pre-emption, and that even after a sale to a stranger has been effected the rightful heir may reclaim the land by paying somewhat less than the sum given for it by the outsider.

Let us, however, go back to a time when the social co-operation and defensive alliance of a group of strong men was recognised as a most efficient means of getting on in the world and of meeting possible aggression. People born and bred in a mental atmosphere instinct with such views were not likely to surrender them easily even if circumstances were against their realisation on the basis of natural kinship. Blood relationship is surrounded by artificial associations assimilated to relationship, and acting as its substitutes - by adoption, artificial brotherhood, and voluntary associations of different kinds. The practice of adoption did not attain in Teutonic countries the importance it assumed in India, Greece, or Rome. One of the causes of its lesser significance lay in the early predominance of Christianity which prevented Germanic heathendom from developing too powerfully the side of ancestor worship. But yet we find practices of adoption constantly mentioned in different Teutonic countries. The adopted father became, of course, a patron and leader and, on the other hand, looked to his adopted son for support and efficient help. The ceremony of setting the new child on the parent's knee was a fitting expression of the tie created by adoption. A certain difficulty in the reading of our evidence as to adoption arises, however, from the fact that a "foster-father," as well as a "foster-mother," was sought, not for the sake of protection and lordship, but for providing the material care needed by children under age. The great people of those days were often loth to devote their time and attention to such humble occupations, and a common device was to quarter a boy with a dependent, a churl of some kind, who would have to act as a proper foster-father in rearing the child in the same way as a nurse would do for infants. A curious example of the contrast between the two forms of artificial fatherhood is presented by the Norse Saga of King Hákon, Aethelstan's foster-son. Young Hákon is sent by his father Harald to the court of the powerful ruler of England, King Aethelstan, who receives him kindly and lets him sit on his knee, adopting him thereby as his son. No sooner has the boy sat down on the knee of the monarch of Britain than he claims Aethelstan as Harald's vassal, because he has taken up the duty of a foster-father. In Scandinavian laws adoption in the form of aetleiding, admission to the kindred, appears complicated with emancipation from slavery. The unfree man receiving his freedom drinks "emancipation ale" with the members of his new kindred and afterwards steps into a shoe roughly prepared from the hide of an ox's foreleg. This latter ceremony symbolises the coming in of the new member of the kindred into all the rights and privileges of the kinsmen who have admitted him into their midst. The connexion between both sides of this rite-adoption and emancipation-seems to be provided by

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the frequent recourse to aetleiding in the case of sons born to Scandinavian warriors by their unfree concubines. But the ceremonies are characteristic of any kind of adoption bringing new blood and new claimants into a kindred of old standing.

Another form of union constantly occurring in Teutonic Societies was artificial brotherhood. A common practice for starting it was to exchange weapons; sometimes each of the would-be brothers made a cut on his arm or chest and mixed the blood flowing from it with that of his comrade. The newly created tie of brotherhood was usually confirmed by an oath; a historical instance of this variety is presented by the arrangement between Canute and Eadmund Ironside. This kind of artificial relationship lent itself readily to the formation of fresh associations not engrafted on existing kindreds, but carrying the idea of close alliance into the sphere of voluntary unions. We hear of "affratationes" among Lombards, of "hermandades" in Spain, and the English gilds are a species of the same kind. The Anglo-Saxon laws tell us of gilds of wayfarers, who evidently found it necessary to seek mutual support outside the ordinary family groups. In the later centuries of Anglo-Saxon history gilds appear as religious and economic, as well as military institutions, and they are closely akin to Norse associations of the same name.

Here are some paragraphs from the statutes of the thanes gild in Cambridge organised some time in the eleventh century: "That then is first, that each should give oath on the holy relics to the others, before the world, and all should support those who have the greatest right. If any gild-brother die, let all the gildship bring him to where he desired...and let the gild defray half the expenses of the funeral festival after the dead....And if any gild-brother stand in need of his fellows' aid it be made known to his neighbour...and if the neighbour neglect it, let him pay one pound....And if anyone slay a gild-brother, let there be nothing for compensation but eight pounds, but if the slayer scorns to pay the compensation, let the whole gildship avenge their fellow....And if any gild-brother slay a man... and the slain be a twelfe hynde man, let each gild-brother contribute a half-mark for his aid; if the slain be a ceorl two oras; if he be Welsh one ora." The principles of artificial relationship were easily carried over into the domain of rural husbandry and landed property. A custom with which one has to reckon in all Teutonic countries is the joint household, the large family of grown-up descendants living and working with their father or grandfather. It may also consist of brothers and cousins continuing to manage their affairs in common after the death of the father or grandfather. In the first case the practice implies a reluctance to emancipate grown-up sons and to cut out separate plots for them. In the second case the joint household gives a peculiar cast to Succession. The partners are Ganerben, joint heirs, and each

has an ideal share in the common household which falls to his children or accrues to his fellows on his death. The Ganerbschaft proved an important expedient in order to reconcile the equality of personal rights among co-heirs with the unity of an efficient household. But the existence of the "joint inheritance" was not enforced by law it resulted from agreement and tradition and could be dissolved at any given

moment.

