[293] ‘Saint-Louis consacra le droit de guerre…. Philippe le Bel, qui voulut l'abolir, finit par le rétablir.’ Montlosier, Monarchie Française, vol. i. pp. 127, 202: see also pp. 434, 435, and vol. ii. pp. 435, 436. Mably (Observations, vol. ii. p. 338) mentions ‘lettres-patentes de Philippe-de-Valois du 8 février 1330, pour permettre dans le duché d'Aquitaine les guerres privées,’ &c.; and he adds, ‘le 9 avril 1353 le roi Jean renouvelle l'ordonnance de S. Louis, nommée la quarantaine du roi, touchant les guerres privées.’
[294] Sir Francis Palgrave (in his Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, vol. i. pp. 51–55) has attempted to estimate the results produced by the Norman Conquest; but he omits to notice this, which was the most important consequence of all.
[295] On this political union between Norman barons and Saxon citizens, of which the first clear indication is at the end of the twelfth century, compare Campbell's Chancellors, vol. i. p. 113, with Brougham's Polit. Philos. vol. i. p. 339, vol. iii. p. 222.
In regard to the general question of the amalgamation of races, we have three distinct kinds of evidence:
1st. Towards the end of the twelfth century, a new language began to be formed by blending Norman with Saxon; and English literature, properly so called, dates from the commencement of the thirteenth century. Compare Madden's Preface to Layamon, 1847, vol. i. pp. xx. xxi., with Turner's Hist. of England, vol. viii. pp. 214, 217, 436, 437.
2nd. We have the specific statement of a writer in the reign of Henry II., that ‘sic permixtæ sunt nationes ut vix discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis Anglicus, quis Normannus sit genere.’ Note in Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 106.
3rd. Before the thirteenth century had passed away, the difference of dress, which in that state of society would survive many other differences, was no longer observed, and the distinctive peculiarities of Norman and Saxon attire had disappeared. See Strutt's View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England, vol. ii. p. 67, edit. Planché, 1842, 4to.
[296] ‘An equal distribution of civil rights to all classes of freemen forms the peculiar beauty of the charter.’ Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 108. This is very finely noticed in one of Lord Chatham's great speeches. Parl. Hist. vol. xvi. p. 662.
[297] Compare Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. ii. p. 39, with Lingard's England, vol. ii. p. 127, and Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 92.
[298] ‘He is to be honoured as the founder of a representative system of government in this country.’ Campbell's Chief-Justices, vol. i. p. 61. Some writers (see, for instance, Dalrymple's Hist. of Feudal Property, p. 332) suppose that burgesses were summoned before the reign of Henry III.: but this assertion is not only unsupported by evidence, but is in itself improbable; because at an early period the citizens, though rapidly increasing in power, were hardly important enough to warrant such a step being taken. The best authorities are now agreed to refer the origin of the House of Commons to the period mentioned in the text. See Hallam's Supplement, Notes, pp. 335–339; Spence's Origin of the Laws of Europe, p. 512; Campbell's Chancellors, vol. i. p. 155; Lingard's England, vol. ii. p. 138; Guizot's Essais, p. 319. The notion of tracing this to the wittenagemot is as absurd as finding the origin of juries in the system of compurgators; both of which were favourite errors in the seventeenth, and even in the eighteenth century. In regard to the wittenagemot, this idea still lingers among antiquaries: but, in regard to compurgators, even they have abandoned their old ground, and it is now well understood that trial by jury did not exist till long after the Conquest. Compare Palgrave's English Commonwealth, part i. pp. 243 seq., with Meyer, Instit. Judic. vol. ii. pp. 152–173. There are few things in our history so irrational as the admiration expressed by a certain class of writers for the institutions of our barbarous Anglo-Saxon ancestors.