superficial historians. During the Middle Ages, up to the beginning of the modern period, there was possible in Northern and Central Italy a proud and powerful communal life. The free and autonomous municipal towns beheld the arts, industry, and commerce flourish under the shadow of freedom. Few periods of the history of Europe present more splendid pages than those of the history of the communities of Upper and Central Italy.

In Southern Italy, on the contrary, if some free community, such as that of Amalfi, had by chance an existence, there was no period in which the municipal form of organization had any real success. The centralized monarchy began in Southern Italy much earlier than in the rest of the peninsula; it was, indeed, erected when Roger the Norman overpowered the last resistance. Why, then, was there not in Southern Italy a municipal life? To answer this question it is necessary to have a large acquaintance with the climatic and demographic conditions of the South of Italy.

Of the sixteen provinces of Southern Italy, not one can be said to be free from malaria: in ten provinces there exists, more or less rarely, and more or less diffused, the severest form of malaria; in the others there exists slight and serious malaria. According to calculations which have been made, eight per cent. of the inhabitants of Southern Italy are exposed either to slight, or severe, or very severe malaria.1

Malaria, as our readers will know, arises from an infectious germ, which, to multiply itself, has need of a certain degree of permanent humidity of the soil, and of a temperature of not less than twenty degrees (Cent.), and of the direct action of the oxygen of the air on the soil. These conditions are found in a greater or less degree at some seasons of the year throughout Southern Italy.

A careful study of the problem has led me to believe that man's exertions can do much against malaria, and that if little has hitherto been done, this has arisen from the foolish

This appears from the Carta della Malaria in Italia, published in 1882 by the central office of the Senate of the kingdom.

2 See on malaria, Laveran, Traité des fièvres palustres, p. 458 [Paris, 1884].

regulations which have stood in the way, and not from the natural impossibility of doing anything.1

The intensity of the malaria of Southern Italy is very variable: in some districts it is very fatal, in others, on the contrary, it only causes slight injury. But it exists, we may say, universally, and contributes not a little to determine the political and economical conditions of the South of Italy.

Thus, to avoid the malarious germs, the populations of the country districts, instead of spreading over the lands which they cultivate, and dwelling on them, collect into central localities, placed on high ground, and safe from the malaria. There are whole districts where the scattered population, in spite of the mildness of the Southern climate, is sufficiently small. Generally the peasants, therefore, live in certain centres, and are obliged to go long distances every day to their work.

In the Middle Ages, and even in the present day, the fact of the great distances between the villages has been one of the determining causes of brigandage. And this want of security prevented the growth of a progressive local life, and of the municipalities. And, for the opposite reason, it facilitated the rise and continuance of a centralized monarchy, while all the particularist forces were held in check. These same causes, which have acted so powerfully on the political order, have acted, as we shall see further on, with equal force, on economical conditions. And whilst in those districts where municipal life flourished landed property was and is still much subdivided, and is mainly organized on the system of the métayage; in Southern Italy we find, together with the failure in local life and energy, barbarities of agricultural contracts, based in larger measures upon the system of rent.2

Nitti, art. cit.; Panizza, Risultati dell' inchiesta istituita da Agostino Bertanii sulle condizioni sanitaire dei lavoratori della terra in Italia, pp. 348-351 [Roma, 1890].

2 66

'Specially in Southern Italy," says Salvioli, "the whole spirit of civil and economical legislation was intended to favour large properties; there were, it is true, certain systems and measures of financial and economical policy which might press heavily upon the great properties, these however could bear much, while the small properties were ruined by them" (G. Salvioli, Manuale di storia del diritto Italiano, pp. 380, 381 [Torino, 1890]).

Thus, in Southern Italy, where nature and the climate are so friendly, political and economical tyranny have grown up together, and the latter still continues to exist in a form not less cruel and harsh than in former times.

II.

Before examining the actual condition of agrarian contracts in Southern Italy, it will be wise to make two very important preliminary inquiries: the first, on agricultural contracts in Italy in the Middle Ages; the second, on the mode in which the actually existing forms of property in land have come into existence.

