The Goths, Burgundians, and Franks

GAUL was invaded by German nations.

The Visigoths took possession of the province of Narbonue, and of almost all the south.

The Burgundians settled in the east; and the Franks subdued very near all the rest.

No doubt but these Barbarians retained in their respective conquests the manners, inclinations, and usages of theirown country; for no nation can change in an instant their manner of thinking and acting.

These people in Germany neglected agriculture.

Caesar and Tacitus say that they applied themselves greatly to a pastoral life.

Hence, the regulations of the codes of the barbarian laws are almost all relating to their flocks. Roricon, who wrote a history among the Franks, was a shepherd.

Chapter 7: Different Ways of dividing the Land

The Goths and Burgundians had penetrated into the heart of the empire. The Romans were obliged to provide for their subsistence in order to put a stop to their devastations.

At first they allowed them* corn. Afterwards they gave them lands.

The emperors and the magistrates in the emperor’s name, made conventions with them on the division of lands. This is in the chronicles and in the codes of the Visigoths and Burgundians.

The Franks did not follow the same plan.

In the Salic and Ripuarian laws has no such division of lands. They had conquered the country, and so took what they pleased, making no regulations but amongst themselves.

The conduct of the Burgundians and Visigoths in Gaul are different.

• The Visigoths entered into conventions with the ancient inhabitants and made a division of lands between them.
• The Franks and Vandals did no such thing.

Chapter 8: The same Subject continued.

WHAT has induced some to think that the Roman lands were entirely usurped by the barbarians, is their finding in the laws of the Visigoths and the Burgundians, that these two nations had 2/3 of the lands:

But this they took only in certain quarters or districts assigned them.

Gundebald* says in the law of the Burgundians, that his people at their establishment had 2/3 of the lands allowed them. The second supplement to this law takes notice, that only a moiety would be allowed to those who should hereafter come to live in that country. Therefore all the lands had not been divided in the beginning between the Roman and the Burgundians.

In those two regulations we meet with the same expressions in the text; consequently they explain one another; and as the latter cannot mean an universal division of lands, neither can this signification be given to the former.

The Franks acted with the same moderation as the Burgundians. They did not strip the Romans wherever they extended their conquests.

What would they have done with so much land?

They took what suited them, and left the remainder.

Chapter 9: A just application of the Law of the Burgundians and the Visigoths on the division of Lands.

Those divisions of land were not made with a tyrannical spirit but with a view of relieving the reciprocal wants of two nations that were to inhabit the same country.

The law of the Burgundians ordains that a Burgundian shall be received in an hospitable manner by a Roman. This is agreeable to the manners of the Germans, who, according to Tacitus,* were the most hospitable people in the world.

The law of the Burgundians ordained that the Burgundians shall have 2/3 of the lands, and 1/3 of the bondmen.

In this it considered the genius of two nations, and conformed to the manner in which they procured their subsistence.

The Burgundians dealt chiefly in cattle, they wanted a great deal of land and few bondmen, and the Romans from their application to agriculture had need of less land and of a greater number of bondmen.

The woods were equally divided, because their wants in this respect were the same.

In the code of the Burgundians, each Barbarian was placed near a Roman.

The division therefore was not general; but the Romans who gave the division, were equal in numbers to the Burgundianswho received it.

The Roman was injured the least possible. The Burgundiansas a martial people, fond of hunting and of a pastoral life, did not refuse to accept of the fallow grounds; while the Romans kept such lands as wereproperest for Edition: current the Burgundian=E2=80=99s flock fattened the Romans field.

Chapter 10: Servitudes

THE law of the Burgundians takes notice, that when those people settled in Gaul, they were allowed 2/3 of the land, and 1/3 of the bondmen.

The state of villainage was therefore established in that part of Gaul before it was invaded by the Burgundians.

The law of the Burgundians in points relating to the two nations makes a formal distinction in both, between the nobles, the free-born, and the bondmen, Servitude was not therefore a thing particular to the Romans; nor liberty and nobility particular to the Barbarians.

This very same law says,* that if a Burgundian freedman had not given a particular sum to his master, nor received a third share of a Roman, he was always supposed to belong to his masters family.

The Roman proprietor was therefore free, since he did not belong to another persons family; he was free, because his 1/3 portion was a mark of liberty.

The Salic and Ripuarian laws show that the Romans were no more in a state of servitude among the Franks, than among the other conquerors of Gaul.

The count de Boulainvilliers is mistaken in the capital point of his system.

He has not proved that the Franks made a general regulation to reduce the Romans into a kind of servitude.

He writes without art, and as he speaks with the simplicity, frankness, and candor of that ancient nobility from whence he descends, every one is capable of judging of the fine things he says, and of the errors into which he is fallen.

I shall not therefore undertake to criticise him; He had more wit than sense, more sense than knowledge; though his knowledge was not contemptible, for he was well acquainted with the most valuablepart of our history and laws.

The count de Boulainvilliers, and the abbu du Bos, have formed 2 different systems, one of which seems to bea conspiracy against the commons, and the other against the nobility.

When the sun gave leave to Phaeton to drive his chariot, he said to him, If you ascend too high, you will burn the heavenly mansions; if you descend too low, you will reduce the earth to ashes: Do not drive to the right,you will meet there with the constellation of the serpent; avoid going toomuch to the left, you will there fall in with that of the altar: keep in the middle