FOOTNOTES:
[4] 'The policy of the late Chamber with regard to religion, education, and the army had very much greater weight with the electors.... The persistent threat held out by certain Republicans to destroy the Church, either by a hypocritical fulfillment of the Concordat or by the forcible separation of Church and State, has been skilfully used by their adversaries amongst the peasantry, who dread nothing so much as having to pay their curé themselves. The Government was so well aware of this fact, that in some of the departments the Catechism was ordered to be recited in the schools during the last week before the elections, though only two months earlier the teachers had been strictly forbidden to use it. This childish stratagem had, as might have been expected, no great success.'—Gabriel Monod, in 'Contemporary Review,' of December, 1885.
Art. III.—The State Papers of the Venetian Republic; namely, Cancelleria Inferiore, Cancelleria Ducale, Cancelleria Secreta, preserved in the Convent of the Frari, at Venice.
In recent years a new tendency has been given to historical studies by the avidity with which scholars have investigated the masses of State documents accumulated through centuries, almost untouched, in the Record Offices of various nations. This tendency has been in the direction of minuteness and accuracy of detail. The finer shades of policy, the subtler turns in the game of nations, have been revealed by this intimate study of the documents which record them. Among the archives of Europe there is none superior, in historical value and richness of minutiæ, to the Archives of the Venetian Republic, preserved now in the convent of the Frari at Venice. The importance of these archives is due to three causes: the position of the Republic in the history of Europe, the fullness of the archives themselves, and the remarkable preservation and order which distinguishes them, in spite of the many dangers and vicissitudes through which they have passed. Venice enjoyed a position, unique among the States of Europe, for two reasons. Until the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, she was the mart of Europe in all commercial dealings with the East—a position secured to her by her supremacy in the Levant, and by the strength of her fleet; and, in the second place, the Republic was the bulwark of Europe against the Turk. These are the two dominant features of Venice in general history; and under both aspects she came into perpetual contact with every European Power. The universal importance of her position is faithfully reflected in the diplomatic documents contained in her archives. The Republic maintained ambassadors and residents at every Court. These men were among the most subtle and accomplished diplomatists of their time, and the government they served was exacting and critical to the highest degree. The result is that the dispatches, newsletters and reports of the Venetian diplomatic agents, form the most varied, brilliant, and singular gallery of portraits, whether of persons or of peoples, that exists. There is hardly a nation in Europe that will not find its history illustrated by the papers which belong to the Venetian department for foreign affairs. Nor are the papers which relate to the home government of the Republic less copious and valuable. Each magistracy has its own series of documents, the daily record of its proceedings: in this we find the whole of that elaborate machinery of State laid bare before us in all its intricacy of detail; and we are enabled to study the construction, the origin, development, and ossification, of one of the most rigid and enduring constitutions that the world has ever seen; a constitution so strong in its component parts, so compact in its rib-work, that it sufficed to preserve a semblance of life in the body of the Republic long after the heart and brain had ceased to beat.
Admirable as are the preservation and order of these masses of State papers, it is not to be expected that each series, each magisterial archive, should be complete. There are many broad lacunæ, especially in the earlier period, which must ever be a cause for regret: for Venice growing is a more attractive and profitable subject than Venice dying. During the nine hundred and eighty-seven years that the Government of the Republic held its seat in Venice, the State papers passed through many dangers from fire, revolution, neglect, or carelessness. When we recal the fires of 1230, 1479, 1574, and 1577, it is rather matter for congratulation that so much has escaped, than for surprise that so much has been destroyed. The losses would, undoubtedly, have been much more severe had all the papers and documents been preserved in one place, as they are now. But the Venetians stored the archives of the various magistracies either at the offices of those magistrates, or in some public building especially set apart for the purpose. The Secret Chancellery, which was always an object of great solicitude, containing as it did all the more private papers of the State, was deposited in a room on the second floor of the Ducal Palace. Many of the criminal records belonging to the Council of Ten were stored in the Piombi under the roof of the Palace; and the famous adventurer Casanova relates how he beguiled some of his prison hours by reading the trial of a Venetian nobleman, which he found among other papers piled at the end of the corridor where he was allowed to take exercise. Soon after the fall of the Republic, the following disposition of the papers was made. The political archive was stored at the Scuola di S. Teodoro; the judicial, at the convent of S. Giovanni Laterano; the financial, at S. Procolo. In the year 1815, the Austrian Government resolved to collect and arrange all State papers in one place. The building chosen was the convent of the Frari; and the work was entrusted to Jacopo Chiodo, the first director of the archives. The scheme suggested by Chiodo has served as a basis for the arrangement that has been already carried out, or is still in hand.
Under the Republic it was natural that access to important diplomatic papers and to secrets of State should be granted with reserve, and only to persons especially authorized to make research. The directors appointed by the Austrian Government showed a disposition to maintain that precedent; and M. Baschet relates that it was only by a personal appeal to the Emperor that he obtained access to the archives of the Ten. The Italian Government allow nearly absolute liberty; and nothing can exceed the courtesy of the officials under their distinguished director, the Commendatore Cecchetti.
Any attempt to explain the archives of Venice and to display their contents, must be preceded by a statement of the main features of the constitution of the Republic upon which the order and the arrangement of the archives is based. The constitution of Venice has frequently been likened to a pyramid, with the Great Council for its base and the Doge for apex. The figure is more or less correct; but it is a pyramid that has been broken at its edges by time and by necessity. The legislative and political body was originally constructed in four groups, or tiers—if we are to preserve the pyramidal simile—one rising above the other. These four tiers were the Maggior Consiglio or Great Council, the Lower House; the Pregadi or Senate, the Upper House; the Collegio, or the Cabinet; and the Doge. The famous Council of Ten and its equally famous Commission, the Three Inquisitors of State, did not enter into the original scheme; they are an appendix to the State, an intrusion, a break in the symmetry of the pyramid. Later on we shall explain their construction and relation to the main body of government. For the present we leave them aside, and confine our attention to the four departments of the Venetian constitution above mentioned.
The Great Council, as is well known, did not assume its permanent form and place in the Venetian constitution till the year 1296. At that date the famous revolution, known as the closing of the Great Council, took place. By that act, which was only the final step in a revolution that had been for long in process, those citizens who were excluded from the Great Council remained for ever outside the constitution; all functions of government were concentrated in the hands of those nobles who were included by the Council; the constitution of the Republic was stereotyped as a rigid oligarchy. Previous to the year 1296, a great council had existed, created first in the reign of Pietro Ziani (1172); but this council was really democratic in character, not oligarchic; it was elected each September, and its members were chosen from the whole body of the citizens. Earlier still than the reign of Ziani, the population used to meet tumultuously and express their opinion upon matters of public interest, such as the election of a Doge or a declaration of war, first in the Concione under their tribunes, while Venetia was still a confederation of lagoon-islands; and then in the Arengo under their Doge, when the confederation was centralized at Rialto. But of these assemblies the latter was disorderly and irregular, and the former was of doubtful authority. It is from the closing of the Great Council that we must date the positive establishment of the Venetian oligarchy, and the completion of that constitution which endured for five hundred years, from 1296 till the fall of the Republic in 1797.
The age at which the young nobles might take their seats in the Council, that is to say, might enter upon public life, was fixed at twenty-five, except in the cases of the Barbarelli, or thirty nobles between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, who were elected by ballot on the fourth of each December, St. Barbara's day; and in the case of those who, in return for money advanced to the State, obtained a special grace to take their seats before their twenty-fifth year.
The chief functions of the Great Council were the passing of laws, and the election of magistrates. But in process of time the legislative duties of the Council were almost entirely absorbed by the Senate; and the Maggior Consiglio only retained its great and distinguished function, the election of almost every officer of State, from the Doge downwards. The large number of these magistracies, and the various seasons of the year at which they fell vacant, engaged the Great Council in a perpetual series of elections. It is not our intention to explain in detail the elaborate process by which the Venetians carried out their political elections; such an explanation would carry us beyond our scope, which is to state the position and functions of each member in the constitution of the Republic. But, briefly, the process was this. The law required either two or four competitors for every vacant magistracy, and the election to that magistracy was said to take place a due or a quattro mani, respectively. If the office to be filled required quattro mani, the whole body of the Great Council balloted for four groups of nine members each, who were chosen by drawing a golden ball from among the silver ones in the balloting urn. Each of these groups retired to a separate room, and there each group elected one candidate to go to the poll for the vacant office. The names of the four candidates were then presented to the Council and balloted. The candidate who secured the largest number of votes, above the half of those present, was elected to the vacant office. Thus the election to the magistracy was a triple process; first, the election of the nominators, then the election of the candidates, and finally the election to the office.
The Great Council, as representing the whole Republic, possessed certain judicial functions, which were used on rare occasions only, when the State believed itself placed in grave danger through the fault of its commanders. The famous case of Vettor Pisani, after his defeat at Pola, in 1379, and the case of Antonio Grimani, in the year 1499, were both sent to the Grand Council, who passed sentence on those generals. But, broadly speaking, the judicial functions of the Maggior Consiglio hardly existed, its legislative functions dwindled away, and were absorbed by the Senate, and its chief duty and prerogative lay in the election of almost every State official.
Coming now to the second tier in the pyramid of the constitution, the Senate, or Pregadi,—the invited, we find that the Senate proper was composed of sixty members, elected in the Great Council, six at a time. The elections took place once a week, and were so arranged that they should be complete by the first of October in each year. In addition to the Senate proper, another body of sixty, called the Zonta or addition, was elected by the outgoing Senate at the close of its year of office; but it was necessary that the names of the Zonta should be approved by the Great Council before their election was valid. The Senate and the Zonta together formed one hundred and twenty members; and besides these, the Doge, his six councillors, the Council of Ten, the Supreme Court of Appeal, and many special magistrates, who presided over departments of Finance, Customs, and Justice, belonged ex officio to the Senate, and brought the number of votes up to two hundred and forty-six. Further, fifty-one magistrates of minor departments also sat, with the right to debate, but without the right to vote.
The Senate was the real core of the Administration. The presence, ex officio, of so many and such various officers of State sufficiently indicates the wide field which was covered by the authority of the Pregadi. The large number of the Senatorial body, and the diversity of subjects with which it dealt, required that business should be carried on with parsimony of time and precision of method; and therefore private members were restricted to the right of debate. Only the Doge, his councillors, the Savii Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma had the right to move the Senate; and their propositions related to peace, war, foreign affairs, instructions to ambassadors, and representatives of foreign Courts, to commercial treaties, finance, and home legislation. The various measures were spoken to by their proposers, and by the magistrates whose offices they affected. As in the case of the Great Council, the Senate also on rare occasions exercised judicial functions. It was in the discretion of the College to send a faulty commander for trial either to the Great Council or to the Senate; but in that case the charge must be one of negligence or misjudgment; if the charge implied treason, it was taken before the Council of Ten. A few of the higher officers of State were elected in the Senate, among them the Savii Grandi and the Savii di Terra ferma, and the Admiral of the Fleet. The functions of the Senate were legislative, judicial, and elective. But just as the Great Council was pre-eminently the elective body, so the Senate was pre-eminently the legislative body in the constitution of Venice.
The Collegio or Cabinet of Ministers, formed the third tier in the pyramid. The College was composed of the following members: The Doge, his six councillors, and the three chiefs of the Court of Appeal; these ten persons formed the Collegio minore, or Serenissima Signoria; in addition to these there were the six Savii Grandi; the five Savii di Terra ferma, and the five Savii da mar; a body of twenty-six persons in all, forming the College. Beginning with the lowest in rank, the Savii agli ordini, or da mar, were, as their name implies, a Board of Admiralty; but they acted in that capacity under the orders of the Savii Grandi upon whom the naval affairs of the Republic immediately depended. The Savii agli ordini had a vote but no voice in the College; this post was given, for the most part, to young and promising politicians; it was a training school for statesmen: 'Officio loro,' says Giannotti, 'è tacere ed ascoltare.' The office lasted for six months only; and so there was a constant stream of young men passing through the political school, and becoming intimately acquainted with the affairs of the Republic and the methods of government. How excellent that school must have been will become apparent as we proceed to note the functions of the College of which the Savii agli ordini formed a silent part.
