1. EXTENT OF THE EMPIRE. – At the end of the fourth century the Roman Empire still comprised the entire basin of the Mediterranean. In Europe its continental limits were the Rhine and the Danube; in Asia, an undefined frontier, modified constantly by wars with the Armenians and Persians, followed the eastern slope of the Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) to the foot of the Caucasus Mountains and extended into Armenia around Lake Van, thence in an almost straight line to the Red Sea, crossing the Tigris below Tigranocerta, and the Euphrates at its junction with the Chaboras at Circesium. On the south, Egypt up to and beyond the first cataract, and the northern slope of Africa, with Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Mauritania, belonged to Rome, which possessed in the valley of the Nile and in the modern Tunis the wheat granaries that supplied the hungry people of the two capitals. On the west the Atlantic Ocean formed the horizon of the ancients, who imagined beyond it the mysterious land of the blessed ones. On the north the island of Britannia belonged to the Empire, with the exception of the mountainous region of Caledonia, which retained its independence, as did Hibernia, or Ireland.
2. The Emperor. The Worship of the Emperors. – Within these limits Rome held sway over the most diverse peoples. The imperial régime, organised little by little, reached its definite form under Diocletian (285-305) and Constantine the Great (312-337). The emperor, considered a divine personage, was the head of both Church and state. He lived like an Oriental prince in the midst of imposing splendour, surrounded by a world of courtiers and servants, all proud of their domestic functions. He governed, aided by a Council of State, the high dignitaries of his palace, and the ministers, who controlled a hierarchy of officials. In spite of the wretchedness of the third and fourth centuries, and the manifest incapacity or unworthiness of so many of the emperors, the prestige of the Roman name still exerted great influence over the minds of the enlightened citizens of the Empire and the simple imagination of the barbarian peoples. From the time of Augustus the imperial majesty and Rome, the capital of the world, were adored. This official cult was not an evidence of abject servility; it was an expression, emphatic though doubtless sincere, of gratitude for Roman civilisation. Outside of the Empire there was nothing, in the eyes of the Romans, except barbarism.
3. Administrative Divisions of the Empire. – At the death of Theodosius the Great (395) the Empire was governed by two emperors – Arcadius in the Orient and Honorius in the Occident. It was considered, however, a single empire. It was divided into four prefectures – or six, if the prefectures of Rome and Constantinople are included; each prefecture was divided into dioceses, fourteen in number; each diocese into provinces, one hundred and nineteen in number; the provinces were subdivided into townships and the townships into cantons.
A precise idea of provincial administration may be gained by noting what took place at that time in Gaul.
4. Gaul. Administrative Divisions. – Gaul, in the ordinary sense of the word, that is to say the country lying between the Pyrenees, the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea, formed at the end of the fourth century a diocese which was divided into seventeen provinces. Seven southern provinces, partly corresponding to the former Roman province, formed a separate body, with its own administration. In administrative terms the expression “Gauls” was reserved to the ten other provinces. The provinces were subdivided into townships (civitates) to the number of one hundred and twelve, and somewhat later to one hundred and fifteen. The cantons (pagi), the number of which is unknown, were the territorial divisions of the former Gallic tribes. These divisions had been respected by the conquerors, and incorporated into the new divisions.
5. The Prætorian Prefect. – The prætorian prefect was at the head of the civil administration in Gaul. His official residence was at Trèves; later, from the year 400, at Arles, far from the frontier, which was harassed by the barbarians. His powers were most extensive; he published the laws, superintended the collection of imposts, administered the public domains, the imperial posts, supervised the provincial governors, and with his assessors judged without appeal; he also had charge of recruiting and of army supplies. He had under his immediate orders a vice-prefect (vicarius), for the group of seven provinces, and a master of soldiers (magister militum).
6. The Governors of the Seventeen Provinces. – The seventeen governors (six consulares and eleven prœsides) resided in the principal town or metropolis of the province. They had a numerous retinue of personal followers. The clerks were apportioned to bureaus (officia, scrinia); they had a life appointment, almost an hereditary one. They were expected to aid the governor, and were responsible for the errors which the latter might commit. Like the functions of the prefects, those of the governors were most varied; these officers were both administrators and judges. They were paid in money, and were given certain equipments, of which a writer of the third century furnishes the following details: “Twenty pounds of silver and one hundred pieces of gold, six jugs of wine, two mules and two horses, two ceremonial costumes, one simple costume, a bath, a cook, a muleteer.” It was only under Theodosius II. that the custom of providing equipments was discontinued.
