Chapter V: Part 5

I shall not dwell at length on the second portion of M. Viollet’s work, in which he gives a hasty and superficial glance at the Middle Ages. Here I have not been more fortunate than before in verifying his evidence. For example: he dwells at length upon the prior right of purchase which belonged to neighbours. Everyone knows of this custom, the meaning and reason of which are obvious enough. But in M. Viollet’s eyes this right of the neighbours is a vestige of community in land. He does not notice that the preference given in case of sale to a neighbouring proprietor over a distant one has nothing to do with community. Under a system of common ownership this prior claim of the neighbour would not be found. The two things are incompatible. The right of the neighbour is a custom belonging essentially to private property; it is a grave error to convert it into a communistic practice.

Further on, M. Viollet speaks of the Franks; he represents them as “dwelling in small groups called _villæ_ or _genealogiæ_.” One must never have seen in the charters what a _villa_ is, to imagine it a group of men; and it is something more than rashness to identify the _villa_ with the _genealogia_. M. Viollet says again that amongst the Franks “the tie of neighbourhood was so strong as to hold in check the rights of blood in matters of succession;” and he does not notice that this is absolutely opposed to the explicit statement of the Salic law. He maintains that the Frank _villa_ was a village community, and quotes section xlv. of the Salic law, which not only does not say one single word about a community, but, on the contrary, one is surprised to find, has nothing whatever to do with one. He maintains that the Ripuarian law requires “the consent of the community” to a sale of land, and quotes a section of the law which merely says that the sale ought to take place in the presence of witnesses and in a public place. It is his own addition that these witnesses are “a community,” and that they have to give their “consent.” Elsewhere he maintains that the Thuringians were unacquainted with the sale of land, and his only proof is the section of the law which authorises such a sale. He says again that according to the Ripuarian law real property could only be sold by virtue of a royal writ; and he supports this statement by a reference to the section of the law which enacts that the purchaser of an estate shall demand a written document from the seller.

M. Viollet’s quotations are always exact in this respect, that the line he quotes is to be found at the place mentioned; their inexactness merely consists in this, that the same line taken with its context means precisely the opposite of what M. Viollet says. In the same way he once quoted a passage from a document of 890 in which he found the word _communes_; surely this meant community in land, collective ownership. Unluckily it turned out that the document did not contain any reference to community, or even to a village, or to cultivators of the soil; it concerned a dispute between two landowners, an abbot and a count. The adjective _communes_ related not to lands, but to certain “customary rights in a royal forest.” The abbot declared that “these common rights were his,” free of charge, while the count maintained that the abbot had always paid a rent, _sub conductione_. All this is evidently the very opposite of community; but M. Viollet had seen the word _communes_, and that was enough.[223] I have gone through his whole work in a similar manner and tried to find a reference that was to the point; and I have not found one.

[198] P. Viollet, _Du caractère collectif des premières propriétés immobilières_, in the _Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes_, 1872, pages 455-504.

[199] “Nec signare quidem aut partiri limite campum Fas erat; in medium quærebant.” M. Viollet makes a mistake, however, as to _in medium_, which he translates as if it was _in commune_.

[200] We have italicised the words that are inexact. Diodorus does not say that these men were divided into two “classes;” he does not say that they “declared” the land “common property.” κοίνας ποιήσαντες means that the islands were made common for a moment, it is the statement of a fact, not the announcement of a perpetual institution. In place of “they threw together all their possessions,” the Greek tells us that they clubbed together their resources. However, the chief mistakes are in the last words of the translation.

[201] Viollet, pp. 467-468.

[202] The passage is in Diodorus v. 9, bipontine edit., iii. p. 267.

[203] Thucydides explains this very well: “They lived on the island of Lipara, and went from thence to cultivate the other islands,” iii. 88.

[204] Τὰς νησοὺς εὶς εἴκοσι ἔτη διελόμενοι, πάλιν κληρουχοῖσιν ὄταν ὁ χρόνος οὗτος διέλθη. The word πάλιν means a second time and not periodically. There is no expression such as νῦν ἔτι which the historian would have used if he had meant to imply that it was still practised in his own time. The conjunction ὄταν indicates a single action; the historian has not written όσάκις. It is true he uses κληρουχοῦσι in the present tense; whether copying an old document, or employing the “narrative present” so usual with historians. It is necessary, moreover, to notice the intrinsic meaning of the word κληρουχεῖν; the term is usual enough in Greek for its meaning to be perfectly well ascertained. It is always used of a definitive division, a partition made for all time. We cannot suppose that Diodorus would have used κληρουχεῖν for a temporary and periodical division.

[205] Diodorus, v. 53; v. 59; v. 81; v. 83 and 84; xii. 11; xv. 23.

[206] See Strabo vi. 1.

[207] Κοινὰ ποιοῦντες τὰ κτήματα τοῖς ἀπόροις ἐπὶ τὴν χρῆσιν.

