_CONNEXION BETWEEN THE ROMAN LAND SYSTEM AND THE LATER
MANORIAL SYSTEM._
I. IMPORTANCE OF THE CONTINENTAL EVIDENCE.
«The question a complex one.»
In now returning to the question of the origin of the English
manorial system it is needful to widen the range of the inquiry, and
to seek for further light in Continental evidence.
The question itself has become a complex one. There may have been
manors in the south-eastern districts of Britain before the Saxon
conquest, while Britain was a Roman province, or the Saxons may have
introduced the manorial system when they conquered the country. These
remain the alternatives now that we have seen that the tribal system
in Britain was evidently not its parent. But even if the Saxons
introduced the manorial system, the further question arises whether
it was a natural growth from their own tribal system, or whether they
had themselves adopted it from the Romans? It is obvious, therefore,
that no adequate result can be obtained without a sufficiently
careful study (1) of the Roman provincial land system and (2) of the
[p253] German tribal system. Not till both those have been examined
can it be possible to judge which of the two factors contributed most
to the manorial system, and to what extent it was their joint product.
«The two factors, the Roman land system and the German
tribal system.»
The question must needs be complicated by the fact that during the
whole period of the later empire a large portion of Germany was
included within the lines of the Roman provinces; or, to state the
point more exactly, that a large proportion of the inhabitants of
these Roman provinces were Germans. It will be seen in the course of
the inquiry how much depends upon the full recognition of this fact.
Indeed, the very first step taken will bring it into prominence, and
put us, so to speak, on right geographical lines, by showing that
the nearest analogies to the English manor were to be found in those
districts precisely which were both Roman and German under the later
empire.
In studying, therefore, the land system in Roman provinces, we must
not forget that we are studying what, though Roman, may have been
subject to barbarian influences. In studying, on the other hand, the
German tribal system, it is no less important to remember that some
German customs may betray the results of centuries of contact with
Roman rule.
II. THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE SAXON 'HAM,' THE GERMAN 'HEIM,' AND THE
FRANKISH 'VILLA.'
It would be unwise to build too much upon a mere resemblance in
terms, but we have seen that the Saxon words generally used for manor
were '_ham_' and '_tun_.' [p254]
We have seen how King Alfred, in the remarkable passage quoted in an
earlier chapter, put in contrast the temporary log hut on lænland
with the permanent hereditary possession--the '_ham_' or manor.
This latter was, as we have seen, the estate of a manorial lord,
with a community of dependants or serfs upon it, and not a village
of coequal freemen. Hence the word _ham_ did not properly describe
the clusters of scattered homesteads in the Welsh district. In King
Alfred's time Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and even parts of Wiltshire
were still, as already mentioned, regarded as Welsh. They formed what
was known as West Wales. The manorial system had encroached far into
them, but it would seem that the phraseology of the earlier system
had not yet wholly disappeared. King Alfred in his will carefully
abstained from applying the word _ham_ to his numerous possessions in
these districts.
He disposed in his will of more than thirty separately named estates
in this West Welsh district, but he invariably used, in describing
them, the word 'land'--the _land_ or the _landes_ at such and such a
place;--and he concluded this part of his will with the statement,
'These are all that I have in _Wealcyne_, except in _Truconshirie_'
(in Cornwall). Then in the rest of his will King Alfred disposed of
nearly as many estates in the south-east or manorial districts of
England, and here he immediately changed his style. It was no more
the _land_, at this place and that, but the _ham_ at such and such
a place.[339] In the old English translation of the will given in
the _Liber de Hyda_ [p255] 'land' is rendered by 'lond' and 'ham'
invariably by '_twune_.'[340] Thus without saying that the words
_ham_ and _tun_ always were used in this sense, and could be used in
no other, they were generally at least synonymous with _manor_.
As late as the time of Bede, the suffix 'ham' or 'tun' was not yet so
fully embodied with the names of places as to form a part of them. In
the Cambridge MS. of his works 'ham' is still written as a separate
word.
«The German _heim_.»
It is a curious fact that the suffix 'ton' or 'tun' was practically
used nowhere on the Continent in the names of places; but the other
manorial suffix, 'ham,' in one or other of its forms--'hem,' 'heim,'
or 'haim'--was widely spread. And as in those districts where it was
found most abundantly, it translated itself, as in England, into
the Latin _villa_, its early geographical distribution may have an
important significance.
«Geographical distribution of _hams_ and _heims_.»
«In England.»
On the annexed map is marked for each county the per-centage of
the names of places mentioned in the Domesday Survey ending in
_ham_.[341] This will give a fair view of their distribution in
Saxon England. It will be seen that the 'hams' of England were most
numerous in the south-eastern counties, from Lincolnshire and Norfolk
to Sussex, finding their densest centre in Essex.[342]
«In Picardy.»
Passing on to the Continent, very similar evidence, but of earlier
date, is afforded for a small district surrounding St. Omer, in
Picardy, by a survey of the [p256] estates of the Abbey of St.
Bertin, taken about the year 850. The 'villas' there mentioned as
'_ad fratrum usus pertinentes_,' and which were distinctly manors,
are twenty-five in number, and the names of fifteen of them ended in
'hem.'[343]
Similar evidence is given for various districts in Germany in the
list of donations to the abbeys, the abbots of which possessed
estates in different parts of Germany--sometimes whole manors or
villages, sometimes only one or two holdings in this or that place.
«In the various abbey cartularies.»
«_Heims_ most numerous in the Roman province of Germania
Prima.»
On the accompanying map are marked the sites of places mentioned
in the cartularies of the Abbeys of Fulda,[344] Corvey,[345] St.
Gall,[346] Frising,[347] Wizenburg,[348] Lorsch,[349] and in other
early records, ending in _heim_ in the various districts of Germany.
The result is remarkable. It shows that these _heims_ were most
numerous in what was once the Roman province of _Germania Prima_,
on the left bank of the upper Rhine, the present Elsass, and on
both sides of the Rhine around Mayence--districts conquered by the
Frankish and Alamannic tribes in the fifth century, but inhabited
by Germans from the time of Tacitus, and perhaps of Cæsar, and
so districts in which German populations had come very early and
continued long under Roman rule. In this district the _heims_ rose
in [p257] number to 80 per cent. of the places mentioned in the
charters.
[Illustration: Percentage of Local Names ending in 'ham'
(Domesday Survey).
Percentage of Local Names ending without further suffix
(Domesday Survey).
Local names ending in 'heim'.
Local names ending in 'ingen'.
Local names ending in 'ingahem'.
German patronymic village names in France.]
There were many, but not so many, _heims_ in the valley of the
Neckar; but everywhere (with small local exceptions) they faded away
in districts outside the Roman boundary, except in Frisia, where the
proportion was large.
Now, the question is, what do these _heims_ represent?
«_Heim_ and _villa_ interchange.»
We have already said that they interchange like the English 'ham'
with the Latin 'villa.' The districts where they occur most thickly,
where they formed 80 per cent. of the names of places in the time
of the monastic grants, and which had formed for several centuries
the Roman province of Upper Germany, shade off into districts which
abounded with local names ending in _villa_.
«_Wilare_, _weiler_, and _wyl_.»
They did so a thousand years ago, and they do so now. It is only
needful to examine the Ordnance Survey of any part of these districts
to see how, even now, the places with names ending in 'heim' are
mixed with others ending in 'villa,' or 'wilare,' or the Germanised
form of the word, 'weiler,' or 'wyl;' and further, how the region
abounding with 'heims' shades off into a district abounding with
names ending in 'villa,' or 'wilare,' and we may add the equally
manorial Latin or Romance termination _curtis_, or 'court,' and its
German equivalent 'hof,' or 'hoven.' And such was the case also at
the date of the earliest monastic charters.
This fact in itself at least suggests very strongly that here, as
in England, 'ham' and 'villa' were synonyms for the same thing,
sometimes called by its [p258] Latin and sometimes by its German
name. Indeed, actual instances may be found in the charters of these
districts in which the name of the same place has sometimes the
suffix _villa_ or _wilare_ and sometimes _heim_.[350]
Moreover, these places which are thus called 'villas' or 'heims' in
the monastic charters were to all intents and purposes _manors_ as
far back as the records allow us to trace them.
The earliest surveys of the possessions of the abbeys leave no doubt
as to their manorial character.[351]
And the earliest charters prove that they were often at least
manorial estates before they were handed over to the monks.
