of time, and the power of devising hereditary property by will was strictly restrained. Traces of common fields cultivated on the threefold system, and of customary cultivation, are still to be found in England, and were plentiful in the last century. [Sidenote: German institutions.] [Sidenote: Division of ranks.] [Sidenote: The Comitatus.] [Sidenote: Growth of feudalism.] But though this system would appear to have been common in nations of Germanic origin, it can be gathered from the Germania of Tacitus that other political institutions existed in Germany. Thus, the subdivisions of the Tribe were called Pagi, which seem to answer to the English Hundred. The Pagus was under the official chieftainship of an elective head called the Princeps, answering to the Saxon Ealdorman. This Pagus, which may perhaps have been originally a division of a hundred heads of families, supplied a hundred warriors to the host, a hundred assessors at the Judicial Court of the Princeps. Below this we come to the Vicus or township, which was probably organized upon the Mark system above described, or on some modification of it. The commanders in war, or Duces, were elected, probably from among the Principes, for each special occasion. It is, moreover, clear that private property had begun to exist. In pastoral life, where the common right of grazing would be the chief common privilege, there would be no difficulty in one man possessing more cattle than another. Neither would it be a great step to grant to such wealthier men, upon the redivision of the common arable mark, extra shares for the support of slaves or dependent freemen whom his wealth had attracted around him. There also existed a variety of ranks, which may be roughly divided into three classes,--the noble or _eorl_, who must have owed his nobility to birth; the freeman or _ceorl_, possessing his own homestead, his own share in the common land, and dependent on no man; and the _læt_ or dependent workman, cultivating his lord’s land. Besides these, there were actual slaves or _theows_, consisting of men who had lost their liberty either as captives, or for debt, or for some other easily conceivable causes. It does not appear that nobility of birth gave any additional political rights, although personal consideration was awarded to the noble. It was the possession of free land which made a man a full member of the tribe. The læts, however, were probably dependent only as regarded their lord, in every other respect free. Thus, like other members of the community, their death had to be atoned for by the payment of a sum of money or _weregild_, although the sum was smaller than in the case of freemen. They probably formed a considerable part of the armed force of the nation. The class may have consisted originally of a conquered population of kindred blood, or of men who voluntarily put themselves into a state of dependency upon their richer neighbours for security, or because