[208] Εὔνουν παρασκευάζουσι τὸ πλῆθος.

[209] Xenophon, _Commentarii_, i. 2, 61, tells us that the Lacedæmonian Lichas was celebrated for the generosity with which he entertained his guests at dinner; Herodotus, vi. 57, represents individuals as inviting a king to dinner in their own houses; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 12, says that every Spartan who made a sacrifice was excused from the public meals, _i.e._, he could eat at his own home the animal he had sacrificed. It is, therefore, a great mistake to say that the Spartans always ate in common.

[210] Athenæus, iv. 16.

[211] Herodotus, who knew Sparta very well, says that the public meals were not established till two centuries after the foundation of the city; i. 65. The same will be found in Xenophon, _Republ. Laced._, v. and in Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 10, who says distinctly that before this period the Spartans ate their meals at home. Private property, on the other hand, was established from the very beginning of the city.

[212] Plato, _Laws_, vi. p. 781; Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 7; Alcman, in Strabo, x. 4, 18.

[213] Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 7; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 12.

[214] Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 6, 21.

[215] Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 12.

[216] Cicero, _Tusculan. Disput._ v. 34; Plutarch, _Lycurgus_, 21; Xenophon, _Republ. Laced._, v; and, above all, the authors cited by Athenæus, iv, 20.

[217] We have elsewhere pointed to the evidence for private property in Sparta, and the rules concerning it. (_Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des sciences morales_, 1879-1880.) See, on the same subject, the excellent work of M. Claudio Jannet.

[218] Viollet, p. 472.

[219] Diodorus, v. 53; v. 59; v. 81; v. 83; v. 84; xii. 11; xv. 23; Odyssy, vi. 11; Herodotus, v. 77; Plato, _Laws_, iii. pp. 684-685; Pausanias, _passim_.

[220] We do not doubt that there were some exceptions. What Diodorus tells us of the Lipari Islands is one of them. It might occasionally sometimes happen, for some reason or other, that the partition was put off for a few years.

[221] Heraclides of Pontus, edit. Didot, vol. ii. p. 211; Aristotle, _Politics_, ii. 4, 4; vii. 2, 5; Plutarch, _Instituta laconica_, 22; _Life of Agis_, 5; _Life of Solon_, 21. Cf. _Laws of Manou_, ix. 105-107, 126.

[222] Plato, _Laws_, xi.

[223] The statement of M. Viollet is in the _Revue critique_, 1886, vol. ii., p. 109. The document of 890 ought not to be interpreted from the extract he gives from it; it is necessary to read the whole of it, as it is to be found in the _Urkundenbuch der Abtei S. Gallen_, nᵒ 662, vol. ii., p. 265.

III.

_Mommsen’s theory as to community of land amongst the Romans._

One never for a moment expected to find agrarian communism amongst the Romans; in the first place because Rome was one of the youngest of the cities of the ancient world, and, at the date of its birth, private property had long held sway in Italy; and, in the second place, because it is well known that the Romans had a very precise and very firm conception of the right of private property, and did as much as any other ancient people to define and protect it. And yet Professor Mommsen states that with the Romans “land was originally held in common;” that “community in land is closely bound up with the constitution of the city;” that “it was only in later times that the land was divided amongst the citizens as private property.”[224] In support of this assertion, the learned and able historian gives three references--to Cicero, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch. But on examining these three references it seems to me that none of them says exactly what Professor Mommsen makes them say.

The first is from Cicero in the _De Republica_, II., 14. _Numa agros quos bello Romulus ceperat divisit viritim civibus._ The meaning of this passage is that the lands which had been conquered by Romulus in his wars with the neighbouring cities had not been divided by him amongst the citizens. But it does not prove, as we shall presently see, that the small Roman territory occupied prior to these conquests was not divided when the city was founded. The quotation from Cicero applies to a certain area of land; it does not apply to all land. It does not imply that no division had taken place before this time; and Cicero does not say a single word which can refer to a period of community.

The second reference is to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II., 74; and the following is a literal translation: “Numa enacted laws concerning the boundaries of estates; he laid down that each man should surround his land with a boundary and set up landmarks of stone; he dedicated these landmarks to the god Terminus, and ordained that sacrifices should be offered up to him every year; he appointed the festival of the Terminalia.” That the second king of Rome drew up regulations for the worship of boundaries cannot be regarded as distinctly proving that before his time there were no boundaries; and certainly it is not clear evidence that till then private property did not exist. The historian does not say that in the preceding generation the Romans lived under a system of common ownership of land. On the contrary, he says a little earlier that the founder of the city did divide the territory as other founders were wont to do. In so doing he had paid attention to the social divisions already existing; and as the people were divided into thirty curiæ, he apportioned the territory into thirty lots in such a manner that the members of each curia might remain together. Dionysius adds that the founder, when dividing the land, reserved a part to form the _ager publicus_, _i.e._, the property of the State. This piece of information proves beyond doubt that in the mind of the historian the whole territory was not _ager publicus_, as M. Mommsen thinks. Dionysius of Halicarnassus indicates distinctly that the distinction between _ager publicus_ and _ager privatus_ dates from the earliest days of the Roman city.