Indeed, a careful examination of the Wizenburg and Lorsch charters
and donations leads to the result that these 'heims' and 'villas'
were often royal manors, '_villæ fiscales_' on the royal domains,
just as Tidenham and Hysseburne were in England. They seem to have
often been held as benefices by a _dux_ [p259] or a _comes_, or
other beneficiary of the king, just as Saxon royal manors were held
by the king's thanes as 'læn-land.'[352]
Thus the royal domains of Frankish kings were apparently under
manorial management, and practically divided up into manors. The
boundaries or 'marchæ' of one manor often divided it from the next
manor;[353] while one 'villa' or 'heim' often had sub-manors upon it,
as in the case of Tidenham.[354]
Thus the 'villa,' 'heim,' or 'manor,' seems to have been the usual
fiscal and judicial territorial unit under Frankish rule, as the
manor once was and the parish now is in England. And this alone seems
to afford a satisfactory explanation of the use of the word 'villa'
in the early Frankish capitularies, and in the Salic laws. It is
there used apparently for both private estates and the smallest usual
territorial unit for judicial or fiscal purposes.[355]
When a law speaks of a person attacking or taking possession of the
'villa' of another, the 'villa' is clearly a private estate. But when
it speaks of a [p260] crime committed 'between two villas,' the word
seems to be used for a judicial jurisdiction, just as if we should
say 'between two parishes.'
This double use of the word becomes intelligible if 'villa' may be
used as 'manor,' and if the whole country--the _terra regis_ with the
rest--were divided in the fifth century into 'villas' or 'manors,'
but hardly otherwise.
The remarkable passage in the Salic laws '_De Migrantibus_,' which
provides that no one can move into and settle in another 'villa'
without the license of those 'qui in villa consistunt,' but that
after a twelvemonth's stay unmolested he shall remain secure, 'sicut
et alii vicini,' seems at first sight to imply a _free village_.[356]
But another clause which permits the emigrant to settle if he has
the royal 'præceptum' to do so,[357] suggests that the 'villa' in
question was one of the royal 'villas'--a 'villa fiscalis' in the
demesne of the Crown.[358]
«_Ham_ and _villa_ in the Salic laws,»
The Salic law has come down to us in Latin versions, but the Malberg
glosses contain some indications that the word _villa_ was used as
a translation of variations of the word _ham_, then applied by the
Franks to both kinds of _villas_ in the manorial sense.
The old tradition recorded in the prologue to the [p261] later
versions of the Salic laws, whatever it be worth, attributes their
first compilation to four chosen men, whose names and residences are
as follows:--Uuisogastis, Bodogastis, Salegastis, Uuidogastis, _in
loca nominancium_, Bodochamæ, Salchamæ, Uuidochamæ.
In another version of the prologue instead of the words '_in loca
nominancium_,' the reading is '_in villis_,' and the termination of
the names is 'chem,' 'hem,' and 'em.'[359]
«and in the Malberg glosses.»
Dr. Kern, in editing the Malberg glosses, points out that the gloss
in Title xlii. shows that '_ham_' might be used by the Franks in
the sense of 'court'--'king's court,'--just as in some parts of the
Netherlands, especially in the Betuwe, '_ham_' is even now a common
name for ancient mansions, such as in mediæval Latin were termed
'_curtes_.' Thus he shows that the Frankish words '_chami theuto_'
(the bull of the ham) were translated in Latin as '_taurum regis_,'
_cham_ being taken to mean king's court.[360] Possibly the lord of
a _villa_ provided the 'village bull,' just as till recent times
in the Hitchin manor, as we have seen, the village bull was under
the manorial customs provided for the commoners by the rectorial
sub-manor.
So in another place the word '_chamestalia_' seems to be used in the
Malberg gloss for 'in truste _dominica_,'[361] the 'cham' again being
taken in a thoroughly _manorial_ sense.
That there were manorial lords with _lidi_ and
tributarii--semi-servile tenants--as well as _servi_, or slaves,
under them, is clear from other passages of the Salic laws.[362]
[p262]
But the 'ham' of the Malberg glosses seems to have had sometimes at
least the _king_ for its lord. And this brings us again to the double
use in the Salic laws of the word 'villa.' It seems, as we have
said, to have been used not only for a 'villa' in private hands, but
also in a wider sense for the usual fiscal or judicial territorial
unit, whether under the jurisdiction of a manorial lord, or of the
'villicus' or 'judex,' or beneficiary of the king.
Lastly, the early date of the Salic laws bringing the Frankish
and Roman provincial rule into such close proximity, irresistibly
raises the question[363] whether there may not have been an actual
continuity, first between the Roman and Frankish villa, and secondly,
between the Roman system of management of the imperial provincial
domains during the later empire, and the Frankish system of manorial
management of the 'terra regis' or 'villæ fiscales' after the
Frankish conquest. If this should turn out to have been the case,
then the further question will arise whether under the tribal
system of the Germans the beginnings of manorial tendencies can be
so far traced as to explain the ease with which Frankish and Saxon
conquerors of the old Roman provinces fell into manorial ways, and
adopted the manor as the normal type of estate.
This is the line of inquiry which it is now proposed to follow. [p263]
III. THE ROMAN 'VILLA,' ITS EASY TRANSITION INTO THE LATER MANOR, AND
ITS TENDENCY TO BECOME THE PREDOMINANT TYPE OF ESTATE.
«The Roman villa like a manor.»
The Roman _villa_ was, in fact, exceedingly like a manor, and,
moreover, becoming more and more so in the Gallic and German
provinces, at least under the later empire as time went on.
«An estate.»
The villa, as described by Varro and Columella, before and shortly
after the Christian era, was a farm--a _jundus_. It was not a mere
residence, but, like the villa of the present day in Italy, a
territory or estate in land.
«The _curtis_.»
The lord's homestead on the villa was surrounded by two enclosed
'cohortes,' or courts, from which was derived the word '_curtis_,' so
often applied to the later manor-house.[364]
«The _villicus_ and slaves.»
At the entrance of the outer court was the abode of the
'_villicus_'--a strictly manorial officer, as we have seen--generally
a slave chosen for his good qualities.[365] Near this was the common
kitchen, where not only the food was cooked, but also the slaves
performed their indoor work. Here also were cellars and granaries for
the storing of produce, the cells in which were the night quarters
of the slaves, and the underground '_ergastulum_,' with its narrow
windows, high and out of reach, where those slaves who were kept
in chains lived, worked, and were tormented; for [p264] in the
_ergastulum_ was revealed the cruel side of the system of slave
labour under Roman law. Columella says that the cleverest slaves
must oftenest be kept in chains.[366] Cato, according to Plutarch,
advised that slaves should be incited to quarrel amongst themselves,
lest they should conspire against their master, and considered it
to be cheaper to work them to death than to let them grow old and
useless.[367]
In the inner 'cohort' were the stalls and stables for the oxen,
horses, and other live stock; and all around was the land to be
tilled.
Thus the Roman villa, if not at first a complete manor, was already
an estate of a lord (dominus) _worked by slaves_ under a _villicus_.
Sometimes the whole work of the estate was done by slaves; and though
the estimates of historians have varied very much, there is no reason
to doubt that in the first and second centuries the proportion of
slaves to the whole population of the empire was enormous.
«The _decuriæ_, slaves.»
But even the management of slaves required organisation. The
anciently approved Roman method of managing the slaves on a villa was
to form them into groups of _tens_, called _decuriæ_, each under an
overseer or _decurio_.[368]
The _villicus_, or general steward of the manor, was sometimes a
_freedman_. And there was a strong reason why a freedman was often
put in a position of trust, viz. that if he should be dishonest, or
show [p265] ingratitude to his patron, he was liable to be degraded
again into slavery. There is an interesting fragment of Roman law
which suggests that the decurio of a gang of slaves was sometimes
a _freedman_, and that it was a common practice to assign to the
freedman a portion of land and a _decuria_ of slaves, and no doubt
oxen also to work it, thus putting him very much in the position of a
colonus with slaves under him. The result of his betrayal of trust,
in the case mentioned in the fragment, was his degradation, and the
resumption by his patron of the _decuria_ of slaves.[369] Thus we
learn that the lord of a villa might, in addition to his home farm
worked by the slaves in his own homestead, have portions of the land
of his estate let out, as it were, to farm to _freedmen_, each with
his _decuria_ of slaves, and paying rent in produce.
«Groups of tens.»
