ROMAN ORIGIN.
Personal Status.—Under Roman institutions as they existed in Gaul during the 3d and 4th centuries of the Christian era, modern notions of liberty and equality in personal status were unknown. Slavery everywhere was rampant and even free men were not all treated on the same footing. A sort of nobility was conferred upon those who exercised a public function; in certain cases this nobility was hereditary, while in others it was merely personal. This aristoc racy, with a strict hierarchy, very much re sembled what we know to-day as the "tchin* in modern Russia. It possessed certain privi leges, especially in regard to criminal law, but special taxes were levied on its, members apart from the usual dues. On a different footing to these Thonestiores° were the large body of uhumiliores" comprising artisans, tradespeople, workmen and peasants. Many professions, by their very utility, were obligatory hereditary and subject to stringent regulations. The peasant formed part and parcel, as it were, of the soil, and he and his issue being inseparable from the land they cultivated, their condition was really more that of a serf than a free man.
Roman law governing prop erty, as applied to Gaul, maintained a strictly individual character. The landowner held ab solute sway over his property exactly like the landowner of our day. The principle under which the Roman state exercised a right of wdominium eminens" over conquered territories had become purely theoretical. The landowner, however, was not the most envious of mortals. Excessive taxation often led him to depreciate the value of his property (cutting down vines and fruit trees for instance) in order to lighten his fiscal obligations. At times even he aban
doned his land to escape the punishment of tor ture which was a means the authorities resorted to in dealing with refractory taxpayers. More over, it not unfrequently happened that the large and powerful landowners took possession of the small-holders' property without being in any way molested by the law—as harsh on the poor as it was lenient on the rich—or they would compel the small owners to sell their land. The owners thus deprived of their prop erty were obliged to eke out a precarious liveli hood as a farmer in the employ of their self appointed lord and master if they wished to re tain use of that land over which they once had absolute control.
judicial organ ization made one with the administrative or ganization. The .governors of provinces or counties were judges of common law and the municipal magistrates exercised a right of juris diction over the city and its suburbs in so far as litigation on a small scale was concerned.
In view of difficulties of communication and the large area covered by the provinces, and also by virtue of an old tradition, the prefects organized circuits for the dispensation of jus tice. They were competent to judge appeals against decisions made by municipal magis trates, their own rulings could be appealed against before the Pretorian prefect whose de cision was final if heard in the diocese where the latter exercised the functions of uvicarius," or before the and from his decision to the emperor if in other dioceses.