The third authority quoted is Plutarch, _Life of Numa_, 16: “The Roman city had in the beginning only a small territory; Romulus gained for it by conquest an additional territory larger than its old one; and the whole of this was divided by Numa amongst the poor citizens.” This passage, like the one from Cicero, states that a division was effected by the second king; but at the same time it draws a distinction between the two territories; and it is not possible to draw from it the conclusion that the district first occupied had not been already divided.

Thus not one of three passages quoted by M. Mommsen seems to me to have the meaning he attributes to it. Not one of the three implies that the Romans held their land in common even for a single generation. Other authorities also, which must not be passed over, expressly tell us of this earlier partition, the recollection of which was preserved, as was that of everything else connected with the founding of the city. Besides Dionysius of Halicarnassus whom we have already referred to (II. 7), Varro, who was as learned as a man could well be at that time, declares that Romulus divided the territory into hereditary portions, each consisting of but two _jugera_[225] (about an acre and a quarter). The elder Pliny, Nonius and Festus give us the same information.[226] But this first partition, which is contemporaneous with the very foundation of the city, did not follow upon a period of non-division. No Roman historian makes any such statement as that the land remained for a period undivided.

M. Mommsen tries to dispose of these statements, and argues as follows: Two _jugera_ are too little to support a family; therefore we cannot consider that this was a real partition of the territory; and it necessarily follows that the families must have lived under some kind of communistic system, with a common use of the public lands. An ingenious process of reasoning, but nothing more; mere guess-work. The question is not as M. Mommsen thinks, whether two _jugera_ are enough for the support of a family; but rather whether the founder, who had only a very small extent of territory at his disposal, with a population already numerous, could grant more. The lots were too small, as it would appear, because the territory also was too small; but we cannot deduce from this, as M. Mommsen does, that the Romans followed some system of communism. The insufficiency of the land, besides, gives a reason for the conquests which were soon afterwards effected under Romulus.

In conclusion, it appears to me exceedingly rash to maintain that the Romans had at first a system of common ownership of land. Such a statement is not supported by any ancient authority. On the contrary, the early writers describe a partition of land which takes place at the very time when the city is founded; and the land thus divided becomes complete and hereditary property. Some years later the city conquers fresh territory; and again, with but little delay, it is divided into private property. This is all that we are told.

We are, however, able to gather that these two successive partitions were not in every respect alike. The first related only to the _ager Romanus_, _i.e._, to that part of the territory which was in primitive times attached to the _Urbs_; the second related to conquered territory. In the first, the ground was distributed amongst the _curiæ_, each curia then distributing it amongst its _gentes_, whence it came about that these lots for a long time retained the name of the several Roman _gentes_; in the second partition, which followed the first but did not annul it, the land was divided according to heads, _viritim_. This innovation will be seen to be of deep importance by any one who is acquainted with the ideas of the ancients and with ancient law. At the time of the first division, property still belonged to the family; at the second, it belonged to the individual. Thus, then, the two kinds of proprietary right that the ancient world successively recognised are seen, one after the other, with an interval of but forty years between. The Roman nation was one of the first to substitute individual for family property. They made use of bequest and sale from an early date. Roman law did indeed retain some traces of the early rights of the family; but what really characterises it is that it brought about the triumph of the system of individual ownership.

[224] Mommsen, _Roman History_, Engl. trans., vol. i., p. 194. This theory has been copied and reproduced word for word, without verification, by M. Viollet and M. de Laveleye.

[225] Varro, _De re rustica_, I. 10: “Bina jugera, quod a Romulo primum divisa viritim, quæ heredem sequerentur.”

[226] Pliny, XVIII. 2, 7: “Romulus in primis instituit.... Bina tunc jugera populo Romano satis erant nullique majorem modum attribuit.” Nonius, edit. Quicherat, p. 61. Festus, v. centuriatus ager.

IV.

_On the application of the comparative method to this problem._

It is impossible to deny that the comparative method is not only of use but also absolutely indispensable in dealing with a subject of this kind. In order to discover the origin of property in land among mankind it is plain that every nation must be studied; at any rate every nation that has left any trace behind it. Some part of this work of comparison had already been attempted by Maurer; but he had limited himself to the Slavonic and Scandinavian countries. A great and powerful writer, Sir Henry Maine, has applied the comparative method to India. But the first to attempt what I may call “universal comparison,” is, if I mistake not, M. Emile de Laveleye, in his work, “On Property and its Primitive Forms,” published in 1874. His theory is that the agricultural groups of the whole world, from India to Scotland, for a long time cultivated the soil in common, and that “the history of all lands reveals to us a primitive condition of collectivity.” M. de Laveleye is an economist; but it is by historical evidence that he endeavours to support his thesis, and it is this evidence that I shall now proceed to test. His reputation either as economist or moralist can receive no injury from a purely historical discussion.

