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• First Fragment of the Collection of Unpublished Memorials of the History of the Tiers État. (a Description of Ancient Municipal France.) *
• Second Fragment. Monography of the Communal Constitution of Amiens.
• Section I.: Introduction; Times Prior to the Twelfth Century. *
• Section II.: The Twelfth Century: Establishment of the Commune of Amiens. *
• Section III.: Original Articles and Principal Provisions of the Communal Charter of Amiens. *
• Section IV.: Grant Made By Philip of Alsace, Count of Amiens—cession of the County of Amiens to Philippe-auguste, King of France—confirmation of the Commune—additional Articles of the Communal Charter of Amiens; Its Definitive Text. *
• Appendix I.: Plan of a General Collection of Unpublished Memorials of the History of the Tiers État. *
• Appendix II.: Lists of the Deputies of the Tiers État to the States-general of 1484, 1560, 1576, 1588, 1593, and 1614.
• First List.: States-general Held At Tours In 1484. *
• Second List.: States-general Held At Orleans In 1560. *
• Third List: States-general Held At Blois In 1576. *
• Fourth List: States-general Held At Blois In 1588. *
• Fifth List.: States-general Convoked By the League, and Held At Paris In 1593. *
• Sixth List.: States-general Held At Paris In 1614. *
• Appendix III.: Cahier of the Village of Blaigny Drawn Up For the States-general of 1576. *

SECOND FRAGMENT.

MONOGRAPHY OF THE COMMUNAL CONSTITUTION OF AMIENS.

SECTION I.

INTRODUCTION; TIMES PRIOR TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY.*

The name of Amiens, at the period when Cæsar effected the conquest of Gaul, was Samarobriva, which means, the bridge over the Somme.† It was the capital of the Ambiani, one of the tribes of the great family of the Gallic race, who, under the name of Belgi, inhabited the north of the country from the Rhine, as far as the Marne and the Seine. When it became necessary to repel the Roman invasion, the Ambiani joined with the people of their own origin, and furnished, in the year 57 before our era, a contingent of 10,000 men to the army which was raised by the confederation of the Belgi. But Cæsar triumphed over that powerful league; he distributed his troops through the villages and on the territory of the Belgi; and, on several occasions, legions were cantoned at Samarobriva. Such are the earliest historical notices which relate to the city of Amiens.

It is well known how the conquest of Gaul was effected by the Romans in ten years. The country remained so completely subdued and tranquillised, that, scarcely half a century after the death of Cæsar, the Emperor Augustus was able to comprise it in the provinces of the empire. At that time the Ambiani and their capital were placed in the province which bore the name of Second Belgium. From that period Samarobriva continued subjected to the system of government and to the laws which regulated, in an uniform manner, the various parts of Europe. Placed in dependence on and under the jurisdiction of an imperial officer, it enjoyed, nevertheless, a considerable share in the affairs of its own immediate government; and, like all the cities into which the Roman municipal government was introduced, it possessed a body of magistracy and an urban administration, a senate charged with the management of the police and local affairs, and invested in certain cases, provided for and defined, by the supreme authority, with the right of administering justice, and the enactment of the laws.

Samarobriva Ambianorum, as it was called, by joining the name of the people, of whom it was the ancient capital, to that of the city itself, attained, under the Roman dominion, a high degree of prosperity; it was then enlarged and embellished to such an extent, that already, towards the end of the fourth century of our era, the historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, called it a city eminent among others.* Situated on one of the great Roman roads which traversed the whole length of Gaul, it was, besides, as the Itinerary of Antoninus seems to indicate, the point of junction of many routes of secondary importance which led to Beauvais, Noyon, Soissons, and other neighbouring cities.† It, no doubt, owed a part of its importance to a position so favourable to commerce. From the reign of Augustus down to the fall of the empire numerous edifices were seen to rise within its walls; it possessed a palace in which the imperial magistrate resided, an amphitheatre, temples, and an important manufactory of arms.‡ It is known, by the official statement which was prepared about the year 437, that the emperors had established in Gaul eight establishments for the manufacture of arms of every kind, and that the establishment at Amiens had to supply the Roman soldiers with swords and shields.§ The name of Samarobriva fell out of use in the latter days of the empire, and that of Ambiani alone remained as the designation of the city; at a later period it was replaced, in all instances, by the barbarism Ambianus, which, being contracted and softened in the Romant language, gave rise to the modern name of Amiens.*

The establishment of Christianity and of an episcopal see at Amiens dates from the end of the third century of our era. It was between 260 and 303, ad, that Firminus, St. Firmin, a native of Pampeluna, taught the new faith in the city, and there suffered martyrdom.† He is recorded by the church as the first bishop of Amiens. It will be seen by this date, that at the very time when St. Firmin was condemned to death under the imperial laws, Christianity was on the point of triumphing, and becoming the religion of the empire.

In the year 406, when the Alans, Suevi, Vandals, and Burgundians, forcing the boundary of the Rhine, invaded Gaul and overran it from north to south, the city of Amiens bore her part of the miseries which poured upon the country, and was unable to escape the devastations of the barbarians. It is comprised by St. Jerome in the number of the cities which had to undergo the disasters of that great invasion.‡ It appears, however, that it quickly repaired its losses, for about 437, ad, as the Notice de l’Empire indicates, it still held a distinguished position among the cities subject to the Roman dominion.

Amiens had soon to feel the effects of an invasion, not sudden and transient like the first, but lasting, and destined to exercise a permanent influence upon its internal condition. From the year 428 the Franks, some tribes of whom had already settled on this side the Rhine, within the territory of the empire, had made incursions under the guidance of Chlodio, one of their chiefs or kings, as far as the Somme, but they had been repulsed by Aetius. It does not appear that the kings Merovig and Childeric, the last of whom was master of Tournay and Cambray, repeated the attempts of Chlodio. It was not till the end of the fifth century that the city of Amiens was subjected to the Franks. We may give the year 486 as the exact date when Clodovig, the king of the Salic Franks, in a battle fought under the walls of Soissons, defeated Siagrius, the last Roman who had the government of a portion of the Gallic territory. It was after this victory that the Franks advanced as far as the Seine, and a little after as far as the Loire, and that they took—never to abandon it again—the countries of Gaul situated to the north of the two rivers.

Amiens shared, like all the Gallic cities, in the great revolution which was effected in the Roman municipal system after the fall of the empire. The government of cities under the Roman dominion consisted, as is known, of three distinct departments:—

1. The internal and local administration of the city;

2. The jurisdiction in matters under litigation, or of the civil tribunals, and the criminal jurisdiction;

3. The voluntary jurisdiction, analogous to that which the notaries, and, in certain cases, the magistrates (juges de paix), exercise in France in our own times.*

The central government had left the internal administration, the voluntary jurisdiction, and that which we now call the correctional police, to the cities. It reserved to itself the criminal jurisdiction, and that of the civil tribunals. By the simple fact of the dissolution of the empire, the municipal magistrates of Amiens, and of other cities of Gaul, found themselves suddenly invested with an authority which they had never possessed till then. The members of the senate preserved their ancient prerogatives; but, at the same time, they filled certain posts which the retreat of the imperial officers left vacant, and exercised to a greater or less extent, according to the necessity of the case, the criminal and civil jurisdiction.

At the same period considerable changes were made in the appointments to the urban magistracy. The staff of the ancient senate was broken up, the municipal body was formed of all the notable citizens, whatever might be their title, and the members of the clergy were admitted together with the laity. The bishop directly interfered, legally, if we may so say, in the government and administration of the city. Up to that time he had possessed nothing but a purely moral ascendancy over his fellow-citizens, and this he owed entirely to his episcopal functions and to the sacred character with which he was invested. The Roman law made him, in addition, a sort of magistrate, with the right of arranging differences, and terminating proceedings which were submitted to him.* After the dissolution of the Roman government he became, by his ecclesiastical pre-eminence, which he owed to popular election, member and president of the municipal body. Invested at once with a double authority, spiritual and temporal, he henceforth found himself placed as bishop and magistrate, in the first rank in the city, and possessing in all its affairs the chief share of influence. We are not here reduced to simple conjectures, we have a written authority, which, in regard to the second half of the seventh century, confirms what we have just advanced.

“Salvius,” says a hagiographer, “was elected by the choice of the people, and appointed by God to fill the episcopal see; he was called by the people to the order of the magistracy, and crowned by God with the honour of the apostolate.”* Brief as is this passage, a threefold conclusion may be drawn from it:—

1. In the seventh century the people took part in the election of the bishop.

2. They nominated the municipal magistrates.

3. The bishop formed part of the urban magistracy, who acted as governors and judges in the city.

Such were the changes necessary, and in some sort spontaneous, which the municipal system of Amiens underwent, like that of other cities of Gaul, after the fall of the Roman empire, and the establishment of the German supremacy. It is our present task to examine what influence the political organisation of the German conquerors, and especially that of the Franks, exercised on that system.

The Merovingian kings established, in every important city throughout the whole territory which they had conquered, persons to whom they delegated their authority; who, under the designation of counts, exercised the high office of judges and civil and military governors. It is difficult to mark with accuracy the limit which separated, in the internal government of the city, the action and the power of the count from that assigned by the law, or lapsed through the necessity of circumstances to the senate, the defenseur, or the bishop.* We can, however, assert that the presence and establishment of these royal officers did not, by any means, cause the disappearance of the municipal institutions. The counts, as the contemporary documents prove, received the power of raising taxes and of presiding at the assemblies; or, according to the German custom, the principal freemen of the district sat as judges in criminal matters, and exercised jurisdiction in civil cases, as well as in those voluntarily referred to arbitration. In the rural districts these principal freemen, these valid sureties, Rekin-burghe, as it is expressed in the Teutonic language,† were men of Frankish origin; but in the city, the abode of Gallo-Roman families, but where the rich Franks no longer dwelt, the notables, who were convoked by the count to act as judges in civil and criminal cases under his presidency, occupied the position of the senate itself, excepting its hereditary constitution, and the fixed number of its members.

Thus the enlargement of the municipal jurisdiction, which was necessarily brought about by the dissolution of the Roman government, was sanctioned and regulated under new forms by the German institution of the Mâl, or the judicial assembly.* A multitude, moreover, of acts and formularies proves that the urban magistracy did not cease during the Merovingian period, and even later, to exercise to their full extent the powers which it had enjoyed in the Roman times. It preserved the internal and local administration; it exercised the voluntary jurisdiction; and the acts of this jurisdiction—enfranchisements, adoptions, legitimations, grants, deliveries of goods sold, admission of wills, &c., when they were made and passed in the absence of the royal officers—did not lose their value or their authenticity. Lastly, when the count came to take his place as president, in the assemblies of justice, where judgment was to be pronounced on some crime or proceeding, he derogated nothing from the powers of the notables, Rachimburgii, who sat in the court by his presence; the notables decided on the case and on the law. The count had only to ascertain their opinions and to ratify the verdict; and when the Mâl was held in a city, in spite of this new name, which passed from the language of the barbarian laws into the wording of the acts which were drawn up according to the Roman law, it was the municipal body which, maintaining its existence, although beneath the dress, as it were, of the German institution, exercised in the presence and under the sanction of the count the criminal and civil jurisdiction.*

It frequently happened, as is well known, that the Frank counts trammelled, by acts of brutal violence, the legal exercise of the judicial power, with the maintenance and guardianship of which they were intrusted: it also happened that the Frank kings imposed bishops of their own appointment on the cities, or interfered in the episcopal elections, in spite of the protests of the clergy and citizens. But it may be asserted, in general, that in Amiens, and in other cities, the kings and counts, during the Merovingian dynasty, allowed the various prerogatives of the ancient municipal law to exist in their full extent.

It is a circumstance which here deserves remark, that Amiens, in the Merovingian and Carlovingian periods, was one of the richest and most flourishing cities in Gaul. It owed a great part of its importance and prosperity to the commerce which was carried on along the Somme, and of which it was the mart. In 779, Charlemagne granted to the Abbey of Saint-Germaindes-Prés an exemption from all the dues which were demanded at Amiens, and in many ports and places of commerce, on merchandise of every kind. The cities and places named in the deed of grant are those which still, at a later period, as well as in those days, formed the medium of almost all the import trade into the north-west provinces of Gaul. They are, Rouen, the port of Étaples, the ancient Portus Icius, in Boulonnais, Utrecht, Pont-Sainte-Maxence, Paris, Troyes, and Sens.* The deed of grant of Charlemagne, compared with other documents of a later date, is of great importance in regard to the history of Amiens. It goes to prove that under the kings of the two first races, as in the succeeding periods of the middle ages, this city was one of the grand centres of commerce in the north of France, into which the merchandise of all countries then flowed.*

From the seventh to the middle of the tenth century we have no document to supply the least particular relative to the municipal organisation of Amiens. Among the general facts, however, which took place during this period, there is one which we ought to point out, for it introduced an important modification into the municipal constitution, not of Amiens in particular, but of all the cities of Gaul: we mean the institution of the Scabinat. Charlemagne, depending upon the recollections and the remains of the ancient civilisation, had tried to form a new Roman empire out of his vast territories. The principal means of attaining the accomplishment of such a design was necessarily by establishing, as far as the confusion of the social elements at that period permitted, regularity and unity of administration: the first Frank emperor attempted this by ably originating reforms in all the branches of the government. One of his great measures for the public order was to model the judicial institutions upon a new plan, and to make provision for the regular administration of justice, which the law, as well as custom, left to the voluntary services of freemen, who were convoked by the count to the Mâl, or court of the district. He created a body of regular judges, under the German name of Skapene or Skafene, in the Latin acts, Scabini, Scabinei. These judges were to be chosen, both in the cities and districts of the open country, by the count of the place, the imperial commissioners, or missi dominici, and the people.* Under this last class was comprised, in the rural districts, the whole body of those who were freemen according to the German law, and, in the cities, the whole body of those who were citizens according to the Roman law.

