PREFACE.

handled public affairs; most of the inhabitants of GaulThe Roman name for the region comprising modern-day France, Belgium, and parts of neighboring countries., crushed by debts, by the enormity of taxes, or by the injustice of more powerful men, placed themselves in servitude under the domination of the nobles, who held over them nearly the same rights as the Roman master over his slaves (1). The weak and the poor, whom the State did not protect against the excesses of private warA state of localized, constant conflict between tribal leaders or families, occurring outside the control of a central government., were forced to accept—even under the harshest conditions—the protection of the warrior who was the strongest, the most skillful, the best trained, the best armed, and the richest; without this support, they could not preserve their small belongings or even their lives.

Such is the social organization regretted—naturally without their realizing it—by those among us who deplore the triumph of the astute politics and the sophisticated military organization of the Romans over the ignorant bravery of our undisciplined ancestors and over the sort of anarchyHere used to describe a lack of centralized legal authority, which the author views as a negative state compared to Roman law. in which the latter loved to live. Ireland, Celtic like Gaul,

(1) original: "De bello gallico, l. VI, c. 13, §§ 1, 2." Julius Caesar's The Gallic War, Book 6, Chapter 13, Sections 1 and 2, which provides a primary source account of the social classes in Gaul.