Conversation

"Private ownership of land, and in particular absolute private ownership, is a modern idea, only a few hundred years old. 'The idea that one man could possess all rights to one stretch of land to the exclusion of everybody else' was outside the comprehension of most tribespeople, or indeed of medieval peasants. The king, or the Lord of the Manor, might have owned an estate in one sense of the word, but the peasant enjoyed all sorts of so-called 'usufructory' rights which enabled him, or her, to graze stock, cut wood or peat, draw water or grow crops, on various plots of land at specified times of year."