In this manner the judicial revolution effected by Charlemagne gave an entirely new right to the inhabitants of the cities, namely, that of appointing judges conjointly with the count, who, up to that time, had been sole judge, as recognised and qualified by the laws of the Frank monarchy. This order of things, which substituted the Scabins, or judges elected by the count and the people, in the place of the ancient judges of the senate, produced a revolution in the municipal government; but the change did not so much affect the substance as the form of the urban constitutions. The new magistrates were taken from among those who had the right of sitting as judges in the courts of the preceding period, from among those who were members of the body which, from time immemorial, conducted all the affairs of the city, and thence, in after times, was derived the tradition which attached to the Roman office* of Eskevins or Eschevins the double meaning of governors and judges.

The facts, I repeat, which have been transmitted to us as having taken place in the city of Amiens during the period which extends from the seventh to the middle of the tenth century, belong entirely to general history. The chroniclers recount nothing at length but the calamities which befell that city up to the period of the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire; they are, on the one hand, the invasions of the Northmen, which followed one another without intermission, year after year, from 859 to 926; on the other, the wars of the seigneurs, who, freed from all superior authority by the fall of the empire and the weakness of the royal power, contested among themselves the possession of its fortifications and territory. But there is an episode in these wars of which account must be taken, for it shows in favour of the citizens, that their right of taking part in the elections of the bishops, one of the privileges derived from their ancient Roman constitution, still existed to the middle of the tenth century as three hundred years earlier, in the days of Bishop Salvius.

In 946 Derold, the bishop, died; the inhabitants of Amiens chose and appointed as his successor to the vacant see a monk of Saint-Waast, by name Raimbaud. The election was regular; it was annulled by force. In 947 Hugo, count of Paris, came to Amiens, drove Raimbaud away, and installed Tetbaud, one of the clergy of Soissons, as bishop, in his place. But the intruder did not remain long in peaceable possession of the episcopal chair; he was driven away in his turn, and excommunicated. In 949 Arnulf, count of Flanders, marched upon Amiens, and, aided by some of the inhabitants, made himself master of the city; he brought back Raimbaud, the elected bishop, and put him in possession of the dignity which he held by the popular choice.* Thus, in the middle of the tenth century, the inhabitants of Amiens took part with the clergy in the election of their bishops. This right was never disputed; documents of a different kind prove that they exercised it during the whole course of the eleventh century, and that they still did so in the following, till the period when their municipal existence was formed afresh by a revolution, and took an entirely new shape, under the celebrated name of Commune.*

The right of appointing scabins, or elected judges, which the laws of the Carlovingian empire had conjointly assigned to the count and the freemen in each administrative division (circonscription), was entirely usurped during the lengthened confusion which accompanied the dissolution of the empire by the counts, and became one of the foundations of that local sovereignty which they claimed. It does not appear that, in the rural divisions, where all had been organised after the German manners and customs, the encroachment on the right of the freemen had been the object of a strong resistance; but, in the cities, it gave rise to a long struggle between the seigneurial power, on the one hand, and, on the other, between the urban corporation, which, under different names, and with different degrees of administrative and judicial power, had succeeded to the senate of the Roman times. This struggle, in which all the cities of Gaul, without exception, were forced to yield, although in a very unequal manner, fills up the space of the tenth and eleventh centuries in their history. It is the period of decline and ruin for the municipal institutions; its prevailing character consists in the dissolution of the body of judges, which may now be called échevins, in the replacing of those judges by the vassals of the count, peers of the seigneurial court, in the infeudation of both the judicial and administrative appointments. These changes were everywhere coincident, though in different degrees, with the forgetfulness of the traditions of civil life, the encroachment of the barbarian manners and customs, the abandonment of the social discipline which the Roman usages had transmitted, and which, although weakened under the Frankish sway, was still preserved within the cities by the continuance of their municipal governments.

The eleventh century witnessed the extreme point of this movement of dissolution of all civil order. We see private wars prevailing—family arrayed against family, and man against man—among the bourgeois of the cities, as among the lords and the vassals; but, at the same period, by a sudden reaction of good sense, of natural equity and recollections of a happier time, the first symptoms of a new desire for order, justice, and peace appeared. Heart and hand were united under the authority of religion to substitute pacific agreements in the place of a brutal vengeance, and submission to sentences both of arbitration and judgment. We are acquainted with the celebrated institutions of the Truce and Peace of God, which were promulgated on several occasions in the course of the century by the bishops assembled in national and provincial councils. It is certain that attempts similar, and entirely spontaneous, took place on a smaller scale, and that associations, bound by oath for the maintenance of the public peace, were formed in some of the small provinces and simple towns. About the year 1025, the inhabitants of Amiens were united to those of Corbie by a treaty of reciprocal peace, not only between these two cities, but between all the persons domiciled within their limits and on their territory. This confederation—like all of the same kind—adopted as its principle the old practice of the confederated association, which, under the name of Guild, had been introduced into Gaul by the German populations, and which, after the mixture of races and manners, was preserved, especially in the provinces of the north.* We here present the curious details which a sacred writer of the eleventh century has given us of the alliance of Amiens and Corbie, of its character and its object.

The inhabitants of the two cities were associated by the invocation of the saints whose relics they possessed. They determined among themselves to observe perfect peace, that is to say, for all the days of the week;* and having made a promise to meet at Amiens every year on a high festival day, they bound themselves to that engagement by oath. They all swore that, for the future, if a quarrel broke out between two individuals, neither one nor the other should have recourse to pillage or incendiarism; but that they should delay their cause to a stated day, and should then appear before the church, in the presence of the bishop and the count, to plead it, and to close their dispute in a peaceable manner.† The contemporary narrator adds, that these resolutions gave birth to a custom which was long observed by the inhabitants of the two associated cities. Their grand annual meeting took place on the octave of the Rogation days; the relics of the saints were borne in procession; suits were terminated; feuds and differences were appeased; the statutes of the association were read in public, and were confirmed by a fresh oath; speakers addressed the people; and then the proceedings ended. The religious character of this institution was gradually effaced; and, after a time of greater or less duration, it became simply political; the relics of the saints were neglected; and when the day of the great meeting returned, there were amusements and dances instead of processions and prayers. The monks of Corbie and Amiens ceased to take part in these fêtes; but it is probable that the compact of peace between the two cities was maintained by them till the period when a powerful but different application of the federal association caused all the rights and all the guarantees of the municipal system to spring into fresh existence in the north of France, by the institution of the communes jurées.*

The establishment of feudalism had, in a manner, materialised all the political and civil offices. The division of the social powers and administrative prerogatives had been transformed by it into a division of territorial domains, of every description and of every size, to each of which a larger or smaller share of sovereignty and jurisdiction was inseparably attached. At Amiens the division of the territory, and, by consequence, that of the political and judicial power, was effected in a very unequal manner between the two ancient heads of the city, the count and the bishop. The lordship of the count extended over the city and its precincts; that of the bishop, although he was lord paramount, was restricted to the peculiar domains of his church, both within and without the city. The jurisdiction of the count was held to be general; that of the bishop was in its nature special, and was, as it were, enclosed within the other. By the documents of the eleventh century, the district of the bishop of Amiens, as a feudal tenure, seems to have been confined within these narrow limits; but his authority seems still to have preserved some connexion with the ancient civil tradition and the general interests of the city. From time to time the title of administrator of the public weal of Amiens appears in the episcopal charters, Procurator rei publicæ Ambianensis, a title which is derived from the recollections of the municipal constitutions prior to the tenth century.*

The recollections of the time when the crown was the only supreme power were likewise attached to a portion of the city; the smallest, indeed, of all the buildings and dependencies of the ancient citadel, a high and strong tower named the Castillon, and constructed, according to the antiquaries, on the site of a Roman palace.† The court of the Castillon, and the lands which bordered on it from the city-wall to the Somme, belonged to the lordship of the king, and not to that of the count; they were held hereditarily, on the condition of allegiance and homage, by a governor, who exercised a certain jurisdiction within its limits, and who was placed, by the rights attached to his tenure, in the rank of seigneur, or, as it is expressed in the ancient documents—Prince of the city, after the count, the bishop, and the vidame,* or lieutenant civil of the bishop.†

Besides this territorial division, did anything exist in the eleventh century which the corporation of citizens possessed as their own? were there still any remains of communal property in houses and lands, which Amiens, like all the cities of Gaul, had possessed in the Roman times, and of which the right was maintained under the Frankish domination? It is difficult to answer this question positively; but some official acts prove that, in the eleventh century, there still existed at Amiens a sort of municipal council, the organ of the interests and grievances of the city. We find mention made of heads of the city (Primores urbis)—men of authority—who had weight of character with the people (viri authentici habentes in plebe pondus testimonii.)‡

A charter of the year 1091 supplies some valuable information on the state of the city of Amiens in the eleventh century. It proves, first, that the feudal court of the count took the place of the Carlovingian Scabinat, the very name of which had disappeared in the administration of justice, both within and without the city; secondly, that the clergy and people of Amiens were united in their remonstrances and protests against the abuses of power—the frauds and extortions of the seigneurial judges. The jurisdiction of the count was then exercised by a certain number of knights, who were his vassals, and who owed him, by right of homage for their fiefs, judicial as well as military service. They held the seigneurial courts both in the city and on the territories of the county of Amiens, and the appellation of viscounts was given to them, either as denoting their delegated duties, or as the title of some fief attached to those duties.

Two brothers, Gui and Ives, conjointly counts of Amiens,* made the charter of which I am speaking, on the reiterated complaints of the churches and congregations; and after having held a preliminary consultation with Gervin, the bishop of Amiens, the Archdeacons Ansel and Foulques, and the heads of the city. The object of this charter was to remedy the most crying abuses in the judicial proceedings, and to put an end to the prevarications of which the viscounts or judges were guilty in the exercise of their office.

We give here the principal provisions:—

Both within and without the city, throughout the county of Amiens, no viscount shall compel a person to answer to an accusation of theft, unless some one shall have lodged a complaint against him. If an accuser appears, the accused shall receive from the viscount permission to take counsel; and, after having taken counsel, he shall reply to the charge made against him.

If the accused be convicted of theft, he shall restore to the plaintiff the money stolen, and shall pay the viscount only three livres; he shall then be quit of that matter, and shall not be held liable to give account upon it to the other viscounts.

If a viscount assumes that an article has been found by any one, and claims it on that account, the suspected shall not be held liable to reply, unless there be a witness who declares that he was present at the discovery, or has received some confession from the accused. If there be a witness, the accused, having taken counsel, shall legally exculpate himself; if he fail to do so, he shall give up the article found to the count, and only three livres to the viscount; and shall not be afterwards held liable to answer before the other viscounts.

If one of the viscounts accuses any one of having made a stipulation with another viscount upon an act of theft, or discovery, the accused shall not be held liable to answer to the charge, unless there be a witness who declares that he was present at the transaction. If there be a witness, the accused shall exculpate himself legally, or he shall restore to the viscount the object stolen or discovered, and shall pay him three livres at the most.

To this act of judicial reform there is attached a grant which was made by the two counts to the cathedral church of Amiens; it was promulgated in this church by being read aloud, and under menace of anathema.*

The enacting clause and the preamble of this curious charter form a striking testimony of the deplorable state of society, especially the urban society, about the end of the eleventh century. Nothing could be more intolerable for the cities, more contrary to their municipal traditions, more repugnant to their ancient conditions of existence, than an order of things in which justice, in its different degrees, constituted a private property and patrimonial revenues. The abuses here pointed out imply others still more serious, of which, unfortunately, no authentic act has transmitted the account to our times. An action for theft commenced without a complaining party, and an accusation made without a witness, for an assumed discovery of articles which had been concealed, or were unclaimed,—articles, which, according to the feudal law, belonged to the seigneur,—such were the means of daily extortion practised by the viscounts. The accused, who had been acquitted by one of the viscounts, found himself charged by another viscount with having made a compromise with his judge, and an action recommenced against him; the condemned paid the penalty as many times over as there were viscounts in the city, or in the district; lastly, the object of the real or pretended theft was confiscated by the judges. That which was prohibited for the future by the ordinance of the Counts Gui and Ives was thus obtained, as a favour, by the inhabitants of Amiens, after lengthened remonstrances and solicitations frequently repeated. The two counts who made this grant seem to have had a feeling of deep distress, that their constitution, as they call it, should be powerless to supply a remedy. The words which they make use of are grave and sad: “Considering,” they say, “how miserably God’s people, in the county of Amiens, have been oppressed by the viscounts with sufferings new and unheard of, like the children of Israel oppressed in Egypt by the task-masters of Pharaoh, we have been moved by feelings of charity; the cry of the churches and the groanings of the faithful have affected us with sorrow.”* This pity, mixed with remorse, might be sincere, but it could not bear any lasting fruit; the benevolent will of a seigneur reproved for a moment the weight of the feudal tyranny; but this seigneur passed away, and the institutions remained there to bring all back again. A power, violent and entirely uncontrolled, sprung from the introduction of the barbarian usages, had seized upon all the remains of the old civil society; the usage of the age had formed it; a revolution alone could crush it; and, in the case of the city of Amiens, this revolution was not long delayed; it took place less than a quarter of a century after the charter of the Counts Gui and Ives.

SECTION II.

THE TWELFTH CENTURY: ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMUNE OF AMIENS.*

The great municipal revolution, which broke out in the first years of the twelfth century, had been a long time in a state of preparation; the causes of this revolution have been traced in the preceding pages, for the wrongs which the city of Amiens suffered from the seigneurial government were common to all others. In the cities, as well as in the rural districts, the feudal organisation had encroached upon and transformed the ancient social governments, whatever might be their nature and origin. It had more or less entirely destroyed the old urban institutions; and the cities parcelled out into different seigniories, deprived of political unity and civil jurisdiction, found themselves governed, under the name of domains, by great or small feudatories. During the eleventh century no means existed to remedy the disorders and sufferings of every kind which resulted from such a state of things—neither the Institutions of Peace, nor the complaints and remonstrances of the bourgeois, joined to those of the clergy, nor the royal power of the Capets, too weak and undecided to make its attempt at interference of any effect or benefit.

