The Foundations of Society and the Land A Review of the Social Systems of the Middle Ages in Britain, Their Growth and Their Decay: with a Special Reference to Land User, Supplemented by Some Observations on the Connection with Modern Conditions By J. W. Jeudwine, L.L.B., F.R.Hist.S. of Lincolns Inn, Barrister-at-Law Batoche Books Kitchener 2001 John Wynne Jeudwine (1852–1929) Originally published by Williams & Norgate 14 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C. 2, London 1918. This edition published 2001 by Batoche Books Limited 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada email: [email protected] Contents Preface ............................................................................................... 7 Part I: The Links with the past ......................................................... 18 Chapter I: Social Ideals and Historical Facts ................................. 18 Chapter II: The Twelfth Century. Looking Backward ................... 28 Chapter III: The Account of the Communal Society by Tacitus .... 39 Chapter IV: The Early Transition Stages ....................................... 49 Part II: The Social Systems of the Middle Ages .............................. 60 Chapter V: The Customs of Feudal Society ................................... 60 Chapter VI: The Contrast of the Communal Society. .................... 76 Chapter VII: The Contrast of the Communal Society. — Continued. .83 Chapter VIII: The Communal Society. — Continued. ................... 93 Chapter IX: The Communal Society — Continued. .................... 102 Chapter X: The Privileges and Duties of the Chief. ......................115 Part III: The Holding and Transfer of Land in Medieval Society. 122 Chapter XI: Foreign Examples. Incorporeal Rights. Various English Tenures. ................................................................................... 122 Chapter XII: The Norse Tenures. The Unfenced Waste. Easements. 131 Chapter XIII: Alienation and Inheritance. .................................... 138 Chapter XIV: Alienation and Inheritance. — Continued. ............ 150 Part IV: The Use of the Land by the Community. .......................... 162 Chapter XV: Waste of Forest. Wild Animals. .............................. 162 Chapter XVI: The Waste. Tame Animals. Dogs and Hawks ....... 181 Chapter XVII: The Waste. Timber. The By-products. The Regula- tions of the Waste. ................................................................... 190 Chapter XVIII: The Dealings of the Chief with the Waste. ......... 205 Chapter XIX: Medieval Agriculture. ........................................... 218 4/John Wynne Jeudwine Part V: The Rights of the Small Holder in the Waste..................... 226 Chapter XX: Stock-Breedin and Corn-Growing Conflict. ........... 226 Chapter XXI: Driving out the Small Freeholder. Easements. ...... 237 Chapter XXII: Enclosures in England. ........................................ 250 Chapter XXIII: The Communal Society in Scotland. The Township Farm. ....................................................................................... 265 Part VI: Scotland, Ireland, and Wales a Historical Retrospect. ..... 278 Chapter XXIV: Scotland and Ireland to 1170. ............................. 278 Chapter XXV: Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to the Capture of William the Lion. ..................................................................... 295 Chapter XXVI: The Islands From the Capture Op William the Lion to the Death of the Maid of Norway. ....................................... 302 Chapter XXVII: The Barons’ War in Scotland. ........................... 312 Chapter XXVIII: Communal and Feudal Society in Ireland to 1367 324 Part VII: The Affairs of Britain, France, and Flanders in the Four- teenth Century.......................................................................... 332 Chapter XXIX: Feudal Society at Maturity. The Wars of Edward III. The War of the Three Joans............................................... 332 Chapter XXX: The Subject Continued. ....................................... 344 Part VIII: The Decay of the Communal Society. Political Causes. 357 Chapter XXXI: The Ruin of Ireland. ........................................... 357 Chapter XXXII: The Ruin of Ireland. — Continued. .................. 367 Chapter XXXIII: The Ruin of Ireland. — Continued. ................. 378 Chapter XXXIV: The Plantations. ............................................... 390 Part IX: The Decay of the Communal Society. Economic Causes. 409 Chapter XXXV: The Chief Influences of Change. The Interference of Politics. ............................................................................... 409 Chapter XXXVI: Economic Causes in Western Scotland. ........... 422 Chapter XXXVII: A Conclusion. Some Observations. ................ 