Common rights to land (which are very different from state ownership) began under common law. It was considered reasonable that those who held the best land were expected to render the greatest service to the rest of the community by maintaining roads, providing for defense, etc. These were direct services and were physically taxing, which is what the word \"tax\" comes from. (The term \"freeholder\" did not mean free of obligation any more than a \"free market\" is a place where you take things without paying for them.)

Because common law societies had no centralized government, these early obligations were undertaken to earn the goodwill of the community. With the rise of government, they were imposed from above, which is why taxes were later called \"imposts.\" The tax collector, or \"post man,\" would often carry messages or merchandise from one land holder to another. When this was regulated, government first went into what we now call the postal business.

The economies of these societies gradually evolved from barter systems to monetary systems, and, for a while, only the holders of the most (or best) lands were obligated to pay imposts. As landlords grew more arrogant, they demanded rent, imposts, taxes or mail (for all these words came to mean the same thing) from even the poorest landholders. If a landholder could not pay in silver, the post man would take whatever he deemed to be of comparable value. Payment in silver was called \"white mail,\" and payment in confiscated goods was called \"black mail.\"

Such is the financial evolution from common law to feudalism. The political evolution parallels this.

Under common law, disputes that did not warrant juries were taken to people known for their wisdom or greatness in that particular area. The word \"lord\" meant \"great person.\" \"Lords\" were analogous to American Indian chiefs. Hence, one would consult a war lord about a pending inter-tribal battle or Viking raid.

Land lords were consulted to settle land disputes, based on the principle of a common right to access land. Most disputes were around someone taking more land than he was using, or around taking so much that there was not enough and as good left for others. (Locke\’s writings on property from his \"Second Treatise\" reflected ancient common-law principles.)

The lords, who were first chosen by tribal recognition, with neither hereditary rights nor even life tenures, gradually entrenched themselves and, as they did so, usurped common rights to land and gradually converted it to state land and then to their own land, mostly through a series of enclosure acts. Thus, private property in land began with the usurpation by state-appointed land lords. The earliest known use of the term \"landowner\" is from the 1500s.

Lords let others use land under their control in exchange for rent. The word \"rent\" is seldom used in its original sense, except in the bible where. for example, Jesus\’s executioners \"rent\" his garments. Yes, the original meaning of \"rent\" is \"rip-off.\" Early rents went to pay for community services that had originally been borne by the freeholders doing the taxing work directly.
The lords evolved into a titled aristocracy, such that the title \"Lord of Sussex\" carried with it the lands of Sussex, etc. That is where the term \"land title\" originated.

Early lords had been responsible for organizing the defense of the territories over which they presided, and larger territories were easier to protect than smaller ones. They had therefore been prohibited from dividing their territories, but had to pass them intact to the eldest male, which is where primogeniture came from.

However, as they socialized the responsibilities of lordship and privatized the benefits, other government bureaucracies took over the obligations of defense. This left the lords free to sell their titles and even subdivide the land into parcels. Thus the person buying a land title, at least in Europe, is literally purchasing the economic benefits of a piece of lordship, with none of the responsibilities beyond what is levied in the portion of real estate taxes that fall on land. (The term \"real estate\" is French for \"royal state.\")

In any case, the transition from common rights to land under common law into state and then private property under feudalism, is captured by the following English folk-verse.

They hang the man and flog the woman
Who steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater robber loose
Who stole the common from the goose.

Dan Sullivan, director
Saving Communities

As Isaiah 5:8 warns, God is against expropriators of the common man\’s independent life on his own land:

¶ Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!