CHAPTER II.THE MARK.

2. Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici. Opera J. M. Kemble, M.A., vol. i. London, 1839; vol. ii. 1840; vol. iii. 1845; vol. iv. 1846; vol. v. 1847; vol. vi. 1848. Published by authority of the Historical Society of England.

3. Beda, Hist. Eccl. i. 14, 15. Gildas, Hist. § 14. Nennius, Hist. § 38.

4. It is uncertain from the MSS. whether this lady is to be called Rouwen or Ronwen. The usual English tradition gives her name as Rowena; if this be accurate, I presume our pagan forefathers knew something of a divine personage—Hróðwén—possibly a dialectical form of thegreatandgloriousgoddessHréðe; for whom refer to Chapter X. of this Book.

5. The story of the treacherous murder perpetrated upon the Welsh chieftains does not claim an English origin. It is related of the Oldsaxons upon the continent, in connexion with the conquest of the Thuringians. See Widukind.

6. Conf. Nennius, Hist. 37seq., 46seq.Beda, Hist. Ecc. i. 14, 15. Gildas, Hist. § 25.

7. The Anglosaxon Traveller’s Song contains a multitude of names which cannot be found elsewhere. Paulus Diaconus and Jornandes have evidently used ancient poems as the foundation of their histories. The lays of the various Germanic cycles still furnish details respecting Hermanaric, Otachar, Theodoric, Hiltibrant and other heroes of this troubled period. But the reader who would judge of the fragmentary and unsatisfactory result ofallthat the ancient world has recorded of the new, had better consult that most remarkable work of Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme. Munich, 1837. He will there see how the profoundest science halts after the reality of ancient ages, and strives in vain to reduce their manifold falsehood to a truth.

8. “Celebrant carminibus antiquis, quod unum apud illos memoriae et annalium genus est.” Tac. Mor. Germ. cap. ii.

9. This is asserted both by Gildas and Nennius, and it is not in itself improbable. The Romans did sometimes attempt to disarm the nations they subdued: thus Probus with the Alamanni. Vopisc. cap. 14. Malmsbury’s account of the defenceless state of Britain was probably not exaggerated. He says: “Ita cum tyranni nullum in agris praeter semibarbaros, nullum in urbibus praeter ventri deditos reliquissent, Britannia omni patrocinio iuvenilis vigoris viduata, omni exercitio artium exinanita, conterminarum gentium inhiationi diu obnoxia fuit.” Gest. Reg. lib. i. § 2.

10. Prosper Tyro, a.d. 441, says, “Theodosii xviii. Britanniae usque ad hoc tempus variis cladibus eventibusque latae [? laceratae] in ditionem Saxonum rediguntur.” See also Procop. Bel. Got. iv. 20. The former of these passages might however be understood without the assumption of an immigration, which the movements of Attila render probable.

11. Bell. Gal. iii. 8. 9; iv. 20.

12. Especially the Veneti: hέτοιμοι γὰρ ἦσαν κωλύειν τὸν εἰς τὴν βρεττανικὴν πλοῦν, χρώμενοι τῷ ἐμπορίῳ. Strabo, bk. iv. p. 271. Conf. Bell. Gall. iv. 20.

13. Book iv. p. 278.

14. Tacit. Ann. xiv. 33.

15. Caesar notices the migrations of continental tribes to Britain: he says, “Britanniae pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insula ipsa memoria proditum dicunt; maritima pars ab iis qui praedae ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgis transierant; qui omnes fere iis nominibus civitatum adpellantur, quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi remanserunt, atque agros colere coeperunt.” Bell. Gall. v. 12.

16. Ptolemy, bk. ii. c. 2. It is true that Ptolemy calls them Καύκοι, but this mode of spelling is not unexampled, and is found in even so correct a writer as Strabo. The proper form is Καύχοι. Latin authors occasionally write Cauci for Chauci, and sometimes even Cauchi: see Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, p. 138. It is right to add that Zeuss, whose opinion on such a point is entitled to the highest consideration, hesitates to include these Καυκοι among Germanic tribes (p. 199). The Μανάπιοι, placed also by Ptolemy in Ireland, can hardly be Germans.

17. Ptolemy, bk. ii. c. 3. μεθ’ οὗς Κοριταυοὶ, ἐν οἷς πόλεις, λίνδον, ῥάγε· εἶτα, Κατυευχλανοὶ, ἐν οἷς πόλεις, σαλῆναι[al. σαλιοῦαι], οὐρολάνιον. Others have preferred the form Κοριτανοὶ, but the authority of the best manuscripts, not less than the analogy of the names Ingaevones, Iscaevones, Chamavi, Batavi, confirms the earlier reading. According to the Triads, these Coritavi (Coriniaidd) had migrated from a Teutonic marshland. Thorpe’s Lappenberg, i. 15. The word is thus in all probability derived from Hor,lutum, Horiht,lutosus; equivalent to the “aquosa Fresonum arva.” Vit. Sci. Sturm. Pertz. ii. 372. “Saxones, gentem oceani, in littoribus et paludibus inviis sitam.” Oros. vii. 32.

18. Chatuarii, Heaðobeardan, Heaðoræmes. However Catu is a genuine British prefix.

19. Saxones Baiocassini. Greg. Turon. v. 27; x. 9.

20.Grannona in littore Saxonico.Notit. Imp. Occid. c. 86. Du Chesne Hist. i. p. 3. The Tótingas, who have left their name to Tooting in Surrey, are recorded also at Tótingahám in the county of Boulogne. Leo,Rectitudines singularum personarum, p. 26.

