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OUTLINES OF 
 COMPARATIVE POLITICS 
 
OUTLINES OF 
 
 COMPARATIVE 
 POLITICS 
 
 BY 
 
 B. E. HAMMOND 
 
 UNIVERSITY LECTURER IN HISTORY 
 
 FELLOW AND FORMERLY LECTURER OF TRINITY 
 
 COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. AUTHOR OF 
 
 'political INSTITUTIONS OF THE 
 
 ANCIENT GREEKS' 
 
 RIVINGTONS 
 
 34 KING STREET, CO VENT GARDEN 
 
 LONDON 
 
 1903 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 Until about twenty years ago it was impos- 
 sible for any one to say witb certainty whether 
 knowledge of the laws governing political 
 phenomena could be derived from the evidence 
 of history. The writer of the present volume 
 was led in the years 1885 and 1886 to believe 
 that it could. In those years he heard Pro- 
 fessor Seeley lecture on the classification of 
 communities, and Professor Henry Sidgwick 
 on the evolution of the forms of governments. 
 The tasks that they set themselves corre- 
 sponded, one to the work of Cuvier, and the 
 other to the work of Darwin, in the science 
 of Zoology. About two years later the present 
 writer attempted to give instruction in a 
 department of that part of political study 
 which is founded on history ; and for fifteen 
 years his chief employment consisted in re- 
 writing and re-delivering his lectures. He 
 chose for his department Comparative Politics 
 (or the classification of States and their Govern- 
 ments), because he believed that it required 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 less preliminary knowledge than any other. 
 Experience showed him that beginners in the 
 subject needed a text-book as well as oral 
 teaching. A lecturer's proper business in such 
 a subject is to expound guiding principles; 
 but the student needs examples as well as 
 principles, and the examples in any historical 
 study are better learned by reading than by 
 hearing, because they cannot be understood 
 without attention to a voluminous mass of 
 details. The present volume is intended to 
 serve as a text-book for beginners in Com- 
 parative Politics. It contains a general survey 
 of States and their Governments : the plan of 
 the work is explained in the first chapter, and 
 the results are summed up in the last. 
 
 The book is founded on two courses of 
 lectures by Sir John Seeley (for more than 
 twenty years a kind friend to his disciple, 
 its writer), which were published in 1896 
 under the title of an Introduction to Political 
 Science. Although it avoids distracting the 
 reader's attention by frequent reference to 
 them, large parts of it are little more than a 
 collection of facts to test their conclusions. 
 It sketches the beginnings and early growth 
 of the more important States, and contains, at 
 the end of the last chapter and elsewhere, 
 
PEEFAGE vii 
 
 Tables intended both to exhibit the classes 
 into which political societies are divided by 
 differences of form, structure, or origin, and 
 to show that som0 of them (but not all) have 
 definite types of government appropriate or 
 peculiar to themselves. It does not attempt 
 to deal with the evolution of any given form 
 of government from its predecessor, and does 
 not borrow anything directly from Professor 
 Sidgwick's early lectures delivered in 1886; 
 but those lectures gave the writer valu- 
 able aid by suggesting good examples for him 
 to study. And lastly, the present volume 
 has, unhappily, missed all the improvement 
 it might have gained if Professor Sidgwick's 
 Development of European Polity had been 
 published earlier. When that long-desired 
 work appeared, the printing of these Outlines 
 of Comparative Politics was so nearly finished 
 that alterations could not be introduced; and, 
 though their writer looks forward confidently 
 to receiving great pleasure and enlightenment 
 from reading the work of his old friend, he is, 
 to his regret, debarred from communicating to 
 his readers the advantages which he will him- 
 self enjoy. 
 
 Cambridge, December 1903. 
 
 h 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION, .... 1 
 
 I. PREHISTORIC TRIBES, ... 7 
 
 II. EUROPEAN TRIBES, . . . .16 
 
 III. UNIONS OF TRIBES, .... 38 
 
 IV. CITY STATES, .... 55 
 V. SIMPLE CITY STATES IN ANCIENT HISTORY, . 62 
 
 VI. UNION OF GREEK CITIES : ATTICA, . . 80 
 
 VII. UNION OP ITALIAN CITIES : ROME, . . 101 
 
 VIII. COMPLEX CITY STATES, . . .146 
 
 IX. ATHENS, ..... 151 
 
 X. HETEROGENEOUS EMPIRE : ROME, . . 176 
 
 XI. MIXED POPULATIONS, . . 211 
 
 XII. SMALL COMMUNITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES TO 
 
 1150 A.D., . 236 
 
 XIII. UNIONS OF LIKE COMMUNITIES EFFECTED BY 
 
 CONQUEST, 800-1300 A.D., . 255 
 
 XIV. NATIONS IN THEIE YOUTH : MEDIEVAL CON- 
 
 STITUTIONS, . . . .288 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBE PAGE 
 
 XV. CITY STATES IN THE MIDDLE AGES, 
 
 309 
 
 XVI. CITIES WITH DEPENDENCIES, . . 342 
 
 XVII. NATIONS IN THEIE FINAL ADVANCE FKOM 
 
 UNION TO UNITY : DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS, 358 
 
 XVIII. UNITARY NATIONS : THE DECLINE OF DE- 
 SPOTIC GOVERNMENTS, . . . 381 
 
 XIX. UNITARY NATIONS : MODERN CONSTITUTIONS, 394 
 
 XX. VOLUNTARY UNION OP EQUALS : THE UNITED 
 
 STATES OF AMERICA, . . . 417 
 
 XXI. VOLUNTARY UNION OF EQUALS : MODERN 
 
 SWITZERLAND, .... 442 
 
 XXII. MODERN UNIONS OP STATES, . 451 
 
 XXIII. SUMMARY, ..... 468 
 
 TABLE OF STATES AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS, 474 
 
 APPENDIX HYPOTHESES OF A UNIFORM ORIGIN 
 
 OF POLITICAL BODIES AND GOVERNMENTS, 477 
 
 INDEX, ..... 483 
 
OUTLINES OF 
 COMPAEATIVE POLITICS 
 
 ^^ INTKODUCTION 
 
 It is generally admitted that some light may be 
 thrown upon the characteristics and growth of 
 political communities by comparing those of them 
 which are alike. It is my intention in the following 
 chapters to compare political communities; and in 
 order to carry it out, it has been necessary to settle 
 which communities I regard as like one another, or, 
 in other words, to make a classification of bodies 
 politic. There are many possible ways of classifying 
 communities. It will be convenient here to state 
 what classification I have adopted, because in so 
 doing I shall show what communities I regard as 
 comparable, and shall inform the reader what is to 
 be expected in the following pages. 
 
 The earliest communities were tribes or small 
 societies of men bound together by kinship, by 
 religion, and by interest. Originally 
 every tribe was a single undivided so- 
 ciety. In course of time tribes were united by 
 conquest, but when this took place they usually 
 coalesced completely, so that a union of tribes made 
 
 A 
 
2 SIMPLE AND [int. 
 
 by conquest became a single tribe, scarcely showing 
 a trace of local cleavage. Tribes then in general will 
 be regarded as simple undivided societies. 
 
 Next after the tribes came cities. A tribe grew 
 into a city by concentrating itself within walls. A 
 large proportion of the cities were never 
 ^'''^^' united by conquest, but remained separate 
 
 states. These single cities when they came to ma- 
 turity were the most compact and indivisible states 
 known to history. 
 
 We shall then count the tribes and the single 
 cities as being simple and undivided, or at any rate 
 as being more undivided than most 
 m^?tfes crn- other States. It will be shown hereafter 
 form to a few f,]iat these simple and undivided com- 
 ^ ' munities all conform to a few definite 
 
 types, and each type has its organ of government 
 constituted in a certain way peculiar to itself. The 
 regularity which prevails among the simple and un- 
 divided states seems to prove that their development 
 is controlled by natural laws rather than by man's 
 contrivance, and that in some way or other each 
 simple state has its form of government allotted to it 
 by nature. 
 
 The simple communities can be joined together 
 
 either by conquest or by their voluntary consent so as 
 
 to form new states : and the new states are 
 Composite . 
 
 states more Composite. The composite states include 
 variable. ^j^ unions of cities such as that which 
 formed the Roman Republic, (2) unions of small and 
 similar rural communities such as those which made 
 
INT.] COMPOSITE STATES 3 
 
 the mediaeval kingdoms, (3) unions of unlike peoples 
 such as constituted the Roman Empire and the 
 Empire of Charlemagne, and lastly (4) those unions 
 made by voluntary consent which are known as 
 federal states. The composite states do not conform 
 to a few defined types, but seem to be capable of 
 indefinite variation. Their variability will be re- 
 garded as arising from their artificial origin: for it 
 will be shown that a union of two states must always 
 be brought about, at least partly, by deliberate design, 
 and not entirely by instinctive action, and therefore 
 composite states are distinguished from simple states 
 by having a more artificial character. 
 
 Although composite states seem to be capable of 
 indefinite variation, some composite states are alike. 
 
 Groups of similar composite states are 
 
 r . Some com- 
 
 lound among the heterogeneous empires posite states 
 
 and the federal states. Heterogeneous ^re similar, 
 empires and federal states are made more de- 
 liberately and consciously than any other states, 
 and their character is very largely determined by the 
 plan of construction which their founders- adopted. 
 The founders of empires and of federations have 
 tried many plans in constructing them, and therefore 
 there are many varieties of each of these kinds of 
 composite states ; but one plan of making an empire 
 and two plans of making a federation have been 
 found especially useful, and accordingly there is a 
 group of similar empires and there are two groups 
 of similar federations constructed after the most 
 advantageous designs. The successful empires then 
 
4 TRANSITION TO SIMPLICITY [int. 
 
 form a group of similar states, and every successful 
 empire may be compared with every other ; and the 
 same is true of the two groups of federations con- 
 structed according to the designs that have generally 
 yielded the best results. Among the states formed 
 by union of cities and in the media3val kingdoms I 
 have failed to find any groups of precisely similar 
 communities. It would seem that their growth was 
 too natural to be controlled by the designs of their 
 founders, and their origin too artificial to allow them 
 to grow naturally. As these states in ancient and 
 mediaeval history refuse to be classified, my discussion 
 of them must be limited to pointing out certain well- 
 known analogies and differences in the development 
 of their constitutions. 
 
 It will be seen then that I shall regard the 
 
 distinction between simple states and composite 
 
 states as fundamental, since simple 
 
 states may States Seem to grow of themselves, 
 
 become ^^(j composite States are more or less 
 
 simple. . 
 
 deliberately designed and constructed. 
 But the distinction is not indelible. A composite 
 state, under certain conditions, may take to grow- 
 ing of itself, and may be converted into a single 
 community and into a simple state. In order that 
 it may do this it is necessary that it should be 
 composed of like materials, and that it should not 
 renew its composite character by uniting more 
 communities with itself. Unions of cities do not 
 often grow into simple states, because they usually 
 go on annexing new communities continually. The 
 
INT.] CLASSIFICATION 5 
 
 mediaeval kingdoms, on the contrary, had bounds 
 set to their ambition either by geographical limits or 
 by the strength of their neighbours, and many of 
 them have been converted into single and undivided 
 communities, which are generally denoted as unitary 
 nations to distinguish them from federal states. The 
 unitary nations all conform to one type, and all have 
 a kind of government not found except in unitary 
 nations. They are then a class of naturally formed 
 states easily distinguishable from other classes, and 
 the individual specimens can be profitably compared 
 with one another. It will indeed be necessary to 
 admit that only one of the unitary nations developed 
 its organs of government for itself : the other nations 
 copied their governments from the nation which set 
 the example, but they have now had some experi- 
 ence of the governments which they adopted, and 
 have found them hitherto suited to their require- 
 ments. 
 
 The general lines then of our classification will run 
 as follows. We shall divide states into simple states 
 and composite states. All simple states 
 can be arranged in a few classes, each classification 
 class conforming to a definite type and ^^°P^^^- 
 having a kind of government peculiar to itself. A 
 great number of the composite states cannot be 
 arranged in classes ; sometimes, however, many com- 
 posite states have been designed by the founders 
 according to a common plan, and then these states 
 form a class by themselves ; but it is a class of 
 objects rather of artificial construction than of 
 
6 CLASSIFICATION [int. 
 
 natural growth. The types of states cannot be 
 enumerated here, since it will be the work of our 
 discussion in the ensuing chapters to discover and 
 define them : a list of them will be found in the last 
 chapter in the volume. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PKEHISTORIC TRIBES 
 
 In starting on our survey of states and governments, 
 we are met at the outset by the inevitable question, 
 What was the origin of pohtical com- 
 munities and their governments? At- states"and 
 tempts have been made to answer it from governments 
 observation of ancient customs embedded 
 in the institutions of peoples who afterwards attained 
 to various degrees of civilisation, as the ancient 
 Romans and Greeks.^ It appears to me that all 
 attempts to discover the origins of political organisa- 
 tions by this method must, for the present at least, be 
 doomed to failure. We have had accessible to our 
 scrutiny in modern times the uncivilised peoples of 
 Asia, America, Africa, and Australasia, who are cer- 
 tainly much nearer to the most primitive forms of 
 organisation than any of the historical peoples of 
 ancient Europe, and yet we do not know how political 
 societies and governments first came into existence in 
 any one of them. There is indeed reason to suspect 
 that their origins may have varied very greatly in 
 different parts of the dark continents. But till we 
 have discovered far more than we know at present 
 about the first beginnings of political life in modern 
 
 ^ See Appendix at the end of the volume. 
 
8 PREHISTOEIC TRIBES [ch. i. 
 
 uncivilised peoples, who have varied comparatively 
 little from their most primitive forms, and who have 
 been subjected to careful observation, it seems hope- 
 less to attempt to ascertain the first origins of societies 
 and governments among the European peoples of 
 ancient times, who offer in many ways a less favour- 
 able field for investigation of the subject. 
 
 Passing over then the problem of origins as being 
 for the present insoluble, we direct our attention to- 
 the very different question, What con- 
 
 What con- _ ■' ^ ' 
 
 ditions are ditions must exist in a group of human 
 the"eStence ^^ings in Order that they may have a 
 of govern- government and constitute a political 
 
 society ? This question can be answered 
 from the conclusions derived from observation of 
 those races of mankind which have never attained 
 to a civilised condition. 
 
 Uncivilised peoples are divided into four well- 
 marked classes or grades, according to the degree 
 
 of material well-being which falls to their 
 uncivilised lot. The lowest class are the hunting 
 peoples. peoples, who have no regular resources for 
 their sustenance, but depend from day to day upon 
 their success in killing wild animals and gathering 
 the fruits or roots of wild plants. The class next 
 above them are the nomads, or peoples who have 
 flocks and herds to yield them flesh and milk, but 
 have no fixed habitations, because they are compelled 
 to wander about in search of pasture. Next above 
 these come the settled pastoral peoples, who have 
 both flocks and herds and fixed abodes. Highest of 
 
OH. I.] FOUE GEADES 9 
 
 all among uncivilised mankind are the agricultural 
 peoples, who know the arts of tilling the soil and of 
 growing corn, and of making bread or pulse. 
 
 It seems to be an established fact that the only 
 instances of peoples without any government at all are 
 found among the hunting peoples.^ Some 
 of the nomads, such as the Bedouin Arabs, 
 may have very little of government, and yet in the 
 rule of their sheikhs they have something ta which 
 the name of government cannot be completely denied. 
 On the other hand all the settled peoples with fixed 
 habitations, whether they are pastoral or agricultural, 
 are found to be formed into political communities 
 and to have governments more or less regularly 
 constituted. 
 
 The conditions then which are necessary to the 
 existence of government seem to be pretty clearly 
 established. The hunting peoples may in some cases 
 be totally devoid of government: all peoples who 
 have means of subsistence other than those derived 
 from hunting have something of government, and 
 those who are settled in fixed habitations have 
 governments of some solidity and durability. And 
 the reasons why these conditions prevail may per- 
 haps in some measure be discovered and understood. 
 
 If we consider firstly the hunting peoples, it is 
 quite easy to see the reasons that may debar them 
 
 ' I am led to this conclusion by a passage in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 
 Political Institutions (§ 442). All the instances that he there cites 
 of peoples without governments come from the class of savages or 
 hunting peoples ; and, after consulting his Descriptive Sociology, I 
 do not think any instances adverse to my conclusion can be found. 
 
10 PREHISTORIC TRIBES [ch. i. 
 
 from having any government. The life of a primi- 
 tive hunter is always spent for the most part in isola- 
 tion. There are some of them whose only 
 weapons for the chase are wretched bows 
 and arrows: with such miserable appliances it is 
 impossible to obtain food enough to support life 
 unless each family wanders in complete isolation, 
 because any gathering of men would frighten away 
 the game ; and as they do not live together nor act 
 together, the idea of having a government does not 
 occur to them, and if any rules of government existed 
 there would be no means of enforcing them. And 
 something of the same sort occurs even among those 
 hunting peoples who are raised to prosperity by the 
 proximity of wealthy neighbours, from whom they 
 can obtain commodities and comforts in return for 
 the furs of wild animals. They may have effective 
 weapons ; they may be able to make such elaborate 
 appliances as stockades to catch buffalo; and yet 
 they too find it advantageous to hunt singly or in 
 twos or threes during the greater part of the year, 
 although for a few days at a time they unite for a 
 great hunting party. Whenever they are gathered 
 together, a government is formed for the time being ; 
 but, as a matter of course, as soon as the hunters 
 disperse the government goes into abeyance.^ 
 
 * The remarks here made about the life of savages are founded 
 on actual instances — namely, the Bushmen of South Africa in the 
 early part of the nineteenth century, and the Red Indians of North 
 America about fifty years ago. The authorities for them are 
 Burchell, Travels (1822), and H. Y. Hind, The Canadian Red Kii-er 
 Exploring Expedition (1860). 
 
CH. I.] PRIMITIVE ORGANISATION 11 
 
 On the other hand, when we turn to the settled 
 peoples, we easily see how governments are possible 
 and useful to them. As they have a sure resource in 
 their herds or their grain, and are not dependent on 
 hunting alone, there is nothing to prevent them 
 from living permanently grouped together in small 
 bodies without danger of starvation ; they dis- 
 cover the advantages of living together and acting 
 together for defence or for aggression; accordingly 
 they do live together and act together, and under 
 these circumstances some kind of leadership or 
 government is necessary, and it readily comes into 
 existence. How it arises no one can say; it may 
 be that the birth of a primitive government never 
 occurs twice over in the same way. All that we 
 know is, that when men live together and act to- 
 gether government is needed, and government is 
 there. 
 
 Now that we have considered what are the con- 
 ditions necessary to the existence of government, 
 we may turn to inquire. What kinds of _. , 
 
 •> _^ The form of 
 
 political communities and governments primitive 
 are most prevalent among primitive °''8^^"'^^ '°"- 
 peoples ? This question, like the one recently under 
 discussion, can only be answered if we observe what 
 happens among the most primitive peoples known to 
 us — namely, the non-European uncivilised peoples of 
 modern times. Among these rude peoples of our 
 own days, the prevalent political bodies are tribes or 
 small communities under governments of their own, 
 living in the open country, without any walled city. 
 
12 PEEHISTOEIC TRIBES [CH. i. 
 
 The circumstances in which the tribes are placed 
 determine the form which their governments assume. 
 As tribes are constantly employed in fighting with 
 one another, their governments are such as to pro- 
 mote military efficiency and success in war. The 
 chief conditions necessary for military success in a 
 rude people are two : there must be some leadership 
 or command, and at the same time all the tribesmen 
 must be ready to fight zealously. Accordingly we 
 find in almost all uncivilised tribes that in order to 
 provide leadership there is, firstly, a commander-in- 
 chief or king, and secondly, under him, lesser captains 
 or chieftains ; and in order to ensure that all the 
 tribesmen shall fight zealously and none shall be 
 discontented, the whole mass of the fighting men 
 have a share in settling the policy of the tribe. 
 Thus the tribal governments as we see them in the 
 uncivilised races of the present day are mixed 
 governments containing the three elements, king, 
 chieftains or nobles, and common folk ; the govern- 
 ment is conducted in assemblies or folkmoots, in 
 which all the three elements are present, and each 
 has such a share of political power as is fairly 
 proportioned to the services which it renders to the 
 tribe upon the battlefield. ^ 
 The conclusions derived from observation of modern 
 
 ^ See Mr. Herbert Spencer's Descriptive Sociology, the tables 
 relating to African and Indian tribes ; also his Political Institutions, 
 § 464. A tribal assembly held by the Ma-tchappi, a Bechuana 
 tribe, in South Africa about 1822, was witnessed by Thompson and 
 Moflfatt, and its proceedings are vividly described by Thompson, 
 TraveU (1827), vol. i. pp. 156-191. 
 
CH. I.] ARYAN TRIBES 13 
 
 uncivilised peoples can be applied to the elucidation 
 of the prehistoric condition of the Aryans, from whom 
 the peoples most important in history prehistoric 
 are descended. Our chief conclusion Aryan tribes, 
 hitherto has been that all settled peoples, whether 
 pastoral or agricultural, have governments, and their 
 governments are usually conducted in assemblies 
 attended by king, nobles, and people. From the 
 evidence of language we know that in the remote 
 prehistoric age, when the Aryans lived together as 
 neighbours, some of them were settled pastoral 
 peoples. The evidence to this effect occurs in 
 abundance in the languages of the Greeks, the 
 Romans, the Germans, the Persians, and the ancient 
 Hindus. It proves that the forefathers of these 
 peoples while they lived together had domesticated 
 some of the animals most useful for the sustenance or 
 service of man ; they certainly kept cows, sheep, and 
 dogs, and probably also pigs and horses. They knew 
 how to make use of the strength of their cattle for 
 draught ; they had carts on wheels, and yokes for the 
 necks of the oxen. They were not entirely ignorant 
 of the use of corn for food, though it must be 
 admitted that they knew and cared very little about 
 the tillage of the soil. And lastly — what is a very 
 important indication of the progress they had made 
 — they were not wanderers, but had fixed abodes and 
 settlements ; their dwellings were not mere movable 
 tents, but houses with doors. They were, in short, 
 settled pastoral peoples; and hence, as has been 
 shown above, we may infer with certainty that they 
 
14 PEEHISTOEIC TRIBES [ch. i. 
 
 had some kind of political organisation, and with 
 much probability that they were governed by assem- 
 blies in which king, nobles, and people took part. In 
 regard to the forefathers of the Greeks, the Germans, 
 and Hindus, the probability of the second inference 
 becomes a certainty when we take into account the 
 well-known fact that their descendants in later ages 
 have lived under tribal governments of the ordinary 
 type.i 
 
 So then in that distant age, when the Aryans all 
 lived together, the forefathers of the Greeks, the 
 Germans, and Hindus were already settled pastoral 
 peoples, organised in political communities and 
 governed by their folkmoots. How distant that age 
 may have been no one can tell ; it is separated from 
 times of which we possess records by a gulf of ages 
 which we cannot bridge over and cannot measure. 
 In the interval between the Aryan age and the 
 beginning of history, the changes that occurred were 
 immense: the Aryans divided by means of some 
 great migration into two branches, of which the one 
 inhabited Europe and the other Central Asia ; in the 
 Asiatic branch there arose the great Persian Empire, 
 and the voluminous sacred literature of the Hindus ; 
 in the European branch the Greeks and Italians 
 advanced from mere barbarism to that degree of 
 cultiire which we find them possessing when first the 
 light of history dawns upon them. 
 
 ^ The linguistic evidence about the material condition of the 
 ancient Aryans has been carefully examined by Schrader in his 
 Sprachvergleichimg und Urgeschichie, translated into English by Mr. 
 Jevons under the title Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples. 
 
CH. I.] THEIR ANTIQUITY 15 
 
 Before I leave the consideration of the Aryans in 
 prehistoric times, it is desirable to point out that I 
 make no assertion whatever about the condition, in 
 those ages, of the Celtic and Slavic branches of the 
 race. There may be evidence in the languages of 
 the modern Celts and Slavs sufficient to show the 
 condition of their forefathers in the Aryan age ; but 
 if there is I do not know it. With this word to 
 guard against misconception, I pass on to examine 
 the tribes of Germans and the Greeks as they are 
 known to us from literature. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EUROPEAN TRIBES 
 
 The earliest and least artificial of all the European 
 communities known to us from literature were those 
 which grew up among the ancient Germans and 
 Greeks. When first we can discern them, each was 
 a single community having a territory and govern- 
 ment of its own, living mainly in the open country, 
 and devoting itself to pastoral, agricultural, or 
 military pursuits. So long as they retained these 
 characteristics unaltered, we must call them by the 
 vague name of tribes, because no more expressive 
 name has been invented. The communities which 
 cannot be denoted otherwise than as tribes form a 
 class by themselves. They include most obviously 
 the Spartans in the early part of their career, the 
 German peoples described by Tacitus, and the Anglo- 
 Saxon peoples of the so-called Heptarchic period. 
 I must also place in the same class the Achaean 
 communities known to us from the Homeric poems, 
 because though they possessed fortified towns and 
 were on their way to become city states, the mass of 
 their populations had not as yet diverged perceptibly 
 from those pursuits which are especially characteristic 
 of tribesmen. 
 
CH. II.] POOE TRIBES 17 
 
 Before I describe the early tribes known to us from 
 literature, it may be remarked that any one of them 
 may have been formed from a union of many smaller 
 tribes. We know of the existence in some parts of 
 Europe of tribes no larger thaa villages ; and it is not 
 improbable that such minute tribes may have existed 
 elsewhere. It is obvious that they might easily be 
 merged in larger tribes. 
 
 In speaking of the European tribes which form the 
 subject of the present chapter, it will obviously be 
 convenient to begin with those among 
 
 1-1111 /■ 1 Poor tribes. 
 
 them which had departed least irom the 
 conditions that had prevailed among the prehistoric 
 Aryans who are known to us only from the evidence 
 of language. The old Aryans had lived as rude, poor 
 herdsmen, knowing nothing of wealth and luxury ; 
 and it will be natural for us, in treating of tribes 
 known to us through the medium of literature, to 
 speak first of some among them who lived even in 
 the age of literature in a like condition of primitive 
 simplicity. The tribes among the Germans and the 
 Greeks who still lived on into the age known from 
 literature unaltered from their original tribal state, 
 and in a condition of primseval poverty, were the 
 Germans whom Tacitus described, and the Spartans 
 _in the earliest part of their history. Of the habits 
 and governments of these primitive peoples I shall 
 now proceed to sketch in outline the most salient 
 characteristics. 
 
 Our knowledge of the ancient German tribes is 
 derived from the descriptions of them left to us by 
 
 B 
 
18 EUROPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 Julius Csesar and by Tacitus. Csesar in the year 
 55 B.C. made a flying incursion of eighteen days' dura- 
 tion into Germany, and in the remainder 
 In Germany. j • n i 
 
 01 his proconsular command m (jraul, 
 
 which lasted till 49 B.C., he diligently collected 
 information about the Germans from travellers. 
 Tacitus published his description of the Germans 
 in 98 A.D., and could make use of the knowledge 
 which the Romans had acquired during their mili- 
 tary occupation of Germany from b.c. 9 to a.d. 16, 
 and in their subsequent dealings, peaceful or war- 
 like, with the German peoples. 
 
 Among all the characteristics of the German tribes 
 none made more impression, both on Csesar and 
 Tacitus, than the hardy simplicity of their mode 
 of living and their ignorance of all kinds of luxury. 
 From the descriptions given by these authors we 
 learn that, though the Germans were not entirely 
 unacquainted with agriculture, they were still rather 
 herdsmen than tillers of the soil. Their only riches 
 were their flocks and herds ; they had no commerce, 
 no accumulations of wealth, no towns, nor even 
 villages in the ordinary acceptation of the word; 
 for their houses were never grouped closely together, 
 but each was a separate homestead standing apart 
 in its own plot of ground. Property, such as they 
 had, was evenly distributed; none were rich, few 
 were destitute. In warfare all used the same simple 
 weapons — a shield and a short spear, fit alike for 
 thrusting and for casting: they had not any large 
 supply of good horses, and the strongest of the 
 
CH. II. J GERMANS 19 
 
 warriors fought on foot; for the cayalry and the 
 infantry formed a mixed force, and the footmen 
 were expected to run fast enough to keep up with 
 their mounted comrades.^ 
 
 The governments of the German tribes, carefully 
 described by Tacitus, were a product of the con- 
 ditions in which they lived. The elements of the 
 population were still three, as in more primitive 
 tribes; at the head was the king, below him the 
 chieftains, and lastly the ordinary warriors. The 
 supreme government, as in other primitive tribes, 
 was conducted in general assemblies or folkmoots, 
 in which all three elements were present ; and as all 
 men were nearly alike in possessions and in military 
 efficiency, the final decision in all great matters, such 
 as questions of war or peace, rested with the whole 
 host, and not with the chieftains and king. The 
 king and chieftains formed a council which settled 
 matters of less importance, and undertook a pre- 
 liminary consideration of proposals to be submitted 
 to the general assembly ; but this was the limit of 
 their powers. The king was not exalted high above 
 the chieftains unless he gained a lofty position by 
 lofty personal qualities. In the general assembly 
 the proposals were usually made by the king or some 
 chieftain ; but each man got a favourable hearing 
 only in proportion to his own merits and the merits 
 of what he said ; and the assembled people could, 
 if they thought fit, summarily reject the proposals 
 that were made by uttering a general murmur of 
 
 ' Caesar, Bdl. Qall. vi. 22 ; iv. 1, 2. Tacitus, Oermaniay e. 6, u. 6. 
 
20 EUKOPEAN TRIBES [ch. n. 
 
 dissent. The folkmoot then was a sovereign folk- 
 moot in which each man counted for what he was 
 worth ; and it settled all the business which the 
 tribe regarded as important. It had the power and 
 duty of electing a king among candidates of princely 
 lineage ; it named generals to command in war, and 
 elected chieftains to administer justice in time of 
 peace.^ 
 
 Although we possess descriptions of many other 
 political institutions of the ancient German tribes, 
 besides those that have been mentioned above, it 
 seems to me convenient to put off the consideration 
 of these other institutions to a later part of the 
 present chapter. We have already observed what 
 was the supreme organ of government in the German 
 tribes, and we can now direct our attention to the 
 supreme organ of government in a Greek tribe which 
 was as hardy and simple in its mode of life as were 
 our own forefathers in their German homes. 
 
 It happens (unfortunately for students of political 
 institutions) that, though all the Greek tribes must 
 once have lived in a condition of primitive 
 poverty, there is only one of them which 
 remained in that condition to so late a period that 
 traditions about it have been handed down to us in 
 books. That one tribe is the Dorian tribe of the 
 Spartans. 
 
 The whole- Greek race was made up through 
 junction of many lesser races : historians are able 
 to count up about eighteen of these lesser races, 
 
 ' Csesar, Bull. Qall, v'\. 23 ; Tacitus, Qermania, c. 11, u. 12. 
 
CH. II.] SPARTANS 21 
 
 each of -which comprised in itself a number of 
 tribes. Among the lesser races which made up 
 the Hellenic name, the most conspic- 
 uous are the Achseans, the Dorians, 
 and the lonians. In the time of Homer many 
 tribes belonging to the Achaean race had attained 
 to great material prosperity; and in consequence 
 of their material prosperity and the accumu- 
 lations of wealth which they had made, they 
 are not suitable for comparison with our rude Ger- 
 man forefathers. In the same age of Homer the 
 Dorians were so obscure a race that they are only 
 mentioned once or twice in the Homeric poems, and 
 even' then they are barely mentioned. They were 
 living, as we learn from Herodotus,^ in a small 
 district situate on the southern side of Mount CEta, 
 which, in the neighbourhood of Thermopylae, forms 
 the northern bulwark of Greece. Their home was a 
 narrow rocky valley, walled in on the north by the 
 range which has just been mentioned, and on the 
 west and south by continuous ridges which join that 
 range with Mount Parnassus. On the east the waters 
 of their valley flowed out, first into Phokis and then 
 into Boeotia ; and as Phokis and Boeotia were already 
 occupied by tribes who were not Dorians, the Dorians 
 were debarred from access to the sea. It was the sea 
 in those days which brought wealth into Greece, and, 
 as the Dorians had no communication with the sea, 
 they knew nothing of those material advantages 
 which the Achaean tribes enjoyed. They were of 
 
 ' Herodotus, viii. 31. 
 
22 EUEOPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 necessity hardy mountaineers inured to poverty and 
 habits of endurance. 
 
 At some time between the age of Homer and the 
 beginning of Greek history, properly so called, the 
 
 sturdy Dorian tribes issued out of their 
 Spartans. 
 
 mountain gorge, invaded the Pelopon- 
 nesus, expelled the Achaean tribes out of their 
 abodes, and themselves occupied the conquered 
 territory. In many cases the conquered lands con- 
 tained excellent sites for cities, on which the Achseans 
 had already built small towns, as Corinth, Mycenae, 
 Argos ; in those cases the Dorian communities settled 
 in the towns, adopted urban habits of Hfe, lost their 
 old tribal condition, and grew into Dorian city states, 
 so that they do not belong to the subject of the 
 present chapter. In two cases the conquered terri- 
 tory was suited to the rural pursuits by which tribes 
 are distinguished; and in these two cases the con- 
 querors remained in their tribal condition under 
 the names of Messenians and Spartans. Of the 
 Messenians we have no trustworthy records, and the 
 Spartans are the only Greek tribe in a condition of 
 primitive poverty that is accessible to our investigation. 
 Of the habits of the Spartans immediately after 
 their settlement in the country which they had 
 conquered from the Achseans we have no contemp- 
 orary records ; that settlement was long antecedent 
 to the age of written history. But we know from a 
 treatise which is attributed to Xenophon, and was 
 certainly written in the time when he lived, that in 
 the central period of Greek history (about 400 b.c.), 
 
CH. ii.J SPARTANS 23 
 
 they lived such a life of poverty and hardship that 
 Spartan endurance has ever since been proverbial; 
 and, as they lived in poverty in an age when wealth 
 was widely diffiised among the other Greeks, there is 
 no doubt that they were poor from the beginning 
 and always remained poor. To state details of their 
 poverty is unnecessary ; it will suffice to say that all 
 were poor, and there was no class superior to the rest 
 in possessions or in military efficiency. 
 
 In the Spartan community, as in the German 
 tribes, the supreme organ of government was a 
 folkmoot in which the three elements of „ . . , 
 
 Onginal 
 
 the population were all present and each Spartan 
 had a share of influence and authority. S"'^™™^" • 
 Kingship, however, was not the same thing among 
 the Spartans as it was in German tribes ; a German 
 tribe, as we have seen, had one king, a man chosen 
 by the folkmoot from among candidates of princely 
 lineage; the Spartans had duplicated the kingly 
 office, and they recognised two kings and two royal 
 families ; there was no such thing as election in the 
 process of filling the kingly office, but the heads of 
 the two royal families ruled conjointly, and when a 
 king died his heir male mounted the throne by 
 right of descent. The remaining two elements in 
 the Spartan folkmoot, as it was defined in the 
 constitution which bore the name of the legendary 
 lawgiver, Lycurgus, were just like those in a German 
 folkmoot : there was a council of elders, exactly 
 twenty-eight in number, so as to make thirty with 
 the two kings ; and it was ordained that the whole 
 
24 EUROPEAN TRIBES [cH. ii. 
 
 folkmoot, king, elders, and people, should meet at 
 fixed times and within fixed limits of place, close to 
 the group of unwalled villages which collectively 
 bore the name of Sparta. The relations, too, of 
 each component part of the folkmoot to the whole 
 was the same as in Germany : resolutions were 
 proposed by the council of thirty, but the whole 
 people had the power of accepting or rejecting the. 
 resolutions according as they thought fit. The con- 
 stitution then of the early Spartans was one in 
 which every element of the population had its share 
 of power, and an even balance was kept up by the 
 action and reaction of the forces exercised by king, 
 elders, and people. This constitution was observed, 
 and this even balance of powers was maintained, 
 until the reigns of two kings, Polydorus and Theo- 
 pompus, somewhere about 700 e.g. In their reign 
 for the first time the Spartan tribe was altered out 
 of its original tribal form by contact with another 
 people ; and in that same reign an attempt was made 
 to alter the balance of the constitution. The attempt 
 was made by the commoners in the folkmoot ; they 
 took to a practice of moving amendments to the 
 resolutions submitted to them by the council of 
 thirty, and thereby encroached on the established 
 privilege of the council, who had till then possessed 
 the sole right of proposing resolutions and initiat- 
 ing measures. The usurpation of power by the 
 commoners was a failure, and they suffered defeat 
 through the resistance of the kings and elders. The 
 measure, however, by which they were defeated is 
 
CH. ii.J EICH TRIBES 25 
 
 only a part of a series of measures which were 
 adopted by the Spartans when the whole form of 
 the Spartan community was altered by contact with 
 another people. These measures form a part of the 
 revolution which, about 700 B.C., changed the Spartan 
 community from being an excellent example of the 
 original form of tribes into a shape so distorted that, 
 till fifty years ago, there was no parallel to it in all 
 history. The revolution which altered the Spartan 
 state will be described in my third chapter; the 
 defeat of the usurpation of the commoners will there 
 be explained, and therefore no further account of it 
 need here be attempted.^ 
 
 We have now observed that both the Spartans and 
 the many tribes of the Germans known to Tacitus 
 are examples of poor tribes, in which 
 
 ^ , . „ 1 1 Rich tribes. 
 
 there were no accumulations oi wealth, 
 nor any class superior to the rest in possessions or 
 in military efficiency; and we have further noticed 
 that both at Sparta in early times and in the 
 German tribes the supreme organ of government 
 was a folkmoot, in which every class of the popula- 
 tion had a share of power and influence. We may 
 now turn our attention to two groups of tribes in 
 which wealth had been accumulated, and had been 
 amassed in private hands so as to form a class of men 
 superior to the rest in social position. The two 
 groups to which I refer are the Achaean tribes among 
 whom Homer lived, and those German tribes who 
 
 ^ The chief authority for the earliest Spartan constitution is 
 Plutarch, Lycurgus, u. 6, c. 7. 
 
26 EUROPEAN TRIBES [on. ii. 
 
 migrated to Britain and were there known as Angles 
 and Saxons. Both the Achseans and the Anglo- 
 Saxon tribes properly belong to the subject of the 
 present chapter; for, though they had attained to 
 material prosperity, they had not been altered out of 
 their original tribal form nor deserted the pursuits 
 characteristic of tribesmen. 
 
 The Achaean tribes of the heroic age, as every 
 reader of Homer knows, lived in a condition far 
 Achaean removed from the poverty of the peoples 
 tribes. of whom I have thus far been speaking. 
 They had become skilful and diligent in agriculture, 
 ploughing the soil, growing corn, cultivating the vine 
 and the olive tree ; they were rich too in flocks and 
 herds. At their sacrificial banquets there was always 
 abundance of bread, wine, and oil, and plenty of 
 victims for slaughter. Of the useful metals they 
 had what they needed ; they employed bronze for 
 weapons of war, and iron for the ploughshare and 
 the mattock. The precious metals were not want- 
 ing : the princes drank the red wine sometimes out 
 of goblets of gold; and it might chance, when a 
 guest on coming to a house washed his hands, that 
 the water was poured on them from a golden ewer 
 over a silver basin. They had good weapons and 
 armour. Each chief carried a long sword and short 
 dagger, as well as two spears suited either for hurling 
 or for thrusting. Every warrior had helmet and 
 shield, greaves and cuirass ; but the chiefs had them 
 of finer quality and make than the ordinary fighting 
 men could obtain. And lastly, there was one form of 
 
CH. II.] ■ ACH^AN TRIBES 27 
 
 wealth more important than all the rest: the rich 
 men and chieftains had chariots for war, and swift 
 horses to draw them. If we were to take the 
 descriptions of battles in the Iliad as corresponding 
 precisely with battles that actually occurred, we 
 should conclude that one warrior in a chariot was 
 more than a match for a score of men on foot; it 
 is, however, only reasonable to remember that the 
 heroes whose deeds the bard recited were usually 
 fighting in chariots, and that the bard, in his desire 
 to emphasise the prowess of the heroes, was com- 
 pelled to make the man in the chariot invincible 
 by any number of the ordinary herd. But still, 
 after making all possible allowance for distortion of 
 facts arising from the exigencies of the poet's art, it 
 remains indubitable that the possession of a chariot 
 and a pair of swift horses gave a man a great 
 advantage in a battle, and that the rich men who 
 fought in chariots were far more efficient in warfare 
 than an equal number of poor men who fought on 
 foot. 
 
 The governments of the prosperous Achaean tribes 
 were in one respect like those of the poor tribes of 
 the Germans and the Spartans: assem- AchKangov- 
 blies were held for carrying on political emments. 
 business, and in those assemblies king, elders, and 
 people were present. But in the Achaean tribes 
 power belonged exclusively to the rich class of the 
 king and elders ; for this class consisted of the men 
 whose prowess and equipment decided the fate of 
 battles. The king and elders often met as a council 
 
28 EUROPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 apart from the people ; in their council they settled 
 what was to be done, and the meeting of the assembly 
 of the whole people scarcely served any purpose, save 
 to give them a convenient opportunity of making 
 known their decisions. There are two pictures of 
 political assemblies in the Iliad and Odyssey ; ^ 
 and from both it is clear that the rulers were the 
 king and elders, and the part of the people was to 
 hearken and obey. 
 
 The political communities of Anglo-Saxon England 
 were tribes when first they settled in the island ; and 
 ^^ Jo. tribes they continued to be until they 
 
 Saxon tribes, ^ere united into one large community 
 under ^ing Egbert in the early part of the ninth 
 century. There were, to begin with, about seventeen 
 independent tribes whose names have come down to 
 us, and possibly others of whom no traces have been 
 left. In course of time some of the weaker tribes 
 lost their independence and were incorporated with 
 stronger neighbours, so that by the middle of the 
 seventh century there were only six tribes with 
 governments of their own; and this small number 
 was still further reduced towards the end of the 
 tribal period in England when the South Saxons 
 and the men of Kent were reduced to dependence on 
 the West Saxons. 
 
 It would be rash to attempt precision in speaking 
 about the economic condition of the English during 
 the tribal period; but we possess some documents 
 which were composed in that period, and from them 
 
 ' Iliad, ii. and Odyssey, ii. 
 
CH. II.] ANGLO-SAXONS 29 
 
 we can form some actions on the subject. Our autho- 
 rities are the collections of the early laws of Kent and 
 Wessex, Bede's Ecclesiastical History (finished in the 
 year 731), and the English translation of Bede made 
 by order of King Alfred in the ninth century. From 
 a comparison of these writings we can see that there 
 was a well-marked gradation of classes both in Kent 
 and in Wessex during the tribal period. The middle 
 class were the ceorls or yeomen, freeholders of the 
 estates which they cultivated. The word hide 
 originally meant the amount of land held by a 
 ceorl; in the time of the Norman Conquest it had 
 come to be a measure of land, denoting an area that 
 varied in different parts of England, but was nowhere 
 less than a hundred acres ; and we may fairly believe 
 that in the tribal period a ceorl usually held land in 
 fee simple to an amount of one or two hundred 
 acres. The rich class can be recognised both in 
 Kent and in Wessex ; in the Kentish laws we find 
 two classes of rich men known as eorls and gesith- 
 cundmen, and can see that they were rich because in- 
 juries done to them or by them entailed twice as much 
 payment of damages as in the case of a ceorl ; ^ in the 
 laws of Wessex we find enactments about men who own 
 estates of twenty hides apiece under a condition that 
 they shall get at least twelve hides out of the twenty 
 into order for occupation.^ The very poor classes 
 both in Kent and in Wessex were servile or semi- 
 
 ^ Aethelberht, 13 ; Wihtraed, 5. The laws of the Anglo-Saxon 
 tribes are printed in Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of 
 England, and in Sohmid, Oesetze der Angel-Sachsen. 
 
 2 Ine, 64. 
 
30 EUROPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 servile dependents on the rich men ; thus in both com- 
 munities there were theows and esnes (two words for 
 slaves) ; and in Kent we find the ceorl's hlaf aeta, a 
 ceorl's servant who lived in his house and ate his bread. 
 
 These facts show that there were gradations in the 
 size of landed estates, but do not prove much about 
 the material well-being of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. 
 There are, however, two facts which throw more light 
 on the economic condition of the people. Ploughing 
 was an ordinary occupation, and therefore the people 
 were agricultural as well as pastoral ; i and the laws 
 in prescribing the amount of compensation for in- 
 juries — the injuries are discriminated from one 
 another with wonderful minuteness and elaboration 
 —always ordain that the compensation shall be paid, 
 not in sheep or oxen, but in a definite and some- 
 times very large amount of coined money. This one 
 fact proves of itself that coined money was in general 
 circulation as the measure of value, and shows that 
 the Germans in England were in a condition of 
 prosperity very far removed from the hardy poverty 
 of their ancestors in the old fatherland of the race. 
 
 The governments of the Anglo-Saxon tribes may 
 now be recalled to the recollection of the reader. 
 The three elements of the free population 
 Saxon gov- were still present — the king, the rich class 
 ernments. ^£ ^j.^^^ landowners, and the ordinary 
 yeomen or ceorls. But the control of the common 
 policy and the care of the common interests of the 
 tribe belonged exclusively to the king and the rich 
 
 1 Ine, 67. 
 
CH. II.] LAEGE TRIBES AND SMALL 31 
 
 men ; the supreme organ of the government was the 
 king and his council of the Witan, or wise men, a 
 very small gathering of men selected from the rich ; 
 and there were no folkmoots or assemblies of the 
 whole people.! yf}xj it was that in the Anglo-Saxon 
 tribes power belonged exclusively to the king and 
 the rich men, I know not ; probably the rich men, 
 or their fathers before them, had become rich because 
 they were distinguished in warfare as soldiers or as 
 chieftains, and thus the rich class being the most 
 effective in war were also the influential class in 
 counsel. The fact at any rate, that among the Anglo- 
 Saxons the rich men were the rulers, is useful, 
 because it helps to establish a coincidence between 
 the fortunes of two peoples so remote from one 
 another as the Achseans in the age of Homer and 
 our own ancestors soon after their first settlement 
 in Britain. Both peoples were arranged in tribes, 
 both had attained to material well-being far different 
 from the poverty of more primitive tribes, and in 
 both the supreme organ of government in each tribe 
 was a council consisting of the king and a small body 
 of rich men. 
 
 The division of tribes into poor tribes and rich 
 tribes is the only division that has been noticed thus 
 far ; it is at any rate a convenient division, Large tribes 
 because it leads straight to the handy and small, 
 rule that all the poor tribes in European history 
 have been governed by folkmoots, and all the rich 
 
 ' The supreme power of the king and his Witan is clearly shown 
 in the preludes to the laws of Wihtraed and of Ine. 
 
32 EUROPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 tribes by small councils of rich men. But there is a 
 way of subdividing both the class of poor tribes and 
 the class of rich tribes : in each of these classes some 
 tribes were large and others small ; and we shall 
 have to observe that everywhere the large tribes 
 possessed local governments and the small tribes had 
 none. 
 
 Let us look first at the poor and primitive tribes. 
 The Spartans were a very small tribe; even when 
 they were at the height of their power, in 480 B.C., 
 just before their King Leonidas and his three hundred 
 had made their heroic defence at Thermopylae, their 
 fighting men numbered only eight thousand.^ In 
 ancient Germany the tribes were incomparably 
 larger; the two tribes of the Usipetes and the 
 Tencteri, when joined together, mustered a force of 
 180,000 men to invade Gaul ; ^ and the Cherusci, led 
 by Arminius, destroyed a regular Koman army of 
 about 28,000 men at the massacre of the Teuto- 
 burgerwald. The Spartans then, owing to the small 
 size of their territory, had no need of local govern- 
 ments; in a German tribe, on the contrary, local 
 governments were a necessity. Each German tribe 
 was cut up into a number of districts known to the 
 Romans as pagi ; in each pagus was a popular law- 
 court for deciding suits between individuals ; the 
 president of the court was a chieftain elected by the 
 folkmoot of the tribe, but the judges or jurymen 
 were a hundred of the inhabitants of the district.^ 
 
 ' Herodotus, vii. 234. = Csesar, Bell. Gall. iv. 1-15. 
 
 ^ Tacitus, Germ., c. 12. 
 
CH. II.] LOCAL GOVERNMENTS 33 
 
 It may be remarked in passing that the district was 
 under an obligation not only to find a hundred 
 jurymen, but also to send a hundred warriors to 
 the host ; and from these facts it is certain that the 
 pagi of Tacitus are identical with the hundreds 
 which were important for many centuries as local 
 divisions in England. 
 
 We may now observe the tribes which had made 
 progress in material prosperity. We shall notice 
 that among these rich tribes, no less than among 
 the poor tribes, some were large and some were 
 small ; and that the large tribes had local govern- 
 ments but the small tribes had none. The tribes 
 of the Achseans were certainly not larger than the 
 Spartan community — from any map of Greece it 
 may be gathered that none of them had a territory 
 that in any direction measured tjyenty miles across — 
 and accordingly there was no such thing as a local 
 government in an Achaean tribe : the central govern- 
 ment of the king and elders was at hand for every- 
 body. In Anglo-Saxon England the Mercian tribe in 
 the eighth century inhabited all the land that lies 
 between the mouth of the Humber, the Thames, 
 and the Bristol Avon. In the Anglo-Saxon tribes 
 there were local governments everywhere; and in 
 some of those tribes they were more highly organised 
 than they had been in Germany. In all tribes there 
 were popular law-courts extremely like the courts of 
 the fagi; — so I am compelled to believe, because, 
 though no such courts are mentioned in the tribal 
 period of English history, hundreds and hundred 
 
34 EUROPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 moots for the administration of local justice are 
 mentioned in a decree of King Edgar in the ninth 
 century as a familiar and well-known institution. 
 The large tribe of the West Saxons was cut up so 
 early as the reign of Ine (688-728), not only into the 
 very small districts known as hundreds, but also into 
 shires, which have continued to be the most impor- 
 tant of all local divisions of England until the present 
 day. We do not know much about the government 
 of the shires in the tribal period ; but we know that 
 in each there was a scirman or sheriff as judge, and 
 an ealdorman as commander of the armed forces.^ 
 In Mercia also there were large local divisions, as for 
 example the Middel Engel of Leicestershire and the 
 Hecanians of Herefordshire. In the country north 
 of the Humber, however, there are no traces of shires 
 during the tribal period, and it is probable that in 
 Northumbria the shires did not exist as administra- 
 tive units till about the time of King Edgar in the 
 ninth century, when all England was for the second 
 time united under a single ruler. 
 
 Enough has now been said to show that large tribes 
 and small tribes are unlike in their governments, no 
 less than rich tribes and poor tribes. And here I 
 might leave the subject of tribes in thejr unaltered 
 forms ; but I prefer before passing on to notice some 
 other institutions of the Germans and the Greeks 
 which are not, so far as I know,- associated with any 
 of their economic conditions or the area of their 
 territory, and may have arisen in each people from 
 ' Ine, 3f), 8 ; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a.d. 837, 845, 851, 
 
CH. II.] GEEEK KINGS : GEKMAN KINGS 35 
 
 earlier social customs, or been adopted for reasons 
 at wliich I cannot guess. 
 
 In most tribes there are some duties which cannot 
 be performed by an assembly or council, but must be 
 allotted to some one man. These duties are — (1) 
 presidency in the assembly or council, (2) command 
 in war, (3) performance of religious rites, (4) presi- 
 dency in the law-courts. 
 
 The Germans allotted these duties to different 
 functionaries : among the Greeks the only public 
 officer was the king. Among the Germans the king 
 was only president in the assembly and council, and 
 the other public duties were given to separate 
 officials : the generals were elected in the folkmoot, 
 there was a separate order of priests, the presidents 
 in the law-courts were chieftains specially elected 
 for the purpose. Among the Greeks there was no 
 division of labour in the performa;nce of public 
 duties : the king was president in the assembly and 
 the council, commander-in-chief of the army, sole 
 high priest of the tribe, and, if there was any presi- 
 dent in a law-court, he was none other than the 
 king.^ In Anglo-Saxon England, as well as in 
 ancient Germany, public duties were allotted to 
 many separate officers: the king, it is true, united 
 the command in war with the presidency in the 
 Witan, but there was still a separate order of priests, 
 pagan at first and Christian at a later date ; and the 
 
 ' In our only description of a Greek tribal law-court {Iliad, xviii. 
 497-508) no president is mentioned. The accumulation of many 
 functions in the person of a Greek heroic king is well discussed by 
 Mr. Warde Fowler, The City State, pp. 68-74 . 
 
36 EUROPEAN TRIBES [ch. ii. 
 
 presidency in the law-courts belonged in the shires 
 to the sheriffs, and in the hundreds to some humbler 
 officers. 
 
 Yet one more German institution must be men- 
 tioned. It was a privilege enjoyed in the old German 
 tribes by the king and by all the lesser chieftains to 
 surround themselves with a body of sworn comrades, 
 who fought under their command in war. The 
 institution of the sworn comradeship, or coTnitatus, 
 was most important in its subsequent results. When 
 the Germans in the fifth and sixth centuries con- 
 quered western Europe, the king's comrades in every 
 tribe had large allotments of land granted to them 
 in the conquered territories; and in every country 
 of the west they were the founders or forerunners of 
 the feudal families of nobles in the middle ages. 
 
 I may now conclude this chapter by appending to 
 it a table embodying all the results which seem 
 likely to help towards a classification of political 
 communities. 
 
CH. II.] 
 
 EUEOPEAN TRIBES 
 
 37 
 
 TABLE. 
 
 TRIBES AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 KINDS OF TRIBES. 
 
 1. Poor tribes. 
 
 (a) Small and poor. 
 Ex. Sparta before 700 
 
 B.C. 
 
 (b) Large and poor. 
 Ex. Grermans. 
 
 2. Rich tribes. 
 
 (a) Small and rich. 
 Ex. Achseans in Ho- 
 mer's time. 
 
 (b) Large and rich. 
 Ex. Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 A folknioot (with subordinate council of 
 great men) for central government. 
 
 A folkmoot (with subordinate council of 
 great men) only. 
 
 A folkmoot (with subordinate council 
 of great men) for central government: 
 popular law-courts for local govern- 
 ment. 
 
 King and a small council , of nobles for 
 central government. 
 
 King and a small- council of nobles 
 only. 
 
 King and a small council of nobles for 
 central government : popular law - 
 courts for local government. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 UNIONS OF TRIBES 
 
 Tribes were the protoplasm for the making of all 
 bodies politic, but the only political societies deriYed 
 from them quite directly and visibly were (1) unions 
 of tribes, and (2) city states. If several tribes joined 
 together they formed a union of tribes which was 
 often rapidly converted into a single tribe : if they 
 remained separate but adopted urban pursuits they 
 turned into city states. Of unions of tribes they 
 were the component parts : of city states they were 
 the germs. 
 
 The processes by which tribes joined together are 
 often unknown : their results are visible. (1) Some- 
 times tribes coalesced completely, and then the 
 resulting community was simply an enlarged tribe. 
 (2) Sometimes (but very rarely) a tribe, having 
 another tribe at its mercy, retained the tribesmen 
 in personal slavery; in that case the political com- 
 munity consisted only of the masters, and they were 
 a tribe of slave-owners. (3) Lastly, in many cases, 
 tribes have voluntarily joined together and set up 
 a common government for defence of their common 
 interests, each keeping, however, a separate govern- 
 ment for managing its internal affairs : in that case 
 the resulting community was a tribal federation. 
 
CH. III.] COALESCENCE OF TRIBES 39 
 
 The coalescence of tribes, more or less com- 
 plete, is of extremely frequent occurrence : in fact 
 kindred tribes living near together are 
 always likely to coalesce, unless they are Coalescence 
 separated by strong physical barriers. In °^*^'''^=- 
 the ancient world the Macedonians led by King 
 Philip were only a union of tribes, made originally 
 by conquest, but afterwards amalgamated. In Ger- 
 many, during three centuries after the time of 
 Tacitus, coalescence of tribes completely changed 
 the distribution of the population. Ptolemy, writing 
 half a century after Tacitus, enumerated more than 
 fifty German tribes ; two centuries and a half later 
 still, about the year 400, nearly all had gathered 
 themselves into about seven great hordes, among 
 which the Salian Franks, the Burgundians, and the 
 Visigoths were then the most conspicuous. Each 
 of these great hordes was only a magnified copy of 
 a tribe, living under a single government. The 
 same thing happened repeatedly in Anglo-Saxon 
 England, as for example when the tribes of the 
 East Saxons and the Middle Saxons were joined 
 into the enlarged kingdom of Essex with the Mid- 
 Saxon town of London as its capital,^ and when 
 Wessex, Sussex, and Kent were united to form the 
 enlarged kingdom of Wessex. 
 
 When large tribes had been formed by amalgama- 
 tion, their governments were determined by their 
 economic condition and the pursuits of the tribes- 
 men. The large tribes in England prospered by 
 
 ^ Baeda, ii. e. 3. 
 
40 UNIONS OF TRIBES [pn. in. 
 
 agriculture : the Macedonians and the German hordes 
 were predatory, militant, and aggressive : they could 
 not be otherwise in presence of the 
 tribes ruled temptations offered by decadent Greek 
 by a. king cities or the declining Eoman Empire. 
 
 only. 
 
 The English tribes continued to be 
 ruled by a king and a small council of wise 
 men: the Macedonians and the German hordes 
 needed a man to lead them to victory, and each 
 had only a single ruler who combined the. dignity 
 of king with the power of commander-in-chief 
 Philip, Alexander, Alaric, Clovis, Theodoric, and 
 Alboin are reckoned among their rulers. AH these, 
 and their like in other aggressive hordes, were 
 habitually absolute sovereigns: but they had to 
 remember that their warriors might rise in mutiny 
 or assemble in a folkmoot. Alexander did not dare 
 to put his general Philotas to death till he had been 
 condemned by the assembled officers and soldiers, 
 and Clovis could not punish the destroyer of the vase 
 at Soissons except by a singularly treacherous and 
 cowardly murder.^ 
 
 The most conspicuous example of a slave-owning 
 tribe is furnished by the Spartans after the reign of 
 
 Theopompus. Before his time they were. 
 Slave-owning- as we have noticed already, a poor tribe, 
 tribes. The Q^uch ii]je any other poor tribe. They 
 
 op3rL3,ns> ^ 
 
 had indeed conquered some neighbouring 
 peoples, whom they called Perioeki, and prevented 
 
 * Grote, History of Greece, ch. xoiv. Gregory of Tours, ii. 
 c. 18 ( = 0. 27 in a different numbering). 
 
CH. III.] SLAVE-OWNING TRIBES 41 
 
 from amalgamating witli themselves by refusing 
 them political privileges ; but there is no reason to 
 suppose that in acting thus they took an unusual 
 course. In the reign of Theopompus, on conquering 
 their neighbours the Messenians, they reduced them 
 to personal slavery, and by becoming their task- 
 masters changed the whole character of the Spartan 
 commonwealth. 
 
 The Spartans, the Periceki, and the Helots, and 
 their relations to one another, are fully described in 
 so many books on Greek history and antiquities that 
 I hope to be pardoned if I omit many details from 
 my account of them. The Spartans were the ruling 
 caste, living in and about the five villages which 
 collectively bore the name of Sparta, devoting them- 
 selves solely to perfecting their military skill and 
 prowess, and disdaining the practice of all the use- 
 ful arts so completely that they were cut off even 
 from the pursuit of agriculture, which other warlike 
 peoples have deemed respectable. It was enjoined on 
 them by the customs and ideals of their race that 
 they must not only be brave and hardy, but also 
 abstemious and poor : they fed at a common mess- 
 table on the coarsest diet, their coinage consisted 
 of cumbrous blocks of iron, and the possession of gold 
 or silver was a criminal offence.^ The hard rule of 
 custom cut them off from the enjoyment of many 
 things which men most naturally and instinctively 
 desire : at all times of their history there were 
 occasions when human nature was too strong for 
 
 ' Xenophon, De Rep, Lac. , o. 7. 
 
42 UNIONS OF TEIBES [ch. hi. 
 
 rule, and a Spartan accepted a bribe from some 
 wealthy foreigner ; but the rule which prohibited the 
 acquisition of private wealth was on the whole well 
 obeyed till near the end of the Peloponnesian War, 
 about 405 B.C., and till that time the Spartan tribes- 
 men were poor though the treasury of the Spartan 
 state might be rich. 
 
 The Pericfiki were a population subject to the 
 Spartans, personally free but absolutely excluded 
 
 from all political rights or priYileges. 
 
 They were, as their name denotes. Dwellers 
 Around the Spartans: they lived in small towns 
 or villages mainly in the outlying parts of Laconia, 
 and in each of their little communities they were 
 allowed to manage their local affairs for themselves.^ 
 They formed the class of tradesmen, artificers, and 
 farmers, following the pursuits which the Spartans 
 despised. 
 
 The Helots were the slaves, and their enslavement 
 was the most potent of all factors in determining the 
 
 later course of Spartan history; for, as 
 
 Thucydides remarks, 'most of thQ Spartan 
 institutions were framed by way of precaution against 
 the Helots.' ^ The past history of the Helots might 
 well breed apprehension in the minds of their 
 masters. When the Dorians conquered the Pelopon- 
 nesus, the two Dorian peoples who retained in their 
 new abodes that tribal condition in which they had 
 
 ' If they had not had the management of their local affairs 
 Herodotus would not have called their communities by the Greek 
 word which means cities. Herodotus, vii. 2.34. 
 
 ^ Thucydides, iv. 80. 
 
CH. III.] SPARTANS 43 
 
 lived before they left their mountain valley of Doris, 
 were, as we noticed in the last chapter, the powerful 
 communities of the Spartans and the Messenians. 
 These two peoples lived on in their new Peloponnesian 
 homes for many generations as neighbours, rivals, 
 and equals. In the' reign of Theopompus, which 
 marks the great turning-point in Spartan history, 
 the Spartans, about 700 B.C., entered on a new policy 
 towards the Messenians. They waged one great war 
 against them in the time of Theopompus, and another 
 about fifty years later; in the end they completely 
 conquered the country and reduced the whole of its 
 brave and independent inhabitants to the condition 
 of slaves, whom they compelled to till for the benefit 
 of the Spartan state those broad and fertile plains 
 which had once been their own property and their 
 pride. From this time forth the little garrison of 
 slave-owners, which held Laconia by the terror of 
 the spear, the sword, and the dagger, was in per- 
 petual peril of a great servile revolt: once they 
 actually learned what a rebellion of slaves was like. 
 
 In 464 B.C. the Helots made an organised rebellion, 
 fortified themselves on Mount Ithome, and held their 
 stronghold for nine years in spite of all the efforts of 
 the Spartans to drive them out. The rebellion of 
 the Helots was in some respects analogous to the 
 secession of the Roman plebeians to the Mons Sacer ; 
 but it could not have a similar ending. Between 
 the patricians in Rome and the plebeians on the 
 Mons Sacer compromise was possible; between the 
 Spartan slave-owners and their revolted Messenian 
 
44 UNIONS OF TRIBES [cH. in. 
 
 slaves nothing of the kind could be dreamed of. In 
 the end those of the Helots .who were actually in 
 occupation of Mount Ithomg, being hard pressed in 
 nine years of war, consented to depart from Pelopon- 
 nesus as free men : they went away with their wives 
 and children, and were provided by the Athenians 
 with a place of settlement at Naupactus, on the 
 north side of the straits at the mouth of the Cor- 
 inthian gulf, where they established themselves as an 
 independent community bitterly hostile to their old 
 masters. These Helots, however, who thus departed 
 from Peloponnesus, were only a small part of the 
 whole enslaved Messenian people ; the rest remained 
 in their old condition of servitude and nursed their 
 old feelings of indignation and hatred, so that the 
 Spartans were never free from the apprehension that 
 they might rise in renewed rebellion. 
 
 The Spartans in their dealings with the Messenians 
 adopted a policy for which I cannot iind any precise 
 Spartan parallel in European history: they deliber- 
 character. ately and undisguisedly compelled a 
 people who were their own kinsmen and their 
 equals to toil in their fields as bondmen. The 
 character of the Spartans, though not, like their 
 policy towards the Messenians, unique, had yet such 
 unusual features that its peculiarities may usefully 
 be set down in a connected form. We have already 
 chanced to notice three of their distinctive habits of 
 mind. They despised wealth, commerce, and all the 
 useful arts. They were devoted to slave-owning. 
 They spent their best energies in acquiring military 
 
CH. III.] SPARTAN GOVERNMENT 45 
 
 excellence. To these three we have to add one more 
 to complete the picture. They regulated all their 
 actions by rigid adherence to old traditional rules. 
 
 The political institutions of the Spartans in the 
 later part of their history are easy to understand: 
 they were fashioned by the introduction spartan 
 of two simple but far-reaching changes in government, 
 the machinery of the old tribal constitution which 
 was attributed to Lycurgus. These two changes 
 were both rnade in the reign of Theopompus, they 
 were both undoubtedly connected with the new 
 policy then adopted towards the Messenians, and 
 taken together with that policy they gave as time 
 went on a new aspect to the Spartan state. The 
 changes were these : firstly, the attempt of the Spartan 
 commoners to legislate on their own initiative in the 
 folkmoot 1 was defeated by a new constitutional 
 enactment which ordained that ' if the people chose 
 crookedly, the kings and elders should have the 
 final decision'; and secondly, to compensate the 
 commoners for their defeat, it was arranged that in 
 every year they should elect five Ephors or Overseers 
 as a board of magistrates to supervise the doings of 
 the kings and the elders. 
 
 We do not know how these changes affected the 
 practical working of the Spartan constitution in the 
 first two hundred years after their intro- 
 duction, because nothing of Spartan his- 
 tory during that time has been preserved except 
 some detached stories. These stories, however, relate 
 
 1 See p. 24. 
 
4^ UNIONS OF TRIBES [CH. iii. 
 
 to the doings of Spartan kings, and they seem to 
 indicate that from 700 B.C. to 500 B.c. the kingly- 
 power was strong in Sparta. In the reign, however, 
 of Cleomenes i. (519-491 B.C.), who committed many 
 follies and at last slew himself in a fit of madness, 
 the kingly power visibly declined. In a few years 
 after his death the board of Ephors had risen to be 
 the supreme authority in the Spartan state. 
 
 In the central period then of Greek history, from 
 480 B.C. onward, the chief governing organ in the 
 Spartan community was the board of 
 Ephors, endowed with all the powers that 
 we generally call executive. They were aided by the 
 deliberative council of thirty, and some small share 
 in controlling the affairs of the state was assigned to 
 the Spartan folkmoot and to the two kings. The 
 part taken by the folkmoot and the kings was so 
 small that it counted for nothing unless a question 
 of war or peace arose : when war was suggested the 
 folkmoot settled whether war should be declared, and 
 when war was being waged the post of commander 
 was assigned to one of the kings. The folkmoot 
 might, if it had chosen, have gained influence, because 
 it elected the Ephors; but the method of electing 
 them was childish, and it seems that the elections 
 roused little interest in the minds of the Spartan 
 commoners.^ 
 
 A parallel, but not a perfect parallel, to the slave- 
 owning tribe of the Spartans was recently seen in the 
 South African Republic. The Boers, at the time of the 
 
 ' Aristotle, Politics, ii. 9, 19-24. 
 
CH. III.] SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC 47 
 
 Great Trek in 1835, were a tribe : after their settlement 
 
 in the Transvaal they had black slaves corresponding 
 
 more or less to the Helots, and in the Uit- _ 
 
 The South 
 landers they afterwards acquired a subject- African 
 
 population in the same position as the ^^P"'"'^'^- 
 Periceki. The black slaves were not precisely analo- 
 gous to the Helots, because they came of a race 
 which had never been on terms of equality with 
 their masters, and were not likely to attempt a 
 rebellion: but in other respects the Boer Kepublic 
 and Spartan Commonwealth were alike in all the 
 dominant facts of their position. 
 
 In character also the Boers closely resembled the 
 Spartans. They so despised wealth and most forms 
 of productive industry, that when gold character 
 was discovered in their territory they did °^ ^^^ Boers, 
 not dig for it themselves but left the work of mining 
 to foreigners. They were so devoted to slave-owning 
 that they expatriated themselves from their old 
 homes in Cape Colony as soon as slavery was forbidden 
 by Act of Parliament in the British possessions. 
 They cultivated military excellence to a pitch which 
 has cost us dear. And lastly, they regulated their 
 actions . in conformity with ancient rules, taking 
 as their authority the precepts laid down for the 
 guidance of the Hebrews in the books of the Old 
 Testament. 
 
 As the Boers resembled the Spartans in circum- 
 stances and character, it is not surprising that they 
 also resembled them in government. The chief 
 authority in the South African Republic was an 
 
48 UNIONS OF TEIBES [ch. hi. 
 
 executive board of seven members, elected by all the 
 fully qualified burghers, and corresponding to the 
 Government Ephors. The Other organ of government 
 of the Boers, ^^^g ^ deliberative chamber known as 
 the First Volksraad. I cannot say that it was pre- 
 cisely like the Spartan council of thirty, because its 
 members were chosen under a representative system 
 copied no doubt by the Boers from Cape Colony : but 
 its members were only twenty-four in number, they 
 generally did as they were bidden by the executive 
 board of seven, and thus this First Volksraad 
 resembled the Spartan council of thirty in being a 
 small deliberative council subordinate in importance 
 to the executive government. The executive board 
 of seven and the First Volksraad were the only 
 effective organs in the government of the republic: 
 there was a Second Volksraad, but it was entirely 
 devoid of influence. The Uitlanders were allowed to 
 take part in electing its members, and it was therefore 
 necessary for the ruling caste of the Boers to see 
 that it was reduced to impotence. This was very 
 easily ensured, because no proposition of the Second 
 Volksraad was of any validity unless it was confirmed 
 by the First Volksraad which was wholly elected by 
 the Boers.^ 
 
 Tribes have formed Federations both in many 
 well-known instances and in others less conspicuous. 
 The best example of all is furnished by the Iroquois, 
 whose six nations once inhabited what is now the 
 State of New York. They were joined into a 
 
 1 Statesman's Year Book, 1897, p. 939. 
 
CH. III.] TRIBAL FEDEEATIONS 49 
 
 Federation in the fifteenth century through the efforts 
 of Hiawatha and another hero who is forgotten save 
 by few because he lacked the sacred bard ,,> 
 to immortalise his name. For a descrip- Tribal 
 tion of their federal state I must refer 
 my readers to the works of Mr. Lewis Morgan, who 
 has given full details in his book on the Iroquois, 
 and a very clear and instructive summary in his 
 Ancient Society. In ancient Europe tribal federations 
 were formed by many peoples in northern Greece — 
 by the Phokians, the Akarnanians, and the .^tolians, 
 besides others too obscure to be noticed here. The 
 individual tribes that made up the jEtolian people 
 were no more than unwalled villages in the time of 
 Thucydides, and we have evidence to show that the 
 Akarnanian tribes were equally minute.^ These 
 miniature commonwealths could not defend them- 
 selves against such aggressive powers as Athens and 
 Sparta if they remained separate, and this was no 
 doubt the reason why they joined in federations and 
 set up federal governments. We know very little 
 about their arrangements : but it is well established 
 that in each federation the federal government con- 
 sisted of a council, which must have been composed 
 of men chosen by the villages and other tribes which 
 had united for defence.- In Peloponnesus, too, an 
 ancient tribal federation was established. When the 
 Dorians left their home near Thermopylae and over- 
 
 ' Warde Fowler, 7%e City State, p. 35, from Thucydides, iii. 94, 
 97, and Diodorus, xix. 67. 
 
 2 Freeman, History of Federal Oovernment in Greece and Italy, 
 oh. iv., ch. vi. 
 
 D 
 
50 UNIONS OF TRIBES [ch. hi. 
 
 ran the peninsula they overpowered the Achsean 
 tribes who are well known to us from the Homeric 
 poems and drove them from their old settlements 
 around Mycenae, Argos, Sparta, and their other 
 towns, to the rocky valleys near the Corinthian 
 Gulf. The refugees in their new abode formed a 
 federation.^ 
 
 We have now noticed all the conspicuous forms 
 
 of tribes and tribal communities, and have easily 
 
 referred to their proper forms all the 
 
 munities of Specimens about which we have anything 
 
 doubtful li^e full information. There are, however, 
 
 species. . . 
 
 some groups of men m a tribal condition 
 about whom we know very little, and accordingly 
 their place among tribal communities is disputable. 
 One such tribal group is found in ancient Boeotia and 
 another in Germany. When Hesiod and his brother 
 Perses lived at Ascra on Mount Helicon, the judicial 
 authority for settling their disputes was a council or 
 bench of kings. Hesiod tells us the kings were hungry 
 for bribes, but nothing more. Was the community 
 that they judged a single tribe or a federation ? If 
 il was a single tribe, the word kings (/3ao-iX?5e?) is 
 used by Hesiod to denote the men who are elsewhere 
 called elders (yepovTe<;) : if it was a federation, the 
 kings were really kings in the component tribes. 
 Again, in ancient Germany we know for certain that 
 our own forefathers the Saxons were not a single 
 tribe : but there is a time in their history when we 
 do not know whether they were a federation under 
 
 ' Polybius, ii. 41, 
 
CH. III.] SAXON FEDERATION 51 
 
 a common government, or a league merely united in 
 permanent alliance. It is certain that in the fourth 
 century of our era, and afterwards, they were not 
 merely a single tribe. In the year 358 a.d. they sent 
 one of their component tribes (fioipav a-(f>a)v) to attack 
 the Romans in Gaul, where Julian, as Csesar not yet 
 Augustus, was commanding. The tribe that was sent 
 had a name of its own (which is given in Zosimus, 
 our authority, but is perhaps written wrongly in the 
 manuscripts), and a king, whose son during the 
 expedition was taken prisoner by a Frank named 
 Charietto in the service of Julian.^ But were the 
 Saxon tribes already joined in a federation, or was it 
 then merely a permanent alliance ? I do not think 
 it is possible to know for certain. About the year 
 700 A.D., when they were visited by two missionaries 
 from England named Hewald the White and Hewald 
 the Black, they had a federal government to manage 
 their external affairs. The kings of the component 
 tribes had disappeared, and their place had been taken 
 by other rulers whom Bseda denotes as satrapoi. 
 These rulers, who might perhaps in their own language 
 be called ealdormen, may possibly have been in time 
 of peace mere local administrators : when war was 
 at hand they were a central government, and chose 
 by lot one from their number to be commander-in- 
 chief.^ 
 
 The most conspicuous characteristic of tribes and 
 tribal communities is, that they are to a less extent 
 products of conscious contrivance than the elabo- 
 
 1 Zosimus, iii. 6, 7. ^ B^cla, v. 10. 
 
52 TRIBES [CH. III. 
 
 rate states of civilised men, and to a greater extent 
 products of the instinctive, unconscious part of 
 Tribes human nature : and, in proportion as they 
 
 General are more instinctively made, they are more 
 
 conclusions, j^^^^^j.^^ ^^^ Ig^s artificial. It must be 
 
 admitted at once that even the tribes are not purely 
 natural products. The only constructed things which 
 can be called purely natural are those made by 
 animals not endowed with human reason — as the 
 cells of the bees, the nests of the birds, and the 
 colonies of the beavers. All these things are made 
 by instinct solely, and so the cell of a given species 
 of bee and the nest of a given kind of bird have 
 forms from which they do not vary perceptibly. But 
 in all constructions made by man, even in the 
 simplest, there is some element of design, and the 
 constructions are not purely natural products. But 
 those things which are made most instinctively and 
 with least conscious design are most like natural 
 products, and are most capable of being distinguished 
 into different kinds or forms which are subject to 
 little variation. So it is with tribes. They are made 
 more instinctively than any other communities, and 
 are more like natural products : and we can divide 
 them under a few well-marked forms, each having 
 a kind of government suitable and peculiar to itself^ 
 (1) Tribes in their original form were poor, and 
 approximate equality prevailed among the tribesmen. 
 
 ' The co-operation of unconscious instinct and conscious con- 
 trivance in the making of states is pointed out by Sir John Seeley, 
 Introduction to Political Science, p. 20. 
 
■CH. III.] GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 53 
 
 While they kept this original form, their governments 
 were conducted in assemblies attended by king, 
 elders, and people, wherein every class Tribal 
 had a share of influence. Governments governments, 
 then of this kind are the original source of 
 all tribal governments. (2) When distinctions of 
 wealth came in, they brought with them distinctions 
 in efficiency for warfare and counsel; the popular 
 element was extruded from political influence, and 
 governments were conducted solely by a council of 
 king and elders. (3) When tribes became large, 
 militant, and aggressive, a single commander-in-chief 
 was needed ; the elders in their turn lost their share 
 in the government, and the sole ruler was a king. 
 (4) When several tribes joined in a federation, they 
 set up a council to manage their common affairs, 
 keeping separate governments for the affairs of the 
 component tribes. The federal, council must at first 
 have contained the kings of the component tribes, as 
 well as some of their elders ; but in course of time 
 kings were not needed in the component tribes, and 
 the federal council consisted simply of important 
 tribesmen nominated by the component tribes. The 
 only forms of tribal communities which recur fre- 
 quently are those contained in this enumeration: 
 slave-owning tribes might be added, but only two 
 such tribes are known, and it would be rash to 
 make any general statement in regard to them. The 
 results of the enumeration so far as they affect the 
 common forms of tribes and tribal communities can 
 be briefly expressed in a table. 
 
54 TEIBES [CH. HI. 
 
 TEIBES AND TRIBAL COMMUNITIES. 
 
 THE COMMONEST FORMS AND THEIR GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 FORMS. GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 Form 1. Poor Tribes. King, elders, and people in assembly. 
 
 Form 2. Rich Tribes. King and elders only. 
 
 Form 3. Aggressive Tribes. King only. 
 
 Form 4. Tribal Federations. Federal council. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CITY STATES 
 
 The class of communities which has next to be 
 considered consists of the city states, because com- 
 munities of this kind followed next after the tribal 
 age in the lands around the Mediterranean Sea, and 
 so it came about that city states are the earliest 
 civilised powers known to European history. There 
 were, however, in addition to the ancient city states, 
 other communities of the same kind in the Middle 
 Ages. One group of such communities arose in Italy 
 and another in Germany. 
 
 In order to settle what meaning we attach to the 
 term city state, we must let the mind's eye rest for 
 a moment on individual communities in 
 
 .... Definition, 
 
 various portions or history to which that 
 
 term is applied. We have to pass in hasty review 
 
 the cities of the ancient world: Greek cities as 
 
 Corinth, Athens, Syracuse; Italian cities as Capua 
 
 and Rome; the Phoenician cities of Tyre and 
 
 Carthage; and in the Middle Ages Italian cities 
 
 as Florence, Bologna, Milan, Genoa, together with 
 
 German cities as Liibeck, Niirnberg, and Strassburg. 
 
 After very little consideration of individual city 
 
 states we find that the characteristics common to 
 
56 CITY STATES [CH. iv. 
 
 all of them are these : each city state was an inde- 
 pendent community, having a territory and govern- 
 ment of its own, in which a single walled city was 
 of supreme importance and controlled the whole. 
 Moreover, these characteristics are not only common 
 to all city states, but also are not found in any 
 community which is not a city state. We shall 
 therefore sufficiently define a city state if we say that 
 it is an independent community, having a territory 
 and government of its own, in which a single walled 
 city is of supreme importance and controls the 
 whole. 
 
 We may now go on to examine what are the 
 
 conditions and causes necessary to the rise and 
 
 establishment of city states. From the 
 
 Conditions. -, „ . . . . 
 
 detimtion oi a city state we see that two 
 conditions are necessary to its existence : firstly, there 
 must be a walled city or town; secondly, the com- 
 munity must be independent, and a single city must 
 control the whole. If we now observe what causes 
 lead to the realisation of these two conditions, we 
 shall discover what are the causes which generate 
 city states. 
 
 The first condition necessary to the establishment 
 of a city state is the existence of a walled city or 
 town. The causes which lead to the erection of 
 walled towns are everywhere the same, whether the 
 towns are built in local districts within great nations 
 or in small independent communities. The causes 
 are the accumulation of wealth and the need to 
 secure it against violent robbery. If these two causes 
 
CH. IV.] ORIGIN OF CITIES 57 
 
 are present, as they were in ancient Greece, and 
 in England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy about 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, walled towns 
 are certain to be erected. If, on the other hand, 
 either cause is absent, town walls are not wanted. 
 The Germans whom Tacitus described, and the 
 Dorians at Sparta, had no wealth and they had no 
 walls: we at the present time have wealth in the 
 utmost abundance, but we do not need walls to pro- 
 tect it, because it has the far better protection which 
 is afforded by an organised force of police and system 
 of law-courts. 
 
 The second requisite for the establishment of a 
 city state is, that the city shall be independent and 
 supreme in a territory of its own. This second con- 
 dition is generally realised in conjunction with the 
 first if a walled town is erected in a small community, 
 but not if it is built in a large one. The walled towns 
 of ancient Greece, and of mediaeval Italy and Ger- 
 many, were built in small communities, and those 
 communities grew into city states ; the walled towns 
 of England, France, and Spain arose in large com- 
 munities, they were therefore ruled by the govern- 
 ments of those communities, and they never rose to 
 be independent city states but always continued to 
 be dependent municipalities. The reasons why the 
 communities of Greece, Italy, and Germany were 
 small, and those of England, France, and Spain were 
 large, will be seen hereafter as each case comes before 
 us, and therefore they need not at the present 
 moment be considered. 
 
58 CITY STATES [ch. iv. 
 
 The city states were the most compact of all 
 communities: they had excellent defences, and the 
 Simple city inhabitants of each city state were de- 
 states, termined not to be ruled by foreigners. 
 In consequence of these characteristics of city 
 states they were harder to conquer than any 
 other communities of the same size that have ever 
 existed, and the conquest of a city state by a city 
 state was an event of rare occurrence. There must 
 have been several hundreds of city states in all ; and 
 I think it is true of at least five-sixths of the number 
 that they never conquered a city state, and never 
 were conquered by a city state. These city states 
 which went on living side by side with one another, 
 and retaining their old territory without sensible 
 enlargement or diminution, may be called the small 
 and simple city states, because they were of small 
 size, and because each of them had only a single 
 city as the sole centre of population, society, wealth 
 and government. 
 
 But though the conquest of a city by a city was 
 difficult, it was not always impossible. It is true 
 Complex city that a city state in its mature condi- 
 states. ^Jqj^ jg gQ compact that it cannot be 
 
 conquered, and can more easily be destroyed than 
 subjugated; but a city in its infancy, and before it 
 has attained maturity, is not so tightly knit together. 
 The vast majority of cities escaped subjugation in 
 their infancy either because their natural defences 
 made them unassailable or because their neighbours 
 were weak. Three groups of cities during their 
 
CH. IV.] SIMPLE AND COMPLEX 59 
 
 infancy enjoyed neither of these advantages; they 
 were situated in Attica, in the plain of Latium, and 
 in the corner of northern Africa now known as 
 Tunisia. In each of these regions the immature 
 cities had no ranges of mountains to surround their 
 territories, and in their neighbourhood were the 
 strong and aggressive cities of Athens, Rome, and 
 Carthage. 
 
 Athens and Rome succeeded in conquering many 
 cities in their own vicinity, and in converting 
 them into obedient and contented dependent towns. 
 Carthage also overpowered neighbouring cities and 
 incorporated them in its own body politic, though it 
 was perhaps unable to obtain their cheerful acquies- 
 cence in its supremacy. Each of the three cities, 
 Athens, Rome, and Carthage, when its conquests of 
 neighbouring cities were completed, appeared as the 
 head of a community in which there was one domi- 
 nant city and many dependent towns. Genoa, too, 
 in the Middle Ages, was ruler of many dependent 
 neighbouring towns, and it acquired its authority 
 over them nearly in the same way as the conquering 
 cities of ancient history. In all the four instances 
 the result was the same : Athens, Rome, Carthage, 
 Genoa succeeded in founding city states very different 
 in character from the small and simple city states. 
 The communities established by the conquering city 
 states bore the same relation to the simple city states 
 that a star with a nebula round it bears to a single 
 star. In each of them there was a central dominant 
 nucleus, and around it there were many lesser nuclei 
 
60 CITY STATES [CH. iv. 
 
 bound to it by the compelling force of its attraction. 
 These communities founded by the successful con- 
 quering cities may be called complex city states, 
 because each of them contained not only a central 
 ruling city but also many towns which obeyed its 
 commands and were bound to it by ties of allegiance. 
 The perfectly simple and the markedly complex 
 varieties of city states form two contrasted species. 
 Other Intermediate between these two extreme 
 
 varieties, forms there are other sorts of city 
 states, which I shall not here attempt to enu- 
 merate exhaustively, because they are somewhat 
 miscellaneous. The most remarkable among them 
 were city states such as were founded by Syracuse 
 and by Milan. These two cities succeeded in over- 
 powering other cities in their neighbourhood, but 
 did not attempt to convert them into dependent 
 towns, because they feared that they could never win 
 from them a cheerful and serviceable submission. 
 They knew that the inhabitants of the towns they 
 had vanquished were, like the inhabitants of all 
 other city states, strongly attached to the indepen- 
 dence of their communities and inspired with an 
 ardent local patriotism. They feared therefore that 
 if the communities were allowed to continue their 
 existence, and live on in their old homes, they would 
 rebel, and might some day regain their old indepen- 
 dence. To guard against the danger of rebellion they 
 destroyed the communities by dispersing the in- 
 habitants; and they sometimes took the further 
 precaution of razing their habitations to the ground. 
 
CH. IV.] VARIOUS FORMS 61 
 
 Another variety intermediate between the simple 
 and the complex city states arose in mediseval Italy. 
 Many of the cities in northern Italy had as their 
 neighbours many independent villages, and many 
 independent landowners who ruled their estates as 
 petty princes. The villages and the landowners often 
 felt that their condition of independence was un- 
 profitable or insecure, and requested the neighbouring 
 city to admit them among its subjects ; upon their 
 admission they swore allegiance and promised 
 obedience to the city, and in return they obtained 
 protection and secured the opportunities for trading 
 advantageously which belong to the citizens of an 
 urban community. The cities which admitted them 
 did not become complex city states, but they ob- 
 tained an accession of territory and an increase in 
 the numbers of their rural population. There were 
 also other varieties of city states which were not 
 perfectly simple nor markedly complex ; but it is 
 not necessary at the present moment to make 
 further reference to them. 
 
 The following chapters, from the fifth to the ninth, 
 will be occupied in an examination of the city states 
 which occur in ancient history : the mediseval cities 
 must be deferred to their proper place in chronological 
 sequence. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 SIMPLE CITY STATES IN ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 Greece, Italy, and Phoenicia, in the age which 
 shortly preceded the beginning of European history 
 properly so called, fulfilled, in perfection all the 
 conditions necessary to the establishment of city 
 states. Their physical structure ensured that the 
 communities inhabiting them were small; their in- 
 habitants had made accumulations of wealth; and 
 the prevalence of disorder and violence made life and 
 property insecure unless both were sheltered behind 
 the bulwarks of fortified towns. 
 