He passes in review one after the other (I am following the order of his chapters) the Slavs of Russia, the island of Java, ancient India, the German Mark, the Arabs of Algeria, the ancient Moors of Spain, the Yoloffs of the coast of Guinea, the Afghans, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, England, the Southern Slavs, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Here we have peoples of every race, every degree of latitude, and every age; yet this list does not include all nations. To mention only some of the ancient world, we do not find here the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Jews, or the ancient Assyrians, peoples which, nevertheless, are much better known than the Yoloffs, the Javanese, or the ancient Germans. Why are they not here? Can it be because all the documents concerning them, however far back we may go, bear witness to the custom of private ownership, and do not show a trace of community in land? It is certain that the history of Egypt shows the existence of property from the remotest times. It is certain that contracts for the sale of land have been discovered upon Babylonian bricks. It is certain, also, that the sacred books of the Jews refer to property and the sale of land as far back as the time of Abraham (Genesis XXIII.). Was it for this reason that they were omitted in the universal comparison of all nations? But as our author was seeking a general rule for the whole human race, and says that he has found it, he ought not to pass over a single people of whom we know anything. When one seeks to construct a general system, the facts which contradict it must be presented as well as those in its favour. This is the first rule of the comparative method.

Having insisted on this omission, of which every one will see the importance, I shall consider one by one the nations spoken of by our author, and verify his assertions.

1. Among the Slavs of Russia M. de Laveleye observes the _mir_, _i.e._, a village dividing its soil annually or every few years among its members. In this _mir_ he recognises an association with common ownership of the soil. “The _mir_ alone,” he says, “owns the land, and individuals have nothing more than the enjoyment of it, turn and turn about.” On this I have two observations to make. In the first place, the Russian _mir_ is only a village and a small village, the population rarely exceeding two hundred souls; it always cultivates the same land; so that if this be a communistic group it is at any rate one which is confined to a narrow radius. The _mir_ by no means represents a “tribal community,” still less a “national community.” One cannot conclude from the _mir_ that the Russian nation follows a system of agrarian communism, or that the soil is the property of the whole nation, or that the soil is common to everyone; so that the example departs widely from the thesis that is sought to be maintained.

In the second place, if we examine the _mir_ as it was before the reforms of the last Czar but one, we discover that the _mir_ is not owner of the soil, but is itself owned by some one else. In the _mir_, lands and men alike belong to a lord; and lord and landowner are one. M. de Laveleye does not deny this fact; he even recognises “that the _mir_ pays the rent to the lord collectively.” This single fact makes the whole theory fall to the ground. Since the soil belongs not to the _mir_, but to some one else, the _mir_ does not represent agrarian communism. It is a village, like all our villages of the Middle Ages, which is the private property of a single individual; the peasants are only tenants or serfs; the only peculiarity about it is, that these peasants who pay rent for the land collectively also cultivate it collectively.

It is true that there are certain theorists who say: “It is probable that there was a time when the landlord did not exist, and when the land was possessed in common by the peasants.” This is precisely what would have to be proved. They ought first to prove that the landowner or lord at one time did not exist, and next that the peasants then possessed the land in common. Now these are two propositions in support of which no one has ever been able to bring forward proof or even an appearance of proof. On the contrary, according to M. Tchitchérin and other writers who have studied the subject, it has been proved that the association of the _mir_ has only been in existence for three hundred years; that it was created in the year 1592; and that far from being the result of a spontaneous and ancient growth, it was instituted by the act of a despotic Government, by an ukase of the Czar Fédor Ivanovitch. Before this epoch land in Russia was an object of private property; so one is led to believe by the documents of donation and bequest quoted by M. Tchitchérin. I am aware that the question is still warmly discussed and remains obscure; but so long as documents proving the existence of the _mir_ before the 16th century are not produced, we must continue to doubt whether the _mir_ is an ancient institution at all. So far as we know at present, it only came into existence with the feudal period; it forms one of the wheels of the feudal organisation in Russia--a group of serfs, which the Government requires to cultivate its land in common, so as to be more sure of the payment of the rent. Far from being collective ownership, the _mir_ is collective serfdom. That, at any rate, is what appears from the material in our possession. Theorists are at perfect liberty to hope that new documents will come to light which will show the contrary. Till then, it is impossible to bring forward the _mir_ as a proof that the human race once practised agrarian communism.

