Pugh's _Welsh Dict._, p. 328: '_Marl_, earth deposited by water, a rich kind of clay (with many compounds).' See _Chron. Monas. Abingdon._ II. xxx. P. 147, '_on tha lampyttes_;' p. 402, '_on thone lampyt_' ('_lam_,' loam, mud, clay.--Bosworth, p. 41 _b_). Pp. 150 and 404, '_on tha cealc seathas_' (_chalk-pits_). See _Liber de Hyda_, p. 88, 'caelcgrafan' (chalk-pits). Compare Pliny (_ubi supra_) with _Abingdon_, ii. p. 294: 'Totam terram quæ nimis pessima et infructifera erat tam citra aquam quam ultra compositione terræ quæ vulgo "_Marla_" dicitur, ipse optimam et fructiferam fecit.' (_Colne_ in Essex.) [333] In his _Agricola_, xii. [334] _Agricola_, xix. [335] Strabo, Bk. IV. c. v. s. 2. [336] _Mon. Brit._ Excerpta, ii. [337] Elton's _Origins of English History_, p. 32. [338] Siculus Flaccus, _De Conditionibus Agrorum_. _Gromatici veteres._ Lachmann. P. 152. The passage will be given in full hereafter. [p252] CHAPTER VIII. _CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER MANORIAL SYSTEM._ I. IMPORTANCE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE. «The question a complex one.» In now returning to the question of the origin of the English manorial system it is needful to widen the range of the inquiry, and to seek for further light in Continental evidence. The question itself has become a complex one. There may have been manors in the south-eastern districts of Britain before the Saxon conquest, while Britain was a Roman province, or the Saxons may have introduced the manorial system when they conquered the country. These remain the alternatives now that we have seen that the tribal system in Britain was evidently not its parent. But even if the Saxons introduced the manorial system, the further question arises whether it was a natural growth from their own tribal system, or whether they had themselves adopted it from the Romans? It is obvious, therefore, that no adequate result can be obtained without a sufficiently careful study (1) of the Roman provincial land system and (2) of the [p253] German tribal system. Not till both those have been examined can it be possible to judge which of the two factors contributed most to the manorial system, and to what extent it was their joint product. «The two factors, the Roman land system and the German tribal system.» The question must needs be complicated by the fact that during the whole period of the later empire a large portion of Germany was included within the lines of the Roman provinces; or, to state the point more exactly, that a large proportion of the inhabitants of these Roman provinces were Germans. It will be seen in the course of the inquiry how much depends upon the full recognition of this fact. Indeed, the very first step taken will bring it into prominence, and put us, so to speak, on right geographical lines, by showing that the nearest analogies to the English manor were to be found in those districts precisely which were both Roman and German under the later empire.