markitect-main/examples/infospace-with-history/artifacts/sources/book-3-chapter-02.md

id, title, book, chapter, artifact_type

id	title	book	chapter	artifact_type
book-3-chapter-02	OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ANCIENT STATE OF EUROPE, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.	3	2	content

CHAPTER II. OF THE DISCOURAGEMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN THE ANCIENT STATE OF EUROPE, AFTER THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

  When the German and Scythian nations overran the western provinces of the
  Roman empire, the confusions which followed so great a revolution lasted
  for several centuries. The rapine and violence which the barbarians
  exercised against the ancient inhabitants, interrupted the commerce
  between the towns and the country. The towns were deserted, and the
  country was left uncultivated; and the western provinces of Europe, which
  had enjoyed a considerable degree of opulence under the Roman empire, sunk
  into the lowest state of poverty and barbarism. During the continuance of
  those confusions, the chiefs and principal leaders of those nations
  acquired, or usurped to themselves, the greater part of the lands of those
  countries. A great part of them was uncultivated; but no part of them,
  whether cultivated or uncultivated, was left without a proprietor. All of
  them were engrossed, and the greater part by a few great proprietors.

  This original engrossing of uncultivated lands, though a great, might have
  been but a transitory evil. They might soon have been divided again, and
  broke into small parcels, either by succession or by alienation. The law
  of primogeniture hindered them from being divided by succession; the
  introduction of entails prevented their being broke into small parcels by
  alienation.

  When land, like moveables, is considered as the means only of subsistence
  and enjoyment, the natural law of succession divides it, like them, among
  all the children of the family; of all of whom the subsistence and
  enjoyment may be supposed equally dear to the father. This natural law of
  succession, accordingly, took place among the Romans who made no more
  distinction between elder and younger, between male and female, in the
  inheritance of lands, than we do in the distribution of moveables. But
  when land was considered as the means, not of subsistence merely, but of
  power and protection, it was thought better that it should descend
  undivided to one. In those disorderly times, every great landlord was a
  sort of petty prince. His tenants were his subjects. He was their judge,
  and in some respects their legislator in peace and their leader in war. He
  made war according to his own discretion, frequently against his
  neighbours, and sometimes against his sovereign. The security of a landed
  estate, therefore, the protection which its owner could afford to those
  who dwelt on it, depended upon its greatness. To divide it was to ruin it,
  and to expose every part of it to be oppressed and swallowed up by the
  incursions of its neighbours. The law of primogeniture, therefore, came to
  take place, not immediately indeed, but in process of time, in the
  succession of landed estates, for the same reason that it has generally
  taken place in that of monarchies, though not always at their first
  institution. That the power, and consequently the security of the
  monarchy, may not be weakened by division, it must descend entire to one
  of the children. To which of them so important a preference shall be
  given, must be determined by some general rule, founded not upon the
  doubtful distinctions of personal merit, but upon some plain and evident
  difference which can admit of no dispute. Among the children of the same
  family there can be no indisputable difference but that of sex, and that
  of age. The male sex is universally preferred to the female; and when all
  other things are equal, the elder everywhere takes place of the younger.
  Hence the origin of the right of primogeniture, and of what is called
  lineal succession.

  Laws frequently continue in force long after the circumstances which first
  gave occasion to them, and which could alone render them reasonable, are
  no more. In the present state of Europe, the proprietor of a single acre
  of land is as perfectly secure in his possession as the proprietor of
  100,000. The right of primogeniture, however, still continues to be
  respected; and as of all institutions it is the fittest to support the
  pride of family distinctions, it is still likely to endure for many
  centuries. In every other respect, nothing can be more contrary to the
  real interest of a numerous family, than a right which, in order to enrich
  one, beggars all the rest of the children.

  Entails are the natural consequences of the law of primogeniture. They
  were introduced to preserve a certain lineal succession, of which the law
  of primogeniture first gave the idea, and to hinder any part of the
  original estate from being carried out of the proposed line, either by
  gift, or device, or alienation; either by the folly, or by the misfortune
  of any of its successive owners. They were altogether unknown to the
  Romans. Neither their substitutions, nor fidei commisses, bear any
  resemblance to entails, though some French lawyers have thought proper to
  dress the modern institution in the language and garb of those ancient
  ones.