2. M. de Laveleye passes on to the island of Java, and describes the condition of things there in a chapter full of interest; in some places the soil is cultivated in common, it is in others annually divided. But I cannot help noticing that throughout he is speaking of the present time. He describes the condition of things as they are now. He makes use of the regulations of the Dutch Government, of laws of 1853, of parliamentary reports of 1869. The furthest date to which he goes back is to certain regulations of 1806. And yet, since he is dealing with the problem of the origin of property, what one wants to hear about is the ancient state of things. I am aware that some people will at once say “such a system must be old;” but a student who has any critical instinct will rather say that the present existence of such a system proves nothing at all in relation to earlier times. And, indeed, we read in one of the reports on which M. de Laveleye relies, that “this system began with the cultivation of indigo, sugar and coffee for the benefit of the Dutch Government.”[227] The sort of communism we are now considering would in this case be but a recent institution, a creation of the European conquerors. It is true that others make it commence earlier, with the cultivation of rice.[228] This is easily explained: “Rice growing in water requires a system of irrigation, which would be impossible without association; and this necessity gives rise to the practice of common cultivation.” It has been ascertained how these villages arose. “Several families agree to establish a system of irrigation in common. As the water has been brought by the co-operation of all, the result is that the land irrigated by it is cultivated by all.”[229] But it is apparent that the soil does not belong to the nation or the tribe; it belongs to a group, an association. An association of proprietors is not communism; it is one of the forms of property.

We must also observe that private property does exist in Java. In six out of the twenty provinces of the island that alone is to be found, and association is unknown; in eight the two methods are practised side by side; in six association is only practised on the rice fields and irrigated lands, and the rest of the land is held entirely as private property. From these facts I cannot draw the conclusion that community in land was a primitive and natural institution in the island of Java. We meet with it only under modern circumstances, and even here we must recognise that it is less a community than an association.

3. Our author next devotes a few words to ancient India, and here I shall imitate his brevity. He gives but one reference; a sentence from Nearchus, the officer of Alexander the Great. I shall give it first as translated by M. de Laveleye, and then as it really is. “Nearchus informs us that in certain districts of India the land was cultivated in common _by tribes_, which, at the close of the year, divided the crop among them.” Now the Greek signifies: “In other parts the work of agriculture is carried on _by each family_ in common, κατὰ σνγγένειαν κοινῇ; and when the crops have been gathered each person takes his share for his support during the year.”[230] We see that M. de Laveleye had overlooked the words κατὰ σνγγένειαν. He has mistaken a community of the family for a community of the tribe. I know that many people only too readily identify the two things; but a little attention will show that they are essentially different. When a family, even though it may form a large group of persons, cultivates its land in common, this is not agrarian communism; it is merely an undivided family and undivided family property.

4. M. de Laveleye next speaks of the Germanic mark. Here he does not do more than reproduce Maurer’s theory, on which he relies without apparently having verified a single one of his references.

5. Then follows a chapter on agrarian communities amongst the Arabs of Algeria, the Moors of Spain, the Yoloffs of the coast of Guinea, the Mexicans, the Caribeans, the Afghans and the Tchérémisses. A story or sentence from some traveller is quoted about each of these nations. As to this I have one remark to make: there is nothing rarer or more difficult than an accurate observation. This truth, which is recognised in all other sciences, ought also to be recognised by every one who is dealing with history; for history is precisely that one of all the sciences in which observation is most difficult and demands the greatest attention. A traveller makes the general statement that amongst the Caribeans or the Yoloffs he has seen a partition of land, or has been told that such a thing was customary. But has he observed between whom the partition took place? Was it amongst the members of the same family, or amongst all the inhabitants of the same village, or between the villages and all the various parts of the tribe or nation? These are shades of differences that a hasty traveller cannot notice, and that an historian equally hasty refrains from inquiring into. And yet, the character and consequences of the partition depend altogether upon the answer to this question. The study of a social system is a serious undertaking, and one not often to be met with in travellers’ tales.

And then we must ask whether, side by side with certain facts reported by travellers, there are not others which contradict them. You see common land among certain Arab tribes; but it must also be noticed that the Koran recognises private property, and that it has existed among the Arabs from time immemorial.[231] There are other nations where you may meet with examples of land held in common, but where, nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that private property greatly preponderates. In Spain, for instance, we are told that “in certain villages the land is divided anew each year amongst the inhabitants.”[232] In how many villages? Two ardent inquirers, whose only desire was to find proofs of this community in land, M. Oliveira Martins and M. de Azcarate, found it in only four villages in the whole Iberian peninsula.[233] Perhaps you will think that these are vestiges of an earlier state of things that may once have been general. Not at all. It has been proved that in these four villages the system of common ownership did not appear until the twelfth or thirteenth century, A.D.; and the particular causes which led to its appearance are well known. This kind of community was, therefore, neither general nor ancient. M. de Laveleye also mentions a village community in Italy; but it is one which was only created in 1263. A certain estate of about 5000 acres had till that date belonged to a private owner; that is, it had been precisely the opposite of common property. In 1263 the owner, who happened to be a bishop, gave it to the tenants, on condition that they held it in common. Can a few isolated facts like this prove that mankind used to hold land in common in primitive times?

