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Childebert, died; all the property which he had received from the fisc returned to the fisc." 1

In 660, under Theodoric, king of Austrasia, "after the death of Warratun, who had enjoyed it, the domain called Latiniacum returns to our fisc." 2

In 694, under Childebert II., "the domain called Napriniacum, which had been ceded to the illustrious Pannichius, returned to our fisc after his death."3

"Let those who hold a benefice from us be careful to improve it." 4

"Whoever holds a benefice from us must take care, as much as may be done with the aid of God, that none of the slaves which form part of it die from hunger, and must not sell the products of the soil on his own account, until he has provided for their subsistence." 5

"In 889, king Eudes conferred a domain upon Ricabod, his vassal, in benefice and usufruct, with this clause, that if Ricabod had a son, the benefice should pass to that son, but only for his life."6

Neither, then, is this a crisis of the development of beneficiary property, a degree through which it passed; it was its general and primitive condition.

At all epochs, however, amidst life benefices we find hereditary benefices. There is no reason to be surprised at this; and the so prompt tendency to hereditary possession which manifests itself in the history of benefices is not to be solely attributed to the avidity of the possessors: it arose from the very nature of territorial possession. Succession was its normal, almost necessary state, the end towards which it tended, even from its birth. Out of many reasons, I shall mention but two. From the time that a man possesses and improves an estate, whatever the manner of his possession or of his improvement, he employs upon it means which he does not draw from the soil, but from himself; by the labours which he spends upon it, by the buildings with which he covers it, he adds a certain value to the estate, and, to speak in the

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present language of political economy, he invests therein a certain capital, which, if he at any time leaves, he cannot entirely nor conveniently carry away-a capital which becomes more or less incorporated with the soil, and which cannot be entirely separated from it. Thence arises, and by the instincts of reason and justice, a certain natural tendency of all territorial property to become hereditary; a tendency especially powerful when society, still rude, knows not how to estimate the value which the possessor who is leaving it has added to the soil, and to indemnify him by other means.

Another cause concurred to the same effect. Except in extraordinary states of society, man cannot be constantly moving about and leading a wandering life in the country which he calls his native land; it is a need, a moral inclination with him to fix himself somewhere, to plant himself in a certain place: în the bosom of the political country a domestic country is necessary to him, to which he may attach himself, where he may establish his family. It is therefore the constant effort of the cultivator, of the possessor, to become perpetual proprietor.

Accordingly, by its very nature, and independently of all external circumstance, beneficiary property tended to become hereditary. This tendency, in fact, manifests itself even at the very origin of benefices, and at all epochs, it sometimes attained its end. The treaty of Andelot, concluded in 587, between Gontran and Childebert II., in speaking of the beneficiaries of queen Clotilde, sets forth:

Let the lands which it pleases the queen to confer upon any one belong to him in perpetuity, and at no time be taken from him."

the domain

The Formula of Marculf contain the following, which proves that hereditary concession, as early as the end of the seventh century, was a common practice. "We have conceded to the illustrious called We order, by the present decree, which is always to endure, that he shall keep the said domain in perpetuity, shall possess it as proprietor, and shall leave possession of it to his descendants, or to whom he will."2 Dating from Louis le Debonnaire, concessions of this kind

་ Bal., vol. i., col. 13.

2 L. i., b. 14.

became frequent; examples abound in the diplomas of this prince and of Charles le Chauve. At length the latter, in 877, formally recognises the hereditability of benefices, and, at the end of the ninth century, this was their common and prevalent condition; as in the sixth and seventh centuries the occupation for life had been the general fact.

Still, even at the ninth century, and although hereditary right prevailed, it was not yet an evident law, nor was it regarded as indubitable. The following is a fact which will clearly show what the state of mind was in this respect:

In 795, Charlemagne had given to a man named John, who had conquered the Saracens in the country of Barcelona, a domain called Fontes, situated near Narbonne, "in order that the said John and his descendants may enjoy it without trouble or rent, as long as they remain faithful to us and to our sons." In 814, Charlemagne died; in 815, the same John presented himself to Louis le Debonnaire with the hereditary donation which he held from Charlemagne, and solicited its confirmation. Louis confirmed it, and added other land, "to the end that the said John, his sons, and their posterity, may enjoy it in virtue of our gift." In 844, the emperor Louis and the beneficiary John, are dead; Teutfried, son of John, presents himself to Charles le Chauve, with the two anterior gifts, asks him to confirm them anew, and Charles does 66 So, to the end that thou and thy posterity possess their property without any rent."

