The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

I. THE TRIBAL SYSTEM IN IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.

The Welsh evidence brings us back to a period parallel with the Saxon era marking the date of King Ine's laws. The Welsh land system was then clearly distinguished from the Saxon by the absence of the manor with its village community in serfdom, and by the presence instead of it of the scattered homesteads (tyddyns) of the tribesmen and taeogs, grouped together for the purpose of the payment to the chief of the food-rents, or their money equivalents.

Further light may possibly be obtained from observation of the tribal system in a still earlier economic stage, though at a much later date, in Ireland.

Irish land divisions closely resemble the Welsh.

Now, first—without going out of our depth as we might easily do in the Irish evidence—it may readily be shown, sufficiently for the present purpose, that the system of land divisions, or rather of the grouping of homesteads into artificial clusters with arithmetical precision, was prevalent in Ireland outside the Pale as late as the times of Queen Elizabeth and [p215] James I., when an effort was made to substitute English for Irish customs and laws.

There are extant several surveys of parts of Ireland of that date in which are to be recognised arrangements of homesteads almost precisely similar to those of the Welsh Codes. And further, the names of the tenants being given, we can see that they were blood relations like the Welsh tribesmen, with a carefully preserved genealogy guarding the fact of their relationship and consequent position in the tribe.

The best way to realise this fact may be to turn to actual examples.

According to an inquisition[275] made of the county of Fermanagh in 1 James I. (1603), the county was found to be divided into seven equal baronies, the description of one of which may be taken as a sample.

Clusters of taths or tyddyns.

'The temporal land within this barony is all equally divided into 712 ballybetaghes [literally victuallers' towns,[276] or units for purposes of the food-rents like the Welsh trevs], each containing 4 quarters, each of those quarters containing 4 tathes [corresponding with the Welsh tyddyns], and each of those tathes aforesaid to be 30 acres country measure.'

Of 'spiritual lands' there are two parish churches, one having 4 quarters, the other 1 quarter.

Also there are 'other small freedoms containing small parcels of land, some belonging to the spiritualty, and others being part of the mensal lands allotted to Macgwire (the chief).'

This exactly corresponds with the arrangement for the purposes of the gwestva of the Welsh tyddyns in groups of 4 and 16, as in the Venedotian Code. [p216]

There is also a Survey of County Monaghan in 33 Elizabeth[277] (1591), in which the names of the holders of the tates in each bailebiatagh, or group of 16, are given. Thus, again, to take a single example,—

Example in Co. Monaghan.

Balleclonangre, a ballibeatach containing xvi. tates.
To Breine McCabe Fitz Alexander	5 tates.
To Edmond McCabe Fitz Alexander	1 tate.
To Cormocke McCabe	2 tates.
To Breine Kiagh McCabe	2 tates.
To Edmond boy, McCabe	1 tate.
To Rosse McCabe McMelaghen	1 tate.
To Gilpatric McCowla McCabe	1 tate.
To Toole McAlexander McCabe	1 tate.
To James McTirlogh McCabe	1 tate.
To Arte McMelaghlin Dale McMahon	1 tate.
	——
	16

A fresh survey of the same district was made by Sir John Davies in 1607;[278] the record for this same bailebiatagh is as follows:—

Patrick M'Brian M'Cabe being found by a jurythe legitimate son of Brian M'Cabe Fitz-Alexander,in demesne, 5 tates	1. Lissenarte.
	2. Cremoyle.
	3. Sharaghanadan.
	4. Nealoste.
	5. Tirehannely.
Patrick M'Edmond M'Cabe Fitz-Alexander, indemesne, 1 tate	6. Curleighe.
Cormock M'Cabe, in demesne, 2 tates	7. Aghenelogh.
	8. Derraghlin.
Rosse M'Arte Moyle, in demesne, 2 tates	9. Benage.
	10. Cowlerasack.
James M'Edmond boy M'Cabe, in demesne, 1 tate	11. Tollagheisce.
Colloe M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in demesne, 1 tate	12. Dromegeryne.
Patrick M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in regard thereis good hope of his honest deserts, and thatthe first patentee disclaimeth, in demesne, 1tate	13. Corevanane.
Toole M'Toole M'Alexander M'Cabe, in demesne,1 tate	14. Turrgher.
James M'Tirleogh M'Cabe, in demesne, 1 tate	15.
Brian M'Art Oge M'Mahowne, in demesne, 1 tate	16.

