The expression terre vaine et vague, which becomes more and more popular, contains a tautology. In Normandy terra vacua was originally the expression for terre vaine, for we are distinctly told in the Summa de legibus that in the terra vacua cattle cold pasture only from September until March, that is, on the stubble or rowen. (88) Hence terre vaine refers to the late pastures only, while terre vuide is any abandoned, rough pasture. But in time the latter word loses its distinctive meaning, while vaine pâturage becomes the common expression for "pasture."

In the Codex Theodosianus the term terrae vacantes, vagantes signifies abandoned, uncultivated land, (89) in Italy vacuus and vacans referred to neglected land in private possession, (90) and as in France the terre vuide was opposed to terre pleine, so here was employed the combination vacuum et plenum. (91) In the Theodosian Code we have the expression vacuus et inanis for the complete abandonment of property, which then is confiscated by the curia, (92) and this term is used in hundreds of documents in the Middle Ages. (93) In place of the older vacuus there soon spreads in Italy forms derived from Fr. vuid, vuit, even more completely than did the gain words. Philologists, who construct history on abstract laws, have derived such words from a Lat. vocitus for vacatus. But there is not a shadow of a trace of such a word anywhere. While we do have vocitus for vocatus, a derivation from vacatus is absurd. In Italy we find only the words derived from vacuus and vacans, and also vacivus. (94) The philologists base their assumption of such a derivation on the Logudorian form bogidu in Sardinia, which, they say, is derived from vocitus. But fortunately we here possess early dialectic documents in the Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki, from the fourteenth century, in which some documents run back to the eleventh century. Here vacans occurs several times, but of vocitus and bogidu there is not a trace. (95) Hence vocitus is an impossibility as a basis for void, vuit. It is true that vuit took the place of the old vacuum, since there is little difference between a pecia de vites and a vacuum. Vuit was popular in France in the eighth century, but did not assume the distinct meaning of "empty, abandoned" until later, possibly not before the tenth century.

The German Weide is derived from widis, even as Ohmd and Grummet are derived from Fr. gain. Weide appears only late in OHG., is not recorded in Gothic, and has entered the northern languages only from the German. The oldest quotation for Weide is in the Hrabanian glosses of the ninth century. But if one turns to the respective passage, (96) one finds there "pascua ostarun pascua uueide," where the first pascua is a mistake for pascha, while eid in uueide is written over an old erasure. It can be shown that this gloss was written by a later hand, for in the alphabetic Bible glossary we find "pastum uuinne." (97) Obviously, then, inn was erased, to make place for eid. Consequently the Hrabanian gloss cannot be used for the determination of the age of this word. The usual word for pasture is mesti. (98) But uuinne and mesti are themselves borrowed words. Uuinne is related to gain, as gewinnen is related to gagner, and mesti is Lat. mixta, which has also produced Span. mesta "pasture," which since the thirteenth century has played an important part in Spanish economic history. OHG. mast, (99) AS. maeste (100) is "common forest," where the pigs are fattened, wherefore it is translated by pasnagium. In the Spanish documents ambae mixtae, maestae, or mestae means everything which is used in common by adjoining neighbors, whether pasture or fishing. Before the thirteenth century most of the recorded cases refer exclusively to fishing rights, (101) but that is mere accident, for from the thirteenth century on mestae refers to the pasture.

OHG. weide is not certain before the tenth century, but it must have existed much earlier, because widis campis is recorded on German soil in the eighth century. As the pasture was chiefly used for hunting, we have AS. vaeð "hunting, roaming about, waves."

We turn once more to the Atlas linguistique de la France (N° 1384), in order to study the distribution of the vuid group on French soil. If we draw the same line as in regain, we have in the whole northwest the pure vide group, which here, as in regain, chiefly depends on literary influence. In the northeast, in Somme, Pas-de-Calais, Nord, Arden, we meet with wid, which in Belgium leans strongly towards vud, vut. From here a void, voed group takes a sharp southerly direction, while in Switzerland vud, voed, wid, weid meet side by side. Through the Provence run vud, vuid, weid forms, as buit, bueid, etc., here and there interrupted by literary vide. It is clear that the original vuid has developed in the direction of weid and vud. Considering the popular vut forms in Switzerland and the vit, voet, vueit in Raeto-Roman, it is not strange that Italian has vuoto, which is certainly of French late origin, for it has only the meaning "empty."

The fate of vitatum on the Spanish peninsula is especially instructive, because the many aberrations of the word have spread with the economic development of the pasture throughout the rest of Europe. According to Visigothic law the fields bordering the road had to be surrounded by a fence or ditch, (102) otherwise the traveler along the road could not be kept from pasturing his cattle in the open fields. (103) The apertorum camporum pascua mentioned in this law is the same as the French vaine pâture, that is, stubble fields, while vacantium camporum pascua corresponds to the terre vuide. This is made absolutely certain from the corresponding Langobard law, where stupla and pascua are distinguished. (104) The identity of the two laws has long been observed, and it has been suggested that the Langobards have borrowed theirs from the Visigothic Code. One will look in vain in the Roman laws for its prototype, but it is evident that we are dealing with the economic institution of the Roman arbustum vitatum, which had to be taken care of and fenced in, to escape the fate of the vacant fields. A terra vitata could be defended, in order that it might remain in private possession, as regards pasturing, while wasteland and fallow fields were common pasture and could even be confiscated by the government. The semasiological change from terra vitata to terra vetata was natural and imperative, hence we not only find in the Visigothic law "pascua non vetentur," but in Aragon, Navarre and Gascony vetatum was the usual word for the arbustum vitatum of the Italians. (105) The vedado in Navarre has already been mentioned in connection with arbustum. In the sixth book of the Fuero general de Navarra we have specific mention of the rights exercised by neighboring villages in such a pasture. We get here a clear idea why vitatum was popularly changed to vetatum, for in such an enclosure the cattle and horses could pasture the whole year round, while other animals were admitted only from September or November until March. (106)