7. Municipal Government. – Under the authority and protection of the governors the laws and customs of the municipal government were freely administered in the townships (civitates). These comprised a territory of moderate extent, which may be compared to the French departments; they contained, therefore, a certain number of cities, market towns, and villages ruled by a kind of general council. This was the Senate or curia (curia). The members of this Senate were taken from among the freemen or proprietors who owned at least twenty-five jugera of land in the township. They made up the class of curials (curiales) or decurions, which was named ordo decurionum. Their functions were obligatory and hereditary; every son of a curial became one himself at the age of eighteen. The curials bore in fact many burdens of state or city. They were responsible individually with their personal fortunes for the payment of taxes. On the other hand they enjoyed certain privileges; such as exemption from the bastinado and torture, and they received marked consideration from the governor. The Senate named the magistrates of the city, aided them in the maintenance of order, in the administration of food supplies (annona), charitable establishments, religion, and the communal finances. Above the curials in rank were the senators. They were the richest and most important men of the community, who had received from the emperor the right to sit in the Senate at Rome, and the rank of senator, although without the functions appertaining to this office. They should not be confounded with the members of the municipal Senate.
8. Municipal Magistrates. – The magistrates were chosen from among the curials and according to a definite order. They were the quæstors, the ediles, the decemvirs, for judicial and financial matters; the priests, flamens. for the municipal worship; the tribuni militum a populo, for the maintenance of law and order; the curatores, for the administration of public property. These officers were appointed for a year, and were responsible for their administration. Added to these magistracies was a new office of defensor, created in Illyria in 364; this finally became general. Heretofore the municipalities had chosen some influential Roman to act as their patron and advocate. More than once he took advantage of the city which had profited by his services and made himself master of it. In order to regulate this abuse the emperor suppressed patronage and created the office of defensor. The defensors were at first named by the government, then elected by the people for five years. They were chosen not from among the curials, but from the notables of the community. They were not popular, for they had to protect the lower classes, defend them even against the curials, and also guard the interests of the treasury by preventing the curials from deserting the curia. It has often been said that the bishop was usually named for defensor; it would be more exact to say that he gradually replaced him.
9. Towns and Villages. – As time went on the municipal organisation was more and more extended to small places. Certain pagi had a local assembly and magistrates. Simple fortified camps (castra) were given a municipal constitution. Gaul is one of the countries where the dismemberment of the original municipalities was the most frequent. It was as when, in the Middle Ages, the smallest town demanded its liberty, its charter, and its customs. The villages progressed more slowly. During the Roman epoch they had a local worship and their priests; when converted to Christianity they formed parishes, but had to wait until the eighteenth century to become communes.
Parcelling out the municipalities weakened them. Besides, the invasions ruined the curials, some of whom sank to the lower classes, while others entered the ranks of the clergy or withdrew into monasteries; the richer ones, eager to avoid municipal burdens, passed from the ordo decurionuta into the superior rank of senators. Thus this class of the curials, on whom rested the financial and municipal organisation of the Empire, soon disappeared, and with it the régime whose instrument they were. In the greater part of Gaul, at least, this régime left but a faint trace in the Middle Ages.
10. The Provincial Assemblies. – Another institution suffered a like fate. This was the Provincial Assemblies, which the Empire, having created, did not know how to use or would not use intelligently. Those of Gaul are the best known to us. The most ancient met in Lyons, near the temple raised in honour of Rome and Augustus, which was decorated with statues of the Gallic cities. One was also held at Narbonne. These assemblies were composed of the municipal magistrates, consequently of the rich proprietors of Gaul. After deliberating in common, resolutions were carried by a majority vote, and delegates were instructed to present them to the emperor. An inscription of the year 238, found at Torigny (department of the Manche), gives the very instructive text of some resolutions of the assembly at Lyons. It is a complaint of the bad administration of a governor of Lyonnaise Gaul, which brought, however, no satisfaction. In the fifth century the Emperor Honorius tried to systematise this institution, at least in the south of Gaul. An edict of 418 ordered that the Seven Provinces should hold, henceforth, their assembly at a specified time, in the city of Arles; it should be composed of ex-magistrates, important proprietors, and the judges of each province. “We wish,” said the emperor, “that this reunion of influential citizens may express its opinion on the general interests of the country.” But it was too late to revive provincial life, in the midst of the great invasions, and Honorius’ edict remained a dead letter.