21. Ptolemy calls the islands at the mouth of the Elbe, Σαξόνων νῆσοι τρεῖς. Zeuss considers these to be Föhr, Silt and Nordstrand. Die Deutschen, p. 150. Lappenberg sees in them, North Friesland, Eiderstedt, Nordstrand, Wickingharde and Böcingharde. Thorpe, Lap. i. 87. It seems hardly conceivable that Frisians, who occupied the coast as early as the time of Caesar, should not have found their way by sea to Britain, especially when pressed by Roman power: see Tac. Ann. xiii. 54.

22. Hengest defeated the Picts and Scots at Stamford in Lincolnshire, not far from the Nene, the Witham and the Welland, upon whose banks it is nearly certain that there were German settlements. Widukind’s story of an embassy from the Britons to the Saxons, to entreat aid, is thus rendered not altogether improbable: but then it must be understood of Saxons already established in England, and on the very line of march of the Northern invaders, whom they thus took most effectually in flank. Compare Geoffry’s story of Vortigern giving Hengest lands in Lincolnshire, etc.

23. Tac. Hist. iv. 12, aboutA.D.69. “Diu Germanicis bellis exerciti; mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cohortibus, quas vetere instituto, nobilissimi popularium regebant.”

24. Dio. Cas. lxxi. lxxii. Gibbon, Dec. cap. ix. At a later period, Probus settled Vandals and Burgundians here: Zosimus tells us (Hist. Nov. i. 68): ὅσους δὲ ζῶντας οἷος τε γέγονεν ἑλεῖν, εἰς Βρεττανίαν παρέπεμψεν· ὃι τὴν νῆσον οἰκήσαντες, ἐπαναστάντος μετὰ ταῦτα τινος, γεγόνασι βασιλεῖ χρήσιμοι. Procopius even goes so far as to make Belisarius talk of Goths in Britain, but the context itself proves that this deserves very little notice. Bell. Got. ii. 6.

25. Carausius was a Menapian: but in the third century the inhabitants of the Menapian territory were certainly Teutonic. Aurelius Victor calls him a Batavian: see Gibbon, Dec. cap. xiii. Carausius, and after him Allectus, maintained a German force here: “Omnes enim illos, ut audio, campos atque colles non nisi teterrimorum hostium corpora fusa texerunt. Illa barbara aut imitatione barbariae olim cultu vestis, et prolixo crine rutilantia, tunc vero pulvere et cruore foedata, et in diversos situs tracta, sicuti dolorem vulnerum fuerant secuta, iacuerunt.... Enimvero, Caesar invicte, tanto deorum immortalium tibi est addicta consensu omnium quidem quos adortus fueris hostium, sed praecipue internecio Francorum, ut illi quoque milites vestri, qui per errorem nebulosi, ut paullo ante dixi, maris abiuncti ad oppidum Londiniense pervenerunt, quidquid ex mercenaria illa multitudine barbarorum praelio superfuerat, cum direpta civitate, fugam capessere cogitarent, passim tota urbe confecerint.” Eumen. Paneg. Const. cap. 18, 19.

26. Aurel. Vict. cap. 41. Lappenberg, referring to this fact (Thorpe, i. 47), asks, “May not the name Erocus be a corruption of Ertocus, a Latinization of the old-Saxon Heritogo,dux?” I think not; for an Alaman would have been called by a high and not low German name, Herizohho, not Heritogo. I think it much more likely that his name was Chrohho or Hrôca, arook.

27. Pancirolus would date this important record inA.D.438. Gibbon, however, refutes him and places it between 395 and 407. Dec. cap. xvii. I am inclined to think even this date inaccurate, and that the Romans did not maintain any such great establishment in Britain, as that herein described, at so late a period. For even Ammianus tells us in 364, “Hoc tempore Picti, Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis,” (Hist. xxvi. 4), which is hardly consistent with a flourishing state of the Roman civil and military rule. The actual document we possess may possibly date from 390 or 400, but it refers to the arrangements of an earlier time, and to an organization of Roman power in more palmy days of their dominion.

28. The document itself may be consulted in Graevius, vol. vii. The “littus Saxonicum per Britannias” extended at least from the Portus Adurni to Branodunum, that is, from the neighbourhood of Portsmouth to Branchester on the Wash. In both these places there were civil or military officers under the orders of theComes littoris Saxonici.

29. Professor Leo, of Halle, has called attention to a remarkable resemblance between the names of certain places in Kent, and settlements of the Alamanni upon the Neckar. A few of these, it must be admitted, are striking, but the majority are only such as might be expected to arise from similarities of surface and natural features in any two countries settled by cognate populations, having nearly the same language, religious rites and civil institutions. Even if the fact be admitted in the fullest extent, it is still unnecessary to adopt Dr. Leo’s hypothesis, that the coincidence is due to a double migration from the shores of the Elbe. Rectitud. sing. person. pp. 100-104. It has been already stated that Constantius was accompanied to Britain by an Alamannic king; and I cannot doubt that under Valentinian, a force of Alamanni served in this country. Ammianus says: “Valentinianus ... in Macriani locum, Bucinobantibus, quae contra Moguntiacum gens est Alamanna, regem Fraomarium ordinavit: quem paullo postea, quoniam recens excursus eundem penitus vastaverat pagum, in Britannos translatum potestate tribuni, Alamannorum praefecerat numero, multitudine, viribusque ea tempestate florenti.” Hist. xxix. c. 4. The context renders it impossible that this “numerus Alamannorum” should have been anything but genuine Germans.

30. Widukind in Leibnitz, Rer. Brunsw. i. 73, 74; Repgow, Sachsensp. iii. 44, § 2. It is amusing enough to see how the number of ships increases as people began to feel the absurdity of bringing over conquering armies in such very small flotillas.

31. Galf. Monum. H. Brit., vi. 11. Thong castle probably gave a turn to the story here which the Oldsaxon legend had not. The classical tale of Dido and Byrsa is well known to every schoolboy. Ragnor Lodbrog adopted the same artifice, Rag. Lodb. Saga, cap. 19, 20. Nay the Hindoos declare that we obtained possession of Calcutta by similar means.

