Thus there was no law to prohibit
the lords from holding their courts themselves; none to abolish the
functions of their peers; none to ordain the creation of bailiffs; none
to give them the power of judging. All this was effected insensibly, and
by the very necessity of the thing. The knowledge of the Roman law, the
decrees of the courts, the new digest of the customs, required a study
of which the nobility and illiterate people were incapable.
The only ordinance we have upon this subject is that which obliged
the lords to choose their bailiffs .from among the laity.
[308]
It is a
mistake to look upon this as a law of their creation; for it says no
such thing. Besides, the intention of the legislator is determined by
the reasons assigned in the ordinance: "to the end that the bailiffs may
be punished for their prevarications, it is necessary they be taken from
the order of the laity." The immunities of the clergy in those days are
very well known.
We must not imagine that the privileges which the nobility formerly
enjoyed, and of which they are now divested, were taken from them as
usurpations; no, many of those privileges were lost through neglect, and
others were given up because, as various changes had been introduced in
the course of so many ages, they were inconsistent with those changes.
