meadow-land lay in like manner open and undivided from hay-harvest to
spring. It was only when grass began to grow afresh that the common
meadow was fenced off into grass-fields, one for each household in the
village; and when hay-harvest was over fence and division were at an end
again. The plough-land alone was permanently allotted in equal shares
both of corn-land and fallow-land to the families of the freemen, though
even the plough-land was; subject to fresh division as the number of
claimants grew greater or less.


[Sidenote: Læt and Slave]

It was this sharing in the common land which marked off the freeman or
ceorl from the unfree man or læt, the tiller of land which another owned.
As the ceorl was the descendant of settlers who, whether from their
earlier arrival or from kinship with the original settlers of the
village, had been admitted to a share in its land and its corporate life,
so the læt was a descendant of later comers to whom such a share was
denied, or in some cases perhaps of earlier dwellers from whom the land
had been wrested by force of arms. In the modern sense of freedom the læt
was free enough. He had house and home of his own, his life and limb were
as secure as the ceorl's--save as against his lord; it is probable from
what we see in later laws that as time went on he was recognized as a
member of the nation, summoned to the folk-moot, allowed equal right at
law, and called like the full free man to the hosting. But he was unfree
as regards lord and land. He had neither part nor lot in the common land
of the village. The ground which he tilled he held of some freeman of the
tribe to whom he paid rent in labour or in kind. And this man was his
lord. Whatever rights the unfree villager might gain in the general
social life of his fellow villagers, he had no rights as against his