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$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part IV}
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$Author{Hallam, Henry}
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$Subject{feudal
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book II: The Feudal System
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part IV

     A relief was a sum of money (unless where charter or custom introduced a
different tribute) due from everyone of full age, taking a fief by descent.
This was in some countries arbitrary, or ad misericordiam, and the exactions
practised under this pretence both upon superior and inferior vassals ranked
amongst the greatest abuses of the feudal policy.  Henry I. of England
promises in his charter that they shall in future be just and reasonable; but
the rate does not appear to have been finally settled till it was laid down in
Magna Charta at about a fourth of the annual value of the fief.  We find also
fixed reliefs among the old customs of Normandy and Beauvoisis.  By a law of
St. Louis, in 1245, ^a the lord was entitled to enter upon the lands, if the
heir could not pay the relief, and possess them for a year.  This right
existed unconditionally in England under the name of primer seisin, but was
confined to the king. ^b

[Footnote a: Ordonnances des Rois.  p. 55.]

[Footnote b: Du Cange, v. Placitum, Relevium, Sporla.  By many customs a
relief was due on every change of the lord, as well as of the vassal, but this
was not the case in England.  Beaumont speaks of reliefs as due only on
collateral succession.  Coutumes de Beauvoisis, c. 27.  And this, according to
Du Cange, was the general rule in the customary law of France.  In Anjou and
Maine they were not even due upon succession between brothers.  Ordonnances
des Rois, t. i. p. 58.  And M. de Pastoret, in his valuable preface to the
sixteenth volume of that collection, says it was a rule that the king had
nothing upon lineal succession of a fief, whether in the ascending or
descending line, but la bouche et les mains, i. e., homage and fealty: p. 20.]

     Closely connected with reliefs were the fines paid to the lord upon the
alienation of his vassal's feud; and indeed we frequently find them called by
the same name.  The spirit of feudal tenure established so intimate a
connection between the two parties that it could be dissolved by neither
without requiring the other's consent.  If the lord transferred his seigniory,
the tenant was to testify his concurrence; and this ceremony was long kept up
in England under the name of attornment.  The assent of the lord to his
vassal's alienation was still more essential, and more difficult to be
attained.  He had received his fief, it was supposed, for reasons peculiar to
himself, or to his family; at least his heart and arm were bound to his
superior; and his service was not to be exchanged for that of a stranger, who
might be unable or unwilling to render it.  A law of Lothaire II. in Italy
forbids the alienation of fiefs without the lord's consent. ^c This
prohibition is repeated in one of Frederic I., and a similar enactment was
made by Roger, King of Sicily. ^d By the law of France the lord was entitled,
upon every alienation made by his tenant, either to redeem the fief by paying
the purchase-money, or to claim a certain part of the value, by way of fine,
upon the change of tenancy. ^e In England even the practice of subinfeudation,
which was more conformable to the law of fiefs and the military genius of the
system, but injurious to the suzerains, who lost thereby their escheats and
other advantages of seigniory, was checked by Magna Charta, ^f and forbidden
by the statute 18 Edward I., called Quia Emptores, which at the same time gave
the liberty of alienating lands, to be holden to the grantor's immediate lord.
The tenants of the crown were not included in this act; but that of I Edward
III. c. 12, enabled them to alienate, upon the payment of a composition into
chancery, which was fixed at one-third of the annual value of the lands. ^g

[Footnote c: Lib. Feudorum, l. ii. tit. 9 and 52.  This was principally
levelled at the practice of alienating feudal property in favor of the church,
which was called pro anima judicare.  Radevicus in Gestis Frederic I. l. iv.
c. 7; Lib. Feud. l. i. tit. 7, 16, l. ii. tit. 10.]

[Footnote d: Giannone, l. ii. c. 5.]

[Footnote e: Du Cange, v. Reaccapitum, Placitum, Rachatum.  Pastoret, preface
au seizieme tome des Ordonnances, p. 20; Houard, Dict. du Droit Normand, art.
Fief Argou, Inst. du Droit Francois, l. ii. c. 2.  In Beaumanoir's age and
district at least, subinfeudation without the lord's license incurred a
forfeiture of the land; and his reason extends of course more strongly to
alienation.  Coutumes de Beauvoisis, c. 2; Velly, t. vi. p. 187.  But, by the
general law of feuds, the former was strictly regular, while the tenant
forfeited his land by the latter.  Craig mentions this distinction as one for
which he is perplexed to account. Jus Feudale, l. iii. tit. 3, p. 632.  It is,
however, perfectly intelligible upon the original principles of feudal
tenure.]

