of 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 ceremo-
nies at first accompanied and consecrated its limi-
tation¹. What these may have consisted in, among
the heathen Anglosaxons, we cannot now discover,
but many circumstances render it probable that
Woden, who in this function also resembles 'Epμηc,
was the tutelary god² : though not absolutely to the
exclusion of other deities, Tiw and Frea appearing
to have some claim to a similar distinction³. 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 ⁴ : striking natural features,

¹ “ SiIvam auguriis patrum et prisca formidine sacram.” Tac. Germ.
39. See Moser, Osnabruckische Geschichte, i. 67, seq.

² 'Ep∕u⅛s, in this one sense Mercurius, is identical with Woden. Both
invented letters ; both are the wandering god ; both are Odysseus.
The name of Woden is preserved in many boundary places, or chains
of hills, in every part of England. See chap. xii. of this Book. The
Wonac (Cod. Dipl. No. 495), the Wonstoe (ibid. Nos. 287, 057), I
have no hesitation in translating by Woden’s oak, Woden’s post.
Scyldes treow (ibid. No. 436) may also refer to Woden in the form of
Scyld, as Unices J>orn (ibid. No. 268) may record the same god in his
form of Unicor, or Hnic.

³ Teowes horn, Tiw’s thorn. Cod. Dipl. No. 174. Tiwes mère, Tiw’s
lake. Ibid. No. 262. Erigedæges treow (ibid. No. 1221), the tree of
Frigedæg, a name I hold equit aient to Frea or Fricge.

⁴ The boundaries of the Anglosaxon charters supply a profusion of
evidence on this subject. The trees most frequently named are the
oak, ash, beech, thorn, elder, lime and birch. The heathen burial-
place or mound is singularly frequent. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 247, 335, 476.

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 impu-
nity. 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 to

The charter No. 126 has these words : “ Deinde vero ad alios monticu-
los, postea vero ad viam quae dicitur Fif ac, recto itinere ad easdeɪn fɪf
ac, proinde auteɪn ad J>reom gemæran.” Here the boundaries of
three several districts lay close to a place called Five Oaks. That the
trees were sometimes marked is clear from the entries in the bounda-
ries : thus, in the year 931, to tore gemearcodan sec æt Alerburnan,
the marked oak. Cod. Dipl. No. 1102. ‰ gemearcodan æfse, the
marked eaves or edge of the wood. Ibid. Also, on ‰ gemearcodan
Iindan. Ibid. No. 1317. Cyrstelmæl ас, or Christ cross oak. Ibid.
No. 118. At Addlestone, near Chertsey, is an ancient and most vene-
rable oak, called the Crouch (crux, crois), that is Cross oak, which
tradition declares to have been a boundary of Windsor forest. The
same thing is found in Circassia. See Bell, ii. 58. The mearcbeam,
without fuιther definition, is common : so the mearctreow. Cod. Dipl.
No. 436. Themearcbroc. Ibid. No. 1102. Artificialornaturalstone
posts are implied by the constantly recurring haran stanas, grægan
stanas, hoary or grey stones. Among Christians, crosses and obelisks
have replaced these old heathen symbols, without altering the nature
of the sanction, and the u>eichbild, or mark that defines the limits of a
jurisdiction, can, in my opinion, mean only the sacred sign. On this
point see Haltaus. Gloss, in voce, whose derivation from wfc, oppidum,
is unsatisfactory. See too Eichhorn, Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsge-
Schichte, ii. 76. § 224 a. note c : with whose decision Grimm and I
coincide.

<<   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   >>

More intriguing information