11. Condition of Roman Gaul Compared with that of Barbarian Gaul. – Compared with what it had been before the Roman conquest, Gaul may be a criterion of the progress accomplished by the barbarian tribes under the rule of Rome. Excessive partitioning and internal dissensions had brought about the loss of its independence. Its political divisions were not entirely ignored and abolished by the Romans, for the townships represented, to a certain point, the former tribal divisions, but internal peace was established by a severe administration. Well governed, Gaul had promptly become Romanised, and it was not long in assuming the leadership of the Eastern provinces. It watched at the gates of barbarism and led the vanguard of civilisation.
12. Public Offices: Justice. – Passing from the administration proper, the important public offices should be studied. The judicial organisation comprised several degrees. (1) In the cities the municipal magistrates (duumviri juri dicundo) judged civil suits of minor interest, but they were not competent for criminal trials. Wills, marriage contracts, and adoptions were drawn up in their presence. The defensor, in cities where this office was instituted, assumed the duties of the duumviri. (2) The governor’s powers were much more extended; he judged both criminal and civil suits. At certain times in the year he made the circuit of his province; he was then forbidden to stop with a rich private individual or in an attractive country. He was obliged to hold the assizes in the large centres of population. He judged sometimes alone, more often surrounded by the assessors named and paid by him, but always in a spot accessible to all. The parties in a suit might be represented by procurors and defended by advocates; the latter formed a close and privileged corporation. (3) There was the right of appeal to the vicarius from the governor, from the vicar to the prefect, and from the prefect to the emperor. The pontifical law of ancient Rome was no longer used in the courts; there was no distinction between the law of citizens and that of foreigners. The great jurisconsults of the second and third centuries – Papianus, Paulus, Gaius, Ulpianus, Modestinus – were especially guided by principles which they deduced from the very nature of things. In 426 Valentinius III. gave to their decisions the force of law. This was the foundation of Roman law, which has been called, and justly so, “written reason.”
13. Finances: Division of the Subject. – The financial administration was divided into three departments, according as the imposts were destined to the public exchequer (ærarium sacrum, or sacræ largitiones), the private exchequer of the emperor (ærarium privatum, or privatæ largitiones), or that of the prefects.
14. Imposts. – The public exchequer was administered by the comes sacrarum largitionum, who had many subordinates in the capitals and provinces. He levied the following taxes: (1) property taxes (tributa), paid in by the landed proprietors (capitatio terrena), by the merchants (chrysargyrium), and by the coloni, who cultivated the land without owning it (capitatio plebeia or humana). The imperial nobility was exempt from these imposts, but paid a special contribution; the senators paid the gleba senatoria, the oblatio votorum, and the aurum oblatitium; the curials were subject to a special tax, the aurum coronarium, which was originally voluntary. (2) Indirect taxes (vectigalia). These were customs, duties, and tolls, farmed by companies of contractors, publicans, mostly freedmen, who employed many slaves in their offices. The market taxes of the Middle Ages were a continuation of these portoria of the Roman epoch. (3) The products of mines, marble quarries, salt works, imperial manufactures and minting. In manufacturing and mining the state employed workmen who were members of hereditary corporations. The private exchequer was administered by the comes rerum privatarum; he collected the revenues of the old domains of the state, of the crown, of the emperor’s patrimony, and of land confiscated, escheated, or vacant. These revenues were usually set apart for expenses of a private nature, while the revenues of the “sacred” exchequer were for public expenses; however, the emperor had the right to dispose of both as he saw fit. Finally each prefect had a fund in particular supplied by the annona. This was a contribution paid in in kind. For example, Egypt furnished wheat to Constantinople, and Africa to Rome. Here the prefect distributed it at a low price, or free, to the poor, who were all the more numerous since the state favoured their idleness; in the other prefectures the annona was used for paying the troops and civil servants.
15. Unjust Levying of Taxes. Oppression of the Curials. – It does not appear that these imposts weighed too heavily on the subjects of the Empire in ordinary times; they were on the contrary moderate and equitably divided. But the system of tax collecting was bad. Here there were companies which farmed the taxes, and they did not fail to raise the customs, duties, and tolls, since, after turning in to the imperial exchequer the required amount, they appropriated the surplus; there, there were citizens who, in each community, in each corporation, levied the tax and were personally responsible for it. Hence arose injustice and tyranny. “So many curials, just so many tyrants,” wrote Salvian, an author of the fifth century. The curials, on their side, were often ruined by these functions, whence there was no escape, since they were responsible with their own private fortunes for the sum total of the imposts required by the emperor, and their fortunes were ceaselessly diminished by the invasions. The laws preventing the curials from joining the barbarians increased in severity during the fifth century: a proof that the law was powerless and that their condition was growing worse.
