42
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i.
The word Mark has a legal as well as a territo-
rial 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, em-
ployed to denote not only the whole district occu-
pied by one small community1 ; but more especially
those forests and wastes by which the arable is en-
closed, and which separate the possessions of one
tribe from those of another 2. The Mark or boun-
dary pasture-land, and the cultivated space which
it surrounds, and which is portioned out to the se-
veral members of the community, are inseparable ;
ɪ If a man be emancipated, his lord shall still retain the right to his
mund and wergyld, sy ofer mearce tSær he wille, be he over the mark
wherever he may be, be he out of the district where he may. LI. Wihtr.
§ 8. Thorpe, i. 38.
2 Grimm is of opinion that the word Marc itself originally denoted
forest, and that the modern sense is a secondary one, derived from the
fact of forests being the signs or marks of communities. Deut. Granz-
alterthümer; Berl. 1844. There can be no doubt that forests were so :
in Old Norse the two ideas, and the words by which they are expressed,
flow into one another : Mdrk (f) is silva, Mark (n) is limes. In the
Edda and Sdgur, MyrkvitSr is the common name for a wood : thus,
sem i>essi her kom saman, ritSa J>eir a skog J>an er MyrkviiSr heitir,
hann skilr Hiinaland ok ReiiSgota land ; they ride to the forest which
is called MyrkvitSr (mearcwidu in Anglosaxon) which separates Huna
land from Reidgota land. Fornm. Sdg. i. 493. Though given here as
a proper name, it is unquestionably a general one. Conf. Edda, Vd-
lund. cv. 1.
meyjar flugu sunnan
myrkvitS igdgnum.
and so in many passages. The darkness of the forest gives rise also to
the adjective murky.
CH. ∏∙]
THE MARK.
43
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 original cognatio, 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 Anglo-
saxons Mearcgeneatas—had commonable rights ;
but there could be no private estate in it, no hid or
hlot, no κληpoc or Iiaeredium. Even if under pecu-
liar circumstances, any markman obtained a right
to essart or clear a portion of the forest, the por-
tion 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 espe-
cially consecrated to the habitation and service of
the deity1.
1 Tacitus says of the Semnones : “ Stato tempore in silvam, auguriis
patrum et prisca formidine sacram, omnes eiusdem sanguinis populi
Iegationibus coeunt, caesoque publice homine celebrant barbari ritus
horrenda primordia. Est et alia Iuco reverentia. Nemo nisi vinculo
ɪɪgatus ingreditur, ut minor, et potestatem numinis prae se ferens. Si
forte prolapsus est, attolli et insurgere baud Iicitum, per humum evol-