Document – Anonymous, “The Farmer’s Law” ca. 700 CE

The law is certainly the work not of a private compiler or commentator but of a government official composing or recording what we would call legislation. The law consists of eighty-five sometimes repetitive short chapters or provisions, a selection of which is presented here. The first twenty-two deal with cultivation practices and the relations of farmers in a community with each other. These chapters have the character of civil law and are almost certainly the new part of the legislation, as they do not parallel provisions in earlier Roman law. The rest of the chapters deal variously with problems associated with cattle, dogs, and miscellaneous buildings and farm implements. These have the character of criminal law and are derivative of earlier Roman legal codes.

Document

1. The farmer who is working his own field must be just and must not encroach on his neighbor’s furrows. If a farmer persists in encroaching and docks a neighboring lot—if he did this in plowing-time, he loses his plowing; if it was in sowing-time that he made this encroachment, he loses his seed and his husbandry and his crop—the farmer who encroached.

2. If a farmer without the landowner’s cognizance enters and plows or sows, let him not receive either wages for his plowing or the crop for his sowing—no, not even the seed that has been cast.

3. If two farmers agree one with the other before two or three witnesses to exchange lands and they agreed for all time, let their determination and their exchange remain firm and secure and unassailable.

4. If two farmers, A and B, agree to exchange their lands for the season of sowing and A draws back, then, if the seed was cast, they may not draw back; but if the seed was not cast they may draw back; but if A did not plow while B did, A also shall plow.

5. If two farmers exchange lands either for a season or for all time, and one plot is found deficient as compared with the other, and this was not their agreement, let him who has more give an equivalent in land to him who has less; but if this was their agreement, let them give nothing in addition.

6. If a farmer who has a claim on a field enters against the sower’s will and reaps, then, if he had a just claim, let him take nothing from it; but if his claim was baseless, let him provide twice over the crops that were reaped.

7. If two territories contend about a boundary or a field, let the judges consider it and they shall decide in favor of the territory which had the longer possession; but if there is an ancient landmark, let the ancient determination remain unassailed.

8. If a division wronged people in their lots or lands, let them have license to undo the division.

9. If a farmer on shares reaps without the grantor’s consent and robs him of his sheaves, as a thief shall he be deprived of all his crop.

10. A shareholder’s portion is nine bundles, the grantor’s one: he who divides outside these limits is accursed.

11. If a man takes land from an indigent farmer and agrees to plow only and to divide, let their agreement prevail; if they also agreed on sowing, let it prevail according to their agreement.

12. If a farmer takes from some indigent farmer his vineyard to work on a halfshare and does not prune it as is fitting and dig it and fence it and dig it over, let him receive nothing from the produce.

13. If a farmer takes land to sow on a half-share, and when the season requires it does not plow but throws the seed on the surface, let him receive nothing from the produce because he played false and mocked the land-owner.

14. If he who takes on a half-share the field of an indigent farmer who is abroad changes his mind and does not work the field, let him restore the produce twice over.

15. If he who takes on a half-share changes his mind before the season of working and gives notice to the landowner that he has not the strength and the landowner pays no attention, let the man who took on a half-share go harmless.

16. If a farmer takes over the farming of a vineyard or piece of land and agrees with the owner and takes earnest-money and starts and then draws back and gives it up, let him give the just value of the field and let the owner have the field.

17. If a farmer enters and works another farmer’s woodland, for three years he shall take its profits for himself and then give the land back again to its owner.

18. If a farmer who is too poor to work his own vineyard takes flight and goes abroad, let those from whom claims are made by the public treasury gather in the grapes, and the farmer if he returns shall not be entitled to mulct them [demand forfeiture from them] in the wine.

19. If a farmer who runs away from his own field pays every year the extraordinary taxes of the public treasury, let those who gather in the grapes and occupy the field be mulcted [fined] twofold.

20. If a man cuts another’s wood without its owner’s cognizance and works and sows it, let him have nothing from the produce.

21. If a farmer builds a house or plants a vineyard in another’s field or plot and after a time there come the owners of the plot, they are not entitled to pull down the house or root up the vines, but they may take an equivalent in land. If the man who built or planted on the field that was not his own stoutly refuses to give an equivalent, the owner of the plot is entitled to pull up the vines and pull down the house.

22. If a farmer at digging-time steals a spade or a hoe, and is afterwards recognized, let him pay its daily hire twelve folles; the same rule applies to him who steals a pruning-knife at pruning-time, or a scythe at reaping-time, or an axe at wood-cutting time.

Concerning Herdsmen.

23. If a neatherd [cow herder] in the morning receives an ox from a farmer and mixes it with the herd, and it happens that the ox is destroyed by a wolf, let him explain the accident to its master and he himself shall go harmless.

. . .

25. If a herdsman receives an ox from a farmer in the morning and goes off and the ox gets separated from the mass of oxen and goes off and goes into cultivated plots or vineyards and does harm, let him not lose his wages, but let him make good the harm done.

26. If a herdsman in the morning receives an ox from a farmer and the ox disappears, let him swear in the Lord’s name that he has not himself played foul and that he had no part in the loss of the ox and let him go harmless.

. . .

28. If a herdsman on occasion of the loss of an ox or its wounding or blinding makes oath and is afterwards by good evidence proved a perjurer, let his tongue be cut out and let him make good the damage to the owner of the ox.

. . .

30. If a man cuts a bell from an ox or a sheep and is recognized as the thief, let him be whipped; and if the animal disappears, let him make it good who stole the bell.

31. If a tree stands on a lot, if the neighboring lot is a garden and is overshadowed by the tree, the owner of the garden may trim its branches; but if there is no garden, the branches are not to be trimmed.

. . .

33. If a guardian of fruitⁱ is found stealing in the place which he guards, let him lose his wages and be well beaten.

34. If a hired shepherd is found milking his flock without the owner’s knowledge and selling them, let him be beaten and lose his wages.

. . .

36. If a man takes an ox or an ass or any beast without its owner’s knowledge and goes off on business, let him give its hire twice over; and if it dies on the road, he shall give two for one, whatever it may be.

. . .

38. If a man finds an ox doing harm in a vineyard or in a field or in another place, and does not give it back to its owner, on the terms of recovering from him all the destruction of his crops, but kills or wounds it, let him give ox for ox, ass for ass, or sheep for sheep.

42. If while a man is trying to steal one ox from a herd, the herd is put to flight and eaten by wild beasts, let him be blinded.

. . .

45. If a slave kills one ox or ass or ram in a wood, his master shall make it good.

46. If a slave, while trying to steal by night, drives the sheep away from the flock in chasing them out of the fold, and they are lost or eaten by wild beasts, let him be hanged as a murderer.

47. If a man’s slave often steals beasts at night, or often drives away flocks, his master shall make good what is lost on the ground that he knew his slave’s guilt, but let the slave himself be hanged.

. . .

49. If a man finds a pig doing harm or a sheep or a dog, he shall deliver it in the first place to its master; when he has delivered it a second time, he shall give notice to its master; the third time he may cut its tail or its ear or shoot it without incurring liability.

. . .

55. If a man kills a sheepdog and does not make confession but there is an inroad of wild beasts into the sheepfold, and afterwards he who killed the dog is recognized, let him give the whole flock of sheep together with the value of the dog.

. . .

64. Let those who set fire to a threshing-floor or stacks of corn by way of vengeance on their enemies be burnt.

. . .

81. If a man who is dwelling in a district ascertains that a piece of common ground is suitable for the erection of a mill and appropriates and then, after the completion of the building, if the commonalty of the district complain of the owner of the building as having appropriated common ground, let them give him all the expenditure that is due to him for the completion of the building and let them share it in common with its builder.

82. If after the land of the district has been divided, a man finds in his own lot a place which is suitable for the erection of a mill and sets about it, the farmers of the other lots are not entitled to say anything about the mill.

83. If the water which comes to the mill leaves dry cultivated plots or vineyards, let him make the damage good; if not, let the mill be idle.

84. If the owners of the cultivated plots are not willing that the water go through their plots, let them be entitled to prevent it.

Notes

Review

1. 1. Based on the provisions of this law, describe rural life in Byzantium in these centuries. What features stand out to you?

2. 2. What are the main sorts of disputes and problems arising in a community of small farmers such as this? What concerns on the part of the farmers do these problems reflect?

3. 3. In addition to landholding farmers, agricultural wage earners and slaves also appear as types of people in these communities. What jobs did they do? How does their status compare with that of the farmers’?

4. 4. What principles does the law seem to apply in resolving disputes or punishing crimes? Does the law strike you as fair and just? As harsh? Both?