assals, and a statute of 855 places under his authority
even the freemen who resided with other persons.

From these various sources we discover a curious fact, which has hitherto
remained unnoticed by historians--namely, that there existed an
intermediate legislation between the official court of the count and his
subordinates and the private courts, which was a kind of court of
arbitration exercised by the neighbours (_vicini_) without the assistance
of the judges of the county, and this was invested with a sort of
authority which rendered its decisions binding.

[Illustration: Fig. 297.--The Emperor Charlemagne holding in one hand the
Globe and in the other the Sword.--After a Miniature in the Registers of
the University of Paris (Archives of the Minister of Public Instruction of
the University). The Motto, _In scelus exurgo, sceleris discrimina purgo,
_ is written on a Scroll round the Sword.]

Private courts, however, were limited in their power. They were neither
absolutely independent, nor supreme and without appeal. All conducted
their business much in the same way as the high, middle, and lower courts
of the Middle Ages; and above all these authorities towered the King's
jurisdiction. The usurpation of ecclesiastical bishops and abbots--who,
having become temporal lords, assumed a domestic jurisdiction--was
curtailed by the authority of the counts, and they were even more obliged
to give way before that of the _missi dominici_, or the official delegates
of the monarch. Charles the Bald, notwithstanding his enormous concessions
to feudalism and to the Church, never gave up his right of final appeal.

During the whole of the Merovingian epoch, the _mahl_ (_mallus_), the
general and regular assembly of the nation, was held in the month of
March. Persons of every class met there clad in armour; political,
commercial, and judicial interests were discussed under the presidency of
the monarch; but this did not prevent other special assemblies of the
King's court (_curia regalis_) being held on urgent occasions. This court
formed a parliament (_parlamentum_), which at first was exclusively
military, but from the time of Clovis was composed of Franks, Burgundians,
Gallo-Romans, as well as of feudal lords and ecclesiastics. As, by
degrees, the feudal System became organized, the convocation of national
assemblies became more necessary, and the administration of justice more
complicated. Charlemagne decided that two _ma