16. Monetary System. – The payment of imposts was made in kind or in coin. The money of the Empire was coined, as in our day, from three metals: gold, silver, and copper. The principal gold coin was the aureus, or the gold penny, worth about two dollars and seventy cents of our money. The principal silver piece was the argenteus, ninety-six of which were struck from a pound of silver; twenty-five of these, or one hundred sesterces, equalled an aureus. Base metal, made of copper with an alloy of zinc, silver, and tin, was used for coins of ten and of two and five-tenths grammes, which passed for a sum far above their real value; but copper coins were only much depreciated small change.
From the time of Augustus coins bore the effigy of the emperor, with his names, titles, and dignities, as well as devices intended to convey his praises. After Aurelian, who suppressed the Senate’s mint at Rome, the imperial mint replaced all others. The staff of workmen was recruited from among organised bodies of slaves or freedmen, powerful enough to foment grave strikes when their privileges were threatened.
17. Banking. The Argentarius. – Money might be, like anything else, an object of trade. Under the name of argentarius Rome had what to-day would be termed a banker. He changed money, took it on deposit and at interest, opened accounts with the rich and with merchants, collected debts, lent money, etc.
18. The Army. – The army was made up of volunteers, or of recruits furnished by the landed proprietors according to their estate, or of sons of veterans who, on leaving the service, had obtained from the emperor a grant of land. The time of service was very long; the minimum was sixteen years, the maximum twenty-five. Hence a man was a soldier all his life, a wretched condition for the poor men who were forcibly enrolled in times of urgent need. The soldiers were citizens, or became so on entering or leaving the service. They were enrolled in the legions of infantry or cavalry. The auxiliaries, who were often bands of barbarians in the pay of the Empire, became more and more numerous. The magistri militum were at the head of the army; in the fifth century there were eight, five in the East and three in the West. One of these latter commanded the armed force in Gaul, with dukes and counts under him in command of the military divisions.
19. The Fleet. – These same officers directed the movements of the fleets, which had stations throughout the Empire. These were at Misenum, Ravenna, Egypt, Africa, Syria, the Black Sea, Britain, Fréjus, the Rhine, with an arsenal at Mayence, the Danube, the Euphrates, the Rhone, with stations at Vienne and at Arles, the Saone at Chalons, and on Lakes Como and Neufchatel. There were many arsenals for the storage of weapons and ships’ stores.
20. Strength and Weakness of the Roman Army. – Four hundred thousand soldiers and some thousands of sailors were a sufficient force to defend an empire of more than one hundred million inhabitants. Entrenched camps on the frontiers, and fortresses protected by thick stone walls, the whole bound together by a network of military roads, of which the Peutinger map gives us some idea, gave to Rome a great power of resistance, while a highly perfected military science assured her superiority over the barbarians. But the military virtues were lacking in an army which was no longer Roman except in name. Rome had grown great by her army, and was to perish by it.
21. The Arts. – Her share in the cultivation of the mind was great. Towns were beautified by arenas, theatres, colossal aqueducts, and hosts of statues. The arenas of Nimes and Arles, the Maison-Carrîe of Nimes, the theatres of Arles and Orange, the Pont du Gard, the Thermes of Julian at Paris, the gateways of Autun and Trèves, without mentioning the statuary in our museums, bear witness to-day, on the soil of ancient Gaul, to the splendour of Roman civilisation.
22. Public Instruction. – Public instruction was not neglected. At school a child of good birth was taught grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic – that is to say the art of combining words, phrases, and numbers. The ground- work of the teaching was the elucidation of some famous author, Horace or Vergil, for example. The principal academic training was in oratory, for the worship of eloquence survived liberty – which had fostered it. No education was complete without Greek. In the fourth century the school of Athens, with Proeresios and his most brilliant disciples, Saint Basil, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, and the Emperor Julian, shone brilliantly until the invasion of the barbarians. In Gaul famous schools were established at Marseilles and Autun in the first century, later at Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyons, Trèves, etc., which taught philosophy, medicine, law, letters, grammar, astrology. The professors were paid by the state. The four professors of philosophy at Athens drew a salary of ten thousand drachmas ($1750).
23. Literature. – Literature was declining, but Greece still brought forth famous professors of rhetoric; Alexandria, subtle philosophers; Gaul and Italy, elegant poets, such as Claudian, Ansonius of Bordeaux, or Rutilius Namatianus of Poitiers. The fourth century counted one more remarkable historian, Ammianus Marcellinus. The treasures of classic antiquity were scattered through many libraries. At Alexandria the library in the Museum was destroyed by fire at the time of Cæsar’s expedition; the one in the Serapeum, still very valuable in the fourth century, was pillaged in 391 by the Christians in arms against the pagans. In Rome at this epoch there were not less than twenty-eight public libraries. Seven scribes were employed in the one at Constantinople in copying ancient works. Several large cities of the West had libraries also; that of Træves was celebrated. This legacy from the past was not to reach modern times intact. As we have only the ruins of the ancient monuments, so we have nothing except detached fragments of this literature. By the middle of the fourth century Christianity began to take cognizance of this inheritance. It had been much depleted, and was to be more so by Christianity, although some portions of the wreck were saved.
