30.8. 8. The same Subject continued.
What has induced some to think that
the Roman lands were entirely usurped by the Barbarians is their finding
in the laws of the Visigoths and the Burgundians that these two nations
had two-thirds of the lands; but this they took only in certain quarters
or districts assigned them.
Gundebald says, in the law of the Burgundians, that his people at
their establishment had two-thirds of the lands allowed them;
[16]
and
the second supplement to this law notices that only a moiety would be
allowed to those who should hereafter come to live in that country.
[17]
Therefore, all the lands had not been divided in the beginning between
the Romans and the Burgundians.
In those two regulations we meet with the same expressions in the
text, consequently they explain one another; and as the latter cannot
mean a universal division of lands, neither can this signification be
given to the former.
The Franks acted with the same moderation as the Burgundians; they
did not strip the Romans wherever they extended their conquests. What
would they have done with so much land? They took what suited them, and
left the remainder.
Footnotes
[16]
"Law of the Burgundians," tit. 54, section 1.