There was nothing very peculiarly Roman in this system of
classification in _tens_. The fact that men everywhere have ten
fingers makes such a classification all but universal. But the
Romans certainly did use it for a variety of purposes--for taxation
and military organisation as well as in the management of the
slaves of a villa. And _M. Guerard_, probably with reason, connects
these _decuriæ_ of the Roman villa with the _decaniæ_, or groups
of originally ten servile holdings, under a villicus or _decanus_,
which are described on the estates of the Abbey of St. Germain in
the Survey of the Abbot Irminon about A.D. 850.[370] So possibly a
survival of a similar system may be traced also in the much earlier
instances mentioned by Bede under date A.D. 655, in one of which
[p266] King Oswy grants to the monastery at Hartlepool twelve
_possessiunculæ_, each of '_ten families_;' and in the other of which
the abbess Hilda, having obtained a '_possession of ten families_,'
proceeds to build Whitby Abbey.[371] In all these cases of the Roman
freedman and his _decuria_, the Gallic decanus and his _decania_, and
the Saxon _possessiuncula_ of ten families, there is the bundle of
ten slaves or semi-servile tenants with their holdings, treated as
the smallest usual territorial division.[372]
But to return to the Roman villa. The organisation of _decuriæ_ of
slaves was not the only resource of the lord in the management of his
estate.
«The coloni, on a villa.»
Varro speaks of its being an open point, to be decided according
to the circumstances of each farm, whether it were better to till
the land by slaves or by freemen, or by _both_.[373] And Columella,
speaking of the families or 'hands' upon a farm, says 'they are
either slaves or _coloni_;'[374] and he goes on to say, 'It is
pleasanter to deal with coloni, and easier to get out of them _work_
than _payments_. . . . They will sooner ask to be let off the one
than the other. The best _coloni_,' he says, 'are those which are
_indigeni_, born on the estate and bound by hereditary ties to it.'
Especially distant corn farms, he considers, are cultivated with
less trouble by free coloni than by slaves under a villicus, because
slaves are dishonest and lazy, neglect the cattle, and waste the
produce; [p267] whilst _coloni_, sharing in the produce, have a
joint interest with their lord.
«_Adscripti glebæ._»
That the _coloni_ sometimes were _indigeni_ upon the estate, and
were sometimes called _originarii_, shows the beginning at least of
a tendency to treat them as _adscripti glebæ_, like the mediæval
'nativi.' Indeed, we find it laid down in the later laws of the
empire that _coloni_ leaving their lord's estate could be reclaimed
at any time within thirty years.[375] And nothing could more clearly
indicate the growth of the semi-servile condition of the colonus,
as time went on, than the declaration (A.D. 531) that the son of a
colonus who had done no service to the 'dominus terræ' during his
father's lifetime, and had been absent more than thirty or forty
years, could be recalled upon his father's death and obliged to
continue the services due from the holding.[376]
We know from Tacitus that the typical colonus had his own homestead
and land allotted to his use, and paid tribute to his lord in corn or
cattle, or other produce. And there is a clause in the Justinian Code
prohibiting the arbitrary increase of these tributes, another point
in which the _coloni_ resembled the later _villani_.[377]
«Likeness to a manor.»
«Village round a villa.»
A villa under a villicus, with servi under him living within the
'curtis' of the villa, and with a little group of coloni in their
_vicus_ also upon the estate, but outside the court, would thus be
very much like a later manor indeed. And Frontinus,[378] describing
[p268] the great extent of the _latifundia_, especially of
provincial landowners, expressly says that on some of these private
estates there was quite a population of rustics, and that often there
were _villages_ surrounding the _villa_ like fortifications. It would
seem then that the villas in the provinces were still more like
manors than those in Italy.
«The villa becoming the prevalent type of estate.»
It is now generally admitted that indirectly, at least, the Roman
conquest of German territory--the extension of the Roman province
beyond the Rhine and along the Danube--added greatly to the number
of semi-servile tenants upon the Roman provincial estates, and so
tended more and more to increase during the later empire the manorial
character of the 'villa;' whilst at the same time the pressure of
Roman taxation within the old province of Gaul, and beyond it, was so
great as steadily to force more and more of the free tenants on the
_Ager Publicus_ to surrender their freedom and swell the numbers of
the semi-servile class on the greater estates; so that not only was
the villa becoming more and more manorial itself, but also it was
becoming more and more the prevalent type of estate.
As regards the first point, during the later empire there was direct
encouragement given to landowners to introduce barbarians taken from
recently conquered districts, and to settle them on their estates
as _coloni_, and not as slaves. These foreign coloni became very
numerous under the name of _tributarii_ and perhaps 'læti;' so that
the proportion of coloni to [p269] slaves was probably, during the
later period of Roman rule, always increasing, and the Roman villa
under its _villicus_ was becoming more and more like a later manor,
with a semi-servile village community of _coloni_ or _tributarii_
upon it in addition to the slaves.[379]
As regards the second point, the evidence will be given at a later
stage of the inquiry.
* * * * *
Confining our attention at present to the Roman villa, and the slaves
and semi-servile tenants upon it, we have finally to add to the fact
of close resemblance to the later manor and manorial tenants proof
of actual historical connexion and continuity in districts where the
evidence is most complete.
A clear and continuous connexion can be traced in many cases, at all
events in Gaul, between the Roman villa and the later manor.
«German lords of villas.»
In the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris the Visigothic and Burgundian
invaders are described as adapting themselves roughly and coarsely to
Roman habits in many respects. He speaks of their being put into the
'villas' as 'hospites.' Indeed, it is well known that these Teutonic
invaders settled as invited guests, being called _hospites_ or
_gasti_;[380] that they shared the villas and lands of the Romans on
the same system as that which was adopted when Roman legions--often
of German soldiers--were quartered on a district, according to a
well-known [p270] passage of the 'Codex Theodosianus.'[381] They
took their _sortes_, or fixed proportions of houses and lands
and slaves, and, sharing the lordship of these with their Roman
'_consortes_,' they must have sanctioned and adapted themselves to
the manorial character of the villas whose occupation they shared,
ultimately becoming themselves lords of villas probably as manorial
as any Roman villas could be.[382]
Dr. P. Roth has shown that in Frankish districts many of the wealthy
provincials remained, under Frankish rule, in unbroken possession
of their former estates--their numerous 'villæ.' Amongst these
the bishops and abbots were conspicuous examples. He shows that
thousands of 'villæ' thus remained unchanged upon the widely extended
ecclesiastical estates.[383]
Gregory of Tours speaks of the restitution by King Hildebert of the
'villas' unjustly seized under the lawless regime of Hilperic.[384]
He also relates how bishops and monasteries were endowed by the
transfer to them of villas with the slaves and coloni upon them.
«Villas given to the Church.»
Under the year 582, he mentions the death of a certain _Chrodinus_,
also the subject of a poem by Fortunatus, a great benefactor of the
clergy, and describes him as 'founding villas, setting vineyards,
building houses [_domos_], making fields [_culturas_],' and then,
having invited bishops of slender means to [p271] his table, after
dinner 'kindly distributing these _houses, with the cultivators and
the fields, with the furniture, and male and female servants and
household slaves_ [_ministris et famulis_], saying, "These are given
to the Church, and whilst with these the poor will be fed, they will
secure to me favour with God."'[385]
Here, then, after the Frankish conquest, we have the word _villa_
still used for the typical estate; and the estate consists of the
_domus_, with the vineyards and the fields, and their cultivators.
Turning to the earliest monastic records we have seen that the
'villas' or 'heims' of the abbeys of Wizenburg and Lorsch were in
fact manors.
«Villas become villages,»
The donations to the Abbot of St. Germain-des-Prés,[386] in the
neighbourhood of Paris, commenced in the year 558, and in the survey
of the estates of the Abbey made in the year 820, there are described
_villas_ still cultivated by _coloni_, _leti_, &c.--villas which grew
into villages which now bear the names of the villas out of which
they sprang:--
_Levaci Villa_, now _Levaville_ (p. 90).
_Landulfi Villa_, now _Landonville_ (p. 94).
_Aneis Villa_, now _Anville_.
_Gaudeni Villa_, now _Grinville_ (p. 99).
_Sonani Villa_, now _Senainville_ (p. 100).
_Villa Alleni_, now _Allainville_ (p. 102).
_Ledi Villa_, now _Laideville_ (p. 102).
_Disboth Villa_, now _Bouville_ (p. 104).
_Mornane Villare_, now _Mainvilliers_ (p. 112).
And so on in numbers of instances.
«and '_hems_' which are manor.»
The chartulary of the Abbey of St. Bertin also [p272] contains
instructive examples. By the earliest charter of A.D. 648 the founder
of the abbey granted to the monks his villa called '_Sitdiu_,' and
it included within it twelve sub-estates, one of them, the _Tattinga
Villa_, which later is called in the cartulary _Tattingaheim_.[387]
The chief villa with these sub-estates was granted to the abbey
'_cum domibus, ædificiis, terris cultis et incultis, mansiones cum
silvis pratis pascuis, aquis aquarumve decursibus, seu farinariis,
mancipiis, accolabus, greges cum pastoribus_,' &c. &c., and
therefore was a manor with both slaves (_mancipia_) and _coloni_, or
other semi-servile tenants (_accolæ_) upon it, as indeed were the
generality of villas handed over to the monasteries.
