THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 170

The Historical Innovation of Permanent Succession

11-9. The Historical Innovation of Permanent Succession

The first settlement of the Vandals in Africa was on the basis of a treaty with the Roman Empire, when the people were settled among the Roman landowners and as an equivalent became liable to land tax and military service. The land settlement which took place after the recognition of the Vandal sovereignty was carried out as by right, of conquest; the largest and most valuable estates of the country landowners in the province of Zeugitana were taken possession of and given to individual Vandal households. Further particulars of the details are wanting, yet it is certain that the Roman organisation arranged on the basis of landed property grants was not disturbed. The property only changed hands, otherwise the conditions were the same as they had been under Roman government. Of the villa, the manor-house on the Roman estate, a Vandal with his family now took possession, and the coloni had to pay the necessary dues to the landed proprietor or his representative and render the usual compulsory service.

The profits of the single estates were in any case on an average not insignificant, for they made the development of a luxurious mode of life possible even after an increase in the number of the population. The management of the estate was, as formerly, directed only in a minority of cases by the new masters themselves, for they lacked the necessary knowledge, and service in the Court and in the army compelled them to be absent frequently from their property. More often the management was entrusted to stewards or farmers (conductores) who were survivals from the earlier state of things. Nevertheless the position of the dependents of the manor, wherever they were directly under the Vandal rule, must have been materially improved in comparison with what it had been formerly, for we know from various authorities that the country people were in no way content with the reintroduction of the old system of oppression by the Byzantines after the fall of the Vandal kingdom.

The Vandals like the other German races were divided into three classes — slaves, freemen, and nobles. The nobleman as he now appears is a noble by service who derives his privileged position from serving the king, not as earlier from birth. The freemen comprised the bulk of the people, nevertheless they had, in comparison with earlier times, lost considerably in political importance while the rights of the popular assembly had devolved in the strengthened monarchy. The slaves were entirely without rights, they were reckoned not as persons but as alienable chattels. The position of the coloni who were taken over from the Roman settlement was wholly foreign to the Vandals; they remained tied to the soil but were personally free peasants who kept their former constitutional status.

At the head of the State was the King, whose power had gradually become unlimited and differed but little from that of the Byzantine Roman Emperor. His full official title was Rex Vandalonim et Alanorum. His mark of distinction and that of his kindred was, as with the Merwings, long hair falling to the shoulders. While the earlier rulers dressed in the customary Vandal costume, Gelimer wore the purple mantle, like the Emperor.

The succession to the throne was legally settled by Gaiseric's so-called testament. Gaiseric, who himself had obtained the throne through the choice of the people, ignoring probably the sons of his predecessor Gunderic, who were still minors, considered himself after he had fully grasped monarchical power as the new founder of the Vandal kingship, as the originator of a dynasty. The sovereignty was looked upon as an inheritance for his family over which no right of disposal belonged to the people. As however the existence of several heirs threatened the by-no-means-solidly-established kingdom with the risk of subdivision into several portions, Gaiseric established the principle of individual succession; moreover he provided that the crown should pass to the eldest of his male issue at the time being. By this last provision the government of a minor, unable to bear arms, was made, humanly speaking, impossible.

The Vandal kingdom was the first and for a long time the only State in which the idea of a permanent rule of succession came to be realised — and rightly is Gaiseric's family statute reckoned in history among the most remarkable facts relating to public law. It remained valid until the end of the kingdom. Gaiseric himself was succeeded by his eldest son Huneric who was succeeded in turns by two of his nephews Gunthamund and Thrasamund, and only after the death of the latter came Huneric's son Hilderic. Gelimer obtained the throne, on the other hand, in a direct and irregular way, and his endeavours to represent himself to Justinian as a legitimate ruler did not succeed.

The scope of the royal power comprised the national army, the convening of the assembly, justice, legislation and executive, the appointments to the praefecture, the supreme control of finance, of police, and of the Church. Of any co-operation in the government by the people — by the Vandals (not of course by the Romans) such as obtained in olden times, there is no sign whatever. The development of absolute government seems to have been completed in the year 442; according to the brief but significant statements of our authorities several nobles, who had twice risen against the king because he had overstepped the limits of his authority, were put to death with a good many of the people. The origin of the royal power is traceable to God; the dominant centre of the State is the king and his court.

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