32. Widuk.in loc. citat., also Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, No. 547, 369, and Deutsche Rechtsalt. p. 90, where several valuable examples are cited: it is remarkable how many of these are Thuringian.

33. Vit. Offae Primi, edited by Wats.

34. Saxo Gramm. bk. iv. p. 59seq.

35. Woden in thegentileform of a horse, Hengest,equus admissarius, the brother of Hors, and father of a line in which names of horses form a distinguishing part of the royal appellatives. It is hardly necessary to remind the classical reader of Poseidon in his favourite shape, the shape in which he contended with Athene and mingled with Ceres. In these remarks on Geoffry and his sources, I do not mean to deny the obligation under which the reader of romance has been laid by him; only to reject everything like historical authority. It is from the countrymen of Geoffry that we have also gained the marvellous superstructure of imagination which has supplied the tales of that time, “when Charlemagne with all his peerage fell by Fontarabia,” and which is recognised by history in the very short entry, “In quo proelio Eggihardus regiae mensae praepositus, Anselmus comes palatii, et Hruodlandus Brittanici limitis praefectus, cum aliis compluribus interficiuntur.” Einhardi Vita Karoli, § 9. Pertz, ii. 448. Let us be grateful for the Orlando Innamorato and Furioso, but not make history of them.

36. Many beyond a doubt found a refuge in Brittany among their brethren and co-religionists who had long been settled there. Conf. Ermold. Nigel. bk. iii. v. 11. in Pertz, ii. 490. The Cumbrians and Welsh had probably been as little subdued by the Romans as they were by the Saxons.

37. Gildas does not spare the native princes: see Epist. querul.passim; and when every excuse has been made for the exaggerations of an honest zeal, we must believe the condition of the people to have been bad in the extreme.

38. “Quorum illi qui Northwallos, id est Aquilonales Britones dicebantur, parti Westsaxonum regum obvenerant. Illi quondam consuetis servitiis seduli, diu nil asperum retulere, sed tunc rebellionem meditantes, Kentuuinus rex tam anxia caede perdomuit, ut nihil ulterius sperarent. Quare et ultima malorum accessit captivis tributaria functio; ut qui antea nec solam umbram palpabant libertatis, nunc iugum subiectionis palam ingemiscerent.” W. Malmsb. Vit. Aldhelmi, Ang. Sac. ii. 14.

39. Leg. Ini, § 32, 33.

40. See a tract of the author’s in the Proceedings of the Archaeological Institute, 1845, on Anglosaxon names. From some very interesting papers read by the Rev. R. Garnett before the Philological Society in 1843, 1844, we learn that a considerable proportion of the words which denote the daily processes of agriculture, domestic life, and generally indoor and outdoor service, are borrowed by us from the Keltic. Philolog. Trans, i. 171seq.The amount of Keltic words yet current in English may of course he accounted for in part, without the hypothesis of an actual incorporation; but many have unquestionably been borrowed, and serve to show that a strong Keltic element was permitted to remain and influence the Saxon. That it did so especially in local names is not of much importance, as it may be doubted whether conquest ever succeeded in changing these entirely, in any country.

41. I borrow from Hermann Müller’s instructive work, Der Lex Salica und der Lex Angliorum et Werinorum Alter und Heimat, p. 269, the following chronological notices of the Franks in their relations to the Roman empire:—A.D.250. Franks, the inhabitants of marshes, become known by their predatory excursions.280. Franks, transplanted to Asia, return.287. Franks occupy Batavia; are expelled.291. Franks in the Gallic provinces.306. Constantine chastises the Franks. They enjoy consideration in the service of Rome.340. Wars and treaties with the Franks.356. Julian treats with the Franks on the lower Rhine.358. He treats with Franks in Toxandria.359. Salic Franks in Batavia.395. Stilicho treats with the Franks.408. The Vandals invading Gaul are defeated by the Franks.414. War with the Franks.416. The Franks possess the Rhine-land.437. Chlojo bursts into Gaul and takes Cambray.

A.D.250. Franks, the inhabitants of marshes, become known by their predatory excursions.

42. Procop. Bel. Got. iv. 20.

43. Ουαρνοι μεν ὑπερ Ιστρον ποταμον ἱδρυνται· διηκουσι δε αχρι τε ες Ωκεανον τον αρκτωον, και ποταμον Ῥηνον· ὁσπερ αυτους τε διοριζει, και Φραγγους και ταλλα εθνη, ἁ ταυτη ἱδρυνται. ὁυτοι απαντες, ὁσοι τοπαλαιον αμφι Ῥηνον ἑκατερωθεν ποταμον ωκηντο, ιδιου μεν τινος ονοματος ἑκαστοι μετελαγχανον ... επικοινης δε Γερμανοι εκαλουντο ἁπαντες.... Ουαρνοι δε και Φραγγοι τουτι μονον του Ῥηνου το ὑδωρ μεταξυ εχουσιν. Bel. Got. iv. 20.

44. Procopius tells us that this was done by the dying father’s advice, and in consonance with the law of the people. Ῥαδίγερ δὲ ὁ παῖς ξυνοικιζέσθω τῇ μητρυιᾷ τολοιπὸν τῇ αὐτου, καθάπερ ὁ πάτριος ἡμῖν ἐφίησι νόμος. Ibid. Conf. Bed. Hist. Eccl. ii. 5.

45. The years 534 and 547 are the extreme terms of Theodberht’s reign. See Gib. Dec. bk. 38.

46. This fact, which has escaped the accurate, and generally merciless, criticism of Gibbon, is very clearly proved by Zeuss, Die Deutschen, etc. pp. 361, 362.

