Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/77

WIDE DIFFUSION OF THE GENTILE TIE. 61 families in Friesland and Dithmarsch, tlie phis, or phara, among the Albanians, are examples of a similar practice : l and the ncr: " Si quis hominem occidat, Si eum tune cognatio sua deserat, ct pro eo gildare nolit," etc. In the Salic law, the members of a contubcrnium were invested with the same rights and obligations one towards the other (Rogge, Gerichtswesen der Germanen, ch. iii, p. 62). Compare Wilda, Deutschcs Strafrecht, p. 389, and the valuable special treatise of the same author (Da* Gildenwesen im Mittelalter. Berlin, 1S31), where the origin and progress of the guilds from the primitive times of German heathenism is unfolded. He shows that these associations have their basis in the earliest feelings and hab- its of the Teutonic race, the family was, as it were, a natural guild, the guild, a factitious family. Common religious sacrifices and festivals, mutual defence and help, as well as mutual responsibility, were the recognized bonds among the congildones : they were saroritatcs as well as fraternitates, comprehending both men and women (deren Genosser wie die Glieder ciner Familie eng untcr einander verbunden waren, p. 145). Wilda explains how this primitive social and religious phratry (sometimes this very expression fratria is used, see p. 109) passed into something like the more political tribe, or phyle (see pp. 43, 57, 60, 116, 126, 129, 344). The sworn commune, which spread so much throughout Europe in the beginning of the twelfth century, partakes both of the one and of the other, conjuratio, amicitia jnrata (pp. 148, 169). The members of an Albanian phara are all jointly bound to exact, and each severally exposed to suffer, the vengeance of blood, in the event of homicide committed upon, or by, any one of them (Boue', ut supra). 1 See the valuable chapter of Niebuhr, Rom. Gesch. vol. i, pp. 317, 350, 2d edit. The Alberghi of Genoa in the Middle Ages were enlarged families created by voluntary compact: " De tout temps (observes Sismondi) les families puissantes avaient e'te dans 1'usage, a Genes, d'augmcnter encore leur puis- sance en adoptant d'autrcs families moins riches, moins illustres, ou moins nombrcuses, auxquclles ellcs communiquoient leur nom et leurs armcs, qu'elles prenoient ainsi 1'engagement de prote'ger, et qui en rctour s'asso- cioient a toutes leurs queVelles. Les maisons dans lesquelles on entroit ainsi par adoption, e'toient nominees des alberghi (auberges), et il y avoit peu de maisons illustres qui ne se fussent ainsi recrute'es a 1'aide de quclquc famille etrangere." (Re'publiques Italiennes, t. xv, ch. 120, p. 366.) Eichhorn (Deutsche Staats und Rechts-Geschichte, sect. 18, vol. i, p. 84, 5th edit.) remarks in regard to the ancient Germans, that the German ' : familiic et propinquitates," mentioned by Tacitus (Germ. c. 7), and the "gentibu* CDgnationibusque hominum" of Cresar (B. G. vi. 22), bore more analogy to the Roman gens than to relationship of blood or wedlock. According to the idea of some of the German tribes, even blood-reiationship might be formally renounced and broken off, with all its connected rights and obliga ions, at the pleasure of the individual : he might ^oc^ar*- binrslf ^