The system of Apanages was mainly formed in Germany by the high nobility. An apanage is there defined to be a pro vision for the proper maintenance of the younger members of a reigning house upon the establishment of the law of primogeni ture, and out of the property which is sub jected to this law of descent. In the middle ages, the German princes and nobles con- ' trived to make those powers hereditary and a kind of private property, which were originally only offices granted to them by the emperor ; and it followed as a natural consequence of this change, that they applied the same principles to the lands which were subject to their juris diction. They began to divide these lands according to their pleasure, and they soon became reduced to such small portions as to be insufficient for the main tenance of the dignity of those to whose several shares they fell. In course of time it became the policy of the members of a princely or noble family to prevent such further division, and the consequent weakening of their power. In some cases contracts were made among several rein ing princes, by which their territories were immediately formed into one body, or by which it was provided that, after the death of one reigning prince, the suc cession should be continued undivided in the person of some other.' In other cases, a father, with the consent of his sons, made an arrangement by which the suc cession to the property should be undi vided. By compact also and testamentary provision against the alienation of such property, the quality of Fideicommissum was given to it. But to get rid of all the evils of divided succession, it was neces sary that the administration also of the principality should belong exclusively to one person. It was an old fashion to provide for the daughters by a pension or payment in money, and the custom now increased of providing the younger sons also with such a pension, or with some portion of the family lands, without giv ing them a full independent sovereignty ; and a fixed order of succession was esta blished, by testament or other mode, with the approbation of the emperor. Thus the law of primogeniture was established as the principle which determined the order of succession in the principalities of Germany, and at the same time the younger male members were provided for In the manner stated above. The provi sion for the younger members was called " deputat " and by various other names till the seventeenth century, when the French expression "apanage" was intro duced into use. The word " paragium" also, which in France signified a smaller part of the feud that had been appropri ated to a younger son, was used and applied to those cases where the income of a portion of the territory was made Deputat. The allowance which younger sons and their descendants have thus the right to claim from the ruling prince or possessor of the family Fideicommissum is generally fixed more precisely by family arrangements. A father who possesses an apanage, as a general rule transmits his apanage to his legitimate offspring by an equal marriage (not a marriage of disparagement), and in case there is no such offspring, the apanage reverts to the reigning prince. There
are also cases, though much more rare, in which an individual received an apanage on the condition that it reverted on his death.
The name Apanage is now also given to the allowance assigned to the princes of a reigning house for their proper main tenance out of the public chest. Such apanages are introduced in those cases where a civil list is established, and the property originally intended for the sup port of the members of the reigning family has either been converted wholly or partly into public property, or is ad ministered as public property ; and these apanages are substituted for the claims of the younger members of such families as apaganistes on him who holds the family Fideicommissum. The transference of such claims to the public chest is accord ingly founded on a right of which the persons entitled to it cannot be justly deprived without their consent. This right would be infringed if the claims to an apanage should lose the nature of a legal right, and should be transferred to the civil list in such a form that the pay ment of the allowance should depend on the pleasure of the head of the state for the time. But when there has been no change of fideicommissal property be longing to the reigning family into state property, the mere possession of political power by a particular family gives no right to those members of the reigning family who have no share in the govern ment to claim an independent allowance from the income of the state ; for the old confusion between the relations of a reigning family to the state and the pri vate relations of the same family, by virtue of which confusion the state was considered the patrimonial property of a family, is altogether unknown at the pre sent day. In states where there has been no change of family property into state property, the reigning prince may be pro perly enough left to provide for all the members of his family out of the meats supplied him by the civil list. There may however be political reasons for making certain allowances to the members of the reigning family, independent of the civil list that is granted to the ruling prince. But as in modern times neither the honour of a nation nor the dignity of the members of a reigning family depends in any degree on the amount of the expen diture which such members make out of the public treasury, so there are no rea sons whatever for making them any inde pendent allowance, except reasons of general interest. Accordingly in what are commonly called constitutional mo narchies, where the princes of the royal family are called to any active participa tion in the offices of state, the allowance of a suitable income out of the public treasury may serve to give them a more independent position with respect to the head of the state. Such an allowance may also serve in the case of princes who stand in the line of succession, to give to those who may be the future heads of the state the respect due to their sta tion, and to secure them a suitable and certain income, and thus to draw more closely the ties which unite them and the people. (Rotteck and Welcker, Stoats Lexicon, art. by P. A. Pfizer.) [CIVIL LIST.]