Montesquieu: Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Nature of the Soil

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* NOW - Buy this resource online! Click here * Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Nature of the Soil1. How the Nature of the Soil has an Influence on the Laws.2. The same Subject continued.3. What Countries are best cultivated.4. New Effects of the Fertility and Barrenness of Countries.5. Of the Inhabitants of Islands.6. Of Countries raised by the Industry of Man.7. Of human Industry.8. The general Relation of Laws.9. Of the Soil of America.10. Of Population in the Relation it bears to the Manner of procuring Subsistence.11. Of savage and barbarous Nations.12. Of the Law of Nations among People who do not cultivate the Earth.13. Of the Civil Laws of those Nations who do not cultivate the Earth.14. Of the political State of the People who do not cultivate the Land.15. Of People who know the Use of Money.16. Of Civil Laws among People who know not the Use of Money.17. Of political Laws among Nations who have not the Use of Money.18. Of the Power of Superstition.19. Of the Liberty of the Arabs and the Servitude of the Tartars.20. Of the Law of Nations as practised by the Tartars.21. The Civil Law of the Tartars.22. Of a Civil Law of the German Nations.2.3.4.5.6.23. Of the regal Ornaments among the Franks.24. Of the Marriages of the Kings of the Franks.25. Childeric.26. Of the Time when the Kings of the Franks became of age.27. The same Subject continued.28. Of Adoption among the Germans.29. Of the sanguinary Temper of the Kings of the Franks.30. Of the national Assemblies of the Franks.31. Of the Authority of the Clergy under the first Race. FOOTNOTES
   1. Book vii. 7.
   2. Solon.
   3. Or he who wrote the book De Mirabilibus.
   4. Japan is an exception to this, by its great extent as well as by its slavery.
   5. Polybius, x. 25.
   6. It is thus that Diodorus, v. 35, tells us the shepherds found gold in the Pyrenean mountains.
   7. Edifying Letters, coll. xx.
   8. When a khan is proclaimed, all the people cry that his word shall be as a sword.
   9. Book xvii. 5.
   10. We ought not therefore to be astonished at Mahomet, the son of Miriveis, who, upon taking Ispahan, put all the princes of the blood to the sword.
   11. Tit. 62.
   12. Nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari satis notum est, ne pati quidem inter se junctas sedes; colunt discreti, ut nemus placuit. Vicos locant, non in nostrum morem connexis et coharentibus �difidis: suam quisque domum spatio circumdat. -- De Moribus Germanorum, 16.
   13. The Law of the Alemans, 10, and the Law of the Bavarians, tit. 10, �� 1, 2.
   14. This inclosure is called curtis in the charters.
   15. See Marculfus, ii, form. 10, 12. Appendix to Marculfus, form. 49, and the ancient formularies of Sirmondus, form. 22.
   16. Form. 55, in Lindembroch's collection.
   17. De terra vero Salica in mulierem nulla portio hereditatis transit, sed hoc virilis sexus acquirit, hoc est filii in ipsa hereditate succedunt. -- Tit. 68, � 6.
   18. Sororum filiis idem apud avunculum quam apud patrem honor. Quidam sanctiorem arcti-oremque hunc nexum sanguinis arbitrantur, et in accipiendis obsidibus magis exigunt, tanquam ii et animum firmius et domum latius teneant -- De Moribus Germanorum, 20.
   19. See, in Gregory of Tours, viii. 18, 20 and ix, 16, 20, the rage of Gontram at Leovigild's ill-treatment of Ingunda, his niece, which Childebert her brother took up arms to revenge.
   20. Salic Law, tit. 47.
   21. Ibid., tit. 61, � 1.
   22. Et deinceps usque ad quintum genuculum qui proximus fuerit in hereditatem succedat. - Tit. 56, � 6.
   23. Tit. 56.
   24. Tit. 7, � 1: Pater aut mater defuncti, filio non fili� hereditatem relinquant; � 4, qui defunctus, non filios, sed filias reliquerit, ad eas omnis hereditas pertineat.
