The emperor of the West was dying, and what footprints did he ever leave of his rule, what institutions were they to last after him? His empire encompassed so many different peoples that it is too difficult for him to surely notice and sort out the private institutions of each of the peoples who obeyed his capitulars. In the course of the centuries one can well find the traces of those weeping floods of peoples which come one after another to destroy civilizations; and also the principal acts of the political legislation of the past can be collected; but the facts of private life where to find them, and how to grasp the domestic customs of the nations? Now then that I accompanied the old emperor to his tomb in Aachen, it seems to me essential to look for the people and the city in the midst of this confusion, and to have to awaken, so to speak, the customs of Carolinian private law; and in the manner that the antiquarians do, who often rebuild the ancient monuments, as to say the Parthenon in Athens and the Egyptian temples, and compose superb pediments with a few pieces of marble and with the dust of the Doric columns; so I will make myself bold to do the same work as regards the private customs of the eighth century, and to address that dull civilization for the last time. and they compose superb pediments with a few pieces of marble and with the dust of the Doric columns; so I will make myself bold to do the same work as regards the private customs of the eighth century, and to address that dull civilization for the last time. and they compose superb pediments with a few pieces of marble and with the dust of the Doric columns; so I will make myself bold to do the same work as regards the private customs of the eighth century, and to address that dull civilization for the last time.
These cities, which we see today so frequent with people, so rich in buildings, almost all had an ancient origin which is connected with the dead generations; from Rome the most of the major ones originated [123]city, bringing its laws and political domination everywhere. His system was always that of military colonies; wherever his legions carried their arms, they founded cities, and built for eternity. Take for example the ancient city of Arli, proud of its circuses and theaters which are reflected in the Rhone; it recognizes its founding by veterans of the sixth legion. Thus Beziers, under the burning sun of Septimania, was also a quarters of the seventh legion, and so Frejus, so Orange, adorned nevertheless with its triumphal arch, were the buildings of those veterans, lords of the world. As many as one hundred cities of the Gauls recognize their origin from the big city, from urbs Rome, so magnificent in his memories. The Roman colony was generally planted in a plain in the midst of a pleasant soil, not far from some river of high flow: the cities, built tightly, were widely used in public monuments, in circuses, in theaters where commonly twenty thousand spectators sat. ; there was the pensier della patria, the grandeur of the Roman name; the bathroom, the banquet, the forum constituted social life.
Gaul was thus covered with Roman cities, but then how much changed in appearance! Only those who leave the noisy stay in Naples and the via di Toledo, deafened by the shrill voice of the Lazzaroni, are sometimes set off along the road to Torre del Greco or Portici, to direct their solitary journey towards the ruins of Pompeii, covered by lavas of Vesuvius, a correct concept of the Roman city can be formed with its street scattered with mounds, its magnificent houses, its bathrooms, its tricliniums, its mosaics, its frescoes, painted with such lively and splendid colors! Whoever flows through the temple of Jupiter, with its superb columns, the forum, the theaters, the cellars full of amphorae, can well say to himself: “Such must have been the colonies of Aachen, Auxerre, and the Greek Marseille, of Narbonne and Nimes! ”
Alongside the Roman city, you found scattered from the Rhine to the Loire and the Rhone, a multitude of cities of quite Gallic origin, that life near the forests was grateful to those Celtic peoples who previously inhabited the still virgin soil. The descriptions that remain of them, paint these Gallic cities, as narrow, huddled, shapeless, with rough buildings, resembling those masses of stones that are still encountered in Sardinia, and are referred to as cyclopean monuments : they were not so much cities how many towns and villages in which the populations gathered under their head. The Gallic house was nothing more than a hut, and the temples were constructions of stones, with boundless boulders superimposed, which are nevertheless given the name of fairy tables.. The cities were almost all located near a solitary wood, in the thick shade of the trees; in fact the age-old oak, covered with mistletoe and [124]of the rust of the times, was it not the sacred tree? Few were the cities which in the time of the Carolingians still lasted in their original purity; nevertheless, some hamlets in Brittany preserved had the uncultivated aspect and the imprint of the ancient Gallic homeland. The capitulars also mention the cities that were governed with the original law of Gaul.
