ABSTRACT
The invasions of the Roman Empire, by the barbarians, introduced new manners, and, with them, new systems of cultivation. The conqueror who now became proprietor, being much less allured by the enjoyments of luxury, and being more warlike than those he had defeated, had need of men still more than of wealth. Truly, cultivation by metayage is a first advance in the condition of the husbandman, but it alone cannot assure other subsequent advances; the condition of the peasant is happy enough, but it is always the same; the son is exactly in the same station his father occupied; he does not dream of becoming richer, he does not try to change his status at all. The system of cultivation by metayers, or cultivation at half produce,5 is perhaps one of the best inventions of the middle ages.
