POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 439 



torn to reward his leading soldiers by grants of land. Early Egyp- 

 tian kings " bestowed on distinguished military officers " portions of 

 the crown domains. When the barbarians were enrolled as Roman 

 soldiers, " they were paid also by assignments of land according to a 

 custom which prevailed in the imperial armies. The possession of 

 these lands was given to them on condition of the son becoming a sol- 

 dier like his father." And that kindred usages were general through- 

 out the feudal period is a familiar truth : feudal tenancy being, in- 

 deed, thus constituted, and inability to bear arms being a reason for 

 excluding women from succession. To exemplify the nature of the 

 relation established, it will suffice to name the facts that " William 

 the Conqueror . . . distributed this kingdom into about sixty thou- 

 sand parcels, of nearly equal value, from each of which the service of 

 a soldier was due," and that one of his laws requires all owners of land 

 to "swear that they become vassals or tenants," and will "defend 

 their lord's territories and title as well as his person " by " knight ser- 

 vice on horseback." 



That this original relation between land-owning and militancy 

 long survived, we are shown by the armorial bearings of county fami- 

 lies, as well as by their portraits of ancestors who are mostly repre- 

 sented in military costume. 



Setting out with the class of warriors, or men bearing arms, who 

 in primitive communities are owners of the land, collectively or indi- 

 vidually, or partly one and partly the other, there arises the question, 

 How does this class differentiate into nobles and freemen ? 



The most general reply is, of course, that since the state of homo- 

 geneity is by necessity unstable, time inevitably brings about ine- 

 quality of positions among those whose positions were at first equal. 

 Before the semi-civilized state is reached the differentiation can not 

 become decided, because there can be no large accumulations of 

 wealth, and because the laws of descent do not favor maintenance of 

 such accumulations as are possible. But in the pastoral and still more 

 in the agricultural community, especially where descent through males 

 has been established, several causes of differentiation come into play. 

 There is first that of unlikeness of kinship to the head-man. Obvi- 

 ously, in course of generations, the younger descendants of the younger 

 become more and more remotely related to the eldest descendant of 

 the eldest, and social inferiority arises : as the obligation to execute 

 blood -revenge for a murdered member of the family does not extend 

 beyond a certain degree of relationship (in ancient France not beyond 

 the seventh), so neither does the accompanying distinction. From the 

 same cause comes inferiority in point of possessions. Inheritance by 

 the eldest male from generation to generation brings about the result 

 that those who are the most distantly connected in blood with the 

 head of the group are also the poorest. And then there cooperates 