 All the three countries, which have been just 
 mentioned as natural homes of city states, were lands 
 Physical of rocks and mountains. Their lower 
 surroundings, rocky eminences formed admirably de- 
 fensible and convenient sites for habitation by 
 small communities; and their continuous mountain 
 chains opposed insuperable obstacles in a barbaric 
 age to the formation of large communities. In such 
 an age it is only in lands where communication is 
 very easy — such as Germany, France, or England — 
 that large societies of men can be established. In 
 Greece, Italy, and Phoenicia communication by land 
 
 62 
 
CH. v.] FOUNDING OF CITIES 63 
 
 was very difficult, and those countries both in the 
 prehistoric ages and for centuries after the time 
 (about 650 B.C.) at which chronological history begins, 
 were inhabited by small communities only. 
 
 The material prosperity of the peoples around the 
 Mediterranean shores in early times is well known 
 from the testimony of Homer ; what were 
 
 T • 11 Wealth. 
 
 the conditions which enabled them to 
 become rich is not so well ascertained. They had a 
 climate and a soil which could be relied upon to 
 reward the labours of the herdsman and the tiller of 
 the ground ; and nothing perhaps is more conducive 
 in the long run to the material well-being of an 
 undeveloped people than such a soil and such a 
 climate. The commerce which in the later ages of 
 Greek and Jloman history enriched the Mediterranean 
 peoples, did not begin during their infancy. The 
 commodities which were exchanged in the later 
 period were bulky goods, such as corn, wine, and oil ; 
 the merchants of Homer's age had only a petty trade 
 in portable commodities. The Phoenicians were the 
 traders and the carriers of trade ; they sailed far and 
 wide over the Mediterranean, collecting copper and 
 tin probably from Spain, gold from Thasos, ivory 
 probably from Africa, fine products of the loom from 
 their own home under Mount Lebanon, or from the 
 interior of Asia. These portable products they 
 dispersed abroad among the Greeks, sailing perhaps 
 sometimes to the mainland of Hellas, often to the 
 islands of the ^gean Sea. Whether a trade such as 
 theirs, limited to merely portable goods, had much 
 
64 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 effect in promoting accumulations of wealth among 
 the Greeks, it is hard to say. The economic con- 
 ditions under which the Italians acquired wealth in 
 very early, times are entirely unknown ; but it is 
 proved by the census of Servius TuUius that pro- 
 sperity was widely diffused among the Romans at the 
 very moment when they come for the first time 
 within the view of history; and what was true of 
 the Romans, was undoubtedly true also of their 
 neighbours and kinsmen of the Latin race. 
 
 The insecurity of life and property was one of the 
 
 troubles to which the growing peoples of Greece and 
 
 Italy were universally exposed. Piracy, 
 
 Insecurity. . '' . . ^ i j ' 
 
 kidnapping, brigandage, were honourable 
 pursuits in the time of Homer, and they were 
 generally practised till the time of Thucydides, except 
 in regions where they had been forcibly repressed.^ 
 Amid the dangers of an age of violence, there was no 
 safety for life or property unless they were protected 
 by town walls; towns were built, and so the city 
 states of Greece and Italy were begun. 
 
 The Achaean communities in the age of Homer 
 
 Avere the first European builders of towns: they 
 
 Cities in established their little strongholds at 
 
 Greece. Mycense, Tiryns, Pylos, and elsewhere, 
 
 but had not time to found city states before 
 
 they Avere expelled by the Dorians. The first city 
 
 states were the Dorian communities at Mycenae, 
 
 Argos, Corinth, Epidaurus, Sicyon, Megara, and 
 
 the Ionian communities in Attica. These Ionian 
 
 ' Odyuey, iii. 71-74; Thucydides, i. 5. 
 
CH. v.] FOUNDING OF CITIES 65 
 
 communities, however, do not belong to the subject 
 of the present chapter, because they were soon united 
 into a complex city state. After these earliest towns 
 had been established in Greece proper, others were 
 founded by Dorians, lonians, and iEolians in the 
 islands of the ^gean Sea, and on the coasts of Asia 
 Minor. The towns thus founded on the two sides of 
 the ^gean Sea advanced rapidly in prosperity, and 
 by the eighth century B.C. many of them had a larger 
 population than their territories could accommodate 
 and support. When this difficulty arose, the Greek 
 towns did not usually seek to acquire adjacent 
 territory to meet the needs of their enlarged popula- 
 tion ; territorial expansion would have been extremely 
 difficult in countries so mountainous as those in 
 which they lived, and, even if it had been easy, it 
 may be doubted whether a Greek town would have 
 wished to hold large rural territory and thus tempt 
 many of its inhabitants to abandon their urban 
 character. As a matter of fact, the Greek towns got 
 rid of their surplus population, as the bees do, by 
 sending out swarms. They gathered together all 
 those who were willing to emigrate, appointed them 
 a leader to act as their queen bee, and then left it to 
 him to consult the Delphic Oracle about the best 
 place to go to, and, when the site was chosen, there to 
 found a new and independent Greek town. Most of 
 the bodies of emigrants thus sent out were successful 
 in their enterprises ; and, within two centuries after 
 the process of emigration began, independent Greek 
 towns had been founded in great numbers in 
 
 E 
 
66 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 Sicily, Southern Italy, along the Mediterranean 
 coasts of Spain and Gaiil, in Africa, and on the Black 
 Sea. 
 
 The building of cities by the Italian race is com- 
 pletely hidden in obscurity, and we cannot say that 
 one of them was established earlier and 
 ' another later. The cities of the Italians 
 included the thirty Latin cities together with Eome, 
 and a number of other cities, from Umbria in the 
 north to Samnium and Apulia in the south. 
 
 The subject of the present chapter comprises the 
 simple cities in ancient history. We shall best settle 
 Which cities ^^^ limits of the subject by noting which 
 were simple, of the ancient cities are excluded from it. 
 We must set aside as alien to the subject firstly, all 
 the Boeotian and the Latin cities, because they placed 
 themselves under Federal governments ; secondly, 
 the towns in Attica, the Phoenician towns in North 
 Africa, and all the cities of Italian origin, because 
 they were joined together into complex city states ; 
 and thirdly,, those cities which have been noted in 
 the last chapter as being intermediate in character 
 between simple and complex cities: they include 
 Syracuse, Gyrene in North Africa, Croton in Italy, 
 and the cities of Argolis. When these have been 
 excluded, all the ancient cities that remain are simple 
 and inexpansive cities : if any of them had been an 
 expansive or conquering city, there is no doubt that 
 its exploits would have attracted the attention of 
 contemporary writers, and some record would have 
 been handed down to posterity. 
 
CH. v.] GOVERNMENTS 67 
 
 And now I may speak of the governments of the 
 
 simple city states. In Greece proper the earliest urban 
 
 governments grew out of the old tribal 
 
 governments, which were conducted by a g^era- 
 
 council composed of the king and nobles ments: 
 
 .,■,,■, . . ^. Oligarchies. 
 
 With the acquiescence of the common 
 
 people. In Corinth the process of growth is recorded. 
 The members of the tribal royal family, two hundred 
 in number, all descended from King Bacchis, deposed 
 their kinsman King Aristomenes, and took the 
 control of the state into their own possession, electing 
 one of their number every year to act as president 
 and discharge the functions of king. They were 
 known as the Bacchiadse, and in order to keep them- 
 selves a distinct caste they forbade all members of 
 their families to marry any one but a descendant of 
 Bacchis.1 In the neighbouring city of Megara, in 
 like manner, power belonged in the middle of the 
 seventh century exclusively to certain rich families : ^ 
 and in the other simple cities of Greece proper similar 
 governments must have arisen, since the old tribal 
 governments had disappeared from them at the 
 beginning of Greek history and nothing but govern- 
 ments of nobles could have taken their place. 
 
 The newer settlements in Sicily and Italy were 
 also ruled in the earliest period of Greek history by 
 bodies of rich men.^ As the settlers in these more 
 recent cities had lived under the rule of the rich 
 
 ' Herodotus, v. 92 ; Diodorus Sioulus, vii. fragment 9. 
 
 ^ Aristotle, Politics (Bekker, 1837), v. 5, 9. 
 
 3 Aristotle, Politics, v. 13 (Bekker, 1837); Polybius, xii. 16. 
 
68 SIMPLE CITY STATES [CH. v. 
 
 in their old homes, it is probable that their govern- 
 ments were imitated directly from those of the old 
 cities in Greece proper or in Asia Minor from which 
 they had been sent forth to seek their fortunes. 
 
 The causes, which led to the abolition of the tribal 
 kingly office in the simple cities of Greece proper, 
 
 nsition ^^^ *^® concentration of all power in the 
 from tribal hands of the rich, are not fully known, 
 governmen s. j^ ^^^ howcver. Certain that no simple city 
 state has ever lived for any long period under 
 hereditary kingly power of the military type that 
 was common in the tribal age. Among the simple 
 city states of Greece proper there was no tendency 
 towards territorial conquests, and therefore no king 
 was needed as military leader either for aggression 
 or defence. Besides this, it may be observed that 
 divinity doth hedge a king only so long as he is not 
 subjected to the daily and hourly scrutiny of his 
 subjects : when the whole life of a community goes 
 on within the narrow compass of a city, and a 
 king lives among his subjects within the walls, it is 
 certain that all his foibles and shortcomings will be 
 known, and the nobles will come to think he is no 
 better than one of themselves. 
 
 When the old tribal royalty had been abolished, 
 the three classes that made up the population of a 
 city were the rich citizens, the poor 
 citizens, and the slaves. The slaves were, 
 as a matter of course, absolutely incapable of taking 
 part in public affairs, and the two classes left face 
 to face with one another as possible claimants of 
 
OH. v.] OLIGARCHIES 69 
 
 political power were the rich citizens and the poor 
 citizens. These two classes everywhere in the small 
 cities of Greece and Italy engaged in contests for 
 power: and it is remarkable that in none of the 
 lesser cities is there any recorded instance of their 
 settling their differences by a compromise or equitable 
 division of power such as is usual both in the com- 
 plex cities of antiquity and in the nations of the 
 modern world. 
 
 The class that commonly obtained power in a 
 Greek city immediately after the fall of tribal king- 
 ship was, as we have seen, the nobles or 
 rich citizens. It may be assumed that 
 when first the rich class rose to supreme and uncon- 
 trolled authority they governed wisely and well ; 
 they supplanted the long-established tribal govern- 
 ments, and they could not have succeeded in such 
 an achievement if they had not had merits of their 
 own. We know, too, that in the medieval city of 
 Venice a rich class in possession of unrestrained 
 power were just and successful rulers for some 
 centuries. There is then no reason for the assump- 
 tion, which is often made, that the unrestrained rule 
 of a rich class must be an abominable form of 
 government. Among the Greeks the unrestrained 
 rule of the rich began well but ended badly: the 
 rich men were good rulers to begin with, but eventu- 
 ally became oppressive. In the Greek language the 
 name for the exclusive rule of a small body of rich 
 men is oligarchy. Most of the Greek writers use the 
 term in a neutral sense, and denote by it simply the 
 
70 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 rule of the rich class whether that rule is good or 
 bad;^ Aristotle narrowed the meaning of the word 
 by restricting it to mean only the selfish rule of the 
 rich,^ and modern writers have commonly followed 
 Aristotle. I think, however, the term is more con- 
 venient if it has the wider meaning: and I shall 
 venture to speak not only of the bad oligarchy of the 
 Four Hundred at Athens, but also of the good 
 oligarchy of the Venetian republic. 
 
 In the simple city states of Greece the oligarchies 
 
 in the seventh century eventually became oppressive 
 
 governments. The dislike with which 
 
 Tyranni. . 
 
 they were regarded must have grown as 
 the poorer classes increased in numbers ; and it led 
 to rebellions of the poor citizens, but not to their 
 immediate admission to political power. The usual 
 course of events was, that some ambitious man pro- 
 claimed himself champion of the poor and induced 
 them to provide him with a bodyguard. He then 
 made an attempt with his bodyguard to seize the 
 acropolis or citadel : if he failed he was killed ; if he 
 succeeded he became a despot, absolute over rich 
 and poor alike. 
 
 Such a man, beginning as a champion of the poor 
 citizens, and ending as a despot, was known as a 
 Tyrannus, or usurper of unlimited power. The rule 
 of the Tyranni was a necessary phase in the growth 
 of a Greek city ; the poorer classes were too devoid 
 of organisation and experience to exercise political 
 
 ' For example, Herodotus, iii. 81, 82 ; Thncydldea, v. 31. 
 " Aristotle, iii. 7, 5. 
 
CH. v.] TYEANNI 71 
 
 power, and therefore when the rich had been deprived 
 of their misused authority, it was inevitable that the 
 man wlio had led the revolt against them should 
 gain a despotic position. Tyrannies then were a 
 very prevalent form of government. The sixth 
 century before the Christian era is, above all other 
 times, the Age of the Tyrannies : there was scarcely 
 a city in the Greek world that did not at some 
 period between 600 B.C. and 500 B.C. live under 
 a government of this kind. Many of the tyrants 
 promoted for a time at least the material well-being 
 of their subjects: they protected the lesser citizens 
 from the rich, and by making property fairly secure 
 encouraged trade; some of them embellished their 
 cities with splendid buildings or strengthened them 
 with fortifications; others were generous patrons of 
 poets and of the arts. In the exceptional case of the 
 Sicilian cities, where the Greek territories were 
 exposed to attack from the Carthaginians, some of the 
 tyrants were most useful as military leaders and 
 champions of the Hellenes ; and all through Sicilian 
 history, from Gelon in 485 B.C. to Hieron in 216 B.C., 
 we meet with a recurrence of able and public-spirited 
 rulers who bear the title of tyrants. Elsewhere in 
 Greek lands the case was different, since there was 
 no thought of gaining or losing territory by conquest : 
 as soon as the tyrants had performed their proper 
 task of putting down the oligarchies and ensuring 
 that they did not rise again, their utility was at an 
 end. All of them in time were corrupted by the 
 enjoyment of unrestrained power. They became 
 
72 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 cruel and grossly self-indulgent, and their rule 
 incurred the abhorrence of the Greek race. Hero- 
 dotus only expresses the general feeling of his 
 countrymen in the description of a tyrant which he 
 puts in the mouth of the Persian Otanes : ' A tyrant,' 
 he says, 'is one who overturns long-established 
 customs, and ravishes women, and puts men to death 
 without trial.' 1 To protect themselves from their 
 subjects the tyrants always hired foreign mercenary 
 troops; 2 but no such precaution could avail them 
 for long in the face of the general detestation with 
 which they were regarded. Their dynasties usually 
 lasted only for one or two generations; the most 
 long-lived of all was that of the Orthagoridse at 
 Sicyon, which lasted a hundred years.^ 
 
 The fall of the tyrants in the lesser Greek cities 
 occurred generally in the latter part of the sixth 
 Fall of the century before the Christian era. Those 
 Tyranni. [j^ Greece proper were got rid of one by 
 one as occasion served; those in Asia Minor were 
 deposed all at once about the year 501 B.C., at the 
 very beginning of the revolt of the Asiatic Greeks 
 against Persia, probably because they could not be 
 trusted to fight on behalf of Greek independence 
 against King Darius, in whom the petty despots 
 themselves had found a kind patron. The nature of 
 the governments which arose in the lesser Greek 
 cities after the removal of the tyrants is not known 
 to us in any minute detail. We know, however, that 
 
 ' Herodotus, iii. 80. " Aristotle, Politics, iii. 14, 7. 
 
 » Ibid. (Bekker 1837), v. 12, 1. 
 
CH. v.] DEMOCRACY 73 
 
 some of them were called by the Greeks oligarchies, 
 and others deimocracies ; and that in most of the cities 
 oligarchies and democracies succeeded one another 
 alternately until the battle of Chseroneia in 338 B.C. 
 destroyed at a blow the independence of the Greeks. 
 The word oligarchy is of no doubtful meaning: it 
 means the exclusive and unrestrained rule of a few 
 rich men. Democracy, on the other hand, was used 
 by the Greeks in different senses, which I must now 
 try to explain. 
 
 The Greeks recognised that there was, or thought 
 that there might be, such a form of government as 
 unmixed democracy. The principles of uncompro- 
 an unmixed democracy were these : firstly, mising 
 all citizens were to be equal ;i secondly, ^•"°'=''^'^y- 
 appointments to office were to be made by drawing 
 lots among candidates and not by eleetion.^ The 
 result of applying these principles must be that the 
 poor class of citizens will have the exclusive enjoy- 
 ment of power. As the poor are more numerous 
 than the rich they can always outvote them; and, for 
 the same reason, most of the magistrates designated 
 by the hazard of the lot will be drawn from the poor 
 class. If, then, the principles of unmixed democracy 
 are carried into practice, they give a monopoly of 
 power to the poor class of citizens. 
 
 But the Greeks also applied the name democracy 
 to other governments, in which there were some ele- 
 ments which savoured of pure democracy and others 
 
 1 Aristotle, Politics, iii. 13, 15. 
 
 2 Ibid., ii. 11, 7. 
 
74 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 of an oligarchic character.^ In these governments 
 all the citizens were equal in voting power, as they 
 Mitig-ated were in a pure democracy, but magis- 
 democracies tratcs Were appointed by voting and not 
 
 known in ,ii icii «t 
 
 some Greek by the hazard 01 the lot. As the magis- 
 states. trates were elected, rich men held most 
 
 of the offices : they were necessarily conspicuous in 
 the eyes of the voters, and got votes for that reason ; 
 and they were also elected because the habits of 
 their lives had given them some preparation for the 
 work of government. In all the constitutions where 
 magistrates were elected by voting there was a com- 
 promise between the interests of the rich and the 
 poor : the poor gave most of the votes, but the rich 
 held most of the magistracies. In some cases the 
 compromise was made more favourable to the rich 
 by a regulation that certain magistracies could be 
 held- by none but a rich man. 
 
 We have now to inquire what the Greek writers 
 mean when they say that in some of the lesser 
 But not in Greek cities democracies were established 
 simple cities, after the fall of the tyrants. It is use- 
 less to ask whether they meant perfectly pure 
 democracies: there is not an instance of a pure 
 democracy to be found in all history, and it is not 
 quite certain that such a thing could exist. But we 
 may profitably ask whether the governments called 
 democracies in the small cities were nearer to the 
 
 ' Aristotle, Politics, iv. 6, 1-4, and iv. 13, 11. In the second of 
 these passages we learn that all the moderate popular governments 
 which Aristotle called Polities were included among the demo- 
 cracies by Greeks before his time. 
 
CH. v.] DEMOCRACY 75 
 
 ideal form known as pure democracy or to the 
 governments founded on compromise in Athens by 
 Solon and Cleisthenes. I have no doubt that they 
 were so near to pure democracies that they gave the 
 poor class of citizens a substantial supremacy. There 
 is no visible trace in them of government by com- 
 promise. The historians treat it almost as a matter 
 of course that, when one of the governments which 
 they call democracies was established in any of the 
 lesser cities, some of the rich men had at once to go 
 into exile; and this was the case not only in the 
 turmoil of the Peloponnesian War, but also in the 
 more tranquil times which preceded it.^ And there 
 is another and a much weightier argument which 
 leads me to the opinion that the uncompromising 
 form of democracy was the only one to be found 
 in any of the lesser cities. Two of our very best 
 and most careful writers, Thucydides and Aristotle, 
 thought that a popular government founded on a 
 compromise between rich and poor was the best of 
 all known governments, and they would therefore be 
 certain to mention every instance of it that could be 
 found. They describe examples of it in some of the 
 larger and more complex cities, but none in the small 
 cities, and I believe the reason why they mention 
 none is that none existed. 
 
 The governments, then, that commonly prevailed 
 in the lesser Greek cities were oligarchy, tyranny, 
 and uncompromising democracy. In Greece proper 
 the progress of the lesser cities through these forms 
 
 ' For example, at Naxos in 502 B.C. Herodotus, v. 30. 
 
76 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 of governments was nearly uniform : they were under 
 oligarchies in the seventh century, under tyrannies 
 in the sixth, and afterwards they oscillated 
 by means of frequent revolutions be- 
 tween oligarchy and democracy. In other parts of 
 the Greek world the course of events was not so 
 unvarying, at any rate in respect of the dates at 
 which the various sorts of government were estab- 
 lished : for example, at Miletus tyranny may possibly 
 have arisen a century earlier than in Greece proper, 
 and it is not certain whether that city was ever ruled 
 by an oligarchy at the beginning of its career. In 
 view of these facts, and others like them, which it 
 would be tedious to cite, it is impossible to say that 
 all the lesser cities went through a certain series of 
 governmental conditions in a definite order ; but it is 
 perfectly safe to assert that the only political systems 
 known to have existed in any of them were oligarchy, 
 tyranny, and uncompromising democracy. 
 
 The characteristic feature, then, of the govern- 
 ments of the simple city states among the Greeks 
 Class ^^^ ^^^^ power was lodged exclusively in 
 
 governments, tj^g hands of a class or a person. It 
 would be a great convenience to have a single term 
 to denote governments of this sort, and I shall try 
 to find one. Oligarchy and uncompromising demo- 
 cracy can obviously be called class governments, since 
 they give exclusive possession of power respectively 
 to the rich class or the poor class. And I venture 
 to think that tyranny can also be called a class 
 government : for a tyrant, though he is only a single 
 
CH. v.] CLASS GOVERNMENTS 77 
 
 person, can, without doing much violence to language, 
 be called a class by himself, since he has the char- 
 acteristics of a class — namely, interests and aims 
 and habits distinct from those of the rest of the 
 community. 
 
 If I may be allowed to use the word class to mean 
 either a number of persons or a single person having 
 interests, aims, and habits which are not shared by 
 the rest of the community, I may sum up the results 
 of this chapter by saying that among the ancient 
 Greeks the governments of all the simple city states 
 were class governments. 
 
 The reasons why political power in the simple 
 city states was always lodged exclusively in the 
 hands of a single person or class must 
 now be considered. They may be found in which deter- 
 two characteristics of these cities : in their ^^^f^*'^f 
 exemption from all serious care about thegovem- 
 foreign policy, and the small size of their 
 territories. As they very seldom had reason to make 
 any great effort against a foreign power, it did not 
 matter to them whether all classes were contented 
 and prepared to fight .zealously for the common- 
 wealth. In communities with an active foreign 
 policy, the discontent or secession of a class is 
 instantly felt to be disastrous, because it impairs 
 military efficiency. Not so in the non-belligerent 
 little city states of the Greeks. And, further, the 
 small size of the territories made it difficult for an 
 oppressed class to rise and deliver itself by rebelhon 
 in arms. All parts of the territory were within 
 
78 SIMPLE CITY STATES [ch. v. 
 
 striking distance of the city, and any armed insur- 
 rection in the country could easily be put down by 
 the class that held the city and the government. 
 The only chance for the discontented was to form a 
 conspiracy in the city itself and seize the citadel. It 
 is true that a large number of revolutions were 
 effected by this difficult method ; but the. dominant 
 class knew the method was difficult, and preferred to 
 run the risk of revolution rather than to descend 
 from their pre-eminence by giving a share of political 
 influence to the discontented. 
 
 The simple city states in ancient history, no less 
 than the tribal communities, were made rather in- 
 Conciuding stinctively than of careful design, and 
 observations. t]jus resembled natural products. When 
 a tribe gained great wealth the tribesmen surrounded 
 a convenient site with fortifications in obedience to a 
 natural instinct of self-preservation, and it was in 
 obedience to natural instinct that they converted their 
 community into a simple city state. It seems too that 
 the simple cities were all alike in structure. It might 
 then be expected that Nature would allot them one 
 definite form of government, but in fact they might 
 have for their government oligarchy, tyranny, or 
 democracy. How are we to account for a phenom- 
 enon seemingly contrary to reasonable expectation ? 
 Or is it, in fact, not contrary to our expectations ? 
 Are oligarchy, democracy, tyranny, when they occur 
 in a simple city state, really distinct from one another? 
 We can see in the history of Paris during the French 
 Revolution that the passage from any one to any 
 
CH. v.] CONCLUDING REMARKS 79 
 
 other of the three could be made almost imper- 
 ceptibly. Is it not probable that in the Greek cities 
 also the governments which bear separate names 
 were in truth very closely akin ? 
 
 TABLE. 
 ANCIENT CITY STATES. 
 
 KIND OP COMMUNITY. GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 Simple city state.s. Class governments, namely, 
 
 1. Oligarchy. 
 
 2. Tyranny. 
 
 3. Uncompromising democracy. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 UNION OF GREEK CITIES: ATTICA 
 
 It is, as we have noticed, difficult for a city to conquer 
 other cities, because each city is a compact community 
 and defends itself vigorously : to consolidate a number 
 of conquered cities into one community with the 
 victorious city is harder still. It has never been 
 accomplished when the dependent cities are separated 
 from the conquering city by stretches of sea : when 
 they are neighbours with adjoining territories, it can 
 be done. The city of Venice conquered cities on the 
 other side of the Adriatic and of the Mediterranean 
 Sea, but never formed them into one community; 
 Athens, Rome, and Genoa conquered neighbouring 
 cities, and consolidated their conquests into single 
 communities. When a new community is founded by 
 the conquest and assimilation of many cities under a 
 single dominant city, it may conveniently be called a 
 complex city state. It is a city state because the 
 whole is controlled from and by a single central city ; 
 and it is complex because, though it has only one 
 nucleus for its government, it also possesses in its 
 dependent towns many lesser centres of population, 
 wealth, commerce, society, and opinion. 
 
CH. VI.] UNIONS OF CITIES 81 
 
 In every complex city state the dominant city must 
 in its early days have been expansive and belligerent ; 
 it attained its supremacy over the other cities by 
 fighting. The wars that enabled it to conquer neigh- 
 bouring towns must have called for common efforts of 
 all its citizens : and common effort is not likely to 
 be effectual unless all classes are moderately con- 
 tented. General contentment is best secured by 
 giving all classes a share of political power ; and so 
 the cities that conquer other cities usually get an 
 early lesson in the advantages of mixed forms of 
 government. And, further, it may be noticed that, 
 after a complex city state has been made, there is a 
 sort of equipoise between the central city, on the one 
 hand, and the outlying communities of citizens, on the 
 other. It may be that for a time the inhabitants of 
 the central city will try to oppress the outlying regions; 
 but in general the territory outside the city is so im- 
 portant, and the contentment of its population so 
 desirable, that the oppression is brought to an end by 
 compromise, and the people outside the city walls gets 
 its due share of power. The governments character- 
 istic of complex city states in their mature condition 
 are mixed and balanced constitutions, in which every 
 class obtains its fair portion of political influence. 
 
 The complex city states in ancient history were 
 Athens, Kome, and Carthage. I shall not attempt to 
 describe Carthage, because our knowledge of its 
 history and institutions is most imperfect. Athens 
 and Kome will suffice to give an idea of complex 
 city states and of their governments. 
 
82 UNIONS OF CITIES [CH. vi. 
 
 In the beginning of complex city states their 
 gavernments are variable, and though in time they 
 _ ^ always get mixed governments, those 
 
 Governments ./ o o 
 
 of complex governments do not conform to any 
 city states. precise model. In this chapter and 
 the next I desire merely to depict the varied govern- 
 ments in the complex cities of Athens and Kome, 
 and to show how both eventually acquired mixed 
 forms of government in which rich and poor both 
 participated. 
 
 The final form of mixed government in both 
 the complex city states of ancient Europe is seen 
 only in the Attic constitutions made by Solon and 
 Cleisthenes, and in the Roman constitution during 
 the first and second Punic Wars. Under each of 
 these constitutions the component parts that made 
 up the governmental system were three in number 
 — the magistrates, the permanent senate, and the 
 common folk. The magistrates were elected yearly 
 by the whole people from the rich class, and were 
 entrusted both with military command and with 
 civil authority ; the senate had the duty of giving 
 advice to the magistrates when desired to do 
 so, and consisted of men chosen for wisdom and 
 experience, with a life tenure of their places in 
 the senate; the common folk took part in the 
 yearly elections of magistrates, in making laws, 
 and in judicature. 
 
 In the present chapter I shall not attempt to do 
 more than sketch the growth of the Attic constitution 
 till 480 B.C., the date of the invasion of Greece by 
 
CH. VI.] ATTICA 83 
 
 Xerxes. The subject-matter will be divided under 
 the following five heads: — (1) Prehistoric times; 
 (2) the oligarchy of the Eupatridse; (3) the consti- 
 tution of Solon ; (4) the tyranny of Peisistratus and 
 Hippias ; (5) the constitution of Cleisthenes. 
 
 Although Attica is one of the largest natural 
 divisions of Greece, it is decidedly smaller than an 
 average English county. It measures 
 about fifty miles from north to south, and Athenst°(i) 
 about forty at the broadest part from Prehistoric 
 
 . times. 
 
 east to west. Its area is about seven 
 hundred and twenty square miles, and it has about 
 the same extent of surface as Berkshire, Cambridge- 
 shire, or Oxfordshire. 
 
 In this small region, destined eventually to do at 
 least as much for the progress of the human intellect 
 as has ever been achieved by any country of a 
 hundred times its size, the earliest inhabitants known 
 to us were Ionian Greeks. They formed several small 
 independent communities, about twelve in number, 
 each contained within a village or small township. 
 Athens had the greatest advantages of situation since 
 its acropolis was of great natural strength, and the 
 citizens had easy access to the sea by the three 
 excellent harbours of Munychia, Zea, and Piraeus. 
 Accordingly, in course of time there arose at Athens 
 a powerful ruler who succeeded in bringing the whole 
 country and its little towns under a single kingly 
 government of the tribal type ; and Thucydides tells 
 us that in his own days the union of Attica under 
 Athens was still regularly celebrated at the public 
 
84 ATTICA [CH. VI. 
 
 festival of the Synoekia.^ The supremacy of Athens 
 over Attica was probably subsequent to the age 
 of Homer, because Athens is hardly mentioned in 
 the Homeric poems, and never, I believe, in any 
 passage which belongs to the poems as they 
 were originally composed ; but it was long anterior 
 to any period of which we have chronological 
 knowledge, and at the beginning of Greek history 
 Athens is fully established as a complex city 
 state. 
 
 At Athens, as in other Greek cities, the old 
 tribal kingship was gradually shorn of its powers 
 and prerogatives: before the beginning of chrono- 
 Attica- (2) logical history it had been abolished. 
 OUgarchy From a time somewhere between 700 B.C. 
 Eupatridaeto ^nd 650 B.C. the government was con- 
 594 B.C. trolled by a permanent council of nobles, 
 or Eupatridse, and its details were managed by nine 
 archons or administrators, who were selected yearly 
 by the council.^ The council consisted of those who 
 were serving or had served the office of archon,^ so 
 that the council in selecting new archons also fiUed 
 up vacancies in its own numbers. Among the nine 
 magistrates, the first in rank was the Archon, who 
 gave his name to his year of office ; the second was 
 the Archon Basileiis, who took over the title and the 
 priestly functions of the old tribal king; the third 
 was the Polemarch, who commanded in war; the 
 
 ' Thuoydides, ii. 15. 
 
 2 Aristotle, Alh. Pol., 8. 
 
 '■> Plutarch, Solon, 19; Arist., Ath. Pol., 3. 
 
CH. VI.] SOLON 85 
 
 other six were called Thesmothetse, and probably 
 attended to judicial business.^ 
 
 The nobles, then, from 650 B.C. or earlier were in 
 exclusiYe possession of power. How they used it when 
 first they got it, is not recorded; by 600 B.C. they 
 were employing it selfishly. They took advantage of 
 the harsh laws relating to debt to deprive the poorer 
 freemen of their lands, or to reduce them to slavery ; 
 and all Attica was seething with discontent and 
 enmity between classes. 
 
 How it came about that the nobles in the time of 
 Solon were induced to part with some of their mis- 
 used power we are not informed. But it 
 may be observed that Athens was still Constitution 
 expanding by conquest, and had recently ° ° °"' 
 acquired the island of Salamis by conquest from the 
 Megareans, after a sternly waged conflict, in which 
 Solon played the leading part.'^ An expanding city 
 always needs a zealous and united army, both for 
 making conquests and for keeping them; and it 
 seems likely that the motive which persuaded the 
 nobles to make concessions was the desire to obtain 
 the active and willing co-operation of all the citizens 
 in the battlefield. In the year 594 B.C. it was agreed 
 by rich and poor that Solon should be elected archon, 
 and entrusted with power to deal with the existing 
 discontents and devise a new form of government. 
 He began with economic changes, cancelling all debts 
 that had then been incurred, restoring to liberty 
 
 > Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 3. 
 "■ Plutarch, iSolon, 8-10. 
 
86 ATTICA [CH. vx. 
 
 those who had been enslaved, altering the law in 
 regard to security for debt : and when this had been 
 effected he proceeded to his political reforms. 
 
 Solon was the first man who ever planned a 
 government containing the three elements which 
 . have already been noted as recurring in a later Attic 
 constitution and in the Koman republic. The 
 three elements were yearly magistrates, permanent 
 advisory senate, and popular privileges. As the 
 governments composed of these three factors are of 
 great historical importance, it will be well to observe 
 how each factor was defined in the first constitution 
 that ever contained them, and how the founder of 
 it designed that they should act and counteract on 
 one another. 
 
 In regard to the magistrates Solon ordained that 
 they should be, as heretofore, nine in number ; should 
 keep their title of archons, should bear office for a 
 year, and should all be taken from the richest class 
 of citizens, called Pentacosiomedinini : but he sub- 
 jected them to certain restrictions, intended to 
 prevent them from abusing their power. These 
 restrictions were established by the method of 
 appointing them, and in the power given to certain 
 popularly constituted law-courts of revising their 
 decisions. They were to be appointed by a process 
 in which popular election and hazard both played a 
 part : each of the four ancient tribes, into which the 
 families of Attica were divided, elected from among 
 the richest class of citizens ten candidates for the 
 office, and, from the forty thus chosen, nine were 
 
OH. VI.] SOLON 87 
 
 taken by drawing lots. In constructing his senate 
 Solon had no difficulty, as there was a senate consis- 
 ting of archons and ex-archons ready to his hand. 
 It was not necessary for him to make any formal 
 change in defining the composition of the senate ; it 
 still continued to consist of archons and ex-archons, 
 but the men who were admitted into it under Solon's 
 constitution had become archons through a process 
 in which their names had been submitted to the 
 public for election as candidates. And as Solon did 
 not need to define the composition of the senate, so 
 perhaps he did not dare to define its powers ; for in 
 later days when it became famous under the name of 
 the Areus Pagus (or in Latin, Areopagus), it seems 
 almost to have had the power of settling the limits of 
 its own jurisdiction. The third element in the con- 
 stitution was furnished by the participation of the 
 people at large in the work of government. The 
 popular institutions of Solon were the courts of 
 justice, the assembly, and a body of four hundred 
 men who acted as a committee of the assembly. 
 The courts of justice, known as Dicasteria, were for 
 the time being the most important : they were courts 
 in which large bodies of citizens, rich and poor alike, 
 sat as judges or jurymen; and, as they were em- 
 powered to hear appeals from sentences pronounced 
 by archons, they had the final judgment in 
 questions of the gravest character. The assembly, 
 comprising all the citizens, had important elective 
 business to do once a year at the selection of archons : 
 for the rest of the year it was probably intended to 
 
88 ATTICA [CH. vi. 
 
 be inactive. Solon ordered that his laws should 
 continue in force for a hundred years, and thereby 
 deprived the assembly of any chance of being active 
 in law-making. He foresaw, however, that in course 
 of time it would undertake to legislate, and might 
 need a check to prevent it from making unwise in- 
 novations. Such a check he provided in the council 
 or committee of four hundred. For the formation of 
 this council he selected a hundred men from each of 
 the four tribes, and ordered that no proposal should 
 be brought before the general assembly of the citizens 
 until the four hundred had given it their approval.^ 
 
 The constitution of Solon was a wonderful work of 
 genius. It was evidently too good for the people of 
 Attica in Solon's time; but some of its provisions 
 were not good enough for their descendants in the 
 very highest stage of civilisation that they ever 
 reached. The institutions that seem to have done 
 some injury to the Athenians in later times were the 
 use of hazard in the appointment of archons and the 
 constitution of the Dicasteria. They were, however, 
 good enough, or too good, for Solon's time; and if 
 they were retained, revived, or exaggerated in times 
 for which they were not suited, it was the fault not of 
 Solon but of later lawgivers. 
 
 The use of the method of chance in the appoint- 
 ment of archons was probably suggested by the 
 religious feeling that the gods ought to have some 
 
 ' The description of the Solonian constitution is taken from 
 Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 5-13; except the statement that the four 
 hundred were selected by Solon. This is from Plutarch, Solon, 
 19. 
 
CH. VI.] SOLON 89 
 
 share in settling who should be rulers : but the gods 
 do not choose as well as men. The Solonian method 
 did not ensure that the very best men in the com- 
 munity should be its rulers, though it excluded any 
 one who was very incapable or unpopular; and, by 
 neglecting to get the very best,' it tended in time to 
 lower the character of the archonship, and, what was 
 worse, the dignity of the Areopagus. The Dicasteria 
 probably answered well enough for such judicial 
 work as was needed in Solon's time ; but they were 
 composed entirely of men unlearned in the law, with- 
 out any professional jurist to guide them, and in 
 later times, when intricate cases came before them, 
 they were apt to be capricious in their judgments. 
 
 The Solonian institutions remained in full working 
 order for only three or four years : then there arose 
 violent contests about the appointment of archons, 
 which showed that the immediate effect of Solon's 
 changes had been to transfer the chief power to the 
 nine magistrates.^ Turbulence of factions made it 
 impossible to enforce some parts of his constitution ; 
 but other parts of it were probably observed, and the 
 whole served as a foundation for Cleisthenes to build 
 upon. It is evident that the strife of classes which 
 spoiled the working of Solon's institutions led to the 
 restoration of some kind of oligarchy : for if it was 
 not so, there would have been no motive to induce 
 the poorer citizens to accede so readily as they did 
 to the wishes of the demagogue Peisistratus. 
 
 It was in the year 560 B.c. that Peisistratus succeeded 
 
 1 Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 13. 
 
90 ATTICA [CH. VI. 
 
 in putting down the oligarchy of the Eupatridse. The 
 chief contending parties in Attica were the rich men 
 Attica- U) ^^ ^^^ plain, the men of the seashore, 
 Tyranny of and the poor men of the hill country. 
 
 Peisistratus. t, • ■ . ^ a j^i • i 
 
 reisistratus was a young Athenian who 
 had twice won military distinction : having formed a 
 body of partisans, he declared himself the champion 
 of the poor citizens of the high lands. He presented 
 himself in Athens pretending he had been violently 
 assaulted by his political opponents, and requesting 
 the citizens that he might have some men to protect 
 him. The citizens granted his request : he formed a 
 bodyguard of club men, by whose aid he seized the 
 Acropolis and established himself as tyrant. 
 
 The tyranny of Peisistratus and his son Hippias 
 need not detain us long. It may suffice to point out 
 that it was not so easily established or so irresistible 
 and violent as the tyrannies of the lesser cities. It 
 seems that there is something about an enlarged city 
 state which tends to a balance of power and some- 
 thing like compromise even when a tyranny has been 
 established. There was so much of a balance of 
 power between Peisistratus and his opponents the 
 Eupatridse that they twice succeeded in driving him 
 into exile ; and after he gained his position as tyrant 
 for a third time, there was so much of compromise 
 and moderation in his government that he never 
 entirely abolished the Solonian institutions. It was 
 his constant policy, as we learn from Thucydides.^ to 
 permit nine archons to be elected every year by the 
 
 ' Thuoydides, vi. 54. 
 
CH. VI.] PEISISTRATUS 91 
 
 citizens, though he took care that one of the archons 
 should be a member of his own family. His son 
 Hippias imitated his father's moderation, until 
 514 B.C., when his brother Hipparchus was murdered 
 out of private spite in the foolish and futile con- 
 spiracy of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. 
 
 The constant opponents of Peisistratus and Hippias 
 were, as a matter of course, the Eupatridas, whose 
 power Peisistratus had destroyed ; and the leaders of 
 the Eupatridse were the wealthy and powerful family 
 of the Alcmseonidse. It was Megacles, head of this 
 family, who on two occasions succeeded in effecting 
 the expulsion of Peisistratus; and it was his son 
 Cleisfchenes who contrived the expulsion of Hippias. 
 Cleisthenes was an exile from Attica all through 
 the reign of Hippias ; he organised several invasions 
 of his native country for the overthrow of the 
 tyranny, but they failed miserably until he suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining aid from a foreign power. The 
 family of the Alcmseonidte was extremely wealthy; 
 they contrived, by well-timed generosity towards the 
 Delphic temple of Apollo, to win the favour of its 
 priestess ; and the priestess in her oracles commanded 
 the Spartans to set Athens free. In 510 B.C. the 
 Spartans resolved to obey the command of the god : 
 the King Cleomenes was sent into Attica with a 
 Spartan army, Hippias was expelled, the exiles 
 restored, and the Athenians were free to establish any 
 constitution that they might desire.^ 
 
 ' The facts here stated about Peisistratus, Hippias, Cleisthenes 
 are taken from Herodotus, i. 59-64, and v. 62; Aristotle, Ath. Pot, 
 14 and 19 ; Plutarch, Solon, 30. 
 
92 ATTICA [CH. vi. 
 
 After the expulsion of Hippias a contest for power 
 arose between Cleisthenes and a man named Isagoras. 
 Attica: (s) Isagoras had been a friend of the expelled 
 cieisthenean tyrant, and it seems that after Hippias 
 
 constitution, "^ • , t , r t i. 
 
 so8 B.C.- was gone he wished to found a tyranny 
 480 B.C. Qf jjjg Q^jj -y^e do not know any de- 
 tails of the contest between the rivals except that 
 Isagoras on two occasions called in foreign powers in 
 support of his designs. On the first occasion a 
 Spartan force, under King Cleomenes, seized the 
 Acropolis of Athens, but was compelled to evacuate it 
 after a two days' siege ; on the second Attica ,was 
 invaded from the west by Spartans and Corinthians, 
 and from the north by Bcsotians and Chalcidians. 
 It seems that for a time the Athenians were in a 
 hopeless plight ; but, luckily for them, some of the 
 invaders had misgivings and doubts — it may be they 
 thought Apollo, who had commanded the liberation 
 of Athens, would disapprove of its enslavement ; in 
 any case, the armament gradually melted away, and 
 by its dispersion or retreat Cleisthenes and his 
 partisans were left in undisputed possession of 
 power.i 
 
 It is probable that the original design of Cleis- 
 thenes on the expulsion of Hippias was to restore 
 the oligarchy of the Eupatridse: for we are told by 
 Herodotus that it was when he was being worsted 
 in the contest with Isagoras that he resolved to 
 make alliance with the common folk.^ The repeated 
 invasions of Attica must have shown him that it was 
 
 ' Herodotus, v. 66-76. = Herodotus, v. 66. 
 
■CH. vi.J CLEISTHENES 93 
 
 a matter of vital necessity to keep all classes of the 
 people contented and united for resistance to aggres- 
 sors ; and accordingly it is not wonderful that the 
 constitution which he established is a remarkably 
 good example of the mixed and balanced form of 
 government which is found in complex, expanded, 
 and belligerent city states. 
 
 The recent invasions of Attica showed that the 
 most pressing need of the Athenians was the 
 establishment of a large, zealous, and ^ 
 
 •^ ' Ten new 
 
 effective army of citizens : and it seems t"bes defined 
 that this fact determined the character of ^^ '^'""'"i^- 
 nearly all the enactments of Cleisthenes. Before he 
 could have a large citizen army it was necessary to 
 enroll new citizens, and in effecting his desire to 
 widen the citizenship he was led to make changes 
 which altered the whole structure of the community. 
 Up to his time the citizens had been divided into 
 four tribes which are usually known as the Ionic 
 tribes : each of them was a close corporation of 
 families, so that no man could be a tribesman unless 
 his father has been so before him. The men whom 
 Cleisthenes wished to enfranchise were mainly aliens 
 domiciled in Attica, and some were of servile origin : so 
 it was clear they could not gain admission to the four 
 ancient tribes. In order to effect their admission to 
 citizenship, he deprived the Ionic tribes of all political 
 significance, leaving them nothing but their character 
 of religious and social corporations. He then divided 
 the Attic community, for political purposes, into ten 
 tribes, constructed on a new principle, and defined 
 
94 ATTICA [CH. VI. 
 
 not as containing certain families but as dwelling in 
 certain demes or villages ; and he enrolled in these 
 new tribes, and thereby in the list of citizens, those 
 men whom he desired to adopt into the Attic state. 
 In order to make certain that the new tribes should 
 not serve as rallying points for local factions such as 
 those of the plain, the shore, and the highlands in the 
 time of Peisistratus, he took care that the demes 
 ■which formed a tribe did not all lie in~ one district, 
 but were partly urban or suburban, partly maritime 
 and partly inland.^ 
 
 After the roll of the citizens had been augmented, 
 the way was clear for Cleisthenes to establish a 
 Army of powerful army of citizens, and to settle 
 citizens. ^.j^g form that the government should 
 assume. His army consisted of ten brigades: each 
 tribe furnished a brigade and elected a general or 
 strategus to command it. At the battle of Marathon 
 in 490 B.C., when the Athenians drove the invader 
 Darius back into his ships, the right wing was formed 
 by a body of troops under the Polemarch, and then 
 from right to left the ten tribal brigades were 
 marshalled in order each under its own general.^ 
 The form of government was modelled on the 
 Solonian constitution, but presented some new 
 features, because since Solon's time new difficulties 
 had arisen and experience showed the necessity of 
 providing against them. 
 
 ' Our knowledge of the Cleisthenean tribes oomes mainly from 
 Herodotus, v. 69, and Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 21. 
 
 ^ Herodotus, vi. Ill, whence the words are taken. Aristotle, 
 Ath. Pol., 22. 
 
CH. VI.] CLEISTHENES 95 
 
 The Cleisthenean constitution distributed the right 
 and duty of taking part in the work of government 
 among the governmental organs which are usually 
 found in the mixed constitutions of complex city 
 states. These three organs in the constitution — the 
 magistrates, the permanent senate, and the common 
 people — will now be surveyed in order. 
 
 The chief magistrates now comprised the ten 
 generals or strategi as well as the nine archons. All 
 the nineteen officials were chosen by a Archons and 
 purely elective process, and there was no strategi. 
 drawing of lots. Until the battle of Marathon the 
 archons ranked higher than the strategi, and the 
 Polemarch stood before them even in battle. Three 
 years afterwards,^ the Athenians revived the use of 
 the lot in the appointment of archons: from that 
 time the archonship gradually lapsed into political 
 insignificance, and the only important officers were 
 the ten strategi. 
 
 The senate of the Areopagus was apparently well 
 constituted by Cleisthenes. It consisted of archons 
 and ex-archons : and as archons under 
 the Cleisthenean scheme were- chosen by ■■^°p^&"=- 
 a purely elective method, they were likely to be men 
 of the best ability procurable. When the Athenians 
 in 487 B.C. reintroduced the hazard of the lot into 
 the process of appointing archons,^ they made it 
 certain that the influence and usefulness of the Areo- 
 pagus would in time decline. It is clear they had 
 never realised the value of a permanent senate of 
 
 1 Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 22. 
 
96 ATTICA [CH. vi. 
 
 experienced governors : if they had, they would, when 
 they revived the practice of appointing archons by 
 drawing lots, have taken some precautions to save 
 the Areopagus from being damaged by the change. 
 Had they known anything about the Roman Senate, 
 which already existed when this change was made, 
 they might have transferred the right of member- 
 ship in the Areopagus from the archons to the 
 strategi. If they had done this, the Areopagus would 
 have consisted of men of ability and experience 
 accustomed to high office. As it was, the Areopagus, 
 when the hazard of the lot had taken its full 
 effect on the archonship, was composed of political 
 nobodies. 
 
 The whole mass of the citizens had nearly the 
 same political rights under Cleisthenes as under 
 Assemblies Solon, but they were more active in the 
 of citizens. ^gg gf them. Provisions were made for 
 holding ten meetings of the Ecclesia, or general 
 assembly of the people, in the course of the year; 
 whereas Solon seems to have intended that it should 
 ordinarily meet only on the one occasion of the 
 appointment of archons. These provisions for more 
 frequent meetings appear in the new regulations 
 about the committee or council of the popular 
 assembly. Solon had fixed the number of this 
 committee at four hundred: Cleisthenes added 
 another hundred members, and the committee is 
 thenceforward knawn as the BoulS of the Five 
 Hundred. Fifty members were taken from each of 
 the ten tribes — whether at this time they were elected 
 
CH. VI.] OSTEACISM 97 
 
 by voting or taken by the hazard of the lot we do 
 not know — and the fifty members from each tribe 
 enjoyed for a tenth part of the year the dignity of 
 Prytaneis, or presiding officers, in the meetings both 
 of the Five Hundred and of the general assembly; 
 and the name Prytaneia was applied both to their 
 right of presidency and to the term of thirty-five or 
 thirty-six days for which they possessed it.i The 
 arrangements show clearly that it was likely that the 
 general assembly would meet about ten times in the 
 course of a year. It must, then, have been a legisla- 
 tive assembly. We do not know anything about its 
 proceedings ; but it seems quite certain that Cleis- 
 thenes adopted the Solonian rule that no proposal 
 should be submitted to the general assembly till it 
 had been approved by the permanent committee : 
 for that rule appears as a long-established principle 
 in the later part of Athenian history. 
 
 Besides their work in the general assemblies the 
 Athenian people had other opportunities of political 
 activity. It may be that the Dicasteria, or 
 popular law-courts of Solon, had been 
 permitted to survive under Peisistratus, though it is 
 clear he could not allow them much independence : 
 under Cleisthenes they were in full working order. 
 There were also some rare occasions when 
 the assembled people was called on to act 
 as guardian of the state against any demagogue who 
 might, like Peisistratus, aspire to make himself a 
 
 ' The existence of the Prytaneise in the Cleistheuean constitution 
 is authenticated by Plutarch, Symposiaca Prohlemata, i. 10. 
 
 G 
 
98 ATTICA [CH. vi. 
 
 tyrant, or against such a contest for the chief power 
 as had arisen between Cleisthenes and Isagoras. On 
 these occasions the process used was known as 
 ostracism, or the vote by the potsherds. The public 
 assembly could, without naming any person, order 
 that on a fixed date a vote should be taken in which 
 each citizen might write on a potsherd the name of 
 any man who ought in his opinion to be banished. 
 In order to prevent ostracism from being misused by 
 any small clique of citizens to get rid of an opponent, 
 there was a regulation which mentioned a minimum 
 of six thousand as necessary to a valid vote. Accord- 
 ing to Plutarch, whose authority I accept, it was only 
 required that there should be six thousand voters in 
 all; while other writers imply that there must be 
 six thousand sherds bearing the name of the same 
 man. When this regulation was complied with, the 
 man whose name occurred on the largest number of 
 sherds went into exile for a term of ten years, but did 
 not suffer any further hurt.^ It may be noticed in 
 passing that the process of ostracism was in use not 
 only at Athens but also at Argos, which was in some 
 respects like Athens in structure and constitution. 
 
 The descriptions that have been given of the magis- 
 tracies, the Areopagus, and the political privileges of 
 the people may suffice to indicate the nature of the 
 central government in the constitution of Cleisthenes ; 
 but it must be observed that he also introduced a 
 reformed system of local government. 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Aristides, 7. For conflicting statements see Smith, 
 Dictionary of Antiquitien, third edition, article Exsilium. 
 
CH. VI.] LOCAL GOVERNMENT 99 
 
 Some kind of local divisions and local governors 
 are usually found in an expanded or complex city 
 state. In Attica before Cleipthenes the Local 
 divisions were called naucrarise, and their srovemment. 
 governors naucrari. We know nothing about them 
 except that there were in all forty-eight naucrari^, 
 that each contributed two horsemen to the army and 
 a ship to the navy, and that the naucrari assessed 
 the taxation needed for these purposes, and had some- 
 thing to do with the expenditure of it. . Cleisthenes 
 established his domes as local divisions in lieu of the 
 naucrarise ; in each deme he set up a demarchus, or 
 president of the deme, and the demarchi took over 
 the functions which the naucrari had hitherto dis- 
 charged.^ The details of his scheme of local govern- 
 ment are not known, but it evidently proved a 
 success. In the time of Demosthenes, about a 
 century and a half later, every deme had its assembly 
 presided over by the demarchus ; and these assem- 
 blies were fully organised bodies and had plenty of 
 business to employ them.^ 
 
 The constitution of Cleisthenes is a clear example 
 of the mixed and balanced governments that grow 
 up naturally in complex city states. It also furnishes 
 an example — as do the rest of the mixed and 
 balanced governments in city states — of that type of 
 moderate popular government to which Aristotle 
 gave the name of Polity. It was popular, since the 
 
 ' For Nauorarise see Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 20; and Smith, 
 Dictionary of Antiquities, third edition (1891), article Naucraria. 
 ^ Smith, Dictionary of Antiquities, article Dermis. 
 
100 ATTICA [CH. VI. 
 
 mass of the citizens had a controlling power; and 
 it was moderate, because no class had opportunities 
 for governing in its own interest. 
 
 Now that the constitutional history of Attica has 
 been brought down to 480 B.C., this chapter may be 
 closed. Soon after this date the central city of 
 Athens was immensely enlarged in area and popula- 
 tion, the country districts and the lesser towns lost 
 their importance, especially during the Peloponnesian 
 War, and from thenceforward Athens belongs rather 
 to the simple than the complex variety of city states. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 UNION OF ITALIAN CITIES: ROME 
 
 The Romans, in consequence of their geographical 
 position and natural surroundings and the character 
 of their neighbours, had far greater opportunities 
 than the Athenians for conquering cities and 
 assimilating them into one community; and they 
 used them so well that in the third century before 
 the Christian Era a strongly united Roman common- 
 wealth occupied all the central parts of Italy and 
 gave law to the whole peninsula. Until the close of 
 the second Punic War in 201 B.C., the Roman Republic 
 was only an unusually large specimen of a complex 
 city state ; in the next sixty years the body politic 
 rapidly and completely changed its character by 
 annexation of distant territories, and by the year 
 146 B.C., when the last Punic War ended, Rome was 
 the head of a heterogeneous empire. 
 
 The present chapter will attempt to give a sketch 
 in outline of the growth of the Roman constitution so 
 long as Rome bore the character of a city state. The 
 subject-matter will be divided into periods each corre- 
 sponding to a certain form of government or politi- 
 cal condition. The periods will bear the following 
 
102 ITALY [CH. VII. 
 
 titles : (1) The beginnings of Kome, and the time 
 of the kings ; (2) the exclusive rule of the patricians ; 
 
 (3) the contest between the two orders until 340 b.c. ; 
 
 (4) the expansion of Rome and the gradual recon- 
 ciliation of the orders, 340-275 B.C.; (5) the united 
 Roman commonwealth, 287-201 B.c. 
 
 In speaking of these periods it is obvious that I 
 must confine my attention to the most salient points : 
 for if I were to mention the details they would be 
 tedious to the reader, and would swell this chapter 
 to the bulk of a volume. Economy of space may best 
 be practised in speaking of the contest between the 
 orders and their gradual reconciliation : for the 
 details of those two periods are unique in history, and 
 do not lend themselves to the purposes of comparison 
 to which this book is devoted. It will then do no 
 hurt to my design if these details are passed over in 
 silence ; and in speaking of the periods of contest and 
 reconciliation I may be content if I make mention of 
 such facts only as are needed for the understanding 
 of the government in the united commonwealth. 
 
 o^ 
 
 (1) The Beginnings of Rome, 
 AND THE Time of the Kings. 
 
 Italy is for the most part a land of rocks and moun- 
 tains, but its mountain ranges are fewer in number 
 and generally much less formidable in 
 
 Geography. 
 
 character than those which divide Greece. 
 The chain of the Apennines runs down the whole 
 length of the peninsula, and is perhaps as difficult 
 
CH. VII.] GEOGEAPHY 103 
 
 of transit as some of the ranges in Greece; but 
 its offshoots in many parts are rather hills than 
 mountains, and, what is no less important, they do 
 not stand very close together, but leave room for 
 broad plains and open valleys. 
 
 The plains and valleys of Italy played a very large 
 part in settling the political destiny of the country 
 and in giving it a history unlike that of the neigh- 
 bouring peninsula. The plain of Latium and the 
 adjoining valley of the river Liris exercised a pre- 
 dominant influence over Italian history beyond all 
 the other geographical features of the country, and for 
 that reason it is worth while to describe them in 
 some detail. 
 
 The plain of Latium, now known as the Campagna, 
 is, roughly speaking, a triangle with its corners at 
 Ostia, Tibur, and Terracina. From Ostia piain of 
 to Tibur the distance is thirty or thirty- Latmm. 
 five English miles: the other two sides of the 
 triangle are each about sixty miles in length. 
 It is edged round with mountains except at one 
 spot : at Prasneste, not far from Tibur, there is a gap 
 in the hills which gives easy access to the long valley 
 of the Liris. The plain and the valley together form 
 one of the natural divisions of Italy; and it is far 
 larger than any of the natural divisions of Greece. 
 
 The surface of the Campagna is level or gently 
 undulating, except where the isolated volcanic mass 
 of the Alban hills rises to a height of three thousand 
 feet from the middle of it. The hills with plain 
 adjoining offered tempting sites for towns : Tibur, 
 
104 ITALY [CH. VII. 
 
 Cora, Norba, Privernum were on the sides of the 
 mountains that formed the outer margin of the plain ; 
 Aricia, Alba, Lanuvium were grouped around the 
 Alban hills, and Tusculum was perched on one of 
 their summits at a height of two thousand feet above 
 the adjoining level of the Campagna. All these 
 towns were themselves in strong and defensible 
 positions, but they had lands in the plain which lay 
 open to attack. The usefulness of Kome to the 
 Latins lay mainly in the power of the Koman armies 
 to defend the plain. 
 
 The site of Rome is formed by several low hills 
 grouped together on the south side of the river 
 Site of Tiber : they were commonly spoken of as 
 Rome. the seven hills, but it would be more 
 natural to call them five. They furnished by far 
 the best position for defending the Latins against 
 the Etruscans. In this strong post it is said 
 that detachments from three neighbouring peoples 
 effected settlements ; and no doubt the tradition is 
 correct, since in most of the earliest Roman 
 institutions, whether religious, political, or military, 
 the numbers that occur are multiples of three. The 
 three components of the original Roman city were 
 the Ramnes of Latin stock, the Titles of Sabine race, 
 and the Luceres. There was an old tradition that 
 the Luceres were Etruscans ; but probably Mommsen 
 is justified in deriding it as incredible.^ The Romans 
 have all the appearance of being a thoroughly homo- 
 geneous people, and this they could not have been 
 
 ' Mommsen, Rom. Hist., vol. i. p. 45. 
 
CH. vii.] BEGINNINGS OF EOME 105 
 
 if a third part of them had been Etruscans. The 
 old antiquary Festus says the Luceres came from 
 Ardea ; and it seems likely he is near the mark, since 
 the Rutulians of Ardea were kinsmen of the Latins 
 and the Sabines. The prevalence of multiples of 
 three in the old Roman institutions indicates that in 
 the first instance equal numbers were drawn from the 
 Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres to fill the places 
 in the priesthoods, the assemblies, and the army; 
 and the equality of numbers drawn from the three 
 tribes indicates that the union of the three tribes into 
 one people was brought about by voluntary compact 
 and not by force : for if it had arisen through the 
 conquest of two tribes by the third, the conquering 
 tribe would have had a superiority over the other two 
 in the government of the united people. 
 
 The stories that have come down to us about 
 events in the times of the kings are perfectly worth- 
 less : there is no reason to suppose that ^ .^ 
 
 '■ '■ Evidence for 
 
 any one set them down in writing until early Roman 
 shortly after 200 B.C., when Fabius Pictor '"^«t"t'°"=- 
 made a collection of them and published it in the 
 Greek tongue. On the other hand, the descriptions 
 that we possess in Livy and Dionysius of the Eoman 
 institutions in the time of King Servius TuUius must 
 be very nearly accurate; for those institutions left 
 traces of themselves in usages of the constitution 
 which survived till the times when Roman literature 
 was most abundant. 
 
 The limits of the Roman territory in the time of 
 the kings are indicated by the stories about the reign 
 
106 ROME [CH. vii. 
 
 and fall of Tarquin the Proud ; and the testimony of 
 these stories, in so far as they bear on geography, 
 f ^^ probably trustworthy, because the old 
 Rome under narrators were under no temptation to 
 t e ings. place events in wrong localities, however 
 much they might embellish them with imaginary 
 details. The stories about the capture of Gabii 
 through the treachery of Sextus Tarquinius, the 
 summons sent by King Tarquin to the Latins to meet 
 him at the grove of Ferentina, and the rule of a 
 Tarquin at CoUatia, all indicate that these places lay 
 on the frontiers of the Roman dominions.^ From the 
 indications thus furnished, and from some others of 
 less note, we may infer that the Eoman territory 
 comprised a strip of land extending along the south 
 side of the Tiber and its tributary the Anio, from the 
 sea to about twenty miles inland, and having a 
 breadth of twelve miles in its Avidest part ; it also took 
 in a small piece north of the Anio but south of the 
 Tiber near Fidenae, and a narrow strip along the north 
 of the Tiber from Rome to the sea, so that the 
 Romans had command of the river-channel.^ 
 
 Outside the territory directty subject to Tarquin it 
 is probable that he had, as Livy and Dionysius assert, 
 a hegemony or suzerainty over the Latin federation, so 
 that he could dictate its foreign policy and make use 
 
 ' These stories are told in Livy, i. 50-60, and ii. 19-20. 
 
 ^ There is a most useful map of the Roman territory after the 
 time of the kings in Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, p. 64. 
 The territory under the kings was slightly larger than that shown 
 in this map ; it took in certainly Gabii, perhaps also Nomentum 
 and Crnstumerium (Livy, i. 38, 4). 
 
CH. VII.] THE TWO OEDERS 107 
 
 of its armies.^ There had been, long before the time 
 of Tarquin, an alliance on equal terms, between Kome 
 and the Latin federation. The equality between the 
 contracting powers had, we are told, originally been so 
 complete that they had a joint army between them, 
 and the commander-in-chief was appointed in some 
 years by Rome, in others by the Latin federation.^ 
 By the time of Tarquin all traces of the original 
 equality had disappeared, and the King of Rome was 
 master of the Latin forces ; and it is pretty certain 
 that the Latin federation never regained such equality 
 with Rome as to appoint a commander over an army 
 composed of Latin and Roman contingents.^ 
 
 The population of the Roman territory other than 
 slaves (who were not numerous *) was divided into two 
 orders, the patricians and the plebs. The ^ 
 
 patricians were the descendants of the thepopuia- 
 original settlers, and they alone had the 
 rights of Roman burgesses ; the plebs included the 
 conquered people of the territory outside the city, and 
 also any persons who voluntarily came to Rome as 
 new settlers. 
 
 The component parts of the government were three 
 in number : namely, the king, the senate, p^^^^^^ ^^ 
 and the whole body of patrician bur- the govem- 
 gesses. The whole power habitually ™^" ' 
 belonged to the king; but as often as there was 
 
 1 Livy, i. 50-52; Dionysius, iv. 4.3-48, especially iv. 48, 1: Tvxiiy 
 Si T^s Aarlvwy riyenovlas 6 lapKvyios. 
 
 ^ Cincius, » very early author, who wrote during the second 
 Punic War, quoted by Testus, de Signif., p. 241 (Miiller). 
 
 ■' Mommsen holds this view. Bom. Hist., vol. i. p. 350. 
 
 -■ Marquardt, Rem. Alterth., Privathben, vol. i. pp. 18. 19. 
 
108 ROME [CH. vii. 
 
 a vacancy in the kingship, the senate and the bur- 
 gesses rose for the time to a position of commanding 
 influence. 
 
 The Roman king, like the king in a Greek tribe,^ 
 united all the active functions of government in his 
 own person. He was commander of the 
 army, high priest, supreme judge, and 
 president both in the senate and in the assembly 
 of burgesses. His commands given in any of his 
 capacities were subject to no appeal, unless he 
 voluntarily permitted an appeal to the burgesses. 
 The kingly office is represented by the legends 
 as being always filled by a process of election, 
 and as having never, even in its earliest days, been 
 transmissible by inheritance from father to son ; and 
 it is likely that their representations are correct in 
 both particulars. It is certain that, in some cases, 
 the kingly dignity was acquired by election : for there 
 was a definite method of electing kings, and it was 
 undoubtedly sometimes used, since it left clear traces 
 of its existence in the visages of the republican con- 
 stitution throughout its whole duration. The opinion 
 that the Roman kingship was never hereditary is 
 based on the fact that in the Roman state the three 
 tribes of the Ramnes, Titles, and Luceres were equal 
 with one another. In states where several communi- 
 ties are united on terms of equality there is not, so far 
 as I know, any instance of hereditary kingship ; a,nd 
 on the other hand, the tendency of such states towards 
 elective kingship is witnessed by the position both of 
 
 ' See page 35. 
 
CH. VII.] EARLIEST CONSTITUTION 109 
 
 the Doges at Venice and of the President in the United 
 States of America. 
 
 The senate in the time of the kings was a body of 
 men, not exceeding three hundred in number, named 
 by the king to be his advisers. It could 
 not meet unless the king summoned it; 
 when it had met it could not give advice on any sub- 
 ject except the particular subjects on which the king 
 desired its opinion; and when the advice of the 
 senate had been given, the king was free to follow it 
 or not as he chose. The senate then had no power 
 of compelling the king to adopt or abstain from 
 adopting any course of action. But if there was a 
 vacancy in the kingly office, the senate took the 
 initiative in finding a successor. It named certain 
 persons to act as interreges, or interim kings; they 
 were to succeed one another as kings pro forma, each 
 holding the title of interrex for a few days. The only 
 function that was expected of them was the nomina- 
 tion of a man for the office of permanent king ; and 
 any one of the interreges except the first was 
 empowered to perform this function. As soon as a 
 person had been designated for the kingly office, his 
 name was submitted to the assembled burgesses, who, 
 if they approved him, gave their sanction to his title 
 by a decision known as lex cv/riata} 
 
 The burgesses were divided into thirty cur ice or 
 
 1 Interreges, as is well known, were frequently employed under 
 the republic for filling vacancies in the consulship. The lex curiata 
 was habitually passed to confirm elections of magistrates so late 
 as the time of Cicero. See Cicero, Ad. Fam., i. 9, 25, written 
 54 B.C. 
 
no ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 wards, and in their assembly each curia had one vote. 
 Hence it was that a decision passed by them was 
 Patrician known as a lex curiata, or a law passed 
 burgesses, jjy tj^e curiae. Their opportunities for 
 political activity must have been very few : for they 
 could not vote on anything unless it had been pro- 
 posed for their acceptance by a king. The plebeians 
 were in some way appended to the curise,^ but without 
 voting power. 
 
 The most noteworthy feature in the government of 
 Rome under the kings, is that the kingship was purely 
 Elective ^^ elective office. We shall hereafter find 
 kingship, many instances of elective kingship ; and 
 I take this early opportunity of remarking that an 
 elective kingship is not necessarily a weak kingship. 
 The kings of Rome were elective but very powerful ; so 
 were the Roman Emperors, and the Doges of Venice 
 till the twelfth century. Nor, on the other hand, can 
 it be said that elective kings are always powerful: 
 the German Emperors in the fourteenth century were 
 elective but very weak, and so were the Kings of 
 Poland. 
 
 The foregoing brief statement may suffice to give 
 some idea on the form of government in the kingly 
 Servius period. The political arrangements re- 
 Tuiuus. mained unchanged throughout the reign 
 of Servius TuUius; but he made some changes in 
 the military and social organisation which must now be 
 noticed. They are highly analogous to the changes 
 made by Cleisthenes in Attica, except that they did 
 
 ' Dionysins, ri. 89, 1. 
 
OH. VII.] ARMY 111 
 
 not produce any immediate change in the political 
 system. 
 
 The object of the Servian military organisation was 
 to obtain regular service from the plebeians. In this 
 organisation the wealthiest of the Komans _. 
 
 ° _ The army 
 
 formed eighteen centurice or hundreds of made by 
 cavalry : six of these centuries contained ^"''"^• 
 none but patricians, the remaining twelve probably 
 consisted mainly of plebeians. The remainder of the 
 Roman people furnished a hundred and seventy-five 
 centuries for an army serving on foot ; a hundred and 
 seventy centuries were composed of regular combat- 
 ants, two were engineers, two were hornblowers and 
 trumpeters, and one consisted of supernumeraries. The 
 whole arrangement of the infantry was designed for 
 fighting in the order of the phalanx — that is to say, in 
 large masses of men several ranks deep which tried to 
 overpower the enemy by their weight. The design of 
 Servius was to arrange the infantry in four phalanxes. 
 Each phalanx was to have a front of five hundred men 
 and a depth of seven ranks. For making an effective 
 phalanx it was essential to have the best-armed men 
 in the few ranks nearest the front : and this fact 
 dictated the Servian system. Servius was able to 
 provide eighty centuries qualified by the amount of 
 their possessions to arm themselves well, and to fight 
 in the front ranks. These eighty centuries were called 
 the first classis, or ' summoning,' and they filled the 
 front four ranks in the four phalanxes. After them 
 came a second, a third, and a fourth class with twenty 
 centuries each : these were placed in the fifth, sixth. 
 
112 ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 and seventh ranks, and completed the phalanxes. 
 There was, however, also a fifth class containing thirty 
 centuries : it is clear that Dionysius is right in saying 
 that they did not stand in the phalanxes, because 
 their number exceeded what was required for one 
 rank and was not enough for two. The result of the 
 whole organisation was to divide the Roman people 
 into classes according to military efficiency, and there- 
 fore, incidentally, according to wealth. The first class 
 contained eighteen centuries of cavalry and eighty of 
 infantry : according to Livy, it also contained the two 
 centuries of engineers. The total number of centuries 
 was a hundred and ninety-three, and more than half 
 the total number were in the first class.^ 
 
 Servius also added to the strength of Eome by 
 building the walls and gates of the city. The wall 
 
 was of great strength : the remnant of it 
 City walls , . , , , , 
 
 and four which has recently been disinterred near 
 urban tribes. j.]^g railway Station, is made of great 
 square blocks in layers. The lowest layer, as I have 
 observed by pacing the wall, is thirteen feet thick ; 
 each succeeding layer is thinner than the one below 
 it, so that each side of the wall is cut in steps like a 
 face of the Great Pyramid, but far steeper. 
 
 The building of the wall may have led him to a 
 
 ^ The descriptions of the Servian army are in Livy, i. 43, and 
 Dionysius, iv. 16, 17. Even after reading all that Marqiiardt says 
 (ROm. Staatsverw. , edition 1, vol. ii. pages 315-317) I cannot find any 
 serious divergence between the two authors in regard to the general 
 arrangement of the classes within a phalanx. The only divergence 
 even of minor character has reference to the weapons borne by the 
 fourth class. 
 
CH. VII.] EXPULSION OF TAKQUIN 113 
 
 social change which afterwards had important results. 
 He instituted local tribes as Cleisthenes afterwards 
 did in Attica. The area of the city was divided into 
 four districts, and the owners of the soil in each 
 district, whether they were patricians or plebeians, 
 were formed into a separate tribe. 
 
 After the good rule of Servius came the tyranny of 
 Tarquin the Proud. The overthrow of the tyranny 
 was brought about in consequence of the Expulsion 
 outrage perpetrated by Sextus the son of of Tarquin. 
 Tarquin against Lucretia, the wife of his cousin Lucius 
 of Collatia. The army of the citizens immediately 
 assumed political functions: they deposed Tarquin, 
 who chanced to be absent from Rome, and then, 
 assembling in their centuries, proceeded to elect two 
 men to be their magistrates, and discharge the 
 functions which had hitherto belonged to the king. 
 The political action of the army was a most natural 
 sequel to the military organisation of Servius, and the 
 two events taken together furnish an exemplification 
 of the general rule that in an expansive city state the 
 employment of the common folk in warfare soon 
 leads to their admission to political privileges. We 
 have already had occasion to notice one example of 
 this rule in Attic history. The Roman example runs 
 parallel with it. In Attica Cleisthenes made his 
 citizen army and gave them political rights at once ; 
 at Rome Servius made the army, and political power 
 fell into its possession as soon as there was a great 
 opportunity for the use of it. 
 
114 ROME [CH. vii. 
 
 (2) The Supremacy of the Patrician Order, 
 
 LASTING ABOUT SIXTEEN YeARS. 
 
 There is no doubt that Tarquin had oppressed both 
 the patricians and the plebeians, and both orders 
 combined to drive him out. But after a few years it 
 was found that the patricians had got all the gain, 
 and the plebeians were worse off than they had been 
 under the tyrant. 
 
 After the revolution in which Tarquin was expelled 
 the government of Rome contained the three elements 
 Tripartite usually found in an expansive city state, 
 government, namely magistrates, senate, and people. 
 The circumstances, however, in which the Romans 
 were placed compelled them to give unusually large 
 powers to the magistrates : they were surrounded by 
 dangerous enemies, and needed powerful commanders. 
 The result was that though they had got rid of their 
 king, they kept the kingly imperium or supreme 
 command and entrusted it to their magistrates. The 
 constitution, then, was one in which the powers of the 
 magistrates were almost unlimited: and all the 
 magistrates were patricians. 
 
 The magistrates were two consuls and on occasion 
 a dictator, who held office simultaneously with the 
 Magistrates °°^s"ls, but with Superior power. The 
 almost consuls Were elected by the citizens 
 
 omnipotent. i . . . m, 
 
 arranged m centuries. They were succes- 
 sors to the kingly dignity, and possessed the kingly 
 imperium ; but in practice their power was somewhat 
 
CH. VII.] EULE OF THE PATEICIANS 115 
 
 less than the king's had been. The facts which 
 diminished their power were these : they held office 
 only for a year ; ^ neither of them could inflict any 
 judicial sentence if his colleague protested against it ; - 
 and there was some sort of rule enabling citizens to 
 appeal (jprovocare) from the sentence of a consul to 
 the judgment of the people assembled in centuries.^ 
 
 A dictator was not elected but named. In time of 
 danger it was usual for one of the consuls, on being 
 requested to do so by the senate, to name a dictator 
 or TYiagister populi, a single magistrate who held the 
 whole of the old kingly imperium for six months. A 
 dictator was more powerful than the consuls, both 
 because he had no colleague to restrain him, and 
 because it was certain that there was no provocatio or 
 appeal to the people against his sentences.* 
 
 As to the senate, it may suffice to say that it had 
 
 the same constitution and powers as it had under the 
 
 kinsfs. The members of the senate were 
 
 Senate, 
 now selected by a consul : ^ the advice of 
 
 the senate was now asked by a consul or a dictator : 
 
 and it still continued to be advice only. It is said 
 
 that immediately after the fall of Tarquin a consul 
 
 added a hundred and sixty-four plebeians to the 
 
 senate ; ^ but it appears that the senate acted steadily 
 
 in the interest of the patricians. 
 
 1 Livy, ii. 1, 7. ^ Livy, ii. 18, 8. 
 
 ■' Livy (ii. 8, 2) abstains from saying -what the rule was. From 
 his words in ii. 27, 12 it would appear that it was not a very effec- 
 tive restriction on a resolute consul. * Livy, ii. 18, 8. 
 
 5 Festus, De Significatu, quaternion xii. 24, p. 254 in Mtiller's 
 edition: P. Valerius Cons, ex plebe adiegit in numerum senatorum 
 0. et Ix. et iiii. 
 
116 KOME AND MONS SACEE [ch. vii. 
 
 The only important assembly of the people was the 
 
 one that was arranged in centuries. Every one of the 
 
 hundred and ninety-three centuries had 
 
 arranged in o^e vote ; and as the first class voted first 
 
 military an(j j^^d a mai'ority of the total number of 
 
 centuries. . i, , i ■ i i • 
 
 votes, it usually happened m the election 
 of a consul that the votes of the remaining four classes 
 were not recorded. The assembly of the thirty curiae 
 still continued to exist, but it soon sank into insig- 
 nificance. 
 
 In this earliest republican constitution of Kome the 
 patricians had all the advantage, since they alone 
 Secession of could hold the offices of consul or 
 the Piebs. dictator. During the life of Tarquin, 
 which was prolonged for fifteen years after his expul- 
 sion, they used their power with moderation ; but as 
 soon as the fear of him was removed they began to 
 behave as the Eupatridse had behaved in Attica. The 
 plebeians, after some vain attempts to obtain justice or 
 mercy, seceded from Kome and established themselves 
 on Mons Sacer, a hill three miles distant, and assumed 
 the character of an independent community. 
 
 (3) The Contest between the Two Orders, 
 lasting to 343 b.c. 
 
 The separate existence of the two independent city 
 
 states of the patricians and the plebeians 
 ThePlebs ,., , , , f -r ■ • 
 
 was an inde- did not last long : Livy m vague terms 
 
 pendent state criyes it a duration of some davs. The 
 for a time. ° . . •' 
 
 separation into two states was obviously 
 
 disadvantageous. The inhabitants of both were 
 
CH. VII.] TWO INDEPENDENT STATES 117 
 
 Romans, and all Romans were alike exposed to 
 attack from the Etruscans, the iEquians, and pos- 
 sibly the Latins. So long as they were divided 
 into two states they had little chance of defend- 
 ing themselves successfully : the patricians were 
 generals without soldiers, and the plebeians were 
 an army without commanders. And so it came 
 about that the disunion was speedily ended by 
 voluntary agreement between the two states of 
 Rome and the Mens Sacer. But though the re- 
 union of the two communities was soon effected, 
 the mere fact that the plebs had for a short time 
 been an independent state and only joined itself 
 with the patricians under compact was one which 
 introduced most unusual features into the Roman 
 constitution. 
 
 The unusual character of the Roman institutions 
 for about a century and a half after the great secession 
 to the Mens Sacer affords a sufficient 
 reason why I should not trouble the was a state 
 reader with their technicalities. There is within the 
 nothing else closely resembling them in 
 all history, and the details are useless for purposes of 
 comparison. But though the details may be neglected, 
 it is worth while to point out how the plebs came to be 
 a state within the state. There are other instances in 
 history where there has been a state within a state, 
 and some of these may perhaps be the more intelligible 
 after a consideration of the position occupied in the 
 Roman republic by the plebs after its return from the 
 Mons Sacer. 
 
118 ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 The reason why the plebs attained the character of 
 a state within the state was that the union of the 
 
 communities of Rome and the Mons Sacer 
 union oTthe ^^^ brought about by bargaining between 
 Mons Sacer the two independent bodies, and the plebs 
 
 insisted that before it would consent to 
 return it must be assured an organisation of its own 
 independent of the patricians. It ordinarily results 
 from a union of states brought about by bargaining 
 that there is a state within the state ; for any of 
 the parties to the bargain which fears that after the 
 union it may be oppressed demands an independent 
 organisation for its own protection, and so comes to 
 be what is known as a state within the state. 
 
 The union between Rome and the Mons Sacer was 
 hastily patched up and was a clumsy makeshift. It 
 
 would therefore be absurd to pretend that 
 was like it bears any close resemblance to the 
 a federal elaborate compacts in which the union of 
 
 union. ... 
 
 communities m a modern federal state are 
 expressed. Yet it does resemble a federal union in 
 one or two respects which are worthy of attention, 
 though in much of its character it is to be contrasted 
 with such a union rather than compared. 
 
 One result that usually occurs when communities 
 unite voluntarily after bargaining is that the state 
 Co-ordinate which arises from the union, has not one 
 governments, gypreme government, but has governments 
 in the plural. There must be a government for the 
 conduct of business which affects all the parties to the 
 bargain, such as war and foreign policy; and there 
 
CH. VII.] CO-ORDINATE GOVERNMENTS 119 
 
 must also be a government for the protection of any 
 of the contracting parties which desires to have such 
 a government. This result occurred in the hasty 
 union of Rome and the Mons Sacer no less truly than 
 in the careful compacts -which found federal states in 
 modern times. There was in the Roman republic 
 after the union a government for managing the affairs 
 common to the whole state, such as war and foreign 
 policy, and its officers were those known as curule 
 magistrates — a term which will be explained shortly. 
 There was also a government for the protection of the 
 plebs, as the plebs desired such a government: its 
 officers were the tribunes and sediles elected by the 
 plebs from out of its own body ; the plebs also, as a 
 state within the state, obtained the right of meeting 
 together for the election of its officers and the discus- 
 sion of plebeian interests. The patricians did not 
 need any separate government for their own affairs : 
 they obtained a monopoly of office in the government 
 which managed the interests of the whole state, and 
 thus the government of the whole state was also a 
 government which attended to the interests of the 
 patricians. There were then only two governments at 
 Rome, and not three. One was the government of the 
 whole state, which in the Latin language was entitled 
 jjopulus Bomanus ; the other was the government of 
 the state within the state, which was known as plebs 
 Romana. The two governments were co-ordinate in 
 the same sense as in the United States the federal 
 government at Washington and the government of 
 New York at Albany are co-ordinate. Neither could 
 
120 ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 coerce or abolish the other; and it was no more 
 practicable for the government of the populus 
 Romanus to destroy the organisation of the plebs 
 Bomana than it would be in the United States for 
 the federal government to deprive New York of its 
 right to send two senators to Congress. 
 
 Thus far, then, there was some analogy between the 
 
 Roman Republic after the end of the great secession 
 
 _ , and a modern federation. If we try to 
 
 Terms of n t ■ 
 
 union ill pursue the analogy any further we find it 
 defined. impossible. In all respects other than 
 those above mentioned the ancient republic and a 
 modern federation stand not in similarity but in 
 contrast. In a federal union the powers of the central 
 or federal officers are carefully limited and defined by 
 expressing in words what acts they may do : at Rome 
 there was no such definition of the powers of the 
 curule magistrates. In a federal union it is settled 
 that all the states which contract to unite together 
 shall take part in managing the federal or central 
 governments : at Rome the patricians tacitly received 
 a complete monopoly of office in the government of 
 the whole state. In a federation there is always 
 a supreme law-court endowed with authority to 
 interpret the exact meaning of the rules which settle 
 what acts the federal officers may do and what they 
 may not : in Rome there could be no such court, for 
 there were no rules to interpret. In short, in a 
 federation all sorts of precautions are taken to guard 
 against conflicts between the co-ordinate govern- 
 ments : at Rome no such precautions were adopted. 
 
CH. VII.] DISCORD 121 
 
 and for several generations after the great secession 
 the internal history of the republic consists of an 
 endless duel between two evenly matched antagonists, 
 the government of the populus and the government 
 of the plebs. 
 
 The records that have come down to us about the 
 early years of the strife between the two orders are 
 probably untrustworthy and are certainly , 
 most wearisome to read. It will suffice to amend 
 here to say that after forty or fifty years ^ ^'^'"^' 
 the contest became intolerable, and it was agreed 
 by the two orders to elect ten commissioners, the 
 Decemviri, to be the sole magistrates in the state, to 
 reform the law and to propose a new constitution. 
 The decemvirs of the first year did their work well : 
 those of the second abused their powers and were 
 overthrown through a tumult and a new secession 
 of the plebs. This time, also, the plebeians demanded 
 conditions: it was eventually agreed that the two 
 governments of "the populus and the plebs, which 
 had been put into abeyance during the rule of the 
 decemvirs, should be restored, and left to continue 
 their strife almost under the same conditions as 
 before. 
 
 A convenient point of time for taking a general 
 view of the two governments of Kome may be found 
 about twenty years after the overthrow of 
 
 '' •' Governments 
 
 the decemvirate. The government of the of the Populus 
 whole state had three component parts, p^'^,*''^ 
 magistrates, senate, and an assembly : the 
 government of the state within the state had only 
 
122 ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 two, namely magistrates and an assembly of the 
 plebeians. 
 
 The macristrates of the whole state were two consuls, 
 occasionally a dictator for six months, and once in 
 , , p . . every five years two censors. All these 
 Curuie magistrates had the imperium or right to 
 
 Magistrates. j • j. i r j.i • • r 
 
 command : m token oi their possession ot 
 it they used a sella curulis or chair of state, and 
 for that reason they were called curuie magistrates. 
 There was, as we have seen, no rule settling that they 
 could make commands only of certain kinds : all of 
 them could make commands of every kind. The 
 commands of a dictator must in all cases be obeyed, 
 unless perchance they were resisted by rebellion. The 
 other curuie magistrates, though they could issue 
 commands of every kind, were subject to a strange 
 restriction, whereby all their commands if issued 
 within certain local limits could be deprived of validity 
 and coercive force. The area within which they could 
 thus be reduced to powerlessness comprised the city 
 of Rome and a precinct extending to a width of 
 one mile outside the walls. When they were out- 
 side the one-mile limit, they were absolute: as 
 soon as they came within it, they were subject to a 
 restriction of a most drastic character, as will shortly 
 be explained. 
 
 The remaining two elements in the government of 
 the whole state were the senate and the assembly of 
 Senate and the populus. Of the senate I need only 
 Centuries. g^y that it retained the same constitution 
 as it had in the earliest days of the republic, and the 
 
CH. VII.] POPULUS ROMANUS 123 
 
 senators were still nominated by the consuls.^ The 
 assembly of the populus was the comitia centuriata 
 arranged in a hundred and ninety- three centuries. 
 The patricians supplied only six centuries and had 
 only six votes : the remaining votes, a hundred and 
 eighty-seven in number, were given by the plebeians. 
 As Servius had arranged the peoples in centuries 
 according to military efficiency, and therefore inciden- 
 tally according to wealth, the whole plebeian vote 
 was controlled by the men of substance among the 
 plebeians. The men of substance were yeomen owning 
 the freehold of a farm adequate for the comfortable 
 support of a family and one or two slaves. They were 
 numerically but a small fraction of the whole plebeian 
 population, but they supplied the eighty centuries in 
 the first class of the infantry as well as twelve cen- 
 turies of horsemen. Their ninety-two votes were 
 nearly half the total of a hundred and ninety-three. 
 The four lower classes of the plebeians usually followed 
 the lead of the first class. The assembly, then, was 
 admirably adapted to give expression to the wishes 
 of the most independent and intelligent members of 
 the plebeian order, and it looks at first sight as if it 
 might have removed the grievances of the plebs by 
 electing a plebeian to be consul. There was, however, 
 one circumstance which made it entirely incapable of 
 
 ^ See p. 115. The duty of nominating senators remained with the 
 consuls for nearly a century and a half after the age of the Deoem- 
 virate, when about 312 B.C. the Lex Ovinia transferred it to the 
 censors. Festas, p. 246 ; Mommsen, i?. Stoa^srecfe, vol. ii. under the 
 head Die Oensur : Aufstellung der Senatsliste (in edition of 1874, 
 p. 395, note 2). 
 