[Footnote f: Dalrymple seems to suppose that the 32d chapter of Magna Charta
relates to alienation and not to subinfeudation.  Essay on Feudal Property,
edit. 1758, p. 83.  See Sir E. Coke, 2 Inst. p. 65, 501; and Wright on
Tenures, contra.  Mr. Hargrave observes that "the history of our law with
respect to the powers of alienation before the statute of Quia Emptores
terrarum is very much involved in obscurity." Notes on Co. Lit. 43, a.  In
Glanville's time apparently a man could only alienate (to hold of himself)
rationabilem partem de terra sua, l. vii. c. 1.  But this may have been in
favor of the kindred as much as of the lord.  Dalrymple's Essay, ubi supra.

     It is probable that Coke is mistaken in supposing that "at the common law
the tenant might have made a feoffment of the whole tenancy to be holden of
the lord."]

[Footnote g: 2 Inst. p. 66; Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. ii. c. 5.]

     These restraints, placed for the lord's advantage upon the transfer of
feudal property, are not to be confounded with those designed for the
protection of heirs and preservation of families.  Such were the jus
protimeseos in the books of the fiefs, ^h and retrait lignager of the French
law, which gave to the relations of the vendor a preemption upon the sale of
any fief, and a right of subsequent redemption.  Such was the positive
prohibition of alienating a fief held by descent from the father (feudum
paternum), without the consent of the kindred on that line. ^i Such, too, were
the still more rigorous fetters imposed by the English statute of entails,
which precluded all lawful alienation, till, after two centuries, it was
overthrown by the fictitious process of a common recovery.  Though these
partake in some measure of the feudal spirit, and would form an important head
in the legal history of that system, it will be sufficient to allude to them
in a sketch which is confined to the development of its political influence.

[Footnote h: Lib. Feud. l. v. t. 13.  There were analogies to this jus in the
Roman law, and, still more closely, in the constitutions of the latter
Byzantine emperors.]

[Footnote i: Alienatio feudi paterni non valet etiam domini voluntate, nisi
agnatis consentientibus.  Lib. Feud. apud Wright on Tenures, pp. 108, 156.]

     A custom very similar in effect to subinfeudation was the tenure by
frerage, which prevailed in many parts of France.  Primogeniture, in that
extreme which our common law has established, was unknown, I believe, in every
country upon the Continent.  The customs of France found means to preserve the
dignity of families, and the indivisibility of a feudal homage, without
exposing the younger sons of a gentleman to absolute beggary or dependence.
Baronies, indeed, were not divided; but the eldest son was bound to make a
provision in money, by way of appanage, for the other children, in proportion
to his circumstances and their birth. ^j As to inferior fiefs, in many places
an equal partition was made; in others, the eldest took the chief portion,
generally two-thirds, and received the homage of his brothers for the
remaining part, which they divided.  To the lord of whom the fief was held,
himself did homage for the whole. ^k In the early times of the feudal policy,
when military service was the great object of the relation between lord and
vassal, this, like all other subinfeudation, was rather advantageous to the
former; for when the homage of a fief was divided, the service was diminished
in proportion.  Suppose, for example, the obligation of military attendance
for an entire manor to have been forty days; if that came to be equally split
among two, each would owe but a service of twenty.  But if, instead of being
homagers to the same suzerain, one tenant held immediately of the other, as
every feudatory might summon the aid of his own vassals, the superior lord
would, in fact, obtain the service of both.  Whatever opposition, therefore,
was made to the rights of subinfeudation or frerage, would indicate a decay in
the military character, the living principle of feudal tenure.  Accordingly,
in the reign of Philip Augustus, when the fabric was beginning to shake, we
find a confederate agreement of some principal nobles sanctioned by the king,
to abrogate the mesne tenure of younger brothers, and establish an immediate
dependence of each upon the superior lord. ^l This, however, was not
universally adopted, and the original frerage subsisted to the last in some of
the customs of France. ^m [Footnote j: Du Cange, v. Apanamentum, Baro.
Baronie ne depart mie entre freres se leur pere ne leur a fait partie; mes li
ainsnez doit faire avenant bienfet au puisne, et si doit les filles marier.
Etablissem. de St. Louis, c. 24.]