The Franks, diligent and warlike people, did not otherwise situate their cities in the plain wet and fertilized by the river; but they gave preference to the alpine region, to the steep cliffs, which allowed them to build inaccessible walls and towers where the enemy’s dart could not reach, albeit from a vigorous arm thrown. Living by war, as they did, more than anything else they had to seek defense, and therefore they lodged, like the eagle and the hawk, on the top of the mountains. So it is that almost in every place where some traces of the passage of the Franks of Neustria and Austrasia last, you see some remains of the wall on top of the cliffs, under which, with the passage of time, a peaceful village was formed. . The streets of these Frankish cities were narrow, the houses crammed: some springs, jumping from stone to stone, they quickly crossed the streets; the ancient walls were built with Roman concrete, the church formed the center; a common square was used to gather the inhabitants; some remains of broad pavement, hidden under the glass-makers, still point to the ancient Roman road; as soon as there is any trace of a path on that steep slope, nor on those high yokes, you can see that some birds of prey fly, sending shrill screams, among the cracks and debris of the walls attached to the mountain sides.
The Germanic city did not differ much from the Frankish city; the two peoples in fact derived from the same origin, nor did Austrasio point distinguish itself from the frank Alemanno; they were, as it were, two old brothers who took each other by the hand. The Franco, however, was better established in Gaul than the Germanic peoples on earth, but the Saxons still took refuge in tents, did not have their own cities, and loved to settle with families and herds, in this or that situation, so that living them was more like a continuous camping. In Germany, the monastic foundations were the first elements of the political and commercial cities, witness Mainz, the bishopric of St. Boniface. Appo the Lombards, since those who had a more cultured nature, the city took a rapid course, never did any tribe have more easily than those peoples to prove the action of civil ideas. If in Lamagna it can be said that all the cities recognized their origin from Christian preaching, the same is not to be said of the Lombards, who created and established [125]and founded; Milan and Pavia were almost their work; the monuments of architecture took for them a special and original form, a sort of mixture of the Roman style and the Gothic concept. The Lombards and the Visigoths were the two fractions of the barbarian peoples who stood out most for the great ease of their buildings, and for the acceptance of Roman customs.
The government of the Visigoth bishops was a model of order and constitution. The cities of Septimania shone like the same ancient cities founded by Rome, without anything barbaric, save the Arianism which was inexorable against the monuments of fine arts; except that when the Saracens came with their invasions to threaten those districts, the defenders sheltered those ruins, and the ancient temples of Jupiter and Venus in the city of Arli served to restore the walls to defend the city; the marble of the circuses was used to build the churches; the statues of the gods were broken, and the Roman sepulchers were used as a deposit for the bones of the bishop or the holy martyr. Thus the cities of Gotia remained Roman, only the need for defense and the Christian spirit, thus modifying their ancient structure a little; the districts became narrow and more tortuous; the walls were built at the expense of ancient monuments, and the via dei sepolcri was used for the Christian cemetery. Even the influence of the Saracens had to modify somewhat the first aspect of the Roman cities, of Gotia, because the customs of the East make one desire the shadow, in the way that the Arab seeks the palm tree in the desert, and therefore to defend himself from the sun they had recourse to the almost oriental form of the houses which mutually lent themselves the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, but each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques to the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected. the walls were built at the expense of ancient monuments, and the via dei sepolcri was used for the Christian cemetery. Even the influence of the Saracens had to modify somewhat the first aspect of the Roman cities, of Gotia, because the customs of the East make one desire the shade, in the way that the Arab seeks the palm tree in the desert, and therefore to defend himself from the sun they had recourse to the almost oriental form of the houses which mutually lent themselves the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, but each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques to the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected. the walls were built at the expense of ancient monuments, and the via dei sepolcri was used for the Christian cemetery. Even the influence of the Saracens had to modify somewhat the first aspect of the Roman cities, of Gotia, because the customs of the East make one desire the shade, in the way that the Arab seeks the palm tree in the desert, and therefore to defend himself from the sun they had recourse to the almost oriental form of the houses which mutually lent themselves the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, but each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques to the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected. influence of the Saracens had to modify somewhat the first aspect of the Roman cities, of Gotia, because the customs of the East make one desire the shade, in the way that the Arab seeks the palm tree in the desert, and therefore to defend himself from the sun he had recourse to the almost oriental shape of the houses which mutually lent themselves the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, but each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques to the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected. influence of the Saracens had to modify somewhat the first aspect of the Roman cities, of Gotia, because the customs of the East make one desire the shade, in the way that the Arab seeks the palm tree in the desert, and therefore to defend himself from the sun he had recourse to the almost oriental shape of the houses which mutually lent themselves the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, but each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques to the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected. and therefore to defend themselves from the sun they had recourse to the almost oriental shape of the houses which mutually lent themselves to the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, however that each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques to the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected. and therefore to defend themselves from the sun they had recourse to the almost oriental shape of the houses which mutually lent themselves to the shadows of their roofs, and ruins were planted upon ruins, however that each invasion was a failure. The Saracens introduced the architecture of minarets and mosques in the cities of the South and Spain, which the thirteenth century saw perfected.
