CONSULTATIVE BODIES. 347 



zation which existed before the king lost his power, we are told 

 that 



Though each of these palatines, bishops, and barons, could thus advise his 

 sovereign, the formation of a regular senate was slow, and completed only when 

 experience had proved its utility. At first, the only subjects on which the mon- 

 arch deliberated with his barons related to war ; what he originally granted 

 through courtesy, or through diffidence in himself, or with a view to lessen his 

 responsibility in case of failure, they eventually claimed as a right. 



So, too, during internal wars and wars against Rome, the primitive 

 Germanic tribes, once semi-nomadic and but slightly organized, pass- 

 ing through the stage in which armed chiefs and freemen periodically 

 assembled for deliberations on war and other matters, evolved a kin- 

 dred structure. In Charlemagne's time, at the great assembly of the 

 year 



The dukes, counts, bishops, scabini, and centenaries all who were connected 

 with the government or the administration were officially present ; the great 

 and small proprietors, the barons and gentry, were so in virtue of their fiefs, the 

 freemen in virtue of their character as warriors, though undoubtedly there were 

 few freemen obhged to bear arms not provided with some portion of landed 

 property. 



And then at a later j^eriod, as Hallam writes 



In all the German principalities a form of limited monarchy prevailed, reflect- 

 ing, on a reduced scale, the general constitution of the empire. As the emper- 

 ors shared their legislative sovereignty with the Diet, so all the princes who 

 belonged to that assembly had their own provincial states, composed of their 

 feudal vassals and of their mediate towns within their territory 



the mass of the rural population having thus ceased to possess power. 

 Similarly during the later feudal period in France. An " ordinance of 

 1228, respecting the heretics of Languedoc, is rendered with the advice 

 of our great men and prudhommes " ; and one " of 1246, concerning 

 levies and redemptions in Anjou and Maine," says that, " having called 

 around us, at Orleans, the barons and great men of the said counties, 

 and having held attentive counsel with them," etc. 



To meet the probable criticism that no notice has been taken of 

 the ecclesiastics usually included in the consultative body, it is needful 

 to point out that due recognition of them does not involve any essen- 

 tial change in the account above given. Though modern usages lead 

 us to think of the priest-class as distinct from the warrior-class, yet it 

 was not originally distinct. AVith the truth that, habitually in militant 

 societies, the king is at once commander-in-chief and high-priest, car- 

 rying out in both capacities the dictates of his deity, we may join the 

 truth that the subordinate priest is usually a direct or indirect aider 

 of the wars thus supposed to be divinely prompted. In illustration of 

 the one truth may be cited the fact that, before going to war, Radama, 

 King of Madagascar, " acting as priest as well as general, sacrificed a 