24. Christianity. Organisation of the Catholic Church. – From the time of Constantine Christianity was the state religion, and soon became the only official religion. The Church governed herself, under the control of the emperor, her undisputed chief. A bishop was at the head of each important community. In the fifth century a bishop may be reckoned for each city (civitas). The one who lived in the capital city, or metropolis of the province, assumed the title of metropolitan or archbishop. The bishop was elected by the clergy and people; the election was confirmed by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. He administered his diocese according to the counsels of the priests who lived with him, and in joint action with either the archpriest who aided him in the accomplishment of his spiritual duties, or the archdeacon.
25. The Secular Clergy. – The priests were named by the bishop, who conferred the minor orders, corresponding to the functions of exorcist, porter, acolyte, reader, and assistant deacon, and the major orders. The clergy were supported by voluntary offerings and the fast increasing revenues accruing to the Church. In the West, from the fourth century on, celibacy was enjoined on the bishops and priests officiating at the altar. While with the pagans the temple was solely the home of the god, and religious worship was always celebrated outside of it, with the Christians religious life was centred in the church. At least once on Sunday mass was said at the altar, which was placed over the tomb of some martyr and contained relies.
The churches recalled by their primitive forms the chapels in the catacombs or the judicial basilicas of the Romans. They enjoyed some precious immunities; like pagan temples, they had the right of sanctuary.
26. The Regular Clergy. The Monks. – There grew up by the side of the secular clergy, which was already distinct from the mass of the faithful, although living with them in the saculum, that is, the world (hence seccular clergy), a strange population of ascetics, cenobites, anchorites, and monks. They lived far from the world, alone or in communities; poor, because they despised riches, torturing the body, which they considered the source of all sin, solely occupied in prayer and meditation. Monasticism penetrated the West from the East. In 360 Saint Martin established the first monastery of Gaul at Ligugé, and twelve years later one at Marmontiers, which became a nursery of bishops; in 401 Saint Honorat founded the celebrated abbey of Lerins. About the same epoch Saint Augustine introduced monasticism into Africa. In the fifth century there were monks everywhere. Sometimes ill-treated, more often honoured, they were the fiery propagators of the Christian faith throughout the land. Their order assumed more and more definite form. They were given statutes or rules; Saint Basil’s, for example, in the East, Cassian’s and Saint Benedict’s of Nursia in the West. So, although the monks were not yet, as a rule, learned men, there grew up, little by little, a regular clergy alongside of the secular clergy.
27. The Christian and the Citizen. – A new society was therefore formed and contrasted with the old one. The ideas which the two stood for were very different. In the one the chief thing was the citizen – the state was organised to assure him the full exercise of his rights; in the other, it was the man corrupted by original sin, incessantly led astray by the Evil Spirit, the Devil, the Enemy, later so called. Man had to be regenerated through baptism and prepared during this life for the life eternal. Christianity arose after the disappearance of the free citizen. Its interests were centred in the City of God. It preached to man love for his neighbour, indifference to worldly goods and submission to the law of the land, in so far as the law did not interfere with dogma or conscience. Hence the slaves, the poor, all the disinherited of the ancient city founded on privileges sought comfort in its teachings. The Church was therefore separated from the state, and soon aspired to its control.
28. The Councils and the Pope. – The general or ecumenical councils were assemblies of bishops, and later of heads of monasteries or abbots also. They were convoked to decide upon points of the creed. The doctors of the Church advised the separate churches to unite in one Church, catholic and universal; some among their number already thought that the bishop at Rome, successor to Saint Peter, should be primate, that is, Pope. From the fifth century on he was recognised as having a right to decide appeals from all the churches, and so a supreme jurisdiction.
