46 ON THE PROBABLE ORIGIN 
vation of the civil law, to have been strongly 
preponderant, and here and in the north of 
Italy we must look for the marks of such a pro- 
tracted existence of the old municipal institu- 
tions, as may connect them with the new com- 
munities. We find Roman and Salic Scabini, 
echevins, mentioned together in a placitum of the 
year 844 at Cahors, and Gothic, Roman and Salic 
Scabini and Rachinburgers, in 918, at Ausonne. 
At Narbonne in 933 there were Gothic, Roman 
and Salic Judices, and in 968 at a Placitum of 
William, Count of Provence, the Roman and 
Salic extraction of the judges is mentioned, al- 
though they are all called vasst dominict.—(Sa- 
vigny p. 305.) 
Savigny endeavours to prove that the Rach- 
inburgers, Racinburgi, who have been commonly 
supposed to be an order of judges, and_nearly 
the same with the Scabini, were no other than 
the decurions of the Roman municipia and were 
also the same as the Boni homines. ‘The name 
he derives, not as has been generally done from 
racha, ‘a process,’ or recht, ‘law,’ but from rek, 
‘ereat, noble, excellent,’ a name certainly not 
unsuited to describe an aristocratic body like 
the decurions, could it be proved that the Rach- 
inburgers were the same class. But the proof 
