After Tacitus, we have the early records of German law. Is this where Maurer discovers the mark? If the system of the mark was in full vigour in early times, and came down from them to more modern days, proof of its existence would certainly be found in barbaric law. But the word _mark_ is not to be met with in these codes. You find it neither in the laws of the Burgundians nor in those of the Visigoths, nor in those of the Lombards; nor do you find any term that might be its equivalent or translation. It is absent, in like manner, from the Salic law. In the Ripuarian law the _word_ is to be found, but in a sense quite the opposite of that which Maurer attributes to it. Far from implying a district of land common to all, it denotes the boundary of a private estate. This will be seen on reading section 60: “If any one buys a villa or any small estate, he ought to procure witnesses to the sale.... If a proprietor encroaches on a neighbouring proprietor (this is the meaning of the word _consors_), he shall pay fifteen _solidi_.... The boundary of the two estates, _terminatio_, is formed by distinct landmarks, such as little mounds or stones.... If a man overstep this boundary, _marca_, and enters the property of another,[66] he shall pay the fine mentioned above.” Thus, what the law calls _terminatio_ in one line and _marca_ in the next is clearly one and the same thing: it is the boundary which separates two private properties. A fact like this upsets Maurer’s whole system. Let us turn to the codes of the Germans who remained in Germany proper. The word _mark_ is not to be met with throughout the Thuringian, Frisian and Saxon codes. It does occur in those of the Alamanni and Bavarians; but, instead of signifying a common territory, as Maurer would have it, it is used for the boundary of a territory. The laws of the Alamanni lay down that anyone who seizes a free man and sells him across the borders, _extra_ _terminos_, shall restore him to his country and pay a fine of forty solidi; immediately after, in the following line, comes a similar direction in case of the sale of a free woman beyond the borders, and the only difference is, that in place of _extra terminos_ we have the phrase _extra marcam_: the two expressions are, we see, synonymous, and both denote a frontier.[67]