuncia. 
 
 = 24 = 6 = 2 = 1 oz. 
 
 = 96 = 24= 8= 4=1 half-marc of 
 
 = 192 = 48 = 16 = 8 = 2=1 marc of 
 
 6 sol. 
 
 7 sol. 
 12 sol. 
 14 sol. 
 
 , = 288 = 72 = 24 = 12 = 3 = U = 1 pound of | ^j 
 
 18 sol. 
 sol. 
 
 B. 
 
 16 grains 
 
 64 „ 
 
 192 ,, = 24 
 
 384 „ = 48 
 
 1536 ,. = 192 
 
 3072 „ = 384 
 
 4608 ,, =57G 
 
 2 hellers ^ 
 
 8 ,. = 
 
 1 pfennig. 
 4 = 1 flamske. 
 
 12 = 3 = 1 loth (sol. of 2 trem.) 
 24 = 6 = 2 =: 1 ore (Austrasian sol.) 
 96 = 24 = 8 = 4=1 half-marc of 4 sol. 
 192 = 48 = 16 = 8 = 2 = 1 marc of 8 sol. 
 288 = 72 = 24 = 12 = 3 = H = 1 pound of 12 sol. 
 
 ^Greg. Epist. L. 1, c. 42 ; Pertz, Leg. vol. i. p. 216; Leg. Eaio. tit. i. 13; Lnst. Pol. 
 vii. ; Tliorpe, Diplom. p. 144. Neither the modius of Isidore, nor its subdivisions, correspond 
 with the old Roman standard, which, however, was still in existence when he wrote, under the 
 name of the Italian modius, three of which, as of old, went to the Amphora or Pes Quadratus 
 of wine. The measures which seem to have been in ordinary use in his time bear a close 
 resemblance to the standard of Gregory, tlie medimnus of 220 lbs., and the modius of 44 lbs., 
 corresponding exactly with the modius of 22 lbs., which would have been an ordinary or minor 
 modius, the tenth of the decemmodia, or large medimnus. Isidore recognises two systems, 
 giving the original standard of 10 drachmae to the cyathus, defining the cotyla as a hemina 
 of 6 cyathi or 60 drachmfe, and then describing the hemina as a pound, the sextarius as two 
 pounds, the lesser measures following the older, the larger corresponding with the later system. 
 Thus Isidore starts afresh, as it were, from the hemina of a pound-weight as the basis for the 
 measures of capacity in ordinary use. Our own statute pint has always been a pound of 12 oz. 
 from the time when it first appears. Cotgrave reckons the quart at 32 oz., giving a pound of 
 16 to the pint of his days ; Whiston calculates in " pints or pounds," and the imperial pint of 
 wheat still represents a pound of 15 oz. Thus before the days of Isidore a system seems to 
 lia\e grown up in tlie old Roman provinces which was based upon the pound-weight of wheat, 
 supplanting the older standard, which, to judge from the name of Hemina, must have once 
 been based upon a Minn of " six score " or 120 coins, and this novel system appears to have 
 been closely connected with the sfandanl of Gregory, representing apparently the standard of 
 ecclesiastical Rome.
 
 64 grains ^ 8 hellers =: 4 
 
 pfennig = 
 
 256 „ = 32 
 
 „ = 16 
 
 ,, = 
 
 512 „ = 64 
 
 „ = 32 
 
 ,, = 
 
 4096 „ =512 
 
 „ =256 
 
 ,, = 
 
 6144 „ = 768 
 
 „ = 384 
 
 ,, = 
 
 7680 „ = 960 
 
 „ =480 
 
 = 1 
 
 
 32 grains 
 
 =■ 1 penny. 
 
 
 9600 grains 
 
 = 25 sol. 
 
 MEDIEVAL STANDARDS. 71 
 
 a 
 
 1 quent. 
 4 = 1 loth. 
 8=2=1 ore. 
 
 64 = 16 = 8=1 marc of 10 sol. 8 den. 
 96 = 24 = 12 = 1 pound of 16 sol. 
 = 120 = 30 = 15 = 1 pound Tower. 
 384 grains =: 1 solidus. 
 15 oz. = Libra Mercatoria. 
 
 D. 
 
 96 grains = 8 hellers = 4 pfennig =: 1 quent. 
 384 „ = 32 „ = 16 „ =4=1 loth. 
 
 oo'± ,, Oi 3, 1<J ,, '± 1 HHir. 
 
 768 „ = 64 ,, = 32 „ =8= 2 = 1 ore of 2 sol. 
 
 8072 „ = 256 „ =128 „ = 32 = 8 = 4 = 1 half-marc of 8 sol. 
 
 ^1AA CIO oc/^ nA ir^oo f Marc of Vienna. 
 
 6144 ,, =512 ,, =256 ,, = 64 =: 16 = 8 =:2 = < tt. • r n 
 
 " " " ( i nson full-mere. 
 
 4ft crrnins ^^ 1 hrnarl nprmv. .^7fi crmins = 1 Rnlirliia. 
 
 32 grains 
 
 ^ 1 denarius. 
 
 48 „ 
 
 = 1 2 =: 1 scat. 
 
 96 „ 
 
 = 3 = 2 = 1 double 
 
 160 „ 
 
 = 5 = 3i= li = 1 
 
 480 „ 
 
 = 15 = 10 = 5 = 3 
 
 960 „ 
 
 = 30 = 20 = 10 =6 
 
 3840 „ 
 
 = 120 = 80 =40 =24 
 
 7680 „ 
 
 = 240 =160 =80 =48 
 
 48 grains = I broad penny. 576 grains =: 1 solidus. 
 
 E. 
 
 21 grains = 1 light penny. 
 84 „ = 4^1 scilling. 
 504 ,, ^ 24 = 6 = 1 ore of sixteen. 
 4032 ,, =192 = 48= 8 = 1 marc of 10 sol. 6 den. 
 6048 „ = 288 = 72 = 12 = li = 1 pound of 15 sol. 9 den. 
 16 ores of sixteen =: the lb. de Troyes. 
 
 F. 
 
 1 saiga (scilling of Wessex). 
 3= 1 scmi-solidus (scilling of Kent)- 
 2 := 1 solidus (mancus). 
 : 8 = 4 = half-niarc of 10 sol. 
 16 =: 8 =: marc of 20 sol. 
 7 denarii =: 1 tremissa (of the oz. de Troyes). 
 5760 grains = 180 pence =12 semi-solidi = 1 pound of 15 sol. 
 11520 „ =360 ,, =12 solidi = 1 pound of 30 sol. 
 
 G. 
 
 80 grains = 5 hellers =•. 2h pfennig =: 1 Eegensburg penny. 
 
 240 „ = 15 „ = 7^~ „ = 3=1 groschen. 
 
 960 „ = 60 „ = 30 „ = 12=4=1 schilling. 
 
 7680 „ = 480 ,, = 240 ,, = 96 = 32 = 8 = 1 pfenning-pfund. 
 38400 \ _ ( 2400 \ _ j 1200 \ _ f 480 \ _ ^60 > _ ( 40 \ pfund of 
 
 960/" ~X 60/" ~\ 30 / " ~\ 12/~| 4\~\ 1 / black pence. 
 
 IJ. 
 
 1 penings, or 2 feet = 1 ell of Wadmal . 
 40 ,, 8 „ = 4= 1 silfur. 
 
 60 ,, 12 „ = 0= 1J= 1 ore of Wadmal. 
 
 240 „ 48 ,, = 24= 6 = 4 = 1 lialf-marc. 
 
 2 marcs 96 „ = 48 = 12 = 8 = 2=1 marc. 
 5 ,, 240 „ =120 = 30 = 120 = 5 = 2i = ahundrada. 
 
 12 ells = 1 Swedish ore. 96 ells = 1 Swedish man;. 
 48 pence = 4 wede = 1 Prison hreiimerc.
 
 72 MEDIEVAL STANDARDS. 
 
 K. 
 
 8 log. pen. ^ 4 grey pen = 1 pening-vegin. 
 
 24 „ =12 ,, =3= 1 skatt-pening. 
 
 240 „ =120 „ = 30= 3 = 1 ore-vegin. 
 
 4 marcs = 2 marcs =: 120 = 40 = 4 = 1 balf-marc-vegin. 
 
 8 ,, =4 „ =240 = 80 = 8 = 2 = 1 marc-vegin. 
 
 120 skatt penings =: 12 ores. 
 
 240 ,, =3 marcs. 
 
 480 ,, = 6 „ 
 
 1440 ,, =18 „ 
 
 L. 
 
 4 grains = 1 leth-pinginn. 
 3 „ = 2=1 pinginn. 
 
 V-A „ = G = 3 = 1 screpall. 
 
 f^\ j „ = 144 = 72 = 24 = 1 uinge. 
 
 10 lbs. of 15 sol. 9 den. ) _. ,20 1 
 
 10 lbs. Byzantine / I ^= ^ tinde. 
 
 10 lbs. de Troyes = 140 ) 
 
 A. 
 
 The ordinary Byzantine lb., or Libra Occidua, apparently the mint- 
 weight of the Merovingians, and the heavier lb, de Troyes, probably the 
 standard of weight. The half-marc of the lighter lb. was long the 
 standard of the Northmen, and the semuncia represents a solidus of 
 three tremisses and tivelve pence. The influence of the marc de Troyes 
 upon the mint seems first traceable under the later Carlovingians, and 
 the half-marc, which was identical with the Frison little pund of 7 sol., 
 was long the standard of the currency of Northern France as the Livre 
 Parisis. 
 
 B. 
 
 The Byzantine marc, or eight oz. of the Libra Occidua, each weighing 
 24 deniers, divided upon the Wendish principle into a lb, of twelve oz., 
 each weighing 24 pfennige — " ores of sixteen" deniers. The ore is the 
 Austrasian solidus, the loth a solidus of tiuo tremisses, with the equi- 
 valent of the flamske, or Frison groat of tivo sterling pence, representing 
 the treraissis. This was probably the original of the lighter scilling, 
 and before the "twelve punds eerwis," amongst the Frisons, were reckoned 
 by the little pund, it represented a wergild of 1440 solidi, reckoned by 
 
 (2880 \ 
 
 1440 X 2 =-047: = 12 lbs. 1. The half- 
 marc of 4 sol. is traceable in many of the small Frison merks. This 
 standard is conjectural. 
 
 C. 
 
 The light marc of eight, and light pound of twelve, ores of sixteen, 
 the original standard cf the Cologne marc, and of the north of England,
 
 MEDIEVAL STANDARDS. 73 
 
 find probably of Northern Germany. Fifteen ores raised the pound to 
 the weight of the Pondus Caroli Magni, or Great Pound of Cologne, the 
 standard of southern England from the reign of Egbert, the Tower pound 
 of twelve oz. of twenty pence. Fifteen of these heavier oz. made the 
 Libra Mercatoria, the commercial standard in England for "Avoir du 
 poys," until the reign of Henry viir., and known in Scotland as " King 
 David's pound." The addition of a penny to every ore — the ore of the 
 Cologne marc is supposed to weigh 544 instead of 512 each — raised the 
 weight of the Great pound of Cologne to the Troyes standard. If it was 
 added to the lb. of 12 oz., the latter weighed 21 sol. ; if to the lb. of 15 
 oz. it weighed 21 sol. 3 dwts. the familiar lb. of account. The Easter- 
 lings probably rejected the standard and the allegiance of the later Car- 
 lovingians at the same time. 
 
 ^ D. 
 
 The marc of Vienna and Frison full-marc, or marc of eight full 
 ores of 24 pence, weighing 16 sol., or half as much again as the light 
 marc of 10 sol. 8 den., in the proportion of three tremisses to two. The 
 ore and marc of B appear as the loth and half-marc in D. 
 
 E. 
 
 The ore, marc, and lb. of current pence, at one time apparently in 
 general circulation throughout England and northern Germany, and sub- 
 sequently known as Wendish pence. From the use of this currency 
 originated the custom of adding two dwts. to the marc, three to the lb,, 
 to raise their weight to the full standard. 
 
 F. 
 
 The standard of Bavaria, in the twelfth century, retained traditionally 
 by the permission of Charlemagne, representing the lb of 20 sol., divided 
 as a marc, with the mancus or Merovingian " solidus of forty deniers" 
 for the oz. Before the introduction of the Nova Moneta amongst the 
 Saxons and Frisons, the use of this solidus was continued in their inter- 
 course with the Franks, and the custom seems to have been left unaltered 
 in the case of the Bavarians. The Scotus is the broad-penny ; the 
 Double-scat, the thryms, or silfur — known apparently as the Saiga m 
 many parts of Germany at this time. The Bavarian saiga, the equi- 
 valent of the West-Saxon scilling, represents the tremissis of the semi- 
 solidus, weighing 480 grains, the equivalent of the Kentish scilling, which 
 would have been the oz. in a lb. of 15 sol., weighing 5700 grains. In 
 both our standards, Tower and Troy, the oz. is supposed to weigh 480, 
 and the lb. 5760 grains, and a pound of this actual weight, half the full 
 standard of 30 sol., with a marc of 10 sol., the half-marc of the full-marc, 
 may have been the original standard of southein England. In the tre- 
 n:iiHsa of 7 den. may be recognised the influence of Troyes weight, under
 
 74 MEDIEVAL STANDAB.DS. 
 
 the later Carlovingians, upon the Bavarian as well as upon the Khine- 
 land standard. 
 
 G. 
 
 The Eegensburg pound, representing the old Bavarian standard at a 
 later period, when it had evidently dwindled into a lb. of adulterated 
 pence, the equivalent of the marc of penings amongst the Northmen. 
 The addition of six pence to each current lb. of account gave 41 schillings, 
 instead of (5 x 8 =) 40, to the pound of black money. 
 
 H. 
 
 The Norwegian marc-wadmal, the ell of four to the silfur answering 
 to a denier. The Frison hreilmerc, when the penny was an ell, was 
 identical with the Norwegian marc-wadraal ; the Swedish, worth tivo 
 marcs of penings at a later period, was a full-marc, double the size of the 
 Norwegian standard. The penings represent the coinage alluded to by 
 Snorro, ten to the ell, forty to the silfur, and a marc to the ore-vegin — 
 the standard of the later Log-penings. 
 
 K. 
 
 The Norwegian marc-vegin, or standard of silver-weight ; the marc 
 of grey-silver, and the marc-logaura or legal currency. Grey-silver, of 
 the same value as wadmal, was probably its earliest substitute, represent- 
 ing " the silver used for sacirild" of the Grai<;as. As soon as the North- 
 men emerged from the era of bullion and wadmal they adapted their 
 coinage to the light-penny of the ore of sixteen, 30 to the oz., the skatt- 
 pening answering to the flamske ; though, as their ore weighed 18 
 instead of 20 Caroline pence, both pening and skatt-pening were of a 
 rather lighter type. The marc-logaura, or marc of penings, stood in the 
 same proportion to the marc-vegin as silver to gold, 1 to 8, in the twelfth 
 century, when the code of the Grafras was compiled ; in other words, it 
 was of much the same value as the Frison " old money," of which 8 marcs 
 2 oz. passed for a marc of Caroline pence in the Carlovingian era. As 
 the marc of Caroline pence weighed 10 light oz., in the proportion of 8 
 to 1, it would have passed for 80 light ores of sixteen, and the custom of 
 adding six pence to the pondiis ad scalam would have added a half- 
 penny to each ore, 40 pence, or hoo oz. ; so that the lb. of silver at the 
 close of the Merovingian era passed for eight " lbs. of account." The 
 introduction of a coinage brought about a change in the method of 
 reckoning the Norwegian wergilds, which were originally calculated in 
 wadmal, a system still traceable at a certain period in the English 
 Danelage. In the Northumbrian Priests' Law, whilst the Lah-slit of the 
 Ceorl is reckoned at 12 ores, and of the Land-agende man, or Bonder, at 
 six half-marcs — the Bcmg of the Icelandic Leysing and Freeholder in the 
 Gragas — the Lah-slit of the Libcralis, or king's-thegn, remained at ten
 
 MEDIEVAL STANDARDS. 75 
 
 lialf-marcs, or " two Hundrada-wadmal," the original valuation of the 
 Norwegian Odaller of the allodial period. The Northman seems to have 
 generally adapted himself to the institutions of the country in which he 
 settled. Guthrum, for instance, adopted the wergild and major emendatio 
 of East Anglia ; Anlaf Tryggveson, in his agreement with Ethelred, 
 valued his followers at 30 lbs., the wergild of the Frank ; and the Norman 
 followers of William were assessed in his Laws at the same valuation, or 
 45 marcs. And so, when the Northmen abandoned their standard of 
 wadmal, and their valuation by the Hundrada, they adapted their coinage 
 to the currency of Northern Germany, and reckoned their wergilds on the 
 North-German principle. The wergild of the Saxon Adding, 18 lbs. or 
 1440 solidi, reckoned by the lesser solidus, becomes in Norwegian currency, 
 1440 skatt-pennings, or 18 marcs, the Odalsmand's man-bote. 
 
 L. 
 
 The Irish Uinge and Tinde, or cwt. of oz. The heavier Screpall and 
 Uinge belong to the currency of the Merovingian type, the lighter to a 
 later date, the Uinge representing the current ore of sixteen, the Screpall 
 the light-penny. The heavier Tinde points to the influence of the Troyes 
 standard.
 
 THE YEAR AND THE INDICTION. 
 
 Throughout the East, the civil year began in autumn, the months 
 heing originally lunar, and corresponding amongst the Greeks and 
 Syrians, when Josephus wrote, to the Jewish months. But Kome, though 
 she assimilated her silver currency to that of Athens after conquering 
 Greece, and exchanged her silver standard, as she extended her power over 
 the East, for that of gold, which had been current in that quarter from 
 the time of the Assyrians to the age of Alexander, refused to adopt the 
 lunar year. Accordingly, the months of the civil year throughout the 
 East, except in Egypt, were made to correspond with those of the Julian 
 year, but it was a work of time, each month commencing originally with 
 a.d. VIII. Kalendas before the ordinary Eoman usage was finally adopted. 
 Eusebius appears to have been familiar with either custom, for in his 
 Ecclesiastical History he fixes the commencement of the persecution of 
 Diocletian " in the days of the Paschal festival in the month Dystrus, 
 called by the Eomans March," elsewhere describing the same date as 
 " the days of the Paschal festival in Xanthicus, called by the Eomans 
 April," evidently regarding the latter days of March as if they were con- 
 tained in either month. Before the close of the same century, however, 
 the Eoman usage seems to have generally prevailed, for Epiphanius, in 
 his calculations, dates the commencement ot the various months to which 
 he alludes from the Kalends.^ 
 
 It was customary amongst ecclesiastical writers, in the early period of 
 the Christian era, to use a year commencing in spring, corresponding 
 very closely with the sacred year of the Jews, from whom the usage was 
 derived. The Christians of the East began this year with the month of 
 Xanthicus, dating its commencement originally upon the 25th of March, 
 HyperberetfBUs beginning upon the 24tli of September, representing in 
 that age the first month of the civil year ; and it is this latter year that 
 Eusebius uses in his Chronicle. In the Apostolic Constitutions, which 
 were put together in an age familiar with the anniversary of Christmas- 
 day, the Nativity was placed on the 25th of the ninth month, the 
 Epiphany on the Gth of the tenth, the Equinox (in accordance with the 
 calculations of Anatolius) on the 22d of the tioelfth month, called 
 Dystrus, and the Passion in the first month, called Xanthicus. The 
 whole of March was thus included in Dystrus, or the twelfth month, the 
 ecclesiastical year commencing upon the 1st of April, the civil year upon 
 the 1st of October ; the recollection of the former year being still per- 
 
 1 Epiph. adv. Alor/. xxiv. ; EuReb. //. JS. viii. 2 ; de Mart. Pal, The passages from 
 Eusebius will be fo'.iml in Clinton's Fasti, a.d. 303. The months ot the ecclesiastical year 
 may have b"en assimilateJ to the Rnmnii usngo before those of ihi' cinl year.
 
 THE YEAR AND THE INDIGTION. 77 
 
 petiiated in the Greek Church, in which, though it is customary to 
 begin the ecclesiastical year on tlie 21st of March, the commencement is 
 postponed in some quarters to the 1st of April, evidently representing the 
 first day of Xanthicus. After the Eastern months were assimilated to 
 those of old Home, beginning upon the Kalends, it became customary at 
 Constantinople to date the civil year from the 1st of September, Gorpeius 
 supplanting Hyperberetasus as tlie first month ; and as the Syrians of the 
 Greek and Maronite Churches continue to use this year, whilst the 
 Nestorians and Jacobites adhere to the older custom of beginning the 
 year upon the 1st of October, this change may be supposed to have been 
 subsequent to tlie separation of the Monophysite Christians from tlie 
 Orthodox, in consequence of the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Eastern 
 schismatics were accustomed to allude to their orthodox brethren as 
 " Greeks and lleUchites," including, under the name of Melichitcs or Im- 
 perialists, all the Christians of native race who conformed to the religion 
 of the State ; and the retention or rejection of the novel commencement 
 of the civil year, as ordered by the Emperor, or " Melik of Koum," may 
 have grown into a test of orthodoxy.^ 
 
 The Christians of the West, less familiar than their Eastern brethren 
 with the usage of the Jews, seem to have originally commenced their 
 ecclesiastical year on or about the 1st of March, identifying it with the 
 year so long in use at Rome ; for Ireuaius was obliged to protest against 
 the charge of celebrating Pascha in the tivel/th instead of in the_^?'s^ month, 
 and there were Christians in the age of Epiphanius who continued to 
 hold the festival in the lunar period before the 25th of March. Dystrus 
 was evidently reckoned as the first month of the year, as was certainly 
 the case in Gaul, where the ordinary Roman usage would naturally be 
 reflected. The first month amongst the Latins, according to Victorius, 
 fell between the 5th of March and the 3d of April, whilst Gregoiy of 
 Tours sometimes begins the year with January, at others with March, 
 representing the years that were familiar in his age in the Gallic pro- 
 vinces, where it was subsequently arranged that the first of the two 
 annual synods should be held in the first month " quod est Kal. Mart." 
 The hal)it of using these years seems to have died away after the revival 
 of the "Western empire under the Caroline House, Relics, as it were, of 
 old Rome, and the original empire of the West, they were comparatively 
 unfamiliar to the later converts of Teutonic race, though they were 
 retained in Roman France, under the Merovingian sovereigns, after they 
 had been supplanted in Italy and at Rome by the ecclesiastical year of 
 the Passion, and in official documents, for a time, by the civil year of the 
 Eastern em})ire. 
 
 The Creation, according to the theory of the Eastern world, dated 
 
 1 Const. Apost. V. 12, 13, 16 ; L'Art de ver. les dates, Diss. Prem. The Disscrtntion and 
 Clinton's Fasii are my autliorities, iinlesa wlien specially mentioned. As late as llie Council 
 of Florence in 1440, the Monopliysitcs rol'u.scd to acknowledge the eras of the (in^ck and Western 
 Churches, calculating hy the era of Alexandria, and the era of tho IMarfyrs, dating the latter 
 from the reign of Diocletian, a.d. 284, both commencing upon the '2yLh of August, or tho first 
 day of Tkotli, the lirst month of the Egyptian year.
 
 78 THE YEAR AND THE INDICTION. 
 
 from the autumnal equinox, their year commencing accordingly ; but in 
 the opinion of the Christians of the West the epoch of the Creation corre- 
 sponded with the vernal equinox, and they antedated the commencement 
 of the year six months. It was a favourite theory amongst the early 
 Christians — put forward, according to the tradition of Beda's age, in a 
 letter written by Theophilus, Bishop of Cfesarea, upon the subject of the 
 Paschal dispute with the Asian Churches — that man was redeemed upon 
 the anniversary of his creation ; and the beginning of the year com- 
 mencing about the vernal equinox thus became connected with the epoch 
 of the Passion. The Paschal cycles were framed upon this year ; 
 Victorius, for instance, beginning his canon from the Passion, dating it 
 " peractis annis ab ortu Mundi 5228, . . . inchoante xxix. anno," the 
 year 5229 thus commencing some six months before the year of Eusebius. 
 It was in use apparently in the age of Jerome, who seems to have 
 reckoned July as the fourth month after, not the second month hefore 
 the new year ; and it was still familiar to the Italian Church in the age 
 of Beda, when it was customary at Rome to inscribe the date of the 
 current year, calculated from the Passion, upon waxen tablets, which were 
 then suspended in the churches. The actual commencement of the year 
 in question seems to have varied within certain narrow limits. Before 
 the compilation by Hippolytus of the first Paschal cycle, dating from 
 222, the annual commemoration of the Passion seems to have been often 
 celebrated on different days, and it was still regarded in many quarters, 
 and notably in the Cappadocian Church — and amongst the Gauls, ac- 
 cording to some accounts — as a fixed anniversary when Epiphanius was 
 writing. The Crucifixion, according to Tertullian, quoting the Acts of 
 Pilate, fell upon the 25th of March, a day that seems to have been often 
 looked upon, in early times, as the anniversary of the Passion, especially 
 amongst the Christians of Africa and the West. Clemens of Alexandria 
 fixed it as late as the 20th of May, but many other dates were assigned 
 to it, generally varying between the 18th and 25th of March ; and the 
 recollection of a year commencing about the vernal equinox, upon the 
 anniversary of the Passion, as a fixed date, seems to have been perpetuated 
 in various quarters in the year beginning upon different days between the 
 18th and 25th of March. After the introduction of Paschal cycles, the 
 habit of regarding the Passion as a fixed date must have grown into 
 disuse, and may have been discouraged ; the supposed anniversary of the 
 Crucifixion was dedicated, in course of time, to the festival of the Annun- 
 ciation ; and the commencement of the year of the Passion seems to have 
 varied, under ordinary circumstances, with the Paschal festival. Until 
 about the close of the reign of Charles ix., it was the legal year in 
 mediaeval France, opening with the lighting of a wax taper at midnight 
 upon Easter-eve.^ 
 
 1 Beda, Prima ^t.; H. E. v. 21 ; De Nat. Rerum xlviii. ; Epipli. adv. Quartodec. i., adv. 
 Alog. xxvi. The otlier dates assigned to the Passion will he foimd in Clinton's Fasti liomani, 
 A.D. 29. Victorius dates the first y(!ar of his canon " a.m. 5229, Leap-year, Kal. Jan., on 
 a Thursday, Easter-Sunday on the 28th of March, and in tlie first indiction," agreeing exactly 
 with A.I). 28, the year hefore the consulate of the Gemini, according to the usual calculation.
 
 THE YEAR AA'D THE INDICT ION. 79 
 
 Four commencements of the year were known in England when Gervais 
 of Canterbury was writing — the Circumcision, the Annunciation, the Pas- 
 sion, and the Nativity. Beda alludes to the latter two in the following 
 passage: — 
 
 " Anni ab incarnatione Domini mutantur viii. Kal. Jan. Annus com- 
 munis, et embolismus, etcyclus decennovenalis, incipit a prima luna primi 
 mensis, id est, ab ipsa quae terminum paschalem demonstrat, eo anno quo 
 luna prima est x. Kal. Aprilis." The second of these years, the common 
 year commencing about the vernal equinox, has been already noticed ; 
 the first answers to the original year of the Incarnation, or of " the Advent 
 of the Lord in the flesh," beginning upon Christmas-day, some nine months 
 after the year of the Passion, and fiom three to four after the civil year 
 of the East, The selection of the 25th of December for the commemora- 
 tion of the Nativity dates from a later age than the second century, in 
 which the Acts of Pilate appeared. Certain Christians, when Clemens of 
 Alexandria was writing, were accustomed to commemorate the Baptism 
 on the 6th of January, others placed it on the 11th of the month, and, 
 perhaps in consequence of rendering the passage in St. Luke's Gospel as 
 if exactly thirty years had elapsed between the two events, tlie anniversary 
 of the Nativity was often celebrated on the same day. The Churcli of 
 Jerusalem in particular, holding to the tradition, supposed to have been 
 transmitted from "St. James, the brother of the Lord," persisted in 
 celebrating the Nativity upon the 6th of January, a day that was also 
 held in high honour at Eome for some time, as " the second Nativity of 
 the Lord." About the middle of the fourth century, however, during the 
 pontificate of Julius, and about the time that Athanasius was at Rome, 
 documents were asserted to be existing in the Roman archives fixing the 
 correct date of " the census of Cyrenius ;" the office of High Priest was 
 supposed to have been filled by Zacharias, and certain calculations, 
 assuming that the angel appeared to him when ofiiciating on the day of 
 the Atonement on the 10th day of the Seventh month, fixed the birth of 
 the Baptist nine months after the 25th of September, the Nativity being 
 dated accordingly exactly six months later, upon the 25th of December. 
 Such is the explanation given by Chrysostom in his homily preached upon 
 Christmas-day a.d. 386, at Autioch, where the novel anniversary had 
 been known for barely ten years ; and as the date assigned in the second 
 century to the Crucifixion corresponded with the original commencement 
 of Xanthicus, the first month of the ecclesiastical year, so the date assigned 
 to the Nativity in the fourth century corresponded with the original 
 commencement of Audon£eus, answering to January, or the first month 
 of the Julian year. Dionysius, in order to replace the Alexandrian cycle 
 of Cyril, concluding in 531, framed a novel canon upon the basis of the 
 Alexandrian calculations, using, like his predecessors, the common year 
 of the Passion, or ecclesiastical year. The universal adoption of his 
 Paschal cycle, as the ecclesiastical standard of the West, led to the custom 
 of using " the year of the Incarnation according to Dionysius," for his-
 
 80 THE YEAR AND THE INDICTIOK 
 
 torical and clironoloi^ical purposes ; chronicles began to be framed upon 
 the Dionysian cycle, and amongst the later converts to Christianity, com- 
 paratively little conversant with the era of the Passion, or with the various 
 years and eras of the East, the actual year, as well as the chronological 
 system, began to be dated from " the Advent of the Lord in the flesh." ^ 
 
 The use of the Indiction for distinguishing the year in official docu- 
 ments, in which it is supposed to have replaced the Olympiad, is attributed 
 to Constantine, the first indiction corresponding with the year of Eusebius, 
 2328, commencing with Hyperberetceus, or upon the 24th of September 
 A.D. 312; but with the alteration in the method of reckoning the com- 
 mencement of the civil year, the indiction naturally corresponded, both 
 beginning from that time forward, upon the 1st of September. In after 
 times, the earlier was known as the Ctesarian, the later as the Civil 
 Indiction, or as the Indiction of Constantinople, which for all practical 
 l>urposes may be regarded as the recognised official system of the Eastern 
 empire. The C^sarian Indiction is supposed to have been used in his 
 Paschal Canon by Victorius, who seems to have been wrongly accused 
 of misplacing it ; and from Victorius, or some similar source, Beda must 
 have become familiar with the obsolete method of calculating the indic- 
 tion from the 24th of September, or the old commencement of the year.^ 
 
 If the Indiction was ever acknowledged officially in the Western empire, 
 it would have corresponded with the original commencement of the civil 
 year. With the extension of the imperial power over Italy during the 
 sixth century, however, the Indiction of Constantinople was unques- 
 tionably introduced, finding its way in this manner to Eome, where it 
 was in use for at least five centuries. The first epistle of Gregory i. was 
 dated " in the year of ordination, the month of September, and the 
 nintli indiction," which must have commenced before his consecration on 
 the 3d of September 590. " Throughout the month of September in this 
 iwesent eleventh indiction," wrote Vitalian, dating his epistle on the 27th 
 of January " in the eleventh indiction," or in 668 ; alluding also to the 
 19th of December "in this preseiit eleventh indiction," in another epistle 
 dated on the 27th of August " in the eleventh indiction ; " whilst Hadrian 
 II. in 869 despatched three letters dated on the 5th of September " in the 
 
 ^ Chrjs. Horn, in diem Nat. In the old Roman calendar given by Bucher {de Doct. Temp. 
 p. 275), who dates it about a.d. 354, the 25th of December ia marked as Natalis Invicti, or 
 iete-day of Constantine. Not a single sacred anniversary is entered in the Calendar iu 
 question. 
 
 ^ The indiction is also entered in the Paschal Chronicle, according to Clinton, a year behind 
 the true dale, but he seems to have overlooked the diiFerent methods of reckoning the com- 
 mencement of the year. When the Romans wrote up the date of 668 years from the Passion 
 upon Christmas-day a.d. 700, indie. 14, the actual anniversary of the Passion must have 
 fallen in the thirteenth indiction ; and thus the year commencing upon the anniversary was 
 correctly associated with the indiction of the current civil year, beginning with the previous 
 September. The error lies in confounding the ecclesiastical year used in the Chronicle, com- 
 mencing from the vernal equinox, with the civil year beginning with the corresponding indiction, 
 some five or six months later, in September. An event happening on Saturday the 13th of 
 September a.d. 458, is placed by Evagrius in the 11th instead of in the 12th indiction. He 
 either reckoned by the old year, or copied the notice from some chronicle compiled before the 
 change. — Fasti Eomani (Indictions) ii. p. 213.
 
 THE YEAR AND THE INDICT ION. 81 
 
 third indiction," following them up in 870 with six others dated on the 
 27th of June " in the third indiction ; " both Popes, in accordance with 
 the official custom of Constantino])le, calculatino; the indiction from the 
 1st day of September. The usage of the Papal Court remained unaltered 
 throughout the tenth century, as may be gathered from the " Privilegium 
 scriptum per manum Stephani, Nolani episc. et scrinarii S.R.E. iv. Kal. 
 Dec. anno 1 Pontificatus Benedicti vr., indie, ii. ;" for as Benedict was 
 raised to the papal chair on the 20th of December 972, and strangled in 
 March 974, the 28th of November in his first year must have fallen in 
 973, after the commencement of the second indiction in September. 
 Again, after the lapse of nearly another century, a Bull of Leo ix., issued 
 in the second year of his Pontificate — he succeeded in 1048, — was dated 
 on the 7th of September, " in the fourth indiction," which must have com- 
 menced upon the first day of the month in 1050 ; so that in the latter half 
 of the eleventh century the Indiction of Constantinople was still current 
 at Rome.^ 
 
 Beyond the Al[>s the Teutonic Christians ignored the various eras of 
 the South and East, and Einhard and Prudentius, Hincmar and Lambert, 
 the annalists of Laurisheim, Hildesheim, and Fulda, as well as Beda and 
 the chroniclers in " Saxony beyond the sea," dated by the year of the 
 Incarnation, reckoned fiom the Nativity, beginning their historical year 
 upon Christmas-day. The Indiction, however, was not in use amongst 
 the Franks in early times, for it was in some sort a badge of dependence 
 upon the Eastern empire, and the day, the year, and the date of the 
 king's reign appear at the most in the Diplomata of the Merovingians, 
 and in the Formularies of Marculf. Charlemagne seems to have brought 
 with him from Italy the usage of the Eastern empire, but before the 
 middle of the ninth century the Indiction appears to liave been adapted 
 to the year commencing upon Christmas-day. Thus the coronation of 
 Charles the Bald at Metz, on the 9th of September 869, is placed in the 
 second indiction, four days after Hadrian ii. had dated the letters he sent 
 from Rome in the same year on the 5th of September in the third indic- 
 tion ; and the meeting between Charles the Simple and Henry the Fowler, 
 on the 7th of November 921, is placed in the ninth indiction, when the 
 tenth had already commenced in September, according to tlic system 
 then current at Rome and Constantinople. From the opening of the 
 eleventh century to the year 1107, Lambert and the Annals of Hildesheim 
 prefix the indiction to the year of the Incarnation — Michaelnias-day, for 
 instance, in 1015 is placed in the thirteenth indiction, and in 1021 in the 
 fifth, after ihe fourteenth and the sixth liad respectively commenced, if 
 
 * Greg. i. Ep. 1 ; Vital. Ep. 1, 2 ; Had. Ep. 20 to 28; Labhe (.MaoM;, toin. xyii. p. 7S0. 
 UArt, etc., Chron. des Papes. Mansi, Norisins, and all the leading foreign autboritieH, admit 
 that the Popes before Gregory vii. calculated by the ordinary indiction current at Constan- 
 tinople ; but Clinton alone of English writers who havH touched upon the subject has avoided 
 the error of attributing a spe<^ial " Pontifical Indiction " tn Rome before the accession of Hilde- 
 brand to the papal chair. 
 
 F
 
 82 THE YEAR AND THE INDIGTION. 
 
 dated from the beginning of the month — whilst the Chronicle of St. 
 Benedict, written in the south of Italy, places the death of Landulf, 
 which occurred in November 1077, in the first instead of the fifleentlt, 
 indiction, still reckoning its commencement from the first day of Septem- 
 ber. In short, whilst the usage of Constantinople was followed at Rome 
 and in Italy until the last quarter of the eleventh century — except in a 
 few rare instances where Germanic influences prevailed, as in the March 
 of Verona — it appears to have been customary beyond the Alps to calcu- 
 late by an indiction corresponding with the year beginning on Christmas- 
 day, which might be distinguished as the Historical Indiction, to avoid 
 contbunding it with the true Pontifical Indiction, introduced by Gre- 
 gory vii.-^ 
 
 Like the rest of their northern kindred, the Anglo-Saxons began the 
 year at midwinter, and, at the date of the Council of Cloveshoo, in Octo- 
 ber 803, which is placed in the eleventh indiction, unquestionably calcu- 
 lated their Ge-han or Tacencircole from the same epoch. Several 
 important donations to the See of Winchester, which were made by 
 Egbert in August 825, " in the tliird indiction," were confirmed on the 
 following St, Stephen's day, " in the year 826 and the fourth indiction," 
 both year and indiction at this time evidently dating from Christmas- 
 day. iEthelbert's freols to Sherborne, again, " was written in the year 
 agone from the birth of Christ, eight hundred and sixty-four winters, 
 and in the twelfth year of the Tacencircole. The day was septimo kal. 
 Januarii . . , Then after this it happened in the some year . . . 
 on Friday two nights before Easter, etc.," the 26th of December again 
 appearing as the second day of the new year and indiction. Beda, how- 
 ever, certainly used the Ca3sarian Indiction. He not only says so, but 
 he places the Council held under Pope Martin between the 5th and the 
 31st of October 649, in the eighth indiction, and the death of the Emperor 
 Constans towards the close of September 668 in the twelfth, corresponding 
 respectively with the years 650 and 669 according to the later English 
 usage. He dates his letter to Egbert " on the nones of November in the 
 third indiction," or nearly six months after his own death, if he used the 
 indiction beginning on Christmas-day, for he died in May 735 ; so that 
 he must have reckoned the third indiction from September 734. That 
 he used the Ceesarian Indiction is proved hy his placing the Council of 
 Haethfield, held on the 17th of September 680, in the eighth indiction, 
 when, according to the system then in use at Eome and Constantinople, 
 the ninth had already commenced on the first day of the month. Nor was 
 
 * Lahhe (Mansi), torn. xvii. p. 197. All the annalists and chroniclers alluded to will be 
 found in Pertz; the Uiplomata of the Merovingians and Carlovingians in Bouquet, vols. 4, 5, 
 6, 7, 8. Out of 135 Merovingian Diploniata only three have tlie indiction, which, in each case, 
 is either given incorrectly or added in a later hand. Dq). Lud. P. 8, 10, 57, 96, 101, 110, and 
 many others, dated early in September, point to the use originally of the Indiction of Constan- 
 tinople ; but after 834, and in the Diploniata of Lothaire and Charles the Bald, the Historical 
 Indiction — if it may bo so distinguished — is the rule, and the usage of Coustantinople the 
 exception.
 
 THE YEAR AND TEE IN DICTION. 83 
 
 this system of reckoning the iodiction from September peculiar to Beda, 
 for the Moot at Berghamstede is dated in the fifth year of Wihtred and 
 the ninth gebanne ; and as the King came to the throne towards the 
 close of 690, his fifth year would have expired before Christmas 695, and 
 the ninth indiction, which would have corresponded under the later 
 system to 696, must have been reckoned at that time, in Kent as well as 
 in Northumbria, from the previous September. Between the death of 
 Beda, therefore, and the opening of the ninth century, the earlier system 
 must have been superseded by the custom of calculating the indiction 
 from Christmas-day.^ 
 
 The age of Hildebraud was fruitful of innovations, and amongst the 
 novelties traceable to that period may be reckoned the adoption of a 
 separate Pontifical year and Indiction. Similar changes seems not un- 
 frequently to have marked the accession of a new dynasty, or an inter- 
 ruption in the existing state of affairs. Thus the Olympiad gave way to 
 the Indiction under Constantine, and the Julian year of Pagan Kome 
 was replaced, in official documents, by the civil year of Christian Con- 
 stantinople. The adoption of the year and era of the Incarnation 
 amongst the Franks closely corresponded with the substitution of the 
 Caroline for the Merovingian House, and the subsequent revival of the 
 Western Empire ; whilst the year of the Passion, dating its commencement 
 from Easter-day, first appears as the legal year in France after the acces- 
 sion of the Third Pvace to the throne. With the declining years of the 
 eleventh century every vestige of the authority once exercised over Italy 
 and Sicily by the Emperors of the East, was swept away for ever by tlie 
 Normans; but the use of the Indiction uf Constantinople in official 
 documents must have still reminded the Papal Court of the former resi- 
 dence of an Exarch at Ravenna, and the severance of the Papacy from 
 every memento of her former dependency upon either Kaiser, may have 
 been as much shadowed forth in the adoption of a Pontifical legal year 
 and Indiction, as by the addition of a circlet to the tiara, and other 
 similar changes full of meaning. 
 
 It may be doubted if the original " year of the Incarnation, accord- 
 ing to Dionysius," commencing with the last week of December — a year 
 of which Dionysius was probably ignorant — was ever recognised at Rome, 
 
 ' Cod. Dip. clxxxiii. clxxxiv. nixxiv. inxxxiii. to mxxxviii. ; Thorpe, Liplom. p. 125, Anc. 
 Laws, vol. i. p. 37 ; Beda, Sex. jEt. ( Op. Min. p. 197, I)e nat. Rerum, cap. xlviii. _ The very dis- 
 tinction between the Gehati ol'the seventh century and the Taceiicircole of the ninth, seems In 
 mark a difference between the Imperial Edict and the mere cyde-tuken. Kemble has fallen 
 into the curious error of dating the indiction nine months after instead of three months before 
 Christmas- day. The rule given by Beda for finding the indiction— add 3, clivide by 15, tlie 
 remainder = the indiction — is perfectly correct ,_if the distinction between the different years witji 
 which each indiction corresponded is borne in mind. In the example given his calculation is 
 curious — " quindecios quadrageni, sexcenti; quindecies oclon\, centies" — eight lilteens make 
 a hundred, i.e., reckoned at six score. The sole example of a charter dated by the historical 
 indiction in the seventh century {Cod. Dip. xii.) is of very questionable autlientieily, lor it is 
 attested by Leutliaire and Headda as bishops. The diocese of Dorchester was undivided during 
 the episcopate of Leuthaire, ami Headda was not consecrated until after the death of his pre- 
 decessor [Rist. Ecc iii. 7, iv. 12).
 
 84 THE YEAR AND THE INDICTIOX. 
 
 — its use, indeed, except amono;st chroniclers, being generally confined to 
 the later converts to Christianity. Together with the Indiction of Con- 
 stantinople, the Popes probably acknowledged the civil year of New or 
 Christian Rome, during the supremacy of the Exarch, without foregoing 
 the use of the Julian year, or of that older year of Pagan Rome which, 
 slightly altered, was perpetuated in the year of the Passion, and in the 
 common year in general use for ecclesiastical purposes. Discarding the 
 usage of Constantinople, Gregory vii. attached the indiction to this latter 
 year, and identifying the Incarnation with the Conception, adapted the 
 novel pontifical year to the " era of the Incarnation according to Diony- 
 sius," dating the commencement from the festival of the Annunciation 
 falling in the third month of the current Julian year. Thus the year 
 commencing upon the anniversary so generally assigned throughout the 
 West, in early days, to the Crucifixion, was revived and perpetuated, 
 under the auspices of Gregory vii., as the year of the Incarnation, placing 
 the Conception in a.d. 1, or three months after the Nativity upon the 
 25th of December B.C. 1. The earlier and more correct custom of dating 
 the year nine months in advance of the original year of the Incarnation 
 was known, after this pontificate, as " the usage of Pisa," but only 
 retained amongst the Latin races, familiar from of old with the year and 
 era of the Passion ; whilst the novel system introduced by Hildebrand, 
 and distinguished subsequently as "the usage of Florence," was much 
 more generally adopted. Under the sanction of the Roman See, the 
 novel year of the Incarnation found its way into England, where it 
 remained in force as the legal year until the introduction of the New 
 Style, subsequently continuing in use as the financial year, beginning 
 upon " old Lady-day." After the Incarnation was assumed authori- 
 tatively to refer to the Conception, the old year, dating from " the 
 Advent of the Lord in the flesh," exchanging its earlier name for the 
 title of the year of the Nativity, was gradually adapted to the Julian year; 
 and with one or the other of these years the Pontifical Indiction was 
 invariably associated. Like other innovations of the period, the Ponti- 
 fical Indiction giadually acquired the prescription of a remote antiquity, 
 and, as the recollection of its comparatively recent origin died away, 
 many an error arose from attributing to the Popes the use of a distinct 
 and separate indiction, corresponding with the later Roman usage, from 
 the earliest time. The following instance of such a blunder is too 
 remarkable to be passed over. 
 
 In the course of the eighth century, Willibald, a follower of Boniface, 
 by whom he was consecrated to the See of Eichstadt, wrote a life of his 
 patron, in which he mentions that the saint was ordained to the episco- 
 pate at Rome on St. Andrew's day by Gregory ii., receiving the papal 
 blessing and a book of the canons. After the lapse of some centuries, 
 the style of Willibald had become so antiquated that the monks of Fulda 
 were no longer able to understand him — such is the account of Othlon, 
 who adds that the Bishop of Eichstadt, through the density of his intel-
 
 THE YEAR AND THE INDICTIOK 85 
 
 led, had overlooked many of the Saint's epistles, as well as many of his 
 virtues ; for Boniface had not only converted the heathen, but he also 
 put down false Cliristians and evil priests, a race, continues Othlon, that 
 is not yet'cxtinct. To remedy these omissions, Egbert, abbot of Fulda, 
 at the in^'^tigation of the holy Pope Leo — Leo ix., for Egbert died in 1058 
 — sent certain books to Eome ; but the scribe employed upon them died 
 without accomplishing his task, and the books remained for many years 
 unnoticed at Rome, and apparently unmissed at Fulda, until they 
 attracted the attention of Othlon: such is his own account. It was from 
 these books that he proposed to supply the deficiencies in the narratiye 
 of Willibald ; and accordingly, after copying the account of the conse- 
 cration of Boniface at Rome, on St. Andrew's day — he places it in 723 — 
 from the pages of the contemporary writer, he appends an oath of fealty 
 and obedience to the See of Rome, which he supposes to have been sworn 
 on that occasion — an oath entirely overlooked in the narrative of the 
 bishop of Eichstadf. This oath is dated by Othlon " in the seventh year 
 of Leo, in the fourth of Constantine, and in the sixth indiction." Amongst 
 the genuine epistles of Gregory ii., the ninth is dated ^^ Frid. Non. Dec. 
 Leo 8, Constaniin. 5, Indict, viii.," and the fourteenth '^10 Kal. Dec. 
 Leo 10, Const. 7, Indict, decima" corresponding with the 4th of Decem- 
 ber 724 in the eighth indiction, and the 22d of November 726 in the 
 tenth indiction. Hence St. Andrew's day " in the seventh of Leo and the 
 fourth of Constantine," or in 723, would have fallen in the seventh indic- 
 tion ; and St. Andrew's day in the sixth indiction would have fallen " ia 
 the sixth of Leo and the third of Constantine," answering to 722. The 
 same blunder is extended to six letters, supposed to have been written 
 by the Pope on the same occasion, which Oihlon has dated "on the 30th 
 of November, in the seventh of Leo, the fourth of Constantine, and in 
 the sixth indiction ;" whilst he has addressed a letter from the Pope, 
 supposed to have been written "in the third year of Leo and the eleventh 
 indiction," — the error of a copyist, perhaps, for Indict, ii. — to Boniface 
 the priest, when it is well known that the saint did not assume the name 
 of Boniface until his elevation to the episcopate. All the other early 
 epistles are addressed to him as Winfred, the name in which he invari- 
 ably wrote before his consecration on St. Andrew's day at Rome. Some 
 three-and-twenty years before that event the brethren of Yarrow had 
 noticed the custom in the Roman Church of dating the year from the 
 Passion, but neither they nor Beda were aware of the existence at that 
 time of any distinct and separate Pontifical Indiction ; and if Clu-istmas 
 day A.p. 668, corresponding with the 25th of December a.d. 700, fell in 
 the fourteenth indiction, St. Andrew's day a.p. 691, corresj)()n(ling with 
 the 30th of November a.d. 723, would have fallen in the seventh. Yet 
 so late was the era in which the oath was fabricated that the innovations 
 introduced by Gregory vii. had assumed by that time the character of a 
 remote antiquity. Such is the history of the oath of fealty and obedience 
 binding the Metropolitan of Germany in vassalage to the See of Rome.
 
 8G THE YEAR AND THE INDICTIOK. 
 
 Widukind, and other early authorities, write of the Archbiishop of May- 
 ence as " summiis pontifex ;" and as the inference that might be drawn 
 from such a style of expression must have clashed with the later preten- 
 tions of the See of Rome, a counteracting influence was required, and — 
 the oath appeared. How far have the manipulations of Othlon, and 
 such as Othlon, extended ? In one of his remarks there is truth : the 
 race of false Christians and evil priests was not extinct when Othlon 
 wrote. ^ 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 As the early chronology of the Christian era was entirely based upon the third 
 chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, the date of the Nativity was fixed by placing it 
 fifteen years before the accession of Tiberius. The reign of Augustus, however, was 
 mulcted of its proper length by all the early Christian writers, some calculating it at 
 fifty-six, others at fiftj^-seven years, the Nativity falling, according to the former, in the 
 forty-first, according to the latter, in the forty-second year of his reign, and in the 
 twenty-eighth after Actium. Thus the real difference was in the duration assigned to 
 the reign of Augustus, all agreeing in placing the Nativity thirty years before the fif- 
 teenth of Tiberius, reckoning the years inclusively, according to the custom of the age. 
 " Fifteen years of Augustus, and fifteen of Tiberius, complete the thirty years to the 
 Passion," wrote Clemens of Alexandria, agreeing with TertuUian, except in the number 
 of years assigned to the reign of Augustus. Both, limiting the Ministration to one 
 year, place the Passion in the Consulate of the Gemini, which was often looked upon 
 as the chronological epoch of the Passion, long after the Ministration ceased to be 
 limited to one year. Eusebius, though agreeing with Hippolytus and others in assign- 
 ing upwards of three years to the Ministration, seems to have followed the usual cal- 
 culations of his predecessors in fixing the epoch of the Nativity. The death of Com- 
 modus, for instance, in a.d. 192, is supposed by Clemens to have occurred 194 years 
 after the Nativity ; and as Eusebius assumes a lapse of 305 years between the same 
 epoch and the Persecution of Diocletian in a.d. 30)3, both would have agreed in dating 
 the Nativity two years before the common era. Hence, after it became customary to 
 ilate from the era of the Incarnation, a difference of two years arose between the fol- 
 lowers of Dionysius and the chroniclers who adapted the system of Eusebius, Jerome, 
 and Prosper of Aquitaine, to the common ei'a, dating by the Venis Annus, as it is occa- 
 sionally called by the authorities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Paschal 
 
 * Othlon, Vit. Bonif. lih. i. r. Ifi to 21. Certain commentators have tried to mend matters 
 by altering the seventh of Leo to the sixth in the date of the oath, without observing that the 
 error nms through all the letters supposed to have been written on the same day. In the 
 month of November the .fixth of Leo would Iiavo answered to the <ftirJof Constantine, requiring 
 additional "emendations." The f'ramer of one of the numerous forgeries palmed upon the 
 reign of Edgar, has dated the document in que.stion (Cod. Dip. dxix.) on Wednesday the 28th 
 of December 964, wliereas tlie 28th of December 963, wliich in Edgar's reign would have been 
 reckoned as the fourth day of 964, fell on a Monday. The charter, which ascribes a conquest 
 of Dublin and the greater part of Ireland to Edgar, probably saw the light in support of the 
 grant of that island to Henry ii., made by Hadrian iv. in virtiie of the Papal claim to all the 
 islands, conferred by the Donation of Constantine. The adaptation of the era dating from the 
 Incarnation to one of the authorized Roman years had, by this time, assumed a respectable 
 antiquity, and the original commencement of the year on Christmas-day was overlooked or for- 
 gotten. In two other charters (Dccc.rxiv. Dcccxzv.), dated "on the 28th of December 1066, 
 indie, tertia," the Westminster forger has made Innocents'-day in 1065 the fourth day of 1066, 
 quite correctly, but he has retained the indiction for 1065, misled, like Othlon, by the orthodox 
 Pontifical Indiction, which would not have changed before the commencement of one of the 
 authorized Eoman years.
 
 NOTE. 87 
 
 Chronicle, for instance, is in accordance with the system of Eusebius and his followers, 
 placing the Passion, for example, in the fourth indiction, or in the year equivalent to 
 A.D. 31, whilst the followers of Cassiodorus would have antedated it to a.d. 29, or four 
 years before the common era. 
 
 In course of time these differences must have become a fruitful source of confusion ; 
 and Beda, in his notices of past events, affords frequent instances in point ; dating the 
 era of Diocletian, for example, in his Chronology, from (a.d. 552 — 248=) a.d. 284, and 
 in his History from a.d. 286, whilst he evidently hesitates between placing the arrival 
 of the Saxons in a.d. 447 and a.d. 449. Again, he dates the capture of Eome in his 
 History in a.d. 409, a.u.c. 1164, when, according to his Chronology, a.d. 409 would 
 have corresponded with a.u.c. 1160 ; but his Avell-known error about Gregory the Great 
 may probably be attributed to his ignorance of the Indiction of Constantinople. For 
 the date of the Pope's consecration he was probably indebted to some Roman docu- 
 ment, in which it would have been placed on the 3d of September in the ninth indic- 
 tion, and as he would have calculated the commencement of the indiction from the 
 tiventy-fou7ih of the month, he has wrongly placed the consecration in a.d. 591, and the 
 Pope's death in consequence in a.d. 605, singularly enough adding " in the second year 
 of Phocas," having in the previous chapter placed the battle of Degsastan a.d. 603, 
 quite correctly, " in the first year of Phocas." The influence of the Vems A-mius is trace- 
 able in the Saxon chronicles at least as early as the death of Gebmund, Bishop of 
 Eochester, which is antedated to 693, though he assisted at the Moot of Berghamstede 
 in the autumn of 695. The use of the ecclesiastical, or common year, may have occa- 
 sionally given rise to a mistake. Calendars of the moveable feasts for many years were 
 apparently numerous, for Nechtan seems to have informed Ceolfrid that he had plenty 
 of them ; and as the ecclesiastical year would have been used in these calendars, com- 
 mencing with Pascha, an entry made in any of them towards the close of the year, 
 between Christmas and Easter, would be transferred to a chronicle computed upon the 
 year of the Incarnation a year — sometimes three — behind the true date.
 
 THE LAND. 
 
 I. — The Acre. 
 
 64 feet . . = 1 acre's breadth. 
 
 640 „ . . = 1 acre's length, or furlong. 
 
 7,680 ,, , . = 12 furlongs = 1 leuga. 
 
 40,960 square feet . = 1 Anglian acre. 
 
 61,440 ,, . = 1 langenekre. 
 
 43,560 ,, . = 1 statute acre. 
 
 1,440 Anglian ) , , 
 
 960 Langen | ""'■''■' = ^ 'l^'^'"^ ^^"^a- 
 
 I^f a primitive state of .society measures are simple enough : the 
 thumb, the palm, the ell, or cubit, and the foot, shod or bare, lie at the 
 base of every system, the oldest measures being generally the smallest. 
 "Three thumbs make an inch, three inches make a, palm, three palms 
 make a foot, four feet make a Bcrjau" or short-yoke. So measured the 
 Gymri in the days of old, and the equivalent of their short-yoke of 36 
 inches, known to the Bretons as giualen — a word traceable in the 
 French gaule and the Scottish fall — has passed into our system as the 
 yard of three feet, to the exclusion of the two-foot ell, or earlier gyrd, 
 peculiar to the Teuton'^'. " Let the ditch be 5 feet wide by 7 in length, 
 one foot shod, the other bare." Such are the directions in an old Bruns- 
 wick document, and there was accordingly a slight difference between the 
 fuss and the scJmh. The ell, or cubit, was measured from the point of 
 the elbow to the wrist; the thumb-ell reached the end of the thumb; 
 whilst the longest measure stretched to the point of the middle finger, 
 three distinct measures being thus known under the name of ell. The 
 gyrd, or measuring-rod, of the priest, was the standard of his parish by 
 old English law ; and in Iceland, according to the Gragas, the measure 
 was marked off on the church wall, after its length had been calculated 
 l)y measuring three men -the tallest and shortest in the parish, with a 
 third of average size. Such was the origin of *' customary " measurement ; 
 but before the reign of Athelstan, it may be gathered from his laws that 
 the barley-corn had supplanted the thumb as a legal standard — the 
 substitution of 36 grains of barley for the length of a man's foot, and 
 some similar innovation amongst the Franks, raising the standard on 
 either side of the Channel considerably beyond the original rough mea- 
 surement. Hence the Paris foot of 12-789, the Rheinland of 12-35, and
 
 THE ACRE. 89 
 
 our own foot of 12 inches, are longer than the usual measures, whether 
 fuss or schuh of Gerniany and the North. ^ 
 
 As in the case of the ell, or cubit, there was often a wide difference 
 in measurements known under the same name. A "day's work" was 
 sometimes the equivalent of an acre, at others of half an acre ; varying 
 again according as the work to be done was reaping or mowing, plough- 
 ing or hoeing. The morgen was generally half an acker, especially in 
 Low Germany ; the Joch or Juchart had reference to a yoke of oxen, or 
 pair of horses; the caruca, so often met with in Domesday, meant a 
 team of eight oxen, supposed to be required for the tillage of a " plough- 
 land," which was subdivided accordingly into eight "oxgangs." In 
 measures of distance, the Gauls, according to Isidore, gave the name of 
 candehim — hundred — to a measure of 100 feet in civic localities, but 
 reaching 150 in rural districts, a custom that naturally lengthened their 
 measure of distance, based upon the Koman standard, to 1500 paces ; 
 and accordingly the old Gallic leuga w as half as long again as the Eoman 
 mile. " The Romans count in miles," wrote Jerome, " the Gauls in 
 leagues, the Persians in parasangs, and all Germany in rasts." The 
 rast, originally of no definite length, merely meant the " resting-place" on 
 the march — Jornandes uses mansio in this sense — and at sea was 
 apparently familiar in the north as the loiko-sio, which, though not a 
 measured distance, was probably thoroughly understood by the rowers. 
 The rast is vaguely calculated in an old West Gothland code as "the 
 distance within which a man can take an empty cart, fill it as his 
 morning's w^ork, and return with it loaded, between day-break and mid- 
 day at Christmas-time ;" but as soon as it was established as a recognised 
 standard of measurement, it was reckoned at double the Gallic leuga. 
 " Eight stadia make a milliarium ; mille passus, or a miliarium and a 
 half, make a leuva — some write it leuca — of 1500 paces. Two leuva, or 
 three miliaria, make a resta." Such is the substance of a })assage attri- 
 buted to Beda, and it is important to mark the difference between the 
 miliarium and mille passus — the mile and the league, or " thusend 
 stapa." The leuga, or long mile, would appear to have been the ordinary 
 standard of distance amongst the Anglo-Saxons, reckoned at the time of 
 the Conquest at twelve quarentincs, or furlongs, measuring forty poles — 
 for the " length of the furrow " was a recognised measurement in the days 
 of Athelstan — or a little under a mile and a half, according to the standard 
 of the present time.^ 
 
 * Liutprand's foot was the standard of Lombardy, and is supposed to have been of extra- 
 ordinary length, measuring a cubit. His perch was 12 feet, "the measure of his extended 
 arms!" Our own yard-measure is occasionally taken to represent the IcnLcth of Henry ii. 'a 
 arm. Both kings probably established a standard without any reference to their own stature, 
 and it is possible that the yard may have superseded the old two-foot ell in the reign of Henry n. 
 Hardrada, to whom Harold offered " seven feet of earth," was five ells in height according to 
 the Saga, probably about six feet four inches, English measure ; and if Goliath is measured by 
 the old standard, his " six cubits and a span " will shrink considerably. 
 
 ^ laid. XV. 15 ; Ducange, in voc. Leuga, Rasta; Hire and Adelung, in voc. Rasta; Beda, de 
 Mens. ed. Colon., t. i. p. 126. According to an authority quoted by Ducange, of a date 
 somewhat later than the Agrimensor, there were two leagues in use amongst the Franks, the
 
 90 • THE ACRE. 
 
 Two of the land-measures of Germany are deserving of particular 
 notice, the Bremen morgcn^ and the larger hcidscheffd, or heath- 
 measure, in the Geestland in the duchy of Sleswig. At the base of each, 
 as in nearly all these measures, lies the square ruthe, the ruthe repre- 
 senting a rod, or pole, of 8 ells, or 16 feet, in length. In the Bremen 
 measure 20 square ruthen make a hund, 6 hunden a morgen of 30,720 
 square feet, which, as in Low Germany the morgen was half an acker, 
 would give to the Bremen acker 61,440 square feet. The acker in 
 question was not peculiar to Bremen, for the morgen, or half-acker of 
 Hanover, containing 120 hunden, was identical in theory with the 
 Bremen morgen, though practically the measuring-pole used in Hanover 
 and Lubeck was an inch longer than the Bremen ruthe. The Geestland 
 heidscheffel was also identical with the Bremen acker, containing 61,440 
 square feet in 6 schipkmds, each exactly doubling the Bremen hund. 
 There was also another land-measure that is often alluded to in old 
 Saxon documents as far back as the thirteenth century — the Jfund-lancles, 
 generally a plot of ground 20 ruthen in length by 4 in breadth, or 80 
 square ruthen, a lesser morgen, in other words, of 20,480 square feet, 
 giving an acker of 160 square ruthen or 40,960 square feet, each measure 
 respectively containing two-thirds of the amount of the larger morgen 
 and acker. Here then are two acres, once in very general use through- 
 out Old Saxony and Sleswig, the larger containing 61,440 square feet, 
 the lesser, 40,960 square feet, or exactly in the same proportion as the 
 solidi of three and two tremisses, the " ore of twenty-four," and the "ore 
 of sixteen," which were in use amongst the Saxons at the era of their 
 submission to Charlemagne.^ 
 
 " The English leuga measures twelve quarantines, the quarantine 
 forty perches, the perch sixteen feet. The acre is forty perches in length 
 by four in breadth ; if twenty perches in length, it is eight in breadth, and 
 always in similar proportion." Such are the measurements in the 
 Chronicle of Battle Abbey, which would give 160 square perches, and 
 40,9(j0 square feet, to the legal acre of that period, thus identifying it 
 with the lesser measure in use amongst the continental Saxons. An 
 ancient deed belonging to Herbaldowne Hospital records the grant of 
 " unam acram et dimidiam terr^e, soil. Langenckrc" testifying to the 
 existence of a "customary" measure, half as large again as the legal 
 acre, and containing 61,440 square feet, thus being identical in theory 
 with the Bremen acker and Geestland heidscheffel. Angle and Saxon 
 would thus appear to have brought with them into their island home the 
 systems of measurement with which they were respectively familiar in 
 
 legal measure of 3000 paces, 5000 virgse, or 15,000 feet, and a customary league of about four 
 Roman miles, apparently a rast. A commentator on the Sachsenspiegel (Lib. iii. Art. 66) 
 gives 60 gewende — furlongs — each measuring 60 ruthen of 8 half-ells to the legal mile ; or rather 
 more than five English miles and a half, reckoning the half-ell as the Rhineland foot. This 
 measurement approaches very closely to the German " Long mile," reckoned by Willich at 
 10,126 yards, or rather under five English miles and three-quarters. 
 
 ' Adelung, in voc. Morgen, Heidscheffel, I 1 ami. The Austrian jocli measures 1*43 acres, or 
 02,290 square feet, corresponding with the larger acre.
 
 THE ACRE. 91 
 
 earlier days. Every neatman, or customary tenant, in the manor of 
 Darent, was bound, as usual, to plough a certain quantity of the demesne ; 
 and according to the old Rochester Custumal, an acre of ploughing was 
 due from everjjugum, or yoke-land; three virgates from the thirty acres of 
 Oxmanne-land ; two virgates from the tenant of half a yoke-land, and a 
 virgate, or sixteen feet, from the ten acres of Christian 's-land. Four feet 
 more, or twenty feet of ploughing, were allotted to the twelve acres of 
 Awine's-land, whilst the tenant of less than the quarter of a yoke-land 
 of ten acres was bound to turn up seven furrows, or a lesser number, 
 according to the size of his holding. Thus it may be gathered that 
 ploughing a virgate consisted in driving eight furrows, each measuring 
 an old Teutonic ell, or two feet, in width ; in other words, the breadth 
 of a ruthe, virga, or measuring-pole of sixteen feet. The length of the 
 furrow, and the breadth of the acre, appear as standards of measurement 
 in the laws of Athelstan, the acre's breadth evidently measuring 4 poles, 
 32 furrows, or 64 feet ; whilst if the plough was driven a furrow of 60 
 poles, or a German ivcndc, the result was an acre of (960x64, or) 61,440 
 square feet, the Langenekre that was once the standard of the South- 
 country ; if it stopped short at the quarantine of 40 poles, the result was 
 an acre of (640x64, or) 40,960 square feet, the Midland and North- 
 country measure that gradually became the legal acre. The substitution 
 of the three-foot yard for the two-foot ell, by adding six inches to the 
 measuring-pole, increased the acre's breadth by two teet, and lengthened 
 the furlong by twenty; thus raising the acre to (GGOxGG, or) 43,560 
 square feet, its present amount. In England, the English name has 
 supplanted the Saxon, and the English measure has superseded the 
 Saxon Langenekre ; whilst on the Continent the name and the measure- 
 ment of the Eugle must be sought for in chartulary and chronicle : the 
 Saxon alone survives, and the larger morgen has effaced all recollection 
 of the hund-landes.^ 
 
 At a certain period of English history, every innovation was probably 
 looked upon as Norman, and even at the present day the statute 
 measure is often called the Norman acre. It is not a little singular, 
 
 1 Chron. de Hello, p. 11 ; Somji. Gavelk. p. 38 ; Cud. Roff. p. 7. The" length and breadth 
 of the acre were everywhere acknowledged measurements, for by Bavarian law, for instance, it 
 was strictly forbidden to plough up another man's arable or meadow land, " usque ad tres in 
 longo jugere sulcos vel in transverso sex." — Lex Baio. xiii. 6. The wende, in Low Germany, 
 was the equivalent of the furlong, and, in land measurement, of the virgate or rood. It repro 
 sented Uie distance of 60 ruthen, at which the plough turned, the furlong of the Ijangenekre 
 measuring 960 feet — or 480 if the ruthe measured only 8 half-ells ; whilst in square measure it 
 has the half morgen of (60x256, or) 15,.360 sq. ft., answering to a rood or virgate. The 
 Sleswig schipland contained 10,2-10 sq. ft., or an old Anglian rood ; so that in that quarter the 
 quarantine was in use, six instead of four roods being given to the acre. A leuga of twelve 
 long furlongs would give a length of il,.520 feet, or a little under 2| statute miles, a distance 
 familiar to those who have walked in Switzerland, as the Stund. It was probably a "custom- 
 ary " measurement in many parts of ("iermany. — Adelung, in voc. Wende. The long and short 
 miles of tJermany, measuring respectively 10,126 and 6859 yards, according to Willich, corre- 
 spond very closely with four English leugfn (= 10,240 yds.), and four shorter miles (=6820 
 yds. 2 ft.) Tliey resemble raMx, differing from each other in the same proportion as the Icuga 
 of twelve, and lesser mile of eight quarantines.
 
 92 THE HIDE. 
 
 however, that the accuracy of an opinion, tacitly acquiesced in from 
 generation to generation, should never have been tested by comparing 
 the so-called Norman acre with the actual measure of Normandy, the 
 vergee, which is still in use in the Channel Islands, and vaguely estimated 
 at "a little less than a rood and a half," in Gruernsey, and "about three 
 roods" in Jersey, one measure being evidently double the size of the 
 other. The old Norman vergee, according to Landais, contained 385 
 toises carrees, which, reckoning the toise at 76*736 English inches, would 
 give 15,746'5 square feet, or about 58 square perches, statute measure, to 
 the vergee, answering very closely to the Guernsey measure of a little 
 less than 60 square perches. This would give a full acre, or four vergees, 
 of 62,986 square feet, corresponding very closely with the Langenekre, 
 as well as with the old Norwegian dceg-slat, or " ounce of land," literally 
 "a day's work," averaging, according to Haldorson, 8100 square ells, or 
 32,400 square feet. 
 
 Of the length of the old Norwegian foot I am ignorant ; but if it 
 was a little shorter than the English foot, like every other old Northern 
 measure — the Swedish foot of 11 '69 English inches would give a dteg-slat 
 of 31,563 square feet — the Norman vergee may be supposed to have been 
 half a Norwegian dteg-slat, which would have answered to the Jersey 
 measure. 
 
 II.— The Hide. 
 
 The ordinary mansus invariably implied the existence of a messuage, 
 or dwelling-house, for the mansuarius or casatus, the hus-bond or huend 
 with a hits, to which a variable amount of land was attached. Twelve 
 jugera or hunnarice would appear from Papias and Hincmar to have 
 belonged to the smallest mansus amongst the Franks, or from ten to 
 fifteen statute acres, according to the size of the arpent. By the enact- 
 ments of the Capitularies, every priest with a church was to receive his 
 manse, or a house with this amount of land, together with two slaves, a 
 male and female, from his free parishioners. The mansus amongst the 
 Franks was usually classed as ingenuilis, litalis, or servilis, according as 
 it had been originally allotted to the full-freeman, the leet or Jiospes, or 
 to the serf, the obligations attached to the latter holdings always remain- 
 ing in force until commuted in course of time for quit-rents. As a 
 general rule, the free mansus seems to have been twice the size of the 
 servile holding, for in the Capitularies, wherever the former is assessed 
 at four, the latter is rated at two pence. Hence, when Aventinus 
 describes two kinds of mansi in Bavaria, the Jiof, or curtis, requiring a 
 team oi'four horses, the Jmhe, or ordinary mansus, requiring only tivo, he 
 is evidently alluding to the classes rated as above. Occasionally the 
 mansus ingenuilis was of large extent, every holding of this description
 
 THE HIDE. 93 
 
 in the Ardennes, where such mansi were known as kuenishoben, or hovse 
 regales, amounting to 160 j'urnales} 
 
 The Jiit/e, or huha, was once a measure of land varying in different 
 parts of G-ermany from 12, 15, 18, and 24 to 30, and, in some instances, 
 to 42 morgen, though thirty was by far the most ordinary number. 
 This seems to have been the normal amount in the middle ages, " una 
 hoba quod est xxx jugera terree araturas," and it was supposed to give 
 emplo3''ment to a yoke of oxen, being known as hufe, huba, or mansus. 
 It was a very ancient principle that assigned a .yoke to the lowest order 
 of proprietary freemen, for the third of Solon's classes was the Zeugitce, 
 or yoke-men, after whom came the Thetes, proletarii or freemen without 
 property. There were at one time four descriptions of hufen in Low 
 Germany, of which the smallest was known as the haker-hufe of fifteen 
 morgen, an amount not enough in theory to employ a yoke of oxen or 
 pair of horses, but supposed to be cultivated by manual labour ; hacked 
 or hoed up. It seems to have been the equivalent of the priest's manse 
 amongst the Franks, which was managed by one male serf, and may be 
 regarded as a type of the original servile holding. Next in size was the 
 land-hufe, or dorf-hufe, of thirty morgen, the yoke-land or usual holding 
 of the Bauer, or ordinary tenant of the vill, the Torp-carl of the North- 
 men. As the Bavarian hof, or four-horse holding, contained from fifty 
 to sixty Jucharts, the hube, or two-horse holding, must have averaged 
 from twenty-five to thirty, and was evidently the equivalent of the Saxon 
 dorf-hufe. Both may be regarded as the ordinary holding assigned at 
 that time in Saxony and Bavaria to the representative of the colonus, 
 hospes, or husbandman of early days, and answering to the majisus litalis. 
 The Tripel-hufe of forty-five, and the Hager-hufe — hedged-off, or separate 
 hufe, — of sixty morgen, completed the four classes of hufen. The Saxon 
 Hagerman was of a superior class to the ordinary bauer. He owed a 
 certain stated service, and paid a fixed rent, or crhzins, to the Hagerherr 
 or Hagerjunker — the lord of the fee — thus holding, as it were, in fee-farm. 
 A new hagerman had to obtain the consent of, and be enfeoffed by, the 
 lord of the fee, — belehnung ansuchen, — and to buy out or compensate the 
 heir of the former holder ; whilst all hager-gute, or i)roj)erty held by this 
 tenure, was under a separate hagergerichte, who held his own court, or 
 hager-recht. The privileged Saxon hagerman, with his hufe of sixty 
 morgen, doubling in size the dorf-hufe of the ordinary bauer, would have 
 
 ^ Ducange, in voc. Mansus, etc. The French arpent of arable land generally contained a 
 hundred square perches, and was in ordinary cases measured by the greater, medium, or lesser 
 perch of 22, 20, and 18 feet respectively, which would give 48,400, 40,000, or 32,400 square 
 fieet (French measure) according to the length of the perch. Giving 76'736 English inches to 
 the toise of six French feet, these arpents may be reckoned, for all ordinary jjurposes, at five, 
 four, and three and a half roods, statute measure. There were many other measuring-poles 
 and land-measures in France, but these arpents may be looked upon as, in some sort, the legal 
 or standard measures of arable land. Iha jiiger is occasionally reckoned at two arpents ; but 
 the French acre varied in siz(;, according to Ijandais, generally averaging about an arpent and 
 a half, or 60 perches. The Bonniere was still a measure of land in the time of Cofgrave, wlio 
 describcB it as " about an arpent." Landais calls it a Belgian land measure.
 
 94 THE HIDE. 
 
 found his counterpart, in a certain sense, amongst his English kindred 
 in the privileged villein, or villein-socman, generally a tenant on the 
 crown lands, and the representative of the less-thegn who held his caru- 
 cate or half carucate of land before the Conquest " pro uno manerio," 
 doubling in size the ordinary husbandland. He dwelt apart and sepa- 
 rate from the Geneats, or ordinary " sharers" in the vill, with a right of 
 hereditary tenancy on fulfilling the obligations of his holding, but with- 
 out the proprietary right of the alodiarius, of the tenant in pure socage, 
 or of the Kentish gaveller. If he paid his relief, and performed his 
 obligations, he was irremovable from his father's land, whilst he could 
 throw up his tenancy if he chose, and "go where he willed;" but he 
 could not "go where he willed luith his land."^ 
 
 Upon our own side of the Channel, the measures of the Kentishmen 
 were of large extent. They reckoned in sulings and juga, or in plough- 
 lands and yoke-lands ; for the jugum was evidently the " gioc tertbes- 
 londes," or the amount allotted in early days to the yoke of oxen, — the 
 quarter-ploughland. In a charter dated in 812, negotiating an exchange 
 of land between Cfenulf of Mercia and Wulfred Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, the suling is identified with '' terra duarum manentium," or tivo 
 Mercian hides, and the jugum or ioclet, with half a mansus, or a halt- 
 hide by Mercian reckoning. The number of acres in the jugum is easily 
 ascertained ; for as, according to the Eochester Custumal, a virgate of 
 ploughing was due from ten acres, three virgates from thirty acres, and 
 a full acre from the jugum, the latter evidently contained forty acres, 
 giving a hundred and sixty to the suling ; which exactly agrees with the 
 
 entry in Domesday, "four hundred acres and a half, which make two 
 
 400.5 
 Bolins and a half," — for ^ =160. The acres in question were Lan- 
 
 genekres at the time of the Conquest, and for some time afterwards, as 
 can easily be shown. A rent, or gavel of a penny seems to have been 
 exacted from the Kentish gavel-land, where the rent was higher the 
 firma and opera being less. Thus seven acres paid 7 den., eight and a 
 half acres, 8 den. 1 ob., thirty acres were rated at 30 den., and a jugum 
 at 40 den. Occasionally the holdings were rated at a penny more, or a 
 penny less, than the acreage, — the Waldenses, or woodmen of Darent, 
 for instance, holding a jugum for 39 den., whilst two juga are elsewhere 
 assessed at 81 den. At a comparatively later period the men of Thanet 
 held certain lands of the See of Canterbury by fealty, relief, and a rent 
 and service called " peny-gavel," paying annually for each suling 19 sol. 
 
 1 Adelung, in voc Hufe, Hager-hufe, etc. The Bavarian jucJiart contained 400 square 
 ruthen, the ruthe measuring 10 Bavarian feet, or 9'7225 feet, statute measure, and answering 
 apparently to the Decempeda by which the ecclesiastical ancing was bound to be measured, 
 according to the Capitularies. The juchart would thus contain 38,088 square feet, or 27 
 square feet less than three and a half roods, statute measure, answering to the smallest French 
 arpent. The hof would thus have averaged from 44 to 52 acres, the hube from 22 to 26. 
 Beckoning the old Saxon morgen at half a langenekre, or a little under three roods, the Saxon 
 hufen would have averaged respectively about 42, 31^-, 21, and 10^ acres, statute measure.
 
 THE HIDE. 95 
 
 8 den., and for every quarter of a suling 4 sol. 11 den., or 59 den. for a 
 jugum, evidently a penny less than the full amount. Sixty acres were 
 therefore reckoned to the jugum at this time instead oi forty, and the 
 lesser acre had superseded the langenekre, which exactly tallies with the 
 annotation in the old Leiger-book, quoted by Sir H. Ellis, "a solin, 
 according to the old computation, contained cc acres," which, reckoning 
 by the old computation, or " English tale," six score to the hundred, 
 would amount to 240. The Kentish suling was, therefore, a measure of 
 160 langenekres, or 240 lesser acres, doubling the Mercian hide, and 
 answering apparently to the large king's-hufe in the Ardennes, contain- 
 ing 160 jurnales. In later times the jugum seems to have usurped the 
 place of both suling and hide throughout the South-country ; for as every 
 caruca, or full team in the manor of Darent, was bound to plough an 
 acre of demesne, and the same quantity was exacted from every jugum, 
 the yoke-land evidently employed a full team. Hence Diceto, Paris, and 
 other authorities, are correct in identifying it in their own time with 
 the hide, for it will be found to have been identical in extent with the 
 Wessex hide.-' 
 
 The larger measurement does not appear to have been confined to 
 Kent, for it is traceable in the neighbouring county of Sussex. The 
 Leuga or Banlieue of Battle Abbey, called in Domesday the Rape, was 
 reckoned at six hides ; and as, according to the Abbey chronicle, " eight 
 virgates make a hide, four make a wista," and the leuga measured twelve 
 quarentines, 1440 acres, or 960 langenekres, would have been contained 
 in the square league, giving respectively 240 or 160 to the hide, 120 or 
 80 to the wista, and 30 or 20 to the virgate. Some entries in the Survey 
 go far to corroborate this identilication of the large Sussex hide with the 
 suling. " Archbishop Lanfranc holds a manor in Mailing. It is in the 
 Rape of Pevensey, and in the days of King Edward was assessed at 
 twenty hides ; but the Archbishop has only seventy-five, for the Earl of 
 Moreton has five beyond the bounds of the hundred." In his tiventy 
 hides, therefore, the Archbishop ought to have had eighty, which is 
 inexjjlicable, unless the existence of a larger and a lesser hide is admitted; 
 and in tiveniy sulings there would have been eighty juga, or lesser hides. 
 "Of this manor Walter holds two parts of half a hide, and he has two 
 ploughs in demes^ne, and a villein and a bordar with a })lough." Two 
 parts of half a Wessex liide of 60 lesser acres, or 20 acres, very little more 
 than the gyrdland of a Gebur, would scarcely afford employment fur three 
 ploughs ; so the half hide must have been half a suling, or a wista of 120 
 acres, which would give the much more probable amount of 80 acres for 
 the three ploughs." 
 
 From the Exeter Domesday it may be gathered, as Kenible has shown, 
 
 * Cod. Dip. cxcix. ; Cast. Eoff. pp. 5-10 ; Somn. GaveUc. pp. 26, 188 ; Ellis, Introd. vol. 
 i. p. 153. 
 
 ^ Chron. de Bello, pp. 11, 17; Domesday, torn, i, fol. 16a. In the measurements of a later 
 time the chronicle identifies the wista with the virgate.
 
 96 THE HIDE. 
 
 that the Wessex hide contained forty acres at the date of the Conquest, 
 and was divided into four virgates, or gyrdlands, and sixteen ferlings, or 
 ferlingates, — quarter virgates, — a measurement confined to this part of 
 England, according to Agard, and therefore only introducing confusion 
 when applied to the Midland or North-country ploughland. It was 
 therefore a half-ploiighland, and identical with the Kentish jugum, as 
 may he seen from the following entty : — "In the Hundred of Ailestehba 
 are 73 hides and 8 carucates. . . . The Barons have 16 in demesne, the 
 Bishop of Winchester has 10, Nigel the doctor, 4|, and Hervey of 
 Wilton, 1|. From 37 the King receives 11 Ih. 2 sol, and from 20 hides 
 of Harold's land, in the hands of villeins, the King has no gavel." So 
 that, as 16 + 10+41 + 11 + 37+20, or 89 hides, were equal to 73 hides 
 and 8 carucates, 16 of the former were equal to 8 of the latter, and the 
 Wessex hide was half a carucate, just as the carucate or standard plough- 
 land was half a suling. It occasionally appears in the South-country as 
 the Hiwisc, a name that seems to have been generally applied to a half- 
 holding, much as the Bavarian hube seems to have been half the size of 
 the hot". " From every Hiwisc at harvest-time /or^^ pence," — such was 
 the foremost obligation upon the Ceorls attached to the ten hides at 
 Stoke by Hysseburn, as may be gathered from a charter dated in the 
 year 900 ; and as, according to the " Gebures-gerihte," every tenant of a 
 gyrdland, or quarter-holding of ten acres, was bound to pay ten gafol- 
 pence on Michaelmas-day, it is evident that penny-gavel, — the tax, or 
 hidage, of a penny from every acre, — the langenekre, and the hiwisc, or 
 lesser hide, were familiar throughout the South-country at the date of 
 Alfred's death.i 
 
 Northward of the Thames, in Essex, in English Mercia, and as far as 
 the Welland, and the borders of the old East Anglian kingdom, the 
 hide was identical with the Wessex carucate, doubling in extent the 
 Wessex hide, or hiwisc, and thus containing 120 lesser acres. Ely was 
 rated at ten hides, five in demesne, whilst forty villeins held each 15 
 acres, so that 600 acres made up five hides, giving 120 to the hide. 
 Stonteneia was rated at a hide and a half, a liide in demesne, whilst six 
 villeins held each 10 acres, giving 60 acres to the half hide. Heilla was 
 rated at two hides, a hide, a virgate, and 10 acres in demesne, whilst ten 
 villeins held each 8 acres ; so that a virgate and 90 acres made up a 
 hide, giving 30 acres to the virgate. Many another similar example 
 might be quoted trom the Ely Inquest, to show that, in the counties of 
 
 * Saxons, vol. i. Ap. B. p. 490 ; Exon. Dom. p. 13 ; Cod. Dip. mlxxvii. ; Eect. Sing. Pars. 
 {Ancient Laws), p. 434. "Of his gavel-land he shall plough, and sow from his own barn, 
 three acres, . . . and to stock the land shall be given two oxen, a cow, six sheep, and seven 
 acres sown of his gyrdland." From this passage, as well as the payment oi ten gavel-pence at 
 Michaelmas, it is clear that the Gebur's allotment consisted of ten large acres, and that he 
 supplied a yoke of oxen, or a quarter of the full team. So in the will of Abba, the Kentish 
 Reeve, to an half swulnnf/ " let bo given with the land iv oxen and ii cows and 1 sheep and 
 one lioise " (Thorpe, Diplom. p. 470). In 835 the jucjuin seems to have been still reckoned 
 in Kent as merely a yokeland, and only half a plough-team was required from the half-suling, 
 but the proportion of sheep was much larger.
 
