Victorious over Saracens, nobles, and townsmen alike, Frederick skilfully played off one class or race against the others, and banished from his court the turbulent leaders of the lay and spiritual aristocracy. With the help of a handful of faithful prelates and barons, and of a wider circle of lawyers, notaries, and royal dependants, Frederick issued a series of laws for the government of Sicily and Naples that frankly strove to abolish the feudal state in the interests of autocracy. He resumed possession of the estates that had been carved from the royal domain in the days of confusion. Like another Henry of Anjou, he either destroyed the unauthorised castles, erected by the feudal lords, or at least garrisoned them with royal troops under trusty commanders. Private wars were forbidden under pain of death, and even the judicial duel was only allowed in specified cases and under careful precautions. Criminal jurisdiction was withdrawn from the nobles’ courts and put in the hands of royal judges. Frederick even made it a merit that he suffered the feudal tribunals to continue to exercise civil justice. The towns were deprived of the right of choosing their magistrates, and put under the rule of royal officials, while councils of notables, chosen by the inhabitants, gave the magistrates some insight into public opinion, or at least proved a convenient channel for receiving the royal commands. The feudal prelates shared in the ruin of their lay colleagues, and every churchman was forced to pay taxes, and to abandon civil office. The Church courts saw their jurisdiction limited and their privileges curtailed. The further growth of ecclesiastical property was prevented by a severe law of mortmain. A great administrative system grew up on the ruins of seignorial, ecclesiastical, and municipal independence. All laws emanated directly from the monarch. The _Magna Curia_, sitting at Capua, took supreme cognisance of all judicial business, while the _Magna Curia Rationum_ occupied the position of the Angevin Exchequer. _Chamberlains_ looked after the finance and the administration of the provinces, while _Justices_, strangers to the districts in which they bore rule, tried criminals and upheld peace and good order. Local _bailiffs_ cared for the royal interests in the villages, and acted as judges in the first instance, while the _Grand Justiciar_, the head of the Court of Capua, made yearly perambulations of the provinces to control the local machinery. Representative _General Courts_ anticipated by a generation or more the system of estates of Northern Europe, and brought the autocrat in touch with the needs of the chief orders of the community.