The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0086/00860.txt

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Notes To Book II: Part V}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book II: The Feudal System
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Notes To Book II: Part V

Note XIII

     M. Guizot has declared it to be the most difficult of questions relating
to the state of persons in the period from the fifth to the tenth century,
whether there existed in the countries subdued by the Germans, and especially
by the Franks, a numerous and important class of freemen, not vassals either
of the king or any other proprietor, nor any way dependent upon them, and with
no obligation except towards the state, its laws and magistrates.  (Essais sur
l'Hist. de France, p. 232.) And this question, contrary to almost all his
predecessors, he inclines to decide negatively. It is, indeed, evident, and is
confessed by M. Guizot, that in the ages nearest to the conquest such a class
not only existed, but even comprised a large part of the nation.  Such were
the owners of sortes or of terra Salica, the allodialists of the early period.
It is also agreed, as has been shown in another place, that, towards the tenth
century, the number of these independent landholders was exceedingly
diminished by territorial commendation; that is, the subjection of their lands
to a feudal tenure. The last of these changes, however, cannot have become
general under Charlemagne, on account of the numerous capitularies which
distinguish those who held lands of their own, or allodia, from beneficiary
tenants. The former, therefore, must still have been a large and important
class. What proportion they bore to the whole nation at that or any other era
it seems impossible to pronounce; and equally so to what extent the whole
usage of personal commendation, contradistinguished from territorial, may have
reached.  Still allodial lands, as has been observed, were always very common
in the south of France, to which Flanders might be added.  The strength of the
feudal tenures, as Thierry remarks, was between the Somme and the Loire.
(Recits des T. M. i. 245.) These allodial proprietors were evidently freemen.
In the law of France allodial lands were always noble, like fiefs, till the
reformation of the Coutume de Paris in 1580, when "aleux roturiers" were for
the first time recognized.  I owe this fact, which appears to throw some light
on the subject of this note, to Laferriere, Hist. du Droit Francais, p. 129.
But, perhaps, this was not the case in Flanders, which was an allodial
country: - "La maxime francaise, nulle terre sans seigneur, n'avait point lieu
dans les Pays-Bas. On s'en tenait au principe de la liberte naturelle des
biens, et par suite a la necessite d'en prouver la sujetion ou la servitude;
aussi les biens allodiaux etaient tres nombreux, et rappelaient toujours
l'esprit de liberte que les Belges ont aime et conserve tant a l'egard de
leurs biens que de leurs personnes." (Mem. de l'Acad. de Bruxelles, vol. iii.
p. 16.) It bears on this, that in all the customary law of the Netherlands no
preference was given to sex or primogeniture in succession (p. 21.)

     But there were many other freemen in France, even in the tenth century,
if we do not insist on the absolute and insulated independence which Guizot
requires.  "If we must understand," says M. Guerard (Cartulaire de Chartres,
p. 34), "by freemen those who enjoyed a liberty without restriction, that is,
who, owing no duties or service to any one, could go and settle wherever they
pleased, they would not be found very numerous in our chartulary during the
pure feudal regimen.  But if, as we should, we comprehend under this name
whoever is neither a noble nor a serf, the number of people in this
intermediate condition was very considerable." And of these he specifies
several varieties.  This was in the eleventh century, and partly later, when
the conversion of allodial property had been completed.

     Savigny was the first who proved the Arimanni of Lombardy to have been
freemen, corresponding to the Rachimburgii of the Franks, and distinguished
both from bondmen and from those to whom they owed obedience.  Citizens are
sometimes called Arimanni.  The word occurs, though very rarely, out of Italy.
(Vol. i. p. 176, English translation.) Guizot includes among the Arimanni the
leudes or beneficiary vassals.  See, too, Troja, v. 146, 148. There seems,
indeed, no reason to doubt that vassals, and other commendati, would be
counted as Arimanni.  Neither feudal tenure nor personal commendation could
possibly derogate from a free and honorable status.

Note XIV

     These names, though in a general sense occupying similar positions in the
social scale, denote different persons.  The coloni were Romans, in the sense
of the word then usual; that is, they were the cultivators of land under the
empire, of whom we find abundant notice both in the Theodosian Code and that
of Justinian. ^a An early instance of this use of the word occurs in the
Historiae Augustae Scriptores.  Trebellius Pollio says, after the great
victory of Claudius over the Goths, where an immense number of prisoners was
taken - "Factus miles barbarus ac colonus ex Gotho;" an expression not clear,
and which perplexed Salmasius.  But it may perhaps be rendered, the barbarians
partly entered the legions, partly cultivated the ground, in the rank of
coloni.  It is thus understood by Troja (ii. 705). He conceives that a large
proportion of the coloni, mentioned under the Christian emperors, were
barbarian settlers (iii. 1074).  They came in the place of praedial slaves,
who, though not wholly unknown, grew less common after the establishment of
Christianity.  The Roman colonus was free; he could marry a free woman, and
have legitimate children; he could serve in the army, and was capable of
property; his peculium, unlike that of the absolute slave, could not be
touched by his master.  Nor could his fixed rent or duty be enhanced.  He
could even sue his master for any crime committed with respect to him, or for
undue exaction.  He was attached, on the other hand, to the soil, and might in
certain cases receive corporal punishment.  (Troja, iii. 1072.) He paid a
capitation tax or census to the state, the frequent enhancement of which
contributed to that decline of the agricultural population which preceded the
barbarian conquest.  Guizot, in whose thirty-seventh lecture on the
civilization of France the subject is well treated, derives the origin of this
state of society from that of Gaul before the Roman conquest.  But since we
find it in the whole empire, as is shown by many laws in the Code of
Justinian, we may look on it perhaps rather as a modification of ancient
slavery, unless we suppose all the coloni, ^b in this latter sense of the
word, to have been originally barbarians, who had received lands on condition
of remaining on them.  But this, however frequent, seems a basis not quite
wide enough for so extensive a tenure.  Nor need we believe that the coloni
were always raised from slavery; they might have descended into their own
order, as well as risen to it.  It appears by a passage in Salvian, about the
middle of the fifth century, that many freemen had been compelled to fall into
this condition; which confirms, by analogy, the supposition above mentioned of
M. Naudet, as to a similar degradation of a part of the Franks themselves
after the conquest.  It was an inferior species of commendation or vassalage,
or, more strictly, an analogous result of the state of society.

[Footnote a: See Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. 9, with the copious Paratitlon of
Gothofred. - Cod. Just. xi. tit. 47 et alibi.]

[Footnote b: The colonus of Cato and other classical authors was a free tenant
or farmer, as has been already mentioned.]

     The forms of Marculfus, and all the documents of the following ages,
furnish abundant proofs of the continuance