Next in order above the Savii agli ordini came the Savii di Terra ferma. This Board was composed of five members; the Savio alia Scrittura, or Minister for War; the Savio Cassier, or Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Savio alle ordinanze, or minister for the native militia in the cities on the mainland; the Savio ai da mò, or minister for the execution of all measures voted urgent; the Savio ai Ceremoniali, or Minister for Ceremonies of State. These Savii di Terra ferma, like the Savii agli ordini, held office for six months only.
The six Savii Grandi, who came above the Savii di Terra ferma, superintended the actions of the two boards below them, and, if necessary, issued orders which would override those of the other ministers. They were, in fact, the responsible directors of the State. The Savii Grandi were required to prepare all business to be laid before the College, where it was first discussed and arranged before being submitted to the Senate for approval. To facilitate this labour of preparation, each of the Savii Grandi took a week in turn, and the Savio of the week was, in fact, Prime Minister of Venice. It was he who read dispatches, granted audiences to ambassadors, and prepared official replies. The Doge presided in the College, it is true, but it was the Savio of the week who opened the business, and suggested the various measures to be adopted.
Besides these boards of Savii, the College included the Ducal Councillors, and the three chiefs of the Court of Appeal. We shall speak of these latter when we come to the judicial department of the constitution. The office of Ducal Councillor was, perhaps, the most venerable in Venice. These six men held, as it were, the Ducal honours and functions in commission; they embodied the authority of the Doge to such an extent, that without their presence he could not act; he became a nonentity unless supported by four at least of his council; while, on the other hand, the absence of the Doge in no way diminished the authority of the Ducal Councillors. For example, the Doge without his council could not preside, neither in the Maggior Consiglio, nor in the Senate, nor in the College, but four Ducal Councillors had the power to preside without the Doge. The Doge might not open dispatches except in the presence of his council, but his council might open dispatches in the absence of the Doge. Yet, great as were the external honours of the Ducal Councillors, the office was rather ornamental than important. It was the Savii Grandi who were the directing spirit through all the multitudinous affairs of the College. As we have seen, those affairs embraced the whole field of government, except the field of Justice. The College had no judicial functions, nor did it legislate. As the Maggior Consiglio was the elective member, and the Senate the legislative, so the College was the initiative and executive member of the State. The College proposed measures which became law in the Senate; and the execution of those laws was entrusted to the College which had the machinery of State at its disposal. It is this right of initiating which distinguishes the College; and it is just upon this point that the Ducal Councillors appear to have a slight pre-eminence; for the Doge, his council, and the Savii alone, had the right to initiate in the Senate; the Doge, his council, and the chiefs of the Ten alone, had the right to initiate in the Council of Ten; the Doge and his council alone had the right to initiate in the Maggior Consiglio. The Doge and his council alone move through all departments of government, presiding and initiating, embodying the spirit of the Republic; and yet in no case is their power great; for the Savii had more influence in the Senate, the Chiefs of the Ten in the Council of Ten; and the Great Council, where the Doge and his councillors had the field to themselves, was of little importance in the direction of affairs.
At the apex of the constitutional pyramid we find the Doge. The Doge also had his distinctive functions in the State; his duties were ornamental rather than administrative. Though all the acts of the Government were executed in his name, laws passed, dispatches sent, treaties made, and war declared, yet it is not in these departments that the Doge stands pre-eminent; it is throughout the pomp and display of the Republic that he is supreme; and the archive wherein his glory shows most brightly is the Ceremoniali.
The Doge was elected for life. When a Doge died, the eldest Ducal Councillor filled the office of Vice-Doge until the election of the new Prince. The remains of the deceased Doge were laid out in the Chamber of the Pioveghi, on the first floor of the Ducal Palace, dressed in robes of State, the mantle of cloth of gold and the ducal beretta. Twenty Venetian noblemen were appointed to attend in the chapelle ardente. On the third day the Doge was buried; and the Great Council on the same day elected the officers who were to revise the coronation oath, and to render its provisions more stringent if the conduct of the deceased had revealed any point where a future Doge could exercise even the smallest independence in constitutional matters. At the same time the Council elected another body of officers, who were required to examine the conduct of the late Doge, and, if he had violated his coronation oath, his heirs paid the penalty by a fine. Immediately after the appointment of these officers, the Maggior Consiglio proceeded to create the forty-one electors to the dukedom. The process of election was long and intricate, and occupied five days at the least; for there was a quintuple series of ballots and votings to be concluded before the forty-one were finally chosen. When the forty-one noblemen had been appointed they were taken to a chamber specially prepared for them, where, as in the case of a papal election, they were obliged to stay until they had determined upon the new Doge. They were bound by oath never to reveal what took place inside this election chamber. But this oath was not always observed in the spirit; and memoranda of the proceedings of the forty-one are still preserved in the private archives of the Marcello family. The first step was to elect three priors, or presidents, and two secretaries. The presidents took their seats at a table on which stood a ballot-box and an urn. The secretaries gave to every elector a slip of paper, upon which each one wrote the name of the man whom he proposed as Doge. The forty-one slips of paper were then placed in the urn, and one was drawn out at hazard. If the noble, whose name was written upon the slip, chanced to be an elector, he was required to withdraw. Then each of the electors was at liberty to attack the candidate, to point out defects and recal misdeeds. These hostile criticisms, which covered the whole of a candidate's private life, his physical qualities and his public conduct, were written down by the secretaries, and the candidate was recalled. The objections urged against him were read over to the aspirant, without the names of the urgers appearing, and he was invited to defend himself. Attack and defence continued till no further criticisms were offered, and then the name of the candidate was balloted before the priors. If it received twenty-five favourable votes, its owner was declared Doge; if less than twenty-five, a fresh name was drawn from the urn, and the whole process was repeated until some candidate secured the necessary five-and-twenty votes. As soon as this issue was reached, the Signoria was informed of the result, and the new Doge, attended by the electors, descended to Saint Mark's, where, from the pulpit on the left side of the choir, the Prince was shown to the people, and where, before the high altar, he took the coronation oath and received the standard of Saint Mark. The great doors of the Basilica were then thrown open, and the Doge passed in procession round the Piazza and returned to the Porta della Carta. At the top of the Giants' Stair the eldest Ducal Councillor placed the beretta on his head, and he was brought to the Sala dei Pioveghi, where the late Doge had lain in state, and where he too would one day come. Then the Doge retired to his private apartments, and the ceremony of election closed.
As we have already observed, the position of the Doge in the Republic of Venice was almost purely ornamental. The Doge presided, either in person or by commission through his councillors, at every Council of State; he presided, however, not as a guiding and deliberating chief, but as a symbol of the Majesty of Venice. He is there not as an individual, a personality, but as the outward and visible sign of an idea, the idea of the Venetian oligarchy. The history of the personal authority of the Doge falls into three periods. A period of great vigour and almost despotic power dates from the foundation of the Dukedom, in the year 697, down to the reign of Pietro Ziani in 1172. During this first period, the Ducal authority showed a tendency to become concentrated, and almost hereditary in the hands of one or two powerful families. For example, we have seen Doges of the Partecipazio house, five Doges of the Candiani, and three of the Orseoli. But the rivalry and balanced power of these great families eventually exhausted one another, and preserved the Dukedom of Venice from ever becoming a kingdom. A second period extends from the year 1172 down to 1457, and is marked by the emergence of the great commercial houses, and the development of the oligarchy upon the basis of a Great Council. The aristocracy during this period were engaged in excluding the people from any share in the government, and in curbing and finally crushing the authority of the Doge. The steps in this process are indicated by the closing of the Great Council, the revolution of Tiepolo, the trials of Marino Faliero, Lorenzo Celsi, and the Foscari. The third period covers what remains of the Republic, from 1457 down to 1797. During this period the Doge was little other than the figurehead of the Republic; the point of least weight and greatest splendour; the brilliant apex to the pyramid of the Venetian constitution.
So far, then, we have examined the four tiers in the original structure of the constitution, the Doge, the College, the Senate, and the Great Council; and we have seen that, broadly speaking these were, respectively, ornamental, initiative and executive, legislative, and elective. But this pyramid of the constitution was not perfectly symmetrical; its edges were broken. This interruption of outline was caused by the Council of Ten. The exact position in the Venetian constitution occupied by this famous Council, and its relations to the other members of the government, have proved a constant source of difficulty and error to students of Venetian history. Leaving aside the obscure problem of the origin of the Ten, it is still possible for us to indicate the constitutional necessity which called that Council into existence. As we have pointed out, the College could not act on its own responsibility without the Senate; the Senate could not initiate without the College, for the preparation of all affairs passed through the hands of the College. To establish connection between these two branches of the administration was a process that required some time; it could not be done swiftly and secretly. In all crises of political importance, whether home or foreign, some instrument, more expeditious than the Senate, was required to sanction the propositions of the College. That instrument, acting swiftly and secretly, with a speed and secrecy impossible in so large a body as the Senate, was created with the Council of Ten. The Ten were an extraordinary magistracy, devised to meet unexpected pressure upon the ordinary machine of government. The emergence of the Ten proves this view. Without determining whether the Council existed previous to the year 1310, we may take that year as the date of its first appearance as a potent element in the State. The rebellion of Tiepolo and Querini, an aristocratic revolt against the growing power of the new commercial nobility, paralysed the ordinary machinery of State, and revealed the danger inherent in a large and slow-moving body of rulers. The Ten were called to power, just as the Romans created the Dictatorship, in order to save the State in a dangerous crisis.
The place of the Ten in the constitutional structure is below the College and parallel with the Senate. Below the College the administration bifurcates, the ordinary course of business flows through the Senate, the extraordinary through the Ten. The Ten possessed an authority equal to that of the Senate; the choice of which instrument should be used, rested with the College. The Ten appear to be of more importance than the Senate, solely because they were used upon more critical and dramatic occasions. Wherever the machinery of the College and Senate moves too slowly, we find the swifter machinery of the College and the Ten in motion. And so not only in political affairs, home and foreign, but also in affairs financial and judicial, the Council of Ten takes its part. The Ten, as being the readier instrument to the hands of the College, gradually absorbed more and more of the functions which originally belonged to the Senate. This process of absorption, and the extension of the province of the Ten, is marked by the establishment of its sub-commissions, that took their place in every department side by side with the delegations of the Senate and the ordinary magistrates. In politics and foreign affairs there is the famous office of the Three Inquisitors of State. In the region of Justice all cases of treason and coining, and certain cases of outrage on public morals, came before the Ten; and it was always open to the College to remove a case from the ordinary courts to the Ten, when State reasons rendered it expedient to do so. In the Police department the Esecutori contro la Bestemmia, and in Finance the Camerlenghi, were officers of that Council. In the War Office the artillery was under their control; and in the arsenal certain galleys, marked C.X., were always at their disposal.
These five great members of the State, four regular and one irregular, formed the political and legislative departments of the Venetian Government. It would require too many details to give a similar account of the Judicial, Educational, and Religious machinery.
One of the most remarkable features in the Venetian constitution is the infinite subdivision of government, and the number of offices to be filled. Nobles alone were eligible for the majority of these offices, and if we consider how small a body the Great Council really was, it is clear that the larger number of Venetian noblemen must have been employed in the service of the State at some time in their lives. The great political and administrative activity which reigned inside the comparatively small body that formed the ruling caste, as compared with the absolute stagnation and quiet which marked the life of the ordinary citizen, is one of the most noteworthy points in the history of Venice. Every noble above the age of twenty-five was a member of the Maggior Consiglio; every week that council had to fill up some office of State, had some new candidate before it. The tenure of all offices, except the Dukedom and the Procuratorship of St. Mark, was so brief, rarely exceeding a year, or sixteen months, that the fret and activity of elections must have been nearly incessant. This constant unrest bore its fruit in perpetual intrigues, and the censors were appointed to check the rampant canvassing and bribery. But the main point which is impressed upon us is the universality of political training to which all the nobles of Venice were subjected. No matter how frivolous a young patrician might be, he would be obliged to sit in the Great Council; he would be called upon to assist in electing the Ten, whose omniscience and severity he had every reason to dread; he might even find himself named to fill some minor post. It was impossible, under these circumstances, that he should fail to be educated politically, or that he should ever lose the keenest interest in every movement of the State. It is to this political activity that we may possibly look for one of the reasons which conduced to that extraordinary longevity which the constitution of Venice displayed.
