Note 145 — Chapter IV · LANDED POSSESSION. THE EÐEL, HÍD OR ALOD.
Reading edition
Even till the latest period, personal property was not reckoned in the distinction of ranks, although land was. No amount of mere chattels, gold, silver, or goods, could give the Saxon franchise. See the ordinance Be Wergyldum, § 10. Be Geþincðum, § 2. Thorpe, i. 189, 191. This is a fundamental principle of Teutonic law: “Ut nullum liberum sine mortali crimine liceat inservire, nec de haereditate sua expellere; sed liberi, qui iustis legibus deserviunt, sine impedimento haereditates suas possideant. Quamvis pauper sit, tamen libertatem suam non perdat, nec haereditatem suam, nisi ex spontanea voluntate, se alicui tradere voluerit, hoc potestatem habeat faciendi.” Lex Alam. Tit. I. cap. 1. Lex Baiovar. Tit. 6. cap. 3. § 1. Eichhorn, i. 328, note d. Loss of land entailed loss of condition in England, long after the establishment of our present social system. A beautiful passage to this effect occurs in the play of “A Woman killed with kindness”: a gentleman refuses to part with his last plot of ground, on this account:
“Alas, alas! ’tis all trouble hath left me
To cherishe me and my poor sister’s life.
If this were sold, our names should then be quite
Razed from the bedroll of gentility.
You see what hard shift we have made to keep it
Allied still to our own name. This palm, you see,
Labour hath glow’d within; her silver brow,
That never tasted a rough winter’s blast
Without a mask or fan, doth with a grace
Defy cold winter and his storms outface!”