224 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
where they left " vast remains of their camps and their inclosures." As to the Teutons and the Suevi, Marius and Caesar were obliged to drive them out of Gaul, whither they had penetrated. Belgic Gaul included also populations considered Germanic.
Among the ancient Germans the tribe was still the funda- mental force of society. Each of them dwelt within limits which were not physical, but fixed by agreement either previous to or after conflict. The German mark was a territory held in posses- sion by a colony formed in primitive times of a family, or a larger or smaller related group. German colonization was effected through the creation of successive marches, which, even when German expansion had been carried very far, long preserved the character which we have already met with in the case of all marches whatsoever. In the mark each free member of the com- munity had a right to the enjoyment of the forests, pastures, and arable land; this was only a right of usufruct or of possession. After each harvest, the plot of ground returned to the common holdings, and the German remained the permanent possessor of only the land upon which he dwelt, with its immediate surround- ings. The Germans were also unacquainted with wills, although they permitted inheritance, in so far as the holding was considered the property of each head of a family. Inheritance took place in the following order: first, children; second, brothers; third, paternal and maternal uncles.
When the population of the mark became excessive, emigra- tion and the formation of a new mark occurred. The same phe- nomenon was produced almost simultaneously in all the ancient marks, the emigrants forming enormous bands which searched for lands and wealth in the most distant countries beyond rivers and mountains. All the German marks adhered to this social organization. The Teutonic Mark was formed by a primitive establishment of a group of related persons among whom, as Caesar said of the Suevi, the land was distributed inter gentes et cognationes hominum.
The marks most recently formed, those which were the most distant from the primitive marks and which found themselves at the extremities of the German possessions, upon the frontiers,