Each of the Government offices, many as they were, possessed its own collection of papers. These are either still in loose sheets, just as they left the office, or bound in volumes. They are indicated by the name of the Government department, the subject dealt with, and the date. The pages are of three kinds; first, there are the files or filze, the original minutes of the Board, written down in actual Council by the secretaries, and with the filze are the dispatches or other documents upon which the Council took measures. In many of the more important departments, such as the Senate, the Ten, or the College, these filze were epitomized; the substance of each day's business was written out in large volumes known as Registri; each entry was signed by the secretary who had made the digest, and was accepted as authentic for all purposes of reference. These registers are, in many cases, of the greatest value where the files have been destroyed or lost. They were more constantly in use, and therefore more carefully preserved; and now they frequently form our sole authority for certain periods. As a rule the registers are very full and good; they contain all that is of importance in the files; but in making research upon any point it is never safe to ignore the files where they exist. In some cases the secretaries made a further digest of the registers in volumes known as Rubrics, which contain in brief the headings of all materials to be found in the registers. As the registers sometimes supply the place of lost files, so the rubrics are occasionally our only authority where registers and files are both missing. The rubrics are often of the highest value. As an instance, we may cite the twenty volumes of rubrics to the dispatches from England between the years 1603 and 1748. The method of research, therefore, where all three kinds of documents exists is this, to examine first the rubrics, then the registers, and then the files. But the infinite subdivisions of the Government offices in Venice render the task of research somewhat bewildering; and a student cannot be certain that he has exhausted all the information on his subject, until he has examined a large number of these minor offices. He will probably find some notice of the point he is examining in the papers of the Senate or of the Ten, and, if it be a matter of home affairs, he can trace it thence through the various magistracies under whose cognizance it would come; or if it be a matter of foreign policy, he will find further information in the papers of the College.
Under the Republic these collections of State papers were not known as archives, but as chancelleries. The collections of highest interest, the papers to which the student is most likely to turn his attention, are those relating to the ceremony, to the home, and to the foreign policy of Venice. These three groups are contained in the Ducal, the Secret, and the Inferior Chancelleries. The three chancelleries were committed to the charge of the Grand Chancellor and his staff of secretaries, who received, arranged, and registered the official papers as they issued from the various Councils of State. The Grand Chancellor was not a patrician; he was chosen from that upper class of commoners known as cittadini originarii, an inferior order of nobility, ranking below the governing caste, but bearing coat armour. The office of Grand Chancellor was of great dignity and antiquity, and was held for life. The Chancellor was head and representative of the people, as the Doge was head and representative of the patricians; and, when the nobility began to exclude the people from all share in the government, the Grand Chancellor was allowed to be present at all sessions of the Great Council and of the Senate as the silent witness of the people, confirming the acts of the Government, and bridging, though by the finest thread, the gulf that otherwise separated the governed from the governing. The part which the Grand Chancellor took in the business of the Maggior Consiglio and of the Senate was a constant and an active part. It was his duty to superintend the arrangements for every election, to direct the secretaries in attendance, to announce the names of the candidates for office, and to proclaim the successful competitor. His seat in the Great Council Hall was on the left-hand of the Doge's daïs, and his secretaries sat below him. But the custody of the State papers was by far the most important function which the Grand Chancellor had to perform. To assist him in these labours he was placed at the head of a large College of Secretaries, trained in a school especially established to fit them for their duties. In the year 1443 a decree of the Great Council required the Doge and the Signoria to elect each year twelve lads to be taught Latin, rhetoric and philosophy, and the number of the pupils was gradually increased. From this school they passed out by examination, and became first extra-ordinaries and ordinaries, called Notaries Ducal, then secretaries to the Senate, and finally secretaries to the Ten. The post of secretary was one which required much diligence and discretion. The secretaries were in constant attendance on the various Councils of State, and thus became intimately acquainted with all the secret affairs of the Republic. They were frequently sent on delicate missions. It was a secretary of the Ten who brought Carmagnola to Venice to stand his trial; and, as we shall presently relate, it was a secretary of the Senate who announced to Thomas Killigrew, the English Minister, his dismissal from Venice. The secretaries were sometimes accredited as Residents to foreign Courts, though they were not eligible for the post of Ambassador. Inside the Chancellery the secretaries were entirely at the disposal of the Grand Chancellor, and their duties were to study, to invent, and to read cipher; to transcribe the registers and rubrics; to keep the annals of the Council of Ten, and to enter the laws in the statute book.
We may now turn our attention to the principal series of State papers which issued from the five great members of the Constitution, the Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, the Ten, the College, and the Doge, and show how these papers were arranged under the three Chancelleries of which we have spoken.
The Cancelleria Inferiore was preserved in one large room near the head of the Giants' Staircase in the Ducal Palace, and was entrusted to the care of the Notaries Ducal, the lowest order of secretaries. The documents in this Chancellery related chiefly to the Doge; his rights, his official possessions, his restrictions, and his state. Among these papers, accordingly, we find the coronation oaths, the Reports of the Commissioners appointed to examine those oaths, and the Reports of the Commissioners appointed to review the life of each Doge deceased. This series is valuable as revealing the steps by which the aristocracy slowly curtailed the personal authority of the Doge, and bound his office about with iron fetters, and crushed his power. In addition to these papers the Inferior Chancellery contained the documents relating to the dignitaries of St. Mark's in its capacity as Ducal Chapel; the order and ceremony of the Ducal household; the expenditure of the Civil List; and the archives of the Procurators of Saint Mark, which contained the will, trusts, and bequests of private citizens.
The Ducal Chancellery, which the Council of Ten once called 'cor nostri status,' was preserved on the upper floor of the palace, and was reached by the Scala d'oro. The papers were arranged in a number of cupboards surmounted by the arms of the various Grand Chancellors who had presided in that office. The documents of the Ducal Chancellery are of far higher importance than those contained in the Cancelleria Inferiore; they consist of political papers which it was not necessary to keep secret. Among the many interesting series of documents which fell to the Ducal Chancellery, the most valuable are the 'Compilazione delle Leggi,' or statute-books distinguished by the various colours of their bindings—gold, roan, and green—to mark the statutes which relate to the Maggior Consiglio, the Senate, and the College respectively; the Secretario alle voci, or record of all elections in the Great Council; the Libri gratiarum, or special privileges. But most important of all is the great series of documents which include the whole legislation of the State relating to Venetian affairs on sea and land. Of this vast series those marked Terra contain 3128 volumes of files, 411 volumes of registers, and 7 volumes of rubrics; those marked Mar number 1286 volumes of files, 247 volumes of registers, and 7 volumes of rubrics. It will easily be seen how important the Ducal Chancellery is both for the verification of dates, and also as displaying so large a tract of the Venetian home administration.
But important as the Ducal Chancellery undoubtedly is, it cannot vie in interest with the Cancelleria Secreta, which might, with every justice, have been called 'cor nostri status', for it is in the papers of that Chancellery that the long history of the growth, splendour, and decline of the Republic is to be traced in all its manifold details and complicated relations. The Secret Chancellery was established by a decree of the Great Council in the year 1402. Its object was to preserve those papers of the highest State importance, from the publicity to which the Ducal Chancellery was exposed. The regulation of the Secret Chancellery was undertaken by the Council of Ten, and the rigorous orders which they issued from time to time abundantly prove the difficulty they experienced in securing the secrecy which they desired. The Secret Chancellery became the depository of all State papers of great moment; and if we take the chief members of the constitution in order, and note the documents issuing from them which fell to the custody of the Secreta, we shall see how the great flow of Venetian history is to be followed here rather than in any other department of the archives.
To begin with the Maggior Consiglio, we have the long series of registers containing the deliberations of the Council from the year 1232 down to the fall of the Republic in 1797, occupying forty-two volumes, and distinguished, at first, by such capricious names as Capricornus, Philosus, Presbiter, and Fronesis; and later on by the names of the secretaries who prepared them, Ottobonus primus, Ottobonus filius, Busenellus, and Vianolus. In the special archive of the Avogadori di Commun a contemporary series of registers is to be found; it covers from 1232 to 1547, and should be consulted together with the first series, for it is more voluminous and minute. The first reference to England that occurs in the Venetian archives is in the volume Fronesis (1318-1385). This, and all other documents relating to Great Britain, have been collected and rendered accessible in the splendid and monumental series of the 'Calendar of State Papers,' edited with such diligence and care by the late Mr. Rawdon Brown. Mr. Brown's published work goes down to the year 1552; and it is only after that date that any work relating to England remains to be done. That work, however, is voluminous, for the regular and unbroken series of dispatches from England does not begin till the reign of James I. Little more respecting England is to be expected from the papers of the Great Council, however; for at the date where Mr. Brown's work ends, the Maggior Consiglio had ceased to occupy a high position in the direction of Venetian foreign policy; its functions were chiefly confined to the election of magistrates.
The Senate supplied a far larger number of papers to the Secret Chancellery than that yielded by the Great Council. This was to be expected, owing to the central position of the Senate in the constitution, and its prominent place in the management of Venetian policy, home and foreign. The oldest documents in the archives of Venice belong to the Senate. They are contained among the volumes of Pacts or treaties, seven in number, without including the volume Albus, which is devoted to treaties between the Republic and the Eastern Empire, nor the volume Blancus, which contains the treaties between Venice and the Emperors of the West. The thirty-three volumes of Commemoriali formed a sort of commonplace book for the use of statesmen; in them were registered briefly the most important events and abstracts of principal documents which passed through the hands of the Government. The Commemoriali cover the years 1293 to 1797; but after the middle of the sixteenth century they were neglected, and they are chiefly valuable down to that date only. After the Patti and Commemoriali we begin the record of the regular proceedings in the Senate. This series contains papers relating to home government, foreign policy, the dominions of Venice on the mainland, in Dalmatia and the Levant, ecclesiastical matters, relations with Rome, instructions to ambassadors and reports from governors. So widely spread and so varied were the attributes of the Senate, that the analysis of a single day's proceedings in that house would prove most instructive to the student of the Venetian constitution, and would, in all probability, bring him into contact with a large number of the leading magistracies of the Republic. The series of senatorial papers proceeds in almost unbroken completeness from the year 1293 down to the close of the Republic; and counting files, registers and rubrics, numbers 1599 volumes. This main series is known by different names at different periods, and shows signs of that tendency to subdivision which characterizes all Venetian Government offices. The volumes which run from the year 1293 to 1440 were known as Registri misti; those covering from 1491 to 1630, and overlapping the first Misti, were called Registri secreti. After the year 1630 the papers of the Senate are divided into those known as Corti, relating to foreign Powers; and those known as Rettori, relating to the government of the Venetian dominion.
Besides this great series of Deliberazioni, containing the general movement of business in the Senate, there is another voluminous series of documents, equally important, and even more interesting to the student of general history, the dispatches received from Venetian representatives in foreign Courts, and the Relazioni, or reports which ambassadors read before the Senate upon their return from abroad. Nothing can exceed the brilliancy of this series; and the value of the Relazioni at least has been fully recognized. Yet it should be borne in mind that the Relazioni are only a part of the series, and that, taken alone and isolated from the dispatches, they lose much of their value. For we must not forget that the Relazioni were drawn up on more or less conventional lines; the headings, under which the report was to fall, were indicated by the Government, and were invariable; and, further, the home-coming ambassador handed his report to his successor, who frequently used it as a basis in drawing up his own. The result is that, except in the descriptions of Court life, and in the sketches of prominent characters, the Relazioni are apt to repeat themselves. But, taken with the dispatches, which arrived almost daily, they form the most varied, brilliant, and minute gallery of national portraits that the world possesses. The reports and dispatches were made by men whose whole political training had rendered them the acutest of observers, and they were presented to critics who were filled with the keenest curiosity, and were accustomed to demand full and precise information. Not a detail is omitted as unimportant; the diurnal gossip of the Court, the daily movements of the sovereign and his favourites; are all recorded with impartial and unerring observation. The relation of the Dispacci to the Relazioni is the relation of the study to the picture. The Relazioni are the large canvas upon which the whole nation is broadly depicted, the Dispacci are the patient and minute studies upon which the excellence of the picture depends. The majority of the Venetian Relazioni between the years 1492 and 1699 have been published; the earlier part by Signor Alberi, and the later by Signori Barozzi and Berchet. The eighteenth century still remains to be worked out. In the series of Relazioni and Dispacci, Great Britain occupies a comparatively small space. While France, Germany, and Constantinople, each give five volumes of reports, England gives one only, dating from 1531 to 1763. Of dispatches from England there are 139 volumes in all; while from Constantinople we have 242, from France 276, from Milan, 230, and from Germany 202.
