wless rapine was
perfectly restrained even at the end of the fifteenth century, a
sensible amendment had been every where experienced. Private warfare,
the licensed robbery of feudal manners, had been subjected to so many
mortifications by the kings of France, and especially by St. Louis, that
it can hardly be traced beyond the fourteenth century. In Germany and
Spain it lasted longer; but the various associations for maintaining
tranquillity in the former country had considerably diminished its
violence before the great national measure of public peace adopted
under Maximilian.[735] Acts of outrage committed by powerful men became
less frequent as the executive government acquired more strength to
chastise them. We read that St. Louis, the best of French kings, imposed
a fine upon the lord of Vernon for permitting a merchant to be robbed in
his territory between sunrise and sunset. For by the customary law,
though in general ill observed, the lord was bound to keep the roads
free from depredators in the day-time, in consideration of the toll he
received from passengers.[736] The same prince was with difficulty
prevented from passing a capital sentence on Enguerrand de Coucy, a
baron of France, for a murder.[737] Charles the Fair actually put to
death a nobleman of Languedoc for a series of robberies, notwithstanding
the intercession of the provincial nobility.[738] The towns established
a police of their own for internal security, and rendered themselves
formidable to neighbouring plunderers. Finally, though not before the
reign of Louis XI., an armed force was established for the preservation
of police.[739] Various means were adopted in England to prevent
robberies, which indeed were not so frequently perpetrated as they were
on the continent, by men of high condition. None of these perhaps had so
much efficacy as the frequent sessions of judges under commissions of
gaol delivery. But the spirit of this country has never brooked that
coercive police which cannot exist without breaking in upon personal
liberty by irksome regulations, and discretionary exercise of power;
the sure instrument of tyranny, which renders civil privileges at once
nugatory and insecure, and by which we should dearly purchase some real
benefits connected with its slavish discipline.

[Sidenote: Religious sects.]

I have some difficulty in adverting to another source of moral
improvement during this period, the growth of religious opinions adv