124 EOME [CH. VII. 
 
 any such innovation. Its president was always a 
 curule magistrate and therefore a patrician, and in 
 his capacity of president he had the power of refusing 
 to receive votes for any candidate whom he declared 
 to be incapable of being elected.^ 
 
 The government of the plebs comprised only two 
 elements, namely magistrates and a popular assembly. 
 The magistrates of the plebs were tribunes 
 |2) Plebs : ^^^ 8ediles,the tribunes being beyond com- 
 parison the more important. The powers 
 of the tribunes had grown immensely since their first 
 institution. In the original compact after the seces- 
 sion it was merely settled that their persons were 
 inviolable, and they might protect citizens against 
 sentences of magistrates. We know also that the 
 plebs collectively made a vow that they would join 
 in taking vengeance on any one who used force 
 against a tribune; and we can see also that it was 
 understood from the beginning that the tribunes had 
 no power except within the city of Rome and in its 
 precinct, which extended a mile outside the walls. 
 From an origin so seemingly humble the powers of 
 the tribunes had by the time of which I am speak- 
 ing, shortly after the fall of the Decemviri, become 
 very comprehensive. The tribunes had very little 
 power to command, but great power to forbid. Within 
 the one-mile limit, by their intercessio or interven- 
 tion, they could prohibit any command of any other 
 magistrate, and if a command had been given they 
 could deprive it of validity. They had, then, a power 
 
 ' Livy, iii. 21, 8. 
 
CH. VII.] PLEBS ROMANA 125 
 
 of annulling any harsli sentences pronounced by 
 magistrates ; and they had a more formidable weapon 
 in their power to prevent the levy of a Roman army. 
 There was no permanent army, and in almost every 
 year a new army had to be enrolled. The enrolment 
 took place on the Capitol/ and so the tribunes could 
 stop the levy if they chose. Besides their intercessio 
 the tribunes had other powers : their power of pro- 
 tecting citizens was so highly valued by the people 
 that they were forbidden to be absent a whole day 
 from Rome, and were bound to keep the doors of 
 their houses open through the night ; they could 
 summon gatherings of the plebs, and these gather- 
 ings could propose resolutions and put them to the 
 vote. 
 
 The assembly of the plebeians was known as con- 
 cilium plebis. The rural territory of Rome had now 
 been divided into seventeen local tribes, concilium 
 so that with the four urban tribes of P'ebis. 
 Servius there were twenty- one in all. The freehold 
 lands of the citizens were enrolled according to 
 locality in one or other of these tribes; and thus 
 every landowner, whether patrician or plebeian, was 
 a member of some tribe. The concilium plebis con- 
 sisted of those landowners who were plebeians, 
 and in the concilium each tribe had one vote. The 
 concilium elected the tribunes and the sediles. 
 Resolutions when proposed to it were called Roga- 
 tions ; if they were accepted by it they were Plebiscita 
 or resolutions of the plebs. Many doubts about the 
 
 ' Polybius, vi. 19, 6, and Livy, xxvi 31, 1). 
 
126 ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 binding effect of plebiscita at different parts of 
 Roman history have been raised by loose state- 
 ments of ancient historians, who at three very 
 different epochs say it was enacted that plebiscita 
 should be binding on all Roman citizens. It is 
 certain that from the first secession of the plebs to 
 the Mons Sacer to the end of Roman republican 
 history resolutions of the plebs were binding on all 
 plebeians ; and it also seems certain, from the success 
 of the patricians in preventing the Licinian Roga- 
 tions, after they had become plebiscita, from having 
 the force of law till the senate had sanctioned them, 
 that, at the time (twenty years after the Decemvirate) 
 at which I am taking my survey of the constitution, 
 plebiscita were not binding on any others than 
 plebeians till they received a sanction from some 
 body which could speak on behalf of the patricians 
 or of both orders together.' 
 
 The plan of limiting the tribunal power by setting 
 merely local bounds to the exercise of it had the 
 Conflict of result, that while the curule magistrates 
 powers were absolute in the open country, the 
 
 avoTdeif by tribunes had in the city such a marked 
 setting- local supremacy that they could always reduce 
 
 limitations. , i .i, , , , 
 
 government to a standstill, though they 
 could not govern themselves. The arrangement is 
 the more strange because the tribunes, who were 
 supreme in the city, were elected by the country folk, 
 
 ' The question of the binding force of plebiscita is extremely well 
 discussed by Mr. Straohan Davidson in Smith's 2)ic<. Antiqq., third 
 edition, article Plehiscitnm, vol. ii. p. 437. 
 
oil. VII. 1 GOVERNMENTS AT STRIFE 127 
 
 who had seventeen votes out of twenty-one in the 
 concilium plebis, while in the election, of curule 
 magistrates, who were absolute in the country, there 
 is every reason to suppose that the townsfolk, owing 
 to superior organisation, took the leading part. 
 
 We have observed that in the expansive city state 
 of Athens there was a conflict between the privileged 
 class of the Eupatridse and the unprivi- strife of the 
 leged common folk, that the privileged orders, 
 class found it well to make concessions, and that the 
 conflict was ended by the making of a government 
 of compromise. In Kome also there was a conflict 
 between the privileged patricians and the unprivileged 
 plebs ; but the strife was far bitterer than at Athens, 
 because the plebs, though it was excluded from 
 bearing office in the government of the whole state, 
 had a government of its own, and the contest was 
 fought out, not merely between two classes but 
 between two governments. The extreme bitterness 
 of the strife at Kome makes it needless for me to 
 speak of its details, because it was a unique strife, 
 and is useless for comparison with any other. But 
 the motive which induced the patricians to make 
 concessions was the same as had influenced the 
 Eupatridse : they wanted zealous and willing service 
 in the army from the unprivileged class, and could 
 not get it unless th,ey gave them privileges. 
 
 In order to trace the connection between the wars 
 of the Romans and the extension of privileges to the 
 plebs, it is. necessary to note what the wars were, and 
 when the chief concessions were made. For about 
 
128 REASONS FOR [ch. vii. 
 
 three generations after the secession of the plebs the 
 Romans, with the aid of contingents from their 
 Reasons for allies the Latins, waged a war nearly 
 compromise, every summer against the Volscians and 
 Jj]quians. These wars did not lead to any con- 
 siderable conquest of territory on either side, but 
 they were exhausting from their perpetual recur- 
 rence. About ninety years after the secession the 
 Romans undertook the formidable enterprise of the 
 capture of Veii, the great stronghold of the Etruscans. 
 It cost them a siege of ten years, and compelled them 
 for the first time to keep the legions under arms, 
 winter and summer alike. In the year 390 b.c.i the 
 Romans suffered the greatest humiliation that ever 
 befell them. A great horde of Gauls came down 
 from the valley of the Po and captured all the city 
 of Rome except the citadel of the Capitol. In the 
 following year the Gauls went away again ; but the 
 Romans learned that the Latins, who had for ages 
 been their allies and in some degree their dependents, 
 had declared that the alliance was at an end. The 
 years that followed must have been years of great 
 difficulty for the Romans, and even perhaps of peril. 
 The Gauls renewed their inroads, though they came 
 no more to Rome itself; the Romans had no Latin 
 contingent to help them ; they could not venture to 
 reduce the Latins to obedience by force ; all they 
 could do in that direction was to threaten the Latin 
 
 ' I have designedly abstained from mentioning dates before this 
 year, because I do not think the earlier part of the chronology of 
 the Roman annalists is trustworthy. 
 
CH. VII.] COMPROMISE 129 
 
 city of Tusculum and compel it to accept incorpora- 
 tion, on terms which we do not know precisely, in the 
 Roman commonwealth. After a lapse, however, of 
 some forty or fifty years Rome was strong again, and 
 in the year 342 e.g. it was able to attack the Sam- 
 nites, and two years later to engage in a general war 
 against the Latin federation, which was a greater 
 undertaking than any it had yet attempted. It was 
 during the imminence of this war that the patricians 
 finally withdrew from their attitude of resistance to 
 the reasonable demands of the plebs ; and from the 
 moment they did so, the period of sharp strife 
 between the government of the populus and the 
 government of the plebs was at an end. 
 
 During the period, then, of about a century and 
 a half between the secession of the plebs and the 
 great struggle with the Latins, the Romans were 
 engaged in a series of wars which steadily increased 
 in magnitude. As their wars grew in scale, so did 
 their need for the zealous services of the plebeian 
 soldiers, and the necessity of making them contented 
 by redressing their grievances. While their wars 
 were petty, the concessions were trivial; but when 
 the pressure of foreign enemies became severe, sub- 
 stantial privileges were granted. 
 
 There were three epochs in which the patricians 
 yielded something to the plebs. The first occurred 
 in the midst of the petty wars with the Volscians 
 and ^quians shortly after the time of the decemvirs. 
 The second came in 367 e.g. during the period . 
 of the great pressure of foreign danger, when 
 
130 CONCESSIONS MADE [CH. vii. 
 
 the Gauls repeated their attacks and the Latins 
 refused to give assistance. The third was in 
 342 B.C. when a great war with the Samnites was 
 in progress, and a greater war with the Latins was 
 near at hand. 
 
 The grievances of the plebs were too manifold to 
 set down in a catalogue. Some were social, some 
 Grievances economic, and one was political. The 
 of the plebs. political grievance, which was felt more 
 continuously than any of the other hardships, con- 
 sisted in the exclusion of plebeians from all the curule 
 magistracies. It was regarded as an injustice not 
 only by the rich plebeians, whom it shut out from 
 military command and from the highest dignity in 
 the state, but also by the poor, who felt that they 
 were more likely to be treated with consideration by 
 a commander belonging to their own order than they 
 would be under a patrician general. 
 Concessions "^^^ Concessions made by the patricians 
 made by the at the three epochs that have been named 
 
 patricians. .,-, ■, , ■, 
 
 Will now be enumerated. 
 
 1. During their petty wars of early times they 
 
 merely yielded on two points, and did not go nearly 
 
 g^^i far enough to satisfy the plebeians. They 
 
 concessions agreed that intermarriage between the 
 
 orders should be legal, and they took a 
 short step, but only a short one, towards remedying 
 the political grievance. This step they took by 
 putting the consulship in commission : instead of 
 two consuls there were to be other officers (three, 
 four, or six in number) called military tribunes with 
 
OH. VII.] BY THE PATEICIANS 131 
 
 consular power, and plebeians were made eligible as 
 military tribunes. The new arrangement did not 
 please the plebeians, and the division of command 
 between several officers led to diminished efficiency 
 of the army in warfare. 
 
 2. In 367 B.C. the patricians agreed to the famous 
 Licinian Kogations. They were called rogations 
 because that was the proper name for ucinian 
 proposals that were first mooted in the Rogations, 
 concilium plebis. These particular proposals were 
 made by a tribune named Licinius, and met with 
 the hearty approval of the plebeian assembly. Two 
 of them were economic in character and were designed 
 for the relief of plebeians who had lost their farms 
 through the invasions of the Gauls and had been 
 reduced to penury ; the third dealt boldly with the 
 political question, and ran to the effect that hence- 
 forth consuls, not military tribunes, should be elected, 
 and that one consul must in every year be a plebeian.^ 
 The proposals for several years continued to be mere 
 plebiscita, without binding force. In 367 B.C. the 
 senate and the whole body of the patricians gave 
 their assent to them, and the plebiscita were turned 
 into laws. In return for this boon the plebeians 
 agreed that the consuls should no longer have the 
 administration of civil justice in the city, and that 
 this function should be transferred to a new 
 magistrate, a praetor, who must always be a 
 patrician.^ 
 
 3. The third Licinian Law would have sufficed to 
 
 ' Livy, vi. 35, 4, 5. '- Livy, vi. 42, 11-14. 
 
132 ROME [CH. VII. 
 
 put an end to the strife between the orders, if it had 
 
 been faithfully observed. In several of the years 
 
 Third between 355 and 343 the patricians were 
 
 Licinian foolish enough to get it evaded and to 
 
 July secure the election of two consuls from 
 
 observed, their own order. In the elections for the 
 
 year 342, when the Samnite war had already begun, 
 
 they desisted from their folly, and from that time 
 
 forth one of the consuls was always a plebeian. 
 
 4. The Expansion of Rome and the Complete 
 Reconciliation of the Obdees, 343-275 b.c. 
 
 The expansion of Rome, which began with the 
 
 Samnite and Latin wars and continued till 275 b.c., 
 
 when the Romans were masters of Italy, 
 
 Expansion •' ' 
 
 conduced to contributed very largely to make the 
 reconciliation. jj^Qj^jg^^ g^j^^^g ^ United community and to 
 
 ensure it a well-balanced constitution. In the wars 
 of conquest the common folk furnished the soldiers, 
 and as their willing service was most urgently needed, 
 the consent of the rich was given to all their rea- 
 sonable demands, and indeed to one which seems 
 unreasonable. The conquests put an end to extreme 
 economic inequalities, as large portions of the con- 
 quered lands were distributed among the Roman 
 citizens, so that the destitute, if they were willing to 
 be industrious, could rise to the level of peasant pro- 
 prietors. Lastly, the spreading out of the Roman 
 citizens over a large area, and the consequent 
 formation of new outlying groups of them, tended 
 
CH. VII.] EXPANSION 133 
 
 to establish that sort of equipoise between the 
 populations of the city and the rural territory 
 which is characteristic of a complex city state, and 
 which ensures in such states an equitable distri- 
 bution of political power among the classes of the 
 community. 
 
 The task of dealing wisely with conquered com- 
 munities and conquered territory is perhaps the most 
 difficult that occurs in the whole range of settlements 
 politics. The Eomans at the ending of of Romans 
 
 1 /. , 1 1-1 ,1 1 and Latins 
 
 each 01 the wars which gave them the on conquered 
 mastery of Italy performed it admirably, '^"^s. 
 Their plan of dealing with conquered towns was to 
 isolate each of them completely by breaking any ties 
 which had hitherto united them together, to insist 
 that none of them should have any relations with 
 any external community except Eome, and then to 
 decide in each case what the relations with Rome 
 should be. As to the land in conquered communities, 
 the greater part of it had been in private ownership : 
 this they left to its old proprietors ; but whatever had 
 been common or public land they took into their 
 own hands and gave it out to Roman citizens, who 
 were thus tempted to settle upon it. There were, 
 however, certain spots which they treated differently. 
 Whenever a town was of great strategic importance 
 they made a more formal occupation of it, which 
 must have involved some expropriation of old private 
 owners : they established in the place a large body 
 of settlers who obtained advantageous conditions on 
 the understanding that they and their children after 
 
134 ORGANISATION [cH. Vil. 
 
 them would act as a garrison and hold the place in 
 the Koman interest. If the town thus occupied was 
 on the sea-coast the settlers retained the full rights 
 of Roman citizenship, and could vote at a Roman 
 election and could hold a Roman magistracy ; if the 
 place lay inland, the settlers were not called Romans 
 but Latins: it seems to be certain that the Latin 
 settlers had no sort of Roman citizenship, but they 
 certainly enjoyed such substantial advantages that 
 the Romans had no difficulty in attracting men to 
 the settlements which possessed only the Latin 
 privileges. 
 
 The relations that were set up between the Romans 
 and the many Italian communities that they con- 
 itaUan quered need not be discussed at length, 
 
 communities, It may, however, be well to note that in 
 allies, in fact the period now before us the Romans did 
 subjects. jjQt^ except in very few instances, admit 
 the conquered to any sort of Roman citizenship, 
 either cwm suffragio or sine suffragio. It was not 
 till after 200 B.c. that they took to incorporating the 
 conquered in large numbers.^ During the period of 
 expansion they relied on their garrisons to maintain 
 their hold on Italy. The conquered communities 
 were dignified with the euphemistic appellations of 
 civitates fcederatce or socii populi Romani, but in 
 truth they were merely client states dependent on 
 a powerful patron, and were as far from being equal 
 allies of Rome as are the native princes of India from 
 being equals with the British Empire. 
 
 1 Marquardt, lidmuche Staatsverwaltung, i, 29-34. 
 
CH. VII. J OF CONQUESTS 135 
 
 The making and maintenance of a system capable 
 of keeping the conquered peoples in fairly contented 
 subiection to Kome was a work that ,„ , ^ 
 
 '' . _ Work done 
 
 needed wise foresight and consistent by the 
 statesmanship. Such foresight and states- ™^*^' 
 manship could not be found except in some per- 
 manent organ of government, and in Rome the only 
 permanent organ was the senate. On the senate 
 accordingly devolved the whole work of planting the 
 garrisons (colonice) and dealing with the client states, 
 and, as the senate performed its task admirably, it 
 followed as a matter of course that the influence of 
 that assembly, which had been great before, now rose 
 so high as to give it a position of pre-eminence in 
 the Roman government. From a comparison of the 
 history of Rome in this period with that of Venice 
 from 1172 a.d. to the end of the Middle Ages, it 
 may be inferred that when a city state undertakes 
 the intricate business of managing dependencies, it 
 needs some permanent advisory body resembling the 
 Roman senate. The Roman senate had probably all 
 the greater authority because it had no power : every 
 magistrate was legally free to neglect its advice, but 
 as a matter of fact its advice was invariably asked 
 and followed in every question of importance that 
 arose in any department of the government. 
 
 The concessions to the plebeians, which coincided 
 in time with the conquest of Italy, may be briefly 
 summed up. By the year 300 b.c. aU Lex 
 magistracies, as well as the religious Hortensia. 
 dignities of the pontificate and augurship, were acces- 
 
136 > LEX HORTENSIA [CH. vii. 
 
 sible to plebeians.! Shortly afterwards there was a 
 last conflict between the orders, which was ended in 
 287 B.C. by the very important Lex Hortensia. We 
 do not know from what causes it arose, because the 
 eleventh book of Livy has been lost; but from an 
 ancient epitome of that book we learn that the plebs 
 was for some reason so discontented that it seceded 
 to the Janiculum, a suburb of Rome on the north 
 side of the river Tiber, but was induced to return by 
 a plebeian dictator, Hortensius. From the jurists of 
 much later centuries. Gains and Pomponius, we learn 
 the nature of the law by which the dictator appeased 
 the discontent of the plebeians. By the Lex Hor- 
 tensia it was ordained that all plebiscita or resolu- 
 tions passed in the concilium plebis should have 
 the force of laws and be binding on plebeians and 
 patricians alike.^ 
 
 The Lex Hortensia of 287 B.C. marked the end 
 of all discord between the orders. When the strife 
 
 was ended the plebeians had two advan- 
 was the more tages over the patricians: all offices were 
 favoured open to the plebeians, but the tribuneship 
 
 and plebeian sedileship were closed against 
 patricians ; and the plebeians in their conciliuvi had 
 the power of legislating for both orders, while there 
 was no patrician assembly that possessed any similar 
 power. 
 
 1 Livy, X. 6-8, especially x. 8, 8 and x. 9, 2. 
 ^ The Digest of Justinian, i. 2, 2, 8, in a long quotation from 
 Pomponius. 
 
CH. VII.] CONCORD OF THE ORDERS. 137 
 
 5. The United Roman Commonwealth. 
 287 B.C.— 201 B.C. 
 
 After the Hortensian Law had been passed, the 
 whole body of the Roman burgesses were a single 
 community, all having the same interests and living 
 under a single government. As they had spread 
 themselves over a wide area, and ruled over large 
 populations akin to themselves, whom they might 
 soon think of taking into their own commonwealth, 
 they furnish a remarkable instance of an expanded 
 and expanding city state; and they lived under 
 one of those balanced constitutions which are 
 characteristic of such states. 
 
 In proof of these assertions I shall give some par- 
 ticulars concerning the structure of their common- 
 wealth, the populations subject to them, and the 
 nature of their constitution. The point of time 
 for which such particulars can best be given lies 
 just before the outbreak of the great war against 
 Hannibal. 
 
 The territory occupied by fully qualified Roman 
 citizens comprised those parts of Italy where Roman 
 farmers had settled as private individuals, j^. . . 
 and also a few towns along the sea-coast of Roman 
 where garrisons of burgesses had been 
 planted. The districts in which there was at least a 
 good sprinkling of Roman settlers comprised (1) the 
 southern part of Etruria, which became Roman 
 territory after the capture of Veil about 395 b.g. ; 
 
138 CITIZENS AND SUBJECTS [ch. vii. 
 
 (2) Latium, the valley of the Liris and Campania, in 
 which allotments were made in 338, at the end of 
 the great Latin war ; and (3) Picenum, a large district 
 on the Adriatic Sea, which had been conquered and 
 distributed among the citizens in 232.^ The maritime 
 garrisons were nine or ten in number;^ the furthest 
 distant were Sinuessa, not far from Capua, and 
 Sena Gallica, just beyond the northern boundary of 
 Picenum, both of them more than a hundred miles 
 from Rome. 
 
 The non-Roman population of Italy was, as we 
 have seen, divided into two classes — Latini and 
 civitates foederatce. The most important of the com- 
 munities that bore the Latin name were thirty-three 
 inland garrisons (colonice) of settlers.' They were 
 scattered over all the middle parts of Italy from 
 Ariminum to Psestum and Brundisium. All the 
 population other than the Latins were counted as 
 allies of the Romans. These allies were expected to 
 furnish troops to the Romans, and were to that 
 extent client states ; but still they were clients whom 
 it was necessary for the Romans to treat in a con- 
 ciliatory way, because it was desirable that they 
 should furnish their contingents willingly, and those 
 contingents should fight zealously; and they were 
 for that reason in a far better position than if they 
 had been tributaries. 
 
 ' Polybius, ii. 21. 
 
 ^ Marquardt, Staatsverwaltunr), i. 39. 
 
 ^ For a list of them see MaiquarJt, Staatsverwaltung, vol. i. p. 49. 
 Antium and Satritniin must be omitted. 
 
CH. VII.] GOVEENMENT 139 
 
 The work of government in the Koman common- 
 wealth was shared between (1) the magis- 
 
 ^ ^ ° Factors in 
 
 trates, (2) the senate, and (3) the fully the Govern- 
 qualified burgesses in their assemblies. '"^"'^' 
 
 The magistracies were now very numerous : it does 
 not seem necessary to specify the functions of each 
 of them, as they had now ceased to come (i) 
 
 into active conflict with one another. The Magistrates, 
 distinction between curule and non-curule magistrates 
 was still maintained. The curule magistrates were, 
 as they had always been, those who had the imperium 
 and were qualified to command an army in the 
 field. The most important were the consuls, with 
 occasionally a dictator over them, the censors and 
 the prsetors. The dictator was named by a consul. 
 The other curule magistrates were elected by the 
 centuries. The important non-curule magistrates, 
 the tribunes, and sediles were elected by the con- 
 cilium plebis : the tribunes had the same powers as 
 in earlier times, but, being in general satisfied with 
 the conduct of the curule magistrates, no longer 
 impeded them in the work of governing. 
 
 The senate was by far the most influential organ 
 in the government, and we must take (2) 
 note of its composition and authority. Senate. 
 
 The composition of the senate depended on the 
 method of nominating senators. The censors every 
 five years revised the list of senators, adding new 
 names, and, if necessary, removing men guilty of 
 disgraceful conduct.^ Until the battle of Cannse the 
 
 ' Livy, xviii. Epitome, 
 
140 GREAT INFLUENCE [ch. vii. 
 
 censors were not bound by any rule or precedent in 
 the choice of new senators, but as a matter of course 
 they admitted men who had distinguished them- 
 selves as magistrates. At Cannse, in 216 B.C., more 
 than half the senators were killed, and it was neces- 
 sary to adopt some rule in filling the vacancies. A 
 dictator, M. Fabius Buteo, who was appointed to 
 choose new senators, admitted all men who since the 
 last census had filled any magistracy, whether curule 
 or non-curule, and all who for distinction in battle 
 had been allowed to adorn their houses with trophies, 
 or had received a civic crown for saving the life of a 
 comrade.^ The precedent which he then set was 
 followed by the censors on future occasions. 
 
 The authority of the senate may be shortly summed 
 up by saying that it had the control of expenditure 
 Powers of ^^^ ^1^ that naturally went with that 
 the Senate, control.^ A practice had grown up under 
 which no sum of money could be taken out of the 
 treasury (except small sums for the regular and 
 necessary expenditure of the consul) without a decree 
 of the senate. Armed with the power of the purse, 
 the senate controlled all departments of government. 
 Their decrees settled all military expenditure, deter- 
 mined in what regions campaigns should be under- 
 taken, and, if they thought fit, what magistrates 
 should be commanders. They could prolong the 
 command of a general beyond his year of magistracy, 
 
 '■ Livy, xxiii. 23, 5, 6. 
 
 - Polybius, vi. 13, 15, and 17. These chapters are the chief 
 sources of our knowledge of the power of the senate. 
 
CH. VII.] OF THE SENATE 141 
 
 and, when he had ended the war on which he was 
 engaged, could give or withhold the honour of a 
 triumph. Negotiations with foreign states were 
 entirely in their hands, and they directed the whole 
 external policy of the state. 
 
 The assemblies of the people were three in num- 
 ber : the concilium plebis, the comitia centuriata, 
 and another which I have not had occa- 
 
 (3) 
 
 sion hitherto to mention, the comitia Three 
 tributa. popular 
 
 assemblies. 
 
 The concilium plebis was what it had 
 been long before, save that the plebs was now a 
 larger body than it had been, and the number of 
 tribes had increased up to thirty-five. 
 
 The comitia centuriata still comprised a hundred 
 and ninety-three centuries, but had been modified 
 so that its organisation was no longer entirely in- 
 dependent of the division of the people into tribes. 
 The centuries of the first class were reduced from the 
 number eighty, at which Servius fixed them, to 
 seventy, and each of the thirty-five tribes had two 
 centuries out of the seventy. Thus in the comitia 
 centuriata for the election of consuls in 214 b.c. the 
 century that voted first was one of the two that were 
 taken from the tribe Aniensis.^ Probably in the 
 other classes also some arrangement by tribes may 
 have prevailed. The whole number of centuries was, 
 as it had been, a hundred and ninety-three.^ 
 
 1 Livy, xxiv. 7, 12; xxiy. 8, 20. 
 
 ^ Cicero, De Rep. ii. 22, 39, is manifestly speaking of tlie comitia 
 in his own time, and he implies there were seventy centuries in the 
 first class, and the total number was a hundred and ninety-three. 
 
142 EQUILIBEIUM [ch. vii. 
 
 In the third popular assembly, known as the 
 comitia tributa, both patricians and plebeians were 
 included, and were arranged according to their tribes, 
 each of the thirty-five tribes having one vote. It 
 seems likely that this assembly would be in the main 
 influenced by nearly the same forces as the concilium 
 plebis, but there was one clear distinction between 
 them. The presiding officer in the comitia tributa 
 was a curule magistrate ; ^ in the concilium plebis he 
 was a tribune. 
 
 All the three assemblies had elective and legislative 
 work. The elections to all the greater magistracies 
 were divided between the centuries and the concilium 
 plebis, according as the magistracies were curule or 
 non-curule ; some lesser magistrates were chosen in 
 the comitia tributa. 
 
 It is a strange fact that each of the three assem- 
 blies had full and independent power to legislate. 
 Avoidance ^^^ it seems Surprising that they did not 
 of conflicts. pa,ss conflicting laws. We must, however, 
 remember that no law could be proposed in any 
 assembly except by the presiding magistrate; and 
 magistrates were wont to get the approval of the 
 senate before proposing a resolution. In case a 
 magistrate neglected the established custom, and 
 proposed a law which the senate disliked, it was 
 easy to check him : the senate always had influence 
 over a large part of the ten tribunes, and any tribune 
 had power to prohibit the recalcitrant magistrate 
 from putting his proposition to the vote. 
 
 ' Mommsen, Staatsrecht, vol. iii. p. 322, proves this by quoting a 
 law preserved by Frontinus, De Aquoeductibiis, 129. 
 
CH. VII.] OF THREE FACTORS 143 
 
 Now that I have finished my sketch of the Roman 
 
 constitution during the second Punic War, I find that 
 
 a word of comment may be desirable. In 
 
 the course of the present chapter an opinion of three 
 
 has been expressed that the Roman con- factors in the 
 . . government, 
 
 stitution at that time was a mixed and 
 
 balanced form of government.^ This opinion has 
 
 not been universally held ; on the contrary, some 
 
 modern writers have spoken of the constitution as if 
 
 it gave power solely to the senate. In support of 
 
 my view that the Romans had a mixed constitution 
 
 upheld through a very perfect equilibrium of the 
 
 magistrates, senate, and people, it is needless to do 
 
 more than remark that Polybius had no doubt about 
 
 the matter, and he wrote several chapters to explain 
 
 how complete was the inter-dependence of the three 
 
 elements in the government. In regard to the 
 
 senate, the substance of his words comes to this : 
 
 the senate, though it had great authority, held that 
 
 authority subject to the pleasure of the people ; and 
 
 he proves this by observing that the people, in case 
 
 they disapproved the policy of the senate, could at a 
 
 blow deprive it of all its influence. The simple course 
 
 lay open to them of electing one tribune of their own 
 
 way of thinking, and that one tribune would be able, 
 
 by using his right of intercessio, not only to prevent 
 
 any resolution of the senate from taking effect, but 
 
 even to prohibit the senate itself from holding a 
 
 meeting.^ 
 
 ' See above, p. 137. 
 
 2 Polybius, vi. 11-18, especially oh. 16. 
 
144 LIMITATIONS [CH. vii. 
 
 The Roman city state, in the final form which it 
 attained during the war with Hannibal, gave an 
 
 Limitations excellent government to the small com- 
 
 of a city munity of men who enjoyed the full rights 
 of citizens. These men having the jus 
 suffragii cum, jure honorum could vote in the popular 
 assemblies, and were capable of being elected to any 
 magistracy: the government was both orderly and 
 subject to control by the public opinion of the 
 citizens. But was the city state capable of giving 
 good government to all Italy ? We know that in the 
 century after the Hannibalic war it governed Italy 
 very badly, and that early in the next century the 
 Italian allies rose in revolt: the bad government, 
 however, occurred mainly in the time when Rome 
 had acquired provinces beyond the sea. If the 
 Roman dominions had been limited to Italy, was 
 it likely that the city state could give good govern- 
 ment to the whole peninsula ? 
 
 It was a first necessary condition of good govern- 
 ment through the peninsula that there should be 
 community of interest over the whole area. This 
 first condition was realised, and the Romans recog- 
 nised that it had been realised, when, before quelling 
 the revolt of the Italian allies, they assented in the 
 year 90 B.C. to laws conferring Roman citizenship on 
 all Italians who had not rebelled, or who submitted. 
 There is little doubt that, if the Roman territory 
 had been confined to Italy, the whole peninsula 
 would have attained common interests and received 
 the Roman suffrage earlier than it did. 
 
CH. VIII.] OF A CITY STATE U5 
 
 But what good would the Italians get from the 
 Roman citizenship? Very little. If indeed an 
 inhabitant of a distant Italian town gained a magis- 
 tracy at Rome he could confer benefits on his native 
 place, and so the jus honorum might be helpful to 
 an outlying place on the extremely rare occasions 
 when one of its inhabitants was promoted to a Roman 
 magistracy. The jus suffragii, on the other hand, 
 except to those places which lay within easy reach 
 of Rome, was absolutely useless. The only use of a 
 right of voting is to enable the voter to influence 
 public opinion and the government. In the Roman 
 state any citizen had a right to influence public 
 opinion, but only on condition that he attended an 
 assembly at Rome : what benefit could the right 
 confer on an inhabitant of Brundisium ? 
 
 If a fair system of representative institutions had 
 been introduced, the hardships suffered' by the 
 outlying districts would have been remedied, but 
 the Roman Republic would have ceased to be a 
 city state. In a country with a just representative 
 system all localities are equal to begin with, or 
 tend to become so; in a city state supremacy is 
 rooted in one unchangeable capital. In mediseval 
 England, where all localities were equal, representative 
 institutions grew spontaneously; in ancient Italy 
 they could not be thought of unless the city of 
 Rome was prepared to forfeit its supremacy in the 
 peninsula. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 COMPLEX CITY STATES 
 
 Every complex city state is formed by the conquest 
 
 and assimilation of cities. Both conquest and 
 
 assimilation, where cities are concerned, 
 
 city states ^^^ tasks of extreme difficulty; neither 
 
 artificial at g^n be performed in blind obedience to 
 instinct ; both require elaborate planning 
 and skilful design. Since, then, complex city states 
 result from processes needing deliberate design, 
 they are in their origination artificial products. 
 We cannot expect so much uniformity in products 
 of human art as in things made instinctively; 
 and so we have no reason to look for the same 
 uniformity in complex city states as we have found 
 in the forms of tribal communities and in simple 
 city states. 
 
 But if the making of an artificial object is ex- 
 tremely difficult, there may be very few ways in 
 which it can be made successfully. If there is only 
 one way of making them, the individual artificial 
 objects may be almost as much alike as natural 
 specimens of a single species. 
 
 Complex city states are very much alike. Whence 
 
CH. VIII.] CAUSES OP SIMILARITY 147 
 
 comes their similarity ? Are they aUke because there 
 is only one way in which their designers can make 
 them? No; this is not the reason; for at their 
 beginnings they are by no means pre- g^^. 
 cisely alike. Athens at no early stage of subsequently 
 its career bore an exact similarity to Kome. 
 If the two states afterwards became far more ahke, 
 the progress towards a common form must be attri- 
 buted to the working of natural instincts. These 
 instincts assimilated the component parts of each 
 state through social and commercial intercourse and 
 intermarriage, and determined its political constitu- 
 tion so as to suit its requirements. The two states 
 were analogous in origin and structure to begin with ; 
 it is then not surprising that, when they had been 
 subject to the operation of the same natural forces 
 for some generations, they became far more alike, 
 and eventually had constitutions all but identical. 
 
 It is plain, then, that complex city states are 
 artificial to begin with, but may be naturalised 
 afterwards through the operation of 
 human instincts. Comparison of Rome Rome 
 and Athens proves that they are not all alike in 
 
 government. 
 
 alike at their beginnings; but do they 
 all conform to one model and one constitution in 
 their maturity ? If we were to look at Athens and 
 Rome only we should say they do. The constitutions 
 of Athens under Cleisthenes and of Rome in the 
 war against Hannibal were identical in outline. Each 
 state had its magistrates elected every year by the 
 people, its advisory senate with life tenure of the 
 
148 COMPLEX CITY STATES [ch. viii. 
 
 members, and the assembled people to elect magis- 
 trates and make laws ; there was only a distinction 
 with scarcely a difference in that the Koman citizens 
 met in three assemblies and voted by centuries or 
 tribes, and the Athenians had only one assembly in 
 which they voted as individuals. 
 
 If, then, we drew a conclusion from Athens and 
 Rome alone, we should say that complex city states, 
 _ though unlike in their beginnings, are 
 
 sUghtiy compelled by natural laws in their matu- 
 rity to be governed by yearly-elected 
 magistrates, permanent senate, and popular assem- 
 blies. The history of Genoa in the Middle Ages 
 proves that our conclusion would be incorrect, 
 though the true conclusion does not contradict it 
 entirely. Before 1100 a.d. the Genoese had con- 
 quered towns along the coast, as far as Volturi, ten 
 miles to the west of Genoa, and Chiavari, twenty 
 miles to the east ; ^ by about 1200 they had conquered 
 the coast for twenty miles more, as far as Levanto ; 
 by 1241 they appointed officers called Podesta to 
 govern their dependent towns, and called the de- 
 pendencies potestatice.^ By the middle, then, of the 
 thirteenth century Genoa was a complex city state. 
 It went through changes of government, being ruled 
 from 1217 to 1256 by a Podestk, from 1270 to 1290 
 by two Captains of the People, from 1291 to 1339 
 
 1 The limita are settled by Caflfaro, the earliest Genoese annalist. 
 I learned them from passages in hia Annaks Oemtenses, but neglected 
 to note the passages. 
 
 ° Barthol. Soriba in Mon. Oerrn. Hist, vol. xviii. p. 197, line 41. 
 
CH. viii.] MIXED GOVERNMENTS 149 
 
 by one Captain, and from 1339 by a Ttoge} All the 
 Genoese constitutions diverged from the constitutions 
 of Athens and Rome. The divergence is sufficiently 
 seen in the final form of government under a Doge. 
 The Doge was elected to hold office not for a year 
 but for life; the councillors did not serve for life, 
 but were frequently changed by popular elections.^ 
 
 The features common to the governments of Athens, 
 Rome, and Genoa, are these : in each government 
 the executive authority was entrusted to ^jj^g^ 
 an elected magistrate or magistrates ; the governments 
 
 . , , 1 n universal. 
 
 executive governor was aided by an ad- 
 visory council of important citizens; and the mass 
 of the citizens elected rulers and sanctioned laws. 
 In all three cities we see a mixed government, 
 consisting of magistrates, council, and people ; but 
 beyond this there is no uniformity of constitution. 
 
 The peculiarities which distinguish the govern- 
 ments of the two ancient complex city states were 
 evidently caused by circumstances in the peculiarities 
 earlier history of the communities. The in Athens 
 Athenians and Romans, in the mature 
 condition of their cities, did not appoint executive 
 magistrates to hold office for life, because they had 
 made trial of rulers holding for life in the earliest 
 part of their history, and had found them un- 
 satisfactory. On the other hand each of the towns, 
 whose union made up their complex states, was 
 
 ' The dates are from the Annalists in Mon. Germ. Hist., vol. 
 xviii., and from Georgius Stella in JHuratori, R.I.S., vol. xvii. 
 ■^ Stella in Mnratori, vol. xvii., col. 1074, ool. 1081. 
 
150 ATHENS AND EOME [CH. vm. 
 
 descended from a tribe or a union of tribes. In the 
 tribes the elders or heads of important families had 
 been councillors for life; and the importance of 
 families and their heads had afterwards been rendered 
 permanent and intensified by the system, perhaps 
 peculiar to the Greeks and Italians, under which 
 each head of a family was its high priest, and might 
 become the religious, social, and natural head of a 
 clan. When kingship was abolished at Athens and 
 Rome, the heads of great families were for a time 
 the only rulers in the childhood of the communities. 
 The heads, then, of the great families held a splendid 
 ancestral and historical position all through the early 
 history of Athens and Rome ; and accordingly, when 
 the cities came to maturity and could shape their 
 own destiny, they only acted in conformity with 
 antecedent practice in giving the heads of the chief 
 families a lofty position as their Areopagites or 
 Senators, and in permitting them to retain office as 
 councillors for life. 
 
 TABLE. 
 
 FOEM OF COMMUNITY. GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 Complex city states (partly Elective magistrates, a council, popu- 
 
 artificial, partly natural). lar assembly. 
 
 1. In ancient history : Magistrates elected for a year, senate 
 Athens, 508-487 B.C. serving for life, assembly single at 
 Rome, 287-201 B.C. Athens, triple at Eome. 
 
 2. In the Middle Ages : Magistrate elected for life, council 
 Genoa from 1339 a.d. frequently changed by election, 
 
 single popular assembly. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ATHENS 
 
 During the period of seventy-five years which elapsed 
 between the retreat of the Persians from Europe in 
 479, and the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404, 
 Athens gradually passed over from the complex to 
 the simple variety of city states. The change was 
 brought about by forces acting in Attica, which, by 
 attracting or compelling the rural population to go 
 and live in the city, destroyed the equipoise between 
 townsfolk and country folk. It is true that the 
 extension of the power of Athens outside of Attica 
 supplied a force that might have acted strongly in 
 the contrary direction, because it might have created 
 important communities of Athenian citizens at a 
 distance ; but, as a matter of fact, it was never very 
 effective in producing such a result, and at the end of 
 the Peloponnesian War its action came to an end. 
 
 The first event inside Attica that tended to 
 aggrandise Athens was an enlargement of its area. 
 Strong walls were built from Athens to its Enlargement 
 seaport Piraeus and to Phalerum, another of Athens, 
 point on the coast. The area within the walls was 
 a triangle, whose sides towards the land measured 
 
152 MIGEATION [ch. ix. 
 
 five miles and four miles respectively, and whose 
 side sea-front also measured about four miles. 
 The greater part of this large space was quite fit for 
 being used as building land, and Athens was, there- 
 fore, potentially a city of larger size than Rome ever 
 attained, even when it was the capital of the world in 
 the time of the Emperors. 
 
 Soon after the enlargement of Athens there came 
 into action a number of forces which attracted the 
 
 country folk into the city. The Athenians 
 Attractions. 
 
 were in receipt or a very great revenue 
 
 from many Greek states, who paid them tribute in 
 return for protection against the Persians. Part of 
 it was spent in embellishing the city with works of 
 art better than any other place in the world could 
 dream of. A large number of the citizens received pay 
 from the state for services in the law-courts as judges 
 or jurymen, in which capacity their duties were never 
 arduous, and were most commonly amusing. The 
 drama at Athens, both tragic and comic, attained to 
 perfection ; its representations, held in a theatre open 
 to the sky, must have been far more enjoyable 
 than the indoor performances that are usual in our 
 northern climate ; the cost of admission to the cheap- 
 est seats was fixed for a time at the low price of two 
 obols, and then at some date before the end of the 
 seventy-five years now under consideration, the 
 whole cost was defrayed by the state. The citizens, 
 too, were both quick-witted and light-hearted, so that 
 Athens was the most attractive place in the world for 
 all who cared for fun, gaiety, and social enjoyment. 
 
CH. IX.] FROM COUNTRY TO CITY 153 
 
 Soon after the Peloponnesian War began in 432, 
 Attica was ravaged by the Lacedaemonians : there 
 were five invasions before 424, and from 
 
 , , „ , . , , Invasions. 
 
 413 to the end of the war m 404, the 
 Lacedsemonian occupation was continuous. The 
 Athenians could not defend the territory of Attica 
 without crippling their navy, and they resolved that 
 the navy was the more important of the two. The 
 countrj;^ towns and farms of Attica were nearly deserted, 
 and the inhabitants thronged within the long walls 
 which connected Athens with Piraeus and Phalerum. 
 After the end of the war, there must have been 
 some re-migration of the population into the country ; 
 but it does not seem as if the country towns ever 
 recovered their former importance, for we do not find 
 much mention of them in the later literature of 
 Athens. It seems likely that the delights of life in 
 the city had taken a deep hold on the affections of 
 the people, and they were loath to abandon them. It 
 was, moreover, made somewhat easier for the poorer 
 classes to continue to reside in the city when it was 
 decreed that every citizen should receive wages from 
 the state for every day on which he attended at a 
 meeting of the political assembly of the people. It is 
 true that the wages or doles scattered broadcast 
 among the citizens were small individually, but they 
 might when taken together make up a fair augmen- 
 tation of a small income. The daily pay was three 
 obols; the three obols contained only the' same 
 weight of silver as a modern half-franc, but it is 
 likely that they would purchase as much as can at 
 
154 ATHENS [CH. ix. 
 
 present be bought for two or three shillings.^ Every 
 citizen could receive this pay for about sixty days in 
 the year by being present at the assembly, and all 
 that he got in this way was clear gain. He could 
 also receive the same for attendance at a religious 
 festival and its dramatic performances ; but on these 
 occasions he made but little profit, since two-thirds 
 of his wages were used up in paying for his seat in 
 the theatre. And lastly, as the jurymen or dicasts 
 employed in the law-courts numbered about a third 
 of the citizens, and they were selected by the hazard 
 of the lot from the whole body, every citizen had one 
 chance in three of being selected; if he was, he 
 received his three obols in one way or another all the 
 year round. On the whole, it seems likely that, though 
 the pay from the state was not enough to provide for 
 the maintenance of a family, it would easily suffice to 
 enable a citizen with small property or small earnings 
 to continue to enjoy the lazy and frivolous life of the 
 city, and to escape from the dull and laborious life of 
 a peasant farmer. 
 
 The general effect of the changes that have been 
 noticed was to concentrate in Athens a population 
 which had been scattered over Attica, and so to 
 destroy, so far as Attica was concerned, the balance 
 between the central city and its outlying communities. 
 In the case of Rome, as was pointed out in the 
 seventh chapter, extension of power and conquest 
 
 ' Boeokh, the best modern authority on the point, thinks three 
 obols would sufiSoe for the comfortable keep of a citizen, but not 
 for his household. The daily pay of a citizen serving in the fleet 
 was three obols. — Thuo. viii. 45. 
 
CH. IX.] DEPENDENCIES 155 
 
 gave the city new outlying communities of its own 
 citizens. If the same thing had happened in the 
 case of Athens, the balance between the centre and the 
 superficies would have been restored. How it was 
 that this did not come to pass, we have now to observe. 
 
 The foreign dependencies of Athens during the 
 seventy-five years from 479 to 404, were of two 
 kinds. Some, and those by far the most Depend- 
 numerous and important, were protected encies. 
 states which governed themselves in everything 
 except foreign policy ; the others, comparatively 
 insignificant, were plantations of Athenian citizens 
 known as cleruchice, or bodies of landowners. 
 
 The protected states originally came under Athenian 
 influence, not through conquest, but because they re- 
 quested Athens to protect them against Protected 
 the Persians : if I may use the language of states, 
 the Middle Ages, they commended themselves to 
 Athens. From 478 to 454 the Athenians treated 
 them almost as allies on equal terms; the treasury 
 was kept in Delos, meetings of delegates were 
 held in the Delian temple of Apollo to settle the 
 policy of the league, and the Athenians were only so 
 far superiors that they assessed the contributions of 
 the allies, controlled expenditure, and had command 
 of the fleet. In 454 the treasury was transferred to 
 Athens, and thenceforth the Athenians were the 
 masters, and the rest were servants. The servant 
 states were in two categories : three or four of them 
 even after 454 were privileged to send their contri- 
 butions in the shape of a contingent of ships, and so 
 
156 ATHENS [CH. ix. 
 
 stood in a position analagous to that of the civitates 
 fcederatce towards Rome — they were clients, indeed, 
 but clients whom the patron cared to conciliate ; the 
 rest were mere payers of tribute, and so stood on a 
 lower level than any of socii populi Romani. 
 
 The protected states, then, were in no sense 
 incorporated into Athenian citizenship. Athens 
 left them to manage their internal affairs as they 
 chose, so long as they were punctual in sending their 
 ships or their tribute ; but, on the other hand, they 
 had no influence whatever over the internal political 
 condition of the Athenian community, and the state 
 did not acquire any complexity of structure because 
 they were its clients. 
 
 The cleruchice had a different origin and character. 
 
 When the Athenians made conquests, they followed 
 
 the same course as the Romans at a 
 
 Cleruchiae. • c i i i 
 
 later date, takmg possession of the whole 
 or a part of the conquered land and giving it out 
 in plots to Athenian citizens. It was intended 
 that the new landowners should settle on the estates 
 they had received, and form a garrison acting in the 
 Athenian interest. Wherever this intention was 
 actually carried out, the new settlers were in exactly 
 the same position as the Roman settlers who took 
 lands in Latium or formed garrisons of burgesses on 
 the sea- coast of Italy; they retained their full citizen- 
 ship, could speak and vote in the assembly, and any 
 one of them might be designated by the lot as archon 
 or by election as strategus. It seems, however, that 
 there were only few cases in which settlements were 
 
CH. IX. J DEPENDENCIES 157 
 
 actually made. Two instances occurred in Eubcea, 
 at Chalkis and Histisea, and there was another in 
 the island of JEgina. All three places were very near 
 Athens, and were convenient residences for Athenian 
 citizens, especially for such as were engaged in mari- 
 time commerce. In all three places settlements took 
 place, and contingents were furnished from Histisea 
 and ^gina to serve in the Athenian force which 
 sailed against Syracuse in 415.^ In these instances, 
 and in another at Potidsea, the Athenian state ac- 
 quired outlying dependencies peopled by its own 
 citizens ; and the cleruchioe thus established fulfilled 
 the purpose for which they were intended. Some, 
 however, of the conquests which were made by the 
 Athenians led only to distribution of land and not 
 to settlements. A good example of such a conquest 
 occurred in the island of Lesbos, which is about half 
 as large as Attica. The island was one of the client 
 states ; in 428 it revolted, and in the following year 
 was subdued. The Athenians divided the whole 
 island, except Methymna which had not joined in 
 the rebellion, into three thousand estates: of these 
 they gave three hundred for the support of the 
 worship of the gods; the remaining two thousand 
 seven hundred were gratuitously distributed to 
 Athenian citizens by means of a sort of lottery. It 
 may have been intended that the prize-winners 
 should go and settle as a garrison in the island; 
 but it is certain that they did not, since in 412, when 
 Lesbos again revolted from Athens, there was no 
 
 1 Thucydidea, i. 114, 5 ; ii. 27 ; vii. 57, 2. 
 
158 ATHENS [CH. ix. 
 
 population of Athenians residing there.^ The whole 
 transaction did not cause any shifting of the Athenian 
 population, but merely put a substantial rent into 
 the pockets of the prize-winners. Their good luck 
 in the lottery established them as a large body of 
 useless absentee landlords, and each of them drew 
 out of his prize a rent of two hundred drachmae. 
 Whether the rents were punctually paid by the un- 
 lucky dispossessed Lesbians we are not informed; 
 but all the absentee landlords had votes in the 
 assembly at Athens, and it may be that they had 
 enough voting power to compel the Athenian navy 
 to collect their rents for them.^ 
 
 The movements, then, of population between 479 
 
 and 404 were within Attica decidedly centripetal, 
 
 and outside of Attica the centrifugal movement 
 
 towards the cleruchice was so minute as scarcely to 
 
 be worth considering. Athens became much more 
 
 like a simple city state than ever it had been before. 
 
 In proportion as the state shrank from Attica 
 
 into Athens, so the government shrank from the 
 
 Government wide and Comprehensive form which 
 
 under a class. Cleisthenes had given it into one of 
 
 the comparatively narrow and exclusive forms 
 
 which prevail in simple city states. Until the 
 
 beginning of the Peloponnesian War both the state 
 
 and the government retained a portion of their 
 
 complex structure. But from 431 B.C. the state was 
 
 1 Thuoydides, viii. 22 and 23. 
 
 ^ The making of the Lesbian cleruchia is described in Thuoydides, 
 iii. 50. 
 
CH. IX.] TEANSITION TO DEMOCRACY 159 
 
 reduced to simplicity of structure by the Spartan 
 occupation of the country towns in Attica and the 
 congregation of the whole population in Athens ; and 
 from about the same date the government acquired 
 that simplicity which results from the unquestioned 
 domination of a class. The three kinds of govern- 
 ment which are found in simple city states are, as 
 we have seen, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy. 
 Athens, when it became a simple city state, never 
 submitted to a tyranny ; oligarchy was adopted only 
 for two short intervals, in 411 B.C. and 404 B.C.; for 
 the rest of the time democracy was the prevalent 
 form of government, except for some half-dozen 
 years after 411 B.C., when there was a government of 
 compromise. From a time not long subsequent to 
 the defeats of the Persians at Salamis and Platsea, it 
 was clear that the general tendency of Athenian 
 government set towards democracy rather than to- 
 wards oligarchy; from that time till 429 b.c. the 
 power of the poor citizens increased and the influence 
 of the rich diminished; and from 429 b.c. till the 
 fall of Athens in 338 b.c. the government, except 
 during short intervals which have just been noticed, 
 furnishes the best example in all history of a demo- 
 cracy of the uncompromising type. 
 
 It may naturally be asked why the general tendency 
 at Athens, after 479 b.c., set towards an increase in 
 the power of the poor citizens. Aristotle thought it 
 was because the poor citizens rendered signal public 
 service by winning the great victory at Salamis, and 
 afterwards by manning the fleets which won for 
 
160 ATHENS [ch. ix. 
 
 Athens a hegemony among the maritime powers.^ 
 The cause that he assigned would seem adequate to 
 the ancient Greeks ; but before we accept it as the 
 sole cause we must consider what happened in 
 mediseval Venice. The Venetians won naval victories 
 as the Athenians did, in galleys such as the Athenians 
 used ; the poor citizens of Venice must have supplied 
 at least a good proportion of the oarsmen ; and yet 
 at Venice the poor were always absolutely excluded 
 from taking part in the government. In view of 
 these facts from Venetian history, it seems we must 
 assign some causes for the increasing power of the 
 poor citizens at Athens beyond the one cause which 
 seemed sufficient to the Greeks. Probably an addi- 
 tional cause is to be found in the sudden extension 
 in the area of the city of Athens, caused by the 
 absorption in it of Piraeus and Phalerum. The 
 multitude of seamen naturally gathered, when they 
 landed, either at Pirseus or at Athens; their con- 
 tinued service in the fleet was most necessary to the 
 welfare of the state, so that any demands that they 
 made must be listened to and considered; and as 
 they were congregated in the city they could give a 
 commanding number of votes in the assembly of the 
 citizens. 
 
 The change from the Cleisthenean constitution to 
 democracy was brought about not by constructing 
 new institutions, but by the decline or destruction of 
 old ones. The three elements in the Cleisthenean 
 government were the magistrates, the senate of the 
 
 > Politics, V. 4, 8. 
 
CH. IX.] TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY 161 
 
 Areopagus, and the common folk. The Athenians 
 took away the political powers of the Areopagus, and 
 then of the magistrates ; and when these two organs 
 of government had been paralysed it followed of 
 necessity that Demos was omnipotent. 
 
 The Areopagus in the Cleisthenean system corre- 
 sponds to the Senate in the Koman Republic, but the 
 two councils are strongly contrasted in their history. 
 The Senate of Rome was always rising to greater 
 influence; the Areopagus was steadily decadent. 
 The reason for the contrast is obvious. The Romans 
 needed a strong senate because it was the only body 
 well qualified to manage the business of establishing 
 Roman settlements and conducting negotiations with 
 the civitates fcederatce. The Athenians did not need 
 a strong senate because the Athenian settlements 
 outside Attica were unimportant, and the great mass 
 of the client states were not in the position of the 
 civitates fcederatce but mere tributaries with whom 
 no negotiations were needed. 
 
 The authority of a senate must always depend on 
 the reputation and wisdom of its members ; and so 
 the authority of the Areopagus depended on the 
 character of the men who were or had been archons. 
 In the constitution of Cleisthenes the archonship 
 was intended to be both an important and a dignified 
 office ; but he set up the office of the strategi by its 
 side, and before long the strategi were more powerful 
 than the archons. At the battle of Marathon the 
 command of the Athenian army was shared between 
 the archon Polemarch and the ten strategi ; the 
 
 L 
 
162 ATHENS [ch. ix. 
 
 Polemarch was the nominal commander-in-chief, but 
 in a council of war all the strategi had votes and the 
 Polemarch had no more than one vote. The strategi 
 were evidently capable men; they were equally 
 divided in opinion, it is true, but they knew their 
 own minds : five of them, including Miltiades, the 
 hero of the great battle of Marathon, which they 
 shortly won, were clearly in favour of going forward, 
 the others as clearly in favour of keeping back. The 
 Polemarch was a weak man and was talked over (to 
 the right side, it is true) by Miltiades.^ The effect 
 of the splendid victory which the Athenians won was 
 inevitably to exalt the strategi in the public estima- 
 tion, and to lower the archons. The Athenians soon 
 made sure that there should be no doubt which was 
 the superior office. In 487 they passed a new con- 
 stitutional law which made the appointment of 
 archons far more a matter of chance than it had ever 
 been: five hundred candidates were to be selected 
 every year, and out of this large number the nine 
 archons were to be taken by drawing lots.^ From 
 this time forth the archons were not important 
 enough to figure in history. As far as the magis- 
 tracies were concerned the change was a good one, 
 since it was far better that the strategi should be the 
 sole responsible officers than that there should be 
 a conflict for precedency between them and the 
 archons ; but the blow that had been struck against 
 the archons was certain before long to recoil upon 
 the Areopagus. 
 1 Herodotus, vi. 109, 110. 2 Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 22. 
 
CH. IX.] TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY 163 
 
 In 480 the Areopagus obtained a renewal or pro- 
 longation of its political power by a patriotic action. 
 When the Persians under Xerxes had passed over 
 the mountains near Thermopylae, Attica lay at their 
 mercy, and the ten strategi proclaimed that every 
 man must save himself as best he could. The 
 Areopagus, however, provided a large sum of money 
 to meet the expense of manning a large fleet of galleys 
 of war. The Athenian contingent thus provided was 
 more than half of the whole Greek force that over- 
 powered the Persians at Salamis : and the Athenians 
 in gratitude to the Areopagus for the service it had 
 rendered allowed it to have the chief influence in the 
 government for twenty years.^ 
 
 We do not know what were the political powers 
 of the Areopagus, but they were very large, since 
 they included a general and undefined censorship of 
 morals, and probably some other important kinds of 
 authority which have not been recorded. As the 
 members were taken by hazard, there was no guar- 
 antee that the council was properly qualified to 
 perform functions that required great wisdom and 
 delicacy of judgment; the use they made of their 
 great powers gave dissatisfaction, and somewhere 
 about 458 Pericles and Ephialtes were able to get 
 a law passed whereby the Areopagus was entirely 
 deprived of political authority.^ It continued to exist 
 as a judicial body for the trial of cases of homicide 
 and offences against religion, and the judges in it 
 
 1 Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 23. 
 
 2 Plutarch, Pericles, 7. 
 
164 ATHENS [Oh. ix. 
 
 were highly esteemed for their knowledge of the law 
 affecting such cases and for the rectitude of their 
 judgments; but from the time of the law passed 
 by Pericles and Ephialtes they were as completely 
 incapable of taking part in the decision of a political 
 question as are the ecclesiastical courts of justice in 
 England at the present day. 
 
 The magistracy of the strategi followed the Areo- 
 pagus in its downward course. As long as Pericles 
 lived and was elected as strategus every year, the 
 importance of the strategi suffered no diminution. 
 Pericles was an uncrowned king of Athens, and 
 though he owed his power to his abilities and not to 
 the ofSce of strategus, the office retained its dignity 
 and power because he was one of the holders of it. 
 After his death the strategi were still the first men 
 in the state : in 423 they joined with the Prytaneis 
 in summoning a special meeting of the assembly.^ It 
 was a regular part of their duties to negotiate with 
 foreign powers with a view to drawing up treaties. 
 Nicias, for example, as strategus, took so large a part 
 in the negotiation of the treaty of 421 that it is 
 usually called the peace of Nicias. 
 
 But in 406 the political power of the strategi Avas 
 suddenly shattered. Eight of their number were 
 admirals in command of a great Athenian fleet and 
 won the important victory of Arginusse, near Lesbos ; 
 several Athenian ships which had been damaged in 
 the action were lost in a storm, and it was asserted 
 that the admirals had been culpably negligent in 
 
 ' Thuoydide^, iv. 118, end. 
 
CH. IX.] TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY 165 
 
 making no efforts to save them. A proposal was 
 made in the assembly that the admirals should be 
 put to death ; the assembly, though it was habitually 
 a law-abiding body, on this occasion forgot itself, and 
 there were very gross irregularities in the proceed- 
 ings. The proposal was accepted, sentence of death 
 was pronounced, and was executed upon all the 
 admirals, six in number, who were in custody.^ The 
 resolution condemning the admirals was passed by 
 the assembly in a mere transient fit of anger against 
 men who may have been in some degree blame- 
 worthy; but though it was adopted hastily it had 
 permanent and momentous results. It led very 
 straight to the deep humiliation of the Athenians, 
 and the surrender of their city in 404. The new 
 strategi of 405 were incapable men and afraid to 
 enforce discipline among the sailors, and all the fleet 
 except a small squadron under Conon, an old and 
 skilful admiral, was captured at ^gospotami. It had 
 also another effect which it is more necessary for 
 me to notice : it proclaimed to every one that the 
 political influence of the office of strategus was at 
 an end. After this date many of the strategi — for 
 example, Iphicrates — were able commanders by sea 
 and land, but it does not appear that the office of 
 strategus gave them any claim to be leaders in the 
 assembly. 
 
 When the restraining forces of the Areopagus and 
 the strategi ceased to act, Demos, or the mass of the 
 poor citizens, was unchallenged master of the govern- 
 
 ' Xenophon, Helhnica, i. 6 and 7. 
 
166 ATHENS [CH. ix. 
 
 ment. His reign had indeed begun on the death of 
 Pericles, but his tenure of power became more certain 
 after he had destroyed the strategi. 
 
 The machine of government whereby Demos did 
 his work will not need any elaborate description. It 
 was identical with certain parts of the Cleisthenean 
 system, of which a sketch has been already given.^ 
 In the government of Cleisthenes the citizens at 
 large were active in the Ecclesia or general assembly 
 and its committee of Five Hundred, and also in the 
 popular law-courts ; and these parts of his system 
 survived almost unaltered in the time of the demo- 
 cracy. Since, however, two parts of the machine 
 devised by Cleisthenes, namely, the Areopagus and 
 the strategi, had gone out of repair, the parts which 
 remained in working order had the more work to 
 do ; and, since the citizens took pleasure in the 
 process of government, they spent an amount of 
 energy upon it that was far greater than was required 
 by the increase of the business to be done. 
 
 The work, then, of government was done in the 
 Ecclesia with its committee of Five Hundred and in 
 the Dicasteria. I shall here point out how these 
 bodies were constituted and what work they did. 
 
 The Ecclesia and the Five Hundred between them 
 General Undertook the whole direction of poUcy, 
 
 assembly of the making of laws, and the control of 
 
 eciizens. administration. The Ecclesia still con- 
 sisted of the whole body of Athenian citizens. It 
 held forty ordinary meetings in the course of the 
 
 ' See Chapter vi., pp. 96, 97. 
 
CH. ix.J DEMOCRACY 167 
 
 year, and other meetings were summoned when- 
 ever the Prytaneis thought fit. It was supreme 
 over all matters whatsoever except judicature ; 
 but, for the avoidance of revolutionary measures, 
 it wisely allowed its actions to be in some measure 
 controlled both by its own committee and by the 
 law-courts. It was an established rule that no law 
 was to be proposed in the Ecclesia till it had 
 been sanctioned by the Five Hundred ; and laws or 
 resolutions after they had been passed could be 
 indicted before the law-courts on the ground that 
 they were in conflict with some existing law or with 
 the Athenian constitution. The indictment of a law 
 was known as a Graphe ParanomSn, or prosecution 
 for illegality. If the law or resolution was condemned 
 by the law-court, it was ipso facto cancelled ; and, 
 provided that the indictment was brought within a 
 year after the vote of the assembly, the proposer as 
 well as the proposition might be indicted, and if the 
 court decided against him he was subject to a heavy 
 fine. The Graphe Paranomdn was, beyond all doubt, 
 the best bulwark of the constitution, and was more 
 dreaded by revolutionary conspirators than any other 
 form of procedure known at Athens. The only 
 revolutionists who ever succeeded in overthrowing 
 the Athenian democracy began by inducing the 
 assembly to forbid the use of the indictment for 
 illegality.^ 
 
 The committee of Five Hundred was a committee 
 of the assembly for finance and general purposes. 
 
 ' This was in 411 B.C. Thucydides, viii. 67, 2. 
 
168 ATHENS [ch. ix. 
 
 It undertook all the business which could not be 
 conducted in a meeting of the whole body of 
 citizens, and so it came about that the work 
 
 The Five ^^ *'^^ ^i'^® Hundred was most multi- 
 Hundred, farious. They considered every law 
 and every resolution which any citizen desired to 
 propose in the Ecclesia, and decided whether it 
 should or should not be brought forward. Through 
 the discharge of this function they gained some 
 control over the course of legislation; but it was 
 only an imperfect control, because the proposals 
 which they permitted to be brought before the 
 assembly were not necessarily either rejected or 
 passed as they stood, but could be altered by amend- 
 ments made in the assembly.^ The work they had 
 to do in connection with law-making was a very small 
 part of the whole business they had to transact. 
 The greater part of their time was spent in super- 
 vision of the details of administration. They made a 
 constant inspection of the moneys paid into the 
 treasury of the state, and of the expenditure that 
 came out of it. They had to see that a fixed number 
 of triremes were built every year, to inspect troops, 
 to attend to details in regard to military and naval 
 stores, and to all the organisation of the fleet and the 
 army. Their work in supervising many important 
 branches of the public service was so voluminous 
 that they held a meeting on every day in the year 
 except the public holidays, and they received as 
 
 ' This is proved by Dr. Sandys in his edition of Aristotle, Ath. 
 Pol. See his note to chapter 29, 3. 
 
CH. IX.] DEMOCRACY 169 
 
 pay a drachma daily, or double the sum paid for 
 the performance of the less responsible duties of 
 a citizen, such as attendance at an Ecclesia or a 
 law-court, or a theatrical representation. 
 
 But though the Five Hundred were a general 
 purposes committee of the governing body of the 
 state, they did not possess any such in- 
 fluence as other committees of the kind Hundred 
 
 have usually attained. The powers noti'kea 
 
 •111, 1 • Cabinet. 
 
 Wielded by a general purposes committee 
 
 of a governing body are ordinarily such as were 
 acquired by the Lords of the Articles in Scotland, or 
 those that belong to a Cabinet in a Parliament at 
 the present time. It would have been entirely incon- 
 sistent with the existence of uncompromising demo- 
 cracy if the Five Hundred had possessed any influence 
 of such magnitude ; and the committee of the Athenian 
 assembly was constituted so that its influence should 
 be reduced to a minimum. A committee of a 
 governing body gains great influence only if the 
 members of it have a long tenure of ofiice and special 
 qualifications for their work. In the Five Hundred 
 tenure of office was exceedingly short: each com- 
 mittee man took office only for a year at a time, 
 and no one could hold the office for more than two 
 years in a lifetime.^ In the appointment of the 
 committee men the special qualifications of candi- 
 dates were absolutely disregarded. It was only 
 required that they should be of ordinarily decent 
 character; the actual appointment was made by 
 
 » Aristotle, Ath. Pol., 62, 3. 
 
170 ATHENS [ch. ix. 
 
 drawing lots among those candidates whose private 
 characters were found to bear inspection. 
 
 The method of appointment by drawing lots was 
 no doubt essential to the maintenance of a thorough- 
 . . . , ffoing democracy. The only other con- 
 
 Appointment o o j J 
 
 by lot essential ceivable methods were nomination by 
 
 to democracy. ^v^ ^i ,. j. • ^ ^■ 
 
 some omcers, as the strategi, or election 
 by the assembly. Both these methods were un- 
 acceptable in the Athenian democracy. Nomination 
 would have offended against the principle that all 
 citizens were to be as far as possible equal, because 
 it would have thrown a mass of patronage into 
 the hands of the nominators ; and election would 
 have made the committee - men too influential. 
 Election would also have had another result which 
 the Athenians would not have liked. It would 
 have divided the citizens into parties, organised to 
 attain definite political aims ; the citizens would 
 have been bound by the ties which party organisa- 
 tion creates, and Demos would no longer have been 
 free to change his mind as often as he liked. 
 
 It is a remarkable feature in the Athenian Ecclesia 
 after the Peloponnesian War, that it had no official 
 No official leaders. The strategi had lost their influ- 
 leaders. ence, and the Five Hundred never gained 
 
 any settled control over the proceedings. The 
 assembly needed some men to be chief spokesmen 
 and leaders in debate ; the men whom they adopted 
 as leaders were professional orators. These orators 
 were only private citizens without any official status, 
 and they were well suited to be the spokesmen of 
 
CH. IX.] DEMOCRACY 171 
 
 Demos, who wished to be the real master and to be 
 free to indulge all his caprices, because they could be 
 discarded at a moment's notice. 
 
 The judicial bodies alone were independent of the 
 assembly ; but the judges were taken from the same 
 class as predominated in the Ecclesia. A 
 
 1 ^ ~ .,. . , Law Courts. 
 
 large number of citizens were taken 
 by lot every year to serve as judges; they were divided 
 into bodies varying in number from two hundred to 
 a thousand, and each of these bodies sat as a court of 
 justice to decide such cases as might be brought 
 before them. They sat without any professional 
 judge to inform them about the condition of the law 
 or the relevance of the arguments ; the advocate on 
 either side cited such laws as favoured his conten- 
 tions, and could use any reasoning which he thought 
 likely to influence the court. It does not appear 
 that there was any class of men learned in the law ; 
 no such class was needed where every citizen felt 
 himself competent to vote on every litigation under 
 the guidance of commonsense. It is clear that 
 litigants did not attempt to bribe the judges: the 
 bench of judges was always so numerous that bribery 
 would have been horribly expensive. But the courts 
 were very capricious in their decisions; and in the 
 time of the Peloponnesian War they were strongly 
 influenced by prejudices favourable to the poor and 
 adverse to the rich, so that rich litigants were often 
 fined with undue severity, and the public treasury 
 profited by the fines imposed on them as it did by 
 the tribute from the protected cities. 
 
172 ATHENS [ch. ix. 
 
 In the Athenian democracy, the poorer class of 
 citizens personally carried on the work of government. 
 They could do this because there was a 
 large population of slaves to do the indus- 
 trial and menial work which was necessary to the 
 welfare of the population. In a state without slaves, 
 as for example in Florence from 1343 a.d. to 1354 A.D., 
 democracy of a kind may exist ; but it cannot be a 
 democracy of the same type as prevailed at Athens. 
 
 If we compare Athenian democracy with the other 
 class-governments in the simple cities of ancient 
 Estim t f liistory, we see that it was incomparably 
 Athenian superior to most of them. The usual vices 
 
 eraocracy. ^^ class-govemments are lawlessness, in- 
 stability, and persecution. Athens was almost exempt 
 from all of them. The only case in which the 
 assembly perpetrated an outrageous breach of the 
 constitution was in the sentence which it passed on 
 the six admirals who commanded at Arginusse. The 
 constitution was so stable that in its existence of 
 about ninety years there was only one occasion (in 
 411 B.C.) when it Avas completely overturned by a 
 purely domestic revolution. Persecution of the rich 
 by the assembly was unknown, and the only kind of 
 serious injustice that they endured arose from the 
 undue severity of the fines imposed on them in the 
 law-courts during the Peloponnesian War. 
 
 To expect that Athenian democracy should com- 
 pare favourably with the mixed governments of the 
 complex city states, is to ask more than can reason- 
 ably be required of it. The complex city states of 
 
OH. ix.j COMPARED WITH ARGOS 173 
 
 Attica and Rome were different in their structure 
 from the simple city of Athens, and their governments 
 were constructed for objects which the democracy of 
 Athens did not care about. The conspicuous faults of 
 Athenian democracy, if we compare it with the mixed 
 government of Rome, are two in number: it was 
 extremely inefficient in dealing with foreign policy ; 
 and, although it taught all the citizens to talk well 
 and vote confidently, it did not teach them to act 
 well. The citizens, about fifty years after the Pelopon- 
 nesian War, were extremely reluctant to serve in the 
 army, and they refused to give up the pay that they 
 received for attending religious festivals even when 
 the money was wanted to defend Olynthus against 
 Macedonia. 
 
 Comparison of Athens and Argos. 
 
 The change from complex to simple structure 
 which took place in Athens, was not a phenomenon 
 entirely without a parallel. Something of the same 
 kind occurred in the neighbouring city of Argos. 
 
 When I enumerated in the fourth chapter the 
 expansive and complex city states of ancient history, 
 I made no reference to Argos, because it is incon- 
 spicuous, and I could not have referred to it without 
 tiresome explanation ; but I have no doubt that until 
 after the Persian invasion it had something of the 
 expansive and complex character. It was advan- 
 tageously situated for a moderate degree of expansion ; 
 the ancient city of Mycense was its neighbour in the 
 Argolic Plain, and had no defences except its citadel 
 
174 ARGOS [CH. IX. 
 
 and its walls. It cannot be doubted that Argos 
 reduced Mycense and the far smaller fortress or palace 
 of Tiryns to some kind of dependence at a very early 
 age ; they must have been deprived of independence 
 before King Pheidon of Argos (who reigned certainly 
 before 600 b.c.) made his rapid but short-lived con- 
 quests outside the Argolic Plain. While Argos had 
 something of a complex character, it had also a mixed 
 form of government: it retained its ancient tribal 
 kingship so late as 480 B.C./ but it was a limited 
 kingship, and the kings, as Strabo teUs us, were 
 insignificant. 
 
 After the Persian invasion the structure of Argos 
 was altered. The dependent town of Mycense had 
 the audacity to send eighty hoplites to take part in 
 the defence of Greece at Thermopylse,^ though the 
 Argives gave them no permission to do so, and 
 themselves refused to send a contingent. The 
 jealousy of the Argives was roused by this act of 
 independence and Hellenic patriotism, and within a 
 few years they razed the walls of Mycense.^ From this 
 time forth, Argos was a perfectly simple city state, and 
 had such a government as is appropriate to a simple 
 city. The government was an uncompromising 
 democracy. In 371 b.c., or the following year, some 
 rich men were detected in a conspiracy to establish 
 an oligarchy ; the defenders of the democracy armed 
 themselves with bludgeons, and in the Skytalismus, 
 or rule of the club, which ensued, about twelve 
 
 ' Herodotus, vii. 149. ' Herodotus, vii. 202. 
 
 ^ Pausanias, ii. 16. 
 
CH. IX.] ARGOS 175 
 
 hundred of the rich men were slain. The brutalities, 
 however, which the Argives perpetrated on this 
 occasion, were never repeated on any other; and 
 there is good reason to believe that the democracy of 
 Argos was, in general, exempt, almost in an equal 
 degree with the similar government at Athens, from 
 those vices which might be expected to arise from 
 the uncontrolled supremacy of a single class in the 
 population. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HETEROGENEOUS EMPIRE: ROME 
 
 After the age of city states two great empires came 
 into being. The Macedonian empire acquired by 
 Alexander the Great was extremely short-lived, and 
 as it did not exist long enough to get any political 
 institutions of its own, there is no occasion to say 
 more about it. The Roman empire began soon after 
 the expulsion of Hannibal from Italy, and had a 
 continuous existence till the Turks captured Con- 
 stantinople in the fifteenth century of the Christian 
 era. 
 
 Between 200 b.c. and 100 e.g. the Romans conquered 
 Spain, Macedonia, Greece, Carthage, Hlyrium, and the 
 structure of greater part of Asia Minor. The aggregate 
 the Roman of their dominions, when these conquests 
 '"^"^' had been made, constituted a heterogen- 
 eous empire, because each of the countries had a 
 distinctive character impressed upon it by ages of 
 past history, and all the countries were dissimilar in 
 character- to each other and to Rome. The quality 
 which differentiates a heterogeneous empire from all 
 other large political bodies is the dissimilarity of the 
 countries which it brings under one government, 
 ira 
 
CH. X.J ROME: CITY AND EMPIEE 111 
 
 Complex city states, and all nations whether unitary 
 or federal, are formed by the union of like with like, 
 and their parts are soon held together by cohesive 
 and attractive forces which arise naturally and 
 spontaneously between like and like ; heterogeneous 
 empires are formed by the union of unlike with 
 unlike, forces of repulsion act strongly to sever the 
 parts which have been united, and they can only be 
 held together by vigorous coercion. 
 
 The Komans regarded the conquered countries, 
 which became their subject provinces, as mines of 
 wealth to be worked for the profit of selfishness 
 the conquerors. The exploitation of the of the 
 mines was carried on, not by the Roman '""^"^• 
 state, but by individuals or classes in the Roman 
 community; the wealth, however, which poured 
 from them into the capital city of the empire, 
 demoralised and degraded all classes in the city, 
 and eventually destroyed its republican form of 
 government. 
 
 So long as Rome was merely a complex city its 
 constitution was founded, as we have seen, upon 
 compromises, wherein every class made Competition 
 concessions to other classes for the main- '""^ spoils, 
 tenance of a strong and equitable government for 
 the good of all. When the wealth of the provinces 
 flooded into the city, every class thought it had not 
 yet got its due share of the spoil, and all engaged 
 in a scramble to get more, and as much more as 
 possible. 
 
 The Romans till 49 B.C. attempted to rule a hetero- 
 
 M 
 
178 ROME: CITY AND EMPIEE [ch. x. 
 
 geneous empire by means of the institutions proper 
 Oni urb n to a Complex city state. The attempt 
 institutions was a failure ; and I believe it led to more 
 ' '^^ ■ ■ widespread misery than any other political 
 blunder or incongruity in the course of European 
 history. 
 
 To understand the influence of provincial wealth 
 upon Roman society, we must look upon the classes 
 which composed that society after the stream of 
 plunder had fairly set towards the capital. A con- 
 venient point of view may be taken just before 
 Marius was elected, in 107 B.C., for the first time to 
 the consular office. 
 
 The Roman citizens were divided into two rich 
 classes and two poor classes. The first of the rich 
 The Roman classes consisted of the families which 
 citizens, monopolised the curule magistracies ; the 
 
 second comprised the great capitalists, 
 known as the equestrian order, because in the earlier 
 times of the republic the rich men had served in the 
 cavalry. The first of the poor classes was the mob of 
 the capital ; the second, now greatly shrunken in 
 numbers from what it had been, took in the small 
 yeomen farmers of the country districts. 
 
 The curule magistrates got the earliest and the 
 most direct access to the spoils of the provinces. As 
 The curule soon as the new dominions had been ac- 
 magistracies. quired by the Romans it was necessary 
 to increase the number of curule magistracies, because 
 the existing staff of officers was insufficient. The 
 men at the top of the list of curule magistrates had 
 
CH. X.] EICH CLASSES 179 
 
 been the two consuls and the two praetors. These 
 officers were wanted for work in Italy, and new 
 magistracies had to be devised in order to supply 
 governors for the provinces. Two expedients were 
 adopted in succession with a view of providing pro- 
 vincial governors. In the case of the two earliest 
 provinces, Sardinia and Sicily, which were both 
 acquired before 200 B.C., the necessary governors 
 were supplied by increasing the number of the 
 praetors from two to four, and before the year 
 108 B.C., which we have chosen as the date of our 
 survey, the number had risen to six. By this time 
 novel courts of justice had been established in Rome, 
 so that three of the six praetors had to stay at home 
 to act as judges, and only three could be employed 
 as provincial commanders. By the same time the 
 number of provinces needing governors had risen to 
 ten, and a second method of providing more magis- 
 trates had to be adopted. This second expedient, 
 which soon after 100 B.C. superseded the first, was 
 the employment of curule magistrates in the pro- 
 vinces after the expiration of the year for which 
 they were elected to office. When a man had finished 
 his year's work in Italy as consul or praetor, he was 
 appointed deputy to the consuls or praetors who 
 followed him in office at home, and was sent out to 
 govern a province with the title of proconsul or 
 propraetor. He was endowed with the same complete 
 imperium that belonged to all consuls and all praetors; 
 and therefore in his province he was absolute 
 military and civil commander over all persons and 
 
180 ROME: CITY AND EMPIRE [CH. x. 
 
 causes supreme. The rules laid down for his guid- 
 ance by the senate were reasonable and humane 
 enough ; but the senate was too far off to see that he 
 conformed to them, and he could, if he liked, use his 
 authority in the province as a means of enriching 
 himself at the expense of his subjects. It is true 
 that on his return to Rome he was liable to a pro- 
 secution for extortion ; but the judges who decided 
 in such prosecutions were selected, till 122 B.C., from 
 the senators, and the senator's were not extreme 
 to mark what was done amiss, because many of 
 them had already known the delights of provincial 
 governorships, or hoped in the future to enjoy them. 
 After the practice of giving the provinces to pro- 
 consuls and propraetors was fully established, the 
 Curuie consulship and prsetorship were not greatly 
 families. desired for their own sake. In most cases 
 the consuls and praetors, during their year of office, 
 had to perform routine duties in Italy under the 
 supervision of the senate; and it was only in the 
 rare instances when a consul could hope to be 
 commander in a provincial war during his consular 
 year that the consulship was in itself a highly 
 desirable office. But the consular and praetorian 
 magistracies were most eagerly sought in view of 
 that which came after them ; they were the stepping- 
 stone on the upward course to a provincial governor- 
 ship. It so happened that, in the age before the 
 foreign conquests of Rome were made, certain Roman 
 families had, through the merits of their members, 
 frequently furnished the curuie magistrates. When 
 
CH. X.J RICH GLASSES 181 
 
 the curule magistracies became the sole gateway that 
 gave access to the excitements and profits of pro- 
 vincial governorships, the families which had already 
 attained to curule dignities desired that the gate 
 should be barred against all others; and, as the 
 assemblies which elected the magistrates were now 
 very badly constituted and were amenable to the 
 influence of the rich, the old families generally 
 succeeded in blocking the way against intruders. 
 The curule families (for so they were called) con- 
 sisted partly of patricians and partly of plebeians. 
 There was now no distinction worth noticing between 
 a patrician and a plebeian curule family; but the 
 curule families, patrician and plebeian alike, formed 
 a new and a close body of hereditary nobles. If any 
 man outside the ring of curule families tried to break 
 into their circle by competing for a curule magis- 
 tracy, they spoke of him as novus homo, an upstart, 
 and were generally able to secure that he should be 
 rejected by the votes of the centuries. The marked 
 instances of novi hoTnines who broke through in 
 spite of their opposition were Cato the Elder and 
 Cicero. There were also some few other besides ; but 
 in the main the curule families succeeded in main- 
 taining their position as a close caste of hereditary 
 nobles. 
 
 The second rich class among the Romans consisted 
 of the capitalists, other than those who had been 
 elected as curule or non-curule magis- jhe 
 trates. These capitalists, as we have seen, capitalists, 
 were called equites. They were not generally ex- 
 
182 ROME : CITY AND EMPIRE [CH. x. 
 
 pected to perform actual military duties as horsemen, 
 because the allies or client states furnished enough 
 cavalry to meet the requirements of the army ; but, 
 when the citizens elected curule magistrates, the 
 capitalists voted in the eighteen equestrian centuries. 
 The class of rich men who were not magistrates had 
 grown in numbers through circumstances connected 
 with the provinces. When the Komans in the third 
 century before the Christian era acquired Sardinia 
 and Sicily, their first possessions outside the limits of 
 Italy, they found a system of tax-gathering by means 
 of middlemen or contractors already established in 
 those islands. They very naturally allowed that 
 system to continue where it was already in working 
 order, and they afterwards introduced it into their 
 later conquests. As soon as a newly acquired region 
 was made into a province, the senate settled what 
 taxes should be levied from it, and they then sold 
 the produce of the taxes to a syndicate of rich men, 
 who paid a fixed sum to the treasury of the Roman 
 state, and made as much money as they could out of 
 the taxes which they and their slaves collected from 
 the province. The syndicates of tax-collectors, called 
 publicani, were under a strong temptation to exact 
 more than the authorised amount of the taxes; 
 and if they yielded to the temptation they could 
 usually do it with impunity. There were only two 
 means of controlling them: the govern'or of the 
 province could interfere, or the publicani could be 
 prosecuted before a court of justice at Rome. The 
 governor of the province usually winked at the 
 
CH. X.] POOR CLASSES 183 
 
 doings of the tax-farmers, because he had more 
 sympathy with them than pity for the taxpayers ; 
 and the courts of justice at Rome could not, after 
 122 B.C., be trusted to treat a rapacious sjmdicate of 
 tax-farmers with due severity. In the year that has 
 just been named, the tribune Caius Gracchus got a 
 law passed which changed the composition of the law- 
 courts which dealt with charges of exaction in the 
 provinces. His law ordained that the judges in these 
 courts should no longer be drawn from the senators 
 but from the equites. From the passing of this law 
 the equites or capitalists obtained such a recognition 
 as a corporate class, that they bore the name of 
 equester ordo, the order of the knights. The gover- 
 nors of provinces were no longer shielded by judges 
 drawn from the curule families to which they them- 
 selves belonged ; but as long as the governor and the 
 tax-farmers in a province shared profits so as to 
 satisfy both, they were usually secure against con- 
 demnation in a Eoman law-court. 
 
 The poor classes of Roman citizens were the rabble 
 of the city, and the small farmers around it. A poor 
 and idle class was compelled to settle in The poor in 
 the city against its will. The invasion of *-^^ •^'*y- 
 Hannibal drove the yeomen off their farms; some 
 of them took service in the legions, some migrated 
 within the walls. The immigrants into the city, 
 having lost their farms, had no means of support, 
 and the magistrates had to save them from starving. 
 Some of the provinces, especially Sicily and Africa, 
 had a large surplus production of corn. The magis- 
 
184 ROME : CITY AND EMPIRE [ch. x. 
 
 trates ordered this corn to be brought to Rome and 
 
 sold it at rates far below cost price. At the same 
 
 time, finding that the rabble of paupers was a 
 
 dangerous element in the city, they set to work to 
 
 arause them with magnificent gladiatorial spectacles. 
 
 The corn doles and the festivals speedily demoralised 
 
 the poor residents in Rome, and there was no hope 
 
 of their recovering their old virtues unless they could 
 
 be re-established in the country as yeomen farmers. 
 
 The class of yeomen was by no means extinct. 
 
 Some of them had gone back to their rustic labours 
 
 after the defeat of Hannibal; but two 
 The yeomen. 
 
 causes were at work to prevent them 
 from recovering their old condition of substantial 
 prosperity. One cause was the corn doles, which 
 artificially lowered the price of grain. It was no 
 longer a paying business to grow wheat for sale, and 
 a farmer had no inducement to produce it except 
 for consumption in his household. Yet, however, he 
 might have gained a profit on the production of wine 
 and oil but for the other cause of his impoverish- 
 ment. One form of wealth imported in great 
 quantities from the provinces consisted in slaves. 
 They were not usually hunted down in the provinces 
 themselves, but it was in the provinces that they 
 were brought to market. The rich classes among the 
 Romans had Avide estates of land in Italy ; they tilled 
 them with slave labour. The labour of slaves was 
 cheaper than free labour, because a slave could be 
 worked to death and his place was easily filled with 
 a new slave ; and so the large owners of land could 
 
CH. X.] GOVERNMENT 185 
 
 undersell the small yeoman in every market. Lati- 
 fundia perdidere Italiam. 
 
 The organs of government in the Eoman state 
 were, on the one side, the senate, and on the other 
 the plebeian assemblies with their tri- Thegovem- 
 bunes. The curule magistrates during '"^"'' 
 their year of ofSce in Rome do not count, because 
 they were controlled by the senate. 
 
 The senate consisted entirely of men who had 
 been elected to a curule or non-curule magistracy. 
 All the senators were rich men, and the 
 senate acted steadily in support of the 
 established order, or, in other words, for the main- 
 tenance of private property as it stood, so that they 
 practically defended the rich in the enjoyment of 
 what they had got. Many of the senators had been 
 tribunes, and as tribunes had acted in opposition to 
 the interests of the rich ; but when they were estab- 
 lished in the senate they fell in with the ideas of the 
 curule senators. 
 
