in Fortescue, which bear on his favourite theme, the liberty
and consequent happiness of the English, are very important, and
triumphantly refute those superficial writers who would make us believe
that they were a set of beggarly slaves.

[734] Besides the books to which I have occasionally referred, Mr.
Ellis's Specimens of English Poetry, vol. i. chap. 13, contain a short
digression, but from well-selected materials, on the private life of the
English in the middling and lower ranks about the fifteenth century. [I
leave the foregoing pages with little alteration, but they may probably
contain expressions which I would not now adopt. 1850.]

[735] Besides the German historians, see Du Cange, v. Ganerbium, for the
confederacies in the empire, and Hermandatum for those in Castile. These
appear to have been merely voluntary associations, and perhaps directed
as much towards the prevention of robbery, as of what is strictly called
private war. But no man can easily distinguish offensive war from
robbery except by its scale; and where this was so considerably reduced,
the two modes of injury almost coincide. In Aragon, there was a distinct
institution for the maintenance of peace, the kingdom being divided into
unions or juntas, with a chief officer, called Suprajunctarius, at their
head. Du Cange, v. Juncta.

[736] Henault, Abrege Chronol. a l'an. 1255. The institutions of Louis
IX. and his successors relating to police form a part, though rather a
smaller part than we should expect from the title, of an immense work,
replete with miscellaneous information, by Delamare, Traite de la
Police, 4 vols. in folio. A sketch of them may be found in Velly, t. v.
p. 349, t. xviii. p. 437.

[737] Velly, t. v. p. 162, where this incident is told in an interesting
manner from William de Nangis. Boulainvilliers has taken an
extraordinary view of the king's behaviour. Hist. de l'Ancien
Gouvernement, t. ii. p. 26. In his eyes princes and plebeians were made
to be the slaves of a feudal aristocracy.

[738] Velly, t. viii. p. 132.

[739] Id. xviii. p. 437.

[740] Fleury, 3me Discours sur l'Hist. Eccles.

[741] The most authentic account of the Paulicians is found in a little
treatise of Petrus Siculus, who lived about 870, under Basil the
Macedonian. He had been employed on an embassy to Tephrica, the
principal town of these heretics, so that he might easily be well
informed; and, though he is sufficiently bigoted, I do not see an