47. The passage is sufficiently important to deserve transcription at length. “Saxonum gens, sicut tradit antiquitas, ab Anglis Britanniae incolis egressa, per Oceanum navigans Germaniae litoribus studio et necessitate quaerendarum sedium appulsa est, in loco qui vocatur Haduloha, eo tempore quo Thiotricus rex Francorum contra Irminfridum generum suum, ducem Thuringorum, dimicans, terram eorum ferro vastavit et igni. Et cum iam duobus proeliis ancipiti pugna incertaque victoria miserabili suorum cede decertassent, Thiotricus spe vincendi frustratus, misit legatos ad Saxones, quorum dux erat Hadugoto. Audivit enim causam adventus eorum, promissisque pro victoria habitandi sedibus, conduxit eos in adiutorium; quibus secum quasi iam pro libertate et patria fortiter dimicantibus, superavit adversarios, vastatisque indigenis et ad internitionem pene deletis, terram eorum iuxta pollicitationem suam victoribus delegavit. Qui eam sorte dividentes, cum multi ex eis in bello cecidissent, et pro raritate eorum tota ab eis occupari non potuit, partem illius, et eam quam maxime quae respicit orientem, colonis tradebant, singuli pro sorte sua, sub tributo exercendam. Caetera vero loca ipsi possiderunt.” Transl. Sci. Alexandri, Pertz, ii. 674. This was written about 863. Possibly some ancient and now lost epic had recorded the wars of the Saxon Heaðogeát.

48. Beda attempts to give some account of the early state of Britain previous to the arrival of Augustine; a few quotations from Solinus, Gildas, and a legendary life of St. Germanus, comprise however nearly the whole of his collections. Either he could find no more information, or he did not think it worthy of belief. He even speaks doubtfully of the tale of Hengest. Hist. Eccl. i. 15.

49. The Homeric poems and those of the Edda are obvious examples: but nothing can be more instructive than thehistorywhich Livy and Saxo Grammaticus have woven out of similar materials.

50. Sax. Chron. under the respective dates.

51. Cerdic and Cyneríc landed in 495, after forty years Cerdic dies, and Cyneríc reigns twenty-six more!

52. The chronology is inconsistent throughout, and it is inconceivable that it should have been otherwise. Beda himself assigns different dates to the arrival of the Saxons, though it is the æra from which he frequently reckons.

53. Thorpe’s Lappenb. i. 78seq.

54. Beówulf, ii. Postscript to the Preface, xxvii.

55. Geát, the eponymus of a race, Geátas, is found in the common genealogy previous to Wóden; his legend is alluded to in the Codex Exoniensis, pp. 377, 378, together with those of Ðeódríc, Wéland and Eormanríc. Witta in the Kentish line is found in the Traveller’s Song, l. 43. Offa in the Mercian genealogy occurs in the same poem, l. 69, in the fine epos of Beówulf, and in Saxo Grammaticus. Fin the son of Folcwalda is one of the heroes of Beówulf. Scyld, Sceáf and Beówa are found in the same poem, etc. These facts render it probable that many other, if not all the names in the genealogies were equally derived from the peculiar national or gentile legends, although the epic poems in which they were celebrated being now lost, we are unable to point to them as we have done to others.

CHAPTER II.THE MARK.

All that we learn of the original principle of settlement, prevalent either in England or on the continent of Europe, among the nations of Germanic blood, rests upon two main foundations; first, the possession of land; second, the distinction of rank; and the public law of every Teutonic tribe implies the dependence of one upon the other principle, to a greater or less extent. Even as he who is not free can, at first, hold no land within the limits of the community, so is he who holds no land therein, not fully free, whatever his personal rank or character may be. Thus far the Teutonic settler differs but little from the ancient Spartiate or the comrade of Romulus.

The particular considerations which arise from the contemplation of these principles in their progressive development, will find their place in the several chapters of this Book: it deals with land held in community, and severalty; with the nature and accidents of tenure; with the distinction and privileges of the various classes of citizens, the free, the noble and the serf; and with the institutions by which a mutual guarantee of life, honour and peaceful possession was attempted to be secured amongthe Anglosaxons. These are theincunabula, first principles and rudiments of the English law[56]; and in these it approaches, and assimilates to, the system which the German conquerors introduced into every state which they founded upon the ruins of the Roman power.

As land may be held by many men in common, or by several households, under settled conditions it is expedient to examine separately the nature and character of these tenures: and first to enquire into the forms of possession in common; for upon this depends the political being of the state, its constitutional law, and its relative position towards other states. Among the Anglosaxons land so held in common was designated by the names Mark, and Gâ or Shire.

The smallest and simplest of these common divisions is that which we technically call a Mark or March (mearc); a word less frequent in the Anglosaxon than the German muniments, only because the system founded upon what it represents yielded in England earlier than in Germany to extraneous influences. This is the first general division, the next in order to the private estates or alods of the Markmen: as its name denotes, it is something marked out or defined, having settled boundaries; something serving as a sign to others, and distinguished by signs. It is the plot of land on which a greater or lesser number of free men have settled for purposes of cultivation, and for the sake of mutual profit and protection; and it comprises aportion both of arable land and pasture, in proportion to the numbers that enjoy its produce[57].

However far we may pursue our researches into the early records of our forefathers, we cannot discover a period at which this organization was unknown. Whatever may have been the original condition of the German tribes, tradition and history alike represent them to us as living partly by agriculture, partly by the pasturing of cattle[58]. They had long emerged from the state of wandering herdsmen, hunters or fishers, when they first attracted the notice, and disputed or repelled the power, of Rome. The peculiar tendencies of various tribes may have introduced peculiar modes of placing or constructing their habitations; but of no German population is it stated, that they dwelt in tents like the Arab, in waggons like the Scythian, or in earth-dug caverns like the troglodytes of Wallachia: the same authority that tells of some who lived alone as the hill-side or the fresh spring pleased them[59], notices the villages, the houses and even the fortresses, of others.

