2 George E. Howard, 



more minute penalties for specific offences. The talent for 

 organization and administration is our Norman heritage. 



The Saxon codes are, in effect, handbooks for the peace 

 administration, the rude precursors of those of Lambard, 

 Dalton, and Burn. But between the advent of the local 

 peace-magistrate, deriving his authority from the sovereign 

 jurisdiction of a national king, and the dawn of the first vague 

 conception of a public peace, of the state in embryo, lies the 

 history of civilization. 



ifi) . — TJie Clan-Feiid and the Clan-Peace. 



In the primary stage of social development — if social it 

 may be called — the blood-feud ^ or self -redress prevailed. If 

 a murder were committed, the next of kin was the avenger ; 

 if any injury to life or limb were inflicted, or a right trans- 

 gressed, the wronged person was the agent of justice. All 

 remedies were private remedies. It was a system of self-help 

 pure and simple. 



Such is the substance of current teaching as to the earliest 

 condition of archaic man. But it must not be imagined that 

 the blood-feud always remained a matter of personal force. 

 To suppose that, would be to ignore one of the most far- 

 reaching results of the study of comparative sociology — the 

 disclosure of the fact that the family and not the individual 

 is the unit of ancient society. Among all the races of man- 

 kind the constitution of the family, in its patriarchal or some 

 earlier form, is the "basis and prototype of the constitution of 

 the state." 2 Nevertheless, for all practical purposes, it is 



1 Anglo-Saxon fwhth, Middle English yi'a'^, Modern English yot?, from A. S. fdh 

 = hostile ; cognate with Old High German fehida, Middle High German vehede, 

 ixom fehan, veken = odisse, to hate; Mediaeval 'LdXm fai da. The wonl feud in 

 this sense should not be confused Wiih. feud, a fief, which is of northern origin and 

 different meaning. See Skeat, Etym. Diet., at feud ; Grimm, Worterbuch, IH, 

 141 7, at fehde; Schade, Altdeutsches W'drte7-buch, I, 174, at fehida. On the 

 form and significance of the word, cf. also Kemble, Saxons, I, 267, note; Schmid, 

 Glossar, 570-1 ; Miillenhoff, Glossary, in Waitz, Das alte Recht, 282; Wilda, 

 Strafrecht, 191 ff. ; Meyer, Institutions yudiciaires, I, 43. 



2 Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Romer, I, p. i. This theory of the origin 

 of the state is already set forth by Plato, Laivs, Book III, 680-1 : Jowett, Dia- 



236 