The tenacity and wide diffusion of these unions in practice prove the value of such co-operative societies and the strength of the habits of mind generated by relationship. The same causes operated to give a communal cast to economic associations formed by neighbours or instituted by free agreement among strangers. We cannot generally trace the rural unions of the mark, the township, the by, to one or the other definite cause. In some cases they must have grown out of the settlement of natural kindreds; in other instances they were generated by the necessity of combining for the purpose of settling claims of neighbours and arranging the forms of their co-operation; in many cases, again, they were the product of the settlement of colonising associations or military conquerors. But in all these instances the people forming the rural group were accustomed by their traditions of natural or artificial kinship to allow a large share for the requirements of the whole and to combine individual efforts and claims. The contrast between individualism and communalism was not put in an abstract and uncompromising manner. Both principles were combined according to the lie of the land, the density of population, the necessities of defence, the utility of co-operation. In mountain country the settlements would spread, while on flat land they would profit by concentration. Forest clearings would be occupied by farms of scattered pioneers; the wish to present a close front to enemies might produce nucleated villages. At the same time, even in cases of scattered settlements there would be scope left for mutual support and the exercise of rights of commons as to wood and pasture, while in concentrated villages the communalistic features. would extend to the allotment regulation and management of agricultural strips. But all these expedients, though suggested by custom, were not in the nature of hard and fast rules, and in the face of strong inducements they were departed from. A new settler joining a rural community of old standing had to be admitted by all the shareholders of the territory, but if he had succeeded in remaining undisturbed for a year and a day or in producing a special licence to migrate from the King, he could not be ousted any more. A householder who had special opportunities as an employer of slaves, freedmen, or free tenants, could easily acquire ground for his exclusive use and start on an individualistic basis.

There is ample evidence to shew that in the earlier centuries the

customs and arrangements of kindreds and of associations resembling them were widely prevalent, while private occupation formed an exception. Matters were greatly changed by the conquest of provinces with numberless Roman estates in full working order and with a vast population accustomed to private ownership and individualistic economy. But it took some time even then to displace old-fashioned habits, and in the northern parts of France, in England, in Germany, and in the Scandinavian countries communalistic features in the treatment of arable and pasture asserted themselves all through the Middle Ages as more consonant with extensive tillage and a complex intermixture of the claims of single householders. The point will have to be examined again in another connexion, but it is material to emphasise at once that the rural arrangements of Teutonic nations were deeply coloured by practices generated during an epoch when relations of kindreds and similar associations were powerful.

The possibility for strong and wealthy men to make good their position as individual owners and magnates was partly derived from a germ existing in every Teutonic household, namely from the power of the ruler of such a household over the inmates of it, both free and unfree. Even a ceorl, that is a common free man, was master in his own house and could claim compensation for the breach of his fence or an infraction of the peace of his home. In the case of the King and other great men the fenced court became a burgh, virtually a fortress. Every ruler of a household, whether small or great, had to keep his sons, slaves, and clients in order and was' answerable for their misdeeds. On the other hand he was their patron, offered them protection, had to stand by them in case of oppression from outsiders and claimed compensation for any wrong inflicted on them. In this way by the side of the family and of the gild or voluntary association of equals another set of powerful ties was recognised by legal custom and political authority the relations between a patron and his clients or dependents. The lines of both sets of institutions might coincide, as for instance, when the chieftain of a kindred acted as the head of a great household, or when a gild of warriors joined under the leadership of a famous war-chief. But they might also run across each other and develop independently: there were no means to make everything fit squarely into its place.

The contrast between the permanent arrangements of the tribes and the shifting relations springing from personal subjection and devotion seemed very striking to Roman observers. Tacitus in his tract on the site and usages of Germany describes the institution of the comitatus, the following gathered around a chief. While in the tribe the stress is laid on the unconquerable spirit of independence and the lack of discipline of German warriors, in the comitatus Tacitus dwells on exactly opposite features. The follower, though of free and perhaps of noble descent, looks up to his chief, fights for his glory, ascribes his own feats of

arms to his patron, seems to revel in self-abnegation and dependence. Of course, such authority is acquired and kept up only by brilliant exploits and successful raids, so that if a particular tribe gets slack in these respects, its youths are apt to leave home and to flock abroad around warriors who achieve fame and obtain booty. Thus the comitatus appeared chiefly as a school of military prowess and young men entered it as soon as they were deemed fit to receive arms. It was capable of developing into a mighty and permanent political factor. Arminius and Marbod were not merely tribal chiefs but also leaders of military followings, and it is difficult to make out in every instance whether the greater part of a barbaric chieftain's authority was due to his tribal position or to his sway over his followers.

The peculiar features of Germanic social organisation were greatly modified by the conquest of Roman provinces and the formation of extensive states in the interior of Germany and in Scandinavian countries. The loose tribal bonds make way for territorial unions and Kingship arises everywhere as a powerful factor of development. As regards. territorial arrangements the hundred appears as a characteristic unit in nearly all countries held by Teutonic nations. It seems based on approximate estimates of the number of units of husbandry, of typical free households in a district; each of these households had to contribute equally to the requirements of taxation and of the host, while the heads or representatives of all formed the ordinary popular courts. Such territorial divisions could not, of course, be framed with mathematical regularity and even less could they be kept up in the course of centuries according to definite standards, but the idea of equating territorial units according to the number of households proves deeply rooted and reappears, e.g., in England in the artificial hundreds based on the hundred hides of the Dane law assessment.

By the side of these more or less artificial combinations rose the Gaue (pagi), or shires, mostly derived from historical origins, as territories settled by tribes or having formed separate commonwealths at some particular time. Such were, for instance, the south-eastern shires of England - Kent, Sussex, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, etc.

Roman writers lay stress on the tendency of Germanic nations towards autonomy of the different provinces and subdivisions of the tribe. Caesar says that in time of peace they had no common rulers but that the princes of regions and districts administered justice and settled disputes among their own people. A section of a tribe, a gau as it was styled, could sometimes follow its own policy: Ingviomer's pagus, e.g., did not join with the rest of the Cherusci in Arminius' war with the Romans. But continual military operations not only forced the tribes to form larger leagues, but also to submit to more concentrated and active authorities. Kingships arose in this connexion and Tacitus tells us that royal power exercised a great influence in