[64] Ulpian, in the Digest, L., 15, 4: “Forma censuali cavetur ut agri sic in censum referantur: nomen fundi cujusque, arvum quot jugerum sit, vinea ... pratum, ... pascua ... silvæ.”
[65] We have shown elsewhere (Recherches sur quelques problèmes d’histoire, pp. 269-289) the mistakes which have been committed as to the words agri, occupantur, cultores, arva, mutant, superest ager. On the special meaning of occupare agrum, to put land to account by placing slaves upon it, see Columella, ii. 9; ii. 10; ii. 11; ii. 13; v. 5; v. 10; notice especially these two passages, Columella, i. 3: occupatos nexu civium aut ergastulis, and Code of Justinian, ix. 49, 7: quot mancipia in prædiis occupatis teneantur. As to the meaning of cultores, we must remember the coloni of whom Tacitus has spoken in the previous chapter. For the meaning of arva, see Varro, De re rustica, i. 29: arvum est quod aratum est; ibid., i. 13: boves ex arvo reducti; i. 19: ad jugera ducenta arvi, boum jugo duo; cf. Cicero, De republ., v. 2, and especially Digest, L., 15, 4. Mutare does not mean to exchange among themselves; to express that meaning inter se would have been needed: mutare by itself is the frequentative of movere, and means to shift. The Germans shifted their tillage, and tilled now one part, now another of the estate. If we translate each of the words of Tacitus literally, especially if we pay attention to the context and read the entire chapter, nec pomaria, nec hortos, ... sola seges, etc., we see that Tacitus is describing the method of cultivation among the Germans, and that it does not occur to him to say whether they were or were not acquainted with the system of private ownership. Do not forget, moreover, that chapter xxvi. follows chapter xxv., where Tacitus has said that the soil is cultivated by slaves, each paying certain dues to his master. After a sort of parenthesis on the freedmen, he returns to these cultores. He shows how they farm, and he blames their method. The chapter ought to be closely scanned and translated word for word with the meaning each word had in the time of Tacitus, and not hastily rendered to suit some preconceived idea.
[66] In sortem alterius fuerit ingressus. In the documents from the 4th to the 8th century the word sors meant a private property: sors patrimonium significat, says the grammarian Festus. The contribution of corn is proportional, says the Theodosian code, to the extent of the properties, pro modo sortium, xi. 1,15. Cassiodorus, Letters, viii. 26: sortes propriæ. Laws of the Visigoths, viii. 8, 5: sortem suam claudere, x. 1, 7: terra in qua sortem non habet. Salic law, Behrend, p. 112: Si quis in mansionem aut sortem. Law of the Burgundians, xlvii. 3: Filii sortem parentum vel facultatem vindicabunt; lxxviii.: Si pater cum filiis sortem suam diviserit. In all these examples sors signifies property or inheritance.
[67] Lex Alamannorum, xlv. and xlvi. edit. Pertz, p. 61; edit. Lehmann, pp. 105-106.
[68] Lex Baiuwariorum, xiii, 9, Pertz, p. 316.
[69] Ibidem, xii, 8, Pertz, p. 312.
[70] Ibidem: “Hucusque antecessores mei tenuerunt et in alodem mihi reliquerunt.” The word alodis in the language of this period has no other meaning but inheritance. [On the meaning of alod see chap. iv. in the author’s work L’Alleu et le Domaine Rural, which has appeared since his death.]
[71] Maurer, Einleitung, pp. 87, 88 and 145.
[72] “Si quis tam burgundio quam romanus in silva communi exartum fecerit, aliud tantum spatii de silva hospiti suo consignet, et exartum quod fecit, remota hospitis communione, possideat.”
[73] “Quicumque in communi campo vineam plantaverit, similem campum illi restituat in cujus campo vineam posuit.”