The institution of _missi dominici_ served its purpose for a time, but proved to be only a temporary expedient. There was an increasing difficulty in finding suitable men for this delicate charge, which required in those who had to execute it both strength and sympathy, an independent position, and willingness to listen to the cry of the humble. Even already in the lifetime of Charles there was a visible danger that the _missus_ might become another oppressor as burdensome to the common people as any of the counts whom he was appointed to superintend. And after all, the _missus_ could only transmit to the distant regions of the empire as much power as he received from its centre. Under the feeble Louis the Pious, his wrangling sons and his inept grandsons, the institution grew ever weaker and weaker. Admirable instructions for the guidance of the _missi_ were drawn up at headquarters, but there was no power to enforce them. With the collapse of the Carolingian dynasty towards the close of the ninth century the _missi dominici_ disappear from view. 4. Another institution was perhaps due to Charles’s own personal initiative; at any rate it was introduced at the outset of his reign, and soon spread widely through his dominions. It was that of the _scabini_, whose functions recall to us sometimes those of our justices of the peace, sometimes those of our grand-jurors, and sometimes those of our ordinary jurors. Chosen for life, out of the free, but not probably out of the powerful classes, men of respectable character and unstained by crime, they had, besides other functions, pre-eminently that of acting as assessors to the _comes_ or to the _centenarius_ in his court of justice. Seven was the regular number that should be present at a trial, though sometimes fewer were allowed to decide. As in all the earlier stages of the development of the jury system, they were at least as much witnesses as judges--their own knowledge or common report forming the chief ground of their decision. It is not clear whether their verdict was necessarily unanimous, but it seems certain that the decision was considered to be theirs, and not that of the presiding functionary, whether _comes_, _vicarius_, or _centenarius_. It was, moreover, final; for, as one of the Capitularies distinctly says, “After the _scabini_ have condemned a man as a robber, it is not lawful for either the _comes_ or the _vicarius_ to grant him life.”