100 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



princes.&quot; Concerning donations something must here be 

 said, though their ceremonial character is not marked. 



As the power of the political head develops, until at 

 length he assumes universal ownership, there results a state 

 in which he finds it needful to give back part of that 

 which he has monopolized; and having been originally 

 subordinated by giving, his dependants are now, to a cer 

 tain extent, further subordinated by receiving. People of 

 Avhom it can be said, as of the Kukis, that &quot; all the prop 

 erty they possess is by simple sufferance of the rajah,&quot; 

 or people who, like the Dahomans, are owned in body and 

 estate by their king, are obviously so conditioned that 

 property having flowed in excess to the political centre 

 must flow down again from lack of other use. Hence, in 

 Dahomey, though no State-functionary is paid, the king 

 gives his ministers and officers royal bounty. Without 

 travelling further afield for illustrations, it will suffice if we 

 note these relations of causes and effects in early European 

 times. Of the ancient Germans, Tacitus says &quot; The 

 chief must show his liberality, and the follower expects it. 

 He demands at one time this war-horse; at another, that 

 victorious lance imbrued with the enemy s blood. The 

 prince s table, however inelegant, must always be plentiful; 

 it is the only pay of his followers.&quot; That is, a monopolizing 

 supremacy had, as its sequence, gratuities to dependants. 

 Mediaeval days in France were characterized by modified 

 forms of the same system. In the thirteenth century, &quot; in 

 order that the princes of the blood, the whole royal house, 

 the great officers of the crown, and those ... of the 

 king s household, should appear with distinction, the king 

 gave them dresses according to the rank they held and 

 suitably to the season at which these solemn courts were 

 celebrated. These dresses were called liveries (livr^es) 

 because they were delivered,&quot; as the king s free gifts: a 

 statement showing how acceptance of such gifts went along 

 with subordination. It needs scarcely be added that 



