II. About a hundred and fifty years after the publication of the _Breviarium_, the Goths and Romans were united into a single nation. The collection of laws, successively augmented under the different reigns, and completed by Chindasuinth, became the sole code of the kingdom; all other laws were abolished, and the _Breviarium_ was necessarily included in this abolition. The text of the law of Recesuinth is formal: "That absolutely none of the men of our realm be permitted to lay before the judge, for the decision of any affair, any other collection of laws than that which has just been published, and according to the order in which the laws are inscribed therein; and this, under penalty of a fine of thirty pounds of gold to our treasury. Any judge who should hesitate to decline any other book that might be presented to him as suited to regulate his decision, will be punished by the same fine." {245} M. de Savigny foresaw this objection; and without absolutely dissembling it, he has tried to weaken it by not quoting the text of the law of Recesuinth, and by speaking only of the attempts made by the Visigothic kings, that Spain should contain only a single nation, and be governed by a single code. These evasions are in striking contrast with his usual candour. He then makes use of the existence of the _defensores_, proof of which is found in the _Forum judicum_, to assume the maintenance of all the prerogatives and liberties attributed to them by the _Breviarium_. This conclusion is evidently hasty and excessive. I do not dispute that the towns of Spain were able to retain, or indeed that they did necessarily retain, some institutions, some guarantees of municipal liberty. I should not infer their absolute disappearance from the silence of the _Forum judicum_. The despotism of the Barbarian kings, however careful it may have been to gather the heritage of Roman maxims, was neither as wise nor as circumstantial as that of the emperors. It allowed the _curiæ_ and their magistrates to continue in existence, and these petty local powers assuredly had more reality and independence under its rule than they had possessed under the Empire. The clergy, principally dwelling in the towns, and bound by strong ties to the Roman race, was itself interested in protecting them, and the more so, because it naturally placed itself at the head of the municipalities. Thus much is certain, that the remnants of institutions of surety and liberty which existed there, occupy no place in the written laws, although these laws are much more detailed than those of other Barbarian peoples, and embrace the whole civil order. They could not, therefore, be considered as forming a part of the general constitution of the kingdom; they neither modified its political character, nor changed the results of the principles that prevailed therein. {246} Gothic Laws Of Spain.