 The plebeian assemblies were no longer like the 
 old concilia plebis. Thirty-one votes, it is true, 
 belonged to the country voters, and only plebeian 
 four to the urban rabble. But the yeomen assemblies, 
 attended irregularly; they were untrained as poli- 
 ticians, and it seems from the votes that they gave 
 that the few of them who came to the meetings must 
 have been influenced by contact with the proletariate 
 of the city The leaders of the plebeians were the 
 ten tribunes, but the assembly of the tribes, as now 
 constituted, was but a broken reed for a man to lean 
 
186 ROME : CITY AND EMPIRE [CH. x. 
 
 upon, and the tribunes were always personally un- 
 lucky in the attacks that they made against the 
 authority of the senate and the property of the rich. 
 The attack might succeed, but its author perished. 
 
 The whole of the classes distinguishable in the 
 Eoman world were seven in number : four were those 
 Classes ^^*'° which the citizens were divided, and 
 without the three outside the citizenship were the 
 Latins, the Italians, and the provincials. 
 All these three classes outside the citizenship, and 
 also the Roman farmers, were sacrificed to secure 
 unfair advantages for the three classes who lived in 
 the city of Rome — the curule families, the equestrian 
 order, and the mob. The extreme injustice of social 
 and economic arrangements within Italy arose entirely 
 from an economic source outside of Italy, namely, the 
 wealth of the provinces which poured towards Rome ; 
 and the injustice could never be removed unless that 
 source was stopped up. Attempts were made to 
 remedy economic inequalities within Italy by legisla- 
 tion ; but they suffered the ordinary fate of legislative 
 interferences with economy because they did not 
 strike at the root of the evil, the transference of the 
 wealth produced by the provincials to Roman owner- 
 ship. The two Gracchi in 133 B.c. and 123 B.C. made 
 the only two serious attempts of the kind, by enabling 
 the Roman state to acquire land in Italy and to plant 
 Roman citizens upon it as yeomen farmers ; but the 
 attempts had little permanent result, because the 
 new farmers were soon tempted to sell their plots 
 of ground to rich neighbours, and Italy was again 
 
CH. x.J PROFESSIONAL SOLDIERS 187 
 
 covered almost exclusively with great estates worked 
 by slave labour. 
 
 Soon after the year 108 B.C., which we took as the 
 standpoint for our survey, a new class arose in the 
 population of Italy. Marius founded a professional 
 standing army of professional soldiers, so'i^'ers. 
 The influence of this new class upon the fortunes of 
 Italy was the same as was exercised in England by 
 the warriors whom Edward the Third and Henry the 
 Fifth collected into an army for the invasions of 
 France. They could not be always employed in 
 foreign conquest. They were ready to do anything 
 at the bidding of the leaders under whom they had 
 served, and when they returned from foreign service 
 they waged civil wars in Italy. The first war of the 
 kind was begun by the Italian allies of Kome to 
 obtain redress of their heavy grievances and admis- 
 sion to Koman citizenship. The war lasted from 
 91 B.C. to 88 B.C. The allies obtained the citizenship, 
 which improved their status while serving in the 
 army or suing in a law-court, but did them little 
 good in any political sense, because they could not be 
 present to vote in the plebeian assemblies at Kome. 
 The second civil war began as soon as the first was 
 ended, and lasted for six years. The armies engaged 
 in it were no more fighting for different political 
 aims or principles than the armies that fought for 
 York or Lancaster. The wars arose because rival 
 armies and rival leaders were there, and gain was to 
 be got out of victory. Sulla, who came out the 
 conqueror, used his victory with some judgment, after 
 
188 ROME [CH. X. 
 
 he had slaughtered the citizens who had favoured his 
 rivals. He could not bring about a happy distribu- 
 tion of property, but he set up a constitution which 
 prevented for a time the endless and useless squabbles 
 between the senate and the tribunes. He admitted 
 a larger number of the lesser magistrates to the 
 senate, and, as it would be hard for the curule 
 families to influence all the elections of these numer- 
 ous lesser magistrates, he probably enabled the people 
 to place men who were really acceptable to it among 
 the ranks of the senators ; at the same time he took 
 away from the tribunes most of the powers which 
 they had often misused. 
 
 The proconsuls had been the earliest and the most 
 active of the oppressors of provincials. But it was 
 . ^ . possible that a proconsul instead of being 
 
 A champion c c o 
 
 of the the spoliator of his subjects should be 
 
 provinces. tjigjj. j^g^ ^mj f^j-m ruler, the protector of 
 the weak, the terror of wrong-doers, and that his 
 provincials in gratitude for his mercy and goodness 
 should flock to his standard and provide him with 
 an army that could overpower the whole forces 
 controlled by the Roman senate and all the legions 
 commanded by the proconsuls in the other provinces. 
 It did not seem likely that a member of a curule 
 family should engage in such an unusual course of 
 action, or that he should gain the reward of it. 
 Csesar did both. 
 
 Caius Julius Csesar was appointed in 59 b.c. to be 
 proconsul of Cisalpine Gaul for five years. His 
 appointment was irregular, for it was made not 
 
CH. X.] C^SAR 189 
 
 by decree of the senate but by a resolution pro- 
 posed by a tribune in a plebeian assembly. Soon 
 after his appointment to Cisalpine Gaul he 
 was also given the proconsulship in Gaul ^^^"' 
 beyond the Alps, of which country the Eomans then 
 possessed only a small part about the region now 
 called Provence. In ten campaigns Csesar conquered 
 Gaul to the Bay of Biscay, to the British Channel, 
 and the Rhine. His army of Gallic provincials was 
 devoted to him, and when in 49 b.c. he had reason to 
 complain of the treatment that he received from the 
 senate, he crossed the river Rubicon at the head of 
 his army and marched in open rebellion into Italy. 
 The whole peninsula submitted with little resistance. 
 Csesar then with his army made a circuit of the 
 provinces around the Mediterranean Sea, to put down 
 the resistance of the Roman generals who were 
 opposed to him. In three years and a half of hard- 
 fought campaigning, Spain, Thessaly, Egypt, Africa, 
 were in turn compelled into obedience, and in May, 
 46 B.C., Csesar was able to enter Rome as master of 
 the whole empire. 
 
 The victory of Csesar was won with the aid of an 
 army of provincials, and it immediately altered the 
 status of the provinces in the Roman „ 
 
 ^ _ Conspiracy 
 
 world. Hitherto the provinces had been of the curuie 
 at the mercy of rapacious factions of '^*^'^' 
 Roman citizens which strove with one another which 
 should have the largest share of the wealth produced 
 by the labour of the provincials: henceforth the 
 Romans and the provincials were alike subject to 
 
190 ROMAN EMPIRE [ch. x. 
 
 the will of a single master who paid due regard to 
 the interests of both, and was therefore especially the 
 protector of the provincials, who had hitherto been 
 the oppressed class. But the curule families did not 
 acquiesce in being deprived of the power, which they 
 had long misused, without an effort to recover it, and 
 for a time they made it doubtful whether the empire 
 would continue to enjoy the advantages which Caesar's 
 victory had won. 
 
 Caesar did not disguise the fact that he was absolute 
 ruler of the empire. He took the title of Dictator, 
 Murder of ^^^ regarded himself as successor of the 
 Caesar. ancient kings. A conspiracy was formed 
 by members of the curule families, and Caesar was 
 murdered at a meeting of the senate in less than two 
 years after he had attained supreme power. 
 
 The partj' of the murderers could not maintain 
 themselves in power. They gained the aid of some 
 The of the soldiery, but most of the legions 
 
 avengers, ^ere eager to avenge their beloved Caesar. 
 At the end of the strife of the contending armies 
 it was found that the control of affairs rested with 
 the generals of the Caesarean legions. An agreement 
 was made between these generals by which Octavi- 
 anus, great-nephew of Caesar, became ruler of the 
 West, and Marcus Antonius of the East. The power 
 of these two confederates was subject to no consti- 
 tutional limits or forms, because it rested simply on 
 their own agreement. 
 
 After Octavianus had conquered Marcus Antonius 
 at Actium in 31 B.C., he thought it wise to make a 
 
CH. X.] AUGUSTUS 191 
 
 pretence that he was a constitutional ruler set up 
 according to old republican traditions. From the 
 year 27 B.C., when he took the title of 
 Augustus, his rule was a singular mixture "^"^ 
 of real absolutism with pretended limitations. The 
 pretences to which he condescended were judiciously 
 conceived, and were probably suggested by the con- 
 sideration that if he reigned as an undisguisedly 
 absolute monarch he might meet with the fate of 
 his predecessor. 
 
 Augustus held the powers of all the great magis- 
 tracies, but was appointed to each of them separately 
 and for a term of years. The greatest of veiled 
 these powers were the tribunician, the autocracy, 
 consular, and the proconsular. The tribunes had 
 been protectors of the citizens, and the tribunicia 
 potestas gave Augustus authority to govern citizens 
 in matters that were not military ; the consulare 
 imferiwrn gave him civil and military command in 
 Rome and Italy; and the proconsulare imperiuon 
 made him governor of the provinces and commander 
 of their legions. The proconsular imperium was 
 offered to him in all the twenty- two provinces, but 
 it chanced that in twelve provinces there was no 
 likelihood of war, and no large armies quartered; 
 these twelve peaceful provinces he left to the senate, 
 while he assumed the proconsular imperium only in 
 the provinces of the frontier. The senatorial provinces 
 were ruled by proconsuls appointed by the senate 
 after consultation of the wishes of the emperor , the 
 imperial provinces by deputies of Augustus, who bore 
 
192 ROMAN EMPIRE [cH. x. 
 
 the title of legati. Augustus discharged the various 
 duties of a sovereign nominally in virtue of the 
 powers of the magistracies conferred on him in 
 republican fashion, but really through the might 
 that he wielded as commander of the legions. In 
 like manner he pretended to govern in accordance 
 with the opinion of the senate, though in truth the 
 senators were ready to express any opinion that 
 would be pleasing to their wise and considerate 
 master. 
 
 On the death of Augustus in a.d. 14< his stepson 
 Tiberius gave up the practice of being elected 
 ^^^ separately to the magistracies. He took 
 
 successors of all powers of sovereignty at once, and 
 ugus us. permanently : his successors followed his 
 example. Thus the separate powers which had 
 belonged to the magistracies became indistinguish- 
 able, and all were merged in the single supreme 
 office of Princess. The whole government was 
 vested in the hands of one man, and the force of the 
 army kept it there. 
 
 Yet the successors of Augustus for nearly two 
 hundred and seventy years, till the accession of 
 Pretended Diocletian, kept up the pretence of foUow- 
 deferenceto ing the advice of the senate. Under 
 Augustus it rose to the dignity of a pious 
 fraud ; under his successors it turned the lives of 
 senators into a sordid farce, often ending in violent 
 death. The senators under the Claudian dynasty 
 were worthy successors of the old curule nobles. 
 They had the desire to misgovern, but not the 
 
CH. X.] DISGUISED AUTOCEACY 193 
 
 opportunity. The old curule nobles were remarkable 
 for their arrogance: the senators under the empire 
 adopted the kindred vice of crawling servility. The 
 old curule nobles murdered Csesar: the senators 
 might wish to murder Tiberius, but they did not 
 dare. There was one thing they did not fear to do : 
 they were ready to accuse one another of treason. 
 Poetical justice was done to the order of senators 
 in the judicial murders that followed their mutual 
 accusations, though the individual men were inno- 
 cent of the crimes for which they died. The senators 
 as a whole were so corrupt that no fate was too hard 
 for them; but the accusers were worse than the 
 accused. Tiberius and other emperors must have 
 known that the senate could not give honest advice, 
 and yet they let it survive and pretended to respect 
 its opinion. It is hard to account for their policy in 
 this respect, except on the supposition that they 
 desired to keep the wealthy citizens amused lest 
 they should turn to regicide, and also wished to 
 implicate some important body of citizens in responsi- 
 bihty for their public actions. 
 
 For about a hundred years after the establishment 
 of the monarchy in the person of Tiberius there is 
 very little visible growth of institutions PrEetorian 
 calculated to give regular aid to the cohorts, 
 emperor in doing his work. The only change which 
 led to any institution of the sort was of a military 
 character. In the reign of Tiberius the bodyguard 
 of the emperor, known as praetorian cohorts, a force 
 about ten thousand strong, which had hitherto 
 
194 ROMAN EMPIRE [ch. x. 
 
 been scattered about Rome in small barracks, were 
 collected into a single camp just outside the north- 
 east corner of tbe Servian wall, which was still the 
 only fortification of the city. After their concentra- 
 tion in their camp their commander, the proBfectus 
 prcetorio, acquired new importance, and the holder 
 of the ofi&ce was naturally one of the emperor's chief 
 confidential servants and advisers. 
 
 Before the death of Tiberius, the monarchical govern- 
 ment had been established in a form which was varied 
 afterwards only by extremely gradual pro- 
 was neces- cesses, and very slowly. It was obviously 
 ^^^" not a good government, according to the 
 
 standards of modern times. But a heterogeneous 
 empire cannot have a good government such as a nation 
 generally obtains. An empire, composed of unlike 
 materials, of jarring nationalities, must put up with a 
 very indifferent government, because it has to be held 
 together by brute force, unless it is to undergo the 
 agonies of dissolution by means of long wars between 
 its parts. Among the indifferent forms of government 
 which are possible for a heterogeneous empire.it is clear 
 from the teaching of history that some extremely cen- 
 tralised and absolute government is the least bad ; and 
 in the Roman empire the only possible form of absolute 
 government was an unlimited monarchy. Many of the 
 emperors, like Nero, were blood-stained oppressors in 
 the capital; but even Nero was popular in the provinces, 
 and long after his death the eastern part of the empire 
 cherished a hope that he had survived, and would 
 come back to rule, with Jerusalem for his capital.^ 
 
 ' Merivale, History of the Romans, ch. Iv., end. 
 
CH. X.] THE SUCCESSION 195 
 
 The one difficulty which seemed insuperable in the 
 Koman empire was how to find a method of regulat- 
 ing the succession. The difficulty has not 
 
 , r> 1, ■ ,1 1 , . Succession. 
 
 been lelt m other heterogeneous empires, 
 as the Spanish empire in America, or the British 
 empire in India. In those empires the nation which 
 founded them by conquest retained its predominance, 
 and the succession in the dominant nation settled 
 the succession in the empire. In the Roman empire 
 there was not any nation nor even any nationality 
 in a position so dominant that it could settle the 
 succession. Those provinces which were most 'often 
 exposed to war, and were the best recruiting grounds, 
 furnished the largest contributions to the strength 
 of the army ; but there were many of the provinces 
 which provided great hosts of soldiers, and there was 
 no means of settling that one of them had more 
 claim than the rest to settle what man should be the 
 ruler. 
 
 Tiberius, no doubt, hoped that the succession might 
 remain in his own family by hereditary descent. But 
 hereditary succession can never furnish „ 
 
 •^ . Not heredi- 
 
 perpetually a series of men equal to the tary for long 
 terrible task which was imposed on a ^' ^ *""^" 
 Roman emperor. The emperor had really to rule by 
 his own will, with scarcely a single official adviser to 
 help him ; the exaltation of the position drove a weak 
 man like Caligula to madness, and no family ever goes 
 on for long without having a weak man as its head. 
 The Claudian house, to which Tiberius belonged, 
 furnished four occupants of the throne ; "Nero, the 
 
196 ROMAN EMPIRE [ch. x. 
 
 last of the four, became intolerable to the Romans, 
 
 and it was necessary to have recourse to some method 
 
 of election. 
 But there was no single recognised elective body ; 
 
 on the contrary, there were many bodies which 
 
 might put forward specious claims to be 
 
 claims of the electors. These competing claimants 
 
 elective -weve the senate, the prsetorian cohorts, and 
 
 bodies. ^ . . 
 
 each of the great armies stationed along 
 the frontier. When in the year 68 a.d. there was a 
 general desire in Rome to get rid of Nero, so many 
 of the bodies which have been mentioned proceeded 
 to election, that within two years six pretenders to 
 the empire had been chosen. Two soon lapsed into 
 obscurity; Galba, Otho, Vitellius paid the penalty 
 of their daring with their lives; and Vespasian 
 successfully fought his way to permanent occupa- 
 tion of the throne. The Flavian house, to which he 
 belonged, furnished as emperors after him his two 
 sons Titus and Domitian. 
 
 Soon after the death of Domitian, in 96 a.d., a 
 method of providing successors was devised which 
 
 avoided both the weakness inherent in a 
 
 Adoption. , , . ., 
 
 hereditary system and the civil wars at- 
 tendant on election. The successor of Domitian was 
 Nerva, elected by the senate, and therefore disliked 
 by the prsetorian cohorts. To strengthen his tottering 
 throne, Nerva adopted Trajan as his son and successor. 
 It happened, fortunately for the empire, that Trajan 
 and two emperors after him had no son, and the 
 office of sovereign ruler was four times running 
 
CH. X.] THE SUCCESSION 197 
 
 filled by a process of adoption. The four adoptive 
 emperors — Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and 
 Marcus Aurelius — were all virtuous and capable men, 
 and the period of their reigns, from 98 a.d. to 180 a.d., 
 was the happiest in the annals of the empire. But 
 it was the weakness of the system of adoption that 
 it was not likely to control the succession, unless 
 every emperor died without leaving a son behind 
 him. The conscientious philosopher Marcus Aurelius, 
 unhappily for mankind, was father of Commodus, 
 the monster who for thirteen years polluted the 
 imperial throne. 
 
 After the death of Commodus, in 193 A.D., elections 
 of rival pretenders by different provincial armies 
 again raised conflicts about the succes- 
 sion which could only be ended by the between 
 arbitrament of battle. The successful ^'^^ ^° ^'^^' 
 competitor on this occasion was Septimius Severus, 
 who founded a dynasty which lasted through three 
 generations. After its extinction, in 235 a.d., till 
 284 A.D., the imperial dignity was usually conferred 
 by the armies upon soldiers, and often upon soldiers 
 who had begun service in the army as Legionaries 
 or private soldiers. The reigns of the Legionary 
 Emperors were usually short; the soldiers became 
 tired of their commanders, and put them to death ; 
 and during the period from 235 to 284 the horrors of 
 wars to settle the claims of rival pretenders reached 
 their climax. 
 
 The year 284 a.d. is marked by the accession of the 
 statesman Diocletian. He tried to avoid the troubles 
 
198 EOMAN EMPIEE [ch. x. 
 
 arising from the disputed successions by a new 
 method ; but before we observe what it was, we must 
 turn back to see what new institutions had arisen in 
 the empire. It is indeed impossible to ascertain how 
 much importance they had acquired before the time 
 of Diocletian, because we have very little information 
 about them ; but yet it is necessary to note that some 
 changes in the administrative system had been intro- 
 duced since the monarchical rule had been established 
 in the empire. 
 
 Under the earlier emperors, the immediate suc- 
 cessors of Tiberius, all the great administrative offices 
 
 were of a military character ; the men who 
 In the early „,, , ^ , , . , . , , 
 
 empire all niied them, the highest placed among the 
 
 officials were servants of the sovereign, who received 
 
 military. _ _ ° 
 
 their orders direct from the emperor him- 
 self, were military officers in command of armies or 
 brigades, though they were rulers over the civilian 
 population in addition to being commanders of the 
 soldiers. In the imperial provinces, where the 
 emperor himself held the proconsulare impermm, 
 the governors were legati, the lieutenants of the 
 emperor ; in the twelve senatorial provinces they were 
 proconsules or consulares, men appointed by the 
 senate subject to the emperor's approval. In Italy 
 there were commanders of military garrisons scattered 
 through the country.^ In Rome the chief admini- 
 strators were the prefect of the praetorian cohorts, 
 and the three prefects set over the city of Rome, over 
 its police (vigiles), and over its corn market. All 
 ' Suetonius, Tiberius, 37. 
 
CH. X.] COUNCIL 199 
 
 these were military officers, and the spheres of their 
 administrative competence embraced the whole area 
 of the empire. 
 
 The emperors needed confidential advisers, and it 
 was hard to find them. They were not inclined to 
 give great influence to military com- n rth f 
 manders by admitting them to their secret confidential 
 counsels; to attach weight to opinions 
 expressed in the senate would be childish folly. 
 Augustus, indeed, was not afraid to trust his son-in- 
 law, the soldier and statesman Agrippa; but his 
 successors were less confiding in men of military 
 training. Tiberius chose Sejanus, of equestrian family 
 and civilian education ; Claudius relied on his emanci- 
 pated Greek slaves Narcissus and Pallas ; Nero for a 
 time followed the advice of two Romans, Burrhus 
 and Seneca, but after five years shook himself free 
 from restraint. 
 
 In the interval between the death of Nero and 
 the accession of Hadrian, some emperor, probably 
 Vespasian, established a council of con- ^^^ council 
 fidential advisers. Hadrian, on succeeding of the 
 to the throne in 118 A.D., found a council ^™p^'''"'' 
 consisting of coTnici and comites, of a few knights 
 and a few senators. It was Hadrian who gave the 
 council its permanent importance by adding juris- 
 consults to its numbers. The jurisconsults whom he 
 introduced had already served in the office of praetor, 
 the highest in the legal profession ; after their pro- 
 motion to be councillors no authority except the 
 emperor's coimcil was permitted to make any change 
 
200 DIOCLETIAN [ch. x. 
 
 in the Edictum Perpetuum, the authorised code of 
 the Civil Law. From the time of Septimius Severus 
 onwards the councillors received regular salaries. 
 The stipend of a Gonsiliarius was fixed at 100,000 
 sesterces, containing nearly the same amount of gold 
 or silver as a thousand pounds sterling in our present 
 coinage ; asswmpti in consilium received only three- 
 fifths of the salary of a Gonsiliarius. At the same 
 period 300,000 sesterces was the salary of a Procurator 
 of a province.^ It seems, then, that the stipends of 
 the councillors were fixed somewhat low; but the 
 institution of the council was of great importance 
 because it enabled men of civilian training to rise to 
 high office in the service of the emperor.^ Civilian 
 training rose in the public estimation, and when 
 Cams in 282 a.d. was elected to the imperial dignity, 
 we are informed that he had passed through the 
 grades of civil as well as military distinction.^ 
 
 Diocletian and Constantino the Great were the 
 founders of a new monarchy no less truly than 
 Diocletian Augustus himself. They transformed the 
 ^"^ imperial dignity from a military office to 
 
 Constantine . . . 
 
 the Great. a regularised despotism resting on public 
 284-337 A.D. veneration for the emperor. Diocletian 
 changed the personal position of the master of the 
 empire; Constantine provided him with a staff' of 
 servants fit to perform the work of administration. 
 When Diocletian became emperor the empire was 
 
 ' Dion Cassius, liii. 15. 
 
 2 On the council of tlie emperor see E. Cuq in Mimoires de 
 Vlnslitut (Inscriptions), vol. ix. 
 ' Vopisous, Oarus, 6, 4. 
 
OH. X.] AND CONSTANTINE 201 
 
 oppressed by the constantly recurring diflSculties of 
 settling the succession, and of protecting the frontiers 
 against the barbarians. The usual electors of em- 
 perors had for ages been either the praetorian cohorts 
 or one of the armies stationed in the provinces; 
 more recently, on the murder of Aurelian in 275, 
 the decrepit and servile senate had been permitted 
 to raise Tacitus to the throne. Diocletian destroyed 
 the influence of the senate by removing the imperial 
 court from Rome to Milan and to Nicomedia. He 
 disbanded the insolent and indolent prsetorians, and 
 employed for bodyguards two faithful legions re- 
 cruited in his native country, Illyrium. He could 
 not provide against the possibility that an army in 
 the provinces might proclaim a new emperor, nor 
 could he ensure for ever that the barbarians should 
 not cross the frontiers; but he took precautions 
 against both dangers at once by his division of the 
 empire into four parts, and by his rules for regulating 
 the succession. Two parts of the empire, having their 
 centres in Italy and on the Propontis, were least 
 open to barbarian attack; each of these was to be 
 ruled by an Augustus. Diocletian himself from 
 Nicomedia ruled over Thrace, Egypt, and Asia ; 
 Italy and Africa were allotted to the other Aug- 
 ustus, Maximian, whose court was at Milan. Each 
 empire of an Augustus had adjacent to it another 
 quarter of the whole Roman dominions more exposed 
 to attack. For its defence it was the duty of the 
 Augustus to appoint a younger man with the title 
 of Csesar. Diocletian chose Galerius to reign at 
 
202 CONSTANTINE [ch. x. 
 
 Sirmium over the lUyrian provinces ; Maximian 
 
 appointed Constantius Chlorus to rule at Treves 
 
 over Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Each Augustus 
 
 adopted the Caesar whom he had appointed as his 
 
 son, and on the death of the Augustus the Caesar 
 
 had a right to the succession. 
 
 The two Augusti in their courts at Nicomedia 
 
 and Milan assumed a ceremony and state unknown 
 
 Seclusion to their predecessors. To wear a diadem, 
 
 ^""^ a white fillet set with pearls and encir- 
 
 magnincence 
 
 of the clmg the head, had been thought the 
 
 Augusti. most desperate act of mad Caligula. The 
 wise Diocletian returned from policy to the diadem, 
 renounced the toga, wore robes of silk and gold 
 imitated from Persia, and not a soul murmured; 
 indignation was roused by one practice only — the 
 use of shoes studded with gems instead of the 
 ordinary buskin. The Augustus became almost as 
 inaccessible in his sacred seclusion as an oriental 
 despot; and the fortunate subject who was admitted 
 to the divine majesty was required to fall flat on his 
 face in adoration.^ 
 
 Diocletian's attempt to guard against wars of 
 succession was a complete failure, because it was 
 Constantine impossible to prevent armies in the pro- 
 the Great. vinccs from investing their commanders 
 with the purple. Two years after Diocletian abdi- 
 cated, wars broke out between competing pretenders ; 
 at one time there were six emperors in the field, and 
 their wars lasted eighteen years. The final winner 
 
 ' Gibbon, chapter xiii. 
 
CH. X.] CIVIL SERVICE 203 
 
 was Constantine, son of Constantius CJblorus. He 
 won the western seat of empire in 312 by the battle 
 of Saxa Rubra, and by his entry into Rome over 
 the Milvian Bridge; and in 323 he won the east 
 by the battle of Hadrianople and the siege of 
 Byzantium. 
 
 Constantine founded a new capital on the Bos- 
 porus, and thereby gave the eastern empire a 
 stronghold which helped it to survive 
 the western empire by nearly a thousand ^f ^lyn ^^^ 
 years. He made Christianity the religion miutary 
 of the state, and thereby gained the aid 
 of the bishops in holding up the tottering empire. 
 In the eyes, however, of students of politics the 
 greatest of his achievements was the severance of 
 civil from military functions of government, and 
 their assignment to a separate body of officials. 
 
 When the remodelling of the government was 
 completed, the men employed by Constantine as 
 his implements were divided into the Three 
 three classes of the civil service, the services, 
 household, and the army. The civil servants dis- 
 tributed justice, collected taxes, and promulgated 
 the emperor's commands to the population; the 
 household officers attended to the splendour and 
 security of the court, and aided the emperor to 
 compose his laws and ordinances; the army de- 
 fended the frontiers, and in case of need compelled 
 the population of the empire to obey the civil 
 servants, who formed the link of communication 
 between the emperor and the mass of his subjects. 
 
204 CONSTANTINE [CH. X. 
 
 The chiefs of the civil service were six praetorian 
 prefects ; next under them came thirteen vicarii ; 
 The civU below them a hundred and sixteen rulers 
 service. q£ single provinces. The whole Roman 
 dominions were divided into six prefectures, each 
 committed to the care of a praetorian prefect. Two 
 prefectures corresponded with the empires of Dio- 
 cletian's Csesares ; two more consisted of the cities of 
 Rome and Constantinople; the two that remained 
 comprised the empires of Diocletian's Augusti, with 
 the exception of the capitals. Before the changes 
 made by Constantine there had been only two praeto- 
 rian prefects, endowed both with military command 
 and the power of civil administration. Constantine 
 deprived them of all military authority, and converted 
 them into judges of appeal in their prefectures.^ The 
 vicarii were subordinate to the prefects, and pre- 
 sided over smaller districts known as dioeceses ; the 
 whole empire outside the capitals made only four 
 prefectures but contained thirteen dioeceses. The 
 prefecture which was once the empire of Constantius 
 Chlorus had only one prefect sitting as judge of 
 appeal at Treves; but it had three vicarii for its 
 dioeceses of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. The business 
 of the vicarii most frequently mentioned in the 
 despatches of the emperors is the collection of taxes ; 
 but they must have had other duties too.^ The 
 hundred and sixteen rulers of provinces had com- 
 paratively narrow areas of government. The pro- 
 
 1 Zosimus, ii. 32, 33. 
 
 ^ Oodex Theodosianus, xl., in titulo De annona. 
 
OH. X.] ARMY 205 
 
 vinces when Octavian took the title of Augustus were 
 only twenty-two; since then provinces had been 
 subdivided till their number rose to a hundred and 
 sixteen. Their rulers bore varying titles: three in 
 Africa, Asia, and Achaia still bore the old name of 
 proconsul; the rest were consulares, correctores, or 
 prcesides. Whatever their title, all were equally 
 subject to their vicarius and their prefect.^ 
 
 Seven ministers in the imperial household managed 
 the court and aided the emperor in his own work. 
 The chamberlain, the counts of the privy The 
 purse and of the horse-guards and foot- ^lousehoid. 
 guards have titles which explain themselves. The 
 Count of the Sacred Largesses was treasurer of the 
 public revenue. He also was master of the mints 
 and controlled the managers of the factories of 
 weavers, dyers, and seamstresses who in distant pro- 
 vinces laboured for the adornment of the court and its 
 inmates. The Master of the Offices ruled over the 
 armourers and arsenals. The Quaestor was the drafts- 
 man of the emperor's laws and despatches. The 
 ministers, however, of the household all depended for 
 their relative importance less on the performance of 
 their regular functions than on the degree in which 
 they enjoyed their master's confidence. 
 
 The military commanders were eight Magistri 
 Militura, four with local commands, four retained at 
 
 ^ Our authority for the civil service and the other branches of 
 Constantine's system is the Notitia Dignitatum. The part relating 
 to Britain was composed not before 370 A.D., because it mentions 
 the province of Valentia, then first made ; the whole must have been 
 drawn up before 406 A.D., when the Romans lost nearly all Gaul. 
 
206 CONSTANTINE [ch. x. 
 
 court. Below them were eight counts in command 
 
 of large and important districts : lesser districts 
 
 were commanded by dukes, whose number 
 
 The army. i • n f t • 
 
 amounted m ail to twenty-iive. it is 
 certain that the number of men serving in the army 
 was greatly increased by Diocletian, and possible that 
 the forces were further enlarged in the reign of 
 Constantine. 
 
 After the changes made by Constantine wars 
 between pretenders became less frequent. The electors 
 The empire ^^ pretenders had in the old time been 
 after Con- the prsetorian cohorts, the senate, or a 
 
 stantine. . . , -nt .i j • 
 
 provmcial army. JNow the prsetorian co- 
 horts were extinct, the senate was disregarded, and 
 no provincial army dared to set up a pretender except 
 in distant Britain, the island fertile of usurpers.^ On 
 the death of Jovian in 364 A.D., the ministers of the 
 household, the chief civil servants, and military com- 
 manders formed an assembly well qualified to select 
 a candidate for the empire. The soldiers allowed the 
 great men to deliberate solemnly and at leisure, and 
 when Valentinian was announced as their nominee 
 they ratified his election with enthusiasm. In the 
 provinces, other than Britain, the civil servants were 
 an effective restraint on the ambition of generals. A 
 prefect or a vicarius could not be himself a pretender 
 because he had no soldiers, and if he saw treasonable 
 designs in a military commander it was to his interest 
 to give warning to the emperor. 
 
 The whole work of government under the emperor 
 
 ' Fertilis tyraniiorum insula. 
 
CH. X.] CIVIL SERVICE 207 
 
 was done by the civil service. In the civil service 
 subordination was as rigid as in an army : it must be 
 so in every well-ordered hierarchy of civil po^er of the 
 servants. The prefects gave orders to civil service, 
 the vicarii, the vicarii to the rulers of provinces, the 
 rulers of provinces to lesser officers, and the least 
 officer in the civil service to the non-official popula- 
 tion, high and low alike. The same subordination 
 and transmission of commands appears in every well- 
 ordered civil service. It is present in our own country 
 at the present day ; but with us, if any citizen is 
 aggrieved at the action of a civil servant he can 
 appeal to a law-court independent of the administra- 
 tion, or make his grievance known to the public 
 through Parliament : a Roman subject could only 
 complain to some higher grade in the administrative 
 machine. 
 
 Throughout the civil service commands were usu- 
 ally transmitted in writing, and every considerable 
 officer was supplied with a staff of scriv- 
 
 Bureaucracy. 
 
 eners. The commands of the government 
 when they reached the non-official population were 
 issued to them from a bureau, and if any of them 
 caused hardship there was no power that could alter 
 them except some higher bureau in the service. 
 Since, then, the government was characterised by the 
 supremacy of quill-drivers working in bureaux, it is 
 one of those governments which often bear the 
 clumsy name of bureaucracy. The government was 
 usually careful and just ; but the whole of Constan- 
 tine's methods were expensive. The pressure of taxa- 
 
208 HETEROGENEOUS EMPIRES [CH. x. 
 
 tion eventually became intolerable. The government, 
 despairing of gathering in the whole amount itself, 
 threw the burden of collection on the curiales, the 
 most substantial burghers in the municipal towns, 
 and made them responsible in their own pockets for 
 any deficit. Their condition became so miserable 
 that a law had to be passed restraining them from 
 escaping their responsibility by selling themselves 
 into slavery. The civil servants were active and 
 ubiquitous, but their activity had the effect of killing 
 the capacity for initiating improvements in the whole 
 non-official population. 
 
 The Roman empire was purely an artificial product. 
 It did not subsist long enough to be fashioned into 
 
 a single natural community by the opera- 
 ous empires tion of natural instincts, and its forms of 
 
 government were assigned to it not by 
 nature, but by the skill and design of its rulers. The 
 same propositions are true of all other well-known 
 heterogeneous empires that have existed hitherto. 
 Hence if we compare heterogeneous empires and 
 compare their governments we shall not discover 
 uniformities arising from natural causes, for there 
 are none to find. At the most we can only discover 
 rules of art criticism, which may enable us to discern 
 which designers of imperial governments did their 
 work well and which did it badly. Art criticism in 
 the world of politics is dull work, and I intend here 
 to compress into a brief space nearly all that I wish 
 to say about heterogeneous empires and their 
 governments. 
 
CH. X.] ARTIFICIAL 209 
 
 The Koman empire shows us that there is no 
 uniform type of government for a heterogeneous 
 empire. From its beginning early in the ^j^^j^. 
 second century e.g. till the dictatorship of governments 
 
 /-N I • • T 1 very variable. 
 
 (Jsesar, each proyincial governor was nearly 
 independent. From Csesar to Diocletian the pro- 
 vincial rulers united military and civil functions, but 
 were kept in due obedience to the emperor unless 
 they felt themselves strong enough to supplant him. 
 From Constantino onward the government was 
 entrusted to civilians kept in subordination to the 
 sovereign and the law. Other governments of empires 
 have been most diverse. Charlemagne's government 
 will be depicted in the next chapter. The govern- 
 ment of the Spaniards in South America resembled 
 the government in the Roman empire before Csesar 
 in leaving the provincial rulers nearly independent. 
 The provinces of the French empire under the 
 Directory were converted into vassal republics, under 
 Napoleon into vassal principalities. Our own empire 
 in India has had many governments devised for it. 
 At the present time both the British possessions in 
 India and the Russian empire are governed under 
 an omnipotent civil service supported by a powerful 
 army. It does not seem probable that a hetero- 
 geneous empire, an artificial product, can ever have 
 a government working so thoroughly in accordance 
 with the desires of the population as the governments 
 which spring up in more naturally formed com- 
 munities. The most that can be looked for in the 
 government of such an empire is that it shall be 
 
 o 
 
210 AND VARIOUSLY GOVERNED [ch. x. 
 
 stable, strong, and paternally benevolent ; and these 
 qualities have been found only in the governments 
 of the Roman empire after Constantino, the Russian 
 empire, and the British empire in India. All three 
 governments have been fashioned, so it seems, inde- 
 pendently and without imitation ; but they are alike 
 in their structure, and both the modern governments 
 conform to the pattern which Constantine invented. 
 
 Note. — The political bodies, which I have called Heterogeneous 
 Empires, are distinguished by Sir John Seeley in his Introduction 
 to Political Science (pages 72-76) as inorganic political bodies. I 
 have preferred to designate them as heterogeneous, because it is 
 always easy to see whether a political body is composed of unlike 
 materials, but it is sometimes difficult to see whether it is organic 
 or inorganic. We may, moreover, doubt whether any political 
 body is inorganic, in the sense of being totally devoid of organs. 
 The Roman empire has as good a claim to be called inorganic as 
 almost any other political body ; but, in whatever way we define 
 the word organ, it is hard to deny that in the Eoman empire, the 
 Senate, the Prastorian Cohorts, and the armies in the Provinces 
 were organs, when they took upon them the power of electing 
 emperors. 
 
CHAPTEK XI 
 
 MIXED POPULATIONS 
 
 One of the greatest breaks that has ever interrupted 
 the continuity of the history of Europe occurred in 
 the fifth and sixth centuries, when a number of 
 German tribal communities overran Gaul, Spain, and 
 Italy. In the history of political communities the 
 migrations of the Germans into the western provinces 
 of the Roman empire are especially momentous. 
 They destroyed the only important political organi- 
 sation in the western world, and they made the three 
 most civilised countries of the west incapable for 
 centuries of giving birth to any coherent and united 
 communities. In those three countries, Gaul, Spain, 
 and Italy, during seven centuries that elapsed 
 between the beginning of the migrations and the 
 year 1100, there were states indeed or masses of 
 population under independent governments, but none 
 of them were united political communities except 
 three little bands of exiles who took refuge in 
 secluded valleys of the Pyrenean range and the 
 mountains of Cantabria and Asturia. All the other 
 independent states were not communities, because 
 they were made up of populations which had very 
 
212 MIXED POPULATIONS [oh. xi. 
 
 little in common, and they therefore lacked that 
 quality of coherence which is an essential attribute 
 of a political community. 
 
 The large states which grew up in Gaul, Spain, 
 and Italy between the years 400 and 1100 were 
 Mixed incoherent because they were made up of 
 
 populations, heterogeneous and incongruous materials. 
 We have already taken notice in the last chapter of 
 a state composed of heterogeneous materials. It was 
 there remarked that the Roman dominions when 
 first conquered constituted a heterogeneous empire, 
 because each of the countries comprised in them 
 had a distinctive character impressed upon it by 
 ages of past history, and all the countries were dis- 
 similar in character to each other and to Rome. 
 Dissimilarity of populations in different countries 
 ruled by one government was the kind of hetero- 
 geneity which it was important to notice in the 
 Roman empire. This kind of heterogeneity was to 
 be found in some of the states which existed in Gaul, 
 Spain, and Italy in the early Middle Ages: it is 
 conspicuous in the empire of Charlemagne, which 
 took in all Gaul, half of Italy, and a corner of Spain. 
 But in most of the states which arose in western 
 Europe soon after the migrations there was another 
 kind of heterogeneity which we have not yet had 
 occasion to notice. It is well exemplified in the 
 kingdom of the Ostrogoths founded by Theodoric in 
 Italy. In this kingdom the territory of northern 
 Italy had to accommodate two very dissimilar popu- 
 lations whose individual members were scattered 
 
CH. XI.] INCONGEUOUS ELEMENTS 213 
 
 broadcast over the soil in confusion which cannot be 
 described. The Italians, who formed the population 
 of the country before the Ostrogoths immigrated into 
 it, remained where they were ; but one-third of each 
 man's estate of land was transferred to the ownership 
 of one of the Ostrogothic conquerors.^ In every part 
 of Gaul and Spain nearly the same conditions pre- 
 vailed as soon as the migrations of the Germans 
 had taken place ; and thus mixture and confusion of 
 unlike populations inhabiting a common territory 
 was the kind of heterogeneity which prevailed uni- 
 versally in all the states founded in the early Middle 
 Ages in the western countries of the European 
 continent. 
 
 The presence of two unlike populations in the 
 same territory was not an entirely novel phenomenon, 
 occurring for the first time in the history incongruous 
 of mankind when the Germans invaded elements, 
 western Europe. In periods that are almost entirely 
 prehistoric we meet frequently with a bare mention 
 of a migration of some barbarous people ; and it is 
 likely that many of the migratory peoples on settling 
 in new abodes did not expel the old inhabitants. 
 We know that in the prehistoric migration of the 
 Spartans they did not expel the Periseki and Helots, 
 but lived surrounded by them. There are also in- 
 stances of mixtures of unlike populations well 
 recorded in ancient historians. A great number of 
 
 ' Gibbon, ch. xxxix. The thirds of the estates had perhaps been 
 taken away from the Italians by Odovacar and given to his soldiers. 
 If so, they were now taken from Odovacar's soldiers and given to 
 Ostrogoths. — Gibbon, Bury's edition, vol. iv. p. 181, note. 
 
214 MIXED POPULATIONS [ch. xi. 
 
 Greek-speaking emigrants followed in the wake of 
 Alexander's conquests and gave a mixed population 
 to Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. The Germans, then, 
 when they gave a mixed population to western 
 Europe did nothing entirely unprecedented ; and yet 
 the mixture of unlike populations which followed 
 from their migrations was more important in history 
 than any other. It extended over a very large area; 
 it caused the disruption of the older half of that 
 wonderful Koman empire which the world had been 
 wont to revere ; and it was fatal to the existence of 
 the young and hopeful tribal communities of the 
 invading Germans. Besides this, the populations 
 which it joined together in an ill-assorted marriage 
 were more grotesquely incongruous than any others 
 that have been joined in such a union. The subject 
 peoples, the Eoman provincials, were the most civil- 
 ised peoples in the world : the rulers, the Germans, 
 were ignorant barbarians. It is not, then, a matter 
 for surprise that the migrations of the Germans pro- 
 duced effects in western Europe which have already 
 been felt for fifteen centuries, and may probably be 
 felt for as many centuries hereafter. 
 
 The fact which distinguishes the conquests of the 
 Germans from most other conquests is that they 
 Old ties broke up the political organisation both 
 broken. of the victors and the vanquished. Con- 
 quests and migrations have not always been thus 
 doubly destructive. The conquests of the Spartan 
 immigrants into Laconia destroyed only the com- 
 monwealths of the subjugated Helots and Periaeki, 
 
CH. XL] AMORPHOUS STATES 215 
 
 but left the Spartan community stronger and more 
 coherent than ever. The immigrations of Danes 
 and Normans into England, although the immigrant 
 kings Cnut and William conquered the whole of the 
 English people, did not destroy the English institu- 
 tions; and though they made the population of 
 England less united than it had been, they did not 
 altogether deprive it of coherence. The migrations 
 of the Germans into Gaul, Spain, and Italy not only 
 destroyed such coherence as the old inhabitants had 
 acquired under the rule of the Romans, but also 
 shattered into fragments the tribal communities of 
 the victorious Germans. 
 
 The largfe political bodies which grew up in Gaul, 
 Spain, and Italy between 400 and 1100 were not only 
 lacking in the quality of coherence, but Amorphous 
 none of them, except perhaps the empire states. 
 of Charlemagne, had any definite and recognisable 
 structure. As compared with the tribes and cities 
 which were noticed in my first nine chapters, they 
 were amorphous bodies. In the tribal communities 
 and simple cities with definite structure we were 
 able to observe that each kind of structure had a 
 definite form of its organ of government which 
 seemed to have been allotted to it by nature. In 
 the political bodies with mixed populations which 
 existed in the Dark Ages I cannot discover any 
 definite structure, and it does not seem that there 
 was any rule which determined that any one of them 
 should have its organ of government fashioned in one 
 way rather than another. The absence of definite 
 
216 MIXED POPULATIONS [ch. xi. 
 
 structure in these political bodies, and the absence of 
 any uniformity in their organs of government, will 
 become visible if we pass them before us in a rapid 
 review. 
 
 In Spain before the migration of the Germans the 
 population consisted of Iberians and Celts who had 
 been accustomed for centuries to live as 
 provincials of the Roman empire. Over 
 this population surged in the Germans : they came in 
 successive waves of Vandals, Alans, Suevi, and Visi- 
 goths. The Vandals, however, in 429 left Spain and 
 betook themselves to Africa. About forty years later 
 the Visigothic king Euric overpowered his rivals in 
 the peninsula. From this time forth till 710 Visi- 
 goths were kings of Spain, residing at Toledo. Their 
 subjects were for the most part Romanised Iberians 
 with some admixture of Visigoths, Alans, and Suevi. 
 We do not know much about their government, but 
 from the frequent recurrence of conspiracies, deposi- 
 tions of kings, and exaltations of usurpers, it seems 
 likely that they lived under the free but disorderly 
 tribal institutions which they had brought with them 
 from Germany, although they were living in circum- 
 stances for which those institutions were ill suited. 
 
 In Italy the first German immigrants were the 
 
 Ostrogoths, who effected their settlement in the 
 
 Italy: Country under their king Theodoric in 
 
 Ostrogoths. 493. Theodoric did not attempt to bring 
 
 about a fusion but rather a federation between his 
 
 Gothic and Italian subjects.^ He kept the Roman 
 
 ' Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. Hi. p. 277 in edition of 1885. 
 
CH. XL] SPAIN: ITALY 217 
 
 system of administration. At the head of the central 
 government was a Praetorian Prefect; the local 
 administration of provinces in Italy was entrusted 
 to Correctores, as it had been under the Emperors.^ 
 But for the settlement of suits between Goths there 
 was a Comes Oothorum, who was no doubt always 
 a barbarian, and judged between Goths according 
 to the customary Gothic law.^ Theodoric himself 
 reigned with the omnipotence and pomp of a Roman 
 emperor, and all his government was conducted 
 according to Eoman rather than Gothic methods. 
 
 Theodoric died in 52€. Soon after his death dis- 
 cords appeared in the Italian peninsula. Between 534 
 and 555 it was conquered by Belisarius it^iy: 
 and Narses, acting on behalf of the Byzan- Lombards, 
 tine empire. The Byzantines ruled Italy for twelve 
 years : in 561 nearly all their acquisitions were taken 
 from them by new German immigrants, the Lom- 
 bards, who were led into the peninsula by Alboin. 
 The Lombards founded a kingdom with its capital 
 at Pavia, and four outlying duchies at Benevento, 
 Spoleto, Friuli, and Trient. These Lombard states 
 were not so entirely incoherent as those which arose 
 in Gaul and Spain : perhaps their small size helped 
 them. In the eighth century it looked as if some of 
 the duchies might in time grow into united political 
 communities, if they were left undisturbed for a few 
 centuries."* The wealth, however, of Italy and the 
 
 ' Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vol. iii. pp. 301, 313. 
 2 Ihid. vol. iii. p. 281. 
 
 ' Ibid. Vols. V. and vi. tell what is known of the Lombards in 
 Italy. 
 
218 MIXED POPULATIONS [ch. xi. 
 
 name of Rome attracted new invaders into the pen- 
 insula. The Lombard kingdom and three of the 
 duchies were brought under the alien rule of Charles 
 the Great ; and Benevento, the one Lombard settle- 
 ment which remained independent of the Austrasian 
 conqueror, was incorporated in the eleventh century 
 in the dominions of the Norman settlers in southern 
 Italy. 
 
 In Gaul the inhabitants, before the migration, were 
 Celts who had been subject for about four centuries 
 
 and a half to the rule of Rome, had lived 
 Gaul. . . . 
 
 under Roman administration, had adopted 
 
 the Roman tongue, and been converted to the 
 Catholic religion. After the migration these Roman- 
 ised Celts still constituted the main mass of the 
 population; they were a uniform and deep sub- 
 stratum, over which a thin layer of German immi- 
 grants was spread. The German newcomers were 
 of three different races, and they occupied districts 
 geographically distinct from one another. The 
 Burgundians spread themselves over the valleys of 
 the Saone and Rhone, from Dijon in the north and 
 Geneva in the east, to Avignon in the south. The 
 Visigoths settled in the region between the Loire 
 and the Pyrenees; the Salian Franks covered all 
 northern Gaul from the Scheldt to the Bay of Biscay, 
 with the exception of Armorica or Bretagne, and had 
 for their southern limit the river Loire and the high 
 ground to the north of Dijon, which forms the water- 
 shed between the Seine and the Saone. In the 
 country occupied by the Salian Franks the upper 
 
CH. XI.] GAUL 219 
 
 layer of Germans in the population was probably not 
 nearly so thin as it was in the lands of the Burgun- 
 dians and the Visigoths. By the year 534, about a 
 century and a quarter after the great migrations 
 into Gaul began, the princes of the Salian dynasty 
 founded by Clovis had received the submission of 
 both the German races who had settled in the 
 south-east and south-west of Gaul, and also of the 
 Kipuarian Franks who had not joined in the migra- 
 tion but had remained in their old home on the 
 banks of the Khine. During the sixth century there 
 were usually three kingdoms entirely situate within 
 the limits of Gaul, and ruled by Salian princes ; there 
 was also a fourth kingdom ruled by descendants of 
 Clovis, which had for its kernel the purely German 
 population of the Eipuarian Franks, but also in- 
 cluded some territory in Gaul with a mixed popula- 
 tion. The complete incoherence of the states ruled 
 by the Salian Franks in Gaul is shown by the 
 incessant shiftings of the boundaries of their ter- 
 ritories. The princes of the Salian dynasty carved 
 up the soil into portions by agreement exactly as 
 they pleased, and a series of political maps of Gaul 
 in the sixth century is as bewildering as a succession 
 of images seen in a kaleidoscope. In each of the 
 partitions of territory a population which had been 
 under a single ruler was divided into parts under 
 different rulers ; but it never thought of remon- 
 strating, because it had no coherence and no desire 
 to have a government of its own. In the seventh 
 century all the kingdoms in Gaul lapsed by inherit- 
 
220 MIXED POPULATIONS [cii. xi. 
 
 ance to a single Salian ruler, and they accepted their 
 
 union with the same indifference as the partitions. 
 
 It is plain, then, that the mixed populations which 
 
 inhabited Spain, Italy, and Gaul after the migrations 
 
 , . . , were for a time incapable of forming 
 Incipient '■ . . _ ° 
 
 fusion of themselves into coherent political bodies. 
 
 races. -g^^ ^^ process of time a mixed population 
 
 gives birth to a homogeneous population, if only the 
 two races which make up the mixture will inter- 
 marry. In Gaul and Italy the Germans and the 
 Romans did intermarry, and eventually in each 
 district instead of a mixed population there was a 
 fused and homogeneous single race. The process 
 of fusion was probably not completed in any district 
 of either of these countries till about the year 1100, 
 when it had been going on for seven centuries. But 
 even so early as the end of the sixth century we 
 can see that the union of Germans and Romans 
 through intermarriage was beginning. In northern 
 Gaul there was arising a race born of Frankish and 
 Roman parents whose descendants would in future 
 generations be known as Frenchmen; the valleys 
 of the Saone and Rhone were providing progenitors 
 for a united race who were to be known as Burgun- 
 dians; the south-west was laying the foundations 
 of a future race of Aquitanians; and in Italy 
 marriages of Germans with Romans promised to 
 coming ages some of the homogeneous races which 
 have since then peopled the northern part of the 
 peninsula. 
 
 But the formation of homogeneous races by inter- 
 
CH. XI.J INCIPIENT FUSION 221 
 
 marriage had made very little progress in the sixth 
 and seventh centuries. It had, however, begun, and 
 it would probably have led to the forma- „ . 
 tion of many coherent political communi- tion and new 
 ties sooner than it did, but for one circum- "^""i"^^ ■ 
 stance. The formation of a homogeneous race, even 
 when the process is completed, does not lead to the 
 making of a coherent political community, unless 
 the race is left undisturbed. In Spain, Gaul, and 
 Italy the growing races, long before they had attained 
 to homogeneity, were hindered from making any 
 steps towards founding compact political communi- 
 ties either by new migrations, which made a new 
 mixture of populations, or by the action of conquest, 
 which joined many growing races in unnatural union 
 under a common government. The new conquerors 
 were, in Spain, the Moors ; elsewhere the Austrasian 
 Franks under the Pippins and Charlemagne. It seems 
 that the Austrasian conquests arrested and delayed 
 healthy growth wherever they went. The Moorish 
 conquests had the same result in all the area over 
 which they extended ; but in the north of Spain they 
 had the beneficent though accidental result of pro- 
 viding the land with an unmixed population. 
 
 The effects produced by a new migration and new 
 conquests, after the sixth century, have now to be 
 noticed. We shall observe these effects in Spain, 
 Gaul, and Italy, at various periods between the sixth 
 and the eleventh centuries. 
 
 Spain was deluged between 710 and 713 with a 
 new flood of immigrants. These new settlers came by 
 
222 MIXED POPULATIONS [CH. xi. 
 
 way of Africa ; some were Arabs from Arabia, divided 
 into many tribes and into two or more religious 
 and political factions, which cordially de- 
 tested one another ; the rest were Berbers 
 (or Moors) from Africa. The immigrants then suffered 
 from discords and divisions ; but all of them were 
 Mohammedans, all were greedy of winning the wealth 
 of a European country, and they were strong enough 
 to overpower with ease the motley multitude of 
 Visigoths, Suevi, Alans, and Komans, who were subject 
 to Koderic, king of Spain. The whole country except 
 some few mountainous regions was rich. All over 
 the rich part of the country the Mohammedans 
 settled together with the Christians; the moun- 
 tainous regions did not greatly attract them. They 
 treated the conquered Spaniards among whom 
 they settled with extraordinary toleration. Those 
 Spaniards who were willing to accept the Koran were 
 placed on an equal footing in regard to civil rights 
 with the conquerors; those who adhered to the 
 Christian religion retained not only their personal 
 liberty and private property, but their churches, their 
 bishops, their priests, and full freedom for their 
 religious services and worship : in return for these 
 favours they were merely required to pay a special 
 tribute in addition to the taxes levied on the Moham- 
 medans.i In every large town which the conquerors 
 occupied there was probably a Christian congregation. 
 In Toledo, in the first half of the thirteenth century, 
 when Koderic, the archbishop of that city, wrote his 
 ' Lembke, OescMchte von Spanien, p. 310. 
 
CH. xi.J SPAIN 223 
 
 history, there were six churches which kept to the 
 old ritual of St. Isidore and St. Ildefonso. This ritual 
 belonged to the time before the Moors came to Spain, 
 and the six churches had probably continued to exist 
 through all the centuries of Mohammedan domina- 
 tion.^ But, on the other hand, it seems likely that a 
 majority of the Spaniards accepted the Koran in 
 order to escape the payment of the tribute; there 
 were constant rebellions of Mohammedans against 
 the Mohammedan emir, king, or caliph who reigned 
 at Cordova, and many of them were led by men who 
 had originally professed the Christian religion, but 
 had now renounced it for the religion of Mohammed. 
 The mixed population of Moors and Spaniards in 
 the plains and cities was obviously incapable for ages 
 of producing any coherent political com- „ . 
 munity. But the Moorish conquerors had refugees in 
 neglected some of the mountains. Such *"""■ 
 masses of rocks in the middle of Spain as the Sierra 
 Morena or the Guadarrama could not be the home 
 of an independent people, because they were sur- 
 rounded by flat and rich country in which the 
 Moorish armies moved freely. But the mountainous 
 regions at the foot of the Pyrennees and in Cantabria 
 and Asturia by the shore of the Bay of Biscay, could 
 be attacked by a land force only from the south, 
 and even from the south the approaches were very 
 difficult. In these inaccessible mountain-sides three 
 
 ' I have read of the six churches in Roderic's history, but cannot 
 now find the passage again. In Granada in the ninth century 
 there were four churches. Dozy, Mussulmans d'Espagne, vol. ii. 
 p. 209. 
 
224 CHEISTIANS IN SPAIN [ch. xi. 
 
 little bands of exiles, who would not submit to be 
 ruled by Moors, found a safe but most inhospitable 
 refuge. We do not know who these men were ; 
 certainly there were Visigoths among them, for they 
 afterwards called themselves the Goths ; and it seems 
 likely that most of them were of German rather than 
 Iberian origin. The Germans in Spain had been the 
 masters, and were likely to be too proud to endure 
 the rule of Asiatics or Africans; the Iberians had 
 been inured to centuries of subjection under Komans 
 or Germans, and they would probably submit readily 
 to the tolerant and easy-going Mussulmans. The 
 one thing certain is that the exiles immediately set 
 up rulers over themselves, and grew into political 
 communities, with populations held together by a 
 common purpose of uncompromising resistance to 
 the Moors. There was one band of exiles in each of 
 the regions afterwards known as Navarre, Cantabria, 
 and Asturia. They had no towns, and all their 
 pursuits were military, predatory, or pastoral. They 
 were then tribal communities no less truly than the 
 peoples of the Saxons and Angles when first they 
 arrived in Britain. In other respects too they were 
 like the earliest Teutonic settlers in our island. They 
 lived in a country much cut off by nature from inter- 
 course with Europe ; they lived on the edge of the 
 country close to the seaj and when they made 
 conquests further inland they drove the Moors 
 before them and refused to mix with them. As 
 the Spanish refugees were like the English colonists 
 in Britain in tribal condition, in the site of their 
 
CH. XI.] AUSTEASIAN FRANKS 225 
 
 dwellings, and their relation to the neighbouring 
 territory and its inhabitants, it is not surprising 
 that in the Middle Ages there was a strong resem- 
 blance between the Castilian Cortes and the English 
 Parliament. 
 
 Gaul in the seventh century, and Italy in the 
 eighth, offered an easy prey to any new conqueror 
 with a compact body of men behind. The 
 only compact and united communities Austrasian 
 on the continent were those tribes in ^'^^'^s- 
 Germany which had taken no part in the migrations, 
 and had therefore retained an unmixed German 
 population. Of these tribes, the strongest and most 
 enterprising was the Frankish people of the Eipuarians 
 or Austrasians ; and so it came about that a Ripuarian 
 Frank became master of central Europe. 
 
 In the sixth century the Ripuarian Franks, as we 
 have already noticed, were ruled by kings of the 
 Salian house of Clovis. Some of these kings, as 
 Theudebert, Clothachar the First, and his son Sige- 
 bert, were able rulers and warriors, and during their 
 reigns the Ripuarian Franks attained to a sort of 
 hegemony over some peoples in the interior of 
 Germany, as the Thuringians and Bavarians. The 
 realm of the Ripuarian Franks became so powerful 
 that it was an equal rival to all the lands that the 
 Salian Franks had acquired in Gaul, and hence it 
 naturally acquired the distinctive name of Austrasia, 
 the Ost-land or Eastern land. The Austrasians were 
 content to be ruled by the Salian princes till 675, when 
 they were deprived of their able king Sigebert by a 
 
226 AUSTRASIAN FRANKS [ch. xi. 
 
 brutal murder perpetrated at Vitry, near Arras, in 
 Gaul.i Even after his death his heroic widow, the 
 Spanish princess Brunhildis, retained authority over 
 them during the boyhood of her young son. That 
 son grew to manhood, but died young in 596. Brun- 
 hildis again became regent, but before long the 
 Austrasians grew tired of being ruled by foreigners. 
 At the head of the household of the Salian king in 
 Austrasia was an officer called Mayor of the Palace. 
 The Mayor was naturally a native-born Austrasian, 
 and he was supported by the nobles, who were called 
 leudes. The princes of the Salian house continued 
 to bear the name of king, but by the year 660 all 
 power had passed from them, and the Mayor with his 
 leudes were the true rulers of the Austrasian people. 
 The nature of their government is not precisely 
 known; but evidently it was a tribal government 
 conducted by the Mayor and an irregular council of 
 nobles, and was not very different from that which 
 prevailed at the same time in the English tribes of 
 the Mercians or the Northumbrians. 
 
 The Austrasian Franks were a large but fairly 
 compact people, living on both banks of the Rhine 
 from the borders of the Netherlands as far upwards 
 as Mainz, and also filling most of the country between 
 the Rhine and the Meuse. It seems that in the early 
 part of the seventh century they devoted most of 
 their attention to their Gallic neighbours on the west. 
 At the end of that century their hegemony over the 
 peoples in the interior of Germany no longer existed 
 
 ' Greg. Turon., Hist. Franc, iv. 36. 
 
CH. XI. J RAPID CONQUESTS 227 
 
 in any recognised form. The Thuringians successfully 
 asserted their independence in 641 ; ^ the Frisians, 
 near the Zuyder Zee, and the Suabians in the Black 
 Forest, were not reduced to submission till some time 
 between 687 and 714;^ and the Bavarians not till 
 about 720.^ But though the Austrasians had no 
 regular superiority over the peoples of inner Germany 
 in the seventh century, it is certain that individual 
 tribesmen from Thuringia, Suabia, or Bavaria were 
 quite ready to follow their standards whenever there 
 was a prospect of plunder. 
 
 The Austrasian Franks in the seventh and eight 
 centuries made more extensive conquests than have 
 elsewhere in European history been made i^apid 
 by so small a people in so short a time, conquests. 
 In 687, at the great battle of Testry (between St. 
 Quentin and Amiens), they conquered all Gaul. In 
 the years from 687 to 730 they overpowered many 
 German peoples to the north and east of their own 
 territory — the Frisians, Suabians, Bavarians, Thur- 
 ingians. In 732, at Poitiers, they repelled the terrible 
 inroad of the Spanish Moors. Between 754 and 803 
 they conquered Saxony (which lay between the 
 Thuringians and the German Ocean), the northern 
 half of Italy, and the extreme eastern corner of 
 Spain now known as Catalonia. When these con- 
 quests were completed, Charlemagne, the ruler of the 
 
 ' Fredegar, book iv. ch. 87, in M. O. H. Script. Merov., vol. ii. 
 p. 164. 
 
 ^ Fredegar, continuation, ih. p. 172; and Lib. Hist. Franc, ib. 
 pp. 323, 324. 
 
 3 Oman, The Dark Ages, p. 270. 
 
228 CHARLEMAGNE [ch. xi. 
 
 Austrasian Franks, was master of central Europe from 
 the German Ocean to Rome, and from the mouth of 
 the Elbe to the mouth of the Ebro. 
 
 As the conquests of the Austrasian Tranks were 
 effected with a suddenness and rapidity unparallelled 
 Transient ^^ European history, so their empire was 
 empire. conspicuously dsvoid of any natural tend- 
 
 ency to cohere together. It was not much like any 
 of the other states which have existed in Europe ; it 
 was in its origin and character more like some of the 
 Asiatic empires, and might be compared with the 
 empire of the Seljukian Turks founded by Togrul 
 Beg, Alp Arslan, and Malek Shah, or the Mogul 
 empire founded by Baber, Humayun, and Akbar. It 
 was composed of most dissimilar materials; its 
 organisation was ill adapted for holding it together ; 
 and it was only saved from falling in pieces im- 
 mediately by the great ability and strong character of 
 its rulers — Pippin of Heristal, the victor of Testry; 
 Carl Martel, the hero of Poitiers ; Pippin the Short, 
 king of the Franks in 762 ; and the Emperor Charle- 
 magne. We will now observe how this empire was 
 governed. 
 
 In the year 800 Charlemagne revived in name, but 
 
 not in efficient power, the Western Roman Empire. 
 
 On Christmas Day in that year he was 
 
 Charlemagne. j 13 t. t> r 
 
 crowned as Roman emperor by rope Leo 
 the Third in the Basilica of St. Peter at Rome, 
 and thenceforth regarded himself as a legitimate 
 successor of Constantine and Theodosius. His in- 
 auguration fulfilled all the conditions that were ever 
 
CH. xi.J CHARLEMAGNE 229 
 
 required to validate the accession to power of a 
 Roman emperor; he was acclaimed by his soldiers, 
 and obeyed by his subjects ; nothing more was needed 
 according to the ideas of the old Romans to make his 
 appointment regular and proper. But he had not 
 the aids, instruments, and machinery for holding his 
 empire together which Constantine and Theodosius 
 had enjoyed in such abundance. In the Roman 
 empire cohorts or legions were stationed as per- 
 manent garrisons throughout the provinces, wherever 
 they were needed, to ensure submission or to repel 
 attacks; the army of Charlemagne only existed 
 during the summer months. The Roman emperors 
 had their Praetorian prefects and magistri militum, 
 and below these whole hosts of officers, both civil and 
 military, in gradations from the highest to the 
 lowest, all submitting to the strictest discipline, all 
 having unquestioned authority over every subject 
 who was not an official. Charlemagne had nothing 
 of the kind ; he had for the rule of his huge dominions 
 only his own innate energy of mind and the tribal 
 institutions under which his forefathers had lived in 
 Austrasia. 
 
 The central government of the empire consisted 
 of Charlemagne himself and of two assemblies in the 
 course of the year which were tribal in charie- 
 character but of overgrown dimensions, magne's 
 
 mi IT Til 1 government. 
 
 ihese assemblies were held at any place 
 to which the emperor summoned them. The com- 
 monest places of meeting were some of his large 
 estates or farms in Austrasia near the Rhine. The 
 
230 DISRUPTION OF EMPIEE [ch. xi. 
 
 meetings, like all tribal assemblies, were held in the 
 .open air, and the great gathering of men was like the 
 encampment of an army. One assembly, held every 
 autumn, consisted only of nobles, and a chief part 
 of its business was to arrange a campaign for the 
 following year ; the other meeting, held in the spring 
 and known as the Camp of May, was attended both 
 by nobles and by all the soldiery, and served as a^ 
 muster of the host before starting on the military 
 enterprise of the year. The local governors all 
 through the empire were nobles. They had large 
 districts to rule, and bore the titles of dukes or 
 counts. The weakest point in the whole government 
 was the want of any sufficient series of officers to 
 serve as a link between the central and the local 
 governments. Charlemagne could not create at once 
 such a gradation of officers for this purpose as the 
 Romans had taken centuries to make: he did the 
 best he could by sending out occasional commissioners 
 from the central government to supervise the work 
 of the local rulers. These commissioners were the 
 Missi Dominici, the Messengers of the Lord Emperor. 
 They usually went in pairs ; bishops were often chosen 
 for the work, and they had ample powers. They 
 presided in local assemblies, looked into all the work 
 of provincial administration, and were authorised, in 
 case of urgent necessity, to supersede any of the 
 counts or dukes and to take his functions into their 
 own hands. 
 
 Soon after the death of Charlemagne in 814 his 
 empire began to break in pieces and his subjects to 
 
CH. XI.] NATURAL COMMUNITIES 231 
 
 sort themselves into groups according to their natural 
 afSnities. Louis the D^bonnaire, son of Charle- 
 magne, was powerless to hold the empire Natural com- 
 united, and his reign from 814 to 840 munities 
 was troubled with constant wars waged by fragments of 
 his sons against one another. In 843, at '•'^ empire, 
 the treaty of Verdun, the empire was divided into 
 three independent parts : one was the main mass of 
 Gaul which we may now call France, another was 
 Germany and Saxony, the third Italy with a strip 
 of Gaul. But the disruption did not stop here. 
 Germany, indeed, held together. Its king, Louis the 
 Germanic, was a grandson of Charlemagne of pure 
 German descent. He was a most capable and useful 
 commander of the Germans in their wars against 
 Slavic barbarians, and he kept the Germans and 
 Saxons for the time a united people. In France and 
 Italy the case was far different. There the kings, 
 being Austrasian Franks descended from Charle- 
 magne, were aliens to their subjects, and as aliens 
 were disliked. The local rulers, called counts or 
 dukes, and other owners of estates of lands, had 
 become Frenchmen in France and Italians in Italy 
 from long living among the populations of the 
 countries as neighbours with neighbours. The peoples 
 in France and Italy cared nothing for their Austrasian 
 kings; the dukes, the counts, the landowners, and 
 any upstarts who had become local magnates, wishing 
 to escape, from rendering service to the kings, rebelled 
 against them and received support from the popula- 
 tions among whom they lived. The local rulers, the 
 
232 SAXON EMPIKE [CH. xi. 
 
 landlords, and adventurers all through France and 
 Italy, became perfectly independent of their kings, 
 and before 950 both countries were broken up into 
 a multitude of independent states generally known 
 as fiefs or feudal principalities. These little princi- 
 palities were formed by the spontaneous action of 
 populations voluntarily submitting to be led by some 
 duke, count, landowner, or adventurer who suited 
 them better than any one else that was ready to 
 hand, and therefore they were far more like political 
 communities than anything else that had been seen 
 in France and Italy since the time of the migrations. 
 Yet one more great series of conquests occurred in 
 the Dark Ages. This time the conquerors were the 
 The Saxon Saxons. We have already noticed that 
 Empire. ^]^g Saxons were conquered (after a most 
 obstinate and gallant resistance), between 754 and 
 803, by Pippin the Short and Charles the Great, and 
 thus became a dependency — and a most vigorous 
 and powerful dependency — of the Austrasian empire. 
 We have also noticed that in 843, when the empire 
 was divided. Saxony and Germany formed the king- 
 dom of Louis the Germanic. That kingdom held 
 together under Louis and his descendants till the 
 year 899. In that year died Arnulf, a worthy scion 
 of the race of Charlemagne and of Louis the Germanic. 
 His young son, Louis the Child, was allowed to 
 succeed him, but died in 911 before attaining to the 
 strength of manhood. During the reign of the Child 
 the kingdom broke up into its five natural divisions, 
 Saxony, Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, Lotharingia. 
 
CH. XI.] DISRUPTION 233 
 
 Among these divisions Saxony was the strongest and 
 the most united, and the Saxons in the tenth century 
 repeated on a smaller scale the exploits of the Ripu- 
 arian Franks in the seventh and eighth. Between 
 918 and 936 Henry the First, Duke of Saxony, remade 
 the kingdom of Germany. His son. Otto the Great, 
 between 936 and 973 brought northern Italy into his 
 dominions and founded (or refounded) the Holy 
 Roman Empire. 
 
 The Saxon empire of Otto and his successors was 
 no less incoherent than the Austrasian empire of 
 Charlemas'ne. The government consisted 
 
 , • ? -. . ■ ,1- Natural 
 
 only m the emperor and his assemblies communities 
 of nobles : the Missi Dominici were not J°"''"^^ "" 
 
 Italy. 
 
 revived. The emperors drew their military 
 forces from Germany. They were not able to convey 
 across the great barrier of the Alps a sufScient supply 
 of German soldiers to control Italy. The Italians 
 had founded a number of towns with homogeneous 
 populations animated, like the Greek towns of old, 
 with an ardent local patriotism; and the Emperor 
 Frederick Barbarossa, after waging many fruitless 
 campaigns from 1154 to 1176, was compelled, in 1183, 
 to acknowledge by treaty that each of the Italian 
 towns was free to govern itself on condition of render- 
 ing some small dues to the emperor when he was 
 present in Italy. At the same time, the attempts of 
 the emperors to be masters of Italy involved them 
 in hostilities with the great rising power of the 
 Papacy, and distracted their attention from their first 
 duty — the maintenance of the unity of Germany. 
 
234 NATURAL COMMUNITIES [ch. xi. 
 
 Many emperors, as Otto the Second and Otto the 
 Third, cared more for Italy than for Germany. 
 Frederick the Second left Germany for Italy in 1220, 
 and, but for two flying visits in 1235-1237, never went 
 back there, though his life and political activity after 
 1220 were prolonged for thirty years. 
 
 The distraction of the attention of the emperors 
 from the affairs of Germany, and the hatred with 
 
 And in which the Popes regarded them, had 
 
 Germany, momentous results. In Germany, as in 
 all large mediaeval kingdoms, great authority was 
 delegated to the local rulers, the dukes and counts, 
 and large estates of land came into their possession? 
 The emperors, if they had known their own interests, 
 would have spent their lives in checking the growth 
 of their power. The Popes thought that every- 
 thing which hurt the emperors was advantageous to 
 the Papacy; and they encouraged the dukes and 
 counts in the attempt to attain independence, and 
 the local rulers prevailed against the emperors. In 
 1250, on the death of the Emperor Frederick the 
 Second, the duchies and counties of Germany ac- 
 quired their independence and became sovereign 
 .fiefs, owing no effective obedience to any one. There 
 is no doubt that the majority of the German fiefs 
 were far more naturally grown political communities 
 than any single kingdom of Germany could have 
 been ; for they remained exempt from subjection to 
 any superior till a new suzerain in Germany was set 
 up in 1866 by the battle of Sadowa. 
 
 And now I have finished the weary task of depict- 
 
CH. XI.] IN ITALY AND GERMANY 235 
 
 ing seven centuries almost entirely occupied in the 
 destruction of political communities. In the next 
 chapters we shall observe those communities which 
 either escaped the destructive force of the migrations 
 and conquests, or grew up young and fresh out of 
 the ruins of those which had been overwhelmed. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SMALL COMMUNITIES IN THE MIDDLE AGES TO 1150 A.D. 
 
 In the chapter just concluded a survey was made of 
 several large political bodies which arose between 
 the fifth and the thirteenth centuries, and we per- 
 ceived that all these large states were made up of 
 unlike materials and did not hold together easily or 
 permanently. In the present chapter I have to 
 enumerate many small political bodies : all of those 
 which I shall notice were made of homogeneous 
 materials, and were naturally formed and fairly 
 coherent communities. 
 
 The earliest in point of time were the tribes of 
 the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes in Britain. These 
 English tribes originated in migrations ; but they 
 tribes. escaped entirely from the disintegration 
 which a migrating people generally has to endure, 
 because they expelled nearly all the older inhabitants 
 of Britain from the parts in which they settled, and 
 therefore were colonists of pure race in territories 
 which they kept for their own accommodation.^ 
 
 ' The Anglo-Saxon language, preserved in its literature, shows 
 clearly that not many Britons lived among the English. The 
 language of the Britons was either Latin or Celtic, or a mixture of 
 Latin and Celtic. The Anglo-Saxon language contains only a 
 moderate number of words of Latin origin, and an infinitesimal pro- 
 
CH. XII.] ANGLO-SAXON TRIBES 237 
 
 They retained their tribal institutions quite pure. 
 Those institutions are extremely important, because 
 they grew almost without a break into the modern 
 English constitution which has been adopted by 
 many of the nations on the continent of Europe ; 
 but it is not necessary to say more about them at 
 present, because they have already been described in 
 my second chapter. 
 
 The communities of Spanish Christians, who about 
 713 took refuge from the Moors in Asturia, Canta- 
 bria, and Navarre, bear a strong resem- The Spanish 
 blance to the tribes in England. Of the Christians, 
 band of exiles who settled in Asturia we have some 
 contemporary records ; they are scanty indeed, but in 
 the main trustworthy ; even the dates that they give 
 from 791 onwards are, beyond a doubt, approximately 
 correct.^ 
 
 portion of Celtic words. The laws of the Anglo-Saxon peoples also 
 indicate that there was little mixture of populations. The Kentish 
 laws make no reference to Britons ; the first enactments about a 
 Wealh (or Briton) are in the laws of the West Saxon King Ine 
 (about 690), who no doubt had Britons subject to him on the borders 
 of Somerset and Devonshire. 
 
 ^ Among the authorities we may notice (1) Sebastian of Sala- 
 manca. Immediately after the accession of Alfonso the Third in 
 866, a chronicle was written under the title Sebastiano Salmanticensi 
 Alphonsus Tertius. As it was addressed to Sebastian, Bishop of 
 Salamanca, it is quoted as Seb. Salm. The most accessible edition 
 is in Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. cxxix. (2) Sampiro, Bishop of 
 Astorga, 1035-1040. His chronicle extending from 866 to 982 is 
 printed in Florez, Espana Sagrada, vol. xiv. pp. 438-472. (3) 
 Pelayo, Bishop of Oviedo, 1098-1143, wrote a chronicle for the 
 years 982-1109. It is printed in Florez, Espa%a Sagrada, vol. xiv. 
 p. 466 sqq. For the date of Pelayo see Florez, xiv. p. 458. (4) 
 Roderic, Archbishop of Toledo, who died 1247. His history is printed 
 in Ber. Hisp. Scripiores aliquot, Frankfurt 1579, and elsewhere. He 
 
238 SMALL COMMUNITIES [ch. xii. 
 
 The first leader of the Christians in Asturia was 
 Pelayo. He sheltered his band of fugitives in the 
 ravines which run down fronfi the range of Mount 
 Auseba, through a very short course, to the Bay of 
 Biscay close at hand ; and from the cave of Cova- 
 donga he won a notable victory over the Moslems. 
 His son-in-law, Alfonso the First, was chieftain of the 
 Christians both in Asturia and in Cantabria. He 
 took many strongholds of the Moors, slew their 
 Moslem garrisons, and led away the Christian in- 
 habitants to swell his wandering bands.^ As the 
 Christians grew stronger they were able to have fixed 
 places of worship ; Fruela, son of Alfonso, built a 
 church at Oviedo. They had, however, no towns, and 
 no fixed residence for the king's household. Their 
 first town was Oviedo, which was supplied with 
 some buildings and inhabitants by Alfonso the 
 Second (surnamed the Chaste), who reigned from 
 791 or 792 to 842 ; he was able to fix the seat ot 
 his government in the town he had made.^ Soon 
 after the reign of Alfonso the Chaste, a few more 
 Christian towns were founded. His successor, next 
 but one, Ordono the First, who reigned 850-866, 
 placed a Christian population in the vacant sites of 
 
 copies the earlier writers till 1109 ; but his dates till the death of 
 Ferdinand the First, which really occurred 1065, are frequently 
 wrong by about thirty years. (5) The Oeschichte von Spaniew by 
 Lembke, Schafer, and Schirrmaker is a useful guide. Dozy, Histoire 
 des Mussulmans d'Espagne, Leyden, 1861, tells of Spain mainly from 
 Arabic writers. 
 
 ' Lembke, p. 326, from iSefi. Salm. 
 
 - Seb. Salm., Migne,vo\. cxxix. col. 1120. 'Iste prius { = primus) 
 solium regni Ovoti firmavit.' 
 
on. XII.] ASTUEIA 239 
 
 Astorga and Leon, which had been taken from the 
 Mussulmans by Alfonso the First.^ After the ac- 
 cession in 866 of Alfonso the Third, and from then 
 onwards till 1037, many sites were occupied by the 
 Christian kings. Among these sites were Zamora 
 and Toro on the river Douro, and Salamanca further 
 south. They lay exposed to the attacks of the 
 Mohammedans, and were occupied as military posts 
 rather than steadily inhabited as towns. It does 
 not seem likely that anything like town life was 
 to be found in the Asturian kingdom before 1037 
 except at Oviedo, Leon, and perhaps Astorga. Leon 
 was thought to be a specially secure abode when 
 Ordofio the First occupied it. The place took its 
 name from a Roman Legion which had been per- 
 manently quartered there, and probably the Roman 
 walls were still standing. By the reign of Ordono the 
 Second, who was king from 914 to 924, the seat ot 
 government had been moved into the old camp of 
 the Roman garrison,^ and from thenceforward the 
 Asturian kingdom was known as the kingdom of 
 Leon. That kingdom continued to be a separate 
 state till 1087 ; its territory in the last part of its 
 separate existence reached from the Sierra Guadar- 
 rama (a little north of Madrid) to Finisterre, the 
 north-western corner of the peninsula. The heart 
 of the country about Leon and Astorga was in 
 general exempt from Moorish invasion ; only once in 
 the reign of Bermudo the Gouty, 982-999, it was 
 
 1 Seb. Scdm., col. 1120-1122. 
 
 ^ Sampiro, in Florez, vol. xiv. p. 44S. 
 
240 SMALL COMMUNITIES [ch. xii. 
 
 ravaged by the Mohammedans.^ Their invasion 
 during his reign was led by an exceptionally able 
 ruler, Almanzor the Vizier. The inroad did not last 
 long. Alfonso the Fifth (999-1027) repeopled the 
 town of Leon, and made its restoration memorable 
 by holding there (seemingly in 1020) a ' council with 
 all his bishops, counts, and rulers, wherein he gave 
 to the kingdom of Leon precepts and laws, which 
 are to be observed until this world shall end.' ^ 
 
 Of the government of the Asturians during the 
 time of their wanderings among the mountains from 
 _ .. , . .. 713 to about 800 we have no records. 
 
 Tribal insti- 
 tutions in They must have lived under some of the 
 Asturia. r r j. i • i, x 
 
 forms 01 government which are proper to 
 tribes: most probably they sometimes adopted one 
 and sometimes another of the three forms possible 
 for such peoples. They had always a king : probably 
 he was sometimes sole commander and ruler, but at 
 other times was aided by a council of nobles, and at 
 others by a folkmoot. When they had a fixed seat 
 of government from about 800 to 914 at Oviedo, and 
 after 914 at Leon, we can just discern some traces of 
 the existence of regular officers and a governing body 
 besides the king. The royal household was controlled 
 
 ' Pelayo, in Florez, vol. xiv. p. 469-470. 
 
 '^ Pelayo, p. 470. ' Tunc prsefatus Rex Adefonsus venit Legionem, 
 celebravitque Concilium ibi cum omnibus Episcopis, Comitibus sive 
 et Potestatibus suis, et repopulavit Logionensem urbem quse fuerat 
 depopulata a prEedioto Rege Agarenorum Almanzor, et dedit Legioni 
 prsecepta et leges quae sunt servandje usque mundus iste finiatur [et 
 sunt seriptse in fine Historiie Regum Gothorum sive et Aragonen- 
 sium].' The words in brackets look like an addition of a late 
 copjjat. What is the history to which they refer ? 
 
CH. xu.] FIEFS 241 
 
 by a Comes Palatii : and in 866 Sampiro mentions a 
 Senatus Ovetensis which put to death a mischievous 
 usurper who tried to take the throne from the young 
 King Alfonso the Third.^ It is probable that from 
 this time there was an established council of nobles, 
 and that the legislative assembly held by Alfonso 
 the Sixth in 1020, which made laws to last to the 
 end of the world, was only an enlarged copy of a 
 smaller council which had met frequently. A small 
 council was obviously useful to the king for the 
 settlement of questions of policy as they arose ; but 
 when a mass of legislation was needed in the nascent 
 state, a larger assembly was more appropriate. 
 
 When we turn to France, Italy, and Germany we 
 find that in those countries, as well as in England 
 and Spain, many small independent com- smau com- 
 munities arose in the Middle Ages, but "nui'tiesin 
 none of them were of tribal character. Germany, 
 No community is a tribe if it has a strong '*^'^" 
 fortified town within its territory. Everywhere in 
 France, Italy, and Germany, before those countries 
 broke into small communities, strong towns were in 
 existence;, and this fact by itself sufficed to ensure 
 that the small communities should not have a tribal 
 character. 
 
 But though the small communities in France, 
 Italy, and Germany were alike in not being tribal, 
 they were not alike in their general character. They 
 must be divided into groups. One group will bear 
 the name of independent _fiefs, which denotes the 
 
 ' Sampiro, in Florez, vol. xiv. p. 438. 
 Q 
 
242 SMALL COMMUNITIES [ch. xii. 
 
 property of a nobleman who has become an inde- 
 pendent prince ; the other will be denoted by the well- 
 defined term city states. France broke up into fiefs 
 about the year 887 A.D. when the Austrasian King 
 Charles the Fat was deposed. Italy was divided 
 into fiefs about the same time; in 951, however, it 
 was reunited into a single kingdom under the Saxon 
 Emperor Otho the Great, and when the kingdom was 
 shattered in pieces a second time by the defeat of 
 Frederick Barbarossa at Legnano in 1176, the most 
 important of the small communities which attained 
 independence were the city states. Germany did 
 not finally shake off the central power of the emperor 
 till the death of Frederick the Second in 1250. The 
 communities of Germans which arose on his death 
 were all of them independent fiefs, but some contained 
 within their territories important towns which in the 
 fourteenth century acquired independence and thus 
 became city states 
 
 The small communities, then, which arose in France, 
 Italy, and Germany are divided into independent 
 
 fiefs and independent cities. No discus- 
 Character- _ '■ 
 
 isticsof sion of the city states need here be 
 
 fiefeforthe* attempted because it can more con- 
 most part veniently be deferred. No general de- 
 scription of the independent fiefs is within 
 my power because the records that have been pre- 
 served are too scanty. I do not know how any one 
 of the fiefs either in France or in Germany was 
 governed when first it arose : nor is it clear that any 
 two French fiefs Or any two German fiefs were like 
 
OS. Sii/] COUNTY 01^ PARIS Uti 
 
 one another so long as they remained independent. 
 Similarities between fiefs arose after the twelfth 
 century in France, and at a later date in Germany, 
 when many fiefs sank into dependence under another 
 fief and were compelled to submit to its laws. At the 
 present moment I am speaking of the fiefs when first 
 they arose to independence, and of those fiefs at that 
 time, for the reasons just alleged, I am compelled to 
 renounce the attempt to give any general description. 
 
 But though the greater number of the independent 
 fiefs in France and Germany were too insignificant to 
 deserve more than a passing notice from The county 
 contemporary chroniclers, some in each o^Paris. 
 country were from their first beginnings placed in 
 a position of pre-eminence, and were therefore better 
 described by mediaeval writers. One independent 
 fief in France, the county of Paris, which grew in the 
 twelfth century into the demesne land of the French 
 king, is of especial importance in mediaeval history, 
 because in the twelfth and thirteenth century it 
 compelled most of the fiefs in Gaul to submit to 
 its authority, and became the most powerful state 
 in continental Europe. The growth, then, of the 
 county of Paris from the ninth century to the twelfth 
 will now engage our attention. 
 
 It was noticed in the last chapter that when the 
 Germans migrated into Gaul the Salian Franks 
 settled in the northern part of the ^ 
 
 '^ Francia. 
 
 country and occupied everything that 
 lies to the north of the river Loire and of the water- 
 shed of the Seine and the Saone except the peninsula 
 
244 SMALL COMMUNITIES [CH. xil. 
 
 of Bretagne, which remained Celtic. In the ninth 
 century the district in which the Salian Franks had 
 settled was distinguished from the rest of Gaul by 
 the name of Francia; it had a distinct population 
 of its own, derived partly from Frankish and partly 
 from Celtic ancestors many generations back. Aqui- 
 tania, reaching from the Loire to the Pyrenees, had 
 also a distinct population descended from Visigoths 
 and Celts. In Burgundia, which took in the whole 
 valleys of the Saone and the Rhone, the population 
 was probably less uniform. To the south of Macon it 
 was derived from intermarriages of Burgundian and 
 Celtic parents ; in the northern part, from Macon to 
 Langres, there was, it would seem, a large infusion of 
 Frankish blood; if it had not been so, it would be 
 surprising that this region acted constantly with 
 Francia rather than with Burgundia. 
 
