M. Viollet’s quotations are always exact in this respect, that the line he quotes is to be found at the place mentioned; their inexactness merely consists in this, that the same line taken with its context means precisely the opposite of what M. Viollet says. In the same way he once quoted a passage from a document of 890 in which he found the word _communes_; surely this meant community in land, collective ownership. Unluckily it turned out that the document did not contain any reference to community, or even to a village, or to cultivators of the soil; it concerned a dispute between two landowners, an abbot and a count. The adjective _communes_ related not to lands, but to certain “customary rights in a royal forest.” The abbot declared that “these common rights were his,” free of charge, while the count maintained that the abbot had always paid a rent, _sub conductione_. All this is evidently the very opposite of community; but M. Viollet had seen the word _communes_, and that was enough.[223] I have gone through his whole work in a similar manner and tried to find a reference that was to the point; and I have not found one. [198] P. Viollet, _Du caractère collectif des premières propriétés immobilières_, in the _Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes_, 1872, pages 455-504. [199] “Nec signare quidem aut partiri limite campum Fas erat; in medium quærebant.” M. Viollet makes a mistake, however, as to _in medium_, which he translates as if it was _in commune_. [200] We have italicised the words that are inexact. Diodorus does not say that these men were divided into two “classes;” he does not say that they “declared” the land “common property.” κοίνας ποιήσαντες means that the islands were made common for a moment, it is the statement of a fact, not the announcement of a perpetual institution. In place of “they threw together all their possessions,” the Greek tells us that they clubbed together their resources. However, the chief mistakes are in the last words of the translation. [201] Viollet, pp. 467-468. [202] The passage is in Diodorus v. 9, bipontine edit., iii. p. 267. [203] Thucydides explains this very well: “They lived on the island of Lipara, and went from thence to cultivate the other islands,” iii. 88.