6. M. de Laveleye’s theory would be incomplete and insecure if he did not manage to bring in the Greeks and Romans. He does little more than repeat the authorities used by M. de Viollet. Like him, he believes that the legend of a golden age--of an age, that is, when man did not till the soil (for this is the distinctive and essential point in all these legends),--is a proof that nations held land in common at a period when they did till the soil; he even adds that “he is _forced_ to arrive at the conclusion that the ancient poets depicted in the golden age a state of civilisation (sic) of which the recollection had been handed down to later times.”[234] Like M. Viollet, he quotes the passages from Virgil, Tibullus and Trogus Pompeius without looking to see whether these passages describe a condition of civilisation or one of barbarism. He tells us what Porphyrus says about the 2000 disciples gathered together by Pythagoras in his phalanstery. He quotes the sentence from Diodorus about the Lipari isles; without seeing that it distinctly describes the institution of private property. Trusting in M. Viollet, he borrows his pages on the _copis_ and the Spartan συσσίτια; for, like him, he believes that these common meals, from which Aristotle tells us that the poorer Spartans were excluded, were “a communistic institution.”[235]

M. de Laveleye also believes that the division of land at the founding of each city implies an earlier stage in which the city cultivated the land in common. He does not notice that this division, taking place at the very moment when the city is founded, is not the result of an earlier state of communism. It is the earliest fact to which we can go back. So soon as a band of emigrants have made themselves masters of a territory, they parcel it out in lots with complete and hereditary ownership. With very rare exceptions, a Greek city did not hold or cultivate land in common for a single year.

These lots were called κλῆρος in Greek, _sortes_ in Latin, because they were originally drawn by lot. M. de Laveleye, noticing these two words, at once concludes that the drawing by lot took place every year (p. 85). This is a mistake. Out of all the cases where you find mention of a partition, you will not find one in which it was annual or periodical. In every case the division referred to takes place once and for all, in perpetuity.[236] Each portion is henceforward hereditary in the family to which it has fallen by lot; and this is the reason why κλῆρος had the meaning of inheritance and _sors_ signified patrimony.

The prohibition against selling the land, _i.e._, against separating it from the family in order to transfer it to another family or even to bestow it on the State, appears to M. de Laveleye a proof that the land belonged to the State (p. 166). It is merely a proof that according to the ideas of the ancients it ought always to belong to the same family. M. de Laveleye reproaches me with having, in the _Cité Antique_, attributed this prohibition of sale “to the influence of ancient religion.” The phrase gives an incorrect idea of my meaning. What I showed was that family property was closely bound up with family religion. Sale outside the family was not permitted because ancient law and ancient belief connected the land with the family. The land belonged to the family, not to the individual. It was the same, in my opinion, amongst the ancient Germans and the Slavs; and hence it was that amongst all these nations ancient law did not permit the sale of land.

For the same reason bequest was prohibited among the Greeks, Italians, Germans, and Slavs in the early period of their law. The land must pass to the son or the nearest relations. For the same reason, again, the daughter did not inherit; because by her marriage she would have carried the land out of the family. All these facts, which it is now impossible not to admit, are unmistakable signs of a condition in which property belonged to the family. They are all directly contrary to a condition of communism.

M. de Laveleye also lays great stress upon Sparta; only he omits to mention that private property was established there from the first beginning of the city, and that every κλῆρος remained attached to the same family down to the revolution of Cleomenes, _i.e._, for eight centuries.[237] To make up for that, he tells us of certain imaginary brotherhoods, “which must have played an important part in the social body;” a statement for which there is no authority. He adds that Sparta “had a wide extent of common land;” for which also there is no evidence: and that “this common land was used to provide for the public meals;” which is directly opposed to the definite evidence we do possess.

He accumulates quotations, but they are inexact. He refers to Aristotle (_Polit._ vii., 10); but all Aristotle says is that men began by being hunters and shepherds; does that imply that when they became agriculturists they held the soil in common? He quotes Virgil, who in the Æneid (xi. 315) says that “the Aurunci tilled the land in common;” turn to the passage; the expression “in common” is not there; M. de Laveleye has unconsciously added it himself. Every writer does this who is under the influence of a fixed idea.[238] Speaking of Rome, he declares “that he sees a proof of primitive community in the common meals of the _curiæ_;” and he does not notice that these repasts of the _curia_ only took place on certain festivals, and that they were sacred feasts, as we are expressly told by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who witnessed them. “The _curiæ_,” he says, “with their priests, perform sacrifices and eat together on feast days.” This is not an agrarian community; it is a religious communion. Suppose that a stranger, seeing a number of good Christians communicating in our churches, declared that he saw in this a proof that the French held their land in common! A little farther we read: “The law of the Twelve Tables preserves a trace of common ownership; for in default of the _proximus agnatus_ the _gens_ is preferred to the other agnates.” There is nothing resembling this in what we have of the law of the Twelve Tables; the gens was never preferred to the agnates. Our author quotes, it is true, the following sentence, which he attributes to Gaius: _in legitimis hereditatibus successio non est: gentiles familiam habento_, which is said to be in Gaius iii., 12; but look in Gaius for this extraordinary sentence, and you certainly will not find it. Thus, alike for Greece and for Rome, M. de Laveleye has got together a number of authorities; but there is not a single quotation that is exact, or that has the meaning he attributes to it.