At the commencement of the twelfth century the population of the cities, throughout the whole extent of France, was agitated in various ways and different degrees by a deeply-felt necessity of a political reform.* The design of this movement—whatever might be the symptoms of it—was the same everywhere, and its tendency may be thus defined:—to revive the traditions of the ancient civil government, and to rally all the scattered remains of the municipal existence; to complete and establish them by means of a new constitution; to seize again, by force or otherwise, the right of urban jurisdiction, and to substitute elective magistracies for feudal offices; to regain the useful rights of the ancient municipality, its revenues, its common property, its dependencies; lastly, to erect the whole body of the citizens into a free corporation, invested with political rights, and having the power of delegating its administrative and judicial functions. With regard to the external character of this revolution, the occasional causes which made it burst out simultaneously, or propagated it step by step, the political instrumentalities by which it was assisted, the events which accompanied it, and its social consequences, there were great differences, according to the condition of the cities in one or another portion of the country; and in this respect two great zones may be marked out—that of the south and that of the north. We shall only speak in this place of the last, in which Amiens is situated.

In the case of the cities of the north of France, the means of civil regeneration, the revolutionary mainspring, if we may so express it, was the confederated association, the Guild derived from the German usages, and employed in the course of the eleventh century as an instrument of public peace under the religious inspiration and authority of the Church. The application of this powerful instrument to the municipal organisation had this new feature—that it was entirely political. Besides, its object was not only to establish peace in the cities, but to reconstitute society in them from its foundation; to institute a mutual assurance in behalf of all interests and all rights; to make a public power, exercised for and by all, emanate from the association of the citizens.

Such is the meaning of the words conjuration and commune in the documents of the twelfth century;* it is a mutual guarantee, organised under the pledge of an oath, for an object of social reform and constitutional renovation. The members of the city formed into a commune took the name of jurés, sworn collectively as a body, and individually in respect of one another; and this name was sometimes also specially applied to the municipal magistrates, on account of the particular oath which they took after their election. The communal constitution embraced and guaranteed three kinds of rights,—first, the political right, one entirely new in regard to its basis and its form, with the exception of the old titles of offices which were preserved or re-established—such as those of échevins and mayor;* secondly, the civil, an ancient right founded on the local custom; thirdly, the criminal right, partly ancient, and resulting from the law of custom, partly remodelled, in order to meet offences proceeding from the new order of things, such as the crime of treason against the commune.

It appears that the revolution of Amiens was determined, or at least accelerated, by an impulse received from without, by the example of many neighbouring cities. From the year 1100 to the year 1112 communes jurées were successively established, with various circumstances and results, at Noyon, Beauvais, Saint-Quentin, and Laon. In this last city the bishop was sole seigneur, and the gradua, abolition of the ancient municipal powers had taken place to his benefit, and in his name; it was in opposition to his rights that the commune was formed, or, in other terms, that the bourgeois of Laon were associated for the mutual defence of their persons and properties, and for the establishment of a new constitution and an elective magistracy. The revolution, peaceably commenced, met with resistances which soon caused all the popular passions to be let loose; there was a civil war, attended with pillage and incendiarism, the bishop was slain in a tumult, and the bourgeois, in revolt, defended themselves against the king in person. These events, however sad and violent they might be, were well calculated to sow, by their very violence, the revolutionary spirit in the country bordering on Laon. We know, by the experience of our own times, what a part this kind of excitement plays in political movements, and how the flame is kindled step by step where the fuel is prepared. It was in the year 1113, at the height of the revolution of Laon, that the bourgeois of Amiens undertook to erect their city into a commune.

As we have seen above, Amiens was not in the same condition as Laon in regard to the seigniory of the city; the bishop there not only did not possess the whole temporal authority, but his power in the civil affairs was much inferior to that of the count; his right of jurisdiction did not extend beyond the peculiar domains of the Church, either within or without the city; and even within these limits it was continually encroached upon. On the contrary, the jurisdiction of the count of Amiens embraced the whole extent of the city and of its precincts, with some particular exceptions. By means of the count, and for his benefit, had been effected the gradual destruction of the municipal jurisdiction, the more or less complete abolition of the ancient urban administration, the transformation of the municipal appointments, elective and for life, into hereditary feudal offices, and the substitution of peers holding their office in fief, and named viscounts, in the place of the elected judges, or Scabins, of the Carlovingian period. The seigniory of the count having thus absorbed all the political, civil, and judicial powers, the association, confederated under the name of commune by the inhabitants of Amiens, was nothing else in reality than a conspiracy against that seigniory.

In 1113 the county of Amiens was in the possession, with but slight legal claims, as far as appears, of Enguerrand de Boves, seignior of Coucy; and Geoffrey, who is reckoned as a saint by the Church, filled the episcopal chair. This man, full of zeal for the public welfare, and as enlightened as the spirit of his age allowed, perceived the lawfulness of the desire for independence and guarantees, both of life and property, which induced the bourgeois to unite themselves in a political body under its own government, capable of resistance and action. Less disinterested motives contributed to incline the bishop Geoffrey towards the party of the bourgeoisie; for, as we have already said, the revolutionary undertaking of the inhabitants of Amiens tended to create in the city a new power, entirely hostile to that of the count.

It is true that this power, once constituted, could, and indeed must, be turned against the episcopal seigniory; but this was a distant danger, which the bishop either did not foresee, or judged less important than the present danger. According to the words of a contemporary historian, he gave his countenance to the commune without any constraint, and although he was well aware of what had taken place at Laon, the frightful murder of one of his colleagues, and all the disasters of that city. By his mediation, probably, the bourgeois of Amiens entered into negotiations with the crown, and obtained, on payment of a sum of money, from Louis le Gros, the verbal or written sanction of what they had instituted; that is, of the association or commune, and of the new magistracies, which, emanating from it, were destined to maintain it, to give it the force of law and a form of government.*

This adhesion of the king determined the state of parties at Amiens, between whom an armed struggle was inevitable. On one side the commune, the bishop, the royal officers, and the vidame of the episcopal church; on the other, the count, Enguerrand de Boves, at first alone, but afterwards assisted by the governor, who, although he was not his liege-man, but the king’s, joined his cause, and opened to him the fortress of the Chatillon.* Such were the actors and such the parts taken in the civil war which resulted from the erection of Amiens into a commune, parts the distribution of which agreed closely with the old reminiscences of its municipal history. The events which marked the revolution of Amiens have been recounted with prejudice and with a feeling of hatred by a contemporary, Guibert, abbé of Nogent. This account, however, when compared with other original documents, and stripped of its excessive partiality by the hand of criticism, gives some valuable information on the position of the two parties, on their claims, their efforts, and the various incidents of the struggle.

“Enguerrand, count of the city, (says the narrator whom I have just named,) seeing that the ancient rights of the country, as appertaining to him, were suppressed by the conspiracy of the bourgeois, treated them as rebels, and attacked them with all the forces at his command. Moreover, he found an auxiliary in Adam the governor, and an advantageous position in the town which he commanded. Driven by the bourgeois from the city, he shut himself up in the tower.”* Such are the hostilities which commenced a civil war of three years’ duration in Amiens. The bourgeois, armed under the direction of the heads of their commune, were supported by all the forces of the bishop, and by the personal assistance of Guermond, seigneur of Picquigny, vidame or hereditary deputy of the bishop. During the whole course of the war, this help never failed them; and, at the commencement, they found an unexpected auxiliary in the very son of Enguerrand de Boves, the notorious Thomas de Marle, the most turbulent and cruel, perhaps, of the barons of the twelfth century. He had taken the side of the commune of Laon, which, no doubt, indicated to the citizens of Amiens that he might possibly become their ally. No doubt, also, large sums were the price of this alliance, on the strength of which Thomas, adopted as seigneur by the bourgeois of Amiens, took the oath of associate to the commune, and took arms against his father and the governor Adam.†

During many months, the count and the governor, fortifying themselves in the tower of the Castillon, and pressed hard by the bourgeois and Thomas de Marle, were reduced to remain on the defensive; but Thomas, having received proposals of alliance and offers of money from his father, was reconciled to him, and bound himself by oath to turn his forces against the bourgeois, the bishop, and the vidame. From that time the face of affairs altered; the besieged assumed the offensive, and Thomas de Marle began to harass the city and to ravage the domains of the episcopal church, joining massacre and incendiarism to pillage.*

It appears that, in this crisis, a party of the bourgeois, and especially the clergy of the city, who adhered to their cause, were seized with great discouragement. Words of blame were heard against a revolution whose success seemed impossible. The bishop was bitterly reproached for having taken part in it, and for having excited troubles which it was not in his power to appease. Geoffrey, depressed by these attacks, and perhaps doubtful himself of the cause which he had embraced, determined to absent himself from Amiens. In 1114 he sent to the archbishop of Rheims the insignia of his episcopal office, and retired into the monastery of Cluny, afterwards to the grande chartreuse, near Grenoble. He returned from that voluntary exile on the injunction of his archbishop, about the beginning of the year 1115.*

On his return he saw, at Beauvais, the celebrated Ives de Chartres, to whom he imparted the deplorable condition of the city and church of Amiens. The city was constantly being attacked by the garrison of the fortress; the fight carried on street by street; and the bourgeois, barricading their houses in order to defend themselves in them, carried all that was most valuable of their property to the monasteries in the neighbourhood.† All the lands of the bishop and chapter had been invaded by Thomas de Marle, and occupied by his troops. Ives de Chartres, when consulted with by the bishop on the best mode of proceeding in such a deplorable state of things, advised him to address the king, and solicit aid and succour, in the name of the public peace; and a letter, which he wrote himself to Louis le Gros, has been preserved to our days.*

The king, already appealed to against Thomas de Marle by the greater part of the bishops of the province of Rheims, marched on Laon, punished this city for the excesses which had stained its revolution, and seized on many castles which belonged to the son of Enguerrand de Boves; he then directed his steps towards Amiens. In interfering in the desperate war which was being carried on between the bourgeois of this city and their count, Louis le Gros had not the pursuit of political projects in view—the execution of a plan conceived for the twofold interest of the crown and the people. On the report of the violences and profanations which were committed by the adversaries of the commune of Amiens, he raised his standard, and took part in the strife as the maintainer of the public peace, the defender of the weak, and protector of the churches.* The crown had not, at that time, conceived that any other part belonged to it; and it is the glory of Louis VI. to have filled this part on every occasion with an admirable courage and an indefatigable activity.

During these transactions, Thomas de Marle, in an encounter which he had with the vidame, received some wounds, which rendered him incapable of continuing the war in person; he retired to his castle of Marle, leaving the bravest of his soldiers in the tower of the Castillon, which was considered impregnable.* It was near Palm Sunday, ad 1115, that the royal army, small in number, but consisting of experienced veterans, reached the gates of Amiens. Geoffrey, the bishop, had been restored to all his political energy by the arrival of such assistance; on Palm Sunday he preached before the king, the army, and the citizens, a sermon, in which he promised the kingdom of heaven to all who might perish in the attack upon the fortress. Guibert de Nogent speaks of this discourse with indignation, mixed with classical reminiscences, and says that it was the speech of a Catiline rather than the word of God.†

On the following day the instruments of the siege were prepared against the tower of the Castillon, and the bishop betook himself with bare feet to the tomb of St. Acheul, to implore the divine assistance in favour of the besiegers.‡ The royal troops, together with the most determined and best-armed of the citizens, led by the king in person, made a general attack; but in spite of the enthusiasm of the assailants, and the power of the machines used to batter the walls, the fortress, well defended, resisted the attack. The machines were dismounted by the stones thrown down from the walls; many soldiers and citizens perished, and the king himself was wounded in the breast by an arrow, which pierced his coat-of-mail.* Considering the place too strong to be taken by assault, Louis VI. determined not to attempt another coup de main, but to turn the siege into a blockade; he left Amiens, having left some troops there, who, co-operating with the bourgeois and their party, were to surround the castle until the defenders were compelled, by famine, to surrender.†

The blockade of Amiens lasted nearly two years; it was not till 1117 that it surrendered to the royal officers, and that the commune thus became freed from all hostilities of a warlike character. The tower, and all the works of defence which protected it, were demolished by the king’s order;* but, in spite of the betrayal of his trust by the governor Adam, who, without any personal cause of grievance, had fought against his immediate seigneur, Louis le Gros did not deprive him of his fief nor of his seigneurial rights; but those rights were now attached only to a heap of ruins and to a large extent of land, which, eventually being joined to the city, and comprised within its circumference, retained through after ages, and still retains, the old name of the Castillon.† Enguerrand de Boves and his family were dispossessed of the county of Amiens, and the ancient family of the counts of Raoul reassumed its rights.‡

This family, which, so far from being connected with the struggle against the commune, owed its restoration to its municipal enfranchisement, was disposed to recognise what had been done, and to conclude the revolution by a pacific agreement, a regulation of rights, and a division of the government between the seigniory and the city. With regard to Geoffrey, the bishop, he died in the year 1116;* he did not live to see the organisation and prosperity in the midst of peace of the constitution which was, in part, his work. His memory, encircled with religious veneration, also richly deserved civil honours. Some day, perhaps, (and would that the presentwork might hasten that day!) we shall see raised in the midst of one of the public places in Amiens, the statue of Saint-Geoffrey, holding in his hand the compact of the communal association, and shall read on the unfolded roll those expressive words which formed the first article, and which contained the whole spirit of that civil compact: “Each shall observe fidelity to his confederate, and shall afford assistance and counsel in all that is just.”†

The law of the commune, deliberated upon by the citizens after their association, under oath, was, according to all probability, in 1117, submitted to the acceptance of the family which recovered its seigneurial title, and then undoubtedly it became the object of a formal contract between the body of the citizens and the new count. This treaty, of which no mention has been preserved to our times, but the existence of which it is impossible not to conjecture, was the first charter of the commune of Amiens. The amount of the rights which the city had obtained for itself by its revolution, and the amount of those which, with a view to a lasting peace, it had acknowledged in its ancient seigneurs, were settled in this constitutional charter, in which the urban sovereignty was laid down as the principle and rule, and the seigneurial power as the exception. In the middle ages the supreme jurisdiction was the essential attribute of sovereignty. That of the count passed entirely into the power of the commune, with the exception of the attendance of his provost, who issued the summonses, prepared the cases, watched the judgments, but did not act as judge,* and with the exception of a share of the proceeds from fines, seizures, and judicial confiscations. The jurisdiction of the bishop and of the chapter was preserved intact within their ancient department; that of the vidame and governor seems to have been suppressed in their exercise, and retained in regard to their useful rights and pecuniary profits.* The dues of quit-rents, tolls, the liberty of passing from one part of the country to another, the mills and public ovens, remained in the possession of the seigneur, by virtue of his right over each portion of the communal territory; and, at a later period, when the commune wished to reunite these dues to their own domain, it was necessary to obtain them from each titulary by grant or by purchase.†

