History.

A. D.

476. IV. The Burgundians and

Franks in

France.

Tribes in

was shortly to burst upon the plains of Italy; while that Country was for the present occupied by the bands of Barbarian mercenaries of various Tribes and promiscuous composition which, under Odoacer, had precipitated and completed the ruin of the Empire. Of France, besides the Southern division possessed by the Visigoths, the Burgundians had seized a second portion, and settled themselves on the Saone and Rhone in that fine tract of country which, after them, was thenceforth to acquire its distinctive title of Burgundy.† Another, and destined to be a yet more celebrated people,-the Franks, a German Tribe, or confederacy of Tribes, long seated on the Rhine, had now crossed that river, established themselves on its left bank, and torn a third fragment from the dismembered Roman Province of Gaul:‡ of which the remainder for a season longer yet acknowledged the phantom of the Imperial V. Native Sovereignty. Meanwhile, the great expanse of Germany itself, from which so many streams of populaGermany. tion had poured Westward and Southward, was still possessed by the numerous remains of its native Tribes. The Alemanni, the Thuringii, the Bavarians, and other people, occupied its Southern moiety; and the Saxons, once an obscure Gothic race from the mouth and the banks of the Elbe,§ had overspread the whole Northern portion, or at least extended their name to their association with other Tribes, from the Baltic to the Rhine. The situation of the Saxons had originally invited them to habits of maritime enterprise and piracy; and the ferocity and success of their expeditions on the Ocean had long rendered them the terror and scourge of the maritime Roman Provinces of Gaul and Britain. During the last years of the Empire, while their continental confederacy was still spreading itself through the interior of Northern Germany, invitation or accident prompted some of the associated Saxons from the seacoasts to make that first settlement in Britain, which successive fleets and swarms of their countrymen inproved into the gradual conquest and permanent possession of our island.

VI. The Saxons in England.

Aspect of Society after the establish

The signal and universal change which was wrought throughout Europe in the organization of Society by the settlement of the Barbarous nations, is a more imment of the portant subject of Historical contemplation, than the Barbarians. mere extent and division of their territorial establishments. The Philosophical business and the utility of History consist far less in the dry narration of wars and conquests, than in the illustration of those features of social policy, which have in different ages affected the moral and intellectual condition of mankind. In surveying the novel aspect of the Monarchies founded by the Barbarous nations, we are equally struck with their total unlikeness to all the societies of civilized antiquity, and with their generic and intimate resemblance to each other. This remarkable coincidence in their manners, their sentiments, and their laws, might be sufficient, if other evidence were wanting, to establish the presumption of their common origin:¶ it also facilitates the

of the Barbarian Nations.

A. D. 476.

character

Gothic na

attempt to embrace the Political state of Europe, im- Settlement mediately after the subversion of the Roman Empire, under one brief and general view. And the concentration of the picture becomes the more interesting, when we are enabled to trace in its obscure lineaments, even through the remote darkness and anarchy of Barbarism, that agreement of principles and institutions, which suggested a common law for the international relations of later times, and has produced the present harmonious system of European Government and Policy. The primitive character and condition of the Barba- Primitive rian conquerors of Europe must be studied in the living of the pages of Tacitus ;* and the wonderful fidelity of the delineation is clearly attested, and may be closely iden- tions. tified, in its perfect agreement with the manners and customs which, at the distance of three centuries, still prevailed among these nations when they emerged from the obscurity of their native forests. The same characteristics seem to have pervaded all the Tribes of Gothic or Scythian origin, who were spread over that vast region extending from the Danube and the Rhine, as far as the frozen shores of Scandinavia, and beyond the uttermost limits of Eastern Europe. They were animated by a common impatience of control and restraint, a fierce love of war and rapine, a restless necessity of excitement and change, and an equal repugnance, from indolence and contempt, for the peaceful occupations of laborious industry. These, perhaps, are no more than the ordinary features of savage life, as it has existed in all Ages and climes of the world. But the untutored mind of the great Gothic race was further distinguished by two qualities, which have not equally been found to attend the same stage of uncivilized Society. These were a noble spirit of independence in each man, and an universal respect and consideration for the weaker sex. It might be either the cause or the effect of the veneration in which they were

affinities of language, religion, manners, and physical constitution, as well as the agreement of tradition, are all opposed to his arbitrary tory chapters, and especially at p. 106-110, traced the common conclusion. Mr. Turner (Anglo-Saxons, vol. i.) has in his Introducand Scythian origin of the German or Gothic nations with equal ingenuity and caution, erudition and judgment.

