Finally, it must be added that during the 13th century criminal law was profoundly modified. Under the influence of Roman law a system of arbitrary penalties replaced those laid down by the customs, which had usually been fixed and cruel. The criminal procedure of the feudal courts had been based on the right of accusation vested only in the person wronged and his relations; for this was substituted the inquisitorial procedure (_processus per inquisitionem_), which had developed in the canon law at the very end of the 12th century, and was to become the _procedure a l'extraordinaire_ of the _ancien regime_, which was conducted in secret and without free defence and debate. Of this procedure torture came to be an ordinary and regular part. The customs. The customs, which at that time contained almost the whole of the law for a great part of France, were not fixed by being written down. In that part of France which was subject to customary law (_la France coutumiere_) they were defined when necessary by the verdict of a jury of practitioners in what was called the _enquete par turbes_; some of them, however, were, in part at least, authentically recorded in seigniorial charters, _chartes de ville_ or _chartes de coutume_. Their rules were also recorded by experts in private works or collections called _livres coutumiers_, or simply _coutumiers_ (customaries). The most notable of these are _Les Coutumes de Beauvoisis_ of Philippe de Beaumanoir, which Montesquieu justly quotes as throwing light on those times; also the _Tres ancienne coutume de Normandie_ and the _Grand Coutumier de Normandie_; the _Conseil a un ami of Pierre des Fontaines_, the _Etablissements de Saint Louis_; the _Livre de jostice et de plet_. At the same time the clerks of important judges began to collect in registers notable decisions; it is in this way that we have preserved to us the old decisions of the exchequer of Normandy, and the _Olim_ registers of the parlement of Paris.