The commune of Amiens was supreme, for it had the right of governing itself by its own laws, and the right of life and death over all its members. According to the expression of the ancient jurisprudence, it possessed the administration of justice in the superior, mean, and inferior courts (haute, moyenne, et basse justice). Its legislative administration and judicial power were delegated by it to a body of elective magistrates, renewed every year, whose head bore the name of mayeur, and the members that of échevin, or the united titles of échevin and prévôt.* In this manner the old name of the elected judges of the Carlovingian constitution, which had disappeared under the feudal system, reappeared with a much wider signification, and the title of mayor, which was, perhaps, one of antiquity in the city, assumed a political importance of which nothing had been able to give a notion up to that time. The person elected to the office of mayor or échevin was obliged to accept it, under pain of banishment—a remarkable law, inasmuch as it revived and sanctioned, by entirely new guarantees, that principle of Roman legislation which made the municipal offices an obligatory duty.†

In the same manner as the senate of the Roman times, the échevinage regulated the common property and managed the finances of the city; it regulated and administered the urban police; it gave authority to the acts of every kind; and constituted a tribunal charged with the repression of infringements on the ordinances of the police and the municipal regulations; but, as I have already said, its powers did not stop there. It joined the civil and criminal jurisdiction to the ordinary and correctional police; in every matter the common law could be modified by its decrees or by its jurisprudence. Lastly, as exercising the municipal sovereignty in the name of the body of the citizens, it sealed its acts with the seal of the commune, a seal which, for many centuries, bore for the legend, on its reverse, the words—Secretum Meum Mihi.*

Although the charter of agreement by means of which, in the case of the commune of Amiens, the constitutional system succeeded to the revolutionary movement, no longer exists in its authentic character, we are able to give, not only its groundwork, but its probable form, after a subsequent act, in which it is encased, if I may so speak, and simply modified in some of its formulas. I am speaking of the letters accorded by Philippe-Auguste, in 1190, to the bourgeois of Amiens, and granting, or, to speak more exactly, confirming their commune.* We might extract from the royal charter, as still more ancient, all that is found after the first article, which declares the reciprocal duties of the jurés, or members of the commune, up to the forty-fifth article, where we read: “All these rights only exist between the confederated; equality in justice does not exist between the confederated and him who is not confederated.”† I should be warranted in suppressing, in these forty-five articles, the words king and royal, which, in my opinion, were introduced into it in 1190 by the chancery of Philippe-Auguste. The text, thus disengaged from the formulas, which seem to proceed from a revision made at a later period, would, by conjecture, be assigned to the year 1117, as being the original law of the commune of Amiens,—a law deliberated upon and voted at first by the bourgeois; then discussed by their heads and the new counts; lastly, accepted and ratified by the last. But however legitimate the hypothesis would have been in this case, according to my opinion, I shall not have recourse to it; I am saved the necessity, by a document which is undeniable,—by an authentic act of a date prior to 1190, in which, with some variations, are observed fifteen of the forty-five first articles of the charter of Philippe-Auguste. It is the charter of the commune of Abbeville, granted by John, count of Ponthieu, in the year 1184. The following is the preamble:—

“I, John, count of Ponthieu, make known to all present and to come, that my grandfather, the Count William Talevas, having sold to the bourgeois of Abbeville the faculty of making a commune, and that these bourgeois, having no authentic writing of this sale, I have granted to them, at their request, permission to have a commune, and to hold it in perpetuity, according to the rights and usages of the commune of Amiens, or that of Corbie, or that of Saint-Quentin, saving the right of the Holy Church, that which belongs to me, and to my heirs and my barons.”* The last article of the same charter is the following: “Lastly, if a dispute be raised between me and the bourgeois of Abbeville, which cannot be terminated by this writing, it shall be decided by the commune of Saint-Quentin, or that of Corbie, or that of Amiens.”*

In comparing the text of the communal charter of Abbeville with the charters of the three communes which this city took for the model of its constitution and the rule of its penal law, there is no special article of the charters of Saint-Quentin and Corbie found there, but it is not so with regard to the charter of Amiens. With respect to this last, the imitation, not only of the matter, but also of the form, is striking; the division of subjects is preserved, without any attempt to give them more order or method; the order of the articles which were adopted has been followed, and the text of them has passed from one charter to another, with slight variations. In a word, it is evident that the compilers of the charter of Abbeville, granted in 1184, had under their eyes at least fifteen of the fifty-two articles of which the communal charter of Amiens, signed by Philippe-Auguste, in 1190, was composed.

These fifteen articles are the first seven, the 9th, 10th, and 11th, the 14th, 15th, and 16th, the 20th and the 44th. They treat of the duties of the confederated one towards another; of theft committed within the limits of the commune; of the safety of the traders who come to sell their goods in the city; of theft committed by a member of the commune, to the detriment of one of his confederates; of theft committed by one who is a stranger to the commune, to the detriment of a confederate; of blows dealt with the fist or hand; of wounds caused by means of arms, by one confederate to another; of wounds caused, and blows dealt, to a confederate by one who is not; of injurious words between confederates; of dangerous intentions entertained against the commune; of the plaintiff who does not follow up his complaint for the purposes of justice; of resistance to the summonses of the officers of the commune; of the crime of friendly relations with an enemy of the commune; of the imputation of false judgment against the judges of the commune; lastly, of agreements made before two or more members of the échevinage.

SECTION III.

ORIGINAL ARTICLES AND PRINCIPAL PROVISIONS OF THE COMMUNAL CHARTER OF AMIENS.*

“1. Unusquisque jurato suo fidem, auxilium consiliumque per omnia juste observabit.†

“2. Quicumque furtum faciens intra metas communie comprehendetur vel fecisse cognoscetur, preposito nostro tradetur, et quidquid de eo agendum judicio communionis judicabitur, ei fiet; reclamanti vero id quod furto sublatum est, si potest inveniri, prepositus noster reddet; reliqua in usus nostros convertentur‡

“3. Nullus aliquem inter communiam ipsam commorantem, vel mercatores ad urbem cum mercibus venientes, infra banleucam civitatis disturbare presumat. Quod si quis fecerit, faciat communia de eo, ut de communie violatore, si eum comprehendere poterit, vel aliquid de suo, justitiam facere.*

“4. Si quis de communione alicui jurato suo res suas abstulerit, a preposito nostro submonitus, justitiam prosequetur; si vero prepositus de justitia defecerit, a majore vel scabinis submonitus, in presentia communionis veniet, et quantum scabini inde judicaverint, salvo jure nostro, ibi faciet.†

“5. Qui autem de communione minime existens, alicui res suas abstulerit, justitiamque illi infra banleucam se executurum negaverit, postquam hoc hominibus castelli ubi manserit notum fecerit communia, si ipsum vel aliquid ad se pertinens, comprehendere poterit, donec ipse justitiam executus fuerit, prepositus noster retinebit, donec nos nostram et communia similiter suam habeat emendationem.*

“6. Qui pugno aut palma aliquem de communia, preter consuetudinarium conturbatorem vel lecatorem, percusserit, nisi se defendendo se fecisse duobus vel tribus testibus contra percussum disrationare poterit coram preposito nostro, viginti solidos dabit, quindecim silicet communie et quinque justitie dominorum.†

“7. Qui autem juratum suum armis vulneraverit, nisi similiter se defendendo legitimo testimonio et assertione sacramenti, se contra vulneratum disrationare poterit, pugnum amittet, aut novem libras, sex silicet firmitati urbis et communie, et tres justitie dominorum, pro redemptione pugni persolvet, aut si persolvere non poterit in misericordia communie, salvo catallo dominorum, pugnum tradet.‡

* * * * * *

“9. Qui vero de communione minime existens, aliquem de communia percusserit vel vulneraverit, nisi judicio communie coram preposito nostro justitiam exequi voluerit, domum illius, si poterit, communia prosternet, et capitalia erunt nostra. Et si eum comprehendere poterit, coram preposito . . . . per majorem et scabinos, de eo justitiam capiet, et catalla nostra erunt*

“10. Qui juratum suum turpibus et inhonestis conviciis lacesserit, et duo vel tres audierint ipsum, per eos statuimus convinci, et quinque solidos, duos scilicet conviciato, et tres communie dabit.†

“11. Qui inhonestum aliquid de communia dixerit in audiencia quorumdam, si communie propalatum fuerit, et se quod illud non dixerit, judicum communie judicio defendere noluerit, domum illius, si poterit, prosternet communia, ipsumque in communia morari, donec emendaverit, non patietur, et si emendare noluerit, catalla ejus erunt in manu domini . . . et communie.*

* * * * * *

“14. Qui, clamore facto de adversario suo, per prepositum et majorem et judices communie justitiam prosequi non poterit, si postea adversus eum aliquid fecerit, illum rationabiliter communia conveniet, ejusque audita ratione, quid inde postea agendum sit, judicabit.†

“15. Qui a majoribus et judicibus et decanis, scilicet servientibus communie, submonitus, justitiam et judicium communie subterfugerit, domum illius, si poterunt, prosternent, ipsum vero inter eos morari, donec satisfecerit, non permittent, et catalla erunt in misericordia prepositi . . . et majoris.‡

“16. Qui hostem communie in domo sua scienter receperit, eique vendendo et emendo et edendo et bibendo vel aliquod solacium impendendo communicaverit, aut consilium aut auxilium adversus communiam dederit, reus communie efficietur, et, nisi judicio communie cito satisfecerit, domum illius, si poterit, communia prosternet, et catalla . . . erunt.*

* * * * * *

“20. Qui judices communie de falsitate judicii comprobare voluerit, nisi, ut justum est, comprobare potuerit, in misericordia . . . est et majoris et scabinorum, de omni eo quod habet.†

* * * * * *

“44. Si conventio aliqua facta fuerit ante duos vel plures scabinos, de conventione illa amplius non surget campus vel duellum, si scabini qui conventioni interfuerint, hoc testificati fuerint.‡

“45. Omnia ista jura et precepta que prediximus majoris et communie, tantum sunt inter juratos, non est æquum judicium inter juratum et non juratum.”*

These sixteen articles, of which fifteen belong in an authentic manner, and one by conjecture, to the earliest communal law of Amiens, imply the existence of a city in the political meaning of the word, i.e., of a city which is formed into a corporation and is self-governed, and which, in spite of the restraints which the times and circumstances may impose upon it, acts and pronounces with supreme authority on its own particular affairs. Like every political body, the commune of Amiens is restricted in two ways—in its action and in its rights: on one side by the limits of its territorial circonscription, and on the other by the legal distinction between the citizen and the stranger; or, according to the language of the new constitutional law, between him who belongs to the commune and him who does not, between the confederate (juré) and the non-confederate (non-juré), The district in which the jurisdiction of the city is exercised, and in which the authority of its magistracy extends to all, is first within the walls—the ancient cité, next without the walls—the precincts (banlieu), either determined according to the tradition of the old municipal recollections, or settled recently by agreement between the commune and the count. The city of Amiens thus enjoyed within these ancient limits, and in consequence of its revolution, the full exercise of the three sorts of right—the right of political liberty, the right of the administration of criminal justice, and also that of civil. The two last, as we have seen above, were, in a certain degree, inherent in the Roman as well as in the Gallo-Frank municipality; but the first, carried to such a height as to make the city a state possessing the right of war and peace with respect to its neighbours, and the right of legislation with respect to itself, was a state of things which had never before been witnessed—the original work of the twelfth century. In order to guarantee this privilege of urban sovereignty, there were at that time instituted, with a marvellous instinct, new constitutions, new magistracies, and an entirely new assumption of municipal power and independence.

It is a circumstance calculated to surprise at first sight, that the political right, the most exalted of all the new rights acquired by the city of Amiens, is the one which plays the least important part in its communal charter. Except the brief declaration of the reciprocal duties and exclusive privilege of those who have taken the oath of the commune, and except the mention of the crimes of treason against the commune, and the infringement of its rights,* everything in respect to regulations and constitutional provisions appears to be silently implied. The échevinage, that supreme council to which all the powers of the commune were delegated, is merely named, by way of remembrance, in regard to the offences, the judgment of which is to belong to it henceforward. We are not told what is the number of its members, nor their different duties, nor the mode of their election, nor the revenues by means of which they are to administer the interests of the city. This omission is explained by the nature of the deed, which is an agreement made between the city and the count of Amiens, and by the state of political ideas, so different in the twelfth century from what they are at the present time.

The armed dispute between the bourgeois and their seigneur having been terminated by the defeat of the seigneurial government, the confederation, the commune was recognised by the count, together with the institutions which it had newly created; and it was of little consequence to the count under what form it should be organised for the future; no new dispute could result from that; there was, therefore, nothing under this head to require regulation in the compact of agreement. The particular constitution of the commune of Amiens, the mode of electing its magistrates, the division of the duties between the various magistracies, the deliberations of the whole body of the bourgeois, as well as those of the supreme council, were points affecting the commune alone; its free decision in this respect was derived from the very fact of its existence. The seigneur had no interest to interfere in them, and the commune itself, on its part, was not driven by any pressing motive of utility to desire that any express and detailed account should be made of these arrangements of internal government.

