EVOLUTION AND DEGENERATION OF INSTITUTIONS 99 



among certain peoples, three successive stages in 

 the evolution of property. When the old system 

 of land tenure was abolished, private and communal 

 or public property began to develop simultaneously. 



While certain lands which were free to all the 

 inhabitants became transformed into collective 

 property, other such lands lost their public char- 

 acter and became private property. In the first 

 case, the communes, on being called upon to fulfil 

 functions of increasing complexity, proceeded to 

 transform all or part of the properties concerned 

 into patrimonial property or property for the use of 

 the people (communaux, allmenden). 1 



In the second case the property of the old 

 community became the joint but undivided property 

 of the members of the corporation ; when, however, 

 for purposes of cultivation it became necessary to 

 divide it, the corporative property became trans- 

 formed into private property. 



1 Giron, Le droit administratif de la Belgique, No. 683. "There 

 were three kinds of communal property : 



' ' (a) Property directly appropriated to the use of the public such 

 as public squares, streets, churches, &c. 



" (6) Communal property properly speaking i.e. the real estate 

 and rights belonging to the tribune and to which the people 

 were entitled to a personal share. These consisted of the 

 forest land, rights of appanage, waste land, moorland, and 

 the rights of pasturing. 



" (c) Patrimonial property, i.e. that held by the commune, 

 the revenue from which went to the commune to defray the 

 expenses of administration. It included timber land, arable 

 land, house property, market places, &c," 



