Lex Baiuwariorum, textus legis primus.488
13.
De colonis vel servis ecclesiæ, qualiter serviant vel quale [al. qualia] tributa reddant.
Hoc est agrario secundum estimationem iudicis; provideat hoc iudex secundum quod habet donet: de 30 modiis 3 modios donet, et pascuario dissolvat secundum usum provinciæ.489 Andecenas legitimas, hoc est pertica [al. perticam] 10 pedes habentem, 4 perticas in transverso, 40 in longo arare, seminare, claudere, colligere, trahere et recondere. A tremisse unusquisque accola490 ad duo modia sationis excolligere, seminare, colligere et recondere debeat; et vineas plantare, fodere, propaginare, præcidere, vindemiare. Reddant fasce [al. fascem] de lino [al. ligno]; de apibus 10 vasa [al. decimum vas]; pullos 4, ova 15 reddant. Parafretos [al. palafredos] donent, aut ipsi vadant, ubi eis iniunctum fuerit. Angarias cum carra faciant usque 50 lewas [al. leugas]; amplius non minentur.
Ad casas dominicas stabilire [al. stabiliendas], fenile, granica vel tunino recuperanda, pedituras rationabiles accipiant, et quando necesse fuerit, omnino componant. Calce furno [al. calcefurno], ubi prope fuerit, ligna aut petra [al. petras] 50 homines faciant, ubi longe fuerat [al. fuerit], 100 homines debeant expetiri, et ad civitatem vel ad villam, ubi necesse fuerit, ipsa calce trahantur [al. ipsam calcem trahant].
13.
Concerning the coloni or servi of the Church, what services and tributes they are to render.
This is the tribute for arable, according to the estimation of the judge. The judge must look to it that according to what a man has he must give; for 30 modia he must give 3 modia. And for pasturage he must pay according to the custom of the province. Legal andecenæ (the perches being of 10 feet), 4 perches in breadth and 40 in length, [he is] to plough, to sow, to fence, to gather, to carry, and to store. For spring crops every cultivator to prepare for two modia of seed, and sow, gather, and store it. And to plant vines, tend, graft, and prune them, and gather the grapes. Let them render a bundle of flax, of honey the tenth vessel, 4 fowls, and 15 eggs. Let them give post-horses, or go themselves wherever they are told. Let them do carrying service with waggons as far as 50 leugæ. They cannot be compelled to go farther.
In keeping up the buildings in the demesne, in repairing the hayloft, the granary, or the 'tun,' let them take reasonable portions, and when needful let them compound together. To the limekiln when near let 50 men, and when it is far let 100 men be found to supply wood or [lime-]stone, and where needful let the lime itself be carried to city or villa.
These are the services of the coloni or accolæ of the Church. Next as to the servi:—
Servi autem ecclesiæ secundum possessionem suam reddant tributa. Opera vero 3 dies in ebdomada in dominico operent [al. operentur], 3 vero sibi faciant. Si vero dominus eius [al. eorum] dederit eis boves aut alias res quod habet [al. quas habent], tantum serviant, quantum eis per possibilitatem impositum fuerit; tamen iniuste neminem obpremas [al. opprimas].
Let the servi of the Church pay tribute according to their holdings. Let them work 3 days a week in the demesne, and 3 days for themselves. But if their lord give them oxen or other things they have, let them do as much service as can be put upon them, yet thou shalt oppress no one unjustly.
In the face of this evidence it seems impossible to ignore either the continuity of the tribute and services under Roman and German rule on the one hand, or their identity with the gafol, the gafol-yrth, and the week-work of the English manor on the other hand. There is first the tenth of the chief produce due as of old from these occupants of the 'Agri Decumates' of Tacitus, closely connected with the tribute of ploughing—the Saxon gafol-yrth noticed above in the St. Gall charters. This is to be rendered in lawful andecenæ, and this measure of the plough-work is reckoned by the Roman rod of ten feet, and takes the precise form, four rods by forty, which belongs to the English acre of four roods;491 and this is the [p327] strip to be sown, gathered, and stored, just as in the case of the Saxon 'gafol-yrth.'
The tending of vines is peculiar to the country. The tenth bundle of flax, the tenth vessel of honey, and the fowls and eggs are also familiar items of the census or gafol, both in the charters of St. Gall and in the services of Saxon manors.
Then there are the pack-horse services (parafreti) and the carrying services ('angariæ cum carra'), the keeping up of buildings, supply of the limekiln, and the carriage of lime to the villa—all which once public services ('sordida munera'), due to the Roman Emperor on whose tithe lands the coloni were settled, were now the manorial services of 'coloni' of the Church. They were called in the Codex Theodosianus 'obsequia,' and are almost identical with the Saxon 'precariæ' or boon-works.
Lastly, it has been observed that the coloni or accolæ did not give 'week-work.' This was, as has been seen, the distinctive mark of serfdom here in Rhætia, as for centuries afterwards throughout the manors of mediæval Europe.
In other words, in the seventh century there are two classes of tenants on ecclesiastical manors—(1) the coloni or accolæ, to use the Saxon terms of King Ine's laws, set to gafol; and (2) the servi, set to gafol and to week-work.
Throw the two classes together, or let the remaining Roman coloni sink, as the result of conquest or otherwise, down into the condition up to which the slaves have risen in becoming serfs, and the serfdom of the mediæval manorial estate is the natural result. At the same time an explanation is given of the [p328] persistently double character of the later services, which apparently was a survival of their double origin in the union of the public tribute and sordida munera of the Roman colonus with the servile work of the Roman slave.
On the estates of the Church in the early years of the seventh century the humanising power of Christian feeling had silently raised the status of the slave. It had dignified labour, and given to him a property in his labour, securing to him not only one day in seven for rest to his weary and heavy-laden limbs, but also three days in the week wherein his labour was his own. From slavery he had risen into serfdom. And this serfdom of the quondam slave had become, in the eyes of the still more weary and heavy-laden free labourers on their own land, so light a burden compared with their own—such was the lawless oppression of the age—that they went to the Church and took upon them willingly the yoke of her serfdom, in order that they might find rest under her temporal as well as spiritual protection.
