A system of land tenure, apparently of a communistic nature, which prevailed in Germany in very early times. It seems to have been introduced into England by the Saxon invaders, and traces of it are found in the common lands.
A re-enactment by the Parliament of Marlborough in 1267, after the Barons’ War, of the Provisions of Oxford, with some slight changes, giving the King the power of appointing the Ministers of the Crown and the sheriffs.
The fugitive slaves in Jamaica, who, after the conquest of the island by England in 1655, took refuge in the mountains, and maintained a guerilla warfare against the colonists, which lasted until 1795.
The Spanish Moors who, after the conquest of Granada, accepted Christianity.
An Act passed in 1882, by which, in all marriages subsequent to the passing of the Act, a wife’s property is vested in herself, and is not subject to her husband’s control, as was previously the case.
A code of British Law translated by Alfred the Great into Anglo-Saxon. It is said to have been compiled by Martia, the wife of Guithelin, great-grandson of Mulmutius, King of the Britons, in 300 B.C.
The pseudonym of the author of certain pamphlets advocating Puritan doctrines, which appeared between 1588 and 1590. The suspected author, a Welshman named Penry, was brought to trial, condemned and executed.
A charter for the colonisation of Maryland, granted to Lord Baltimore by Charles I in 1629. It was similar in its provisions to the Charter of Virginia.
A revolt of the Neapolitans, under a fisherman named Tommaso Aniello, against the Spanish Viceroy in July, 1647. The revolt was completely successful, and the Viceroy was compelled to come to terms with Masaniello, whose head, however, seems to have been turned by his success, as he was guilty of the most extraordinary excesses, and was murdered by his former followers in the course of the month in which the rising took place.
The line delimiting Delaware and Maryland, drawn by Mason and Dixon in 1764-67. It is often erroneously referred to as the line between the freesoil and the slave States, but as a matter of fact both the States in question were slave-holding States.
A charter issued by Charles I in 1629, providing for the government of the colony by a governor, deputy, and eighteen assistants, to be elected annually by the freemen of the plantation. They were entrusted with both legislative and executive functions, but it was provided that no laws should be made which were not in harmony with the law of England. The charter was revoked in 1684, after a dispute on the subject of the navigation laws.