The Primitive Deuiocvacij of the Germans. 33 



like feudal castles among the villages of peasants. Both of 

 these systems, the democratic and the aristocratic, are clearly- 

 described in the Germania of Tacitus, the work in which he- 

 treats of their institutions from an antiquarian point of 

 view. In his historical works, where the Germans are in- 

 troduced, we see clearly the aristocracy as the preponderating 

 force. The same appears also in native pictures of Germanic 

 life, like the poem of Beowulf and the Icelandic sagas. 



In two books published within the past year by Mr. Fred- 

 eric Seebohm,* an eminent English writer, and Mr. D. W. 

 Ross,t of Cambridge, Mass., these baronial — or, as Mr. See- 

 bohm prefers to call them, manorial — features of the primi- 

 tive Germanic constitution are sketched with great learning 

 and cogency. Other writers have emphasized the aristocratic 

 features of this constitution, but to Mr. Seebohm, approach- 

 ing the subject from an economic rather, than a historical 

 point of view, belongs the credit of having first pointed out 

 that the German institutions were working themselves out 

 upon " manorial lines." But, just as the generally accepted 

 democratic theory undervalues the aristocratic elements of 

 German society, so Mr. Seebohm appears to undervalue its 

 democratic elements. To him the German institutions ap- 

 pear to have been fundamentally aristocratic, while the 

 sketch given above represents the aristocratic features as a 

 relatively late outgrowth. 



The argument of Mr. Seebohm and Mr. Ross, is founded 

 principally upon a passage in the Germania of Tacitus 

 (Chap. 16), which we will now proceed to consider. It is as 

 follows: "They dwell separate and scattered, as a fountain, 

 a plain, or a grove catches their fancy. They build their 

 villages, not like ours, with houses touching one another, 

 but each house has a space about it."|. Here are two modes 

 of habitation described — that of villages, and that of iso- 



* English Village Communities. London. Longmans & Co. 



t Early History of Land-holding Among the Germans. Boston. Soule 

 & Bugbee. 



X Colunt cli.screti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit . Vicos 

 loeantnon in nostrum morem conexis et cohaerentibus aedijicis; suam quis- 

 que domuin spatio circiimdat. 

 3 