29. The Christian Church and Heresies. – The religion of Christ, having finally conquered paganism, determined to destroy the last traces of it. On the 27th of February, 391, a formal edict forbade all rites of worship of the heathen gods; the temples were destroyed, or sometimes adapted to the celebration of the new religion. The Church had also to struggle with peculiar doctrines or heresies resulting from the speculations and teachings of philosophers and theologians, and from the latent influence of the old religions. The popes assumed to be the champions of the true doctrine or orthodoxy, and attempted in the councils to define the obscure points of dogma and the rules of ecclesiastical discipline, and to condemn and punish the believers in heretical doctrines. Among the most persistent and troublesome heresies was Arianism, or the doctrine of Arius, who denied the dogma of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. Several emperors favoured it, and through the influence of the apostle of the Goths, Ulfilas, it was embraced by almost all the Germanic people settled within the Empire. Religious quarrels may be added to the other causes which tended to enfeeble the Roman state.
30. The Conditions of Persons. – There were also important changes in the condition of persons and lands. On the lowest rung of the social ladder slavery still existed, in spite of pagan philosophy and Christianity. But the master had no longer right of life and death over his slave; he might sell him, provided he did not separate him from his family; from the time of Constantine he could free him by a simple declaration to that effect made in the church in the presence of the bishop and congregation. The plebs comprised several classes. In the country the coloni were free personally, but attached to the land which they tilled as tenants of the proprietor; in the towns the artisans were for the most part organised in corporations. There were many corporations in Gaul, such as that of the mariners of the Seine. The class of merchants and smaller proprietors was constantly decreasing in number. The curials, a higher class, formed a kind of municipal nobility; but the actual nobility was restricted to the senatorial order, made up of those who sat in the Senate at Rome, all the high functionaries, and some others. The members of this nobility bore the title of clarissimi; the ministers, like the members of the imperial family, were called, in addition, illustres. Those whom the emperor wished to honour signally were titled patricians. In the fourth century the title of count was usually associated with judicial and administrative functions.
31. Classes and Privileges. – The rights of individuals varied according to the class in which they belonged. Pagans, Jews, and heretics were excluded, in the fifth century, from all public offices, jus honorum. Justice was not equally distributed. Nobles were exempt from personal chastisement and torture; trials of clarissimi, soldiers, and clergy were held before special tribunals, and the mass of office holders were relieved of certain compulsory labours and payments. The social status was almost hereditary; nobility was transmitted from father to son; the artisan was perpetually bound to his guild; the colonus, sold with the land which he cultivated, was a serf to all eternity. The freemen of the Empire who did not possess the rights of citizenship were mostly barbarians, living in the interior or on the frontier (læti). They retained their national customs, but were liable to military service; marriage between Romans and barbarians was forbidden.
32. Condition of Lands. The Roman Villa. – Wealth was the stamp and moving power of the aristocracy, and consisted chiefly of land. In fact, industry was considered debasing, trade was disdained, and business enterprises were forbidden to Senators. The latter must have at least a third of their fortunes invested in lands. The aristocrats had therefore extended domains (villæ), comprising their dwellings, farm buildings, and slave quarters, built in the midst of fields marked off by sacred boundary lines. As a rule they disliked the proximity and competition of smaller proprietors. Members of the Municipal Senate, they apportioned the taxes as they saw fit, and overburdened the smaller farmers, or even exempted themselves, from taxation. The smaller land owners once ruined had no resource except to ask the “patronage” of their powerful neighbours. The latter would appropriate a part of their over-taxed land and leave them a life interest in the remainder. From freemen they became coloni, and when the new proprietors were also high functionaries of the state the dependence of this new kind of “clients” became more strict; they became almost subjects. The dwellings of these magnates gradually assumed the character and aspect of fortresses; the owners punished and judged their coloni, freedmen, and slaves; they protected them or else used them as soldiers, and with their aid repulsed the barbarians. Thus organised, the villa was already becoming a seignory.
33. Forests. – Beyond the cultivated fields, especially far from the towns, there were doubtless many waste lands and vast forests. In troublous times these served as places of refuge for fugitive slaves and coloni. In many localities they replaced the villages which had been destroyed by invasions. Later on the monks cleared and cultivated them.
Summary. – The Roman world seemed well ruled, but however skilfully organised it might have been, it was falling asunder. The Empire was not a unit. The provinces, although sincerely attached to the imperial régime, had little interest in its continuance; two languages were spoken in the East and West; two religions claimed man’s conscience. Imperial despotism had stifled all initiative in men who had lost political rights and were immovably bound to their offices, their trades, or their lands. The state had no equilibrium. One hundred years of barbarian invasions sufficed to destroy it.
IN THE FIRST RANK OF the invaders of the Empire stood those whom Rome called the Germans.
1. Customs and Personal Appearance of the Germans. – According to Cæsar, and Tacitus, who wrote a century and a half later, the Germans were tall and fair; they had blue eyes and a fierce glance. Their training was severe. They bore arms at an early age, and from that time on never laid them aside, for they were buried with them. Cruel in war, they were hospitable among themselves, and respected their sworn faith; but they were proud and would neither obey nor pay tribute.
