Note 248 — Chapter II · THE SOCIAL COMPOSITION OF THE PRIMITIVE POPULUS
Reading edition
Giddings, Principles of Sociology, 296; cf. Maine, Early Hist. of Inst. 141. Thus in the time of Tacitus the German youth of common blood who entered the comitatus of a chief had a fair opportunity to become noble; Germ. 13. 3-5; 14. 1 f. Among the Danes, too, some noble families were once peasant; Maine, ibid. 135.