[Footnote k: This was also the law of Flanders and Hainault.  Martenne,
Thesaurus Anecdotor, t. i. p. 1092.  The customs as to succession were
exceedingly various, as indeed they continued to be until the late
generalization of French law.  Recueil des Histor. t. ii. preface, p. 108;
Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 111, 511.  In the former work it is said that
primogeniture was introduced by the Normans from Scandinavia.]

[Footnote l: Ordonnances des Rois, t. i. p. 29.]

[Footnote m: Du Cange, Dissert. III. sur Joinville: Beauman. c. 47.]

     As fiefs descended but to the posterity of the first taker, or at the
utmost to his kindred, they necessarily became sometimes vacant for want of
heirs; especially where, as in England, there was no power of devising them by
will.  In this case it was obvious that they ought to revert to the lord, from
whose property they had been derived.  These reversions became more frequent
through the forfeitures occasioned by the vassal's delinquency, either towards
his superior lord or the state.  Various cases are laid down in the Assises de
Jerusalem, where the vassal forfeits his land for a year, for his life, or
forever. ^n But under rapacious kings, such as the Norman line in England,
absolute forfeitures came to prevail, and a new doctrine was introduced, the
corruption of blood, by which the heir was effectually excluded from deducing
his title at any distant time through an attainted ancestor.

[Footnote n: C. 200, 201.]

     Reliefs, fines upon alienation, and escheats, seem to be natural
reservations in the lord's bounty to his vassal.  He had rights of another
class which principally arose out of fealty and intimate attachment.  Such
were the aids which he was entitled to call for in certain prescribed
circumstances.  These depended a great deal upon local custom, and were often
extorted unreasonably. Du Cange mentions several as having existed in France;
such as an aid for the lord's expedition to the Holy Land, for marrying his
sister or eldest son, and for paying a relief to his suzerain on taking
possession of his land. ^o Of these, the last appears to have been the most
usual in England.  But this, and other aids occasionally exacted by the lords,
were felt as a severe grievance; and by Magna Charta three only are retained;
to make the lord's eldest son a knight, to marry his eldest daughter, and to
redeem his person from prison.  They were restricted to nearly the same
description by a law of William I. of Sicily, and by the customs of France. ^p
These feudal aids are deserving of our attention, as the beginnings of
taxation, of which for a long time they in a great measure answered the
purpose, till the craving necessities and covetous policy of kings substituted
for them more durable and onerous burdens.

[Footnote o: Du Cange, voc. Auxilium.]

[Footnote p: Giannone, l. xii. c. 5; Velly, t. vi. p. 200; Ordonnances des
Rois, t. i. p. 138, t. xvi.  preface.]

     I might here, perhaps, close the enumeration of feudal incidents, but
that the two remaining, wardship and marriage, though only partial customs,
were those of our own country, and tend to illustrate the rapacious character
of a feudal aristocracy.

     In England, and in Normandy, which either led the way to, or adopted, all
these English institutions, the lord had the wardship of his tenant during
minority. ^q By virtue of this right he had both the care of his person and
received to his own use the profits of the estate.  There is something in this
custom very conformable to the feudal spirit, since none was so fit as the
lord to train up his vassal to arms, and none could put in so good a claim to
enjoy the fief, while the military service for which it had been granted was
suspended.  This privilege of guardianship seems to have been enjoyed by the
lord in some parts of Germany; ^r but in the law of France the custody of the
land was intrusted to the next heir, and that of the person, as in socage
tenures among us, to the nearest kindred of that blood which could not
inherit. ^s By a gross abuse of this custom in England, the right of
guardianship in chivalry, or temporary possession of the lands, was assigned
over to strangers.  This was one of the most vexatious parts of our feudal
tenures, and was never, perhaps, more sorely felt than in their last stage
under the Tudor and Stuart families.

[Footnote q: Recueil des Historiens, t. xi. pref. p. 162; Argou, Inst. au
Droit Francois, l. i. c. 6; Houard, Anciennes Loix des Francois, t. i. p.
147.]

[Footnote r: Schilter, Institutiones Juris Feudalis, p. 85.]

[Footnote s: Du Cange, v. Custodia; Assises de Jerusalem, c. 178;
Etablissemens de St. Louis, c. 17; Beaumanoir, c. 15; Argou, l. i. c. 6. The
second of these uses nearly the same expression as Sir John Fortescue in
accounting for the exclusion of the next heir from guardianship of the person;
that mauvaise convoitise li fairoit faire la garde du loup.

