Folk-land.]

[Sidenote: Saxon fiefs.]

This custom of an annual property probably continued amongst the Germans
as long as they remained in their own country; but when their conquests
carried them into other parts, another object besides the possession of
the land arose, which obliged them to make a change in this particular.
In the distribution of the conquered lands, the ancient possessors of
them became an object of consideration, and the management of these
became one of the principal branches of their polity. It was expedient
towards holding them in perfect subjection, that they should be
habituated to obey one person, and that a kind of cliental relation
should be created between them; therefore the land, with the slaves, and
the people in a state next to slavery, annexed to it, was bestowed for
life in the general distribution. When life-estates were once granted,
it seemed a natural consequence that inheritances should immediately
supervene. When a durable connection is created between a certain man
and a certain portion of land by a possession for his whole life, and
when his children have grown up and have been supported on that land, it
seems so great an hardship to separate them, and to deprive thereby the
family of all means of subsisting, that nothing could be more generally
desired nor more reasonably allowed than an inheritance; and this
reasonableness was strongly enforced by the great change wrought in
their affairs when life-estates were granted. Whilst according to the
ancient custom lands were only given for a year, there was a rotation so
quick that every family came in its turn to be easily provided for, and
had not long to wait; but the children of a tenant for life, when they
lost the benefit of their father's possession, saw themselves as it
were immured upon every side by the life-estates, and perceived no
reasonable hope of a provision from any new arrangement. These
inheritances began very early in England. By a law of King Alfred it
appears that they were then of a very ancient establishment: and as such
inheritances were intended for great stability, they fortified them by
charters; and therefore they were called Book-land. This was done with
regard to the possession of the better sort: the meaner, who were called
_ceorles_, if they did not live in a dependence on some thane, held
their small portions of land as an inheritance likewise,--not by
charter, but by a sort of prescription. Thi