The boundaries, or marchæ.
First as to the whole territory or ager occupied by the village community or township. This, by the presentment of the homage of the Hitchin Manor, was described in the record by its boundaries—from such a place to such a place, and so on fill the starting-point was reached again.
In the 'gemæru' of the Saxon charters the same form was used.
In the 'marchæ' of the manors surrendered to the abbey of Lorsch in the seventh and eighth centuries, the same form was used in the Rhine valley.
It is, in fact, as we have seen, a form in use before the Christian era, and described by the Roman 'Agrimensores' as often adopted in recording the 'limites' of irregular territories, to which their rectangular centuriation did not extend.
Now, when we consider this method, it implies permanent settlements close to one another, where even the marshes or forests lying between them have been permanently divided by a fixed line, or it implies that a necessity has arisen to mark off the occupied territory from the ager publicus. It may have been derived from the rough and ready methods of marking divisions of tribe-land during the early and unsettled stages of tribal life. But the German settlements described by Tacitus seem to have been without defined boundaries. 'Agri' were taken possession of according to the number of the settlers, pro numero cultorum. Not till some outside influence compelled final settlement would the necessity for [p376] well-marked boundaries of territories arise. And we have seen that the evidence of local names strongly points to the Roman rule as this settling influence.
In the Lorsch charters the districts included within the 'marchæ' are often, as we have seen, called 'marks.'
III. THE THREE FIELDS, OR 'ZELGEN.'
The three fields.
Next as to the division of the arable land into fields—generally three fields[565]—representing the annual rotation of crops.