Such an impulse did this rush for safety into serfdom on ecclesiastical or monastic estates receive from the unsettlement and lawlessness of the period of the Teutonic invasions, that by the time of Charles the Great a large proportion of the land in these once Roman provinces had become included in the manorial estates of the monasteries.
In the thickly peopled Romano-German lands on both sides of the Rhine, including the present Elsass on the one side, and the district between the Rhine and the Maine (the present Baden and Wirtemberg) on the other, so strong was the current in this direction that we find in the Traditiones of the monasteries [p329] of 'Lorsch' and 'Wizenburg' scores of surrenders taking place sometimes in a single village. And these cases are of peculiar interest because G. L. von Maurer relies almost solely upon them as the earliest examples available in support of his theory of the original German mark and free village community. His only early instances are taken from the Lorsch Cartulary.492 He cites 107 surrenders to the Abbey of Lorsch in 'Hantscuhesheim' alone,493 and concludes that there must have been at least as many free holders resident there in earlier times. In Loeheim there were eight surrenders; in other heims thirty-five, five, twenty-three, ten, forty, five, and so on. These must, he concludes, have formed part of originally free village communities on the German mark system.494
Now these surrenders to the abbey go back to the reign of Pepin; and the question is, What were these freemen who made these surrenders? Were they indeed members of German free village communities?
In the first place, they lived in a district which for many centuries had been a Roman province. The manners of the people had long been Romanised. Even across the Maine for generations the homesteads had been built in Roman fashion.495 And it is significant that the fragments surrendered in this district, which since the time of Probus had become devoted to the vine culture, were mostly little vineyards; e.g. 'rem meam, hoc est vineam, i. in Hantscuhesheim,' 496 and so [p330] on. These vineyards were often composed of so many 'scamelli,' or little scamni—ridges or strips marked out by the Roman Agrimensores. All this is thoroughly Roman. What looks at first sight so much like a German free village community, was once a little Roman 'vicus' full of people, with their vineyards on the hills around it. They look like German settlers or 'free coloni' on the public domains, who had become appendant to the villa of the fiscal officer of the district, which had in fact by this time become to all intents and purposes a manor.
A little further examination will confirm this view.
Turning to the record of the earliest donation to the abbey, in A.D. 763,497 we find a description of a whole villa or heim—'Hoc est, villam nostram quæ dicitur Hagenheim, cum omni integritate sua, terris domibus ædificiis campis pratis vineis silvis aquis aquarumve decursibus farinariis litis libertis conlibertis mancipiis mobilibus et immobilibus, &c.'
Here there clearly is a villa or manor, and the tenants of this manor are liti, liberti, coliberti,498 and mancipii or slaves. There are charters of other estates which are just as clearly manors with servile tenements and slaves upon them.
In the similar records of surrenders to the Abbey of St. Gall, as we have seen, there are also donations of little free properties in 'heims' and 'villares,' but by far the greater number of the earliest donations are distinctly of whole manors or parts of manors, with coloni and mancipii upon them. [p331]
The heims of this Romano-German district were therefore distinctly manors. They were also 'marks.'
In 773 Charles the Great gave to the Abbey of Lauresham the 'villa' called 'Hephenheim,' 'in pago Rinense, cum omni merito et soliditate sua cum terris domibus ædificiis accolis mancipiis vineis sylvis campis pratis, &c.'—that is, the whole manor—'cum omnibus terminis et marchis suis.' And then follow the marchæ sive terminus silvæ, which pertained to the same villa of Hephenheim, 'as it had always been held sub ducibus et regibus ex tempore antiquo.' It was then a 'villa' or manor belonging to the Royal domain, and it was then held as a benefice by a 'comes,' whose predecessor had also held it, and his father before him, of the king.499
This is clearly a grant of a whole manor with the tenants and slaves upon it, and a manor of long standing; and the word mark is simply the base Latin word for boundary, like the Saxon word 'gemære.' Further, the boundaries are given exactly as in the Saxon charters, in the form described in the writings of the Roman Agrimensores.
In 774,500 Charles the Great made a similar grant to the abbey in almost identical terms of the 'villa' called 'Obbenheim,' in the district of Worms, 'cum omni merito et soliditate sua, &c., accolis, mancipiis, &c.,' just as before. This was another whole royal manor granted with its tenants and slaves to the abbey. Yet in 788501 the holder of a vineyard ('j petiam de vinea') in this same Obbenheim surrenders it to the abbey. In 782502 [p332] there is another grant. In 793503 there is a similar grant of five vineyards, and another504 of three vineyards; and scores of other donations of vineyards occur in the reigns of Charles and of his predecessor Pepin.505
It is obvious, then, that these surrenders or donations, which were exactly like those of Hantscuhesheim, were made by 'free coloni' of the manor, who in the time of Pepin, while the lordship remained in the king, as well as afterwards when the manor had been transferred to the abbey, surrendered their holdings to the abbey, thus converting them either into tenancies on the demesne land, or into servile holdings under the lordship of the abbey. They were not members of a German free village community, for they were tenants of a manor when they made their surrenders. Nor were they slaves (mancipii). The only other class mentioned in the charter was that of the accolæ, the word used for 'free coloni' in the Bavarian laws. These accolæ, it seems, then, were 'coloni' or free tenants upon a royal manor, part of the old ager publicus, now 'terra regis.' And as such under the Frankish law it seems that they had power to transfer themselves from the lordship of the king to that of the Church. The Alamannic laws were enacted or at least confirmed after the Frankish conquest, and probably were in force over this particular district at the date of these surrenders. These laws, as we have seen, expressly forbade the comes under whom they lived [p333] to prevent free tenants from making such surrenders for the good of their souls.
Indeed, among the St. Gall charters there is one exactly in point.
