OF MODERN: CORPORATIONS. 47 
of this is hardly even attempted by Savigny. 
He observes indeed (p. 202) that the name is 
used where there is no judicial duty to perform. 
But if the duty in connection with which the 
Rachinburger is mentioned be not always strictly 
judicial, it is always something which origin- 
ates or terminates in judicial proceedings; as 
enforcing obedience to a decision, compurga- 
tion or the attestation of a deed. Now if the 
Rachinburgers had been ‘the rich men’ of the 
community, would their name have been found 
thus exclusively connected with the courts of 
law? The evidence upon which Savigny would 
identify the boni homines of the Frankish and 
Lombardic documents with the decurions is 
equally slight and unsatisfactory, (p. 425, seq). 
If the old decurions still existed when the de- 
nomination of guten leute, boni homines, came 
into use, no doubt it would be applied to them, 
as forming an aristocracy in the community; 
but that the decurions and they alone are to be 
understood by boni homines is not rendered in 
the least degree probable by the arguments of 
Savigny, which only prove that the decurions 
were boni homines. The spirit of the German 
institutions was most directly opposed to any 
aristocratic monopoly of judicial functions;— 
every freeman was with them a judge, and they 