There seems, therefore, to be conclusive evidence not only of a
remarkable resemblance, but also in many cases of a real historical
continuity between the Roman '_villa_' and the later Frankish manor.
IV. THE SMALLER TENANTS ON THE AGER PUBLICUS IN ROMAN PROVINCES--THE
VETERANS.
«Tenants on the _Ager Publicus_.»
Passing from that part of the land in Roman provinces included in the
villas, or _latifundia_, of the richer Romans, and so placed under
private lordship, we must now turn our attention to the wide tracts
of '_Ager Publicus_,' and try to discover the position and social
economy of the tenants, so to speak, on the great provincial manor of
the Roman Emperor.
Care must be taken to discriminate between the [p273] different
classes of these tenants, some of them being of a free and some of
them of a semi-servile kind.
«The veterans.»
First, there were the veterans of the legions, who, according to
Roman custom, were settled on the public lands at the close of a war,
by way of pay for their services.
«Regular centuriæ.»
For the settlement of these, sometimes regularly constituted military
_coloniæ_ were founded; and in this case, where everything had to be
started _de novo_, a large tract of land was divided for the purpose
by straight roads and lanes--pointing north, and south, and east,
and west--into _centuriæ_ of mostly 200 or 240 _jugera_, which were
then sub-divided into equal rectangular divisions, according to
the elaborate rules of the _Agrimensores_,[388] the odds and ends
of land, chiefly woods and marshes, being alone left to be used in
common by the 'vicini,' or body of settlers.
But in other cases the settlement was much more irregular and
haphazard in its character.
«Irregular holdings.»
Sometimes the veteran received his pay and his outfit, and was
left to settle wherever he could find unoccupied land--'_vacantes
terræ_'--to his mind. Under the later empire, owing to the constant
ravages of German tribes, there was no lack of land ready for
cultivators, without the appliance of the red-tape rules of the
_Agrimensores_. The veterans settled upon this and occupied it
pretty much as they liked, taking what they wanted according to
their present or prospective means of cultivating it. Lands thus
taken were called '_agri occupatorii_,' and were irregular [p274]
in their boundaries and divisions, instead of being divided into the
rectangular _centuriæ_.[389]
It is to these more irregular occupations of territory that the chief
interest attaches.
«Outfit of oxen and seed of two kinds.»
When, under the later empire, veterans were allowed to settle upon
'_vacantes terræ_,' they had assigned to them an outfit of oxen and
seed closely resembling the Saxon 'setene' and the Northumbrian
'stuht.'
«Single or double _fuga_.»
«The _jugum_.»
Those of the upper grade, whether so considered from military rank
or special service rendered by them to the State, were provided,
according to the edicts of A.D. 320 and 364, with an outfit of _two
pairs of oxen_ and 100 modii of each of two kinds of seed. Those of
lower rank received as outfit one pair of oxen and fifty modii of
each of the two kinds of seed.[390] And the land they cultivated
with these single or double yokes of oxen was perhaps called their
single or double _jugum_. Cicero, in his oration [p275] against
Verres, speaks of the Sicilian peasants as mostly cultivating '_in
singulis jugis_.'[391] During the later empire the typical holding
of land--the hypothetical unit for purposes of taxation--as we shall
see, came to be the _jugum_, but the assessment no longer always
corresponded with the actual holdings.
But to return to the holding of the Roman veteran. It is not
impossible to ascertain roughly its normal acreage from the amount of
seed allotted in the outfit, as well as from the number of oxen.
«Of about 30 jugera.»
A single pair of oxen was, as we have seen, allotted under Saxon
rules as outfit to the yard-land of thirty acres, of which, under the
three-field or three-course system, ten acres would be in wheat, ten
in oats or pulse, and ten in fallow. With the single pair of oxen was
allotted to the veteran fifty modii of wheat seed, and fifty of oats
or pulse. Five modii of wheat seed, according to the Roman writers on
agriculture, commonly went to the jugerum;[392] so that the veteran
with a single yoke of oxen had seed for ten jugera of wheat, and thus
was apparently assumed to be able to cultivate, if farming on the
three-course system, about thirty jugera in all, like the holder of
the Saxon yard-land. The veteran to whom was assigned the double yoke
of four oxen and 200 modii of seed--100 modii of each kind--would
have about 60 jugera in his double holding.
Of course, too much stress should not be placed upon any close
correspondence in the number of jugera; but it is, on the other hand,
perfectly natural [p276] that, in the theory of these outfits, seed
should be given for a definite area, and that this should be some
actual division of the centuria of the _Agrimensores_.
«Normal _centuria_, 200 and 240 jugera.»
Siculus Flaccus, who wrote about A.D. 100, and chiefly of Italy,
describes how, in the regular allotments by the _Agrimensores_, one
settler, according to his military rank, would receive a single
modus, another one and a half, and another two modii, whilst
sometimes a single allotment was given _to several people jointly_.
He mentions also that the _centuriæ_ varied in size, being sometimes
200 jugera and sometimes 240; the smaller lots also sometimes varying
in size, even in the same centuria, according to the fertility or
otherwise of the land.[393]
All we can say is that the centuria of 240 jugera would be divisible
into single and double holdings of thirty and sixty jugera
respectively, just as the English double hide of 240 acres, or single
hide of 120 acres, was divisible into yard-lands of thirty acres. The
centuria of 200 jugera would be divisible into holdings of fifty and
twenty-five jugera respectively.[394]
Passing from the outfit and the holdings, it may [p277] be asked,
what was the system of cultivation? was it an open field husbandry?
«Traces of an open-field husbandry in some cases.»
«_Supercilia_ or linches.»
It is obvious that formal centuriation in straight lines and
rectangular divisions, by the _Agrimensores_, produced something
entirely different from the open field system as we have found it in
England. But Siculus Flaccus records that in some cases, when vacant
districts were occupied by settlers without this formal centuriation,
as '_agri occupatorii_'--the settlers taking such tracts of land as
they had the means or expectation of cultivating--the boundaries were
irregular, and followed no rules but those of common sense and the
custom of the country.[395] And he gives as an instance of such a
common-sense rule the custom about '_supercilia_,' or _linches_, the
sloping surface of which, where they formed boundaries between the
land of two owners, should be kept the same number of feet in width,
the slope always belonging to the upper owner, because otherwise
it would be in the power of the lower owner, by ploughing into the
slope, to jeopardise the upper owner's land.[396] This, he says,
is the reason of the rule that the land of the owner of the upper
terrace generally descends to the bottom of the slope.[397]
«The holdings sometimes composed of scattered pieces.»
Here, in this mention of _linches_ and irregular boundaries, traces
seem to turn up of an open-field husbandry; and a few pages further
on the same writer makes another observation which shows clearly that
frequently the holding, like the yard-land, was [p278] composed of
_scattered pieces_ in open fields, and that this scattered ownership,
as in England, was the result of an original joint occupation, and
probably of a system of co-operative ploughing.
He says[398] that in many districts were to be found _possessores_
whose lands were not contiguous, but made up of little pieces
scattered in different places, and intermixed with those of the
others, the several owners having common rights of way over one
another's land to their scattered pieces, and also to the common
woods, in which the _vicini_ only have common rights of cutting
timber and feeding stock.
This reference to the common woods and rights of way belonging only
to the 'vicini' seems to show that the scattering of the pieces in
the holdings had arisen as in the later open-field system, from an
original co-operation of ploughing or other cultivation.
«The result of joint occupation.»
Connecting these statements with the previous one, that sometimes
land was assigned to _a number of settlers jointly_, and that
sometimes settlers took possession, without centuriation, of so much
land as they could cultivate, and transferring these same methods
from Italy, where Flaccus observed them, to transalpine provinces,
where larger teams were [p279] needful for ploughing, it would seem
that we may rightly picture bodies of free settlers on the 'ager
publicus' as frequently joining their yokes of oxen together to
plough their allotments on the open-field system. And if this was
done by retired veterans on public land, they were probably only
following the common method adopted by the _coloni_ on the villas
of the richer Roman landowners in the provinces. If they did so,
they probably simply adopted the custom of the country in which they
settled, and followed a method common not only to Gaul and Germany,
but also to Europe and Asia.[399]
«The method of centuriation.»
Even in the case of the regular centuriation, there was an
_opportunity_, apparently, for joint occupation, and probably often a
necessity for joint ploughing.
