If we look at the results of all these migrations and ethnographical mixtures, we have first to notice the stratifications of English society according to rank. It is settled definitely enough in the Saxon period on an aristocratic basis. In the main, society consists of eorls and ceorls, noblemen and serfs. The difference does not consist merely in a diversity of legal value, social influence and occupation, but also in the fact that the ceorl may economically and legally be dependent on the eorl, and afterwards on the thane. How did this aristocratic constitution arise? Social distinctions of this kind may sometimes originate in the oppression of the weak by the strong, and in voluntary subjection, but, as a rule, they go back to conquest. There is every reason to believe that the Anglo-Saxon conquerors, who were very few in number, became the privileged class of the new States, and reduced the Britons to serfdom; a corroboration of this assumption may be found in the fact that the services of Celtic and Saxon peasantry are extremely alike. It is more difficult to trace the influence of different races in the agrarian system, of which the township or manor is the unit. It is by comparing it with the forms in its immediate neighbourhood that one gets to understand its origin. The Roman organisation of husbandry and ownership on the basis of individualism is too well known to be described. In marked contrast with it stands the Celtic community, of which survivals were lingering for a long time in Ireland and Wales. Here the land is in the ownership of tribal groups: rights of individuals and families expand and collapse according to the requirements and decisions of the entire tribe; there is no hereditary succession, but every grown-up clansman has a claim to be endowed with a plot of land, and as a consequence of this, all land in separate possession is constantly liable to be divided by the tribal community. The Anglo-Saxon system is an intermediate stage between Roman individualism and Celtic communalism. No wonder that the Saxons, who at home followed a system closely resembling the Celtic, modified it when they got acquainted with Roman forms and entered into their Roman inheritance in Great Britain. The mixed organisation of the township was the result of the assimilation. [Estimate of Palgrave's work.]