  When great landed estates were a sort of principalities, entails might not
  be unreasonable. Like what are called the fundamental laws of some
  monarchies, they might frequently hinder the security of thousands from
  being endangered by the caprice or extravagance of one man. But in the
  present state of Europe, when small as well as great estates derive their
  security from the laws of their country, nothing can be more completely
  absurd. They are founded upon the most absurd of all suppositions, the
  supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal
  right to the earth, and to all that it possesses; but that the property of
  the present generation should be restrained and regulated according to the
  fancy of those who died, perhaps five hundred years ago. Entails, however,
  are still respected, through the greater part of Europe; In those
  countries, particularly, in which noble birth is a necessary qualification
  for the enjoyment either of civil or military honours. Entails are thought
  necessary for maintaining this exclusive privilege of the nobility to the
  great offices and honours of their country; and that order having usurped
  one unjust advantage over the rest of their fellow-citizens, lest their
  poverty should render it ridiculous, it is thought reasonable that they
  should have another. The common law of England, indeed, is said to abhor
  perpetuities, and they are accordingly more restricted there than in any
  other European monarchy; though even England is not altogether without
  them. In Scotland, more than one fifth, perhaps more than one third part
  of the whole lands in the country, are at present supposed to be under
  strict entail.

  Great tracts of uncultivated land were in this manner not only engrossed
  by particular families, but the possibility of their being divided again
  was as much as possible precluded for ever. It seldom happens, however,
  that a great proprietor is a great improver. In the disorderly times which
  gave birth to those barbarous institutions, the great proprietor was
  sufficiently employed in defending his own territories, or in extending
  his jurisdiction and authority over those of his neighbours. He had no
  leisure to attend to the cultivation and improvement of land. When the
  establishment of law and order afforded him this leisure, he often wanted
  the inclination, and almost always the requisite abilities. If the expense
  of his house and person either equalled or exceeded his revenue, as it did
  very frequently, he had no stock to employ in this manner. If he was an
  economist, he generally found it more profitable to employ his annual
  savings in new purchases than in the improvement of his old estate. To
  improve land with profit, like all other commercial projects, requires an
  exact attention to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a
  great fortune, even though naturally frugal, is very seldom capable. The
  situation of such a person naturally disposes him to attend rather to
  ornament, which pleases his fancy, than to profit, for which he has so
  little occasion. The elegance of his dress, of his equipage, of his house
  and household furniture, are objects which, from his infancy, he has been
  accustomed to have some anxiety about. The turn of mind which this habit
  naturally forms, follows him when he comes to think of the improvement of
  land. He embellishes, perhaps, four or five hundred acres in the
  neighbourhood of his house, at ten times the expense which the land is
  worth after all his improvements; and finds, that if he was to improve his
  whole estate in the same manner, and he has little taste for any other, he
  would be a bankrupt before he had finished the tenth part of it. There
  still remain, in both parts of the united kingdom, some great estates
  which have continued, without interruption, in the hands of the same
  family since the times of feudal anarchy. Compare the present condition of
  those estates with the possessions of the small proprietors in their
  neighbourhood, and you will require no other argument to convince you how
  unfavourable such extensive property is to improvement.

  If little improvement was to be expected from such great proprietors,
  still less was to be hoped for from those who occupied the land under
  them. In the ancient state of Europe, the occupiers of land were all
  tenants at will. They were all, or almost all, slaves, but their slavery
  was of a milder kind than that known among the ancient Greeks and Romans,
  or even in our West Indian colonies. They were supposed to belong more
  directly to the land than to their master. They could, therefore, be sold
  with it, but not separately. They could marry, provided it was with the
  consent of their master; and he could not afterwards dissolve the marriage
  by selling the man and wife to different persons. If he maimed or murdered
  any of them, he was liable to some penalty, though generally but to a
  small one. They were not, however, capable of acquiring property. Whatever
  they acquired was acquired to their master, and he could take it from them
  at pleasure. Whatever cultivation and improvement could be carried on by
  means of such slaves, was properly carried on by their master. It was at
  his expense. The seed, the cattle, and the instruments of husbandry, were
  all his. It was for his benefit. Such slaves could acquire nothing but
  their daily maintenance. It was properly the proprietor himself,
  therefore, that in this case occupied his own lands, and cultivated them
  by his own bondmen. This species of slavery still subsists in Russia,
  Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Moravia, and other parts of Germany. It is only
  in the western and south-western provinces of Europe that it has gradually
  been abolished altogether.

  But if great improvements are seldom to be expected from great
  proprietors, they are least of all to be expected when they employ slaves
  for their workmen. The experience of all ages and nations, I believe,
  demonstrates that the work done by slaves, though it appears to cost only
  their maintenance, is in the end the dearest of any. A person who can
  acquire no property can have no other interest but to eat as much and to
  labour as little as possible. Whatever work he does beyond what is
  sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by
  violence only, and not by any interest of his own. In ancient Italy, how
  much the cultivation of corn degenerated, how unprofitable it became to
  the master, when it fell under the management of slaves, is remarked both
  by Pliny and Columella. In the time of Aristotle, it had not been much
  better in ancient Greece. Speaking of the ideal republic described in the
  laws of Plato, to maintain 5000 idle men (the number of warriors supposed
  necessary for its defence), together with their women and servants, would
  require, he says, a territory of boundless extent and fertility, like the
  plains of Babylon.

  The pride of man makes him love to domineer, and nothing mortifies him so
  much as to be obliged to condescend to persuade his inferiors. Wherever
  the law allows it, and the nature of the work can afford it, therefore, he
  will generally prefer the service of slaves to that of freemen. The
  planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expense of slave cultivation.
  The raising of corn, it seems, in the present times, cannot. In the
  English colonies, of which the principal produce is corn, the far greater
  part of the work is done by freemen. The late resolution of the Quakers in
  Pennsylvania, to set at liberty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us
  that their number cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable
  part of their property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to.
  In our sugar colonies., on the contrary, the whole work is done by slaves,
  and in our tobacco colonies a very great part of it. The profits of a
  sugar plantation in any of our West Indian colonies, are generally much
  greater than those of any other cultivation that is known either in Europe
  or America; and the profits of a tobacco plantation, though inferior to
  those of sugar, are superior to those of corn, as has already been
  observed. Both can afford the expense of slave cultivation but sugar can
  afford it still better than tobacco. The number of negroes, accordingly,
  is much greater, in proportion to that of whites, in our sugar than in our
  tobacco colonies.

  To the slave cultivators of ancient times gradually succeeded a species of
  farmers, known at present in France by the name of metayers. They are
  called in Latin Coloni Partiarii. They have been so long in disuse in
  England, that at present I know no English name for them. The proprietor
  furnished them with the seed, cattle, and instruments of husbandry, the
  whole stock, in short, necessary for cultivating the farm. The produce was
  divided equally between the proprietor and the farmer, after setting aside
  what was judged necessary for keeping up the stock, which was restored to
  the proprietor, when the farmer either quitted or was turned out of the
  farm.

  Land occupied by such tenants is properly cultivated at the expense of the
  proprietors, as much as that occupied by slaves. There is, however, one
  very essential difference between them. Such tenants, being freemen, are
  capable of acquiring property; and having a certain proportion of the
  produce of the land, they have a plain interest that the whole produce
  should be as great as possible, in order that their own proportion may be
  so. A slave, on the contrary, who can acquire nothing but his maintenance,
  consults his own ease, by making the land produce as little as possible
  over and above that maintenance. It is probable that it was partly upon
  account of this advantage, and partly upon account of the encroachments
  which the sovereigns, always jealous of the great lords, gradually
  encouraged their villains to make upon their authority, and which seem, at
  least, to have been such as rendered this species of servitude altogether
  inconvenient, that tenure in villanage gradually wore out through the
  greater part of Europe. The time and manner, however, in which so
  important a revolution was brought about, is one of the most obscure
  points in modern history. The church of Rome claims great merit in it; and
  it is certain, that so early as the twelfth century, Alexander III.
  published a bull for the general emancipation of slaves. It seems,
  however, to have been rather a pious exhortation, than a law to which
  exact obedience was required from the faithful. Slavery continued to take
  place almost universally for several centuries afterwards, till it was
  gradually abolished by the joint operation of the two interests above
  mentioned; that of the proprietor on the one hand, and that of the
  sovereign on the other. A villain, enfranchised, and at the same time
  allowed to continue in possession of the land, having no stock of his own,
  could cultivate it only by means of what the landlord advanced to him, and
  must therefore have been what the French call a metayer.