But, as we have already said, the jurisdiction was the fundamental point, the most striking attribute of sovereignty in the twelfth century: in this the commune of Amiens discovered the right most liable to be disputed—the right which the dispossessed seigneur might resume in detail, diminish, question, or shackle it in its exercise, by the daily interference of his officers—the right, lastly, which it was absolutely necessary to guarantee for ever, by specifying, in an authentic manner, the various cases which constituted the full and entire application of it. The exercise of the right of justice heretofore belonged to the commune, but the profits attached to this right were to be divided between it and the co-seigneurs of Amiens; now it was necessary that this division should be expressly regulated for each kind of crime or offence. Among all those which the communal charter enumerates without regard to order, we can distinguish three classes:—1. Crimes and offences against the commune, regarded as a body politic; 2. Crimes and offences against the persons of individual jurés, or members of the commune; 3. Crimes and offences against the goods of the jurés. The first category, that of political offences, is the most curious, because it forms the entirely new part of the municipal right of Amiens, and there was no usage or local tradition to supply the elements of it. This class of offences presents the peculiarity, that punishment, properly so called, is not appointed for any of them, but only a preliminary vengeance, which consists in the demolition of the house of the guilty, and his expulsion from the territory of the commune, until he may have given full satisfaction.

The first of state-crimes is the act of connivance or friendship, or merely pacific relations with an enemy of the commune. “He,” says the charter, “who shall knowingly have received into his house an enemy of the commune, and shall have communicated with him, either in buying and selling, in eating and drinking, or in rendering him any kind of service whatever, shall be guilty of treason against the commune.”* Whoever hinders the free passage of persons belonging to the commune, or of merchants who come to the city through its precincts, is considered as a violator of the commune, and to be treated as such.† Whoever flies from justice is to be punished with banishment, and his house is to be destroyed.* Whoever makes injurious remarks upon the commune incurs the same punishment.† Such are the provisions common to the charters of Amiens and Abbeville, that is to say, to those which are authenticated as more ancient than the royal act of 1190. If we proceed further, and remark in this act other provisions, which are also probably original, we shall find the penalties of the political crime, the destruction of the house and banishment, applied to him who wilfully violates the constitutions of the commune, and to him who, when injured in a quarrel, refuses the composition adjudged, and likewise refuses to give security to his adversary.

A less penalty—for it requires the destruction of the delinquent’s house alone, unless he prefers paying the value of it—is imposed on him who uses insulting language to the mayor while in the discharge of his duties, and on him who strikes one of the jurés sitting in court before the magistrates.‡ In this manner the destruction of the house—the vengeance of the commune when injured by treason or outrage—was at once a punishment in itself, and the token which rendered the sentence of conditional or absolute banishment more terrible in imagination. It took place in the greater part of the communes of the north of France, with a gloomy and imposing solemnity, in the presence of the citizens, who were summoned by the tolling of a bell: the mayor struck the house of the condemned with a hammer, and workmen, employed in the public service, proceeded to the demolition, which they continued till not a stone remained.

An inexplicable peculiarity of the communal charter of Amiens is, that the crime of homicide is not even mentioned in it; nothing, in this respect, is either appointed or provided for. This omission, of which the cause escapes our inquiry, cannot induce us to believe that the punishment of voluntary or involuntary bloodshed was left in 1117 to the jurisdiction of the count, for such a reservation could not have failed to have been formally stated; and it is, moreover, proved that, in the years which followed, the commune exercised the right of high justice, which exercised, as was then said, the judgment in cases of blood.* In 1190, when Philippe-Auguste, become count of Amiens, reserved to himself, as belonging to the prerogatives of royalty, cases of rape and murder, that is to say, assassination, he made this reservation the subject of an additional article to the original charter, and from that time the jurisdiction of the commune, limited on this point, always continued to act in cases of homicide committed with violence, or by simple accident. A custom of the city of Amiens, drawn up before 1250, lays down as the recompense of blows dealt with arms, “life for life, limb for limb.”*

Another peculiarity of the charter of Amiens is, that all the penalties which it pronounces resolve themselves, or seem necessarily to be resolved, into pecuniary penalties. The person who has wounded one of his jurés is to lose his hand, or pay nine livres for the redemption of it; the house of the person who has insulted the mayor is to be pulled down; but the delinquent can redeem it at its value, at the mercy of the judges.† The words, mercy of the commune (misericordia communiæ), occur again and again in regard to the fines, which, in the cases of the greatest importance, have no fixed amount. Besides the undefined satisfactions which were exacted by these formulas, nisi cito satisfecerit, donec satisfecerit, appear to have been nothing more than penalties at discretion.

This system of penal law was not, like the system of political organisation, a new institution, a creation of the commune; it was the ancient customary law of the city and county of Amiens. The application of pecuniary penalties for all kinds of crime was introduced, as a principle of law, into the midst of Roman Gaul at the invasion and settlement of the Germanic populations. So long as the distinction of the laws, as they affected individuals, continued, this principle was limited, in its action, to the judgments pronounced against men of barbarian origin. The descendants of the Gallo-Romans continued subject to the penalty of the Roman laws, and, as is known, the cities, even those of the north, were almost entirely peopled by indigenous inhabitants. But when the laws affecting individuals yielded and disappeared under the territorial jurisdiction of the seigneurs, and local usages were everywhere substituted in the place of the written laws, custom, within the cities as well as beyond them, necessarily favoured and developed the system of pecuniary penalties, at the expense of every other system.

In effect, the right of justice having become the property of the seigneur, as the administrator of it, he felt it his principal interest to draw the best revenue possible from this property; hence it happened, that in the law of custom, at its earliest period, fines predominated over corporal penalties, and that, with respect to these last, the power of ransom was almost always allowed. When, by the municipal revolution in the twelfth century, the jurisdiction of the seigneurs in the cities was entirely, or in part, transferred to the cities themselves, they did not even think of making a new penal law. In this respect, as in the case of the civil law, they held to custom, and did not dream of making any innovation. Besides, even if they had perceived the necessity of it, a necessity more imperious of providing for the expenses of the public administration, of availing themselves of the financial resources for the present and future, would have decided them upon maintaining the old penal system, the returns of which must, for a long time, be regarded as the most abundant source of their municipal revenues.

The division of the judicial profits between the commune of Amiens and the co-seigneurs, whose jurisdiction was absorbed in its own, took place in a different manner with respect to the fines, properly so called, and the confiscations. With respect to the fines, the general rule of their division was,—two-thirds for the commune, and one for the count or the seigneur, within whose fief the crime had been committed; by exception, however, the commune sometimes received three-fourths of the fines, and sometimes the whole.* With respect to the confiscations of chattels (capitalia, catalla), which, in the case of crime, formed part of the penalty, the absence of figures to determine their division affords reason to believe that the shares were equal between the commune and the seigneur; there were cases, however, in which the count, instead of the half, took the whole.†

The share which the commune of Amiens received from the sum total of its right of jurisdiction was, during the twelfth century, the principal branch of its ordinary revenues. It is doubtful whether the right of taxation, which the échevinage possessed over all the members of the commune, was exercised periodically, and in other cases besides those of strict necessity. The remainder of the annual revenue consisted of the quit-rents paid by the tenants or farmers of the houses, lands, watercourses, fisheries, and garden-grounds, which belonged to the city, either as remains of the ancient municipal property, or in virtue of grants made by the count to form the new precincts. Moreover, there is ground to believe that a duty on the sale of real property,—a duty which, in the ancient registers of accounts, is called issue de deniers,—was collected from the commencement by the commune. Lastly, a fee (un droit de nouvelle bourgeoisie) was paid by each stranger who became a citizen of Amiens, or, as it was then expressed, was admitted into the commune (entrait dans la commune). This fee answered to the original contribution which, after the principle of the guild, all the members of the confederation had simultaneously deposited to form the first funds of the communal chest. With respect to extraordinary supplies, they were obtained by collections in money or in kind, and from loans which the commune contracted, on the security of stocks given on interest for life, or in perpetuity, at a higher or lower rate.

Such were the financial resources by means of which the bourgeoisie of Amiens were to provide for the expenses of its free government; for, as we have said above, the indirect taxes, collected in the city and its precincts, the duties on merchandise brought or exposed for sale, the customs and tolls, did not belong to it. With such slight resources the body of elective magistrates boldly took upon it the charge of internal order and external security, the custody of the city, the maintenance of the fortifications, the defence of all the civil interests. Probably, from the commencement, each member of the municipal body had the sphere of his public duties traced beforehand, and his department clearly defined. There were, in the body of the échevinage, special officers to discharge each branch of the administration, political affairs, civil and criminal judgments, finances, supervision of morals, control of streets and buildings. In consequence of the paucity of contemporaneous documents, it is, unhappily, impossible to define the demarcation of the different departments and respective duties of the magistrates; but we must suppose that they did exist at that time; and if they were not the same as appear afterwards, they were at least arranged according to some rule. In a word, if we wish to understand the full meaning and drift of acts which are too scarce or too incongruous to convey a clear impression, we must remember, at least, that we have now reached a period when municipal life appears in its full vigour.

SECTION IV.

Grant made by Philip of Alsace, Count of Amiens—Cession of the County of Amiens to Philippe-Auguste, King of France—Confirmation of the Commune—Additional Articles of the Communal Charter of Amiens; its definitive Text.*

In 1161 Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders and Amiens, with the consent of his wife, Isabel, made a grant to the abbey of Saint-Jean-lez-Amiens.† The following words occur in the deed which was then drawn up: “I direct and prescribe to the mayor and the whole commune of Amiens, as well as to all others who owe me allegiance, to maintain in peace the property of this church, and if it happen to be disturbed or attacked, to afford it assistance and protection in my stead.”* It is as successor to the ancient counts, and heir of their seigneurial rights, that Philip of Alsace addresses this injunction to the citizens, and speaks to them as their supreme lord. We should not, however, infer from this imperative form of expression that his power was greater at Amiens in 1161 than that of the commune. From the year 1117 the political government within the city and its precincts belonged entirely to the bourgeoisie. The words which I have quoted, then, contain an appeal to the effective means of the commune rather than a delegation of the seigneurial power. In the year 1170 a letter of the count, Philip, placed in the same manner another abbey under the protection of the civic body. This letter, like that of 1161, proves, in my opinion, that the commune alone had at that time sufficient strength and authority to protect the civil and ecclesiastical possessions in an efficient manner, and to maintain peace and good order throughout the whole of the territory subjected to its jurisdiction.

Philip of Alsace, having lost his wife Elizabeth in 1182, still kept possession of all the fiefs which she had brought to him as her dowry. Eleanor of Vermandois reclaimed the inheritance of her sister, and Philippe-Auguste, to whom she had secretly ceded a part of Vermandois and Amiénois, put in his claims to these domains. A war, already excited on account of them between the king and the count of Flanders, was terminated by putting Amiens in sequestration into the hands of the bishop of that city. Philippe-Auguste again took arms in defence of the interests of Eleanor in 1184; and the following year, Philip of Alsace, compelled to resign, abandoned all his rights over the county of Amiens to the king.

This cession would necessarily react upon the constitution of the commune. As king and count at once, Philippe-Auguste found himself suddenly invested with a twofold power in the city of Amiens. Without giving up his feudal title of count of Amiens, he took care to show in all his acts that royal power, which placed him above the seigneurs whose position he occupied, and he clearly established the difference which existed between his authority and that of the ancient counts. The latter, when they took possession of the county of Amiens, had to do homage to the bishop; Philippe-Auguste did not choose to discharge a formality which would have made him resemble a simple baron, and have been contrary to the idea of absolute sovereignty attached to the title of king. The following is an instance of the manner in which he expressed himself in a charter granted to the church of Amiens in 1185:—

“Let all, present and to be, know, that Philip, count of Flanders, having resigned to us the city and county of Amiens, we have clearly recognised the fidelity and devotion of the church of Amiens towards us; for not only has it displayed much devotion to us in this matter, but, besides, seeing that the tenure of the above-mentioned land and county belong to this church, and that it has the right of homage for them, this church has indulgently consented and agreed that we should hold its fief without rendering it homage, for we neither ought nor can render homage to any.”*

The union of the county of Amiens to the crown could not, as we have said, remain without influence on the destinies of the commune. The relations of the bourgeois to the count and his officers had been determined in the charter which was drawn up in 1117; but the new order of things of necessity brought on a change, if not in the constitution of the city, and the nature of its relations to its immediate seigneur, yet at least in the manner of regulating, and especially of expressing, these relations. In this respect it was necessary to fix the principles and to certify the facts by an authentic document. In passing, moreover, under the power of a new seigneur, the bourgeois of Amiens could not help feeling the necessity of making their municipal franchises known to him, and much more as that new seigneur was the king of France, who had united in his own person the entire local right of the count, and the general right of the sovereign. Such was the double object of the charter granted in 1190 by Philippe-Auguste, at the request of the bourgeois of Amiens—a charter which conceded (concéda) to them, according to its official tenour, or, more accurately, guaranteed to them, the establishment of the commune confederated in 1113, and constituted in 1117.

This charter, far from being a new act, only repeated, with the exception of certain modifications of form, and the regulation of certain more direct relations between the city and the royal power, the text of the charter which emanated from the first successor of Enguerrand de Boves. It consists of three distinct parts; to wit, 1, forty-five articles, which, in my opinion, formed the first charter which was deliberated upon by the bourgeois, and agreed to by the count, after the communal revolution; 2, a memorandum concerning the redemption of tolls, effected by the commune between the years 1144 and 1164;* 3, six additional articles annexed by the chancery of Philippe-Auguste to the original charter, when this charter was examined and revised.

It is easy to prove the history of this revision from the text of the document itself. The original of the constitutional act of 1117 existed from this date in the archives of the commune of Amiens; about 1160 was inscribed at the foot of this original, after the signatures, the memorandum relative to the redemption of tolls; and in this condition the charter was conveyed to the royal chancery, which maintained both its provisions and its form, with the exception of some alterations in the words. In the articles in which the title of count occurred, the title of king was substituted simply and without addition; the rest of the text was not subjected to the least correction; the formulas præpositus noster and the simple word præpositus, which had served to designate the prévôt of the count of Amiens, were retained to designate the prévôt of the king.* The signatures attached in 1117 were suppressed, and a memorandum of this suppression was made the subject of an article, the forty-sixth, after which the royal officers, without troubling themselves about the incongruity, placed their six additional articles.