Hyginus, describing the mode of centuriation, speaks first of the
two broad roads running north and south and east and west; and then
he says the '_sortes_' were divided, and the names recorded in tens
(_per decurias, i.e. per homines denos_), the subdivision among the
ten being left till afterwards.[400] It does not follow, perhaps,
that the subdivision was always made in regular squares. There may
sometimes have been a common occupation and joint ploughing; but of
this we know nothing.
«The veterans a privileged class.»
The retired veterans were a privileged class, and specially
exempted from many public burdens;[401] but in other respects there
is no reason to suppose that in their methods of settlement and
agriculture, and [p280] in the size of their holdings proportioned
to their single or double yokes, they differed from other free
settlers or ancient original tenants on the _ager publicus_. We may
add that, following the usual Roman custom, these settlers probably
as a rule lived in towns and villages, and not on their farms. We
may assume that, having single or double yokes of oxen and outfits
of two kinds of seed, they were arable and not pasture farmers, with
their homesteads in the village and their land in the fields around
it--in some places under the three-field system, in others with a
rectangular block of land on which they followed the three-course or
other rotation of crops for themselves.
Groups of settlers may therefore be regarded as sometimes forming
something very much like a free village community upon the public
land of the Empire, with no lord over it except the fiscal and
judicial officers of the Emperor.
V. THE SMALLER TENANTS ON THE 'AGER PUBLICUS'
(_continued_)--THE LÆTI.
«The _Læti_ a semi-servile class, like the Welsh _taeogs_.»
In the second place, there were settlers of quite another
grade--families of the conquered tribes of Germany, who were forcibly
settled within the _limes_ of the Roman provinces, in order that
they might repeople desolated districts or replace the otherwise
dwindling provincial population--in order that they might bear
the public burdens and minister to the public needs, _i.e._ till
the public land, pay the [p281] public tribute, and also provide
for the defence of the empire. They formed a semi-servile class,
partly agricultural and partly military; they furnished corn for
the granaries and soldiers for the cohorts of the empire, and
were generally known in later times by the name of '_Læti_,' or
'_Liti_'[402] They were somewhat in the same position as the Welsh
'_taeogs_' or '_aillts_.' They were foreigners, without Roman blood,
and hence a semi-servile class of occupiers distinct from, and
without the full rights of, Roman citizens[403]--a class, in short,
upon whom the full burden of taxation and military service could be
laid.
«Mostly deported Germans.»
Probably this system had been followed from the time of Augustus, as
a substitute for the earlier and more cruel course of sending tens of
thousands of vanquished foes to the Roman slave market for sale; but
it became a more and more important part of the imperial defensive
policy of Rome during the later empire, as the inroads of barbarians
became more and more frequent.
«System of forced emigration from conquered districts.»
There is clear evidence, from the third century, of the extension of
this kind of colonisation over a wide district. It is important to
realise both its extent and locality.
«A German population already in Rhætia, the _Agri
Decumates_, and in Elsass.»
In order fully to comprehend the meaning and consequences of this
German colonisation of Roman provinces, it must be borne in mind
that the rich lands on the left bank of the Rhine, between the
Vosges mountains and the river, had been settled [p282] by Germans
before the time of Tacitus. Strabo[404] distinctly says that the
Suevic tribes, who in his day dwelt on the east bank of the Rhine,
had driven out the former German inhabitants, and that the latter
had taken refuge on the west bank. Tacitus describes three German
tribes as settled in this district (now Elsass).[405] Further, the
large extent of country to the east of the Rhine, within the Roman
lines, reaching from Mayence to Regensburg, included in the _Agri
Decumates_ and the old province of Rhætia (_i.e._ what is now Baden,
Wirtemberg, and Bavaria), had by the third century become filled with
straggling offshoots from various German and mostly Suevic tribes who
had crossed the 'Limes'--a mixed population of Hermunduri, Thuringi,
Marcomanni, and Juthungi, with a sprinkling of Franks, Vandals,
Longobards, and Burgundians,--some of them friendly, some of them
hostile to the empire and gradually becoming absorbed in the greater
group of the 'Alamanni.'
«The Alamanni.»
«The _Limes_, or '_Pfahlgraben_.'»
Further, it should be remembered that in the third century offshoots
from the Alamanni and the Franks attempted to spread themselves over
the country on the Gallic side of the Rhine, assuming, during periods
of Roman weakness, a certain independence and even over-lordship, so
that Probus found sixty cities under their control. Probus completely
reduced them once more into obedience, and again made the Roman
authority supreme over the 'Agri Decumates,' and Rhætia as far as the
'Limes.'[406] [p283]
A few years before, Marcus Antoninus, after he had conquered
the Marcomanni in this district, had deported many of them into
Britain.[407]
«Forced colonisation in Britain and Belgic Gaul.»
Probus followed his example, and deported also into Britain such of
the Burgundians and Vandals from the 'Agri Decumates' as he could
secure alive as prisoners, 'in order that they might be useful as
security against revolts in Britain.'[408]
«Of _Læti_ in Belgic Gaul and the Moselle Valley.»
He also colonised large numbers of Germans in the Rhine valley (where
he introduced, it is said, the vine culture), and some of them in
Belgic Gaul. In his report to the Senate he described his victory as
the reconquest of all Germany. He boasted of the subjection of the
numerous petty kings, and declared that the Germans now ploughed, and
sowed, and fought for the Romans. And, as he himself had deported
Germans into Britain, his words cover the British as well as the
Gallic and German provinces.[409] This victory over the Alamannic
tribes and colonisation of them in Britain and Gaul, by Probus, was
in A.D. 277.
Very soon afterwards the same policy was again followed in dealing
with the Franks, who were plundering and depopulating the Belgic
provinces of Gaul further to the north, and ravaging the coasts
of Britain. [p284] In 286, Carausius, who was put in charge of
the Roman fleet, and whose business it was to guard the Gallic and
British shores infested by the Saxons and Franks, revolted and
proclaimed himself Emperor, defending himself successfully against
the Emperor Maximian, and leaguing himself with the Franks and
Saxons. In 291, Maximian, after directing his arms against the
Franks, deported a number of them and settled them as læti on the
vacant lands of the Nervii and Treviri, in Belgic Gaul and in the
valley of the Moselle.[410]
«Further deportations of Franks, Frisians, and Chamavi.»
The further steps taken by his co-Cæsar Constantius to put an end
to the revolt of Carausius are very instructive. He first recovered
the haven of Gesoriacum (Boulogne), and cut off the connexion of
the British fleet with Gaul. Then he turned northward again upon
the districts from whence the Frankish and Saxon pirates had been
accustomed to make their ravages upon Britain and Gaul. They were,
as has been said, in league with the British usurper, but succumbed
to the arms of Constantius. The first use he made of his victory
over them was to repeat the policy of his predecessors--to deport
a great multitude into those very Belgic districts which they had
depopulated by their ravages. This was the time when the districts
around Amiens and Beauvais, once inhabited by the Bellovaci, and
further south around Troyes and Langres, where the Tricassi and
Lingones had dwelt, were colonised by Franks, [p285] Chamavi, and
Frisians; and Eumenius,[411] in his Panegyric, represented them, as
Probus had described the Alamanni, as now tilling the fields they
had once plundered, and supplying recruits to the Roman legions. A
'_pagus Chamavorum_' existed in the ninth century in this district,
and so bore witness to the extent and permanence of this colony of
_Chamavi_.[412] Similar evidence for the other districts, as we shall
have occasion to see hereafter, is possibly to be found in the names
of places with a Teutonic termination remaining to this day, though
the language spoken is French.
A recent German writer, in a sketch of the reign of Diocletian, makes
the pregnant remark that when account is taken of all the masses of
Germans thus brought into the Roman provinces, partly as colonists
and partly as soldiers, it becomes clear that the northern districts
of Gaul were already half German before the Frankish invasion. These
German settlers were valuable at the time as tillers of the land,
payers of tribute, and as furnishing recruits to the legions; but in
history they were more than this, for they were, partly against their
will, the pioneers of the German '_Völkerwanderung_.'[413]
«Alamanni in Britain.»
We have seen that Probus had deported Alamanni into Britain in
pursuance of this continuous [p286] policy. It is curious to observe
that when Constantius soon after (in A.D. 306) died at York, and
Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in Britain, one of his supporters
was Crocus or Erocus,[414] a king of the Alamanni, proving that there
were Alamannic soldiers in Britain under their own king--probably,
more properly speaking, a sept or clan under its own chief--at that
date.