Without commerce, means of extended communication, or peaceful neighbours, the Germans cannot have cultivated their fields for the service of strangers: they must have been consumers, as they certainly were raisers, of bread-corn; early documents of the Anglosaxons prove that considerable quantities of wheat were devoted to this purpose. Even the serfs and domestic servants were entitled to an allowance of bread, in addition to the supply of flesh[60]; and the large quantities of ale and beer which we find enumerated among the dues payable from the land, or in gifts to religious establishments, presume a very copious supply of cereals for the purpose of malting[61]. But it is also certain that our forefathers depended very materially for subsistence upon the herds of oxen, sheep, and especially swine, which they could feed upon the unenclosed meadows, or in the wealds of oak and beech which covered a large proportion of the land. From the moment, in short, when we first learn anything of their domestic condition, all the German tribes appear to be settled upon arable land, surrounded with forest pastures, and having some kind of property in both.

Caesar, it is true, denies that agriculture was much cultivated among the Germans, or that property in the arable land was permitted to be permanent[62]: and, although it seems impolitic to limit the efforts of industry, by diminishing its reward, it is yet conceivable that, under peculiar circumstances, a warlike confederation might overlook this obvious truth in their dread of the enervating influences of property and a settled life. There may have been difficulty in making a new yearly division of land, which to our prejudices seems almost impossible; yet the Arab of Oran claims only the produce of the seed he has sown[63]; the proprietor in the Jaghire district of Madras changes his lands from year to year[64]: the tribes of the Afghans submit to a new distribution even after a ten years’ possession has endeared the field to the cultivator[65]; Diodorus tells us that the Vaccaeans changed their lands yearly and divided the produce[66]; and Strabo attributed a similar custom to one tribe at least of the Illyrian Dalmatians, after a period of seven[67].

But so deeply does the possession of land enter into the principle of all the Teutonic institutions, that I cannot bring myself to believe in the accuracyof Caesar’s statement. Like his previous rash and most unfounded assertion respecting the German gods, this may rest only upon the incorrect information of Gallic provincials: at the utmost it can be applied only to the Suevi and their warlike allies[68], if it be not even intended to be confined to the predatory bands of Ariovistus, encamped among the defeated yet hostile Sequani[69]. The equally well-known passage of Tacitus,—“arva per annos mutant, et superest ager[70],”—may be most safely rendered as applying to the common mode of culture; “they change the arable from year to year, and there is land to spare;” that is, for commons and pasture: but it does not amount to a proof that settled property in land was not a part of the Teutonic scheme; it implies no more than this, that within the Mark which was the property of all, what was this year one man’s corn-land, might the next be another man’s fallow; a process very intelligible to those who know anything of the system of cultivation yet prevalent in parts of Germany, or have ever had any interest in what we call Lammas Meadows.

Zeuss, whose admirable work[71]is indispensable to the student of Teutonic antiquity, brings together various passages to show that at some early period, the account given by Caesar may have conveyed a just description of the mode of life inGermany[72]. He represents its inhabitants to himself as something between a settled and an unsettled people. What they may have been in periods previous to the dawn of authentic history, it is impossible to say; but all that we really know of them not only implies a much more advanced state of civilization, but the long continuance and tradition of such a state. We cannot admit the validity of Zeuss’ reasoning, or escape from the conviction that it mainly results from a desire to establish his etymology of the names borne by the several confederations, and which requires the hypothesis of wandering and unsettled tribes[73].

The word Mark has a legal as well as a territorial meaning: it is not only a space of land, such as has been described, but a member of a state also; in which last sense it represents those who dwell upon the land, in relation to their privileges and rights, both as respects themselves and others. But the word, as applied even to the territory, has a twofold meaning: it is, properly speaking, employed to denote not only the whole district occupied by one small community[74]; but more especially those forests and wastes by which the arable is enclosed, and which separate the possessions of one tribe from those of another[75]. The Mark or boundary pasture-land, and the cultivated space which it surrounds, and which is portioned out to the several members of the community, are inseparable;however different the nature of the property which can be had in them, they are in fact one whole; taken together, they make up the whole territorial possession of the originalcognatio, kin or tribe. The ploughed lands and meadows are guarded by the Mark; and the cultivator ekes out a subsistence which could hardly be wrung from the small plot he calls his own, by the flesh and other produce of beasts, which his sons, his dependents or his serfs mast for him in the outlying forests.

Let us first take into consideration the Mark in its restricted and proper sense of a boundary. Its most general characteristic is, that it should not be distributed in arable, but remain in heath, forest, fen and pasture. In it the Markmen—called in Germany Markgenossen, and perhaps by the Anglosaxons Mearcgeneátas—had commonable rights; but there could be no private estate in it, no híd or hlot, no κλῆρος, orhaeredium. Even if under peculiar circumstances, any markman obtained a right to essart or clear a portion of the forest, the portion so subjected to the immediate law of property ceased to be mark. It was undoubtedly under the protection of the gods; and it is probable that within its woods were those sacred shades especially consecrated to the habitation and service of the deity[76].