Previous to the year 1603, when the regular series of dispatches from England begins, there had been intermittent relations between the Republic and the English Court. Sebastian Giustiniani was Venetian ambassador in London in the reign of Henry VIII. (1515-1519); and in the reign of Mary, Giovanni Michiel represented the Republic for four years—from 1554 to 1558. The Protestant reign of Elizabeth caused a long break, during which the Republic received its information about the affairs of England from its ambassadors in France and Spain. Permanent relations were not resumed between the two Powers till the accession of James I., one of whose earliest acts was to send Sir Henry Wotton to Venice as his ambassador. The appointment of Sir Henry Wotton was a movement of gratitude on the part of the King; and the cause of it cannot be better told than in the words of Sir Henry's biographer, who thus describes this 'notable accident:'
'Immediately after Sir Henry Wotton's return from Rome to Florence—which was about a year before the death of Queen Elizabeth—Ferdinand, the Great Duke of Tuscany, had intercepted certain letters that discovered a design to take away the life of James, the then King of Scots. The Duke abhorring this fact, and resolving to endeavour a prevention of it, advised with his Secretary Vietta, by what means a caution might be best given to that King; and after consideration it was resolved to be done by Sir Henry Wotton, whom Vietta first commended to the Duke, and the Duke had noted and approved of above all the English that frequented his Court.
'Sir Henry was gladly called by his friend Vietta to the Duke, who dispatched him into Scotland with letters to the King, and with those letters such Italian antidotes against poison as the Scots till then had been strangers to.
'Having parted from the Duke, he took up the name and language of an Italian; and thinking it best to avoid the line of English intelligence and danger, he posted into Norway, and through that country towards Scotland, where he found the King at Stirling. Being there, he used means, by Bernard Lindsey, one of the King's bed-chamber, to procure him a speedy and private conference with his Majesty.
'This being by Bernard Lindsey made known to the King, the King required his name—which was said to be Octavio Baldi—and appointed him to be heard privately at a fixed hour that evening.
'When Octavio Baldi came to the Presence-chamber door, he was requested to lay aside his long rapier—which, Italian-like, he then wore;—and being entered the chamber, he found there with the King three or four Scotch Lords standing distant in several corners of the chamber; at the sight of whom he made a stand; which the King observing, bade him be bold and deliver his message; for he would undertake for the secrecy of all that were present. Then did Octavio Baldi deliver his letters and message to the King in Italian; which when the King had graciously received, after a little pause, Octavio Baldi steps to the table, and whispers to the King in his own language that he was an Englishman, beseeching him for a more private conference with his Majesty, and that he might be concealed during his stay in that nation; which was promised and really performed by the King, during all his abode there, which was about three months. All which time was spent with much pleasantness to the King, and with as much to Octavio Baldi himself as that country could afford; from which he departed as true an Italian as he came thither.'
The presence of Sir Henry in Venice, where he was a persona gratissima, both for his love of Italy and his knowledge of the language, did much to strengthen the new relations between England and the Republic. The feeling between Venice and the Stuart kings became extremely cordial; but on the outbreak of the Civil War, in 1642, the Republic suspended the commission of Vincenzo Contarina, who had been appointed to succeed Giovanni Giustinian as ambassador to England. The secretary Girolamo Agostino, however, continued to discharge Venetian affairs till the year 1645; and his dispatches contain minute particulars concerning the progress of the Civil War. In the year 1645, Agostino was recalled, and the interests of Venice in England were entrusted to Salvetti, the Florentine resident. Agostino left behind him in England a secret agent, with instructions to forward a weekly report on the progress of affairs to the Venetian ambassador in France, among whose dispatches we find these newsletters from London. After the death of Charles I it is not likely that the Republic would have been represented at the Court of Cromwell, towards whom the feeling of Venice was not cordial, had she not been in great straits for help against the Turk. But in the year 1652 she resolved to dismiss the representative of Charles II, then in Venice; and, at the same time, the Government instructed the ambassador at Paris to send his secretary, Lorenzo Pauluzzi, to London to open negociations with Cromwell. With Pauluzzi the series of dispatches from London recommences; but these dispatches are to be found among the communications from the Venetian ambassador in Paris, by whom they were forwarded to the Senate. The dispatches of Pauluzzi are of great importance, and give us a vivid though hostile picture of Cromwell and his surroundings. 'Nell' universale,' he says, 'ha pochissimo affetto;' and further on, 'non ardiscono tentare alcuna cosa nè parlare che tra i denti; ma ognuno sta sperando un giorno verificate le profizie che questo governo non possa a lungo durare.' In 1655 the negociations between England and Venice had advanced so far that the Republic had determined to send an Ambassador Extraordinary to the Protector's Court. Giovanni Sagredo, ambassador at Paris, was chosen, and the closing paragraph of his first dispatch shows how strongly Cromwell's personality impressed him. 'Per il resto,' he writes, 'è uomo di 56 anni, con pochissima barba, di complessione sanguigna, di statura media e robusta e di presenza marziale. Ha una fisonomia cupa e profonda. Porta una gran spada al fianco. Soldato insieme ed oratore, e dotato di talenti per persuadere e per operare.' The result of Sagredo's mission is contained in the long and brilliant Relazione which he read in the Senate on his return to Venice in 1656. In this splendid specimen of a Venetian report, he gives, with singular lucidity and grasp, a brief sketch of the condition of Great Britain; of the causes of the Civil War; of Cromwell's rise to power; of his foreign relations; and closes with a portrait of the Protector which confirms Pauluzzi's unfavourable view, and draws a terrible picture of that restlessness and dread which clouded Cromwell's last days—'più temuto che amato ... vive con sempiterno sospetto.' When Sagredo returned to Venice, his secretary Francesco Giavarnia was left behind in England, as Venetian resident, and continued to hold that post till the Restoration, sending dispatches every week direct to Venice, detailing the close of the Protectorate, and the return of Charles II., whom he was the first to welcome at Canterbury the day after his landing. In 1661 the Republic gladly re-opened full relations with the Stuarts. Giavarnia was superseded by two Ambassadors Extraordinary, who conveyed to Charles two gondolas for the water in St. James's Park, and from that date onwards the diplomatic connection between England and the Republic followed the ordinary course.
We come now to the papers of the Council of Ten; all of these were committed to the custody of the Secret Chancellery. We have already seen that the Council of Ten was an extraordinary office, used upon extraordinary occasions, where secrecy and speed were required. Its chief occupations may be summed up under three heads—safety of the State, protection of citizens, and public morals. That being the case, the number and interest of its documents is very great—greater than that of any other Council of State; but this interest is confined, for the most part, to matters affecting the home policy of the Republic; foreign affairs finds comparatively little illustration among the papers of the Ten. The series of documents, containing the ordinary business of the Ten, dates from the year 1315 to the close of the Republic. The documents are arranged according to the matter they deal with, that is to say political matter, parti communi and secreti, or criminal matter, parti crimminali. The immense importance and interest attaching to the papers of the Ten will be illustrated by the statement, that there we find the cases of Marino Faliero, of the Carraresi, of Carmagnola, of Foscari, of Caterina Cornaro, and of Foscarini.
Among the papers of the Collegio we find ourselves once more in the general current of foreign politics. The ordinary proceedings of the College, the papers containing the arrangement and discussion of affairs to be presented to the Senate, are included in the volumes of files and registers, known as the Notatorii del Collegio. The College was entrusted, as we have said, to receive all the representatives of foreign Powers and to open all letters and dispatches addressed to the Government. It is in the three series known as Lettere Principi, Espozioni Principi, and Ceremoniali, that we obtain the fullest information about the action of the agents from foreign Courts resident in Venice. The series called Lettere Principi, letters from royal personages, covers the years between 1500 and 1797, and is contained in fifty-four volumes of filze. England is represented by two of these, beginning with the year 1570, and ending with 1796, entitled 'Collegio, Secreta, Lettere. Rè e Regina d'Inghilterra.' These volumes contain one hundred and seventy-one letters, thus distributed among the various sovereigns; there are thirteen in the reign of Elizabeth; forty in that of James I.; four in that of Charles I.; three from Oliver Cromwell; one from Richard Cromwell; one from Speaker Lenthal: ten during the reign of Charles II.; five during that of his brother; three during the reign of William, including one from the Old Pretender; seven in the reign of Anne; eight in that of George I.; twenty-one from George II; and fifty-five from George III. These letters are concerned with formal announcements and the exchange of courtesies, the credentials of ambassadors and notices of royal births, marriages and deaths. Their historical importance is very slight. The long series of George III. is almost entirely occupied by noting the yearly increase of his family. The autographs of the ministers who countersigned the letters, form their greatest attraction. The late Mr. Rawdon Brown has published facsimiles of these autographs down to the year 1659; but after that date we find such interesting endorsements as those of Lauderdale, Arlington, Bolingbroke, Carteret, Pitt, Halifax, Henry Conway, Shelburne, and Charles James Fox. On a loose parchment among these letters is one very curious document. It is dated Bologna, 21st February, 1671, and begins 'Carlo Dudley per la gratia di Dio Duca di Northumbria et del Sacro Romano Impero, Conte di Woruih e di Licester, et Pari d'Ingliterra.' The document goes on to state that Charles Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, in consideration of the affection and partiality always shown towards his person and house, grants to Ottavio Dionisio, noble of Verona, the title of Marquis to him and to his eldest son, to his younger sons and to his brothers and their sons the title of Count, in perpetuity; and this in virtue of the declaration and authority of His Holiness Pope Urban VIII., which conferred on Charles Dudley and his eldest born the right to exercise all the privileges of an independent prince. At the date which this document bears, 1671, there was no Duke of Northumberland; that title had lately been bestowed by Charles II. on an illegitimate son, and had perished with him. This Charles Dudley was probably some pretender to the honours of the Dudley family who once held the dukedom of Northumberland. The document is curious, for the noble family on whom Charles Dudley conferred this title of Marquis still exists, and we do not know if any British subject, either before or after, has even claimed to be a fountain of honour. But Charles Dudley is not the only English pretender who figures among the papers at the Frari. Filza 8 of the loose papers, titled 'Miscellanea Diversi Manoscritti,' contains the marriage certificate and will of James Henry de Boveri Rossano Stuart, natural son of Charles II., and seven letters from his son James Stuart, dated Milan, Gemona and Padua, 1722 to 1728. The majority of these letters are addressed to Cardinal Panighetti, from whom this 'povero principe Stuardo,' as he calls himself, hoped to receive money and support in some imaginary claims on the Crown of England. The letters are full of a certain pathos—the pathos which cannot fail to attach itself to fallen royalty. The handwriting is that of an uneducated man; and James Stuart, in these letters, certainly shows no signs of the ability required to meet so trying a situation. He appeals to the Cardinal first on the grounds of his creed. It is 'for the Faith that he finds himself in the miserable little town' of Gemona. Failing upon this line, James Stuart abandons himself to astrology, in the hope that the stars may give an answer favourable to his hopes. But to all his appeals the Cardinal replies with cold reserve, and when he hears of astrology, he adds a sharp and crushing reprimand.
