The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0093/00932.txt

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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Notes To Book VIII: Part VI}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Notes To Book VIII: Part VI
Note XII

     This passage in a contemporary writer, being so unequivocal as it is,
ought to have much weight in the question which an eminent foreigner has
lately raised as to the duration of the distinction between the Norman and
English races.  It is the favorite theory of M. Thierry, pushed to an extreme
length both as to his own country and ours, that the conquering nation, Franks
in one case, Normans in the other, remained down to a late period - a period
indeed to which he assigns no conclusion - unmingled, or at least
undistinguishable, constituting a double people of sovereigns and subjects,
becoming a noble order in the state, haughty, oppressive, powerful, or, what
is in one word most odious to a French ear in the nineteenth century,
aristocratic.

     It may be worthy of consideration, since the authority of this writer is
not to be disregarded, whether the Norman blood were really blended with the
native quite so soon as the reign of Henry II.; that is, whether
intermarriages in the superior classes of society had become so frequent as to
efface the distinction.  M. Thierry produces a few passages which seem to
intimate its continuance.  But these are too loosely worded to warrant much
regard; and he admits that after the reign of Henry I. we have no proof of any
hostile spirit on the part of the English towards the new dynasty; and that
some efforts were made to conciliate them by representing Henry II. as the
descendant of the Saxon line.  (Vol. ii. p. 374.) This, in fact, was true; and
it was still more important that the name of English was studiously assumed by
our kings (ignorant though they might be, in M. Thierry's phrase, what was the
vernacular word for that dignity), and that the Anglo-Normans are seldom, if
ever, mentioned by that separate designation.  England was their
dwelling-place, English their name, the English law their inheritance; if this
was not wholly the case before the separation of the mother country under
John, and yet we do not perceive much limitation necessary, it can admit of no
question afterwards.

     It is, nevertheless, manifest that the descendants of William's tenants
in capite, and of others who seized on so large a portion of our fair country
from the Channel to the Tweed, formed the chief part of that aristocracy which
secured the liberties of the Anglo-Saxon race, as well as their own, at
Runnymede; and which, sometimes as peers of the realm, sometimes as well-born
commoners, placed successive barriers against the exorbitances of power, and
prepared the way for that expanded scheme of government which we call the
English constitution.  The names in Dugdale's Baronage and in his
Summonitiones ad Parliamentum speak for themselves; in all the earlier
periods, and perhaps almost through the Plantagenet dynasty, we find a great
preponderance of such as indicate a French source. New families sprung up by
degrees, and are now sometimes among our chief nobility; but in general, if we
find any at this day who have tolerable pretensions to deduce their lineage
from the Conquest, they are of Norman descent; the very few Saxon families
that may remain with an authentic pedigree in the male line are seldom found
in the wealthier class of gentry.  This is of course to be taken with
deference to the genealogists. And on this account I must confess that M.
Thierry's opinion of a long-continued distinction of races has more semblance
of truth as to this kingdom than can be pretended as to France, without a
blind sacrifice of undeniable facts at the altar of plebeian malignity.  In
the celebrated Lettres sur l'Histoire de France, published about 1820, there
seems to be no other aim than to excite a factious animosity against the
ancient nobility of France, on the preposterous hypothesis that they are
descended from the followers of Clovis, that Frank and Gaul have never been
truly intermingled, and that a conquering race was, even in this age,
attempting to rivet its yoke on a people who disdained it.  This strange
theory, or something like it, had been announced in a very different spirit by
Boulainvilliers in the last century.  But of what family in France, unless
possibly in the eastern part, can it be determined with confidence whether the
founder were Frank or Gallo-Roman?  Is it not a moral certainty that many of
the most ancient, especially in the south, must have been of the latter
origin?  It would be highly wrong to revive such obsolete distinctions in
order to keep up social hatreds were they founded in truth; but what shall we
say if they are purely chimerical?

Note XIII

     It appears to have been the opinion of Madox, and probably has been taken
for granted by most other antiquaries, that this court, denominated Aula or
Curia Regis, administered justice when called upon, as well as advised the
crown in public affairs, during the first four Norman reigns as much as
afterwards.  Allen, however, maintained (Edinb. Rev. xxvi. p. 364) that "the
administration of justice in the last resort belonged originally to the great
council.  It was the king's baronial court, and his tenants in chief were the
suitors and judges." Their unwillingness and inability to deal with intricate
questions of law, which, after the simpler rules of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence
were superseded by the subtleties of Normandy, became continually more
troublesome, led to the separation of an inferior council from that of the
legislature, to both which the name Curia Regis is for some time indifferently
applied by historians.  This was done by Henry II., as Allen conjectures, at
the great council of Clarendon in 1164.

     The Lords' Committee took another view, and one, it must be confessed,
more consonant to the prevailing opinion.  "The ordinary council of the king,
properly denominated by the word 'concilium' simply, seems always to have
consisted of persons selected by him for that purpose; and these persons in
later times, if not always, took an oath of office, and were assisted by the
king's justiciaries or judges, who seem to have been considered as members of
this council; and the chief justiciar, the treasurer and chancellor, and some
other great officers of the crown, who might be styled the king's confidential
ministers, seem also to have been always members of this select council; the
chief justiciar, from the high rank attributed to his office, generally acting
as president.  This select council was not only the king's ordinary council of
state, but formed the supreme court of justice, denominated Curia Regis, which
commonly assembled three times in every year, wherever the king held his
court, at the three great feasts of Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, and
sometimes also at Michaelmas.  Its constant and important duty at those times
was the administration of justice." (P. 20.)

     It has been seen in a former note that the meetings de more, three times
in the year, are supposed by Mr. Allen to have been of the great council,
composed of the baronial aristocracy.  The positions, therefore, of the Lord's
committee were of course disputed in his celebrated review of their Report.
"So far is it," he says, "from being true that the term Curia Regis, in the
time of the Conqueror and his immediate successors, meant the king's high
court of justice, as distinguished from the legislature, that it is doubtful
whether such a court then existed." (Ed. Rev. xxxv. 6.) This is expressed with
more hesitation than in the earlier article, and in a subsequent passage we
read that "the high court of justice, to which the committee would restrict
the appellation of Curia Re