50
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book i.
Christianity, which destroys or diminishes the
holiness of the forests, necessarily confines the gua-
rantee 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 Otherpart 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 re-
quire it. No longer necessary as a boundary, from
the moment when the smaller community has be-
come 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 appurte-
nant to private estates in a certain proportion to
the arable1 : towards the close of the tenth century
Ifindthegrant of a mill and millstead, “and there-
to as much of the markland as belongeth to three
hydes”2.
The general advantage which requires the main-
tenance of the Mark as public property, does not
however preclude the possibility of using it for
1 Most likely as commons are distributed, now, under enclosure-bills;
allotments being made in fee, as compensation for commonable rights.
2 And se myIenham 1 se myln ⅛⅛rto, ɜ ftæs mearclandes swâ mycel
swâ to prim hidon gebyratS. an. 982. Cod. Dipl. No. 633.
CH. H.]
THE MARK.
61
public 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 king-
doms, we know that a comprehensive military or-
ganization prevailed, with castles, garrisons, and
governors or Margraves, as in Austria, Branden-
burg and Baden, Spoleto and Ancona, Northum-
berland 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 occu-
pant, the essart again becomes forest, and, as such,
subject to all the common rights of the Markmen,
whether in pasture, chase or estovers1.
The sanctity of the Mark is the condition and
guarantee of its indivisibility, without which it can-
not long be proof against the avarice or ambition
1 JEstoveria. In this case, small wood necessary for household pur-
poses, as Housebote, Hedgebote and Ploughbote, the materials for re-
pairing house, hedge and plough. But timber trees are not included.
See Stat. West. 2. cap. 25; and 20 Car. ∏. c. 3.
E 2