7. We now come to the Southern Slavs, _i.e._, the Bosnians, Servians, and Bulgarians, who, in their turn, have to furnish arguments in support of the theory.[239] This chapter of M. de Laveleye’s is the most interesting in the book, the most curious, and, in my opinion, the most exact. Only I do not see how it bears upon the problem with which we are occupied. It is very true that the Servian or Bosnian village often cultivates its land in common. But this village is composed of a small group of from twenty to sixty persons, who dwell in four or five houses built within a single enclosure; and the land belonging to it seldom exceeds sixty acres. Look at it closely, and you will see that this little village is nothing more than a family. M. de Laveleye recognises this (p. 204). The brothers as a rule keeping together and the family continuing to form one undivided body, the property remains united like the family. The land is cultivated in common and the produce is consumed in common, under the direction of the head of the family. This is described by M. de Laveleye with zest and ability; but it is not community in land; it is the common ownership of the family. We have seen it amongst the ancient Greeks; in the most ancient Roman law; amongst the Germans; and now we find it amongst the Servians. The family forms a small village; it keeps to itself on its own land; and this land is a common possession which has belonged to it from time immemorial. It must be added that all the characteristics which accompany family ownership amongst the Greeks and Germans are to be found here. The custom of bequest does not exist, nor does that of gift or sale. All the members of a family are common owners of the soil, and consequently they alone are the heirs. Anyone leaving the family loses his rights over the land; anyone entering it by adoption has the same rights as those who were born into it. Except that the chief is no longer the eldest member or the son of the eldest, but the one whom the rest elect--a change which naturally came about in the course of time--this family resembles in every other respect the ancient Greek family. But that the soil belongs to the nation or the tribe there is not the slightest evidence.

8. M. de Laveleye now comes to the _allmenden_ of Switzerland. He tells us “that never was there a more radical democracy than that which was to be found in primitive Switzerland,” and he describes the _landgemeinde_, “which goes back to the earliest times” (pages 270 _et seq_). “The _Allmend_,” he says again, “presents the ancient type of true justice, which ought to serve as the basis for the society of the future” (p. 282).

I should like to learn, however, whether these _allmenden_ really do come down from remote times. Our author tells us so, but without bringing forward any kind of proof. He declares “that they go back to the patriarchal period” (p. 291), “that they have lasted for thousands of years” (p. 281). It is easy to say this; but on what evidence does it rest? Private property exists in Switzerland, and our author cannot point to any epoch in which it did not exist. If we examine the law of the Burgundians and of the Alamanni, by which the country was first governed, it is private property we find, not common ownership. If we examine the charters down to the 12th century, we still find private property. The _allmenden_ of to-day certainly date back some six or seven centuries. Can they be traced farther back than that?

And what exactly are these _allmenden_? Do we see in them a system of non-division of land, a system, that is, under which the land, being considered the common property of the whole people, is not supposed to belong to anyone individually? By no means. Private property is in full force in Switzerland, side by side with the _allmenden_. The _allmenden_ are only a part of the land of each village and indeed the smallest part, a tenth, or, at most, a fifth. They are usually forests, mountain pastures, or marshes, and include very little land capable of cultivation. Private property is accordingly the dominant fact; common ownership only concerns accessories.

The _allmenden_ are just what is to be found in every country; they are the village commons. It would be interesting and instructive if we could discover their origin, just as it is interesting to inquire into the origin of the commons in France. But village commons do not in any way prove a general system of common ownership; and no one has yet been able to prove that they are the outcome of such a system. We know that when the Romans founded a colony, they instituted private property from the very first; but at the same time they reserved a portion of the soil, which was to be the common possession of the new city. And to go farther back, we know that Rome herself, from the time she first appears in history, had an _ager publicus_ at the same time as _agri privati_, and that the Greek cities also had a γῆ δημοσία. This public land was in no way an indication that the people lived a single day without individual estates. The _allmenden_ of Switzerland are commons of the same character as we find everywhere else. Each village has its own; and they are the property of the village, which sometimes sells them, lets them to the highest bidder, or sells the wood upon them, to defray the expenses of its school or church. Frequently the commons are left for the inhabitants to use as they like; and they get wood from them, graze their cattle there, or cultivate small portions. But it is important to notice that only those who own land in the village have any rights of enjoyment over the _allmend_. I refer chiefly to the condition of things before the last forty years; for only quite recently have such rights been extended to mere residents and the inhabitants generally. In essential characteristics the _allmend_ is not common property; it does not belong to all; it is held in common by people who are already owners of land. It is an appendage of private property.