In Spain the oldest form recorded in the document is not vetatum but divisa. (107) That we are having here an enclosed pasture is proved by a document of the year 869, where a monastery is given right to gather fuel in a divisio and share pasture with a neighboring town. (108) This divisa has not survived, except in the stereotyped expression hereditates et divisae, in order to express complete possession of an estate, including the pasturage. In the province of Burgos the divisae are mentioned as lying in the outskirts, no longer as common property, but in private possession, the difference between hereditates and divisae being the same as between alodial land and such as has been acquired by presura. (109)

The obligation of the Langobard to the Visigothic laws has already been observed by historians. It can also be shown that the Langobard documents of certain regions stand in some relation to the Visigothic documents. This is, no doubt, the case with those that employ divisa in a vague sense of "pasture." The earliest recorded instance is in a Carolingian document of the year 783, where we have the term "pascuis divisis et indivisi." (110) To the sensible "pascuis devisis" has been added the impossible "indevisi," for either divisa is not a divided pasture, or, if it is, an undivided pasture cannot be given away. This stereotyped expression divisa et indivisa is given in a number of documents at Amiata and Lucca, where the meaning cannot be ascertained, because it is never enlarged upon. (111) But we can show from a large number of Milan documents that the expression there occurs in company with other exceptional terms for Italy, which are common in Spanish documents. In a document of the year 840, with a prolific and useless pertinence, divisum et indivisum follows the term interconciliaricis. (112) Two years later interconciliaricis is changed to inter concilium. (113) This word goes through the most extravagant changes, through inconcilibus, concelibus, concelibas, incelibas, conclivis, concilibas, celibas, coelibas. (114) It is evident that this strange word had the meaning of "pasture," but it was foreign to Italy, and in the middle of the eleventh century it disappears entirely. In Roman times concilium was the council held by the conciliabulum, (115) which itself was an administrative division after the forum, "quae colonia hac lege deducta a quodve municipium praefectura, forum, conciliabulum constitutum est." Festus explains conciliabulum "locum ubi concilium convenitur." Isidor knows it as "pagi sunt loca apta aedificiis inter agros habitantibus, haec est conciliabula dicta a conventu secietate multorum in unum." (116) In Italy no trace of conciliabulum is left, but in Spain concilium survived in the sense of "community," (117) hence the strange group of the Milan words was in some way transplanted from Spain. This seems to be proved by the use of the words vicinalis, divisa and montes, which are found with this concilium in the Milan documents, which are all distinctive Spanish terms, while montes, considering the fact that there are no mountains in Milanese territory, has developed out of the Spanish divisa in monte "forest pasture." We have already seen that the divisa in monte, like the vedado in Navarre, forms in Burgos the subject of constant discussions between adjoining villages and towns, hence the interconcilium of the year 842 can be nothing but the interconfinium, which Joannes de Janua (118) glosses with "terminus vel locus inter duos fines existens." Without a comparison of the Milan with the Spanish documents the existence of concilium is unique in Italy, and inexplicable. (119)

If vetatum of the Spanish documents is a transformation of vitatum, the still older divisa can only be some transformation of (pezia) de vitis, as recorded in the oldest Langobard documents. The incomprehensible vitatum changed into the comprehensible vetatum "forbidden" and divisa "separated, set aside." But there were many other corruptions of the original word. In Catalonia they spoke of a devesa, (120) while in Spain they at an early time passed over to defesa, which was understood and written as defensa "protected." In a document of the year 804 both divisa and defesa occur, and it is obvious that divisa refers to the termini mentioned before. (121) I have my doubts about the genuineness of this document, at least of the spelling defesa, since the document exists only in late copies and defesa is otherwise not recorded before the tenth century. (122) In the Provence this word does not appear before the eleventh century. Here we find the forms deves, devesum, devensum, defensum, defensorium. (123) In the Provençal language are recorded deves, defes, deveza, and the latter form is also found in Portuguese, while the Spanish has dehesa.

We have already seen from the Milanese documents that divisa stood by the side of inter concilium, that is, that it lay in the common land of adjoining villages. This is clearly shown in the English laws, where divisa is the common land (124) in which neighbors' troubles are settled, (125) wherefore it also means "first instance."(126) In Ine's law the Anglo-Saxon text has gafolland for divisa, that is, "land subject to a tax," such as is the case with pasture land, while one text slavishly translates it by gedálland. (127) This latter term occurs also in two tenth century documents, and in one of these it is distinctly mentioned as being common pasture, meadow and field. (128) In France divisa, devesa still occur in the twelfth century, (129) but most of the derivatives, such as defay, defois, are from defesa and defensa. (130)

From the above discussion it is evident that the Latin agricultural term arbustum vitatum, to express the enclosed vineyard which could be turned into a pasture only after the crops were in, or when the vines were so high that they could not be reached by the cattle, became in Spain the expression for any enclosed pasture, whether there were any vines in it or not. From Spain the idea of enclosures spread to France and England, where they played such an important part in the thirteenth century.




Endnotes