IV. Beneficiary property was one of the most influential principles in the formation of large societies. In the absence of public assemblies and of a central despotism, it nevertheless established a bond, and formed relations between men dispersed over a vast tract of country, and thereby rendered possible a federative hierarchy, which should embrace a still wider circle. Among the nations of antiquity, the extension of the State was incompatible with the progress of civilization; either the State must be dislocated, or despotism would prevail. Modern States have presented a different spectacle, and to this result the character of beneficiary property has powerfully contributed. {132} Lecture XVI. Of the state of persons, from the fifth to the tenth century. Impossibility of determining this, according to any fixed and general principle. The condition of lands not always correspondent with that of persons. Variable and unsettled character of social conditions. Slavery. Attempt to determine the condition of persons according to the _Wehrgeld_. Table of twenty-one principal cases of _Wehrgeld_. Uncertainty of this principle. The true method of ascertaining the condition of persons. Classification Of Persons. We have investigated the condition of territorial properties, from the fifth to the tenth centuries. We have recognized three kinds of territorial property. _First_, allodial or independent; _Secondly_, beneficiary; _Thirdly_, tributary. If from this we should wish to deduce the state of persons, we should find three social conditions corresponding to these: _First_, the free men, or proprietors of allods, bound to, and dependent upon no one, excepting the general laws of the state; _Secondly_, vassals, or proprietors of benefices, dependent in certain respects upon the noble from whom they held their property, either during life or hereditarily; _Thirdly_, the proprietors of tributary lands, who were subject to certain special obligations. To which it is necessary to add a fourth class, namely, the serfs. We should observe further, that the first of these classes tended to disappear and become absorbed in the second, third, and even the fourth classes. This arose from facts which we have already explained. This classification of persons is in fact a real one, and is to be met with in history; but we must not regard it as a primitive, general, and perfectly regular classification. The condition of persons preceded that of lands;--there were free men before there were freeholds; there were vassals and associates before benefices. The condition and relations of persons did not therefore originally depend on the condition and relations of territorial properties, and cannot be deduced from them. {133} Earliest Condition Of Society.