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CHAPTER IV.
LANDED POSSESSION. THE EDEL, HI1D OR ALOD.
Possession of a certain amount of land in the di-
strict was the indispensable condition of enjoying
the privileges and exercising the rights of a free-
man ɪ. There is no trace of such a qualification as
1 Even till the latest period., personal property was not reckoned in
the distinction of ranks, although land was. No amount of mere chat-
tels, gold, silver, or goods, could give the Saxon franchise. See the
ordinance Be Wergyldum, § 10. Be GebincSum, § 2. Thorpe, i. 189,
191. This is a fundamental principle of Teutonic law : “ Ut nullum
liberum sine mortali crimine Iiceat inservire, nec de haereditate sua ex-
pellere ; sed Iiberi, qui iustis Iegibus deserviunt, sine impedimento hae-
reditates suas possideant. Quamvis pauper sit, tamen Iibertatem suam
non perdat, nec haereditatem suam, nisi ex spontanea voluntate, se
alicui tradere voluerit, hoc potestateɪn habeat faciendi.” Lex Alam.
Tit. I. cap. 1. Lex Baiovar. Tit. 6. cap. 3. § 1. Eichhorn, i. 328,
note d. Loss of land entailed loss of condition in England, long after
the establishment of Ourpresent social system. A beautiful passage to
this effect occurs in the play of “A Woman killed with kindness” : a
gentleman refuses to part with his last plot of ground, on this account :
“ Alas, alas ! ,t is all trouble hath left me
To cherishe me and my poor sister’s life.
If this were sold, our names should then be quite
Razed from the bedroll of gentility.
You see what hard shift we have made to keep it
Allied still to our own name. This palm, you see,
Labour hath glow’d within ; her silver brow,
That never tasted a rough winter’s blast
Without a mask or fan, doth with a grace
Defy cold winter and his storms outface ! ”
CH. IV.]
THE EDEL, HED OR ALOD.
89
constituted citizenship at Athens or Rome : among
our forefathers, the exclusive idea of the city had
indeed no sway. They formed voluntary associa-
tions upon the land, for mutual benefit ; the quali-
fication by birth, as far as it could be of any im-
portance, was inferred from the fact of admission
among the community ; and gelondan, orthose who
occupied the same land, were taken to be connected
in blood ɪ. An inquiry into the pedigree of a man
who presented himself to share in the perils of the
conquest or the settlement, would assuredly have
appeared superfluous ; nor was it more likely to be
made, when secure enjoyment came to reward the
labours of invasion. In fact the Germanic settle-
ments, whether in their origin isolated or collective,
are based throughout upon the idea of common
property in land. It is not the city, but the coun-
try, that regulates their form of life and social in-
stitutions : as Tacitus knew them, they bore in ge-
neral the character of disliking cities : “ It is well
enough known,” he says, “ that none of the Ger-
man populations dwell in cities; nay that they
will not even suffer continuous building, and house
joined to house. They live apart, e¾ch by himself,
as the woodside, the plain or the fresh spring at-
tracted him ”2. Thus the Germanic community is
in some sense adstricta glebae, bound to the soil :
* In MS. glossaries we find gelondan rendered Vy fratrueles. In ad-
vanced periods only can there he a distinction between the family, and
the local, distributions : Suidas, citing Xanthus, says the Lydians made
a solemn supplication to the gods, πaγγevel те κaι πavbημtL See Nie-
buhr on the Patrician Houses, i. 267.
a Mor. Germ, c< 16.