l'évangile.’
283
Mills' Hist. of Chivalry, vol. i. p. 387; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 390, vol. iv. p. 76. Mercenary troops were also employed by his immediate successors. Grose's Military Antiq. vol. i. p. 55.
284
On the different meanings attached to the word ‘baron,’ compare Klimrath, Hist. du Droit, vol. ii. p. 40, with Meyer, Instit. Judiciaires, vol. i. p. 105. But M. Guizot says, what seems most likely, ‘il est probable que ce nom fut commun originairement à tous les vassaux immédiats de la couronne, liés au roi per servitium militare, par le service de chevalier.’ Essais, p. 265.
285
Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. i. p. 242; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. p. 220. The same policy of reducing the nobles was followed up by Henry II., who destroyed the baronial castles. Turner, vol. iv. p. 223. Compare Lingard, vol. i. pp. 315, 371.
286
‘Deinde cœpit homagia hominum totius Angliæ, et juramentum fidelitatis cujuscumque essent feodi vel tenementi.’ Matthæi Westmonast. Flores Historiarum, vol. ii. p. 9.
287
See some good remarks on this difference between the French and English nobles, in Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. pp. 99, 100. Mably (Observations, vol. i. p. 60) says: ‘en effet, on négligea, sur la fin de la première race, de conserver les titres primordiaux de ses possessions.’ As to the old customary French law of prescription, see Giraud, Précis de l'Ancien Droit, pp. 79, 80.
288
Mably, Observations sur l'Hist. de France, vol. i. pp. 70, 162, 178.
289
On the policy of Philip Augustus in regard to the nobles, see Mably, Observations, vol. i. p. 246; Lerminier, Philos. du Droit, vol. i. p. 265; Boulainvilliers, Hist. de l'Ancien Gouvernement, vol. iii. pp. 147–150; Guizot, Civilisation en France, vol. iv. pp. 134, 135; Courson, Hist. des Peuples Brétons, Paris, 1846, vol. ii. p. 350.
290
‘No subjects ever enjoyed the right of coining silver in England without the royal stamp and superintendence; a remarkable proof of the restraint in which the feudal aristocracy was always held in this country.’ Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 154.
291
Brougham's Polit. Philos. 1849, vol. i. p. 446. In addition to the evidence there given on the right of coinage, see Mably's Observations, vol. i. p. 424, vol. ii. pp. 296, 297; and Turner's Normandy, vol. ii. p. 261.
292
Hallam's Supplemental Notes, pp. 304, 305.
293
‘Saint-Louis consacra le droit de guerre… Philippe le Bel, qui voulut l'abolir, finit par le rétablir.’ Montlosier, Monarchie Française, vol. i. pp. 127, 202: see also pp. 434, 435, and vol. ii. pp. 435, 436. Mably (Observations, vol. ii. p. 338) mentions ‘lettres-patentes de Philippe-de-Valois du 8 février 1330, pour permettre dans le duché d'Aquitaine les guerres privées,’ &c.; and he adds, ‘le 9 avril 1353 le roi Jean renouvelle l'ordonnance de S. Louis, nommée la quarantaine du roi, touchant les guerres privées.’
294
Sir Francis Palgrave (in his Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, vol. i. pp. 51–55) has attempted to estimate the results produced by the Norman Conquest; but he omits to notice this, which was the most important consequence of all.
295
On this political union between Norman barons and Saxon citizens, of which the first clear indication is at the end of the twelfth century, compare Campbell's Chancellors, vol. i. p. 113, with Brougham's Polit. Philos. vol. i. p. 339, vol. iii. p. 222.
In regard to the general question of the amalgamation of races, we have three distinct kinds of evidence:
1st. Towards the end of the twelfth century, a new language began to be formed by blending Norman with Saxon; and English literature, properly so called, dates from the commencement of the thirteenth century. Compare Madden's Preface to Layamon, 1847, vol. i. pp. xx. xxi., with Turner's Hist. of England, vol. viii. pp. 214, 217, 436, 437.
2nd. We have the specific statement of a writer in the reign of Henry II., that ‘sic permixtæ sunt nationes ut vix discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis Anglicus, quis Normannus sit genere.’ Note in Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 106.
3rd. Before the thirteenth century had passed away, the difference of dress, which in that state of society would survive many other differences, was no longer observed, and the distinctive peculiarities of Norman and Saxon attire had disappeared. See Strutt's View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England, vol. ii. p. 67, edit. Planché, 1842, 4to.
296
‘An equal distribution of civil rights to all classes of freemen forms the peculiar beauty of the charter.’ Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 108. This is very finely noticed in one of Lord Chatham's great speeches. Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 662.
297
Compare Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. ii. p. 39, with Lingard's England, vol. ii. p. 127, and Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 92.
298
‘He is to be honoured as the founder of a representative system of government in this country.’ Campbell's Chief-Justices, vol. i. p. 61. Some writers (see, for instance, Dalrymple's Hist. of Feudal Property, p. 332) suppose that burgesses were summoned before the reign of Henry III.: but this assertion is not only unsupported by evidence, but is in itself improbable; because at an early period the citizens, though rapidly increasing in power, were hardly important enough to warrant such a step being taken. The best authorities are now agreed to refer the origin of the House of Commons to the period mentioned in the text. See Hallam's Supplement, Notes, pp. 335–339; Spence's Origin of the Laws of Europe, p. 512; Campbell's Chancellors, vol. i. p. 155; Lingard's England, vol. ii. p. 138; Guizot's Essais, p. 319. The notion of tracing this to the wittenagemot is as absurd as finding the origin of juries in the system of compurgators; both of which were favourite errors in the seventeenth, and even in the eighteenth century. In regard to the wittenagemot, this idea still lingers among antiquaries: but, in regard to compurgators, even they have abandoned their old ground, and it is now well understood that trial by jury did not exist till long after the Conquest. Compare Palgrave's English Commonwealth, part i. pp. 243 seq., with Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. ii. pp. 152–173. There are few things in our history so irrational as the admiration expressed by a certain class of writers for the institutions of our barbarous Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
299
Montlosier, with the fine spirit of a French noble, taunts the English aristocracy with this: ‘En France la noblesse, attaquée sans cesse, s'est défendue sans cesse. Elle a subi l'oppression; elle ne l'a point acceptée. En Angleterre, elle a couru dès la première commotion, se réfugier dans les rangs des bourgeois, et sous leur protection. Elle a abdiqué ainsi son existence.’ Montlosier, Monarchie Française, vol. iii. p. 162. Compare an instructive passage in De Staël, Consid. sur la Révolution, vol. i. p. 421.
300
See some good remarks in Mably, Observations sur l'Hist. de France, vol. iii. pp. 114, 115.
301
Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 111.
