The authoritative and responsible action of a tribunal which represented society (Fig. 299) thus took the place of the unchecked animosity of private feuds and family quarrels, which were often avenged by the use of the gibbet, a monument to be found erected at almost every corner.  Not unfrequently, in those early times, the unchecked passions of a chief of a party would be the only reason for inflicting a penalty; often such a person would constitute himself sole judge, and, without the advice of any one, he would pass sentence, and even, with his own sword or any other available instrument, he would act as his own executioner.  The tribunal thus formed denounced duelling, the pitiless warfare between man and man, and between family and family, and its first care was to protect, not each individual man’s life, which was impossible in those days of blind barbarism, but at least his dwelling.  Imperceptibly, the sanctuary of a man’s house extended, first to towns of refuge, and then to certain public places, such as the church, the mahlum, or place of national assemblies, the market, the tavern, &c.  It was next required that the accused, whether guilty or not, should remain unharmed from the time of the crime being committed until the day on which judgment was passed.

[Illustration:  Fig. 299.—­The Court of the Nobles.—­Fac-simile of a Miniature in an old Poetical Romance of Chivalry, Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal of Paris.]

This right of revenge, besides being thus circumscribed as to locality, was also subject to certain rules as to time.  Sunday and the principal feasts of the year, such as Advent, Christmas week, and from that time to the Epiphany, from the Ascension to the Day of Pentecost, certain vigils, &c., were all occasions upon which the right of revenge could not be exercised.  “The power of the King,” says a clever and learned writer, “partook to a certain degree of that of God and of the Saints; it was his province to calm human passions; by the moral power of his seal and his hand he extended peace over all the great lines of communication, through the forests, along the principal rivers, the highways and the byways, &c.  The Treve du Dieu in 1035, was the logical application of these humane principles.”

We must not suppose that justice in those days was dispensed without formalities, and that there were no regular intervals between the various steps to be gone through before final judgment was given, and in consequence of which some guarantee was afforded that the decisions arrived at were carefully considered.  No one was tried without having been previously summoned to appear before the tribunal.  Under the Carlovingians, as in previous times, the periods when judicial courts were held were regulated by the moon.  Preference was given to the day on which it entered the first quarter, or during the full moon; the summonses were returnable by moons or quarter moons—­that