But it was not long before both the Alamanni and the Franks again
became troublesome in the Rhine valley. Under the year 357, in the
history of Ammianus Marcellinus, there is a vivid description of the
struggle of Julian to regain from the Alamanni the cities on the
Lower Rhine which the latter had occupied, as in the time of Probus,
within the Roman province of Lower Germany. After the decisive
battle of Strasburg, Julian crossed the Rhine at Mayence and laid
waste the country between the Maine and the Rhine, 'plundering the
wealthy farms of their crops and cattle, and burning to the ground
all the houses, _which latter in that district were built in the
Roman fashion_.'[415] He then restored the fortress of Trajan which
protected this part of the 'Limes.' The next year, the Salian Franks
having taken possession of Toxandria, on the Scheldt, Julian pounced
down upon them and recovered possession, and then set himself 'to
restore the fortifications of the cities of the Lower Rhine, and to
_establish afresh the granaries which had been burned, in which to
stow [p287] the corn usually imported from Britain_.'[416] This was
the occasion on which, according to Zosimus, 800 vessels, more than
mere boats, were employed in going backwards and forwards bringing
over the British corn, thus proving both the extent of British
agriculture and the close connexion between Britain and the province
of Lower Germany.
«Bucenobantes deported into Britain.»
The aggressions of the Alamanni, however, continued, and again we
find Ammianus Marcellinus describing how, at the close of a campaign,
Valentinian, in A.D. 371, deported into Britain the Bucenobantes, a
tribe of the Alamanni from the east banks of the Rhine, immediately
north of Mayence. He made them elect Fraomarius as their chief, and
then, giving him the rank of a tribune, sent him with his tribe of
Alamannic soldiers to settle in Britain, as probably Crocus or Erocus
had been sent before him.[417]
«The policy a settled one, and long continued.»
This policy of planting colonies of German colonists--even whole
clans under their petty chiefs--in the Belgic provinces and Britain,
with the double object of keeping up the supply of corn for the
empire and soldiers for the legions, was therefore steadily adhered
to for several generations. And a further proof of the extent to
which the system was carried turns up later in the numerous cohorts
of Læti mentioned by Ammianus,[418] and in the '_Notitia_,'[419] as
having been drawn from these colonies [p288] and placed as garrisons
all over Gaul and Germany, but especially on the banks of the Rhine.
It has been necessary to dwell upon this subject because it is
needful for the present purpose that it should be fully understood
that throughout the German provinces of _Rhætia_, the _Agri
Decumates_, _Upper and Lower Germany_, in _Belgic Gaul_, and in
_Britain_, there were large numbers of German semi-servile settlers
upon the _Ager Publicus_ interspersed among the free coloni and
veterans; and that most of the settlers, whether free coloni,
veterans, or læti, were engaged in agriculture. Some of them, no
doubt, especially since the encouragement said to have been given by
Probus to vine culture, may have occupied vineyards in Southern Gaul,
or in the valleys of the Rhine and its tributaries.
Lastly, it must also be remembered that there may have been
intermixed among the privileged veterans and the overburdened
'læti,' on the public lands, dwindling remains of original Gallic
inhabitants, and other free coloni or tenants, not privileged like
the veterans, but subject to the various public burdens. Some of
these were scarcely to be distinguished, perhaps, in point of law
and right from the owners of villas. They may have been holders of
slaves, and have had possibly sometimes even free coloni of their
own, though varying very much in the size of their holdings, and
falling far below the owners of latifundia in social importance.
Be this as it may, we shall presently find the free class of
landholders, whoever they might be, sinking steadily into a
semi-servile condition under the oppression of the Imperial fiscal
officers and the burden of the taxation and services [p289] imposed
upon them--the _tributum_ and _sordida munera_--the oppressive
exaction of which during the later empire was forcing them gradually
to surrender their freedom, and to seek the shelter of a semi-servile
position under the _patrocinium_, sometimes of the fiscal officer
himself, sometimes of the lord of a neighbouring 'villa.'
VI. THE 'TRIBUTUM' OF THE LATER EMPIRE.
Passing now to the system of taxation and forced services during the
later empire, it will be found to be of peculiar importance, not
only because of its connexion with the growing manorial tendencies,
but also because the taxation resembled so closely the system of
'_hidation_' prevalent afterwards in Saxon England, and some of the
forced services actually survived in the manorial system.
The system of taxation was modified by the Emperor Diocletian at the
very time when the policy of forced colonisation described in the
last chapter was being carried out.
«The _jugatio_ or assessment by the _jugum_ or _caput_.»
It was known as the taxation '_jugatione vel capitatione_'--the
tribute or stipendium of so much for every _jugum_ or _caput_.
'Jugum' and 'caput' were names for a hypothetically equal, if not
always the same, unit of taxation.[420]
The 'jugum' was probably originally taken from the area which
could be cultivated by the single or double yoke of oxen allotted
to the settler, and may [p290] have been a single or double one
accordingly. But a person holding a fraction of a _jugum_ or _caput_
was said to hold only a '_portio_,'[421] and paid, in consequence, a
proportion only of the burdens assessed upon the whole jugum.
Now, if the taxation had continued at actually so much per yoke of
oxen, the system would have been simple enough; and it would be
easy to understand how, whilst the _jugum_ represented the unit of
taxation for land, the _caput_ might be the unit corresponding in
value with the jugum, but applying to other kinds of property, such
as slaves and cattle, and including the capitation tax levied in
respect of wives and children. And this, probably, may be the meaning
of the double nomenclature--_jugum vel caput_. At any rate, we know
from the Theodosian Code, that the members of a veteran's family were
constituent parts of his 'caput.'[422]
The subject is obscure, but the reform of Diocletian seems to have
aimed at an equalisation of the taxation according to the value of
property.
«The _jugum_ became a unit of taxation,»
This seems to have involved an assessment of various kinds of land
in hypothetical _juga_, of the same value (said to be fixed at
2,000 solidi); and this involved a variation in the acreage of the
hypothetical _jugum_, according to the richness or otherwise of the
land, just as according to Flaccus was the case also as regards the
actual centuriæ and allotments.
«and varied in area.»
In one instance in which the figures have been [p291] preserved,
viz. for Syria, under the Eastern Empire, the assessment was as
follows under the system of Diocletian:[423]--
Of vine-land 5 jugera, or 10 plethra or half-acres.
Arable, first class 20 jugera, or 40 plethra or half-acres.
Arable, second class 40 jugera, or 80 plethra or half-acres.
Arable, third class 60 jugera, or 120 plethra or half-acres.
In the east, therefore, sixty jugera, or 120 Greek plethra or
half-acres, of ordinary arable land, were assessed as a _jugum_.
This instance makes it clear that while originally the actual
allotment to a single or double yoke of oxen may have been taken as
the basis of taxation, the 'jugum' had already become a hypothetical
_unit of assessment_, just as, by a similar process, was the case
with the English hide. Property had come to be assessed at so
many _juga_ under the _jugation_, without any attempt to make the
assessment accord with the actual number of yokes employed.
«The Indiction.»
The assessment was revised every fifteen years at what was called the
_Indiction_.[424]
We have seen that the nominal acreage of the typical holding assigned
to the single yoke of two oxen under Roman law on the Continent
resembled very closely that of the Saxon yard-land, which also had
two oxen allotted with it.[425] [p292]
«Analogy of the _jugum_ and _centuria_ to the yard-land
and hide.»
We have also seen that the twenty-five or thirty jugera of the single
yoke were probably fixed as an eighth of the Roman _centuria_, as the
yard-land was the eighth of a double hide.
The common acreage of the centuria was, as we have seen, 200 or 240
jugera. The latter number may be the simple result of the use of the
long hundred of 120; or it may have resulted, as suggested above,
from the necessity of making the centuria of the free citizen's
typical estate divisible into four double holdings of 60 acres, or
eight single holdings of 30 acres each.
Be this as it may, the centuria, or typical estate of a free citizen
in a regularly constructed Roman colony, seems to have stood to the
single or double holding of the common and often semi-servile settler
in the same arithmetical relation as the Saxon larger hide of 240
acres did to the yard-land.[426]
We have, then, two kinds of holdings:--
1. The one or more _centuriæ_ embraced in the [p293] latifundia or
villas of the large landowners, which, however, when tilled by their
coloni, and not by slaves, might well be subdivided into holdings of
sixty or thirty acres each.
2. The double and single holdings of the smaller settlers on the
'ager publicus' of fifty or sixty and twenty-five or thirty acres
each.
And we may conclude that the system of taxation called the
'_jugatio_' was founded upon these facts, though in order to equalise
its burden the assessment of an estate or a territory in juga became,
under Diocletian, a hypothetical assessment, corresponding no longer
with the _actual_ number of yokes, just as the Saxon hide _ad
geldam_, at the date of the Domesday Survey, no longer corresponded
with the actual carucate _ad arandum_.
