498 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Courts in excess, with a view, by repeated fines and amercements, to 

 ruin the small freeholders, and thus to get their abodes into their own 

 hands. Charlemagne introduced a radical law-reform . . . the great 

 body of the freemen were released from attendance at the Gebotene 

 Dinye, at which, from thenceforth, justice was to be administered under 

 the presidency, ex ojficio, of the Centenar, by ... permanent jurymen 

 . . . chosen de melioribus i.e., from the more well-to-do freemen.&quot; 



But in other cases, and especially where concentration 

 in a town renders performance of judicial functions less 

 burdensome, we see that along with retention or acquire 

 ment of predominant power by the third element in the 

 triune political structure, there goes exercise of judicial func 

 tions by it. The case of Athens, after the replacing of oli 

 garchic rule by democratic rule, is, of course, the most 

 familiar example of this. The Kleisthenian revolution made 

 the annually-appointed magistrates personally responsible to 

 the people judicially assembled ; and when, under Perikles, 

 there were established the dikasteries, or courts of paid jurors 

 chosen by lot, the administration of justice was transferred 

 almost wholly to the body of freemen, divided for convenience 

 into committees. Among the Frieslanders, who in early times 

 were enabled by the nature of their habitat to maintain a 

 free form of political organization, there continued the popu 

 lar judicial assembly: &quot; When the commons were summoned 

 for any particular purpose, the assembly took the name of the 

 Bodthing. The bodthing was called for the purpose of passing 

 judgment in cases of urgent necessity.&quot; And M. de Laveleye, 

 describing the Teutonic mark as still existing in Holland, 

 &quot; especially in Drenthe,&quot; a tract &quot; surrounded on all sides by 

 a marsh and bog &quot; (again illustrating the physical conditions 

 favourable to maintenance of primitive free institutions), goes 

 on to say of the inhabitants as periodically assembled : 



&quot; They appeared in arms ; and no one could absent himself, under pain 

 of a fine. This assembly directed all the details as to the enjoyment of 

 the common property ; appointed the works to be executed ; imposed 

 pecuniary penalties for the violation of rules, and nominated the officera 

 charged with the executive power.&quot; 



The likeness between the judicial form and the political 