 THE HIDE. 97 
 
 Huntingdon, Cambridge, Hertford, and Essex, to which that inquiry 
 principally refers, the normal amount of the hide was 120 acres, or half 
 a Kentish suling, as the charter of Ceenulf, already quoted, shows to have 
 been the case throughout Mercia in the opening of the ninth century. 
 There are also traces of the larger land-measure in this quarter, the 
 equivalent of the Kentish suling, and the greater Sussex hide ; for 
 Agard, writing in the reign of Elizabeth, and quoting an old " Book of 
 Peterborough," estimates the yardland, or virgate, at sixty acres, as well 
 as at thirty and thirty-two, and the historian of Ely frequently alludes 
 to a hide of " twelve times twenty acres/'' " Be it known that the great 
 knight's-fee contains four hides, each hide four virgates, each virgate four 
 ferlingates, each ferlingate ten acres." Thus Agard, quoting an entry 
 in the Eed Book of the Exchequer, which goes on to say that the caru- 
 cate was half a hide, thus giving 160 acres to the latter, and identifying 
 it with the greater hide, or suling ; for the mention of the ferlingate 
 marks the original measurement as South-country, and the acres as lan- 
 genekres. " It is to be noted," so proceeds the entry, "that when forty 
 shillings are given as scutage from the great knight's-fee, each virgate 
 pays thirty pence, each half-virgate fifteen, each ferlingate sevenpence 
 halfpenny, and /ro?n an acre a halfpenny." The original measurement 
 was by South-country reckouing, but like the Kentish penny-gavel, the 
 actual assessment was made upon the later standard ; for there are 
 fifteen halfpence in sevenpence-halfpenny, and fifteen lesser acres in a 
 ferlingate of ten langenekres. Scutage was levied upon the fief and its 
 subdivisions, but as a very variable number of acres were contained in 
 the knight's-fee after it was assessed in lbs., instead of by measurement, 
 all amounts below the lowest subdivision, or the ferlingate, were calcu- 
 lated by the legal acre ; or the scutage would have been levied at the 
 rate of only^ii'c pence for the ferlingate. Three different measurements 
 are traceable, therefore, in Anglo-Saxon England, a greater, lesser, and 
 medium hide, the latter being identical with the ordinary ploughland, or 
 carucate of 120 lesser acres.^ 
 
 Northv/ard of the Welland, throughout the old kingdom of East 
 Anglia, and beyond the boundaries of English Mercia, the hide is never 
 met with in the Survey as a measure of land, its place being supplied by 
 the ploughland divided into eight oxgangs, known respectively in Latin 
 documents as the carucata and hovata. The bovata is usually calculated 
 at 15 acres, thus answering to the Gebur's gyrdland, or large ferlingate 
 of 10 langenekres, and giving 120 to the carucate as elsewhere ; but as 
 in the oldest examples of customary tenure in the Boldon Buke, the 
 oxgang is always reckoned at 30 acres, the larger measurement seems to 
 have been originally used in the north. Whenever the bide is mentioned 
 
 * Inq. Eli pp. 50G-7 ; Eeg. Eon. liicli. The cjreat kiiiglit's-fco answ(!red to 40 lbs. of land, 
 under which amount of property no one was called upon to perform knifjht-servicc after the 
 openinc; of the fourteenth century. Before that time scutage of forty shillings was levied on 
 the original knight's-feo of 20 lbs, — the fief-de-bauberc or poor-knight's fee, — at the uoiuiDal 
 rate of a penny an acre. 
 
 G
 
 98 THE HIDE. 
 
 in this quarter in the Survey it seems to have represented a much larger 
 amount of land than in southern England. In " Criste's Croft," or the 
 portion of modern Lancashire included between the Mersey and the 
 Eibble, six carucates went to the hide at the date of the Conquest, 
 twenty-four to the knight's-fee in the thirteenth century when the Testa 
 de Nevill was compiled. Twice under Leicestershire occurs the entry 
 " two parts of a hide, that is, twelve carucates,'' giving eighteen to the 
 full hide ; whilst in the manor of Melton, in the same county, there were 
 seven hides, each containing fourteen and a lialf carucates. All over 
 this part of England fourteen men were counted for twelve, evidently 
 from an ancient custom of reckoning 12 X 12 to the hundred, " Let xiv 
 be named, and let him choose xi," is the regulation in Canute's Laws. 
 '* Serment nume, ceo est a saveir par xiiii humes leals . . . sei duzime 
 main . . . Par vii humes numez, sei siste main . . . Treis duble 
 serment, ceo est a saveir par xlii leals humes numez, sei trente siste main" 
 — such are tlie regulations in the Conqueror's Laws ; and as the Ten- 
 mantale, like the knight's-fee, had become a measurement of land when 
 the Honor of Eichmond was surveyed in 30 Hen, II., and was estimated 
 for assessment at fourteen carucates, the hide of fourteen and a half, 
 approaching still more closely to the tenth of a hundred reckoned at 
 12 X 12, may be supposed to have represented a Tenmantale.^ 
 
 Tlie Domesday Survey stopped upon the frontiers of St. Cuthbert's 
 territory, and Anglo-Saxon Northumberland, where a different measure- 
 ment is traceable. " Haifa carucate of land, that is, fifty-two acres and 
 a half," says the Black Book of Hexham, under the head of Whalton, 
 and the Northumbrian bovate averages from 12 to 13 acres in the same 
 register. Oswi, before encountering Penda, vowed to the service of God 
 " duodecim possessiones prtediorum ad construenda monasteria . . . 
 singulis vero possessiones decern erant familiarum, id est, simul omnes 
 centum viginti ;" and Hilda, two years afterwards, "comparata posses- 
 sione decem familiarum," founded the minster at Whitby. Each of these 
 " ten hides" Beda describes as a possessiunculus, rendered in the Saxon 
 version by Bocland-ccht, representing the amount of land conferred upon 
 an ordinary minster, often known in the South-country as " the twelve 
 hide«," and corresponding with the Banleuga, Rape, or square league of 
 1440 acres, allotted by the Conqueror to Battle Abbey. Thus the " terra 
 familias" of Beda, or hide, as it is rendered by the Saxon translator, con- 
 tained originally 144 acres ; but from the custom of counting fourteen 
 
 1 Dom. t. 1, pp. 235 b, 236, 237, 269, b. ; JReg. Hon. Rich. p. 22 ; Test, de Nev. p. 408 ; 
 Cnut. Sec. 66 ; Wil. I. xiv. xv. The villeins of Boldon, and all who are simply entered as 
 holding, paying, and working '' as the villeins of Boldon," seem to represent the original cus- 
 tomary tenants of the Palatinate, paying the old land-gavel and church-shot, which are not 
 traceable in the other holdings. The great extent of the hide in the Danelage is evident from 
 the passage quoted by Agard (Beg. Hon. Eich. Ap. p. 9) from the Book of Dunstable, giving 
 nine shires and 80,800 hides to West-Sexlaw, eight shires and 11,800 hides to Merchlaw, and 
 eighteen shires with only 3200 hides to Danelaio. Reckoning by the carucate, the number of 
 hides in Wessex would be reduced to 40,400, but tlie size of the hide seems to have varied so 
 much in the Danelage that no approximation to accuracy can be attained.
 
 THE HIDE. 99 
 
 men to the Teuraantale the carucate seems to have dwindled in this 
 quarter, before the coviipilation of the Black Book of Hexham, into a 
 little over 100 acres. The influence of the Northumbrian measurement is 
 traceable beyond the Tweed in the Scottish ploughland of 104 acres. The 
 oxgang, according to Spelman, quoting Skene, " was always a measure of 
 thirteen acres ;" two oxgangs, or a quatrain of acres, went to the Scottish 
 Hushandland, a name generally given throughout Northumberland to 
 the virgate or ordinary farm-holding of two oxgangs, though the " terrse 
 husbandorum" are occasionally known as " bondagia" or huendages. The 
 Bond or Bondman, so often met with in the North-country, must not be 
 confounded with the Bond-slave or serf. He was the Buend, or Hus- 
 bandman — the Buend with a hus — the equivalent of the Scandinavian 
 Bonder, but not of the Odal-Bonder ; and a relic of the olden time still 
 lingers in the North-country under the name of the " bondage-system," 
 entailing, not serfdom, but the necessity of finding extra labour in field 
 work.^ 
 
 Many an old custom may have lingered in East Anglia, a separate 
 though a subordinate kingdom at the time of its occupation by the 
 Danes, who seem to have interfered but little with the institutions they 
 found there ; for, according to the Laws of the Confessor, they continued 
 to pay the " major emendatio Saxonum" in this quarter " through affi- 
 nity to the Saxons." The size of the carucate, however, is not easily 
 traceable from the Survey. " St. Benet of Kamsay held in the time of 
 King Edward 8 carucates, with soke, for a manor ... A leuga long 
 by half a leuga in breadth," giving an area of 720 lesser acres to eight 
 carucates. " The bishop holds Hoxanam for a manor, 9 carucates of 
 arable land. In this manor is a church, the seat of the bishopric in 
 Suffolk in the time of King Edward, The manor is a leuga in length 
 and eight quarentines in breadth," giving an area of 960 lesser acres to 
 nine carucates ; so that the carucate is evidently used as a measure of the 
 arable land in the manors — a measure of assessment and not of extent. 
 The Survey was set on foot for the purpose of taxation, and not of super- 
 ficial measurement, numerous entries showing that some properties were 
 lightly taxed while others were rack-rented. Wmesford, for instance, is 
 rated at 3| hides, with arable land for 60 ploughs ; Criciie at 10^ hides, 
 with arable land for 8 ploughs ; so that Winesford contained nearly eigltt 
 times as much taxable land as Criche, which was rated at three times the 
 amount of the larger manor. Ambersley, again, "fait numerata pro 15 
 hidis, inter silvam et planam," or between woodland and open, an expres- 
 sion of frequent occurrence, clearly including both descriptions of land in 
 
 * BecLa, II. E., iii. 24. Tlie Scottisli acre represents <at present the Englisli measured by the 
 Fall, "jine inetwandc, rod, or raip of six ells long." The old Scottish'ell lueasiires 37-0598 
 inches in length, and the acre thus contains 54760 square feet, or a little overlive roods statute 
 measurement— the large French arpent. The Scottish ploughland of 104 acres, measuring 
 upwards of 130 statute, and nearly 140 lesser acres, a]iproaches very closely to the old Nor- 
 thumbrian hide. The Irish acre is also the English, measured by a perch seven yards in 
 length, thus containiug 70,560 square feet, or a little less than six roods and a half. The 
 Scottish and Irish miles represent the English mile measured by these longer perches.
 
 100 THE HIDE. 
 
 the hide; and though Kemble, coraparino; the early hidage with the 
 present acreage of a number of South-country districts, has arrived at 
 certain general conchisions which he appHes to the whole of England, 
 sucli calculations must always be of doubtful accuracy.^ 
 
 In the Boldon Buke and the Black Book of Hexham, compiled 
 respectively in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the oxgang by 
 no means appears invariably as a measure of fifteen acres, but varies 
 in extent between seven and a half and thirty-six — the eighth of a 
 large hide of 288 acres — though thirty and fifteen are the ordinary 
 amounts in the Palatinate, and twelve in Northumberland, the farm- 
 holding, as of old, usually consisting of two bovates. This wide variation 
 may be partly attributed to the description of land to which the 
 measuring-pole was applied, for the heath, the marsh, and the wood 
 were all measured by different rufhen in the land from which the Saxon 
 and the Angle came. The long marshland perch is traceable in the 
 measurements of the Croyland charters, and the size of the old customary 
 acre of Stafibrdshire tells how much of the arable land of that county was 
 won from the forest of " the Nieder Wude." But there was another 
 cause for the variation in question, especially after the Conquest. Rent 
 was represented in early days hy feorm, or rent in kind, and by stated 
 obligatory services attached to the land, the husbandman providing the 
 customary feorm, and performing the customary services required of him. 
 As land rose in value the custom was not augmented, but the holding 
 diminished in size, shrinking from the large standard of a pastoral age 
 and cornage into a quarter of its original amount, or even less ; and the 
 agricultural system in force for many ages rendered such an arrangement 
 comparatively easy. It may be gathered from the survey of the Hexham 
 property at the era of the dissolution of the monasteries, when the agri- 
 cultural system of earlier days was fast fading away in England, that the 
 old husbandland — in the parish of Sandhow for instance — was still repre- 
 sented by a " tenement" with farm buildings, a small close, four acres of 
 meadow in the inges, and twenty-four acres of arable in the toivn-fields, 
 with a right of pasture upon moors and commons. To eighteen acres of 
 arable in the fields, three acres of meadow were allotted in the inges ; to a 
 smaller amount of arable, two acres or less of meadow, but always in a 
 certain proportion ; and thus the husbandman, the representative of the 
 Last, the Geneat, the Bondman, the Villein, and the Ceorl upon gafol- 
 land, differed essentially in the character of his holding from the yeoman 
 freeholder with his separate homestead or manerium, who answered to the 
 tenant-farmer of modern times. The house, farm-buildings, and close, 
 the sole erhe, heredium, or separate inheritance of the husbandman, 
 
 ^ Beda's calculations by the terra familice, rendered JdJe in the Saxon version, are very 
 vague. He gives 600 to the Isle of Thanet, containing about 26,000 statute acres, and 1200 
 to the Isle of Wight, containing about 105,000, or four times as much. Ho also calculates the 
 measurement of the latter at "about" 30 mille passus — Roman miles — by 12, giving " about" 
 360 square miles of surface to the island. Singularly enough the Roman square mile contains 
 576 h^sser acres, or four hides of 144, so that 300 square miles would contain " terram 1200 
 familiarum." He may have calculated roughly by this measurement.
 
 THE HIDE. 101 
 
 formed a portion of the village, the ham or hoiile' bi the agf/eultural 
 population, and appear in Ini's Laws as the '- friim-stol- and'-weorthig," 
 the " toft and croft" of Scotland and Old BaxoL'v." " Si' quis' a-idcs a villa 
 transportaverit, et aream illam coluerit, tunc pos'tea" hahtr dicitui' (^cliitiv- 
 able laud) non vero tofft vel area." Such was the law laid down in Ger- 
 many, so that the right to the plot of ground in the village was contingent 
 upon its occupation as a residence. The virgate or oxgang of arable lay- 
 in " the outland " in the common field or "gedal-land ;" the portion of 
 meadow in the common inge or " gedal-mo3du," often lying along the 
 river side ; and " the fields," and " the pastures," and *' the meadows," 
 are still familiar names in the parishes of England, though it is generally 
 the refuse of the land that has alone perjjetuated the name of " common." 
 In the field and in the inge, in the forest and on the heath, the right of 
 the husbandman was a share-right, his name was Geneat or "sharer" in 
 the vill, and thus as land rose in value the " share" allotted to each farm 
 holding could be easily diminished.^ 
 
 The hide appears to have been reckoned after the Conquest at five 
 score acres, or an ordinary hundred, for assessing the tallages of the early 
 Plantagenet kings, an amount it still nominally retains, though the yard- 
 land of thirty acres still recalls the earlier practice of counting by the 
 hundred of six score. A different method of assessment grew into use 
 after scutage began to take the place of actual service in the field, and 
 Castle-guard was commuted in a similar manner for Ward, payments of 
 this description and the other feudal aids incidental to tenure by military 
 service being calculated by the knight's-fee. In Glanville's time the 
 legal amount of the ordinary knight's-fee, or fief de hauberc, was four 
 carucates, or 20 lbs. of land, but the actual size of the fee varied accord- 
 ing to the value of the land. " The bovate can only be let for a shilling," 
 is the purport of more than one entry in the Testa de Nevill under York- 
 shire, and accordingly in such localities the carucate is only reckoned at 
 eight shillings. " In the manor of Osprenge are 374 acres of arable, each 
 of which can be let for two pence, or for £15, lis. 8d. The herbage of 
 the manor is worth a marc, and if the king will put in two cows, it will 
 be worth 24 shillings. There is pasture for 200 sheep, which can be let 
 for two and a half marcs ; but if the king will put in the sheep it would 
 be worth 100 shillings. The king can put in 50 pigs, which would 
 
 ' The customary amount of meadow and pasture allotted to each farm-lioldin.ij according to 
 its extent was thoroughly familiar to the compilers of the Survey. In Enfield, for instance, 
 there was "arable land for 24 ploughs, and meadow for 24 ploughs, et 25 sol. plus;" the 
 meaning of the latter clause being explained by the entry under Eva, " pratum viii Car. et de 
 fcno 4 sol." All the meadow land beyond the amount required for the plough-team was valued 
 as hay land. The entry " pastura ad pecuniam vilht;," means enough pasturage for the otlnn- 
 live-stock of the vill; "pastura ad pecuniam et xx den. plus," implies that there was more 
 than enough. Some of the entries arc very minute, enumerating amongst the stock in ouo 
 instance "217 sheep, 17 pigs, and one lame marey A passage in Fleta occasionally gives 
 rise to confusion. In laying down the duties of the seneschallus, or farm-baililf, he says that 
 the "carucata" should consist of three fields of 60 acres or of two fields of 80 acres. Tho 
 carucate in this case is not a measure of extent; not " a ploughland," but "the land under 
 plough."
 
 102 THE HIDE. 
 
 returil nve marts/ l3iit lie can get nothing unless he puts in the pigs." 
 Such is'th'e descri'ptioti "of k Kentish manor in which the acre was worth 
 about three "Gin:tes' as rriuch a? in the north, when the riches lay as yet 
 unknbwh b^ineath the' sUrfftce". Hence, in the fertile lands of Hereford- 
 shire, three, two and a half, and sometimes only two hides were held for 
 a fee, when in a different part of the very same county six hides and a 
 half were only counted as a quarter of a fee. The normal amount of the 
 knight's-fee in Lancashire was twenty-fonr carucates, whilst it varied in 
 Yorkshire from eight to twenty, and in Lincolnshire, according to the 
 Eegister of the Honor of Kichraond, generally averaged either twelve or 
 eighteen. For the purpose of assessment, however, every fee was 
 reckoned at four hides, paying by the hide, the virgate, and the ferlingate, 
 the actual number of acres only being reckoned when the amount of the 
 property to be taxed fell short of a ferlingate ; trifling variations which 
 v^^ill occasionally be found in the amount of suras paid, apparently from 
 the same number of fees, being probably traceable to this cause. A few 
 pence more or less would be collected from a number of very small pro- 
 perties assessed at their actual acreage. About the opening of the four- 
 teenth century the older fief de hauberc ceased to be the standard of 
 assessment, and its obligations were transferred to the Magnum Feudum 
 Militis, or great knight's-fee of 40 Ibs.^ 
 
 IIL 
 
 The Land- Gavel. 
 
 " Two carucates, or half a knight's fee," are the expressions of Glan- 
 ville, giving to the fief de hauberc, in his days, four hides, or land of the 
 value of 20 lbs. The legal value of the ordinary hide, or carucate of six 
 score acres, would have been reckoned, therefore, in Glanville's time, at 
 5 lbs., or at ten pence an acre, which was the standard also in the reign 
 of Edgar. " See what a wretched bargain ! The aiibot gave that woman 
 9 lbs. and got nothing but a hide and twenty-four acres of arable land, 
 absque calumnia, with six and a half tofts (prasdia) bare and waste. As 
 the hide was worth five pounds, and the twenty-four acres were worth 
 twenty shillings, the tofts, which no one in his senses would value at 
 more than a pound, cost three ! " Thus wrote the historian of Ely, 
 though land, according to the same autliority, was occasionally purchased 
 at a higher or lower rate than its legal value. Four hides, for instance, 
 were bought tvith the stock for 30 lbs., ten hides for 40 lbs., " but Wul- 
 noth kept all his stock, live and dead." Five hides, again, cost only 
 15 lbs., but " all the stock in the land was purchased in addition." 
 1 Glanv. L. 2, c. 2 ; Testa de Nev. pp. 62, CD, 218, S77, 408.
 
 THE LAKD-GA VEL. 1 03 
 
 From many other passages, however, in the same work and elsewhere, it 
 may be gathered that the ordinary carucate, or ploughland, absque 
 calumnia, or without any claim upon it, such as a king would grant to 
 his thegns, was valued at 5 lbs., or at ten pence an acre ; and as Hincnmr 
 and Papias give twelve acres to the mansus, and it may be gathered from 
 the regulations for military service which were in force during the reign 
 of Charlemagne, that the mansus was valued at ten solidi, the legal value 
 of ihe acre amongst the Franks must have been also reckoned at that 
 time at ten pence. The valuation of the acre at ten Caroline pence may 
 be supposed, therefore, to represent the ordinary standard of assessment 
 under the Austrasian House.^ 
 
 In enumerating the results of kingly government, Samuel warns the 
 people of Israel that their king " will take the tenth of your seeds, and 
 of your vineyards, and of j'our sheep;" whilst a similar mulct was levied 
 by the Persians and Carthaginians, and a tenth was associated in Greece, 
 after Oriental precedent, with the tyranny, and often with the hegemony. 
 The tenth sheaf was also exacted by the Komans, with a fifth of the 
 produce in wine and oil, from the occupiers of the State domains ; and a 
 tenth of the agricultural produce of Sicily and Sardinia, together with 
 certain taxes upon imports and exports, was accepted in lieu of military 
 service. From time immemorial, therefore, a certain portion of produce, 
 generally a tenth, seems to have been exacted from the occupants of the 
 land as a tax or prerogative of the state or king, payments in kind being 
 in course of time commuted for payments in money. Hence the " tri- 
 butum vel censum" of the Vulgate is rendered by the Lindisfarne Grlos- 
 sarist " gasfel vel penning-s\xt," appearing in Ulphilas under the form 
 of skaff, a name retained in the C'mc-sceat, or church-shot, the earliest 
 ecclesiastical prerogative traceable in tlie old English codes, and in the 
 scat-penny and scat-chalder of the Boldon Buke. The same passage is 
 rendered in the Pushworth Gospels as "gtefel vel hernisse," the penning- 
 slast, penny-gavel, or scat-penny, being thus identified with the overhyrnes, 
 or prerogative of the overlord. The system seems to have been in full 
 force amongst the Franks in very early times. " Agraria, pascuaria, vel 
 decimas porcorum, ecclesice concedimus, ita ut actor vel decimator in 
 rebus ecclesias nuUus accedat." Thus Clotaire in 560, and as his edict 
 goes on to say, " ecclesise vel clericis nullam requirant agentes public! 
 functionem, qui avi, vel genitoris, aut germani nostri, immunitatem 
 meruerunt," the king was apparently confirming the privilege of exemp- 
 tion from secular service conceded to the Church, or to members of the 
 Church, by his predecessors. From the time when Clovis embraced 
 Christianity no decimator seems to have been allowed to levy the royal 
 tentli upon her lands, or to exact secular service from her members, where 
 a royal privilege of exemption could be shown. A similar liability to 
 the exactions of the royal decimator — the comes, gerefa, or graf, and his 
 deputies — is traceable amongst the Spanish Visigoths, in the necessity of 
 
 * Hist. El. Lib. i. c. xiv. vii. xxxvi. xlvi. ; Pertz, Leg. i. p. 149 ; Cane, Lih. de Ben. 37.
 
 104 THE LAN'D-GA VEL. 
 
 paying " los tribudos que deven ser fechos de la eredat," incumbent upon 
 every recipient of a royal grant — " donationis regalis nmnificientiae;" 
 whilst it is evident that, when Olaf the Saint despatched Gellir the Ice- 
 lander to his native land, and bade him tell his countrymen to pay, " as 
 in Norway, fhegn-gilkU from the land, and nef-gilldi {nose, or poll-tax), 
 a penny of which ten went to the ell-wadmal," pening-slajt, or pency- 
 gavel, was a familiar institution amongst the Scandinavian thegns} 
 
 The Kentish penny-gavel, traceable long after the Conquest, the ten 
 gafol-pence payable from the Gebur's gyrdland of ten acres, and the 
 forty pence given from every hiwisc of forty acres occupied by the Ceorls 
 of Stoke by Hysseburne, tell of the exaction of the tenth penny from the 
 land throughout southern England ; and the impost is equally traceable 
 in the North country at the date of the Domesday Survey. "And, in 
 addition, he has a penny from each, that is the land-gavel — de unaquaque 
 unum denariura, id est, landgable ; " such, for instance, is an entry under 
 Lincoln, and in every case the land-gavel appears to have been the pre- 
 rogative of the immediate overlord. Beyond the limits included in the 
 Survey, it continued to be attached to certain holdings in the northern 
 Palatinate in the twelfth century, and under the name of scat-penyng 
 was paid by the villeins of Boldon, and all who were similarly assessed, 
 at the rate of 15 pence from the oxgang, or a penny from every acre in 
 the ordinary carucate of 120 acres. " Unusquisque tenet ij bovatas de 
 XXX acris, et reddit 2 sol. 6 den. de scatpenynges, et dimidiam scatchel- 
 dram de avena, et 16 den. de averpenys," etc. Such is the substance of 
 the passage in the Boldon Buke, in which land-gavel is traceable in the 
 scat-penyng, and church-shot in the half scat-chalder of oats ; and as a 
 number of the bishop's vills are dismissed with the simple notice, " unus- 
 quisque tenet, reddit, et operatur sicut illi de Boldono," both obligations 
 were evidently still incumbent upon the tenure by " the old villeinage." 
 It may be assumed, therefore, that the valuation of the acre at ten pence, 
 and the land-gavel of the tenth penny levied as the overhyrnes, or prero- 
 gative of the overlord, were as familiar to the Angles from a very early 
 period as to the Franks, though the scat-pening was not necessarily of 
 the Caroline standard originally. In the Palatinate, for example, where 
 thirty pence were paid for sixty acres, the land must have been originally 
 assessed in oboli, or Ffennige, when the equivalent coin of the period 
 in the South country was the denier. A tax of l(iO deniers, levied at the 
 rate of a scat-penny from every acre in the suling, or large South-country 
 ploughland, would be exactly equal to 240 oboli, or 120 Caroline pence ; 
 and it is allowable to assume, that the valuation of the land, and the 
 amount of the gavel exacted from it, were based upon a similar principle 
 throughout England from a very early period.- 
 
 1 Pertz, Im-(i. vol. i. p. 3; Leg. Vis. {Cane), Lib. v. tit. 2, 1. 1 ; St. Olaf's Saga, c. 146. 
 The tenths of tlie agricultural produce from the 3Tiri or Crown lands held by ta2}oo — a title- 
 defd conferring a perpetual usufruct (fee-farm) on condition of cultivation once in three years 
 on pain of forfeiture — still form the main source of the revenue of the Turkish empire. 
 
 -Domesday, vol. i. p. 33Ga. ; Somn. Gavelldnd, pp. 20, 188; Cod. Dip. mlxxvii. ;
 
 THE Lxi XD - GA VEL. 1 5 
 
 The earliest obligation entailed upon the land in favour of the Church, 
 after the introduction of Christianity into England, was Church- sJiof, 
 which is thus described in Domesday : — " The church at Pershore has a 
 right to church-shot from all the tlu'ee hundred hides, that is, from every 
 hide where a freeman has his dwelling a seam of produce — ubi francus 
 homo manet unam sumam annonse — at St. Martin's day, and if he has 
 
 more hides they are free The Abbot of Evesham has similar 
 
 rights over his own lands, and all the others the same over their lands." In 
 Buckinghamshire, again, " in the Eight-hundreds lying around Ayles- 
 bury, every socman with a hide of land, or more, pays a seam of produce 
 to the church of Aylesbury." Thus the custom was identical in difierent 
 parts of England, the socman of the Danelage, and his equivalent else- 
 where, the francus homo, freeing his land from the obligation by paying 
 for one hide : or, in other words, he was " free for a hide." It may be 
 gathered from some of the charters that, towards the latter part of the 
 eighth century, land was held by the tenure of an annual " night's- 
 feorm," or the payment of 30 scillings, six ores of silver, or 120 Caroline 
 pence. Thus ten honde-lands were made over to an ealderman Cuthbeit 
 by Beonna, who was abbot of Peterborough towards the close of Offa's 
 reign, for 50 lbs., or 5 lbs. for each, with tne stipulation of " a night's- 
 feorm, or thirty scillings, to me and my successors every year;" whilst 
 his contemporary, Pilheard, has left upon record that, in the opening 
 years of Coenulf's reign, he " freed his land for two hundred solidi, and 
 for tliirty every year afterwards." A night's-feorm, reckoned at 120 
 pence, answers exactly to the land-gavel annually due from a hide, at 
 the rate of a scat-penny from every acre ; and as both charters refer to 
 properties of considerable extent, ten hides and thirty hides, the obliga- 
 tion of an annual night's-feorm, or of an equivalent payment of 10 sol., 
 
 Beet. Sing. Pers. [Ancient Laivs), p. 434. Tie land-gavel must not be confounded with llie 
 regium geldura. The former rejiresented the fixed tenth in produce or money annually levied 
 as the overhyrnes or prerogative due to the State, or King, from the occupants of allotted land, 
 and not payable from crown, pure allodial, or unallotted lands. It was more or less made over 
 to the freeholder, and may be supposed to represent the original principle of taxation — the 
 right of the State to s. fixed portion of the produce of the land. The regium gelduni was an 
 arbitrary impost or tallage levied at the will of the King in Council, to meet (theoretically) the 
 necessities of the State. This is the principle of modern taxation, though in England the 
 right to levy the impost has long been transferred from the king in Council to the representa- 
 tives of the great body of tax-payers. When the Austrasian Carloman restored the lands 
 alienated from the Cluu-ch, after presiding at the great Synod of 742, he put in a claim to levy 
 from year to year, at the option of the Prince, a solidus from every niansus, not as a fixed and 
 obligatory tax, but as an aid towards the expenses of the army (Pertz, Leg. vol. i. p. 18) ; and 
 the continued exercise of this prerogative amongst the Franks is traceable in the fn^quent 
 enactments of the Capitularies regulating the amount payable from different mansi to buy ofV 
 the Northmen. The old name for a tallage in England was TJanerjcld, a word used in this 
 sense by chroniclers in the twelfth century ; and it seems highly probable that the right to 
 levy an arbitrary tax was first claimed by, or conceded to, the King in Council, in order to buy 
 oft" the Danes. It ceased to be ^jfn'(/ to the Thingmen in the Confessor's reign, but it continued 
 to be levied, for the valuation of King Edward represents " the old assessment" in Domesday. 
 It was numbered amongst the royal prerogatives, and continued to be attached to thegn-land 
 alter land held jier loricam was relieved from it by the charter of Henry i., and the attcinpt to 
 tallage land held in kiiight's-fee was amongst the prominent causes that led to Magna Charta.
 
 106 THE LAND-GA VEL. 
 
 in other words, of receiving the overlord once in the year, or of paying 
 the hmd-gavel for one hide, would appear to have remained incumbent 
 upon all property held by this tenure, as the overhyrnes, or prerogative 
 of the overlord, in acknowledgment of his superiority. The tenure was 
 still in existence, three hundred years after the reign of OfFa, when Urso, 
 at the date of the Survey, held a hide of land, which his ancestor, Godric, 
 King Eilward's thegn, bought of St. Mary of Pershore for the lives of 
 three heirs, "et dabat in anno monachis i firmam 2^'>'o recognitione ;" 
 whilst Azor, for a hide and a half, ''^ pro recognitione dabat in anno 
 monachis unam firmam aut xx sol. ;" both recognising or acknowledging 
 the superiority of the Abbey of Pershore by the annual night' s-feorm, or 
 by a payment that had risen from ] to 20 sol. The principle of Church- 
 shot would thus appear to have been merely the reflection of the ordinary 
 land-tenure of the period in which it was first imposed, by which the 
 annual tender of a stipulated portion of the obligations incumbent upon 
 the lands, either in actual /eorm or in money, freed the remainder of the 
 property from all further requisitions. In other words, this was the 
 frank-tenure of Eefection, long familiar to the Northmen under the 
 name of the Veitszlo tenure, the obligation of the annual night's-feorm, 
 or of its equivalent, the land-gavel annually due from a hide, remaining 
 attached to the property as a rent-charge, to use the lanij^uage of a later 
 age, in acknowledgment of the superiority of the overlord.^ 
 
 When upon the death of Charles the Bald, Guy and. Beranger agreed 
 to divide between them Italy and " Koman France," the former set out 
 for the kingdom he had chosen, and, on approaching Metz, " urbem qua9 
 potentissima in regno Lotharii claret," sent forward his seneschal, 
 " according to royal usage," to see alter the preparation of his dinner. 
 Whilst the Bishop of Metz was arranging, " according to the custom of 
 the Franks," the materials of a profuse repast, the seneschal offered, for 
 the gift of a horse, to manage that his master should be contented with 
 the third part of such a banquet — " faciam ut tercia obsonii hujus parte 
 sit Piex Wido contentus." " Never shall a king reign over us," replied the 
 Bishop, " who would be satisfied with a vulgar dinner at fen dragma: — 
 qui decern dragmis vile sibi obsnnium prasparat." Thus, at the time 
 when Alfred was reigning over Southumbrian England, the Bishop of 
 the leading city in " the kingdom of Lothaire," the ca))ital of the old 
 Austrasian dominions, still held his lands by the annual tender of " a 
 night's-feorm," or the equivalent payment of thirty drachra^e — Liut- 
 prand, a southern writer, connected the name of solidus with the gold 
 coin — the tenure of the land, as well as its valuation, and the gavel ex- 
 acted from it, being based upon identical principles in France and in 
 England.'-^ The system is equally traceable in Wales, where, twice in 
 
 * iJomesday, vol. i. p. 175b, 144a, 175a ; Cod. Dip. clxv. cxvi. ; Chron. Sax. E. 111. 
 
 - Liut. Antuj). i. 16. Cburcli-lands were held at this time amongst the Franks by Ora- 
 tiones, or in pure alms ; by Bona, and by Bona et Milidce. Tlie banquet for 30 draclim» 
 was evidently a donum, of which the equivalent in ignoble tenure was the Ben-feorm or firma 
 precum.
 
 THE LAND- GA VEL. 1 7 
 
 every year, in summer and in winter, the king was accustomed to 
 make a Cylch Maior with his court, or a grand circuit amongst 
 his people, the freeholders heing only liable to furnish supplies for the 
 winter progress, or " one night's-feorm;" and the amount clue from each 
 free Maenawl is entered as minutely in the Welsh code, as the equivalent 
 foster from every " Ten-hides" is specified in Ini's Laws. Gwcsdfa was 
 the Welsh name for the night's-feorm, and it was commuted for a pay- 
 ment of 20 sol., known as the PimtEiung, from every free Maenawl ; the 
 Breyr, or Mabuchelwr, either supplying the king and his attendants, like 
 the Bishop of Metz, with the materials for a night's entertainment for 
 themselves and their horses, thirty-six in number, or paying the sum 
 that freed the lands of Urso and Azor at the date of the Survey. It was 
 in force in Scotland at least as late as the reign of David i., who, in con- 
 firming the grant of Ednam and Nesbit, made by Earl Cospatric Wal- 
 deve's son to the Priory of Coldingham, reserved " the thirty shillings 
 which the monks shall pay every year at Martinmas to the son of Cos- 
 patric, and his heirs after him, for the king's corrody" — pro conredio 
 regis, or in commutation of the king's annual night's-feorm. The recol- 
 lection of the night's-feorm as an incident of frank-tenure was preserved 
 in Scotland, long after the reign of David, in " the Chamber of Deese," 
 the best room in the farm-house of a certain class of tenant, which was 
 set apart for the reception of the landlord ; and the occupant of such a 
 house would, in early times, have ranked above the bondman, or ordi- 
 nary member of the villeinage, for he was the equivalent of the francus 
 homo, who is invariably entered in the Survey as the occupant of a 
 manerium, or separate dwelling.^ 
 
 The circumstances under which the night's-feorm generally appears 
 in the Survey seem to throw some additional light upon the nature of 
 
 1 Wootoh, L. i. c. 8 ; L. ii. c. 12, 23, 29 ; Charters of Coldingham, xxi. (in Eaine's North 
 Durham), Ini, 70. Compare Cod. JJip. cclxvii. To judge from a comparison of the feorm 
 with the (jwesdfa, the West-Saxon vill, or ten-hiJes, was a wealthier benefice than the Welsh 
 maenawl. Mead, or honey to make it with, stands out prominently in both cases, explaining 
 the reason of the heavy tribute in honey demanded from the Saxons by Charlemagne, and paid 
 from many of the counties to the king in the Domesday Survey. Welsh, or thick ale (apparently 
 flavoured with some medicament), and clear ale, figure in large quantities, with fish — from the 
 ten-hides, salmon and eels. The Welsh code (or codes), like other similar compilations, 
 contains the laws and customs of different ages, and occasionally reflects the bygone usages 
 of the neighbouring kingdom. The assessment of the Galanas by the standard of the current 
 ore of sixteen, and the division of the Court-followers into three bands, each receiving "leave 
 of absence" in turn, may be quoted as examples ; the latter regulation resembling the three- 
 fold division of Alfred's Hirdmen, described by Asser. The signature of Howel the Eich may 
 be frequently traced in the charters of Alfred's grandsons, with whose court, and its regulations, 
 he was probably familiar. The 24 pence paid to the royal officials by the lessei- Irecholder, 
 " whose rank did not free him from the charge," when the f/icesdfa was commuted for the jJ2/?i( 
 dw7ig, seems to be refiected in the charge from which William the Lion freed the Church ol Cold- 
 ingham, and the prior, and monks, and all their men of Coldinghamshirc, "do dnabxa solidis 
 qtios servientes mei de Berwic ab illis exigere solebant" {Chart. Cold, xxxv.) 'J ho origin of 
 such charges may be traced in the penny paid to the ofiicial by every Welsh villein " to spare 
 his barn and provisions." The actual ]>ayer of the tax was originally of alien, or conquered, 
 race, and the exactor in his rounds probably spared neither barn nor piovibiuub — in other 
 words, lived with his followers at free quarters.
 
 lOS THE LAND-GAVEL. ' 
 
 this tenure. In Wessex, more particularly in the western provinces, lay 
 the original crown property of the House of Egbert, and it is always 
 entered in the following oi' some similar manner : — " Always a royal 
 manor, never divided into hides, nor ever paying geld ;" each of the 
 manors thus described being liable, with its appendages, to one night's- 
 feorm, in addition to the customary obligations of "firma et opera," due 
 from the villeinage. To divide a district into hides was equivalent to as- 
 certaining the amount of arable land, before allotting it amongst individual 
 freeholders, by which the extent of their respective obligations would be 
 ascertained ; and if any of those royal manors had been thus made over 
 to one or more recipients, he or they would have retained the customary 
 obligations of " firma et opera," tendering, in a certain stage of society, the 
 annual night's-feorm, or its equivalent in money, as the royal overhyrnes 
 attached to frank-tenure. Except in the case of the counties of Oxford 
 and Northampton, which were liable, for some cause, to " a feorm of three 
 nights," commuted respectively for 150 lbs. and 30 lbs., none of the 
 tenants-in-chief of the Crown seem to have held their lands by the old 
 tenure in the Confessor's reign; the royal manors and some of the burghs 
 immediately dependent on the king in the western provinces alone being 
 liable to it, whilst they were free from the obligation of paying the 
 regium geldum. All the burghs in Dorsetshire, for instance, paid " pro 
 omni servitio regis," a certain tixed sum, " ad opus huscarliorum" — half 
 a marc of silver if the burgh was " defended for five hides," a. marc if for 
 ten, the sum rising in proportion with the rating — the additional obliga- 
 tion of a night's-feorm, with its incidents, being entailed upon each 
 burgh. Exeter, again, which was " defended for five hides," and repre- 
 sented the model to which all the other burghs in Devonshire conformed, 
 paid the geld whenever the three leading burghs of Wessex, Mercia, and 
 the Danelage, or Winchester, London, and York, were similarly taxed, 
 contributing on such occasions half a marc of silver " ad opus militura," 
 and sending a man to the royal army whenever it was assembled ; but 
 neither Exeter nor any of the Devonshire burghs were liable to the 
 night's-feorm. Half a marc of silver, or 80 pence, represents the penny- 
 gavel levied upon a South-country carucate of 80 langenekres, and thus 
 the burghs seem to have been " free for a hide," performing the obliga- 
 tions incident to one hide in every five for which they were "defended." 
 A similar proportion is often to be traced in other quarters, as in the 
 manor of Ambersley, " which was numbered for fifteen hides in the time 
 of King Edward, though it was originally free for three, as the charters 
 of the Church testify," or rated at one in every five hides ; whilst the 
 manor of Kipon, measuring six leugas in length by six in breadth, and 
 thus containing 432 carucates, paid tor 43, or for one in every ten hides. 
 Again, in the Cornisb manor known as the Church of St. Germanus, 
 once the seat of a bishopric, there were twenty-four carucates, or two 
 leugas, the leuga of the Canons being free from all payments, whilst the
 
 THE LAND-GA VEL. 109 
 
 other twelve carucates, or the leuga of the Bishop, was free for two hides, 
 or in the proportion of one for each six hides.-^ 
 
 The difference here observable may be attributed, apparently, to the 
 gradual rise in the valuation of land, and in the amount of feorm, gavel, 
 and other obligations attached to it, which is equally traceable in the 
 numerous "old"and "new" valuations of later times. The manor of Eipon, 
 for instance, which was known as St. Wilfred's Leuga, probably became the 
 property of the abbey during the reign of the Northumbrian Ecgfrid in 
 the seventh century ; the burghs were scarcely in existence, as burghs, 
 much before the opening of the tenth. The rise in question may be 
 noticed from a very early date. In a charter, relating to property in 
 Kent, for instance, dated in 863, tiuo days' feorm were commuted for 
 thirty scillings — duarum dierum refectio, vel xxx siclos, hoc est semicurn 
 libra — thus giving fifteen scillings, or sixty pence, as the equivalent of 
 a days' feorm in that part of England. The custom of demanding two 
 days' feorm was not confined to Kent, for in the agreement between 
 Heathored, Bishop of Worcester, and Offa, dated in 781, the king re- 
 leased the diocese from the obligation of " three years' refection, or six 
 entertainments — trium annorum pastion.es, id est vi convivia" — the 
 obligation in either case evidently extending to two refections in the 
 year, the summer and winter Gicesdfa of the Welsh code. As sixty pence 
 correspond with eighty Kentish sceats, or Merovingian deniers, the penny- 
 gavel would appear to have been originally levied in Kent at the rate of 
 a half-sceat from every acre in the suling of 160 langenekres, and the 
 lesser sceat, or half-denier, was probably used as the standard of reckon- 
 ing in that quarter when the land-gavel was originally imposed. Thus 
 the impost rose from a half-sceat till it reached a Caroline penny, which 
 was eventually levied upon the statute or lesser acre, raising the amount 
 of the land-tax obtained from the large ploughland from Jive to twenty 
 shillings, whilst the holding shrunk in size until the hide was repre- 
 sented by the locld instead of the Suling — the yokeland of 40 instead of 
 the ploughland of 160 langenekres.''^ 
 
 1 Domesday, vol. i. p. 75, 100, 120b, 154, 175b, 219, 303b. The amount of bides (br 
 which the burghs were "defended," seems to have had no reference to the amount of land 
 they possessed. Exeter, for example, "defended for five hides," possessed twelve carucates, 
 or a leuga. 
 
 ^ Cod. Di'j). cclxxxviii. cxhii. In Ireland the night's-feorm, or night's-coinm/ie, seems to 
 have been demanded as often as four times in the year — more frequently, of course, from the 
 unfree classes — a custom stigmatized by the Synod of Cashel, in 1172, as detestable when 
 applied to Church lands. A document in the Book of Kells records how the quarterly coigny, 
 demanded by the king of the Clan Leogaire from the minster of Ard Breacain, was com- 
 muted for three uinges of gold, worth twenty-four of silver, at the proportion of 8 to 1 ; so that 
 the value (jf the night's-feorm was reckoned at nix uinges oi' silver, or sol. sterling, rather less 
 than the sum annually paid in commutation four hundred years before in England. Money 
 would appear to have been a scarce commodity in Ireland, as may be seen irom the notice in 
 the Tribes of lly Many (p. 15), " the portion proportional to five uinges of silver, that is, a 
 quarter and a half." As the quarter in Gonnaught contained 120 acres, and there were 72 
 
 pinginns in the uinge, the acre was valued at only ( J tioo pinginns, a sterling penny, or 
 
 rather less, for the lighter pinginn seems to have been generally used. The valuation of the
 
 110 THE LAND-GA VEL. 
 
 Long before tlie reign of the Confessor the liability to the night's- 
 feorm seems to have passed away from the ordinary grant of bocland, 
 and indications of a change of this description seem to be tiaceable in 
 the reign of Egbert. From a comparison of some of his charters with 
 the scanty records of his wars with the JFealas, that have been preserved 
 in the Saxon Chronicle, it may be gathered that the efforts of the West- 
 Saxon king were first directed to the subjugation of the remaining 
 British element upon his Avestern marches. In this he was successful, 
 for he often dates his charters from the year of his Ducatus, and his 
 grandson Alfred alludes in his will to " all my lands amongst the Welsh 
 cyn, except in Tnconshire." Tre-corn, or the territory of the Wealas of 
 Cernw, first became a shire, or a division of the West-Saxon kingdom 
 under the rule of a Gerefa and his officials, from the time when Egbert 
 established his Ducatus over the whole of western England, south of 
 Thames and Avon, in the tenth year of his reign. Fourteen years after- 
 wards he defeated Beornwulf at EUendune, and " then he sent from his 
 army his son ^thelwulf, and Ealhstan his bishop, and Wulfheard his 
 ealdorman, into Kent with a large force, and they drove Baldred, the 
 king, northwards over the Thames. And the men of Kent, and of Surrey, 
 and the South-Saxons, and the East-Saxons, submitted to him ; . . . and 
 the same year the king of the East- Angles sought the alliance and ])ro- 
 tection of King Egbert for dread of the Mercians, . . . and slew Beorn- 
 wulf, king of the Mercians." Upon the death of Ludeca, who was killed 
 ■with the ealdormen of the five provinces of Mercia, Wiglaf succeeded to 
 that kingdom, and then, ** in the year in which the moon was eclipsed on 
 the mass-night of mid-winter — on Christmas-diy 828, or the first day of 
 829 — King Egbert conquered the kingdom of the Mercians, and all that 
 was south of the Humber ; and he was the eighth king who was Bret- 
 walda." After his supremacy over Southumbrian England was acknow- 
 ledged by the Northumbrians, he soon reinstated Wiglaf in the Mercian 
 kingdom, the Northern Wealas submitting to his superiority in the same 
 year. Content, apparently, with this univ^ersal acquiescence in his supe- 
 riority, or, in other words, with the leading position amongst " the kings 
 of the Western Christians" ascribed by Charlemagne to Ofifa, Egbert 
 seems to have devoted the remainder of his reign to the consolidation of 
 his immediate dominions, and the course he appears to have pursued 
 throughout the South-country may be traced in his dealings with the 
 Church.i 
 
 In the year in which he " moved against the Britons," and defeated 
 Beornwulf at EUendune, Egbert freed a grant of five hides to the min- 
 ster at AVinchester, " pro amore Dei fidelique servitio monasterii ; " and 
 
 acre is quite in keeping with the sum paid for the freedom of Ard Breacain, and unless it may 
 be supposed that the two pinginns represented the annual value (rent, or tenth) of the acre, 
 and the six uinges the annual commutation of the night's-feorm, land in England, in the daj-s 
 of Offa and Charlemagne, was rath.'r more than ten times as valuable as land in Ireland in the 
 middle of the twelfth century. — [KdVs Chart, vi. /. A. Miscell. p. 143.) 
 1 Chron. Sax. 813, 823, 825, 827, 828 ; Cod. Dip. mxxx. to mxxxix.
 
 • THE LAND-GAVEL. Ill 
 
 ia 828, or after he had thoroughly established his supremacy over Kent, 
 he confirmed the freedom of all the lands belonging to the diocese of 
 Kochester, "pro humili ohedientia episcopi." The sum of monej^ so 
 frequently paid according to many of the earlier charters for a franchise 
 of this description, is replaced in both cases by Fealty and Service ; the 
 Jiumilis ohedientia^ and fidele servitium, which will be often subsequently 
 met with in the grants of bocland made to the king's thegns during the 
 ninth century. At the close of his reign, in a great synod held at King- 
 ston in 838, the grant of a barony — or of forty hides — at IScealdan-flete, 
 in the Isle of Wight, was made to the bishop of Winchester, and the 
 lands of Mailing were restored to the church of Canterbury in free alms 
 at the request of Archbishop Ceolnoth. Mailing had been given to the 
 previous Metroi)olitan by Baldred, probably to secure his support, for the 
 gift seems to have been declared invalid on the ground that it was made 
 when Baldred was a fugitive. Both the grants were made in the joint 
 names of Egbert and ^Ethelwulf, though the younger king alone seems 
 to have been present at the synod, and the same conditions were attached 
 to each. " We and our heirs are to have the patronage and protection 
 of the see, and the faithful friendship of the archbishop (or bishop) and 
 his congregation," and " of all the free monasteries who have chosen me 
 and my father. King Egbert, as protectors and lords — " qui me meumque 
 patrem Egbertum regem ... in protectionem et dominium eligerunt." 
 Thus the whole hierarchy of the South-country bound themselves to 
 choose " their father and their lord " from the House of Egbert, and in 
 the grants of lands, or of franchi'^es, ratifying the obligation, fealty seems 
 for the time to have been substituted for the money payment.^ 
 
 Fealty and service must have been always more or less included 
 amongst the obligations by which the king's-thegn held his land, but 
 the service grew by degrees more exclusively military, until Henry i. 
 freed the demesne lands of all " qui per loricas terras suas deserviunt," 
 or who held by the Hauberc, from payments and service of every descrip- 
 tion, except military, in return for increased efficiency in arms and equip- 
 ment. " Et sicut tam magno gravamine allevati sunt, ita equis et armis 
 se bene instruent," are the words of the royal charter ; and in one of the 
 regulations laid down by Charlemagne for attendance in the host, it seems 
 possible to detect a very early step in the same direction. Every holder 
 of ttvelve mansi was bound to attend the host in a brunia — a Broigne or 
 Byrnie — on penalty of forfeiture if he omitted to appear in it ; and as 
 the legal value of " a good byrnie " was at this time reckoned at tivelve 
 
 1 Cod. Dip. mxxxiii. ccxxiii. ccxl. mxHv. The charter confirming the liberties of flic rlio- 
 cese of Rochester in 828 is the solitary existing document in which Egbert assumes the title 
 of iJex Anfjlorum, the cause, or consequence, of his struggle with the^Mercian kings. After 
 the final overthrow of Wiglaf, anJ his subsequent restoration, Egbert, content with the ^ub- 
 stance, resigned the shadow, and continued to stylo himself " King of the "West-Saxons." Had 
 Egbert possessed the advantage of a biographer, his fame would have been transmitted to the 
 present time as one of the greatest warriors and statesmen of his epoch, and tlio fruits of his 
 policy towards the Church (which will be more fully discusred further on) are still apparent. 
 The patronage of all the bishop's sees is vested in the sovereign.
 
 112 THE LAND-GAVEL. ' 
 
 solidi, or at the amount of the laad-gavel due from twelve mansi, the 
 freeholder may be supposed to have been excused from the obHgations 
 of the earlier tenure, or, in other words, from paying his tenths in kind or 
 in penny-gavel, in return for performing his military service in a byrnie. 
 According to the laws of Wales, where the earlier system was in force, no 
 sanctuary could protect the defaulter who failed to provide the equivalent 
 of the night's-feorm for the royal circuit, or Cylch Mawr ; and as in the 
 earlier tenure, or Veitszlo, the night's-feorm was the leading feature, so 
 in the later, whether introduced or only perpetuated by the Great Kaisar, 
 the Byrnie held a similar position. In each case the tenure is marked 
 by the forfeiture entailed upon default in the special service ; and as the 
 land forfeited through ftiilure in providing the night's-feorm was held by 
 the special tenure of Refection, or an equivalent payment, so the land 
 forfeited by failing to attend the host in a byrnie was held by the special 
 tenure of serving in the host in a byrnie. Thus the germs of the Fief 
 de hcmherc, or hereditary benefice held by the military service of a horse- 
 man in complete armour, may be traced in the regulations about the 
 byrnie ; and the night's-feorm, or equivalent payment, seems to have been 
 gradually commuted for a more perfect equipment in arms. Helm and 
 byrnie played a conspicuous part in the equipment of the English thegn, 
 and in his Heriot ; " from every eight hides a helm and byi'nie " were re- 
 quired by the regulations of the year 1008 ; and the gradual discontinu- 
 ance of tenure by the night's-feorm may probably be attributed to the 
 necessity of appearing in the royal host, equipped in helm and byrnie. 
 Some such change seems to have been in progress throughout the 
 South-country from about the commencement of the ninth century.^ 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Shire. 
 
 Amongst the Teutonic tribes the distribution into tens, hundreds, 
 and thousands, seems to have been 'in familar use for military purposes 
 long before it attached in any other w^ay to the land ; and the same 
 remark may be applied to the Celts, for the title of Prtefectus cohortis 
 Geonis is given by Adamnan to one of Columba's early converts amongst 
 the Northern Picts in the sixth century. In this sense the Centuria is 
 traceable for at least five hundred years before the Cejitena, and the 
 
 * Leg. Hen. I. ii. ; Pertz, Let/, vol. i. p. 133, ad. an. 805 ; Le.v. Bip. tit. xxxvi. 11 ; Chron. 
 Sax. 1008 ; Werfjilds, 9, 10 ; Cnut. Sec. 72 ; Will. Conq. xx. The money payment reappears 
 in the cliarters of Alfred and liis descendants, but grounded Tipon a difterent principle, until it 
 settled into a certain regulated payment in the Heriot, in addition to the actual restoration of 
 the Mere-geate, or military equipment — helm and byrnie with arms of offence and charger.
 
 THE ^H I RE. 113 
 
 Centenaritis, or Hundred's Ealdor, ranked as a Centurion, or leader of 
 men in battle, long before he became a civil magistrate with a court, 
 and without any exclusively military functions attached to his ofiice. 
 The Centuria was in existence amongst the Germans in the days of 
 Tacitus, when a hundred Comites attended the leading judge in his 
 circuit, and M^gs, or claus, gloried in contributing more than the 
 necessary number of a " hundred men" to the hosting. The Semnones 
 amongst the Suevi boasted of their hundred ^W(//, each contributing 
 a thousand men, but "the men" wei-e distributed over a shifting portion 
 of the tribe lands— they were not permanently attached to any settled 
 and measured district — and the Centena, united by the tie of blood, 
 retained its organization amidst all the wanderings of the confederacy, 
 recruiting itself, when decimated by war or any other cause, by adoption 
 or manumission, in order to maintain its proper standing. A Gtjn that 
 could not muster its hundred men would have soon shrunk into a posi- 
 tion of dependence upon some more powerful clan ; and a connnunity 
 that failed to contribute its hundreds would have exercised but little in- 
 fluence upon the confederacy. 
 
 In the regulations for the army amongst the Visigoths, the military 
 character of the Centena is clearly traceable. The command over the 
 whole was vested in the Praepositus hostis, or Heretuga, appointed by the 
 King. A similar character amongst the Old-Saxons was elected, in the 
 age of Beda, by the leading members of the confederacy for the duration 
 of the war. Under the Praspositus were the Thiufadi, Quingentenarii, 
 Centenarii, and Decani, whilst the army was summoned for service by 
 servi Dominici, known as " compulsores exercitus," messengers, or Bodes, 
 of the King. The Thiufadus was in command of a thousand men, known 
 as a Thiufada, or small legion collected under a Tufa, or horse-tail 
 standard ; whilst the names of the other officers sufficiently explain their 
 rank and command. Jf the Centenarius failed in any of his minor 
 duties, he paid a fine to the Comes civitatis in whose district he was 
 appointed ; but if he deserted, he only escaped witli life by flying to 
 sanctuary and paying 300 solidi — evidently his wergild, — but the Count 
 reported him to the King, and he never more served as Centenarius, 
 remaining from that time forward " sicut unus ex Decanis," thus ibrfeit- 
 ing his thegn-right, to use the language of the old English laws. If the 
 Thiufadus failed in any of his minor duties he also paid a hue to the 
 Count ; but his desertion, or that of the Praepositus, is never alluded to, 
 for they were only answerable " in Palatio Regis," and not in the court 
 of the Count. Amongst the duties of the latter was numbered that of 
 provisioning the army. " Per singidas civitates vel castelhi, (juicunque 
 erogator annonre fuerit constitutus, conies civitatis vel annoij;e dis[)en- 
 sator," was bound to attend to the commissariat, and if he tailed in his 
 duties plaint was made to the " Comes exercitus," and the Pncpositus 
 hostis reported the delinquent to the King. Thus the official duties of 
 Count and Tax-gatherer were distinctly separated from the military 
 
 H
 
 lU THE mi RE. 
 
 functions of Thiufadus and Centenarius, and the sole divisions of the 
 land that are traceable, except for military purposes, are the civitas and 
 the casiellum, or the County and the Vill.^ 
 
 In the greater military officials of the Visigothic monarchy in Spain 
 may be recognised the types and forerunners of the greater landed 
 nobility of a later age. Thus the Prtepositus hostis represents the Duke, 
 the Thiufadus the greater Comes, whether Landgrave or Margrave, the 
 Thiufada itself answering to the Fahn-lehen of a certain period of the 
 Empire. The Comites of the Carlovingian era were reckoned as Greater 
 and Lesser, and the Quingentenarius seems to correspond with the Lesser 
 Comes, or ordinary Graf, who could not aspire to carry the Tufa. The 
 Viscount and the Baron, taking their rise in a later age, were as yet 
 unknown. Germany still ignores the former title, and, as the Centurion is 
 rendered in an old Frank version of the Gospels by Sculdheiz,'^ the place 
 of the Viscount as Missus Comitis, or Schuldheiss, was long filled in 
 Germany by the equivalent of the Centenarius. The Decanus became 
 the familiar Borh's Ealdor or Tythingman, in England, whose place was 
 filled in Gesith-socns, and in royal demesnes, by the Tungreve, or pre- 
 positus villa? ; whilst the Bode, or summoner of the army, is traceable in 
 the Frohn-bote, or summoner of the court. As the Servus Dominicus, 
 who filled the former office, was reckoned on a footing with the free 
 Decanus, so the Frohn-bote, chosen from amongst the Bauers of inferior 
 standing, ranked by his office amongst the Schoppenbar-freemen. Maer 
 and Righill amongst the Welsh, Mair and Toshaclidoreth amongst the 
 Scots, respectively the highest and the lowest officials in the courts of the 
 freeholders, re|)resent the Schuldheiss and Frohn-bote of the Gei manic 
 community. Each and all vanished with the advance of Feudalism, or 
 survived, like the parish constable and the beadle, representatives of the 
 Borh's Ealdor, and the Bode, or messenger of the Court, as shadows of a 
 once existing reality. 
 
 The institution of the Centena, as a civil district, amongst the Franks 
 dates from the latter part of the sixth century, when it was established 
 for the better preservation of the peace, and the Centenarius took his 
 place amongst judicial officers. According to a law of Chlovis, "If a 
 man is found dead in the road between two neighbouring or adjoining 
 vills, and his slayer does not come forward, let the judge, that is the 
 
 • Lex. Vrng. lib. ix. tit. ii. The place of the Conies exercitus was filled in the feudal 
 array by the Prfepositus Mareschalli, or Provost-marshal. But there was a class originally 
 marching in the van, the di.smounted Cossacks of an army, performing the duties of scouts and 
 skirmishers, and known as Ribaldi, who did not fall under the jurisdiction of the feudal Mare- 
 schall and his deputy. When the earlier duties of the Ribalds were performed by light-armed 
 soldiery, they relinqtiished the van for the rear, and became camp followers, the Provost 
 appointing one of their number to keep order during the campaign, under the name of Rex 
 Ribaldorum- — the reality of wliich the familiar Roi des Ribands of Parisian vagabondism was 
 the shadow. From the column of Trajan it may be seen that the Germans were once the 
 Ribalds of the Roman army, and the earlier condition of the class has supplied our language 
 with the word rabble; the later with that oi ribaldry. 
 
 3 Cane. vol. iv. p. 220.
 
 THE SHIRE. 115 
 
 Comes vel Graphic — the Gasind or the Graf — go to the spot and sound 
 his horn," a proceeding that stamps the Frank Comes in the reign of 
 Chlovis as a personage of comparatively small importance. There is no 
 allusion to any deputy, for the Comes was bound to go in person and 
 sound his horn ; nor could the district have been wide, in which he 
 evidently could be found with the greatest ease immediately upon the 
 discovery of the body. The ordinary shire over which the Frank Comes 
 presided in early times, whether as Gasind or Graf, was comparatively of 
 .small extent before the institution of the Centena, which, as a subordinate 
 district of the later county, must have raised it to a much greater size.^ 
 
 From the Franks the Centena passed into Italy and Germany, where 
 it is traceable in the Huntari^ a subdivision of the Gau, and the Cente- 
 narius is easily to be recognised in both quarters as a subordinate official 
 under the Count, ranking in Italy next to the Vicarius, apparently the 
 precursor of the Viscount.- The Hserredsthing, or Hundred-court, was 
 also a familiar institution amongst the Scandinavians, but it was intro- 
 duced at a comparatively late period, for the Norwegians who fled from 
 the power of Harald Harfager into Iceland, towards the close of the ninth 
 century, though well acquainted with the Hterred, had no knowledge of 
 any court attached to the district. " The Herred, or Hundred in Ice- 
 land, is stated to have contained three Godords. . . . Each Godords- 
 man chose or elected twelve Doomsmen, and . . . this court was called 
 the Varthing, or Spring Court. . . . Each quarter of the island con- 
 tained nine ancient Godords, and in the Fierding, or Quarter, court, each 
 Godordsman was attended by one Doomsman of his nomination. . . . 
 In the Fierding court were decided all causes which had not been settled 
 in the court below, or when appeal was made from its authority. The 
 Quarter, or Fierding, courts were subordinate in due course to the Fim- 
 tardom, composed of nine Doomsmen from every Fierding, or thirty-six 
 for the whole land." Thus wrote Sir Francis Palgrave, quoting Arnesens's 
 Islandske Retergang, and exactly describing the subdivision of a district 
 answering to the Thiufada amongst the Norwegians. Three Godords or 
 Temple-districts were included in the Hundred, each under the super- 
 intendence of a Godr or Godordsman, priest and judge, the twelve 
 Doomsmen answering to the Scabini or Schoppen, chosen from the 
 Adalings or Odallers, Three Hundreds were assigned to the next dis- 
 trict to which a court was attached, the Fierding or Quarter, and twelve 
 went to the whole province, the Thiufada or Gau, representing a Great 
 
 ' Pertz, Zer/. vol, i. p. 11 ; vol. ii. p. 4. Whenever Beda hkcs tlie word comes liis Iraiislator 
 always renders it by Gesith; wliilst the comitatus in the 13;ivarian Lawa i.s explained by some 
 old glossarist as Kisindscaf (Pcrix, Leg. iii. ; Leg. Baio. ii. 5). The Graf of a certain standing 
 was always a Conies, but at a certain period tlie Comes was not necessarily a Graf; and the 
 same remark applies to the Earl and Jarl of England and Scandinavia. Tiio titles of Actor, 
 Exactor, Deciraator, and Erogator annonre seem to have been oflen given to tlie early Graphio, 
 before his work was done by a deputy. He is traceable in the Stermclda of tlu' Kentish Laws, 
 and as Stcor was the word used for tribute amongst the early Franks, the Exactor was pro- 
 bably known under some similar name in Eraucia. 
 
 ^ Grimm, D. B. A. (edit. Gutt. 1828), p. 532 ; Leg. Lang. Leg. Alain. Leg. Baio. passim.
 
 UG THE SHIRE. 
 
 thousand of 1440 men, or twelve hundreds each of six score. Thus every 
 Godord was a small Shire, or Gericlit, with its court and judge, and 
 schoppen or jury, and with the right of appeal to the superior courts; 
 whilst in an ecclesiastical sense it was a Parish, with its priest and temple, 
 the whole under the supremacy of a single Godr, or Godordsman, better 
 known in later times under the more familiar title of Jarl The greater 
 courts simply represented the union of a number of Godordsmen and 
 Doomsmen, or of Doomsmen alone, nor is there any trace of a larger 
 district than the Godord under the superintendence of a single priest 
 and judge. The men united for military purposes in Hserreds, each 
 under a Haarredshofding, but the authority of the latter, who subsequently 
 appears in the larger communities of Scandinavia as a civil officer, was 
 only exercised originally in time of war. Each little community was 
 complete under its Godordsman, or Jarl ; each represented an unit, a 
 small division, or shire, in the greater confederacy.^ 
 
 The existence of a similar system at some early period is easily trace- 
 able both in France and England. In the year 779 a sort of " rate in 
 aid" was levied upon all the principal landholders amongst the Franks, 
 and the proportion assigned to each class gives a clue to the extent of 
 their respective holdings. A pound of silver was required from all the 
 leading ecclesiastics and greater comites, half a pound from those of the 
 next class, and from vassals enfeoffed with 200 casati, whilst a quarter of 
 a pound was levied upon lesser abbots and vassals enfeoffed with 100 
 casati, and an ounce of silver from vassals with 50 and 30 casati. As 
 the casatus was valued at 10 sol., the benefice of a vassal of the highest 
 class was reckoned at 100 lbs. of land or 20 hides, which continued to be 
 the legal amount of the ordinary feudal barony during the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries. " To six barons whom he shall choose, each 100 
 lbs. of land" — such, for instance, was a portion of the agreement made 
 between Henry of Anjou, when Duke of Normandy, and Kandolph le 
 Meschines, Earl of Chester. The benefice allotted to a vassal of the next 
 class was 50 lbs. of land, or ten hides ; land of the value of 25 lbs. and 
 15 lbs,, or five and three hides, represented the holdings of the lowest 
 claPs, whilst all the greater nobles, ecclesiastical as well as lay, were 
 reckoned at 200 lbs. of land, or forty hides.^ A similar distribution of 
 
 ^ Palgrave's CommonwealiJi, vol. ii. p. cxcv. 
 
 2 Pertz, Le(j. i. pp. 39, 40 ; Foedera, vol. i. p. 16. Some idea of the extent of the Frank 
 kingdoms may he gathered from notices in Hincmar's Annals, When Charles the Bald 
 bought off the Northmen in 866, he levied a Danegeld " de unoquoque manso ingenuili sex 
 denarios, et de servili tres, et de accola unus, et de duobus hospitiis unus, et decima de omnibus 
 qute negotiatores videbantur habere, sed et a presbyteris secundum quod unusquisque habuit 
 vectigai exigitur, et heribanni de omnibus Francis accipiuntur." The result amounted to 4000 
 lbs. of silver by weight. Again, in 877, he levied a tribute from Lothariugia and Burgundy, 
 " Scilicet ut de mansis indominicatis solidus unus, de unoquoque manso ingenuili quatuor 
 denarii de censu dominico et quatuor de facultate mansuarii, de manso vero servili duo denarii 
 de censu dominico et duo de facultate mansuarii, et unusquisque episcopus de presbyteris suae 
 parochia3 secundum quod unicuique possibile erat, a quo plurimum quinque solidos, a quo 
 minimum ([uatuor denarios." The amount collected reached 5000 lbs. The tax evidently 
 represented the tenth penny, levied in the case of the farming classes (fee-farmers and
 
 THE SHIRE. 117 
 
 the land will be found to have been in force upon our own side of the 
 Channel in Southumbrian England, where the Forty-hides was the bene- 
 fice of an Eorl, still retaining its place in our system of land measurement 
 as the Barony ; whilst the Ten-hides answered to the ordinary holding 
 of the King's-thegn, and Five to the benefice of the Medial-thegn, the 
 precursor of the feudal knight. So it was incumbent upon every feu- 
 datory of the Empire in Germany, during the twelfth century, to attend 
 the host w^ith a Halsherg and two Esquires from every ten mansi held by 
 homage, whilst from amongst the vassals of the Church every Jive mansi 
 were to furnish a Byriiie and one Esquire, a regulation pointing to the 
 wide diffusion of this system of apportioning Lam-lands^ or benefices, 
 over central and western Europe.^ Four times as many helms and 
 byrnies were demanded as a heriot from an Eorl as from a King's-thegn, 
 with 200 mancuses of gold, or 20 lbs. of silver from the former, and 50 
 mancuses, or 5 lbs., from the latter ; each sura representing a gersume, or 
 fine of a year's tax or land-gavel, the feriths respectively of 200 lbs. and 
 50 lbs. of lands, or of Forty-hides and Ten-hides. Three Baronies or 
 Forty-hides went to the Hundred of six score hides, each rejiresenting a 
 Godord under a Godordsman, sometimes represented by an Eorl, but 
 more generally replaced in France and England by the King's Graphio, 
 or Gerefa, who exercised the royal prerogatives within the district, which 
 was known as his shire, or division. The possession of the entire district 
 as a benefice would alone confer upon the holder the prerogatives once 
 enjoyed by the Godordsman, and subsequently exercised in the King's 
 name by the royal Gerefa, such as the rigiit of holding a court with sac 
 and soc, toll and theam, and other privileges enumerated in the charters 
 of the Anglo-Xorman era. Vassals and King's-thegns, whose benefices 
 only amounted to the half or the quarter of a shire, could only aspire to 
 the privileges of a greater, or shire court, by " thriving to Eorl-right."- 
 
 geneats) upon the rent and the profit, the untaxed third representing the expenses of the hold- 
 ing. The richest priest was taxed like the possessor of five mansi indominicati, the equivalent 
 of the half-cai ucate, or South-country hide, the ordinary glebe-land in southern England; the 
 poorest was on a footing with the mansuarius servilis, attached to the land,. A penny-gavel 
 amounting to 5000 lbs. represents 10,000 hides, and allowing for the farming classes, free and 
 servile, the clergy, and the untaxed royal demesnes, a comparatively small portion remains for 
 the leading ecclesiastics and nobility of Lotharingia and Burgundy. They were not a very 
 numerous class at this period. The amount of the sums levied upon the English as Uanegeld 
 in the follovving century speaks volumes for the wealth of southern England. 
 
 ^ Pertz, Leg. vol. ii.; Pars Alt. p. 3. The document in which the regulation occurs, purporting 
 to be an enactment of Charlemagne, is spurious, but it would have be<;n useless if it had not 
 been in accordance with the ideas of the century in which it appeared. The object of the 
 forgery was evidently to restrict the amount of service in Italy, required from tenants by 
 homage, to "the old amount." Four, instead o^ five, hides, or the equivalent, represented the ■ 
 ordinary fief de hauberc in France and England at this time. 
 
 2 Cnid, Sec, 72. The passage in the History of Ely (lib. 2, cap. 40) " quoniam ille quad- 
 raginta llidarum terrte Dominium minime obtineret, licet nobilis esset, inter proceres tunc 
 numerari non potuit," evidently refers to the privileges only enjoyed by the Eorl indominicat'us 
 ■with a great barony. A great extent of country was often placed in the soot of a shire, or 
 barony, held by a leading noble, or an ecclesiastical community. iEthelwold, for instance, 
 bought the Isle of Ely from Edgar, "that is to say 20 hides the king had in the island, et 
 dignitatem et socani vii. hundredoram et dimidii," with 20 hides beyond the island, in all a
 
 118 THE SHIRE. 
 
 The Southumbrian shire was divided into four large Vills, each sub- 
 divided into two lesser Yills, which may be distinguished as Tuns or 
 Townships, though the Tun and the Vill, strictly speaking, were identical. 
 The normal size of the Vill was ten hides, of the Township five, and the 
 quantity of feorm due from the ten hides, or ordinary Vill, is appended 
 to the Laws of Ini. So also, in the grant made in 780 by Offa to the 
 foundation of his grandfather Eanulf, the Minster at Breedon, the King 
 made over thirty-five hides in four Vills, " that is, Teottingtun of five 
 manentes, with the adjoining Vill a3t-Wasanburnan of ten cassati ; a 
 third Vill fBt-Codeswellan, also of ten manentes, and the fourth, that is 
 Northtun, of ten manentes." But perhaps one of the most perfect 
 instances of the symmetrical arrangement, which will occasionally be 
 found in such districts, is afforded in the manor of Leominster. At the 
 time of the Conquest it belonged to a Nun-Minster, which had been 
 made over to the widow of the Confessor ; and under the peaceful rule 
 of the Canonesses it seems to have remained very much in the same con- 
 dition as it was when first handed over to the religious community. The 
 sixteen membra of the manor were rated at eighty hides, each niembrum 
 therefore representing a township of five hides. There were eight pi-e- 
 positi and eight bedelli, or a Tungreve and his Bode, the summoner of 
 his petty court, in every large vill. There were eight Kadchenists, or 
 Eadmen, to do the military service of the manor, one from every large 
 vill ; and the 238 villeins, 157 serfs, and 230 ploughs, were in a propor- 
 tion almost equally accurate — 30 villeins, 20 serfs, and 30 ploughs to 
 every vill. The Conqueror took away twenty hides and added six 
 priests, one to each of the six remaining larger vills, which had evidently 
 been, before his time, dependent upon the clergy of the Minster, and were 
 now provided for as separate chapelries or vicarages. Every county was 
 at this time divided into Hundreds and Gesith-socns ; and every vill that 
 was not included in a Gesith-socn, or manor in which a Tungreve was 
 appointed by the overlord, represented a Tything, or Tenraantale, of the 
 Hundred, in which a Decanus, annually chosen in the Hundred-court, 
 presided in the petty court in the place of the Tungreve. As none could 
 aspire to be a freeholder without the possession of at least half a carncate 
 of land pro manerio — or a holding with a separate homestead, apart from 
 the ham of the vill — so none could pretend to the privileges of full thegn- 
 riglit without the possession of at least a township, the benefice of the 
 Medial-thegn, or semi-nobilis, who stood in the same relationship to the 
 King's-thegn as the Vassus enfeoffed with 20 hides stood to the Eorl with 
 his large barony or shire. The oath of a thegn, by Mercian law, was 
 equivalent to the oaths of six ceorls, or the half of a Tenmantale of twelve 
 men. By Wihtred's laws, the thegn, or the priest, in Kent, cleared 
 himself by his oath, when the ceorl, or the deacon, cleared himself with 
 
 barony, giving to the king GO hides, 100 lbs., and a gfild cross of beautiful workmanship, " reli- 
 quiisque referta." — Hist. El. 1. 1, c. 94. The cross, with 100 lbs. and 20 hides, or a second 
 large baron}', represent the value given for the " dignitas et soca vii. hundredoruni et diniidii."
 
 THE SHIRE. 119 
 
 the joint oaths of four of his fellows, representing together the half of a 
 Tenmantale of ten men. So, in King Henry's laws, the Baro-regis, or 
 his Dapifer, cleared the whole of his demesne, or else each vill sent the 
 Tungreve and four of its " best men," or half a Tenmantale, with the 
 priest ; and in Kent the Bors-ealdor and four men long continued to 
 appear before the Justices in Eyre from every Boroiue or Tything held 
 by Gavelkind tenure. The princii)le was applied to the land, and in the 
 .state of society prevalent throughout Southumbrian England, none could 
 stand alone, and unenrolled in a Borh, unless he was in the possession of 
 at least a township.^ 
 
 Above the shire of. the Gerefa was the shire of the Ealderraan, its 
 court the Folc-moot assembled twice in the year, over which the 
 Ealderman presided, with the Bishop and the King's Reeve. The title 
 of Ealderman is as vague as that of Gerefa. ^thelred, the son-in-law 
 of Alfred, for instance, grants and attests charters with the three Ealder- 
 men who presided over the provinces of his great Ealderdom, each alike 
 without distinction affixing his cross to the same title of Dux or Ealder- 
 man.^ The same remark applies to the district over which the Ealderman 
 presided, which often answered to a duchy rather than to a county in 
 the later sense of the word. It was occasionally, and especially in early 
 times, a principality, or small kingdom, reduced to the level of a shire, or 
 division of a greater kingdom ; and of this description were the provinces 
 of the Hwiccas, the MagasfBttas, and Lindisse, three of the five Ealder- 
 doms of Mercia. Again, in the course of the tenth century, the Ealderdom 
 became a great duchy, embracing a number of dependent provinces ; but 
 in the ordinary acceptation of the word, as the division of a kingdom, the 
 shire of the Ealderman seems to have been looked upon as half of a 
 Thiufada or Gau, and to have been reckoned as six Hundreds. Its 
 equivalent amongst the Norwegians was the Fylki, over which a Jarl 
 was placed from the days of Hai-ald Harfager, with a right to the tertim 
 denarius of his district, and bound to furnish sixty men at his own cost 
 to the royal host. A Fylki, according to Ihre, was the half of a Hiisr, and 
 was divided by Hacon the Good into Scipreidor, twelve in number, 
 according to the same authority, each bound to furnish a ship with sixty 
 or seventy men— the half of a hundred reckoned at 120 or 144. That 
 this was the ordinary number of men cairied by a large ship of the period 
 may be seen from the will of ^Ifric, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which 
 he bequeaths to the King, as a heriot, his best ship, with sixty helms and 
 sixty byrnies, or the defensive equipment of the crew. Thus the Nor- 
 wegian Fylki would appear to have answered to half a Thiufada, the 
 following of a Quingentenarius, or six Hterreds, each divided, for naval 
 purposes, into two Scipreidor.^ Amongst the engagements contracted by 
 
 1 Jnl, 70; Cod. Dip. cxl. ; Domesday, vol. i. p. 180 ; Leg. Hen. /., vi. 1, vii. 7, 8; Leg. 
 Conf. xxviii. xxix. ; l/mibard's Peramhulaliovs, p. 5G7. 
 
 ' Cod. JJlp. nilxxiii. mlxxv. 
 
 ^ Humid II arf. Haga, c. 6.; TTarnn Godci Saga, c. 21 ; Hut, in voc. Fijiki. 'J'lie will of 
 .iElfric will be found in Thorjic's D'qulornuta.
 
 IL'O THE SHIRE. 
 
 Henry i., wlien he ascended the throne of England, was numbered a 
 promise to be satisfied with a reasonable relief, and not to force his 
 barons to buv back their lands, as in the days of his brother. Accord- 
 ingly, when Kobert de Belesme paid 3000 lbs. for succeeding to his 
 brother's earldom of Shrewsbury, it may be assumed that he " bought it 
 back " at its full value from Eufus ; for 300 lbs. were paid during several 
 reigns, by the citizens of London, as the annual rent, or tenths, of the 
 . county of Middlesex. Thus the rent and value of a county, at the time 
 of the Conquest, were reckoned respectively at the land-gavel and value 
 of 72,000 acres, or 600 hides of land, and the greater shire, like the 
 Norwegian Fylki, originally corresponded with six Hundreds. In the 
 twofold division of the kingdom of Kent, in the two Ealdermen of Sussex 
 slain by Cead walla, and in the two Fylkis of East Anglia, the modern 
 counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, may be traced the early custom of 
 dividing the little kingdom, as in Iceland, like the Thiufada, and placing 
 each half, or shire, under the charge of an Ealderman, or petty king ; 
 whilst most of the more modern counties, such as Leicestershire, Lan- 
 cashire, and Nottinghamshire, for instance, which represent sheriffdoms 
 rather than early provinces or principalities, retain to this day the dis- 
 tribution into six Hundreds.^ 
 
 In its earlier, and apparently original, form the lesser shire is best 
 traceable in northern England and Scotland, where it was not obliterated 
 by the introduction of the Hundred-court in the tenth century. Here 
 the Ward, or Quarter, still represents the highest subdivision of the 
 county, the Hundred is ignored, and the population is supposed to be 
 grouped in parishes and townships. Amongst the privileges enjoyed by 
 the Palatini and their immediate families, an Act of Constantine in 319 
 relieved them from the superintendence of the " Turmarii quos Capitu- 
 laries vocant," officials who are supposed to have been responsible for the 
 enrolment of Tirones, or recruits for the army. Augustine alludes to a 
 Turma near Hippo, and the name seems to have been applied to a 
 minute subdivision of the land, over which the Turmarius presided, re- 
 cognisable in the French Turbe, the German Dorf, and the Thorp and 
 Torf of England and Scandinavia, which are only other names for the 
 Vill. Its original extent in England was equivalent to twelve carucates, 
 or a square leuga~the largest Koman measure of land, the Saltus, was 
 
 ^ Leg. Hen. /. i. 1 ; Cart. Civ. Lond. ; Orderic (odit. Provost) lib. x. cap. 7. " Robertus 
 Belesmensis . . . (ruillelmuiii Rufuiu requisivit, eique pro couiitatu fratris iii. mille librarum 
 sterilensiuni exbibuit." Such is the substance of the passage in Orderin. " In the county 
 itself (Worcestersliirc) tliere are twelve Hundreds," says an entry in Domesday (vol. i. p. 172). 
 It evidently represented a prnvinee or petty kingdom redueed to the footing of a shire. The 
 Isle of ]\lan was divided like a shire into six /Sheddings, a word evidently derived from Cead, 
 a humhed. In the "pound oath within the Three Hundreds " {Leg. LtJiel. I. i.), a glimpse 
 is obtained of the district between the Hundred and the greater Shire — the Fierdingor Quarter. 
 According to the Ijaws of the Confessor (xxxi.), " what the English call Three Hundreds or 
 Four Hundreds, the Danes call Trithing ; " but as no courts were attached to these districts, 
 they have long faded out uf recollection, except in the great shire of York with its three 
 Hidings.
 
 THE SHIRE. 121 
 
 a square mile — the ordinary Banlieue and Banmeil of France and Ger- 
 many, though the name was often applied to a district of much wider 
 extent. In England, and probably elsewhere, it also answered to the 
 amount of land, usually bestowed in free-alms, upon a Minster of the 
 ordinary, or medium, size. Such was the leuga of Battle Abbey, 
 stretching over the six large hides, or twelve carucates, immediately 
 around the Abbey ; whilst the twenty-four carucates, known as the 
 Manor of St. Germains in Cornwall, represented respectively the leuga 
 of the Canons, held in free-alms, and the leuga of the Bishop. It 
 occasionally appears as the Twelve-hides, for though the district subse- 
 quently known under the name of the Twelve-hides of Glastonbury 
 included a wide tract of country, representing one of the Hundreds of 
 the shire, only the twelve carucates around the Abbey appear in the 
 Survey, with the addition " they never paid geld."^ 
 
 The Twelve-hides, or Square Leuga, also seems to have answered to 
 the original appanage of the Twelfhyndman. As the land-gavel appears 
 to have been assessed throughout the South- country in deniers, before 
 the introduction of the Caroline penny, the value of 800 Langenekres, or 
 Ten-hides, paying 800 sceats in penny-gavel, would have amounted to 
 8000 deniers, or 1200 South-country scillings, representing respectively 
 the appanage and the wergild of the King's-thegn. But wherever, as 
 amongst the Continental Saxons and the Northmen, the wergild was 
 reckoned in hundreds of six score, or by old English tale, twelve hundreds 
 or 1440 scillings would have amounted to 9600 deniers, representing 
 the value of 960 Langenekres, or Twelve-hides, which would thus 
 appear to have been the original appanage of the Twelfhyndman. A 
 similar result is obtainable from a comparison of the wergild of the North- 
 country Twelfhyndman with the valuation of the Lancashire hide. Two 
 ores of sixteen pence were paid from every carucate, or twelve from the 
 hide, giving to the latter a value of six score ores of sixteen, or ten light 
 pounds, and twice that amount to the square leuga of twelve carucates. 
 Each ore of the lb. of 16 sol., however, being in reality an ore of twenty- 
 four light pence, contained six light scillings, giving 1440 to 20 lbs. ; 
 and thus, in the north country as well as in the south, the wergild of the 
 Twelfhyndman corresponded with the valuation of his appanage, or 
 Twelve-hides. As a comparison between the Galanas and the appanage 
 of the Welsh Breyr, or Mabuchelwr, gives a similar result, the connec- 
 tion existing between the two in a certain stage of society seems to be 
 confirmed; for the value of the Maenawl of 1024 Welsh acres, calculated 
 
 ' Cod. Theocl. lib. vi. tit. xxxv. 3; Chron. de Bello ; Domesday, vol. i. p. 90, 120b; 
 Warner's Glastonbury, p. xxxvii. Wlien Cbarlos tlie Bald issued bis rcgulatitnis in coiiiiec- 
 tioii witb St. Martin's ot Tours in 84!), be decided tbat " cc. tantum cs.se in nuuiero Fratriin), 
 vicenos singulis niansis." Bouquet, vol. viii. p. 500. Ten mansi tiieretbre formed tlie usual 
 appanage assigned in free-alms to a Minster in Gaul, and in tbe case of St. Martin's, tlie 
 whole of tbe property was evidently included in the " 'J'en-hides," or, in other words, held in 
 free-alms. The Koman Saltus is a srinare mile, measured by the Greek, or, in other words, the 
 Sicilian foot.
 
 122 THE SHIRE. 
 
 by the early standard of the south country, or at 10,240 deniers, gives 
 forty light pounds, the Galanas, or wergild, reckoned in current pence 
 by tale. 
 
 The Twelve-hides appears to have been usually regarded as a small 
 vi'snet, or neighbourhood, and divided into three Townships of four hides, 
 each equivalent to the fief de hauberc of later days, thus giving twelve 
 townships, and eight-and-forty carucates, or four square leugas, to the 
 shire. Three kinds of Minster are alluded to in the old English laws ; 
 and as the ordinary Minster of medium size may be classed upon a foot- 
 ing with the King's-thegn, with a grant in free-alms of Twelve-hides, so 
 the greater Minster, ranking with the Eorl, was similarly endowed with a 
 shire, and its accompanying privileges, whilst the smallest Minster re- 
 ceived a township of four hides. The traces of this system, which once 
 extended over the whole of England, were not entirely obliterated in the 
 South-country at the time of the Conquest, but they will be found more 
 particularly in Kent, St. Martin's Minster at Dover, for instance, pos- 
 sessed in free-alms twenty-four sulings, or four square leugas, and "in 
 the common land of St. Martin there are cccc. acres and a half, which 
 make two solins and a half, and never rendered custom or geld, for the 
 twenty-foirr solins acquit it all." The four square leugas represented 
 the shire or barony, originally allotted to the Minster in freo-alms, and a 
 similar donation is evidently alluded to in the old legend in connection 
 with the foundation of St. Mildred's Nun-minster. Domneva is supposed 
 to have " begged of the King so much ground to build an Abbey upon as 
 a tame deere that she nourished would run over at a breath. . . . The 
 hynde was put foorth, and it ran the space Qi fourtle and eight plough- 
 landes before it ceased." In Somersetshire, again, St. Peter's church at 
 Michelney held four carucates in free-alms at the date of the Survey, and 
 in the Township, the Twelve-hides, and the Shire, or Barony, allotted 
 respectively to the lesser, medium, and greater Minsters in free-alms, 
 may be traced the original extension of the earlier system over the 
 whole of England, before the introduction of the Ten-hides and the Five- 
 hides. The later grants to the church were made upon the later system, 
 and only the earlier foundations could point to their leuga in free-alms.^ 
 
 Beyond the Humber, the Wapentake of Sadberg, in the possession 
 of the Bishop of Durham, was reckoned of old as a comitatus, or shire, 
 the bishop occasionally figuring as Comes de Sadberg ; and within its 
 boundaries were held the Sheriff's Tourn and Assizes, whilst it pcssessed 
 a vice-comes, a coroner, and justices in eyre of the bishop. Eleven con- 
 stabularies or townships (two witli appendages) are stated to have owed 
 suit and service to the Court of Sadberg, twelve townships in all, or the 
 number allotted to a lesser shire; and as Richard i. made over the manor 
 and wapentake of Sadberg, with the knight's-fees within its boundaries, 
 
 * Ethel, ix. 5 ; Cnut. Ecc. 3 ; Domesdaii, vol. i. p. lb, 6, 91 ; Lamhard, p. 100; Dug. Mon. 
 i. p. 447. In the old laws there is nothing between a Minster and a field-church, or chapel, 
 und in following np defaulters in tithes, the mass-priest of the Minster alone interferes.
 
