Most of us will be living in a freehold or leasehold property. That means we own the land where we eat and sleep. Or we pay a rent or a lump sum to a land-owner for that right.
The starting-place for an answer to this question is the present moment. If we start with a coffee plantation in East Africa, we can meet the owner. He can trace ownership through past owners, past centuries until we find ourselves looking at land waiting to be opened up by explorers and pioneers. The question of ownership may have had connections with ancient European titles, manorial rights and family seats.
But there is another way. We can start as the Christian creed does with creation. If our cosmos is the work of a Creator, we must recognise his claim to ownership. This can hardly be gainsaid but it does not take us far along the road to simplifying the question and its answer.
For if God owns the land, human claims are secondary and partial. They are also complicated. Suppose the Creator gave some of his land in perpetuity to a particular tribe. This is what happened after the Exodus. The children of Israel were granted and led into a territory flowing with milk and honey. It was to be theirs in perpetuity. Neighbouring nations did not see things that way.
But the documents in the case tell us that transfer of ownership came with strings attached. Every 50 years the land, if mortgaged or otherwise handed over to a sub-owner had to revert to its original claimant. Land was thereby kept in a family group. There was no chance of its becoming a part of a large estate.
Later, in European history, land came into private hands as a result of conquest. It was fought over and the winner took all. William the Conqueror assumed control of territory that had belonged to the Anglo-Saxons. The USA took control of what the had previously been the property of the Sioux, Apache, Comanche etc. Temporarily the UK acquired colonies together with the mineral rights in them in Africa and elsewhere – until the inhabitants asserted themselves and politely dismissed their foreign overlords.
CHRISTMAS DAY 800
Charlemagne (747-814) was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the Pope on Christmas Day 800. Aachen was Charlemagne/s capital and it became a centre of learning. Charlemagne was styled Holy Roman Emperor but his extensive empire did not long survive after his death. The aspiration for some kind of European unity kept the Austro-Hungarian empire in business until WW1.
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