Book III: Chapter 2

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