The tribesmen blood relations.

Now, by comparison it will be seen that at both dates there were sixteen tates in the bailebiatagh, and that the holders were evidently blood relations. In some cases the name of a son takes the place of his father (the genealogy being kept up), and in others new tenants appear.

The tates family holdings.

There is also reason to suppose that these tates were family homesteads (like the tyddyns of the Welsh 'family land'), with smaller internal divisions, and embracing a considerable number of lesser households. The fact that one person only is named as holding the tate, or the two tates, as the case may be, suggests that he is so named as the common ancestor or head of the chief household representing all the belongings to the tate. Within the tate the subdivision of land seems to have been carried to an indefinite extent. The following extract from Sir John Davies' report will probably give the best account of the actual and, to his eye, somewhat confused condition of things within the tates, as he found them. It relates to the county of Fermanagh, and is in the form of a letter to the Earl of Salisbury, dated 1607:[279]— [p218]

Sir John Davies' description of the septs.

For the several possessions of all these lands we took this course to find them out, and set them down for his lordship's information. We called unto us the inhabitants of every barony severally. . . We had present certain of the clerks or scholars of the country, who know all the septs and families, and all their branches, and the dignity[280] of one sept above another, and what families or persons were chief of every sept, and who were next, and who were of a third rank, and so forth, till they descended to the most inferior man in all the baronies; moreover, they took upon them to tell what quantity of land every man ought to have by the custom of their country, which is of the nature of gavelkind. Whereby, as their septs or families did multiply, their possessions have been from time to time divided and subdivided and broken into so many small parcels as almost every acre of land hath a several owner, which termeth himself a lord, and his portion of land his country: notwithstanding, as McGuyre himself had a chiefry over all the country, and some demesnes that did ever pass to him only who carried that title; so was there a chief of every sept who had certain services, duties, or demesnes, that ever passed to the tannist of that sept, and never was subject to division. When this was understood, we first inquired whether one or more septs did possess that barony which we had in hand. That being set down, we took the names of the chief parties of the sept or septs that did possess the baronies, and also the names of such as were second in them, and so of others that were inferior unto them again in rank and in possessions. Then, whereas every barony containeth seven ballibetaghs and a half, we caused the name of every ballibetagh to be written down; and thereupon we made inquiry what portion of land or services every man held in every ballibetagh, beginning with such first as had land and services; and after naming such as had the greatest quantity of land, and so descending unto such as possess only two taths; then we stayed, for lower we could not go,[281] because we knew the purpose of the State was only to establish such freeholders as are fit to serve on juries; at least, we had found by experience in the county of Monaghan that such as had less than two taths allotted to them had not 40s. freehold per annum ultra reprisalem; and therefore were not of competent ability for that service; and yet the number of freeholders named in the county was above 200.

Sir John Davies, in the same report, also gives a graphic description of the difficulty he had in [p219] obtaining from the aged Brehon of the district the roll on which were inscribed the particulars of the various holdings, including those on the demesne or mensal land of the chief.[282]

It is difficult to form a clear conception of what the tribes, septs, and families were, and what were their relations to one another. But for the present purpose it is sufficient to understand that a sept consisted of a number of actual or reputed blood relations, bearing the same family names, and bound together by other and probably more artificial ties, such as common liability for the payment of eric, or blood fines.

A curious example of what is virtually an actual sept is found in the State Papers of James I.

Example of a Cumberland sept.