Numerous populations had been hospitalized in these cities, and the method of the Carolingic villas had gathered a great multitude of workers and other men of various professions, who worked in those farms in every profession; but even the arthouse preferred the domicile of the city, as the one that enjoyed various privileges, and was defended by walls. Each city in fact had its magistrates, its defenders, its colleges of the arts, with the pre-eminence of the episcopal authority over all other authorities. It would be nice to describe the history of the episcopate in the first three centuries of the barbaric invasions; the bishop was the conservator of municipal law, the whole city man, the vigilant magistrate who protected her from every scourge, her procurator, her negotiator; as the inexorable victors advance, [126]that he almost always managed to have his head bowed to the highest Sicambri under the crosier. Read the stories of Prudentius, Sidonio Apollinare, San Remigio, and you will see those noble magistrates of the Gallic municipality defend the city, its privileges, and save more than once the liberty and civilization of the people.
The bishop, in his prevalence in the city, was subsidized by a number of officers elected from among the various conditions of the people, who, under the title of defenders and lawyers , all concurred to form the Roman municipality; there is no point in doubting that a defender of the municipality was there even at the time of the Carolingians, the same one who later under the third lineage took the name of maire [121]. Together with it the centurions, the jurors, elected by the people, administered public affairs, in the manner of the ancient times of the colonies, while the accounts were the representatives of the emperor, and the public magistrates, in imitation of the prefects of the Roman regiment. These municipal forms were in every place under the Carolingians well before the seditious invasion of the Commune, and they were for the citizens a burden rather than a privilege, since no one could exempt themselves from the obligations of the curia under the vidami, the provosts, the scabins, the good men or wise men, who all practiced the same offices. The mass of the people had preserved the Roman customs; each individual maintained his own personality, and was governed by his law; only the general division, under the centurions and decurions,
The personality of the laws derived substantially from that of customs; few of the municipal formulas are those which depart from the rules proclaimed by the Theodosian code, and all retain their color. The acts of life and having proceeded from the codes promulgated by the Romans, and it is enough for you to read the papers and diplomas of those times to persuade yourself that theodosian law still governs private transactions, those in inspection that refer to the land. The codes, according to which they were classified by jurists, comprise three distinct parts: 1.º people; 2.º the assets; 3.º the way to govern the latter, and to transmit them. This classification was too exact and too philosophical for the use of the Barbarians; the invasion had thrown everywhere a great confusion, every people was fond of its privileges; Franco to the Salic law and rethinks, the Visigoths to his diocesan councils, the Roman to [127]his theodosian code and the decretals; and yet this classification nevertheless reacts to the general state of society.
