At the time of his accession, Hugh Capet was Count of Paris, and as such was invested with judicial powers, which he resigned in 987, on the understanding that his county of Paris, after the decease of the male heirs of his brother Eudes, should return to the crown.  In 1032, a new magistrate was created, called the Provost of Paris, whose duty it was to give assistance to the bourgeois in arresting persons for debt.  This functionary combined in his own person the financial and political chief of the capital, he was also the head of the nobility of the county, he was independent of the governor, and was placed above the bailiffs and seneschals.  He was the senior of the urban magistracy and police, leader of the municipal troops, and, in a word, the prefect (praefectus urbis), as he was called under the Emperor Aurelian, or the first magistrate of Lutetia, as he was still called under Clotaire in 663.  Assessors were associated with the provost, and together they formed a tribunal, which was afterwards known as the Chatelet (Fig. 303), because they assembled in that fortress, the building of which is attributed to Julius Caesar.  The functions of this tribunal did not differ much from those of the royal chatellenies: its jurisdiction embraced quarrels between individuals, assaults, revolts, disputes between the universities and the students, and improper conduct generally (ribaudailles), in consequence of which the provost acquired the popular surname of Roi des Ribauds.  At first his judgment was final, but very soon those under his jurisdiction were allowed to appeal to Parliament, and that court was obliged to have certain cases sent back for judgment from the Chatelet.  This was, however, done only in a few very important instances, notwithstanding frequent appeals being made to its supreme arbitration.

[Illustration:  Fig. 303.—­The Great Chatelet of Paris.—­Principal Front opposite the Pont-au-Change.—­Fac-simile of an Engraving on Copper by Merian, in the “Topographia Galliae” of Zeller.]

In addition to the courts of the counts and bailiffs established in certain of the large towns, aldermanic or magisterial courts existed, which rather resembled the Chatelet of Paris.  Thus the capiloulat of Toulouse, the senior alderman of Metz, and the burgomaster of Strasburg and Brussels, possessed in each of these towns a tribunal, which judged without appeal, and united the several functions of a civil, criminal, and simple police court.  Several places in the north of France had provosts who held courts whose duties were various, but who were principally charged with the maintenance of public order, and with suppressing disputes and conflicts arising from the privileges granted to the trade corporations, whose importance, especially in Flanders, had much increased since the twelfth century.