In 1606 a sept of the 'Grames,' under their chief 'Walter, the gude man of Netherby,' being troublesome on the Scottish border, were transplanted from Cumberland to Roscommon; and in the schedule to the articles arranging for this transfer, it appears that the sept consisted of 124 persons, nearly all bearing the surname of Grame. They were divided into families, seventeen of which were set down as possessed of 20l. and upwards, four of 10l. and upwards, six of the poorer sort, six of no abilities, while as dependants there were four servants of the name of Grame, and about a dozen of irregular hangers on to the sept.[283]

The sept was a human swarm. The chief was the Queen Bee round whom they clustered. The territory occupied by a whole sept was divided [p220] among the inferior septs which had swarmed off it. And a sort of feudal relation prevailed between the parent and the inferior septs.

There can probably, on the whole, be no more correct view of the Irish tribal system in its essence and spirit than the simple generalisation made by Sir John Davies himself, from the various and, in some sense, inconsistent and entangled facts which bewildered him in detail.[284]

The chiefs and the tanists.

First, as regards the chiefs, whether of tribes or septs, and their demesne lands, he writes:[285]—

'1. By the Irish custom of tanistry the chieftains of every country and the chief of every sept had no longer estate than for life in their chieferies, the inheritance whereof did rest in no man. And these chieferies, though they had some portions of land allotted unto them, did consist chiefly in cuttings and coscheries and other Irish exactions, whereby they did spoil and impoverish the people at their pleasure. And when their chieftains were dead their sons or next heirs did not succeed them, but their tanists, who were elective, and purchased their elections by show of hands.'

Division of holdings among tribesmen.

Next, as to tribesmen and their inferior tenancies:—

'2. And by the Irish custom of gavelkind the inferior tenancies were partible amongst all the males of the sept; and after partition made, if any one of the sept had died his portion was not divided among his sons, but the chief of the sept made a new partition of all the lands belonging to that sept, and gave every one his part according to his antiquity.'

The 'shuffling and changing' and frequent redistributions.

These two Irish customs (Sir John Davies continues) made all their possessions uncertain, being shuffled and changed and removed so often from one to another, by new elections and partitions, 'which uncertainty of estates hath been the true cause of desolation and barbarism in this land.' [p221]

These were obviously the main features of an earlier stage of the tribal system than we have seen in Wales. It was the system which fitted easily into the artificial land divisions and clusters of homesteads. And this method of clustering homesteads, in its turn, not only facilitated, but even made possible those frequent redistributions which mark this early stage of the tribal system.

The method of artificial clustering was apparently widely spread through Ireland, as we found it in the various divisions of Wales.

The system ancient

It also was ancient; for according to an early poem, supposed by Dr. Sullivan[286] to belong 'in substance though not in language to the sixth or seventh century,' Ireland was anciently divided into 184 'Tricha Céds' (30 hundreds [of cows]), each of which contained 30 bailes (or townlands); 5,520 bailes in all.

The baile or townland is thus described:—

'A baile sustains 300 cows,

Four full herds therein may roam.

and pastoral.

The poem describes the bailes (or townlands) as divided into 4 quarters, i.e. a quarter for each of the 4 herds of 75 cows each.

Ballys and quarters.

The poem further explains that the baile or townland was equal to 12 'seisrighs' (by some translated 'plough-lands'), and that the latter land measure is 120 acres,[287] making the quarter equal to three 'seisrighs' [p222] or 360 acres. But this latter mode of measurement is probably a later innovation introduced with the growth of arable farms. The old system was division into quarters, and founded on the prevalent pastoral habits of the people. In the earliest records Connaught is found to be divided into ballys, and the ballys into quarters, which were generally distinguished by certain mears and bounds.[288] The quarters were sometimes called 'cartrons,' but in other cases the cartron was the quarter of a quarter, i.e. a 'tate.' O'Kelly's county in 1589 was found to contain 66512 quarters of 120 acres each.[289]

Lastly, it may be mentioned that in the re-allotment of the lands in Roscommon to the sept of the Grames on their removal from Cumberland each family of the better class was to receive a quarter of land containing 120 acres.[290]

The system in Scotland

The evidence as regards Scotland is scanty, but Mr. Skene, in his interesting chapter on 'the tribe in Scotland,' has collected together sufficient evidence to show that the tribal organisation in the Gaelic districts was closely analogous to that in Ireland.[291]

and in the Isle of Man.