The law of the cherici, almost always uniform, came from the popes and the councils; everything consisted for them in religious life: baptism, marriage and death. Nobody even doubts that there were no noble classes at that time; there were some in the cities and colonies, and they formed the senate, and practiced the supreme offices of the municipality almost alone. The ideas of family and of transmission of the lineages, powerful were next to the Germans; free men were tributaries, or entirely free. But without contrast then, slavery was everywhere, and formed like a social state; when free men went to war, colonists and slaves remained to cultivate the land, and the vanquished were placed in chains by the victors; such being in those days the inexorable law of victory. We still have some formulas of emancipation or manumission, from which we know that this act of franchise was done in church or before the curia, and usually the formula with which the slave was freed, was this: “In the name of God, and for remedy of my soul, I want this servant to be made free; so that here in front of the church, in the presence of the priests, and at the foot of the altar, I release him from all the bonds of servitude so that, today and always, he is kept as born and procreated by naive relatives. ” These manipulations multiplied greatly under the reign of Charlemagne, at a time when slavery was the common law, liberation the exception, nor the sale of man was in no way contrary to civil law, the slave being the property of the master. In one of these almost contemporary formulas we read of a child found at night at the door of the church, who, at an agreed price, is sold to a Franco, who will raise him and keep him as his own. The origin of this child, who was found wrapped up in pannicellibloody , she was unknown, and questioned the neighbors, no one was able to point to her father, so that the one who had found him sold it to another on the said conditions.
Marriage was a completely Christian act, and the Church recommended its unity, but Roman law allowed divorce, since according to the jurists of the Forum, the wife was nothing but the slave, and indeed the thing of the husband. «He is certain, says a formula, that this woman, instead of being a relief to me, does nothing but bore me; we become one day more enemies than the other, and therefore we can no longer live together; we have therefore come before the good men (the mayor) to separate us by mutual agreement, so that if I want to take another woman, I can freely do it, and so she will take another husband. ” This cold form of divorce, written in such dry terms, was enough to dissolve the marriage. Oh! how much nobler and sweeter this [128]union when husband and wife lived together! They could then make mutual donations: «to reciprocate, as the papers say, a mutual testimony of love, we make this donation in writing so that the heirs have nothing to oppose. I married you with the consent of your relatives and our mutual friends, so I like to give you part of my possessions, which I do here in the presence of the civil authority and the Church. ”
The will was also a personal act of freedom, since it was not lawful for anyone to test if it was not free, and this was done in the presence of witnesses, and often publicly, in the presence of the city itself. “The present testament was made by me, and will, after my death, be recognized as legitimate by the seal that I placed before the municipal magistrates of the republic in the basilica of San Profetto, which I myself had built, and in the presence of the nobles of the people.” Where the formula of the Roman testaments is preserved, the right to test being, so to speak, a political faculty connected with city law; with which to explain the competition of the magistrates to receive and validate the will. The possession of a building did not draw with it the faculty of passing it on after death, and only by special indulgence did Roman law allow the possession to continue even after the owner died. Sometimes the will disposed of all the goods with pious intention, and said: «I Rufina, left a childless widow, leave to my dear brother, Eufemio abbate, the part of the property received from my mother, in order to participate in her prayers. To which effect, I, his sister Rufina, have signed this will. ”
The owner of the building could dispossess it in two ways: by transmission for consideration, which was the sale, that is to say, the transfer by price of the thing owned, or by donation, which was a similar act, free of charge. The Roman formulas still regulate sales under the first and second lineage, and they intervene with every minute accessory, and with the sacramental words. The Theodosian code regulates contracts; and the cartular of Sithieu , which goes up to the eighth century, includes several deeds of sale, in the following terms: «To the venerable in Christ Father Ardrado, abbot of the monastery of Sithieu buyer, I Sigeberta seller. For these letters I give faith, who not by imaginary right, but by my own will, have sold to him and his monastery the building calledFrisigen , reserving for me the measure of about a day; except for which fields, houses, woods, meadows, pastures, everything, as above, are sold by me to the said monastery for the price of a hundred soldi of gold, so that it becomes entirely his property. What if I or any of my heirs, what [129]I do not think, if we wanted to appeal against this sale, it will nevertheless remain inviolable by the care of the magistrates. Done publicly in the monastery of Sithieu on June 10, the twentieth year of the reign of Charles our most glorious lord. ” This writing, very particularized in detail, clearly bears the imprint of Roman law; everything within it is noted, the extent, the content, the derivation, the price; hence we see that the Theodosian code and the decretals exercised a very great authority over the jurists and forms of those times.
