Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/415

 1922 COMMUNITAS VILLAE 407 Edward III, which may possibly have had some influence on the Harlestone case. The Harlestone agreement is a good example of communal action in regulating the affairs of a village. This communal action is seen even more clearly in the endorsement, which records grants of land for widening the roads, made to the ' community of the village '. The agreement about the cultivation of the fields ivS made ' ex consensu et assensu ' of the several lords, and also of six men separately named and other honest men, ' ac totius villate de Herlestori '. The style of the document suggests that it was not so much a convention between opposing parties as a regulation made by the whole village for its common benefit. To settle disputes arising out of these clauses, to superintend cultivation, to inspect and supervise the roads and cart-tracks, and ' to discover and correct all important defects occurring in the aforesaid fields and meadows as well hi severals as in non- severals ', a committee of nine is chosen, seven to act in the name of the aforesaid lords, and two in the name of the village. The balance of representation is heavily in favour of the lords, but it should be noted that though only John Campyon and Richard Colyn acted nominally for the village, the seven repre- sentatives of the lords were not stewards from outside, but tenants and occupiers within the village. The committee, in fact, consisted of ' nine good men of Harlestone '. Another significant point is that instead of the unanimity usually required in the middle ages, the decisions of the majority of the committee were to prevail. It is an early instance of majority rule in local government, which Maitland tells us is evidence of a sense of corporateness as opposed to mere com- munity. The members were at first chosen for life, and vacancies were to be filled by other honest men chosen in the same way, that is, by the lords and township of Harlestone, presumably at a village meeting. If the villagers at the end of six or eight years, again by a majority, decided that the new system was ' a common loss and prejudice ', then the ordinance was to be of none effect. In fact, it remained in force for ninety-five years at least, as on the dorse we find the lists of the nine men elected in the fifth year of Henry VII, and again in the twentieth year of the same reign. In the case before us the village owes none of its compactness to a lord, and the unity of the villagers has appeared as ' a power of government and regulation '.* The sense of unity at Harlestone, its corporateness, has come from the very fact of its divisions, which have deprived it of the centralizing influence of a seignorial hall, and have forced upon the villagers the necessity 1 Maitland, Tovmship and Borough, pp. 24, 33.