  It could never, however, be the interest even of this last species of
  cultivators, to lay out, in the further improvement of the land, any part
  of the little stock which they might save from their own share of the
  produce; because the landlord, who laid out nothing, was to get one half
  of whatever it produced. The tithe, which is but a tenth of the produce,
  is found to be a very great hindrance to improvement. A tax, therefore,
  which amounted to one half, must have been an effectual bar to it. It
  might be the interest of a metayer to make the land produce as much as
  could be brought out of it by means of the stock furnished by the
  proprietor; but it could never be his interest to mix any part of his own
  with it. In France, where five parts out of six of the whole kingdom are
  said to be still occupied by this species of cultivators, the proprietors
  complain, that their metayers take every opportunity of employing their
  master’s cattle rather in carriage than in cultivation; because, in the
  one case, they get the whole profits to themselves, in the other they
  share them with their landlord. This species of tenants still subsists in
  some parts of Scotland. They are called steel-bow tenants. Those ancient
  English tenants, who are said by Chief-Baron Gilbert and Dr Blackstone to
  have been rather bailiffs of the landlord than farmers, properly so
  called, were probably of the same kind.

  To this species of tenantry succeeded, though by very slow degrees,
  farmers, properly so called, who cultivated the land with their own stock,
  paying a rent certain to the landlord. When such farmers have a lease for
  a term of years, they may sometimes find it for their interest to lay out
  part of their capital in the further improvement of the farm; because they
  may sometimes expect to recover it, with a large profit, before the
  expiration of the lease. The possession, even of such farmers, however,
  was long extremely precarious, and still is so in many parts of Europe.
  They could, before the expiration of their term, be legally ousted of
  their leases by a new purchaser; in England, even, by the fictitious
  action of a common recovery. If they were turned out illegally by the
  violence of their master, the action by which they obtained redress was
  extremely imperfect. It did not always reinstate them in the possession of
  the land, but gave them damages, which never amounted to a real loss. Even
  in England, the country, perhaps of Europe, where the yeomanry has always
  been most respected, it was not till about the 14th of Henry VII. that the
  action of ejectment was invented, by which the tenant recovers, not
  damages only, but possession, and in which his claim is not necessarily
  concluded by the uncertain decision of a single assize. This action has
  been found so effectual a remedy, that, in the modern practice, when the
  landlord has occasion to sue for the possession of the land, he seldom
  makes use of the actions which properly belong to him as a landlord, the
  writ of right or the writ of entry, but sues in the name of his tenant, by
  the writ of ejectment. In England, therefore the security of the tenant is
  equal to that of the proprietor. In England, besides, a lease for life of
  forty shillings a-year value is a freehold, and entitles the lessee to a
  vote for a member of parliament; and as a great part of the yeomanry have
  freeholds of this kind, the whole order becomes respectable to their
  landlords, on account of the political consideration which this gives
  them. There is, I believe, nowhere in Europe, except in England, any
  instance of the tenant building upon the land of which he had no lease,
  and trusting that the honour of his landlord would take no advantage of so
  important an improvement. Those laws and customs, so favourable to the
  yeomanry, have perhaps contributed more to the present grandeur of
  England, than all their boasted regulations of commerce taken together.

  The law which secures the longest leases against successors of every kind,
  is, so far as I know, peculiar to Great Britain. It was introduced into
  Scotland so early as 1449, by a law of James II. Its beneficial influence,
  however, has been much obstructed by entails; the heirs of entail being
  generally restrained from letting leases for any long term of years,
  frequently for more than one year. A late act of parliament has, in this
  respect, somewhat slackened their fetters, though they are still by much
  too strait. In Scotland, besides, as no leasehold gives a vote for a
  member of parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account less respectable
  to their landlords than in England.

  In other parts of Europe, after it was found convenient to secure tenants
  both against heirs and purchasers, the term of their security was still
  limited to a very short period; in France, for example, to nine years from
  the commencement of the lease. It has in that country, indeed, been lately
  extended to twentyseven, a period still too short to encourage the tenant
  to make the most important improvements. The proprietors of land were
  anciently the legislators of every part of Europe. The laws relating to
  land, therefore, were all calculated for what they supposed the interest
  of the proprietor. It was for his interest, they had imagined, that no
  lease granted by any of his predecessors should hinder him from enjoying,
  during a long term of years, the full value of his land. Avarice and
  injustice are always short-sighted, and they did not foresee how much this
  regulation must obstruct improvement, and thereby hurt, in the long-run,
  the real interest of the landlord.

  The farmers, too, besides paying the rent, were anciently, it was
  supposed, bound to perform a great number of services to the landlord,
  which were seldom either specified in the lease, or regulated by any
  precise rule, but by the use and wont of the manor or barony. These
  services, therefore, being almost entirely arbitrary, subjected the tenant
  to many vexations. In Scotland the abolition of all services not precisely
  stipulated in the lease, has, in the course of a few years, very much
  altered for the better the condition of the yeomanry of that country.

