CHAPTER XLVI - 



PASTORAL LEGISLATION 



The legislation of the pastoral age has, at all times 

 and in every country, had a character of its omii. In 

 countries ^\ here the inhabitants were still nomads there 

 could be no ^^ritten la^^■s, but there yseie still unA\'ritten 

 usages, and these were binding. When the laws or 

 usages of a people are codified, these ancient customs 

 are often incorporated with the prescriptions of less 

 ancient times. Thus, " enactments intended for a people 

 with settled habitations, and dwelling in A\'alled cities," 

 sa^^s Milman, " are mingled up Avith temporary regula- 

 tions, suited only to the Bedouin encampment of a 

 nomad tribe." The whole subsequent legislation has 

 its root in these usages. Just so had the written cus- 

 tomary, or common, law of Europe its beginnings 

 in tribal usages. The capitularies of Karl the Great, so 

 formidable to look at in the antique pages of Baluze or 

 the modern edition of Pertz, are in good part but the 

 instructions of the Emperor to the villici, or managers, 

 of his farms. Yet out of them have grown the landed 

 customs and the land-legislation of modern times. 

 According to Dar^N'in, General Rosas, in Argentina, first 

 gained his celebrity through the laws he made for the 

 government of his estancias.* 



There were unwritten laws in the Australian bush. 

 (Some related to the occupation of land and others to 

 the ownership of cattle or sheep. Thus, it was tacitlj' 

 agreed among the \'ictorian adventurers as they arrived 

 that no one should take up a station within three miles 

 * Voyage of the Adventure, ch. iv. 

 324 



