The English Village Community / Examined in its Relations to the Manorial and Tribal Systems and to the Common or Open Field System of Husbandry; An Essay in Economic History (Reprinted from the Fourth Edition)

by Frederic Seebohm

Probable prevalence of the rule of single succession.

Now it must be remembered that the legal theory as regards that part of the provincial land which was not centuriated and allotted to the soldiers of the conquering Roman army as a 'colonia,' but left in the possession of the old barbarian inhabitants, was that the latter were merely usufructuary tenants, paying tribute for the use of the land which belonged now to the conquerors.[459] And although quasi-rights of inheritance, founded perhaps more upon barbarian usage than direct Roman law, probably grew up generally in the more settled districts of Gaul and the two Germanies, yet there may well have been grades of tenants, some with rights of inheritance and some without them. It may well be questioned whether, in the case of the 'læti' and other semi-servile tenants, hereditary rights were generally recognised. If we take into account the tendency we have noticed in the management of the provincial domains towards manorial methods and usages, it seems at least probable that the semi-servile classes of tenants under [p311] the imperial military and fiscal officers were placed much in the same position as the coloni on private villas; that, in fact, their tenure was only a usufruct for life or at will—a tenure to which, by custom, the single succession would be a natural incident.

The Romans adapted themselves to existing usages.

Passing now specially to the tenants on the 'Agri Decumates' and other tithe lands north of the Alps, and asking what were their rules of succession and methods of husbandry, perhaps sufficient stress has not always been laid upon the elasticity with which Roman provincial management adopted local customs and adapted itself to the local circumstances of a widely extended empire. We know little of the methods and rules adopted in the management of the 'tithe lands,' but if the foregoing considerations be sound, it may be that but little change was needful to convert their tenants into serfs on a manorial estate. They may have had but little to gain or to lose, or even to alter in their habits, in exchanging the rule of the imperial fiscal officers for the lordship of the later manorial lord.

Management of tithe lands. Modern Eastern example.

It is much to be hoped that more light may ere long be thrown upon this obscure subject by students of provincial law and the barbarian codes. In the meantime it may be possible, perhaps—so slowly do things change in the East—that an actual modern example taken from thence of the customary mode of managing public tithe lands at the present moment in what was once a Roman province might be a better guide to a correct conception of what went on 1,500 years ago on the 'Agri Decumates' than we could easily get in any other way.

The Syrian code of fifth century.

The Roman province of Syria is peculiarly [p312] interesting, because the Roman code[460] applying to it in the fifth century happens to remain, and to afford interesting evidence of adaptation to local customs in a district unique in the advantage that its usages, little altered by the lapse of time, can be studied as well in the parables of the New Testament as on its actual fields to-day.

The 'Pflicht-theil' in Syria and in Bavaria of Roman origin.

Sir Henry S. Maine[461] has recently referred to the parable of the 'Prodigal Son' as illustrating the custom still followed in Turkey of sons taking their portions during the parent's lifetime, leaving one home-staying son to become the single successor to the remainder, including the family homestead and land.