308
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i.
we sometimes find limitations in grants, to a cer-
tain number of lives with remainders and reversions.
And it was both law and custom not only that the
first acquirer might impose what conditions he
pleased upon the descent of the estate, but that to
all time his expressed will in that respect should
bind those who derived their title from him 1. Æ1-
fred requires his Witan, who are the guarantees
and administrators of his will, to see that he has
not violated the disposition of his ancestors by
leaving lands to women which had been entailed
on the male line, and vice versa2; and we have
cases of grants solemnly avoided for like want of
conformity. More questionable in point of prin-
ciple is the right attempted to be set up by some
of these purchasers, to bar escheat and forfei-
ture of the land upon felony of their heirs or devi-
sees.
It is to be presumed that a tenant of folcland
was permitted to let the same,—upon condition no
doubt that he conveyed no estate superior to his
own. The holders must have been allowed to place
poor settlers upon their estates, whose rents and
services, in labour and kind, would be important
to their own subsistence. Of course in bocland no
limitation could be thought of ; it was the absolute,
inheritable property of the purchaser, and he could
in general dispose of it as freely as if it were alod
itself. But there seems no reason to doubt that
much the same course was adopted in both descrip-
ɪ Leg. Ælfr. § 41.
2 Cod. Dipl. No. 314.
CH. XI.]
Folcland and Borland.
309
tions of esta,te ; the folcland being held beyond ques-
tion for term of life, at every period of which our
history takes cognizance, whatever may have been
the case at first. A portion called the inland, or do∙
minium, demesne, was reserved for the lord’s home-
stead, house and farms, and the dwellings of his serfs,
esnes, læts, and other unfree and poor dependents.
This и as cultivated for him by their industry, and
he repaid their services by protection, food, clothing,
and small perquisites, all of which now pass
under the general name of wages1. On the upland
and in the forests, sometimes his own, sometimes
subject only to his rights of common, they tended
his sheep, oxen and steeds at the fold, or his swine
in the mast, lying out during the appointed season
of the year2, or within the circuit of his own inclo-
sures they exercised such simple manufactures as
the necessities of the household required. The spin-
ner and weaver, the glove- or shoemaker, the smith
and carpenter, were all parts of the family. The
butter and cheese, bread and bacon, were made at
home ; the beer was brewed and the honey collected
1 Wages of course need not comprise money, or be the result of a
compact between free parties. We pay a slave wages, though no penny
fee. It is a different question whether it is advisable that labourers
should be slaves : the Anglosaxons had their peculiar views on that
subject, which we are not to discuss now.
2 “ Alio quoque tempore, in adolescentia sua, dum adhuc esset in
populari vita, quando in montanis iuxta fluvium, quod dicitur Leder,
cum aliis pastoribus, pecora domini sui pascebat,” etc. Anon. CuiSberht,
cap. 8. (Beda, Op. Min. ii. 2G2.) “ Contigit eum remotis in montibus
Commissorum sibi pecorum agere custodiam.” Beda, CuiSb. c. 4. Op.
Min. ii. 5δ. The Hungarian Salas on the Pusta is much the same
thing, at the present day.