 THE SHIRE. 123 
 
 in exchange for six knight's-fees of the bishop in Lincolnshire, Sadberg 
 would appear to have been exchanged for an amount of land answering 
 to forty-eight carucates ; for the knight's-fee must here be reckoned at 
 the standard of the great fee of four large hides. ^ In the earlier grants 
 to St. Cuthbert's, alluded to by Sinaeon, the shire is distinctly visible. 
 All the lands along the Bowmont, with twelve townships, were allotted 
 to the endowment of Melrose ; South VVearmouth was granted by 
 Athelstan, with its eleven appendages, twelve in all, to the church of 
 Durham ; Staindrop with its eleven appendages, twelve in all, was simi- 
 larly conferred by Canute ; and when Alfred, the son of Birihtulfinc, 
 sought the protection of the Bishop from the Danes he received a Isen of 
 twelve townships. " To these three, Ethred Eorle, Northman Eorle, and 
 Eorl Uhtred," the Bishop and Chapter made over twenty-four townships, 
 "and may he who deprives St. Cuthbert of any of these lands perish in 
 the day of judgment" — a devout aspiration that marks the grant of the 
 two shires to the Earls as a lasn in return for their protection. '• To our 
 lord the King pray the people of South Tynedale, namely, of the town- 
 ships under mentioned," twelve in all, which made up the Liberty of 
 Tynedale, the shire, or barony, so long in the possession of the kings of 
 Scotland ; and in the barony of Beanley, held by Earl Patrick as 
 " Inborwe et Utborwe inter Angliam et Scotiam," there were also twelve 
 townships, of which the brethren of St. Lazarus held Harrop in free-alms. 
 The extensive parish of Norham is still divided into twelve townships, 
 answering collectively to the old shire ; and in Islandshire, the Dean and 
 Chapter of Durham possessed of old the tithes of ten, and the rent and 
 tithes of two townships, twelve in all. When William de Carileph 
 replaced the Secular Canons, or Culdees, of Durham with Benedictines, 
 he conferred, amongst other gifts, upon the new Dean and Chapter two 
 churches, the ecclesia de Eland, once the original seat of the bishopric, 
 with the adjacent township of Fenham, and the ecclesia de Northam 
 cum sua villa, or the township of Shoresworth ; and, according to a later 
 writer, " the townshippe of Shoreswoode is glebe to the personage of 
 Norham, and the townshippe of Eenham is glebe to the personage of 
 Holy Island." Thus the grant of the ecclesia de Eland, or parish 
 church, carried with it ecclesiastical rights over every township in the 
 shire — or parish, — with the actual possession of the township of Fenham 
 as " glebe to the personage " — the kirktoivn ; and similar rights passed 
 with the grant of the church of Norham. Upon the island itself, the 
 original seat of St. Cuthbert's brotherhood, latterly represented by a cell 
 of monks, there was a small free burgh of the bishop, electing its own 
 officers, and with a market regidating all the weights and measures of 
 the shires of Norham and Holy Island ; in other words, it was the seat 
 of the official head of the shire, once represented by the Reeve or Gerefa. 
 In Norhamshire, the township of Shoresworth represented the kirktown, 
 
 ' Surtees's Durham, vol. i. p. cxxxvii. ; vol. iii. p. 265, 201'. If ihn knip:lit's-fce is reckoiicil 
 at the fief de hauberc of four carucates the result is too biimll.
 
 124 THE SHIRE. 
 
 Norham itself having always been the head of the shire, and once the 
 residence of the Reeve, whose prerogatives may be traced in the offices 
 centred in his representative in later times, the Captain of Norham 
 Castle, who was Sheriff and Escheater, Coroner and Seneschal, within 
 the dominion and liberty of Norham, or the old shire. As the temporal 
 jurisdiction of the Godordsman over the old Temple district was vested 
 in the Reeve, so the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was centred in the little 
 Minster, with its township, or kirktown, in free-alms as glebe. The 
 possession of the Minster generally passed, in course of time, into the 
 hands of a Persona, either a bishop, an ecclesiastical community, or a 
 layman — or laymen, — and though it occasionally remained in the posi- 
 tion of a subordinate Cell of some great community, it was usually 
 allowed to go to ruin, and the charge of the church was committed to a 
 vicar, with a carucate or half-carucate of glebe, and a certain portion of 
 the ecclesiastical dues. Thus the Minster died away, and the church 
 and its priest alone renaained as the parish church and parish priest of 
 the district, which was often shorn of its original limits by the erection 
 of other churches upon private properties or boclcmds. Field-churches, 
 or chapelries, originally — five seems to have been the full number 
 allowed to a shire — and dependent upon the Minster of the district, 
 whether large or small, the addition of a burial-ground, raised them to 
 the position of small parish churches, which, in course of tirae, gradually 
 ceased to be dependent upon the representative of the old Minster.^ 
 
 A glimpse is afforded of the two leading officials of the shire, eccle- 
 siastical and secular, in the annals of Hexham. After the original seat 
 of that bishopric became the property of the See of Durham, a 'prepositus 
 was appointed over the shire, and a presbyter over the church. The 
 Provost, or Reeve, appears to have been generally a connection of the 
 Bishop, and he was removeable at the accession of every new prelate, 
 though he seems to have been usually allowed to continue in office. The 
 last to whom allusion is made by name was Uhtred, Ulf kill's son, who 
 was the father of Cospatrick, vicecomes or reeve of Teviotdale. The 
 church was made over originally to Eylaf the Sacristan of Durham, who 
 was succeeded as Persona by his son, Eylaf the treasurer, both providing for 
 the church by placing it under the charge of a vicar. The younger 
 Eylaf, who was the father of Ailred the hibtorian, was one of the Secular 
 
 * Hist. St. Cuth. Twysden, p. 67 et seq. ; Hodgson's Northumherland, pt. ii. vol. iii. p. 21 ; 
 Testa de Nevlll, p. 385 ; Kaine's JS^urth Durham, pp. 20, 26, 27, 73, 83. In addition to the 
 barony of Beanley, Earl Patrick held the three Middletons in thanage, paying 30 sol. to the 
 sherift', and receiving from his sub-tenant, or Socager, the same sum " et uno annuali con- 
 vivio," the old tenure of the night's-feorm. The name of parochia seems to have been 
 somewhat indefinitely applied — my remarks are limited to our own islands — to the district 
 over which a bishop, or a religious community, large or small, exercised spiritual jurisdiction, 
 and levied church-shot and other ecclesiastical dues. In short, it was an ecclesiastical shire 
 of indefinite extent, and the name was as vague as that of shire. It might contain many 
 shrift-districts — cures of souls — or be limited to one, until by degrees, out of the identification 
 and union of the parish and the shiift-district, arose the fixed ecclesiastical subdivision to which 
 the name has been latterly confined.
 
 THE SHIRE. 125 
 
 Canons of Durham who refused to conform to the Benedictine rule, 
 retiring to his church at Hexham, where he held " the cure of the parish 
 with the principal part of the appointments, a carucate of land with 
 some manses in the vill of Hexham, and six bovates of land in Alnwick, 
 " scilicet dotem ipsius ecclesia?," or the glebe of the chapelry of Alnwick. 
 Thus he sank from a persona into a vicar, but, had the state of society- 
 allowed it, the Eylafs and their descendants would have grown into 
 hereditary parsons of Hexham, much after the same fashion as the Deans 
 of Whalley. Known originally as "Alba ecclesia subter Legh," or 
 Whitchurch under Legh, the church of St. Mary of Whalley was the 
 parish church, and once the minster, of " Blackburnshire and all Bolland," 
 an immense extent of forest and moor. Vestiges of the lesser shire 
 abound in the once secluded district known as Christ's Croft, or the Six 
 Hundreds between Mersey and Eibble, one of which derived its name 
 from the old shire of Blackburn. King Edward, for instance, held the 
 manor of West Derby with six Berewicks. There were four hides, giving 
 four carucates to each Berewick, and aforesta, or preserve, two leugas by 
 one, or twenty-four carucates — forty-eight in all, haif covered with wood. 
 Uhtred, again, held six manors, in which were two hides which, with 
 silvce, or woods that were not preserved, covered an extent of four square 
 leugas, or forty-eight carucates, two-thii'ds of which were under wood. 
 The church of Whalley had no patron, for the surrounding country was 
 barely rescued from the wilderness, and only occupied by petty free- 
 holders, or Less-thegns, holding of the King. It was in the possession of 
 married men, inheriting it from father to son, who were instituted by 
 the Bishop of Lichfield, and known as Decani, or Deans of Whalley. 
 They were evidently Minster-hlafords, appointing themselves, and the 
 last survivors of a community that had disappeared, the possessions and 
 rights of the defunct community being vested in the hereditary represen- 
 tatives of the original Decani, or leading members of the society.^ 
 
 Northward of the Tweed, the shire is even still more distinctly trace- 
 able in its earlier and original aspect. When Edgar made over the shire 
 of Coldingham to the monks of Durham he bestowed upon them the 
 township of Coldingham, with ten other townships, and, at the dedication 
 of the church of St. Mary, completed his gi-ant by ofiferiijg upon the altar 
 the township of Swinton, as Liulf had held it, or twelve townships in 
 all. Alexander ii., in the thirteenth year of his reign, released the 
 monks of Coldingham from the aid and utware — auxilium et exercitum 
 — which had originally been due from " the tivelftli township of the shire 
 of Coldingham, that is, the town in which the church stands," thus in- 
 cidentally confirming the fact that the shire was, as usual, made up of 
 twelve lesser vills. Swinton was subsequently conferred by David upon 
 Arnulf, " his knight," to hold of the King and St. Cuthbert of Durham, 
 
 ^ Priorij of Ile.rham (Surtces Soc), vol. i. p. f)4, Ap. vii. ; Domesday, vol. i. p. 2G9b ; 
 Dug. 3Ion. vol. v. p. 642. In the Testa de Nevill the Hundreds of Lancashire appear as 
 shires — Derbyshire, LeylandsAtVe, BlackburnsAira.
 
 126 THE SHIRE. 
 
 with all the rights and customs enjoyed by Liulf and his son, Odoard 
 the vicecomes, paying annually to the brotherhood 40 sol., in lieu of all 
 service, the tenure by which Odoard had held it. Thus Swinton repre- 
 sented tlie township allotted to the Reeve of the shire, Coldingham was 
 the kirktown ; a grant of the former conveyed the rights attaching to the 
 Gerefa, a grant of the latter those belonging to the kirktown, whilst a 
 donation of both centred the ecclesiastical and temporal rights over the 
 whole shire in the same person or community. Instances of similar 
 privileges attaching to certain manors abound in the Survey, even in 
 southern England. To the manor of Pireton, for example, belonged the 
 " tertius denarius de tota scira de Dorset ;" to the manor of Wallop the 
 tertius denarius of the Six Hundreds, with pasturage and pannage in all 
 the woods of the Six Hundreds, some forgotten shire in the county, or 
 province, of South Hampton. Pireton, with its appendages, though only 
 lated at half a hide, returned a rent of 73 lbs., and had arable land for 
 fifteen ploughs. Its value therefore was far above its extent, and, as 
 sixteen ploughs would have at that time represented sixteen Juga, or four 
 Sulings, it may be supposed to have been once a township of four large 
 hides, the seat of a Gerefa who exercised jurisdiction over a shire of 
 " fourtie and eight." ^ 
 
 In the grants of David, and other kings, to the Priory of St. Andrews, 
 the shire is continually alluded to, and the Scottish Gerefa was known 
 as the Thane or Mair, his district often as a Thanage. The church of 
 St. Mary of Haddington was given to the Priory, with all the chapels, 
 lands, rights, and customs belonging to it within the shire of Haddington, 
 free from the king, the thane, and all who held of the king, or the free- 
 holders of the shire. Clerchetun, with the toft in the township of Had- 
 dington adjoining the church, was added to the grant, and similarly 
 released from king, from thane, and from freeholder, together with the 
 gift of all the tithes of the shire, which were thus attached to the kirk- 
 town, and not to the church of St. Mary, The chapelries, with certain 
 rights over the lauds attached to them, and the ecclesiastical dues, with 
 a carucate or half-carucate of glebe, belonged to the parish church ; but 
 the tithes went with the kirktown, and might be alienated altogether 
 from the church by the Persona who held it. Kinninmond, with the 
 whole shire and a toft in Kinrimont, the church of Forgrund, with the 
 tithes, rights, and customs belonging to it in the shire of Forgrund, and 
 a toft for the priest's house, with the half carucate of laud with which 
 the church was endowed — the kirktown was evidently in the possession 
 of a Persona — place upon record the existence of other shires ; whilst the 
 parish church of the Holy Trinity, with the land of Kindargog with 
 which it is endowed, and all the cliapelries in the shire of Kilrimont, 
 with the toft in the burgh on which " the houses are built," represent the 
 original church and ku'ktown of the Culdee community, with the rights 
 attaching to both throughout the shire of Kilrimont, the leading shire, 
 
 1 Coldingham Charters, 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 66 ; Domesday, vol. i. pp. 75, 38b.
 
 THE SHIRE. 127 
 
 or thanage, ia the bishopric of St. Andrews. In the Registers of Dun- 
 fermline, Scone, Arbroath, and other monasteries, frequent reference is 
 made to the shire over all that part of Scotland which may be described 
 as stretching from the Tweed to Inverness, and it is easily identified with 
 the thanage. In the Register of Aberdeen, for example, it is recorded 
 how David i. made over or confirmed to the See " the whole vill of Old 
 Aberdeen, and the church of the Kirktown, with the shire of Clat, the 
 shire of Tulinestyn, the shire of Rayn, and the shire of Daviot, with their 
 pertinents and churches, and the tithes of the rents of the thanages and 
 escheats within the Sheriffdoms of Aberdeen and Banff;" all these shires 
 appearing in other parts of the same Register as thanages. First amongst 
 the donations of William the Lion to the foundation he raised to the 
 memory of Thomas a Becket was " Aberbrothoc with the whole shire ; " 
 and a grant of this description, in which the ecclesiastical and tempoial 
 prerogatives over the district were alike vested in an abbot, seems to 
 have been often known in early days as an AhtJianage ; whilst the 
 donation of " the church of Ecclcsgirg, with the land of the Abbey, and 
 all its pertinents," and other grants similarly worded, may be supposed 
 to have conveyed the lands, and lesser prerogatives, of a Minster of a 
 lower class. Traces of the original extent of the thanage seem to have 
 lingered longest, as in England, in the north, for the lordship of Strath - 
 bolgie was once divided into forty-eight davochs — a large pastoral 
 measure at one time answering to the plough-gate, though in, actual 
 extent four times as large, or in the proportion of the suling and the 
 jugum. The Lordship thus represented the Forty-hides, or Barony of 
 the Eorl, the shire or thanage made over to a lay magnate ; and 
 in " the Aucht and Foity Dauch" of Huntly, still remembered in the 
 north, and once a favourite toast in that part of Scotland, may be also 
 seen the equivalent of the " fourtie and eight ploughlandes," which com- 
 pleted the course of the Kentish matron's legendary deer.^ 
 
 A glimpse of the ordinary Scottish shire of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries is obtained from certain grants and sales connected with the 
 thanage of Kintore, which was made over in 1375 " saving the pertinen- 
 cies and our kanes/' by Robeit ir. to John de Dunbar, Earl of Moray. 
 The forest of Kintore, within the thanedom, and the lands of Thayiis- 
 town and Foulartoun, with the dues from Kinkell and Dyce, had befoie 
 this time been granted, respectively, to Sir Robert Keith and William 
 Chalmer. The name of Thaynstoun speaks for itself " The Mairship 
 of the east quarter of Fife, with the land called the 31airtoiin, which 
 William Mair resigned. . . . The office of Mair of fee of the barony of 
 Crailj with the land of 31artoun" — these and similar passages [)oint to 
 
 1 JRef/. Prior. St. And. pp. 122, 138, 180, 181, 213. My authority for the lordships of 
 Strathbolgie and Huntly is Mr. Innes. Amongst the enfranchisements in the Book of Deer, 
 one alludes to " the proportion affecting /bitr davochs of land of such burdens as would fall on 
 all chief monasteries . . . and chief churches " (p. xcvii.) These four davochs seem to repre- 
 sent the original Kirktown, before it dwindled into the half-davoch that was its ordinary 
 amount in this quarter in later times.
 
 128 THE SHIRE. 
 
 the vill or township set apart for the ]\Iair, the leading official, or Keeve, 
 placed over the temporalities of the district ; whilst in Foulartoun, or 
 the Fowler's town, the recollection of the royal deputy in charge of the 
 Foresta is probably preserved. In Kinkell, or " the ciiief church," may 
 be recognised the original Kirktown, upon which the chapelries of 
 Kintore, Kiunellar, Monkeigie, Drumblait, and Dyce were once de- 
 pendent, " all of which of old, as well as Kinkell itself, were severally 
 provided of a priest, who officiated as chaplain, or vicar, for the parson 
 of Kinkell himself; who being a principal person in the Chapter, had 
 his residence at the Cathedral, in the Chanonry." Thus the ecclesiasti- 
 cal prerogatives over the district had been made over to the Chapter of 
 Aberdeen, and assigned to one of the members as Persona ; but in 
 earlier times, when Thaynstoun and Foulartoun were the official resi- 
 dencies of the Mair and Fowler, appointed as royal deputies over the 
 thanedom and forest of Kintore, Kinkell was the kirktown in which 
 the little Minster stood, and its church was the mother church, or parish 
 church, of the shire. In 1467 the lands of Thaynstoun were sold " with 
 the pertinents and the annual rent . . . from Kinkell, and with the vill 
 of Foulartoune adjoining the aforesaid land of Thaynstoun . . . and all 
 the kanes of barley and cheese, and all the money due ratione ferchani 
 from the lands of Kinkell and Dyss, within the aforesaid thanedom (of 
 Kintore) ;" and in 1535 there was another sale of " the eighth part of 
 the lands of Thaynstoun and Foulartoun lying adjacent to it, with the 
 yearly I'ent . . . de terris villarum ecclesiarum (the Kirktowns) of 
 Kinkell and Dyce, . . . and all the kanes . . . and money ratione 
 ferchani belonging to the lands Kinkell and Dyce." Just as the Minster 
 claimed ecclesiastical prerogatives over the Mairtown, so the Mair was in 
 the enjoyment of temporal privileges over the Kirktow^n, a name which in 
 the sixteenth century, and probably long before, was no longer attached 
 exclusively to the township originally assigned to the Minster, but was 
 evidently given to the carucate, or half-carucate, of land made over as 
 glebe to the vicarage.^ 
 
 Such was the Scottish thanage, such the early English shire ; a dis- 
 trict reckoned at twelve townships, and eight-and-forty ploughlands, or 
 davochs, and either placed under the superintendence of a royal deputy, 
 or else made over to a leading magnate ; whilst in things ecclesiastical, 
 it was under the superintendence of a greater or lesser Minster. It 
 must not be supposed, however, that the institution, whether it is known 
 as a thanage or a shire, was peculiarly confined to this side of the 
 Channel, for it is traceable, even in its minutest points, upon the Con- 
 tinent, and particularly in France, as may be gathered from the following 
 examples, a few amongst many : — In a charter given to Abbeville by a 
 Count of Ponthieu, it is laid down that, if a question about chattels should 
 arise between members of the guild (Jures), or between a member and a 
 
 * Antiq. Aberdeen (Spalding Club), vol. i, pp. 250, 251, 571, 575, 576, 577 ; Robertson's 
 Index, p. 121, 127.
 
 THE SHIRE. 129 
 
 stranger {non-jure), appeal should be made " ad vicecomitem meum vel 
 ad dominum vicecomitatus illius " — to the reeve or the lord of the shire, 
 or barony — and thus the county of Ponthieu must have been sub- 
 divided into vicecomitatus, or shires, either placed under a deputy of the 
 Count, or made over to a baron or lord in dependence upon the Count 
 or King. When Guy and Ivo, joint Counts of Amiens towards the 
 close of the eleventh century, laid down various regulations against the 
 exactions and violence of Viscounts and their officials, they concluded 
 with an injunction that none should venture to deprive the church of 
 St. Mary and St. Firmin at Amiens of " our portion in the shires of 
 Dureville and St. Maurice which we have made over to them — nostras 
 partes vicecomitatus de villa Diiri et Sancti Mauricii;" evidently in 
 allusion to a grant of all their prerogatives over the viscounties in ques- 
 tion, " saving the rights of the freeholders," through which the church of 
 Amiens became " dominus vicecomitatus," About twenty years before 
 this time, or in 1069, Eaoul Count of Amiens, with all the " milites 
 totius Conteiensis honoris," resigned at the instigation of the bishop 
 " ex multis que possidebam . . . potestatem quam vicecomites in terris 
 predictorum fratrum exercebant ; " so that in the ecclesiastical posses- 
 sions of the brethren of St. Firmin within the boundaries of the Honor of 
 the Chateau de Conty, the vicecornes and the miles, or reeve and free- 
 holder — for the freeholder within an Honor was invariably a miles, or 
 military tenant — had certain rights which wei-e waived or abrogated by this 
 charter, just as the property of the Priory of St. Andrews, within the shire 
 of Haddington, was similarly relieved from the interference of thane or 
 freeholder by the charter of David. On either side of the Channel, 
 therefore, the leading principles of the system were identical or very 
 similar, and the shire could be made over to the equivalent of an Eorl, 
 or retained under the superintendence of a Reeve or Mair. In either 
 case the rights of the freeholders were inalienable, unless by special com- 
 pact ; whilst the unprivileged inhabitants of the district, representatives 
 of a population originally servile, or of alien race, rendered their services 
 and made their payments to the pei-son, whether an official or an absolute 
 proprietor, who was appointed to receive them by the supreme overlord.^ 
 
 1 Monumens de I'llistolre die Tiers Etat, vol. i. pp. Ill, 23, 40. The various rights ot 
 Overlord, Deputy, and Proprietor, are well illustrated by certain resignations contained in the 
 Chartulaiy of Redon. Alan Count of Bretague, in 1040, waived alfclaim to Gualoer m the 
 lands of the Abbacy of St. Saviour, " illam scilicet partem quo . . . priucipibus solvi consue- 
 verat," forbidding his officials to enter the lands of the Abbacy to exact it. Eudo the Vice- 
 comes, m 101)2, " condonavit waloria totius sui honoris," or all the part belonging to hi.s 
 ofiSce, his sons consenting to the resignation. The Gualoer was the Droit d'aubaine, the Dana 
 ar/ of the North, or the right to the property of a deceased alien ; and fifty years elapsed before 
 the resignati(;n of the Deputy completed the freedom from the impost begun by the resignation 
 of the Overlord.^ A certain llatfred, in 1041, made over his property, " cum tota decima, 
 sepuHura, gualoir," as he had received it I'roni Count Alan to the same Ablicy. In his case 
 the right was vested in the proprietor {Cart, llcdon, rcxci.x. ccc. cccxxii.) Instances abound 
 in the Book of Peer of similar resignations of the i iglits of king, niormair and toshach, but in 
 the France of the eleventh century, the power of the king was too weak to claim his " sharo " 
 I'rom the Counts of Urclagno and similar magnates.
 
 130 THE SHIRE. 
 
 The introduction of the Hundred-court, in England, as upon the 
 Continent, must have gradually obliterated, as far as it penetrated, all 
 recollection of the lesser shire. The smaller court amongst the free- 
 holders was swallowed up, as it were, by the greater, surviving only in 
 the court-baron of the Gesith-socn. Much in the same way the old 
 county-court or Folc-moot, in which the Ealderman and the Bishop 
 presided tioice in the year, vanishes in some indistinct manner between 
 the court of the royal justiciaries and the later county -court of the Vice- 
 comes or Sheriff, which arises in its place, and was held three times a 
 year as a Burh-gemote in the leading burgh of the district. After the 
 reign of Athelstan, or about the middle of the tenth century, the King's 
 reeves were no longer enjoined to hold their courts twelve times in the 
 year, nor were they any longer bidden to assist in the hue and cry with 
 their Blannung. Their duties and their courts were alike transferred to 
 the Hundred's-ealdor, a different character from the military leader, 
 known under a similar title in an earlier stage of society. He was 
 elected, indeed, by the freeholders instead of being appointed by the 
 sovereign, differing from the earlier Scir-gerefa as the Decanus from the 
 Timgreve, but he was chosen from the same class ; for every freeholder 
 belonging to the community was by this time either a thegn in direct 
 dependence upon the sole sovereign in Mercia and the South-country, or 
 holding of him in socage in the Danelage. In the regulations of the 
 Hundred, however, the remembrance of the lesser shire seems to have 
 been still perpetuated in the rule laid down that every Tything was 
 bound to clear itself by the oaths of its Decanus and two true men, and 
 of the Decanus and two true men from the three neighbouring Tythings, 
 the jury of twelve thus jointly representing the united oaths of four 
 Tythings or a lesser shire, the twelve Doomsmen of the Godord. Such 
 is the latest glimpse afforded amongst the community of England of the 
 once Pagan subdivision of the Godord, though it survived for some centu- 
 ries later amongst a similar class in Scotland as the thanage. Wherever 
 the Hundred-court has failed to penetrate, and the county still represents 
 the original province, Gau or Thiuftida, divided as of old into Wards or 
 Quarters, the lesser shire may still be occasionally distinguished in the 
 next very variable subdivision, though only under its ecclesiastical name 
 of Parish ; whilst in its later phase of Eorty-hides it yet retains a nominal 
 place in the land-measurement of England as the Barony.^ 
 
 * Leg. Oonf. xx. ; compare Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. ap. f, p. 335. In 
 the foliowino; passage from Hincmar's Annals {ad. an., 869) there seems an allusion to the 
 Turbe and Centena : — " De centum mansis unum haietaldum, et de mille mansis unum carrum 
 cum duobis bobis. . . . quatenus ipsi haistaldi castellum, quod ibidem ex ligno et lapide fieri 
 prsecepit, excolerent et custodirent." A hundred mansi would have been the equivalent of 
 Ten-hides, a thousand of a Hundred-hides. The Haistaldus was the liber mansuarius, or Haga- 
 stallr, the Hagerman of Low Saxony, and Miles agrarius of Widukind. The policy of the 
 Frank king foreshadows, as usual, the policy subsequently carried out in England by Alfred, 
 and in Germany by Henry the Fowler.
 
 THE SHIRE. 131 
 
 A. 
 
 Bishop "^ 
 
 Able* 1 Fortiorea f ^ ^^' ^'^'^^ ^^^ '^^^^^^ ~ ^"^^ ^^^' ~ '^^ ^'^^^^ ~ ^°^'^'^ barony. 
 Count 
 
 ot 1 
 
 3SS f- 
 It J 
 
 Abbot "I 
 Abbess V Medic 
 Count ) 
 
 liocres 
 Vassus Dominicatus 
 
 ■ 6 oz. from 200 casati = 100 lbs. = 20 hides = Lesser barony. 
 
 Abbot ) ^. 1 
 
 Abbess \ ^^^inoies i 5 sol. from 100 casati = 50 lbs. = 10 hides = King's-thegn. 
 
 Vassus Dominicatus 3 
 
 ,r . , . I 50 ) ,. (25 lbs. I (5 hides ) J Medial-thegn. 
 
 Vassi . 1 oz. from j g^ j casati = j ^^ jj^^ | = | 3 ^.^^^ J = j ^^^^^^^ g^^ ^^^ j^^^l^^^.^^ 
 
 1 square leuga = 1 turbo or tything. 
 
 4 ,, =4=1 shire or barony. 
 
 12 ,, = 12= 3= 1 hundred. 
 
 36 „ = 36 = 9 = 3 = 1 quarter. 
 
 72 „ = 72 = 18 = 6 = 2 = 1 shire or fylki. 
 
 144 „ = 144 = 36 = 12 = 4 = 2 = 1 thiufada. 
 
 a 
 
 120 scillings = 1 carucate = 1 wealh. 
 240 ,, =2 „ =2 = 1 twyhyndman. 
 720 ,, =6 ,, ^ 6 ^ 3 =: 1 sixhyndman. 
 1440 „ = 12 „ .-=12=6 = 2 = 1 twelfhyudman. 
 
 A. 
 
 This schedule represents the various classes of nobility, lay and 
 ecclesiastical, amongst the Franks in 779. Only the Vassi Dominicati 
 were, in reality, assessed according to the amount of mansi with which they 
 were enfeoffed, for dues, rights, and privileges, more than actual land, 
 made up the property of the highest class. Lowest upon the list, and 
 after the Vassi Dominicati, King's-thegns or Barons, came the Vassi, 
 Mesne-tenants or Vavassours, Besides these four classes there was the 
 free community, small freeholders in allod or benefice down to the pro- 
 prietor of half a mansus, the equivalent, apparently, of the highest 
 servile holding. They were all more or less Ilaistaldi, Hagermen with 
 a manerium, or homestead of their own ; though the true Haga-staller 
 evidently held in benefice, and not in allod, for he was removable, and 
 was gradually enclosed within walls as a Imrgher, exchanging the posi- 
 tion of a miles agrarius for that of a miles urbanus. The priesthood, by 
 right of office, were classed amongst the free community, the lowest 
 ranking upon a level with the freeholder of half a mansus; and the 
 negotiatorcs, the chapmen and dustyfeet of our old laws, were necessarily 
 free to " go where they willed." From the passages elsewhere (piotcd 
 from Hincmar's Annals, it is evident that the servilis mansuarius ranked
 
 132 THE SHI HE. 
 
 first amongst the unfree tax-paying classes, and he was the equivalent of 
 the Geneat or Husbandman attached to the land, and irremovable from it. 
 Below him was the accola, a stranger removable at pleasure ; and lowest 
 of all the man who combined with another to make up the necessary- 
 contribution for which the accola was liable by himself. All underneath 
 this class, which may be supposed to represent the cotmen, were absolute 
 slaves, without any property from which a penny could be wrung. 
 
 B. 
 
 The subdivisions of the province to which the name of Thiufada is 
 given, for want of a better. It is not unlikely that the Gau was once 
 similarly divided. As the Franks reckoned ten men to the Turbe, and 
 gave fen mansi to the Minster, so at a comparatively early time the Ten- 
 hides divided into two lesser vills replaced in Southumbrian England the 
 Twelve-hides or square leuga, divided into three townships. The 
 Hundred, by degrees, was reckoned at live score, and the South-country 
 hide shrunk into the half-carucate or Jugura ; and accordingly the Hun- 
 dred in southern England is a much smaller measure than in the Mid- 
 lands. It must be always borne in mind, however, that the Hundred 
 applied to the free population of the district long before the land itself 
 was measured out for the purposes of assessment. 
 
 a 
 
 The appanage and the wergild. In the South-country 1440 scillings 
 represented 9600 deniers, or the value of 960 langenekres, a square 
 letiga. In the North-country, a similar sum represented 20 lbs. of 16 
 sol, the value of twelve carucates, each worth 20 ores of light-pence. 
 In an early stage of society the test seems tolerably accurate. The old 
 Frank wergild of 600 solidi, for instance, reckoned by the early standard, 
 gives 24,000 deniers, representing the value of 200 casati, not an unlikely 
 appanage for the original Antrustion or Vassus Dominicatus of early 
 times. But as the power of the sovereign increased, and the state of 
 society in which a man was born with a claim upon an appanage in 
 accordance with his own valuation passed away, the value of the wergild 
 remained stationary, whilst the holding fluctuated with the variations of 
 the time. From that time there ceased to be any necessary correspon- 
 dence between them, and in the Sachsenspiegel the wergild is reckoned 
 at the standard of the Caroline age, the smallest Schoppenbar-freeman 
 being valued on a footing with the Fiirst and Freyherr, whilst their appan- 
 ages were widely different. The commencement of such a change is 
 traceable from a very early time in England, for when the legal value of 
 the hide was worth 5 lbs., the wergild of 1200 sciUings, or 25 lbs., 
 would have corresponded with the appanage of the medial-thegn, or five 
 hides instead of ten. A similar process is deserving of remark amongst 
 the Welsh, for the Galanas of the Breyr, reckoned at 40 lbs. of 16 sol,
 
 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS 133 
 
 doubles the early wergild of the North-country Twelfhyndman. The 
 taeog, when he took land of the king, was bound, by Welsh law, to pay 
 60 pence for every rhandir of 16 eriv — 80 deniers, or Jive for every acre. 
 The penny-gavel in Kent was once exacted in half-sceatts, as has been 
 already pointed out, giving to the acre in Kent a value of Jive deniers. 
 Assuming then that this payment represented the value of the land " by 
 the old valuation" — that it was a fixed payment handed down from an 
 earlier time — as there were 64 rhandirs in the maenawl, the "old valua- 
 tion " of the appanage of the Breyr would have amounted to (5 X 64 = ) 
 16 lbs., or 20 lbs. of 16 sol., the same as the old North-country wergild. 
 The coio was the standard of valuation in reckoning the Galanas, which 
 rose as she advanced in price ; and she was probably reckoned, at one 
 time, on a footing with the ox in the English laws, valued at a mancus, 
 or 80 half-sceatts. In the Lfet of the first class amongst the Kentishmen, 
 valued at 80 scillings, or 5 lbs., may be seen the forerunner of the Ken- 
 tish Gaveller, whose wergild was still reckoned at 5 lbs. in the reign of 
 Edward i. The original Kentish Ceorl, assessed at 200 scillings, or 12 
 lbs. 10 sol., was a totally different character from the Ceorl upon Gafol- 
 land — the Tvvyhyndman on a footing with the Lset of the first-class — 
 corresponding rather with the Sixhyndman, though belonging to a differ- 
 ent stage of society.^ 
 
 V. 
 
 Scottish Measurements. 
 
 Before the introduction of the system of penny-gavel, in accordance 
 with which the land was measured into carucates, or ploughlands, and a 
 tenth of its estimated value paid to the overlord, the tenure of a pastoral 
 state of society was Cornage. The herd was numbered, or the flock, the 
 tenth animal was set apart as the prerogative of the king, or overlord, and 
 little if any notice was taken of the extent of the arable land, or acreage 
 under the plough, from which no tribute was exacted except in the 
 shape of actual refection. In the agreement made at Windsor, in 1175, 
 between Henry ii, and the representative of Roderic O'Connor, the Irish 
 king bound himself to acknowledge the superiority of his English 
 sovereign by annually paying " de singulis x. animalibus decimum 
 corium, placabile mercatoribus," - or a tenth of the revenue he derived 
 
 1 The regulation about the tacog will be found in Councils, etc., relating to Great Britain 
 and Ireland, vol. i. p. 245 ; compare Wergilds in Scotland under her Jiarlg Kings. 
 
 ^ Fosd, vol. i. p. .31. It must be always remembered, in calculating by the value of the 
 ox, or cow, that the same rule is applicable to an animal as to a metal standard of value ; and 
 the introduction of the ploughland, penny-gavel, and other incidents of an agricultural system, 
 acted upon a pastoral state of society precisely as the introduction of a gold standard upon a 
 silver currency— the earlier standard fell in value. Tt will be found, 1 believe, that the amount 
 of pasturage from which the tenth or twelfth animal was due, answered Very closely to the
 
 134 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS 
 
 from his own demesnes, and from a similar tribute levied upon bis own 
 people. Land-gavel was evidently, at that time, unknown in Ireland, 
 and the eios, which grew in time into land-cess, was still collected in the 
 shape of cattle, or in the equivalent money-payment known as Cornage. 
 Nowt-geld, or Cornage, appears both as an obligation and as a tenure, 
 in the Testa de Nevill, in the Boldon Buke, and in the Black Book of 
 Hexham. It was the rent paid from his land by the Grasmannus, or 
 grazier, and the sole tenure known in Cumberland during the thirteenth 
 century. Wlierever there was no grass-land beyond the necessary 
 amount required for the pasturage of the plough-oxen, and other stock, 
 and for hay-land, no cornage was demanded ; and accordingly, it neces- 
 sarily died out in every quarter in which the holding of the Geneat was 
 limited to arable land, and to the mere amount of meadow required by 
 a strictly agricultural system ; whilst it must have often disappeared in 
 the tenth demanded from the general valuation of the whole land. The 
 vill made over to a thegn, for instance, was assessed upon the hidage, or 
 arable land ; but as long as he performed his obligations, and paid his 
 tenths, the thegn might do as he pleased within the limits of a Bocland- 
 celd, except with the in-born Geneats, who were attached to the soil, and 
 irremovable. Cattle represented wealth in early days, or rather con- 
 vertible wealth, when no market existed for the produce of the soil ; and 
 that the thegn was wont to turn his land into pasturage may be gathered 
 from the enactments of Ini's Laws, by which the amount of land to be 
 left in cultivation, by the Gesith who quitted his benefice, was strictly 
 laid down. Similar regulations against leaving benefices waste, or in 
 pasturage, will be found in the Capitularies, and " to live like a grazier," 
 or to turn arable land into pasture, continued to be a reproach cast upon 
 some of the great English landowners at so late a period as the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
 Land-gavel must have superseded Cornage in Southern England at a 
 very early period, obliterating all recollection of the primitive impost as 
 a royal prerogative, or public tax ; but under the name of Nowt-geld, 
 the earlier tribute continued to be paid throughout the northern counties 
 long after the Norman Conquest, at which epoch it was still traceable in 
 some quarters as the equivalent of the public land-tax. The two ores of 
 sixteen pence, for instance, which were paid to the king from the Lan- 
 cashire carucate, a sum that can in no way be made to adapt itself to 
 the agricultural measurement, evidently represent the Scat-penny levied 
 
 ploughland. " Duas carucatas bourn, scilicet xx. boves," occurs in a charter relating to 
 Bury St. Edmunds, dated 27th June 1216 {Rot. Chart, in Tm?-?-;.— Hardy, p. 223) ; the 
 carucata houm evidently answering to a pasturage for ten liead of cattle. A similar inference 
 may be drawn from the value given to the ordinary ox amongst the Saxons, in the time of 
 Charlemagne — a solidus ; the value of the mansus being 10 sol., or amongst the Saxons, 10 
 oxen. As soon as an agricultural system was established, however, the animal fell in value, 
 and ceased to be a standard. In the Laws of Athelstan, for instance, the ox is valued at a 
 maneus, when the ploughland was worth 5 lbs., or forty oxen, instead of ten or twelve. Hence 
 the animal ceased to be a correct standard of value under an agricultural system, and to reckon 
 it as such would ouly entail confusion.
 
 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS 135 
 
 upon the stock, instead of upon the assessed valuation of the land, or the 
 worth of the tenth animal in money. Amongst an agricultural popula- 
 tion the ox was the prominent beast, for he helped to draw the plough : 
 but in a pastoral state of society he was of comparatively little use except 
 as a mart — to be eaten — and his place was usually taken by the cow, her 
 standard cf value, apparently, averaging for a considerable period twelve 
 scillings, varying with the fluctuations of the actual coin in use. In 
 scillings of four light-pence the value of the cow was represented by the 
 two ores of sixteen sterling pence, paid as cornage from the carucate in 
 Lancashire, a relic of the time in which the wergild of the North-country 
 Twelfhyndman was reckoned at a hundred cows, or twelve hundreds of 
 scillings. Beckoned in scillings of four sterling pence, the cow was the 
 equivalent of three ores of sixteen, or four shillings, her valuation in the 
 Laws of the Scots and Brets, in which the C^'O, or wergild, of the Thane 
 was assessed at a hundred cows, or twelve hundred scillings of four 
 steiling pence ; whilst in South-country scillings of fivepence she was 
 worth three ores of twenty, her value in the Welsh codes. In Wales, 
 however, she was evidently reckoned at an earlier period at half that 
 sum, or at the mancus, which was the legal value of the ox in Athelstan's 
 Laws, when the horse, rated at a pound in the Conqueror's time, was only 
 assessed at half a pound. When the MercJiefa 31uUerum was compiled 
 her value had risen in Scotland to six shillings, but /owr was her standard 
 in the laws of William the Lion and his son, and a similar price was 
 given for her in Ireland in the twelfth century ; for the tribute of 140 
 head of cattle, due from Ossory to the Cowarb of St. Columba, was com- 
 muted in 1161 for a payment of 420 uinges of pure silver, giving a value 
 of three uinges, or ores, of silver, to each animal. The Irish uinge, 
 calculated in lighter pinginns, at this time still represented the current 
 " ore of sixteen," and the legal value of " the cow " during the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, and probably the eleventh, may be taken at 
 four English shillings, for Scotland, Ireland, and the northern counties 
 of England.^ 
 
 The agricultural measurement in Scotland upon which the regium 
 gildum was levied, payable alike from ecclesiastical and secular lands, as 
 may be gathered from a charter of William the Lion, was the Blough- 
 gate, or carucate of 104 acres. It was divided, as in northern England, 
 into eight oxgates, two as usual making up the ordinary farm-holding 
 known as the Husbandland, the name by which similar holdings were 
 known throughout Northumberland. The equivalent of the ploughgate 
 in northern Scotland was the Davoch, a large pastoral measure equal in 
 actual extent to four ploughgates, or in the same proportion as the suling 
 
 * A. F. M. 1161. The original difference between the currency in England and in 
 Ireland is still traceable in the sixteenth century. By the Composition of Connnnght, in 1585, 
 it was arranged that certain services, and ini])osls, should be couuiuited by ihc payment from 
 every (|uartfcr of land, containing 120 acres, "that boars either horno or oiinic," ten shillings 
 English, or an Irish marc. Hence 120 sterling ponce were equal to KJO Irish pence, or exactly 
 in the old proportion of the Caroline penny and Merovingian denier, or Irish screapall, Au 
 Irish pinginn would have passed for a farthing.
 
 13G SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 and the jugum, the large old hide of 240 acres, and the lesser measure of 
 60, which became the ordinary hide for agricultural purposes in later 
 times. In course of time the Davoch seems to have been calculated, as 
 a measure of land, at four ploughgates ; but it appears to have been 
 originally reckoned, like the suling, as the equivalent of a ploughland, 
 and divided into eight oxgates ; for, by a regulation in the Ilegiam 
 Majesfafem, no husbandman was liable to heriot unless he held, at the 
 least, the eighth part of a Davoch ; and the ordinary amount of the 
 kirktown, or glebe assigned to the church, in Morayshire and nortli- 
 eastern Scotland, was a half-davoch. In either case the equivalents of 
 the oxgate and half-ploughgate of south-eastern Scotland are plainly 
 traceable.^ 
 
 From a decree of Exchequer, dated in 1585, in which it is laid down 
 that "thirteen acres extendis and sail extend to ane oxgait of land, and 
 four oxgait extendis and sail extend to ane pund land of auld extent." 
 Mr. Innes has shown that the valuation of the ploughgate of old^extent, 
 or, in other words, according to the estimate of the thirteenth century, 
 was reckoned at two pounds, a sum that can in no way be adapted to 
 the acreage. But in the reign of William, and at the time when the 
 valuation according to " the auld extent" was taken, two pounds, or 
 thirty ores of sixteenpence, represented the legal value of ten cows, one 
 of which evidently went to the king; and thus the Scat-penny was 
 originally levied in Scotland upon the stock, in accordance with the 
 custom so long prevalent throughout northern England, remaining 
 attached to the land as the overhyrnes, or prerogative of the overlord, 
 levied in tlie form of coruage instead of land-gavel, long after the agri- 
 cultural system of measurement had replaced the pastoral. Under the 
 name of " the Forty-shilling land of old extent," the ploughgate was the 
 original qualification for a vote in the counties of Scotland ; and upon 
 the principle of the Forty-shilling freehold in England, which repre- 
 sents the tenth part of an old Feudum militis, or knight's-fee of 20 lbs, 
 of land, the ploughgate originally represented the tenth part of 20 lbs. 
 of land, or of a barony of ten hides. This exactly tallies with the cro 
 or wergild of the Thane in the Laws of the Scots and Brets, which was 
 reckoned at a hundred cows, or three hundred ores of sixteenpence, the 
 equivalent of 20 lbs. of land, ten carucatce houm, or a large vill of ten 
 hides. Thus in Scotland, as well as in England and in Wales, the 
 wergild and the appanage were once in exact correspondence ; in Scot- 
 land, as well as in England, the Ten-hides and the Twelve-hides are 
 equally to be traced.- 
 
 ^ Beg. Prior. St. And. p. 212; Beg. Maj. iv. 17. By the regulation passed in 1214, every 
 man vj'iih five cows was bound to " take land," and turn agriculturist, an enactment that could 
 only have applied to the pastoral districts of the north couutry. As five cows represented 
 1 lb., and a " puud-iand " was half a ploughgate, it is evident that originally the smallest 
 agricultiiral tenant, in this part of Scotland, was the holder of the " eightli part of a davoch." 
 —Act. Pari. Scot. vol. i. p. 67. 
 
 '^ 'Sly authority is again IMr. Innes, whose Lectures I liave had the advantage of reading in 
 manuscript. Tiie differonco between the forty-shilling freehold in England and Scotland is 
 worthy of remark.
 
 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS. 137 
 
 Many passages in the older Scottish laws go far to confirm the identity 
 of the Ten-hides and the Barony. Three vills seem to have been gener- 
 ally reckoned as a Visnef, or neighbourhood. No frith was allowed, by 
 old English law, to the thief, if the sufferer proclaimed the robbery in 
 three tuns. If the judge of a Gericht was not to be found when an 
 offender was taken in flagrant delict, the case might be dealt with 
 summarily, according to old German law, by a temporary Gograf, cliosen 
 by the inhabitants of at least three Borfen. After the dog that could 
 worry a wolf was ranked in value the dog that would follow, and hold 
 to the chase after him, through tliree Borfen. The triple oath of 30, 
 36, or 42 men, represented the joint oaths of three vills, or a neighbour- 
 hood ; over 35 men (or 3 X 12) constituted a Here by Ini's Laws ; and 
 an attack upon a house by (3 X 14, or) 42 men raised Heimzuht, or 
 housebreaking, by Bavarian law, into Herreita, a harrying, or levying of 
 war — the numbers in each case representing the levee en masse of three 
 vills, or an entire neighbourhood. By early Scottish law the " Sequela 
 trium baroniarum" constituted a visnet, and the " Proportio trium baro- 
 niarum" is explained to mean "the seneschal and four leal men of the 
 vill or toun," the same personages as the Tungreve and four men of the 
 vill who appeared in the absence of the Baro regis, or of his Dapifer, 
 according to King Henry's Laws, and who were the equivalents in a 
 Gesith-socn, of the Borh's Ealdor and four men of the Borh in the Kentish 
 Tything. Thus the Scottish barony of the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
 turies seems to have answered to the Ten-hides, or large vill forming the 
 third of a Visnet ; the holding necessary to confer the rank of King's-thegn , 
 or tenant in capite, whose equivalent was the ordinary Baro regis, or 
 lesser baron, of King Henry's Laws, and the holder by homage of ten 
 mansi in the Empire during the corresponding period.^ 
 
 ^ Leg. Ethel, iii. 15; Ini. 13 ; Sack. Spieg. bk. i. 55; Pertz, Leg. vol. iv. p. 23, 24; 
 Leg. Will. 21, 32 ; Stat. Alex. ii. 5, 6. The custom of clearing the Tything by the joint 
 oaths of four Tythings, or an old shire, appears in the Confessor's Laws, in the section treating 
 of the North-country Tenmantale, and evidently refers to that part of England in which the 
 recollection of the Twelve-hides and early shire lingered the longest. There is no allusion to 
 the practice in the Laws of King Henry, which treat almost entirely of the custom of the 
 South-country, where the Ten-hides and Forty-hides had obliterated all recollection of the 
 earlier system, the Tungreve, or Borsealdor, and his four companions, representing apjiarcntly 
 the half of a South-country Tithing, or Ten-hides, The Scottish barony seems to have re- 
 sembled the Baronia, or Ten-hides, of these T^aws. h\ the Testa de Nevill, treating of pro- 
 perties dependent on the king, the title applied to the ordinary feudal holding is always 
 Baronia. The tenure of Hephale, for instanc-e, long held in thanage for the annual payment 
 of 50 sol., was changed by John, and Ivo Taillcbois held it for the service of a knight, as the 
 harony of Hephale {T. de N. p. 393). The charter of Henry i., however, freeing tenure j;«' 
 loricara from its earlier obligations, never penetrated into Scotland, and the obligations seem 
 to have been commuted for a money-payment, known as Blanche Kane — money paid in Blank, 
 and not by tale; eqUiivalent to a sterling currency, or of the full value. Hence the Scottish 
 ieudal tenure of " Ward and Blench." The 40 sol. paid by Odoard the vicecomes, and subse- 
 quently by Arnulf the knight, in lieu of all service from the vill of Swinton, represent Blanche 
 Kane, and Arnulf, as a knight, held Swinton as a barony "by Ward and Blench." Li consequence 
 of Magna Charta the whole of the English baronage, who were not simimoncd as, or created, 
 Peers of Parliament, were gradually merge,(l in t!ie commonalty, and were obliged to be content 
 with the title of Esquire, belonging originally to the freeholder with 10 lbs. of land, who was
 
 138 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 A great change appears to have come over Scotland in the course of 
 the fourteenth century. An Act was passed during the reign of James 
 II., in 1457, "anent the setting of landis in feu-ferme," which seems to 
 have remained a dead letter for another fifty years, perhaps in conse- 
 quence of the untimely death of the King in 1460. It was not allow- 
 able, before the passing of this Act, for tenants in "Ward and Blench" 
 to sublet their lands in feu-farm, the Crown itself being restricted from 
 such a course in royal demesnes. Yet the charters of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries abound in references to feudo-firmay-u, who appear 
 to have formed the bulk of the free tenantry in thanages and shires, 
 under the thane and sheriff ; and, in a fragment of old burgh-law, the 
 feu-farmer is distinguished from the Malar, or ordinary free-tenant at 
 rent, pointing to the retention of the early tenure amongst the burgher- 
 hood. By another Act, passed in the same Session, tenants of the Crown, 
 holding less than 20 lbs. of land, were relieved from attendance on 
 Parliament, for hitherto "every man of lawful age, holding lands in 
 capite of the Crown, however small his freehold, was bound to give suit 
 and presence in Parliaments and General Councils, under a certain 
 customary fine, or unlaio" in other words, the smallest freeholder, who 
 was a tenant in capite, was a member of the baronage, and his tenure 
 was of the strictest feudal character. The very system of law appears to 
 have undergone some sort of change, for the Parliament of James i., 
 held in 1425, ordered " that sex wise and discrete men of ilkane of the 
 three estates ... sal se and examyn the bukes of law of this realm, that 
 is to say, Regiam Majestatem and Quoniam Attachiamenta," books to 
 which not the slightest allusion is ever made in any of the earlier laws. 
 The earliest copies of these works seem to have been written towards the 
 close of the fourteenth century, by which time a Scottish edition of 
 Glanville's treatise and the Civil Codes had eradicated the recollection, 
 or supplanted the use of the earlier customary law.-^ 
 
 Before this time, inquest was made in shires and thanages, as well as 
 in baronies and king's demesnes ; and, as in the England of a certain 
 period, the county was divided into Hundreds and Gesith-socns, so in 
 Scotland the Sheriffdom was made up, at that time, of Thanages or 
 Shires, and Baronies. The lesser free-tenant in the southern shires was 
 the Dreng, for some of the earlier mandates of David i. were addressed 
 
 bound to serve in full armour, or as an Armirjer; whilst in Scotland every tenant in capite, 
 holding in Ward and Blench, continued to be reckoned as a Baron, and was known as the Laird. 
 Again, the Statute of Edward i., by putting a stop to the subdivision of manors, prevented the 
 extension of manorial rights, such as the Court baron, to minute properties, whilst no similar 
 enactment prevented the multiplication of " heritors' courts " in Scotland. 
 
 * Acta Farl. Scot., James i., 1425, sec. 10, James ii., 1457, sec. 15, 21, do., vol. i. p. 41, 
 357 ; Thomson's Historical Enquinj, pp. 152, 17G, 177. In abolishing the Leges inter Scottos 
 et Brettos, Edward did away with the whole system of wergild and ordeal, and other early 
 customs, which had once been equally prevalent in England, lor it must not be supposed that 
 the remnant handed down to us about CVo and Gelchach represents all the unwritten customary 
 code of earlier times. Many of thecli uiges, generally ascribed to the sons of Malcolm Canniore, 
 were in reality introduced in the fourteenth century, when a great deal of what has passed for 
 history in Scotland was also composed.
 
 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS. 139 
 
 to the Thegns and Drengs of Lothian and Teviotdale, just as the Bisho]) 
 of Durham " greteth well all his thanes and drenghs of Ealandscire and 
 Norhamscire ; " whilst in northern thanages the Thegn and Dreng were 
 represented hy the Mair and Feudo-firmarius. The Dreng, the equi- 
 valent of the Liher mansuarius amongst the Franks, was the military 
 tenant of a certain stage of society, the original miles, cnecht, or military 
 follower of the Gesithcundman attached to the land. He was still trace- 
 able amongst the tenantry in the northern Palatinate in the twelfth 
 century, though in a comparatively subordinate position ; for in the 
 Boldon Buke he is generally represented as the holder of a carucate of 
 land, performing the fourth part of the service and ukvare of a Dreng ; 
 so that originally the full Dreng was in possession of four carucates, 
 a small township, or the holding of a cnecht. Like the ordinary hus- 
 bandland, his holding was liable to all the obligations of base-tenure, but 
 he and his family were personally free, the Dreng only attending the 
 hunt, riding on the errands, and performing the iitivare, or military 
 service, of his overlord. He seems to have been the equivalent of the 
 Haistaldus, Hagerstaller, or Hagerman, amongst the Franks and Saxons, 
 a hereditary tenant in fee-farm, bound to military service, and personally 
 free from the obligations of his farm-holding, which were performed by 
 his dependants. A similar character seems traceable in the Kadman, or 
 Radcnecht, of Southumbrian England, a relic apparently of that stage of 
 society in which the Twelfhyndman, Sixhyndmau, and Ceorl bound 
 to military service — the yeoman, not the husbandman, — preceded the 
 King's-thegn, Medial-thegn, and Less-thegn.^ The knight, his son, the 
 holder in knight's-fee, and the holder by charter and free service in any 
 way, or by fief de hauberc — such were the classes entitled to the privileges 
 of gentle birth in the Scotland of the thirteenth century, without being 
 numbered amongst the greater nobles, privileges from which " Firmarii 
 de rusticis nati " were excluded. Hence the tenure in fee-farm was not in 
 itself ignoble, where the property was held " by charter and free service." 
 In the Council held at Inverness in 1220, for the purpose of levying fines 
 upon all who had failed in attending the host .during the campaign 
 
 ^ Chart. Cold, xcix., c. ; Boldon Bulce, Ap. Iviii. The two classes entitled by birth to land 
 in Northurabria, according to Beda's letter to Egbert of York, were the "filii nobilinm et 
 militum emeritorum," the sons of Gesithcundmen and Drengs ; for had the miles emeritus been 
 a King's-thegn, lie woidd have been Twelthynd and Gesithciind ; even the Loss-thegn relieved 
 his father's land with 40 sol., the Tweltliyndman's fine. A tenth of his wergild was exacted 
 from the Twelfhyndman for neglecting the Fyrd, the 120 scillings which reappears in the 
 40 sol. paid as scutage. The Ceorl was fined 30 scillings, the 10 sol. pai<l f(ir castle-ward — 
 burh-service — which gives his valuation at 300 scillings, answering in Mercia to 5 lbs., the 
 wergild of the London burgher, amongst whose fraternity no candidate with the taint of 
 villeinage could be enrolled. Henry tlie Fowler, according to AVidukind (L. i. c. 35), "ex 
 agrariis militil)us nonum qucmque cligens, in urbibus habitare fecit . . . ca'teri vero octo 
 seminarent et nielerent, frugesciue colligcrent nono, et . . . concilia et (mines conventus atquo 
 convivia in urbibus voluit celobrari." JJy a similar course, the (u/raril viUites in England had be- 
 fore this time been enrolled as Burh-thegns, and Bnrh-wara, ami the vestiges of tlie uld Drengage 
 tenure are traceable in many of the burghs in Domesday — Shrewsbury for example — the 
 burgesses of Lancaster being freed " de secto molendini, de arura, et aliis servilibus consue- 
 tudinibus," reaping the King's crops amongst them, by a charter in 1199. — Bot. Cliart. in 
 Turri, p. 20.
 
 140 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS 
 
 against Donald M'Niel, the landowners lidding of tlie Crown were dis- 
 tinguished as bishops, abbots, barons, knights, and thanes, the mesne- 
 tenant being represented by the ogtiern ; the thane, his son, and the 
 ogtiern, of the laws of the Scots and Brets, holding by charter, and liable 
 to Scottish service, evidently corresponding with the knight, his son, and 
 the holder in knight's-fee, of the laws of William and the Alexanders, 
 liable to knight-service. The knight makes his appearance, in the 
 Scottish laws of the thirteenth century^ upon an equality with the landed 
 proprietary below the footing of a greater baron. He was only to be 
 judged by a Visnet of knights and hereditaiy freeholders by charter, the 
 " knights and others " of the corresponding period in England. " Erlys, 
 baronys, and marys" such was Wyntoun's idea of the aristocracy of 
 England at the time of the Norman Conquest ; and in attendance upon 
 the youthful Alexander of Scotland when, at Christmas in 1251, he met 
 the Euglish Henry at York, were "multi a^quepollentes militibus," 
 according to Paris — of sufficient standing to accompany their sovereign 
 on occasions of state, though not members of the baronage. Thus a 
 brief glimpse is obtained of the germs of a land-holding community in 
 Scotland during the reigns of the Alexanders ; in the following century, 
 nothing is traceable except the baronage and the burgherhood ; and the 
 Scottish knight, no longer a Vavassour, is the knight of chivalry.^ 
 
 Everything appears to have been subordinate in the Scotland of tlie 
 fourteenth century to the passion for independence, knight service 
 accordingly replaced the earlier tenure of the shire or thanage, which 
 only entailed the far less efficient " Scottish service," containing no stipu- 
 lation on the subject of arms and armour, and the smallest landed free- 
 holder, if a tenant of the Crown, became a member of the baronage. 
 An example of the change in progress is afforded as early as 1323, in 
 the transfer of the lands of Moulin, in Atholl, which had been held in 
 fee-farm of the Abbey of Dunfermline by David de Hastings, to Niel 
 Campbell and his wife Mary Bruce, to be held by homage and the 
 annual payment of ten marcs of sterlings, or as a barony held by " Ward 
 and Blench," A change seems to have also taken place about the same 
 period in the method of assessing land. During the peaceful reigns of 
 the Alexanders land had so increased in value, that, at the instance of 
 the Papal Court, a new assessment of Church lands was set on foot in 
 spite of the opposition of the Scottish clergy ; and the valuation of 
 Bagimont, taken in 1275, became the standard from that time of eccle- 
 siastical assessment. Bagimont's valuation, however, only applied to the 
 property of the Church, lay lands remaining at the earlier standard, 
 known in after times as the Old Extent ; and when the Estates in 1327 
 granted to their King, for his life, an annual tax of the tenth-penny from 
 all farms and rents, the aid was levied "juxta antiquam extentam 
 terrarum et reddituum tempore bone memorie domini Alexandri. . . . 
 ultimo defuncti. . . . excepta tantummodo destructione guerre," No tax 
 
 * Stat. Alex. ii. 2, 5, 8, 14 ; Wi/ntoim, bk. vii. c. 2, b. 12 ; 3Iat. Far. (edit, 1G40), vol. ii. 
 p. 829.
 
 SCOTTISH MEASUREMENTS. Ul 
 
 seems to have been again levied on a similar principle, perhaps on 
 account of the rapid depreciation in the currency, subsequent aids being 
 voted in gross, and then apportioned out amongst the three Estates, the 
 clergy, baronage, and burgherhood, according to the actual value of 
 property at the time in the currency of the period — the Verus Valor 
 which makes its first recorded appearance in 1366, In the following 
 year, or after the tax had been collected, ten dwts. were deducted from 
 the pound, and 352 pence were coined from the diminished weight, thus 
 about equalizing the current pound with the marc by weight.^ 
 
 From this time forward the assessment of the land seems to have 
 ceased to correspond with the agricultural measurement, and to have 
 been much in accordance with the actual value of property in the currency 
 of the time, as had been the case for some time previously in England- 
 The Alerldand makes its appearance, perhaps because in Scotland, as 
 well as on the Continent, as soon as the current pound ceased to corre- 
 spond with the standard of weight, it was replaced by the marc. In 
 modern times, for a currency of base metal we have learned to substitute 
 depreciated paper. It was ordered in 1552 that a well-equipped soldier 
 should be furnished from every " fourtie merk land of awld extent," by 
 spiritual as well as lay lords, and wherever there happened to be " sindrie 
 portioneris" of lands within the shire, the sheriff has to join them 
 together so as to make up a forty-merkland, the proprietor of the largest 
 portion providing the man, the others sharing the expenses. The Fort}'- 
 merk land would thus appear to have answered to some recognised sub- 
 division of the land, but it would be difficult to estimate its superficial 
 extent, beyond conjecturing that it may have been the equivalent in 
 Scotland of the forty lbs. of land which, after the opening of the 
 fourteenth century, constituted in England the great knight's-fec. The 
 poor knight, or the Vavassour holding the appanage of a medial- thegn, 
 may have disappeared at the same time in both countries. When it is 
 recollected that the English knight's-fee is reckoned in the Testa de 
 Nevill at from three to twenty-four carucates, so that a forty-shilling 
 freehold, or the tenth of a fee, may have varied at its original standard 
 between 36 and 288 acres, it will probably be admitted that any attempt 
 to estimate the extent of the merkland in acres might be more ingenious 
 than satisfactory." 
 
 ^Act. Pari. Scot. vol. i. pp. 121, 124, 140, 144. "White sheep, riding-liorscs, and drawing 
 oxen, were exempt from tax. AVool was a state monopoly, and in consequence untaxed. The 
 Scottish system of warfare in the fourteenth century required a number of light-armed 
 horsemen, as may be seen in the pages of Froissart, and the riding-horse was accordingly 
 exempt. 
 
 2 Thomson's Historical Enquirij, pp. 18, 40. From a rental of the Cordon proi)crty taken 
 in the last year of the sixteenth century, Mr. Innes has shown that in Eadenoch the ordinary 
 measurement was the Ploughgate, which was replaced in Lochabcr by the Merkland. The 
 Forty-merkiand occurs in more than one instance in the latter district. It is curious to truce 
 the gradual progress of tlio royal power in these old measurements. The Plougligate, and the 
 Shire or Thanage, will be found all over Scotia proper and the Lothians, but tjjey do not 
 appear to have penetrated into the Cumbrian province, Galloway, or to tho eastward of the 
 Glen More.
 
 142 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 VI. 
 Irish Measurements. 
 
 An occasional difficulty is encountered by the inquirer into the history 
 and customs of the past in Ireland, which will be best exemplified by a 
 few quotations taken at random from two works of much interest and 
 value. " In the said parishe are sixe gortes of glebe, whereof three 
 gortes belong to the vicar, and th' other fower gortes to the keeper of 
 the missagh." ..." To the church belonge three quarters, of which 
 one ... is free to the herenagh . . . who paid out of the other 
 three quarters, etc." ..." In ordinary parishes the allowance of here- 
 nagh land was four balliboes, or one quarter." ..." The quarter was 
 one of the four component parts of the Ballybetagh, and contained three 
 balliboes." Again, it is stated in the Registry of Clonmacnoise, as trans- 
 lated by Duald Mac Firbis for Sir James Ware, that Cellach " from 
 whom are the O'Kellies, bestowed of small cells to Cluain, Killmeog, 48 
 dales (that is to say, 48 dayes plowing, or as much as might be plowed 
 of laud in 48 dayes), etc.," when, from another passage in the same 
 Registry, " 24 dales in the Grainsey, and 24 dales in Koyllbelatha, i.e., 
 a quarter in them both," it may be gathered that the Daie was a small 
 measure of 48 to the Quarter. In the first passage we have the conjec- 
 ture of the translator, in the second the explanation of the compiler of 
 the Registry. Fortunately we are not called upon to divide the gortes 
 between the vicar and the keeper of the missagh, nor to settle the rent 
 payable "out of the other three quarters" by the herenagh; but the 
 doubt will occasionally suggest itself, in connection with certain passages, 
 as to whether they are the genuine productions of antiquity, or simply 
 emanations from the fertile brain of a commentator.^ 
 
 There is not a trace of any standard of agricultural measurement in 
 Ireland before the English invasion. The firstlings of the flock and 
 herd, the baptismal pinginn, and the anointing screapal were the prero- 
 gatives usually claimed by the Cowarbs ; cattle, horses, and screapals 
 were collected by the Maers of the greater dignitaries on their circuits ; 
 
 ^ Colton's Visitation, p. 45, 65; H// Many, p. 98, 15. Tn the opiuion of tlie late Professor 
 O'Curry, an authority second to none in everything relating to the ancient language and litera- 
 ture of his native land, the Tain Bo Ciiailgne affords an excellent example of the state of Ire- 
 land at the period it is supposed to illustrate. About the opening of the seventh century, all 
 the poets in Ireland are said to have assembled, in order to ask each other about the poem in 
 question ; but as none knew anything about it, and they thought it might be contained in a 
 book that was said to have been carried off to Italy, it was agreed upon to search for the book. 
 All further trouble, however, was saved by the appearance of the ghost of Fergus Mac Roich, 
 whose existence in the flesh is placed in the century before the commencement of the Christian 
 era. As one of the heroes of the Tain Bo Cuailgne, he recited the poem from beginning to 
 end, and the ghostly narrative was written down by St. Kieran upon the hide of his favourite 
 dun cow. Such is the authority for the poem as it exists, or did exist, in the Book of Leinster, 
 a compilation of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. What period of Irish history may it be 
 supposed to illustrate ?
 
 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 143 
 
 Scaith, or a measure in every brewing of ale or mead, was oxacted from 
 the tenants of the vill ; and Koderic O'Connor acknowledged the supe- 
 riority of the English King by payment of a tribute in cattle, or cornage. 
 Four centuries and upwards after the era of Roderic O'Connor the official 
 fee or fine upon the nomination of an Irish " captain " was still reckoned 
 and paid in cows. But the Seam of produce, the Thrave of corn, and 
 other similar offerings of an agricultural community, will be sought for in 
 vain amongst the early Irish ; for Refection seems to have been always 
 exacted in kind, a custom continuing in full force in the seventeenth 
 century, when the Archbishops of Armagh were wont to pass much of 
 their time in moving about from one church manor to another — the 
 parson supplying refection for the first night, the vicar for the second, 
 the part of host on the third night falling to the herenagh, or hereditary 
 tenant of the church lands. Eent was in those days light, as an Irish 
 halfpenny from every acre was considered a high standard for the Anti- 
 quus census ; but coshering, as of old, was extremely heavy. The only 
 description of tenancy alluded to in the Senchus Mor, as far as it has yet 
 been published, is the " Stock-tenure" of the Saer Ceili and Daer Ceili — 
 Gillies, who were bound to take cattle from their lord^ annually repaying 
 a third of the produce of the stock as rent to the donor ; the tenure of 
 the Gehur, without the obligations attached to his arable land. Nearly 
 every regulation in the Senchus has reference to Set, a w^ord akin to the 
 Breton Saout — le gros betail — as Mr. Stokes has pointed out. Greens or 
 plots of pasture or meadow land were to be set apart, and fenced for im- 
 pounding Set ; delays were granted in seeking them from a distance ; 
 but to land under agriculture and its measurements, to its produce, obli- 
 gations, and burdens, not the slightest allusion is to be met with as yet 
 in the original text of the Senchus Mor.^ 
 
 The Barony, the Townland, and the Quarter make their first appear- 
 ance as agricultural measurements in Ireland some time after the ariival 
 of the English invaders, the " Adventus Francorum" of the charters of 
 the early Plantagenets ; for in the few existing charters of native origin 
 no recognised measure of land will be found. The carucata is the 
 standard of reckoning, as a land measurement, that alone appears in the 
 
 ^ The dues of the Cowarbs will be found in the IIij Many ; their principal circuits are col- 
 lected from the Annals, in the introduction to Colton's Visitation. The right of Scaith was 
 granted by Dermot Mac Murrogh to the Abbey he founded at Ferns in 116G, and by Geofl'ry 
 Fitz Walter to the Priory he established at Keils in 1183. — {Ducjdale Mon. vol. vi. pp. 1142, 
 1143.) A wide difference must be made between the text of the Senchus and the explanations 
 of the commentators, who are occasionally sufficiently absurd. In the regulations^ for the 
 " Green," for example, where cattle were sometimes to be impounded for several days, it is laid 
 down in the text that it should " be level," on which some commentator remarks, " that is,_ it 
 should he arable kind,'' thus impounding cattle in a ploughed field! Again, in conformity 
 ■with the regulations of the wide-spread custom, familiar in the old English laws as Team, a 
 delay of a certain number of days was allowed, in seeking cattle, according to the number of 
 " Magh-spaces" to be crossed, and a commentator explains the magh -space as " the distance at 
 which the crowing of a cock, or the sound of a bell, can be heard." A delay of some days, 
 therefore, was to be allowed in seeking for cattle beyond the distance at which a cock could be 
 heard crowing ! — {Senchus Mor, vol. ii. pp. 13, lO'J.)
 
 lii IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 early charters of the English kings ; the cmmcata was the measurement 
 by which the tax annually payable by the Irish "captain" was assessed ; 
 and the recollection of the English measure was perpetuated under the 
 corrupted form of Careioe. Its equivalent in the north of Ireland, how- 
 ever, seems to have been better known under the name of the BaUihoe, 
 or Cow-land, generally containing either 60 or 120 acres, and thus 
 answering either to the lesser, or the medium, hide of England. The 
 balliboe, which is said to have been known in Monaghan and Fermanagh 
 as the Tate or Tath, seems to have been divided in later times into three 
 Seissiaghs or sixths, each seissiagh containing twenty acres, the name of 
 sixth pointing to some earlier time when the larger measurement reached 
 the full standard of 120 acres, answering to the ordinary English caru- 
 cate. The original Irish name for the measure introduced by the 
 English is said to have been Seisreach, or Six-horse land, and the Seis- 
 siagh, or sixth, seems to have been often known as the Ca2)ul-\ixnd — the 
 Horse-land, or sixth of a ploughland worked by six horses, corresponding 
 in theory with the Oxgang, or Bovate, where the plough was supposed to 
 be drawn by eight oxen. In many parts of the North three Balliboes 
 went to the Quarter, twelve to the Townland, and thirty Townlands to 
 the Barony, reckoned as agricultural measurements. "According to 
 Irish authorities of respectable age," writes Dr. Eeeves, " each Tricha-ced 
 contained 30 Bailebiatachs, each Bailebiatach 12 Seisreachs, and each 
 Seisreach six score acres of native measure;" thus identifying the Seis- 
 reach with the carucate, the Bailebiatach with the Twelve-hides, or square 
 Leuga, and the Tricha-ced with the Quarter, or Three-Hundreds of Eng- 
 land. Whenever the Balliboe, or ordinary standard measure of the 
 north, was reckoned as only half a Seisreach, every other measurement 
 must have shrunk in proportion.^ 
 
 " Which 40 Balliboes, or townes, doe contayne 10 quarters, amount- 
 ingeto 2J Ballibetaghs," says the Ulster Inquisition in 1615, pointing to 
 the existence of another standard in the province, by which si.Kteen balli- 
 boes went to the bally betagh, giving to the latter, in theory, an extent of 
 960, or 1920 acres, " A quarter which contayneth 240 acres at the 
 least, and som more, let for 6s. 8d., som for 3s. 4d., and fewe for 10s., 
 none above, which they called Antiquum censum" wrote Bishop Mont- 
 gomery to James i. The Quarter in this case contained four balliboes, 
 and twelve seissiaghs ; and if it was divided as usual into three portions, 
 each third would have nominally contained 80 acres, or a balliboe and a 
 seissiagh, answering to the measure known as the Tullagh. Thus the 
 larger Bally betagh of sixteen balliboes would appear to have been occa- 
 sionally divided, as of old, into twelve portions, each answering to a 
 tullagh, and corresponding in theory with the land-measures of the Eng- 
 
 ^ My principal aiitliority is Dr. Reeves, " On the Townland distribution of Ireland."— (P»-o- 
 ceedinrjs B. I. Academy, vol. vii. p. 473.) "Within the English pale, the English system 
 appears to have been thoroughly established, " Fingal measure" answering to the statute acre. 
 — Ware (Harris), vol. ii. p. 225.
 
 IRISH MEASUREMEKTS. 145 
 
 lish south-country, the snling of 160, and the half-suling or carucate of 
 80 acres. It will be seen from the Inquest of Limavaddy that, in 1609, 
 the Archbishop of Armagh was " seised of fee, in right of his arch- 
 bushopricke, of and in a yerely rent of twoe markes sterl. per ann. yssuinge 
 out of the herenagh lands of Clonie contayninge one quarter." " Clow- 
 ney contayninge 4 balliboes, or townes, which balliboes, or townes, doe 
 containe 1 quarter," says another Inquest lield about the same time, thus 
 giving sixteen balliboes to the ballybetagh in this locality ; whilst an 
 entry in Swayne's Kegistry adds, " Dominus Primas recepit pro quinque 
 carucatis terrte ... in Clonne cum pertiu. 2 marc." Clone, " now 
 called Clooney, is a townland in the parish of Clondermot, containing 
 604 acres;" so that it may be gathered from these passages that the 
 Carucate, fve of which went to 604 acres, was an actual land-measure 
 of 120, whilst the Balliboe was not necessarily in exact correspond- 
 ence with it. The native measurement had, in reality, been handed 
 down from a pastoral state of society, and adaj)ted to the agricultural 
 system introduced from England ; for originally, like the Scottish 
 Davoch, it was evidently a certain extent of pasturage, or, as the name 
 implies, a carucata bourn} 
 
 In Conuaught the Cartron, or fourth of the Quarter-land, " was com- 
 puted at 30 native acres," identifying the Quarter with the Care we, or 
 ordinary carucate, and the Townland, or Ballybetagh, with the smaller 
 English vill of four hides. Thus the Tricha-ced, as a measurement, in 
 this part of Ireland, would have answered to an English Hundred of six 
 score hides, or the tliird of an ordinary Tricha-ced in the north of 
 Ireland. The Irish name of the Cartron has Ceathramhadh, pronounced 
 Oarroiv, and it appears to have been the ordinary measure in Leinster, as 
 
 * Colton's Vis'dution, pp. 31, 32, 7(S, 117. "In Ulster, Comuiught, Meatli, Leinster, and 
 Minister are containetl 184 Cantreds, otherwise ealled Hundreds or Baronies, viz., in Leinster 
 ol, in Connaught 30, in Munster 70, in Meath 18, and in Ulster 35. In Ireland are 5495 
 towns, viz., in Leinster 930, in Connaught 900, in Munster 2100, in Ulster 10.50, and in Meath 
 515. Every cantred contains 160 Plowlands of arable, besides the pasture of 300 kine in every 
 town. Every Plowland containeth 120 acres." Such was the report of the Commissioners for 
 settling Connaught iu 1584, according to Sir James Ware {Harris, vol. ii. p. 225). It occa- 
 sionally does duty for the state of Ireland in the pre-historic jjcriod, but it docs not agree with 
 the Inquisitions taken about the opening of the seventeenth century in Ulster ; and as the 
 latter province had ignored the English authority from 1315 to the reign of Elisabeth, the 
 native measurement is more likely to have retained its original dimensions in that quarter than 
 in Connaught. As a measurement, the Townland in Connaught in 1584 was only a third of 
 the size of the Townland in Ulster, so that a Cantred of thirty Connaught Townlands would 
 have been only equal to ten Ulster ballybetaghs. Whenever the latter was reckoned at 16 
 balliboes, there would have been 160 balliboes, or ploughhinds, iu the Connaught Cantred. 
 Some four centuries before the Commission in Connaught Ireland was divided, according to 
 Giraldus, into five provinces, from which Meath was separated as royal demesne. Each pro- 
 vince was subdivided into 32 cantreds which, with 18 in Meath, made up 170. — [To]). Ilib. 
 Dis. iii. 0. iv. v.) When Fitz Stephen and Miles Cogan occupied Desmond, they divi<led 
 between them the seven cantreds nearest to ('ork, and i)ut tlu; remaining 24 to tribute, which 
 with the cantrc^d retained by Henry ii. under the myal aulhoiity, gives 32 to Des'iioml. — {Kxp. 
 Ilib. ii. 20.) 'I'lie vague character of all such calculati(jns is shown by the remark of Uk^ same 
 authority, that the Isle of Anglesey was only reckoned at three Cantreds, lhoirj,h il contained 
 363 Trefs.—{Uer. Kamh. ii. 7). 
 
 K
 
 146 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 well as in Connaugbt, though estimated at a variable amount of acres, 
 but always reckoned as the fourth of a Quarter, or ploughland, measure- 
 ments which in this part of Ireland would appear to have been identical. 
 In Cavan the Ballybetagh was divided into Pints, Quarts, Pottles, 
 Gallons, and Polls, a thoroughly English arrangement, and 3Iarte-lands 
 make their appearance in southern Ireland, answering apparently, in the 
 same manner as the Balliboe, to the carucate, and evidently deriving their 
 name from the ancient custom of cornage. The Commissioners in 
 Munster, in 1589, thought that " the tenants and pretended proprietors 
 of the chargeable lands . . . should pay Shraughe and Marts to Her 
 Majesty, as they did to Desmond ;" Shraughe being explained to mean, 
 " a yearlie rent in sterling money," Marte, " a yearlie rent of beef." The 
 measurement known as a ploughland amongst the English of Waterford 
 seems to have been familiar to the native Irish as the Marteland.^ 
 
 It seems possible, even yet, to obtain a glimpse of the old pastoral 
 arrangements of Ireland in the original name of the Ballybetagh — the 
 Ced, or Hundred, thirty making up the Tricha-ced, as a nominal 
 measure of land. Assuming the correctness of the early estimate, giving 
 twelve Seisreachs to the Ballybetagh, each Seisreach, as the twelfth of a 
 Ced, reckoned at six score, would have represented a ten. The Seisreach, 
 or some measure reckoned as its equivalent, seems to have been better 
 known amongst the native Irish of the north as the Balliboe, or Cow- 
 land, and in the wide grazing lands of the south as the Marte-land ; and 
 as the name of Marte was applied to " Kent in beef," both balliboe and 
 marteland may be supposed to have originally represented a carucata 
 houm, or a pasturage for ten head of cattle, one of which was annually 
 due to the overlord. The Irish measure, therefore, would appear to have 
 corresponded in theory very closely with the Scottish ploughgate, as a 
 carucata boum valued at 40 sol., or the worth of ten cows — for the valua- 
 tion of the animal at three oz. of silver appears from the passage in the 
 Irish Annals, elsewhere quoted, to have been as much accepted in Ireland, 
 in the twelfth century, as in northern Britain'^ — and as the earliest land- 
 measure traceable in northern Scotland was the pasturage known as the 
 Davoch, so the Ced in Ireland may be supposed to have been an extent 
 of pasturage for a hundred head of cattle, reckoned at six score, contain- 
 ing twelve balliboes, or martelands. Thus the tenure of land in Ireland, 
 before the Adventus Francorum, seems to have been identical with the 
 early system of Cornage and Refection, so long traceable throughout 
 
 1 Dr. Keeves, as above, and p. 472. The almost identity in sound between Carewe and 
 Carrow must have occasionally introduced confusion, and a similar remark may be applied to 
 the Sheshraiiffhe and the Sheshavghe. In course of time tlie Quarter became the highest 
 land measure in ordinary use, and the Townland, like the old English Barony, has long ceased 
 to be a land-measure in any practical sense. 
 
 ' A. F. M. 1161. The valuation of the cow is often given by the commentators on the 
 Senchus, but on a different principle altogether — so much for the milk, so much for the calf. 
 The Ceili who received her from his overlord was bound to repay a certain amount annually — 
 rent as it were — which was thus assessed. The sum represents the hire rather than ihe pur- 
 chase of the animal.
 
 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. U7 
 
 northern England and in Scotland. Beyond the English Pale the old 
 system seems to have remained in full force long after it had become 
 extinct and been forgotten both in England and in Scotland ; for when 
 Donald O'Madden was made "captain of Sylnamkey, commonly called 
 O'Madden's country," he paid 80 cows for the appointment ; and by the 
 agreement between the King's Deputy and O'Carrol, chief captain of Ely 
 O'CarroU, every captain was to i>ay to the King an annual rent of 12 
 j)ence from every carucate, with 1 20 marts on nomination to his office — 
 O'CarroU binding himself to deliver over to the royal officials " 120 good 
 cows or marts," by the festival of St. Philip and St. James.^ 
 
 Some additional circumstances go far to confirm the correspondence 
 of the Ged with the square Leuga, though it is not necessary to regard 
 them as actual measurements identical in extent. The Ced, indeed, can 
 hardly be looked upon as a land measure, for the limits of a pasturage 
 would not be defined by its superficial extent, but by its capacity for 
 supporting stock. The Church-lands of Ireland were known of old as 
 Termons and Herenagh-lands, and though in later days the name of 
 herenagh-land seems to have been often applied indiscriminately to both, 
 they were not in earlier days identical. The right of sanctuary was 
 originally attached to all Termoti, though it may have subsequently 
 become obsolete, and the proper title of the tenant of Terman was Corhe ; 
 in other words, wherever there was Termon, there had once been a 
 Minster, and the land attached to it had been held by the Coioarb, or 
 representative of the fiist Abbot, generally a layman, or a married clerk 
 in minor orders. The Herenagh represented the Advocate, or patron 
 of the Minstei', and the lands he held were originally the outlying pro- 
 perty of the church, so to say, and not the mensal lands which, in early 
 days, were actually cultivated by the monks or clerks, and were situated 
 in the immediate neighbourhood of the home of the community, which 
 alone was entitled to the privilege of sanctuary. Four Termons are 
 mentioned in Colton's Visitation, "the corbe-land of Termonmaguyrke, 
 alias Termanconnyn," containing sixteen balliboes ; the termon land of 
 the church (of Ardstraw) . . . containing sixteen balliboes ; the termon 
 of Aghadowy, extending over a ballybetagh, known in the reign of 
 James i. as " the site of the late hospital, or termoe, of St. Go wry in 
 O'Kane's country, with the adjoining four quarters," and the termon of 
 Grangemorc, containing twelve balliboes. The extent of the Termon 
 
 * Hy Many, p. 148 ; C'llton's Visitaliun, p. 8. " Beeves or Marts were reserved as nut 
 at the settlement of Connaught in 1585." Each was reckoned at an Irish marc, or 10 sol. 
 English currency, and as this sura was paid trom " every quarter of laud, containing VIO acres, 
 that bears either home or corne," tlie marteland is again identified with the carucata bourn. 
 The dilTerence between English and Irish currency must be always borne in mind, the latter 
 long continuing to correspond with the old Ore of sixteen, and the light lb. of IG sol. " The 
 Groat of London, York, and Calais passed for 5 pence in Ireland, and the penny for 5 farthings 
 in 1460," or exactly in this proportion; and the standard was still the same in the reign of 
 Elizabeth.— ir« re (Harris), vol. ii. pp. 76, 211, 212. The Irish shilling of Elizabeth only 
 passed for nine pence in England; in other words, the Irish penny was still reckoned as a 
 Ecreapall — a little under its actual value.
 
 148 IRim MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 was, in all these cases, a ballybetagh, either of the ordinary or of the 
 larger size, and I think it may be identified with the Leuga, with which 
 the ordinary Minster was endowed, upon the opposite side of St. George's 
 Channel, and with the decern mans!, which were given to a similar com- 
 munity amongst the Franks, in that Gaul from which Ireland seems to 
 have derived her early system of ecclesiastical polity. Again, it may be 
 noticed in the H?/ Fiaclirach that the Duthakl, or inheritance, of the 
 ordinary member of one of the ruling races who, though the head of a 
 family, had no pretensions to aspire to a prominent position in his district, 
 is frequently reckoned at a bally betagh, occasionally more, but never less ; 
 so that the amount of land in question would appear to have corresponded, 
 as elsewhere, with the appanage usually assigned, in a certain stage of 
 society, to an ordinary member of the noble, or Gesithcund, class, as well 
 as to the ordinary Minster. Thus it seems allowable to conjecture that 
 the Irish Ced, subsequently known as the Ballybetagh, was once a 
 pastoral measurement, containing a number of carucafce houm, and 
 representing the Termon, or endowment, of an ordinary Minster, and 
 the appanage usually given to the Irish equivalent of the Welch Breyr, 
 or Mabuchellwr, thus answering to the Leuga, the Ten-hides, and the 
 Maenawl.^ 
 
 In the early grants and charters of the English kings and their fol- 
 lowers in Ireland, two of the native land-divisions are alone recognised, 
 the Cantrcd, and the Thwede, a word exj^lained in a grant of Theobald 
 Fitz Walter as " Theud sive fundum." Under a corrupted form it evi- 
 dently represents the Irish Duthaid or Du aid -the inheritance; and 
 "in thwedo Othothel " would, in later times, have been probably ren- 
 dered, " in O'Toole's country." The Cantred, or Tricha-ced, was usually 
 held by the service of five knights, or as a feudal barony ; and the name 
 of Baron//, by which it was generally known amongst the English 
 settlers, was evidently derived from this cause. To Hamon de Valoniis, 
 for instance, two cantreds were given for the service of ten knights ; to 
 
 1 Cultoii's Visitation, pp. 3, 10, 74, 8G. On the Jeatli of Moran O'Farrell in 1438, " Cowarb 
 and chief herenagh of all the lands of the Muinter Farrell," the Bishop of Dromore conferred 
 " the cowarbship of the church of St. Medoc at Drumlane, and the lierenaghship of the afore- 
 Baid lands" on Nicholas O'Farrell, " a clerk of our diocese, and a native of the district" (p. 26). 
 The distinction between the offices was still kept up, and the necessity of bestowing them upon 
 a raeaiber of the family was still acknowledged. According to the Senchus, the " social con- 
 nection" between a Flaitli and his Aigillnc—An overlord and his customary tenantry — and an 
 Edais (church) and its 3Ianaclis, was identical, the Manachs thus answering to the customary 
 tenantry, or native men, of the church-land. The Irish Manach would thus appear to have 
 been a member of a class very much resembling, if not identical with, the Scottish Scoloc ; 
 and I believe that wherever a Minster had once existed, with a church that was the mother- 
 church of the district, there would have been found, in a certain stage of society, a termon and 
 manachs, or a kirktown and scolocs ; whilst the native-men upon other church-lands were not 
 necessarily of the same class. In one of the regulations of Alfred's Laws the monk appears as 
 a sort of dependent herdsman, and in the tenth century members of the clergy were passed by 
 charter as native men, even in Italy. — ScDchus Mor, vcl. ii. p. 289. In_926, Daniel, the 
 priest of Carazana, "Hving by Roman law," sold to Audax, bishop of Asti, for 30 soHdi, his 
 slave Martin, the sub-deacon.— /fw<. Pair. Mon. tom. i. p. 127, ch. Ixxv. Here the sub- 
 deacoa was an absolute serf, and not merely adscriptus glehce.
 