436 Appendices ..................................................................................... 449 A Few Abbreviations Used Cited as Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, edited by Benjamin Thorpe Thorpe. Ancient Laws of Ireland. A.L. Irel. Ancient Laws of Wales: Venedotian, Gwentian, and Dimetian Codes, and Anomalous Laws, edited by Aneurin Owen. A.L.W.: Ven., Dim., Gwent., Anom. Leges Henrici Primi, from Thorpe L.H.P, Orkneyinga Saga (Rolls Series). O.S Pollock and Maitland’s History of English Law P. and M. Records of the Earldom of Orkney, edited by J. Storer Clouston. Clouston. Select Pleas of the Crown, Forest, and Manorial Courts, Selden Society’s Publications. S.P.C., S.P. For., 8.P. Man. Le Tres Ancien Coutumier de Normandie, edited by M. Tardif. T.A.C.N. The Year Books of Edward I, II, and III Y.B. Edw. I, II, and III. Preface We are promised by the Minister of Education new movement in the instruction of young people; revision of methods; rearrangement of sub- jects. One likes to think of the possibilities: better payment of teachers, though that is unlikely; a general destruction of school manuals for the benefit of publishers; English and Spanish and Tamil to be taught in our Universities; Greek to be brought into the elementary schools in view of a possible strike from neurasthenia and the prevalence of the cinema; such a general advance, in fact, that after the war our young people will capture, by their knowledge of languages and their commercial fitness, the German trade in South America and East Africa. I wish to enter a plea for one little neglected corner of this field of instruction, the teaching of history. I must define what is generally meant by history as it is taught in our schools. You may remember that Parson Thwackum, arguing with Philosopher Square that there was no honour antecedent to religion, undoubtedly a true proposition, was driven to admit that by religion he meant the Christian religion, by Christian the Protestant religion, and by Protestant the religion of the Church of En- gland. In like manner, by “history” as taught in our schools is intended British history, by British almost always English history, and by En- glish Constitutional history, and by Constitutional the account of the changes in the course of development of one particular form of govern- ment peculiar to England alone, which have been found convenient or which have resulted from the struggle of opposed interests in past days. This study is enlivened by language culled from anonymous writers on kings, priests, and others whose actions do not fit in with the growth of the form, and by assumptions of motives derived from similar sources. There is a very great difficulty which faces anyone who criticises 8/John Wynne Jeudwine the teaching of such matter in our schools, namely, that for the most part the writers who prepare the books from which the young are taught are not free agents. They must write to meet certain syllabi upon which examinations are founded. It is useless for the compiler to insert any- thing which is not part of the syllabus, as that would mean enlarging or improving the minds of the pupils instead of enabling them to answer the questions on the examination paper. The evil is especially noticeable in historical teaching, and is a very great one, many-sided. I wish to point out some aspects of this evil, which I will illustrate from two histories which, to avoid personalities, I will call A and B. A is an exhaustive higher history, not dealing exclu- sively with England, a history universally praised, holding a first rank among the best modern school-books. I quote from the eleventh edition in 1912. B, published also in 1912, is a work on English history, written by a professor in a university, and, what is really important, put forward by a most progressive firm of publishers. The various forms of government are an instructive study; a survey of their varieties, of the philosophy of rule, would be a liberal education in itself, though the mind solely occupied by such a study would lift only one corner of the curtain. But no such study is put forward here. English Constitutional history, as it is taught in our schools, presupposes an absolute, unyielding superiority over all others of the one form of gov- ernment which, as a compromise from time to time of opposed interests in the economic progress of the people, has fortuitously come about. It concerns itself with the glorification of that one form, imagining it to be an attribute of race, an importation made from Germany by a mythical people called the Anglo-Saxons. These books do not offer to lay open to discussion, they make no effort that their readers should understand, the claims which might be made for government