ABSTRACT
The question of the origin of the English manor, however abstract and academic it may at first appear, is in reality one of the most interesting of all social topics. When the manor is clearly distinguished as a social factor in the historical period, it always involves two elements—the seigneurial and the communal, the lord on the one hand, and on the other his dependants, who do their work and hold their land in common. The question, therefore, at once arises as to which of these two elements is the older ? Is the manor the result of the subjection of an originally free community to an overlord, or was there always, even in the beginnings of social life, a dependent and servile population who tilled the land for the benefit of others? According as history decides one way or the other, it will influence our views on the land question in general, including the discussions even of the present day. From one point of view we shall be inclined to think that the present system of private property in land is the system which, in one form or another, has existed from the beginning, and is the outcome of social forces which have their justification in the earliest pages of history. From another point of view we may hold that property in land did not exist at all in early times, but that the land was held in common for the good of all, while the ownership of it was vested only in the nation, so that the present system of private ownership is the degenerate outcome of centuries of appropriation of common property by individuals, whose title to it was in many cases more or less doubtful. Hence reformers like Henry George maintain that we ought to revert to common ownership of land as being the only natural condition and basis of social and economic life, though, on the other hand, so great an authority as Sir Henry Maine has declared that the change from common to private ownership is the sign of an advancing civilisation. Whatever view we hold, it is obvious that the question of the origin of the manor and of property in land is of more than usual interest.