Spontaneous donation, yes to persons and yes to the Church, always derives its form from the statutes of the codes themselves, and is inscribed in the monastery’s charter, or in the public registers of the city. “I ask you, excellent defender, and most laudable municipal officials, to make my donation public.” And the magistrates replied: «Here is the paper you wrote. – Here it is, it’s a donation that I make to a Musicissimo man. ” After which the donor recited the inscription in the desired form, and if this donation inscription was in favor of a monastery, the formula was almost always the following: “In the name of God, my wife and I doniam these things to the monastery , and we write about it in eternal memory: “or:” I Folberto, with this donation card, declare that for the rest of the soul of Ebertana my mother,
There were also formulations for the mandate, for the transfer into possession of the inheritance, and for all other acts of public and private life. Society rested upon a great symbolism since in the early days of Rome, and where a gleb of earth meant the transmission of possession, where a rod cut into pieces meant the breaking of the contract or the division of the inheritance; the ring was the sign of marriage; there were no statutes written for the generality, but each had his own law, and everything was personal; besides the Austrasiian Franks and those of Neustria, the children inherited in equal parts, while Roman law allowed the primogeniture and the unlimited faculty in the father to disinherit the children.
The three legislations, the Roman code that is, the barbaric laws and the ecclesiastical canons waged war with each other, but each of them had a different spirit from the others. The Roman code, taken as one likes, was the expression of a civilization which was already very advanced; the Theodosian and the Justinian code, the Pandects and the Institutions suggest a people that has already worn out the energy of its native strength; in the judgments then of the jurists, the wisdom was certainly a great deal, but the formulas, the exceptions, the lengths were infinite. On the other hand, the barbaric laws, in which, portraying the ancient simplicity of the woods, few provisions were enough to regulate the course [130]of the acts in that nascent civilization. As for ecclesiastical law, the canons and those which were subsequently called decretals, moved from a principle of human morality, and canon law, by removing its general rules from the maxims of the Theodosian code, purified them with the Christian spirit; therefore Roman law admitted divorce, and canon law would never allow it; usury was a faculty legitimately approved in the loan agreement, and the Church could not have approved it without neglecting the very words of the Gospel.
In the midst of all the accidents of this triple legislation, we want to note certain general characteristics which distinguish them from one another. The barbarian laws rest entirely on the composition, and everywhere you find in them the price of blood and the repurchase of positively established guilt. There is no crime that is not redeemed by a fine or a settlement; society has no respect for the rights and life of man, nor does murder have for the barbarians that horrible aspect that among civilized nations. Composition is also the foundation of the capitulars; nevertheless we want to note three periods through which the processura passes in the eighth and in the ninth century. The oath always has the first degree in the order of evidence and testimony, because in the midst of primitive societies, when the customs are pure and the uses simple, the oath in the sight of God is a very great surety; man’s faith then overcomes personal and stingy interest, and dirI swear, it is solemnly obliged to the truth. But in the corruption of morals, who can still trust the oath? It is no longer a sufficient surety, and others are needed to safeguard the public and private interests. The Church therefore, which intervenes in everything, makes the oath cloak with great solemnity, in order to curb perjury, and leads the man to swear at the foot of the altar and on the holy relics, with recitation of prayers, and smoke of d ‘ incense, and extinguish of faci, and threat of excommunication against anyone who dares to violate the sacrament. Nor is it enough: that whoever swears by dee, is not already a single individual, but he has to be assisted by his other guarantors, who all come at the foot of the altar, and if they are Franks, the number is less, but that the loyalty is inherent in sylvan life; if they are Lombards, Italians, Romans, the number of oaths is greater, but that their faith is revenge, and for them swearing becomes a profession. Hence the Church weeps for it; one can no longer count on this solemnity of the oath, it is no longer sufficient to guarantee contracts; I also multiplied the witnesses by thousands: what good is it? When faith is ita, there is no longer any shelter, and the oath is no longer an accessory to the process.
