Читать книгу The Industrial History of England - Henry de Beltgens Gibbins - Страница 5
Оглавление§ 1. The Mark
—We have just said that the population of England as a whole was almost entirely engaged in agriculture; and indeed for some centuries onward this industry was by far the most important in the country. Now, it is impossible to understand the conditions of this industry without first glancing at the tenure of land as existing about this time. It has been thought, but it is {6} not at all certain, that in very early times before the tribes afterwards called English had crossed over to England, or perhaps even before they had arrived in Europe, all land was held in common by various communities of people, perhaps at first with only a few families in each. The land occupied by this community (whether it was a whole tribe or a few families) had probably been cleared away from the original forests or wastes, and was certainly separated from all other communities by a fixed boundary or mark,5 whence the whole land thus separated off was called a mark. Within this mark was the primitive village or “township,” where each member of the community had his house, and where each had a common share in the land. This land was of three kinds—(1) The forest, or waste land, from which the mark had been originally cleared, useful for rough natural pasture, but uncultivated. (2) The pasture land, sometimes enclosed and sometimes open, in which each mark-man looked after his own hay, and stacked it for the winter, and which was divided into allotments for each member. (3) The arable land, which also was divided into allotments for each mark-man. To settle any question relating to the division and use of the land, or to any other business of common importance, the members of the mark, or mark-men, met in a common council called the mark-moot, an institution of which relics survived for many centuries. This council, and the mark generally, formed the political, social, and economic unit of the early English tribes. How far it actually existed when these tribes occupied England it is difficult to say, and it is probable that it had already undergone considerable transformation towards what is called the manorial {7} system. But this much is certain, that in England, as in Germany, traces of communal life still remain. Our commons, still numerous in spite of hundreds of enclosures, and the names of places ending in ing, which termination frequently implies a primitive family settlement, are evidences which remain among us to-day. And it is only comparatively recently that the “common fields,” yearly divided among the commoners of a parish, together with the “three-field system,” which this allotment involved, have disappeared from our English agriculture.
5 For a criticism of the mark theory see Industry in England, pp. 47–61.
§ 2. The Manor
—But when we come to the time when the Anglo-Saxons had made a final settlement, and were ruled by one king, we find a different system prevailing—i.e. the manorial system. The word “manor” is a Norman name for the Saxon “township,” or community, and it differs from the mark in this: the mark6 was a group of households organized and governed on a common, democratic basis, while in the manor we find an autocratic organization and government, whereby a group of tenants acknowledge the superior position and authority of a “lord of the manor.” But although “manor” is a Norman name, the change from the old mark system had taken place long before the Norman Conquest, and even if perhaps occasional independent communities still existed, they were completely abolished under the Norman rule. The great feature of the manor was, that it was subject to a “lord,” who owned absolutely a certain portion of the land therein, and had rights of rent (paid in services, or food, or money, or in all three) over the rest of the land. It is probable that the lord of the manor had gained his position under a promise of aiding and protecting his humbler brethren; but, even in later {8} times, he had to acknowledge certain rights belonging to them.
6 i.e. supposing it ever existed.
§ 3. Combined Agriculture
—In the manor, just as in the earlier stage, all agriculture was carried on collectively by the tenants of the manor. Men gathered together their oxen to form the usual team of eight wherewith to drag the plough, pastured their cattle in common, and employed a common swineherd or shepherd for their pigs and sheep.
The distinctive feature of this combined agriculture was the three-field system. All the arable land near a village was divided into three strips, and was sown in the following manner:—A field was sown with wheat or rye in the autumn of one year; but owing to the slowness of primitive farming this crop would not be reaped in time for autumn sowing the next year, so the sowing took place in the following spring, the next crop being oats or barley; after this crop the land lay fallow for a year. Hence, of these three strips, every year one had wheat or rye, another oats or barley, while the third was fallow. The land of each individual was necessarily scattered between the various plots of his neighbours, so that each might have a fair share in land of good quality. This style of agriculture, of course, produced very meagre results, but it seems to have been sufficient for the simple wants of the occupiers of that epoch.
§ 4. The Feudal System
—In the next period we shall see this manorial system consolidated and organized under the Norman rule, and so may defer a full description of a typical manor till then. Here we may say that the manor is closely connected with the feudal system, which, it must be remembered, had begun a considerable time before the Norman Conquest. For the manor afforded a convenient political and social unit for the estimation of {9} feudal services, and the lord of the manor became more and more a feudal chief. But it must be understood that the manorial system was not the same as the feudal system, though it helped to prepare the way for it; and eventually the lords of the manors became nominally the protectors, but really the masters of the village husbandmen dwelling around them. The lord professed to take them under his protection if they surrendered their independence to him, and it was probably owing to the frequent incursions of the Danes that the system grew as it did. In Canute’s reign we find it in full force, for at this time the kingdom was divided into great military districts, or earldoms, the “earl” being responsible to the king and receiving the profits of his district. When William the Norman conquered England he did not, as is often supposed, impose a feudal system upon the people. The system was there already, developed from the old manors, and all William I. did was to reorganize it, and give the English people Norman instead of Anglo-Saxon or Danish lords.
NOTE.—The theory of the mark (which is now regarded as very doubtful) is dealt with more fully in ch. iv. of my Industry in England, where also the evidences of communal village life are discussed; and I must refer my readers to this for more recent views.