 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 149 
 
 Milo Fitz Henry three, for the service of fifteen ; Geoffrey de Constantin 
 received a cautred in Connaught for the service of five kni<^hts ; and 
 John le Mareschal held the Mareschalship of Ireland, " with his cantred," 
 for a similar amount of service. It never seems to have been reckoned 
 as more than a barony, though occasionally as less ; William de Barry, 
 for instance, holding three cantreds in Cork for the service of ten knights, 
 or as two baronies.-^ In actual extent it appears to have been loosely 
 estimated about this time — during the reign of John — at twenty knight's- 
 fees, or four baronies. Thomas, Abbot of Glendalough, received in 
 1200 a life grant of forty carucates, or a forty-hides, out of the abbey 
 lands, the remainder reverting to the crown ; and in 1213, the abbey 
 and bishopric of Glendalough were made over to the See of Dublin, 
 " saving the tenement of Abbot Thomas, that is the half-cantred he 
 holds for liis life of the archbishop." Robert Fitz Martin, ngain, re- 
 ceived a grant of forty fees — "that is to say, in the cantred of Insovcnach 
 the fees of twenty knights, and the fees of twenty knights in other quar- 
 ters." Thus in both these instances the cantred seems to have been 
 reckoned at twenty, the half-cantred at ten fees. Three grants, each of 
 five fees, and a fourth of two, were made " in cantredo de Huhene " in 
 1199, and thirty-one carucates were given, at the same time, to Milo le 
 Bret in the same cantred, the wliole amount being rather over, than 
 under, twenty knight' s-fees ; whilst in the same year two grants, each of 
 five fees, were made " in cantredo de Fontimello," to be held by the ser- 
 vice of three knights and a third, the remainder of the cantred, being 
 made over, on the same day, to William de Burgh, to be held by the 
 service of three knights, and apparently reckoned at alx)ut ten fees. 
 Thus the Triclia-ced would appear to have been loosely reckoned at 
 twenty knight's-fees, to be held by the service of a feudal barony, an 
 estimate, however, that only gives an approach to the actual amount of 
 land in such a district. The manner in which the knight's-fee was often 
 estimated, at this time, in Ireland, may be gathered from the fbllowiiig 
 entry: — "The land of Coillach, with its pertinents, /or xx lbs., to be 
 held in barony by the archbishop" — the valuation of Coillach liaving 
 evidently been made without much regard to its actual extent, and the. 
 larger district may be supposed to have been treated in a similar niauiicr. 
 
 ' DiKjdale Mou., vol. vi. p. 1137. Hot. Churl, in Tnrri (Hardy), pp. 19, 77, 79, 172, 173. 
 Strictly speakinc;, Tuath seenis to have been the word appliciible to " a country," and it waa 
 used in a much more vague 
 division known as Tuoi;h or 
 seems to have been 
 
 footiuir of an earldom. Richard de Burah, for instance, received a confirmation, on the ir)th 
 Se 
 
 ems to liave been the word applicable to a country, and it waa 
 le and wider senfe than J luthmd, which was probably the " sub- 
 )r Cinament" of Ware {Jlarris), vol. ii. p. 22G. As tlio cantreil 
 
 camreu oi jviuioTie, auu savini:; lo vieonry ue ^^onsianiin ine canircd nc receivcii in ex- 
 
 nge for it." On the same day a charter was given "to the king of Connaught, of all his 
 
 land of ('onnaught, saving the riglit of disseisin without the judgnieiit of our court, and saving 
 tiie jjleas of tlie crown, and our castle and cantred of Atldono," lor a similar annual sum of 3(IU 
 marcs, vvhicli in each case seems to answer to the 30U lbs. annually paid by tlic Ijiiiidoners for 
 the county of Middlesex [Hot. Chart,, p. 219).
 
 150 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 
 
 Teviotilale in Scotland had its vicecomes, and accordingly was reckoned 
 as a lesser shiie, or thanage, of twelve vills, liable to the ordinary obli- 
 gations of such a district, but it may be doubted if the valley was ever 
 very accurately measured before it was made over to the superintendence 
 of the thane or reeve.^ 
 
 Grants in knight' s-fee appear to have been often made in Ireland, in 
 the reign of John, for a third of the usual service. Thus ten fees were 
 given to Thomas Fitz Maurice for the service of three knights and a 
 third ; William de Naas, Lambekin Fitz William " our sergeant," and 
 Greoflrey Fitz Kobert, received five fees respectively, each grant to be 
 held by the service of a knight and two-thirds ; whilst John de Gray 
 and Walter Cross held three fees respectively for the service of a knight ; 
 and Eobert Serjeant a fee for the third of a similar service. Towards 
 the latter part of the same reign, indeed, grants were made upon a still 
 more liberal scale, Geoffrey de Marisco receiving ten fees, Thomas de 
 Galloway twenty, and Philip Prendergast and Robert Fitz Martin gifts 
 of forty fees, for one, two, and four knights respectively ; or for only a 
 tenth of the usual amount of service. The reason for this course will 
 probably be found in the character of the English invasion, which was 
 not unlike the occupation of the Koman provinces by the Burgundians 
 and Visigoths, who always left a third of the land in the hands of the 
 original proprietary, or occupants of the soil. It was not the object of 
 the English kings to exterminate the Irish — unless they resisted ; and 
 accordingly, in the early grants to their own followers, who were to form 
 the garrison of the island, room seems to have been left for the pro- 
 prietary and occupants of the land, who were necessary, so to say, for the 
 support of the garrison. A somewhat similar guiding principle seems 
 traceable in the gift of the lordship of Connaught to De Burgh, and of 
 the earldom of Ulster to De Lacy ; for Hy IMany and Ulidia, the terri- 
 tories actually bestowed in either case, were dependent kingdoms, and 
 not integral portions of the dominions of the kings of Connaught and 
 Northern Ireland. In Hy Many, for instance, or O'Kelly's country, we 
 are told, in reference to an earlier epoch, that " it is the guarantee of the 
 
 1 Rot. Chart, in Tvrrl (Hardy), pp. 78, 194, 172, 19, 20, 28, 30. The original grants 
 made by Henry ii., according to Hoveden (Savilie, p. 567), were Meatli for the service of 100 
 knights, and the kingdoms of Cork (Desmond), and of Limerick (Thomond), for the service of 
 60 knights respectively, a cantred in each case being retained by the king — the Ostmen's can- 
 tred, as may be seen from the Rolls. The district of Fingal was probably the Ostmen's can- 
 tred of Dublin. Forty cariicates were held in burgage by the citizens of Limerick — a similar 
 amount to the " forty -hides " given to the last abbot of (Tleiidalongh — and the Ostmen were 
 probably the original burgesses of the Anglo-Irish period. The citizens of Dublin received a 
 charter from .John, giving them various immunities "within the Hundred of the Vill," with 
 '■ all the rights and privileges of the burgesses of Bristol," amongst others, to hold their lands 
 within the walls in free burgage " scilicet per servitium lavdgahvU qnod reddunt infra mnros." 
 — Rot. Chart, in Tiirri, pp. 78, 70, 211. Thus Land-gavel and the Hundred found their way 
 into Leland, and after the lapse of a certain number of generations, the influence of English 
 institutions is very perceptible, even amongst the native L-ish. Land-gavel developed into the 
 Antiquus census, and the annual shilling paid from every carucate ; the carucate itself, and the 
 Tricha-ced in Connaught, closely resembling the hide and the Hundred in England.
 
 IRISH MEASUREMENTS. 151 
 
 king of Casliel that keeps the king of Hy Many from being overwhelmed 
 by the Sil Muredach," or O'Connors. Between O'Kelly and O'Connor, 
 De Burgh and the English power seem to have been interposed in the 
 place of " the guarantee of the king of Cashel/' and the same may be 
 said of Ulidia ; for as soon as the English were driven out of the earl- 
 dom, the northern portion, instead of reverting to its earlier possessors, 
 was seized upon by a branch of the Hy Nial, and subsequently known as 
 Clannaboy. The ordiimry method of dealing with an Irish proprietor, 
 who " submitted to the course of events," may be gathered from the 
 policy pursued towards O'Madden. When Edward Bruce invaded Ire- 
 land in 1315, O'Madden held by De Burgh, and his ultimate reward 
 was, " that the third portion of his province should be under the control 
 of him and his sons ; that no Gall maer (or English steward) should pre- 
 side over his Gaels, but that his maers should be over the Gall of the 
 entire territory" . . . and that " Eogan (O'Madden) and his tribes 
 should have equal nobility with the English lords." Before this time 
 "the Gael, though a GabJialtach — proprietor — was daer ; and every 
 Saxon, even without lands and rearing, was saer." Thus was O'Madden 
 placed upon a very similar footing with the Eoman in ancient Gaul, who 
 retained a third of his land, and ranked upon an equality with the Bur- 
 gundian intruder. In the position which he held towards his maers, 
 who were " over the Gall of the entire territoinf" as well as over the 
 Gaels, he resembled a high-steward, or Mormair, acting as De Burgh's 
 deputy in levying the dues through his subordinates, and asserting the 
 prerogatives of the supreme overlord. This was simply the tenure of 
 the official Jarl and the Heah-gerefa, in an earlier stage of society else- 
 where, and not unlike that of the Comes amongst the Franks in his 
 capacity of Graphio ; and in the course adopted by De Burgh towards 
 O'Madden, which was probably in accordance with a system as familiar 
 in Ireland as in other quarters, we seem to catch a glimpse of the man- 
 ner in which an Oirrigh, or subregulus of early times, may have survived, 
 if not recalcitrant, in the capacity of a Mormair, in place of being sup- 
 planted by an alien official. Lesser personages would be contented with 
 the subordinate position of a Blair, exercising a similar authority within 
 a narrower district ; whilst the smaller proprietors would remain u])on 
 their lands as tenants in " fee-farm." ^ 
 
 ' Rot. Chart, in Turri (Hardy), pp. 19, 20, 28, 30, 80, 171, 172, 210; Hy Many, pp. 93, 135, 
 139, 141. Free tenants in fee-fai-m are alluded to in the charters. The Triory ot St. Andrew 
 in the Ards, for instance, founded by John de Courcy, was subsequently made over to the arch- 
 bishop of Armagh, " cum dominiis, doniinicis, servitiis. redditibus, tarn liberorum tenentium 
 firmarum (firmariurum) quam nativorum et betagiorum, cum nativis, betagiis, cum eorum sectis, 
 consuetudinibus, et seqnelis ejusdem cellar, seu prioratus." — Dugdale, 3Ion., vi. p. 1123. 
 The three classes here alluded to, two of which passed by " adscription," would liave probably 
 been distinguished amongst the native Irish as Brugaidhs, Ceilib or Gillies, and Biataghs. 
 The Brugaidh of tlie Irish period was of a certain consequence, for according to the text of the 
 Senchus (vol. i. p. 41), he was " paid dire for his cetath" — Ceds or Huiidieiis — and dire, is ex- 
 plained in Cormac's Glossary to mean "a fine or compensation to nobles lor their nobility.'* 
 The explanation given of " Cetaib," by the commentators on the 8(!nclius, only shows that the 
 Brugaidh was a character of the past when they were writing, and that they knew very little 
 about him. Keating aad his followers transferred the description to the Biatagh.
 
 152 IBISH LAND TENURE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Irish Land-Tenuke. 
 
 In the pastoral stage of society, the principle of individual proprietor- 
 ship in land seems to have been ignored, or in the language of a later 
 age, "no estate passed" from occupancy. The traces of such a system 
 will be found in the description left by Tacitus of the yearly distribution 
 of the land amongst the Germans of his days, when the amount assigned 
 annually was regulated by the numbers and importance of the commu- 
 nity, the individual allotment corresponding in a similar manner with the 
 rank and position of the recipient. In course of time a certain district 
 appears to have been made over in perpetuity to every minor community 
 or kindred, whose ordinary rights and obligations were limited by the 
 boundaries of the territory in question; and the traditional allotment, 
 in which the land is supposed to have been "roped out" amongst the 
 freemen, must be generally understood in this sense. The small allodial 
 holding, possessed in permanence, and descending to the immediate per- 
 sonal heirs, belongs to a somewhat different state of society ; and such 
 an inheritance in later times, as may be seen in the case of the allodial 
 tenants in Gavelkind amongst the men of Kent, continued to be divided, 
 and re-divided, in accordance with the princi[)le, within narrower limits, 
 that had once governed a similar distribution, and re-distribution, of 
 the land in a far wider district, and amongst a much more numerous 
 kindred. 
 
 From the names of places in the Codex Diplomaticus, as well as from 
 the modern topography of tiie country, Kemble seems to have pointed 
 out a condition of society in England, when .3^scingas and Lullingas, 
 Hffistingas and Buccingas, who have left the impress of their names in a 
 number of different places, were kins of more or less importance, each 
 constituting an unit in some greater confederacy. Wherever the land was 
 the joint property of such a kindred, no portion could be transferred in 
 permanence to any single member of the race ; and hence arose the 
 necessity for the re-distribution of the land, that usually occurred upon 
 the death of a senior, whether the head of the smallest family, or of the 
 whole kindred. This seniority, in the case of a kindred, was invariably 
 decided by election, the choice being limited, under ordinary circum- 
 stances, to the leading members of the race within a certain degree of re- 
 lationship, and the preference usually given to the one who was supposed 
 to be nearest to the original stock — the principle of succession to this 
 day in the Turkish Empire — through which a brother would be gener- 
 ally preferred to a son. Indeed, it was only in the middle of the tenth 
 century, that the children of a son, who had ])redeceased his father, were 
 allowed, in Germany, to have any claim upon the portion of their grand-
 
 IRISH LAND-TENURE. 153 
 
 father's property to wliich their father, had he survived, would have been 
 entitled ; and the right in question was even then decided by the ordeal 
 of battle. Long after the obligation to the state had become paramount 
 over the tie of kindred, the principle of the earlier stage of society may 
 be traced, under a slightly altered form, in the joint right of the heirs to 
 property held by Land-right, and in the custom of choosing the member 
 of the family upon whom the privileges and obligations of the kin were 
 to devolve. In property held by Lcen-righi, possessions, privileges, and 
 obligations devolved upon the eldest-born.^ 
 
 Wherever the central power of the community grew in strength, the 
 authority conferred upon the elect of the kindred was confirmed, and the 
 interna] regulations of the district were sanctioned, more or less nomin- 
 ally, by the head of the confederacy. A further change was brought 
 about by the assumption that all authority emanated from, or was de 
 puted by, the central power'' alone, and whenever such an alteration 
 resulted from a conquest, all previous rights were abrogated ; though 
 where it merely grew out of the progress of centralization, as it were, the 
 effects were milder, and were generally limited to a change of tenure. 
 Thus the Nobiles of the Lex Saxonum are easily to be recognised in the 
 three leading classes of the Sachsenspiegel, paying the same wergild as 
 in the eighth century, most of the leading Adalings of the Old-Saxon race 
 figuring as Flirst or Freyherr, holding by Dienst and Lcni-reclit, whilst the 
 majority of the lesser Adalings retained the privileges of Schojipenbar free- 
 men, with many of the peculiarities of the earlier tenure. Wherever the 
 obligation of Service superseded the tie of Kindred the central power, or 
 State, asserted its supeiiority over the Family, and the principles of 
 elective seniority, and of the redistribution of the land amongst the 
 kindred were set aside, lingering longest in the highest and lowest 
 extremes of society. The Senior, chosen from amongst the kin, was 
 gradually developed into the Seigneicr, or overlord, who derived his 
 authority from the State; and the proprietorship of the land was no 
 longer assumed to be vested in the community of the district, but in the 
 central power of the confederacy, by which the Benefice, or La'sn, was 
 granted, resumed, or confirmed, until the life-grant — originally terminable 
 at the death of the donor, or recipient, and renewable at will — grew into 
 an absolute pro])erty, which might be given away or bequeathed by the 
 
 ^ " Where the lord invests only one son with his father's Lehenrjule, it is Ldtcn-rechl ; but 
 it is not Land-recht tliat he should retain it undivided. He apportions it amongst the kinsmen 
 according to their rights in the division {tJicilinu/). Also, if a father leaves one of his sons 
 with a separate Lehen, it is not Land-recht that he should hold this by himself after his father's 
 death, and share in the other Lehens equally with his brothers. Though tlie brothers cannot 
 compel him by Lehen-recht, it is not Landrecht ; and they can cite him to Land-recht, and 
 force him by ortel and recht to an equal partition." — Sachsenspiegel, Bk. i. Art. 13. An entry 
 in Domesday (vol. i. p. 375 b.), also illustrates the system of joint tenure : — " Siward, AInoth, 
 Fenchii, and Aschil divided equally their father's lands, and so held them in King Edward's 
 time that, if there was ulwarc, Siward went, and his brothers gave him aid. On the next occa: 
 sion, one of the brothers went, and Siwanl with the other two gave him aid ; liut Siward was 
 the Idng's man." Ho was the Senior, either chosen by his family, or in right of birth.
 
 154 IRISH LAND-TEKURE. 
 
 owner, where it was not inherited of riglit by bis immediate heirs. 
 Amongst the ordinary members of the community most of the obliga- 
 tions, originally incumbent on the kindred, devolved upon the neighbour- 
 hood, a change best exemplified by a reference to one of the ancient 
 customs of the burghs, by which the Guild-brethren, instead of the 
 kindred, became responsible for the wergild. The land became the pro- 
 perty of the landowners for the time being, and a free tenantry grew 
 into existence, who were not necessarily connected by the tie of blood, 
 either with their overlord, or with each other. Then the " hedged off" 
 property, or separate manerium, became the distinctive mark of even the 
 smallest freeholder, whilst the earlier principle of joint-occupancy was 
 only retained amongst the base-tenants of the vill, the Tungreve, or 
 land-bailiff, in the place of the elected Senior, superintending the distri- 
 bution of the land amongst the Geneats, or base-tenants — by whatever 
 name they may have been known — who had inherited a prescriptive right 
 to " share." In later times, as free tenants were necessary to perpetuate 
 the privileges of the feudal court-baron, each base-tenant, as he was 
 enfranchised, eagerly " hedged off" the various plots of ground, for which 
 he rendered suit and service, as free of the manor ; and the numerous 
 small enclosures, once existing in many an English county, bore testimony 
 to the gradual conversion of the hereditary tenants by base-service into 
 copyholders. 
 
 In Ireland, before she was made over to the Plantagenet by papal 
 grant, in virtue of the dominion over all the islands of the globe, con- 
 ceded to the see of Eome by the forged Donation of Constantino, " ellec- 
 tion and customary division of land," joint-occupancy and the tie of 
 kindred were in full force. Wherever the central power was weak, in 
 such a state of society the tie of kindred, as the sole protecting bond of 
 the community, was necessarily strong, and in Ireland the central 
 power, where it existed at all, was all but nominal. Greater kingdoms 
 were divided into Tricha-ceds, which occasionally appear as smaller 
 kingdoms, or principalities, under an Oirrigh, or subregulus. The Tricha- 
 ced was subdivided into Duthaids, and where the land was not distri- 
 buted allodially it seems to have remained in the occupancy of Daer-clans, 
 servile or base-tenants who were not of the blood of the privileged classes. 
 In Hy Many, for example, there are said to have been seven Tricha-ceds, 
 seven Oirrighs, seven Flaiths, and seven principal Cowarbs, with certain 
 Daer-clans, over whom the right of exaction was unlimited. Not that 
 each tricha-ced was necessarily supplied with an oirrigh and a flaith. In 
 Hy ]\Iany, for instance, there were two flaiths and an oirrigh in the 
 tricha-ced of Callow ; and in Hy Fiachrach there were three families 
 claiming the superiority over the tricha-ced of Cearra, whilst seven 
 taoisigeachts are mentioned in connection with the same district. The 
 Flaith is missed in " the Tribes and Customs of Hy Fiachrach," and his 
 place is supphed by the Taoisig, the more familiar Toshach or Captain 
 —the Flaith of Bredach, for instance, appears in the poem of O'Dugan
 
 IRTSII LAND-TENURE. 155 
 
 as the Toshach — and a difference can be distinguished between the 
 Duthaid and the Taoislgeaclit, the allod and the captaincy. The former 
 seems to have varied in extent from a single ballybetagh, the holdmg of 
 the ordinary Brugaidh, to a number of ceds, but a captaincy might 
 extend over a yet wider district in addition. The Tuath, or country, of 
 Magh Fhiondaha, containing fifteen ballys, was the duthaid of O'Kearney, 
 his captaincy embracing the twenty-four ballys of the termon of Balla ; 
 whilst the duthaid of O'Moran was Ard-na-riagh, his captaincy the 
 country from thence to Tuam da Odhar. The one was an inheritance 
 of land in the joint-occupation of the kindred, the other was an inherit- 
 ance of ofiSce in the enjoyment of the elected Senior.^ 
 
 The land of the duthaid seems to have been known as Finetiud, or 
 tribe-land, which, according to the Senchus, " could not be sold or 
 alienated, or given to pay for crimes or contracts." Each inheritance 
 was thus a little Folkland, the Senior distributing it in benefices amongst 
 all the joint-proprietary who had a right, through their degree of rela- 
 tionship, to a share in the district. As late as in 1594, the Inquest of 
 Mallow found that the O'Callaghan was " seized of several large territories 
 as lord and chieftain," the Tanist also holding several ploughlands in 
 virtue of his position, whilst " every kinsman of the O'Callaghan had a 
 parcel of land to live upon, yet no estate passed thereby." The O'Calla- 
 ghan had the power of removing his kinsman from one " parcel" of land 
 to another — they had only a right of occupancy — and certain signories 
 and dues were payable to him from all the lands of " O'Callaghan's 
 country." A considerable amount of the emoluments belonging to the 
 Senior must have arisen, less from the lands in his immediate occupation, 
 than from the seignories and duties in question, which long continued to 
 be levied in kind, and were represented ])rincipally by a rent, or tribute, 
 paid in stock of every description, by actual Refection, and the power of 
 quartering kinsmen and followers upon the tenantry. The system was 
 still existing in the seventeenth century, accustoming the Irish peasant 
 to the payment of an all but nominal rent, whilst he was continually 
 supplying the materials for a rude festivity, in wliich he probably con- 
 trived to take a share. Its effects upon the upper classes may be traced 
 in the abundant, but somewhat riotous, hoi^pitality of the eighteenth 
 century, and have scarcely yet died out from amongst the lower classes 
 even at the present day.- 
 
 ^ Hy Flnch'ucli, pp. 149-159, 193, etc. In the "Tribes and Customs of Tly Many," the 
 Oirrigh is generally conneeted with the Sil, or the Cinel; the Flaith with the Clan. Thus 
 0' Madden was Oirrigh of >Sil Amchadha, and there was an Oirrigh of Sil Crimthan Gael ; 
 whilst Mac Egan was Flaith of Clan l)ernio<l, and O'Donnellan Flaith of Clan Breasail. 
 
 ^ Senchus Afor, vol. ii. p. 283; Ware (Karris), vol. ii. p. 72. The inaIi(Miability of the 
 joint inheritance was in no way a peculiarity of Irish tenure alone. By Land-rccht, according 
 to the Sachsenspeigel (Bk. i. Art. 20, 21, 33, 52), no man could alienate his r(;al property 
 without the consent of his heirs and the leave of the court ; but he could alienate moveable 
 property if, girt with a sword and carrying a shield, he could mount a Rosa, or warhorse, 
 without help, standing on a stone or stump a thumb-ell in height from the ground. 'J'he horse 
 and the stirrup might be held. With the consent of his heirs he could alienate his property,
 
 laG IRISH LAND-TENURE. 
 
 Under such a system the Duthaid must, in course of time, have 
 become far too limited to meet the expansion of the kindred, and in a 
 state of society in which an appeal could no longer be made to the sword, 
 the family, as it increased in numbers, must have diminished in import- 
 ance, as in the case of the O'Kellys, once kings, and, under English rule, 
 captains of Hy Many. In the " Agreement between the Irish chieftains 
 and inhabitants of Imany, called the O'Kellie's country, viz., the O'Kellie, 
 Teige O'Kellie and Connor O'Kellie, competitors for the name of Tanist- 
 shippe of O'Kellie," and various other members of ihe race entitled to be 
 parties to the agreement, it was arranged " that the captainshippe and 
 tanistshippe of the said country . . . and all elections and Irish custo- 
 mary divisions of land shall be utterly extinct for ever . . . that the 
 O'Kellie shall possess four quarters of land . . , with a chief rent out 
 of various other lands within the said country . . . during his natural 
 life, and after his death the said lands to be freed and discharged of the 
 aforesaid rents." The two competitors for the tanistship were pensioned 
 off with four quarters of land, also in permanent proprietors! lip, repre- 
 senting in each case the actual amount of land in their occupation at the 
 time of the agreement. Thus the patrimony of the head of the whole 
 race had dwindled into a ballybetagh, with the chief rents incidental to 
 the position of Senior.^ 
 
 The population more immediately connected with the land may be sepa- 
 rated, in Ireland as elsewhere, into the farming and the labouring classes. 
 To the former, in an agricultural state of society, belonged the Mansu- 
 arins^ or householder, whether free to " go where he willed," either with 
 or without his laud — or servile, and bound to the property on which he 
 had inherited a right to dwell and share. The labourer was invariably a 
 serf, in his original position, and as he grew into freedom, was usually 
 
 without the leave of the Richter, if he kept a half-liufe, or a hoffstadt in which there was room 
 for a waggon to turn, so that the Richter preserved his rights. No man, who was not of 
 RittersartJi — Ritter's kin — could give his wife a morrjen-gift without consulting his heirs. Pie 
 could only give her his best horse — the gift of the days of Tacitus — or his best beast ; but with 
 the consent of his heirs, if they were dwelling within the Gericlit in which the gift was situated, 
 and it was within the Kunig's ban, he could give his wife morgenf/ahe. The father was the 
 heir of the childless man ; if fatherless, the mother before sisters and brothers. Where there 
 were no sisters or brothers, all the near kin shared alike without distinction between n)ale and 
 female, and such iidieritances were called by the Saxons Gahn crhcn (Art. 17). Conquest, or 
 acquired property, might be given or bequeathed at will, but it would then become erhe, and be 
 governed by the rules of Land-right. The modern theory tliat an iuheritance of this descrip- 
 tion was an actual property, separately divisible amongst the heirs, and again subdivided 
 separately amongst their heirs, so as to form a mmiber of distinct little properties, is quite 
 erroneous. Each joint-inheritance was a little Folkland, passing by the rules of Folkland. The 
 Schijppenbar ireeman, for instance, was bound to hold at least three hufen, which must neces- 
 sarily have been a joint-inheritance, or the majority of the class would have soon become dis- 
 qualified. The house of the Kentish Gaveller was not divided, but jointly occupied by his heirs, 
 and though the hearth and ibrty feet around it belonged to the youngest son, he could not setl 
 it — it was not his absolute property. Hence the felony of any one member of such a family did 
 not forfeit the property belonging to him which, being a joint, and not an absolute, property, 
 reverted to the others. 
 ' ILj Many, p. 18.
 
 IRISH LAND TENURE. 157 
 
 plaiitod on the land with a cot, and a small plot of land, in return for the 
 work he ])erformed. The Accola, or alien unconnected with the district 
 in which lie was located, and removable at the will of the lord, might 
 belong to cither class, but was necessarily a freeman as long as he retained 
 the power of removal. The farming class in Ireland was represented by 
 the grasmannus, or stock-farmer, rather than by the husbandman, and 
 the equivalent of the adscriptus glebce was adscriptus persona: dommi. 
 It may be gathered from Cormac's Glossary, under the word Aicillne, 
 supposed to be derived from aicco and gillne, that " when a man gave 
 a set taurclotha — or returnable cattle — to another . . . it is meet 
 {auco) for him afterwards to yield servitude (gillne) to that man, and to 
 receive cows from him, according to the custom of chieftainry (airchenda). 
 Though he desires to receive cows from another, he cannot." Thus he 
 became adscriptus personje domini, without any claim upon the soil 
 beyond a right of pasturage for the stock committed to his charge, a 
 right which must have either ceased with the resignation of the stock, or 
 grown into a hereditary claim of occupancy in the district, and of acting 
 as a sort of hereditary stock-farmer upon the lord's property. The 
 aicillne of the Glossary, which may be rendered " customary service," is 
 treated of in the Senchus under the head of " Cain aigillne occus giallna," 
 or the " Law of customary service and securities," explained by a com- 
 mentator by the words Daer rath, which seem to mean " base hiring." 
 It was the " stock- tenure" of the Daer Ceili, or Gillie holding by base 
 service, the "Cain tsaor-raith," or "Law of free hiring," relating to the 
 Saor Ceili, who, upon receiving cattle in this manner from his Flaith, or 
 overlord, was bound to " manual labour and ureirge." The free gillie 
 could give up his stock " if he was weary of it" — he could " go where he 
 willed," but not " with his stock" — and he could always separate from 
 an " external," but not from a " native-born" overlord. The customary 
 tenants upon church-lands seem to have been known as 3Ia7iac/is, also 
 divided into saer and daer — the monk appears as a herdsman in Alfred's 
 Laws — and resembling the Scolocs of Scotland, whilst Fuiders, Bothachs, 
 and Sencleith are also met with in the Senchus. The Fuider was the 
 accola, or alien ; the Bothach, from his name of Bothi/-inan, may be 
 supposed to have been the labourer with a cot ; and both seem to have 
 been numbered amongst the daer class, for they are placed upon a foot- 
 ing with the foster-child during his fosterage, the pupil in his pupillage, 
 or in the position of the Lait and Libertus of the continental codes. The 
 Sencleith probably once belonged to the mysterious class that figures in 
 the Sachsenspiegel as the Lassen, a class that, in a certain stage of 
 society, stood out, as it were, and were divided from the dominant race 
 by the broad barrier of caste. Their separate existence, however, grew 
 by degrees into a matter of tradition, as they gradually but im})erceptibly 
 blended with the alien, the unfortunate, or the criminal, who became 
 attached more immediately to the soil. They contributed, in reality, a 
 more important element to the general population than is usually
 
 158 IRISH LAND-TENURE. 
 
 admitted, though none confessed to a connection with them ; for what 
 German has ever avowed a descent from the Lassen, what Irishman from 
 the Firbolg ? Nor are the Scot and the Englishman in any way free 
 from a similar peculiarity.^ 
 
 There is nothing in the condition of the Irish Gillie to distin- 
 guish him from an ordinary member of the villeinage amongst any 
 other people in a pastoral state of society. The English Gebur 
 received seed for about two-thirds of the arable land committed to his 
 charge, with a small amount of stock, and "all that he has is his 
 lord's." The Irish Gillie received neither seed nor arable land, but a 
 larger amount of stock, and all that he had was equally the property of 
 his lord. His right, when he acquired or inherited it, was a right of 
 pasturage, and his obligations were those of the herdsmen, rather than of 
 the husbandman. In the Steelhow of Scotland, and its equivalent, the 
 Ferreumpecus, occasionally met with in Latin documents, may be traced 
 the principle of the early system of stock-tenure applied to arable land. 
 On the conversion of the davoch into the ploughgate, the carucata boum 
 into the carucata terra:, when the herdsman first became a husbandman, 
 he was necessarily supplied with plough, and yoke, and harrow ; and 
 the name of pecus, or bu, continued to be applied to the " dead," as 
 well as to the " live stock" — railways have recently familiarized us 
 with " rolling stock." The Chronicler of Lanercost, in the anecdote he 
 relates of Alan Durward, describes an agricultural class in Scotland, 
 in the thirteenth century, holding by a tenancy renewable from year to 
 year, at the will of the lord ; a class differing essentially from the tenants 
 in fee-farm in the thanages, freeholders whose rights were acknowledged 
 in many of the early Scottish charters. The directions in the enactment 
 of Alexander ii., in 1214, apply to a class of the former description, 
 bidding them remain in the localities they occupied during the previous 
 year, and take land and cultivate it for the benefit of their lords ; thus 
 converting the " customary service" of stock-tenure into the obligations 
 incumbent upon the holding of arable land. Wherever the ploughgate 
 is traceable in northern Scotland the use of the agricultural measure- 
 ment seems to mark the enforcement of this enactment, incidentally 
 pointing out the limits within which the power of the Scottish sovereign 
 was paramount in the thirteenth century ; just as the absence of the 
 territorial division of the Hundred in the lands lying beyond the 
 
 1 Senchus 31or, vo]. ii. pp. 52,53, 195, 223, 289, 345. Urdrge is translated "homage." 
 But homage was tendered tor " gentle service," and the Irish word must mean something very 
 different, as it was connected with " manual labour." Ceilib, again, is translated " vassals ; " 
 but Ceile De would be rendered Servns Dei in Latin, and God's theow in old English. The 
 Gillie is to this day a servant, not a vassal. One of the five invalid contracts was that of the 
 mna (woman) without her Ceili, where the word is used in the same sense as Ceorl, for husband. 
 Daeris opposed to Saer in the sense of base or servile rather than of unfree, and the daer gillie 
 seems to have been the equivalent of the adscriptus glebre, who was free, up to a certain point, 
 within the manor to which he was "inborn." A clue to the meaning of ureirge may perhaps 
 be gathered from the amas urergi of p. 24, who seems to have been a domestic servant. The 
 amas was the free follower, generally a military retainer ; the amas urergi may have answered 
 to the esne, or metsung-man; the schalch, who has left his mark upon mavcschal, seneschal.
 
 IRim LAND-TENURE. 159 
 
 Tees, in spite of the enactment of Edgar upon the subject, tells of the 
 weakness of the royal authority in England, beyond that river, before 
 the Conquest.^ 
 
 In many of the early charters, both in England and Scotland, and 
 especially in those connected with church-lands, the amount of produce 
 required from the manor, or farm, is carefully laid down ; and a right 
 of pannage, or of pasturage, for a certain number of animals is also 
 frequently entered in such documents. The adscriptus glebte, bound to 
 supply his portion of the produce required from the property to which he 
 was attached, grew in course of time, through enfranchisement, into the 
 owner of the land, " by copy of the court-roll," for which his customary 
 service was rendered. But no claim upon the soil, or upon the wood, 
 could accrue from the right of pasturage, or of pannage ; and stock-tenure, 
 at the utmost, could only grow into a right of occupancy, with a heredi- 
 tary claim to pasturage, such as the commoners of many an English 
 manor enjoyed. Under a system by which no estate passed amongst the 
 upper classes, through the customary division of the land, no estate could 
 be acquired by the peasantry, whose sole " adscription" was to the person 
 rather than to the property of the lord. This personal adscription to the 
 overlord is the real source of the feeling, naturally engendered in such a 
 state of society, that is sometimes described as " clannish" — though some- 
 what erroneously, for the hereditary gillie was only " the native-man and 
 kindly tenant," making no pretensions to be a member of the clan, or to 
 be connected by the tie of blood with the privileged kindred of the 
 district. Accordingly, in the course of a generation or two, he attached 
 himself as closely to an Anglo-Irish overlord as to a Flaith of native 
 race ; for nationality, in the sense in which it is at present understood, 
 had no existence in a state of society in which the feeling out of which it 
 subsequently arose was limited to the kindred and the district. The 
 bond of kindred, the election of the senior, the division of the land, and 
 the mutual obligations between the overlord and his native-man, were all 
 equally ignored by the principles of modern law ; but though the O'Kelly, 
 and the O'Callaghan, and other " Captains" and their kinsmen received 
 compensation upon the abolition of the earlier system, becoming proprie- 
 tors in permanence of certain portions of their tribe-land, no such com- 
 pensation fell to the lot of the native-men. The novel law, in releasing 
 the gillie from his customary service, equally released the overlord from 
 his customary obligations, acknowledging neither the one nor the other 
 as legally binding ; but the recollection of the earlier system, as far as it 
 
 ■ 1 Chron. Lan. 1267 ; {Scotland under her early Kivgn, vol. ii. p. 77) ; Stat. Alex. II. i. — 
 " AgricultuiiB terrse Albania non dantur, sicut alibi, locationi perpetuae, sed aiumatiiii renovent 
 pacta, aut agc;ravant firmas," are the words of the chronicler, who probably uses Albania for 
 northern Scotland, in which quarter the farm tenantry, as a class, would appear to have been 
 adscripti personasdoniini, rather than adscripti glebfE. It must not bo supposed, from contrast- 
 ing an agricultural with a pastoral state of society, that the one necessarily ignored the other; 
 hut the pastoral state was characterized by the Haker-hufe, so to say, rather than by the Jhrf- 
 hufe — by the hoe, or spade, rather than by the plough, at any rate amongst the class of Gillies, 
 or native-men.
 
 160 IRISH LAND-TENURE. 
 
 affected liis immediate ancestry, seems still to linger in the mind of the 
 Irish peasant, thougli he has, not unnaturally, confounded the occupation 
 with the ownership of the land, and is encouraged to look upon himself 
 as the descendant of the original proprietor, rather than as the represen- 
 tative of the native-man, or gillie.^ 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Toshach and the Thane. 
 
 Election, division of lands, and other early customs, once widely 
 prevalent amongst Teutonic and Slavonic races, as well as Celtic, and 
 even now more or less traceable amongst some of the people of Eastern 
 Europe, lingered in Ireland until the opening of the seventeenth century ; 
 not because of the Celtic origin of the people, but from the chronic weak- 
 ness of the central power, the true cause of many of the peculiarities, and 
 of most of the evils, of that country. Every distinction between the Kigh, 
 the Oirrigb, and the Flaith of early days, was merged, in course of time 
 during the Anglo-Irish period, in the Captain, or Toshach, a character 
 belonging to the state of society in which the sovereign authority was 
 content with confirming the choice of the kindred, and making him 
 responsible for his district. The Irish Captain, elected as of old by his 
 immediate kinsmen, paid a certain number of cows as a fine, or fee, 
 apparently, for the official confirmation of his appointment, and was 
 accountable for the annual tax levied upon his district, at the rate, in 
 ordinary cases, at least in the sixteenth century, of an Irish shilling from 
 every carucate. In addition to the share of the Dathaid, or tribe-land, 
 belonging to him in right of his seniority, he was in the enjoyment of 
 certain seignories and dues, evidently in commutation of the rents and 
 services, originally paid in kind, to the senior of the race. In the charter 
 
 ^ The personal attacliment of the Native men to their overlord, without reference to race, is 
 also noticeable in Scotland wherever the earlier system retained its hold upon the remoter 
 districts, the " kindly tenant " attaching himself as readily to a Fraser as a Chisholm, of Norman 
 origin, as to a Macintosh or a Mackenzie. This is sometimes attributed to " Celtic race," but 
 I confess to being sceptical about the accuracy of this explanation. The Anglo-Irish, who 
 were generally of Norman descent, became liibernis Hiberniores, and there were features in 
 the Irish system that may not have been without attraction. The Anglo-Irishman held his 
 land by knight-service, or as a permanent indivisible inheritance, and by preserving the earlier 
 system in his relations with his dependants, without alienating an acre of ground, he secured a 
 tenantry upon whom he could quarter his followers almost at will, whilst they became united 
 to him by the bond of self-interest. There was no personal tie between the adscriptus glebai 
 and his overlord, such as may have existed between the free-tenant and the lord he followed to 
 the wars ; but the adscriptus persontc was naturally interested in the lord in whose retention of 
 the land consisted his own title to remain upon it. Fosterage again may have had its attrac- 
 tions, as the foster-child shared in the property of the foster-parent.
 
 THE TOSHACH AND THE THANE. 161 
 
 of confirmation given by John to the King of Connaught, the rights of 
 disseissin, and the pleas of the crown, were expressly reserved; and the 
 Irish Captain may be supposed to have been made responsible, under 
 similar reservations, for the peace of his district, and for the punctual pay- 
 ment of the annual tax levied upon it, thus filling a position not unlike 
 that which O'Madden held under De Burgh, as Chief Administrator or 
 Mair.i 
 
 The Captain is equally traceable in Scotland, as well as in Ireland ; 
 nor, indeed, was he confined to those countries alone, for he was merely 
 one of the equivalents of the early Dux or Here toga — the Elder-man, or 
 Senior, within a narrower district than a province ; but in Scotland par- 
 ticularly may his progress be traced until he lost the last vestiges of his 
 official character, and ceased to be distinguishable from other landed 
 ])roprietors. In the Charter of Kells, already quoted elsewhere, three 
 leading characters assisted at the enfranchisement of Ard Breacan, the 
 kings of Ireland, of Meath, and of the Cinel Lcogaire, seniors respec- 
 tively of the supreme and the [)rovincial kingdoms, and of the actual 
 district in which the property was situated. Similar notices abound in 
 the Book of Deer, relating to the Church-lands of the Abbey of that 
 name, once existing in the Scottish province of Buchan ; and it will be 
 found that the gift, or the enfranchisement, was generally made with the 
 concurrence, either jointly or separately, of three leading ])ersonages, the 
 king, the mormair, and the toshach, the seniors respectively of tiie 
 kingdom, the province, and the district in which the property was situ- 
 ated, though standing in a somewhat difierent relationship towards each 
 other.- Eights over land, rather than the land itself, then and long 
 afterwards, constituted one of the main sources of revenue, and though a 
 gift of land might be made free of all claims, an enfranchisement, to be 
 cojnplete, required the concurrence of all who had claims over the land in 
 question. So, when the abbot and convent of Breedon purchased the free- 
 dom of their lands from certain customary obligations in 848, Humbert 
 " princeps Tonsetorum," in return for a gift from the same community, 
 
 ^ Cotton's Visitation, p. 8 ; Uy 3Iany. p. 18, 148 ; Ware (Harris), vol. ii. j). 72. 
 
 ^ In the Book of Deer, p. 92, tor instance, we meet with cioit mormoir, cult tuise;/, and cuit 
 riig, or the respective " shares " of mormair, toshach, and king. " Freedom from mormair ami 
 toshach" seems to have been the usual form of franchise, as Mr. Stuart has abundantly sliown 
 in his able preface, sec. iv. So in the resignations of Oualocr, or the droit d'aubaine, mentioned 
 above at p. 129, the Count and his deputy must have resit^ned their respective claims beibrc 
 the right was vested in the actual holder of the land. Such claimants were, occasionally, very 
 numerous. In the twelfth century, for instance, when the Commune of Amiens won their en- 
 franchisement with the assistance of Louis le Uros, the jurisdiction over the city of Amiens was 
 divided, in their first charter of privileges, between the Maire and Echevins, and the Frcpositiis 
 dominorum, or the Prevot appointed by the " Qnatre Seigneurs" — the Bishop, the Count, the 
 Vidame, and the Chatelain — who received a portion of all the fines, representing the respective 
 "shares" of his four masters. Mon. de Vllist. dii\Ticrs Etat, vol. i. p. 40, 41. Tlie ('hatelairi 
 was nominally the representative of the royal authority, against which he fought on this occasion. 
 In short, as the weakness of the centra! power in Ireland is revealed in the retention of tlie titlt; 
 of king by quasi subordinate characters, so was it displayed at tin's time, in France, by tlie 
 assumption of all but sovereign rights by personages who still retained llie titles of royal or 
 ecclesiastical officials. 
 
 L
 
 1C3 THE TOSH A on AND THE THANE. 
 
 obtained from King Berhtulf and the Mercian Witan their freedom " ab 
 omnibus causis, magnis vel raodicis, notis ac ignotis, qnre mihi aut priri- 
 cipibus Tonsetorum unquam ante ea pertinebant." The concurrence of 
 the senior of the district was necessary to render the enfranchisement in 
 every way complete, for neither the king nor the witan could Ijave abro- 
 gated his privileges, though their consent was necessary to confirm his 
 gift of freedom. Thus the " principcs Tonsetorum " must have continued 
 for some time to exercise a hereditary, but subordinate, jurisdiction over 
 the district of the Tonsetas under the Mercian kings, as seniors, or 
 captains, confirmed by the royal authority ; and in a very similar manner 
 tlie progress of the Hwiccas may be traced from an independent to a 
 dependent kingdom, and from a hereditary province to an official ealdor- 
 dom ; such characters as the " principes Tonsetorum " belonging to the 
 period of hereditaiy dependency. Southumbrian England passed out of 
 this condition of society before Northumbrian, the South country before 
 the Midland ; but its traces are few and faint in England, for we are 
 most familiar with the institutions of the south country. Ireland in the 
 twelfth century was scarcely entering upon a phase of society that was 
 fast passing away in north-eastern Scotland, but which lingered in the 
 western districts of Galloway and Carrick until the ordinance of Edward 
 in 1305 did away with " I'usage de Scots et de Brets." The Laws of King 
 David, with the amendments and additions of other kings, were ordered to 
 be " rehercez," — a mandate to which we probably owe their preservation, 
 and their subsequent translation into the vernacular — all laws and usages 
 "contrary to God and to reason" were prohibited, and from the date of 
 this enactment the customary usage of earlier times ceased to be acknow- 
 ledged by the law of Scotland.^ 
 
 In the notices of past events, entered in the Book of Deer, the 
 Toshach is found in Buchan, whilst the Thane appears in the early 
 charters connected with the province of Moray, and is also traceable in 
 Ross. Similar in most respects, for the captaincy and the raairship would 
 appear to have been often united in the same person, they belonged, 
 strictly s[)eaking, to a somewhat different state of society — the To.shach 
 resembling the Irish captain, or the Elect of the kindred confirmed in 
 his authority by the sovereign, whilst the Thane was essentially a royal 
 official, appointed by the Crown, and if hereditary holding by charter. 
 Tenure by charter superseded the earlier system in Scotland, and much 
 
 1 Kell's Chart, vi. I. A. 3Iiscell. p- 143; Cod. BijJ. cclxi. ; Act. Pari. Scot. vol. i. p. 16. 
 The nearest approach in Ireland to the condition of society alluded to will be found in the 
 Charter of Newry, granted in 1150 by Maurice M'Loghlen, king of all Ireland " voluntate et 
 communi concessione magnatum Ultonire, et Ergallise, et de Oveach," that is to say, the king 
 of Airgiall, and his son the king of " Oineth and Tricased Erther," the king of Ulidia, and the 
 king of Iveagli. Amongst the signatures will be found those of the archbishop of Armagh and 
 the bishops of Airgiall, Tyrone, Tyrconal, and Ulidia: of the kings of Hy Tuirtre, Fermanagh, 
 and " Fearnacrim ; " of the " Magnus dux de Clan Engusa," the, " dux Clnneda of Iveagh of 
 Uladh,'' and the duces of " Kenelfogarty " and " Kyneltemnean," with the Hereuaghs of Down, 
 Dromamore, and " Secumscray." -Due/- Man. vol. vi. p. 1133. The duces were probably known 
 as toshachs in their own language.
 
 THE TOSHACH AND THE THANE. 163 
 
 as the Saxon Adaling became a Fieyherr by exchanging his eailier 
 tenuje for Dienst, so may the Toshach have been converted into a Thane 
 by resigning his elective seniority, and acce[)ting it from the sovereign as 
 a gift by charter of the Crown. Similar changes were famihar amongst 
 the Germans in the thirteenth century, a clause in the Sachsenspiegel 
 providing expressly for the case of a man who resigned his })roperty to 
 a Herr, and received it back as a lehen ; a simple change of tenure, 
 or tiansfer, by which the land became a hereditary benefice, and 
 passed by Lehen-recht instead of by Land-rccht. It was the old con- 
 version of the Lend into the Antrustion, the Gesithcundman into the 
 King's-thegn. Thanes of course might be appointed without any reference 
 to their previous connection with their thanage, but wherever the change 
 was brought about by peaceful means, the original thane was often, pro- 
 bably, a toshach holding by charter. Wherever the ploughgate and the 
 shire, or thanage, are traceable in Scotland, it may be assumed that the 
 power of the sovereign was sufficiently established to set aside the pre- 
 dominance of the family tie, and before the close of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury the thane and the visnet would have been found wherever there was 
 the shire. The official in the Scottish shire was no longer the Elect of 
 the kindred, but held his office by charter of the Crown, and it passed, 
 if hereditary, to his immediate descendants. His district was no longer 
 the territory over which his personal influence, as Senior, extended, for 
 the limits of the thanage were regulated by the principle of the visnet, 
 rather than by the extent uf the kindred, or the tie of blood.^ 
 
 The old customary law seems to have lingered in western Scotland 
 until it was abolished by Edward, and amongst the enactments of Eobert 
 Bruce is a statute establishing the visnet in Galloway. From the time 
 of the pacification of the province in the reign of William, when the 
 lordship was conferred upon Uchtred's son Koland, and his kinsman 
 Duncan was compensated with the earldom of Carrick, Galloway seems 
 to have been in a position not unlike that of Connaught under John. 
 As the royal mairs exacted the kane by the king's writ, and the fine for 
 a breach of the king's peace was settled by the Judiccs of the province, 
 the pleas of the Crown would a])pear to have been reserved, as in the 
 case of the Irisli kingdom, whilst, with this exception, the authority of 
 Koland and his house was apparently supreme. The absence of the 
 visnet, however, and the presence of the captain, are sure signs that in 
 Galloway the thane and the shire were ignored, and that tbe family tie 
 still remained predominant. The earldom of Carrick must have exhibited 
 a very similar condition of society in the thiricenth century, when Earl 
 Nigel, upon the marriage of his daughter and sole heiress, settled by 
 charter upon Roland of Carrick and his heirs the captaincy — " capud 
 totius progenie suai " — with all the rights and privileges belonging to 
 " Kencynoll," together with the office <jf Baillie of the earldom, and "the 
 leading of the men thereof" Here the separate duties and [)rerogatives 
 
 ' Sachsenspic(j., Ek. i. Art. 33. For Thanes, compare Scotland unch r her Eai hj Kiiifjs, Ap. N,
 
 164 THE TOSHACH AND THE THANE. 
 
 of the toshach and thane — the ealderman and gerefa, the captain and 
 the baillie — were united in the same person, and granted by charter, to 
 pass hereditarily to his immediate descendants ; a course that would 
 appear to have been occasionally followed in other quarters as well as in 
 Carrick. Accordingly the earlier system disappeared in Carrick as 
 imperceptibly as in the sheriffdoms along the north-eastern coasts ; the 
 original proprietary was little disturbed, and the prevalence of the name 
 of Kennedy in the district passed, in course of time, into a familiar pro- 
 verb. It was otherwise in Gralloway, where, upon the death of Roland's 
 son, Alan, the feudal law came into collision with the earlier custom of 
 the country. Besides his three daughters the deceased magnate left a 
 son, Thomas of Galloway, who had married a daughter of Ronald, king 
 of Man, about ten years before his father's death. Thomas was the issue, 
 apparently, of a handfast connection, or of a marriage that the Church 
 in those days ignored ; but as the division of the lordship between the 
 heiresses would not have been in accordance with the custom of the country, 
 the Galwegians, or a portion of them, chose to regard him as legitimate, 
 and seem to have besought the king to pronoimce the lordship an indi- 
 visible fief, and bestow it upon Thomas as the Elect of the kindred. So, 
 in the following generation, whilst Balliol pleaded the indivisibility of 
 Scotland, as a kingdom, Hastings assumed that, as a feudal fief of the 
 English Crown, it had fallen into abeyance between the heiresses of Earl 
 David, and was divisible in the same manner as his earldom of Hun- 
 tingdon. As it suited best with the policy of Alexander to maintain 
 the supremacy of feudal law, the partisans of Thomas rebelled ; and 
 partly in consequence of this rebellion, partly perhaps to counterbalance 
 the influence of the house of Balliol in this quarter, when Bruce made 
 over the lordship to his most prominent supporter, James Douglas, 
 barons and knights were planted in the land, much in the same way as 
 Moray was colonized some two centuries before ; and many a family, 
 unconnected previously with the province, found a home in Galloway.^ 
 
 The Shire, the Thane, and the Visnet will be found in Lothian, the 
 captain is traceable in Galloway and Carrick, but over the state of Scot- 
 tish Cumbria rests a shadow all but impenetrable. A mixed population, 
 living in a state of anarchy, is all that is revealed by the Inquest of 
 David ; whilst Cornage continued to be the sole tenure throughout 
 English Cumberland in the thirteenth century, and the sole service 
 exacted from the Cumbrians was to guide an advancing army into Scot- 
 land, and to protect the rear on its return. When David granted 
 Annandale to Robert Bruce for the purposes of the chase, as "a forest," 
 he gave him all the land lying eastward of the vale of Nith — the property 
 of Dungal, RanJolph's ancestor — up to the boundaries of Ranulf le 
 Meschin, when he held the sheriffdom of Carlisle. But who will define 
 the boundaries of Ranulf le Meschin, or the limits of the original sheriff- 
 dom of Carlisle ? When David addressed his mandates to his thanes 
 
 1 Leg. Will. 22 ; Scotland, etc., vol. i. pp. 241, 390 ; vol. ii. pp. 25-28.
 
 THE TOSHACH AND THE THANE. 165 
 
 and drengs of Lothian and Teviotdale, he must have looked upon the 
 vale of Teviot as a portion of his Cumbrian province. His father Mal- 
 colm held all Cumberland by force, and when Rufus drove out Dolfin, 
 restored Carlisle, called the sheriffdom into existence, and, committing it 
 to the charge of Ranulf le Meschin, issued his directions to " all his men 
 of the sheriffdom of Carlisle, and all beyond the Leader," did the English 
 king look upon that river as the boundary between his new sheriffdom 
 and the March of Lothian? Generations passed away before the frontier 
 between the two kingdoms was settled by mutual agreement in the thir- 
 teenth century, and by that time all the valleys lying eastward of Annan- 
 dale, and to the west and south of Lothian and the vale of Clyde, had 
 long been permanently connected with the northern kingdom — partly 
 owing, perhaps, to the lengthened occupation of Carlisle and the northern 
 counties by David — but at the close of the eleventh century, the greater 
 part of this wild district was a veritable debatable land. 
 
 The thane died out in Scotland in the course of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, and he was never called into existence in Ireland, where the captain 
 continued to be a recognised character in the reign of Elizabeth, though 
 he had long ceased to have any real counterpart in Scotland. Charters 
 of captaincy, indeed, may have been granted occasionally to some of the 
 Highland lairds, but neither the elective seniority nor the division of the 
 land was recognised by the law of Scotland. The relations between the 
 greater chiefs and the sovereign, as soon as they were brought into closer 
 contact with him, were regulated by that law alone ; and though early 
 custom may have held its ground in remote and inaccessible districts, 
 and amongst medial tenants and the dependent classes, the " custom of 
 the manor," as it may be called, regulating the relations between a 
 Highland proprietor and his gillies, must not be confounded with the 
 ancient " custom of the country," the original Land-recht of the greater 
 portion of the kingdom.
 
 CHAPTERS OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 BEFORE THE CONQUEST. 
 
 I. 
 
 The King's Wife. 
 
 ^THELWULF, the West Saxon, upon his return from Rome, was 
 married to Judith, the daughter of Charles the Bald, at the court of her 
 father at Worms. The bride, who must have been a mere child, was 
 crowned with a diadem, placed upon a throne, and saluted as Queen b}^ 
 Archbishop Hincmar ; novel and unusual ceremonies in the eyes of the 
 West-Saxon king and his people, according to Prudentius, the con- 
 temporary bishop of Troyes, who has left an account of the marriage in 
 the annals of St. Bertin. Upon the return of ^thelwulf to England, 
 writes Asser, he placed his childish queen upon a throne by the side of 
 his own, and Judith, during the brief remainder of his reign, continued 
 to enjoy the usual privileges of a queen-consort " contrary to the perverse 
 custom of that race ; for the West Saxons suffer no queen to sit upon a 
 throne by the king, nor even to be called queen, but only the king's 
 wife." It seems to have been otherwise in Wessex in earlier days, for 
 Sexburgh. a queen, reigned alone after her husband's death ; the signature 
 of Beorhtric's queen, Eadburgh, is appended to an Abingdon charter — 
 if it can be trusted — and in the other English kingdoms the queen parti- 
 cipated, up to a certain point, in the royal authority. Her name, for 
 instance, appears in the Mercian charters from the time of Offa with the 
 epithet of Begina, and the consent of Alfred's daughter seems to have 
 been almost as necessary to confirm a grant of land as that of her 
 husband, the Ealderman. The origin of " the perverse and detestable 
 custom that prevails in Saxony, contrary to the usage of all other people, 
 at least of Teutonic race," is ascribed by Alfred — who told the story to 
 Asser as he had heard it from the lips of men living at the time the 
 events occurred — to the misdeeds of OfFa's daughter, Eadburgh. She 
 used for the worst of purposes the unbounded influence she had obtained 
 over her husband, Beorhtric ; and where her influence failed, had recourse 
 to poison. For thirteen years she shared the throne of Wessex until the 
 poison, intended for another, destroyed the king, when she was driven 
 with execration from the land ; and after forfeiting, through hei' dissolute
 
 THE KING'S WIFE. 167 
 
 condnct, the protection of Charlemagne, who had placed a nun-minster 
 at the disposal of the daughter of his ancient ally, she died miserably 
 at Pavia, begging her bread in the streets of the capital of Italy. It was 
 upon the accession of Egbert, therefore, that the West-Saxon nobles 
 swore to drive from the throne any of their future kings who should 
 place a queen by his side ; and in consequence of this resolution, ap- 
 parently, tlie English language to this day ignores the existence of any 
 word answering to Hegina, Heine, or Konigin, expressing a female 
 sovereign. Cioen, like the French word fcmme, may mean either woman 
 or wife ; and the title of the highest lady in the land is literally '' the 
 wife" — the earlier title in fall, " the king's wife."^ 
 
 Judith appears to have been the solitary exception to " the peiverse 
 custom," from the time of Beorhtric and Eadburgh until the latter part 
 of the tenth century. She signs a charter as Eegina in 858, and the 
 next authentic signature to which the title is annexed is that of iElfthryth 
 in Edgar's reign. Ealswyth, the wife of Alfred, never attests a charter 
 in her husband's reign, nor are the two queens of Edward, iElfled and 
 Eadgyfu, ever mentioned under that title in the charters of the great 
 king's son. Athelstan was never married ; his half-brother Edmund had 
 two queens — ^Elfgyfu, the mother of Edwy and Edgar, whose death is 
 placed by ^thelwerd in 944, and iEthelfled, known as Jj^thelfied at- 
 Domerham, perhaps from her morgen-gift — but their signatures with the 
 addition of Eegina are never appended to any of his charters. Edred, 
 a weak and sickly piince, died, like his great half-brother, umuarried ; 
 but Eadgyfu, the widow of Edv.ard, during the reigns of both of her 
 younger sons, was a constant attendant at the Court, affixing her 
 signature to numerous charters as " the king's mother." Thus the real 
 influence of the queen commenced with her widowhood — as in Turkey 
 at the present day, though for a different reason — and in guarding against 
 the dangers of a queen-consort, the prejudices of the men of Wessex 
 opened the door to the influence of a queen-mother, an influence that is 
 very perceptible in the history of this period. Eadgyfu was evidently a 
 personage of considerable importance during the reigns of both of lier 
 sons, more especially in that of Edred, and she seems to have been an 
 early patroness of her younger son's contemporary, Dunstan, who makes 
 his first liisivrical appearance in this reign. She was of a Kentish f^imily, 
 a daughter of the Sighelm, who is addressed by Alfred, in one of his 
 charters, as Dux or Eulderman, and a near kinswoman of Bertsige 
 
 ^ An. St. Bert., 85G; Asscr. "A priest's cwcne is a SDnre of the devil," wrote Abbot 
 ^Ifric, meaning a wife. As the parents of Judith were married in December 942, and her 
 brother Charles was appointed to the kingdom of Aquitaino in 95'), when he was probalily " of 
 age," or twelve years old, she was scarcely older in the following year [An. St. Bert., 842, 
 855). Osgearn, the queen of the Northumbrian Alcred, wrote a joint letter with her husband 
 to Archbishop LuUo of Mayence between 768-774 {WUkins i. p. 144). yEthelswyth, the 
 sister of Alfred, and queen of the Mercians, granted laii<is " with the consent of her Witan " 
 in 868 ; and in tlie lollowing year styles herself " Regina Anglornm." [Cod. Dip. ccxcviii., 
 ccxcix. " Ego Burgred rex, et ego .Ethelswyth, paii coronata steninia regali, Augloruni 
 regina," are the expressions of the latter chaiter.)
 
 1G8 THE KING'S WIFE. 
 
 Dyring. Her influence ceased with the life of her youngest son, for upon 
 the accession of Edwy she was deprived of all her possessions. Her 
 grandchildren, of whom the eldest was hardly more than thirteen years 
 of age, were puppets in the hands of rival factions ; and the throne of 
 Edwy was surrounded by the leading members of the royal race, who 
 seem to have endeavoured to perpetuate their influence by marrying the 
 young prince, towards the close of his short reign, to a lady who appears 
 to have been too nearly connected with him, in some way or another, in 
 the opinion of the age. It is almost needless to add that the name of 
 iElfgyfu, the lady in question, is never found, with the addition of 
 Regina, in any authentic document. Edgar, like his father, was twice 
 married, first to ^thelfled, whose name is never mentioned in the 
 charters ; and secondly, in the course of 964, to ^Ifthryth, in whose 
 days certain changes seem to have been brought about.^ 
 
 As the name of iElfthryth, with the addition of Begina, is affixed to 
 several authentic charters, some of them dated as early as 968, the West- 
 Saxon prejudice against a queen-consort would appear to have been 
 gradually dying out in Edgar's reign ; though in all Anglo-Saxon docu- 
 ments in which her name occurs, she is still invariably entitled " the 
 lady," or " the king's wife." But as Edgar only survived his coronation 
 for two years, the position of his queen was at once changed, for she 
 ceased to be a queen-consort, without becoming a queen-mother. Again, 
 after a lapse of twenty years, two children were left as puppets in the 
 hands of contending factions, though the circumstances of the young 
 princes were widely different. It would be difficult to point out the family 
 of Edmund's first wife, but vEthelfled at-Domerham, like her mother- 
 in-law Eadgyfu, was highly connected ; for she was the eldest daughter 
 of iElfgar, whose name occurs amongst the Ministri in the charters of 
 his son-in-law, and who appears as Dux at the Court of Edred. iElfgar, 
 whose connection with the royal house may be supposed to have raised 
 him to the rank of Ealderman, died before Theodred, bishop of London, 
 whose signature is missed after 953 ; and as he was buried at Stoke in 
 Suffolk, and his property was principally in that county, and in Essex, 
 it may be safely inferred that he was Ealderman of the East Saxons, a 
 position subsequently held by his son-in-law Brithnoth. The name of 
 Ordgar, the father of iElfthryth, is also found amongst the Ministri 
 before his daughter's marriage, and he attested a grant of Edgar " to my 
 wife and dearly loved ^Ifthryth " — which may have been her morgen- 
 gift — in 964, figuring in the very next charter as the junior Ealderman. 
 As in iElfgar's case, his connection with the royal House seems to have 
 raised him to the position of an Ealderman, and he presided, until his 
 death in 970, over the Western Provinces, or the counties of Dorset, 
 Somerset, and Devon. His daughter, at the time of her marriage with 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip. cccxxiv., mlviii. ; Thorpe, Diplom., p. 201. The signature of Dunstan as 
 aljliot first appears in a charter of Edred (ceccxi.) dated in 946, and Osbern represents the 
 king as entreating Iiis mother to use her influence with Dunstan, " who looks up to you above 
 all others."
 
 THE KING'S WIFE. 1G9 
 
 the king, must have been a widow for about two years, the silent testi- 
 mony of the charters refuting the story that Edgar murdered his friend 
 in Harewood Forest in order to marry his beautiful wife. The signature 
 of ^thelwold, ^Ifthryth's first husband, Ealderman of East Anglia, and 
 eldest son of Athelstan, the Half-king, replaces that of his father in 956, 
 and disappears in the course of 962, in which year his brother ^thelwine 
 first attests the royal grants as Ealderman. Thus the mother of 
 Ethelred was apparently of the highest birth next to royalty ; but who 
 were the parents of Edward's mother ? ^ 
 
 Ordmter Dux was the father of Edgar's first queen, according to 
 Florence; "dux potentissimus," adds Malmesbury ; for a halo of sanctity 
 surrounded the memory of the youthful martyr, and the chroniclers of a 
 later age honoured him, after the fashion of their time, by exalting his 
 mother's lineage. But the charters are totally silent about Ordmaar, 
 and his name is not even found amongst the Ministri, though a passage 
 in the History of Ely may serve to throw some light upon the subject. 
 In the confusion resulting upon the death of Edgar, Ealderman iEthel- 
 wine and his brothers claimed " the forty hides" at Hatfield, asserting 
 that their father Athelstan had received the lands in exchange for his 
 'patrimony in Devon — for the forty hides that formed the appanage of 
 an Eorl in his native province. Edgar, they said, had dispossessed the 
 family of both properties, and their claim appears to have been well 
 founded, for the brethren of Ely bought back the land from the Ealder- 
 man. But the forty hides at Hatfield, after they were taken from the 
 family of the Half-king, had passed through other hands before Edgar 
 gave them to Ely, for they had been bequeathed to the king by Ordmar 
 and his wife Ealda. ^thelfled, the mother of Edward, was known as 
 Candida, and Eneda ; she was "the White Duck," married for her 
 beauty, and by the grant of forty hides, Edgar seems to have ennobled 
 his father-in-law by bestowing upon him the appanage of an Eorl, 
 though his birth would appear to have been insufficient to qualify him 
 for exalted office. Edward, therefore, without powerful relatives on his 
 mother's side, and left an orphan when little more than twelve years of 
 age, was exactly in the position to be welcomed as king by the rival 
 parties in the State. To secure his person, and govern the kingdom in 
 his name ; to marry him, as he grew up, to a daughter of their race, and 
 thus perpetuate their influence — such might have been the policy of an 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip., mcclii., mcccliii. The wills of .^Ifgar and of his two daughters will be found 
 ill Thorpe, JJijdom., pp. 505, 519. His signature as Dux first occurs in 917, and is not to be 
 found after 951. lie must not be confounded with " il^^lfgar, the king's kinsman," who died 
 in 9G2, and was buried at Wilton [Chrov. Sax. ad an.) The Ealiierman was buried at Stoke 
 in Suffolk. The signature of Brithnoth first appears amongst the Duces in 950. Two Athcl- 
 Rtans sign amongst the Duces in the reigns of Eduiund and Edred, until the senior Athelstan 
 disappears in 956, and is replaced by ^^^tlielwold. A few grants, liowever, dated in this year, 
 are attested by both the Athelstans and yKthelwold ; but as all tlie signatures to these charters 
 are identical, they probably represent tlie last appearance of (he Half-king in his ollicial 
 capacity before assuming the cowl, when both father and son alfi.xcd their signatures amongst 
 the Ealdermcn.
 
 170 THE KING'S WIFE. 
 
 ^Ifhere or an iEthelwine, but not to murder him. His death could 
 be profitable to J^^lfthryth and the house of Ordgar alone, and after the 
 failure in the attempt to question his title to the throne, his death 
 appears to have become a mere question of time and oppoi tunity. If 
 ever a queen-consort sat upon the throne by Edward's side, the hopes of 
 ^Ifthryth would have been at an end, and accordingly as the young prince 
 approached manhood — he died. Slain by domestic treachery — a suis, or 
 by his own people, according to Florence — in the Western Provinces of 
 Wessex, once ruled over by ^Ifthryth's father, and in which her brother 
 Ordulf subsequently held high command, his body was hidden away in 
 an obscure grave, as a befitting sepulchre for a prince of doubtful right; 
 and it was left for the Mercian Ealderman, who has been accused by 
 some later authorities of the crime, to claim for the remains of the mur- 
 dered prince the obsequies of a king. The name of ^Ifthryth, after an 
 interval of four years, again appears in the charters ; her brother Ordulf 
 takes his ])lace amongst the leading Ministri, and the innovations intro- 
 duced by Edgar in favour of his wife, as queen-consort, seem to have 
 been at once ignored by his widow, as queen-mother,^ 
 
 For twenty years ^Elfthryth continued to attest the charters of her son 
 as queen-mother, filling the position of Eadgyfu during the reigns of 
 Edmund and Edred ; and whilst the signatures of her numerous grand- 
 sons are frequently attached to the same grants, the name of their 
 mother, the first wife of Ethelred, is never even alluded to. According 
 to the genealogy appended to Florence she was ^Ifgyfu, " comitis 
 Agilberti filia;" though Ailred of ;Kievaulx calls her father Thored, 
 whose name first appears as Dux in 979, when he seems to have been 
 placed over the Northumbrians between Oslac and^lfhelm. The name 
 of ^thelbert will be looked for in vain, even amongst the 3Iinistri, and 
 if the genealogy of Florence is correct, it would have suited well with 
 the policy of ^Ifthryth to maintain an influence over her feeble son by 
 mariying him to a nonentity. In the very year in which Ethelred 
 alludes in a charter to his mother's death, or in 1002, he was united to 
 the Norman Emma, and from the date of this alliance the queen-consort 
 again assumed her place by the side of the king, and attested the royal 
 grants as Begina. An especial Order for the unction and coronation of a 
 queen-consort dates from this reign, and was probably used for the first 
 time on this occasion ; for it is scarcely probable tliat ^Ifthryth per- 
 mitted her daughter-in-law to be crowned. For the first time since the 
 days of Judith a regal diadem encircled the brows of an English queen 
 
 1 Flor. Wig., 964 ; Malm. Gest. Reg., lib. ii. sec. 159; Jllst. El, lib. i. cap. 5. The name 
 of ^Ifthrytb leappears in 979, and is missed after 999. A cliarter, dated in 1002 (dccvii.) 
 alludes to lier deatli, and to tlie nunnery founded by Ler at Werewell. Here bIic is supposed 
 to have expiated her crimes by a long and rigid penance, a story which the appearance of her 
 name in the charters as late as 999 renders very doubtful. I cannot help thinking that the 
 influence of ^i^lfthryth is traceable in the brevity with which ^Ethelwerd passes over the 
 reigns of Edwy and Edgar, omitting all mention of Edward's name. yElfthryth survived 
 ^Ethelwerd, who towards the close of iiis life was the Patrician, or leading Ealderman. In 
 this position, could he write the true history of Edward's reign wlule .^Uthryth lived?
 
 THE KING'S WIFE. 171 
 
 — unless it may be supposed that ^Ifthrytli assumed a diadem at Bath 
 — though she appears to have continued to be known as "the Lady," 
 or " the King's Wife," until after the Norman conquest ; and the title of 
 the present sovereign of the British empire is, in its true meaning, 
 simply " The Wife."i 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 Three charters {Cod. Dip., cccxxxiii., mcci., ccccix.) are deserving of a passing 
 notice in connection with this subject. A grant of the elder Edward to Mahnesbury, 
 dated in 901 , is witnessed by " Ealhswyth the king's mother, and ^Elfled the king's 
 wife," the solitary instance in which the queen-mother and the queen-consort are thus 
 associated. The indiction is given wrongly, and the land is " freed from all secular 
 obligations," always a suspicious addition to a grant of land. Again, an undated 
 exchange of lands between Bishop Brithelm and Abbot ^thelwokl in the reign of 
 Edwy is attested by " iElfgyfu the king's wife, and iEthelgyfu the mother of tlie 
 king's wife," the solitary instance in which the mother of a queen-consort appears, in 
 that character, amongst the witnesses to a charter. The names of Cenwald, bishop of 
 Worcester, and Brithnoth Drix, date this exchange before the separation of the pro- 
 vinces to the north of the Thames from Edwy's kingdom in 957, for after that event 
 the signatures of the Mercian prelates, and of the Ealderman of the East Saxons, are 
 never attached to the grants of that king. But Edwy, a mere child at his accession, 
 was only separated from his wife in 958, and can scarcely be supposed to have married 
 her much before that time. The third charter is an undated grant of Edmund, wit- 
 nessed by "Eadgyfu the king's mother, and ^'Elfgyfu the king's concubine," again the 
 solitary instance of such a combination amongst the attesting witnesses. It professes 
 to be a gift of three sulings at Mailing to the church of Eochester, which clashes not a 
 little with the previous gxant of " Mailing in perpetual free-alms," made upon a cele- 
 brated occasion by Egbert to Canterbury in 838 (ccxl.), and is also suspiciously " freed 
 from all secular obligations." Amongst the attesting Duces will be foimd the names 
 of Skull and Osferth, which will be souglit for in vain amongst all the numerous 
 charters of Edmund, but will be at once recognised in some of the earlier grants of 
 Athelstan. If the queen of Edmund, the mother of Edwy and Edgar, had ever 
 affixed her name to one of her husband's charters, she would have hardly signed her 
 cross to the epithet of Concubine ; and this document, like the other two, seems to be 
 of very doubtful authenticity. 
 
 * The fullowing passages from the will of iVthelstan tlie .libeling — a son of Etlielrcd, 
 who died after July 1012 {Cod. Di]). mcccvii.) — go far to prove the comparative ol).scunty of 
 liis mother. " I give to .lElfswjth, my foster-mother, for her great deserts, the laTid at Wes- 
 ton. ... I now declai'e that all the things . . . are done fur the soul of my dear fallier King 
 jJ^thelred, and for mine, and {ov JEIftliryLh my r/ravdmother's, who reared we.'' Foslerod 
 by a stranger, reared by bis grandmother, lie seems to have scaj'cely known that he ever had ;i 
 mother, for not even her soul is eared for in hi.s will. T'liorpe, fJtplom., pp. 5G0, 5()'2,
 
 172 HANDFASTING. 
 
 11. 
 
 Handfasting. 
 
 A CERTAIN looseness in the marriage tie is long observable in northern 
 Europe. According to some of the Scandinavian codes, for instance, if 
 a woman lived with a man for a year, keeping his keys and managing 
 his household, she was his legal wife without further ceremony. Nor 
 was the tie so indissoluble as it afterwards became. Queen after queen 
 must have been set aside by Charlemagne, unless he is credited with a 
 plurahty of wives ; and when the beauty and illustrious descent of 
 Matilda attracted the notice of Henry the Fowler, he seems to have first 
 assured himself of her consent to his proposals, and then to have 
 repudiated his first wife, Hathaburg, without further ceremony. Upon 
 our own side of the channel, Canute, in order to secure the support of 
 northern England, married the daughter of Ji^lfhelm and Wulfruna, and 
 following the example of Henry, unhesitatingly repudiated her when he 
 " commanded the relict of King Ethelred to be fetched for his wife." 
 With equal alacrity the Scottish Malcolm seems to have set aside Inge- 
 biorge in order to secure the hand of the high-born Margaret of England. 
 Uchtred the Northumbrian was three times married. With his first 
 wife, the daughter of Bishop Aldhun, he received certain lands of St. Cuth- 
 bert's " on condition that as long as he lived he should always retain Egfreda 
 in honourable wedlock ;" a condition pointing strongly to a certain want 
 of permanency in the marriages of the period, against which the Bishop 
 seems to have exhibited a laudable anxiety to protect his daughter. After 
 his appointment to the earldom of the Anglo-Danes, Uchtred divorced 
 Egfreda to marry Sigen, the daughter of Styr Ulfson of York, a connec- 
 tion that seems eventually to have cost him his life ; but he repudiated 
 the Yorkshire lady when he accepted the hand of ^Ifgyfu the daughter 
 of Ethelred. Egfreda, divorced by Uchtred, was given by her father 
 the bishop, with her dowry, to Kilvert Ligulfson, by whom she had a 
 daughter, Sigrida, subsequently married to three husbands in succession, 
 with one of whom, Uchtred's son Eadulf, she was somewhat closely con- 
 nected. The degrees of consanguinity, however, were not always attended 
 to at that period. "I, Alfred, bishop, will give those five hides to 
 Beorthwen the daughter of Wulfhelm, who was the wife of his brother 
 Beorthere," says a charter dated at the close of Athelstan's reign. 
 Repudiated by her second husband, Egfreda ended by retiring to a nun- 
 minster, but her marriages were regarded as legal, and her children as 
 legitimate ; for her descendants by Kilvert, as well as by Uchtred, subse- 
 quently claimed her dower-lands, whilst Simeon notes down all these 
 marriages and divorces as if they were circumstances of very ordinary 
 occurrence.^ 
 
 > Cod. Diih, ccclxxvi.; Sim. de Oh. Dun. (TwysJen), pp. 79-82; de GeStis, 1040, 1072. Styr 
 gave his daughter on conditiuu that Uchtred should take up his blood-feud against Thorbrand
 
 HANDFASTING. 173 
 
 A marriage ia the tenth century may be said to have been commenced 
 and completed on two distinct and separate occasions, — the Wedding, and 
 the Giving av^ay. We now give the name of betrothal to the wedding of 
 our forefathers, having transferred the older name and greater importance 
 of the " desponsatio et dotatio" to the " traditio et sanctificatio," or the 
 giving-away. The wedding was the civil contract, deriving its name 
 from the ivcds, pledges or securities that passed between the bridegroom 
 and the parents or guardians of the bride. The giving-away represented 
 the final completion of the marriage, after the necessary arrangements 
 had been concluded ; and upon this occasion, according to the regulations 
 laid down in Edmund's reign, a priest was to be present in order to 
 sanctify the legal union by his blessing. " Si quis desponsata sibi, et 
 tradita, utatur, conjugium vocat," wrote St. Ambrose ; adding in another of 
 his epistles, in exact accordance with the regulation of Edmund, "ipsum 
 conjugium velamine sacerdotali et benedictione santificari oporteat." By 
 the veil and the blessing of the priest the legal union was rendered holy. 
 So little necessary, however, was the blessing of the priest, or the religious 
 portion of the ceremony, to the abstract legality of the marriage, that in 
 the case of the bigamist, or trigamist — of the person who married for the 
 second or third time — the presence of a priest was altogether dispensed 
 with. " A layman may for need marry a second time, but the canons 
 forbid the benedictions thereto which are appointed to a first marriage 
 . . . and it is forbidden to the priest to be, in the manner he ere was, at 
 the marriage when a man marries again, or to give the benediction which 
 belongs to a first marriage." Such is the regulation laid down in the 
 Institutes of Polity, with which the Canons of iElfric agree — " Nor may 
 any priest be at the marriage when a man marries a second wife, or a 
 woman a second husband, nor together bless them, . . . the canons forbid 
 the blessings thereto" — the passage in the Capitularies, " nequc sine bene- 
 dictione sacerdotis, qui ante innupti erant, nubere audeant," testifying 
 to the universality of the custom. Yet though the priest was forbidden 
 to be present or pronounce a blessing upon such occasions, the marriage 
 was strictly legal, and the offspring were legitimate. Not a doubt has 
 ever been expressed about the legitimacy of Ethelred, yet if the canons 
 were strictly construed in the time of Dunstan, no priest could have 
 blessed the union of Edgar and ^Ifthryth. As long as the dowry and 
 the necessary weds therefore constituted a legal marriage, and the children 
 of the undowered woman were illegitimate, ancient custom looked 
 upon the wedding, or civil contract, as the more important of the two 
 ceremonies in a strictly legal sense ; and, accordingly, in one of the 
 canons enacted in Edgar's reign, in confirmation of earlier canons upon 
 the same subject, it is laid down that if a maiden who has been " be- 
 wedded " should be separated by any chance from her betrothed, when- 
 
 Hold ; but Thorbrand waylaid and slew Uclitred some ten years later wlien he submitted to 
 Canute, and the feud between the two familios, Angle and Dune, was not appeased in Simeon's 
 time.
 
 174 HANDFASTING. 
 
 ever and wlierever they may happen to meet each other, they may live 
 together as man and wife without further ceiemony.^ 
 
 The expressions, " taking the veil," and " the wedding," have lost 
 their earlier signification, for the former meant a marriage. The nun is a 
 spiritual bride, and her year's noviciate seems to mark the time generally 
 sufiered to elapse between the wedding and the giving-away, or the 
 assumption of the marriage-veil. The contract would appear to have 
 been completed, or annulled, in both cases after the lapse of a year, which 
 was probably looked upon originally as an era of probation. It was 
 evidently a sacred and binding contract in the eyes of the church, though 
 either party might decline to fulfil it ; the sole penalty in this case being, 
 like the contract, of a civil character, the offender forfeiting all claim 
 upon the dowry and any other gifts that may have passed on either side. 
 Strictly speaking, "legitimum conjugium" was not complete without the 
 " traditio," and in the case of a first marriage the " benedictio sacerdo- 
 talis ; " but if a child was born before the wedded woman was given away, 
 even if the contract was never com.pleted, as the " desponsatio " was the 
 more important ceremony in the eye of the law, ancient custom pro- 
 nounced the child legitimate. Nor was this the custom in England only, 
 for as the dowry, according to the Capitularies, was the test of a legal 
 marriage, as long as this principle was in force, the "desponsatio et dotatio" 
 must have legitimated the offspring, even without the completion of the 
 ceremony by the " traditio et sanctificatio." Upon this point the Church 
 seems to have avoided committing herself, and none of the old English 
 canons touch upon the subject ; but by forbidding the presence of her 
 minister at a second marriage, whilst she was obliged to acknowledge 
 that such a marriage was legally binding, the Church in those days 
 tacitly admitted tlie civil nature of the tie, and the abstract legality of an 
 " unsanctified" union.^ 
 
 Great abuses seem to have arisen out of a state of the law in which a 
 wedded woman might, under certain circumstances, become a mother, and 
 her child bo legitimate, Le/ore the giving-away ; and when Giraldus in- 
 veighs against the evils arising out of the abuse of this custom amongst 
 
 '^ Edmund B.; Instit. Pol. 22; jElf. Can., 9; ^If. Pcen., 43; Edc/. Can. M.I.P., 24; 
 Ambrose, ep. 60, sec. 1, e/). 19, sec. 7 ; compare also Scotland under her Early Kimja, vol. ii. 
 p. 324. If man and wife were unavoidably separated by the chances of war or the incidents of 
 service, after the lapse of a certain number of years the Church allowed auother marriage. If 
 the original wife returned, she was to be taken back — " not so," says another authority, 
 " let her find another husband." TJteod. Pan. xix. 24, 1. 
 
 ^ TJieod. Pan., xvi. 29 ; Ecgh. Con/., 20. The penalty for carrying off a " wedded woman" 
 was excomrannication. Ecgb. Pcen. ii. 12. From the penalty of "the king's-wite" being 
 levied in Alfred's Laws {sec. 8), upon the man who carried off " a nun from a minster without 
 the king's or the bishop's leave," it is evident that with their leave she could be married. But 
 the nun at that time was a canoness ; under ordinary circumstances the deacon was not to 
 receive orders, nor the virffo to take her vows, beibre twenty-five years of age ; and in an age of 
 lay abbots and secular canons, the nun was often a lady of rank, who would not trouble herself 
 much with either rule or vows, even after she passed the twenty-five years. These were pro- 
 bably the ladies wlio set the fashion of using dresses and ornaments in nun-minsters — I pur- 
 posely avoid writing nunneries, for they were different — against which various Councils 
 protested.
 
 HANDFASTING. 175 
 
 his countrymen, he is only descriijing a state of society that was far more 
 widely prevalent a century or two before he wrote as follows: — " Matri- 
 moniorum autem onera, nisi expertis antea cohabitatione, commixtione, 
 mornra qnalitate, et prtecipne fecunditate, subire non solent. Proinde 
 puellas, sub certo parentibus pecuniae pretio, et resipiscendi poena statuta, 
 non ducere quideni in primis sed quasi conducere, antiquus in hac j;ente 
 mos obtinuit." Under the name of Hand-fasting the custom " quasi con- 
 ducendi puellas" is traceable in remote districts of England and Scotland, 
 until a comparatively recent era, and is still supposed to be known in 
 Wales as "bundling." In its original acceptation the word liandfast 
 simply meant a contract of any sort, though it seems to have bien 
 gradually a})plied almost exclusively to a marriage-contract, and Palsgrave 
 renders Jiancelles by hand-fasiynrj. This engagement lasted for a year, 
 exactly answering to the original wedding, " and if each party continued 
 constant, the handfasting was renewed for life" — the sanctification and 
 giving-away ensued — " but if either party dissented, the engagement was 
 void, and both w^ere at full liberty to make a new choice; but with this 
 proviso, that the inconstant was to take charge of the offspring of the year 
 of jirobation." Long before the time when Pennant wrote these lines, 
 handfasting had ceased to be countenanced by the law. Writing of 
 Alexander Dunbar, the son of James sixth Earl of Moray and Isobel 
 Innes, Pitscottie says, — " This Isobel was but handfast with him, and 
 deceased before the marriage ; wherethrough this Alexander he was 
 worthy of a greater living than he might succeed to by the laws and 
 practices of this realm." Yet as a custom it was of considerable force, 
 for when Margaret of England sued for a divorce from Angus, she asserted 
 that he had been handfasted to Jane Douglas, " who bare the child to 
 him, and by reason of that pre-contract could not be her lawful husband." 
 At the opening of the sixteenth century, therefore, a contract of this 
 description was still considered to be of sufficient force to be used as a 
 plea for a divorce, which was granted by the Pope, though the child of 
 the union between Angus and the queen-dowager was declared legitimate. 
 In an earlier state of society, such as existed in England and elsewhere 
 before the close of the eleventh century, an arrangement of this descrip- 
 tion would have been carried out without any appeal to Kome.^ 
 
 Many of the pretenders who have been stigmatized in mediaaval his- 
 tory as illegitimate, though they seem to have often met with considerable 
 support amongst their contemporaries, may have been the children of 
 handfast connections, and ancient custom would have looked more favour- 
 ably upon their claims than mediasval law. The Emperor Arnulf seems 
 to have been an instance in point, for the contemporary Saxon chronicler 
 appears to have entertained not the remotest idea of his illegitimacy when 
 he wrote as follows : — " They said they would all hold (their kingdoms) 
 from his hand, because none of them on the father's side was horn thereto 
 
 ' Descr. Camb. Lib. li. c. 6 ; Jamieson, Diet, in voc. Handfast, quoting Pennant, Pit- 
 scottie, and Home.
 