 When the empire established by Charlemagne was 
 divided into three parts at the treaty of Verdun in 
 Capitulary 843, the portion assigned to Charles the 
 of Kiersy. B^ld included all the part of Gaul which 
 was called Francia, all Aquitania, and that part of 
 Burgundia north of Macon which I suppose to have 
 had a Frankish element in its population. During his 
 reign which lasted till 877, all his dominions, whether 
 they were French or Aquitanian or Burgundian, were 
 dividing themselves into independent fiefs; and in 
 his last year, when he was starting to receive the 
 imperial crown from the Pope, he recognised in the 
 famous capitulary of Kiersy that all appointments 
 to the offices of count or duke, and all grants of lands 
 
CH. XII.] INDEPENDENCE OF FIEFS 245 
 
 from the king, when once made, were irrevocable, and 
 the offices and lands were transmissible from father to 
 son by inheritance. This capitulary assured to the 
 owners of fiefs by legal enactment an independence 
 which they had already enjoyed in practice because 
 the king was too weak to compel their obedience to 
 his commands. 
 
 Thus the reign of Charles the Bald witnessed the 
 division of his kingdom into very numerous indepen- 
 dent fiefs. But the same reign was also dux Fran- 
 marked by the terrible ravages com- corum, 866. 
 mitted by the Norsemen from Scandinavia on Gallic 
 soil. Their devastations on the Loire and Seine were 
 horribly destructive of life and property ; and all the 
 owners of fiefs in Francia and all their subjects were 
 ready to act together in obedience to any capable 
 leader if only they could be saved from the Norse 
 pirates. For the year 866 Kobert the Strong was 
 appointed by Charles the Bald to be dux or captain- 
 general of the men of Francia in their resistance to 
 the Scandinavians. He was generally obeyed by the 
 owners of fiefs, but unhappily he died within the 
 year. Again, from 885 to 887, the Frenchmen 
 gathered themselves under Odo, Count of Paris, 
 son of Robert the Strong, to defend his city. They 
 were successful, and their success restored to Paris 
 that pre-eminence among the cities and fortresses of 
 Gaul which it had enjoyed in the fourth century 
 under the Emperor Julian. Odo was rewarded for 
 his services. The lords of fiefs in Francia, Burgundia, 
 and Aquitania assembled together and elected him 
 
246 SMALL COMMUNITIES [ch. xii. 
 
 king over them all;^ and we learn from the good 
 authority of Richer, the monk of Reims, that between 
 888 and 892 the men who had elected him actually 
 rendered him obedience in regions so far from his own 
 city of Paris as Le Puy, Clermont Ferrand, Limoges, 
 Angouleme, and P^rigord.^ The elevations of Robert 
 the Strong and of his son Odo were experiments in 
 the direction of giving the Frenchmen a single leader 
 in their resistance to the Norsemen, and neither 
 experiment produced very durable results. 
 
 On the death, however, of Odo in 898, the office 
 which had been created for Robert the Strong was 
 re-established in the person of another 
 corum per- Robert, who was son of Robert the Strong, 
 manent, 898. ^^^ brother of Odo, and this time it lasted 
 through three generations. The king of France after 
 the death of Odo was Charles the Simple of the 
 Austrasian house of Charlemagne. This Austrasian 
 king had no authority of his own except in the 
 neighbourhood of Laon and Reims, and from thence 
 towards the Ardennes and Lorraine ; but the owners 
 of fiefe in Francia were ready to recognise any actions 
 of his which coincided with their own wishes. 
 
 Charles remade the office of dux, or captain- 
 general of Francia, and gave it to Robert, son of the 
 only man who had ever yet borne it. We know 
 from Richer that Robert was thus made military 
 commander and chief civil minister throughout the 
 region over which his authority extended, but we do 
 
 1 Hist. Francorum Senonensis in M.6.H., SS., vol. ix. p. 365. 
 
 2 Richer, M.G.H., SS., vol. iv. p. 571. 
 
CH. XII.] DUX FRANCORUM 247 
 
 not know wliat local limits Charles assigned to his 
 sphere of command. Richer, who is our authority 
 on this point, has a most provoking way of describing 
 geographical limits in Gaul according to the ter- 
 minology of Caesar, who divided the country into 
 Belgiea, Celtica, and Aquitania. Richer understands 
 Celtica as reaching from Boulogne and Soissons to 
 the river Garonne; and he says that Charles the 
 Simple gave Robert the office of dux Gelticce} We 
 do not know whether the word Celtica is merely 
 used pretentiously and wrongly by Richer to denote 
 what ought to be called Francia, or whether Charles 
 the Simple really intended Robert to be ruler over a 
 great part of Aquitania. We do know, however, from 
 notices of events, that the leadership of Robert and 
 other duces, his successors, was effective in Francia 
 and nowhere else. There were in Francia two great 
 fiefs, Flanders and Vermandois, and many lesser fiefs. 
 The owners of the two great fiefs acted rather as allies 
 than subordinates to the dux; the lesser fiefs, the 
 counties of Paris, Orleans, Le Gatinais, Chartres, 
 Perche, Le Mans, Angers, Tours, Blois, were all under 
 the command of the dux, and rendered him faithful 
 service. In Paris the dux was himself owner of .the 
 fief as count; in other fiefs the owner, whoever he 
 might be, was willing to obey the dux, because he 
 was a good protector against the Norman devastators.^ 
 The office of dux borne by the captains-general 
 
 ' Richer, M.G.H., 88., vol. iv. p. 571. 
 
 ^ H. Martin, Hist, de France, livre xvi. (vol. ii. p. 505 in the 
 fourth edition). 
 
248 FEANCIA [CH. xii. 
 
 in Francia was a position of trust created for the 
 public weal, and especially for the purpose of re- 
 sisting the Norsemen. The offices^ of 
 corum duke and count created by Charlemagne 
 powerful jjj g^^ parts of his empire were also 
 originally positions of trust existing for 
 the public weal, but they degenerated in the 
 course of time into mere pieces of private pro- 
 perty or estates of land. It does not appear that 
 the office of dux Francorum ever suffered a like 
 debasement ; it was always a trust held for the 
 advantage of the inhabitants of Francia, and the 
 holder of it was powerful only so long as the people 
 of Francia felt that his leadership was useful to them. 
 They needed him as a leader till 991, and no longer. 
 Till about 940 he was their protector against the 
 Norsemen. The Norsemen in 912, at the treaty of 
 Clair-sur-Epte, accepted the territory to which their 
 occupation gave the name of Normandy, and by 
 about 940 they were a settled people, and more 
 orderly than the men of Francia themselves. After 
 940 the inhabitants of Francia needed their dux 
 because they feared that the Austrasian king who 
 reigned at Laon might regain poAver over them. 
 They entertained fears on this ground till 991, when 
 the Austrasian dynasty became extinct. 
 
 In 987 the dux Francorum, Hugh Capet, was 
 elected to the title of King of the Franks. A rival 
 Austrasian king, Charles of Lorraine, was soon set 
 up at Laon; but Hugh Capet in 991 gained pos- 
 session of the citadel and person of his opponent 
 
CH. xii.J DUX BECAME REX 249 
 
 who soon afterwards died in prison. Thenceforward 
 the inhabitants of Francia were not threatened by 
 any common enemy, and therefore had dux became 
 no need for a common leader. From Rex 987, and 
 991 the power of the duces, who now declined tin 
 bore the title of reges, declined steadily "°°- 
 in Francia. The owners of the great fiefs took back 
 their complete independence of action, which they 
 had only waived while they needed a leader against 
 a common foe. Many lesser nobles established them- 
 selves as lords of independent fiefs by building 
 strong castles about fifteen or twenty miles from 
 Paris, at Montl'heri, Montmorenci, Luzarches, Beau- 
 mont, Le Puiset, whence they could take toll of 
 merchants who carried commodities to or from the 
 city; and by about the year 1098 Philip, King of 
 the Franks, great-grandson of Hugh Capet, had no 
 authority except in Paris and in a zone of country 
 extending about ten miles from its walls. At the 
 same time William Rufus, Duke of Normandy and 
 King of England, tried to place himself within 
 striking distance of Paris by crossing his boundary, 
 the river Epte, and making an attack on the territory 
 known as the French Vexin.^ 
 
 But though the territory of the King of the French 
 was reduced to a mere spot upon the map of France, 
 and was threatened by the strong ruler Louis the 
 of England and Normandy, its inhabitants Sixth, 
 were now a compact community, united in habits, 
 aims, and interests; and the strength which they 
 
 ' Ordericus Vitalis, x. 5. 
 
250 SMALL COMMUNITIES [ch. xji. 
 
 gained from unity enabled them to repel the dangers 
 which menaced them, and to be the founders of a 
 mighty nation. Their champion and leader was 
 Louis the Sixth, called Louis le Gros, son of King 
 Philip. Louis was associated with his father in 
 kingly power for about ten years, and after his 
 father's death, in 1108, he was sole ruler till 1137. 
 During nearly forty years of vigorous exertions he 
 was supported by the willing aid of the Parisians and 
 the congregations of the neighbouring parishes, who 
 were sometimes led in battle by their parish priests.^ 
 He captured all the castles around Paris, rescued the 
 French Vexin, and kept the powerful Dukes of Nor- 
 mandy within their original boundary, the river Epte. 
 At the death of Louis, in 1137, he was ruler of a 
 kingdom or demesne land reaching from Beauvais in 
 the north to Orleans in the south. His territory 
 measured between these extreme points only about a 
 hundred and sixty miles, and it was not more than 
 about forty miles broad ; but its inhabitants were so 
 thoroughly united in aims and interests that they 
 were able to maintain its independence against all 
 the forces that could be mustered by the English 
 kings in their great continental possessions.^ 
 
 1 See the interesting description of the siege of Le Puiset in Suger, 
 Vita Ludovici Orossi, oh. xviii. p. 65, in the edition of Molinier. He 
 says : ' Cum communitates patriae parroehiarum adessent, valida 
 Dei mamis cujusdam calvi presbiteri susoitavit fortitudinis robus- 
 tum spiritum ' ; and then explains how the priest opened a way into 
 the stronghold. 
 
 ^ The extent of the French king's demesne is known to us from 
 the accounts of the collection of the iaille in 1202, which is printed 
 in the end of Brussel, Usage des Fiefs. It is very clearly shown in 
 
CH. XII.] FRENCH KING'S DEMESNE 251 
 
 All functions of government, except the judgement 
 of causes affecting the rights of noblemen in their 
 estates, were undertaken in the French 
 demesne during the twelfth century by of the French 
 the king himself with the aid of his king's 
 servants. For the work of central govern- 
 ment and military command he had the help of four 
 great household officers : the seneschal or dapifer was 
 governor of the household and commander in the 
 army next to the king ; the chancellor, the chamber- 
 lain, the butler, had less important duties.^ The 
 right of making laws rested with the king alone, as it 
 had done in the days of Charlemagne ; ^ Louis the 
 Fat did not use this for any purpose but the making 
 of enactments in favour of single religious com- 
 munities or of individual landowners ; his son Louis 
 the Seventh employed it for the first time in 1155 for 
 general legislation which affected certain classes in 
 all parts of the demesne.^ For local government, the 
 king's principal servants were his prdvSts; they 
 attended to the collection of all taxes and payments 
 due to the king, and were criminal judges of first 
 instance for all the population of their localities, 
 except those persons who were exempted by special 
 privilege from their jurisdiction.* It is probable the 
 
 Droysen, Hand Atlas, map 57. It will be seen from this map, or 
 from perusal of the original authorities, that besides the main block 
 of the demesne, which reached from Beauvais to Orl(5ans, there were 
 outlying pieces of it at Laon, Reims, and Bourges. 
 ' Luchaire, Les Institutions Fran<;aises, §§ 281-284. 
 
 2 /iJ</.,§§ 264-267. 
 
 3 Luchaire, Institutions Monarchiques, vol. i. p. 239. 
 * Ibid., vol. i. pp. 220-224. 
 
252 SURVEY OF EUROPE [ch. xii. 
 
 prhdts were set up one by one in the different towns 
 as they were wanted; we know of prdvSts in three 
 towns in the reign of Henry the First, in seven more 
 under Philip, in yet seven more under Louis the Sixth, 
 and in fifteen more under Louis the Seventh.^ 
 
 The one duty of government which the king and 
 his servants did not undertake was the judgement of 
 causes affecting the tenure and rights of 
 the king's vassals. These vassals were all 
 of them men who held estates of land within his 
 demesne; outside the demesne the French king's 
 government did not extend. All disputes concerning 
 the rights of these men, arising from their tenure of 
 their estates, were submitted to the judgement of 
 a court consisting of vassals on the demesne like 
 themselves. We have actual copies of judgements 
 pronounced by such a court from the year 1016.^ 
 The court was known as the Curia Regis, and it was 
 a most valuable instrument for maintaining order 
 and enforcing justice throughout the demesne. 
 
 There were many other small communities in the 
 Middle Ages besides those which I have noticed ; but 
 it may be doubted whether it is possible, from the 
 scanty materials which have come down to us, to 
 describe any of them in detail except the Italian city 
 states, which I reserve for discussion in a later part 
 of this volume. It is, however, worth while, before 
 concluding the present chapter, to glance round the 
 
 1 The evidence for all these priv6tis is given in Luchaire, Insti- 
 tutions Monarchiques, vol. ii. pp. 295-298. 
 
 ^ Langlois, Textes Selati/s d I'Histoire du Parlement, in the 
 Collection de Textes, published by Pioard (Paris, 1888). 
 
9H. XII.] TWELFTH CENTURY 253 
 
 countries of Europe in the early Middle Ages, and to 
 observe what small communities they contained ; for 
 in many countries these small communities furnished 
 the materials for the construction of the large com- 
 munities or nations which will next engage our 
 attention. 
 
 In England a number of tribes were planted by 
 perman immigrants in the fifth and sixth centuries ; 
 the union of these tribes under the West Saxons in 
 the ninth century laid the foundation of the Enghsh 
 nation. In Spain there were three Christian tribes 
 to begin with, all living in the mountain district near 
 the Bay of Biscay; a fourth, about Jaca, was after- 
 wards formed, probably as an ofi'shoot from Navarre, 
 and grew into the kingdom of Aragon. In the 
 Spanish cities ruled by the Moors were congregations 
 of Christians, who became steadily more discontented 
 with the rule of the Mohammedans, and more desirous 
 to be united with the Christians who composed the 
 independent tribes or kingdoms in the north. In Gaul 
 the many independent fiefs in Francia were alike in 
 aims, race, and interests; the neighbouring great duchy 
 of Normandy was not peopled by men of like race with 
 the population of Francia, but it was willing to join 
 with them rather than to remain subject to the kings 
 of England. The union of the fiefs of Francia and ■ 
 the duchy of Normandy under the king who reigned 
 at Paris, formed in the thirteenth century a small 
 but strong kingdom in the north of Gaul. In 
 Burgundia and Aquitania also there were many 
 independent fiefs ; the greater part of them at different 
 
^U SUEVEY : TWELFTH CEl^TURt [cH. Xil. 
 
 periods in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries 
 were temporarily ruled by the French king, but most 
 of them were till about the end of the Middle Ages 
 rather semi-detached dependencies than integral 
 parts of his dominions. In Germany a vast number 
 of independent communities were founded when the 
 empire broke up at the death of Frederick the Second 
 in 1250 ; but they generally remained separate, and 
 therefore small. Austria and Brandenburg were 
 perhaps the most important ; neither of them, how- 
 ever, attained to a place among the chief powers of 
 Europe till after the end of the Middle Ages. But 
 there were also in Germany, in a remote corner hidden 
 away in the valleys that run down from the meeting- 
 place of the great ranges of the Alps at the St. 
 Gothard Pass, some communities of more venerable 
 antiquity than any others in western Europe. Three 
 of the German tribes as old as the time of Tacitus, 
 and probably far older, had remained unaltered, 
 though they had been included in the dominions of 
 Charlemagne and of Otho the Great. These three 
 tribes of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, formed the 
 nucleus around which in the end of the fifteenth 
 century, the Swiss cantons established their federal 
 republic. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 UNIONS OF LIKE COMMUNITIES EFFECTED BY 
 CONQUEST, 800-1300 A.D. 
 
 The first step towards the reconstitution of Europe 
 after the confusion caused by the migrations was the 
 formation of small communities, which has been 
 described in my last chapter. The small communities 
 were fashioned under the operation of natural in- 
 stincts, and were therefore rather natural than 
 artificial products. The next step towards the modern 
 arrangement of the world was the union of small 
 communities into large states. Every large state 
 ■ which existed at the end of the Middle Ages, or 
 exists at the present time, was originally formed 
 through a union of small communities. The union 
 might be brought about, in the first instance, either 
 by compulsion or by the voluntary agreement of the 
 small communities. If the union was brought about 
 by compulsion, the resulting state (provided it did 
 not break up again) came in the long run to be 
 ruled by a single supreme government, and might 
 for that reason be described as a Unitary State; if 
 the union was produced by voluntary agreement, the 
 
 256 
 
256 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [ch. xiii. 
 
 resulting state, in most cases, had many co-ordinate 
 governments, and could be designated as a Federal 
 State. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the states made under compul- 
 sion, and the states made by voluntary agreement, were 
 Un't d ^^ thoroughly distinct and separate kinds. 
 Federal and each kind must be considered by 
 
 itself. In regard to states made by agree- 
 ment, I shall only remark here that in the Middle 
 Ages Switzerland is the chief example of such a 
 state. The states which will occupy me in this 
 chapter and the next are those which were originally 
 formed through the union of communities under 
 compulsion. 
 
 The remarks made at the beginning of the eighth 
 chapter about unions of cities, can be applied to all 
 Unions unions of communities effected by com- 
 
 under com- pulsion ; but they are applied to some 
 make arti- unions with Complete aptitude, to others 
 ficiai states. ^j^(.j^ j^ggg ^^1 unions of communities by 
 
 conquest require planning and design in some degree. 
 A union of tribes can be effected with little skill ; a 
 union of fiefs requires more ; and a union of kingdoms 
 is often as difficult to effect as a union of cities. All 
 unions, then, if effected by conquest, require some 
 deliberate design; and therefore all states resulting 
 from such unions are, in some degree, artificial. If a 
 state is made by union of tribes, the artificial element 
 is small ; if by union of fiefs, it is larger ; if by union 
 of kingdoms, it is largest. 
 
 It is then a universal principle that states resulting 
 
CH. XIII.] UNIONS BY CONQUEST 257 
 
 from a union of communities effected through con- 
 quest are in some degree artificial. They which arti- 
 are composed of populations which did 'iciai states 
 not wish to be united, and they are there- natural com- 
 fore incoherent. Under what conditions •"""ities'' 
 can they be converted" into natural and coherent 
 communities through the operation of time and 
 natural instincts ? 
 
 Communities joined together by conquest may be 
 alike and near together. In this case, they will unite 
 
 together and form a single natural com- ^^ 
 
 ° ° Those com- 
 
 munity ; otherwise, they will not. The posed of Uke 
 
 provinces of the Roman empire were •^°"""""'t'es. 
 
 unlike and distant; they were never assimilated. 
 
 The communities subject to Henry the Second in 
 
 England and France were unlike, and severed by the 
 
 sea; they did not long remain under a common 
 
 government. The dominions of Charles the Bold 
 
 were unlike; and, though they were near together, 
 
 they broke asunder at his death. The communities 
 
 joined together in England and those joined in 
 
 France were contiguous, and were alike in many 
 
 particulars; in the process of centuries they joined 
 
 together into natural and coherent communities. 
 
 The artificial and incoherent states formed by 
 
 conquest in the Middle Ages were very numerous. 
 
 They include, in western Europe, England, u^j^^^ ^ 
 
 France, Castile, Aragon ; in the south, the conquest 
 
 Norman kingdom of Naples and Sicily ; """'®''°" • 
 
 in the north, Denmark, Sweden, Norway; in the 
 
 centre, the German states as Brandenburg, Saxony, 
 
 R 
 
258 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [CH. xiii. 
 
 Austria, the kingdom of the Magyars in Hungary, 
 and the Slavic kingdoms of Poland and Bohemia. 
 They were all artificial, and few of them resembled 
 one another in any degree; and it would therefore 
 be impossible to describe them unless each were 
 described separately. 
 
 The description of artificial and diverse states is 
 useless for purposes of comparison, and I shall not 
 _ J ^j undertake it. The only thing about the 
 CastUe, mediaeval states that is interesting in a 
 comparative study of communities is 
 found in the processes by which they were inter- 
 nally unified and made like one another. These 
 processes are exemplified in the histories of England, 
 CastUe, and France. 
 
 The German tribes in England in the ninth 
 century were like one another in race, language, 
 religion, pursuits, customs, and past ex- 
 Angio- perience. When once they had been 
 Saxon compelled to submit to Ecgberht, king 
 of the West Saxons in 827, the tribes 
 which he had defeated endured their humiliation 
 with acquiescence. It seems that defeated tribes 
 generally do acquiesce in taking a subordinate posi- 
 tion, and the reason may be that they have no im- 
 ,portant towns to serve as a focus for rebellion. The 
 junction, however, of the tribes under Ecgberht did 
 not give them a common government, but only a 
 common overlord, since each retained a government 
 of its own for the management of its local affairs; 
 the East Anglians, for example, had a king of their 
 
CH. XIII.] ENGLAND 259 
 
 own, and the murder of one of these kings is com- 
 memorated in the name of Bury St. Edmunds. The 
 inroads of the Danes, which began in 866, had very 
 different effects in two halves of England. The 
 south-western half of the country consisting of 
 Wessex and part of Mercia joined, under King 
 Alfred, in a heroic resistance to the invaders; and 
 the united exertions of the West Saxons and their 
 comrades in arms from Mercia joined these two 
 peoples into a compact nation. The north-eastern 
 half of England acquired a mixed population when 
 the Danes settled there among the native English ; 
 but it is probable that the Danish immigrants were 
 no more than a handful of masters scattered among 
 a numerous English class of subjects. When the 
 two halves of England were brought, through the 
 victories won by the West Saxon kings Edward the 
 Elder and Athelstan, under a common government, 
 England was one of the incoherent states which 
 were so common in the Middle Ages : its incoherence 
 is shown by the dissidence of the English and Danish 
 halves of the country in the reign of Eadwig, and 
 also in its incapacity to act as a united whole in 
 resistance to new invaders in the time of Ethelred 
 the Unready. 
 
 In the eleventh century England was conquered 
 first by the Danes from Scandinavia and afterwards 
 by the Normans. One effect of the conquest by the 
 Danes was to establish local governors in England 
 who were endowed with dangerously extensive 
 authority. King Cnut was much occupied in 
 
260 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [ch. xiii. 
 
 making conquests in Scandinavia, and could not rule 
 England in person. He divided his English realm 
 into four great earldoms, and appointed 
 by the Dalies four distinguished Englishmen to rule 
 and by the them. The earls were not in the least in- 
 clined towards rebellion for their own 
 advantage, but in the reign of Edward the Confessor 
 they were far more powerful than the king, and on 
 two occasions when provinces adopted divergent 
 lines of policy civil war was only just averted by 
 the moderation of Earl Godwine and his son Earl 
 Harold.^ The conqueror from Normandy put an 
 end to the dangerous power of the great earldoms : 
 under him and his successors no local ruler was 
 allowed to control a district of excessive magnitude. 
 The nobles, however, who had joined with William 
 in conquering England, had all served under him of 
 their own free choice ; some of them were not even 
 his subjects in Normandy but allies from France, 
 and all had to be rewarded with grants of land in 
 the conquered country. All through the central 
 part of England William, in dividing the land, took 
 the same precaution against local insubordination 
 as Cleisthenes had taken in establishing the Attic 
 tribes. To many of his followers he granted a very 
 large number of manors or villages, but in the central 
 parts of the country each man's possessions were 
 
 - In 1051 there was danger of civil war between Wessex, on the 
 one Side, and the northern earldoms of Meroia and Northumberland 
 on the other (see Freeman, Norman Conquest). In 1065 the 
 Northumbrians rebelled against Tostig, brother of Harold. Harold 
 went against them in force, but rolriiined from fighting. 
 
CH. XIII.] ENGLAND 261 
 
 widely scattered, so that they did not supply any 
 good starting-point for a rebellion. On the frontiers 
 towards Wales and Scotland he was compelled, for 
 purposes of defence, to entrust a whole shire to the 
 rule of a single earl : the result showed that on the 
 frontiers there was not much danger of rebellion 
 against the central government of England. The 
 earls on the frontiers were generally occupied in 
 defending their shires against the Welsh or the 
 Scots, and as they might need the aid of the central 
 government, few of them, except Robert de Belesme, 
 Earl of Shrewsbury and Montgomery in 1102, ven- 
 tured to undertake an insurrection. The nobles 
 whose lands lay in the interior were always ready tp 
 rebel if they had an opportunity. 
 
 The classes of the population in England after the 
 conquest were the Norman nobles, the clergy, and 
 the English people. The nobles were 
 formidable to the king. They were also AngT^n^ 
 dreaded by the clergy and the people ; ^'^ss of 
 and were dreaded with good reason, as 
 was seen in the time of Stephen, when there was no 
 superior power to keep them in order. Under these 
 circumstances the clergy and the people were always 
 ready to give their aid to the king, provided he was 
 willing and able to protect them : the successes of 
 William Rufus, Henry the First, and Henry the 
 Second, in armed conflict with the nobles, were all 
 gained with aid of native English soldiers. In 1173 
 and 1174 the barons ventured on a great rebellion, but 
 were decisively defeated in the field by the king's army. 
 
262 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [CH. xiii. 
 
 The victory of the central government on this occa- 
 sion was so complete that the nobles did not attempt 
 further insurrection, but ranged themselves as the 
 king's obedient subjects and faithful councillors. 
 
 In the thirteenth century the alliance between 
 king, clergy, and people was broken. King John 
 oppressed people, clergy, and barons all alike for his 
 own selfish enjoyment. His son, Henry the Third, 
 gave away the produce of English taxation to the 
 Pope, and squandered estates and bishoprics on his 
 half-brothers from Poitou and on his wife's kinsmen 
 from Provence and Savoy. The people, now that 
 the king was an oppressor, turned for help to the 
 barons, whom long habit and intermarriages had 
 changed into Englishmen. The alliance of the people 
 and the barons obtained Magna Charta for the benefit 
 of all classes; but when in 1258 that same alliance 
 enabled a few of the great barons to control the 
 whole government of the country, they used their 
 power for the exclusive profit of their own order. It 
 is true that Simon de Montfort, the one capable and 
 generous man among the great barons, gradually 
 discovered that the selfish policy of the nobles, which 
 he had for some years helped to carry out, would 
 lead to mischievous results ; but when, in 1264-5, he 
 adopted a contrary policy and tried to rule England 
 for the good of all and with the counsel of all, the 
 other great barons turned against him and he was slain 
 at the battle of Evesham. After his death the people 
 soon ceased to imagine that barons were likely to be 
 good protectors. The man who had defeated Simon 
 
CH. XIII.] ENGLAND 263 
 
 de Montfort was Edward, the king's eldest son. When 
 Edward a few years later succeeded his father in the 
 kingly dignity, the people had a good protector in the 
 right place, and the old friendship between people 
 and king was restored, and felt on both sides with 
 hearty sincerity. 
 
 During the centuries of strife from Alfred to 
 Edward the First, the English political institutions 
 were growing steadily by minute modifica- 
 tions without any sudden change. The Government: 
 foundation of them was furnished by the *"''^' 
 
 •11- • ■ /■ 1 TTT ri institutions. 
 
 tribal institutions of the West Saxons, 
 the king and witan, the shiremoot and the hundred- 
 moot. The Danish and the Norman conquerors found 
 these institutions established in the country, and had 
 no wish to destroy them. The Norman kings estab- 
 lished in England had a council of Norman nobles 
 and prelates which was a close copy of the old 
 English witan, and they greatly increased the 
 importance of the shiremoots by giving them more 
 work to do, and by fining the members if they did 
 not attend at their meetings. The shiremoots and 
 the hundred-moots in the time of the Norman kings 
 were assemblies of representatives from the villages ; 
 and they are, therefore, a very early instance of 
 assemblies constituted by the method of representa- 
 tion of localities. In a village or manor there was 
 usually a lord who was holder of all the land. If he 
 or his steward attended in person at the shiremoot, 
 the attendance due froipi the manor was thereby 
 sufficiently rendered; if the lord and the steward 
 
264 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [CH. xiii. 
 
 were both absent, the manor was required to send the 
 priest, the reeve, and four of its best men as its 
 representatives.^ 
 
 The kings of England in the twelfth century did 
 what was even more important than the strengthen- 
 ing of the shiremoots, when they estab- 
 
 Norman and ,. , n . . . i t i i ^ 
 
 Angevin lishefl new mstitutions to be a imk between 
 
 improve- ^j^g central and the local governments, 
 ments. 
 
 Henry the First founded the exchequer, 
 and sent barons of the exchequer to preside in the 
 shiremoots for inquiry into questions relating to 
 taxation, and Henry the Second established the 
 circuits of the king's judges to hear criminal trials 
 and civil suits in the same local assemblies. The 
 commissioners sent out from the central government 
 to preside in the shiremoots resembled the Missi 
 Dominici of Charlemagne because they served as a 
 link between the central and the local governments; 
 but they are of far greater historical importance, 
 because the practice of sending them on circuit has 
 lasted to the present day. 
 
 In the thirteenth century new links between the 
 
 1 ' Leges Henrioi Prlmi,' vii. 7, 8. The system of representation 
 in the shiremoot and hundred-moot goes back as far as the reign of 
 Edward the Confessor, and possibly further. The authorities on 
 the matter are the Order of Henry the First for the holding of the 
 courts of the Hundred and the Shire, and the Statutes of William 
 the Conqueror. They are printed in Stubbs' Select Charters. They 
 say that in regard to shiremoots and hundred-moots Henry 
 followed the practice of William, and William of the Confessor : 
 so I presume the practice about representation was the same under 
 the Confessor as under Henry the First. On the question whether 
 there was representation before the Confessor's reign, we have no 
 evidence. 
 
CH. XIII.] ENGLAND 265 
 
 local and the central governments were established. 
 Since about the year 1200 the most productive taxes 
 were those levied on moveable property Representa- 
 and on trade, which affected all classes t've assembly, 
 alike. It was found that taxes did not come in readily 
 unless the classes who paid them had in some way 
 given a consent beforehand. In the year 1254, 
 Henry the Third, being engaged in a war in Gascony, 
 was in extreme need of money, and he summoned 
 from each shire two knights elected in the shiremoot 
 to meet with him at Westminster to settle what aid 
 they would grant him. In 1264, when Simon de 
 Montfort was in power, the king summoned not only 
 two knights from every shire, but also from every 
 town which had been on the side of Simon in the 
 recent conflicts, two of the townsmen. And lastly, 
 in 1295, Edward the First summoned two knights 
 from every shire, and also two townsmen from every 
 important city or borough, to join with the nobles, 
 clergy, and king in deliberation concerning dangers 
 which threatened the kingdom.^ 
 
 The large mediaeval state of Castile, no less than 
 England, was made through the compulsory union 
 of small communities. The tribe in 
 
 . -Ill Castile. 
 
 Asturia grew, as we saw m the last chapter, 
 into the kingdom of Leon: the neighbouring tribe 
 in Cantabria grew into the large countship of Castile. 
 In the eleventh century Leon and Castile were alike 
 in race, language, religion, pursuits and customs ; but 
 
 1 The writs of summons issued in 1254, 1264, and 1295 are 
 printed in Stubbs' Select Charters, under their dates. 
 
266 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [ch. xiii. 
 
 each of them had a separate history of its own, and 
 they were no longer tribes but had some vigorous 
 town life in their capitals of Leon and Burgos. In 
 1033 Ferdinand of Castile married Sancha, heiress 
 of Leon, and on the death of her father in 1037 he 
 compelled her heritage of Leon into union with 
 Castile; but the two communities did not wish to 
 be united together, and from 1157 they were ruled 
 by separate branches of Ferdinand's descendants 
 till, in 1230, they were finally united together under 
 Ferdinand the Third into the kingdom of Castile 
 and Leon. 
 
 The expansion of the Christian states of Castile 
 and Leon by reconquest of territories from the 
 The Moors Mohammedans occurred mainly in the 
 m Spain. eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. In 
 1085 the king of Castile and Leon captured Toledo, 
 the old capital of Visigothic Spain, and annexed the 
 upper valley of the Tagus to his dominions. The 
 Spanish Moors were so alarmed that they demanded 
 aid from a new Mohammedan power which had arisen 
 in Africa. Among the Berbers and the other tribes 
 of the Sahara a class of men revered for their sanctity, 
 who bore the name of Marabouts, had risen to great 
 influence. The followers of the Marabouts, known 
 to the Christian Spaniards as Almoravides, came over 
 to Spain in 1086 at the bidding of the Spanish Moors, 
 and immediately defeated the Christians very severely 
 at the great battle of Zallaka near Badajoz. The 
 Almoravides, having succoured the Spanish Moors, 
 resolved to be their rulers and to enjoy their country. 
 
CH. xiii.J CASTILE 267 
 
 They settled in Spain, and in forty years had lost 
 their warlike vigour under the influence of luxury. 
 Meanwhile a new and powerful Mohammedan sect 
 had arisen in Africa. About 1110 a learned student 
 of the Koran, Mohammed-ibn-Tumart, gave himself 
 out to be the Mahdi promised by the founder of the 
 Mohammedan religion. Soon after his death in 1130, 
 his followers, known as Almohadin, Almohades, the 
 United, were a great military power in Morocco.^ In 
 the year 1146 they were in active conflict with the 
 Almoravides both in Africa and in Europe, and in 
 the following year they estabHshed their power both 
 in Morocco and in the Mohammedan part of Spain.^ 
 For two generations after the successes of the 
 Almohades the forces of the Christians and the 
 Mohammedans were nearly balanced in the peninsula. 
 But in 1212 the Christians showed their superiority 
 in their great victory at Las Nowas de Tolosa, about 
 forty miles eastward and slightly northward of 
 Cordova, and by the middle of the thirteenth century 
 the only possessions of the Mohammedans in Spain 
 consisted in the little kingdom of Granada at the 
 foot of the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 In their social and economic organisation the 
 peoples in northern Spain were unlike the English, 
 as they had had a different history. For castuian 
 centuries they had fought as armies of institutions. 
 Europeans and Christians against Africans and 
 
 1 For the rise of the Almohades, see Sohirrmaker, Geschichte von 
 Spanien, vol. iv. pp. 58-62. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 136-139. 
 
268 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [ch. xii;. 
 
 Mohammedans; as all men had been warriors, all 
 were free, and there was no trace of serfdom or 
 villenage.i For defence against the Moors they 
 needed strongholds: their local divisions accordingly 
 were not shires but cities, with districts attached to 
 them, and their local governments were not shire- 
 moots held in the open air, but councils which met 
 within their cities. The nobles received from the 
 kings grants of districts which they were bound to 
 defend ; but the grants did not hold good beyond the 
 lifetime of the king who made them.^ Taxation was 
 not so important as in England ; probably each man 
 acquitted his duty to the state in military service, 
 and not by payments in money. Accordingly there 
 was not any organisation like the English exchequer, 
 nor any commissioners sent out from the central 
 government to supervise the iinancial and judicial 
 work of the local government. But the kings of 
 Leon established in their own country in 1188, and 
 afterwards extended to Castile in 1250, a delibera- 
 tive assembly identical in its general outline with 
 that which was begun in England in 1254 and com- 
 pleted in 1296. The Cortes of the separate kingdom 
 of Leon from 1188 to 1230, and from 1250 the Cortes 
 of the united kingdom of Leon and Castile, comprised 
 not only nobles and prelates, but also deputies elected 
 
 ' Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 6. 
 
 ^ Roderic of Toledo vii., xv. and xvi. (chap. xvi. gives the cor- 
 rect statement). Sancho iii. of Castile, during his last illness, 
 conceded to his nobles that they should hold their fiefs until his 
 son, Alfonso viii., was fourteen years old; when Alfonso attained 
 that age they were to surrender their fiefs to the crown. 
 
GH. xiii.] FRANCE 269 
 
 by tlie councils of the cities, to whose care all local 
 government was entrusted.^ 
 
 In Gaul the making of a French nation, through 
 the jmion of many independent states, was an ex- 
 tremelyintricate process, difficult to under- 
 stand in many of its details, incapable of 
 being described both briefly and accurately. That 
 part of the process which took place in the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries diyides itself into three 
 parts : firstly, the union of nearly all the fiefs in 
 Francia (together with Normandy) in the king's 
 demesne ; secondly, the formation of another demesne 
 in Languedoc ruled by the king by the same methods 
 as his demesne in the north; and thirdly, the reduc- 
 tion of the owners of fiefs in central Gaul to varying 
 conditions of partial dependence on the king and on 
 the law-courts which dispensed justice in his name. 
 
 The great strength of the small demesne of Louis 
 the Sixth arose from its homogeneity and good 
 administration under the king, his curia, The demesne 
 his prevdts and baillis. It does not seem gji?"'^ ^^^ 
 that it was greatly affected by the mar- 
 riage, in 1137, of Louis the Seventh with Eleanor, 
 the heiress of Aquitaine, which was arranged by 
 Louis the Sixth on his deathbed.^ Until 1152 the 
 king of the little French demesne, and the countess 
 of the large district of Aquitaine, were man and wife; 
 but the French demesne and Aquitaine were per- 
 fectly distinct states, each having its own govern- 
 
 > Colmerio, Cortes de Leon y de Castilla, vol. i. pp. 142 and 153. 
 ^ Suger, Vila Ludovici cognominto Grossi, 33. 
 
270 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [ch. xiii. 
 
 ment. If the governors of the French demesne had 
 tried to rule Aquitaine, or the governois of Aquitaine 
 had tried to rule the demesne, discord must have 
 ensued, and the making of a French nation would 
 have been long delayed. In 1152 all danger of an 
 attempt to bring the demesne and Aquitaine under 
 a common government were removed by the dissolu- 
 tion of the marriage of Louis and Eleanor; and from 
 this time forth the demesne was free to pursue its 
 natural destiny of uniting with other iiefs in Francia 
 without any Aquitanian encumbrance. 
 
 After the death of Louis the Seventh in 1180, the 
 union of fiefs in Francia went on rapidly. The sub- 
 division of Francia into small independent 
 
 Conquest '■ 
 
 of Francia,. counties was Certainly not advantageous 
 II 0-1300. ^^ ^-^^ populations. There does not, in- 
 deed, seem to be any evidence that each petty sove- 
 reign was an oppressive or extortionate ruler of his 
 own subjects. He needed the willing services of his 
 fighting men and was compelled to treat them fairly; 
 and as to the servile classes, who were useless in war, 
 there is nothing to show that they were worse off 
 under a count than in the king's demesne. But each 
 petty sovereign might molest the subjects of his 
 neighbours : for example, the lords of Coucy in many 
 generations were no better than robber chieftains, 
 probably liberal to their own band of retainers, but 
 certainly a pest to the subjects of all their neighbours. 
 A prince whose subjects had been robbed was likely 
 either to defend them or to retaliate on the subjects 
 of the offender, and thus the sovereignty of a multi- 
 
CH. XIII.] FRANCE 271 
 
 tude of petty princes led to very frequent wars. The 
 extinction of the petty sovereigns, and the union of 
 their fiefs under the government of the French king, 
 would put an end to small predatory wars; and there 
 was nothing abhorrent to the feelings of any popula- 
 tion in Francia in a union with the inhabitants of the 
 king's demesne, for all the populations, including the 
 people in the demesne, were alike in race, language, 
 religion, pursuits, customs, and past history. Under 
 these circumstances it is not wonderful that the 
 union of all the fiefs in Francia was effected rapidly, 
 and when once made it was permanent. 
 
 The means by which the union of Francia was 
 brought about were partly conquest, partly politic 
 marriages. Philip the Second, in 1180, married 
 Isabella of Hainault, and gained with her the county 
 of Artois.^ In 1183 he gained by cession, and then 
 by forcible conquest, three small counties which had 
 belonged to the great house of Vermandois — namely, 
 Amiens, Valois, and a small region round St. Quentin, 
 which was specially called the county of Vermandois.^ 
 Between 1202 and 1204 he made his great conquest 
 from John of England, which added to his territory 
 Normandy, Touraine, Anjou, and the northern half 
 of Poitou.^ This conquest fully quadrupled the size 
 of the demesne, and raised it from being a state of 
 like magnitude with fiefs around it to the dimensions 
 of a very small nation. In 1212 Philip conquered 
 
 ' Guill. de Nangis, ad ann. 1180. 
 
 ^ LavalUe, Hi»t. des Franfais, vol. i. p. 347. 
 
 ' Matthew Paris (Rolls series), vol. ii. p. 429. 
 
272 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [CH. xm. 
 
 and annexed the counties of Boulogne, Moreton, 
 Dammartin, Albemarle.^ After these acquisitions of 
 the French king, the only fiefs in northern Gaul, out- 
 side the demesne, were a few small counties, as Blois, 
 Dunois, Chartres, Dreux, and the two very large and 
 important counties of Flanders and Champagne. The 
 small counties, except Chartres, continued till after 
 1300 to be fiefs outside the demesne ; Flanders, being 
 peopled by Flemings, asserted its independence, and 
 did not form part of the French nation ; the annexa- 
 tion of Champagne to the demesne was made certain 
 in 1284 by the marriage of its heiress to the eldest 
 son of Philip the Third, who in 1285 became King of 
 the French with the title of Philip the Fourth. 
 
 The formation in southern Gaul of a new demesne 
 for the French kings was seemingly the effect of acci- 
 Conquest of dent. Whether the kings were strength- 
 Languedoc. ened by having this new territory is not 
 perfectly certain. In 1209 it chanced that a band 
 of adventurers mainly belonging to northern Gaul 
 undertook, with the sanction of the Pope, a crusade 
 for the conversion or destruction of a sect of heretics 
 called Albigenses who inhabited the Gothic region 
 between Toulouse and the lower course of the Rhone, 
 and were ruled by the counts of Toulouse and Foix 
 and the vicomte de Beziers. The crusaders chose 
 as their leader Simon de Montfort, owner of the 
 castle and lands of Montfort I'Amaury, not far from 
 Paris. The crusaders during the life of Simon were 
 successful : a large part of the heretics were put to 
 
 ' Guill. de Nangis, ad ann. 
 
CH. xiii.J FRANCE 273 
 
 the sword, by wholesale massacre (as at Beziers), or 
 by other means : the rulers of the heretical regions 
 were deprived of nearly all their dominions, which 
 were transferred into the possession of Simon. But 
 when Simon chanced in 1218 to be killed at a siege 
 which he was conducting, his son Amaury was not 
 strong enough to resist an attempt of the dispossessed 
 owners or their heirs to recover their dominions. 
 The aid of the French king was requested, and was 
 given in 1224 by Louis the Eighth. The king was 
 successful for two campaigns, and when he fell ill in 
 1226 and went home to die, his work was continued 
 by Humbert de Beaujeu, whom he left behind as 
 commander of his forces. The war was ended by 
 a treaty in 1229. As the war had been a 
 crusade, the Pope had a large share in dictating the 
 terms, and in the treaty the territory to be divided 
 was described according to ecclesiastical dioceses. 
 All the dioceses which lay immediately to the west 
 of the Rhone from a point half-way between Vienne 
 and Valence to the mouth of the river, and all 
 those along the sea-coast from the Rhone to the 
 Pyrennees, were given as a demesne to the king of 
 France. The new demesne was a strip about a 
 hundred and seventy miles long and about fifty miles 
 broad. It does not appear that the inhabitants dis- 
 liked being ruled by the king of France: most of 
 the old Gothic population had been killed off and 
 settlers from the north had taken their place ; but it 
 must have been a difficult task to rule two regions 
 so far apart as France proper and the southern 
 
 s 
 
274 UNIONS BY CGNQUEST [ch. xiii. 
 
 demesne which bore the name of Languedoc. The 
 actual distance, however, was speedily decreased by 
 the annexations to the southern demesne of the 
 fief's of Toulouse, Rouergue, and Quercy, which lay 
 inland from it ; and the mere fact of distance be- 
 came less important because the king reduced the 
 fiefs which lay between his northern and his southern 
 territories to some degree of submission to his 
 authority. 
 
 By the end of the thirteenth century there 
 
 remained but few great fiefs outside the two de- 
 
 pjgfg mesnes of the king. The greatest were 
 
 outside the ducal Burgundy and Aquitaine, with their 
 
 demesnes. in- , r. i 
 
 dependencies: next to these came Bourbon 
 and Auvergne. Champagne was in an exceptional 
 position : it was not strictly in the demesne, but 
 Philip the Fourth was married to its countess, and it 
 was certain before long, if the king wished, to fall 
 into the demesne and come under the king's direct 
 government. Over all the fiefs except Aquitaine the 
 French king had gradually established an effective 
 general control : he did not directly rule their subjects, 
 but he could dictate to their rulers, and sometimes his 
 law-courts even claimed and obtained jurisdiction in 
 their internal affairs. The reason why the rulers of 
 the fiefs submitted to dictation was simply that they 
 were too weak to resist. The kings of France wisely 
 did not use their power to dictate in an offensive 
 manner : they merely insisted that the rulers of fiefs 
 should do homage to the king, that homage should 
 entail some obligations, and that those obligations 
 
OH. XIII.] FRANCE 275 
 
 should be defined as occasions arose, in the Court of 
 the Peers, of which the rulers of the greatest fiefs were 
 themselves members. The Court of the Peers was 
 an important institution for settling disputes that 
 arose in regard to the great fiefs, and it will be 
 necessary for me to describe its character; but it 
 will be convenient to defer the description of it till 
 after I have spoken of the government within the 
 king's demesne lands. 
 
 The government in the large demesnes of the 
 French kings all through the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries was the same as had existed in 
 the reign of Louis the Sixth for his small in the French 
 territory around Paris : and it therefore ^'"s'^ 
 
 •' demesnes. 
 
 stands in sharp contrast with the govern- 
 ments which in the same centuries arose in England 
 and Castile. The king of France had not any 
 regular council of nobles for determining his policy 
 or for giving consent to new laws : he could and did 
 ask any friends whom he invited to his palace what 
 their advice was ; but when he had heard what they 
 had to say, he settled his policy or issued a new law 
 solely of his own authority, as Charlemagne had 
 done.^ There were no assemblies for local govern- 
 ment, except in a few towns which had magistrates 
 of their own and were known as communes ; the 
 governments in the communes gained no knowledge 
 of affairs outside their town walls, and within them 
 the magistrates sometimes governed so much in the 
 interest of the richer class that the poorer townsmen 
 
 ' Luchaire, Les Institutions Fran^aises, §§ 264-270. 
 
276 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [CH. xiii. 
 
 were glad to get rid of the privilege of having their 
 own citizens to rule them, and to be governed instead 
 by a prevot appointed by the king and responsible 
 to him. As there were no important local assemblies 
 there were no judges going on circuit, and no 
 representative assembly. The whole work of govern- 
 ment was done by the judicial assembly of the Curia, 
 and by the prdvots and baillis. 
 
 The Curia of the French demesne gradually 
 changed its character. We may judge from its 
 The French earliest records that it was originally a 
 Curia Regis, court for exercising jurisdiction among 
 the owners of fiefs who placed themselves under the 
 leadership of the dux Francorum. The members 
 of it in the eleventh century were any bishops 
 whom the king asked to act as judges, and a number 
 of vassals holding land in the duchy of France.^ 
 Soon afterwards the king's household servants, the 
 seneschal, butler, constable, and chamberlain, are 
 leading members of the court; and from 1223 on- 
 wards many of the judges are entitled clerici or 
 magistri.^ The household servants had some know- 
 ledge of the law beyond what could be found in an 
 ordinary vassal : the clerici or magistri were skilled 
 jurisconsults. These learned lawyers were no doubt 
 added to the court as assessors to the original judges, 
 because the vassals needed their aid. Before long 
 the assessors did all the work of examining the 
 
 1 Langloia, Textes relatifs A I'histoire du Parlement, gives lists 
 of the judges in 1043, 1066, 1112, pages 5, 7, 11. 
 
 2 Ibid., ad ann. 1136, 1140, etc. ; 1223, 1257, etc. 
 
CH. xiii.] FRANCE 277 
 
 evidence and of suggesting the decisions : it cannot 
 be doubted by any one who reads the judgements 
 of the court that they are the work of skilled jurists. 
 In the twelfth century the study of the Roman law 
 was pursued with ardour. The Pandects of Justinian 
 had never been entirely lost to the learned: they 
 are quoted by Ivo of Chartres who died in 1117, and 
 therefore he must have read a copy of at least some 
 fragments of them. Before 1150 a fairly complete 
 copy of the whole work was discovered (it is said 
 at Amalfi in 1137), and other copies thence tran- 
 scribed became accessible to scholars. ^ They were 
 read with avidity not only in Bologna but also in 
 Paris, which was now beginning to have a great and 
 famous university. In 1202 the Curia at Paris, in 
 giving a decision, declares that the reasons for it 
 are derived at least partly from the jus scriptum or 
 Roman law. ^ From this time forth the proceedings 
 of the Curia must have been more than ever unin- 
 telligible to the untrained vassals, and they ceased 
 to attend its sittings in large numbers.^ 
 
 By the middle of the thirteenth century the Curia, 
 thenceforth usually known as the Parlement of Paris, 
 was a court having trained lawyers among its judges, 
 and empowered to hear appeals from decisions 
 of all judges and all landowners in the two demesne 
 lands of the French kings. Its jurisdiction was also 
 
 1 Gibbon, chapter xliv., notes 87-93. 
 
 2 Luehaire, Les Inst. Frang. , § 303, note. 
 
 ^ See the list of the judges in 1298. Langlois, Textes relcU. 
 Parlement, p. 169. 
 
278 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [cH. xin. 
 
 sometimes admitted by the parties in cases arising 
 outside the king's demesne; about the year 1132 in 
 Artois, which was not in the demesne till 1180; in 
 ducal Burgundy in 1153 ; at Vezelay in the county 
 of Nevers in 1165 and the following year.^ On the 
 other hand, its interventions outside the demesne 
 land were of rare occurrence; its attempts to gain 
 jurisdiction in Aquitaine were successfully resisted 
 by the king of England ; ^ and it seems that for a 
 part of the thirteenth century the proper court for 
 hearing appeals from decisions outside the demesne 
 was not the Curia or Parlement, such as I have 
 described it, but that same court reinforced by the 
 addition of other judges known as Peers of France. 
 
 Until the reign of Philip the Second, the only 
 
 local administrations established throughout the 
 
 demesne were the prdvSts. The area 
 
 administra- Under the administration of a prevot 
 
 tioninthe seems to have been, roughly speaking, 
 
 about equal to what is contained in a 
 
 modern French arrondissement : the number of 
 
 prevotes in the demesne, after it was enlarged by the 
 
 addition of the territories which Philip the Second 
 
 conquered from John of England, was sixty-seven.^ 
 
 Above the prevSts the kings of France, beginning 
 
 with Philip the Second, established a more powerful 
 
 order of administrators, known in the northern 
 
 1 Langlois, Textes, pp. 12, 18, 25. 
 
 2 Ibid., page 121. 
 
 3 Gasquet, Pricis des Instilutiom de I' ancienne France, vol. i. p. 120, 
 from Bruasel, Usage des Fiefs. 
 
CH. xiii.J FEANCE 279 
 
 demesne as bailUs and in Languedoc as seneschaux. 
 There were only two seneschaux for the whole of 
 Languedoc, one stationed at Beaucaire, the other at 
 Carcassonne : the baillis in the northern demesne at 
 St. Quentin, Amiens, Sens, were almost as powerful 
 as the seneschaux in Languedoc.^ The French kings 
 took care that the seneschaux and baillis should 
 hold office only during their pleasure, and should be 
 under the jurisdiction of the Parlement de Paris. 
 Until the end of the thirteenth century these pre- 
 cautions were generally successful in keeping the 
 local administrators duly subordinate to the central 
 government. 
 
 At the beginning of the twelfth century, in the reign 
 of Philip the First, the whole area of France except 
 the city of Paris had been ruled by piefs outside 
 
 sovereign dukes and counts entirely inde- ^■^^ demesne. 
 
 ° Z Decline of 
 
 pendent of the kmg: at the end of the their inde- 
 
 thirteenth, in the reign of Philip the P^^dence. 
 
 Fourth, half the country had been merged in the 
 
 demesnes of the king ; and in the other half nearly 
 
 all the owners of fiefs had been deprived of some part 
 
 of their independence. The encroachments on the 
 
 sovereignty of the counts and dukes outside the 
 
 demesne were effected by two judicial authorities, the 
 
 Curia Kegis and the Peers. The Curia Eegis was, as 
 
 we have noticed, the law-court of the king's demesne. 
 
 1 Luchaire, Les Inst. JFrangaises, §§ 294-298; Gasquet, vol. i. 
 pp. 119-124. The baillis of whom I speak were called grands 
 bailUs : there were also, somewhat later, other bailUs on a par with 
 prevdts. 
 
280 UNIONS BY CONQUEST [ch. xiii. 
 
 In the twelfth century, when the demesne was small 
 and the king's power was not formidable, the Curia 
 was permitted by the Count of Artois, the Duke of 
 Burgundy, and the Count of Nevers, to adjudicate on 
 three suits which arose within their territories. The 
 first of these adjudications was made about 1132; 
 the second in 1153; and 1165-1166 was the date of 
 the third. The suits decided by the Curia between 
 1132 and 1166 were not of vital importance to the 
 fiefs in which they arose, and the Curia did not claim 
 any right to depose the owners of the fiefs in case 
 they were contumacious. After 1166 for a century it 
 does not appear that the Curia by itself adjudicated 
 on any suits outside the demesne: the work of 
 deciding on such suits was performed during that 
 hundred years at special sittings of the Curia at 
 which some of the Peers of France were present. 
 
 The definition of the title Peer of France in the 
 thirteenth century is not precisely known. The first 
 Peers of use of the title, that has survived, occurs 
 France. ^^ ^ letter of the year 1171, where it is 
 given to the Archbishop of Keims. In the few lists 
 of Peers in the thirteenth century which have been 
 preserved there always occur the names of some 
 owners of great fiefs outside the demesne, and also of 
 some prelates whose sees might be either within or 
 without the demesne. Whenever a case affecting 
 the rights of any one of the Peers had to be judged, 
 it was necessary that some of the Peers should act 
 as judges.! When Philip the Second had conquered 
 
 ' Luchaire, Inst. Frang. , § 304. 
 
CH. XIII.] FRANCE 281 
 
 the possessions of John of England from Poitou 
 northward, he summoned John before the Peers of 
 France : John did not appear, and was deprived in 
 default of appearance of the fiefs which Philip had 
 conquered. Peers were present in 1216 to settle a 
 suit of Erard de Brienne against the Countess of 
 Champagne ; and again in 1224 to judge between 
 Jean de Neelle and the Countess of Flanders.^ 
 
 In the first half of the thirteenth century it is 
 probable that owners of independent fiefs such as 
 Champagne and Flanders would not oecUneof 
 have submitted to the judgement of the ^^^ ^*^''^' 
 demesne court of the Curia, unless they were pro- 
 tected against unrighteous decisions by the presence 
 of some independent princes like themselves among 
 the judges ; and during that half-century the partici- 
 pation of Peers in the judgement of Peers was a real 
 protection against injustice. But in the second half 
 of the century the number of independent fief- 
 owners had greatly diminished ; the Parlement was 
 allowed to declare that the presence of a single Peer 
 as a judge was enough to give validity to a sentence 
 affecting a Peer; and in 1297 Philip the Fourth 
 created new Peers by his own fiat, two of them being 
 a Count of Artois and a Count of Valois, both holding 
 estates within the king's demesne.^ After these 
 changes had been made the Peers ceased to have any 
 political importance, and the Parlement de Paris, 
 with or without the presence of Peers, gained power 
 
 1 Langlois, Textes rdatifs au Parlement, pp. 31, 35, 
 
 2 Lavall^e, Hist, dea Fran^., vol. i. p. 472. 
 
282 SURVEY [ch. xiii. 
 
 to adjudicate in all cases arising outside the demesne, 
 except in Gascony, Flanders, and Bretagne, whose 
 princes or inhabitants were in general able to 
 protect themselves by force of arms against usurpa- 
 tion. 
 
 In England, Castile, and France some progress had 
 been made by the end of the thirteenth century 
 The con- towards Uniting under a single govern- 
 dition of ment the many small communities com- 
 CaSiie ' prised in each of those countries. In 
 France in each Country a central government had 
 been established with a king at the head 
 of it. Whenever there was a king possessing an un- 
 disputed title to the throne and endowed with some 
 ability, the central government was usually obeyed 
 throughout the country. In Castile the power of the 
 central government had reached its high- water mark 
 in the reign of Fernando the Third (1217-1252), 
 and had ebbed again in the days of the unwise, 
 though learned, Alfonso the Tenth and his success- 
 ors Sancho the Fourth and Ferdinand the Fourth. 
 Both in England and in France, in the year 1300, 
 under Edward the First and Philip the Fourth, the 
 central government was able to control all classes 
 and all local authorities ; but both countries in the 
 fourteenth century under weaker kings were destined 
 to suifer from the insubordination of barons or of 
 ambitious princes of the blood. But though in the 
 three countries which we have been considering the 
 authority of the central government was still some- 
 times paralysed by rebellion, there is no doubt that it 
 
CH. XIII.] THIRTEENTH CENTURY 283 
 
 - was far better established in 1300 tban it had been 
 two centuries earlier. Each country had been 
 formed through the union by conquest of communi- 
 ties similar in race, language, religion, pursuits, 
 customs, and more or less alike in past history and 
 traditions. Each therefore was a complex and not a 
 simple community; but during the two centuries 
 since the year 1100, all of them had become less 
 conspicuously complex in structure and had made 
 some progress towards unity. They were still very 
 far from being perfectly united nations ; but each of 
 them had so many forces tending to hold it together 
 that we may regard them as imperfect nations or 
 nations in embryo. 
 
 Although, however, the countries of mediaeval 
 Europe each had, in the year 1300, a single central 
 government, they were not independent ^,_ 
 
 ° . They were 
 
 states according to the modern definition not inde- 
 of that term. ' The marks of an inde- P^°^^"*- 
 pendent state,' says Mr. W. E. Hall in his excellent 
 treatise on International Law, ' are, that the com- 
 munity constituting it is permanently established for 
 a political end, that it possesses a defined territory, 
 and that it is independent of external control.' ^ The 
 political bodies existing in the year 1300 were com- 
 munities permanently established for political ends 
 and possessed defined territories ; but they were not 
 independent of external control, because the Papacy 
 frequently dictated the management of their domestic 
 affairs. 
 
 ' W. E. Hall, International Law, % 1, 
 
284 POWER OF [CE. xiil. 
 
 The Christian Church was originally a voluntary 
 _. „. . association. Within a few centuries of 
 
 The Church 
 
 of Western its foundation its members included the 
 
 Christendom. 11 i^**i- 1 i*j] 
 
 whole 01 civilised mankind. 
 The church, in being co-extensive with civilisation, 
 resembled the Koman empire. Civilised mankind, 
 under the empire, was accustomed to 
 
 An inheritor . , . ,^ ■, 
 
 from the consider itseli as one secular com- 
 Western munity which, after the reign of Theo- 
 dosius the Great, separated into two, 
 with their centres in Italy and at Constantinople. 
 The two empires gave the two halves of Europe the 
 consciousness that they were communities united by 
 the possession of a common civilisation. In each half 
 the more backward peoples were glad to be included 
 in some sort of community co-extensive with civilisa- 
 tion, in the hope that culture might spread to them. 
 There was then in each half a need of a community 
 of some sort that took in the whole. When the 
 Western Empire fell in 476 a.d. there was no longer 
 a secular community of the west. The only com- 
 munity that took in the whole was the religious 
 community of western Christendom ; and so the 
 church of the west inherited from the empire a 
 position and dignity as a community co-extensive 
 with western civilisation. 
 
 But the church did not inherit the whole of the 
 power of the empire. Charlemagne founded a new 
 secular empire, and Otto the Great refounded it. 
 As long as there was a secular empire, it might 
 be doubted, whether civilised mankind in the west 
 
CH. XIII,] THE PAPACY 285 
 
 was bound together by allegiance to the secular 
 ruler, or by membership in the church. Western 
 Europe was a most heterogeneous mass of „ 
 peoples, and could not be kept together, its whole 
 either in a secular or religious union, P"™^"^- 
 except by an exceedingly well-devised government 
 of the kind required in a heterogeneous empire. 
 Whether, then, western Europe was to be joined in 
 a secular or a religious union depended on the rela- 
 tive merits of the governments designed by their 
 secular and religious rulers. 
 
 The government of the secular empire founded by 
 Charlemagne and remade by Otto the Great was, as 
 we have seen, totally incapable of holding 
 
 , , _, J !• Government 
 
 the parts together. The government oi of the 
 the church, on the contrary, was most Western 
 
 m, 1 • • -,-, Church. 
 
 admirably designed. The laity m all 
 lands were the subjects, and had no right to an 
 opinion on any religious question nor any influence 
 in church government. The sovereign was the 
 Bishop of Eome. The instruments of government 
 were the bishops and priests, specially trained, 
 transmitting commands, as did Constantino's civil 
 servants, from the central authority to the subject 
 population. The settlement of the succession to the 
 sovereignty gave trouble so long as it was left to the 
 inhabitants of Rome to elect the ruler of the church. 
 In 1059 it was settled that henceforth the electors 
 should be the Cardinal Bishops. They were the 
 best body of electors that could possibly be found 
 ready to assemble quickly on the death of a Pope. 
 
286 SUDDEN DECLINE [ch. xiii. 
 
 They were the trusted officers of the Pope that was 
 dead, and they knew the business of church govern- 
 ment. In committing the election to the Cardinals 
 the rulers of the church acted as wisely as the 
 Romans when, on the death of Jovian, they allowed 
 his great officers to assemble and nominate his 
 successor. 
 
 The Popes could not avoid coming into conflict 
 with the kings of the growing nations. The kings 
 
 claimed to be independent, and the Popes 
 between claimed a power to judge all questions of 
 Popes and morals. While the peoples were in their 
 
 infancy they cared little for upholding 
 the independence of themselves or their kings, and 
 so subjects often obeyed the Pope in preference to 
 their own king. In consequence, from the ninth 
 century to the thirteenth the Popes could interfere 
 effectively in the government of the growing nations. 
 The culminating point of papal interference was 
 reached during the pontificate of Boniface the 
 
 Eighth, in the year 1296. France was at 
 the nations. ^^^^ with England, and England with Scot- 
 gained inde- land. Boniface in 1295 had attempted 
 
 to mediate between France and England 
 and to induce them to agree to a truce or a peace, to 
 be arranged under his arbitration. When the kings 
 of France and England declined his mediation he 
 issued his famous Bull, entitled Clericis Laicos. It 
 began with stating that it was well known that lay- 
 men were enemies of the clergy, and enacted that 
 henceforth all clerics were forbidden to pay any tax 
 
CH. xiiL] OF PAPAL POWER 287 
 
 to any secular ruler witliout the permission of the 
 apostolical see. This Bull, if it had been obeyed, 
 would have broken up every political community 
 in Christendom : the Pope accordingly thought it 
 prudent to explain it away. But in 1301 Bernard 
 Saissetti, Bishop of Pamiers, being appointed by 
 Boniface his legate in France, tried to rouse the 
 Count of Foix and others in the south of the country 
 to take arms against the king. Philip the Fourth 
 arrested Saissetti: Boniface replied by the Bull 
 Ausculta Fili, in which he asserted that the Pope 
 was far above all kings, and from that position he 
 did not recede. In 1303 the aged Pope was dragged 
 out of his country palace at Anagni by Guillaume de 
 Nogaret, the trusted minister of the king of France, 
 with the aid of Sciarra Colonna and his band of 
 Italian ruffians ; a month later he died. Three years 
 later the seat of the Papal Court was removed to 
 Avignon, near to the southern demesne of the French 
 king, and the power of the Popes to interfere with the 
 rising communities of Europe was destroyed. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 NATIONS IN THEIR YOUTH : MEDIiEVAL CONSTITUTIONS 
 
 By the early years of the fourteenth century the 
 three growing nations of England, Castile, and France 
 had acquired settled forms of government which 
 lasted without much change till the end of the 
 Middle Ages in the second half of the fifteenth 
 century. In the present chapter I proceed to depict 
 in outline the chief features of the constitutions of 
 the three countries. 
 
 In all the large states of the Middle Ages the most 
 important organ of government was the king. Kings 
 had joined small communities together 
 by conquest, and kings held them together. 
 In my sketch, then, of the government of each 
 country I shall begin with the kingly prerogative 
 and dignity. 
 
 In England the growth of the kingly power can 
 be traced from its first beginnings. The ofiicer who 
 England: led to the shores of Britain a band of 
 The King. Qgrman settlers was, in the first instance, 
 merely an ' ealdorman ' or ' heretoga ' ; he was, there- 
 fore, a commander-in-chief, and he was also the 
 leader or patron of a body of sworn comrades.^ After 
 ' Chapter ii. page 36, 
 
OH. XIV.] MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS 289 
 
 the settlement was effected the commander took the 
 title of cyning, or man of the kindred. The first 
 functions, then, of an English king were those of 
 commander-in-chief, head of the comitatus, and man 
 of the kindred. By the time when Ethelberht reigned 
 in Kent in the days of Augustine, we see from his 
 laws that the king was personal protector (mundbor) 
 of his more immediate dependants, and if any of 
 them were slain, the king, by reason of his protector- 
 ship {mund or Tnundbyrd), received a payment of 
 fifty shillings to compensate him for the loss of the 
 services of the slain man. It is plain, moreover, that 
 in other parts of England also the king was personal 
 protector of his immediate dependants ; for when the 
 West Saxons in 823, 921, 924 made conquests in 
 parts of England outside of Wessex, the conquered 
 peoples chose the West Saxon king as their mundbor, 
 or as their hlaford (bread-giver or patron) and their 
 mundbor.^ In the reign of Edmund (941-946), at 
 the council of Culinton, it was enacted that all men 
 (including this time the men of Wessex), should 
 swear that they would be faithful to King Edmund 
 as a man ought to be faithful to his dominus : that 
 is to say, to his hlaford? From this time, then, the 
 king was personal protector of all his subjects both 
 within Wessex and outside ; and in case of homicide, 
 whether accidental or designed, the first part of the 
 retribution that fell upon the slayer was that he had 
 to pay compensation to the king for the death of a 
 
 ' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the dates, 
 
 ^ Concilium OuUntonense ; Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 107. 
 
 T 
 
290 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [CH. xiv. 
 
 person who was in the king's protection (mund)} 
 The king, then, in recovering his compensation 
 became the keeper of the peace: for all men knew 
 that he who killed a subject would be compelled to 
 pay the compensation (man-bote) to which the king 
 was entitled.2 In the reign of Cnut (1016-1036) the 
 firmly-rooted notions or doctrines that the king was 
 the personal protector of all Englishmen, and the 
 general keeper of the peace, gave rise to practical 
 legislation in strict accordance with those doctrines ; 
 and it was enacted that in all Wessex whenever any 
 important oft'ence against the peace (homicide, house- 
 breaking, highway robbery, neglect of service in the 
 fyrd or militia, harbouring of outlaws) was com- 
 mitted, the prosecutor must be the king or some 
 officer appointed by him.^ 
 
 At the end, then, of the Anglo-Saxon period the 
 king was commander-in-chief, the patron and friend 
 of the nobles his comrades, the man of the kindred, 
 the personal protector of all his subjects, the keeper 
 of the peace, and the prosecutor in all important 
 criminal trials. All honest or decent folk looked up 
 to the king as their natural protector against oppres- 
 sion and wrong, and the relations between the king 
 and all classes of his subjects were far more sincerely 
 friendly in England than anywhere else in western 
 Europe. 
 
 The Norman Conquest made some changes in the 
 
 1 Concilium Oulintonense ; Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 107; Edm., 
 See. 7. ' Reare man cy ningea munde, ' 
 
 2 See Stubbs, Const. Hist., § 73. 
 
 ^ Cnut's Laws, ii. 12, in Thorpe, Anc. Laws, p. 164. 
 
CH. XIV.] ENGLAND • 291 
 
 king's prerogative. The new line of kings kept all 
 the powers of their predecessors, and added to 
 them the right of being the universal The Norman 
 landowners; but on the other hand the ^"^ss- 
 nobles, their tenants-in-chief, had been imbued with 
 the ideas that prevailed in France, and knew nothing 
 of friendship with the king, and desired to violate 
 the peace of which he" was the protector. The kings, 
 in their efforts to protect themselves, to preserve the 
 peace, and prevent wrong-doing, invented much new 
 machinery of government (as the exchequer, the 
 circuits of justices, the king's select council), and they 
 exerted themselves to keep it at work. In con- 
 sequence of their activity in making innovations, the 
 kings came to be the initiators of all reforms and 
 the doers of all unappropriated work. They had the 
 right to undertake and perform all functions not yet 
 allotted to definite officers ; and it was this right of 
 inventing new functions and seeing to the perform- 
 ance of them that gave a vital and prolific power 
 to the kingly dignity.^ 
 
 We may sum up the kingly functions at the begin- 
 ning of the fourteenth century. The king was the 
 man of the kindred, commander-in-chief, the pro- 
 tector of his subjects and of the peace, the prosecutor 
 in criminal trials, the universal landlord, the restrainer 
 of turbulent nobles, and the friend of nobles who 
 kept the law, the initiator of improvements, and the 
 doer of all work not yet allotted to definite officers. 
 
 1 It is from Stubbs {Const. Hist., § 229) that I adopt the words 
 ' vital and prolific power. ' 
 
292 • MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 These functions would have made the king's power 
 unlimited, but that the Assembly of Estates con- 
 trolled the king's action, now diminishing, now in- 
 creasing the speed and force of his activity in the 
 same way as the governor of a steam engine acts in 
 regulating the velocity and horse-power. 
 
 The word Estate, when used as a political term in 
 the Middle Ages, implied all the qualities that are 
 
 The word usually implied by the word class, and 
 
 ' Estate.' Q^g quality more. An estate was not only 
 a class, defined socially and economically by having 
 certain pursuits, or possessions, or interests, or civil 
 rights, but it was also a class endowed with political 
 privileges. I do not know that the word was ever 
 used as a political term by any Englishman in the 
 fourteenth century; an early use of it occurs in a 
 passage of Thomas de Walsingham which was pro- 
 bably written about 1420, and there are a few instances 
 of its employment in the Records of the Privy 
 Council under the Lancastrian Kings.^ 
 
 The three estates in England, the bishops and 
 great abbots, the secular peers, and the local com- 
 A mbi f ^^^ities organised in shires and boroughs, 
 Estates in were well qualified to exercise through 
 
 "^ ^" ■ those of their members who met in Parlia- 
 ment an effective and gentle control over the king. 
 All three estates had the same interest in regard to 
 the imposition of taxes, for all paid taxes of the same 
 kinds, namely, those on moveables and on trade ;^ 
 
 ' Walsingham, ad arm. 1399: omnibus s<afo'62(« regni tunc adunatis. 
 Privy Council Documents issued by the Record Commissioners, 
 ^ Stubbs, Const. Hist., chap. xvii. 
 
CH. XIV.] ENGLAND 293 
 
 and there was no strife of one whole estate against 
 another whole estate, though some of the secular 
 peers and some members of the communities at the 
 time of the Lollards held views about the wealth of 
 the clergy which some of the priesthood did not 
 like. The communities of the shires and boroughs 
 were not kept at a distance from the peers by any 
 impassable boundaries, for there was no such thing , 
 as a caste of nobles. The head of each family in the 
 peerage bore the hereditary office of a peer of the 
 realm ; but his sons and brothers were commoners 
 and formed a link between the peers and the gentry 
 and farmers. The estate, then, of the communities 
 included all the men of high birth and all the other 
 men with great estates of land who were not included 
 in the small body of actual peers nor in the order of 
 the clergy. The whole estate of the communities, 
 including sons of peers, country gentlemen, villein 
 labourers and townsfolk, had been accustomed for 
 centuries to meet in their shiremoots, and for two 
 centuries the shiremoots had conducted important 
 and varied kinds of public business. The country 
 gentlemen and the kinsmen of peers became the 
 leaders in the shiremoots, and thereby gained a 
 training for public life. From among these leaders 
 in local business the shiremoots chose the men who 
 represented them in Parliament. The knights of the 
 shires, then, were men of established social position, 
 and trained to public work. The members of Parlia- 
 ment who represented boroughs had much less of 
 social standing, and their experience of business had 
 
294 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 been comparatively narrow; but they had met the 
 knights of the shires in the shiremoot, and, knowing 
 them to be capable of conducting business, were 
 content to be guided by them. The knights of the 
 shires numbered only seventy-four; the number of 
 borough members varied because the king chose on 
 each occasion which boroughs should be represented ; 
 but probably in most Parliaments there were nearly 
 three hundred members from towns or cities. 
 Altjiough, however, the members for counties were 
 few and the members for towns were many, the 
 policy of the third estate was settled by the knights 
 of the shires.i 
 
 The great features of the English Parliament were 
 these. All orders had a common interest in taxation. 
 Character since none were exempt ; the gentry 
 and power formed a link between the peers and the 
 English communities; the representation of the 
 
 Parliament, third estate was founded on the shire- 
 moots, the least destructible of all popular secular 
 institutions in the country ; and the knights of the 
 shires, as well as the peers and prelates, were well 
 trained in public business. The result was that all 
 the estates acted as one body in defence of the privi- 
 leges of Parliament ; and in consequence the assembly 
 of the three estates gained the power of the purse, 
 and therewith an effective control of administration. 
 They settled what should go into the treasury : for 
 in 1297 the Confirmatio Chartarum placed in their 
 control the rich sources of taxation, the aids on 
 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., §219. 
 
CH. XIV.] ENGLAND 295 
 
 moveables, the prises on imports, and the duty on 
 export (called maletolt when levied illegally) ; and in 
 the reign of Edward the Third they obtained the 
 right to regulate all lesser exactions as tallage and 
 purveyance. They settled also what should go out 
 of the treasury, and on what objects it should be 
 spent : from the year 1381, except in times of civil 
 discord, treasurers of moneys received from taxation 
 were appointed in Parliament, and they had to 
 render account to Parliament of their receipts and 
 expenditure. Armed with such a power of the purse, 
 the Parliament needed nothing to ensure its general 
 power of supervision and control of administration 
 except the means of punishing fraudulent officers. 
 The method of punishment was devised in 1376 when 
 the Good Parliament invented the process of im- 
 peachment. The House of Commons, acting as a 
 grand jury of presentment for the whole nation, 
 accused the king's minister and some subordinate 
 agents of malversation; and the House of Lords, 
 acting as judges bound to conform to the law of the 
 land, declared the charges were proved, and con- 
 demned the offender to fine and imprisonment.^ 
 
 In Castile and Leon the king was at first merely 
 the chieftain of a band of outlaws who maintained 
 their independence and fought for their castiie: 
 religion against the Mohammedans, ^he King. 
 From the ninth or tenth century, when the king- 
 ship became firmly established, the king was the 
 leader in an endless crusade ; and his character of 
 
 ^ Stubbs, Const. Hist, § 262. 
 
296 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 champion of the armies of the Christians was so 
 conspicuous that it throws all his other functions 
 or prerogatives into the shade. Among the lesser 
 advantages or accompaniments of the kingly office, 
 I do not know that any are clearly visible in the 
 pages of the early Castilian chronicles except that 
 large estates of land were attached to the crown ; that 
 when the king made grants of lands to nobles he 
 made them tenable only for his own life-time, or 
 perhaps sometimes only during his pleasure; and 
 that when new cities were founded through the 
 settlement of Christians on a site whence the Moors 
 had been expelled, it was usually the king who 
 established the new community and endowed it with 
 fueros or privileges. Kingly power in Castile, owing 
 perhaps to its pronounced military character, was less 
 completely under the sway of regulating and restrain- 
 ing agencies than in England; but the progress of 
 the kingship towards increased authority was very 
 frequently impeded by a disputed succession or the 
 accession of a young child to the throne, and for 
 these reasons the Castilian kings of the fourteenth 
 century were somewhat less powerful than their 
 English contemporaries. 
 
 In Castile the Assembly of Estates was known as 
 the Cortes. The three estates were the prelates 
 CastiUan together with the Masters of the Military 
 Cortes. Orders of Knighthood, the ricos hombres 
 or nobles, and the cities. The estate of the nobles 
 included not only the heads but all members of noble 
 families. In the thirteenth century it seems that 
 
CH. XIV.] CASTILE 297 
 
 the nobles were summoned to the Cortes in large 
 numbers ; but, in many of the assemblies of the 
 fourteenth century, the kings, for reasons that will 
 appear shortly, granted the privilege of attendance 
 only to few of the nobles and to few or none of the 
 prelates.^ The third estate consisted of the inhabit- 
 ants of the local divisions, known as cities (cibdades). 
 The name, however, of these divisions is misleading, 
 because each cibdad consisted not merely of a city 
 but also of a large district attached to it. The popu- 
 lation comprised in a cibdad was sometimes perhaps 
 as numerous and almost as varied as that which 
 made up an English shire. It included not only the 
 townsfolk, rich and poor, who lived in the principal 
 city, but also, as we know from a charter given in 
 1250 by King Ferdinand the Third to the councillors 
 of the city of Segovia,^ many caballeros or country 
 gentlemen, and with them many smaller farmers and 
 peasants. The social grades, then, in a cibdad were 
 the same as those in an English shire, with two 
 exceptions : in Castile the sons of nobles (being them- 
 selves hijosdalgo) belonged to the estate of the 
 nobles, and villeins there were none. But here the 
 analogy with a shire ended. The shire was governed 
 by a meeting attended by all members of its com- 
 munity, and held in the open country at a shire oak 
 or other place of gathering ; the cibdad was ruled by 
 a council of burgesses meeting at a council hall 
 within the city walls, and tending inevitably to 
 
 ^ Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 22. 
 
 '■' Colmeiro, Gortes de los reinos de Leon y Oastilla, vol. i. p. 152. 
 
298 MEDIiEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 become a close corporation of wealthy merchants and 
 to gain the right of filling vacancies in their own 
 number without reference to the wishes of the poorer 
 citizens or the country-folk.^ 
 
 The three Estates in Castile were not united in 
 
 interest and dove-tailed together by kinship as were 
 
 Character the Estates in England. We know but 
 
 and power ijtfcie about taxation in Castile; but it 
 
 Castiiian soems quite clear that the prelates and 
 
 Cortes. j.jjg nobles had no interest about it in 
 
 common with the third estate. The nobles certainly, 
 
 and the prelates probably, were entirely exempt from 
 
 the payment of any direct taxes : ^ thus the whole 
 
 burden of the direct taxes fell on the third estate. 
 
 The nobles, then, and the prelates cared nothing 
 
 about questions of taxation, and their indifference 
 
 about so important a matter explains why they made 
 
 but little protest whenever the king chanced to 
 
 summon few or none of them to a meeting of the 
 
 Cortes. The third estate, however, were so strong 
 
 behind their city walls that they gained and held 
 
 during the Middle Ages the power of the purse, and 
 
 exercised control over both taxation and expenditure.^ 
 
 ^ The councils were perfectly close oligarchies from the reign of 
 Alfonso the Eleventh (1295-1332).— Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. 
 p. 21. 
 
 ^ The exemption of the nobles is completely proved by arguments 
 used by them in 1538 or 1539. They declared they were exempt 
 by long tradition, and the crown could not contradict them. 
 Probably the prelates were exempt also : since from 1539 neither 
 nobles nor prelates attended the Cortes. — Robertson, Charles the 
 Fifth, book vi. 
 
 '■' Hallam, Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 27. 
 
CH. XIV.] CASTILE 299 
 
 It does not, however, seem that the Cortes as a whole 
 exercised the same regulating influence over the 
 course of administration as did the English Parlia- 
 ment : the Castilian cibdadanos could easily manage 
 to protect their own pockets, but, as the nobles 
 and prelates held aloof from them, they had no 
 leaders who could help them quietly to overthrow 
 a powerful minister of the crown. 
 
 In France the king's power was one thing within 
 the demesne and something very different outside. 
 What it was outside the demesne I France: 
 cannot determine : probably it was great '^•'^ ^"S- 
 in some iiefs and small in others. Inside the demesne 
 the king claimed and exercised powers which he 
 derived by an irregular inheritance from earlier rulers 
 or dynasties in Gaul since the times of the Roman 
 domination. While Gaul was a Roman province 
 every inhabitant of the country rendered unquestion- 
 ing obedience to every order of the Emperor or the 
 Praetorian Prefect. During the period of the Salian 
 dynasty, it seems that in all those Salian kingdoms 
 which lay entirely within the geographical limits of 
 the Gallic province, the authority of the king and 
 his officers met with submission almost as complete 
 as had been paid in earlier times to the mandates of 
 Roman functionaries; and when Gaul became subject 
 to the German Charlemagne he also was obeyed in 
 everything. During the period of the dukes of 
 France and of the Capetian kings, till about the year 
 1200, it is impossible to determine how much 
 authority those rulers enjoyed within the districts 
 
300 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 under their immediate control. But in the thirteenth 
 century the kings claimed, within their demesnes but 
 nowhere else, powers as unlimited as Charlemagne 
 had enjoyed; and I believe they exercised those 
 powers subject only to a very slight control from 
 their law-court, the Parlement. They enacted laws, 
 and Philip the Fourth imposed new taxes in the sole 
 right of royal authority. In the fourteenth century 
 and the fifteenth the making of new laws or new 
 taxes required generally a formal consent from the 
 states-general; but that assent was commonly ob- 
 tained with ease, and the Assembly of Estates exer- 
 cised but a frail and feeble control over the public 
 purse and policy. 
 
 The next greatest power in the French nation, after 
 the king, was not an assembly of estates, but a law- 
 Pariement court Called le Parlement de Paris. It 
 de Pans, decided, in the fourteenth century and 
 afterwards, not only all suits which had been in its 
 own jurisdiction in earlier times, but also those which 
 had required the sanction of some of the Peerff of 
 France. In particular, it had the right to settle all 
 questions concerning the succession in fiefs outside 
 the demesne ; and in the fourteenth century it gained 
 appellate jurisdiction in all suits outside the demesne, 
 except in Flanders and the dominions of the English 
 king, which were now independent of France. At the 
 very end of the Middle Ages all new laws were sent to 
 the Parlement to be registered. The Parlement did 
 not in the Middle Ages refuse to register a law unless 
 the king desired it to refuse; but the fact that no 
 
CH. XIV.] FRANCE 301 
 
 law took effect till the Parlement had ^registered 
 it, might lead in the future to momentous con- 
 sequences.^ 
 
 The classes endowed with political privileges in 
 France were the clergy, the nobles, and the tiers dtat. 
 The clerical estate took in all orders of The states- 
 clergy, whereas in England, except for a General, 
 short time, and in Castile always, it included none 
 but the very highest ranks. The estate of the nobles 
 took in all members of noble families ; and the tiers 
 etat comprised only the towns with a minute district 
 around each. The assembly of estates, as distinct 
 from the estates or orders in the population at large, 
 was contrasted in its origin and organisation with the 
 assemblies of estates in England and Castile. In 
 England and Castile many ancient practices and 
 institutions led the way insensibly towards the meet- 
 ing of an assembly ; in France the assembly appeared 
 in a single year without a premonition of its coming. 
 In England and Castile the great nobles and the 
 high dignitaries of the Church had for centuries 
 formed a council to deliberate with the king on 
 questions of policy ; in France there was no council of 
 nobles, and the councils of the clergy were merely 
 synods dealing with the affairs of the Church. In 
 England and Castile there were important organised 
 local communities with effective governments to 
 manage their affairs; in France there were no self- 
 governing local communities except a few small 
 towns, and in them the magistrates were usually 
 
 ' Gasquet, Precis, vol. i. pp. 283-286. 
 
302 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 unfit for their work, and were disliked by the 
 inhabitants. In England and Castile the assembly of 
 the three estates was a natural home-grown product, 
 arising gradually and spontaneously because the 
 nobles and prelates were an old-established council, 
 and it was convenient to augment that council by 
 the addition of representatives from the important 
 local governing bodies; in France the assembly of 
 the three estates was no more than an artificial 
 novelty, introduced by Philip the Fourth in the hope 
 that it might furnish a convenient weapon for use in 
 the conflict with Pope Boniface the Eighth. France, 
 in the reigns of Philip the Third and the Fourth, had 
 experience of hostile relations both with Aragon and 
 with England. Philip the Fourth must have felt 
 how much strength those states derived from the 
 existence of their Cortes and Parliament; and it 
 seems likely that he summoned the states-general in 
 blind imitation of his neighbours in the hope that 
 the assembly might serve as a support in his external 
 difficulties. 
 
 The third estate consisted of the towns. In the 
 year 1308 two hundred and twenty-five towns sent 
 The Tiers representatives to the assembly ; the 
 Etats. credentials of all the representatives ex- 
 cept twenty-three have been preserved or recorded 
 in contemporary documents. The governors of the 
 towns, responsible for the election of the represen- 
 tatives, gave the individual representatives their 
 credentials of admission to the assembly ; and so the 
 credentials show who the governors of the towns 
 
OH. XIV.] FRANCE 303 
 
 were.i In one hundred and thirteen towns the 
 governors were magistrates chosen in the towns, and 
 deriving their authority solely from the inhabitants, 
 or from some of them. The one hundred and 
 thirteen towns with magistrates of their own are 
 divided into fifty-seven having maire, or jures, or 
 ectevins, or pairs, and fifty-six having consuls. All 
 the fifty-seven with maire, or jures, or ^chevins, or 
 pairs, with the exception of four, were situate in 
 Northern France; these fifty-seven were known as 
 communes. The fifty-six with consuls were all 
 southern towns, and are known as villes consulaires. 
 When we deduct the one hundred and thirteen self- 
 governing towns from the total of two hundred and 
 twenty-five, one hundred and twelve remain. For 
 twenty-three of these no credentials have been pre- 
 served ; for eighty-nine there were no elective 
 magistrates. These eighty-nine towns were governed 
 by a prevSt, appointed by the king or by a great man 
 who was seigneur of the town. These eighty-nine 
 towns belong to the class of towns called by Guizot 
 bourgs prevStawx,^ because they were governed by a 
 prevSt, and also to the larger class of towns which 
 Luchaire calls villes /ranches, because the inhabitants 
 were exempted from serfdom, and also possessed 
 charters which gave them immunity from some kinds 
 of arbitrary exactions.^ 
 
 ' Boataric, Philippe le Bel, pp. 439-448, gives a complete analysis 
 of the credentials. 
 ^ Guizot, Civilisation en France. 
 3 Luchaire, Instil. Fran^., §§ 211-228. 
 
