Note 171 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

Accordingly, rent in the modern sense did not yet exist. The landlords had abundance of land; but the land was worth little if it was not provided with people to cultivate it. “The rent of the proprietor now is directly connected with the physical character of his estate, its productiveness and its situation. The income of the lord of a Domesday Manor depended on the tolls he received, and the payments of his dependents: and thus was based on the way in which his estates were stocked with meat and men, rather than on the physical condition of the land. His income was a very different thing from modern rent”171. Even in later centuries “a fertile estate would have yielded but little annual income, unless the necessary labour was attached to it”172.