slightest ground for supposing that any attempt was, or could be, made to regulate the amount of individual possession beyond the limit of each community; or that there ever was, or could be, any concert between different communities for such a purpose. The second supposition however presents greater difficulties. ----- Footnote 151: Cod. Dipl. No. 240. Footnote 152: _Cassatus_ or _casatus_, a married man, Span. _casado_. Othello speaks of his _unhoused_ free condition, that is, his bachelor state. It is by marriage that a man founds a house or family. Footnote 153: Henry of Huntingdon thus defines its extent: “Hida autem Anglice vocatur terra unius aratri cultura sufficiens per annum.” lib. vi. an. 1008. But this is a variable amount on land of various qualities, as every ploughman well knows. ----- There is no doubt a strong antecedent improbability of the Hide having been alike all over England: isolated as were the various conquests which gradually established the Saxon rule in the several districts, it can hardly be supposed that any agreement was at first found among bands, engaged in continual struggles for safety, rather than for extension of territory. It may indeed be objected that later, when the work of conquest had been consolidated, when, under the rule of powerful chieftains, the resistance of the Britons had ceased to appear dangerous, some steps may have been taken towards a general arrangement; those historians who please themselves with the phantom of a Saxon confederation under one imperial head,—a Bretwaldadóm—may find therein an easy solution of this, and many other difficulties[154]: but still it seems little likely that the important step of dividing the country should have been postponed, or that a successful body of invaders should have thought it necessary to wait for the consent or co-operation of others, whose ultimate triumph was yet uncertain. Experience of human nature would rather incline us to believe that, as each band wrung from the old masters of the soil as much as sufficed for its own support and safety, it hastened to realize its position and marked its acquisition by the stamp and impress of individual possession. It is moreover probable that, had any solemn and general agreement been brought about through the influence of any one predominant chief, we should not have been left without some record of a fact, so beneficial in itself, and so conclusive as to the power and wisdom of its author: this we might not unreasonably expect, even though we admit that such an event could only have taken place at the very commencement of our history, and that such a division, or, what is more difficult still, redivision of the soil, is totally inconsistent with the state of society in England at any period subsequent to A.D. 600: but these are precisely the cases where the mythus replaces and is ancillary to history. ----- Footnote 154: