Kmgs Peace mid English Peace-Magisti'acy. . 15 



world, whose social condition was more archaic than was that 

 of Rome in the period of her earliest tradition. In the Com- 

 mentaries of Caesar our German ancestors are seen in the 

 process of transition from the pastoral to the agricultural 

 life.i Here and there the ultimate political unit seems to 

 have been the tribe or volkerschaft ; ^ elsewhere even this 

 degree of development had not yet been reached, political 

 sovereignty being still vested in the gau-state, — a union of 

 localized gentes or sippen. Nowhere, however, does the inde- 

 pendent clan-state appear.^ And in the age of Tacitus, as 

 we have already seen, the gau has everywhere taken its place 

 as a subordinate member of the tribe.^ But the tie of kinship, 

 though beginning slowly to relax, still survives as a strong 

 political bond ; and hence for ages after settled life began, the 

 ancient family or gentile unions exerted a hindering influ- 

 ence on the development of society.^ 



1 Ccesar, De Bell. Gall., VI, 22 : Agriculturae non student. . . . Neque quis- 

 quam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios; sed magistratus ac principes 

 in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum, qui una coierunt, quantum 

 et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt, atque anno post alio transire cogunt. On 

 the Suevi, lb., IV, i. In general on the Germans as described by Coesar, see 

 Meitzen, Dcr Boden des preussischen Staates, I, 344; Waitz, Verfassungsgeschichte, 

 I, 92-102; Thudichum, Der Altdeutsche Staat, 91 ff. ; Stubbs, Const. Hist., I, 12- 

 17; Maurer, Einleitujtg, 3, 5; and especially the remarkable criticism of Hanssen, 

 Agrarhistorische Abhandhm^en, 77 ff., 91. 



- Probably the civitas of Caesar: De Bell. Gall., I, 12; IV, 3; VI, 23, etc. 



" This is the view of Dahn : " Zwar liegt die Zeit des Staates der Einzelsippe 

 vor aller geschichtlichen Kunde, und sogar der Staat der verbundenen Sippen ist 

 in den friihesten Berichten iiber germanische Verfassung, bei Julius Casar, ein 

 halb Jahrhundert vor Christus, fast schon voUstandig ersetzt durch den Gaustaat 

 (pagus) der verbundenen Gemeinden; nicht mehr blosser Geschlechterzusammen- 

 hang, sondern die gemeinsame Siedelung bildet die Grundlage des Staatsver- 

 bandes": Deutsche Geschichte, I, 184. Cf. lb., pp. 187, 190. 



* See Tacitus, Germania, 10, 12-15, '9> ^5' 3°' 37' 4'' f^"^ ^^^ principal passages 

 relating to the civitas or state in its relation to the pagus or gau (hundertschaft) 

 and the vicus or mark (localized sippe). 



^ Cf. Inama-Sternegg, Die Ausbildimg der grossen Grundherrschaften in 

 Deutschland, 6-24; and Dahn, Deutsche Geschichte, I, 185 ff. In general, on the 

 survival of the blood-bond, see Ccesar, De Bell. Gall., VI, 22, who states that land 

 was granted ^^«//7v« cognationibusque ; and Tacitus, Germania, c. 7, who says 

 the army was organized according io familiae et propinquitates : Schmid, Glossar, 

 626; Waitz, Verfassungsgeschichte, I, 76 ff., notes ; IMaurer, Einleitung, 3, 4, 13; 



249 



