Annals of the British Peasantry

erved to separate, socially as well as geographically, one manor from another. Though originally, of course, every yard of soil in this planet was the common property of the human race, portions of it soon came to be regarded as the peculiar property of those sections of the race which first established a title over them by the exercise of some right of ownership. Hence we arrive at the people's proprietary rights to the folcland considered as a whole, and at those of each separate village community to the outer portions of it, whenever such portions happened to be in contact with any area of cultivated soil. Let it be borne prominently in mind that the proprietary rights of the people over the land included nothing beyond the ownership of the ground itself, and that, on the necessity of organised protection arising, all magisterial powers were ceded to the central authority, in whose hands they rested until redistributed by it amongst the seigniorial class. At the period of England's history now under treatment, all such rights, if unappropriated, or undistributed, were vested in the Crown. Many of our constitutional lawyers, especially in mediaeval times, contended that the royal prerogative also included the title to everything over which neither the community nor the individual could exercise the rights of ownership. This important point we may, however, temporarily ignore, confining our attention entirely to the respective interests of lord and people in t... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.