They observe afterwards that "they have found no document before the Great Charter of John in which the term 'majores barones' has been used, though in some subsequent documents words of apparently similar import have been used. From the instrument itself it might be presumed that the term 'majores barones' was then a term in some degree understood; and that the distinction had, therefore, an earlier origin, though the committee have not found the term in any earlier instrument." (p. 67.) But though the Dialogue on the Exchequer, generally referred to the reign of Henry II., is not an instrument, it is a law-book of sufficient reputation, and in this we read--"Quidam de rege tenent in capite quæ ad coronam pertinent; baronias scilicet majores seu minores." (Lib. ii. cap. 10.) It would be trifling to dispute that the tenant of a _baronia major_ might be called a _baro major_. And what could the _secundæ dignitatis barones_ at Northampton have been but tenants _in capite_ holding fiefs by some line or other distinguishable from a superior class?[461] It appears, therefore, on the whole, that in the judgment of the committee, by no means indulgent in their requisition of evidence, or disposed to take the more popular side, all the military tenants _in capite_ were constitutionally members of the _commune concilium_ of the realm during the Norman constitution. This _commune concilium_ the committee distinguish from a _magnum concilium_, though it seems doubtful whether there were any very definite line between the two. But that the consent of these tenants was required for taxation they repeatedly acknowledge. And there appears sufficient evidence that they were occasionally present for other important purposes. It is, however, very probable that writs of summons were actually addressed only to those of distinguished name, to those resident near the place of meeting, or to the servants and favourites of the crown. This seems to be deducible from the words in the Great Charter, which limit the king's engagement to summon all tenants in chief, through the sheriff, to the case of his requiring an aid or scutage, and still more from the withdrawing of this promise in the first year of Henry III. The privilege of attending on such occasions, though legally general, may never have been generally exercised.