Classes.--Formation of Communities.--Right of Mortmain.


The period known as the Middle Ages, says the learned Benjamin Guérard, is
the produce of Pagan civilisation, of Germanic barbarism, and of
Christianity. It began in 476, on the fall of Agustulus, and ended in
1453, at the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II., and consequently the
fall of two empires, that of the West and that of the East, marks its
duration. Its first act, which was due to the Germans, was the destruction
of political unity, and this was destined to be afterwards replaced by
religions unity. Then we find a multitude of scattered and disorderly
influences growing on the ruins of central power. The yoke of imperial
dominion was broken by the barbarians; but the populace, far from
acquiring liberty, fell to the lowest degrees of servitude. Instead of one
despot, it found thousands of tyrants, and it was but slowly and with
much trouble that it succeeded in freeing itself from feudalism. Nothing
could be more strangely troubled than the West at the time of the
dissolution of the Empire of the Caesars; nothing more diverse or more
discordant than the interests, the institutions, and the state of society,
which were delivered to the Germans (Figs. 1 and 2). In fact, it would be
impossible in the whole pages of history to find a society formed of more
heterogeneous or incompatible elements. On the one side might be placed
the Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, Germans, Franks, Saxons, and Lombards,
nations, or more strictly hordes, accustomed to rough and successful
warfare, and, on the other, the Romans, including those people who by long
servitude to Roman dominion had become closely allied with their
conquerors (Fig. 3). There were, on both sides, freemen, freedmen, colons,
and slaves; different ranks and degrees being, however, observable both in
freedom and servitude. This hierarchical principle applied itself even to
the land, which was divided into freeholds, tributary lands, lands of the