ously to preserve the secret of
the origin of her Privilege from the days when the prisons of the last
Norman dukes had been the only appropriate scene for her most striking
and gorgeous public ceremony.

[Footnote 24: With this phrase in 1210 compare the words recorded in
MS. 69 in the Rouen Library, where the privilege is spoken of as
"_accorde a la Sainte vierge Marie et au bienheureux Saint Romain_,"
in 1299.]

The little open chapel built upon the same spot now (see p. 37), saw
the last deliverance of 1790, and still preserves the name of the
"_Fierte St. Romain_." An excellent and well-proportioned example of
the architecture of the sixteenth century, it was used for the first
time in 1543, and shows in every detail of its construction and
arrangement that it was expressly planned for this especial ceremony.
Of the ceremony itself I shall have more to say later on. For the
present I must content myself with this necessary explanation of its
origin and locality. From the lists of the prisoners I shall very
frequently have occasion to take a striking example of the manners of
the time, as the tale of the city is gradually unfolded, in which this
Privilege de St. Romain is perhaps the most exceptional and striking
feature. But it is only by the second half of the fourteenth century
that the names are written down with a sufficient regularity to admit
of useful reference. During the thirteenth century, at which I have
now arrived, there are only three names actually preserved, though the
continuation of the Privilege is fully proved by the inevitable
quarrels between the ecclesiastical and civil authorities, of which
conspicuous examples occur in 1207 and in 1299.

The canons did not shrink from laying the town under an interdict when
the lawyers proved recalcitrant, and took every opportunity to enforce
the recognition of their permanent right of choosing their prisoner at
the season of the year consecrated to the exercise of their peculiar
privilege. The same Bailly of Rouen who had objected to this in 1299,
found, to his cost, that it was dangerous to repeat his attempts to
thwart the ecclesiastics. For when their freedom of choice was again
infringed only three years afterwards, the Chapter brought the sacred
shrine to the chapel in the Place de la Vieille Tour, and, after
explaining what had happened to the people, they left this venerated
palladium of the town out in the open square until their privileges
ha