8: It is reported of three British bishops who assisted at
the council of Rimini, A.D. 359, tam pauperes fuisse ut nihil haberent.
Sulpicius Severus, Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 420. Some of their brethren
however, were in better circumstances.]

[Footnote 189: Consult Usher, de Antiq. Eccles. Britannicar. c. 8-12.]
It is somewhat remarkable, or rather it is extremely natural, that the
revolt of Britain and Armorica should have introduced an appearance of
liberty into the obedient provinces of Gaul. In a solemn edict, [190]
filled with the strongest assurances of that paternal affection which
princes so often express, and so seldom feel, the emperor Honorius
promulgated his intention of convening an annual assembly of the seven
provinces: a name peculiarly appropriated to Aquitain and the ancient
Narbonnese, which had long since exchanged their Celtic rudeness for the
useful and elegant arts of Italy. [191] Arles, the seat of government
and commerce, was appointed for the place of the assembly; which
regularly continued twenty-eight days, from the fifteenth of August
to the thirteenth of September, of every year. It consisted of the
Praetorian praefect of the Gauls; of seven provincial governors, one
consular, and six presidents; of the magistrates, and perhaps the
bishops, of about sixty cities; and of a competent, though indefinite,
number of the most honorable and opulent possessors of land, who might
justly be considered as the representatives of their country. They were
empowered to interpret and communicate the laws of their sovereign; to
expose the grievances and wishes of their constituents; to moderate the
excessive or unequal weight of taxes; and to deliberate on every subject
of local or national importance, that could tend to the restoration of
the peace and prosperity of the seven provinces. If such an institution,
which gave the people an interest in their own government, had been
universally established by Trajan or the Antonines, the seeds of public
wisdom and virtue might have been cherished and propagated in the empire
of Rome. The privileges of the subject would have secured the throne of
the monarch; the abuses of an arbitrary administration might have been
prevented, in some degree, or corrected, by the interposition of these
representative assemblies; and the country would have been defended
against a foreign enemy by the arms of natives and freemen. Under the
mild and generous influence of liberty, the