Leaving the Lettere Principi we come to the last two series of State papers of which we shall speak, the Espozioni Principi, or record of all audiences granted to ambassadors and of the communications made by them in the name of the Power they represented; and the Libri Ceremoniali, or record of the great functions of State, coronations and funerals of the Doges, the elections of the Grand Chancellors, the reception accorded to ambassadors, princes and distinguished travellers. The Republic of Venice was as punctilious as any Court of Europe upon the points of precedence, ceremony, and etiquette. The reader will not have forgotten the amusing account, given by the elder Disraeli, of the long struggle between the Master of the Ceremonies and the Venetian ambassador at the Court of St. James. The Government required from its representatives a minute account of every detail of etiquette observed towards them, and replied in kind in their treatment of foreign ministers in Venice. The Republic was punctilious abroad, and no less so at home. Every stage in the public entry, first audience and congé of foreign ambassadors were carefully regulated and based upon precedent. The ambassadors of Spain and France had each a special volume devoted to the ceremonies and etiquette which the Republic observed towards them. M. Baschet describes at length the receptions of the French ambassadors, for whom he claims the highest rank among the representatives of foreign Powers at Venice. Great Britain sent fifty-eight embassies, in all, to the Republic, between the years 1340 and 1797. Of these ambassadors, Sir Gregory Cassalis filled the office twice, Sir Henry Wotton thrice, the Earl of Manchester twice, and Elizeus Burgess twice. The ceremony to which the ambassador was entitled may be gathered from the accounts of these embassies preserved in the Esposizioni Principi and the Ceremoniali.
The reception of Lord Northampton in the year 1762 will afford us the most detailed view of the ceremony, for on that occasion some questions of precedent arose, and the Cavaliere Ruzzini, who was entrusted with the conduct of the affair, presented a long report to the Senate on the subject. The ambassador was not officially recognized by the Government until he had made his public entry, and presented his credentials at his first audience in the College. Until that had taken place, he remained incognito, and was in fact supposed not to be in Venice. Before the ambassador arrived, the English Consul was expected to hire a palace for his use. There was no fixed embassy in Venice; Thomas Killigrew lodged at San Cassano, Lord Holdernesse at San Benedetto, Lord Manchester at San Stae. John Udny, who was consul at the time of Lord Northampton's Embassy, rented the Palazzo Grimani at Cannaregio for the ambassador whenever his appointment was announced, and an amusing and characteristic story attaches to this affair. The palace belonged to a Contessa Grimani, and was in bad repair; but the owner promised to restore and fit it up for the ambassador. When the consul went to see the palace, shortly before the ambassador's arrival, he found that nothing had been done to it, and moreover that a gondolier and his wife occupied the ground-floor and refused to move. He wrote at once to the Contessa requesting her to remove the gondolier, to which he received for answer that the gondolier's wife had been nurse to one of the Countess's boys, and the Grimanis had promised her twenty ducats a-year; if the ambassador liked to pay that amount, the gondolier would turn out; if not, they must manage to share the palace between them. The consul appealed to the English Resident, John Murray, who wrote an angry letter to the Government, complaining of this treatment; 'La carità della nobile donna,' he says, 'verso la moglie del gondoliere merita senza dubbio gran lode, ma il sottoscritto s'imagina che l'avvocato più scaltro si troverebbe bene intrigato di produrre una legge o esempio per incaricare l'Ambasciatore Inglese di questa carità.'
The matter was probably arranged, for on the 22nd of October Lord Northampton arrived, incognito, of course, with all his suite, and took up his residence. Lord Northampton was ill, and it was not until the beginning of the next year that he took the necessary steps to make his entry and to secure his first audience. The etiquette observed upon such occasions required that the ambassador should send his secretary to leave copies of his credentials at the door of the College, and to ask on what day the Doge would receive him. The College reply through one of their secretaries that an answer will be sent. The Doge was then consulted what day would suit him, and he answers by putting himself at the disposal of the College. The Senate is then informed of the ambassador's arrival, and sixty senators, under the direction of a leader, are appointed to attend the ambassador until the ceremonies of his reception shall be completed. The days selected for Lord Northampton's reception were the 29th and 30th of May, 1763; and the Caveliere Ruzzini was named as head of the sixty senators who were to attend the ambassador. Ruzzini informed Lord Northampton of these arrangements, and at the same time sent him a programme of the ceremony, which was based upon that observed towards Lord Holdernesse, and was identical with that which the Republic offered to the ambassador of the King of Sardinia. Before his public entry, the ambassador and all his suite went to the island of San Spirito, in the lagoon towards Malamocco. The fiction of the ceremony supposed all ambassadors to be lodged there until they had presented their credentials. San Spirito was chosen as the point of departure for the ambassadorial procession because the distance between that island and Venice was supposed to correspond exactly with the distance between London and Greenwich, whence the Venetian ambassador was wont to begin his progress. Sir Henry Wotton's second embassy forms a rare exception to this rule, for the Venetians were so fond of that charming and accomplished poet, that they allowed him to make his entry from San Giorgio Maggiore, which is much nearer the city and more convenient. After midday on the 29th, Ruzzini and his sixty senators, each in his gondola, arrived at San Spirito, and found the household of the ambassador drawn up along the landing-place en grande tenue. Lord Northampton was informed of Ruzzini's arrival, and came to meet him on the staircase. After exchanging the prescribed compliments, Ruzzini, with the ambassador on his right hand, descended, and both entered the Cavaliere's gondola. The whole procession left San Spirito and proceeded by the Grand Canal to the ambassador's lodging at San Girolamo, accompanied, as Ruzzini says, by 'un immenso popolo spettatore del nostro viaggio;' for these official entries were among the most popular of the Venetian spectacles, and the whole city went out to witness them. At the palace fresh speeches and compliments followed. Lord Northampton was suffering acutely from an illness of which he died that same year, but Ruzzini reports with obvious satisfaction that he did not spare him a single ceremony, 'adempi ad ogni parte del consueto ceremoniale.' The next day Ruzzini and the sixty senators again attended at the ambassador's palace to conduct him to his audience in the College. Lord Northampton was worse than he had been the day before; but Ruzzini was implacable. It cost the ambassador three-quarters of an hour to ascend the Giant's Stair. When at last he reached the door of the Collegio, the Doge and all the College rose; the ambassador uncovered and made three bows, and, leaving his suite behind him, he mounted the daïs and took his seat on the right hand of the Doge. The ambassador then covered his head, and simultaneously one of each order of the Savii did the same. The ambassador handed his credentials to the Doge, and remained uncovered while they were being read. The Doge made a brief and formal reply, welcoming the ambassador to Venice, and each time the King's name occurred, the ambassador raised his cap. After repeating his three bows, the ambassador retired, and was accompanied to his palace by the sixty senators who had waited for him at the door of the Collegio. This closed the ceremony of entry.
The English Ambassador Extraordinary enjoyed certain privileges which were established on the precedent of the embassy of Lord Falconberg, Cromwell's son-in-law. Among these privileges was the right to lodging and maintenance at the cost of the Republic, a right which the ambassador usually compounded for the sum of five or six hundred ducats; a box at each theatre in Venice was placed at his disposal, and when he took his congé the Senate voted him a gold chain and medal of the value of two thousand scudi. The ambassadors ordinary enjoyed certain exemptions from customs dues. These exemptions were frequently abused, and were the cause of constant friction between the Government and the representatives of the Powers. In the year 1763 Mr. John Murray's Istrian wine was seized, and he only recovered it after expressing himself ben mortificato. Mr. Murray was constantly in trouble on this subject. The year before he had addressed an indignant letter to the Government because 'a certain official of the Custom House had accused him of allowing his servants to sell wine and flour at the door of the Residency. It is but a poor satisfaction after so long a period of suspicion to know that that official is bankrupt and no proof of the accusation is forthcoming.' But by far the most curious episode of this nature was that which befell Tom Killigrew, the poet, grandfather of the Mrs. Anne Killigrew of Dryden's famous ode and a friend of Pepys, who recals him as 'a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem with the King, who told us many merry stories,' this, perhaps, among the number. Killigrew was sent to represent Charles II. at Venice in 1649, just after the execution of Charles I., and while his son was a ramingo, or knocking about, as the Venetian ambassador politely puts it. Killigrew was received in the usual way on February 10, 1650, and made his address 'in lingua cattiva,' as the report affirms. But the Republic soon tired of its alliance with an exiled king, and resolved to dismiss Killigrew as soon as possible. Killigrew was poor, and his master had little or nothing to give him, so he hit upon the expedient of keeping a butcher's shop, where he could sell meat, cheaper than any one else in Venice, by availing himself of his exemptions from octroi. The Senate resolved to fasten upon this illicit traffic as a pretext for dismissing Killigrew; and on the 22d of June, 1652, they sent their Secretary, Busenello, to tell Killigrew, vivâ voce, that he must go. Busenello went to San Fantin, and there found one of Killigrew's butchers, who told him that the Resident only kept his shop there, but lived himself at San Cassano. At San Cassano Busenello was told that Killigrew was dining at Murano, and would not be home till evening; but very soon after he saw the Resident at his window, and insisted on being announced. He explained 'with all possible delicacy,' as he says, the order of the Senate; but Killigrew received the message with every sign of anger and pain. With tears in his eyes he declared that it was the other ambassadors who robbed the customs, while he had all the blame. It was true that he did keep 'a little bit of a butcher's shop to support himself,' but that could not hurt the revenue; and he added that, under any circumstance he should leave Venice, for he had received his letters of recall from France, four days previously. The Senate no more than their secretary believed in the existence of this letter of recall; but Killigrew really had the letter, dated March 14th, and it was sent into the College, along with a brief exculpatory epistle from the Resident, on the 27th of June. Killigrew left Venice the same day as he was bound to do by ambassadorial etiquette; and Charles had not another recognized agent to the Republic until his restoration; for the Venetians definitely adopted the policy of courting Cromwell, in the vain hope that he would assist them against the Turk.
With the papers of the College we close this notice of the political documents in the archives at the Frari. The other departments of the Government had each their own series of papers, equally copious and valuable. The heraldic and genealogical archives of the Avvogadori di Commun, for example, the Charters of the German and Turkish Exchanges and the records of the Mint and the public Banks, offer a wide and a rich field for study; and in spite of the profound and extensive labours of such scholars as Thomas, Checchetti, Barozzi, Berchet, Fulin, Lamansky, Mas Latrie, and Rawdon Brown, it will be long before the materials in the vast storehouse of the Frari are exhausted or even adequately displayed.
Art. IV.—1. Journal of a Residence in Norway during the years 1834, 1835 and 1836. By Samuel Laing, Esq. London, 1837.
2. Le Royaume de Norvège et le Peuple Norvègien. Par le Dr. O. I. Broch. Christiania, 1878.
3. Official Reports of Prefects on the Economic Condition of the Provinces of Norway in 1876-80. Christiania, 1884.
4. Publications of the Statistical Bureau, Christiania.
The advocates of a general redistribution of landed property in Ireland, as well as those who are holding out to the agricultural labours of other portions of the United Kingdom the Arcadian lure figuratively known as the 'three acres and a cow,' will find in the work cited at the head of this article the amplest materials for the justification of the views they are pressing for adoption partly as a remedy for agricultural distress, but essentially in application of the Socialist doctrine that the people of a country have an inherent right to an absolute, proportionate possession of its soil.
Mr. Laing's 'Journal' is, indeed, not a record of travel and adventure, but a treatise, admirably written and replete with facts, in demonstration of the great superiority of the Norwegian system of land tenure over that of any other part of civilized Europe. His views have, moreover, been to a great extent adopted in the numerous works that have since been produced by British travellers who, after a rapid drive over the main routes of Norway, have described in terms equally glowing the happy and enviable condition of the Bonde or yeoman farmer of that country.
Considering there is much in common in regard to race, religion, language, character, and civilization, between the inhabitants of that interesting little country and its maritime neighbours—the populations, more especially, of England and Scotland, it will be instructive, on the eve of the agrarian revolution with which the United Kingdom is threatened, to study and analyse the statements and conclusions of Mr. Laing, and to trace the subsequent and present operation of the peculiar land laws which he so highly extolled in the earlier part of this century.
