Amongst the Germanic nations the right of justice was inherent to landed property from the earliest times, and this right had reference to things as well as to persons.  It was the patronage (patrocinium) of the proprietor, and this patronage eventually gave origin to feudal jurisdictions and to lordly and customary rights in each domain.  We may infer from this that under the two first dynasties laws were made by individuals, and that each lord, so to speak, made his own.

The right of jurisdiction seems to have been so inherent to the right of property, that a landed proprietor could always put an end to feuds and personal quarrels, could temporarily bring any lawsuit to a close, and, by issuing his ban, stop the course of the law in his own immediate neighbourhood—­at least, within a given circumference of his residence.  This was often done during any family festival, or any civil or religious public ceremony.  On these occasions, whoever infringed the ban of the master, was liable to be brought before his court, and to have to pay a fine.  The lord who was too poor to create a court of sufficient power and importance obtained assistance from his lord paramount or relinquished the right of justice to him; whence originated the saying, “The fief is one thing, and justice another.”

The law of the Visigoths speaks of nobles holding local courts, similar to those of the official judge, count, or bishop.  King Dagobert required the public and the private judges to act together.  In the law of Lombardy landlords are mentioned who, in virtue of the double title of nobles and judges, assumed the right of protecting fugitive slaves taking shelter in their domains.  By an article of the Salie law, the noble is made to answer for his vassal before the court of the count.  We must hence conclude that the landlord’s judgment was exercised indiscriminately on the serfs, the colons, and the vassals, and a statute of 855 places under his authority even the freemen who resided with other persons.

From these various sources we discover a curious fact, which has hitherto remained unnoticed by historians—­namely, that there existed an intermediate legislation between the official court of the count and his subordinates and the private courts, which was a kind of court of arbitration exercised by the neighbours (vicini) without the assistance of the judges of the county, and this was invested with a sort of authority which rendered its decisions binding.

[Illustration:  Fig. 297.—­The Emperor Charlemagne holding in one hand the Globe and in the other the Sword.—­After a Miniature in the Registers of the University of Paris (Archives of the Minister of Public Instruction of the University).  The Motto, In scelus exurgo, sceleris discrimina purgo, is written on a Scroll round the Sword.]