From the very nature of a fief, female descendants cannot inherit, and the male descendants of deceased sons succeed equally with surviving sons. Nevertheless there are certain fiefs which, having been originally bestowed upon females, must, in default of heirs male, naturally pass to females; but as soon as the male line is established, male heirs have the preference. Ascendants cannot succeed, because succession is determined, not by relationship, but by the original grant; accordingly the reversion falls, not to the ascendant, but to the original granter of the fief. Collaterals of the last holder, unless descendants of the first, are not entitled to succeed; nor can brothers, as such, succeed, unless their father has held the fief. Nor can husband and wife succeed to each other. But under the growing influence of common law all these primitive characteristics likewise disappear. Feudal law has little importance in the Italian statutes; but the political and social importance of feudalism in the history of our communes is immense. It represents a society distinguished by laws and usages of its own, and that appeals to the Emperor, whose judgments and judges it always prefers to the laws and magistrates of the Republic which it despises, and would fain ignore. The Republic in consequence looks on the nobility as a foe to be destroyed, but this it can only effect after sanguinary struggles in the course of which it will be itself profoundly changed. Canon law undoubtedly plays a part in the history and formation of the communes that should not be overlooked, though by no means corresponding with the greatness of the political, social, and religious influence of the Church. Made up of fragments from the writings of the Fathers, ordinances of ecclesiastical councils, papal decretals, and with a large admixture of Roman law, it appeals also to the authority of reason and of Holy Writ. It thus declared itself favourable to natural equity, as opposed to legal sophistry, tempered the harshness of barbaric laws, protected the weak, upheld the sanctity of the family, and aided the triumph of the Roman law over that of the Longobards. But it also sought to subordinate the civil power to the ecclesiastical; it added to the number of exceptional tribunals; it favoured inquisitorial jurisdiction, torture, and trial by ordeal. Moreover, its constant tendency to encroach on the field of civil law found an open door in the oath which every magistrate, the Podestà included, had to take, with the prescribed formula: "saving conscience" (_salva la coscienza_) expressed or understood. As it rested with the clergy to determine cases of conscience, so also it was for them to decide on the validity of oaths. This naturally fostered the diffusion of canon law. The exclusion of natural children from succession and the suppression of divorce are not a little due to the operation of this law. Its action is to be seen plainly enough in the statutes,