Christianity, which destroys or diminishes the holiness of the forests, necessarily confines the guarantee of the Mark to the public law of the state. Hence when these districts become included within the limits of Christian communities, there is no difficulty in the process which has been described: the state deals with them as with any other part of its territory, by its own sovereign power, according to the prevalent ideas of agricultural or political œconomy; and the once inviolate land may at once be converted to public uses, widely different from its original destination, if the public advantage require it. No longer necessary as a boundary, from the moment when the smaller community has become swallowed up and confounded in the larger, it may remain in commons, be taken possession of by the state as folcland, or become the source of even private estates, and to all these purposes we find it gradually applied. In process of time it seems even to have become partible and appurtenant to private estates in a certain proportion to the arable[90]: towards the close of the tenth century I find the grant of a mill and millstead, “and thereto as much of the markland as belongeth to three hydes”[91]. ----- Footnote 90: Most likely as commons are distributed now, under enclosure-bills; allotments being made in fee, as compensation for commonable rights. Footnote 91: And se mylenham ⁊ se myln ðǽrtó, ⁊ ðæs mearclandes swá mycel swá tó þrim hidon gebyrað. an. 982. Cod. Dipl. No. 633. ----- The general advantage which requires the maintenance of the Mark as public property, does not however preclude the possibility of using it for public purposes, as long as the great condition of indivisibility is observed. Although it may not be cleared and ploughed, it may be depastured, and all the herds of the Markmen may be fed and masted upon its wilds and within its shades. While it still comprises only a belt of forest, lying between small settlements, those who live contiguous to it, are most exposed to the sudden incursions of an enemy, and perhaps specially entrusted with the measures for public defence, may have peculiar privileges, extending in certain cases even to the right of clearing or essarting portions of it. In the case of the wide tracts which separate kingdoms, we know that a comprehensive military organization prevailed, with castles, garrisons, and governors or Margraves, as in Austria, Brandenburg and Baden, Spoleto and Ancona, Northumberland and the Marches of Wales. But where clearings have been made in the forest, the holders are bound to see that they are maintained, and that the fresh arable land be not encroached upon; if forest-trees spring there by neglect of the occupant, the essart again becomes forest, and, as such, subject to all the common rights of the Markmen, whether in pasture, chase or estovers[92]. ----- Footnote 92: