The same William of Tyre tells us of a diet held at Neapolis in Samaria, in the year 1120, 'at which, in order to banish from the land the immoralities and crying abuses which had crept into it, there were issued comprehensive regulations, embraced in twenty-five chapters; and it seems from the form of the oath of the later kings that Amalrick I and his son Baldwin IV had undertaken a formal revision of the legislation.' It is therefore probable that we retain very little of the system established _immediately_ upon the conquest. If we had no evidence of revisions and changes, the sad and unquiet times through which Godfrey had to pass would fully justify this conjecture. But let us hear what tradition says in regard to the external condition of these laws: 'These assizes (vide chap. iv) were written each by itself in large Gothic letters. The first letter at the beginning was illuminated with gold, and all the rubrics and titles were written separately in red, as well all the other assizes as those of the higher and those of the burghers' court. Each sheet had the signature and seal of the king, the patriarch, and the viscount of Jerusalem, and these sheets were called 'Letters of the Sepulchre,'[9] because they were kept in a great chest in the Holy Sepulchre. Whenever a question arose in court in regard to an assize, making it necessary to consult these writings, the chest was opened in the presence of nine persons. The king must either be there personally or be represented by a crown official, and then two vassals of the king, the patriarch of Jerusalem, or in his place the prior of the Holy Sepulchre, two canons, the viscount of Jerusalem, and two sworn citizens. So the assizes were made--so they were kept.' These statements have proceeded upon the supposition that this law book was for the whole kingdom; but history has preserved facts which look to the conclusion that this was law only for the principality of Syria. But when we consider that these assizes actually procured for themselves a recognition beyond the bounds of the kingdom, and that no special law for the other three grand divisions has ever been found, we shall be constrained to regard this system of law as that of all the provinces.