These provisions, derived from a different source, formed the official code, the body of written law, by which the commune of Amiens was henceforth governed. I shall say nothing of the memorandum, which was placed by chance among the legal articles. With respect to the forty-five articles, of which I have already spoken in the notice which I took of those, which their agreement with the charter of Abbeville points out as undoubtedly original, I have already examined them under two heads, that of the political and that of the criminal law. I shall now examine them under the head of the civil law, of which no mention has been made above, as the commune of Abbeville, finding in its local customs rules of civil law, did not borrow anything in this respect from the text of the communal charter of Amiens.

The civil usages, indeed, sanctioned by this charter in 1117, were of immemorial antiquity in the city and county of Amiens; they had existed long previously to the commune; and when the difference in the political institutions took place, they were registered, not decreed, by the enfranchised bourgeois. Two principles of law seem to have been then proclaimed for the first time; the one which restrained the abuses of the trial by duel, by appointing that no hired champion should be allowed to engage with a member of the commune;* the other, which, no doubt, derogating from the ancient custom, ordered that the accuser, the accused, and the witness might, if they chose, make themselves heard in every case by advocates.†

The traditional provisions which passed into the communal charter of Amiens from the ancient custom must be referred to three sources,—the Roman law, the traces of which, however faint and indistinct they may be, exist at the base of all our customs; the ancient law of the German populations; and that common law of the middle ages which is called the feudal law.

No article of the charter can be pointed out in particular as being derived from a formal text of the Roman law. The provisions of the 21st, 23d, 22d, 35th, and 32d, have reference in a greater or less degree to the German laws. Under the name of dot, the 21st article points out the dowry assigned by the husband to his wife, and declares it inalienable, without saying what its nature was in the usages of the city of Amiens—whether it were settled by custom, or merely conventional. The 23d article shows that the widow who had children under age was subjected to a sort of guardianship, and placed under the direction of a protector, whom some customs name a mainbourg.* The 22d and 35th have relation to the division of property acquired during marriage, and in certain cases secure the revenue derivable from them to the surviving party.† Lastly, the 32d article declares the purchaser of a stolen object, who alleges his ignorance, not punishable, and it allows the judge in this case to exact the oath of both parties.‡

The provisions which are derived from the feudal law are found in the articles, in which the judicial combat is allowed, under certain restrictions, as a means of terminating civil suits; in the twenty-fifth article, which consecrates, while at the same time it modifies, the principle of redeeming family property; and in the eighth article, which establishes a penalty against a person who, being injured, refuses to give assurement, that is to say, security to keep the peace to his adversary.*

I call the attention of the reader, moreover, to the following provisions:—The twenty-sixth article fixes seven years as the term necessary to acquire the right of prescriptions. It is known that usage on this point has varied according to times and countries; and there is reason to believe that the charter of Amiens did no more than sanction a rule of local law, which could not be referred to any legislation. The forty-second article, which treats of injurious language made by one juré towards another, places, in the first line, as the most serious offence, the application of the name of serf. The thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh articles lay down a different penalty for injury done to the maire in the discharge of his duties, and for injury done to the prévôt; outrage on the person of the maire is a political crime, punished as such by the destruction of the delinquent’s house; outrage on the person of the prévôt is a fault to be compounded for by agreement, after judgment given by the échevins, and without public punishment. The maintenance of these provisions in the revised charter of 1190 is worthy of remark. It proves that if the prévôté exercised at Amiens in the name of the king had some prerogatives above those of the ancient prévôté of the count, it was not any more than the latter a constitutional power; and, in regard to its dignity, it was still kept under the communal magistracies.

I now come to the six articles which contain the new provisions added to the original charter by the chancery of Philippe-Auguste. Their substance is as follows:—Suits relative to real property within the city shall be judged by the prévôt in open court three times a-year.—All crimes and offences shall be judged by the maire and échevins in presence of the bailli of the king, if he wishes to be present at the judgment; if he does not wish, or is unable to be present, justice shall be administered without him, except in the case of murder and abduction, which are reserved for the king.—The goods of homicides, incendiaries, and traitors, shall be confiscated to the king alone, without division with any other, that is to say, with any co-seigneur.—None shall have power to make a proclamation (ban)* in the city, except by permission of the king and the bishop.—The king, the sénéchal or the prévôt of the king, the bishop and the maire, shall have power, each once a-year, to admit an exile into the city, except in a case where condemnation has been pronounced for murder, homicide, incendiarism, treason, and abduction. Such is the substance of the five first articles. With respect to the sixth and last, it is thus conceived:—“We will and grant to the commune, that it shall never be lawful for ourselves or our successors to cede away the said commune or city of Amiens, but that it shall remain in perpetuity, and without change, united to the royal crown.” A guarantee was implied in this promise for the constitution and franchises of the city, which were henceforth secured against the dangerous eventualities of a change of seigneur.

If a recapitulation be now made of the modifications introduced into the municipal law of Amiens, by the substitution of the seigniory of the king for that of the count, and by the revision of the communal charter, it will be seen that these modifications affect simply the judicial government, and do not make any change at all in regard to the political rights. The seigneurial right of making proclamation or ordinance was, it is true, expressly reserved to the king and the bishop; but it was in respect of other seigneurs of Amiens, and not in respect of the commune, that this restriction took place. For, on the one hand, the articles of the original charter which mentioned the establishment of échevins, statuta scabinorum,* received a fresh sanction by the maintenance given to them in the act granted in 1190; and, on the other hand, the documents subsequent to the twelfth century prove undeniably that the échevinage retained the power of making ordinances on all subjects, legislation, administration, justice, and police. I give below the perfect and definitive text of the communal charter of Amiens:—

[* ]Recueil des Monuments inédits de l’Histoire du Tiers Etat, t. i., from p. 1 to p. 25.

[† ]The ancient name of the river, Samarus or Samara, was changed, about the sixth century, to that of Sumina or Somena, later, by contraction, Sumna or Somma, from which comes the present name Somme. (See Hadriani Valesii Notit. Galliar., pp. 15 and 539.)

[* ]Ambiani urbs, inter alias, eminens. (Ammiani Marcell. lib. xv., apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. i., p. 546)

[† ]See the Itinerarium Antonini Augusti, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. i., pp. 106 and 107.

[‡ ]Hadr. Vales. Notit. Galliar., p. 539.

[§ ]Ambianensis (fabrica) spataria et scutaria. (Notitia imperii dignitatum per Gallias, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. i., p. 126.)

[* ]V. Hadri. Vales. Notit. Galliarum, p. 15.

[† ]Gallia Christiana, t. x., col. 1150.

[‡ ]“Remorum urbspræpotens, Ambiani, Atrebatæ, extremique hominum Morini, Tornacus, Nemetæ, Argentoratus translati in Germaniam.” (Hieronymi Epist., apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. i., p. 744.)

[* ]See the account given by M. Pardessus, in the Journal des Savants (1840, p. 105), of the Histoire du Droit Romain au Moyen Age, by M. de Savigny.

[* ]“Si qui, ex consensu, apud sacræ legis antistitem litigare voluerint, non vetabuntur, sed experientur illius, in civili duntaxat negocio more arbitri sponte residenti judicium.” (Cod. lib. i., tit. iv., de Episcopali Audientia, const. Arcad. et Honor. impp. [398].)

[* ]“Fuit quidem electus a plebe Ambianensium, et a Deo donatus in sede sacerdotum, fuit vocatus a populo in ordine magistratus et coronatus a Deo in honore apostolatus.” (Vita S. Salvii Ambian. Episc. [anno 686], apud Bolland. Acta SS. Januarii, t. i., p. 706.—Gall. Christ., t. x., col. 1153 et seq.)

[* ]Defensor civitatis, plebis, loci. For information on the province of this municipal magistrate in the Roman times, and under the Frank domination, see Cod. Theod. lib. i., de defensoribus, sect. i. 55.—Novel. Majorian. 5.—Marculfi formul. et var. formul., apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. iv., p. 465 et seq.

[† ]Rek, rik, strong, powerful; burg, borg, bail, surety. This designation occupies a prominent place in the acts of Frankish Gaul, in which we find the words rachimburgii, regimburgi, recineburgi. V. Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. iv., passim.

[* ]We read the following passage in the life of St. Valery:—

Advenientes vero ad quemdam locum Ambianensem perveniunt Gualiniago, ubi quidam comes nomine Sigobardus, juxta morem seculi, concioni præsidebat, quod rusticimallumvocant.” (Vita S. Walarici, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. iii., p. 496.—V. Pactum Legis Salicæ et Legem Ripuariorum, Ibid., t. iv., p. 420 et seq.)

[* ]Curia: Mahal (Rhabani Mauri Glossarium apud Eckhart de Rebus Franciæ Oriental. t. ii., p. 956.) There is still an act of voluntary jurisdiction in existence, which was passed about the year 850, by the Assembly of Notables of the city of Amiens; it is a grant made by one Angilguin to the Cathedral Church of St. Firmin; the act concludes with these words: Actum Ambianis civitate in mallo publico. (See Du Cange, Histoire des Comtes d’Amiens, edited by M. Hardouin, p. 28 and following, in the notes.)

[* ]“Propterea per presentem preceptum decernimus, quod perpetualiter mansurum esse jubemus, ut per ullos portos neque per civitates tam in Rodomo quam et in Wicus, neque in Ambianis, neque in Trejecto, neque in Dorstadæ, neque per omnes portos ad sanctam Maxantiam, neque alicubi, neque in Parisiaco, neque in Ambianis, neque in Burgundia, in pago Trigasino, neque in Senonico, per omnes civitates similiter, ubicumque in regna, proposito Christo, nostra, aut pagis vel territoriis theloneus exigatur . . . . Data vi kal. Aprilis, anno xi et v regni nostri. Actum Haristalio palacio publico.” (Preceptum Caroli magni apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. v., p. 742.—V. Hadr. Vales. Notit. Galliar., pp. 249 and 256.)

[* ]Under the two first races, as at the period of the Roman domination, there was a mint at Amiens. Golden pieces of a third of a sou value were coined in the Merovingian times, bearing the names of different masters of the mint. Deniers of the time of Charlemagne have these words on one side: Karol. rex, and on the reverse, S. Firmini. This last inscription is explained by the veneration paid by the inhabitants of Amiens to the memory of their first bishop. Other coins of Charlemagne, as king, preserved in the collection of Doctor Rigollot, have on one side Carlus, and on the other Ambianis. A coin struck in the reign of Charles le Chauve has,—Ambianis civitas, and the monogram of this prince. (See Du Cange, Histoire des Comtes d’Amiens, edited by M. Hardouin, pp. 24, 25, and 361.)

[* ]The words skapene, skafene, alias skepene, skefene, are derived from the Teutonic word skapan or skafan, which signifies to dispose, to order, to judge. (See Grimm, Antiquités du Droit Germanique, § 7, p. 778.)—Ut judices . . . . scabinei boni et veraces et mansueti, cum comite et populo, eligantur et constituantur. (Capitular. i., an. 809, art. 22, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. v., p. 680.)—Ut missi nostri, ubicumque malos scabineos inveniunt, ejiciant et, totius populi consensu, in loco eorum bonos eligant. (Capitular. Wormatiense, an. 829, art. 11, ibid., t. vi., p. 441.)

[* ]The office, Roman; the name, Teutonic.—Translator’s note.

[* ]“Ambianenses Tetbaldum, quem eis Hugo constituerat, episcopum, exosi, castrum Arnulfo comiti produnt, qui advocans regem Ludovicum, oppidum ipsum cepit, Tetbaldum expulit, Regembaldum illuc Atrebatensem quemdam monachum quem iidem Ambianenses prius sibi delegerant, introduxit quique Remos a rege perductus, ordinatur episcopus ab Artaldo archiepiscopo.” (Chron. Frodoardi, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. viii., p. 205.—Ibid., pp. 175, 201.)

[* ]Epistola Urbani Papæ II. ad clerum et populum Ambianensem, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. xiv., p. 700.—“Concilium ipsum Trecense, anno 1104, electionem olim confirmaverat viri sanctissimi Goffridi episcopi Ambianensis, quod unanimiter a clero et populo electus fuisset, rege quoque assentiente.” (Thomassin, Vetus Ecclesiæ Disciplina, t. ii., p. 91.)—“Clerus autem et populus . . . eo absente [Godefrido], super altero eligendo, non sine magna ipsius aspernatione, non sategit.” (Guiberti Abbat. de Novigento, de Vita Sua, lib. iii., sub an. 1115, inter opera ejus omnia, p. 516, ed. Dachery.)

[* ]Gilde or Gelde (pronounced Ghilde and Ghelde) signify in the Teutonic language a feast at the common expense, association, brotherhood. (See the Glossaries of Ihre, Schertz, and Wachter, on the etymology of this word. On the origin of the Guild, and on its different applications in the middle ages, see the Considérations sur l’Histoire de France, placed at the head of the Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, chap. vi.)

[* ]Already, by “the Truce or Peace of God,” war was allowed to be carried on only from Monday morning to Wednesday night.—Translator’s note.

[† ]“Ambianenses et Corbeienses cum suis patronis conveniunt, integram pacem, id est totius hebdomadæ, decernunt; et ut per singulos annos ad id confirmandum Ambianis in die festivitatis sancti Firmini redeant, unanimiter Deo repromittunt. Ligant se hujus promissionis voto, votumque religant sacramento. Fuit autem hæc repromissio, ut si qui disceptarent inter se aliquo discidio, non se vindicarent præda aut incendio, donec statuta die ante ecclesiam, coram pontifice et comite, fieret pacificalis declamatio.” (Miracula S. Adalhardi Abbat. Corbeiensis, auctore S. Gerardo Abbat. Monast. Silvæ Majoris, apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. x., p. 378.)