Thus, despite the hereditary right of the title, whenever the beneficiary or the giver died, the possessor of the benefice thought it necessary that he should be confirmed in his possession; so strongly was the primitive idea of the personality of this relation and the right which resulted from it, engraved upon minds.1

At the end of the tenth century, when we enter truly into the feudal period, we no longer find anything of the kind; the right of fiefs, inheritance, is no longer called into doubt by any one, it has no longer any need of confirmation.

As I said, historical testimonies agree with moral probabilities. Beneficiary property, from the fifth to the tenth century, did not pass through four successive and regular

1 Essai sur l'Histoire de France, p. 145.

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states-arbitrary revocability, temporary concession, lifelong, and hereditary concession. These four states are met with at all epochs. The primitive predominance of life concession, and the constant tendency to inheritance which in the end triumphed, these only are the general conclusions which may be deduced from monuments, the true characters of the transition from benefices to fiefs.

At the same time that this transition was brought about, and beneficiary property became hereditary and stable, it also became general—that is, territorial property almost everywhere took this form. At first, you will recollect, there was a large number of freeholds, that is to say, properties entirely independent, which were not held from any one, and which owed nothing to any one. From the fifth to the tenth century, freehold property, without entirely disappearing, became gradually less extensive, and the beneficiary condition became the common condition of territorial property. The following are the principal causes of this:

It must not be supposed that when the barbarians seized upon the Roman world, they divided the territory into lots more or less considerable, and that each, taking one for himself, established himself upon it. Nothing of the kind happened. The chiefs, the men of importance, appropriated a large extent of land to themselves, and most of their companions, their men, continued to live with them in their houses, always attached to their person. Freemen, Franks, Burgundians, &c., living upon the estates of others, is a factwhich is met with at every step in the monuments of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries.

But the inclination and desire for territorial property were not long in spreading. In proportion as the habits of the wandering life left them, a greater number of men wished to become proprietors. Besides, money was rare; land, so to speak, was the most common, the most disposable coin; it was employed to repay all sorts of services. The possessors of large domains distributed them among their companions by way of payment. We read, in the capitularies of Charle

magne

"Let any steward (villicus) of one of our domains, who possesses a benefice, send a substitute into our domain to

overlook in his stead the works and all the care of our Land"!

"Let those of the keepers of our horces (poledrari), who are free men, and possess benefices in the locality of their employment, live upon the product of their benefices." 2

And every great proprietor, ecclesiastic or layman, Egin. hard or Charlemagne, paid in this way most of the free men whom he employed. Thence arose the rapid division of landed property, and the multitude of petty benefices.

A second cause, usurpation, also greatly increased their number. Powerful chiefs, who had taken possession of a vast territory, had little means of actually occupying and preserving it from invasion. It was easy for neighbours, for the first comer, to establish himself upon it, and to appropriate to himself such and such part of it. It so happened in many places. In the anonymous life of Louis le Debonnaire, we read:

"In 715, Charlemagne, sending back his son Louis into Aquitaine, asked him how it happened that, being a king, he was so parsimonious as to offer nothing to any one, not even his blessing, unless it was asked of him. Louis informed his father that the great men of the kingdom occupying themselves only with their own interests, and neglecting the public interests, the royal domains were everywhere converted into private properties; hence it happened that he himself was king only in name, and in want almost of everything. Charlemagne wishing to remedy this evil, but fearing that his son would lose somewhat of the affection of the great men, if he were to take again through wisdom what he had allowed them to usurp through improvidence, sent his own messengers into Aquitaine, Willbert, afterwards archbishop of Rouen, and count Richard, inspectors of the royal domains, and ordered them to procure the restoration to the king of the domains which had formerly belonged to him, which was done." 3

And when, in 846, the bishops gave advice to Charles le Chauve, as to the best means of elevating his dignity and

power:

1 Capit. of Charlemagne, de Villis; Bal., vol i. col. 333.
'Ibid., c. 838.

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3 Historiens de France, t. iv., p. 20.

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