The mark was the whole territory belonging to the tribe, or to a group of families in the tribe. It comprised wood, plain andamble (het houd, het veld en de essch). The name mark was also applied to the wide waste lands surrounding the cultivatedland, and forming an uninhabited border destined to serve as frontier. "Civitatibus maxima laus est, quam latissimas circumse vastatis finibus solitudines habere. . . Hoc se fore tutiores arbitrantur, repentinae incursionis timore sublato" (Caesar, deBello Gallico , vi. 23). The origin of the mark is lost in the obscurity of pre-historic times. When we first come upon it in theSaxon provinces of the Low Countries, individual property had already invaded the primitive community, and from then toour own time the organization has scarcely changed. A share in the mark was called whare; and those who possessedwharen, bore the name of erfgenamen, inheritors, that is, participators in the joint inheritance. The possessors of a whare ( gewaardemark genoten ) were entitled to send their cattle to graze on the heath of the mark, and to cut turf there for litteror firing.
This collective and undivided property, the mark , was formerly not transmissible by sale or grant. Now, however, thetribunals have decided that it can be alienated like all other landed property. When, in order to divide the property, the mark is sold, the purchase-money is distributed among the co-proprietors, according to the number of wharen or parts that theyhold in it. This ancient system, which formerly embraced the whole territory, still comprised in 1828, in Drenthe alone, 160 marken of 126,398 hectares , or about half the province. In 1860 there only remained 43 marken , comprising 32,995hectares. Even after partition, however, nearly all the territory of the ancient marken remains subject to common pasturage,and 40 per cent, of the total area is not under cultivation. It is interesting to find still intact an ancient agrarian institutionmuch older than the commune (1) or the parish, which, dating from the days when the Germans worshipped Thor and Woden,has resisted alike the feudal system and modern, centralization, and continues its existence, in spite of the text of the CodeCivil, just as we see in Italy strong and indestructible fragments of cyclopean substructures jutting out beneath modernmonuments.
Formerly the partners in the mark met once a year, on St Peter's day, in a general assembly, holting . They appeared in arms;and no one could absent himself, under pain of a fine. This assembly directed all the details as to the enjoyment of thecommon property; appointed the works to be executed; imposed pecuniary penalties for the violation of rules, andnominated the officers charged with the executive power, the markenrigter and his assessors. The markenrigter , or head ofthe mark, was also called the markgraaf , count of the mark or marquis. He, like the count of the dike ( dykgraaf ), watchedover the common interests. It is easy to recognize in these natural associations, founded on the common ownership of land,all the elements of the representative system and the innate habits of self-government, which have been carried across theocean by the descendants of that same Saxon race, sent forth in times past from the sandy region of Holland, and have givenbirth to the communes, the counties and the States of North America and Australia. The essential features of the markorganization still subsist. It forms a small administration, supplacing in many respects the commune. It superintends thedistribution of water, the keeping up of roads, and the cultivation of common lands, and elects officers to carry out itsdecisions. They are, however, no longer armed warriors assembling in the holting after sacrificing to Woden, but peaceableproprietors, and pacific cultivators meeting after a good dinner at the common expense. The mound where the holting met( Malenpol ), is still visible in Heldermalenveld and at Spoolderberg near Zwolle.
In crossing the vast plains of Drenthe or Over-Yssel, one sees from time to time rising above the level of the heath a largefield, generally covered with a heavy crop of rye. It is the portion of the mark devoted to cultivation, the essck,a namewhich seems to come from an old root that also gave the Latin esca and the German essen, to eat, and here designates theland from which the population derive their sustenance. The essek was formerly the common stock, in which each memberof the mark received annually his portion to cultivate, as is clearly proved by Tacitus and Caesar. "Neque quisquam agrimodum certum aut fines habet proprios; sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum,qui una coierunt, quantum et quo loco visum est, agri attribuunt, atque anno post alio transire cogunt." (Caesar, de BelloGallico , VI. 22.) During the middle ages, these shares were gradually absorbed in private ownership, but individual propertyis still far from being freed from the fetters of the primitive community, for all the ancient customs of common cultivationcontinue to exist. The essch is divided into a great number of parcels. But as there is no road across this vast cultivated field,there is no approach to the several parcels so long as the crops are standing; and there are no boundaries except four largeirregu- lar blocks of granite in the four corners. It follows from this arrangement, that all the parcels have to be cropped withthe same grain, and must be ploughed, sown and reaped at the same time. For, if a proprietor wished, for instance, to sow aspring cereal when his neighbour had adopted a winter cereal, he could not till his ground or cart his manure without causingmaterial damage, for which he would have to pay compensation, and which would draw on him general ill-feeling.