304 MEDIAEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [CH. xiv. 
 
 In France tlie members of the clergy and of the 
 nobles who came to the assembly were representa- 
 St t ^^^^^ elected by the estates to which they 
 of Clergy belonged ; whereas in England and Castile 
 an obes. ^j^^ clerical and noble members of the 
 assembly obtained the right to sit and vote without 
 election, and merely by the reception of a writ which 
 the king directed to them because they held an 
 official position as rulers of a see, or an abbey, or a 
 baronial estate. France was divided into districts 
 called bailliages and sdnechauss^es, ruled by baillis 
 and sinichaijbx. In each of these districts the clergy 
 and the nobles were summoned to meet to elect their 
 representatives.^ Their meetings must have been very 
 different from the meetings in which the English shire- 
 moots chose their knights. The men of the shire had 
 to come together to transact a quantity of business of 
 great local interest, and therefore they would attend 
 in good numbers. In France the members of the 
 clergy and nobles who lived in a bailliage had 
 nothing whatever to draw them together except the 
 occasional dull business of choosing a representative, 
 and drawing up for his instruction a cahier of 
 grievances to which the central government paid no 
 attention. 
 
 The three estates of France could never act in 
 their assembly as a united body. There were no ties 
 of kindred between the nobles and the third estate ; 
 the nobles and the clergy were exempt from direct 
 taxes on their lands, and so they took no interest 
 
 ' Gasquet, Prdcis des Inst, de I'ancienne France, vol. i. p. 175. 
 
CH. XIV.] FEANCE 305 
 
 in the amount of the taille, the direct tax levied 
 on the third estate ; and the nobles were dreaded and 
 disliked by the bourgeoisie, because they The char- 
 owned oppressive rights of iurisdiction ^<^'^'' ^"^ 
 
 , , ... weakness of 
 
 m the towns, and a noble might indulge the states- 
 in acts of violence against the persons General, 
 and property of any one except his own men-at-arms. 
 It was indeed a recognised principle that there was 
 to be no increase of taxation without the consent of 
 the states-general ; but the third estate dreaded the 
 nobles far more than they feared the king. Accord- 
 ingly, the third estate usually granted the king his 
 supplies without much question: the nobles and 
 clergy, of course, assented to the taxes being levied 
 because they did not affect their own pockets.^ The 
 third estate granted the taxes often without con- 
 ditions, and simply in the hope that the king would 
 restrain the nobles ; if they annexed conditions, the 
 men of the third estate were but untrained and help- 
 less tradesmen of petty towns, unskilful in their 
 bargains with the crown, and the conditions were 
 easily disregarded. The result of the whole was that 
 the assembly of estates in France gained neither the 
 power of the purse nor a control of administration. 
 Once indeed, in 1355, when France, attacked by 
 Edward the Third in Artois and by the Black Prince 
 from Bordeaux, was in an agony and seemed near 
 to extinction, the states-general took a supreme 
 control over all departments of government ; but the 
 result showed nothing but their incapacity, and in 
 
 1 Gasquet, Precis, vol. i. pp. 179-196. 
 U 
 
306 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [ch. xiv. 
 
 1358 they relapsed again into their old position of 
 
 insignificance. 
 
 Our survey of the growth and governments of 
 
 England, Castile, and France has shown us that 
 
 each of these growing nations was formed 
 Mediaeval , . / . ., ^ , 
 
 Constitu- by a union oi similar rural communities. 
 
 tions: England was a union of tribes, like one 
 
 Summary. ° 
 
 another in their purely Teutonic customs; 
 this union was afterwards conquered by the duke of 
 an independent fief, but the conquest did not infuse 
 any large new element of population, and only 
 strengthened the tribal institutions. Castile was a 
 union of the small kingdoms of Castile and Leon, 
 like one another in all important matters, and espe- 
 cially in opposition to the Moors ; they were, more- 
 over, mainly rural communities, but they were not 
 tribes, because they had some town life. France 
 was a union of independent fiefs: possibly the fiefs 
 varied greatly in their organisation, but aU of those 
 in Francia were alike in the elements of their popu- 
 lation and in past history; so were those in Bur- 
 gundia, and those in that part of Aquitania which 
 belonged to the French crown. Thus England had 
 its own set of components, and its own methods of 
 uniting them ; Castile had its own set of components 
 and its own method of uniting them ; and so had 
 France. The three countries, then, were unlike in 
 their components and the events that joined those 
 components together; and their constitutions, though 
 superficially alike, were not really the same, but 
 differed in important particulars, especially in the 
 
CH. XIV.] DISSIMILAR 307 
 
 amount and kinds of power which they assigned to 
 different organs of government. 
 
 It is, then, clear that our comparison of mediseval 
 nations has produced no results of first-rate import- 
 ance. It is probable that my examples of 
 mediseval nations were ill chosen, and that comparing 
 if I had compared England with Sweden, medieval 
 Denmark, and Norway, which like Eng- 
 land were unions of tribes, the results might have 
 been better. But the attempt to discover important 
 truths from comparisons of mediseval nations must 
 necessarily be attended with the same difficulties as 
 occur in the comparative study of complex city 
 states. Both the mediseval nations and the complex 
 city states were artificial creations, in that they were 
 made by compulsory union of many separate com- 
 munities; but they were subject to the action of 
 unifying instincts, because the communities in each 
 artificial state were alike. Their artificial creation 
 ensured that they were diverse in character ; and yet 
 we cannot compare them as mere works of art, 
 because the artists who made their governments were 
 constantly compelled to modify their designs and 
 adapt them to the requirements of populations which 
 were being unified by nature. The natural growth 
 towards unification sometimes produced an isolated 
 similar institution in two growing nations, but the 
 diversity caused by artificial origin remained so 
 marked that it is usually impossible to compare the 
 whole structure of one nation with the whole struc- 
 ture of another. It is certainly true of my specimens, 
 
308 
 
 MEDIEVAL CONSTITUTIONS [CH. xiv. 
 
 England, Castile, and France, that they differed both 
 in structure and in government. The differences 
 between them are exhibited in the subjoined table. 
 In the next two chapters I shall speak of the city 
 states of the Middle Ages. 
 
 COMPLEX RURAL COMMUNITIES, AND THEIR 
 GOVERNMENTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 NAME AND FORM OF COMMUNITY. 
 
 England. A union of tribes, 
 afterwards conquered by the 
 duke of an independent fief. 
 
 Castile. A union of small 
 kingdoms, having some town 
 life. 
 
 France. A union of indepen- 
 dent fiefs. 
 
 GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 King and Parliament ; the 
 whole Parliament having the 
 power of the purse, and super- 
 vision of administration. 
 
 King and Cortes ; the estate of 
 the cities having the power 
 of the purse, but the whole 
 Cortes having but little con- 
 trol of administration. 
 
 1. King. 
 
 2. Parlement de Paris, a law- 
 court with trained judges. 
 
 3. In a humbler position, the 
 states-general, having very- 
 little power of the purse, and 
 no control of administration. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 CITY STATES IN THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The circumstances which, led to the appearance of 
 city states in the Middle Ages were nearly the same 
 as those which we have noticed as producing similar 
 communities in the ancient world.^ In all the 
 countries of mediaeval Europe one after another, as of 
 old in Greece and Italy, wealth was accumulated 
 through the pursuits of commerce and industry ; 
 wealth, and the persons of its owners, could not be in 
 security unless it was placed in strong towns, and 
 therefore strong towns were founded. The towns, 
 however, of the Middle Ages differed from the towns 
 of ancient Greece in one important particular. They 
 were not independent political communities from 
 their first foundation, because the ground on which 
 they stood was not their own, but formed a part of 
 the territory of some larger state. For this reason 
 all of them, except Venice, were at first municipali- 
 ties dependent on the government of some larger 
 country. In England, France, and Spain, where the 
 governments of the countries were national and 
 steadily increased in strength, the towns were kept 
 
 ^ See Chapter iv. 
 
310 MEDIEVAL [ch. xv. 
 
 in permanent subordination. In Italy and Germany 
 there were no national governments, but only the 
 artificial domination of an emperor, which gradually 
 lost all controlling power in the twelfth and thir- 
 teenth centuries. It was, therefore, only in Italy 
 and Germany that the towns were emancipated from 
 control and grew into sovereign city states. 
 
 Wealth was brought into western Europe by the 
 
 Venetians. The Germans, who conquered under 
 
 Charlemame, acquired a taste for those 
 
 Wealth. ? ^ 1 . V, 1, J A. 
 
 wares which were only to be had from 
 Constantinople, the emporium of the East. The 
 route of trade from the Bosporus to Germany could 
 not go up the Danube, because the stream was unfit 
 for navigation at the rapids of the Iron Gate and the 
 Strudel ; the only remaining route had to cross the 
 Alps, and it crossed them by the easiest of the passes, 
 the Brenner. The Venetian islands lay at the foot of 
 the Brenner, and some of them were accessible from 
 the sea. The Venetians very naturally gained for a 
 time exclusive control of the trade to Germany from 
 Constantinople and the ports of Asia Minor, Syria, 
 and Egypt. In 813, when the Caliph at Bagdad, son 
 of Harun al Kaschid, sent an embassy to Sicily, the 
 envoys were conveyed in a Venetian ship.^ The 
 Venetians were the ordinary carriers of the fine 
 wares of the East to the court of Charlemagne when 
 he held it at Pavia, in northern Italy.^ 
 
 Though wealth came into Italy in the time of 
 
 ' JaflK, Mon. Oarol., p. 325 ; letter of Leo III. to Charlemagne. 
 2 Ibid., p. 694 ; Mon. Sangall., book ii. oh. xviii. 
 
OH. XV J CITIES 311 
 
 Ghaiiemagne, there is no reason to suppose that 
 strong towns were then built : the government of the 
 emperor provided for security of property. Between 
 the years 888 and 930 Italy was con- _ 
 
 ■' ■' Towns on 
 
 stantly devastated both by Saracens and by the Italian 
 Hungarians ; ^ the country had no strong ™^'°'^''- 
 king to protect it, and we may conjecture that it was 
 in the period of the devastations that strong towns 
 were built. We know that in the time of the Wars of 
 Investitures, 1075-1122, strong towns were abundant 
 in northern Italy. In the treaty of 1183 their inde- 
 pendence was recognised by Frederick Barbarossa, and 
 thenceforth they were self-governing communities. 
 
 Towns arose in Germany as in other mediaeval 
 countries. When the power of the emperor came to 
 an end in the middle of the thirteenth Towns in 
 century, Germany broke up into a multi- Germany, 
 tude of independent fiefs. Many of the fiefs con- 
 tained a strong town. In the thirteenth century 
 the towns were dependent on the owners of the fiefs ; 
 about the middle of the fourteenth' century many of 
 them acquired their independence. 
 
 The mediaeval city states present more variations 
 of character than those of the ancient world. Some 
 were purely urban communities or simple varieties of 
 city states, others were complicated by city states, 
 having dependencies in their allegiance. Venice had 
 very distant trading factories, German towns had 
 their burghers of the pale, and some Italian cities 
 
 ' Luitprand, Aniapodosis, bk. i. 2-3, bk. 11. 42-3, ed. Diunmler in 
 M. G. H. 
 
312 FLOEENCE [ch. xv. 
 
 had nobles subject to them on similar terms. In 
 the present chapter I intend to speak of simple city 
 states, and among them Florence alone is conspicuous. 
 Florence was a Roman town which grew up on the 
 north bank of the Arno at the foot of the rocky 
 height on which stood the far older town 
 
 Florence. 
 
 of Fsesulse or Fiesole. It had risen to 
 some importance by the reign of the Emperor 
 Honorius, when in the year 405 a.d. its walls sufficed 
 to check the invasion of Radagaisus and his four 
 hundred thousand barbarians. From the fall of the 
 western Roman empire till the twelfth century the 
 town is scarcely mentioned. It was included in the 
 dominions of the counts of Tuscany. On the ex- 
 tinction of the line of counts at the death of Matilda, 
 the last countess, in 1115, the county broke up into 
 independent fragments. Florence was a small inde- 
 pendent town, and was surrounded by the estates 
 and castles of small independent nobles. 
 
 In the latter part of the twelfth century the towns- 
 men of Florence were often at war with the neigh- 
 industriai bouring nobles. The townsmen were 
 organisation, already commercial and industrial, and 
 desired safe transit for their goods ; the nobles were 
 military and tried to take toll of the goods as they 
 passed near their castles. Before the year 1200 the 
 townsmen had captured many of the castles in a 
 semicircle to the south of the Arno, having a radius 
 of about fifteen English miles, with Florence at the 
 centre; and in 1193 we get a clear indication that 
 there were trade guilds in the town. In a document 
 
CH. XV.] EARLY GOVEENMENT 313 
 
 of that year Priores are mentioned as important 
 men.^ It is certain they were not magistrates ruling 
 the town; the only official magistrates were then 
 consuls and the podesta. The subsequent very 
 frequent use of the words Priores artium supports 
 the view that the important men named in 1193 
 were masters of commercial or industrial guilds. 
 
 Florence in the twelfth century and the early part 
 of the thirteenth was mainly an urban, but also 
 partly a rural community, and it had to _ 
 fight for its existence. It had then one government 
 of those mixed forms of government ° orence. 
 which is usually found in communities of such 
 character and in such circumstances. It had 
 magistrates of varying number elected every year ; 
 till 1232 they were called consoli, afterwards anziani. 
 We have no information about the elections, but 
 there can be no doubt that all the men of substance 
 both in town and country took part in them, and the 
 names of those magistrates who are mentioned show 
 that they belonged to families of distinction. Besides 
 the magistrates there was in Florence, as in other 
 Italian towns, a podesta. The podesta in those early 
 days was like a king or stadholder, invested for a 
 year with large judicial authority, and with the 
 command in war. He was never a citizen of 
 Florence, but was selected from amongst the most 
 distinguished inhabitants of some neighbouring city, 
 because a man brought in from outside was likely to 
 be impartial in adjudicating between Florentines.^ 
 
 1 Perrens, Hist, de Florence, vol. i. p. 207, note. 
 ■' Tbid., vol. i. pp. 210-236, and p. 282. 
 
314 FLORENCE: TOWNSMEN [oh. xv. 
 
 In the thirteenth century the conflicts between 
 the commercial burghers and the military nobles of 
 
 Ghibeiines the Country were sharper than ever. The 
 
 and Gueifs. Emperor Frederick the Second strove for 
 mastery in Italy from 1220 till his death thirty years 
 later. The nobles of the country around Florence 
 were his supporters; the townsmen were his enemies. ^ 
 In 1240, when Frederick was approaching Tuscany, 
 the Florentines first knew the party names Ghibeline 
 and Guelf. The Ghibeiines were primarily the up- 
 holders of the emperor, the Gueifs the supporters of 
 the independence of the Italian towns. After the 
 death of Frederick in 1250 the names had meanings 
 which varied from town to town and from generation 
 to generation, till at last they became meaningless. 
 In Florence till 1300 a Ghibeline was an upholder of 
 the country nobles; a Guelf was a maintainer of 
 town independence and commercial ascendency. 
 
 From 1250 to 1289 the strife of Ghibeiines and 
 Gueifs in and around Florence was a conflict of 
 
 „ , country against town. The success of 
 
 Country •' o 
 
 against the two parties depended on the amount 
 ^"' of aid that they got from Naples. Till 
 
 1265 Manfred was strong in Naples, and he aided the 
 country nobles. His assistance enabled the nobles in 
 1260 to conquer on ' that day which made the Arbia 
 run blood-red ' ; Florence would have been razed to 
 the ground but for the intercession of the Ghibeline 
 
 ' (Marchione di Coppo) Stefani states this explicitly. See 
 Delizie degli Eruditi Toscani, vol. vii. pp. 74, 75. The work 
 was published in 1776 by Ildefonso de San Luigi. 
 
CH. XV.] AND COUNTRY NOBLES 315 
 
 "country nobleman Farinata degli Uberti. In 1266 
 Charles of Anjou came to Italy to win Naples ; and 
 as a rival of Manfred he gave such aid to the Guelfs, 
 the party of the townsmen in Florence, that in 1267 
 they were able to drive the,Ghibelines into exile. 
 
 The exile of the Ghibelines in 1267 gave their 
 opponents an exceptional position in the Florentine 
 Kepublic. The possessions of the exiles _ . , 
 
 J^ c Endowment 
 
 were confiscated. One- third went to the of the Parte 
 Florentine state; one-third to individual 
 Guelfs who had claims for damages; one-third to 
 the Guelfs collectively. The Guelfs were thus 
 labelled as the only patriotic citizens; and the 
 Parte Guelfa became an endowed corporation. 
 Under the advice of Pope Urban and Charles of 
 Anjou, who were the heads of the Guelfs in Italy, 
 it promptly elected magistrates to manage its pro- 
 perty and direct its counsels.^ The results of the 
 endowment and organisation of the Parte Guelfa 
 were not conspicuous at first ; but in the middle of 
 the fourteenth century it became a state within the 
 state no less than the Plebs had been in the Roman 
 Republic. For the moment the distribution of the 
 Ghibeline estates among the Guelfs merely made it 
 certain that the Guelfs would vigorously oppose any 
 permanent restoration of the exiles. In 1280 Pope 
 Nicolas the Third and his nephew Cardinal Latino 
 persuaded the Florentines to permit some of the 
 Ghibelines to return, and to give them six places 
 on the board of fourteen anziani; in 1282 the 
 1 Villani, vii. 17. 
 
316 FLOEENCE [ch. xv. 
 
 Guelfs refused to have their enemies as colleagues. 
 The Ghibelines who had been restored went into 
 exile again. The whole of the Ghibeline party made 
 one determined effort in 1289 to restore themselves 
 by armed invasion, but they were finally defeated 
 at the battle of Campaldino, and thenceforth the 
 townsmen were secured in the possession of the 
 government. 
 
 The victory of the townsmen deprived the contado 
 
 or rural territory of all its importance. The country 
 
 nobles were the Ghibelines, banished to a 
 
 simple city distance; after their departure the country 
 
 state from districts were owned by Guelfs who lived 
 
 1282. 
 
 in the city. Thus by the year 1282 Flor- 
 ence had shrunk into a simple city state. In its 
 territorial arrangement it was exactly like the simple 
 city states of ancient Greece: it had no important 
 rural population, no subject towns, no distant depen- 
 dencies. But it was not like the Greek states in its 
 social divisions. Florence never had any consider- 
 able population of slaves; in 1289 slavery was 
 absolutely prohibited, and therefore both menial 
 services and the work of handicrafts were performed 
 by free men. As the citizens worked at useful arts 
 and manufactures they were not merely divided, as 
 in a Greek city, into the two classes of the rich and 
 the poor, but into many classes according to employ- 
 ment. In 1292, ten years after the second exile of 
 the Ghibelines, we can distinguish twenty -four classes 
 among the Guelf townsmen. The men of substance, 
 possessing enough capital to manage a business, were 
 
CH. XV.] CLASSES OF TOWNSMEN 317 
 
 divided into twenty-one arts or trade guilds ; ^ the 
 poor worked for wages; the richest among the 
 guildsmen were called popolani grassi ; and those 
 of distinguished family were called nobili. I do not 
 know anything that proves for certain what con- 
 stituted a man nobile at this time; but from the 
 usage of later times I believe that any Guelf was 
 nobile if any of his ancestors had attained the 
 distinction of knighthood. 
 
 In 1282 the Florentines abandoned their old form 
 of government under anziani, and established a new 
 government founded on their trade guilds. 
 Under the old form of government it is oArade™^" 
 probable that all citizens of substance guilds, 
 enjoyed the right of voting for magis- 
 trates and of being elected to bear office ; under the 
 new system no one could vote, or hope to be elected, 
 unless he had first risen to distinction in his guild. 
 Under the rule of the trade guilds, the magistrates 
 were taken from certain guilds, and these magistrates, 
 together with a few friends whom they themselves 
 selected, were the electors of their successors : there 
 was therefore no such thing as an election of 
 magistrates in which many voters took part. For 
 seventy-six years, from 1282 to 1358, with one year's 
 intermission in 1342, a few men who had risen to the 
 top of the guilds were the rulers of the state and the 
 electors of new rulers. 
 
 But the rulers were the chief men, not of all the 
 
 ^ The arts are enumerated in a document of 1292, printed in 
 Archivio Storico Italiano, vol. i. for 1855, p. 38. 
 
318 FLORENCE [CH. xv. 
 
 guilds, but only of a few guilds. Among the twentj'- 
 one guilds there were three classes — the seven greater 
 „ . ,, arts, the five middle arts, and nine lesser 
 
 Not all ' ' 
 
 guUdswere arts. From 1282 to 1292 the rulers of 
 pnviege . Florence were taken from the seven 
 greater arts; from 1292 to 1342 from the seven 
 greater and the five middle arts; from 1343 to 1358 
 all the arts were allowed to contribute members 
 to the board of magistrates, but a large majority 
 was assured to the middle and lesser arts, and the 
 greater arts were practically excluded from influence. 
 In the year 1282 seven of the arts were already 
 nearly a century old and had grown to wealth and 
 p.^ power. Three were certainly industrial : 
 
 constitution, the Calimala, the silk-workers, and the 
 kuie'^Df'the furriers. The Calimala was the greatest 
 seven of the arts: it imported coarse woollen 
 
 cloth from Flanders and remade it into 
 a fine fabric. Its name is somewhat obscure, but 
 probably it comes from calle Tnala, a narrow lane, 
 where the work was done. Three arts were certainly 
 not industrial : the lawyers, the money-changers, and 
 the apothecaries. The seventh was the arte di lana, 
 the wool guild. I believe confidently that even in 
 1 282 its business was to spin and weave wool direct 
 from the fleece, as was certainly the case towards the 
 end of my seventy-six years. Hallam speaks of its 
 members as drapers, but I feel sure they were 
 engaged in manufacture. The members of the seven 
 arts were all in the higher walks of business. The 
 lawyers and the money-changers, or bankers, were 
 
OH. XV.] TKADE GUILDS 319 
 
 professional men; the apothecaries managed large 
 shops for the sale of spices and drugs, and were 
 medical practitioners ; the Calimala, the silk- workers, 
 the furriers, and, as I believe, the arte di lana, were 
 great capitalists and employers of skilled labour. It 
 is not likely the work was done in great factories, 
 for no such buildings are mentioned in any of the 
 frequent faction fights in the streets and squares. 
 The word bottiche (the French boutiques) occurs fre- 
 quently. Most likely they were warehouses where 
 raw material was kept; and probably the artisans 
 received the material for their work at a warehouse, 
 did the work at their homes, and carried back their 
 piece to the botticha. 
 
 We may look at the organs of government in 1282. 
 There was firstly a board of Priori for initiating laws 
 and resolutions; secondly, for judgment organs of 
 and police, two officers called podesta and government, 
 captain of the people; thirdly, for approving laws 
 and resolutions, five councils in which the presiding 
 officer was either the podesta or the captain of the 
 people. It was also possible to summon a Parla- 
 mento, or general meeting of the citizens, but it 
 met very rarely. No law took effect unless it was 
 approved in all the five councils : when a law was so 
 approved, the Priori could if they chose summon the 
 Parlamento to consider it, but this occurred only on 
 occasions of extreme importance. In case the Parla- 
 mento met, it was a general rule that no one except 
 the governing body of an art could make any pro- 
 posal ; but this rule could be relaxed by the presiding 
 
320 FLORENCE [ch. xv. 
 
 officer. In 1285 a president allowed any citizen to 
 speak his opinion.^ 
 
 In 1282 the Priori were six in number, one from 
 each of six greater arts : the lawyers did not furnish 
 a Priore because they had so much influence in 
 advising the Priori and other officers. Each board 
 of Priori held office for two months only; no one 
 could be re-elected till after an interval of two years, 
 and therefore seventy-two men held office before any 
 one of them could, be chosen again. There is nothing 
 to prove that a man was prohibited from sitting on 
 two or more of the five councils at once : the largest 
 of the councils had only a hundred members, and it 
 seems likely that under the rule of the seven greater 
 arts political rights were enjoyed only by about three 
 hundred capitalists. 
 
 We are not informed explicitly how each art was 
 governed. We know it had magistrates called consoli; 
 
 and I think it is clearly implied by an 
 government excellent contemporary writer that each 
 of each art board of consoU, with a few friends, 
 
 appointed its successors. Villani tells us 
 that in 1828, when anticipated elections ^ were intro- 
 duced into the Republic, they were imitated in the 
 greater and middle arts. He says nothing to indicate 
 that the elections in the arts were conducted other- 
 wise than in the Republic in any respect ; and I 
 think we may fairly infer that in each guild the 
 consoli nominated their successors.^ 
 
 ' Minutes of a Parlamento held 1285. Perrens, vol. ii. p. 474. 
 ' See page 323. " Villani, bk. x. ch. 111. 
 
CH. XV.] THE TWELVE ARTS 321 
 
 The greater arts found the Guelf nobles were as 
 turbulent as the Ghibelines had been. They called 
 in allies to aid them against the nobles. „ 
 
 ° . Second 
 
 These new allies were the five middle constitution, 
 arts of the butchers, the shoemakers, the 'j^^^^^^l'^ 
 smiths, the builders, the clothiers. With arts, 
 their aid the famous Ordinances of '^94-i342- 
 Justice were passed for the restraint of the nobles. 
 If a noble was accused of violence against a non- 
 noble he was condemned in terrible penalties, if 
 two witnesses said that he was reputed to be guilty 
 by common fame ; and every noble family was made 
 pecuniarily responsible for the good behaviour of all 
 its members. In return for their services the mem- 
 bers of the five middle arts were made eligible to the 
 board of Priori; new officers, twenty in number, 
 called gonfaloniers, were appointed to command the 
 companies of civic militia; the chief gonfalonier, 
 called gonfalonier of justice, obtained a seat on the 
 board with the six Priori, and the nobles were totally 
 disfranchised. 
 
 The elections of officers under the second constitu- 
 tion were still entirely in the hands of small and close 
 bodies of capitalists. The electors were 
 
 . _ . . T , 1 J. Elections. 
 
 the outgoing Priori and the rulers oi 
 twelve arts, and a few friends chosen by the Priori 
 called richiesti or arruoti. The voting was secret: 
 no one was present except the electors and two friars 
 to receive the black and white beans. The mass of 
 the members of the twelve arts had no part in the 
 voting, still less had any other inhabitants of the 
 
 X 
 
322 FLOEENCE [CH. xv. 
 
 town. There was an election of Priori every two 
 months : some lesser officers, as the nineteen gonfal- 
 oniers who commanded the militia companies, had a 
 tenure for six months. The secret elections by close 
 committees of capitalists led to unfair distribution 
 of offices. From 1316 to 1323 a clique led by a Count 
 BattifoUe was in power, and they rigorously excluded 
 a definite number of families whom they supposed 
 (probably without reason) to be their opponents. 
 
 A remedy for the unfair distribution of office was 
 gradually devised between 1323 and 1328. It con- 
 Anticipation sisted in anticipation of elections, or in 
 of elections, holding elections of office-holders for a 
 great number of terms of office at once. The chief 
 officers were somewhat more numerous than under 
 the first constitution : they included six Priori, twelve 
 secret councillors of the Priori, called huonuomini 
 (good men), and the twenty gonfaloniers, thirty-six 
 men in all, drawn entirely from leaders of the twelve 
 arts. The body empowered to elect officers was left 
 under the new system much the same as before. 
 When the system was completed, in 1328, the electoral 
 board consisted of the thirty-six officers of the re- 
 public for the time being, the officers of the twelve 
 arts, and certain selected members of those arts. 
 But now it was only at long intervals that elections 
 were held, and therefore at an election it was neces- 
 sary to choose all the officers for many terms. 
 Between 1323 and 1328 on some occasions office- 
 holders for forty-two months were elected; and 
 before all the men then elected had held office new 
 
CH. XV.] ANTICIPATED ELECTIONS 323 
 
 office-holders were elected. After 1328 it was arranged 
 that an election (squittino) should be held in January 
 every alternate year. The elections of Priori, buon- 
 uomini, and gonfaloniers were evidently held separ- 
 ately: Priori were over thirty years of age, gonfaloniers 
 were only over twenty-five. For each office an equal 
 number was elected from each sestiera} When the 
 election was done, the names of the men elected were 
 written on bollette (tickets) and placed in horse 
 (pouches), eighteen in number, three for each sestiera : 
 one containing names of future Priori, one for future 
 buonuomini, one for gonfaloniers. The pouches were 
 secured in a strong chest in the sacristy of the Fran- 
 ciscans at Santa Croce. Every two months all the 
 officers except nineteen of the gonfaloniers had to 
 vacate office : the nineteen held office four months. 
 Before the offices became vacant the outgoing Priori 
 sent for the borse, and, taking the proper borse, after 
 mixing the bollette, drew from them at hazard : the 
 men whose names were drawn entered on office at 
 the appointed day.^ 
 
 This system prevented unfair exclusions of any 
 party among the distinguished men of the twelve 
 arts ; but it did no more. The number of _„ . , 
 
 ' Effects of 
 
 persons to be elected at once was so great anticipated 
 that exclusiveness was impossible. The 
 system did not bring in anything like popular voting 
 by the members of the twelve privileged arts ; but it 
 was entirely exempt from the perils of the Athenian 
 plan of appointment by lot. The mischief of the 
 
 1 See p. 325. ^ viUani, ix. 209, 271 ; x. 111. 
 
324 FLORENCE [CH. xv. 
 
 Athenian system was not the presence of hazard but 
 the absence of election. At Florence no man's name 
 was put in the horse unless he was chosen by two- 
 thirds of the electoral board. 
 
 The change made in the election of officers in 1328 
 was supplemented by changes affecting the councils 
 which pronounced on proposals of new 
 approving laws. Four of the five councils were 
 ^^^' suppressed, and the fifth is never heard of 
 
 after this date. From henceforth there were only 
 two councils — both new. The Consiglio del Popolo 
 numbered three hundred members, drawn exclusively 
 from the popolani ; the Consiglio di Commune had 
 two hundred and fifty members, partly popolani and 
 partly nobili. Each of these councils was renewed 
 every four months to promote rotation of office 
 among the citizens.^ 
 
 The population of Florence from 1300 gradually 
 
 became incapable of making soldiers for campaigns, 
 
 though they could fight in the street. The 
 
 constitution. Florentines, in fighting against Uguccione 
 
 The Tyranny, (jella Faggiuola of Pisa, soon after 1300, 
 1342-1343. " 
 
 and afterwards till 1325 against Gastruccio 
 
 Castracane of Lucca, suffered many disasters. Then 
 
 they took to hiring foreign mercenaries, but still they 
 
 were badly defeated in 1341 by foreign mercenaries 
 
 in the pay of Pisa. In distress they took as their 
 
 lord (Signor) for a short time a French adventurer, 
 
 who had married a niece of Robert the Angevin king 
 
 of Naples, hoping Robert might give them aid. The 
 
 1 Villani, bk. x. ch. 111. 
 
CH. XV.] TYEANNY 325 
 
 adventurer, Walter de Brienne, titular Duke of 
 
 Athens, made friends with all the classes whom the 
 
 close government of the twelve arts had left out in 
 
 the cold: namely, the nobles, the nine lesser arts, 
 
 and the labourers. At a Parlamento, by a snatch 
 
 vote, he was made Signor for life. His short tyranny 
 
 does not affect the history of the trade guilds. 
 
 Walter de Brienne was expelled by the united 
 
 efforts of all classes. After he was gone, the seven 
 
 greater arts tried for two months to give 
 
 the nobles a share of office. The lesser constitution. 
 
 arts and the labourers took arms and T'^^ ™"^'^'^ 
 
 and lesser 
 
 destroyed palaces of nobles. Then the arts, 
 nine lesser arts determined to get a ^343-i3S ■ 
 share of office and to keep down the seven greater 
 arts. Their enterprise was made easier by a change 
 in the local divisions of the city which increased 
 the number of Priori. The divisions had hitherto 
 been six, and had been called sestiere. 
 
 Two of the sestiere had grown to be richer by far 
 than the rest, and -probably more populous. These 
 remained as two of the new districts ; the four small 
 sestiere were united into two new districts ; so now 
 there were only four divisions in all. As they were 
 equal in wealth and size, they were called quarters, 
 and the name sestiera disappears. In consequence, 
 there were now eight Priori. Under the fourth con- 
 stitution, from 1343 to 1358, the seven greater arts 
 had two Priori, the middle arts had three, the nine' 
 lesser arts had three. The richest capitalists were 
 always in a very small minority; six places on the 
 
326 THE MIDDLE AND [CH. xv. 
 
 board belonged to the shopkeepers and small master- 
 workmen.^ 
 
 The Priori, the gonfaloniers (now fifteen in number), 
 and the twelve councillors of the Priori, were all 
 
 changed every two months. The electors 
 Elections. . ^ •' , _,, 
 
 met in January every other year, ihey 
 
 still consisted of the officers of the republic for the 
 time being, the rulers of the arts, and a few other 
 electors not chosen by any popular election. The 
 whole of the electors were the men at the head of the 
 arts ; the whole number of electors was usually some- 
 thing between one hundred and two hundred. The 
 voting was held in private, and was secret, by beans. 
 Two-thirds of the votes were required to elect a 
 candidate. The names were imborsati, as they had 
 been before the tyranny, and were drawn from the 
 pouches every two months as required. Nowhere in 
 the republic or in any guild was there anything like 
 a popular election. 
 
 The popolani grassi were discontented at being 
 made powerless in the republic. They made them- 
 Discontent selves powerful by joining the Parte 
 of the rich. Guelfa. The Parte was more strongly 
 organised than the republic. It changed its captains 
 every two months ; but its practical leaders did not 
 change. The nobles had half the offices in the Parte ; 
 important popolani grassi had the rest. 
 
 In 1347 the Parte tried to get advantages for their 
 faction by bringing back into use the word Ghibeline. 
 
 ' Villani (bk. xii. ch. 22) says explicitly that the chief power 
 belonged to the mediani, i.e. to the middle and lesser arts. 
 
CH. xv.J LESSER ARTS 327 
 
 The Ghibeline party had been extinct in Florence at 
 least since 1313, when the Emperor Henry the 
 Seventh died. No one knew what the word Ghibeline 
 meant since then. Not a single Florentine citizen 
 was a Ghibeline in the old sense borne by the word 
 when it meant a supporter of the supremacy of a 
 German emperor in Italy. But imaginary in,a™ary 
 Ghibelines could be invented. A pretext GhibeUnes. 
 for inventing them arose in 1346. In that year, 
 Charles of Bohemia was elected emperor, and an- 
 nounced his intention of paying a visit to Italy, and 
 (to use his own words) of pacifying the country. The 
 pretext was seized by the captains of the Parte 
 Guelfa. In January 1347 they induced the Priori to 
 propose, and the two councils of the people and of 
 the commune to accept, a new law against Ghibelines. 
 The law ran that every one who had been a Ghibeline 
 since 1300, or who was descended in the male line 
 from any one who had been a Ghibeline since that 
 date, should be incapable of bearing office, and if he 
 took it, he should be subject to a very heavy fine. 
 In August of the same year, 1347, there was another 
 law to render the law of January perpetual by 
 threatening penalties against any one who, when 
 presiding in a council, allowed a proposal for can- 
 celling any of the provisions of the law. The penalty 
 was a tremendous fine of a thousand gold florins ; and 
 unless the offender paid it in three days amputetur 
 ; ei caput ita ut penitus Tnoriatur. There is nothing 
 to show that any one, even among the timid and 
 unwarlike Florentines, thought there was any danger 
 
328 PARTE [CH. XV. 
 
 to be feared from Ghibelines or from the power- 
 less emperor. The Guelf captains told individual 
 members of the councils that, if they voted against 
 the proposed laws, it would be the worse for them. 
 Giovanni Villani plainly indicates that the law of 
 August was passed by intimidation.^ 
 
 From 1347 to 1358 the captains made use of their 
 new law to accuse candidates of being descended 
 from Ghibelines. No one knew what a Ghibeliae 
 was, and every one accused was condemned. In the 
 six months of the spring and summer of 1358, twenty- 
 three convictions were secured. 
 
 But the public prosecutions of men notoriously 
 
 innocent caused public annoyance. In 1358 the 
 
 captains adopted a plan which caused less 
 
 Ammonizione. . . 
 
 commotion. Under their new plan there 
 were no prosecutions; but when they wished to 
 exclude any one from office they sent him a warning, 
 ammonizione, to say that if he were a candidate for 
 office he would be prosecuted. The threat was even 
 more effectual than the reahty of a prosecution. 
 Every one who was admonished abstained from 
 seeking office ; and the Priori while in office did not 
 dare to offend the captains, because at the end of 
 their two months any one of them might receive 
 an admonition which would exclude him and his 
 descendants from taking any part in public affairs. 
 
 Thus, in the year 1358, a fifth constitution came 
 into being, namely, the rule of a few very rich men. 
 Its establishment destroyed the political power of the 
 
 1 Villani, xii. 92. 
 
CH. XV.] GUELFA 329 
 
 trade guilds. The chief men in the guilds, with a 
 few of their like, still chose eight Priori for every 
 two months ; but the Priori were gener- „ ,. . 
 
 ' ° Political 
 
 ally not much better than puppets worked extinction of 
 by the pulling of wires. The wire-pullers ^^^ ^"'^^^' 
 were not always the captains of the Parte Guelfa, but 
 the Priori did not recover their independence. 
 
 We have now seen what the guilds did for politics. 
 We may observe what they did in commerce and 
 industry. Elorence, before 1350, had an 
 
 Their 
 
 area about the same as Middlesex; in commercial 
 revenue we know from Villani that in ^"'^'=^^^- 
 1338 it surpassed Naples, Aragon, or Sicily; and we 
 can see from figures that it was not greatly inferior 
 to England. The revenue of England in time of 
 peace was about sixty-five thousand pounds of the 
 coinage of that period.^ The coins of England were 
 three times as heavy as those which now bear the 
 same names ; thus the English - peace revenue was 
 200,000 of our sovereigns. The Florentine gold coin 
 was the fiorino d'oro (the little flower of gold), first 
 coined in 1252,^ and kept constant in weight till 
 1400 at least. The dated fiorini of this period in the 
 British Museum weigh fifty-four grains troy ; and 
 as fifty grains is pure gold, they are worth nine 
 shillings in our modern coinage. Villani gives details 
 of the Florentine revenue in time of peace. The 
 amount comes to more than 300,000 florins, worth 
 £135,000 in our present coinage.^ Thus the English 
 
 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist, § 282. 
 2 Villani, bk. vi. oh. 51. » Villani, bk. xi. oh. 94. 
 
330 WEALTH OF [cH. xv. 
 
 peace revenue was 200,000 modern sovereigns; the 
 Florentine was 135,000 of the same. In time of war 
 the English revenue could at a pinch be screwed up 
 to 180,000 pounds of that date, which were equal 
 to more than half a million modern sovereigns. 
 Florence in a year of war could spend almost as 
 large a sum as England. I find it stated in two 
 passages of a good medieval authority that in a war 
 of three years (1375-1378) the republic expended 
 two and a half million florins, worth more than a 
 million sovereigns, and it evidently did not feel 
 greatly distressed by the expenditure.^ 
 
 The great command of money which the Florentines 
 enjoyed came from their system of banking. The 
 
 arte di carahio, the money-changers, in- 
 Banking. ■, , -nn ^ 1 
 
 vented bills oi exchange to save trans- 
 mission of coin surprisingly early. After 1300 their 
 first great banking company was led by the Cerchi, 
 of whom I know little, except that one of them 
 founded the party of the Bianchi, in which Dante was 
 a leader, and with which he suffered exile for his last 
 nineteen years. After the Cerchi came the famous 
 Bardi and Peruzzi. Many rich families had invested 
 monies in their banking houses. The Bardi and 
 Peruzzi lent money mainly to Edward the Third of 
 England, but also some to the Aragonese King of 
 Sicily and to Philip of France. In 1345 their royal 
 debtors could not repay them. The Bardi, in 1345, 
 failed for a million florins, the Peruzzi for a million ; 
 so that the amounts that had been advanced by 
 
 1 Goro Dati (Florence, 1735), pp. 36, 128. 
 
CH. XV.] FLORENCE 331 
 
 the two together amounted to nearly a million 
 sovereigns.^ Villani states how many soldi in the 
 lira (i.e. shillings in the pound) each firm paid. His 
 text is corrupt here; but I think it certain the 
 Bardi paid fourteen shillings and the Peruzzi only 
 four. 
 
 The republic imitated its financial citizens in 
 having a public debt, called the Monte. The rate of 
 interest was changed often, and yet money came in. 
 For the year 1409 the ' credit ' of the monte amounted 
 to four or five million florins. The word credit is 
 strangely used, but it must mean the sum entrusted 
 by lenders to the state.^ 
 
 The government of the guilds in Florence was a 
 
 political absurdity. The extremely exclusive plan 
 
 of allowing officers in existence with a few 
 
 friends to choose their successors answered ni suited for 
 
 well for managing the internal affairs of "^"li^s ^ 
 ° ° . republic. 
 
 a guild ; good men for commercial counsel 
 can be got by this method. When it was extended 
 to the election of the rulers of the republic it was less 
 advantageous. The most striking characteristic of 
 the Florentine Priori is their irresolution. If there 
 had been any element of election by large numbers, 
 had it been even by the whole of the capitalists who 
 were members of the twenty-one arts, they would 
 have known there was some public opinion behind 
 them. As it was, they knew only they had been 
 secretly approved as competent by a select body of 
 
 Villani, bk. xi. oh. 55. 
 Perrens, vol. vi. p. 199. 
 
332 CA.PTAINS OF THE [ch. xv. 
 
 capitalists as cautious as themselves; and they had no 
 courage or confidence in face of popular clamour. 
 Some also of their irresolution came from the 
 Florentine character. The Florentines were all good 
 at money-making, but from 1300 they were con- 
 temptible soldiers, and after 1341 they never took the 
 field. But the worst of all sources of incompetence 
 in the Florentine rulers was their ridiculously short 
 tenure of office, and the fundamental principle of the 
 republic which forbade any citizen to hold the same 
 office twice in two years. Every board of Priori knew 
 they had only two months, and, if they took any 
 resolute line of policy, their successors would probably 
 reverse it; and if there was a capable ruler among 
 the citizens (the only one I can think of was Michel 
 di Lando, the wool-carder), he knew on leaving the 
 Palace of the Priori that for two years to come he 
 could not enter it again. 
 
 From 1358, for seventeen years, the Captains of the 
 Parte Guelfa ruled Florence without let or hindrance. 
 „.„, The Priori were still the nominal rulers. 
 
 Fifth ' 
 
 constitution, but the Captains intimidated them by 
 iheP^e° the aynmonizioni. The Parte Guelfa was 
 Guelfa, far more strongly organised than the re- 
 
 public.i It is true that the captains 
 served only for two months ; but when a man's name 
 was drawn and the man took ofiice, his bolletta was 
 put in another borsa, whence names were to be drawn 
 
 ' The Statuto or constitution of the Parte drawn up in 1335 is 
 printed in Oiorncde storico degli archivi Toscani, Jan. -March 1857. 
 Perrens, vol. iv. 483 foil., gives a full summary. 
 
CH. XV.] PAETE GUELFA 333 
 
 hereafter. Thus a man might be captain repeatedly 
 at short intervals; the captains gained experience, 
 and a man once imborsato was imhorsato for life. 
 Besides this, the captains were really zealous for the 
 advantage of the Parte, and would take advice from 
 any one well qualified to give it, whether he happened 
 to be a captain or not ; and it followed that any one 
 who was a good party manager might permanently 
 control the policy of the organisation. 
 
 The captains were not such contemptibly irresolute 
 and inconsequent rulers as the Priori had been. The 
 foreign mercenaries in their pay gained 
 some successes : by sea they annexed the cesses of the 
 isle of Giglio, and in 1362 they carried off ^^p'^^- 
 the great chain which closed the Porto Pisano, and 
 thereby furnished Florence with a trophy which still 
 adorns the Baptistery ; by land they won a victory 
 over guerillas in the pay of Pisa. But more than 
 that, even Florentine citizens bore arms outside 
 their walls. In 1363 an army of mercenaries paid 
 by Pisa threatened Florence: nine thousand Florentine 
 citizens marched under arms for a mile or two into 
 the plain, and the enemy ran away. In 1364 some 
 Florentine contadini assailed a large force of guerillas 
 in the pay of Pisa as they were ascending a mountain 
 valley between Florence and 'the Apennines, and cut 
 them to pieces so effectively that only a quarter of 
 them escaped. 
 
 But though the captains were capable rulers, their 
 power was founded solely on their threats of false 
 accusation and on their power of diverting public 
 
334 FLORENCE [ch. xv. 
 
 money into the pockets of their adherents. The 
 Florentines soon became tired of their rule, and 
 were ready by 1375 to do anything to get 
 nentsofthe rid of them, even if they should have to 
 ap ams. j-estore the incompetent Priori to omnipo- 
 tence. The middle and lesser arts had always hated 
 the captains because they suffered from the ammo- 
 nizioni : a good part of the popolani grassi turned 
 against the captains, and thus the arts generally 
 were numbered among their opponents. There was, 
 however, a class more numerous than all the guilds- 
 men put together. This class was the labourers for 
 hire, thirteen thousand strong, who had never yet 
 enjoyed any political privileges. It was not yet 
 certain, in 1375, whether the labourers would be 
 adherents of the captains or would aid their opponents. 
 The workers for hire were mainly employed in 
 processes subsidiary to the manufactures undertaken 
 The t)y the arts. It does not appear that they 
 
 labourers. were day labourers working in factories : 
 they were rather workmen pursuing their crafts in 
 their own houses ; but they certainly undertook pieces 
 of work for the members of the arts, and were paid 
 by them for their labour. A great host of these men, 
 nine thousand strong, worked under the arte di lana, 
 now the most powerful of all the seven greater arts, 
 at the carding of the wool before it was spun, and 
 perhaps some other processes equally necessary. 
 Others, not so closely dependent on the arte di lana, 
 were cloth-shearers, fullers, dyers, silk-weavers, small 
 tailors, makers of carding-combs.^ All these men, 
 
 'i Pen-ens, vol. v. p. 260. 
 
CH, XV.] LABOURERS 335 
 
 engaged in small home industries, were excluded from 
 membership in the twenty-one arts, and yet every 
 one of them had to be a dependant on one of the 
 arts, and the art on which he was dependent kept a 
 judge who pronounced on questions relating to his 
 payment for his work and to his other rights of 
 property. They had, indeed, a sort of trades unions 
 called universitd ; but they would have greatly pre- 
 ferred to be regular arts, for then they would have 
 had judges of their own, and a share in the govern- 
 ment. The nine thousand men who worked for the 
 arte di lana were called ciompi, a name whose 
 original meaning is uncertain: as the rest of the 
 workmen only numbered four thousand in all, the 
 wool-combers took the lead in political action, and 
 the party of the artisans is incorrectly called the 
 party of the ciompi. 
 
 It was most unfortunate for the captains that 
 Pope Gregory the Eleventh, in 1375, compelled the 
 Florentines to go to war against him. 
 The Popes had been the traditional patrons the power of 
 of the Guelfs, and therefore the captains ^^^ Captains, 
 could not be the leaders in a war against 
 the Holy See. The Florentines entrusted the manage- 
 ment of the war to a special board of eight men, 
 consisting of six men from the seven greater and two 
 from the lower arts. The eight did their work 
 admirably, and through their just government stood 
 in marked contrast with the captains. They were 
 in no sense partisans, but it was impossible that they 
 should avoid being regarded as leaders by all who 
 hoped to escape from the existing tyranny of false 
 
336 FLORENCE [CH. xv. 
 
 accusations. The war ended in March 1378, and the 
 
 eight quietly laid down their power; but when the 
 
 captains reverted to their aTnmonizioni with more 
 
 ardour than ever, their opponents knew the advantage 
 
 of having good and trustworthy leaders, and placed 
 
 themselves under the guidance of Salvestro di Medici, 
 
 Benedetto Alberti, Tommaso Strozzi, and Giorgio 
 
 Scali, all men of large possessions and enrolled among 
 
 the members of the seven greater arts. 
 
 Salvestro and his friends gained the aid of the 
 
 ciompi in their resistance to the captains. These 
 
 auxiliaries did not intend to be satisfied 
 The Ciompi. . . , 
 
 With a mere restoration oi the twenty-one 
 guilds and their own unfair subjection to judges 
 appointed by their industrial employers ; and there- 
 fore their intervention in political strife led to a rapid 
 series of revolutions. 
 
 In June 1378 Salvestro was gonfalonier, and Bene- 
 detto Alberti was on the board of Priori. They pro- 
 Revolutions, posed two most moderate new laws 
 June 1378. designed to hinder the nobili from taking 
 part in the proceedings of the captains. The captains 
 had suflacient influeace, provided there was no appeal 
 to physical force, to prevent the proposals from being 
 accepted by the Council of the People and the 
 Council of the Commune : the ciomjpi, however, 
 intimidated the councils, and though the laws were 
 passed, they proceeded to burn the houses of the 
 captains and their most powerful adherents. 
 
 The laws passed in June were totally inadequate 
 for redress of grievances: they did not even forbid 
 
CH. XV.] CIOMPI 337 
 
 the ammonizioni. On the first of July new Priori 
 took office for two months : the gonfalonier and seven 
 of the Priori were as devoid of courage as 
 the guildsmen ordinarily were when they " ^ 
 held office. The ciompi who had taken part in the 
 burning of the houses were in fear of punishment, 
 and on July 18 or 19 formed an association for 
 mutual defence. A majority of the Priori stood in 
 more dread of the captains than of the ciompi ; they 
 seized a man supposed to be in the confidence of the 
 labourers, and put him to the torture in hope of 
 learning secrets. On July 20 the ciompi broke open 
 the prison, delivered the unlucky man who had been 
 tortured, and captured the great gonfalon of the 
 republic. On the following days it was agreed that 
 all am,monizioni now existing should be cancelled, 
 and that the ciompi should be raised to the position 
 of an art. These changes might have sufficed to stop 
 the tyranny of the captains, and it seemed for a 
 moment, on July 22, that a reform had been effected 
 without revolution. It chanced, however, that one 
 of the Priori, named Guerriante MarignoUi, was not 
 only a coward but a traitor to his colleagues. He 
 broke the law which forbade a Priore to leave the 
 palace, descended into the piazza, and made a speech 
 hinting that, if all the Priori had been as well dis- 
 posed as he, it would have been well for the populace. 
 The mob shouted that the Priori must resign and go 
 home. The gonfalonier Guicciardini went first, then 
 six of the Priori ; the last to leave was Alamanno 
 Acciajuoli, and he had such decent regard for duty as 
 
338 FLOEENCE [CH. xv. 
 
 to see that the doors of the palace were locked behind 
 him and the key given to an official. 
 
 The mob soon had the doors open. As they entered, 
 the captured gonfalon was borne before them by 
 Michel de Michel de Lando, a wool-comber. They 
 Lando. shouted that Michel should be their gon- 
 
 falonier. They could not have chosen better : their 
 new ruler possessed qualities scarcely to be found in 
 any other Florentine — fearless resolution, a cool head, 
 and independent mind. He immediately showed his 
 good sense by getting some well-known citizens re- 
 cognised as his councillors. He called a Parlamento 
 which gave halia, or plenary power, to certain persons 
 to form a provisional government. The four thousand 
 labourers who were not ciompi were formed into two 
 new arts, raising the tale of the guilds to twenty-four. 
 Then a college of electors was named to choose new 
 Priori. The electors were impolitic in their choice. 
 They selected three Priori from the middle and 
 lesser arts, four and the gonfalonier Michel from 
 the labourers, and only two from the popolani grassi, 
 who had given the labourers invaluable aid towards 
 the redress of their grievances. 
 
 The arte di lana was disgusted at the minute 
 share of power assigned to the popolani grassi. It 
 Aug. 28-31 : closed its hottiche, and the labourers had 
 Two govern- qq earnings. On August 28 the workmen 
 
 mentsofthe ° ■, ^^ . 
 
 ' ciompo ' and took arms ; on the following day they 
 the'ciompi.' ggj. ^p g^ j^q^ government of their own. 
 
 Thus there were two rival governments both 
 claiming to be sovereign: one sanctioned by the 
 
CH. XV.] DEFEAT OF THE CIOMPI 339 
 
 Parlarnento, and sitting at the palace under the 
 guidance of Michel ; the other founded by the work- 
 men, and sitting at Santa Maria Novella. 
 
 On the last day of August, the government of the 
 ciompi at Santa Maria Novella sent two delegates 
 bearing an ultimatum to the Priori at the ^ug. 31, 
 palace. Thev required that everv Priore '378: Gov- 
 
 1 n 11 • , , ernment of 
 
 should swear that tae eight men who the guilds 
 ruled at Santa Maria Novella should --estored. 
 always be admitted to take part in the deliberations 
 of the Priori. The Priori tamely assented. Michel 
 drew his sword, drove the delegates down the stairs, 
 and going out on the piazza took command of the 
 forces of the arts, who had assembled to support 
 the Priori. He defeated the cioTiipi everywhere in 
 the city, compelled them to disperse themselves 
 in the contado, and re-established the government 
 of the twenty-four guilds. 
 
 The Priores Artiuvi were not long able to retain 
 their independence. They had no popular elections 
 
 and no public opinion to support them : 
 , ., T .1 „ - Final extinc- 
 
 the guilds were jealous 01 one another, tionofg-uiid 
 and had no common organisation. The government, 
 class of great men, who had been captains 
 of the Parte, formed new and more private associa- 
 tions for the management of elections and changes in 
 the laws. Piero degli Albizzi had been the most 
 powerful of the captains : by 1387 Maso degli Albizzi 
 was equally dominant in the management of the 
 republic. The position of Maso was permanently 
 secured in 1393 by a law which appointed a com- 
 
340 FLOEENCE [ch. xv. 
 
 mission acting in the interest of the clique to which 
 he belonged, and authorised it to tamper with the 
 drawing of names from the horse. Henceforth, if a 
 name displeasing to Maso and his clique was drawn, 
 it was simply disregarded. Priori continued to serve 
 for their two months of office, but they were puppets 
 managed by a few rich men. 
 
 In the very early years of the fifteenth century 
 
 Florence acquired some dependencies, as Pisa and 
 
 Cortona; and though they were gained 
 
 (^ II ar a.C t cr~ 
 
 istics of by cession from other powers, and not by 
 orence. military efforts of the Florentines, they 
 changed the character of the state. The history of 
 Florence to the end of the fourteenth century illus- 
 trates in a remarkable degree some characteristics 
 which may be found in a simple city state, but never 
 in a larger community. The citizens concentrated 
 their attention purely on commerce and industry. 
 Individual merchants attended eagerly to commercial 
 news from Flanders, England, or France; but the 
 whole population never cared much for making 
 common efforts outside their city walls. They be- 
 came most despicable as soldiers, and the only 
 interests that affected them all were confined 
 within their city. They bad within their little 
 community some interest in art; but their absorb- 
 ing interest was concerned with making money. 
 Like other communities whose interests are con- 
 fined within a narrow circuit, they were devoured 
 by internal jealousies ; and their jealousies were the 
 more acute because they were commercial. It was 
 
CH. XV.] GEEMAN CITIES 341 
 
 impossible for them to have a government estab- 
 lished on the votes and wishes of the -whole popula- 
 tion, because there was always some class whom the 
 party in power wished to exclude from the exercise of 
 political privileges ; and in consequence every govern- 
 ment in Florence was appointed by a few classes, or 
 even by one class, to the exclusion of all the rest, and 
 ruled for the advantage of the class or classes to 
 which it owed its existence. 
 
 There were some simple city states in Germany, 
 but most of those that were certainly simple city 
 states were very small, and I do not know 5;^ jg ^^ 
 their history. I find it stated by an ex- states in 
 cellent modern authority that they were 
 ruled by their guilds, and have no doubt that the 
 statement is correct. Even the large and important 
 city of Strassburg, though it had numerous burghers 
 of the pale, was ruled exclusively by its trade guilds 
 till the middle of the fifteenth century ; and if the 
 guilds could control so great a city, it is scarcely to 
 be doubted that they could gain a predominance in 
 the smaller towns which had risen to independence. ^ 
 
 ^ SchmoUer, Strassburg zur Zeit der Zunftkampfe{Feierrede 1875 
 der Stiftung der Universitdt Strassburg), p. 70, says that the small 
 Suabian cities were under their guilds.- The governments of Strass- 
 burg are shown in its Urleundenhuch (admirably edited by Wiegand, 
 1879-1900), and are summarised by Hegel in his preface to Strass- 
 burgische Ohroniken. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CITIES WITH DEPENDENCIES 
 
 The cities of medigeval Italy were for the most part 
 unlike Florence, because they had dependencies. 
 Any city with dependencies is necessarily more or 
 less artificial. The cities of mediseval Italy had the 
 variability of structure which is found in artificial 
 products. Even with the small amount of informa- 
 tion which is easily accessible we can see that their 
 governments also were variable ; and it seems likely 
 that increased knowledge would exhibit even greater 
 diversity in their constitutions than that which is at 
 present easily discernible. 
 
 In view of the diversity of governments found 
 among the cities of the mainland, and the extreme 
 difficulty of forming a clear opinion about any one of 
 them, I am constrained to pass them by almost un- 
 noticed. We can see that till the thirteenth century 
 many of them had a podesta brought in from out- 
 side like the podesta at Florence ; some had elected 
 magistrates corresponding to the consoli and anziani ; 
 many had also a consiglio di credenza to advise the 
 magistrates. Afterwards in the fourteenth century 
 some, as Milan and Verona, were ruled by tyrants ; 
 others, as Siena, kept their republican governments. 
 
 342 
 
CH. XVI.] VENICE 343 
 
 The only Italian city with dependencies whose con- 
 stitutional history can be depicted continuously is 
 Venice, and to that island republic I shall confine 
 my attention. 
 
 Venice began its career as a city state between the 
 years 810 and 1100, but a Venetian republic had 
 existed long before. In the north-western gj^^ ^^^^j 
 corner of the Adriatic Sea the great rivers origin of 
 of northern Italy — the Po, the Adige, the 
 Brenta, the Piave — discharge into the sea the masses 
 of mud which they bring down from the slopes and 
 valleys of the Alps, and have formed along the edge 
 of the coast a flat bank of alluvial soil. Some part 
 of the bank is covered at high tide with a few feet 
 of water, and this part is the Live Lagoon; other 
 parts protrude slightly above the surface and form 
 the Dead Lagoon, and also the muddy islands known 
 as the Venetian Archipelago. In some parts of these 
 banks, or on the lower course of the rivers which 
 formed them, a group of inhabitants of Italy had 
 established themselves as a community, with tribunes 
 of their owii, by the early part of the sixth century, 
 when Cassiodorus was minister first of Theodoric the 
 Great and then of Amalasuentha.^ It is very possible 
 that they fled into this safe but unattractive habita- 
 tion in 452, when Italy was threatened by Attila the 
 Hun. Whether Venice itself and the islands nearest 
 to it had any inhabitants so early as the time of 
 Cassiodorus, we do not know ; but it is certain that 
 
 ^ Cassiodorus addresses a letter to the Tribuni maritimi. — Varia- 
 rum, book xii. ep. 24. 
 
344 VENICE [CH. xvi. 
 
 before the year 700 they were inhabited and were 
 members of a Venetian republic. 
 
 The dwelling-place of the Venetians consisted of a 
 
 dozen small islands or littoral settlements around the 
 
 shallow lagoon. It is clear that, owing to 
 
 Venetian tti® separation of their dwellings, their 
 
 Republic: republic must have had something of a 
 Tribunes. ,. t , , i • i i 
 
 federal character ; the islands must have 
 
 been placed under a common government through 
 their voluntary consent, and not under compulsion, 
 and each must have managed its local affairs. Until 
 about the year 700 we know nothing of their organisa- 
 tion except that the men who governed them bore 
 the title of tribune. Our earliest authority on the 
 point is a passage of John the Deacon, who wrote 
 about the thousandth year of our era. From what 
 he says it seems that he believed there was only one 
 tribune at a time, and the tribune was elected every 
 year to rule the republic.^ A chronicler of far later 
 date, Andrea Dandolo, Doge of Venice in 1343, says 
 there were twelve tribunes, one elected yearly for 
 each island. His statement is supported by two 
 other mediaeval chroniclers known as Cronaca Bar- 
 baro and Cronaca Savina, and it is accepted without 
 hesitation by Kamonin, the most careful of modern 
 Venetians who have written on Venetian history.^ 
 
 ' Johannes Diaconus (edition of Montioolo in Fonti per la Storia 
 d' Italia), p. 90. The chronicle of John the Deacon used to be cited 
 by modern writers as the chronicle of Sagornino. Since it was 
 edited in Mon. Germ. Silt, it generally bears the name which I 
 have given to it. 
 
 ^ Romanin, Storia Documentaia di Venezia, vol. i. pp. 79, 80. 
 
CH. XVI.] TEIBUNES : DOGES 345 
 
 Somewhere about the year 700 (John the Deacon 
 says after 713, but he probably misunderstood a 
 passage in an earlier writer) the Vene- 
 tians abandoned the government of tri- 
 bunes, and established the office of Duke or Doge. 
 The Doge was an elected monarch for the term of 
 his life. So long as he lived he was subject to no 
 regular restraint, but he must not try to render his 
 office hereditary. Many of the early Doges did attempt 
 to secure the succession for their sons; a common 
 result of such conduct was that an insurrection 
 occurred, the Doge was condemned to death by 
 popular clamour, and was murdered. Elective but 
 absolute monarchy, tempered only by fear of sum- 
 mary execution, proved to be a troublous form of 
 government. There were forty Doges before the 
 election of the famous Henrico Dandolo in 1192. 
 Their reigns covered nearly five centuries. Only 
 eighteen died in possession of the ducal throne ; of 
 the remaining twenty-two, seven resigned, seven were 
 deposed, and eight were put to death.^ The Doges 
 enjoyed the same power and position as the kings in 
 ancient Rome ; some of them were ambitious for their 
 sons, but none of them perpetrated or countenanced 
 such iniquities as those done by Tarquin and his son, 
 and their power continued till the twelfth century to 
 be free from any effective regular restriction.^ 
 
 ' Hopf in Raumer's Historisches Taschenhuch for 1865, p. 24. 
 
 ^ About 746 the Venetians ' proposuerunt sibi tribunos duos, qui 
 sub ducali decretu subsisterent. ' — Joh. Diac, ed. Monticolo, p. 98. 
 The office of tribunes continued for more than two centuries, but 
 they did not restrain the Doge. 
 
346 VENICE [oh. xvi. 
 
 But though the government of Venice remained 
 unaltered till the twelfth century, the form of the 
 Expedition Venetian state underwent an important 
 of Pippin, ciiange in the time of Charlemagne. 
 Before that time none of the islands owned by 
 the Venetians was distinctly predominant over the 
 rest. The seat of government was at Malamocco, 
 now known as the Lido, an island accessible to ships 
 from the deep water of the Adriatic ; but in the time 
 of Charlemagne events occurred which induced the 
 Venetians to move their government to the secure 
 island of Rivo Alto, which thus became the city 
 of Venice. 
 
 The Venetians by the beginning of the ninth 
 century, as we noticed in the last chapter, had be- 
 come exceedingly wealthy in comparison with their 
 neighbours. Their republic, moreover, was the one 
 state of central Europe that remained independent 
 both of the western and the eastern empire. It did 
 indeed consent to render formalities of allegiance to 
 the Byzantine emperors, because the eastern empire 
 was too weak to convert the allegiance into a reaUty, 
 and the formalities did not interfere with its inde- 
 pendence. The Franks of the western empire 
 desired that the wealthy republic might be merged 
 in their dominions, and in 810 Pippin, son of 
 Charlemagne, being king of Italy, led a naval expedi- 
 tion for its conquest. The islands adjoining the 
 deep sea lay at his mercy, and he probably gained 
 possession of Malamocco, the seat of government. 
 Pippin died in July 810, and his father made no 
 
CH. XVI.] DEPENDENCIES 347 
 
 attempt to hold any positions on the islands ; biit in 
 the following year the Venetians resolved that their 
 seat of government should be secure from attack, 
 and moved their capital to the island of Rivo Alto, 
 which can only be approached by the one deep 
 channel from which it takes its name. 
 
 The dependencies of the Venetians were acquired 
 very gradually. As soon as their maritime trade was 
 established we may suppose that Individ- Distant 
 ual citizens of the republic occupied ware- dependencies 
 houses in Constantinople and in the ports 
 of Syria and the Black Sea. The first foreign pos- 
 sessions dependent on the republic as such were won 
 by the great Doge Pietro Orseolo in the thousandth 
 year of the Christian era. The inhabitants of Istria 
 and Dalmatia, in the promontories and islands that 
 make a fringe to the coast from Trieste to Ragusa, 
 had been long molested by the Narentani Slavi, a 
 piratical people who lived on the shores opposite 
 the island of Lissa. The Doge attacked the pirates 
 in 998, and captured their strongholds of Curzola and 
 Lagosta two years later. As he returned from his 
 expedition the peoples of the coast and islands who 
 had suffered from the attacks of the pirates placed 
 themselves under his protection, and he took the 
 title of Duke of Venice and Dalmatia.^ From 1081 
 to 1085 the Venetians sent large fleets to the aid of 
 the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus in his 
 contest with Robert Guiscard, the Norman Duke of 
 Apulia; and Alexius in 1085, when his troublesome 
 
 ' Horatio Brown, Venice, Hist. Sketch, pp. 67, 68. 
 
348 VENICE [CH. xvi. 
 
 adversary Robert was dead and he was fairly secure 
 in possession of the empire, rewarded his allies the 
 Venetians by issuing a Golden Bull which gave them 
 liberty to trade free of all import duties in all ports 
 of his empire, and conferred on them a quarter to 
 inhabit in Constantinople, in Durazzo, and in others 
 of his trading stations.^ During the Crusades against 
 the Saracens from 1100 onwards, the Venetians, 
 in reward for the services of transport which they 
 rendered to the Crusaders, obtained permanent 
 settlements in Tyre and other eastern sea-ports. 
 
 As long as the Venetian islands were nearly equal 
 in importance, the arbitrary rule of a Doge was 
 Unrestrained evidently a Useful form of government, 
 power of the because it prevented wars between the 
 eary oges. jgig^jjjjgj-g gy about the end of the 
 
 eleventh century the island of Rivo Alto or Venice 
 had risen to solitary pre-eminence. An absolute 
 monarchy was therefore no longer needed, and it was 
 not likely that it would be allowed to subsist per- 
 manently, because the inhabitants of a city state 
 always dislike monarchic rule. As long, however, as 
 the Doges were successful in their foreign policy the 
 Venetians tolerated their omnipotence; and it was 
 not till a Doge had brought disaster on the republic 
 that future Doges were subjected to restraints. 
 
 In 1171 Manuel Comnenus, Emperor of the East, 
 deserted the traditional friendliness of his predeces- 
 sors towards the Venetians. He ordered that all 
 Venetians in his dominions should be imprisoned and 
 
 1 Romanin, vol. i. pp. 312-328. 
 
CH. XVI.] GREAT COUNCIL 349 
 
 their goods confiscated. The Doge Vitale Michele 
 equipped a great fleet, and went in command of it to 
 attack the emperor's dominions. Instead -phe Great 
 of fighting promptly he listened to delu- Council, 1172. 
 sive proposals of peace made by Manuel. The Vene- 
 tian fleet took winter quarters successively at Chios, 
 Lesbos, and Lemnos, and plague destroyed nearly 
 all the sailors and their commanders. In the spring 
 of 1172 Vitale Michele returned to Venice and was 
 murdered by the populace. The Venetians de- 
 ferred the election of a new Doge for six months, 
 and during the interregnum they changed the 
 form of their government by establishing a Great 
 Council and entrusting to it the election of the 
 Doge. 
 
 The Great Council had four hundred and eighty 
 members. The central city of Eivo Alto with its 
 suburbs Murano and Giudecca was divided into 
 sestiere : each sestiera chose two electors, and each 
 elector chose forty men to be councillors for one year. 
 This method of selection (with slight changes in the 
 number of electors) was employed in the yearly 
 renewals of the Great Council till near the end of 
 the thirteenth century. The effect of it was that 
 men of the most distinguished families were placed 
 on the roll of the councillors: in 1293 the Council 
 contained ten Foscari, eleven Morosini, and eighteen 
 Contarini. When the office of Doge was vacant, the 
 Council chose a few of its members to nominate a 
 candidate for the succession. The chosen electors 
 (eleven in number in 1172, on later occasions forty 
 
350 DOGES [CH. xvi. 
 
 or forty-one) selected the man whom they thought 
 most fit and presented him to the people with the 
 words, 'This is your Doge if it please you.' The 
 people in all cases accepted the candidate, and thus 
 the board of nominators were the electors of the 
 Doge. At the same time the Council assigned to 
 the Doge six ministers to be his advisers or masters. 
 The Doges henceforth were surrounded with more 
 pomp, ceremony, and magnificence than ever, but few 
 of them except the old hero Henrico Dandolo took 
 any considerable part in shaping the destinies of the 
 republic. 
 
 The constitution of 1172 placed almost all the 
 powers of government in the hands of four hundred 
 The constitu- aid eighty men belonging to the rich and 
 tionofii72. important families. The mass of the 
 population had no control over them except that 
 every year they chose a few electors to select their 
 rulers. It seems certain that the common folk 
 might have gained more control if they had wished 
 it : they must have furnished a large part of the 
 sailors and soldiers who manned the Venetian fleets. 
 We hear nothing of popular discontent, and it is 
 impossible to understand the acquiescence of the 
 Venetian populace in the rule of the Great Council 
 except on the supposition that the class who furnished 
 the councillors were exceedingly just and competent 
 governors. Capable men were needed to rule the 
 dependencies, the common folk gained a share in 
 the profits which the dependencies sent to the 
 capital, and so they were content to be ruled by a 
 
CH. xvi.J NO LONGER POWEEFUL 351 
 
 few great families. Soon after the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century the Venetians won dependencies 
 which made them masters of the Levant, and from 
 that time forward power was more and more closely 
 concentrated in the hands of a few skilful rulers. 
 
 In the fourth Crusade, 1202-1204, the Venetians 
 took vengeance on the eastern empire for the 
 wrongs they had suifered at the hands Newde- 
 of Manuel Comnenus about thirty years pendencies, 
 before. With the aid of their allies from Flanders and 
 northern France they captured the capital city of the 
 empire : they gave a quarter of the city and of the 
 empire to a Latin emperor who was little better 
 than a client of the Venetian state ; and the Doge of 
 Venice became lord of a quarter and half a quarter of 
 Constantinople, and of a quarter and half a quarter 
 of the eastern empire. The portion of the Venetians 
 in the spoils of the empire included Albania, Epirus, 
 the Ionian islands, Modon in the Peloponnesus, and 
 above all the valuable island of Euboea or Negropont. 
 The Cyclades were given to various Venetian families, 
 and the republic soon afterwards purchased Crete 
 from Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat. Afterwards 
 their acquisitions of territory were made chiefly on 
 the mainland of Italy. Between 1339 and 1406 
 they gained the district of Treviso; between 1406 
 and 1492 Padua and Verona; and soon after 1492 
 they became masters of Friuli, Brescia, and 
 Bergamo.^ 
 
 ^ The possessions of Venice on the mainland are sliown in 
 Spruner-Menke, Atlas (1880), Maps 25, 27. 
 
352 VENICE : SMALL BODIES [ch. xvi. 
 
 The Venetians had to perform a difficult task if 
 
 they were to maintain a hold on all their distant 
 
 possessions against the attacks and in- 
 
 ruiers within trigucs of rapacious rivals. The resources 
 
 tiie ruling of their city were inadequate for such a 
 class. . . 
 
 task, if they relied on force alone ; and 
 
 therefore they were led to make up for the deficiency 
 
 in their strength by getting skilful rulers to make 
 
 the most profitable use of such strength as they had. 
 
 They feared the betrayal of secrets which comes from 
 
 public discussions in large bodies, and they entrusted 
 
 the direction of their policy to small bodies who 
 
 debated in secret. They feared the disastrous effects 
 
 of factions or treason in their small body of nobles, 
 
 and they entrusted the punishment of crime to the 
 
 arbitrary judgment of small bodies of politicians 
 
 whose proceedings were shrouded in mystery, and 
 
 whose most important decisions were never recorded 
 
 in writing, and were scarcely known to the world 
 
 even when they had been executed. 
 
 The small bodies of skilled rulers in the Venetian 
 
 republic were the small senate of the Pregadi, the 
 
 ^. -r .. Quarantia, and the Council of Ten. The 
 
 The Venetian , 
 
 Senates and Pregadi and the Quarantia were active 
 ourts. -j^ ^j^g thirteenth century ; at the end of 
 
 that century the Venetians remodelled the Great 
 Council, and in 1310 they established the Council of 
 Ten. We shall now notice in order the Pregadi, the 
 Quarantia, the remodelled Great Council, and the 
 Council of Ten ; and we shall have occasion to observe 
 that in Venetian government a small board was 
 
CH. XVI.] OF SKILLED RULERS 353 
 
 always more powerful than a large one, so that of all 
 the governing agencies the Great Council was the 
 least active. 
 
 The origin and progress of the small senate of the 
 Pregadi is shrouded in obscurity. The early Doges 
 were accustomed, on important occasions, 
 to take the advice of a body of friends 
 whom they requested (pregaron) to give them counsel ; 
 for example, when Pietro Orseolo, in 1000, prepared 
 his great expedition against the Narentani Slavi, he 
 was ' suorum consilio munitus.' ^ The small senate 
 of the Pregadi took a definite shape in the time of 
 the Doge Jacopo Tiepolo (1229-1249). It consisted 
 originally of sixty men chosen by the Great Council 
 to serve for a year ; it appointed some great officers, 
 and had the power of making treaties. The senate 
 of the Pregadi was, from its first foundation, more 
 powerful than the Great Council, and continued to 
 be so as late as the year 1630 ; ^ but it was less power- 
 ful than the smaller and more secret bodies, the 
 Quarantia and the Council of Ten, and towards the 
 end of the Middle Ages its real influence in the state 
 was diminished when the number of its members was 
 largely increased. 
 
 The Quarantia rose, after the Pregadi, to be the 
 first of all powers in the Venetian republic. This 
 small council of forty was established in The 
 the reign of Orio Mastroperio (1178-1192). Quarantia. 
 Its original business was to decide what proposals 
 
 1 Joh. Diac, ed. Montioolo, p. 156. 
 
 ^ Hopf, in Raumer's Histor. Taschenbuch, 1865, p. 43. 
 
 Z 
 
354 GREAT COUNCIL [ch. xvi. 
 
 should be submitted for a vote to the Great Council. 
 It came within a few years to be the chief advisory 
 body in the state; for example, in 1201 the Doge 
 Henrico Dandolo went to the Quarantia first of all 
 for advice about his answer to the envoys of the 
 Crusaders.i xhe Pregadi, when they were definitely 
 established (1229-1249), took over from the Quarantia 
 the duty of advising the Doge ; but the Quarantia con- 
 tinued to exist as a powerful court of criminal justice.^ 
 After the Pregadi and the Quarantia were firmly 
 established, the nobles, in 1297, altered the constitu- 
 tion of the Great Council: the change 
 of the Great then made is spoken of by modern his- 
 CouncU, 1297. torians as the closing of the Great Council. 
 It was ordered that the right of choosing the council- 
 lors should no longer rest with electors elected by the 
 sestiere, but shoiild be transferred to the Quarantia. 
 The members of the Quarantia were appointed every 
 year by the Great Council with procedure very like 
 that which was employed in the election of a Doge, 
 and thus the Great Council chose the men who chose 
 the councillors. The result was that no new councillors 
 were chosen except sons and relations of existing 
 councillors, and the Great Council within a few years 
 after the closing, in 1297, was composed exclusively 
 of the members of conciliar families, as the Roman 
 senate in the time of the Gracchi consisted of the 
 members of the curule families ; ^ but I do not know 
 
 ' Romanin, vol. ii. p. 150, from Villehardouin. 
 ■' Horatio Brown, Hist. Sketch, p. 115. 
 
 ' Romanin, vol. ii. pp. 341-355 ; Horatio Brown, Venice : an 
 Historical Sketch of the Republic, p. 163. 
 
CH. XVI.] NO LONGER ACTIVE 355 
 
 that in the Middle Ages they ever abused their high 
 position. The Great Council in every year elected 
 the selectors of the small councils, but did not other- 
 wise take part in the most important business of the 
 state. 
 
 For occasions of great danger to the state, when 
 complete secrecy and rapid decision was needed, the 
 Quarantia was an inefficient body because The Council 
 its members were too many. In 1310, on "^^en. 
 the occasion of the dangerous conspiracy of Bajamonte 
 Tiepolo, all its most important functions were handed 
 over to the Council of Ten. This famous council had 
 really seventeen members: the Ten, from whom it 
 took its name, were elected in the Great Council; 
 the other seven were the Doge and his six Ministers.^ 
 The original function of the Ten was to provide for 
 the safety of the state ; and for the performance of 
 this function they had the power to inflict secret and 
 arbitrary punishment without limitation. Any body 
 of men having such a function and such power is a 
 Comite du Salut Public, and is certain to control all 
 other bodies or persons in the direction of all parts 
 of government and policy; and so it was with the 
 Council of Ten. Ambassadors publicly received their 
 instructions from the senate of the Pregadi ; but they 
 also reported separately to the Ten, and received from 
 them secret instructions which were sometimes in 
 contradiction to the public instructions of the senate,^ 
 In 1355 the Doge Marino Faliero was tried for con- 
 
 1 Horatio Brown, Hist. Sketch, pp. 177, 178. 
 ' Horatio Brown, Hist. Sketch, p. 182. 
 
356 COUNCIL OF TEN [CH. xvi. 
 
 spiracy and treason by the Ten : after a careful and 
 deliberate investigation he was condemned and was 
 executed the same evening.'^ On some great emer- 
 gencies the Council of Ten became even more terrible 
 than it ordinarily was by handing over the whole of 
 its powers to three of its members known as the 
 Three Inquisitors. The proceedings of the Inquisitors 
 were designedly kept extremely secret, and for this 
 reason our information about them is most imperfect. 
 We know for certain that the Ten delegated all their 
 powers to Three Inquisitors of State in 1539 ; and it 
 is probable that on some occasions in the Middle Ages 
 they had adopted a similar measure of precaution.^ 
 
 The power of Venice reached a great height when 
 Dandolo took Constantinople. In 1261, when the 
 The cuimina- ^^^^^^ Emperor of the East was expelled 
 tionand and the Greek Michael Palseologus took 
 
 decline of the ,. , ., , n- ^ t t , 
 
 power of Ills place, it perhaps suiiered a slight 
 Venice. diminution : from that time for about a 
 
 century it remained stationary. The rapid decline of 
 Venice belongs to the century from 1450 to 1560: 
 the events that marked it were the establishment 
 of the Turks at Constantinople, the discoveries of 
 America and of the sea route to India, the League 
 of Cambray, and in 1530 the supremacy of the House 
 of Hapsburg in northern Italy. The constitution of 
 Venice was finally settled in 1335 ; and from that 
 time it was never materially altered till 1797, when 
 the city was conquered by Napoleon Buonaparte, and 
 by him transferred to Austria. 
 
 1 H. Brown, Hist. Sketch, p. 205. ■' Ibid., p. 401; Hopf, p. 87. 
 
CH. XVI.] FALL OF ITALIAN CITIES 357 
 
 The cities on the Itahan mainland held their own 
 
 all through the Middle Ages because no great power 
 
 had a footing in the peninsula. The reign 
 
 of Charles the Fifth of Germany was fatal cities on the 
 
 to them, because he had an Italian base mainland, 
 
 1522-1530. 
 of operations in his kingdom of Naples. 
 
 The acquisition of Naples by Gonsalvo de Cordova 
 
 for Aragon, in 1503, placed a great power within 
 
 striking distance of the Italian cities, and led to their 
 
 subjugation in the same way as the passage of Mount 
 
 (Eta by Philip of Macedon, in 338 B.C., led to the 
 
 subjugation of the cities of ancient Greece. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 NATIONS IN THEIR FINAL ADVANCE FROM UNION 
 TO UNITY: DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS 
 
 We have seen in earlier chapters of this book that 
 England, Castile, and the French king's demesne 
 were formed through the union of small rural com- 
 munities, and all of them had in the fourteenth 
 century attained such a degree of coherence as to be 
 capable of establishing and maintaining moderately 
 constant forms of government. They suffered, how- 
 ever, in that century from inconveniences and 
 disorders which arose mainly from two causes. 
 Firstly, Castile and the French demesne had not in 
 some directions extended to boundaries likely to be 
 permanent, and were therefore often engaged in wars 
 upon their frontiers. Secondly, England, Castile, 
 and the French demesne were all alike in having 
 union but not unity, and in consequence they were 
 from time to time torn asunder by civil wars. We 
 have now to observe how the inconveniences arising 
 from bad boundaries and from want of unity were 
 remedied to such an extent as circumstances per- 
 mitted. 
 
CH. XVII.] NATIONS 359 
 
 In the Spanish peninsula the separate and in- 
 dependent existence of four Christian states and a 
 Mohammedan principality was a source /jv 
 of constant disquiet, because it led to Extension to 
 frontier wars. It had to be endured in boundaries: 
 the Middle Ages, because the populations Spain, 
 of the Christian states were unlike, and insisted on 
 remaining politically separate. In course of time, 
 the peoples of Castile, Aragon, and Nayarre became 
 more similar through neighbourhood and intercourse; 
 and in the days of Ferdinand the Catholic union 
 of the three states became practicable. Castile and 
 Aragon were united by marriage of their sovereigns ; 
 Navarre was added to the others by conquest. A 
 war which lasted from 1481 to 1492 enabled the 
 kingdom of Castile to acquire the Moorish territory of 
 Granada. Portugal retained its independence, but the 
 results were not serious, because the Portuguese were 
 a people of small force compared with the Spaniards, 
 and had turned their attention from the land to the 
 sea. By the death of Ferdinand the Catholic, in 
 1516, the Spanish kingdom had gained a good 
 boundary, including an area naturally marked out for 
 union if not for unity by geographical limits and 
 political necessity. 
 
 In the early part of the fifteenth century the 
 French demesne had no boundaries traced out by 
 nature or by distinctions of race. The 
 
 •' . France. 
 
 neighbourhood to the demesne of in- 
 dependent states, such as Burgundy and Armagnac, 
 led to disastrous results. The troubles from this 
 
360 NATIONS [ch. xvii. 
 
 source were remedied by the annexation of large 
 districts to the demesne, and by the extension of the 
 direct authority of the king's government over all 
 populations of decidedly French character. On the 
 east side of France there was a fringe of peoples partly 
 French and partly Flemish or German, and therefore 
 we cannot say that on that side any natural boundary 
 of the kingdom had been unmistakably traced by 
 racial distinctions or by history. The limits, however, 
 of French territory towards the east, as they stood at 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, were good 
 enough for practical purposes, since they did not 
 exclude any decidedly French element, nor include 
 any that was decidedly not French. On the side of 
 the Pyrenees, the French dominions did not reach 
 their natural boundary till 1659, when Spain sur- 
 rendered the county of Roussillon on the north side 
 of the mountains. 
 
 In all times, and in all places, the progress of a 
 people towards unity is effected mainly through the 
 
 silent and unseen influence of social and 
 
 (2) 
 Progress Commercial intercourse, which promotes 
 
 towards friendliness and a good understanding 
 
 among individuals. But the operation of 
 
 this mighty influence may be aided or hindered by 
 
 the action of any forces — social, intellectual, religious, 
 
 economical, or political — which produce new habits, 
 
 thoughts, or desires in the population, or introduce 
 
 modifications in the form of government. In the 
 
 early centuries of the period which we call modern 
 
 many new forces came into activity, and it will be 
 
CH. XVII.] INCREASED KINGLY POWER 361 
 
 necessary to observe how they affected the nations in 
 their progress towards unity. 
 
 The new forces which acted on mankind in 
 western Europe from the fifteenth century to the 
 seventeenth, were so diverse and were „ 
 
 . . . New forces 
 
 joined together in so many combinations, in the modern 
 that it is impossible for any student of p^"°^- 
 history to imagine that he understands the whole of 
 their operations and results. There were, however, 
 some forces of greater moment and efficacy than the 
 rest; and these more eifective forces were derived 
 from four chief origins. Among these four origins 
 the three which sent forth forces which conspicuously 
 modified the advance of nations towards unity were 
 these : — Firstly, the frequency of international wars ; 
 secondly, geographical discoveries; thirdly, the con- 
 flict of religious dogmas and plans of Church govern- 
 ment in the period of the Eeformation. The fourth 
 origin of new forces produced activities no less potent, 
 but they did not so conspicuously or directly affect 
 the nations in regard to their progress towards unity. 
 This fourth origin was the regeneration of intellect in 
 the west, arising from the pursuit of inquiries sug- 
 gested mainly by the study of ancient Greek literature. 
 In some countries the action of the new forces 
 tended directly to strengthen the kingly power; in 
 that case, they increased his control over p j.^.. j 
 discontented localities, and so helped results of the 
 the population to become more united. "^^ 
 In other countries they produced terrible disunion 
 and civil war. In these cases, in order to restore 
 
362 NATIONS [ch. xvii. 
 
 peace, strong kingly power was needed as a remedy. 
 Again, in some outlying countries, as Sweden, it 
 happened that none of the new forces produced great 
 direct results; but these countries, when the other 
 countries were ruled by strong kings, were compelled 
 to follow suit, lest they should be left without a leader 
 in the conflict of the nations and the general scramble 
 for territorial aggrandisement. In all cases, therefore, 
 the final result of the action of the new forces was an 
 increase of kingly authority. 
 
 The forces which affected the course of politics in 
 Spain were international wars, the discovery of the 
 New World, and fanatical devotion to 
 religious dogma : intellectual activity did 
 not penetrate into the peninsula. The first consider- 
 able wars of the Spaniards in the time of Ferdinand 
 the Catholic were undertaken for the conquest of 
 Granada, of Naples, and of Moorish territory in Africa. 
 The effect of these wars was to strengthen the king. 
 At the end of each war some of the soldiers were not 
 disbanded, but were formed into a small standing 
 army, faithful to the king, whose ancestors had com- 
 manded in the wars of past centuries against the 
 Moors. At the end of the conquest of Naples, 
 Ferdinand most prudently dismissed the Great Cap- 
 tain, Gonsalvo de Cordova, to private life, fearing he 
 might be a dangerous rival in the affections of the 
 army. 
 
 The discovery of America strengthened the king's 
 power in two ways. It diverted the attention of the 
 Spaniards from internal politics, and a very large 
 
CH. xvii.J ' SPAIN 363 
 
 proportion of the precious metals obtained in America 
 was poured into the royal treasury. The king 
 received a fifth part of the gold and silver brought 
 from America ; the other four-fifths went to private 
 Spanish adventurers, but they had to pay the cost of 
 getting the metal and of bringing it to Spain. The 
 stream, however, of the precious metals into Spain 
 did not cause the establishment of despotic power; 
 that was already established in 1522, before the 
 stream began to flow abundantly. 
 
