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LECTURE 12 Ancient institutions ofthe Franks. ~ They are more difficult ofstudy than those oftheAnglo-Saxons. ~ Three kinds oflandedproperty; allodial , benificiary, and tributary lands. ~ Origin ofallodial lands. Meaning ofthe wordallodium. ~ Salic landamongst the Franks. ~ Essential characteristics ofthe allods. T.m primitive institutions ofthe Franks are much more difficult ofstudy than those ofthe Anglo-Saxons. I. In the Frankish monarchy, the old Gallo-Roman people still subsisted; they in part retained their laws and customs; their language even predominated; Gaul was more civilised, more organised, more Romanised than Great Britain, in which nearly all the original inhabitants ofthe countrywere either destroyed or dispersed. II. Gaul was divided among various barbarian peoples, each ofwhom had its own laws, its own kingdom, its own history; the Franks, the Visigoths, the Burgundians; and the continual alternations ofthe Frankish monarchy between dislocation and re-union, long destroyed all unity in its history. III. The conquerors were dispersed over a much larger extent ofterritory; and central institutions were weaker, more diverse, and more complicated. IV. Ofthe two systems ofsocial and political order, contained in the cradle of modern nations-I mean the feudal system and the representative system -the latter has long prevailed in England, while the former long maintained its sway in France. The ancient national institutions ofthe Franks were absorbed into the feudal system, in whose train came absolute power. Those of the Saxons, on the other hand, were more or less maintained and perpetuated, to end at length in the representative system, which rendered them clear by giving them due development. Perhaps, also, the difficulty of the study of the ancient Frankish institutions arises in some measure from the fact that we possess more documents respecting the Franks than respecting the Saxons. Because we are acquainted with REPRESENTATIVE INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND SPAIN more facts, we have greater trouble in harmonizing them. We believe we are better informed because we know less. Such being the case, I wish to state with precision the object of my researches , so as not to lose time in useless digressions. I do not propose that we should study together either the state ofFrankish society in all its departments, or the history of all its vicissitudes. I am desirous to investigate and explain to you, first, what constituted in France, from the fifth to the tenth century, the political part of the nation, possessing political rights and liberties; and secondly , by what institutions these rights were exercised, and these liberties guaranteed . We shall frequently be obliged to make excursions beyond these limits in search of the facts necessary to the solution of the questions contained therein; but we shall not dwell long upon such extraneous matter. In the pursuit ofthis study, we shall find the works ofGerman authors of incontestable utility. A principal cause ofthe errors ofthe leading French writers who have treated ofthe subject, is that they have attempted to derive all our institutions from Germany, from the condition of the Franks before the invasion , and that, at the same time, they have been unacquainted with the language , the history, and the learned researches of the purely German peoples, that is, of the nations which have most thoroughly retained the primitive elements of Frankish society, and which formed a considerable portion of the Frankish monarchy. Dr. Hullmann, a professor at the University ofBonn, has written a book on the origin ofthe various social states or conditions, the object ofwhich is to prove that all modern social order, political as well as civil, derives its origin from the circumstance, that the peoples ofmodern times have been agriculturists, devoted to the possession and fixed cultivation of land. This view, although incomplete , is of much importance. It is certain that, in the history of Europe, ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, the condition of persons has been closely connected with that of landed property, and that the one throws light upon the other. Though all history would not prove that this has been the case from the beginning, yet the long-continued predominance ofthe feudal system, which consists precisely in the intimate connection and amalgamation oftherelations oflands with those ofpersons, would alone be sufficient to demonstrate it unquestionably. At the outset, the condition ofpersons gave rise to that oflands; according as a man was more or less free, more or less powerful, the land which he possessed or cultivated assumed a corresponding character. The condition oflands afterwards became the symbol ofthe condition ofpersons; according as a man possessed...

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