If the nature of an early Teutonic settlement, which has nothing in common with a city, be duly considered, there will appear an obvious necessity for the existence of a mark, and for its being maintained inviolate. Every community, not sheltered by walls, or the still firmer defences of public law, must have one, to separate it from neighbours and protect it from rivals: it is like the outer pulp that surrounds and defends the kernel. No matter how small or how large the community,—it may be only a village, even a single household, or a whole state,—it will still have a Mark, a space or boundary by which its own rights of jurisdiction are limited, and the encroachments of others are kept off[77]. The more extensive the community whichis interested in the Mark, the more solemn and sacred the formalities by which it is consecrated and defended; but even the boundary of the private man’s estate is under the protection of the gods and of the law. “Accursed,” in all ages and all legislations, “is he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark.” Even the owner of a private estate is not allowed to build or cultivate to the extremity of his own possession, but must leave a space for eaves[78]. Nor is the general rule abrogated by changes in the original compass of the communities; as smaller districts coalesce and become, as it were, compressed into one body, the smaller and original Marks may become obliterated and converted merely into commons, but the public mark will have been increased upon the new and extended frontier. Villages tenanted by Heardingas or Módingas may cease to be separated, but the larger divisions which have grown up by their union, Meanwaras, Mægsetan or Hwiccas[79]will still have a boundary of their own; these again may be lost in the extending circuit of Wessex or Mercia; tilla yet greater obliteration of the Marks having been produced through increasing population, internal conquest, or the ravages of foreign invaders, the great kingdom of England at length arises, having wood and desolate moorland and mountain as its mark against Scots, Cumbrians and Britons, and the eternal sea itself as a bulwark against Frankish and Frisian pirates[80].

But although the Mark is waste, it is yet the property of the community: it belongs to the freemen as a whole, not as a partible possession: it may as little be profaned by the stranger, as the arable land itself which it defends[81]. It is under the safeguard of the public law, long after it has ceasedto be under the immediate protection of the gods: it is unsafe, full of danger; death lurks in its shades and awaits the incautious or hostile visitant:

punishments of the most frightful character are denounced against him who violates it[83]; and though, in historical times, these can only be looked upon as comminatory and symbolical, it is very possible that they may be the records of savage sacrifices believed due, and even offered, to the gods of the violated sanctuary. I can well believe that we too had once our Diana Taurica. The Marks are called accursed; that is accursed to man, accursed to him that does not respect their sanctity: but they are sacred, for on their maintenance depend the safety of the community, and the service of the deities whom that community honours[84]. And even when the gods have abdicated their ancient power, even to the very last, the terrors of superstition come in aid of the enactments of law: the deep forests andmarshes are the abodes of monsters and dragons; wood-spirits bewilder and decoy the wanderer to destruction: the Nicors house by the side of lakes and marshes[85]: Grendel, the man-eater, is a “mighty stepper over the mark[86]”: the chosen home of the firedrake is a fen[87].

The natural tendency, however, of this state of isolation is to give way; population is an ever-active element of social well-being: and when once the surface of a country has become thickly studded with communities settled between the Marks, and daily finding the several clearings grow less and less sufficient for their support[88], the next step is the destruction of the Marks themselves, and the union of the settlers in larger bodies, and under altered circumstances. Take two villages, placed on such clearings in the bosom of the forest, each having an ill-defined boundary in the wood that separates them, each extending its circuit woodward as population increases and presses upon the land, and each attempting to drive its Mark further into the waste, as the arable gradually encroaches upon this. On the first meeting of the herdsmen, one of three courses appears unavoidable: the communities must enter into a federal union; one mustattack and subjugate the other; or the two must coalesce into one on friendly and equal terms[89]. The last-named result is not improbable, if the gods of the one tribe are common to the other: then perhaps the temples only may shift their places a little. But in any case the intervening forest will cease to be Mark, because it will now lie in the centre, and not on the borders of the new community. It will be converted into common pasture, to be enjoyed by all on fixed conditions; or it may even be gradually rooted out, ploughed, planted and rendered subject to the ordinary accidents of arable land: it will becomefolcland, public land, applicable to the general uses of the enlarged state, nay even divisible into private estates, upon the established principles of public law. And this process will be repeated and continue until the family becomes a tribe, and the tribe a kingdom; when the intervening boundary lands, cleared, drained and divided, will have been clothed with golden harvests, or portioned out in meadows and common pastures, appurtenant to villages; and the only marks remaining will be the barren mountain and moor of the frontiers, the deep unforded rivers, and the great ocean that washes the shores of the continent.

Christianity, which destroys or diminishes the holiness of the forests, necessarily confines the guarantee of the Mark to the public law of the state. Hence when these districts become included within the limits of Christian communities, there is no difficulty in the process which has been described: the state deals with them as with any other part of its territory, by its own sovereign power, according to the prevalent ideas of agricultural or political œconomy; and the once inviolate land may at once be converted to public uses, widely different from its original destination, if the public advantage require it. No longer necessary as a boundary, from the moment when the smaller community has become swallowed up and confounded in the larger, it may remain in commons, be taken possession of by the state as folcland, or become the source of even private estates, and to all these purposes we find it gradually applied. In process of time it seems even to have become partible and appurtenant to private estates in a certain proportion to the arable[90]: towards the close of the tenth century I find the grant of a mill and millstead, “and thereto as much of the markland as belongeth to three hydes”[91].

The general advantage which requires the maintenance of the Mark as public property, does not however preclude the possibility of using it forpublic purposes, as long as the great condition of indivisibility is observed. Although it may not be cleared and ploughed, it may be depastured, and all the herds of the Markmen may be fed and masted upon its wilds and within its shades. While it still comprises only a belt of forest, lying between small settlements, those who live contiguous to it, are most exposed to the sudden incursions of an enemy, and perhaps specially entrusted with the measures for public defence, may have peculiar privileges, extending in certain cases even to the right of clearing or essarting portions of it. In the case of the wide tracts which separate kingdoms, we know that a comprehensive military organization prevailed, with castles, garrisons, and governors or Margraves, as in Austria, Brandenburg and Baden, Spoleto and Ancona, Northumberland and the Marches of Wales. But where clearings have been made in the forest, the holders are bound to see that they are maintained, and that the fresh arable land be not encroached upon; if forest-trees spring there by neglect of the occupant, the essart again becomes forest, and, as such, subject to all the common rights of the Markmen, whether in pasture, chase or estovers[92].