Another resemblance between the Roman jugation and the Saxon hidage
was to be found in the method adopted when it became needful to
reduce the taxation of a district.
Thus, the land of the Ædui had been ravaged and depopulated. It had
paid the tributum on 32,000 juga; 7,000 juga were released from
taxation. In future it was assessed at 25,000 juga only; and so
relief was granted.[427]
«The _tributum_ paid by the lord, who claimed tribute from
his tenants, or '_tributarii_.'»
Further, as the English manorial lord paid the hidage for the whole
manor, so the lord of the villa, under Roman law, paid the tributum
not only for his own demesne land, but also for the land of his
coloni and tenants. Just as the servile tenants of a Saxon thane were
called his '_gafol gelders_,' so the [p294] semi-servile tenants
of a Roman lord were called his _tributarii_. In both cases they
paid their tribute to their lord, whilst the lord paid the imperial
tributum for himself and for them.[428]
«_Coloni_ and _tributarii_ in Britain.»
In a decree of the year 319, issued by Constantine to the 'Vicar of
Britain,' words are used which prove that there were _coloni_ and
_tributarii_[429] on British estates.[430]
Putting all these things together, the analogy between the Roman
'jugation' and the later English hidage can hardly be regarded as
accidental.
But to return, at present, to the tribute and the service due from
each _jugum_ or _caput_.
«The Roman 'tributum' and the Saxon 'gafol.'»
The tribute was generally paid part in money and part in produce,
and was, in fact, a tax. It was a separate thing from the _tithe_
of produce, rendered as rent to the State on the tithe-lands of the
_Agri decumates_ and of Sicily, though all these various annual
payments in produce may have been confused together under the term
_annonæ_. The _tribute_ proper survived probably, as we shall see, in
the later manorial '_gafol_.' The _tithe_, or other proportion taken
as rent--for the proportion was not always a tenth[431]--more nearly
resembled the manorial '_gafol-yrth_.' [p295] But we are not quite
ready yet to trace the actual connexion between these Roman and later
manorial payments.
VII. THE 'SORDIDA MUNERA' OF THE LATER EMPIRE.
«The _sordida munera_.»
In addition to the payments in kind or rents in produce, called
_annonæ_, there were other personal services demanded from settlers
in the provinces. They were called '_sordida munera_,' and strangely
resembled the base services of later manorial tenants.
There is a special title of the 'Codex Theodosianus' on the 'base
services' exacted under Roman law;[432] so that there is evidence of
the very best kind as to what they were.
«Of three grades of holdings.»
By an edict of A.D. 328 there was laid upon the _rectores_ of
provinces the duty of fixing the burden of the services according to
three grades of holdings--those of the greater, the middle, and the
lowest class--as well as the obligation of seeing that the services
were not exacted at unreasonable times, as during the collection of
crops. Further, the rectores were also ordered to record with their
own hand 'what is the service and how to be performed for every
"_caput_" [or jugum], whether so many _angariæ_ or so many _operæ_,
and in what way they are to be rendered for each of the three grades
of holdings.'[433] [p296]
Certain privileged classes were specially exempted from these 'base
services,' and it happens that edicts expressly mentioning Rhætia
specify from what services they shall be exempt, and so reveal in
detail what the services were.
The province of Rhætia lay to the south of the Roman _Limes_, and
east of the 'Agri decumates' of Tacitus, whilst also extending
into the Alpine valleys of the present Graubunden. The chief city
in North Rhætia, of which we speak (Vindelicia), was _Augusta
Vindelicorum_ (Augsburg), and Tacitus describes the German tribes of
the Hermunduri, north of the _Limes_, as engaged in friendly commerce
with the Romans, and as having perfectly free access not only to the
city, but also to the Roman villas around it.[434]
«What they were in Rhætia.»
We have seen that in this district south of the Danube, and in the
_Agri decumates_ between the Danube and the Rhine, there were large
numbers of German as well as Roman settlers, occupying land probably
as free 'coloni' and 'læti,' paying tribute to the State, in addition
to the usual tenth of the produce and personal services, according to
their grades of holding. Edicts of A.D. 382 and 390[435] represent
the tenants and settlers in this Roman province as liable with others
to render, in addition to the tithe of the produce in corn, &c.
(_annonæ_), _inter alia_, the following 'base services' (_sordida
munera_), viz.:-- [p297]
«Supply of bread.»
(1) The '_cura pollinis conficiendi_, _excoctio panis_, and
_obsequium pistrini_,' _i.e._ the preparation of flour, making of
bread, and service at the bakehouse.
The supply of so many loaves of bread is a very common item of the
later manorial services everywhere.
«Post-horse and carrying services.»
(2) The _præbitio paraveredorum et parangariarum_. These also were
services found surviving, in fact and in name, amongst the later
manorial services. The _angariæ_[436] and the _veredi_[437] were
carrying services, with waggons and oxen or with pack-horses, on
the main public Roman roads. The _parangariæ_ and _paraveredi_ were
_extra_ carrying services _off_ the main road. There is a special
title of the Codex Theodosianus '_De Cursu Publico, Angariis et
Parangariis_,'[438] in which, by various edicts, abuses are checked
and the services restrained within reasonable limits, both as to the
weight to be carried and the number of oxen or horses required.
Carrying services also are familiar in manorial records under the
name of '_averagium_.' In the Hundred Rolls and the Cartularies,
and in the Domesday Survey, they occur again and again; and in the
Anglo-Saxon version of the '_Rectitudines_,' in describing the
services of the 'geneat' or 'villanus,' the Latin words 'equitare
vel _averiare_ et summagium [p298] ducere,' are rendered 'ridan ⁊
auerian ⁊ lade lædan.' Also, in the record of the services of the
Tidenham 'geneats' the words run, '_ridan, and averian, and lāde
lædan, drāfe drīfan_,' &c.[439] At the same time, on the Continent
the word '_angariæ_' became so general a manorial phrase as to be
almost equivalent to 'villein services' of all kinds.[440]
The carrying and post-horse services, more strictly included in the
manorial _angariæ_ and _averagium_, extended over Britain, Gaul, and
the German provinces.
«Various _operæ_.»
(3) The '_obsequia operarum et artificum diversorum_'--the doing
all sorts of services and labour when required--like the Saxon
'boon-work,' which formed so constant a feature of manorial services
in addition to the gafol and regular week-work. How could the
words be better translated than in the Anglo-Saxon of the Tidenham
record--'and sela ōdra [p299] þinga dón,' '_and shall do other
things_,' qualified by the previous words, 'swá him man byt,' '_as he
is bid_.'?[441]
«Lime burning.»
(4) The '_obsequium coquendæ calcis_'--lime-burning. This was one
of the specially mentioned services of the servi of the Church in
Frankish times, under the Bavarian laws, in this very district of
Rhætia, as we shall see by-and-by.
«Building, &c., and support of inns, roads and bridges.»
(5) The '_præbitio materiæ, lignorum, et tabulorum; cura publicarum
vel sacrarum ædium construendarum atque reparandarum; cura
hospitalium domorum et viarum et pontium_'--the supply of material,
wood, and boarding for building, repairing, or constructing public
and sacred buildings, and the keeping up of inns, roads, and bridges.
Here we have two out of the 'three needs' marking in England the
higher service of the Saxon thane.
Such were the chief '_sordida munera_' of the settlers in Rhætia and
other Roman provinces. But servile as they were, and like as they
were to the later manorial services, we must not therefore conclude
that the settlers from whom they were due--whether German or Roman,
in Romano-German provinces--were under Roman law necessarily _serfs_.
They were, as we have said, 'free coloni' or 'læti,' and below them
were the 'servi.' The three grades in which they were classed,
'_ditiores_, _mediocres_, _atque infimi_,' marked gradations of
wealth,--probably according to the number of yokes of oxen held, or
the size of their holdings--not necessarily degrees of freedom.[442]
[p300]
VIII. THE TENDENCY TOWARDS A MANORIAL MANAGEMENT OF THE 'AGER
PUBLICUS,' OR IMPERIAL DOMAIN.
Having now examined into the character of the holdings, tribute,
and 'sordida munera' of the tenants on what may be called the great
provincial manor of the Roman emperor, it may perhaps be possible
to trace some steps in the process by which these tenants became in
some districts practically serfs on the royal villas or manors of the
Teutonic conquerors of the provinces.
The beginning of the process can be traced apparently at work during
the later empire.
«The Imperial military and fiscal officers.»
