VILLAGE COMMUNITIES

were originally family groups uuited for defense against hostile neighbors; hence came the tribe, and adjoining tribes united (e.g.) in Teutonic countries. With feudalism came an overlord, but the land of the village community for nearly 1000 years consisted of open fields; the commons’ are a survival of this. The break-up of the village common life began in England in late XV. cent., when lords of the manor, finding sheep more profitable than peasants, set up enclosures. In spite of laws prohibiting enclosures the landowners continued to enclose, pulling down whole villages in the proce . All through XVI. cent. the work went on. Agrarian revolt and denunciations of preachers and writers could not save the countryside. The landle peasantry drifted into the towns, or wandered homele , to be punished by heavy statutes against vagrancy. The commons enclosed in XV. and pe cent’s were the open fields culti5 m common by the village. In XVIII. and XIX. cent’s the mation ore than a million acres pa ed private hands. B aXe: W.), town, Lugo, Spain. Pop. 14,300.