but equality.[305] A similar spectacle may have been exhibited, in a certain stage of society, wherever a kingdom arose out of a number of small allodial communities; but after the various members of the Frank confederacy were united in one kingdom, under the race of Merovic, the different laws acknowledged in the historical period were, not allodial and royal, but Salic and Roman--a distinction generally observable wherever a people of Teutonic race settled as conquerors in the Roman provinces. Amongst the Burgundians, indeed, where the Roman and his conqueror were on a footing of comparative equality, two royal officials administered justice in the same court, each people being judged by a Count of their own race, and according to the laws of Gundobald, or the code of Rome; but with the Franks, amongst whom the Roman was an inferior, there was but one official, the Graphio, or Judex Fiscalis, whose authority extended, though in a different degree, over both races. The Roman was judged solely by the royal official, who was bidden when in doubt “to read the Roman law;”[306] but in all cases in which the Frank was tried by the old Salic law, the official, whether _Missus_ or Fiscal judge, simply pronounced the sentence, the real judges of the cause being the _Scabini_. Originally seven in number, latterly twelve, the Scabini were always chosen by the Graphio, or the Missus, from amongst the “Meliores Pagenses,” or leading proprietary of the district in which the cause was tried; and in cases of doubt reference was made, not to a written code, but to “nostrum placitum generale,” representing the whole community in general _Mall_ or meeting; just as the Scabini represented the “proportio visnetæ,” or the chosen portion of proprietors acting in the name of the whole neighbourhood. The same principle was extended to every lesser court, whether public or private; three _Sagibarones_ pronounced judgment in the court of the Canton; and when Sigwald the priest, and Dodilo the noble--representing respectively the ecclesiastical and lay element, as in the association of the Bishop with the Ealdorman in the old Anglo-Saxon Shire-gemote--sat as Missi, or deputies, of Hincmar in the archi-episcopal court of Rheims, the judgment was pronounced by eight Scabini chosen from amongst the leading Frank-tenantry of the archbishop.[307] This difference between the Roman and the Teutonic systems is even yet recognisable in English law--all questions falling within the province of the great official, who derives his origin from the institutions of Rome, the Chancellor, being settled by the fiat of the royal official alone; but whenever the freeman is put on his trial for life or liberty, his fate is still decided by “the Jugement del Pais,” the verdict of his own _Visnet_ or neighbourhood--unless for some sufficient reason the _venue_ is changed to another _Visnet_ or neighbourhood--the presiding judge simply passing sentence according to the verdict thus