LOSS OF THE ANTIENT NORMAN LAWS.

33

stumbles upon the earliest muniments of the 996-1003 Duchy, in the days of Henry-Fitz-Empress the dusty, musty, cobwebed membranes-the Rolls preserved in the antient English Treasury of the Exchequer at Westminster, though recording the Norman revenue.

No distinct

concerning

customs of

Normandy

the reign of

Auguste.

Strange and singular indeed is the fact, that, information save and except some very trivial breathings, we the laws or scarcely possess any knowledge of Norman juris- until after prudence, until Normandy is lost to the Anglo-PhilippeNorman line. The proverbially litigious Province cannot produce any substantive evidence of her laws until she becomes a portion of France, when a popular belief arises that the elements of her Code have been previously supplied from vanquished England.

The "très ancienne Coûtume de Normandie," is venerated by the monks of Saint Evroul as dictated by the Confessor's wisdom.-Ask the Norman archæologist for the muniments of his Constitution, and he might proffer, as their foundation, not the Charte Normande of Louis Hutin, but a Norman exemplar of Magna Charta: an exemplar, mutatis mutandis, word for word with our own, securing to the Church of Normandy the liberties of the Church of England, and adapted to the Rouen meridian, by substituting the name of Rollo's Capital for London.

At length, in the age of Montesquieu and Mably, a learned advocate of the Norman Parliament, he who rejoices in the noble name of "Howard," proclaims the recovery of the long

VOL. III.

D

34

LOSS OF THE ANTIENT NORMAN LAWS.

996-1003 lost national legislation in the venerable volumes which we inherit from Bracton, and Britton, and Fleta, and Littleton.-He dreams that he discovers the Northman's code in our English standard authorities in the forms of English procedure -in the decisions of English Judges and Justiciaries, in the relics of the Anglo-Saxon laws, --and in the tenures, purely English, as the forms and practices were settled and altered by the English Parliament, or the doctrines matured by the wisdom of Westminster Hall.

Character of

the Norman jurispru

reflected in

of the

country.

§ 16. The engulfment of all legal memorials, nay, of all information, during a period comparatively so recent as the reigns of the natural and kindly Norman Dukes, from Rollo to John Lackland, is an unparalleled historical phenomenon. Yet the history of Normandy offers a living revelation of her institutions as they dence worked in real Norman times. Textually, the laws the condition have disappeared, but we can attain to their general character by social and moral induction. The atmosphere refracts the image of the objects which are below the horizon. The general state of the Country comes to our aid, and discloses the constitutional principles-employing the term constitutional in the widest sense-which then were ruling. The Hotel de Ville charter-chest is empty, but the traditions of the Municipalities sufficiently declare, that the Roman organization was impressed upon these communities, and Normandy guided their internal government.-The existence of the opulence, which, displayed by the Rouen

The Bourgeoisie of

BURGHERS.

-CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. 35

Burghers, tantalized Louis d'Outremer's greedy 996-1003 soldiery, and teazed them the more when he denied them the licence of plunder, enables us to pronounce that the machinery which promoted such an acquisition of wealth, must have been wisely planned, and effectually worked. Lastly, the military strength acquired by the Burghers, whilst cultivating the industrial arts, affords full evidence of the freedom they enjoyed.-Stout their grateful hearts, and earnest the affection for their Fatherland, which strengthened the warriors who manned the ramparts, when Flanders, France, and Germany combined against the Norman Commonwealth.

prosperity of Normandy.

Annual Mercantile Fairs were accustomed Commercial in Normandy. Established by usage and utility, ere recognised by the law, their origin bespake a healthy energy. Foreign manufacturers were welcomed as settlers in the Burghs, the richer the better.-No grudge entertained against the Fleming; and the material prosperity of the country and the briskness of commerce carried on in all the great towns, proves that the pack horses could tramp along the old Roman roads with facility. Indeed, amongst the Normans, commercial spirit was indigenous. The Danes and the folk of Danish blood were diligent traders. The greed of gain unites readily with desperate bravery. When occasion served, gallant Drake would deal like a Dutchman.-Any mode of making money enters into facile combination with the bold rapacity of the Flibusteer.

36

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. PEASANTRY.

Norman peasantry.

996-1003 ? 17. No direct information has been transmitted concerning the customs regulating the occupation of the glebe. Yet, pursuing this deduction of the unknown from the known, we may assert that the tenures and usages under which the successors of the Roman Coloni enjoyed their lands, were easy and unoppressive. Well to do, and thriving, were the Norman peasantry, bearing themselves as freemen in all which constitutes the Freeman's pride. No other condition could have created those bold and stalwart rustics, sturdy and loyal, who swung their flails, and flashed their scythe blades, and wielded their clubs, when they hacked and mashed and battered the Germans, in the green lanes of Bihorel and Maromme; or, joyfully obeying their Sovereign's call, plunging with him into the splashing fords of the Dieppe water, and conducting him triumphantly to his Palace at Rouen.

Character of

Richard le-Bon.

§ 18. Such was the state of the population over whom Richard was called to reign. Fair was the good report inherited by Richard from his father, and he encreased it.-As evidence of character royal epithets do not stand for much, but if "Sans-peur" sounds heroic, "le-Bon" is sweeter. -He suited his people, and pleased their taste. A merry Duke; a liberal Duke; and who did not in any wise make himself a disagreeable example. Vive Henri quatre! Vive ce roi galant! The darling hero of France won his subjects' good-will quite as much by his failings as by his bravery ;

NOBILITY OF BLOOD AMONGST THE NORMANS. 37

and between him, and the Norman Dukes gene- 996-1003 rally, there was much in common. In one re

aristocracy not neces

exclusive.

spect, however, Richard le-Bon departed widely from the doctrines by which his ancestors had been guided. Hitherto, whilst the principles of artery aristocracy were accepted as the foundation of sarily politic society, yet, in no part of Western Christendom, had these principles degenerated into any invidious distinctions between free-man and free-man, more worrying and teasing than absolute tyranny.—-All were "hof-fahig,"-thank you Vienna, thank you Berlin, for the term, no English tongue could have compounded it!

Nobility did not yet constitute a closed Caste, requiring to be bred in and in: and the determined repudiation of such a doctrine, has been the most influential amongst the moral causes of British prosperity. That the father should ennoble, and the mother enfranchise, is an intelligible dogma, not involving any degradation. Assuredly, low birth and coarse manners might combine to render a favourite unpopular, as in Hagano's case: and when can such favouritism be otherwise? Yet, the necessity of absolute purity of blood—an aristocracy of the aristocracy -was not admitted as a normal principle in Normandy. No one had been excluded from the Ducal presence or from the Ducal favour by the absence of this qualification, nor can we trace any approximation to its existence, until this period, when the landscape begins to be rendered gay by the bursting blossoms of chivalry.