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Hence the ecclesiastical concept of trials was born and developed by means of fire and boiling water; because, not being able to trust more in human faith, it is of all necessity to have recourse to a more effective way; and this evidence derived especially from the very great faith that the generation had in God and in heavenly justice for the absolution of the innocent and the punishment of the offender; so that it was impossible for her that Christ did not intervene with a miracle to manifest the truth. In fact, weren’t the legends an epic poem in honor of innocence? He lived in a marvelous world, and the realities of life, too monotonous, seemed too vulgar; God, the saints, the martyrs showed themselves continually by miracles, so the Church inferred that innocence would be manifested to the test. Everything in those memorable solemnities took on an aspect of Christian gravity. When the public voice accused a scoundrel of having stolen someone else’s: “Hold this hot iron, he was told, and if your hand is hard enough to hold it, it is a sign that God wants to prove your innocence.” And to the woman accused of adultery: «Do you see that ring at the bottom of this boiling boiler? You dipped your hand, and if you take it back without the water offending it, you will be innocent. ” The offender must be completely horrified at the appearance of the solemn apparatus of these tests, and we still have in some psalteries of the Middle Ages, the forms and the preci that accompanied the manifestations of God’s justice, whence we see that that most terrible act was of the oath itself, graver than any written promise, nor perhaps there was anything better than that consonant with the greatness and power of Catholicism! The evidence was a middle term between the oath and the judicial duel, which then became the almost unique jurisprudence of the middle centuries.
For the ecclesiastics, therefore, the oath on the relics; and for weak women, trials; but for the man of war, the fight, for he knew no other form of trial, nor any other way to avenge the offense. The higher you search in the wild life of the Germans, the more the principle of the duel will become manifest: «You have done me harm or insult, and I take my revenge, nothing simpler; life against life; we are equal; now to God and to the strength of our arm to judge among us [122] . ” The form of singular combat [132]it insinuated itself into all primitive institutions, only, it is important to note it, in the Middle Ages, the rules of the trial were given to this fight. Two men, after a quarrel of honor or interest, faced each other hand to hand, it is very ancient custom, and the Iliad itself gives us examples of duels and revenge by means of the singular certame; but what is special is in the Carolinian times and maximally in the legislation of the ninth century, that this certificate then becomes a processura, with all its rules set out in part.
The Roman law of oaths and the ecclesiastical law of proofs therefore fall into disuse, nor of all this more else remains but the judicial duel, which is not only a revenge of injury, but also a means of demonstrating reason. “You have usurped my property, my land, my fiefdom, and I challenge you.” And now it was done in the presence of the count’s delegates, now with the intervention of the Church itself, and from hand to hand a code of duties and exceptions was being formed and developed; the widow, the woman, weak as she is, cannot answer in the fence, nor is the tender hand of the pupil worthwhile, nor is it lawful for the Church to arm her priests, so that all these are exempt from fighting, and can elect champions and defenders who fight for them. We have a whole legislation in the Middle Ages, relating to samples,[123] .
A certain color of formality characterizes the Carlingo period, and one feels the influence of Rome. We have not yet arrived there at universal, native, barbaric feudality; Roman law governs almost the entire period, written papers and diplomas are thicker, everything is left and transmitted in writing; and when there is a writing, there is no longer any need for singular certainty or proofs; nor, however, are those acts without complications, and the proceedings are a mixture of the Theodosian code and the councils of the Church. In every place where Roman law predominates, the municipality is thus the common tribunal which decides all the causes of the city; almost all the acts are done in front of the defenders, the good men, the scabini, the rachimburghi of the city. That if it was a crime of interest to general society, [133]the liberation of the servants, the donations, the testaments were also subject to this registration in the protocols of the city, which recalls the canon law, the Roman codes and the forms consecrated in the Instituta of Justinian.
In this way, in the Carlingo period, the contrast of the various legislations was still evident, and there was nothing of uniform, nothing clear-cut. The territory was not otherwise an invariable basis for private law; each one had his own custom, and to this individuality of the laws, one would accidentally attribute that infinite clipping of codes, which later governed the law of the provinces. In the study of these private customs and in the examination of the uses of life, we seek the history of the Middle Ages; they are very precious documents, and the sale of a fief or battle horse teaches much better the spirit and customs of a society than the more daring and specious observations on the general nature of history. The records of the charter holders of the Carlingo period are indeed relevant; but the spirit of the system has taken possession of it; the theorist has gone right into Marcolfo’s formulas, to draw universal rules, and this superb eagerness to generalize does not correspond at all to the simple spirit of the past that invokes the sky withproofs , and God’s judgment with singular certame .
