Villainage in England: Essays in English Mediaeval History. Paul Vinogradoff
us recall to mind the chief points of his theory. The village community of medieval England is founded on the equality of the holdings in the open fields of the village. The normal holding of a peasant family is not only equal in each separate village, but it is substantially the same all over England. Variations there are, but in most cases by far it consists of the virgate of thirty acres, which makes the fourth part of the hide of a hundred and twenty acres, because the peasant holder owns only the fourth part of the ploughteam of eight oxen corresponding to the hide. The holders of virgates or yardlands are not the only people in the village; their neighbours may have more or less land, but there are not many classes as a rule, all the people in the same class are equalised, and the virgate remains the chief manifestation of the system. It is plain that such equality could be maintained only on the principle that each plot was a unit which was neither to be divided nor thrown together with other plots. Why did such a system spread all over Europe? It could not develop out of a free village community, as has been commonly supposed, because the Germanic law regulating free land does not prevent its being divided; indeed, where this law applies, holdings get broken up into irregular plots. If the system does not form itself out of Germanic elements, it must come from Roman influence; one has only the choice between the two as to facts which prevail everywhere in Western Europe. Indeed, the Roman villa presents all the chief features of the medieval manor. The lord's demesne acted as a centre, round which coloni clustered—cultivators who did not divide their tenancies because they did not own them. The Roman system was the more readily taken up by the Germans, as their own husbandry, described by Tacitus, had kindred elements to show—the condition of their slaves, for instance, was very like that of Roman coloni. It must be added, that we may trace in Roman authorities not only the organisation of the holdings, but such features as the three-field partition of the arable and the intermixed position of the strips belonging to a single holding.
The importance of these observations taken as a whole becomes especially apparent, if we compare medieval England with Wales or Ireland, with countries settled by the Celts on the principle of the tribal community: no fixed holdings there; it is not the population that has to conform itself to fixed divisions of land, but the divisions of land have to change according to the movement of the population. Such usage was prevalent in Germany itself for a time, and would have been prevalent there as long as in Celtic countries, if the Germans had not come under Roman influence. And so the continuous development of society in England starts from the position of Roman provincial soil.
The Saxon invasion did not destroy what it found in the island. Roman villas and their labourers passed from one lord to the other—that is all. The ceorls of Saxon times are the direct descendants of Roman slaves and coloni, some of them personally free, but all in agrarian subjection. Indeed, social development is a movement from serfdom to freedom, and the village community of its early stages is connected not with freedom, but with serfdom.
Seebohm's results have a marked resemblance to some of the views held by the eighteenth-century lawyers, and also to those held by Palgrave and by Coote, but his theory is nevertheless original, both in the connexion of the parts with the whole, and in its arguments: he knows how to place in a new light evidence which has been known and discussed for a long time, and for this reason his work will be suggestive reading even to those who do not agree with the results. The chief strength of his work lies in the chapters devoted to husbandry; but if one accepts his conclusions, what is to be done with the social part of the question? Both sides, the economic and the social, are indissolubly allied, and at the same time the extreme consequences drawn from them give the lie direct to everything that has hitherto been taken for granted and accepted as proved as to this period. Can it really be true that the great bulk of free men was originally in territorial subjection, or rather that there never was such a thing as a great number of free men of German blood, and that the German conquest introduced only a cluster of privileged people which merged into the habits and rights of Roman possessors? If this be not true and English history testifies on every point to a deeper influence exercised by the German conquerors, does not the collapse of the social conclusion call in question the economical premisses? Does not a logical development of Seebohm's views lead to conclusions that we cannot accept? These are all perplexing questions, but one thing is certain; this last review of the subject has been powerful enough to necessitate a reconsideration of all its chief points.
Results attained by conflict between successive theories.
Happily, this does not mean that former work has been lost. I have not been trying the patience of my readers by a repetition of well-known views without some cogent reasons. The subject is far too wide and important to admit of a brilliantly unexpected solution by one mind or even one generation of workers. A superficial observer may be so much struck by the variations and contradictions, that he will fail to realise the intimate dependence of every new investigator on his predecessors. 'The subjective side of history,' as the Germans would say, has been noticed before now and the taunt has been administered with great force: 'Was Ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst, das ist im Grund der Herren eigener Geist, in dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln.' Those who do not care to fall a prey to Faust's scepticism, will easily perceive that individual peculiarities and political or national pretensions will not account for the whole of the process. Their action is powerful indeed: the wish to put one's own stamp on a theory and the reaction of present life on the past are mighty incitements to work. But new schools do not rise in order to pull down everything that has been raised by former schools, new theories always absorb old notions both in treatment of details and in the construction of the whole. We may try, as conclusion of our review of historical literature, to notice the permanent gains of consecutive generations in the forward movement of our studies. The progress will strike us, not only if we compare the state of learning at both ends of the development, but even if we take up the links of the chain one by one.
The greatest scholars of the time before the French Revolution failed in two important respects: they were not sufficiently aware of the differences between epochs; they were too ready with explanations drawn from conscious plans and arrangements. The shock of Revolution and Reaction taught people to look deeper for the laws of the social and political organism. The material for study was not exactly enlarged, but instead of being thrown together without discrimination, it was sifted and tried. Preliminary criticism came in as an improvement in method and led at once to important results. Speaking broadly, the field of conscious change was narrowed, the field of organic development and unconscious tradition widened. On this basis Savigny's school demonstrated the influence of Roman civilisation in the Middle Ages, started the inquiry as to national characteristics, and shifted the attention of historians from the play of events on the surface to the great moral and intellectual currents which direct the stream. Palgrave's book bears the mark of all these ideas, and it may be noticed especially that his chief effort was to give a proper background to English history by throwing light on the abiding institutions of the law.
None of these achievements was lost by the next generation of workers. But it had to start from a new basis, and had a good deal to add and to correct. Modern life was busy with two problems after the collapse of reaction had given way to new aspirations: Europe was trying to strike a due balance between order and liberty in the constitutional system; nationalities that had been rent by casual and artificial influences were struggling for independence and unity. The Germanist School arose to show the extent to which modern constitutional ideas were connected with medieval facts, and the share that the German element has had in the development of institutions and classes. As to material, Kemble opened a new field by the publication of the Saxon charters, and the gain was felt at once in the turn given towards the investigation of private law, which took the place of Palgrave's vague leaning towards legal history. The methods of careful and cautious inquiry as to particular facts took shape in the hands of K. Maurer and Stubbs, and the school really succeeded, it seems to me, in establishing the characteristically Germanic general aspect of English history, a result which does not exclude Roman influence, but has to be reckoned with in all attempts to estimate definitely its bearing and strength.
The rise of the social question about the middle of our century had, as its necessary consequence, to impress upon the mind of intelligent people the vast importance of social conditions, of those primary conditions of husbandry, distribution of wealth and