Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/87

 FEUDALISM

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FEUDALISM

condition of military service (Palgrave, "English Commonwealth", I, 350, 495, 505), that the Carlovin- gian Empire adopted the same expedient. By this means the ninth-century Danish raids were opposed by a semi-professional army, better armed and more tactically efficient than the old Germanic levy. This method of forming a standing national force by grants of lands to individuals is perfectly normal in history, witness the Turkish timar fiefs (Cambridge Modern History, 1, iii, 99, 1902), the fief dc soudie of the East- ern Latin Kingdoms (Br^hier, " L'Eglise et I'Orient au moyon age", Paris, 1907, iv, 94), and, to a certain ex- tent, the Welsh uchelwyr (Rhys and Jones, "The Welsh People", London, 1900, vi, 205). On the whole, feudalism means government by amateurs paid in land, rather than professionals paid in money. Hence, as we shall see, one cause of the downfall of feudalism was the substitution in every branch of civil life of the "cash-nexus" for the "land-nexus". Feudalism, therefore, by connecting ownership of land with governmental work, went a large way towards solving that ever-present difficulty of the land-ques- tion ; not, indeed, by anj' real system of land-national- ization, but by inducing lords to do work for the country in return for the right of possessing landed property. Thus gradually it approximated to, and realized, the political ideal of Aristotle, " Private pos- session and common use" (Politics, II, v, 12G3, a). To a certain extent, therefore, feudalism still exists, re- maining as the great justification of modern land- owners wherever — as sheriffs, justices of the peace, etc. — they do unpaid governmental work. (2) As regards the rights it creates, feudalism may be de- fined as a "graduated system based on land-tenure in which every lord judged, taxed, and commanded the class next below him" (Stubbs, "Constitutional His- tory", Oxford, 1897, I, ix, 278). One result of this was that, whenever a Charter of Liberties was wrung by the baronage from the king, the latter always man- aged to have his concessions to his tenants-in-chief paralleled by their concessions to their lower vassals (cf. Stubbs, ■" .Select Charters", O.xford, 1900, §4, 101; §60, 304). Another more serious, less beneficent, result was that, while feudalism centrally converted the sovereign into a landowner, it locally converted the landowner into a sovereign.

Origin. — The source of feudalism arises from an intermingling of barbarian usage and Roman law (Maine, "Ancient Law", London, 1906, ix). To ex- plain this reference must be made to a change that passed over the Roman Empire at the beginning of the fourth century. About that date Diocletian re- organized the Empire by the establishment of a huge bureaucracy, at the same time disabling it by his crushing taxation. The obvious result was the de- pression of free classes into unfree, and the barbariza- tion of the empire. Before A. n. 300 the absentee landlord farmed his land by means of a familiarusHca or gang of slaves, owned by him as his own transfer- able property, though others might till their fields by hired labour. Two causes extended and intensified this organized slave-system: (1) Imperial legislation that two-thirds of a man's wealth must be in land, so as to set free hoarded specie and prevent attempts to hide wealth and so escape taxation. Hence land be- came the medium of exchange instead of money, i. e. land was held not by rent, but by service. (2) The pressure of taxation falling on land (trihutum soli) forced smaller proprietors to put themselves under their rich neighbours, who paid the tax for them, but for whom they were accordingly obliged to perform service (obsequium) in work and kind. Thus they became tied to the soil (nscripti glebcp), not transfer- able dependents. Over them the lord had powers of correction, not, apparently, of jurisdiction.

Meanwhile the slaves themselves had become also territorial, and not personal. Further, the public land

(ngcr prihlicus) got manorialized by grants partly to free veterans (as at Colchester in England), partly to laii — a semi-servile class of conquered peoples (as the Germans in England under Marcus Antonius), paying, besides the tributum soli, manual .service in kind (sordida munera). Even in the Roman towns, by the same process, the urban landlords (curiales) became debased into the manufacturing population (colle- ginti). In a word, the middle class disappeared; the empire was split into two opposing forces: an aristo- cratic bureaucracy and a servile labouring population. Over the Roman Empire thus organized poured the Teutonic flood, and these barbarians had also their organization, rude and changeful though it might be. According to Tacitus (Germania), the Germans were divided into some forty civitates, or popidi, or folks. Some of these, near the Roman borders, lived under kings, others, more remote, were governed by folk- moots or elective princes. Several of these might comliine to form a "stem", the only bond of which consisted in common religious rites. The populus or civilas, on the other hand, was a political unity. It was di\'i(lod into pagi, each pagus being apparently a jurisdictional limit, probably meeting in a court over which a pn'nceps, elected by the folk-moot, presided, but in which the causes were decided by a body of freemen usually numbering about a hundred. Parallel with the pagus, according to Tacitus (Germania, xii), though in reality probalily a division of it, was the vicusi, an agricultural luiit. This vicus was (though Seebohm, "English Historical Re\'iew", July, 1892, 444-465, thought not) represented in two types (1) the dependent village, consisting of the lord's house and cottages of his subordinates (perhaps the relics of in- digenous conquered peoples) who paid rent in kind, corn, cattle, (2) the free village of scattered houses, each with its separate enclosure. Round this village stretched great meadows on which the villagers pas- tured their cattle. Every year a piece of new land was set apart to be ploughed, of which each villager got a share proportioned to his official position in the com- munity. It was the amalgamation of these two systems that produced feudalism.

But here, precisely as to the relative preponderance of the Germanic and Roman systems in manorial feudalism, the discussion still continues. The ques- tion turns to a certain extent on the view taken of the character of the Germanic inroads. The defenders of Roman preponderance depict these mo^-ements as mere raids, producing indeed much material damage, but in reality not altering the race or institutions of the Romanized peoples. Their opponents, however, speak of these incursions rather as people-wander- ings — of warriors, women and children, cattle, even, and slaves — indelibly stamping and moulding the in- stitutions of the race which they encountered. The same discussion focuses round the medieval manor, which is best seen in its English form. The old theory was that the manor was the same as the Teutonic mark, plus the intrusion of a lord (Stubbs, "Constitu- tional History", Oxford, 1897, I, .32-71). This was attacked by I^'ustel de Coulanges (Histoire des institu- tions politiques de I'ancienne France, Paris, 1901) and by Seebohm (The English Village Community, Lon- don, 1883, viii, 252-316), who insisted on a Latin ancestiy from the Roman villa, contending for a de- velopment not from freedom to serfdom, but from slavery through serfdom to freedom. The arguments of the Latin School may be thus summarized: (1) the "mark" is a figment of the Teutonic brain (cf. Mur- ray's "Oxford English Dictionary", s. v., 167; "mark moot" probably means "a parsley bed"). (2) Early (Jerman law is based on assumption of private ow'ner- ship. (3) Analogies of Maine and others from India and Russia not to the point. (4) Romanized Britons, for example, in south-eastern Britain had complete manorial system before the Saxons came from Ger-