M. de Laveleye has written some beautiful passages on the usefulness of these commons, on the mistake which has been made in France in their general alienation, and on the happy results produced by them in Switzerland, both in almost entirely preventing the growth of absolute destitution and in attaching the poorest peasant to his native soil. These considerations are just, profound, and inspired by generous feeling, although but little applicable to modern society. But we are now considering them in relation to the supposed common ownership of land; with that the _allmenden_ have nothing to do, and they prove nothing as to its earlier existence.

9. M. de Laveleye finally refers to the Scotch townships as a proof of primitive community.[240] In the more distant parts of Scotland, especially in certain islands lying to the north-west, we find groups of people who hold the land of a village in common and divide it amongst themselves in separate lots every year. Is this a system of land communism, or, as it is called, collective ownership? At the first glance one would think so. But if you are not satisfied with a first glance and look further, you will observe that the village belongs to a single person, the landlord. The peasants are nothing more than the cultivators. M. de Laveleye cannot help recognising this: “The land of the village,” he says, “is let to them by the owner.” Again: “The land does not belong to them; it is the property of a landlord to whom they pay rent for it.” The cultivators act together as an association “with the consent of the landlord;” and there are villages in which the landlord does not allow this collective system of occupation. “They have a head who is generally appointed by the landlord.” The rent is paid collectively. We have a description of the _township_ in a work published recently. The house of the lord, the _domus dominica_ of our charters, stands in the centre of the village, by the side of the church.[241] It is built of stone; and around it, at a little distance, stand the dwellings of the “villeins,” built of mud and thatched with straw. The villeins owe their lord rent and certain personal services.

We see from this that the Scotch or English township is not a community which owns its own land; it is the property of an individual owner, and the only thing about it which is collective is the cultivation. The township is really a private estate; and the group of peasants who till it in common are the tenants. Ownership and tenancy are two distinct things, which must not be confused. To be owners in common is very different from being tenants in common under a landlord. We find in France also, throughout the Middle Ages, instances of tenancies in common; and I know that there are writers who are quick to identify them with ownership in common.[242] But this is a mistake which no one can make who has any accuracy of thought; for it is quite evident that whilst the land was cultivated by a common group of peasants, it belonged to a lord who stood above them. The Scotch township has no connection whatever with an ancient system of community in land.

M. de Laveleye puts forward an hypothesis; he supposes that there was an earlier period in which the township belonged to the peasants themselves, and the lord, whom we find in later times, did not exist. But this is a mere hypothesis unsupported by a single document or a single fact. He goes further and maintains that this system of village communities was in force throughout the whole of England in the Saxon period. But there is no evidence for this in the Anglo-Saxon laws; they give not the slightest indication of it. The _tuncipesmot_ is not community in land; nor is the _folcland_. We must never lose sight of the fact that history is based upon documents, and not upon hypotheses or flights of the imagination. When M. de Laveleye says that “the English manor has destroyed the old village community,” he makes an entirely hypothetical generalisation. To imagine the manorial lord of the Middle Ages as a warrior who has forcibly set himself over a community of free men, is to show that one knows nothing of the documents from the fifth to the tenth centuries, and that one has an altogether childish idea of the origin of feudalism.

To come back to the comparative method. I believe that it is infinitely fruitful; but only on condition that the facts which are compared have a real resemblance to one another, and that things which are widely different are not confused. When you bring together the Scotch township which is nothing more than an association of tenants, the Russian _mir_ which seems to have long been only an association of serfs, the Servian village which, on the other hand, is a household community, and the _allmend_ or commons which are a consequence and accompaniment of private property, you confuse things which are absolutely different, and which, moreover, are very far removed from the system of community in land that you are anxious to prove.

It is needful to come to an understanding as to what the “comparative method” really is. I have observed that, during the last fifteen years or so, there has been a strange misapprehension on this point. Some writers maintain that to compare any facts, no matter what, is to apply the comparative method. They search all over the world for peculiar usages; they cite the legend of the golden age amongst the ancients as if it were an historical fact; they seize upon a trifling circumstance which occurred in the Lipari Isles as if it related to the entire Greek world; they seize upon some custom, such as public repasts or the festivals of the curia; thence they pass to the Russian _mir_ and talk of it as if they knew all about it; then they describe a township or an _allmend_; and, in short, whenever they find an instance of anything that is done in common, at once they suppose that they have discovered community in land. They pretend they have discovered the most widespread institutions of the human race by the help of some few instances that they have sought for far and wide, and that they do not take the trouble to observe accurately. And, what is a more serious matter, they omit and leave out of their consideration facts which are constant, normal, well-authenticated, which are engraven in the laws of all peoples, and which have made up their historical life. They give us a few isolated facts and turn our thoughts away from permanent institutions. This is not the comparative method.