It is dated A.D. 766,506 and by it the sons of a person who had surrendered his land to the Abbey under these laws by this charter renewed the arrangement, 'in this wise, that so as we used to do service to the king and the comes, so we shall do service for that land to the monastery, receiving it as a benefice of the same monks per cartulam precariam.'
This view of the case may be still further confirmed. In the Lorsch records are contained in some cases descriptions of the services of the two kinds of tenants on the manors surrendered to the Abbey. There are free tenants and servile tenants, and it is a strong confirmation of the continuity of the services from Roman to mediæval times to find some of them so closely identical with the 'sordida munera' of the Theodosian Code and the services described in the Bavarian laws.
To take an example: In Nersten the services of each mansus ingenualis may be thus classified:507—
- (1) As census, 5 modii of barley, 1 pound of flax, at Easter 4d., 1 fowl, 10 eggs, 2 loads of wood.
- (2) As work, 4 weeks a year whenever required.
- (3) As 'gafolyrth,' to plough 1 acre in each of the [three] fields (sationes), and to gather and store it.
- (4) As 'precariæ,' or sordida munera—
- 3 days' work at reaping
- 2 days' work at mowing. [p334]
- 2 days' work at binding and 2 loads of carrying.
- The tenant gives a parafredum.
- Attends in the host.
- Carts 5 loads of lime to the kiln.
- Carts 5 loads of wood.
- Goes messages 'infra regnum' whenever required.
Each mansus servilis rendered, on the other hand—
- (1) As census, 1 uncia, 1 fowl, 10 eggs, a frisking worth 4d.
- (2) As boon work, 'facit moaticum et bracem
et picturas in sepe et in grania.' In addition the tenant:—
- Ploughs 4 days, and all demesne land.
- Feeds for the winter 5 pigs and 1 cow.
- (3) As week-work, 3 days a week whenever required.
- For women's work, 1 uncia, 1 load of wood, 1 of grass, 10 eggs.
In total there were eighty-seven 'mansi et sortes.'
It is evident that these mansi and sortes were not allodial lots in the common mark of a free village community, but the holdings of two grades of semi-servile and servile tenants on a manor; and it is evident that some of the services were survivals of the sordida munera exacted under Roman law. Surely the continuity in the mode of surrender and in the services and tribute on these South German manors, traced from the Theodosian Code to the Alamannic and Bavarian laws, and found again in the surrenders (identical with those described by Salvian) made under those laws, and also in the later surveys of the monastic estates, excludes the probability of their having been original settlements of German free village communities on the German mark system, such as G. L. von Maurer assumes that they were.
These curious and numerous instances on which this writer relied as evidence of the mark-system, and as remains of a once free German village community, turn out in fact to be further instances of [p335] the progress under Frankish rule, within a once Roman province, of the practice described by Salvian—a practice which continued from century to century, helping on the threefold tendency (1) in the villa to become more and more manorial, i.e. more and more an estate of a lord with a village community in serfdom upon it; (2) for all land to fall under some manorial lordship or other, whether royal, ecclesiastical, monastic or private, and so to become part of a manorial estate; (3) for the originally distinct classes of 'free coloni' on the one hand, and slaves or servi on the other hand, to become merged in the one common class of mediæval serfs.
We have yet, however, to examine the German side of this continental economic history as carefully as we have examined the Roman side of it, before we shall be in a position to use continental analogies as the key to the solution of the English economic problem.
It may be that direct and important German elements also entered as factors in the manorial system, both during the period of Roman rule in the German provinces, and also after their final conquest by the German tribes.
CHAPTER VIII. FOOTNOTES.
339. Liber de Hyda, p. 63.
340. Liber de Hyda, pp. 67 et seq.
341. The per-centage is under-estimated, owing to the repetition of various forms of the same name having been excluded in counting those ending in ham, but not in counting the total number of places.
342. In Essex the h is often dropped, and the suffix becomes 'am.'
343. Chartularium Sithiense, p. 97.
344. Traditiones et Antiquitates Fuldenses. Dronke, Fulda, 1844.
345. Traditiones Corbeienses. Wigand, 1843.
346. Urkundenbuch der Abtei St. Gallen, A.D. 700–840. Wartmann, Zurich, 1863.
347. Historia Frisingensis, Meichelbeck, 1729.
348. Traditiones possessionesqne Wizenburgenses. Spiræ, 1842.
349. Codex Laureshamensis Diplomaticus, 1768.
350. The following are examples of the interchange of villa and heim in the names of places mentioned in the charters of the Abbey of Wizenburg in the district of Spires. The numbers refer to the charters in the Traditiones Wizenburgenses.
- Batanandouilla (9).
Batanantesheim (28). - Hariolfesuilla (4).
Hariolueshaim (55). - Lorencenheim (141).
Lorenzenuillare (275). - Modenesheim (2).
Moduinouilare (52). - Moresuuilari (189).
Moresheim (181). - Munifridesheim (118).
Munifridouilla (52). - Radolfeshamomarca (90).
Ratolfesham, p. 241.
Radolfouuilari, Radulfo villa (71 and 73).
So also, among the manors of the Abbey of St. Bertin, 'Tattinga Villa' granted to the abbey in A.D. 648 (Chart. Sithiense, p. 18), called afterwards 'Tattingaheim' (p. 158). See also Codex Dip. ii. p. 227, 'Oswaldingvillare' interchangeable with 'Oswaldingtune,' in England. See also Codex Laureshamensis, iii. preface.
351. See Traditiones Wizenburgenses, pp. 269 et seq. Codex Laureshamensis, iii. pp. 175 et seq.
352. See among the Lorsch charters that of Hephenheim (A.D. 773). 'Hanc villam cum sylva habuerunt in beneficio Wegelenzo, pater Warini, et post eum Warinus Comes filius ejus in ministerium habuit ad opus regis et post eum Bougolfus Comes quousque eam Carolus rex Sancto Nazario tradidit' (I. p. 16).
353. See again the case of Hephenheim. 'Limites. Inprimis incipit a loco ubi Gernesheim marcha adjungitur ad Hephenheim marcham,' &c.
