jurisdiction of this tribunal composed of their peers. Generally they also judged the villeins (_villani_) and the serfs dependent on the group, except in cases where the latter obtained as a favour judges of their own status, which was, however, at that time a very rare occurrence. Under these conditions a nobility was formed, those men becoming nobles who were able to devote themselves to the profession of arms and were either chiefs or soldiers in one of the groups which have just been described. The term designating a noble, _miles_, corresponds also to that of knight (Fr. _chevalier_, Low Lat. _caballerius_), for the reason that chivalry, of which the origins are uncertain, represents essentially the technical skill and professional duties of this military class. Every noble was destined on coming of age to become a knight, and the knight equally as a matter of course received a fief, if he had not one already by hereditary title. This nobility, moreover, was not a caste but could be indefinitely recruited by the granting of fiefs and admission to knighthood (see KNIGHTHOOD AND CHIVALRY). Private war. The state of anarchy was by now so far advanced that war became an individual right, and the custom of private war arose. Every man had in principle the right of making war to defend his rights or to avenge his wrongs. Later on, doubtless, in the 13th century, this was a privilege of the noble (_gentilhomme_); but the texts defining the limits which the Church endeavoured to set to this abuse, namely, the Peace of God and the Truce of God, show that this was at the outset a power possessed by men of all classes. Even a man who had appeared in a court of law and received judgment had the choice of refusing to accept the judgment and of making war instead. Justice, moreover, with its frequent employment of trial by combat, did not essentially differ from private war. It is unnecessary to go further and to affirm, with certain historians of our time, for example Guilhermoz and See, that the only free men at that time, besides the clergy, were the nobles, all the rest being serfs. There are many indications which lead us to assume, not only in the towns but even in the country districts, the existence of a class of men of free status who were not _milites_, the class later known in the 13th century as _vilains_, _hommes de poeste_, and, later, _roturiers_. The fact more probably was that only the nobles and ecclesiastics were exempt from the exactions of the feudal lords; while from all the others the seigneurs could at pleasure levy the _taille_ (a direct and arbitrary tax), and those innumerable rights then called _consuetudines_. Free ownership, the _allodium_, even under the form of small freeholds, still existed by way of exception in many parts.