to be made in medieval society had to be effected on the same lines as modern international conventions. And indeed we find this idea at the root of the fendal doctrine of legislation; in the custom of Touraine-Anjou it was expressed in the following way: "The baron has all manner of justice in his territory, and the king cannot proclaim his command in the land of the baron without the latter's consent; nor can the baron proclaim his command in the land of his tenant without the consent of the tenant[1]."
In consequence of this general principle, all feudal legislation ranging outside the immediate demesne of the single baron takes the shape of a stabilimentum (établissement) or of an assize enacted in the court of a superior lord with the express or implied consent of his vassals. An ordinance of the Viscount of Thouars (A.D. 1099), for example, instituting a certain annual charge to be paid by the tenants, refers at the close to "the authority and will of the barons of my land" (quoted by Luchaire, Manuel des institutions françaises, p. 253). The same notion reappears in ordinances made by much greater potentates, such as the dukes of Normandy, e.g. by William the Conqueror, in 1064 (on public peace), by counts of Flanders (Baldwin of Constantinople, in 1199, on usury), by dukes of Brittany (in 1185, on succession to fiefs), even by kings of France and kings of England; Henry II's Assize of the Forest, for instance, begins in the following manner: "This is the assize of the Lord King Henry, the son of Maud, in England, about forest and hunting, by the advice and consent (per consilium et assensum) of the archbishops, bishops and barons, earls (comitum) and noblemen of England at Woodstock" (Stubbs, Select Ch. 157). Theoretically, the individual consent of each member of the gathering to any decision was needed if it were to bind him, but historically, the legislative assemblies were not merely the outcome of feudal meetings, they were also survivals of more ancient popular assemblies, while, as a matter of practice, the authority of the superior lord and the influence of leading magnates asserted themselves in a much greater degree than would have been allowed from a purely individual point of view. It thus depended very much on circumstances whether centripetal or centrifugal tendencies got the upper hand. The majority principle had not been evolved either, at least during the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As the French historian Luchaire has expressed it, voices were rather weighed than counted. But the idea of a convention made itself felt in a very definite manner, and this point must be noticed as very important in view of subsequent development. The early doctrine of medieval estates is clearly connected with these feudal views on the side both of legislation and taxation. The view that
- ↑ Coutume de Touraine-Anjou, p. 17: Bers si a toutes en sa terre, ne li rois ne puet mettre ban en la terre au baron, sanz son assentement, ne li bers ne puet mettre ban en la terre au vavasor, sanz l'assentement au vavasor; (received in the Établissement de St Louis, I. p. 26. See P. Viollet, Établissements de St Louis, II. p. 36).