354. 'Villam aliquam nuncupatam Hephenheim sitam in Pago Renense, cum omni merito et soliditate sua, et quicquid ad eandem villam legitime aspicere vel pertinere videtur.' See also the case of the Manor of 'Sitdiu,' with its twelve sub-estates upon it, granted to the Abbot of St. Bertin A.D. 648. Chartularium Sithiense, p. 18.
355. Lex Salica, xxxix. (cod. ii.), 4. 'Nomina hominum et villarum semper debeat nominare.'
xlv. (De Migrantibus). When any one wants to move from one 'villa' to another, he cannot do so without the licence of those 'qui in villa consistunt;' but if he has removed and stayed in another 'villa' twelve months, 'securus sicut et alii vicini maneat.'
xiv. 'Si quis villa aliena adsalierit. . . .'
xlii. v. 'Si quis villam alienam expugnaverit. . . .'
Capitulare Ludovici Primi, ix. 'De eo qui villam alterius occupaverit' (Hessels and Kern's edition, p. 419).
Chlodovechi Regis Capitula (id. p. 408), A.D. 500–1. 'De hominem inter duas villas occisum.'
356. Lex Salica, xlv.
357. Id. xiv.
358. This inference is drawn by Dr. P. Roth, Geschichte des Beneficialwesens, p. 74. See also Waitz, V. G. ii. 31.
359. Hessels and Kern's edition, pp. 422–3.
360. By the authors of the Lex Emendata. Note 39, p. 451.
361. Note 216, p. 528.
362. Tit. xxvi. (1) 'Si quis lidum alienum extra consilium domini sui ante Regem per denarium ingenuum dimiserit IIIIM. den. qui faciunt sol. c. culp. judicetur, et capitate domino ipsius restituat. (2) Res vero ipsius lidi legitimo domino restituantur. (3) Si quis servum alienum,' &c. &c. (H. and K. 136–144).
There were also Roman tributarii, Tit. xli. 'Si quis Romanum tributarium occiderit,' &c. (s. 7).
363. See on this point Roth, pp. 83 et seq.
364. Varro. i. 13.
365. Cato, R. R. 2. Columella, R. R. i. 6–8. M. Guerard says of the 'villicus,' 'Cet officier est le même que nous retrouvons au moyen âge sous son ancien nom de villicus, ou sous le nom nouveau de major.' Polyptique d'Irminon, i. 442.
366. Columella, De Re Rustica, i. 8.
367. Plutarch, Cato, c. 21. See Cod. Theod. IX. xii.
368. 'Classes etiam non majores quam denum hominum faciundæ, quas decurias appellaverunt antiqui et maxime probaverunt.'—Columella, i. 9.
369. Fragment Jur. Rom. Vatic. 272. Huschke, p. 774.
370. Polyptique d'Irminon, i. pp. 45 and 456.
371. Bede, III. c. xxiv. 'Singulæ possessiones decem erant familiarum.'
372. See also the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, anno 777, where mention is made of '10 bonde lands' given to the monks at Medeshampstede.
373. Varro, i. xvii.
374. Columella, i. vii.
375. 'Si quis colonus originalis vel inquilinus ante hos triginta annos de possessione discessit,' &c.—Cod. Theod. v. tit. x. 1.
376. Cod. Just. xi. tit. xlvii. 22.
377. Cod. Just. xi. tit. xlix. 1.
378. Frontini, Lib. ii. De controversiis Agrorum. Lachmann, p. 53. 'Frequenter in provinciis . . . . habent autem in saltibus privati non exiguum populum plebeium et vicos circa villam in modum munitionum.'
379. Cod. Theod. v. tit. iv. 3, A.D. 409. By this edict liberty is given for landowners to settle upon their property, as free coloni, people of the recently conquered 'Scyras' (a tribe inhabiting the present 'Moravia').
380. Sid. Apol. Epist. ii. xii. He complains that a governor partial to barbarians 'implet villas hospitibus.'
381. Cod. Theod. lib. vii. tit. viii. 5. Compare as regards the Burgundian settlement the passages in the Burgundian Laws, carefully commented upon in Binding's 'Das Burgundisch-Romanische Königreich, von 443 bis 532 A.D.,' 1, c. i. s. ii. et seq.
382. Binding, p. 36. And they called them villas. Leges Burg. T. 38–9.
383. Roth's Geschichte des Beneficialwesens, p. 81.
384. Hist. Francorum, f. 344.
385. Hist. Francorum, f. 295.
386. Polyptique d'Irminon. Large donations were made to the abbey as early as A.D. 558 by the Frankish King Hildebert. See M. Guerard's Introduction, p. 35.
387. Chartularium Sithiense, pp. 18 and 158.
388. Mr. Coote has pointed out many remains of this centuriation in Britain; and the inscriptions on many centurial stones are given in Hübner's collection.
389. Siculus Flaccus, Lachmann and Rudorff, i. pp. 136–8.
390. Cod. Theod. lib. vii. tit. xx. 3. A.D. 320. 'Constantinus ad universos veteranos.' 'Let veterans according to our command receive vacant lands, and hold them "immunes" for ever; and for the needful improvement of the country let them have also 25 thousand folles, a pair of oxen (boum quoque par), and 100 modii of different kinds of grain, &c. (frugum).'
Ib. s. 8. 'Valentinianus et Valens ad universos provinciales,' A.D. 364. 'To all deserving veterans we give what dwelling-place (patriam) they wish, and promise perpetual "immunity."
'Let them have vacant or other lands where they chose, free from stipendium and annual "præstatio." Further, we grant them for the cultivation of these lands both animals and seed, so that those who have been protectores (body-guards) should receive two pairs of oxen (duo boum paria) and 100 modii, of each of the two kinds of corn (fruges)—others after faithful service a single pair of oxen (singula paria boum) and 50 modii of each of the two kinds of corn, &c. If they bring male or female slaves on to the land, let them possess them "immunes" for ever.'
