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the long run the group of inhabitants of a village as a whole did not coin
cide with the group that originally enjoyed the rigths of land-use. On
account of this a contrast gradually developed between the families having
an original claim on the cultivated land and the settlers from elsewhere
having no landed rights whatever. The consequence was on the one hand
that the class of participants started to define their rights clearly on account
of the outsiders and on the other hand that the participants confined their
individual rights more sharply amongst themselves.
To elucidate the evolution of the various types of land division we have
started from the evolution set out above. This procedure has produced the
following conclusions.
I. Block division evolves spontanuously in case land is being divided
without a definite system in a region where adequate areas of cultivable
waste soil are available. It is the oldest and most primitive way of division,
represented e.g. by the neolitic corn-plots (Curwen, 1927, fig. 22 to 25) but
also by the bush-negro plots along the Saramacca river in Suriname.
The primitive block 'division established itself in a society, which was still
exclusively founded on a genealogical base. A tribe or an other kinship
group settled in a certain region; the individual families, reclaimed one or
more lots and considered them as their possession. As demarcations natural
boundaries were adopted as much as possible, resulting in a kind of block
pattern.
In the Netherlands the primitive blocks occur on the more elevated clay
soils. The so called celtic fields, encountered occasionnally on now waste
parts of the sandy soils in the east and south of the country, are merely
fossile block divisions.
On the clay soils the primitive blocks have been maintained, as already
at an early date permanent, private ownership of land became the rule; on
the sandy soils, where mutations of the cultivated areas remained customary
much longer, this system of land division has been substituted by another one.
A more modern type of block division is also to be found on clay soils of
more recent origin, which were drained and reclaimed before about 1600.
Here they were established if large compact areas got in one hand because
incidental conditions of the grounds were decisive in demarcations and a
rational division of land was not yet appreciated.
A block-like division pattern is usually also shown by enclosures, origi
nating from private reclamation within the commons on the sandy soils in
the eastern and southern sections of the country.
II. Strip division, without farms sited on the strips, came into being in a
transitional era between the genealogical and the territorial societies. A con
trast was established between those entitled and those not entitled to the
rights on the land, a sharp demarcation of titles becoming imperative not
only in regard to outsiders, but also amongst the participants mutually.
With this type of land division the arable land of various owners was
lying scattered over open fields which were usually separated from the
surrounding waste land by walls and ditches. They are called "essen",
"engen", "akkers" or "velden", originating from early medieval reclamations
and are characterised by a systematical division into strips, either or not arran
ged block-wise. The lay-out of these fields is evidence that the will prevailed
to find a way to divide the available arable land, which was most probably