De Moribus German. c. i-xlvi.

An elegant and Philosophical writer has contented himself with observing of the institutions of the Barbarians in their native forests, that they were "such as travellers have found among nations in the same stage of manners throughout the world." (Hallam, View of the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 143.) But his acute spirit of research would entitle him to decide, and must oblige him to admit, that, in no other portion or Age of the world, has any trait of manners been discovered among savage nations at all analogous to the respect and manly consideration in which the Gothic nations held their women. Robertson, (ubi suprà,) to maintain his denial of a common origin condition sufficiently accounts for identity of social characteristics; to those nations, has laboured to prove that similarity of political and he has accordingly instituted a parallel between the Gothic Tribes and North American Indians. But, with respect to the greatest distinction, of the state of Woman, which he prudently passes over in silence, this comparison is peculiarly infelicitous for the support of his theory. The North American squaw is the slave of a brutal tyrant; and hers is no more than the ordinary lot of Woman in savage life, from which, indeed, she has not always been emancipated in more advanced stages of Society. We justly hold the respectful treatment of Woman to be in itself the test of civilization: but the homage of our Gothic ancestors to the weaker sex had no precedent among the most polished people of antiquity; and the devoted sentiment of these rude Barbarians might here put to shame the boasted refinement of Greece and Rome. From the Gothic spirit aione, and not the classical, do we derive that deference for the softer sex-the source of all social elegance-which so remarkably distinguishes modern from ancient manuers.

dition of

Europe.

History. held, that the Gothic women were chaste and highminded: but, to the blended influence of these unusual A. D. traits of savage life in both sexes, may at least with 476. safety be ascribed much of the peculiar character, which the Northern nations exhibited in their new settlements. Its induence Conscious superiority of valour and a thirst for on the con- warlike glory had made them an Order of irresistible conquerors: the pride of individual independence rendered them nations of freemen. A sentiment of personal dignity begot the principle of personal honour and faithfulness; and the estimation which Woman preserved in their societies gradually, as the Arts of luxury and elegance began to be cultivated, moulded their fierce manners into the softer forms of assiduous gallanUltimately try. Such were the germs of those later institutions, beneficial, which we shall hereafter observe, producing the vigorous and graceful shoots of modern civilization and freedom of the Feudal compact which, though in the midst of disorder and rapine, inculcated, as far as it extended, the reciprocal claims of protection and fidelity, of prescriptive right and honourable obligation: of the loftier spirit of chivalry, with its beautiful code of social duties and courtesies, which, when refined by the generous pursuits of Literature, and chastened by the higher morality of the Gospel, has engendered all that is humane and delightful in the polished intercourse of modern life.

Anarchy

news of the

But Ages.

But not im- But we should greatly err in our estimate of the state mediately of Europe during many centuries after the settlement of the Barbarian nations, if we imagined that they were times either of virtue or happiness. It is necessary to guard against the mistake of confounding the attendant and the ultimate consequences of that great moral convulsion, which swept away the landmarks of ancient civilization, and inundated the Earth with a new deluge of Barbarism. The immediate circumstances of military conquest are little favourable to the course of human improvement. In the insolence of success, the fierce and wicked-impulses of a rude and warlike race were indulged without restraint, and generated with appalling intensity. Violence and spoliation, oppression and injustice, were the natural passions of Barbarians, who recognised, in practice at least, no other law than force, and no rights except those of the bravest and strongest. But these savage vices were frightfully multiplied and deepened in atrocity by the new incentives to Evil which property engendered, and the rapacious cravings which grew with increasing wants. The ignorant Barbarian of the Northern forests was single-minded in his ferocity: his descendant, the Prince or the Noble of the Dark Ages, with scarcely more mental illumination, was often perfidious and cruel, as well as bold and tyrannical, in the perpetration of wrong: insatiable, revengeful, and remorseless, in the struggle of avarice, of hate, or of ambition. In pursuing the annals of the first six centuries which followed the settlement of the Northern nations, we are presented only with an unrelieved and revolting picture of public wickedness, and shocked by the union of savage and licentious manners. In the long and gloomy waste of these six hundred years, there is scarcely a single spot on which the mind can repose with interest or satisfaction; and to every part we may almost equally extend the reprobation which a great authority has applied to a single Age of it: that it would be difficult within the same Historical space to find more vice and less virtue.*

* Gibbou, Decline and Fall, &c. vol. vi. p. 340.

of the Barbarian Nations.