 The prevalence of religious fanaticism in Europe 
 tended in Spain entirely to the increase of the king's 
 power. The Spaniards were fanatics for the same 
 dogmas as the king enforced. The Inquisition was 
 introduced in its new and more effective form into 
 the realm of the Catholic kings early in their reign; 
 its judges were nominated by the king, and in their 
 judgments they paid attention to his wishes. 
 
 The destruction of the power of the Cortes in 
 Castile, Aragon, Catalonia, and other Spanish king- 
 doms, was brought about in 1522 through The fall of 
 discord among the estates and by inter- ^^^ Cortes, 
 vention of the king's standing army. The Spanish 
 kings in the second decade of the sixteenth century 
 obtained the assent of the Cortes to the imposition 
 of taxes which brought in a revenue far larger than 
 was usual in kingdoms of that age.^ In 1522 a 
 
 ' Cambridge Modern History, vol. i. pp. 357, 358. The revenue 
 was reckoned in maravedis. A maravedi was not a coin but a 
 unit for caoulation : 375 maravedis made a gold ducat, or Excelente 
 de Granada. The revenue in 1516 was 600 millions of maravedis, 
 equal to about 1,600,000 gold ducats. The gold ducats of this date 
 
364 NATIONS [CH. xvil. 
 
 meeting of the Cortes was held at the city of Com- 
 postella in remote Galicia. It was ill attended, 
 both from the distance and from the refusal of 
 many cities to send deputies ; but it made a new 
 grant of money. The cities of Castile rose in revolt, 
 and, being joined by some of the nobles, for a time 
 gained remarkable successes; but, when they re- 
 quested that the nobility might be taxed, they were 
 deserted by their recent allies, and were overpowered 
 by the king's army. Similar risings took place in 
 other Spanish kingdoms with like results, and by 
 the end of 1522 despotic kingly rule was established 
 throughout the peninsula. 
 
 The populations of different Spanish kingdoms 
 and provinces were too dissimilar in character and 
 Unit n V r tii^tory, and too much separated by physi- 
 attained in cal barriers, to be perfectly united by mere 
 Spain. kingly rule. All through the centuries 
 
 we discern their antagonisms, and it was no longer 
 ago than the years of trouble after the deposition 
 of Queen Isabella in 1868 that we saw parts of the 
 country attempt to set themselves up as independent 
 republics. 
 
 In the neighbouring country of France the new 
 
 forces which most affected the course of events were 
 
 international wars and religious discords. 
 In France. , „ 
 
 In the war which Henry the iitth oi 
 England carried across the Channel, France suffered 
 
 in the British Museum weigh 53 grains each, and only a uiuety- 
 sixth part is alloy. A modern sovereign contains 113 grains of 
 pure gold. Hence the Spanish revenue of 1,600,000 ducats con- 
 tained about the same amount of gold as 700,000 sovereigns. 
 
CH. XVII.] FEANCE : ENGLAND 365 
 
 from disaster, defeat, devastation and terrible disunion. 
 As a remedy for some of their hideous woes, and as 
 a precaution against their recurrence, the French 
 people strengthened the king's authority. Charles 
 the Seventh was permitted to keep a standing army ; 
 Louis the Eleventh overpowered or outwitted most 
 of the other princes who ruled in France, and at 
 the death of Louis a strong kingly government had 
 been established. Much, however, of the strength of 
 the kingship was frittered away by the next three 
 kings in futile invasions of Italy ; and in 1560, when 
 religious discord broke out, there was no government 
 capable of controlling the rival sects and factions. 
 The country suffered untold miseries in civil wars 
 only interrupted by intervals of respite, till in 1595 
 Henry the Fourth became king over the whole land. 
 A strong monarchy, welcomed by all as a salvation 
 from discord, and afterwards increased in strength 
 to be an instrument of foreign conquest, attained its 
 greatest power in the times of Richelieu and Louis 
 the Fourteenth. Yet this strong rule of the kings 
 was not strong enough to make France united; 
 and the urgent need for making it stronger was 
 impressed on the minds of-the French people in 1789 
 when the king was unable to impose taxes on the 
 privileged orders. 
 
 The great aggressive war waged by Henry the Fifth 
 of England produced nearly the same results in his 
 own country as in that which he 
 attacked. English nobles made con- 
 tracts with the king that, in return for payment in 
 
366 NATIONS [CH. xvii. 
 
 money, they would enlist, maintain, and command 
 bands of warriors in his foreign campaigns. At the 
 end of the war and the return of the army to 
 England, the veterans formed private armies of 
 retainers under the nobles who had engaged their 
 services. The presence of these private armies 
 caused the Wars of the Two Roses, which served 
 well for blood-letting but for no other good purpose. 
 When the nobles were killed off and the ranks of 
 the soldiers were thinned, the English people were 
 glad to live under the strong kingly rule of Henry 
 the Seventh because it protected them from need- 
 less civil wars. The Reformation of the Church was 
 begun in England with a change of government 
 but no change of dogma. The king took into his 
 own hands all the Papal power, and reigned in 
 England both as Pope and King : he also seized all 
 the vast wealth of the monasteries. The Reforma- 
 tion in this phase did nothing but directly strengthen 
 the king's power. It entered a new phase with the 
 Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion against the king's 
 dealings with clerical property. Ere long discords 
 about doctrine became rife, and then strong kingly 
 power was needed more than ever as a preventive 
 of civil strife. Peril of international war completed 
 the work of strengthening the king's authority. In 
 Elizabeth's reign one sole ruler was needed as never 
 before or since. Despotic power reached its greatest 
 height in the year of the Spanish Armada. But 
 when the great fleet had been wrecked, we can see 
 that the despotic power had done its work, and that 
 
CH. XVII.] RECAPITULATION 367 
 
 England had attained to unity. There might after- 
 wards be a civil war to settle how the united nation 
 should be governed ; but it was henceforth inconceiv- 
 able that any part of the country would consent to 
 divide itself from the rest and have a separate 
 government of its own. 
 
 We have now observed in some detail the various 
 ways in which the new forces in the early part of 
 modern history affected three of the Recapituia- 
 growing nations. For convenience I t'O"- 
 may be permitted to state more briefly the results 
 of our observation. In Spain all the force's directly 
 strengthened the king, but could not produce unity. 
 In England a change in Church government increased 
 the king's power ; international wars and conflicting 
 creeds produced perils or disasters for which despotic 
 power was an artificial preventive or remedy; but 
 the English were from the beginning more homo- 
 geneous than the peoples of the Continent, and by 
 the end of Elizabeth's reign they were a well-knit 
 nation. In France both wars and religious dissension 
 produced such deadly internal strife that the people 
 were glad to be despotically governed ; but the des- 
 potic government of their ancient race of kings was 
 never able to bring to unity the heterogeneous 
 elements of the population. 
 
 It is the object of this chapter to examine how 
 three nations made progress towards unity, subjects of 
 It cannot therefore be concluded till the rest of 
 
 • - ttie chapter. 
 
 I have attempted to show how unity m 
 
 France was an outcome of the furious internal 
 
368 ENGLISH [CH. xvii. 
 
 conflicts of the Great Revolution, and of the military 
 patriotism and yearning for dominion to which it 
 led. But before this task is essayed, it will be 
 interesting to observe how great a contrast existed 
 between the conditions of homogeneous England 
 and heterogeneous France in the days of kingly 
 despotic government. 
 
 France and England, in the times when their 
 
 governments were most nearly monarchic, were 
 
 sharply contrasted in their structure. 
 
 Comparison ^ -^ i -r-i 
 
 of France England was united, France was not. 
 and England, rp^^ difference did not show itself in 
 their central governments. The arbitrary courts of 
 the Star Chamber and the Privy Council had their 
 analogues in France : Sully, Richelieu, Colbert had 
 influence of the same kind as Burleigh, Salisbury, and 
 Strafford ; the imprisonment of the Five Knights by 
 the king's order ran parallel with the French practice 
 of issuing lettres de cachet. But in local government 
 and the structure of rural society the two countries 
 were entirely unlike. England had the rural 
 institutions of a united nation : France had the 
 provincial administration of a heterogeneous empire. 
 In England the old families of ambitious earls 
 and princes of the blood had been extinguished in 
 ^, ^ ,. ^ the Wars of the Two Roses, or under 
 
 The English 
 
 nobles and the Stern repression of the early Tudor 
 ^^" '^' sovereigns. New houses, hitherto of 
 
 humbler station, were raised to affluence and power 
 mainly by two causes. The Tudor kings preferred 
 to choose their ministers from among the gentry 
 
CH. xvii.J LOCAL GOVERNMENT 369 
 
 rather than from the nobles, and Henry the Eighth 
 rewarded his servants with grants of abbey-lands 
 and with places in the House of Peers. Thus was 
 founded a new nobility, faithful to the king and 
 the country. In the same way the gentry and the 
 chief citizens grew in importance. Some gained 
 by grant or purchase a slice of the confiscated 
 estate of an extinct baronial house or an abbey ; 
 some grew rich by commerce or privateering 
 on the Spanish Main. The new nobles and 
 gentry lived on their estates in the country 
 among their tenants and labourers, and to their 
 care was entrusted the whole work of local govern- 
 ment. 
 
 The revival and improvement of old local institu- 
 tions in England was begun by Henry the Eighth 
 in small areas when he set up a parish En^ugij 
 organisation with constables, and entrusted local 
 jurisdiction in small matters to Justices ^°'^'''""^° • 
 of the Peace selected among the local gentry. Mary 
 Tudor extended a like method of government over 
 larger areas when she instituted Lieutenants of 
 Counties. England had no standing army : the only 
 armed force was the militia of the counties under 
 the command of their Lieutenants. The Lieutenant 
 of a county was always one of its greatest landowners : 
 and thus great local landowners were the only 
 generals, and untrained farmers and labourers were 
 the only soldiers, on whom Elizabeth could rely 
 for such enterprises as the suppression of the 
 rebellion of the northern earls, or resistance to 
 
 2a 
 
370 FRENCH [ch. xvii. 
 
 Spanish troops in case they should be landed from 
 the Armada. 
 
 In France till the time of Louis the Eleventh 
 many large districts were ruled by independent 
 The French princes. During the wars of religion the 
 noblesse. whole south-west of the country was at 
 times an independent state ruled by Huguenot 
 noblemen. After the religious strife ended, the 
 existence of these districts or provinces cherishing 
 memories of independence was certain to lead to 
 trouble if the provinces fell under the influence of 
 ambitious nobles. The old families of independent 
 fief-owners had all died out or been merged by 
 marriage in the royal family before the time of 
 Henry the Fourth: even among the branches of 
 the royal family none gave much trouble after his 
 reign except the house of Conde. But the favourites, 
 the ministers, and the generals under the kings both 
 of the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, were enriched 
 with great estates of land and founded new families 
 of great nobles. The kings and their ministers 
 dreaded the influence these families might gain if 
 they lived in the country : Kichelieu, and -after him 
 Louis Quatorze, tempted them to desert their estates 
 and migrate to Paris to adorn the court. They and 
 the wealthy prelates who joined in their migration 
 paid no direct taxes till the eighteenth century, and 
 then only the trivial vingtihne. The nobles and clergy 
 owned about two-thirds of all the soil in France. 
 The wealthiest members of these classes lived as 
 absentee landlords, and drew from their tenants 
 
CH. XVII.] PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT 371 
 
 and peasantry an unusually large proportion of the 
 produce. The lesser nobles, however, lived on their 
 estates, and in spite of many oppressive dues and 
 customs were never regarded by the peasantry with 
 the same detestation as their wealthier brethren. 
 
 As the French king's dominions had been from 
 the beginning, and still were, composed of hetero- 
 geneous elements, they needed to be 
 governed by provincial administrators provincial 
 solely responsible to the king, and to e^"^^™"-^"'- 
 have distinct officers for civil rule and for military 
 command. The early kings set up haillis and 
 sen4chaux, intending to keep them as their own 
 obedient servants ; but these officers, and others after 
 them who bore different titles, were able to get 
 military power in addition to civil authority, and 
 were almost as insubordinate as the other nobles. 
 When, however, the king had a standing army com- 
 manded by professional generals, he was able to keep a 
 staff of purely civilian provincial administrators solely 
 obedient to him and his council. The new provincial 
 rulers were the Intendants. A few of these officers were 
 appointed by Richelieu, in spite of angry opposition 
 from local parlemens which had hitherto enjoyed the 
 local jurisdiction : in the eighteenth century there was 
 an Intendant in every province.^ The Intendants were 
 always men of humble origin, and were dismissible 
 at a moment's notice; but in their provinces they 
 controlled every detail of administration. In their 
 
 1 Cheruel, Dictionnaire des Institutions, under the words 
 'Intendans des Provinces.' 
 
372 FRANCE [ch. xvii. 
 
 complete submission to headquarters, and in their 
 local supremacy, they bear a close resemblance to the 
 Prsesides and Correc tores who ruled provinces in the 
 Roman Empire, and to the Commissioners and Magis- 
 trates of districts in our Indian dominions. Local 
 government in France was conducted by clerks in 
 hnreaiix, as it usually is in a heterogeneous empire. 
 
 The orders who paid no direct taxes were the 
 nobles, the clergy, and the judges in the thirteen 
 Exemptions pcirleinens. The judges received only a 
 from taxes, small Salary. Suitors made presents to 
 the judges before the hearing of their cases; these 
 presents were put in a pool, and divided among the 
 judges. A judge made a comfortable gross income 
 of about twenty thousand francs or more;i but he 
 had to get his admission to the bench by inheritance 
 or purchase from an outgoing judge, and he paid the 
 crown a rent called paulette for the enjoyment of his 
 office: the rent was roughly about one-sixth of his 
 takings. The judges were honourably distinguished 
 from the nobles, because they had work to do, and 
 they did it; but as they were exempt from direct 
 taxes, they could not wish that exemptions should be 
 abolished. 
 
 The Parlement of Paris, as we have noticed, was 
 entrusted in the fifteenth century with the duty of 
 Parlement registering new laws. During the wars of 
 de Paris. religion, the States-general fell into com- 
 plete disrepute. After the murder of Henry the 
 
 ^ Gasquet, PrMa des Institutions Fran(;aises, vol. i. pp. 268-282, 
 gives some instances of incomes of judges. 
 
CH. xvil] PEIVILEGED ORDERS 373 
 
 Fourth, the Parlement usurped the duties of a 
 supreme council of the realm. Four years later, the 
 States-general met for the last time for a century and 
 three-quarters, and the Parlement gained a stronger 
 control over legislation than the States-general had 
 ever enjoyed. Its control could not be exercised in 
 the days of Richelieu and Louis Quatorze; but in 
 the eighteenth century, when the weak kings were 
 managed by their courtiers, it was a recognised prin- 
 ciple that the Parlement had a veto on legislation. 
 
 Disunion in France was not removed under the 
 rule of the king and the intendants, but it changed 
 its character. Government by omnipotent 
 
 (jVie4'3 pipe 
 
 civil servants put an end to animosities j(, „^(.y 
 between provinces ; even the Germans of removed by 
 Alsace were turned into loyal Frenchmen 
 by a century of paternal administration. But the 
 migration of the great nobles to Paris cut them off from 
 neighbourly intercourse with the mass of the popula- 
 tion which lived upon the land, and their privileges 
 exposed them to well- deserved dislike. But the 
 isolated position of the privileged orders was the only 
 obstacle to unity ; between the unprivileged classes, 
 as the -townsmen and country-folk, social and com- 
 mercial intercourse was fairly active, and there were 
 no angry feelings. The Revolution removed the 
 obstacle to unity by putting an end to privileges, and 
 driving most of the nobles into exile; at the same 
 time, by opening the way to extended conquests, it 
 provided all Frenchmen with a new stimulus to 
 combined exertions. 
 
374 FRENCH [ch. xvii. 
 
 The exemptions from taxation not only killed the 
 
 peasantry by famine, but made the king unable to pay 
 
 for the work of government. The king 
 
 beginning of ^lade laws to tax the privileged orders, 
 
 tiie French but the Parlement refused to register 
 
 Revolution. . . 
 
 them. Under these circumstances it was 
 the obvious duty of those who suffered by the exemp- 
 tions — namely, the king and the common people — to 
 make an alliance and to enforce their abolition. The 
 alliance was made when the king summoned the 
 States-general to meet at Versailles. On May the 
 4th, 1789, the assembly came together; on June the 
 20th, the king broke his alliance with the common 
 people by excluding their deputies from their place 
 of assembly. Henceforth, the king and States-general 
 had to go their several ways in discord rather than 
 alliance. 
 
 The miseries of France were partly economical, 
 arising from unequal distribution of property ; partly 
 
 political, due to weak government. The 
 of the reformers hoped to cure both the diseases 
 
 re ormers. ^£ ^-^^ body politic. In redistributing 
 property, they were successful. The peasantry were 
 relieved from ruinous feudal dues. The prelates and 
 monasteries were deprived of their lands, and so were 
 those nobles who took service with the princes of the 
 blood at Coblentz with a view to an invasion into 
 France. The lands which thus came into the hands 
 of the revolutionary government were sold to private 
 persons, and formed into farms of moderate extent. 
 Politically, the reformers made a dismal failure. 
 
CH. XVII.] REVOLUTION 375 
 
 France evidently needed that its government should 
 be strong. The reformers in 1791 made a weak 
 government, subject to capricious control from a 
 hostile chamber of legislature. This wretched govern- 
 ment languished through ten months of nominal 
 existence ; and after it perished by violence, on August 
 the 10th, 1792, France subsisted for three years with 
 scarcely a semblance of a government common to the 
 whole country. 
 
 The constitution established in the autumn of 
 1791 deserves notice, not that it was in itself 
 important, but because for thirty years it constitution 
 was an ideal for the imitation of reformers °f i79i- 
 in Spain and Italy. It recognised a king and a repre- 
 sentative legislature, but it was rendered abortive 
 by three peculiarities. It included the famous de- 
 claration of the Rights of Man ; its legislature con- 
 sisted in only a single chamber; and the executive 
 ministers were excluded from the legislature. Besides 
 this, the Constituent Assembly which drew up the 
 constitution, passed a temporary resolution that none 
 of their own members should be eligible for the 
 new legislature at the first election. The legislative 
 chamber, elected under this constitution in 1791, fell 
 under the influence of the Girondins, men of some 
 eloquence, but of no experience or practical states- 
 manship. As the ministers were excluded from the 
 chamber, it was easy for the chamber under the 
 lead of the Girondins to make them powerless. On 
 August the 10th, 1792, the mob sacked the royal 
 palace. The kingship fell, the mob intimidated the 
 
376 PARIS [CH. XVII. 
 
 representative legislature, and France was without a 
 government. 
 
 On August the 10th, 1792, when the Tuileries were 
 
 sacked, a combined army of Prussians, Austrians, and 
 
 „. ,. French royalists were marching towards 
 
 Disruption •' ° 
 
 of France, France with the avowed purpose of restor- 
 ^793- jjjg ^j^g Y\xs% to what they called his 
 
 legitimate authority. Both the Girondins, who were 
 supported by the bourgeoisie, and the violent revolu- 
 tionists, who relied on the mob, knew they had no 
 mercy to expect from the invaders, and they had 
 reason to believe that many inhabitants both of 
 France and of Paris wished success to the invading 
 army. During September elections were to be held 
 throughout France for a National Convention to 
 revise the constitution. The violent revolutionists 
 organised the September massacres of royalists in 
 the prisons of Paris, in order to terrorise the electors 
 and ensure that the National Convention should be 
 composed of men of their party. They did not suc- 
 ceed at the elections; the Convention was largely 
 composed of Girondins, or of timid men averse to 
 violent measures. But when the Convention met at 
 Paris, on September the 21st, they began to gain their 
 end of having a legislature which they could domi- 
 nate : the Convention could not resist the clamours 
 of the Parisian mob. After the 2nd of June 1793, 
 when the Convention was invaded by the populace 
 and lost its independence, France had no government 
 common to the whole country. Paris became a 
 simple city state; the provinces rose in rebellion 
 
CH. XVII.] A CITY STATE 377 
 
 against the capital, and France for a time was broken 
 into a number of independent and separate com- 
 munities. This fact by itself proves that kingly 
 government had not sufficed to give the country 
 unity. 
 
 While Paris was independent it was always 
 governed by some one dominant class to the exclu- 
 sion of the rest, as is usually the case in p^ris 
 simple city states. Till July 1794, the 1792-1795. 
 dominant class consisted of many small gangs of 
 ruffians who were paid by their managers for their 
 services in intimidating assemblies and ensuring 
 unanimity. The managers were Danton, Marat, 
 _ Robespierre, and others of less note. At times the 
 managers acted as a committee of some size in seem- 
 ing amity; then discord arose, and those of them 
 who had not the confidence of the dominant class of 
 ruffians were sent to the guillotine. At one time 
 Danton, and at another Robespierre, was almost sole 
 manager of the ruling class. In July 1794 Robes- 
 pierre was struck down, and as Paris was sick of 
 murderous atrocities, the predominance was trans- 
 ferred to the substantial bourgeois. 
 
 Between 1792 and 1794 the fragments of France 
 began to reunite. The privileged orders were gone ; 
 the levee en masse had joined the male „ ... ,. 
 
 •> Constitution 
 
 population in military service, though of the year 
 scarcely as yet in a single army; con- 
 quest of territory outside France was begun in the 
 summer of 1794 at the victory of Fleurus. Under 
 these circumstances the French desired to set up a 
 
378 DIRECTORY [CH. xvii. 
 
 single government for the whole nation. In the 
 summer of 1795, which fell in the year iii. of their 
 new era, they constructed a new constitution, which 
 is named sometimes after the year of its origin, 
 sometimes after the Directory which formed its 
 executive organ. The legislature this time was in 
 two chambers : there were two hundred and fifty 
 Ancients (men over forty years of age) in the upper 
 chamber ; the lower and more powerful chamber was 
 the Five Hundred. One-third of each chamber was 
 to be renewed by popular election every year. The 
 executive was to consist of iive Directors; every 
 year one Director was to retire, and his successor was 
 to be elected by the Ancients from candidates 
 nominated by the Five Hundred. 
 
 The revulsion of public feeling against the violent 
 deeds of men like Bobespierre and his followers was 
 Intervention extremely strong. There was reason to 
 of the army, ^i^:^^]^ ^-^^^^ if election was left unfettered, 
 a legislature would be chosen to undo with violence 
 in favour of the rich what had been done with violence 
 in favour of the poor. To guard against this danger 
 the framers of the constitution, sitting in their Con- 
 vention, resolved that in the first elections of the 
 new legislature two-thirds of the Ancients and two- 
 thirds of the Five Hundred must be chosen from the 
 members of the Convention. The bourgeoisie of Paris 
 rose in revolt against the provision which limited 
 their free choice; the soldiers in the army, drawn 
 mainly from the poor, did not intend that the work 
 of the Kevolution should be undone. The Conven- 
 
CH. XVII.] ITS DEFECTS 379 
 
 tion called into Paris a division of troops, under young 
 Napoleon Buonaparte, with artillery, on the 5th of 
 October 1795, in the Republican month of Vend^miaire; 
 the revolt of the bourgeoisie was quelled, and the 
 new constitution was established. 
 
 The constitution of the year iii. was well designed 
 to serve as a stop-gap, and the government of the 
 Directors, the Ancients, and the Five Military 
 Hundred ruled in France with less crying despotism, 
 injustice than had been usual for generations. But 
 as it was a purely civilian government and the soldiers 
 were the greatest power in the country, it could only 
 subsist so long as the generals were evenly balanced 
 in power and jealous of one another. The practical 
 weakness of the civilian government was seen in the 
 following way. The legislature was entirely renewed 
 in three years; the Directors in five. Hence new 
 legislators synchronised with old Directors, and 
 quarrelled with them in those days of rapid change 
 in opinion. There was always some ambitious general 
 ready to help the Directors, but never any to defend 
 the legislature. At the request of the five Directors, 
 in 1797, the legislature was purged after the manner 
 of Colonel Pride by General Augereau. In 1799, at 
 the request of the Directors (now only three), the 
 legislators were dispersed by General Buonaparte. In 
 the following year Buonaparte, by his brilliant 
 campaign of Marengo, won a clear predominance 
 among the generals. In that year he was First Consul, 
 and four years later he was Emperor of ^the French. 
 Under his military despotic rule the French people 
 
380 UNITY OF FRANCE [ch. xvii. 
 
 won victories with rapidity never known before in 
 Europe, and then suffered crushing defeats; but in 
 victory or defeat they all gloried or all lamented 
 together, and at the fall of Napoleon France, though 
 terribly weakened, was a united nation. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 UNITARY NATIONS : THE DECLINE OF DESPOTIC 
 
 GOVERNMENTS 
 
 In the last chapter we have seen how England and 
 France, between the fifteenth and the nineteenth 
 centuries, became homogeneous nations. Had space 
 permitted, I might have shown how a like process 
 took place in other European peoples. In proportion 
 as more peoples became homogeneous, fewer peoples 
 had any use for despotic kings. In the early part of 
 modern history the possible uses of a despot were 
 threefold. He protected his subjects from internal 
 strife : he might lead them to conquest : he defended 
 them against invasion. As each state became homo- 
 geneous, it became safe against internal strife without 
 adopting the violent remedy of maintaining a despot. 
 And further, while many states were becoming homo- 
 geneous, other changes were making conquests and 
 invasions more difficult and less alluring. Conquests 
 are more difficult because the states of the modern 
 world make coalitions to protect the weaker states ; 
 and they are less alluring, because any state, which 
 annexes an alien population to itself by conquest, 
 forfeits the advantage of being homogeneous, which 
 most states have learned to value. Thus no nation 
 
 881 
 
382 DECLINE OF [CH. xviii. 
 
 that is thoroughly homogeneous has any reasonable 
 use to make of a despot. Most of the nations have 
 now become homogeneous, and in those nations 
 despotic governments have, as might be expected, 
 ceased to exist : a few nations, as Spain, Italy, and 
 perhaps Belgium, are not yet perfectly united, but 
 they do not suffer from any disunion sufficiently 
 serious to induce them to submit to the arbitrary 
 rule of a king. 
 
 England was the first of the unitary nations to 
 get rid of despotic government. After the destruc- 
 tion of the Spanish Armada, the English 
 despotic had no occasion tor it. I here was no 
 
 government livelihood of serious internal strife ; they 
 
 in England. _ _ . 
 
 did not desire conquests in Europe; 
 
 against invasion the sea and their ships protected 
 them. Meanwhile the new gentry had risen to be 
 capable leaders of the people, and they made their 
 voices effectively heard for the redress of grievances. 
 Elizabeth, in 1601, actually showed that she was no 
 longer despotic when she gave way to the remon- 
 strance of the House of Commons on the mischiefs, 
 of Monopolies. The Stuart kings restored despotic 
 authority which Elizabeth had begun to relinquish, 
 and, though it was now needless, made it more intense 
 and more oppressive than the government of any 
 Tudor sovereign. 
 
 The work of destroying the king's despotic power 
 and making a new form of government was under- 
 taken by the new nobility and gentry with the aid of 
 the people, and was done in three stages. (1) Between 
 
CH. XVIII.] DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS 383 
 
 1640 and 1689 Parliament acquired the power of con- 
 trolling administration. (2) From 1689 to 1742 poli- 
 tical parties were organised in the Par- 
 liament, and the Cabinet was established, of its removal, 
 (3) From 1760 onwards Parliament, '^^o-iSss- 
 Parties, and Cabinet were shaken in their stability 
 by the attempts of George the Third to undermine 
 their position; but from the Reform of the Representa- 
 tion in 1832, and especially from the retirement of 
 Sir Robert Peel in 1835, it is an established fact that 
 the House of Commons can drive any Cabinet out of 
 office ; and though it does not openly determine who 
 shall govern the country, it determines who shall not. 
 The period of the Long Parliament, the Civil War, 
 and the Restoration finally settled that Parliament 
 alone can sanction taxes. In the reign of 
 Charles the Second, who was always want- Control by 
 ing money. Parliament for eighteen years ^^'^''^X"*' 
 made remarkable progress in power. It 
 met nearly every year ; it controlled not only taxation 
 but expenditure; and by reviving the process of 
 impeachment it gained the means of punishing 
 ministers who broke the law. But from 1678 to 
 1681 it was ruined in the public estimation by the 
 factious folly of the Whig Party in regard to the 
 pretended Popish Plot, the Exclusion Bill, and the 
 candidature of Monmouth for the succession to the 
 throne. From 1681 to 1688 something very like 
 despotic monarchy was re-established. In the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688-1689 Parliament declared the throne was 
 vacant and elected a king. They made very few 
 
384 ENGLISH PARLIAMENT [CH. xviii. 
 
 changes in the constitution; they definitely settled 
 the principles, hitherto disputed, that there was no 
 standing army in time of peace without leave of 
 Parliament, and that the king had no general power 
 to dispense with penal statutes ; they did not even 
 make the judges independent of the crown, but left 
 that needful reform to be made in 1701 by the Act 
 of Settlement. Their action, however, sufficed for 
 their purpose. Parliament never passed the Mutiny 
 Act for more than a year at a time; if the Mutiny 
 Act expired, the king's command over his soldiers 
 expired with it. The king had to summon a Parlia- 
 ment every year, and frequent meetings enabled the 
 Parliament to control administration. 
 
 Parliament in 1689 got the power to control 
 
 administration, but did not know how to use it. 
 
 The members were divided into Whigs and 
 
 (2) . . . 
 
 Parties and Tories : some ministers of the crown were 
 
 the Cabinet, Tories, others were WhisfS ; and each mini- 
 1689-1742. . . 
 
 ster had a policy of his own. Under such 
 
 circumstances there could be no stable majority for 
 
 the proposals of the king's government : one minister 
 
 in making a proposal might appeal to a majority, 
 
 another to a , minority ; and besides this there was 
 
 no means of knowing how voting would go, because 
 
 some members of the Houses of Parliament owed 
 
 one allegiance to the king and another to their party. 
 
 In 1695, for the first time, all ministers were chosen 
 
 from one party — the Whigs. But this did not serve 
 
 to ensure ministers all of one party for the future, 
 
 because when one minister was defeated in a vote 
 
CH. XVIII.] AND CABINET 385 
 
 his colleagues did not resign with him. Between 
 1702 and 1710 on several occasions isolated Whig 
 ministers were driven to resign : their places were 
 taken by Tories who became colleagues of the 
 remaining Whigs. A Cabinet in the modern sense 
 of the word was founded between 1720 and 1742 by 
 Sir Robert Walpole. He founded it by dismissing 
 from the ministry any one who tried to have a policy 
 of his own apart from the rest. He thus made a 
 Cabinet united under himself, all having the same 
 policy, and all jointly responsible; or, in other words, 
 all going out of office together if one of them is 
 defeated. 
 
 The Cabinet has been proved by experience to be 
 a singularly good instrument of government in a 
 unitary nation with representative insti- ,,> 
 tutions : indeed, the invention of it is in F'"^' estab- 
 
 . . , . . lishment of 
 
 such nations second in importance only pariiament- 
 to the invention of representative assem- ^^ control 
 blies. Unitary nations have, or ought to Cabinet, 
 have, only one government which is ^^ °"' ^^" 
 omnipotent. That it may be omnipotent, it is 
 necessary that legislature and executive shall act 
 in harmony. This was ensured by Walpole's Cabinet 
 system of government. The Cabinet was the ex- 
 ecutive; but it was also a committee of the party 
 which predominated in the legislature ; and it served 
 as a link between the two great organs of the govern- 
 ment which had to act in harmony. 
 
 It is not, however, surprising that a hereditary 
 sovereign should dislike Parliamentary control, Party 
 
 2b 
 
386 DECLINE OF [ch. xviii. 
 
 organisation, and a Cabinet in harmony with Parha- 
 ment. It is a combination of factors which deprives 
 him of all political power except what he may get 
 by his influence with ministers. George the Third 
 did his best to sap the foundations of the power of 
 Parliament, of Parties, and of the Cabinet, mainly by 
 the use of pensions, sinecures, and a secret service 
 fund. He was singularly successful till about the 
 end of the eighteenth century. But in the early 
 part of the nineteenth century many alterations made 
 members and ministers more attentive to the opinion 
 of the people and therefore less amenable to royal 
 influence. The Industrial Revolution, begun towards 
 the end of the eighteenth century, had raised up a 
 great class of manufacturers and merchants as rivals 
 to the country gentlemen; and it had congregated 
 large populations in towns, full of wealth and of 
 bustling activity, but not as yet represented in the 
 House of Commons. Political discussions, suggested 
 at first by the French Revolution, but illuminated 
 rather by the happy results of popular institutions in 
 America than by their dismal failure in France, 
 convinced all those who suffered by oppressive laws 
 and government that they would continue to suffer 
 unless they were represented in the deliberative 
 assembly. The labouring classes, who suffered most 
 severely, were in a temper which led them into some 
 rioting and violence and might lead them into 
 insurrection. The manufacturers, too, and the mer- 
 chants, desired to have a share in choosing represen- 
 tatives. Eventually the demand for a reform of the 
 
CH. xviiT.] DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS 387 
 
 representation was so general that tlie House of 
 Commons and King William the Fourth were con- 
 vinced it must be gratified; the resistance of the 
 House of Lords was overborne, and the Reform Bill 
 became a law. Since then the House of Commons 
 has been exempt from royal interference, and has 
 been able at its pleasure to compel the Cabinet to 
 retire from office. 
 
 On the Continent the decline and removal of 
 despotic governments was a result of most intricate 
 processes. It is in general true that in Decline of 
 the eighteenth century these governments despotic 
 were losing their activity and vitality: on the 
 even in Prussia and Austria they became Continent, 
 torpid after the deaths of Frederick the .Great and 
 Joseph the Second. In all countries outside France 
 they were discredited, in the early years of the nine- 
 teenth century, by their inability to protect their 
 subjects from Napoleon; nothing happened in any 
 of these countries to endow them with new vigour, 
 and they have accordingly died a natural death from 
 internal weakness. In France active despotic govern- 
 ments were established in 1804 and again in 1851; but 
 their aggressive proceedings brought on them chastise- 
 ment from European powers, and amid the calamities 
 which they caused the French nation was placed 
 under governments of a different character. 
 
 In Spain the Bourbon kings sank into feebleness 
 as their predecessors the Hapsburgs had done. 
 Napoleon destroyed the Bourbon kingship by en- 
 trapping the king and his son at Bayonne. He tried 
 
388 UNITARY NATIONS [CH. xviii. 
 
 to make his brother Joseph king of Spain, but was 
 foiled by the resistance of the Spaniards and the 
 Spain: English. In 1812 a constitution copied 
 Naples. from the foolish French Constitution of 
 1791 was introduced into Spain : by 1820 it had pro- 
 duced its natural results in civil war and anarchy. In 
 1821 the Carbonari at Naples tried to set up a similar 
 constitution in place of their decadent despotism. 
 Both in Spain and in Naples military interventions 
 from outside were ordered by the four great powers 
 Avhich formed the Holy Alliance : they destroyed 
 representative institutions and set the kings free 
 from parliamentary limitations, but could not cure 
 their governments of their inherent feebleness. 
 
 Despotic governments in France were proved by 
 the examples of Louis the Fourteenth and Napoleon 
 France ■ ^° ^® dangerous to Europe. Accordingly, 
 the Charter in 1814, when the European sovereigns 
 had overthrown Napoleon, they did not 
 allow his successor Louis the Eighteenth to be a 
 despot. Before they permitted him to enter Paris 
 he had to issue a charter defining the future con- 
 stitution of France. The issue of the Charter of 
 1814 was most potently conducive to the welfare 
 of Europe. It set up on the Continent the first 
 pattern of representative institutions that could do 
 their work. It was imitated very closely from the 
 contemporary English constitution. The French king 
 was not made so dependent on his ministers as the 
 English king : thus Louis had the privilege of joining 
 the Holy Alliance because he could give his personal 
 
CH. XVIII.] NEW CONSTITUTIONS 389 
 
 adherence, while George, Prince- regent of England, 
 was excluded because he could not. The French 
 legislature was this time constituted in two chambers, 
 one mainly hereditary, the other elective. The 
 electoral franchise was granted more liberally than 
 it then was in England, being extended to all men 
 who paid three hundred francs yearly in direct taxes. 
 The new French Parliament was free from the abuse 
 of pocket boroughs which in the old English Parlia- 
 ment was crying for reform ; but, on the other hand, 
 there were no classes in France so well qualified to 
 give counsel to the people as the upper classes in 
 England proved themselves to be after 1832, when 
 the system of elections had been amended. The 
 strength of the French constitution was proved in 
 1830, when King Charles the Tenth, on trying to 
 destroy it, was immediately forced to flee the country. 
 The accession of his distant cousin Louis Philippe 
 made no change in the constitution except that the 
 electoral franchise was extended to those who paid 
 two hundred francs of direct taxes. 
 
 The French Charter of 1814, or, what was much 
 the same thing, the English Constitution, was largely 
 used as a model after 1830 in making con- Numerous 
 stitutions on the Continent. It was copied imitations, 
 between 1830 and 1840 in Spain; in Belgium and 
 Holland soon after their separation; in 1850 in Prussia; 
 and in 1848 in Piedmont, then called the kingdom of 
 Sardinia. The introductions of the new constitutions 
 call for no remark except in the cases of Spain and 
 Piedmont. Ferdinand the Seventh of Spain in 1833, 
 
390 UNITARY NATIONS [ch. xviii. 
 
 being near his end, and having no children but 
 daughters, desired the abohtion of the Salic law, which 
 excluded them from the succession. To attain his ob- 
 ject he summoned the Cortes. After his death in 1833, 
 in a long war for the succession between his daughter 
 Isabella and her cousin Don Carlos, both claimants 
 had to promise constitutional goTcrnment in order 
 to get support. Isabella was eventually successful in 
 the war, and Spain gained a constitution on the 
 English model. In Piedmont in 1848 the king and 
 his son desired to be aided zealously by their subjects 
 in a war against Austria, and to gain their aid King 
 Charles Albert gave them a constitution. The war 
 brought nothing but defeat to the Piedmontese ; but 
 Victor Emmanuel, son of Charles Albert, maintained 
 the constitution. II re galantuovio was rewarded 
 for his good faith towards his subjects : he was chosen 
 king of nearly all Italy in 1859, and of the rest in 
 1866 and 1870. All Italy is now ruled under the 
 constitution which Charles Albert established in 
 1848 in his Piedmontese dominions. 
 
 Of all the new constitutions the French alone was 
 overthrown. On the expulsion of Louis Philippe in 
 France : 1848 the French established a Republican 
 renewed government according to the ideas which 
 had prevailed in 1792 after the destruc- 
 tion of the old kingship. In this Republic the 
 assembly and the ministers were unable to control 
 the Parisian proletariate : accordingly they desired 
 to have a President to be single head of the executive 
 government. Probably they were moved to this 
 
CH. xviii.J FRANCE 391 
 
 desire because a President is a strong and useful 
 head of the executive in the United States of 
 America. They resolved that their President should 
 be elected, as the American President practically is, 
 by universal suffrage. But if they thought that a 
 method of election which works well in America, 
 would work in the same way in France, they were 
 much deceived. In the Federal American common- 
 wealth the powers of the President are narrowly 
 limited by the constitution, and the greater part of 
 the executive work is done by the governments of the 
 component states in the union : in the unitary state 
 of France the head of the executive had all the 
 powers not specially appropriated to the Parliament or 
 the judicature. The French perhaps thought they 
 were electing an officer like the American President 
 by the method used in America ; in truth, they used 
 the same method but elected a very different officer. 
 The man of their choice was despotic almost immedi- 
 ately : three years later he was elected by universal 
 suffrage to be Emperor of the French with the title 
 of Napoleon the Third. 
 
 After the fall of Napoleon the Third in 1870 a 
 new constitution was required. Its construction 
 was begun in 1871 and was completed in France- 
 the next thirteen years. This constitu- the Constitu 
 tion resembles the Charter of 1814 and 
 the English Constitution in providing two chambers 
 of legislature and a Cabinet responsible to the legis- 
 lature. It differs, however, from both in two important 
 particulars. There is not in the existing French 
 
392 SCANDINAVIAN [CH. xviii. 
 
 form of government any Hereditary Sovereign, so 
 that the functions performed by Hereditary Sovereigns 
 in other countries are entrusted to an elective officer : 
 the officer to whom they are committed is elected by 
 the chambers of legislature to serve for seven years, 
 and is entitled President of the Republic. The other 
 divergence from the Charter of 1814 and from the 
 English Constitution affects the relations between the 
 executive and the legislature. The President of the 
 Republic has not the power to dissolve the chamber 
 of deputies unless the upper chamber assents to the 
 dissolution. The effect of this regulation has been 
 that the Cabinet has been more at the mercy of 
 capricious assemblies of deputies in France than in 
 most of the other unitary nations of Europe. 
 
 In my sketch of the rise and decline of despotic 
 governments, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have 
 not yet been noticed. They lay aloof at 
 Scandinavian most times from the main course of 
 na ions. European events, and their governments 
 
 grew and changed according to their needs, as our 
 governments in insular England have done, without 
 much imitation of other nations. But in them also 
 there was a culmination of kingly power followed by 
 its decline. In Sweden a strong kingship was 
 established by Gustavus Yasa in 1523, and was 
 raised to greater power by some of his successors ; in 
 Denmark- Norway the power of the nobles was broken 
 in 1660, and the king for a time became autocratic. 
 Now in all the Scandinavian nations power has been 
 transferred from the Hereditary Sovereign to ParUa- 
 
CH. XVIII.] NATIONS 393 
 
 meats and Cabinets. In Norway, which against its 
 will was placed under the King of Sweden by the 
 Congress of Vienna, the king's influence is less than 
 in other countries, and even the Cabinet is weak as 
 it is in France. In Denmark and Sweden the 
 government is in the main similar to that under 
 which we live in England. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 UNITARY NATIONS: MODERN CONSTITUTIONS 
 
 All unitary nations, now that they have become 
 fairly homogeneous, are living under governments 
 of a common type, characterised by the presence of 
 a powerful representative and deliberative assembly 
 or Parliament and a Cabinet responsible to the 
 Parliament; and these governments, which we may 
 best call parliamentary, have been so far successful, 
 that all of them, except those of France, 1814-1848, 
 and of Prussia, 1850-1866, have hitherto been main- 
 tained in power as being more conducive to the 
 welfare of their subjects than any that could be 
 substituted for them. These facts do not prove that 
 governments of this kind must arise in unitary 
 nations, because many of the governments have 
 rather been adopted by imitation than produced 
 spontaneously by natural growth ; but they do show 
 that such governments meet the needs of the nations 
 when once they have been adopted, and do not jar 
 on anything in the nature of those communities. 
 
 The general characteristics of the governments of 
 modern unitary nations are too familiar to need 
 description, because we in England have been living 
 under one of these governments longer than any 
 
 391 
 
OH. XIX.] PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENTS 395 
 
 other people. It is, however, not alien from my pur- 
 pose to point out that unitary nations, from being 
 simple communities, have special require- 
 ments to make of their governments, and requ'irements 
 have adapted them to fulfil those require- of unitary 
 ments : for we shall see hereafter that 
 federal states, in the same stage of civilisation and 
 progress, have different needs and therefore different 
 political institutions. At the same time, we may 
 observe how the unitary nations have varied in the 
 details of their constitutional arrangements.'^ 
 
 Every unitary nation was originally a composite 
 state formed by the union of many weaker communi- 
 ties with one stronger community : the sing-jg 
 weaker communities, in submitting to supreme 
 union with the stronger, submitted also to 
 be ruled by its government, and a single government 
 ruled the whole composite state. The component 
 communities in the union were near neighbours and 
 sufficiently alike in character to grow towards closer 
 union; if they had lived far apart, or been uncon- 
 genial, they would have separated, and no nation 
 would have been formed. As the composite state 
 grew towards perfect union, it learned the advantages 
 of having a single government, and after it has united 
 into a single community it desires to keep them. 
 As it is a single community united by common 
 growth, and not a bundle of communities joined 
 
 1 The moat convenient books of reference on modern govern- 
 ments are Dareste, Oonstitutions Modernes, and Demombynes, Con- 
 stitutions Europdennes. 
 
396 SUPEEMACY [ch. xix. 
 
 together by a bargain and by common interests, as 
 federal states are, it is able to realise its desire. It is, 
 then, a primary feature in the institutions of unitary 
 nations that a single government is supreme. 
 
 It is desired in unitary nations that the govern- 
 ment shall be as strong and effective as it can be 
 Controlled made, subject to the sole limitation that 
 by the it shall not be able to thwart any settled 
 
 and deliberate desire of the whole com- 
 munity. The government must have separate organs 
 to perform its deliberative, executive, and judicial 
 functions, and they must be sufficiently independent 
 to do their work properly; but the community 
 desires that the organs shall work in general harmony 
 and with a minimum of conflict. To attain this 
 end One organ is chosen out to be superior to the 
 others, and to speak to them in case of conflict in a 
 tone of authority. In bygone centuries the superior 
 organ was the executive, because it was most able 
 to maintain union. Now that union is attained, the 
 superior organ is the ParUament, because that is 
 the organ most certain to conform readily to any 
 settled wish of the community; and so a second 
 feature in the governments of unitary nations is 
 that the Parliament can, in case of need, speak to the 
 other organs of government in a tone of authority. 
 
 The division of a Parliament into two independent 
 chambers ensures the consideration of every new 
 law by two separate authorities. It was seen to pro- 
 duce good results in England ; and undivided Parlia- 
 ments when tried in France and in Spain produced, 
 
CH. XIX.] OF PARLIAMENTS 397 
 
 as we have seen, disastrous results. Divided Parlia- 
 ments have accordingly been established in nearly 
 all nations, whether unitary or federal. In 
 unitary nations alone it is found necessary chambers 
 that one chamber should be far stronger ""equal 
 
 . in power. 
 
 than the other. In these nations the Parlia- 
 ment is the controlling organ : it must therefore be 
 strong enough to keep in general obedience its only 
 formidable rival, the executive ; and it is most effect- 
 ively made strong enough for this purpose, if one 
 of the chambers has a far larger share of power than 
 the other. The necessity of making the two houses 
 unequal in power is proved by the course of events 
 in England during the first eighteen years of the 
 reign of Charles the Second. The two chambers 
 were then equal in power : they engaged in endless 
 drawn battles about privilege, and the executive 
 escaped from their control.^ In modern unitary 
 nations it is intended that the executive shall not 
 escape from control, and the Parliament shall in 
 general command its obedience ; for these reasons 
 one chamber is made strong and the other compara- 
 tively weak. The strong chamber is that which is 
 called the lower: it draws its strength from the 
 fact that it is elected by a very large number of 
 voters, and is entitled to speak in their name. And 
 so the third distinctive feature of governments in 
 unitary nations is, that they never allow the upper 
 chamber of Parliament to be equal in power with 
 
 1 Hallam, Constitutional History, ch. xiii. , on the cases of Skinner 
 and Shirley. 
 
398 REPRESENTATIVE [ch. xix. 
 
 that which is elected by the mass of the popula- 
 tion. 
 
 There are fourteen unitary nations. Ten of them 
 stand apart from the rest, being situated in western 
 or northern Europe, and having had for 
 nations ccnturies none but Europeans as their 
 
 numera . ]2eig];i]3ours. These ten are Great Britain 
 with Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, 
 Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.^ They are 
 the chief unitary nations, and have governments not 
 deviating greatly from a common type. The remain- 
 ing four are Greece, Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria. 
 They are smaller than most of the others, and were 
 under the misrule of the Turks till the nineteenth 
 century : it is more difficult and less instructive to 
 study their constitutions than those of the older 
 European nations, and it will not be necessary to 
 advert to them further beyond remarking that 
 Roumania alone of the four has a second House of 
 Parliament. 
 
 In all the ten chief unitary nations there is a single 
 supreme government; the Parliament has larger 
 
 authority than the other organs, and the 
 Variations , i i • c i i 
 
 in their lower chamber is more poweriul than 
 
 organs of ^]^q upper. These facts serve to define 
 
 government. ^ '^ 
 
 the character or the governments, but 
 not to describe them nor to show how they are 
 constructed. It will then be worth while to notice 
 
 1 Prussia and the other German states, so long as they were 
 separate, were unitary. As they are now members of a federal 
 union, they no longer have supreme governments of their own. 
 
GH. XIX.] OHAMBEES 399 
 
 the machinery employed in constructing the Parlia- 
 ments and executive governments : in doing this we 
 shall be led to observe that upper chambers vary 
 largely in their structures, and that in France and 
 Norway the predominance of the Parliament over 
 the executive government is more accentuated than 
 in other nations. 
 
 The business of a modern Parliament is to deliberate 
 on public affairs, to sanction laws, to impose taxes, 
 
 to constitute all governing agencies both 
 
 Parliaments. 
 
 central and local, and to exercise a general 
 supervision over the work of government. As the 
 influence of the Parliament is almost boundless, it is 
 recognised in the chief unitary nations that it ought 
 to be divided into two chambers in order that every 
 measure may be considered by two independent 
 authorities. We have now to observe how the 
 chambers are constituted in the nations of western 
 and northern Europe. 
 
 In all countries the lower or more powerful 
 chamber is elected by a large fraction of the adult 
 male population. In Great Britain and „ 
 Ireland we have six and a half million sentative 
 voters out of a total population of forty- 
 one millions ; and in many continental countries the 
 proportion of voters to total population is nearly the 
 same as in our own country, namely, about one to 
 six or seven. In France the franchise is given more 
 liberally, to a fourth of the population; in Italy, 
 where many are without any political education, 
 much more sparingly, to one-fifteenth. It does not 
 
400 UPPER [CH. XIX. 
 
 seem, however, that the difference between France 
 and Italy in the diffusion of the suffrage makes much 
 difference in the position of their representative 
 chambers. In both countries, the labourers with 
 permanent residence and regular wages are included 
 among the voters and form the greater part of the 
 constituencies. In continental countries the elected 
 representatives are usually men who have to make 
 their way in the world ; in England they have already 
 made it, or have had it made for them by their 
 fathers and grandfathers. In France deputies receive 
 a salary of nine thousand francs from the state, in 
 Sweden and Norway a slightly smaller sum; in 
 many countries, for example Italy, they are unpaid. 
 
 The proper function of an upper chamber is to 
 give a second and independent judgment on laws 
 Upper submitted to it by the lower chamber, and 
 chambers. ^^ prevent foolish laws from being carried 
 hastily. As it is to give a separate judgment, it 
 should not be a mere second edition of the lower 
 chamber, and ought not to be constituted by the 
 method of election by a very large mass of voters, 
 which is employed in making lower chambers. As 
 it is not elected by the mass of the people, it can 
 never be strong enough to contend for long together 
 by the mere expression of its will in combat with the 
 lower chamber; and, for reasons already expressed, 
 it would be mischievous if the upper chamber were 
 equal in mere force to the lower. But the upper 
 chamber ought to have the power to get the ear of the 
 public, and to ensure that its judgments shall be 
 
CH. XIX.] CHAMBEES 401 
 
 listened to with attention. It cannot issue commands 
 that must be obeyed : there is the more reason that 
 it shall be able to judge rightly and to persuade by 
 reasoning. That it may be able to perform its func- 
 tions of judging and persuading, it needs that its mem- 
 bers shall be men of wisdom and experience, careless 
 of popular clamour, capable of thinking clearly and 
 reasoning so as to carry conviction. To find mem- 
 bers of such qualifications for the upper chambers 
 has been the general desire of the makers of modern 
 constitutions : very various expedients have been 
 adopted to attain it, with varying degrees of success. 
 In Italy the upper chamber is, as far as possible, 
 a copy of the ancient Roman Senate. It consists of 
 members nominated by the king to be Their 
 senators for life, and selected by him from forms, 
 men holding high official status or possessed of con- 
 siderable fortunes : to these are added the princes of 
 the blood, senators in their own right. From the 
 history of the Roman Senate we may conclude that 
 an assembly of peers for life, nominated by the 
 executive but not transmitting their dignity to their 
 sons, is more likely than any other to have the 
 qualities demanded of a modern upper chamber. 
 But also it is improbable that any continental people 
 except the Italians, who pride themselves on being 
 successors of the old Romans, would consent to live 
 under an upper chamber selected entirely without 
 their own intervention. In France, Belgium, the 
 Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway, the members of 
 the upper chambers are all elected. Attempts have 
 
 2c 
 
402 UPPER [CH. XIX. 
 
 been made to differentiate the upper chambers from 
 the lower by varying the method of election, by 
 lengthening the tenure of office for senators, or by 
 selecting them from the wealthy citizens. For 
 example, in France the senators are elected by local 
 governing bodies who are themselves elected by the 
 people ; they serve for thrice as long as the deputies 
 in the lower chamber, and they vacate their seats 
 not all together, but a third of them in every third 
 year. In Belgium they are elected by the people 
 directly, but have a double term of service, and are 
 chosen from the rich class. The efforts of continental 
 nations to get an elected upper chamber unlike the 
 lower do not seem to have been successful. The 
 most careful plan tending in that direction was that 
 which the French devised ; but the French senate, 
 as the years go on, becomes constantly less dis- 
 tinguishable in its views and policy from the chamber 
 of deputies. In Norway no attempt to keep the 
 chambers distinct in character has been made: a 
 Parliament or Storthing is elected by the people, and 
 the members when elected divide themselves into 
 upper chamber, Lagthing, and lower chamber, Odels- 
 thing. The Norwegians are a remarkably law-abiding 
 people ; but in spite of this excellence in their char- 
 acter it was found to be unlucky, in the impeachment 
 of eleven ministers in 1883, that there was so little 
 distinction between the accusing chamber and the 
 chamber of judges. In Spain, Portugal, and Den- 
 mark the upper chamber is partly elective and partly 
 nominated by the king. 
 
CH. XIX.] CHAMBERS 403 
 
 Of the English House of Lords I need say but 
 little, because it owes its surviyal to singular circum- 
 stances in our history, cannot be imitated T^e English 
 elsewhere, and cannot well be compared Peers. 
 with any other upper chamber. The upper classes 
 in England from the time of the founding of new 
 noble houses by the Tudor sovereigns have had a 
 singularly good record as social and political leaders 
 of the people, and therefore our upper chamber is 
 permitted still to consist almost entirely of hereditary 
 legislators. It has no voters, and therefore no direct 
 force, behind it : even its freedom to choose its own 
 policy is precarious, since the executive government 
 can change its majority into a minority by a creation 
 of new peers. Yet it often dares even in modern 
 times to differ in opinion with the mighty House of 
 Commons, and to refuse or delay to sanction its most 
 important projects. If it makes a mistake and is 
 involved in a conflict with the settled opinion of the 
 people, the penalty is tremendous : in 1832, when it 
 made such a mistake in regard to the Keform Bill, it 
 was threatened with a creation of new peers, and did 
 not regain its influence for a generation. In order 
 to perform its proper function of giving an inde- 
 pendent judgment on measures which have passed 
 the lower house, it needs in its members a remarkable 
 degree of prudence, experience, independence of indi- 
 vidual character; but, as its members succeed by 
 inheritance, three-fourths of them at least do not 
 p,ossess the qualities of good legislators. The difficulty 
 has been surmounted by natural selection : the peers 
 
404 CABINETS [CH. xix. 
 
 who are not well qualified to legislate stay away from 
 the sittings. Those who remain perform with marked 
 success their proper functions as critics of the 
 Commons and persuaders of the people. The greatest 
 trial of their capability occurred between 1892 and 
 1895 when bills for changing the government of 
 Ireland were passed by the House of Commons and 
 submitted to the Lords. Whether the bills were 
 good or bad in themselves need not here be con- 
 sidered : it is, however, perfectly certain that the 
 Lords were right in rejecting them, because their 
 judgement has been confirmed by the verdict of the 
 people expressed in two subsequent general elections. 
 Our English House of Lords, being based on heredi- 
 tary succession, has the weakest of all possible consti- 
 tutions; but by the simple process of leaving the 
 work of legislation exclusively to those members who 
 can do it well, it has attained a greater degree of 
 influence than the upper chamber in any other 
 unitary nation. 
 
 The executive branch of government in a unitary 
 
 nation has to do all the work which the Parliament 
 
 does not perform itself nor entrust to the 
 
 Executive _ '■ 
 
 govern- judicature. It has to command the 
 f^nctfons'^"^ armed forces, to execute laws and judicial 
 and sentences, to collect the taxes, to preserve 
 
 the peace, and to conduct negotiations 
 with foreign powers. The executive organ in a 
 unitary nation is such a Cabinet as that which Sir 
 Robert Walpole constructed in England. The digni- 
 fied sovereign selects the Premier, almost always 
 
OH. XIX.] CABINETS 405 
 
 from the party which has a majority in the repre- 
 sentative chamber, and leaves him to choose his 
 colleagues. If one minister is driven to resign by 
 an adverse vote in the legislature the rest go out 
 with him, except in the rare cases when the one 
 minister has disobeyed the instructions of his col- 
 leagues and can be repudiated. 
 
 In a unitary state with representative institutions 
 the executive is under the general control of the 
 Parliament. As the community is all one 
 and is to be ruled by a single supreme relations 
 government, it is desirable that the two to the 
 chief organs of government shall act 
 together in easy harmony. This harmony is ensured 
 by entrusting the executive functions to a Cabinet 
 whose members have seats in the deliberative 
 assembly, so that the deliberative and executive 
 organs are linked together.- The two organs are not 
 fused into one, but they are made interdependent. 
 The executive government is always dependent on 
 the deliberative assembly, because it can be dismissed 
 from office by an adverse vote: the deliberative 
 assembly is in some degree dependent on the execu- 
 tive in those countries in which the dignified sove- 
 reign has the power of dissolving Parliament. In 
 those countries ministers, if defeated in Parliament, 
 can appeal to the electors, and the possibility of a 
 dissolution dissuades members of the ParHament 
 from voting against ministers on frivolous grounds. 
 The value of the power of dissolution in protecting 
 ministers is shown by the experience of two countries 
 
406 PARTICIPATION OF CABINETS [ch. xix. 
 
 in which it does not exist. In France, where the 
 Parliament cannot be dissolved without the sanction 
 of the upper chamber, there were thirty-five successive 
 ministries between 1871 and 1895. The instability of 
 the Cabinets was no doubt partly due to the division 
 of the people and the Parliament into many small 
 groups ; but the inability of the Cabinet to appeal to 
 the electors was also a contributory cause. In Nor- 
 way the Storthing is elected for three years and 
 cannot be dissolved : the executive ministers cannot 
 be members of the deliberative assembly, and cannot 
 attend its sittings ; they merely present to it the laws 
 which they desire to see passed, and having done so 
 must immediately withdraw from the hall where it 
 is assembled. These arrangements, combined with 
 the result of the impeachment of eleven ministers in 
 1883, have reduced the Norwegian executive govern- 
 ment to a position of humble dependence on the 
 Storthing.^ 
 
 It is well worthy of remark that the most important 
 work of a Parliament in the nineteenth and twentieth 
 The centuries is not the same as it was in the 
 
 weightiest eighteenth, when England alone had a 
 
 business of -r^ ,. a n t-. l- • n 
 
 a modern Parliament. Ail Parliaments in all ages 
 Parliament (Jq j^j^g work of giving or refusing their 
 
 isnotlegis- t> & b 
 
 lationbut assent to new laws, and therefore have 
 deliberation, legislative functions. Some Parliaments 
 also do the work of effective deliberation on the 
 policy of the nation ; but this work is permitted only 
 to those Parliaments which are sufficiently strong 
 
 ^ Demombynes, Constitutions Europ^ennes, vol. i. pp. 145-161. 
 
OH. XIX.] IN MAKING LAWS 407 
 
 and independent to insist on doing it. The English 
 Parliament in the eighteenth century was neither 
 strong nor independent ; it was seldom permitted to 
 deliberate with decisive effect on the whole policy 
 of the country; its chief work was legislative, and 
 it was, appropriately designated as the legislative 
 assembly. Now all Parliaments are strong enough 
 to deliberate effectively on all subjects of policy. 
 Their deliberations and their votes determine what 
 policy shall be adopted ; above all, they practically 
 determine who shall be Prime Minister. Since 
 Parliaments have attained the power of practically 
 determining by their debates who shall be Premier, 
 their chief functions are deliberative. They still give 
 or refuse their assent to laws: indeed, many more 
 new laws are needed than in older times, and. the 
 laws are more elaborately drawn up. But the Parlia- 
 ments entrust the greater part of the work of law- 
 making, as they entrust all administrative work, to 
 the Cabinet. A modern Parliament is always able to 
 dismiss a Cabinet from office : the members of a 
 Cabinet are expected to be experts in law-making, 
 and there is no reason why they should not be 
 allowed to manage the making of new laws in their 
 main outlines, so long as they give general satisfaction 
 to Parliament. It is true that all the work of law- 
 making is done in Parliament, but it is misleading 
 at the present day to speak of Parliament as the 
 legislative body, in contradistinction to the Cabinet 
 which is called executive, because it leads us to forget 
 that the course of legislation (except in Norway) is 
 
408 JUDICATURES [cH. xix. 
 
 habitually regulated by the Cabinet through its influ- 
 ence over its supporters in Parliament. On the other 
 hand, the work of deliberation on public policy, and 
 especially on the question whether a Cabinet shall 
 continue in office, is peculiarly the work of Parlia- 
 ment. Most of the deliberation on such a question 
 is done outside the walls of the House, in the medit- 
 ations of individual members, aided by interviews 
 between members, and by interviews of members 
 with their constituents. The result of private. de- 
 liberations is seen in collective deliberation within 
 the House, and is manifested in speeches and votes ; 
 but the work of deliberation is done by the members 
 themselves and cannot be delegated to any body, 
 least of all to the Cabinet whose fate is to be determ- 
 ined. We may, then, properly speak of a modern 
 Parliament as a deliberative assembly, because de- 
 liberation is that part of its work which its members 
 cannot delegate to the Cabinet ; but we ought also to 
 speak of it as the deliberative assembly of the nation, 
 because its deliberations have the peculiarly moment- 
 ous effect of determining who shall do the work of 
 government.^ 
 
 The third organ of government is the judicature. 
 It is no longer in any state active as a controlling or 
 
 formative agency as was the Parlement 
 Judicatures. 
 
 de Paris in the Middle Ages and even our 
 
 own Curia Kegis in the twelfth century. Hence the 
 
 importance of the judiciary in political construction 
 
 ' On the 'government-making machine' see Sir John Seeley, 
 Introduction to Political Science, pp. 201-292. 
 
CH. XIX.] JUDICATURES 409 
 
 is, as Henry Sidgwick says, rather profound than 
 prominent.^ Yet the existence of upright and fear- 
 less courts of justice is essential in modern unitary 
 nations always to the welfare of the people, and some- 
 times to the safety of the great controlling organs of 
 government; and for these reasons it is necessary 
 here to take notice of the conditions required for 
 the maintenance of an efficient judicature. 
 
 A law-court to be efficient needs to be sufficiently 
 informed of the law, and in giving judgement to be 
 free from bias of interest, fear, or favour. The 
 instruction of the court in the provisions of the law 
 has been easily provided. In unitary nations the 
 executive appoints the judges, and naturally selects 
 the most distinguished lawyers. The immunity 
 from bias has been more difficult to secure; for it 
 cannot be attained unless the judges, juries, and 
 witnesses are made safe against intimidation exercised 
 either by the executive government or by any faction 
 or class interested in their decisions. 
 
 In England the courts are protected against inter- 
 ference on the part of the executive by the famous 
 clause in the Act of Settlement, which 
 provides that judges shall not be liable to law-courts 
 dismissal except upon the address of both ^o™ inter- 
 Houses of Parliament ; but they are still 
 more effectively defended by the general control 
 exercised by the Parliament over the executive 
 government. It would be tedious to inquire on 
 what tenure judges hold office in all the countries 
 
 ^ Sidgwiok, Elements of Politics, p. 457. 
 
410 JUDICATUEES [CH. xix. 
 
 of the continent, nor do I think it a matter of first- 
 rate importance to find out. In all unitary nations 
 the Parliament controls the executive, and I do not 
 know that in any case since the modern constitutions 
 have been established the executive as a whole has 
 interfered to prevent the course of justice. 
 
 The protection of the law-courts from intimidation 
 by a faction or class is far more difficult; but it 
 cannot be secured by any possible constitution of 
 the judicature. In one case which has actually 
 occurred, no change in the constitution of the law- 
 courts would have sufficed unless the judges had 
 been given the command of the whole armed forces, 
 which would have been manifestly absurd. The 
 law-courts cannot be put in command of any physical 
 force adequate for their safety against intimidation ; 
 and therefore their protection must be left to the 
 care of the executive and the Parliament. Minor 
 cases of intimidation, at least of witnesses and jurors, 
 have occurred in districts not united in sentiment 
 with the rest of the nation : thus in Ireland peasants, 
 and in southern Italy brigands, have interfered with 
 the course of justice. In these cases the Parliament 
 and the executive have been compelled to intervene 
 actively, for fear lest the districts in question might 
 become entirely ungovernable. A far more formid- 
 able case of intimidation occurred in France almost 
 in the last years of the nineteenth century, when 
 jurors in the capital city of the country had to fear 
 what they might suffer from the general staff of 
 officers in the War Office, and from the whole French 
 
CH. XIX.] JUDICATURES 411 
 
 army which might possibly be in sympathy with the 
 general staff. In this case the Cabinet and the 
 legislators were probably as much frightened as the 
 jurors.i They must have known that if the War 
 Office, which by the constitution was subject to the 
 executive, could act as it pleased, the authority of 
 Cabinet and Parliament was at an end ; and yet for 
 months after the intimidation of jurors had been 
 perpetrated, the Cabinet did not dismiss the officers 
 of the general staff nor take any steps to save them- 
 selves. No doubt they feared that, if they did, some 
 general would make a pronunciamiento after the 
 Spanish fashion. Eventually in 1899 the French 
 nation obtained in Waldeck-Rousseau a resolute 
 Premier, and in General Gallifet a loyal Minister of 
 War, who restored obedience in the army, and thus 
 protected the law-courts from being terrorised. In 
 this case then, as in others, the safety of the courts 
 depended not on the constitution of the judicature 
 but on the action of the executive controlled by the 
 Parliament ; and so it must always be, because the 
 employment of physical force is impossible for 
 the judicature, but is a commonplace duty with 
 the executive. 
 
 In many continental countries the framers of 
 constitutions feared that the constitutions themselves 
 might be hastily altered. To guard against this 
 possibility they declared that certain enactments 
 were parts of the constitution as distinct from 
 
 ' For the evidence of intimidation of jurors at the trial of Emile 
 Zola in February 1898, seeF. C. Conybeare, TheDreyfus Case, p. 247. 
 
412 CHANGES IN [ch. xix. 
 
 ordinary law, and ordered that in the future they 
 
 should not be altered except by a procedure which 
 
 proved that the alteration was the delibe- 
 
 Alterations • i ^ i ■ t ti i • 
 
 in constitu- rate wish 01 the community, in Jieigium, 
 tions. |-Qj, example, the following procedure is 
 
 ordained. The chambers can resolve that a certain 
 stated provision in the constitution ought to be 
 altered. The chambers are dissolved immediately, 
 and new chambers are elected. The new chambers 
 cannot alter any provision except the one designated 
 by the old chambers; and they cannot effect the 
 change unless two-thirds of the members of each 
 chamber are present, and there is a majority of two- 
 thirds in each chamber.^ In France if the two 
 chambers both declare that the constitution ought 
 to be amended, they meet in a joint session at 
 Versailles, and then bear the collective name of 
 National Assembly. The National Assembly can 
 make any change provided it receives the votes of 
 an absolute majority of all the senators and deputies.^ 
 In England we do not draw any formal distinction 
 between those laws which are parts of the constitution 
 and those which are not ; and the formalities required 
 for the passing of the most trivial law are so effective 
 that no more are needed for the alteration of any 
 law however fundamental. 
 
 In every unitary nation there is a dignified 
 sovereign. He is so necessary for maintaining the 
 status of his nation among the powers of the world 
 
 ^ Dareste, Gonst. Mod., vol. i. p. 74. 
 
 ^ Demombynea, Const. Europ., vol. ii. p. 28. 
 
CH. XIX.] CONSTITUTIONS 413 
 
 that in France after the fall of Napoleon the Third, 
 when no suitable hereditary sovereign could be 
 found, an elective dignified sovereign was Dignified 
 improvised with the title of President ^°'^^'^^^s°s. 
 of the Republic. The dignified sovereign is not 
 usually a working organ in the government : he is 
 rather the ornament, the face, and mouthpiece of 
 the community in its dealings with foreign powers. 
 It is his constant business to watch the current of 
 events, and he never goes out of office as ministers 
 do ; he may therefore, if he has a long reign, know 
 the prudent course by experience or feel it by instinct 
 better than any of his ministers, and so his opinions, 
 expressed to his ministers in the form of advice, may 
 have the strongest influence in shaping the policy of 
 the country. In some countries, especially in Italy 
 under Victor Emmanuel, it is generally believed that 
 the king in modern times has been far more than 
 the adviser of the ministers : in other countries the 
 king is there ready for all emergencies, and, in case 
 the government by Parliament should break down, 
 he would almost certainly be restored to some part 
 of the powers which kings exercised before the 
 modern constitutions were established. 
 
 Now that we have finished our survey of the 
 modern unitary nations, we may inquire whether the 
 similarity of their governments is due to 
 the action of natural laws or to caprice or nations, 
 to unreasoning imitation. If the nations Results of 
 
 ° inquiry. 
 
 are of natural growth we may expect that 
 
 their governments will be determined by natural 
 
iu UNITARY NATIONS [ch. xix. 
 
 laws: if they are artilicial, their governments also 
 may be assigned to them by individual caprice or 
 design. We may, then, first inquire whether the 
 modern unitary nations are themselves made by 
 the action of natural instincts according to natural 
 laws. 
 
 Italy alone among the nations can claim to be of 
 natural growth from the very beginning: its parts 
 came together spontaneously between 
 of natural 1859 and 1870 and placed themselves 
 ^'^° ' under a common government. All the 
 other nations were at first artificial products of con- 
 quests. But all the old nations, except Spain, have 
 now been completely unified, so that it is incon- 
 ceivable that any part would willingly separate from 
 the nation to which it belongs. Unification of this 
 kind cannot possibly be produced artificially, and 
 must be a result of the action of natural instincts. I 
 conclude, then, that the unitary nations have been 
 brought into their present condition by the action of 
 natural instincts, and in that condition they are of 
 natural growth. 
 
 The nations are also alike in their structure and 
 habits. They are of large size and yet are thoroughly 
 Of the same Coherent communities : all their localities 
 species. are equal in political rights, and none is 
 predominant as Rome was in the Roman republic; 
 each has a single supreme government, and their 
 populations are nearly alike in industrial organisa- 
 tion and in .material and intellectual civilisation. 
 They are, then, alike in so many particulars that we 
 
CH. XIX.] OF NATURAL GEOWTH 415 
 
 must regard them as belonging to a single natural 
 species. 
 
 Some, however, o'f the nations have had a far 
 longer life than others under purely natural condi- 
 tions, and free from artificial interference : „ , ^ , 
 
 But not of 
 
 and as nations they are the seniors. Eng- the same 
 land is the oldest of the nations. The ^^^' 
 artificial work of uniting communities by compulsion 
 was finished for England with the Norman Conquest, 
 and the whole people had grown into a naturally 
 united nation by the time of Queen Elizabeth. In 
 other countries the artificial process of conquest went 
 on far longer : in Spain till the time of Ferdinand the 
 Catholic, in Sweden till the rise of Gustavus Vasa, in 
 France till the end of the wars of religion. The 
 continental countries, then, started far later than 
 England on a career subject only to those natural 
 forces which tend to unification, and few or none 
 of them had attained to the condition of perfectly 
 united nations before the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 We cannot say that all the modern governments 
 of unitary nations on the continent were of spon- 
 taneous natural growth. In Denmark, .^.j^^.^ 
 Norway, and Sweden it is probable that governments 
 they grew as spontaneously as in England, 
 because those countries formed important assemblies 
 of estates in the Middle Ages, and from the estates 
 modern Parliaments easily grew by natural transi- 
 tion. In the other continental nations modern 
 parliamentary governments were imitated from 
 
416 THEIE GOVERNMENTS NATURAL [ch. xix. 
 
 England. The insular people became a united nation 
 earlier than any other, and as the other nations 
 became united they imitated the example that 
 England had set. The governments, then, of these 
 continental nations are not of spontaneous growth, 
 and yet it seems clear that natural laws have deter- 
 mined what governments the nations shall have. In 
 some of the countries that have adopted parlia- 
 mentary institutions by imitation attempts have 
 been made by sections of the people to change the 
 institutions, but all of them have failed: and it 
 seems justifiable to believe that they have failed 
 because parliamentary institutions alone are suited 
 by nature to the unitary nations in the present phase 
 of their existence. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 VOLUNTARY UNION OF EQUALS: THE UNITED STATES 
 OF AMERICA 
 
 It has been observed already (at the beginning of the 
 thirteenth chapter) that all the large states which 
 occur in mediaeval or modern history were originally 
 composite, being made through the union of many 
 small communities. The union might be brought 
 about either by compulsion or by the voluntary 
 agreement of the small communities. We have 
 already discussed compulsory unions and have seen 
 that they form sometimes a complex city state, some- 
 times a large nation under one supreme government, 
 sometimes a heterogeneous empire. We now proceed 
 to consider voluntary unions of communities, to 
 observe which of them produce composite states, and 
 to ascertain the various kinds of composite states 
 which can result from voluntary unions. 
 
 Voluntary unions of states, if we take the word 
 union in the widest possible sense, are of three kinds. 
 (1) A number of states may agree to act 
 together for common defence without unions of 
 
 •1 ■ . /o\ A communities, 
 
 having a common government. (2) A 
 
 number of states, approximately equal in size and 
 
 power, may agree to set up a government common 
 
 2d 
 
418 VOLUNTARY [ch. xx. 
 
 to all of them : when this occurs a voluntary union 
 of equals is effected. (3) It may occur that states 
 marked by great disparity in magnitude may, of their 
 free will, agree to live under one government, so as 
 to make one state. In this case we have before us a 
 voluntary union of unequals. 
 
 The effects produced by the three kinds of volunt- 
 ary unions have to be considered. (1) An agreement 
 of states to act together for common 
 effecteof defence without establishing a common 
 voluntary government may perhaps in common 
 parlance be called a union, but we are 
 engaged in studying unions which make new states, 
 and therefore a union which does not bring com- 
 munities under a common government is not a union 
 that has any interest for us. A remarkable instance 
 of an agreement of states to act together without 
 setting up a common government is furnished by 
 the compact made between three Swiss cantons in 
 1291 and subsequently joined by other cantons. 
 Their compact proved to be very durable, but it was 
 merely a permanent alliance between states which 
 remained separate and independent till 1481, when, 
 as we shall see in the next chapter, they acquired a 
 common government and became a composite state. 
 (2) Voluntary unions of equals are far more interest- 
 ing to students of politics than any other voluntary 
 unions: they are the only unions that have ever 
 produced those symmetrical federations which we 
 must regard as the only typical Federal States. (3) 
 Voluntary unions of unequals have perhaps occurred 
 
OH. XX.] UNIONS 419 
 
 frequently in all ages of history. None, however, of 
 
 importance took place till after the beginning of the 
 
 eighteenth century. Since then we may note among 
 
 unions of this kind that of Scotland with England, 
 
 which made the kingdom of Great Britain, and 
 
 those of the German States in 1866 and 1870-1871, 
 
 which founded the North German Federation and 
 
 the German Empire. The union of unequals had as 
 
 its result in Great Britain a unitary state, but in 
 
 Germany a federal state. Hence we may see that 
 
 the investigation of willing unions of unequals is no 
 
 easy matter, and we shall do well to defer attempting 
 
 it till the twenty-second chapter. 
 
 In the present chapter, and in that which follows, 
 
 I shall attempt to exemplify some characteristic 
 
 qualities of those normal and typical 
 
 federal states which are founded upon typical 
 
 voluntary unions of equal communities. Federal 
 •^ '- states. 
 
 The federal states thus fashioned are the 
 
 Achaean League, the United Provinces of the Nether- 
 lands, the Swiss Federation, and the United States 
 of America. The Achsean League does not teach us 
 much about federations which cannot be more easily 
 learned from more modern examples ; the Nether- 
 lands had a most intricate history whose windings I 
 cannot attempt to follow; and therefore the only 
 federal states that I shall describe in some detail 
 will be, in the present chapter, the United States of 
 America, and, in the following chapter, the Swiss 
 Federal Eepublic. 
 
 The characteristics of federal governments arise 
 
420 FEDERAL [CH. xx. 
 
 from their having been made by voluntary agree- 
 ment between independent states. The union of the 
 states is generally suggested by the need 
 isticsof of defence against a common enemy, or 
 
 federal against a power which threatens them all. 
 
 governments. . ■ i i 
 
 The contractmg states wish to have a 
 common government to wield the powers necessary 
 to the common defence, and possibly, for convenience, 
 a few others; but each state wishes that all other 
 powers should belong to a separate government of 
 its own. The powers entrusted to the common 
 government are most carefully limited, and its sphere 
 of action defined in the compact which sanctions the 
 union: all other powers are tacitly or expressly 
 reserved to the governments of the contracting 
 states. The compact which sanctions the union is 
 the constitution, and, as it is the result of a bargain 
 between states, it cannot be altered except by 
 methods prescribed by the original contracting states 
 and embodied in the compact; and these methods 
 naturally put great difficulties in the way of changing 
 its provisions. The result of the whole is that there 
 is no supreme government controlling all persons in 
 all their relations, but many co-ordinate governments: 
 namely, one federal government to manage certain 
 defined matters of common interest, and one govern- 
 ment in each component state to manage the 
 business of that state. The powers of each govern- 
 ment are determined expressly or tacitly by the 
 constitution, and thus, though there is no supreme 
 government, there is a supreme constitution. 
 
CH. XX.] GOVERNMENTS 421 
 
 It is obvious that the terms of the bargain which 
 founds a federal union might be varied almost 
 indefinitely. There are, however, as I Twoim- 
 noticed in the Introduction to this volume, po^ant 
 
 T'arieties 
 
 two methods oi making a federal union, of federal 
 which have been found especially useful "'"°"' 
 and have been often adopted.^ For the study of the 
 United States, of Switzerland, and of some other 
 federations, it is necessary to explain what they are 
 and how they are distinguished. The terms of the 
 federal compact may found either a loose union 
 or a close union. A loose union is founded, if the 
 common government of the contracting states is 
 empowered to act only on the governments of the 
 individual states, but not on their subjects; a close 
 union is established, if the common government can 
 lay effective commands not only on the govern- 
 ments but also on the subjects of the component 
 states, requiring them to perform certain duties, as, 
 for example, to pay taxes. In a loose union the con- 
 spicuous feature is the presence of many component 
 states; in a close union the one collective state 
 attracts more attention. The Germans have lived 
 in a union so loose that perhaps it was no union at 
 all, and they now live in a union so close as to leave 
 little separate action to the governments of the com- 
 ponent states. Their language accordingly supplies 
 appropriate terms to denote the two kinds of union. 
 A loose union is called a Staatenbund, a bundle of 
 many states ; a close union is a Bundesstaat, a state 
 forming collectively a bundle. 
 
 ^ See page 3. 
 
422 LOOSE UNION [ch. xx. 
 
 The states which contracted together to form the 
 
 United States of America, were thirteen colonies 
 
 The United founded or acquired by England in the 
 
 states of seventeenth century. During that cent- 
 America. •' , ° 
 
 Loose union, ury they were of various characters, and 
 
 1781-1788. ^gj.g j^ga^j-jy ig(. alone by England. After 
 
 1700 they were made more alike. Each colony had 
 a governor appointed from England, and it had a 
 legislature elected by the inhabitants.^ In 1776 the 
 colonies declared themselves independent of England, 
 and in the following year they made the plan of 
 a common government to provide for their common 
 defence : it was, however, agreed that the common 
 government should not receive its powers till all 
 the thirteen states had acceded to the union, and 
 it was not till 1781 that the assent of the last 
 was given.2 The Articles of Confederation of 1781 
 established no more than an extremely loose union. 
 The only organ of the common government was a 
 Congress, to which each state sent delegates not less 
 than two nor more than seven : each state had only 
 one vote, and the delegates were more like ambassa- 
 dors than members of a governing assembly.^ The 
 Congress could determine on peace and war, and 
 had the sole right of making treaties.* It could, on 
 the concurrence of nine votes out of the thirteen, 
 appoint commanders of the army and navy ; but in 
 levying troops it could only send each state a requisi- 
 
 1 Woodrow Wilson, The State, articles 832-862. 
 ^ Johnston, History of the United States, section 271. 
 ^ Articles of Confederation, art. 5, printed in Brjce, Americaii 
 Commonwealth, Appendix to vol. i. ■* Art. 9. 
 
CH. XX.] CLOSE UNION 423 
 
 tion to raise its quota, and to appoint the regimental 
 officers.^ For the payment of the armed forces the 
 Congress could agree, as occasion required, that the 
 several states should within a fixed time contribute 
 to a common treasury sums in proportion to the 
 value of the land and buildings in their territories, 
 but it could not lay any tax on their subjects.^ 
 Immediately after the common government was 
 established, the governments of the several states 
 began to disregard its requisitions, and in view of 
 the possibility of renewed war with Great Britain 
 or with some other power, the United States felt 
 they must join in closer union and establish a 
 common government which could not only request 
 governments but Could compel citizens to contribute 
 to the common defence. 
 
 The close federation which still unites the states 
 of the American Commonwealth was drafted in 1787, 
 and took effect two years later. The close federa- 
 character of a federation is always deter- *'°°' '789- 
 
 Powers of 
 
 mmed mainly by the amount of the the Federal 
 powers entrusted to the common or Government, 
 federal government. In America the powers allotted 
 to the federal government are partly necessary to 
 the common defence and the maintenance of the 
 union, partly given for convenience; and they are 
 distributed among its three organs. Its legislature 
 has the powers, necessary to the common defence, 
 of declaring war, raising and regulating armed 
 forces, defining and punishing piracies, suppressing 
 
 1 Art. 9, Art. 7. ^ Art. 8. 
 
424 CONGEESS [CH. xx. 
 
 rebellions, and taxing and borrowing for tHe common 
 defence and general welfare; it has also, for con- 
 venience, the duties of regulating commerce, natural- 
 isation, coinage, weights and measures, post office 
 and post-roads, copyrights and patents. The execu- 
 tive has the necessary powers of commanding the 
 armed forces, making treaties with the assent of the 
 upper house of the legislature, and of taking care 
 that the laws (made by the federal legislature) are 
 faithfully executed ; it has also the powers, necessary 
 or convenient, of granting reprieves or pardons for 
 offences against the United States, of appointing, 
 with the assent of the upper house, judges, ambassa- 
 dors, and officers of the United States, and of sending 
 messages from time to time to the legislature. The 
 judicature has to decide in all cases arising under 
 the constitution, and is therefore the interpreter of 
 the meaning of its provisions; it has other jurisdic- 
 tions naturally associated with its great function 
 of interpreting the constitution, and it is the judge 
 in cases arising under the law of nations.' 
 
 It is necessary, as we have seen, in a federal union 
 that there should be many co-ordinate governments, 
 , . , , one more in number than the component 
 
 Legislature _ ^ 
 
 and executive states : thus in the American Common- 
 co-or mate. ■^Q^i^;]r^^ -^[^^^ forty-five states, there are 
 forty-six co-ordinate governments. The founders 
 of the union carried the multiplication of co-ordinate 
 powers still further by making the federal executive 
 co-ordinate with the legislature. Their action may 
 
 ' Constitution of the United States, Articles 1, 2, 3. 
 
CH. XX.] PKESIDENT 425 
 
 have been founded in a belief that in all states the 
 executive and legislative powers should be independ- 
 ent ; but it has certainly been conducive to the 
 maintenance of their constitution. Unitary nations, 
 as we have observed, desire that their central govern- 
 ment may be as strong as possible, and to that end 
 make the legislature and executive dependent on 
 one another, but give superior authority to the 
 legislature. In the United States it is desirable 
 that the federal government shall not be too strong, 
 lest it should get the constitution altered to its own 
 advantage. The legislature and the executive are 
 made co-ordinate, and as far as possible independent 
 of one another ; and their isolation from one another 
 helps to ensure that the federal government shall 
 not transgress the limits imposed by the constitution. 
 The head of the executive is a President, elected 
 to hold office for four years, under a method of voting 
 which is now practically identical with _, 
 election by all the adult males in the executive 
 Commonwealth. He is not responsible °^^^°' 
 to the legislature, except that he may be impeached 
 for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and mis- 
 demeanours : no adverse vote of the legislature can 
 shorten his tenure of office by a day. He has seven 
 ministers to help him with his work, but they are 
 responsible to him only and not to the legislature. 
 They are disqualified from sitting in either chamber, 
 and the legislators do not exercise personal influence 
 on them nor they on the legislators. The President, 
 moreover, is protected against legislation which he 
 
426 SENATE [CH. xx. 
 
 disapproves by possessing a power of veto, which 
 however, does not avail against a majority of two- 
 thirds in both the Senate and the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 The division of the legislature into two chambers 
 
 is in the United States not only desirable (as it is 
 
 in unitary nations), in order to ensure a 
 
 Legislature. • i , • j- 
 
 second consideration oi every measure, 
 but is almost inevitable, because both the govern- 
 ments and the populations of the component states 
 ought to be represented in the federal legislature. 
 The legislature accordingly, which bears the name of 
 Congress, is divided into the Senate and the House 
 of Representatives. The Senate is a small assembly 
 of ninety members, elected by the legislatures of the 
 component states ; the senators are elected to serve 
 for six years, and a third of them vacate their seats 
 every two years. The component states, whether 
 large or small in area and population, have govern- 
 ments entitled to debate with each other as equals, 
 since the original union was made by a compact 
 among equals; accordingly every state government 
 is represented in the Senate by two senators, and the 
 constitution provides that no state shall ever be 
 deprived of its right to have two senators without its 
 own consent. The American Senate, as it represents 
 governments co-ordinate with the federal government, 
 bears little resemblance to the upper chambers of 
 unitary nations. One very important difference may 
 be noted. It is not intended in the United States 
 that the federal legislature shall be stronger than 
 
CH. XX.] REPRESENTATIVES 427 
 
 the federal executive, and therefore there is no 
 reason why the chamber which represents the popul- 
 ation should be stronger than the other : the Senate, 
 as a matter of fact, has at least as much influence as 
 the other chamber. The House of Representatiyes 
 is elected to serve for two years by the populations 
 of the states in the union, with members in propor- 
 tion to their sum of inhabitants : New York State 
 had recently, and probably has still, thirty-four 
 members, while six small states have only one 
 member each, the total number in the House being 
 something between three hundred and fifty and four 
 hundred.^ The House of Representatives has the 
 sole right of initiating money bills; but, on the other 
 hand, the Senate has the control over appointments, 
 and therefore over the distribution of the greatest 
 mass of patronage to be found in the world ; and no 
 treaty with a foreign power is valid unless the Senate 
 approves it by a two-thirds majority. 
 