With that object we proceed to describe, almost in Mr. Laing's own words, the condition of the peasant proprietors of Norway at a period (1835) when, out of a population of 1,194,827, only about eleven per cent. inhabited towns, the land in rural districts being held by 103,192 proprietors and tenants, the proportion of the two latter being respectively seventy and thirty per cent.
'The Norwegians,' wrote Mr. Laing, 'are the most interesting and singular group of people in Europe. They live under ancient laws and social arrangements totally different in principle from those which regulate society and property in the feudally constituted states. Their country is peculiarly interesting to the political economist. It is the only part of Europe in which property from the earliest ages has been transmitted upon the principle of partition among all the children. The feudal structure of society with its law of primogeniture, and its privileged class of hereditary nobles, never prevailed in Norway. In this remote corner of the civilized world we may therefore see the effects upon the condition of society of the peculiar distribution of property; it will exhibit, on a small scale, what America and France will be a thousand years hence.... Here are the Highland glens without the Highland lairds.... If there be a happy class of people in Europe it is the Norwegian Bonde, king of his own land, and landlord as well as king.'
This state of happiness is, according to Mr. Laing, the result of the still existing Odels ret or Allodial Right, under which, he asserts, the land of Norway was always the property of the people, not of a feudal class of high nobility. But although this assertion does not much affect the main and practical object of our enquiry, it may be as well to point out at once that, whatever might have been the inherent right of every Norwegian to a portion of the soil on which he was born, Dr. Broch, an eminent native authority, maintains that a considerable portion of the land belonged anciently to the kings of Norway, and had been acquired, as in other countries, partly by confiscation from nobles. Those lands were leased and, gradually, to a certain extent, sold. In the days of Roman Catholicism, the Church also held great landed estates, which the State appropriated at the Reformation. No inconsiderable part of the State domains was then leased, and, in short, before the middle of the seventeenth century, leases comprised a little more than half of the landed property of the country; while even in 1814, they constituted one-third of it. Later, the State lands, and those which had been distributed among nobles at the Reformation, were repartitioned among the bulk of the population or sold.
But to return to the Odels ret. It gives, Mr. Laing shows,
'to all the kindred of the Odelsmand in possession, in the order of consanguinity, a certain interest in it. If the Odelsmand should sell or alienate his land, the next of kin is entitled to redeem it on paying the purchase-money; and should he decline to do so, it is in the power of the one next to him to claim his Odelsbaarn ret.'
At the present time, the allodial right is acquired only by the uninterrupted possession of the same person, his descendants or his wife, during a period of at least twenty years, and it is lost if the property has been in strange hands for three years. Testamentary dispositions, in the case of persons leaving issue, are now limited to one quarter of the testator's property; whereas before 1854, a testator could not bequeath anything individually. Since the year 1860, also, there is perfect equality between the two sexes in the division of real and personal property. At the period when Mr. Laing visited Norway, the division of land among children had
'not had the effect of reducing properties to the minimum size that would barely support human existence. One sells to the other and turns his capital and industry to pursuits that would enable him to acquire the necessaries of life. The heirs who sell, very often, instead of a sum of money, which is seldom at the command of the parties, take a life-rent payment or annuity of so much grain, the keep of so many cows, so much firewood, a dwelling-house on the property, or some equivalent of that kind. Few properties have no such burthens.' He argued that 'in a country where land is held, not in tenancy merely, as in Ireland, but in full ownership, its aggregation by the death of co-heirs, and by the marriages of female heirs,[5] will balance its subdivision by the equal succession of children; and also, that in such a condition of society, the whole mass of property would be found in such a State to consist of as many estates of 1000l., as many of 100l., as many of 10l. a year, at one period as at another.'
'Norway,' our author urges, 'affords a strong confutation of the dreaded excessive subdivision of land. Notwithstanding, the partition system, continued for ages, it contains farms of such extent that the owner possesses forty cows.'
On the whole, the farms appeared to him to be of various sizes: many so large that a bell was used to call the labourers to or from their work; while some were so small as to have only a few sheaves of corn, or a rig or two of potatoes, scattered among the trunks of the trees. These, however, were occupied by the farm servants, or cotters, paying for their houses and land in work (Husmœna). Twenty to forty cows could be counted on the large farms. In the district of Verdal (Trondhjemsfiord) Mr. Laing saw beautiful little farms of forty to fifty acres, each having a pasturage or grass tract in the mountains, where the cattle were kept during the summer until the crops were taken in, and upon each such out-farm, or Sœter, there was a house and regular dairy, to which, he informs us, 'the whole of the cattle and the dairy-maids, with their sweethearts, are sent to junket and to amuse themselves for three or four months of the year.[6] We can well believe that, in such circumstances, Mr. Laing found 'this class of Bönder the most interesting people in Norway,' and that 'there are none similar to them in the feudal countries of Europe.' He appears to have been more particularly impressed with
'the farms large enough to keep a score of cows, six horses and a small flock of sheep and goats, and to maintain a family and servants in all that land usually produces, leaving a surplus for sale sufficient to pay taxes, wages, and to provide the comforts and necessaries of life to a fair extent,' all which could be bought 'for 1000l. or 1200l., or even less.'
As regards the agricultural labourer, or cotter, Mr. Laing conceived 'his average condition to be that of holding land on which he could sow three-quarters of an imperial quarter of corn and three imperial quarters of potatoes, and which would enable him to keep two cows, or an equivalent number of sheep or goats.' His wages are stated to have been 4-1/2d. to 6d. per diem, in addition to his food. It was consequently 'amusing to recollect the benevolent speculations in our Agricultural Reports, of the Sir Johns and Sir Thomases in our midland counties of England, for bettering the condition of labourers in husbandry, by giving them, at a reasonable rent, a quarter of an acre of land to keep a cow on, or by allowing them to cultivate the slips of land on the roadside, outside of their hedges.' He also derides 'the agricultural writers' who 'tell us, indeed, that labourers in agriculture are much better off as farm servants, than they would be as small proprietors,' for 'if property is a good and desirable thing, the very smallest quantity of it is good and desirable.' It was obvious to Mr. Laing that the forty families of two or three Norwegian highland glens, 'each possessing and living on its own little spot of ground and farming well or ill, as the case might be, were in a better and happier state, and formed a more rationally constituted society, than if the whole belonged to one of these families (and it would be no great estate), while the other thirty-nine families were tenants and farmers.'
Mr. Laing found the happy agricultural population of Norway 'much better lodged than our labouring and middling classes, even in the south of Scotland;' and that no nation was at that period either better housed, or so well provided with fuel. The standard of living appeared to be higher in Norway than in most of our Scotch highland districts, although the materials were the same, namely, oatmeal, barley meal, potatoes, fish—fresh and salted—cheese, butter, and milk. He understood that it was even usual for the yeoman farmers to have animal food—'salt beef and black-puddings'—at least twice a week. At all events, he says, four meals a day formed the regular fare, and with two of those meals even the labourers had a glass of home-made brandy, distilled from potatoes by the yeoman, who 'could malt and distil in every way he pleased,' and thereby 'make free use of his agricultural produce,' with the result of 'increasing the general prosperity, improving the condition of the people, and promoting the increase of their numbers.'[7]
There was, at the time of Mr. Laing's residence in Norway, 'small difference in the way of living between high and low, because every man lived from the produce of his farm, and observed the utmost simplicity and economy with regard to everything that took money out of his pocket.' Furniture and clothes, except the yeoman's Sunday hat, were all home-made. 'Here was a whole population, in an old European country, dealing direct with Nature, as it were, for every article, without the intervention of money, or even of barter.' It was only the small yeomen on the verge of the Fjeld, or in the glens, far above the level of the land producing corn, and the inhabitants of districts less favoured by nature, 'whose common bread consisted of the bark of trees, mixed and ground up with ill-ripened oats; but even in their case, trout, dried and salted for winter, was no inconsiderable part of their provision, their houses being, at the same time, comfortable, though small, with wooden floors and glass windows.
Apart from these exceptionally situated proprietors, Mr. Laing found there really was 'no difference between the residence of a public functionary, of a clergyman, or of a gentleman of larger property and that of a Bonde, or peasant. The latter are as well, as commodiously and even showily, lodged as the former can be, and the properties are as good.' Mr. Laing, however, makes a reservation under this head in respect of the 'cultivated classes,' as being indisputably superior in mental acquirements to the yeoman farmer, and who lived in the same manner as the corresponding classes in England.
Towards the end of his stay in Norway, Mr. Laing often heard 'from the most intelligent men in the country' that the yeoman farmer lived too high; indulged too much in expensive luxuries, as coffee and sugar; in frequent and expensive entertainments at each other's houses; in carrioles, sledges, and harness of a costly kind; and even in a horse or two more than the farm work required; and he certainly thought this had resulted in a general want of money among them to pay even the most trifling taxes and other sums. A man with land worth three or four thousand dollars, and with horses, cows, and all sorts of products in abundance, was often at a loss for five or ten dollars. Nevertheless, he was of opinion that 'the increase of the tastes and habits which belong to property tended to keep population within the bounds of what can be comfortably subsisted, and without which the increase of subsistence would tend to evil rather than good.' It was, indeed, 'a good thing that they all had the ideas, habits, and character of people possessed of independent property upon which they were living without any care about increasing it, and free from the anxiety and fever of money making or money losing.'
Their subsistence, Mr. Laing exultingly and repeatedly points out, was derived mainly from husbandry, carried on under less favourable conditions of soil, climate, crops, and pasturage than in the Scotch highlands;—
'but on the simple Norwegian system, to live on the produce of the land being the main object, and the labourer (the cotter) being paid chiefly in land, a good crop would be an unmingled blessing; whereas in countries where agriculture is carried on as a manufacture, a succession of good crops may glut the markets, ruin the tenant, and even reduce the money wages of the labourer. In Norway neither good nor bad crops can affect the proportion of population to the land that could in ordinary seasons subsist on it. Paying no rent, the Norwegian yeoman farmer is not usually employed in prospective improvements, but simply in raising food, so that he can see at once whether the land is sufficient to produce subsistence for himself and his labourers. If grain and potatoes for the use of the farm, and a little surplus for sale to pay the land-tax and buy luxuries with, can be raised by the farm, all the purposes of farming in Norway are answered.
On the subject of pauperism, Mr. Laing alleges that 'the dread of poverty was less influential in Norway, where extreme destitution is as rare as great wealth, and where there is so much less difference in the comforts and consideration of the richer and poorer classes.' The indigent were farmed out for a week or so at a time among the yeomen farmers, 'whose poor-rate like the tithes of the Church, was too inconsiderable to mention.' The state of property, and its general diffusion throughout the social body, had also, he had no doubt, a beneficial effect on the moral condition of the people. 'The desire for wealth being considerably blunted, it was not the same actuating, engrossing principle of human action, the spring of much that was evil and immoral being thus removed.' Only one case of downright drunkenness—that of a Laplander—had come under his personal observation, and it was only on special occasions that the yeoman farmer could be seen a little elated. His theory, however (we may remark in passing), respecting the influence of property on the moral condition of the people is not supported by other facts which he quotes, namely, that owing to the restraints upon marriage, 'exercised as in Paris or London, by a high standard of living,' the 'proportion of illegitimate to legitimate children in Norway was 1 in 5,' while in a parish he specifies, it was (between 1826 and 1830) 'as high as 1 in 3-26/136.' He mentions that engagements between couples lasted generally one, two, and often several years, especially in the case of servants in husbandry waiting for a house and land to settle in as cotters. In such cases, he says, 'it too often happened that the privileged kindness between betrothed parties was carried too far,' and 'the betrothed became a mother before she was a wife.'
We quit this painful phase of peasant proprietorship with the observation that, notwithstanding a still wider diffusion of property and of moral qualities which, according to Mr. Laing, that diffusion is calculated to engender, 8.38[8] per cent. of the live children born in Norway between 1866 and 1870 were born out of wedlock, the corresponding proportion in 1836 having been 7.07 per cent. It is natural to find, under these circumstances, that the marriage rate was 6.84 per 1000 of the population in 1866-75 against 7.31 per 1000 between 1834 and 1836, with a fractional decrease of the total number of births in the former period, the average per family remaining slightly over four.
