The Discouragement of Agriculture after the Fall of the Roman Empire

Engrossing of Land through the Law of Primogeniture and Entails

¹ The confusions which followed the defeat of the Western Roman empire defeat to the Germans and Scythians lasted for many centuries.

The violence interrupted the commerce between the towns and the countryside.

• The towns were deserted and the countryside was left uncultivated.

Western Europe, which enjoyed opulence under the Roman empire, sunk into the lowest state of poverty and barbarism.

• Its chiefs acquired or usurped most of the lands to themselves.

² This original great engrossing of uncultivated lands might have been just a transitory evil.

They could have been divided and broken into small parcels by:

• succession [inheritance], or
• alienation [transfer]

But the law of primogeniture* hindered them from being divided by succession.

• [ The eldest son gets the inheritance. ]

Entails** prevented them from being broken up by alienation.

** [ The inheritance stays within the family. ]

The Law Of Primogeniture

³ When land, like movables, is the only means subsistence and enjoyment, the natural law of succession divides it among all the children.

All of the children’s enjoyments are supposed equally dear to the father.

This natural law of succession took place among the Romans.

They made no distinction between elder and younger and between male and female in the inheritance of lands, just as we currently do not make distinction in the distribution of movables.

But when land was considered as a means for subsistence, power and protection, it was thought better that it should descend undivided to one.

In those disorderly times, every great landlord was a petty prince.

• His tenants were his subjects.
• He was their judge and legislator in peace and their leader in war.

The security of a landed estate depended on its size.

To divide it was to ruin and allow it to be swallowed up by its neighbours.

The law of primogeniture came to take place in the succession of landed estates.

• In the same way, the succession of monarchies came about gradually.

This succession did not always happen at their first institution.

The power and security of the monarchy must descend entirely to one of the children so that it would not be weakened by division.

Some general rule must determine which child will be preferred.

This rule is not based on doubtful personal merit, but on some plain and indisputable difference.

• The only indisputable difference is sex and age.

The male is universally preferred to the female.

The elder everywhere takes place of the younger.

Hence the origin of the right of primogeniture and lineal succession.

⁴ Laws frequently continue enforced long after the reasonable circumstances which created them have passed.

Presently in Europe, a proprietor of a single acre is as secure of his possession as a proprietor of 100,000 acres.

The right of primogeniture still continues to be respected.

Of all institutions, it is the fittest to support the pride of family distinctions.

• It is still likely to endure for many centuries.

However, it runs most contrary to the real interest of a big family because it grants a right which beggars all the other children to enrich one child.