This evidence of Salvian proves that the surrender by freemen of themselves and their property to an overlord was rapidly going on in Roman provinces during the fifth century, and this as the result of Roman misrule, not of German conquest.
IX. THE SUCCESSION TO SEMI-SERVILE HOLDINGS; AND METHODS OF CULTIVATION.
From the evidence of Salvian we can pass at once, crossing the gulf of Teutonic conquest, to that of the Alamannic and Bavarian laws and the monastic cartularies, in which we shall find the process described by Salvian still going on under German rule, and thereby holding after holding, which had once been free, falling under the manorial lordship of the monasteries. [p309]
But before we do so it may be worth while to inquire further into the position, under Roman rule, of the class of semi-servile tenants into which a free possessor of land descended when he made the surrender of his holding. We may ask, What was the rule of succession to semi-servile holdings? and what were the customary methods of cultivation followed by semi-servile tenants, whether upon the villa of a lord or upon the imperial domains?
The rule of single succession to a servile holding.
Salvian distinctly states, as we have seen, that upon the death of the person making the surrender to a lord, the right of inheritance was lost to his children. The holding became, on the surrender, a 'præcarium'—a tenancy at the will of the lord by way of usufruct only. This being so, any actual succession to the holding must naturally have been, not by inheritance, but, in theory at all events, by regrant from the lord to the successor—generally a single successor—for, under the circumstances, the rule of single succession would be likely to be adopted as most convenient to the landlord.
The later coloni 'usufructuarii.'
The tenants produced by commendation were, however, hardly a class by themselves. They most likely sank into the ordinary condition of the large class of 'coloni,' &c., on the great provincial estates. And there is a passage in the 'Institutes of Justinian' which incidentally seems to imply that the ordinary 'colonus' of the later empire was very nearly in the position of the 'usufructuarius,' and held a holding which, in legal theory at least, ended with his life.[458] [p310] And if this was the generally received theory of the status of semi-servile tenants on the great estates, the probability is that the practice of single succession by regrant may have followed as a matter of convenience and as an all but universal usage.
Further, if we may suppose this to have been the case on the private estates of provincial landowners, the question remains whether the semi-servile classes of tenants on the imperial domains may not have been subject to the same customary rules.
Tenants on public lands in theory 'usufructuarii.'