A. D.

476.

Roman

If we were not to direct our views beyond the condi- Settlement tion of Europe during this dismal epoch of violence and wretchedness, humanity might, perhaps, seem to have gained little by the destruction of the Roman despotism. But the seeds of improvement in the Barbarian communities were abundant, though long smothered and latent: the turpitude of the system which they overthrew had become incurable. The Northern Previous nations, amidst their disorders, were at least free, hardy, corruption and brave; in the race of degenerate and pusillani- of the mous slaves who still presumed to arrogate the Roman world. name in the Capitals and the Provinces of the Empire, every spark of manly courage and intellectual force had long been totally extinguished. The pillaged wealth and the contagious luxury of the East had originally debauched the simplicity of Roman manners, and sapped the vitals of the mighty Republic; and after the last image of liberty and political virtue had perished, the Empire had gradually swollen into one huge confluent mass of voluptuousness and depravity. An abject and lethargic submission to an universal tyranny everywhere extended the influence of the same effeminate vices. Under the degrading despotism of the Cæsars, the Roman World had sunk into such a state of utter and hopeless sloth and corruption, that nothing less than the total dissolution of the existing elements of society could have rekindled the moral vitality, and reanimated the mental powers of mankind.

The vigour of the Barbarian character and institu- Slow imtions infused this fresh and more healthful spirit into a provement of Society diseased and sluggish body. With their new feelings from the and habits, the Northern conquerors doubtless intro- Barbarian duced their own strong passions and violent crimes; conquests. but the impetuous tendency to vicious excesses was mingled with better capacities for generous sentiment and virtuous action; and the furious collision of savage energies evolved the highest faculties of our nature. The long and painful transition from Barbarism to refinement convulsed the aspect of Europe for many Ages; but when the struggling rays of knowledge began at length to pierce through the thick clouds and darkness which had shrouded the Earth, and the pure light of Religious reformation afterwards broke over the troubled scene, its tempestuous agitations readily subsided into the fair forms of civilization and order.

rians.

The rude Political institutions which the Northern Political inconquerors introduced in their new seats were, like stitutions of their generic manners and qualities, the natural products the Barbaof their primitive condition. The Kings whom, by a mixture of hereditary and elective preference, it had been the custom of the German or Gothic Tribes to take out of particular families, were the leaders of their armies, and became the Sovereigns of their new monarchies. But the authority of the Kings was so ex- Limited autremely limited that they were no more than the Chief- thority of tains of voluntary associations of freemen. Every their Sovearmy or nation (and the term was here synonymous) was a military democracy, whose choice placed the General or Prince at its head, and whose assembled and deliberate voice, whether in the camp or the settlement, was equally required for the sanction of all measures of importance. Other Chiefs there were of and subordinate rank to the King, both for the guidance of Chieftains. the Tribe in war, and for the exercise of the judicial functions, if such they might be called, among the turbulent and uncontrollable community.*

* Tacitus, ubi suprà.

reigns,

But these individuals owed their preference entirely to their reputation for superior worth in valour and activity, wisdom and skill. As it rested with every freeman to choose whether he would dwell or march with his Tribe at all, so every freeman who engaged himself of his own good accord in a warlike enterprise, was equally at liberty to attach himself to whichever Chieftain he would. The rank of each leader was therefore determined only by the estimation which he had won in his Tribe, and the number of his brother freemen who were converted by their respect for him into his followers. He was less their Chief than their chosen of companions: they were not so much his mere soldiers, or dependents, as his self-appointed associates in the forest and the field, his emulous comrades in the battle and the chase, and his devoted guard and protection in every peril. It was their pride to share the renown of a distinguished warrior: his to be surrounded by a band of the most gallant and fiery youth of the Tribe. The hope of conquest and plunder made the relation one of ambition and cupidity: but it was equally on both sides the result of free choice; and the interchange of faithful services and lavish generosity converted it into a mutual obligation of attachment and gratitude.*