[* ]“Adoleverat inter Ambianenses et Corbeienses nova quædam religio, et ex religione pullulaverat consuetudo, quæ etiam reciprocabatur omni anno. Octavis denique Rogationum ab utrisque partibus conveniebatur in unum; ibique conferebantur corpora sanctorum, solvebantur lites, ad pacem revocabantur discordes, mutabantur a populo orandi vices. Decreta utriusque loci renovabantur, populo perorabatur, sicque redibatur. Sed procedente tempore cœpit aliquando res ipsa usu vilescere, et inreverentia fieri ex multa veneratione. Uterque si quidem sexus cachinnis et lusibus intendere, ordiri choreas, et inreverenter agere; et sic pene omnes corpora sanctorum negligere. Displicuit res illa bonis et maxime monachis.” (Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. x., p. 378.)

[* ]“Gui presul et procurator rei publice Ambianensis, universis filiis adoptionis præsentibus et futuris . . . .” (Charter of the consecration and endowment of the monastery of Saint-Martin-aux-Jumeaux, bearing date 1073. Departmental Archives of Somme, cartulary of the chapter of Notre-Dame of Amiens, No. 1, fol. 195, ro. and vo.) In a charter of the year 1139, the words presul et procurator totius rei publice Ambianensis are found. (See Du Cange, Gloss., on the word procuratores.)

[† ]Pro muro Castellionis, sic enim vocatur. (Guiberti Abbat. de Novigent., de Vita Sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 516.)—Antiquités de la Ville d’Amiens, by de la Morlière, liv. i., p. 66.—Histoire d’Amiens, by M. Dusevel, t. i., p. 16.

[* ]Vidame, i.e., Vice domini.—Translator’s note.

[† ]“Secum duxit Adamum ejus civitatis principem.” (Vita S. Godefridi Episc. Ambian. sæc. xii., apud Surium, mens. Novemb., p. 220.)—“Et certe Adam regi hominium fecerat.” (Guiberti Abbat. de Novigent., de Vita Sua, lib. iii., sub anno 1113, inter ejus opera omnia, p. 516.) Thus there were four co-seigneurs. In a charter of the year 1151, the heir of the ancient governors was entitled, Ambianis civitatis princeps quartus. (Cartul. of Saint-Jean-les-Amiens, MS. of the thirteenth century, communicated by Doctor Rigollot, col. 407.)

[‡ ]See the charter granted by Gui, bishop of Amiens, in the years 1058 and 1076, and those of the Counts Gui and Ives granted about the year 1091, Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, t. i., pp. 18 and 22.

[* ]They were the sons of Raoul I., count of Amiens, Mantes, and Pontoise, and came into possession of the county on the retirement of the elder brother, Simon, who entered the monastery of Saint-Claude in 1076.

[* ]See the text of the document. Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Histoire du Tiers Etat., t. i., p. 22.

[* ]“. . . . Attendentes quam miserabiliter plebs Dei, in comitatu Ambianensi, ab vicecomitibus novis et inauditis calamitatibus affligebatur, quasi populus Israel oppressus in Egypto ab exactoribus Pharaonis, zelo caritatis permoti condoluimus. . . . .” (Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, t. i., p. 22.)

[* ]Recueil des Monuments inédits de l’Histoire du Tiers Etat, t. i., p. 25.

[* ]Two cities, Cambray and Mans, took the lead of all the rest; their attempts at a revolution date from the eleventh century. (See the Lettres sur l’Histoire de France, Letters xiv. and following.)

[* ]“Communio, novum ac pessimum nomen.”—(Guibert. abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., apud Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. xii., p. 250.)—“Communio quoque civium Trevirensium, quæ et conjuratio dicitur.” (Hontheim, Hist. Trevir. Diplomat., t. i., p. 594.)—Communiam juratam. (Charter of Eleanor, queen of England and duchess of Aquitaine; Rec. des Ordonn. des Rois de France, t. xi., p. 319, note g.)—See the Considérations sur l’Histoire de France, placed at the head of the Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, chap. vi.

[* ]We have remarked above upon the origin of the title of échevins; with respect to that of mayor, the period of its introduction into the nomenclature of the municipal offices is uncertain, and all that can be said is, that it was borrowed from the organisation of the great domains under the first and second races. Its usage, in many cities of the north and centre of Gaul, ascends, probably, to the time when the name and office of the Defenseur disappeared, by the absorption of this office into the seigniory of the bishop; it was the first stage of decline in the ancient municipal government, adopted in spite of this origin, by the communal revolution of the twelfth century, the title of mayor then received political prerogatives much higher than those of the heads of the Roman senate, or the Gallo-Frank municipality.

[* ]“Post funestum excidii Laudunensis eventum, Ambiani, rege illecto pecuniis, fecere communiam, cui episcopus, nulla vi exactus, debuisset præstare favorem, præsertim cum et nemo eum urgeret, et coepiscopi sui eum miserabile exitium, et infaustorum civium confligium non lateret.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 515.)

[* ]“Ipse autem in fidelitate Ingelranni huc usque contra burgenses steterat . . . . et certe Adam regi hominium fecerat, nec ab eo defecerat, rexque eum in sua fide susceperat.” (Ibid., p. 516.)

[* ]“Videns itaque Ingelrannus, urbis comes, ex conjuratione burgensium, comitatus sibi jura vetusta recidi, prout poterat, jam rebelles armis aggreditur. Cui etiam non defuit Adam, sic enim vocatur, et suæ, cui præerat ipse, turris auxilium: a burgensibus ergo urbis pulsus, ab urbe in turrim se contulit.” (Ibid., p. 515.)

[† ]“Qui [burgenses], cum in comitem irremissis assultibus grassarentur, et Thomam, quasi amantiorem suum dominum, ad communiæ illius sacramenta vocantes, contra parentem, ut putatur, suum filium suscitarunt.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., p. 515.)

[* ]“Exhausto denique Thomas plurimo quem habebat thesauri cumulo, opem quoque Ingelranno spopondit contra burgenses, quibus cum vicedomino adnitebatur episcopus. Thomas igitur et Adam, qui turri præsidebat, cœperunt acerrime insistere vicedomino atque burgensibus. Et quamprimum, quoniam episcopum et clericos factæ cum burgensibus factionis arguebant, res pervasit Thomas ecclesiæ.” (Ibid.)

[* ]“Cum ergo vidisset [Godefridus] suam nec clero nec populo præsentiam esse gratam, quia neminem juvare poterat, assumpto quodam nostro monacho, inconsultis omnibus clero suo ac populo libellum, ut ita dicam, repudii dedit, et archiepiscopo Remensi annulum, sandaliaque remisit, et se in exilium iturum, numquamque deinceps episcopum futurum, utrobique mandavit. . . . . Ipse enim turbam moverat quam sedare non poterat.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 516.)

[† ]“Extra muros urbis Ambianensis est monasterium S. Dionisii. In illud tum cives Ambianenses aurum, argentum aliasque res comportarant, monachisque diligenter asservandas commendarant. Sæviebat enim per id tempus in urbe seditio et bellum intestinum, et sicarii passim toto oppido vagabantur magnum omnibus terrorem afferentes.” (Vita S. Godefridi Ambian. Episc., apud Surium, mens. Novemb., p. 224.)—“Referri non possunt ab aliquo, ne ab eis quidem quorum pars periclitabatur, factæ neces de burgensibus per turrenses, cum ante obsidionem, tum postea crebriores. Nullus enim apud urbanos actus erat, sed passio sola.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 516.)

[* ]“Domnus Godefridus Ambianensis episcopus, vir religiosus et honestus, nuper Belvaci hospitatus, ad colloquium nostrum pro humilitate sua venit, importabiles miserias suas et angustias, quibus a violatoribus pacis vexatur, lachrymabiliter nobis aperuit, et consilium quomodo tanta mala mitigare posset, a me anxie quæsivit. Quod cum excederet vires meas, quia consilium sine fortitudine inutile esse solet, hoc unum mihi præ cæteris occurrit, quatinus eum monerem, ut regiam majestatem adiret, apud quam et consilium inveniri, et auxilii fortitudo valeat sociari. Ex jure ergo fidelitatis et dilectionis monemus et rogamus regiam majestatem vestram, quatinus lachrymabiles ejus questiones intenta aure perpendatis, et cor vestrum aculeis doloris ejus, suggerente pietate, compungatis. Decet enim regiam majestatem vestram ut pactum pacis, quod Deo inspirante in regno vestro confirmari fecistis, nulla lenocinante amicitia vel fallente desidia violari permittatis.” (Ivonis Carnot. epist., apud. Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. xv., pp. 164 and 165.)

[* ]“Mala autem ubique tanta egerat [Thomas] ut archiepiscopi et præsules pro ecclesiis quærimonia data ad regem dicerent, se in regno ejus Dei officia non facturos, nisi ulcisceretur in illum . . . . de his ergo ac similibus cum maximis ecclesiarum doloribus, apud regias cum impeterentur aures . . . collecto rex adversus eum exercitu.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 517.)

[* ]“Confossus membra vulneribus etiam in poplite lanceam hostis pedestris accepit. Qui cum alias, tunc in geniculo durissime læsus, vellet nollet, a cœpto desiit. . . . Thomas igitur turri subvenire non potuit intra quam et filiam suam et militum suorum probiores dimiserat. . . . Thomas autem apud Marnam tuebatur se.” (Ibid., pp. 516 and 517.)

[† ]“Igitur, Dominica Palmarum, reversus a Carthusia, Godefridus episcopus, longe alia quam ibi didicerat, incipit propagare. Regem ergo arcessit, et die celebri ac verendo, ipsum et astantem populum adversus Turrenses, sermone habito, non Dei, sed Catilinario, irritare intendit, spondens regna cælorum his qui turrim expugnando perierint.” (Guibert. abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 517.)

[‡ ]“Postridie pro muro Castellionis (sic enim vocatur) ingentes machinæ porriguntur, eisque milites imponuntur. Turrenses ante cortinis sese protexerant, ne esse eorum proderetur. . . . Episcopus vero nudipes ad Sanctum Aceolum, non tunc pro hoc exaudiendus, abierat.” (Ibid.)

[* ]“Et fervescente jactu missilium . . . etiam regem jaculo in pectore loricato læserunt.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigento, de Vita sua, lib. iii., p. 517.)

[† ]“Videns igitur rex inexpugnabilem locum, cessit: obsideri jubens dum fame coacti se redderent.” (Ibid.)

[* ]“Regressus, turrim ejusdem civitatis, Adæ cujusdam tyranni, ecclesias et totam viciniam dilapidentis, obsedit: quam fere biennali coarctans obsidione, ad deditionem defensores cogens, expugnavit, expugnatam funditus subvertit, ejusque subversione pacem patriæ, regis fungens officio, qui non sine causa gladium portat, gratantissime reformavit.” (Sugerii abbat., liber de Vita Ludovici Grossi regis, apud. Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. xii., p. 42.)

[† ]One of the parishes of Amiens is named Saint-Firmin en Castillon.

[‡ ]“Et tam ipsum præfatum Thomam nequissimum, quam suos, dominio ejusdem civitatis perpetualiter exhæredavit.” (Sugerii abbat., lib. de Vita Ludov. Grossi, ap. Script. Rer. Gallic. et Francic., t. xii., p. 42.) See above, p. 127, note. Adèle, sister of the Counts Simon, Gui, and Ives, and her husband, Renaud, Count of Vermandois, took possession of the county of Amiens in 1117; they transmitted it, in 1118, to their son-in-law, Charles of Denmark.

[* ]Enguerrand, who succeeded him, held to the party of the commune to the end of the war; he is once named by Guibert de Nogent, whose narrative ends before the taking of the Castillon: “Huc usque perseverat obsidio: et dici non potest quot de Burgensibus solis quotidie pene depereant. Adam vero extra positus, suburbia et Ingelrannum atque vicedominum crebris hostilitatibus urget.” (Guiberti abbat. de Novigent., de Vita sua, lib. iii., inter ejus opera omnia, p. 517.)

[† ]“Unusquisque jurato suo fidem, auxilium, consiliumque per omnia juste observabit.” (Charter of the Commune of Amiens.)—See below the text of this charter.

[* ]This was literally true in regard to criminal cases. In civil cases, especially where debts and obligations were concerned, the provost of the count could judge with the consent of the parties; otherwise the matter was brought before the municipal magistrates.

[* ]The title of Vidame of Amiens, and the seigneurial rights attached to this title, continued in the family of the sires of Picquigny. The title of governor (châtelain) and the privileges retained by Adam continued in his family. They devolved by inheritance on the sires of Vignacourt, who, as co-seigneurs with the bishop, the count, and vidame, added to their Christian names the name d’Amiens.

[† ]The proof of this fact, and the explanation of the terms which serve to specify the various classes of seigneurial dues, are found in a charter of Philip of Alsace, count of Amiens, granted in the years 1161 and 1185. (See this document, text and notes, in the first volume of the Recueil des Monuments inédits de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, p. 74.)

[* ]We find the title of prévôt in the échevinage of Amiens from the twelfth century, that is to say, two centuries before the acquisition made by that city of the prévôté of the king. (See Ibid., p. 96, a charter of 1177.)

[† ]“. . . . Et convient que chis qui pris est faiche le serment de le mairie, et se il ne veult faire, on abatera se maison et demourra en le merchy du roy, au jugement des esquevins.

“De rekief, se li maires qui eslus seroit refusoit le mairie et vausist souffrir le damage, já pour che ne demoureroit qu’il ne fesist l’office; et se aucuns refusoit l’esquevinage, on abateroit se maison et l’amenderoit au jugement des esquevins, et pour chou ne demoureroit mie que il ne fesist l’office de l’esquevinage.” (Ancient custom of Amiens.) See the complete text of the custom, Ibid., p. 157 and the following; see also Cod. Theod., lib. xii., tit. i., de decurionibus, and D. lib. i. tit. iv., de muneribus et honoribus.

[* ]The other side, properly called the seal, has—Sigillum civium Ambianensium. With respect to the money of Amiens, of which a celebrated specimen is the silver denier, which has for its legend—Pax civibus tuis, and which seems to belong to the second half of the eleventh century, there is nothing to show that, at the establishment of the commune, it had passed from its dependence on the count or the bishop to that on the municipal magistrates.

[* ]See below, Section IV.

[† ]“Omma ista jura et precepta que prediximus majoris et communie tantum sunt inter juratos, non est equum judicium inter juratum et non juratum.”

