acquiescence he took from
the report what seemed to him good, and made out from the same
assizes and customs, which should be held, applied, and observed in
the kingdom of Jerusalem.'

Our author further tells us that both Godfrey himself and the later
kings, in their diets of the kingdom, extended and improved these laws.
The diets were generally held at Acre, at the season of the arrival of
the pilgrims from Europe, as this gave opportunity to ascertain what was
the law of their several homes in relation to the matter in question;
and it is even said that messengers were sent over the sea expressly for
this purpose. William of Tyre, the celebrated chronicler of the time,
has preserved to us an interesting case of this special legislation. He
says that after the conquest of the holy city, and return home of most
of the pilgrims, the danger from the Saracens having become imminent,
many of the newly invested feudal tenants began to desert their fiefs,
upon which Godfrey issued the following assize:

'Whoever shall hold such deserted fief in possession for one year,
shall be considered as having gained it by prescriptive right, and
shall be defended in its possession against the previous owner who
has deserted it.'

The same William of Tyre tells us of a diet held at Neapolis in Samaria,
in the year 1120, 'at which, in order to banish from the land the
immoralities and crying abuses which had crept into it, there were
issued comprehensive regulations, embraced in twenty-five chapters; and
it seems from the form of the oath of the later kings that Amalrick I
and his son Baldwin IV had undertaken a formal revision of the
legislation.' It is therefore probable that we retain very little of the
system established _immediately_ upon the conquest. If we had no
evidence of revisions and changes, the sad and unquiet times through
which Godfrey had to pass would fully justify this conjecture.

But let us hear what tradition says in regard to the external condition
of these laws:

'These assizes (vide chap. iv) were written each by itself in large
Gothic letters. The first letter at the beginning was illuminated
with gold, and all the rubrics and titles were written separately
in red, as well all the other assizes as those of the higher and
those of the burghers' court. Each sheet had the signature and seal
of the king, the patriarch, and the viscount of Jerusal