to give a bond of assurance. If, after that, he committed any farther hostilities, he became subject to all the penalties of treason. This restraint on private war was known in the age of St Louis. Establissemens, liv. i. c. 28. It was frequent in Bretagne; and what is very remarkable, such bonds of assurance were given mutually between vassals and the lord of whom they held. Oliver de Clisson grants one to the Duke of Bretagne, his sovereign. Morice Mem. pour servir de preuves à l'Hist. de Bret. tom. i. p. 846. ii. p. 371. Many examples of bonds of assurance in other provinces of France are collected by Brussel, tom. ii. p. 856. The nobles of Burgundy remonstrated against this practice, and obtained exemption from it as an encroachment on the privileges of their order. Ordon. tom. i. p. 558. This mode of security was first introduced in cities, and the good effects of it having been felt there, was extended to the nobles. See Note XVI.-10. The calamities occasioned by private wars became at some times so intolerable, that the nobles entered into voluntary associations, binding themselves to refer all matters in dispute, whether concerning civil property, or points of honour, to the deter mination of the majority of the associates. Morice Mem. pour servir de preuves à l'Hist. de Bret. tom. ii. p. 728.-11. But all these expedients proving ineffectual, Charles VI. A. D. 1413, issued an ordonance expressly prohibiting private wars on any pretext whatsoever, with power to the judge ordinary to compel all persons to comply with this injunction, and to punish such as should prove

refractory or disobedient, by imprisoning their persons, seizing their goods, and appointing the officers of justice, Mangeurs & Gasteurs, to live at free quarters on their estate. If those who were disobedient to this edict could not be personally arrested, he appointed their friends and vassals to be seized, and detained until they gave surety for keeping the peace; and he abolished all laws, customs or privileges which might be pleaded in opposition to this ordonance. Ordon. tom. x. p. 138. How slow is the progress of reason and of civil order! Regulations which to us appear so equitable, obvious, and simple, required the efforts of civil and ecclesiastical authority, during several centuries, to introduce and establish them. Even posterior to this period, Louis XI. was obliged to abolish private wars in Dauphinè, by a particular edict, A. D. 1451. Du Cange Dissert. p. 348.

THIS Note would swell to a disproportionate bulk, if I should attempt to enquire with the same minute attention into the progress of this pernicious custom in the other countries of Europe. In England, the ideas of the Saxons concerning personal revenge, the right of private wars, and the composition due to the party offended, seem to have been much the same with those which prevailed on the Continent. The law of Ina de vindicantibus, in the eighth century, Lamb. p. 3.; those of Edmund in the tenth century, de homici dio, Lamb. p. 72. & de inimicitiis, p. 76. ; and those of Edward the Confessor, in the eleventh century,

de temporibus &diebus pacis, or Treuga Dei, Lamb. p. 126, are perfectly similar to the ordenances of the French kings their contemporaries. The laws of Edward, de pace regis, are still more explicit than those of the French monarchs, and, by seve ral provisions in them, discover that a more perfect police was established in England at that period. Lambard, p. 128. fol. vers. Even after the conquest, private wars, and the regulations for preventing them, were not altogether unknown, as appears from Madox Formulare Anglicanum, N• CXLV. and from the extracts from Domesday Book, published by Gale, Scriptores Hist. Britan. p. 759. 777. The well-known clause in the form of an English indictment, which, as an aggravation of the criminal's guilt, mentions his having assaulted a person, who was in the peace of God and of the King, seems to be borrowed from the Treuga or Pax Dei, and the Pax Regis, which I have explained. But after the conquest, the mention of private wars among the nobility occurs more rarely in the English history, than in that of any other European nation, and no laws concerning them are to be found in the body of their statutes. Such a change in their own manners, and such a variation from those of their neighbours, is remarkable. It is to be ascribed to the extraordinary power that William the Norman acquired by right of conquest, and transmitted to his successors, which rendered the execution of justice more vigorous and decisive, and the jurisdiction of the King's court more extensive than under the Monarchs on the Continent? Or, was it owing to

the settlement of the Normans in England, who having never adopted the practice of private war in their own country, abolished it in the kingdom which they conquered? It is asserted in an ordonance of John King of France, that in all times past, persons of every rank in Normandy have been permitted to wage private war, and the practice has been deemed unlawful. Ordon. tom. ii. p. 407. If this fact were certain, it would go far towards explaining the peculiarity which I have mentioned. But as there are some English Acts of Parliament, which, according to the remark of the learned author of the Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more ancient, recite falsehoods, it may be added, that this is not peculiar to the laws of that country. Notwithstanding the positive assertion contained in this public law of France, there is good reason for considering it as a statute which recites a falsehood. This, however, is not the place for discussing that point. It is an enquiry not unworthy the curiosity of an English antiquary.

As

IN Castile, the pernicious practice of private war prevailed, and was authorised by the customs and law of the kingdom. Leges Tauri, tit. 76. cum commentario Anton. Gomezii. p. 551. the Castilian nobles were no less turbulent than powerful, their quarrels and hostilities involved their country in many calamities. Innumerable proofs of this occur in Mariana. In Aragon, the right of private revenge was likewise authorised by law; exercised in its full extent, and accom

panied with the same unhappy consequences. Hieron. Blanca Comment. de Rebus Arag. ap. Schotti Hispan. illustrat. vol. iii. p. 733. Lex Jacobi I. A. D. 1247. Fueros & Observancias del Reyno de Aragon, lib. ix. p. 182. Several confederacies between the Kings of Aragon and their nobles; for the restoring of peace, founded on the truce of God, are still extant. Petr. de Marca, Marca sive Limes Hispanic. App. 1303. 1388. 1428. As early as the year 1165, we find a combination of the King and court of Aragon, in order to abolish the right of private war, and to punish those who presumed to claim that privilege. Anales de Aragon por Zurita, vol. i. p. 73. But the evil was so inveterate, that as late as A. D. 1519, Charles V. was obliged to publish a law enforcing all former regulations tending to suppress this practice. Fueros & Observanc. lib. ix. 183. b.

THE Lombards, and other northern nations who settled in Italy, introduced the same maxims concerning the right of revenge into that country, and these were followed by the same effects. As the progress of the evil was perfectly similar to what happened in France, the expedients employed to check its career, or to extirpate it finally, resembled those which I have enumerated. Mu rat. Ant. Ital. vol. ii. p. 306. &c.

IN Germany, the disorders and calamities occasioned by the right of private war were greater and more intolerable than in any other country of