The German and Gallic provinces had for long been considered as in an
especial sense _Imperial_ provinces, and their 'ager publicus' and
tithe-lands had become regarded to a great extent as the personal
domain of the emperors. They were under the personal control of his
imperial _procuratores_, or agents.[443]
In fact there had grown up strictly imperial classes of military and
fiscal officers with local jurisdiction over larger or smaller areas.
There were the 'duces,' or 'magistri militum,' and 'comites,' and
'vicarii,'[444] whilst in the lowest rank of 'procuratores,' possibly
controlling smaller fiscal districts or [p301] subdistricts, were
the '_ducenarii_,' and '_centenarii_.'[445] They seem to have
combined military, and judicial, and fiscal duties with functions
belonging to a local police.
Whatever at first the exact position and authority of these military
and fiscal officers of the Emperor may have been, there is evidence
that they easily assumed a kind of manorial lordship over the portion
of the public domains under their charge in two distinct ways.
«Were apt to assume a sort of lordship in their district.»
In the first place, the 'villa' in which a military or fiscal officer
lived was the fiscal centre of his district. He was the 'villicus'
by whom the 'annonæ,' tribute, and 'sordida munera' were exacted. In
some instances the services seem to have been rendered in the form
of work on his 'villa,' or on the villas of 'conductores,' by whom
the special products of some districts were sometimes farmed.[446]
And there are passages in the Codes which complain of the tendency
in these Imperial officers of higher and lower rank to oppress those
under their jurisdiction, even sometimes using their services on
their own estates, and thus arrogating to themselves almost the
position of manorial lords, whilst reducing their fiscal dependants
to the position of semi-servile tenants.[447] [p302]
«Take persons and villages under their _patrocinium_.»
In the second place, the practice also was complained of by which the
fiscal officers, using their influence unduly, induced tenants on the
public lands of their district, and sometimes even _whole villages_,
to place themselves under their '_patrocinium_,' thereby practically
converting themselves into semi-servile tenants of a mesne lord who
stood between them and the emperor.[448]
The question would be well worth a more careful consideration than
can be given here how far these tendencies towards the gradual
establishment under [p303] the later empire of a manorial relation
between the 'coloni' and 'læti' on the crown lands, and the fiscal
officer of the district in which they lived, were the beginnings of
a process which ended in the division of the crown lands practically
into 'villæ,' or districts appendant to the villa of the fiscal
officer, which in their turn may have been the prototypes of
the villas or manors on the 'terra regis' of Frankish and Saxon
kings.[449]
«Frankish 'Terra Regis' divided into _Villæ_, or _Manors_.»
As we have said, the use of the word 'villa' in the Salic laws and
early capitularies, for the smallest general territorial unit as
well as for the 'villa' of a private lord, would thus perhaps be
most easily accounted for. And possibly the continuity which such a
result would indicate between Roman and Frankish institutions might,
after all, be confirmed by the seeming continuity, in name at least,
between the fiscal officers of the later empire and those of the
Salic and Ripuarian, and other early barbarian codes. The appearance
of the _dux_ and the _comes_ and the _centenarius_ in these codes,
and in the early capitularies, as the military, fiscal and judicial
officers of the Frankish kings, is at least suggestive of continuity
in fiscal and judicial arrangements, though of course it does not
follow that many German elements may not have been directly imported
into institutions which, even under the later Roman rule in the
Romano-German provinces, already indirectly and to some extent were
[p304] no doubt the compound product of both Roman and German
ingredients.[450]
The settlement of these difficult points perhaps belongs to
constitutional rather than to economic history.
«The process of commendation commenced under Roman rule.»
Having noticed the evident tendencies of the fiscal district of
the later empire to approach the manorial type, and to become a
crown villa or manor with dependent holdings upon it, we must pass
on to a further important effect of the oppression of the imperial
officers. We have noticed the edicts intended to prevent the tenants
on the imperial domain from putting themselves under their direct
'patrocinium.' These edicts did not prevent the over-burdened and
oppressed tenant from putting himself under the 'patrocinium' of
the lord of a neighbouring villa, thereby becoming his semi-servile
tenant, in order to escape from the cruel exactions of the
tax-gatherer.
This process was called 'commendation,' and it was carried out on
a remarkable scale. It consisted in the surrender by the smaller
tenants on the public lands of themselves and their property to some
richer landowner; so parting with their inheritance and their freedom
whilst receiving back a mere occupation of their holding by way of
usufruct only as a '_præcarium_,' or for life, as a servile tenement,
paying [p305] to their lord the fixed census or 'gafol' of the
servile tenant.
«And so hastened on manorial tendencies.»
By this process they rapidly swelled the number of servile tenants on
villas of the manorial type, and hastened the growing prevalence of
the manorial system.[451]
«Commendation very ancient.»
This process of commendation was nothing new. It was an old tribal
practice at work long before Roman times in Gaul, and destined not
only to outlast the Roman rule, but also to receive a fresh impulse
afterwards from the German invasions. And as its progress can be
traced step by step from Roman times, through the period of conquest
into the times of settled Frankish rule, and its history is closely
mixed up with the history of the growth of the Roman villa into
the mediæval manor, and with the change of the '_sordida munera_'
from public burdens into manorial services, it presents useful
stepping-stones over a gulf not otherwise to be easily crossed with
security.
«Cæsar. Subjection to an overlordship a means of escape
from oppression.»
Cæsar describes how in Gaul, even before the Roman conquest, the
free tribesmen, overburdened by the exactions of chieftains and
the tributes imposed upon them (probably by way of 'gwestva' or
food-rents), surrendered their freedom, and became little more than
'servi' of the chiefs. And so far had this practice proceeded that
he describes the people of Gaul as practically divided into two
classes--the chiefs, whom he likened to the Roman 'equites;' [p306]
and the common people, who were in a position little removed from
slavery.[452]
«Tacitus.»
Further, there is the evidence of Tacitus himself that oppressive
Roman exactions were forcing free tribesmen, even in _Frisia_,
to surrender their lands and their children into a condition of
servitude.[453]
«Gregory of Tours.»
Again, Gregory of Tours[454] describes how, in a year of famine, the
poor surrendered their freedom--_subdebant se servitio_--to escape
starvation. [p307]
«Salvian's complaint in the fifth century.»
Lastly, in the fifth century (A.D. 450–90) Salvian[455] describes
at great length the process by which Roman freemen were in the
practice of surrendering their possessions to great men and becoming
tributary to them, in order to escape the exactions of the officers
who collected the 'tributum.' He narrates how the rich Romans threw
upon the poor the weight of the public tribute, and made extra
exactions of their own; how multitudes in consequence deserted their
property and became _bagaudæ_--rebels and outlaws;--how, in districts
conquered by the Franks and Goths, there was no such oppression; how
Romans living in these districts had their rights respected; how
people even fled for safety and freedom from the districts still
under Roman rule into these Teutonic districts; and he expresses his
wonder why more did not do this.
«The effect of surrenders to an overlord.»
Many (he says) would fly from the Roman districts if they could carry
their properties and houses and families with them. As they cannot do
this (he goes on to say), they surrender themselves to the care and
protection of great men, becoming their _dediticii_ or semi-servile
tenants. And the rich (he complains) receive them under their
'patrocinium' or overlordship, not from motives of charity, but for
gain: for they require them to surrender almost all their substance,
_temporary possession only being allowed to the parent making
the surrender during his life_,[456] while the heirs lose their
inheritance. And this (he adds) is not all. [p308] The poor wretches
who have surrendered their property are compelled nevertheless to pay
tribute for it to these lords, as if it were still their own. Better
is the lot of those who, deserting their property altogether, hire
farms under great men, and so become the free _coloni_ of the rich.
For these others not only lose their property and their status, and
everything that they can call their own; they lose also themselves
and their liberty.[457]
This evidence of Salvian proves that the surrender by freemen of
themselves and their property to an overlord was rapidly going on in
Roman provinces during the fifth century, and this as the result of
Roman misrule, not of German conquest.
IX. THE SUCCESSION TO SEMI-SERVILE HOLDINGS; AND METHODS OF
CULTIVATION.
From the evidence of Salvian we can pass at once, crossing the gulf
of Teutonic conquest, to that of the Alamannic and Bavarian laws
and the monastic cartularies, in which we shall find the process
described by Salvian still going on under German rule, and thereby
holding after holding, which had once been free, falling under the
manorial lordship of the monasteries. [p309]
But before we do so it may be worth while to inquire further into
the position, under Roman rule, of the class of semi-servile tenants
into which a free possessor of land descended when he made the
surrender of his holding. We may ask, What was the rule of succession
to semi-servile holdings? and what were the customary methods of
cultivation followed by semi-servile tenants, whether upon the villa
of a lord or upon the imperial domains?
«The rule of single succession to a servile holding.»