If M. de Savigny has looked for the institutions of the Visigoths in an epoch anterior to the definitive establishment of their true monarchy, and in a collection of laws abolished by the _Forum judicum_, the author of the dissertation contained in the Edinburgh Review has addressed his inquiries to times and documents posterior by four or five centuries to the destruction of the kingdom of the Visigoths by the Arabs; and by transporting the consequences which he has obtained therefrom into the epoch which occupies our attention, he has fallen into an error still less supported by facts than was that of M. de Savigny. His researches and inferences are the following:-- "It must not be supposed that the whole body of the law of the Visigoths appears in the twelve books of their code. They had their common or traditionary law, still existing in unwritten usages and customs, as well as their written law; and we are supported by analogy in asserting that this common law often spoke, when the statute law was silent. It outlived the monarchy; and we now collect it from the _Fueros_ or ancient customs of Castile and Leon. The customs in question are preserved in the charters of the towns, which gave bye-laws to the inhabitants, confirming the unwritten common law of the country, sometimes with greater or lesser modifications in the detail, but agreeing in general principles. We equally discover them in the acts of Cortes, which, to borrow the expression of Sir Edward Coke, are often 'affirmances of the common law.' The traditionary Fueros of Castile also formed the basis of the _Fuero Viejo de Castilla_, which received its last revision under Peter the Third. And even Alonso the Wise, though he planned the subversion of the ancient jurisprudence of his kingdom, admitted into the Partidas such of those _Fueros de España_ as relate to the tenures of land, and to military service. Consisting of ancient usages, neither refined by the learning of the councils nor restrained by the power of the kings, the Fueros of Castile and Leon bear a nearer affinity to the jurisprudence of the Teutonic nations than the written code. The water ordeal is noticed only once, in a law newly amended by Flavius Egica. But ordeal by compurgation, the most ancient form of trial by jury, and the battle ordeal, do not appear at all. Neither do we find any notice of the custom of returning military leaders by the _verdict of a jury_. All these customs, however, were Fueros of Spain in the Middle Ages. Nor could they possibly have then existed, had they not been preserved by immemorial usage and tradition." {247} Election Of Adalides.