40 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



cording to rank; the wide extent of the tracts occupied 

 makes this division easy. They change the fields in cultiva- 

 tion every year, and there is land left over." 



Here we have, just as in Csesar's description, a periodical 

 shifting of occupation, and this is the only feature of the 

 two descriptions which we identify positively. For the 

 reasons already given, we may infer that these comrc unities, 

 like those of Csesar's time, were patriarchal, at least prevail- 

 ingly so; but the distribution was probably no longer a yearly 

 one. It will be noticed that two distinct procedures are 

 described — the shifting occupation {agri . . . occupantur) 

 and the shifting cultivation (arvaper annos mutant). It is 

 hardly possible that there could have been any shifting cul- 

 tivation, that is, rotation of crops, unless the occupation was 

 for more than one year, I think, therefore, that although 

 not explicitly stated, it is distinctly implied, that the assign- 

 ment of lands was made for a period of years, as is the 

 case with the Russian Mir and the Hebrew seven-years' 

 period. This points to a marked progress of society in the 

 period between Caesar and Tacitus. 



In another point this progress is more positively asserted 

 We have seen that in Caesar's time there was not only no 

 private property in land, but no disparity in property or in 

 occupation. Tacitus, on the other hand, states with equal 

 positiveness that the lands were assigned according to rank, 

 secundum dignationem, that is, there was still no private 

 property in land, but the amount of land temporarily as- 

 signed to individuals varied according to their rank. This 

 disparity probably had reference only to the nobles and 

 magistrates; the most of the common freemen in all likelihood 

 received equal lots. And when, at the end of the period, the 

 community was transferred to another tract of land, the 

 process was begun over again. There could therefore be no 

 aggregations of landed property, but there was a condition 

 of things out of which such aggregations might easily 

 grow, as soon as the occupation of a definite tract of land 

 by a particular community should become permanent. 



We find from this analysis, that in the first century after 

 Christ, the Germans were grouped in family communities, not 