The ancient Allodial Right and the happy social system based upon it, Mr. Laing found jealously guarded by the yeomanry, 'who have not only the legislative power and the election of the Storthing' (or Parliament) 'almost entirely in their own hands, but also the whole civil business of the community.' He may, therefore, well say, without fear of contradiction, that 'the Norwegian people enjoy a greater share of liberty, have the framing and administering of their own laws more entirely in their own hands, than any European nation of the present time;' and, further, that 'it is not a little extraordinary that almost the only result' of the universal delirium of 1790,[9] 'which approaches in reality to the theories of that period, has been the Norwegian Constitution.'
The paramount influence of the agrarian class over the destinies of the kingdom may be judged by the circumstances that the rural districts are permanently represented in the Storthing by two-thirds of the total number of members, limited by the Constitution to 114; and that practically the suffrage is now universal, the principal conditions of its possession being, under recent legislation, a qualification of age (25 years) and a residence of five years in the country. It is well known that the Parliament thus elected (under a system of double election), with its de facto single Chamber, subdivided for the more rapid and effective discharge of certain business into what Mr. Laing chooses to call an 'Upper House' and a 'House of Commons,' has, within very recent days, in virtue of the largely predominant rural, radical vote, exercised its power of impeaching and punishing, by fine and dismissal from office, an entire Cabinet, for the crime of having advised the King that his veto was not merely suspensive, but absolute, in the matter of any Bill affecting the principles of the Constitution, and that the questions in dispute between the Sovereign and the Storthing were of a constitutional character, involving indirectly not only the stability of a monarchical form of government, but also that of the personal union between the crowns of Norway and Sweden—a stability pre-eminently essential in both respects to the highest interests of Scandinavia, and in no small degree also to the maritime and political interests of this country. It is this form of Parliament that Mr. Laing extols 'as a working model of a constitutional government on a small scale, and one which works so well as highly to deserve the consideration of the people of Great Britain.'
We have at last done with Mr. Laing's remarkable statements, views, and recommendations; and the principal question we now have to consider is: What is the latest phase (after an interval of half a century) of the development of the peculiar social organization of Norway, and especially of its system of land tenure, differing, as both do, from the organization and system evolved out of feudality in Great Britain and Ireland? We therefore intend to enquire: (1) Has the system of land tenure in Norway prevented, as foretold by Mr. Laing, an excessive subdivision of land? (2) Has a dead level of ease and contentment been maintained? (3) Has the diffusion of land by a natural process, under the widest form of home rule, kept the rural population of Norway within the bounds of possible modern existence? (4) Has no pauperism affected the taxation of landed property? and (5) generally, Is the Norwegian yeoman farmer in a more thriving condition at the present time than the tenants and agricultural labourers elsewhere, from whom is still withheld the freehold possession of land to which, it is alleged by a certain school of politicians, they have a natural right, disputed only by monopolists and land-grabbers?
These are the questions we shall endeavour to answer with the aid, exclusively, of the latest publications of the Norwegian Government. We must, however, preface our replies by sketching roughly the influences that have sprung into operation since Mr. Laing published the Journal of his residence in Norway.
In his time the towns contained only about eleven per cent. of the total population of the kingdom, whereas at the present moment the proportion is double that of 1835.[10] This urban agglomeration, Dr. Broch shows, has been 'due principally to causes which have operated in the rest of Europe. Facilitated means of communication promoted the migration of the agricultural population towards the towns, where the development of industry and commerce offered the lure of gains or salaries higher than those in rural districts.' One of the causes, he justly adds, of the displacement of the population has been the immense and laudable progress of public instruction, 'and the growing taste for intellectual and material enjoyments which gave a great force of attraction to the towns.'
As in other advancing countries, the attraction of towns, and the facilities for obtaining employment in them, operate also in Norway, to the disadvantage of the yeomen farmers of the present day. Among the causes of the economic decline of the Province of North Bergen, the Prefect mentions that
'the disinclination of young men of the yeoman farmer class to take permanent service is very general in this district, and is easily explained by the ease with which men in the prime of their strength obtain occupation as labourers in the fisheries. The great bulk of the day labourers do not seek with any great eagerness for work in the fields, so long as they hold previously acquired means sufficient to provide them with the necessaries of life, however scantily. As a rule, so long as want does not look in at the window, they will not engage themselves for such work, except at very good wages. The wages for a yearly labourer have doubled during the last twenty years.[11] At the same time the houseman has lost the command he previously had over his workmen, and consequently does not get the same amount of work out of them as formerly. Fishing attracts labour by a larger immediate return, acquired with less bodily exertion than in husbandry. It gives the population less taste for harder work.'
We leave Mr. Laing in doubt whether the steam-engine could 'ever be brought to perfection.' That doubt was speedily removed, and in 1852 Norway followed in the wake of other European nations by building railways, their total length in 1883 having reached very little short of a thousand English miles. Nor did their construction, with capital raised chiefly abroad and punctually repaid, arrest the improvement or the laying down of ordinary roads, to the extent of 4000 miles, between 1845 and 1875. In addition to this extensive opening-out of communication by rail and road, the introduction of steamers on inland waters and their employment as coasters and sea-going vessels, the construction of telegraphs, and development of fisheries, of ship building, of banking and other companies, and generally of trade and industry, produced gradually a wide disturbance in the social economy found by Mr. Laing. The expansion and prosperity of the towns, as well as the more refined habits of life adopted by the clergy and the officials of Government, were viewed by the yeomen farmers with a jealousy that was undoubtedly the original cause of their present radical proclivities, the old conservatism being relegated to towns, contrary to the experience of other European countries, and particularly to that of Great Britain, until the metaphorical three acres and a cow were dangled before the eyes of its rural population.
Under all these influences, and we may include among them the effect of a constantly-increasing number of travellers, equipped with the modern appliances of civilization, and demanding accommodation and other material comforts of a more and more superior character, the Robinson Crusoe existence of the yeoman farmer, as depicted by Mr. Laing, has suffered so much invasion that it has well-nigh disappeared.
In the matter of clothing, an assimilation to general, central European dress has for years past been noticeable even in districts the most remote, to the prejudice of home-spinning and weaving. Ancient silver ornaments have been largely discarded by the women, and converted, first into money, and eventually into articles of modern use or embellishment, to an extent that now renders travellers more and more suspicious of the Brummagem origin of the objects that remain for sale. And it is the same with old furniture and with the multifarious knicknacks which travellers less recent delighted to find in the country at reasonable prices.
The value of money has become more generally appreciated since Mr. Laing admired the absence of all incentive to 'money-making and money-losing,' and the previously unambitious character of the yeoman and his sons has undergone a tolerably complete change since education has opened out the widest avenues to personal advancement, even from the plough. They no longer live by bread alone, and therefore their artificial wants have been increasing at a greater ratio than their means of satisfying them out of the produce of the land. Without entering here upon the important effect of the corn supplies from America, and of the depreciation of the value of the Norwegian timber, owing to the increased competition of America and other countries, we may sum up this imperfect prefatory sketch by stating that, from a general point of view, the Gamle Norge (Old Norway) of Mr. Laing's days has for many years been passing through a process of transformation, the latest results of which we shall now describe.[12]
Mr. Laing's contention, that when land is held in freehold, not as a rule in tenancy, the relative size or value of the estates into which the land is divided will remain the same at one period as at another, is entirely refuted by the official statistics of Norway. In the first place, the total number of properties, which was about 111,000 in 1838, had grown, in 1870, to 149,000 (34-1/2 per cent.), and is still higher at the present day, with a continued tendency to multiplication by partition. Secondly, the proportion that existed in 1838 between the various sizes of agricultural holdings has undergone a notable change, marking a very considerable increase in the relative number of small plots.
As it was found practically impossible to estimate the value of landed property on the basis of its acreage (the physical conditions of the country giving such great variety to the value of estates), the 'Cadastre' introduced in 1836, established, for purposes of assessment, a classification based on 'skylddaler,' or taxable, value. This unit of taxation was assumed to represent a mean capital value of about 89l., arrived at by estimating the net income derived at that period from the working of land during an average year.
The following statement exhibits the cadastral classification of properties,[13] and the changes that have occurred in the several groups between 1838 and 1870.
| 1838. | 1870. | ||||||
| Estates | below | 0.2 | skylddaler | in | value | 8,866 | 26,048 |
| " | between | 0.2 | and | 1 | " | 31,265 | 52,067 |
| " | " | 1 | " | 2 | " | 28,652 | 33,427 |
| " | " | 2 | " | 5 | " | 32,854 | 29,498 |
| " | " | 5 | " | 10 | " | 7,043 | 6,012 |
| " | " | 10 | " | 20 | " | 1,791 | 1,617 |
| " | above | 20 | " | 315 | 344 | ||
| Total | 110,786 | 149,013 |
It is thus evident that, even fifteen years ago, the increase in the total number of properties, as compared with the number in 1838, had affected only the three groups of smaller holdings, and particularly the group (below 0.2) which, according to Dr. Broch, 'includes the sites of houses and cottages owned by labourers, fishermen, seamen, and artizans, but estimated to yield an average of 5-1/2 bushels of corn, 8 bushels of potatoes, and grass for half a cow. The holdings more purely agricultural, and designated by the same authority as 'small properties,' are those comprised in the two next categories, namely, parcels of land over 0.2 and under 2 skylddaler in value. In 1870, we find that a little more than one-half of the landed properties in Norway and one-third of the total cadastral area, were included in those two groups. The average yield of those small properties is estimated by Dr. Broch at '55 bushels (20 hectol) of cereals, and 82-1/2 bushels (30 hectol) of potatoes, with fodder for four cows, seven sheep or goats, and half a horse.' He states, nevertheless, that—
'without subsidiary means of existence, the most frugal families cannot subsist on them, even when free from debt and other incumbrances. There can be no question of employing hired labour on such farms, although a domestic servant is sometimes kept. The owners or tenants of such small properties seek their principal means of existence in fishing, forest work, and a variety of other occupations.'
The group of properties more particularly admired by Mr. Laing is that which is officially classed under 'Properties of medium size,' ranging between two and ten skylddaler in cadastral value. They represented in 1870 only 24 per cent. of the total number of properties, but 59 per cent. of the cadastral area of Norway. These are the farms which can, on an average, feed fifteen head of cattle, thirty or forty sheep or goats, and a couple of pigs, and yield 30 imperial quarters of cereals, 40 imperial quarters of potatoes, and fodder for a couple of horses.
'Agriculture on these properties,' continues Dr. Broch, 'is not only the most important means of existence, but also in many cases the only resource. They suffice for a family of simple habits, provided the proprietor is not crippled with debt, that he has not to pay too heavy "föderåa" (annuities, incumbrances) and on condition that he lives as a peasant, assisting personally in the work of the firm,[14]
Estates of an assessed value of more than ten 'skylddaler' are designated as 'Large Properties.' They cover 13.4 per cent. of the total cadastral area, but represent only 1.3 per cent. of the total number of properties; and it is exclusively these that afford, according to Dr. Broch, 'easy circumstances to their possessors, who are not infrequently ship-owners, forest-owners, engaged in the fishery-trade,' &c.
It is thus manifest that, in 1878, when Dr. Broch drew up his Report for the Universal Exhibition at Paris, the diffusion of property in Norway had left only about 25 per cent. of the yeomen farmers (excluding the group of 'Large Properties') capable of maintaining themselves and their families on their freeholds on conditions which, as we shall presently show, no longer exist, and that the great bulk of the landed proprietors were in occupation of such small patches of land that their subsistence was entirely dependent upon other employments. This view is very fully borne out by the 'Reports of the Norwegian Prefects for the Quinquennial Period 1876-80.' Their observations on the growing subdivision of land as one of the causes by which the agricultural economy has been disturbed, to its great disadvantage, are well worth attention.
