r, when any fresh extension
of political liberty was likely to have become established. But the
difficulty may still remain with respect to "extraordinary purposes" of
another description.

They observe afterwards that "they have found no document before the
Great Charter of John in which the term 'majores barones' has been used,
though in some subsequent documents words of apparently similar import
have been used. From the instrument itself it might be presumed that the
term 'majores barones' was then a term in some degree understood; and
that the distinction had, therefore, an earlier origin, though the
committee have not found the term in any earlier instrument." (p. 67.)
But though the Dialogue on the Exchequer, generally referred to the
reign of Henry II., is not an instrument, it is a law-book of sufficient
reputation, and in this we read--"Quidam de rege tenent in capite quae ad
coronam pertinent; baronias scilicet majores seu minores." (Lib. ii.
cap. 10.) It would be trifling to dispute that the tenant of a _baronia
major_ might be called a _baro major_. And what could the _secundae
dignitatis barones_ at Northampton have been but tenants _in capite_
holding fiefs by some line or other distinguishable from a superior
class?[461]

It appears, therefore, on the whole, that in the judgment of the
committee, by no means indulgent in their requisition of evidence, or
disposed to take the more popular side, all the military tenants _in
capite_ were constitutionally members of the _commune concilium_ of the
realm during the Norman constitution. This _commune concilium_ the
committee distinguish from a _magnum concilium_, though it seems
doubtful whether there were any very definite line between the two. But
that the consent of these tenants was required for taxation they
repeatedly acknowledge. And there appears sufficient evidence that they
were occasionally present for other important purposes. It is, however,
very probable that writs of summons were actually addressed only to
those of distinguished name, to those resident near the place of
meeting, or to the servants and favourites of the crown. This seems to
be deducible from the words in the Great Charter, which limit the king's
engagement to summon all tenants in chief, through the sheriff, to the
case of his requiring an aid or scutage, and still more from the
withdrawing of this promise in the first year of Henry III. The
privilege of attending on such occasi