391. In Verrem, Actio 2, lib. iii. 27.
392. Varro, De Re Rustica, i. 44. Columella, ii. 9. Guerard, Irminon, i. 1.
393. Siculus Flaccus, De Condicionibus Agrorum. Lachmann and Rudorff, i. pp. 154–6.
394. In the division of the land between the Romans and Visigoths the amount allotted 'per singula aratra' was to be 50 aripennes (i.e. 25 jugera). Lex Visigothorum, x. 1, 14 (A.D. 650 or thereabouts).
The Liber Coloniarum I. describes the 'ager jugarius' as 'in quinquagenis jugeribus,' the 'ager meridianus in xxv. jugeribus.' Lachmann, i. 247. Here we have the normal divisions of the centuria of 200 jugera into holdings of 25 and 50 jugera. On the other hand, the Lex Thoria, B.C. 111, fixed 30 jugera as the largest holding to be recognised on the public lands. Rudorff, p. 213 (Corp. Jur. Lat. 200, 1. 14).
395. P. 142. 'Quam maxime secundum consuetudinem regionum omnia intuenda sunt.'
396. P. 143. See also Frontinus, p. 43, and Hyginus, p. 115, and p. 128 on the same point.
397. P. 152.
398. Siculus Flaccus, Lachmann, p. 152. 'Præterea et in multis regionibus comperimus quosdam possessores non continuas habere terras, sed particulas quasdam in diversis locis, intervenientibus complurium possessionibus: propter quod etiam complures vicinales viæ sint, ut unusquisque possit ad particulas suas jure pervenire. Sed et de viarum conditionibus locuti sumus. Quorundam agri servitutem possessoribus ad particulas suas eundi redeundique præstant. Quorundam etiam vicinorum aliquas silvas quasi publicas, immo proprias quasi vicinorum, esse comperimus, nec quemquam in eis cedendi pascendique jus habere nisi vicinos quorum sint: ad quas itinera sæpe, ut supra diximus, per alienos agros dantur.'
399. Teams of six and of eight oxen in the plough are mentioned in the Vedas. 'Altindisches Leben,' H. Zimmer. Berlin, 1879, p. 237.
400. Hyginus, Lachmann and Rudorff, i. 113.
401. See Codex Theodosianus, vii. tit. xx. s. 9, A.D. 366.
402. In Cod. Theod. vii. xx. s. 10, A.D. 369, 'læti' are mentioned; and in s. 12, A.D. 400, 'lætus Alamannus Sarmata, vagus, vel filius veterani,' are mentioned together.
403. Compare the Welsh aillt, or alltud (Saxon althud, foreigner), and the Aldiones of the Lombardic laws, with the Læti.
404. B. iv. c. iii. s. 4.
405. Germania, 28.
406. The importance of the Limes or Pfahlgraben as marking the extent of Roman rule to the east of the Rhine, has recently been fully realised. See Wilhelm Arnold's Deutsche Urzeit, c. iii. 'Der Pfahlgraben und seine Bedeutung.' See also 'Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen' (Berlin, 1882), Abth. 48, c. viii. And Mr. Hodgkin's interesting paper on 'The Pfahlgraben' in Archæologia Æliana, pt. 25, vol. ix. new series. Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1882.
407. Gibbon, c. ix., quoting Dion. Cas., lxxi. and lxxii.
408. Zosimus, i. p. 68. Excerpta, Mon. Brit. lxxv.
409. Wietersheim's Geschichte der Völkerwanderung (Dahn), i. 245. Guerard's Polypt. d'Irminon, i. p. 252.
410. 'Tuo, Maximiane Auguste, nutu, Nerviorum et Treverorum arva jacentia Lætus postliminio restitutus et receptus in leges Francus excoluit.' Eumen. Panegyr. Constantio Cæs., c. 21. Guerard, i. 250.
411. Eumen. Paneg. Constantio, 9. Guerard, i. 252.
412. Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, pp. 582–4, quoting the will of St. Widrad, Abbot of Flavigny in the eighth century: 'In pago Commavorum,' 'in pago 'Ammaviorum.' In the Notitia Occidentis, cxl., there is mention of Læti from this district—Præfectus Lætorum Lingonensium. Boeking, p. 120.
413. Kaiser Diocletian und seine Zeit, von Theodor Preuss, Leipzig, 1869 (pp. 54–5).
414. 'Quo [Constantio] mortuo, cunctis qui aderunt adnitentibus, sed præcipue Eroco Alamannorum rege, auxilii gratia Constantium comitato, imperium capit.' Mon. Brit. Excerpta. Ex Sexti Aurelii Victoris Epitome (p. lxxii.).
415. Ammianus Marcellinus, bk. xvii. c. i. 7.
416. Am. Marc. bk. xviii. c. ii. s. 3.
417. Id. xxix. c. iv. 7.
418. Id. bk. xx. c. viii. 13.
419. Among the 'Præfecti Lætorum et Gentilium' there is mention of the Præfectus Lætorum Teutonicianorum, Batavorum, Francorum, Lingonensium, Nerviorum, and Lagensium. Notitia Occ. cxl. Böcking, p. 120. See also the valuable annotation 'De Lætis.' Böcking, 1044 et seq.
420. Cod. Theod. vii. 6, 3. Per viginti juga seu capita conferant vestem. . .
Id. xi. 16, 6. Pro capitibus seu jugis suis. . .
421. Cod. Theol. xi. 17, 4. 'Universi pro portione suæ possessionis jugationis que ad hæc munia coarctentur.'
422. Cod. Theod. lib. vii. tit. xx. 4.
423. See Syrisch-Römisches Rechtsbuch aus dem Fünften Jahrhundert (Bruns und Sachan), Leipzig, 1880, p. 37; and Marquardt's Staatsverwaltung, ii. 220. See also Hyginus, De Limitibus Constituendis, Lachmann, &c., p. 205, where there is mention of 'arvum primum, secundum,' &c., in Pannonia.
424. Marquardt, ii. 237.
425. Not that the Roman jugerum was equal in area to the Saxon acre. It was much smaller, and of quite a different shape, at least in Italy. The acreage of the jugum no doubt varied very much, as did also the acreage of the yard-land.