 17G HANDFASTING. 
 
 except him alone." It was Hincmar, tbe devoted adherent of the Western 
 Carolings, who stigmatized the sole representative of the Eastern branch 
 as the son of a concubine, and illegitimate. The mother of Athelstan, 
 though traditionally of high descent, seems never to have been acknow- 
 ledged as the wife of Edward ; yet her son was the legitimate heir and 
 successor of his father, and probably the issue of a wedding that was 
 never completed. From certain expressions used in the Life of St. Editha, 
 or Eadgyfu, the daughter of Edgar, the custom of handfasting, with its 
 abuses, would appear to have been in full force during that king's reign. 
 In alluding to the saint's mother, the writer uses the following words: — 
 " quam quidem Wlftrudem rex sibi perpetuo regni consortia conjungere 
 statuerat, sed ilia a partu absoluta deinceps continenter vivere quam 
 illecebris servire maluit, Christi amore eam invitante." It was evidently 
 the wish of the king to complete the contract after the birth of the 
 child, but Wlftrud declined, retiring into a convent, apparently without 
 a stain upon her character ; and as she was " the inconstant," the child, 
 born before the final giving-away, was brought up by the mother, and 
 dedicated to a religious life. The death of Eadgyfu occurred in her 
 twenty-third year, on the 16th September 984, thus placing her birth in 
 962, or late in 961 ; and as ^Ifthryth, who became a widow in the course 
 of 962, was the wife of Edgar in 964, the connection of Edgar with iEthel- 
 fled, and the birth of Edv/ard, must be placed between these dates. From 
 the brief interval clasping between the birth of Eadgyfu, at which period 
 Edgar seems to have been still attached to Wlftrud, and his union with 
 the high-born widow ^Ifthryth, it seems allowable to conjecture that he 
 never completed his contract with JEthelfled, who, though known from 
 her beauty as " The White Duck," was not apparently of exalted origin. 
 But it would appear as if, in this case, it was the king who drew back, 
 to judge from the date of his marriage with jElfthryth ; and by the usage 
 of handfasting it would have fallen to his lot to provide for the child of 
 the wedded, but not married, /Ethelfled. Accordingly he acknowledged 
 Edward as his legitimate son, and a certain light is thrown upon the 
 history of the period, if it is allowable to assume that the heir to the 
 throne was, as in the case of Athelstan, the issue of a handfast connection. 
 His right to succeed was evidently disputed, though the reason assigned 
 by Osbern, that he was the son of uncrowned parents, is not only the 
 objection of a later age, but, even if it had been raised, might have been 
 equally used against his half-brother Ethelred. The real question was 
 probably about liis legitimacy, which had been acknowledged by his 
 father Edgar ; and as his brief reign was the era of ^Ifhere's struggle 
 against the Ealdermen of East Anglia and Essex, Edward would appear 
 to have been supported by the former for his own purposes"; for the prince 
 met his death in one of the Western Provinces " by his own people," and 
 received the burial of a king from the Mercian Ealderman.^ 
 
 1 Chron. Sax. 887 ; Mahillon, Act. Sand. stec. v. p. 623.
 
 THE KING'S KIN. 177 
 
 III. 
 The King's Kin. 
 
 No allusion is ever made to the Ealderman in the Kentish laws. 
 Members of the royal race ruled, as kings, over the subdivisions of the 
 realm of jEthelbert until the expulsion of the last of them in the time of 
 Offa, who drove out Egbert, and refused to confirm his grants, denying 
 his right to " book land." Osulf of East-Kent, the first-known Ealderman 
 in this part of England, was the contemporary of Wulfred, the last prelate 
 ever chosen from a Kentish monastery to fill the see of Canterbury, until 
 " iEthelnoth the monk," dean of Christ-Church, and a scion of the royal 
 house, was raised to the archbishopric in the reign of Canute. Amongst 
 the Nortluimbrians, the place of the Ealderman seems to have been filled 
 by the High-Reeve. Where Simeon uses Dux, the expression in the 
 chronicle is Heah-Gerefa ; and where the latter authority says that the 
 High-reeves slew Beorn the Ealderman, the northern annalist uses the 
 word Patricius, which occurs repeatedly in his account of the events of 
 the eighth century. Beda, in his Epitome, distinguishes between the 
 Dux regius — Heretoga — who was killed by the Picts in 698, and the 
 Prcefectus — Gerefa — who fought with the same people in 710, though 
 both appear in the Saxon Chronicle as Ealdermen. It may be gathered 
 therefore, that the Northumbrian kingdom was administered, under the 
 king, by High-reeves, over whom there seems to have been placed a 
 superior official, known as the Patricius, whose Anglian name may have 
 been Heretoga, or Ealderman.^ 
 
 In Wessex, however, from the time of Ini, the contemporary of the 
 Kentish Wihtred, the Ealderman is found in connection with the Shire, 
 jointly presitling over the Folk-moot with the Bishop. Occasionally they 
 marched to battle together, each carrying out the part assigned to him ; 
 and whilst the Ealderman did his best to defeat the foe with the arm of 
 the flesh, the Bishop and liis clergy lent their spiritual aid by offering up 
 prayers around the sacred banner, though sometimes the ardour of battle 
 seems to have led them to participate more actively in the fray. But 
 though the Bishop may have been the judge in all ecclesiastical causes, 
 the office of the Ealderman in the Folk-moot was not judicial. If a man 
 demanded justice in the days of Ini, he carried his plaint before " the 
 Shire-man, or some other judge." Debt was declared, in Alfred's reign, 
 " before the King's-reeve in the Folk-moot ; " and chapmen, journeying 
 up the country, were bound to bring their men " before the King's-reeve 
 in the Folk-moot." To "judge righteous dooms" is the exhortation of 
 Edward to his Reeves, and though Bishops, Ealdermen, and Reeves were 
 
 ' Cod. Dip. cxxxii., cxxxv., clvii., cxcv., ccxxvi. ; Chroii. Scu:. and Sim. Dun. ad. an. 778, 
 780 ; Beda, II. E. L. v. c. 24. In later limes, the Eorl and Hold seem to have answered, amongst 
 the Danish population of Northumbria, to the Ealderman and Heah-gerei'a amongst the 
 Angles. 
 
 M
 
 178 THE KING'S K IX. 
 
 all alike enjoined by Athelstan to unite in " keeping the Frith," the Eeeves 
 alone were ordered " to take the wed, each in his oivoi shire ; " it was the 
 Reeve who, in the days when the Hue and Cry went from shire lo shire, 
 was bound to assist with his manung. But, say the Laws of Alfred, in 
 whose days fighting- in certain cases was still lawful, " if a man have not 
 sufficient power to besiege (his foe), let him ride to the Ealderman" — if 
 military force was required, the appeal was no longer to the Gerefa, but 
 to the Heretoga. Bot, or personal compensation, was paid to an ealder- 
 man, a V)ishop, or an archbishop, by the man who fought, or drew his 
 weapon, in their presence ; but he who fought before an ealderman in 
 the Folk-moot paid " wer and wite" as hot, with an additional fine of 
 120 scillings, the regius bannus or king's-wite, to the ealderman ; if he 
 merely disturbed the Folk- moot by drawing his weapon, he paid a king's- 
 wite, — for the eald 'rraan sat as the representative of the king. Each 
 greater shire — for the name originally only meant a division — was a 
 kingdom in miniature ; the Ealderman led the king's forces as Heretoga, 
 and sat in the Folk -moot as Stallr, or representative of the king, but the 
 Shire-reeve, like the Graphio of the Franks, was the king's judge.^ 
 
 Great changes were introduced in the course of the tenth century ; 
 the older distinctions of condition and race were merged in Twelfhynd 
 and Tvvyhynd, Angle and Dane ; and as the authority of the West- 
 Saxon sovereigns extended far beyond the original limits of their ancestral 
 kingdom, the power of the Ealderman seems to have risen with that of 
 the king. " Let Oslac Eorl further this . . . and let writings be sent to 
 both iElfere Ealderman and ^thelwine Ealderman," — such were the 
 directions by which Edgar secured the establishment of the " Frith-borh " 
 throughout the whohi district between Watling Street and the northern 
 marches of Danish Northunibria, embracing the three great provinces or 
 duchies of Mercia, East Anglia, and Danish Northumbria. " Sigeric 
 Archbishop, and jj^thelweard Ealderman, and iElfric Ealderman, ob- 
 tained of the king that they might buy Frith for those districts which 
 they, under the king's hand, ruled over." This was in 994, when all the 
 south country was evidently under the rule of the archbishop and tivo 
 ealdermen. In a charter, dated a few years later, ^Ethehverd appears as 
 " Dux Occidentalium provinciarum," and ^Ifric as " Dux Wentanensium 
 provinciarum," the old kingdom of Wessex being evidently divided at 
 this period into two great (hichies, which may be distinguished as the 
 Western and Central {)rovinces, the former embracing Devon, Somerset, 
 and Dorset, the latter the shires of Hampton and Wilts. The Ealderman 
 was no longer connected with a shire, for he must have presided over a 
 duchy or a province -an ealderdom embracing many shires. In the 
 ordinance of Ethelred respecting Danish Mercia north of the Welland, 
 the Grith that ranked next after that which was given " from the king's 
 
 ^ Ini, 8 ; Alf. 22, 34, 38, 42 ; Echo. 1 ; Ath. v. 8, 10. Egbert "then sent from his army 
 his son iEthelwulf, and Ealhstan his bishop, and Wulfheard his ealderman, into Kent with a 
 large force." "And the king (Ethelred) then committed the forces to the leading of iElfric 
 the ealderman, and of Thored the eorl, and of Bishop .<l?]lfstan and of Bishop Jiscwig." Citron. 
 Sax. 823, 092.
 
 THE KING'S KIN. 1 79 
 
 own hand," was '" the f;i'ith wliich the ealdcrman and kiug's-rceve give 
 in the assembly of the Five-Burghs." It is impossible to look upon the 
 Five-Burghs as a Shire, upon the Assembly as a Shire-moot, and upon 
 the King's-reeve as a Shire-reeve in this case, (rodwine, Ealderman of 
 Lindisse, is mentioned by the Saxon Chronicle amongst the slain at 
 Assandun, and his ealderdoni was only a portion of the district in ques- 
 tion, which must have ranked as a province or duchy. The deaths of 
 several King's High-reeves are mentioned in the Chronicle during the 
 reign of Ethelred : " Leofsige, whom I raised from thegn to ealderman — 
 de satrapis tnli, ducem constituendo — audvEfic my reeve, whom I reckoned 
 foremost amongst my high-reeves — primatem inter primates meos taxavi " 
 — such are the expressions attriljuted to Ethelred in one of his charters ; 
 and the King's-reeve, who joined the Ealderman in giving Grith in the 
 Assembly of the Five-Burghs, was apparently a High-reeve, ranking 
 above the ordinary Shire-reeve. "Each of the Deutscblands, Saxony, 
 Franconia, Suabia. and Bavaria, has its own Pfaltz-graf," says the 
 Sachsenspiegel ; and the High-reeve seems to have stood in much the 
 same position towards the greater Ealderman and the Shire-reeve, as the 
 Pfaltz-graf did towards the Herzog and Grraf of the Empire as it was 
 constituted in those days.^ 
 
 It was evidently the policy of the princes who were raised to the 
 supreme authority in Germany to establish and perpetuate the power of 
 their respective Houses by distributing the greater fiefs amongst their 
 own kindred, or amongst Filrsfen, who were allied to them by marriage. 
 Franconian dukes surrounded the throne of Henry, and rose in revolt 
 against his son Otho ; but before the close of the tenth century all the 
 greater fiefs were in the hands of princes belonging to, or in alliance with, 
 the House of Saxony. The same may be said of the Franconian House 
 of Waiblingen, and of the Suabian House of HohenstauflPen ; and, as 
 fiefs gradually became hereditary in the time of the emperors of the 
 latter race, most of the ruling families in Germany at the jiresent day 
 trace their origin to a Suabian ancestor. England, in the tenth century, 
 exhibited a very similar picture, for, after the extinction of the earlier 
 royal Houses, most of the greater provinces, as they fell mider the 
 dominion of the West-Saxon sovereigns, seem to have become the 
 appanages of the King's kin. The first member of the royal race who 
 can be traced with certainty is Athelstan the Half-king, the Eaklerman 
 of East Anglia, who exchanged his patrimonial forty hides, in his native 
 province of Devon, for the forty hides at Hatfield, which Edgar gave to 
 Ordma3r and his wife. jElfwen, the wife of Athelstan, who was appar- 
 
 * Edg. Sup. 15; Ethelr. ii. 1, iii. 1; Cod. Dip. dcxcviii., dccxvii. The Pfaltz-graveii of 
 the duchies must not be conCounded witli the I'alatiiK! of the Kliciiish provinces, who was 
 Pfaltz-graf of the Empire. Tn a great asseuibly in wliicli tlie men of many .shires were in- 
 terested, iEtlieivvine the EaUlernjan and the King's-reeve sat in judgment. The latter must 
 have surely been a liigh-rceve. Hist. Ram. c. 55. By degrees tiie High-rceve xcems to have 
 settled into the High-Sberifl', or Vice-comes of the highest class ; for the early Scir-gerefa does 
 U0t answer to the Shire-reeve of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, nor does the vicecomes 
 amongst the French answer to the English High-Sheriff of carlv uavs.
 
 180 THE KING'S Kiy. 
 
 ently a sister of Bishop Eadnoth — for ^Ifwen, the bishoi)'s sister, was 
 known as " the Lady" — is said to have been the foster-mother of Edgar, 
 a connection that seems to throw a certain light upon therivahy between 
 her foster-son and his elder brother. Athelstan, whose name is found in 
 connection with the charters of his great namesake, assumed the cowl in 
 956, and his eldest son, JCthelwold, became one of the foremost supporters 
 of his foster-brother Edgar.^ 
 
 Around the throne of Edwy, on the other hand, were grouped all the 
 leading members of the royal house. Leofwine, " the king's kinsman," 
 JElfhere and his brother iElfheah, " the king's kinsmen," and ^Ifgar 
 and his brother Biithferth, also described as kinsmen of the king, attest 
 his earliest charter, dated in 955. JClfhere was raised in the following 
 year to the ealderdom of Mercia, and owing probably to the ancient 
 rivalry of the people of his province with the West Saxons, attached 
 himself to Edgar ; but all the rest of the royal house adhered, without 
 an exception, to Edwy, The name of Ordgar, the future father-in-law 
 of Edgar, is also attached to a charter of Edwy dated in 958, and the 
 signature of ^thelwerd appears for the first time amongst the ministri 
 in the following year. Brithelm, the bishop of Sherborn, who was raised 
 to the see of Winchester upon the death of Odo, and subsequently 
 chosen to fill the vacant archbishopric when J^^lfsige perished upon the 
 Alps, is also to be numbered amongst the kinsmen of the king. His 
 hopes were blighted by the death of Edwy, and Dunstan was promoted 
 to Canterbury in his place ; but Edgar, as soon as he succeeded to his 
 brother as head of his house, seems to have hastened to effect a recon- 
 ciliation with his relations. Edwy died upon the 1st of October, and 
 before the close of the year the name of ^Ifeah appears amongst the 
 Duces, as Ealderman of the Central provinces; grants of land were 
 heaped upon " Brithelm, my well-beloved kinsman and bishop," to atone 
 probably for the loss of the archbishopric ; and the place of ^Ifeah, wlio 
 had always assumed the foremost rank amongst the attendant ministri 
 under Edwy, is now filled by -^Ifgar, whose name is always followed by 
 that of his brother Brithferth. Not until the death of Brithelm in 964 
 was a single step taken to introduce " the Rule" into the monasteries of 
 Edgar's kingdom.^ 
 
 Most of the ealdermen who attest the charters of Edgar are easily 
 recognised. iElfhere, -^Ifeah, and iEthelwine, all kinsmen of the king, 
 held the ealderdoms of Mercia, South Hampton, or the Central provinces, 
 and East Anglia. Ordgar, the father-in-law of the king, was raised in 
 964 to be ealderman of Devon, or the Western provinces ; whilst Brith- 
 
 > Eist. Ram. L. 1. c. 93 ; Hist. El. L. 2. c. 13. The name of Atlielstan's father was 
 .S^thelred, according to Cod. Dip. cccxxxviii. After Ealderman ^thelfrith lost all bis charters 
 in a fire in 903, Lis right to Wrington was acknowledged, which " .iEthelstan dux, filius 
 .^thelredi, conversus et factiis monachus, optulit secum ad monasterium Glastingense, 
 illamque sibi largitus est Athelstan rex." He cannot have been a son of the Mercian ealder- 
 man, and hardly a son of the king who died eighty-five years before the name of Athelstan is 
 missed from the charters, though perhaps a grandson. 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip. ccccxsxvi., mccxiv., mccxxvii., raccxxx.
 
 THE KING'S KIN. 181 
 
 notb, brother-in-law of ^thelflaad at-Domerham, held the ealderdom of 
 the East Saxons, which had previously been given to his father-in-law 
 -S^lfgar, evidently through his connection with the royal house. ^Ifgar 
 the Minister died in 962, his brother's name appears in the foremost 
 place, and, after the disappearance of Brithfeith, the signature of ^thel- 
 werd stands firht, all kinsmen of the king. Uslac, " the great Eorl " 
 ruled over the Anglo-Danes after 966 ; his name appears as Dux in the 
 charters in 965 ; but neither bishop nor ealderman from beyond the 
 province of York ever attested a grant of Edgar. A state of anarchy 
 seems to have ensued upon the death of the king in 975, amidst which 
 Oslac was outlawed, and a civil war all but broke out between the rival 
 houses of Mercia and East Anglia. ^Ifhere, it appears, who had already 
 driven the monks out of his own province of Mercia, threatened to 
 expel them from the diocese of Dorchester, whilst ^thelwine and Brith- 
 noth flew to arms to protect the Regulars, who looked upon the ealdermen 
 of East Anglia and Essex as their patrons. The rule of St. Benedict, 
 however, was very far from being the true cause of the dissension.-^ 
 
 The diocese of Dorchester, as it existed in the tenth century, though 
 it was once a portion of the Mercian kingdom, was not included under 
 the jurisdiction of the Mercian ealderman. The shires of Bedford, Hert- 
 ford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Northampton, with the district of 
 Kesteven, seem to have belonged to the ealderdom of ^^thelwine ; 
 and as in the reign of Ethelred the reeves of Oxford and Buckingham 
 were brought to task by Leofsige, ealderman of Essex, the remainder 
 of the diocese would appear to have been placed under the ealderman 
 of the East Saxons. Accordingly when the religious houses, which 
 had been destroyed during the inroads of the Danes, were restored 
 and filled with monks, instead of clerks or secular canons, the bretliren 
 looked upon the ealdermen of East Anglia and Essex as their temporal 
 patrons ; and whilst the grateful historian of Ely has handed Brith- 
 noth down as the protector raised especially by Providence to coun- 
 teract the impious designs of jElfhere, the scribe of Ramsey, ignoring 
 altogether the East Saxon hero, lavishes all his encomiums upon ^Ethel- 
 wine. But the Anglian population of the diocese probably looked upon 
 the monks as " new men ;" for the secular canons were generally at this 
 period — as in Scotland about a century and a half later — members of the 
 leading provincial families, and it had long been customary to fill the 
 sees and minsters with bishops and abbots, who, in return, leased out 
 the church lands amongst their kindred. To su{)port the secular canons, 
 therefore, was to u[)hold " the time-honoured customs of the past," and 
 in his inroad upon the monks vElfhere may have been moved, less by 
 any inveterate hostility to the Benedictine rule, than by a desire to 
 
 1 Chron. Sax. and Flor. Wig., 962, 966, 975. The liislorian of Ely (L. 2, c. 7, 8) says that 
 the sister-in-law of Brithnoth was the wife of " Athelstan dux;" but ilOilielflaed at-Donierhani, 
 the widow of Kint; Ednnnid and sister of Brithnoth's wife il'^lflted, niakta not the least allusioa 
 to such a connection in her will. Tlnrpe, Jh'plom., p. 519.
 
 182 THE KING'S KIK 
 
 re-establish the influence of the old provincial families of Anglian origin, 
 whose feelings would have naturally leant towards a reunion with 
 Mercia. In oiher words he hoped, amidst the weakness and confusion 
 of a minority, to advance the boundaries of his ealderdom as far as the 
 frontiers of the old Mercian kingdom, southward of the Welland. 
 TEthelwine, on the other hand, and Brithnoth, were bound by the ties of 
 mutual interest to " keep pace with the progress of the age," and to unite 
 in supporting the " new men." The monastery of Ramsey, which may 
 be taken as an example of the novel foundations, was peculiarly the 
 creation of iEthehvine, who was also the patron, or proprietor, of St. 
 Neots and Croyland. The brotherhood, originally planted at Westbury 
 by Oswald, who was himself a Dane, and apparently from the diocese of 
 Dorchester, was very soon transferred to the new foundation of ^thel- 
 wine, under the superintendence of his maternal uncle, Eadnoth, who 
 only held the office of Prior, or Provost ; for " he himself stood in the 
 place of Abbot, and there was no Abbot of Ramsey as long as he lived," 
 — a family arrangement that somewhat deteriorates from the disinterested- 
 ness of the attachment to the r)enedictine rule that is so generally attri- 
 buted to the almost beatified Ealderraan of the East Angles. Thus 
 underneath an apparent quarrel over a question of Church discipline 
 lay, in reality, a contest for power between the great rival Ealdermen of 
 Mercia, East Anglia, and Essex. ^ 
 
 It is very doubtful if the Benedictines were re-established in Mercia 
 before the death of ^If here in 983. who was succeeded in the ealderdom 
 by his son ^Elfric, sometimes known ;is Puer — Gild or Child — perhaps to 
 distinguish liim from another ^Ifric, with whom he has been generally 
 confounded. The Central provinces, or ealderdom of South-Hampton, 
 passed from yElfeah, who died in 971, to ^thclmasr, whose death is 
 entered in the Saxon Chronicle under 982.^ The signature of iElfric 
 dux is then attached to some charters attested by .iElfhere, after whose 
 death in 983 two ealdermen affix the same name to the royal grants 
 during the following year or two, /Elfric of Mercia, and ^Elfric of 
 South-Hampton, — the " Ealderman iElfric ," who has gained an unenvi- 
 able notoriety in the history of the period. The career of /Elfric Cild, 
 the Ealderman of Mercia, was brief Two years after his father's 
 ileath he obtained the Abbacy of Abingdon for his brother Eadwine, 
 and was outlawed before the close of the same year in a great council 
 of "the bishops, ealdermen, and leading nobles of the realm," held 
 at Cirencester. The cause of his forfeiture is assigned to an illegal 
 enforcement of his claims upon certain lands, some of which seem 
 
 * Mist. Ham. c. 55; Cod. JJip. mcclxxxix. "Ipsemet fuit in loco abbatis, nee fuit aliquis 
 abbas Ramesiaj tempore quo vixit." I^ng. Mov. (Ellis and Bandinel), vol. ii. p. 547. 
 
 ^ .iEtlielnia3r seems to have died early in 983, for the ten hides at Cliff were granted in that 
 year both to "yEthelmrer dux," and to ''JFAhL'hv'me minister''^ {Cod. Dip. dcxxxvi., dcxxxviii). 
 The wording of the two charters is identical, one name merely replacing another ; and as from 
 dcxcii. it may be gathered that Ealderman ^T^thelmcer had a son of the name of JEthelwine, it 
 may be supposed that, on the death of the ealderman, the land in question was made over to 
 his son.
 
 THE KING'S KIN. 183 
 
 to have been in the diocese of Dorchester, and to his open resistance 
 against the royal anthority. Some of these very lands, however, had 
 been granted to his father ^Elf here as far back as the first year of Edwy's 
 reign, and the true reason of ^Ifric's ruin, which seems to have been 
 premeditated, must be sought for in the overgrowai power of his father, 
 and perhaps in the attempts of the Mercian ealdermen to extend their 
 jurisdiction beyond the limits of the province assigned to them. No 
 successor was appointed to ^Ifric, and the great Ealderdom of Mercia 
 became a memory of the past, ^thelwine, who upon the death of his 
 rival ^Ifheie assumed the foremost place amongst the ealdermen once 
 occupied by his father, the Half-king, died in 992, " the kinsman of 
 Edgar, and Ealderman of the whole of Anglia," is said to have been 
 inscribed U])on his tomb, and he also was followed by no successor iu his 
 dignity. /Ethelwerd, his eldest son and representative, fell at Assandun 
 in 1016, but the ibremost place in East Anglia was long filled by 
 Ulfketyl, who was killed on the same occasion at the head of the men 
 of his province, and whose name is of frequent occurrence in the charters, 
 always ap[)earing, however, amongst the Blinistri. Evidently the over- 
 powerful ealderdoms of J\Iercia and East Anglia were broken up, and 
 from this time forward " held in the king's hand," and administered by 
 High-reeves.^ 
 
 It is observable that, in the charters of the tenth century, one of the 
 ealdermen invariably takes })recedence over all the others. Towards 
 tlie close of Athelstan's reign Wull'gar seems to have enjoyed this privi- 
 lege, in which he was succeeded in the course of Edmund's reign by 
 Athelstan the Half-king, who again was followed in succession by ^If- 
 
 ' Chron. Sax. 982, 983, 985, 992, 1016; Cod. Dip. dcciii., niccxiv., mcccxii. The con- 
 nection of yElfric the pusillanimous with the Central provinces is shown by Chron. Sax., 1003, 
 and 6'otZ. Z>i/j. dcxlii. and dcxeviii. In the former charter Wulmrer and ^thelweard probably 
 represent the Shire-reeves of Hants and Wilts. Eadwine is omitted from the list of Abbots 
 in the Book of Abingdon, and irom the expressions in mcccv., the short period of his Abbacy 
 seems to have been looked upon as an era of unjust alienation. Tiie original monastery of 
 Abingdon was, for a long time, dependent upon the Mercian kings, and Berkshire was in the 
 diocese of Dorchester. In a charter of Athelstan, indeed, Winsi, the bishop of the latter diocese, 
 is called bishop of Bwrrocscire (mcxxix). One Ms. of Florence describes the brother of Ead- 
 wine as " .^Ifric major-domus regias." iElfgar, son of ^Ifric the ealderman, whose eyes were 
 put out by order of Ethelred in 993 {Chron. Sax.), was pi'obably grandson and representative 
 of yElfhere, rather than a son of the oiher iElfrir, who continued to retain his ealderdom for 
 many years after this entry. To the Mercian .^i^liiic an elder brother has been given in the 
 person of " Odda Dux " whose body was ibund at Deerhurst in 1259, and who is said, upon 
 the death of his wicked father .(Elfhere, to have restored all the lands taken from the monks, 
 and retiring into the cloister, to have resigned the ealderdom to his younger brother yEll'ric. 
 The signature (jf the historical Odda is appended to many charters, ajtpcaiing in 1014 at the 
 earliest, and is occasionally followed by that of "iElfric, his brother" — hence the confusion. 
 On the banishment of Godwine and his family in 1051, Odda was placed over the A\'estern 
 jirovinces, and signs as "Odda Dux;" and after the return of CSodwine in 1053, Od<la and 
 yElfric attest a charter, very significantly, as monhs. They had probably excellent reasons for 
 assuming the cowl, but Odda became a monk seventy yaixrs after the death of his supposed 
 father, ^Ifliere, with whom he was in no way connected. — (Chron. Sax. and I'lor. Wig. 
 1051, 105(3; Cod. /-';'/;. dccxcviii., dccciv., dcccv., meccix). /Ellric's death is noticed in 1053, 
 that of " Odda Eorl" in 105G, with an allusion lo his assumption of the cowl ; but his signature 
 as dux never occurs alter his appearance as inovachim.
 
 184 THE KING'S KIN. 
 
 here and iEthelwine, the three latter certainly, and probably Wulfgar, 
 being numbered amongst the kindred of the king. Upon the death of 
 ^Ethelwine, /Ethelwerd, whose name appears amongst the Duces in the 
 closing years of Edgar's reign, assumed the foremost place, and he describes 
 hiaiself in his letter to Matilda as " Patricius Consul," and " Patricius." 
 The title of Patricias seems to have been given in the eighth century to 
 the leading official in the Northumbrian kingdom, ranking next to the 
 sovereign — occasionally superseding him — and it may have been applied 
 at the period when .-Ethelwerd wrote to the senior Ealderman. During 
 his " patriciate" the founder of the later house of Mercia, Leofwine, 
 makes his first appearance amongst the Duces ; but only in the capacity 
 of Ealderman of the Hwiccas, and the remainder of the extensive 
 ealderdom of ^Elfhere and iElfric was evidently retained " in the king's 
 hand." ^dilfric of South-Hampton, iElfhelm and Waltheof of the 
 Northumbrians, Northman and Leofsige, complete the number of 
 ealdermen at this period ; the latter the successor of Brithnoth, who 
 must have reached a mature age when he met a soldier's death in 991, 
 for he was married when ^Ifgar made his will forty years before. The 
 signature of iEthelwerd is missed after 998, and no successor was 
 appointed to his ealderdom. Four years later Leofsige surprised and 
 slew ^fic, the king's High-reeve, in his own house, and was outlawed in 
 consequence ; forfeiture was pronounced against his widowed sister for 
 sheltering her brother, and the province of the East Saxons ceasing to 
 be administered by an ealderman, vElfric, iElfhelm, and Leofwine were 
 alone intrusted with the higher dignity.^ 
 
 iElfthryth, the queen-mother, soon followed ^thelwerd to the grave, 
 and the principal advisers of Ethelred, at this period seem to have been 
 his kinsmen ^thelmter, his uncle Ordulf — their names invariably occupy 
 the foremost place amongst the Mimsfri — and Wulfgeat, his favourite 
 thegn. Ordulf, the founder of Tavistock Abbey, is called by Florence 
 '' Primas Domnonite," or High-reeve of Devon ; and as the bishop of 
 Sherborne "greets TEthelmjer kindly" in an official document, it may be 
 implied that the ealderdom of the Western provinces was divided between 
 iEthelmter and Ordulf, Ordgar and ^thelwerd had each in succession 
 lield the whole ealderdom, and the respective claims of their sons may 
 have been compromised by this division — for ^thelmjer " the great," the 
 founder of Eynsham Abbey, was the son of -<Ethelwerd " Bishop Brit- 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip., dclxxxvii., dcxcviii., dccxix., Thorpe, Diplom., p. 505. The names of Wal- 
 theof and Northman only appear amongst iheducea in one charter. ^Ethelred, the son-in-law 
 of Alfred, is described in one of his charters (cccxi.) as " Dnx et Patricius Merciorum," in 
 another as "Dux et Dominator ;" but he always appears in the vernacular as Ealderman, 
 without any distinction in his title from the three ealdermen, who with the three bishops, 
 sometimes attest bis charters. Each of the provinces of the Magestetas, the Hwiccas, and the 
 Mercians, seems to have been provided with its bishop and its ealderman, Ethelred repre- 
 senting the Senior ealderman, or Patricius, wielding the royal authority over all, — a Half-ling. 
 ill other words. From the expressions of the Chronicle {ad. an. 825) " Ludeca and his five 
 ealdermen," it would appear as if, before the Danish conquest, there had been an ealderman 
 and a bishop over each of the /fi-e provinces at that time constituting the Mercian kingdom.
 
 THE KING'S KIN. 185 
 
 helm's kinsman," or, in other words, of the Patrician who was the corre- 
 spondent of Matilda, ^thelwerd and ^thelnoth, who was afterwards 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, were the sons of ^thelraeer, and he had a 
 daughter who was married to another ^thelwerd. Closely following the 
 signatures of ^thelmasr and Ordulf will generally be found the names 
 of Wulfric and his nephew Wulfeah. Wulfric, " Wulfrun's son," whose 
 high descent is noticed in more than one charter, was the founder of 
 Burton Abbey ; and unless the title of " Consul et Comes Merciorum," 
 under which he appears in the Annals of Burton, is to be ascribed 
 altogether to the gratitude of the brotherhood, he may be supposed to 
 have ruled over the northern portion of iElf here's ealderdom in the capacity 
 of High-reeve. Wulfeah and his brother Ufegeat were the sons of 
 ^Ifhelm, ealderman of the Northumbrian Danes, who is named by 
 Wulfric in his will as his brother. The daughter of Morcar and 
 Eadgyth was Wulfric's godchild, and whilst both her parents were bene- 
 fited considerably by the will, the manner in which her godfather leaves 
 her " the bulla which was her grandmother's," seems to point to a closer 
 relationship between them. Was she not his daughter's child ? The 
 name of iElf helm's wife, according to Florence, was Wulfrun ; and as a 
 Wulfrun " bequeathed the land at Kamsley, and the hythe that belongs 
 thereto, to iEthelma3r her kinsman," it can scarcely be doubted that, 
 either through his wife or his mother, the ealderman and his family were 
 connected with the kindred of the king. The names of ^Ifhelm, 
 Wulfric, and Morcar would have raised the country from the Welland 
 to the Tyne ; iElfgyfu, "of Northampton," the daughter of ^Ifhelm and 
 Wulfrun, became the first wife of Canute, and the whole of the north of 
 England held in after times to her son, Harold Harefoot. Eadgyth, the 
 widow of Siferth, was married, after the murder of her husband, to 
 Edmund Ironside, who " went north to the Five-Burghs, and soon took 
 possession of all Siferth's property, and Morcar's, and all the people sub- 
 mitted to him." Did they recognise the rival claims of Wulfric's grand- 
 child?^ 
 
 The character of Ethelred, as it may be read in some of his charters, 
 displays a singular mixture of treachery and imbecility. In the year 
 after the forfeiture of ^Ifric the Mercian, the king harried the diocese of 
 Rochester, and some twelve years afterwards he lays the whole blame 
 
 ' Cod. Dip. dccv'm., dccxiv., mcccxii. ; niorpe, Dip. p. 543 : JFlor. Wifj. 997, 1035. Tlie 
 confirmation of Ethelred (dccxiv.) alludes to lands eiven by Bishop Britlielm '" .iEthelwe.irdo 
 propinquo suo, patri videlicet .dCtlielmari.'' Tho three iElhelwerds, father, son, and son-in- 
 law, of illltlielnifcr, must be carefully distinp;uislied ; nor must ^thtdmiBr bo confounded with 
 ealderman ^iholmrer, the father of iEtliciwine. In the grant of some lands at Diirablcton 
 (dcxcii.), which he bequeathed by his will to Archbishop 71<]lfric, Wulfric is called " Wulfruiu; 
 suna," so that there can be no doubt about the descent of Wulfric and ^<]]fiielni fi-oni AVulfrun. 
 But who was Wulfrun? "This year Anlaf stormed Tamworth," says Chron. tSax. (D.) 943, 
 " there during the pillage was Wulfrun taken." The kinswoman of il'^thelnu'cr is called in 
 the Latin Wulfin, in the Anglo-tSaxon Wulfrun. As a conjecture, it seems probable that 
 Wulfrun captured at Tamworth was the father of Wulfric and yl^^lfiielm — Wulfrun or Widl'runa, 
 the kinswoman of il'^.flielmaT, the ?ct'/c of .(^'^iflielni, who may have owed his advancement tn 
 the ealderdom of the Northumbrians to this connection with the king's kin.
 
 18G THE KING'S Km. 
 
 upon his adviser ^Ethelsige, "that enemy of God and the people." 
 Wulfgeat, in the days of his prosperity extolled as the royal ftivourite, is 
 vaguely accused of untold enormities after his ruin. Hardly has the 
 name of ^Ifthryth disappeared from the charters before her son hastens 
 to grant the monasteiy at Bradford to the convent at Shaftesbury, in 
 memory of his " brother Edward, that blessed martyr ;" as if he seized 
 upon the earliest opportunity of shifting the whole responsibility of a 
 crime, by which he profited, upon his dead mother. Ever a tool in the 
 hands of others, he seems to have been ready at any moment to abandon 
 and betray them. The signature of Ordulf is no longer attached to the 
 royal grants after 1005, and almost as soon as the influence of the king's 
 uncle must have ceased to be felt at Court, the policy of Eadric Streona 
 began to be developed. Wulfric, who died about 1002, bequeathed the 
 greater portion of his vast property to ^Elf helm and his sons, and to 
 Morcar and his wife and daughter. ^Ifhelm, who had thus become 
 the male representative of both branches of his family, was lured to his 
 death at Shrewsbury in 1006, and treacherously murdered ; his sons 
 Wulfeah and Ufegeat were blinded by the king's order ; and Wulfgeat, 
 the former favourite, with his wife, jElfgyfa, the widow of iElfgar " the 
 reeve," was involved in the same ruin. The ealderdom of Mercia fell to 
 the share of Eadric — the portion of the old province apparently, that 
 seems to have been admmistered by Wiilfric, for the Hwiccas still 
 remained under the jurisdiction of Leofwine — whilst the ealderdom of 
 .Elfhelni purchased the support of the Northumbrian Uchtred, who, by 
 his subsequent marriage with one of Ethelred's daughters, became the 
 brother-in-law of Eadric.^ 
 
 Upon the return of Ethelred after the death of Sweyn, Morcar and 
 Siferth, Senior thegns of the Five-Burghs — High reeves or Holds pro- 
 bably — became the next of Eadric's victims, the king betraying his com- 
 plicity in the crime by confiscating their property to his own use. But 
 he was anticipated by his son Edmund, who, marrying the widow of 
 Siferth, asserted her claims in his own person ; and Eadric, as soon as his 
 crime proved fruitless, deserted the yEtheling. He united with Canute in 
 ravaging Mercia — AVarwickshire, or a portion of Leofwine's ealderdom, — 
 and as the Mercians refused to join the army of the yEtheling without the 
 presence of the king, Edmund and Uchtred, when they were thought to 
 have marched to oppose Canute, contented themselves with turning aside 
 to harry Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Cheshire — or Eadric's province. 
 In other words, the northern Mercians, though they refused to follow 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip. dec, dccvi., mcccv., mcccx. ; Cliron. Sax. and Flor. Wig. lOOG. Who was 
 iEtbelsige? In the An. Camh. 993, jE'Je/wJ Anglicus is said to have assisted Gwyn, son of 
 Eineon, in ravaging Dyved, Cardigan, Gower, and Kidwely. Tlie Bruty Tyicys. 991, calls 
 him "Eclis the great, a Saxon Twysog" — Dux. Ethelred, according to Gaimar. 1. 4105, had 
 a brother Edmnnd, who was married to a Welsh princess, and was troublesome between the 
 death of Dunstan and the close of the century. Of the four sons of Athelstan the Half-king, 
 ^'thelsige alone left no bequests to the monastery of Ramsey. He was certainly the foster- 
 brother of the king. Was he the outlaw, and husband of the Welsh princess?
 
 THE KING'S KIK. 1S7 
 
 Eadric into the Danish camp, declined to figlit against their ealderman 
 without the sanction of the royal presence. It was easier to lay waste an 
 unresisting province than to oppose Canute, and as soon as the Danish 
 army entered Yorkshire Uchtred tendered his submission ; Canute per- 
 mitted the blood-feud of Thoi'brand Hold to follow its natural course, 
 and made over the vacant province, on Uchtred's death, to Eric the 
 Norwegian Jarl. In the contest following upon the death of Ethelred, 
 Hampshire and Wiltshire fought on the side of the Dane, but Dorset, 
 Somerset, and Devon, the centre and stronghold of the king's kin, held 
 as loyally to Alfred's heir as their forefathers had clung to Edmund's 
 mighty ancestor, and for a short time with almost equal success. The 
 retreat of Canute towards the eastern coast may explain the reconciliation 
 of Eadric with his royal brother-in-law, and he fought upon the losing 
 side at Assandun, quitting the field in time with the Magesa3ttas — the 
 northern Mercians seem to have followed the husband of vElfgyfu of 
 Northampton — to claim the re^vard of treachery from the victor.^ 
 
 Canute completed all that Eadric had begun. J^^thelmaer the Great 
 died in, or soon after, 1014, and he was the last ealderman of the royal 
 house of Alfred's brother Ethelred. " Who will place Edwy the ^thel- 
 ing in my power?" was the question addressed by Canute to Eadric, 
 who answered " ^Ethelwerd." All the honours and power of his ancestry 
 were promised to yEthelwerd, and he consented, " but with no intention 
 of fulfilling the bargain," adds Florence, " for he was of the noblest 
 race in England." ^thelwerd the son of ^thelmger was put to death, 
 with other nobles, at Christmas 1017, and then, or soon afterwards, 
 Edwy the ^theling was " betrayed by his dearest friends." The signa- 
 ture of " ^thelwerd Dux" is appended to various charters during the 
 two following years until, at the great Gemote held at Cirencester at 
 Easter in 1020, '" ^lithelwerd the ealderman and Edwy king of the 
 Ceorls" were outlawed. /Ethelwerd the ealderman was probably the 
 son-in-law of ^tlielma3r. Did he gain the almost hereditary province 
 of his wife's family by betraying the ^Etheling to Canute ? His apparent 
 connection, again, with both the Edwys is not a little remarkable. Was 
 Edwy the Ceorl's king a prototype of Perkin Warbeck, and of the 
 Polish adventurer who personated Dimitri Ivanovitch, the last of the 
 house of Kurik ? Was he a personator of the betrayed yEtheling, hailed 
 as the rightful heir by many of the lower orders, and was iEthelwerd 
 suspected of connivance in the fraud in order to conceal his share in the 
 treachery? His surviving brother-in-law, iEthelnoth son of iT]thelma}r, 
 
 1 Chron. Sax. Jind Flor. Wig. 1015, 1016. That Morcar the senior thegn of tlie Five- 
 Curghs was identical witli the Morcar whose name appears so often in tlie cliarters in conipany 
 with tliose of Wulfric, Wiilfeah, Wulfgcat, ^Ethehiiaer, and Ordulf, and with tiie IMorcar of 
 Wiilfric s will, seems hardly to bo doubted. Siferth, according to Florence, was liis brother — 
 he calls them sons of Earngrim — but, strange as it may appear to the idea.s of modern times, 
 this connection (if it existed) does not necessarily preclude the marriage of SiJerth with his 
 brother's daugliter. " Ego /Klfridus Episcopus dabo illas v. mans.is Ueorhtwenc filiaj Wulf- 
 helmi, quce fnil uxor fratris illiiis Beorthcre " (Cod. TJij>. cccl.K.wi.) 'J'here was episcopal 
 sanction for such an union in the rrign oi' Atlulslan.
 
 188 
 
 THE KING'S KIK 
 
 was raised to the See of Canterbury in the year of ^tbelwerd's banish- 
 ment ; but by this time there was an ealderman in Kent, and the temporal 
 power of the Archbishop was no longer as great as in the time of Dunstan 
 and his immediate successors. Archbishop ^thelnoth is the last known 
 member of the king's kin ; the fate of the Carolings was beginning to 
 threaten the house of Alfred, and Grodwine and his family were ready to 
 play the part of Hugues Capet. But it was not to be. Both Eadric 
 and Godwine did their work eifectually, but, like Virgil's bees, they did 
 their work for others.^ 
 
 iEthelred. 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 iEthelwerd Brithehn, 
 
 1 
 
 ^Ifhere, 
 
 iElfheah, 
 
 the Historian, Bp. of 
 
 Athelstan m. iElfwen. 
 
 E. of Merit 
 
 ia, E. of Cent. 
 
 E. of West Winehe.s- 
 
 E.ofE. Aug. 1 
 
 d. 983. 
 
 Pruv. d. 971 
 
 Prov. d. 998. ter, d. 
 
 res. 95t). 
 
 1 
 
 X 
 
 1 964. 
 1 X 
 
 2 1 1 II 1 
 
 ^Ifric 
 
 1 
 
 iEthelinaer the Great, 
 
 Edgar r,i. JE\f- m. Mthel- MU- Mthel- Mtiiel- 
 
 Eadwine 
 
 E. of West Pro\-. 
 
 1 thryth. wold, wold. sige. wine, 
 
 Cild, 
 
 Ab. of 
 
 d. 1014. 
 
 1 E. ofE. X E. ofE. 
 
 E. of Mercia, 
 
 Abingdon. 
 
 
 Ethelred. Aug. Ang. 
 
 ban. 980. 
 
 
 
 d. 9&2. d. 992. 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 X 1 
 
 ^Ifgar. 
 
 
 
 jEthel- 
 
 X 
 
 /Etholwerd, m. 
 
 daughter /Ethel- jEtbelnoth 
 
 werd. 
 
 
 of ^Ethelmitir, werd, the Good, 
 
 d. 1016. 
 
 
 E. of West Prov. d. 1017. Abp. of 
 
 X 
 
 
 ban. 10: 
 
 iO. X Canterbury, 
 
 
 
 X 
 
 1020-1038! 
 X 
 
 * Chron. Sax. and Flor. Wig. 1016, 1017, 1020. An ignoble origin lias been attributed 
 to both Eiidric and Godwine, but apparently with little reason. It may only mean that they 
 were not qualified by their birth to fill those foremost offices which seem to have been gene- 
 rally allotted to members of the king's kindred, or to the heads of families of the highest 
 provincial descent. The ancestor of the house of Capet has been described as a German 
 adventurer, and in later romances as a butcher. An ^-Ethelric is mentioned in the will of 
 Wulfric, which goes on to say, " After his day, let the land go, for my soul, and for Ids mother s, 
 and for his, to Biirton ; " as if /Elhelric was in some manner connected, through his mother, with 
 the house of Wulfrun. If this /Ethelric was the father of Eadric, a clue is at once found for the 
 actions of the son. i'lLlthelm, the headof Wulfrun's house, and his sons stood in the way of Eadric. 
 Upon their removal he became ealderman of Mercia, and the Northern Mercians refused to fight 
 against him unless the king accompanied the army — as if they acknowledged that he had a 
 certain claim upon them. Morcar and Siferth stood in the way of his pretensions upon the 
 Five-Burghs ; they were removed, but the /Etheling married the widow of Siferth, "contrary 
 to the king's will, . . . the people all submitted to him," and Eadric at once went over to 
 Canute, as Ethelred had probably foreseen. This connection of Eadric with Wulfrun's family, 
 through his grandmother, can only, however, be put forward as a conjecture. I see no reason 
 to doubt tlie descent of Godwine from " Wulnoth Child," the South Saxon, but much reason to 
 doubt the descent of Wulnoth from .(Ethelmaer, a son of .lEthelric and brother of Eadric. In 
 the presence of Canute, and before the death of Archbishop I^iving in 1020, Godwine married 
 Brythric's daughter {Cod. Dip. dcc.xxxii.), and I am inclined to look upon this as a political 
 marriage, by which Canute placed the heiress of the house of Eadric and Brythric in the hands 
 of his firmest supporter in the south of England. Godwine thus became the representative of 
 Eadric, without being his relative by blood. The addition of Cild to a name generally seems 
 to imply some sort of connection by blood, as in the case of .^Eifiic Puer 'awA EadulfCudel 
 Child; and, merely as a conjecture, I am inclined to connect Wulnoth Cild, the South Saxon, 
 "vvith the fixmily of " Eadwine ealdorman in Sussex," whose death is placed in 982.
 
 DUNSTAK AXD HIS POLICY. 
 
 ISO 
 
 ^Ifgar, E. of E. Sax. 
 d. between 951-953. 
 
 iEthelfled m. iElfled m. 
 Edmund. Brithnoth, 
 X E. of E. Sax. 
 
 d. 991. 
 
 B. 
 
 Ordgar, E. of West Piov. 
 d. 970. 
 
 Ordulf, jEthehvold, m.MUthryth m. Edgar. 
 Primas E. of E d. 999. I 
 
 Domnonise, Ang. | 
 
 d. 1005. X Ethelred. 
 
 2 1 I 
 
 Emma hi. Canute m. JDlfgyfu. 
 
 Haifli- 
 canute. 
 
 Sweyn. 
 X 
 
 Harold 
 Harefoot. 
 
 X 
 
 Wulfiun. 
 
 Wulfruna, m. .Elfhelm. Wulfric, 
 
 kin to 
 jEthelmser. 
 
 E. of North- over 
 unibrians, N. Mer- 
 d. 1006. cians? 
 d. 1002. 
 
 I I 
 
 Wulfeali. Ufegeat. 
 
 Eadgyth 
 
 TO. Morcar, 
 
 d. 1015. 
 
 Eadgj'th 
 TO. (1.) Siferth, 
 d. 1015. X 
 TO. (2.) Edmund. 
 
 X 
 
 A represents the leading members of the House of ^thehed, the elder brother of Alfred, 
 who at different times held the position either of Ealderman or Bishop ; B the families con- 
 nected by marriage, either with the king or with his kindred, and raised to a prominent posi- 
 tion in consequence. All seem either to have died out, or to have been swept out of the way 
 by Eadric and Godwine. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DUNSTAN AND HIS PoLICY, 
 
 The greater part of the history — or rather of the gossip and scandal, 
 of a later age, passing current for the history — of the period in which 
 Dunstan flourished, has been furnished by the biographers of the Arch- 
 bishop ; the later writers, as usual, affording the minutest and most 
 marvellous accounts. Unfortunately, the advocates of rival theological 
 dogmas, fighting the battle of their respective churches, instead of testing 
 the truth of these stories, have been content with using them for the 
 furtherance of their own views, thus burying the scanty relics of true 
 history beneath the accumulated fictions of later years. AH the accounts 
 of Dunstan's early life are more or less mythical, but as every 
 biographer and chronicler agrees in placing his birth at the commence- 
 ment of Athelstan's reign, he could have been barely fourteen years of 
 age at the close of it. It may be gathered from the charters that it was 
 a common custom with parents of the highest rank to dedicate their 
 children from a very early age to the royal service. Up to the ago of 
 seven a child was so absolutely in the power of the parents, according to 
 the old law in England, that he could be sold as a slave ; and he still 
 remained under the authority of the father for seven jears longer, before,
 
 190 DUNSTAN AXD HIS POLICY. 
 
 of his own will, he coiikl become a monk or enter npon service. In a 
 later age the aspirant for knighthood was snpposed to pass his life between 
 seven and fourteen as a page in some noble household, figuring during 
 the next seven years as a Damoiscau or Esquire, a custom of which the 
 germs had probably existed in different stages of society from time 
 immemorial, though it is not necessary to suppose that the period of 
 " seven years" was invariably insisted on. Accordingly, when we are 
 told that Dunstan was present at the court of Athelstan, and subsequently 
 in attendance upon Edmund, it merely means that he must have passed 
 some of his earlier years in the same manner as many of his youthful 
 contemporaries. He was placed in his childhood at Glastonbury, to 
 which he appears to have returned, availing himself of his intercourse with 
 the Irisli pilgrims, who used to resort in great numbers to the monastery 
 as the traditional resting-place of St. Patrick " the younger." The 
 learning which he is supposed to have acquired at this period of his life 
 was gained from " Irish books ;" and it may be inferred from this passage 
 in his earliest biographer, that if Dunstan conformed to any monastic 
 rule in his earlier years, or introduced it into Glastonbury, it must have 
 been of Irish or mixed origin, for the Benedictine rule was tirst taught to 
 the monks of Abingdon at a later period by Osgar.^ 
 
 Dunstan makes his first historical appearance in Edred's reign, when 
 he witnessed a charter, dated in 946, as abbot, being at that time about 
 one-and-twenty. Upon the death of his kinsman, ^thelgar, bishop of 
 Crediton, in 953 — the date is worthy of remark — the see was offered to 
 Dunstan, but he declined it upon the plea, says his earliest biographer, 
 that the obligations of the diocese would interfere with his duties in the 
 royal service ; for he appears to have filled at that time the all-important 
 office of principal treasurer to the king. As there was evidently neither 
 Camera nor Camerarius in Edred's reign, it seems to have been custom- 
 ary to confide the royal treasures to more than one place of security, and 
 
 * It was to Flemy that Osgar was sent by yEtlielwold in Edgar's reign, and from Fleury 
 the Benedictine rule, brought there about 939 by Odo, second Abbot of Clugny, was introduced 
 into Abingdon. Had the rule been in force at Glastonbury, where ^thelwold, who was Prior, 
 was educated with Dunstan — not hjj him, for Dunstan was his junior — such a course would 
 have been unnecessary. " Quidam clerici de Glestonia," according to the life of ^thelwold, 
 accompanied him to Abingdon, one of whom was Osgar, and Osgar the clerh of Glastonbury 
 was sent to learn the Benedictine rule at Fleury. My authority for this portion of Dun- 
 stan's career is the work usually attributed to Bridferth, his earliest biographer, who dedicates 
 his prologue " perprudenti archnnti ^Ifrico," apparently the prelate who filled the See of 
 Canterbury from 996 to 1006. The writer was personally acquainted with Dunstan, and though 
 strongly biassed against all who came into hostile contact with the archbishop, avoids the 
 flagrant errors into which Osbern and others have fiiUen, and which are perpetuated in nearly 
 every account of Dunstan's life. The archives of Canterbury were lost in a great fire soon 
 after the Norman Conquest, and to this catastrophe we are probably indebted for a considerable 
 number of fabricated charters, the most I'aulty of the Saxon chronicles (f.), and Osbern's Lives 
 of Dunstan and Odo — if Osbein is guilty of the latter performance. Amongst other marvels he 
 introduces Dunstan to the court of Athelstan as a prodigy of learning and sanctity under the 
 patronage of Archbishop ^Ethelhelni, who died in the same year as Edward, and whose successor 
 attests the charters of Athelstan in 026. The appearance of the learned and tonsured baby 
 would have fully justified the " shrieking girls" — obstrepentes puelluhe — in charging him with 
 magic.
 
 DUNSTAN- AND HIS POLICY. 191 
 
 Glastonbury was chosen as a place in which they could be deposited with 
 safety. The chamberlain dates his close attendance upon the royal 
 person from the age in which he was the purse-bearer, and the office 
 which Dunstan seems to have held was scarcely compatible with a strict 
 attention to the spiritual wants of the distant diocese of Devon. Edred 
 seems to have been a martyr to disease throughout the whole of his reign. 
 He had very little to do, probably, with the actual government of the 
 kingdom, and the party with which Dunstan was connected seems to 
 have been closely allied with the queen mother, whose influence was 
 evidently at this time all-powerful. AVithin a few days of Edmund's 
 death, Dunstan was riding towards the court, according to the narrative 
 attributed to Bridferth, and his companion was " ^Elfstan dux primarius," 
 or Athelstan of East Anglia, who was then the senior ealderman or Patri- 
 cius. The ealderman was disturbed at a dream in which he had seen the 
 king asleep amongst his courtiers, who were all transformed into goats ; 
 which foretold, according to the abbot, the approaching death of Edmund, 
 and the future fldling off of his nobility from the path of rectitude — a fall- 
 ing off that is explained by their conduct during the reign of Edwy. The 
 story of the ride and of the dream points to the connection of Dunstan 
 with the house of East Anglia, and to the support given by the leading 
 nobility of Edmund's court to his elder son. When Dunstan was driven 
 in disgrace from the court of Athelstan in his childhood, his banishment 
 was principally owing, according to the same authority, to his own kins- 
 men ; in his quarrel with ^thelgyfu even his own " discii)les " combined 
 against him; and from the hostility thus exhibited in these quarters, it may 
 be safely assumed that Dunstan had allied himself with the party in the 
 State opposed to the leading nobility of Wessex, who were the principal 
 characters around the throne during the reigns of Athelstan and Edmund.^ 
 
 ^ That iEtlielgar of Crediton, Duiistan's kinsman, was often confounded with ^thelgar of 
 Selsey, his successor in the primacy, may be seen from the list of bishops appended to 
 Florence ; and in consequence of some such confusion, Osbern has substituted the name 
 of mileage of Winchester for iEthelgar of Crediton. Wulfhelm and Odo attested a 
 charter, dated 24th July 941, as Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Eamsbury. In 
 the following year Odo signs as archbishop, but the signature of Osulf as bishop of 
 Ramsbury is not ibund before 963, an ^Ifric filling the See duiing this interval, wlio.se 
 signature first occurs in 942, and disajjpears after 951. ^']lfric of Sherborn died in 
 941 (Flor. Wig.), and the See was then filled by Wulsige {Cod. JJip. cccxcii. nicxxxix.) 
 Malmesbury places the death of " Bishop jElfric, who had been Abbot of Glastonbury," 
 in 988 ; but he is in error, for the Bishop yElfric, whose signature is missed from the 
 charters about that time, had been a frequent witness as Abbot of Malmesbury. I'he only 
 j^lfric Abbot of Glastonbury was the predecessor of Dunstan, and if ho succeeded Odo in the 
 See of Ramsbury, the appointment of Dunstan to the abbacy may bo placed in 942, when lie 
 was seventeen years of age. Upon the death of Athelstan, Dunstan was " inter licgios pro- 
 ceres et Palatines Principes electus" by Edmund, says Bridferth; in other words, as he was 
 just fourteen, the king placed him in the royal household to be trained for a " cynings-thcgn." 
 His kinsman, ^Ifeage, Bishop of Winchester, advised him to become a chuichman, but as the 
 devil " mulierum iili injecit araorem,"he had no vocation for the church until after a seasonable 
 fit of illness, when his high connections secured hini an abbacy at tlio ago of seventeen. 
 " Maluit s])onsarc pivcnculam cujuscotidie blanditiis foveretur, quam more monachcruni biden- 
 tinis indui panniculis." A little romance has been founded upon this jiassage in Bridferth, but 
 Lingard views it disapprovingly, nor is there any reason to suppose that the "mulierum amor," 
 instilled by the devil, was concentrated upon any individual " juvencula."
 
 192 DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 
 
 Feeling tlie approach of death in the autumn of 955, Edred sent for 
 liis treasures that he might dispose of them amongst his own friends, 
 Danstan and the other keepers of the royal property hastened to the 
 court, but the king was dead before their arrival, and their charge, of 
 course, fell into the hands of his successor. The first blow was aimed by 
 the party now in power against the queen-mother — " Edred died, and 
 Eadgyfu was bereft of all her property," are her own words — whilst 
 Dunstan soon brought down upon himself the enmity of one who, by 
 her influence over the reigning sovereign, may be looked upon as the 
 successor of the queen-mother. According to the earliest version of this 
 well-known story, the absence of Edwy from the coronation banquet was 
 commented upon by Odo, but as the attendant nobles declined to inter 
 fere, Dunstan was deputed with Cynsige, Bishop of Lichfield, to bring- 
 back the truant prince, whom he found in the company of ^thelgyfu 
 and her daughter ^Ifgyfu. ^thelgyfu was a woman of the very highest 
 rank, who, according to the rather vague scandal of a later age, sought to 
 gain an influence over Edwy, either for her daughter or herself, — or for 
 both, — and Bridferth has drawn a very warm picture of the scene from 
 which the indignant abbot snatched the king — a picture, however, that a 
 very slight examination will prove to be exaggerated. When Athelstan 
 died in the month of October, Edmund, who was killed in May, after a 
 reign of six years and a half, was eighteen years of age. His brother 
 Edred died in November, after reigning nine years and a half, so that six- 
 teen years had elapsed between the death of Athelstan and the accession 
 of Edwy, whose father, had he been alive, would have been four-and- 
 thirty years of age. Granting the evil disposition of the son of a father 
 of that age, his sins would have been those of a boy, and would scarcely 
 have displayed the precocious immorality that has been attributed to 
 him. His brother Edgar was at this time twelve, and the words of 
 Eadgyfu, " they said to the child Edwy, who was then chosen king," 
 prove him to have been not much older — indeed, she scarcely seems to 
 attribute much blame to her grandson. That ^tlielgyfu, in order to 
 perpetuate her influence over the young prince, endeavoured to promote 
 a marriage at some later period between Edwy and ^Elfgyfu is more than 
 probable, for two or three years afterwards, when the king may be 
 supposed to have been sixteen or seventeen, Odo separated him from 
 ^Ifgyfu, "because they were too nearly related," says the Saxon Chronicle. 
 That Dunstan upon entering the chamber of ^Ethelgyfu, found the crown 
 upon the floor, and the young cousins engaged in play ; that when the 
 abbot used force, Edwy took refuge in the lap of his elder relative ; that 
 the woman and the giil, throwing their arms around the neck of the 
 struggling boy, clung to him with the tenacity of fright and anger, — all 
 this is very probable. Dunstan may have been actuated by the best of 
 motives, ^Ethelgyfu may have been violent and intriguing, unscrupulous 
 and ambitious ; but common sense must acquit her of the coarse and dis- 
 gusting immorality that has been laid to her charge, and the accusation
 
 DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 193 
 
 against her may jirobably be traced to exaggerated versions of an 
 unseemly struggle between two frightened children, an angry woman, 
 and an ecclesiastic.^ 
 
 The anger of ^Ethelgyfu was not immediately gratified, for the signa- 
 ture of Dunstan is attached to charters dated in 956, and he was 
 probably supported by very powerful friends. But he had enemies in an 
 unexpected quarter, as his earliest biographer acknowledges, who wonders 
 less at "the madness of that furious woman than at the hidden machina- 
 tions of his own brotherhood — discipulorum — who with secret treachery 
 were consenting parties to his downfall." Evidently unpopular in the 
 south country, he was outlawed , and took refuge in a monastery at Ghent, 
 from whence he was recalled in the following year, when Edgar, at the 
 age of fourteen, was called to rule over the provinces to the north of the 
 Thames. A tissue of misrepresentations has overspread the reign of 
 Edwy, owing to the violence of the later biographers of Dunstan. He is 
 said to have banished his kinsmen from around the throne, an assertion 
 that is contradicted by every grant and charter in his reign. The 
 majority of Edmund's nobles " lapsed from the path of rectitude," accord- 
 ing to Bridferth, or, in other words, adhered to the elder son of their 
 dead master. He is accused of dissolving the monasteries of Glastonbury 
 and Abingdon, and of banishing the Benedictines from England ; yet he 
 was the earliest benefactor of Abingdon, for his grants of Ginge and 
 other lands in 956 are realities, whilst the charter of Edred dated in 
 955, and witnessed by Oscytel, as Archbishop of York, is a forgery, 
 ^thelwold, "father of the monks," with jElfric of Malmesbury, and two 
 other abbots, attest his latest charter dated in 959 ; the clergy, as well as 
 the laity of Wessex were his staunchest supporters — ^Ifwold, recom- 
 mended for the see of Crediton by Dunstan, Daniel, and Brithelm of Wells, 
 amongst the bishops of his party, are claimed by Malmesbury as alumni 
 of Glastonbury — and there were no Benedictines at that time in England 
 to drive away. The struggle between Secular and Kegular began in the 
 reign of Edgar, and was antedated long afterwards in order to throw 
 odium upon Edwy. If Dunstan was numbered amongst the supporters 
 of Edgar, Edwy could point to ^Ethelwold as his follower, for the contest 
 
 * Tliorpc, Diplom., p. 203 ; Chron. Sax. (D.), 958. The flight of Edwy from Gloucester 
 and the hamstringing of ^^^thelgyfu, tirst appear in Osbcrn and Eadmer, and devils carry 
 away Edwy's soul. " Both perfectly agree," writes Lingard, " and it is plain that neither had 
 seen the ancient Life of Odo." One has copied the other, in other words, and "the ancient 
 Life," unknown at Canterbury — unknown, apparently, to Malmesbury, who was familiar with 
 Osbern's writings — was not at that time written. In "the ancient Life "Edwy is married, 
 and Odo, " Phineatico zelo stimulatus," descends unexpectedly upon a royal vill, ejects the lady 
 whom he finds there, and drives her out of the country. Next she is branded and banished to 
 Ireland, — as iElfgyfn, — returning to be hamstrung and murdered at Gloucester in 1)57. Who 
 was the wife? Of all these additional circumstances the Saxon Chronicler and IJridlVrlli weri' 
 totally ignorant. The elder lady is the heroine of the earlier accounts, in which may be 
 detected some truth ovcrl;iid with much scandal and exaggeration. The younger lady figures 
 in the later story, from which truth has vanished altogether. 'V\ma are the scanty facts ol 
 history often buried under the fabrications of interested writers. 1 have hazarded a conjecture 
 as to the real position occupied by ^Elhclgyfu in Note A. 
 
 N
 
 194 DUKSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 
 
 was fonglit upon political grounds, and not about a question of ecclesi- 
 astical discipline. TEthelwerd, the friend and contemporary of both 
 princes, has left upon record that Edwy was "a king deserving to be 
 loved," but beyond a passing allusion to his extreme beauty, is silent 
 about the events of his reign. Edwy, indeed, died at too early an age 
 for his real character to be known, and he and his brother Edgar were 
 mere puppets in the hands of two rival factions, each striving to rule in 
 tlie name of one or other of the youthful princes.^ 
 
 Dunstan was now archbishop. In the monastery at Grhent in which 
 he had passed his exile, secular canons had been replaced by Benedictines 
 about twelve years before he was received there — or in 944 — and he is 
 supposed to have obtained from the Pope full authority to carry out a 
 similar reform in his own country. Yet he held the see of Canterbury 
 for nearly seven-and-twenty years, and never introduced a ]jenedictine 
 into the diocese. Clerics accompanied iEthelwold from Glastonbury when 
 he revived the monastery of Abingdon a year or two before the banishment 
 of his abbot ; clerks welcomed the new archbishop to Canterbury, and 
 remained in unmolested possession of Christ-Church until the time of 
 Archbishop ^Ifric. Dunstan may have acquired a knowledge of the 
 Benedictine rule at Ghent, but if he conformed to it in his own person, 
 he never enforced its observance in any of his dioceses. Our venerable 
 Abbey of Westminster, when a parvenu amongst monasteries, and in 
 search of a pedigree, sought to affiliate itself upon the archbishop ; but 
 the extraordinary inaccuracies in the charter of the supposed reviver of 
 the monastery stamp it as the fabrication of a very late age, and even 
 legend has failed to ascribe any other monastic foundation to Dunstan. 
 If, therefore, he is to be judged by the writings of his own biographers, 
 and Ity the history of the period as it has come down to us, he must be 
 pronounced lax and inditferent, both as a monk and as an archbishop ; 
 for what else can be said of a IJenedictine metropolitan who, supported 
 by his king, and empowered by the Pope to effect a reform in the Church 
 
 ^ Cud. J)!p., cccclxxix. , inclxxi., nicxciv., inccxvi. Edgar's signature is attached to a 
 charter of Edwy, dated 9th of May 957, so that tlie sejiaralion must have taken phicc after that 
 date. Odo attested two out of four ciiarters dated in the same year, but after the separation. 
 His signature is also attached to a cliarter dated in 958, the year of his death, so that he, as 
 well as ^thelwold, is to be numbered amongst the supporters of Edwy (cccclxv., cccclxvii., 
 cccclxviii., mecxiii.) I cannot, however, look upon mcoxxiv., dated 17th JMay 959, and wit- 
 nessed by Odo and Eadgyfii, as genuine. According to her own testimony, Eadgyfu was not 
 restored to lier former position before Edgar's accession ; and as Odo died on the 2d of June, 
 and Edwy on the 1st of October, too short a time is allowed for the events that liappened 
 between the deaths of the archbishop and the king, if the death of Odo is placed in 959. His 
 snccessor, .lElfsige, was lost upon the Alps in going to Iiomo for his pallium — or in returning 
 from Rome — and a double journey of tiiis description, including the time spent at Rome, required 
 at least seven or eight months. He was probably crossing in spn'ng, at the most dangerous 
 time of the year. His signature is attached to six out of seven of Edwy 's charters dated in 958, 
 but is missed in 959. Brithelm, bishop of Sherborne — he succeeded Wulsige in 958, and was 
 moved on to Winchester when Odo died — was then appointed to the see, but Edwy died before 
 the archbishop-elect could start for Rome, his appointment was annulled, and Dunstan became 
 archbishop in his place. Dunstan witnessed two of Edgar's grants in 959, and started for 
 Rome in 9G0.
 
 DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 195 
 
 committed to his charge, contents himself with allowing two other pre- 
 lates to carry out, within their dioceses, the changes which he does not 
 trouble himself to introduce into his own ? Yet a change was brought 
 about in his own diocese, and a very significant one. The Ealderman 
 disappeared from Kent in Dunstan's days, but he existed in Sussex until 
 982, in the person of Eadwine, who died in that year. Eadwine is stigma- 
 tized in a charter as " God's adversary," because he and "the folk . . . 
 compelled the bishop (of Eochester) to give up the charters ; " no more 
 of " God's adversaries " were appoiuted to the south-eastern provinces, 
 and when Kent, Sussex, and Surrey next appear, they form together a 
 great ealderdom, held "under the king's hand" by the archbishop of 
 Canterbury.^ 
 
 Daiistan in reality seems to have been much more of a statesman than 
 of an ecclesiastic. Presented to an abbacy at a very early age, through his 
 high connections, he seems to have turned his attention to " Irish books." 
 poetry, and music. He was celebrated for his performance on tlie harp, 
 and for his fondness for old ballads, predilections that seem scarcely tt) 
 be reconciled with a character of an austere and ascetic turn. The secular 
 canons slept in ])eaceful security until the appointment of .Ethelwold to 
 the bishopric of Winchester. It was iEthclwold who was known as " the 
 father of the monks;" it was iEthelwold upon whom Edgar and his 
 queen .Elfthryth bestowed the manor of Sudborne in return for rendering 
 the Benedictine rule into " the English idiom." Edgar, who had been as 
 indolent in the matter as his archbishop for the first four years of his 
 reign, married the widow of the East Anglian ealderman in 964, and in 
 the same year Wulstan at-Delham, a thegn of the Eastern Counties, 
 whose name is of frequent occurrence in the histories of Eamsey and Ely, 
 bore to the bishop of Winchester the royal sanction to commence his 
 reforms, which iEthelwold carried out unhesitatingly. He was in earnest, 
 and in a very short time Benedictines replaced the secular canons in 
 every part of his diocese, the reibrm penetrating into the county of Surrey, 
 
 1 Cod. J>'P; niccxxiii. ; Tltorpe, JJiplom., p. 266 ; Leg. Eth., ii. 1 ; Chron. Sa.r., 'J.SL*. 
 ^Ifwic, aliliot of Westminster, aflixed liis siiiiiature to a cliarler in O'JT, and in the ibllowini; 
 year Lcofvviue, ^Vult'stan's son, willed .some lands " into Westminster" (dexcviii., mccxciii. ) 
 Legend gives the name of Wulsige to the abbot ai:ipointed by Dunstan and to the auchurilc wiio 
 expressed the will of St. Peter to the Confessor. Edward proposed to saerifice the see of 
 Worcester for the aggrandizement of his favourite foundation, granting the diocese to York 
 "regio munere;" but his scheme was frustrated by the Pope, who would only give the pall to 
 archbishop Ealdred upon his resigning the see of Worcester. A bishop, accordingly, was chosen 
 fnr the diocese " regc videlicet annuentc ut qncm sibi vellent prtcsulcm cligcrcnt {Flar. Hi;)., 
 1062), and in the reign of llufus, the claims of York upun Worcester were compounded for the 
 Abbey of St. Oswald at Gloucester [MonuHt., vol. viii.) A number of labricated charters owe 
 their origin to this summary treatment of the diocese of Worcester, the Westminster ibrgers 
 endeavouring to give the sanction of a high antiquity to grants which they probably owed to 
 the bounty of the Confessor, whilst the Worcester scribes busied themselves, with a greater 
 show of justice, in |)ni)aring documents to support their own claims. Kurgetling, however, that 
 the old ICpiscopal IMiiisler was dedicated to Si. Peter -or perliajis ignoring the fact lor [lurpnscs 
 of their own— the apocryphal douatimis were gcmeially beslowcd U[i(in Si. iMary's^ (hi: founda- 
 tion of Oswald ; anil when a grant is made to St. Mary's before the latter ptuliun (.if the tenth 
 century, it must be looked upon with much suspicion.
 
 19G DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 
 
 and only stopping short in that direction when it readied the frontiers of 
 the see of Canterbury. Five years more were suffered to elapse before a 
 similar course was followed in the diocese of Worcester, Avhich had been 
 peacefully held for about eight years by tlie nephew of Odo, and protege 
 of Dunstan — his signature, as bishop, first appears in 961 — but Oswald 
 seems to have acted after a different fashion from ^thelwold. A high- 
 handed policy was that of the bishop of Winciiester. " Conform to the 
 rule, or give place to the monks who profess it." Such was the alterna- 
 tive he offered to the secular canons, and if his biographer is to be believed, 
 he narrowly escaped being poisoned for his zeal. Oswald built a church, 
 which he dedicated to the Virgin, introducing a colony of monks to 
 officiate in it when completed, whilst the old cathedral church of 8t. Peter, 
 which was close l)y, was still served by the secular clergy. The ministra- 
 tion of the Benedictines proved the most attractive, people thronged their 
 church, neglecting St. Peter's, and many of the secular clergy were 
 gradually won over to conform to the rule ; but no compulsion seems to 
 have been used, for the veiy latest of Oswald's charters still continued to 
 be attested by clerks, and thirty years after his death the congregation of 
 the Old Minster was still distinct from the brotherhood of the monastery 
 of St. Oswald. The Benedictines were introduced into the diocese of 
 Worcester, but the secular clergy were not violently expelled ; and when 
 Oswald succeeded his kinsman Oscytel in the see of York — vEthelwold the 
 archbishop-elect, like Brithelm and Feologild, being quietly set aside — he 
 limited his reforming zeal to his Mercian diocese, and, like his friend and 
 patron Dunstan, conformed to the exigencies of the case, and left the 
 seculars upon the northern side of the Humber at peace. In this he may 
 be supposed to have followed out the system of Dunstan, who, we are 
 told, " decided that a mass-priest, if he had a wife, was entitled to no 
 other lade than belonged to a layman of equal birth." Accordingly, 
 "the secular priest who follows no life of rule" only ranked with the 
 deacon ; he was no longer " worthy of thegn-wer and thegn-right," the 
 privileges of "the mass-priest living according to rule;" but he was not 
 expelled from his "shrift-district" any more than the secular canons 
 were expelled from their minsters, except in the diocese of Winchester. 
 He was admonished, and forfeited his privileges, if he chose to retain his 
 wife. The policy of Dunstan, faintly as it can be traced, appears to have 
 been conciliatory rather than violent, and it seems possible to detect this 
 influence in the State, even more than in tlie Church.^ 
 
 1 Chron. Sax. and Flor. Wig., 964, 969 ; Hist. EL, 46, 48, 49 ; Cod. Dip., cccclxxxvii., 
 mcccxvii. ; Ler/. Eth., v. 9, ix. 19-21; Edg. Canons, p. 257. In the Canons of Edgar 
 (M. I. P. 26, 28), the mass-priest and monk are reckoned on the same footing; helow them the 
 deacon, and then the clerk. The Life of .^Ethelwold attributed to Wulstan, and that of Oswald 
 by Eadmer, are also among my authorities. "Oswald," says Dr. Lingard, "became arch- 
 bishop of York, and though he held that high dignity during twenty years, we do not read that 
 lie introduced a single colony of monks, or changed the constitution of a single clerical establish- 
 ment within the arch-diocese." The same authority elsewhere writes, " The monks obtained 
 possession of the cathedrals of Winchester and Worcester ; but the other Episcopal churches 
 remained in the hands of the clergy, and were retained by them, with one exception, till the
 
 DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 197 
 
 SItric, king of the Northumbrians, who married one of Athelstan's 
 sisters, died in 927 ; Athelstan annexed his dominions, and for the first time 
 in Enghsh history the signature of an archbishop of York was affixed to 
 the grant of a south-country king. For ten years the princes of the Welsh, 
 the Danish nobles, and the two northern prelates, appended their names 
 to the charters of Athelstan, but in and after 937 tlieir signatures are no 
 longer to be found. Eric Blodoexe, son of Haiald Harfager, ruled over 
 Northumbria at this period, according to the account handed down in 
 the Heimskringla, and the testimony of the Icelandic Saga is strongly 
 corroborated by this silence of the charters. The great victory of 
 Brunanburgh delivered Athelstan from the confederacy of [Scandinavian 
 Scot and Briton, but his power over the north of England received a 
 shock from which it never entirely recovered. The name of Wulfstan 
 appears after a lapse of six years, in 942, about which time the Five- 
 Burghs seem to have been won back from the Northmen. It is again 
 found in 944, or in the year in which Olave Sitricson, and Ragnal 
 Grodfreyson were driven out of Northumbria — by Wulfstan and the 
 Mercian Ealderman, according to ^thelwerd — but the signatures of the 
 Welsh and Danes are never appended to any of Edmund's numerous 
 charters. They reappear, in company with Wulfstan, in one of Edred's 
 charters, dated in 946, and are then again missed until 949. Between 
 these dates Eric, or Hiring, a son of Harald Blaatand, established his 
 dominion over Northumbria ; for Harald, who was in Normandy about 
 945, after regulating the affairs of the Duchy, seems to have turned his 
 attention towards re-establishing the power of the Skioldings over the 
 north of England. Eiic was abandoned by his new subjects in 949, the 
 Welsh, the Danes, and both the Northumbrian prelates unite for the last 
 time in attesting a charter of Edred in the same year, and Olave Sitricson 
 re-appeared to assert his claim upon his father's kingdom. Olave was 
 again replaced by Eric Haraldson, about three years afterAvards, and 
 Wulfstan was thrown into prison. From the very first the archbishoj) 
 had sided with Olave against Edmund, when he arranged with Odo to 
 divide the kingdom between the two princes. By withdrawing his 
 support from Olave and Ragnal, he seems to have placed Northumbria 
 at the feet of Edmund ; but the subsequent elevation of Eric Haraldson 
 to the throne may probably be attributed to his intrigues — perhaps also 
 the return of Olave. Wulfstan remained in prison for the next two 
 years, l)ut he was released upon the death of Eric Haraldson, and from 
 that time forward — much about the time when Dunstan declined the see 
 of Orediton — a novel policy seems to have been inaugurated.^ 
 
 close of the Anglo-Saxon period." A passage in Bridf'ertb, in wliicli lie says that Dunstan held 
 the sees of Worcester and London for many years, has boon used against the archbishop; but 
 the signatures of Oswald and iElfstan, as bisliops of Worcester and London, appear in 9()1, aud 
 they were probably appointed upon the return of Dunstan from ]\ome. 
 
 » Chron. Sax., y2<i, 927, <)44, 948, 949, 9.02, 954 ; Sim. Ihtn., 9:59 ; Hclmsl: Saf/a, iv. c. 8 ; 
 Cod. Dip., ccccx\., ccccxxix. ; Ad. JJi-cm., \\. 22. " Anglia, ut. supra diximns, ct in gestis 
 Anglorum scribitur, post luorteni Uudiedi, a (iliis ejus Analapli, Sigtrih, et KeginoUl, peranuos
 
 108 DUNSTAN AND HIS POLICY. 
 
 The Danish prince perished by treachery npon Stancmoor, and tlie 
 reward of tlie treason, the calderdom of Northumbria, is said to have 
 been conferred upon Osulf, whose name, occasionally met with in the 
 charters with the title of Iletih-gerefa, from the date of his appointment, 
 disappears altogether. Oslac was made Eorl over the Danes some ten or 
 twelve years later, but the expressions in Edgar's Laws reveal the real 
 state of independence in which that people were permitted to remain. 
 " Let secular rights stand amongst the Danes, with as good laws as they 
 best may choose. But with the English, let that stand which I and my 
 Witan have added to the dooms of my forefathers." The Witan had no 
 jurisdiction over the Danes, and the civil institution of the Hundred was 
 the solitary law which they were invited to share with the rest of England 
 — " and this I desire, that this one doom be common to us all, for secu- 
 rity and peace to all the people." The complete independence thus 
 insured to the Danes was in return for " the fidelity you have ever shown 
 me." Left to themselves, they had no longer any reason for insurrection, 
 but, accepting Edgar for their sovereign, enjoyed the privilege of the most 
 complete self-government. Even the institution of the Frith-borh 
 stopped short upon the northern frontier of the Danelage ; and as 
 neither Wapentake nor Hundred has ever penetrated into the northern- 
 most counties of England, or into south-eastern Scotland, the Anglo- 
 Northumbrians under Osulf would appear to have enjoyed a simiUii', if 
 not a greater immunity from the jurisdiction of the Witan. From this 
 time, also, the signatures of the Welsh princes disappear from the 
 charters of the English kings. Morgan and Owen, Siferth and Jago, 
 attached their names to a grant of Edred in 955, but not a single Welsh 
 prince ever attests a charter in the reigns of Edgar or of his sons, nor 
 does an attempt seem to have been made upon the English coast from 
 the side of L'cland. Coins of Edgar were minted at Dublin, where Olave 
 Sitricson, the old opponent of Edgar's father and uncles, ruled during the 
 whole of his reign ; it is not unlikely that the Irish Norsemen supi)lied 
 him with a fleet ; and the good understanding between the Danes of 
 Ireland and the EngHsh kings remained unshaken at the time of the 
 Norman Conquest, their bishops looking upon the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury as their IMetropolitan. From the date of the coalition be- 
 tween Olave Sitricson and Constantino, his Scottish father-in-law, until 
 the death of Eric Haraldson upon Stanemoor, twenty years were passed 
 in a continual struggle between Dane and Angle. Half of England was 
 wrested from the brother of Athelstan, and hardly won back again at 
 his death. Then upon the release of Wulfstan all is peace, and the 
 
 t'eve centum permansit in ditione 1 >anorum. Tunc voro Haroldus, Hiring filium cum exercitu 
 lui.sit in Angliam. Qui subacta insula tandem proditus et occisus est a Nordunibris." Else- 
 wliere tlie same annalist writes, " In Augliam cjuoque miserunt unum e.x sociis Ilalpdani, qui 
 dum all Anglis occideretur. Dani constitucrunt in locum ejus Gudredum. Is autem Nordim- 
 briam cxpugnavit. Atque ex illo tcmpoi'c Frisia et Anglia in ditione Danorum esse feruntur. 
 Scrij)tum est in gestis Anglorum,'' Lib. i. c. 41. These expressions are very strong, and show 
 how the history of the period Avas regarded from a Danish point of view.
 
 JDU^''STAX AJD HIS POLICY. 199 
 
 contemporary ^thelwenl, and the earlier chroniclers of Edgar's reign, 
 have nothing to record beyond his coronation, his covenant of alliance 
 with six kings at Chester, and his death. It was an era of regulation 
 and reform in Church and State, both apparently standing in need of 
 some sort of change after the wars and troubles of the preceding gene- 
 rations. Within the frontiers of Anglo-Saxon England Edgar and his 
 Witan, and Edgar and his Archbishop, busied themselves with novel 
 dooms and canons ; whilst the king, satisfied with the acknowledgment 
 of his supremacy, seems to have leit the Danes and Northumbrian Angles 
 to legislate for themselves both in Church and State. Hence Oswald 
 limited his reforming energy to his diocese in English Mercia, and when 
 he crossed the Humber as archbishop, permitted the secular canons and 
 married priests to remain unmolested. " If a priest forsake a woman 
 and take another, let him be excommunicated." Such was the law 
 amongst the Northumbrians, whose priests were thus enjoined to retain 
 their wives, whilst celibacy and the rule were preached by their pastor to 
 their brethren in the diocese of the Hwiccas. It was ^Ifric who, in the 
 eleventh century, and in the name of Archbishop VVulstan, first enjoined 
 the doctrine of celibacy upon the married clergy of Northumbria.^ 
 
 If we may trust to Eadmer, the revolt of the northern subjects of 
 Edwy was occasioned by the oppression and injustice of his rule ; and 
 there may be truth in this account if, for the childish king, we substitute 
 the dominant party in the State ruling in his name ; but the un- 
 popularity of his government was contined to the people upon th(^ 
 northern bank of the Thames. The Lasn-lands of the Crown, which liell 
 in upon the death of a king, might be disposed of by his successor with- 
 out any reference to their former holders ; charters granted by the king 
 and his witan in a former reign might be refused contirraation by the 
 succeeding king and his witan ; and the "spoliation and disinheritance" 
 attributed by Eadmer to Edwy may have consisted in arbitrary measures 
 of this description, carried out in his name. As the majority of his 
 flither's nobility, however, adhered to Edwy, the " spoliation " coulil 
 scarcely have been carried on in the south-country, though, if such a 
 course were pursued for two years beyond the Thames, it may easily 
 have led to the revolt of the Mercians." Alfred was always conciliatory 
 in his conduct towards the people from amongst whom he chose his 
 queen, and Mercia supplied him with an archbishop in Plegnuujcl, and a 
 literary friend and adviser in Bishop Werfrith. He bestowed the hand 
 of his daughter jEtheltla3d upon Ealderman iEthelrcd, giving him 
 London also after it was rebuilt ; and it is evident that, until the death 
 of " the Lady of the Mercians," the province enjoyed a liberty of self 
 government little short of independence. But the policy of Edward 
 
 1 Shu. Jhin., 954; Chron. Sax., 9GG, 97:), 97") ; Eihj. Siqh, 2, 12 ; /.e^., X.P., 3o. 
 
 ^ " Possessiones pliirinionim diiipere, lios (it illos exluncilitare " — siicli are tlie expressions of 
 EiiilnifT. I>riilfcrtli, wlio was ignorant of tlie (liglit from (iloncoster, and tlie indignitiusinflictcil 
 npon jl'^llielgyl'ii — or /l'"irL;yfii, for tlic cldor and yonnner ladies are i;enerally coid'onniled with 
 each other — only says that Edwy was deserted by the " popnlus hrunialis."
 