The sanctity of the Mark is the condition and guarantee of its indivisibility, without which it cannot long be proof against the avarice or ambitionof individuals: and its indivisibility is, in turn, the condition of the service which it is to render as a bulwark, and of its utility as a pasture. I therefore hold it certain that some solemn religious ceremonies at first accompanied and consecrated its limitation[93]. What these may have consisted in, among the heathen Anglosaxons, we cannot now discover, but many circumstances render it probable that Wóden, who in this function also resembles Ἑρμῆς, was the tutelary god[94]: though not absolutely to the exclusion of other deities, Tiw and Frea appearing to have some claim to a similar distinction[95]. But however its limit was originally drawn or driven, it was, as its name denotes, distinguished by marks or signs. Trees of peculiar size and beauty, and carved with the figures of birds and beasts, perhaps even with Runic characters, served the purpose of limitation and definition[96]: striking natural features,a hill, a brook, a morass, a rock, or the artificial mound of an ancient warrior, warned the intruder to abstain from dangerous ground, or taught the herdsman how far he might advance with impunity. In water or in marshy land, poles were set up, which it was as impious to remove, as it would have been to cut or burn down a mark-tree in the forest.

In the second and more important sense of the word, the Mark is a community of families or households, settled on such plots of land and forest as have been described. This is the original basis upon which all Teutonic society rests, and must be assumed to have been at first amply competent toall the demands of society in a simple and early stage of development: for example, to have been a union for the purpose of administering justice, or supplying a mutual guarantee of peace, security and freedom for the inhabitants of the district. In this organization, the use of the land, the woods and the waters was made dependent upon the general will of the settlers, and could only be enjoyed under general regulations made by all for the benefit of all. The Mark was a voluntary association of free men, who laid down for themselves, and strictly maintained, a system of cultivation by which the produce of the land on which they settled might be fairly and equally secured for their service and support; and from participation in which they jealously excluded all who were not born, or adopted, into the association. Circumstances dependent upon the peculiar local conformation of the district, or even on the relations of the original parties to the contract, may have caused a great variety in the customs of different Marks; and these appear occasionally anomalous, when we meet with them still subsisting in a different order of social existence[97]; but with the custom of one Mark, another had nothing to do, and the Markmen, within their own limit, were independent, sufficient to their own support and defence, and seised of full power and authority to regulate their own affairs, as seemed most conducive to their ownadvantage. The Court of the Markmen, as it may be justly called, must have had supreme jurisdiction, at first, over all the causes which could in any way affect the interests of the whole body or the individuals composing it: and suit and service to such court was not less the duty, than the high privilege, of the free settlers. On the continent of Germany the divisions of the Marks and the extent of their jurisdiction can be ascertained with considerable precision; from these it maybe inferred that in very many cases the later courts of the great landowners had been in fact at first Markcourts, in which, even long after the downfall of the primæval freedom, the Lord, himself had been only the first Markman, the patron or defender of the simple freemen, either by inheritance or their election[98]. In this country, the want of materials precludes the attainment of similar certainty, but there can be no reason to doubt that the same process took place, and that originally Markcourts existed among ourselves with the same objects and powers. In a charter of the year 971, Cod. Dipl. No. 568, we find the wordmearcmót, which can there mean only the place where such a court,mótor meeting was held: while themearcbeorh, which is not at all of rare occurrence, appears to denote the hill or mound which was the site of the court, and the place where the free settlers met at stated periods to do right between man and man[99].

It is not at all necessary that these communities should have been very small; on the contrary, some of the Marks were probably of considerable extent, and capable of bringing a respectable force into the field upon emergency: others, no doubt, were less populous, and extensive: but a hundred heads of houses, which is not at all an extravagant supposition, protected by trackless forests, in a district not well known to the invader, constitute a body very well able to defend its rights and privileges.

Although the Mark seems originally to have been defined by the nature of the district, the hills, streams and forests, still its individual, peculiar and, as it were, private character depended in some degree also upon long-subsisting relations of the Markmen, both among themselves, and with regard to others. I represent them to myself as great family unions, comprising households of various degrees of wealth, rank and authority: some, in direct descent from the common ancestors, or from the hero of the particular tribe: others, more distantly connected, through the natural result of increasing population, which multiplies indeed the members ofthe family, but removes them at every step further from the original stock: some, admitted into communion by marriage, others by adoption; others even by emancipation; but all recognizing a brotherhood, a kinsmanship orsibsceaft[100]; all standing together as one unit in respect of other, similar communities; all governed by the same judges and led by the same captains; all sharing in the same religious rites, and all known to themselves and to their neighbours by one general name.

The original significance of these names is now perhaps matter of curious, rather than of useful enquiry. Could we securely determine it, we should, beyond doubt, obtain an insight into the antiquities of the Germanic races, far transcending the actual extent of our historical knowledge; this it is hopeless now to expect: ages of continual struggles, of violent convulsions, of conquests and revolutions, lie between us and our forefathers: the traces of their steps have been effaced by the inexorable march of a different civilization. This alone is certain, that the distinction must have lain deeply rooted in the national religion, and supplied abundant materials for the national epos. Much has been irrecoverably lost, yet in what remains we recognize fragments which bear the impress of former wealth and grandeur. Beówulf, the Traveller’s Song, and the multifarious poems and traditionsof Scandinavia, not less than the scattered names which meet us here and there in early German history, offer hints which can only serve to excite regret for the mass which has perished. The kingdoms and empires which have exercised the profoundest influence upon the course of modern civilization, have sprung out of obscure communities whose very names are only known to us through the traditions of the poet, or the local denominations which record the sites of their early settlements.