     I know not any mistake more usual in English writers who have treated of
the feudal law than that of supposing that guardianship in chivalry was an
universal custom.  A charter of 1198, in Rymer, t. i. p. 105, seems indeed to
imply that the incidents of garde noble and of marriage existed in the Isle of
Oleron.  But Eleanor, by a later instrument, grants that the inhabitants of
that island should have the wardship and marriage of their heirs without any
interposition, and expressly abrogates all the evil customs that her husband
had introduced: p. 112.  From hence I should infer that Henry II. had
endeavored to impose these feudal burdens (which perhaps were then new even in
England) upon his continental dominions. Radulphus de Diceto tells us of a
claim made by him to the wardship of Chateauroux in Berry, which could not
legally have been subject to that custom.  Twysden, X Scriptores, p. 599.  And
he set up pretensions to the custody of the duchy of Brittany after the death
of his son Geoffrey. This might perhaps be justified by the law of Normandy,
on which Brittany depended.  But Philip Augustus made a similar claim.  In
fact, these political assertions of right, prompted by ambition and supported
by force, are bad precedents to establish rules of jurisprudence.  Both Philip
and Henry were abundantly disposed to realize so convenient a prerogative as
that of guardianship in chivalry over the fiefs of their vassals.  Lyttleton's
Henry II. vol. iii. p. 441.]

     Another right given to the lord by the Norman and English laws, was that
of marriage, or of tendering a husband to his female wards while under age,
whom they could not reject without forfeiting the value of the marriage; that
is, as much as anyone would give to the guardian for such an alliance.  This
was afterwards extended to male wards, and became a very lucrative source of
extortion to the crown, as well as to mesne lords.  This custom seems to have
had the same extent as that of wardships.  It is found in the ancient books of
Germany, but not of France. ^t The kings, however, and even inferior lords, of
that country, required their consent to be solicited for the marriage of their
vassals' daughters.  Several proofs of this occur in the history as well as in
the laws of France; and the same prerogative existed in Germany, Sicily, and
England. ^u A still more remarkable law prevailed in the kingdom of Jerusalem.
The lord might summon any female vassal to accept one of three whom he should
propose as her husband.  No other condition seems to have been imposed on him
in selecting these suitors than that they should be of equal rank with
herself.  Neither the maiden's coyness nor the widow's affliction, neither
aversion to the proffered candidates nor love to one more favored, seem to
have passed as legitimate excuses.  One, only one, plea could come from the
lady's mouth who was resolute to hold her land in single blessedness.  It was,
that she was past sixty years of age; and after this unwelcome confession it
is justly argued by the author of the law-book which I quote, that the lord
could not decently press her into matrimony. ^v However outrageous such an
usage may appear to our ideas, it is to be recollected that the peculiar
circumstances of that little state rendered it indispensable to possess in
every fief a proper vassal to fulfil the duties of war.

[Footnote t: Schilter, ubi supra.  Du Cange, voc. Disparagare, seems to admit
this feudal right in France; but the passages he quotes do not support it.
See also the word Maritagium.  [M. Guizot has, however, observed (Hist. de la
Civilisation en France, Lecon 39) that the feudal incidents of guardianship in
chivalry by marriage were more frequent than I seem to suppose.  The customary
law was so variable, that it is dangerous to rely on particular instances, or
to found a general negative on their absence. 1848.]]

[Footnote u: Ordonnances des Rois, t. i. p. 155; Assises de Jerus. c. 180, and
Thaumassiere's note; Du Cange, ubi supra; Glanvil. l. vii. c. 12; Giannone, l.
xi. c. 5; Wright on Tenures, p. 94.  St. Louis in return declared that he
would not marry his own daughter without the consent of his barons.
Joinville, t. ii. p. 140.  Henry I. of England had promised the same.  The
guardian of a female minor was obliged to give security to her lord not to
marry her without his consent.  Etablissemens de St. Louis, c. 63.]

[Footnote v: Ass. de Jerus. c. 224.  I must observe that Lauriere says this
usage prevailed en plusieurs lieux, though he quotes no authority. -
Ordonnances des Rois, p. 155.]