[* ]“Quoniam ea que litteris annotantur, melius memorie commendantur, ego Johannes comes Pontivi, tam presentibus quam futuris notum facio, quod cum avus meus comes Williermus Talevas, propter injurias et molestias a potentibus terre sue burgensibus de Abbatis Villa frequenter illatas, eisdem communiam vendidisset; et super illa vendicione, burgenses scriptum autenticum non haberent, ad petitionem eorumdem burgensium, de assensu uxoris mee Beatricis et fratris mei Guidonis, et consilio hominum meorum, concessi eis communiam habendam, et tanquam fidelibus meis, contra omnes homines in perpetuum tenendam, secundum jura et consuetudines communie Ambianis vel Corbeie vel Sancti Quintini, salvo jure sancte ecclesie et meo et heredum meorum et baronum meorum.” (Rec. des Ordonn. des Rois de France, t. iv., p. 55.) The commune of Corbie was established in the reign of Louis le Gros, by grant of that prince; that of Saint-Quentin was granted at the beginning of the twelfth century, by one of the predecessors of Raoul I., count of Vermandois.

[* ]“Ad hec si forte inter me et dictos burgenses meos, querela emerserit, que per hoc scriptum nequeat terminari, per communiam Sancti Quintini, vel Corbeie, vel Ambianis, terminata fuerit.” (Ibid., p. 58.) The municipal cartulary of Abbeville, entitled the Livre Rouge, states, for the second half of the thirteenth century, and the following centuries to the sixteenth, that the échevinage of Abbeville had recourse to those of Amiens and Saint-Quentin in questions of law of the simplest nature.

[* ]Collection of unpublished memorials of the history of the Tiers Etat.

[† ]The first article of the communal charter of Abbeville is drawn up in the following form: “Statutum est itaque, et sub religione juramenti confirmatum, quod unusquique jurato suo fidem, vim, auxilium, consiliumque prebebit et observabit, secundum quod justitia dictaverit.” (Rec. des Ordonn. des Rois de France, t. iv., p. 55.)

[‡ ]“Constitutum est etiam, quod si quis de furto reus apparuerit, captis omnibus rebus furis a vicecomite meo vel a ministris meis, exceptis rebus furtivis quas probare poterit esse suas, qui reclamaverit, res alie furis ad opus meum observabuntur. Fur autem primo a scabinis judicabitur, et penam pillorii sustinebit: postea vicecomiti meo vel meis ministris tradetur.” (Communal Charter of Abbeville, art. 2.)

[* ]“Statutum est quod nullus mercatores ad abatis Villam venientes infra banlivam disturbare presumat. Quod si quis fecerit et emendare noluerit, si ipsum vel res suas comprehendere poterunt idem Burgenses, tam de ipso quam de rebus suis, tanquam de violatore communie, justitiam facient.” (Charter of Abbeville, art. 3.)

[† ]The spirit of this article is found in the fourth article of the charter of Abbeville, but with some variations in its drawing up, to suit it to the political and judicial organisation of the county of Ponthieu:—“Si inter juratum et juratum, vel inter juratum et non juratum de re mobili questio oriatur, ad vicecomitem meum de eo clamor fiet, vel ad dominum vicecomitatus illius in quo manebit qui fuerit impetitus; nisi ipse infra vicecomitatum meum inventus fuerit; tunc enim, tam de eo quam de rebus suis in meo vicecomitatu existentibus, vicecomes meus justitiam faciet; excepto eo quod personam jurati capere non poterit; et qui ab eodem vicecomite meo vel domino, per sententiam condempnabitur, si condempnatus judicio non comparuerit, a scabinis quod judicatum fuerit, exsequi compelletur.” The fifth article of the charter of Abbeville ordains, that in any process relative to real property, the complaint shall be made before the seigneur. This article seems to correspond to the nineteenth article of the charter of Amiens, as follows:—“Statutum est etiam quod communia de terris sive feodis dominorum non debet se intromittere.”

[* ]“Si vero non juratus res jurati abstulerit, et quod justitia dictaverit, exequi noluerit, si ipsum vel res suas comprehendere poterunt, detinebunt, donec quod justitia dictaverit, eidem jurato exequetur.” (Charter of Abbeville, art. 6.)

[† ]“Qui pugno aut palma aliquem cum ira percusserit, nisi se aliqua ratione coram scabinis deffendere poterit, viginti solidos communie persolvet.” (Charter of Abbeville, art. 7.)

[‡ ]This article is blended with other provisions and new developments in the eighth article of the charter of Abbeville:—

“Item, si quis armis aliquem vulneravit, domus ejus a scabinis prosternetur, et ipse a villa ejicietur, nec villam intrabit, nisi prius impetrata licentia a scabinis: de licentia autem eorum, villam intrare non poterit; nisi pugnum misericordie eorum exposuerit, aut novem libris ab eisdem scabinis redemerit. Quod si domum non habuerit, antequam villam intret, domum centum solidorum quam communia prosternat, inveniet; et quod in curatione vulneris vulneratus expenderit, eidem a vulnerante in integrum restituetur; et si pro pauperate solvere non poterit, misericordie scabinorum pugnum exponet.” The eighth article of the charter of Amiens completes this by a provision relating to the assurements, which is wanting in the charter of Abbeville.

[* ]This article, in which the words prévôt royal, which belong to the revision of 1190, are read for the first time, is abridged in the following manner in the 9th article of the charter of Abbeville:—“Si autem non juratus juratum vel non juratum vulneraverit, et judicium scabinorum subire recusaverit, a villa expelletur et judicio scabinorum delictum punietur.”

[† ]“Qui vero juratum suum turpibus leserit conviciis per tres testes vel duos convinci poterit, et, in convictum, secundum quantitatem et qualitatem convicii, a scabinis pena statuetur.” (Charter of Abbeville, art. 10.)

[* ]This article has the word Regis after the word Domini, evidently substituted for comitis in the revision of 1190; it is thus abridged in the 2d article of the charter of Abbeville: “Qui vero inhonestum de communia dixerit in audiencia, et convinci poterit testibus, judicio scabinorum emendabit.”

[† ]We must understand by the words justitiam prosequi non poterit, not, shall be unable to obtain justice, but shall be prevented by any cause from following up his claim. This article is thus reproduced in the 14th of the charter of Abbeville: “Item, si quis de alio super aliquo clamorem fecerit et ei a judice justitia fuerit oblata, si postea sine auctoritate judicis, adversario suo injuriam fecerit, a scabinis super hoc conventus, ejusque audita responsione, quid super hoc agendum sit, a scabinis statuetur.”

[‡ ]In the charter of Abbeville this provision does not form a separate article; it forms a part of the 12th article, which will be given in the following note.

[* ]In this article, instead of catalla regis erunt, the reading must originally have been catalla comitis erunt; it is thus abridged in the 12th article of the charter of Abbeville: “Item, qui hostem scienter communie receperit in sua domo, et si participaverit in aliquo inimicus communie efficietur; et nisi judicio communie satisfecerit, tam illius quam alterius jurati qui judicium scabinorum subterfugerit, domus prosternetur.”

[† ]Instead of the words in misericordia regis, the reading must originally have been in misericordia comitis; it is again found, with some variations, in the 19th article of the charter of Abbeville: “Sciendum est etiam, quod quicumque scabinos de falsitate judicii infamaverit, nisi eos legitime convincere poterit, unicuique novem libras et aureum obolum persolvere tenebitur.”

[‡ ]“Preterea statutum est, quod si in presentia duorum vel trium scabinorum, contractus emptionis, venditionis, perinutationis, pignoris vel alius contractus mitus fuerit, eorum testimonio causa disrationabitur; salvo jure meo in eo qui convictus fuerit. Hoc idem erit, si carta publica et autentica a majore et scabinis tradita, dictis scabinis non apparentibus, fuerit producta.” (Charter of Abbeville, art. 26.)

[* ]This article is evidently original; we give it as such, although it is not repeated in any shape in the charter of Abbeville.—Below, Section IV., p. 187. see the complete text of the communal charter of Amiens.

[* ]“Reus communie efficietur.” (Communal charter of Amiens, art. 16.) “Faciat communia de eo ut de communie violatore.” (Ibid., art. 3.)

[* ]Charter of Amiens, art. 16; charter of Abbeville, art. 12.

[† ]Amiens and Abbeville, art. 3.

[* ]Amiens, art. 15; Abbeville, art. 12.

[† ]Abbeville and Amiens, art. 11.

[‡ ]See below, Section IV., articles 18, 8, 37, and 39, of the charter of Amiens.

[* ]Judicium sanguinis. In the first volume of the Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Histoire du Tiers Etat, p. 99, see a letter of Stephen, abbé of St. Geneviève.

[* ]“Derechief, quiconques par ire faite ferra autrui ou navrera, par coi il perde” vie ou membre, celui pleinement membre perdera, vie por vie; s’il est tenus que “il s’en soit fuis, il sera banis et eskix de la banliue, sor le hart à tous jors.” (In the Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, t. i., p. 121, see the complete text of this custom.) The commune of Abbeville, the penal law of which was modelled after that of Amiens, in the twelfth century, fills up, by a special article of its charter, the void which existed in the charter of the model commune:—

“Si quis fortuito casu vel precedente inimicitia, juratum suum occiderit, et super hoc convictus fuerit, domus ejus et omnia ad ejus mancionem pertinentia, prosternantur. Si vero Burgenses malefactorem poterunt invenire, de eo plenam justiciam faciant.” (Charter of Abbeville, art. 20; Rec. des. Ordonn. des Rois de France, t. iv., p. 55.)

[† ]“Novem libras pro redemptione pugni persolvet . . . . Aut, secundum pretium, domus in misericordia judicum redimatur.” (Communal Charter of Amiens, art. 7, 37.)

[* ]“Novem libras, sex scilicet firmitati urbis et communie, et tres justicie dominorum, pro redemptione pugni persolvet. . . . . Novem libras dabit, scilicet sex libras communie et lx solidos justicie dominorum. . . . . Ille malefactor lx solidos persolvet; et de his habebit justicia dominorum viginti solidos. . . . . Viginti solidos dabit, quindecim scilicet communie et quinque justicie dominorum. . . . . Viginti solidos communie persolvet, ibi justicia dominorum nichil capiet” (Communal Charter of Amiens, art. 7, 38, 41, 6, and 40.)

[† ]“. . . . Et . . . . catalla ejus erunt in manu domini regis et communie. . . . . Et catalla erunt in misericordia prepositi regis et majoris. . . . . In misericordia regis est et majoris et scabinorum de omni eo quod habet. . . . . Et catalla nostra erunt. . . . Et catalla regis erunt.” (Ibid., art. 11, 15, 20, 9, and 16.)—We must remember that the word regis belongs to the revision made in 1190.

[* ]Recueil des Monuments inédits de l’Histoire du Tiers Etat, t. i., pp. 66, 101, 104, and following.

[† ]The date of the accession of Philip of Alsace to the county of Amiens is very uncertain. Du Cange (Histoire des Comtes d’Amiens, p. 316) admits that Raoul II. of Vermandois presented the county of Amiens as a dowry to his daughter, Isabel, and that on the death of Raoul this domain passed into the hands of Isabel, who married, in 1156, Philip of Alsace. If this conjecture is adopted, it is necessary to suppose that Raoul III. only succeeded his predecessor in the county of Vermandois. According to another opinion, which seems much less probable, Raoul III. might have possessed the county of Amiens till the year 1164, the time of his death; and before this date Philip of Alsace and Isabel might not have assumed the titles of Count and Countess of Amiens, except as the governors of the county during the minority or illness of their brother.

[* ]“Majoribus totique communie Ambianis ceterisque meis hominibus mando et præcipio quatinus ejusdem ecclesie res in pace custodiant et eidem ecclesie in suis perturbationibus loco meo patrocinari non desistant.” (Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, t. i., p. 67.)

[* ]Hist. de la Civilisation en France, edition of 1840, t. iv., p. 142. See the general considerations with which M. Guizot has enriched this quotation.

[* ]See the first volume of Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, p. 86.

[* ]See below, articles 2, 5, 6, and 9, 8, 12, 14, 31, and 43.

[* ]Article 17.

[† ]Article 33.

[* ]See Laurière, Gloss. du Droit Français, on the word mambournie.

[† ]See the law of the Ripuarians, under head 39.

[‡ ]See the Salic Law, under heads 39 and 49 of the lex emendata.

[* ]Beaumanoir, ch. 59, defines assurement one of the four ways to put an end to private feuds.

[* ]Ordinance, proclamation. (See Du Cange, Glossar., on the word bannum.)

[* ]Art. 31, 38, and 43.

[* ]This charter was published in the Recueil des Ordonnances des Rois de France; but the editors had not the original under their eyes, and the text which they have given of it, after a cartulary of Philippe-Auguste, is very faulty. In reprinting it here I have been able to avail myself of the variations which are found in an authentic copy of the letters of confirmation granted in 1209 by Philippe-Auguste, and copied from the text of that of 1190. (See the Rec. des Monum. inéd. de l’Hist. du Tiers Etat, t. i., p. 180.)

[† ]It is scarcely necessary to observe that, in this charter, as in a multitude of others of the same kind, the word concessimus is a mere formula of the seigneurial style: the commune of Amiens had already existed seventy-three years. The right granted to the citizens by Philippe-Auguste was, not to form a commune jurée, but to preserve their commune, together with its institutions.

[* ]We have said above, p. 161, note 2, that the words justitiam prosequi non poterit apply not to the case of the denial of justice, but to the neglect on the part of the plaintiff to obtain it.

[* ]Alias wisloth.

[* ]Rec. des Ordonn. des Rois de France, t. xi., p. 264 and foll.—Baluze, Miscellanea, t. vii., p. 318.—Bibl. Imp. Cartularies of Philippe-Auguste, Collection of Cartularies, No. 172, fol. 17 vo. Collection of the King, No. 9852. a, fol. 43 vo., 9852. 3, fol. 56 ro., and No. 8408. 2. 2, b, fol. 79 ro.—Arch. Nationale, Collection of Charters, reign of Philippe-Auguste, fol. 17 vo.