Pliny tells in his Natural History the following about the cultivation of the vine: "The experience of ages has sufficiently proved that the wines of the highest quality are only grown upon vines attached to trees, and that even then the choicest wines are produced by the upper part of the tree, the produce of the lower part being more abundant; such being the beneficial result of elevating the vine. It is with a view to this that the tree employed for this purpose are selected. In the first rank of all stands the elm, with the exception of the Atinian variety, which is covered with too many leaves; and next come the black popular, which is valued for a similar reason, being not so densely covered with leaves. Most people, too, by no means hold the ash in disesteem, as also the olive, if it is not overshadowed with branches.......They must not be touched with the knife before the end of three years, and the branches are preserved, on each side in its turn, the pruning being done in alternate years. In the sixth year the vine is united to the tree. In Italy beyond the Padus, in addition to the trees already mentioned, they plant for their vines (arbustat agros) the cornel, the opulus, the linden, the maple, the ash, the yoke-elm, and the quercus; while in Venetia they grow willows for the purpose, on account of the humidity of the soil." (1) Columella is more specific as regards the purpose of planting certain kinds of trees: "The Atinian elm thrives much better, and is much taller, than our Italian elm; and yields a sweeter leaf, and more agreeable to oxen; which if you feed cattle constantly with, and afterwards begin to give them leaves of that other kind, it makes the oxen nauseate their food. Therefore, if it can be done, we will plant all our land with this one kind of the Atinian elm; but, if this cannot be done we will take care, in laying out our rows, to plant an equal number of our own Italian, and of Atinian elms alternately: so we shall always make use of mixt leaves; and the cattle, being allured by this seasoning, as it were, will more eagerly eat up that due quantity of food, which is allotted them. But the poplar tree seems to nourish the vine most of any; next to that the elm; and, after that, the ash tree also. The poplar tree (opulus) is rejected by most people, because it yields a thin leaf, and not proper for cattle. The ash tree which is most acceptable to goats and sheep, and not useless for oxen, is rightly planted in rough, rugged, and mountainous places, where the elm thrives but indifferently. The elm is preferred by most people, because it both suffers the vine without any inconveniency to it, and yields a most agreeable fodder for oxen, and comes up and thrives very well in various kinds of soils. Therefore let him, who has a mind to plant a great number of trees for supporting vines, prepare nurseries of elms and ashes in that manner I have described." (2) "The vines must be set in the farthermost part of the trench, and their firm-wood stretched along the trench, and erected to the tree, and fenced with rails against the injuries of cattle." (3)

Such a plantation was known as arbustum, and, because of its use in trailing vines, it is very frequently mentioned together with vitis. (4) The same method is still pursued in Italy, and up to the twelfth century arbustum vitatum remained a common expression in the documents of southern Italy as a description of a vine-covered grove. (5) That this is not merely a stereotyped phrase, such as is common in the documents of that time, is proved by the very definite description of the duties required from a tenant who took possession of land on the basis of an emphyteutic contract. Not only was he to take care of the existing trees, of whose fruits he was to furnish the owner a certain part, but he was also to plant new groves and take care of them. (6)

About Naples we find since the tenth century the expressions terra arbustata, pecia de arbusto, originally in exactly the same connotation as arbustum vitatum, (7) but in the eleventh century they are used more generally in the sense of "woodland," as opposed to fields, (8) while in the north of Italy we never hear of arbustum, arbustata, but only of buscalia, buschiva, which is there common from the beginning of the tenth century. (9) Boscalea is already mentioned in a document of the year 753, but this document is from an apograph of the eleventh century and certainly spurious. (10) In the documents of the tenth and eleventh centuries buscalia refers to plots that are neither fields, forests, nor wastelands, and since a terra buscoliva is especially mentioned as being wooded, it is certain that buscalia is a generic name for a brush grown tract of land. (11) Another form for it is buscaria, (12) and at the same time busco, bosco makes its appearance in Sardinia and in the north, (13) and the juxtaposition of this with "silva" shows that it again means "brush grown land." But as there is also mention of plowed land lying in the bosco, it apparently was sometimes reclaimed, but the usual reference is to "bosco comuno," the common pasture land.