     These feudal servitudes distinguish the maturity of the system.  No trace
of them appears in the capitularies of Charlemagne and his family, nor in the
instruments by which benefices were granted.  I believe that they did not make
part of the regular feudal law before the eleventh, or, perhaps, the twelfth
century, though doubtless partial usages of this kind had grown up
antecedently to either of those periods.  If I am not mistaken, no allusion
occurs to the lucrative rights of seigniory in the Assises de Jerusalem, which
are a monument of French usages in the eleventh century.  Indeed, that very
general commutation of allodial property into tenure which took place between
the middle of the ninth and eleventh centuries would hardly have been effected
if fiefs had then been liable to such burdens and so much extortion.  In
half-barbarous ages the strong are constantly encroaching upon the weak; a
truth which, if it needed illustration, might find it in the progress of the
feudal system.

     We have thus far confined our inquiry to fiefs holden on terms of
military service; since those are the most ancient and regular, as well as the
most consonant to the spirit of the system.  They alone were called proper
feuds, and all were presumed to be of this description until the contrary was
proved by the charter of investiture.  A proper feud was bestowed without
price, without fixed stipulation, upon a vassal capable of serving personally
in the field.  But gradually, with the help of a little legal ingenuity,
improper fiefs of the most various kinds were introduced, retaining little of
the characteristics, and less of the spirit, which distinguished the original
tenures.  Women, if indeed that were an innovation, were admitted to inherit
them; ^w they were granted for a price, and without reference to military
service.  The language of the feudal law was applied by a kind of metaphor to
almost every transfer of property.  Hence pensions of money and allowances of
provisions, however remote from right notions of a fief, were sometimes
granted under that name; and even where land was the subject of the donation,
its conditions were often lucrative, often honorary, and sometimes ludicrous.
^x

[Footnote w: Women did not inherit fiefs in the German empire.  Whether they
were ever excluded from succession in France I know not; the genius of a
military tenure, and the old Teutonic customs, preserved in the Salic law,
seem adverse to their possession of feudal lands; yet the practice, at least
from the eleventh century downwards, does not support the theory.]

[Footnote x: Crag. Jus Feudale, l. i. tit. 10; Du Cange, voc. Feudum de
Camera, &c.  In the treaty between Henry I. of England and Robert, Count of
Flanders, A.D. 1101, the king stipulates to pay annually 400 marks of silver,
in feodo, for the military service of his ally.  Rymer, Foedera, t. i. p. 2.]

     There is one extensive species of feudal tenure which may be distinctly
noticed.  The pride of wealth in the middle ages was principally exhibited in
a multitude of dependents.  The court of Charlemagne was crowded with officers
of very rank, some of the most eminent of whom exercised functions about the
royal person which would have been though fit only for slaves in the palace of
Augustus or Antonine.  The freeborn Franks saw nothing menial in the titles of
cup-bearer, steward, marshal, and master of the horse, which are still borne
by the noblest families in many parts of Europe, and, till lately, by
sovereign princes in the empire. ^y From the court of the king this favorite
piece of magnificence descended to those of the prelates and barons, who
sorrounded themselves with household officers called ministerials; a name
equally applied to those of a servile and of a liberal description. ^z The
latter of these were rewarded with grants of lands, which they held under a
feudal tenure by the condition of performing some domestic service to the
lord.  What was called in our law grand serjeanty affords an instance of this
species of fief. ^a It is, however, an instance of noblest kind; but Muratori
has given abundance of proofs that the commonest mechanical arts were carried
on in the houses of the great by persons receiving lands upon those
conditions. ^b

[Footnote y: The Count of Anjou, under Louis VI., claimed the office of Great
Seneschal of France; that is, to carry dishes to the king's table on state
days.  (Sismondi, v. 135.) Thus the feudal notions of grand serjeanty prepared
the way for the restoration of royal supremacy, as the military tenures had
impaired it.  The wound and the remedy came from the same lance.  If the
feudal system was incompatible with despotism, and even, while in its full
vigor, with legitimate authority, it kept alive the sense of a supreme chief,
of a superiority of rank, of a certain subjection to an hereditary sovereign,
not yet testified by unlimited obedience, but by homage and loyalty.]

[Footnote z: Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. iii. p. 92; Du Cange, v.
Familia, Ministeriales.]

