The EUROPEAN LEGISLATURES. 41 



nation in arms, a nobility, belonging to a warlike people, muft 

 have made a diftinguifhed figure, zdly, It is inconfiftent -with 

 the idea of a patrician order, to comprehend them within the 

 def'cription of perfonse inferiores, and rank them under the low- 

 eft magiftrates ; yet it is manifeft, that the enumeration in the 

 law affords no other place for them. 3^/y, Though the account 

 given of the perfons inferiores mows there was no patrician 

 order then recognifed, that defcription of perfons is enumerated 

 among them, which afterwards, when the lower ranks were 

 emancipated, and the third eftate formed, was diftinguifhed as 

 noble. This clafs, therefore, by comprehending tithing men 

 and hundreders, which, in the eaft of Europe, are offices held 

 by nobles only, and alfo feudal lords and vafTals, who, retaining 

 the profeffion of arms, compofed the noblefle of after ages in 

 the weft of Europe, proves, that we have no occafion to look 

 farther for the origin of a patrician order, nor reafon to ima- 

 gine, that it is poffible to difcover it at the emigration from Ger- 

 many, diftinguifhed, by hereditary honours, from the reft of 

 the conquerors. Accordingly, we find the Vifigoths enacting, 

 that every freeman of the national blood might offer himfelf as 

 a candidate for the crown *. We find, that family names, fo 

 efTential to patrician diftinctions, were fcarcely known in Eu- 

 rope till the twelfth century f. And we find, that the nobili- 



/ ty 



* MONTESQUIEU attributes the ele&ion of military leaders, on account of merit only, 

 to the national adherence to the royal blood in the appointment of kings, and fuppofes 

 the power of the mayors of the palace proceeded from the old cuftom, that duces ex virtute 

 funiunt. But the monarchs who founded the European ftates were themfelves duces, and 

 owed their authority to that character, and not to their more hereditary one of being 

 chiefs of petty tribes. Clovis, Alaric,Genferic, were the Brennufes and Armiiiiufes of then- 

 times. Hence the thrones of Europe were long, dejure, purely elective. The ancient 

 form of creating a king was exaftly that which TACITUS defcribes in the election of a dux; 

 and the forms of the modern coronations are (till that of an election. The major palatii 

 was originally no more than the principal domeftic of the king.- We find majores domus 

 noftrse mentioned in the plural number, and one quitting the office for a bifhoprick. It 

 was the great extent and growth of the houfehold which rendered the mayors fo powerful. 



\ SPELMAN, in his letters to ROSECRANTZ, fays, He had not obferved a cognomen gentile 

 attributed to a Lombard, Frank, Saxon, or Dane, in the firfl ages after the conqueft. Dr 



Hi CUES 