426. It is even possible and probable that the Gallic coinage in Roman times, mentioned in the Pauca de Mensuris (Lachmann and Rudorff, p. 373), 'Juxta Galios vigesima pars unciæ denarius est . . . duodecies unciæ libram xx. solidos continentem efficiunt, sed veteres solidum qui nunc aureus dicitur nuncupabant,'—the division of the pound of silver into 12 ounces, and these into 20 pennyweights—with which we found the Welsh tunc pound to be connected, may also have had something to do with the contents of the centuria and jugum. At all events, the division of the pound into 240 pence was very conveniently arranged for the division of a tax imposed upon holdings of 240 acres, or 120 acres, or 60 acres, or 30 acres, or the 10 acres in each field. In other words, the coinage and the land divisions were remarkably parallel in their arrangement, as we found was also the case with the scutage of the Hundred Rolls, and the scatt penny of the villani in the Boldon Book.
427. Eumenius, Pan. Constantini, Marquardt, S. V., ii. 222.
428. Cod. Theod. lib. xi. tit. i. 14.
429. See also Ammianus. xxvii. 8, 7. Coote, 131.
430. Cod. Theod. lib. xi. tit. vii. 2. Idem A ad Pacatianum Vicarium Britanniarum. Unusquisque decurio pro ea portione conveniatur, in qua vel ipse vel colonus vel tributarius ejus convenitur et colligit; neque omnino pro alio decurione vel territorio conveniatur. Id enim prohibitum esse manifestum est et observandum deinceps, quo[d] juxta hanc nostram provisionem nullus pro alio patiatur injuriam. Dat. xii. Kal. Dec. Constantino A. et Licinio C. Coss. (319).
431. Hyginus. Lachmann, &c., i. 205.
432. Cod. Theod. lib. xi. tit. xvi. De Extraordinariis sive Sordidis Muneribus. See also Godefroy's notes.
433. Lib. xi. t. xvi. 4. 'Ea forma servata, ut primo a potioribus, deinde a mediocribus atque infimis, quæ sunt danda, præstentur.' 'Manu autem sua rectores scribere debebunt, quid opus sit, et in qua necessitate, per singula capita, vel quantæ angariæ vel quantæ operæ, vel quæ aut in quanto modo præbendæ sint, ut recognovisse se scribant; exactionis, prædicto ordine inter ditiores, mediocres, atque infimos observando.'
434. Germania, xli.
435. Cod. Theod. xi. 16, and 18.
436. From angarius = ἄγγαρος, a messenger or courier. The word is probably of Persian origin.
'Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention. . . . The Persians give the riding post the name of "angarum."'—Herodotus, bk. viii. 98.
See also the Cyropædia, bk. viii. c. 17, where the origin of the post-horse system is ascribed to Cyrus.
437. From the Latin veredus, a post-horse.
438. Cod. Theod. lib. viii. t. v.
439. The 'veredus' or post-horse, from which the paraveredus or extra post-horse, sometimes parhippus (all these words occur in the Codex Justin. xii. l. [li.], 2 and 4, De Cursu Publico), may have been equivalent to the later 'averius' or 'affrus' by which the averagium was performed. Cf. 'Parhippus vel Avertarius' (Cod. Theod. VIII. v. xxii.) and see Id. xlvii., 'avertarius' = a horse carrying 'averta' or saddlebags. Hence, perhaps, the base Latin avera, averiæ, averii, affri, beasts of burden, oxen, or farm horses, and the verb 'averiare' (Saxon of 10th century 'averian'), and lastly the noun 'averagium' for the service. See also the Gallic Ep-o-rediæ (men of the horse-course) mentioned by Pliny iii. 21 (Dr. Guest's Origines Celticæ, i. 381), and compare this word with paraveredi. In modern Welsh 'Rhed' = a running, a course.
440. Compare the careful paragraphs on these words in M. Guerard's Introduction to the Polyptique de l'Abbé Irminon, pp. 793 et seq. The sense of the word as implying a compulsory service is shown in the Vulgate of Matt. v. 4: 'Et quicunque te angariaverit mille passus: vade cum illo et alia duo.'
The same word is used in Matt. xxvii. 32, and Mark xv., where Simon is compelled to bear the cross.
441. Supra, p. 154.
442. There were probably servi on the 'ager publicus' as there were on the Frankish public lands, called 'servi fisci.' See Decretio Chlotharii regis, A.D. 511, 55S. Mon. Germ. Hist. Legum Sectio, ii. p. 6
443. Compare Dr. J. N. Madvig's Die Verfassung und Verwaltung des Römischen Staates (Leipzig, 1882), ii. p. 408.
444. Madvig, ii. p. 573; and Cod. Just. xii. 8–14, and Cod. Theod. xii. i. 38. See also the Notitia Dignitatum, passim.
445. With regard to the procuratores, ducenarii, and centenarii see Madvig, ii. p. 411. See also Cod. Just., xii. 20 (De agentibus in rebus), where a certain 'magister officiorum' is forbidden to have under him more than 48 ducenarii and 200 centenarii. Also Cod. Just., xii. 23 (24). Mr. Coote (Romans in England, p. 317 et seq.), identifies the 'centenarii' with the 'stationarii,' or police of the later provincial rule. Compare this with the distinctly police duties of the 'centenarii' of the 'Decretio Clotharii' (A.D. 511–558), Mon. Germ. Hist.—Capitularia, p. 7.