There are also indications that the Isle of Man was anciently divided into ballys and quarters.[292] [p223]

The old tribal division of the ballys into 'quarters' and 'tates' has left distinct and numerous traces in the names of the present townlands in Ireland.

Annexed is an example of an ancient bally divided into quarters. It is taken from the Ordnance Survey of county Galway. Two of the quarters, now townlands, still bear the names of 'Cartron' and 'Carrow,' or 'Quarter,' as do more than 600 townlands in various parts of Ireland.[293] This example will show that the quarters were actual divisions.

Scattered over the bally were the sixteen 'tates' or homesteads, four in each quarter; and in some counties—Monaghan especially—they are still to be traced as the centres of modern townlands, which bear the names borne by the 'tates' three hundred years ago, as registered in Sir John Davies' survey. There is still often to be found in the centre of the modern townland the circular and partly fortified enclosure[294] where the old 'tate' stood, and the lines of the present divisions of the fields often wind themselves round it in a way which proves that it was once their natural centre.

Moreover, the names of the 'tates' still preserved in the present townlands bear indirect witness to the [p224] reality of the old tribal redistributions and shiftings of the households from one 'tate' to another. They seldom are compounded of personal names. They generally are taken from some local natural feature. The homestead was permanent. The occupants were shifting.

Again, an example taken from the Ordnance Survey—from county Monaghan—will most clearly illustrate these points, and help the reader to appreciate the reality of the tribal arrangements.

In the survey of the barony of 'Monoughan' [295] made in 1607, the 'half ballibetogh called Correskallie' is described as containing eight 'tates,' the Irish names of which are recorded. They are given below, and an English translation of the names is added[296] in brackets to illustrate their peculiar and generally non-personal character.

In the half ballibetogh called Correskallie (Round Hill of theStory-tellers)—
4 tates	Corneskelfee (? Correskallie).
	Correvolen (Round Hill of the Mill).
	Corredull (Round Hill of the Black Fort).
	Aghelick (Field of the Badger).
4 tates	Dromore (the Great Ridge).
	Killagharnane (Wood of the Heap).
	Fedowe (Black Wood).
	Clonelolane (Lonan's Meadow).

A reduced map of this ancient 'half-ballibetogh,' as it appears now on the large Ordnance Survey, is appended, in which the names of the old 'tates' appear, with but little change, in the modern townlands. The remains of the circular enclosures [p225] marking the sites of the old 'tates' are still to be traced in one or two cases. The acreage of each townland is given on the map in English measures. It will be remembered that in Monaghan 60 Irish acres were allotted to each tate instead of the usual 30.

Example of an ancient 'Bally' or 'Townland' still divided into 'Quarters' which are now called 'Townlands,' taken from sheet 103 of the Ordnance Survey of Co. Galway.
Map of the 'Half-bally' of Correskallie Co. Monaghan.

See Larger: [Bally]
[Half-bally]
Go to: [List of Illustrations]

This evidence will be sufficient to prove that the arithmetical clustering of the homesteads was real, and that, as in Wales, so in Ireland, under the tribal system the homesteads were scattered over the country, and not grouped together in villages and towns.[297]

Passing to the methods of agriculture, it is obvious, that, even in a pastoral state, the growth of corn cannot be wholly neglected. We have seen that in Wales there was agriculture, and that, so far as it extended, the ploughing was conducted on an open-field system, and by joint-ploughing.

It was precisely so also in Ireland, and it had been from time immemorial.

Open fields.