2. Condition of Persons. – There were several orders of rank among the Germans.
1. The Nobles. The origin of the Germanic nobility is obscure, but its existence in the time of Tacitus is certain. At first it seems to have been the favoured position of several illustrious families which claimed a divine origin. It was hereditary, and carried with it various privileges. The life of the nobles was considered more precious than that of simple freemen; they usually possessed more land; marriage with persons of another class was sometimes forbidden. The number of noble families does not seem to have been great; it was much reduced in Tacitus’s time, and in some tribes nobility had even disappeared.
2. The Freemen. Although distinguished from freemen, the nobles were not a separate caste. The two orders composed the people and the army, and they exercised together supreme authority in the assembly of the country. The quality of freeman was expressed in the right to bear arms and exercise personal vengeance. Each freeman had his share of the tribal lands, and the idea was early formed that the possession of lands was necessary to full liberty.
3. The Non-freemen. The Germans had freedmen and slaves. As at Rome, slaves were treated as chattels, not persons; they could not bear arms, and were any found in their possession they were broken over their backs. They might have a dwelling of their own, however, on condition of paying the master a rent in wheat, flocks, or clothing; in this way they resembled the Roman colonus. The slaves were either prisoners of war, or criminals condemned to loss of liberty, or wretched creatures who had lost it through gaming. The master could free them, but a freedman (libertus, letus) held a subordinate position. He could not marry a free woman; he took no part in the affairs of state; and full liberty was only granted to members of the third generation.
3. The Germanic Family. – Individuals were grouped in families. Marriage, that is to say, the legitimate union of man and woman, constituted the family. Marriage was contracted in the presence of parents and relatives under the symbol of a purchase; the husband bought, in fact, the right of possession and guardianship over his wife; the price was paid to the parents. The principle of dowry was not known to the Germans, but the wife gave presents to her husband, usually weapons. Tacitus writes: “The auspices at her wedding warned her that she should share in work and danger, and that the law, in peace and in combat, was to suffer and dare as much as her husband.” On the other hand, it was not rare for the husband to make a gift to his wife the day after the wedding, the Morgengabe, which later became obligatory.
4. The Authority of the Head of the Family. The Inheritance. – A simple freeman must content himself with one wife. Polygamy was allowed to the nobles only. In certain tribes a widow could not marry again; “the woman has one husband as she has one body, one life, so that she may love her marriage and not her husband.” The husband might put away his faithless wife; divorce was rare, but permitted. The father of a family had extended rights over his wife, whom he might sell in case of necessity; over his children, whom he might abandon; and over his freedmen and slaves. This authority did not extend over the son who was of age, or the married daughter. When the father grew old he no longer counted as an active member of society, but was replaced by his son. The Germans made no wills; the nearest blood relatives inherited full rights; women could not inherit land, but their masculine relatives could. Boys were therefore better provided for than girls, but in other ways the two sexes were equal. There is no certain trace of the right of primogeniture.
5. The Family in the State. – The family was not only a private association; it had its place and its part in the state. It was a fundamental principle among the Germans that every free man had the right to exact respect forcibly for his liberty, person, and property. If he were restrained in the exercise of his rights, injured in his property or person, he might avenge himself, arms in hand; his family was then expected to help him. The family received the fine paid for murder, or helped to pay it. In a lawsuit the relatives appeared before the judges to swear to the honour of the defendant and strengthen his oath with their own (cojuratores). Lastly the family was the constituent element of the army. The warriors were grouped by families into squadrons of cavalry or triangular battalions of infantry.
6. The Tribe and its Subdivisions. – A certain number of families living on the same territory comprised a village (Dorf, vicus). The territory occupied by the members of a same tribe is designated in Tacitus by the term civitas, and the civitas was divided into pagi (or cantons), which were made up of several vici. It is possible that originally these pagi were formed by the union of one hundred families; whence the name ("hundred” hundertschaft, centena), which we find later used among various Germanic peoples to designate a territorial district of small extent. When the tribes were grouped into confederations and kingdoms, the term pagus (in German gau) was applied to the former civitates.
7. The Popular Assemblies. – Each of these groups had its own assembly. That of the vici controlled local affairs in particular; that of the pagi, judicial matters. The assembly of the civitas possessed supreme authority; it promulgated the laws, formed alliances, made peace and war, administered criminal justice, ratified enfranchisements and declarations of majority, and decreed the outlawing of individuals. It was variously named ding or thing among the Scandinavians; gemot among the Saxons, mall among the Franks. It was composed of all freemen who had attained their majority who were capable of bearing arms, and who were not excluded because of public crimes. Unless some sudden unforeseen event called them together, they met on fixed days, “when the moon was new or at the full; they believed that affairs could not be discussed under a more fortunate influence.” The meeting was held on a hill, in a clearing, or near some locality consecrated to the gods.