 200 DUN8TAN AND BIS POLICY. 
 
 seems to have been different. Upon the death of his brother-in-law he 
 seized upon London, Oxford, and all the district which he incorporated 
 in the revived diocese of Dorchester — it once belonged to Wessex, he 
 may have argued. Upon the death of his talented sister, her child, the 
 grand-daughter of Alfred, " was deprived of all dominion over the 
 Mercians, and carried into Wessex," and of her subsequent fate we know 
 nothing. Werfrith was replaced in the see of Worcester by Cenwald, 
 claimed by Malmesbury as an alumnus of Glastonbury ; Cynsige, bishop 
 of Lichfield, was Dunstan's kinsman ; and as the Mercian bishoprics 
 seem to have been filled with prelates of West-Saxon origin, it may be 
 presumed that the secular authorities, the ealdermen and king's- reeves, 
 were frequently of the same race. Upon the death of Archbishop 
 Wulfred, in Egbert's reign, the election of Abbot Feologild seems to have 
 been quietly set aside, Ceolnoth, a West-Saxon, was ordained — he was 
 either a layman, or in minor orders — and raised to the vacant see, and 
 with Ceolnoth secular canons were introduced, and West-Saxon rule ; 
 in other words, whilst Mercia and East Anglia retained their kings of 
 native origin, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey were thoroughly and permanently 
 incorporated with Wessex, and treated as the appanage of some junior 
 member of the roj'al house. Edward, and his son Athelstan, may have 
 thought the time had arrived for eradicating the remains of nationality 
 from English Mercia, and incorporating it in a similar manner with 
 Wessex. But a policy that is acquiesced in under the rule of able 
 statesmen and victorious soldiers, with an enemy in close proximity, may 
 be vievved in quite another light when, after abandoning it for a time, it 
 is revived, and carried out in its harsher features by a dominant faction, 
 ruling in the name of a child. An era of internal and external peace 
 was the immediate result of a return to a more conciliatory policy, which 
 may be attributed, I think, to Dunstan ; for it is quite in keeping with 
 his character, from the little that can be gathered from authentic records, 
 however opposite such a policy may appear to the picture that has been 
 left of the archbishop, especially by his later biographers.^ 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 The custom of fostering must have been of great antiquity amongst the Anglo- 
 Saxons, for in Ini's Laws the ChilcT s-fostercr is mentioned with the Reeve and the 
 Smith, amongst the followers whom the Gesithcundman, on quitting liis land, might 
 take away with him. It was still prevailing in high quarters in the eleventh century, 
 for Athelstan the ^theling, one of Ethelred's sons, mentions with much affection in 
 his will " .iElfswyth my foster-mother," as well as " ^Ifthryth my grandmother who 
 reared me." The evils of the custom are dilated on by Giraldus in his description of 
 Wales, for in a state of society in which the sons of a king, or prince, were fostered, if 
 
 * It is only in F that the election of Feologild is noticed. The older chronicler ignores it 
 altogellier. " Ceolnoth was chosen bishop and ordained. . . . ^&6o< Feologild died." Feolo- 
 gild was ffr.hah/ud, or consecrated ; Ceolnoth was (jehadod, or ordained. The difference is 
 worthy ol' leniark.
 
 NOTES. 201 
 
 the father died suddenly, or prematurely, each fosterer was apt to support the claim 
 of his own adopted child upon the succession. The foster-mother of Edgar, accord- 
 ing to the historian of Ramsey, was the wife of Athelstan the Half-king, Ealderman of 
 East-Anglia, a tie that throws a light xv^oxv the close connection existing subsequently 
 between Edgar and the sons of Athelstan, his foster-brothers. Edwy, the elder 
 ^theling, must assuredly have been placed under the charge of some lady of equal 
 position, and the exalted rank of ^thelgyfu, who was closely connected with the royal 
 house, seems to point to the probability that she may have stood in the position of 
 foster-mother to the eldest son of Edmund. The influence she seems to have exercised 
 over the motherless child from the very first, the immediate banishment of Eadgyfu, 
 whose position she would hope to occupy, and her hostility against Dunstan, who 
 appears to have Iseen on friendly terms with Eadgyfu and the house of East-Anglia, 
 all seem to point to the probability of the supposition.^ 
 
 A document purporting to be the will of yEthelgyfu, which is usually ascribed to 
 the queen of Edmund, begins in a manner that can scarcely be reconciled with such 
 a supposition ; " Ego j9i]thelgive aperio domino meo regi, et regime domince m.ece.'" 
 What queen was "the lady'' of Edmund's queen? The will goes on to leave a heriot 
 to " my lord the king," and another heriot to " my lady the queen," bequests hardly 
 in keeping with the position of Edmund's wife and queen. " To Leofwine, my nephew, 
 a hide at Clifton . . . and let Leofsige have the land at Off'anlege . . . and bequeath 
 it to his son, if he have a son by his wedded wife ; if not, let it go to St. Albans, 
 except the part where Cuthulf sits, and jEthelferth and ^thelswyth, ilia dahitur filke 
 domince s^ice yElfgive, si adhuc vivit." To the daughter of his lady, ^Ifgyfii — to his 
 daughter and lady, JFAfg^yin — to ^Ifgyfu, the daughter of his lady : in which way is the 
 passage to be rendered ? In the earliest grant made by Edwy, a munificent donation 
 of a hundred hides to the convent at Wilton, received " cum magno gaudio " by 
 JElfgyfu, who affixed her signature as Magistra, lady or proprietress of the convent, 
 the first to sign after the Ealdermen was "Leofwine, propinquus regis," taking pre- 
 cedence of ^Ifhere and ^Ifheah, kinsmen of the king and subsequently Ealdermen. 
 Leofwine must have held the foremost position in the Court of the young king, 
 " nuperrime rex." Was he the nephew of .^thelgyfu ? Is this magnificent donation 
 to ^Ifgyfu to be looked upon as the first provision made for her own family by 
 ^thelgyfu 1 2 
 
 The will of iElthelgyfu seems authentic, but scarcely the signatures, for Edgar the 
 ^theling is surely out of place. If "Edwardus rex" is to be changed into "Edmundus," 
 Edgar was a baby at the date of his mother's death ; if it stands for " Eadwig," the sig- 
 nature of Edgar would have been hardly affixed to the testament of j3i]thelgyfu. But 
 the will as it stands is only a copy. " Let Leofrune have the land at Watford, and at 
 Weotune two men and eight oxen, etc." — no original will would have closed with c( 
 cetera ; and the occasional diff'ei-ence between an original document and a copy will best 
 be shown by a reference to the grant of the lands of Cooling and Osterland to Canter- 
 bury by Eadgyfu. The tenor of the original Saxon document is as follows : — "Eadgyfu 
 makes known to the Archbishop and Convent at Christ-Church how her land came to 
 her at Cooling. . . . The two sons of Goda . . . took from Eadgyfu the lands at Cool- 
 ing and Osterland . . . Edgar restored her property . . . Eadgyfu then . . . took the 
 
 ^ If iEthelgyfu was the foster-mother of Edwy, a marriage between JFAf^yfn and licr 
 foster-brother would have been considered inadmissible in that age. It is didictdt to point 
 out any relationship by which she could have been too closoly connected with the ro^iil house. 
 
 ^ Cod. Dip., ccccx., ccccxxxvi. The second charter of Edwy is a grant of twenty liidcs to 
 his kinsman yElfliere, descended "a carissiniis prredecessoribns." lie soon became Ealder- 
 man of Mercia. The name of Leofwine disappears from the charters, and the forenio.st position 
 amongst the Ministri is generally occupied by j?^ifheah, Tl^jlteago, and il<]thclnia3r, the two 
 first of whom appear amongst the recipients of grants of land as " kinsmen of the king,'' and 
 ^thelraair was probably the Ealderman who snbsequently jiresided over the (Central pi'ovinces 
 between 971 and 'J83. Edwy was clearly in the hands of his immediate kindred, the leading 
 aristocracy of Wessex.
 
 202 NOTES. 
 
 charters, and delivered the lands to Christ-Church, and with her own hands laid them 
 on the altar." In the Latin translation there are noticeable divergences from the 
 original. " a.d. dcccclxi. Ego Eadgiva regina . . . concedo a?cclesia; Christi in Doro- 
 bernia, monachis ibidem Deo servientibns, Meapeham, Culinges, Leanham, Peccham, 
 Fernlege, Mnnccetun, Ealdintun . . . scilicet Odoni . , . et familia' Christi, id est, 
 ')no)iac]ns in Doroberuia civitate . . . Ego auteni . . . omncs terras nieas et libros 
 terrarum propria manu posui super altare Christi." Odo was dead before Edgar was 
 king, and monks were not introduced into Christ-Church before the time of Archliishop 
 ^Ifric. To Dunstan and the secular clergy Eadgyfu "made known" her gift of Cool- 
 ing and Osterland, but in endeavouring to give a title to a number of other lands, and 
 vest the whole in the monastic foundation, the later scrilie has added a number of 
 inaccuracies to the supposed translation of an authentic document. So the St. Albans 
 scrilje, to establish the validity of a document by which his monastery held certain lands, 
 may have added a number of conjectural witnesses to the will of j^Ethelgyfu. It is 
 not improbable that in the original the witnesses may have been altogether wanting — 
 it may never have been confirmed.^ 
 
 The convent at Wilton is supposed to have been given by Edgar to Wulftrud, but 
 the charters are silent upon this point, and the name of " the king's daughter " is con- 
 nected with the nunnery at Winchester. But in 9GG Edgar gave ten hides at Newnham, 
 " cuidam matronce ingenue que mihi affinitate mundialis cruoris conjuncta est . . . 
 jEJfgyfu," and the land at Newnham iElfgyfu bequeaths in her will to " the ^theling." 
 She desires her body to be buried at the Old Minster at Winchester, leaving gifts to 
 the New Minster, and to the Nun's Minster, as well as to the Minsters at Ramsey, 
 Abingdon, and Bath. Lands and torques she bequeaths to her royal lord, torques 
 and a sop-cup to her royal lady, with the land at Teafersceat to Bishop /Ethelwold, to 
 pray for her soul and tlie soul of her niother. Who was this kinswoman of Edgar, the 
 iiiafrrm iElfgyfu, who desired the prayers of ^Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, for the 
 soul of her mother — of iEthelwokl once al)bot of Abingdon, the first ecclesiastic who 
 received a grant of land from Edwy, to whose latest charter his signature is still 
 attached ? Was she the widoAV of Edgar's brother P 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 In connection with Abbot ^Ifric, one of those curious "developments," of which it 
 is sometimes interesting to watch the growth, may be noticed. There were four 
 vElfrics who are occasionally confounded : iElfric, abbot of Malmesbury, who became 
 bishop of Crediton ; iElfric, abbot of St. Albans, subsequently bishop of Ramsbury, 
 and afterward archbishop of Canterbury ; Abbot ^rElfric, and ^Ifric Bata, who writes 
 of the former as " iElfric Abbas, qui mens fuit magister." Abbot iElfric describes 
 himself as the alumnus of ^Ethelwold, in whose school he passed many yeius, as he 
 tells the brotherhood of Eynsham, founded in lOOo by his friend yl^^thelnuur (Cod. Dip., 
 dccxiv.) For the father of iEthelmter, the Patrician ^thelwerd, he translated the 
 Heptateuch. For archbishop Sigeric he compiled a volume of homilies, and another of 
 sermons, submitting both for his correction. By ^Ifeage, the successor of his master 
 iEthelvvold in the see of Winchester, and subsequently archbishop of Canterbury, he 
 was sent to superintend the minster at Cernel. He wrote his " Canons " for Wulsige, 
 wlio held the see of Sherborne between 978 and 1002, and his " Pastoral Epistle " for 
 
 » Thorpe, Dlplom., pp. 201-20G. 
 
 * Cod. Dip., dxxvi. , dccxxi., ccccxlii., ccccxliii., cccclxxix. In a forged charter attributed 
 to Edgar, and dated in 974 (dlxxxv.), Wilton is given " diminatis inde earum spurcitiis qnaj 
 denni irritare potins qiiam digno vidobantur cnltu venerari, eiiidam venerabili Abbatissaj 
 Wulfthnjd nomine . . . cum Cheolca." Here Wulftnul is snp])()sed to have received Wilton, 
 witli the Inuidred bides nH Ceolaim, granted by KJwy to i^^ltgyfu. Has any confusion arisen 
 between the historical ililfgyfu and the somewhat mythical AVulftrnd ?
 
 THE CORONATION' OF EDGAR. 203 
 
 Wulstan, who was Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023. Abhot ^Elfrlc, therefore, 
 was regarded in liis own days, by the clergy as well as by the laity, as in a certain 
 sense the spokesman, or foremost writer, of the English Chnrch ; or at any rate of the 
 severer body of the monastic clergy, brought np in the school of iEthelwold. His 
 doctrine about " the Housel " is well known — " the Housel is Christ's body, not bodily 
 but spiritually." It appears in the works submitted to Sigeric for correction, and was 
 not corrected, for it again appears in the Canons he wrote at the request of Wulsige. 
 A letter from Dunstan, addressed.to this very Wulsige, is still preserved ; and as the 
 bishop of Sherborne, who was a disci2nilus of Dunstan (and according to some accounts 
 the first abbot of Westminster), applied to iElfric to write these Canons, Dunstan may 
 be added to the list of prelates who approved of the teaching learnt by ^Ifric in the 
 school of iEthelwold. Yet in the Life of Odo (cap. 10), attributed to Osbern, will be 
 found the following passage : — " Hoc ferme tempore quidcm, cimci, maligno crrore 
 seducti, asseverare conabuntur panem et vinum qua- in altari ponuntur, post consecra- 
 tionem in priori substantia permanere, ct figuram tantunnnodo esse corporis et san- 
 guinis Christi, non verum Christi corpus et sanguinem." By this time Dunstan had 
 appeared in a vision to a cripple, to warn him against yElfric Bata, the scholar of 
 Abbot iElfric ; and the teaching of the school of ^Ethelwokl, the trusted friend and 
 Prior of Dunstan, was denounced as the erroneous doctrine of " a few seculars." 
 
 V. 
 
 The Coronation of Edgar. 
 
 One of the few occurrences connected with the reif^n of Edgar that 
 has been handed doAvn by all the chroniclers is his coronation at Bath 
 upon Whitsunday in 973. The earlier authorities notice the ceremony 
 without assigning any reason for its apparent postponement to so late a 
 period in the king's reign ; but Osbern, in his Life of Dunstan, written 
 after the authentic archives of Canterbury had perished in a fire, supplies 
 the omission after a fashion of his own. A seven years' penance, during 
 whiclt the king was prohibited from wearing the crown, had been imposed 
 by the archbishop n[)on Edgar for violating the sanctity of the cloister 
 in the person of St. Wulfryth, and the ceremony at Bath marked his 
 resumption of the crown. But as fourteen years had then elapsed since 
 the death of Edwy, the tale of Osbern implies a double coronation, 
 for which there is not the slightest authority ; and as Eadgyiu, wlio was 
 the daughter of the frail saint, and a party to a grant of her royal father, 
 as abbess of the nunnery at Winchester, died when in her twenty-third 
 year, in September 984, she must have been born some years before 9GG. 
 Thus the fiction falls to the ground, and the apparent delay in the coro- 
 nation of Edgar remains to be accounted for.^ 
 
 It would appear to have been a very general, if not an universal, 
 custom throughout Christendom to consecrate by some religious cere- 
 mony the sovereign who was chosen to fill the throne, and the inaugura- 
 tion of Aidan to be king of the Dalriads is supposed to afford the earliest 
 
 ' Jlabillon, Act. Saiicl., Sa'c. v. [i. 021]; Cod. />/p., dxciv. "Eatlgyfu alibcilossc Hires 
 cine;es doliter."
 
 204 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 
 
 recorded instance of such a ceremony. Placing bis hand upon the king's 
 head, Cokiraba " ordained and blessed him," — ordinans benedixit. Such 
 was the simple ceremony which may literally have conferred "orders," 
 for in later times the Emperor was ex officio a canon of St. John Lateran, 
 officiating on certain state occasions as a subdeacon when the pope 
 celebrated mass; the kings of France were similarly canons of St. Martin 
 of Tours, and our own sovereigns are said, for some unexplained reason, 
 to be canons of St. Davids. From very early times unction seems to 
 have played an important part in the ceremony of consecration, for it 
 was in use amongst the Britons when Gildas wrote, and Augustine 
 dwells upon it as a custom unknown to pagans, and therefore peculiarly 
 Christian, tracing it of course to the times of Saul and Samuel. Kings, 
 however, seem to have been originally content with applying for unction to 
 their own bishops, just as departed worthies used to find their way into the 
 catalogue of saints in a vague and somewhat irregular manner, before Alex- 
 ander III. placed canonisation "inter majores causas ;" and much about the 
 same period unction, in a similar manner, seems to have lost its highest 
 efficacy unless imparted through the pope. "Si quis rex inungi nova con- 
 suetudine velit, usus et inos obtinuit ut id a Romano 'pontifice petat, sicut 
 fecit rex Arragonum."^ Thus wrote the Cardinal Leo Ostiensis in 1260 ; 
 and as in the days of Giraldus none of the kings of Spain were classed 
 amongst " the four anointed sovereigns" — though Wamba, king of the 
 Visigoths was anointed by the archbishop of Toledo in 673 — the nova 
 consuetudo, which must have been introduced into Arragon between the 
 age of Giraldus and the time of Cardinal Leo, evidently meant papal 
 unction. The Scottish kings were not so fortunate as the House of 
 Arragon, for the whole influence of England was exerted for about a 
 century in opposing the extension of this mysterious privilege to the 
 sister kingdom. Honorius iii. forbade his legate to anoint and crown 
 Alexander ii. in 1221, and the king appealed in vain to Innocent iv. in 
 1233. Yet in the Bull according " unction and a diadem" to Kobert 
 Bruce, it is distinctly asserted that the kings of Scotland had been long 
 accustomed to receive the " Insignia Regie dignitatis" from the bishops 
 of St. Andrews ; a " sceptrum regni" is alluded to by Adamnan, a crown 
 was carried off by Edward i., and it is evident that the sole deficiency in 
 the coronation of a Scottish king was the "papal unction" which would 
 have passed mysteriously into the ceremony if the legate had crowned 
 Alexander in 1221. " Auctoritate Apostolica, adhibito secum decenti 
 Episcoporum numero . . . more debito . . . Inungere (et) Regium 
 imponere valeant Dyadema," — such were the privileges accorded to the 
 bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow by the Bull of John xxii. ; so that 
 unction and a diadem with the presence of " a decent number of bishops," 
 and the apostolic sanction, were supposed at that time to be necessary 
 
 ' This is Seidell's version of the passage. Mr. Maskell gives it, "Si quis ile novo inungi 
 velit, consuctudo obtinuit quod a papa petatur, sicut fecit rex Aragonuni, et quotidie instat rex 
 Scotise." The sense is the same in both versions.
 
 TFIE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 205 
 
 for a coronation of the highest order. As Henry ii. and his grandson 
 were both curious about the special virtue of unction, receiving learned 
 answers upon the subject res})ectively from Beckett and Robert Grosse- 
 teste, and as the necessity of obtaining admission amongst the anointed 
 sovereigns never seems to have been felt by the kings of Scotland and 
 Arragon before the thiiteenth century, it may be presumed that the ques- 
 tion assumed its greatest importance about that period, and was closely 
 connected with the pretensions of the Popes, and especially of Innocent 
 III., to universal supremacy over temporal sovereigns.^ 
 
 " For eighty years and upwards," wrote archbishop Boniface in 742, 
 " there has been neither synod nor archbishop amongst the Franks ; " a 
 state of affairs which, with the confiscation of the dioceses of Rheims 
 and Treves by Charles Martel, must have placed his son Pepin at a 
 certain disadvantage when the time arrived for his assumption of the 
 regal dignity ; for there was no Frank Metropolitan to perform the con- 
 secration. Accordingly, writes Einhard, " when he was raised to the 
 throne in the city of Soissons according to the usage of the Franks, with 
 the sanction of the Pope, he was anointed to the regal dignity by the 
 holy unction, received from the hand of Boniface, bishop of Mayence." 
 Three years afterwards the Pope crossed the Alps in person, to implore 
 the assistance of the orthodox king of the Franks, who now accei)ted the 
 office of Defender of the Roman Church, against the Arian Lombards, 
 anointing with his own hand Pepin and his two sons, who were hence- 
 forth addressed, not only as kings of the Franks, but as Patricians of the 
 Romans, thus occupying the position of the Exarch. After the return • 
 of the Pope to Italy in the following year, 755, a letter imploring imme- 
 diate assistance was addressed to the Kings and Patricians of the Romans 
 from the " Papa et omnes Episcopi, Presbyteri, Diaconi, sen Duces, 
 Carthularii, Comites, Tribuni, et universus populus et exercitus Roman- 
 orum, omnes in affiictione positi," or the two Estates and Community of 
 Rome, who had united in transferring the Patiiciate from the official of 
 the Eastern Empire to Pepin and his sons ; whilst another epistle arrived 
 direct from heaven, in which an immediate advance upon Rome was 
 urged by " Petrus princeps Apostolorum, qui vos in reges nnxit." Such 
 was the exalted origin attributed to the Papal unction, which was sup- 
 posed to have consecrated the choice of the Franks and Romans, with 
 the direct sanction of St. Peter. The age in which such an epistle 
 could have been written and sent was already ripe for the forged Decre- 
 tals, and accordingly, when they were wanted in a subsequent generation, 
 they appeared.^ 
 
 _^ Selden, vol. iii., Titles of Honour, pt. 1, cap. 8; Maskell, 3Ion. Hit., vol. iil., Frelini. 
 Diss.; Stat. Ecc. Scot. vol. i. p. xlvi., xlvii. ; Reeves' Aclamn. iii. 5. The passngo from 
 Giraldus will be found in his treatise de Instructione Principis. Tlio " Four anointed sove- 
 reigns," at the opening of the thirteenth century were the kings of France, England, Sicily, 
 and Jerusalem. The two latter kingdoms were creations of the papacy, so to say, and are 
 sometimes omitted from the list. 
 
 2 Bonif. i!,>. xlix. ; Bouquet, vol. v. p. 486, 490, 495, 593 ; Ann. Einli., 750, 753, 754.
 
 206 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 
 
 Upon the death of Charles the Fat in S8S. Gruy, who had already- 
 agreed with Beranger to divide between them '•Latin France" and Italy, 
 hnrried to Rome, and, " withont the consent of the Franks, was anointed 
 king over all ot Francia." But the " Eoman Franks" had already 
 chosen for tlieir king Oda, or Eudes, son of Robert the Strong, and Guy 
 returned to Italy, to dispute the possession of that kingdom with Beranger, 
 clearly demonstrating by his repulse that Unction was, at this time, 
 regarded as sim])]y the consecration or confirmation of election ; for the 
 anointed of the Pope, not being the choice of the Franks, had no power 
 to rule over them. Conrad, who, upon the extinction of the German 
 branch of the Caroline House, in the male line, had been "anointed to 
 tlio kingdom" at the suggestion of the Great Duke Otlio, when he felt 
 his death approaching, sent his brother Eberhard with " the sacred lance, 
 the robe and golden bracelets (armillis aureis), and the sword and diadem 
 of the kings, his predecessors," to Otho's son, naming him as his suc- 
 cessor ; but Henry, though he accepted the regal dignity, declined the 
 diadem and unction "a summo pontifice" — the archbishop of Mayence 
 — alleging his own unfitness for so high an honour. Thus he was a 
 king, but not an anointed sovereign ; his son was the first of the Saxon 
 House who attained to the higher dignity, and a full account of his 
 coronation has been handed down by Widukind. Leading Otho to the 
 front of the Cathedral porch at Aix, the archbishop of Mayence addressed 
 the assembled multitude in the following words : — " I bring you the 
 elect of God, the successor designated by his father Henry, now made 
 king by all the princes. If the choice please you, hold up your hands ; " 
 and every hand was raised with acclamation in confirmation of the elec- 
 tion. Otho, clad in a short tunic after the Frank fashion, was then 
 conducted into the church, and invested at the altar with the insignia of 
 royalty — the sword and belt, the robe and bracelets, the sceptre, staff, 
 and diadem, — and then, anointed with the holy oil by the metropolitan 
 of Germany, and wearing the golden diadem, he was again led into the 
 porch between the archbishops of Mayence and Cologne, and placed upon 
 the throne in the sight of all the peo[)le, much as the sovereign is repre- 
 sented upon the reverse of many an old coin. It was not until many 
 years later, after his decisive victory over the Magyars at Lechfeld by 
 Augsburg in 955, which won the Marks of Austria and Styria for 
 Germany, that the exultant soldiery hailed him Kaisar in the old 
 Roman fashion — ab exercitu pater patriae imjieratorque appellatus est 
 -and from this date Widukind writes of him as Lnperator. Six or seven 
 years afterwards he received the Beyicdictio imperialis at Rome, with liis 
 queen, and thus became, like Pepin, the " Patron of the Roman Church" — 
 "ac patronus Romance effectus ccclesias." The father, Henry, lived and died 
 an elected and legitimate, but not an anointed king, and for six years the 
 son, Otho, was an elected and legitimate, though not an anointed eujperor. 
 As the " 13enediction" of the Church consecrated a marriage, which was 
 lendered legal in those days by the previous civil contract — the wedding 
 and dotation — so it consecrated the sovereign whose legal title lay in
 
 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 207 
 
 his previous election, and its confirmation by " sliow of hands." The 
 Church could neither make nor unmake a king, she could only sanctify 
 his election by her benediction.^ 
 
 The custom of consecrating an English sovereign is first alluded to 
 in the Saxon Chronicle towards the close of the eighth centuiy. In the 
 reign of Offa, and in the same "contentious synod" in which the arch- 
 bishopric of Lichfield was called into existence, Ecgfrith was " hallowed 
 to king," and associated with his father in the sovereign power ; the 
 consecration of a Northumbrian king being noticed some ten years later. 
 Gregory, bishop of Ostia — he occasionally appears as George, — and 
 Theophylact, bishop of Todi, claiming to be the first papal legates 
 despatched to England since the mission of Augustine, arrived from Rome 
 in the course of 786, in company with Abbot Wigliod, the missus of 
 " Charles, by the grace of God, King of the Franks and Lombards, and 
 Patrician of the Romans." After assisting at a council in Nortliumbria, 
 in which King ^Ifwald and his leading clergy and nobility were present, 
 Gregory and Wighod returned to the south, and took part with Offa, 
 archbishop lanbert, and the twelve Southumbrian bishops, in the council 
 of Cealchythe. Li the regulations laid down in tliebc Councils the 
 sanctity of the royal person was particularly insisted upon. " Let no one 
 dare to conspire against the king's life, for he is the Lord's anointed." 
 He was to be elected by the " sacerdotes et seniores populi," — the bkshoiis 
 and leading nobles, or the Two Estates. The choice of the wicked was 
 not to prevail, and no one could be recognised as " the anointed of 
 the Lord, king of the whole kingdom, and his country's heir — hfcres 
 patriiB," — who was not born in legitimate wedlock. Some twelve years 
 later, Casnulf the Mercian overran and conquered Kent, which, after the 
 deaths of Offa and Ecgfrith, had, for two years, regained a sort of inde- 
 pendence unilcr Eadbert Pren. " Then, as the Elect of God — Domini 
 suffragio potitus, — he added the kingdom of Kent to his dominions, 
 })lacing a crown on his head, and taking a sceptre in his hand ; " much as 
 Rodolph, ninety years afterwards, " assembling some of the leading clei'gy 
 and laity at St. Maurice, placed a crown on his head, and oi'dered himself 
 to be proclaimed king " of Burgundy, il^thelheard, aichbishop of Canter- 
 bury, who, in the previous year, had been reinstated by Leo. in. in all the 
 privileges of which his see had been deprived by Offa and Pope Hadrian, 
 is not alkidcd to in the account left by Simeon, and a regular consecra- 
 tion may have been out of the question ; but if any coolness existed 
 
 1 Liut. Ant., L. i. c. 14, 15 ; Wid.,L. i. c. It!, 25, 2(1, L. ii. c. 1, L. iii. c. 49 ; Thicl. C/iron., 
 L. ii. c. 7. Tlic principle of election from a sacred or royal race may be naiil to be coeval willi 
 the existence of the regal dignity amongst the Teutons, and the ancient form " qiiein in regem 
 eligimus " held its place in the coronation service of the kings of P^ngland, at least as late as 
 the reign of Edward Ji. As the theory of "divine right" gained ground it was changed inlo 
 " queni in regem consecramiis." {Maskcll, p. l?i, n. 2[.) So thoroughly was Widukind im- 
 pressed with the conviction that the choice of the German soldiery raised Otho to the dignity 
 of Kaisar, that he never alludes to the "lienedictio imperialis " at Rome. Thietniar writes of 
 it as if it conferred the patronage of the Roman Church upon the sovereign chosen emperor 
 by the Gcrnians.
 
 208 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 
 
 between the arclibishop and the kino; it passel away for the time upon the 
 suppression of the archbishopric of Lichfield. Eadbert Pren was pro- 
 nounced "an apostate priest" by the Pope, and Ca3nuirs brother and 
 successor, Ceolwulf, was duly consecrated by Archbishop Wiilf red, on the 
 22d of September 822, " king, by the grace of God, of the Mercians and 
 Kentishmen." At the very close of the Mercian kingdom, as late as 
 869, ^thelswyth, Alfred's sister, places on record her claim to be a 
 crowned queen of the Angles, — " Ego Burhed Rex, et ego ^thelswytha 
 pari coronata sterama regali Anglorum Regina." Unction must have been 
 fully recognised in the Councils that legislated about "the Lord's 
 anointed ;" and, as a crown is thus alluded to on more than one occasion 
 in connection with the Mercian sovereigns, it may be assumed that, when 
 Oflfa's son, Ecgfrith, was " hallowed to king" in the presence — or with the 
 concurrence — of the papal legates at the Council of Cealchythe, all the 
 necessary ceremonies were complied with, and the Mercian sovereigns, 
 as well as the kings of the Franks, might have claimed, in a later age, to 
 be numbered amongst " the anointed kings," with a full right to " unction 
 and a diadem, with the apostolic sanction." ^ 
 
 As much may be said, apparently, for the claim of the Northumbrian 
 sovereigns to the same mysterious privileges. The peculiar sanctity of 
 the anointed of the Lord, and the rules to be observed in his election, 
 were impressed by the legates quite as much upon the Northumbrian 
 synod, as upon the Council of Cealchythe ; and accordingly, after the 
 assassination of iEthelred in 796, when Eardulf, whose father had 
 narrowly escaped the same fate in 790, was sent for from exile, he was 
 " blessed to king, and raised to his cijnestole by Archbishop Eanbald, and 
 Bishops ^thelbald, Higbald, and Badwulf," or the whole hierarchy of 
 
 1 Chron. Sax., 785 ; Sivi. Dun., 786, 798 ; Wilkins, Cone, vol. i. pp. 146, 161 ;_ Begin. 
 Chron., 888 ; Cod. Dip., ccxvi., ccxcix. Tlie confirmation of the elective principle in these 
 Councils, and the use of the expression hares patrice, are deserving of notice. When the 
 Germans hailed Otho as paicr patrice, to use the words of the contemporary Widukind, his 
 descendants became Jia:redes patrice, or, in more modern language, the royal family from whom 
 the king was to be chosen. So in England, all who chose Edward the Elder "to father and 
 lord," bound themselves to look upon his descendants as " ha?redes patriae," thus excluding 
 his uncle's children from the succession, who accordingly sunk into "the kindred of the king," 
 instead of ^Ahelings. The " Fa3der and Hlaford " of the Chronicle, in short, is the exact 
 rendering of Widukind's " Pater patriae imperatorque." The words of the old writer followed 
 by Simeon, " deinde Domini suffragio potitus," clearly show the opinion of the age that the 
 God of battles gave his verdict in victory, and that war was only an appeal to " the judgment 
 of God " on a grand scale. This continued to be the case until long afterwards. On the 
 death of Engilbert, for instance, "the piety of the king," with the consent of his sons, allowed 
 the children to succeed to their father's share in right of his wife Bertha — " nepotem patri 
 Buccedere, et neptes inter filias suas educari," — but only as a favour ; for the right of the 
 children of a deceased son to share with their uncles on the death of their grandfather was an 
 open question at that time. {Einh. Vit. Car., 19 ; An. Lah., 811.) Hence the children of 
 Pepin, who died before his father Ludwig the Pious, were shut out of the succession ; but the 
 question was finally decided in Otho's reign by the ordeal of battle. " Rex meliori concilio 
 usuB . . . rem inter gladiatores discerni jussit. Vicit igitur pars, qui filios filiorum compu- 
 tabant inter filios, et firmatum est, ut aequaliter cum patruis hereditatem dividerent pacto 
 sempiterno." ( Wid., L. ii. c. 10.) Thus the verdict of God was given by the sword of the 
 champion.
 
 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 209 
 
 Northumbria ; and, according to the old authority in Simeon, "conse- 
 crated in the church of St. Peter at Yorli, before the altar of the blessed 
 apostle Paul." Thus the ceremony was in accordance with the regula- 
 tions laid down in the Bull of John xxii., for "a decent number of 
 bishops," as well as with the consecration of Otbo before the altar in the 
 church at Aix. Twelve years afterwards, when Eardulf was again driven 
 into exile, he appealed to the emperor and pope, returning in the 
 following year with a papal and two imperial legates, with whose con- 
 currence his son Eanred seems to have been either raised to the throne 
 or associated with his father in the kingdom ; the House of Eardulf 
 continuinjic to reign, from this time forward, over the Northumbrians 
 until the Danish inroad. The service for consecrating a Northumbrian 
 sovereign, the " Missa pro regibus in die Benedictionis," in the Pontifical 
 of Archbishop Egbert, is the oldest " Order" on record, differing in one 
 important particular from all the later services — a helmet was used 
 instead of a crown. One of the bishops recited a prayer, whilst the 
 others anointed the king, on the head alone ; all the bishops and prin- 
 cipes, the " sacerdotes et seniores populi" of the Council, presented the 
 sceptre and the staff; "then let all the bishops take the helmet, and 
 place it on the king's head." It was evidently a service adapted to a 
 limited hierarchy, lUie that of Northumbria.^ 
 
 The ■ dependence of the Northumbrians upon the kingdom of the 
 Franks, or rather perhaps upon the Empire, has been sometimes assumed 
 on account of these transactions of their king with the Kaisar. The 
 assumption, however, is scarcely borne out by the character of the 
 negotiations, which are well deserving of a passing notice. Had Eardulf 
 been dependent upon the king of the Franks, or Kaisar, Charles would 
 have at once restored him to the Northumbrian kingdom by his own sole 
 power and authority when the exiled prince sought his aid at Nymegen. 
 But Charles did nothing of the sort. He forwarded letters to Rome, 
 informing Leo of Eardulf's expulsion, of which the Pope had already 
 heard from "Saxons;" for he had received letters from Eanbald (the 
 younger), archbishop of York, Ca3nulf the Mercian king, and Wada, all 
 of whom he pronounced to be " very false." The Kaisar then bade the 
 Pope summon to his presence Eanbald " cum suis consentaneis . . . 
 rationem deducendum," and Leo declared his readiness to do all tliat was 
 required of him. Charles seems to have complained soon afterwards 
 that Aldulph, the papal missus, who had been treated with honour and 
 courtesy upon his return from " Britain," had not awaited the missus 
 sent to conduct him to the imperial ja-esence, but had run away, as it 
 were, avoiding the interview, and carrying off with him the missus of 
 
 1 Chron. Sax., 795 ; Sim. Dim., 796, 808 ; Bi.it. Dun., ii. 5 ; Ann. Einh., 809; Ann. Fnhl, 
 809 ; ilh/sl.-f.ll, vol. iii. p. 74. The Noi'thnnibnan arclibisliop must not be conriiuiidcd with 
 the Wcst-Suxou king. The " Anglo-Saxon Ordei- of the (Jovonation of Egbert," and the 
 promise of the same king "not to dispute the throne of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northum- 
 brians," which make their first appearance in the pages of one of the most attractive writers 
 of the present day, would anticipate events by at least a century and a half. 
 
 O
 
 210 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 
 
 Eanbald. He suspected them of a secret mission, and a wisli to prevent 
 the arrival of Eardulf at Rome. Leo tried to excuse the missi on the 
 ground of ignorance, and, in order to clear himself personally of suspicion, 
 sent all the letters he had received to the Kaisar, at the same time 
 entreating Charles to deal gently with the missus of the archbishop of 
 York, lest all the advantages the Roman Church had gained in that 
 quarter should be lost to the Holy See. Charles seems to have been 
 acting throughout, not as king of the Franks, nor as the Kaisar supporting 
 a vassal, but as patron of the Roman Church, to which an appeal had 
 been made. Every church in those days had its advocate or patron, and 
 the letters of Gregory the Great, preserved in Beda's History, are duly 
 dated "in the reign of our lord Mauricius Tiberius;" but upon the 
 dissolution of the last tie binding Rome to Constantinople, by the fall 
 of Ravenna and the expulsion of the Exarch, the kings of the Franks, 
 from the date of Pepin's acceptance of the Patriciate, became patrons 
 and defenders of the Roman Church, As soon as the predominance of 
 the West-Saxon Egbert was thoroughly established, he at once asserted 
 his claim to the patronage and protection — patrocinium et protectionem 
 —of the Metropolitan See of Canterbury ; and the Saxon Otho, after his 
 exulting soldiery proclaimed him Kaisar, became, through the Benedictio 
 imperialis, the Patron of the See of Rome. Thus the patronage of the 
 leading church was always claimed by the foremost sovereign of the 
 State. The principle of appealing to the Pope about a matter of temporal 
 import was acknowledged, if not established, by the embassy of Pepin to 
 Zacharias ; but after the establishment of the Patriciate and Empire, 
 Charles would have no more allowed such an appeal to be made to the 
 Bishop of the See of Rome, without the consent of the Patron, than would 
 Egbert have permitted a similar appeal to be made to the archbishop of 
 Canterbury without the sanction of the patron and protector of that see. 
 Hence, througliout the reign of Charles, the papal legates were always 
 accompanied by a missus from the Patrician or Kaisar ; and, assuming 
 the right of permitting or preventing missions and pilgrimages to the 
 see of which he was the patron and protector, Charles shut the ports 
 against Oflfa's subjects during his quarrel with that king, forbidding their 
 passage to Rome — at another time waiving his claim to toll upon bond 
 fide pilgrims. It was evidently in his capacity of Patron that he seconded 
 the appeal of Eardulf to Rome ; and it was in the same capacity that 
 his mediation would have been offered between Cfenulf and Wulfred, 
 when the Mercian king assured the latter that he would never again 
 receive him as archbishop if he refused to comply with his conditions — 
 " Nunquam nee verbis domne pap^e, nee cassaris, sen alterius alicujus, 
 gradu hue in patriam iterum recipisse, nisi hoc consentire voluisset." ^ 
 
 As successors of the sovereign whom Charles addressed as "the most 
 powerful king of the Western Christians," the Mercian kings continued 
 to preside in the great ecclesiastical councils dating from Ofifa's reign, and 
 ^ Bouquet, Fp. Leo. iii. ud Car. vol. v. p. 61-4; Cod. Dij). ccxx., ccxl., mxliv.
 
 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 211 
 
 a papal functionary attached his signature to one of the last of these 
 synods, held under Beornnlf in 825. With the downfall of the Mercian 
 ascendancy these great councils ceased to he held, and accordingly no 
 more papal emissaries could be accredited to them; Feologild, the choice 
 apparently of the canons of Christ-Church, was set aside ; West-Saxon 
 prelates filled the see of Canterbury, secular canons replaced the regulars, 
 and, comparatively speaking, little intercourse seems to have been held 
 with Eome, under Egbert and the earlier members of his house. The 
 coronation service, however, known as the Order of Ethelred is evidently 
 founded upon the " Ordo Romanus," or some earlier but similar form 
 issued with the authority of Eome ; for many of the prayers and direc- 
 tions contained in both these Orders are identical, and Rome would have 
 scarcely borrowed her service from " Saxony beyond the sea." In the 
 use of a crown, and of a coronation service for the queen, the Order of 
 Ethelred is in advance of the older Northumbrian service, nor do the 
 prayers and directions in the " Missa pro regibus" correspond with those 
 of the Ordo Romanus. Hence an authorized coronation service, of a 
 later date than the Missa pro regibus, would appear to have been com- 
 piled and issued with the sanction of Rome, and seems to have found its 
 way into England before the reign of Ethelred ; the existence of some 
 such common source being further shown by its correspondence with the 
 Order " ex codice Ratoldi abbatis," used for anointing the kings of 
 France, according to the authority of the " Livre du sacre des roys de 
 France," compiled by command of Charles v. in 1365. It is not a little 
 remarkable that, in the prayer taken from the Ordo Romanus, in which 
 the Order of Ethelred inserts the passages " totius regni Anglo-Saxonum 
 ecclesiam," and " regale solium videlicet Anglorum vel Saxonum sceptro 
 non deserat," the Codex of Abbot Eatold reads ^^ i(S^ms, Albionis eccle- 
 siam," and "regale solium videlicet Saxonum, Merciorum et Nordan- 
 chunhrorum sceptra non deserat" — from which it may be inferred that 
 the coronation service of the French kings of the house of Capet, though 
 founded upon the orthodox Ordo Romanus, was derived from England 
 and not from Rome. Nor is this all, for the Codex of Abbot Eatold 
 must have been copied from an earlier form, in use before the Order of 
 Ethelred had substituted "Angles or Saxons" for "Saxons, Mercians, 
 and Northumbrians." The meaning of this must be sought for in the 
 history of the period.^ 
 
 After the death of Ludwig the Pious, the imperial authority was 
 centred for a time in his senior representative, Lothaire, whose capital 
 was at Metz ; and when Charles the Bald aspired to the empire in 8G9, 
 he invaded and annexed Lotharingia, was crowned by the bishop of 
 Metz, and as king of two of the three Frank kingdoms, say the Annals of 
 Fulda, assumed the title of Emperor and Augustus — " se in Iinperatorem 
 et Augustum, quasi duo regna possessurus, appellari pra'cepit." Metz, 
 
 * Co(Z. DZ/J. ccxviii. ; Selden, Titles of Honour ; M.askell, p. 14, note 29. KatolJ was Abbot 
 of Corvey, and the Codex was written in 980, according to Marteue.
 
 212 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 
 
 however, represented the capital of the okl Merovino;ian kingdom of 
 Austrasia, and though the first sovereign of the Caroline House was of 
 Austrasian origin, he was " raised to the throne, after the fashion of the 
 Franks, at Soissons," or at the capital of the okl Merovingian kingdom 
 of Neustria. As Western Wessex always ranked in dignity before the 
 Eastern provinces — " semper orientali principalior est," wrote Asser — so 
 the Franks of the Western kingdom claimed precedence over the Easter- 
 lings, once their tributaries ; and the representatives of the men who chose 
 their king at Soissons have long since appropriated to themselves alone 
 the name that once belonged to the whole confederacv.^ The jealousy 
 prompting them to set up a king of alien race, rather than submit to an 
 authorit\' emanating from " beyond the Rhine," is easily traceable in 
 certain fictions that first saw the light in the reign of Charles the Bald, 
 just before the disruption of the empire. In order, as it were, to fix 
 the seat of the empire to the westward of the Rhine, Hincraar sought to 
 trace its commencement to the era of Clovis, converting the baptism of 
 the king in the church of St. Martin at Rheims, into his unction and 
 coronation by St. Remi. On this auspicious occasion, when the envious 
 Satan dashed the viol of holy oil from the hand of the Saint, a dove from 
 heaven supplied the loss with the sacred Ampulla, which was preserved 
 at Rheims in proof of the truth of the story, and used in anointing the 
 kings of France. Thus though the Patriciate may have been confirmed 
 by the unction of St. Peter, and a letter sent from heaven by the same 
 apostle may have first called Pepin into Italy to lay the foundations of 
 the future emjiire, the kingdom to which the same Pepin had been 
 raised by the voice of the Franks at Soissons was equally conferred on 
 Clovis by the will of heaven, and the dove was a messenger from a source 
 even higher than St. Peter. Legend was encountered by legend in those 
 days, and a century of acquiescence and approval hardened Hincmar's 
 fictions into the consistency of facts ; for they really expressed the feeling 
 that has always led the representatives of the Western Fi anks to assert 
 the " liberties" of their church and crown. Accordingly, when the arch- 
 bishop of Rheims, setting aside the claim advanced by Charles of Lothar- 
 ingia, in right of his birth, with the words "a kingdom is not acquired 
 by hereditary right," consecrated Hugh Capet to the throne, the Elect of 
 the Western Franks was supposed to have supplanted the Carolings in 
 the kingdom to which Clovi-;, with the direct approval of heaven, had 
 been anointed by St. Remi. AVith Rome Hugh Capet was at variance, 
 and even if she had not been in dependence on the Kaisars of the Saxon 
 House at that time, Rome might have felt inclined to question the 
 authenticity of fictions framed for other purposes than her own. Rome, 
 accordingly, was not appealed to, as may be gathered from the Codex of 
 Abbot Ratold, and the authorized coronation service of the period was 
 
 ^ The annual tribute paid to the Fisk from the Easteriing Franks and Slaves was known as 
 Steora, and the tithe of it was given by Pepin and Charles to the church of St. Saviour in the 
 diocese of Wurtzburg [Ersch unci Gruber, in voc. Gau, \. 416).
 
 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 213 
 
 brought, through the abbot of Corvey, from England, where the earlier 
 form, alluding to " the sceptres of the Saxons, Mercians, and Northum- 
 brians," must have been still in use at the time it was copied.^ 
 
 Conrad the Easterling, who was chosen in 911 to succeed Arnulfs son 
 Ludwig, tried in vain to equalize his power with his })retensions, but " the 
 suffrage of God" was against him ; he failed to wrest Thuringen from 
 Henry the Saxon, and received his death-wound in a disastrous battle 
 against the Bavarians. Upon his deathbed, recognising that the ancient 
 supremacy of his race had passed away with their separation, he suggested 
 the elevation of his Saxon rival to the throne ; and " the princes and 
 elders of the Franks," meeting at Fritzlar, proclaimed Henry " king, 
 before all the Frank and Saxon people." Henry, accepting the regal 
 dignity, but declining the diadem and unction, marched to the frontiers 
 of Swabia and Bavaria ; both duchies submitted to him, and with the 
 Bavarian Arnulf he entered into an alliance so close, that the duke was 
 known from that time as " the king's friend." The secret of this alliance, 
 and a clue to the early policy of Henry, will be found in the events of 
 the following reign. The dispute about precedency between the arch- 
 bishops of Mayence, Treves, and Cologne at the coronation of Otho 
 marks that ceremony as a novelty ; for the relative position and privileges 
 of the three great metropolitans of the Easterling Franks at a coronation 
 had not at that time been settled. On this occasion Arnulf the Bavaiian 
 was Otho's Mareschal, and when Conrad's brother Eberhard rose with 
 the other Frank nobles against the Saxon king, it was the Duke of 
 Swabia who defeated them — the same Duke Herman who gave his 
 daughter Ida, with all her claims upon his duchy, to Leodolf the son of 
 Otho, and his English queen. Before the election of Otho the Franks 
 alone chose the king ; and Henry, a Saxon prince, chosen as of old by 
 the Franks, accepted by the Saxons, and subsequently upon their own 
 frontiers by the Swalnans and Bavarians, declined the diadem and unction, 
 seeking apparently to found the future greatness of his House u))on the 
 principle that such a dignity could be conferred alone upon the Elect of 
 the whole people — of " all the Deutschlands," to use the language of a 
 later age. Hence Swabians and Bavarians rallied around his son, and 
 helped to break the waning power of the Franks ; for Otho was the first 
 king of their immediate choice, and from the date of his election, Saxons, 
 Swabians, and Bavarians united with the Franks of the Eastern kingdom 
 in choosing their king — " and a struggle is still going on between the 
 kings of the Carolings and of the Easterlings for the kingdom of 
 Lothaire." Nine centuries have passed away since the hand of Widukind 
 
 ^ Ilincmar's legend will be founcl in Maskoll's Dissertation. A vial of lioly oil was sup- 
 posed to have been consigned to the hands of Beckett by the Virgin, and by some inexplicable 
 mischance never to have been used before the accession of the House of Lancaster. The tale, 
 of course, arose in the fifteenth century. These sort of fictions have their uses in history, 
 when the era in which they first arose can be fixed with tolerable accuracy. They mark the 
 feeling of the age in which they were first believed.
 
 214 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 
 
 penned this passage, but the struggle for the kingdom of Lothaire has 
 not yet arrived at a conclusion.^ 
 
 The admission of the three great provinces to a voice in the election 
 of their sovereign, was the first step towards converting the Eastern 
 kingdom of the Franks into Germany, or the kingdom of the Four 
 Deutschlands ; and much about the same time a somewhat similar pro- 
 cess was going on in England. " All the English who were not under the 
 bondage of the Danish men," or the people of English Mercia, submitted 
 to Alfred in 886, and the Mercians again submitted to Edward, after he 
 " deprived (his niece) of all dominion, and led her into Wessex ;" but 
 Athelstan was the first of his House who was " chosen king by the 
 Mercians" before his hallowing at Kingston. During the next thirty 
 years he and his two brothers reigned as the kings chosen by the West- 
 Saxons and Mercians, receiving " weds and oaths" occasionally from the 
 people of Northumbria, who never " chose a king" at that time who was 
 not of Danish race. The last of the kings of Danish race, Eric, the son 
 of Harald Blaatand, fell by treachery in 954, and in a charter dated in 
 the following year — the last of his reign — Edred is called Cccsar, in the 
 very year in which the German soldiery hailed his brother-in-law by the 
 same title. The kingdom was again divided in the reign of Edwy, but 
 upon his death in 959, Edgar " succeeded to the kingdom of the West- 
 Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians," the Saxon Chronicle thus using 
 the identical form of expression appearing in the Codex of Abbot Eatold.^ 
 
 At the date of Ai-chbishop Wulstan's death in December 957, the 
 Northumbrians owed no allegiance to Edwy, who was only king over the 
 West-Saxons at the time. Oscytel, therefore, was indebted for his 
 appointment to the archdiocese of York — or for the confirmation of his 
 appointment — to the Elect of the Mercians and Northumbrians ; but 
 Edgar had been king over " the West-Saxons, Mercians, and Northum- 
 brians" for several years when Oscytel died. The election of ^thel- 
 wald, who was apparently the choice of the clergy of York, seems to have 
 been at once set aside, just as the election of Abbot Feologild to the see 
 of Canterbury appears to have been ignored by Egbert ; and Edgar, 
 following in the steps of the founder of his House, appointed Oswald, 
 bishop of Worcester, the nephew of the deceased archbishop, to the 
 vacant see. Thus he assumed the rights, and acted in the character of 
 the Patron and Protector of the See of York, and he was the first of the 
 south-country monarchs who successfully established this claim. Oswald 
 immediately set out for Rome, not only to seek his pall, but as the 
 bearer of an important commission from the king — -" plurima negotia 
 regni," writes Eadmer, adding that the negotiation was satisfactorily 
 arranged. Otho, the Great Kaisar, was at Rome at the date of Oswald's 
 mission, and his influence would have been exerted in behalf of his 
 
 ^ Wid. Lib. i. c. 16, 25, 26, 27, ii. c. 1 ; Lint. Ant, Lib. v. c. 1. " Saxonia ex serva, facta 
 est libera, et ex tributaria multarum gentium domina." Such are the words of Widukind, 
 i. 34. " All the Deutschlands " is an expression of the Sachsenspiegel. " All the Deutschlands 
 have their own Pfaltzgraiien ; Sachsen, lieyern, Francken, and Schwaben." Bk. iii. Art. 53. 
 
 ^ Chron, Sax. ad. an., Cod. Dip, ccccxxxiii. " Cyning et casere totius Britannise."
 
 THE CORONATION OF EDGAR. 215 
 
 nephew had his influence indeed been required. But the soHtary diffi- 
 culty in the way of Edgar's envoy, had his mission related to the unction 
 and coronation of the English king, would have been the right of unction 
 previously accorded by the papal see to the sovereigns of Mercia and 
 Northumbria ; and the ancient royalties of Mercia and Noithumbria were 
 extinct. Immediately upon the return of Oswald from Rome, Edgar 
 was crowned at Bath — " denique coronatur in regnum" are the words of 
 his kinsman and contemporary iEthelwerd the Patrician ; and within 
 five or six years from this date, both archbishops and ten bishops, repre- 
 senting the hierarchy of the provinces of Canterbury and York, were 
 present at the coronation of his son Ethelred at Kingston. This is the 
 first historical notice of an archbishop of York assisting with the south- 
 country metropolitan at the coronation of a king, but the ceremony at 
 Kingston may be assumed with probability to have been a mere repeti- 
 tion of the ceremony at Bath. Edred scarcely survived the suppression 
 of the royal power in Northumbria, and Edwy was soon reduced to rule 
 over only a portion of a disunited kingdom. Edgar, therefore, would 
 appear to have postponed his coronation until every solemnity could be 
 fulrilled that was considered necessary for the unction and coronation of 
 the Elect of all three provinces of England, the first sovereign who in 
 the presence of both archbishops — of the " sacerdotes et principes" of the 
 whole of England — was crowned and anointed as the sole representa- 
 tive of the three-fold sovereignty of the West-Saxons, Mercians, and 
 Northumbrians.^ 
 
 Thus in England, France, and Germany, a similar movement seems 
 to have been in progress during the tenth century, but upon the early 
 death of Edgar, yElfthryth, who seems to have sat by the side of her 
 royal husband as a crowned consort, reverted to the ancient custom of 
 Wessex as soon as she became a widow ; and it was not until after her 
 death as queen-mother, and the second marriage of her son Ethelred 
 with the Norman Emma, that a queen-consort again assumed her place 
 by the side of the sovereign. Tlie addition of a coronation service for 
 a queen seems to mark that the " Order of Ethelred" first came into use 
 about this period of his reign, and by this time West Saxons, Mercians, 
 and Northumbrians had blended into " Angles or Saxons." ^ 
 
 1 JEad. Vit. Osw.; Chron. Sax., 979. Tlie course of policy pursued towards the See of .York, 
 first by Edward and subsequently by Atlielstan, and the attempt of the latter to break up tho 
 overgrown power of the archbishop by dividing his diocese, will be tuuclu'd u])on further on. 
 Some of the effects of this policy are still traceable in the extension of the modern diocese of 
 Chester, once a portion of the great bishopric of the Mercians, over the whole of that part of 
 western Northumbria which had been originally included in the diocese of York. 
 
 '^ The gradual extension of the English name, in the course of the tenth century, is very 
 perceptible. I'hns the sister of Alfred styles herself " Rogina Anglorum," a title belonging in 
 her days to the queen of the Mercians ; and Frudentius, the contemporary bishop of Troycs, 
 who has described the marriage of yl<]tlielwulf and Judith in tbe Anjials of St. licrtin, gives 
 him the title of king of tbe Anglo-Saxons, and king of the West Angles. I'ut yl'^tlielwerd the 
 Patrician invariably writes " Occidentales Angli" for tbe West-Saxons, and "Orientales Angli" 
 for the East-Saxons. It was evidently tbe policy of the age in which he lived to obliterate all 
 recollection of any difference between Angle and Saxon. Hence the change of phraseology in 
 the Coronation Service of Ethelred, and the name of Saxon disappeared for ever.
 
 216 
 
 ROME. 
 
 LivY, after dedicating his first five Books to the history of Kome 
 before her capture by the Gauls, informs his readers that the whole of 
 the materials upon whicli this earlier portion of Roman history was 
 founded had been handed down by oral tradition alone — " una custodia 
 fidelis memoriaa" — writings and memorials of every description, whether 
 public or private, if they ever existed, having perished in the burning 
 city. Accordingly, when the Fasti Capitolini, which are supposed to 
 have been compiled in the reign of Tiberius, or some four centuries 
 alter the period of the Gallic inroad, furnish a list of magistrates com- 
 mencing from the expulsion of the Tarquins, the accuracy of the earlier 
 portion of the series may be doubted. Many, if not most, of the heroes 
 of early Roman history bear the names of Plebeian families, more or less 
 celebrated in their own days, whose pride of ancestry would have been 
 flattered by the appearance of their foreftithers upon the roll of the early 
 Patriciate ; and, bearing in mind the era in which the Fasti were com- 
 piled, the frequent appearance of a certain mythical family of Julius 
 lulus — a family that vanishes at the commencement of the historical 
 period — seems to throw a light upon the method that is likely to have 
 been pursued in filling up the vacancies in the catalogue of early magi- 
 strates. Even the apparent accuracy with which the battles and sieges 
 of this period, and certain constitutional changes that are supposed to 
 have been brought about, are assigned to particular years, is of itself 
 suspicious ; for oral tradition is apt to be vague upon such points, its 
 preservers, generally bards or poets, being as a rule a careless race in the 
 matter of dates. 
 
 About a century and a half after Rome was burnt by the Gauls, 
 Ennius was born, and, when upwards of five hundred years are supposed 
 to have elapsed from the foundation of the city, he undertook to tell the 
 story of the past, beginning with the loves of Mars and Rhea. Many a 
 fine old legend was probably preserved by Ennius from oblivion, and for 
 this posterity owes him a debt of gratitude ; and many a poi)ular name, 
 better known perhaps in his own days than in the remote past, may have 
 added life to his narrative. He was the father of Roman history, to 
 whom every subsequent writer was more or less indebted, though the dry 
 records of the past that give accuracy to dates, and are of little interest 
 to the poet in search of incident and character, must have been gradually 
 accumulating: from the time that Rome arose from her asbes. Ennius
 
 ROME. 217 
 
 wrote his Annajs in verse, and a story of the past, like that of early 
 Rome, which is a compound of myth and legend, and tradition more or 
 less true, is best preserved in a poetic form — in the Lays of a Macaulay, 
 or in the Idylls of a Tennyson. Oral tradition adapts itself to the age, 
 and the incidents and characters of a story a^^sume the shape mo,-t 
 familiar to the audience listening to the teller of the tale. The spirit, as 
 it were, remains the same, but the body is apt to be clothed in the dress 
 of each passing age, until at length the legend is written down, perpetu- 
 ating the latest form assumed, which is not necessarily in accordance 
 with the earliest and most true. Hence the deductions sometimes drawn 
 from the historical legends of the past in their written shape are not 
 always accurate. Take the episode of the Fabii. The number of the 
 fated band amounted to three hundred and six, and Dionysius gives 
 them a following of four thousand clients, raised by Festus to five 
 thousand. But three hundred horsemen and six military tribunes 
 represent the Patrician contribution to a legion, at a certain period of 
 Eoman history, when it numbered four thousand men on ordinary 
 occasions, and was raised to five thousand on emergencies. Any deduc- 
 tions, however, that might be drawn from this apparent coincidence 
 would probably be wrong. The street with the ill-omened name, and 
 the gate through which no Roman ever quitted the city, though many 
 entered by it, attest the truthfulness of the legend in its main features ; 
 but the minute correspondence of the number of the Fabii and their 
 followers with the Patrician and Plebeian contributions to the legion, is 
 precisely one of those curious additions that is apt to creep up around 
 a story of the past, as it is handed on by oral tradition to later times. 
 It is the dress of a later age in which the earlier legend has been clothed, 
 at the time perhaps when it first assumed a written shape in the era in 
 which the Military Tribunes were still chosen exclusively from the 
 Patrician order, though the Legion no longer retained its original form. 
 The legend of the Fabii, truthful without being exactly historical, shouhl 
 live in verse, and, like other similar legends, should not be over minutely 
 dissected. Otherwise it might be suggested that Quintus Curtius may 
 have drained the marsh in the Forum, and lost his life through malaria ; 
 but it is better to let the noble Roman leap, as of old, on his gallant 
 war-horse into the yawning gulf, the grandest offering that Rome could 
 make to appease the anger of the gods ^ 
 
 The substitution of a Republican for a Monarchical form of govern- 
 ment, generally attributed to the early Romans, is one of the theories 
 that belong to a much later era than the period in which the change is 
 
 ^ The Legion seems again traceaLle in the account of Phitarch (Puhlicola 21), tliat five 
 thousand clients followed Appius Claudius, each receiving two jugera, wliilst twenty-live were 
 assigned to their leader. The ditl'erence is very similar to that existing between the assess- 
 ments of the highest and lowest classes serving in the legions in the ago of I'olybins, and it 
 may point out, perhaps, the time at which the oral tradition assumed a written shape. The 
 supposed distribution is scarcely in accordance with the principles of the age in which Vetus 
 Claudia was added to the rural tribes.
 
 218 ROME. 
 
 supposed to have been brought about. The Rex had nothing whatever 
 in common with the Cyning, or Koenig, whose name points to a close 
 connexion originally witb " the Kin." As Rex Sacrorum, Director by- 
 appointment, not King in virtue of descent, he may be looked upon as 
 the highest official connected with religion in the early historical period 
 of Rome, and, before the institution of a Pontifex Maximus, he is sup- 
 posed to have been also President of the Pontifical College. Of the 
 earliest of the three Roman popular assemblies, the Comitia Curiata, the 
 Pontifex Maximus was at once the Convener and the Speaker, except 
 when his place was taken by one of the ordinary Pontifices ; putting the 
 question to the assembly under the form of "Vos Quirites rogo," and 
 announcing the decision arrived at as law. Before the institution of the 
 various magistracies of later times, such as the Censorship and the Con- 
 sulate, the union of all the functions of the Rex Sacrorum and the Pon- 
 tifex Maximus in the same person would have raised him, both in his 
 civil and religious capacities, to the foremost position in the State. Of the 
 seven ^ kings who are supposed to have ruled over Rome, one was a 
 Sabine, two were Latins, two Etrurians, and the others god-descended 
 myths. Not one of the number was of native Roman origin, inheriting 
 his office by descent ; and, during the so-called regal period, Rome in 
 reality appears to have remained in a subordinate and dependent position, 
 receiving her supreme magistrate from without. The test of union, in an 
 Italian confederacy of early times, seems to have consisted in participat- 
 ing in a solemn sacrifice, of which the supreme Director would have been, 
 in a certain sense, a Rex Sacrorum a])pointed by the members of the con- 
 federacy. The leading man of Veil, affi'onted by being passed over on 
 the occasion of one of these solemn festivals at the Fanum Voliumnce, 
 when "another priest" (alius sacerdos) was appointed to direct the 
 sacrifice, procured his own election to the position of Rex of Veii ; and 
 accordingly in their subsequent contest against Rome, the Veientines were 
 left by the Etrurian confederacy to their fate. Thus the choice of a Rex by 
 the Veientines was equivalent to a dissolution of their connexion with 
 the Etrurian confederacy ; and in the legend of the expulsion of the 
 Tarquins may be seen, apparently, a similar but more successful assertion 
 of independence by the Romans, who henceforth " chose their Rex " from 
 amongst themselves, and ceased to receive him from Etruria. He was 
 restricted, however, to the performance of his religious duties alone, and 
 mulcted of his political privileges, Avbich are subsequently found in the 
 possession of the Pontifex Maximus, and of various other magistrates of a 
 later era. The prejudice supposed to have been entertained by the Romans 
 against a Rex originated in the foreign character of the magistracy, and 
 was fostered, if not created, by the aristocracy of Rome, whether Patrician 
 or Plebeian, in order to retain the government in their own hands.^ 
 
 ^ Liv. V. 1. A fourth assembly is sometimes added, the Calata. But as I read the passage 
 in Aukis Crellius (xv. 27) the Comitia Curiata and Comitia Centuriata were both Calata — 
 called together — the former by lictors, the latter by the horn or trumpet.
 
 ROME. 219 
 
 If the story of the regal period is almost, if not entirely, mythical, at 
 least as much may be said of the early consuls. A member of one of the 
 most illustrious Plebeian Grentes, the Junian, is brought upon a stage on 
 which he never could have figured, he and his sons are conveniently 
 swept out of the way, and the Gens vanishes altogether, until, in a much 
 later era, it appears as a historical reality. The same may be said of 
 Lucretius, the colleague of Brutus, who was also a member of a Plebeian 
 Gens ; the very type and impersonification of Patrician pride, Coriolanus, 
 is chosen from one of the greatest of the Plebeian Gentes, the Marcian, 
 and a Plebeian wife is assigned to him of less illustrious ancestry. Many 
 % germ of truth may be contained in the legends of the Tarquins and of 
 Coriolanus, but the leading characters have been supplied in a later age, 
 and supplied, apparently, in a manner that must have been gratifying to 
 the vanity of the great Plebeian families, representing the majority of the 
 aristocracy of Eome, in the age in which her history was beginning to be 
 written — not far, perhaps, from the time at which the Laws of Numa 
 were " discovered." Three tribes are dimly traceable in the early past, 
 and then the addition of Vetus Claudia raises the number from sixteen 
 to seventeen, for the urban tribes were not then in existence. Four 
 more were added after the fall of Veii, when Rome was released from her 
 most formidable competitor, and the real commencement of the historical 
 period is approached. But of the circumstances leading to the increase 
 of the tribes from three to sixteen, and of the events of the intervening 
 period, nothing whatever has been handed down beyond the myths and 
 legends preserved by oral tradition. The Plebeian of the intermediate 
 period, in the pages of Livy, is a type of the urban Plebeian of the his- 
 torian's own time, thrown back into the past. An angry Kentish 
 freeholder, in the reign of a Plantagenet, might have ventilated his 
 grievances upon Pennenden Heath, but he would have scarcely been 
 found appealing to a sympathizing crowd in Hyde Park. Yet long 
 before the urban tribes were called into existence by the first of the Fabii 
 Maximi, and when there was scarcely a Quiinte in the actual city of 
 Eome who was not either a member or a client of some Patrician Gens, 
 Livy's oppressed Plebeian harangues his fellows in the Forum, much as a 
 member of the urban tribes might have done some centuries later. So 
 again, in an age in which the Plebeian Quirites were re})resented by the 
 population of the rural districts, a threat of secession to the Mons Sacer 
 is supposed to have invariably brought the governing body to terms, 
 when there was scarcely a Plebeian within the walls of Rome to secede. 
 Tribunes governed Rome at the date of her destruction by the Gauls, 
 and had governed her for many years ; nor were the Tribunes superseded 
 until the Rogations of Licinius became law. Immediately before the 
 epoch in which these Tribunes are supposed to have been first appointed, 
 members of Plebeian Gentes, who could never have filled the consulate, 
 make their ai)pearauce in numbers upon the roll of Consuls, or find their 
 way into the list of Decemvirs ; and the history of all this period bears
 
 220 ROME. 
 
 evident tokens of the comparatively late era in which the lays and legends 
 handed down by oral tradition assumed the written shape in which they 
 finally descended to later times. The tribune of a very early age was 
 evidently the representative of the tribe, an Ealderman in his civil capa- 
 city, a jye?'e/0(7a when he led his "thousand" followers to battle; and, 
 after the expulsion of the foreign magistrates from Rome, it is only 
 natural to suppose that the governing power was vested, for some time, 
 in the representatives of the free Romans, who " choi-e their Rex." Upon 
 the admission of the Plebeians to a share in the privileges of the governing 
 order, tlie Consulate would appear, in reality, to have been established 
 as a sort of compromise, representing a division of the governing power 
 between Patrician and Plebeian. 
 
 The formation of a separate order of Plebeians is usually attributed 
 to Servius Tullius, who is supposed to have called into existence .thirty 
 new tribes, and to hav^e distributed the whole body of Adsidui, or land- 
 holders, into five classes, arranging them according to the amount of pro- 
 perty at which they were assessed, and subdividing the classes into centuries. 
 The number of these centuries is reckoned at a hundred and ninety-three 
 by Cicero and Dionysius, and apparently they are correct, though Livy 
 adds another, for an uneven number was necessary for the Roman 
 system of voting by centuries. But, assuming the existence of Servius 
 Tullius, there are many difficulties in the way of attributing an arrange- 
 ment of this description to the period in which he is supposed to have 
 reigned. Cicero, for instance, points out the care with which the pre- 
 ponderance of property was secured by Servius. The additional votes ot 
 only eight centuries were required to insure a majority in the Comitia 
 for the eighty-three centuries of wealthy Plebeians, whom he reckons in 
 the first class, along with the Equestrian centuries, whose number he 
 limits to six. So forcible is his reasoning, however, that it is difficult 
 to conceive how the wealthy Plebeians enrolled in the first class, v/ith 
 this vast preponderance in the Comitia, should have struggled unsuccess- 
 fully for generations against the exclusiveness of the few Equestrian 
 centuries. The creation of a numerous and powerful class of wealthy 
 and unprivileged proprietors is an absurdity ; for wealth, numbers, and 
 power would have insured for their possessors an immediate participation 
 in the privileges of the State. The Rogations of Licinius would have 
 been proposed, and carried, in the reign of Servius, and the supposed 
 arrangement of the king is much more in keeping with the era of the 
 famous tribune. 
 
 Another difficulty arises from the mention of Equestrian centuries. 
 Every Patrician was liable to military service, but, in historical times, 
 this bervice was performed on horseback, and the yoimg Patrician, or 
 Junior, was a cavalry soldier. His horse was provided by the State, 
 but in course of time the wealthy Plebeian aristocracy would appear to 
 have avoided enrolment in the infantry of the legions by serving in the 
 ranks of the cavalry on their own horses. The Eqv.es, or horseman^ was
 
 ROME. 221 
 
 cliosen when Polybius was writiug from the wealthiest class (TrAonTtVSe) 
 without any reference to the order to which he belonged, whetlier 
 Patrician or Plebeian, and his service was limited to ten years, the 
 qualification at that time for holding office amongst the Eoman magis- 
 tracy. In other words, the youthful aristocrat, or Junior, whether 
 Patrician or Plebeian, qualified himself for accepting office under the 
 State by serving for ten years in the cavalry, either in the regular 
 Turmm attached to the legions, or in the ranks of the Extraordinarii 
 " out of compliment to the Consuls." Caius Gracchus founded the 
 Equestrian order for a political purpose — " in contimieliam senatus " — 
 depriving the Magistracy and Senate of certain privileges which he 
 vested in the novel order. The wealthiest members of the highest class, 
 immediately below the Senatorial order, were assessed during the Second 
 Punic War at a million of Asses ; and just as the first class was raised 
 above all the others by the supposed arrangement of Servius, so Caius 
 seems to have elevated the wealthiest members of the first class above 
 the remainder, and established them in a permanent and recognised 
 position, as a sort of counterpoise to the Senatorial order. Four hundred 
 sestertia, the equivalent of "a million of Asses" during the Second 
 Panic War, was the amount of the foitune required for the recipient of 
 the title of Eques, and from this time forward the richest members of 
 the first class were separated from the rest, and became a recognised 
 estate in the Roman Commonwealth under the name of Equites. But 
 the application of that title to a particular class of Eoman citizens, 
 except when serving in a military capacity, was unknown before the 
 time of Caius Gracchus ; and the possessors of the equivalent of " an 
 Equestrian fortune" were merely assessed, during the Second Punic 
 War, as the richest members of the first class. The " turma equitum" 
 was as familiar to the early Roman as the maniple, and the wealthy 
 aristocrat, after serving his ten years in a turma, as a Junior, would 
 have passed into the ranks of the privileged few who were qualified for 
 office in the State, and would have been assessed, when a Senior, either 
 as a Senator or as a leading member of the first class. But the " Cen- 
 turia Equitum " would have been an anomaly, and the order after its 
 establishment was divided, like the Senate, into Decuricv. The Piques, 
 after serving his time as a Junior, would in this case have been assessed 
 as a Senior, and thus the existence of " Seniores et Juniores E(]uitum " 
 must be assumed, with the establishment of a separate and I'ecognised 
 order, between the Senate and the first class, from the time of Servius 
 Tidiius. 
 
 Another difficulty again presents itself in the unaccountable dis- 
 appearance of several of the Servian tribes ; for, by the addition of the 
 Vetus Claudia, the number of the tribes was increased, according to Livy, 
 from twenty to twenty-one. ]Sfiel)uhr, as is well known, accounts for the 
 missing ten by a conquest, but his conjecture is ingenious rather than 
 satisfactory. He supposes that Porsena mulcted Rome of a third of her
 
 222 ROME. 
 
 territory, but the rural tribes were the occupants of the Koraan territory ; 
 of tlie thirty Servian tribes only twenty-six were rural, and ten is not 
 the third of twenty-six. Kome, again, may have been divided into four 
 quarters in very early days, but her local divisions must not be con- 
 founded with her tribes, and the existence of the four urban tribes at 
 such an early period is more than doubtful. They were creations of a 
 historical personage, and were iirst called into existence about B.C. 304, 
 in the censorship of Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius Mus. Ap^dus 
 Claudius, who is supposed to have been stricken with blindness by the 
 angry gods for his evil doings, thus earning the cognomen of Coecus, 
 availed himself of his appointment to the censorship to till the tribes, for 
 his own purposes, with the sons of Libertini — with freemen without a 
 pedigree of three descents, or a full-born " pater et avus "■ — and the con- 
 sequent election of Cneius Fulvius to a curule ^dileship " first polluted 
 the senate with the son of a Libertine." In order to undo the work of 
 Appius, Quintus Fabius collected " the mob of the Forum " into four 
 tribes, to which he gave the name of Urban — " omnem forensem turbam 
 excretam in quatuor tribes conjecit, urbanasque eas appellavit" — thus 
 earning the cognomen of Maximus, which he transmitted to his descen- 
 dants. From this time forward the Urban tribes became the receptacle 
 into which it was customary to draft certain noxious elements from the 
 rural districts, and for " eliminating the fax from the rural tribes," or 
 removing the Libertini and their sons into the Urban tribes, the Censors 
 were more than once deemed to have merited the thanks of the Senate.^ 
 
 " It must not excite surprise that the arrangement of the present 
 day, after the tribes have been increased to thirty-five, hy doubling their 
 number, should not agree with the number of centuries of Seniors and 
 Juniors, as instituted by Servius Tullius.""^ — Such is the singular passage 
 with which Livy concludes his description of the policy of the Koman 
 king, from which it would appear that, by increasing the tribes from 
 thirty to thirty-five, their number was doubled ! The remark of the 
 historian, however, is in a certain sense correct, and there is truth in his 
 apparent blunder; for by increasing the seventeen rural or historical tribes 
 to thirty- five — the original three are traditionary — the number may be 
 said to have been more than doubled. The century was a subdivision 
 of a tribe ; and its members were classified, during a certain period of 
 the Eepublic, according to their property, and divided into Seniors and 
 Juniors, according to their liability to military service. Whatever may 
 have been the case in later times, in early days the tribe was divided into 
 ten centuries ; for in the original military organization the head of the 
 
 ^ Liv. ix. 46. In b.c. 220, and b.c. 168, for instance, the sons of Libertini were re- 
 moved from the rural into the urban tribes. In the hitter year those who had " prasdia, 
 prsediave rustica, pluris sestercium triginta milHum," or above 75,000 Asses, were suffered to 
 remain. Liv. xlv. 15. 
 
 ^ " Nee mirari oportet, hunc ordinem, qui nunc est, post expletas quinque et triginta tribus, 
 duplicato earum niimero, centuriis junioriim seuiprumque ad institutam ab Servio TuUio 
 summam nou conveuire," are the words of Livy.
 
 ROME. 223 
 
 century was the Centurion, or leader of a hundred men ; the head of 
 the tribe, or Tribune, was a Chiliarch, or leader of a thousand. Accord- 
 ingly, after the addition of the Old Claudian tribe to the original sixteen, 
 there would have been a hundred and seventy centuries of Plebeians and 
 seventeen of Patricians in the seventeen tribes assembled in the Comitia 
 Centuriata, a number which the addition of the six centuries of artificers 
 and musicians, enumerated by Livy, would have raised to a hundred and 
 ninety-three. The legionary, in the days of Poly bins, was bound to 
 serve in a suit of chain-armour, if his property was assessed at ten thou- 
 sand drachmae, or, in other words, if he was enrolled in the first class ; 
 and these ten thousand drachma3 make their appearance in the Servian 
 arrangement of Dionysius as a hundred mina3, whilst Livy reckons them 
 as " nummi denarii," or a hundred thousand Asses Ubrales. An assess- 
 ment, that continued to be a reality in the days of Polybius, can scarcely 
 have been imposed in a very remote era ; and the distribution of the 
 Roman people in the Comitia Centuriata, for military and other purposes, 
 into a hundred and ninety-three centuries, may probably be regarded as 
 a historical fact, without being assigned to a much earlier period than the 
 era of the Licinian legislation.^ 
 
 The close connexion once existing between the occupation of land 
 and the obligation of military service, is to be traced as plainly amongst 
 the early Eomans as amongst most other nations ; for in a certain stage 
 of society the army and the people are identical, the members of the non- 
 fighting classes never being reckoned upon the same footing as the others. 
 It can be seen at once that the Spartan army was connected, in early 
 times, with the six local districts from which it was raised, each of these 
 districts furnishing a stipulated number of men. Two Enomotice, made 
 a Pentacostys, four a Lochos, which would thus originally have numbered 
 a hundred men, under a Lochagus, answering to a Centuria, and four lochi 
 made a Mora, under a Polemarch. Each of the six local districts would 
 thus have contributed a Mora of four Centuries under a Polemarch ; and 
 as Sparta was furnished with two kings, each of the kings would have 
 been the commander of twelve Centuries, a Chiliarch, leader of a thou- 
 sand, or Tribune in his military capacity. Even as late as the time of 
 Polybius, when the Roman infantry was recruited from the tribesmen, 
 without any reference to the local districts in which they were supposed 
 to be enrolled, the impress of the early sj^stem seems to be still distinctly 
 traceable in the account of the Legion left by the Greek historian. The 
 traditionary Roman legion, according to Varro, numbered three thousand 
 
 ^ This Servian assessment affords another instance of the anomalies presented by Roman 
 history, as it has been composed for this period. The fines in the Twelve Tables, which are 
 supposed to have been compiled long after the reign of Servius, were reckoned in oxen and 
 sheep alone, as the use of money was evidently not familiar to the Romans of that age. Yet 
 the Servian Classes were estimated in money, and estimated highly ! Some time alter the 
 Twelve Tables are supposed to have been compiled, the money value of these fines was settled 
 by the Lex Aternia et Tarpeia, fixing the legal value of the ox at lUO vlwc*' lihndcs, and 
 of the sheep at 10. The dates assigned to the compilation of the Twelve Tables, and to the 
 publication of this law, are of course supplied by conjecture.
 
 224 ROME. 
 
 men, evidently representing a levy of a hundred men, under a Centurion, 
 from each of the thirty Centuries, Each tribe would thus have furnished 
 a thousand Quirites under a Tribune, a military title that Polybius 
 always renders Chiliarch; and the whole force would have been under 
 the command of thirty Centurions and three Tribunes. The form of 
 the traditionary legion seems to have been still preserved up to a certain 
 point, in the time of Polybius, though he never uses the word Centuria 
 in a military sense ; for the three classes of Spearmen subdivided into 
 thirty Maniples, each under the command of a Centurion, present some 
 semblance of the three tribes, subdivided into thirty centuries ; though, 
 in accordance with the military custom of the period, iioo centurions 
 were appointed to every maniple, and six military tribunes, instead of 
 three, commanded the legion.-^ 
 
 A similar connexion with the organization of the Roman legion seems 
 traceable, up to a certain point, in one of the earliest systems of Roman 
 colonization. After the dissolution of the old Latin Confederacy, the 
 thirty cities of which it was composed would appear to have been replaced 
 by a new confederation of thirty cities, known as " Colonise populi 
 Romani," the original " Latin colonies." An alliance between the old 
 Latin confederacy and Rome seems to have existed from a very early 
 l)eriod, and it may be gathered from a passage in liivy that, by one of 
 the stipulations of this alliance, a legion was supplied by the confederacy 
 to assist the Romans in war. The Romans were accustomed, writes the 
 historian, "to raise four legions, each numbering about five thousand 
 men, and one only was added from the Latin levy."^ Every city, there- 
 fore, in the Latin confederacy would have been regarded, for this 
 arrangement, as a century, contributing a maniple and ten horsemen to 
 tiie stipulated legion ; and it was partly to replace this legion that, upon 
 the successful conclusion of the Latin War, colonies of " Roman people" 
 were established in Latium, enjoying all the privileges of self-govern- 
 ment belonging to the earlier confederacy, and fulfilling its obligations 
 towards Rome, without being enrolled as Roman citizens with the suffrage 
 amongst the Tribes. In the tenth year of the Second Punic War, how- 
 ever, twelve of these Latin colonies declined contributing any further 
 supplies, either in men or money, to the parent State. They pleaded 
 complete exhaustion ; and though admonished that they were " neither 
 Campanians, nor Tarentines, but Romans, and descendants of Roman 
 ancestors, who had been sent into conquered land to add to the numbers 
 of the old stock," they persisted in their refusal. A Latin colony by 
 this time was merely a colony founded upon the principles that governed 
 the Roman colonization of Latium, and the thirty cities were no longer 
 confined to Latin soil, some being in Umbria, others in Lucania, and 
 
 1 Polyb. vi. 20-22. FwZe Note A. 
 
 ^ " Scrib(:l)antur autem qiiatuor fere legiones quinis millibus peditum. . . . Alterum tan- 
 tum ex Latino delectu adjiciebatur." — Liv. viii. 8. The passage is corrupt, for fere ought 
 surely to follow quinis rather than quatuor, and I cau make no sense out of alterum except by 
 altering the gender.
 
 ROME. 225 
 
 more than one in Gallia Cisi)adana. The recusants, however, were for 
 the most part inhabitants of small cities in the neighbourhood of Kome, 
 and their plea of exhaustion may not have been, devoid of truth. iSix 
 years later they were called to account, and " the consuls, magistrates, 
 and decurions {denos principes)" of each of the twelve cities were sum- 
 moned to Kome. A double levy of infantry, and one hundred and twenty 
 horsemen were demanded from the defaulters, with the annual payment 
 of a " stipend of the thousandth As" — the Eoman trihutum — and of the 
 annual census levied by the Roman Censors. Thus the obligations of 
 the members of a Eoman tribe were imposed upon them, as a fine, in 
 addition to the taxes levied by their own magistrates ; and as contributors 
 to the Roman treasury without the privilege of the suffrage, they were 
 practically punished by being made iErarians. The hundred and twenty 
 horsemen, a levy of ten from each of the twelve cities, would appear to 
 repiesent the ordinary contribution of cavalry from each of the thirty 
 colonies ; three hundred in all, the amount attached to the legion that 
 once represented the military obligation of the early Latin confederacy 
 transferred to the thirty Roman colonies.-*- 
 
 Only one description of colony would appear to have been familiar to 
 the Romans before the Latin War — the " Colonia civium Romanorum." 
 C^re was the first Municipality, and as to be enrolled " in tabulis Cteri- 
 tum" was equivalent to being struck off the roll of a tribe, and reduced 
 to the position of an ^rarian, every colonist, before the introduction of 
 the Latin colony and the municipality, must have necessarily continued 
 to be a member of some Roman tribe, and retained the privilege of the 
 suffrage. The introduction of three hundred Roman citizens into a 
 conquered city, a cohort, as it were, detached from the early Legion, with 
 an allotment of a third of the conquered land for their support, is the 
 usual form under which such a colony appears in tradition ; and as the 
 traditional number occasionally makes its appearance in historical times, 
 the tradition itself may be only a reflection of the truth, thrown back 
 into the prehistoric and legendary era. Thus Romulus is said, by 
 Dionysius, to have planted three hundred colonists in three cities in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Rome, at the same time enrolling three 
 thousand of the local population amongst the tribes ; a description from 
 which it may be gathered that the foundation of a tribe, in early times,^ 
 may have occasionally been laid in a similar manner. Colonies of 
 Roman citizens are supposed to have presented pictures in miniature of 
 the parent State — " effigies parvae, simulacraque populi Romani." The 
 colonists supplied the place of the senate and magistracy of the _ oil y, 
 replacing the families of local origin which had, before that time, enjoyed 
 
 1 Liv. xxvii. 9 ; xxix. 15. Tlie ^ravian was any contributor to tlie lloman treasury who 
 was not in the enjoyment of the suffrage. No disgrace was attached to the position of an 
 iErarian, as is sometimes supposed, except a Roman citizen was reduced to it. 'there is no 
 disgrace attached to serving in the ranks of tlie army, or to i\ot possessing a vote ; but to be 
 reduced to the ranks or to be deprived of a vote for misconduct is considered disgraceful— or 
 ought to be so. 
 
