Page:Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race.djvu/170

156 inheritance, with preference to the youngest son in regard to the homestead, may have arisen.

Tacitus told his Roman readers that the Germans knew nothing of testament or the power of bequeathing property by will, but he said they had rules of intestate succession. The property set free by a man’s death did not pass to any body of persons who stood in different degrees of relationship to the dead man, but the kinsmen were called to the inheritance class by class. First the sons, if there were any; failing them, the brothers; and failing them, the uncles, divided the inheritance between them. This is the same custom that we find prevailed on manors in various parts of England. Partible inheritance in English custom was subject in different places to many variations in detail. In Kent it was mixed up with a preference for the youngest son, who by the Kentish custom claimed the paternal house, apparently by making compensation to his brothers. This corresponded to the custom of one part at Frisia.

The three several systems of inheritance—the succession of the youngest to the whole estate; the succession of the eldest; and the partible custom by which all shared alike, whether sons only, or sons and daughters—stand out, however, as three well-marked ancient systems. Can we trace them to their primitive sources? Junior right, as far as the Teutonic nations are concerned, apparently came from the East, and rustic or primitive primogeniture from the North; but the question remains, From what source did the Germanic people derive their custom of partible inheritance? It prevailed among the Romans and the Greeks, but it is not at all probable that any custom of Germany beyond the pale of the Roman Empire could have been derived from the Empire and have been adopted by the German people. Bearing in mind that