Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/277

 LAND 261 would sink into slavery, or at best into the already over crowded class of labourers for insufficient hire. At the same time the conquered lands, which by theory were the property of the state, and to which every citizen had an equal right, were largely portioned out to the existing landowners, who held the chief posts and influence in the government. The revenues drawn from tribute were also farmed out to capitalists, and the taxes on the public were augmented in consequence of the permitted frauds of the collectors. At last came the crisis. The army, no longer representing the wealth of the state, but rather the pro letariat, mutinied, and from the Mons Sacer menaced the city. It was the commencement of the long struggle of which the successive AGRARIAN LAWS (g.v.) were the land mark and remedies. The object of these laws was well illustrated by the Licinian proposal (387 A.U.C.), nearly one hundred years after the first outbreak of discontent. It enacted that no citizen should hold more than 500 jugera of the public lands, that no one should graze more than one hundred oxen and five hundred sheep on the common lands, and that every land owner should be obliged to employ a number of free labourers proportioned to that of his slaves. But this, as all other laws proposed on behalf of the people, was coupled with political changes of which the main object was to open up new fields of ambition to those of the plebeians who were already opulent. When that object was attained, the agrarian remedies were suffered to fall into desuetude. The successful wars w r aged in the 6th and 7th centuries A.U.C. gave a temporary outlet to labour in the formation of agricultural cobnies. But it at the same time immensely iucreased the number of slaves, who were treated as mere beasts of toil, to be worked out or sold off when no longer profitable. The free population, on the testimony of Cato arid Polybius, diminished ; the slave population increased, and became in many districts an organized danger to public safety. A century later the Gracchi again endeavoured to restore health to the body politic by a distribution of the state lands among the proletariat. The attempt was stifled in blood, but the necessity of the measure was proved by the fact that a full generation later Caius Julius Caesar carried out the same reform. The time for remedy was, however, past. The great estates (latif undid) had already been created ; they were respected by the reformers, alike popular and imperial ; and their inevitable growth swallowed up the small farms of new creation, and ultimately destroyed Rome. For its manhood was gone ; the wealth of millionaires could not purchase back honesty or courage; and the defence of mercenaries failed to form any barrier against the wars of hardy northern invaders, Pliny s words &quot;latifundia perdi- dere Italiam &quot; embrace the truth, yet more fully made clear in many a generation after he wrote. Ancient We shall now examine the systems prevalent in the nations by which the Roman empire was overthrown. Two great Roman writers, Caesar and Tacitus, have given us a vivid picture &amp;lt;&amp;gt;f the German customs showing us the tenure of land in its earliest forms. Ca3sar (De Bell. Gall, vi.) says of the Germans of Lis time : &quot; They are not much given to agriculture, but live chiefly on milk, cheese, and flesh. Xo one has a fixed quantity of land or boundaries of his property, but the magistrates and chiefs every year assign to the communities and families who live together as much land and in such spots as they think suitable, and require them in the following year to remove to another allotment. Many reasons for this custom are suggested : one is that they should not be led by permanence of residence to renounce the pursuits of war for agriculture, another that the desire of extensive possession should not induce the more powerful to seize the land of the weaker, another that they should not construct their houses with greater care to keep out heat and cold, another that the love of money should not create parties and disputes, and lastly that the mass of the people might remain con tented with the justice of an arrangement under which every one saw his position as comfortable as that of the most powerful. As to the tribes themselves, their chief glory is to have their territory surrounded with as wide a belt as possible of desolated waste. They deem it not only a special mark of valour that every neighbouring tribe should be driven to a distance, and no stranger should dare to reside in their vicinity, but at the same time they view it as a measure of precaution against the risk of sudden attacks.&quot; A hundred years later the description of Tacitus shows that a certain modification of habit had been induced. Bringing together the leading particulars, we find he speaks of Germany as &quot;covered with woods and morasses, the land fairly fertile but unsuited for fruit trees, well adapted for pasture, and carrying numerous herds of small sized polled cattle, in which the chief wealth of the natives consisted.&quot; But they seem no longer to have changed their actual dwellings every year, but to have &quot; Built them with a certain rough solidity, and in villages, though the houses were not contiguous, but each was surrounded by a space of its own. The right of succession by children was recognized, and in default of children brothers and uncles took, but there was no right of making a will. They preferred to acquire property by war rather than by industry. Interest on loans was unknown. The land was apportioned (to villages apparently) according to the num ber of cultivators, and divided among them according to their rank, there being ample room for all. Every year they changed the arable land, which formed only a portion of the whole, not attempt ing to make labour vie with the natural fertility and abundance of the soil by planting orchards or setting out gardens and fields, but content with a single crop. Their food consisted chiefly of wild fruits, freshly killed game, and curds; their drink M - as a liquor pre pared from barley or wheat, fermented like wine. Their slaves were not kept in the house, but each had a separate dwelling and an allowance of food, and they were treated with humanity, as servants or tenants.&quot; These institutions were then obviously based on the existence of an ample supply of unenclosed and common land. But the natural increase of population, combined with the pressure put on the Germanic tribes from the east by the Slavs, made their territories too small for their ambition, if not for their maintenance, and five or six succeeding centuries were marked in the history of Europe chiefly by successive Germanic conquest and occupation of western and southern territory. The enormous increase of power and possession made it impossible for the original tribal government to survive ; the great generals developed into kings and emperors, and their lieutenants, more or less independent according to individual capacity and distance from the capital, became dukes and counts. Gradually military authority, embracing the old idea of the land being the property of the state, evolved the new notion of feudal ism. The sovereign represented the state ; to him in that capacity land conquered from the enemy, or forfeited by unsuccessful rebellion, became subject ; and he granted it to his followers on condition of faithful service in war. They promised to be &quot;his men,&quot; and from their own tenants they exacted in turn the like promise on the like conditions. The general insecurity made even free owners willing to buy the support of the sovereign on similar terms. Thus by degrees, less by derivation from the ideas of Roman law, to which it is sometimes attributed, than by the mere necessity of the times, and as a consequence of the incessant state of warfare in which mankind existed, there came to be established the feudal doctrine that all land was held of the sovereign on condition of suit and service, and that each immediate tenant of the sovereign was entitled to sub-infeudate his possession on the same principles. Gradually the further attributes of property were added ; service in war was commuted into rent, and the peaceful service of tilling the lord s reserved domain. The right of hereditary succession became grafted on the personal grant; the power of sale and devise followed. Local usages still had influence, but it may be said broadly that from about the 10th century private property, subject to feudal