[Footnote a: "This tenure," says Littleton, "is where a man holds his lands or
tenements of our sovereign lord the king by such services as he ought to do in
his proper person to the king, as to carry the banner of the king, or his
lance, or to lead his array, or to be his marshal, or to carry his sword
before him at his coronation, or to be his sewer at his coronation, or his
carver, or his butler, or to be one of his chamberlains at the receipt of his
exchequer, or to do other like services." Sect. 153.]

[Footnote b: Antiq. Ital. Dissert. II, ad finem.]

     These imperfect feuds, however, belong more properly to the history of
law, and are chiefly noticed in the present sketch because they attest the
partiality manifested during the middle ages to the name and form of a feudal
tenure.  In the regular military fief we see the real principle of the system,
which might originally have been defined an alliance of free landholders
arranged in degrees of subordination, according to their respective capacities
of affording mutual support.

     The peculiar and varied attributes of feudal tenures naturally gave rise
to a new jurisprudence, regulating territorial rights in those parts of Europe
which had adopted the system.  For a length of time this rested in
traditionary customs, observed in the domains of each prince or lord, without
much regard to those of his neighbors.  Laws were made occasionally by the
emperor in Germany and Italy, which tended to fix the usages of those
countries.  About the year 1170, Girard and Obertus, two Milanese lawyers,
published two books of the law of fiefs, which obtained a great authority, and
have been regarded as the groundwork of that jurisprudence. ^c A number of
subsequent commentators swelled this code with their glosses and opinions, to
enlighten or obscure the judgment of the imperial tribunals.  These were
chiefly civilians or canonists, who brought to the interpretation of old
barbaric customs the principles of a very different school.  Hence a manifest
change was wrought in the law of feudal tenure, which they assimilated to the
usufruct or the emphyteusis of the Roman code; modes of property somewhat
analogous in appearance, but totally distinct in principle, from the
legitimate fief.  These Lombard lawyers propagated a doctrine which has been
too readily received, that the feudal system originated in their country; and
some writers upon jurisprudence, such as Duck and Sir James Craig, incline to
give a preponderating authority to their code.  But whatever weight it may
have possessed within the limits of the empire, a different guide must be
followed in the ancient customs of France and England. ^d These were fresh
from the fountain of that curious polity with which the stream of Roman law
had never mingled its waters.  In England we know that the Norman system
established between the Conquest and the reign of Henry II. was restrained by
regular legislation, by paramount courts of justice, and by learned writings,
from breaking into discordant local usages, except in a comparatively small
number of places, and has become the principal source of our common law.  But
the independence of the French nobles produced a much greater variety of
customs.  The whole number collected and reduced to certainty in the sixteenth
century, amounted to two hundred and eighty-five, or omitting those
inconsiderable for extent or peculiarity, to sixty.  The earliest written
customary in France is that of Bearn, which is said to have been confirmed by
Viscount Gaston IV. in 1088. ^e Many others were written in the two subsequent
ages, of which the customs of Beauvoisis, compiled by Beaumanoir under Philip
III., are the most celebrated, and contain a mass of information on the feudal
constitution and manners.  Under Charles VII an ordinance was made for the
formation of a general code of customary law, by ascertaining forever in the
written collection those of each district; but the work was not completed till
the reign of Charles IX.  This was what may be called the common law of the
pays coutumiers, or northern division of France, and the rule of all their
tribunals, unless where controlled by royal edicts.

[Footnote c: Giannone, Ist. di Napoli, l. xiii. c. 3.  The Libri Feudorum are
printed in most editions of the Corpus Juris Civilis.]

[Footnote d: Giannone explicitly contrasts the French and Lombard laws
respecting fiefs.  The latter was the foundation of the Libri Feudorum, and
formed the common law of Italy.  The former was introduced by Roger Guiscard
into his dominions, in three books of constitutions, printed in Lindebrog's
collection.  There were several material differences, which Giannone
enumerates, especially the Norman custom of primogeniture.  Ist. di Nap. l.
xi. c. 5.]

[Footnote e: There are two editions of this curious old code; one at Pau, in
1552, republished with a fresh title-page and permission of Henry IV. in 1602;
the other at Lescars, in 1633.  These laws, as we read them, are subsequent to
a revision made in the middle of the sixteenth century, in which they were
more or less corrected.  The basis, however, is unquestionably very ancient.
We even find the composition for homicide preserved in them, so that murder
was not a capital offence in Bearn, though robbery was such. - Rubrica de
Homicidis, Art. xxxi.  See too Rubrica de Poenis, Art. i. and ii.]