Page:Landholding in England.djvu/26



HE reign of Edward I. is most important in the history of landholding in England. It was the period of the consolidation of the feudal system; it was the beginning of legislation on the transfer of land.

Military service was the foundation of the Norman land system. When there was no standing army, military service was a great part of the rent paid for land. The system was not without its compensations. As the term of service was strictly limited (forty days was the usual time), wars, though frequent, were not so continuous as they became when they were carried on by men whose sole occupation was fighting. But besides this the Norman system was a system of fines, most useful when taxation was more or less spasmodic. The sums exacted for recoveries, and the great profit a feudal lord made out of his wards and their marriages, enabled him to pay the sums demanded of himself by the King. Church lands were