446. Madvig, ii. 432, and the authorities there quoted.
447. Cod. Theod., xi. tit. 11. i. 'Si quis eorum qui provinciarum Rectoribus exequuntur, quique in diversis agunt officiis principatus, et qui sub quocumque prætextu muneris publici possunt esse terribiles, rusticano cuipiam necessitatem obsequii, quasi mancipio sui juris, imponat, aut servum ejus aut bovem in usus proprios necessitatisque converterit. . . ultimo subjugatur exitio.' Quoting the above Lehuërou observes:—'Les ducs, les comtes, les recteurs des provinces, institués pour résister aux puissants et aux forts, n'usèrent plus de l'autorité de leur charge que pour se rendre redoutables aux petits et aux faibles, et se firent un honteux revenue de la terreur qu'ils répandaient autour d'eux. Ils enlevaient sans scrupule, tantôt le bœuf, tantôt l'esclave du pauvre, et quelquefois le malheureux lui-même avec sa femme et ses enfants, pour les employer tous ensemble à la culture de leurs villæ' (p. 140). See also Cod. Theod. viii. t. v. 7 and 15.
448. Cod. Theod., xi. tit. 24, De Patrociniis vicorum. 'Quicumque ex tuo officio, vel ex quocumque hominum ordine, vicos in suum detecti fuerint patrocinium suscepisse, constitutas luent pœnas. . . . Quoscumque autem vicos aut defensionis potentia, aut multitudine sua fretos, publicis muneribus constiterit obviari, ultioni quam ratio ipsa dictabit, conveniet subjugari.'
'Censemus ut qui rusticis patrocinia præbere temptaverit, cujuslibet ille fuerit dignitatis, sive MAGISTRI UTRIUSQUE MILITIÆ, sive COMITIS, sive ex pro-consulibus, vel vicariis, vel augustalibus, vel tribunis (C. J. xii. 17, 2), sive ex ordine curiali, vel cujuslibet alterius dignitatis, quadraginta librarum auri se sciat dispendium pro singulorum fundorum præbito patrocinio subiturum, nisi ab hac postea temeritate discesserit. Omnes ergo sciant, non modo eos memorata multa ferendos, qui clientelam susceperint rusticorum, sed eos quoque qui fraudandorum tributorum causa ad patrocinia solita fraude confugerint, duplum definitæ multæ dispendium subituros.' (Dat. vi. Id. Mart. Constantinop., Theodoro v. c. Coss. 399). See also Lehuërou, p. 136 139, and Cod. Just., xi. 54.
449. Madvig, ii. 432. 'Wie lange die Ackersleute auf den Kaiserlichen Grundstücken (Coloni Cæsaris Dig. vi. 6, s. 11, i. 19, 3) eine grössere persönliche Freiheit bewahrten, und seit welcher Zeit das spätere Kolonatsverhältniss galt, lässt sich nicht bestimmen, da der Uebergang schrittweise vor sich ging.'
450. In the Ripuarium Laws, tit. li. (53) 'Grafio' = 'comes' = 'judex fiscalis,' and the mallus was sometimes held 'ante centenarium vel comitem, sen ante Ducem Patricium vel Regem,' tit. 1. (52). So in the Salic Laws, tit. lxxv. 'debet judex, hoc est, comes aut grafio,' &c., but this occurs in one of the additions to the 'Lex Antiqua.' Compare the 'centenarius' in his relation to his superior, the 'comes,' and in his position of 'judex' in the mallus with the 'centenarius' under Cod. Just., vii. 20, 4.
451. M. Lehuërou observes, 'Il y a déjà des seigneurs, cachés encore sous l'ancienne et familière dénomination de patrons. Cela est si vrai que, non seulement la chose, mais le mot se trouve dans Libanius:—Περὶ τῶν προστασιῶν εἴσι κῶμαι μεγάλαι, πολλῶν ἑκαστη δεσποτὢν.
452. De Bello Gallico, vi. c. xiii.–xv. 'In omni Galliâ eorum hominum qui aliquo sunt numero atque honore genera sunt duo. Nam plebes pœne servorum habetur loco, quæ per se nihil audet et nulli adhibetur consilio. Plerique, quum aut ære alieno aut magnitudine tributorum aut injuriâ potentiorum premuntur, sese in servitutem dicant nobilibus. In hos eadem omnia sunt jura quæ dominis in servos. . . . Alterum genus est Equitum. Hi, quum est usus, atque aliquod bellum incidit (quod ante Cæsaris adventum fere quotannis accidere solebat, uti aut ipsi injurias inferrent aut illatas propulsarent), omnes in bello versantur: atque eorum ut quisque est genere copiisque amplissimus, ita plurimos circum se ambactos clientesque habet. Hanc unam gratiam potentiamque noverunt.'
453. Tacitus, Annals, iv. 72. 'In the course of the year the Frisians, a people dwelling beyond the Rhine, broke out into open acts of hostility. The cause of the insurrection was not the restless spirit of a nation impatient of the yoke; they were driven to despair by Roman avarice. A moderate tribute, such as suited the poverty of the people, consisting of raw hides for the use of the legions, had been formerly imposed by Drusus. To specify the exact size and quality of the hide was an idea that never entered into the head of any man till Olennius, the first centurion of a legion, being appointed governor over the Frisians, collected a quantity of the hides of forest bulls, and made them the standard both of weight and dimensions. To any other nation this would have been a grievous burden, but was altogether impracticable in Germany, where the cattle running wild in large tracts of forest are of prodigious size, while the breed for domestic uses is remarkably small. The Frisians groaned under this oppressive demand. They gave up first their cattle, next their lands; and finally were obliged to see their wives and children carried into slavery by way of commutation. Discontent arose, and they rebelled,' &c.
454. Hist., f. 369.
455. Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, ib. v. s. vi.–viii.
456. 'Hoc enim pacto aliquid parentibus temporarie attribuitur, ut in futuro totum filiis auferatur'—Salvian, s. viii.
457. The above is only an abridged summary of the lengthy declamation of Salvian. See Gregory of Tours, 'De Miraculis S. Martini,' iv. xi. (1122), where a surrender is mentioned. 'Tradidit ei omnem possessionem suam, dicens: "Sint hæc omnia penes Sti. Martini ditionem quæ habere videor, et hoc tantum exinde utar, ut de his dum vixero alar."'
458. Lib. ii. Tit. i. 36. 'Is ad quem ususfructus fundi pertinet, non aliter fructuum dominus efficitur, quam si ipse eos perceperit; et ideo, licet maturis fructibus nondum tamen perceptis decesserit, ad heredem ejus non pertinent, sed domino proprietatis adquiruntur. Eadem fere et de colono dicuntur.