It is stated in the 'Book of the Dun Cow' (Lebor na Huidre), compiled in the seventh century by the Abbot of Clanmacnois, known to us in an Irish MS. of the year 1100, that 'there was not a ditch, nor fence, nor stone wall round land till came the period of the sons of Aed Slane [in the seventh century], but only smooth fields.' Add to this the passage pointed out by Sir H. S. Maine[298] in the 'Liber Hymnorum' (a MS. probably of the eleventh century), viz.— [p226]

'Very numerous were the inhabitants of Ireland at this time [the time of the sons of Aed Slane in the seventh century], and their number was so great that they only received in the partition 3 lots of 9 ridges [immaire] of land, namely 9 ridges of bog land, 9 of forest, and 9 of arable land.'

The run-rig or Rundale system in Ireland and Scotland.

Taking those two passages together, and noting that the word for 'ridges' (immaire) is the same word (imire, or iomair[299]) now used in Gaelic for a ridge of land, and that the recently remaining system of strips and balks in Ireland and Scotland is still known as the 'run-rig' system, it becomes clear that whatever there was of arable land in any particular year lay in open fields divided into ridges or strips.

There are, further, some passages in the Brehon Laws which show that at least among the lower grades of tribesmen there was joint-ploughing. And this arose not simply from 'joint-tenancy' of undivided land by co-heirs,[300] but from the fact that the tribesmen of lower rank only possessed portions of the requisites of a plough,[301] just as was the case with Welsh tribesmen and the Saxon holders of yard-lands.

There can be little doubt, therefore, that we must picture the households of tribesmen occupying the four 'tates' in each 'quarter' as often combining to produce the plough team, and as engaged to some extent in joint-ploughing. [p227]

At first, what little agriculture was needful would be, like the Welsh 'coaration of the waste,' the joint-ploughing of grass land, which after the year's crop, or perhaps three or four years' crop, would go back into grass.[302] But it would seem from the passage quoted above, that the whole quarter of normally 120 Irish acres was at first divided into 'ridges'—possibly Irish acres—to facilitate the allotment among the households not only of that portion which was arable for the year, but also of the shares in the bog and the forest. No doubt originally there was plenty of mountain pasture besides the thirty, or sometimes sixty scattered acres or ridges allotted in [p228] 'run-rig' to each 'tate' or household. In the seventh century, as we have seen, the complaint was made that the pressure of population had reduced the shares to twenty-seven ridges instead of thirty.

Finally, when we examine in the Highlands of Scotland as well as in Ireland the still remaining custom known as the 'Rundale' or 'run-rig' system, whereby a whole townland or smaller area is held in common by the people of the village, and shared among them in rough equality by dividing it up into a large number of small pieces, of which each holder takes one here and another there; we see before us in Scotland as in Ireland a survival of that custom of scattered ownership which belonged to the open-field system all the world over; whilst we mark again the absence of the yard-land, which was so constant a feature of the English system. The method is even applied to potato ground, where the spade takes the place of the plough; and thus instead of the strip, or acre laid out for ploughing, there is the 'patch' which so often marks the untidy Celtic townland.

Existing maps of townlands, whilst showing very clearly the practice still in vogue of subdividing a holding by giving to each sharer a strip in each of the scattered parcels of which the old holding consisted, hardly retain traces of the ancient division of the whole 'quarter' into equal ridges or acres. But they show very clearly the scattered ownership which has been so tenaciously adhered to, along with the old tribal practice of equal division among male heirs. An example of a modern townland is annexed, which will illustrate these interesting points. The confusion it presents will also illustrate the inherent [p229] incompatibility in a settled district of equal division among heirs with anything like the yard-land, or bundle of equal strips handed down unchanged from generation to generation.

Example of divisions and holdings in a Townland on the Run-rig system, Extracted from Report of Devon Commission, see Lord Dufferin's 'Irish Emigration & Tenure.'

