“This distribution of property has remained thus ever since the Norman Conquest; and all the noble fiefs, as they are held by a grant in military tenure, are supposed to belong to the crown, and given to a family and their descendants, subject to military service. This Circumstance supposes an absolutely strict entail, which prevents the sale of fiefs without the king’s sanction; (verbo regio;) it supposes also the indivisibility of the fief—hence the rights of promogeniture, which has reduced the younger branches of families to a most miserable state. Thus the lands of the nobles are entailed in their families. Those of the church are attached to it, and the demesne lands are equally so to the corporations, as above-mentioned.” {331} Of the orders of Society in Sicily, the same writer says— “Those princes, dukes, marquisses, and barons, who hold estates which have a town, or sufficient population, are called parliamentary barons, and have a right to sit in the assembly of the nobles: all others are called rustic fiefs, and give no right of this kind to their landlords, though they be decorated with a title.—The next order of men are the clergy, who form a distinct assembly or house of parliament, and consists of archbishops, bishops, archimandrites, mitred abbots, &c. The principal of these are younger brothers of the noble families; so that, in fact, the ecclesiastical house of parliament is tied to the lords.—The next order of men consists of a second rank of nobles, who hold fiefs without burghs, or towns, and who, though they have the same splendid titles, have no seat in the parliament. The next order are the burghers of the different towns; these apply to agriculture, to the church, and to the medical and legal professions: then come the artisans and peasants. These are the peasants of the demesne, and those who are the vassals of the parliamentary lords.” After noticing the multiplied miseries under which the bulk of the people is involved by this wretched order of things, which forms an insuperable obstacle in the way of national happiness and prosperity, our author informs us, that, according to the original constitution of Sicily, the three houses of parliaments have the faculty of granting supplies to the Crown; but the majority of the two houses (he says) are sufficient; by which means the house of commons, or demesnial assembly becomes totally nugatory, and the lords and ecclesiastics, after generously granting the supplies, throw the whole burden of them on the commons. Whatever remonstrances are made, the matter is left to the decision of those who have done the evil, and the mischief is thus perpetuated: {333} for it seems they never think of yielding in the least to the remonstrances of the commons, or complaints of the people.