Distinctions betiveen Conqueror and Conqitered. 125 



colonia whicli had first associated landownership with militaiy 

 service, and when the barbarians in their turn conquered the 

 Romans, they adopted the idea of the Lsetic land tenure, 

 henceforth remunerating the soldier with portions of the sub- 

 jected territories. A soldier by profession, the Germanic land- 

 lord looked for the profits of his lands to the military vassalage 

 of his tenantry. He, so to speak, split up his seignorial rights 

 into two parts, viz. ownership and enjoyment. The first he 

 retained, and the last he made over to the vassal. In so doing 

 he either consciously or unconsciously plagiarised the Emphy- 

 teutic system of the old Roman conveyancing lawyer — to 

 which, however, he tacked on the formalities of the oaths of 

 fealty as a picturesque proof of his retention of the dominium. 

 Even the homage of the vassal, that mutual compact — whereby 

 the superior placed himself under an obligation to protect, 

 clothe, and feed for life his inferior, in exchange for all services 

 summed up in the phrase " to become so-and-so's man," — was 

 as much a Roman idea as it was Teutonic, and who is to decide 

 that the position of the cliens did not originally inspire some 

 village statesman of Germania with the idea of this custom ? 



The method by which the Romans distributed the lands of 

 a colony amongst its veterans has been fully described by Mr. 

 Coote, whose study of the writings of the Roman agrimensores 

 has been profound.^ These prototypes of the modern surveyor 

 measured out the ground into rectangular blocks of approxi- 

 mately equal size. Beyond these rectangular plots were 

 irregular patches fit for cultivation, which were leased by the 

 State to farmers, and termed terra vectigalis. Again we ask, 

 who can with confidence deny that the furlongs and acres of 

 the common field system do not derive their origin from this 

 Roman custom ? This would further imply that the agricul- 

 tural system of the later Mark was itself a fusion of Roman 

 with Teutonic processes.^ 



It soon came about in these Roman colonies and other dis- 

 tricts of the Empire, that landed proprietors, both individuals 



' Coote, RoTnans in Britain, passim. 



^ Encyclo. Brit., 9th Ed., sub. voc. Justinian ; vide note on Emphy- 

 teusis. 



