VILLAGE COMMUNITIES. The study of village corn munities has become one of the fundamental methods of dis cussing the ancient history of institutions. It will be sufficient to confine the present inquiry to the varieties presented by nations of Aryan race, not because greater importance is to be attached to these nations than to other branches of humankind, although this view might also be reasonably urged, but principally because the Aryan race in its history has gone through all sorts of ex periences, and the data gathered from its historical life can be tolerably well ascertained.
The best way seems to be to select some typical examples, chiefly from the domain of Celtic, Slavonic and Germanic social history, and to try to interpret them in regard to the general conditions in which communal institutions originate, grow and decay. As the principal problem will consist in ascertaining how far land was held in common instead of by individuals, it is advisable to look out for instances in which this element of holding in common is very clearly expressed. We ought to get, as it were, acclimatized to the mental atmosphere of such social arrangements in order to counteract a very natural but most pernicious bent prompting one to apply to the conditions of the past the key of our modern views and habitual notions. A certain acquaintance with the structure of Celtic society, more especially the society of ancient Wales, is likely to make clear from the outset to what extent the husbandry and law of an Aryan race may depend on institutions in which the individual factor is greatly reduced, while the union first of kinsmen and then of neighbours plays a most decisive part.
Seebohm called our attention to the interesting surveys of Welsh tracts of country made in the 14th century, soon after these regions passed into the hands of English lords. The fragments of these surveys published by him and his commentary on them are very illuminating, but further study of the documents them selves discloses many important details and helps to correct some theories propounded on the subject. Let us take up a concrete and simple case, e.g., the description of Astret Canon, a trey or
township (villata) of the honour of Denbigh, surveyed in 1334. In the time of the native Welsh princes it was occupied entirely by a kindred (progenies) of free tribesmen descended from a certain Canon, the son of Lawaurgh. The kindred was subdivided into four gavells or bodies of joint-tenants. On the half-gavell of Monryk ap Canon, e.g., there are no less than 16 coparceners, of whom eight possess houses. The peculiarity of this system of land tenure consists in the fact that all the tenants of these gavells derive their position on the land from the occupation of the township by their kindred, and have to trace their rights to shares in the original unit. Although the village of Astret Canon was occupied by something like 54 male tenants, the majority of whom were settled in houses of their own, it continued to form a unit both in regard to the payment of land tax and other services and payments, and also in respect of the possession and usage of the soil. On the other hand, movable property is owned in severalty. Services have to be apportioned among the members of the kindreds according to the number of heads of cattle owned by them. From the description of another township—Pireyon we hear that gavells ought to be considered as equal shares in respect of the arable, the wood and the waste of the township. If the shares were reduced into acres there would have fallen to each of the eight gavells of Pireyon 91ac., one rood and a half and six perches of arable and woodland, and 53iac. and half a rood of waste land. But as a matter of fact the rights of the tenants of the gavell were realized not through the appropriation of definite acres, but as proportionate opportunities in regard to tillage and as to usages in pasture, wood and waste. Pastoral habits must have greatly contributed to give the system of land holding its peculiar character. It was not necessary, it would have been even harmful, to subdivide sharply the area on which the herds of cows and the flocks of sheep and goats were grazing.