Chapter VIII (1)

_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.

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_.»