Many examples may be found in Suabia,in the Grisons, in Elsass, and other Teutonic or partly Teutonic countries, where old customs of this kind still influence the feelings of the peasantry, although they have ceased to be legally binding.[1]
The youngest son has his privilege, also, in the island of Bornholm, and a similar right has been observed in the territory of the old Republic of Lübeck,[2] a district where a Slavonic people formerly lived. Junior right also prevails in Saxe-Altenburg, which has an agricultural population of Slavonic extraction.[3]
It may be noted from this list of localities that the custom in Germany, North-Eastern France, and Belgium, survives in separated districts rather than in whole territories, and it is not to be necessarily understood that it survives in all places in the districts named. In Germany also it should be noted that it survives where Slavonic influence has been felt, such as in Oldenburg, Saxe-Altenburg, parts of Bavaria, and in Silesia. The same custom survives in parts of Pomerania, mingled in other places with primogeuiture.[4]
Pomerania was Slavonic, Oldenburg had an intrusive Slav settlement, and Saxe-Altenburg and parts of Bavaria have in a similiar way had Slav immigrants, or preserved a remnant of the older race from which the Slavs probably descended. The custom of junior right is clearly not a Germanic institution. It prevails in parts of Germany indeed, but it can be traced to no old German code of laws or general custom, as far as I have been able to discover. On the contrary, Tacitus tells us that equal division among the sons was the custom of succession among the ancient Germans. Germany was undoubtedly in the early centuries of our era much influenced by the hordes of Slavs