At the close of the period of ancient history, Southern Italy suffered the same fate as the rest of this country: that is, the evils of the concentration of capital, with its resultant system of large properties (latifondi), which ruined the Roman Empire, were even greater in the South than elsewhere. The land tax (capitatio terrena) and the system of slave cultivation had become intolerable, and had driven out of cultivation even the most fertile lands. Many of the great properties had been abandoned; many of the proprietors, to escape from the demands of the tax-gatherer, had destroyed their vines and fields, and were prosecuted by the tax-gatherer for having sought to escape taxation.1 In spite of the fiscal regulations which commanded men to remain on their lands, many even of the most fertile lands were abandoned, and the fiscal power was obliged, quite unwillingly, to exempt them from payment.2

In the time of the barbarian invasions agriculture could not flourish. The general security was too uncertain, and human labour could not therefore spread over and fertilize the sunny fields of the South, which had grown wretched under repeated invasions and their consequent neglect.

Agriculture first began to recover with the settled establishment

Cod. Theod., xiii. ii., i.: Si quis sacrilega vitem falce succidat, quo declinet filem censum, etc.

1 Poggi, Agricoltura dei tempi romani, i. 169; Ducange, Glossarium, i. 419; Tamassia, Il diritto di prelazione, p. 24.

of the feudal system. Mediæval documents have handed down to us accounts of huge agricultural settlements, where crowds of aldi, coloni, adscripticii, oblati, censiti, servi found security for peaceful agricultural labour under baronial protection. Even then it can be seen that small free properties did not develop except in the immediate neighbourhood of inhabited centres. There were there to be found small vineyards and farms (petiola, vineola) for which the cultivation of the proprietor usually sufficed.2 But the system of large properties, which the malaria and the want of public security made necessary, was more developed and consolidated.3

When large properties were thus formed, the large landowners could not cultivate the whole of them on their own account: thus the lord, dominus, besides that part of his land which he cultivated himself directly, the hoba dominicalis, let out another part of it for rent, the mansi serviles.

The forms of agricultural contracts which we find the most frequent during the whole Middle Ages in Southern Italy approach to three fundamental types.

1. Leases for fixed periods.

2. Perpetual leases or emphyteuses (locationes perpetuæ). 3. Improvement leases (concessiones ad meliorandum et partiendum).

The Italian code has now suppressed the emphyteuses, but the other two types have survived, and are the bases of the agricultural contracts of the present day.

4

Allodial property-that is, free property-was, and necessarily in Southern Italy, during the Middle Ages, rare. On the other hand, the lay and ecclesiastical fiefs occupied the greater part of the country.

Now, between the agrarian contracts of the lay and ecclesiastical fiefs there existed a great difference. The ecclesiastical feudatories were only concerned to increase their 1 Abignente, I contratti agrari e le classi agricole [Napoli, 1892].

5

2 Abignente, op. cit.

Salvioli, loc. cit.

"Allodial property gradually disappeared" (Salvioli, op. cit., p. 380).

[There appears to be a confusion here. Signor Nitti has written "ecclesiastical feudatories," but seems to mean "lay."-TRANS.]

revenues. In the contracts ad meliorandum, the labourers received, for a certain number of years, a fixed part of the annual produce; but, when the period of the contract was over, they were compelled to quit without having any right to total or partial compensation for the improvements they might have made. In the leases for fixed periods, the period of contract did not as a rule exceed three or four years: thus the poor tenant's life was uncertain and difficult. Even the emphyteuses, which, it would appear at first sight, ought to have transformed the conditions of the labourers, and to have created a class of small proprietors, were, as a matter of fact, very burdensome; since a large part of the product went to the grantor, and the grantee was evicted whenever either poor harvests or misfortune placed him in the position of being unable to pay the annual rent, without his having any right to compensation for the improvements he might have introduced.1 All the conditions, therefore, were difficult and burdensome to the labourer, and the land which he fertilized continually passed out of his possession. He never could feel any assurance that the land which he cultivated would not be taken from him; nor could he be sure that for the improvements he might with great trouble have introduced he would receive any compensation. In this state of uncertainty therefore, and poverty, the labourer depended always on the will and often on the greed and violence of his lord, who granted him the land, on a fixed lease, emphyteusis, or as an improvement lease.

This state of things continued not only throughout the Middle Ages, but throughout the eighteenth century:

"In almost all the feudal districts," says a Neopolitan writer, "as the writers of last century relate, and as many among us still recollect, there were only miserable huts, covered externally with wood or straw, and exposed to all the severity of the seasons; internally they were dark, fetid, miserable and squalid, a bed of bad straw accommodated the family, and the domestic animals occupied the same

1 Pertile, Storia del diritto Italiano, iv. 203; Abignente, loc. cit.; Schupfer, Allodio, pp. 118,119; Del Giudice, Le tracce del diritto romano sulle leggi longobarde, pp. 16, 17; etc.