Spencer Heath Archive

Item 501

Notes taken by Heath in the New  York Public Library

October 1, 1945

REFERENCES:

From Holdsworth’s History of English Law, Vol 2 p13 Note 1

Gomme, The Village Community Chap IX  p13

Elton, Origins of English History

Vinogradoff, Collected Papers, Vol 1, 235 Trial Marriages

in Egypt. Also — Puts Seebohm in same class with Fustel

de Coulanges as to land communism  pp 274-275

October 18, 1945

John Earle, Handbook to the Land Charters, and other Saxonic Documents. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1928.

English village system originally military “and out of the military grew the civil administration.”  page liv … “The military leader is the ancestor of the lord of the manor” p lv.  Here, p lvi, Earle discusses adversely Kembler’s theory that the lords got their powers by encroachment upon the original common ownership of the free and independent mark-men. Earle distinguishes the original and far older manorial system from the later feudal system which has come and gone. Very important explanation of this on p. lxiii. Says Earle, the manorial system sprang from the chieftain, the adventurer; the feudal from the long-established kind. See p.lxii. The manor had a composite origin lxii under both a military officer and a lord. There were two courts — Court Baron, original court of the free settlers under a president, and the “customary court of the copyholders.” The second was a development of new rights to the limitation of the original power of the lord.

The born noble was earl, the born freeman was ceorl. lxv The comes or comrad, gesid were “an order of men who sprang out of the eorlisc ranks but gained a new distinction by special service” lxxi. For a thousand years, 5th to 15th century, the words change but the office remains: eorl, gesith, thane, knight, squire, gentleman — but the office remains. It was the chief civil office lxxii  (landlord?) Head of the Manor. “In later days” the lord had a steward to preside over the manorial court. The lord still retained the prerogative of equits. “He was chancellor in his domain.”

No tax system. “No instance of general taxation earlier than A.D. 991.” — the danegeld. This was collected five times. “These are the only instances of public imposts in money which we meet with in the Anglo-Saxon period. So completely did the land-system provide for all the branches of public expenditure.” pp lxxxvi-lxxxviii. The grants of lands, especially manors, was for public services — responsibility for all administration, civil, military, and agricultural. — even the grants to monastic institutions. — not different in principle. — same obligations, no exceptions lxxxix.