In pre-Carolingian times not the slightest trace of bosco is to be found anywhere in Italy. It is first recorded in the north in 910 and slowly spreads as far as Naples. In the beginning of the tenth century the word was still new, and in 904-5 we hear for the first time of certain obligations in the arbustum called arbustaria, arbustercia. (14) It is clear that these produced the chronologically later recorded buscaria, buscalia, busco, bosco, but this may be proved even without the presence of these laws. The laws being written in Frankish style, we shall have to look to France for the origin of the words and the development of their meanings.

In a French document of 870 we find a locality Arbustellum (15) and soon after Ad illum Boscum, Alboscum, (16) while in the tenth century and later mention is almost exclusively made of places Bosco, Boscaria, Boschetto, (17) not only in France but also in Spain. (18) Ad illum Boscum is merely an amplification of Alboscum, and this is a corruption of Arbustum, but this cannot be insisted upon, since local names ad illum (locum) are not uncommon. These localities lay in or near the arbustum, and we must now ascertain how -bustum came to be changed to boscum.

Abbo, of the Church of S. Germain of Paris, wrote towards the end of the ninth or in the beginning of the tenth century, a poem "De bellis Parisiacae Urbis," where, referring to the year 886, he speaks of the enormous masses of cattle which were gathered in the aula of S. Germain, which was thus turned into a bostar. The aula here means the yard or enclosure of the church, and what Abbo means to say is that the yard was changed into a cattle enclosure. (19) Bostar stands for bustaria, as a result of a confusion with bos "ox" and stare "to stand" and Greek boustasion, (20) while Papias confused bostar with bustum "a place where cattle are burned," (21) but Matthew of Paris in the thirteenth century employed bostar correctly in the sense of "cattle yard." (22) In Spain we occasionally find in the eighth century arbusta for such an enclosure, (23) but far more frequently we meet there with bustum and bustellum, a forest enclosure on the outskirts of the estate, (24) generally surrounded by a hedge (25) and used as a cattle yard. (26) The herds pasturing in such a corral were of a given size, for the tax for pasturing was figured by the busto. (27) There were, however, also very extensive bustos, with their own appurtenances and lands. (28) We also find the forms bustare, (29) bustaria, (30) and bustarega, (31) and in the latter case it is distinctly mentioned that they were enclosed pastures.

If we now compare the Spanish forms bustum, bustare, bustello, bustariega with the Italian busco, buscaria, buscalia, and with arbusta, arbustaria, arbustericia of the Italian documents of 904-5, the identity of these becomes at once obvious, and it is clear that arbustaria, arbustericia refer to the tax for pasturing which the proprietor of the forest may exact. Fortunately we possess in the Fuero general of Navarra a detailed account of the organisation of such a pasture. Although the Fuero was written down in the thirteenth century, the laws and practices described there refer to Visigothic times. The first title of the sixth book deals with the pasture, which is here called vedado and bustalizia. (32)

A vedado was a horse or cow pasture in what formerly had been meadow land. It was laid out by common consent of the infanzons and peasants, by measuring off the land twelve times in all four directions with the perch "of the royal see." Such a perch was seven cubits and a clenched fist long, and was at the end provided with an iron point weighing two pounds. (33) If the land was really measured with the perch, it produced an enclosure of about an acre; but if echar means "to throw," the enclosure would become many times larger. Such a vedado was closed from beginning of February until the end of December and afterward was open for all cattle. The common ground in the forest between two villages where the pigs and the cattle pastured was called puerto, and the enclosure itself was known as busto or bustalizia, which was produced in the same way as the vedado, only that it was determined by the hammerthrow in the following manner: The measurer sat down in the middle of the space set aside for an enclosure and threw a sharp axe with a handle a cubit long twelve times in each direction. It is not likely that each throw netted more than twenty feet for it was accomplished under the acrobatic feat of holding the right ear with the left hand and casting the axe from between that arm and the breast. (34)

