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OBSCURE WORDS IN CHARTERS. 167 nouvel adveu. Raguecau describes it thus : — " C'est le pou- voir qu' un seigneur a de recevoir le serment de fidelite des aubains qui viennent demeurer dans sa terre, et de les acquerir par ce moyen. . . . Les aubains sent acquis homes francs ou serfs aux seigneurs selon les differentes coutumes." The learning on this subject will be found under the heads of Advcna, Albani, Hospcs, and Tensamentum, in Ducange. It is remarkable that in this, and other cases, our own early text writers should be profoundly silent on the rights and relations of whole classes of our fellow-countrymen, whose existence is attested by numerous records ! But, in truth, those writers concern themselves with little except the general law and customs of the realm and the procedure of the superior courts. The greater prevalence of local jurisprudence, and the large share of independent judicial power exercised by territorial lords in France and some other parts of the continent, have led foreign jurists to pay more attention to local customs than they have met wdth among us. Yet, even from them, how little we can learn of the social or legal position of those who must have constituted the majority of the inliabitants of the land! 9 I find the advocarii constantly noticed in charters relating to the boroughs and lordships in the Welsh Marches. Thus, in the charter granted to Neath by the Le Despensers in the fourteenth century, the burgesses are made free " de reddita advocationis, et quod omnes alii tenentes nostri de eadem habeant libertatem." Cart. 33 Ed. IIL In a compotus of the same borough, the borough-reeve answers for is. 6d., " de advocatione et chensario diversorum tam in burgo quam extra." The tw^o last documents are printed in Mr. Francis's interesting collection on the history of Neath. We find a parallel case in a charter of William, Earl of Flanders, granted to the town of St. Omer, in 1127: — "Omnes qui infra murum S. Audomari habitant et sunt habitaturi liberos a cavagio, hoc est, a capitah. censu et de advocatio- nibus, constituo.'*^ In the charter of Llantrissant there is a like grant to the burgesses of certain forest and common rights, — " absque tal- lagio et redditu advoc' nobis portando." 9 Illillmann thus speaks of the unf'rce gcrichtsherrn." — Urspriouj dcr St'dnde, peasants of Germany : " Der Staat nahni p. 467. koine kenntniss von ihnen ; irhe abgehar- ' Warnkooiiig's " Flanders," vol. ii., teten untcrdriicker waren ja zugleich ihre p. 41 1, as edited by Gheldolf.