To assert their personal independence the Germans took their time in gathering together: “instead of meeting at once, as if obeying an order, they lost two or three days in assembling. When the meeting seemed large enough they opened it, all bearing arms. The priests who maintained order commanded silence.” The spokesman stood in the centre. The king, or the one among the chiefs the most noted for his nobility, exploits, age, or eloquence, presided. The freemen, seated around, expressed disapproval by cries, or approval by waving their lances. “This suffrage of arms was the most honourable expression of assent.” At stated periods of the year the assembly had unusual import, as when celebrating religious ceremonies or presenting annual gifts to the king. But if a tribe comprised several districts, it is probable that the gathering of all its members was not as frequent; later when tribes were united and became nations, the meetings grew rarer and rarer, and finally disappeared completely.
8. The Chiefs of the People: Kings and Dukes. – Kings, dukes, and princes were the tribal leaders. Originally the most of Germanic peoples had no kings, but royalty spread little by little. In many cases it was instituted when the tribes of one same people united under a common authority. The Salian Franks, on the contrary, who formed but one people, had several kings. The office was elective, but the people rarely chose a king outside of a privileged family, assumed to be of divine origin.
The usurpation of the crown was of rare occurrence, but it was not unusual for a dissatisfied people to dismiss their king. The newly elected king was presented to his subjects, raised on a shield, which was borne on the shoulders of the warriors. The king shared with the priests in the celebration of the worship of the gods. He was acknowledged the supreme judge of his people. Public peace was under his protection. He received and despatched ambassadors; he concluded alliances and treaties, subject to the assent of the people; in war time he led the army, unless superseded by elected chiefs. Among certain peoples, the Bavarians, for instance, who never had kings, hereditary dukes commanded; but the term duke signified ordinarily a military leader chosen by the warriors on the eve of an expedition. “Kings were chosen because of their birth, dukes because of their valour.” These chiefs controlled through personal influence rather than through formal orders; the priests only, even in the army, had the right to inflict severe punishment.
9. The “Principes.” – The important rôle in the administration of the tribe or pagus belonged to those whom Tacitus designated principes. The term, taken in its general sense, applied to the richest and most powerful warriors. These, united in an assembly, decided on the current affairs of the tribe; the weighty decisions, after being discussed by the principes, were voted on by the general assembly of the civitas. This assembly selected a princeps to govern the tribe as princeps civitatis, where there was no king; and it assigned a stated number of principes, accompanied by one hundred assessors, to administer justice in the pagi. In the assembly of the people the principes proposed resolutions; in religious ceremonies they represented the people or the state. In war they commanded the soldiers from the pagus or the civitas, but subject to the ducal authority. In order to maintain their rank they received from freemen voluntary offerings, produce of the soil, flocks, etc.; in short, they were surrounded by companions who assured them honour in peace and protection in war.
10. The Comitatus. – The right to have a following of companions (comitatus) belonged also to dukes and kings. There was nothing servile in figuring among the companions, who were often young men of the best families. “Illustrious birth or the brilliant deeds of their fathers recommended even very young men for the service of the princeps; admitted to his companionship, they became the associates of more powerful young men who had already proved their ability.” There might be also men of inferior condition along with these sons of illustrious families. The engagement was voluntary; though it was of a lasting character, it might be dissolved; it was sealed by a vow of obedience and fidelity. The companions lived with the prince, in his house, at his table. Certain ones controlled the domestic affairs of the house, such as the stable and the kitchen. The prince instituted a ranking system, and hence stimulated them to perform good service. The companions were not numerous, and it is only by a faint analogy that one can compare this comitatus relationship to vassalage. It soon disappeared entirely, and left traces only in the courts of the kings.
11. Justice. The Right of Personal Vengeance. – Kings and princes defended the public peace, “a gift of the gods”; but besides public justice was private justice, which was exercised by the family. The injured individual could wreak his vengeance, and call in his family to aid him; his adversary might do the same. The Corsicans have to-day like customs. Enmities were not irreconcilable. Vengeance might be compounded for in money, the sum being determined according to the wergeld, or the value of the individual in the eyes of the law. If adversaries preferred to appeal to the courts, the quarrel was laid before the assembly of the pagus or the civitasfredum