Note p — Chapter IX · [a]

Schmidt, Hist. des Allem. t. i. p. 408. The following passage seems to illustrate Schmidt's account of German villages in the ninth century, though relating to a different age and country. "A toft," says Dr. Whitaker, "is a homestead in a village, so called from the small tufts of maple, elm, ash, and other wood, with which dwelling-houses were anciently overhung. Even now it is impossible to enter Craven without being struck with the insulated homesteads, surrounded by their little garths, and overhung with tufts of trees. These are the genuine tofts and crofts of our ancestors, with the substitution only of stone for the wooden crocks and thatched roofs of antiquity." Hist. of Craven, p. 380.