those of mature strength, who have already been declared capable of service; nor do they blush to be seen in the rank of companions. For the state of companionship itself has several degrees, determined by the judgment of him whom they follow; and there is a great emulation among the companions, which shall possess the highest place in the favor of their chief; and among the chiefs, which shall excel in the number and valor of his companions. It is their dignity, their strength, to be always surrounded with a large body of select youth, an armament in peace, a bulwark in

war. . . .

"In the field of battle, it is disgraceful for the chief to be surpassed in valor; it is disgraceful for the companions not to equal their chief; but it is a reproach and infamy during a whole succeeding life to retreat from the field surviving him. To aid and to protect him, to place their own gallant actions to the account of his glory, is their first and most sacred engagement. The chiefs fight for victory; the companions for their chief. . . . The companion requires from the liberality of his chief the warlike steed, the bloody and conquering spear; and in place of pay he expects to be supplied with a table, homely indeed, but plentiful. The funds for this munificence must be found in war and rapine; nor are they so easily persuaded to cultivate the earth, and await the produce of the seasons, as to challenge the foe, and expose themselves to wounds; nay, they even think it base and spiritless to earn by sweat what they might purchase by blood." 1

1 Tacitus, Germania, chaps. 13 14.

The institution thus described was still in full flower in the Anglo-Saxon invasions of England almost four centuries later. One of the longest entries in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives this account of the desperate loyalty of a chief's companions, and incidentally gives a typical picture of Anglo-Saxon times:

A.D. 755. This year Cynewulf, with the consent of the West-Saxon council, deprived Sebright, his relative, for unrighteous deeds, of his kingdom, except Hampshire, which he retained, until he slew the alderman who remained the longest with him. Then Cynewulf drove him to the forest of Andred, where he remained until a swain stabbed him at Privett, and revenged the alderman, Cumbra. The same Cynewulf fought many hard battles with the Welsh; and about one and thirty winters after he had the kingdom, he was desirous of expelling a prince called Cyneard, who was the brother of Sebright. But he, having understood that the king was gone, thinly attended, on a visit to a lady at Merton, rode after him and beset him therein; surrounding the town without 'ere the attendants of the king were aware of him. When the king found this, he went out of doors, and defended himself with courage, till having looked on the etheling [i.e. Cyneard, who, as a prince of the royal family, was an etheling], he rushed out upon him and wounded him severely. Then were they all fighting against the king, until they had slain him. As soon as the king's thanes in the lady's bower heard the tumult, they ran to the spot,

whoever was then ready. The etheling immediately offered them life and rewards, which none of them would accept, but continued fighting together against him, till they all lay dead, except one British hostage, and he was severely wounded. When the king's thanes that were behind heard in the morning that the king was slain, they rode to the spot, Osric his alderman, and Wiverth his thane, and the men that he had left behind; and they met the etheling at the town, where the king lay slain. The gates, however, were locked against them, which they attempted to force; but he promised them their own choice of money and land, if they would grant him the kingdom, reminding them, that their relatives were already with him, who would never desert him. To which they answered that no relative could be dearer to them than their lord, and that they would never follow his murderer. Then they besought their relatives to depart from him, safe and sound. They replied, that the same request was made to their comrades that were formerly with the king; "And we are as regardless of the result," they rejoined, " as our comrades who with the king were slain." Then they continued fighting at the gates, till they rushed in, and slew the etheling and all the men that were with him, except one, who was the godson of the alderman, and whose life he spared, though he was often wounded. . . 1

1 J. Ingram, The Saxon Chronicle. London: 1823, pp. 69-71. The edition gives the Anglo-Saxon record and the English translation in parallel columns. The entry for the year 755, the greater portion of which is given above, is in marked contrast with most of the entries, which are usually brief mention of the accession of a king or of some ecclesiastical event.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DOCTRINE SAPPED BY THE

ECONOMISTS

It was agreed on all sides that if the Mark ever existed it was eventually suppressed by feudalism; the point of contention was whether it ever existed at all. In default of any clear evidence of its existence in England, the champions of the Mark were able to point to works of German scholars in which was accumulated a mass of evidence to the effect that the Mark was a Teutonic institution. That being the case it might be presumed that when the Anglo-Saxons settled in England they brought the Mark with them.

This situation gave great importance to an elaborate essay by Coulanges,' which appeared in the Revue des Questions Historiques, April, 1889. On the face of it, the essay did not appear to

1 Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges (1830-1889) was sent to the French school at Athens in 1853, where he carried on archaeological and historical studies, among whose fruits was the remarkable volume La Cité Antique (1864), succeeded by other works of profound scholarship, the principal one being his Histoire des Institutions Politiques de l'ancienne France, the first volume of which appeared in 1874. He was an exact and conscientious scholar, and his works are models of learning and sagacity associated with fine qualities of literary style.

attack the theory. All that Coulanges professed to do was to make an examination of the particulars which had been instanced as supplying evidence of the existence of the Mark. When he got through with his task he contented himself with asserting that the evidence adduced by the advocates of the Mark theory does not establish their case. But meanwhile his criticism had demolished the authorities upon which Kemble, Stubbs and Freeman had relied. Coulanges showed in minute detail that evidence cited as proof of the existence of the Mark as a tract of land held by a community of freemen, was really proof of the existence of private property, the term Mark, meaning primarily the boundary of such property, and in a derivative sense the property itself. Not only was there no proof of the existence of Mark assemblies or Mark courts, as agents of the community, but the evidence indicated that agriculture, which was admitted to have become a servile occupation under the feudal system, possessed that character as far back as it could be traced.

The points made by Coulanges were destructive of Freeman's theory. Freeman had fully admitted that the records of Anglo-Saxon times

1 "The Origin of Property in Land," English translation edited by W. J. Ashley, who supplied a valuable introductory essay, reviewing the whole field of controversy. London: Swann, Sonnenschein & Co., 1891.