 P
 
 226 ROME. 
 
 the possession of similar privileges ; and their descendants, with the 
 numerous little local aristocracies that, from time to time, exchanged the 
 position of alliance for that of citizenship with the suffrage, played a con- 
 spicuous part in Roman history amongst the aristocracy of the Plebeians. 
 Upon the conclusion of the Latin War, when the Veliterni, old Roman 
 citizens, were punished for their repeated defections, their Senate was 
 banished with ignominy beyond the Tiber, and the " agri senatorum," 
 or lands in the occupation of the leading families of Velitrae, were 
 distributed amongst fresh colonists. When Privernum was similarly 
 treated, soon after the First Samnite War, the Senate was also banished 
 beyond the Tiber, but the remainder of the Privernates were enrolled as 
 members of the Ufentine tribe. In both cases the lesser landholders 
 would appear to have been undisturbed, and in both cases there can be 
 detected the existence of a privileged class, in the occupation of land, set 
 apart for their exclusive use. I^he colony of Roman citizens entered 
 ui)on the privileges of such a class, and, whilst retaining the Roman 
 suffrage in the capacity of Plebeians, became Patricians, with all the 
 privileges of Patricians, within the limited circle of their immediate 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 The influence of two different elements seems traceable amongst the 
 early Romans : the Etrurian, originally alien and hostile, and the Latin, 
 kindred and friendly — for the Roman was a Latin with a considerable 
 infusion of Sabine blood. There w^ere Sa bines and Sabine-Quirites — 
 " veteres illi Sabini Quirites, ataviqueRomani," — andSpurius Ligustinus, 
 " born a Sabine of the Crustuminian tribe," was a Sabine-Quirite ; but 
 the Latin-Quirite is never met with, for his name was Romanus. Both 
 the Etrurians and Latins were united respectively in confederacies, but 
 with a noticeable difference ; twelve large cities ruling over the wide 
 extent of Etruria, whilst thirty little communities composed the con- 
 federation in ancient Latium, a narrow district measuring only fifty 
 Roman miles from the Circeian promontory to the Tiber. The leading 
 city of Etruria was evidently large, and all but impregnable. Ten years 
 are supposed to have been passed in ineffectually besieging Veil, and the 
 walls were uninjured when the city fell. Taught by experience, the 
 Romans seem to have generally destroyed the leading cities of Etruria, 
 as they fell into their power, often building another city in a different 
 locaUty for their colonists, who might have been troublesome to deal 
 with behind the old Etrurian walls. But the rural population of Etruria, 
 the PenestEe, were slaves, and thus her strength lay in her walls, her 
 weakness in the rural districts. Accordingly, within a few years of the 
 fall of Veil, the Roman tribe-lands reached to Capena and the Sabatian 
 lake, for there was nothing to oppose this extension until the vicinity of 
 some other leading city was a^jproached. Rome, indeed, captured and 
 burned by the Grauls, seems to have risen, like Antasus, with fresh vigour 
 from the ground, and entered upon a career of conquest ; as if the early 
 power of Etruria, based upon a servile population, had been broken by 
 the Gallic inroad. The Latin cities, on the contrary, unlike the Etrurian,
 
 ROME. 227 
 
 were small and numerous, the Romans experiencing little difficulty, 
 apparently, in reducing them, and never hesitating to occupy thera with 
 colonists. A curious episode seems to have occurred hetween the First 
 and Second Samnite wars, pointing, perhaps, to an exception to this rule. 
 The Privernates were more than once engaged in hostilities against the 
 Eomans, but their city seems to have been twice captured with ease, and 
 again restored to them, though on the second occasion the people were 
 mulcted of two-thirds of their territory. Suddenly the Privernates took 
 up arms under Yitravius Vaccus, a leading citizen of Fundi, and eminent 
 also at Rome, where he lived on the Palatine. More than ordinary 
 importance seems to have been attached to this war, though waged 
 against the Privernates alone, or at the most assisted by the Fundani ; 
 for both the consular armies, representing the whole ordinary force of 
 Rome, were directed against Vitruvius. Declining a contest in the open 
 field, he retired upon Privernum, as if it had been converted into a place 
 of strength, whilst the Senate of Fundi, meeting the Roman armies on 
 the frontier, disclaimed all connexion with their compatriot, declaring 
 that " their minds were Roman, in grateful recollection of the citizenship 
 bestowed upon -them." Upon the rumour of a Gallic inroad, " a mob of 
 artisans and hucksters, a material most unsuitable for soldiers, is reported 
 to have been called out," and, upon the rumour proving false, this addi- 
 tional force, which is described as numerous (ingens exercifufi), was 
 directed on Privernum. " Privernum omnis conversa vis," and Rome 
 seems to have been thoroughly alarmed. The eventual fate of Vitruvius 
 is well known : he was taken to Rome, and scourged to death, or beheaded; 
 his house was destroyed, and the site, long unbuilt upon, continued to 
 be known as Vacci prata ; but there is a mystery about the manner of 
 his fall, some maintaining that the city was taken by assault, others that 
 his followers betrayed their leader. The walls of Privernum were levelled 
 with the ground, the Senate was banished beyond the Tiber, but the 
 delegates summoned to Rome to explain the conduct of the other citizens 
 assumed an exceedingly bold demeanour. "What punishment do we 
 deserve ? The punishment of men who deem themselves worthy of 
 liberty. What faith will we keep ? Good or bad, as you treat us." 
 Pronounced to be worthy of freedom, the Privernates were enrolled 
 amongst the citizens of Rome, becoming members of the Ufentine tribe, 
 but their city is described by Festus as a Frcrfecfura , and thus the 
 Romans would appear to have thought it prudent to retain the appoint- 
 ment of the magistracy in their own hands. The Privernates were 
 neighbours of the Samnites ; Privernum commanded the passes into 
 Latium ; and behind its walls Vitruvius seems to have held the whole 
 force of Rome for some time at bay. Rome escaped the danger, but it 
 would not have been in accordance with her policy to permit the con- 
 struction of Etrurian walls around any other city of Latium except, her 
 own. But if the walls of the Latin city were weak, her strength lay in 
 the freemen of the rural districts, furnishing the flower of tlie Roman
 
 228 ROME. 
 
 legions, as they were gradually enrolled amongst the Roman tribes. An 
 urban oligarchy, monopolizing religion, arts, and arms, and ruling over 
 a servile population from behind impregnable walls — such may be 
 described as the poKtical system of Etruria ; whilst in Latiura there 
 would have been found the elements of a numerous rural aristocracy, 
 on a small scale, warlike, though comparatively uncultivated.^ 
 
 Rome herself was once a small cityj perhaps a group of three small 
 cities ; a little confederacy, represented amongst the greater confederation 
 of thirty cities, uniting in the sacrifice of the ox in the Ferentine Grrove. 
 The Gabine territory was a mystical region in the fivefold division of 
 the horizon by the Roman augurs ; the Gabine dress was worn by the 
 founder of a new Roman city ; and in some long-forgotten period there 
 must have been a close connexion between the cities, and Gabii may 
 have been the greater of the two. The original Seven Hills of Rome 
 {Septimonfium) — the Palatine, Velian, Oppian, Cispian, Ctelian, Cerma- 
 line, and Fagutaline — were all within the boundaries of the three urban 
 tribes, Suburana, Esquilina, Palatina, between which lay the Seven 
 Acres of the Forum. Hence the Quirinal, Viminal, Capitoline, and 
 Aventine, four of the later Seven Hills, as they were not included in 
 the original Septimontium, were without the earlier limits of the city, 
 or citie-!. The traditional constitution of Rome was thoroughly Latin. 
 The hundred heads of families, or Patres, contributed from each of 
 the three little communities, or tribes, to the deliberative assembly of 
 the Adsidui, answered exactly to the Senate of the Latin city or colony. 
 The hundred Patres, again, were subdivided into Decuries, each under 
 its Decurion ; and the ten Decurions, or Curiones (for they were pro- 
 bably identical in early times), corresponded closely with the "Deni 
 ])rincipes," so often summoned to Rome, in historical times, from the 
 Latin colony or city. But the Servian walls, and other massive con- 
 structions of ancient Rome, were unquestionably of Etrurian origin^ 
 and seem to tell of a time in which Rome was an outpost of Etruria 
 upon the southern bank of the Tiber, strengthened and fortified upon 
 the Etrurian system. An Etrurian confederacy of twelve cities ruled over 
 Campania until overthiown by the Sanmites ; and when Etruria held 
 dominion on the northern bank of the Tiber, and on the southern bank 
 of the Liris, what must have been the condition of the country lying 
 between these rivers ? A connexion is sometimes traced between Mcenia 
 and 3Iune7'a — between wall-building and obligatory burdens^ corvees, or 
 task-work — and the connexion, if it ever existed, may be supposed to have 
 dated from this epoch. As the Quirinal and Viminal were enclosed 
 within the Servian walls, the number of the urban districts would appear 
 to have been increased to four, by the addition of Collina, the fourfold 
 division of the city, dating from this epoch ; whilst the Seven Acres of 
 
 ' Liv. vii. 16; viii. 1, 19, 20, 21, I use the expression "aristocracy" advisedly, for a 
 democracy, in which every member was a slave-iowner, was not a democracy in the sense in 
 which the word is used in modem times.
 
 ROME. 229 
 
 the Forum, losing their earlier Latin character of a comparatively open 
 space, became the centre of a fortified city. Thus Kome was converted 
 into a city of Etrurian strength, with a free Latin population in the 
 neighbouring rural districts ; and in the union of these elements may 
 have lain the secret of her ascendancy, as soon as she was able to shake 
 herself firee from the yoke of Etruria. The traces of the Etrurian 
 ascendancy, however, would appear to have been left upon the policy, as 
 well as upon the walls and buildings of Rome ; for a constitution that 
 was sufficiently free and liberal for the three small tribes for which it 
 was originally framed, remained comparatively unaltered until the number 
 of the tribes had increased to twenty-one. Adhering to the principles 
 they had learned under Etrurian rule, the members of the earlier Gentes, 
 or local aristocracy of Eome, clung to their monopoly of power and 
 privilege, thus placing the newly incorporated Adsidui of the tribes uj)on 
 a footing of inferiority, and only nominally removed from the condition 
 of the Penestse, until the free Latin element, under Licinius, successfully 
 asserted its rights. 
 
 The number ihree, and its multiples, are continually to be met with, 
 as is well known, in the legendary and traditionary history of Rome, and 
 seem to have been equally in favour with the Latins. The three cities 
 of Antemn?e, Cfenina, and Crustumerium, for example, took up arms 
 together against Romulus, and were jointly conquered and colonized. 
 The three cities of Fiden^e, Nomentum, and Crustumerium, were founded 
 by three brothers ; Corioli, Longula, and Pollusca, jointly fought, and 
 were jointly vanquished ; and, in historical times, Alatrium, Feren- 
 tinum, and Verulaj, were united in their refusal to combine with the 
 Hernician league, under Anagnia, against Rome. Two Rrastors, and 
 ten " Principes," represented the supreme council of the Latin league 
 just before its fall, when each of the Principes must have been the 
 representative of three of the thirty confederate cities. It may have 
 flattered the vanity of the Romans, in a later age, to imagine that their 
 city rose in independence from amidst the marshes of the Tiber, as 
 Minerva sprung armed into existence from the head of Jupiter ; but 
 isolation in the midstof rival confederacies would have meant destruction, 
 and there may have been a time in which the three Patrician centuries 
 of early Rome formed a cohort in the legion of a kindred and protecting 
 confederacy, though her sons would have refused to believe in the exist- 
 ence of such a period. A fourfold division is as observable in the early 
 historical period, as the threefold in the traditionary era. Rome, which 
 may once have been formed by a confederation of three little cities, 
 appears to have been divided, after the construction of the Servian walls, 
 into four quarters, each corresponding with one of the four urban tribes 
 subsequently called into existence ; whilst the extramural district was 
 distributed amongst sixteen rural tribes, constituting the Romnn ))eoi)le. 
 Three Pontificcs, with a Rex, are sup])Osed to have constituted the 
 Pontifical College in the earlier, four, with a Pontifex Maxinius, in thu
 
 230 ROME. 
 
 later era. The Patrician Augurs must have numbered four instead of 
 three when the addition of five Plebeians filled the College of Augurs 
 with nine members. The traditionary legion amounted to three thousand 
 men, raised by a levy of a thousand from each of the three tribes; the 
 ordinary military establishment of Rome, in the days of Polybius, was 
 still fixed at four legions, each of four thousand men, answering appar- 
 ently, in an earlier time, to a levy of a thousand from each of the sixteen 
 tribes. To every colony of Roman citizens there appears to have been 
 assigned a district in proportion to the number of the colonists (ciger 
 mensura comprehensus) , of which a portion consisted of allotted land, 
 distributed as permanent private property amongst the colonists, according 
 to the usual rules of Roman land measurement. The remainder was 
 unallotted, and often known as ager compascuus, or common pasture 
 land ; but as landed property belonging to civic corporations was fre- 
 quently included, at a later period, amongst the Agri Vectigales, if 
 any part of the unallotted land was cultivated by a free class, it would 
 have remained at farm in the possession (originally) of the earlier pro- 
 prietors, as in the case of the Sicilians mentioned by Cicero, but in the 
 joint " occupation " of the leading families of the little State, or the 
 colonists and their descendants. It may be gathered, from the course 
 thus followed in the foundation of an early colony, that the land of the 
 parent State, before it was indefinitely increased beyond its earlier limits 
 by conquest, was similarly divided into allotted and unallotted land, the 
 leading members of the (rentes representing the privileged class, as the 
 magistracy and senate of Rome.^ 
 
 If Ovid may be trusted, the festival of the Terminalia was celebrated 
 at the sixth milestone from Rome — sextus ab Urbe lapis — and as the 
 Roman measurement of land was invariably square, if the district 
 around the old city of Boma Quadrata is supposed to have covered a 
 similar distance in every direction, the Banlieue would have extended 
 over a surface of (12 X 12) a hundred and forty-four square miles. 
 The Centuria in the Roman system of measuring allotted land {age^' 
 viritim divisus) was a square, according to Varro, with each of the sides 
 measuring mmd feet, or five hundred paces. The Saltus was a square of 
 four Centuriaa, each of its sides, therefore, measuring mille passus, so that 
 the Saltus was identical with a square mile, and the district around 
 Rome would have extended over a hundred and forty-four Saltus.^ It 
 
 ^ " Quarum ager, cum esset puMicus popiili Romani factiis, tamen illis est redditus : is ager 
 a censoribus locari solet." — Cic. Ver. iii, 6. 
 
 ^ " Centuria est quadrata in onines quatuor partes, ut habeat latera longa pedum mmd. 
 Hse porro quatuor ceuturise conjimctcO . . . appellantur in agris divisis viritim publice saltus." 
 — Varro, li. li, 1, 10. The ordinary agricultural measurement in use amongst the Latins in 
 the time of Varro was the Actus Qnadratus of (120 X 120, or) 14,400 square feet. In Cam- 
 pania they used the Versus of (100 X 100, or) 10,000 square feet ; and the unit of both 
 systems was the Scripulum of (10 X 10, or) 100 square feet. The Versus of 100 scripula 
 seems to have been connected with the " Modius ac Mina," or the light talent of 20 lbs., 
 (Modius) and Mina of 100 Litraa, so farailiar in the early coinage of Sicily and Rome, so that 
 the Scripulum of land answered to the litra rather than the scruple. A Roman lb. of metal
 
 ROME. 231 
 
 must not be imagined that the Roman Banlieue was mapped out, like a 
 chess-board, within the boundaries of the six-mile Termini. Every 
 Limitatio supposes either an original allotment, or a redistribution of 
 the land, and some such a redistribution may have taken place when 
 the earlier constitution of the Roman State was changed ; but the land 
 around the city at such an early period would have been, for the greater 
 part, " compascuus ager," or unallotted land, and its boundaries would 
 not have been very accurately defined. Calculations of this description, 
 however, have a certain value in occasionally serving to test the accuracy 
 of facts assumed to be historical. Veii, for instance, is supposed to 
 have been in the possession of a more fertile, and more extensive terri- 
 tory than Rome, and only separated from the latter city by a hundred 
 stadia. Place the Roman termini at half that distance, and it may be 
 questioned if they would not have been planted in Veientine territory. 
 There is no allowance even for a march, or frontier district, so necessary 
 for the separation of rival and hostile communities ; and it may be in- 
 ferred that before the fall of Veii, very little, if any, of the Roman tribe- 
 land lay upon the right bank of the Tiber. Indeed, if there is any 
 foundation for the tradition in Festus, that Romelia, which was sup- 
 posed to be the first of the rural tribes, was established by Romulus 
 upon land conquered from the Veientes, their territory may have 
 originally bordered upon the river, and the march have been represented 
 by the Tiber. Veii is supposed to have been utterly destroyed, its people 
 sold as slaves, and its territory distributed in large allotments amongst 
 the conquerers, not only the heads of families, but every free-born mem- 
 ber, receiving seven jugera instead of two. Four new tribes were added 
 to the Roman people shortly afterwards, and lands were allotted to them 
 in the neighbourhood of Capena, the Sabatian Lake, and other places in 
 Etruria beyond Veii, pointing to a vast extension of the Roman territory 
 in that direction, as soon as she was relieved from the fear of Veii. 
 
 would have weighed 288 scruples, or three minfe of 100 litra; ; but a Eoiuan lb. of land (the 
 Juger) would have only contained 288 scripula, or 12 short of three versus. Hence the 
 measure used in the Public land, as described by Varro, agrees much better with the Cam- 
 panian than with the Latin system, the Saltus containing 2500 versus, or about 868 jugera; 
 and I think the use amongst the Romans of these measurements cannot be dated much earlier 
 than the time of the Gracchi, " What flour can compare with the Camp;uiian ; what wlieat 
 with the Apulian?" asks Varro. Southern Italy was the locality for growing corn, and when 
 tillage replaced pasturage on the Public land, the measurements of the corn-growing districts 
 seem to have been adopted. The old Latin system, which was evidently duodecinnil, stopped 
 at the Hceredium of four Actus Quadrati ; for laud measurement belongs to tillage-farming 
 rather than to pasturage. The Saltus was divided by liniites, five-sixths of which were 
 known as subruncivi — "rooted up" — answering to the American " clearing," and our own 
 "field " in its early signification of land cleared for cultivation. The Saltus disappears from 
 the system of a later age, leaving the Centuria as the highest measurement. " Centuria 
 habet pedes mmcccc. per mmcccc. passus cccclxxx. per cccclxxx. actus xx. per xx. . . . Fiunt 
 in centuria acti constrati cccc. . . . efficit jugera ccc.'' " Kastrensis jugerus quadratas habet 
 perticas cclxxxviii. pedes autcm quadrates xxviii, DCC. . . . Itaque Kastrensis jugerus capit 
 Kastrenscs modios iii." — Gromatici Veteres (Lachman), t. i. pp. 245, 354. These are 
 slightly diiferent measurements Irom those of Varro ; but the scripulum is traceable in tho 
 Pcrtica quadrata, and the Versus quadratus in the Modius.
 
 232 ROME. 
 
 Eome must have been comparatively a petty State before that time, in 
 spite of her supposed three centuries and a half of in lependent existence.^ 
 
 Some idea may be gathered of the manner in which an early Koraan 
 tribe occasionally grew into existence, from the passage in which Livy 
 describes the formation of the Old Claudian tribe. To Claudius, and 
 the numerous clients who had followed him from amongst the Sabines, a 
 district was assigned beyond the Arno, and nine little comraimities 
 belonging to the same locality {tribulibus qui ex eo agro venirenf) were 
 subsequently added to the new tribe, to complete, apparently, the neces- 
 sary ten Centuries. Claudius and his kinsmen formed the Patrician 
 element, assuming a place amongst the Gentes represented in the Comitia 
 Cariata by a Curio ; but the nine communities were of the same national 
 descent as the Claudii, as may be gathered from the Avords attributed 
 by Livy to Spurius Ligustinus, " I was born a Sabine, of the Crustu- 
 minian tribe :" for there seems to be little doubt that, in course of time, 
 the tribi exchanged its original name of Claudia for that of Crustu- 
 minia — hence, perhaps, the epithet of Veins applied to the Claudian 
 tribe by Livy. The Tusculani, again, afford an example of the manner 
 in which a kindred Latin race was incorporated amongst the tribes, 
 exchanging a position of independent alliance for the closer connexion of 
 Roman citizenship. In the earlier part of the historical period the 
 Tusculani make their appearance as allies of Rome (m societafe), 
 suspected of disaffection ; but they disarmed the anger of the Consul and 
 the Roman army sent to punish them, and were forgiven, admitted to 
 Roman citizenship, and enrolled in the Papirian tribe. A Dictator and 
 a Senate were in existence amongst them at that time, and as the city 
 appears, in a later age, as a Municipality, the Tusculani must have 
 retained the privilege of a separate magistracy and senate, after their 
 incorporation with the Roman Commonwealth. Some of the most 
 famous of the Roman Gentes, the Fulvian, the Mamilian, tlie Porcian, 
 for instance, traced their origin to Tusculum, where members of the 
 Fulvian kindred still continued to reside in the days of Cicero.^ 
 
 The Egyptian embalmed his ancestors, and Herodotus has described 
 the rows of mummies, each representing a Piromi, the son of a Piromi 
 — a man, or full- born Egyptian — displayed by the priests, in token of 
 the ancient origin of their race. The Roman buried or burnt his father, 
 modelling a waxen image of the dead, if he had held honourable office 
 under the State during his lifetime, and the Imago decorated with the 
 ensigns of office, instead of the actual body embalmed, formed one of the 
 links in the chain of long descent. Thus the Patrician of ancient Rome 
 founded his title to nobility upon his Lnagines ; but the custom of 
 establishing a pedigree in the ancient world in this, or in some similar 
 manner, must not be supposed to have been confined to Rome and 
 Egypt. In every city in vvhich there was a local magistracy and senate, 
 there would have been families enjoying the privilege of electing the 
 
 '■ Liv. V. 22-30. ^ Liv. ii. 16 ; viii. 37 ; xlii. 34,
 
 ROME. 233 
 
 magistracy and senate ; and the members of these families would have 
 treasured up the Imagines of their ancestors, or proved their pedigree in 
 some other way, in testimony of their claims to belong to noble and 
 long-descended races. As long as the city of Tusculum was only united 
 to the city of Eome by the tie of an independent alliance, the Patres 
 Tusculanorum would have been upon an equal footing with the Patres 
 Eomanorum, each representing an independent local aristocracy. Bat 
 as soon as the Tusculani, in consequence of receiving the citizenship 
 ivlth the suffrage, were enrolled in one of the Roman tribes, the Patres 
 Tusculanorum must have sunk into a subordinate position. They were 
 transformed into a provincial aristocracy, as it were, in dependence upon 
 the local aristocracy of the capital ; continuing, indeed, to be Patricians 
 within the limited circle of the Ager Tusculanus, but without a voice in 
 the affairs of the State to which they now belonged, and ranking only as 
 Plebeians. In the account left by Suetonius of the Octavian Grens, the 
 descendants of Cneius Octavius settled at Rome, and, by filling various 
 offices of trust and dignity under the State, grew into one of the most 
 wealthy and important of the Plebeian families with senatorial rank. 
 The descendants of Caius Octavius, " content with the municipal 
 dignities of their native city," are supposed to have remained at V^elitr^e, 
 so that the father of Augustus, who was a member of the Equestrian 
 order on account of his ancestral wealth, was a Novus homo, or the first 
 of his family to obtain office under the State, and thus bequeath an 
 Imago to his descendants. The position supposed to have been occupied 
 for so long a time by the younger branch of the Octavian Gens may be 
 said to have corresponded, up to a certain point, with the situation of all 
 the Plebeian Gentes under the earlier Roman system. However wealthy 
 and important they may have been in their native cities, their very 
 existence, as members of the Roman aristocracy, was ignored, for they 
 could not have attained even to the position of Novi homines.^ 
 
 The great extension of the Roman power, after the fall of Veii, must 
 have reduced the local Patricians of a number of small cities in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the capital to a similar position. Gabii, for 
 instance, appears as a municipality in a later age, and Labicum; and both 
 Gabii and Labicum were situated within the limits of the tribe-lands, and 
 would appear to have exchanged their position of independent alliance for 
 the rights of citizenship with the suffrage, about the same time as Tus- 
 culum. There must have been local Patricians also amon<^st the four 
 tribes added after the fall of Veii — unless it is to be supposed that every 
 city within their limits was either destroyed or punished by being I'educed 
 to the condition of a I^rce/ectura, with a magistracy appointed from Rome ; 
 
 ^ Suet. Aug. 1, 2. Antony laughed at the pedigree of Octavius, asserting that his grand- 
 father was a money-lender, and tlie son of an enfranchised rope-niakcr. But he proljably only 
 retailed the scandal circulated by the head of the family, a partisan of I'ompcy, and in com- 
 mand of a part of Antony's fleet at Actium. The elder branch were always staunch Oj)ti- 
 mates; Octavius was of the opposite party, and was in consequence ignored as a member of the 
 family.
 
 234 ROME. 
 
 and in each of these cities the Senate would have been filled by a local 
 aristocracy. Where a Roman colony was introduced into a city within 
 the limits of the tribe-lands, the colonists and their descendants would 
 have grown into a similar order, continuing in the enjoyment of their 
 rights as Plebeians, from retaining the privilege of the suffrage. The 
 case of Velitra3 may be cited as an instance in point. Originally a Latin 
 city in the occupation of a Roman colony, after her Senate was banished 
 beyond the Tiber, or, in other words, incorporated amongst the new 
 tribes, their lands were confiscated amongst a new band of colonists, and 
 in about the fourth generation after the Latin war, the Octavii, a Gens 
 from Velitrte, began to make their appearance amongst the Roman 
 magistracy. Thus, as the power of Rome extended, a continually in- 
 creasing number of small local aristocracies must have been added to the 
 roll of her tribes, contributing the flower of their youth to recruit her 
 legions, but excluded by the aristocracy of the capital from participating 
 in the advantages gained by their blood and valour, or from obtaining 
 any share in the government of the commonwealth. An ancestor of the 
 Fulvii, for instance, or of the Porcii, after serving in the ranks of the 
 legions whilst a junior, would have contributed his allotted portion towards 
 the pay of the soldiery, under the name of tribufum, after he became a 
 Senior and attained the position of a Senator in his own city, whilst he 
 was also liable to the assessment of the Roman Censors. But he had no 
 claim upon the land he had helped to conquer, no hope of advancement 
 beyond the local magistracy of his own city, nor was there a chance of his 
 voice being heard in the Councils of the State he had faithfully served. 
 Such was the state of affairs that led to the agitation of Licinius ; the 
 contest lay between the rival aristocracies of the capital and of the tribes, 
 and not between a class of nobles and a class of peasant farmers ; for, 
 after the enactment of the laws bearing the name of the famous tribune, 
 we may long look in vain for the name of a lowly-born man amongst the 
 Roman magistracy. Every so-called Plebeian appears upon the lists 
 with the mark of nobility, the family name, as the member of a Gens, 
 though his Imagines may have been treasured up in a dependent city, 
 and only borne the ensigns of provincial dignity. The whole body of 
 Plebeians supported their tribunes in the struggle, but had the Plebeians 
 been confined to the poorer classes alone the issue of the contest would 
 have been widely diflerent. A few judicious allotments of land would 
 have silenced the most clamorous, by converting them into small local 
 aristocracies, under the name of colonists, established at a convenient 
 distance from the capital. It was a contest between the limited aristo- 
 cracy of the capital and the more numerous aristocracies of the tribes ; 
 the former struggling for the retention of their privileges, the latter for 
 the abolition of the State monopoly, and the local aristocrats of the 
 capital were defeated. 
 
 The right of occupying public land would appear to have been 
 extended to the victorious party by the regulation of Licinius, limiting
 
 ROME. 235 
 
 individual occupation to five hundred jugera^ with the privilege of 
 pasture for a hundred larger, or five hundred lesser stock, whilst the 
 remainder of the public land was to be "distributed" amongst the Ple- 
 beians. The numerous small allotments, however, which would neces- 
 sarily have followed such a distribution, if practically carried out, may be 
 sought for in vain, and the true character of the "distribution" may be 
 gathered from the subsequent condemnation of Licinius for evading his 
 own law. By emancipating his son he contrived to monopolize in his 
 own family a iho\\&d,nA jugera, or a double portion of public land, a pro- 
 ceeding from which it would appear that the Censors, after distributing 
 the public land, in stated quantities, amongst the Patres of the local 
 aristocracy, divided the remainder, in similar portions, amongst the 
 Paty^es of the aristocracy of the tribes. The Census seems to have regu- 
 lated the qualification for occupying public land. As service in the 
 cavalry, one of the privileges originally confined to the Patricians, was 
 monopolized in the time of Polybius by the most wealthy class of land- 
 holders — the qualification was unquestionably in land — it may be sup- 
 posed that, in consequence of the legislation of Licinius, the capability of 
 enjoying the privileges of the local aristocracy was conceded, sooner or 
 later, to all the members of the highest class in the assessment. Accord- 
 ingly, before the lapse of a generation, every office once monopolized by 
 the Patricians, whether Consul, Censor, Prtetor, Military Tribune, or 
 Dictator, had been filled by a Plebeian ; but the name of a lowly-born 
 man may be sought for in vain, and the remark of Cicero about the 
 influence secured to property by the regulations of the imaginary consti- 
 tution of Servius, may be applied with equal, if not greater, force to the 
 results of the real legislation of Licinius. 
 
 The constitution of Servius Tullius, therefore, may be supposed in 
 some measure to have been a reflection of the real legislation of Licinins, 
 Both may be said to have called the Plebs into existence as an actual 
 estate in the commonwealth ; but the Plebs of Servius was a myth, the 
 Plebs of Licinius a reality. Nor can the Servian classification and 
 assessment, described by Dionysius and Livy, with the arrangement of 
 the Centuries adapted to the seventeen rural tribes, be attributed to a 
 time very much earlier than the age immediately preceding the agitatioa 
 of Licinius. Ten thousand Attic drachmas, an iEginetan or Sicilian 
 talent of silver, represented the qualification of the highest class actually 
 serving in the infantry of the legion in the time of Polybius ; and as the 
 Attic drachma was at this time worth a pound of copper the qualification 
 would have represented ten thousand Asses lih^ales, or only a tenth of 
 the Servian assessment as given by Livy. Cicero, who reduces the lowest 
 class to fifteen hundred yls.ses, seems to have been much nearer the truth ; 
 for the highest valuation would have amounted in this case to (1500 x 8 
 or) twelve thousand Asses Uhrales, a sum that, with due allowance for 
 the difference in calculating the myriad by the decimal or duodeeimal 
 huntked, would have differed very little, if at all, from the " myriad of
 
 23G ROME. 
 
 draclima3 " ia Polybius.^ When the fines levied under the old law began 
 to be paid in money, instead of in cattle and sheep, the ox was reckoned 
 at a hundred Asses librales, or a Corinthian lalent of copper, and the 
 sura of three thousand Asses, in which each of the ten sureties for Cfeso 
 Quintius was bound, answered evidently to the fine of thirty oxen, the 
 highest allowed to be inflicted by the code of the Twelve Tables.-^ The 
 valuation of tlie ox at a hundred Asses seems to identify the old qualifi- 
 cation of "a myriad of Asses," answering to "a hundred head of cattle," 
 with the number of larger stock that each of the leading men of the 
 State was permitted, by the Licinian regulations, to pasture upon the 
 public grazing lands; and it is not unlikely that pasturage for a hundred 
 head of cattle may have constituted, at some early period, one of the 
 privileges of the Roman with full rights. The privilege would have been 
 represented, in a somewhat later period, by a money valuation of a 
 myriad of Asses, which a^ain would have assumed the shape of an 
 ^ginetan talent of silver in the days of Polybius — the lowest qualifica- 
 tion for enrolment in the first class. For it is not to be supposed that 
 this jiEginetan talent of silver represented the ordinary amount of pro- 
 perty at that time belonging to a wealthy Eoman. When a fleet was 
 equipped in the fifth year of the Second Punic War, every Eoman, who 
 was in the possession of a certain amount of property, was called upon to 
 provide and pay one or more sailors to man the ships. Every possessor of 
 property assessed at from fifty to a hundred thousand Asses was bound to 
 find one sailor with six months' pay ; and three sailors with a year's pay 
 were required from the citizen with from one to three hundred thousand 
 Asses. All who had more than this amount, but less than a million, 
 found five sailors ; possessors of more than a million supplied seven 
 sailors, and Senators eight, a year's pay being included in every case. A 
 million of Asses would, therefore, appear to have been the lowest amount 
 of the ordinary fortune of the wealthiest members of the First class who 
 were not inscribed amongst the Senators, and a fortune of a million of 
 Asses, in the opening years of the Second Punic War, would have been 
 represented in the time of Polybius by ten myriads of drachma3. The 
 latter sum exactly answers to the four hundred Sestertia, or hundred 
 thousand denarii, the amount of property subsequently required for 
 admission to the Equestrian order ; and thus the Equites, as an order, 
 represented the wealthiest members of the First class who had not 
 attained to the privileges and possessions of senatorial rank.^ 
 
 ^ Aul. Gell. xi. 1 ; Liv. iii. 13. "Lociipletes assiduos appcllasset . . . eos qui aut non plus 
 mille qningentum fcris, aut omnino nihil in suum censum pi\Tter caput attulissent, proletarios 
 nominavit." — Cic. i?. P. ii. 23. Thus the smallest landholder in the Fifth class was valued 
 as the possessor of fifteen head of cattle, so thoroughly was the Eoman system based upon pro- 
 perty. The ransom for every Roman prisoner after Cannre was fixed, according to Livy, at 
 300 Quadrigati, or 3000 Asses ; and though the legal value of the ox had long ceased to he 
 jucknned at 100 Asses, the old " thirty oxen " may have lived on as a sort of wergild. In 
 later days it was a principle of Land-rigid that no freeman should be amerced "above his 
 wer." For the different ways of calculating the Myriad, vide p. 27. 
 
 ^ Liv. xxiv. 11. FiWcNoteB.
 
 ROME. 237 
 
 From the era of the Licinian leojislation, the privileges, once mono- 
 polized by the local aristocracy of Eome, were sooner or later thrown 
 open to the landholders of the tribes ; and thus were the foundations laid 
 of the warlike military aristocracy, destined, in course of time, to conquer 
 the then known world. A change may be also noticed, from about the 
 the same period, in the system of colonization, the Latin Colony and the 
 Municipality gradually replacing the earlier colony of Roman citizens, 
 A colony of the latter description necessarily implied the possession of 
 the suffrage, or, in other words, incorporation with the tribes ; but as 
 soon as the Patrician privileges were thrown open to all the members of 
 tlie tribes, participation in the suffrage carried with it the possibility of 
 attaining to the highest offices of the State, with all the concomitant 
 advantages. As the Ple])eian aristocracy grew in power, it would not 
 have been their policy to increase, over largely, the number of participa- 
 tors in the privileges they had secured for them.selves ; and accordingly, 
 from this time forward, the suffrage appears to have been rarely bestowed 
 upon a colony, except when the surrounding district was incorporated 
 with the tribe-lands. The Latin colonist was a Roman, standing in the 
 position of a member of the early Latin Confederacy, whose city was 
 represented in the sacrifice offered by all the people of Latin origin in the 
 Ferentine Grove. He chose his own Magistrates, and notably his own 
 Censors ; but he was without a voice in the direction of the policy of the 
 Roman tState, and without a claim to share in the privileges of a Roman 
 citizen. The Municipal colonist, again, was a Roman citizen ivitliout 
 the suffrage, liable as a Municeps to participate in the obligations of 
 citizenship, but without its advantages. IJe enjoyed all the privileges of 
 self-government, however, up to a certain point, but he remained under 
 the jurisdiction of the Roman Censors, and was consequently an Ovarian, 
 contributing to the Roman treasury, but debarred from the privileges 
 arising out of the exercise of the suffrage. After the wide extension of 
 the franchise, towards the close of the Republic, the Municipality, from 
 uniting the advantages of self-government with the privileges of citizen- 
 ship, became the most favoured form of colony ; but the position of the 
 municipal colonist, before that time, must have been not unlike that of 
 the Plebeian member of the tribes before the legislation of Licinius. 
 
 Rather more than a century may be said to have passed away before 
 the number of the rural tribes was " doubled" — to use the expression of 
 Livy — or raised from seventeen to thirty-one, corresponding very closely 
 with the number of a confederacy upon the Latin system. The old Latin 
 Confederation seems to have been made up of thirty cities, each with a 
 Senate, or ruling body of a hundred members ; but forty-seven separate 
 communities, according to Dionysius, were accustomed to i)artici})ate in 
 the sacrifice of the ox, with which the Ferice Latince were celebi'ated in 
 the Ferentine Grove, representing apparently the thirty cities of Lutium, 
 and the seventeen tribes of Rome.^ Labicum, Gabii, and BovillsB could 
 
 ^ DioiJ. iv. 49.
 
 238 ROME. 
 
 scarcely supply representatives to participate in the Ferise when Cicero 
 was pleading for Flancius ; so that the inhabitants of these, and other 
 cities, must have continued to send their representatives to the Ferentine 
 Grove after their incorporation, as tribesmen, with the Roman State ; 
 other cities replacing them in the Thirty, as long as the Latin confederacy 
 was in existence.^ At the commencement of the historical period, there- 
 fore, Rome would appear to have been, in reality, a leading city, if not 
 the capital, of the Latin confederacy, each of her tribes (or Gentes) being 
 supposed to participate, as a separate community (though not of necessity 
 separately represented), in the celebration of the Fericv Latince, whilst 
 the Patrician Century, or ruling element in the Roman tribe, answered 
 in some respects to the Senate, or ruling Hundred of the Latin city. 
 Thus the Latin people represented the original Roman Socii, holding 
 the position occupied, a little later, by the Latin colonists, or Romans 
 who displaced the " ruling element " in Latium ; most of the Latins, in 
 the more immediate neighbourhood of Rome, gradually exchanging the 
 character of allies for that of Plebeians, by incorporation with the tribes, 
 as in the case of the Tusculani, Gabii, and others. Hence, when Pliny 
 writes that within the limited area of Latium fifty-three communities 
 of Latin race had altogether disappeared without leaving a trace behind 
 them, it may be supposed that their real representatives, whose more 
 immediate ancestors had long been enrolled amongst the Roman tribes, 
 ignored their Latin ancestry and boasted a genuine Roman origin. 
 Scaptia, for instance, is one of the cities thus alluded to by Pliny, and as 
 it bequeathed its name to the Scaptian tribe, it may be presumed that 
 the members of the tribe in question prided themselves, in later days, 
 upon their Roman origin ; and thus the original population, in default 
 of acknowledged descendants, was supposed, like the Picts of Scotland, 
 to have died away and disappeared altogether. Many of the Plebeian 
 Gentes, composing the bulk of the Roman aristocracy towards the close 
 of the Republican era, seem to have been fond of tracing their descent, 
 in a similar manner, from some legendary character in the prehistoric 
 period ; much as, at the present day, a Norman ancestry is not unfre- 
 quently claimed by English families, whose earliest " historical " pro- 
 genitors make their first appearance in the course of the sixteenth or 
 seventeenth centuries — occasionally even later. 
 
 A certain difference is observable between the seventeen earlier rural 
 tribes and the fourteen that were subsequently added. The majority of 
 the former would appear, from their names, to have been in some way 
 connected with the original Patrician Gentes ; but, with one exception — 
 the Publilian — the names of the later tribes are unmistakeably local. 
 The earlier rural tribes, again, appear to have been necessarily connected 
 with a Patrician element, and upon the formation of the seventeenth 
 tribe, the Claudii, representing the aristocratic element in the tribe, were 
 
 ^ " Labicana, aut Gabina, aut Bovillana vicinitas . . . quibus e municipiis vix jam qui 
 carnem Latinis petant, reperiuntur." — Cic. j^ro Plancio, viii.
 
 ROME. 239 
 
 enrolled amongst the Patricians. But as soon as the tribes began to be 
 designated by local names, their aristocratic element, wherever it existed, 
 remained in the ranks of the Plebeians, unlike the Claudii, excluded from 
 every privilege until the time of Licinius. It was apparently for this 
 reason that the Koman Grentes seem to have been distinguished as 
 Majores and Minores ; and as Plebeians, after the legislation of 
 Licinius, sat as Senators in the Curia Hostilia, so they sat as Curiones 
 in the Comitia Curiata. The Plebeians are supposed to have at length 
 obtained " the privilege" of filling the office of Curio Maximus ; but as 
 the Cnrio Maximus was elected by cooptatio, or chosen (like the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons) by his colleagues, and not in virtue of any 
 law, or through any influence or agitation from without, the election of 
 a Plebeian to the office was only the inevitable consequence of the exist- 
 ence of a majority of Plebeian Curiones, In other words, as the Patri- 
 cian Grentes died out, their places were filled in the Curias by Plebeian 
 Gentes ; and as soon as the latter nominated the majority of the Curiones, 
 they could secure the election of any candidate for the office of Curio 
 Maximus whom they chose to support. It flattered the vanity of the 
 Koman aristocracy to trace the Majores Gentes from the Ramnenses and 
 Titienses, the Minores from the Luceres, the three traditional tribes of 
 early Eome ; but it need scarcely be added that a pedigree of this 
 description is mythical rather than historical. It is far more probable 
 that as soon as the Curiee were thrown open through the admission of the 
 Plebeians to participate in the privileges of the Patricians, the Gentes 
 were naturally divided into Majores and Minores ; the former compara- 
 tively few in number and representing the old local aristocracy of Rome, 
 the latter continually increasing in number and representing the newly- 
 admitted Plebeians. Every free-born Roman of a certain class under the 
 Republic necessarily belonged, in his private capacity, to a Gens, or was 
 in some way connected with it ; just as, in his public capacity, he was 
 necessarily enrolled in a tribe. The property of a family, for instance, 
 failing heirs, lapsed, not to the State as in modern times, but to the Gens, 
 which seems to have stood in the place of the State in all things con- 
 nected with the tie of family or blood. Rome, as soon as she acquired 
 independence, became a confederation of Gentes, before she grew into a 
 confederation of Tribes, and much of their original authority continued 
 to be retained by the Gentes over the Quirite, in his private and in- 
 dividual capacity. The rights of the Gens were set aside by the adoption 
 of an heir, and accordingly an heir could not be adopted without a|)peal- 
 ing to the court of the Gentes ; and the Leges Curiata3, or the decisions 
 of this court, continued to be binding over the whole Roman jicople, in 
 everything over which the jurisdiction of the court extended. Hence the 
 Plebeians, as soon as their existence upon a similar footing with the 
 Patricians was acknowledged, must necessarily have been represented by 
 Curiones in the Concilia Curiata, their rejn'csentatives being probably 
 known as " Curiones Minorum Gentium." But as the old local aristo-
 
 240 ROME. 
 
 cracy of Eome died out — and the number of the Patrician, or Majores 
 Gentes, was necessarily limited — their Curiones would have been replaced 
 from time to time by the Curiones of Plebeian Gentes, which would thus 
 have risen out of the ranks of the Minores into the position of the 
 Majores Gentes. The Fulvii, Porcii, and Mamilii, for instance, as mem- 
 bers of the Papirian tribe, were probably represented originally in the 
 Comitia Curiata by the Curio of the Papirian, a Patrician or Major Gens; 
 but after the extinction of the Patrician element of the Gens in question, 
 some other Gens must have been chosen to supply a Curio for the 
 Comitia, and thus apparently, if Plebeian, would have risen to the posi- 
 tion of a Major Gens.^ 
 
 As soon as a Plebeian Gens was enrolled amongst the Majores, it is 
 only natural to suppose that its members would occasionally endeavour 
 to obliterate the recollection of their true descent, and seek to identify 
 their ancestors with the Patrician aristocracy of early Kome. Hence the 
 majority of the leading characters in the legendary period can generally 
 be connected with historical Plebeian Gentes ; and Junii, March, Hos- 
 tilii, Sempronii, and Lucretii make their appearance as shadowy unreali- 
 ties in early Roman history, at a time when the actual ancestors of their 
 supposed descendants were probably in no way connected with Rome, 
 except perhaps as allies. Hence arose the fiction of " passing over to the 
 Plebeians," by which a leading Plebeian aristocrat could put in a claim 
 for his ancestors, as patriots, and of pure Patrician descent, at the same 
 time. The Octavii, for instance, claimed, according to Suetonius, to 
 have been enrolled amongst the Roman Gentes by Tarquinius Prisons, 
 and numbered amongst the Patricians by Servius Tullius. Then they 
 " passed over to the Plebeians," and were unheard of until, in the gene- 
 ration before the Second Punic War, and after the supposed lapse of 
 about three hundred years, Cneius Octavius Rufus of Velitrfe, the Novus 
 homo of the elder branch, by holding office under the State, was enabled 
 to bequeath the first Imago to his posterity. As one of the wealthiest 
 families of Rome, and leading aristocrats during the declining years of 
 the Republic, the Octavii were naturally desirous of establishing their 
 claim to ancient Patrician descent, and the account of Suetonius discloses 
 the manner in which such a pedigree was fabricated. The real progeni- 
 tors of the Octavii would have probably been found amongst the second 
 colony of Roman Plebeians established, as a small local aristocracy, at 
 Velitr£B, and their Patrician ancestors in the reigns of Tarquinius and 
 Servius were myths ; but the earlier, or legendary, portion of Roman 
 history abounds with similar characters, the mythical Patrician ancestors 
 of historical Plebeian Gentes. 
 
 Licinius, according to Varro, was " the first who brought the people 
 out of the Comitium to receive the law in the Seven Acres of the 
 Forum "^ — Septem jugera forensia — an open space around the Comi- 
 
 1 Vide Note C. 
 
 ^ " C. Licinius, tribunus plebis, cum esset post reges exactos anni ccclxv., primus populum
 
 ROME. 241 
 
 tium, probably, in the days of Licinius, thougli subsequently covered 
 over with buildings, the Comitium answering to the enclosure around the 
 Curia Hostilia, or Senate-house of ancient Kome. Before this time, as 
 long as the Patrician Gentes were omnipotent, every law would probably 
 have been passed in accordance with the usage still followed, in a much 
 later era, in promulgating the Leges Curiat^e. The Bogatio would have 
 been put to a small body of aristocrats within the closed doors of the 
 Curia Hostilia, and the result arrived at would have been proclaimed, as 
 law, to the people assembled in the Comitium, without in any way con- 
 sulting their opinion upon the subject. The nearest approach to a 
 popular assembly was, at this time, presented by the Comitia Centuriata ; 
 but they were held at a distance from the Forum, and without the city 
 walls, in the Campus Martins ; the Census and the Legion, not the Law^, 
 were the subjects regulated in them ; and the system of voting followed 
 by the Romans must have placed the control of these Comitia very much 
 in the bands of the Patricians. The Ptoman voted with his fellows in 
 his Tribe, his Century, or his Decury, the suffrage in both the more 
 popular assemblies being given by centuries, when the Prcvrogativa^ or 
 first century to give a vote, was chosen by lot (at any rate in the later 
 days of the Eepublic), and usually expressed the opinion of the rest. 
 The regulation of the centuries was, up to a certain point, in the power 
 of the Censors, and by skilful management, which, in later times, often 
 degenerated into bribery, more or less open, a majority could be occa- 
 sionally secured. Appius Claudius managed to obtain a majority of this 
 description by a skilful distribution of the sons of Libertini amongst the 
 tribes ; and Cicero, in his oration for Cneius Plancius, discloses the state 
 of some of the tribes in his own days. The citizens of Tusculum, of all 
 municipalities the most renowned for the number of her consular families 
 were few, but of high standing — " spendidissimi homines, sed pauci ; " the 
 neighbourhood of Labicum, Oabii, and Bovillas, could scarcely supply a 
 representative to take a part in the Feria3 LatintB ; but the more distant 
 Terentine tribe was numerically strong. Every citizen who was not of 
 senatorial rank could vote in the assembly of the tribes, for Cicero 
 enumerates "tot equites, tot tribuni airarii" amongst the sup[)orters ot 
 his friend Plancius, and the older, or ".suburban," tribes were evidently 
 represented for the most part, in the age of Cicero, by a few wealthy 
 proprietors. A very few votes would have thus expressed thu vertlict of 
 the majority in most of the suburban centuries, counting for as much 
 as the far more numerous votes of a populous neighbourhood. A similar 
 influence would have been secured by the local aristocracy of Kome, in 
 earlier days, through the suffrages of their clients, who, though not 
 enrolled in the tribes, served in the ranks of the legions. The military 
 
 ad leges accipiundas in septem jngcra forensia e coniito eduxit" — Vano, R. Ji. 1, 2. In this 
 passage (in which comito is surely an error for comiiio), tlie "most learned ol tlie Konians " 
 seems to have identified the year of the expulsion of the kings with the date of the foundation 
 of Rome. 
 
 Q
 
 242 ROME. 
 
 tribunes still continned to select men for the legions in the days of 
 Polybius, and, as in earlier times, the military tribunes were appointed 
 exclusively from the Patricians, by a judicious distribution of clients in 
 the centuries, a majority of votes could have been generally secured for 
 the Assembly of the centuries. This assembly was invariably held in 
 the Campus Martius, for tbe reason (nominally) that it would have been 
 sacrilege (nefas) for an armed force to hold rule (imperare) within the 
 limits of the Pomferium.^ It was sacrilege, indeed, for one of the greater 
 Flameiis even to look upon an armed force from the Poma?rium, such 
 was the care with which the local aristocracy of Kome guarded against 
 the intrusion of an armed soldiery upon the sacred limits of their strong- 
 hold. The armed force in the days of Aulus Gellius was represented by 
 the army keeping order while " the people " voted ; but when the army 
 and the people were identical the Comitia Oenturiata represented the 
 Assembly of the people bearing arms, or the Qairites chosen for the 
 legions. As the Roman territory was enlarged, and the legions were 
 increased in numbeis and in strength, the great influx of tribesmen into 
 the centuries must have gradually turned the scale in favour of the land- 
 holders, or Adsidid, of the tribes, who were thus enabled to make their 
 voices heard in the Assembly of the Centuries. Thus the right of pro- 
 perty to be represented in the State, irrespective of local birth— the 
 principle of classification — seems to have been first asserted in that 
 Assembly in which the property of the Adsidui was assessed by the 
 Censors ; but the Campus Martius was at a distance from the Comitium, 
 and laws continued to be enacted within the closed doors of the Curia 
 Hostilia, until, by " bringing the people out of the Comitium into the 
 Seven Acres of the Forum," Licinius enabled the Adsidui of the tribes 
 to have a voice in the enactment of the laws by which they were to be 
 bound. Before the lapse of another generation the work of Licinius 
 was completed by Publius, and the decisions of the tribes assembled in 
 the Seven Acres of the Forum were pronounced binding, as Plebiscita, 
 upon every member of the Commonwealth. 
 
 By putting an end to the system of unlimited occupation of the 
 Public laud, Licinius must have dealt a fatal blow to the earlier system 
 of clientage, for the client of that age was apparently a sub-occupier of 
 public land under his Patronns. Before the legislation of Licinius, the 
 wealth and importance of the Patrician was derived from occupying wide 
 tracts of public land, and as he was a Locwples, or wealthy landholder, 
 as a Possessor, and not as a Proprietor with dominium, in no other way 
 could he have provided for a numerous body of kinsmen and clients than 
 by quartering them, as tenants-at-will (precarii), upon the lands he held 
 as a "beneficiary"" occupier. "Is every member of three hundred 
 citizens to enjoy the possession of land, and the portion of the Plebeian 
 to be barely enough to build a roof upon, or a place of sepulture.?"^ Such 
 
 1 Aul. Gell. XV. 27. 
 
 '^ " Ut siuguli prope trecentorum civium possiderent agros, plebeii homines vix ad tectum
 
 ROME. 243 
 
 is the complaint that Livy places m the mouth of an angry Plebeian 
 during the Licinian agitation, and, with due allowance for the unreality 
 of all such speeches, it shows that, in the opinion of the historian, only 
 the Patres, or heads of families of senatorial rank, could at that time 
 claim to occupy the public land, and their children, kinsmen, and clients, 
 must have been dependent upon the Patronus for support. Accordingly, 
 as soon as the amount in individual occupation was limited, the sena- 
 torial Patronus must have been deprived of the means by which he had 
 been accustomed to maintain a numerous body of dependants at the 
 public expense, and the doom of the early system of clientage was pro- 
 nounced by the regulations of Liciuius. The Ager Occupatorius, or 
 Public land of Kome, was conqueied land, and known from the earlie(-t 
 times as Ager Arcifinius, or Arcifinalis — as land held by the sword, 
 whether the name is interpreted to mean " keeping off the enemy," or 
 " defending the marches," It was therefore held by military service, and, 
 as long as the local Gentes were supreme, this service would have been 
 rendered, principally, by the actual sub-occupiers of the land, the kinsmen 
 and clients of the Patronus who held of the State ; for as the clients 
 served in the legions, and voted in the Comitia Centuriata, they must 
 have been reckoned amongst the Adsidui, or landholders of the age. In 
 course of time, the name of Decumonus began to be applied to the Ager 
 Occupatorius, from the custom of paying the tenths {decuma-) to the 
 State, in lieu of military service, towards defraying the expenses of the 
 army ; and thus an annual money-payment was substituted for the earlier 
 custom of filling the legions with clients. After the disappearance of 
 the clients from the Public land, the ranks of the legions, as long as they 
 continued to be recruited exclusively from the Adsidui, were tilled by 
 members of the tribes, proprietors of allotted land, or " ager viritim 
 divisus," and voters in the Comitia Tributa. The exclusive privileges 
 of the local aristocracy were at an end, and from this time forward the 
 Patricians, as a separate class, may be said, in their public capacity, to 
 have become extinct, — representing merely the leading members of the 
 Roman aristocracy, distinguished fur their brilliant descent. 
 
 The ordinary landed property of a member of a Roman tribe was 
 known as a HcBredium, according to Yarro, because (unlike an " occupa- 
 tion") it passed to the heir, who was necessarily a male descendant, or 
 the nearest " agnate." Daughters could have had no claim upon the 
 Haeredium, for, after the deaths of Caius Fabricius and Curius Dentatus, 
 who both in turn declined accepting more than the Scpfemjugera of 
 conquered land representing the legionaiy's allotment in their days, the 
 State undertook, in both cases, to provide for their daughters, who would 
 otherwise, apparently, have been left without any provision at all. Evi- 
 dently the daughters of these distinguished citizens had no claim upon 
 
 necessarium, aut locum sepiilturse, suus patcrct ager."^Liv. vi. 36. It seems clear, from this 
 passage, that the Bina jugera represented the locality for the homestead and farm-buiklings, 
 — not the farm, as is somotimes supposed.
 
 244 ROME. 
 
 tlie Septem jugera. In every other respect, however, the Ha3rediam 
 seems to have been held with ah-iohite dominium, or by Quiritarian 
 ownership, and was probably the earhest form of individual private pro- 
 perty in land acknowledged by the Romans. It could be sold at the 
 option of the actual holder ; for it was one of the projects of Tiberius 
 Gracchus to prevent such sales by a special law (a dream that the laj)se 
 of twenty centuries has not entirely dispelled) ; and a son could have 
 had no claim upon it in his father's lifetime, for his only property was 
 known as peculium, and held as that of a slave, by the sole permission 
 of the father or patron. Only if it remained unsold at the death of the 
 pro[)rietor, the Heeredium passed, by invariable custom, to the Uteres, 
 whoever he may have been ; and failing natural or adopted heirs, it must 
 have lapsed, as private property, to the Gens or Tribe. The extent of 
 the Ha3redium was limited to the familiar Bina Jugera down to " the 
 Punic War," according to Varro, the normal amount assigned from the 
 time of Romulus, writes the same authority ; though, if Livy may be 
 trusted, the amount, at the time of the original establishment of Latin 
 colonies, was slightly increased, on account of the distance of the new 
 colonists from Rome.-^ If any inference may be drawn from the descrip- 
 tion of Cincinnatus " laying a-^ide the Fasces, and returning to his 
 bullocks and his little [)atrimony of four acres — quatuor jugerum avitum 
 herediolum," ^ the Patrician doubled in size the ordinary Hasredium, 
 which was subsequently increased, however, in certain cases, to Septem 
 jugera ; though the military colonist, the representative of a lower social 
 class than the legionary of earlier days, was obliged to be contented with 
 the original amount of Bina jugera. The Ha^redium, " vix ad tectum 
 necessarium, aut locum sepulturee," was the homestead, and could not 
 have included the farm or property attached to it. " The Villa is a 
 collection of buildings, just as the Cohort is a collection of maniples," 
 wrote Varro; and, in the sense of Villa, Hortus was always used in the 
 code of the Twelve Tables, Pliny adding " et in horto hasredium,"^ 
 meaning that the right of ownership lay in the homestead, in the house 
 and garden, and not in the arable or pasture land ; or, as it would have 
 been said in Germany six hundred years ago, in the Toft, and not in the 
 Haker. The Hteredium, however, can only have represented the amount 
 of pro{)erty in land passing to the heir, not the amount in the occupation 
 of the Adsiduus. Tlie very fines levied under the old Roman law, varying 
 from one ox to thirty, could never have been exacted from a man who^e 
 house, farm, and farm-buildings were all contained within the limits of 
 five statute roods ! " Locupletos assiduos .... eos qui non plus mille 
 quingentum seris, aut omnino in suum censum nihil pra^ter caput attu- 
 
 ^ " Antiquus noster ante bellum Punicum pendebat Lina jugera, quod a Roiniilo primum 
 divisa dicebantur viritim ; qua, quod bairedem sequerentur, breredium appellarunt." — Varro, 
 R. R. i, 10. "Bina in Latino jugara, ita ut dodrantem ex Privernati complerent, data; 
 terna in Falerno, quadrantibus etiam pro lonc;itate adjectis." — Liv. viii. 11. 
 
 ^ Columella, R. R. Prcef. 13. Livy, iii. 26, gives tbe same amount. 
 
 ' Pliu. U. N. xix. I'J.
 
 ROME. 245 
 
 lissent, proletaries nominavit." Thus wrote Cicero, and as the sum of 
 fifteen hundred Asses lihrales would have once represented the value of 
 fifteen oxen, the poorest member of the Adsidui must have occupied 
 enough of the Ager Compascuus to provide pasturage for at least tliat 
 number of cattle. 
 
 The Roman in early times was a grazier, or stock-fariuer, rather than 
 an agriculturist ; and in this respect he formed no exception to the rule 
 observable amongst most people in a certain early stage of society. Italy 
 was not a corn-producing country on a great scale, and the aitificial 
 means adopted for keeping down the price of corn at Eome, in the later 
 days of the Republic, could not have tended to encourage the growth ( f 
 cereal crops on private property. Stock-farming was a more profitable 
 pursuit than tillage, in the opinion of Cato, who reckons vineyards, gar- 
 dens, osier-beds, and pasturage, above corn-land {campus frumentarms), 
 estimating the latter, apparently, as the lowest description of " cleared 
 land;" for he only places it immediately above woodland. But Italy 
 was renowned in ancient times for the number of her cattle, as she still 
 is for their beauty ; and indeed she is sometimes supposed to have derived 
 her name from her herds. Her vines, her olives, her fruit-trees — so 
 numerous as to give her the appearance of a vast orchard — are extolled 
 by Varro, whose friends, however, with whom he is supposed to discuss 
 various questions in his treatise on Agriculture, were all in favour of 
 stock-farming. The best of all land, according to one of them, " is a 
 good meadow, in which the goad is lost in the long grass, if you drop it." 
 Varro himself, one of tlie earliest advocates of tillage, lays down the rule, 
 that " no beasts are allowable on a tillage-farm except they are used in 
 the plough ;" upon which another friend replies, " You would not only 
 take his cattle from the lord, but you would deprive the serf of the little 
 property his master gives him to feed (adimis . . . servis pcGulium.- 
 quibus dant domini ut pascant)," — a remarkable allusion to the only 
 manner in which a member of the dependent classes, from the son to the 
 serf, could acquire property under the Pater-farailias, or Fatronus, I y 
 the tenure originally in force amongst the Romans.^ Accordingly the 
 Hide of arable land, and its equivalents, may be looked for in vain 
 amongst the tribesmen and colonists under the early Roman system, in 
 which allotted land and common pasturage are alone traceable. The 
 origin of the word stipendiiim is derived by Varro from the custom of 
 packing up, or storing away, the heavy libral Asses of the early monetary 
 system ; and, before the introduction of a:s signatim, when the stock in 
 which fines were levied, and in which the fortune of the Roman would 
 have been assessed, represented tlie ordinary medium of valuation and 
 exchange, the only way of storing up the money of the period (pecunia), 
 or of amassing i)er!-onal property, was in increasing the extent of pas- 
 turage. Corn-land would have been useless without a market, and the 
 
 1 Varro, B. li. 1, 2. Comparu tliis tcniuro with the Aicillnc, or custoiuary tenure of the 
 Irish Daer Ceili, noticed above at pp. 157, 158.
 
 24G R031E. 
 
 small amount required for supplying the wants of the family from year 
 to year, would not have been set apart and separated permanently like 
 the Hffiredium. The Tloman tribesman was not a Haistaldus, or Hager- 
 man, with a separate property, but he would have probably tbllovved the 
 early custom retained in the regulations of the " Lammas fields" in Eng- 
 land, his arable resuming the character of common pasturage as soon as 
 the crops were off the ground. It may be gathered from the Third oration 
 of Cicero against Yerres, that in Sicily, an island numbered for many 
 generations amongst the granaries of Rome, the land was left from the first 
 in the hands of the original population, and was only liable to the Cen- 
 soria locatio, or to be let with the usual obligations attaching to Public 
 land. It is to the Public land, therefore, that we must look for the 
 tillage farms raising large quantities of corn for sale, and with the Public 
 land, and the regulations of the tillage farms on the Public land, the 
 ordinary member of the Roman tribe and colony had nothing to do, 
 whilst the member of the classes entitled to the privileges of occupation 
 would have left all such questions in the hands of his deputy cr land- 
 steward.^ 
 
 Individual private property in land, with absolute and complete 
 ownership {dominium), would appear, therefore, to have been at first 
 limited to the H^redium, whilst the Ager compascuus was held in joint- 
 occupancy. The name of Ager compascuus, though unquestionably de- 
 rived from the early and universal custom of pasturage, may have been 
 applied perhaps in course of time, in a general way, to all the " common" 
 land that continued to be held in joint-occupancy, without any special 
 reference to its original meaning. In England, we are now accustomed 
 to give the name of " Common" to a tract of uncultivated waste land 
 alone, but at a comparatively recent period the name, as opposed to 
 " Close," still continued to be applied, in many parts of England, to 
 fields, pastures, meadows, and indeed to every description of land held in 
 joint-occupation, and not iu " the lord's domain ;" whilst the Common 
 of modern days was known as " the Heath," or " the Waste." The very 
 name of domain is derived from the Roman dominium, and the whole 
 of the land that was not held with dominium by individual Quu-ites 
 must have been necessarily vested in the State, or must have belonged 
 to a community of some description, whether civic or sacerdotal, and 
 
 ' It was still customary in parts of England, at a comparatively recent period, to keep a 
 certain portion of common pasturage under plough, generally for two years, in tlie place of the 
 usual practice of setting apart certain common, or unenclosed, fields for permanent tillage. 
 After the lapse of the two years, the temporary arable reverted to its original character of 
 pasturage, and another portion of "compascuus ager" was similarly treated. The custom 
 was probably far more general in early days, representing pastoral as opposed to tillage custom, 
 or the usage of a society more familiar with Cornage than with Hidage. Cornage always 
 preceded Hidage, stock was levied before Asses Vectic/ales, and when ^^ecits passed ior pecunia, 
 and fines were assessed in cattle and sheep, pastoral custom was in force rather than tillage 
 custom. Hence, I imagine that the age in which the Quirite held his Bina jugera as Hfere- 
 dium was more familiar with pastoral than with tillage custom, and was unacquainted with 
 the equivalent of the Hide.
 
 ROME. 247 
 
 must have been held more or less upon the principle of joint occupation. 
 Wherever this principle remains in force under its original conditions at 
 the present day, or wherever its existence is traceable in early times, an 
 ownership more or less limited in duration is (or was) created from time 
 to time in certain portions of the land, each joint-tenant occupying his 
 share, or shares, with rights of ownership, until a fresh distribution of 
 the land. Varying custom regulated the recurrence of these distribu- 
 tions. In Russia, a period of from three to ten years is generally suffered 
 to elapse between them at the present day, and in many paits of Eng- 
 land the Neatman used to receive his allotted portions of common land 
 annually, renewing his stipulations and agreements at the same time — 
 a custom in which the annual distribution of very early times may be 
 traced, and out of which arose the yearly tenancy-at-will of modern times, 
 after the Neatmen (the Geneats, or Sharers^ of the old English laws) 
 were replaced by a tenantry who were free to " go where they willed." 
 From the " Censoria locatio," or the system of letting the Public land by 
 the Censors, it may be presumed that, in theory, the Public land of Rome 
 was supposed to revert to the State on the conclusion of every lustrum, 
 though in practice it probably remained in most cases in the same hands 
 as before — the lease was renewed, as it were, by the Censors, as repre- 
 sentatives of the State. The Censorship accordingly vanished upon the 
 establishment of the Empire ; for the principle vesting the property of 
 the State in its sole and permanent representative, the Emperor, must 
 have ignored the earlier system of " allocation," which was necessarily 
 converted into an imperial prerogative. The allocation of the Public 
 land every five years may be supposed, however, to have been merely a 
 reflection of the ordinary practice of very early times amongst the Romans, 
 by which they regulated the joint occupation of every description of 
 Common land ; for tribe land must have necessarily preceded conquered 
 land, and for many a subsequent generation was often closely connected 
 with it, a portion of land being made over to the tribe at the time of its 
 original incorporation with the Roman Commonwealth, whilst the re- 
 mainder lapsed as Public land to the State, tjoint-occupancy would 
 have been the principle of the tenure by which the whole of the Common 
 land was held, whether it belonged to the State, the colony, or the tribe. 
 Custom, and probably varying custom, would have dictated the regtda- 
 tions under which the land was actually held ; and many of these cus- 
 toms seem to have been collected into a written form, under the name of 
 Leges Goloniccc} 
 
 As the Haeredium was saleable, a certain amount of private ])roperty 
 may be supposed to have been acquired in course of time by the wealthier 
 classes through the purchase of haeredia. It may be seen from the ora- 
 tion of Cicero for Plancius that the suburban districts and the " neigh- 
 bourhoods" of Labicum, Gabii, and Bovilho were scantily supplied with 
 
 ^ " Atque etiam leges colonicas tollis, in quibus scribiruus Colonus in agro surculario ne 
 capra natum pascat." — Varro, R, B. 1, 2.
 
 248 ROME. 
 
 voters, as the land, for which the privilege of voting was derived, was 
 evidently in the hands of a few wealthy proprietors. The tribe-land, in 
 early times, was probably divided into local districts corresponding with 
 the Centuries of the tribe, which again may have been subdivided into 
 smaller districts answering to Decuries ; and Koman custom would have 
 differed from that of nearly every other people with whose early history 
 we are acquainted, if the joint-occupation and distribution of the com- 
 mon-land were not confined within tlie limits of these narrower areas. 
 Hence the purchase of a certain number of bieredia (probably of ten or 
 twelve) would have centred the rights of all the earlier proprietors, 
 whether individual or joint rights, in the purchaser, who would have held 
 the whole of the little district, answering to a township of media3val 
 England, in Qiiiritarian ownership with dominium, or as an absolute 
 property to cultivate in any manner he pleased. The law that Tiberius 
 Gracchus intended to introduce against the sale of hairedia, and his 
 lamentations over the substitution of slaves for freeholders who fought in 
 the legions, point to the actual occurrence of such purchases of tribe- 
 land ; for the private farm of the Roman seems to have been cultivated 
 exclusively by slave labour. But though Tribe-land was purchaseable, 
 and the earliest description of bequeathable property in land may be 
 supposed to have been acquired in this manner. Public land was supposed 
 originally to be the inalienable property of the State, only to be enjoyed 
 in occupation by the Patroni amongst the privileged classes, by whom, in 
 other words, it was held in joint occupation, much as the tribe-land was 
 jointly held by members of the tribes. Hence the pecnlium that a 
 dependant was allowed to accumulate with the permission of his Patronus, 
 became peculation if acquired at the expense of the State, from which no 
 such permission was presumed to be attainable. Temple-land, or Ager 
 sacer — the Temenos of Grreece, or portion of land " cut off " and set apart 
 for the service of a god or goddess — was similarly inalienable, and sup- 
 posed to be vested in the deity to whom it was consecrated, whose priests 
 appear to have often answered to a class of privileged families, enjoying 
 the occupation of the land. Xenophon, when he dedicated a piece of 
 land at Scillus to Artemis, reserved the "occupation" of the land for 
 himself or his representatives, devoting the annual " tenths" to the 
 service of the deity in whom he thus vested the ownership of the pro- 
 perty ; and he may be supj)osed to have followed the custom usually 
 pursued on the occasion of similar gifts, a custom either perpetuated or 
 reproduced with very similar features in early Christian times.^ The 
 exigencies of the great struggle against Hannibal, by leaving the Roman 
 State involved in debt, would appear to have led to the earliest known 
 infraction of the principle of the inalienability of Public land, though the 
 land in question was mortgaged rather than alienated in perpetuity. 
 The whole of the Public land within fifty miles of Rome was made over 
 
 1 Anal). V. 3. T6v 5i ex^fra koL Kap-nrodfievov, ttjv ixkv deKaryju KaraOve'ii' iKaarov trovs, 
 eK 8i Tov TreptTTov rbv vabv eiricTKeva^e^v.
 
 ROME. 249 
 
 to the creditors of the State, but, in order to retain for it the character 
 of Public land, the Consuls were directed to follow the usual custom of 
 assessing its value, that the ordinary tax, or " tenths," might be imposed 
 upon the holders — " agrum eestimaturos, et injugera asses vectigales, 
 testandi causa publicum agrum esse, impositiiros." Thus the " Trientius 
 Tabulariusque ager" was, in theory, only alienated for a time, or mort- 
 gaged until the State could repay to the creditors in full the money they 
 had advanced.^ 
 
 The inalienability of Public land by sale was still a principle of 
 Roman law in the age of the Gracchi, and, indeed, it is difficult to under- 
 stand how a sale conveying ownership in perpetuity could have been 
 carried out by magistrates whose term of office was supposed to be 
 brought to a close every five years, and whose work was always liable to 
 be undone by their successors. The very name of pircdium, applied to 
 property in land, is supposed to have been derived from the Pj-as or 
 surety for the holder — from the man or men who gave security for the 
 occupier of Public land upon its allocation by the Censors ; and a similar 
 principle was subsequently followed in letting the public revenues to the 
 Publicani. The example set by Licinius, of evading his own regulations, 
 seems to have been very soon followed, for it was not so much the object 
 of the party he represented to limit the senatorial privileges as to share 
 in them ; and as soon as this object was obtained the law seems to have 
 been evaded with impunity. A contest still went on, more or less, as 
 before, but as time wore on the contest lay between the Senatorial order 
 and the First class, rather than between Patrician and Plebeian, for the 
 members of the First class were for ever struggling to gain admission 
 amongst the privileged order, adopting the senatorial policy of exclusivc- 
 ness as soon as they were successful. Octavius, Pompeius, Opimius, 
 Mucins ScEevola, and Papirius Carbo — such are the names of some of the 
 foremost men in the time of the Gracchi, and not one of them could have 
 produced an Imago older than the close of the Second Punic Wai-. 
 Fulvius, Junius, Livius, and Popillius, like the Sempronii, were members 
 of the old Plebeian aristocracy, but Scipio jEmilianus appears as the sole 
 representative of a Patrician Gens. Accordingly, when the elder 
 Gracchus first took in hand his reforms, he found the Public land of 
 Italy in the possession of a multitude of occupiers, many of whom would 
 appear to have held their possessions, through the connivance of succes- 
 sive Censors, by an almost hereditary right of occupation from father to 
 son during several generations. The regulations of Licinius had evidently 
 been evaded, but not so much, appiircntly, in the amount of land held by 
 individuals, as in the number and character of the occupiers. The Patro- 
 nus of a senatorial family — one of the privileged Trecenti of the passage 
 elsewhere quoted from Livy — was alone entitled to occu])y Public land by 
 the ancient custom of Rome; but as the entbrcemcnt of this ancient 
 custom by Tiberius reduced a number of families to destitution, in s})ite 
 
 ^ Liv. xxxi. 13.
 
 250 ROME. 
 
 of his allowing a double portion of land (oi* a thousand jugera) to he held 
 in occupation between a Patronus and his sons, it may be presumed that 
 the Public land had long been allowed to be occupied by the junior 
 branches, or cadets, of senatorial families, and that it was upon this class 
 that the revival of the earlier custom pressed with peculiar hardship, 
 Sylla, a needy cadet of the illustrious Cornelian Gens, and Clodius, whose 
 father left him nothing, were " results " of the Sempronian legislation in 
 the succeeding generation. In a later stage of society, after the principle 
 of Emphyteusis was acknowledged, long-continued occupation of land 
 without challenge would have conferred a title of ownership, and Cicero 
 seems to have been in favour of such a principle,^ But the Roman 
 custom of the age ignored its existence, the occupiers were replaced by 
 a class of small farmers with inalienable allotments — -fee-farmers tliey 
 would have been called in mediaeval England — and the Consul Popillius, 
 who carried out the measure after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, claimed 
 the credit of being the first to plant tillage-farmers, in the place of herds- 
 men, upon the Public land. 
 
 It is impossible to defend the narrow oligarchy that monopolized the 
 government of Rome at this period, and in personal character the 
 Gracchi were undoubtedly superior to the majority of their contem- 
 poraries ; but it cannot be denied that some of their measures were ill- 
 judged, and followed by consequences upon which they could have hardly 
 calculated. No principle can be worse than that on which the Eques- 
 trian order was founded by Caius Gracchus, as a separate estate in the 
 commonwealth, with definite rank and privileges. Neither illustrious 
 deeds nor an honourable career in the service of the State gave admis- 
 sion to the order, but the qualification was acquired by the possession of 
 wealth alone, and lost by the want of it. Every objection that can be 
 raised against an aristocracy of birth, except when it degenerates into a 
 narrow caste, applies with equal force to an aristocracy of wealth, whilst 
 there are vices inherent in the latter from which the former is compara- 
 tively free. " Si quadringentis sex septem millia desunt, Plebs eris " — 
 for the want of a few sestercia the Eques lost his position and his privi- 
 leges, so that the accumulation of wealth became the very principle of 
 his existence. No scheme more provocative of avarice and extortion 
 could have been invented, and many of the evil doings of Roman Magi- 
 strates, of whom Verres may be cited as an instance, may be traced to a 
 desire to obtain admission into the Equestrian order, or to retain a posi- 
 tion in it for themselves and their descendants. The means, again, 
 adopted by Caius Gracchus to obtain his election to the magistracy that 
 was to enable him to carry through his projects of reform, were fruitful 
 of evil in after times. When Quintus Fabius, in order to eliminate the 
 fcex from the rural districts, called the urban tribes into existence, he 
 laid the foundation of a change that he little contemplated. As the 
 
 ^ " Qiiam autem habet pequitatem, ut agrum, mnltis annis aut etiam seculis ante possessum, 
 qui nullum habeat, habet; qui autem habuit, amittat." — Cic. Ojf. ii. 22.
 
 HOME. 251 
 
 number of the rural tribesmen diminished, and the suburban districts 
 began to be represented by a few wealthy proprietors, the urban element 
 that had been admitted to the privileges of the franchise naturally 
 increased in importance, especially after the wide extension of the 
 suffrage by lowering the qualification of the Fifth class to a third of its 
 original amount. The rude and early method of controlling a Proleta- 
 riat by the simple policy of repression, is necessarily replaced, in course of 
 time, by a mixture of real or apparent concession, by secret corruption, 
 or by open bribery, as the dangerous class grows formidable from increas- 
 ing numbers. This second stage had long been reached at Eome, but 
 to Caius Gracchus may be attributed the institution of a system of 
 legalized corruption, more dangerous, perhaps, than unauthorized bribery. 
 It was at his bidding that the Sempronian granaries arose, in which was 
 stored the corn to be distributed at half-price, from month to month, to 
 every needy citizen of Eome who chose to apply for it at the Capitol. 
 The land within fifty miles of the city had long been in the hands of 
 wealthy capitalists ; and as no one living beyond this distance would 
 have thought it worth his while to pay a monthly visit to Rome for the 
 sake of obtaining a bushel or two of corn at half-price, the dole was 
 practically limited to the needy members of the urban tribes, and the 
 proletariat whose voices were to be purchased by its distribution. 
 " Bread, and the games of the Circus," such was the cry in a later age of 
 the representatives of the first recipients of the dole, and it may be 
 traced to the policy of Caius Grracchus. 
 
 The inalienable fee-farms of Tiberius Gracchus were destined to 
 enjoy a very brief existence. They were soon converted into properties 
 held with ownership, for the principle on which they were created was 
 unacceptable to the class for whom they were called into existence, and 
 we lose sight of them ; but the results of his measures against the occu- 
 piers of Public land were far more important and enduring. The earlier 
 custom of occupation was ^„bandoned by the governing classes, and by 
 substituting for it a system of allocating the public revenues amongst 
 wealthy capitalists, who thus acquired the name of PuhUcani, the 
 revived legislation of Licinius was practically evaded ; for the regulation 
 introduced by Tiberius against occupying more than a thousand jugera 
 was powerless against the practice of farming the revenues. Companies 
 were formed, of which the members were joint securities for each other 
 to the State, and the amount of property thus acquired must have often 
 been sufficient to enrol its possessor in the ranks of the Equestrian order 
 — a result of their legislation that was scarcely anticipated by the 
 Gracchi. From this time forward the Public land was either leased out 
 in small tillage farms, or left in permanent common pasture, — individual 
 right, in the latter case, being limited to the privilege of depasturing ten 
 larger, or fifty lesser stock, a tenth of the amount allowed by Licinius. 
 With the novel regulation about pasturage, it seems allowable to connect 
 the Ager Quccstorius, or Public land, sold in blocks of fifty jugera, a
 
 252 ROME. 
 
 tenth of the amount allowed to be held in occupation by the earlier 
 custom. The Queestoi-es Classici were officials of the Senate, and the 
 land thus disposed of by them in blocks of fifty jugera, whether leased or 
 sold, with the correspondiui:; privilege of pasturnge, would appear to have 
 been held by a title from the governing body of the State — by a Parlia- 
 mentary title, to use the language of modern times — in contradistinction 
 to the revocable allocation of the Censors ; so that the holders, whether 
 as lessees or owners, were secured against suffering from a repetition of 
 the Sempronian confiscation. Hencefoith the actual tenants of the Ager 
 Occupatorius represented a totally different class from the aristocratic 
 occupiers of an earlier period, and their holdings and privileges of 
 pasturage seem to have been limited with the especial purpose of retain- 
 ing them in the position of dependent cultivators of the soil ; for a class 
 of small farmers, incapable of holding above a certain amount of land, 
 must always necessarily remain in a dependent position. It would be 
 difficult, if not impossible, with, our present knowledge of the subject, to 
 fix the exact date at which these blocks of Public land began to be sold 
 or alienated in perpetuity, in place of being leased out, or alienated only 
 for a time. The name of Ager Quasstorius is first applied by Hyginus, 
 Siculus Flaccus, and other writers of the imperial era, to the Public land 
 sold in this manner by the Qu^estores Classici, a proceeding that would 
 not have been recognised in the time of the Gracchi, when the Ager 
 Occupatorius was inalienable, and an allocation of it by the Censors was 
 always liable to be revoked by their successors. At some uncertain time 
 between these two periods the sale or alienation in perpetuity of Public 
 land, by the authority of the State, seems to have grown into a recognised 
 principle of Roman law ; a change that may be traced, apparently, to 
 the Sempronian confiscation, and to the alteration in the management of 
 the Public land introduced after that period.^ 
 
 The extension of the franchise to the Latins and Italians, the Civil 
 Wars, the various Dictatorships and Triumvirates, bring down the 
 history of Rome to the establishment of the Empire, and during all this 
 time the original governing body of the State was more or less supplanted, 
 until it was replaced by the sole representative of the State. The earlier 
 principle of the Roman patriciate was destroyed by the Lex Cassia, 
 enabling Ctesar to raise whom he chose to the ranks of the Patricians, 
 
 ^ " Qusestorii autem dicuntur agri quos populus Eomanus, devictis pulsisqiie liostibus 
 possedit, mandavitque qiiaastoribus ut eos venderent. Qufe centurife nunc appellantur, id est 
 plintliides, hoc est laterculi, eosdem in qiiinquagenis jugeribus qnadratos clusernnt limilibus, 
 atque ita certum cuiqne modum vendiderunt." — Hyginus. " Qurestorii dicuntur agri quos ex 
 hoste captos P. K. per qurestores vendidit. Hi autem limitibus institutis laterculis quin- 
 quagenum jiigeriim effectis veiiierunt. Quern modum decern actus in quadratum per limites 
 demensi efficiunt; unde etiam liraites decumani sunt dicti." — Sic. Flac. "Curium Sabinorum 
 ager per quaistores est venumdatus, et quibusdam laterculis quinquagena jugera inclusus est, 
 postea vero Juli Cfesaris per centurias et limites est demetitus." — Lib. Colon, i. ; vide 
 Gromcdlci Veteres (Lacbman), t. i. pp. 115, 152, 253. Tbus, if these writers of a compara- 
 tively late era may be trusted, the sale of land by the Qurestors, which seems to have grown 
 out of the important changes developed in the tirne of the Gracchi, ceased with the rise of 
 Imperialism,
 
 ROME. 253 
 
 thus establishing the germ of the modern principle of nobility. When 
 Grains wrote, Quiritarian or full ownership of land with dominium, 
 could be obtained over private property by the unchallenged exercise of 
 all the rights of ownership during the space of two years, and it mattered 
 not at that time by what description the land may have originally been 
 known. Land and Roman citizenship could be acquired wdth ease, but 
 the Public land remained in the occupation of a dependent class. 
 Gradually the name of Agri Vectigales began to be applied to all land 
 of which the ownership was vested, or supposed to be vested, in a com- 
 munity of some description instead of an individual, thus embracing the 
 landed property of all civic and sacerdotal corporations, as well as the 
 property of the State, and the tenants of the Agri A^ectigales belonged to 
 the class above alluded to. A qualified right of ownership, or a right of 
 property not amounting to dominium^ seems to have grown up in, 
 or extended to, the Agri Vectigales, arising probably at first out of 
 lengthened occupation, and the Prccdia Emphyteutica began to make 
 their appearance in the imperial codes, as properties upon which the colo- 
 nus was " planted in." As long as he performed the obligations required 
 of him, the EmpliyteiUa was irremoveable, a failure on this point alone 
 entailing the forfeiture of his property, over which he exercised all the 
 rights of proprietorship, except where special limitation^ existed. He 
 could sell the land, or rather his tenant-right in the land, after first 
 offering it to the actual owner, who, if he declined to resume the pro- 
 perty, received a fine in proportion to the actual value of the land I'rom 
 the incoming tenant. But the purchaser was bound to prove his quali- 
 fication for undertaking the responsibilities of the property ; and if this 
 was satisfactorily shown, all opposition on the part of the owner was 
 useless. Such may be said, in general terms, to have been the principle 
 of Emphyteusis applied to the Agri Vectigales ; and in the course of the 
 sixth century Justinian is supposed to have placed all the coloni upon 
 the landed property of the State upon a similar footing. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 The Spartan Mora numbered at one time 400 men, and was divided into four 
 Lochi, eight Pentecostte, and sixteen Enomotitc, the Lochos representing a body of 100 
 men ; but in a passage of Thucydides (vi. 68) the Lochos is described as containing 
 four Pentecostte and sixteen Enomotia3, each of the latter numl)ering32 men, so that 
 the full complement of the Lochos at this time reached to 512. A change had 
 evidently been introduced upon the earlier formation, and this change seems to have 
 been followed in the Macedonian Phalanx. The lowest subdivision of the latter was 
 the Lochia of 16 men, eight Lochias forming a Taxis and sixteen a Syntagma, to which 
 were attached 5 supernumeraries. As tlie Lochia was the unit of tlic Syntagma, so the 
 latter was the unit of the Phalanx, two forming a Pentecosiarchia of 512 men (the 
 Lochos of Thucydides), four a Chiliarchia, and sixteen making up the Phalanx of 40!)6 
 men. The two best soldiers were placed on the Hanks of the Lochia, so as to lead or 
 bring up the rear in movements to the right or left ; and the ordinary formation ot the
 
 254 NOTES. 
 
 Phalanx was in a column of sixteen deep, each Syntagma forming in a square. By 
 diminishing the depth of each Syntagma to half a Lochia, the front of the column was 
 increased to a Pentecosiarchia, and by doubling the depth of the Syntagmata the 
 front of the column was diminished to a Taxis. 
 
 The Italians appear to have long preserved the older Greek formation, akin to the 
 early Spartan Mora, for the Cohort amongst the Hernici and Samnites numbered 400 
 men, which also represented the ordinary strength of the Roman cohort in the time of 
 Polybius. Eight of these cohorts amongst the Hernici are called by Livy "Extra- 
 ordinarii," and the " Legio linteata " would appear to have stood out from the rest of 
 the Samnite army, in a similar manner, as a chosen 1: )dy of men. This Legio linteata 
 is supposed to have been chosen by a special Ten named by the Samnite Imperator, 
 and the men composing it were equipped in white tunics, with ornamented arms and 
 crested helmets, their number amounting to forty cohorts, or sixteen thousand men. A 
 similar number of men, less conspicuous for their arms and dress, seem to have been 
 enrolled at the same time, and these eighty Samnite cohorts coincide exactly with the 
 usual numbers of the two consular armies, annually enrolled by the Romans in the days 
 of Polybius from amongst the tribesmen and allies. " Crests make no wounds, the 
 Roman pilum can pierce through painted and gilded shields, and white tunics are apt 
 to show the stains of blood when weapons come into play." — Such are the words attri- 
 buted by Livy to the consul, Papirius Cursor ; but as sixteen thousand men were chosen 
 in the time of Polybius by the military tribunes, in a very similar manner, as the crested 
 helmet was worn by the Roman legionary in order to give him height and a fierce and 
 martial appearance, and as the Roman legion stood out as a chosen body of men from 
 amongst the Cohortes alarii, or allied troops, with whom it was invariably associated, 
 the Samnite and Roman systems seem to have been very similar.^ 
 
 The description left by Polybius of the constitution of the Roman legion in his own 
 days is exceedingly clear. Three thousand spearmen were distributed amongst the 
 three classes known as Hastati, Principes, and Triai'ii, in thirty Ordines or Maniples, 
 the Maniple numbering a hundred and twenty spearmen amongst the two first classes, 
 and sixty in the third, or reserve. A thousand light-armed Velites were added in a 
 similar proportion, raising each of the twenty larger Maniples, by the addition of forty 
 men, to a hundred and sixty, and increasing the lesser Maniple amongst the Triarii, by 
 the addition of twenty men, to eighty. A Maniple from each of the three classes formed 
 the Cohort, numbering four hundred men, ten cohorts thus constituting the ordinary 
 legion of four thousand men. Two centurions, and two standard-bearers, belonged to 
 each Maniple, which had only one banner, however, and was under the sole command 
 of the senior centurion. The junior superintended the left wing of the Maniple, under 
 the orders of his senior, and in the absence of the latter succeeded to the command. 
 The legion on emergencies was increased to five thousand men, the additional thousand 
 being distributed in the same manner as the Velites, though the actual number of the 
 Triarii was never altered. Each of the larger Maniples would have been raised by the 
 additional forty to a strength of two hundred ; each of the smaller by the additional 
 twenty to a hundred ; and it is easy to see how the latter, and each of the wings of the 
 former, as the ordinary strength of the legion began to be fixed at five thousand, 
 assumed the name of Centuries, a name unfamiliar to Polybius, and only introducing 
 confusion when applied to any of the known subdivisions of the legion in or before 
 his time. Tliree hundred horsemen were attached to the legion, and divided into ten 
 Turmas, each commanded by a Decurion and his Optio, or Lieutenant. An ordinary 
 Consular army, such as the Roman system of encampment provided for, consisted of 
 two Roman legions, with six hundred horsemen, and about the same number of 
 auxiliary infantry, or rather more, enrolled in a similar manner, and commanded by 
 twelve Prsefects, chosen by the Consuls, much as the military tribunes were once 
 
 ^ Liv. vii. 7 ; viii. 38-43. The descriptions of Livy are occasionally so " poetical " that it is 
 difficult to decide whether the Romans actually abandoned the Latin for the Samnite formation, 
 or whether the historian has not attributed certain features of the Roman system to the 
 Samnites.
 
