‘vita.’ This old Gothic legal code contains much information concerning the parties to disputes, and to which of them by ancient custom, apparently from time immemorial, the right of proof belonged. Thus, in a dispute between the Bishop and a bondi, or peasant proprietor, the right of proof belonged to the bondi. He had also the right of proof in any dispute between himself and the King, which circumstances may perhaps be explained by the fact that the bondi as a class existed before either Bishop or King.[1] The value of this ancient local code in considering the original nature of the different kinds of English villages is in its reference to the by, the primitive village or rural community of Gothland. Between the bondi and anyone else, the bondi had the right of proof. This points to the ancient rights of the people, to an old democracy. Disputes might, however, arise between communities. Between the hæræd, or hundred, and the by, the hundred had the right of proof; Between the by and the thorp, the by had this right, a circumstance which leads to two conclusions—viz.: (1) That the right of proof given to the by was assigned practically to a number of freemen acting collectively as a community; and (2) that the community of the by, having the right of proof in a dispute with the thorp, was the more important, and probably the earlier institution.
All this is both interesting and important in considering the settlement of bys and thorpes in England, and more especially in Lincolnshire and the East Riding. The people of Lincolnshire came from Anglian, Danish, and Scandian lands, where communities of this kind existed. They established settlements which they called bys and thorpes on English soil, after the types of rural life to which they had been accustomed in their old countries, and unless we are to believe that the English bys and thorpes
- ↑ Jenks, Edward, ‘The Problem of the Hundred,’ English Hist. Review, xi. 512.