The hammerthrow has been frequently recorded in Germany since the twelfth century, and since Grimm (35) a poetic, religious or legal German custom has been theorised out of it. The identical Navarrese custom goes back to a sensible Roman method of measurement by the decempeda pertica. Twelve perticae of ten (or twelve) feet square formed in Rome the unit of surface, two of which were equal to a iugerum. (36) In the Navarrese custom we have, therefore a survival of the Roman law which was intended for the provinces. Here as there the "decempeda" had to be "cast" twelve times, as in the Roman measurement, and seven cubits were just about ten feet. In Navarre the perch had to be obtained from the sied del Rey "the royal see," but in reality this is a popular transformation of the Roman regio, the local court, where the land questions were settled. (37) Where the ignorant peasants could not help themselves with straight measurements, in the forest or the swamp, there they had recourse to the hammerthrow, and by the employment of the acrobatic feat they managed to obtain a fairly equitable mensuration. Hence the hammerthrow is as much a Roman institution as the Scandinavian solskipt, which has been shown to be the Roman solis divisio. (38)

We have an Aragonese law of the year 1247 which coincides with the law of the busto, but here busto, understood as bostar, has further been corrupted to boalare, (39) that is, bostar "a place for oxen," has produced boale and boalare. In the Limousin this boalare has in the ninth century given rise to baccalaria, (40) as though it were a place for cows. These baccalariae naturally lay far away from the village and were left in charge of the poorer or unmarried peasants, hence we get baccalarius "bachelor," which has spread over Europe from the south of France. That this derivation is the real one is proved by the synonymous German Hagestolz, OHG. hagustalt, AS. hagusteald "bachelor," ONorse haukstalda "famulus, mercenarius, agricola liber," where the first part of the word has distinct reference to "forest," that is, the "bachelor" was he who lived in the forest, where the busto was located. It is not easy to ascertain what the second half of the word is derived from, but it looks as though in German it proceeded from the same Spanish bustalizia which produced a form bustalt, understood as bus-stalt, in which the first part, for buscus, gave way to the popular haga. It is certainly remarkable that there should be in German a similar confusion as there is in the Romance busto, bustal, bostar, boale, boalaria, baccalaria.

Thus it appears that the Roman institution of the arbustum vitatum has survived in Spain only as an enclosure which was not thrown open to all in the summer. Arbustum, here contracted to bustum, has the special meaning of "closed vineyard," because any other pasture was free for all neighbors, according to the Roman custom, while the vineyard could be held against others so long as the grapes were not yet gathered in. This institution of "enclosures" has been of enormous economic consequences in Spain, whence it passed over to the rest of Europe, bringing with it an exceedingly large linguistic family. Unfortunately there are, in this group, a number of contaminations which make it the most prolific and the most difficult of any to treat. I shall confine myself only to the most obvious derivations.

In Basque we have bost-, brost-, brosk- for "bush"---"bosta buisson, brosta haie, broussaille, et aussi fourré, lieu couvert de broussailles de bruyeres, broka détritus, debrit d'objets sans valeur, qu'on passe dehors avec le balais." Here and in the Romance languages we find not only the original bust-, but also brust-, etc. This latter form may have arisen in the same way as frost from vast, or from arbust- by metathesis. We shall now turn to the Latin sources in France. We have already seen that buscus, boscus here takes the place of Span. bustum, and to this must be added buschus, buschetus, boccus, bochetus, which appear only late. There arose very early the necessity of distinguishing the standing, green timber from the firewood and the faggots, since one of the privileges in the forest consisted in the permission to cut a certain number of trees a year for building purposes and to gather dead wood for fuel. Hence such a right is called boscairare, buscare, buscalhare, boscare. (41) The building timber was called boscus viridis or vivus, to distinguish it from the faggots, boscus siccus or mortuus, which also included certain standing trees that were used for fuel, (42) hence we get the specific statement, "boscus vivus ad aedificandum, mortuus ad calefaciendum, comburendum, ardendum." (43) The laws distinctly mention that the dead wood is carefully to be "sought" with wooden hooks, in order to break down the dead branches, hence we get in Spain buscare "to seek." To separate more clearly and briefly the standing timber from the dead wood, boscus was employed only for the first, while the latter became known in the feminie, as bosca, busca, buschia, buca, bucha, buchia, buga, but more commonly bruscale, bruscia, brozia, brossa, brossia, brucia, broca, bruga, brua, broa, bruera, brueria, brugeria, brugaria, and even bronda, branda, bropa, branca, branchia. It is not difficult to explain this great variety of forms.




Endnotes