The _scabini_ were expected to be present at the meetings of the county--probably also, to some extent, at those of the nation, and they joined in the assent which was there given to any new Capitularies that were promulgated by the emperor. It is easy to see how, both in their judicial and in their legislative capacity, the _scabini_ may have acted as a useful check on the lawless encroachments of the counts. There was probably in this institution a germ which, had the emperors remained mighty, would have limited the power of the aristocracy, and have formed in time a democratic basis upon which a strong and stable monarchy might have been erected. IV. Lastly, a few words must be said as to the permanent results of Charles’s life and work on the state-system of Europe. In endeavoring to appraise them let us keep our minds open to the consideration not only of that which actually was, but also of that which might have been, had the descendants of Charles been as able men as himself and his progenitors. The three great political events of Charles’s reign were his conquest of Italy, his consolidation of the Frankish kingdom, and his assumption of the imperial title. 1. His conduct towards the vanquished Lombards was, on the whole, generous and statesmanlike. By assuming the title of King of the Lombards he showed that it was not his object to destroy the nationality of the countrymen of Alboin, nor to fuse them into one people with the Franks. Had his son Pippin lived and transmitted his sceptre to his descendants, there might possibly have been founded a kingdom of Italy, strong, patriotic, and enduring. In that event some of the glorious fruits of art and literature which were ripened in the independent Italian republics of the Middle Ages might never have been brought forth, but the Italians, though a less artistic people, would have been spared much bloodshed and many despairs. But we can only say that this was a possible contingency. By the policy (inherited from his father) which he pursued towards the papal see, Charles called into existence a power which would probably always have been fatal to the unity and freedom of Italy. That wedge of Church-Dominions thrust in between the north and south would always tend to keep Lombardy and Tuscany apart from Spoleto and Benevento; and the endless wrangle between Pope and King would perhaps have been renewed even as in the days of the Lombards. The descendants of the pacific and God-crowned king would then have become “unutterable” and the “not-to-be-mentioned” Franks, and peace and unity would have been as far from the fated land as they have been in very deed for a thousand years.