Me E UR OPE AN LEGISLATURES. - 1 63 



joined with noble blood, and by no means the quantity of the 

 fee, that afforded a qualification for the diet. 



BESIDES, Dr STUART has inferted, in an Appendix to his 

 work, the indenture of ROBERT I. where all the free tenants, 

 " of whatever condition," and whether holding of king or fub- 

 jecl, belonging to liberties, or not belonging to them, are men- 

 tioned as afTembled and deliberating in parliament. 



ONE obfervation more is neceflary on the preliding body of 

 the Britim diets, viz. that both in England and Scotland, it ap- 

 pears to have affembled in the fame manner as the autumnal 

 placita of the Franks, though no general diet of the nation had 

 been convoked. The Saxon hiftorians often mention afTemblies 

 where only fenators in general, or, more particularly, bifhops, 

 abbots, or feniores, are fpecified as attending ; and we find the 

 Saxon monarchs trying great law fuits in fuch conventions. 

 Thus, fays the Hiftory of Ely, " Edicitur generale placitum 

 " apud Lundoniam," where the duces, principes, fatrapae, rhe- 

 tores, and caufidici, aflembled ; and there a queflion of property 

 was decided by them, in which the bifhop of Winchefter was 

 concerned *. In the fame way, in Scotland, the remains of our 



x 2 ancient 



were originally entitled to attend at the diets. The tenants in capite owed their at- 

 tendance as the condition of their eftates, and were compelled to give it accordingly, 

 while other freemen were more apt to negleiSl a burdenfbme and inconvenient duty, 

 which was not, in their cafe, often enforced by immediate forfeitures. Accordingly, 

 the bold inventor of the treatife Mod. Tenen. Parl. makes the tenants in chief attend 

 parliament by neceffity of their tenure, while others only might be afked to attend. 

 The real foundation, however, of this provifion in Magna Charta was, I apprehend, 

 no more than this, that the tenants in chief were, agreeably to the feudal arrangements, 

 the leaders and magiftrates of their vaflals. Hence it was incumbent on the king to 

 fummon only his immediate vaflals, each of whom was, in virtue of fuch fummons, 

 obliged to attend, " cum hominibus fuis." Accordingly we find, that, in Scotland, 

 certain of the vaflals owed only prefence, and not fuit, at the king's courts ; and that 

 it was neceflary to enforce the obligation of fuit by various regulations. Stat. I, 

 ROB. I. cap. 2. &c. 4. et 5. 



* Lib. i. cap. lo. See for more fuch aflemblies, cap. 14. 45. 46; 60. This piece of 

 hiftory is the more remarkable, that it affords a flrong indication of the original inde- 

 pendence 



