Page:EB1911 - Volume 17.djvu/611

 different heights, the difference being directly proportional to the difference of pressures and inversely as the specific gravity of the liquid used.



Two forms are in use: (1) the “open-tube,” in which the pressure in one limb is equal to the atmospheric pressure, and (2) the “closed-tube,” in which the experimental pressure is balanced against the liquid column and the air compressed into the upper part of a closed limb of the tube. In the “open tube” form (fig. 1) the pressure on the surface a is equal to the pressure on the surface at b (one atmosphere) plus the hydrostatic pressure exerted by the liquid column of height a b. The liquid commonly used is mercury. If a scale be placed behind the limbs of the tube, so that the difference a b can be directly determined, then the pressure in a is at once expressible as P + a b in millimetres or inches of mercury, where P is the atmospheric pressure, known from an ordinary barometric observation. In the “closed tube” form (fig. 2) the calculation is not so simple, for the variation of pressure on the mercury surface in the closed limb has to be taken into account. Suppose the length of the air column in the closed limb be h when the mercury is at the same height in both tubes. Applying the experimental pressure to the open end, if this be greater than atmospheric pressure the mercury column will rise and the air column diminish in the closed limb. Let the length of the air column be h′, then its pressure is h/h′ atmospheres. The difference in height of the mercury columns in the two limbs is 2(h−h′), and the pressure in the open limb is obviously equal to that of a column of mercury of length 2(h−h′), plus h/h′ atmospheres. These instruments are equally serviceable for determining pressures less than one atmosphere. In laboratory practice, e.g. when it is required to determine the degree of exhaust of a water pump, a common form consists of a vertical glass tube having its lower end immersed in a basin of mercury, and its upper end connected by means of an intermediate vessel to the exhaust. The mercury rises in the tube, and the difference between the barometric height and the length of the mercury column gives the pressure attained.

 MANOR. Any definition of a manor, in land tenure, must take note of two elements—economic and political. The manor has an estate for its basis, although it need not coincide with an estate, but may be wider. It is also a political unit, a district formed for purposes of government, although the political functions made over to it may greatly vary. As a lordship based on land tenure, the manor necessarily comprises a ruler and a population dependent on him, and the characteristic trait of such dependence consists not in ownership extending over persons, as in slave-holding communities, nor in contractual arrangements, as in a modern economic organization, but in various forms and degrees of subjection, chiefly regulated by custom. In the sense mentioned the manor is by no means a peculiarly English institution; it occurs in every country where feudalism got a hold. Under other names we find it not only in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, but also, to a certain extent, in the Byzantine Empire, Russia, Japan, &c. It is especially representative of an aristocratic stage in the development of European nations. When tribal notions and arrangements ceased to be sufficient for upholding their commonwealths, when social and political life had to be built up on the basis of land-tenure, the type of manorial organization came forward in natural course. It was closely connected with natural economy, and was suited to a narrow horizon of economic wants and political requirements. At the same time it provided links for a kind of national federation of military estates. We shall only speak of the course of manorial evolution in France and Germany, because this presents the clearest expression of the fundamental principles of manorial life and the best material for comparison with English facts.

One problem common to the entire European world has to be considered from the very beginning. Does the manor date from the Roman Empire, or not? Can its chief features be traced in Roman institutions? There can be no doubt that at the end of the Roman period certain traits are noticeable which might, under favourable conditions, develop into a manorial combination. Great estates with political functions, populations subjected to the political lordship of landowners, appear in the closing centuries of the empire, and have to be reckoned with as precursors of medieval manorial life. The original organization of the ancient world was built up on the self-government of cities and on the sharp distinction between citizens and slaves. Both features were gradually modified by the Roman Empire. Self-government was atrophied by bureaucratic interference; the economy based on the exploitation of slaves began to give way before relations in which the elements of freedom and serfdom were oddly mixed. During the last centuries of its existence the Western Empire became more and more a conglomerate of barbaric and half-civilized populations, and it is not strange that the characteristic germs of feudalism began to show themselves within its territory as well as outside it. As far as political institutions are concerned, we notice that the central power, after claiming an absolute sway over its subjects, is obliged more and more to lean on private forces in order to maintain itself. One of its favourite resources in the 4th and 5th centuries consists in making great landowners responsible for the good behaviour of their tenants and even of their less important neighbours. The saltus, the great domain, is occasionally recognized as a separate district exempt from the ordinary administration of the city, subordinated to its owner in respect of taxes and police. Even in ordinary estates (fundi) there is a tendency to make the landowner responsible for military conscription, for the presentation of criminals to justice. On the other hand the incumbents of ecclesiastical offices are nominated in accordance with the wishes of patrons among the landowners; in the administration of justice the influence of this same class makes itself felt more and more. Nor are signs of a convergent evolution wanting on the economic side. Slaves are used more and more as small householders provided with rural tenements and burdened with rents and services. Free peasant farmers holding by free agreement get more and more reduced to a status of half-free settlers occupying their tenancies on the strength of custom and traditional ascription to the glebe. Eventually this status is recognized as a distinct class by imperial legislation. Ominous symptoms of growing political disruption and of an aristocratic transformation of society were visible everywhere at the close of the empire. Yet there could be no talk of a manorial system as long as the empire and the commercial intercourse protected by it continued to exist.

The fall of the empire hastened the course of evolution. It brought into prominence barbaric tribes who were unable to uphold either the political power or the economic system of the Romans. The Germans had from old certain manorial features in the constitution of their government and husbandry. The owner of a house had always been possessed of a certain political power within its precincts, as well as within the fenced area surrounding it: the peace of the dwelling and the peace of the hedged-in yard were recognized by the legal customs of all the German tribes. The aristocratic superiority of warriors over all classes engaged in base peaceful work was also deeply engraved in the minds of the fighting and conquering tribes. On the other hand the downfall of complicated forms of civilization and civil intercourse rendered necessary a kind of subjection in which tributary labourers were left to a certain extent to manage their own affairs. The Germanic conqueror was unable to move slaves about like draughts: he had no scope for a complicated administration of capital and work. The natural outcome was to have recourse to serfdom with its convenient system of tribute and services.

But, as in the case of the Roman Empire, the formation of regular manors was held back for a time in the early Germanic monarchies by the lingering influence of tribal organization. In the second period of medieval development in continental Europe, in the Carolingian epoch, the features of the estate as a political unit are more sharply marked. Notwithstanding the immense efforts of Charles Martel, Pippin and Charlemagne