459. Rudorff, ii. 317.
460. Syrisch-Römisches Rechtsbuch. Aus dem fünften Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1880.
461. Early Law and Customs, p. 260.
462. S. 1, s. 9, and s. 27.
463. Inst. Just. ii. xviii. 53, and compare Sandars' note on this passage.
464. Syrian Code, s. 3.
465. See also Lex Burgundiorum, i. 2, 'Si cum filiis deviserit et portionem suam tulerit, . . .' and id. xxiv. 5 and li. 1 and 2. Also 'Urkunden' of St. Gall, No. 360. 'Quicquid contra filios meos in portionem et in meam swascaram accepi.' See also Sir H. Maine's Ancient Law, pp. 198, 224, 228.
466. Reports on Tenure of Land, 1869–70, p. 226. Just. Nov. 18.
467. See Syrian Code, s. 50.
468. See the parable of 'The unjust steward,' and supra, p. 145.
469. Journal of the Palestine Exploration Society, January 1883. 'Life, Habits, and Customs of the Fellahin of Palestine,' by the Rev. F. A. Klein. From the Zeitschrift of the German Palestine Exploration Society.
470. Shortened form of ard emiri—land of the Emir.
471. The standard measure of land throughout the Turkish Empire is called a deunum, and is the area which one pair of oxen can plough in a single day; it is equal to a quarter of an acre, or a square of forty arshuns (nearly 100 feet). There seems to be but one allusion to this fact in the Scriptures; it is found in 1 Sam. xiv. 14, where the exploit of Jonathan and his armour-bearer is described: twenty of the enemy are stated to have fallen within a space of 'a half-acre of land' of 'a yoke of oxen,' an expression better rendered 'within the space of half a deunum of land.' This measure is referred to in ancient profane writers, so that no change has occurred in this respect. Van Lenner's Bible Customs in Bible Lands, i. 75.
472. Early Law and Custom, p. 332.
473. Lex Alamannorum Chlotharii. 1. 'Ut si quis liber res suas vel semetipsum ad ecclesiam tradere voluerit, nullus habeat licentiam contradicere ei, non dux, non comes, nec ulla persona, sed spontanea voluntate liceat christiano homine Deo servire et de proprias res suas semetipsum redemere. . . .
2. Si quis liber, qui res suas ad ecclesiam dederit et per cartam firmitatem fecerit, sicut superius dictum est, et post hæc ad pastorem ecclesiæ ad beneficium susceperit ad victualem necessitatem conquirendam diebus vitæ suæ: et quod spondit persolvat ad ecclesiam censum de illa terra, et hoc per epistulam firmitatis fiat, ut post ejus discessum nullus de heredibus non contradicat.'—Pertz, Legum, t. iii. pp. 45–6.
474. Lex Baiuwariorum. Textus Legis primus.
1. 'Ut si quis liber persona voluerit et dederit res suas ad ecclesiam pro redemptione animæ suæ, licentiam habeat de portione sua, postquam cum filiis suis partivit. Nullus eum prohibeat, non rex, non dux, nec ulla persona habeat potestatem prohibendi ei. Et quicquid donaverit, villas, terras, mancipia, vel aliqua pecunia, omnia quæcumque donaverit pro redemptione animæ suæ, hoc per epistolam confirmet propria manu sua ipse. . . .
'Et post hæc nullam habeat potestatem nec ipse nec posteri ejus, nisi defensor ecclesiæ ipsius beneficium præstare voluerit ei.'—Pertz, Legum, t. iii. pp. 269–70.
475. Urkundenbuch der Abtei St. Gallen, i. p. 22.
476. Compare with the Kentish 'yokes' and 'ioclets.' The yoke here is, however, evidently the juger, not the jugum.
477. Urkundenbuch, pp. 27–8.
478. Id. p. 33.
479. See also id. pp. 76 and 90.
480. Hence 'jurnal' for acre.
481. Id. p. 41.
482. Urkundenbuch, p. 59.
483. Id. p. 60.
484. Urkundenbuch, p. 106.
485. "Et ad proximam curtem vestram in unaquaque zelga ebdomedarii jurnalem arare debeamus" (p. 107).
486. Waitz speaks of the three great fields under the 'Dreifelderwirthschaft' as 'Zelgen.'—Verfassung der Deutschen Völker, i. 120. And see infra, chap. x. s. iii.
487. Pertz, Legum, iii. pp. 51, 52.
488. Pertz, Legum, t. iii. pp. 278–280.
489. Compare Chlotharii II. Præceptio (584–628) s. 11. 'Agraria, pascuaria vel decimas porcorum ecclesiæ pro fidei nostræ devotione concedimus, ita ut actor aut decimator in rebus ecclesiæ nullus accedat.'—Mon. Germ. Hist. Capitularia, I. i. p. 19.
490. This word 'accola' is often used in charters for 'free coloni.'
491. In the Glosses this andecena is called a 'sharwork.'
492. Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland, i. pp. 6 et seq.
493. Traditiones in Pago Rhinensi. Codex Lauresham. pp. 357 et seq.
494. Dorfverfassung, pp. 15 et seq.
495. Ammianus Marcellinus, bk. xvii. c. i., A.D. 357.
496. Codex Lauresham. pp. 326, 362, 369, 375 and passim.
497. Codex Lauresham. p. 3.
498. It is curious to notice that 'coliberti' appear also in the western counties of England in the Domesday Survey.
499. Codex Lauresham. i. pp. 15–16.
500. Id. i. pp. 18 and 19.
501. Id. i. p. 297.
502. Id. i. p. 303.
503. Codex Lauresham. i. p. 347.
504. Id. i. pp. 349–350.
505. Id. ii. pp. 232 et seq.
506. Urkundenbuch of St. Gall, i. p. 50.
507. Codex Laureshamensis, iii. 212. See also the services at Winenheim (iii. 205), a manor near Heppenheim.