The evils of a course which, by preventing the possibility of marriage, tends to the general neglect of morality, are as obvious in this state of society, as in those where the indefinite partition of estates reduces all the members of the higher classes to a state of poverty,—a fact perfectly familiar in countries where the resources of trade are not permitted to mitigate the mischief of subdivision. The folcland then in England was the national stock. It is probable that the same thing occurred in other Teutonic states, and that the folcland there also formed a reserve from which endowments of individuals, homeborn or foreign, and of religious houses, were made. Thus, “Princeps de eius recuperatione simul et postulatione multum gavisus, et suum ad hoc consensum et parentum adeptus est favorem; deditque illi in eisdem partibus, multas possessiones _de publico_, quatinus viciniori potentia soceris acceptior factus, non minori apud illos, quam in genitali solo praecelleret dignitate[528].” ----- Footnote 528: Vit. S. Idae, Pertz, ii. 571. ----- We cannot now tell the exact terms upon which the usufruct of the folcland was permitted to individual holders. Much of it was probably distributed in severalty, to be enjoyed by the grantee during his life, and then to revert to the donor the State. As the holders of such lands were most probably not included in the Marks, like the owners of allodial property, they may have formed the proper basis of the original gyldscipas, and have been more immediately subject to the jurisdiction of the scírgemót; for it is impossible to believe that their condition was one of such perfect freedom as that of the original allodial owners. A portion also of the folcland may long have subsisted as common land, subject to the general rights of all[529]. In this respect it must have resembled the public land of the Romans. Only that, the true Roman burghers or Patricians, being comparatively few, while the other claimants were many, and self-defence therefore commanded the utmost caution in admitting them to isotely,—the struggles between the Patrician and Plebeian orders necessarily assumed in Rome a character of exasperation and hostility which was wanting in England. But it does not appear that in this country, the tribes of the Gewissas could have made any claim to the folcland of the Mercians, or that those of the Welsh would have found favour with any Saxon community. ----- Footnote 529: This seems the readiest way of accounting for the right of common enjoyed by the king, ealdorman and geréfa, in nearly every part of England; which right they could alienate to others. For the king’s common of pasture, etc. see Cod. Dipl. Nos. 86, 119, 276, 288, etc. -----