OUR LAND LAWS: WHAT SHOULD BE THEIR BASIS?

Evening Star, Issue 3984, 1 December 1875, Page 2

OUR LAND LAWS: WHAT SHOULD BE THEIR BASIS?

By C. W. Purnell. | ( Continued.) | While it is needful for the husband- ; man to till the ground in order to proI vide the means of subsistence for himj self and his family, it is equally necessary that, while so employed, he should ; be protected from hostile attack, and i that his crops, when garnered, should : not be liable to be swept off in a raid : of the enemy. It is difficult for us to i realise such a danger. JSow-a-days the ; farmer ploughs, and sows, and reaps; and the thought of how his life and : property are to be protected never i enters his head. That he regards as the business of the Government, and bis anxieties are confined to the state of the weather and the likelihood of getting a good price for his crops. But in ancient times, if a man did not guide the plough with one hand and cany j the spear in the other, he had, at ail ! events, to ascertain beforehand that his f field work was not likely to be inter- • rupted by a descent of the foe j still more, that a fair prospect existed of his reaping the crop which he had sown. Hence arose the military i tenures under which a portion of the land of England was held in the latter days of the Saxons. An earl undertook to defend a certain tract of territory, and it was placed under his dominion for the purpose; the thane did the same thing for a similar reward, holding sometimes of the earl, sometimes of the king. But it was not the fee simple of • the land that was given to them ; it was theirs to guard and protect; they became entitled to certain dues from its inhabitants; but they could not sell it oi do what they pleased with it, and when the lord died, he could not appoint an heir to reign over his possession. The lord himself, too, was compelled to perform coriaiu services to his superior lor the privilege of exercising this dominion; and the same principle descended from the highest to the.lowest, the inferior order of'flumes, who were eh her deemed unworthy of, or were exempt from, performing knight’s service, being required to pay rent or render other dues for the land which they held, it is true that holdings in fee simple or “ allods ” did exist, corresponding to a certain extent with “ boclaud/’ and originating probably, as Freeman suggests, from the invaders of the country being permitted to appropriate portions of land for their personal use, as prizes of war, in which case it is obvious that the noble, being a leader, would take mow

than ihe who had fuilowod in his train ; but although 'hose allods have since developed until th- y have covered the emire country, it is pretty dear that they embraced but a small area of it in Anglo-Saxon times, or at all events in the early and middle periods of AngloSaxon domination. Moreover, even allods were subject by the common law certain burthens. They were not private estates of vast magnitude, whose lucky owners, having bought the fee simple, sometimes for a fraction of its value, can escape special taxation, and even, occasionally, much of the taxation of Road Boards, and who argue as if it were a. treason against natural justice to hint that their domains are not in their absolute possession, as so many bales of wool might be. Upon these allods, as upon every inch of soil in England, lay the trinoda necessitas —the liability of the occupier to serve in the field, and to contribute towards tho repairs of fortresses aud bridges. These three burthens were inseparably connected with the land, and so continued for centuries.

The subject of Saxon tenures, I although explored by many learned ! men, and illuminated by much fresh i light gained of late years, still remains rather obscure, but their leading principles are known and have just been described. At their bottom lay the Village Community, with its absolute repudiation of the private ownership of the soil. “in the time of Ctesar,” says Mr Freeman, in his ‘ ISJorman Conquest,’ “it would seem that the whole territory of a Teutonic community was folcland individuals could obtain no right in it bryond that of a yearly tenancy.” This great and fundamental principle had been broken into before the Saxon invasion ot England. The republicanism of barbarism had begun to yield, and the chiefs to snatch bits of land for their / private use ; but ike innovation was not material, while such as it was, it was a violation of Custom, which in those days stood in place of law. It was the outrage of Might upon Right. The position of the invaders after establishing themselves in England ! tended to destroy the principle still further. The Ron.; ns, during their occupation of the c m-try, had established their own tenures there, aud the j large number of Teutons and other i foreigners serving in the legions, by ■ importing their own notions about land, would serve to complicate the , nature of the tenures of the country, j William tho Norman came and j established the feudal system in its | harshest form. Its elements were in England before ; but William developed aud confirmed the system in its entirety, and without the graces of chivalry which afterwards surrounded it with the glory of romance. His reign was the very age of blood anrj iron, | It is conspicuously worthy of note in j regard to the changes made in the land j tenures of England. Immediately ' after Domesday Book was compiled, a ' Great Council was held at Sarum, in 10SG, ut v-hich all the principal landholders of the kingdom submitted their lands to military tenure, became the King s vassals, and did homage of fealty to his person. Two decrees, having the force of laws, were afterwards promulgated by William, which effectually rivetted Feudalism upon the country Freeholds thus vanished, and the whole of the land was brought within the power of the Crown, "it was dealt with as State property, placed in the temporary charge of individuals who were forced to render numerous contributions to the Crown in the shape of aids, relief, primer seisin, fines, aud other feudal incidents familiar to all readers of history, while the soil itself remained subject to the trinoda necessitas, to which it was liable in the days of the Saxons. (To b-i continued.)