 The legislature is provided with as good safeguards 
 for its independence as the President. As nothing 
 can shorten the President's tenure of office delations 
 except death or condemnation on impeach- between 
 
 , Pill J- legislature 
 
 ment, so the tenure ot the chambers oi and 
 Congress cannot be shortened in any way, executive, 
 since there are no provisions for their dissolution. 
 The legislature and the executive go on their several 
 ways almost independent. The President is indeed 
 under an obligation to take care that the laws are 
 faithfully executed, but, if he neglected it, there 
 
 ' Bryoe, vol. i. p. 125. 
 
428 COMMITTEES [ch. xx. 
 
 would be no means of enforcing it except by impeach- 
 ment. The isolation of the legislature and of the 
 executive is rendered still more complete by the 
 provision which disqualifies ministers from being 
 members of either branch of the legislature. This 
 provision has had consequences well worthy of 
 attention. 
 
 As neither the President nor his ministers are 
 
 members of the legislature, there are no government 
 
 bills, and the two Houses of Congress have 
 
 Committees. , 
 
 no official leaders. The President can in 
 his messages to Congress suggest legislation in any 
 given direction, but all the members of Congress are 
 what we in England call private members, and every 
 bill must be a private member's bill. The bills pro- 
 posed are extremely numerous : in one session they 
 have been known to amount to nineteen thousand. 
 They cannot all be considered in the whole Senate or 
 the whole House, and some method of weeding must 
 be employed. In unitary nations the process of 
 weeding is done in various ways, but mainly by the 
 Cabinet, which in almost every case can kill a pro- 
 posal instantly by advising the majority to vote 
 against it. In the United States the work 'of weeding 
 out useless or mischievous proposals is entrusted to 
 small committees. In each chamber of the legisla- 
 ture about forty-five or fifty committees are appointed: 
 the number of members in a committee is usually 
 eleven or nine, rarely as few as three or as many as 
 sixteen. Each committee has bills of a certain class 
 referred to its consideration : thus there are com- 
 
CH. XX.] COMMITTEES 429 
 
 mittees for proposals relating to the army, to the 
 navy, and to foreign affairs. The most important 
 of all are the Committees on Appropriations, which 
 control the expenditure of the federal revenue.^ 
 
 In the United States, as in England, every statute 
 has to pass in each house through the stages of first 
 reading, second reading, committee, re- 
 port, and third reading. But the first committees 
 and second readings of every bill are °"P''°'^^'*'"'^- 
 taken as a matter of course, and the debating is done 
 in committee. The deliberations of the committees 
 are usually secret: the hearing of witnesses by a 
 committee is done with open doors, but is not gener- 
 ally reported in the newspapers. A committee after 
 considering a bill deal with it as they think fit: if 
 they make no report to the House which appointed 
 them, the bill is defunct ; if they report it, with or 
 without amendments, the bill comes on for third 
 reading in the House which sent it to the committee. 
 Both the Senate and the House of Representatives 
 are less well informed of the condition of affairs in 
 the executive departments than are the chambers of 
 legislature in a unitary nation, because they have no 
 ministers present among them to answer inquiries; 
 and accordingly both Houses are inclined to accept 
 the opinions of their committees and pass their bills 
 into laws with little or no debate. One effect, then, 
 of the system of the committees is that very little 
 debating on laws comes to the ear of the public. A 
 
 ^ Bryce, American CommonweaUh, vol. i. p. 156; Woodrow 
 Wilson, The State, sections 1061-1074. 
 
430 SUPREME [ch. xx. 
 
 second result is that the chairmen of the more 
 important committees form a second set of ministers. 
 The constitution has forbidden Congress to employ 
 the executive ministers as the leaders of their legis- 
 lative work, and the Houses have been compelled to 
 invent leaders. The committees of the Senate are 
 elected by the Senators, committees of the other 
 house are nominated by its Speaker, who also names 
 the chairman of each committee. The chairmen act 
 in some small degree as a link between legislature 
 and executive, since they can ask questions of the 
 ministers and are entitled to receive answers; but, 
 as the answers are not given orally and in public, 
 communications between the two great organs of 
 government have to pass through narrow channels 
 easily choked with red tape, and there is no such 
 perfect understanding between them as arises in 
 unitary nations from the practice of entrusting to 
 cabinet ministers the work both of commanding the 
 executive business and of guiding the law-makers by 
 their presence in deliberations. 
 
 The American Commonwealth, comprising forty- 
 five states, has not only forty-six separate legislatures, 
 but also forty-six separate constitutions 
 
 Judicature. , . . , , 
 
 and rorty - six separate statute - books. 
 Cases necessarilyarise in which these constitutions and 
 systems of law come into conflict. For example, one 
 of the states makes a new law, and some one affected 
 by it pleads that the state had no power to make it ; 
 or two persons of different states are suitors in a case, 
 and each wishes to be judged by the law of his own 
 
CH. XX.] COURT 431 
 
 state. For the settlement of all cases of conflict of 
 laws, and for some other purposes which have already 
 been indicated, Federal Courts of justice have been 
 established. There are sixty-five in all — one Supreme 
 Court, nine Circuit Courts, and fifty-five District 
 Courts. 
 
 The principles for settling cases of conflict are that 
 the Federal Constitution overrides everything which 
 conflicts with it, and that laws made by Congress, 
 provided they are made under the powers given to 
 Congress by the constitution, override all other laws. 
 For the application of these principles it is obviously 
 necessary for the courts to settle what the constitu- 
 tion means, and what powers it has given to Congress ; 
 and therefore the Federal Courts are the interpreters 
 of the constitution, and settle what is in accord with 
 it and what is not. 
 
 The framers of the constitution and their successors 
 have desired that the judges in the Federal Courts 
 should be independent and impartial, and their 
 decisions should command universal respect, and 
 they have succeeded admirably. The judges in all 
 Federal Courts are appointed by the President with 
 the sanction of the Senate, and they can be removed 
 only on impeachment. They receive adequate 
 salaries, though not nearly as high as the judges 
 in our own country: in the Supreme Court each 
 judge receives ten thousand dollars, in the Circuit 
 Courts six thousand, and in the District Courts five 
 thousand. It is strange in the eyes of citizens of 
 unitary nations that the Federal executive in America 
 
432 AMENDMENTS [ch. xx. 
 
 has not any locally distributed force to carry out 
 decisions of the Federal Courts in case of resistance. 
 In unitary nations the central executive can com- 
 mand the services of local police against all law- 
 breakers ; in America the Federal executive has no 
 control over the police in any state or any county or 
 town. Each of the sixty-five Federal Courts has 
 merely a United States Marshal attached to it, to 
 carry out its judgements. He has no force of men 
 with him, but may ask aid of all good citizens, or in 
 case of need can get the help of a body of Federal 
 troops by applying to Washington.^ 
 
 The framers of the Federal constitution foresaw 
 
 the possibility that changes in it might be desired 
 
 either by the Federal Congress or bv the 
 
 Amendments , . , "^ . ^ . , -^ . 
 
 of the legislatures ol many states m the union. 
 
 Federal ^j^fj ^j^Qy prescribed methods of procedure 
 
 Constitution, ^ ,. ^ 
 
 for each of the two cases. Hitherto all 
 expressions of a desire for change have come from 
 Congress, and therefore only one of the two pro- 
 cedures has ever been used. The requirements 
 under this form of procedure are, firstly, that the 
 Senate and the House shall agree to the proposed 
 change as if it were an ordinary law, but with a 
 majority of two-thirds both in the Senate and in the 
 House ; and, secondly, that the change shall be 
 approved in three-fourths of the states in the union 
 either by their ordinary legislatures or by conven- 
 tions elected for the sole purpose of considering the 
 amendment. It is obvious that under this procedure 
 
 1 Bryoe, vol. i. p. 231. 
 
CH. XX.] AMENDMENTS 433 
 
 no amendment can be carried, unless it is supported 
 by an overwhelming preponderance of opinion ; and 
 therefore the American Commonwealth has the most 
 rigid constitution in the world, in marked contrast 
 with our own country whose constitution is the most 
 flexible. The fifteen amendments which have been 
 passed hitherto have generally tended to give larger 
 powers to the Federal legislature, and it seems likely 
 that future amendments must, by defining things 
 now indefinite, tend in the same direction. It is, 
 then, improbable that a desire for change will 
 ever be expressed by the legislatures of the states 
 in the Union, and it is not necessary to describe 
 the procedure laid down for an unlikely contin- 
 gency. 
 
 The work of government in the American Com- 
 monwealth is divided in very unequal proportions 
 between the Federal authorities and the The states 
 authorities constituted by the several '"the Union, 
 states in the Union. The share allotted to the 
 Federal rulers at Washington is very small, and the 
 part retained by the component states is very large. 
 Any one of the component states is very like an 
 independent unitary nation, except that it has no 
 concern with foreign affairs, or army, or navy, and 
 cannot impose duties on import or production. 
 Every citizen of a civilised state is affected by law 
 or government or their agents at every turn of his 
 life; but an American citizen must feel constantly 
 that he is governed by his state, and will scarcely 
 know that he is governed at all by the Federation, 
 
 2 E 
 
434 COMPONENT [CH. xx. 
 
 unless he reflects that the Federal legislature imposes 
 the Customs duties, and thereby affects the prices 
 of imported commodities. 
 
 As the governments of the component states retain 
 
 in their hands all the functions not allotted to the 
 
 Federal rulers, it is impossible to give a 
 
 state ^ . , . n • 
 
 governments: complete summary 01 their work m a 
 their short space. But it is easy, without 
 
 functions. f _ . 
 
 attempting exhaustive enumeration, to 
 show that the matters under their control are many 
 and weighty. They have to make their laws on all 
 concerns except the few which are assigned to the 
 Federal Congress. Some of their laws, not often 
 needing reconsideration, will relate to the great 
 subjects of crime, property, contract, and marriage; 
 others, needing readjustment on occasion, will deal 
 with the constitution of local and municipal govern- 
 ments, education, sanitary precautions, medical di- 
 plomas, and kindred subjects; others, frequently 
 made and re-made, will define the privileges accorded 
 to individual trading or industrial companies. Each 
 state must also have law-courts to adjudicate on 
 all cases except those which come before the Federal 
 Courts, and it must have an administrative staff to 
 see to the execution of the laws, and this adminis- 
 trative staff will include as an important item a 
 force, or rather forces, of police appointed by the 
 cities and townships within the state. 
 
 Each state is free to choose any form of govern- 
 ment other than monarchical. The states have for 
 the most part chosen governments which bear a strong 
 
CH. XX.] STATES 435 
 
 family resemblance to those which they had in the 
 eighteenth century when they were English colonies. 
 They have their executive governments, 
 their legislatures, and their judicial governments: 
 systems. The executive work is usually ^eir 
 
 , . 1 , , . . structure. 
 
 entrusted to a governor and mmisters 
 chosen by popular election for a definite term of ser- 
 vice. The legislatures are usually constituted in two 
 chambers, a Senate and House of Representatives, 
 both elected by the population. The legislatures are 
 the most important part of the state governments, 
 but the constitutions of many states show that it is 
 desired they should not be too active; and we can 
 readily see that less legislation is needed in a com- 
 paratively new country than in the crowded popula- 
 tions of European states, and tinkering of the laws 
 for the sake of doing something would be mis- 
 chievous. In most states no man can be elected to 
 serve in the legislature by any district except that in 
 which he resides, so that the most capable men are 
 often excluded from candidature ; and in many states 
 long sessions of the legislatures are discouraged by a 
 rule that members are paid for attendance for a 
 fixed number of days, and if they attend for a larger 
 number they attend gratuitously. The judges are 
 usually elected by the inhabitants of the district 
 within their jurisdiction, to serve for a definite 
 number of years. Judges thus elected must neces- 
 sarily be wanting in independence, especially towards 
 the end of their tenure of ofiice ; their position must 
 expose them to the temptation of yielding to popular 
 
436 TAMMANY [CH. xx. 
 
 clamour, but it is believed that they are restrained 
 
 from corrupt judgements to please individuals by the 
 
 good example set by a Federal Court present in every 
 
 state, and by the professional opinion of barristers. 
 
 The divisions for local government usually bear the 
 
 names of townships, counties, and cities. In New 
 
 England townships were founded by the 
 Local ..,,.,„, •' ^ 
 
 governments, origmai coionists before they were massed 
 
 TheTam- together into the colonies of Massachus- 
 
 many Ring. ° 
 
 sets, Connecticut, and the rest ; ^ and this 
 may be the reason why local divisions are left to 
 carry on their own business without any intervention 
 of the executive officers of the state governments. 
 The state legislatures make or sanction the forms 
 of government in all local divisions, but the state 
 governors and ministers do not control the working 
 of the governments. In the great cities the results 
 of these arrangements are noteworthy : the cities 
 have become almost independent city states, since 
 they receive nothing from the outside except their 
 constitutions. And though they receive their con- 
 stitutions from the legislatures of their states and 
 keep within the letters of their charters, it does not 
 follow that their ostensible government is their real 
 government. The legislature of New York State 
 originally gave New York City a charter intended to 
 place the government under the control of all classes 
 of the citizens in the hope the city would be governed 
 for the benefit of all. But the government was of a 
 kind not usually maintained permanently in a city 
 
 1 Wood row Wilson, The State, sections 999, 1000. 
 
.CH. XX.] TAMMANY 437 
 
 exempt from external administrative control : cities 
 thus uncontrolled usually have governments managed, 
 not by all classes, but by some narrower body, as we 
 have seen in our survey of simple city states. In 
 New York City the Tammany Society was, and is, a 
 mere association of private citizens. It was originally 
 founded in 1789 for social and charitable purposes ; 
 somewhere about 1840 or 1850 it aspired to get 
 control of votes and offices in the city, and it suc- 
 ceeded. To explain its methods would be tedious; 
 but it may be mentioned that the mayor was elected 
 by the citizens, and judges together with police 
 commissioners were, under some of the charters of the 
 city, elected by the citizens, under others appointed 
 by the mayor ; and when once Tammany controlled 
 enough votes to turn- the scale in elections it was 
 able to employ judges and police for persecuting its 
 opponents and rewarding its friends. Some of the 
 'bosses' of Tammany Hall about 1870 made great 
 fortunes by diverting millions from the city treasury 
 into their own pockets, but they were on the whole 
 faithful in protecting any one who paid them black- 
 mail by subscribing to the funds of Tammany. It 
 is obviously impossible in any large unitary nation 
 that any private association should get control of a 
 city, because the whole nation has one supreme 
 government which controls everything : in America, 
 New York State is not big enough to control New 
 York City. Hence the citizens, to free themselves 
 from the rule of Tammany, have had to trust to their 
 own exertions. They succeeded at the last election 
 
438 CONCLUDING [CH. xx. 
 
 of mayor; but it cannot be expected that Tammany 
 will be easily killed. It has a position just analogous 
 to that of the Parte Guelfa in Florence; and the 
 reader will remember that, though the Florentines 
 set themselves free from the Guelf captains at the 
 great revolt of the ciompi, within fifteen years they 
 were again under the rule of a small clique of 
 men who resembled the captains in all important 
 particulars.^ 
 
 This chapter may be ended with a few general 
 remarks on the political organisation of the American 
 Concluding Commonwealth. It seems that the 
 remarks. governments of the forty-five states are 
 comparable in many respects with those of many 
 small unitary nations ; but the Federal government 
 is totally incommensurable with any unitary govern- 
 ment. We measure governments together by com- 
 paring organs which perform the same functions. 
 The American Federal government has no organ 
 co-extensive in functions with any organ in a unitary 
 state, though it has organs denoted by the same 
 names. The American President and the Premier 
 in a unitary nation are both called head of the 
 executive, but the President controls only a fraction 
 of executive government, and does not control law- 
 making; the Premier controls the whole executive 
 government, and, so long as he is in office, settles 
 the course of legislation. The American Congress 
 and the English Parliament are both called legis- 
 
 ' Tammany is described vividly by Mr. Bryoe, eh. Ixxxviii. 
 [My remarks were written before the election of 1903.] 
 
CH. XX.J REMAEKS 439 
 
 latures, but Congress legislates on few subjects, 
 Parliament on all ; Congress suffers no man to advise 
 it, Parliament daily asks and takes the advice of 
 the Premier; Congress cannot shorten the President's 
 term of office by a day, while Parliament can at 
 pleasure dismiss a Cabinet by refusing to sanction 
 its proposals. 
 
 But where comparison is impossible contrast is 
 easy. The total work to be done by governing 
 agencies is probably about the same in professional 
 England and in the United States: if Politicians, 
 there is any difference England needs more governing 
 because it is old and overcrowded. Yet in England 
 the work is given to one government : in America it 
 is divided among forty-six. Work done by one 
 agency is done easily : when it is distributed among 
 many it becomes laborious. One general election in 
 England settles the course of government for a few 
 years : in America elections of executive officers and 
 legislatures have to be managed frequently both in 
 the whole union and in each of its component states. 
 In England a man can enter political life without 
 abandoning professional or other pursuits : in America 
 political life is so laborious that no one can undertake 
 it without giving his whole time to it. If a man 
 gives his whole time to public work he must be 
 remunerated ; and so the men who manage govern- 
 ment in America are generally professional politi- 
 cians, men who make a livelihood by public work. 
 There is no doubt a class of rich men who could 
 afford to wotk for no pay ; but there are two reasons 
 
440 CONCLUDING [CH. xx. 
 
 why they seldom do it. The division of work among 
 many governments limits the sphere of action of 
 each government, and makes its business less inter- 
 esting: for example, no legislature in America has 
 business so interesting as the English Parliament, 
 which can dismiss the Cabinet from office ; and the 
 extremely laborious character of political life in 
 America acts as a deterrent on men who have 
 no need to engage in it as a means of earning a 
 livelihood. 
 
 As the work of Congressmen is less interesting to 
 themselves than the work of Members of Parliament, 
 Debates in ^^ ^^ ^^^° ^®^^ interesting to their consti- 
 Congress not tuents. In England a very large part of 
 the population is eager to read Parlia- 
 mentary Debates and to scrutinise divisions, because 
 a vote in Parliament may cause a change of ministry 
 or an appeal to the electors. In America no vote 
 in Congress can shake the stability of the executive, 
 and therefore the proceedings in the legislature meet 
 with little attention from the population at large. 
 The English method of government trains the people 
 to study the deliberations in Parliament and to 
 attend to the arguments of their legislators; the 
 American method leads the citizens to concentrate 
 their attention on popular elections. In both 
 countries public opinion acts on the rulers and gets 
 its way, quickly or slowly : in England it acts from 
 day to day by comments on the work of Parliament 
 expressed in newspapers or in local meetings; in 
 America it acts periodically, and is expressed at 
 
CH. xx.J REMARKS 441 
 
 elections by the number of votes recorded for differ- 
 ent candidates for the executive and legislative 
 posts in the forty-six governments in the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 The American Constitution has undergone few 
 formal changes since its foundation ; but practically 
 the union is far closer than it was. Rail- ^. 
 
 The union 
 
 roads and telegraphs have brought distant has grown 
 states near together. A part of the states "^ °^^''' 
 waged a great and successful war to prevent a secession ; 
 and in protecting the union from disruption they 
 learned to value it. The distinction which severed the 
 southern states from the north has been nearly ended 
 by the abolition of slavery throughout the Common- 
 wealth. Fifty years ago a man might be a Bostonian 
 first and an American afterwards; now every man 
 is an American citizen first and last, and the diver- 
 gences between members of different states, as for 
 example between the men of the east and the men of 
 the west, arise rather from divergent economical 
 interests than from attachment to the states in the 
 union to which they severally belong. Throughout 
 the history of the Americans from the Declaration of 
 their Independence progress has been steadily made 
 from the condition in which they were many states 
 scarcely joined by any tie, to their present condition 
 in which they are one state with many members 
 which act in constantly increasing harmony with 
 the whole body. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 VOLUNTARY UNION OF EQUALS : MODERN SWITZERLAND 
 
 The ancient Achaean League and the mediseval 
 Swiss Eidgenossenschaft bear very little resemblance 
 to the United States because the powers allotted to 
 their central governments were never accurately 
 defined. I shall pass over these two ill- defined 
 Federal states with a brief notice, and then proceed 
 to consider the modern Swiss Federation which is 
 like the United States in miniature. 
 
 The ancient Achaean League, founded in prehistoric 
 
 ages by exiles who fled from before the face of Dorian 
 
 Achaan invaders, was dissolved between 323 and 
 
 League. 284 B.C. by the Macedonian kings Cassan- 
 
 der, Demetrius Poliorketes, and Antigonus Gonatas.^ 
 
 Between 284 and 250 B.C. a new league was formed 
 
 and was joined by many Greek cities. There was a 
 
 common government for the management of war 
 
 and foreign affairs. The legislature in the common 
 
 government consisted of a general assembly and a 
 
 standing council of about a hundred and twenty 
 
 members ; and its executive organ consisted of a 
 
 strategus, or minister for foreign affairs, with some 
 
 lesser officials called demiurgi. We do not know 
 
 ' Polybius, bk. ii. oh. 41. 
 
 442 
 
OH. XXI.] ACH^AN LEAGUE 443 
 
 how much power of commanding individual citizens 
 of cities in the league was entrusted to the central 
 gOYcrnment.^ 
 
 The Swiss did not form a Federal state till 1481, 
 and then they formed it by accident. Three cantons, 
 Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, formed an Medisevai 
 alliance in 1291. The alliance proved to Switzerland, 
 be permanent, and was joined by several more 
 cantons at intervals : but it was no more than an 
 alliance. Each canton was a perfectly independent 
 state, and conducted its foreign affairs by ambassa- 
 dors who had instructions from their cantons. In 
 1481 some of the ambassadors broke their instruc- 
 tions and acted as they thought fit;^ by so doing 
 they changed the meeting of the ambassadors into 
 a common government for the cantons which they 
 represented. Soon afterwards, for example in 1512, 
 the central government was a council which received 
 ambassadors sent by foreign powers to the Swiss 
 Federation, and settled what answers should be 
 given to them.^ The power of the council to control 
 the cantons was not properly defined, the troubles 
 about religion dissolved the Federation, and till 1798 
 the cantons remained disunited. 
 
 The French Directory intervened forcibly in 
 Switzerland, and placed the country under the 
 government of a unitary republic after the French 
 
 ' Further details about the Aohteaii League are given in a brief 
 form in Political Institutions of the Ancient Greeks, p. 114, by the 
 author of the present work. 
 
 " Oeohsli, Quellenhuch %ur Schweitzergeschichte, pp. 199-202. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 261-266. 
 
444 SWISS [CH. XXI. 
 
 model. The Swiss cantons abhorred being deprived 
 of their ancient self-government: in 1802-3 Buona- 
 French parte as First Consul restored it to them, 
 
 interventions, and formed the people into a very loose 
 confederation of cantons. In 1847 a few cantons, 
 attached to the Roman Catholic creed, seceded and 
 tried to form a Sonderbund or separate Federation. 
 They were defeated, and in 1848 the Swiss formed a 
 close Federation, whose central government was still 
 further strengthened sixteen years later. 
 
 Switzerland is a Federal state on a very small scale. 
 It has three million inhabitants ; in area it is equal 
 Modern to half of Ireland or Scotland, or to a 
 
 Switzerland, threc-hundredth part of the United 
 States. It is prevented from forming a unitary 
 state by physical environment and by racial, lin- 
 guistic, and religious divergencies. Many of its 
 cantons are separated by almost impassable ranges 
 of mountains: two-thirds of the people speak 
 German, a quarter speak French, an eighteenth 
 Italian, and a few have a language called Romansch; 
 three-fifths are Protestants and the remainder Roman 
 Catholics. There is, however, much that tends to 
 draw the cantons together. The inhabitants are 
 mainly small landed proprietors, strong, hardy, in- 
 dustrious and independent, so that they are alike 
 in pursuits and character. The commercial interests 
 of all are identical; they have behind them the 
 memory of heroic efforts made by their forefathers 
 in defence of their independence; and the cantons, 
 if separate, would be too small to deal on anything 
 
OH. XXL] FEDEEATION 445 
 
 like equal terms with any of the European powers. 
 Under these circumstances it is not surprising that 
 a Federal government has been established. 
 
 The character of the Federation must, it is obvious, 
 be determined by the amount of power conceded to the 
 central government. Division of powers „, 
 
 ° . ^ Character of 
 
 among many governments is not carried the modem 
 out in Switzerland to the same extent as ^ ^^^ '°"" 
 in America: it would be absurd in so small a territory, 
 and many of the cantons could not well perform 
 some of the functions which are safely left to the 
 governments of the large states in the American 
 Commonwealth. In consequence the central govern- 
 ment has to control more departments of business 
 in Switzerland than in America; there is not the 
 same anxiety lest the central government should en- 
 croach, and therefore the central executive and legis- 
 lature are not made perfectly independent ; and the 
 small Swiss Kepublic is not so sharply distinguished 
 from unitary states as the great Commonwealth 
 beyond the Atlantic. 
 
 The central government has three organs for 
 legislation, executive work, and judicature. The 
 Parhament legislates on all the subjects 
 
 nil m Central 
 
 (except patents) that belong to Congress government, 
 in America, and on many more. It makes ^^g'siature. 
 laws relating t© great public works, such as railways 
 and the embanking of rivers and torrents ; it controls 
 forests, fisheries, shootings, universities, sanitary regul- 
 ations, medical diplomas, employment of children; 
 it makes rules about vagabonds, and can order the 
 
446 SWISS [CH. XXI. 
 
 expulsion of foreigners who imperil the public safety.^ 
 The legislature is in two chambers as in America; 
 the chambers are renewed every three years. The 
 lower house, called Nationalrath, has a hundred and 
 forty-five members, elected in the cantons in numbers 
 proportional to the populations; the upper house, 
 called Standerath, has forty- four members, two 
 elected by each of the cantons. 
 
 The executive work is done by a board of seven 
 Executive ministers, called the Bundesrath. These 
 organ. ministers are not so independent as the 
 American President, because they are elected by the 
 two houses of the legislature. They are elected by 
 every new Parliament at the beginning of its three 
 years, and when once they are elected, the Parliament 
 has no power to dismiss them. There are, however, 
 provisions which tend to promote harmony between 
 the executive and the legislature : the ministers are 
 allowed to be present and to speak at the sittings of 
 the Parliament, and even to suggest amendments to 
 the measures proposed.^ 
 
 There is also a Federal Court of Justice, but it is 
 not nearly so important as the Federal Court in 
 America. The judges are elected by the 
 Parliament, which has power to determine 
 the duration of their tenure and their salary.^ It 
 has the sole jurisdiction in suits between cantons, 
 but, as the powers of the cantons are restricted, the 
 
 1 The Swiss Constitution, articles 23-27, 3], 33, 34, 37, 68, 70. 
 - Woodrow Wilson, The State, articles 533-537. 
 ^ Constitution, article 107. 
 
CH. XXI.] CONSTITUTION 447 
 
 disputes which can arise among them are not so 
 intricate as the questions that arise through conflict 
 of different systems of laws in the American Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Four of the cantons (Uri, Unterwalden, Glaris, and 
 Appenzell), or parts of them, are living under the 
 oldest constitutions in the civilised world.^ „ 
 
 Government 
 
 Their government is a folkmoot, which of the 
 
 , ■ .1 ■ 4. 1 i Cantons. 
 
 meets once a year in the open air, to elect 
 officers, impose taxes, and sanction laws. The re- 
 maining eighteen cantons have representative assem- 
 blies, but even in these cantons the inhabitants have 
 a direct influence in initiating laws by ' Imperative 
 Petition,' and a veto on new laws, because they can 
 demand that they shall not take effect till they are 
 confirmed by a plebiscite in the canton. The peoples 
 of the cantons are exceedingly well suited for ruling 
 by plebiscite ; the cantons are very small, and 
 property is evenly distributed. Great care is taken 
 to safeguard the political rights of the individual 
 Swiss citizen. If a householder moves from one 
 canton into another, he instantly becomes a citizen 
 of his new canton on showing that he has a house 
 situated in its territory. 
 
 Till 1891 the Swiss Constitution placed impedi- 
 ments in the way of alterations in the Federal law 
 and constitution. Till then it was the rule that all 
 new laws and changes in the constitution should 
 be initiated by receiving the approval of the two 
 chambers of legislature, but changes in the constitu- 
 
 ' Demombynes, Constitutions Europ^ennes, vol. ii. p. 474. 
 
U8 REFEEENDUM [CH. xxi. 
 
 tion should never become law unless they were con- 
 firmed by a plebiscite, and other new laws should re.--^ 
 main invalid till submitted to a plebiscite, 
 
 Alterations ■ r i ■ ^ t ■ ■ i ■ i ■ t 
 
 in the Federal if thirty thousand citizcns desired it. In 
 Law and Con- ^j^g plebiscite, the Confirmation was not 
 
 stitution. ■■■ 
 
 given unless the new law or change in 
 the constitution was approved by a majority in all 
 Switzerland, and by majorities in a majority of 
 cantons. The law or the change in the constitution 
 to be submitted to a plebiscite was called Keferendum, 
 because it had to be referred ; subsequently it seems 
 that the plebiscite was called a referendum. The 
 plebiscite was found to be an efficient guard against 
 hasty changes, and in 1891 the Swiss had such 
 confidence in it that they allowed it to pronounce 
 on proposals not initiated in the legislature. Since 
 then any fifty thousand citizens may formulate a 
 change in the law or the constitution, their- proposal 
 must be submitted to a plebiscite, and if it is approved 
 by majorities both in all Switzerland and in a 
 majority of cantons, it takes its place in the statute 
 book. The perniission given 1891 to private citizens 
 to initiate new laws has had no startling results. Up 
 to the year 1900 three proposals had been privately 
 initiated ; two will serve to show how the plebiscite 
 acted as a protection against some dangers but not 
 against others. In 1894 it was proposed that every 
 Swiss citizen should have a right to adequately 
 remunerated work. Property is very evenly dis- 
 tributed in Switzerland, and therefore the burden of 
 paying remuneration for w.ork which could not earn 
 
CH. XXI. J POPULAR INITIATIVE 449 
 
 -wages in the open market would have fallen on the 
 very numerous class who support themselves by 
 doing work for which employers are glad to pay. 
 The proposal was rejected by a large majority.^ In 
 1893 it was proposed to regulate slaughter-houses 
 and to make it impossible for Jews to obtain meat 
 which their ceremonial traditions permitted them to 
 eat. The proposal hurt no one except a nationality 
 which had often been persecuted, and it was accepted 
 by the required majorities in Switzerland and its 
 cantons. 
 
 If we survey the history of Switzerland in the 
 nineteenth century it is obvious that the union has 
 been made far closer than it was. Till ^^ 
 
 The union 
 
 1848 it was doubtful whether the people has grown 
 formed one state or many states. In 1848 ^ °^^'^' 
 they obtained a common government capable of 
 enforcing commands on individual subjects; the 
 kinds of commands which the central government , 
 could enforce were more numerous than in the 
 United States of America, and the sphere of activity 
 left to the governments of the cantons was restricted 
 within narrow limits. Since 1848 changes have 
 been made; every change that has in any way 
 altered the relations between the centre and the 
 parts, has given additional power to the central 
 government. The permission given to private 
 
 1 The only two good discussions known to me of the Popular 
 Initiative in Switzerland, are contained in two articles by Miss 
 Lilian Tomn. One is published in the Progressive Rerieio for July 
 ] 897, pp. 345-357 ; the other in the Go-operative Wholesale Societies' 
 Annual for 1900, pp. 337-356. 
 
 2 F 
 
450 UNION STEADILY CLOSER [ch. xxi. 
 
 citizens to propose new laws does not obviously alter 
 the relations between the centre and the parts ; but 
 certainly it does not in any way strengthen the 
 governments in the cantons. Switzerland, like the 
 United States, has moved steadily along the path 
 from Staatenbund to Bundesstaat. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MODERN UNIONS OF STATES 
 
 We have now passed in review all those kinds of 
 states which occur most frequently in the history 
 of the world taken as a whole. "We have examined 
 in some detail all the types of simple states; and 
 among the composite states we have paid some atten- 
 tion to those formed hy conquest in the Middle Ages, 
 and to two important states formed or completed in 
 modern times by the voluntary union of equals. 
 There remain for our consideration some composite 
 states formed by conquest since the end of the 
 Middle Ages, and some formed in modern times by 
 processes which have not yet engaged our attention. 
 It wiU be well also to notice that there have occurred 
 in modern times some unions of states which were 
 intended to produce composite states, but did not 
 attain the end which their founders proposed. In 
 the present chapter I shall give some indication of 
 those composite states which have not yet been 
 noticed, and of those unions of states which have 
 failed to form new states. The chapter will treat of 
 nothing but unions of states, and it will therefore 
 tend to clearness if I begin it by enumerating the 
 ways in which unions of states can be effected. 
 
 451 
 
452 KINDS [oh. xxii. 
 
 The kinds of unions observed hitherto are two: 
 (1) Unions by conquest, or, in other words, compulsory- 
 Unions of unions, in which the compulsion is ex- 
 states can ercised by the strongest party in the 
 att^pred^in union; (2) voluntary unions of equals, 
 four ways. ^o these two kinds we must now add two 
 more: (3) compulsory unions of states ordained 
 by other states not themselves parties to the unions ; 
 and (4) voluntary unions of unequals. We have, 
 then, in all, four kinds of unions. In the course 
 of modern history unions of all four kinds have 
 taken place. The undoubted instances of the second • 
 kind (voluntary unions of equals) have all been 
 noticed in the last two chapters. Nothing then 
 remains for us to do but to consider instances of 
 the other three kinds of unions, and to examine 
 what contribution (if any) each kind of union has 
 made to the formation of modern composite states. 
 
 Conquests of territory have been many and great 
 in the modern history of Europe ; but they have not 
 ,, . been so effective in making new states as 
 
 Modern ° 
 
 unions made might be expected from their number 
 y conques . ^^^ magnitude. Throughout modern 
 history states have been more mature than in the 
 Middle Ages, and it has generally been impossible 
 to make a permanent union of states unless they 
 are marked out for union by similarity of character 
 and history. Charles the Fifth, Gustavus Adolphus, 
 and Napoleon were great conquerors, but their con- 
 quests generally remained separate states because 
 they were too dissimilar or too distant for imion. 
 
GH. XXII.] OF UNIONS 453 
 
 The states of modern Europe whicli have been con- 
 spicuously successful in uniting conquered states 
 with themselves, are France under Louis the Four- 
 teenth and Prussia. Louis the Fourteenth acquired 
 large pieces of territory on his north-eastern border ; 
 their inhabitants were all converted into loyal French- 
 men, and still, with the exception of Alsace and 
 Lorraine, remain incorporated with France. Prussia 
 has been entirely made by conquests ; and all parts 
 of Prussia, except the provinces acquired from Poland, 
 appear to cohere firmly together. The conquests, then, 
 of Louis the Fourteenth and of the Prussians resulted 
 in the formation of coherent states ; but they stand 
 alone. There are indeed two other unions of territories 
 in modern Europe deserving of notice because their 
 effects have been permanent. Eussia and Austria 
 acquired portions of Poland, and still hold them ; but 
 they have not succeeded in inducing the inhabitants 
 to coalesce with their other subjects. 
 
 There has been a period in modern history when 
 unions of states have been ordained by other states 
 not themselves parties to the unions. 
 
 . T • 1 • 1 Unions 
 
 These unions were designed to suit the of states, 
 convenience of those states which planned ordained by 
 
 other states. 
 
 them, or of Europe as a whole, without 
 any regard to the wishes of the communities immedi- 
 ately affected by them ; and they belong to the 
 period from 1700 to 1815, when the better states- 
 men were dominated by the ideal of the Balance of 
 Power, and the modern conception of Nationalities 
 had not yet been formed. In most cases they 
 
454 KINDS [OH. xxii. 
 
 joined dissimilar communities under a common yoke, 
 and in these cases they have failed to form durable 
 new states. The Treaty of Utrecht joined parts of 
 the Spanish dominions with Austria, and the Congress 
 of Vienna gave Belgium to Holland, and Norway to 
 Sweden. The unions decreed at Utrecht have all 
 been dissolved: Belgium broke loose from Holland 
 after fifteen years ; Norway and Sweden never had 
 a common Parliament, and now their only bond of 
 union is that they have the same King and the same 
 Minister for ^Foreign Affairs. All these cases show 
 that a mere decree issued by the Powers of Europe 
 did not suffice to bind dissiTnilar communities in 
 permanent union. On the other hand, if similar 
 communities are joined together at the command of 
 an external Power, permanent states may be formed. 
 In Germany, in 1801-1803, the states till then owned 
 by ecclesiastical princes or imperial knights were 
 joined, at the command of Napoleon Buonaparte, with 
 larger German states; and the arrangements then 
 made in regard to them have generally remained in 
 force to the present day. The whole result of my 
 consideration of unions ordained by external Powers 
 is to show that, in regard to the making of new states, 
 they have the same effect as unions made by con- 
 quest. If they are unions of dissimilar communities, 
 they are afterwards dissolved ; if they are unions of 
 similar communities, they are permanent. It will 
 then be needless for the future to make any distinc- 
 tion between unions made by conquest and unions 
 ordained by external Powers. They can all be put 
 
cai. xxii.] OP UNIONS 455 
 
 together in a single class under the title of unions 
 
 effected by compulsion. 
 
 Voluntary unions of unequals often occurred in the 
 
 Middle Ages : it happened frequently that the owner 
 
 of a small fief coTumended himself and his „ , , 
 
 Voluntary 
 
 l9,nd, for protection, to a neighbouring unions of 
 prince, or to a neighbouring city. In the "°^^" 
 annals, however, of the Middle Ages unions of this 
 kind are inconspicuous, because the communities 
 affected by them were of minute dimensions. In 
 modern times states large enough to be counted in 
 the second or third rank have found that their com- 
 paratively small proportions have exposed them to 
 disadvantages or dangers, and have voluntarily 
 sought and obtained union with more powerful 
 neighbours. Voluntary unions of smaller states with 
 larger states led, in the eighteenth century, to the 
 establishment of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and 
 in the nineteenth founded the Kingdom of Italy and 
 the North German Federation, which has since grown 
 into the German Empire. 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century the 
 Scots had many reasons for thinking that union with 
 England would be preferable to their exist- g^otiand and 
 ing condition of semi-dependence. They England, 
 were a strange mixture of many races, 
 and the existence of their Parliament only ensured 
 that power to misgovern should be passed backwards 
 and forwards from one faction to another. But they 
 were chiefly influenced by consideration of their 
 poverty. They could not escape from it unless they 
 
456 GEEAT BRITAIN [CH. xxii. 
 
 had free trade with England: and England would 
 not grant free trade without union. In 1702 the 
 Parliament of Scotland empowered Queen Anne to 
 name Commissioners for Scotland to negotiate about 
 union with other Commissioners named for England, in 
 accordance with an Act of the Parliament of England. 
 When the Commissioners met, the Scots betrayed a 
 desire to have co-ordinate governments for Scotland, 
 for England, and for Great Britain, according to the 
 federal plan of government which existed in the 
 Netherlands; but the Englishmen would not assent 
 to any union except under a supreme government.^ 
 The conditions were settled according to the wishes 
 of the stronger party to the union. In the eighteenth 
 century Great Britain was a unitary state, and it is 
 now a unitary nation. 
 
 In 1858 Napoleon the Third made a verbal agree- 
 ment with Cavour that, in case of a war waged with 
 Italy, i8s9- a reasonable pretext by Piedmont against 
 1870. Austria, he would aid Piedmont, provided 
 
 that he received as his reward Savoy and possibly 
 Nice. In fulfilment of his engagement he entered 
 North Italy in 1859, and fought and won the battles 
 of Magenta and Solferino. After this he immediately 
 signed preliminaries of peace with Austria at Yilla- 
 franca, consenting that Austria should keep Venetia, 
 that the petty despots of Tuscany and Modena, 
 dependants of Austria, should resume possession of 
 their dominions, and only stipulating on behalf of 
 the Italians that there should be an Italian Federa- 
 tion, of which Venetia under Austrian direct rule, 
 
 ' Stanhope, Reign of Queen Anne, oh. vi. end. 
 
CH. XXII.] ITALY 457 
 
 •with Tuscany and Modena under their despots, 
 should be members. The Piedmontese, and especially 
 their great statesman Cavour, desired something 
 better than a federation in which Austria would 
 control most of the votes : and their wish was grati- 
 fied. The peoples of Tuscany and Modena in a quiet 
 and orderly manner organised small armies sufficient 
 to keep out their despots : Sicily and Naples, in 1860, 
 under the lead of Garibaldi expelled their Bourbon 
 King Francis the Second : the whole Italian people 
 desired union under Victor Emmanuel, and a single 
 Parliament for the whole kingdom. By 1861 almost 
 the whole peninsula was a single state : Venice was 
 added in 1866, and Rome followed four years later. 
 Italy has been formed through the voluntary union 
 of many unequal states ; and in accordance with the 
 wishes of Piedmont, the strongest party in the union, 
 it is a unitary state under a single government. 
 
 Germany, as we have already noticed, broke up 
 in 1250 on the death of the Emperor Frederick 
 the Second, and the small communities Germany, 
 which had grown up among the Germans 1250-1866. 
 became sovereign states.^ They were too small to 
 stand alone conveniently. In 1273 Rudolph of 
 Hapsburg was elected as Emperor, and from the 
 fourteenth century to the outbreak of the Thirty 
 Years' War in 1618 the German states formed an 
 extremely loose confederation, having for their 
 common government a Diet under the presidency 
 of an elected Emperor. From the end of the Thirty 
 Years' War to the fall of Napoleon the states of 
 
 ' See page 242. 
 
458 GEEMANY [oh. xxii. 
 
 Germany were separate sovereignties, without any 
 common government. In 1815 they agreed to form 
 a Deutscher Bund. It was nominally a loose con- 
 federation, but it scarcely deserves the name, because 
 the Diet, its only common organ, was powerless. 
 From thenceforward, however, a general desire for 
 closer union arose among all the Germans except the 
 Austrians. Till 1866 the jealousy of the Austrians 
 made closer union impossible. 
 
 ^^By far the most powerful German princes were 
 the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia. 
 
 Austria and ^^'^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ '"'^^^ jealoUS 
 
 Prussia, rivals. The dominions of the Emperor 
 
 were extensive, but were inhabited by 
 many jarring nationalities. The Prussian state 
 was of moderate size, but most of its provinces, 
 though not yet perfectedly united, were tending 
 towards unity. In 1850 the Prussians thought, 
 prematurely, that they were thoroughly united, 
 and obtained from their king a constitution which 
 established for Prussia such a Parliament as is suited 
 to a unitary nation. Prussia was not yet a coherent 
 community, and its new Parliament was not capable 
 of restraining a strong executive government. Its 
 incapacity was shown after 1862, when Bismarck 
 became Minister-President. In 1864 and 1865 the 
 Parliament refused to vote the taxes, but Bismarck 
 succeeded in collecting them. During the two years 
 in which Bismarck ruled Prussia in defiance of its 
 Parliament, Austria and Prussia were engaged as 
 allies in the conquest and occupation of Schleswig- 
 
CH. XXII. J GERMANY 459 
 
 Holstein. In 1866 they quarrelled about the dis- 
 position of their conquests : war was declared between 
 them, Austria was defeated at Sadowa, and was ex- 
 pelled from the German Bund. The states in North 
 Germany voluntarily joined in a close union under 
 the title of the North German Federation. 
 
 The new composite state made in 1866 was founded 
 through a voluntary union of unequals, but it had a 
 federal character. The inequality between 
 
 1 , _ . North Ger^.^ 
 
 its members was extreme, rrussia was ^-^n PederaT 
 opposed in arms by Hanover and Hesse- *'°"' ^^^^ 
 Cassel during its war with Austria: it 
 speedily annexed them, and they became parts of 
 the Prussian state. When these annexations had 
 been made, the population of Prussia comprised 
 three-quarters of the inhabitants of North Germany ; 
 the other- quarter was divided among twenty small 
 states of which Saxony was the largest. Although 
 the disparity among the members of the new state 
 was so great, Bismarck decided to treat the small 
 states most generously, and to found a federal state 
 in which they were liberally endowed with political 
 rights. The reasons which influenced him are not 
 perhaps as yet perfectly known, but we can see some 
 of them. It was probable that any harsh dealings 
 with the lesser states might be used by Napoleon the 
 Third as a pretext for interference. It was certain 
 that if small states gained no advantages on joining 
 - the federation, the states in South Germany, Bavaria, 
 Wirtemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, would never 
 apply for admission among its members. Besides 
 
460 GERMANY [ch. xxn. 
 
 all this, Bismarck knew the rulers of the small states 
 from his long experience as Prussian representative 
 in the Diet of the old Bund at Frankfurt. The 
 small states were naturally grown communities, their 
 governments were such as they produced naturally, 
 and among their rulers were men with whom 
 Bismarck was willing to work. And, lastly, Bismarck 
 was already pledged to the establishment of a 
 representative assembly for all Germany, because the 
 King of Prussia by his advice had solemnly promised 
 it before the beginning of the war with Austria. He 
 knew from his experience of the Prussian Parliament 
 that Germany could not provide such representatives 
 as would be required to make an effective popular 
 assembly. He was not willing that his representative 
 assembly should wield the boundless power of an 
 English House of Commons : it was wiser to take as 
 his model the American House of Kepresentatives 
 which is kept in check by the Senate. He must, in 
 fact, construct an influential Upper Chamber of Legis- 
 lature ; and the natural way of constructing it was to 
 entrust the nomination of its members to the govern- 
 ments of the component states in the federation.^ 
 
 In the course of the great war waged in 1870-1871 
 
 between Germany and France, the four states in 
 
 South Germany, Bavaria, Wirtemberg, 
 
 Empire, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt, asked and 
 
 I 70-1 71- obtained admission to the federation. 
 
 The North German Federation took the name of 
 
 ^ The documents and speeches, from which every estimate of 
 Bismarck's public life and policy must be formed, are collected in 
 Hahn, FiXrst Bismarck. Students of modern German history have 
 
CH. XXII.] GERMANY 461 
 
 the German Empire, but its constitution remained 
 unaltered in its general principles. 
 
 The German Empire is a federal state; but it 
 differs from other federal states because Prussia 
 contains more inhabitants than all the 
 other component states put together, and ^f the'cer-" 
 because the strongest organ in the govern- ™^° Empire, 
 ment is a hereditary soyereign. There 
 are twenty-five states in the Empire : each has a 
 government of its own, and there is also a central 
 or federal government for regulating matters which 
 concern the whole Empire. The character of every 
 federal state is mainly determined by the extent of 
 the powers entrusted to the central government. 
 The central government in the German Empire is 
 far stronger than the corresponding organ in any 
 other federal state. It has all the powers exercised 
 by the Federal Government in the United States, 
 and many others of extreme importance in addition. 
 It defines and enforces the obligations of every 
 German subject in regard to military service; it 
 makes the civil and criminal law, including all law 
 that relates to meetings and newspapers ; and, lastly, 
 it has the power of altering the constitution, subject 
 only to the limitation that no alteration can be made, 
 if in the Upper Chamber of the Legislature (the 
 Bundesrath) fourteen votes out of fifty-eight are 
 opposed to its enactment.^ 
 
 reason to be grateful to Mr. J. W. Headlam for the excellent 
 descriptions of the chief events and of the German constitution 
 contained in his Bismarck ('Heroes of the Nations' Series). 
 ' Dareate, Oonstitutiojis Modernes, vol. i. pp. 135, 136, 158. 
 
462 GEEMAISTY [CH. xxn. 
 
 The central government has its executive, legis- 
 lative, and judicial organs. The executive govern- 
 ment is vested in the Emperor and his 
 
 Central ^ 
 
 Government: Chancellor. The King of Prussia, from 
 Executive. ^^^ ^^^^ ^-^^^ ^^ jg j^j^^g^ -g Qerman 
 
 Emperor. He commands the armed forces, and 
 makes treaties; but to declare war, if not merely 
 defensive, he needs the consent of the Bundesrath. 
 The Chancellor, appointed by the Emperor, is his 
 adviser, and is President of the Bundesrath. 
 
 The legislature consists of two chambers, the 
 Bundesrath and the Keichstag. The Reichstag is 
 a representative chamber, consisting of 
 three hundred and ninety-seven members, 
 elected by all adult male German subjects. There 
 is nothing in the written constitution to prevent it 
 from being a powerful assembly; but hitherto it 
 has not exercised any strong control over the 
 Empire. The Bundesrath consists of councillors 
 named by the governments of the twenty-five states. 
 Each state has a definite number of votes. There are 
 fifty-eight votes in all : Prussia has seventeen. Each 
 state may name any number of councillors not 
 exceeding the number of its votes; but in every 
 division all its votes must be given on the same 
 side and collectively. 
 
 Of the two chambers the Bundesrath is much the 
 more powerful. It is composed of experienced states- 
 Tjjgt^o men; its debates are secret; and it is 
 Chambers. closely linked with the executive govern- 
 ment, as the Parliament is in England, because the 
 
CH. XXII. J GEEMANY 463 
 
 Chancellor is its President. The Reichstag is broken 
 up into many small groups ; and hitherto the groups 
 have not shown much power of cohering together. 
 Both chambers have, under the constitution, the right 
 of proposing new laws; but the Bundesrath is far 
 more skilful than the Reichstag in drafting them, 
 and its proposals have the support of the Chancellor. 
 The Bundesrath is practically by far the most power- 
 ful assembly in the Empire; and the Reichstag 
 has to content itself with a limited opportunity for 
 criticism, with the power to amend or reject bills, and 
 to refuse its assent to the imposition of new taxes.^ 
 
 All the remaining agencies of government in 
 Germany are of minor importance. The judicial 
 organ in the central government is a law- _^ 
 court belonging to the three old Hanseatic groverning 
 cities of Lixbeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, ^s^^""^'^^- 
 which are component states in the Empire. The 
 work of interpreting the constitution, which in the 
 United States of America is assigned to the Supreme 
 Court, is done in the German Empire by the central 
 legislature, which has the power of amending the 
 constitution, and can therefore add new clauses to 
 settle its interpretation ; the only function of the 
 High Court of Appeal which sits at Ltlbeck is to try 
 accusations of high treason against the Empire.^ 
 The component states in the Empire have their 
 separate constitutions and governments; but the 
 
 ' Headlam, Bismarck, pp. 296-300. 
 
 2 Constitution of the German Empire, articles 74, 75 : printed 
 in Dareste, Constitutions Modernes, vol. i. pp. 157, 158. 
 
464 AUSTRIA [ch. xxii. 
 
 sphere of action of their governments is confined 
 within somewhat narrow limits by the great extent 
 of the powers exercised by the central government 
 of the Empire. Nevertheless it seems incontestable 
 that the Prussian minister Bismarck showed great 
 generosity towards the lesser states in Germany, 
 when in the consultations which made the constitu- 
 tion of the Empire he distributed among them forty- 
 one votes in the Bundesrath, and only retained 
 seventeen for Prussia. 
 
 Voluntary unions of unequals in modern times 
 
 have founded two diiferent kinds of composite states. 
 
 The union of Scotland with England 
 
 Voluntary /• -i t ■ i i • /. 
 
 unions of lounded a Unitary state, and the union oi 
 unequals. ^j^g Italian states with Piedmont founded 
 
 Conclusions. 
 
 another state of the same nature; but the 
 
 union of the German states with Prussia founded a 
 federation. We can only account for the divergent 
 results produced by unions of weaker with stronger 
 states by observing that, in every case, the nature 
 of the union has been determined according to 
 the wishes of the strongest party to the union. 
 
 Before closing this chapter on modern unions of 
 states, it is necessary to inquire whether any union 
 The relation "^ Austria and Hungary under one 
 of Austria government has occurred in recent times, 
 to ungary. ^^^ whether the two countries are now 
 separate states or are joined into a composite state. 
 It is an undoubted fact that for four or five years 
 before 1867 they were as truly separate states as 
 Scotland and England before their union. Can we 
 
CH. XXII.] AND HUNGAEY 465 
 
 assert that the agreement made between them in 
 1867 joined them into a composite state of federal 
 character, or must we regard it as amounting only 
 to the conclusion of an alliance between two separate 
 political bodies ? 
 
 In 1867 Austria and Hungary agreed that, under 
 the Pragmatic Sanction of 1723, they were subject 
 to the same sovereign, the head of the house of 
 Hapsburg ; that in future they would have the same 
 Ministers for Foreign Affairs, for War, and for their 
 common Finance. They further made an agree- 
 ment, subject to revision at the end of ten years, 
 which determined the proportions in which they 
 would contribute to their common expenditure: 
 from 1868 for ten years 70 per cent, was paid by 
 Austria, and 30 per cent, by Hungary; from 1878 
 Austria paid 68-6 and Hungary 81-4.i The ways 
 and means of raising the contributions of the two 
 countries were left to be settled by the legislature of 
 each country for itself, and were in no sense a 
 matter of common interest or of common regulation. 
 There were, however, some matters which required 
 concordant legislation for the whole of Austria and 
 Hungary : the chief item among them was obviously 
 appropriation of supplies. The settlement of these 
 matters was entrusted to two Delegations, chosen by 
 the legislatures of the two countries, and each con- 
 sisting of sixty members. Each Delegation was to 
 sit and debate by itself on the propositions submitted 
 to it by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, for War, 
 
 1 Dareate, Oonstitutions Modernes, vol. i. p. 333, note. 
 
 2g 
 
466 AUSTRIA [ch. xxii. 
 
 and for Finance. The Delegations were to exchange 
 communications in writing of their decisions; if, 
 after three interchanges of communications on any 
 matter, they did not agree, either Delegation could 
 demand that they should meet together in a Plenary 
 Session, and, without discussion, settle the matter 
 by vote.i 
 
 There is no doubt that for purposes of international 
 law the agreements made in 1867 amounted to a 
 union of Austria and Hungary, because 
 Hungary, they Settled that in making treaties with 
 ummary. £Qj.gjgjj pg-virers the two Countries would 
 act together. It is therefore right and proper that 
 in treatises on international law. these two countries 
 are described as being joined in a Personal Union 
 or a Real Union. But it does not follow that they 
 have a common government in any sense that would 
 imply they are one state. They cannot be one state 
 unless they have a common government, which can 
 issue commands either to the governments or the 
 subjects of the two countries. Neither the Emperor- 
 King nor his three ministers are empowered by the 
 constitutions of Austria and Hungary to issue 
 commands of their own authority. The Delegations, 
 while they sit separately, are not one governing 
 agency but two. If indeed they should join in 
 Plenary Session, they would be a common legislature 
 for the composite state of Austria-Hungary; but 
 
 ^ For the whole of the arrangements made between Austria and 
 Hungary in 1867 see Dareste, Constitutions Modernes, vol. i. 
 pp. 328-3.57. 
 
OH. xxii.] AND HUNGAEY 467 
 
 I do not know any instance of their junction, and 
 am under an impression that, at least in recent years, 
 no Plenary Session has been held. If this impression 
 is correct, it follows beyond a doubt that Austria 
 and Hungary are separate states under separate 
 governments. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 Now that I have completed my survey of Political 
 Bodies and their Governments I wish to recapitulate 
 its results. But before doing this it may be well to 
 digress for a moment into a notice of certain words 
 with different shades of meaning, by which political 
 bodies, or some of them, have been designated. 
 
 All the objects of our investigation have been 
 political bodies. A political body is any group of 
 men, or group of groups of men, joined together 
 by the one fact of living under one government. A 
 coTriTnunity is a group of men joined together by 
 common aims and interests; and we can speak of 
 any political body that is not a heterogeneous empire 
 as a community. A state is a political body having 
 an equal status or standing with those political 
 bodies of its time which rank highest in power and 
 civilisation. We can then quite rightly speak of 
 the modern nations and empires and of the ancient 
 republics as states. We should be departing from 
 the common usage of words if we gave the name of 
 state to a mere tribe either of the present time or of 
 past ages ; for tribes have no formal negotiations with 
 one another, and therefore have no idea of status. 
 
 463 
 
CH. XXIII.] SUMMAEY 469 
 
 It seems incongruous, too, if the Roman Empire is 
 called a state at the time when it was lord of the 
 civilised world ; it could not condescend to think of 
 status when it possessed universal dominion. But 
 though the term state is not properly co-extensive 
 with political body, I have ventured sometimes to 
 use it almost as if it were. It was impossible to 
 employ on every occasion a cumbrous combination 
 of an adjective and a noun derived from different 
 languages; and wherever I have wished to speak 
 of political bodies collectively, without pointed refer- 
 ence to tribes or heterogeneous empires, I have given 
 them the shorter name of states. 
 
 We have divided states into two classes according 
 as they are simple or composite. A simple state 
 is one community; a composite state is ^. 
 made by union of communities. The four simple 
 kinds of simple states are known as tribes, ^ ^ ^• 
 simple city states, independent fiefs, and unitary 
 nations. (1) A tribe is a community, having a 
 territory and government of its own, living mainly 
 in the open country, knowing little or nothing of 
 town life, and devoting itself to pastoral, agricultural, 
 or military pursuits.^ (2) A simple city state ' is an 
 independent community of townsmen, living in a 
 waUed city, and having no large extent of rural 
 territory, so that the city is the sole centre of popula- 
 tion, society, wealth, and government.^ (3) An inde- 
 pendent fief is the property of a nobleman who has 
 become an independent prince.^ (4) A unitary 
 
 1 See pages 18, 266. ^ gee pages 56, 58. ^ gee page 242. 
 
470 SUMMAEY [OH. xxiii. 
 
 nation is a large homogeneous community, thoroughly 
 united in common aims, interests, and sentiments, 
 and living under a single supreme government.^ 
 
 The results of our investigation and classification 
 of simple states have proved to be fairly satisfactory. 
 _ . (1) Tribes have been divided into three 
 
 Governments ^ ' 
 
 of simple classes according as they are poor or rich 
 or aggressive, and each class has uniformly 
 a certain kind of government which is not found 
 elsewhere. (2) Simple cities have been separated 
 into two classes according as they employ slave 
 labour or free labour; each class has only a few 
 kinds of government, and they are not found any- 
 where but in that particular class of cities. (3) Inde- 
 pendent fiefs have necessarily been left unnoticed, 
 because we have no complete information about 
 their characters or governments. (4) The remaining 
 class of simple states, the modern unitary nations, 
 all conform to a single type, and all have the same 
 kind of government, which is not shared by any 
 other political communities. 
 
 Composite states also have been classified. They 
 are always formed by union of lesser communities ; 
 
 Kinds of ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ *^° great classes accord- 
 composite ing as they are founded on (1) compulsory 
 union, or (2) voluntary union. (1) Com- 
 pulsory union may join together like communities 
 or unlike communities. If it joins like communities, 
 and they are cities, the resulting composite state 
 is a complex city state. If it joins like communities, 
 
 ^ See pages 394, 396. 
 
CH. xxiii.] SUMMAEY 471 
 
 and they are rural in character, the resulting state 
 is like the mediaeval kingdoms. If it joins unlike 
 communities the resulting state is a heterogeneous 
 empire. (2) Voluntary union joins together some- 
 times states of equal power, sometimes unequals. 
 If the states joined together are equals, the resulting 
 state is always federal. If they are unequals, the 
 resulting state may have a federal or a unitary 
 character according to circumstances. 
 
 We have divided composite states into classes, but 
 ■we must confess that not one of those classes 
 conforms invariably to one type of govern- _ 
 
 •' J s. c Governments 
 
 ment. There is always a large element of of composite 
 deliberate design in the making of com- 
 posite states ; they are therefore more artificial than 
 simple states, and more variable in their methods 
 of government. (1) The states made by conquest 
 or compulsion are complex city states, mediaeval 
 kingdoms and their like, and heterogeneous empires. 
 The governments of complex city states present 
 analogies with one another but do not conform to 
 a single type. The governments of mediaeval king- 
 doms are varied in form and seem to defy classifica- 
 tion. The governments of heterogeneous empires 
 are even more multiform; here, however, it is not 
 the state that makes the government, but the 
 government that makes the state. Governments of 
 the kind known as bureaucratic make empires of 
 exceptional strength and durability. The strong 
 empires made by bureaucratic governments are all 
 nearly alike, and form a sub-class of states conform- 
 
472 SUMMARY [cH. xxm. 
 
 ing to a definite type. (2) The states made by 
 voluntary union have all been federal, except Great 
 Britain and modern Italy, which became unitary 
 nations. These two unitary nations made by the 
 willing union of their parts do not differ in any way 
 from the unitary nations which have grown up from 
 states formed in distant centuries by conquest. Of 
 the governments of federal states I must speak with 
 some reserve, because there are some which I have 
 not discussed. If I had examined them all I should 
 have found that they possess some features in 
 common ; but the government of the United Nether- 
 lands would, I imagine, have presented some strange 
 divergences from other federal governments. On 
 the other hand, there are two eminent forms of 
 federal states, known respectively as loose confedera- 
 tions and close federations. We have found that 
 the governments, if so they may be caUed, of loose 
 confederations are all characterised by extreme 
 weakness in the common government, and a near 
 approach to independence in the governments of 
 the component states. The governments of close 
 federations may diverge very widely ; among them are 
 numbered both the frankly republican government 
 of the United States of America, and the almost 
 monarchic government of the German Empire. 
 
 My recapitulation has been very brief, and, if taken 
 by itself, not very lucid. The reader may probably 
 wish to refer back to the passages in the preced- 
 ing chapters which give the justification and ex- 
 planation of its statements. For his convenience 
 
CH. xxm.] SUMMAEY 473 
 
 I append a tabular summary in two columns, with refer- 
 ences to pages. In most parts of the table (see next 
 page) the first column contains the names 
 
 n , , • , P 11 n Tabular 
 
 01 the kinds of states, and the second summary for 
 indicates the character of their govern- convenience 
 
 ° of reference. 
 
 ments. In the part, however, that relates 
 to Heterogeneous Empires, where, as we have just seen, 
 government is primary and the character of the state 
 secondary, the order is reversed; the first column 
 indicates the nature of the government, and the 
 second the qualities possessed by the state which 
 that government has brought into existence. 
 
TABLE OF STATES 
 AND THEIK GOVEENMENTS 
 
 DIVISION I.- 
 
 KINDS OF STATES. 
 
 1. Tribes. 
 
 a. Poor Tribes. 
 
 -SIMPLE STATES 
 
 GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 b. Eich Tribes. 
 
 Uniform. Assembly of king, 
 elders, and people (pages 17- 
 26). 
 
 Uniform. Council of king 
 and elders (pages 25-31). 
 c. Aggressive Tribes. Uniform. King only, as com- 
 mander-in-chief (pages 39, 
 40). 
 
 Class governments. 
 Limited to three forms — 
 
 (1) Oligarchy. (2) Tyranny. 
 
 (3) Democracy (pages 62-79). 
 Limited to few forms. The 
 
 rulers are a group of classes 
 
 (pages 311-341). 
 
 Unknown (pages 242, 243). 
 
 Uniform. A Cabinet, a Parlia- 
 ment, and a dignified Sove- 
 reign, who reigns but does 
 not rule (pages 394-416). 
 
 2. Simple Cities. 
 a. With slaves. 
 
 b. Without slaves. 
 
 3. Independent Fiefs, 
 
 4. Unitary Nations. 
 
 474 
 
475 
 
 DIVISION II.— COMPOSITE STATES 
 
 KINDS OF STATES. 
 
 1. Unions made by 
 
 compulsion. 
 A. Unions of like States 
 
 made by compul- 
 
 GOVERNMENTS. 
 One supreme government. 
 
 sion. 
 a. Complex 
 States. 
 
 City 
 
 king- 
 
 NoT Uniform, but not ex- 
 tremely variable. Elective 
 magistrates, a council, popu- 
 lar assembly (pages 80-150). 
 
 Various (pages 288-308). 
 
 b. Mediaeval 
 
 doms. 
 B. Unions of unlike 
 
 States made by 
 
 compulsion. 
 HeterogeneousEmpires, 
 
 GOVERNMENTS. KINDS OF STATES. 
 
 (1) Bureaucracy with Durable Empires (pages 176- 
 strong military force. 208). 
 
 (2) Other governments. Empires various in form, but 
 
 always transient (pages 209, 
 210). 
 
 KINDS OF STATES. GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 2. Voluntary Unions. 
 
 A. Voluntary unions of Federal. Many co-ordinate 
 equals. governments (pages 419, 
 
 420). 
 
476 
 
 DIVISION II.— COMPOSITE STATES (contmued) 
 KINDS OF STATES. GOVERNMENTS. 
 
 a. Loose confederations. The central government weak 
 
 (pages 422, 423). 
 b Close federations. The central government com- 
 
 paratively strong (.pages 
 423-450). 
 B. Voluntary unions of 
 unequals (of rare 
 occurrence). 
 
 1. Great Britain, 1707- UnitaryStates (pages 455-457). 
 1801. Italy from 
 
 1859. 
 
 2. Germany from 1867. A Federation (pages 457-464). 
 
APPENDIX^ 
 
 HYPOTHESES OF A UNIFORM ORIGIN 
 OF POLITICAL BODIES AND GOVERNMENTS 
 
 Many speculative thinkers have conceived an idea that 
 there must have been some uniform process which origin- 
 ally gave birth to all primitive political bodies aild to all 
 primitive governments. Hooker, Hobbes, Locke, and 
 Rousseau all argued in favour of their hypotheses of a 
 uniform origin. It is now universally admitted that their 
 hypotheses are disproved by known facts, and it is needless 
 for me to consider them. The attempt (to which I referred 
 in my text), to discover a uniform origin of political organi- 
 sation from observation of ancient customs imbedded in 
 the institutions of peoples who afterwards attained to 
 various degrees of civilisation, was made by Filmer in the 
 reign of Charles the Second, and was repeated about fifty 
 years ago by Sir Henry Maine. We may confine our 
 attention to Sir Henry Maine's researches and conclusions. 
 His researches have led to a great increase in our know- 
 ledge of primitive social customs, and among his conclusions 
 are numbered both a theory of Primitive Family Discipline 
 and a theory of an Origin of Government. As primitive 
 social customs and family discipline are not themselves 
 a part of my subject, I need not mention anything that 
 has been discovered or written in regard to them except 
 what affects governments and their origins or forms. 
 
 The ancient customs to be noticed are these. It is a 
 perfectly established fact that, among the Romans under 
 
 1 See page 7. 
 
 477 
 
478 PATRIAECHAL [app. 
 
 the kings and the Republic, the father of a family was the 
 
 sole owner of property, except what his sons earned in the 
 
 service of the state, and in family discipline he was far 
 
 „ . ... more uncontrolled master of his wife and his 
 
 Primitive ■ i n i 
 
 customs adult sons and adult unmarried daughters than 
 
 known from a modem parent is of a child ten years old.^ 
 evidence. ^g ^j,g ^qJ^j -^y (Jajus, the great Eoman jurist, 
 that he had never heard of fathers of families possessing 
 these extreme powers in any people outside Rome, except 
 the Celts who had settled in Galatia. But though the 
 Roman family despotism, known as Patria Potestas, never 
 existed except among the Romans and Galatians, it is 
 certain that in some other peoples adult sons were in some 
 degree subject to their fathers. The books of Genesis and 
 Exodus prove that their writers knew of peoples in which 
 adult sons had to obey their fathers in some respects ; and 
 there are indications, which I have not been able to study 
 but which I believe to be trustworthy, that some kind of 
 subjection of adult sons to their fathers has prevailed 
 among the Hindus, the northern Slavs of Russia, and the 
 southern Slavs of the Balkans. Sir Henry Maine made 
 and published some most interesting researches into the 
 customs of the ancient Irish, which included most intricate 
 arrangements for the acquisition of family rights, but were 
 by no means equivalent to a simple system of paternal 
 command and filial obedience. 
 
 It was shown by the researches that in some ancient 
 peoples fathers had some control over the doings of their 
 
 adult sons. Sir Henry Maine and his followers 
 primitive inferred by analogy that in other peoples, 
 paternal about whom we have no evidence, a similar 
 
 family system prevailed. I do not think any solid 
 
 argument against their inference can be 
 founded on the fact that in modern uncivilised peoples 
 mothers and not fathers are the owners of family property 
 
 1 For the evidence see Marquardt, RSmische AUerthwmer, Privatlebm, 
 vol. i. pp. 2-6. 
 
APP.] THEORIES 479 
 
 and the transmitters of ownership to their children. Mr. 
 Lewis Morgan in his Ancient Society expresses a probable 
 opinion when he says that where Matriarchate came first 
 Patriarchate might easily follow. It seems, further, that 
 the existence among the Romans of paternal superiority 
 over adult sons yields a fair presumption of its existence 
 among the Greeks, and the supposition that it prevailed 
 among the early Greeks gives the only reasonable explana- 
 tion of many of their later customs and sentiments. I take 
 it, then, that some kind of Patriarchate in regard to family 
 property and discipline existed among the forefathers of 
 the two great ruling peoples of ancient history, and to 
 some degree among those two peoples in the ages when 
 they are known to us from contemporary evidence. But 
 this fact is of minor importance in the history of the whole 
 of Europe if there was no Patriarchate among the Germans, 
 the founders of the greatest medieval and modern states. 
 I think it is proved that there was none. It is certain the 
 rigid Patria Potestas of the Romans did not exist among 
 the Germans. The Roman Potestas made it impossible 
 that a title to inheritance could be derived from or through 
 a woman. Tacitus tells us that, if a German died without 
 leaving children, the next claimants to his succession were 
 his brothers, his father's brothers, and his moiAer's brothers. ^ 
 A mother, then, among the Germans could transmit a title, 
 and the strict Roman Potestas with its concomitant, ex- 
 clusive agnatic succession, did not exist. On all this I lay 
 no stress : it is not likely that any one would ever imagine 
 that the Germans had ever lived under a complete system 
 of Roman Patria Potestas. But there are other facts 
 which I think important because they convince me that 
 the customs of the Germans, from the earliest times of 
 which we have information, did not give fathers any power 
 to control their adult sons in their persons or property. 
 About 400 A.D. the Gallic provincials were Roman citizens, 
 and the family-relations of most of them were regulated 
 1 Tacitus, Oermcmia, ^. 20. 
 
480 PATRIARCHAL [afp. 
 
 by the Roman system of Patria Potestas. Soon afterwards 
 German peoples settled among the Gallic provincials as 
 masters and rulers. If they had brought with them any 
 patriarchal custom giving fathers control in private rela- 
 tions over their adult children, that custom would have 
 combined with the Patria Potestas already prevalent in 
 Gaul, and the mixed population in the country would have 
 lived either partly under the German custom and partly 
 under the Roman, or under some system intermediate 
 between the two. As a matter of fact, the French lawyers 
 could write puissoMce de phre en France n'a lieu, and I see no 
 reason to doubt that they could have written it as truly 
 in the age of Charlemagne as in any subsequent period. 
 
 Sir Henry Maine's hypothesis of a uniform Origin of 
 States and Governments rests on the belief that a patri- 
 Theorv of ^rchal system of Family Ownership and Disci- 
 an origin pline was widely diffused, if not universal, 
 of govern- among primitive peoples at some stage of 
 ""^ their existence. He supposes that families 
 
 expanded into bodies politic by processes of multiplication 
 of descendants and adoption of sons, and that when the 
 expansion had occurred the father of the family became 
 king or chief of the political body, or that the government 
 was closely imitated from the rule of a patriarch over his 
 family. This method, however, of creating political 
 government where none had existed, could only be prac- 
 tised by a people who had lived under a patriarchal system 
 of private family-relations. If my reasoning in the last 
 paragraph is correct, the Germans had no such system of 
 family-organisation, and therefore among them there was 
 no patriarchal origin of government. The chief states of 
 mediaeval and modern times were founded by Germans, 
 and therefore the governments of those states owed nothing 
 to a patriarchal origin. If so much is. established, I do not 
 care to discuss origins of government in other states. But 
 it may be useful to remark that among the Romans, who 
 lived under the strictest Patria Potestas ever known, no 
 
APR] THEORIES 481 
 
 truly political institutions are proved to have a patriarchal 
 origin. The Roman kingship had no such origin, because 
 the kings did not succeed by inheritance but were elected. 
 The senate was hardly patriarchal, because the senators 
 were nominated. If the curiae had been patriarchal, their 
 names would have been as conspicuous in records as the 
 names of the patrician gentes, and it could not have been 
 thought that a curia contained about ten gentes and a 
 hundred families, because patriarchal bodies must vary 
 greatly in the pace at which they multiply the number of 
 their offshoots. Lastly, the patrician gentes, as the Cor- 
 nelia and the Papiria, were undoubtedly patriarchal in 
 origin. The gentile names were most conspicuous : the 
 Gens Cornelia contained sixteen great families, with many 
 sub-divisions, while some gentes contained only one family. 
 The gentes, then, as they had conspicuous names and 
 varied greatly in size, exhibited both the marks which 
 distinguish patriarchal institutions. But, in times known 
 to history, the individual gentes were not political institu- 
 tions ; and we do not know that they ever had been 
 political. It is, no doubt, possible that before the tribes 
 of the Titles, Eamnes, and Luceres were formed, the heads 
 of patrician gentes may have been heads of minute political 
 societies ; but, even so, they furnish a solitary instance of 
 a patriarchal Roman institution which may once have been 
 political in character. 
 
 2h 
 
INDEX 
 
 AoHiEAN League, 442. 
 Areopagus, 95. 
 - Argos, 173. 
 Aryans, 11. 
 Athens, Attica. See City States, 
 
 Ancient. 
 Augustus, 190. 
 Austria, relations of, with Hungary, 
 
 465. 
 
 Belgium. See Nations, Unitary: 
 
 also 398, 402. 
 Bureaucracy, 207. 
 
 CaiSAE, 188. 
 Castile. See Spain. 
 Celts, prehistoric, 15. 
 Charlemagne , his empire and govern- 
 ment, 228. 
 City States, definition, 56 ; origin, 
 56 ; simple and complex, 58. See 
 City States, Ancient ; City States, 
 Complex ; City States, Medieval ; 
 City States, Simple. 
 City States, Ancient — 
 Athens before 480 B.C. ySeeAttica. 
 Athens after 480 B.C., 151-173; 
 structure of the state, 151 ; 
 democracy in, 158-173. 
 Attica, prehistoric, 83 ; under 
 EupatridiE, 84 ; constitution of 
 Solon, 85 ; Peisistratus and 
 Hippias, 91 ; constitution of 
 Cleisthenes, 92. 
 Eome, geography, 102; complex 
 character in prehistoric times, 
 104 ; under kings, 107 ; seces- 
 
 sion of the Plebs, 116; the 
 Republic, 116-142; Senate, 135- 
 143. For subsequent history 
 of Rome, see Empire, Hetero- 
 geneous. 
 City States, Complex, 80-150 ; con- 
 clusions regarding, 146. 
 City States, Mediaeval, origin of, 
 309 ; diverse characters, 311 ; in 
 Germany, 309, 341 ; in Italy, 
 309. 
 
 Florence after 1282, government 
 of the Trade Guilds in, 317 ; 
 the seven Greater Arts, 318 ; 
 organs of government, 319 ; 
 Priori, 320 ; Greater and Middle 
 Arts, 321 ; anticipation of elec- 
 tions, 322 ; use of the lot, 323 ; 
 Tyranny, 324 ; the Middle and 
 Lesser Arts, 325; Parte Guelfa, 
 326 ; ammonizioni, 328 ; wealth 
 of Florence, 329 ; incompetence 
 oftheguildsmen, 331 ; captains 
 of the Parte Guella, 332 ; the 
 Ciompi, 334; their insurrec- 
 tion, 338 ; extinction of Guild- 
 government, 339 ; character- 
 istics of Florence, 340. 
 Genoa, 148. 
 
 Venice, origin and site, 343 
 early government, 344 ; Doges, 
 345 ; new seat of government 
 346 ; distant dependencies, 347 
 the Great Council, 349 ; con^ 
 tentment of the people, 350 
 new dependencies, 351 ; skilled 
 rulers, 352; Pregadi, 353 
 
484 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Quarantia, 353 ; closing of the 
 Great Council, 354 ; Council of 
 Ten, 355; Decline of Venice, 
 356. 
 
 City States, Simple, definition of, 
 58 ; in Greece, 62-79 ; in Italy, 
 311, 316; in Germany, 341. 
 
 Gleisthenes, 92-100. 
 
 Constantlne the Great, 200. 
 
 Constitutions. See TaWe, 474. 
 
 Democeacies, 73-79 ; 161-173. 
 
 Denmark, 392, 393, 398. 
 
 Despotic governments. See Tyr- 
 
 anni ; Empires, Heterogeneous ; 
 
 Nations, Unitary ; England ; 
 
 France ; Spain. 
 Diocletian, 200. 
 
 Empires, Heterogeneous, artificial 
 and variously governed, 209 ; 
 characters of, determined by 
 their governments, 473. 
 Empire of Charlemagne, 228. 
 Empire, Roman, at first under an 
 urban constitution, 176 ; Julius 
 Csesar, 188 ; Augustus, 191 ; 
 despotic government, 193 ; dis- 
 puted successions, 195 ; Council 
 of the Emperor, 199 ; govern- 
 ment of, under Constantine, 
 202. 
 England, made by union of Anglo- 
 Saxon tribes, 258 ; conquered by 
 the Danes and the Normans, 259 ; 
 institutions of, under Norman 
 and Angevin kings, 261 ; pre- 
 rogatives of the kings in the 
 Middle Ages, 288 ; great power 
 of the Tudor sovereigns, 365 ; 
 new houses of nobles and gentry 
 in the age of the Tudors, 368 ; 
 their usefulness in local govern- 
 ment, 369. For subsequent his- 
 tory, see Nations, Unitary. 
 Estate, deiinition of the word, 292. 
 Estates, assemblies of, in England, 
 292 ; in Castile, 296 ; in France, 
 301. 
 
 Federal States. See Unions of 
 equal communities ; also of un- 
 equal communities. 
 
 Fiefs, independent, 232, 241, 274. 
 
 Florence before 1282 a.d., origin, 
 312 ; industrial organisation, 312 ; 
 early government, 313 ; Ghibelines 
 and Guelfs, 314; exile of the 
 Ghibelines, 315. For subsequent 
 history, see City States, Mediaeval. 
 
 France, mediaeval, a kingdom sepa- 
 rated off from the empire founded 
 by Charlemagne, 231 ; indepen- 
 dence of fiefs in, 241, 244 ; county 
 of Paris, 243 ; Dux Francorum, 
 245 ; became Rex, 249 ; growth 
 of the king's demesne to 1300 
 A.D., 270 ; Curia Regis, 252, 276 ; 
 kingly power in the Middle Ages, 
 299 ; towns, 302 ; clergy and 
 nobles in the Middle Ages, 304 ; 
 weakness of the States-General, 
 304. 
 
 France, modern, condition of, in 
 the seventeenth century, 370 ; new 
 noblesse, 370; intendants, 371 ; 
 privileged orders, 372 ; enmity 
 between classes, 373 ; the Great 
 Revolution, 374 ; redistribution 
 of property, 374 ; constitution of 
 1791, 375 ; disruption of the state, 
 
 376 ; Paris after the disruption, 
 
 377 ; constitution of the year iii. , 
 
 378 ; intervention of the army, 
 378 ; military despotism, 379 ; 
 unity of France, 380 ; charter of 
 1814, 388 ; Republic of 1848, 390 ; 
 renewed despotism, 390 ; con- 
 stitution of 1871, 391. 
 
 Francia, 243 ; merged in the French 
 
 king's demesne, 270. 
 Franks, Austrasian, 225. 
 Franks, Salian, 218. 
 
 Gaul, German races in, 218. 
 German Empire, modern, 460. 
 Government, the first origin of 
 every, unknown, 7 ; conditions 
 
INDEX 
 
 485 
 
 necessary to the existence of, 
 8-12. 
 Governments. See Table, 474. 
 
 Hungary, relations of, with Au- 
 stria, 465. 
 
 Italy, under the Lombards, 217 ; 
 City States in, 309-366 ; modern, 
 see Nations, Unitary, and Unions 
 of unequal commimities. 
 
 Julius C/bsae, 188. 
 
 Kings. See Prerogatives. 
 
 Languedoo, 272. 
 Lex Hortensia, 135. 
 Louis le Gros, 250. 
 
 Makius, 187. 
 
 Migration of the barbarians, 211. 
 
 Nations, Unitary, origin and char- 
 acter, 358 ; extension to con- 
 venient boundaries, 359 ; progress 
 towards unity, 360 ; despotic 
 governments — in Spain, 362 ; in 
 France, 364; in England, 365; 
 decline of despotic governments 
 in, 381 ; stages of that decline in 
 England, 383 ; control by Parlia- 
 ment, 383; parties and the Cabinet, 
 384 ; end of despotic government 
 in England, 385 ; decline of de- 
 spotic governments on the Conti- 
 nent, 387 ; in Spain, 388 ; in 
 Prance, 388 ; the charter of 1814, 
 388 ; political requirements of 
 unitary nations in modern times, 
 395 ; their modern constitutions, 
 395-416 ; their single supreme 
 governments, 395 ; controlled by 
 Parliaments, 396 ; Parliaments 
 (in large nations) in two chambers, 
 397 ; the chambers of unequal 
 power, 397. Unitary nations 
 enumerated, 398 ; their repre- 
 
 sentative chambers, 399 ; upper 
 chambers in continental nations, 
 401 ; the English peers, 403 ; ex- 
 ecutive governments, 404 ; modem 
 Parliaments rather deliberative 
 than legislative, 406 ; participa- 
 tion of Cabinets in making laws, 
 405 ; judicatures of unitary na- 
 tions, 408 ; alterations in consti- 
 tutions, 412 ; dignified Sovereigns, 
 412 ; unitary nations of natural 
 growth, 414 ; of one species, 414 ; 
 but not of the same age, 415 ; 
 their governments natural, 416. 
 
 North German Federation, 459. 
 
 Norway, 398, 402, 406. See also 
 Nations, Unitary. 
 
 Oligarchies, 67-70. 
 Ostracism, 97. 
 
 Papacy in the Middle Ages, 284. 
 Paris, 243, 377. 
 Parlement de Paris, 300, 372, 
 Parliament, mediaeval English, 266 ; 
 
 character and powers, 294. 
 Parliaments, modern, 383-408. 
 Patriarchal theory, in regard to 
 
 private family discipline, 478 ; in 
 
 regard to government, 480. 
 Peers, English, 403 ; of France, 280. 
 Plebs Romana, 116-142. 
 Prerogatives of kings in medifeval 
 
 England, 288 ; in Castile, 295 ; in 
 
 France, 299. 
 
 Roman law in the Middle Ages, 
 
 276. 
 Rome. See City States, Ancient ; 
 
 Empires, Heterogeneous. 
 
 Sbrvius Tullius, 110. 
 
 Slavs, prehistoric, 15. 
 
 Solon, 85. 
 
 Spain, under the Goths, 216 ; under 
 the Moors, 221 ; Christian refugees 
 in, 223 ; early Christian kingdoms 
 in, 238 ; decline of the Moors in. 
 
486 
 
 INDEX 
 
 266 ; kingdom of Castile and Leon, 
 266 ; its institutions, 267 ; kingly 
 power, 295 ; Cortes, 296 ; union 
 of kingdoms in, 359 ; despotic 
 government in, 363. See also 
 Nations, Unitary. 
 
 Sparta. See Tribes. 
 
 State, usage of the word, 468. 
 
 States, provisional olassiiication of, 
 1-6 ; simple and composite, 2, 
 469; Table of States, 474. See 
 also City States, Empires, Nations, 
 Unions of communities, of equal 
 communities, and of unequal 
 communities. 
 
 Sweden, united under Gustavus 
 Vasa, 392 ; modern constitution 
 of, 393, 398, 400 ; imperfect union 
 of, with Norway, 454. 
 
 Switzerland, ancient, cantons in, 
 254 ; history of, see Unions of 
 equal communities made by 
 voluntary consent (2). 
 
 Tammany, 436. 
 
 Transvaal, 46. 
 
 Tribes, definition of, 16 ; tables of, 
 37, 64 ; modern uncivilised, 11 ; 
 prehistoric Aryan, 13 ; ancient 
 German, 13, 17-20, 32-36; Spartan 
 tribe, 20-25, 40-46 ; Achsan tribes, 
 26-28; Anglo-Saxon, 28; tribes 
 formed by coalescence, 39 ; 
 aggressive, 40 ; slave-owning, 40- 
 48 ; federated, 49 ; in Asturia, 
 240 ; conclusions about tribes, 51 . 
 
 Tyranni, 70. 
 
 Uncivilised peoples, 8. 
 
 Unions of communities effected by 
 compulsion, 255, 453 ; unions of 
 tribes, 39, 258 ; of small rural 
 communities, 249, 265, 270 ; of 
 modern states, 452, 453. 
 
 Unions of equal communities 
 made by voluntary consent, or 
 
 Federal States, 419 ; general 
 characteristics of, 420 ; Staaten- 
 bund and Bundesstaat, 421. 
 
 (1) Achaean League, 442. 
 
 (2) Switzerland, mediaeval, 443 ; 
 
 modem, 444 ; powers of Federal 
 Government in, 446; legislature, 
 445 ; executive, 446 ; judi- 
 cature, 446 ; the cantons, 254, 
 
 447 ; alterations in the law and 
 the constitution, 448 ; Beferen- 
 dum, 448 ; Popular Initiative, 
 
 448 ; steady tightening of the 
 union, 449. 
 
 (3) United Provinces of the Nether- 
 
 lands mentioned, 419. 
 
 (4) United States of America, in 
 
 loose confederation, 422 ; in 
 close federation, 423 ; powers 
 of Federal Government in, 423 ; 
 Legislature and Executive co- 
 ordinate, 424, 427 ; President, 
 425 ; Congress, 426 ; Commit- 
 tees, 428 ; Federal Judicature, 
 430 ; amendments of the con- 
 stitution, 432 ; the States in 
 the Union, 433 ; their govern- 
 ments, 434 ; Tammany, 436 ; 
 professional politicians, 439 ; 
 debates not widely read, 440 ; 
 steady tightening of the union, 
 441. 
 Unions of unequal communities 
 made by voluntary consent, 455 ; 
 union of Scotland and England, 
 456 ; of Italian states, 456 ; of 
 German states, 459 ; North 
 German Federation, 459 ; German 
 Empire, 460 ; its constitution, 
 461 ; chief organs of government, 
 462; lesser governing agencies, 
 463. 
 United States of America. See 
 Unions of equal communities (4). 
 
 Venice. See City States, Medijeval.