When the Barbarians settled themselves in the conquered Provinces of the Empire, the polity of their new Kingdoms reflected the image of their Camps. The lands of which they dispossessed the ancient population were everywhere parcelled out among the King, the Chiefs, and the warriors of each army. The degree of this spoliation varied in the practice of the different nations; but the same principle of forcible acquisition was adopted by all. In Italy, the followers of Odoacer, and after them the Ostrogoths, were contented with a third part of all the lands, and left the remainder to the Roman population :† at a later period the Lombards, when they overthrew the Ostrogothic Monarchy, abstained from seizing the soil, but equally extorted a third part of its produce from the servile cultivators. In Spain and France, the Visigoths and Burgundians took two thirds of the subject lands;§ and the Franks made an uncertain, and, perhaps, a more arbitrary division, by general agreement, or individual violence. In Britain, the Saxons, a yet more savage and ruthless nation of the race, seized the whole country; and, in the progress of their conquests, either extirpated the Keltic population, or, more probably, fixed them in permanent bondage to the soil.

The scale by which the distribution of the conquered lands was regulated among the Barbarians, has escaped every effort of modern research: but there can be no doubt that it was unequal. The Sovereign had naturally by far the largest share in the division; and his demesnes were the source from which, in later Ages, the Royal bounty flowed to Provincial Governors, and

of the Barbarian Nations.

A. D.

476.

to various favoured subjects, in the shape of benefices Settlemen The or gifts of lands,-the origin of the Feudal fiefs.* Chieftains also, according to the rank and estimation which they had obtained among their Tribes, acquired a commensurate proportion of the territorial spoil; but every freeman and warrior received at least some share. All these lands were originally held without any other condition than the tacit obligation of the owner to appear in arms for the public defence; and the nature of their acquisition and tenure became afterwards contradistinguished from the benefices of feudal creation by the term of alodial, or obtained by lot. With the duty of military service to the community, the independent alodialist retained his place in its Constitution and his voice in the General Assembly of the nation; and thus the rugged features of a free and warlike Democracy were still presented under the settled form of Monarchical Government.

which it

power of

This bold aspect of Barbarian liberty, however, was Political gradually modified in character, and affected in dura- changes to tion, by the particular fortunes of each State. In the gradually Royal line, the Crown became more decidedly here- fed. ditary, and its powers were extended and habitually Increased recognised. The Provincial Governors of Royal ap- Crown pointment, the Dukes and their subordinates, the and AristoCounts, whose original duties were only to administer сгасу. justice in their districts, and to lead the free proprietors on occasion into the field, began to acquire the personal and even the hereditary influence of a noble aristocracy. To a people, no longer collected in migratory camps, Depression but dispersed in their fixed settlements over the surface of the mass of a subject Country, it was found an impracticable of freeme. effort, or intolerable burthen, to attend the national assemblies; and with the disuse of the duty, was naturally lost the enjoyment of its privileges. The assemblies were frequented by, and in time composed only of, the chief proprietors, the Provincial Governors, and the great functionaries of the nation. The mass of freemen, or lesser alodialists, by degrees lost their estimation, their importance, and some of their rights in the community. But the spirit of liberty, nevertheless, Transition was not extinguished in the State. It only passed away to the aris for a time, among the Dukes, the Counts, and the pos- tocratical sessors of great estates, to reappear in a more general form. form. From them it slowly returned its diffusion throughout that great landed aristocracy, which, with its chain of descending ranks and reciprocal obligations, at length completed the bonds of the Feudal relation. But it was not until the distance of four or five centuries from the settlement of the Barbarian Kingdoms, that this revolution was principally accomplished. It had its remote causes in the original inequality of the division of lands at the subversion of the Roman Empire, but not its immediate birth in that event; and the rise and growth of the FEUDAL SYSTEM will, more properly, demand our attention at a later stage in the great epoch before us.

of liberty

The similar forms of manners and policy which are Laws of observable in the Gothic nations, were naturally re- Barbari peated in their jurisprudence; and the same features, for the most part, pervade all the Barbarian codes. These, which were reduced to writing, on the introduction of Letters among the conquerors, at various periods after the settlement of the new Kingdoms, did little

* Du Cange, Glossarium, ad vv. Beneficium and Feudum. See also latter word in Spelman's Glossary. † Du Cange, v. Alodis.