 WTFS. 255 
 
 appointed at Rome. Three times the number of cavalry, or sixty Turmas, were supplied 
 by the allies, and it was amongst the first duties of the Prtefects to select a third 
 of the auxiliary cavalry, and a fifth of the infantry, the best of their respective 
 services, to form, under the name of Extraordinarii, the body-guard of the Consul. 
 Many of the youthful members of the wealthiest families of Rome also served in 
 the ranks of this corps d'elite, as volunteers " out of compliment to the Consuls." 
 The remaining auxiliaries were divided into two parts, known as the right and left 
 wings, or Cohortes alarii, each respectively equalling the numbers of a Roman leoion 
 in infantry, doubling them in cavalry ; in other words, in each of the wings there would 
 have been ten cohorts and twenty turmte, the Extraordinarii numbering five cohorts 
 and the same amount of cavahy, without counting the volunteers.^ 
 
 The description left of an early Legion by Livy wears rather a doubtful appearance. 
 The three classes of Polybius are distinguishable, two of them known as Antepilani, 
 the third as Subsignani. The Antepilani were distributed in thirty Ordines, or 
 Maniples, each numbering sixty-two men, including twenty lightly armed, with a 
 centurion and standard-bearer. The Subsignani, divided into Accensi, Rorarii, and 
 Triarii, were distributed in fifteen larger Ordines, each resembling a small cohort of 
 three Maniples, and numbering a hundred and eighty-six meh : so that the legion, at 
 its full strength of seventy-five Maniples, amounted to four thousand six hundred and 
 fifty men, or to four thousand eight hundred, if the Centurion and Standard-bearer are 
 supposed to have been not included amongst the sixty-two. The Maniple of Livy is 
 simply the Wing of Polybius, with the twenty Velites included in the ranks — or Ordo— 
 where they would have only introduced confusion, for they were light-armed skirmishers, 
 javelin-men or slingers, who would have been out of place in an Ordo of spearmen when 
 it came to hand-to-hand fighting. The Accensi were a body of supernumeraries who 
 marched with the Legion to fill up vacancies in the ranks, and belong to an ao-e in 
 which compaigns were carried on at a distance from Rome. The Accensi may have 
 grown up out of the supernumerary thousand of Polybius, but would have been a 
 superfluous addition to the Legion in the time of the Latin war, when battles were 
 fought and campaigns were carried on within thirty or forty miles of Rome. The 
 Rorarii, again, were slingers ; their place would have been in front, and their duty to 
 commence a battle. They seem out of place grouped under the standard with the 
 Triarii, veterans of the reserve, chosen to restore the fight, or complete the victory. In 
 the Legion of Livy we also miss the Cohort, an older formation, probably, than the 
 larger body of men. It seems easy to trace the early Latin legion of thirty Centuries, 
 in the Legion of Polybius, under the later formation of thirty Maniples, adapted, 
 apparently, to the principle of the Samnite legion. So may we trace the dismounted 
 portion of the Mediaeval Batailh — Shakespeare's Battle — in the infantry Battalion of 
 the present day. But in the seventy-five Maniples of Livy's Legion it is difficult to 
 trace anything, — except, perhaps, some confusion with the seventy-five Maniples of 
 auxiliaries attached to a consular army.^ 
 
 1 Polyb. vi. 20-26. In his subsequent description of the Eoman encampment, he says that 
 the auxiliary infantry equalled in number the legionaries Xcittoj' tois eVtX^KTois ; the cavalry, 
 after deducting the third part enrolled as Extraordinarii, doubled the Roman horse. Hence 
 the infantry in the corps d'elite, numbering a fifth of the whole force serving on foot, would 
 have amounted to five cohorts, the cavalry to twenty turma?. T(Ves tQv ideXdvTTjSov arpa- 
 revd/xeuwi' rrj tQv viraTuv ^ap'Tc are his words in reference to the volunteers (c. 31). Tlie 
 solitary difficulty in his description of the Legion is that, on one occasion, he raises its ordinary 
 strength to four thousand two hundred men ; but, in enumerating the fighting men, he always 
 calculates the legion at four or five thousand. To every Syntagma in the riialanx five super- 
 numeraries were attached; and as artificers, tiumpeters, and lictors accom]ianied the Roman 
 legion, of whom Polybius makes no mention amongst the fighting men, the additional two 
 hundred may have included these sr.pernumeraries. They were probably supplied in early 
 days from the "Centuries " ofFabri Tignarii and Musicians. 
 
 2 Liv. viii. 8. " Ordo sexagenos nalites duos, centurionem ct vexillarium unum habebat. 
 Prima acies hastatierant, mauipuli quindecim . . . Manipulus loves viceuus miiites, alium turbam
 
 25 G NOTES. 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 The highest amercement allowed by the Twelve Tables was a fine of thirty oxen, 
 or three thousand Asses libralcs, after " a;s signatum " began to take the place of 
 " pecunia " paid in kind. Each of the ten Sureties for the son of C'incinnatus was 
 bound in a similar sum of three thousand Asses ; and the ransom of every Roman after 
 Canna3 was fixed, according to Livy, at three hundi-ed Quadrigati, representing the same 
 amount. Not that the value of money at the time of the Second Punic War was the 
 same as of old, but the old amount may have lingered on as a fixed sum, representing 
 something that was once a reality in times gone by ; just as our Forty-shilling free- 
 hold lingers on after it has long ceased to represent the legal value of the tenth of a 
 knight's fee, and a Forty-shilling fine is still a limit in certain cases, because it was , 
 once the limit in the lesser courts, for the reason that a higher fine might have been 
 more than a member of the lowest order of freeholders could have paid. Certain 
 institutions of the past are apt to linger on unchanged through an astonishing number 
 of generations. The eighty scillings, at which a Liet of the first class was valued in 
 Kent at the opening of the seventh century, were still represented in the reign of 
 Edward i., after a lapse of more than six centuries and a half, by the 5 lbs. wergild of 
 the Kentish tenant in gavel-kind ; and the fourteen hundred and forty solidi of three- 
 pence, at which the Saxon Adaling was estimated in the time of Charlemagne, re- 
 appear in the Sachsenspiegel, after a lapse of five centuries, as the 18 lbs. wergild of 
 " Fiirsten, Freyherren, and Schoppenbar-frey Leute." No other classes appear to 
 have existed amongst the Eomans, in the age in which the Twelve Tables were compiled, 
 except the Adsidui and the Proletarii ; and when the principle of classification was 
 introduced, and the Locwpletes, according to Cicero, were arranged as Adsidui accord- 
 ing to the amount of their property, the members of the lowest class of the Adsidui 
 were estimated at fifteen hundred Asses, or as the possessors of fifteen oxen, exactly 
 half the amount of the highest fine allowed by the Tables. The thirty oxen, and the 
 fifteen oxen, stand in the same relationship to each other as the Quatuor jugera, or 
 Hajredium of the Patrician Cincinnatus, and the ordinary Hoeredium of Bina jugera ; 
 and in the early age in which the ancestors of the Patricians, or local aristocracy of 
 Rome, constituted the sole Populus, the highest fine, and the highest sum required 
 from a Surety, may have not improbably been identical with the ordinary valuation, 
 or ivergild, and thus appeared in a later age as the ransom. The Pater-familias, who 
 was entitled to take his place in the popular assembly of the Three Hundred, would 
 thus have been assessed at thirty oxen, sons and dependants only at half that amount. 
 So amongst the early Franks, the Lend was valued at two hundred solidi, his follower, 
 the Miles, at a hundred. The Cneclit appears as a half-Burgher, a Sixhyndman, a Bas- 
 chevalier ; always in some subordinate position in connexion with a Master, a Senior, 
 or somebody above him ; and cnecht in early days was only another word for son. 
 
 There was a time when the titles of modern days were realities, and when their 
 holders, raised above the class of ordinary feudatories, with their greater responsibilities 
 enjoyed also greater wealth. The greater nobles of Spain were once known as Eicos 
 Hombres, and the epithet of "Rich men" is also used occasionally by Jomville, 
 writing at the opening of the fourteenth century, as an equivalent for " Men of rank." 
 There was a close connexion, therefore, during the early feudal period between rank 
 and wealth, but as the Benefice began to be converted into the hereditary Feud, with 
 the principle of private and hereditary property, the seeds of future decay were 
 planted in the system, though the development naturally commenced from below. 
 For every 20 lbs. of land, by the law of Henry ii., the Baron was bound to keep a 
 
 scntatorum habebat. . . . Eobustior inde ?etas totidem manipulorum. . . . Hoc triginta mani- 
 pulorum agmen antepilanos appellabant, quia sub siguis jam alii quindecim ordines locabautur, 
 ex fjuil)us ordo unusquisque tres partes habebat. . . . Tribus ex vexillis constabat, centum 
 octagiuta sex homines erant. . • . Scribebantur autem quatuor fere legiones quinia millibua 
 peditum, equitibus iu siiigulas legiones trecenis."
 
 NOTES. 257 
 
 hauberc and find a rider to wear it ; but after the 20 lbs. of land had been inherited 
 and bequeathed during a few generations as the Fief dc hauberc, the "poor knight" 
 began to make his appearance, and in the second year of the reign of Edward ii. was 
 excused from service. The State was the sovereign of Eome, represented by the 
 privileged Senatorial order instead of a privileged king or emperor, but the principle 
 of classification was identical, in many respects, with the mediaeval princi])ie of rank, 
 the Censors exercising the prerogative of the ^emperor or king. Birth entitled the 
 member of a privileged class, in both cases, to enjoy offices and wealth, and it would 
 be more correct to describe the highest classes as the wealthiest, than to say that the 
 possession of wealth entitled its holder to admission amongst the highest classes. 
 Accordingly, in the assessment of the Second Punic War, the Senatorial order stands 
 out as a wealthier body than the First class ; and a state of society of this description 
 could only have been originated and perpetuated, in an age during which wealth was 
 not so much accumulated and transmitted in the shape of private property, but rather 
 was attached to, or grew out of, the hereditary right of occupying the Public land 
 belonging to the privileged classes — the Censors representing the medifeval sovereign, 
 the allocation answering to the benefice. It was the privilege of a member of the 
 Senatorial order to occupy a greater amount of Public land than a member of the 
 Classes, and accordingly he was a wealthier man, and rated as such. It would not 
 have been in the power of an unknown man, in those days, to force his way to the 
 front by dint of wealth accumulated as private property. He was bound first to fill 
 honourable office under the State, and, if he succeeded in doing so, he would have 
 then bequeathed to his descendants, with his Imago, the privilege of becoming 
 wealthy at the expense of the State, and in later days, as time passed on, of accumulat- 
 ing private property whenever it fell in his way. The vast extension of the Roman 
 dominion after the fall of Carthage and the conquest of Greece led to the accumula- 
 tion of immense private wealth, comparatively unknown before that time, and the 
 revolution of the Gracchi changed the earlier order of things. The poor Patrician, and 
 the needy member of the Senatorial order, belonged to the period following the revolu- 
 tion, and, together with the changes introduced after the privilege of occupation was 
 virtually abandoned, contributed to prepare the way for the Civil wars and Cfesar.^ 
 
 The Classes lingered on, but they Avere realities only in the period between Licinius 
 and the Gracchi, during which the position of the Roman aristocracy, as a hereditary 
 order of " occupying" proprietors, was not unlike that of the mediaeval aristocracy, in 
 as far as the latter was a hereditary order of " beneficed" proprietors. As long as the 
 system was in full force, care seems to have been taken to exclude the known descen- 
 dants of Freedmen from the First class, lest the Senate should be " polluted," as in 
 the case of Cneius Fulvius ; for when the father of the Gracchi received the thanks of 
 the Senate for removing Freedmen and their sons from the rural tribes, exception was 
 made in favour of all who, at the previous census, had a son of full age, or who were 
 enregistered as the possessors of property in the rural districts amounting to more 
 than thirty thousand sesterces — "qui prtedium, praediave rustica, pluris sestercium 
 triginta millium haberent." As a property of more than forty thousand sesterces, or a 
 hundred thousand Asses, would have entitled the possessor to be placed upon the roll 
 of the First class (though upon the lowest footing), it would appear from this passage 
 
 ^ After the cloBe of the Latin war, the Campanian Equites were rewarded for their fidelity 
 to the Eoman cause by admiKsioti to the privileges of citizenship; whilst tlie Campanian 
 people were punished for their adoption of an opposite course, and were ordered to contribute 
 to the support of their sixteen centuries of nobility by annually paying to each P'^ques a sum 
 of 20,000 "nummi denarii," or 200,000 Asses — "in singulos quotannis denarios nuninios 
 quadringenos qiiinquagenos " (Liiv. viii. 11). This sum represents exactly double tlie amount 
 at which the member of the First class was supposed to have been rated at that time ; and if 
 the Campanian Eques was placed upon a footing with the Senatorial order or admission to 
 the citizenship, the assessment of that class may be supposed to have been represented, at the 
 time, by a similar sum, doubling that of the First class, 'i'he sixteen centuries of Campanian 
 Equites resemble the sixteen centuries of Roman Patricians. 
 
 R
 
 258 NOTES. 
 
 as if Freedraen were only allowed admission, at the highest, to the Second class, 
 though their descendants, after the stigma of a servile origin had passed away, were 
 probably relieved from such exclusion. In several of the earlier mediseval codes the 
 Libertus is found in a similar position, the stigma resting on the race until the third 
 generation.'- 
 
 The Roman acre was probably reckoned as an ^s for fiscal purposes — a custom 
 very prevalent in mediseval times — though it could not have arisen in either case before 
 the introduction of coined money as a standard of valuation. Assuming the As to 
 have represented originallj'- the sum levied as decumce, or penny-gavel, from the acre 
 of Public land, it would give to the latter in early times a value of ten Asses ; and the 
 fine of " dena millia assium," inflicted upon Licinius, would in this case represent the 
 legal value of the thousand jugera he occupied in contravention of his own regulation. 
 An ox, valued at a hundred Asses, would represent ten jugera, or the amount of pas- 
 turage supposed to be assigned for his support, by customary usage, upon the Ager 
 compascuus, as seems to have been actually the case at a certain period in mediaeval 
 times. Not that a pasturage was very accurately measured out, but, within a certain 
 limited area of grazing land, a definite amount must have been assigned to each animal 
 in order to calculate the numbers that the land would support. Cato reckons that a 
 flock of a hundred sheep might be kept upon a farm of two hundred and forty jugera ; 
 and as a similar amount of pasturage was allowed by the regulations of Licinius to a 
 hundred larger, as to five times that number of lesser stock, twenty of the former 
 would have required as much as a hundred of the lattei*, thus giving twelve acres to 
 the ox. The Romans, in early times, evidently calculated upon the duodecimal prin- 
 ciple. Their Modius, for instance, was the small Sicilian talent of 20 lbs., a sixth of 
 the larger talent that answered to the Medimnus ; their Amphora was a Trimodia, or 
 measure of tliree small talents ; and their Pound was a Mina divided on the duodecimal 
 instead of the decimal system. The " length of the furrow" reached to a hundred of 
 six-score feet, but the rest of their measurements followed the decimal system, and 
 were evidently adopted from the usage of Southern Italy. Hence, after the tillage 
 farmer superseded the herdsman upon the Public land, the Decemodia probably made 
 its appearance (if not before) side by side with the smaller measure of earlier times, 
 the Trimodia — types, as it were, of the intermixture of the two principles in the later 
 system of Rome. The Mille Passus was merely an adaptation of the Greek measure 
 of length ; but if such a measure existed, as it probably did, in the days in which the 
 Roman reckoned his hundred at six-score, the Saltus, as a square mile, would have 
 contained twelve hundred jugera, representing " a thousand jugera" by the reckoning 
 of that age — a more likely amount than the eight hundred and sixty-eight jugera (or 
 thereabouts) in the Saltus, or square mile, of Varro's age — a measurement adapted to 
 the Campanian versus. Hence the five hundred jugera allowed by the regulation of 
 Licinius, reckoned by the hundred of six-score, would have represented half a Saltus 
 of " the old extent." Cato's hundred sheep were kept upon a farm under cultivation, 
 so that the full number of stock, whether larger or lesser, might have been kept upon 
 
 1 Liv. xlv. 15. Cicero, in his description of the Centuries, only admits the Fahri Tignarli 
 amongst the First class, though Livy adds the workers in metal. The great orator is pro- 
 bably correct, as his vaUiation of the lowest class of Locupletes is far more in accordance 
 witii probability than that of Dionysius and Livy. In the Twelve Tables tignum is used for 
 all building material, and the Fabri Tignarii were the builders, architects, and engineers of the 
 age. It is curious to notice that amongst the Celtic people a similar position was assigned to 
 a similar class, ior Faher Tignarius would be rendered in Gaelic at this day by Saor — Free, or 
 noble — and nearly every old building in Ireland is attributed to the " Goban Saor." All the 
 Burgundians are supposed to have been workers in wood, — Fabri Tignarii — and the place of 
 the worker in wood seems to have been partly taken, amongst the Teutons, by the worker in 
 metal, or Smith, who was always, apparently, a freeman. Thus, in the oldest code of the 
 AVest-Saxons, the Gesithcundman " leaving his land " might take with him his child's fos- 
 teraand his smith, who was therefore not attached to the land, and in the still earlier Kentish 
 code the king's " ambiht," smith, is met with, as an ambactus or free dependant.
 
 K0TE8. 259 
 
 a Saltus under cultivation ; and it is not improbable that the amount of land in occu- 
 pation, permitted by the Licinian legislation, was the equivalent of a Saltus of " a 
 thousand jugera," half in jugera, half in privilege of pasturage. On turning to the 
 Assessments, it will be found that the First class was originally valued at eight times 
 the amount of the Fifth, at four times that of the Fourth, or, according to the standard 
 of Cicero, at four times the fine of thirty oxen ; in other words, each member of the 
 First class was estimated at a hundred of six-score oxen, or twelve hundred jugera, a 
 Saltus of the old extent. Of this Saltus, the jugera would have represented the half 
 upon which Asses VedigaJcs were imposed, as the mark of public property in occupa- 
 tion ; and these jugera might be cultivated in any manner, built upon, or turned by 
 the occupier to any purpose that was consistent with the character of State domain ; 
 whilst the equivalent of the other half of the Saltus would have consisted in the 
 privilege of depasturing stock upon the Ager compascuus, which necessarily remained 
 uncultivated, and was held in joint-occupation. The duodecimal system was probably 
 supplanted by the decimal during the period in which silver coins began to be struck, 
 passing for ten Asses, and had long been out of use in the days of the Gracchi ; after 
 whose time the holdings of the tillage-farmers, planted upon the Public land, seem to 
 have been limited to a tenth of the later, or a twelfth of the original, amount of jugera 
 and pasturage.^ 
 
 Such are a few of the conjectures which may be hazarded upon the state of society 
 that appears to have existed amongst the Eomans at a certain early period of their 
 history ; and speculations of this description, though founded on facts as well as pro- 
 babilities, can make no pretension to be anything except conjectures. Beyond a few 
 scattered notices of the Twelve Tables, the investigator of early Roman history has 
 nothing to compare with the codes, and charters, and numerous other documents, 
 reaching down to a comparatively recent date, that enable us to fix upon certain fea- 
 tures of the mediaeval period, and draw deductions from them with tolerable accuracy. 
 The actual extent of the territory, for instance, under the immediate dominion of the 
 Scottish kings, at the opening of the fourteenth century, may be tested by the Plough- 
 gate ; for the whole of the western districts, that were brought more directly under 
 the royal jurisdiction at a later period, were measured and assessed by a different 
 standard. The limitation of the Hundred to the southward of the Tees, and the prac- 
 tice of accepting coins of every description from Northumbria, that was only put a 
 stop to in the middle of Henry the Second's reign, disclose the slight attention paid to 
 the edicts of the early English kings amidst the wild northern districts, that were too 
 unsettled to be included in the survey of the Conqueror. But no similar tests can be 
 applied to the elucidation or verification of early Koman history. We know that the 
 modern English mile differs materially from the measurement of earlier times, the 
 Leuga, but we can only conjecture that a similar change may have been brought about 
 at some period amongst the Romans. The square Leuga, or square mile, seems to 
 have been an institution throughout Western Europe ; and the Saltus, as a measure- 
 ment of land, was its exact equivalent. The square Leuga^in England certainly, and 
 probably elsewhere — seems to have answered to the holding of the privileged full- 
 freeman of a certain period — its tenth or twelfth representing the " terra familias." 
 It can only be conjectured that the Saltus may have resembled the Leuga in this 
 respect also, just as its tenth or twelfth seems to have represented, in a somewhat later 
 period, the largest holding allowed to the tillage-farmers on the Public land. The 
 system of valuation in stock, instead of in coined money, is as traceable amongst the 
 early Romans as amongst the Celts and Teutons ; but the correspondence of the 
 wergild in early days, with the amount or value of the holding, a certainty in one case, 
 is only a probability in the other. The Decempeda was long the measuring-pole in 
 Bavaria, and ancient Bavaria, before it was occupied by the Teutons, was for some time 
 
 ^ "Jugerum uiium pedes ccxl., et in latitudine pedes c. faciunt, terra modiorum iii." — Grom. 
 Vet. (Laclmian), t. i. p. 359. This is a passage in which the hundred seems to have been 
 reckoned at six score at a comparatively late period.
 
 260 NOTES. 
 
 included in a Eoman province. Kent, before it was conquered by the Jutes, must 
 have been inhabited by a Romanized population for several generations ; and many of 
 the features belonging to the tenure of the Roman Eniphyteuta were reproduced in 
 the tenure of the Kentish Gafolgelda. A great deal of Imperial, or later, feudalism 
 may be said to have been derived from Imperial Rome ; but many of the usages 
 observable amongst the early Romans, which seem to have been reproduced, as it were, 
 in the earlier medifeval system, were either the ordinary customs of society in a certain 
 stage, or occasionally may be traced, in both cases, to some kindred source. 
 
 NOTE C. 
 
 Fourteen of the Roman tribes appear to have been distinguished by local names. 
 Stellatina, Tromentina, Sabatina, Arniensis, and perhaps Falernia, were formed out of 
 Etrurian territory ; Crustumeria, Velina, and probably Quirina, were of Sabine origin ; 
 Pomptina, M;ecia, Scaptia, Ufentina, Aniensis, and Terentina were situated in Latium, 
 as well as Publilia, which completes the number of the fifteen rural tribes that were 
 added to the original sixteen — or seventeen. These earlier tribes seem to have been 
 connected in some manner with the old local aristocracy of Rome, by whose names, in 
 several instances, they were distinguished. Nearly the whole of the historical Gentes, 
 whose right to be enrolled as Patricians amongst the old local aristocracy of Rome seems 
 unquestionable, may be said to be included in the following list of names : — 1. Emilia, 
 2. Claudia, 3. Cornelia, 4. Fabia, 5. Foslia, 6. Furia, 7. Julia, 8. Manila, 9. Nautia, 10. 
 Papiria, 11. Postumia, 12. Quintia, 13. Servitia, 14. Sulpicia, 15. Valeria, and 16. Veturia. 
 The four first upon the list, with Papiria and Veturia, may be connected with the six 
 tribes bearing similar names, — in each case, apparently, representing the Patrician 
 element in the old rural tribe. The Papirian Gens, after furnishing Patrician Consuls 
 in historical times, became extinct, and its very existence appears to have been for- 
 gotten in the age of Cicero, or perhaps ignored by the Plebeian Gens of the same name, 
 whose Novus homo, Papirius Carbo, was a contemporary of the Gracchi. Thus Papiria 
 affords an example of the extinction of a Patrician, and the subsequent rise of a 
 Plebeian, Gens of the same name ; and as the Horatii, Menenii, and Sergii, never 
 appear amongst the Patricians in the historical period of the Republic, whilst the 
 names of Horatia, Menenia, and Sergia will be found amongst the older tribes, it may 
 be presumed that the Patrician element in these three tribes died out at a still earlier 
 period. Nine of the earlier tribes can therefore be connected with Gentes bearing 
 similar names, whilst the distinguished cognomen of Camillus seems to associate the 
 Furia Gens with Caraelia, and the situation of the "Quintia prata" — the Quatuor 
 jugera, or patrimony of Cincinnatus, in the Pupinian territory may be supposed to 
 connect the Quintia Gens with Pupinia. The " caput patrimonii " of Titus Manlius is 
 placed by Livy in the territory taken from Veil, but no clue is thus afforded to the 
 tribe with which the Manlii were connected ; Bovillas seems to have been the original 
 home of the Julii, who belonged in reality to one of the most recent and least dis- 
 tinguished of the Patrician Gentes ; and Galeria, Leraonia, PoUia, Romelia, and 
 Voltinia, which complete the number of the earlier tribes, cannot be associated with 
 any of the names that have been handed down, either by history or legend. 
 
 The position of the Claudian Gens and Tribe is not a little remarkable. The tribe, 
 the Vetus Claudia of Livy, is alluded to by Virgil, and Dionysius testifies to its exist- 
 ence in the age in which he was writing. It was the lasb of the tribes named after the 
 Patrician element, or Gens, with which it was connected ; yet it is difficult to separate 
 it from the first tribe that is known to have received a local appellation, the Crustu- 
 nierian. The addition of Claudia is supposed to have raised the number of the rural 
 tribes to seventeen, and the subsequent addition of four new tribes after the fall of 
 Veil only increased that number to twenty-one ; yet Crustumeria was at that time in 
 existence, and its separate formation is never alluded to. Assume that Claudia repre-
 
 NOTES. 261 
 
 sented tlie seventeenth rural tribe, disconnect it from Crustumeria, adding the latter to 
 the fourteen subsequently called into existence, and the total number of the rural tribes 
 will be raised to thirty-two, or one above the number universally received. A similar 
 peculiarity is observable in the Gens, in which alone amonff the Eoman Gentes a 
 double element, Patrician and Plebeian, existed side by side on an equal footing in 
 historical times, and the fame of the Patrician Claudii was eclipsed by the renown of 
 the Plebeian Claudii Marcelli. The mythical Patrician ancestors of well-known 
 Plebeian families were fabled to have " come over from the Plebeians " in ^prehistoric 
 times ; Horatii and Papirii were Plebeians after the Patrician element in their respec- 
 tive Gentes had become extinct ; but not another example can be quoted from the his- 
 torical period of the Republic of the same Gens supplying Patrician and Plebeian 
 members to fill the consulate, the censorship, and other curile magistracies in the same 
 age. Yet a Claudius Marcellus might have sat as colleague with a Claudius Pulcher, a 
 Claudius Canina with a Claudius Crassus ; and it seems as impossible to separate the 
 Plebeian from the Patrician Claudii, as members of the same Gens upon an equal foot- 
 ing, as it is to disconnect Crustumeria from Vetus Claudia. 
 
 The solution of the difficulty can only be conjectural. The number of the later 
 rural tribes known under local appellations was fifteen, including Crustumeria ; the 
 number of the earlier rural tribes, of which the names have been preserved, was also 
 fifteen, Claudia making the sixteenth. There are supposed to have been sixteen rural 
 tribes when Claudia was added, but the name of one is wanting, and either Claudia 
 was separated from Crustumeria to supply the deficiency, or Crustumeria was separated 
 from Claudia and placed upon a level with the tribes without a Patrician element. 
 Thus the elder branches of the Claudii would have remained in the ranks of the 
 Patricians, whdst the remainder would have been relegated to the Plebeians, and the 
 tribe of Nova Claudia would have assumed the local appellation of Crustumeria. The 
 inequality in the number of the tribes, so necessary for the Eoman system of voting, 
 would thus have been preserved without increasing the number of the privileged 
 Gentes, for botli Vetus and Nova Claudia would have been connected with the same 
 Gens ; and fifteen Curiones would have been chosen as the representatives of the 
 Patrician or Majores Gentes, fifteen for the Plebeian or Minores Gentes. The anomalous 
 position of the Claudii may have been the reason for their never adopting a member of 
 another Gens, for the man thus adopted would have been necessarily numbered amongst 
 the Plebeians ; and it may account also for that peculiar detestation of the Plebeians so 
 often attributed to the earlier members of the Gens, invaded as it were by the very 
 element they detested — perhaps also, for the policy attributed to Appius C«cus the 
 Censor. Such conjectures may however be fanciful ; but the abnormal position of the 
 Claudian Gens and Tribe is a historical reality. 
 
 The following names represent the Plebeian Gentes, more or less known, whose 
 mythical progenitors figure amongst the Patricians in the era before the Rogations of 
 Licinius became law : Aquillia, ^Ebutia, Cassia, Clselia, Cominia, Curiatia, Curtia, 
 Gegania, Genucia, Hostilia, Junia, Licinia, Lucretia, Marcia, Minucia, Mucia, Ponipilia, 
 Sempronia, Sextia, Tullia, Virginia, Vitellia, Volumnia. Of all these names that of 
 Virginius seems to have been most popular, no fewer than twelve mythical consuls 
 having been assigned to it, though it never appears at all in the historical period. Of 
 the great Plebeian Gentes that supplied many of the earlier historical consuls, whose 
 members seem to have made no claim to belong to the local aristocracy of early Rome, 
 perhaps because their provincial origin was too well known, the following may be 
 mentioned among the best known names, JEVnx, Atilia, Aurelia, Calpurnia, Ctecilia, 
 Domitia, Fulvia, Lutatia, Livia, Mamilia, Pa;tilia, Popilia, Plantia. 
 
 NOTE D. 
 
 The following occurs at p. 31 : — " Livy writes of nummi denarii in early times as 
 coins of the copper standard." The passage was written long ago, and escaped my 
 notice ; but as the expression " coins of the copper standard " might easily be mistaken
 
 262 NOTES. 
 
 from its ambiguity, it may be as well to explain that I do not mean copper coins, but 
 coins of the period in which the Roman standard was of copper. By " nummi denarii " 
 I believe that Livy means Dccalitra at an early period, or coins of the Corinthian 
 standard that would have passed for ten Asses librales, but were certainly not minted 
 at Rome. The Qaadrigati and Bigati were not necessarily denarii, for some bear a Q 
 for Quinarius, others an X for Denarius, and others have no mark at all ; but wherever 
 they conformed to the ^ginetan standard, as Decoboli or Pentoboli, I believe they 
 would have passed as Denarii or Quinarii, as long as the As weighed 2 oz. After 
 the reduction of the As to an ounce, they would have passed, respectively, for double 
 their former value ; but by this time the Attic drachma was becoming more and more 
 familiar to the Romans, until they struck their silver coin of a similar type, and made 
 a still further reduction in the weight of the As. 
 
 It is curious to notice the change that occasionally took place in the general 
 standards of the silver and copper coinage. The Chalcos, in the time of Aristotle, was 
 a Roman lb., or a Hemina of the ^ginetan talent, which was thus the standard of the 
 usual copper coinage of that age ; but, with the proportion between silver and copper 
 at 83^ to 1, the Chalcos of the Attic talent familiar to the Romans, ten of which passed 
 
 for an obolus, or sixty for a drachma, was ( . '-^ = 84'375, or ) a drachma of 
 
 of the old Persian or Corinthian talent. A Chalcos of this standard would have adapted 
 itself to all the coinages of that era, 5 passing for an As, 45 for a drachma of Antioch, 
 50 for a Pentobolus, 60 for an Attic drachma, 75 for a drachma of Rhodes, 100 for a 
 Decobolus or 8paxfir] Traxela, and 1 50 for a Cistophorus. It must have disappeared, as 
 a coin, from the circulation with the change in the proportion between silver and copper, 
 and after the introduction of the Roman system throughout the Roman world. Its 
 place as the smallest copper coin was probably filled by the Quadrans, the Xenrov of 
 St. Luke, and it must have sunk into the position in which the earlier Chalcos is found 
 in the Byzantine system.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Aberdeen, see of, 127. 
 
 Abthanage, the Scottish, 127. 
 
 Accola, the, in Ireland, 157. 
 
 Acre, the, and its variations, 88 seq. ; the 
 Scottish, English, and Irish, 99 ; the 
 Roman, 258. 
 
 Adalings or Odallers, xxxi. seq., xliv. Ixiii. 
 Ixvi., 115, 153, 163. 
 
 Adarme, the, 41, 56. 
 
 Adsidui, the Roman, or Freeholders of the 
 tribes, xxv. seq., 14, 228 seq., 242, 256. 
 
 .^ginetan talent, 5. 
 
 jiJs Equestre and JEs Hordearlum, 16. 
 
 ^thel, the, and the feo, xx. xxxi. Ixiii. 
 
 ^theling, the, xxxi. See Adalings. 
 
 ^thelbald of Mercia, 63. 
 
 -^thelbert, laws of, 39. 
 
 -(Ethelred of Northumbria, 63 ; leading mem- 
 bers of the house of, 188. 
 
 ^tolia, 7. 
 
 Ager compascuiis (land held in joint-occu- 
 pancy), 246, 259. 
 
 Ager Occupatorius, the, of early Rome, xxix., 
 24.3, 252. 
 
 Ager Qiijestorius (land alienated and sold), 
 xxviii., 251. 
 
 Agilolfings, the Bavarian, xliv. Ixii. Ixiii. 
 
 Agricultural communities, xxii. seq. 
 
 Agrippaniske, or Cologne, weight, 3, 49. ■ 
 
 Agri Vectigales ; see Vectigalian. 
 
 Albus, the, 48 n. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 4, 5. 
 
 Alfred's Laws, 64. 
 
 Allodial tenure, xx. xxi. 
 
 Amber, the British, 68. 
 
 Amphora, the Roman, \,Qn. ; the Attic, 25. 
 
 Ancing, the (a measure of work), 69. 
 
 Angevin pound, the, 44. 
 
 Angles and Werns, xxxix. 
 
 Angles, currency amongst the, 62-67. 
 
 Anglo-Irish, the, 160. 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, the year and indiction amongst 
 the, 82. 
 
 Antiochus, 8, 13. 
 
 Antrustion, the, xxxv., 132, 163. 
 
 Arabian communities, xxii.-xxiv. 
 
 Archery in war, xiv. 
 
 Ardeb, the Egyptian, 6. 
 
 Argenteus, the, 7, 20, 45, 48 n. 
 
 Ariense, the, 41, 56. 
 
 Aristocracy, the Roman, and their relation 
 
 to the land, xxv.-xxviii. 
 Aristotle, 5, 11. 
 
 Armlet, the, used for money, 39. 
 Arms, military, improvements in, ix. 
 Arpent, the French (a land-measure), 93. 
 Arragon, old provincial currency of, 55, 56. 
 Arroba, the Arabic, 56. 
 Artaba, a Persian corn-measure, 6, 25. 
 Artel, the Russian, xlii. 
 As, the Roman, 5, 11, 256 seq.; variations 
 
 in its weight, 12, 14, 16. 
 Assarius (nummus), 26. 
 Asia Minor, currency in, 7, 9. 
 Assize at Arms, the, xvi. xvii. 
 Athelstan, laws of, 64. 
 Athens, old mint-weight of, 4. 
 Attic M'eight, standards of, 24 seq. 
 Augsburg, marc of, 62. 
 Augustus, the Emperor, 17. 
 Aureus, the, 4 seq., 19 seq. 
 Austrasian currency, 42, 43, 63, 72. 
 Avoirdupois pound, the, 67. 
 
 Bagimont's valuation of land in Scotland, 
 
 140. 
 Balliboe, the Irish, 142-144. 
 Ballybetagh, a land-measure in Ireland, 142 
 
 seq. 
 Banlieue, Banmeil, a measure of land in 
 
 France and Germany, xii. xxiv., 121 ; the 
 
 Roman, 230. See Leuga (S(]uare). 
 Barcelona, pound and marc of, 56. 
 Baro regis, the, 119, 137. 
 Barony, the Scottish, 117, 130, 137 ; the 
 
 Irish, 143.
 
 264 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Base tenure, xxxvii. 
 Bath (or Ephah), 24. 
 Battle Abbey, Chronicle of, — measurements 
 
 in, 90, 95. 
 Batz or Batzen, the, of S. Germany, 39. 
 Bauer, Bauerschaft, Bauermeister, Bauer- 
 gulden, the German, xxvii. xxxii. xxxv. 
 seq., 93. 
 Baug, an Icelandic tax, 53, 74. 
 Bavarian Confederacy, the, xliv. 
 Bavarian currency, 73. 
 Beag, the Teutonic, 39. 
 Bezant, the, 3, 4 n., 20, 47, 59. 
 Belehente Gograf, the, xxxv. 
 Ben-feorm, the, or Firma precum, 106 n. 
 Berewics,' xlvii. Ixvi. 
 Berserkers, the Norse, xiii. 
 Biataghs, the Irish, 151. 
 Bigati; see Quadrigati. 
 BiUon ; see Vellon. 
 Birthright, Ixiii., 257. 
 Bishop, the, in the folc-moot, 130, 177. 
 Black pence, 45. 
 Blanc, the, 4S n. 
 
 Blanche Kane, 137. 
 
 Blue (or grey) silver, marc of, 53, 74. 
 Boc, Bocland, land held by royal charter, 
 xxxi. xlv. H. Ivii. seq., 110, 134. 
 
 "Boc on ece yrfe," the, Ivii. Iviii. Ix. 
 
 Bodes (messengers) of the king, xl., 113, 114. 
 
 Boethius, 22. 
 
 Boga-skot, the, xiv. 
 
 Boldon Buke, the, xlvii. ; land-measure- 
 ments in the, 97, 100, 134. 
 
 Boldon, the villeins of, 98, 104. 
 
 Boll, the, 68. 
 
 "Bondage -system," the, in the north, 99. 
 
 Bonder, the, 1. 
 
 Bondman, the Anglo-Saxon, 99 seq. 
 
 Boneddig, the, 62. 
 
 Bonniere, a land-measure, 93. 
 
 Bordars, Ivi. 
 
 Borough-English, custom of, xlv. Ixii. 
 
 Borh's Ealdor, the, 114, 137. 
 
 Bot, Bote (compensation), xxxvi. seq., 51, 
 178. 
 
 Bothach, the Irish, 157. 
 
 Bovata, the, 97. See Oxgang. 
 
 Bow and arrow, the, as war-implements, 
 xiv. xviii. 
 
 Bracteate, the, 40, 49. 
 
 Bremen land-measures, 90. 
 
 Breyr, the Welsh, 121, 132, 148. 
 
 British measures, Roman origin of, 68. 
 
 Brugaidhs, Irish freeholders, 151. 
 
 Bullion, uncoined, as a medium of exchange, 
 39, 40, 54. 
 
 Burgal^s, the Spanish, 59. 
 
 Burh (burgh), rise of the, in England and 
 
 North Germany, xi. xii. xxxiv. 
 Burh-gemote, 130. 
 Burnt silver, marc of, 53. 
 Bushel, the London, 69. 
 Bj'rnie [Brunla, Broigne), the, x., Ill, 112, 
 
 117. 
 Byzantine, Early, currency, 18-23, 72. 
 
 Cabraspino on the value of coins in the^ 
 
 fourteenth century, 57, 60. 
 Caithness weight, 66, 68. 
 Camp, the early, xi. 
 Cantred, the Irish, 148. 
 Canute, coins of, 64 seq.; laws of, 98. 
 Capet, origin of the ancestor of the house 
 
 of, 188 n. 
 Capetian dynasty of the Franks, currency 
 
 under, 41 seq., 65. 
 Capitularies, the, of the Franks, ix. 
 Captain, the Irish ; see Toshach. 
 Carat, the, 3. 
 Carlovingian currency, 23. 
 Carthage, results of its destruction on the 
 
 Roman currency, 13. 
 Cartron, the Irish, 145. 
 Caruca, Carucata, the, 89, 97, 99, 101, 133. 
 Cassiodorus, 22. 
 Castellum, the, xii., 114. 
 Castille, currency in, 58-60. 
 Castle-building in England, xv. 
 Cattle as a substitute for money, xxv., 38, 
 
 133 seq. 
 Cavalry, early, xiii.-xix. 
 Ced ( = Hundred), the Irish, 146. 
 Celsus, 5, 8. 
 Censor, the Roman, xxviii. xlv., 218, 241, 
 
 247. 
 Centena, the, amongst the Visigoths, 113 ; 
 
 amongst the Franks, 114; Italians and 
 
 Germans, 115. 
 Centenarius, the, originally a military leader, 
 
 113. 
 Centenionalis, the, 19, 22. 
 Centuria, the German, 113. 
 Centuries, the Roman, 220 seq. 
 Ceorl, the Anglo-Saxon, 1. liv. seq., 100, 
 
 133, 139. 
 Ceorlcundmen, xlviii. 
 Chalcos, the, 5, 262. 
 Charlemagne, ix. x., 37. 
 Chcenix, the Attic, 25. 
 Chopin, the, 69. 
 Chous, the, 24. 
 Christmas-day ; see Nativity. 
 Chronology of the Christian era, 86.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 265 
 
 Chrysoixs, the, of Athens, 4 n. 
 
 Church-shot, description of, 105. 
 
 Cibyra inscription, 9. 
 
 Cild, ChiM, as an addition to a name, 182, 
 
 188. 
 Ciric-sceat, 103. See Church-shot. 
 Cistophorus, the, 9, 28, 202. 
 Civitas, the, 114. 
 Clan, the Irish, 155 n. 
 
 Classes, into which the Romans were divided 
 under the constitution of Servius TuUius, 
 235, 236, 257. 
 Claudian gens and tribe, 260, 261. 
 Clientage, Roman system of, 242 seq. 
 Cloth, used as a medium of exchange, 40. 
 Cnecht, the Saxon, xxxiv., 256. 
 Cniht, the Saxon, xlv. seq. 
 Coinage, early substitutes for a, 37-41. 
 Collar, the, used for money in the Noi'th, 39. 
 Columella, 6. 
 Cologne standards ; see Germanic currency. 
 
 Coloni, the agricultural, xxvii. 
 Colony, the Roman, xxvi., 224 seq. 
 Comes, Comitatus, the German, xxxii. 
 Comes civitatis, the, 113. 
 Comes exercitus, the, 113. 
 
 Comitia Centuriata, the, 218, 221, 241. 
 
 Comitia Curiata, the, 218, 239. 
 
 "Common" lands, 101, 246, 247. 
 
 Community, ancient, rudest form of, xxi. ; 
 its different phases, xxii.-xxv. ; ties by 
 which communities were bound together, 
 112 seq. 
 
 Conquest (acquired property), Ixi., 156. 
 
 Consulate, the Roman, 218, 220. 
 
 Constantine, his reform in the Roman coin- 
 age, 20 seq., 46. 
 
 Constantinople, coinage of, 3 seq. 
 
 Corinth, temporary fall of, and its results 
 on Roman currency, 13. 
 
 Cornage (payment of rent in cattle) ; see 
 Nowtgeld. 
 
 Coronation of Edgar, 203-215. 
 
 Coronatus, the, or Cornado, 60. 
 
 Coronet, the, as a mark of nobility, 39. 
 
 Cotsetlas, the class, Ivi. 
 
 Cotyla, the, 24. 
 
 Cowarb, the Irish, 142, 143, 154. 
 
 Creation, epoch assigned to the, 77, 78. 
 
 Cro (payment in cattle), 135, 136, 138. 
 
 Crucifixion, date of the, 78. 
 
 Cubit, the, 88. 
 
 Cuthbert (St.) ; see Durham. 
 
 Cyathus, the, 1, 24, 70. 
 
 Cylch Mawr of the Welsh king, 107, 112. 
 
 Cymri, measurements amongst the, 88. 
 
 Cyn, the, Ixv., 113. 
 
 Cyning (the Princeps in ancient Germany), 
 
 the, xxix. xxxii. 
 Cyrus, the younger, 4. 
 Cyrl, the, in the Danelage, Ixiv. 
 
 D.EG-SLAT, the old Norwegian, 92. 
 Daer-clans, Irish, 154. 
 Danegeld, a land tax, 105, 116, 117. 
 Danish invasions, and their effects on the 
 currency of the Anglian kingdoms, viii., 
 
 64. 
 Danelage, the English, xii., 64, 74, 98, 130, 
 
 198. 
 Darent, woodmen of, 94, 95. 
 Daric, the Persian, 4, 24 seq. 
 Darius, 4, 7, 27, 46. 
 Darkmon, the, 26. 
 Davoch, the Scottish, 127, 128, 135. 
 "Day's work," a, (measurement,) 89, 92. 
 Decalitron, the, 5, 11. 
 
 Decimal and duodecimal systems, 27, 33. '. 
 Decanus, the, Ixi. Ixv., 64. 
 Decobolus, the, 12, 30, 262. 
 Decuriones, the Roman, 37. 
 Deer, Book of, 127, 129, 161. 
 Denarius, the Roman, 1 seq., 13 ; its value, 
 
 12 11., 18, 19, 22, 29-32. 
 Denier, the, 20. 
 
 Destrier, the (great war-horse), xvii. xix. 
 Dienst (or Thanage), system of, xlviii. li. liv. 
 Dinar, the, of Egypt, 3, 8, 48, 59. 
 Diocletian, 19 seq., 46. 
 Dionysian cycle, the, 79, 80, 83 seq. 
 Dirhem, the, of Egypt, 3, 27, 46, 48 n., 
 
 56, 59. 
 Distance, measures of — German, Roman, 
 
 Gallic, and Anglo-Saxon, 89. 
 Domesday Siirvey, the, 65 ; laud-measure- 
 ments in, 95, 99, 101 ; nature of the 
 
 obligation of night's feorm as shown in, 
 
 108. 
 Domitian, 14, 17, 18. 
 Doomsmen, the, of the Godord, 115, 116, 
 
 130. 
 Dorf, the German ; see Torf. 
 Dorfhufe, the Saxon, xxxvii. 
 Duodecimal principle, calculated on by the 
 
 Romans, in early times, 258. 
 Drachma, the, 1 seq., 10, 19 ; meaning of the 
 
 tei'm, 26. 
 Draco, laws of, 38. 
 Dreng, the Northumbrian, and his holding, 
 
 xlvi. seq., 138, 139, 165. 
 Drihten-beah, the, 39, 60. 
 Ducange, 3, 4. 
 
 Dunstan and his policy, 189-203. 
 Dupla, the Saracen, 59.
 
 266 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Durham, sliire of, witli its ecclesiastical and 
 
 secular officials, 122-126. 
 Duthaid, the Irish, 155 seq., 160 seq. 
 Dux, the, 119, 177 seq. 
 
 Ealdermax, the, and his Ealderdom, 119, 
 
 130, 177 seq., 195. 
 Ealdor (father) of a Hundred, a military 
 
 leader amongst the Germans, xxix. xxxiii. 
 
 xliv., 113. 
 Echevins, the, xxxix. 
 Ecu ; see Skeld. 
 Edgar, King of England, his coronation, 
 
 203-215. 
 Edward the Confessor, laws of, \4ii. 
 Egbert, his wars with the Wealas, and their 
 
 results, 110, 111. 
 Egyptian currency, 6, 8. 
 Ell, the Northern, 40 ; coin so called, 52, 
 
 74 ; the measure, 88. 
 Emphyteusis, the principle of, in its appli- 
 cation to land, described, xxviii. H., 250, 
 
 253. 
 English, Early, currency and standards, 60- 
 
 67. 
 Ennius, 216, 217. 
 Eorl, the, 1. li. Ixv., 117, 177, 198. 
 Epulaj, xxxii. 
 
 Ephah, the Hebrew, 6, 7, 24. 
 Eques, the Eoman, 16, 220, 221, 250, 257. 
 Erbzinsgut, xxxvi. 
 Erbzinsman (hereditary tenant at rent), 
 
 xxxiv. 
 Eskippa, the British, 68. 
 Esquire, title of, 117, 137. 
 Esterlin, the, 44. 
 Esterling, the, adopted as the foundation of 
 
 weight and currency in England, 66. 
 Etrurians, the, 226 seq. 
 Exactions levied on the occupants of land, 
 
 103. 
 
 Fabius Maximus, 12, 29-32. 
 
 Fahn-lehen, the, 114. 
 
 Fall, the Scottish (a land-measure), 88. 
 
 Faust-recht, xl. 
 
 Fee-farm, tenure in, 139, 250. 
 
 Eels, the Arabic, 3, 49. 
 
 Feo, the (reward of service in early feudal- 
 ism), XX. 
 
 Feorm (rent in kind), xx\'iii. seq., 105 seq. 
 
 Ferite Latinte, the, 237. 
 
 Ferlingate, the, 97. 
 
 Feudalism, early, vii. xx. xxxiii. Ixix. 
 
 Feu-farm, land sublet in, 138. 
 
 Fief-de-hauberc, xvi. xvii. Ixi., 97 n., 101, 
 102, 112, 117, 139, 257. 
 
 Field-churches, 124. 
 
 Fierding, the (a district to which a court 
 was attached), 115, 120. 
 
 Finetiud (tribe-land), the Irish, 155. 
 
 Firbolg, the, in Ireland, 158. 
 
 Firlot, the Scottish, 67- 
 
 Flaith, the Irish, 154. 
 
 Flamens, the Eoman, 242. 
 
 Flamske, the, or Frison groat, 50. 
 
 Florin, the, of Florence, 31, 45, 46 seq., 57* 
 seq. 
 
 Folcland, the, xxxi. xlvi. seq., Ivii. Ixvii. 
 
 Folclic class, the, and their services, amongst 
 the Auglo-Saxons, xlix. 
 
 Folc-moot (county-court), the, 119, 130, 
 177. 
 
 Follaz, the Spanish, 49. 
 
 Foot, the (measure), 88. 
 
 Fortifications, permanent, rise of, in Western 
 Europe, x.-xii. 
 
 Forty-shilling freehold, difference between, 
 in England and Scotland, 136. 
 
 Fostering, custom of, amongst the Anglo- 
 Saxons, 200, 201. 
 
 Fother, the British, 68. 
 
 Frank tenure, xxix. xxxvii. 
 
 Franks, the early, their supremacy over 
 their neighbours, ix. x. ; and their cur- 
 rency, 4i seq. 
 
 Frank-socage, 1. li. 
 
 Frederick the Great, ix. 
 
 Frei-graf, the, and the Frei-stuhl, xl. See 
 Schijppenbar and Vehm. 
 
 Friesland, xlv. 
 
 Frigiven-man, 1. 
 
 Friling, the Saxon, xxxiii. seq., xlvii. Ixviii. 
 
 Frison currency, 49 seq. 
 
 Frith and Frith-borh, the, Ixi., 178, 198. 
 
 Frohn-bote, the, xxxvi. xl., 114. 
 
 Fuider, the Irish, 157. 
 
 Full-mere of Friesland, 51, 52. 
 
 Furrow, length of the (measurement), 89. 
 
 Fiirsten ; see Principes. 
 
 Fiirsten and Freyherren, the, xxxv., 256. 
 
 Fjdki, the Norwegian, 119. 
 
 Fyrd, the, xlviii. Iv. Ivii. 
 
 G^RS-TUN, the, xxix. 
 
 Gaflok, the, xiv. 
 
 Gaf olgelda ; see Kentish gavel. 
 
 Gafol-land, liv. 
 
 Gafol-pening, the, xxx. 
 
 Galanas, the, 121, 132, 133. 
 
 Galen on weights and measures, 2, 5, 26 
 
 seq. 
 Gallica Militia, tactics in war known as the, 
 
 xvii. xviii.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 267 
 
 Gall-oglacli (Gallowglasse), the, of the Scot- 
 tish Highlands and Ireland, xiii. 
 Gallon, the, G9. 
 
 Gasind, the, and the Gasindschaft, the Ger- 
 man, xxxii. ; principle of the, traceable 
 from the earliest times, in England, xliv. ; 
 amongst the Franks, 115. 
 Gan, the, xl., 115, 130, 132. 
 Gaul, conquest of, 19 ; early intercourse 
 
 with Britain, 38. 
 Gavel, Gavellers, Gafolgeldas, 1. li. liv. Ixix. 
 Gebur, the, liii. seq., 97, 104, 143, 158. 
 Gedal-land, 101. 
 
 Geestland (in Sleswig) land-measures, 90. 
 Gelchach, 138 n. 
 
 Geneat, the ("sharer" in the viU), xxvii. 
 xxix. XXX vi. li. seq., Ixvi., 94, 100, 101, 
 117 K, 134, 154, 247. 
 Gentes, the Roman, 239 seq. 
 " Gentle and simple," xlvi. Iv. 
 Gentle tenure, xxxvii. 
 Gere fa, the, and his shire, Ixvi., 119, 130, 
 
 178. 
 Gericht ; see Shire. 
 Gericht's cnecht, xxxvi. 
 German, the early, xxix. 
 German confederacies, xliv. 
 Germanic, Early, and Frison currency, 49- 
 
 52, 72 seq. 
 Gersume, a gift or payment, 1., 117. 
 Gesithcundmen, xxxii. xliv. xlvi. 1., 139, 
 
 163. See Gasind. 
 Gesith-socns, Ixvi., 114, 118, 130, 137. 
 Gillies, the Irish, 143, 151, 158. 
 Godord, the, a civil district in Iceland, 115, 
 
 116, 130. 
 Godr (Godordsman), the, and his beag, xxxv., 
 
 39, 115. 
 Gograf's court, the, xxxvii. 
 Gold and silver, relative value of, on opposite 
 
 sides of the Alps and Pyrenees, 46 seq. 
 Gothic Judex and Rex, xliv. 
 Gracchi, the, xxvii., 249 seq. 
 Graf, the, amongst the Franks, xxxv., 115. 
 
 See Gerefa. 
 Gragas, the (Icelandic code of lavrs), 46, 48, 
 
 52. 
 Gramme, the, 32 seq., 48 n. 
 Graphio, the, amongst the Franks, 115, 178. 
 Grate, the Groniugen, 50. 
 Gregory the Great, 6 n. 
 Grith, the, 178. 
 Groningen mere and pund, 50. 
 Gualoer, the (right to the property of a de- 
 ceased alien), in Brittany, 129, 161. 
 Gueldons, the, and their equipment, xiv. 
 xviii. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, ix. 
 
 Guthrun's-Lane silver, 53. 
 
 Gulathing, the Saxon, 1. 
 
 Gwesdfa (night's feoi-m), commutation for, 
 
 in Wales, 107-109. 
 Gynteceia, the imperial, 37. 
 Gyrd, the (measure), 88, 96. 
 
 Hache Noresche, Norse two-handed axe, 
 
 xiii. xiv. 
 Hccredium, the, of the Roman Adsiduus, 
 xxvi. seq., 243 ; its extent, and the laws 
 affecting it, 15, 244, 245. 
 
 HsBrredsthing ; see Hundred-court. 
 
 Hagerman, the Saxon, xi. xxxiv., 93, 130 
 seep, 139. 
 
 Hager-staller, the, xxxiv. 
 
 Haistaldus, the, amongst the Franks, xxxiv., 
 130 seq., 139. 
 
 Hakerhufe, the Saxon, xxxvii. 
 
 Half-King, Athelstan, the, 183 seq. 
 
 Halsberg, the, xiv., 117. 
 
 Halsgericht, xxxv. xl. 
 
 Ham, the (home of the agricultural popula- 
 tion), Ixvi., 101, 118. 
 
 Handfast marriages, 164, 172-176. 
 
 Hannibal, 12. 
 
 Harpocration, 4 n. 
 
 Hastings, battle of, xv. 
 
 Hauberc (shirt of mail), the ; see Halsberg. 
 
 Heah-gerefa (High-reeve), the, amongst the 
 Angles, 177, 198. See Reeve. 
 
 Hebrew and Persian weights, 7, 24 seq. 
 
 Heidscheffel, the Geestland, 90. 
 
 Heller; see Marc (Cologne). 
 
 Helms and bjrrnies, xlviii., 117, 119. 
 
 Hemina, the, 25. 
 
 Henry's (King) Laws, lx\a., 119, 137. 
 
 Henry the Fowler, xii. xxxiv., 130. 
 
 Heorth-fest (a householder), Ixvi. 
 
 Heptacotylon, 24. 
 
 Heredltas, Ix. 
 
 Here-geate (war-loan), 112. j^ee Heriot. 
 
 Herenagh-lands in Ireland, 147. 
 
 Heretoga, the, xxxiii., 113, 177, 220. 
 
 Heriot, the, xlviii. liii. lix. seq., 39, 46 «., 
 112, 117. 
 
 Hexham, Black Book of, and its land-mea- 
 surements, 98, 100. See Durham. 
 
 Hide, the, a land-measure, 92-102. 
 
 High Reeve, office of ; .see Reeve. 
 
 Hildebrand, 83. 
 
 Hiwisc, the (Wessex hide), 96. 
 
 Hlaford-feorni (Refection), xxix. 
 
 Hlaford-socn, xxxiv. 
 
 Hobeler, the (light horseman), xix. 
 
 Hof, the Bavarian, 92, 93.
 
 26S 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Holce, the, 19. 
 
 Hold, office of the, 177. 
 
 Horse, value of the, at different periods, 
 48. 
 
 Horses of the Roman Equites, 16. 
 
 Horseman, the, among the Celts and Teu- 
 tons, xiii. 
 
 Horse-shoe and stirrup, the, xiii. xiv. 
 
 Hortus, the Roman, xxvi. 
 
 Hreil-merk, the, 40, 50, 74. 
 
 Hriug-serk, the Norse shirt of mail, xiii. 
 
 Hrope, the, 28. 
 
 Hue aud Cry, the, 130, 178. 
 
 Hufe or Huba, the, a land-measure of Ger- 
 many, 92, 93, 96. 
 
 Hufen-lands, Saxon, xxxvi. 
 
 Hund, the, 90. 
 
 Hund-landes, a Saxon land-measure, 90. 
 
 Hundrada, the, 52, 75. 
 
 Hundred, the (division of a county), Ixvi., 
 115. 
 
 Hundred, fine so called, 64. 
 
 Hundred, the long, 27, 39 n. 259 n. 
 
 Hundred-court, the, Ixv., 115, 198. 
 
 Huns, the, xiv. 
 
 Huntari, a subdi\'ision of the Gau, 115. 
 
 Hunting communities, xxi. xxii. 
 
 Husbanrlland, the, 99, 135. 
 
 Husbandman, the, xxvii. seq., Ixvi. 
 
 Husting, court of, Ixi. 
 
 Hy Fiachrach, 154, 155. 
 
 Hy Many, 109, 143, 154 seq. 
 
 Hyperpyrus, the, 2, 35, 47, 48 n. 
 
 Iceland, 46, 48, 52 seq., 115. 
 
 Imagines, the Roman, 232 seq., 257. 
 
 lucarnatiou, year of the, 79, S3 seq. 
 
 Indiction, the, — the Caesarian, aud that of 
 Constantinople, 80 seq. ; usage of the 
 Papal Court, 80, 81, 84-86, of the Teu- 
 tonic Christians, 81, and of the Anglo- 
 Saxons, 82. 
 
 Ingenul, the, of the allodial system, xx. 
 
 Ini's Laws, 38, 101, 118, 134. 
 
 Inland and Outland, xli. xiii. Ixvi., 101. 
 
 loclet, the, 109. 
 
 Ireland, currency in, 49, 54, 55 ; agricul- 
 tural measurements in, 142-151 ; land- 
 tenure in, 152-160. 
 
 Isidore, 6, 8. 
 
 Jaca ; see Arragon. 
 
 Jarl, office of the, 116, 119. 
 
 Josephus, 6, 10, 24 seq. 
 
 "Journeyman," the (Day-worker), xxxvii. 
 
 Juchart, the Bavarian, 93, 94 n. 
 
 Juger, the, 93. 
 
 Jugum, the Kentish, 94, 95. 
 Julian Calendar, 76 seq., 84. 
 Justice in Eyre, the, 119. 
 
 Kaisar, the (as supreme head of the Gasind- 
 
 schaft), XXXV. sp([., Ixiii. 
 Keel, the Newcastle, 67. 
 Kentish currency, the old, 60 seq. 
 Kentish gavel, 1. seq., 94, 133, 156, 260. 
 Keration, the Byzantine, 3, 21 seq. 
 Killo, the, 3. 
 Kindred, tie of, in pastoral communities, 
 
 xxiv. xxix. 
 King, the ; see Cyning. 
 King's kin, the, 177-189. 
 King's-bot, 64. 
 King's-thegns, xxxv. xlvii. Ixiv., 64, 74, 111, 
 
 117, 131, 163. 
 King's-wite, xxxv., 61, 62, 174. 
 King's Wife, the, 166 seq. 
 Kirktown, the Scottish, 123, 127, 128. 
 Knight's fee ; see Fief de hauberc. 
 Knight service in Scotland, 140 ; in Ireland, 
 
 150. 
 
 L^N-LANDS, xxxi. xlv. li. Ixiv., 117, 153, 
 
 199. 
 Lffit, the, xxxiii. xlix. seq., liv. Ixvi., 92, 
 
 100, 133. 
 Lah-slit, the, of the Danelage, 74. 
 Laird, the Scottish, 138 n. 
 Lak, the Indian, 8 n. 
 Land, — tribe-land and public land amongst 
 
 the Romans, xxvi. seq. ; land-customs of 
 
 the early Germans, xxix. seq. 
 Land-agende man, the, Ixiv. 
 Land-gavel, the, 102 seq. ; from whom 
 
 exigible, 105, 117. 
 Land-measures, 88 seq. ; German, 90 ; Nor- 
 man, 91, 92. 
 Land recht, xxxiii. xxxix., 163, 165. 
 Land-right, xxxi. 
 
 Landsessen, the free, xxxv. xxxvii. 
 Laugenekre, the Saxon, 90, 91, 96 seq. 
 Lassen, the German, xxxiii., 157, 158. 
 Latin colony, the, 224, 237. 
 Law silver (of Iceland), 53. 
 Latium, ancient, and its communities, 226 
 
 seq. 
 Legion, the Roman, 14-18, 217, 224, 230, 
 
 241, 242, 254. 
 Lehen-recht, xxxiii. xxxix., 163. 
 Leinmerk, the Frison, 40, 49. 
 Less-thegn, the Lancashire, liii. 
 Leth-pinginn, the Irish, 54. 
 Lend, Leudes (people), xxxv., 163 ; the 
 
 Fraukish, 256.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 269 
 
 Leuga (long mile), the Anglo-Saxon, 89 ; tlie 
 Square Leuga (Twelve-hides), 121, 259. 
 
 Liber, the Saxon ; sec Friling. 
 
 Liberalis ; see King's-thegns. 
 
 Libra Denariorum, the, 43. 
 
 Libra "Occidua, the, 20, 23 n., 46, 47, 49, 
 72. 
 
 Licinian Laws, the, xx^di., 223, 234, 259. 
 
 Liod mere, the, 50. 
 
 Liti, the, in the Lex Saxonum, xxxiii. xliv. 
 
 Litra, the, 5, 11. 
 
 Litsmen, the, and their pay, 65. 
 
 Locatio (letting of land), xxviii. 
 
 Locupies, the Roman, 242, 256. 
 
 Log-aura, marc, of Iceland, 53, 74. 
 
 Log-silfr (see Bullion), 53. 
 
 Loude, as distinguished from Yrfe, Ix. 
 
 London Bridge, Ivii. 
 
 London, standard of, 66 ; " London Troys," 
 67. 
 
 Loth, the Frison, 51. 
 
 M.-EG (or clan), the German, Ixvii., 113. 
 
 Mieg-borh, the, xx. liii. Ixiv. 
 
 Maer, office of, amongst the Welsh, 114. 
 
 Magna Charta, xl., 105, 137 n. 
 
 Maiden-money, liii. 
 
 Mainete, custom of, xlv. xlvi. 
 
 Mair, the Scottish, 114, 127. 
 
 Malachin, the, of Spain, 58. 
 
 Man-bote (compensation for the loss of a 
 
 man to the overlord), xxxv., 75. 
 Manachs, Irish (tenantry of church-land), 
 
 148, 157. 
 Maneria (freehold properties), Ixvi. 
 Mancus, the gold, 4, 42, 46. 
 Mannung of the reeve, 130, 178. 
 Manorial rights, Ixvi. 
 Mansuai-ius, definition of, 92. 
 Mansus, the Frankish and Bavarian, Iv., 92, 
 
 103. 
 Marabotin, the, of Portugal and Si:)ain, 57 
 
 seq. 
 Maravedi, the Castilian, 58 seq. 
 Marc de Troyes, 3, 27, 36, 55. 
 Marc, the Cologne, 9, 23, 49, 52. 
 Marca Romanai Curiie, the, 32. 
 Marc-vegin, the (Icelandic), 53, 74. 
 Maris, the Greek, 29. 
 Maroquita, the Double, of Spain, 58. 
 Marriages in the tenth century, 173. 
 Massamutin, the, of Siiain, 58. 
 Measures, ancient, 88 seq. 
 Medial-thegns, xlvii., 46 n., 117, 132. 
 Medieval Standards, Tables of, 70-75. 
 Medimnus, the, 5, 24. 
 Menander, 7 n. 
 
 Merchet (mearc-scat), payment on the mar- 
 riage of a vassal's daughter, xlviii. liii. 
 
 Mercian wergilds, 63 ; hides, 94. 
 
 Merkland, the, as a Scottish agricultural 
 measurement, 141. 
 
 Merovingian currency, 20, 23. 
 
 Mile, the, 99 n.; the Roman, 100, 258, 
 259. 
 
 Miles agrarius, the, of Old Saxony, xxxiv. 
 xxxvi. xlvi. liv., 130. 
 
 Military arrangements, ancient, amongst the 
 Celtic and Teutonic tribes, 112 seq. 
 
 Military sj'stem of Rome, changes in, 15. 
 
 Milliarensis, the, 21. 
 
 Mina, the Attic, 1 seq. ; Persian, 4 ; Egyptian 
 and Ptolemaic, 6 ; the Hebrew, 7, 8. 
 
 Mines, silver and gold, 18. 
 
 Minores Page uses, xii. 
 
 Minsters, three kinds of, mentioned in the 
 old English laws, 122, 
 
 Mithcal, the, 3. 
 
 Mitta, the British, 68. 
 
 Mna, the Attic, 2. 
 
 Modius, the Roman, 1 seq., 6 n. 
 
 Mommsen, 10, 12 nn. 
 
 Monetarius, the, 37. 
 
 Moothill, the, xii. xl. 
 
 Morabetin Khalifs, the, 48, 56. 
 
 Morabetin and Early Spanish currency, 55- 
 60. 
 
 Morgen (land-measure) of Bremen, 90. 
 
 Mund-byrd, the, 61. 
 
 Municipality, the Roman, 237. 
 
 Murdrum, the law of, xvi. 
 
 Murilegulus, the, 37. 
 
 Myriad, the, 27. 
 
 Nativity, era of the, 79. 
 
 Nativus, the Saxon, lii. liv. 
 
 Neatraan, the (customary tenant), 91, 247. 
 
 See Geneat. 
 Neighbourhood, tie of, in the agricultural 
 
 community, xxv. xxix., 247. 
 Night's feorm, xxix. See Feorm. 
 Nobiles, in the Lex Saxoinim, xxxiii. xliv. 
 Nomads, herdsmen, and agriculturists, xxii.- 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Norman land-measures, 90, 91. 
 Normandy, conquest of, xiii. ; custom of, Ix. 
 
 seq. 
 Norway, kingdom of, xiii. 
 Norwegian and Irish currency, 52-55. 
 Noummos, the, 5. 
 Novi homines, the Roman, 233. 
 Nowtgeld, or Cornage (cattle-tribute in 
 
 England), xxx., 38, 133 seq., 146, 164. 
 Nummi denarii, 31, 261, 262.
 
 270 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nummus, tlie, 13, 16; application of tlie 
 
 name, 22. 
 Nun-minsters, 118, 174. 
 
 Obolus, the Attic, 2, 11 ; tlie ^ginetan, 5, 
 27 ; tlie Ptolemaic, 11 ; its multiples, 31. 
 
 Obolus bractealis, the, 23. 
 
 Obroc (rent), xli. xlii. 
 
 Ochave, the Spanish, 60. 
 
 Odaller ; see Adaling. 
 
 Offa, coins of, 63, 64. 
 
 Oifiing, the Irish, 54. 
 
 Oirrigh, the Irish, 154. 
 
 Olymj^iads, the, 80. 
 
 Omer, the, 24, 26. 
 
 Ore, the, 39, 40, 50, 53. See Medieval 
 Standards. 
 
 Oribasius, 3, 5. 
 
 Osca, Spanish coinage of, 13. 
 
 Outland ; see Inland. 
 
 Overhyrnes (prerogative due to the State or 
 overlord), 103-106, 136. 
 
 Oxgang of land, 89, 99. 
 
 Pagus, the German, xxix. seq., xlix. 
 
 Papal unction of kings, 204 seq. 
 
 Pa])irius Carbo, 13, 30. 
 
 Parage, tenure in, Ixii. Ixix. 
 
 Parochia, the (ecclesiastical district), 124. 
 
 Paschal cycles, 78 seq. 
 
 Pastoral communities, xxii. 
 
 Patres, the Roman, 243. 
 
 Patricians and Plebeians, Eoman, xxv. seq., 
 
 Ixviii., 219 spq., 230, 232 seq., 239-243. 
 Patronus (Pater-familias), the, 245, 256. 
 Penny, the early English, 63. 
 Penny, the sterling, 1, 20, 23, 47. 
 Penny -gavel, 94, 96, 103, 112, 133, 258. 
 Pennyweight, the silver, 3, 36. 
 Pentobolus, the, 12, 29. 
 Pepion, the S])anish, 59. 
 Persian currency, 4, 7, 13, 18, 24 seq., 33. 
 Petits Koyaux, 27, 48 n. 
 Pfieghaftige-leute, the, xxxv. ,^eq. 
 Piiilip, the, or stater of Macedon, 13, 30. 
 Pinginn, the Irish, 23, 49, 54, 109, 135. 
 Pint measure, the, 69, 70. 
 Plato, 7. 
 Plautus, 8, 15. 
 Plebeian, the early Eoman, xxv. See 
 
 Patrician. 
 Plebiscita, laws passed by the Comitia, 242. 
 Plebs, the Roman, 235. 
 Plee de Terre, Ixi. 
 Pliny, 2, 5, 8, 12. 
 Ploughgate, the, as a Scottish agricultural 
 
 measurement, 135, 136, 141, 259. 
 
 Plough-land, the, 89, 99, 133. 
 
 Plutarch, 12. 
 
 Poid-de-Marc of Paris, 20. 
 
 Pole, the German (land-measure) 90 seq. 
 
 Pollux, 5, 11, 24 seq. 
 
 Polybius, 12, 1.3. 
 
 Pontifex Maximus, the, 218. 
 
 Portugal, marabotins of, 56. 
 
 Pound, the Roman and Byzantine, 1 seq., , 
 
 72. 
 Propositus hostis, the, 113. 
 ProBpositus mareschalli, the, 114. 
 Praetorians, the pay of the, 17. 
 Prerogative, two species of, xxxiii. 
 Princejjs, the German, xxix. 
 Principes, xxxiii. 
 Priscian on Weights and Measures, 1, 2, 
 
 seq., 27. 
 Prisons Attains, Medallion of, 21. 
 Proco2)ius, 23. 
 Proletarii, the Roman, xxv. seq., 15, 251, 
 
 256. 
 Public land, Roman, — laws and customs 
 
 affecting, xxvi.-xxviii., 234, 242, 246, 249, 
 
 258 seq. 
 Publicani, the, 251. 
 Puicne, the Irish, 54. 
 Pyrrhus, war with, 11, 15. 
 
 QuADRiGATi and Bigati, Roman silver coins, 
 
 11 .seq., 31, 262. 
 Qufestores Classici, the, 252. 
 Quarter, the Irish, 143. 
 Queen, ancient use of the word, 166 seq. 
 Quinarius, the, 21. 
 Quiiitarian ownership of land, xxvii., 244, 
 
 253. 
 Quirites, the Roman, 219, 224, 239, 246. 
 
 Radcnecht or Radman (Riding cniht), of 
 Southumbrian England, xlvii., 139. 
 
 Rascalry, the, xvi. 
 
 Rast, the German, 89, 91. 
 
 Real, the Spanish, 60. 
 
 Reeve, office of, 119, 124, 130, 177 seq. 
 
 Refection ; see Feorm. 
 
 Regensburg pound, the, 61, 74. 
 
 Regium geldum, the imjiost so called, 105. 
 
 Reich, Reichs-Schoppen, Reichs-Dienstman, 
 Reichs-gute, xxxv. xl. 
 
 Relief, a fine exacted from the heir on suc- 
 j cession, xlviii. liii. lix. 
 
 Republics, ancient, xix. 
 
 Rex, the Roman, 218. 
 
 Rhemnius Fannius, 1, 2, 6, 24. 
 
 Rhodian standard, the, 9. 
 
 Ribaldi, the, of an army, 114 7t.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 271 
 
 Richter, the, xl. 
 
 llicos Hombres, the Spanish, 256. 
 
 Ridings, the, of Yorkshire, 120. 
 
 Ritter, the, and the E,itterschaft, xxxii. Ivi. 
 
 Rochelle marc, 60, 62. 
 
 Rome, 216 seq. ; legendary and traditionary 
 
 history of the ancient city, 228 seq. 
 Roman currency, the, 11-14. 
 Roman pound, 1-4. 
 Rood, the, 91. 
 Roturier tenure, 1. 
 Ruoda (Manbote), xxxv., 51. 
 Russia, oi-ganization of the land in, prior to 
 
 the recent emancipation, xli.-xliv. 
 Ruthe, the German (land-measure), 90. 
 
 St. Andrews, priory of, 126. 
 
 Sac and Soc, 117. 
 
 Sacgildt, silver used for (Iceland), 53, 74. 
 
 Sachsenspiegel, the (the old Saxon code), 
 
 xii., 3, 47 n., 52. 
 Sadberg, the wapentake of, 122. 
 Saer C'eili and Daer Ceili, 143, 157. 
 Saiga, the Bavarian, 61, 73. 
 Saltus, the Roman, 120, 121, 230, 231, 258. 
 Saracens, influence of the, in Spain and 
 
 Italy, 55, 58. 
 Saxons, the, in England, xiii. seq. 
 Saxon confederacy, the, xxxiii. 
 Scaccarlo, the Dkdogus de, xvi. lix. Ixiv. 
 Scat-penny, the, 103, 134. 
 Sceatta, the early English, 63. 
 Schilling, the gold, 3 ; the English, 42, 61. 
 Schoppen, Schoppen-eigen, xxxv. xxxviii. 
 Schopiienbar Frey-leute, the, xxxv., 256. 
 Schuldheiss, the, xxxv. xxxviii. xl., 114. 
 Sciliata, the Vetus, of Spain, 58. 
 Scipreidor, the Norwegian, 119. 
 Scolocs, 157. 
 Scop, the, or bard, 39. 
 Screpall, the Irish, 54, 75, 142. 
 Scripiila, the, 12, 19, 29. 
 Scruple, the, 2, 20, 49. 
 Scottish Statutes bearing on currency, 66. 
 Scutage, 97, 139 n. 
 Seah, the Heljrew, 6, 26. 
 Seam, the British, 68, 69. 
 " Sedes et Penates," xxxii. xliii. 
 Seleucidae, currency of the, 10. 
 Sencleith, the Irish, 157. 
 Servian classification and assessments, 235. 
 Sester, the British, 68. 
 Sesterce, 2, 12. 
 Sextarius, the, 1, 2, 7, 24. 
 Sextula, the, 2, 42. 
 Sgreabal, the, 23. 
 Sheep, used for money, xxv., 41. 
 
 Shire, the, 112-133. 
 
 Shire-reeve ; see Reeve. 
 
 Sicilicus, 26. 
 
 Sicily, as a Roman province, 246. 
 
 Sigel, the Irish, 54. 
 
 Siglos, the Persian, 4, 27. 
 
 Sil, the Irish, 155 n. 
 
 Silfur, the, 42, 48 n., 50. 
 
 Sitarion, the, 3. 
 
 Sithessocna ; see Gesith-socns. 
 
 Sixhyndman, the, xlviii., 131, 133. 
 
 Skatt ; see Scat-penny. 
 
 Skekl (or Ecu), the, of Friesland, 50. 
 
 Socmen, the, of the Danelage, li. 
 
 Socn, Ixvi., 117. 
 
 Solidus aureus, of Constantinople, 2 se.q., 20 
 
 seq. 
 Solidi, different kinds of, alluded to in the 
 
 old Prison laws, 50. See Mediaeval Stan- 
 dards. 
 Southumbrian shire, subdivisions of the, 
 
 118, 119. 
 Spain, acquisition of, by Pv,ome, 18 ; early 
 
 currency of, 55-60. 
 Spartan army, the, 223. 
 Stater, gold, of the Macedonian kings, 4, 
 
 1 8 ; the Corinthian, 5. 
 Steel-bow, the, of Scotland, liii., 158. 
 Stipendium, the, of the Roman soldier, 14- 
 
 18, 30 ; origin of the word, 245. 
 Stock-farming among the early Romans, 
 
 245. 
 Stock-tenure of the Saer Ceili and Daer 
 
 Ceili in Ireland, 143. 
 Stocks, or Cippus, xii. 
 Styca, the early English, 63. 
 Suabia, free community of, xxxviii. 
 Suling, the Kentish, 94, 95, 109 
 Sun-dial erected in the Roman Forum, 15. 
 Sweden, currency in, 53-4. 
 Switzerland, Forest Cantons of, xxxviii. 
 Symmachus, 2. 
 Syria, currency in, 7, H, 26, 35. 
 
 Tacitus, 17. 
 
 Taeog, the Welsh, 1 33. 
 
 Talent, the, of Attic silver- weight, 1, 2, 3, 
 7, 34 ; the Persian silver, 4, 27, — gold, 
 34 ; of yEgina, 5 ; Sicilian gold, 5 ; Ptole- 
 maic, 6, 8, 11, 26, 34; "Talent of the 
 Islands," 9, 27, 32, 33; of Antioch 
 (Syrian), 10; Euboic, 27 seq.; Hebrew, 
 35. 
 
 Tangah ; see Dinar. 
 
 Taoisig ; see Tosliach. 
 
 Tartars, the, in Russia, xliii. 
 
 Taurisci, the, of Noricum, 18.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Tenmantale, the, 64, 98, 118, 137. 
 
 Tenure j)er loricam, 1 37 n. 
 
 Terence, 13. 
 
 Terminalia, Roman festival of the, 230. 
 
 Termons (church-lands) in Ireland, 147. 
 
 " Terra familite," xxxi. 
 
 Teutonic source of some of our ancient 
 measures, 68. 
 
 Thane, the Scottish, and his Thanage, xvii. 
 xlviii., 126 seq., 160-165; notices of the 
 institution on the Continent, 128, 129. 
 
 Theel-land, customs of the, xlv. .seg., Ixvii. 
 
 Thegn, wergild of the, 61. 
 
 Thegn-right, 37 n., 113, 196. 
 
 Thegn-wer, 196. 
 
 Theodoric, 22. 
 
 Thing, the, or Court, xl. 
 
 Thiufada, the, 113 seq., 132. 
 
 Thryms, the, 42, 50. 
 
 Tiberius, 18. 
 
 Time, divisions of ; see Sun-dial. 
 
 Tinde, the Irish, 54, 68, 75. 
 
 Tithes, exaction of, wide extent of, 103 seq. 
 
 Toll and Theam, 117. 
 
 Tomaiin, the Persian, 8. 
 
 Torf, Thorp (German Z)o?/), the vill, xxxvi., 
 120, 137. 
 
 Torp-carl, the, of the Northmen, 93. 
 
 Torque, the Celtic, used instead of money, 
 39. 
 
 Toshach and Thane, distinction between, in 
 Scotland, 162. 
 
 Toshach, the Irish, 154, 160 seq. ; the Scot- 
 tish, 162. 
 
 Toumois standard, 27, 32, 36, 43, 44 seq. 
 
 Tower, the, of London, Ivii. 
 
 Tower pound, the, 36, 43, 67. 
 
 Townland, the Irish, 143. 
 
 Transylvania, Saxon colony in, xxxvii. 
 
 Tremissis, the, 41 seq., 52, 73. 
 
 Tribes, the Roman, 229, 232 seq., 260, 261 ; 
 increase of their number, 233, 237 seq., 
 261. 
 
 Tribune, the Roman, 223. 
 
 Tribe-lands among the Romans, laws affect- 
 ing, 248. 
 
 Tricha-ced, the Irish, 144 seq., 154. 
 
 Trinoda Necessitas, the, xlv. Ivii. 
 
 Tripondium, the, 4 n. 
 
 Tron weight, 68. 
 
 Troy pound, 20, 36, 67. 
 
 Troyes-weight, 20, 43. 
 
 Troys, — London, French, and Dutch, 67. 
 
 Tsek, the Russian, xlii. 
 
 Tufa, the standard under which a Thiufada 
 was gathered, 113, 114. 
 
 Tullagh, an Irish land-measure, 144. 
 
 Tun (township), the, and Tungreve, Ixv., 
 
 118, 119, 154. 
 Turbe, the French (the Vill), 120, 132. 
 Turma and Turmarius, the, 120, 221. 
 Twelfhyndman, the, xxxiii. xlvi. seq., Ivi. Ixv., 
 
 46, 64, 178 ; his original appanage, 121, 
 
 132, 133. 
 Twelve-hides, the, 121 ; its divisions, 122. 
 Twelve Tables, laws of the, xxv., 223, 24„4, 
 
 256. 
 Twyhyndman, the, xlviii. seq., 131, 133, 178. 
 Tyaglo, the Russian, xlii. 
 Tyrian and Attic weight, 10. 
 Tything, the, and the Tythingman, Ixv., 114, 
 
 130. 
 
 UiNGE, the Irish, 54, 75, 109. 
 
 Uncia, the Sicilian, 5. 
 
 Utware, or military service, xlvii. 
 
 Valentinian, the elder, 20 ; the third, 22, 
 
 46. 
 Varro, 5, 8, 27. 
 Varthing, the Icelandic, 115. 
 Vassals, 1 1 7. 
 
 Vassi, Indominicati (baronage), x. 
 Vassi Dominicati, the, 131. 
 Vavassonrs, the, xlvii., 131. 
 Vectigalian, the Roman, xxviii., 230, 253, 
 
 259. 
 Vegin (marc), Norwegian, 53, 74. 
 Vehm, tribunal of the, xl. 
 Veii, siege of, 14; Rex of, 218 ; fall of, 231. 
 " Veil, taking the," — ancient signification of 
 
 the expression, 174. 
 Veitszlo tenure, 106, 112. 
 Vellon coinage of Spain, 41, 56. 
 Ve7'us Amms, the, 86, 87. 
 Veriis Valor, the, in Scotland, 141. 
 Vespasian, 1, 9. 
 
 Vestments of Roman State officials, 37. 
 Veterani, the, 15. 
 
 Victoriatus, a Roman silver coin, 13, 31. 
 Vienna, Broad pence of, 52. 
 Vill, the, 114, 118. 
 Villa, the Roman, xxv., 244. 
 Villani, the Saxon, xxxvi. lii. Ixvi. 
 Villein, the Saxon, lii. Ivii., 94, 100, 118. 
 Vitruvius, 9, 29. 
 Virgate, the, lii., 91, 95, 97. 
 Visigoths, military arrangements amongst 
 
 the, 113 seq. 
 Visnet (= 3 vills), 137, 163. 
 
 Wapmal, 40, 52 seq., 74. 
 Waldstatten ; see Switzerland. 
 Wapentake, 122, 198.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 273 
 
 War, science of, ix. 
 
 Ward and Blench tenure, 137, 140. 
 
 Ward, tlie, or Quarter, a subdivision of the 
 
 county, 120, 121, 130. 
 Wardship, principle of, Ix. 
 Wealas, the, of Cernw, 110. 
 Wealh, the (of provincial descent, = serf), 
 
 xxxiii. xlviii. 
 Wedding, the ancient, 173. 
 Wede, the Prison, 40, 49. 
 Weights, Table of, 36. 
 Weispfenning, the, 48 n. 
 Welsh wergUd, 62; Gwesdfa, 107. 
 Wendish currency, 51, 54, 72. 
 Wends, the, Iv. 
 Werborh, the Saxon, liii. 
 Wergilds, the Saxon, lii., 42, 46, 50, 61, 
 
 132. 
 Werns ; see Angles. 
 Wessex land-measures, 95, 96. 
 Westphalia, old Saxon usages still prevalent 
 
 in, xxxvii. 
 
 Wey, the British, 68. 
 
 Widovirs, customs as to the dowry of, 
 
 61 n. 
 Wife, the King's, 166-171. 
 Wills, early, Iviii. 
 Witan, the Anglo-Saxon, 198 seq. 
 Wool, as a medium of exchange, 41. 
 
 Xenia, payment of, 1. 
 
 Year, the, civil and ecclesiastical, in the 
 East and West, 76-78 ; four commence- 
 ments of, in England, 79. 
 
 Yrfe (inheritance), amongst the Saxons, lii. 
 Ivii. Ix. Ixviii. 
 
 Zend-Avesta, the, xxiv. 
 
 Zent, the (Hundred), amongst the Eastern 
 
 Franks, xxxviii. 
 Zinsmen, Zinsgut, xxxvi. 
 Zoroaster and his followers, xxiii. 
 
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