The struggle of the military aristocracy and(of ecclesiastical

institutions with common freedom was more protracted than in France or England; the lordshi-ps very often took the shape of disparate rights over holdings and groups of population scattered over wide tracts of country and intermixed with estates and inhabitants subjected to entirely different authority. Therefore the aspect of German manorial ism is more confused and heterogeneous than that of the French or English systems. One remarkable feature of it is the consistent separation of criminal justice from other kinds of jurisdiction an Church property. Episcopal sees and abbeys delegated their share of criminal justice to lay magnates in the neighbourhood (Vogtei), and this division of power became a source of various conflicts and of many entangled relations. The main lines of 'German manorial ism are not radically different from those of France and England. The communal element, the Dorfverband, is usually more strongly developed than in France, and assumes a form more akin to the English township. ' But there were regions, e.g.' Westphalia, where the population had settled in separate farms (H ofsystem), and where the communal solidarity was reduced to a union for administrative purposes and for the use of pasture. f It need hardly be added that every step in thejdirection of more active economic intercourse and, rnore efficient publitr authority tended to lessen the influence of the manorial system in so far as the latter was based on the localization of government, natural husbandry and aristocratic authority.

See Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions de la France, especially the volumes “ L' Alleu et le domaine rural '-' and “ L'Invasion germanique ”; Beaudouin, Les Grands 'domaines dans l'empire romain " (Nouvelle revue de droitfrangais et étranger, 1898); F lach, Les Origines de l'ancienne France, I., II., lI~I'. (1886); Pau Viollet, Histoire des 'institutions de la France, I., II. (189O, 1898); A. Luchaire; Manuel des institutions françaises (1892); G. Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungsgerchtclzle, I.~VlII. (1865-1883); K. T. von Inama-Sternexgg, Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I., Il. (1879-189I); K. Lamprec t, Deutsches. Wirthschaftsleben, I.#IV. (1885); A. Meitzen, Ansiedelungen, Wanderungen und A grarwesen der Volker Europas, l.l-IV. (1895 ff.); W. Wittich, Die Grundkerrsehaftr in Nardwertdeutschland (1896); G. F. von Maurer, Geschichte der Marla-, Dm7'~ und Hofverfassungfin Deutschland; and F . Seebohm, The English Village Communityl (1883). ° » (P. Vx.)

The Manor in England.-It will be most convenient to describe a typical English manor in its best, known period, the -13th century, and to indicate briefly the modifications of the type which varying conditions may produce. Topographically such a manor consisted partly of the houses of the inhabitants more or less closely clustered together, and surrounded by arable land divided into large fields, two or three in number. Each of these fields was divided again into shots or furlongs, and each of the shots was broken up into cultivated strips a pole, wide, each containing an acre, separated by narrow balks of turf. There were also certain meadows for supplying hay; and beyond the cultivated land lay the wood and wasteof the manor. Portions of arable or meadow land might be found apart from the organization of the remainder; the lord of the manor might have a park, and each householder a garden, but the land of the manor was the open fields, the meadows and the wastes or common. The conditionlof the inhabitants of such a manor is as complex as its geography. At the head of the society came the lord of the manor, with his hall, court, or manor-house, ffrztigg and the land immediately about it, Vand his demesne 1-e, ,3, ,¢, both in the fields and in the meadow land. The arable demesne consisted of certain of the acre strips lying scattered over the various furlongs; his meadow was a portion assigned to him each year by the custom of the manor. I 'He had also rights over the surrounding waste paramount to those enjoyed by the other inhabitants. Part of his .demesne land would be granted out to free tenants to hold at a rent or by military or other service; part would be in the lord's own hands, and cultivated by him. Each part so granted out will carry with it a share in the meadow land and in the profits of the waste. These rights of the free tenants over the waste limited the lord's power over it. He could not by enclosure diminish their interest in it. The statute of Merton in,1236 and the second statute of Westminster in 1285 marked the utmost limit oft enclosure allowed in the I3t-I1 century. Below the lord and the free tenants came'the'vi1le-ins, natives, bondmen, or holders 'of 'virgates or yard-lands, each 'holding a house, a fixed' number of acre strips, 'a share of. the meadow and of the profits of the waste. The number of strips so held was usually about thirty; but virgatestof. fifteen acres or even eighty are not unknown. <In any one manor, however, the holdings of all the villeins were equal. Normally the holder of a virgate -was unfree; he had Rights ol

no rights in the eye of thelaw against his lord, who Vme, ,, s was protected from all suits by the exceptio vzllenagii; hewcould not without leave. quit the manor, and could be re+ claimed by process of law if he did; the strict contention of law deprived him of all right to hold property; and in many cases he was subject to certain degrading incidents, such as merchet (merehetu1n)~, a payment dueto the lord upon the marriage of a daughter, which was regarded as a special mark of unfree condition.»; But there are .certain limitations to ibemade. Firstly, al1~these~ incidents of tenure, even merchet, might not affect the personal status of the. tenant; he might still be free, though holdingiby an unfree ten-ure; secondly, -even it unfree, he was not exposed to the, arbitrary-will of his lord but wzas protected by the custom of the manor as interpreted by the manor court. Moreover, he, was not a slave, he was not bought and sold apart from his holding. T he hardship of his condition lay in the services due from him. As a» rule a- villein paid for-his holding in -money, .in'labour»and in kind. In money he paid, firstly, 'a small fixed rent called rent of assize; and, secondly, dues under various names, partly inlieu of services commuted into money payments, and- partly for-the privilegesiand profits enjoyed by him on the waste of the manor. In labour he paid more heavily. Week 'byweek he had to come with his own plough and oxen to plough the lord's demesne; when .ploughing was done he had to barrow, to reap the crops, to thresh and carry them, or do whatever might be required of him, until his allotted number of days labo”ur-in the year' was done. 1 Beyond this his lord .might request, iof him extra days inf harvest or other»seasons:of emergency, and these ire quests could? not be denied; Further, all the carriage of the manor was provided by the villeins, .even to places as much as a hundred miles. away from the manor. The mending of the ploughs, hedging, ditching, sheep shearing and other miscellaneous work also fell upon him, and it is sometimes hard to see what time remained to him to work upon his own holding. In kind he usually rendered honey, eggs, chickens and perhaps a plo, ughshaife, ~but.these payments were almost always small in value. Another. class of inhabitants remains to be mentioned -the cotters. . These are the poor of the manor, Cutters who hold a. cottage and garden, or perhaps one acre », . ° or half an acre in the fields., They wereunfree in condition, and in most manors their services were modelled upon those of the villeins. From their ranks were usually drawn the shepherd of the manor, the bee-keeper and other minor officials of the manor., . ~ 1, g

A complicated organization necessarily involves administrators., Just as the seryices of the tenants and even their names vary- from manor to manor, so does the nature. of the staff. Highest in rank came the steward; he was attached to nomanor in particular, but controlled a group, travelling from one to another to take accounts, to, hold the courts, and generally represent the lord. Under him are the officers of sts” the several manors- First came the bailiff or beadle, 7 the representative of the lord in the /manor; his duty was to collect the rents and services, to gather in the lord's cropsand account for the receipts and expenditure of the manor. Closely connected with him was the “f messor ” or reaper; in many cases, indeed, “reaper”, seems to have been only another name for the bailitf., ,But theivilleins were not without their own officer, the provost or reeve. His duty was to arrange the distribution of the services due from the tenants, and, as their representative, to assist the bailiti in the management of the manor. Sometimes the same man appears to have united both offices, and we find the reeve accounting to 'thelord for the issues of the manor.