476.

ipuary nd Salic des of

he various German,

History. more, it may be concluded, than embody the oral traditions and practice of their customary Law. The A. D. Ripuary and Salic codes, by which the Franks were governed, seem to have been the earliest that were either distinctly originated or formally promulgated. The completion of the Visigothic and Burgundian laws was Franks, the work, and bears the impress, of a rather later The Bur period; and it was not until the middle of the VIIth undian and century that those of the Lombards in their Italian Visigothic, Kingdom, which have been esteemed the least imperfect of all the Barbarian codes, were solemnly ratified by the consent of the Sovereign and the People, and recorded in Teutonic Latin.† The Ostrogoths in Italy had previously shown more desire to embrace the rules of the Roman legislation, than to consolidate their own and Anglo- institutions: but the German codes of the Alemanni, the Bavarians, the Thuringians, and the Saxons, breathe the native spirit of the Barbarian communities; and the jurisprudence which the latter people established at a subsequent period, and in a great degree perpetuated in our island, is clearly deducible from the same source.§

i

Saron

codes.

Pecuniary

tion for

crimes.

cide.

An analysis of these various but similar Barbarian Compensa codes is denied by our limits, and would be foreign to our purpose; but a brief notice of their leading and common characteristics may sufficiently illustrate the condition of Society under their influence. Their most remarkable feature is the principle of pecuniary compensation for crimes, which extends almost universally throughout them. In Ages when violence and injustice were regarded less as offences against the peace of the community than as individual wrongs, and when revenge for injuries was exercised as a personal and exclusive right, this principle of compensation marks the first persuasive effort of the legislator to mitigate the ferocity of passions, which he wanted the power to For bomi- control. In the cupidity which was nourished by the new distinctions of wealth, the Barbarian was induced to estimate even the price of blood; and when this commutation for sanguinary vengeance was once recognised, the graduated fine of atonement for the life of a relative, for a wound, a blow, or even an opprobrious word, was readily established: measured with the same scrupulous diligence, and accepted with the same facility. By the Salic, the Lombard, the Saxon, and other Teutonic Law, the weregild was in general regulated by the rank of the murdered person, and always payable to his family. Among the Franks, the life of an Antrustion, or nobleman, was valued at 600 pieces of gold, and that of a Barbarian freeman at 200; while the ignominious existence of an ordinary Roman or Gaul was rated in the descending scale at the lowest worth of 50 pieces. The life of every Lombard freeman seems to have been protected by the general fine of 900 * See these several codes in the fourth volume of the Benedictine Collection, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France.

This code is printed in the first volume of Muratori's great collection, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum.

For these German codes the reader is referred to the collection of Lindenbrogius, Codex Legum Antiq. fol.

§ A learned writer concludes that, of the earliest legislation of the Saxons on the Continent and in England, very little can be ascertained on authority sufficiently ancient. Turner, Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 528. But see the first volume of the collection of Leibnitz, Scriptores Rer. Brunswicensium, which Mr. Turner has not noticed.

Leges Salica, c. 43—58. (in vol. iv. of the Benedictine Recueil des Historiens, &c.) Leges (Langob.) Rotharis, (apud Muratori,) p.1-169. Leges Anglo-Saxonicæ, c. 43-110. (apud Wilkins, folio, 1721.)

VOL. XI.

of the Barbarian Nations.

A. D. 476.

pieces of gold; but the weregild of the classes of our Settlement free Saxon population varied from 12 to 200 solidi. The life of the King rose in value to six times the higher sum; but that of a native Briton or Welchman, even if free, was prized but at twenty shillings.* The Burgundians and Visigoths, indeed, who by the priority of their settlements in the Empire, had somewhat the advance of the other Northern nations in civilization, visited the crime of murder with death;† and their example was successively imitated by the other continental people, until, before the end of the VIIIth century, the capital punishment of homicide had been universally introduced among them.

offences.

