[242] E.g., M. P. Viollet in all the latter part of the article already referred to.
V.
On community of land amongst the Gauls.
It would be indeed surprising had the supporters of this theory not applied it to the ancient Gauls. So little is known about them, that it is very tempting and not very difficult to introduce community in land into their history.
One single fact, however, ought to stand in the way; it is that Cæsar, whose book is the only authority which has historical value, nowhere tells us that land was common amongst the Gauls. His silence on this point is not a thing which can be passed over. It is, indeed, in the eyes of every one accustomed to historical research, a very significant fact. It is true that Cæsar does not expressly state that private property was the custom amongst the Gauls. For a writer who is only speaking in passing of Gallic institutions, to omit to call attention to a law of property which was in conformity with what he was accustomed to, is not the same thing as to omit to mention a communism which would be the opposite of what he was accustomed to, and which would strike him by its very strangeness. It must be noticed that Cæsar is not describing the entire social condition of the Gauls; he contents himself with mentioning those customs which have struck him as being very different from those he saw in Italy. We have only to read the ten paragraphs which he devotes to this subject, to recognise this. After describing in three paragraphs what was peculiar in their political organisation, and in three more what was peculiar in their religion, he passes on to what was peculiar in their private life, and he begins as follows—“As to the institutions of private life, the following are those wherein they differ from other nations.” By “other nations” Cæsar clearly means the nations that he knew that is, primarily, the Italians and Greeks. This opening sentence makes it plain that Cæsar intended only to tell us of characteristics which were peculiar to the Gauls. He is going to mention differences, not resemblances. If private property is the custom there as it is in Rome, it will not be necessary to say so; but if it is not the custom, he will say so. His absolute silence on this point is a proof that the Gauls did not sensibly differ from the Italians in the matter; his silence implies that they were not ignorant of private property. We must remember that the entire absence of private property would have appeared so strange to a Roman that it could not have escaped Cæsar’s notice. He observed it in Germany where he passed only eighteen days; he would certainly have discovered it in Gaul where he passed eight summers. If he does not mention community in land, it is obviously because it did not exist.
But we have evidence even more convincing. Going on to speak of the Germans, he remarks that he will explain “in what they differ from the Gauls, quo differant hae nationes inter sese” (vi., 11); and further on: “The Germans differ much from this manner of life of the Gauls, Germani multum ab hac consuetudine differunt.” He then draws the following contrast between the two nations: 1, the Germans have no Druids; 2, the Germans have not the same gods as the Gauls; 3, and lastly, the Germans have not private property. Is not this remark as to the difference between the two nations almost the same thing as if Cæsar had said that the Gauls recognised private property and held their land in individual ownership?
This is not all. Cæsar uses an expression in which he indirectly and almost unconsciously bears witness to the existence of property in land amongst the Gauls. In Book VI., Chapter 13, he says that the Druids act as judges in almost all suits, criminal as well as civil.[243] He then gives a list of the disputes brought before them, and amongst criminal offences he instances murder; amongst civil suits he mentions “those concerning inheritance or boundaries,” si de hereditate, si de finibus controversia est. If there were in Gaul suits concerning inheritance or boundaries, it must have meant that the Gauls had a system of inheritance and made use of boundaries; i.e., that land was private and hereditary property. Cæsar says elsewhere that the Germans have no fines; he says here that the Gauls have them.
We cannot say whether the institution of private property in Gaul was exactly similar to that of private property in Rome; whether it had the same legal guarantees; whether its boundaries had the same inviolable character. We do not even know if property still belonged to the family or was already in the hands of individual owners. Cæsar only tells us one thing, and that is, that it existed; for “inheritance and boundaries” are unmistakable signs of private ownership, and as clearly disprove a system of corporate land-holding.[244]
This is the conclusion to which we are brought by a simple and unbiased perusal of Cæsar’s account. But preconceptions have great force; and if a writer starts with the idea that community in land was once universal, the result will be that, in the face of all evidence, and yet in perfect good faith, he will think he finds it amongst the Gauls. One of the first scholars of the day, M. d’Arbois de Jubainville, whose works on the Middle Ages and on Irish literature have been so highly appreciated, thinks that the Gauls of the time of Cæsar were not far enough advanced in civilisation to hold private property; and setting out with this idea, the offspring of imagination, he supposes that he can see evidence of undivided tenure. The fact that Cæsar never mentions this troubles him very little. That Cæsar does mention, as a point of difference between the Germans and Gauls, that the former do not hold private property, he omits to notice. And lastly, when Cæsar refers in so many words to inheritance and boundaries amongst the Gauls, he disposes of this somewhat embarrassing statement by interpreting it in a most unexpected fashion.
In his opinion, when Cæsar mentions suits concerning inheritance, de hereditate, it is impossible that the inheritances of private persons should be in question, as the custom of inheritance did not exist. Then what was the inheritance referred to by Cæsar? According to M. de Jubainville, he was speaking of succession to the crown. Sovereignty existed; the sons of kings wished to succeed their fathers; and if a dispute arose, the Druids acted as judges. M. de Jubainville has omitted to notice that Cæsar gives at least ten instances of sons who wished to be kings like their fathers; and that in not one of these instances was the dispute carried before the Druids. It is a grave error to suppose that the Druids were accustomed to meddle in affairs of State; we have not a single example of their doing so. And yet M. de Jubainville maintains that in Cæsar de hereditate means the succession to the throne; and for this he gives the following reason,—that in another book, speaking of the Egyptians, Cæsar uses the expression hereditas regni.[245] The argument is a strange one. I reply that if Cæsar elsewhere wrote hereditas regni, it was because the word hereditas could not, when used alone, bear the meaning of the inheritance of sovereignty. It is quite certain that if Cæsar had meant to say that the Gauls brought before the Druids their disputes as to succession to the crown, he would have said de hereditate regnum.