who were very few in number, became the privileged class of the new States, and reduced the Britons to serfdom; a corroboration of this assumption may be found in the fact that the services of Celtic and Saxon peasantry are extremely alike.

It is more difficult to trace the influence of different races in the agrarian system, of which the township or manor is the unit. It is by comparing it with the forms in its immediate neighbourhood that one gets to understand its origin. The Roman organisation of husbandry and ownership on the basis of individualism is too well known to be described. In marked contrast with it stands the Celtic community, of which survivals were lingering for a long time in Ireland and Wales. Here the land is in the ownership of tribal groups: rights of individuals and families expand and collapse according to the requirements and decisions of the entire tribe; there is no hereditary succession, but every grown-up clansman has a claim to be endowed with a plot of land, and as a consequence of this, all land in separate possession is constantly liable to be divided by the tribal community. The Anglo-Saxon system is an intermediate stage between Roman individualism and Celtic communalism. No wonder that the Saxons, who at home followed a system closely resembling the Celtic, modified it when they got acquainted with Roman forms and entered into their Roman inheritance in Great Britain. The mixed organisation of the township was the result of the assimilation.