others which seem to be ancient and primitive. The traits which mark these last are 'shareholding' and light rents. The light rents do not look like the result of commutation, the 'shareholding' points to some other cause than favours bestowed by the lord. We shall come to the same conclusion if we follow the other line of our inquiry. It may be asked, whether the community into which the share is made to fit should be thought of primarily as a community in ownership or a community in assessment, whether the shares are constructed for the purpose of satisfying equal claims or for the purpose of imposing equal duties? The question is a wide one, much wider than the subject immediately in hand, but it is connected with that subject and some of the material for its solution must be taken up in the course of our present inquiry. I have been constantly mentioning the assessment of free tenements, their rents and their labour services. The question of their weight as compared with villain services has been discussed, but I have not hitherto taken heed of the varying and irregular character of these rents and services. But the variety and irregularity are worthy of special notice. One of the most fundamental differences between the free and servile systems is to be found in this quarter. The villains are equalised not only as regards their shares in the fields, but also as regards their duties towards the lord; indeed, both facts appear as the two sides of one thing. The virgate of the villain is quite as much, if not more, a unit of assessment as it is a share of the soil. Matters look more complex in the case of free land. As I have said before, there are instances in which the free people are not only possessed of equal shares but also are rented in proportion to those shares. In much the greater number of instances, however, there is no such proportion. All may hold virgates, but one will pay more and the other less; one will perform labour duties, and the other not; one will pay in money, and the other bring a chicken, or a pound of pepper, or a flower. Whatever we may think of the gradual changes which have distorted conditions that were originally meant to be equal, it is impossible to get rid of the fact that, in regard to free tenements, equal shares do not imply equal duties or even duties of one and the same kind.