Publications. Historical Series Volume 7 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 9 FOLKLAND. Was There A " Public Land " Among The Anglo-saxons ? Following Allen,1 and along with all the scholars who have dealt with this question after Allen,2 up to but Mistake of excluding Mr. Vinogradoff, Stubbs in the AUen earlier editions of his book, gave to the Anglo-Saxon expression folk-land the meaning of " land of the people," ager publicus, and expounded a whole theory of this alleged institution. In 1893, Mr. Vinogradoff showed decisively that Allen was mistaken.3 To this conclusive refutation Mr. Maitland, in 1897, added new arguments; he adopted, reproduced and completed it in a chapter of his Domesday Book and Beyond.4 Stubbs was evidently acquainted with the works of these two great jurists, although he does not expressly Attitude of quote them; in the last edition of his Stubbs Constitutional History he alludes to the new explanation of the word folkland, given by " legal antiquaries," 6 and has even obviously altered some passages of his work, in which he spoke incidentally offolkland.1 But his readers may ask themselves whether he accepts the opinion of Professors Vinogradoff and Maitland or no even as regards the meaning of the word. For, in several other passages, he lets the older interpretation of Allen 2 stand; elsewhere he tells us that " the change of learned opinion as to the meaning of folkland involves certain alterations in the terminology, but does not seem to militate against the idea of the public land;" 3 and he maintains his theory on the Anglo-Saxon ager publicus, when in reality it is impossible to admit its existence, if we adopt the conclusions of Mr. Vinogradoff on the meaning of the word folkland, as we are bound to do. An extraordinary confusion results from this hesitation of Stubbs, which, in view of the great and...