This townland contains 205 acres now occupied in 422 lots, by 29 tenants 3 of whose scattered holdings are shown in different colors.

See [Larger].
Go to: [List of Illustrations]

Mr. Skene, in his interesting chapter on the 'Land Tenure in the Highlands and Islands,' [303] has brought together many interesting facts, and has drawn a vivid picture of local survivals of farming communities pursuing their agriculture on the run-rig system, and holding their pasture land in common. And the traveller on the west coast of Scotland cannot fail to find among the crofters many examples of modified forms of joint occupation in which the methods of the run-rig system are more or less applied even to newly leased land at the present time.

Thus whilst the tribal system seems to be the result mainly of the long-continued habits of a pastoral people, it could and did adapt itself to arable agriculture, and it did so on the lines of the open field system in a very simple form, extemporised wherever occasion required, becoming permanent when the tribe became settled on a particular territory.

The Irish tribal system in an earlier stage than the Welsh.

Returning now to the main object of the inquiry we seem, in the perhaps to some extent superficial and too simple view taken by Sir John Davies of the Irish tribal arrangements, to have found what we sought—to have got a glimpse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of an earlier stage in the working of the tribal system than we get in Wales nearly 1,000 years earlier. In this stage the land in theory was still in tribal ownership, its redistribution among the tribesmen [p230] was still frequent, and arable agriculture was still subordinate to pasture. Lastly, the arithmetical clustering of the homesteads was the natural method by which the frequent redistributions of the land were made easy; while the run-rig form of the open-field system was the natural mode of conducting a co-operative and shifting agriculture.

But whilst gaining this step, and resting upon it for our present purpose, we must not be blind to the fact that in another way the Irish system had become more developed and more complex than the Welsh.

Sir John Davies sometimes dwells upon the fact that the chief was in no true sense the lord of the county, and the tribesmen in no true sense the freeholders of the land. The land belonged to the tribe. But, as we have seen, he found also that, as in Wales, the chiefs and sub-chiefs had, as a matter of fact, rightly or wrongly, gradually acquired a permanent occupation of a certain portion of land—so many townlands—which, using the English manorial phrase, he speaks of as 'in demesne.' Upon these the chief's immediate followers, and probably bondservants, lived, like the Welsh taeogs, paying him food-rents or tribute very much resembling those of the taeogs.

The complications described in the Brehon Laws.

This land, as we have seen, he calls 'mensal land,' probably translating an Irish term; and we are reminded at once of the Welsh taeog-land in the Register trevs, which also, from the gifts of food, was called in one of the Welsh laws 'mensal land.'

Further, besides these innovations upon the ancient simplicity of the tribal system, there had evidently, and perhaps from early times, grown up artificial relationships, founded upon contract, or even [p231] fiction, which, so to speak, ran across and complicated very greatly the tribal arrangements resting upon blood relationship. This probably is what makes the Brehon laws so bewildering and apparently inconsistent with the simplicity of the tribal system as in its main features it presented itself to Sir John Davies.

The loan of cattle by those tribesmen (Boaires) who had more than enough to stock their proper share of the tribe land to other tribesmen who had not cattle enough to stock theirs, in itself introduced a sort of semi-feudal, or perhaps semi-commercial dependence of one tribesman upon another. Tribal equality, or rather gradation of rank according to blood relationship, thus became no doubt overlaid or crossed by an actual inequality, which earlier or later developed in some sense into an irregular form of lordship and service. Hence the complicated rules of 'Saer' and 'Daer' tenancy. There were perhaps also artificial modes of introducing new tribesmen into a sept without the blood relationship on which the tribal system was originally built. These complications may be studied in the Brehon laws, as they have been studied by Sir Henry Maine and Mr. Skene, and the learned editors of the 'Laws' themselves; but, however ancient may be the state of things which they describe, they need not detain us here, or prevent our recognising in the actual conditions described by Sir John Davies the main features of an earlier stage of the system than is described in the ancient Welsh laws.