[41] The passages relating to the subject are brought together in a volume of old-fashioned learning--_A Dissertation upon Distinctions in Society and Ranks of the People under the Anglo-Saxon Governments_, by Samuel Heywood [1818], pp. 317 seq., 413 seq. Cf. Fustel de Coulanges, _L’Alleu_, chaps, x., xi. [42] _Penitential_ of Theodore [xix. 20, in Thorpe, _Ancient Laws and Institutes_, p. 286; xiii. 3, in Hadden and Stubbs, _Councils_ iii. p. 202]. _Penitential_ of Egbert [Addit. 35, in Thorpe, p. 391.] [43] Fustel de Coulanges, _L’Alleu_, pp. 359, 413. Such a use of the term “free” may, perhaps, help to explain the phrase with regard to the _cotsetla_ in the _Rectitudines_: “Det super heorthpenig ... _sicut omnis liber facere debet_” (“_eal swâ œlcan frigean men gebyreth_”). Thorpe, p. 185. [44] Thorpe, _Ancient Laws_, p. 45 (Ine, 3). [45] _Ibid._ 316 (Theodore). [46] _Ibid._ 55 (Ine, 39). [47] _Ibid._ 63 (Ine, 67). [48] As stated, for instance, in Britton, ed. Nicholls, ii., p. 13. Privileged villeins were, it is true, only to be found on the royal demesnes. But in the later Roman empire, the _Coloni_ upon the imperial estates were an especially numerous and important class. (Fustel de Coulanges, _Recherches_, pp. 28-32). That there were such imperial estates in Britain is probable; and it is made more likely by the mention in the _Notitia_ of a _Rationalis rei privatae per Britannias_. At the conquest by the English, these estates would probably fall to the kings, as in Gaul. (Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_, ii., 308.) [49] _L’Alleu_, pp. 20-21. [50] _Leges Alamannorum_ qu. Seebohm, p. 323. It is, however, possible that the “_binae aratoriae_,” etc., on the _Saltus Buritanus_ meant more than two _days_, although that is the interpretation of M. Fustel de Coulanges. See _Recherches_, p. 33. THE ORIGIN OF PROPERTY IN LAND