An increasing subdivision of land is reported from the provinces of North Bergen, Romsdal, South Trondhjem, and Tromsö. The Prefect of North Bergen points to it as one of the reasons of the unfavorable condition of the province:—
'It may,' he writes, 'with just cause be said to exist when the properties parcelled out are insufficient for the maintenance of a family, and when the farms are situated in a locality which does not afford the opportunity of some kind of subsidiary employment, or if the proprietor of such a small holding cannot attach himself to another man as a labourer for hire. When utilised, however, by the inhabitants of the coast, such subdivision cannot be regarded as excessive, for the owners of the small patches are able to obtain for themselves and their families the necessaries of life by fishing. When, however, a landowner, on account of the insignificant extent or the small productiveness of his farm, finds himself unable to subsist without seeking the wages of a labourer, his position is not better, or but little better, than that of the cotter (Husmand) alongside of him, notwithstanding that the latter is not owner of the land he cultivates. It is a matter of course that such farmers will be destitute of economical power, and unable to give the communal or the provincial exchequer any visible contribution towards the funds that have to be raised in order to meet the public expenditure. The existence of such small proprietors is not, on the whole, desirable.'
In the province of South Trondhjem the great increase of the indebtedness of the landowners is ascribed in part to the subdivision of property by the creation of Myrmœnd, literally 'bogmen' (bog-trotters?), or men supplied gratuitously, in recent times, with small plots of waste land, for the purpose of qualifying them as voters. Subdivision has likewise resulted from the partition of holdings in common, which, according to Dr. Broch, formed, in 1870, 13.4 per cent. of all the properties in Norway; principally in the Western Provinces, from the Naze to the Fiord of Trondhjem, where they constituted at that period, on the average as much as 30 per cent. of the landed property. Under a law passed in 1857, those lands are now divisible or exchangeable, and it appears from the report of the Prefects that the demands in that direction cannot be satisfied by the Government officials with sufficient promptness. In the province of South Trondhjem, for instance, about 40 per cent. of the properties were still held in common in 1875, but between 1876 and 1880 the partition of such lands was advancing 'at the rate of about twenty farms per annum.'
The Prefect of Romsdal enumerates the causes of an increasing subdivision of landed property as follows: 1. The clearing of land for fields and meadows with the view of affording support to more families than one. 2. The desire of a proprietor to let more of his children than the nearest Odelsberretige[15] come into the possession of his estate. 3. In the case of an indebted proprietor, the necessity of parting with a portion of his land in order to get clear of his creditors; and 4. The desire on the part of persons who have no real property to come into the possession of land, especially tenants and cotters. The yeomen farmers themselves, he reports:
'bring forward as a substantial reason for the increasing subdivision of land the fact that, owing to the growing difficulty of obtaining labourers, it does not pay to remain in possession of a larger estate than can be worked by the family itself.'
Consequently, the number of holdings was increased in that province by nearly 10 per cent. between 1876 and 1880. A corroboration of this view is to be found in other Reports, particularly in the Report from the Province of North Trondhjem, in which the yeomen farmers are declared to be compelled to 'cultivate the land with the resources of their own households.' The effect of the conversion of cotters into small proprietors may be estimated from the following opinion of another Prefect: 'The burden of bad times is often felt more heavily by the proprietor than by the cotter;' and all the Reports show that 'the times' are as bad in Norway as they are in the United Kingdom, with this aggravation, that 70 to 80 per cent. of the population of Norway is settled on the land, and steeped in debt.
Most of the Prefects report unfavourably on the condition and prospects of agriculture, and on the depressing influence of American competition in corn, which began to make itself distinctly felt about the year 1875,[16] when also the forest industry, so intimately connected with agriculture, first encountered the effects of a greatly increased shipment of timber from America and other countries to Europe. But these are not the only reasons, over and above the subdivision of property already dwelt upon, to which they ascribe a very general decline in the economic condition of the yeomen farmer. In one province, 'habits of thrift and providence had been awakened and replaced by new habits of life, with greater demands for comforts and enjoyments.' High prices previously realized for timber had caused luxury to enter into all the circumstances of life, stimulating in many quarters a reckless waste of money earned.' In another, 'the demand for comforts of life has risen, and it is not all that have found it easy to limit the satisfaction of their wants,' and 'more has been consumed than means allowed.' The female part, more particularly, of the population of North Bergen, is reproached with an inability to withstand the temptation of buying the wares of all kinds, 'neither useful nor necessary,' which the present great number of country storekeepers insidiously placed before their eyes. 'The improved mode of living introduced during a previous, flourishing period, has also contributed to ruin the economic condition of the people, who in the harder times that have succeeded have not known how to cut their coats according to their cloth.' At the same time, the Prefect adds, 'the mode of living, taking the rural population as a whole, is very frugal; yes, far too frugal. It is very desirable that they should have more substantial food than they have at present, but they must first have the means to obtain it.' Even so far north as the Provinces of Nordland and Tromsö, a similar tendency to live beyond means, the absence of good economy, and the dissipation of money 'on no particular system,' are reported to be the present characteristics of the people who are largely engaged in the fisheries.
No one who has travelled in Norway can fail to endorse the assertion, that the fare of the yeomen farmer, however many may be his cows, is of a character which no English agricultural labourer would be satisfied with. Oatmeal cakes, potatoes, porridge, butter and milk, and of late years American pork (when within reach of the yeoman's means) are the principal articles of food; and the hardiest traveller, whether native or alien, would not venture to leave the main arteries of communication without making his own provision of potted meats, or trusting for his sustenance to the fish and game to be killed by himself. Mr. Laing's 'salted meat and black-puddings' are certainly not to be found, except at farms that are few and far between. On the high roads, where tourists' gold circulates, the traveller suffers no deprivation, and the houses and stations are so comfortable and well-appointed, that only the most exacting foreigner can find fault with the accommodation provided. Mr. Laing's observations in this respect apply at present only to establishments of this kind, and to the very few farms at which the servants are still 'called to and from their work by means of a bell.'
Except, therefore, along the course of the tourists' gold stream, and in the vicinity of towns, the mode of living is rude in the extreme, and the lament of the Prefect of North Bergen is in reality applicable to the great bulk of the yeomen farmers of Norway, as well as to their tenants and cotters. Nor is there any trace of that equality in the mode of living which Mr. Laing found in existence among the several classes of the rural population—'the public functionary, the clergyman, the gentleman of larger property, and the Bonde or peasant.' Refinement and culture, equal to what exists amongst corresponding classes of this country, are wanting only to the yeomen farmers; and their efforts to adopt a 'higher standard of living,' and to acquire the 'comforts of life,' have in no small degree conduced to the encumbrance of their estates. From the Reports of the Prefects it is evident that the gravest symptom of the decline of the rural economy in Norway, and, at the same time, one of its principle causes, is the heavy indebtedness of the yeomen farmers, great and small. Its origin is traceable to the year 1816, when the Bank of Norway was founded, chiefly for the purpose of 'advancing on its own notes, upon first securities over land, any sum not exceeding two-thirds of the value of the property' mortgaged to it. Mr. Laing alludes to it as 'the peculiar, and for the wants of the country, well-imagined, Bank of Norway,' which 'facilitates greatly the family arrangements with regard to land.' Its capital was originally raised by a forced loan or tax upon all landed property, and the landholders became shareholders according to the amount of their respective shares. The borrower repaid half-yearly to the Bank the interest of the sum that might be to his debit at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum, and was also bound to pay off 5 per cent. yearly of the principal, which was thus liquidated in twenty years. Although Mr. Laing was of opinion that 'a circulation of paper money on such a basis is evidently next, in point of security, to that of the precious metals,' he fails to mention that the Bank was forced to suspend specie payments three years after its establishment, and that the resumption of those payments was not commenced until 1823, when the notes of the Bank began to be convertible at little over half their original value; the operation of raising them to par, on a graduated scale, having been completed only in 1842, a period since which the Bank, with an increased Reserve Fund, has maintained an uninterrupted and unimpeachable stability. But while the Bank still advances money on the security of landed property, two-thirds of its resources are now employed in the discount of mercantile bills. At the end of 1883, its loans to the landed proprietors amounted only to 626,000l.
In 1852, however, the State had come again to the assistance of the landowners for the extinction of private mortgages and the consolidation of old debts by the creation of a special 'State Mortgage Bank,' with an original capital of 291,000l., increased by successive issues of bonds representing advances on the security of real property, bearing interest at the rate of 4 per cent, (at present 4-1/2 per cent.), and repayable by drawings over a period of thirty years. The amount of the bonds issued up to 1884 was about 3,812,000l., and in 1878 about three-quarters of the bonds were held in the country itself, their market value being still almost at par.
It is principally into this Bank that the yeomen farmers have been dipping their estates at a rapidly increasing rate. Thus, while the loans on the security of real property in rural districts averaged 57,500l. per annum between 1853 and 1855, and 220,600l. between 1876 and 1880, the advances made in 1883 amounted to 396,500l. At the end of that year the balance of outstanding loans had reached the sum of 3,752,000l., of which about 77 per cent., or 2,889,000l., represented advances in rural districts, the remaining 23 per cent, having been borrowed in towns. The interest payable on those loans is respectively 4-1/4 and 4-3/4 per cent., according to whether the borrowers have been supplied with bonds bearing interest at the rate of 4 or 4-1/2 per cent. per annum; and 3 per cent. of the capital is repayable per annum until the extinction of the debt over a period of thirty years.
There is a third public source available to the landed proprietors for loans on mortgages and on bonds or bills, namely the Savings Banks. In 1884, the savings-banks, in rural districts alone, held in 'mortgage bonds' and in 'bonds and bills' a sum of about 3,553,000l.; but in what proportion that debt was incurred by local traders and by farmers, it is impossible to say. It is, however, clear that the yeomen farmers have benefited largely by the deposits made in those banks by the comparatively few who have been able to accumulate, instead of borrowing, money. Thus, the Prefect of Hedemarken reports that, 'while large amounts, realized by the sale of timber, were deposited in the savings-banks, extensive loans were made by those establishments to persons in less favourable circumstances,' and that 'the savings-banks, to be found in so many parishes, have, by the easy access they afford to loans, beguiled many into a needless borrowing of money, subsequently squandered.'
Over and above these facilities for borrowing money from public institutions, the yeomen farmers are undoubtedly heavily in debt to local storekeepers, and to merchants and traders in the towns. In fact the great bulk of the landed proprietors have been borrowing in every direction as much as they could raise by mortgage or by bill. Owing to the excellent system of registration that exists in Norway, there is no difficulty in ascertaining the extent to which the charges on real property in rural districts have increased between the years 1876 and 1880. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that, between those dates, the balance of mortgages newly effected over those extinguished in rural districts amounted to a sum of about four millions sterling. The State Mortgage Bank is bound not to advance more than six-tenths of the value of land and buildings (forests excepted), and it is supposed that the loans have so far not exceeded four-tenths of the value of mortgaged property; but as the yeomen farmers generally contrive to borrow on second mortgages, it may safely be assumed, that their estates are charged with interest at 4-1/4 to 6 per cent. on a considerable part of the nominal value of what is not purely forest land, in addition to an annual repayment of 3 per cent. of the capital borrowed from the State Mortgage Bank. The forests, on the other hand, have been largely used up in paying the interest and capital on those loans, either by cutting them down, or by leasing or pawning them to traders, or to yeomen who have been able to keep their heads above water and to profit by the economic distress of the great majority of their fellow-landowners. The difficulty experienced by that majority in meeting the payment of interest and capital, especially at a time when the value of agricultural produce has been considerably diminished by American competition, and when also the competition of American and Baltic timber has simultaneously reduced the profits of the forest industry to a point that hardly repays the felling of trees, is clearly shown from the statistics of forced sales, of auctions and of distraints in the rural districts, and from an accompanying increase in the number of lawsuits before Courts of First Instance. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that the sales of real property for debt have increased in every Province between the two periods 1871-1875 and 1876-1880 to an extent that ranges from 30 per cent. to 600 per cent., the greatest increase having taken place in the Provinces of Kristiansamt (600 per cent.), Norland, Nedenæs, Buskerud, Hedemarken and Akershus, where it ranged between 600 per cent. and 146 per cent. From another official source we obtain the following statement:—