Many hypotheses may be formed to account for these ancient aggregations, especially on the continent of Europe. Perhaps not the least plausible is that of a single family, itself claiming descent, through some hero, from the gods, and gathering other scattered families around itself; thus retaining the administration of the family rites of religion, and giving its own name to all the rest of the community. Once established, such distinctive appellations must wander with the migrations of the communities themselves, or such portions of them as want of land and means, and excess of population at home, compelled to seek new settlements. In the midst of restless movements, so general and extensive as those of our progenitors, it cannot surprise us, when we find the gentile names of Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, reproduced upon our own shores. Even where a few adventurers—one only—bearing a celebrated name, took possession of a new home, comrades would readily be found, glad to constitute themselvesaround him under an appellation long recognized as heroic: or a leader, distinguished for his skill, his valour and success, his power or superior wealth, may have found little difficulty in imposing the name of his own race upon all who shared in his adventures. Thus Harlings and Wælsings, names most intimately connected with the great epos of the Germanic and Scandinavian races, are reproduced in several localities in England: Billing, the noble progenitor of the royal race of Saxony, has more than one enduring record: and similarly, I believe all the local denominations of the early settlements to have arisen and been perpetuated[101]. So much light appears derivable from a proper investigation of these names, that I have collected them in an Appendix (A.) at the end of this volume, to the contents of which the reader’s attention is invited[102].

In looking over this list we are immediately struck with a remarkable repetition of various names, some of which are found at once in several counties; and most striking are those which, like the examples already alluded to, give a habitation upon our own shores to the races celebrated in the poetical or historical records of other ages and other lands. There are indeed hardly any enquiries of deeper interest, than those whose tendency is to link the present with the past in the bonds of a mythical tradition; or which presents results of greater importance to him who has studied the modes of thought and action of populations at an early stageof their career. The intimate relations of mythology, law and social institutions, which later ages are too apt scornfully to despise, or superstitiously to imitate, are for them, living springs of action: they are believed in, not played with, as in the majority ofrevivals, from the days of Anytus and Melitus to our own; and they form the broad foundation upon which the whole social polity is established. The people who believe in heroes, originally gods and always god-born, preserve a remembrance of their ancient deities in the gentile names by which themselves are distinguished, long after the rites they once paid to their divinities have fallen into disuse; and it is this record of beings once hallowed, and a cult once offered, which they have bequeathed to us in many of the now unintelligible names of the Marks. Taking these facts into account, I have no hesitation in affirming that the names of places found in the Anglosaxon charters, and yet extant in England, supply no trifling links in the chain of evidence by which we demonstrate the existence among ourselves of a heathendom nearly allied to that of Scandinavia.

The Wælsings, the Völsungar of the Edda, and Volsungen of the German Heldensage, have already been noticed in a cursory manner: they are the family whose hero is Siegfried or Sigurdr[103], the centre round which the Nibelungen epos circles. Another of their princes, Fitela, the Norse Sinfiötli,is recorded in the poem of Beówulf[104], and from him appear to have been derived the Fitelingas, whose name survives in Fitling.

The Herelingas or Harlings have also been noticed; they are connected with the same great cycle, and are mentioned in the Traveller’s Song, l. 224. As Harlingen in Friesland retains a record of the same name, it is possible that it may have wandered to the coast of Norfolk with the Batavian auxiliaries,numerus Batavorum, who served under their own chiefs in Britain. The Swǽfas, a border tribe of the Angles[105], reappear at Swaffham. The Brentings[106]are found again in Brentingby. The Scyldings and Scylfings[107], perhaps the most celebrated of the Northern races, give their names to Skelding and Shilvington. The Ardings, whose memorial is retained in Ardingley, Ardington and Ardingworth, are the Azdingi[108], the royal race of the Visigoths and Vandals: a name which confirms the tradition of a settlement of Vandals in England. With these we probably should not confound the Heardingas, who have left their name to Hardingham in Norfolk[109]. The Banings, over whom Becca ruled[110], are recognized in Banningham; the Hælsings[111]inHelsington, and in the Swedish Helsingland[112]: the Myrgings[113], perhaps in Merring, and Merrington: the Hundings[114], perhaps in Hunningham and Hunnington: the Hócings[115], in Hucking: the Seringas[116]meet us again in Sharington, Sherington and Sheringham. The Ðyringas[117], in Thorington and Thorrington, are likely to be offshoots of the great Hermunduric race, the Thyringi or Thoringi, now Thuringians, always neighbours of the Saxons. The Bleccingas, a race who probably gave name to Bleckingen in Sweden, are found in Bletchington, and Bletchingley. In the Gytingas, known to us from Guiting, we can yet trace the Alamannic tribe of the Juthungi, or Jutungi. Perhaps in the Scytingas or Scydingas, we may find another Alamannic tribe, the Scudingi[118], and in the Dylingas, an Alpine or Highdutch name, the Tulingi[119]. The Wæringas are probably the Norman Vǽringjar, whom we call Varangians. The Wylfingas[120], another celebrated race, well known in Norse tradition, are recorded in Beówulf[121]and the Traveller’s Song[122].

These are unquestionably no trivial coincidences; they assure us that there lies at the root of our land-divisions an element of the highest antiquity; one too, by which our kinsmanship with the North-german races is placed beyond dispute. But their analogy leads us to a wider induction: when weexamine the list of names contained in theAppendix, we see at once how very few of these are identified with the names recorded in Beówulf and other poems: all that are so recorded, had probably belonged to portions of the epic cycle; but there is nothing in the names themselves to distinguish them from the rest; nothing at least but the happy accident of those poems, which were dedicated to their praise, having survived. In the lapse of years, how many similar records may have perished! And may we not justly conclude that a far greater number of races might have been identified, had the Ages spared the songs in which they were sung?

Back to Index Next