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CHAPTER III.
THE GA' OR SC1'R.
Next in order of constitution, if not of time, is the
union of two, three or more Marks in a federal
bond for purposes of a religious, judicial or even
political character. The technical name for such
a union is in Germany, a Gau or Bant1; in Eng-
land the ancient name Ga has been almost univer-
sally superseded by that of Scir or Shire. For the
most part the natural divisions of the country are
the divisions also of the Ga ; and the size of this
depends upon such accidental limits as well as upon
the character and dispositions of the several collec-
tive bodies which we have called Marks.
The Ga is the second and final form of unsevered
possession ; for every larger aggregate is but the re-
sult of a gradual reduction of such districts, under
a higher political or administrative unity, different
only in degree and not in kind from what prevailed
individually in each. The kingdom is only a larger
Ga than ordinary ; indeed the Ga itself was the
original kingdom.
But the unsevered possession or property which
1 Less usual are Eiba and Para. The Norse Herrad may in some
sense be compared with these divisions.
CH. ɪn.]
THE GA' OR SCΓR.
73
we thus find in the Ga is by no means to be consi-
dered in the same light as that which has been de-
scribed in the Mark. The inhabitants are settled
as Markmen, not as Ga-men : the cultivated land
which lies within the limits of the larger commu-
nity is all distributed into the smaller ones.
As the Mark contained within itself the means of
doing right between man and man, i. e., its Mark-
mot; as it had its principal officer or judge, and
beyond a doubt its priest and place of religious ob-
servances, so the County, Scir or Ga had all these
on a larger and more imposing scale ; and thus it
was enabled to do right between Mark and Mark,,
as well as between man and man, and to decide
those differences the arrangement of which trans-
cended the powers of the smaller body. If the
elders and leaders of the Mark could settle the
mode of conducting the internal affairs of their dis-
trict, so the elders and leaders of the Ga (the same
leading markmen in a corporate capacity) could
decide upon the weightier causes that affected the
whole community; and thus the Stirgemot or
Shiremoot was the completion of a system of which
the Mearcmot was the foundation. Similarly, as
the several smaller units had arrangements on a cor-
responding scale for divine service, so the greater
and more important religious celebrations in which
all the Marks took part, could only be performed
under the auspices and by the authority of the Ga.
Thus alone could due provision be made for sacri-
fices which would have been too onerous for a small
and poor district, and an equalization of burthens