JUDICIAL AND EXECUTIVE SYSTEMS. 497 



public assembly, sitting on a chariot-seat. &quot; Mr. Gomme s 

 Primitive Folk- Moots contains sundry illustrations showing 

 that among the Germans in old times, the Konigs-stuhl, or 

 king s judgment-seat, was 011 the green sward ; that in other 

 cases the stone steps at the town-gates constituted the seat 

 before which causes were heard by him ; and that again, 

 in early French usage, trials often took place under trees. 

 According to Joinville this practice long continued in France. 



&quot; Many a time did it happen that, in summer, he [Lewis IX] would go 

 and sit in the forest of Vincennes after mass, and would rest against an 

 oak, and make us sit round him ... he asked them with his own 

 mouth, Is there any one who has a suit? ... I have seen him some 

 times in summer come to hear his people s suits in the garden of Paris.&quot; 



And something similar occurred in Scotland under David I. 

 All which customs among various peoples, imply survival of 

 the primitive judicial assembly, changed only by concentra 

 tion in its head of power originally shared by the leading 

 men and the undistinguished mass. 



Where the second component of the triune political 

 structure becomes supreme, this in its turn monopolizes 

 judicial functions. Among the Spartans the oligarchic 

 senate, and in a measure the smaller and chance-selected 

 oligarchy constituted by the ephors, joined judicial functions 

 with their political functions. Similarly in Athens under the 

 aristocratic rule of the Eupatridss, we find the Areopagus 

 formed of its members, discharging, either itself or through its 

 nine chosen Archons, the duties of deciding causes and 

 executing decisions. In later days, again, we have the case of 

 the Venetian council of ten. And then, certain incidents of 

 the middle ages instructively show us one of the processes by 

 which judicial power, as well as political power, passes from 

 the hands of the freemen at large into the hands of a 

 smaller and wealthier class. In the Carolingian period, 

 besides the bi-annual meetings of the hundred- court, it was 



&quot; convoked at the Grafs will and pleasure, to try particular cases . . . 

 in the one case, as in the other, non-attendance was punished ... it was 

 found that the Grafs used their right to summon these extraordinary 