  The public services to which the yeomanry were bound, were not less
  arbitrary than the private ones. To make and maintain the high roads, a
  servitude which still subsists, I believe, everywhere, though with
  different degrees of oppression in different countries, was not the only
  one. When the king’s troops, when his household, or his officers of any
  kind, passed through any part of the country, the yeomanry were bound to
  provide them with horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price regulated
  by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I believe, the only monarchy in Europe
  where the oppression of purveyance has been entirely abolished. It still
  subsists in France and Germany.

  The public taxes, to which they were subject, were as irregular and
  oppressive as the services. The ancient lords, though extremely unwilling
  to grant, themselves, any pecuniary aid to their sovereign, easily allowed
  him to tallage, as they called it, their tenants, and had not knowledge
  enough to foresee how much this must, in the end, affect their own
  revenue. The taille, as it still subsists in France may serve as an
  example of those ancient tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed profits
  of the farmer, which they estimate by the stock that he has upon the farm.
  It is his interest, therefore, to appear to have as little as possible,
  and consequently to employ as little as possible in its cultivation, and
  none in its improvement. Should any stock happen to accumulate in the
  hands of a French farmer, the taille is almost equal to a prohibition of
  its ever being employed upon the land. This tax, besides, is supposed to
  dishonour whoever is subject to it, and to degrade him below, not only the
  rank of a gentleman, but that of a burgher; and whoever rents the lands of
  another becomes subject to it. No gentleman, nor even any burgher, who has
  stock, will submit to this degradation. This tax, therefore, not only
  hinders the stock which accumulates upon the land from being employed in
  its improvement, but drives away all other stock from it. The ancient
  tenths and fifteenths, so usual in England in former times, seem, so far
  as they affected the land, to have been taxes of the same nature with the
  taille.

  Under all these discouragements, little improvement could be expected from
  the occupiers of land. That order of people, with all the liberty and
  security which law can give, must always improve under great disadvantage.
  The farmer, compared with the proprietor, is as a merchant who trades with
  burrowed money, compared with one who trades with his own. The stock of
  both may improve; but that of the one, with only equal good conduct, must
  always improve more slowly than that of the other, on account of the large
  share of the profits which is consumed by the interest of the loan. The
  lands cultivated by the farmer must, in the same manner, with only equal
  good conduct, be improved more slowly than those cultivated by the
  proprietor, on account of the large share of the produce which is consumed
  in the rent, and which, had the farmer been proprietor, he might have
  employed in the further improvement of the land. The station of a farmer,
  besides, is, from the nature of things, inferior to that of a proprietor.
  Through the greater part of Europe, the yeomanry are regarded as an
  inferior rank of people, even to the better sort of tradesmen and
  mechanics, and in all parts of Europe to the great merchants and master
  manufacturers. It can seldom happen, therefore, that a man of any
  considerable stock should quit the superior, in order to place himself in
  an inferior station. Even in the present state of Europe, therefore,
  little stock is likely to go from any other profession to the improvement
  of land in the way of farming. More does, perhaps, in Great Britain than
  in any other country, though even there the great stocks which are in some
  places employed in farming, have generally been acquired by fanning, the
  trade, perhaps, in which, of all others, stock is commonly acquired most
  slowly. After small proprietors, however, rich and great farmers are in
  every country the principal improvers. There are more such, perhaps, in
  England than in any other European monarchy. In the republican governments
  of Holland, and of Berne in Switzerland, the farmers are said to be not
  inferior to those of England.

  The ancient policy of Europe was, over and above all this, unfavourable to
  the improvement and cultivation of land, whether carried on by the
  proprietor or by the farmer; first, by the general prohibition of the
  exportation of corn, without a special licence, which seems to have been a
  very universal regulation; and, secondly, by the restraints which were
  laid upon the inland commerce, not only of corn, but of almost every other
  part of the produce of the farm, by the absurd laws against engrossers,
  regraters, and forestallers, and by the privileges of fairs and markets.
  It has already been observed in what manner the prohibition of the
  exportation of corn, together with some encouragement given to the
  importation of foreign corn, obstructed the cultivation of ancient Italy,
  naturally the most fertile country in Europe, and at that time the seat of
  the greatest empire in the world. To what degree such restraints upon the
  inland commerce of this commodity, joined to the general prohibition of
  exportation, must have discouraged the cultivation of countries less
  fertile, and less favourably circumstanced, it is not, perhaps, very easy
  to imagine.