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2i 8 A Prelude of the Revolution
alliance and peace. Passerie (patzaria, patzeria, carta de la patz] seems
to be a diminutive of pax. Pierre de Marca gives it the form of passerine.
Originating long before the Pyrenees were the frontier line of two great
kingdoms, these codes are found reduced to precise terms and articles from
the twelfth century, although the oldest extant agreements between the
opposite sides of the mountains belongs to the early fourteenth century.
For a long time the valleys preserved a semi-independence, but in 1258
the Pyrenees became the boundary between France and Aragon, and
the gradual consolidation of one royal authority north of the mountains
and of another one south of them led to slow changes, culminating in
the seventeenth century, when the old system broke up and the inter-valley
treaties gave way to an administration now exercised by the Commission des
Pyr/n/es.
Rights of pasturage and the like on the scattered plateaux and sheltered
shoulders of the mountains remote as well from the French as from
the Spanish townships in the valleys below had grown up through the
course of centuries into definite and stable understandings and agreements.
These regulated a whole series of usages for the exercise of common
pasture and privilege, determined by the geographical position and by
the contrast of climate between the opposite mountain slopes. The
Spanish side is quickly parched in summer on the French ; side there
is more sheltering shade. Spanish flocks had right of feeding in certain
months on the French soil and vice versa. Marketing arrangements were
similarly international if we may use that term to include the period
before the kingdoms were defined. Salt was one of the indispensable
commodities, and there are still shown, high up on the very frontier
line, recesses cut in the rocks wherein of old the salt was measured.
Naturally the systems of rights varied greatly : each valley had its treaty
only with the two or three which marched with it; the codes were of
origin so distant that tradition and legend gathered round them. Chief
interest to a Scottish student must be in the many points of parallel those
frontier codes, traditions, and legends present to the
story of the Leges
Marchiarum, the border code between England and Scotland.
Thus there are memories of the duel and sanctuary, of boundary crosses
and debatable land (milieu contentieux\ of annual payments of cattle, of
fixed schemes of compensation, of usages of truce in warfare, and of
regular commercial conventions all bringing the Pyrenean law of the
mountain into line with our law of the marches. So strong was
the principle these local treaties of peace expressed that notwithstanding
the consolidation of the nations and kingdoms, the
valleys were at peace
with one another in spite of the kingdoms being at war. The kings
reserved their rights, but as these mountain fastnesses were no fit theatre
for campaigns the mountain law was allowed, and peace had a refuge in
the hills. This little imperium in imperio had as its centre the mechanism
for adjusting disputes between the inhabitants of the valleys, and specially
for- determining the amends for
cattle-lifting and other depredations
inevitable under the conditions of their rustic life. Sometimes the award
was levied on the village, but usually the liability was individual.