This last difference is not easy to be calculated; but, allowing that
England has now six times more industry, and three times more people
than it had at the conquest, and for some reigns after that period,
we are upon that supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances
together, every sum of money mentioned by historians, as if it were
multiplied more than a hundred fold above a sum of the same denomination
at present.
In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male children
of the deceased, according to the custom of gavelkind. The practice of
entails is to be found in those times.[*] Land was chiefly of two kinds,
bockland, or land held by book or charter, which was regarded as full
property, and descended to the heirs of the possessor; and folkland, or
the land held by the ceorles and common people, who were removable at
pleasure, and were, indeed, only tenants during the will of their lords.
The first attempt which we find in England to separate the
ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar by
which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before
the bishop.[**] The penances were then very severe; but as a man could
buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform them,
they lay easy upon the rich.
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