The name is absent

all 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 ge-
neral will of the settlers, and could only be enjoyed
under general regulations made by all for the be-
nefit 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 set-
tled might be fairly and equally secured for their
service and support; and from participation in
which they jealously excluded all who were not
bom, or adopted, into the association. Circum-
stances dependent upon the peculiar local confor-
mation 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 ¹ ; but with the custom of one
Mark, another had nothing to do, and the Mark-
men, 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 own

¹ For example in Manors, where the territorial jurisdiction of a lord
has usurped the place of ∣the old Markmoot, but not availed entirely to
destroy the old Mark-rights in the various commons.

advantage. The Court of the Markmen, as it may
be justly called, must have had supreme jurisdic-
tion, 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 consi-
derable precision; from these it maybe inferred
that in very many cases the later courts of the
great landowners had been in fact at first Mark-
courts, 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 ɪ. In this country, the want of materials
precludes the attainment of similar certainty, but
there can be no reason to doubt that the same pro-
cess 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 word mearcmôt, which can
there mean only the place where such a court, mot

^l Numerous instances may be found in Grimm’s valuable work, Die
Deutschen Weisthiimer, 3 vols. 8vo. These are the presentments or
verdicts of such courts, from a very early period, and in all parts of
Germany. It is deeply to be lamented that the very early customs
found in the copies of Court Rolls in England have not been collected
and published. Such a step could not possibly affect the interests of
Lords of Manors, or their Stewards ; but the collection would furnish
invaluable materials for law and history. We shall have to refer here-
after to the Advocatus or Vogt, the elected or hereditary patron of
these and similar aggregations.

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