   25. In Marculfus, ii, form. 12, and in the Appendix to Marculfus, form. 49.
   26. Lindembroch's collection, form. 55.
   27. Du Cange, Pithou, &c.
   28. Tit. 62.
   29. Tit. 1, � 3; tit. 16, � 1; tit. 51.
   30. Book iv, tit. 2, � 1.
   31. The German nations, says Tacitus, De Moribus Germanorum, 22, had common customs, as well as those which were peculiar to each.
   32. Among the Ostrogoths, the crown twice devolved to the males by means of females; the first time to Athalaricus, through Amalasuntha, and the second to Theodat, through Amalafreda. Not but that the females of that nation might have held the crown in their own right; for Amalasuntha reigned after the death of Athalaricus; nay, even after the election of Theodat, and in conjunction with that prince. See Amalasuntha's and Theodat's letters, in Cassiodorus, x.
   33. Prope soli Barbarorum singulis uxoribus contenti stint. -- De Moribus Germanorum, 18.
   34. Exceptis admodum paucis qui non libidine, sed ob nobilitatem, plurimis nuptiis ambiuntur. -- Ibid.
   35. See Fredegarius, Chronicle of the year 628.
   36. Severa matrimonia . . . nemo illic vitia ridet, nec corrumpere et corrumpi s�culum vocatur. -- De Moribus Germanorum, 19.
   37. Paucissima in tam numerosa gente adulteria. -- Ibid.
   38. Nihil neque public� neque privat� rei nisi armati agunt. -- Ibid., 13.
   39. Si displicuit sententia, fremitu aspernantur; sin placuit, frameas concutiunt. -- Ibid., 11.
   40. Sed arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quam civitas suffecturum probaverit. -- Ibid., 13.
   41. Tum in ipso concilia vel principum aliquis, vel pater, vel propinquus, scuto, frameaque juvenem ornant.
   42. H�c apud illos toga, hic primus juvent� honos; ante hoc domni pars videntur, mox reipublic�.
   43. Theodoric in Cassiodorus, i. 38.
   44. He was scarcely five years old, says Gregory of Tours, v. 1, when he succeeded to his father, in the year 575. Gontram declared him of age in the year 585; he was, therefore, at that time no more than fifteen.
   45. Tit. 81.
   46. Tit. 87.
   47. There was no change in the time with regard to the common people.
   48. St. Louis was not of age till twenty-one; this was altered by an edict of Charles V in the year 1374.
   49. It appears from Gregory of Tours, iii, that she chose two natives of Burgundy, which had been conquered by Clodomir, to raise them to the see of Tours, which also belonged to Clodomir.
   50. Ibid., v. 1: Vix lustro �tatis uno jam peracto qui die Dominic� Natalis regnare coepit.
   51. See Ibid., vii. 23.
   52. In Cassiodorus, iv. 2.
   53. Gregory of Tours, ii.
   54. Ibid.
   55. Nec Regibus libera aut infinita potestas. C�terum neque animadvertere, neque vincire, neque verberare, &c. -- De Moribus Germanorum, 7.
   56. In pace nullus est communis magistratus, sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt. -- De Bello Gall., vi. 22.
   57. Book ii.
   58. De minoribus principes consultant, de majoribus omnes; ita tamen ut ea quorum penes plebem arbitrium est, apud principes pertractentur. -- De Moribus Germanorum, 11.
   59. Lex consensu Populi fit et constitutione Regis. -- Capitularies of Charles the Bald, year 864, art. 6.
   60. Licet apud Concilium accusare et discrimen capitis intendere. -- De Moribus Germanorum, 12.
   61. Silentium per sacerdotes, quibus et coercendi jus est, imperatur. -- Ibid., 11.
   62. Nec Regibus libera aut infinita potestas. C�terum neque animadvertere, neque vincire, neque verberare, nisi sacerdotibus est permissum, non quasi in poenam, nec Ducis jussu, sed velut Deo imperante, quem adesse, bellatoribus credunt. -- Ibid., 7.
   63. See the Constitutions of Clotarius, year 560, art. 6.