But the compensation by fine for all lesser crimes had And for been equally preserved in the Burgundian and Visi- lesser gothic, as in the other Barbaric codes; and, in all, the nice regulation of the scale is worthy of remark, as proving how universally the right of private satisfaction for injuries was recognised, and how carefully the persons and property of individuals were protected. In any of these Constitutions we must not, indeed, look for express acknowledgments of the rights of the people, of the prerogatives of the aristocracy, or of the limits imposed on the regal and executive authority. All these existed independently of the laws: but the circumstance which characterized nations of uncivilized freemen was the regulation of punishments for each offence with a precision that might appear ludicrous in our eyes, if we could forget that, in a rude and turbulent Age, it formed the only security of individuals against arbitrary inflictions.

The modes of judicial trial—if it deserves the name Modes of juwhich were sanctioned by all the Gothic codes, afford dicial trial. a more strange and unfavourable picture of manners; and exhibit the union of Barbarian simplicity, superstition, and ferocity. These were the various expedients of purgation by oath, and of the "Judgments of God," or ordeal by fire and water and by single combat. In the first instance, the accused party was allowed to jus- By compur tify his innocence by the oaths of a certain number of gation. friendly witnesses, or compurgators, who solemnly declared their belief that he was not guilty. It was probably the gross and manifest perjury incited and produced by this custom, which prompted the legislator to supply the defects of human testimony by the ordeal of fire and water. This was founded on the belief Judgments that the justice of Heaven would interpose to protect of God.the innocent or discover the guilty: upon the fanciful By the absurdity that fire would not burn the one, nor the pure fire and element of water suffer the other to sink into its bosom.§ water In the latter case, the accused was thrown into the water, and was innocent if he sank, guilty if he floated. The modes of the fiery ordeal which were most in use consisted in handling a hot mass of iron, or plunging the arm into boiling water. If the limb healed without surgical assistance in three days, the accused was acquitted: if not, he suffered the penalty of his offence. That the test was faithful, credulity itself may now refuse to believe: that many persons established the opinion of their innocence by its means, numerous records of the times will not permit us to doubt; but in any case it is impossible to determine the measure of

*Eædem. Ibid.

+ Leges Burgund. tit. ii. Leges Wisigoth. lib. vi. tit. v. both in the Benedictine Collection. Gibbon, vol. vi, p. 351. Ibid.

2 N

ordeal of

A. D.

476. By single combat.

History. fraud or of accident which may have contributed to the result.* The ordeal by fire and water appears to have been employed only for the determination of felonious guilt the judgment of God by single and mortal combat, which gradually superseded it, was challenged indifferently in all ordinary claims of property and civil litigation, as well as in criminal trials. The wager of battle was congenial to the fierce sentiment of a warlike race, who could not believe that a brave man deserved to suffer, or that a coward deserved to live.t This absurd and cruel appeal from doubtful right to superior prowess and strength, which oppressed the weak, who most needed protection, and favoured the brutal insolence and triumph of force, was long the stain and reproach of the Gothic communities. It little mended the evil that the peaceful and the feeble-ecclesiastics, women, and aged and infirm persons-were permitted to intrust the safety of their lives, or the assertion of their rights, to the uncertain superiority or questionable faith of a friendly, or more frequently a mercenary, champion. The sanctuary of justice was, at best, wantonly defiled with blood; and human life must have been perpetually sacrificed in the unsuccessful cause of innocence and right. The enlightened Barbarian who, in the VIIIth century, acknowledged and condemned the impious abuse of the judgment of God, was still compelled to concede its practice to the sanguinary prejudices of his people and his times; and the reign of judicial violence, which the wisdom and humanity of the Lombard Prince could not arrest, nor the uniform censures of the Church discourage, continued more or less throughout the middle Ages to deform the jurisprudence of Europe.§ In a review of the Barbarian polity, the condition to conquered which it reduced the Roman Provincials, or native inpopulation, habitants of the conquered Countries, who formed so Provincials. large a portion of the European population, naturally

State of the

or Roman

deserves our attention. On this subject, the inequality of the weregild, or composition for homicide, affords some remarkable evidence. By the laws of the Franks and Saxons, we have seen that the life of a Roman or native was avowedly rated at a far less price than that of a Barbarian; and the codes of the Lombards and Burgundians also prescribed the distinction of races between the conquerors and the conquered. The more liberal institutions of the Visigothic Monarchy of Spain alone laboured to unite both people under the same legislative Government. But, with perhaps some exception in this instance, there can be no doubt that in all the Countries which were subjugated by the Barbarians, they had condemned at least a portion of the rural inhabitants to a state of servitude, that was only more or less modified by the accidents of conquest. Under the Franks, one class of the Gaulish population

* Compare, on this curious subject, so far as regards the practice of our Saxon ancestors, the remarks of Mr. Turner (Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii. p. 585-8) and of Dr. Lingard, (History of England, vol. i. p. 495.) The Protestant Historian ingeniously exposes the facility and temptation of fraud on the part of the clergy, to whose discretion the process was committed. The Roman Catholic Historian refuses the conclusion, with a positiveness that would scarcely leave any other inference than that of a miraculous interposition. + Gibbon, ubi suprà.

Luitprand. Leges Langob. in Muratori, vol. ii. p. 65.

§ The best philosophical commentary on the laws of the Barba rians will be found in Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des Loix, lib. xviii. -xxxi.; and the analysis has been admirably reviewed and condensed by Gibbon, ch. xxxviii. ;-from which many of the remarks in the text have been borrowed.

of the Barbaria Nations

A. D. 476.

certainly retained lands of their own, exempt from tri- Settlene bute, and enjoyed freedom and consideration, inferior only in degree to that of the conquerors. But another, and probably the larger proportion of the natives, were reduced to cultivate for their Barbarian masters the estates which the latter had seized; and these Roman tributaries, as they were called, seem to have been For the forced into a situation little better than that of absolute most part bondage to the soil. In Britain, as we have observed, one of se the Saxons subjected the remains of the Keltic race in general to the lowest condition of predial and domestic servitude; and in Italy the whole agricultural population were almost equally the slaves of the Lombard freemen; since they were originally divided among the Barbarians throughout the whole extent of the land, and compelled to pay a third part of its produce to their foreign masters.

vitude.

The cruel and degrading institution of personal ser- Personal vitude was not introduced by the Barbarians: it had slavery. prevailed from all antiquity, and was universally in existence in the Roman World. But the Northern conquerors had certainly multiplied the number of unhappy persons in that condition; for, like the other ancient nations, they made slaves of their unredeemed captives who had been taken in war, as well as of a portion of the peaceable inhabitants of the Countries in which they settled. And their customs, unlike those of the Roman jurisprudence, permitted even the national freemen to be reduced to slavery by crime, by want of means to discharge their debts, and even by their own suicidal act, the consequence of distress or loss în gaming, or other imprudence.† After the Barbarian settlements in the new Kingdoms, these fatal surrenders of personal liberty were familiarly practised among them. In seasons of famine, which perpetual wars and the miserable state of cultivation rendered frequent, artisans and labourers were compelled to sell themselves for bread. Others became slaves to secure the protection of the powerful; many from inability to pay the pecuniary fines for crime; and some even sur rendered themselves to Churches and Monasteries, from the strange superstition of exchanging temporal liberty and property for such benefits as they might reap from the prayers of their new masters.‡

Aggravated by the consequences of these barbarous Its inc practices, the yoke which the free Northern conquerors among had imposed upon a great mass of the native and subject Barba inhabitants recoiled heavily upon their own race. Histo- thems rians have seldom insisted sufficiently upon the effects which the policy or violence of the Northern nations in their conquests produced to the corruption of their own rude liberty. Yet it is certain, that their laws and customs had a pernicious and rapid tendency to enslave the majority of their own independent population. Through personal servitude was continually on the increase; the obscurity of the Dark Ages, we may discern that that the lords of large possessions and numerous tributaries easily acquired the more strength thereby to oppress their defenceless neighbours; and that the number of free alodialists of small property was constantly diminishing, by the facility with which their

*See the satisfactory conclusions of Montesquieu on this subject generally, Esprit des Loix, lib. xxx. c. 13.

The Anglo-Saxon laws even formally established a regular ceremony for this degradation, voluntary or compulsory. Leges, 291. See the various examples of all these practices collected by Mr. Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 216–218.